Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/493

* FALLACY. I I.'! FALLING BODIES. once. The illicit process of the major or minor term is a violation of the syllogistic law that neither extreme (major or minor) must appear in the conclusion with a quantity exceeding that be- longing to it in the premises. The qiiaternio ter minor urn,, or four terms, violates the law that a syllogism must have three, and only three, terms. The (limbic negative violates the law thai al least one of the premises of every syllogism thai is reduced to proper expression must be affirmative. The pctitio principii, in the form in which it be- longs here, violates the rule that then- musl be three distinct propositions in a syllogism; the violation occurs when the conclusion to be proved is assumed as a premise. But any really signifi- cant pctitio principii is a fallacy in dictionc, for it is only when the identity of conclusion and premise is masked that a petitio principii is liable to be seriously made or seriously taken. .Still another form of the petitio principii, called circulus in probanda, is a fallacy extra dictionem which is possible only when there are two or more syllogisms interrelated in such a way that tin' ((inclusion of each syllogism is the premise of some other. In this way the conclusion, or what is proved, in one syllogism is used in another syllogism as a basis of proof for a proposition which in its turn ultimately comes to be used as a basis of proof for the first conclusion. Hence the Latin name, meaning a circular process of reasoning. In English this fallacy is often called a vicious circle. The term petitio principii is sometimes applied to arguments which are not fallacious at all, but which employ as premises propositions the truth of which is not admitted by those to whom the argument is addressed. The fallacy of the consequent is a violation of the law that in hypothetical propositions the truth of the apodosis (consequent) is not to be taken as carrying with it the truth of the pro- tasis (antecedent). Non causa pro causa, post hoc ergo propter hoc, and false cause are names of a fallacy which consists in violating the induc- tive canon that a temporal antecedent must be distinguished from a cause. The fallacies in dictione are not usually classified according to any systematic principle, but names are given to the most frequent or the most subtle of them. A very comprehensive distinction is that between fallacies in which the disguise of the illogical operation is effected by a single word (equivoca- tion), and those in which it is effected by the structure or other peculiarity of a sentence or phrase as a whole (amphiboly). Equivocation or amphiboly, when it appears in the middle term of a syllogism, is called an ambiguous mid- dle. If the equivocation arises from misplaced emphasis or accent, it is called the fallacy of accent. The so-called fallacies of composition and division may be either equivocations or amphibolies. Thus 'all men' may mean either every man singly (distributive) or the totality of mankind taken as a unit (collective). Any violation of logical rules arising from failure to make this distinction is a fallacy of composition when the distributive use is mistaken for the collective; in the reverse case there is a fallacy of division. These same fallacies of composition and division are amphibolies when the ambiguity between distributive and collective use lurks not in a single word (as above in the Avoid 'all'), but in a phrase. Thus, from the two premises "The animals walk by two and two," and "Two Vol. VII. — 29 and two are four," to argue tied "The animals walk by fours" is a fallacy of composition aris- ing from an amphiboly. Another way in which a fallacy may arise i.-. from neglect to observe a qualilication tacitly lull really made. Thus the statement "What 1 bought yesterday, I ate to- day." in civilized communities really means "What 1 bought in the marketable form yester- day, 1 ate to-day after it had undergone whatever change was necessary to make it edible." If now a caviler, refusing to recognize these tacit quali- lications, were to say "You bought raw meat yes- terday, didn't you';" he would suggest the infer- ence that I ate raw meat to-day. In this case the qualifications really made in the premises are ignored in drawing the conclusion. This is called argumentum a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid — reasoning from statements true in general as if they were true under every quali- fication. Another form of fallacy screened by verbal expression is that in which a conclusion is estab- lished which in expression resembles the point one starts out to make, but which in reality has nothing to do with that point. This is called ignoratio elenchi or irrelevant conclusion. The so-called fallacy of complex question is nothing but an unwarranted assumption in putting a question. The stock example is the inquiry, "Have you stopped beating your mother ? " As can be seen from this brief treatment, many of the fallacies that have time-honored names are not to be taken very seriously. They are relics of an age given to verbal quibbling. It is more important to know what the fundamental laws of thought are, than to know the names given to many trifling and playful violations of such laws. For some other technical terms used to denote improper forms of argumentation, see Argument. Consult: Sidgwick, Fallacies (Lon- don, 1888) ; and the logics of Mill, Creighton, etc. See also Logic; Induction; Syllogism. FALL ARMY-WORM. See Grass-Worm. FALLEN TIMBERS, Battle of. See Wayne, Anthony. FALLFISH. The chub (Semotilus bullaris) of the Mississippi Valley. The 'red fallfish' is one of the shiners (Notropis rubricroceus), the male of which is "blue with a black lateral band, and the whole body more or less suffused with blood-red." It abounds in the rocky pools of the tumbling mountain streams of the south- ern Appalachians, and is exceedingly 7 beautiful. FALLIERES, fa'lyar', Clement Abmand (1841—). A French legislator. He was born at Mezin, in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, which he represented in the National Chamber of Deputies from 1876 to 1890. He held the positions of Minister of the Interior in 1882, 1883, and 1887; Minister of Public Instruction in 1883-85 and 1889-90; and Minister of Justice in 18S7-S8 and 1890-92. He was elected a Sena- tor in 1890 and reelected in 1S97. On the election of Loubet to the Presidency of the Republic in 1899, Fallieres succeeded him as president of the Senate, and upon the convening of that body as the high court of justice presided at the trials of M. Deroulede, M. Guerin, and others for con- spiracy. FALLING BODIES. This term is applied to bodies which are unsupported at the surface of the earth, and which under the influence of grav-