Another trick is to take a proposition which is laid down relatively,
and in reference to some particular matter, as though it were uttered
with a general or absolute application; or, at least, to take it in
some quite different sense, and then refute it. Aristotle's example is
as follows:
A Moor is black; but in regard to his teeth he is white; therefore, he
is black and not black at the same moment. This is an obvious sophism,
which will deceive no one. Let us contrast it with one drawn from
actual experience.
In talking of philosophy, I admitted that my system upheld the
Quietists, and commended them. Shortly afterwards the conversation
turned upon Hegel, and I maintained that his writings were mostly
nonsense; or, at any rate, that there were many passages in them where
the author wrote the words, and it was left to the reader to find a
meaning for them. My opponent did not attempt to refute this assertion
_ad rem_, but contented himself by advancing the _argumentum ad
hominem_, and telling me that I had just been praising the Quietists,
and that they had written a good deal of nonsense too.
This I admitted; but, by way of correcting him, I said that I had
praised the Quietists, not as philosophers and writers, that is to
say, for their achievements in the sphere of _theory_, but only as
men, and for their conduct in mere matters of _practice_; and that in
Hegel's case we were talking of theories. In this way I parried the
attack.
The first three tricks are of a kindred character. They have this
in common, that something different is attacked from that which was
asserted. It would therefore be an _ignoratio elenchi_ to allow
oneself to be disposed of in such a manner.
For in all the examples that I have given, what the opponent says is
true, but it stands in apparent and not in real contradiction with the
thesis. All that the man whom he is attacking has to do is to deny the
validity of his syllogism; to deny, namely, the conclusion which he
draws, that because his proposition is true, ours is false. In this
way his refutation is itself directly refuted by a denial of his
conclusion, _per negationem consequentiae_. Another trick is to refuse
to admit true premisses because of a foreseen conclusion. There are
two ways of defeating it, incorporated in the next two sections.