the conclusion here becomes unsound only by the major being taken ambiguously. § 847. It is, however, to the middle term that an ambiguity most frequently attaches. In this case the fallacy of equivocation assumes the special name of the Fallacy of Ambiguous Middle. Take as an instance the following-- Faith is a moral virtue. To believe in the Book of Mormon is faith. .'. To believe in the Book of Mormon is a moral virtue. Here the premisses singly might be granted; but the conclusion would probably be felt to be unsatisfactory. Nor is the reason far to seek. It is evident that belief in a book cannot be faith in any sense in which that quality can rightly be pronounced to be a moral virtue. § 848. The Fallacy of Amphiboly ([Greek: ámphibolía]) is an ambiguity attaching to the construction of a proposition rather than to the terms of which it is composed. One of Aristotle's examples is this-- [Greek: tò boúlesthai labeîn me toùs polemíous] which may be interpreted to mean either 'the fact of my wishing to take the enemy,' or 'the fact of the enemies' wishing to take me.' The classical languages are especially liable to this fallacy owing to the oblique construction in which the accusative becomes subject to the verb. Thus in Latin we have the oracle given to Pyrrhus (though of course, if delivered at all, it must have been in Greek)-- Aio te, AEacida, Romanos vincere posse. Pyrrhus the Romans shall, I say, subdue (Whately), [Footnote: Cicero, De Divinatione, ii. § 116; Quintilian, Inst. Orat. vii 9, § 6.] which Pyrrhus, as the story runs, interpreted to mean that he could conquer the Romans, whereas the oracle subsequently explained to him that the real meaning was that the Romans could conquer him. Similar to this, as Shakspeare makes the Duke of York point out, is the witch's prophecy in Henry VI (Second Part, Act i, sc. 4), The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose. An instance of amphiboly may be read on the walls of Windsor Castle--Hoc fecit Wykeham. The king mas incensed with the bishop for daring to record that he made the tower, but the latter adroitly replied that what he really meant to indicate was that the tower was the making of him. To the same head may be referred the famous sentence--'I will wear no clothes to distinguish me from my Christian brethren.' § 849. The Fallacy of Composition [Greek: diaíresis] is likewise a case of ambiguous construction. It consists, as expounded by Aristotle, in taking words together which ought to be taken separately, e.g. 'Is it possible for a man who is not writing to write?' 'Of course it is.' 'Then it is possible for a man to write without writing.' And again-- 'Can you carry this, that, and the other?' 'Yes.' 'Then you can carry this, that, and the other,'-- a fallacy against which horses would protest, if they could.