166 THE FALLACIES OP NATURAL SELECTION. 



once or twice in a month, does a customer stray along, 

 to buy a dollar's worth of goods, and that the whole 

 amount realized upon sales, during the year, by the 

 whole trade, is only about twenty dollars — When 

 such a customer makes his appearance, every one in 

 the trade attempts to seize upon the poor man, and he 

 stands the risk of being torn, limb from limb — My friend, 

 however, is so bland, persistent, and persuasive that, 

 during the whole time he has been in the business, he 

 has secured every customer, despite all the exertions 

 of his fellow-tradesmen, and borne him off trium- 

 phant — Such being the case, can you doubt that he, 

 having such an advantage over the others (sic), has 

 rapidly grown rich ? 



His friend is thus proven (?) to have grown rich, — 

 not by any calculation of his profits and losses, — but 

 by an argument, based solely upon the advantages he 

 possesses, over his competitors ! The inducement to 

 the argument, represents the friend and his fellow- 

 tradesmen, suffering, most severely, from dullness of 

 ' the times, from severe mutual competition, from heavy, 

 current expenses, and from adverse conditions of 

 almost every kind. Yet, nothwithstanding the continual 

 drain upon his friend's capital, our hypothetical friend 

 lays stress, exclusively upon the circumstance, that 

 once or twice, in' a month or so, his friend alone, of all 

 his guild, is able to secure a dollar's worth of sales ; 

 and he deduces the conclusion, that, because his friend 

 is the most successful (or, to put it, as it should be, the 

 least unfortunate) man in the business, the amount of 

 his profits is to be estimated, simply and solely, by the 



