In regard to corruption and uncorruption, or, to speak less ambiguously, in regard to vice and virtue, how then stands the plain and real truth? That in the ruling few there is most vice and corruption, be- cause in their hands has been the power of serving their own private and sinister interest at the expense of the universal interest: and in so doing they have, in the design and with the effect of making instruments of one another for the accomplishment of that perpe- tual object, been the disseminators of vice and cor- ruption: — That in the subject many, there has been least of vice and corruption, because they have not been in so large a degree partakers in that sinister in- terest, and have thus been left free to pursue the track pointed out to them, partly by men who have found a personal interest in giving to their conduct a univer- sally beneficial direction,— partly by discerning and Ch. 7] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 285 uncorrupted men, who, lovers of their country and mankind, have not been in the way of having that generous affection overpowered in their breasts by any particular self-regarding interest.
Nearly akin to the cry of popular corruption is lan- guage commonly used to the following effect: — " In- stead of reforming others, instead of reforming your betters, instead of reforming the state, the constitution, the church, every thing that is most excellent, — let each man reform himself — let him look at home, he will find there enough to do, and what is in his power, without looking abroad and aiming at what is out of his power, &c. &c."
Language to this effect may at all times be heard from anti-reformists, always, as the tone of it manifests, ac- companied with an air of triumph, — the triumph of superior wisdom over shallow and presumptuous arro- gance.
One feature which helps to distinguish it from the cry of popular corruption, is the tacit assumption that, between the operation condemned and the ope- ration recommended, incompatibility has place: than which, when once brought clearly to view, nothing, it will be seen, can be more groundless.
Certain it is, that if every man's time and labour is exclusively employed in the correcting of his own personal imperfections, no part of it will be employed in the endeavour to correct the imperfections and abuses which have place in the Government, and thus 286 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 7.
the mass of those imperfections and abuses will go on, never diminishing, but perpetually increasing with the torments of those who suffer by them, and the com- forts of those who profit by them: which is exactly what is wanted.
Ch. 8.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 287 CHAPTER VIII.
Obser'vations on the seven preceding Fallacies.
In the seven preceding fallacies, and in others of a similar nature, the device resorted to is uniformly the same, and consists in entirely avoiding the question in debate, by substituting general and ambiguous terms in the place of clear and particular appellatives.
In other fallacies the argument advanced is gene- rally irrelevant, but argument of some kind they do contain. In these, argument there is none; Sunt verba et voces pratereaqiie nihil.
To find the only word that will suit his purpose, the defender of corruption is obliged to make an as- cent in the scale of generalization, to soar into the re- gion of vague generalities, till he comes to a word by the extensiveness of whose import he is enabled, so by confounding language, to confound conceptions, as without general and immediate fear of detection to defend with a chance of success an object of the de- fence of which there would under its proper and pecu- liar name be no hope.
When of two terms, viz. a generic term, and a spe- cific term included under it, the specific term alone is proper, i, e. the proposition into the composition of which it enters, true; the generic term, if substituted to it, is ambiguous, and of the ambiguity, if the effect of it is not perceived, the consequence is error and de- ception.
Opposite to this aerial mode of contestation, is the mode already known and designated by the a[)pella- tion of close reasoning.
In proportion as a man's mode of reasoning is close, (always supposing his intention honest,) for the desig- nation of every object which he has occasion to bring to view, he employs in preference the most particular expression that he can find: that which is best adapted to the purpose of bringing to view every thing which is its object to bring to view, as clear as possible from every thing which the purpose does not require to be brought, and which in consequence it is his endeavour to avoid bringing, to view.
In proportion as a man is desirous of contributing on every occasion to the welfare of the community, and at the same time skilled in the means that most directly and certainly lead to the attainment of that end, he will, on the occasion of the language employed by him in the designation of each measure, look out for that plan of nomenclature and classification by which the degree and mode of its conduciveness or repugnancy to that end may be the more easily and correctly judged of.
Thus, in regard to ofiences — acts which on account of their adverseness to the general welfare are objects meet for discouragement, — for prohibition, and in case of necessity, for punishment, — not content with the employing for the designation of each such act in Ch. 8.] FALTAcnis or confusion. 281?
particular, that mode of expression by which every in- dividual act partaking of the common nature indicated by the generic term may be brought to view, to the exclusion of every act not partaking of that common nature, he will, for the designation of the relation it bears to other offences, and of the place which it oc- cupies in the aggregate assemblage of these obnoxious acts, find for it and assign to it some such more gene- ral and extensive appellation as shall give intimation of the mode in which the wound given by it to the ge- neral welfare is perceptible.
1. Offences against individuals other than a man's self, and those, assignable individuals, 2. Against a man's self. 3. Against this or that particular class of the community. 4. Against the whole community without distinction.
In the case of individuals; offences against person, against reputation, against property, against condition in life; — and so on through the other classes above designated^.
For the opposite reason, in proportion as without regard to, and to the sacrifice of, the general vvelfare, a man is desirous of promoting his own personal or any other private interest, he will on the occasion of the language employed in the designation of each measure look out for that plan of nomenclature and classification, by which the real tendency of the mea- * See Traites de Ligislation, torn. i. p. 172. Classification des dilitt.
V 290 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 8.
sure to which he proposes to give birth or support, shall be as effectually masked as possible: — rendered as dif- ficult as possible to be comprehended and judged of.
In the English law under the principle of arrange- ment which till comparatively of late years was the only one, and which is still the predominant one, such were the groupes into which, by the classical denomi- nations employed, they were huddled together, that by those denominations not any the slightest intimation was given of the nature and mischief of the offences respectively contained under them. Treasons, felo- nies unclergyable, felonies clergyable, premunires, misdemeanors.
By the four first of these five denominations what is designated, is, — not the offence itself,— but the treat- ment given to the offender in respect of it in the way of punishment: by the other denomination not so much as even that: — only that the act is treated on the footing of an offence, and on that score made pu- nishable: it is the miscellaneous class, the contents of which are composed of all such offences as are not comprised under any of the others.
To what cause can a scheme of arrangement so in- compatible with clear conception and useful instruc- tion be ascribed?
Its creation may be traced to one source: — its con- tinuance to another. For its creation, (such is its an- tiquity,) the weakness of the public intellect, presents an adequate cause. Of treason and felony, — terms Ch. 8.j FALLACIKS OF f'ONFUSTOX. 291 imported at the Norman conquest with the rest of the nomenclature of the feudal system, — the origin is lost in the darkness of primaeval barbarism: religion, a per- version of the Christian religion, gave birth after a hard and long labour to the distinction between cler- gyable and unclergyable. Religion by a further per- version gave birth to premunires in the reign of Edward III.
To the designs of those whose interest it is that misrule in all its shapes should be perpetuated, and thence, that useful information, by which it might be put to shame, and in time to flight, should as long as possible be excluded, nothing could be more service- able than this primaeval imbecility. Under these de- nominations in general, and in particular under felony, acts of any description are capable of being ranked with equal propriety, or rather with equal absence of impropriety: acts of any description whatsoever, and consequently acts altogether pure from atiy of those mischievous consequences from which alone any suf- ficient warrant for subjecting the agents to ptmi^h- ment, can be found; and offences thus clear of evei*y really mischievous quality, have accordingly been created, and still continue in existence, in convenient abundance.
By this contrivance the open tyranny of the lawyet- ledlegislator, and the covert tyranny of the law-mak- ing judge are placed at the most perfect ease. The keenest eye cannot descry the felonies destined to be created by the touch of the sceptre upon the pattern 292 FALLACIES OF CONFUSIOX. \Ch. 8.
of the old: the liveliest imagination cannot pourtray to itself the innoxious acts destined to be fashioned or swollen into felonies.
Analogous to this ancient English systenn — corre- spondent and analogous both as to the effect itself, and as to its cause, is the system lately brought out by the legislators of France and their forced imita- tors in Germany. Faute, contravention, dilit, crime, classes, rising one above another in a climax of se- verity,— all of thein designative how indeterminately soever, rather of the treatment to which at the hands of the judge, the agent is subjected, than of the sort of act for which he is subjected to that treatment, much less of the ground, or reason, on which (regard being had to the quality and quantity of mischief) it is thought fit he shall be so dealt with.
Lawyer-craft in alliance with political tyranny may be marked out as the source of this confusion in the English case; lawyer-craft in subjection to political tyranny in the I'rench case.
In England it is the interest of the man of law that the rule of action should be, and continue, in a state of as general uncertainty and incognoscibility as pos- sible: that on condition of pronouncing on each oc- casion a portion of the flash language adapted to that purpose he may in his state of law-adviser and advo- cate, be master of men's purses; in his state of judge, — of purse, reputation, condition in life, and life itself, to as complete a degree and with as little odium and suspicion as possible. This is the state of things Ch. 8.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 29S which it always lias been, and will be his interest to perpetuate: and this is the state of things which hi- therto it has been in his power to continue, and which accordingly does to this day continue in existence.
In France where the man of law is not the ally of the politician, but his slave, that which it is not the interest of the politician to keep out of the view of the subject is, what the law is; — that which it is his inter- est to keep (nor even that in all parts) out of the view of the subject, is, — what it is for the interest of the subject that the law should be; — what, in a word, the law oui2:ht to be.
Having brought the rule of action within a compass, the narrowness of which, in respect of the quantity of words, has never, regard being had to the amplitude of the matter, yet been equalled, — the tyrant of France has by this one act of charity displayed a quantity of merit, ample enough of itself to form a covering to no inconsiderable a portion of his sins.
But the exemplifications of vague generalities af- forded by these systems of classification are sufficient- ly striking. To save the authors of the systems from ranking any one of the oflfences in question under a denomination which would be manifestly inapplicable to it, and from the discredit which would attach to them from such a source, — ascending to a superior height in the logical scale, — in the scale of genera and species, — they provide a set of denominations so boundless in their extent, as to be capable without impropriety of including any objects whatsoever on FALLACIKS or CONFUSION. [C/i. 8.
which it might be found convenient to stamp the fac- titious quality desired. Noxiousness to other indivi- duals in this or that way, noxiousness to a person himself in this or that way — noxiousness to a particu- cular class of the community in this or that way — noxiousness to the whole community in this or that way, — these are qualities which it is not in the power of despotism to communicate to any act of any sort; but to cause such persons as it is performed by, to be punished with such or such a punishment, these are effects which, be the sort of act what it may, it is but too easy for supreme power in whatsoever hands reposed, to annex to it.
Here then are so many instances where the turn of the man in power not being capable of being served, or at least so well served, by giving to an object that which is at once its most particular and most proper name, a name of more general and extensive import is employed for the purpose of favouring that decep- tion, which by the designating of it by such its proper name, would have been dissipated, and thus giving to an exercise of power, which, if rightly denominated, would have been seen to be improper and mischiev- ous, the chance of not appearing in such its true light.
Ch. 9.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 295 CHAPTER IX.
Anti-rational Fallacies.
Ad verecundiam.
Ea^position.
When reason is found or supposed to be in op- position to a man's interests, his study will naturally be to render the faculty itself and whatsoever issues from it an object of hatred and contempt.
So long as the Government contains in it any sort of abuse from which the Members of the Government or any of them, derive in any shape a profit, and in the continuance of which, they possess a proportion- able interest, reason being against them, persons so circumstanced will be in so far against reason.
Instead of reason we might here say thought: Reason is a word that implies not merely the use of the faculty of thinking, but the right use of it. But sooner than fail of its object, the sarcasm and other figures of speech employed upon the occasion are di- rected not merely against reason, but against thought itself: as if there were something in the faculty of thought that rendered the exercise of it incompatible with useful and successful practice.
1. Sometimes a plan the adoption of which would not suit the official person's interest, is without more ado pronounced a speculative one: and by this obser- vation all need of rational and deliberate discussion,— 29^ FAIL ACIKS OF CONFUSION. [CIl. 9- such as objection to the end proposed, as not a tit one, — objection to the means employed as not being fit means, — is considered as being superseded.
To tiie wortl speculative, for further enforcement, are added or substituted, in a number more or less considerable, otiier terms, as nearly synonymous to it and to one another, as it is usual forwords called synonymous to be: viz. theoretical, visionary, chime- rical, romantic, Utopian.
2. Sometimes a distmction is taken, and thereupon a concession made. The plan is good in theory, but it would be had in practice, i. e. its being good in theory does not hinder its being bad in practice.
3. Sometimes, as if in consequence of a further progress made in the art of irrationality, the plan is pronounced to be too good to be practicable: and its being so good as it is, is thus represented as the very cause of its being bad in practice.
4. In short, such is the perfection at which this art is at length arrived, that the very circumstance of a plan's being susceptible of the appellation of a plan, has been gravely stated as a circumstance sufficient to warrant its being lejected: rejected, if not with ha- tred, at any rate with a sort of accompaniment, which to the million, is commonly felt still more galling — with contenipt.
" Looking at the House of Commons with these views (says a writer on the subject of Parliamentary Reform,) my object would be to find out its chief de- lects, and to attempt the remedy of these one by one.
Ch. 9-] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 297 To propose no system^ Jio great project y nothing which pretended even to the name of a plan, but to intro- duce in a temperate and concUiatoi^y manner * * * * one or two separate bills*."
In this strain were these men proposed to be addressed Anno 1810, by Mr. Brougham: in this strain were they addressed Anno J 8 19 by Sir James Mackintosh, in moving for a committee on the penal laws. To give a man any chance of doing any thing with them, in this same way they have ever been ad- dressed, and must ever be addressed, till by radical reform (for it cannot be by any thing less) the house shall have been purged of a class of men of whom the most complete inaptitude in respect of every element of appropriate aptitude, is an essential characteristic. In the scale of appropriate probity, in the scale of appropriate intellectual aptitude, to find their level, a man must descend below that of the very dregs of the people. Oh what a picture is here drawn of them, and by so experienced a hand! How cutting, yet how unquestionably just, the perhaps unintended, per- haps intended satire! To avoid awakening the real terrors of some, the sham terrors of others, all con- sistency, all comprehensive acquaintance with the field of action must be abjured. When idolatry in all its shapes shall have become extinct, and the words * This was Brougham: the time about June 1810. Reference is made to the Government periodical called the Satirist (by Manners), June 1810, No. 33. p. 570. But that wretched performance is now pretty well forgotten.
298 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C/l. 9- wise ancestors no longer an instrument of deception, but a by- word, with what scorn will not ancestors such as these be looked back upon by their posterity?
Intimate as is the connexion between all these con- trivances, there is however enough of distinction to render them, in this or that point of view, susceptible of a separate exposure.
Ea^posurc.
Sect. 1. Abuse of the words Speculative, Theoreti- cal, &c.
On the occasion of these epithets, and the propo- sitions of which they constitute the leading terms, what will be held up to view in the character of a fal- lacy, is, not the use of them, but merely the abuse.
It may be placed to the account of abuse^ as often as in a serious speech, without the allegation of any specific objection, an epithet of this class bestow- ed upon the measure, is exhibited as containing the expression of a sufficient reason for rejecting it, by putting upon it a mark of reprobation thus contemp- tuous.
What is altogether out of dispute, is, that many and many a measure has been proposed, to which this class of epithets, or some of them, would be justly applicable. But a man's conceptions must be woe- fully indistinct, or his vocabulary deplorably scanty, if, be the bad measure what it may, he cannot con- trive to give intimation of what, in his view, there is bad in it, without employing an epithet, the effect of Sect. 1.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSlON^. 299 which is to hold out, as an object of contempt, the very act of thinking, the operation of thought itself.
The fear of theory has, to a certain extent, its foun- dation in reason. There is a general propensity in those who adopt this or that theory to push it too far: i. e. to set up a general proposition which is not true until certain exceptions have been taken out of it, — to set it up without any of those exceptions, — to pursue it without regard to the exceptions, — and thence, pro tantOj in cases in which it is false, fallacious, repug- nant to reason and utility.
The propensity thus to push theory too far is ac- knowledged to be almost universal.
But what is the just inference? Not that theoreti- cal propositions, i. e. propositions of considerable ex- tent, should from such their extent be concluded to be false in toto: but only that in the particular case, in- quiry should be made, whether, supposing the propo- sition to be in the character of a general rule gene- rally true, there may not be a case in which, to reduce it within the limits of truth, reason and utility, an ex- ception ought to be taken out of it.
Every man's knowledge is, in its extent, propor- tioned to the extent as well as number of those gene- ral propositions, of tiie truth of which, they being true, he has the persuasion in his own mind: in other words, the extent of these his theories comprises the extent of his knowledge.
If, indeed, his theories are false, then, in proper- 300 FALLACIES OF CONTUSION. [Ch. 9- tion as they are extensive, he is the more deeply steeped in ignorance and error.
But from the mere circumstance of its being theo- retical, by these enemies to knowledge its falsehood is inferred as if it were a necessary consequence, with as much reason as if from a man's speaking it were inferred as a necessary consequence, that what he speaks must be false.
One would think, that in thinking there were some- tliing wicked or else unwise; every body feels or fan- cies a necessity of disclaiming it. " I am not given to speculation." " I am no friend to theories." Spe- culation, theory, what is it but thinking? Can a man disclaim speculation, can he disclaim theory, without disclaiming thought? If they do not mean thought, they mean nothing; for unless it be a little more thought than ordinary, theory, speculation, mean no- thing.
To escape from the imputation of n)editating de- struction to mankind, a man must disclaim every thing that puts him above the level of a beast.
A plan proposes a wrong end; or the end being right, proposes a wrong set of means. If this be what a man means, can he not say so? Would not what he says have somewhat more meaning — be a little more consistent with the principles of common sense — with common honesty — than saying of it that it is theoretical — that it is speculative?
Sect. 2. Utopian.
As to the epithet Utopian, the case in which it is rightly applied seems to be that in which, in the event of the adoption of the proposed plan, felicitous effects are represented as about to take place, no causes ad- equate to the production of such effects being to be found in it.
In Sir Thomas More's romance, from which the epithet Utopian has its origin, a felicitous state of things is announced by the very name.
Considering the age in which he lived, even without adverting to the sort of religion of which he was so honest and pertinacious an adherent, we may be suffi- ciently assured that the institutions spoken of by him as having been productive of this effect, had, taking them altogether, very little tendency to produce it.
Such, in general, is likely enough to be the case with the portion of political felicity exhibited in any other romance: and thus far the epithet romantic is likely enough, though not certain, to be found well applied to any political plan, in the conveyance of which, to the notice of the public, any such vehicle is employed. Causes and effects being alike at the command of this species of poet in prose, the honour of any felicitous event is as easily ascribed to uniiifluencing circum- staiices, or even to obstacles, as to causes.
If the established state of things, including the abuse which in so many shapes is interwoven in it, were any thing like what the undiscriminating de- SOa FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C/l. 9- fenders of it represent it as being, viz. a system of per- fection,— in tliis actually established system, (real in so far as abuse and imperfection are ascribed to it, imaginary in so far as exemption from such abuse and imperfection is ascribed to it,) might indeed be seen an Utopia — a felicitous result; flowing from causes not having it in their nature to be productive of any such effects, but having it in their nature to be productive of contrary effects.
In every department of Government, say the advo- cates of reform, abuses and imperfections are abun- dant; because the hands in which the powers of Go- vernment are reposed, have, partly by their own arti- fice, partly by the supineness of the people, been placed in such circumstances, that abuse in every shape is a source of profit to themselves.
Under these circumstances, if any expectation were really entertained, that by these hands any conside- rable defalcation fi*om the aggregate mass of abuse will ever be made, — to no other expectation can the charge of utopianism be with more propriety applied: effects so produced would be produced against the force of irresistible obstacles, as well as absolutely without a cause.
But in that same system there has all along been preserved,^ by the many, a faculty, and that a faculty every now and then, though much too seldom and too weakly, exercised, of creating, and without very considerable inconvenience or danger to themselves, uneasiness, more or less considerable, to these their SeCi. S.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 303 rulers. In the state of things thus described, there is nothing of utopianism; for it is matter of universally BOtorious fact; and in this faculty on the part of the many of creating uneasiness in the bosoms of the few, — in this faculty on the part of those who suffer by the abuses of creating uneasiness in the bosoms of those who profit by them, — in this invaluable, and, except in America, unexampled faculty, — rests the only chance, the only source of hope.
Sect. 3. Good in theory ^ bad in pi^actice.
Even in the present stage of civilization, it is almost a rare case> that by reason, looking to the end in view, matters of government aie determined: and the cause is, the existence of so many institutions, which being adverse to the only proper end, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, are maintained, because favour- able to the interests of the ruling few. Custom, blind custom, established under the dominion of that sepa~ rate and sinister interest, is the guide by which most operations have been conducted. In so far as the interest of the many has appeared to the governing few to coincide with their own separate interests, in so far it has been pursued, in so far as it has ap- peared incompatible with those interests, it has been, neglected or opposed.
One consequence is, that when by accident a plan comes upon the carpet, in the formation of which the only legitimate end. of Government has been looked 304 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 9- to, if the beaten track of custom has in ever so slight a degree been departed from, the practical man, the man of routine, knows not what to make of it; its goodness, if it be good, its badness, if it be bad, are alike removed out of tlie sphere of his observance. If it be conducive to the end, it is more than he can see, for the end is what he has not been used to look to.
In the consideration of any plan, what he has not been used to, is to consider what, in the department in question, is the proper end of every plan that can be presented, and whether the particular plan in ques- tion be conducive to that end. What he has been used to, is, lo consider whether in the matter and form it be like what he has practised. If in a certain de- gree unlike, it throws him into a sort of perplexity. If the plan be a good one, and in the form of reasons, the points of advantage whereby it is conducive to the proper end in view have been presented, and in such sort that he sees not any, the existence of which he feels himself able to contest, nor at the same time any ^disadvantages which he can present in the character of preponderant ones, he will be afraid so far to commit himself as to pronounce it a bad one. By way of com- pounding the matter, and to show his candour, if he be on good terms with you, he will perhaps admit it to be good, viz. in theory. But this concession made, it be- ing admitted and undeniable that theory is one thing and practice another, he will take a distinction, and, to Sect. 3.] tAllacies of confusion. 3o5