402 FALLACIES. 



therefore indisputable, what part upon inference, and 

 is therefore questionable. 



One of the most celebrated examples of an uni- 

 versal error produced by mistaking an inference for 

 the direct evidence of the senses, was the resistance 

 made, on the ground of common sense, to the Coper- 

 nican system. People fancied they saw the sun rise 

 and set, the stars revolve in circles round the pole. 

 We now know that they saw no such thing : what 

 they really saw were a set of appearances, equally 

 reconcileable with the theory they held and with a 

 totally different one. It seems strange that such an 

 instance as this, of the testimony of the senses pleaded 

 with the most entire conviction in favour of some- 

 thing which was a mere inference of the judgment, 

 and, as it turned out, a false inference, should not 

 have opened the eyes of the bigots of common sense, 

 and inspired them with a more modest distrust of the 

 competency of mere ignorance to judge the conclu- 

 sions of science. 



In proportion to any person's deficiency of know- 

 ledge and mental cultivation, is generally his inability 

 to discriminate between his inferences and the percep- 

 tions on which they were grounded. Many a marvel- 

 lous tale, many a scandalous anecdote, owes its origin 

 to this incapacity. The narrator relates, not what he 

 saw or heard, but the impression which he derived 

 from what he saw or heard, and of which perhaps the 

 greater part consisted of inference, though the whole 

 is related not as inference but as matter-of-fact. The 

 difficulty of inducing witnesses to restrain within 

 any moderate limits the intermixture of their infe- 

 rences with the narrative of their perceptions, is well 

 known to experienced cross-examiners ; and still more 

 is this the case when ignorant persons attempt to 



