4§6 



t-ALLACli:^. 



others, all those which have their 

 source in language, whether arising 

 from the vagueness or ambiguity of 

 our terms, or from casual associations 

 with them. , 



When the fallacy is not one of Con- 

 fusion, that is, when the proposition 

 believed, and the evidetice on which it 

 is believed, are steadily apprehended 

 and unambiguously expressed, there 

 remain to be made two cross divisions. 

 The Apparent Evidence may be either 

 particular facts or foregone generali- 

 sations ; that is, the process may simu- 

 late either simple Induction or De- 

 duction ; and again, the evidence, 

 whether consisting of supposed facts 

 or of general propositions, may be 

 false in itself, or, being true, may fail 

 to bear out the conclusion attempted 

 to be founded on it. This gives us 

 first, Fallacies of Induction and Fal- 

 lacies of Deduction, and then a sub- 

 division of each of these, according as 

 the supposed evidence is false or true 

 but inconclusive. 



Fallacies of Induction, where the 

 facts on which the induction proceeds 

 are erroneous, may be termed Fal- 

 lacies of Observation. The term is 

 not strictly accurate, or rather, not 

 accurately co-extensive with the class 

 of fallacies which I propose to desig- 

 nate by it. Induction is not always 

 grounded on facts immediately ob- 

 served, but sometimes on facts in- 

 ferred : and when these last are 

 erroneous, the error may not be, in 

 the literal sense of the term, an in- 

 stance of bad observation, but of bad 

 inference. It will be convenient, how- 

 ever, to make only one class of all 

 the inductions of which the error lies 

 in not sufficiently ascertaining the 

 facts on which the theory is grounded ; 

 whether the cause of failure be mal- 

 observation, or simple non-observa- 

 tion, and whether the mal-observation 

 be direct, or by means of intermedi- 

 ate marks which do not prove what 

 they are supposed to prove. And in 

 the absence of any comprehensive 

 term to denote the ascertainment, by 

 whatever means, of the facts on which 



an induction is grounded, 1 will veil 

 ture to retain for this class of fallacies, 

 under the explanation now given, the 

 title of Fallacies of Observation. 



The other class of inductive fal- 

 lacies, in which the facts are correct, 

 but the conclusion not warranted by 

 them, are properly denominated Fal- 

 lacies of Generalisation ; and these, 

 again, fall into the various subordi- 

 nate classes or natural groups, some 

 of which will be enumerated in their 

 proper place. 



When we now turn to Fallacies of 

 Deduction, namely, those modes of 

 incorrect argumentation in which the 

 premises, or some of them, are general 

 propositions, and the argument a ra- 

 tiocination ; we may of course sub- 

 divide these also into two species 

 similar to the two preceding, namely, 

 those which proceed on false premises, 

 and those of which the premises, 

 though true, do not support the con- 

 clusion. But of these species, the 

 first nmst necessarily fail under some 

 one of the heads already enumerated. 

 For the error must be either in those 

 premises which are general proposi- 

 tions, or in those which assert indivi- 

 dual facts. In the former case it is 

 an Inductive Fallacy, of one or the 

 other class ; in the latter it is a Fal- 

 lacy of Observation : unless, in either 

 case, the erroneous premise has been 

 assumed on simple inspection, in which 

 case the fallacy is a priori Or finally, 

 the premises, of whichever kind they 

 are, may never have been conceived 

 in so distinct a manner as to produce 

 any clear consciousness by what means 

 they were arrived at ; as in the case 

 of what is called reasoning in a circle : 

 and then the fallacy is one of Confu- 

 sion. 



There remain, therefore, as the only 

 class of fallacies having properly their 

 seat in deduction, those in which the 

 premises of the ratiocination do not 

 bear out its conclusion ; the various 

 cases, in short, of vicious argumenta- 

 tion provided against by the rules of 

 the syllogism. We shall call these 

 Fallacies of Ratiocination. 



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 lies, H 



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