Part 6
“When you take up a thought and pull it to pieces, you will see that it is not so simple as it seems. It is in reality made up of several thoughts joined together. When you try to separate them, you find it difficult. The connective tissue which binds them together is called inference. When several thoughts growing out of the same soil are connected by inference, they form what is called an argument. Arguments, as they are found in the state of Nature, are of two kinds; those that hang together, and those that only seem to hang together; these latter are called Fallacies.
“In former times they were treated as mere weeds and were mercilessly uprooted. In these days we have learned to look upon them with a kindlier eye. They have their uses, and serve to beautify many a spot that otherwise would remain barren. They are the wild flowers of the intellectual world. I do not intend to intrude my own taste or to pass judgment on the different varieties; but only to show my readers how to know the fallacies when they see them. It may be said that mere nomenclature is of little value. So it is in itself; yet there is a pleasure in knowing the names of the common things we meet every day. The search for fallacies need never take one far afield. The collector may find almost all the known varieties growing within his own enclosure.
“Let us then go out in the sunshine into the pleasant field of thought. There we see the arguments--valid and otherwise--as they are growing. You will notice that every argument has three essential parts. First is the root, called by the old logicians in their crabbed language the Major Premise. Growing quite naturally out of this is the stem, called the Minor Premise; and crowning that is the flower, with its seed vessels which contain the potentialities of future arguments,--this is called the Conclusion.
“Let the reader observe this argument: ‘Every horse is an animal;’ that is the root thought. ‘Sheep are not horses;’ that is the stem shooting into the air. ‘Therefore, sheep are not animals;’ that is the conclusion, the full corn in the ear.
“There is a pleasing impression of naturalness about the way in which one thought grows out of that which immediately preceded it. There is a sudden thrill when we come to the ‘therefore,’ the blossoming time of the argument. We feel that we are entering into one of Nature’s secret processes. Unless our senses are deceiving us, we are actually reasoning.
“After a while, when curiosity and the pride of possession lead us to look more carefully at our treasure, we are somewhat surprised. It is not as it seemed. A little observation convinces us that, in spite of our argumentation, sheep are animals, and always have been. Thus, quite by accident, and through the unaided exercise of our own faculties, we have come upon one of the most ancient forms of reasoning, one that has engaged the attention of wise men since Aristotle,--a fallacy.”
In the opening chapters, Scholasticus gives a description of the more common fallacies, with an account of their habits of growth and of the soils in which they most flourish. “_Petitio Principii_, or begging the question. This is a very pretty little fallacy of vine-like habit. It is found growing beside old walls, and wherever it is not likely to be disturbed. It is easily propagated from slips, each slip being capable of indefinite multiplication, the terminal buds sending down new roots, and the process of growth going on continuously. So tenacious is it that it is practically impossible to eradicate the _petitio_, when once it has fairly established itself. It recommends itself on the ground of economy. In most arguments the attempt is made to prove one thing by means of another thing. This, of course, involves a considerable waste of good material. In begging the question, by means of one proposition we are enabled to prove a proposition that is identical with it. In this way an idea may be made to go a long way.
“The most familiar variety of this fallacy is that known as the Argument in a Circle. To those who are fond of arguments, but who can afford very little mind space for their cultivation, this is an almost ideal fallacy. It requires only the slightest soil, deriving its nutriment almost wholly from the air, and reproducing itself without the slightest variation in type.
“Its hardiness and exuberant efflorescence make it desirable for many purposes. It is useful as a screen to hide the more unsightly parts of one’s intellectual grounds. Often, too, there may be an argumentative structure that has fallen into decay. Its real reason for existence is no longer obvious, yet it may have associations which make us reluctant to tear it down. In such a case, nothing is easier than to plant a slip of the circular argument. In a short time the old ruin becomes a bower, covered with an exuberant efflorescence of rationality. This argument is to be recommended for a Woman’s Hardy Garden of Fallacies.
“It is one which gives great pleasure to a home-loving person who finds satisfaction in that which is his own. Often have I seen a householder sitting under its sweet shade, well content. He was conscious of having an argument which answered to all his needs, and which protected him alike from the contradiction of sinners and from the intrusive questioning of the more critical sort of saints. He had such satisfaction as came to Jonah, when the booth he had constructed, with such slight skill as belonged to an itinerant preacher, was covered by the luxuriant gourd vine. Things were not going as he had expected in Nineveh, and current events were discrediting his prophecies, but Jonah ‘rejoiced with great joy over the gourd.’
“I may be pardoned, in treating the circular argument, for deviating, for a moment, from the field of botany into the neighboring field of zoölogy. For after all, the same principles hold good there also, and as we are forming the habit of looking at thought as a kind of plant, we may also consider it as a kind of animal,--let us say, if you please, a goldfish. You have often paused to watch the wonders of marine life as epitomized in a glass globe upon your centre-table. Those who go down to the sea in ships have doubtless seen more of the surface of waters, but they have not the same facilities for looking into its interior life that you have in your aquarium. A school of goldfishes represent for you the finny monsters of the deep. You see the whole world they move in. The encircling glass is the firmament in the midst of the waters. The goldfishes go round and round, and have a very good time, and have many adventures, but they never get out of their crystal firmament. You may leave them for half a day, but when you come back you know just where to find them. An aquarium is a much safer place for goldfishes to swim in than the ocean; to be sure, they do not get on far, but on the other hand they do not get lost, and there are no whales or even herrings, to make them afraid. There is the same advantage in doing our reasoning in a circle. We can keep up an argument much longer when we are operating in friendly waters and are always near our base of supplies. The trouble with thinking straight is, that it is likely to take us too far from home. The first we know we are facing a new issue. From this peril we are saved by the habit of going round and round. He who argues and runs away from the real difficulty lives to argue another day, and the best of it is the argument will be just the same.
“_Argumentum ad Hominem._ This is a large family, containing many interesting varieties. The _ad hominem_ is of parasitic growth, a sort of logical mistletoe. It grows not out of the nature of things, but of the nature of the particular mind to which it is addressed. In the cultivation of this fallacy it is only necessary to remember that each mind has its weak point. Find out what this weak point is, and drop into it the seed of the appropriate fallacy, and the result will exceed your fondest anticipation.
“Again with the reader’s kind permission, I will stray from the field of botany; this time into that of personal experience. At the risk of falling into obsolete and discredited methods of instruction, I will ask you for the moment to look in and not out.
“Dear Reader, often, when reasoning with yourself, especially about your own conduct, you have found comfort in a syllogism like this:--
I like to do right. I do what I like. Therefore, I do what is right.
The conclusion is so satisfactory that you have no heart to look too narrowly at the process by which it is attained. When you do what you like, it is pleasant to think that righteousness is a by-product of your activity. Moreover, there is a native generosity about you which makes you willing to share with others the more lasting benefits which may ensue. You are ready to believe that what is profitable to you must also be profitable to them in the long run,--if not in a material, then in a spiritual way. All the advantage that comes to you is merely temporary and personal. When you have reaped this scanty harvest, you do not begrudge to humanity in general its plentiful gleanings. In your altruistic mood you do not consider too carefully the particular blessing which your action has bestowed on the world; you are content with the thought that it is a good diffused.
“When out of what is in the beginning only a personal gratification there grows a cosmic law, we have the _Argumentum ad Hominem_. There are few greater pleasures in life than that of having all our preferences justified by our reason. There are some persons who are so susceptible to arguments of this kind that they never suffer from the sensation of having done something wrong,--a sensation which I can assure you is quite disagreeable. They might suspect they had done wrong, were it not that as soon as they begin to reason about it they perceive that all that happened was highly to their credit. The more they think about it, the more pleased they are with themselves. They perceive that their action was much more disinterested than, at the time, they intended. They are like a person who tumbles into the Dead Sea. He can’t go under even if he tries. It is, of course, a matter of specific gravity. When a conscience is of less specific gravity than the moral element into which it is cast, it cannot remain submerged. The fortunate owner of such a conscience watches it with satisfaction when it serenely bobs to the surface; he advertises its superlative excellence,--‘Perfectly Pure! It floats.’
“The great use of the _ad hominem_ argument is like that of certain leguminous plants which enrich the soil by giving to it elements in which it had been previously lacking. After a crop of _ad hominem_ arguments has grown and been turned under, we may expect a rich harvest of more commercially valuable fallacies in the next season. To thus enrich the soil is an evidence of the skill of the culturist.
“Suppose, for example, you were to attempt to implant this proposition in the unprepared mind of an acquaintance, ‘All geese are swans.’ The proposition is not well received. All your friend’s ornithological prejudices are against it. There is no foodstuff to support your theory.
“But suppose you prepare the soil by a crop of the _ad hominem_ argument. You say to your friend, after looking admiringly at his possessions, ‘It seems to me that all _your_ geese are swans.’ He answers cordially, ‘That’s just what I was thinking myself.’ Now you have nicely prepared the ground for further operations.
“While controversial theologians have always had a fondness for arguments in a circle, the _ad hominem_ arguments have been largely cultivated by politicians. More than a generation ago Jeremy Bentham published a work called ‘Political Fallacies.’ He described those that are indigenous to the British Isles. Almost all on his list were of the _ad hominem_ variety. He described particularly those which could be grown to advantage in the Houses of Parliament. Since Bentham’s day, much has been done in America in the way of propagating new varieties. Many of these, though widely advertised, have not yet been scientifically described. I have thought that if my present book is well received, I might publish another covering this ground. It will probably be entitled, ‘Reasoning for Profit; or Success with Small Fallacies.’
“The great essential in arguments of this kind is to have a thorough knowledge of the soil. Given the right soil, and the most feeble argument will flourish. Take, for example, the arguments for the divine right of kings to rule, once much esteemed by court preachers. Of course the first necessity was to catch your kings. The arguments in themselves were singularly feeble, but they flourished mightily in the hotbeds of royalty. The trouble was that they did not bear transplanting.
“Half a century ago there were a dozen thrifty arguments for human slavery. They are, abstractly speaking, as good now as they ever were, but they have altogether passed out of cultivation.
“In landscape gardening groups of the _ad hominem_ arguments skillfully arranged are always charming. Much discrimination is needed for the adornment of any particular spot. Suppose you were called upon to furnish fallacies for an Amalgamated Society of Esoteric Astrologers. You might safely, in such fertile soil and tropical climate, plant the most luxuriant exotics. Such airy growths, however, would be obviously inappropriate for a commercial club composed of solid business men. You would for them choose rather a sturdy perennial, for example, the _argumentum ad Pennsylvaniam_, or tariff-bearing argument.
“It grows thus:--
The tariff is that which conduces to our prosperity. A tax does not conduce to our prosperity. Therefore, a tariff is not a tax.
“Persons who have confined their logical exercises to the task of convincing impartial minds have no idea of the exhilaration which comes when one has only to convince a person of the wisdom of a course of action he has already taken. There is really no comparison between the two. There is all the difference that there is between climbing an icy hill and sliding down the same hill on a toboggan. There is no intellectual sport equal to that of tobogganing from a lofty moral premise to a congenial practical conclusion. We go so fast that we hardly know how we got to the bottom, but there we are, safe and sound. We have only to choose our company and hold on; gravitation does the rest. It is astonishing what conclusions we can come to when we do our reasoning in this pleasantly gregarious fashion.
“_Ignoratio Elenchi_, or the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion. This is not a natural species, but the result of artifice. It is a familiar kind of argument. It begins well, and it ends well, but you have a feeling that something has happened to it in the middle. You have noticed in the orchard an apple tree that starts out to be a Pippin, but when the time comes for it to bear fruit it has apparently changed its mind, and has concluded to be a Rhode Island Greening. Of course you are aware that it has not really changed its mind, for the laws of Nature are quite invariable. The whimsicality of its conduct is to be laid not upon Nature, but upon Art. The gardener has skillfully grafted one stock upon another. The same thing can be done with an argument. You have often observed the way in which a person will start out to prove one proposition and after a little while end up with the triumphant demonstration of something that is quite different. He shows such an ability at ratiocination that you cannot help admiring his reasoning powers, though it is hard to follow him. Your bewilderment comes from the fact that you had expected the original seedling to bring forth after its kind, and had not noticed the point where the scion of a new proposition had been grafted on.
“Many persons are not troubled at all when the conclusions are irrelevant. They rather like them that way. If an argument will not prove one thing, then let it prove another. It is all in the day’s work. To persons with this tolerant taste the variety afforded by the use of the _ignoratio elenchi_ is very pleasing.”
A chapter is given to the Cross-fertilization of Fallacies. The author shows how two half-truths brought together from two widely separated fields of thought will produce a new and magnificently variegated form of opinion. The hybrid will surpass specimens of either of the parent stocks both in size and showiness. Thus a half-truth of popular religion cross-fertilized by a half-truth of popular science will produce a hybrid which astonishes both the religious and the scientific world. If we were following the analogy of mathematics we might assume that two half-truths would make a whole truth. But when we are dealing with the marvelous reproductive powers of nature we find that they make much more than that.
Scholasticus gives a page or two to the Dwarfing of Arguments. “The complaint is sometimes heard that an argument which is otherwise satisfactory proves too much. This may seem a good fault to those whose chief difficulty is in making their arguments prove anything at all. But I assure you that it is really very troublesome to find that you have proved more than you intended. You may have no facilities for dealing with the surplus conclusions, and you may find all your plans disarranged. For this reason many persons, instead of cultivating arguments of the standard sizes which take a good deal of room, prefer the dwarf varieties. These are very convenient where one does not wish one principle to crowd out another that may be opposed to it. Persons inclined to moderation prefer to cultivate a number of good ideas without crowding. The dwarf varieties are pleasing to the cultivated taste, as they are generally exceedingly symmetrical, while full-grown ideas, especially in exposed places, are apt to impress one as being scraggly.
“Dean Swift, who had no taste for miniature excellencies, spoke scornfully of those who plant oaks in flower-pots. I have, however, frequently seen very pleasing oaks grown in this way, and they were not in very big flower-pots, either.
“In moral reasoning, it is especially difficult to keep our conclusions moderate enough for our convenience. An ordinary argument always tends to prove too much. This is disconcerting to those who are endeavoring to live up to their favorite text, ‘Be not overmuch righteous.’ The danger of overmuchness is obviated by cultivating the fashionable dwarf varieties of righteousness.
“Various methods of dwarfing are practiced with success. Training will do much; you have seen trees dwarfed by tying them to a trellis or against a wall or to stakes, and preventing their growth beyond the prescribed limits. Incessant pruning is necessary, and each new growth must be vigorously headed back. By using the same means we may cultivate a number of fine ideas, and at the same time keep them fairly small.”
The least satisfactory chapter is that on Pests. “It is easy enough,” says Scholasticus, “to describe a pest, but it is another matter to get rid of it. The most painstaking fallacy culturist must expect to awake some morning and behold his choicest arguments laid low by some new kind of critic. There seems to be no limit to the pestiferous activity of these creatures. They are of two kinds: those that bite, cutting off the roots of the argument, and those that suck out the juices. These latter destroy the vital tissue of inference on which everything depends. I never met any one who cultivated arguments on a large scale who did not have his tale of woe.
“I had at one time a theological friend who had great reputation as a dogmatist. He had for many years a garden of fallacies which was one of the show places. It was in a sheltered situation, so that many fine old dogmas flourished which we do not often, in these days, see growing out of doors. Everything went well until the locality became infested with destructive criticism. He tried all the usual remedies without success. At last he became utterly discouraged, and cut out all the dead wood, and uprooted all the dogmas that were attacked by the pest. Since then he has given up his more ambitious plans, and he has only a simple little place where he cultivates those fruits of the spirit which are not affected by destructive criticism. It is only fair to say that he is making a very pleasant place of it.
“For the encouragement of those who are not ready to take such heroic methods, it may be said that eternal vigilance, though not a panacea, will do much. Some of the most dreaded species of critics are not so dangerous as they seem. Many persons fear the _Criticus Academicus_. I have, however, seen fallacies which survived the attacks of this species and fell easy victims to the more troublesome _Criticus Vulgaris_, or Common Gumption.
“The worst pest is what is known as the _Reductio ad Absurdum_. This is a kind of scale which grows upon a promising argument and eats out its life. It is so innocent in its appearance that at first one does not suspect its deadly character. In fact, it is sometimes taken as an agreeable ornament. After a little while the argument is covered over with a sort of dry humor. There is then no remedy.”
In the chapter on the use of artificial fertilizers, Scholasticus deals particularly with statistics. He refers incidentally to their use in the cultivation of valid arguments. Their importance here is universally acknowledged. “It should be remembered,” he says, “that in this case success depends upon the extreme care with which they are used. An unusual amount of discrimination is demanded in their application. For this reason, if solid conclusions, that head well, are expected, only experts of good character can be trusted to do the work.
“There is no such difficulty in the use of statistics, if the grower is content with arguments of the fallacious order. Statistics are recommended for a mulch. By covering a bed of fallacies with a heavy mulch of miscellaneous statistical matter it is protected from the early frosts and the later drought. The ground of the argument is kept thus in a good condition. No particular care is here needed in the application of statistics; any man who can handle a pitchfork can do all that is required. I have seen astonishing results obtained in this way. No one need be deterred by the consideration of expense. In these days statistics are so cheap that they are within the reach of all. If you do not care to use the material freely distributed by the government, you can easily collect a sufficient amount for yourself.