Again, what an amount of error is wrapped up in what have been called the regulation-labels of philosophy; as, for example, when a writer is called a “pantheist” in religion, an “intuitionist” in ethics, an “absolutist” in politics, etc., etc.! Classifications of this sort, made, as they generally are, without judgment, discrimination, or qualification, are the greatest foes of true knowledge. It is probable that in nine cases out of ten, the persons who confidently label Mr. Emerson as a “pantheist” or “intuitionist,” could neither define these terms accurately, nor put their fingers upon the passages in his writings which are supposed to justify their use.
Professor Bowen notices a fallacy in a certain use of the word “tend.” When there is more than an even chance that a given result will occur, we may properly say that it “tends” to happen; if there is less than an even chance, it “tends” not to happen. Thus, all persons who have attained the age of twenty-four survive, on an average, till they are sixty-two years old. But no one person, now aged twenty-four, has a right to expect that this average will be exemplified in his particular case. All, collectively, “tend” to the average; but no one “tends” to the average. Mr. Darwin, in his “Origin of Species by Natural Selection,” bases his theory on a fallacy in the use of the word “tend.” “He first argues that the specific Marks of Species, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, ‘tend’ to vary, because, perhaps in one case out of ten thousand, a child is born with six fingers on one hand, or a cat with blue eyes, or a flower grows out of the middle of another flower. Collecting many instances of such sports of nature or monstrosities, he bases his whole theory upon them, forgetting that the vastly larger number of normal growths and developments proves that the ‘tendency’ is to non-variation. Then, secondly, because, perhaps, one out of a hundred of these abnormal Marks is transmitted by inheritance, he assumes that these freaks of nature tend to perpetuate themselves in a distinct race, and thus to become permanent Marks of distinct species. Thirdly, as either of the two preceding points, taken singly, affords no basis whatever for his doctrine, he assumes that their joint occurrence is probable, because he has made out what is, in truth, a very faint probability that each may separately happen. But if the chance of a variation in the first instance is only one out of a thousand, and that of the anomaly being handed down by descent is one out of a hundred, the probability of a variation established by inheritance is but one out of a hundred thousand. As the theory further requires the cumulation of an indefinite number of such variations, one upon another, the formation of a new species by the Darwinian process may safely be pronounced to be incredible.”
In treating of the difference between “the disgraceful” and “the indecent,” Archbishop Whately observes that the Greeks and the Romans, unfortunately, had not, like ourselves, a separate word for each; turpe and αἰσχρὸς served to express both. Upon this ambiguity some of the ancient philosophers, especially the Cynics, founded paradoxes, by which they bewildered themselves and their hearers. It is an interesting fact that the Saxon part of our language, containing a smaller percentage of synonymous words that are liable to be confounded, is much freer from equivocation than the Romanic. Of four hundred and fifty words discriminated by Whately, in his treatise on synonyms, less than ninety are Anglo-Saxon. On the other hand, it has been noted by the same writer that the double origin of our language, from Saxon and Norman, often enables a sophist to seem to render a reason, when he is only repeating the assertion in synonymous words of a different family: e.g., “To allow every man an unbounded freedom of speech must be always, on the whole, highly advantageous to the State; for it is extremely conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly unlimited of expressing his sentiments.” So the physician in Molière accounted for opium producing sleep by saying that it had a soporific virtue. Again, there is a large class of words employed indiscriminately, neither because they express precisely the same ideas, nor because they enable the sophist to confound things that are essentially different, but because they convey no distinct ideas whatever, except of the moral character of him who uses them. “Il m’appelle,” says Paul Louis Courier, speaking of an opponent, “jacobin, révolutionnaire, plagiaire, voleur, empoissonneur, faussaire, pestiféré ou pestifère, enragé, imposteur, calomniateur, libelliste, homme horrible, ordurier, grimacier, chiffonnier, ... Je vois ce qu’il vent dire; il entend que lui et moi sommes d’avis différent.”
It is an old trick of controversialists, noticed in a previous chapter, to employ “question-begging” words that determine disputes summarily without facts or arguments. Thus political parties and religious sects quietly beg the questions at issue between them by dubbing themselves “the Democrats” and “the Republicans”, or “the Orthodox” and “the Liberals”; though the orthodoxy of the one may consist only in opposition to somebody else’s doxy, and the liberality of the other may differ from bigotry only in the fact that the bigots are liberal only to one set of opinions, while the Liberals are bigoted against all. So with the argument of what is called the Selfish School of Moral Philosophers, who deny that man ever acts from purely disinterested motives. The whole superstructure of their degrading theory rests upon a confounding of the term “self-love” with “selfishness.” If I go out to walk, and, being overtaken by a shower, spread my umbrella to save myself from a wetting, never once, all the while, thinking of my friends, my country, or of anybody, in short, but myself, will it be pretended that this act, though performed exclusively for self, was in any sense selfish? As well might you say that the cultivation of an “art” makes a man “artful”; that one who gets his living by any “craft” is necessarily “crafty”; that a man skilled in “design” is a “designing” man; or that a man who forms a “project” is, therefore, a “projector.”
Derivatives do not always retain the force of their primitives. Wearing woolen clothes does not make a man sheepish. A representative does not, and should not, always represent the will of his constituents (that is, in the sense of voting as they wish, or being their mere spokesman); for they may clamor for measures opposed to the Constitution, which he has sworn to support. Self-love, in the highest degree, implies no disregard of the rights of others; whereas Selfishness is always sacrificing others to itself,—it contains the germ of every crime, and fires its neighbor’s house to roast its own eggs.
What towering structures of fallacy conservatives have often built upon the twofold meaning of the word “old”! Strictly, it denotes the length of time that any object has existed; but it is often employed, instead of “ancient,” to denote distance of time. Because old men are generally the wisest and most experienced, opinions and practices handed down to us from the “old times” of ignorance and superstition, when the world was comparatively in its youth, it is thought must be entitled to the highest respect. The truth is, as Sydney Smith says, “of living men the oldest has, ceteris paribus, the most experience; of generations, the oldest has the least experience. Our ancestors, up to the Conquest, were children in arms; chubby boys in the time of Edward the First; striplings under Elizabeth; men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the white-bearded, silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, and are prepared to profit by, all the experience which human life can supply.” Again, how many tedious books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles have been written to prove that education should consist of mental discipline,—founded on an erroneous derivation of the word from educere, “to draw out.” Does education, it is asked, consist in filling the child’s mind as a cistern is filled with water brought in buckets from some other source, or in the opening up of its own fountains? The fact is, education comes not from educere, but from educare, which means “to nourish,” “to foster,” to do just what the nurse does. Educit obstetrix, says Cicero, educat nutrix, instituit pædagogus. It is food, above all things, which the growing mind craves; and the mind’s food is knowledge. Discipline, training, healthful development is, indeed, necessary, but it should form a part only, not usurp the lion’s share, of education. In an ideal system this and the nourishing of the mind by wholesome knowledge would proceed simultaneously. The school lesson would feed the mind, while the thorough, patient and conscientious acquisition of it would gymnaze the intellect and strengthen the moral force. Why have one class of studies for discipline only, and another class for nourishment only, when there are studies which at once fill the mind with the materials of thinking, and develop the power of thought,—which, at the same time, impart useful knowledge, and afford an intellectual gymnastic? Is a merchant, whose business compels him to walk a dozen miles a day, to be told that he must walk another dozen for the sake of exercise, and for that alone? Yet not less preposterous, it seems to us, is the reasoning of a class of educators who would range on one side the practically useful and on the other the educational, and build high between them a partition wall.
If a man, by mastering Chillingworth, learns how to reason logically at the same time that he learns the principles of Protestantism, must he study logic in Whately or Jevens? One of the disadvantages of an education of which discipline, pure and simple, is made the end, is that the discipline, being disagreeable, too often ends with the school-days; whereas the discipline gained agreeably, instead of being associated with disgust, would be continued through life. It is possible that the muscular discipline which the gymnasium gives is greater while it lasts than that which is gained by a blacksmith or other laborer in his daily work; but whose muscles are more developed, the man’s who practises a few months or years in a gymnasium, or the man’s whose calling compels him to use his muscles all his life? What would the graduate of the gymnasium do, if hugged by a London coal-heaver?
Again, the reader of Macaulay’s “History of England” will recollect the hot and long-protracted debates in Parliament in 1696, upon the question whether James II had “abdicated” or “deserted” the crown,—the Lords insisting upon the former, the Commons upon the latter, term. He will also recall the eloquent and fierce debate by the Lords upon the motion that they should subscribe an instrument, to which the Commons had subscribed, recognizing William as “rightful and lawful king of England.” This they refused to do, but voted to declare that he had the right by law to the English crown, and that no other person had any right whatever to that crown. The distinction between the two propositions, observes Macaulay, a Whig may, without any painful sense of shame, acknowledge to be beyond the reach of his faculties, and leave to be discussed by high churchmen. The distinction between “abdicate” and “desert,” however, is an important one, obvious almost at a glance. Had Parliament declared that James had “deserted” the throne, they would have admitted that it was not only his right, but his duty, to return, as in the case of a husband who had deserted his wife, or a soldier who had deserted his post. By declaring that he had “abdicated” the throne, they virtually asserted that he had voluntarily relinquished the crown, and forfeited all right to it forever.
Among the ambiguous words which at this day lead to confusion of thought, one of the most prominent is the word, “unity.” There are not a few Christians who confound what the Apostles say concerning “unity” of spirit, faith, etc., with unity of church government, and infer, because the church,—that is, the church universal,—is one, as having one common Head, one Spirit, one Father, it must, therefore, be one as a society. “Church unity” is a good thing, so long as it does not involve the sacrifice of a denomination’s life or principles; but there are cases where it amounts to absorption. It sometimes resembles too closely that peculiar union which the boa-constrictor is so fond of consummating between itself and the goat. It is exceedingly fond of goats; but when the union is complete, there is not a trace of the goat,—it is all boa-constrictor.
Hardly any ambiguous word has been more fruitful of controversy than the word “person,” as used in the phrase, “the three Persons of the Trinity.” If there are three Persons, or personalities, in the Trinity, then there must be, it is argued, three Gods. It is true, the word “person” implies a numerically distinct substance; but the theological meaning is very different. The word is derived from the Latin persona, which denotes the state, quality, or condition, whereby one man differs from another, as shown by the phrases personam induere, personam agere, etc. Cicero says: “Tres personas unus sustineo; meam, adversarii, judicis; I, being one, sustain three characters, my own, that of my client, and that of the judge.” Archbishop Whately thinks it probable that the Latin fathers meant by “person” to convey the same idea as did the Greek theologians by the word “hypostasis,”—that which stands under (i.e., is the subject of) attributes.