FALLACIES OF GENKRALIZATION, 497 



§ 8. To terminate the subject of Fallacies of Generalization, it re- 

 mains to be said, that the most fertile source of thorn is bad classifica- 

 tion ; bringing together in one group, and under one namc^ things 

 which have no common properties, or none but such as are too unim- 

 portant to allow general proj)ositions of any considerable value to be 

 made respecting the class. The misleading cdect is greatest, when a 

 word wliich in common use expresses some definite fact, is extended 

 by slight links of connexion to cases in which that fact does not exist, 

 but some other or others only slightly resembling it. Thus Jiacon,* 

 in speaking of the Idola or Fallacies arising from notions tctnere ct 

 incequalitcr « rebus abstractcc, exemplifies them by the notion of Humi- 

 dum or Wet, so familiar in the physics of anti(juity and of the middle 

 ages. " Invenietur vcrbum istud, Humidum, nihil aliud quam nota 

 confusa diversarum actionum, qute nullam constantiam aut reductionem 

 patiuntur. Significat enim, et quod circa aliud corpus facile se cir- 

 cumfundit; et quod in se est indeterminabilc, nee consistere potest; 

 et quod facile cedit undique ; ct quod facile se dividit et dispergit ; et 

 quod facile se unit et colligit ; et quod facile fluit, et in motu ponitur; 

 et quod alteri corpori facile adhasret, idque madefacit; et quod facile 

 rcducitur in liquidum, sivc colliquatur, cum antea consisteret. Itaque 

 quum ad hujus nominis pritdicationcm et impositionem ventum sit; 

 si alia accipias, flamma humida est ; si alia accipias, aer humidus non 

 est; si alia, pulvis minutus humidus est; si alia, vitrum humidum est: 

 ut facile appareat, istam norionem ex aqua tantum, et communibus et 

 vulgaribus liquoribus, absque ulla debita verificatione, temere abstrac- 

 tam esse." 



Bacon himself is not exempt from a similar accusation when inquir- 

 ing into the nature of heat ; where he occasionally proceeds like one 

 who, seeking for the cause of hardness, after examining that quality in 

 iron, flint, and diamond, should expect to find that it is sometliing 

 which can b» traced also in hard water, a hard knot, and a hard 

 heart. 



The word Kcvrjaig in the Greek philosophy, and the words Genera- 

 tion and Corruption both then and long afterwards, denoted such a 

 multitude of heterogeneous phenomena, that any attempt at philo- 

 sophizing in which those words were used was almost as necessarily 

 abortive as if the word /uird had been taken to denote a class including 

 all the things mentioned above. KivTjOC^, for instance, wliich properly 

 signified motion, was taken to denote not only all emotion but even all 

 change : dXAoiojotg being recognized as one of the modes of Kivrjoi^. 

 The effect was, to connect with every form of aXXoiojai^ or change, 

 ideas drawn from motion in the proper and literal sense, and wliich 

 had no real connexion with any other kind o( Kivrjoig than that. Aris- 

 totle and Plato labored under a contiimal embarrassment from this 

 misuse of terms. J3ut if we proceed further in this direction we shall 

 encroach upon the Fallacy of Ambiguity, which belongs to a different 

 class, the last in order of our classification, Fallacies of Confuaion. 



• Nov. Org., Aph. CO. 



3R 



