WE hope to be able to save students from the fate of Diodorus, (a great
logician, who died in his school through shame at being, unable to
resolve a quibble propounded by Stilno)--not by hardening, but by
enlightening them. Though we bring neither mood nor figure wherewith to
test the presence of error, we are not without the hope of qualifying
the student for its discovery.
It has been confessed from the throne of logic that, 'After all, in the
practical detection of each individual fallacy, _much must depend on
natural and acquired acuteness_: nor can any rules be given, the
mere learning of which will enable us to _apply_ them with mechanical
certainty and readiness.'
Bulwer, in remarking that error is a view of _some_ facts instead of
a survey of _all_, indicated the key to logical fallacy. Error lies
principally in defective premises. Sophistry in science is referable
to incomplete analysis of nature, of systems--to artificial
arrangements--to _supposing_ qualities, to _assuming_ principles, to
false inductions from imperfect demonstration.
Dickens, in 'Nicholas Nickleby,' gives the case of a certain lady, who,
because she knew _one_ young milliner, who retained red cheeks and
did not die of consumption, was immovably of opinion that all
representations of the injurious effect of such sedentary occupation
were false. It is ever so with the vulgar. Some one case has come under
their notice, and it is in vain that you appeal to a chain of facts.
They know nothing of induction--they know one case to the contrary, and
that is enough. This error is the source of vulgar prejudice. Once teach
men that truth does not lie in a single instance, but in a calculation
in a balance of probabilities, and you rationalise them. 'The chapter
of accidents [or single instances] is the Bible of the fool--it supplies
him with a text against everything great, or good, or wise.'*
* Times.
Where others toil with philosophic force,
Their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course,
Flings at your head convictions in the lump,
And gains' remote conclusions with a jump.--Cowper,
The first source of error is defective induction. We easily arrive at
this point of examination by the questions we have proposed for use
in the test of syllogism. Formerly, one syllogism was required to be
defeated by another--we now attack a fallacy by induction. No false
syllogism, says Biennan, can resist the inductive process of sifting
particulars.
I do not like thee. Dr. Fell,
The reason why, I cannot tell--
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.
This kind of thing will not do. Induction pursues the reasoner with an
eternal _why_. A clear because to a clear why, is a demand that is never
remitted in sound logic.
Lord Melbourne, in giving his reason for his religion in the House
of Lords, said it was the religion of his forefathers and that of his
country, _therefore_, he would support the church. (Cheers from the
opposition benches.) The Brahmin and Mussulman give the same reason
for theirs. A logician in facts would have said, I hold and support my
religion because it is _true_. What the standard of physical certainty
is to facts, what axioms are to science, such is induction to
syllogisms--it is the test of their correctness.
Dr. Whately exhibits the following instance of a regularly expressed
syllogism:--
Every dispensation of Providence is beneficial:
Afflictions are dispensations of Providence,
Therefore, they are beneficial.
Every applicable rule of Dr. Whately's logic is, of course, applied
here--it is true in mood and figure, and yet the argument is fallacious.
A fallacy is defined as 'an ingenious mixture of truth and falsehood,
so entangled as to be intimately blended--that the falsehood is, in
chemical phrase, _held in solution_: one drop of sound logic is that
test which immediately disunites them, makes the foreign substance
visible, and precipitates it to the bottom.'* But whence is to come
'this drop of sound logic?' Not from the Doctor's _Elements,_ they have
sent forth the fallacy. But touch it with the talisman of facts and; the
error will appear.
* Whately's Logic, Anal. Out., chap. 1, stc. 4.
What facts support the assertion that Afflictions are dispensations of
Providence?' The simple question is fatal to the argument. Can such
a proposition have facts for its support? Ignorance, congregating in
narrow courts, and laziness, accumulating filth, generate sickness
and affliction. Are these the dispensations of Providence, or the
dispensations of folly and crime? To ascribe them to Providence is
virtually to allow ignorance and laziness to step into the throne of
God, and call upon men to believe in _their_ beneficent dispensations.
Dr. Watts, another writer on logic, set the Christian congregations of
England to sing the same species of fallacy:---
"Diseases are the servants, Lord,
They come at thy command;
I'll not attempt a murm'ring word,
Against thy chast'ning hand."
According to this lyrical logician, whenever wise precautions arrest
the progress of pestilence, or the physician's skill subdues disease,
Jehovah is robbed of a servant. By such an argument, humanity is made
to be in rebellion against heaven, and our medical colleges are in
antagonism with Deity, and the recent appointment, by the Russell
government, of a Sanatory Commission, was high blasphemy. It is the
degradation of language to employ it to such a purpose, and logic
needs revising to save us from publishing such puerility in the name
of learning and of reason. It must have been logic of this kind
that induced a strong-thoughted woman to hazard the bold but tenable
conjecture, that 'If an argument has truth in it, less than a
philosopher will see it--and if it has not, less than a logician will
refute it.'*
* A Few Days in Athens, by Frances Wright.
R. G. Latham, M.D., in his 'First Outlines of Logic applied to Grammar
and Etymology,' has introduced the particular instance of the syllogism
on Providence here cited from Whately. It would be no difficult task to
present other instances of the same species of polemical fallacy from
Dr. Whately and other writers on logic, did it comport with the rule
I have chosen for observance. I give these cases chiefly to show how
extensively and obtrusively they are introduced.
'We have,' says Mr. Mill, 'five distinguishable classes of fallacy,
which may to expressed in the following synoptic table:--
[Illustration: Mill's Fallacy Table]
It was the boast of Archimedes, that if any one would find him a
fulcrum, on which to rest a prop, he would raise the world, But this was
mere assertion unsupported by facts, for if the fulcrum had been found
him, Archimedes could not have performed his promise. This has been
proved by Ferguson, who has demonstrated that if Archimedes could have
moved with the swiftness of a cannon ball--480 miles every hour--it
would have taken him just 44,963,540,000,000 of years to have-raised the
world one inch. Bulwer remarks, 'Critics have said, what a fine idea of
Archimedes! But how much finer is the fact that refutes it. _One of the
sublimest things in the world is plain truth_.'
All motion generates warmth,
Shaking (with cold) is motion,
_Ergo_, shaking with cold generates warmth.
We look, in this case, to the facts on which the first proposition
rests, and find the assertion too general.
To one who said that none were happy who were not above opinion, a
Spartan replied, 'Then none are happy but knaves and robbers.'
Mr. Goodrich, the original Peter Farley gives, In his 'Fireside
Education,' an instance to this effect of two boys arguing on the
division of their beds. William exclaims, 'You take more than your share
of the bed, James.' James answers, 'I only take half the bed.' William
replies, 'True, but you take your half out of the middle, and I am
obliged to lie on both sides to get my half.'
Innumerable sophisms are suffered to pass in consequence of Some
brilliancy of position which, dazzles us and prevents our seeing that
they are wide of the' mark of reason. An instance occurs in Bulwer--who
says, 'Helvetius erred upon education--but his dogma has been
beneficial.' Probably so--but not so beneficial as the truth would have
been. Many persons have argued from such an instance, that error is
useful. Dickens, in those incidental observations of striking good
sense strewed up and down his writings, says, in the 'Cricket on the
Hearth:'--'These remarks (of Mrs. Fielding) were quite unanswerable:
which is the happy property of all remarks that are _sufficiently wide
of the purpose_.' Of the refutation of such remarks he has presented an
able instance in 'Martin Chuzzlewit':
'Bless my soul, Westlock,' says Pinch, is it nothing to see Pecksniff
moved to that extent and know one's self to be the cause? And did you
not hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?
'Do you want any blood shed for you?' returned Westlock with
considerable irritation. 'Does he shed anything for you that you _do_
want? Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you pocket
money for you? Does he even shed legs of mutton for you in any decent
proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?'