The difficulty in _Achilles and the Tortoise_ arises
from the use of _infinity_, or, _for ever_, in the premisses, to
signify a finite time which is infinitely divisible, and, in the
conclusion, to signify an infinite time. Thus, again, 'right' is used to
express, both what others have no right to stop a man from doing, and
also what it is not against his own duty to do; both what people are
entitled to expect from, and also what they may enforce from others. The
Fallacy of Composition and Division, i.e. the use of the same term in a
syllogism, at one time in a collective, at another in a distributive
sense, is one of the Fallacies of Ambiguous Terms. Examples of it are
the arguments, that _great men_ (collectively) could be dispensed with,
because the place of any particular great man might have been supplied
(i.e., in fact, by some other great man); and, that a high prize in a
lottery may be reasonably expected (by _a certain individual_, viz.
oneself), because a high prize is commonly gained (_by some one or
other_).
2. In Petitio Principii, the premisses are not even verbally sufficient
for the conclusion, since one premiss is either clearly the same as the
conclusion, or actually proved from it, or not susceptible of any other
proof. Men commonly fall into it, through believing that the premiss
_was_ verified, though they have forgotten how. But the variety, termed
Reasoning in a Circle, implies a conscious attempt to prove two
propositions reciprocally from each other. This formal proof is not
often attempted, except under the pressure of controversy; but, from
mistaking mutual coherency for truth, propositions, which cannot be
proved except from each other, are often _admitted_, when expressed in
different language, without other proof. Frequently a proposition is
presented in abstract terms as a proof of the same in concrete, as, in
Molière's parody, 'L'opium endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique.'
So, some qualities of a thing selected arbitrarily are termed its nature
or essence, and then reasoned from as though not able to be counteracted
by any of the rest. 'Question-begging appellatives,' particularly, are
cases of Petitio Principii, e.g. the styling any reform an _innovation_,
which it really is, only that _innovation_ conveys, besides its
dictionary meaning, a covert sense of something extreme. Thus, in
Cicero's De Finibus, 'Cupiditas,' which usually implies vice, is used to
express certain desires the moral character of which is the point in
question. Again, the infinite divisibility of matter was assumed by the
argument which was used to prove it, viz. that the least portion of
matter must have both an upper and an under surface (which, as every
other Fallacy of Confusion, when cleared up, appears as a fallacy of a
different sort, under shelter of which, as indeed in ratiocinative
fallacies generally, the mere verbal juggle at first escapes detection).
Such, again, was Euler's argument, that _minus_ multiplied by _minus_