necessary) in this view, a curious exemplification of the truth of this observation is afforded. An abuse so monstrous, that, on the part of the judicial hands by which it was manufactured, the slightest doubt of the mischievousness of it was absolutely impossible, — ge- neration after generation groaning under this abuse, — and at length, when, by causes kept of course as much as possible out of sight, the support of the abuse has been deemed no longer practicable, comes at length a remedy. And what remedy? Never any thing better than a feeble palliative.
Ch. 5.] FALLACIES OF DELAY ii09 CHAPTER V.
Fallacy of artful Diversion.
Ad vereciindiam.
E.vposition and Exposure.
The device here in question may be explained by the following direction or receipt for the manufacture and application of it: — When any measure is proposed, which on any ac- count whatsoever it suits your interest or your humour to oppose, at the same time that, in consideration of its undeniable utility, or on any other account, you regard it unadvisable to pass direct condemnation on it, — hold up to view some other measure, such as, whether it bear any relation or none to the measure on the carpet, will, in the conception of your hearers, present itself as superior in the order of importance. Your language, then, is — Why that? (meaning the mea- sure already proposed.) — Why not this? — or this? mentioning some other, which it is your hope to ren- der more acceptable, and by means of it to create a diversion, and turn aside from the obnoxious measure the affections and attention of those whom you have to deal M'ith.
One case there is, in which the appellation of fal- lacy cannot with justice be applied to tliis argument; and that is, where the effectuation or pursuit of the measure first proposed would operate as a bar or an 210 FALLACIES OP DELAY. [Ch. 5.
obstacle to some other measure of a more beneficial character held up to view by the argument as compe- titor to it: and what, in the way of Exposure, will be said of the sort of expedient just described, will not apply to this case.
However, where the measure first proposed is of unquestionable utility, and you oppose it merely be- cause it is adverse to your own sinister interest, you must not susjgest anv relevant measure of reform in lieu of it, except in a case in which, in the shape of argument, every mode of opposition is considered as hopeless: for unless for the purpose of forestalling the time and attention that would be necessary to the effectuation of the proposed beneficial measure, a measure altogether irrelevant and foreign to it is set up, a risk is incurred, that something, however infe- rior in degree, may be effected towards the diminution of the abuse or imperfection in question.
In the character of an irrelevant counter-measure, any measure or accidental business whatever may be made to serve, so long as it can be made to pre- occupy a sufficient portion of the disposable time and attention of the public men on whose suffrages the effectuation or frustration of the measure depends.
But supposing the necessity for a relevant counter- measure to exist, and you have accordingly given in- troduction to it, the first thing then to be done is, to stave off the undesirable moment of its effectuation as long as possible.
According to established usage, you have given no- Ch.b.l FALLACIES OF DELAY. 211 tice of your intention to propose a measure on the subject and to the effect in question. The intention is of too great importance to be framed and carried into act in the compass of the same year or session: you accordingly announce your intention for next ses- sion. When the next session comes, the measure is of too great importance to be brought on the carpet at the commencement of the session; at that period it is not yet mature enough. If it be not advisable to delay it any longer, you bring it forward just as the session closes. Time is thus gained, and without any decided loss in the shape of reputation: for what you undertook, has to the letter been performed. When the measure has been once brought in, you have to take your choice, in the first place, between operations for delay and operations for rejection. Operations for delay exhibit a manifest title to preference: so long as their effect can be made to last, they accom- plish their object, and no sacrifice either of design or of reputation has been made. The extreme import- ance and extreme difficulty are themes on which you blow the trumpet, and which you need not fear the not hearing sufficiently echoed. When the treasury of delay has been exhausted, you have your choice to take between trusting to the chapter of accidents for the defeat of the measure, or endeavouring to engage some friend to oppose it and propose the rejection of it. But you must be unfortunate indeed, if you can find no opponents, no tolerably plausible opponents, unless among friends, and friends specially commis- ^212 FALLACIES OF DELAY. [C/l. 5.
sioned for the purpose: a sort of confidence more or less dangerous must in that case be reposed.
Upon the whole, you must however be singularly unfortunate or unskilful, if by the counter-measure of diversion any considerable reduction of the abuse or imperfection be, spite of your utmost endeavours, ef- fected, or any share of reputation that you need care about, sacrificed.
PART THE FOURTH.
FALLACIES OF CONFUSION, The object of ivhicli is, to perplex, when Discussion can 710 longer be avoided.
CHAPTER L Question-begging Appellatives.
Ad judicium.
Petitio principii, or begging the question, is a fallacy very well known even to those who are not conversant with the principles of logic. In answer to a given question, the party who employs the fallacy contents himself by simply affirming the point in de- bate. Why does opium occasion sleep? — Because it is soporiferous.
Begging the question is one of the fallacies enume- rated by Aristotle; but Aristotle has not pointed out (what it will be the object of this chapter to expose) the mode of using the fallacy with the greatest effect, and least risk of detection, — namely, by the employ- ment of a single appellative.
Exposition and Exposure. Among the appellatives employed for the designa- tion of objects belonging to the field of moral science, 214 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C/l. 1.
there are some by which the object is presented singly, unaccompanied by any sentiment of approbation or disapprobation attached to it: — as, desire, labour, dis- positio)i, character, habit, &c. With reference to the two sorts of appellatives which will come immediately to be mentioned, appellatives of this sort may be termed neutral.
There are others by means of which, in addition to the principal object, the idea of general approbation as habitually attached to that object is presented: — as, industry, honour, piety, generosity, gratitude, &c. These are termed eulogistic or laudatory.
Others there are again, by means of which, in ad- dition to the principal object, the idea of general dis- approbation, as habitually attached to that object, is presented: — as, lust, avarice, luxury, covetousness, pro- digality, &c. These may be termed dyslogistic or vituperative *.
Among pains, pleasures, desires, emotions, motives, affections, propensities, dispositions, and other moral entities, some, but very far from all, are furnished with appellatives of all three sorts: — some, with none but eulogistic; others, and in a greater number, with none but those of the dyslogistic cast. By appella- * See the nature of these denominations amply illustrated in Springs- of-Action Table.
Of the field of thought and action, this, the moral department, though it be that part in which the most abundant employment is given to the instrument of deception here in question, is not the only part. Scarcely, perhaps, can any part be found to which it has not been applied.
Ch. I.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 215 tives, I mean here, of course, single-xvoy'ded appella- tives; for by words, take but enough of them, any thing may be expressed.
Originally, all terms expressive of any of these ob- jects were (it seems reasonable to think) neutral. By degrees they acquired, some of them an eulogistic, some a dyslogistic, cast. This ciiange extended itself as the moral sense (if so loose and delusive a term may on this occasion be employed) advanced in growth.
But to return. As to the mode of employing this fal- lacy, it neither requires nor so much as admits of being taught: a man falls into it but too naturally of him- self; and the more naturally and freely, the less he jBnds himself under the restraint of any such sense as that of shame. The sreat difficulty is to unlearn it: in the case of this, as oi so many other fallacies, by teach- ing it, the humble endeavour here is to unteach it.
In speaking of the conduct, the behaviour, the in- te?ition, the motive, the disposition of this or that man, if he be one who is indifferent to you, of whom you care not whether he be well or ill thought of, you em- ploy the neutral term: — if a man whom, on the occa- sion and for the purpose in question, it is your object to recommend to favour, especially a man of your own party, you employ the eulogistic term: — if he be a man whom it is your object to consign to aversion or contempt, you employ the dyslogistic term.
To the proposition of which it is the leading tern), 216 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 1.
every such eulogistic or dyslogistic appellative, secretly as it were, and in general insensibly, slips in another proposition of which that same leading term is the subject, and an assertion of approbation or disappro- bation the predicate. The person, act, or thing in question is o?' deserves to be, or is and deserves to be, an object of general approbation; or the person, act, or thing in question is or deserves to be, or is and deserves to be, an object of general disapprobation.
The proposition thus asserted, is commonly a pro- position that requires to be proved. But in the case where the use of the term thus employed is fallacious, the proposition is one that is not true, and cannot be proved: and where the person by whom the fallacy is employed is conscious of its deceptive tendency, the object in the employment thus given to the appel- lative is, by means of the artifice, to cause that to be taken for true which is not so.
By appropriate eulogistic and dyslogistic terms, so many arguments are made, by which, taking them altogether, misrule, in all its several departments, finds its justif;ying arguments, and these in but too many eyes, conclusive. Take, for instance, the following eulogistic terms: — 1. In the war department, honour and glory.
2. In international affairs, honour, glory, and dignity.
3. In the financial department, liberality. It being always at the expense of unwilling contributors that this virtue (for among the virtues it has its place in Ch. J.] FALLACIES 01- CONFUSION. 217 Aristotle) is exercised; for liberality, depredation may, in perhaps every case, and without any impropriety, be substituted.
4. In the higher parts of all official departments, dig- nity; — dignity, though not in itself depredation, ope- rates as often as the word is used, as a pretence for, and thence as a cause of, depredation. Wherever you see dignity, be sure that money is requisite for the support of it: and that, in so far as the dignitary's own money is regarded as insufficient, public money raised by taxes imposed on all other individuals, on the prin- ciple of liberality, must be found for the supply of it*.
Exercised at a man's own expense, liberality may be, or may not be, according to circumstances, a vir- tue: — exercised at the expense of the public, it never can be any thing better than vice. Exercised at a man's own expense, whether it be accompanied with prudence or no, whether it be accompanied or not with beneficence, it is at any rate disinterestedness: — exercised at the expense of the public, it is pure self- ishness: it is, in a word, depredation: money or money's worth is taken from the public to purchase, for the use of the liberal man, respect, affection, gra- titude with its eventual fruits in the shape of services of all sorts: in a word, reputation, power.
When you have a practice or measure to condemn, * See this principle avowed and maintained by the scribes of both parties, Burke and Rose, as shown in the defences of economy against those advocates of depredation.
218 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 1.
find out some more general appellative within the im- port of which the obnoxious practice or measure in question cannot be denied to be included, and to which you or those whose interests and prejudices you have espoused, have contrived to annex a certain de- gree of unpopularity, in so much that the name of it has contracted a dyslogistic quality, — has become a bad name.
Take, for example, improvement and innovation; under its own name to pass censure on any improve- ment might be too bold: applied to such an object, any expressions of censure you could employ might lose their force: employing them, you would seem to be running on in the track of self-contradiction and nonsense.
But improvement means something new, and so does innovation. Happily for your purpose, innova- tion has contracted a bad sense; it means something which is new and bad at the same time. Improve- ment, it is true, in indicating sometliing new, indicates something good at the same time; and therefore, if the thing in question be good as well as new, innova- tion is not a proper term for it. However, as the idea of novelty was the only idea originally attached to the term innovation, and the only one which is di- rectly expressed in the etymology of it, you may still venture to employ the word innovation, since no man can readily and immediately convict your appellation of being an improper one upon the face of it.
With the appellation thus chosen for the purpose Ch. 1.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 219 of passing condemnation on the measure, he by whom it has been brought to view in the character of an im- provement is not (it is true) very likely to be well satis- fied: but of this 3'ou could not have had any expecta- tion. What you want, is a pretence which your own partisans can lay hold of, for the purpose of deducing from it a colourable warrant for passing upon the im- provement that censure which you are determined, and they, if not determined, are disposed and intend, to pass on it.
Of this instrument of deception, the potency is most deplorable. It is but of late years that so much as the nature of it has in any way been laid before the public: and now that it has been laid before the public, the need there is of its being opposed with effect, and the extreme difficulty of opposing it with effect, are at the same time and in equal degree mani- fest. In every part of the field of thought and dis- course, the effect of language depends upon the prin- ciple of association, — upon the association formed be- tween words and those ideas of which in that way they have become the signs. But in no small part of the field of discourse, one or other of the two censo- rial and reciprocally correspondent and opposite af- fections,— the amicable and the hostile, — that by which approbation and that by which disapprobation is ex- pressed,— are associated with the word in question by a tie little less strong than that by which the object in question, be it person or thing, — be the thing a real or fictitious entity, be it operation or quality, is 220 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. I.
associated with that same articulate audible sign and its visible representations.
To diminish the effect of this instrument of decep- tion (for to do it away completely, to render all minds without exception at all times insensible to it, seems scarcely possible), must, at any rate, be a work of time. But in proportion as its effect on the under- standing, and through that channel on the temper and conduct of mankind, is diminished, the good effect of the exposure will become manifest.
By such of these passion-kindling appellatives as are of the eulogistic cast, comparatively speaking, no bad effect is produced: but by those which are of the dyslogistic, prodigious is the mischievous effect pro- duced, considered in a moral point of view. By a single word or two of this complexion, what hostility has been produced! how intense the feeling of it! how wide the range of it! how full of mischief, in all imaginable shapes, the effects ^!
* As an instance remarkable enough, though not in respect of the mischievousness, yet in respect of the extent and the importance of the effects producible by a single word, note Lord Erskine's defence of the Whigs, avowedly produced by the application of the dyslogistic word faction to that party in the state.
Ch. 2.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 221 CHAPTER II.
Impostor Terms.
Ad judicium.
Ej'position.
The fallacy which consists in the employment of impostor terms, in some respects resembles that which has been exposed in the preceding chapter: but it is applied chiefly to the defence of things, which under their proper name are manifestly indefensible: instead, therefore, of speaking of such things under their proper name, the sophist has recourse to some appellative, which, along with the indefensible object, includes some other; generally an object of favour; — or at once substitutes an object of approbation for an ob- ject of censure. For instance, persecutors in mat- ters of religion have no such word as persecution in their vocabulary; zeal is the word by which they characterize all their actions.
In the employment of this fallacy, two things are requisite: 1. A fact or circumstance, which, under its proper name, and seen in its true colours, would be an object of censure, and which, therefore, it is necessary to dis- guise; (^res tegenda;) 2. The appellative, which the sophist employs to conceal what would be deemed otfensive, or even to 222 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 2.
bespeak a degree of favour for it by the aid of some happier accessary; (Tegumen.) * Exposure.
Example. — Influence of the Crown.
The sinister influence of the crown is an object whicli, if expressed by any peculiar and distinctive appellation, would, comparatively speaking, find per- haps but few defenders, but which, so long as no other denomination is employed for the designation of it than the generic term influence, will rarely meet with indiscriminating reprobation.
* The device here in question is not peculiar to politicians. By an example drawn from private life, it may to some eyes be placed, per- haps, in a clearer point of view. The word gallantry is employed to denote either of two dispositions, which, though not altogether without connexion, may either of them exist without the other. In one of these senses, it denotes, on the part of the stronger sex, the disposition to testify on all occasions towards the weaker sex those sentiments of respect and kindness by which civilized is so strikingly and happily distinguished from savage life. In the other sense, it is, in the main, synonymous to adultery: yet, not so completely synonymous (as in- deed words perfectly synonymous are of rare occurrence) but that, in addition to this sense, it presents an accessary and collateral one. Having, from the habit of being employed in the other sense, acquired, in addition to its direct sense, a collateral sense of the eulogistic cast, it serves to give to the act, habit, or disposition, which in this sense it is employed to present, something of an eulogistic tincture, in lieu of that dyslogistic colouring under which the object is presented by its direct and proper name. Whatever act a man regards himself as being known to have performed, or meditates the performance of, under any expectation of his being eventually known to have performed it, he will not, in speaking of it, make use of any term the tendency of which Ch. 2.] TALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 223 Corruption, — the term which, in the eyes of those to whom this species of influence is an object of disap- probation, is the appropriate and only single-worded term capable of being employed for the expression of it, — is a term of the dyslogistic cast. This, then, by any person whose meaning it is not to join in the condemnation passed on the practice or state of things which is designated, is one that cannot possibly be employed. In speaking of this practice and state of things, he is therefore obliged to go upon the look-out, and find some term, which, at the same time that its claim to the capacity of presenting to view the object in question cannot be contested, shall be of the eulois to call forth, on the part of the hearer or reader, any sentiment of disapprobation pointed at the sort of act in question, and consequently, through the medium of the act, at the agent by whom it has been performed. To the word adultery, this effect, to every man more or less impleasant, is attached by the usage of language. On every oc- casion in which it is necessary to his purpose to bring to view an act of this obnoxious description, he will naturally be on the look-out for a term in the use of which he may be supposed to have had another meaning, and which, in so far as it conveys an idea of the forbidden act in question, presents it with an accompaniment, not of reproach, but rather of approbation, which in general would not have accompa- nied it but for the other signification which the word is also employed to designate. This term he finds in the word gallantry.
There is a sort of man, who, whether ready or no to commit any act or acts of adultery, would gladly be thought to have been habitu- ated to the commission of such acts: but even this sort of man would neither be found to say of himself, " I am an adulterer," nor pleased to have it said of him, " He is an adulterer." But to have it said of him that he is a man of gallantry, — this is what the sort of man in question would regard as a compliment, with the sound of which he would be pleased and flattered.
224 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 2.
gistic or at least of the neutral cast; and to one or other of these classes belongs the term influence.
Under the term influence, when the crown is con- sidered as the possessor of it, are included two species of influence: the one of them, such, that the removal of it could not, without an utter reprobation of the monarchical form of Government, be by any person considered as desirable, nor, without the utter destruc- tion of monarchical government, be considered as pos- sible. The other, such, that in the opinion of many persons the complete destruction or removal of it would if possible be desirable; and that, though con- sistently with the continuance of the monarchical go- vernment, the complete removal of it would not be practicable, yet the diminution of it to such a degree as that the remainder should not be productive of any practically pernicious effects would not be impracti- cable.
Influence of will on zvill, influence of under sta?idi7ig on understanding: in this may be seen the distinction on which the utility or noxiousness of the sort of in- fluence in question depends.
In the influence of understanding on understanding, may be seen that influence to which, by whomsoever exercised, on whomsoever exercised, and on what oc- casion soever exercised, the freest range ought to be left: — left, although, as for instance, exercised by the crown, and on the representatives of the people. Not that to this influence it may not happen to be produc- tive of mischief to any amount, but that because, with- Ch. 2.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 225 out this influence, scarce any good could be accom- plished, and because, when it is left free, disorder can- not present itself without leaving the door open at least for the entrance of the remedy.
The influence of understanding on understanding is, in a word, no other than the influence of human reason, — a guide which, like other guides, is liable to miss its way, or dishonestly to recommend a wrong course, but which is the only guide of which the na- ture of the case is susceptible.
Under the British constitution, to the crown belongs either the sole management, or a principal and leading part of the management, of the public business: and it is only by the influence of understanding on under- standing, or by the influence of will on will, that by any person or persons, except by physical force imme- diately applied, any thing can be done.
To the execution of the ordinary mass of duties belonging to the crown, the influence of will on will, so long as the persons on whom it is exercised are the proper persons, is necessary. On all persons to whom it belongs to the crown to give orders^ this species of influence is necessary: for it is only in virtue of this species of influence that orders, considered as deliver- ed from a superordinate to a subordinate, — considered in a word as orders^ in contradistinction to mere sug- gestions, or arguments operating by the influence of understanding on understanding, — can be productive of any effect.
Thus far, then, in the case.of influence of will on Q 22(5 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch, 2.
will, as well as in the case of influence of understand- ing'on understanding, no rational and consistent ob- jection can be made to the use of influence. In either case, its title to the epithet legitimate mfiuence is above dispute.
The case among others in which the title of the in- fluence of the crown is open to dispute, — the case in which the epithet sinister or any other mark of disap- probation may be bestowed upon it (bestowed upon the bare possession, and without need of reference to the particular use and application which on any par- ticular occasion may happen to be made of it), — is that where, being of that sort which is exercised by will on will, the person on whom on the occasion in question it is exercised is either a member of parlia- ment, or a person possessed of an electoral vote with reference to a seat in parliament.
The ground on which this species of influence thus exercised is, by those by whom it is spoken of with disapprobation, represented as sinister, and deserving of that disapprobation, is simply this: — viz. that in so far as this influence is efficient, the will professed to be pronounced is not in truth the will of him whose will it professes to be, but the will of him in whom the influence originates, and from whom it proceeds: in so much, that if, for example, every member of parliament without exception were in each house under the dominion of the influence of the crown, and in every individual instance that influence were effectual, the monarchy, instead of being the limited sort of Ch. 2.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 227 monarchy it professes to be, would be in effect an ab- solute one, — in form alone a limited one; nor so much as in form a limited one any longer than it hap- pened to be the pleasure of the monarch that it should continue to be.