it is plain that few treatises of science do deserve much attention. 79. No one who lives with another on terms of confidence is justified, on any pretense, in killing him; Brutus lived on terms of confidence with Cæsar; therefore, he was not justified, or the pretense he pleaded, in killing him. 80. He that destroys a man who usurps despotic power in a free country deserves well of his countrymen; Brutus destroyed Cæsar, who usurped despotic power in Rome; therefore, he deserved well of the Romans. 81. Nothing which is of less frequent occurrence than the falsity of testimony can be fairly established by testimony; any extraordinary and unusual fact is a thing of less frequent occurrence than the falsity of testimony (that being very common); therefore, no extraordinary and unusual fact can be fairly established by testimony. 82. Testimony is a kind of evidence which is very likely to be false; the evidence on which most men believe that there are pyramids in Egypt is testimony; therefore, the evidence on which most men believe that there are pyramids in Egypt is very likely to be false. 83. He who cannot possibly act otherwise than he does, has neither merit nor demerit in his action; a liberal and benevolent man cannot possibly act otherwise than he does in relieving the poor; therefore, such a man has neither merit nor demerit in his action. 84. The religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans was extravagant fables and groundless superstitions, credited by the vulgar and weak, and maintained by the more enlightened, from selfish or political views; the same was clearly the case with the religion of the Egyptians; the same may be said of the Brahminical worship of India, and the religion of Fo, professed by the Chinese; the same, of the mythological systems of the Peruvians, of the stern and bloody rites of the Mexicans, and those of the Britons and Saxons; hence we may conclude that all systems of religion, however varied in circumstances, agree in being superstitions kept up among the vulgar, from interested or political views of the more enlightened classes. 85. What happens every day is not improbable; some things against which the chances are many thousands to one, happen every day; therefore, some things against which the chances are many thousands to one are not improbable. 86. The principles of justice are variable; the appointments of nature are invariable; therefore, the principles of justice are not appointments of nature. 87. Of two evils, the less is to be preferred; occasional turbulence, therefore, being a less evil than rigid despotism, is to be preferred to it. 88. No evil should be allowed that good may come of it; all punishment is an evil; therefore, no punishment should be allowed that good may come of it. 89. Repentance is a good thing; wicked men abound in repentance; therefore, wicked men abound in what is good. 90. If the exhibition of criminals, publicly executed, tends to heighten in others the dread of undergoing the same fate, it may be expected that those soldiers who have seen the most service, should have the most dread of death in battle; but the reverse of this is the case; therefore, the former is not to be believed. 91. Why does a ball, when dropped from the masthead of a ship in full sail, fall not exactly at the foot of the mast but nearer the stern of the vessel?-Davis, Logic. 92. "The impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished. For do not men regard Zeus as the best and most righteous of the gods? And even they admit that he bound his father because he wickedly devoured his sons."Plato, Euthyphro. 93. The soul is unchangeable; the unchangeable is simple; the simple is indissoluble; the indissoluble is indestructible; therefore, the soul is immortal. See Plato, Phaedo. CHAPTER I. STATISTICS The value of any conclusion depends largely upon the soundness of the premises from which it is drawn; a great many of these premises, as we have seen, are inductions from particular facts. When these inductive inferences have been tested by one or another of the "Inductive Methods" they can be regarded as trustworthy; but the successful application of the methods presupposes a fairly complete analysis of the phenomena under investigation, for it is by this analysis that we determine the circumstances in which the phenomenon occurs. If we cannot determine the circumstances it is obvious that we cannot apply the Methods. It might seem to follow from this that if the circumstances in which a phenomenon occurs are so complex as to defy analysis, or if the phenomenon itself cannot be separated into its elements, it would be impossible to make any reliable generalizations regarding the relations of the phenomenon in question. Or if we were quite unable to surmise which of a multitude of circumstances was significant, or to isolate any of them by means of the Methods, we could not decide which was causally related to the phenomenon and which was not. There are many fields in which analysis is possible in only a slight degree; social phenomena and phenomena of the weather are cases in point. A moment's reflec |