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his strength of refutation, by showing that it is established by the people, not by the States as such; and in another speech he maintains that it is not, strictly speaking, a contract.

In an inductive argument, the inquiry of the refuter relates in some form to the completeness of the induction: whether the particulars adduced are weighty enough, or numerous enough, to establish the hypothesis. — Is an alleged example real, that is, does it apply to the present case, and if so, is it a type example or merely a coincidence? An example adduced to prove one side in a controversy may often be offset by an equally cogent example on the other. It is for this reason that facts are so often said to be fallacious; you cannot always use them as examples to establish general cases.

An argument from analogy provokes this inquiry: is there a cause or a relation so similar to the present case as to be decisive, or is it merely an illustration, which might be offset by counter analogies? The answer to this question is generally easy, because analogy is not really argument.

Testimony and authority are refuted either by adducing counter evidence, or by showing dishonesty, incompetency, or inconsistency on the part of the witness. Cross-examination in courts of justice is essentially an instrument of refutation.

ILLUSTRATIONS. - I. Many popular superstitions are merely circumstances too vague and inconclusive to form a real induction, yet they are so used. For instance, seeing the new moon over the left shoulder was doubtless first noticed in connection with ill luck; then several coincident occurrences of this kind gave rise to a general belief that ill luck was necessarily portended.

2. Macaulay thus demolishes an argument from example: "What facts does my honorable friend produce in support of his opinion? One fact only; and that a fact which has absolutely nothing to do with the question. The effect of this Reform, he tells us, would be to make the House of Commons all powerful. It was all powerful once before, in the beginning of 1649. Then it cut off the head of the King, and abolished the House of Peers. Therefore, if it again has the supreme power, it will act in the same

manner. Now, Sir, it was not the House of Commons that cut off the head of Charles the First; nor was the House of Commons then all powerful. It had been greatly reduced in numbers by successive expulsions. It was under the absolute dominion of the army. A majority of the House was willing to take the terms offered by the King. The soldiers turned out the majority; and the minority, not a sixth part of the whole House, passed those votes of which my honorable friend speaks, votes of which the middle classes disapproved then, and of which they disapprove still." 1

3. George Henry Lewes thus refutes an analogical argument of Dr. Johnson: "Dr. Johnson was guilty of a surprising fallacy in saying that a great mathematician might also be a great poet : 'Sir, a man can walk east as far as he can walk west.' True, but mathematics and poetry do not differ as east and west; and he would hardly assert that a man who could walk twenty miles could therefore swim that distance." 2

2. By Parity of Reasoning. - Detailed analysis, dealing as it does with premises, subtle distinctions, abstruse lines of argumentation, while it may be good for thinkers conversant with such things, is ill adapted to popular apprehension. Hence many cases rise, especially in public debate, wherein if a refutation is to effect its purpose, and reach the persons who are to profit by it, it must be so pointed as to show its drift at once; its distinctions must be so broad that no one can fail to see them; and technicalities must as far as possible be avoided.

The great means of popular refutation, therefore, is parity of reasoning; that is, constructing a parallel argument wherein like premises are involved, and the same line of reasoning, but applied to more familiar subjects and leading to manifestly untenable conclusions. In this way the reader or hearer is not bewildered with unravelling fallacies; he simply sees the lameness of the argument refuted. Parity of reasoning takes especially the scheme of reductio ad absurdum, dilemma, and chain of reasoning. Analogy, also, from its

1 MACAULAY, Speeches, Vol. i, p. 32.

2 LEWES, Principles of Success in Literature, p. 59. The remark of Dr. Johnson's may be found in Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. v, p. 38, Hill's edition.

lucidity, is a favorite instrument of popular refutation; the power of analogy as an argument is much greater in negative than in positive application.

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EXAMPLES. - It will be noted that the examples of chain of reasoning quoted from Macaulay and Webster on pp. 622 and 628, above, are both employed as instruments of refutation.

In the following the plea for foreign idiom in English is refuted by an analogy: "It has been maintained that the censure of foreign idiom as un-English has something unreasonable about it, for if such idioms had not been freely imported, our language could never have become the comprehensive instrument which it now is. The fact is unquestionable, but the inference is weak. As reasonably might it be argued that because a growing boy could eat apples and nuts. and raw turnips, and thrive upon such fare, the same individual could digest crude victuals at every subsequent stage of his life! There are times and seasons in the economy of language quite as truly as in the physiology of animal life. The English Language has had its omnivorous period, or rather periods, in which it has taken in foreign nutriment to the verge of satiety. We have already more variety of phrase than we can well find employment for, and the demand of the present time is rather that we should work up what we have than import more raw material."1

SECTION SECOND.

ARGUMENTATION IN ORDERED SYSTEM.

Corresponding to what in the other types has appeared as description, narration, and exposition in literature, we here consider argumentation as it is made into a body of arguments, with the system, the balance, the literary distinction necessary to make it duly effective of its purpose. Argumentation in literature this may indeed be called; it belongs, however, for the most part to the literature of public speaking, and is expressed in the order and diction of spoken discourse.2 When it appears in printed form, it is merely as a palpable

1 EARLE, English Prose, p. 304.

2 For Spoken Diction and its Characteristics, see above, pp. 118-126.

imitation of speech or, more often, as a report or publication of what was originally delivered orally.

As a finished whole, this ordered body of arguments is, so to say, greater than the sum of its parts; this because the parts in juxtaposition so color, reinforce, and augment each other that each gathers power from the rest. The full effecting of this is an achievement of literary skill beyond the reach of rules; only a few suggestions, principally of the ends to be attained, can be given.

I. DEBATE.

In this kind of public discourse the interest, centering entirely in the subject-matter, its terms, propositions, underlying grounds, — takes little account of hearers except as thinking beings needing to see an intellectual object clearly and fully. The trenchancy of oratory is present; not, however, to marked degree, its graces or its emotional element. The ordering is intellectual; that is, all its parts are planned not to entertain, or even to inspire, but to secure the assent of the mind to a proposition.

By debate, then, we mean a body of arguments and explanations designed to produce intellectual conviction regarding some truth in question. It may take place between opponents, with the various sides of the question maintained by champions, or it may be merely an individual discussion. In any case, the debater's duty is rather to the truth he is handling than to the hearer or the occasion; and though there is a zest in achieving a victory, yet this is ill gained if gained by doubtful means or at any expense to honest conviction. In other words, as truth is worth more than victory, the procedures and tactics of debate are to be determined by the demands of truth first, and only secondarily by the temporary claims

of contest.

I.

Preparation of the Question. All that may be said about the determination of the theme1 in general literary work is raised to its highest degree of importance in debate. The preparation of the question is the determination of the theme or working-idea; only here the theme is to be cleared of all vagueness and discursiveness, to be not an idea merely, but a definitely worded, clear-cut proposition, in which the truth evolved from the question at issue, as the debater sees it, is reduced to an assertion. In formal discussions this statement of the theme is put as a resolution; which then, either positively or negatively, each speaker construes, explains, and submits to argument.

After the statement of the question as resolved, much depends on the construing of it, which is a work of exposition. Two aspects or stages of this are to be noted.

1. By exposition the question is to be subjected to every serviceable means of exegesis and explication. Whatever is obscure is to be put into accurate and lucid language; whatever is hard is to be simplified and defined; whatever is of subordinate importance is to be distinguished from the main issue; and thus, in a word, the case at issue is to be concentrated to a statement whereon, if possible, all the parties to the discussion may agree.2

NOTE. How important and serviceable the mere exhibiting of the case may be, even to the extent sometimes of making argument superfluous, is illustrated from Lincoln's manner of preparing a question described in the note on p. 555, above.

2. By exposition the nature and extent of the question are to be determined, as the case demands. Whether the issue is

1 For the theme in general and its character, see above, pp. 421 sqq.

2 For the applications of Exposition involved in this, see pp. 576 sqq., above.

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