424 FALLACIES. 



be only six planets because there were only live 

 regular solids. With these we may class the reason- 

 ings, so common in the speculations of the ancients, 

 founded upon a supposed perfection in nature ; mean- 

 ing by nature the customary order of events as they 

 take place of themselves without human interference. 

 This also is a rude guess at an analogy supposed to 

 pervade all phenomena, however dissimilar. Since 

 what was thought to be perfection appeared to obtain 

 in some phenomena, it was inferred to obtain in all. 

 "We always suppose that which is better to take 

 place in nature, if it be possible," says Aristotle: and 

 the vaguest and most heterogeneous qualities being 

 confounded together under the notion of being better, 

 there was no limit to the wildness of the inferences. 

 Thus, because the heavenly bodies were "perfect," 

 they must move in circles, and uniformly. For 

 "they" (the Pythagoreans) "would not allow," says 

 Geminus*, "of any such disorder among divine and 

 eternal things, as that they should sometimes move 

 quicker and sometimes slower, and sometimes stand 

 still; for no one would tolerate such anomaly in the 

 movements even of a man, who was decent and 

 orderly. The occasions of life, however, are often 

 reasons for men going quicker or slower, but in the 

 incorruptible nature of the stars, it is not possible that 

 any cause can be alleged of quickness or slowness." 

 It is seeking an argument of analogy very far to 

 suppose that the stars must observe the rules of de- 

 corum in gait and carriage, prescribed for themselves 

 by the long-bearded philosophers satirized by Lucian. 

 As late as the Copernican controversy it was urged 

 as an argument in favour of the true theory of the 



* I quote from Mr. Whewell's Hist, of the Ind. Sc., i., 165. 



