§ 8. Fallacies in the connection of premises and conclusion, that cannot be detected by reducing the arguments to syllogistic form, must depend upon some juggling with language to disguise their incoherence. They may be generally described as Fallacies of Ambiguity, whether they turn upon the use of the same word in different senses, or upon ellipsis. Thus it may be argued that all works written in a classical language are classical, and that, therefore, the history of Philosophy by Diogenes Lærtius, being written in Greek, is a classic. Such ambiguities are sometimes serious enough; sometimes are little better than jokes. For jokes, as Whately observes, are often fallacies; and considered as a propædeutic to the art of sophistry, punning deserves the ignominy that has overtaken it. Fallacies of ellipsis usually go by learned names, as; (1) _a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_. It has been argued that since, according to Ricardo, the value of goods depends solely upon the quantity of labour necessary to produce them, the labourers who are employed upon (say) cotton cloth ought to receive as wages the whole price derived from its sale, leaving nothing for interest upon capital. Ricardo, however, explained that by 'the quantity of labour necessary to produce goods' he meant not only what is immediately applied to them, but also the labour bestowed upon the implements and buildings with which the immediate labour is assisted. Now these buildings and implements are capital, the labour which produced them was paid for, and it was far enough from Ricardo's mind to suppose that the capital which assists present labour upon (say) cotton cloth has no claim to remuneration out of the price of it. In this argument, then, the word labour in the premise is used _secundum quid_, that is, with the suppressed qualification of including past as well as present labour; but in the conclusion labour is used _simpliciter_ to mean present labour only. (2) _A dicto secundum quid ad dictum secundum alterum quid_. It may be urged that, since the tax on tea is uniform, therefore all consumers contribute equally to the revenue for their enjoyment of it. But written out fairly this argument runs thus: Since tea is taxed uniformly _4d. per lb._, all consumers pay equally for their enjoyment of it _whatever quantity they use_. These qualifications introduced, nobody can be deceived.