Richard Whately（1787-1863），英国学者、修辞学家、逻辑学家、哲学家、经济学家和神学家，还曾担任爱尔兰教会都柏林的改革派大主教。他是一位领先的广义教会人士，是一位多产的、涉及广泛主题的作家，性格张扬，也是最早认识到简-奥斯汀（Jane Austen）才华的评论家之一。

Whately是十九世纪初亚里士多德逻辑学复兴的重要人物。他写的“逻辑学要素”（Elements of Logic）推动了英国的逻辑学研究；在美国，逻辑学家查尔斯-桑德斯-皮尔斯（Charles Sanders Peirce，1839-1914）写道，他一生对逻辑学的迷恋始于他在12岁时阅读的《要素》。

“逻辑学要素”的Book III Of fallacies（p153-165）有几段关于谬误的精彩论述：

Moreover, it should be remembered, that a very long discussion is one of the most effectual veils of Fallacy. Sophistry, like poison, is at once detected, and nauseated, when presented to us in a concentrated form; but a fallacy which when stated barely, in a few sentences, would not deceive a child, may deceive a child, may deceive half the world, if diluted in a quarto volume.

此外，应该记住，冗长的讨论是谬误最有效的遮羞布之一。诡辩就像毒药一样，当以浓缩的形式呈现在我们面前时，马上就会被发现，并被恶心到；但一个谬误，如果用几句赤裸裸说出来，不会欺骗一个孩子，但如果在四开本的书卷中稀释，就可能蒙骗半个世界。

For, as in a calculation, one single figure incorrectly stated will enable us to arrive at any rest whatever, though every other figure, and the whole of the operations, be correct, so, a single false assumption in any process of reasoning, though every other be try, will enable us to draw what conclusion we please; and the greater the number of try assumptions, the more likely it is that the false one will pass unnoticed. But when you single out one step in the course of the reasoning, and exhibit it as a syllogism with one premiss try and the other false, the sophistry is easily perceived. 

因为在计算中，一个错误的数字会使我们得出任何结论，尽管其他的数字和整个运算都是正确的；同样，在任何推理过程中，一个错误的假设，尽管其他的都是尝试的假设，也会使我们得出我们想要的结论；尝试的假设越多，错误的假设就越有可能被忽略。但是，当你把推理过程中的一个步骤挑出来，并展示作为三段论一个假设是尝试的、另一个假设是错误的，这种诡辩就很容易被察觉了。

I have seen a long argument to prove that the potato is not a cheap article of food; in which there was an elaborate, and perhaps correct, calculation of the produce per acre, of potatoes, and of wheat - the quantity lost in bran - expense of grinding, dressing, &c. and an assumption slipped in, as it were incidentally, that a given quantity of potatoes contains but one-tenth part of nutritive matter equal to bread : from all which (and there is probably but one groundless assertion in the whole) a most triumphant result was deduced.

我曾见过一个证明马铃薯不是廉价食品的长篇论证；其中对每英亩马铃薯和小麦的产量进行了精心计算，也许是正确的计算—在麸皮中损失的数量—研磨、拌料等费用，并附带提出了一个假设，即一定数量的马铃薯只含有相当于面包的十分之一的营养物质：从所有这些（整个过程中可能只有一个毫无根据的断言）推断出一个最胜利的结果。

参考文献：

【1】https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Whately

【2】Richard Whately：ELEMENTS OF LOGIC， https://books.google.fr/books?id=1cFlu2SDQMEC&pg=PA20&hl=fr&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false