FALLACIES OF RATIOCINATION. 



529 



dido secundum quid ad dictum sim- 

 jpliciter. 



A third example is the opposition 

 sometiines made to legitimate interfer- 

 ences of government in the econi)mical 

 affairs of society, grounded on a mis- 

 application of the maxim, that an in- 

 dividual is a better judge than the 

 government of what i.s for his own pe- 

 cuniary interest. This objection was 

 urged to Mr. Wakefield's principle of 

 colonisation ; the concentration of the 

 settlers, by fixing such a price on un- 

 occupied land as may preserve the 

 most desirable proportion between the 

 quantity of land in culture and the 

 labouring population. Against this it 

 was argued, that if individuals found 

 it for their advantage to occupy exten- 

 sive tracts of land, they, being better 

 judges of their own interest than the 

 Legislature, (which can only proceed 

 on general rules,) ought not to be re- 

 strained from doing so. But in this 

 argument it was forgotten that the 

 fact of a person's taking a large tract of 

 land is evidence only that it is his in- 

 terest to take as much as other people, 

 but not that it might not be for his 

 interest to content himself with less, if 

 he could be assured that other people 

 would do so too ; an assurance which 

 nothing but a government regulation 

 can give. If all other people took 

 much, and he only a little, he would 

 reap none of the advantages derived 

 from the concentration of the popula- 

 tion and the consequent possibility of 

 procuring labour for hire, but would 

 have placed himself, without equiva- 

 lent, in a situation of voluntary in- 

 feriority. The proposition, therefore, 

 that the quantity of land which people 

 will take when left to themselves is 

 that which is most for their interest to 

 take, is true only secundum quid : it 

 is only their interest while they have 

 no guarantee for the conduct of one 

 another. But the argument disre- 

 gards the limitation, and takes the 

 proposition for true simpliciter. 



One of the conditions oftenest 

 dropped, when what would otherwise 

 be a true proposition is employed as a 



premise for proving others, is the con- 

 dition of ti)ue. It is a principle of 

 political economy that prices, profits, 

 wages, &c., "always find their level ;" 

 but this is often interpreted M if it 

 meant that they are always, or gene- 

 rally, at their level ; while the truth 

 is, as Coleridge epigraujmatically ex- 

 presses it, that they are always >'//(/i«5' 

 their level, " which might be taken as 

 a paraphrase or ironical definition of 

 a storm." 



Under the same head of fallacy (d 

 dicto secundum quid ad dictum sim- 

 pliciter) might be placed all the errors 

 which are vulgarly called misapplica- 

 tions of abstract truths : that is, where 

 a principle, true (as the common ex- 

 pression is) in the abstract, that is, all 

 modif} ing causes being supposed ab- 

 sent, is reasoned on as if it were true 

 absolutely, and no modifying circum- 

 stance could ever by possibility exi-L 

 This very common form of error it is 

 not requisite that we should exem- 

 plify here, as '*' vill be particularly 

 treated of hereatter in its application 

 to the subjects on which it is most 

 frequent and most fatal, those of poli- 

 tics and society.* 



* "An advocate," My* Mr. De Morgan, 

 (Formal Logic, p. 270,) "ia ^^omeriIne8 guilty 

 of the arguinent d dicto Mecundvin quid ad 

 dictum tiviplicitev : it in his business to do 

 lor his client all that his client might 

 hoiuttly do for himself. Is not the word 

 in italics frequently o-nitted? Might axij 

 man honestly ti y to do for himself all that 

 counsel frequently try to do for him ? W« 

 are often reminded of the two men who 

 stole the leg of mutton ; one could swear 

 he had not got, it, the other that he had not 

 taken it. The coun.sel is doing his duty by 

 his client, the client has left the matter to 

 his coimsel. Between tiie unexecuted in- 

 tention of the client and the unintended 

 execution of the counsel there may be a 

 wroi g done, and, v we are t<» bclieTe tho 

 usual maxims, no wrong-doer." 



The hame wi iter jus ly remarka (p. 251) 

 that there is a coo verse fallacy, d dicto 

 timpliciter ad dictum xecundum quid, called 

 by the scholastic lofficiana fallacia oeci' 

 dentis; and another, which may be called 

 d dicto tecundum quid od dictum tecundum, 

 alterum quid (p. 265). For >ipt instances of 

 both, I must refer the reader to Mr. !)• 

 Morgan's able chapter on Fallacies. 



2 L 



