the fact of revolving on an axis and the existence of animated beings, or if there were any reasonable ground for even suspecting such a connection, a probability would arise of the existence of inhabitants in the planets, which might be of any degree of strength, up to a complete induction; but we should then infer the fact from the ascertained or presumed law of causation, and not from the analogy of the earth.”1 False Arguments from Analogy are valid when confined to the point of resemblance, and allowed no more than their just weight; but they are Analogies. often used as if a resemblance between two things in one point meant a resemblance in points in which they really differ, or as if a superficial and partial resemblance implied a complete and fundamental one dependent on a common cause: the analogy is either false, or it is treated as if it amounted to an induction. The following are examples of false analogies: : "If,' they say, 'free competition is a good thing in trade, it must surely be a good thing in education. The supply of other commodities of sugar, for example—is left to adjust itself to the demand; and the consequence is, that we are better supplied with sugar than if the Government undertook to supply us. Why, then, should we doubt that the supply of instruction will, without the intervention of the Government, be found equal to the demand?' "Never was there a more false analogy. Whether a man is well supplied with sugar is a matter which concerns himself alone. But whether he is well supplied with instruction is a matter which concerns his neighbors and the State. If he cannot afford to pay for sugar, he must go without sugar. But it is by no means fit that, because he cannot afford to pay for education, he should go without education. Between the rich and their instructors there may, as Adam Smith says, be free trade. The supply of music masters and Italian masters may be left to adjust itself to the demand. But what is to become of the millions who are too poor 1 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. to procure without assistance the services of a decent schoolmaster?" 1 It is argued that "a great and permanent diminution in the quantity of some useful commodity, such as corn, or coal, or iron, throughout the world, would be a serious and lasting loss; and that if the fields and coal-mines yielded regularly double quantities, with the same labor, we should be so much the richer: hence it might be inferred that, if the quantity of gold and silver in the world were diminished one-half, or were doubled, like results would follow, the utility of these metals, for the purposes of coin, being very great. Now there are many points of resemblance, and many of difference, between the precious metals on the one hand, and corn, coal, &c. on the other; but the important circumstance to the supposed argument is that the utility of gold and silver (as coin, which is far the chief) depends on their value, which is regulated by their scarcity, or rather, to speak strictly, by the difficulty of obtaining them, whereas, if corn and coal were ten times more abundant (i. e. more easily obtained), a bushel of either would still be as useful as now. But if it were twice as easy to procure gold as it is, a sovereign would be twice as large; if only half as easy, it would be of the size of a half-sovereign: and this (besides the trifling circumstance of the cheapness or dearness of gold ornaments) would be all the difference. The analogy, therefore, fails in the point essential to the argument." 2 “Because a just analogy has been discerned between the metropolis of a country, and the heart of the animal body, it has been sometimes contended that its increased size is a disease, - that it may impede some of its most important functions, or even be the cause of its dissolution." 8 "Another example is the not uncommon dictum that bodies politic have youth, maturity, old age, and death, like bodies natural; that after a certain duration of prosperity they tend spontaneously to decay. This also is a false analogy, because the decay of the vital powers in an animated body can be distinctly traced to the natural progress of those very changes of structure which, in 1 Macaulay, in the House of Commons; Trevelyan's Selections, p. 448. See also Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, p. 451. 2 Whately: Rhetoric, part i. chap. ii. sect. vii. Bishop Copleston: Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination, note to Discourse iii.; quoted by Whately. their earlier stages, constitute its growth to maturity; while in the body politic the progress of those changes can not, generally speaking, have any effect but the still further continuance of growth: it is the stoppage of that progress, and the commencement of retrogression, that alone would constitute decay. Bodies politic die, but it is of disease, or violent death; they have no old age.' A false analogy has been made the basis of an argument in favor of despotic government. It has been likened to the government exercised by a father over his children, a government which it resembles only in its irresponsibility, that is, in the fact that it is a despotism; whereas the beneficial working of paternal government depends, when real, not on its irresponsibility, but "on two other circumstances of the case, the affection of the parent for the children and the superiority of the parent in wisdom and experiThe argument from this false analogy is usually summed up in the convenient phrase, "paternal government,"-the fallacy lurking in the word paternal,2 a word which may refer to the power of a father or to his power judiciously exercised; it may mean like a father or like a good and wise father. ence." 1 Fanciful Analogies. The error which consists in overrating the probative force of arguments from analogy is said to be "the characteristic intellectual vice of those whose imaginations are barren, either from want of exercise, natural defect, or the narrowness of their range of ideas." "To such minds objects present themselves clothed in but few properties; and as, therefore, few analogies between one object and another occur to them, they almost invariably overrate the degree of importance of those few; while one whose fancy takes a wider range perceives and remembers so many analogies tending to conflicting conclusions, that he is much less likely to lay undue stress on any of them. We always find that those are the greatest slaves to metaphorical language who have but one set of metaphors." 8 1 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. 2 See p. 71. 8 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. It may, on the other hand, be suggested that one who sees many analogies is in danger of mistaking fanciful for real ones, of making a mere metaphor do duty as an argument. Ruskin is a striking instance in point ; and Mill himself cites Bacon as being "equally conspicuous in the use and abuse of figurative illustration."1 Such is also Macaulay's opinion. "The truth is, that his [Bacon's] mind was wonderfully quick in perceiving analogies of all sorts. But, like several eminent men whom we could name, both living and dead, he sometimes appeared strangely deficient in the power of distinguishing rational from fanciful analogies, analogies which are arguments from analogies which are mere illustrations, — analogies like that which Bishop Butler so ably pointed out between natural and revealed religion, from analogies like that which Addison discovered between the series of Grecian gods carved by Phidias and the series of English kings painted by Kneller. This want of discrimination has led to many strange political speculations. Sir William Temple deduced a theory of government from the properties of the pyramid. Mr. Southey's whole system of finance is grounded on the phenomena of evaporation and rain. In theology, this perverted ingenuity has made still wilder work. From the time of Irenæus and Origen, down to the present day, there has not been a single generation in which great divines have not been led into the most absurd expositions of Scripture by mere incapacity to distinguish analogies proper (to use the scholastic phrase) from analogies metaphorical." 2 1 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. * Macaulay: Essays; Bacon. CHAPTER III. BURDEN OF PROOF AND PRESUMPTION. BEFORE determining in what order to present his arguments, a reasoner should know which Burden of side is bound to prove the proposition in Proof defined. dispute; upon which side, in other words, rests the Burden of Proof. The general rule, in courts of law, on this subject is embodied in the maxim that "he who affirms must prove." "Whoever desires any Court to give judgment as to any legal right or liability dependent on the existence or non-existence of facts which he asserts or denies to exist, must prove that those facts do or do not exist." 1 "The burden of proof as to any particular fact lies on that person who wishes the Court to believe in its existence, unless it is provided by any law that the burden of proving that fact shall lie on any particular person. "A prosecutes B for theft, and wishes the Court to believe that B admitted the theft to C. A must prove the admission. "B wishes the Court to believe that, at the time in question, was elsewhere. He must prove it." 2 he The principle of this legal maxim applies to argumentative composition. One who would convince others of a proposition which they do not believe is bound to prove that proposition. A man cannot be 1 Stephen: Digest of the Law of Evidence, chap. xiii art. xciii. |