(3) _Circulus in demonstrando_, the pretence of giving a reason for an assertion, whilst in fact only repeating the assertion itself--generally in other words. In such cases the original proposition is, perhaps, really regarded as self-evident, but by force of habit a man says 'because'; and then, after vainly fumbling in his empty pocket for the coin of reason, the habit of symbolic thinking in words only, without reference to the facts, comes to his rescue, and he ends with a paraphrase of the same assertion. Thus a man may try to prove the necessity of Causation: 'Every event must have a cause; because an event is a change of phenomena, and this implies a transformation of something pre-existing; which can only have been possible, if there were forces in operation capable of transforming it.' Or, again: 'We ought not to go to war, because it is wrong to shed blood.' But, plainly, if war did not imply bloodshed, the unlawfulness of this could be nothing against war. The more serious any matter is, the more important it becomes either to reason thoroughly about it, or to content ourselves with wholesome assertions. How many 'arguments' are superfluous! § 7. The Fallacy of surreptitious conclusion (_ignoratio elenchi_), the mistaking or obscuring of the proposition really at issue, whilst proving something else instead. This may be done by substituting a particular proposition for an universal, or an universal for a particular. Thus, he who attacks the practice of giving in charity must not be content to show that it has, in this or that case, degraded the recipient; who may have been exceptionally weak. Or, again, to dissuade another from giving alms in a particular case, it is not enough to show that the general tendency of almsgiving is injurious; for, by taking pains in a particular case, the general tendency may often be counteracted. Sometimes an argument establishing a wholly irrelevant conclusion is substituted for an _argumentum ad rem_. Macaulay complains of those apologists for Charles I. who try to defend him as a king, by urging that he was a good judge of paintings and indulgent to his wife. To this class of Fallacies belongs the _argumentum ad hominem_, which consists in showing not that a certain proposition is true, but that Critias ought to accept it in consistency with his other opinions. Thus: 'In every parish the cost of education ought to be paid out of the rates: you, at least, have said that there can be no sound economy, unless local expenses are defrayed from local funds.' But whether this is a fallacy depends, as Whately observes, upon whether it is urged as actually proving the point at issue, or merely as convicting the opponent of inconsistency. In the latter case, the argument is quite fair: whatever such a conclusion may be worth.