1. In Scotland, does any evil arise from the non- existence of bishops? 2. In the House of Lords, any good? 3. Is not non-attendance there more general than even non-residence elsewhere? 4. In judicially does any bishop ever attend, who is not laid hold of after reading prayers? 5. In legislatura, ever, except where personal interest wears the mask of gratitude? 6. Such non-attendance, is it not felt rather as a relief than as a grievance?
<i6'4 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C//. 4.
Answer, — " Enemy to the church! " 1. In Ireland, what is the use of Protestant priests to Catholics, who will neither hear nor see them, to whom they are known but as plunderers? 2. By such exemption from service, is not value of preferment in- creased? 3. By patrons, as by incumbents, are not bishopricks thus estimated? 4. Is it not there a maxim, that service and pay should be kept in separate hands? 5. In eyes not less religious than gracious, is not the value of religion inversely as the labour, as well as directly as the profit? 6. Is not this estimate the root of those scruples, by which oaths imposed to protect Protestantism from being oppressed are em- ployed in securing to it the pleasure of oppressing?
Answer, — " Enemy to the church!"
C/i. 5.] TALLACIES Oi CONFUSION. Q65 CHAPTER V.
Sweeping Classifications.
Ad judicium.
E.vposition.
The device of those who employ in the way of fallacy, sweeping classifications, is that of ascribing to an individual object (person or thing), any properties of another, only because the object in question is ranked in the class with that other, by being desig- nated by the same name.
In its nature, this fallacy is equally applicable to undeserved eulogy as to undeserved censure; but it is more frequently applied to the purpose of censure, its efficiency being greater in that direction.
E.rposure. Example 1. — Kings; — Crimes of Kings.
In the heat of the French revolution, when the lot of Louis XVI. was standing between life and death, among the means employed for bringing about the catastrophe that ensued, was the publication of a mul- titude of inflammatory pamphlets, one of which had for its title " The Crimes of Kings."
Kings being men, and all men standing exposed to those temptations by which some of them are led into crimes, matter could not be wanting for a book so en- Q66 FALLACIES Of CONFUSION. [Ch. 5.
titled: and if there are some crimes to the temptation of which men thus elevated stand less exposed than the inferior orders, there are other crimes to which, perhaps, that elevation renders them but the more prone.
But of the man by whom on that occasion a book with such a title was published, the object, it is but too probable, was to compose out of it this argument; criminals ought to be punished; kings are criminals, and Louis is a king: therefore Louis ought to be pu- nished.
Example 2. — Catholics; cruelties of Catholics.
Not long ago, in the course, and for the purpose of the controversy on the question whether that part of the community which is composed of persons of the Catholic persuasion, ought, or ought not, to be kept any longer in a state of degradation under the predominant sect, a book made its appearance under the title of " Cruelties of the Catholics."
Of any such complete success, as the consigning in a body to the fate in which that Catholic king was, with so many of his nearest connections, involved, all such British subjects as participate with him in that odious name, there could not be much hope: but whatsoever could, by the species of fallacy here in question, be done towards the promoting of it, was done by that publication. The object of it was to keep them still debarred from whatsoever relief re- Ch. 5.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 267 mains yet to be administered to the oppressions under which they labour: either it had this object, or it had none.
To the complexion of this argument, and of the mind that could bring it forward, justice will not be done, unless an adequate conception be formed of the practical consequences to which, if to any thing, it leads.
Of the Catholics of the present and of all future time, whatsoever be the character, the cruelties and other enormities committed by persons who in former times were called by the same indefinitely compre- hensive name, will still remain what they were. What- soever harsh treatment, therefore, this argument war- rants the bestowing on these their namesakes at the present time, the same harsh treatment will, from the same argument, continue to receive the same justifi- cation so long as there remains one individual who, consistently with truth, is capable of being characte- rized by the same name.
Be they what they may, the barbarities of the Ca- tholics of those times had their limits: but of this ab- horrer of Catholic barbarities, the barbarity has, in respect of the number of intended victims, no limits other than those of time.
Of the man who, to put an end to the cruelties of kings, did what depended upon him towards extir- pating the class of kings, the barbarity, so far as re- garded this object, was, comparatively speaking, con- fined within a very narrow range. All Europe would 268 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 5.
not have sufficed to supply his scaffold with a dozen victims. But after crushing as many millions of the vermin whom his piety and his charity marked out for sacrifice, the zeal of the abhorrer of Catholic cru- elties would have been in the condition of the tiger whom in the plains of Southern Africa a traveller de- picted to us as lying breathless with fatigue amidst a flock of antelopes.
In the same injurious device the painter of the crimes of kings might, by a no less conclusive argu- ment, have proved the necessity of crushing the En- glish form of the Protestant religion, and consigning to the fate of Louis XVI. the present head of it.
By order of King James I. two men, whose misfor- tune it was not to be able to form in relation to some inexplicable points of technical theology the same conception that was entertained, or professed to be entertained, by the royal ruler and instructor of his people, were burnt alive^. George IV. not only bears in common with James I. the tvvo diflferent deno- minations, viz. Protestant of the Church of England, and King of Great Britain; but, as far as marriage can be depended on for proof of filiation, is actually of the same blood and lineage with that royal and tri- umphant champion of local orthodoxy.
If, indeed, in the authentic and generally received doctrines of the religion in question, there were any thing that compelled its professors to burn or other- '"' Consult Hume, Tinelal, Harris, Henry.
Ch. 5.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 269 wise to destroy or ill-treat all or any of those that dif- fered from them, and if by any recent overt-act an adherence to those dissocial doctrines had appeared in practice, in such case the adherence to such disso- cial doctrines would afford a just ground for what- soever measures of security were deemed necessary to guard other men from the effect of such doctrines and such practice.
But by no doctrines of their religion are Catholics compelled to burn or otherwise ill-treat those who dif- fer from them, any more than by the doctrines of the Church of England James I. was compelled to burn those poor Anabaptists.
If from analogy any sincere and instructive use had on this occasion been intended to be derived from dif- ferent countries professing the same persuasion, in these our times a much more instructive lesson would be afforded than any that could be derived from even the same country at such different times.
If in Ireland, where three-fourths or more of the population is composed of Catholics, no ill-treatment has within the memory of man been bestowed l)y Ca- tholics, as such, upon Protestants, as such; while in the same country so much ill-treatment has on other accounts been bestowed by each of these persuasions upon the other, it is, it may be said, because the power of doing so with impunity is not in their hands.
But in countries where the Catholic religion is the o predominant religion, and in which at the same time, as in our islands, barbarity on the score of heresy was 270 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C/i. 5.
by Catholics exercised according to law, and in the countries in which the exercise of those barbarities was at those times most conspicuous; of no such bar- barities has any instance occurred for a long course of years *, * Even in Spain I have been assured, if I may depend upon an as- surance given me by persons fully informed, and of the most respect- able character, no instance of a capital execution for any offence against religion has occurred within these 22 or 23 years.
In the capital of Mexico, if I may believe a gentleman of distinction in our own country, by whom the capital of that kingdom was lately visited, he was by the Grand Inquisitor himself conducted into every apartment of the prison of the Inquisition for the purpose of his being assured by ocular demonstration of the non-existence of any person in the state of a prisoner within the walls.
C'h. 6,] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 271 CHAPTER VI.
Sham Distinctions.
Ad judicium.
Ei'position, Of the device here in view the nature may be ex- plained by the following direction for the use of it.
When any existing state of things has too much evil in it to be defensible in toto, or proposals for amendment are too plainly necessary to be rejectible in toto, the evil and the good being nominally distin- guished from each other by two corresponding and opposite terms, eulogistic and dyslogistic, but in such sort that to the nominal line of distinction thus drawn, there corresponds not any determinate real difference, declare your approbation of the good by its eulogistic name, and thus reserve to yourself the advantage of opposing it without reproach by its dyslogistic name, and so "vice versa declare your disapprobation of the evil, &c.
E.vposure. Example 1. — Liberty and Licentiousness of the Press. Take for example the case of the Press. The press (including under this denomination every instrument employed or employable for the purpose of giving diffusion to the matter of human discourse 272 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [CIl. 6.
by visible signs) — the press has two distinguishable uses, viz. moral and political: moral, consisting in whatsoever check it may be capable of opposing to misconduct in private life; political, in whatsoever check it may be capable of opposing to misconduct in public life, that is, on the part of public men — men actually employed, or aspiring to be employed, in any situation in the public service: opposing, viz. by pointing on the persons to whom such misconduct is respectively imputable, a portion more or less consi- derable of disapprobation and consequent ill-will on the part of the public at large — a portion more or less considerable according to the nature of the case.
If to such misconduct there be no such check at all opposed, as that which it is the nature of the press to apply, the consequence is, that of such misconduct whatsoever is not included in the prohibitions and eventual punishment provided by law, will range un- controlled: in which case, so far as concerns the poli- tical effect of such exemption from control, the result is power uncontroulable, arbitrary despotism, in the hands whatsoever they are, in which the powers and functions of Government happen to be reposed: and, moreover, in the instance of such misconduct as is in- cluded in that system of prohibition and eventual pu- nishment, the control will be without effect in so far as by delay, vexation, and expense, natural or facti- tious, the individual who would be led to call for the application, is prevented from making such demand.
At the same time, on the other hand, the use of the Ch. 6.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 273 prcss_cannot be altogether free, but that on pretence of giving indication of misconduct that has actually taken place, supposed misconduct that never did ac- tually take place, will to this or that individual be im- puted.
In so far as the imputation thus conveyed happens to be false, the effects of the liberty in question will, so far as concerns any individual person thus unjustly accused, be of the evil cast, and by whomsoever they are understood so to be, the dyslogistic appellation licentiousness will naturally be applied.
Here then comes the dilemma, — the two evils be- tween which a choice must absolutely be made. Leave to the press its perfect liberty, along with the just im- putations, which alone are the useful ones, will come, and in an unlimited proportion, unjust imputations, from which, in so far as they are unjust, evil is liable to arise.
But to him whose wish it really is that good morals and good government should prevail, the choice need not be so difficult as at first sight it may seem to be.
Let all just imputations be buried in utter silence; what you are sure of is, that misconduct in every part of the field of action, moral and political, private and public, will range without controul — free from all that sort of controul which can be applied by the press^ and not by any thing else.
On the other hand, let all unjust imputations find through this channel an unobstructed course, still, of the evil — the personal suffering threatened by such T 274 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 6.
infliction — there is neither certainty, nor in general any near approach to it Open to accusation, that same channel is not less open to defence *. He there- fore who has truth on his side, will have on his side all that advantage wiiich it is in the nature of truth to give.
That advantage, is it an inconsiderable one? — On the contrary supposition is founded, whatsoever is done in the reception and collection of judicial evi- dence— whatsoever is intended by the exercise of ju- dicial authority — by the administration of whatsoever goes by the name of justice.
Meantime, if any arrangements there be by which the door may be shut against unjust imputations, with- out incurring to an equal amount that sort of evil which is liable to result from the exclusion of just ones, so much the better.
But unless and until such arrangements shall have been devised and carried into effect, the tendency and effect of all restrictions having for their object the abridging of the liberty of the press, cannot but be evil on the whole.
To shut the door against such imputations as are either unjust or useless, leaving it at the same time open to such as are at the same time just and useful, would require a precise, a determinate, a correct and complete definition of the appellative, whatsoever it " If it by accident be not so, this constitutes a different and distinct evil, for which is required a different and distinct remedy.
Ch. 6.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 9,75 be, by which the abuse — the improper use — the sup- posed preponderantly pernicious use — of the press is endeavoured to be brought to view.
To establish this definition belongs to those, and to those alone, in whose hands the supreme power of the State is vested.
Of this appellative no such definition has ever yet been given — of this appellative no such definition can reasonably be expected at the iiands of any person so situated, since, by the establishing of such definition, their power would be curtailed, their interest preju- diced.
While this necessary definition remains unestablish- ed, there remains with them the faculty of giving con- tinuance and increase to the several points of abuse and misgovernment by which their interest in its se- veral shapes is advanced.
Till that definition is given, the licentiousness of the press is every disclosure by which any abuse from the practice of which they draw any advantage, is brought to light and exposed to shame: — whatsoever disclosure it is, or is supposed to be, their interest to prevent.
The liber^ty of the press is such disclosure, and such only, from which no such inconvenience is appre- hended.
No such definition can be given but at their ex- pense: — at the expense of their arbitrary power, — of their power of misconduct in the exercise of the func- tions of Government, — at the expense of their power 276 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 6.
of misgovernment, — of their power of sacrificing the public interest to their own private interest.
Should that line have ever been drawn, then it is that licentiousness may be opposed without opposing liberty: while that line remains undrawn, opposing licentiousness is opposing liberty.
Thus much being understood, in what consists the device here in question? It consists in employing the sham approbation given to the species of liberty here in question under the name of liberti/, as a mask or cloak to the real opposition given to it under the name of licentiousness.
It is in the licentiousness of the press that the Judge pretends to seethe downfall of that Government, the corruption of which he is upholding by inflicting on all within his reach those punishments which by his predecessors have been provided for the suppression of all disclosures, by means of which the abuses which he profits by might be checked.
Example 2. — Reform, temperate and intemperate.
For the designation of the species or degree of poli- tical reform which, by him who speaks of it, is meant to be represented as excessive or pernicious, the language aftbrds no such single-worded appellative as in the case of liberty. — the liberty of the press. For making the nominal and pretended real distinction, and mark- ing out on the object of avowed reprobation the per- nicious or excessive species or degree, recourse must therefore be had to epithets or adjuncts: such for in- Ch, 6.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 277 Stance as violent, intemperate, outrageous, theoretical, speculative, and so forth.
If, with the benefit of the subterfuge afforded by any of these dyslogistic epithets, a man indulges him- self in tlie practice of reprobating reform in terms thus vague and comprehensive, and without designating by any more particular and determinate word the species or decree of reform to which he means to confine his reprobation, or the specific objections he may have to urge, you may in general venture to conclude it is not to any determinate species or degree that liis real dis- approbation and intended opposition confines itself, but that it extends itself to every species or degree of reform which, according to his expectation, would be efficient: that is, by which any of the existing abuses would find a corrective.
For, between all abuses whatsoever, there exists that connexion, — between all persons who see each of them any one abuse in which an advantage results to himself, there exists in point of interest that close and sufficiently understood connexion, of which intimation has been given already. To no one abuse can cor- rection bs administered without endangering the exist- ence of every other.
If, then, with this inward determination not to suffer, so far as depends upon himself, the adoption of any reform which he is able to prevent, it should seem to him necessary or advisable to j;ut on fur a cover, the profession or appearance of a desire to con- tribute to such reform, — in pursuance of the device or 278 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 6.
fallacy here in question he will represent that which goes by the name of reform as distinguishable into two species; one of them a fit subject for approbation, the other for disapprobation. That which he thus pro- fesses to have marked for approbation he will accord- ingly, for the expression of such approbation, charac- terize by some adjunct of the eulogistic cast, such as moderate, for example, or temperate, or practical, or practicable.
To the other of these nominally distinct species he will, at the same time, attach some adjunct of the dyslogistic cast, such as violent, intemperate, extrava- gant, outrageous, theoretical, speculative, and so forth.
Thus, then, in profession and to appearance, there are in his conception of the matter two distinct and opposite species of reform, to one of which his appro- bation, to the other his disapprobation, is attached. But the species to which his approbation is attached is an empty species, — a species in which no individual is, oris intended to be, contained.
The species to which his disapprobation is attached is, on the contrary, a crowded species, a receptacle in which the whole contents of \he genus — of the genus reform — are intended to be included.
Ch. 7.] FALtAClRS or CONFUSION. 279 CHAPTER VII.
Popular Corruption.
Ad superbiam.
E.vposition. The instrument of deception, of which the argu- ment here in question is composed, may be thus ex- pressed: — Tlie source of corruption is in the minds of the people; so rank and extensively seated is that corruption, that no political reform can ever liave any effect in removing it^.
Exposure. This fallacy consists in giving to the word corrup- tion, when applied to the people, a sense altogether * This was an argument brought forward against padiamentary re- form by William Windham in the House of Commons, and by him insisted on with great emphasis. This man was among the disciples, imitators of, and co-operators with, Edmund Burke — that Edmund Burke with whom the subject many were the swinish multitude: — swinish in nature, and apt therefore to receive the treatment which is apt to be given to swine. In private life, that is, in their dealings with those who were immediately about them, at any rate such of them as were of their own class, many of these men, many of these haters and calumniators of mankind at large, are not unamiable; but, seduced by that sinister interest which is possessed by them in common, they en- courage in one another the antisocial affection in the case where it operates upon the most extensive scale. If, while thus encouraging himself in the hating and contemning the people, a man of this cast finds himself hated by them, the fault is surely more in him than them; and, whatever it may hapi)cn to him to suffer from it, be has himsell to thank for it.
1280 FALLACIRS OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 1.
indeterminate, — a sense in and by which all tliat is distinctly expressed is the disaffection of the speaker as towards the persons spoken of, imputing to them a bad moral character or cast of mind, but without any intimation given of the particular nature of it.
It is the result of a thick confusion of ideas, whether sincere, or affected for the purpose.
In the case of a parliamentary election, each elec- tor acts as a trustee for iiimsclf and for all the other members of the community in the exercise of the branch of political power here in question. If, by the manner in which his vote is received from him, he is precluded (as by ballot) from the possibility of pro- moting his own particular interest to the prejudice of the remainder of the universal interest, the only in- terest of his which he can entertain a prospect of pro- moting by such his vote is his share of the universal interest: and for doing this, he sees before him no other possible means than the contributing to place the share of power attached to the seat in question in the hands of that candidate who is likely to render most service to the universal interest.
Now, how inconsiderable soever may be in his eyes this his share in the universal interest, still it will be sufficient to turn the scale where there is nothing in the opposite scale: and, by the supposition, the empti- ness of the opposite scale has been secured in the mode of election by ballot, where the secrecy thereby endeavoured at is accomplished, as to so complete a certainty it may be. If then, to continue the alhision, Ch.7.'] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 281 the value of his share in the universal interest, in his eyes, is such as to overcome the love of ease, — the aversion to labour, — he will repair to the place, and give his vote, — to that candidate who, in his eyes, is likely to do most service to the universal interest: if it be not sufficient to overcome that resisting force, he will then forbear to give his vote; and though he will do no good to the universal interest, he will do no harm to it.
Thus it is that, under an apposite system of elec- tion procedure, suj)posing ihcni in the account of self-regarding prudence equal, the least benevolent set of men will, on this occasion, render as much service to the universal interest as the most benevolent: the least benevolent, if that be wliat is meant bv the most corrupt; and if that is not meant, nothing which is to the purpose, nor in short any thing which is determi- nate, is meant.
On the other hand, in so far as the system of elec- tion is so ordered, that by the manner in which he gives his vote a man is enabled to promote his own separate interest, what is sufficiently notorious is, that no ordinary portion of benevolence in the shape of public spirit will suffice to prevent the breacli of trust in question from being committed.
In the case, therefore, of the subject many, to whom exclusively it was applied, tlie word corruption has no determinate and intelligible application. But to the class of the ruling few, it has a perfectly intelligible 282 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch, 7.
application; — application in a sense in which the truth of it is as notorious as the existence of the sun at noon- day. Pretending to be all of them chosen by the sub- ject many, — chosen in fact, a very small proportion of them in that manner, — the rest by one another, — they act in the character of trustees for the subject many, bound to support the interest of the subject many: instead of so doing, being with money exacted from the subject many bribed by one another acting under the ruling one, they tict in constant breach of such their trust, serving in all things their own particular and sinister interests at the expense and to the sacri- fice of that interest of the subject many, which, to- gether with that of the ruling few, composes and con- stitutes the universal interest. Corruj)t, corruption, corruptors, corruptionist^ applied to conduct such as hath been just described, — the meaning given to these terms wants assuredly nothing of being sufficiently in- telligible.
A circumstance that renders this fallacy in a pecu- liar degree insidious and dangerous, is a sort of ob- scure reference made by it to certain religious notions: to the doctrine of original sin as delivered in the com- pendium of Church of England faith, termed the 39 articles.
Into that doctrine, considered in a religious point of view, it is not necessary on this occasion to make any inquiry. The field here in question is the field of politics; and applied to this field the fallacy in ques- Ch. 7.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 283 tion seeks to lay the axe to the root of all government. It applies not only to this, but to all other remedies against that preponderance of self-regarding over so- cial interest pnd affection, which is essential to man's existence, but which for the creation and preservation of political society, and thence for his well-being in it, requires to be checked — checked by a force formed within itself. It goes to the exclusion of all laws, and in particular of all penal laws; for if, for remedy to what is amiss, nothing is to be attempted by arrange- ments which, such as those relative to the principle and mode of eledion as applied to lulers, bring with them no punishment, — no infliction, — how much less should the accomplishment of any such object be at- tempted by means so expensive and aflflictive as those applied by penal laws!
By the employment given to this fallacy, the em- ployer of it afforded himself a double gratification; — he afforded an immediate gratification to his own anti- social pride and insolence, while he afforded to his ar- gument a promise of efficiency by the food it supplied to the same appetite in the breasts of his auditors, bound to him, as he saw them to be, by a community of sinister interest.
Out of the very sink of immorality was this fallacy drawn: a sentiment of hatred and contempt, of which not only all the man's fellow-countrymen were the declared, but all mankind in at least equal degree were the naturally supposable, object. " So bad arc they 284 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 7.
in themselves, no matter how badly they are treated: they cannot be treated worse than they deserve: Of a bad bargain (says the proverb) make the best; of so bad a crew, let us make the best for ourselves: no matter what they sutFer, be it what it may, they deserve it." If Nero had thought it worth his while to look out for a justification, he could not have found a more apt one than this: an argument which, while it harmonized so entirely with the worst passions of the worst men, screened its true nature in some measure from the observation of better men, by the cloud of confusion in which it wrapped itself.