_Progressive._ _Regressive._ If A is B, C is D. If E is F, G is H. If C is D, E is F. If C is D, E is F. If E is F, G is H. If A is B, C is D. .'. If A is B, G is H. .'. If A is B, G is H. CHAPTER XXX. _Of Fallacies_. § 827. After examining the conditions on which correct thoughts depend, it is expedient to classify some of the most familiar forms of error. It is by the treatment of the Fallacies that logic chiefly vindicates its claim to be considered a practical rather than a speculative science. To explain and give a name to fallacies is like setting up so many sign-posts on the various turns which it is possible to take off the road of truth. § 828. By a fallacy is meant a piece of reasoning which appears to establish a conclusion without really doing so. The term applies both to the legitimate deduction of a conclusion from false premisses and to the illegitimate deduction of a conclusion from any premisses. There are errors incidental to conception and judgement, which might well be brought under the name; but the fallacies with which we shall concern ourselves are confined to errors connected with inference. § 829. When any inference leads to a false conclusion, the error may have arisen either in the thought itself or in the signs by which the thought is conveyed. The main sources of fallacy then are confined to two-- (1) thought, (2) language. § 830. This is the basis of Aristotle's division of fallacies, which has not yet been superseded. Fallacies, according to him, are either in the language or outside of it. Outside of language there is no source of error but thought. For things themselves do not deceive us, but error arises owing to a misinterpretation of things by the mind. Thought, however, may err either in its form or in its matter. The former is the case where there is some violation of the laws of thought; the latter whenever thought disagrees with its object. Hence we arrive at the important distinction between Formal and Material fallacies, both of which, however, fall under the same negative head of fallacies other than those of language. | In the language | (in the signs of thought) | Fallacy -| |--In the Form. |--Outside the language -| | (in the thought itself) | | |--in the Matter. § 831. There are then three heads to which fallacies may be referred-namely, Formal Fallacies, Fallacies of Language, which are commonly known as Fallacies of Ambiguity, and, lastly, Material Fallacies.