they had any conception, but the most beautiful form is always supposed to belong to the gods, the best of beings in the universe; it was, therefore, reasonable to conclude, that they were endued with the human form.

Analysis. No connection subsists between the nature of man and that of the gods, to induce us to believe the gods must possess the shape of men; and we cannot infer, because the figure of man is the most beautiful with which we are acquainted, that, therefore, the form of the gods, admitting them to have some form, cannot be more beautiful than the human. The argument that the form of a pine-apple, being the most beautiful, perhaps, of vegetable forms, is also the form of the gods, would be equally conclusive, being a rare inference from one particular to another, between which there is no relation; or, in other words, between particulars which have nothing in common, whence such an inference can possibly be deduced.

Example 2. Should we, again, conclude, from the foolish or iniquitous behavior of some individuals, of a numerous order of men, that all the order are fools or rogues.

3. Or, from the unwholesomeness or bad taste of some sort of animal and vegetable food, that all sorts are unwholesome or unpleasant.

4. Or, because many bad kings and magistrates have been in the world, that all kings and magistrates are bad men; in each of these cases you would argue from premises insufficient to support your inference, because you extend the latter much farther than the former, and suppose that there are no exceptions where there may be thousands of exceptions.

504. This illegitimate and illiberal logic frequently appears in the intercourse of society, when all the connections, the family, the friends, and the order of an impudent or a criminal person are branded with the improprieties and the errors of which he only has been guilty; while they entertain, perhaps, a more lively disapprobation of his conduct than those who load them with reproach.

Illus. 1. Should you boldly declare that all the people of England in the time of Charles I. were murderers because a junto of bloodyminded men put him to death; that all the people of France were regicides because a few voted for the death of Louis XVI.; that all the people of the United States of America were unprincipled tyrants and assassins, because General Jackson put ARBUTHNOT and AMBRISTER, British subjects, to death on false accusations and principles of policy, which the laws of nations do not recognize;-you would display the spirit we have now in view.

2. It is, indeed, difficult to decide whether such a spirit is more characteristic of cruelty or want of candor. It is cruel, for it displays a strong disposition to criminate the innocent, and to pour into delicate and honorable minds that pungent vexation which resuits from the loss of reputation, under a consciousness of having done nothing to deserve such a misfortune. It is void of candor,

because no intercourse has subsisted between the culprit and the party accused, which can authorize any inference of blame from the one to the other; and it is not a little uncandid to deduce an inference without premises, or contrary to those laid down.

505. Numerous errors and much false reasoning result from forming hypotheses, to account for the phenomena of nature, or the actions of men, without endeavoring to investigate the true causes of these phenomena, and the motives of those actions from the effects which they produce. This species of sophistry the Logicians call Causam assignare quæ causa non est, To assign that as a cause which is not the cause: or, as Dr. Watts has it, non causa pro causa -or the assignation of a false cause. Philosophers and speculative politicians have been most prone to indulge in this kind of ratiocination, and many curious examples of it are to be found in physical books, and in real life. (See CHAP. III. BOOK I.)

Example 1. All the heavenly bodies, says Aristotle, in his Physics, must move in circles, because a circle is the most perfect of all figures, and because bodies moving in such figures meet with least resistance. The great philosopher does not tell us how he knew that the circle is the most perfect of all figures, and that bodies moving in circles meet with least resistance. Both these reasons are mere suppositions, contrary to truth, as well as the opinion that the heavenly bodies move in circles, which, by a little observation, he might have found to be erroneous.

2. To support the hypothesis he had adopted, concerning the eternity and perfection of the world, the same philosopher offers the following singular ratiocination. The world is a perfect production, because it is composed of bodies; and bodies are perfect magnitudes, because they consist of three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness, and cannot admit of more. Lines are not perfect magnitudes, because they have length only, which may easily be made to move into a surface. Surfaces are not perfect magnitudes, because they have only length and breadth, which may easily be made to move into a solid." Now all this reasoning is mere conjecture, relating to the qualities only of magnitudes, and not in the least to their merits.

3. The occult qualities of the same author, and his followers, are not more satisfactory sources of natural knowledge. The pulse beats the loadstone points to the pole-tartar is emetic-poppy produces sleep; because there is a beating quality in the pulse, an attractive quality in the loadstone, an emetic quality in tartar, and a soporific quality in poppy. Such philosophizing resembles the play of children, or the ridicule of empirics, rather than the serious investigation of grave inquirers after truth; and it furnishes an humiliating picture of the progress of natural philosophy among the ancients. (See Art. 73, and Corol.)

506. The moderns, as well as the ancients, fall often into this fallacy, when they positively assign the reasons of natural appearances, without sufficient experiments to prove them.

Illus. 1. Astrologers are overrun with this species of fallacy, and they cheat the people grossly by pretending to tell fortunes, and to deduce the cause of the various occurrences in the lives of men from the various positions of the stars and planets, which they call aspects. When comets and eclipses of the sun and moon are construed to signify the fate of princes, the revolution of states, famine, wars, and calamities of all kinds, it is a fallacy that belongs to this rank of sophisms.

2. There is scarce any thing more common in human life than this sort of deceitful argument. If any two accidental events happen to occur, one is presently made the cause of the other.

Example. If Titius wronged his neighbor of a guinea, and in six months after, he fell down and broke his leg, weak men will impute it to the divine vengeance on Titius for his former injustice. This sophism was found also in the early days of the world; for when holy Job was surrounded with uncommon miseries, his own friends inferred, that he was a most heinous criminal, and charged him with aggravated guilt, as the cause of his calamities; though God himself, by a voice from heaven, solved this uncharitable sophism, and cleared his servant Job of that charge.

Obs. How frequent is it among men to impute crimes to persons not actually chargeable with them! We too often charge that upon the wicked contrivance and premeditated malice of a neighbor, which arose merely from ignorance, or from an unguarded temper. And on the other hand, when we have a mind to excuse ourselves, we practise the same sophism, and charge that upon our inadvertence or our ignorance, which, perhaps, was designed wickedness. What is really done by a necessity of circumstances, we sometimes impute to choice. And again, we charge that upon necessity which was really desired and chosen.

507. The next species of sophism is called fallacia-accidentis, or a sophism wherein we pronounce concerning the nature and essential properties of any subject according to something which is merely accidental to it. This is akin to the former, and is also very frequent in human life.

Example 1. So, if opium or the Peruvian bark has been used imprudently or unsuccessfully, whereby the patient has received injury, some weaker people absolutely pronounce against the use of the bark or the opium upon all occasions whatsoever, and are ready to call them poison.

2. So wine has been the accidental occasion of drunkenness and quarrels; learning and printing may have been the accidental cause of sedition in a state; the reading of the Bible, by accident, has been abused to promote heresies, or destructive errors; and for these reasons they have all been pronounced evil things. Mahomet forbade

his followers the use of wine; the Turks discourage learning in their dominions; and at one time the Scripture was forbidden to be read by the Laity. But how very unreasonable are these inferences, and these prohibitions which are built upon them!

508. The next species of sophistry is REASONING IN A CIRCLE; or the assuming of one proposition to prove another, and then resting the proof of the first on the evidence of the second. The Protestant theologians accuse the writers of the church of Rome of committing such blunders. "The Papal theologians" (say both the Protestant logicians, Watts and Barron) "first prove the divine authority of their church from the Holy Scriptures, and then they employ the infallibility of the Pope to confirm their interpretation of the Scriptures. They establish the infallibility of the Pope by the testimony of the senses, and they employ the same infallibility to destroy the testimony of the senses, when their antagonists remonstrate against the credibility of the doctrine of transubstantiation."

509. The sophisms of composition and division come next to be mentioned.

Illus. 1. The sophism of composition is when we infer any thing concerning ideas in a compounded sense, which is only true in a divided sense.

Example 1. And when it is said in the gospel that Christ made the blind to see, and the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk, we ought not to infer hence that Christ performed contradictions; but those who were blind before, were made to see, and those who were deaf before, were made to hear, &c. So, when the Scripture assures us, the worst of sinners may be saved, it signifies only, that they who have been the worst of sinners may repent and be saved, not that they shall be saved in their sins. Or, if any one should argue thus, Two and three are even and odd: five are two and three, therefore five are even and odd. Here, that is very falsely inferred concerning two or three in union, which is only true of them divided.

Allus. 2. The sophism of division is when we infer the same thing concerning ideas in a divided sense, which is only true in a compounded sense; as if we should pretend to prove that every soldier in the Grecian army put a hundred thousand Persians to flight, because the Grecian soldiers did so. Or, if a man should argue thus, Five is one number; two and three are five; therefore two and three are one number.

Obs. This sort of sophism is committed when the word all is taken in a collective and a distributive sense, without a due distinction; as if any one should reason thus: All the musical instruments of the Jewish temple made a noble concert; the harp was a musical instrument of the Jewish temple; therefore the harp made a noble concert. Here the word all, in the major, is collective, whereas such a conclusion requires that the word all should be distributive.

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It is the same fallacy when the universal word all or no refers to species in one proposition, and to individuals in another; as, All animals were in Noah's ark; therefore no animals perished in the flood; whereas in the premise all animals signifies every kind of animals, which does not exclude or deny the drowning of a thousand individuals.

510. The last sort of sophisms arises from our abuse of the ambiguity of words, which is the largest and most extensive. kind of fallacy; and indeed several of the former fallacies might be reduced to this head.

When the words or phrases are plainly equivocal, they are called sophisms of equivocation; as if we should argue thus: He that sends forth a book into the light, desires it to be read: he that throws a book into the fire, sends it into the light; therefore he that throws a book into the fire desires it to be read.

This sophism, as well as the foregoing, and all of the like nature, are solved by showing the different senses of the words, terms, or phrases. Here light in the major proposition signifies the public view of the world; in the minor it signifies the brightness of flame and fire; and therefore the syllogism has four terms, or rather it has no middle term, and proves nothing.

But where such gross equivocations and ambiguities ap pear in arguments, there is little danger of imposing upon ourselves or others. The greatest danger, and which we are perpetually exposed to in reasoning, is where the two senses or significations of one term are near akin, and not plainly distinguished, and yet they are really sufficiently different in their sense to lead us into great mistakes if we are not watchful.

CHAPTER IV.

OF REASONING AND SYLLOGISM.

511. Ir the mere conception and comparison of two ideas would always show us whether they agree or disagree, then all rational propositions would be matters of intelligence, or first principles, and there would be no use of reasoning, or drawing any consequences. It is the narrowness of the human mind which introduces the necessity of reasoning.