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In the application of general Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 19:50:12 +0000 So the clearing bankers thought it a sufficient reason for excluding the joint-stock banks for twenty years from the clearing- house, to say they had a right to exclude them. Many people have a legal right to do what it would not be just, wise, or expedient for them to do. In the application of general principles to particular cases, we sometimes con- fine ourselves to the discussion of the general principles about which there is no dispute, and omit the application to the particular case, which, in fact, is the only question at issue. Autor of the post: Undefined Thus, with reference Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 19:32:12 +0000 A customer will charge his banker with want of liberality, and enlarge upon the propriety of bankers being liberal ; but he will avoid mentioning the details of the transaction in which he alleges this want of liberality has been manifested, as that might condemn himself. Sometimes this fallacy is manifested by a mistake of the design or object of a measure. Thus, with reference to a surplus fund, it has been asked, " Has not the bank a large paid-up capital 1 It is not well established in public con- fidence ; what, then, can it want of a surplus-fund?" Now, the design . Autor of the post: Undefined But this mistake has led Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 19:15:59 +0000 of a surplus- fund is not to increase the public confidence, but to equalize the dividend to the shareholders. These questions, therefore, were mis-di- rected. But this mistake has led to farther erroneous reasoning. Autor of the post: Undefined But if the fund Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 19:02:00 +0000 It has been contended, that the larger the capital, the less should be the surplus fund; and the smaller the capital, the larger the fund. This would natu- rally follow the erroneous impression that the fund was designed to increase the public confidence. But if the fund be designed to meet occasional losses, then the larger the capital, the larger should be the fund ; for with a large capital the transactions will be larger, and the amount of losses proportionably great. Autor of the post: Undefined This is not an answer Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:44:44 +0000 Sometimes a person will manifest his mistake of the question by the answer he gives to it. For example : I ask if I may safely advance money upon the debentures of a certain railway ; I am told that the chairman of the board of directors is a most respectable man. This is not an answer to my question. Autor of the post: Undefined I want to know, if Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:28:00 +0000 A customer wishes to borrow money of me to enable him to engage in a new specula- tion, and when I ask for the particulars of the project, he assures me he has no intention to deceive me. I believe it ; but that is not the question. I want to know, if the speculation should fail, how he will repay the loan. Autor of the post: Undefined Thus, if I say, I Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:17:48 +0000 Sometimes a mistake of the question is manifested by the mode in which it is discussed. A person may mistake his own inference from a question for the question itself. Thus, if I say, I think a system of joint-stock banks is better for a nation than a system of private banks, the party exclaims, Then you wish all the private banks to be suppressed ! And he goes off into a train of reasoning to prove the evils that would result from a legal and imme- diate suppression of all the private banks. Autor of the post: Undefined Another form of mistake Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:07:25 +0000 But in this case he has mistaken the question. He has been arguing against his own inference, not against the original propo- sition. Another form of mistake is called petitio principii, or a begging of the question, and consists in assuming as. Autor of the post: Undefined The reason assigned in- volves Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 17:47:47 +0000 true the thing in dispute. Thus : when writers attempt to prove that the currency ought to be regulated by the foreign exchanges, by stating that a paper-currency ought to be made to fluctuate in the same way as a metallic-cur- rency would fluctuate, they are guil ty of a petitio principii, for this is begging the question. The reason assigned in- volves the very question in dispute. Autor of the post: Undefined Here it is assumed Post Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 17:28:44 +0000 Sometimes a petitio principii is denoted by a single word. Thus : we may be told that a banker ought not to speculate in the funds. Here it is assumed that an investment in the funds is a speculation. 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