A Sophism will sometimes expand and extend itself through the whole tissue of a long and tedious theory. Oftener it contracts into a principle, and hides itself in one word.

"Heaven preserve us," said Paul Louis, "from the Devil and from the spirit of metaphor!" And, truly, it might be difficult to determine which of the two sheds the most noxious influence over our planet. The Devil, you will say, because it is he who implants in our hearts the spirit of spoliation. Aye; but he leaves the capacity for checking abuses, by the resistance of those who suffer. It is the genius of Sophism which paralyzes this resistance. The sword which the spirit of evil places in the hands of the aggressor, would fall powerless, if the shield of him who is attacked were not shattered in his grasp by the spirit of Sophism. Malbranche has, with great truth, inscribed upon the frontispiece of his book this sentence: Error is the cause of human misery.

Let us notice what passes in the world. Ambitious hypocrites may take a sinister interest in spreading, for instance, the germ of national enmities. The noxious seed may, in its developments, lead to a general conflagration, check civilization, spill torrents of blood, and draw upon the country that most terrible of scourges, invasion. Such hateful sentiments cannot fail to degrade, in the opinion of other nations, the people among whom they prevail, and force those who retain some love of justice to blush for their country. These are fearful evils, and it would be enough that the public should have a clear view of them, to induce them to secure themselves against the plotting of those who would expose them to such heavy chances. How, then, are they kept in darkness? How, but by metaphors? The meaning of three or four words is forced, changed, and depraved—and all is said.

Such is the use made, for instance, of the word invasion.

A master of French iron-works, exclaims: Save us from the invasion of English iron. An English landholder cries; Let us oppose the invasion of French corn. And forthwith all their efforts are bent upon raising barriers between these two nations. Thence follows isolation; isolation leads to hatred; hatred to war; and war to invasion. What matters it? say the two Sophists; is it not better to expose ourselves to a possible invasion, than to meet a certain one? And the people believe; and the barriers are kept up.

And yet what analogy can exist between an exchange and an invasion? What resemblance can possibly be discovered between a man-of-war, vomiting fire, death, and desolation over our cities—and a merchant vessel, which comes to offer in free and peaceable exchange, produce for produce?

Much in the same way has the word inundation been abused. This word is generally taken in a bad sense; and it is certainly of frequent occurrence for inundations to ruin fields and sweep away harvests. But if, as is the case in the inundations of the Nile, they were to leave upon the soil a superior value to that which they carried away, we ought, like the Egyptians, to bless and deify them. Would it not be well, before declaiming against the inundations of foreign produce, and checking them with expensive and embarrassing obstacles, to certify ourselves whether these inundations are of the number which desolate, or of those which fertilize a country? What would we think of Mehemet Ali, if, instead of constructing, at great expense, dams across the Nile to increase the extent of its inundations, he were to scatter his piasters in attempts to deepen its bed, that he might rescue Egypt from the defilement of the foreign mud which is swept down upon it from the mountains of the Moon? Exactly such a degree of wisdom do we exhibit, when at the expense of millions, we strive to preserve our country.... From what? From the blessings with which Nature has gifted other climates.

Among the metaphors which sometimes conceal, each in itself, a whole theory of evil, there is none more common than that which is presented under the words tribute and tributary.

These words are so frequently employed as synonyms of purchase and purchaser, that the terms are now used almost indifferently. And yet there is as distinct a difference between a tribute, and a purchase, as between a robbery and an exchange. It appears to me that it would be quite as correct to say, Cartouche has broken open my strong-box, and, has bought a thousand crowns from me, as to state, as I have heard done to our honorable deputies, We have paid in tribute to Germany the value of a thousand horses which she has sold us.

The action of Cartouche was not a purchase, because he did not put, and with my consent, into my strong box an equivalent value to that which he took out. Neither could the purchase-money paid to Germany be tribute, because it was not on our part a forced payment, gratuitously received on hers, but a willing compensation from us for a thousand horses, which we ourselves judged to be worth 500,000 francs.

Is it necessary then seriously to criticise such abuses of language? Yes, for very seriously are they put forth in our books and journals. Nor can we flatter ourselves that they are the careless expressions of uneducated writers, ignorant even of the terms of their own language. They are current with a vast majority, and among the most distinguished of our writers. We find them in the mouths of our d'Argouts, Dupins, VillÈles; of peers, deputies and ministers; men whose words become laws, and whose influence might establish the most revolting Sophisms, as the basis of the administration of their country.

A celebrated modern Philosopher has added to the categories of Aristotle the Sophism which consists in expressing in one word a petitio principii. He cites several examples, and might have added the word tributary to his nomenclature. For instance, the question is to determine whether foreign purchases are useful or hurtful. You answer, hurtful. And why? Because they render us tributary to foreigners. Truly here is a word, which begs the question at once.

How has this delusive figure of speech introduced itself into the rhetoric of monopolists?

Money is withdrawn from the country to satisfy the rapacity of a victorious enemy: money is also withdrawn from the country to pay for merchandise. The analogy is established between the two cases, calculating only the point of resemblance and abstracting that by which they differ.

And yet it is certainly true, that the non-reimbursement in the first case, and the reimbursement freely agreed upon in the second, establishes between them so decided a difference, as to render it impossible to class them under the same category. To be obliged, with a dagger at your throat, to give a hundred francs, or to give them willingly in order to obtain a desired object,—truly these are cases in which we can perceive little similarity. It might just as correctly be said, that it is a matter of indifference whether we eat our bread, or have it thrown into the water, because in both cases it is destroyed. We here draw a false conclusion, as in the case of the word tribute, by a vicious manner of reasoning, which supposes an entire similitude between two cases, their resemblance only being noticed and their difference suppressed.