Here, by a homonymy, he was foisting _civic honour_, which is otherwise called _good name_, and which may be outraged by libel and slander, on to the conception of _knightly honour_, also called _point d'honneur_, which may be outraged by insult. And since an attack on the former cannot be disregarded, but must be repelled by public disproof, so, with the same justification, an attack on the latter 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.
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 praised the Quietists, not as philosophers and writers, that is to say, for their achievements in the sphere of _theory_, but only as men, and for their conduct in mere matters of _practice_; and that in Hegel's case we were talking of theories. In this way I parried the attack.
The first three tricks are of a kindred character. They have this in common, that something different is attacked from that which was asserted. It would therefore be an _ignoratio elenchi_ to allow oneself to be disposed of in such a manner.