§ 9. The above classification of Fallacies is a rearrangement of the plans adopted by Whately and Mill. But Fallacies resemble other spontaneous natural growths in not submitting to precise and definite classification. The same blunders, looked at from different points of view, may seem to belong to different groups. Thus, the example given above to illustrate _fallacia accidentis_, 'that, since it is just to take interest, it is right to exact it from one's own father,' may also be regarded as _petitio principii_, if we consider the unconditional statement of the premise--'to take interest upon a loan is perfectly just'; for, surely, this is only conditionally true. Or, again, the first example given of simple ambiguity--'that whatever is written in a classical language is classical, etc.,' may, if we attend merely to the major premise, be treated as a bad generalisation, an undue extension of an inference, founded upon a simple enumeration of the first few Greek and Latin works that one happened to remember. It must also be acknowledged that genuine wild fallacies, roaming the jungle of controversy, are not so easily detected or evaded as specimens seem to be when exhibited in a Logician's collection; where one surveys them without fear, like a child at a menagerie. To assume the succinct mode of statement that is most convenient for refutation, is not the natural habit of these things. But to give reality to his account of fallacies an author needs a large space, that he may quote no inconsiderable part of literature ancient and modern. As to the means of avoiding fallacies, a general increase of sincerity and candour amongst mankind may be freely recommended. With more honesty there would be fewer bad arguments; but there is such a thing as well-meaning incapacity that gets unaffectedly fogged in converting A., and regards the refractoriness of O., as more than flesh and blood can endure. Mere indulgence in figurative language, again, is a besetting snare. "One of the fathers, in great severity called poesy _vinum dæmonum_," says Bacon: himself too fanciful for a philosopher. Surely, to use a simile for the discovery of truth is like studying beauty in the bowl of a spoon.