must not be disregarded either, but it must be defeated by still
greater insult and a duel. Here we have a confusion of two essentially
different things through the homonymy in the word _honour_, and a
consequent alteration of the point in dispute.


III.

Another trick is to take a proposition which is laid down relatively,
and in reference to some particular matter, as though it were uttered
with a general or absolute application; or, at least, to take it in
some quite different sense, and then refute it. Aristotle's example is
as follows:

A Moor is black; but in regard to his teeth he is white; therefore, he
is black and not black at the same moment. This is an obvious sophism,
which will deceive no one. Let us contrast it with one drawn from
actual experience.

In talking of philosophy, I admitted that my system upheld the
Quietists, and commended them. Shortly afterwards the conversation
turned upon Hegel, and I maintained that his writings were mostly
nonsense; or, at any rate, that there were many passages in them where
the author wrote the words, and it was left to the reader to find a
meaning for them. My opponent did not attempt to refute this assertion
_ad rem_, but contented himself by advancing the _argumentum ad
hominem_, and telling me that I had just been praising the Quietists,
and that they had written a good deal of nonsense too.

This I admitted; but, by way of correcting him, I said that I had