How shall we rid ourselves of these fallacies?
There is one simple rule. All contradictory con-
cepts must be examined to discover the judgments
that lead to contradictions, when correct reasoning



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 369

will eliminate the incongruous. We may always
know that concepts are incongruous or contradictory
when they lead to a belief in the unknowable.
Belief in the unknowable is pessimism about reason
and is an evidence of fallacy. Fallacies can be eradi-
cated only by a thorough examination of the con-
cepts involved. The final fallacy on which the
philosophy of the contradictory rests can be cor-
rected only by systematic verification of the ele-
mentary judgments of which it is composed, and
thus by eliminating the errors.
In the 50th section, Spencer says:

"It is a truism to say that the nature of this undecomposable
element of our knowledge is inscrutable. If, to use an
algebraic illustration, we represent Matter, Motion, and Force,
by the symbols, x^y, and z; then, we may ascertain the values
of jrand^^in terms of z; but the value of 2 can never be found:
z is the unknown quantity which must forever remain
unknown ; for the obvious reason that there is nothing in which
its value can be expressed. It is within the possible reach of
our intelligence to go on simplifying the equations of all phenom-
ena, until the complex symtx>ls which formulate them are
reduced to certain functions of this ultimate symbol; but when
we have done this, we have reached that limit which eternally
divides science from nescience."

But his letters stand for fallacies; the certitudes
should be represented by yl, B^ and C, then C
should be resolved into B^ and B into A^ as one of
the known concomitants of matter.
