FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 447 



much the same manner the Stoics were led to all 

 their absurdest paradoxes; as that the virtuous man 

 is alone free, alone beautiful,, alone a king, &c. 

 Whoever has virtue has Good (because it has been 

 previously determined not to call anything else good) 

 but, again, Good necessarily includes freedom, beauty, 

 and even royalty, all of these being good things; 

 therefore whoever has virtue has all these. 



The following is an argument of Descartes to 

 prove, in his a priori manner, the being of God. The 

 conception, says he, of an infinite Being proves the 

 real existence of such a being. For if there is not 

 really any such being, I must have made the concep- 

 tion ; but if I could make it, I can also unmake it ; 

 which evidently is not true ; therefore there must be, 

 externally to myself, an archetype, from which the 

 conception was derived. The ambiguity in this case 

 is in the pronoun /, by which, in one place, is to be 

 understood my will, in another the laws of my nature. 

 If the conception, existing as it does in my mind, had 

 no original without, the conclusion would unquestion- 

 ably follow that I made it ; that is, the laws of my 

 nature must have spontaneously evolved it : but that 

 my will made it, would not follow. Now when Des- 

 cartes afterwards adds that I cannot unmake the con- 

 ception, he means that I cannot get rid of it by an 

 act of my will : which is true, but is not the propo- 

 sition required. That what some of the laws of my 

 nature have produced, other laws, or those same laws 

 in other circumstances, might not subsequently efface, 

 he would have found it difficult to establish. 



Analogous to this are some of the ambiguities in 

 the free-will controversy; which, as they will come 

 under special consideration in the concluding Book, 

 I only mention memories causd, In that discussion, 



