Return to Answer

Now wheras you object that I know onely this promise by Mat. 16. & that by the Popes & churches sentence I know onely S. Matthewes gospell to be canonicall, and that the gospell of Nicodemus is not authenticke, I grant all, but I deny that here there is any maze or circle, that you would fayne from hence inferr, since this mutuall reference, and reciprocall dependence is in diverse kindes; and then Aristotle will tell you, that it is no circle or vitious argumentation to demonstrate a causa ad effectum et ab effectu ad causam; and a younge Philosopher wil tell you that the materia and the form doe mutually depend, and reciprocally cause one an other, but the one in genere subjecti, and the other in genere causae formalis.

 

...

 

I wil prove that in your opinion you walk in a vitious circle, pro[ving] the self same by the word of God by the privat spirit, and the private spirit by the word of God.

 

...

 

The fourth thing that I am to show is to prove how you walk in a vitious circle, proving the selfe same by the selfe same, as the authoritie of the scripture by your private spirit, and your privat spirit by the authority of the scripture, by which manner of proof you may prove any thing.

 

...

 

Neither is here cōmitted any vitious circle between the authoritie of God & the church; as I have before convinced you in your grounds to commit. For first the authoritie of God revealing in vertue of which the infailibilitie of the proposition is beleeved, and the selfe same infallible proposition in vertue of which we beleeve that God [?]ies and reveales, hath two diverse objects. For the object of the infailible proposition is that God reveales; And the object that God reveales, or of the revelation of God is the veritie beleeves.

 

...

 

And now, (having done with your replies to the former matters,) I wil speak of those interlaced paragraphes which you bring in S. 98. &c: of the vicious circle as you call it, wherin you think we walk, proving (as you say) the authoritie of the scripture by the private spirit, and our private spirit by the authoritie of the scripture &c. But your Catholik opinion you say you will defend from such an idle proof and circular resolution of your faith.

G[entleman of the Church of England]. But what then is a vicious Circle ?

 

L[ord of Roman Catholic faith]. A vicious Circle is, when two Propositions are made Use of to infer one another without having any other Proof to support them. But if they be proved from other strong and convincing Reasons, this opens the Circle, and hinders it from being what we call a vicious one.

vicious circle was originally a term in logic, and still is. Vicious in this context means impaired or spoiled by a fault. Circle means a mode of reasoning wherein a proposition is used to establish a conclusion and then this same conclusion used to prove the proposition. It is called a circle because it has no real starting place—and, one might add, because there's no end to this sort of thing.. It is one of the most popular of all fallacies, the darling of the pompously ignorant.

 

The term vicious circle is commonly used to describe a situation in which solution of one problem creates other problems whose solution is incompatible with the original circumstances. Or, more loosely, some bad situation that, by its nature, seems to get worse and worse. In any use but as a term in logic the expression is now a cliché.

vicious circle; vicious cycle. Both mean "a situation in which the solution to one problem gives rise to a second problem, but the solution to the second problem brings back the first problem. Vicious circle is about 40% more common than vicious cycle in modern print sources.

 

And vicious circle is the phrase with the stronger precedent to support it. The OED records it from 1792 in the sense of "a situation in which an action and reaction intensify each other." Vicious cycle isn't recorded in the OED.

Now wheras you object that I know onely this promise by Mat. 16. & that by the Popes & churches sentence I know onely S. Matthewes gospell to be canonicall, and that the gospell of Nicodemus is not authenticke, I grant all, but I deny that here there is any maze or circle, that you would fayne from hence inferr, since this mutuall reference, and reciprocall dependence is in diverse kindes; and then Aristotle will tell you, that it is no circle or vitious argumentation to demonstrate a causa ad effectum et ab effectu ad causam; and a younge Philosopher wil tell you that the materia and the form doe mutually depend, and reciprocally cause one an other, but the one in genere subjecti, and the other in genere causae formalis.

...

I wil prove that in your opinion you walk in a vitious circle, pro[ving] the self same by the word of God by the privat spirit, and the private spirit by the word of God.

...

The fourth thing that I am to show is to prove how you walk in a vitious circle, proving the selfe same by the selfe same, as the authoritie of the scripture by your private spirit, and your privat spirit by the authority of the scripture, by which manner of proof you may prove any thing.

...

Neither is here cōmitted any vitious circle between the authoritie of God & the church; as I have before convinced you in your grounds to commit. For first the authoritie of God revealing in vertue of which the infailibilitie of the proposition is beleeved, and the selfe same infallible proposition in vertue of which we beleeve that God [?]ies and reveales, hath two diverse objects. For the object of the infailible proposition is that God reveales; And the object that God reveales, or of the revelation of God is the veritie beleeves.

...

And now, (having done with your replies to the former matters,) I wil speak of those interlaced paragraphes which you bring in S. 98. &c: of the vicious circle as you call it, wherin you think we walk, proving (as you say) the authoritie of the scripture by the private spirit, and our private spirit by the authoritie of the scripture &c. But your Catholik opinion you say you will defend from such an idle proof and circular resolution of your faith.

G[entleman of the Church of England]. But what then is a vicious Circle ?

L[ord of Roman Catholic faith]. A vicious Circle is, when two Propositions are made Use of to infer one another without having any other Proof to support them. But if they be proved from other strong and convincing Reasons, this opens the Circle, and hinders it from being what we call a vicious one.

vicious circle was originally a term in logic, and still is. Vicious in this context means impaired or spoiled by a fault. Circle means a mode of reasoning wherein a proposition is used to establish a conclusion and then this same conclusion used to prove the proposition. It is called a circle because it has no real starting place—and, one might add, because there's no end to this sort of thing.. It is one of the most popular of all fallacies, the darling of the pompously ignorant.

The term vicious circle is commonly used to describe a situation in which solution of one problem creates other problems whose solution is incompatible with the original circumstances. Or, more loosely, some bad situation that, by its nature, seems to get worse and worse. In any use but as a term in logic the expression is now a cliché.

vicious circle; vicious cycle. Both mean "a situation in which the solution to one problem gives rise to a second problem, but the solution to the second problem brings back the first problem. Vicious circle is about 40% more common than vicious cycle in modern print sources.

And vicious circle is the phrase with the stronger precedent to support it. The OED records it from 1792 in the sense of "a situation in which an action and reaction intensify each other." Vicious cycle isn't recorded in the OED.

Throughout this series of dueling arguments, the Ainsworths agree in defining a "vicious circle" (evidently on the authority of Aristotle) as a form of pseudo-logic that uses its parts to prove each other. The vice in a "vicious circle" thus lies in its inadequacy and deceptiveness as claim to offer real proof of proposition and, secondarily, in its entrapment of the deluded person's mind, which renders him incapable of seeing the falsity of the argument.

A number of other seventeenth-century polemicists use "vicious circle" in a similar way. In all, searches for the terms "vicious circle" and "vitious circle" at Early English Books Online yield some three dozen matches, all of them using it in the rhetorical sense of a logical argument that purports to prove its conclusion by citing an assumption whose validity depends on the validity of the conclusion.

The earliest instance that I've been able to find of "vicious circle" in the sense of "undesirable or evil chain of events" occurs much later, in "The Provincial Contest," in the Madison [Indiana] Republican (July 19, 1817):

Throughout this series of dueling arguments, the Ainsworths agree in defining a "vicious circle" (evidently on the authority of Aristotle) as a form of pseudo-logic that uses its parts to prove each other. The vice in a "vicious circle" thus lies in its inadequacy and deceptiveness as a claim to offer real proof of a proposition and, secondarily, in its entrapment of the deluded person's mind, which renders him incapable of seeing the falsity of the argument.

A number of other seventeenth-century religious polemicists use "vicious circle" in a similar way. In all, searches for the terms "vicious circle" and "vitious circle" at Early English Books Online yield some three dozen matches, all of them using it in the rhetorical sense of a logical argument that purports to prove its conclusion by citing an assumption whose validity depends on the validity of the conclusion.

The earliest instance that I've been able to find of "vicious circle" in the sense of "undesirable or evil recurring chain of events" occurs much later, in "The Provincial Contest," in the Madison [Indiana] Republican (July 19, 1817):

As for "vicious cycle," Isaac Newton used that term to describe supposed calculation of a "vicious lunar cycle" by ancient Jewish astronomers; but the term may not have appeared in its modern sense, as an alternative to "vicious circle" in contexts unrelated to logic, until perhaps the 1870s.

As for "vicious cycle," Isaac Newton used that term to describe supposed calculation of a "vicious lunar cycle" by ancient Jewish astronomers; but the term may not have appeared in its modern sense, as an alternative to "vicious circle" in contexts unrelated to logic, until perhaps the second half of the nineteenth century (user66974's answer points to a New York Times instance of relevant usage from 1858, which is nineteen years earlier than the earliest such instance that I was able to find).