The use of a speech is to carry the measure of the moment: and if the measure be but carried, no mat- ter for the means. The measure being carried, the paradox is seen to be no less absurd and mischievous than it is strange: no matter; the measure is carried. War is declared, or a negotiation for peace broken off. Peace you will have some time or other, but in Sect. 5.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 323 the mean time the paradox has had its effect. A law has passed: and that law an absurd and mischievous one. Some day or other the mischief may receive a remedy: but that day may not arrive these two or three hundred years *.
In a speech too, it is all profit, no loss. Your point may be gained, or not gained: your reputation remains where it was. It is your speech, or not your speech, whichever is most convenient. To A, who, under the notion of its being yours, admires it, it is your speech; to B, who, because it is yours, or because it is an ab- surd and mischievous one, spurns at it, it is not your speech. If the words of your paradox are ambiguous, as they will be, if they are well and happily chosen, — susceptible of two senses, an innoxious and a noxious one; this is exactly what is wanted. Ay who on your credit is ready to take it, and to adopt it in the noxious one which suits your purpose, is suffered silently to take it in that noxious one. But if jB, taking it in the noxious one, attacks you and pushes you too hard, then some adherent of yours (not you yourself, for it would be weak indeed for you to appear in the matter), some adherent of yours brings out the innocent sense, vows and swears it was that meaning that was yours, and belabours poor B with a charge of calumny.
If in the choice of your expression you have been * Till lately, the country has suffered in a variety of ways by the law made in the reign of Elizabeth to prevent good workmanship: the effect is felt, the cause men cannot bear to look at.
324 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 10.
negligent or unfortunate, so that no more than one sense, and that one indefensible, can with any colour of reason be ascribed to it, you thus lose part of your advantage: but still no harm can happen to you; you disavow, that is your adherent, for you, disavows the very words: and thus every thing is as it should be.
Thus it is that from speeches — spoken and unmi- nuted speeches — you derive much the same sort of advantage as is derived from that sort of sham law (which, in so far as it is made by any body, is made by judges, and is called conmion or unwritten law) by lawyers: thundering all the while the charge of insin- cerity or folly in all who have the assurance to ascribe to it either a different word, or a different mean- ing. To the supposed speech, as to-the supposed law, they give what words they please, and then to those words they give what meaning they please. The law, indeed, neither has, nor ever had, any determinate form of words belonging to it: whereas the speech could not have been spoken, unless it had had a set, and that a complete one, of determinate words be- longing to it. But in the speech — the words never hav- ing been committed to writing, or if they have been, evidence of their being the same words not being producible, — the speech-maker is as safe as if he had never uttered any one of those words.
In the intellectual weakness of those on whom, in this form, imposition is endeavoured to be practised — in this degrading weakness, and in the state of ser- Sect. 5.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 3£5 vitude in which they are accordingly held by the shackles of authority*, may be seen the cause of that success, and thence of the effrontery and insolence, which this species of imposition manifests. In pro- portion as intellect is weaker and weaker, reason has less and less hold upon it; authority, fortified by the appearance, real or fallacious, of strong persuasion, more and more.
It is in this way that, strange as at first mention it cannot but appear — it is in this way — and when ad- dressed to minds of such a texture, the more flagrant and outrageous the absurdity, the stronger its persua- sive force. Why? because without the strongest ground, a persuasion — so strong a persuasion, of the truth of a proposition, at first sight at least, so adverse to truth, it is taken for granted, could not have been formed.
When the terrors of whicli religion is the source, are the instruments employed for inculcating it, the strength of the persuasion thus inspired, presents little cause for wonder. In the intensity of the exertion made for the purpose of believing, the greater the dif- ficulty, the greater is, in case of success, the merit. Hence that most magnanimous of all conclusions, credo quia impossibile est. Higher than this, the force of faith — the force and consequently the merit — can- not go: by this one bound the pinnacle is attained; and whatsoever reward Omnipotence has in store for * See 1. Ad Vciccundiaiii,(l\\. 1. Fallacv ot Authority.
326 FALLACIES or CONFUSION, \Cfl. 10.
service of this complexion, is placed out of the reach of failure.
Be the absurdity ever so flagrant, — the nature of man considered, and how absolute the dominion which is exercised over him by the passions of fear and hope, — be the absurdity ever so flagrant, cause of just won- der can never be afforded, by any acceptance which it receives with the support afforded to it by the most irresistible of the passions: The understanding is not the source, reason is of itself no spring of action: the understanding is but an instrument in the hand of the will: it is by hopes and fears that the end of action is determined; all that reason does, is to find and determine upon the means: But where, at the mere suggestion of a set of men with gowns of a certain form on their backs, where at their mere suggestion (unsupported by any motive of a nature to act on the will), we see men living and act- ing under the persuasion that in the vice of lying, there is virtue to metamorphose into justice, the crime of usurpation; — here it is not the will that is con- founded and overwhelmed, it is the understanding that is deluded '^ ' To form a ground for decision, a judge asserts as true, some fact which to his knowledge is not true: some fact for the assertion of which, if, in the station of a witness, and without having for his pro- tection the power of a judge, a man were to venture the assertion of, he would by this same judge be punished with imprisonment and in- famy. To screen it from the abhorrence due to it, this He, exceeding in wickedness the most wicked of the assertions commonly brought into view under that name, is decked up in the same appellation, fie- Sect, 5.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 327 Hon, which is employed in bringing to view the innoxious and amusing pictures of ideal scenes for which we are indebted to the poetic ge- nius. What you are thus doing with the lie in your mouth? — had you power to do it without the lie? — Your lie is a foolish one. Have you no such power? — It is a flagitious one. In this mire may be seen laid the principal part of the foundation of English common law.
328 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 11 CHAPTER XI.
Non-causa pro causa: or, Cause and obstacle con- Jounded.
Ad judicium.
Rxpositmi.
When in a system which has good points in it you have a set of abuses, or any of them to defend; after a general eulogium bestowed on the system, or an in- dication more or less explicit of the good effects the existence of which is out of dispute, take the abuses you have to defend, either separately or collectively, (collectively is the safest course,) and to them ascribe the credit of having given birth to the good effects.
Cum hoc, ergd propter hoc.
In every political system which is of long standing, and which not having been produced, any considerable part of it, in prosecution of any comprehensive de- sign, good or bad, but jnece-meal at different and di- stant times, according to the casual and temporary predominance of conflicting interests, whatsoever may be the good or the bad points in the state of things which at any given time constitutes the result of it, among the incidents which may be observed as having place in it, some, upon proper scrutiny and proper distinction made, may be seen to have operated in the character of elective or promotive causes; others, Ch. 11.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 3^9 in the character of obstacles or preventives; others, to have been in relation to them, iu the character of immaterial incidents or inoperative circumstances.
In such a system, whatsoever are the abuses or other imperfections in it, and whatsoever are the prosperous results observable in it, tliese prosperous results will have found, in the abuses and imperfections, not so many efficient or promotive causes, but so many ob- stacles or preventives.
Meantime, if so you can order matters that, instead of being recognised as having operated in the charac- ter of obstacles, the abuses in question shall be be^ lieved to have operated in the character of efficient or promotive causes, nothing can contribute more power- fully to the effect which it is your endeavour to pro- duce.
If you cannot so far succeed as to cause the pro- sperous results in question to be referred to the abuses by which they have been obstructed and retarded, the next thing you are to endeavour at, is, to cause them to be ascribed to some inoperative circumstance or circumstances, having in appearance some connexion or other — the nearer the better — with the abuses, At any rate, you will, as far as depends upon you, cause the prosperous circumstances in question to be referred to any causes rather than the real ones: for in proportion as it becomes manifest of what causes they are the results, it will become manifest of what other circumstances they have not been the results; whereupon, no sooner is any one of the abuses you 330 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. U.
have to defend, considered in this point of view, than a question will be apt to occur: — Well, and this? — what has been the use of this? To which no answer being found, the consequence is such as need not be mentioned.
Real knowledge being among the number of your most formidable adversaries, your endeavour must of course be to obstruct its advancement and propaga- tion as effectually as possible.
Real knowledge depends in a great degree on the being able, on each occasion, to distinguish from each other, causes, obstacles, and uninfluencing circum- stances: these, therefore, it must on every occasion be your study to confound as effectually as possible.
E.vposure.
Example 1. — Good Government. — Obstacle repre- sented as a cause, — the influence of the Croxvn.
If the superiority of the Constitution of the English limited monarchy, as compared with all absolute or less limited monarchies, be in England a point un- disputed, and regarded as indisputable, and the cha- racteristic by which that limited monarchy is distin- guished from all absolute and less limited monarchies, is, the influence, the superior influence of the mass of the people, — the influence exercised by the will of the nominees of the people on the wills of the nomi- nees of the king, and thence on the conduct of the king himself, — a circumstance which, in so far as it operates, diminishes the efficiency of this influence, SecL }.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 331 and on many, if not most occasions, may be seen to destroy that efficiency altogether, — cannot with pro- priety be numbered among the causes of that supe- riority, but must, on the contrary, be placed to the account of the obstacles that obstructed it.
In point of fact, the members of the House of Commons, some really, all in supposition, nominees of the mass of the people, act, as to the nominees of the king, — viz. the members of the executive depart- ment,— with the authority of judges: viz. to the pur- pose of causing punishment to be inflicted under the name of punishment, in case of special delinquency, not without the concurrence of the House of Lords; but to the purpose of causing removal, without any such concurrence.
In so far as over the will of the nominees of the people as above mentioned, acting in their above- mentioned character of judges, an efficient influence is exercised by the king or his nominees, the efficiency of this judicial authority is destroyed; the nominees of the king, in the exercise of their respective functions, committing any enormities at pleasure; and thereupon in the character though without the name of judges, absolving themselves, and, if such be their pleasure, praising themselves for what they have done.
In this case, the fallacy consists in representing, defending, and supporting, in the character of an in- dispensable cause of the acknowledged prosperous re- sults, the sinister and corruptive influence in question; 332 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. \Cll. 11.
— a circumstance which, so far from being in any de- gree a proniotive cause, is an obstacle.
In uhat way it operates in the character of an ob- structive and destructive circumstance, has already been shown above. In what way, with relation to the same effect, it can operate as a cause, has never been so much as attempted to be shown: it has been on every occasion taken for granted, and this, on no other ground than that of its being a concomitant cir- cumstance.
Example 2. — Effect, good Government: — Obstacle represented as a cause., — station of the bishops in the House of Lords.
To good government, neither in the situation of a bishop nor in any other situation can a man be con- tributory, any further than as he takes a part in it.
In that department of government which is carried on in the House of Lords, a man cannot bear a part any further than as he takes a part in the debates carried on there, or at least attends and gives his vote.
But of the whole body of bishops, including since the Union those from Ireland, a small part, upon an average scarce so many as a tenth, are seen to attend and give tlieir votes: and as for speaking — when any instance of it happens to take place, it sets men a-staring and talking as if it were a phenomenon.
How comes it that the number of those who vote, Sect, 2.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 333 and especially of those who speak, is so small? Be- cause a general feeling exists, that to that class tem- poral occupations and politics are not suitable occu- pations.
And why not suitable?
1. Because in that war of personalities in which, in a large proportion, the debates in that as well as in the other House consist, a man of this class is in a pe- culiar degree vulnerable. The Apostles, did they bear any part in, had they any seat in, the Roman Senate, or so much as in the Common-council of the city of Jerusalem? Was it Peter, was it James, was it John, — was it not Dives, that used to clothe himself in purple and fine linen? — Walking from place to place to preach, comprised their occupations. If yours were the same, would you not be rather more like them than you are?
2. Because there is a general feeling, though not expressed in words, from a sort of decency and compassion, that a legislative assembly is not a fit place for a man who is not at liberty to speak what he thinks; and who, should he be bold enough to bring to view any one of the plainest dictates of poli- tical utility, might be put to silence and confounded by reference to this or that one of the 39 Articles, or by this or that text of Scripture, out of a Testament Old or New.
So many things of which, however improbable, he is bound to profess his belief.
So many things which, however indefensible by 334 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ck. 11.
reason, he would be bound, were he to open his mouth, to defend.
Matter of duty to him to be, — matter of infamy not to be, — steeled against conviction.
So many vulnerable parts with which he is embar- rassed, and with which an antagonist of his is not em- barrassed.
So many chains with which he is shackled, and with which an antagonist of his is not shackled.
A man whose misfortune should it be to hear a word or two of reason, it would be his duty not to listen to it.
To a man thus circumstanced, to talk reason would have something ungenerous in it and indecorous: it would be as if a man should set about talking inde- cently to his daughter or his wife.
In vain would they answer, what has been so often answered, that neither Jesus nor his Apostles ever meant what they said — that every thing is to be ex- plained and explained away. By answers of this sort, those and those alone would be satisfied, whose satis- faction, with every thing that is established, is im- moveable, and not susceptible of experiencing dimi- nution from any objections, or increase from any answers.
Example 3. — Effect, useful national learning; Ob- stacle stated as a cause, system of education pur- sued in Church-of -England Universities.
On the subject of learning, to the question whether with relation to it the universities might with more Sect. 3.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 335 propriety be considered as causes or as obstacles, much need not here be said, after what has been said on the subject by the Reverend Vicesimus Knox, and of late by the Edinburgh Review.
If these fragments, with the exception of the scur- rilous parts of the Review, were put together and made into a book, a most instructive addition to it might be made by a history of the treatment expe- rienced from this quarter by the inventions of the quaker Lancaster. In the age of academical and right-reverend orthodoxy, learning, it would there be seen, is even to the very first rudiments of it, an ob- ject of terror and hatred.
Of this Quaker, though he undertook not to attempt to make converts, what is certain, is, that no school would, under his management, have been a school of perjury: and since, in so far as by his means the ele- mentary parts of knowledge made their way among the people, intellectual light would take place of intellectual darkness, he experienced the hostility that might so naturally have been expected from those who love darkness better than light, to wit, for a reason which may be seen in that book, the knowledge of which it was his object to diffuse, as it was theirs to confine and stifle it.
In virtue and knowledge, in every feature of felicity, the empire of Montezuma outshines, as every body knows, all the surrounding states, even the Common- wealth of Tlascala not excepted.
Where (said an inquirer once, to the high priest of 336 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [67/. 11.
the temple of Vitzlipultzli), where is it that we are to look for the true cause of so glorious a pre-eminence? *' Look for it!" (answered the holy pontiff,) " Where shouldst thou look for it, blind sceptic, but in the copiousness of the streams in which the sweet and precious blood of innocents flows daily down the altafs of the great God?"
" Yes," answered in full convocation and full chorus the archbishops, bishops, deans, canons, and prebends of the religion of Vitzlipultzli: — " Yes," answered in semi-chorus the vice-chancellor, with all the doctors, both the proctors and masters regent and non-regent of the as yet uncatholiciz'd university of Mexico:■'-* " Yes, in the copiousness of the streams in which the sweet and precious blood of innocents flows daily down the altars of the great God."
Example 4. — Effect^ national virtue; Obstacle re- presented as a cause^ opulence of' the clergy.
In several former works it has been shown *, that, be the effect what it may, — in so far as money or in any odier shape the matter of reward, is, in the cha- racter of an efliicient cause, employed in the view or under the notion of promoting it, — what degree of efii-- ciency shall attend in such case the use made of the instrument, depends not so much upon its magnitude * Traite des Peine^ et des Recompenses, Defence of Economy against Burke, and Do. against Rose: both in the Pamphleteer, Anno 1817. Church-of-Englandism Examined, 1818.
Sect. 4.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 5^7 as upon the manner in which, and the skill with which, it is applied; and in particular, that in so far as that instrument is composed of public money, it is no less possible, and in some cases much more frequent, so to apply it that the production of that effect shall, instead of being promoted, be prevented: that when, as for working, a man is paid alike whether he does work or whether he does none, to expect w-ork from him is impossible, and to pretend to expect it, mere mockery: that after engaging to render an ha- bitual course of service (for the rendering of which no extraordinary degree of talent or alacrity is necessary), a fit person has received that which is necessary to obtain his free engagement for the rendering it, every penny added has no other tendency than to afford him means and incentives to relinquish his duties for whatever other occupations are more suitable to his taste.
Now if this be true of all men, it is true of every man: and it is not a man's being called prebend, canon, dean, bishop, or even archbishop, that will in his case or in any other person's case make it false.
It is a proposition that, be it ever so true, is not evident, but requires argument deduced from ex- perience to render it so, that by such service as is rendered by the English clergy, virtue is in any degree promoted.
It is a proposition that, be it to a certain extent ever so true, is to a certain extent notoriously not true, that to the procurement of such service, money z S38 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C/l. 11.
from any source is necessary. For without a particle of money passing from hand to hand, service of this sort is rendered by men one towards another, viz. among the people called Quakers: and if for the ex- hibiting to view the comparative degrees of efficiency with which service of this sort is rendered, — work of this sort done, — who is there that will take upon him to deny that the highest degree of the scale would be found occupied by the people called Quakers, or dis- puted with them by the people called Methodists, while the very lowest would be recognised as being occupied without dispute by the members sacred or profane of the established and most opulently endowed Church of England.
It is another proposition that still remains to be proved, that, admitting that for the procurement of this service — to the whole extent in which for the pro- duction of virtue it is wanted, — money is necessary, it is also necessary that for the raising of the necessary quantity, money should by the power of Government be forced out of the pockets of unwilling contributors.
Ch. 12.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION". 339 CHAPTER XII.
Partiality-preachers Argument.
Ad judicium. From the abuse, argue not against the use, Exposition, From abuse it is an error (it has been said) to ar- gue against use.
The proposition is an absurd one, make the best of itj but the degree of absurdity will depend upon the turn that may be given to the sentence.
Whichsoever be the turn given to it, the plain and undeniable truth of the case as between use and abuse will alike serve for the exposure of it.
Be the institution what it may, whatsoever good effects there are that have resulted from it, these con- stitute, as far as experience goes, the use of it: what- soever ill effects have resulted from it, these, in so far at least as they have been the object of foresight and the result of intention, constitute the abuse of it.
Thus as to past results: and the same observation applies to expected future ones.
Exposure.
Now then come the fallacies to the propagation of ivhich it may and must have been directed.
1. In taking an account of the effects of an institu- 340 FALtACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 12.
tion, you ought to set down all the good effects and omit all the bad ones.
This is one of the purposes to which it is capable of being applied: this needs not much to be said of it.
2. In taking an account of the effects of an insti- tution good and bad, you ought not to argue against it on the supposition that the sum of the bad ones is greater than the sum of the good ones, merely from the circumstance that among all its effects taken to- gether, there are some that belong to the bad side of the account.
In this latter sense, such is the character of the maxim that nothing can be said against the truth of it. As an instruction, it is too obvious to be of any use: in the way of warning, it cannot by possibility do any harm, nor is it altogether out of the sphere of possibility, that iu this or that instance it may have its use.
Applied to a man's pecuniary affairs it amounts to this: viz. Conclude not that a man has no property because he has some debts.
Ch, \3.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 341 CHAPTER XIII.
The End justifies the Means.
Ad judicium.
In this case surely, if in any, exposition is of itself exposure.
The insertion of this article in the list of fallacies was suggested by the use made of it in the Courier Newspaper of the 27th of August 1819, as reported and commented upon in the Morning Chronicle of the 28th a.
The end justifies the means. Yes: but on three conditions, any of which failing, no such justification has place.
1. One is, that the end be good.
2. That the means chosen be either purely good, or if evil, having less evil in them than on a balance there is of real good in the end.
* The Courier Newspaper is, in tlie other public prints, perpetually spoken of as enjoying the favour of the Monarch of the day. 1 have all along been upon the watch to see whether a denial in any shape of that assertion would be given. I have never been able to hear of any such thing. The fact admitted, a conclusion which can scarcely be refused is, that the principles manifested in that paper are the principles entertained and acted upon by that royal arbiter of our fate, in whose disposal the lives and fortunes of about twenty millions or thereabout in the three kingdoms, and sixty mil- lions in Asia, are placed. VVithout deigning to wait for and re- ceive, or if received, to have regard to the evidence on the other side, at the solicitation of Lord Sidmouth, Secretary of State, the Prince 342 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ck. 13.
3. That they have more of good in them, or less of evil, as the case may be, than any others, by the employment of which the end might have been at- tained.
Laying out of the case these restrictions, note the absurdities that would follow.
Acquisition of a penny loaf is the end I am at. The goodness of it is indisputable. If by the goodness of the end, any means employed in the attainment of it are justified, instead of a penny, I may give a pound for it: thus stands the justification on the ground of prudence. Or, instead of giving a penny for it, I may cut the baker's throat, and thus get it for nothing: and thus stands the justification on the ground of be- nevolence and beneficence.
In politics, what is the use of this fallacy? In the mouth of one whose station is among the ins, it will serve for whatsoever cruelties those by whom power is exercised may at any time find a pleasure in com- mitting on those over whom power is exercised, for Regent by one letter dated August 1819 bestows his approbation upon the conduct maintained by the Manchester Magistrates, on the occasion of the slaughter committed by their officers — by the armed yeomanry on an vmarmed multitude: and by another, dated the same month, upon Sir John Bing, the General Commander of the Regulars, for the support given by him to it. What shall we say of this? Let prudence give the answer. The Secretary is worthy to serve such a Sovereign: the Sovereign is worthy to be served by such a Secretary. — Every stroke he adds to his own portrait, the faith- ful servant adds to that of his royal patron and protector. A com- plete portrait thus formed V)y lines copied from the Courier, would con- stitute a most instructive and interesting piece.
Ch. 13.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 'Z4i^ the purpose of confirming themselves in the power of committing more such cruelties.
The INS, as such, hav e the power to commit atro- cities, and that power having sinister interest for its spur, is never suffered to be idle. For the use of this fallacy, in so far as it can be worth their while to em- ploy a cloak, they have therefore a continual demand.