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FALLACIES. 



founded not on the same proposition, 

 but on some other, resembling it suffi- 

 ciently to be mistaken for it. In- 

 stances of this fallacy will be found 

 in almost all the argumentative dis- 

 courses of unprecise thinkers, and we 

 need only here advert to one of the 

 obscurer forms of it, recognised by 

 the schoolmen as the fallacy d dicto 

 secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. 

 This is committed when, in the pre- 

 mises, a proposition is asserted with a 

 qualification, and the qualification lost 

 sight of in the conclusion ; or oftener, 

 when a limitation or condition, though 

 not asserted, is necessary to the truth 

 of the proposition, but is forgotten 

 when that proposition comes to be 

 employed as a premise. Many of the 

 bad arguments in vogue belong to 

 this class of error. The premise is 

 Bome admitted truth, some common 

 maxim, the reasons or evidence for 

 which have been forgotten, or are not 

 thought of at the time, but if they had 

 been thought of would have shown the 

 necessity of so limiting the premise 

 that it would no longer have sup- 

 ported the conclusion drawn from it. 

 Of this nature is the fallacy in what 

 is called, by Adam Smith and others, 

 the Mercantile Theory in Political 

 Economy. That theory sets out from 

 the common maxim, that whatever 

 brings in money enriches ; or that 

 every one is rich in proportion to the 

 quantity of money he obtains. From 

 this it is concluded that the value of 

 any branch of trade, or of the trade 

 of the country altogether, consists in 

 the balance of money it brings in ; 

 that any trade which carries more 

 money out of the country than it 

 draws into it is a losing trade ; that 

 therefore money should be attracted 

 into the country and kept there, by 

 prohibitions and bounties ; and a train 

 of similar corollaries. All for want of 

 reflecting that if the riches of an indi- 

 vidual are in proportion to the quan- 

 tity of money he can command, it is 

 because that is the measure of his 

 power of purchasing money's worth ; 

 ^pd is therefore subject to the proviso 



that he is not debarred from employ- 

 ing his money in such purchases. The 

 premise, therefore, is only true secun- 

 dum quid; but the theory assumes 

 it to be true absolutely, and infers 

 that increase of money is increase of 

 riches, even when produced by means 

 ubversi ve of thecondition under which 

 alone money can be riches. 



A second instance is, the argument 

 by which it used to be contended, be- 

 fore the commutation of tithe, that 

 tithes fell on the landlord, and were 

 a deduction from rent ; because the 

 rent of tithe - free land was always 

 higher than that of land of the same 

 quality, and the same advantages of 

 situation, subject to tithe. Whether 

 it be true or not that a tithe falls on 

 rent, a treatise on Logic is not the 

 place to examine ; but it is certain 

 that this is no proof of it. Whether 

 the proposition be true or false, tithe- 

 free land must, by the necessity of the 

 case, pay a higher rent. For if tithes 

 do not fall on rent, it must be because 

 they fall on the consumer ; because 

 they raise the price of agricultural 

 produce. But if the produce be raised 

 in price, the farmer of tithe-free as 

 well as the farmer of tithed land gets 

 the benefit. To the latter the rise is 

 but a compensation for the tithes he 

 pays ; to the first, who pays none, it 

 is clear gain, and therefore enables 

 him, and if there be freedom of com- 

 petition forces him to pay so much 

 more rent to his landlord. The ques- 

 tion remains, to what class of fallacies 

 this belongs. The premise is, that the 

 owner of tithed land receives less rent 

 than the owner of tithe-free land ; the 

 conclusion is, that therefore he re- 

 ceives less than he himself would re- 

 ceive if tithe were abolished. But the 

 premise is only true conditionally ; the 

 owner of tithed land receives less than 

 what the owner of tithe-free land is 

 enabled to receive when other lands are 

 tithed ; while the conclusion is applied 

 to a state of circumstances in which 

 that condition fails, and in which, 

 by consequence, the premise will not 

 be true, The fallacy, therefore, is a 



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