FALLACIES OF RATIOCINATION. 437 



quality and the same advantages of situation, subject 

 to tithe. Whether it be true that a tithe falls on rent 

 or no, a treatise on Logic is not the place to examine : 

 but it is certain that this is no proof of it. Whether 

 the proposition be true or false, tithe-free land must, 

 by the necessity of the case, pay a higher rent. For if 

 tithes do not fall on rent, it must be because they fall 

 on the consumer; because they raise the price of corn. 

 But if corn be raised in price, the farmer of tithe-free 

 as well as the farmer of tithed land gets the benefit. 

 To the latter the rise is but a compensation for the 

 tithe he pays ; to the first, who pays none, it is clear 

 gain, and therefore enables him, and if there be free- 

 dom of competition forces him, to pay so much the 

 more rent to his landlord. This is the refutation of 

 the fallacy. The question remains, to what class of 

 fallacies it belongs. The premiss is, that the owner 

 of tithed land receives less rent than the owner of 

 tithe-free land; the conclusion is, that therefore he re- 

 ceives less than he himself would receive if tithe were 

 abolished. But the premiss is only true condition- 

 ally; the owner of tithed land receives less than 

 what the owner of tithe-free land is enabled to re- 

 ceive when other lands are tithed; while the conclu- 

 sion is applied to a state of circumstances in which 

 that condition fails, and in which, by consequence, 

 the premiss would not be true. The fallacy, there- 

 fore, is a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. 



A third example is the opposition sometimes made 

 to legitimate interferences of government in the eco- 

 nomical affairs of society, grounded upon a misappli- 

 cation of the maxim, that an individual is a better 

 judge than the government of what is for his own pecu- 

 niary interest. This objection was urged to Mr. 

 Wakefield's system of colonization, one of the greatest 



