If he sets forth to prove anything at all, he must prove that
thing and not some totally different thing. He must beware of the
red-herring across the trail.
For a clear example of defective logic, I turn to a French
play--Sardou's _Spiritisme_. Both from internal and from external
evidence, it is certain that M. Sardou was a believer in
spiritualism--in the existence of disembodied intelligences, and their
power of communicating with the living. Yet he had not the courage to
assign to them an essential part in his drama. The spirits hover round
the outskirts of the action, but do not really or effectually intervene
in it. The hero's _belief_ in them, indeed, helps to bring about the
conclusion; but the apparition which so potently works upon him is an
admitted imposture, a pious fraud. Earlier in the play, two or three
trivial and unnecessary miracles are introduced--just enough to hint at
the author's faith without decisively affirming it. For instance:
towards the close of Act I Madame d'Aubenas has gone off, nominally to
take the night train for Poitiers, in reality to pay a visit to her
lover, M.
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