An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

FALLACIES. 317
of witnesses. It is by a fallacy of Composition that
protective duties are still sometimes upheld. Because
any one or any few trades which enjoy protective duties
are benefited thereby, it is supposed that all trades at
once might be benefited similarly; but this is impossible,
because the protection of one trade by raising prices
injures others."
Accordingly, the fallacy of Composition
arguing from a general or universal term (/>.,
distributively), to one used collectively.
is defined as
one used
(4) The fallacy of Division (Siaipean?) is treated, both
by Aristotle and modern writers, as the converse of the
fallacy of Composition. Aristotle s examples are of sep
arating words which should be taken together, and so
changing the meaning of a sentence ; as though one
made the statement
mean that
"
four and three are six
"
and one
"
"
four is six and
"
three is one." In modern
text-books, the fallacy of Division means to argue from
the collective to the distributive use of a term, as in the
very common mistake of making a statement about a
group as a whole^ and then taking for granted that it is
true of each individual member of the group. The state
ment that a certain political party is a
"
"
blatant faction
does not imply that the opinions of every one of its
members are blatant and factious ; to say that
Germans are an intellectual people
"
"
the
does not warrant
the conclusion that this or the other German is intel
lectual ; and so on.
(5) The fallacy of Accent (irpoaw^ia} is explained by
Aristotle simply as the mistaken accentuation of a word
in writing Greek. In modern text-books it is taken to be
the trivial quibble of altering the meaning of a sentence
(when speaking) by emphasising some particular word
above the rest. More important is the observation of