of as many other verbal propositions as there are
defining attributes and combinations of them), need to be watched with
especial care. If two disputants define the same word in different ways,
with each of the different attributes included in their several
definitions they may bring in a fresh set of real propositions as to the
agency or normal connection of that attribute. Hence their conclusions
about the things denoted by the word defined, diverge in all directions
and to any extent. And it is generally felt that a man who is allowed to
define his terms as he pleases, may prove anything to those who, through
ignorance or inadvertence, grant that the things that those terms stand
for have the attributes that figure in his definitions.

(3) _Circulus in demonstrando_, the pretence of giving a reason for an
assertion, whilst in fact only repeating the assertion itself--generally
in other words. In such cases the original proposition is, perhaps,
really regarded as self-evident, but by force of habit a man says
'because'; and then, after vainly fumbling in his empty pocket for the
coin of reason, the habit of symbolic thinking in words only, without
reference to the facts, comes to his rescue, and he ends with a
paraphrase of the same assertion. Thus a man may try to prove the
necessity of Causation: 'Every event must have a cause; because an event
is a change of phenomena, and this implies a transformation of something
pre-existing; which can only have been possible, if there were forces in
operation capable of transforming it.' Or, again: 'We ought not to go to
war, because it is wrong to shed blood.' But, plainly, if war did not
imply bloodshed, the unlawfulness of this could be nothing against war.
The more serious any matter is, the more important it becomes either to
reason thoroughly about it, or to content ourselves with wholesome
assertions. How many 'arguments' are superfluous!

Sec. 7. The Fallacy of surreptitious conclusion (_ignoratio elenchi_), the
mistaking or obscuring of the proposition really at issue, whilst
proving something else instead. This may be done by substituting a
particular proposition for an universal, or an universal for a
particular. Thus, he who attacks the practice of giving in charity must
not be content to show that it has, in this or that case, degraded the
recipient; who may have been exceptionally weak. Or, again, to dissuade
another from giving alms in a particular case, it is n