IDENTITY OF CLASSES
I once heard of a meritorious lady who was extremely conventional; on
the slender grounds of carefully acquired habits of preferring the word
"woman" to the word "lady" and of going to the post-office without a
hat, imagined that she was unconventional and altogether a remarkable
person; and who once remarked with great satisfaction that she was a
"very queer person," and that nothing shocked her "except, of course,
bad form."
Thus, she asserted that all the things which shocked her were actions in
bad form; and she would undoubtedly agree, though she did not actually
state it, that all the things which were done in bad form would shock
her. Consequently she asserted that the class of things which shocked
her was the class of actions in bad form. Consequently the statement of
this lady that some or all of the actions done in bad form shocked her
is an identical proposition of the form "nothing shocks me, except, of
course, the things which do, in fact, shock me"; and this statement the
lady certainly did not intend to make.
This excellent lady, had she but known it, was logically justified in
making any statement whatever about her unconventionality. For the class
of her unconventional actions was the null class. Thus she might
logically have made inconsistent statements about this class of actions.
As a matter of fact she did make inconsistent statements, but
unfortunately she justified them by stating that, "It is the privilege
of woman to be inconsistent." She was one of those persons who say
things like that.