PREFACE As a teacher of argument and debate for more than a generation, I have long been convinced that these subjects are not so much an applied logic as an applied psychologic; that, indeed, there are other powers of the mind than the purely logical which are fundamental, and that the principles governing them are capable of a more thoroughly scientific exposition than has appeared in our manuals. I have thus endeavored to write a modern text-book on debating, grounded on psychology as well as on logic, and to set forth principles and methods tested by actual experience. I have presented the material which I believe to be necessary to a full understanding of argument and debate in two parts, Logical Organization and The Presentation. In considering Logical Organization, I have retained the conventional view-point, dealing with Briefs and Brief-making, Argument, and Evidence, and have endeavored to weld them into a whole. Highly valuable to the student as the conventional stress upon the pure logic of the subject is, it has been found by the writer to be utterly inadequate even when followed later by a treatment of Persuasion. The unique feature of the present text lies in the fact that it recognizes more fully than has hitherto been the case in text-books on argument the function of imagination in reasoning; that the unconscious association |