is one of example. The case may involve the ownership of property, damages for breach of contract, the right of way, the possession of a child, or innumerable other things. When the evidence to establish facts has been presented, other cases involving similar facts are collected and collated. The general principle running through all these cases and determining them, is discovered and applied to the case in hand. In most cases many issues arising in the progress of the trial, and subordinate to the general issue, must be decided in this way. “The law is a vast system of minute regulations, developed by the application of a few great principles to the affairs of men. Whenever the application of these principles to one condition of affairs has resulted in the formal statement of a rule, that rule becomes the law for all identical conditions of affairs. And as these principles can never change, when a new case arises the rules which it demands must correspond with preexisting rules in such proportion as the new condition of affairs is like the old. This mode of reasoning from similarities is analogy (example). In its syllogistic form the minor premise asserts the similarity between the case decided and the present case. The major states the doctrine of the cited case, and the conclusion predicates the same rule of the case at bar. The error of which, in this form of inference, there is great danger, will always be found in the minor premise. The doctrine of the cited case is generally clear enough to defy serious attack; but the assertion of such similarity between the cases as warrants the extension of the rule to both, is often utterly without foundation. Hence, in employing analogous cases (examples) as the basis of his inferences, the advocate should formulate his dangerous premise with special care, and thoroughly test its accuracy and truth. It is in this department of legal inference that the most splendid triumphs of forensic reasoning 1 Page 90. are achieved. It may win a cause to discover and produce an exactly parallel case from an authoritative court." 1 A Fortiori. The argument a fortiori is a special kind of argument from example. It shows that if a certain principle is applicable to another case mentioned, as it is conceded to be, it is much more applicable to the case in question. "Wherefore if God so clothe the grass which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ?” 2 "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" 3 "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." " This has always been a favorite argument of forensic orators. It can be made very forceful to the simplest mind: "But it seems that Lord George ought to have foreseen that so great a multitude could not be collected without mischief. Gentlemen, we are not trying whether he might or ought to have foreseen mischief, but whether he wickedly and traitorously preconcerted and designed it. But if he be an object of censure for not foreseeing it, what shall we say to government that took no steps to prevent it, that issued no proclamation warning the people of the danger and illegality of such an assembly? If a peaceable multitude, with a petition in their hands, be an army, and if the noise and confusion inseparable from numbers, though without violence or the purpose of violence, constitute war, what shall be said of that government which remained from Tuesday to Friday, knowing that an army was collecting to levy war by public advertisement, yet had not 1 Robinson, Forensic Oratory, 111. 2 Matthew vi. 30. 8 Ibid, vii. 11. 4 Ibid, x. 29. a single soldier, no, nor even a constable, to protect the state?" 1 Arguments from example vary in force. The degree of force depends upon the number of instances, the number of resemblances, the points of resemblance, whether they are accidental or essential, and the Varying points of difference. The more nearly the Force of cases approach to identity, the more force Examples. the example presents as an argument. From the analysis of a single ray of sunlight into the prismatic colors, it was justly concluded that all rays would by the same analysis give the same results. There would be the same certainty with a drop of distilled water under analysis. "A single experiment is frequently devised by which a theory must stand or fall. Of this character was the determination of the velocity of light in liquids as a crucial test of the. Emission Theory. According to it, light traveled faster in water than in air; according to the Undulatory Theory, it traveled faster in air than in water. An experiment suggested by Arago, and executed by Fizeau and Foucault, was conclusive against Newton's Theory." 2 A single experiment with bodies of different densities falling in a vacuum, would be sufficient to establish the principle of equal times. When Pasteur had succeeded in perfectly excluding the air from the matter in which all living organisms had been destroyed by heat, he concluded from a very few instances, "that the infusoria, which had been attributed to spontaneous generation, were developed from little minute spores or eggs, which were 1 Goodrich, British Eloquence, 551. 2 Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 469. constantly floating in the air, and which lose their power of germination if subjected to heat." But examples have much less probative force, when they involve the motives, desires, ability and character of men. “One man is not so exactly similar to another man, one race of men is not so exactly similar to another race of men, one political community is not so exactly similar to another political community, as one piece of platinum is to another piece of platinum, or as one vial of oxygen is to another vial of oxygen." Goldsmith, Scott, Swift, Irving and Beecher, were dull as school boys, but in mature life exhibited marked genius in certain directions. Many a parent, therefore, finds consolation for a child's stupidity in school from the example of these men, when perhaps the only resemblance is in their stupidity. People not accustomed to the collection and critical examination of data, are liable to infer a case under a general rule or principle from too few and insufficient Fallacies. instances. Franklin, Lincoln, Garfield, who were self-made men, rose to eminence in public life; it is, therefore, inferred that other self-made men will be more likely to rise than if they had been blessed with greater advantages in youth. It is inferred from a few instances that a certain rich man is heartless, that a certain capitalist has no regard for labor, that a bank cashier is a thief, that a squint-eyed man is morally crooked. In all these cases the careful examination of many instances would show that the conclusion might be false. Those making such inferences have either known only self-made men who became famous, or have ignored the other class; they have known only miserly rich men and hard-hearted employers, their own bank cashier, and a few men "with a cast in the eye." 1 No fallacy is more common than reasoning from one particular to another particular without the requisite precaution as to the essential resemblances and differences. Caution against this fallacy is the moral of one of the fables of Camerarius. Differences. Two don- Ignoring keys were traveling in the same caravan, the one laden with salt, the other with hay. The one laden with salt stumbled in crossing a stream; the salt melted and his burden was lightened. When they came to another stream, the donkey that was laden with hay, dipped his panniers into the water, expecting a similiar result." 2 No inference to an unobserved case is sound unless it is of a like kind with the observed case or cases on which it is founded; that, is unless we are entitled to make a general proposition. The donkey might have reasoned, "Salt dipped in water is lightened; sugar dipped in water is lightened; anything dipped in water is lightened; I will dip this bale of hay in water." To give the example force as an argument, it is not sufficient that the resemblances be real, sufficient, and in essential particulars; but there must be no such differences in the cases as will destroy the probability from resemblance. It was calculated Cases Not Parallel in all Respects. that great profits would accrue from the Panama Canal, because the Suez Canal had yielded great profits. But though these would both be canals, 1 See Fallacies of Induction, Page 118. 2 Minto, Inductive Logic, 266. |