could be proved to be correct, the way in which he obtained his fundamental principles would ever remain a memorable instance of hasty generalisation, not merely as represented by others, but as recorded by himself.

It fortunately happens that we have an account of the matter in his own words. Nothing can be more explicit than the following statement.

"It has been said," writes Mr. Malthus, "that I have written a quarto volume to prove that population increases in a geometrical ratio, and food in an arithmetical ratio; but this is not quite true. The first of these propositions I considered as proved the moment the American increase was related, and the second proposition as soon as it was enunciated. The chief object of my work was to inquire what effects these laws, which I consider as established in the first six pages, had produced and were likely to produce on society."*

Thus of two important propositions, teeming with consequences, he considered the first (which in truth required to be substantiated by extensive research and cautious discrimination) as proved by one solitary instance; and the second (scarcely to be established by a less severe process) as purely self-evident. This is assuredly not the way in which the foundation of weighty and comprehensive theories ought to be laid.†

Essay on Population, vol. ii. p. 453., 6th ed.

†The reader who may wish to reconsider this important

Of the third error in our list we have a striking instance, almost equally instructive in its logical results although less momentous in its practical consequences, in the great fallacy which forms the basis of Berkeley's celebrated Theory of Vision. A more decided case of the assumption of purely imaginative facts as real and incontrovertible premises can scarcely be adduced from the records of philosophical speculation. The false step in question is committed in the second paragraph of his Essay, in which, with a perfect unconsciousness of what he is doing, he converts distance (an abstract term) into a material line, and represents it as both the patient and the agent of physical operations, which are of course wholly fictitious.*

As this passage, however, will form the subject of particular comment in an Appendix to the present treatise, it is needless, after quoting it below, to do more here than point out the general character of

question is recommended to consult Mr. Doubleday's "True Law of Population," and an able tract by Mr. Hickson, first published in the Westminster Review, entitled, "An Essay on the Principle of Population," containing, in my opinion, the justest view of the subject yet given to the world, and remarkable for its abstinence from hasty generalisation, the besetting sin of Mr. Malthus.

*"It is, I think, agreed by all that distance of itself and immediately cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye. Which point remains invariably the same whether the distance be longer or shorter."

the fallacy which it contains and its position in the very van of his logical forces.

Such instances as these strikingly show the necessity of scrutinising the doctrines of even the most eminent philosophers in their very origin, as well as exemplify the prevalence and importance of those errors which lurk in ambiguities of language, unwarranted generalisations, and assumptions of fiction for fact.

Whoever attentively reflects on these examples, and on the suggestions regarding them, which have been offered in the present chapter, will probably agree with the author that, although the first two causes of fallacy extensively prevail, yet the greatest revolution remaining to be produced in human thought will arise from a diminution of the lastmentioned source of erroneous conclusions, or, in other words, from an examination of propositions expressive of facts assumed without any evidence.

The progress of physical science may be looked upon now as secure. In this department of knowledge, the human mind has succeeded in placing itself on the right track; and although some improvement may be effected in the exact expression of abstruse scientific principles, what chiefly remains to be done, is to go forward from the points already attained, to the investigation of facts hitherto overlooked, or not yet brought to light, or not sufficiently examined, with all the aid supplied by the exquisite instruments and subtle methods of

calculation invented by modern ingenuity. The proper mode of proceeding is here insured by such illustrious examples of successful investigation, that the necessity of rules and formulas is almost superseded. But in morals, metaphysics, theology, and politics, with all subjects belonging to social science not comprehended by those terms, and I may add in the science of medicine, a different aspect of affairs presents itself. Here there are innumerable gratuitous and baseless assumptions, received with entire faith as unquestionable and almost self-evident first principles, of the groundlessness of which no suspicion is entertained.

These are often mixed with truths, and the various deductions from both being perpetually intermingled with the original data and with each other, the result is a chaos of opinions, from which, in moments of speculative despondency, it seems, to the philosophic mind, impossible for the human race to be extricated.

The only method of extrication is for the inquirer to allow no facts, no propositions, no doctrines, no principles, or whatever else they may be called, to pass before him on any question which he has undertaken to examine, without scrutinising their character and carefully investigating the evidence on which they rest, or are supposed to rest; and where there is no evidence at all, attempting to trace the groundless assumptions to their origin

in mal-observation, misapprehension, ignorance, falsehood, the love of fiction, or other causes.

This course is doubtless opposed by a general and a reprehensible repugnance to review established doctrines, and by the mischievous prejudice, which has so long obstructed philosophical inquiry, that opinions are legitimate objects of moral approbation and censure; that for the conclusions to which a man is brought in the free exercise of his intellect, he may be justly subjected to moral condemnation.

The destruction of this senseless and pernicious dogma, which subjects the thinking few to the despotism of the unthinking many, would sweep away one of the greatest impediments, not only to the progress of truth, not only to the advance of sound morality, but to the reciprocation of kind feelings and good deeds, to the peace of the individual, the family circle, and the community; in a word, to the happiness which is ready to flow upon the human race from a thousand sources were it permitted to do so.

It is not yet adequately perceived how much the predominance of speculative error costs the world.