[Illustration: Mill's Fallacy Table] It was the boast of Archimedes, that if any one would find him a fulcrum, on which to rest a prop, he would raise the world, But this was mere assertion unsupported by facts, for if the fulcrum had been found him, Archimedes could not have performed his promise. This has been proved by Ferguson, who has demonstrated that if Archimedes could have moved with the swiftness of a cannon ball--480 miles every hour--it would have taken him just 44,963,540,000,000 of years to have-raised the world one inch. Bulwer remarks, 'Critics have said, what a fine idea of Archimedes! But how much finer is the fact that refutes it. _One of the sublimest things in the world is plain truth_.' All motion generates warmth, Shaking (with cold) is motion, _Ergo_, shaking with cold generates warmth. We look, in this case, to the facts on which the first proposition rests, and find the assertion too general. To one who said that none were happy who were not above opinion, a Spartan replied, 'Then none are happy but knaves and robbers.' Mr. Goodrich, the original Peter Farley gives, In his 'Fireside Education,' an instance to this effect of two boys arguing on the division of their beds. William exclaims, 'You take more than your share of the bed, James.' James answers, 'I only take half the bed.' William replies, 'True, but you take your half out of the middle, and I am obliged to lie on both sides to get my half.' Innumerable sophisms are suffered to pass in consequence of Some brilliancy of position which, dazzles us and prevents our seeing that they are wide of the' mark of reason. An instance occurs in Bulwer--who says, 'Helvetius erred upon education--but his dogma has been beneficial.' Probably so--but not so beneficial as the truth would have been. Many persons have argued from such an instance, that error is useful. Dickens, in those incidental observations of striking good sense strewed up and down his writings, says, in the 'Cricket on the Hearth:'--'These remarks (of Mrs. Fielding) were quite unanswerable: which is the happy property of all remarks that are _sufficiently wide of the purpose_.' Of the refutation of such remarks he has presented an able instance in 'Martin Chuzzlewit': 'Bless my soul, Westlock,' says Pinch, is it nothing to see Pecksniff moved to that extent and know one's self to be the cause? And did you not hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me? 'Do you want any blood shed for you?' returned Westlock with considerable irritation. 'Does he shed anything for you that you _do_ want? Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you pocket money for you? Does he even shed legs of mutton for you in any decent proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?' CHAPTER XII. SCEPTICISM