FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION. 399 



of example, it would be indifferent whether we pu- 

 nished the innocent or the guilty, since the punish- 

 ment, considered as an example, is equally efficacious 

 in either case. Now we must, in order to go along 

 with M. Cousin, suppose, that the person who feels him- 

 self under temptation, observing somebody punished, 

 concludes himself to be in danger of being punished 

 likewise, and is terrified accordingly. But it is forgotten 

 that if the person punished is supposed to be innocent, 

 or even if there be any doubt of his guilt, the spec- 

 tator will reflect that his own danger, whatever it may 

 be, is not contingent upon his guiltiness, but threatens 

 him equally if he remains innocent, and how there- 

 fore is he deterred from guilt by the apprehension of 

 such punishment? M. Cousin supposes that men 

 will be dissuaded from guilt by whatever renders the 

 condition of the guilty more perilous, forgetting that 

 the condition of the innocent (also one of the elements 

 in the calculation) is, in the case supposed, made 

 perilous in precisely an equal degree. This is a 

 fallacy of overlooking ; or of non-observation, within 

 the intent of our classification. 



Fallacies of this description are the great stum- 

 bling-block to just views in political economy. The 

 economical workings of society afford innumerable 

 cases in which the effects of a cause consist of 

 two sets of phenomena: the one immediate, concen- 

 trated, obvious to vulgar eyes, and passing, in common 

 apprehension, for the whole effect; the other widely 

 diffused, or lying deeper under the surface, and which 

 is exactly contrary to the former. Take, for instance, 

 the vulgar notion, so plausible at the first glance, of 

 the encouragement given to industry by lavish expen- 

 diture. A, who spends his whole income, and even 

 his capital, in expensive living, is supposed to give 



