FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION. 457 



physical grounds of the discussion, to state some speculative pn^posi- 

 tions, and suggest some practical cautions (not absolutely inconsistent 

 with either vrew of the philosophicitl (piestion) respecting the forms in 

 which such unwari'anted assumptions are most likely to be made. 



§ 2. In the cases in which, according to the philosophers of the onto- 

 logical school, the mind apprehends, by intuitittn, things, and the laws 

 of things, not cognizable by our sensitive faculty; those intuitive, or 

 supposed intuitive, perceptions are undistinguisliable from wliat the 

 opposite school are accustomed to call ideas of the mind. WIumi they 

 themselves say that they perceive the things by an immediate act of 

 a faculty given for that purj)0se at their creation^ it would be said of 

 them by their opponents that they find an idea or conception in their 

 own minds, and from the idea or conception infer the existence of 

 a corresponding objective reality. Nor would this be an mifair state- 

 ment, but a mere version into other words of the account given by 

 themselves ; and one to which the more clear-sighted of them might, 

 and generally do, without hesitation subscribe. Since, tlierefore, in the 

 cases which lay the strongest claim to be examples of knowledge a 

 priori, the mind proceeds from the idea of a thing to the reality of the 

 tiling itself, we cannot be surjnised by finding thai illicit assumjitions 

 a priori, consist in doing the same thing erroneously : in mistaking 

 subjective facts for objective, laws of the percipient mind for laws of 

 the perceived object, properties of) the ideas or conceptions for pi-op- 

 erties of the things conceived. 



Accordingly, a large proportion of the erroneous thinking which exists 

 in the world proceeds ujjon a tacit assumption, that the same order 

 must obtain among the objects in nature which obtains among our 

 ideas of them. That if we always think of two things together, the 

 two things must always exist together. That if one thing makes us 

 think of another as preceding or following it, that othdr must precede 

 it or follow it in actual fact. And conversely, that when we cannot 

 conceive two things together they cannot exist together and that their 

 combination may, with(jut further evidence, be rejected from the list 

 of possible occurrences. 



Few persons, 1 am inclined to think, have reflected upon the great 

 extent to which this fallacy has prevailed, and prevails, in the actual 

 beliefs and actions of mankind. For a first illustration of it, we may 

 refer to a lar^e class of popular suspt^rstitions. If any one will 

 examine in what circumstance most of those things agree, which in 

 different ages and by different portions t)f the human race have been 

 considered as omens or progrK»stics of some interesting event, whether 

 calamitous or fortunate ; ho will find them very generally characterized 

 by this peculiarity, that they cain^e the mind to think of that, of which 

 they are therefore supposed to forebode the actual occuiTence. " Talk 

 of the devil, and he will appear," has passed into a proverb. Talk of 

 the devil, that is, raise the idea, and the reality will follow. In tinier 

 wluni the ap{)earance of tliat personage in a visible foiin was thought 

 to be no uncommon occurrence, it lias doubtless often hajipened toper- 

 sons of vivid imagination and suscei)tible nerves, that talking of the 

 devil has caused them to fancy they saw him ; as, even in our incred- 

 ulous days, listening to ghost stories predisposes us to see ghosts : 

 and thus, as a prop to ihe d priori iillacy, there might come to be 

 3M 



