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But it is worthy of remark that the transcendental paralogism produced in the mind only a one-third illusion, in regard to the idea of the subject of our thought; and the conceptions of reason gave no ground to maintain the contrary proposition. The advantage is completely on the side of Pneumatism; although this theory itself passes into naught, in the crucible of pure reason.
For what is a metaphor or a simile but a mere paralogism having nothing to do with the matter in hand, and not to be allowed for a moment to influence the reader's judgment, unless there be some real and objective analogy homology we should call it between the physical phenomenon from which the symbol is taken, and the spiritual truth which it is meant to illustrate?
The two senses of the word "correlation" must be carefully distinguished; it would be a downright paralogism to adopt one of them in the premisses of the reasoning, and the other in the conclusion.
This is well illustrated by the facts stated by M. Saisset: “When Mairan,” says he, “still young, and having a strong passion for the study of the ‘Ethique,’ requested Malebranche to guide him in that perilous route; we know with what urgency, bordering on importunity, he pressed the illustrious father to show him the weak point of Spinozism, the precise place where the rigour of the reasoning failed, the paralogism contained in the demonstration.
"Who are you, no one but yourself," exclaimed a hireling of hung-dog expression who claimed to have exchanged pledging gifts with a certain maiden who stood, as it were, between us, and falling into the snare, I protested warmly against the insult, and strove to disprove the inference before the paralogism lay revealed.
First, it contains no paralogism, no logical or psychological error, since it does not advance the supposition that the mental differs by its nature from the physical phenomenon. We have discussed above the consequences of this error, They are here avoided.
Malebranche eluded the question, and could not assign the paralogism, after which Mairan so earnestly sought: ‘It is not that the paralogism is in such or such places of the Ethique, it is everywhere.’ ” In this impatient judgment, Father Malebranche uttered more truth than he could very well perceive; the paralogism is truly everywhere, because this whole edifice of words, “this frightful chimera,” is really assumed in the arbitrary definition of the term substance.
If, indeed, the Religion of the Bible is made subservient to Theology, it is but a specimen of useful induction; but if it is set up, as something complete in itself, against Theology, it is turned into a mischievous paralogism.
But indeed the danger is not so great, if we look a little closer into the question. There lurks in the procedure of rational Psychology a paralogism, which is represented in the following syllogism: That which cannot be cogitated otherwise than as subject, does not exist otherwise than as subject, and is therefore substance.
It is a curious spectacle to see these pseudo-innovators, condemning after Jean Jacques monarchy, democracy, property, communism, thine and mine, monopoly, wages, police, taxation, luxury, commerce, money, in a word, all that constitutes society and without which society is inconceivable, and then accusing this same Jean Jacques of misanthropy and paralogism, because, after having seen the emptiness of all utopias, at the same time that he pointed out the antagonism of civilization, he sternly concluded against society, though recognizing that without society there is no humanity.
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