FALLACIES IN GENERAL. 449 



of indiviJuab, it is only from the more perfect sciences, from those of 

 which the subject matter is the least complicated, ihat opinions not 

 resting upon a correct induction have at length, generally speaking, 

 been expelled. In the departments of inquiiy relating to the more 

 complex phenomena of the universe, and especially those of which the 

 subject is man, whether as a moral and intellectual, a social, or even 

 as a, physical being ; the diversity of opinions still prevalent among 

 instructed persons, and the equal confidenco with which those of the 

 most contrary ways of thinking cling to their respective tenets, are a 

 pi'oof not only that right modes of philosophizing are not yet generally 

 adopted on those subjects, but that wrong ones are; that j)hilosophcrs 

 have not only in general missed the truth, but have often embraced 

 en-or; that even the most cultivated portion of our species have not 

 yet learned to abstain from drawing conclusions for -which the evidence 

 is insufficient. 



The only complete safeguard against reasoning ill, is the habit of 

 reasoning well ; familiarity with the principles of cctrrect reasoning, 

 and practice in applying those principles. It is, however, not unim- 

 portant to consider what are the most common modes of bad reasoning ; 

 by what appearances the mind is most liliely to be seduced from the 

 observance of true principles of induction ; what, in short, are the most 

 common and most dangerous varieties of Apparent Evidence, whereby 

 men are misled into opinions for which there does not exist evi- 

 dence really conclusive. 



A. catalogue of the varieties of apparent evidence , which are not real 

 evidence, is an enumeration of Fallacies. Without such an enumera- 

 tion, therefore, the present work would be wanting in an essential 

 point. And while writers who included in their theory of reasoning 

 nothing more than ratiocination, have, in ponsistency with this limita- 

 tion, confined their remarks to the fallacies which have their seat in 

 thit portion of the process of investigation ; we, who profess to treat 

 of the whole process, must add to our directions for perfonning it 

 rightly, warnings against performing it AVi-ong in any of its parts : 

 whether the ratiocinative or the experimental portion of it be in 

 fault, or the fault lie in dispensing with ratiocination and induction 

 altogether. 



§ 2. In considering the sources of unfounded inference, it is un- 

 necessary to r&ckon the errors which arise, not from a wrong method, 

 or even from ignorance of the right one, but from a casual lapse, 

 through hurry or inattention, in the application of the true principles 

 of induction. Such eiTors, like the accidental mistakes in casting up 

 a sum, do not call for philosophical analysis or classification ; theo- 

 retical considerati(jns can throw no light upon the means of avoiding 

 tliem. In the present treatise oui' attention is required, not to mere 

 inexpertness in perfonning the operation in the right way, (the only 

 remedies for which are increased attention and mm-o sedulous prac- 

 tice,) but to the modes of performing it in a way fundamentally 

 wrong ; the conditions under which the human mind persuades itself 

 that it has sufficient grounds for a conclusion which it ha.s n(jt arrived 

 at by any of the legitimate methods of induction — which it has not, 

 even carelessly or overhastily, endeavored to test by those legitimate 

 methods. 



3 L 



