Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/492

* FALL. 142 FALLACY. the history of theology. The Pelagians mini- mized its importance, denying that Adam's sin injured anybody but himself, and referring the universality of sin to universal bad example, but failing to explain whence comes the universal bad example. The Augustinians made it the true entrance of sin into the race, and taught such a connection of the race with Adam that his sin was truly their sin, and thus all were involved in common condemnation with him, but without any clear theory of the nature of the connection. The Calvinists took up the Augustinian view, and explained it by various theories of imputa- tion (q.v. ) and federal headship. (See Federal Theology. ) The Arminians put the loss of the race in subjection to death, with its attendant moral disadvantages. Evangelical Arminians (Wes- leyans, etc.) have held to a stricter view. In recent times the Fall has been attacked from the standpoint of evolution, and one of the most common theological results of the triumph of evolution, in the popular apprehension, has been to overthrow this doctrine. The origin of the race by evolution precludes even the existence of 'first parents,' that is. of any single pair of human progenitors. And even if this difficulty could be overcome, the whole idea of evolution, which is the idea of progress, is against the idea of a primal and disastrous fall. The progress of the race has bee,n by means of its disadvantages, by struggle and survival, and hence error is it- self one of the steps upward by which the race ascends. And, then, in a still broader way, sin is the temporary triumph of the lower over the higher, of the animal over the spiritual. Hence it is essentially present in the whole evolution- ary process from the lowest to the highest point, which is, in a word, advance from the animal to the spiritual, and cannot have originated in Eden, or been confined to man's present history. These objections are met by the following argu- ments. The Christian doctrine of sin (q.v.) does not identify it with the mere mistaken prefer- ence of a lesser good. It is a choice :n view of obligation and against obligation. It may re- sult in progress as a remote consequence, but it is itself retrogression, fall. Evolution itself pro- vides as fully for degeneration as for progress. There is no warrant in the mere evolutionary process that it will result in unbroken, or even in general advance, ml whatever shall be said as to the origin of the race from a single pair, there was certainly a time when men ti r~t became true men, in the sense of having then first a developed moral nature. This group of men, larger or smaller, were the true lirst. parent- ol tin- race, ami correspond to the Adam ami Eve of the biblical story. We have only to suppose universal sin among them, certainly a possible supposition since sin is universal now, to get the foundation for consequent disorder of nature in the rare; ami it will be impossible to disprove the "M thai sonic one of this group sinne.l and thai ( " him all the rest were infected. In some form or other, that supposition is a cer- tainty 'hi the oth.u- hand, evolution powerfully suppi idea i >1 a fa II In two of H a im tani contributions to thought. By the emphasis upon heredity, ii provides for the f the disorder with which sin must ■ I on-. Th t cha age in an organism may affect its entire functioning. The -lightest variation tends to be handed down by heredity. Let there be such a change in the spirit as that produced by sin, and under heredity there must be profound consequences introduced into the whole line of descent from such a sinning form. If that be a form, or a group of forms, at the beginning of human history, the princi- ples of evolution would forbid the assignment of limits, and certainly of narrow limits, to the possibility of the resulting harm. Again, the provision for degeneration explains how man should not only sink to a lower level by sin than he would otherwise have maintained, but how sin should result in special cases of marked de- generation, now found in humanity, such as are many of the savage races. Given such a varia- tion from the stock ascending toward man as tends toward an ultimate horse, that varying form has lost forever its possibility of becoming the ancestor of a man. Given sin in man. and sinful man has lost forever the possibility of becoming the ancestor of the ideal man by the ordinary processes of evolution. That is, he is fallen. The doctrine of the Fall has also been attacked in recent times by schools of critics who have applied evolutionary theories to explain the origin of the biblical books. The tendency has been to reduce the early chapters of Genesis to the category of the mythical, and by thus explain- ing away the historical character, it has been* supposed that the fact of the Fall has also been disproved. But this supposition overlooks the profound psychology of Gen. iii., and does not explain the undeniable fact of universal corrup- tion and sin. Universal sin exists. Underlying it is universal corruption. It must have orig- inated somehow. That origination was the Fall. FAL'LACY (Lat. fallacia, deception, from fallax, deceitful, from fallere, to deceive; con- nected with Gk. o-0dAX«K, sphallein, to overthrow, Skt. phal, to deceive, l.ith. pitlti, OHG. fallan, Ger. fallen, Icel. f allay, AS. feallan, Eng. fall). The incorrect performance of the process of rea- soning, so as to lead to error. The science of logic reduces sound reasoning to certain rules, and when any of these rules is violated, a logical fallacy is the result. There has been much dis- cussion as to the proper classification of fallacies, and even now no agreement has been reached. But it is obvious that as a fallacy is a violation of some logical law, an adequate exhibition of the laws of thought will carry with it. an ade- quate exhibition of the possible fallacies. Then is only one further difficulty. Language is not a perfect instrument for the expression of thought: and the same kind of logical mistake may he expressed in several ways, and each one of these modes of expression may be important enough to require treatment. This would lead to the old traditional classification into fallacies not complicated by verbal difficulties (extra diotionern ) and those so complicated (in dio linnr). Those not complicated bj verbal diffi- culties need no detailed treatment, as they are all obvious violations of some logical rule. ll thai need be done here is to give (he name oi 01 f the most common fallacies ewtra diotionern. Thus the fallacy of the undistributed middh is ■< violation of the syllogistic law thai the middle term must be distributed at least