FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 467 



some former age, any such feeling of abhorrence ; 

 " aye, but their feelings were sophisticated and 

 unhealthy." 



One of the most notable specimens of reasoning 

 in a circle is the doctrine of Hobbes, Rousseau, and 

 others, which rests the obligations by which human 

 beings are bound as members of society, upon a sup- 

 posed social compact. I wave the consideration of 

 the fictitious nature of the compact itself; but when 

 a philosopher (as Hobbes does through the whole 

 Leviathan) elaborately deduces the obligation of 

 obeying the sovereign, not from the necessity or utility 

 of doing so, but from a promise supposed to have 

 been made by our ancestors, on renouncing savage life 

 and agreeing to establish a political society, it is im- 

 possible not to retort by the question, why are we 

 bound to keep a promise made for us by others ? or 

 why bound to keep a promise at all ? No satisfactory 

 ground can be assigned for the obligation, except the 

 mischievous consequences of the absence of faith and 

 mutual confidence among mankind. We are, there- 

 fore, brought round to the interests of society, as the 

 ultimate ground of the obligation of a promise ; and 

 yet those interests are not admitted to be a sufficient 

 justification for the existence of government and law. 

 Without a promise it is thought that we should not 

 be bound to that without which the existence of 

 society would be impossible, namely, to yield a gene- 

 ral obedience to the laws therein established ; and so 

 necessary is the promise deemed, that if none has 

 actually been made, some additional safety is sup- 

 posed to be given to the foundations of society by 

 feigning one. 



3. Two principal subdivisions of the class of 



2 H 2 



