436 FALLACIES. 



maxim, the reasons or evidence for which have been 

 forgotten, or are not thought of at the time, but if 

 they had been thought of would have shown the 

 necessity of so limiting the premiss, that it would no 

 longer have supported the conclusion drawn from it. 



Of this nature is the fallacy in what is called, by, 

 Adam Smith and others, the Mercantile Theory in 

 Political Economy. That theory sets out from the 

 common maxim, that whatever brings in money 

 enriches; or that every one is rich in proportion to 

 the quantity of money he obtains. From this it is 

 concluded that the value of any branch of trade, or 

 of the trade of the country altogether, consists in the 

 balance of money it brings in; that any trade which 

 carries more money out of the country than it draws 

 into it is a losing trade; that therefore money should 

 be attracted into the country, and kept there, by pro- 

 hibitions and bounties; and a train of similar corolla- 

 ries. All for want of reflecting that if the riches of 

 an individual are in proportion to the quantity of 

 money he can command, it is because that is the 

 measure of his power of purchasing money's worth; 

 and is therefore subject to the proviso that he is not 

 debarred from employing his money in such pur- 

 chases. The premiss, therefore, is only true secun- 

 dum quid; but the theory assumes it to be true 

 absolutely, and infers that increase of money is 

 increase of riches, even when produced by means 

 subversive of the condition under which alone money 

 is riches. 



A second instance is, the argument by which it 

 used to be contended, before the commutation of 

 tithe, that tithes fell upon the landlord, and were a 

 deduction from rent; because the rent of tithe-free 

 land was always higher than that of land of the same 



