EXERCISE LII. EVIDENCE. Subjects: The Character of Columbus. Was the Assassinator of President Garfield Insane? Evidence is a general name for everything that is adduced to corroborate a fact or support a thesis. It may be material objects, such as are often exhibited in trials before courts of law. It may be oral or written testimony of witnesses. It may be a combination of circumstances that seem to admit of only one explanation. It may be an expression of opinion by some one who is an expert in the matter under discussion and whose words therefore carry weight. All of these may be elaborated into an argument which may be deemed by the hearer or reader to establish conclusive proof. But the evidence in itself is not necessarily proof. Each of these kinds of evidence will have a different force and validity, which must be taken into account. For instance, what is called in law "circumstantial evidence " may be exceedingly strong and convincing, and yet many a conclusion drawn from it has afterward been found wrong. The value of verbal testimony depends very much on the intelligence, moral character, and disinterestedness of the witness who offers it. Authority, or the judgment of experts in matters of opinion, will vary greatly in value. Take the matter of testimony. What can be better than the truthful testimony of an unprejudiced eyewitness? And yet our eyes, and all our senses, are continually deceiving us. A child riding on a train fancies that the fences are flying past him; a man of wide experience and matured judgment often finds it difficult to determine whether or not a train is moving, past which he is being carried on another train. Clouds seem to be moving in opposite directions when in reality one stratum is simply moving faster than another in the same direction. An object is blue, green, or even red, to different people. The same man is described by one person as tall, by another as of medium stature; one says his eyes are black, another that they are brown. And all of these witnesses may feel confident that they are telling the truth. Evidence, we repeat, even the best of evidence, is not proof. Hence the necessity of bringing to bear every scrap of evidence obtainable. The weaving of it into a strong mesh of proof exercises the highest skill of the philosopher, the historian, the scientific demonstrator, the legal advocate. In short, it is the utilization of all the resources of argument. It will be noticed that the subjects offered thus far have often been put in the form of questions. There are several good reasons for this. The reader will understand at once that the paper is to be argumentative and that the question is an unsettled one in the minds of many people. The interrogative form, too, seems to promise greater fairness of treatment on the writer's part. His answer may be an unqualified Yes or No, but he assumes to start at least from a neutral standpoint and with a spirit of sincere inquiry. The result is that the reader's interest is aroused at once, his attention to the arguments is more willingly given, and his concurrence with the results more ready. So far as it is possible in these exercises, argue local questions. Has there been a fire in your neighborhood recently which was suspected to be of incendiary origin? Is there a suspicion that the late acts of vandalism on the school grounds were committed by persons not connected with the school? Ferret out all the evidence you can and present it in a convincing form. EXERCISE LIII. DEBATE. Questions of Fact: Resolved, That there was a pre-Columbian Discovery of America. That the American Indians are Descended from the Mound Builders. That Lord Bacon Wrote the Works Attributed to Shakespeare. That Crime Increases with Civilization. That Earthquakes are Caused by the Cooling and Contraction of the Earth's Crust. Debate is argumentation on both or all sides of a question, usually conducted by two or more persons, each of whom represents one side. It is presumably the best way of arriving at truth and settling unsettled questions. It has often been skeptically remarked that debate convinces nobody. This is true only of those who will not see, of whom it has been said that there are none so blind. Daily does it become more and more evident that among intelligent, fair-minded men and women debate is a valuable means for the formation of opinions. When one argues a question alone, from his own point of view, he should of course try to concede everything that may be said from the opposite point of view. But it is not likely that he will find so much to say on the other side nor support it so strongly as one whose convictions lie on that side. Hence the advantage of having several parties to the discussion. They may not succeed in convincing one another, but they will certainly help an unprejudiced non-participator to a conviction. While debates are commonly oral, as in debating societies, political, educational, and religious gatherings, law courts, parliamentary sessions, etc., they are by no means always so. Many are to be found in our magazines of a certain class, The North American Review, Popular Science Monthly, Forum, Arena. It naturally devolves on the one who opens the debate to clear the ground by stating the question in full, with all necessary amplification, exposition of terms, proposed limitations, etc. His arguments, too, will be constructive and positive. Of course he is at liberty to anticipate counter arguments, objections and refutations. Such a course will tend to weaken the force of those arguments when they are brought forward by an opponent. On the other hand, there is the risk that it may be only so much wasted energy, for an opponent may choose not to advance the argument or objection at all, though if he does this simply because he feels that its force has been already weakened, the energy can hardly be considered wasted. The duty of those who follow the first speaker or writer is, primarily, to refute the arguments advanced by the other side; and, secondarily, to establish the contrary. This latter is not always considered essential; it depends somewhat on the purpose of the discussion and the form in which the question is stated. As to the form of the so-called "question," it is usually a declarative proposition and not an interrogation. This makes it easier to distinguish clearly between the affirmative and negative sides, the one affirming the truth of the proposition, the other denying it. The burden of proof lies with the affirmative. Three courses are open to the negative. The simplest one is merely to attempt to refute all the arguments offered in support and so leave the statement unproved. Or one may attack the statement itself, and, if possible, show it to be false, thus disproving it. The third course is to maintain the truth of some contrary proposition. This last is practically opening a new question and arguing on the affirmative side of it, a question however which, proved, disproves the first. All three of these courses may be adopted in the same argument, though there is always more or less danger in attempting to prove too much. The question is not only usually declarative in form, it should be put positively, that is, it should not contain a negative, for this is apt to lead to comparison between the terms "affirmative side" and "negative side." Thus, instead of saying Resolved, That Prohibition does not Prohibit, or Resolved, That Prohibition is a Failure, cast it in some such form as this, Resolved, That Prohibitory Laws can be and are Enforced. |