544 



FALLACIES. 



tion of metaphysical speculation, but 

 is the stock argument of the Scotch 

 school of metaphysicians — is a pal- 

 pable ignoratio elenchi. The argu- 

 ment is perhaps as frequently ex- 

 pressed by gesture as by words, and 

 one of its commonest forms consists 

 in knocking a stick against the ground. 

 This short and easy confutation over- 

 looks the fact that, in denying mat- 

 ter, Berkeley did not deny anything 

 to which our senses bear witness,, and 

 therefore cannot be answered by any 

 appeal to them. His scepticism re- 

 lated to the supposed substratum, or 

 hidden cause of the appearances per- 

 ceived by our senses, the evidence of 

 which, whatever may be thought of 

 its conclusiveness, is certainly not the 

 evidence of sense ; and it will always 

 remain a signal proof of the want 

 of metaphysical profundity of Reid, 

 Stewart, and, I am porrv to add, of 

 Brown, that they should have per- 

 sisted in asserting that Berkeley, if 

 he believed his own doctrine, was 

 bound to walk into the kennel or run 



his head against a post. As if per- 

 sons who do not recognise an occult 

 cause of their sensations could not 

 possibly believe that a fixed order 

 subsists among the sensations them- 

 selves. Such a want of comprehen- 

 sion of the distinction between a thing 

 and its sensible manifestation, or, in 

 metaphysical language, between the 

 noumenon and the phenomenon, would 

 be impossible to even the dullest dis- 

 ciple of Kant or Coleridge. 



It would be easy to add a greater 

 number of examples of this fallacy, 

 as well as of the others which I have 

 attempted to characterise. But a 

 more copious exemplification does not 

 seem to be necessary ; and the intelli- 

 gent reader will have little difficulty 

 in adding to the catalogue from his 

 own reading and experience. We 

 shall therefore here close our exposi- 

 tion of the general principles of logic, 

 and proceed to the supplementary 

 inquiry which is necessary to com- 

 plete our deiign. 



