Were there ever so much reason for regretting it, the sort of relation which is thus seen to have place between public and private interest, would not be the less true: nor would it be the less incumbent on the legislator, nor would the legislator, in so far as he findf» it reconcileable to his personal interest to pursue the public interest, be the less disposed and determined to act and shape his measures accordingly.
But the more correct and complete a man's conception of the subject is, the more clearly will he understand, that in this natural and general predominance of personal, over every more extensive interest, there is no just cause for regret. Why? Because upon this predominance depends the existence of the species, and the existence of every individual belonging to it. Suppose for a moment the opposite state of things — a state in which every one should prefer the public to himself — and the consequences — the necessary consequences, would be no less ridiculous in idea, than disastrous and destructive in reality.
In the ordinary course and strain of legislation, no supposition inconsistent with this only true and rational one, is acted upon. On this supposition is built whatsoever is done in the application made either of the matter of reward, or of the matter of punishment, to the purposes of government. The supposition is — that on the part of every individual whose conduct it is thus endeavoured to shape and regulate, interest, and that, private interest, will be the cause by the operation of which his conduct will be deternjined: not only so, but that in case of competition as between such public and such private interest, it is the private interest that will predominate.
If the contrary supposition were acted upon, what -would be the consequence? that neither in the shape Ch. 3.] CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. SGS of reward, nor in the shape of eventual punishment, would the precious matter of good and evil be wasted or exposed to waste, but (in lieu of requisition, with reward or punishment, or both, for its sanction, for securing compliance) advice and recommendation would be employed throughout the system of law penal as well as remuneratory.
Thence it is that, in so far as in the instance of any class of men, the state of the law is such as to make it the interest of men belonging to that body to give rise or continuance to any system of abuse however flagrant, a prediction that may be made with full assurance is, that the conduct of that body, that is, of its several members with few or no exceptions, will be such as to give rise or continuance to that system of abuse: and if there be any means which have been found to be, or promise to be conducive to any such end, such means will, accordingly, how inconsistent soever with probity in any shape, and in particular in the shape of sincerity, be employed.
A common bond of connection, says Cicero somewhere, has place among all the virtues: To the word virtue, substitute the word abuse, meaning abuse in government, and the observation will be no less true. Among abuses in government, besides the logical commune vinculum composed of the common denomination abuse, there exists a moral commune vinculum composed of the particular and sinister interest in which all men who are members of a government so circumstanced have a share.
36G CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. [Ch. 3.
So long then as any man has any, the smallest particle of this sinister interest belonging to him — so long has he an interest, and consequently a fellow-feeling with every other man who in the same situation has an interest of the like kind. Attack one of them, you attack all; and in proportion as each of them feels his share in this common concern dear to him, and finds himself in a condition to defend it, he is prepared to defend every other confederate's share with no less alacrity than if it were his ovin. But it is one of the characteristics of abuse, that it can only be defended by fallacy. It is, therefore, the interest of all the confederates of abuse to give the most extensive currency to fallacies, not only to such as may be serviceable to each individual, but also to such as may be generally useful. ■ It is of the utmost importance to them to keep the human mind in such a state of imbecility, as shall render it incapable of distinguishing truth from error^ Abuses, that is to say institutions beneficial to the few, at the expense of the many, cannot openly, directly, and in their own character, be defended. If at all, it must be in company with, and under the cover of other institutions to which this character either does not in fact appertain, or is not seen to appertain.
For the few who are in possession of power, the principle the best adapted, if it were capable of being set to work, would.be that which should be applicable to the purpose of giving to the stock of abuses established at each given period, an unlimited increasCo Ch. 3] CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. ^67 No longer than about a century ago a principle of this cast actually was in force, and that to an extent that threatened the whole frame of society with ruin: viz. under the name of the principle of passive obedience and non-resistance.
This principle was a primum mobile j by the due application of which, abuses in all shapes might be manufactured for use to an amount absolutely unlimited. But this principle has now nearly, if not altogether, lost its force. The creation of abuses has, therefore, of necessity been given up; the preservation of them is all that remains feasible: it is to this work that all exertions in favour of abuse have for a considerable time past, and must henceforward be confined.
Institutions, some good, some bad — some favourable to both the few and the many; some favourable to the few alone, and at the expense of the many — are the ingredients of which the existing system is composed. He who protects all together, and without discrimination, protects the bad. To this object the exertions of industry are still capable of being directed with a prospect of success: and to this ol)ject they actually do continue to be directed, and with a degree of success disgraceful to the probity of the iew by whom such breach of trust is practised, and to the intellect of the many by whom it is endured.
If the fundamental principle of all good government, viz. that which states as being on every occasion the proper, and the only proper end in view and object of pursuit, the greatest happiness of the greatest 368 CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. [Ch. 3, number, were on every occasion set up as the mark; on each occasion the particular question would be, by what particular means can this general object be pursued with the greatest probability of success?
But by the habit of recurring to and making application of this one principle, the eye of the inquirer, the tongue of the speaker, and the pen of the writer, would, on every part of the field of legislation, be brought to some conclusion, passing condemnation on some or other of those abuses, the continuance of which has this common interest for its support.
In a word, so long as any one of these relatively profitable abuses continues unremedied, — so long must there be one such person or more to whose interest the use of reason is prejudicial, and to whom hot only the particular beneficial measure from which that particular abuse would receive its correction, but every other beneficial measure, in so far as it is supported by reason, will also be prejudicial in the same way.
It is under the past and still existing state of things, — in other words, under the dominion of usage, custom, precedent, acting without any such recurrence to this only true principle, — that the abuses in question have sprung up. Custom, therefore, blind custom, in contradiction and opposition to reason, is the standard which he will on every occasion endeavour to set up as the only proper, safe, and definable standard of reference. Whatever is, is right: every thing is at it should be. These are his favourite Ch. 3.] CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. 369 maxims — maxims which he will let slip no opportunity of inculcating to the best advantage possible.
Having, besides his share in the sinister interest, his share in the universal and legitimate interest, there must, to a corresponding extent, be laws and institutions, which, although good and beneficial, are no less beneficial to and necessary to his interest, than to that of the whole community of which he makes a part. Of these, then, in so far as they are necessary to his interest, he will be as sincere and strenuous a defender, as of those by which any part of the abuses which are subservient to his sinister interest is maintained.
It is conducive, for instance, to his interest, that the country should be effectually defended against the assault of the common enemy: that the persons and properties of the members of the community in general, his own included, should be as effectually as possible protected against the assaults of internal enemies— of common malefactors.
But it is under the dominion of custom, blind or at best purblind custom — that such protection has been provided. Custom, therefore, being sufficient for his purpose. Reason always adverse to it, Custom is the ground on which it will be his endeavour to place every institution, the good as well as the bad. Referred to general utility as their standard, shown to be conformable to it by the application of reason to the case, they would be established and supported, 'J B indeed, on firmer ground tlian at present. But by placing them on tlie ground of utility, by the application of reason, he has nothing to gain, while, as hath been seen above, he has every thing to lose and fear from it.
The principle of general utility he will accordingly be disposed to represent in the character of " a dangerous principled for so long as blind custom continues to serve his purpose, such, with reference to him and his sinister interest, the principle of general utility really is.
Against the recognition of the principle of general utility, and the habit of employing reason as an instrument for the application of it, the leading members of the Government, in so far as corruption has pervaded the franje of Government, and in particular the members of all ranks of the profession of the law, have the same interest as in the eyes of Protestants and other non-catholics, the Pope and his subordinates had at the time and on the occasion of the change known in England by the name of the Reformation.
At the time of the Reformation, the opposition to general utility and human reason was conducted by fire and sword. At present, the war against these powers can not be completely carried on by the same engines.
Fallacies, therefore, applied principally to the purpose of devoting to contempt and hatred-4hose who Sect. 1.] CAUSES or utterance. 371 apply the principle of general utility on this ground, remain the only instruments in universal use and request for defending the strongholds of abuse against hostile powers.
These engines we, accordingly, see applied to this purpose in prodigious variety, and with more or less artifice and reserve.
Second Cause.
Interest-begotten Prejudice.
If by interest in some shape or other, that is by a motive of one sort or other, every act of the will and thence every act of the hand is produced, so directly or indirectly must every act of the intellectual faculty: though in this case the influence of the interest, of this or that motive, is neither so perceptible nor in itself so direct as in the other.
But how (it may be asked) is it possible that the motive a man is actuated by can be secret to himself? Nothing is more easy — nothing more frequent. Indeed the rare case is, not that of his not knowing, but that of his knowinir it.
o It is with the anatomy of the human mind, as with the anatomy and physiology of the human body: the rare case is, not, that of a man's being unconversant, but that of his being conversant with it.
The physiology of the body is not without its difficulties: but in comparison of those by which the knowledge of the physiology of the mind has been obstructed, the difficulties are slight indeed.
Not unfrequently, as between two persons living together in a state of intimacy, either or each may possess a more correct and complete view of the motives Ch. 4.] CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. 373 by which the mind of the other, than of those by which his own mind is governed.
Many a woman has in this way had a more correct and complete acquaintance with the internal causes by which the conduct of her husband has been determined, than he has had himself.
The cause of this is easily pointed out. By interest, a man is continually prompted to make himself as correctly and completely acquainted as possible with the springs of action, by which the minds of those are determined on whom he is more or less dependent for the comfort of his life.
But by interest he is at the same time diverted from any close examination into the springs by which his own conduct is determined.
From such knowledge he has not, in any ordinary shape, any thing to gain, — he finds not in it any source of enjoyment.
In any such knowledge he would be more likely to find mortification than satisfaction. The purely social motives, the semi-social motives, and, in the case of the dissocial motives, such of them as have their source in an impulse given by the purely social or by the semi-social motives *; these are the motives, the prevalence of which he finds mentioned as matter of praise in the instance of other men: it is by the supposed prevalence of these amiable motives that he finds reputation raised, and that respect and good-will * See Introduction to Moral? and Lr";islation.
S7i CAUSES or UTTERANCE. [Ch. 4 in which every man is obliged to look for so large a portion of the comfort of his life.
In these same amiable and desirable endowments he finds the minds of other men actually abounding and overflowing; abounding during their lifetime by the testimony of their friends, and after their departure by the recorded testimony enregistered in some monthly magazine, with the acclamation of their friends, and with scarce a dissenting voice from among their enemies.
But the more closely he looks into the mechanism of his own mind, the less of the mass of effects produced he finds referable to any of those amiable and delightful causes; he finds nothing, therefore, to attract him towards this study, he finds much to repel him from it.
Praise and self-satisfaction, on the score of moral worth, being accordingly hopeless, it is in intellectual that he vvill seek for it. " All men who are actuated by regard for any thing but self, are fools; those only, whose regard is confined to self, are wise. I am of the number of the wise."
Perhaps he is a man with whom a large proportion of the self-regarding motives may be mixed up with a slight tincture of the social motives operating upon the private scale. What in this case will he do? In investigating the source of a given action, he vvill in the first instance set it down, the whole of it, to the account of the amiable and conciliatory, in a word, the social motives. This, in the study of his own Ch. 4.] CAUSES or utterance. '375 mental physiology, will always be his first step, and this will commonly be his last. Why should he look further? Why take in hand the probe? Wliy undeceive himself, and substitute a whole truth, that would mortify him, for a half truth that flatters him?
The greater the share which the motives of the social class have in the production of the general tenour of a man's conduct, the less irksome it seems evident this sort of psychological self-anatomy vvill be. The first view is pleasing; and the more virtuous the man, the more pleasing is that study, which to every man has been pronounced the proper one.
But the less irksome any pursuit is, the greater, if the state of faculties, intellectual and active permit, will be a man's progress in it.
Third Cause.
Aut hority-begotten Prejudice.
Prejudice is the name given to an opinion of any sort, on any subject, nhen considered as having been embraced without sufficient examination: it is a judgment, which being pronounced before evidence, is, therefore, pronounced without evidence.
Now, at the hazard of being deceived, and by deception led into a line of conduct prejudicial cither to himself or to some one to whom it would rather be his wish to do service, what is it that could lead a man to embrace an opinion without sufficient examination?
One cause is the uneasiness attendant on the labour of examination: he takes the opinion up as true, to save the labour that might be necessary to enable him to discern the falsity of it.
Of the propensity to take not only facts but opinions upon trust, the universality is matter of universal observation. Pernicious as it is in some of its applications, it has its root in necessity, in the weakness of the human mind. In the instance of each individual, the quantity of opinion which it is possible for him to give acceptance or rejection to, on the ground of examination performed by himself, bears but a Ch. 5.] CAUSES OF UTTEKANCE. 377 small proportion to that in which such judgment, as be passes upon it, cannot have any firmer or other ground than that which is composed of the like judgment pronounced by some other individual or aggregate of individuals: the cases, in which it is possible for his opinion to be home-made, bear but a small proportion to the cases in w hich, if any opinion at all be entertained by him, that opinion must necessarily have been imported.
But in the case of the public man, this necessity forms no justification either for the utterance or for the acceptance of such arguments of base alloy, as those which arc represented under the name of fallacies.
These fallacies are not less the offspring of sinister interest because the force of authority is more or less concerned. Where authority has a share in the production of them, there are two distinguishable ways in which sinister interest may also have its share.
A fallacy which, in the mouth of A., had its root immediately in interest, — in self-conscious sinister interest,— receiving utterance from his pen or his lips, obtains, upon the credit of his authority, credence among acceptors in any multitude. Having thus rooted itself in the minds of men, it becomes constitutive of a mass of authority, under favour of which, such fallacies as appear conducive to the planting or rooting in the minds of men in general the erroneous notion in question, obtain, at the hands of other men, utterance and acceptance.
378 CAUSES or utterance. [C/i. 5, 2. Having received the prejudice at the hands of authority, viz. of the opinion of those whose adherence to it was produced immediately or mediately by the operation of sinister interest, — sinister interest operating on the mind of the utterer or acceptor of the fallacy in question, prom})ts him to bestow on it, in the character of a rational argument, a degree of attention exceeding that which could otherwise have been bestowed on it; he fixes, accordingly, his attention on all considerations, the tendency of which is to procure for it utterance or acceptance, and keeps at a distance all considerations by which the contrary tendency is threatened.
Ch. 6.] CAUSES OF UTTEllANCE. 379 CHAPTER VI.
Fourth Cause. Self-defence against counter Fallacies.
The opposcrs of a pernicious measure may be sometimes driven to employ fallacies, from their supposed utility as an answer to counter fallacies.
" Such is the nature of men (they may say), that these arguments, weak and inconclusive as they arc, aie those which on the bulk of the people (upon whom ultimately every thing depends) make the strongest and most effectual impression: the measure is a most mischievous one: it were a crime on our parts to leave unemployed any means not criminal that promise to be contributory to its defeat. It is the weakness of the public mind, not the weakness of our cause, that compels us to employ such engines in the defence of it/' This defence might, indeed, be satisfactory where the fallacies in question are em[>loyed, — not as substitutes but only as supplements ro relevant and direct ones.
But if employed as supplements, to prove their being employed in that character and in that character only, and that the use thus made of them i& not inconsistent with sincerity, two conditions seem requisite. 1. That arguments of the direct and relevant kind 380 CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. [Ol. 6.
be placed in the front of the battle, declared to be the main arguments, the arguments and considerations by which the opposition or support to the proposed measure was produced; 2. That on the occasion of employing the fallacies in question, an acknowledgement should be made of their true character, of their intrinsic weakness, and of the considerations which, as above, seemed to impose on the individual in question the obligation of employing them, and of the regret with which the consciousness of such an obligation was accompanied.
If, even when employed in opposition to a measure really pernicious, these warnings are omitted to be annexed to them, the omission affords but too strong a presumption of general insincerity. On the occasion in question, a man would have nothing to fear from any avowal made of their true character. Yet he omits to make this avowal. Why? — Because he foresees that, on some other occasion or occasions, arguments of this class will constitute his sole reliance.
The more closely the above considerations are adverted to, the stronger is the proof which the use of such arguments, without such warnings, will be seen to afford of improbity or imbecility, or a mixture of the two, on the part of him by whom they are employed: of imbecility of mind, if the weakness of such arguments has really failed of becoming visible to him: of improbity, if, conscious of their weakness, and of their tendency to debilitate and pervert the faculties, intellectual and moral, of such persons as are swayed Ch. 6.1 CAUSES OF UTTERANCE. 381 by them,— he gives currency to them unaccompanied by such warning.
Is it of the one or of the other species of imperfection, or of a mixture of both, that such deccptious argumentation is evidentiary? On this occasion, as on others, the answer is not easy, nor fortunately is it material, to estimate the connexion between these two divisions of the mental frame; so constantly and so materially does each of them exert an influence on the other, that it is difficult for either to suffer but the other must suffer more or less along w ith it. On many a well-meaning man this base and spurious metal has no doubt passed for sterling; but if you see it burnished, and held up in triumph by the hands of a man of strong as well as brilliant talents — by a very master of the mint — set him down, without fear of injuring liim, upon the list of those who deceive without having any such excuse to plead as that of having been deceived.
382 USE OF FALLACIES. [C/l. 7.
CHAPTER VII.
U^e of these Fallacies to the utterers and acceptors of them.
Being all of ihem to such a degree replete with absurdity — many of thtMn upon the face of them composed of nothing else — a question that naturally ])resents itself is, how it has happened that they have acquired so extensive a currency? — how it is tliat so much use has been made, and continues to be made, of them.
Is it credible (it may be asked) that, to those by whom they are employed, the inanity and absurdity of them should not be fully manifest? — Is it credible, that on such grounds political measures should proceed?
No, it is not credible: to the very person by whom the fallacy is presented in the character of a reason — of a reason on the consideration of which his opinion has been formed, and on the strength of which his conduct is grounded, — it has presented itself in its genuine colours.
But in all assemblies in which shares in power are exercised by votes, there are two descriptions of persons whose convenience requires to be consulted, — that of the speakers and that of the hearers.
To the convenience of persons in both these situations, the class of arguments here in question are in Ch. 7.] USE OF FALLACIES. 383 an eminent degree favourable: 1. As to the situation of the sjDcaker: — the more numerous and efficient the titles to respect which his argument enables him to produce, the more convenient and agreeable is that situation made to him. Probity in the shape of independence— superiority in the article of wisdom — superiority in the scale of rank — of all these qualities, the reputation is matter of convenience to a man; and of all these qualities, the reputation is by these arguments promised to be made secure.
1. As to independence: — when a man stands up to speak for the purpose of reconciling men to the vote he purposes to give, or for the purpose of giving, to the side which he espouses whatsoever weight is regarded by him as attached to his authority; the nature of the purpose imposes on him a sort of necessity of linding something in the shape of a reason to accompany and recommend it.
Though in fact directed and governed by some other will behind the curtain, and by the interest by which that other will is governed, decency is understood to require, that it is from his own understanding, not from the will of any other person, that his own Avill should be understood to have received its direction.
But it is not by the matter of punishment or the matter of reward — it is not by Jea?'s or hopes — it is not by threats ox promises — it is by something of the nature, or in the shape at least of a reason, that understandino- is iioverned and detei"mined. To show, 384 USE OF FALLACIES. [Ch. 7.
then, that it is by the determination of his own judgment that his conduct is determined, it is deemed advisable to produce some observation or other in the character of the determinate reason, from which on the occasion in question, his judgment, and thence his will and active faculty, have received their direction.
The argument is accordingly produced, and by this exhibit, the independent character of his mind is established by irrefragable evidence.
To this purpose every article in the preceding catalogue may with more or less effect be made to serve, according to the nature of the case.
2. Next, as to superiority in the scale of wisdom: — on running over the list, different articles will be seen to present in this respect different degrees of convenience.
Some of them will be seen scarcely putting in any special title to this praise.
In others, while the reputation of prudence is secured, yet it is that sort of prudence which, by the timidity attached to it, is rendered somewhat the less acceptable to an erect and commanding mind.
To this class may be referred the arguments ad metum and ad verecimdiamy — the hydrophobia of innovation, the argument of the ghost-seer, whose nervous system is kept in a state of constant agitation by the phantom of Jacobinism dancing before his eyes, — the idolator, who, beholding in ancestry, in authority, in allegorical personages of various sorts and sizes, in precedents of all sorts, in great characters dead and Ch. 7.] use OF FALLACIES. 385 living, placed in high situations, so many tyrants to whose will, real or supposed, blind obsequiousness at the hands of the vulgar of all classes, may by apt ceremonies and gesticulation be secured, makes himself the first prostration, in the hope and confidence of finding it followed by much and still more devout prostration, on the part of the crew of inferior idolators, in whose breasts the required obsequiousness has been implanted by long practice.
Other arguments again there are, in and for the delivery of which the wisdom of the orator places itself upon higher ground. His acuteness has penetrated to the very bottom of the subject — his comprehension has embraced the whole mass of it — his adroitness has stripped the obnoxious proposal of the delusive colouring by which it had recommended itself to the eye of ignorance: he pronounces it speculative, theoretical, romantic, visionary: it may be good in theory, but it would be bad in practice: it is too good to be practicable, the goodness which glitters on the outside is sufficient proof, is evidence, and tliat conclusive, of the worthlessness that is within: its apparent facility suffices to prove it to be impracticable. The confidence of the tone in which tiie decision is conveyed, is at once the fruit and the sufficient evidence of the complete command which the glance of the moment sufficed to give him of the subject in all its bearings and dependences. By the experience which his situation has led him to acquire, and the use which his judgment has enabled him to make of 386 USE OF FALLACIES. [Ch. 7.
that experience, he catches up at a single glance those features which suffice to indicate the class to which the obnoxious proposal belongs.
By the same decision delivered in the same tone, superiority of rank is not less strikingly displayed than superiority of talent. It is no new observation how much the persuasion, or at least the expression given to it, is strengthened by the altitude of the rank as constituted or accompanied by the fullness of the purse.
The labour of the brain, no less than that of the hand, is a species of drudgery which the man of elevated station sees the propriety and facility of turning over to the base-born crowd below — to the set of plodders whom he condescends upon occasion to honour with his conversation and his countenance. By his rank and opulence he is enabled in this, as in other vvays, to pick and choose what is most congenial to his taste. By the royal hand of Frederic, philosophers and oranges were subjected to the same treatment and put to the same use. The sweets, the elaboration of which had been the work of years, were elicited in a few moments by the pressure of an expert hand.
The praise of the receiver of wisdom is always inferior to that of the utterer; but neither is the receiver, so he but make due profit of what he receives, without his praise.
The advantage he acquires from these arguments, is, that of being enabled to give the reason of the faith that is, or is supposed to be, in him.
In some circumstances in uhlcli silence will not serve a man, it will, and to a certainty, be construed into a confession of self-convicting consciousness; — consciousness that what he does is wrong and indefensible: — that what he ijives men to understand to be his opinion, is not really his opinion; — that of the supposed facts, which he has been asserting to form an apparent foundation for his supposed opinion, the existence is not true.
By a persuasion to any such effect, on the part of those with whoui he has to do, his credit, his reputation, would be effectually destroyed.
Something, therefore, must be said, of which it may be supposed that, how little soever may be the weight properly belonging to it, it may have operated on his mind in the character of a reason. By this means his reputation for wisdom is all that is exposed to suffer; — his reputation for probity is saved.
Thus, in the case ^of this sort of base argument, as sometimes in the case of bad money, each man passes it off upon his neighbour, not as being unconscious of its vvorthlessness — not so much as expecting his neighbour to be really insensible of its vvorthlessness — but in the hope and expectation thai the neighbour, though not insensible of its worthlessness, may yet not find himself altogether debarred from the supposition, that to the utterer of the base argument, the badness of it may possibly not have been clearly understood.
But the more generally current in the character of an argument any such absurd notion is, the greater is 388 USE OF FALLACIES. [Ch. 7.
the apparent probability of its being really entertained: for there is no notion, actual or imaginable, that a man cannot be brought to entertain, if he be but satistied of its being generally or extensively entertained by others.
Ch. 8.] PARTICULAR DEMAND. 389 CHAPTER VIII.
Particular demand for Fallacies under the English Constitution.
Two considerations will suffice to render it apparent that, under the British Constitution, there cannot but exist, on the one hand, such a demand for fallacies, and, on the other hand, such a supply of them, as for copiousness and variety, taken together, cannot be to be matched elsewhere.
1. In the first place, a thing necessary to the existence of the demand is discussion to a certain degree free.
Where there are no such institutions as a popular assembly taking an efficient part in the Government, and publishing or suffering to be published accounts of its debates, — nor yet any free discussion through the medium of the press, — there is, consequently, no demand for fallacies- Fallacy is fraud, and fraud is useless when every thing may be done by force.
The only case which can enter into comparison with the English Government, is that of the United Anglo-American States.
There, on the side of the Outs, the demand for fallacies stands without any difference worth noticing, on a footing similar to that on which it stands under the English Constitution.
But the side of the Outs is that side on which the demand for fallacies is by much the least urgent and abundant.
On the side of the Ins, the demand for fallacies depends upon the aggregate mass of abuse; its magnitude and urgency depend upon the magnitude of that mass, and its variety upon the variety of the shapes in which abuse has manifested itself.
On crossing the water, fortune gave to British America the relief that policy gave to the fox; of the vermin by which she had been tormented, a part were left behind.
No deaf auditors of the Exchequer: no blind surveyors of melting irons: no non-registering registrars of the Admiralty Court, or of any other judicatory: no tellers, by whom no money is told but that which is received into their own pockets: no judge acting as clerk under himself: no judge pocketing 7000/. a-year, for useless work, for which men are forced to address his clerks. No judge, who, in the character of judge over himself, sits in one place to protect, by storms of fallacy and fury, the extortions and oppressions habitually committed in another: no tithegatherers exacting immense retribution for minute or never rendered service.
With respect to the whole class of fallacies built upon authority, precedent, wisdom of ancestors, dread of innovation, immutable laws, and many others, occasioned by ancient ignorance and ancient abuses, what readers soever there may be, by whom what is to Ch. 8.] PARTICULAR DEMAND. 391 be found under those several heads has been perused, to them it will readily occur, that in the American Congress the use made of these fallacies is not likely to be so copious as in that August Assembly, which, as the only denomination it can with propriety be called by, has been pleased to give itself that of the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland.