If taken as a general proposition, applying to all public accusations, nothing can be more mischievous as well as fallacious. Supposing the charge unfounded, the delivery of it may have been accompanied with mala Jides (consciousness of its injustice), temer'itij only, or it may have been perfectly blameless. It is in the first case alone that infamy can with propriety attach upon him who brings it forward. A charge really groundless may have been honestly believed to be well-founded, i. e. believed with a sort of pro- visional credence, sufficient for the purpose of en- gaging a man to do his part towards the bringing about an investigation, but without sufficient reasons. But a charge may be perfectly groundless without at- taching the smallest particle of blame upon him who brings it forward. Suppose him to have heard from one or more, presenting themselves to him in the cha- racter of percipient witnesses, a story, which, either in toto, or perhaps only in circumstances, though in circumstances of the most material importance, should 186 FALLACIES OF DANGER. [Ch. 5.
prove false and mendacious, — how is the person who hears this, and acts accordingly, to blame? What sagacity can enable a man previously to legal investi- gation, a man who has no power that can enable him to ensure correctness or completeness on the part of this extra-judicial testimony, to guard against decep- tion in such a case? Mrs. C. states to the accuser, that the Duke of York knew of the business; stating a conversation as having passed between him and her- self on the occasion. All this (suppose) is perfectly false: but the falsity of it, how was it possible for one in the accuser's situation to be apprized of?
The tendency of this fallacy is, by intimidation, to prevent all true charges whatever from being made, — to secure impunity to delinquency in every shape.
But the conclusion, that because the discourse of a witness is false in one particular, or one occasion, it must therefore be false in toto, — in particular, that be- cause it is false in respect of some fact or circumstance spoken to on some extra-judicial occasion, it is there- fore not credible on the occasion of a judicial exami- nation,— is a conclusion quite unwarranted.
If this argument were consistently and uniformly applied, no evidence at all ought ever to be received, or at least to be credited: for where was ever the human being, of full age, by whom the exact line of truth had never been in any instance departed from in the whole course of his life?
The fallacy consists, not in the bringing to view, as Ch. 5.] FALLACll'S OF DANGER. 187 lessening the credit due to the testimony of the wit- ness, this or that instance of falsehood, as indicated by inconsistency or counter-evidence, but in speaking of them as conclusive, and as warranting the turning a deaf ear to every thing else the witness has said, or, if suffered, might have said. Under the pressure of some strong and manifest falsehood-exciting interest, sup- pose falsehood has been uttered by the witness: be it so; does it follow that falsehood will on every occa- sion— will in the particular occasion in question — be uttered by him without any such excitement?
Under the pressure of terror, the Apostle Peter, when questioned whether he were one of the adherents of Jesus, who at that time was in the situation of a prisoner just arrested on a capital charge, — denied his being so; and in so doing, uttered a wilful falsehood; and this falsehood thrice repeated within a short time: - — does it follow that the testimony of the Apostle ought not on any occasion to have been considered as capable of being true?
If any such rule were consistently pursued, what judge, who had ever acted in the profession of an ad- vocate, could with propriety be received in the cha- racter of a witness?
Again, with respect to the object of the charge, so far from receiving less countenance where the object is a public than where he is a private man, accusation, whether it be at the bar of an official judicatory or at the bar of the public at large, ought to receive, beyond comparison, more countenance. In case of the truth 188 FALLACIES OF DANGER. \Ch. 5.
of the accusation, the mischief is greater, the demand for appropriate censure, as a check to it, correspon- dently greater. On the other hand, in case of non-de- linquency, the mischief to the groundlessly-accused individual is less. Power, in whatever hands lodged, is almost sure to be more or less abused; the check, in all its shapes, so as it does not defeat the good purposes for vi'hich the power has been given or suf- fered to be exercised, can never be too strong. That against a man who, by the supposition, has done no- thing wrong, it is not desirable, whether his situation be public or private, that accusation should have been preferred, — that he should have been subjected to the danger, and alarm, and evil in other shapes attached to it, is almost too plainly true to be worth saying. But in the case of a public accusation, tiiough, by the supposition, it turns out to be groundless, it is not altogether without its use; — the evil produced is not altogether without compensation: for by the alarm it keeps up, in the breasts in which a disposition to delinquency has place, such accusation acts as a check upon it, and contributes to the prevention or repression of it. On the other hand, in the situation of the public man, the mischief, in the case of his having been the object of an unfounded accusation, is less, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, than in the case of a private man. In the advan- tages that are attached to his situation, he possesses a fund of compensation, which, by the supposition, has no place in the other case: and apprized as he Ch..5.] FALLACIES OF DANGER. 189 ought to be, and, but for his own fault, is, of the enmity and envy to which, according to the nature of it, his situation exposes him, and not the private man, he ought to be, and, but for his own fault will be, proportionably prepared to expect it, and less sensibly affected by it when it comes.
PART THE THIRD.
FALLACIES OF DELAY, The subject-matter of which is Delay i?t various shapes; and the object, to postpone discussion, with a view of eluding it.
CHAPTER I.
The Quiet ist, or, " No Complaint.''
Ad quietem.
E.vposition. A NEW law or measure being proposed in the character of a remedy for some incontestable abuse or evil, an objection is frequently started to the fol- lowing effect: — " The measure is unnecessary; no- body complains of disorder in that shape, in which it is the aim of your measure to propose a remedy to it; even when no cause of complaint has been found to exist, expecially under Governments which admit of complaints, men have in general not been slow to complain; much less where any just cause of com- plaint has existed." The argument amounts to this: — Nobody complains, therefore nobody suffers. It amounts to a veto on all measures of precaution or Ch. 1.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. ]91 prevention, and goes to establish a maxim in legisla- tion, directly opposed to the most ordinary prudence of common life; — it enjoins us to build no parapets to a bridge till the number of accidents has raised an universal clamour.
Exposure* The argument would have more plausibility than it has, if there were any chance of complaints being at- tended to; — if the silence of those who suffer did not arise from despair, occasioned by seeing the fruitless- ness of former complaints. The expense and vexa- tion of collecting and addressing complaints to Par- liament being great and certain, complaint will not commonly be made without adequate expectation of relief. But how can any such expectation be enter- tained by any one who is in the slightest degree ac- quainted with the present constitution of Parliament? Members who are independent of and irresponsible to the people, can have very few and very slight motives for attending to complaints, the redress of which would affect their own sinister interests. Again, how many complaints are repressed by the fear of attack- ing powerful individuals, and incurring resentments which may prove fatal to the complainant!
The most galling and the most oppressive of all grievances is that complicated mass of evil which is composed of the uncertainty, delay, expense and vexation in the administration of justice: of this, all but a comparatively minute proportion is clearly 192 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [Ch. 1.
factitious % — factitious, as being the work originally and in its foundation of the man of law; latterly, and in respect of a part of its superstructure, of the man of finance. In extent, it is such, that of the whole population, there exists not an individual who is not every moment of his life exposed to suffer under it: and few advanced in life, who, in some shape or other, have not actually been sufferers from it. By the price that has been put upon justice, or what goes by the name of justice, a vast majority of the people, to some such amount as -^^ths or -i-fths, are bereft altogether of the ability of putting in for a chance for it; and to those to whom, instead of being utterly denied this sort of chance, it is sold, it is sold at such a price as to the poorest of such as have it still in their power to pay, the price is utter ruin, and even to the richest, matter of serious and sensible inconvenience.
In comparison of this one scourge, all other politi- cal scourges put together are feathers: and in so far as it has the operations of the man of finance for its cause, if, instead of one- tenth upon income, a property tax amounted to nine-tenths, still an addition to the property tax would, in comparison of the affliction produced by the sum assessed on law proceedings, be a relief: for the income tax falls upon none but the comparatively prosperous, and increases in proportion to the prosperity, in proportion to the ability to sus- tain it; whereas the tax upon law proceedings falls * See Scotch Reform, Ch, 1.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 193 exclusively upon those whom it finds labouring under affliction, — under that sort of affliction which, so long as it lasts, operates as a perpetual blister on the mind. Here, then, is matter of complaint for every British subject that breathes: — here, injustice, oppression and distress are all extreme: complaint there is none; why r — because by unity of sinister interest, and con- sequent confederacy between lawyer and financier, relief is rendered hopeless.
o 194 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [Ch. Q.
CHAPTER II.
Fallacy of False-consolation.
Ad quieteni.
E.vposition.
A MEASURE, having for its object the removal of some abuse, i. e. of some practice the result of which is, on the part of the many, a mass of suffering more than equivalent to the harvest of enjoyment reaped from it by the few, being proposed, — this argument consists in pointing to the general condition of the people in this or that other country, under the notion, that in that other country, either in the particular respect in question or upon the whole, the condition of the people is not so felicitous as, notwithstanding the abuse, it is in the country in and for which the measure of reform is proposed.
" What is the matter with you?" " What would you have?" Look at the people there, and there: think how much better o^ you are than they are. Your prosperity and liberty are objects of envy to them; — your institutions are the models which they endeavour to imitate.
Assuredly, it is not to the disposition to keep an eye of preference turned to the bright side of things, where no prospect of special good suggests the oppo- site course, — it is not to such a disposition or such a Ch. 2.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 195 habit that by the woxd fallacy it is proposed to affix a mark of disapprobation.
\yhen a particular suffering, produced as it appears by an assignable and assigned cause, has been point- ed out as existing, a man, instead of attending to it himself, or inviting to it the attention of others, employs his exertions in the endeavour to engage other eyes to turn themselves to any other quarter in preference (he being of the number of those whose acknowledged duty it is to contribute their best en- deavours to the affording to every afiiiction within their view whal soever relief may be capable of being afforded to it without preponderant inconvenience), — then, and then only, is it that the endeavour becomes a just ground for censure, and the means thus em- ployed present a title to be received upon the list of fallacies.
E.vposure.
The pravity as well as fallaciousness of this argu- ment can scarcely be exhibited in a stronger or truer light than by the appellation here employed to cha- racterize it.
1. Like all other fallacies upon this list, it is nothing to the purpose.
2. In his own case, no individual in his senses would accept it. Take any one of the orators by whom this argument is tendered, or of the sages on whom it passes for sterling: with an observation of the general wealth and prosperity of the country in his ]96 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [C/l. 2.
mouth instead of a half-year's rent in his hand, let any one of his tenants propose to pay him thus in his own coin, — will he accept it?
3. In a court of justice, in an action for damages, to learned ingenuity, did ever any such device occur as that of pleading assets in the hand of a third per- son, or in the hands of the whole country, in bar to the demand? What the largest wholesale trade is to the smallest retail, such and more in point of magni- tude is the relief commonly sought for at the hands of the legislator, to the relief commonly sought for at the hands of the judge. — What the largest wholesale trade is to the smallest retail trade, such in point of magnitude, yea and more, is the injustice endeavoured at by this argument when employed in the seat of legislative power, in comparison of the injustice that would be committed by deciding in conformity to it in a court of justice.
No country so wretched, so poor in every element of prosperity, in which matter for this argument might not be found.
Were the prosperity of the country never so much greater than at present, — take for the country any coun- try whatsoever, and for present time any time what- soever,— neither the injustice of the argument, nor the absurdity of it, would in any the smallest degree be diminished.
Seriously and pointedly in the character of a bar, to any measure of relief, no, nor to the most trivial improvement, can it ever be employed, Suppose a bill Ch. 2.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 19/ brought in for converting an impassable road any where into a passable one, would any man stand up to oppose it who could find nothing better to urge against it than the multitude and goodness of the roads we have already r No: when in the character of a serious bar to the measure in hand, be that measure what it may, an argument so palpably inapplicable is employ- ed, it can only be for the purpose of creating a diver- sion;— of turning aside the minds of men from the subject really in hand to a picture which by its beauty, it is hoped, may engross the attention of the assembly, and make them forget for the moment for what pur- pose they came there.
198 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [Ch. 3.
CHAPTER III.
Procrastinators Argument.
Ad socordiam. " Wait a little, this is not the time."
Exposition.
To the instrument of deception here brought to view, the expressions that may be given are various to an indefinite degree; but in its nature and concep- tion nothing can be more simple.
To this head belongs every form of words by which, speaking of a proposed measure of relief, an intima- tion is given, that the time, whatever it be, at which the proposal is made, is too early for the purpose; and given, without any proof being offered of the truth of such intimation; such as, for instance, the want of requisite information, or the convenience of some pre- paratory measure.
E.vposure.
This is the sort of argument or observation which we so often see employed by those who, being in wish and endeavour hostile to a measure, are afraid or ashamed of being seen to be so. They pretend, per- haps, to approve of the measure; they only differ as to the proper time of bringing it forward; but it may be matter of question whether, in any one instance, this observation was applied to a measure by a man Ch. 3.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. \^^ whose wish it was not, that it should remain excluded for ever.
It is in legislation the same sort of quirk which in judicial procedure is called a plea in abatement. It has the same object, being never employed but on the side of a dishonest defendant, whose hope it is to ob- tain ultimate impunity and triuniph by overwhelming his injured adversary with despair, impoverishment and lassitude.
A serious refutation would be ill bestowed upon so frivolous a pretence. The objection exists in the will, not in the judgment, of the objector. " Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath day?" was the question put by Jesus to the official hypocrites. Which is the properest day to do good? Which is the properest day to remove a nuisance? Answer, The very first day that a man can be found to propose the removal of it: and whosoever opposes the removal of it on that day, will, if he dare, oppose the removal on every other.
The doubts and fears of the parliamentary procras- tinator are the conscientious scruples of his prototype the Pharisee, and neither the answer nor the example of Jesus has succeeded in renmving these scruples. To him, whatsoever is too soon to-day, be assured that to-morrow, if not too soon, it will be too late.
True it is, that, the measure being a measure of re- form or improvement, an observation to this effect may be brought forward by a friend to the measure; and in this case, it is not an instrument of deception, but an expedient of unhappily necessary prudence.
200 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [Ch. 3.
Whatsoever it may be some centuries hence, hitherto the fault of the people has been, not groundless cla- mour against imaginary grievances, but insensibility to real ones; — insensibility, not to the effect, the evil itself, for that, if it were possible, far from being a fault, would be a happiness, — but to the cause, to the system or course of misrule which is the cause of it.
What, therefore, may but too easily be — what hi- therto ever has been — the fact, and that, throughout a vast proportion of the field of legislation, is, that in regard to the grievances complained of, the time for bringing forward a measure of effectual relief is not yet come: why? because, though groaning under the effect, the people, by the artifice and hypocrisy of their oppressors, having been prevented from entertaining any tolerably adequate conception of the cause, would at that time regard either with indifference or with suspicion the healing hand that should come forward with the only true and effectual remedy. Thus it is, for example, with that Pandora's box of grievances and misery, the contents of which are composed of the evils opposite to the ends of justice.
Ch, 4.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 201 CHAPTER IV.
Snairs-pace Argument.
Ad socordiam. " One thing at a time! Not too fast! Slow and sure!"
E.vposit'wn.
The proposed measure being a measure of reform, requiring that for the completion of the beneficial work in question a number of operations be perform- ed, capable, all or some of them, of being carried on at the same time, or successively without intervals, or at short intervals, the instrument of deception here in question consists in holding up to view the idea of graduality or slowness, as characteristic of the course which wisdom would dictate on the occasion in ques- tion. For more effectual recommendation of this course, to the epithet gradual are commonly added some such eulogistic epithets as moderate and tem- perate; whereby it is implied, that in proportion as the pace recommended by the word gradual is quick- ened, such increased pace will justly incur the censure expressed by the opposite epithets, — immoderate, vio- lent, precipitate, extravagant, intemperate.
E.vposure.
This is neither more nor less than a contrivance for making out of a mere word an excuse for leaving un- 202 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [Ch. 4.
done an indefinite multitude of things which, the arguer is convinced, and cannot forbear acknowledg- injT, ought to be done.
Suppose half a dozen abuses which equally and with equal promptitude stand in need of reform; this fallacy requires, that without any reason that can be assigned, other than what is contained in the pro- nouncing or writing of the word gradual, all but one or two of them shall remain untouched.
Or, what is better, suppose that, to the effectual correction of some one of these abuses, six operations require to be performed — six operations, all which must be done ere the correction can be effected, — to save the reform from the reproach of being violent and intemperate, to secure to it the praise of gradu- ality, moderation and temperance, you insist, that of these half-a-dozen necessary operations, some one or some two only shall be talked of, and proposed to be done; — one, by one bill to be introduced this session if it be not too late (which you contrive it shall be); another, the next session; which time being come, nothing more is to be said about the matter, and there it ends.
For this abandonment, no one reason that will bear looking at can be numbered up, in the instance of any one of the five measures endeavoured to be laid upon the shelf; for if it could, that would be the reason assigned for the relinquishment, and not this unmean- ing assemblage of three syllables.
A suit which, to do full justice to it, requires but Ch, 4.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 203 six weeks, or six days, or six minutes in one day, has it been made to last six years? That your caution and your wisdom may not be questioned, by a first experiment reduce the time to five years, then if that succeeds in another parliament, should anotlier par- liament be in a humour (which it is hoped it will not), reduce it to four years, — then again to three years; — and if it should be the lot of your grandchildren to see it reduced to two years, they may think themselves well off, and admire your prudence.
Justice, — to which in every eye but that of the plun- derer and oppressor, rich and poor have an equal right, — do nine-tenths of the people stand excluded from all hope of, by the load of expense that has been heaped up. You propose to reduce this expense. The ex- tent of the evil is admitted, and the nature of the remedy cannot admit of doubt: but by the magic of the three syllables gra-du-al, you will limit the remedy to the reduction of about one-tenth of the expense. Some time afterwards you may reduce another tenth, and go on so, that in about two centuries, justice may, perhaps, become generally accessible.
Importance of the business — extreme difficulty of the business — danger of innovation — need of caution and circumspection — impossibility of foreseeing all consequences — danger of precipitation — every thing should be gradual — one thin^v at a time — this is not the time — great occupation at present — wait for more leisure — people well satisfied — no petitions presented — no complaints heard — ^no such mischief has yet 204 FALLACIES OF DELAY. \Ch. 4.
taken place — stay till it has taken place; — such is the prattle which the magpye in office who, understanding nothing, understands that he must have something to say on every subject, shouts out among his auditors as a succedaneum to thought.
Transfer the scene to domestic life, and suppose a man who, his fortune not enabling him without run- ning into debt to keep one race-horse, has been for some time in the habit of keeping six. To transfer to this private theatre the wisdom and the benefit of the gradual system, what you would have to recom- mend to your friend would be something of this sort: — Spend the first year in considering which of your six horses to give up; the next year, if you can satisfy yourself which it shall be, give up some one of them: by this sacrifice, the sincerity of your intention and your reputation for economy will be established; which done, you need think no more about the matter.
As all psychological ideas have their necessary root in physical ones, one source of delusion in psychologi- cal arguments consists in giving an improper extension to some metaphor which has been made choice of.
It would be a service done to the cause of truth, if some advocate for the gradual system would let us into the secret of the metaphor or physical image, if any, which he has in view, and in the same language give us the idea of some physical disaster as the result of precipitation. A patient killed by rapid bleeding, a chariot dashed in pieces by runaway steeds, a vessel overset by carrying too much sail in a squall, — all Ch. 4.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 205 these images suppose a degree of precipitation which, if pursued by the proposers of a political measure, would be at once apparent, and the obvious and as- signable consequence of their course would afford un- answerable arguments against them.
All this while though by a friend to the measure, no such word as above will be employed in the cha- racter of argument; yet cases are not wanting in which the dilatory course recommended may be consented to or even proposed by him.
Suppose a dozen distinct abuses in the seat of le- gislative power, each abuse having a set of members interested in the support of it; attack the whole body at once, all these parties join together to a certainty, and oppose you with their united force. Attack the abuses one by one, and it is possible that you may have but one of these parties, or at least less than all of them, to cope with at a time. Possible? Yes: — - but of probability, little can be said. To each branch of the public service belongs a class of public servants, each of which has its sinister interest, the source of the mass of abuses on which it feeds; and in the person and power of the universal patron, the fountain of all honour and of all abuse, all those sinister interests are joined and embodied into one.
This is a branch of science in which no man is ever deficient; this is what is understood, — understood to perfection by him to whom nothing else ever was or can be clear, — Hoc discunt omnes, unto alpha et beta puelli.
206 FALLACIES OF DELAV. [Ch. 4.
If there be a case in which such graduality as is Iiere described can have been consented to, and with a reasonable prospect of advantage, it must have been a case in which, without such consent, the whole busi- ness would be hopeless.
Under the existing system, by which the door of the theatre of legislation is opened by opulence to members, in whose instance application of the faculty of thought to the business about which they are sup- posed to occupy themselves, would have been an effect without a cause, so gross is the ignorance, and in con- sequence, even where good intention is not altogether wanting, so extreme the timidity and apprehension, that on their part, without assurance of extreme slow- ness, no concurrence to a proposal for setting one foot before another, at even the slowest pace, would be obtained at all: their pace, the only pace at which they can be persuaded to move, is that M'hich the tra- veller would take, whose lot it should be to be travel- ling in a pitch-dark night, over a road broken and slippery, edged with precipices on each side. Time is requisite for quieting timidity: why? because time is requisite for instructing ignorance.
Sect. 1. Lawyers; their interest in the employment of this fallacy.
In proportion to the magnitude of their respective shares in the general fund of abuse, the various fra- ternities interested in the support of abuses have each Sect. 1.] FALLACIES OF DELAY. 207 of them their interest in turning to the best account this as well as every other article in the list of fallacies.
But it is the fraternity of lawyers, who (if they have not decidedly the most to gain by the dexterous ma- nagement of this or of other fallacies) have, from the greatest quantity of practice, derived the greatest de- gree of dexterity in the management of it.
Judicature requiring reflection, and the greater the complication of the case, the greater the degree and length of reflection which the case requires: under favour of this association, they have succeeded in esta- blishing a general impression of a sort of proportion in quantity as well as necessity of connexion between delay and attention to justice. Not that, in fact, a hun- dredth part of the established delay has had any ori- gin in a regard for justice; but, — for want of sufficient insight into that state of things by which in persons so circumstanced in power and interest the general prevalence of any such regard has been rendered phy- sically impossible, — in his endeavours to propagate the notion of a sort of general proportion between delay and regard for justice, the man of law has, un- happily, been but too successful. And it is, perhaps, to this error, in respect to matters of fact, that the snail's-pace fallacy is indebted, more than to any other cause, for its dupes. Be this as it may, sure it is, that in no track of reform has the rate of progress, which it is the object of this fallacy to secure, been adhered to with greater eff*ect. By the Statute Book, if run over, (and little more than the titles would be 208 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [Ch. 4.