398 FALLACIES. 



away its victims long before the system could be 

 brought under mercurial influence, while in its milder 

 shape it passed off equally well without any assistance 

 from art*." 



In these examples the circumstance overlooked 

 was cognizable by the senses. In other cases, it is 

 one the knowledge of which could only be arrived at 

 by reasoning; but the fallacy may still be classed 

 under the head to which, for want of a more appro- 

 priate name, we have given the appellation Fallacies of 

 Non-observation. It is not the nature of the faculties 

 which ought to have been employed, but the non- 

 employment of them, which constitutes this Natural 

 Order of Fallacies. Wherever the error is negative, 

 not positive; wherever it consists specially in over- 

 looking, in being ignorant or unmindful of some fact 

 which, if known and attended to, would have made a 

 difference in the conclusion arrived at; the error is 

 properly placed in the Class which we are considering. 

 In this Class, there is not, as in all other fallacies there 

 is, a positive mis-estimate of evidence actually had. 

 The conclusion would be just, if the portion which is 

 seen of the case were the whole of it; but there is 

 another portion overlooked, which vitiates the result. 



For instance, there is a remarkable doctrine which 

 has occasionally found a vent in the public speeches 

 of unwise legislators, but which only in one instance 

 that I am aware of has received the sanction of a 

 philosopher, namely M. Victor Cousin, who, in his 

 preface to the Gorgias of Plato, contending that 

 punishment must have some other and higher justifi- 

 cation than the prevention of crime, makes use of this 

 argument that if punishment were only for the sake 



Pharmacologw,^ pp. 61, 62. 



