which Pyrrhus, as the story runs, interpreted to mean that he could conquer the Romans, whereas the oracle subsequently explained to him that the real meaning was that the Romans could conquer him. Similar to this, as Shakspeare makes the Duke of York point out, is the witch's prophecy in Henry VI (Second Part, Act i, sc. 4),
The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose.
An instance of amphiboly may be read on the walls of Windsor Castle—Hoc fecit Wykeham. The king mas incensed with the bishop for daring to record that he made the tower, but the latter adroitly replied that what he really meant to indicate was that the tower was the making of him. To the same head may be referred the famous sentence—'I will wear no clothes to distinguish me from my Christian brethren.'
§ 849. The Fallacy of Composition [Greek: diaíresis] is likewise a case of ambiguous construction. It consists, as expounded by Aristotle, in taking words together which ought to be taken separately, e.g.
'Is it possible for a man who is not writing to write?'
'Of course it is.'
'Then it is possible for a man to write without writing.'
And again—
'Can you carry this, that, and the other?' 'Yes.'
'Then you can carry this, that, and the other,'—
a fallacy against which horses would protest, if they could.
§ 850. It is doubtless this last example which has led to a convenient misuse of the term 'fallacy of composition' among modern writers, by whom it is defined to consist in arguing from the distributive to the collective use of a term.
§ 851. The Fallacy of Division ([Greek: diaíresis]), on the other hand, consists in taking words separately which ought to be taken together, e.g.