(4) _Feigned Cases._ There are two kinds of these, namely, those which might be realized in actual fact, and those which never can be so realized. The acute mind of the Greeks marked in their flexible language a decided difference between the class of suppositions that might possibly become facts, and another class of suppositions impossible to become facts, by developing a distinct form of expression for each. This distinction must always be borne in mind by those who use or note in economical discussions the expedient of Feigned Cases. Reasoning is always legitimate and often pregnant from suppositions, whenever these are such as might readily become facts of experience, because in that case the argument proceeds upon recognized and inductive resemblances; but otherwise, no inference at all can be drawn from them, because it is an universal truth in Nature and in Logic, _ex nihilo nihil fit_, out of nothing nothing can come. In plausible suppositions impossible to become facts is a nest of logical fallacies, that need to be watched. A good illustration may be found in the Monetary Conference at Paris in 1881. Delegates were there from all the nations of Europe, from the United States, and even the distant India. Some of these in their eagerness for a factitious ratio of value between gold and silver forgot the important distinction now in hand, and argued of the good results to flow from the realization of a supposition, _which in fact never could be realized_. Mr. Evarts voiced the French and American delegates in this declaration: "_Any ratio now or of late in use by any commercial nation, if adopted by an important group of states, could be maintained; but the adoption of a ratio of 15-1/2 silver to 1 of gold would accomplish the principal object with less disturbance in the monetary systems to be affected by it than any other ratio._" The fallacy in this passage is in the words, "could be maintained," which are a supposition, and what is much worse, a supposition contrary to fact, from which all arguing is nugatory. Why it is contrary to fact will be seen at length in the following chapter on Money.