4MS LOGIC: OR THE EIGHT USE OF REASON'. can he hurtful to him that drinks it, and the sophister should prove that it revives his spirits, it exhilarates his soul, it gives a roan courage, and makes him strong and active, and then he tikes it for granted that he has proved his point. Buf the respondent may easily shew, that though wine may do all this, yet it may be finally hurtful both to the soul and body of` hint' that drinks it to excess. Disputers when they grow warm, are ready to run into this fallacy ; they dress up the opinion of their adversary as they please, and ascribe sentiments to him which he Both not acknow- ledge ; and when they have with a great deal of pomp attacked and con':ounded these images of straw of their own making, they triumph over their adversary as though they had utterly confuted his opinion. It is a fallacy of the same kind which a disputant is guilty of, when he finds that his adversary is too hard for him, and that he cannot fairly prove the question first proposed ; he then with sly- mess and subtlety turns the discourse aside to some other kindred point which he can prove, and exults in that new argument *herein his opponent never contradicted him. The way to prevent this fallacy is by keeping the eye fixed on the precise point of dispute, and neither wandering from it ourselves, nor suffering our antagonist to wander from it, or sub- stitute any thing else in its room. II. The next sophism is called petitio principii, or a suppo- sition of what is not granted ; that is, when any proposition is proved by the same proposition in other words, or by something that is equally uncertain and disputed ; as if any one undertake to prove that the human soul is extended through all parts of the body because it resides in every member, which is but the same thing in other words : Or, if a Papist should pretend to prove that his religion is the only Catholic religion ; and is derived from Christ and his apostles, " because it agrees with the doctrine of xll -the fathers of the church, all the holy martyrs, and all the Christian world throughout all ages ;" whereas this is the great point in contest, whether their religion does agree with that of all the ancients and the primitive Christians, or no. III. That sort of fallacy which is called a circle, is very bear a -kin to the petitio priucipü ; as when one of the premises in a syllogism is questioned and opposed, and we intend to prove it by the conclusion ; or, when in a train of syllogisms we prove the last by recurring to what was the conclusion of the first. The Papists are famous at this sort of fallacy, when they prove the Scripture to be the word of God by the authority or infallible tes- timony of their church ; and when they. are called to shew the infallible authority of their church; they pretend to prove it by the scripture. L
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