FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 455 



from being the same thing, is by no means universally 

 true, but depends upon an immense number of 

 varying circumstances, and is altogether one of the 

 knottiest questions in practical ethics." This example 

 is (like others which have been cited) a case of fallacy 

 within fallacy ; it involves not only the second of the 

 two ambiguities pointed out, but the first likewise. 



One not unusual form of the Fallacy of Ambiguous 

 Terms, is known technically as the Fallacy of Composi- 

 tion and Division: when the same term is collective 

 in the premisses, distributive in the conclusion, or 

 vice versa: or when the middle term is collective in 

 one premiss, distributive in the other. As if one 

 were to say (I quote from Archbishop Whately) " All 

 the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: 

 A B C is an angle of a triangle ; therefore A B C is 



equal to two right angles There is no 



fallacy," continues the archbishop, " more common, 

 or more likely to deceive, than the one now before us. 

 The form in which it is most usually employed is to 

 establish some truth, separately, concerning each single 

 member of a certain class, and thence to infer the 

 same of the whole collectively." As in the argument 

 one often hears, sometimes from persons worthy of 

 better things, to prove that the world could do 

 without great men. If Columbus (it is said) had 

 never lived. America would still have been discovered, 

 at most only a few years later ; if Newton had never 

 lived, some other person would have discovered the 

 law of gravitation; and so forth. Most true: these 

 things would have been done, but in all probability 

 not until some one had again been found with the 

 qualities of a Columbus or a Newton. Because any 

 one great man might have had his place supplied by 

 the help of others, the argument concludes that all 



