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RGUMENTATION plays a greater rôle in our lives than many of us realize: not the technical kind, perhaps, that is preceded by the construction of briefs according to some stereotyped form, such as is required of lawyers, statesmen, and college freshmen; but the offhand mental debate involved in all our decisions, and the oral fencing which results from the necessary frictions of our daily routine. Not an hour passes but we are called upon to prove our statements or to defend our opinions. Indeed, all our actions are the result of certain judgments made often so promptly that the consciousness of the feat is lost. Were it not for this rational control based on silent and expeditious argumentative processes, our deeds would have no significance, and we should be lunatics.

In the field of writing as well, much of our argument is not confined to formal articles with such captions as: Resolved, That the ex-Kaiser should be brought before an international tribunal; or, Does prohibition prohibit? Often it is incidental or of such a nature that it is firmly interwoven with the entire fabric of the thought. Carlyle in Heroes and Hero Worship and Emerson in "Illusions" are never exhaustingly polemic, for they are more interested in the details of their exposition than in their thesis. Even when the chief aim of a book or essay is the acceptance by the reader of a well-defined proposition, that fact in itself by no means precludes an interesting treatment and a pleasant style.

Although often considered a subdivision of Exposition, Argumentation, because of its importance, is usually treated separately. Like Exposition it deals with ideas; but unlike Exposition it subjects those ideas to certain tests, and endeavors to convince some one by a logical process

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of reasoning that an allegation is true, or that a policy is right, expedient, or necessary. Thus Columbus tried to prove to his contemporaries the fact that the earth is round; Thomas M. Osborne submitted evidence to support his opinion that prison reform is needed; and many a politician has sought to convince himself and others that a program, though morally doubtful, is expedient and justified. by conditions.

Evidence is necessary either to prove a fact or to support an opinion. It is of two kinds: direct and indirect.

Direct Evidence is the supporting statements of witnesses, and may be either oral or written. When special stress is laid upon the statements of some witness because of his accredited knowledge of a certain subject, this is called argument from authority. We must judge the worth of all testimony by at least three tests. First, has the witness the physical and mental capacity to testify concerning the question? You would scarcely credit the statements of a partially deaf man concerning the exact wording of an overheard conversation, or the judgments of a corner-grocery orator upon the new tariff. Second, is the witness morally sound?-that is, would he consciously distort the truth? And finally, is there any personal feeling that might unconsciously bias the judgment of the witness? Northern and Southern historians of the Civil War, without the slightest intention of deceit, sometimes draw very different conclusions from the same incidents, according to their respective points of view.

2. Indirect Evidence is furnished by a peculiar arrangement of circumstances, and is usually called Circumstantial Evidence. Van Wyck Brooks in his Ordeal of Mark Twain undertakes to prove that

the philosophical despair and cynicism which peer through the humor of our "divine amateur" were due not to pose but to the unnatural repression of his creative impulse, leaving in a state of arrested development only the playboy in letters, the humorous entertainer of the masses, never the true satirist nature had designed him to be. This hypothesis of maladjustment-a revolutionary view of Mark Twain based on Freudian principles of psychoanalysis-Mr. Brooks substantiates by finding in certain influences in Mark Twain's early life a sufficient cause for the suppression of his artistic genius: the narrow Puritanism of his mother, the crushing hostility to any signs of individualism among the pioneers of the Nevada gold fields, the bourgeois smugness and morality of his Hartford associates, and the continual insistence on respectability by his wife. These circumstances (says Mr. Brooks) explain how so great a spirit remained discontentedly degrading the beauty he could not himself achieve.

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I.

1. Inductive Reasoning means arguing from a number of specific instances to a general law that will include them all. Thus by observation and testimony we know that every human being in the past has come at last to his death. Consequently we may frame a general law, All men are mortal. It is by this type of reasoning that all science advances. So Newton reasoned from the fall of an apple to the law of gravitation, and Huxley from an examination of chalk deposits to the conclusion that certain portions of inhabited Europe were once submerged in the ocean.

2. Deductive Reasoning means arguing from an accepted general law to one specific instance: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. This form of major premise, minor premise, and conclusion is termed a Syllogism. Macaulay employs Deductive Reasoning in his essay on "Milton," arguing that since it is right for men to fight for freedom even though rebellion brings with it many evils, therefore the conduct of Milton in championing the cause of the Commonwealth was justifiable and praiseworthy.

Practically all our argument involves both kinds of Reasoning. When we say that a certain man will surely die, we are basing our conclusion not merely on Deduction, but on the inductive process by which we arrived at the major premise, All men are mortal.

An error in reasoning is called a Fallacy. Very often success in destructive argument depends upon the disputant's ability to discern these fallacies in his opponent's reasoning. In Induction the most common Fallacy is that of hasty generalization following observation of too few specific instances. If we should say, "The new moon is spilling water; there will be a wet month," it would be evident we had made no thorough observation of weather conditions, but were simply voicing a popular superstition.

Sometimes our observation itself is at fault. The scientist who thought he had produced spontaneous germination of life

in a test tube of sterilized matter-a discovery which would have bridged the gap between the era of slime and the era of life in the world's history-was suddenly refuted by another scientist who demonstrated conclusively that the matter in the test tube had not been properly sterilized and still contained life.

In Deduction the most common error is the assumption of an incorrect major premise. If we start from the general statement that all who say "it don't" are uneducated and vulgar, we can prove some amazing things about certain college professors. As in Induction, correct observation is also necessary before we frame our minor premise. Otherwise there is no connecting link between the major premise and the conclusion. Furthermore, special care must be taken that the first term of the conclusion be contained in the smaller term of the major premise. Carlyle in Heroes and Hero Worship makes use of a false syllogism that may be formulated thus: All great men are sincere. Mahomet was sincere. Therefore Mahomet was a great man. The only legitimate conclusion one can draw from the original statement is that if Mahomet had been great, he would have been sincere.

It may be wise at this point to distinguish between Argument and Persuasion. The purpose of Argument is to convince. When a disputant appeals to the emotions. of his hearers rather than to their intellects, he is trying to persuade. Persuasion is not Argumentation in its best sense, but none the less it often proves effective as the florid perorations of certain lawyers for the defense amply illustrate. It is justifiable, however, when used to excite human interest in sound argument.

Hitherto we have been dealing largely with definitions. The most important constructive step in any argument is the determination of the Issues. The Issues are those points of dispute around which the discussion will rage most hotly. They are common both to the affirmative and to the negative, and in a formal brief 1 are always put in the form of questions. Consider, for instance, Woodrow Wilson's address to Congress recommending the declaration of a state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government. He discusses three chief issues which may be formulated thus:

1. Is the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants through the ruthless submarine policy of Germany a challenge to the sense of justice of the American people?

2. Is armed neutrality on the part of the United States still practicable?

3. Can peace be maintained by any means other than a partnership of democratic nations among whom the United States shall of

necessity have a place?

The capacity for perceiving these crucial points of discussion is the first requisite demanded of any who engage either in formal debate or in ordinary controversy. The second is the reasoning power to advance by certain logical steps from an accepted proposition to one not yet granted.

1 For a model brief see G. K. Pattee, Practical Argumentation, The Century Company, pages 171-183.

FOR THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

JOHN MILTON

The active years of John Milton (1608-1674), Puritan poet and statesman, fell largely in that troubled period of the interregnum. With the possible exception of Shakespeare, Milton is the most sublime poet England has produced. Less widely known than Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and the minor poems are Milton's state papers, defending the government of the Commonwealth, in which he took an active part. His indefatigable labors eventually cost him his sight. The following is the conclusion of his famous Areopagitica (1644), a speech on the freedom of the press, in which the Puritan controversialist grows pardonably vehement.

LORDS and commons of England! consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors; a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so ancient, and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity, and able judgment, have been persuaded that even the school of Pythagoras, and the Persian wisdom, took beginning from the old philosophy of this island.

And that wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here for Caesar, preferred the natural wits of Britain, before the labored studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transylvania sends out yearly from as far as the mountainous borders of Russia, and beyond the Hercynian wilderness, not their youth, but their staid men, to learn our language, and our theologic arts. Yet that which is above all this, the favor and the love of heaven, we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending toward us. Why else was this nation chosen before any other, that out of her, as out of Sion, should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wickliffe, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huss and Jerome, no, nor the

name of Luther, or of Calvin, had been ever known; the glory of reforming all our neighbors had been completely ours.

But now, as our obdurate clergy have with violence demeaned the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest scholars of whom God offered to have made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his church, even to the reforming of reformation itself. What does he then but reveal himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen ? I say as his manner is, first to us, though we mark not the method of his counsels, and are unworthy. Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defense of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious. lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation; others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a nation, so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful laborers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of

sages, and of worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up; the fields are white already.

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism,' we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge. and understanding, which God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men, to reassume the ill deputed care of their religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these diligences to join, and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth, could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men.

I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage; If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a church or kingdom happy. Yet these are the men cried out against for schismatics and sectaries, as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort of irrational men, who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber, ere the house of God can be built. And when every stone is laid

1 Milton is here defending the forces that were dividing Protestantism into denominations.

artfully together, it cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world. Neither can every piece of the building be of one form; nay, rather, the perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure. Let us therefore be more considerate builders, more wise in spiritual architecture, when great reformation is expected. For now the time seems come, wherein Moses, the great prophet, may sit in heaven rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy elders, but all the Lord's people are become prophets. No marvel then though some men, and some good men, too, perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour. When they have branched themselves out, saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches; nor will beware until he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill united and unwieldy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude, honest perhaps, though overtimorous, of them that vex in this behalf, but shall laugh in the end at those malicious applauders of our differences, I have these reasons to persuade

me.

First, when a city shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance and battle oft rumored to be marching up even to her walls and suburb trenches, that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reasoning,

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