Page:The art of controversy and other posthumous papers (IA artofcontroversy00schouoft).pdf/43

 by contradiction into exaggerating or extending a statement of your own. It will often happen that your opponent will himself directly try to extend your statement further than you meant it; here you must at once stop him, and bring him back to the limits which you set up: "That's what I said, and no more".

This trick consists in stating a false syllogism. Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from it other propositions which it does not contain and he does not in the least mean;nay, which are absurd or dangerous. It then looks as if his proposition gave rise to others which are inconsistent either with themselves or with some acknowledged truth, and so it appears to be indirectly refuted. This is the diversion, and it is another application of the fallacy non causae ut causae.

This is a case of the diversion by means of an instance to the contrary. With an induction, a great number of particular instances are required in order to establish it as a universal proposition; but with the diversion a single instance, to which the proposition does not apply, is all that is necessary to overthrow it. This is a controversial method known as the instance—instantia,. For example, "all ruminants are horned" is a proposition which may be upset by the single instance of the