Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/128

124 states: "Twelve pennies are one shilling." A lecturer on physics may afterwards happen to make a statement, the obvious outcome of which is that twelve pennies are (in weight) equal to about twenty-one shillings; and a chemist might prove that silver and copper are not identical, and that no amount of silver can produce the medicinal properties or chemical reactions of a grain of copper. Each teacher will then have made a statement, judged by which his two colleagues will each have spoken falsely. Such a thing is quite conceivable as that a party-spirit should arise in the College; the pupils each taking the side of his favourite professor, and accusing the others of gross ignorance or of wilful per- version of truth. The unlucky mathematician might then do what he ought to have done, but forgot to do, at first, i.e., point out that he was using the word "equal" in a conventional sense; a sense perfectly legitimate for his purpose, though legitimate only within the scope of that purpose. But if party-spirit had already been aroused in the matter, and angry or contemptuous accusations flung about, the explanation would only add to the confusion; for the teacher would now be accused by the adverse party of paltering with truth, of using words in a double sense with intention to mislead; his very explanation would be quoted against him in triumph as a confession of guilt. Again I ask, what chance would the teachers in such a College have of discovering truth, or the pupils of learning what had been discovered?

A very prevalent form of criticasterism might be parodied as follows:—The teacher states a question thus: "The rate of exchange is 9½d. for a franc; how many francs shall I receive for so many shillings?" A