496 



FALLACIES. 



import of general language consti- 

 tutes Mysticism, a word so much 

 oftener written and spoken than 

 understood. Whether in the Vedas, 

 in the Platonists, or in the Hegelians, 

 mysticism is neither more nor less 

 than ascribing objective existence to 

 the subjective creations of our own 

 faculties, to ideas or feelings of the 

 mind ; and believing that by watch- 

 ing and contemplating these ideas of 

 its own making, it can read in them 

 what takes place in the world without, 



§ 5. Proceeding with the enumera- 

 tion of a priori fallacies, and endea- 

 vouring to arrange them with as much 

 reference as possible to their natural 

 affinities, we come to another, which 

 is also nearly allied to the fallacy pre- 

 ceding the last, standing in the same 

 relation to one variety of it as the 

 fallacy last mentioned does to the 

 other. This, too, represents nature as 

 under incapacities corresponding to 

 those of our intellect ; but instead of 

 only asserting that nature cannot do 

 a thing because we cannot conceive it 

 done, goes the still greater length of 

 averring that nature does a particular 

 thing, on the sole ground that we can 

 see no reason why she should not. 

 Absurd as this seems when so plainly 

 stated, it is a received principle among 

 scientific authorities for demonstrat- 

 ing a priori the laws of physical phe- 

 nomena. A phenomenon must fol- 

 low a certain law, because we see no 

 reason why it should deviate from 

 that law in one way rather than in 

 another. This is called the Principle 

 of the Sufficient Keason ; * and by 

 means of it philosophers often flatter 

 themselves that they are able to es- 

 tablish, without any appeal to experi- 

 ence, the most general truths of ex- 

 perimental physics. 



Take, for example, two of the most 

 elementary of all laws, the law of 

 inertia and the first law of motion. 

 A body at rest cannot, it is affirmed, 



* Not that of Leibnitz, but the principle 

 commonly appealed to under that name by 

 wathematiciaug, 



begin to move unless acted upon by 

 some external force ; because, if it 

 did, it must either move up or down, 

 forward or backward, and so forth ; 

 but if no outward force acts upon it, 

 there can be no reason for its moving 

 up rather than down, or down rather 

 than up, &c. ; ergo, it will not move 

 at all. 



This reasoning I conceive to be en- 

 tirely fallacious, as indeed Dr. Brown, 

 in his treatise on Cause and Effect, 

 has shown with great acuteness and 

 justness of thought. We have before 

 remarked that almost every fallacy 

 may be referred to different genera 

 by different modes of filling up the 

 suppressed steps ; and this particular 

 one may, at our option, be brought 

 under petitio principii. It supposes 

 that nothing can be a "sufficient 

 reason " for a body's moving in one 

 particular direction except some ex- 

 ternal force. But this is the very 

 thing to be proved. Why not some 

 inteimal force ? Why not the law of 

 the thing's own nature ? Since these 

 philosophers think it necessary to 

 prove the law of inertia, they of 

 course do not suppose it to be self- 

 evident ; they must;, therefore, be of 

 opinion that, previously to all proof, 

 the supposition of a body's moving 

 by internal impulse is an admissible 

 hypothesis ; but if so, why is not the 

 hypothesis also admissible that the 

 internal impulse acts naturally in 

 some one particular direction, not in 

 another? If spontaneous motion 

 might have been the law of matter, 

 why not spontaneous motion towards 

 the sun, towards the earth, or to- 

 wards the zenith ? Why not, as the 

 ancients supposed, towards a parti- 

 cular place in the universe, appro- 

 priated to each particular kind of 

 substance? Surely it is not allow- 

 able to say that spontaneity of motion 

 is credible in itself, but not credible 

 if supposed to take place in any de- 

 terminate direction. 



Indeed, if any one choose to assert 

 that all bodies when uncontrolled set 

 out in ^ direct line towards the north 



