By order of King James I. two men, whose misfortune it was not to be able to form in relation to some inexplicable points of technical theology the same conception that was entertained, or professed to be entertained, by the royal ruler and instructor of his people, were burnt alive^. George IV. not only bears in common with James I. the tvvo diflferent denominations, viz. Protestant of the Church of England, and King of Great Britain; but, as far as marriage can be depended on for proof of filiation, is actually of the same blood and lineage with that royal and triumphant champion of local orthodoxy.
If, indeed, in the authentic and generally received doctrines of the religion in question, there were any thing that compelled its professors to burn or other- '"' Consult Hume, Tinelal, Harris, Henry.
wise to destroy or ill-treat all or any of those that differed from them, and if by any recent overt-act an adherence to those dissocial doctrines had appeared in practice, in such case the adherence to such dissocial doctrines would afford a just ground for whatsoever measures of security were deemed necessary to guard other men from the effect of such doctrines and such practice.
But by no doctrines of their religion are Catholics compelled to burn or otherwise ill-treat those who differ from them, any more than by the doctrines of the Church of England James I. was compelled to burn those poor Anabaptists.
If from analogy any sincere and instructive use had on this occasion been intended to be derived from different countries professing the same persuasion, in these our times a much more instructive lesson would be afforded than any that could be derived from even the same country at such different times.
If in Ireland, where three-fourths or more of the population is composed of Catholics, no ill-treatment has within the memory of man been bestowed l)y Catholics, as such, upon Protestants, as such; while in the same country so much ill-treatment has on other accounts been bestowed by each of these persuasions upon the other, it is, it may be said, because the power of doing so with impunity is not in their hands.
But in countries where the Catholic religion is the o predominant religion, and in which at the same time, as in our islands, barbarity on the score of heresy was 270 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [C/i. 5.
by Catholics exercised according to law, and in the countries in which the exercise of those barbarities was at those times most conspicuous; of no such barbarities has any instance occurred for a long course of years *, * Even in Spain I have been assured, if I may depend upon an assurance given me by persons fully informed, and of the most respectable character, no instance of a capital execution for any offence against religion has occurred within these 22 or 23 years.
In the capital of Mexico, if I may believe a gentleman of distinction in our own country, by whom the capital of that kingdom was lately visited, he was by the Grand Inquisitor himself conducted into every apartment of the prison of the Inquisition for the purpose of his being assured by ocular demonstration of the non-existence of any person in the state of a prisoner within the walls.
C'h. 6,] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 271 CHAPTER VI.
Sham Distinctions.
Ad judicium.
Ei'position, Of the device here in view the nature may be explained by the following direction for the use of it.
When any existing state of things has too much evil in it to be defensible in toto, or proposals for amendment are too plainly necessary to be rejectible in toto, the evil and the good being nominally distinguished from each other by two corresponding and opposite terms, eulogistic and dyslogistic, but in such sort that to the nominal line of distinction thus drawn, there corresponds not any determinate real difference, declare your approbation of the good by its eulogistic name, and thus reserve to yourself the advantage of opposing it without reproach by its dyslogistic name, and so "vice versa declare your disapprobation of the evil, &c.
E.vposure. Example 1. — Liberty and Licentiousness of the Press. Take for example the case of the Press. The press (including under this denomination every instrument employed or employable for the purpose of giving diffusion to the matter of human discourse 272 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [CIl. 6.
by visible signs) — the press has two distinguishable uses, viz. moral and political: moral, consisting in whatsoever check it may be capable of opposing to misconduct in private life; political, in whatsoever check it may be capable of opposing to misconduct in public life, that is, on the part of public men — men actually employed, or aspiring to be employed, in any situation in the public service: opposing, viz. by pointing on the persons to whom such misconduct is respectively imputable, a portion more or less considerable of disapprobation and consequent ill-will on the part of the public at large — a portion more or less considerable according to the nature of the case.
If to such misconduct there be no such check at all opposed, as that which it is the nature of the press to apply, the consequence is, that of such misconduct whatsoever is not included in the prohibitions and eventual punishment provided by law, will range uncontrolled: in which case, so far as concerns the political effect of such exemption from control, the result is power uncontroulable, arbitrary despotism, in the hands whatsoever they are, in which the powers and functions of Government happen to be reposed: and, moreover, in the instance of such misconduct as is included in that system of prohibition and eventual punishment, the control will be without effect in so far as by delay, vexation, and expense, natural or factitious, the individual who would be led to call for the application, is prevented from making such demand.
At the same time, on the other hand, the use of the prcss_cannot be altogether free, but that on pretence of giving indication of misconduct that has actually taken place, supposed misconduct that never did actually take place, will to this or that individual be imputed.
In so far as the imputation thus conveyed happens to be false, the effects of the liberty in question will, so far as concerns any individual person thus unjustly accused, be of the evil cast, and by whomsoever they are understood so to be, the dyslogistic appellation licentiousness will naturally be applied.
Here then comes the dilemma, — the two evils between which a choice must absolutely be made. Leave to the press its perfect liberty, along with the just imputations, which alone are the useful ones, will come, and in an unlimited proportion, unjust imputations, from which, in so far as they are unjust, evil is liable to arise.
But to him whose wish it really is that good morals and good government should prevail, the choice need not be so difficult as at first sight it may seem to be.
Let all just imputations be buried in utter silence; what you are sure of is, that misconduct in every part of the field of action, moral and political, private and public, will range without controul — free from all that sort of controul which can be applied by the press^ and not by any thing else.
On the other hand, let all unjust imputations find through this channel an unobstructed course, still, of the evil — the personal suffering threatened by such T infliction — there is neither certainty, nor in general any near approach to it Open to accusation, that same channel is not less open to defence *. He therefore who has truth on his side, will have on his side all that advantage wiiich it is in the nature of truth to give.
That advantage, is it an inconsiderable one? — On the contrary supposition is founded, whatsoever is done in the reception and collection of judicial evidence— whatsoever is intended by the exercise of judicial authority — by the administration of whatsoever goes by the name of justice.
Meantime, if any arrangements there be by which the door may be shut against unjust imputations, without incurring to an equal amount that sort of evil which is liable to result from the exclusion of just ones, so much the better.
But unless and until such arrangements shall have been devised and carried into effect, the tendency and effect of all restrictions having for their object the abridging of the liberty of the press, cannot but be evil on the whole.
To shut the door against such imputations as are either unjust or useless, leaving it at the same time open to such as are at the same time just and useful, would require a precise, a determinate, a correct and complete definition of the appellative, whatsoever it " If it by accident be not so, this constitutes a different and distinct evil, for which is required a different and distinct remedy.
Ch. 6.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 9,75 be, by which the abuse — the improper use — the supposed preponderantly pernicious use — of the press is endeavoured to be brought to view.
To establish this definition belongs to those, and to those alone, in whose hands the supreme power of the State is vested.
Of this appellative no such definition has ever yet been given — of this appellative no such definition can reasonably be expected at the iiands of any person so situated, since, by the establishing of such definition, their power would be curtailed, their interest prejudiced.
While this necessary definition remains unestablished, there remains with them the faculty of giving continuance and increase to the several points of abuse and misgovernment by which their interest in its several shapes is advanced.
Till that definition is given, the licentiousness of the press is every disclosure by which any abuse from the practice of which they draw any advantage, is brought to light and exposed to shame: — whatsoever disclosure it is, or is supposed to be, their interest to prevent.
The liber^ty of the press is such disclosure, and such only, from which no such inconvenience is apprehended.
No such definition can be given but at their expense: — at the expense of their arbitrary power, — of their power of misconduct in the exercise of the functions of Government, — at the expense of their power of misgovernment, — of their power of sacrificing the public interest to their own private interest.
Should that line have ever been drawn, then it is that licentiousness may be opposed without opposing liberty: while that line remains undrawn, opposing licentiousness is opposing liberty.
Thus much being understood, in what consists the device here in question? It consists in employing the sham approbation given to the species of liberty here in question under the name of liberti/, as a mask or cloak to the real opposition given to it under the name of licentiousness.
It is in the licentiousness of the press that the Judge pretends to seethe downfall of that Government, the corruption of which he is upholding by inflicting on all within his reach those punishments which by his predecessors have been provided for the suppression of all disclosures, by means of which the abuses which he profits by might be checked.
Example 2. — Reform, temperate and intemperate.
For the designation of the species or degree of political reform which, by him who speaks of it, is meant to be represented as excessive or pernicious, the language aftbrds no such single-worded appellative as in the case of liberty. — the liberty of the press. For making the nominal and pretended real distinction, and marking out on the object of avowed reprobation the pernicious or excessive species or degree, recourse must therefore be had to epithets or adjuncts: such for in- Ch, 6.] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 277 Stance as violent, intemperate, outrageous, theoretical, speculative, and so forth.
If, with the benefit of the subterfuge afforded by any of these dyslogistic epithets, a man indulges himself in tlie practice of reprobating reform in terms thus vague and comprehensive, and without designating by any more particular and determinate word the species or decree of reform to which he means to confine his reprobation, or the specific objections he may have to urge, you may in general venture to conclude it is not to any determinate species or degree that liis real disapprobation and intended opposition confines itself, but that it extends itself to every species or degree of reform which, according to his expectation, would be efficient: that is, by which any of the existing abuses would find a corrective.
For, between all abuses whatsoever, there exists that connexion, — between all persons who see each of them any one abuse in which an advantage results to himself, there exists in point of interest that close and sufficiently understood connexion, of which intimation has been given already. To no one abuse can correction bs administered without endangering the existence of every other.
If, then, with this inward determination not to suffer, so far as depends upon himself, the adoption of any reform which he is able to prevent, it should seem to him necessary or advisable to j;ut on fur a cover, the profession or appearance of a desire to contribute to such reform, — in pursuance of the device or fallacy here in question he will represent that which goes by the name of reform as distinguishable into two species; one of them a fit subject for approbation, the other for disapprobation. That which he thus professes to have marked for approbation he will accordingly, for the expression of such approbation, characterize by some adjunct of the eulogistic cast, such as moderate, for example, or temperate, or practical, or practicable.
To the other of these nominally distinct species he will, at the same time, attach some adjunct of the dyslogistic cast, such as violent, intemperate, extravagant, outrageous, theoretical, speculative, and so forth.
Thus, then, in profession and to appearance, there are in his conception of the matter two distinct and opposite species of reform, to one of which his approbation, to the other his disapprobation, is attached. But the species to which his approbation is attached is an empty species, — a species in which no individual is, oris intended to be, contained.
The species to which his disapprobation is attached is, on the contrary, a crowded species, a receptacle in which the whole contents of \he genus — of the genus reform — are intended to be included.
Ch. 7.] FALtAClRS or CONFUSION. 279 CHAPTER VII.
Popular Corruption.
Ad superbiam.
E.vposition. The instrument of deception, of which the argument here in question is composed, may be thus expressed: — Tlie source of corruption is in the minds of the people; so rank and extensively seated is that corruption, that no political reform can ever liave any effect in removing it^.
Exposure. This fallacy consists in giving to the word corruption, when applied to the people, a sense altogether * This was an argument brought forward against padiamentary reform by William Windham in the House of Commons, and by him insisted on with great emphasis. This man was among the disciples, imitators of, and co-operators with, Edmund Burke — that Edmund Burke with whom the subject many were the swinish multitude: — swinish in nature, and apt therefore to receive the treatment which is apt to be given to swine. In private life, that is, in their dealings with those who were immediately about them, at any rate such of them as were of their own class, many of these men, many of these haters and calumniators of mankind at large, are not unamiable; but, seduced by that sinister interest which is possessed by them in common, they encourage in one another the antisocial affection in the case where it operates upon the most extensive scale. If, while thus encouraging himself in the hating and contemning the people, a man of this cast finds himself hated by them, the fault is surely more in him than them; and, whatever it may hapi)cn to him to suffer from it, be has himsell to thank for it.
1280 FALLACIRS OF CONFUSION. [Ch. 1.
indeterminate, — a sense in and by which all tliat is distinctly expressed is the disaffection of the speaker as towards the persons spoken of, imputing to them a bad moral character or cast of mind, but without any intimation given of the particular nature of it.
It is the result of a thick confusion of ideas, whether sincere, or affected for the purpose.
In the case of a parliamentary election, each elector acts as a trustee for iiimsclf and for all the other members of the community in the exercise of the branch of political power here in question. If, by the manner in which his vote is received from him, he is precluded (as by ballot) from the possibility of promoting his own particular interest to the prejudice of the remainder of the universal interest, the only interest of his which he can entertain a prospect of promoting by such his vote is his share of the universal interest: and for doing this, he sees before him no other possible means than the contributing to place the share of power attached to the seat in question in the hands of that candidate who is likely to render most service to the universal interest.
Now, how inconsiderable soever may be in his eyes this his share in the universal interest, still it will be sufficient to turn the scale where there is nothing in the opposite scale: and, by the supposition, the emptiness of the opposite scale has been secured in the mode of election by ballot, where the secrecy thereby endeavoured at is accomplished, as to so complete a certainty it may be. If then, to continue the alhision, Ch.7.'] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 281 the value of his share in the universal interest, in his eyes, is such as to overcome the love of ease, — the aversion to labour, — he will repair to the place, and give his vote, — to that candidate who, in his eyes, is likely to do most service to the universal interest: if it be not sufficient to overcome that resisting force, he will then forbear to give his vote; and though he will do no good to the universal interest, he will do no harm to it.
Thus it is that, under an apposite system of election procedure, suj)posing ihcni in the account of self-regarding prudence equal, the least benevolent set of men will, on this occasion, render as much service to the universal interest as the most benevolent: the least benevolent, if that be wliat is meant bv the most corrupt; and if that is not meant, nothing which is to the purpose, nor in short any thing which is determinate, is meant.
On the other hand, in so far as the system of election is so ordered, that by the manner in which he gives his vote a man is enabled to promote his own separate interest, what is sufficiently notorious is, that no ordinary portion of benevolence in the shape of public spirit will suffice to prevent the breacli of trust in question from being committed.
In the case, therefore, of the subject many, to whom exclusively it was applied, tlie word corruption has no determinate and intelligible application. But to the class of the ruling few, it has a perfectly intelligible 282 FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. [Ch, 7.
application; — application in a sense in which the truth of it is as notorious as the existence of the sun at noonday. Pretending to be all of them chosen by the subject many, — chosen in fact, a very small proportion of them in that manner, — the rest by one another, — they act in the character of trustees for the subject many, bound to support the interest of the subject many: instead of so doing, being with money exacted from the subject many bribed by one another acting under the ruling one, they tict in constant breach of such their trust, serving in all things their own particular and sinister interests at the expense and to the sacrifice of that interest of the subject many, which, together with that of the ruling few, composes and constitutes the universal interest. Corruj)t, corruption, corruptors, corruptionist^ applied to conduct such as hath been just described, — the meaning given to these terms wants assuredly nothing of being sufficiently intelligible.
A circumstance that renders this fallacy in a peculiar degree insidious and dangerous, is a sort of obscure reference made by it to certain religious notions: to the doctrine of original sin as delivered in the compendium of Church of England faith, termed the 39 articles.
Into that doctrine, considered in a religious point of view, it is not necessary on this occasion to make any inquiry. The field here in question is the field of politics; and applied to this field the fallacy in question seeks to lay the axe to the root of all government. It applies not only to this, but to all other remedies against that preponderance of self-regarding over social interest pnd affection, which is essential to man's existence, but which for the creation and preservation of political society, and thence for his well-being in it, requires to be checked — checked by a force formed within itself. It goes to the exclusion of all laws, and in particular of all penal laws; for if, for remedy to what is amiss, nothing is to be attempted by arrangements which, such as those relative to the principle and mode of eledion as applied to lulers, bring with them no punishment, — no infliction, — how much less should the accomplishment of any such object be attempted by means so expensive and aflflictive as those applied by penal laws!
By the employment given to this fallacy, the employer of it afforded himself a double gratification; — he afforded an immediate gratification to his own antisocial pride and insolence, while he afforded to his argument a promise of efficiency by the food it supplied to the same appetite in the breasts of his auditors, bound to him, as he saw them to be, by a community of sinister interest.
Out of the very sink of immorality was this fallacy drawn: a sentiment of hatred and contempt, of which not only all the man's fellow-countrymen were the declared, but all mankind in at least equal degree were the naturally supposable, object. " So bad arc they in themselves, no matter how badly they are treated: they cannot be treated worse than they deserve: Of a bad bargain (says the proverb) make the best; of so bad a crew, let us make the best for ourselves: no matter what they sutFer, be it what it may, they deserve it." If Nero had thought it worth his while to look out for a justification, he could not have found a more apt one than this: an argument which, while it harmonized so entirely with the worst passions of the worst men, screened its true nature in some measure from the observation of better men, by the cloud of confusion in which it wrapped itself.
In regard to corruption and uncorruption, or, to speak less ambiguously, in regard to vice and virtue, how then stands the plain and real truth? That in the ruling few there is most vice and corruption, because in their hands has been the power of serving their own private and sinister interest at the expense of the universal interest: and in so doing they have, in the design and with the effect of making instruments of one another for the accomplishment of that perpetual object, been the disseminators of vice and corruption: — That in the subject many, there has been least of vice and corruption, because they have not been in so large a degree partakers in that sinister interest, and have thus been left free to pursue the track pointed out to them, partly by men who have found a personal interest in giving to their conduct a universally beneficial direction,— partly by discerning and Ch. 7] FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 285 uncorrupted men, who, lovers of their country and mankind, have not been in the way of having that generous affection overpowered in their breasts by any particular self-regarding interest.
Nearly akin to the cry of popular corruption is language commonly used to the following effect: — " Instead of reforming others, instead of reforming your betters, instead of reforming the state, the constitution, the church, every thing that is most excellent, — let each man reform himself — let him look at home, he will find there enough to do, and what is in his power, without looking abroad and aiming at what is out of his power, &c. &c."
Language to this effect may at all times be heard from anti-reformists, always, as the tone of it manifests, accompanied with an air of triumph, — the triumph of superior wisdom over shallow and presumptuous arrogance.
One feature which helps to distinguish it from the cry of popular corruption, is the tacit assumption that, between the operation condemned and the operation recommended, incompatibility has place: than which, when once brought clearly to view, nothing, it will be seen, can be more groundless.
Certain it is, that if every man's time and labour is exclusively employed in the correcting of his own personal imperfections, no part of it will be employed in the endeavour to correct the imperfections and abuses which have place in the Government, and thus the mass of those imperfections and abuses will go on, never diminishing, but perpetually increasing with the torments of those who suffer by them, and the comforts of those who profit by them: which is exactly what is wanted.
CHAPTER VIII.
Obser'vations on the seven preceding Fallacies.
In the seven preceding fallacies, and in others of a similar nature, the device resorted to is uniformly the same, and consists in entirely avoiding the question in debate, by substituting general and ambiguous terms in the place of clear and particular appellatives.
In other fallacies the argument advanced is generally irrelevant, but argument of some kind they do contain. In these, argument there is none; Sunt verba et voces pratereaqiie nihil.
To find the only word that will suit his purpose, the defender of corruption is obliged to make an ascent in the scale of generalization, to soar into the region of vague generalities, till he comes to a word by the extensiveness of whose import he is enabled, so by confounding language, to confound conceptions, as without general and immediate fear of detection to defend with a chance of success an object of the defence of which there would under its proper and peculiar name be no hope.
When of two terms, viz. a generic term, and a specific term included under it, the specific term alone is proper, i, e. the proposition into the composition of which it enters, true; the generic term, if substituted to it, is ambiguous, and of the ambiguity, if the effect of it is not perceived, the consequence is error and deception.
Opposite to this aerial mode of contestation, is the mode already known and designated by the a[)pellation of close reasoning.
In proportion as a man's mode of reasoning is close, (always supposing his intention honest,) for the designation of every object which he has occasion to bring to view, he employs in preference the most particular expression that he can find: that which is best adapted to the purpose of bringing to view every thing which is its object to bring to view, as clear as possible from every thing which the purpose does not require to be brought, and which in consequence it is his endeavour to avoid bringing, to view.
In proportion as a man is desirous of contributing on every occasion to the welfare of the community, and at the same time skilled in the means that most directly and certainly lead to the attainment of that end, he will, on the occasion of the language employed by him in the designation of each measure, look out for that plan of nomenclature and classification by which the degree and mode of its conduciveness or repugnancy to that end may be the more easily and correctly judged of.
Thus, in regard to ofiences — acts which on account of their adverseness to the general welfare are objects meet for discouragement, — for prohibition, and in case of necessity, for punishment, — not content with the employing for the designation of each such act in Ch. 8.] FALTAcnis or confusion. 281?
particular, that mode of expression by which every individual act partaking of the common nature indicated by the generic term may be brought to view, to the exclusion of every act not partaking of that common nature, he will, for the designation of the relation it bears to other offences, and of the place which it occupies in the aggregate assemblage of these obnoxious acts, find for it and assign to it some such more general and extensive appellation as shall give intimation of the mode in which the wound given by it to the general welfare is perceptible.
1. Offences against individuals other than a man's self, and those, assignable individuals, 2. Against a man's self. 3. Against this or that particular class of the community. 4. Against the whole community without distinction.
In the case of individuals; offences against person, against reputation, against property, against condition in life; — and so on through the other classes above designated^.
For the opposite reason, in proportion as without regard to, and to the sacrifice of, the general vvelfare, a man is desirous of promoting his own personal or any other private interest, he will on the occasion of the language employed in the designation of each measure look out for that plan of nomenclature and classification, by which the real tendency of the mea- * See Traites de Ligislation, torn. i. p. 172. Classification des dilitt.
V sure to which he proposes to give birth or support, shall be as effectually masked as possible: — rendered as difficult as possible to be comprehended and judged of.
In the English law under the principle of arrangement which till comparatively of late years was the only one, and which is still the predominant one, such were the groupes into which, by the classical denominations employed, they were huddled together, that by those denominations not any the slightest intimation was given of the nature and mischief of the offences respectively contained under them. Treasons, felonies unclergyable, felonies clergyable, premunires, misdemeanors.
By the four first of these five denominations what is designated, is, — not the offence itself,— but the treatment given to the offender in respect of it in the way of punishment: by the other denomination not so much as even that: — only that the act is treated on the footing of an offence, and on that score made punishable: it is the miscellaneous class, the contents of which are composed of all such offences as are not comprised under any of the others.
To what cause can a scheme of arrangement so incompatible with clear conception and useful instruction be ascribed?
Its creation may be traced to one source: — its continuance to another. For its creation, (such is its antiquity,) the weakness of the public intellect, presents an adequate cause. Of treason and felony, — terms Ch. 8.j FALLACIKS OF f'ONFUSTOX. 291 imported at the Norman conquest with the rest of the nomenclature of the feudal system, — the origin is lost in the darkness of primaeval barbarism: religion, a perversion of the Christian religion, gave birth after a hard and long labour to the distinction between clergyable and unclergyable. Religion by a further perversion gave birth to premunires in the reign of Edward III.
To the designs of those whose interest it is that misrule in all its shapes should be perpetuated, and thence, that useful information, by which it might be put to shame, and in time to flight, should as long as possible be excluded, nothing could be more serviceable than this primaeval imbecility. Under these denominations in general, and in particular under felony, acts of any description are capable of being ranked with equal propriety, or rather with equal absence of impropriety: acts of any description whatsoever, and consequently acts altogether pure from atiy of those mischievous consequences from which alone any sufficient warrant for subjecting the agents to ptmi^hment, can be found; and offences thus clear of evei*y really mischievous quality, have accordingly been created, and still continue in existence, in convenient abundance.
By this contrivance the open tyranny of the lawyetledlegislator, and the covert tyranny of the law-making judge are placed at the most perfect ease. The keenest eye cannot descry the felonies destined to be created by the touch of the sceptre upon the pattern 292 FALLACIES OF CONFUSIOX. \Ch. 8.
of the old: the liveliest imagination cannot pourtray to itself the innoxious acts destined to be fashioned or swollen into felonies.
Analogous to this ancient English systenn — correspondent and analogous both as to the effect itself, and as to its cause, is the system lately brought out by the legislators of France and their forced imitators in Germany. Faute, contravention, dilit, crime, classes, rising one above another in a climax of severity,— all of thein designative how indeterminately soever, rather of the treatment to which at the hands of the judge, the agent is subjected, than of the sort of act for which he is subjected to that treatment, much less of the ground, or reason, on which (regard being had to the quality and quantity of mischief) it is thought fit he shall be so dealt with.
Lawyer-craft in alliance with political tyranny may be marked out as the source of this confusion in the English case; lawyer-craft in subjection to political tyranny in the I'rench case.