CHAPTER TIi. tat ÍV. the next kind of sophism is called non causa pro causa br the assignation of a false cause. This the peripatetic philo- sophers were guilty of continually, when they told ús that certain beings, which. they called substantial forms, were the springs of colour, motion, vegetation, and the various operations Of natural beings in the animate and inanimate world ; when they informed us that nature was terribly afraid of a vacuum ; and that this was the cause why the water would not fall out of a long tube if it was turned upside down ; the moderns as well as the ancients fall often into this fallacy, when they positively assign the rea- sons of natural appearances, without sufficient experiments to prove them. Astrologers are over -run with this sort of fallacies, and they cheat the people grossly by pretending to tell fortunes, and to deduce the cause of the various occurrences in the lives of men from the various positions of the stars and planets, which they call aspects. When comets and eclipses of the sun and moon are constru- ed to signify the fate of princes, the revolution of states, famine; wars and calamities of all kinds, it is a fallacy that belongs to this rank of sophisms. There is scarce any thing more common in human life than this sort of deceitful argument. If any two accidental events happen to concur, one is presently made the cause of the other. " If Thins wronged his neighbour of a guinea, and in six mouths after he fell down and broke his leg," weak men will impute it to the divine vengeance on Titius for his former injus- tice. This sophism was found also in the early days of the world; for when holy Job was surrounded with uncommon mi -. series, his own friends inferred, that he was a most heinous cri- minal, and charged him with aggravated guilt as the cause of his calamities; though God himself by a voice from heaven solved this uncharitable sophism, and cleared his servant Job of that charge. How frequent is it among men to impute crimes to wrong persons ? We too often charge that upon the wicked contrivance and premeditated malice of a neighbour, which arose merely from ignorance, or from an unguarded temper. And on the other hand when we have a mind to excuse ourselves, we prac- tise the same sophism and charge that upon our inadvertence or our ignorance, which perhaps was designed wickedness. What is really dope by a necessity of circumstances, we sometimes im pute to choice. And again, we charge that upon necessity which was really desired,,and chosen. Sometimes a person acts out of judgment, in opposition to his inclination ; another person perhaps acts the same thing out of inclination, and against his judgment. It is hard for us to VOL. vu. I s
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