§ 3. Fallacies.
And so you think, do you, that the chief use of Logic, in real life, is to deduce Conclusions from workable Premisses, and to satisfy yourself that the Conclusions, deduced by other people, are correct? I only wish it were! Society would be much less liable to panics and other delusions, and political life, especially, would be a totally different thing, if even a majority of the arguments, that are scattered broadcast over the world, were correct! But it is all the other way, I fear. For one workable Pair of Premisses (I mean a Pair that lead to a logical Conclusion) that you meet with in reading your newspaper or magazine, you will probably find five that lead to no Conclusion at all: and, even when the Premisses are workable, for one instance, where the writer draws a correct Conclusion, there are probably ten where he draws an incorrect one.
In the first case, you may say "the Premisses are fallacious": in the second, "the Conclusion is fallacious."
