THE

HE few people who care to say only what they mean, and who therefore think about what they say and what others say to them, must sometimes be puzzled by the reply often made to an objection, "Well, he, or that, is an exception, and you know the exception proves the rule." This is uttered with calm assurance, as conclusive of the question at issue, and is usually received in silence with an air of indifferent acquiescence on the part of the thoughtless, but on the part of the more thoughtful with a meek expression of bewilderment.. The former are saved from the trouble of further mental exertion, and they are content; the latter feel that they have been overcome by the bringing up of a logical canon which always stands ready as a reserve, but the truth of which, admitted as indisputable, they would like very much to be able to dispute. In fact, this pretentious maxim infests discussion, and pervades the every-day talk of men, women, and children. It appears in the writings of historians, of essayists, and of polemics, as well as in those of poets, novelists, and journalists. A legislator will use it to destroy the effect of an instance brought forward which is directly at variance with some general assertion that he has made. "The case so strongly

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insisted upon by the honorable gentleman does apparently show that all women do not desire the passage of a law permitting them to wear trousers. I admit the preference of Miss Pettitoes for petticoats. But, sir, her case is an exception, and we all know that the exception proves the rule." It enters even into the word-skirmish of flirtation. "How dare you assert," says Miss Demure to Tom Crœsus, defiance on her lip and witchery in her eye, "that women nowadays are all mercenary! Don't you know that is an insult to me?" "Ah, but, Miss Demure," replies the weakly-struggling Croesus, "you're an exception; and you know the exception proves the rule." Whereupon the lady submits with charming grace to the conqueror, having within her innocent breast the consoling conviction that she is playing her big fish with a skill that will soon lay him gasping at her feet. There is no turn which this maxim is not thus made to serve; and this use of it has gone on for a century and more, and people submit to the imposition without a murmur.

An imposition the maxim is, of the most impudent kind, in its ordinary use; for a mere exception never proved a rule; and that it should do so is, in the very nature of things, and according to the laws of right reason, impossible. Consider a moment. How can the fact that one man, or one thing, of a certain class, has certain traits or relations, prove that others of the same class have opposite traits and other relations? A says, “I, and C, and D, and X, and Y, and Z are white; therefore all the other letters of the alphabet are white." "No, they are not," B answers, "for I am black." O, you are an exception," A rejoins, "and the exception proves the rule." And A and most of his hearers thereupon regard the argument as concluded, at least for the time being. The supposed example is an extreme one, but it serves none the less the purposes of fair illustration. For of what value, as evidence, upon the color of the alphabet,

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is the fact that B is black? It merely shows that one letter is black, and that any other may be black, except those which we know to be of some other color. But of the color of the remaining twenty-three letters it tells us nothing; and so far from supporting the assertion that because A, C, D, X, Y, and Z are white, all the other letters are white, it warrants the inference that some of them may be black also. And yet day after day, for a hundred and fifty years,* men of fair intelligence have gone on thoughtlessly citing this maxim, and yielding to its authority when used exactly as it is used in the case above supposed.

For instance, the following passage is from a leading article in the "New York Tribune:

"The business of printing books is now leaving the great cities for more economical and more desirable locations. The exceptions rather prove the rule than invalidate it."

How do the exceptions either prove or invalidate the rule? In what way does the fact that there are some printing offices in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia prove that printers generally choose the smaller towns or the country? Plainly, one of these facts has no relations whatever to the other.

In "Lothair," Mr. Disraeli makes Hugo Bohun say that he respects the institution of marriage, but thinks that " every woman should marry, but no man," and to the objection that this view would not work practically, reply,

"Well, my view is a social problem, and social problems are the fashion at present. It would be solved through the exceptions, which prove the principle. In the first place, there are your swells, who cannot avoid the halter-you are booked when you are born; and then there are moderate men, like myself, who have their weak moments," etc., etc.

* The date of its first appearance in literature or the records of colloquial speech I do not profess to know; but I cannot recollect an instance of its use earlier than the days of the Queen Anne essayists.

Perhaps Mr. Bohun or Mr. Disraeli could explain how the fact that the natures or the circumstances of some men are such that they are likely to marry "proves the principle" that men should not marry. But to the eye of unassisted reason, it is merely evidence in favor of the positive proposition, that whatever men should do, some will marry it does nothing toward showing that other men should, or should not, either marry or do anything else. If the proposition were that only men of certain natures and circumstances should marry, and it were found that in general only they did marry, there would at least be a connection between the facts and the proposition; which, in Mr. Bohun's argument, there is not.

The London "Spectator," in one of the few discriminating judgements that have recently been published of Dickens's genius, thus supports the opinion that he was unable to express the finer emotions naturally:

"In the delineation of remorse he is, too, much nearer the truth of emotion than in the delineation of grief. True grief needs the most delicate hand to delineate [it] truly. A touch too much, and you perceive an affectation, and therefore miss the whole effect of bereavement. But remorse, when it is genuine, is one of the simplest of passions, and the most difficult to overpaint. Dickens, with his singular power of lavishing himself on one mood, has given some vivid pictures of this passion which deserve to live. Still, this is the exception, which proves the rule. He can delineate remorse for murder, because there is so little real limit to the feeling, so little danger of passing from the true to the falsetto tone."

Now, in what way does the fact that Dickens had the power of delineating one of the simple passions prove that he had not the power of delineating the more complex? Plainly, it does nothing-can do nothing of the sort, unless by the introduction, as a premise, of the postulate that writers who can delineate simple passions cannot delineate the complex; which is not true, and which is