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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
THE FUNDAMENTALS
OF DEBATE
BY
HARRY FRANKLIN COVINGTON
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON
COPYSIGHT, 1918, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
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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 ap-
peared 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 de-
bate in two parts, Logical Organization and The Pres-
entation. 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 imag-
ination in reasoning; that the unconscious association
VI PREFACE
of images in the mind leads to new ideas and progress,
and that, in presenting our ideas after they have been
logically organized, they must be imaged suggestively on
the minds of the audience. Part II, therefore, explains
the elemental nature of Imagination, and treats the
subject of what is usually called the Presentation as
Imaginative Suggestion. Whenever this view-point
and conception have been presented in the classroom,
they have aroused interest by supplementing the formal-
ism of the older treatises and by opening new avenues
of thought and suggesting original ways of approach.
For, after all, the debater and student of Enghsh com-
position m general should be free to act on his own
initiative, to express his own individuality.
All students in this field will gladly acknowledge their
indebtedness to the pioneer work of Professor George
P. Baker, of Harvard, author of *'The Principles of Ar-
gumentation" (1895), and also to Professor Walter
Dill Scott, author of "The Psychology of PubHc Speak-
ing" (1910).
I wish to express my especial obligation to Professor
Howard C. Warren, of Princeton University, for his
helpful criticism of the psychological foundations. To
Doctor Theodore W. Hunt, for many years head of the
EngUsh Department, now Professor Emeritus, I wish
also to express my appreciation for his interest and en-
couragement.
Princeton University, June, 19 18.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I. Introductory i
The Fundamentals of Debate — Logic — Evidence — Rhetoric
— Oratory — Psychology — Constructive Thinking — Minds, Is-
sues, and Audiences: Two Types — Persuasion — The Debater
Himself — Plan of the Book.
PART I. LOGICAL ORGANIZATION
Chapter II. Briefs and Brief-Making 15
Need of a Plan — The Brief Defined — The Making of a Brief
— ^The Process — Analysis — Classification — Arrangement — The
Result — Unity — Logical Sequence— Proportion — Process and
Result — Unity — Climax — Two Laws of Structure — Rules for
Brief-Making — The Three Main Parts of a Brief — Specimen
Brief.
Chapter III. Argument 39
The View-Point — Name — Effectiveness — Unity of Classifica-
tion.
Classes of Argument — I. Association, Argument from Sign —
Sign Argument Expounded — Force — Observation and Infer-
ence — Common Sources of Error.
II. Argument from Example — A. Resemblance (i) By Gen-
eralization — Illustrations in Law and in Parliamentary De-
bates—Further Analysis of the Process — Definition of Rel-
evancy and Rules — The Fallacy, Begging the Question —
Answering a Causal Example by Alleging a Different
Cause — (2) By Analogy — Definitions — Uses — Illustrations.
B. Contrast — A Principle of Association — Uses in Debating —
vii
viii CONTENTS
PAGE
Uses in Refutation — Types of Argument by Contrast — (i) Re-
ductio ad absurdum — Definition and Illustrations — Manner of
Treatment — How Answered — Its Special Value — (2) The
Dilemma — Definition and Illustrations — Two Kinds — Its Use —
How Answered — (3) The Method of the Residue — Definition
and Illustrations.
Chapter IV. Argument (continued) 87
III. Argument from Causal Relation — Definition — Rule of
Adequacy, Involving Parallelism or Difference, Other Com-
peting or Co-operating Causes, Law of Progress — Illustra-
tions — Causal Argument, and the Other Sources of Reasoning —
Differences of View-Point.
IV. Inductive and Deductive Arguments — Induction — ^The
Inevitable Assumption — The Inductive Formula — Induction,
the Scientific Method of Investigation — Kinds of Induction.
Deduction, a Ready Mode of Reasoning — Deduction Sup-
plemented by Induction — Deduction, a Method of Criticism —
The Syllogism — The Enthymeme — The Chain of Reasoning —
Two Classes of Fallacies — A Common Ground in Argument.
Refutation — Character — Preparation — An Important Limi-
tation — Selection — Fimdamental Criticism — Two General
Methods of Refutation: Overthrowing the Supporting Argu-
ment and Proving the Contradictory.
Chapter V. Evidence 112
The Proof — Meaning of Term — The Need of Evi-
dence — The Need of Assumptions — Classes of Evidence —
Direct and Circumstantial — Jiuy Verdicts upon Circumstan-
tial Evidence — Personal, Real, and Documentary Evidence —
The Law of Evidence — Examining Testimony — Consistency —
the One Great Test — (i) Internal — (2) External, General, or
Particular.
The Use of Evidence Outside the Courts — The Debater's
Chief Source of Evidence, Authority — Two Classes of Au-
thority — Examining Evidence from Authority — Rules for the
Interpretation of Documents — Suggestions for Reporting Evi-
dence — The Reasonableness of an Opinion — ^The Danger of
Partial Quotation — The Card System.
CONTENTS ix
PART II. THE PRESENTATION
PAGE
Chapter VI. Imagination in Argument .... 150
The Need of Imagination in Argument — The Logical
and the Psychological — Images Are a Psychological Infer-
ence — Mental Processes — The Creative Imagination — The
Poverty of Mere Facts — The Vision of New Ideas — Anticipa-
tion Images — Perceptual Aspect of Imagery — Imaging a Con-
cept — Imaging (i) an Analogy; (2) a Cause; (3) a Conclusion;
(4) Affection and Desire; (5) in a Team Debate; (6) in General —
The Advantage of the Conceptual View-Point to the Debater —
Types of Imagery — Memory Images — Imagination Images of
the Past, the Present, and the Future — Summary.
Chapter VII. Suggestion in Argument i88
Laws of Suggestion and Their Use in Debating — Avoiding
and Removing Inhibitions — Hurtful Admissions as Inhibi-
tions — Immediate Removal of Inhibitions Introduced by an
Opponent — Logical Fallacies as Inhibitions — Removing an
Inhibiting Wish by the Image ad Absurd um — Conclusions.
Instruments of Suggestion — Gesture Images as Instnmients
of Suggestion — Word Images as Instruments of Suggestion —
Variability of Meanings, Due to the Speaker, Vocal Shadings —
Due to the Listener, The Mental Level, The Psychological
Moment — Imagery an Imperfect Means,
Chapter VIII. Instruments of Suggestion ... 212
Tonal Imagery — Illustrative Imagery — Avoiding Personal-
ities — Subjective Images — Personal Adjectives — All the Parts
of Speech — The Phrase — Sentence Forms — Climax — Repe-
tition — Variety — Paraleipsis — Confidence — Interestedness —
Avoiding Common Defects in Delivery — The Decision.
APPENDICES
Appendix A
Specimen Briefs — ^The First Ji:inius Letter — In Defense of
Damay.
247
X CONTENTS
PAGE
Appendix B 255
Questions and Exercises : In General — On Specific Speeches —
In Association-Reactions.
Appendix C 261
The Special Study of Imagery — Varied Imagery Appeals —
Auditory Imagery and the Disagreeable — Mixed Imagery
T3T)es.
Appendix D 269
The Imagery of Argument and of Poetry.
Appendix E 272
Addresses : Premier Lloyd George's "Peace Founded on the
Rock of Vindicated Justice" and President Wilson's "Force to
the Utmost."
Appendix F 283
Bibliography.
Appendix G 284
Resolutions for Debate.
Index 287
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
THE
FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The Fundamentals of Debate
On turning to the dictionary you will find that the
word "debate" formerly meant "strife, contention."
For example, Robert of Gloucester says in the thirteenth
century — "in the days of Trinity next ensuing was a
great debate and in that murder there were slain four-
score." Sir Walter Scott uses the term as applied to
physical contest:
"But question fierce and proud reply
Gave signal soon of dire debate."
The term is apphed usually to intellectual disputes;
its field is not actually but figuratively a battle-ground.
Its province is coextensive with the whole domain of
thought. Wherever there are propositions in dispute,
ideas attacked and defended, there is debate. In law
before the court, in theology before the synod, in politics
on the stump or in Congress — indeed, in almost all scien-
tific, philosophic, or popular speeches and writings. Its
instruments are not swords, shields, or arrows but argu-
ments. The arms of the contest are intellectual ones,
1
2 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
the contest one of reasons. According to the present
use of the word, if A by chance meets B and makes an
assertion which is denied by B, whereupon A offers
reasons for his belief which are met by contrary reasons
from B, there is debate. "A thesis is set down; you
attack, I defend it; you insist, I reply; you deny, I prove;
you distinguish, I destroy your distinctions; my replies
balance or overturn your objections — such is debate."
You assert your intention of pursuing a certain line
of action, I reason with you to do the opposite — such
is debate.
Debating is not confined to formal tribunals. The
college student arguing upon the prospects of a base-
ball championship is as much a debater as the disputant
in an intercollegiate contest. An amusing controversy
showing the origin and conduct of a not uncommon
type of debate may be found in Scott's "Antiquary"
relating to the racial connection of the ancient Picts.
Were they Teutons or Celts? Here we have assertion
and denial, citation of authorities, pro and con, with
distinctions, until as too often happens, the disputants
lose their tempers, and Sir Arthur flounces out of the
parlor in high dudgeon —
"... Why, man, there was once a people called the
Piks "
"More properly Picis," interrupted the Baronet.
"I say the Pikar, Pihar, Piochlar, Piaghter, or Peughtar,"
vociferated Oldbuck; "they spoke a Gothic dialect "
"Genuine Celtic," again asseverated the knight.
"Gothic! Gothic! I'll go to death upon it!" counter-as-
severated the squire.
"Why, gentlemen," said Lovel, "I conceive that is a dis-
pute which may be easily settled by philologists, if there are
any remains of the language."
INTRODUCTORY 3
"There is but one word," said the Baronet, "but, in spite
of Mr. Oldbuck's pertinacity, it is decisive of the question."
"Yes, in my favor," said Oldbuck; "Mr. Lovel, you shall
be judge — I have the learned Pinkerton on my side."
"I, on mine, the indefatigable and erudite Chalmers. . . ."
"Tnily, gentlemen," said Lovel, "before you muster your
forces and overwhelm me with authorities, I should like to know
the word in dispute."
"Benval," said both disputants at once.
"Which signifies caput valli," said Sir Arthur.
"The head of the wall," echoed Oldbuck.
There was a deep pause. "It is rather a narrow foundation
to build a hypothesis upon," observed the arbiter.
"Not a whit, not a whit," said Oldbuck; "men fight best
in a narrow ring — an inch is as good as a mile for a home-thrust."
"It is decidedly Celtic," said the Baronet; "every hill in
the Highlands begins with Ben."
"But what say you to Val, Sir Arthur; is it not decidedly
the Saxon wall ? "
"It is the Roman vallum," said Sir Arthur; "the Picts bor-
rowed that part of the word."
"No such thing; if they borrowed anything, it must have
been your Ben, which they might have from the neighboring
Britons of Strath Cluyd. . . ."
Debating generally originates from conflicting opin-
ions. *'You say we are sectional!" exclaimed Lincoln
in his Cooper Institute address. "We deny it. That
makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you."
The common mode of procedure, in starting an action
at law, is for the plaintiff to file a paper which is fol-
lowed by another paper from the defendant which is
called an answer; at length, argmnent ensues, if not
upon the general issue, upon special issues arising dur-
ing the course of the trial, which are successively
weighed, till the final issue emerges and is weighed and
the case solved.
4 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
In formal debating contests, the questions discussed
do not arise from conflicting opinions actually existing
among the debaters themselves ; the questions are chosen
by joint agreement, or by one party to the discussion,
and presented to the other for the choice of sides. The
two sides are called, respectively, the affirmative and the
negative, the former being that side which maintains
the proposition (which may be negatively stated) and
the latter the side which denies the proposition. The
proposition is usually stated affirm'atively.
Argument is the process of resolving differences of
opinion by assertion and denial, followed by proof and
counter-proof with distinctions. If the opponent is
pjresent and is heard, we call the argument a debate
(debatere — to beat off). By it we aim to influence the
opinions, beliefs, or actions of others. It thus presup-
poses the possibility at least of an opposing view, a dif-
ference of opinion. It presupposes also a knowledge of
facts, an ability to correlate them, as well as the power
to present them effectively. Viewed as an art, then,
argument may be regarded as applying (i) the rules
of evidence such as maintain in our courts of law, (2)
the rules of reasoning such as exist in common sense
or have been developed in text-books on logic, and (3)
the principles of literary art and oratory or public speak-
ing, at the basis of which we now know (4) must rest
a sound psychology. This forms a large and varied
background, from which the debater and the writer
on debating must draw his material if he is to grasp
his subject fully or treat it as a whole.
Y^j j ^ a.t are. \he. farts? What happened ? What wa s
done? These are the first questions which the lawyer
asks of his client. They are equally important for the
INTRODUCTORY 5
student of debate. The debater should be first of all
the painstaking investigator. Even if the reasoning
is valid, conclusions based on unsupported assertions
may be entirely unwarranted. You say that we should
grant the^ Philippine Islands complete independence
within five years because they have shown themselves
to be capable of self-government. But have they? What
is the evidence in the case ? On whose authority does
it rest? Is he qu alified to speak as an authority? If
SO, are his statements prooable on their face, uncon-
tradicted by others who have an equal right to be heard
— and so on ?
^ The legal rules of evidence are an important guide
I in any procedure in debating where the attempt is to
resolve such issues of fact; for they have grown up
through years of custom and practice, and though some-
times deeply embedded in legal subject-matter, have as a
rule come to be recognized as a safe and just mode of
procedure in general. The debater should know, for
instance, such things as the difference between testi-
mony and authority, hearsay and first-hand testimony,
primary and secondary evidence, and the important
rules governing the production of testimony in courts
of law. The law of evidence, according to Stephen, is
that part of procedure which with a view to ascertain-
ing the individual rights and liabilities in particular
cases decides : (i) What facts m ?^y nnH rnay nnf he
proved . (2) W hat sort of evid ence must be given of a
fact whic h rnay be proved, and (3) by whom and Tn
what manner th^evidence must be~produceidby which
any f act is to be proyed,^
The facts being estabhshed as true, what do such
' James F. Stephen, "A Digest of the Law of Evidence," p. 6.
6 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
facts Jm^ort with refe rence to the substantial things in
doub t? To exactly wha t are they relevaiit?- _ .W-ha.t is
the nature o7lhisre][£vancy^:::caiisaLiDr_e^^ Ar-
gmnenfativeskill and the ability to think readily on one's
feet should be based on an ability to reason soundly.
The deb ater must know the natuy e of the relg,tions^ exist-
i ng between propositions, the groun d^ of warrant for
their assertion in an argume nt. Apprehension, judg-
'ment, and reasoning, according to Jevons,^ form the chief
parts of logical doctrine. Certainly, a debater must
be able to perceive the truth, be wise and discriminat-
ing in his judgments, scrupulous and sensible in his in-
ferences. Now, the proposition is the formal unit of
argument, whether employed as a premise or a con-
clusion. It is regarded in logic as divisible into two
parts called terms, and the process of formulating a
proposition is the process of expressing some judgment
between these terms. Grammatically, a proposition
consists of a subject and a predicate, while mathemat-
ically it may be defined as an equation between two
tenns. Of course, the discovery, analysis, and ar-
rangement of the material so as to appeal to the
understanding involve, first and foremost, reasoning
processes. The main and subordinate argument, heads
and subheads, in the outUne of a case are step-by-step
processes — Hnks in a chain of reasoning; and in fine,
as a perfect brief shows, a debate is an organic, logical
structure.
Since logic treats of the laws of reasoning, the rational
groundwork of the art of debate may be found in sys-
tematic shape in the science of logic. Its study there-
fore, if properly conducted, should mean for the de-
^W. Stanley Jevons, "Elementary Lessons on Logic," p. ii.
INTRODUCTORY 7
bater not only stability of foundation but a real gain
in argumentative skill. Speaking of Junius, Professor
Goodrich says: "His mind, in early life, had clearly
been subjected to the severest logical training, Corn^
position, with him, was the creation of _ aL,^ ltem of
thought, in which everything is made subordinate to_
a just order and sequence ot idea s. One thought grows
o'ut ot another in regular succession. His reasonings
often take the form of a syllogism, though usually with
the omission of one of the terms; and we never find
him betrayed into that careless diffusion of style so
common with those who are ignorant of the principles
of logic. In this respect, the writing of Junius will am'ply
repay the closest study and analysis. Let the young
orator enter completely into the scope and design of
the author. Let him watch the undercurrent of his
thoughts and feelings. Let him observe how perfectly
everything coincides to produce the desired impression
—the statement of principles and the reference to facts,
the shading of thought and the colorings of imagery.
Let him take one of the more striking passages and re-
mark the dexterous preparation by which each of its
several parts is so shaped that the leading thoughts
come forward to the best advantage — clear in all their
relations, standing boldly out, unencumbered by secon-
dary ideas, and thus fitted to strike the mind with full
and undivided force. Such a study of Junius will pre-
pare the young reader to enter into the logic of thought.
It will lead to the formation of a severe intellectual
taste, which is the best guard against the dangers of
hasty composition, and the still greater dangers of ex-
temporaneous speaking. Such speaking cannot be dis-
pensed with. On the contrary, it is becoming more
8 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
and more essential to the success of public men in every
part of public life." ^
Debating means also the expression of ideas in speech
or writing, and so must be classified as a species both
of oratory and of literary composition. It is well for
the college debater if he seeks to acquire the technic
both of the finished speaker and of the literary artist.
The distinguishing characteristics of debating as a type
of expression seem to lie in its argumentative and in
its dialogue character. Debating, however, is not only
an expression of ideas, but a presentation of them to
others; it is not only an appeal from reason to reason,
but from one state of consciousness to another state
of consciousness. The facts being known and their
relations, the question arises: "How shall I present
them? " The answer is that we may view logical reason-
ing and judgments as concepts, and image them sug-
gestively within the experience of the persons addressed.
Suggestion is the broadest term used for the process
of conveying our ideas to others. Since objects and
things, to which ideas refer, cannot always be present
to the senses, we are in the habit of recalling them to
consciousness by suggesting an image of our idea with
its understood meanings and with its natural associa-
tions. Imagination or the image-making process is
therefore a process of reducing general or abstract ideas
to sense-perception. It has a basis in feeling as well
as in memory, and furnishes the true method of gain-
ing interest and attention, as well as of producing con-
viction and beHef. Anterior to the associ ation _of ideas,
be it remembered," is the association of images, with
— cliildi eii, a-hd wilh a r tistg:
iC. A. Goodrich, "British Eloquence," p. 153.
INTRODUCTORY 9
Psychologically, therefore, debating is the art of the
associative and suggestive or inhibiting imagination.
The successful arguer"will seek to remove all inhibitions',
of whatever sort, which tend to interfere with the ac-
ceptance by another, at their proper weight and value,
of the facts and logic of his case. He will also on his
own part seek to interpose objections which tend to
inhibit the case presented by his opponent. Psychology,
the ultimate basis of argument, is the science of mental
phenomena.
The media or symbols of imagery are words (written
or spoken) and gesture (including facial expression).
Their suggestions are carried by the physical vibrations
of light and sound. y
<^The same principle — adaptation — which causes the /
^^;__Jeye to close when blinded by light, which makes one v
man succeed and another fail in the race of life, defines I
the good debater as the man who does the right thing V
at the right time — and in the right way. Arguments \
are not absolute, but relative in character. ^^^
Constructive Thinking. — Logical rigor is essential for
the foundation and structure of an argument, but it
should not be so stressed in the teaching of debating
as to interfere with the use and free play of the imagina-
tive powers nor with their growth and development.
Creative ability is more or less present in all men.
Fairy-tales and child myths find their counterpart among
older people in the projection of business enterprises
and idealistic plans in every sphere. Assuredly, the
man who debates needs to develop his analytical and
discriminating powers, but he will need more. I have
before me a report of a committee on prison reform
containing very detailed statements numbered from
10 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
one to twelve, and giving conclusions and recommen-
dations as to facts and conditions. The preliminary
data based on a personal inspection of the prisons was
of course necessary to the making of sound recommen-
dations, but the recommendations which were made pre-
sented a new view of prison reform and in fact a new
prison. Thus, the data drawn from observation and ex-
perience were combined with new ideas in the minds of the
reform committee. Moreover, in presenting their report
to the assembly, they will defend their findings of things
as they unfortunately are in connection with their recom-
mendation as to what they would have them to be. Is
it not clear from this illustration that any theory of
argumentation which makes it one only of logical analy-
sis and logical classification is partial and inadequate?
Argument depends not only on past experience but
on past experience plus creative thinking applied to
the work at hand. Any other theory forced upon the
undeveloped student tends to dull and deaden his imag-
inative powers at the very time they are longing for
expression. The bird that does not learn to sing when
it is young rarely learns at all. Argument should be
taught as both analytic and synthetic, destructive and
constructive, and with a full appreciation of its psy-
chological and its logical basis.
Minds, Issues, and Audiences: Two Tjrpes. — There
are indeed two types of minds: the one conservative
and retrospective, the other progressive and prospec-
tive. The first type is guided by authority, habit, and
imitation, the second by the constructive and destruc-
tive tendencies in the changing world about us. The
one obeys fixed immutable, absolute, and dogmatic
principles or laws; the other, knowing that conditions
INTRODUCTORY 11
are never identical except in purely scientific experi-
ments, recognizes first of all the facts perceived and or-
ganizes them at once into a clear conception or judg-
ment. It is naturally this second type— and it contains
geniuses and leaders of thought and action — which
sees the necessity and value of the argument from sign.
For they see in it as nearly as can be had an approxima-
tion to the reasoning which they constantly employ
and recognize as their own.
Just as there are two types of mind, there are two
types of opinion over which differences may arise, and
hence, two types of issues: issues of stability and issues
of change. To the first class belong the issues adjudicated
in law-courts, to the second the resolutions and bills
adopted by parhamentary assembfies. The issues in
academic debates are the issues of parliamentary bodies
— issues of change. And since the democracies of the
world are almost equally divided into great liberal
and conservative parties, the sharpest division which
we may make of audiences is also twofold : J'hose who
lo ok back before g oing forward, and those who go for-
ward withoutlooB ng back." ~~ " '
Persuasion. — Persuasion may be defined as an ap-
peal for decision through logic and the emotional re-
actions to imagery. Psychologically, a speaker is related
to his hearers as stimulus to reaction; logically, as cause
to effect. The suggested images of objects which exist
in the external world may be necessary to enable others
to accept our ideas. Such images, moreover, may awaken
in others pleasurable or unpleasurable feelings with re-
gard to these ideas. Experience shows that in debating
it is almost impossible at times to avoid either an ex-
pression of our own feelings or an appeal of some sort
12 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
to the feelings of others. The affirmative side, for in-
stance, will make use of the emotions of approbation;
the negative, those of disapprobation. A speaker ap-
peals to the emotions legitimately, when he does so to
overcome prejudice, to prevent fatigue, or otherwise
to facilitate thinking. Such appeals are at times not
only so instinctive as to be inevitable, but are essential
to the end in view — decision. They may create sym-
pathy or antagonism, suspense or surprise, desire, mo-
tive, or sheer determination of the will, but they should
always leave reason enthroned and be supported by
justice and right.
The Debater Himself. — As to the debater himself,
he should be a man of individuality, should possess con-
structive as well as analytical powers and, without run-
ning into the fallacies of the persuasive orator, should
always be able to give a personal touch which adds so
much to human interest.
No mere formal study of the elements of debate will
make a debater. No body of knowledge, no rules of
thinking, no principles of expression or suggestion can
take the place of the indefinable power of the speaker
himself. There is in every great orator, every great
debater, an individuality, a creative impulse which
masters formal rules so thoroughly that the mechanical
process — the technic — is lost in the earnest expression of
ideas and behefs. Facts, principles, illustrations, phrases,
rhythm, even processes of thought are all transmuted
by the alchemical power of the great artist, who knows,
who thinks, who feels, who images not after a pattern.
He combines what he gets from without with that which
comes from within and in so doing transforms and turns
into gold — true to reaHty, true to himself. Originality
INTRODUCTORY 13
or genius is fed by innumerable sources, most of which
are too delicate, too subtle, too varied to be easily recog-
nized, even by the man himself, at the time. In addition
to formal rules, therefore, it is beheved that the growth
of such a power is to be encouraged in other ways, such
as by (i) familiarity and association, with the speeches
and writings of the great debaters and a careful study
and analysis of their productions, and (2) by frequent
practice in impromptu pubUc speaking and debate —
done under such circumstances and on such occasions
as will arouse and command the highest psychological
interest.
Plan of the Book
In one of his greatest speeches, Lincoln once said
with rare simpUcity and common sense: "If we could
first know where we are and whither we are tending,
we could better judge what to do and how to do it."
The larger divisions of the subject as treated in this
book are: (i) logical organization; and (2) presenta-
tion.
Under the term logical organization, we will con-
sider first, briefs and brief-making, or the analysis and
synthesis of a particular proof in a special skeletonized
form with its special features; second, arguments, or
the important types of associative processes which form
the basis of logical inference and which have been desig-
nated with special names as arguments; third, evidence,
or facts and opinions derived from others, as used in
debating in comparison and contrast with the prescribed
or customary use of evidence in courts of law.
We shall then perhaps be ready to consider the final
topic of presenting our ideas in an argument before an
14 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
audience, or the subject of presentation. This will be
shown to involve imaginative suggestion, including, as
always, the need of adaptation to ends and circum-
stances. It involves further the viewing of our judg-
ments and reasons as concepts, for the purpose of bringing
them within local experience for recognition, compar-
ison, and decision. The presentation is treated in
chapters on imagination in argument, suggestion in ar-
gument, and the instruments of suggestion.
PART I
LOGICAL ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER II
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING
Need of a Plan. — In our moments of appreciation
of any work of art, it is perhaps natural for us to think
of it more for itself than as the product of a mind that
had carefully planned and a hand that had skilfully
executed. And yet we know that every worthy artistic
product means skill both in designing and in execution.
In these respects, the art of composition closely resembles
the art of architecture. Just as the architect makes
his drawings and specifications in advance of the con-
struction of a building, so too the writer of any sub-
stantial work must give careful thought to the way his
material is to be put together, what purpose it is to
serve, and what impression it is to make when finished.
The plan of an argumentative composition when care-
fully worked out and with appropriate details is called
a brief; but a brief must follow certain elementary rules
of construction. It does not consist merely of a few
"speaking notes," but should be so full in material and
so exact in statement and in suggestion of method as
to be intelligible and convincing to another.
15
IG THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
The Brief Defined. — The brief of an argument is
the record of the analysis, classification, and arrange-
ment of everything of importance which is necessary
to the explanation of the issues and to the process of
proof. It should disclose the material to be employed
as evidence; it should indicate in the clearest fashion
the method of the process; and it should be in the form
of a series of propositions put together according to
some plan and arranged in such a sequence as to pro-
duce a single and cumulative effect. It is analogous to
the plans and specifications of the architect.
The Making of a Brief. — The elements of a good brief
are a valuable subject-matter, a logical method, and an
artistic form. Of these the first two are controlhng;
for aside from mere details of exterior adornment, the
form of a brief is determined largely by its material
and its structure. Here, again, the brief resembles a
work of architecture; for the form of a building depends
of course upon the material of which it is built and its
mode of design and construction. Compare, for instance,
the workman's "tool shanty" with the massive stone
structure standing beside it. The material which is
organized into a brief should be drawn not merely from
a fund of general knowledge, but should be acquired
by diligent reading and study. There is a value or force
of argument in the subject-matter quite apart from
the way such matter is put together. It was said of
Burke, that one could hardly stop with him during a
thunder-shower under an awning without being im-
pressed with the idea that he was the most learned man
in England. The brief -maker should endeavor to know
everything of value pertaining to his subject; he should
be saturated with his material.
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 17
I. The Process
The chief steps in the process of brief-making are:
(i) Analysis, constructive and destructive; (2) Clas-
sification; (3) Arrangement.
I. Analysis. — The first step in brief-making is analy-
sis, by which is meant the separation of everything per-
taining to the subject into its component parts and
isolating them for the purpose of studying (i) their
truth and (2) their relations.
The unit of the brief is the proposition. It is not
meant by this that a proposition is indivisible, for it
can be separated into its terms; but rather that it is
the necessary unit of any formal course of reasoning, as
a premise or a conclusion. We cannot argue, for in-
stance, from or to the single idea or term, war, but we
may, however, argue from the proposition that war is
an evil to the conclusion that, let us say, war should be
abolished.
The first consideration then in the making of a brief
on any subject is:
A complete analysis of the subject itself, involving:
A. An analysis of all the propositions necessary to sustain
the side of the case which the brief-maker is attempting
to establish.
B. A complete analysis of all the propositions which an op-
ponent is obliged to establish in order to sustain his
side of the case.
Just as it is necessary, in order to understand the com-
plete workings of any mechanism, to take apart and
examine its parts separately, so it is necessary to any
18 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
general mental conception of a subject to separate this
conception into all the various steps of reasoning by
which such mental conception is reached as a conclu-
sion.
If you are obliged to establish either the affirmative
or negative of any proposition, this analysis is neces-
sary, in order that you may, first, ascertain the strength
or weakness of the various propositions necessary in
order to establish the conclusion which you are bound
to prove; and second, see the proper relation which each
proposition bears to the conclusion that you are bound
to sustain and thus be in a position, when you reach
the constructive part of the argument, to arrange the
same in such relation with ease.
After you have thoroughly tested by analysis the
strength of your own case, the same analytical test should
be applied to your opponent's case, for the same reasons
and this additional one: it is only by analysis that any
latent defect in an opponent's structure can be deter-
mined; and such analysis, before proceeding with the
brief, will make the brief-maker's work in this regard
simply a matter of establishing the authority or evidence
which proves the inherent defect, or in the event that
such inherent defect is a non sequitur, or is otherwise
illogically supported, then the brief-maker's construc-
tive work will be merely a matter of exposing the fal-
lacy discovered.
After this introductory work, the brief-maker is pre-
pared to construct his brief, and his work is usually
constructive or destructive.
2. Classification. — A second consideration in the
making of a brief is classification, involving: (i) The
classification of the propositions to be presented in sus-
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 19
taining the side of the case which the brief-maker is
attempting to estabhsh; (2) the classification of the
propositions which an opponent is obhged to establish
in order to sustain his side of the case.
Instead of writing down a short Ust of unassorted
reasons or ill-digested bits of evidence, the brief-maker
should attempt to synthetize his material, to reduce it
to principles, to classify it; and so put it into the form
of a few main headings or points, easy to understand
and to remember, and which will give a view of his case
as a whole. These main divisions, of course, must be
so chosen that when properly supported they will form
a proof of the case.
If an opponent's case is to be understood and an-
swered most eft'ectively it is equally necessary that the
propositions essential to an opponents case should be
made clear and simple through this same process of
classification.
After the main headings are formed, the brief should
be filled in; that is, the other propositions studied as
supporting reasons, should be put in a logical sequence,
classified, when possible, and inserted in the brief in
their proper places and series as subheadings.
ILLUSTRATION A
BODY OF PROOF
The removal of troops is necessary, because:
I. It will show the willingness of the English to treat
amicably.
II. The resistance of the Americans was necessary.
III. The means of enforcing the measures of Parliament
have failed.
20 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
IV. If Parliament tries by the aid of the army to enforce
its measures the result will be bad.
V. The statement that "the union in America cannot last"
is untrue.
VI. The statement that the Americans should be punished
for illegal violence is untrue.
VII. This removal of the troops must precede any other step.
VIII. The views of Congress are moderate and reasonable.
IX. It is an old maxim that the first concession comes most
freely from the superior.
X. While every policy urges withdrawal of the troops every
danger warns the English from keeping to the old
course.
In this illustration, it is apparent (i) that the points
are too numerous. The mind cannot readily carry
as many as ten reasons for accepting a conclusion.
This is so, even where the sequences are obvious. But
here, again (2), the sequences are not obvious. The
mind is carried forward by uneven steps, with a result-
ing jolt to the attention. For instance, while the first
reason offered to prove the need of removing the troops
asserts clearly that "it will show the willingness of the
English to treat amicably," the second asserting that
"the resistance of the Americans was necessary" does
not seem to come naturally after the first, and does not
appear to be a reason at all for the necessity of remov-
ing the troops. To put it in another way, the two
propositions do not belong in the same logical series.
Any plan which is to form the synthesis of the materials
into a logical proof must not be a mere enumeration
or catalogue of points. The main points must be stated
in an easy sequence, and so classified as to be few in
number and easily comprehended.
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 21
ILLUSTRATION B
BODY OF PROOF
The measure proposing the immediate withdrawal of troops
should be adopted, for:
I. Measures preparatory to peace and prosperity should be
adopted.
II. This measure is preparatory to peace and prosperity, for:
A. This measure will be conciliatory, for:
I. It will show our willingness to treat amicably.
B. Only conciliatory measures are preparatory to peace
and prosperity, for:
1. All other plans will fail, for:
a. Force is unwise..
b. Inaction will avail nothing.
c. Coercion is unwarranted.
2. The remaining plan, conciliation, will succeed if we
withdraw the troops as a first step.
From illustration B it is apparent that classification
involves two steps — co-ordination and subordination.
For instance, since the main points of a brief are in a
logical sequence, they should appear in the brief as co-
ordinate. Then, for the next, or lower, order each main
proposition should be supported by a minor proposition
or sequence of propositions immediately subordinate
to it. If there is a series of such minor propositions
immediately subordinate to a main proposition, all such
propositions should be co-ordinated in the brief. They
must be classified as subordinate to the main proposi-
tion immediately above it and placed in sequence. This
double process of co-ordination and subordination is
continued in the other orders until the proof is com-
plete. In this view, a brief is a regular series of parallel
22 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
and descending propositions by which the mind may,
by natural and even stages, reach the main conclu-
sion.
Illustration B is, of course, not an illustration of a
complete proof of the case, but rather of a mode of clas-
sification through co-ordination and subordination. It
will be noted, too, that the method of classification here
employed for the headings I, II, and A and B consists
(i) in laying down a general principle; (2) in making
a particular statement which is included within the
general principle.
There are various ways of classifying. The experi-
enced debater is quick to perceive that his arguments,
however diversified or compHcated they may seem,
are reducible to a few simple headings or categories,
which may be stated in the form of a proposition. Some
of the simple and most common methods may be in-
dicated:
The plan proposed should be adopted, because:
1. It is necessary.
2. It is desirable.
1. It is sound in theory.
2. It will work well in practice.
1. It is sanctioned by authority.
2. It is sanctioned by reason.
It is demanded for (i) political reasons.
(2) social reasons.
(3) economic reasons.
Its effect will be good upon (i) the state.
(2) the nation.
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 23
1. There is need of a remedy for existing evils.
2. The plan proposed will remedy existing evils.
3. The plan proposed will remedy existing evils better than
any other plan.
Such illustrations may be extended almost indefinitely.
Those given are merely suggestive.
3. Arrangement. — A third consideration in the making
of a brief is an arrangement for climax.
The grouping of the main divisions of a proof should
be made not only in accord with some central idea, but
these divisions should be arranged in such an order that
there vdll be a growth of thought, an onward movement.
The most common or t3^pical arrangement is that
in which the main parts rise or grow successively in
importance or force. There are variations from the
type; but in all cases a composition should gain an
increasing hold on the attention and interest of the
audience. Indeed, there must be in the mind of the
brief-maker, from the beginning and throughout, some
general plan or mode of procedure so conceived and
developed as to secure for the composition as a whole
the highest cumulative effectiveness. Likewise it is
desirable that whenever possible the subheadings should,
also, be arranged in the order of climcix.
We cannot reason without either progress or unity.
We get nowhere, for instance, by repeating the sentence:
"All men are mortal." If, however, after declaring
that all men are mortal, we add simply that Mr. Jones
is a man, we have taken a step forward which allows us
to conclude that, therefore, Mr. Jones is mortal. We
have done this, moreover, through the central or unify-
ing idea that Mr. Jones is a man, that is, belongs to the
class, man, known to be mortal. Further, where there
24 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
is a series of such arguments, and — as is usually the
case — an option as to the order of arrangement, the
brief-maker will invariably choose the order of climax
as sanctioned by experience and by common sense. Take,
for example, the First Letter in which Junius attacked
the King and his ministry. When he was attempting
to prove that "the true cause of our misfortunes lies
in the distribution of the departments of state," there
was no inevitable order, from a logical standpoint, in
which all the heads of the departments must be taken
up. Junius chose an order of climax. He began with
the Duke of Grafton, first lord of the treasury, and Lord
North, chancellor of the exchequer; then he took up,
in turn, Hillsborough of the foreign department, Wey-
mouth of the home department, Granby of the army,
Hawke of the navy, and finally the powerful and able
Lord Mansfield, head of the department of justice.
Without interfering with the logic of the case, the
use of climax is grounded in sound principles of psy-
chology which lie at the basis of art. Practically, this
means that a climactic order is calculated to reach after
the waning attention and interest of the reader or hearer
at the time when he is becoming inattentive or disin-
terested, through fatigue.
II. The Result
The marks of a good brief, and therefore the ends
to be striven for by the brief-maker, are: (i) Unity,
(2) Logical sequence, (3) Proportion.
These principles are not only logical but aesthetic
in their nature. They underlie, slightly modified (unity,
continuity, proportion), the technic of such arts, for
example, as architecture, sculpture, and painting. In
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 25
the text-books on English composition they are gen-
erally treated as the most important principles which
can be laid down for writing "whole compositions,"
not only because they are regarded as essential marks
of a good structure, but because when properly applied,
they afford a certain literary delight. Thus, a finished
argmnentative composition, whose chief aim is con-
viction, may through skill in design and workmanship
appeal also to the aesthetic sense.
1 . Unity. — The first principle determining the form of
the brief is unity. One dominant idea or related group
of ideas will guide, direct, and centralize the attention
of the mind and hold the interest. Such a structure
strikes the mind with single, undivided, force. Every
part adds to and helps to complete the whole. In his
own mind the brief-maker has taken the machine apart
by the analytical process which he has practised before
starting work. By the machine I mean the material
to be employed in the proof. This material has been
not only separated into propositions but in some way
grouped or classified. Now all these parts must be
properly united; nothing must be left out. And when
the structure is complete, it stands out as one complete
whole, each integer present in the unit.
2. Logical Sequence. — The second principle deter-
mining the form of the brief is logical sequence. Often
there are various ways in which the machine may be
constructed so that it will work; hence, the best ar-
rangement of the parts must be found. The value of
a logical arrangement is that it is a step-by-step process
in which each rung of the ladder appears in its proper
place, making it possible for a reader to climb regularly
and methodically to the top— the conclusion. This
26 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
logical sequence tends to make for clearness; it also
makes the conclusion and the processes more easily
retained in the memory. But particularly for the reader
of a brief, it obviates the necessity of retracing one's
steps and reading over again, several pages back, propo-
sitions which, if they had been placed in their proper
order, would have been easily understood and retained.
3. Proportion. — The third principle governing form
is proportion. This principle requires that space in
the brief shall be allotted according to the needs of the
proof. It necessitates cutting out and filling in; and
requires careful attention and good judgment.
The object of a brief is to convince, and conviction
is attained by a step-by-step process from one proposi-
tion to another. Now some of these steps require con-
siderable support by the brief-maker before he can make
it seem to another safe to stand upon them. Others
require very Httle support for that purpose, and still
others are axiomatic and require none.
A brief which does not give to each step its proper
amount of support and no more, is necessarily out of
proportion. Too much elucidation and proof of simple
propositions is apt to tire the reader who has to climb
the ladder, and might result, and often does in court
cases, in a refusal to take the other steps and a return to
the ground.
Too little elucidation leaves too much to the reason-
ing process of the reader; and in case his mental equip-
ment or general knowledge is inadequate, he may re-
gard his footing as unsafe, and refuse to proceed further.
What has been said in regard to the steps necessary
to reach any conclusion is equally true when there are
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 27
several points to be established, when there are several
ladders to climb. Frequently there are one or more
ladders which it is much more important that the reader
should cUmb than all the others which have been offered
to him. A brief which gives more space and time to
the unimportant than to these one or two important
ladders is of course out of proportion. The most im-
portant propositions are apt to be those supported by
argimients of greatest difficulty or complexity, of greatest
force, or of greatest cogency.
In conclusion, it may be said that while much de-
pends upon analysis, classification, arrangement, unity,
sequence, and proportion, the fact must never be lost
sight of that no finished brief-maker will stop there.
The finesse of the art, of which all these things are the
soKd structure, is in making the brief so thoroughly
readable, so happy in its selection of words and phrases,
so clear in its expression, that it is a pleasure to read it,
that it entertains while it elucidates, that it dehghts
while it convinces, for the human element in all readers
is such that intellectual delight will make the road to
comaction much easier. A brief will be much more
thoroughly read if it dehghts and entertains while it
elucidates and convinces.
III. Process and Result
Unity. — The most important principle of structure
is unity. This is true both from the standpoint of the
process and the result. With a single exception, all
the ideas hitherto mentioned as involved in brief-making
(analysis, classification, logical sequence, and propor-
28 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
tion) are contributory to unity and the means of ob-
taining it. If, then, we inquire how unity is to be ob-
tained, the answer is:
1. By the separating and combining process of analy-
sis and classification, so that the various logical sequences,
horizontal and perpendicular, lead the mind inevitably
to one thing — the conclusion — no logical breaks, no
disproportion; and
2. By an expression in language which adequately
records the above unified mental conceptions. In ar-
gument or debate unity of thought fails without unity
of expression.
a. It is perhaps a truism to say that all such con-
ceptions should be expressed with clearness and pre-
cision. It is not, however, a truism but a truth to say
that the brief-maker may use such apt and striking
forms of expressions that they will easily arrest the at-
tention and stick in the memory. Indeed a sharp, terse,
and sometimes an antithetical statement will often so
arrest the attention that it will remain in the mem-
ory long after the body of the proof has been for-
gotten.
h. But these conceptions must be expressed in lan-
guage which will not only reveal themselves but which
\^dll also disclose their relations to other propositions;
for, in a brief no proposition stands alone, each is re-
lated to another and to the whole. And always to show
the relationships involved requires good workmanship.
Indeed, where a number of conceptions are to be stated
as in a brief, and stated of course successively, he is
really an artist in language who can relate them all so
aptly and in such a manner as to impress the reader
with an idea of the whole. ''Clear thinking," valuable
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 29
as it is, does not necessarily mean clear writing; for, good
writing requires the work both of a good architect and
a good carpenter.
There are a few formal rules of rhetoric, which are
supposed to afford some help in giving expression to
conceptions, which in the mind are properly classified,
and stand in their proper sequence. They are:
(i) Parallel structure, or phrasing every one of a
series of conceptions in any sequence in a similar form
of language; (2) emphasizing the relation between
propositions by hack references, involving repetitions of
phrases or ideas, the use of this, that, these, those, the
former, the latter, such a, etc., (3) and joining proposi-
tions by the use of conjunctions — because, for, since,
but, moreover, and beside, etc.
For an apphcation of these rules the student is re-
ferred to the specimen brief on the First Junius Letter
and the other briefs in this volume. He may, however,
for himself apply them by taking, let us say, the six
capital causes for the colonists' love of Hberty in Burke's
speech on conciliation, formulating the six causes enu-
merated, in carefully phrased propositions.
The following extract from Matthew Arnold's essay
on "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time"
will illustrate a dexterous use of these devices. A httle
study of the italicized words will show by what means
the main proposition is here made to appear so closely
related both to its supporting propositions in this para-
graph and to the main proposition of the essay.
It is of Ihe last importance that English criticism should
clearly discern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself
of the field now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future,
it ought to take. The rule may be summed up in one word —
30 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
disinterestedness, (i) And how is criticism to show disinterested-
ness ? By keeping aloof from what is called " the practical view"
of things; by resolutely following the law of its own nature,
which is to be a free play of the mind on all subjects which it
touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of those
ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which
plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps
ought often to be attached to them, which in this country at
any rate are certain to be attached to them quite sufficiently,
but which criticism has really nothing to do with. Its business
is, as I have said, simply to know the best that is known and thought
in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create
a current of true and fresh ideas. Its business is to do this with
inflexible honesty, with due ability; but its business is to do
no more, and to leave alone all questions of practical consequences
and applications, questions which will never fail to have due
prominence given to them. Else criticism, besides being really
false to its own nature, merely continues in the old rut which
it has hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly miss
the chance now given to it. (2) For what is at present the bane
of criticism in this country? It is that practical considerations
cling to it and stifle it. It subserves interests not its own. Our
organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having prac-
tical ends to serve, and with them those practical ends are the
first thing and the play of mind the second; so much play of
mind as is compatible with the prosecution of those practical
ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the Revue des Deux
Mondes, having for its main function to understand and utter
the best that is known and thought in the world, existing, it may
be said, as just an organ, for a. free play of the mind, we have not.
But we have the Edinburgh Review, existing as an organ of the
old Whigs. . . . No other criticism will ever attain any real
authority or make any real way toward its end — the creating a
current of true and fresh ideas.
Climax. — It has been said that all the ideas previously
mentioned as involved in brief-making (analysis, clas-
sification, logical sequence, and proportion), with a soli-
tary exception, contribute to unity and are the means
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 31
of obtaining it. This exception is arrangement in the
order of climax.
The term climax means either one of two things:
(i) A mode of arrangement in which the parts grow or
rise successively in importance or force, or (2) the final
or last part of such an arrangement. It is either a ladder
in which the rungs are strengthened as we ascend, or
the top rung of such a ladder.
In making a brief, it is frequently not the sole de-
sideratum that the propositions should be arranged in
a logical sequence. There may be several modes of
arrangement all of which are strictly logical, so that
the brief-maker may have offered to him a choice of
arrangements. He will then doubtless select the ar-
rangement which he believes will be most effective.
Climax seems to be a perfectly natural process. Even
in driving a nail, the last stroke is often the hardest.
And as an informal discussion proceeds, it is apt to grow
in warmth. Climax is an attempt either to overcome
any possible lack of interest or fatigue as a discourse
proceeds, or to make the final impression the strongest.
Climax is generally recognized and employed in fiction,
in the drama, and in the sonnet as well as in public
speaking and debate.
Two Laws of Structure. — If unity consists in direct-
ing all parts naturally toward one thing — the conclu-
sion — climax is a progressive unity. It looks not only
toward a single but a cumulative effect. The process
presupposes unity, presupposes progress. Indeed, Cole-
ridge long ago expressed clearly the principles under-
lying the expression of thought in composition, when
he said that the essential marks of method are "unity
with a progression," Thus, it would appear that the
32 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
fundamental Laws of Siruclure are two: Unity and
Climax.
IV. Rules for Brief-Making
The Three Main Parts of a Brief. — The propositions
of a brief fall into three separate divisions; first, those
which explain the issue; second, those which present
evidence in proof of the issue; and third, those which
sum up. The first set of propositions would constitute
an Introduction, the second set a Body of Proof, and
the third a Conclusion. These, then, make three main
parts for a brief.
I. The Introduction. — The process employed in the
introduction is entirely different from that used in the
body of proof. The one is exposition; the other is argu-
ment. Its function is to explain whatever is necessary
to an understanding of the issues. It must contain no
matter of a disputable character. Given a question
(carefully formulated), the problem is to lead the mind
by natural sequence, through steps carefully marked,
to a full understanding of the specific point or points
in dispute. The great aim should be impartiality of
attitude, clearness of expression, and orderliness of struc-
ture.
In the academic debates upon questions of public
policy, the steps usually employed may be briefly in-
dicated. First, the situation, including the origin of
the question, is explained. Second, since any ambiguity
in, or ignorance of, the exact meaning of an essential
term may result in confusion, the next step is to define
or expound all such terms. And third, since the dis-
cussion of apparently related and of admitted proposi-
tions would obscure the issue, it is necessary to eliminate
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 33
them. And finally, as a consequence of these three
steps, the specific issue, or issues, may be stated in exact
form. The introduction, then, consists of:
I. The situation, involving the origin of the question,
II. Definition of words, or exposition of phrases, contained
in the statement of the question or to be employed in
the discussion.
III. The elimination.
A. Of admitted propositions.
B. Of extraneous propositions.
IV. The formal statement of the specific issue, or issues.
II. TIic Body or Brief Proper. — The function of the
body of a brief is to set forth formally for the inspec-
tion of another all the means and processes employed
as the proof or compelling reason for accepting the main
conclusion. It consists of the propositions to be proved
and the subject-matter of their proof, each proposition
stated in the form of reasons, and all the propositions
so carefully correlated as readily to disclose the nature,
relevancy, and force of each part of the proof, and the
proof as a whole.
Rule I. The headings should be in the form of a
declarative statement or proposition; not mere topics.
Rule II. The headings should read as reasons; the
correct order being first, proposition; then, proof, and
the correct connectives being because, for, since, etc.
Rule III. The headings should be carefully cor-
related and marked in order by appropriate symbols:
I, II, III, etc.; A, B, C, etc.; i, 2, 3, etc.; a, h, c, etc.;
(i), (2), (3), etc.
Rule IV. The main headings should be statements,
34 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
carefully phrased to include the proof to follow; and
they should be few in number.
Rule V. Each main heading should be elaborated
or developed by subordinate headings until its truth
is made apparent.
Rule VI. Refutation, if used at length, should be
indicated by marking the proposition to which it ap-
plies with the word "Refutation," or it may appear
in the brief in its proper place stated as the negative
of the proposition to be refuted.
III. The Conclusion. — The function of the conclu-
sion is to sum up. It consists usually of a restatement
of the propositions used as main headings in the body
of the proof.
It is sometimes possible, however, to vary the re-
capitulation from such an obvious process. As, for
example, by drawing some inference from the main
headings in combination; making some effective ap-
plication of them; comparing them for the purpose of
emphasizing one in particular as most important, or
decisive in turning the scale; or illustrating them in
relation to some underlying principle or course of reason-
ing. However varied the method, the purpose of the
conclusion is always that of a summary.
SPECIMEN BRIEF
ON THE REMOVAL OF TROOPS^
Introduction
I. The Ministry have at length after long delay condescended
to submit to this House news from America.
II. The present alarming state of America is due to the mis-
advice of the Ministry, for
A. It is based on misrepresentation.
1 Drawn from Lord Chatham's address delivered in the House of
Lords, January 20, 1775.
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 35
III. To rescue my unhappy country and his Majesty from
the misadvice of his ministers I submit to him through
this House "An address to his Majesty for the imme-
diate removal of the troops from Boston."
IV. The crisis is so pressing and urgent as to admit of no de-
lay.
V. My contention is not for indulgence but justice, for
A. I admit that obedience is properly due from America —
an obedience limited, however, to our laws of trade
and navigation, but
B. 1 contend that the property of the Americans must
remain sacred — that is, taxable by their own consent
given in their provincial assemblies.
VI. The specific issue is the restoration of peace and pros-
perity by the adoption of this measure proposing the
immediate withdrawal of troops from Boston.
Argument
The measure proposing the immediate withdrawal of the
troops from Boston should be adopted, because
I. Just measures preparatory to peace and prosperity should
be adopted.
II. This just measure is preparatory to peace and prosperity,
for
A. This measure, if adopted, will be conciliatory, for
I. It will show our willingness to treat amicably and
equitably.
B. Conciliatory measures are preparatory to peace and
prosperity, for
1. It is necessary to show our willingness to treat
amicably and equitably, for
a. Your own declarations and doctrines have made
American resistance necessary and will in fu-
ture be as ineflfective.
2. All other plans will fail, for
a. Force is unwise, for
(i). The army is held in contempt, and
(2). General Gage must not act.
(o). The first drop of blood means civil war.
36 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
(3). If reconciliation is attempted, it must be done im-
mediately.
(4). If Parliament tries to enforce its measures by means
of the army, the results will be bad, for
(a). If they were victorious, it would be over an
embittered people, but
(b). The troops are not strong enough to resist the
people, because of
Their numbers, their unity and courage, and
their descent from people who left their na-
tive land to escape tyranny.
(5). It must fail, for it is an unjust persecution.
b. Inaction on the part of England will avail us nothing,
for
(i). The assertion that the union in America cannot
last is false, for
(a). The evidence of the so-called "commercial
bodies" is unreliable, for
(b). They are not representative, and
(c). They are paid agents of the government.
(2). Even the evidence of the real commercial class
would be untrustworthy, for
(a). The farming class represents the real strength
of the country, and
(b). The American farmers are united for liberty,
for
The testimony of Dr. Franklin upholds it.
C. Coercion is unwarranted, for
(i). Even if illegal violences have been committed in
America, a policy of coercion should not be fol-
lowed, for
(o). An opportunity for reconciliation should not be
missed.
(b). A whole people should not be punished for the
faults of a few.
(c). Such severity will arouse the unappeasable
wrath of all the Colonies.
(d). Even if the army is victorious, it cannot control
\ the great tracts of conquered country.
BRIEFS AND BRIEF-MAKING 37
(e). Resistance to such measures ought to have
been foreseen.
It is the animating principle of all men of Eng-
lish stock to resist taxation without the con-
sent of the taxed.
(/), This resistance will become too strong to be
overcome, for
The English Whigs will aid them, since the
spirit that moves the Americans has always
belonged to them.
The Irish will aid them, for they have always
maintained the ideas the Americans support.
(g). England has a right only to regulate the com-
merce and navigation of the Americans, for
Their property is private, individual, and ab-
solute.
(h). The means to oppose this united body is weak, for
A few regiments in America and 18,000 men
at home must oppose 3,000,000 Americans,
millions of Englishmen, and all the Irish, and
The tricks of the Ministry against it must fail.
The remaining plan, conciliation, will succeed if we
withdraw the troops from Boston as a first step, for
a. It is the main cause of the fear and the resentment
of the Americans, for
(i). While the troops remain, resentment will re-
main.
b. Even if the Colonies should concede, her conces-
sions would be suspicious and unsecure, for
(i). They would be the dictates of fear and ex-
tortions of force.
c. Servitude cannot be imposed upon such men as
compose the American Congress at Philadel-
phia, for
(i). They have shown solidity of reasoning, force
of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, un-
der such a complication of diflicult circum-
stances.
1"h^
38 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
d. Concession should come from England first, for
(i). Concession from a superior power reconciles
the feelings of men and establishes confi-
dence in it.
Conclusion
I. Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of dignity
and of prudence, urges the removal of the troops from
Boston, the repeal of the acts of ParUament, and a demon-
stration of amicable dispositions toward the Colonies.
A. Disturbances in America may mean foreign war, for
I. France and Spain are watching for an advantageous
chance to interfere.
B. And it also may mean domestic trouble, for
1. The king will aUenate the afifections of his subjects
and will lose his power.
2. The nation will be utterly undone.
CHAPTER III
ARGUMENT
The View-Point. — Argument, it has been said, is a proc-
ess of resohdng differences of opinion by means of as-
sertion and denial, followed by proof and counter-proof
or distinctions. In one aspect, this process consists sim-
ply in suggesting to another the relations which exist be-
tween two or more ideas or judgments so as to enable
him to form a correct opinion concerning some partic-
ular matter of uncertainty or disagreement.
On the basis of the kind of relations thus employed,
argum-cnts may be divided into four classes, as follows:
1. Arguments involving the relation of simple as-
sociation.
2. Arguments involving the relation of resemblance
or contrast.
3. Arguments involving the relation of cause and
effect, antecedent and consequent, or motive and deed.
4. Arguments involving the relation of particular
and general.
Though arguments are thus easily classified into four
definite groups, it is not to be supposed that these groups
are commonly exclusive. For all arguments, in their
final analysis and when carried to completion, will in-
volve an inference from the complex relations of asso-
ciation, resemblance or contrast, particular and gen-
eral, and cause and effect.
For example, if we should conclude, because of the
39
40 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
issuance of smoke from a chimney, that there was a
fire below, we should find on analysis that our reasoning,
when fully developed, might easily involve these four-
fold relations:
1. Smoke means fire — (association).
2. In other cases where I have found smoke I have found
fire — (resemblance) .
3. Smoke is an effect produced only by fire — (cause and ef-
fect).
4. Where there is smoke there is fire — (particular and gen-
eral).
The conclusion that there is fire, here drawn from
the presence of smoke, involves fundamentally an in-
ference grounded in all four of the relations mentioned.
Similarly, an argument based first on the resemblance
between two parallel cases may be shown to involve
the relation of particular and general, and also of cause
and effect. Moreover, all inductive reasoning (that is,
from particular to general) involves finally a search
for a cause.
While it is ideally true that every argument may in-
volve all these relations, it does not follow that every
argument must always set them forth. In practice,
arguments may not be developed sufficiently to suggest
all the relations involved, for two reasons:
1. Because it is sometimes impossible from a sheer
inadequacy of knowledge.
2. Because it is not necessary or desirable for the
accompHshment of the object in view.
The reasoner or investigator will sometimes associate
things together— the causes of which and the principles
underlying which he does not know— and still feel justi-
ARGUMENT 41
fied in drawing conclusions from the slight relationship
he does recognize. Otherwise he could not go forward,
and tlie problem would be at a standstill. As instinct
or feeling precedes positive proof, so a very slight reason
may point the way to truth and behef. This is so not
merely in ordinary affairs, but even in science, as, for
instance, in the following conclusion in the field of
zoolog>' :
The presence of occipital condyles is uniformly associated
with the presence of mammal and of warm red blood, and this
general fact is treated as a quasi-induction. Hence when the
remains of a new animal are discovered, exhibiting such con-
dyles, the zoologist infers, by deduction, that the animal be-
longed to the class mammalia.
Moreover, it is not usually necessary or desirable to
develop an argument any further than is needed to
secure its acceptance and belief. To set forth, in every
argument employed, the several kinds of relationships
involved, would certainly mean an elucidation of the
obvious, an attempted proof of much that is admitted,
w^ould be a waste of time. A mere suggestion of a re-
lation easily recognized is frequently sufficient, as for
instance, that the leaden clouds indicate rain or snow,
that the thick ice means cold weather, that the rain-
bow denotes the end of the storm. Conclusions are
constantly accepted without opposition with no develop-
ment of the reasoning on which they are grounded.
Of course, we reason habitually, in the ordinary af-
fairs of fife from premises to conclusions, without any
conscious appreciation of the nature of the relation in-
volved. Thus, in shooting at a target in a lake, we might
infer that the target was struck because it sank, with-
42 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
out troubling ourselves to consider that we were reason-
ing from an effect to its cause; we might buy a horse
without consciously realizing that we were applying
our ideas of a good horse, such ideas being derived from
past experience; we might attribute a painting to a
certain artist almost intuitively without thinking of
the painting like it we had seen by the same artist; or
startled by a sudden noise we might conclude that a
gun had been fired, obHvious of the idea of association
in the process employed.
But the debater and student of argument must be
able to analyze and test the nature of the relations in-
volved, must become conscious of the processes em-
ployed in argument, whether such processes are ex-
pressed or implied.
The name ordinarily given to any argument is usually
derived from the kind of relation first recognized be-
tween the phenomenon, circumstance, or principle first
observed and the conclusion drawn. If the relation is
that of simple association, it may be called argument
from sign; if that of resemblance, argument from ex-
ample or analogy; if that of particular to general, in-
duction, and if general to particular, deduction; if cause
to effect or eft'ect to cause, causal relation.
The effectiveness of any argument will depend upon
the recognition and acceptance, by another, of the truth
of the relations between the conceptions or judgments
presented. On this basis of effectiveness or force, ar-
guments may be further classified as (i) probable or
moral, and (2) certain or demonstrative.
Unity of Classification. — Arguments have been clas-
sified in rhetoric, as antecedent probability, sign, and
example; sjid m logic, 2iS induction ond deduction. The
ARGUMENT 43
following treatment of the classes of argument removes
these distinctions and brings all classes of argument
under a single principle of unity.
Classes of Argument
/. Association — Argument from Sign
If the relation from which the conclusion is drawn
is regarded as one of simple association, the argument
may be called argument from sign.
Reasoning from sign is the simplest and earliest mani-
festation of mental activity. It appears not only in
children, but in the childhood of the race.
Motion signs — nods, becks, gestures— and auditory
signs — calls, whistles, etc. — are given a definite meaning
almost instinctively, a meaning whose certainty is
strengthened by experience. Even animals manifest
the ability to act upon sign suggestions or reasoning.
Olfactory unages acting on the brain of the dog through
many generations have developed a remarkable facility
in the use of signs conveyed through this sense. An
excellent example of animal intelligence is provided in
the case of Clever Hans, the trained horse which so
long deceived psychologists : This horse had been trained
by the owner to "count and calculate so it could retain
in mind, and when questioned indicate its own age, the
age of its master, and many other numbers. The ex-
planation of the horse's apparent mental feats, which
a few years ago created considerable psychologic in-
terest in Berlin, is due to the psychologist Stumpf and
his pupil Pfungst. Both these gentlemen showed that
Clever Hans, whenever making a calculation, kept close
watch pn the expressional movements of the interrogator,
44 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
especially toward the end. If, for instance, the horse
were asked to give the product of five times seven, it
scraped a hoof on the ground repeatedly until a sHght
movement of the head or even a minimal twist of the
eye gave the animal the signal to cease pawing. As
soon as the horse's eyes were covered with bhnders, or
it was prevented in some other way from watching the
questioner, its remarkable mathematical ability was
absent. Moreover, the expressional movements of Von
Osten Sacken or of any other examiner were not pre-
meditated or intentional, as tricks designed to deceive
the public, but they occurred entirely involuntarily
when the animal reached the figure which represented
the answer to the question."^
All human communication by means of language
involves sign reasoning.
Words . . . have no character in themselves. They are
merely conventional signs, and consequently they can be good
or bad, dignified or vulgar, only in accordance with the ideas
they conventionally denote or suggest in the mind of the speaker
and his hearers. Yet under this head of suggestions comes in
an important consideration, which accounts for a great deal
that would otherwise be inexplicable. Most words from their
use acquire general connotations or associations, which almost
seem to give them a character of their own.
Thus the word fist means simply "the hand with the fingers
doubled up against the palm." In the idiomatic comparison
"as big as your fist," it is purely descriptive, and has no partic-
ular character, good or bad. The use of the fist in fighting, how-
ever, has given a peculiar connotation to the term. We may
say, "He hit his opponent with his clinched fist," for here again
fist is purely descriptive, and occurs in an appropriate environ-
ment. Similarly, we may say, "The boy cried dismally, wiping
his eyes with his dingy fist," for here there is a certain grotesque-
' " Suggestion and Psychotherapy," by George W. Jacoby.
ARGUMENT 45
ness in the scene which justifies the use of undignified language.
But we can no longer say, as was formerly possible, "The lady
held a lily in her dehcate fist." In other words, the associations
of fist are either pugnacious, vulgar, or jocose.
These suggestive associations are partly general and partly
individual. If certain phrases are habitually associated in our
minds with low or disagreeable persons or things, they will in-
evitably be relegated to the category of unseemly terms, and,
on the other hand, phrases that are associated with dignified
and reputable persons or circumstances, will acquire a kind of
respectabihty independent of the e.xact meaning which they
convey.
The associations in question may be purely personal. Every-
body remembers certain words which he dislikes intensely, though
they are in common use, convey no bad or disagreeable meaning,
and are quite euphonious. We may even remember our reason
for such dislikes. Perhaps the word is associated with an un-
pleasant experience; more likely, however, our antipathy is
due to its habitual use by some one we do not fancy. Or we
may have been bored by hearing the word overused, so that
every new repetition gives us a feeling of satiety.
It is largely these indefinite connotations of words that make
it so difiicult to speak a foreign tongue. We may be well trained
in grammar and command a large vocabulary, and yet use words
which, though they express our meaning accurately enough,
suggest ridiculous or inopportune associations to a native.
"Baboo Enghsh" is proverbial. The awkward and equivocal
remarks into which one frequently blunders in speaking one's
own language, "the things one would rather have left unsaid,"
depend on a momentary forgetfulness of some more or less ob-
scure connotation which the words that we are using may
bear.^
Sign Argument Expounded. — Sign argument has
been regarded as confined to reasoning "from an effect
to a condition" of that effect, as, e. g., ice is a sign of
' "Words and Their Ways in English Speech," by James B. Greenough
and George Lyman Kittredge.
46 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
cold weather. It has also been regarded as having its
basis in a partial resemblance; that is, in a resemblance
in one respect to something in past experience. But
since the whole process of thinking is inherently a process
of association, the term argument from sign is com-
monly used to denote reasoning based on any principle
of association. It is immaterial whether the process
is from fact to principle or from principle to fact; from
one case to another case like it; from effect to condition,
from effect to cause, from one effect to another effect
of the same cause; or even from cause to effect. One
thing is connected with another; where one is the other
is. Such are arguments from sign. As we analyze and
develop them, however, we are apt to call them by the
name of the specific relation employed. Thus an ar-
gument based on indications that a thing happened or
was so elsewhere or in other cases may later be called
example, and one based on indications showing why
it may be expected to happen or is likely to be true may
later be recognized as antecedent probability and so
called.
After all, the name is less important than that we
should use the processes correctly, and that we should
recognize the fact that the full course of the processes
of sign will show that a proposition is true because (i)
of signs bearing upon it directly; because (2) of signs
showing its truth in other cases, and because (3) of signs
telKng why it is likely to be true.
For example, there are indications that the public
ownership and operation of telegraph-lines will result
in lower rates. As shown by testimonies in the man-
agement of the telegraph system; by testimonies illus-
trating lower rates in publicly owned lighting plants
ARGUMENT 47
as compared with those privately owned; and by state-
ments tending to show that the absence of the need for
profit is likely to produce lower rates. Of course, there
may be signs in the form of testimonies pointing to the
reverse conclusion, testimonies showing, for instance,
that the telegraph management is efficient; that in
publicly owned railroads the rates have not been lowered;
and that the loss of initiative and energy in pubhcly
owned works may explain the reason why lower rates
will not follow. There are usually signs on both sides.
The force of sign arguments will vary from sHght
probability to a definiteness amounting to certainty.
Frequently the mere suggestions of an easily recog-
nized association may secure its acceptance and belief,
as, e. g., a flag at half-mast means the death of a prom-
inent person; the ringing of the college bell at a certain
hour is a call to chapel; geese flying southward in the
autmnn is an indication of cold weather; and so on.
There is a distinct force as an impression in the sugges-
tions of an accmnulated number of instances pointing
in a certain direction. This is greatest when there is
a uniform experience behind it or when the spirit or
emotional tone of the argument accords with the feel-
ing of the audience. "Trifles light as air are to the
jealous confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ."
Carefully stated probable conclusions based on a
series of signs are made by scientists and scholars in
every field of investigation or research. Internal docu-
mentary evidence is usually regarded as suppl>dng in-
ferences from sign. While such inferences do not often
clearly establish a cause, the resemblances noted may
warrant a conclusion of value. For example, it is only
in this way that we can assign probable dates to some
48 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
of Shakespeare's plays. After noting, at length, points
of resemblance in the Old English story Beowulf and
in the Grettis Saga, Stopford A. Brooke states his con-
clusion as follows:
The parallel is very close, and three suggestions may be made
concerning it. Either the Beowulf Saga was known over Sweden
and Norway, and its lays came from Norway or the Western
Isles to Iceland with the first settlers; or some of the roving
Icelanders had heard of the tale in England, and brought it
back to Iceland in a broken fashion; or there was a tale older
than Beowulf itself — a combination of a nature-myth and a
folk-tale — which was common property of the Northmen, and
out of which the Grendel story in Beowulf, and the Glam and
Troll story both grew independently of each other.^
While it is true that the greater the number of signs
noted, the greater the force, complete identity is rarely
possible. Indeed few arguments from sign are con-
clusive, unless they estabhsh a cause — as, e. g., smoke is
a sign of fire; where there is a chick, there has been
an egg. Junius argues in his first Letter that the char-
acter of the government is a sign of the deplorable state
of the people, because only such depravity and inef-
ficiency could have produced it. Illustrations may be
found, in abundance, in the courts in connection with
circumstantial evidence; as, e. g., signs showing the mo-
tive for an act — as those pointing to revenge, or hatred,
in the case of an act of violence charged, or of hungei
in a charge of theft.
Theoretically, the force of the argument from sign
will increase as the number of resemblances noted tend
to establish identity with a known circumstance or
fact; tend to estabhsh a principle known or easily
»"Hist. of Early Eng. Lit.," p. 92.
ARGUMENT 49
recognized as true; and tend to establish a relation
which is causal in character.
Observation and Inference. — Reasoning from sign is
the basis of solution of the many complex problems set
up in the detective story, originated by Edgar Allan
Poe. Before facts can be interpreted and combined so
as to establish or overthrow an hypothesis, they must
of course be observed. In making an analysis of the
mental processes employed in playing successfully a
game of whist, Poe dwells upon the importance of ob-
servation, as follows: ^
But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the
skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of
observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions;
and the difference in the extent of the information obtained
lies, not so much in the validity of the inference, as in the quality
of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what
to observe. Our player confines himself not at all; nor, be-
cause the game is the object, does he reject deductions from
things external to the game. He examines the countenance
of his partner, comparing it carefully with that of each of his
opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in
each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor,
through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He
notes every variation of face as the play progresses, gathering
a fund of thought from the differences in the expression of cer-
tainty, of surprise, of triumph, or chagrin. From the manner
of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it
can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played
through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table.
A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turn-
ing of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness
in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with
the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation,
eagerness, or trepidation — all afford, to his apparently intuitive
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," E. A. Poe.
50 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
perception, indications of the true state of affairs. The first
two or three rounds having been played, he is in full pos-
session of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts
down his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if
the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of their
own.
Common Sources of Error in inferences from sign are
the ignoring of contrary signs, misinterpreting facts,
combining them improperly, and overdrawing the con-
clusion, that is, stating it without sufficient qualifica-
tion. Especially, a shght indication must not be used
as a sufficient cause. It is true, c. g., that clouds are a
sign of rain, but we are hardly warranted in asserting
that it will rain to-day merely because the sky is over-
cast.
II. Argument from Example
If the relation from which the conclusion is drawn
is regarded as one of resemblance, or its opposite con-
trast, the argument may be called argument from ex-
ample.
A. RESEMBLANCE
There are two classes of resemblance: (i) By general-
ization and (2) by analogy.
I. Example by Generalization. — Any of the facts of
observation and experience may be used as examples.
There are examples of war and peace, of heroism and
cowardice, of the blessings and sorrows of preparedness
as well as of pacificism. From the success or failure of
woman suffrage in Colorado we may argue to the wis-
dom or folly of adopting it in New Jersey; from a
government ownership and operation of the mails, we
ARGUMENT 51
may argue to a government ownership and operation
of the telephone, or municipal ownership and operation
of car- lines; from the budget system of Parliament to
the budget system of Congress or the State Legislatures.
Its field is practically unlimited. "I have but one
lamp," says Patrick Henry, "by which my feet are
guided, and that is the lamp of experience." Again,
"History," says Dionysius, "is philosophy teaching by
example."
It is essentially, however, an argument from resem-
blance. It proceeds from case to case, from likeness to
likeness. What is true in one place under one set of
circumstances and conditions is equally true in another
place under similar circumstances and conditions; things
happening in a certain way at one time under one set
of circumstances and conditions will happen again in
a similar way at another time under parallel circum-
stances and conditions; whatever is alike in essential
parts is alike in whole. It cannot be confused with
sign, which is an argument of unanalyzed or unspecified
association; or with antecedent probability or causal
argument which tells why a thing is or must be so. Ex-
ample proves that it is so, or did happen.
The fact is so, and these people of the Southern Colonies are
much more strongly attached to liberty than those to the North-
ward. Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were
our fathers — ancestors; such in our days were the Poles; and
such will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves.
— Burke, "Conciliation."
Burke reinforces this argument from example, by an
argument from causal relation, when he adds: "In
such a people the haughtiness of domination com-
52 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
bines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders
it invincible "
Cavour whose monument is united Italy; Bismarck who has
raised the German Empire from a name to a fact; Gladstone to-
day the incarnate heart and conscience of England — they are the
perpetual refutation of the sneer that high education weakens
men for practical aEsLiTs.— Curtis, " The PubHc Duty of Educated
Men."
The argument from example always involves a prin-
ciple, stated or implied, a principle of classification or of
causation, a principle supported by authority or re-
garded as true. In the preceding illustration, Cavour in
Italy, Bismarck in Germany, Gladstone in England-
all come within the class of educated men who are prac-
tical and unvisionary. In the quotation from Burke,
a causal principle was stated at the end. In neither,
however, was there authoritative support of the prin-
ciple involved.
In law, it is often argued that the case at bar is suf-
ficiently like a case previously decided to bring it under
some well-estabKshed principle. In the famous Dart-
mouth College Case, Justice Story endeavored to show
that a charter is like a grant, through the definition of
a contract. The Federal Constitution denies to the
States the right to pass any law impairing the obliga-
tions of contract. Moreover, in Fletcher vs. Peck, it
was decided that a grant of land, from the State of
Georgia to a citizen, was a contract between two par-
ties. In order then to decide the question — is this
charter a contract? — it becomes important to prove
that the charter was like the grant of land in respect
to those essential things which made it a contract.
ARGUMENT 53
Many questions naturally arise in such a comparison,
some important and some unimportant. For instance,
both are sealed instruments; the charter was from the
State to a corporation, while the grant was from a State
to a citizen; both involved mutual promises, and so on.
The resemblances, however, outweighed the differences
in all essential points affecting a contract, and the court
decreed that the Dartmouth College charter, being es-
sentially . like a land grant, was therefore a contract,
and so could not be impaired by the State. The gen-
eral principles so applied in the arguments of a case
at law are derived from the Federal Constitution,
statutes, decisions of courts, legal text-books, etc.
Thus the process of example may be little more than
a matter of estabhshing the correctness or relevancy of
a definition. The lawyer, for instance, seeks first to find
a principle covering the case under investigation; then
to interpret it according to the previous decisions of a
court; and finally to apply the definition so determined
to the case at bar. Another notable instance of an
argument of this sort is that made by Lord Erskine
in defense of Lord George Gordon when he was tried
for high treason; a speech worthy of analysis and careful
study for logical method, use of authority, and presen-
tation.
"What is law?" asks the student. "It is a rule of
action," says Blackstone. Practically, however, it is
an interminable definition.
The authority of precedents is perhaps more em-
phasized in law then elsewhere, for it must be re-
membered that precedents must sometimes be followed
by a court when its own view is to the contrary. And
yet the antecedent idea that the end of a State is jus-
54 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
tice, is always more or less involved in the interpreta-
tion and application of our laws, and sometimes a view
is even taken of the probable consequences of a partic-
ular interpretation or application. It happens fre-
quently that, where two opposed arguments are struc-
turally correct and equally supported by authorities,
one will prevail over the other because it is supported
by a sound public policy.
In the debates in Parliament on the taxation of Amer-
ica, there was much citation of examples affecting the
question of representation — Lord Camden, Lord
Chatham, and Burke believed in a real representation
(such as is at present in vogue in the United States),
while Lord Mansfield held to the theory of a virtual
representation. We will see more in the latter view if
we recall that to-day parhamentary representatives
often do not reside in the district which elects them.
They represent the nation.
Lord Camden, speaking in the House of Lords in
1766, said: "My lords, I challenge any one to point out
the time when any tax was laid upon any person by
Parliament, that person being unrepresented in Par-
liament." He considered the cases of Chester, the clergy,
Wales, and Ireland; and averred that "from the whole
of our history from the earliest period, you will find
that taxation and representation were united." The
principle underlying his contention he derives from
John Locke, "The supreme power cannot take from any
man any part of his property without his own consent,"
and B II, pp. 136-139, particularly 140, drawn from
the heart of our constitution, which he thoroughly un-
derstood, and will last as long as that shall last — Par-
liamentary Debates and Proceedings, vol. IV, p. 366.
Lord Mansfield answered "the noble Lord (Cam-
ARGUMENT 55
den), particularly upon the cases he has quoted." With
respect to the marches of Wales, he admits that they
enjoyed the privilege of taxing themselves for a brief
time, "during the Hfe of Edward I till the Prince of Wales
became King," but says that they were then annexed
to tlie crown and became subject to taxes, like the rest
of the dominions, until Henry VIII. The latter issued
writs for it to return two members of Parliament, and
issued a writ also to Calais to send one Burgess. Be-
sides, one of the counties palatine (Durham) was taxed
fifty years before he sent members to Parliament, while
the clergy were, at no time, unrepresented in Parliament.
All parallels drawn from the colonies of antiquity
to the present case are then excluded as irrelevant and
immaterial. The Tyrians in Africa and the Greeks in
Asia, for instance, were totally different from ours. No
nation before ourselves had any regular system of colo-
nization except the Romans, whose system was a mili-
tary one. Expounding next the theory and history
of the British colonial system, he argues that if there
was no express law, usage alone would be sufficient,
and concluded by drawing the distinction between vir-
tual and real representation — the true source of differ-
ence — asserting that the colonies are as much repre-
sented in Parliament as are the greatest part of the
people of England.
Burke, speaking in 1774, argued from example to
show that "rebellion and loss to yourselves" would
surely follow the narrow pohcy of the crown, as they
had done in the case of Wales and of Lancaster.
You tried in Wales to raise a revenue which the people thought
excessive and unjust: the attempt ended in oppression, resis-
tance, rebellion, and loss to yourselves. You tried in the duchy
of Lancaster to raise a revenue which the people believed un-
56 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
just: this effort ended in oppression, rebellion, vexation, and
loss to yourselves. You are now trj^ing to raise in America, a
revenue which the colonists disapprove. What must be the
result? — American Taxatiojt.
Thus, Lord Camden argued from the principle that
taxation and representation had always been united,
and quoted from John Locke to prove that a person
could not be deprived of his property without his con-
sent. The argument in the Dartmouth College case
rested on the principle that no State had the right to
deny or impair the obUgation of a contract, as affirmed
in the Federal Constitution. Here cases were examined
for the purpose of establishing sufficient resemblances
to the case in question to bring the latter under a prin-
ciple established by authority.
Lord Mansfield based his argument on the principle
of virtual rather than real representation as the his-
toric British pohcy — a principle grounded in tradition
and reason. Burke, in the last quoted passage on the
British attitude toward America, reasoned (as he did
later in his speech on conciliation) from the idea that
any colonial policy will fail which the people believe
to be unjust; or, in other words, that the feeling of in-
justice or oppression resulting from a policy will tend
to produce its failure. The process here too is one of
classification (for he brings America into the category
of colonies which have suffered through British policy) ;
but it is more. The resemblances are of things viewed
as results; results imply causes or antecedents; and
the antecedent here is British colonial policy acting as
an agency or law sufficient to produce the phenomenon
of rebellion, a principle of causation.
Unless the principle is easily accepted behind the argu-
ARGUMENT 57
ment from example, there must be some warranting
process such as an authority or a cause. If, however,
an issue should arise as to the validity of any particular
causal principle asserted, so that we are obliged to con-
sider causal relationships instead of resemblances in
results, the argument becomes causal relation. But
even the use of authority, it should be remembered,
involves the idea that like follows like, like causes must
produce like results.
Further Analysis of the Process. — Any argument from
example will be vaHd, if the resemblances between the
case or cases cited and the case in question are sufficient
to bring them, in essential particulars, within the scope
of a recognized principle or law. This presupposes,
however, that the facts and circumstances relating to
the cases are truly and fully stated, and that other things
have not been overlooked. It will be clearly invahd,
for instance, if other cases are found which establish
another principle stronger and equally well recognized.
The following table or rules will show the process
as a whole, including its more important steps:
1 . Find the principle covering the cases cited and the
case in question.
2. Are the facts and circumstances concerning these
cases fully stated, and true as alleged?
3. Are they relevant and material to the principle
under which they are now included?
a. What of the number and points of resemblance?
h. What of the number and points of difference?
4. Are there contrary cases which weaken or invali-
date the conclusion?
5. If the contrary cases tend to establish a new and
different principle, what is the value, comparatively,
58 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
of these two principles with respect to such things as
authoritative support, general acceptance, causal rela-
tion, or sound public policy?
A complete analysis of the process of example as an
argument may involve, therefore, the consideration
of such things as a general principle, truth and com-
pleteness of circumstantial details, relevancy, and ma-
teriality of cases cited both as to the case in question
and to a principle affirmed, contrary cases with their
circumstantial detail, and finally the comparative value
of opposed principles.
Next in importance to establishing the principle or
ground of reasoning is the rule of relevancy.
Definition of Relevancy and Rules. — Any case may be
said to be relevant to a case under inquiry if it re-
sembles the latter in such a way as to permit its use as
a premise in drawing a conclusion about a doubtful or
unknown X.
The logical form of the process of reasoning from
example may be stated thus:
Whatever is like B with respect to M is like it with
respect to X; ^ is like B with respect to M\ therefore
A is like B with respect to X. Here A represents a
cited case, B a case in question, and M is a known char-
acteristic of both A and B; while X is the uncertain
or disputed point about A. Concretely, this may be
expressed as follows: Whatever British policy is like
the pohcy toward Wales in that it is felt to be unjust
is like it in being followed by rebelHon and loss. The
British policy toward America is like that toward Wales
in that it is felt to be unjust. Therefore, the British
policy toward America will be like it in bringing rebel-
lion and loss.
ARGUMENT 59
The major premise of this syllogism — "Whatever is
like B with respect to M (or M, N, etc.) is like it with
respect to X" — is sometimes called the basis of com-
parison.
The process in arguing thus from example may be
regarded as jointly inductive and deductive: in the
sense that we first find cases covering the case under
inquiry, including of course the doubtful point X, in
order to establish a general principle; and that we then
apply this general principle to the present case, and
conclude that X should be accordingly.
Where conditions are undeniably similar, and the
point to be proved is carefully stated so that the
parallelism cannot be pushed too far, a single example
may sometimes be convincing. Thus President Hibben
— when arguing that the United States Government
should prepare against war rather than for war, and
could do so without becoming militaristic — cited the
example of the invisible army of Switzerland:
This is not an impracticable theory, incapable of being realized
in the actual experience of a nation. Switzerland proves the
possibility of a nation in arms challenging the world as the de-
fenders of peace.
It happened that I crossed the western frontier of Switzer-
land on the first day of August, 19 14, and was compelled to
travel toward the eastern frontier in the Engadine Valley during
the time of mobilization of the troops. The invisible army of
Switzerland came into being within forty-eight hours. On the
first day of August there was no evidence of any military or-
ganization in the country; then within four days, between
400,000 and 500,000 troops were on the borders; guides from
the mountains, men from the shops and stores and fields, from
all the industrial pursuits of the country, and they remain there
to this day, defending their land from the incursions of any
foreign foe. There is no country in Europe that gives as little
60 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
impression of military display as Switzerland, and no country
better prepared to defend its borders against the devastation
and disaster of war.
For our own country it is possible for us to follow a similar
policy. We too can have within our midst if we choose an in-
visible army, men having some training in military affairs and
yet not withdrawn from their daily activities and pursuits. In
this way our military strength may be conserved at a minimum
expense and minimum industrial disturbance. If we are con-
fident, and I think justly so, that in the event of war the young
men of our country would be ready and eager to volunteer their
services, why should we not issue a call to volunteer for the
military training-camps which the government has already
instituted with such marked success? Every thoughtful person
is naturally opposed to military ostentation and display and
the whole spirit of insolent militarism. That which is essen-
tially the American way of doing things is to have our military
strength in potential form rather than actually existent in a
large standing army.
The important rules of relevancy when using the argu-
ment from example may now be summed up thus:
1. Find the doubtful X in the present case or situation. In
the preceding illustration the doubtful X was the pos-
sibility of a nation being prepared against war without
militarism.
2. Find a case essentially similar (which contains the doubt-
ful X) after comparing resemblances and differences with
all attendant conditions. Such was the selection of the
example of Switzerland.
3. Make its relevancy apparent. On the first day of August
there was no evidence of a military organization in
Switzerland; but within four days about four hundred
thousand troops were on the borders, assembled from
the activities of peace, to defend their lands. No coun-
try in Europe makes so little display as Switzerland,
Iione is better prepared for defense. Then follows the
ARGUMENT 61
comparison. We too can have an invisible army. Our
young men are eager to volunteer for military training-
camps; it is essentially the American way, and so on.
Indeed, the perpetual and insistent problem of all
argument is what is to be proved — what proves it —
and how to make the proof manifest.
4. Estabhsh the fundamental basis of the argument either
by reason or by authority. The training-camps already
existing in the United States, for instance, make pos-
sible, through natural growth, the development of an
invisible army.
If illustration of authoritative support be needed fur-
ther, let us take it from Lord Erskine. He is defining
the law of treason as it applies to the circumstances of
the Gordon case, and has just examined the case of Dem-
aree for essential resemblances to the case at bar. He
remarks that all men "agree that it is the intention of
assembling" the mob which forms the guilt of treason,
and adds, "I will give you the words of high authority,
the learned Foster" . . . who says, in a similar case:
"The true criterion seems to be quo animo did the par-
ties assemble ? With what intention did they meet ? " ^
Argimients from example often need thus to be sup-
ported by further arguments. We may accumulate
resemblances, select the most striking, or summon our
greatest rhetorical skill; and yet not escape the in-
evitable why or suppress the feeling that authoritative
support should have been given. Even when this is
done, and when the resemblances are great in number
and striking, it should always be remembered that the
argument from example can never reach absolute cer-
tainty. Practically no two things are exactly ahke,
and the conditions under which they exist or operate
62 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
are never exactly the same. It can, at best, only estab-
lish a very high degree of probability.
The Fallacy, Begging the Question. — A cited case will
not be relevant to a case under inquiry, unless it con-
tains the doubtful X. It will not be relevant unless
the resemblances noted are in essential, rather than
accidental or superficial, respects. We cannot know
that the resemblances are essential unless we compare
the cases not only theoretically, but in the full and exact
setting in which they actually existed, or with all the
attendant circumstances or conditions under which
they actually took place. It will be plainly irrelevant,
if the differences are found to be sufficient to overcome
the resemblances.
If in an argument we assume resemblances or ignore
differences, we assume the very basis of comparison,
the very premise needed to be proved, and so beg the
question. Indeed, arguments from example are com-
monly ineffective and regarded as irrelevant, simply
because the basis of comparison is not indicated by
pointing out and making clear the exact points or re-
semblance. Observe how carefully Shylock, when at-
tempting to show that he was entitled to human treat-
ment, indicated in detail his resemblance to a human
being and a Christian:
Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimen-
sions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt
with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed
by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and
summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us, do we not
die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like
jn the rest, we will resemble you in that.
ARGUMENT 63
You are doubtless familiar with the ancient fable
relating to the donkeys. One donkey, carrying on its
back a bag of salt, plunged into a stream, with the re-
sult that the salt melted, and he disported himself with
glee on the opposite meadow. The other donkey which
was laden with sponges instantly followed the example
of the salt-burdened leader, and, leaping into the stream,
almost came to grief.^
Indeed, the most common form of fallacy in arguing
from example arises from assuming a resemblance be-
tween cases and ignoring the differences in attendant
circumstances and conditions. Let us examine an il-
lustration or two of a causal example, involving the
prediction that what happened from a certain cause
in another place will inevitably happen in the same
way from the same cause here.
Ringwalt in "Briefs on Public Questions" frequently
uses the argument from example as one of the main
divisions of a brief. These briefs, it should be said, are
meant to be suggestive; and a good deal is purposely
omitted for the student to supply. In one of them the
doubtful X is the question whether or not ownership
of the railways by the United States Government should
be adopted, and the example of other nations is made
the closing argument, thus:
V. The experience of foreign nations is favorable to govern-
ment ownership and operation. A. The experience of Prussia
is favorable, i. In Prussia a large annual surplus has been
earned. 2. Uniform, stable, and lower rates have been secured.
3. Facilities and accommodations have been improved. 4.
Natural resources have been developed and the commercial
» "The Fables of La Fontaine." Trans, by Robt. Thomson, bk. II,
Fable 10.
64 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
prosperity of the nation enhanced. B. The experience of Bel-
gium is favorable, i. A profit has been earned. 2. The total
of ton mileage has increased. 3. Improvements have been in-
troduced. 4. Rates have been lowered. 5. Accidents are fewer.
C. The experience of Australia and New Zealand is favorable.
I. Great social advantages have been secured, x. The better
distribution of labor, y. An increase in suburban dweUing.
z. Increased educational advantages. 2. Agricultural interests
have been fostered. D. The experience of other nations is
favorable, i. That of Austria-Hungary. 2. Of Switzerland. 3.
Of France.
This argument is not shown to be relevant to X ;
but to government ow^nership in general. If it is meant
to imply that, because government ownership has been
successful in certain respects in other countries, it will
be so in these same respects in this country, the con-
clusion does not follow. By ignoring the conditions
under which the railroads are owned in the countries
mentioned, as well as conditions in the United States,
the argument assumes so much that there is no valid
basis of comparison. In fine, the conclusion is too broad
and the premises are not proved.
We have seen that a case cited should have not only
a bearing on the general subject, but a relevancy to
the doubtful X in the case in controversy. Very rarely
do the many cases thought to be pertinent to a sub-
ject turn out on examination to resemble one another
completely. Indeed, so frequently and in so many ways
do differences appear, that the successful use of example
as an argument requires exhaustive study: involving
the exercise of memory to carry in mind all the circum-
stantial details; a power of discrimination and analysis
to discard the irrelevant, seize upon the vital points,
and determine the relationships of the cases to one an-
ARGUMENT 65
other and to the various principles, as well as the ability
to grasp firmly the soundest principle involved and hold
it distinct, so that in the most intricate circumstances
its relation to the doubtful X will be clear and luminous.
Answering a Causal Example by Alleging a Different
Cause. — An argimient from example may be refuted
(i) by proving that the facts are not true as alleged,
or (2) by admitting or assuming the alleged facts to
be true and then proving that conditions are not parallel,
and that hence there is no valid basis of comparison.
The latter refutation will be even stronger if the alleged
results can be ascribed to another and different cause.
Thus, General Hugh L. Scott refutes the argument that
the cost of the United States army is too high as com-
pared with the cost of the German army. He shows
that there is no valid basis of comparison, and then
attributes the relatively higher cost of our miUtary estab-
Hshment to the voluntary as opposed to the compul-
sory principle:
From time to time statements have appeared in current pub-
lications showing the large appropriation necessary for the sup-
port of the military establishment of the United States and the
relatively small cost of the German army. By dividing each of
these amounts by the total strength of each military establish-
ment an effort is made to compare the high cost of one of our
soldiers with the cost of a German soldier, which is very much
lower than ours. No intelligent comparison can be made be-
tween the cost of the German and American military estab-
lishments without having first a clear understanding of the dif-
ferences in the military system of these two countries.
The German pays his military obligations to the state in
personal service, while we go into the labor markets, where we
are forced to compete with other employers of labor in order
to secure our soldiers. In addition, there is a small class of volun-
teers in the German army who, in exchange for certain privileges
66 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
as to service, maintain themselves and supply their own uni-
forms and equipment. Again, the normal wages of our labor
markets, where we obtain our recruits, are much higher than in
Germany. The comparative cost of these two soldiers in dollars
and cents, therefore, means little except to emphasize the cost
of maintaining a military establishment on the voluntary prin-
ciple. If we wish, then, to compare the cost of our army with
the cost of those of other nations, we must limit our comparison
to those nations which employ the same general system as our-
selves. We will find that only one other nation in the world
does so — Great Britain.
•
2. Example by Analogy. — Analogy is another term
used to describe arguments from resemblance. Here
the objects compared are regarded as v^ddely different
and lying in totally different fields; and though the
implication of a common cause is present, the specific
cause is more remote and vague; so that the probability
established is regarded as less strong than if the cases
compared vi^ere known to be in the same class. Hence,
analogy has sometimes been defined as "a resemblance
of ratios" or a "resemblance of relations rather than of
objects" or a "parity of reasoning." It is of much value
to the scientist in offering hints or ideas for experiment
and investigation. There is, for instance, a relation
between the falUng of an apple to the ground and the
motion of the heavenly bodies; the lifting of the Hd of
a teakettle, through the idea of the expansion of steam,
and the piston in a locomotive; the structure of the
human ear and the receiver of a telephone.
Analogy is also used by the great orators, and often
with telhng effect. When so used as an argument the
resemblances should be essentially alike in all partic-
ulars which affect the proposition and they should be
true as stated. Besides, the proposition should, if im-
ARGUMENT 67
portant enough, be supported by further evidence.
Analogy offers only parallel or collateral evidence. It
has place also in the clarifjdng processes of exposition;
is the essence of much of the description and narration
used as argumentative adjuncts, and is of great value
wherever the purpose is to engage attention, enhst in-
terest, appeal to desire, or to "suggest" to the imagina-
tion, as well as to prove. Lincoln's analogies are widely
known:
Gentlemen, I want you to suppose a case for a moment. Sup-
pose that all the property you were worth was in gold, and you
had put it in the hands of Blondin, the famous rope-walker, to
carry across the Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Would you
shake the rope while he was passing over it, or keep shouting to
him: "Blondin, stoop a little morel Go a little faster"? No,
I am sure you would not. You would hold your breath as well
as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safely
over. Now the government is in the same situation. It is carry-
ing an immense weight across a stormy ocean. Untold treasures
are in its hands. It is doing the best it can. Don't badger it I
Just keep still and it will get you safely over.
The use of the several arguments previously men-
tioned as well as a clear mode of procedure may be
illustrated from the following quotation from Whately
on mdirect description. He begins by telling what his
thesis is like, and then states it; after which he tells
why a description using carefully selected details will
produce a more striking impression than one based on
a catalogue method, and then cites two examples to
prove that this is so:
It is observed by opticians and astronomers that a side view
of a faint star, or, especially, of a comet, presents it in much
greater brilliancy than a direct view. To see a comet in its full
68 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
splendor, you should look not straight at it, but at some star
a little beside it. Something analogous to this often takes place
in mental perceptions. It will often, therefore, have a better
effect to describe obliquely, if I may so speak, by introducing
circumstances connected with the main object or event, and
affected by it, but not absolutely forming a part of it. And
circumstances of this kind may not infrequently be so selected
as to produce a more striking impression of anything that is in
itself great and remarkable than could be produced by a minute
and direct description, because in this way the general and col-
lective result of a whole, and the effects produced by it on other
objects, may be vividly impressed on the hearer's mind, the
circumstantial detaU of collateral matters not drawing off the
mind from the contemplation of the principle matter as one
and complete. Thus, the woman's application to the King of
Samaria, to compel her neighbor to fulfil the agreement of shar-
ing with her the infant's flesh, gives a more frightful impression
of the horrors of the famine than any more direct description
could have done, since it presents to us the picture of that hard-
ening of the heart to every kind of horror, and that destruc-
tion of the ordinary state of human sentiment which is the re-
sult of long-continued and extreme misery. Nor could any
detail of the particular vexations to be suffered by the exiled
Jews for their disobedience convey so lively an idea of them as
that description of their result contained in the denunciation of
Moses: "In the evening thou shalt say. Would God it were
morning ! and in the morning thou shalt say. Would God it were
evening!" — Whaiely, "Elements of Rhetoric," p. 125.
Knowledge grows slowly by ever-widening generaliza-
tions. What in one age may seem to be a weak analogy
may later become an example of a truth. All men may
reason to-day, for instance, from the analogy of biolog-
ical growth in certain particulars in all living things
and their products, but once we find warrant for a be-
lief in some such generalization as that asserted by
Herbert Spencer as law, we would not hesitate to cite
as examples what hitherto we had regarded as analogies.
ARGUMENT 69
WTioever, indeed, could accept the following should
find small difficulty in so doing: j
Now, we propose in the first place to show that this law of
organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in
the development of the earth, in the development of life upon
its surface, in the development of society, of government, of
manufactures, of commerce, of language, Uterature, science, art,
this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through
successive differentiations, holds throughout. From the earliest
traceable cosmical changes down to the latest results of civiliza-
tion we shall find that the transformation of the homogeneous
into the heterogeneous is that in which progress essentially
consists.
B. CONTRAST
A Principle of Association. — Conventional treatises
on argumentation make insufficient mention of the ar-
gument from contrast. Aristotle included contrast as
well as resemblance among the fundamental categories
of association. Moreover, simple association-tests show
that there are certain t>pes of words which suggest
their opposites, as, e. g., head — foot; right — left or wrong,
etc. While there is a tendency among modern psy-
chologists to regard contrast as a secondary principle
rather than a primary, they are continually recognizing
a variation of method among individuals and a char-
acteristic individual method of reasoning. Indeed,
just as there are types of orators and debaters whose
method seems to be governed largely by the principles
of resemblance, as, for instance, Burke, so there are
others equally eminent — notably Lincoln — in whom the
principle of contrast seems also to be particularly strong.
Uses in Debating. — The method of contrast is per-
haps more essential in debating than in any other form
70 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
of speech, for the debater must continually keep his
case before an audience in opposition to that of his op-
ponent. He does this in his definition of the main issues,
in the development of his argument, and in his recapit-
ulation. Refutation, too, may be not only a matter of
drawing distinctions in a counter-proof but of contrast-
ing premise with premise, proof with proof, conclusion
with conclusion; and so, in ordering his materials, when
the debater wishes to grapple with his opponent closely
and impress his audience strongly, he brings strength
into sharp contrast with weakness, or assumption and
assertion into bold opposition to his own evidence,
with their inevitable conclusions to his own advan-
tage.
In the remarks of Lincoln on the Dred Scott Decision^
delivered June 26, 1857, observe how naturally and ef-
fectively Lincoln contrasted (i) the dissenting opinions
of Judge Curtis with the opinions of Justice Taney,
(2) the pubhc estimate of the black men in the days of
the Revolution with that at the present time, and (3)
Judge Douglas's action "three and a half years ago"
in forcing the Nebraska bill upon the country with its
consequences "now." We have here a contrast in au-
thoritative opinion, a contrast in time, and a contrast
involving the additional relation of antecedent to con-
sequent.
Uses in Refutation: Types of Argument by Con-
trast. — There are three special types of the argument
by contrast in which Lincoln, the great American de-
bater, was especially proficient, i. e., reducHo ad ahsur-
dum, the dilemma, and the method of the residue. They
are so effective in debating and so common in practice
» "Little Masterpieces," " Lincoln," by Bliss Perry, p. 13.
ARGUMENT 71
that we wall consider them with some detail and with
a variety of illustration,
I. Reductio ad Absurdum. — In redudio ad absurdtim,
the debater contrasts the conclusion reached by his op-
ponent with an utterly ridiculous conclusion derived
from the citation of other cases involving the same
process of reasoning.
Any argument that can be reduced to an absurdity
is said to "prove too much"; for instance, the argu-
ment that "the Uquor traffic is Hable to abuse and there-
fore should be abolished" proves too much. Its
absurdity will appear if one should answer: "Rehgion
and learning also are Hable to abuse; therefore, they
should be abolished." The impHed premise in the argu-
ment is "whatever is Hable to abuse should be aboHshed."
The reductio ad absurdum connects this implied premise
not only with the expressed premise "the Hquor traffic
is Hable to abuse," thereby showing that the argument
leads correctly to the conclusion drawn, but also con-
trasts it with another premise, namely, "ReHgion and
learning are Hable to abuse," showing that the argu-
ment here leads to the absurd conclusion, "ReHgion and
learning should be abolished."
Every argument which proves too much does not
require a reductio ad absurdum to overthrow it. Webster
meets the objection that bank credit may be abused, thus :
I am well aware that bank credit may be abused. I know
that bank paper may become excessive; that depreciation will
then follow; and that the evils, the losses, and the frauds con-
sequent on a disordered currency fall on the rich and the poor
together, but with especial weight of ruin on the poor. I know
that the system of bank credit must always rest on a specie
basis, and that it constantly needs to be strictly guarded and
72 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
properly restrained; and it may be so guarded and restrained.
We need not give up the good which belongs to it through fear
of the evil which may follow from its abuse. We have a power
to take security against these evils. It is our business as states-
men to adopt that security; it is our business not to prostrate
or attempt to prostrate the system, but to use those means of
precaution, restraint, and correction which experience has sanc-
tioned, and which are ready at our hands.
Macaulay detects in an argument of Mr. Gladstone
an instance of proving too much and exposes its premises,
indicating at the same time the unscientific mode of
deriving them:
He (Mr. Gladstone) lays down broad general doctrines about
power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power
of governments — about conjoint action, when the only con-
joint action of which he is thinking is the conjoint action of
citizens in a state. He first resolves on his conclusion. He then
makes a major of most comprehensive dimensions; and having
satisfied himself that it contains his conclusion, never troubles
himself about what else it may contain. And as soon as we ex-
amine it, we find that it contains an infinite number of con-
clusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity.^
In redudio ad dbsurdum, speaking exactly, the in-
correct premises and conclusion are not pointed out;
but the argument is assumed to be sound and contrasted
with other cases which prove it unsound.
The debater must not expect always to find actually
expressed the argument proving too much; it is fre-
quently derived by implication either from an opponent's
argumentation or from the usual or possible logic of
his side. In any event he seeks to fasten upon his op-
ponent a behef in its soundness.
In his Liverpool address Beecher charged upon a
^Macaulay's Essay on "Gladstone on Church and State."
ARGUMENT 73
hostile audience a belief in an argument which proved
too much and revealed its absurdity. He had Just been
interrupted and considerable tact was required in re-
suming. He caught the ear of the audience at once,
however, by attributing to them a very natural sym-
pathy for "the weaker party," and then altering his
position slightly and without stating the proposition
he intended to discuss, he applied the reductio ad ah-
surdum to the proposition that " the minority is always
right."
But I know that you say you cannot help sympathizing with
a gallant people. (" Hear, hear ! ") They are the weaker people,
the minority; and you cannot help going with the minority who
are struggUng for their rights against the majority. Nothing
could be more generous, when a weak party stands for its own
legitimate rights against imperious pride and power than to
sympathize with the weak. But whoever sympathized with
a weak thief because three constables had got hold of him?
(" Hear, hear ! ") And yet the one thief in the policemen's hands
is the weaker party. I suppose you would sympathize with him.
("Hear, hear!" Laughter and applause.) Why, when that in-
famous King of Naples — Bomba — was driven into Gaeta by
Garibaldi with his immortal band of patriots, and Cavour sent
against him the army of northern Italy, who was the weaker
party then? The tyrant and his minions; and the majority was
the noble Italian patriots struggling for liberty. I never heard
that Old England sent deputations to King Bomba, and yet his
troops resisted bravely there. (Laughter and interruption.) To-
day the majority of the people of Rome is with Italy. Nothing
but French bayonets keeps her from going back to the kingdom
of Italy, to which she belongs. Do you sympathize with the
minority in Rome or the majority in Italy? (A voice: "With
Italy.").
The manner of treatment may be either direct or
indirect. The debater, that is, may proceed frankly,
74 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
seriously, to show by a wider application that the argu-
ment is unsound; or he may pretend to agree with his
opponent, admit the soundness of his argument and
defend the truth of its absurdest conclusions — the op-
posite of what he really believes. Whately in "His-
toric Doubts" employs, in an ironical manner, Hume's
arguments against Christianity to prove the non-exist-
ence of Napoleon. Burke in "Vindication of Natural
Society" applies ironically BoHngbroke's arguments
against reUgious institutions to civil society. Swift's
"Modest Proposal" defends the cooking and eating of
the children as the proper mode of relief from famine
in Ireland.
A good instance of the direct way of treatment occurs
in a letter written to Junius by Sir William Draper.
Now, Junius had not only ridiculed the King in his first
letter to the printer of the Public Advertiser but had
handled unsparingly the Ministry. Sir WilHam then
came forward over his own signature to remove the
suspicions cast upon his friend the Marquis of Granby
as commander of the army. Draper was a man of
scholarly attainments, but alas! he was open-hearted
and highly sensitive to ironical criticism, the chief weapon
of his powerful antagonist. Junius accepted the chal-
lenge and instantly put the indiscreet Draper upon the
defensive. The latter managed to clear himself from
the charges affecting his personal honesty and with-
drew from the unequal contest. In the quotation given
below, referring to the Manila ransom, Draper showed
that if silence meant guilt, then Junius had convicted
himself of several charges.
Spain having taken sides with France during the
French and Indian War, an English expedition appeared
ARGUMENT 75
(September 25, 1752) off Manila, capital of Luzon, an
island of the Philippine group, and at length carried the
place by assault (October 6). The victors accepted
"bills on ISIadrid for a million sterhng in lieu of pil-
lage," and departed; but Madrid repudiated the treaty.
Colonel Draper, who with Admiral Cornish commanded
the expedition, urged the government to insist upon pay-
ment of the ransom, but dropped the matter, as he tells
us, on grounds of "national convenience." Junius in-
sinuated that Draper's silence had been bought by sub-
sequent mihtary honors from the English Government,
and that he had sold out his companions who would
have shared in the prize. The charge must have ap-
pealed to a very strong popular sentiment, for, as Lecky
says, " the tame acquiescence of the government in the
Spanish refusal bitterly offended the national pride."
To support your story you have recourse to the following ir-
resistible argument: "You sold the companions of your vic-
tory, because when the i6th Regiment was given to you, you
were silent. The conclusion is inevitable." I believe that such
deep and acute reasoning could only come from such an extraor-
dinary writer as Junius. But, unfortunately for you, the prem-
ises as well as the conclusion are absolutely false. If your
puerile and tinsel logic could carry the least weight or conviction
with it, how must you stand affected by the inevitable conclu-
sion, as you are pleased to term it? According to Junius, silence
is guilt. In many of the public papers you have been called,
in the most direct and offensive terms, a liar and a coward.
When did you reply to these foul accusations? You have been
quite silent, quite chop-fallen; therefore, because you were
silent, the nation has a right to pronounce you to be both a liar
and a coward, from your own argument.
In his reply to Draper's argument, Junius neither
mentioned nor supported the general proposition that
76 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
silence was guilt. He did not, however, refuse all con-
test; but, noticing the new and personal application,
was at great pains to explain why his name must be
withheld. It can pass unobserved largely from his use
of interrogatories and insinuations that in modifying
he has denied his original and sweeping contention.
His answer was as follows:
Your remarks upon a signature adopted merely for distinc-
tion are unworthy of notice; but when you tell me I have sub-
mitted to be called a liar and a coward, I must ask you, in my
turn, whether you seriously think it any way incumbent on me
to take notice of the silly invectives of every simpleton who
writes in a newspaper; and what opinion you would have con-
ceived of my discretion if I had suffered myself to be the dupe
of so shallow an artifice ? As to me it is by no means necessary
that I should be exposed to the resentment of the worst and most
powerful men in this country, though I may be indifferent about
yours. You assure me that my logic is puerile and tinsel; that
it carries not the least weight or conviction; that my premises
are false and my conclusions absurd. If this be a just descrip-
tion of me, how is it possible for such a writer to disturb your
peace of mind or to injure a character so well established as
yours? Take care, Sir William, how you indulge this unruly
temper, lest the world should suspect that conscience has some
show in your resentments. You have more to fear from the
treachery of your own passions than from my malevolence.
How Answered. — Reductio ad absurdum is effective
not only because it leaves an opponent's proposition
unproved, but because it reveals his unsound logic and
shakes confidence in his rehabiHty as a debater. In
answering; the chief aim of a debater may be to show
that he has not proved too much, that his position is
within reason. If he has been misrepresented, an em-
phatic denial that he believes the discredited ideas.
ARGUMENT 77
accompanied by a statement of his true position, may
be all that is necessary. But generally it is well to show-
something more than the reasonableness of your posi-
tion. Possibly his argument was not germane to the
point at issue. An answer somewhat more effective
is the tu quoque or countercharge. For instance, if, upon
a question involving an amendment to an existing law,
it is held upon one side that the objections consider
only the abuses under the law, it can be held upon the
other that the enemies of amendment are merely oppos-
ing innovation. Circumstances may make it possible to
answer reductio ad ahsurdum by any of the chief modes
of attack suggested. Examine, in illustration, the fol-
lowing inquiries of Beecher's argument from the point
of view of his audience:
Suppose that a hstener in the audience refused to
believe that the "Minority is not always right." In
answering would it be effective to attempt to prove
the contradictory ? In tliis case, the reasoner would seek
to establish a proposition whose falsity seems obvious.
Refusing thus to believe that "the minority is not
always right," could the objector employ in his discus-
sion the method of the residue? Beecher's well-chosen
examples were most probably admitted and, therefore,
could not be eliminated.
Would it be effective to answer: "I grant your
premises and conclusion but remark in your reasoning
the fallacy ignoratio elenchi. I grant that the majority
is sometimes right and is sometimes wrong; that the
minority when right should receive support not because
it is the weaker party but because it is right, and be-
lieve that sympathy may go where it likes — usually to
the weaker party; still I fmd your argument irrelevant,
78 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
for it ignores what, in my mind, is the real issue,
namely — Is the South in the right or in the wrong?"
Again, would it be effective to return upon Beecher's
general position, charging him with an equally false as-
sumption in the implied belief that "the majority is al-
ways right" ? In the event of a riot in a lunatic asylum,
for instance, would he always sympathize with the in-
mates or the superintendent? The inmates, it will be
noticed, are in the majority.
From its general nature, it is clear that reductio ad
ahsurdum is of special value in opening an attack. It
is used to introduce in a general way an answer to a
particular issue. In debate, therefore, it has proper
place in the first part of the first speeches in rebuttal.
When here employed it can overthrow an opponent's
entire case; more probably, however, it will remove
prejudice, enlist attention, and put an opponent upon
the defensive at the outset. If a speaker has reason
to believe that prejudice exists against his side, he may
employ the method in his first speech. An afiirmative
speaker, advocating a reform or amendment, sometimes
will begin by applying the argument to the conservative
temper; or recommending to a body of patriotic Amer-
icans the adoption of a European scheme of govern-
ment, before attempting proof, will reduce to an
absurdity the assumption that "whatever is American
is right." A debater objecting to a proposition on the
ground that it is an "innovation" employs a "question-
begging term" which can be effectively exposed by this
method. Henry Grattan, speaking upon the "Tithes,"
answers this objection as follows:
Yes; but will you innovate? Admit this argument and we
sit here to consecrate abuses. The statutes of mortmain were
ARGUMENT 79
innovations; for what is the Protestant religion but the inter-
position of Parliament, rescuing Christianity from abuses in-
troduced by its own priesthood?
Institutions, divine or human, corrupt by their nature or by
ours; the best human institution — the British Constitution —
did so corrupt, that at different periods it was anarchy, oligarchy,
despotism, and was restored by Parliament.
The only divine institution we know of — the Christian relig-
ion — did so corrupt as to have become an abomination, and was
rescued by act of Parliament.
Life, like establishments, declines; disease is the lot of nature;
we oppose its progress by strong remedies; we drink a fresh
life at some medical fountain, or we find a specific in some salu-
brious herb; will ^ou call these restorations innovation on the
physical economy ? Why, then, in the political economy, those
statutes which purge the public weal and from time to time guard
the infirm animal, man, against the evils to which civil society
is exposed — the encroachment of the priest and the politician?
It is then on a false surmise of our nature, this objection;
we live by a succession of amendments; such is the history of
man; such, above all, is the history of religion, where amend-
ment was even opposed; and those cant expressions, the sup-
porting church and state, were ever advanced to continue the
abuse of both.
2. The Dilemma. — We may also contrast two ideas
in the form of a dilemma, so as to put an opponent at
a disadvantage or render his position, or case, untenable.
Here the contrasted idea must be contradictory, and
each side of the contradiction — or, as we frequently
say, each "horn of the dilemma"— must have the power
to "gore" or injure. In his Cooper Institute Address,
Lincoln said:
You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves.
We deny it, and what is your proof? Harpers Ferry! John
Brown! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed
to implicate a single Republican in his Harpers Ferry enterprise.
80 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know
it, or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable
for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do
not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially
for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to
make the proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge
which one does not know to be true is simply malicious slander.
Two Kinds. — More closely, the dilemma is (i) simple
or (2) complex according as there are one or two sup-
positions. If it should be asserted that the United States
should declare war, a person, believing in the inadequacy
of the present navy, might answer: "If we declare war,
we must be able to defend our coasts and to attack the
enemy; either we cannot defend our coasts or we cannot
attack the enemy; therefore, we must not declare war."
The simple dilemma may be formally expressed as fol-
lows: If A is B, C is D, and E is F; either C is not
D or E is not F; therefore, A is not B. Imagine a
character, declared by his eulogist to be wise and then
good; imagine also that he is beheved by a critic to be
an irreverent person. The critic may resolve the argu-
ment into a contradiction, showing that he cannot be
both wise and good, e. g., "If he were wise, he would
not be irreverent in jest, and if he were good, he would
not be irreverent in earnest; but either he is irreverent
in jest or in earnest; therefore, either he is not wise
or not good." Again, Calhoun argued that the doctrine
of Nullification was a constitutional right, that it was
possible for a State to live within the Union and without
it at one and the same time; Webster, however, claimed
that the doctrine was rebellious. The doctrine may be
assailed thus: "If a State is without the Union, Nul-
lification is impossible, and if within, it is rebellious;
ARGUMENT 81
but either a State is without the Union or within it;
therefore, either Nullification is impossible or rebel-
lious." The complex dilemma may be formally expressed
as foUows: If A is B, C is D; and if X is Y, E is F;
but either C is not D or E is not F; therefore, either A
is not B or X is not Y.
The simple dilemma has merely shown that an op-
ponent's assertion is false. The assertion being proved
false, it will follow that the argument of which it is a
premise must fall. The complex dilenmia ended with
stating that either of two assertions is false; that the
argument fails will follow from the fact that both as-
sertions are needed as premises to support it.
Ii^s Use. — It is clear from its twofold division that a
dilemma can attack either one or two assertions in an
argumentation. In case two assertions are attacked,
they may be found either in a single argument or in two
distinct arguments. The critic will sometimes discover
a contradiction in an opponent's proof of a single main
proposition and expose it by a complex dilemma; or
examining and criticising the proof of one main proposi-
tion and then of another, he will note some point of
contradiction contained in the proof of the two proposi-
tions and state it in dilemmatic form. But whether the
dilemma be simple or complex, or whether it be derived
from one or from two arguments, it should always be
remembered that unless the critic has grasped his op-
ponent's argumentation as a whole, has found his funda-
mental premises, his attack can hardly be fundamental
or essential.
How Answered.— In answering a dilemma you may
show that the contradiction is more apparent than real
— that there is a middle ground; or that one side is not
82 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
sound; or admitting that the dilemma will hold true,
that it is irrelevant to the main argmnent. In any event,
your object is to show that your argument is not "in
dilemma." What I have said here of the destructive
dilemma applies, equally, to a constructive dilemma.
That is, for instance, if your opponent gives you a choice
between two alleged contradictions for the purpose of
eliminating one of your arguments (after which he in-
tends to disprove tlie remaining one), you may in answer-
ing, treat it likewise, by any of the ways mentioned.
Lincoln was particularly clever in charging his op-
ponent with putting him in a false dilemma and then
of showing that there was a middle ground. This is
what he did in the following:
He finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of
Independence includes all men, black as well as white, and forth-
•with he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and pro-
ceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only
because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with
negroes. He will have it that they cannot be consistent else.
Now I protest against the counterfeit logic which concludes that,
because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must neces-
sarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either. I
can just leave her alone.
3. The Method of the Residue. — The method of the
residue may be regarded as a method of contrast, for
it is essentially a process of exclusion. Specifically,
the reasoner states a nimiber of cases; then eliminates
all the cases but one; and concludes, therefore, that
the residuary case is presumably true — e. g., it is not
this, it is not that, therefore it must be the other. If
a murder has been assigned to deliberate purpose, pas-
sion, or insanity, and the theories of passion and of de-
ARGUMENT 83
liberate purpose have been respectively exploded, the
theory of insanity may be presumed to be true. Several
hypotheses are set up to account for a thing. Usually,
the affinnative will advance one hypothesis; the nega-
tive another or others. The affirmative then will en-
deavor to support his hypothesis against its rivals. He
must overthrow them. Enumerating all the hypotheses
advanced, excluding the opposing ones on specified
grounds, he infers that the remaining hypothesis, which
is, of course, his own, is presumably the true one.
It should be noted that only in case all possible hy-
potheses have been considered and the grounds of elim-
ination have been sufficient can the speaker go further
and conclude that his hypothesis is undeniably true;
but these suppositions do not often exist in fact. The
force of the method is destructive, but, as such, it is
simple and convincing. The debater will therefore
generally follow up his advantage by supporting his
theory by other and more positive proof.
The Hon. Member for Taunton insisted that there ought
to be "some understanding." Now, it was a mighty easy thing
to assert that there ought to be some understanding; but gen-
tlemen, however decided in their opinion, ought to come forward
and say what that understanding ought to be. There were
only three courses which the government of this country had
to pursue. It might decline all interference in the matter and
leave the planters, the negroes, and the Anti-Slavery Society
to fight the battle out amongst themselves. Would a resolution
like that be acceptable to the Hon. Member for Taunton? Was
the government not only to decline all interference, but to set
their faces, in toto, against alteration and improvement and to
abstain from proposing or recommending anything? Would
the Hon. gentleman approve of such a course? Why, probably
not; because the Hon. gentleman admitted that much altera-
tion and much gradual improvement of the condition of the
84 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
slaves were desirable. The only question then was, how could
that amelioration be effected? But there was a third course
which the government might pursue upon the present question.
It might resolve to legislate altogether for the colonies — to take
the measures necessarily into their own hands; making no dis-
tinction between these colonies which had legislatures of their
own and those which were immediately under the control of
this country. Would that course be acceptable to the Hon.
Member for Taunton? Why, again, probably not; for a por-
tion of his speech had been occupied in showing the folly of such
a line of conduct.
The only remaining course, then, was that precise course which
government had pursued, and which the Hon. Member for Taun-
ton had taken much pains and time to show was the very wisest
that could possibly have been pursued. In those colonies as
to which the crown had a distinct right of legislation, govern-
ment had resolved to commence an example, which it was hoped
would soon be followed by those who had a right to legislate
for themselves. — {Peel, Sir Robert.)
Or look at it as a class question. What is it that is interested
in the maintenance of these laws? It cannot be the farmer, be-
cause the rent screw is turned upon him for every extra shilling a
quarter he makes on his corn. It cannot be the laboring classes,
for look at the wages of eight a week for a family of seven or
eight persons. It cannot be the commercial class, for the present
system keeps them out of a foreign as weU as a home market.
It cannot be the literary class, for who would care to provide
food for the mind when the food for the body is so heavily taxed ?
Then in fact it cannot be any class but that very small one
composed of some 10,000 or 20,000 (not more) of nominal owners
of the soil. — {Fox, W. J.)
In Plato's Republic, Socrates answered the erroneous
definitions which were held of justice, and suggested
that justice would best be seen in a perfect state. He
therefore traced the rise of a state; after which he
ascribed the four virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance,
and justice, to a state that is perfectly good. The first
ARGUMENT 85
three ascertained the nature of the fourth, or justice
will be knowTi by the method of residues, "for it is plain
that it could only be the remainder," and when justice
is discovered in a perfect state, it may be recognized,
by analogy, in the individual man. Accordingly, the
ideal state is constructed. The following, from an analy-
sis^ of the Republic, will illustrate his emplo^Tiient of
the method of residues:
And now having traced the rise of a state from first to last,
Socrates returns to the question: Wliat is justice? And in what
part of the state are we to look for it?
The state, if it has been rightly organized, must be perfectly-
good, it must be wise, brave, temperate, and just. Hence, re-
garding the virtue of the state as a given quantity, made up of
wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, if we can find three of
these, we shall by that very process have discovered the nature
of the fourth.
The wisdom of the state obviously resides in the small class
of guardians or magistrates. The courage of the state, as ob-
viously, resides in the auxiliaries, and consists essentially in ever
maintaining a right estimate of what is, or is not, really formi-
dable.
The essence of temperance is restraint. The essence of politi-
cal temperance lies in recognizing the right of the governing body
to the allegiance and obedience of the governed. It does not
reside in one particular class, like wisdom and courage, but is
diffused throughout the entire state in the form of a common
consent, or harmony, upon this subject. Thus we have found
the three: where, then, is the fourth?
After eUminating wisdom, courage, and temperance, there
still remains a something which enables the other three to take
root in the state, and preserves them intact therein. This some-
thing must, therefore, be justice. It may be defined as that
which teaches ever>'body to attend to his own business without
meddling in that of other people — which fuses together the three
* "The Republic of Plato." Davies and Vuughan.
86 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
classes in the state and keeps each in its proper place. Con-
versely, the essence of political injustice lies in a meddling, rest-
less spirit pervading the three classes, and leading each to med-
dle with the offices, tools, and duties of the other two.
CHAPTER IV
ARGUMENT
(continued)
///. Argument from Causal Relation
If the source from which the conclusion is drawn is
regarded as having its basis in the relation which cause
bears to effect, antecedent to consequent or motive to
deed, the argument may be called argument from causal
relation.
We have learned from experience that "nothing
happens," but that all that exists is really the result
of some great antecedent principle or causal law. So,
in the field of science, we are constantly seeking to in-
terpret physical or biological phenomena through the
discovery of some general principle or law governing
the universe which we may apply in argument as a
causal reason or explanation of a particular phenomenon
or fact. Likewise, in the field of human conduct gen-
erally, we are prone to regard men as responsible agents
whose actions are guided by will, motive, desire, inten-
tion, modified of course by such attending circumstances
as heredity and environment.
Fundamentally, all reasoning assumes as its basis
the law of causation which affirms that every cause is
invariably followed by an effect and every effect is in-
variably preceded by a cause. The beUef in this law
is too generally recognized to need elaboration here,
87
88 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
but the practical difficulties of appl3ang it to a concrete
case are so great as to be worthy of specific mention.
Obviously, causal reasoning may proceed from effect
to cause, from cause to effect, or from effect to effect.
The Rule of Adequacy. — The cause assigned must
be adequate to produce the known effect.
In discussing public questions as in government,
politics, economics, etc., when we assign a cause for a
known effect, we must take into account:
1. The parallelism or difference in conditions in past experi-
ence under which the assigned cause is said to operate.
It is here that reasoning from resemblance and differ-
ence or contrast performs its essential function in causal
reasoning.
2. The possibility of the existence of other causes operating
in conjunction wdth or in opposition to the assigned
cause in a cited case or in general, and also in the case
in question. Hunger, for instance, may in certain cir-
cumstances prompt to theft; but fear of detection may
prevent the act.
3. We must always allow for the evolution, change, and growth
of society as tending to modify, by progressive experi-
ences, the safe generalizations, abstractions, or opinions
of a former time.
That is to say, the adequacy of any cause assigned
for a known effect may depend on whether or not the
conditions we have in mind are really parallel, on the
absence of other co-operating or competing causes, and
on the law of progress. This same rule of adequacy is
equally true in using the reverse process, namely, that
of predicting the effects which will probably follow from
a known fact or principle asserted as a cause.
When we state some principle or fact and argue as
to the consequence or results which are likely to flow
from it, in general or in a particular case, we are arguing
ARGUMENT 89
from cause to effect. In debating, the advantages of
adopting or rejecting a proposed plan, with its complex
of benefits and ev'ils, is a causal process of this kind. So
Washington argued against foreign alliances because
they would lead to international conflict, and Webster
opposed the South CaroUna Doctrine because it would
result in Civil War. As a rule, we first either affirm
or seek to establish some principle to guide our judg-
ment in the case in question, and then show also the
consequences which will result from its acceptance in
the present matter. The perorations of oratory are
replete with prophecies setting forth the effects result-
ing from the adoption of policies or courses of action,
with the added devices of imagery, important in em-
phasis and persuasion.
Further, we may argue directly from effect to effect.
If, for example, the process is from one effect to another
effect of the same probable cause, the argument may
be regarded simply as another name for argument from
sign. In the illustration, *'the clouds indicate rain,"
it is hardly reasonable to regard the clouds as a cause
of rain, but rather to think of both clouds and rain as
effects of some such cause — as the weather bureau might
say — as "changes in the barometric pressure." If,
however, the process is from one effect to an allied effect
of a parallel cause, the argument may be simply re-
garded as argument from analogy.
Illustration of Causal Reasoning. — In seeking an an-
swer to the question "what is a nationaHty?" Theodore
Ruyssen,^ after examining six possible causes of nation-
ality, namely, the country, common interests, race,
language, rehgion, and spiritual unity, reaches the con-
' American Associaiion for International Conciliation, No. 112.
90 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
elusion that "the ideal nation appears to us as the close
synthesis of the social soul or collective will, with a sys-
tem of political institutions." To make clear further
the minute care needed in assigning causes for complex
facts or circumstances in human affairs, and also to
point out the difficulties of causal arguments, the follow-
ing points in Ruyssen's analysis should be of interest:
I. The interaction of cause and effect.
Does it not seem, after all, that the "natural boundary"
theorists by an unconscious sophism mistake for a cause what
is but an effect? In interpreting experience we naturally tend
to explain what is changeable by what is immutable, what is
variable by essential and permanent characteristics. Nothing
is more misleading than to account for the life of a people by
the form of their country in our atlases of historical geography.
The natural features of the great historic countries, Spain, Great
Britain, France, are so familiar to us, they have so completely
become for us the image of these nations, that there would seem
to be a necessary connection between their topography and
their history, and surely no one would deny that there is much
truth in this view. But it should be remembered that the geog-
raphy of a nation is itself the product of its history; we need
only look at an historical atlas to be assured of this. France
has not always reached to the Alps and the Pyrenees, and her
northeastern frontier has been subject to constant alteration.
Of what existing boundary may we say that it is fixed by the
nature of things ? If any country might be thought predestined
"by nature" to attain national unity, it is certainly Italy, iso-
lated from other nations by the sea and by the highest moun-
tains in Europe. Nevertheless, she remained for centuries after
the fall of the Roman Empire but a "geographical expression,"
and even to-day she must fight hard to conquer the frontiers
which nature seemed to have assigned to her. Doubtless, it is
true enough that in one sense the country makes the people,
modifies their character and imposes on them certain habits;
but, on the other hand, we may also say that the people fashion
their country by their dreams and aspirations.
ARGUMENT 91
2. Partial and temporary causes.
How explain by motives of self-interest the Polish insurrec-
tion of 1863, a movement of chivalrous folly condemned from
the outset to a cruel defeat? In short, common interests may
unite for a time even hostile forces, just as they may bring into
opposition persons or groups otherwise sympathetic. But the
national bond is of a different sort than a convenient com-
promise; a nation is not a syndicate of desires.
3. Multiplicity of causes.
The most important part of Renan's analysis, in my opinion,
is his masterly criticism of the theories which would determine
nationality by race. The progress of ethnography and of an-
thropology in the last thirty years has not in the least weak-
ened Renan's position. Can any one use the term race in its
strictest sense as implying a number of individuals of the same
species linked together by a common ancestry? It is obvious
that to do so we should have to seek out the very origins of the
human race which are lost in the uncertain distances of prehis-
toric times; rather a question of metaphysics than of physiology
or of human geography. We believe no longer in the mythical
division of the human family among the sons of Noah, and yet
we do not know whether the forest of humanity has sprung
from a single root or from a number of diverse stocks. An-
thropology knows no instance of a pure race, nor a single ex-
ample of any race unable to blend itself with another. We may,
it is true, by comparing certain outstanding human character-
istics, such as stature, facial angle, cephalic index, and so forth,
determine the predominance of certain types in a given region
and explain the variations from this by migrations or by the re-
surgence of very ancient homogeneous races; but, apart from
the fact that no one knows whether these races are themselves
pure or composite, the indications of anthropology are confirmed
neither by linguistics nor history. Nowhere can the geograph-
ical distribution of languages be traced back to the division
of populations into tall, blond dolichocephalic and dark, short
brachycephalic types.
92 THE FUNDAMENT.\LS OF DEBATE
4. Relative value of causes.
But we readily perceive that in a race so considered, the factor
which is considered of first importance, physiological inheritance,
plays an uncertain but always secondary part, and that the truly
determining factors are climate, costume, or habits of life. It will
be found, for example, that peoples undoubtedly akin may be-
come decidedly different from each other — as with the Alsatians
and the Badenese — whereas populations that grow by immigra-
tion soon impose upon the newcomers a new type; for instance,
the Yankee type which asserts itself in so curious a fashion
after two or three generations among immigrants of every de-
scent who have come to the United States, Anglo-Saxons, Ger-
mans, Jews, Italians, and all others. From this it follows that
race, wherever it constitutes an effective social reality, is fully as
much a product of as a factor in the national life. A nation is
not determined by its heredity; it is a living organism which
is both adapted to its environment and adapts that to itself. Or
better said — ^for this mutual adaptation might be a wholly ma-
terial process — a nation bears the imprint of its spiritual vitality
on its brow and in its sinews. It may degenerate from alcohol,
debauchery, overstrain, or dehberate surrender; or it may en-
hance, rebuild, and beautify its life by good hygiene, athletics,
schooling, military training, games, the arts, and the intensive
development of spiritual life.
In a word, nationalities are populations that aspire to become
nations. Like nations they are complex collectivities, drawing
their sentiment of unity from a great number of sources, among
which the moral factors, traditions, religion, and a common
speech are the most essential. But in order to become nations
in the full sense of the term they must gain that political in-
dependence through which means alone a complete social life
can manifest itself.
Causal Argument, and the Other Sources of Reason-
ing. — Moreover, the reader will notice in these quota-
tions that, while the inquiry is obviously the solution
of a causal problem, there is used much concrete ma-
terial, involving the principle of resemblance and dif-
ARGUMENT 93
ference as well as much generalization in order to make
the argument clear and intelligible.
It has been said that all arguments in their final analy-
sis, and when carried to completion, may be shown to
involve an inference from a complex of four relations.
The illustration previously used may be stated for causal
argimient thus: This smoke is the result of lire, for smoke
usually means fire. In other cases when I have seen
smoke I have found fire, or where there is smoke there
is (or has been) fire.
Differences of View-Point. — The points of view of
men differ so widely, as, for instance, between scientist
and business man, lawyer and doctor, professor and
student, that we often despair of agreeing with others
on a single cause for a known effect. On tliis account,
no doubt, we sometimes use exposition to show how a
proposed plan will work, and also persuasion to create
a wish or desire for its adoption. An attractive liow
is more effective than a disputed why.
Much of our causal reasoning, indeed, is merely ex-
planatory and not fundamental, which suggests the
uncertainty of all human reasoning about nature, life,
and conduct.
IV. Inductive and Deductive Arguments
If the source from which the conclusion is drawn is
regarded as having its basis in the relation which a par-
ticular bears to a general or a general to a particular,
the argument may be called inductive or deductive.
If the reasoning moves from a general to a particular,
from a more to a less general, the process is deductive.
Hence, when we say all sailors are swimmers — Jones
is a sailor; therefore, Jones is a swimmer — ^we reason
94 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
deductively. If, on the other hand, the reasoning moves
from a particular to a general, from a less to a more
general, the process is inductive. Hence, when we say
that because John who is a sailor is a swimmer, and
because William who is a sailor is a swimmer, etc. — there-
fore, all sailors are swimmers — we reason inductively.
This classification, of course, is quite independent of the
source of the reasoning employed as involving the prin-
ciple of simple association, of resemblance, or of cause
to effect. Any such relations may exist either in deduc-
tion or in induction.
Whatever may be the sources of our particulars, facts,
or instances, whether they come from our own experi-
ence and observation, or are made known to us by read-
ing, or by the testimony of witnesses given in person; we
may draw inferences from them, as to facts not yet
known or as to general trutlis to which the particulars
are related. If, when travelling through the West, we
should happen to observe that the faces of all the In-
dians we have seen were invariably of a reddish color,
we should perhaps feel justified in concluding, therefore,
that the faces of all Indians are invariably of this color.
The reasoning is inductive, for it proceeds obviously
from the hue of a number of Indians separately observed
to a general conclusion about all Indians. Or, if upon
reading the lives of several Presidents of the United
States, for instance, of Washington, Jefferson, and Lin-
cohi, we should be impressed by their ability and char-
acter, and should conclude consequently that "all Presi-
dents of the United States are men of abihty and
character," the reasoning would be inductive. We
should draw a general conclusion about all Presidents
from what we had read about several,
ARGUMENT 95
The Inevitable Assumption. — The great value of in-
ductive reasoning appears to be in those cases where
it is impossible to examine all the particulars or facts.
It is reasoning from the known to the unknown. Be-
cause the Indians whom we have observed are red,
we infer that all persons called Indians possess a like
appearance; because several Presidents whose lives
we have read appear to us as men of abihty and
character, we infer that all men belonging to the class,
Presidents, possess similar characteristics. But the ques-
tion arises, How can we say anything accurately about
"all Indians" or "all Presidents," since we have only
seen a few Indians and have read the Hves of but three
Presidents? The answer is that the argiunent from in-
duction is based upon the law of uniformity. In other
words, there Ues at the bottom of all inductive reason-
ing this unexpressed assumption: that what is true of
several particulars making 'up a general is true of the
general, "what is true of several members of a class is
true of the class as a whole."
The Inductive Formula. — If we attempt to put in-
ductive reasoning into a formula, it is clear that what
has been called the law of uniformity must appear as
a premise, for it has been shown to be necessary to the
inductive conclusion. The fomiula may be stated thus:
I. Assumption. What is true of several members of a class
is true of the class as a whole.
II, Facts.
a. President Washington was a man of character and
ability.
b. President Jefferson was ditto.
c. President Lincoln was ditto.
Ill, Therefore, all Presidents of the United States have been
men of character and ability.
96 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
The previous illustrations are simple illustrations of
the loose inductions which we ordinarily make in daily
affairs.
Induction, the Scientific Method of Investiga-
tion. — Induction should proceed by hypothesis and
verification. The scientist who reasons pre-eminently
by induction is patient in his investigations and cautious
in drawing his conclusions. Starting with a few facts,
he will make some inference provisionally and assert
it as an hypothesis. This is hardly more than a con-
jecture made for the purposes of the investigation, and
to be modified or even abandoned as the subsequent
discovery of facts may seem to require. That hypothesis
which will explain all the facts in the best possible way
is the one finally to be accepted and affirmed as true.
Kinds of Induction. — Induction is of two kinds, im-
perfect or perfect. Imperfect induction is induction
based on the above assumption. It is of three kinds
according as it is regarded as involving the other sources
or bases of reasoning, e. g., in the first place there is the
causal or scientific method, in which the generalization
resulting is a cause — e. g., the law of gravitation.
Second, there is the method of resemblance, in which
the generalization is a conclusion drawn from other
cases similar in character; e. g., arsenic will prove fatal
because of cited cases in which death resulted. Third,
the method of association in which the generalization
is the result of .previous associations in experience, e. g.,
clouds are a sign of rain. Here again we may see how
the name we affix to any argument will depend on the
point of view. Perfect induction does not involve an
assumption. It is sunply a method of enumeration, e. g.,
there are fifteen persons in this room.
ARGUMENT 97
Deduction, a Ready Mode of Reasoning. — Deduction
is a thoroughly simple, natural process. In ordinary-
affairs we constantly employ general ideas to aid us in
reaching a conclusion concerning a particular instance.
On seeing clouds I infer that it is likely to rain to-
morrow, because clouds are usually followed by rain.
Having to reach a railroad-station a mile off, I allow
myself fifteen minutes, because I have found out from
experience that I can walk a mile comfortably in that
time. I attend the Princeton- Yale football game, feel-
ing sure that it will be worth seeing, because all these
contests in the past have been worth seeing, and so on.
The process is, in each of these illustrations, deductive —
from the general to the particular. I have merely ap-
plied what I already know from past general experi-
ence to aid me in drawing conclusions in the several
special instances. I have done this, too, without specially
investigating the truth of the general ideas employed.
Hence, it may appear that deduction is a ready method
of reasoning and proof involving the use of generaliza-
tions already known or ascertained.
Deduction, Supplemented by Induction. — The generali-
zations employed by deduction usually have their source
in past experience. If we examine the general proposi-
tions used in the preceding illustrations, we find that
they rest upon previous inductions. It is from the ob-
servation of a number of separate instances that I have
been able to say that clouds usually mean rain; it is
from the recollection of the several Princeton- Yale games
that I have witnessed that I have confidently asserted
that all Prince ton- Yale games are worth seeing; and it
is because I have walked a mile comfortably in fifteen
minutes on this and that occasion that I feel justified
98 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
in assuming in general that I can walk that distance
comfortably in that time. "Deduction," says President
Hibben, "that reaches other than purely abstract and
formal conclusions must rest upon induction for the
material to form its premises." Thus, while deduction
is a ready mode of reasoning, and may be sufficient for
one's purposes, we may have need to use induction in
order to make the conclusion more certain by establish-
ing the generalization on which the deduction is based.
The student should beware of the use of hastily as-
sumed generalizations in reasoning. "The boasted
Athenians," said Doctor Johnson, "were barbarians.
The mass of every people must be barbarous, where
there is no printing." Macaulay shows that this rea-
soning was based on a generalization which was both
incorrectly derived and false.
Deduction, a Method of Criticism. — We have been
thinking of deduction constructively, as a mode of
reasoning or proof; but it may be equally important
for us to be able to criticise scientifically the accuracy
of a reasoning process. We are sometimes less con-
cerned about the truth of the propositions used in reason-
ing than about the consistency of the reasoning itself.
In such cases, we can test the process in question by
throwing it into the form of a syllogism.
The syllogism is a group of three propositions; namely,
the conclusion or proposition to be proved and two
other propositions from which the conclusion is drawn.
If now we say "the man is intelligent," "an intelligent
person is rare," we can conclude therefore that "the
man is a rare person." The reasoning is in accord with
the known principle that things which are equal to the
same things are equal to each other. This group is called
a syllogism. But we cannot draw a conclusion from
ARGUMENT 99
any two propositions; they must have one term in
common, as, for instance, "intelligent." There are three
terms in a syllogism, the first and second propositions
having one term alike and each a particular term, which
reappear in the conclusion. Not only must there be
a conmion term in the first two propositions but in one
of them this term must be, as it is called, distributed.
A universal proposition distributes its subject, that is,
makes it include all members of its class taken sepa-
rately, while a particular proposition does not. If we
say "John is intelligent," "William is intelHgent," we
have a common term, but since it is not distributed we
cannot draw a new conclusion. In the correct syllogism,
however, the common or middle term, as it is usually
called, was distributed in the proposition "an intel-
Hgent person is rare," for an assertion was made of all
intelhgent persons. The first two propositions in a
syllogism are called premises; the premise which con-
tains the middle term and the predicate of the conclu-
sion is called the major premise, that which contains
the middle term and the subject of the conclusion is
called the minor premise.
This is but one form of syllogism into which our
reasoning can be thrown. Altogether there are twenty-
four varieties of valid syllogisms, the variations depend-
ing on the position of the middle term and on the
quantity and quality of the first two propositions. The
quantity of a proposition refers to its universal or par-
ticular character, the quality to its affirmative or nega-
tive.
The Enthymeme. — In debating, the syllogism does
not appear in its complete form but with one of its
premises suppressed. Such instances of the incomplete
formula are known as enthymemes. The syllogism just
100 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
mentioned may be stated as an enthymeme thus: the
man is a rare person because he is intelligent. Or dis-
carding the major premise we may say: the man is a
rare person because an intelhgent person is rare. If
we argue in the former way we assume, as admitted, that
**an intelligent person is rare"; if in the latter, that
"he is intelligent." We may see again the need of three
propositions in any reasoning that is logically complete.
We may also see that, for ordinary purposes, the use
of two propositions may be sufficient. An enthymeme,
however, can be tested by referring it to a syllogism.
The Chain of Reasoning. — When we reason so that
the conclusion of one argument is made the premise
of the second argument and so on to a final conclusion,
we employ a chain of reasoning. A single argument
may indeed be sufficient to estabhsh the conclusion de-
sired, but in case a premise of the argument employed
is questioned it may be necessary to formulate another
argument in which the disputed premise is made the
conclusion. Epictetus remarked that when ''death
may appear to be an evil, have ready the thought that
it is right to avoid evils and that death is unavoidable."
What he said was in effect this: (i) Nothing that it is
right to avoid is unavoidable; it is right to avoid all
evils; therefore, no evils are unavoidable. (2) No evils
are unavoidable; death is unavoidable; therefore, death
is no evil. The reasoning is here thrown into two syl-
logisms, the major premise of the first being supplied.
We may put this chain of reasoning into a series of en-
thymemes as follows:
Death is not an evil, because
A. All evils are avoidable, for
I. All that it is right to avoid is avoidable.
ARGUMENT 101
The reasoning here is perfectly clear, both the suppressed
minor premise of A, that "death is unavoidable," and
the suppressed minor premise of ^ i, that "it is right
to avoid all evils," being taken for granted.
Two Classes of Fallacies. — Fallacies, or errors in
reasoning, have been divided into two classes, formal
and material, according as they occur in the form of
the reasoning or in the subject-matter. We may men-
tion several cases of formal fallacies: (i) Equivocation,
or the use of a word in more than one sense, e. g., Eng-
land has a responsible cabinet system. Her ministers
are responsible, trustworthy men. (2) Amphibology,
or ambiguous grammatical structure. This fallacy
frequently arises from undue ellipsis or from an improper
arrangement in a sentence — e. g., "the duke yet lives
that Henry shall depose," "and all the air a solemn
stillness holds," Daudet is nearer Trollope than Dickens.
(3) Composition, which affirms something of a class
separately in the major premise and collectively in the
minor, e. g., three and two are two numbers; five is
two and three; therefore, five is two numbers. (4) Divi-
sion, which afiirms something of a class collectively in
the major premise and separately in the minor, e. g.,
all the angles of a triangle (taken together) are equal
to two right angles; these are angles of a triangle
(separately); therefore, these angles are equal to two
right angles. (5) Accent, or a grammatical structure
in which the ambiguity arises from a misplaced accent,
e. g., " thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh-
bor," as signifying that we can bear false witness against
others.
Several cases of material fallacies may be mentioned,
(i) Pelitii Principii, begging the question, which con-
102 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
sists in its simplest form of attempting to prove a propo-
sition by itself, e. g., opium produces sleep, because it
is soporific. Broadly, it is the fallacy of assuming with-
out proof. (2) Ignoralio Elenchi, irrelevant conclusion,
e. g., arguing that the sexes are mentally equal while
pretending to argue that the suffrage should be given
to women. (3) Non Sequitur, or false consequent, e. g.,
the ground is wet; therefore, it has rained. (4) Non
causa pro causa, or the false cause, e. g., one of a party
of thirteen who sat at a table died within a year; there-
fore, the unlucky number at the table was the cause
of his death. (5) Plurium Interrogationum, or many
questions. "Have you left off your bad habits?" This
question cannot be answered categorically without an
injurious admission. The remedy is to separate it thus:
Have you bad habits? If so, have you left them off?
A Common Ground in Argument. — Valuable as is
the preceding classification of arguments for an under-
standing of the nature and scope of the argumentative
processes, it should always be remembered that the end
of argument is agreement. Logically, unless there is
agreement in the premises, there can be no agreement
in the conclusion. There must be some common ground,
some basis of agreement in the premises and reasoning.
The practical debater simply applies portions of his
own experiences, with insight and tact, to the needs
of a particular situation. But the getting of another
to recognize one's point of view sufficiently to make him
change his mind is a very difficult matter. It will
usually demand the ability "to see others as they see
themselves," and will require considerable insight, a
process of interpretation which is both perceptual and
associative in character.
ARGUMENT 103
In general, an effective argument is an argument
well imaged; as, for example, one whose major premise,
minor premise, and conclusion are so vividly presented
that the conclusion is instinctively visualized as a real-
ity by the mind to which it is addressed. But in imaging
ideas, we shall have need to consider not only our own
views but to find the ideas and beliefs in the mind and
experience of our hearers with which we may connect the
views urged by us. We can take care, for instance, that
the opinion or action urged is in accord with some class
conception or "principle of action which is sl fixed and
stable part" of the ego of the persons we seek to con-
vince,
"It may be said in general," says James, "that a
great part of every deliberation consists in the turning
over of all the possible modes of conceiving of the doing
or not doing of the act in point. The moment we hit
upon a conception which lets us apply some principle
of action which is a fixed and stable part of our ego, our
state of doubt is at an end. Persons of authority, who
have to make many decisions in a day, carry with them
a set of heads of classification, each bearing its voli-
tional consequence, and under these they seek as far
as possible to arrange each new emergency as it occurs.
It is where the species is without precedent, to which
consequently no cut-and-dried maxim will apply, that
we feel at a loss, and are distressed at tlie indeterminate-
ness of our task. As soon, however, as we see our way
to a familiar classification, we are at ease again. In
action as in reasoning, then, the great thing is the quest
of the right conception." ^
There may also be a common ground of feeling as well
* "Briefer Course," 430.
104 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
as of reasoning. But even when it is necessary to arouse
attention and interest in order to overcome prejudice
or belief, to enlist sympathy, or to stiffen the will before
we can get our views accepted by another, the image-
making process may be said to be the handmaiden of
that type of the associative process which we called
the logical. We shall see this more fully later on.
V. The Refutation
It is not to be supposed that the rebuttal is very dif-
ferent in character from the first speech. In the open-
ing address, for example, a debater will avoid fallacy
and assertion, things which he may hope to detect in
the argument of his opponent. There is no class of ar-
guments peculiar to refutation which may not be em-
ployed directly. The same power of analysis, knowledge
of evidence, skill in the construction of a logical frame-
work, tact in persuasion are to be employed in both
speeches. It is to be remembered, too, that the general
aim of debate is to compel assent or to induce action.
As distinguished from the first speech, the rebuttal
deals with objections. Its specific aim, therefore, is to
answer objections advanced in opposition, and to offer
objections to opposed arguments. Arguments which
are in form constructive belong to the first speech;
those in form destructive to the rebuttal. But this
rule is not invariable, for it is frequently wise to antic-
ipate objections, and answer them in the first speech.
This is done upon two grounds: either to remove prej-
udice or to weaken the force of the objections. Even
in rebuttal if an opponent's objections are weak, very
little time should be consumed in answering them. They
may, indeed, be ignored; in which case the debater will
ARGUMENT 105
employ his time in presenting new arguments, in en-
forcing an argument already advanced, in recapitula-
tion, or in an appeal to the audience. It is important
to note that a great amount of attention devoted to
objections will give the impression of a lack of confidence
on the part of the speaker in his own constructive argu-
ments.
Preparation for the rebuttal must include a thorough
and minute study of the opposite side. Several sug-
gestions may be made. In the first place, the debater
should be so thoroughly acquainted with the arguments
usually employed in support of the opposite side and
the usual form of stating them, that he cannot be taken
by surprise. Again, he should be equally well acquainted
with the arguments usually advanced to refute the op-
posite arguments, including their usual form of state-
ment, so that he will know exactly with the least hesi-
tation how each argument may be answered. But a
study of only the usual arguments will be inadequate
if an opponent is specially skilled, and impossible if
the question is under discussion for the first time. At
all events, the successful debater will hardly be content
to quit work when he has guarded his defenses and di-
rected his attacks in only the conventional ways; to
many a man real work is just begun. He will institute
new inquiries, make new researches, glean new facts
from distant quarters, give old ones new applications,
find new theories, unexpected devices; in a word, he
will seek to discover by painstaking efi"ort the strongest
possible objections and the strongest possible ways of
overturning them.
An important limitation is imposed upon the discus-
sion by the presentation of the arguments upon the op-
106 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
posite side. The affirmative's rebuttal is conditioned
by the negative's answer or opening speech, the nega-
tive's rebuttal by the affirmative's opening speech. The
practical rule is this: limit discussion to arguments
actually presented by your opponent. Your opposi-
tion is no longer general and undefined, it is not now
merely supposed or anticipated, but specific, real, and
present. Do not, for example, state that "my opponent
will say such and such a thing," but answer arguments
actually made. Do not set things up for the sake of
destro^-ing them, fight windmills, or deal with possible
arguments not actually employed. Your attack should
be directed against your opponent's case as made up
by him and with the evidence which he adduced to sup-
port it.
Selection. — It is sometimes difficult to consent to
throw away unnecessary ideas. But, unfortunately,
the things which come into the mind on first hearing
an argument are not always the most important. Your
objection being a weak one, it might be omitted alto-
gether, and a little coolness and deliberation might cause
you to canvass the subject more thoroughly and reveal
to you a stronger answer. Or perhaps the argument
should be ignored. Equally important with a knowl-
edge of the way each argument should be answered is
the exercise of judgment and tact in the selection of
the argument to be attacked. Not every main argu-
ment of your opponent is to be answered, for there are
usually strong arguments upon both sides. "There are
objections," says Doctor Johnson, "against a plenum
and objections against a vacuum; but one of them must
be true." To attempt, however, to answer an argu-
ment most probably true, will not only fail, but, in ad-
ARGUMENT 107
dition, serve to emphasize the weakness of your own
argument. If, therefore, you believe an argument to
be valid, do not attempt to refute it. If it should seem
necessary to notice it, you can employ what may be
called a method of depreciatory contrast. You can do
this, for instance, by saying: "Even supposing such or
such a proposition of my opponent to be true, it is of
much less significance, of much inferior moment, than
such or such a proposition of my own." Or, again, with-
out denying the proposition, perhaps you can attack its
proof. In doing this, you will keep clearly in view the
distinction that the question is not whether the hearers
believe the proposition true, but whether its truth is
conclusively proved.
A debater can attack all the main propositions set
up by his opponent; he can attack only one main proposi-
tion, admitting or ignoring the others; or he can admit
or ignore them all, attacking only the general conclusion.
It is here to be said that the argmnents employed most
frequently in debate are not demonstrative but only
probable in their force; and, consequently, that the
debater's aim is to show that the preponderance of prob-
ability rests upon his side. If, then, this preponderance
can be shown as to the general conclusion, it is not ma-
terial that some objections are passed by.
What objections are to be selected for attack? What
ignored? What admitted? These questions, in prac-
tice, are not easy of solution. The decisions should be
made with deliberation after accurately weighing in
balance each argument against its corresponding ob-
jection. The strongest arguments which can be most
successfully rebutted should be made in every case in
the contest the objects of attack.
108 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
Fundamental Criticism. — Where shall the argument
be attacked? Manifestly, at essential or fundamental
points. But these points should be vital. A spear thrust
through the cuirass or gorget is more formidable than
one through the joints of the greaves. Find the vital,
vulnerable points in your opponent's main argument.
Deal with the argumentation as a whole, and not only
in its minor divisions. Construct for yourself, if pos-
sible, the main syllogism of your opponent's argumen-
tation and notice minor syllogisms only when your criti-
cism of them can be shown to affect the main syllogism.
Now, the syllogism of an argument ought to be such
that its premises can either be granted or proved to be
true; and its reasoning ought to be conclusive. If,
however, the reasoning is inconclusive or either premise
is false absolutely or most probably, the fact should
be made evident.
Burke's argument that "taxation without represen-
tation is unjust" can be reduced to the following syl-
logism: taxation without an equivalent is unjust; the
taxation of the American colonies is without an equiv-
alent; therefore, the taxation of the American colonies
is unjust. In examining this syllogism two things will
appear: First, that the reasoning is conclusive; second,
that the major premise can perhaps be admitted to be
true, because taxation is of the nature of a contract.
It will be discerned, however, that the minor premise
demands proof, which, indeed, Burke did not ignore.
But if it should be expedient to attack this argu-
ment, the issue would be raised upon the truth of the
minor premise. Such criticism would be relevant and
fundamental, its success or effectiveness depending, of
course, upon the relative force of the arguments pro
ARGUMENT 109
and con. A fundamental criticism directed against
slight misstatements, discrepancies, or minor and iso-
lated points will be, of necessity, weak and superficial.
Two General Methods of Refutation. — The suscepti-
bility of any proposition to attack is due either to the
existence of an error in the argument or to the existence
of other facts not taken into consideration. Sometimes
a part of the facts is suppressed. This is what happened
in the memorable trial of Bardell against Pickwick.
In our amusement here at the incident of the finding
of Mrs. Bardell in the arms of the defendant, who was
soothing and caressing her, we almost overlook, with
Sergeant Buzfuz, the fact that Mrs. Bardell was ill and
had just fainted away. Indeed, it is not surprising
that the verdict went to the plaintiff. Now what hap-
pened here intentionally can occur accidentally from
an ignorance of a part of the facts. There are in general
but two ways of refuting a proposition: overthrowing
its supporting argument and proving the contradictory.
They are not mutually exclusive, for a speaker can em-
ploy both methods in attacking one proposition. The
opposed structure is destroyed first, and the new one
is erected upon its ruins. You can find a good instance
in Burke's speech on American taxation. He stated
that there are two modes of discussing the subject, one
narrow and simple, another broad and historic. He
answered the arguments offered in the restrictive mode,
and then expounded the comprehensive view which he
thought was the proper one.
In overthrowing an argument already advanced in
support of a proposition, the reasoner may point out
errors in the syllogistic process. Is there an error in dis-
tribution of terms? Arc there two negative premises
110 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
or two particular premises or some formal defect in
structure? If so, the argument will fall. Again, are
both premises true? In case one is doubtful, is it sup-
ported by evidence? Is the evidence offered relevant,
material, and competent? Failing here, it can be con-
cluded that the proof is inadequate and the premise
presumably false; for a proof which does not succeed,
raises, indeed, a strong presumption against the proposi-
tion it seeks to defend. In refuting a proposition by
overthrowing the argument it is generally advisable
to show not only where the faulty process Hes, but, in
addition, exactly how it can be supposed to have
arisen.
Suppose the point at issue — to illustrate the second
method — is supported by a syllogism which is logically
sound, and the premises of which seem true; still it
may happen that an opponent can find sufficient evi-
dence to prove a proposition which will contradict the
one attacked. While the method in such a procedure
is constructive in that it proves a new proposition, it is
destructive in that the proposition proved is incom-
patible with that of the opposite side. The proof of
an ahbi, for instance, by a man charged with murder
upon circumstantial evidence is just as complete a refu-
tation as if the evidence were shown to be "irrelevant,
immaterial, and incompetent." Perhaps, usually, it
will appear that where this method is employed the
opponent's argument is not strong in probative force.
The chief value of the method lies in the fact that it is
practicable when no other form of proof can be procured.
Not only, however, may the proposition in issue be re-
futed by direct opposed argument, but also the premises
(of which the proposition in issue is the conclusion).
ARGUMENT HI
Special types of argument, useful in refutation —
redudio ad ahsurdum, the dilemma, and the method of
the residue — have been considered under the argument
from example.
CHAPTER V
EVIDENCE
The Proof. — The word proof, according to Best,
"seems properly to mean anything which serves either
immediately or mediately to convince the mind of the
truth or falsehood of a fact or proposition."
Evidence and argument are parts of proof. Any
fact from which another fact or proposition can be
inferred may be called evidence, may prove the mat-
ter in question. Any operation of reasoning, by which
we proceed from one fact to another fact, or from
a number of facts to a generalization, or by syllo-
gism through two assumptions to a conclusion may be
called an argument, may tend to prove the matter in
question. The lawyer, for example, customarily ac-
quaints the court both with the evidence and the logical
processes by which he would estabhsh or disestablish
the matter in issue. On an issue of fact his brief con-
tains generally not only a statement of the facts but
also an argument based upon them. The sum total
thus presented is called by the lawyer the proof of his
case. It may appear also that evidence and argument
are not only parts of proof but the chief means or in-
struments employed in making proof.
The difference between evidence and argument, easy
enough to recognize in practice, is a little more difficult
to express accurately in words. Argument is a form
of expression of the processes of the mind in arriving
112
EVIDENCE 113
at a conclusion from a given premise or datum; while
evidence, though it often does furnish or provide this
premise or datum, is always outside these mental proc-
esses.
Meaning of Term. — Primarily, the word evidence
signifies the state of being "evident, plain, apparent,
or notorious," but it also has a causative force as that
which renders evident, makes proof. In general, any
matter of fact or principle offered to prove a doubtful
matter is evidence as to that matter.
The word is in law used in a restricted sense. "Evi-
dence means," says Stephen, "(i) statements made by
mtnesses in court under a legal sanction in relation to
matters of fact under inquiry; (2) documents produced
for the inspection of the court or judge"; these two
forms of evidence being called, respectively, oral and
documentary. Evidence, says Greenleaf, is "that which
is legally submitted to a competent tribunal as a means
of ascertaining the truth of any alleged matter of fact
under inquiry; means of making proof; the latter, strictly
speaking, not being S3aionymous with evidence, but
ratJier the effect of it." According to Best, it is "that
which generates proof. ... It is any matter of fact,
the effect, tendency, or design of which is to produce in
the mind a persuasion affirmative or disaffirmative of
the existence of some other matter of fact." We shall
note that the phrase "matter of fact," which appears
in each of these definitions, serves to exclude the use
of evidence in connection with a matter of law. A prec-
edent cited to establish a legal principle is not, in the
legal sense, evidence. It is called an authority.
The Need of Evidence. — We must, of course, reason
in making proof and reason soundly; this is not the
114 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
full requirement. Now, in formal logic, it is not re-
garded as necessary that the premises of an argument
should be true. They are simply taken for granted.
The syllogism denoted thus: All B is C, All A is B,
All A is C, may be expanded so as to read: Assuming
that All B is C, and assuming that All A is B, it will
follow that All A is C. We can entertain, that is to say,
the question of the correctness of an argument quite
apart from the matter of the truth of its premises. The
assumptions made will enable us to see more clearly
exactly how we can arrive at a conclusion. We make
such assumptions in debating, as we say "for the sake of
the argument," when, for instance, we wish to expose
a fallacy in our opponent's reasoning.
But in constructing a proof, it is just as important
that the premises or steps of an argument should possess
truth or reahty as that the relation between the premises
should warrant the conclusion. The legal rule is that
nothing, material to the issue, shall be taken for granted
and that whoever asserts must prove. Every one who
has had any experience in debating, most Ukely has
witnessed the wreck that comes of an argument com-
posed of statements which are false or unsupported —
it amounts to the same thing. Very probably the an-
tagonist upset the conclusion in a sentence by merely
denying the unwarranted premise. His denial being
as good as the original assertion, the reasoning founded
on the latter simply went for nothing. Recently, in
an intercollegiate debate it was argued that if the speaker
of the House of Representatives were deprived of cer-
tain specified powers which were said to facilitate legis-
lation, the United States would be rid of the evils of
overlegislation. The argument was refuted by a denial
EVIDENCE ^ 115
that the United States are suffering from overlegisla-
tion, the evil being arbitrarily assumed and not proved.
Or, again, quite probably we have seen an adversary
actually prove that the very opposite of a statement,
employed in an argument, was the real truth of the
matter. Fully armed with the facts, he constructed his
counter-proof. Then, the premise in question being
false, it was argued that the conclusion was false also,
and the whole argument fell with a crash. An argument
raised on such premises is a house built upon the sand.
The debater must be ever mindful of the danger of
sheer assertion. The result has no value as e\'idence,
no place in any scheme which aims at conviction. For
observe that, when free rein is given to the practice,
it is not possible to draw any conclusion about the truth
of the points in dispute. The whole contest is reduced
to a question of logic, and — what is worse — of bad logic
usually. For the speaker's effort to defend some rash
statement, not infrequently in the heat of controversy,
gives rise to personalities and the various kinds of sophis-
try — offenses against taste as well as judgment. And
so the trouble deepens.
The habit of assertion, like all bad habits, is not
acquired with difficulty; sometunes it comes from care-
lessness or laziness, sometunes from prejudice. There-
fore we may insist that the debater should make a thor-
ough investigation of his case, distinguishing the true
from the false, and assessing ideas at proper values.
He should not only know what the real facts are, what
their proper weight and force are, but for every
doubtful declaration be prepared to produce his au-
thority, his examples, his statistics, that is, his evidence.
In making his investigations, moreover, he should main-
116 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
tain as far as possible an impartial attitude so as not
to prejudge his conclusions. Doctor Johnson's failure
as a literary critic has been ascribed by Macaulay to
prejudice. "The judgments which Johnson passed on
books," he says, ''were in his own time regarded with
superstitious veneration; and in our time are generally
treated with indiscriminate contempt. They are the
judgments of a strong but enslaved understanding.
The mind of the critic was hedged round by an unin-
terrupted fence of prejudices and superstitions. Within
his narrow limits he displayed an activity which ought
to have enabled hnn to clear the barrier that confined
him. How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his
premises so ably should assume his premises so foolishly,
is one of the greatest mysteries of human nature. The
same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen
of the Middle Ages. Those writers show so much acute-
ness and force of mind in arguing on their wretched
data, that a modern reader is perpetually at a loss to
comprehend how such minds came by such data. Not
a flaw in the superstructure of the theory which they
are rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet they are blind
to the obvious unsoundness of the foundation. It is
the same with some eminent lawyers."
The Need of Assumptions. — We have been speaking
of assumptions as if they were altogether unwarrantable,
as if assertions must always be supported by evidence.
We were dealing, however, only with that class of evi-
dence which is derived from experience. You must
know that experience supplies to us not only most of
the questions of pubHc debate but most of the data
upon which we rear our arguments. It is the events
which go on about us, that we can see with our eyes
EVIDENCE 117
and touch vnth our hands — the knowledge of the senses
— from which in practice our reasoning perhaps most
often starts. But there is another way of discovering
truth and hence of deriving our premises. We know
some things with certitude without the presence of
external evidence. Such knowledge as we get through
our intuitions we do not have to prove. They carry
their proofs in themselves. We know directly, for in-
stance, such things as that we exist, that a straight
line is the shortest distance between two points, or that
a lie is morally bad.
Argument is hardly possible without assumptions,
for our intuitions offer a basis of proof that is more
ultimate than experience. Let us take a single instance
in illustration of this. A man is accused of murder.
Trustworthy ■v\atnesses testify to his presence in some
other place when the deed occurred, and he is therefore
discharged. Now it is quite true that the testimony
was sufficient to establish the fact of the alibi; but the
aHbi warranted the acquittal because we know intui-
tively that a person cannot be in two places at one and
the same time. This assumption is necessarily involved
in the argument.
Such assumptions may be expressed or merely im-
plied. The beginning of the Declaration of Independence
was supposed, at the time, to proclaim self-evident
truths concerning natural equality. There is, indeed,
an advantage in setting out from an a priori truth, for
it affords at once a common ground, a common point
of sight, for the contrast of truth and error add an il-
lumination of differences. In the great orations, you
can find illustrations that assume such premises as a
universal love of liberty, desire for happiness, and so
118 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
on. Burke called himself a "philosopher in action,"
meaning the emphasis to fall upon the final word. But
his well-known dislike for abstract principles in polit-
ical debates did not prevent his use of religious and
moral sentiments when enforcing a maxim of civil pru-
dence.
Classes of Evidence
Direct and Circumstantial. — According as a fact of-
fered to produce an immediate or an ultimate conviction
concerning the point at issue, the evidence is said to
be direct or circumstantial.
The statement of a policeman that he saw the ac-
cused do the shooting charged, the revolver taken from
him immediately after the shooting, and the written
confession made by him later in his cell is, in each in-
stance, direct evidence connecting the accused with
the commission of the deed. In the suit of Shylock vs.
Antonio ("The Merchant of Venice"), the plain tifi,
by the terms of a contract, claims a forfeiture from the
defendant for non-payment of a loan. The bond on
which Shylock's argument is based is direct evidence.
The document, it will be remembered, becomes a
boomerang, and makes the coveted forfeiture altogether
undesirable to Shylock. Portia, in interpreting the
contract, says:
"This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
The words expressly are a pound of flesh:
Take thou thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But in the cutting if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood thy bonds and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice."
EVIDENCE 119
On the other hand, when the fact is such that another
fact is to be inferred from it before a conviction can re-
sult, the evidence is circumstantial. If the policeman,
in the instance previously cited, had said that he saw
the accused in the neighborhood immediately after the
shooting and had arrested him merely as a suspicious
character, or if the revolver, instead of being taken
from the hands of the accused, had been found in the
street near by, we could hardly grant that the ac-
cused did the shooting without inferring in the first
case, for instance, that he was present at the time and
place of the occurrence, and in the second, that the
revolver was in his possession when the shooting took
place. It is expected, in circumstantial evidence, that
the court or the jury will go through a process of reason-
ing and make inferences from the fact offered to some
other fact in dispute. The character Eugene Aram
(" Eugene Aram," by Bulwer) sought to free himself from
the charge of murder, by arguing in his own defense
that his past general good conduct was inconsistent with
the commission of the crime of which he was accused.
"My lord, the tenor of my life contradicts this in-
dictment. Who can look back over what is known of
my former years and charge me with one vice — one
offense? No! I concerted not schemes of fraud — pro-
jected no violence — injured no man's property or per-
son. My days were honestly laborious — my nights in-
tensely studious. This egotism is not presumptuous —
is not unreasonable. What man, after a temperate
use of life, a series of thinking and acting regularly,
without one single deviation from a sober and even tenor
of conduct, ever plunged into the depth of crime pre-
cipitately and at once? Mankind are not instantaneously
120 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
corrupted. Villainy is always progressive. We decline
from right — not suddenly, but step by step."
Direct and circumstantial evidence may be conclu-
sive or presumptive in force; yet, theoretically, the
latter is the inferior mode of proof. This may have
been supposed from the statement that in the one a
conviction follows immediately, and in the other ulti-
mately. Since the facts offered as circumstantial evi-
dence are more remote from the issue, it is clear that
a given portion of circumstantial evidence will have
less weight than an equal portion of evidence that is
direct. Circumstantial evidence may be regarded simply
as a substitute for direct, to be employed to prove what
otherwise it might not be possible to prove. Its force
will depend on the "number, weight, independence,
and consistency" of the various links making up the
chain.
Jury Verdicts Upon Circumstantial Evidence. — There
are instances where after a conviction on circumstan-
tial evidence the prisoner has confessed his guilt. A
good example is the case of Courvoiser, the valet and
murderer of Lord Wm. Russell in 1840. Here there
was no direct testimony whatever to connect the ac-
cused with the crime, and there were circumstances
designed by the accused to suggest that it was the work
of burglars. It was proved, however, that the accused
had an opportunity of committing the crime, that some
of the abstracted property had been concealed in his
pantry, and that he personally had disposed of other
portions of it. The evidence, besides, excluded the
reasonable beHef that any other than the prisoner was
guilty, and upon these grounds he was convicted and
afterward confessed.
EVIDENCE 121
On the other hand, there have been cases, exceed-
ingly rare, in which a miscarriage of justice and the con-
viction of the innocent instead of the guilty have re-
sulted from a reliance of the jury upon circumstantial
evidence. The most remarkable of these that have oc-
curred arose out of a burglar}'- committed at the rectory
of Edlingham in 1879. Two burglars, one of whom shot
at the rector, were seen on the night by the rector and
another person. Two men were arrested and tried for
the crime at Northumberton Assizes in 1879. Neither
the rector nor the other person who had seen the burglars
was able to identify the prisoners, and the defense was
that the case for the prosecution was entirely one of
mistaken identity. But a chisel found in the room where
the crime was committed was traced to the possession
of the prisoners; a piece of newspaper picked up in the
same room was found to correspond with a piece in the
coat of one of the prisoners, and footmarks found near
the scene of the crime corresponded with those of the
prisoners.
The jury, on this evidence, found them guilty, and
they were sentenced to penal servitude for life. They
served in the convict settlement at Portsmouth for nine
years, when, in 1888, the true burglars, two men other
than those that had been convicted, confessed to the
crime. Inquiries were made by the authorities, with the
result that the men who had been convicted on the
evidence of the chisel, the newspaper, and the footmarks
were set at liberty.
Personal, Real, and Documentary. — There are three
sources of evidence: persons, things, and documents.
On this basis. Best has classified legal evidence as per-
sonal, real, and documentary. In judicial matters the
122 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
most useful division of evidence is undoubtedly that
into direct and circumstantial; but an examination
of the second classification may serve to clear up some
doubtful matters.
The evidence of witnesses — persons who inform the
tribunal respecting facts — is (i) personal evidence. Such
evidence in general must concern matters of knowledge
rather than opinion or hearsay. Expert witnesses, how-
ever, are allowed to give their opinions upon facts of
which they have no personal knowledge. They are
persons specially skilled in the matters upon which
they testify.
It is extremely difficult for the ordinary witness to
separate opinion from knowledge. He is, indeed, a very
good witness who when testifying as to what he saw
or heard is able to eliminate his personal views and in-
ferences. There are tests for the credibility of the ordi-
nary witness, such as his veracity, interest, physical
soundness, and so on, but nowadays the average person
is deemed competent to give testimony in the courts.
It should not be overlooked that the degree of skill,
reputation, or experience possessed by expert witnesses
is a matter of considerable importance; for where ex-
pert witnesses are employed by both sides, they, as a
matter of course, give conflicting testimony, in which
case their "expertness" may be called in question.
Expert testimony of an interesting scientific char-
acter was brought out in the trial of the person accused
of poisoning by arsenic a certain Mary Stannard. Now,
the accused admitted having bought an ounce of arsenic
from a drug-store on the day the girl died, but stated
he had deposited it in his barn, where it could be found
intact. The State claimed that this arsenic was pur-
EVIDENCE 123
chased and placed In the barn subsequent to the arrest,
and hence could not have been that bought of the drug-
gist by the accused on the day of the girl's death.
Professor Edward S. Dana, of Yale University, was
called in as expert witness for the State. He procured
a sample of arsenic from the druggist's jar^ and also a
sample of that found in the barn, and endeavored to
determine whether or not they could have come from the
same source. By means of a microscope he noticed (i)
certain differences in the constituent parts of the two
samples, e. g., in the size and lustre of crystals, lumps,
dust, etc. He then examined ninety- two samples of
arsenic representing a number of different sources and
found (2) that all samples from the same source showed
uniformity in composition. Hence he inferred that (3)
the drug-store and barn samples could not have come
from the same source, and hence that the barn sample
could not have been taken from the druggist's jar.
From this illustration it is clear that expert testi-
mony is quite different from the testimony of the ordi-
nary witness. If it had happened that some one had
actually witnessed the purchase of the barn arsenic at
another place, this person might have testified as an
ordinary witness to such a fact. In the case in question,
however, Professor Dana merely expressed an opinion
to the effect that the barn sample could not have been
taken from the druggist's jar. This opinion was a con-
clusion drawn by an expert after a careful investigation
of facts. To observe and explain these facts, moreover,
required skill of a very special character.
The term (2) real evidence explains itself (from res,
a thing). This division of evidence into personal and
» "Commercial Arsenic," Edward S, Dana,
124 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
real, it may be observed, is analogous to the usual legal
classification of property (personal and real). Real
evidence means "all evidence of which any object be-
longing to the class of things is the source; persons also
being included in respect of such properties as belong
to them in common with things."
The use of things in effecting proof is of so common
an occurrence as to make illustration almost superfluous.
The signals of the weather bureau may be mentioned
as indicating usually the kind of weather predicted for
the day following, or the sight of flags at half-mast the
death of a prominent person. Moreover, it is the basis
of business transactions, where inspection precedes
the purchase of goods, the goods being real evidence
as to their character and worth. We may refer, also,
to the daggers in "Macbeth," the rent in Csesar's cloak
in "Julius Caesar," the handkerchief in "Othello,"
and, indeed, if you like, the thumb-prints in "Pudd'n-
head Wilson." In Caine's "Shadow of a Crime," when
the arm of the witness Lawson was examined in court
and disclosed "three clear marks of an iron-brand,"
the marks were real evidence showing that he had been
branded.
In criminal practice, real evidence has usually only
a probable or presumptive force, and appears in con-
nection with circumstantial evidence. The weapon
with which an alleged murder was committed; in a
case of robbery, the marks of a key with which the robber
struck the prosecution witness, corresponding to the
key found in the robber's possession; a part of a knife-
blade left sticking in the window-frame through which
a burglar had entered, corresponding to the remnant
found in the burglar's pocket, are instances of circum-
EVIDENCE 125
stantial real evidence. In such cases the force of the
evidence will depend very largely on the speaker's in-
sight and powers of interpretation. It should be said,
however, that, in criminal cases of this sort, the lawyer
frequently employs the services of a detective, whose
special duty is to give assistance in the discovery and
explanation of details.
In connection with the legal rule that only ''the best
evidence of which the case in its nature is susceptible "
is to be admitted into a court of law, (3) documentary
evidence has been divided into primary and secondary.
Any document may be said to be "primary evidence of
its own contents," while "the term secondary e\'idence
is used to designate any derivative proof of them, such
as memorials, copies, abstracts, recollections of persons
who have read them, etc." In general, secondary evi-
dence is not receivable in a court of law until it is shown
to be the best evidence that can be procured under the
circumstances. Since the debater usually procures his
evidence from a written or documentary source, he will
find it worth while to remember both the legal rule about
the best evidence and the legal distinction between
primary and secondary evidence. But this is hardly
as important for the debater as for the lawyer; for
the secondary e\ddence of the former, it is not in-
frequently sufficient. But he wdll sometimes find it
of advantage to be able to criticise an opponent for
faiHng to refer to original evidence which it were reason-
ably expected he would cite. Such criticism will be
especially effective if he is able to compare "the sub-
stitutionary evidence" employed by his opponent with
the more original evidence, and to disclose some error
in the former. At all events, the careful investigator
126 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
should be ever ready to go behind derivative evidence
and study the source or sources from which it was de-
rived.
The Law of Evidence. — What is known in the legal
text-books as the law of evidence, consists of a body
of rules more or less arbitrary, but as binding on courts,
juries, and witnesses as the rest of the common and stat-
ute law of the land. These rules are under the control of
the legislature except in cases of conflict with constitu-
tional law. They prescribe such things as, that after
a seven years' absence without having been heard from
a man shall be presumed to be dead; that interest may
render a witness incompetent; certain fixed periods of
time when a debt is presumed to have been paid or satis-
faction to have been received. A great many of these
rules arei so special, and embedded in the subject-matter
of the law, that they are of little service outside of the
courts or in connection with issues not of a legal char-
acter.
The rules which prevail as to the production of evi-
dence in the courts have been reduced to the following
points:
1. Certain matters may be judicially taken notice of with-
out proof; e. g., facts of general knowledge.
2. Evidence must correspond with the allegations in the
pleadings and be confined to the point at issue.
3. Only the substance of the issue need be proved; that
is, minor and unimportant issues need not be established
as stated; e. g., the time or place when an event oc-
curred.
4. The burden of proof is with him who holds the affirma-
tive; e. g., he who makes an allegation which is dis-
puted so as to be at issue must establish it by evi-
dence.
EVIDENCE 127
$. The best evidence must be produced of which the nature
of the case admits; e. g., if primary evidence is acces-
sible, it must be produced.
6. Hearsay evidence is in general inadmissible.
7. Testimony should, in general, concern matters of knowl-
edge as distinguished from opinion. Exception is made
in the case of an expert or one skilled in a particular
trade, art, or profession; e. g., superintendent of an in-
sane asylum as to matters connected with the subject
of insanity.
8. Certain evidence otherwise admissible is excluded on
grounds of public policy; e. g., confidential communica-
tions between lawyer and client.
9. In certain cases, principally by statute law, written evi-
dence must be resorted to rather than oral.
10. Oral contemporaneous evidence is not admissible to vary
or contradict the terms of a written contract.
In a trial with or without a jury, it rests with the
judge to determine whether the evidence is admissible
under these rules.
Examining Testimony
Consistency — the One Great Test of Evidence. —
The one great test of evidence is its consistency, ex-
ternal and internal. The facts presented should not
be self-contradictory. They should, moreover, be con-
sistent with the general knowledge we possess, derived
from our intuitions and experience. They should be
consistent also with the particular information derived
from other testimonies and circumstances in the case.
I, Internal Consistency. — Is the testimony consistent
internally — that is, is it consistent within itself? Are
all the statements made by the witness reconcilable
with one another? By means of cross-examination if
the witness is present, or by close analysis of his testi-
128 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
mony if written, errors may be detected as follows:
(i) Incidental or undesigned testimony which a witness
gives without reaHzing its value in the case; (2) hostile
testimony or the frank admission of some fact opposed
to the witness's position, and (3) negative testimony or
"the failure of a witness to mention a fact so striking
that he must have noticed it, had it occurred," ^ or a
failure to remember such fact. The latter is sometimes
called testimony from silence.
Illustrations of this can be found in Erskine's speech
in behalf of Hardy; for example, his remarks on the
testimony of Lynam.
2, External Consistency. — Is the testimony consistent
with our (i) general knowledge, derived from our intui-
tions and experience? Does it seem probable when com-
pared with what we already know about such things?
Statements which partake of the marvellous or are in-
compatible with ordinary experience are received with
suspicion. Robert Burton in his "Anatomy of Melan-
choly" says: "The air is not so full of flies in summer
as it is at all times of invisible devils; this Paracelsus
stiffly affirms." If we should regard this as testimony
offered in good faith, we should reject it on account of
its external inconsistency.
This principle is so well recognized in all rules of
jurisprudence that all courts of law and equity are said
to "take judicial notice" of certain facts the existence
or truth of which is so well-known and established as
to be considered facts of general and every-day knowl-
edge. For example, "matters which must have hap-
pened according to the ordinary course of nature," as
the time of sunrise or sunset on a certain day and the
* "Practical Rhetoric," Genung.
EVIDENCE 129
succession of the seasons. Or again, "matters of such
general and public notoriety that every one may fairly
be presumed to be acquainted with them," as the ordi-
nary duration of human Hfe, the usual length of time
for a voyage across the Atlantic, the usual time to run
trains between large cities/ etc.
And (2) is the testimony in question consistent with
our particular information, derived from other testi-
monies and circumstances in the case? So far as our
investigation has gone, Richard Roe — to be concrete —
has testified, let us say, in language which is straight-
forward and uncontradictory, and his testimony seems
probable on the face of it. But suppose there is an-
other witness, John Doe, to the same circumstances.
The testimony of these witnesses, then, will have to
be compared. If we should find that their testimony
is in substantial accord, our belief in the facts alleged
by Roe would be strengthened. And it would doubtless
be strengthened still more if it is apparent that there
had been no collusion between the witnesses. Hence,
when there is more than one witness and their testi-
mony is substantially the same, the force of the proof
will depend not only on consistency (internal consistency,
general external consistency, and the interconsistency
of the several testimonies), but also in the number of
testimonies and their independence. This mode of proof
is sometimes called corroborative testimony.
If, on the other hand, we should find that Doe's testi-
mony contradicted that given by Roe, we should in all
probability look for other circumstances in the case,
such as the characters of the two witnesses and the
conditions under which the testimonies were given. If
' Stephen's "Digest of the Law of Evidence."
130 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
it is established that Doe was prejudiced or incompetent
through intellectual, physical, or moral reasons, or that
his testimony is given under compulsion, we should feel
justified in rejecting his testimony. If the opposite
is shown of Roe, our belief in his testimony would be
still further strengthened.
When a mass of conflicting testimony is presented,
in determining the correct value to be given to any par-
ticular source of evidence, all these tests as to truth
and probabihty are necessary. The same may be said
of course in regard to the final conclusion to be arrived
at after considering all the testimony and attributing
to each its proper force and weight.
This classification, it should be remembered, is only
a test for arri\dng at the truth or probability of testi-
mony. Before, however, a conclusion can be arrived
at, the weight and force of the testimony presented
must be determined. Any attempt to classify the force
of testimony and the conclusion to be drawn therefrom
must necessarily fall short of absolute completeness. The
conclusion arrived at from conflicting testimony depends
so much on that illusive factor which, for lack of a better
name, we call "the personal equation," that it is im-
possible to lay down any general rule as to the probable
force and weight of evidence; for it can readily be con-
ceived that certain facts and circumstances may be
considered of great importance by some persons exercis-
ing judicial functions, which by others acting in the
same capacity would be regarded as of little weight
and consequence. This field is as varied as the minds
and temperaments of men.
Use of Evidence Outside the Courts. — From what
has been said, it appears that the law of evidence deals
EVIDENCE 131
with rules governing the production of testimony in
courts. These rules have been established for the sake
of "faciHty in disposing of complicated questions or
on grounds of public pohcy." In non- judicial tribunals,
however, there are, strictly speaking, no rules governing
the admissibility of evidence. The judges or audience
have no actual power to exclude or admit evidence, but
must base their decision on the evidence produced, which
may fall within the legal rules or without them. The
speakers must decide for themselves what facts should
be proved and what sort of evidence should be employed.
The rules wliich apply in a debating contest are the
unformulated rules of universal evidence, the employ-
ment of which in particular cases rests in the judgment
of the debaters themselves.
In regard to the sort of evidence employable in non-
judicial tribunals, three important exceptions to the
legal rules should be noted: (i) Immaterial collateral
evidence; (2) hearsay or second-hand evidence; (3)
opinions not emanating from experts. The ordinary
debater employs such evidence, however, not upon the
ground that it is strong but merely that it may be taken
for what it is worth. Such evidence is rarely conclusive;
indeed, the presumption which it establishes is usually
very slight.
In manner of proof, many differences between the
legal and ordinary procedure appear. The most striking
of these, perhaps, arises in connection with witnesses.
Witnesses may be compelled by law to attend court
and give their testimonies in person. In other tribunals
(where such practice would be inconvenient and in-
capable of enforcement, as before deliberative bodies
generally), the speaker usually presents the evidence.
132 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
It is, perhaps, much as if the lawyer should declare the
facts to the jury without the previous appearance of
witnesses. In this view, therefore, the debater can be
regarded as his own witness giving hearsay or second-
hand testimony — reported evidence.
The Debater's Chief Source of Evidence — Author-
ity. — What is usually known as the argument from au-
thority is "based upon the statements of others con-
cerning matters of opinion which they have reached
by rational processes and is to be distinguished from
testimony which consists of the statements of others
concerning matters of fact." This distinction between
authority and testimony does not hold literally or with
any degree of exactness for arguments in non-judicial
tribunals. The debater derives not only opinions but
facts from authorities. He can, of course, derive the
latter from the testimony of witnesses, but he is much
more likely to obtain it from scientific treatises or other
works of an authoritative character. The debater uses
the term authority to apply both to the author and the
work itself.
Two Classes of Authority. — Authorities may be of
two kinds: (i) That based on our confidence in the
knowledge of the authority quoted, and (2) that based
on our confidence in his judgment.
(i) Any declaration as to facts derived from books
or documents may, if disputed, need verification by com-
paring it with more original sources. Such comparison
may be made either with original written evidence or
with original testimonies given when the deed, event,
or course of action took place. If unnecessary issues
of this sort are to be avoided, the source quoted in the
first place should be trustworthy. The question is
EVIDENCE 133
whether or not the State of Wisconsin has a referendum
in the particular case of banks. Now if the debater
should come across the following in Bryce's "American
Commonwealth" (Vol. I, p. 452) — "Wisconsin refers
it to the voters to decide whether or no banks shall be
chartered" — he would probably consider the question
settled. He would hardly seek for original written evi-
dence — the original draft of Section 5, Art. XI, Consti-
tution of 1843 — 01" ^or the testimonies of those legis-
lators who had the matter under consideration. He is
content to decide the point affirmatively upon the au-
thority of one whose knowledge in such matters can
be trusted. Thus we assert that Wordsworth was born
in 1770, on the authority of Knight's "Life of Words-
worth"; that Burke died in 1797, on the authority of
Morley's "Edmund Burke"; that Washington crossed
the Delaware, on the authority of Bancroft's "History
of the United States"; or that the British were at one
time in possession of Havana, on the authority of John-
son 's "Universal Cyclopedia." These works are au-
thorities in the special matters upon which they are
quoted; and while our acceptance of their statements
need not go so far as to imply confidence in the reason-
ing or judgment of their authors, it would necessarily
express confidence in their knowledge of those particular
matters upon which they were cited.
(2) Authority, which has weight because of our con-
fidence in the judgment of the person quoted, concerns
matters of opinion — conclusions from facts, generaliza-
tions, truths. The issue of a debate is a poUcy of ex-
pansion versus a policy of isolation for the United States.
Washington's celebrated warning in the Farewell Ad-
dress and parts of Monroe's famous message to Con-
134 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
gress in 182 1 are quoted; such extracts would concern
''matters of opinion" which Washington and Monroe
respectively had reached by rational processes. The
argument from authority is highly valuable in ascer-
taining the causes of known effects. For example, is
it advisable to amend our lawr of immigration? Now
it is admitted by the parties to the dispute that there
has been recently an increase of immigration from
southern Europe and a decrease from northern. Is this
admitted change due to our immigration laws or to other
causes? Obviously, the debater on either side would find
it to his advantage if he could support his position by
the opinion of experts on immigration.
The general of an army, it may be supposed, would
be more of an authority on the management of a cam-
paign than a private in his service. A newspaper ad-
vertisement containing letters from unknown persons
as to the merits of a cure for Uver trouble would have
little weight against the opinion of a good physician.
But an authority in one department may not be an au-
thority in another. The President of the United States
would be competent to speak on most questions of state-
craft but not necessarily in regard to theatrical matters
as would Henry Irving. Even in such allied depart-
ments as chemistry and medicine an eminent chemist
might not be an authority on medical practice. Nor
could an ocuhst necessarily speak authoritatively upon
the throat.
Moreover, when the opinion cited is that of a specialist
in the department within which the subject Hes, it is
important to know his standing and reputation. In
economic matters would you follow Henry George or
John Stuart Mill? In art would you prefer Ruskin to
EVIDENCE 135
Philip Gilbert Hamerton? In natural history would you
follow Pliny or Mandeville rather than Darwin or Hux-
ley? There are degrees of standing among specialists.
Examining Evidence from Authority
It has been previously shown that the debater's
statements which come from others are taken, as a rule,
not from the testimony of eye-witnesses but from the
testimony of authorities. The classification of tests to
be applied in examining evidence from authority is, in
general, the same as in examining ordinary testimony.
The one great test of evidence is consistency: (i) Is the
evidence cited consistent internally? That is to say,
are there incidental, undesigned admissions — are there
frank admissions, open concessions — and are there miss-
ing statements of fact so striking as to throw doubt
upon those made? (2) Is the evidence cited consistent
externally with our general knowledge derived through
our intuitions and experience? Extraordinary state-
ments, even if they emanate from an authority, may be
examined by this test. And (3) Is the evidence con-
sistent externally with our particular information ob-
tainable from other authorities and circumstances in
the case? When a number of authorities agree in stating
substantially the same fact or opinion, we have what
is called corroborative testimony from authority. It
is important, moreover, that such statements should
possess independence; in the case of facts, that they
should not have come originally from the same source;
in the case of opinions, that they should have been sepa-
rately determined. Here, as in ordinary testimony,
number and independence may have to be considered
before a final conclusion can be arrived at.
136 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
If, however, there are several authorities and their
testimonies disagree, we should look for other circum-
stances in the case which would throw hght on the com-
petence of the authorities. If the statements under
examination can be considered as concerning a matter
of knowledge (as, for example, the exact time of the de-
livery of Webster's speech in reply to Hayne), a de-
cision may be possible after a determination of the stand-
ing of the authorities in question — their scholarship,
methods of investigation, and opportunities for research.
If, on the other hand, the statements undergoing ex-
amination concern a matter of opinion (as, for example,
Webster's usual habits of preparation for a speech),
it is necessary to determine not only the knowledge of
the several authorities, but also their relative compe-
tence to draw conclusions from circumstances ascer-
tained. Are the authorities cited competent through
intellectual power, training, and experience to ascertain
circumstances correctly and to have trustworthy opinions
upon them? And are they unprejudiced by personal or
professional bias?
A comparison of the several testimonies and a de-
termination of the relative competence of the authori-
ties, if their statements were made from personal ob-
servation, may be sufficient to warrant a final decision,
after applying the other tests of consistency, number,
and independence. And, indeed, in case the conflicting
statements are of a secondary character, a decision
may be reached which is practically sulSicient. But
the scientific or scholarly investigator will look at once
at the sources of the authorities, the primary evidence
(if such be available) upon which the statements were
based. For example, Marsh in his "Webster and His
EVIDENCE 137
Contemporaries" assumes that Webster's great speech
was deUvered on a single day, Tuesday, January the
twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and thirty; while Everett
in his "Life" tells us that its deUvery occupied parts of
two days; namely, the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh.
The relative competency of these conflicting authori-
ties, if determined, would not settle the matter abso-
lutely. At all events, the historical investigator would
seek at once for such evidence as Gales [and Sea ton's
"Reports" or Benton's "Debates of Congress." Such
an investigation, if made, will verify Everett's state-
ment. In examining primary evidence the following
questions are of great importance: (i) Is the document
authenticated? And (2) Was it made by a person ful-
filling the requirements of an expert? The Gales and
Seaton "Reports," just mentioned, fulfil these tests;
so, for example, does Thucydides' "History of the Pelo-
ponnesian War." The story of William Tell's marks-
manship, on the other hand, rests upon a documentary
basis which cannot be authenticated. It is, of course,
neither a contradictory nor an impossible story, but is
externally inconsistent with certain particular facts
established in regard to it. Substantially the same story
is related of other heroes; for example, Toko and Egill,
in manuscripts equally trustworthy.^ The second-hand
testimony of an authority need not, it may be supposed,
depend upon documents. It may indeed sometimes
depend upon more remote testimonies given when the
deed, event, or course of action took place. When such
occurs, the test previously given for examining testi-
mony may need to be appHed. But, as a matter of
fact, it should not be too strongly emphasized that
'Vide Paul's "Grundriss der germanischen Philologie," II, 62.
138 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
documents form the almost exclusive IdesIs of historic
proofs.
The historian works with documents. Documents are the
traces which have been left by the thoughts and actions of men
of former times. Of these thoughts and actions, however, very-
few leave any visible traces, and these traces, when there are
any, are seldom durable; an accident is enough to efface them.
Now every thought and every action that has left no visible
traces, or none but what have since disappeared, is lost for his-
tory; is as though it had never been. For want of documents
the history of immense periods in the past of humanity is destined
to remain forever unknown. For there is no substitute for docu-
ments; no documents, no history.^
In a word, in determining the particular external
consistency of testimony from authority, the other cir-
cimistances to be considered may concern two things:
the competency of an authority and the original source.
And in determining the weight of any particular testi-
mony and circumstance, all the tests as to truth and
probability are necessary. This is equally true of the
final conclusion arrived at after comparing all the testi-
monies and circumstances in the case, and attributing
to each portion of evidence its proper force and weight.
What has been said, moreover, of the personal equation
as rendering impossible a complete general classification
of the force of ordinary testimony is true of every species
of evidence.
The following classification of authorities, together
with the questions which may be asked in examining a
particular class of authority, should be useful.
I. Authoritative statements of a secondary character based
on documents.
^"Introduction to the Study of History"; Langlois and Seignobos.
EVIDENCE 139
A. Competency.
1. In a matter of knowledge: Is the authority com-
petent through general ability, training, and ex-
perience to ascertain circumstances and facts
correctly ?
In a matter oi judgment : Is he competent through
general ability, training, and experience to ascer-
tain circumstances and facts correctly, and to
base trustworthy opinions upon them?
2. Is he unprejudiced?
B. Primary source.
1. Is the document authenticated?
2. Was it made by a person competent to know and
to judge? Was he unprejudiced ?
II. Authoritative statements of a second-hand character
based on ordinary testimony,
A. Competency.
(Same as the preceding.)
B. Source,
Do the testimonies fulfil the tests given for ordinary
testimony ?
III. A document — primary evidence.
1. Is the document authenticated?
2. Was it made by a person competent to know and
to judge ? Was he unprejudiced ?
IV. A person — authoritative statements based on personal ob-
servation. (Expert testimony.)
In a matter of knowledge and judgment; is he competent?
(Same test of competency as in I., A.)
Of these classes, I and II are the most usual sources
of evidence employed in debating; III and IV are the
best evidence theoretically considered; but, as has been
shown, I and II may under certain circumstances be as
good as III, may be sufficient for practical purposes.
Rules for the Interpretation of Documents. — i. The
presumption is always in favor of the plain, obvious
meaning of the language.
140 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
2. In all cases of uncertainty and ambiguity, that
interpretation should be adopted which other circum-
stances indicate as the intention of those who had the
authority to fix the phraseology.
3. A document is its own best interpreter. Its ob-
scure passages are to be constructed in harmony with
those whose meaning is plain.
i 4. The design the author had in view will aid in de-
termining what his intention was in using his words.
5. The spirit and temper of the author must be con-
sidered.
6. The daily language of an author must be under-
stood to understand his writings.
7. Documents are to be interpreted in harmony with
the surroundings of their authors.^
Suggestions for Reporting Evidence. — The debater
knows that his opponent or the judges will generally
be aware of the truth concerning important matters
and discover inaccuracies. Hence, fear of detection by
the judges and exposure by an opponent with the con-
sequent damage to the speaker's reputation and his
side are most important checks upon error. The chief
check, of course, is the debater's own responsibility as
respects the truth.
If he is to get the most out of his evidence, he must
possess such an intimate acquaintance with it and the
source from which it comes that he can during a contest
recall his knowledge at a moment's notice. Now an
opponent may question either the accuracy of a state-
ment, the source from which it was taken, or the au-
thoritative character of that source. Hence, in prepar-
ing for a contest, the debater should remember exactly
^ Hay's "Every-Day Reasoning," pp. 155 et seq.
EVIDENCE 141
what his authority said and where it was said, and why
it or he may be considered as an authority. He should
be prepared (i) to quote verbatim, (2) to cite the au-
thority quoted, and (3) to describe its or his character.
(i) Verbatim Quotation. — In reporting the words of
others for the purpose of e^ddence, the debater should
always quote substantially or word for word. This
means practically that he should always take pains to
understand and to repeat exactly what was said. It
is not to be supposed that a speaker would intentionally
misquote, but, through carelessness in the examination
of the authority or an unrestrained partiaUty for his
own side, misrepresentation may be the result. Hence
the value of verbatim over substantial quotation. Burke,
laborious in everything, was exceedingly particular, per-
haps tediously so, in the matter of quotation whether
for ornament or evidence. The great orators and states-
men through this practice have usually developed won-
derful memories. Such was Webster's habit in this
respect that it has been said of him: "Anything once
well taken into his mind was never afterward absolutely
forgotten." William Pinkney's memory was "a bed
of steel." And what a triumph did the latter 's memory
score for him in the supreme court! On one occasion
Pinkney happened to remark that he beheved such an
author gave such an opinion, quoting it substantially;
whereupon the counsel on the other side interrupted
him with a flat denial. "Pinkney turned toward him
with the greatest apparent fury. 'Hand me the book,'
said he. 'Never in my not short juridical life have I
attempted to mislead the court, and certainly I would
not attempt it with a court of such wisdom and lore
as this; if I did, I should be sure of being exposed, and
142 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
I hope I think too much of my reputation for such an
artifice.' Then again turning to the startled adversary,
'Pass me the book,' he exclaimed, 'and now before I
open it, I shall tell your honor the page, and the part
of the page where this authority is stated, and let me
begin by repeating it to your honors.' He then opened
the book and pointed to the very page he had indicated
and the authority was found to correspond word for word
with what he had stated."
(2) Citation of Authority. — Of course the debater
must be prepared to cite authorities upon disputed
points. He may be called upon in actual debate, it
should be remembered, to do so at any time and at a
moment's notice. He may, like Pinkney, moreover,
have to do it with considerable warmth and minuteness.
Hence, in preparing his case, for every quoted statement
he should always make a point of remembering not only
what was said, but the work and the place in the work
from which the statement was taken. The experienced
debater knows that facts which seem incontrovertible
when he is making up his case will in some way during
an argument occasionally become an issue. In connec-
tion with apparently indisputable facts, Burke frequent-
ly referred in his speech upon Conciliation to the jour-
nals of the House, giving volume, month, and year. A
constant reference to authority, it should be said, has
a good effect upon the judges, by increasing their con-
fidence in the speaker.
(3) Description of the Authority. — When Burke was
discussing the commerce with America, in his speech
on Concihation, he stood with two accounts in his hand:
one, a comparative statement of the export trade of
England to its colonies as it stood in the year 1704 and
EVIDENCE 143
as it stood in the year 1772; the other, a statement of
the export trade of this country to its colonies alone,
as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of
England to all parts of the world (the colonies excluded)
in the year 1704. He then adds: "They are from good
vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your
table, the earher from an original manuscript of Dave-
nant, who first estabhshed the inspector-general 's office,
which has been ever since his time so abundant a source
of parliamentary information."
The Reasonableness of an Opinion. — It is not to be
overlooked that in matters of opinion the force or weight
of a cited authority rests primarily on the reasonableness
or convincingness of an opinion, and only secondarily on
the general character or reputation of the one who ex-
pressed it. The debater should be especially cautioned
against quoting a man loosely as an authority on his
side of a question without stating the authority 's expressed
reasons for the position ascribed to him. The following
(from the "Principles of Rhetoric," by A. S. Hill, p. 13)
will serve to illustrate the correct use of another's
opinion:
The real question is, Are the United States — so far as language
is concerned — still provinces of England, or do they constitute
a nation?
The true doctrine appears to be that expressed by the late
Edward A. Freeman, whose opinion on this point is valuable
because he was an Englishman of Englishmen. After discuss-
ing several cases in which usage differs in the two countries,
Mr. Freeman goes on to say: "One way is for the most part
as good as the other; let each side of the ocean stick to its own
way, if only to keep up those little picturesque differences which
are really a gain when the substance is essentially the same.
This same line of thought might be carried out in a crowd of
144 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
phrases, old and new, in which British and American usage
differs, but in which neither usage can be said to be in itself
better or worse than the other. Each usage is the better in
the land in which it has grown up of itself. A good British writer
and a good American writer will write in the same language
and the same dialect; but it is well that each should keep to
those little peculiarities of established and reasonable local usage
which will show on which side of the ocean he writes." *
But to say that the force of argument from author-
ity rests prunarily on the reasonableness or convincing-
ness of an opinion, and secondarily on the character or
reputation of the authority quoted, is not to state all
of the truth. An ipse dixit, for instance, will sometimes
be conclusive through its appeal to authority qua au-
thority, to habit, or to imitation.
The Danger of Partial Quotation. — In reporting evi-
dence, the debater should be especially warned against
the danger of partial quotation. It usually happens,
for instance, that an authority may be loosely "quoted
on both sides," as it is called. This is particularly true
of pubHc questions which are new, but there is no excuse
whatever for the deliberate attempt sometimes made
by debating teams to "steal" an opponent's author-
ities for one's own side. Thus, it is both improper and
hazardous for a debater to use what is really a quahfying
remark or a remark made in some special or minor part
of the discussion as if it really represented the author-
ity's true position. Pubhc men have sometunes been
flagrantly misrepresented in this way; and the honest
debater must be ever on his guard against such trickery
or carelessness, and be prepared to supply when neces-
sary the full and complete statements of the authority
1 Longman'' s Magazine, November, 1882, p. 90.
EVIDENCE 145
in question and to supply them so effectively as to secure
his opponent's downfall. Whether the cause of the
misrepresentation be studied or accidental, certainly a
debater in his preparation should be so thorough and
exact that his own authorities caimot be improperly
appropriated by an opponent without his being able to
expose by specific citation the misrepresentation.
The Card System. — The importance of system in
note- taking when gathering e\adence for a debate can
hardly be overestimated. In the thorough preparation
demanded in our intercollegiate debates, hundreds of
volumes, magazines, or periodicals must frequently be
examined, sifted, and classified. With such a mass of
material, debaters have, almost without exception,
found it necessary to adopt the use of small cards which
can be easily sorted and shifted from hand to hand.
The notes on them usually show the subject, the state-
ment of fact or opinion, name of authority, and ref-
erence, thus:
Subject
Statement Authority Reference
146 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
Exercises
The subject of brief-making, accompanied by a study
of evidence and of argument and the dehvery of at
least one oration, may well occupy the first term in a
course in debating. It should include the drawing of
three or four briefs of arguments, found in a book of
specimens, so as to develop in the student the habit of
accurate and thorough thinking, that is, through co-
ordination and subordination. The following ques-
tions on argumentative theory may be suggestive.
1. Distinguish between the following: argument,
evidence, proof; assumption, presumption; persuasion,
conviction.
2. What are the two important laws of structure?
Give the main syllogism of any two of the specimens
studied and show how they conform to these laws.
3. Define the several classes of evidence. Mention
the chief tests used in the examination of ordinary testi-
mony.
4. What important differences can you point out in
the employment of evidence in a court of law and be-
fore deliberative bodies?
5. Give the rules for the interpretation of documents.
6. Define argument, and (a) show how all arguments
in their final analysis and when carried to completion
will involve an inference from the complex relations of
association, resemblance or contrast, particular and
general, and cause and effect.
7. What, in your opinion, is the relative importance
of observation and inference in reasoning about ordinary
affairs? {b) Show that sign argument may vary in force
from slight probability to certainty. Illustrate.
EVIDENCE 147
8. When may a cited case be said to be relevant to
a matter under inquiry? Illustrate, (c) Mention the
most common fallacies in the use of argument from
example. Illustrate.
9. Indicate the important steps which may be em-
ployed in the process of arguing from example.
10. Show the use of the redudio ad ahsurdum, made
by Mansfield in the "Evans Case," by Macaulay on
"Copyright," or by Beecher when speaking at Liver-
pool. Give an effective way of answering the reductio
ad ahsurdum cited.
11. From the specimens studied, give an illustration
of the development by the speaker of a common gromid
as a basis for argument to people hostile in their mental
attitude.
12. Describe, as far as possible, the method you would
naturally follow in getting a person to change his mind.
After brief-drawing and argumentative theory have
been sufficiently stressed, there should be pro\aded ample
opportunity for practice in actual debates, in which the
student is permitted to draw his own material from
varied sources. This practice accompanied by a study
of presentation may well occupy the second term of a
college year.
The questions may be posted at the beginning of
the term and debaters assigned to them from week to
week; a reading-room set apart in the university library,
and the reference librarian requested to place every
Monday on the shelves all material necessary for an
intelhgent investigation and discussion of the question
under debate for that week. In this Hbrary room the
debaters may be given an hour for preliminary con-
ference in groups with the instructor in charge. The
148 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
material is then carefully examined, and the case for
the affirmative and negative analyzed and distributed
among the speakers, each speaker being given a central
idea, fundamental to the case, and told to image it ef-
fectively on the minds of his audience. There should
be no requirement of a formal brief from the speakers
in this debate, but rather a dependence placed on previous
systematic training in brief-drawing. Every encourage-
ment should be given for original and individual think-
ing.
Obviously, good debating means the ability to think
on one's feet and to talk quietly to an audience, an-
ticipating objections and answering them, conciliating
rather than antagonizing, in order to secure approval.
The debater must speak extemporaneously in rebuttal;
he should also be required to do so in his first speech.
For this purpose, special supplementary exercises in
extempore speaking are sometimes found advantageous.
In a literary society or a class of a dozen men, a list
of topics on current events may be gathered from the
head-lines of the morning paper, or from a weekly or a
monthly magazine, and numbered in order. At the
meeting, the presiding officer may call upon a member
to speak, whereupon the clerk announces the topic after
the speaker has taken the floor. The clerk, of course,
announces each topic, in the order in which it appears
on the list. By organizing the class into a congress or
other deHberative body for the discussion of resolutions,
familiarity may also be had with the rules of parlia-
mentary law. Always following a debate, a vote should
be taken first on the merits of the debate, and then the
resolution should be thrown open for general discussion,
and finally voted up or down. All members of the class
EVIDENCE 149
other than the assigned debaters, usually six, are re-
quired to hand in a brief on the question to be debated.
This adds interest to the general discussion on the merits
of the question.
This actual practice in speaking should, of course, be
accompanied by a study in presentation, stress being
laid on the imagination and also on suggestion, volun-
tary and involuntary, conscious and subconscious, as
being essential and logical elements in the development
of the process of effective thinking. In other words,
the aim is to develop, first, logical accuracy and sound
thinking, and afterward the other qualities, imaginative,
rhetorical, and practical, and always in connection with
a valuable subject-matter. Debate lends itself peculiarly
to educational purposes because it demands of a man
that in self-defense he think soundly and effectively
under fire.
PART II
THE PRESENTATION
CHAPTER VI
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT
Whether the means or aims are those of description,
narration, exposition, or argument, the chief problem
in conveying our ideas to others is one of imaginative
suggestion.
Suggestion is the broadest term used to describe the
act of influencing others, whether spontaneous or de-
liberate, by word or by gesture. Any act mental or
physical used to awaken or to direct in others mental or
physical activity is suggestion. This implies, of course,
that thinking always involves molecular or physical
changes.
Imagery, too, has a pecuUar power as an agent of
suggestion upon the attention, interest, sympathy, and
thinking of an audience, over its mental activity, its
processes, conclusions, and actions.
I. Need of Imagination in Argument
Great progress has been made in the development
of public speaking in the last few years. A more pleasing
and more durable edifice is being artistically built on
the old logical, rhetorical, and elocutionary foundations,
in accordance with newly recognized vital principles;
150
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 151
and we are, I think, coming to see more clearly both
the need of developing the imagination of the speaker
and the way to do it. There arise before us new vistas
in investigation, knowledge, and methods. Important
explorations have already been made, and good ore is
being found and reduced to practical use. There is,
first of all, need of a new emphasis in the training of
the imagination of the student of argument and debate.
Since all language is, of course, only suggestive, and
since argument at best is unaginatively suggestive (since
it is impossible to argue without assumption) , one cannot
but feel the danger, to certain types of students, which
would result from too formal processes of reasoning.
For instance, the model of a brief-form made by older
men may be held up by us before younger minds for
emphasis of the rational basis of conviction, to give an
idea of the need of firmness of structure, to illustrate
the logical characteristics of unity and sequence; but
shears and measuring- tape are needed in fitting the suit
of the older son to his next younger brother. Indeed,
the theory of argumentation, as laid down in some of
our text-books, is at times unsuited to college classes, in
which the students are unacquainted with inductive
processes, unused to making careful generalizations and
comparisons, and have had no earher courses, for ex-
ample, in logic or philosophy, or no large background of
knowledge upon which to draw. And does not the sepa-
rate treatment of "persuasion" smack of the ancient
teaching that the mind is a series of water-tight com-
partments? At all events, such compendiums of "prin-
ciples" or "elements" are of value only in the hands
of an experienced instructor, who, in using them, takes
account of the fact that they are not adapted to persons
152 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
of all ages, nor indeed to all types of mind. Charles
Lamb remarked of Scotsmen that he had been trying
all his life to like them, but had given it up in despair.
Principles, methods, and forms should be taught only
in so far as they are readily assimilable by the student,
and are used with freedom and enthusiasm in parallel
original work in writing and speaking. The university
witj Nicholas Udall, of Eton, wrote a play, modelled
after Plautus, called " Ralph Royster Doyster," the first
EngUsh comedy. Two younger gentlemen of the Inner
Temple, Norton and Sackville, presented before Queen
Elizabeth a play called "Gorboduc," patterned after
Seneca, and now venerated as the first English tragedy.
But, valuable as this classic influence was, no one would
think of sa5ang that without the addition of the more
original imaginative or romantic elements we could ever
have had a consummate expression of life in Elizabethan
drama, such as was reached in Shakespeare's plays. It
is a long time now since Professor Baker of Harvard
separated argumentation from the older rhetorics and
performed a great service by giving it distinct and sepa-
rate prominence as a form of composition. The older
rhetorics, from which it was taken, have long since passed
away, chiefly because they did not allow for individuality
in men. Argumentative formalism has survived the
longest, partly because the theory is the hardest to per-
fect, and partly because of the desire to recognize the
supremacy of reason in influencing afifairs in the world.
We should welcome to-day the serious efforts being
made by what may be called the new psychological
school of expression. It not only opens a stimulating
field of thought and investigation, but bids fair to suc-
ceed where the older methods failed, namely, in allow-
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 153
ing for individual growth and development. I believe,
in particular, in the opportunity which this line of
thought offers to the student of argument; for, while
it recognizes reason as a stabilizing force, it teaches
clearly that man is not to be reached by it alone, and
that in applying the laws of reasoning for the purpose
of influencing the thoughts of others, there are deeper
considerations to be taken account of. Not that we
have not heretofore paid some heed to association and
inhibition, nor recognized the importance in expression
of attention, imagination, memory, and feeling; but
never before have we reahzed so fully the value of the
psychological elements and at the same time possessed
sufficient and accurate data for their effective exploita-
tion. Or, again, recognizing the constant diversification
of the attention of indi\'iduals in modern Hfe, and the
ease with which our consciousness may be flooded with
feelings on matters of principle or of interest or of no
consequence at all — with or against our wills — or re-
calling the different memory associations of different
men, we perceive at once how valuable to the trained
student of argument or debate is that illmiiinating emi-
nence of \'iew-point which enables him to see his field
anew in the clear air of imaginative suggestion. We
should never forget, too, that the iinagination is the
vanguard, the pioneer of all progress in the world, of
which reason is only the explanation. It has, I think,
been sufiiciently shown heretofore that reason does not
exist apart from, and cannot proceed independently of,
the imagination; and perhaps I may add that there is
an abstract as well as a concrete imagery. Mathematics,
for instance, is as much imaginative as it is intellectual.
It is a distinct gain for the thinking and for the power
154 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
of expression of the student of argument when he learns,
for instance, to image a concept in its relations; that is,
with its implications, whether the purpose be coldly to
explain or warmly to impress. Certainly he must learn
to see the content in the form and the form in the
content, the part in the whole and the whole in the part,
the means in the end and the end in the means, the prin-
ciple in the fact and the fact in the principle, cause in
effect and effect in cause, similitude in example-, and
the reverse. Imagination, indeed, is a Kght shining from
afar which beckons us on; reason is the road built by
an engineer to enable us safely to reach it. It is subject
to error, of course, may prove an ignis fatuus; but so,
too, may the intellect. And, finally, inasmuch as lan-
guage is a chief medium of expression employed in argu-
ment, the words which are used as symbols must be
symbohc of something, must be suggestive of meaning
to the persons addressed. The teacher of argument
should thus be, not a mere mental undertaker, but an
inspiration to original creative thinking and revealing*.
This is the high meaning of the word "educo."
From what has been said, it is apparent that the
debater may examine with profit the psychological point
of view from which an argument may be regarded, and
the processes through which the imagination functions
in a well-presented argument, as well as the various
imagery types.
II. Psychological View-Point and Processes
The Logical and the Psychological. — Perhaps we may
see even more clearly the dift'erence between the logical
and the psychological view-points from which an argu-
ment may be regarded if we examine such a passage
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 155
as the foIlo^^-ing from Hall Caine commenting on Presi-
dent Wilson's "Peace Without Victory" address to
the United States Senate:
President Wilson probably knows by this time that the first
expression of French and British opinion on his speech to the
Senate has been that of scarcely disguised disdain.
He has no reason to be seriously troubled on that account.
So bold a challenge could hardly have failed of any other imme-
diate effect. From the days of Joseph downward ridicule has
been the first heritage of all exalted dreamers.
The dreamer is the marked victim of what is called the prac-
tical mind. The loftier the theme and the more idealistic the
form the easier the play of satire. The world has never thought
it a proof of genius, even in the works of men of genius, to
make sport of the Angel Gabriel or of yet the Blessed Trinity;
on the contrary, it has often found proof of sublimity in the
ideas that have excited derision. It was the exaltation as well
as the excess of Euripides which created Aristophanes. Warmth
and glow of mind and heart are a natural challenge to icy na-
tures. When red-hot iron is plunged into freezing water it al-
ways goes off with a hiss. Let President Wilson take heart
from the first reception of his remarkable speech. — {N. Y. Times,
January 24, 1917.)
Logically, the writer shows why the President "should
take heart from the first reception of his remarkable
speech." He argues that from the days of Joseph down-
ward, ridicule has been the first heritage of all exalted
dreamers, for, indeed, the dreamer is the marked victim
of the practical mind. He applies the reductio ad ah-
surdum to the case of the Angel Gabriel and of that of
the Blessed Trinity, and then cites directly the fact
that Aristophanes is due to the exaltation of Euripides.
He has made his point by examples or, if you like, in-
ductively, by bringing instances under a class, and he
156 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
has made it causally, by showing that an exaltation of
mind creates exalted results.
Psychologically, however, the passage may be re-
garded as imaging the concept of the world's view of
the "exalted dreamer" by bringing forward a few
chosen portraits from the gallery of memory. True,
there is here no fulness of descriptive detail, no richness
of epithet, but in the act of associating a league of peace
with the Angel Gabriel and the Blessed Trinity, the
writer has fixed the attention startlingly on the exalta-
tion of dreaming and set the mind to thinking on the
inconsistency and the limitations of that t3^e of mind
which scoffs at a world league of peace. The other
memory picture, that of Euripides and Aristophanes, is
not so rich in ideal association, but it fixes attention on
a more definite and a nearer conclusion, namely, that
an exaltation of mind may produce fortunate results.
In the concluding sentences we will notice, too, the vivid-
ness and force due to the perceptual and emotional ap-
peals- in such phrases or words as "warmth and glow,"
"icy nature," "red-hot iron," "plunged," "freezing
water," "goes off," "a hiss."
An argument viewed as a logical process has been
said to be one of sign, example, or analogy, causation,
and classification. As a psychological process, it is a
concept imaged on the attention with its proper im-
pHcations and in its readily recognized relations. The
logical relations thus employed in the imagery of argu-
ment, therefore, may be causal; general or abstract as
well as particular or concrete; exemplative or analogical;
and, indeed, sometimes so simple or minute as to be un-
analyzed, or so complex or elusive as to be almost un-
jinalyzable. Broadly speaking, the myriads of minute
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 157
elements which go to make up the background of an
argument and give it its general tone or character, and
which are before the mind of the creative artist but an
instant in the act of writing or speaking, are mere ac-
companiments or associations and may be regarded as
reasonings from sign. They emphasize to us the im-
portance of little things, and contribute immeasurably
to the argument by imparting to it a sense of complete-
ness, richness, and reality.
Images Are a Psychological Inference. — We may use
the temi psychological inference to apply to any in-
ference which depends for its cognizance upon other
states of consciousness than the logical reason. Thus
an imaged statement offered as a reason supphes a ground
of psychological inference, for it makes the idea per-
ceptual. So Lincoln argues against slavery that it
"closed the door of hope." It may also appeal to
memory and feehng. So President Wilson speaking for
preparedness, emphasizing the spiritual over the com-
mercial, said: "We do not hang a yardstick over the
mantelpiece, but we do hang a musket, for somehow it
is associated with the lad's sacrifice and has come to
be revered in the family." When the debater offers a
reason for a proposition phrased in vivid imagery, it is
usually a conclusion which he has previously reached
by careful methods of investigation and by sound logical
processes.
We are morally justified in the use of psychological
inference for such ideas as we may regard as having
been previously proved or which are profoundly believed
to be true and valuable. We rightly condemn the
demagogue for his insincerity, but for any sound be-
lief sincerely held, we may unhesitatingly and will al-
158 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
most instinctively seek support by appealing to per-
ception, feeling, and memory to assist the thinking.
Psychological inference is really the process of making
a logical inference psychological. If logical inference
be regarded as necessarily involving the class idea, psy-
chological inference is an intuitive perception. It differs
from logical inference in the fact that, at the time and
so far as we are then conscious, the process is immediate
rather than mediate. The syllogism is a mediate infer-
ence; that is, from one proposition to another by means
of a third. The immediate process, on the other hand,
takes the character of a mental flash. Effective argument,
indeed, may be described as a mental process of which
imagination is the major premise, perception the minor
premise, and common sense the ground of inference.
By common sense is meant the perception of nature as
it is, by a person of well-balanced mind.
Mental Processes. — The debater will perhaps under-
stand better the nature of some of the processes which
he employs if we note a few simple distinctions made
by psychologists in elementary terms: First, the psy-
chologist distinguishes between the reproductive and
the productive imagination. The reproductive imag-
ination is really memory, for it actually repeats what
was formerly in consciousness; while the productive
imagination contains images "not before in our minds
in their present order and form." This makes possible
the artistic character of literary composition. The
imagination of poets, novelists, and orators is productive,
or, as the artists call it, creative.
Second, the psychologist distinguishes between an
image and an idea. " So far," says Angell, " as we have
in mind the sensuous content of a thought, as, for ex-
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 159
ample, its \asual or auditory character, we use the term
image. So far as we wish to emphasize in addition to
or in distinction from this fact of sensuous constitution
the purport, significance, or meaning of an image, we
use the term idea. Images merely represent on the
cognitive side the more substantive moments in the
onward outflow of consciousness." So Jaques images
his idea of Hfe in — "All the world's a stage."
A third distinction of the psychologist is that made
between an image and a perception; the latter being
the "consciousness of a particular material thing pres-
ent to sense," while an image is the consciousness of a
thing not present to sense. We perceive a star or a flower
which is actually before the eye: it rises before the con-
sciousness later as an image. The poet perceives a sun-
rise, but, being a creative artist, he images it thus:
"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain- tops."
Obviously, imagery is both conceptual and perceptual.
Either characteristic may be exaggerated and abused
by an orator or debater. If it is too ideational, the
audience will miss the meaning; if too sensory, it will
possess no meaning.
The Creative Imagination. — Ruskin makes the art
process in general depend on the eye, the head, and the
hand, which Bliss Perry renders for poetry into vision,
transforming imagination, and expression. The imagery
of our best prose, too, is the result of real vision and crea-
tive power in the image-making process. Vision, that
is, perception, whether conducted by external observa-
tion and selection, or by introspection, suppHes material
IGO THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
from an individual's own experiences, which the asso-
ciative processes of his mind transmute, through imagery
and suggestion, into forms of memorable beauty.
Illustration. — Professor Goodrich cites the following
as "one of the finest amplifications in English oratory,
justified by the importance of the subject which it em-
braces and admirably suited to produce the designed
impression." The central idea was probably suggested
by a remark of Burke, whose writings Mr. Erskine in-
cessantly studied: "It is the nature of all greatness not
to be exact." Defending Stockdale from the charge
of hbel, and seeing the evils of a too great restriction
on the press, Erskine said:
From minds thus subdued by the terrors of punishment there
could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human
reason. ... It is the nature of everything that is great and
useful, both in the animate and inanimate world, to be wild
and irregular, and we must be contented to take them with the
alloys which belong to them, or live without them. Genius
breaks from the fetters of criticism, but its wanderings are sanc-
tioned by its majesty and wisdom when it advances in its path;
subject it to the critic and you turn it into dulness. . . . Tem-
pests occasionally shake our dwellings and dissipate our com-
merce, but they scourge before them the lazy elements, which
without them would stagnate into pestilence. In Hke manner,
liberty herself, the last and best gift of God to his creatures, must
be taken just as she is; you might pare her down to bashful
regularity and shape her into a perfect model of severe scrupulous
law, but she would then be liberty no longer; you must be con-
tent to die under the lash of this inexorable justice which you
have exchanged for the honor of freedom.
The Poverty of Mere Facts. — "It would not be a bad
conjecture but an obvious truism," says WilHam Haz-
litt, "to say that all the great changes which have been
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 161
brought about in the moral world, either for the better
or the worse, have been introduced not by the bare state-
ment of facts which are themselves already known and
which must always operate nearly in the same manner,
but by the development of certain opinions and abstract
principles of reasoning on life and manners, on the origin
of society and man's nature in general, which being
obscure and uncertain, vary from time to time and pro-
duce correspondent changes in the hmnan mind. They
are the wholesome dew and rain, or the mildew and
pestilence that silently destroy. To this principle of
generalization all religious creeds, the institutions of
wise lawgivers, and the systems of philosophy owe their
influence."
There are moments in the great debates when the
orator feels impelled to go beyond the precise mechanics
of logic and express the instincts of the race, or of in-
dividuals, which will hght the fires of understanding
and kindle the common enthusiasm and beliefs of hu-
manity. Reduction of reasoning to mere genus and
species by palpable facts is utterly fruitless without a
manifestation of the insight of the soul into the wider
spaces of the imagination which point, as unerringly
as the needle of the compass, because guided by the
subconscious, the involuntary — by instinct, if you like-
by whatever goes to make up truth and behef. The
mere logician would depreciate all this with the phrase,
"Mere imagery," but we must speak with intuition as
well as with precision.
The Vision of New Ideas. — Perhaps one may indicate
briefly how in general new ideas come into the mind.
The law of association has been defined as the tendency
of ideas which have been in the mind together to come
162 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
up together, but we have seen that the imagination is
more than memory associations; we have the sugges-
tions of new images. The imagination is continually-
offering to consciousness the sensations, experiences,
and reactions from new stimuli, or from old stimuU in
new circumstances. From the slightest subconscious
hint, the mind may perceive an image which will incline
it in a new direction, and which if followed intently and
with determination, may result in discovery, uivention,
and progress. All such experiences have been called by
psychologists anticipation images.
Anticipation Images. — Thus, while it is of course true
that images bring back past memory associations, it is
equally true that presentations are constantly arising
in consciousness as images, which find their way event-
ually into new combinations of value and interest. Crea-
tive art also is the result of the suggestion of new images.
New images depend on the laws of suggestion.
The mind is constantly obliged to sail uncharted seas
for an unknown, imagined port. The western voyages
of Columbus, the Cabots, and Verrazzano, or the search
for an earthly paradise which occupied the thoughts
of the Middle Ages, are paralleled daily in the h3^oth-
esis of the scientific investigator, the plans for new
enterprises in business, and the ambitions, aims, hopes,
and expectations of the average man in the smallest
affairs of life. Rely upon past experience we must, in
testing and perfecting all new ideas; otherwise, we shall
go astray and be lost in the quagmires of fancy and false-
hood. Columbus, for instance, when saiUng for the
western world used the sailing ships of his day and all
the knowledge of navigation with which astrology and
superstition could provide him. But he had a vision,
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 163
a purpose, a hope, which enabled him from Genoa to
see "land"; a land, moreover, which he was determined
to see, and which he so ardently desired to see that he
was willing to bear any burden of sacrifice that would
enable him to experience the joy of accomplishing it.
Perhaps, indeed, the original suggestion to make the
voyage came to liim from Marco Polo. The world is
full of such adventurous spirits in every field, to whom
the vision of a new idea is more real than the known and
familiar objects of perception.
The debater, too, intently pursues his vision (be it the
reform of prisons or the success of our army) until he
moulds the fleeting suggestions which come before his
mind into the single image of a well-defined, construc-
tive plan. He pursues his vision further, and employs
the imagery of words to express this plan so suggestively
to others that tliey will perceive it, believe in it, and
perhaps be willing to act upon it.
Perceptual Aspect of Imagery. — The perceptual aspect
of imagery may always be pointed out with profit to
that type of mind which is accustomed to generaliza-
tions and to abstractions, as, for example, to students
of mathematics and philosophy. Moreover, an appre-
ciation of this fundamental basis of imagery often needs
to be awakened anew in debaters who have worked as-
siduously on the logic and fonn of a brief or have spent
much time in the Hbrary. A boat in the trough of the
sea may not observe the stars. Effectiveness in speak-
ing usually means the bringing of our ideas within the
listener's experience or life. I shall now show that an
important part of this imaging process involves psy-
chologically, the reduction of our ideas to sense-percep-
tion.
164 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
We recognize the value of the concrete or the partic-
ular in driving home an argument, but we do not under-
stand fully the nature of the process. We do not suf-
ficiently realize, for instance, that the function of the
concrete or particular in driving home an argument is
to bring it before the senses of the hstener, and that it
is this sensory appeal of imagery which gives it its clear-
ness and force.
Language itself is of course primarily a perception;
auditory when it greets the ear as sounds, visual when
it strikes the eye as sights, as, for example, on the printed
page. But words may produce other sensations than
the purely auditory or the purely visual, for we may
speak or write of a Jwt day, a fragrant rose, a luscious
apple, and so on. Thus words or phrases ma}^ suggest
the sensations of past tactile, olfactory, gustatory, or
other experiences. The Hterary artist, in his endeavor
to create in another a consciousness of things not ac-
tually present to sense, recognizes this and makes in-
directly a varied sensory appeal.
No image, however, should be expected to bring to
mind the same perception in all individuals, but the
perceptual character of hnagery may be illustrated a
little further, at least suggestively. Portia's appeal in
behalf of Bassanio begins: "The quality of mercy is
not strained." Take the word "quality"; a word in
my mind opposed to quantity, which I know about
concretely either by observation or by the feeling of
touch, as when I speak of the quality of a piece of cloth.
The image "quality of mercy" may therefore be re-
garded by some, as visual and tactile. "Is not strained"
suggests remotely the absence of muscular energy. Its
falling "like the gentle rain from heaven" brings a pic-
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 165
ture to my eyes of things in motion but falling silently.
The second line is therefore to me visual and auditory
in its suggestions. "It is twice blessed" brings before
me the picture of a minister or bishop holding out his
hands in benediction. "It blesses him that gives and
him that takes" fills in the picture by adding the two
objects of tlie benediction. " 'Tis mightiest in the
mighty. It becomes the throned monarch better than
his crown," suggests the prerogative of the King in exer-
cising the pardoning power as prominently illustrated
later by King James's pardon of Sir Francis Bacon. You
probably did not recall the particular material things
which this imagery suggested to me, you may even have
assigned some of the images to different senses; but you
will admit the suggestiveness of the imagery, and the
vividness, and force, of its varied sense-appeal.
Or turn to another well-known illustration and ex-
amine its sense-suggestions, "Well, honor is the sub-
ject of my story" — an indirect suggestion to give ear
to the tale. "I was born free as Caesar. We both have
fed as well," brings a picture to the eye with a distinct
gustatory imphcation. "For once upon a raw and gusty
day" instances the comparison concretely; but notice
that the adjectives "raw and gusty," used to describe
the day, contain in the first case, a tactile suggestion
and in the second case, auditory and visual suggestions,
and perhaps even muscular force. " Caesar cried, 'Barest
thou, Cassius, now leap in with me?'" — obviously audi-
tory and visual. In such wise does Shakespeare com-
monly express his thoughts with concrete details and
image them with a varied and indirect suggestiveness
of sensory appeal.
Obviously, imagery rests on a past sense-perception.
166 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
and its power is conditioned by its ability to recall to
the eye or ear the sensations experienced when past
particular, material things were in some order or form
previously before the senses. Indeed, an artistic image
produces the illusion of a real perception, and the artist
in his enthusiasm may actually so regard it. Henry
Ward Beecher, for instance, once spoke of a diamond
sceptre, and, on being reminded later that no diamond
had been found as large as a sceptre, replied: *'I saw it."
Imaging a Concept. — We have said that since objects
and things to which ideas refer cannot always be pres-
ent to the senses, we are in the habit of callmg them to
consciousness by suggesting the image of our ideas with
its natural associations. The image-making process is
therefore a process of reducing abstract or general ideas
to sense-perception. It has a basis in feeling as well as
in memory and furnishes the true method of gaining
interest and attention as well as of producing convic-
tion and belief.
General or abstract ideas make little impression on the
average mind accustomed to think in particulars and
by means of comparisons. All such ideas need to be
brought within the listener's experience and imaged con-
cretely. The more conceptual an audience is, the more
abstract or general may be the presentation, but even
with educated audiences we gain in interest by the spe-
cific, concrete, detailed, illustrative methods of imagery.
The debater must learn, if he does not know it al-
ready, that he will be dry and uninteresting if he re-
stricts himself when speaking to processes which are
as purely formal as those of his brief. He must know,
for instance, that he may quite properly make use of
exposition, narration, or description when appealing to
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 167
grounds of belief or to motives of action. He should
recall Lincoln's story-telling habit, his graphic descrip-
tive powers, and his lucid expositions. How ineffective,
indeed, would Lincoln have been in his debates with
Douglas had he presented his arguments in an unimag-
inative or purely logical way! Webster was called the
Great Expounder, it being said of him that his very
exposition was argument. Nothing is more erroneous
than the idea that an argument must always be in an
argumentative form. Even a talk may be adorned with
a moral. Woodrow Wilson, for instance, uses an apt
anecdote in a dignified Phi Beta Kappa address. Ob-
serve also the suggestive power of Colonel Roosevelt's
analogy of "The Man with a Muckrake." The argu-
mentative process should be obvious, but not tiresomely
obtrusive.
We may regard any proposition (process or conclu-
sion) as a concept for the purposes of imagery. We
may also regard "affection and desire" as a concept
and image that. Let us, then, illustrate the imaging
(i) of an analogy, (2) of a cause, (3) of a conclusion,
and (4) of affection and desire; (5) in a team debate
and (6) in general.
I. Imaging an Analogy. — The trained mind of Alex-
ander Hamilton, arguing on the adoption of the federal
constitution at the New York convention of 1788, per-
ceived a likeness in the strong attachment of the in-
dividual for the State to certain social and physical facts
which he imaged thus:
There are certain social principles from which we may draw
the most solid conclusions with respect to the conduct of in-
dividuals and of communities. We love our families more than
our neighbors; we love our neighbors more than our country-
168 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
men in general. The human affections like the solar heat lose
their intensity as they depart from the centre and become languid
in proportion to the expansion of the circle on which they act.
On these principles, the attachment of the individual will be
first and forever secured by the State governments; they will
be a mutual protection and support.
2. Imaging a Cause. — The process of imaging the
relation of cause and effect or of motive to deed may
be illustrated by Hugo's description of the circumstances
of poverty and struggle which made Jean Valjean steal
the loaf of bread. The argument is, that a hungry man
will steal; that Jean Valjean was hungry; therefore he
burglarized the baker's shop.
Toward the middle of the night, Jean Valjean awoke. He
belonged to a poor peasant family of La Brie. ... At night he
came home tired, and ate his soup without saying a word. His
sister, Mother Jeanne, while he was eating, often took out of
his porringer the best part of his meal, the piece of meat, the
slice of bacon, or the heart of the cabbage to give to one of her
children; he, still eating, bent over the table with his head al-
most in the soup, and his long hair falling around his porringer
and hiding his eyes, pretended not to see it, and let her do as
she pleased. . . . One Sunday evening, Maubert Isabeau, the
baker in the church square at FaveroUes, was just going to bed
when he heard a violent blow dealt the wired and glazed front
of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed through
a hole made by a fist through the wires and window-pane; the
arm seized a loaf and carried it off. Isabeau ran out hastily;
the thief ran away at his hardest, but the baker caught him
up and stopped him. The thief had thrown away the loaf, but
his arm was still bleeding; it was Jean Valjean. . . . Jean
Valjean was sentenced to five years at the galleys.
In the following, the writer is endeavoring to image
the evil efects of cigarette smoking in connection with
its cause:
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT IGO
Have you ever seen a white, puny, stunted youngster, whose
anaemic face has aroused the question why? Nicotine is like
an evil, yellow god, which eats into the system, destroying the
sensitive nerve-cells and life-giving vitality. Its use is prev-
alent in the form of cigarettes. Here to the terrible danger of the
poisonous nicotine is added the poison carbon monoxide which
arises from the incomplete combustion of the cigarette-paper.
This poison is taken into the system by the very effective process
of osmosis. Now to answer the question why? Before the
deUcate age of twenty-one is reached, the life-giving white blood-
corpuscles are not fully developed, and when the strong nicotine-
laden smoke is inhaled, the growth of the white blood-corpuscles
(which are essential to good health) is stunted, and as a result
we see the white, puny, ansmic faces (resembling prison-walls)
of those most unfortunate and foolish youths who have started
the vitality-sapping use of tobacco before physical full develop-
ment has taken place. Thus, does the all-powerful, grasping
nicotine sap the weak vitaHty of our whelp. — {Student's Com-
position.)
3. Imaging a Conclusion. — Burke's imagery of his ad-
miration of the American character, as shown by the
growth of the whaling industries of New England, is
expressed in sublime eloquence:
As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by
their fisheries, you had aU that matter fully opened at your bar.
You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed
even to excite your envy, and yet, the spirit by which that en-
terprising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my
opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray,
sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts,
and look at the manner in which the people of New England
have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them
among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them pene-
trating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and
Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic
circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region
of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under
170 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed
too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national
ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of
their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more
discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both
the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line,
and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the
longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of
Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No cUmate
that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of
Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm
sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous
mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed
by this recent people; a people who are still, as it were, but in
the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone, of manhood.
When I contemplate these things; when I know that the colonies
in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that
they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints
of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a
wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered
to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these
effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel
all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom
of human contrivances melt, and die away within me. My
rigor relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
Mr. Charles Kendall Adams points out that this pas-
sage is based on substantial facts. "Massachusetts had
183 vessels carrying 13,820 tons in the North, and 120
vessels carrying 14,025 tons in the South. It was in
1775, the very year of Burke's speech, that English ships
were first fitted out to follow the Americans into the
fisheries of the South Seas."
Thus, our best arguments are usually illuminated
judgments tempered with feeling. In debating, we
frequently illustrate this process in our first speeches,
leaving it to the rebuttal speeches to supply, when nee-
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 171
essary, the statistical facts previously gathered during
our investigations and tested in practice debates. For
example, in a debate on preparedness according to the
Swiss plan subsequently mentioned, the size of the army
of 11,000,000 men and the small cost of such an army
were imaged at length in the first speeches. These con-
cepts, however, were conclusions which had been pre-
viously derived from painstaking investigations. Their
further justification, if necessary, was left to the work
of rebuttal. Debaters should learn that audiences,
though they expect accuracy, do not take kindly to
dull statistics or needless facts. All imaged concepts
which are conclusions from previous investigations must
of course be logical reasons for believing in the main
proposition.
A timely illustration may be found in a passage from
Fisher Ames, setting forth in sympathetic language the
sanctity of treaties:
What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot
where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread
entitled to this ardent preference because they are greener?
No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher
for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the
enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments
of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because
they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the
array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our coun-
try's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and
cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing
to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious that he gains pro-
tection while he gives it. For, what rights of a citizen will be
deemed inviolable when a state renounces the principles that
constitute their security? Or if his Hfe should not be invaded,
what would its enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of
strangers and dishonored in his own? Could he look with affec-
172 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
tion and veneration to such a country as his parent ? The sense
of having one would die within him; he would blush for his
patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be a vice.
He would be a banished man in his native land. I see no ex-
ception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of
good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened period when
it is violated, there are none when it is decried. It is the phi-
losophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed
by barbarians — a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads,
gives not merely binding force but sanctity to treaties. Even
in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money, but when ratified,
even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its
obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor
the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a
nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resur-
rection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice
could live again, collect together and form a society, they would,
however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice,
that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of their
state. They would perceive, it was their interest to make others
respect, and they would therefore soon pay some respect them-
selves, to the obligations of good faith.
4. Imaging Affection and Desire. — Just as concepts
may be regarded as generalized percepts, so the emo-
tions may be regarded as generalized feelings or sen-
sations. There are, of course, intuitive ideas such as
religious feelings, but all concepts, whether emotional
or intellectual and in whatever way derived, may be
suggestively imaged. Concepts such as joy, sorrow,
hope, mercy, love, have so decided an emotional con-
notation that they are commonly regarded as emotional
concepts, but even they may be imaged intellectually.
Everything of importance in experience, over which
men differ and about which they argue, has a basis in
human feelings and human wants. It is almost impos-
sible to eliminate our feelings and wishes when arguing
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 173
on matters of conduct or policy. For example, Webster's
argument for the Union was not only a constitutional
justification of his position, but an appeal to the grow-
ing desire of the people to become a nation. LikcAvise,
in the debate on S%\'iss preparedness for America alluded
to above, both sides admitted and made incidental
appeal to the feeling for an adequate defense of America.
Too often, however, we image our likes and dislikes in
a self-deceived rationalism. We are so constituted that
it often seems that all that is needed to secure support
for a proposition is a reasoned groundwork for a de-
sired action. A mere bauble dangled before the eyes
of a child will prompt the desire to reach for it. What
we feel an impulse to do, we are apt to feel is justified
in reason; what we like, we are apt to approve; what
we dislike, to disapprove. And so an argument is pre-
sented for approval and disapproval. At all events,
the coincidence of reason and desire may be needed to
secure a fully satisfied judgment and a confident ac-
tion. Argument may exist without desire, it cannot
exist without reason. Argument is primarily intellec-
tual in aim and method.
Daniel Webster's address to the supreme court of
Massachusetts in 1817, in defense of the Kennistons, is
noted for its simplicity and vital directness of style.
The following extract contains only a few words of
slight emotional suggestion:
From the time of the robbery to the arrest, five or six weeks,
the defendants were engaged in their usual occupations. They
are not found to have passed a dollar of money to anybody.
They continued their ordinary habits of labor. No man saw
money about them, nor any circumstance that might lead to a
suspicion that they had money. Nothing occurred tending in
174 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
any degree to excite suspicion against them. When arrested, and
when all this array of evidence was brought against them, and
when they could hope in nothing but their innocence, immunity
was offered them again if they would confess. They were
pressed, and urged, and allured, by every motive which could
be set before them, to acknowledge their participation in the
offense, and to bring out their accompUces. They steadily pro-
tested that they could confess nothing because they knew noth-
ing. In defiance of all the discoveries made in their house, they
have trusted to their innocence. On that, and on the candor
and discernment of an enlightened jury, they still rely.
It is in the perorations of arguments or debates, how-
ever, that we usually find emotional concepts imaged
with undisguised directness for the purpose of awakening
feeling and securing action— e. g., the desire for hap-
piness, the wish to avoid unhappiness, the hope of suc-
cess, the dread of failure, or the binding obUgations of
duty — all, of course, as appHcable to the thesis attacked
or defended. An illustration from a modem jury ad-
dress may perhaps be taken as typical. After analyzing
the evidence and recapitulating with great clearness,
Mr. Henry L. CHnton concluded thus:
Gentlemen, I have now discharged my duty— my duty to
my cHent, my duty to you, my duty to my own conscience. The
responsibility of this case is with you. Do your duty. There
is no enjoyment so great, no consolation so sweet, as the con-
sciousness of duty performed. With entire confidence I commit
my client to your hands. Though you obey the stern behests
of duty and acquit him promptly, you cannot undo the injury
done him through the instrumentality of that wife whose vows
at the holy altar to love and honor him he fondly believed would
guide her, as he determined that his vows should guide him,
until death. Hereafter, though he may live a Hfe of spotless
purity, though he may practise every virtue known to man,
though in aU the relations of life he be without fault, or the
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 175
semblance of fault — in a word, though his whole future life be
the incarnation of every excellence, of even absolute moral per-
fection, yet hereafter his enemies will be too ready to proclaim
that his wife charged him with this crime, and that he was tried
upon the charge. And, gentlemen, let it be added that a jury
of twelve upright, intelligent, conscientious citizens of West-
chester County, mindful of their oaths to render a true verdict
according to the evidence, pronounced him "Not Guilty!"
5. Imaging in a Team Debate. — In the training of a
debating team, the case may be first separated into
several main ideas. And then after the facts are all
gathered and the arguments formulated, the real prob-
lem of presentation is— how to image most effectively
these main ideas or concepts, with essential matters of
proof, on the minds of the audience. With an exact
knowledge of the facts and of the work to be done by
each debater, the latter must now bridge the chasm be-
tween subjective library work and adjusted objective
presentation. He must, with all the power that imagi-
nation can siunmon, conceive his audience and apply his
technic.
If he is to present his arguments with success, he must
take special pains to image effectively his fundamental
concepts or reasons. Moreover, all imagery of such
fundamental concepts must be accurate and interesting.
They will be accurate if they are consistent with the
things to which they refer in nature, history, conduct,
or affairs, and are also consistent with one another. The
student who has carefully put his arguments into the
form of a brief, it is beUeved, will usually speak with
accuracy. His reasons are likely to be interesting if
they are really suggestive to his Usteners.
In a debate on the adoption of the Swiss military
176 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
system of compulsory service for the United States,
the negative, speaking at Princeton, imaged the absence
of any necessity for it thus :
Consider the position of Switzerland, one of the smallest of
sovereign states, with an area of about fifteen thousand square
miles — just twice the size of this State of New Jersey — with a
population less than that of our single city of New York. Switzer-
land's largest city is but half again the size of our neighboring
metropolis of Trenton. She is, moreover, surrounded by four
warlike and powerful neighbors, France, Germany, Austria,
and Italy, with a combined war strength of over eighteen million.
We are a powerful state with thirty times the population of
Switzerland. Instead of being surrounded by dangerous rivals,
we are supreme upon two continents. It is absurd to suppose
that a people so blessed by fortune in strength and location
should be forced to make sacrifices in proportion to those neces-
sary in a tiny state whose situation is as unfavorable as ours is
favorable.
The size of the vast army was imaged thus:
Under the Swiss system about eleven million would be trained
and liable to service. But the numbers are the astonishing
thing — eleven million trained men in the United States. Do
you fully grasp the enormity of these figures ? Can you conjure
up even in the wildest flight of your imagination a situation in
which we would need such a force? Do we contemplate con-
quering the world? A force this size would be larger than the
combined total trained strength of both Germany and Russia
at the outbreak of the present war. New York State alone would
have a force more than two-thirds the size of the war strength
of Japan. Illinois, eight hundred miles from any coast, would
have a force of seven hundred thousand trained men.
The affirmative endeavored to offset this by imaging
the magnitude of our ideals and of our country thus:
We are the greatest democracy in the world. Our miUtary
system must therefore be democratic in every sense of the word.
It must recognize the fundamental duty of every citizen of a
democracy to defend his nation. We are proud of the fact that
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 177
our system provides a large reserve force. We are proud be-
cause we are proud of the magnitude of our country, of her enor-
mous wealth and resources. It is idle to speak of our national
defense in terms of thousands when we have three millions of
square miles of area, one hundred millions of population, and
two hundred billions of resources. Cahfornia is three times as
large as England; all Germany could be put in Wyoming and
Colorado. We have ten thousand miles of boundary, vulnerable
at almost every point. Does the negative hope to protect such
a country with a few hundred thousand men?
Modern wars are fought in terms of millions, and nations
employ not only one army but several armies; we must face
these conditions. How does the negative expect to defend both
Boston and San Francisco against invading armies? And yet
it is quite possible that both shores will be attacked by a power-
ful alliance. How would they protect both the Canadian and
the Mexican borders, or either alone, with a few hundred thou-
sand soldiers? Your army must be either concentrated or scat-
tered; if concentrated, what enemy would be so foolish as to
attack at the point of concentration? If scattered, what sort
of resistance force could it give at the point of attack? We
must face the issue squarely; half-way measures will not do.
Modern wars are fought on a large scale; our protection must
also be on a large scale. Such protection will be much more
than preparedness for war: it will be the best possible prepara-
tion for peace.
Verily, in debate, there may be a battle of imagery
as well as of arguments. Moreover, the affirmative used
the preceding as a prelude to showing that the cost of
such an army of 11,000,000 men would not be excessive,
but would be an insurance premium of less than one-
tenth of one per cent on our two hundred billion of re-
sources. (Analogy.)
For vividness and directness, note further the imagery
of the following shorter passages:
You ask what we would think of a fire-engine which reached
a fire six months after the fire had started. That is not the ques-
178 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
tion. I ask what you would think of a fire department which
pumped water on a fire two years after the fire was out.
In fact, with conditions in the two countries so diametrically
reversed, we might just as well advocate the American plan
for the Swiss navy as the Swiss plan for the American army.
The average American does not consider digging a trench
under a blazing hot sun a recreation or a pleasure.
A sudden blow at this vital and exposed organ (New York)
might well prove fatal.
The European nations will not come forth bled white.
No eagle scream of patriotism.
Would you have American patriotism carry the millstone of
compulsory service about its neck?
In debating, an aphorism, epigram, paradox, meta-
phor — especially any vivid image of likeness or unlike-
ness — will often make extended proof unnecessary. It
may not only arrest the attention and quicken the in-
terest, but may awaken old and familiar associations,
give the mind the challenge of a new idea, flood the
consciousness with feelings, or decide the will. Mere
phrases are potent psychological instruments used by
a debater to make clear and obvious the perception of
a truth so that it can be easily understood, identified,
accepted, by a hearer and carried in memory.
6. Imaging in General. — Accuracy and interest are,
perhaps, the chief characteristics of effective imagery.
Interest is the cause of attention. Given an idea, there
is no better way of arousing interest in it than by use
of vital illustrations, no better practice for the student
than that of searching for illustrative material which
will start the Hstener's mind to tliinking in connection
with the idea advanced.
The moving scene which Lincoln draws of the grow-
ing "bondage of the negro" suggests to the mind a situa-
lAI AGINATION IN ARGUMENT 179
tion which no constitutional argument could ever con-
fute:
43-
Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows,
and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have
him in his prison-house; they have searched his person, and
left no prying instrument with him. One after another they
have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have
him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which
can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key —
the keys in the hands of a hundred different men and they
scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they
stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind
and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his
escape more complete than it is.
A narrative example of the power of imagery through
suggestion is that of the Master, in Saint Matthew:
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth
them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house
upon a rock; and the rain descended and the floods came and
the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not; for
it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth
them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his
house upon the sand; and the rain descended and the floods
came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell;
and great was the fall of it.
The images here are made more vivid through the
use of contrast and skilful repetition. The assumed
resemblances and contrast, too, are easily recognized
and accepted. Their real force, of course, is due to the
great Authority who uttered them.
"Suppose, sir," says Burke, "that the angel of this auspicious
youth (Lord Bathurst) . . . had appeared to him in vision, . . .
180 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
and should tell him: 'Young man, there is America which at this
day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage
men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death,
show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now at-
tracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been grow-
ing to ... in a series of 1700 years, you shall see as much added
to her in the course of a single life ! ' Fortunate man, he has lived
to see it."
This supposed case has no argumentative value. The
older rhetoricians would have called it vision, a figure
of emphasis. The final statement that he had "lived
to see it" brings it back to reality. Burke, you re-
member, had already cited comparative tables showing
the export trade of England and of her colonies in 1704
and in 1772.
Individual or concrete instances are often used to
make plain a general statement, and have a special in-
terest when they lie within the listener's experience:
Political economy consists simply in the production, preserva-
tion, and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful,
pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay at the right
time; the shipwright who drives his bolts well home in sound
wood; the builder who lays good bricks in well-tempered mortar;
the housewife who takes care of the furniture in her parlor, and
guards against all waste in her kitchen; and the singer who
rightly disciplines and never overstrains her voice are all polit-
ical economists in the true and final sense; adding continually
to the riches and well-being of the nation to which they be-
long. — {Ruskin.)
Finally, observe the effect of the linguistic strokes
of Senator Thurston in his speech preceding our war
with Spain. He introduces the theme — "God's force" —
by a sorites or chain of reasoning in the first three sen-
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 181
tences. Then notice how he gains something more than
unity and clearness by repeating "force" as the subject
of each clause in the second paragraph. And note par-
ticularly, how from this subject numerous and varied
illustrations radiate. No fatigue or loss of attention,
but kaleidoscopic change of thought and a gradual in-
crease of interest. When, at the end, the music and
drum-beat stop, we are left with the sensation audibly
evoked, that God is marching on:
Intervention means force. Force means war. War means
blood. But it will be God's force. When has a battle for hu-
manity and liberty ever been won except by force? What bar-
ricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried
except by force?
Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the
great Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of In-
dependence, and made effective the Emancipation Proclama-
tion; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of
the Bastille and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries
of kingly crime; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker
Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained
feet; force held the broken line at Shiloh, climbed the flame-
swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout
Heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with
Sheridan in the valley of Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory
at Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the
flag, made "niggers" men. The time for God's force has come
again. Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more
take up the song:
"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
For God is marching on."
Logic makes clear only to him who is interested and
will follow. The trouble with logic is its monotone,
182 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
which, if long continued, produces fatigue. We need
variety to rest and stimulate the attention.
Concrete suggestions, such as the imagery of speech
figures, parables, fables, allusive stories or anecdotes
used to point a moral — analogies, drawn from history,
literature, science, art, religion, or from every-day Hfe —
may be used to enrich and fertilize barren places, to
illuminate dull themes, or when occasion arises to raise
the winds like Prosper©, and if need be to cause the
waters to subside as they did at the Red Sea. An en-
cyclopaedic knowledge without the power of association,
without the impelling desire to bring facts together and
weave them into new creations for the purpose of in-
fluencing thought and action, is a pump that holds water
but does not give it out, a fourteen-inch-gun that will
not go off, a football or debating team, an army, that
goes down to defeat when it might have the power to
triumph.
The Advantage of the Conceptual View-Point to
the Debater. — The debater may regard any process or
proposition as a concept for the purpose of imagery,
and may exhibit all the arts of rhetoric when attempting
to suggest the image of a concept to the minds of his
audience.
After a thorough work in briefing, which involves a
careful analysis, discrimination, classification, and ar-
rangement of his material, the debater will often find
it of advantage to sum up the main proposition of his
speech in a single abstract word or phrase significant
of meaning to himself. In a team debate, the case as
a whole may be summed up in several such words, as,
e. g., democracy, security, permanency; causes, examples,
consequences, etc. These concepts, of course, must
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 183
contain the fundamental reasons for the proposition to
be proved, and the imaging of them must be the imaging
of fundamental reasons.
This broad conceptual view-point, moreover, should
give the debater the free hand needed for a suggestive,
imaginative, handling of his material. Confident in
the logical structure of his argument, and of his knowl-
edge of facts and material, he is less constrained in the
use of his own processes. He can also make his processes
and conclusions more perceptual to others. He can, for
instance, adjust his imagery to his audience, and to re-
sponses received while speaking, and can continue in
his imaginative suggestions until the responses noticed
indicate that his idea is understood and accepted. In
a word, the adoption of the conceptual view-point by
the logically trained student means freedom in the imag-
ing process and in adaptation; and this means effec-
tiveness. For the debater is thus enabled to give to
his logical formulas detailed or expansive content, as
occasion may require, to express his own individuality,
to introduce a sincere, natural, personal touch, and to
instil into his remarks atmosphere and reality. Facts
and logic are made to appeal to human interest in ex-
perience and consciousness.
III. Types of Imagery
We are familiar with the fact that there is a classifica-
tion of imagery made on the basis of the senses employed
(see Perceptual Aspect of Imagery, this chapter). The
types of imagery so based are considered further in
Appendix B.
In conclusion, we should note that there is also a divi-
sion of imagery based on past, present, and future.
184 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
Moreover, images of the past are of two kinds : memory
images and imagination images. Memory images call
to mind specific, actual experiences in the life of an au-
dience. All other images are products of the creative
imagination and are called imagination images of the
past, present, or future. A twenty-six-year-old general,
speaking in Italy, used Memory Images and Images of
the Future as a means of inspiring confidence, courage,
and hope in his men in the following proclamation:
Soldiers, you have, in fifteen days, gained six victories, taken
twenty-one stands of colors, fifty pieces of cannon, several forti-
fied places, made fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed or wounded
over ten thousand men. You are the equals of the conquerors
of Holland and of the Rhine. Destitute of everything, you have
supplied yourselves with everything. You have won battles
without cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced
marches without shoes, bivouacked without spirituous hquor
and often without bread. The repubhcan phalanxes, the sol-
diers of liberty, were alone capable of enduring what you
have suffered. Thanks to you, soldiers ! Your country has a
right to expect of you great things. You have still battles to
fight, cities to take, rivers to pass. Is there one amongst you
whose courage flags? One, who would prefer returning to the
sterile summits of the Apennines and the Alps, to undergo pa-
tiently the insults of that slavish soldiery? No, there is not
one such among the victors of Montenotte, of Millesimo, of
Diego and of Mondovi ! Friends, I promise you that glorious
conquest: but be the liberators of peoples, be not their scourges. ^
Not always, of course, are the emotions and will so
dominant as here with Napoleon. Indeed, a sweet
reasonableness and a quiet library calm are better
adapted to the average occasion and the mood of the
^ " The Orators of France," by Timon, translated by J. T. Headley,
p. 80.
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 185
average person. It is a better way to sell bonds or in-
surance, or to adjust the price when buying a house and
lot.
Or, we may refer in illustration to the twenty-third
Psalm. The effect of this beautiful lyric is a feeling of
sympathy with David's confidence:
1. As he recalls the contentment of green pastures (imagina-
tion image of the past).
2. As he suggests the spiritual comfort which he experiences,
with God actually present by his side. "For Thou art
with me" (immediate image), and
3. As he exclaims in Faith and Hope, "I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever" (imagination image of the
future).
The ability to suggest to the consciousness of an au-
dience scenes, events, and happenings of the past, or to
prophesy the future consequences of a proposed plan,
policy, or course of action is constantly demanded of
the debater. In the reply to Ha3aie, Webster's eulqgy
of his own State is an imagination image of the past,
while his description of the consequences of disunion
is an imagination image of the future. Indeed, whether
the image used is an image of past or future, of imagina-
tion or of memory, the debater must manifest his logical,
psychological, and artistic skill. He is more likely per-
haps to "ride the winged horse" when imaging the
future, as, for example, when he is describing in his per-
oration the consequences of the organization of a society
of nations to enforce peace after the war.
Since the word "present" may mean an hour, a day,
a year, a decade, or a century, the length of time sug-
gested by an image of the present will vary with cir-
186 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
cmTistances. Images of the present refer to happenings
in the more or less remote present as distinguished from
past or future.
In the most limited sense, however, the present exists
only as a nexus between past and future. We no sooner
utter the word "now" than it is gone. The present
in which we live is ever moving; what is thought to be
with us is with us only in a world of motion. There is
only a theoretical present, consisting of the moment of
time in which we are thinking; and there is always, of
course, the possibility of shutting out both the past and
the future for an absorbing contemplation of that which
is immediately before us in time and space. We may,
therefore, in a sense regard all effective images as present
images; so that the function both of images of the past
and of the future is simply to bring to the focus of im-
mediate attention the other experiences of other times.
Moreover, the creative imagination through the infinite
suggestions and implications of imagery simply brings,
with a conscious or subconscious logic, other experiences
to bear on a matter at hand.
Summary. — The present chapter calls attention, first,
to the need of the imagination in argument. This is
believed to be necessary, on account of the dangers aris-
ing from an overemphasis of the logical, and is believed
to be desirable because of the opportunity for origmal-
ity afforded, and the resulting higher degree of excel-
lence attainable, through the use of the imaginative
powers. It sets forth, second, the character and function
of the imaging process in argument; distmguishing be-
tween the logical and psychological view-points from
which an argument may be regarded; and explaining
the processes other than the logical which are employed.
IMAGINATION IN ARGUMENT 187
It appears that in presenting an argument a debater
may exercise his creative imagination, and may use
the skill of the real hterary artist, if he wdsely allows
himself a greater freedom in his mental point of view-
when speaking or writing. Imagery is also shown to
have both a perceptual and a conceptual aspect, and
the problem of communicating our ideas to others in
order to image them on their consciousness is declared
to be a process of reducing concepts to sense-percep-
tion. Assuming, then, that argument is the perceptuali-
zation of a concept, the process of imaging a concept is
illustrated variously and at length, logically and broadly,
and applied to debating and general use. Third, the
last topic, types of imagery, suggests the wide scope
of the imaging power through its ability to bring to
immediate perception images of the past, present, and
future.
CHAPTER VII
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT
We have defined the presentation as a problem in im-
aginative suggestion, and have examined the imagina-
tion from the standpoint of the speaker. We are now
to examine the subject of suggestion (which is the other
side of imagery) as the process and means of communi-
cating our ideas to others. This carries us into the dif-
ficult territory of the hearer, for suggestion is to be
defined in terms of response, effect, or reaction.
Argument, it may be said, is an appeal, through the
imagery of words and gestures, for immediate and strong
response; and makes use either of the concealed, indirect
methods of persuasion, or the open and consciously log-
ical method of conviction. Our immediate purpose is to
assist the debater to an understanding of the mental op-
erations by which the decisions in argument are consci-
ously or subconsciously reached. The present discus-
sion, therefore, is restricted to two topics: (i) The laws
of mental suggestion and their use in debating, and (2)
the instruments of suggestion as applied to the delivery
and rhetoric of argument. Gestures, voice, and manner
are images of ideas used to convey meaning to others
and are, therefore, instruments of suggestion. Words,
sentences, paragraphs, whole compositions are also
images of ideas used to convey meaning, and likewise
must be regarded as instruments of suggestion.
188
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 189
I. Laws of Suggestion and Their Use in Debating
The Laws of Mental Suggestion proclaim the dynamic
power of the image to produce response. They assert
the tendency of the mind to act in line with a suggested
idea unless interfered with by a contrary or inhibiting
idea. They have been summed up in two definite state-
ments, as laws, thus:
1. Every idea of an action (or function) will result in that
action unless hindered by a competing idea or physical impedi-
ment.
2. Every idea that is suggested to the mind is held as truth
unless inhibited by some contradictory idea.
The value of these laws for the speaker depends chiefly
on '' limiting the consciousness of the minds of the hearers
to the idea suggested, and the avoidance of the ideas
in their minds which invaHdate or hinder the idea sug-
gested." 1
Let us, in explanation, start with the simple fact that
when a speaker images an idea so that it can be visuaHzed
by another, the suggested image awakens in the hearer
a mental activity in a particular direction (i) of think-
ing, e. g., What? Hark! If— but; and (2) also in a
particular direction of acting, e. g., "Do you see that
sign? " prompting one to turn his head in the direction
of a spot indicated.
The second law is recognized in the popular idea of
"beheving what we are told," and of "accepting as true
what we see in print."
On the other hand, when a hearer does not follow
out a suggested idea either in his thinking or his acting
1 "Psychology of Public Speaking," W. D. Scott, p. 156.
190 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
or does not believe something that he is told or sees in
print, it is because of obstacles rising in that mind in
the shape of inhibitions to compete with or interfere
with the carrying out of the process.
In general, it is apparent that any vivid image of an
idea or action tends to produce a quick and strong re-
sponse in others. The clever advertiser endeavors to
make his suggestions compelling, thus:
1. Go to the Big Store.
2. Visit the store you have always visited.
3. Everybody goes to the Big Store.
4. Bargains at the Big Store.
5. The Patriotic Store.
If you will examine these statements a Uttle closely,
you will notice that there is an attempt to make the
mind go forward in thinking about the store, through the
responses given to a command, and through appeals to
habit, imitation, opportunity of advantage, and finally,
I may say, to ideahsm. There was also an expectation
on the part of the advertiser, that the idea so vividly
fixed in the thinking, will be accepted as truth by the
reader, and that we may become sufficiently interested
in what the store may hold out for us to inchne us to
find out more about it. Vividness, frequency, and
recency are psychological principles, of which those
who are most successful make constant use.
It will be noticed, however, that the first statement,
" Go to the Big Store," is not so much the imaging of
an idea which can be regarded as a reason, as the imag-
ing of a command to action. All the other sentences
contain a vivid imagery of reasons. The orator, like
the advertiser, may appeal openly for action, but the
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 191
debater cannot do so unless his appeal for action is well
grounded in an imaging of reasons.
The debater's problem, indeed, is more difficult than
either that of the orator or the advertiser. For he no
sooner suggests his own case than an opponent seeks
to inhibit it and to suggest another of his own. In the
privacy of his study, he may have placed his argument
in a secure, logical form by which he hopes to start and
give direction to the thinking —
Proposition because
A since
I for
a
But practically and in action, he finds that his sug-
gested ideas are in constant conflict with others. They
may come, indeed, not only from his visible opponent
but also from his audience to block, retard, or change
the direction of his ideas, as well as to faciUtate them.
Such inhibitions and suggestions may spring from the
ill-defined regions of the subconscious, as well as from
the better known or conscious experiences. Let us illus-
trate.
In an expressed argument, the debater at the out-
set suggests the proper mental attitude of his audience
toward the proposition as he sees it by such phrases as
"I propose to show," *'I commend," "I approve," which
inclines the minds of his hearers in the desired direc-
tion. Then an opponent takes the floor and inhibits
the thinking and leads it in another direction with "I
object," "I oppose," "I hesitate," ''I fear." And then,
one speaker will tell us, for example, that the United
States should not enter a league to enforce peace after
192 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
the war by a reminder of Washington's warning against
foreign alliances. This is primarily an appeal to au-
thority, but there may be in it also a hidden appeal,
for Washington is an authority whom we habitually
accept and whom we like to imitate. An opposing
speaker then reminds us that "President Wilson and
former Presidents Taf t and Roosevelt are all in favor of
our joining such a league." We have now raised a doubt
as to the wisdom of Washington's advice, and intro-
duced into the mind a new notion involving conflicting
authority and incidentally, and, perhaps, subconsciously,
appeals to habit and imitation. And so the problem
deepens and continues. Indeed, whether we are de-
bating with ourselves or with others, or merely listening
to a debate, the mind is continually facilitating and
retarding our initial suggestions by other suggestions
or inhibitions of its own, so that there may be a con-
stant vacillation between a feeling of certainty and
doubt until a decision is definitely reached.
This, then, is the nature of the process and the ma-
terial on which the debater must impress his views;
active, living minds, with varying antecedent experi-
ences, and differing present capacities, operations, atti-
tudes, and views. He naturally strives to win the good-
will, sympathy, and confidence of his hearers in order
to get their co-operation; he also strives to find a
common ground, in thought as well as in feeling — real,
vital grounds of belief. But he may fail, unless he is
able, through insight and imaginative power, to get
within the inner circle of the consciousness of his hearers,
in order to interest them and to set them to thinking,
so that their minds will naturally and of themselves go
forward in the proper direction.
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 193
The debater's primary responses are in interest and
in belief. Indeed, the first law of mental suggestion,
given above, as applied to debating, seems to assert
the need of interest; and the second law, the need of
proof, if the suggested idea is to be held in the mind as
a truth more than temporarily, and not brushed aside
by an immediate denial or contradiction.
1. Interest is a prerequisite of all successful speaking
or writing. The factors of interestingness have been
variously described, and are said to include such things
as the vital, the unusual, the uncertain, the sunilar,
the antagonistic, and the animate.^
In general, anything which will attract the listener's
mind and incHne it to think for itself about the reasons
given, is of value in securing and holding interest when
presenting an argument. The responsive is the interest-
ing.
2. The nature of proof has been considered under
logical organization. It was shown that an effective
argument should be imaged within an accepted class
concept of a hearer, so as to bring it within his experi-
ence. Professor Phillips points out the great value of
the principle of reference to experience, —
because it enables the speaker to attain his purpose along the
right psychological line — that of allowing the listener to use
his own powers. The use of this principle gives the Hstener
or reader the pleasant feeling that he is not driven or cajoled,
but that he sees, feels, accepts, or does the thing desired of his
own free will and through his own processes. To illustrate:
When my friend entered his home the sky was cloudless. An
hour later I come in and say there will be a storm. He contra-
dicts me. I then tell him that heavy black clouds are rolling
1 "Effective Speaking," Phillips, A.B., p. 6^.
194 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
up from the west, that flashes of lightning can be seen and that
the wind is increasing. He now agrees with me. What did I
do? I gave him three facts that were Uke his own experience
in respect to the conditions generally preceding a storm. He
came to his own conclusion by means of my reference to his
experience. I simply called up part of his stock of knowledge
applicable to the case, he did the rest. I recalled to his conscious-
ness some of his subconscious knowledge. I held up to him
the mirror of his own experience, and he himself came to the
conclusion.
He notes further, that, when the end is belief, as in
argument, it is very important to show that the mat-
ter in question is like something we already believe.
"BeHef, then, demands references to experience that
show the thing for which acceptance is sought, is like
something already accepted as truth — reahty. And
the most powerful reference will be that accepted ac-
tuality wliich most resembles the thing to be believed."
Not only likeness, however, but all the principles of
association, likeness and unlikeness, cause and effect,
or the inclusion of the thing offered within a more gen-
eral principle or class concept already known or ac-
cepted. For there is great variation among men in their
modes of associating ideas. As Doctor McCosh has
noted: "One mind ever tends to repetition, another
rather to correlation. One man delights in poetical
images, another in scientific classes of causes. One in-
tellect is inclined to observe resemblances, another ex-
ceptions and differences." We must, however, make our
suggestions along the proper psychological lines — em-
ploying so far as we can the processes, facts, and man-
ner that a hearer would most likely be able to follow.
Avoiding and Removing Inhibitions. — A few specific,
practical suggestions may be given, namely: (i) That
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 195
a speaker should not inhibit his own case by hurtful
admissions; (2) that in an actual debate the inliibitions
introduced by an opponent should be removed at the
earliest opportunity; (3) that logical fallacies may act
as inhibitions, and (4) that an inhibiting wish, always
difficult to handle, may sometimes be removed by the
image ad ahsurdum.
1. Hurtful Admissions as Inhibitions. — In the nature
of things, the debater cannot keep inhibiting ideas from
entering the mind of his audience, for assertion is met
by denial, proof by counter-proof or distinctions.
He must, in the first place, avoid introducing inhibit-
ing ideas himself into his own argument. Indeed, if
they are unconsciously permitted to enter, they may be
regarded as hurtful admissions and made the basis of
attack as in the following:
GERMAN DECEPTIVE EXPERIENCES
The phrase is from the Berlin Kreuz-Zeitung. It was report-
ing the chancellor's belief that the submarine campaign would
end the war quickly, and said: "We must hasten. Five or six
months will suffice." But then it added, perhaps with more
significance than it was aware of: "God grant that we do not
renew with our submarines our deceptive experiences with Zep-
pelins."
2. Immediate Removal of Inhibitions Introduced by an
Opponent. — The debater should also, in the second place,
remove inhibiting ideas which have been introduced
by an opponent the instant he has the opportunity. When
Patrick Henry made his famous remark, "Caesar had
his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George
the Third — " he was interrupted, it will be remembered,
by cries of "Treason"; but equal to the occasion he
196 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
defiantly answered: "If that be treason make the most
of it." Though the inhibited idea was permitted to
enter, it was quickly expelled. An objection raised by
an opponent is, of course, an inhibiting idea and will
hinder the acceptance of new arguments in the mind of
a hearer until that objection is removed.
In a team debate, the first speaker in the negative
should at the outset remove the interfering ideas ad-
vanced by the first afiirmative, and then also introduce
inhibiting ideas on his own part concerning the affirma-
tive case presented. All speakers other than the one
assigned to speak first on the affirmative side, who begin
immediately with their constructive speeches, by pay-
ing no heed to what has been previously said, fail to
remove an inhibition, and so lose the attention of the
audience. Even if a speaker cannot answer or does
not care to answer an objection fully at the moment,
he should at least parry or notice in some way an im-
portant objection before presenting an entirely new or
different argument. Once a university debater, fear-
ing surprise and wishing to gain time, wrote down a
sentence to be used at the opening of any speech:
"Against the argument which you have just heard, we
of the side throw the whole force of our position."
Speakers in debating cannot be "ships that pass in the
night." The side that does not speak to an opponent
or that continually ignores evidence presented, deserves
to lose. Its members may be orators, they are not de-
baters or practical psychologists. The enthusiasm or
joy of an audience, frequently manifested during the
rebuttal speeches, is largely due to the clear perception
of the alternate processes of suggestion and inhibition in
rapid succession. The intruder evicted returns again
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 197
and again for admission. Ejected by one door he ap-
pears at another, or at a window. Lucky for hini if he
remains on the inside when the last bell rings!
A volume might be written in illustration of the func-
tion of suggestion and inhibition in the handling of an
opponent and of an audience in varjdng moods and
circumstances. Sometimes, even logic and truth are
factors of inhibition, for there are none so deaf as those
who will not hear; and, of course, a luckless glance,
gesture, or allusion may raise a whirlwind which a mere
nothing will cause to subside.
The debater plays upon the emotions less than the
orator, but he touches an emotional chord, as through
the turn of a phrase or a flash of wit, more often per-
haps than he is aware. Complex though laughter is,
it is at least a means of preventing fatigue and relieving
tension. Laughter Uberates the energies, sets the soul
free, and refreshes it. Irony, sarcasm, and invective
assist reasoning by turning the emotions against an-
other, while mere amusement or entertainment, which
causes a spontaneous expression of the emotion jo}'' in
smiles and laughter, inchnes one to follow the sugges-
tions of a speaker through the sheer pleasure of Hsten-
ing.
3. Logical Fallacies as Inhibitions. — The discovery of
a logical fallacy in an argument may act as an inhibition.
It is easy to show, for instance, that in case the imagina-
tive processes are dominant in the mind of the speaker
and the logical in the mind of the hearer, the acceptance
of imaginative data is inliibited through the discovery of
an improper or inadequate logical organization of the
thought. Consider, for instance, (i) an accidental
association of images such as occurs in figures of
198 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
speech. In the following, Bryan's association is purely
fatuous:
Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the Repub-
licans, and three months ago everybody in the Republican
party prophesied his election. How is it to-day? Why, the
man who was once pleased to think that he once looked like
Napoleon — that man shudders to-day when he remembers that
he was nominated upon the anniversary of the Battle of Water-
loo. Not only that, but as he listens he can hear with ever-
increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as they beat upon
the lonely shores of Saint Helena.
The orator here simply used a metaphor to image a
conclusion which he had reached on other grounds. But
as we read it to-day apart from the context, its power
of appeal is lost through the absence of logical connec-
tion. There is no inherent or necessary relation shown
between McKinley and Napoleon in the matter referred
to. Or notice again (2) how an emphasis of the con-
crete without orientation may interfere with the in-
tended effect of an imaginative appeal. The question
involved the merits of the Canadian plan of a manda-
tory investigation of labor difficulties before strikes or
lockouts could take place. A negative team had planned
a campaign of opposition through an elaboration of
the specific instances in which the plan had failed. In-
stances were cited again and again with full detail, in
which strikes actually occurred during the period of
investigation, and the audience was duly impressed
with the futility of the plan. When, however, the au-
dience discovered the small proportion of failures to
successes, the greater number of instances in which
there had been no strikes during the period of investi-
gation, and the gradually diminishing number of strikes
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 199
in the past few years, all the intended effect of the ac-
cumulated images, with their display of detailed knowl-
edge and indirect appeal to the emotions, failed at once,
for they were logically inhibited. In this way, too, a
pubHc executive who is the recipient of propagandist
literature, all emanating from one source, sometimes
gets an erroneous unpression of political opinion. As
a logical fallacy, the instances are not topical and taken
at random, or one is led to mistake a part for the
whole.
4. Removing an Inhibiting Wish by the Image ad
Absurdunx. — '*How shall I get rid of the inhibiting wish
in the mind of the audience?" is often the most trouble-
some problem in debating. "I have a good case, but
there is an undercurrent of feehng against it which I
fear it will be impossible to overcome." Reahzation of
the problem, however, is the first step toward its solu-
tion. When Edmund Burke talked with the wind, he
was hailed as the greatest orator of his time; when he
spoke against it, he became the dinner-bell of Parlia-
ment. There are tunes in the experience of every orator
and debater when the wind is dead ahead. Argument
avails nothing, for the audience can hardly be induced
to follow, much less to heed; it is mastered by its own
desires and purposes now in conflict with that of tlie
speaker. Diversion of attention, by holding up for ap-
peal a new object of desire, has failed as utterly as argu-
ment. The favorite recourse of most debaters in such
an emergency is to image the opposed feeUng with new
concrete examples which will bring the audience to
laughter and ridicule of itself. Beecher often used this
device (reduciio ad absurdum), as at Liverpool, when
he accused his audience of sympathizing with the South,
200 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
because they were in the minority, and reminded them
that they should also sympathize with a thief in the
hands of three constables. It was a favorite method of
Lincoln's when he felt compelled to grapple closely with
his opponent.
But you will not abide the election of a Republican Presi-
dent! In that supposed event you say you will destroy the
Union! And then you say the crime of having destroyed it
will be upon us ! That is cruel ! A highwayman holds a pistol
to my ear and mutters through his teeth: "Stand and deliver,
or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer,"
You will find in debating that your opponent is not
averse to letting out all his sail when going with the
wind. You should, therefore, take time to discover
this probable source of appeal and to find out if pos-
sible the most effective way of removing it. It is for-
tunate if, Uke Lincohi, you can dispose of it quickly and
decisively by an analogy of the meteoric sort. In a
debate on ship subsidies, the negative had made a strong
case against it on economic, political, and moral grounds,
but felt that the afiirmative had gained much influence
through a covert appeal to the desire for a larger mer-
chant marine. The situation was serious, but how was
it to be met? In this case the last speaker, in summing
up, broke the spell thus: "We sympathize with the af-
firmative in their desire for a larger merchant marine.
We feel much pleasure in seeing the American flag flying
from the stem of vessels when we are in foreign ports,"
and then leaning forward gravely, "but, ladies and
gentlemen, let me warn you lest your pockets should
be picked while the band is playing the 'Star Spangled
Banner,' "
SUGGESTIOiV IN ARGUMENT 201
Conclusions. — A debate may be defined as a psy-
chological process of admitting ideas properly associated
to secure interest and belief and of avoiding and exclud-
ing all ideas of whatever character or description which
tend to interfere with this purpose.
Whoever, when speaking, can prevent serious inhibi-
tions from arising in the minds of his hearers, and can
also secure quick and strong responses for the funda-
mental reasons which he suggests, possesses the quali-
fications of an effective debater. •)
The word inhibition is a valuable addition to the de-
bater's vocabulary. Anything which stands in the way
of or prevents the acceptance of an idea by another,
may be called an inhibition. There are inhibitions of
fact and of logic; of style, sentence, or word; of manner,
voice, and gesture. Whatever, indeed, may be sup-
posed to be offensive or disagreeable to others, which
may be avoided — in taste, sentiment, feeling, perceiv-
ing, thinking, or believing — may act as inhibitions, may
prevent the acceptance of our ideas. The debater must,
therefore, possess and manifest, in no small degree, a
power of consideration for others, a delicacy of feeling,
a courtesy, a spirit of consideration, fair play, tact —
in a word, the characteristics of the educated gentle-
man.
II. Instruments of Suggestion
In the process of influencing by suggestion, the de-
bater uses the two instruments of ordinary intercourse:
gesture images and word images. He usually visualizes
his ideas and touches them with feelings, at the same
time co-ordinating the muscular or motor functions
with the mental and emotional. Body and mind act
202 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
together. "Don't" is a word of prohibition, to which
an even clearer and stronger meaning is attached if
its utterance is accompanied by a frown or backward
wave of the hand. Indeed, the mind, as we have seen,
tends to act in Kne with a transmitted suggestion, so
that he who argues must continually take heed of the
psychology of the one with whom he argues, and of those
who listen. No expression can be effective unless it is
impressive; and all reactions between giving and re-
ceiving minds — the minds of speaker and hearer, or
writer and reader — which look toward agreement or
difference, are produced through mental suggestion.
The suggestions of argument call for an immediate and
direct response. As to the long-mooted question —
''how far an actor must feel his part" — modern psy-
chology tends toward a belief in the existence of an ac-
tual feehng on the part of the actor. There are words
like bubble, for instance, which we can hardly think of
without a shght feeling in the lips or a muscular impulse
to pronounce the word. Speech, indeed, is an ex-pres-
sion, a pressing out.
All gestures and words used must be images of mean-
ing in order to become effective instruments of sugges-
tion. Indeed, if they are so chosen or so placed as to
add nothing in cloarness, force, or ease to the presenta-
tion, they may easily inhibit meaning and prevent the
acceptance of our ideas. Word unages, moreover, are
not only suggestive of meaning but of old associations. •
Gesture Images as Instruments of Suggestion. — His-
torically, it is deemed hkely that gestures preceded
speech, and that the labials m and p were the first spoken
utterances. This at least is a fair inference from the
analogy of child development. All movements of the
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 203
human body — face, head, trunk, and linibs — have an
image value in suggesting our ideas to others. For ex-
ample, the image of the clinched fist suggests determina-
tion; the finger gesture, the idea of close or logical dis-
tinctions; the open palm, the approval of ideas, and
the inverted palm, tlieir rejection or disapproval. A
movement of the arms toward the speaker calls atten-
tion to himself; outwardly, or away from the speaker,
it attracts notice to others or to objects in nature. Such
movements, hke the images of words, may be personal or
impersonal, but again, as with words, the person speak-
ing before an audience is a person feeling and wilHng
through physical or motor power as well as one think-
ing and conveying ideas. Certainly all such physical
movements are suggestive of ideas. Gestures appear to
be less arbitrary and more based on reason than the
meaning assigned to many words, but there is also a
recognized conventional use of gesture, as shown in
formal treatises.
Professor Houghton, in an excellent work on dehvery,
uses the term "action" as the foundation of all bodily
expression and defines it as a muscular response to men-
tal or emotional stiinuh. He says:
The student of psychology is familiar with the influence of
the mind over the body, with the marked effect that each mental
or emotional stimulus has upon the muscular organisms. The
inexperienced speaker is often astonished at the unexpected
exhilaration that he feels as he faces an audience. He finds
that the mind is singularly alert and acts much more freely than
he had expected; that the blood flows faster; that he has a sense
of unusual physical vigor; and that there is an insistent call
from the brain for muscular response to the lively activities of
the mind. This is the true foundation for all bodily expression.
Any voluntary action that is not a direct response to such
204 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
prompting is necessarily false and purely mechanical. To be
sure, there is a great deal of action that is not the result of volun-
tary prompting. Various emotions such as timidity, fear, im-
patience, or anger express themselves through the muscles in-
voluntarily in a way no less mistakable to an audience than
voluntary action. But, whether voluntary or involuntary, the
fundamental cause is the same — the telegraphic message sent
out to the muscles from the brain. The entire problem of plat-
form deportment, therefore, resolves itself into two fundamental
considerations:
I. Is the bodily action of the speaker the result of mental
or emotional stimuli?
II. Does the bodily action resulting from these stimuli look
well and contribute to the general efiectiveness of the speech ? ^
It is here implied, of course, that the kind, degree,
and quality of the reactions vi^hich are awakened in
others are dependent upon the kind, degree, and quality
of the stiinuH employed by a speaker.
Word Images as Instruments of Suggestion. — As it
is natural to suppose that gesture preceded speech, it
is also likely that speech came before writing; but why,
in the beginning, a chair was called a chair rather than a
table, we do not know. All speech utterances, of course,
have a physiological basis, and speech organs and de-
velopment must have been greatly influenced by such
elementary muscular actions as eating, swallowing, and
ejecting.
Verbal nouns seem to have been assigned to things
at first more or less arbitrarily, until certain names be-
came associated with certain meanings. These names
with their meanings, through constant changes and
variations, have gradually obtained a customary, con-
i"The Elements of Public Speaking," Harry Garfield Houghton,
p. s8.
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 205
ventional, and established use. Indeed, words are so
largely records of past experiences that for scientific
purposes the great German scholar Ebbinghaus^ has
invented a series of nonsense-words in an effort to get
rid of the uncertain and variable elements of memory.
The arbitrar}^ character of many conventional names
which have become attached to things, and so have
acquired definite associations almost startles us when
we read, for instance, sentences like the following:
"The ghost is willing, but the meat is weak."
" As harmless as pigeons and as wise as stiakcs."
It is the function of linguistics and of lexicography
to record the correct and established uses of words. The
best key to the meaning of words is in a study of lan-
guages, classic and foreign. Doctor Austin Phelps thus
emphasizes the importance of a patient groping after
the right word:
"Do we not," he asks, "often fret for the right word, which
is just outside the closed door of memory? We know that there
is such a word; we know that it is precisely the word we want;
no other can fill its place; we saw it mentally a short half-hour
ago; but we beat the air for it now. The power we crave is
the power to store words within reach, and hold them in mental
reserve till they are wanted, and then restore them by the mental
vibration of a thought. Nothing can give it to us but study and
use of the language in long-continued and critical practice." Again
he says: "By such studies, when combined with scholarly use
of language of a laborious profession, a man masters words singly,
words in combinations, words in varieties of sense, words in
figurative uses, and those forms of expression which always lie
latent in original uses of one's mother tongue." *
' "Memory," by Hermann Ebbinghaus, translated by Henry A. Ruger.
2 "The Making of an Oration/' C. M. Brink, p. 109. (McCiurg.)
206 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
There are few neutral words in our language, that is,
words without the experiences of past associations. In-
deed, neutrality in words is almost as rare as neutrahty
in patriotism. Professor L. W. Smith gives the usual
division of words into impersonal words and personal
words, and shows that the words which give a writing
its literary character are personal. Impersonal words
are used for clarity, simphcity, and precision; but per-
sonal words are used for strength (orientation, energy,
dignity, weight) , for emphasis, and for beauty (harmony,
euphony, speech figures). He continues:
We should always strive to write cleariy, and we should also
strive to write as simply as is consistent with writing concisely.
If a subject is difficult, it may not be possible to deal with it
in a simple manner and yet achieve accuracy. In the degree
in which the subject and our interest in it permit, however, we
should be clear, simple, and precise in everything we write. Evi-
dently, then, the qualities that make a writing personal, that
give it literary character, are additions to the simple qualities
when purpose does not go beyond that of establishing under-
standing of the author's meaning.^
Likewise, in the speech of the normal man, personal
words are as natural as the light in the eye, the smile
on his countenance, or his gesture of hand or body.
Words are as temperamental as the individuals who
employ them. They may be regarded, theoretically,
as counters in a process of intellectual exchange; but
practically, such symbols of thought usually manifest
personahty and feeling, and appeal to old experiences.
Even general or abstract words, such as faith, power,
duty, enemy, soldier, have emotional associations, as
i"The Mechanism of English Speech," Lewis Worthington Smith,
p. 12. (Oxford.)
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 207
well as simple or concrete words, like father, mother, or
home. Indeed, impersonal terms hardly exist outside
the sciences; and in public speaking, they do so only
in those occasional instances where clearness only is
needed, as in addresses before purely technical bodies.
There is no feeling, for instance, in the abstract state-
ment that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal
to two right angles. On the other hand, take such a
random Hst of words as the following:
Tartar, Hun, Vallombrosa, Mesopotamia, Tophet, Paradise,
Eden; copperhead, jingo, protectionism, pension, free trade,
civil service, IMonroe Doctrine; rose, alcohol, cabbage, turkey,
tobacco, apple, roast pig; reeking, rollicking, working, playing,
hunting, fishing, crying; eat, swim, dive, run, blow, rest, sleep.
Such words produce overtones of suggestion which
cause emotional judgments, and the bare mention of
their names may awaken in others in varying degrees
the experiences of earlier associations. Thus, literature,
art, business, and all forms of public speech are largely,
though often unconsciously, dependent for effectiveness
on the hidden emotional associations wliich lurk in our
common speech.
Variability of Meanings. — The ever-changing char-
acter of the meanings of words is sometimes due to the
speaker himself, and sometimes to the listener.
I. Due to the speaker.
Vocal Shadings. — Obviously, a different color of mean-
ing may be imparted to words through the manner of
their utterance. You have probably heard an Irish-
man say, "Good morning," in such a manner as to re-
member it all day. You have also no doubt occasionally
heard a speaker who, through egotism or vanity, through
208 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
ignorance or spurious art, has displeased or disgusted
you. I shall do no more here than to mention the great
possibilities for shading in the use of that marvellous
musical instrument — the voice — and the equally marvel-
lous capacity of the brain to analyze and interpret au-
ditory impressions.
Negatively, the most common faults in speech utter-
ance which may inhibit meaning are, perhaps, poor
articulation and enunciation, throaty constringency,
nasaUty, and monotony of tone. The most pleasing
voice, therefore, and the voice most likely to convey
the intended meaning, possesses freedom, flexibility, and
variety; and in quality is pure, clear, round, fairly mu-
sical and fairly deep and rich.
II. Due to the listener.
a. The mental level.
h. The psychological moment.
There is also a variation of meaning due to the lis-
tener. Since word meanings are so dependent upon
experience, it remains to be pointed out how word mean-
ings will vary on this account with different listeners.
Meanings are not constant either among individuals at
the same time or among the same individuals at dif-
ferent times. Thus, there is the law of the mental level
as applied to words. Illustrations : The Indo-European
family of languages includes eight branches, as follows:
The Aryan, the Armenian, the Hellenic, the Albanian,
the Italic, the Celtic, the Balto-Slavic, the Teutonic.^
A mention of these names opens trains of associations
to the linguistic scholar which floods them with signif-
icance; while to the uninformed reader they are as de-
1 "The History of the English Language," 0. F. Emerson. (Macmil-
lan.)
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 209
void of meaning as if they were written in Choctaw.
Again, this may be illustrated by the use of learned or
technical terms. In speaking of the vagueness and un-
intelligibiUty of some German writers, Boris Sidis ridi-
cules Hegelian philosophical speculation by quoting
from Hegel's chapter on perception:
" The this is thus given as not this, or as sublimated, and there-
with not nothing, but a definite nothing, or a nothing having a
content, namely the //i/5." The italics are Hegel's. The sense
is chiefly in the suggestive power of the itaHcs. Such meta-
physical speculations are recommended by some Hegelians as
the profoundest wisdom of idealistic philosophy. One is re-
minded of the semi-Platonic, semi-Hegelian definition of love:
" Love is the ideality of the relativity of reality of an infinitesimal
part of the infinite totality of the Absolute Being." *
Another important consideration is the verbal law
of the psychological moment, for words, hke fashions in
dress, have their seasons. I feel sure that ice and coal
bear a different significance in summer than in winter.
Football terms, which are readily bandied about in the
autumn, become almost obsolete during the athletic
periods of baseball, rowing, and tennis. There are, in-
deed, words of the hour, which for some special reason
are suddenly lifted bodily out of the dictionary and
translated as if by magic into meanings of transcendent
power. In this class was the word peace, when Presi-
dent Wilson, in February, 191 7, proposed to all the Eu-
ropean belligerents the formation of a league to enforce
peace after the war. By April, however, of the same
year, it was war, which had become capitalized in the
pubUc mind, and peace was being written with a small
letter. I doubt if the word coincidence was ever more
' "The Psychology of Laughter," Boris Sidis, p. 22. (.'\pplcton.)
210 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
fraught with meaning than on July 4, 1824. On this
day, which was the semicentennial anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, Jefferson and Adams both
passed away. The name of the hero of the hour is usually
expected to elicit a demonstration.
Thus, the meaning values of images suggested will
vary with speakers, and will vary with the experience
of listeners; which, in turn, vary from time to time, as
does the bullion which goes to make up the silver dollar.
Moreover, the shadings and adjustments given to ges-
ture images and to word images demand for their effec-
tiveness the consideration of such factors as the mental
receptivity of the particular Hstener and the inevitable
emotion-bearing element hidden in words of the partic-
ular moment. Some plants grow only in certain soils,
while some blossom best in particular seasons of the
year.
Imagery an Imperfect Means.— The best we can ever
do with such an imperfect means as word imagery is
to arrive at approximate truth. Moreover, in our theory
of reasoning, it seems we must strike an average between
the logic of categories and pure empiricism. We must
admit the inherent capacity of the mind to reason, but
then we must admit, also, the necessity of explaining
this process by an objective reference. Even Aristotle's
association laws are merely an explanation of the sort
of "hunt" he would go on in order to call to mind some-
thing which he had forgotten. He asks what is its like,
what is its contrary, or what it was next to in space or
time.
Fundamentally, we start with an idea, we give it an
objective reference or test; but the words used to image
the idea will remain an indefinite variable, ever open
SUGGESTION IN ARGUMENT 211
to error and correction. Fortunately, in argument it is
sufficient if we employ sincerely such means as we are
provided with, and so are enabled to resolve differences
of opinion by overcoming probable error or by estab-
lishing probable truth. The end of education indeed
is not only to know the truth, but to make it known.
Learning is not a light hidden under a bushel, but a
torch to be held aloft. These limitations of imagery,
moreover, hold to a certain extent for the finding and
statement of knowledge, as well as for its dissemination.
Two further remarks may be made. First, that it is
precisely this plasticity of imagery which gives to the
speaker or writer his opportunity for freedom and in-
di\'iduality, and enables us to dignify his best products
by the name of art in the higher sense at once difficult
and interesting to create. Second, that the attainment
of success in debating demands sterHng honesty and
sincerity — in a word, character.
CHAPTER VIII
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION
The debater should acquire a discriminating use of
words. He needs not only accurate or precise words
but suggestive words, words rich in associations, emo-
tion-arousing words, and, of course, a copious vocabulary.
For this purpose, he may pursue any Hne of reading or
study which will lead him to consider for himself such
things as the connotations of words, the synonyms and
antonyms of words used by great writers and speakers,
and the history and etymology of words. He should
know the primal or root meanings of words, and be able
to compare them with their customary meanings, so
as to keep as close as possible to these primal or root
meanings. In accomplishing this, Latin of course is the
great hnguistic study, but translating from the Greek
and modern languages is of great assistance. Indirectly,
good reading and the study of languages; directly, a
study of the dictionary; books of synonyms are espe-
cially commended.
Verbal meanings and tonal meanings, which are de-
rived from antecedent experiences, will generally do
more in getting attention, and in impressing others with
the interesting and solid character of one's ideas, than
verbal commonplaces which are only precise. A man's
speech, however, is the mirror of himself. Indeed, it is
212
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 213
so largely a product of his education, environment, and
natural ability, so individual and personal, that any
advice given must recognize as fundamental the in-
alienable right of an individual to choose his words as
he chooses his friends.
Let us, then, return to the elementary notion of re-
garding words as images of ideas, not only that we may
present them effectively, but in order to keep our vo-
cabulary from ' becoming impoverished. The business
man who writes, "Yours of even date received. In
reply, I would state , . . Yours very truly," is likely
always to be a man of limited vocabulary. The words
of a speaker, however, are not mere automata, but vital
energies of human thought and life, possessing an in-
finite variety of meanings in their nuances of etymo-
logical significance, customary or special usages, and
practical applications. The speaker must know his
words as the engineer the strength of his materials and
the stability of his structures; he must also know them
as the harpist knows his strings and the painter his colors.
He is both scientist and artist. Words, in fine, are the
most important elements in the instrumentation of
ideas by civilized man. Word imagery, tonal and illus-
trative, always essential to effective presentation, is
equally important to personal growth in the use of these
instruments, in imparting, in receiving, and in inter-
preting the meanings intended to be transmitted. They
express the finesse as well as the soHdity of thinking.
I. Tonal Imagery. — This term is used (in contra-
distinction to illustrative imagery, or imagery of the
content) to describe all those subconscious influences
upon the thinking which are due to sounds, and includes
onomatopoeia and rhythm. Their primary function is
214 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
aesthetic or emotional, so that they are more important
to music, the dance, poetry, and certain forms of oratory,
than to argumentative discourse.
Onomatopoeia is only an auxiliary of argument. A
word or phrase used to illustrate the content of an idea
is more striking if the vowel or consonant combinations
which go to make it up imitate or tonally suggest the
object or action referred to. It intensifies an auditory
suggestion. Ordinarily, moreover, we prefer euphonious
to cacophonous words. Ex-President Roosevelt's mes-
sage in the spring of 191 7 was summed up in the strik-
ing phrase: "Arm and Farm."
Rhythm is the recurrence of accented and unaccented,
of emphasized and unemphasized, words or syllables.
In poetry, there is a definite unit of measure called a
foot, but the rhythm of prose possesses much greater
freedom, and is more noticeable in spoken than in written
forms. ,
Prose passages which are most regularly rhythmical
are usually those which are most emotional; e. g., Dick-
ens's description of the death of Paul Dombey. In his
classical collection, "British Eloquence," Professor Good-
rich twice makes note of the rhythmus: once in the
speech by Plenry Grattan on "Irish Rights," and again
in Lord Erskine's "Defence of Stockdale." The former
is slow and dignified, while the latter possesses a more
rapid, iambic movement:
(i) "Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age
of thraldom, your sudden resurrection, commercial redress, and
miraculous armament, shall the historian stop at liberty, and
observe that here the principal men among us were found want-
ing, were awed by a weak ministry, bribed by an empty treasury;
and when liberty was within their grasp, and her temple opened
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 215
its folding doors, fell down and were prostituted at the thresh-
old?"
"I might, as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my
liberty. I do call upon you by the laws of the land, and their
violation; by the instructions of eighteen counties; by the arms,
inspiration, and providence of the present moment — tell us
the rule by which we shall go; assert the law of Ireland; declare
the liberty of the land ! I will not be answered by a public lie,
in the shape of an amendment; nor, speaking for the subjects'
freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to
breathe in this our island, in common with my fellow subjects,
the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be to break your
chain and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied so
long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British
chain clanking to his rags. He may be naked, he shall not be
in irons. And I do see the time at hand; the spirit is gone forth;
the Declaration of Right is planted, and though great men should
fall off, yet the cause shall live; and though he who utters this
should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the humble organ
who conveys it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of the
holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him."
(2) ''Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you are touched
with this way of considering the subject, and I can account for it.
I have not been considering it through the cold medium of books,
but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human
dominion, from what I have seen of them myself among reluc-
tant nations submitting to our authority. I know what they
feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard
them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant char-
acter of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressing the
governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his
hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence. 'Who is it,'
said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached upon by the
restless foot of English adventure, 'who is it that causes this
river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself into the
ocean ? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter,
and that calms them again in summer? Who is it that rears
216 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the
quick hghtning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave
to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours
to us; and by this title we will defend it,' said the warrior, throw-
ing down his tomahawk upon the ground, and raising the war-
sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man
all round the globe; and depend upon it, nothing but fear will
control where it is vain to look for affection."
It has recently been asserted, that while rhythm is
primarily aesthetic in aim and function, secondarily it
"assists the thinking." This is true only if the emphasis
in speaking is properly made dependent on the sense
of the passage, on the thought groups rather than on
sound groups.
In keeping time with rhythm our muscles contract with the
accented and relax with the unaccented part of the foot or line.
This contraction of the muscles is an influence beneficial in pro-
ducing a rise of the attention. Our attention is best employed
when periods of activity are followed by periods of rest.^
Similarly, while writing in another connection, an-
other psychologist refers to "expectancy" as resulting
from our "flow" of speech:
The articulate voice per se seems, then, to have a function of
pointing, i. e., of leaving us expectant and ready, even when
there is no content pointed to. Every one has the experience
of listening to others conversing in an unknown tongue (Chinese
laundrymen, for instance), where there is not the remotest con-
ception of the subject in hand, yet a feeling of significance ac-
companies the flow of uncomprehended talk. Those who do not
understand French or Italian well enough to follow the connec-
tion in a play, will leave the theatre with the impression of hav-
ing understood every word said. In these cases the expectancy,
' " Psychology of Public Speaking," W. D. Scott, loi.
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 217
the pointing consciousness has been there, the feeling of other-
ness or of significance, although there was no subsequent content
to fill it up.^
When the emphasis is placed on sound groups rather
than on thought groups, the effect is likely to lull rather
than to arouse.
2. Illustrative imagery or imagery of the content may
be classified as objective or subjective, according as it
omits or expresses the emotions of the speaker, i
Classical illustrations of the impersonal objective image
which are formed by analogy are Gibbon's description
of Byzantium in the form of an unequal triangle ("De-
cHne and Fall of the Roman Empire, XVII"), Victor
Hugo's battle-field of Waterloo presented in the form of
the letter A ("Les Miserables"), and Stevenson's like-
ness of the Bay of Monterey to a bent fishing-hook
(''Across the Plains").
Every pubhc speaker soon learns the value of a
mental sketch-map as an aid to the understanding of
an audience. Webster presents a vivid picture of the
opening situation in the Hayne-Webster debate by re-
ferring to the fact that when the mariner, after being
tossed at sea for many days, attains a glance of the sun,
he immediately takes his latitude, and learns his true
position. So Webster argues that before we float farther
on the waves of this debate we should ascertain where
we now are, and concludes by calling for a reading of
the resolution before the Senate. In debating, the func-
tion of an image is just as properly to convey informa-
tion which implies a conclusion as it is to secure atten-
* The Psychological Review, Monograph Supplement No. 30, by Eleanor
H. Rowland, p. 7.
218 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
tion and interest through an emotional reaction. Unless
reliance is placed upon reason, in controversial matters
the process, indeed, becomes one of persuasion, and is
not argument at all. The debater, therefore, should
acquire skill in the use of the objective image. He may-
use this skill in the introduction, where impartiality is
requisite without implying a conclusion, as in imaging
the terms of the proposition under discussion, or in ex-
cluding irrelevant matter, or in explaining by analogy
what the issue is like. Moreover, during the debate,
whenever the reasoning is to be set forth impressively,
such objective images have place. But there is also
an effective expository type of argument, where con-
clusions are not formally drawn but implied through the
association of ideas well imaged. Thus, signs and ex-
amples have force and convey meaning in the presenta-
tion of those ideas which we know rest ultimately upon
unstated but remotely suggested inductions or causal re-
lationships. That which we perceive, we know; seeing
is believing. Such images used with argumentative
effect express the relation of simple association and
resemblance, and imply those of particular with general
or of antecedent with consequent.
Avoiding Personalities. — Argument, moreover, pre-
supposes sufificient emotional color to enable a listener
to reach a sound judgment. The tendency, however,
to personalities which lower the intellectual tone of an
argument is always to be avoided. If, at length, per-
sonal charges are found to be necessary, they should,
of course, be made as free from feeling as possible and
always with a full consideration of an opponent's point
of view. In the passage beginning "Matches and Over-
matches," Webster met the personal taunts of Hayne
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 219
with a reserve of feeling, a dignity, and exaggerated
courtesy which intensified the power of his sarcasm.
In the heat of debate, even Lincoln, who was calmness
itself in his second inaugural, sometimes went too far
in his earlier days, as in his personal attacks on Presi-
dent Polk. Certainly his Framed Timber Analogy in
the House-Divided- Against-Itself speech possesses more
argumentative merit than such a passage as the fol-
lowing :
But if he cannot or will not do this — if on any pretense or
no pretense he shall refuse or omit it — then I shall be fully con-
vinced of what I more than suspect already — that he is deeply
conscious of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this
war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against him;
that originally having some strong motive — what, I will not
stop now to give my opinion concerning — to involve the two
countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing
the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory-
that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood — that
serpent's eye that charms to destroy — he plunged into it, and
has swept on and on till, disappointed in his calculation of the
ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself
he knows not where. How like the half-insane mumbling of a
fever dream is the whole war part of his late message !
Something, however, may perhaps be here pardoned
to the temper of the times.
Subjective images are the commonest type, even in
debating. They tend to awaken in the hearer personal
feelings, either favorable or unfavorable. Feeling begets
feeling. It is very difficult to describe a thing, let us
say, as beautiful or as just, without manifesting quite
unconsciously some pleasure concerning it, or as ugly
or unjust, without evincing some feeling of dislike, aver-
sion, or even contempt. With some persons a beautiful
220 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
view is always a "charming" one, and a thing ugly in
appearance may quickly become hideous and hateful.
Thus, there is value in learning, through a study of
synonyms, the temperaments of words.
In the following, the italicized words give it an emo-
tional quality:
We can organize an army on either the plan submitted by
the majority of the Committee on Military Affairs or that of
the minority. Both provide conscription, but that of the ma-
jority makes the stronger appeal to me. It does not insult the
young men of the country by assuming that they will not do
as the young men of England did, come voluntarily to their
country's assistance. My contention is that the drastic method,
the odious conscription plan, should not be resorted to until
a chance has been given for getting men into the army on a basis
that is generally regarded as honorable. Even advocates of the
conscription system say that it is inadvisable to have volun-
teers and conscripts in the same army, because the former are
thought to have a more honorable status. I fancy this must
be true, for certainly they will be the men of spirit, who do not
require compulsion to bring them to the defense of their coun-
try.
In a recent debate on the compulsory investigation
of labor troubles before strikes and lockouts should take
place, an affirmative speaker imaged his main conten-
tion vividly as follows: "The economic forces of our
country may be Hkened unto a sword, one edge of which
is capital, the other labor. Periodically, the pubUc
is asked to take hold of this sword, with the result
that it gashes its hand. We of the affirmative have
provided a hilt for that sword. The hilt is ready —
compulsory investigation. Will you reach for it and
grasp it?"
As emotions have been classified broadly into ap-
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 221
proving and disapproving, so subjective images may be
classified as appro\ang and disapproving images. So we
have the imagery of the eulogy and that of the phiUppic.
It should be remembered, however, that we will some-
times seek approval for a cause, object, or person, by
awakening a dislike or disapproval of the opposite. Some
political campaigns seem to be conducted on this prin-
ciple. Ob\4ously, the suggestions offered on the affirma-
tive and negative sides in a debate need not always
be, for the affirmative one of approval, or for the nega-
tive one of disapproval. Neither side need confine it-
self to one set of emotions or harp too continually on
one string. The affirmative, for instance, will image
e\^s in an existing system to be remedied, or will sug-
gest objections to the negative case; while the negative
side may seek not merely to estabHsh a negation but
to secure approval for a substitute plan.
Personal Adjectives. — The excessive use of personal
adjectives is especially to be avoided in argument, for,
of all the parts of speech, adjectives seem most commonly
to possess "an affective coloring." No words expressive
of feehng are really justified in argument unless that
feeling is also justified by evidence and reasordng. The
word odious, for instance, in the phrase "the odious
plan" above, really begs the question at issue. The
characterization of an argument by an adjective of feel-
ing (after the argument has been clearly established)
is another matter, provided it expresses the reaction
also clearly experienced by others.
In studying synonyms, therefore, to enrich one's vo-
cabulary, attention should always be paid to this dis-
tinction between subjective and objective adjectives.
A synonym, it may be said, is not a word whose mean-
222 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
ing is identical with that of another, but similar. It
possesses a family rather than an individual likeness,
the points of difference at the moment being regarded
as unimportant.
Many speakers have their characteristic adjectives.
Referring to Rufus Choate's use of adjectives, it was
once said that he "drove a coach and six," each new
adjective applied adding something new to the picture,
giving it an increased vividness and the hearer a new
delight. On the other hand, William Pinkney, for many
years his rival for legal supremacy during the adjudica-
tion of marine cases arising out of the War of 1812, was
at times as sparse in adjectival imagery as Choate was
copious.
The student might profitably read some argument
and make a report of it on the following plan: First,
write down in one column a list of the adjectives used.
Second, record in another column, opposite each word,
a list of its synonyms. Then he should consider the
relative appropriateness of the several words to the
context, and also their intellectual or emotional quality.
Similar investigations may be made as to the other parts
of speech, particularly concrete nouns, verbs, and ad-
verbs.
All the parts of speech, it would seem, may be con-
sidered as imagery, expressing a state of mind having
an objective reference. We should cultivate the habit
of imaging nouns as concrete objects, and verbs as ac-
tions. Adjectives and verbs are imaged as modifiers,
respectively, of things and actions; the preposition
with suggests the accompaniment of things; over and
under the position of things; the conjunction and the
connection^ and or the alternative of things, etc.
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 223
The very experience of a concrete noun involves associated
images. It is the part of speech devoted to that unusual habit
of mental imagery, especially visual. As soon as we ignore our
images, or for some reason have but few, our vocabulary is im-
poverished of concrete nouns.
Observe the concrete nouns and adjectives by which
the chief justice proves to Falstaff that he is an old
man:
Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are
written down old with all the characters of age? Have you
not a moist eye ? a dry hand ? a yellow cheek ? a white beard ?
a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? is not your voice broken?
your wind short? your chin double? your wit simple? and
every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet
call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!
The motor response to verbs, especially in the im-
perative form, is too well recognized to be dwelt upon.
Doubtless it is often because of this that, when we wish
to avoid bluntness of speech invoking action, we give
the verb adverbial or other modifiers.
The Apostle Paul's remarks to the Corinthians, upon
the abstract virtue charity or love, illustrates concrete
suggestion through verbs:
Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the
truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
The verbs of the man of science grow in significance
when they are imaged concretely:
From the time that the first suggestion to introduce physical
science into ordinary education was timidly whispered, until
224 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
now, the advocates of scientific education have met with opposi-
tion of two kinds. On the one hand, they have been pooh-poohed
by the men of business who pride themselves in being the represen-
tatives of practicality; while, on the other hand, they have been
excoynmunicated by the classical scholars, in their capacity of
Levites in charge of the ark of culture and monopolists of liberal
education. — {Thomas H. Huxley.)
But most of all, perhaps, the debater should pay at-
tention to his use of adjectives, for they express the
mental attitude and the emotion of the speaker.
Characterization, hovi^ever, is not argument, though
often an important aid to it. Excessive characteriza-
tion is quickly detected, and defeats its own ends.
Adjectives seem to be more intimate, more personal words
than any yet given. . . . We find that the adjective function
in general is that of expressing the intimate effect of stimuli
on organism and at the same time of pointing to an object as
possessing these qualities, and it is more likely than the other
parts of speech to have an affective coloring.^
The following passage from Sidney Smith may illus-
trate imaginative suggestion in general, marked by a
pecuhar richness of diction:
Take some quiet, sober moment of life, and add together
the two ideas of pride and man; behold him, a creature of a
sphere high, stalking through infinite space in all the grandeur
of littleness. Perched on a speck of the universe, every wind
of heaven strikes into his blood the coldness of death; his soul
floats from his body like melody from the string; day and night,
as dust on the wheel, he is rolled along the heavens, through a
labyrinth of worlds, and all the creations of God are flaming
above and beneath.
^ Thz Psychological Review, Monograph Supplements, No. 30, by
Eleanor H. Rowland, pp. 19, 23.
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 225
It has been well said that " there are three great words
in expression — imagination, sympathy, and suggestion."
To the Hterary artist, the greatest of these is imagi-
nation, for the imagination is the mental source of
suggestion. It suggests feehng, it suggests thought.
Through its dynamic power it awakens the mental ac-
tivity of others, which under guidance and control seems
of itself to reach the anticipated goal — whether that
goal be the perception of a truth or the performance of
an action desired. Thus the verbal image is the natural
agency of the mind in conveying its ideas. Nothing is
simpler, except gesture and facial expression.
"The eye it cannot choose but see,
We cannot bid the ear be still,
Our bodies feel where'er they be
Against or with our will."
The Phrase.^Fortunate, indeed, is the debater who
is able to image such concepts as necessity, advantage,
and danger, when they are fundamental to his case,
in interest-arousing, memorable phrases. Failing in
tliis, like most pohtical orators, he lays stress on the
power of the quoted phrase or epigram which appeals
to a cherished attitude or a familiar ideal. Indeed, even
the main issues of a debate have sometimes been so
stated as almost to beg the main question at issue. This
happened quite unconsciously, for example, when a
negative team, opposing the participation by the United
States in a league of peace to be formed after the war,
defined the issue as freedom and independence of action
versus a formal alHance. All such phrases appeal to
emotional judgments.
226 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
The power of the phrase has been emphasized by
Emerson in his "Essay on Eloquence" as follows:
The orator must be, to a certain extent, a poet. Condense
some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience
is electrified. ... It is a wonderful aid to memory, which carries
away the image, and never loses it. A popular assembly, Hke
the House of Commons, or the French Chamber, or the Amer-
ican Congress, is commanded by these two powers — first by a
fact, then by skill of statement. Put the argument into a con-
crete shape, into an image — some hard phrase, round and sohd
as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with
them — and the cause is half won.
An effective artistic image must appeal as an actuality
or truth and give the impression of spontaneity, ob-
taining its effects instantly or not at all. It is simple,
not stilted or overwrought, is drawn with a free but
sure hand. It has the force of an intuitive perception
whose implications and suggestions are so obvious and
compelling as to be inescapable. It is a psychological
bow-shot at the bull's-eye.
Great truths which have influenced the policies of
this nation have, on great occasions, been imaged vividly
as a mental flash. Washington fixed the foreign policy
of the United States for over a hundred years in his
Second Inaugural through his use of the term "En-
tangling AUiances." Lincoln defined the issues which
saved the Union through his application to slavery of
the Biblical quotation that a "house divided against
itself cannot stand." And more recently, President
Wilson justified America's entrance into the great Eu-
ropean War by a phrase whose truth was instantly per-
ceived, recognized, and accepted, namely, that we must
"make the world safe for democracy." Throughout
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 227
the century, indeed, slogans of parties in succeeding
campaigns have figured prominently in their triumphs
or defeats. The mottoes of our States, and in ancient
times those on the coats of arms of families, served as
the rallying cries for loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice.
Sentence Forms. — In making argument effective,
there is much to enhghten us in the psychology of
grammar and rhetoric. Chief, among the sentence forms
used to awaken and intensify interest, is the interroga-
tory.
(i) Our best oratory fairly bristles with the rhetorical
question: "Is hfe so dear or peace so sweet as to be pur-
chased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
Almighty God !" Such a direct appeal has an advantage
over the declarative form, in that it starts the mind of
the listener to thinking and, even though the question
suggests the answer, seems to permit it to reach its con-
clusion by its own processes. Interest is secured by
setting the listener's mind to work under the speaker's
control. In the debate on the Swiss military plan, notice
further how the negative massed a series of interroga-
tories in a summary, to implant the doubt that the af-
firmative had proved their case:
You have heard the whole case of the aflarmative. Have they
shown what tremendous change has come about in our condi-
tion that we are forced to forsake sober thought and turn to so
radical a proposal? Have they shown why, when we consider
the problem of defense, we are to find its solution in a slavish
imitation of a system used and developed by a little landlocked
European state the size of Massachusetts? Have you heard any
reason why we are to lay such tremendous emphasis upon that
branch of our defense which is secondary in character, namely,
our land forces? Have they justified by necessity their proposal
to compel every normal American to let his time be confiscated
228 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
by the state for this type of defense? Have they shown how it
is economical to train eleven million men? Have they proved
why we must expose ourselves to the dangerous national psy-
chology which universal military training develops? Have they
proved that under the system they propose we will at least have
adequate, real defense? Will their plan, whatever its faults
and exaggerations in principle and application, stand the acid
test of war, and guarantee us at least safety against a possible
foe? The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is emphatically "No."
Notice, too, the compelling force of the skilfully
phrased questions in this British "War Poster," almost
brutal in their directness:
FOUR QUESTIONS TO MEN WHO HAVE NOT ENLISTED
1. If you are physically fit and between 19 and 38 years of
age, are you really satisfied with what you are doing to-day?
2. Do you feel happy as you walk along the streets and see
other men wearing the King's uniform?
3. What wiU you say in years to come when people ask you:
"Where did you serve in the great war?"
4. What would you answer when your children grow up and
say: "Father, why weren't you a soldier too?"
ENLIST TO-DAY
The interrogatory may suggest the answer yes as
well as no, and interest the mind in the most difficult
and important phases of any subject. It is intended
to bring a strong reaction.
(2) When the experienced lawyer says to the court,
"Turn to folio 304 and you will find," so and so, he hopes
to prompt the court to obey his suggestion and examine
the evidence. Likewise, the seasoned debater knows
that when he tells his audience to follow him figuratively
to a certain quarter of the globe, it will usually be in-
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 229
clined at least to the mental act. The imperative form,
however, is often varied with the more courteous or
concessive "If you will turn, if you will follow me, you
will find," etc.
(3) It must not be supposed from tliis, however, that
the h}'pothetical sentence form always or even usually
implies courtesy or agreement. Indeed, the over-argu-
mentative "If, therefore," style often awakens opposi-
tion and combativeness, for it may unply quite unin-
tentionally some distrust in the Kstener and actually
raise the doubt which it would down. In speaking to
an audience which is antagonistic, as, for example, to a
body of h}^henated Americans on "Foreign-Born Amer-
icans Real Americans," you might imply distrust by
saying: "If you beheve in the greatness of our mission,
then you must accept our problems as your problems
and identify our life with your own." The danger of
disapproval would at least be lessened by saying more
diplomatically: "Since you believe in the greatness of
our mission, then you will accept our problems as your
problems and identify our Hfe with your own."
Climax. — The most vivid imagery in an argument is
often used for the purpose of obtaining a strong final
impression, which is likely to be the most lasting. After
clarif}ing the processes in a discriminatory way, an
idea is sometimes effectively driven home by an analogy
or a metaphor, thus:
The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps,
humble instruments and means in the great Providential dis-
pensation which is completing. We have fled from the political
Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monu-
ment of infamy and derision to the world ! For can we ever
expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defense;
230 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor
and zeal among ourselves ? The same force and resistance which
are sufficient to procure us our liberties, will secure us a glorious
independence, and support us in the dignity of free, imperial
states. We cannot suppose that our opposition has made a
corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to America, or
created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind.
We can, therefore, expect a restoration and establishment of our
privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received,
from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their
virtues. The unanimity and valor which will effect an honorable
peace can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary.
He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he lets
him loose without draiving his teeth and paring his nails. — {Samuel
Adams.)
Repetition. — Words, phrases, and sentences gain
peculiar povi^er through repetition, so that what at first
we know not and care not for, will in time, through the
sheer persistency with which it is forced on our atten-
tion, come to be accepted and embraced. Thus, articles
of trade are successfully exploited by advertising, and
pohtical slogans and epigrams casually mentioned at
first, come gradually to be accepted and extended be-
3^ond the occasion of their first utterance. Not only
that, but recurrent sounds and forms, as in the litany
or in many devices of poetry such as the refrain of the
old ballads, or in Burke's "I impeach him," in his prose-
cution of Warren Hastings, have a pecuhar effect of
monotony which fascinates the Hstener into quiescence.
In his Reply to Hayne, too, Webster uses the phrase,
"I understand him to say," with a slightly ironical effect
of disapproval.
No element of debating is more important than the
keeping of the main ideas— arguments and facts — before
the mind of the audience. Repetition of subject, repe-
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 231
tition of phrases, suggesting the main reasons! Indeed,
debates have been won without much debating abihty
except such as is shown in a frequent restatement of
the proposition supported by three main reasons as
the unified scheme of proof. We may even forget the
absence of further or supporting arguments in the con-
secutive din of the "three reasons." They alone, so
melodiously phrased, so rhythmically uttered, so con-
fidently proclaimed, will remain in our ears. This, of
course, is more likely to happen if the question is such
that neither side can prove anything about it with cer-
tainty. And in all debates on matters of pubhc poHcy,
it must be remembered that we can never establish any-
thing more than a preponderance of probability. If,
however, in debating, the intellectual is to predominate,
it is far better that the main ideas should be emphasized
through a development of consecutive proofs than that
the emotions should be besieged by a quasi-poetic re-
petend. The debater must always recognize that reasons
qua reasons are more important than language. This
understood, skilful repetition is an important and proper
instrument of effectiveness; for frequency of occurrence
acquaints the audience clearly and fully with what is
of most importance. Such acquaintance is a condition
precedent to the acceptance of a case.
Variety. — Ideas arranged in good sequence may be-
come tiresome, even if clearly imaged. Nothing is so
fatal to interest and attention as monotony — monot-
ony of subject, monotony of incident, monotony of
style, monotony of dehvery. Vivid imagery gives rest
from the monotone of logical sequence and suggests,
through the laws of association, obvious detours into
bypaths of memory or feeling. Whether its purpose,
232 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
however, is to adorn, or simply to inform and make clear,
the use of imagery must take into account this funda-
mental fact of the psychology of the human mind, that
the holding of attention and interest demands variety,
t Monotony is desirable for its impressiveness, but when
we wish to avoid the fatigue it produces, we image our
ideas in various ways. Indeed, repetition of phrase
in general is more suitable to poetry than to prose, (i)
There is, for example, an advantage in the parallel struc-
ture of sentences expressing an idea from the same view-
point and relating to the same subject, as in the preceding
paraleipsis of Lord Erskine. There is here no monotony,
no exact repetition, only a suggestion of similarity: "It
is not my purpose — I will not follow the example —
I will not call your attention — ." The classical illustra-
tion of such a parallelism perfectly clear and effectively
varied is Burke's six capital causes why the Americans
love liberty. For the varied literary expression of the
main propositions of a brief, the debater will derive much
profit from a study of this and similar masterpieces.
(2) But even where there is exact repetition, the words
may be differently spoken. Both manner and mood
will vary meaning. Mark Antony, for example, fre-
quently repeats the suggestion that Brutus is an honor-
able man in exactly the same words, but we know that
he must have gradually altered his manner and voice,
to be able to express finally the irony of his true mean-
ing. Humor pleases us, as a relaxation from a serious
strain. Thus, Falstaff is depicted in sharp contrast to
the other main characters of Henry the Fourth. When
he propounds to himself his catechism on honor, he fLxes
his attention on the theme and repeats the word honor
often, but he holds our interest and attention by his
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 233
surprises and quick turns. We even find real amuse-
ment in a droll cynicism with which we do not wholly
agree:
Prince. Why, thou owest God a death.
Falstaf. 'T\s not due yet; I would be loath to pay him be-
fore his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls
not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honor pricks me on. Yea, but
how if honor prick me off when I come on? how then? Can
honor set to a leg? no; or an arm? no; or take away the grief
of a wound? no. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? no.
What is honor? a word. What is that word honor? air. A
trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday.
Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible,
then? yes, to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
no. Whyr detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none
of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism.
Proceeding further with an analysis of the sources
of variety, we find (3) that we may hold or intensify
interest and tend to reach a maximum of effectiveness
by diversifying methods, proofs, and illustrations. Hav-
ing shown from signs that a fact is true, we may give
examples showing that it has often been true before, or
state reasons why it must now in the nature of the case
be true. Having shown one effect of a cause, we will
specify additional effects; having supported an asser-
tion by the opinion of one authority, we will add others
with their varying opinions. Now we may appeal to
habit, to imitation, to desire, to idealism; now draw
illustrations from one field and now from another more
or less remote. Now we are slow and minute in style
or manner, now fast and sweeping as the need may be,
for the eye may move as easily from crag to crag as from
petal to petal. We usually like the speaker who holds
his subject so firmly that he can, if need be, treat it
234 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
lightly, illustrating and proving, smiling and disapprov-
ing; simply letting the mind of the audience play natu-
rally about the subject, sharply focussing the attention
only on what is really important. When the attention
is so strained as to be unpleasant, a varied appeal tends
to bring rest and delight.
(4) Finally, a variation in the sources of sensory ap-
peal may give increased power of effect. Speech is in
its nature primarily auditory. Though the mental and
emotional associations which it awakens are suggested
to the ear, it converts to its use the other sources of
sensory appeal. When it does not, its monotony may
be due to a narrow range of suggestion. Certainly, the
speaker is a word-painter, picturing objects to the sight
by the use of sahent characteristics and indicative words.
But this is by no means all. He should on occasion in-
tensify and diversify his appeals by the use of imagery
which enUsts the other senses. How instinctively, for
instance, that master of expression and human nature,
Shakespeare, varied his appeals in this way:
"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worid
Like a Colossus; . . .
Brutus and Cczsar : what should be in that Casar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
Bmtiis will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great?"
The whole complex origin of our ideas of the outside
world may be reflected in the purely audible.
INSTRUIMENTS OF SUGGESTION 235
Let us contrast speech briefly with a visual art. The
moving scenes of the vitascope produce an illusion of
reahty and vividly portray action to the eye. Yet in
a motion-picture of a great drama such as "Hamlet,"
how much we miss the power of the human voice, espe-
cially if we have heard the play rendered by a noted
actor ! The auditory art of speech does well in suggest-
ing to the mind both action and visual objects. In fact,
it has been found that the great orators use visual imagery
more than all the other forms combined.
A public speaker may possibly become popular chiefly
because of his pictorial power, as well as for his rhythmic
and sonorous effects, his Hterary style, his argumen-
tative skill, or his extensive knowledge, y£t such popular-
ity has been known to fade away as quickly as it came,
because of a violation of the essential principle of change
which underlies all sustained human interest. Just as
statistics may be overdone, so may word-paintin,g; in
the end, variety itself may become monotonous. In-
deed, there is a valid basis for the psychological prin-
ciple of variety as well as for the psychological prin-
ciple of monotony. Its effective use marks the climax
of art.
Paraleipsis. — It is singular that the figure paraleipsis,
or omission, so highly prized by the ancient orators,
and so common in the public speeches of to-day, should
have failed to receive a notice from modern text-writers.
The student is doubtless familiar with the aXka ravra
irapaXei^oi of Demosthenes (but these things I pass
by), the prceteritio of Cicero, and the colloquial "not to
mention" of modern speech. By paraleipsis, a speaker,
while bringing ideas forward for the purpose of exclud-
ing them, fixes the attention on the apparently excluded
236 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
ideas in such a skilful way as to secure their full force
and effect. Though negative in form, it is positive in
meaning; it has the force of paradox, and aptness of
irony.
So Webster says: "I will not accuse the honorable
member of violating civilized war; I will not say that
he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were
or were not dipped in that which should have caused
rankling — there was not quite strength enough in the
bow to bring them to their mark." This figure is quite
frequently employed in the address to the jury, as, for
example, in Lord Erskine's defense of Gordon as follows :
It is not my purpose to recall to your minds the fatal effects
which bigotry has, in former days, produced in this island.
I will not follow the example the crown has set me, by
making an attack upon your passions, on subjects foreign
to the object before you. I will not call your attention from
those flames, kindled by a villainous banditti (which they have
thought fit, in defiance of evidence, to introduce), by bringing
before your eyes the more cruel flames, in which the bodies of
our expiring, meek, patient Christian fathers were, little more
than a century ago, consuming in Smithfield. I will not call
up from the graves of martyrs all the precious holy blood that
has been spilled in this land, to save its established government
and its reformed religion from the secret villainy and the open
force of Papists. The cause does not stand in need even of such
honest arts; and I feel my heart too big voluntarily to recite
such scenes, when I reflect that some of my own, and my best
and dearest progenitors, from whom I glory to be descended,
ended their innocent lives in prisons and in exile, only because
they were Protestants.
We may suggest our ideas through concrete illus-
trations and analogy, we may state them in highly sug-
gestive rhetorical forms, but most important of all is
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 237
what we image — what we put into our imagery! Webster
used paraleipsis in the eulogy of his State beginning, "I
shall enter upon no encomium of Massachusetts," but
the real power of the passage lay in its content, with
its skilful allusion to that wliich existing easily in memory
would quickly touch the feelings and sentiment. With
what strong sense-appeal does Shakespeare image his
reflections on the possibilities of a Hfe beyond, in the
following:
"Ay, but to die and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible, warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison 'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howUng; 'Tis too horrible."
If any one should miss the lofty idealization in such
passages or think that imagery is merely a use of fine
words, let him first read Dorothy Wordsworth's rambles
about Grasmere and then her brother William's "I wan-
dered lonely as a cloud."
Confidence. — If a debater betrays doubt or uncer-
tainty with reference to himself or to his case, or if he
exhibits suspicion or distrust toward his audience, his
state of mind may quite unconsciously react on his au-
dience with disastrous results. Indeed, no principle of
effectiveness needs to be more generally recognized
than that confidence begets confidence. Mr. Roosevelt
is noted as a campaign speaker for the vehemence and
238 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
force of his utterances. Speaking in Chicago in 191 6
on National Duty and International Ideals, he said:
Every nation in the world now realizes our weakness, and
no nation in the world believes in either our disinterestedness or
our manliness. The effort to placate outside nations by being
neutral between right and wrong, and to gain good-will along
professional pacifist lines by remaining helpless for self-defense,
has resulted, after two fatuous years, in so shaping affairs that
the nations either already feel, or are rapidly growing to feel,
for us not only dislike but contempt.
On the other hand, Benjamin Franklin learned hu-
mility from a Quaker friend, and preached the doctrine
of qualified assertion thus:
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the senti-
ments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even
forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use
of every word or expression in the language that imported a
fix'd opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted,
instead of them, / conceive, I apprehend, or / imagine a thing to
be so or so; or it so appears to me at present. When another
asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd myself
the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing im-
mediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering
I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his
opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared
or seem'd to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advan-
tage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd
in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I pro-
pos'd my opinions procur'd them a readier reception and less
contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to
be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give
up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in
the right.
Much, of course, depends, as Webster says, on the
man, the subject, and the occasion. Temperaments
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 239
differ. The orator, like the artist, may at times need
to draw with broad strokes particularly in summaries,
and at other times with a more delicate shading. Some-
times, too, the larger the audience the more positive
and unqualified the assertion required. But whenever
a debater gives rein to strong assertion, he should do
so only from a profound sincerity of belief and a full
knowledge of his subject based on investigation. Other-
wise, his abihties may be put to a severe test, when called
upon to defend himself by evidence and proof.
Indeed, the value of mutual confidence for practical
results and the idea that we beget confidence in others
by possessing it and exhibiting it in ourselves, is so un-
doubtedly true, that strong assertions which are utterly
false sometimes receive wide credence on this account.
Witness the personal rumors and stories which circulate
during hotly contested poHtical campaigns.
Interestedness.^ — The speaker cannot speak well un-
less he has the ear of his audience, nor will an audience
listen long to a speaker who does not possess an interest
in what he has to say. Any indifference in manner of
speaking, or in treatment of subject shown in inept
words or in poorly formed sentences, or in the use of
commonplace ideas, tends to produce inattention and
hstlessness. What you give, that shall you receive. The
speaker's concentration of attention on his subject and
manifestation of interest in it may be made as contagious
as confidence. Such a manifestation of attention will
naturally suggest to the audience the attitude of lis-
tening. It will thus give a chance to the magnetic power
of the speaker's personahty to assert itself, which alone
may fix the gaze and compel interest, and so make pos-
sible the necessary reaction of the audience from the
240 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
stimuli employed. At all events, it is by getting the
attention of an audience, and, if need be, of holding it
on the important ideas, persistently and consistently,
that the speaker is able to communicate his ideas simply
and with force.
Thus, after a debater has completely saturated him-
self with his material, and ordered it for the end in view,
his presentation, as good or bad, will naturally depend
on the effect which it produces on the audience. Or per-
haps I should say on the unity or totality of its effects.
He will be able to follow the scheme of his brief more
effectively if he holds it in his mind neither too firmly
nor too loosely and can regard it readily either as a whole
or in its parts. Practically, a centraHty of topic is needed
for a suggestive development adapted to the occasion,
of each phase of the larger theme. He should, for ex-
ample, be able to say, "I propose to speak of the dan-
gerous consequences of the proposed measures. At the
outset I would picture the magnitude of the scheme,"
and so on. Great pains should be taken with junctures
and transitions, or attention and interest will break down.
However the latter may have been originally secured,
they can hardly be maintained without rhetorical clear-
ness and logical relevancy. Words colored with mean-
ing, and collocated into sentences full of association or
paragraphs of emotional elation, are but the romance of
speech, of which logic and evidence are the stern reali-
ties. Indeed, a brilHancy of retort in debating, even if
provocative of applause, is not hkely to survive a mis-
representation of facts, whether accidental or intentional.
Avoiding Common Defects in Delivery. — The dangers
in manner to be guarded against in debate, says Pro-
fessor Winter, "are wearying monotony, overhammer-
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 241
ing — too frequent, too hard, too unifonii an emphasis —
too much or too continued heat, too much speed, espe-
cially in speaking against time, a loss of poise in the
bearing, halting, or jumbling in speech, nervous tension
in action, an overcontentious or bumptious spirit." ^
To the same effect is the following criticism:
We have inherited wrong ideas about argumentative delivery.
Ninety per cent of college debaters seem to have not the
slightest knowledge of effective presentation. Their speaking
is so "preponderantly boisterous and conclusive, so disfigured
by volcanic fervor, for which the matter ejected affords no
adequate excuse," that our sensibilities are paralyzed and ren-
dered incapable of absorbing the evidence they produce.
I inveigh against the prevalent style of debate for several
reasons. First, average debating is not good public speaking.
Most modem authorities will accept as the definition of public
speaking, "enlarged and dignified conversation." The virtues
of good address are clearness, directness, and force. But what
coach can have these principles in mind and allow his team to
pound furiously for thirty minutes without pause or variety?
Confused thinking only can result. How many debaters can
look calmly at their audience and say implicitly: "I am talking
to you and you and you. I want this idea to get under your
skin"? No! There is a torrent of speech accompanied by vio-
lent shakings of the head, a flood of facts and quotations, a
fifteen-minute speech in ten, and a "Thank you." Now the
first end of aU speech is to make itself clear. Lincoln accused
Douglas of being like a cuttlefish, a fish that throws out a dark
substance into the water to hide its exact position. Again, he
said Judge Douglas reminded him of the little Frenchman he
knew in the northwest whose legs were so short that when he
walked through the snow the seat of his trousers rubbed out his
footprints. These analogies characterize the average coUege
debater. His speeches also lack force. Things are great or small
only by comparison. Ideas are made important by contrast.
The speech that strikes a constant key, that plunges along in
1 "Public Speaking," Irving L. Winter, p. 47.
242 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
the same channel, orotund and extreme, lacks the first degree
of force. Yes, average debating is not good public speaking.
There is nothing of the human quality, no conversational style,
no sincere personality. Should we not pay more attention to
debate delivery ?
Secondly, to allow this style of speaking is to lose the ideal
of training a student to think on his feet. To roll forth auto-
matically a mass of highly concentrated data, to grind along mo-
notonously for ten minutes like a hand-organ, to recite parrot
fashion, as most debaters do, is not thinking on one's feet. The
chief concern of our profession — physical and psychical correla-
tion — is totally obscured.
Last of all, we must face the evident lack of public interest
in debating and overcome it. I again blame poor delivery. An
instructor, asked recently to judge some class try-outs, said:
"Yes, but I hate debates, they are bores." He served, and for
two hours bravely endured the agony of senseless jargon that
rattled upon us mercilessly as hailstones. I sympathized with
him. Each of the twenty speakers except one labored under
the delusion that because this was a debate try-out he must rant
and yell and glare; that a high, sustained key and lightning
rapidity was a proof of excellent skill and training. Shades of
Caesar! If they could learn to talk, just talk.
I plead, therefore, for more common sense in debate delivery,
more of the "just human" quality, more of conversational style.
I know that we are more intense and excited in a conversation
over Roosevelt than over Longfellow, that barber-shop con-
versation contains more dynamite than after-dinner talk — in
short, that genuine argument is the expression of deep feehng
and strong conviction, but let us practise more moderacy.^
The most suggestive delivery is usually to be found
in the man who (i) has reduced his case to the simplest
terms, and (2) whose habit has been to speak extem-
poraneously rather than to deKver memorized orations.
If, for instance, his own case and that of liis opponent
' Quarterly Journal of Speech Education, IV, 3; article by C. F. Linds-
ley.
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 243
have been placed in the form of a syllogism, and he is
properly trained in the value of the concentrated form
of attack, his dehvery is not so Hkely to be objection-
able. The fewer the points the better. In both the
first speech and in the rebuttal the audience will be
more responsive if the propositions examined are hmited
in number. Of course, they must be fundamental and
well imaged. No scattered fire or mere sharpshooting!
In rebuttal, indeed, it is sometimes possible to limit
an attack to a single point. The first speaker makes
an objection which is followed up by the second speaker
and then by the third, or, to make a football allusion,
the first speaker starts "an opening" which the others
enlarge until it "looks as big as a house." Thus, in
opposing the formation of a league to enforce peace,
I heard a negative team win a decision by a continuous
bombarcbnent of the contradiction contained in the
phrase "enforce peace," and on another occasion, by
an equally effective artillery-fire against "formal al-
hances."
If the debater has also been in the habit of speaking
extemporaneously he will not be likely to yell, and rave,
and fan the air. The training of a debater should in-
clude (besides an immersion in the subject-matter of
his debate, and the logical organization of his case)
such practice in speaking as will require him to think
clearly and express his ideas effectively on his feet. Given
a concept containing his fundamental reason, he should
be told simply to image that on the mind of the audience.
He will learn the value of natural, personal, and direct
speech. He will learn to hold his subject in mind, but
to look his audience in the eye, and to speak in a tone
which means something. He will perceive and feel the
244 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DEBATE
responses which come from meeting eye with eye, and
from a really communicative tone. For, speaking is but
a dialogue with an audience, whose responses, though
silent and often subconscious, are instructive guides
to the speaker. The extempore speaker, indeed, simply
converses with his audience on his topic, until he feels
sure that they have caught his meaning, and then, and
not until then, passes on to something else. We image
our ideas, according to Professor Winans, by centering
the attention of the audience upon it. It is here in
delivery that the "image theory" of argument as pre-
sented in this text meets the "attention theory" of Pro-
fessor Winans.^ Each supplements the other.
The Decision. — The decision of a board of judges re-
cords an opinion in favor of the affirmative or negative
sides. The judges express an opinion as to which of the
two sides has succeeded in satisfying certain reasonable
expectations or standards. These include such ideas as
that the debaters must be interesting, awaken sym-
pathy, clarify the issues, illustrate view-points common
to the speaker and audience, as well as be informing
and show an extensive knowledge of the subject-matter.
They must, of course, exhibit the powers of reasoning —
analysis and discrimination, synthesis and abstraction.
They must image effectively all fundamental reasons
so tliat they will be vividly perceived and readily be-
lieved, and bring to their support, whenever necessary,
reHable authority. They must exhibit proper platform
manners and form, good literary finish and style, and
always be quick, ready, and skilful to down an opponent
in triumph, with fact, authority, reason, phrase, or flash
of the eye. At length they must sum up, analyzing the
^ "Public Speaking," J. A. Winans.
INSTRUMENTS OF SUGGESTION 245
opponent's failure, touching on the weak spots and
setting forth defects, in vivid contrast with the articu-
lated proofs of their own side. These are some of the
reasonable expectations, based on customary instruc-
tions to judges.
No exact valuation, so far as I know, has ever been
fixed to the elements of good debating. Indeed, it seems
doubtful if any can ever be made. The elements are
too numerous and too uncertain in quantity, quality,
and relation to make it practicable. As with the painter,
one false detail, for instance in color, may change the
accent of the entire picture. Facts and logic, however,
should take precedence over style and delivery.
The decision should always be a measurement of
the relative debating skill shown by the two contesting
teams. Since the essence of the art of debating consists
in assertion and denial, proof and counter-proof with
distinctions, it must follow that memorized speeches
may defeat the purpose of debate and are, therefore,
a proper object of penalty.
Finally, we would note that all the elements of the
problem of decision in debating are variables; and that
the problem itself, abstractly considered, is indetermi-
nate; except, perhaps, that we may say that a decision
records a victory in a contest of supporting suggestions
and attacking inhibitions — arising from facts, logic, style,
and delivery — and modified further, quite subconsciously
and unintentionally, by suggestions and inhibitions, aris-
ing in the minds of those exercising the judicial func-
tion. A decision is a sincere personal opinion on the
''fnerits of the debate.^'
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Specimen Briefs
THE FIRST JUNIUS LETTER
This letter has been chosen to illustrate brief-making be-
cause it is believed to be one of the most remarkable bits of ar-
gumentative composition in our language. The argument is
particularly remarkable in that, while it succeeds in arousing
the feelings, it adheres closely to strictly logical processes, in-
geniously conceived and dexterously expressed. It is to be re-
gretted that such a brilhant argument is sometimes marred
by a disregard of the facts, as occurs, for instance, conspicuously
in the vicious attack upon the character of Justice Mansfield.
It may be explained that the first two paragraphs of this
letter contain the introduction, the third being transitional.
The fourth paragraph presents the main proposition to be proved
and the main syllogism. The main proposition is supported
further by the proposition advanced in the fifth paragraph, to
the proof of which the rest of the letter, excepting the last two
paragraphs, is devoted. These two paragraphs sum up and
enforce the conclusion.
A few points of divergence in the following brief from the
method and form of the letter may be mentioned:
The brief follows the usual sequence, first proposition, then
proof, regardless of the order in the letter. For example, the
conclusion of the main argument is presented after the premises
in the last sentence of the fourth paragraph; while in the brief
it is, of course, stated first as the proposition to be proved, and
is followed by the reasons marked A and B.
247
248 APPENDIX
But Junius himself sometimes follows the order (i) proposi-
tion, (2) proof. For instance, the paragraphs containing the
attack upon Mansfield are so compact and coherent, that it has
been possible to insert in the brief the sentences of the letter with-
out change of order or language. Here, therefore, the brief-
maker has added only a classification of the proposition (as co-
ordinate or subordinate).
Again in the letter, a conclusion is sometimes not formally-
stated but only implied from a chain of reasoning; in the brief,
such an implied conclusion is formally expressed. Thus, the
proposition at the head of the introduction does not appear in
the letter, except as an insinuation from the four propositions of
the first paragraph.
Finally, in all cases in the letter, where the opposite is said
from what is meant, as in the criticism of Weymouth, the brief-
maker has discarded the irony and used the direct form of state-
ment.
The following brief is offered for use and criticism in study-
ing the principles of brief-making: analysis, classification, ar-
rangement, unity, logical sequence, and proportion.
BRIEF I
Introduction
The abuse of our loyalty naturally fills us with resentment, be-
cause —
[Note — This proposition is the conclusion of a syllogism, with reason-
ing supporting each premise.]
Argument
Our present ruinous condition is due to government, because
I. The condition of the people in a state is due to government,
II. Our people at present are in a ruinous condition, for
A. Perhaps there never was such an instance of a change as that
brought about by the misconduct of the present ministry.
B. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that con-
dition which hardly any change can mend, for
I. The King's folly and depravity are likely to have produced
it.
8. The true cause of our misfortunes lies in the distribution of
the departments of state, for
APPENDIX 249
a. The treasury has been intrusted to the Duke of Grafton,
who is incompetent.
b. Lord North, as chancellor of the exchequer, is without
ability.
[Note — Similarly in this series are to be placed the attacks on c. Hills-
borough; d. Weymouth; e. Granby; /. Hawke; g. Mansfield.]
Conclusion
The nation is in a deplorable condition, brought about by govern-
ment by men without wisdom and capacity.
[First draft, drawn from the First Letter of Junius, to be studied and
expanded. Note carefully, in the letter, the assumption of premises not
stated, and the insinualion of conclusions not drawn.]
Brief I Expanded
Introduction
The abuse of our loyalty naturally fills us with resentment, for
A . In our own case, there has been an abuse of loyalty, for
I. A free people obey the laws, because
I. They enacted them — and
II. This obedience is cheerful and almost unlimited.
III. Such obedience to the guardian of the laws leads to a strong
affection for his person.
IV. This affection has often been excessive among Englishmen
who are peculiarly liable to a strong affection for his per-
son.
B. (All) abuses of loyalty naturally fill us with resentment.
Body
Our present ruinous condition is due to government, because
A. The condition of the people in a state is due to government,
I. From a prosperous condition of the people we argue that their
government is good, and
II. From a ruinous condition of the people that their government
is bad, for
I. Such a ruinous condition does not depend originally on the
patient multitude, for
a. Their indignation and excesses are effects of ill usage by
government rather than causes of a ruinous condition.
B. Our people at present are in a ruinous condition.
I. "Perhaps there never was an instance of a change in the cir-
cumstances and temper of a whole nation so sudden and
250 APPENDIX
extraordinary as that which the misconduct of ministers has
within these very few years produced in Great Britain."
I. "When our gracious sovereign ascended the throne we were
a flourishing and contented people."
n. After a rapid succession of changes we are reduced to that con-
dition which hardly any change can mend, for
I. The King's folly and depravity must have produced it.
a. His plan has failed to produce salutary effects, is unwise,
and bad in design, for
(i) It involved the idea of uniting all parties, of trying
all characters, and distributing the offices of state
by rotation.
(2) It showed a capricious partiality to new faces, a nat-
ural turn for low intrigue and the treacherous amuse-
ment of double and triple negotiations.
C. The true cause of our misfortunes lies in the distribution of the de-
partments of state.
I. The treasury has been committed to the Duke of Grafton,
who is utterly incompetent, because
{A) He is already ruined by play.
(5) He became minister by accident, and is an apostate
by design.
(C) He has shown no business ability, unless a wayward in-
consistency be a mark of genius, for
I. His view of finance is to distribute, not save, the public
money, and
iP) A reliance by him on Lord North, chancellor of the ex-
chequer, would not deter him from being as thought-
less and extravagant as he pleases.
II. Lord North as chancellor of the exchequer is without ability,
for
{A) The absence of any proof of his talents cannot mean that
he has voluntarily concealed them.
(5) There is such an absence of proof, for
1. Since he has been in office, no plan has been formed
for the relief of the public credit.
2. He should think seriously of his plan to increase the
public debt, for
a. The people will not bear, after a six years' peace,
to see new millions borrowed without a diminu-
tion of debt or interest.
b. The attempt might arouse them beyond the sacri-
fice of a minister.
APPENDIX 251
3. Moreover, the people expect that the debt upon the
civil list will not be paid without a strict inquiry,
for
a. A lotterj'' may be justifiable for war, but not for
the prince's expenses.
4. The mismanagement of the King's affairs in the House
of Commons would not be more disgraced.
a. (Examples.)
5. Before he became chancellor he was not derided by
his enemies or pitied by his friends.
m. At a most critical season, Hillsborough is made secretary to
govern America, and he is without capacity, for
(A) The season was most critical when he was made secre-
tary.
I. A series of inconsistent measures had divided the
colonies, for
a. This division resulted from the spirit and argu-
ment given the colonies by Lord Chatham's and
Lord Camden's opposition to Mr. Grenville's
policies.
{B) He is without capacity or superior knowledge, for
I. His despatches and measures determine this, for
a. His despatches are bad,
b. His measures are failures, for
(i) The people have been driven into excesses
little short of rebellion, for
(a) Petitions have been hindered from reaching
the throne, and
{b) An "arbitrary condition" had been im-
posed upon the General Court of Mas-
sachusetts which, even if it had considered
the temper of the people, would have
availed nothing.
(2) While at peace, our military may support him,
but if it be withdrawn his dismissal would
not console us, outraged and abused. J
IV. Weymouth is made secretary for the Southern Department,
for which he was wholly unqualified.
(A) Drawing lots would be a prudent and reasonable mode
of appointment compared to a late disposition of the
secretary's oiBce, for
I. Lord Rochford was qualified for the Southern De-
partment, Lord Weymouth for neither the Southern
nor Home Department; yet, by caprice Rochford
252 APPENDIX
was appointed to the Home Department, and Wey-
mouth to the Southern.
(B) Weymouth is wholly unqualified for the Southern De-
partment, for
I. In his first employment as secretary of the Home De-
partment, by urging the magistrates to use the
military if certain disturbances in the streets should
continue, he acted with deliberation in carrying out
a headlong passion.
V. The Marquis of Granby as commander-in-chief is incom-
petent, for
(A) The fashion of complimenting the commander-in-chief
for his bravery and generosity is unwarranted, for
1. His bravery is marred by a total absence of feeling
and reflection.
2. His generosity is lacking in disinterestedness, inde-
pendence, or firmness in providing lucrative employ-
ments or in granting commissions in the army.
VI. Sir Edward Hawke as secretary of the navy is inefficient and
should be retired.
VII. Mansfield as chief justice is pernicious to the whole country,
for
{A) His administration has not been pure and impartial, for
1. The pure and impartial administration of justice is,
perhaps, the firmest bond to secure a cheerful sub-
mission of the people, and to engage their affections
to government.
2. It is not sufficient that questions of private right or
wrong are justly decided, nor that judges are su-
perior to the vileness of pecuniary corruption.
a. Jeffries himself, when the court had no interest,
was an upright judge.
3. A court of justice may be subject to another sort of
bias, more important and pernicious, as it reaches
beyond the interest of individuals, and affects the
whole community.
a. A judge under the influence of government may be
honest enough in the decision of private causes,
yet a traitor to the public,
(i) When a victim is marked out by the ministry,
this judge will offer himself to perform the
sacrifice.
(2) He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity
and betray the sanctity of his office when-
APPENDIX 253
ever an arbitrary point is to be carried for
government or the resentment of a court to
be gratified.
(B) These principles and proceedings, odious and contemp-
tible as they are, in effect are no less injudicious.
1. A wise and generous people are roused by every ap-
pearance of oppressive, unconstitutional measures,
whether those measures are supported openly by
the power of government or masked under the forms
of a court of justice.
2. Prudence and self-preservation will oblige the most
moderate dispositions to make common cause, even
with a man whose conduct they censure, if they see
him persecuted in a way which the real spirit of the
laws will not justify.
3. The facts on which these remarks are founded are
too notorious to require an application.
Co7iclusion
I. The nation is in a deplorable condition.
II. It is governed by councils from which a reasonable man can ex-
pect no relief but death.
III. The true cause of our deplorable condition is due to government
by men without wisdom or integrity.
BRIEF II
IN DEFENSE OF DARNAY'
Introduction
I. The arrest of Darnay arose from the fact that for several years he
had been travelling between France and England.
II. He was tried for treason, it being declared that on these trips
he had borne information to the French concerning the English
forces in America.
III. The accused admitted that he had been a frequent traveller across
the Channel, but was unwilling to explain the trips further than
that they were of a private nature and involved the interests of
others.
IV. Whether the facts charged, if proved, legally constituted treason
was not in issue.
V. The accused, however, denied that he was guilty of treason, and
* Prepared from material in Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities."
254 APPENDIX
argued that the evidence was insuflBcient to establish the facts
charged.
Body
Darnay was not guilty, because
A. The testimony which, if true, might be damaging was false, since
I. John Barsad's testimony was false, for
a. In the cross-examination, he was shown to be untruthful
and altogether bad, for
1. He probably hed about his owning "property," for
(i) He would not specify the property which he swore
he owned.
(2) He too willingly adopted the suggestion that he had
acquired it by inheritance.
2. He admitted that he had been in a "debtor's prison,"
after denying that he had been in "prison."
3. He said that his profession was simply "gentleman."
4. He admitted that he had "received a kick at the top of
a staircase and fell down of his own accord," after deny-
ing that he had been "kicked down-stairs."
5. He admitted that he had lived somewhat by play and
sought to extol it.
6. He admitted that he owed the accused money, but denied
that he was actuated by any other motive in this case
than "sheer patriotism."
II. Roger Cly's testimony was false, for
o. There was the greatest probability that Barsad and Cly
were in league and hired spies, for
1. They were both bad characters, since
(i) Cly had probably committed a theft, for
(a) He admitted having been maligned about steal-
ing a plated mustard-pot.
(&) He admitted having examined Darnay 's pockets.
2. They had known each other for "seven or eight years."
3. Their testimony was similar in respect to the motives
assigned.
b. His testimony was made worthless by the resemblance of the
accused to Carton.
B. The testimony which was true was not damaging, since
I. It was indefinite and could support the statement that Darnay
was travelling on private business, since
a. Lorry's testimony was chiefly as to the prisoner's travelling,
and the existence of a conversation between Darnay and
Lucy Manette.
APPENDIX 255
b. Lucy Manette's testimony about this conversation revealed
nothing damaging, for
1. His remark that England's treatment of America was un-
just was unimportant, for
(i) It was but a casual remark.
(2) It was unlikely that a traitor should express his sym-
pathies openly and to a stranger.
2. His remark about George III was a "monstrous joke."
c. Doctor Manette's testimony was of no value, for
I. He remembered nothing.
d. The testimony of the "garrison and dockyard" witness proved
nothing against the accused, since
I . He failed to identify the accused as the man in the coffee-
house, for
(i) He coxild easily have mistaken Darnay for Carton.
Conclusion
The testimony of Barsad and of Cly was false, and Darnay was the
victim of a plot. The testimony of the reputable characters corroborated
Damay's explanation that he was travelling on private business. More-
over, the trustworthy witnesses showed sympathy for the accused and a
belief in his innocence. The evidence has, therefore, been insuflScient to
prove that Darnay conveyed the alleged information to the French,
and thus to establish the charge of treason.
APPENDIX B
Questions and Exercises
I. In General
1. Explain the importance of imaginative suggestion in pre-
senting an argument to an audience.
2. Distinguish between the following terms: the productive
and reproductive imagination, an image and an idea, an image
and a perception.
3. Write briefly a paragraph using other than visual imagery.
4. Illustrate the principle of description that the character-
istics of an object which will most readily suggest the image of
that object is the one most readily recalled by the particular
audience.
256 APPENDIX
5. Select a story or anecdote from your reading, and rewrite
it so as to recall a person or situation, and also establish a point,
6. What are the tests of an effective image?
7. Write a brief address illustrating the perceptual and con-
ceptual aspects of imagery on the following plan: Image some
historic scene; draw inferences or lessons from it respecting
human life or conduct; and image these conceptions within
modern experience and also within the experience of the chosen
audience, e. g., Psalm 121.
8. Write a few paragraphs on "divided forces," illustrating
the principles of unity and variety.
9. Compare the imagery of a eulogy and a philippic with re-
spect to the appeal to the approving or the disapproving emo-
tions.
10. Recalling a team-debate which you have recently heard,
(a) suggest how the issue might have been more effectively pre-
sented by the use of an analogy, (b) state the main concepts of
each of the three speeches, and consider how each might have
been more effectively imaged, and (c) show how imaginative
suggestion might have been used in some respect so as to heighten
the final impression.
II. On Specific Speeches
James Otis on "Writs of Assistance." — What are the four
reasons which Otis states in order, against general writs? Does
the effectiveness of the speech really depend on these logical
reasons, or on the process of imaging the idea of the "tyranny
of the writs " on the mind of his hearers ? What types of imagery
does he use other than auditory? What adjectives does the
speaker use which possess an emotional coloring? What asso-
ciation-reaction do you get personally from the phrase "A
man's house is his castle"? How does the introduction to the
speech predispose one to a feehng of opposition to the writs?
Is the speech as a whole marked by sound thinking, by thor-
ough thinking, and by effective presentation?
Patrick Henry in the Virginia Convention, March 28, 1776. —
Make a brief of the argument proving the necessity of fighting.
Viewing the central idea of the speech as the "vanity of hope,"
how does he image it on the mind of his hearers? How does he
in opening, inhibit the suggestions of the speaker who has pre-
APPENDIX 257
ceded him, so as to make the audience susceptible to his own
suggestions, and to be able to state clearly the issue before the
country? How much of the effect of the speech is due to his
suggesting to his hearers specific past events or acts easily re-
called? How much to his constructive imagination? Point
out instances of Biblical allusions; of tonal imagery (euphonious
or cacophonous); also of illustrative imagery, and classify the
latter as visual, auditory, kinaisthetic, etc. What effect does
his use of the interrogative form of sentence produce upon at-
tention and interest? What use does he make of repetition and
of positive assertion? Is the style too rhymical? Does the
speech as a whole give a sufficient reason which may be recalled
and stated for the action it would incite?
Samuel Adams on American Independence in Philadelphia,
August I, 1776. — In predisposing his hearers to his point of
view, what common ground in thought and feeling does Samuel
Adams seek to establish in the introduction to his speech ? Does
he image this idea logically as well as emotionally? In the body
of the speech does he really deliberate on the matters he dis-
cusses, or seek simply to incite to action? By what means does
he inhibit the effect of the talk of "our obligations to Great
Britain"? In answering this first objection are his arguments
both sound and effective? By what illustration or analogy,
appealing to common experience, does he finally show that "the
protection we received" does not annul our rights as men? Why
does he so often use the rhetorical question in opening a line
of thought and positive assertion in concluding it? Why does
he seek to image the idea of the justice of independence before
imaging its expediency? In opposing "the doctrine of depen-
dence on Great Britain," point out his use of images of the pres-
ent and of the past as a preliminary to the suggested image of
the future (anticipation images). Logically, may not the under-
lying reasoning here be called, a priori, causal, or antecedent
probability? Does the argument gain in force by associating
it with the idea of a providential dispensation? What value
do you give to the kinaesthetic (muscular) image of "chaining
down the wolf without drawing his claws and paring his nails"?
Note the force of the contrasted anticipation images, the one
based on independence, the other on "an accommodation" which
would mean "the ruin of the country." In appeaUng thus both
258 APPENDIX
to the approving and to the disapproving emotions, was the
speaker probably correct in assuming that men are influenced
by their fears as well as their hopes? Was the pathetic over-
done for those stirring times? Does he effectively turn the ob-
jections based on "dissensions in our popular system " by saying
pithily: "Suffer yourselves to be chained down by your enemies
that you may not be able to fight your friends" ? Regarding the
speech as a whole, can you truthfully characterize the argument
as sound (being mostly causative or exemplative) and also effec-
tively imaged, in that it is imaged within the general and in-
dividual experience of the delegates and audience of the Phila-
delphia State-house in the summer of 1776?
III. In Association-Reactions
I. Experiments in association-reactions are of value in study-
ing the nature of the processes of association.
In a small group of students inclined to co-operate, such a
list of words as the foUowing^ may be used:
I. table; 2. dark; 3. music; 4. sickness; 5. man; 6. deep; 7. soft;
8. eating; 9. mountain; 10. house; 11. black; 12. mutton; 13. comfort;
14. hand; 15. short; 16. fruit; 17. butterfly; 18. smooth; 19. command;
20. chair; 21. sweet; 22. whistle; 23. woman; 24. cold; 25. slow; 26.
wish; 27. river; 28. white; 29. beautiful; 30. window; 31. rough; 32.
citizen; s^. foot; 34. spider; 35. needle; 36. red; 37. sleep; 38. anger;
39. carpet; 40. girl; 41. high; 42. working; 43. sour; 44. earth; 45.
trouble; 46. soldier; 47. cabbage; 48. hard; 49. eagle; 50. stomach.
The simplest method consists in asking the student to an-
swer as quickly as possible the first word which comes to mind,
on hearing the stimulus-word read. Then, before proceeding,
the instructor may ask the group such questions as the follow-
ing: (i) Was the reaction a percept or a concept? (2) If the
former, was it a new or old image? (3) Name the principle of
association expressing the relation of the reaction-word to the
stimulus-word.
II. The experiment is also of interest if applied to sentences.
' This list of fifty is part of a list of words used in the Kent and Rosanoff
tests, a full report of which may be found in the American Journal of In-
sanity, vol. LXVII, Nos. I and 2 — 1910.
APPENDIX 259
Ask the student to hand in a list of aphorisms, epigrams, para-
doxes, or other striking phrases. As before, the instructor may
read the sentence, and ask the student to state as quickly as
possible the first thing which comes to mind. The answer may
be analyzed as before:
Illustration: Stimulus: "A rolling stone gathers no moss."
Reaction: i. A tramp. 2. Aimlessness.
The first answer was obviously a perception, the second
(in which more time was used) a conception.
Illustration: Stimulus: "Slavery closes the door of hope."
Reaction: Dante, "AU hope abandon, etc.," plainly a
memory image.
Illustration: Stimulus: "Distance lends enchantment to the view."
Reaction: i. The future. 2. A girl. The former is, of
course, conceptual, the latter perceptual, the associa-
tion in the second case being that of specific and gen-
eral, etc.
III. In trying these experiments with a group, it is interest-
ing to note how the reactions differ among individuals, and also
change with a change of mood; e. g., Stimulus: "Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity." Reaction: i. A pretty girl. 2. Eccle-
siastes. The instructor should, therefore, in analyzing the gen-
eral results of his experiments call attention to the different
type of answers given when his subjects were in a lighter mood
from those made in a serious frame of mind. It thus affords
an excellent opportunity to show how the emotions of a hearer
influence his reaction.
IV. Indeed, a preliminary study of audiences may be made
by examining the reactions had from a single sentence stimulus.
For example, we may classify the stimulus-sentence as the dif-
ficult or the easy; the abstract or the concrete; the novel, the
familiar, or the stale; or we may consider the association
awakened as stimulated by curiosity, surprise, antagonism,
suspense, motive, sympathy, etc., and also the influence on in-
terest, attention, and conviction.
V. For a study of the nature and force of imagery, (i) write
a statement in plain language in the form of a reason for be-
lieving a proposition, and (2) express this reason in figurative
language. Discuss each paper (or speech) fully in conference.
260 APPENDIX
VI. For the stimulation of interest in the development of
a vocabulary, the following is suggested as a word-recognition
test. This list is from the "Stamford Revision of the Binet-
Simon Tests," by Professor L. M. Terman, published by Hough-
ton Miffin Company:
I. orange; 2. bonfire; 3. roar; 4. gown; 5. tap; 6. scorch; 7. puddle;
8. envelope; 9. straw; 10. rule; 11. haste; 12. afloat; 13. eyelash;
14. copper; 15. health; 16. curse; 17. guitar; 18. mellow; 19. pork;
20. impolite; 21. plumbing; 22. outward; 23. lecture; 24. dungeon;
25. southern; 26. noticeable; 27. muzzle; 28. quake; 29. civil; 30.
treasury; 31. reception; 32. ramble; s^. skiU; 34. misuse; 35. insure;
36. stave; 37. regard; 38. nerve; 39. crunch; 40. juggler; 41. majesty;
42. brimette; 43. snip; 44. apish; 45. sportive; 46. hysterics; 47. Mars;
48. repose; 49. shrewd; 50. forfeit; 51. peculiarity; 52. coinage; 53.
mosaic; 54. bewail; 55. disproportionate; 56. dilapidated; 57. charter;
58. conscientious; 59. avarice; 60. artless; 61. priceless; 62. swaddle;
63. tolerate; 64. gelatinous; 6.5. depredation; 65. promontory; 67. frus-
trate; 68. milksop; 69. philanthropy; 70. irony; 71. lotus; 72. drabble;
73. harpy; 74. embody; 75. infuse; 76. flaunt; 77. declivity; 78. fen;
79. ochre; 80. exaltation; 81. incrustation; 82. laity; 83. selectman;
84. sapient; 85. retroactive; 86. achromatic; 87. ambergris; 88. casuis-
try; 89. paleology; 90. perfunctory; 91. precipitancy; 92. theosophy;
93. piscatorial; 94. sudorific; 95. parterre; 96. homunculus; 97. cameo;
98. shagreen; 99. limpet; 100. complot.
In order to get the entire vocabulary by this test we should
multiply the number of correct definitions by 180. The Binet
tests are found to be "extremely useful in determining the mental
age of backward children." For vocabulary-building among
college students the following method is suggested. Ask the
student to write down the figures i to 100 in order on a sheet
of paper on different lines. Then the instructor may call out
the words in order, with its number, requiring the student (who
is put on his honor) to write yes or no after each number, in-
dicating whether or not he knows the word sufficiently to use
it. This test may be varied with different groups by reqiuring
the student to write a sentence using each of the words.
Whitney says that "the vocabulary of a rich and long culti-
vated language like the English may be roughly estimated at
joOjOoo words, but 30,000 is a very large estimate for the nurn-
APPENDIX 261
ber ever used in writing or speaking by a well-educated man;
3,000 to 5,000, it has been carefully estimated, cover the ordinary
needs of a cultivated intercourse." ^
It appears that the above vocabulary test is based on an as-
sumed maximum of 18,000 words for an educated person. The
fifteen or sixteen thousand words (derived from experiments
with this list on Princeton juniors and seniors) would indicate
a much higher average for the vocabulary of the educated, than
Whitney's figures suggest, were we not to make the distinction
that the proposed experiment is not a word-use test but a word-
recognition test.
It may be recalled that there is a speaking vocabulary and
a writing vocabulary, and that the latter is by far the larger.
The visual symbols of speech are greater in number for the
average person than the auditory; for most persons are visiles
rather than audiles. But even for a writing vocabulary, we
cannot determine by such a test as the preceding with any ac-
curacy the words which one would naturally use in writing;
for, in recording any such test, there is some suggestion that
the words hsted at least may be used, and some inclination
awakened in the subject to make the effort. The above experi-
ment is then offered as a word-recognition test to stimulate
vocabulary-building, on which we may estimate (i) the com-
parative vocabulary size of the different men in a group, and
(2) the percentage of 18,000 words recognized by each person.
APPENDIX C
The SPECLA.L Study of Imagery
I. Varied Imagery Appeals. — Since the public speaker and
debater must prefer the concrete to the abstract, the definite
to the indefinite, the specific to the general, in presenting his
ideas to others for decision and approval, it may well be a part
of the work of the advanced student to investigate the various
classes of imagery (visual, auditory, tactile, kinjesthetic, etc.)
with a view to determining the peculiar force of the several kinds
' "Life and Growth of Language," by W. D. Whitney, p. 25.
262 APPENDIX
of imagery. By such investigations and by frequent practice
in writing themes illustrating the several classes of imagery,
the student will learn both to extend his range and to diversify
his means of suggestion. He should endeavor not only to visual-
ize but also to auralize, to kincBSthetize, to tactualize, to olfactorize,
and to gustatorize. In such ways will he learn to make the in-
visible visible, the inaudible audible, and to explore the mys-
tery of the subconscious, so as to return to the threshold of con-
sciousness with its treasures.
II. Atiditory Imagery and the Disagreeable. — Adverting now to a
particular phase of imaginative suggestion, I shall refer to auditorj'
imagery in its peculiar connection with the impleasurable emotions.
I had asked a group of students to write a theme, using auditory imagery
to the exclusion, if possible, of all other forms of imagery. The results
were surprising, in that all the auditory images which they used dealt
with the disagreeable. We at once recalled other instances in point,
such as Patrick Henry's allusion to clanking chains on the plains of Bos-
ton, and John Randolph's reference to the ringing of the fire-bell as an
alarm associated with negro uprisings, when it occvirred to us that, if
there was any vital connection between the emotions arising from the
sense of danger and their auditory expression, it should appear in the
stories of that master of mystery, Edgar Allan Poe. Turning then to
his Tales of Horror and Death, Vol. VI (Funk and Wagnalls edition), we
read on the first page:
"The sentence — the dread sentence of death — was the last of distinct
accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the in-
quisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy, indeterminate hum.
It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution — perhaps in its association
in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel." And again, "I saw them writhe
with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name;
and I shuddered because no sound succeeded." We were reading from
"The Pit and the Pendulum," and were thus quickly rewarded. A little
further on, we found the climax of a paragraph of fear (describing the
sweep of the pendulum, razor-like, and heavy, and rapidly descencUng)
expressed in the following sentence: "It was appended to a weighty
rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung thro' the air." The tale
ends thus: "There was a discordant hum of human voices ! There was
a loud blast as of many tnimpets ! There was a harsh grating as of a
thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! ..."
Running through the thirteen tales contained in this volume and
glancing at the last paragraph or two, we found that the climax in each
tale contained auditory imagery. We hear the "long, wild, and con-
APPENDIX 263
tinuous shriek of agony" of the subterranean night in "The Premature
Burial," the "low laugh" and the "sad voice" and the "jingling of the
bells" in the catacombs in "The Cask of Amontillado"; the loud din of
" voices " in " The Tell-Tale Heart," including " the beating of his hideous
heart"; the "reverberation" of blows, and "screams" and "howls,"
in "The Black Cat," which in "The Fall of the House of Usher" become
a "fierce breath of the whirlwind" and "tumultuous shouting sounds."
It was pleasing to pass then from the "shriek" and the "rattling sounds"
of "Berenice" to the quieter ending of "Eleanora." "And once — but
once again in the silence of the night — there came thro' mj' lattice the
soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into a
familiar and sweet voice saying: 'Sleep in peace, for the spirit of Love
reignethandruleth.' " "Ligeia" and"MoreIla" are no exceptions to the
climactic use of auditory expressions in the field of the horrible. The last
tale in the volume, "Shadow — A Parable," concludes as follows: "And
then did we. the seven, start from our scats in horror and stand trembling
and shuddering and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow
were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and
var>'ing in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskly upon our
ears in the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand
departed friends."
Poe's tales, though making constant use of other imagery, thus con-
firm the value of auditory imagery for the expression of the emotions
of fear and horror, and show its peculiar fitness to express great heights
and depths of feeling. I find that Professor Scott has observed that
"presentations which awaken auditory images are more productive of
terror than those which awaken images of sight." Orators, novelists,
and poets in general use visual imagery more than auditor}'. In this
connection it is interesting to note that such a poet as Browning
in "Childe Roland" uses an auditory climax in a poem which elsewhere
is almost completely visual. Indeed, we are justified, I think, in speak-
ing of the peculiar power of auditory imagery to express the climax of
fear and terror.
The question at once arises as to why this should be the case. The
first explanation which occurred to me was suggested by Poe also. On
one occasion when the menacing danger, in "The Pit and the Pendulum,"
became too great, the prisoner closed his eyes, and on another he averted
his head. It may well be that we have very little stored-up visual imagery
of the disagreeable, because of our desire to avoid it and our ability to
shut out the sight of it. We instinctively close our eyes to the disagree-
able, but we cannot close our ears ! In the second place, a large part of
our time is spent in darkness, when the eye cannot see impending danger,
and the ear must be relied on to give the warning. For such physical
reasons it would seem that man may have developed, through the ages,
264 APPENDIX
his peculiar auditory sensitiveness to danger, with its accompanying
emotional apparatus. So the imagination of the artist would naturally
describe by auditory suggestion scenes too horrible to be optically ob-
served.^
Images of fear and horror may, of course, be other than audi-
tory. For example:
"I have almost forgot the taste of fears
The time has been my senses would have cooled to hear a night-
shriek!"
There are doubtless persons who viill think of the phrase "to
taste of fear" as unreal, just as there are persons who see a literal
inaccuracy in Hamlet's taking up arms against a sea of trouble —
a phrase, however, accurately marking the perturbation of his
mental state when contemplating suicide. During the strong
excitation of fear, indeed, all the senses will of course be affected,
and the writer is unwilling to admit the unreality of a gustatory
reaction from a disagreeble stimulus. How the mouth of a child
expands, for instance, when fed with sugar, and draws up when
it is given medicine ! Again, does Shakespeare use this gusta-
tory image:
" Cowards die many times before their death,
The valiant never taste of death but once."
A close study, either of Shakespeare's great tragedies or of
Poe's tales of horror, will show innumerable ways in which the
effect of fear on the human frame may be imaged. The mouth
may be parched and dry, the throat choked, the cheeks blanched,
the eyes start, the hair stand up, the voice speechless, the muscles
powerless to move; and as the blood rushes with increasing
force through the veins, the only conscious thing to engage us
may be the sound of the beating of our own heart.
III. Auditory Imagery and the Agreeable. — Likewise, audi-
tory imagery appeahng to the pleasurable emotions is quite
common:
* The Qitarterly Journal of Piiblic Speaking, II, 2, 181, by H. F. Coving-
ton.
APPENDIX 265
"Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees,
Sweet freedom's song 1
Let mortal tongues awake,
Let all that breathe partake.
Let rocks their silence break, —
The sound prolong."
— America.
In the description of the dawn in Milton's "L'AUegro," we
hear the "lark" startling the dull night, the "cock" with his
lively din, and the "ploughman" whistling o'er the furrowed
land. As an illustration in prose, the last sentence of Lincoln's
First Inaugural contains auditory imagery:
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot-grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Here, such phrases as "the mystic chords of memory," "the
chorus of the Union," etc., as well as the rhythmic beat of the
line, produce a decidedly agreeable effect on the emotions. Tonal
imagery has a less important place in prose than in poetry,
and in argument than in some other prose forms, but even in
argument it may play an important part. The word "muck,"
for instance, in the phrase "man with a muck-rake," expresses
a disapproved idea in a word tonally unpleasant; so, too, "in-
nocuous desuetude" and "profiteering." On the other hand,
"selective draft" is a happy substitute for the rather harsh term
"conscription."
It is a constant source of surprise to find how little auditory
illustrative imagery is used even in spoken discourse. This
may be due in part to the fact that the rhythm of speech makes
it appeal to the ear. At all events, we should encourage a variety
of appeal through diversified forms.
IV. Mixed Imagery Types. — Scientific investigations of an
important character have already been made of mental imagery.
The results tend to show marked differences in the kind of
imagery used by different persons, and by the same persons
under changed conditions. A report of the psychological experi-
266 APPENDIX
ments conducted by Doctor Fernald, in which eleven trained
students of imagery were the subjects, should be of interest.
In general:
The individual differences in imagery are too complex to be stated
adequately in terms of difference in "type" unless this type is carefully
explained for each individual case. An adequate statement of an in-
dividual's imagery type would involve an account of the kinds of imagery
used in various representative situations, with an estimate of their
relative importance and a discussion of the characteristics of such imagery
under the varying conditions.^
The investigator, however, was able to divide her eleven sub-
jects into two groups:
(i) The more versatile, who seem to use visual-auditory and vocal-
motor forms with perfect ease, changing from one to another with change
in the material, or using all forms in handling one kind of material.
(2) The other group consists of those subjects who have certain
specially favored kinds of imagery which they use with considerable
constancy in the various tests, and who practically omit, as far as actual
use is concerned, certain other forms.^
Visual imagery, as might be supposed, was found to be most
extensively and consistently used, with auditory imagery rank-
ing next in order.
In the first place, one positive result, which is of considerable im-
portance for our general diagnosis, is the discovery that none of our
subjects report an absolute lack of msual Illustrative imagery. More-
over, all but three report at least occasional instances of auditory, and
these three express themselves not as absolutely certain of its absence,
but rather as exceedingly dubious of its presence.-
Again:
Investigation shows a decided preponderance of visual imagery over
the auditory for the majority of subjects. In no case did the auditory
images surpass the visual in amount.-
1 "Mental Imagery," by Mabel Ruth Fernald. The Psychological
Monographs, vol. XIV, No. 58, p. 130.
'^ Ibid., pp. 131-132.
APPENDIX 267
Moreover:
Again and again where auditory imager>' is suggested, only the visual
image of the sounding object appears. In certain cases the significance
of a phrase is even changed to favor the visual rather than the auditory.
Thus, both G. and T. report, independently of one another, that the
"low-crying birds" of passage were thought of as "low-flying birds"
with appropriate visual imagery. G. also transformed the "drowsy
tinklings" of No. 20 into twinklings of star lights.
In general, then, we may say, for the majority of our subjects, that,
under the conditions of reading and listening, a greater susceptibility
is shown to the suggestion of accompanying visual imagery than to that
of accompanjnng sounds. We cannot state with certainty the explana-
tion of this, but in all probability several causes conspire together to
produce the effect. It may be true, as Segal, Meumann, and others have
said, that visual is the prevailing form of concrete imagery throughout
the thinking of the majority of persons, because visual objects have
a much greater practical significance for most of us than do sounds. It
may also be due to the fact that, while we constantly experience visual
objects which give no sound, we seldom experience sounds without some
sounding object which can be or has been seen. In the reading process,
the fact that most of our subjects have a running accompaniment of
auditory-vocal-motor verbal imagery may help to account for the de-
ficiency in auditory concrete imagery, since one of these may inhibit
the other. Another consideration seems pertinent, that sounds may
get a fairly adequate representation through changes in the inflection
in reading and through the onomatopoetic effect of many of the words —
a representation which the visual entirely lacks.^
Other Jorvis of imagery, as revealed in the above investigation,
are commented upon specifically, as follows:
With regard to the other forms of possible imagery the best we can
do is to note their presence or absence in the few cases of more or less
vivid description. Cold, for example, is introduced in a very striking
way in No. 7, yet only one subject reported any Icmperalurc imagery,
though some observed organic reactions (shivering, etc.), or visual rep-
resentation of its effects. Cold is also an element of the situation in
No. 24, in connection with the wet, and in No. 28, in the reference to
the wind, yet we find it mentioned by only one subject in the former
case and then as questioned, and in the latter case only three report it.
Warmth is mentioned in several passages but appears most vividly in
' Ibid., pp. 41-44.
268 APPENDIX
No. 24, where it appears twice — in the reference to the heat of the night
and in the account of the touch of the warm animal — yet none of the
subjects report it for the first case and only four for the latter. For
contact, No. 24 again gives us the best instance. Here there are two
very striking references — the touching of the animal and the feeling of
the tongue on the palm. Most of the subjects get at least one of these,
and all commented on the cleverness of the description. Olfactory
material is fairly well suggested in at least four selections, yet there is
noticeably little imagery aroused. With kincesthetic and organic material
we have the same sort of problem that we had with the vocal-motor,
that of distinguishing between imagery and actual reinstatement of
sensations. Again, aside from the certainty that in many cases it is
the latter, we have had to leave the problem unsolved. ^
Two of the passages used in Doctor Fernald's tests are given
below — (7) and (24). The first may illustrate the little-used
imagery of cold, and the second of warmth, as well as many other
kinds of imagery.
(7) "St. Agnes' Eve — ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold;
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath.
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven without a death.
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.''
—Keats: " St. Agnes' Eve," ist stanza.^
(24) An oppressive slumber hung about the forest branches. In
the dells and on the heights was the same dead heat. Here where the
brook tinkled it was no cool-hpped sound, but metallic, and without
the spirit of water. . . . The breathless silence was significant, yet
the moon shone in a broad blue heaven. Tongue out of mouth trotted
the httle dog after him; couched panting when he stopped an instant;
rose weariedly when he started afresh. Now and then a large white
night-moth flitted through the dusk of the forest. ... All at once the
thunder spoke. . . . Then there were pauses, and the lightning seemed
as the eye of heaven, and the thunder as the tongue of heaven, each
alternately addressing him; filling him with awful rapture. . . . Lower
down the lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash; then white
J Ihid., pp. 41-44. ' Ihid., Appendix.
APPENDIX 2G9
thrusts of light were darted from the sky, and great curving ferns, seen
steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally agitated and vanished.
Then a shrill song roused in the leaves and herbage. Prolonged and
louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier the deluge pressed. A mighty
force of water satisfied thp desire of the earth. Even in this, drenched
as he was by the first oatpouring, Richard had a savage pleasure.
Keeping in motion, he was scarcely conscious of the wet, and the grate-
ful breath of the weeds was refreshing. Suddenly he stopped short, lift-
ing a curious nostril. He fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. . . . He was
sure he smelt it fresh in dews. . . . After two or three steps he
stooped and stretched out his hand to feel for the flower, having, he
knew not why, a strong wish to verify its growth there. Groping
about, his hand encountered something warm that started at his touch,
and he, with the instinct we have, seized it, and lifted it to look at it.
The creature was very small, evidently quite young. Richard's eyes,
now accustomed to the darkness, were able to discern it for what it was,
a tiny leveret. ... He put the httle thing on one hand in his breast,
and stepped out rapidly as before.
The rain was now steady: from every tree a fountain poured. So
cool and easy had his mind become that he was speculating on what
kind of shelter the birds could find, and how the butterflies and moths
saved their colored wings from washing. . . . He was next musing on
a strange sensation he experienced. It ran up one arm with an inde-
scribable thrill, but communicated nothing to his heart. It was purely
physical, ceased for a time and recommenced, till he had it all through
his blood, wonderfully thrilling. He grew aware that the little thing
he carried in his breast was licking his hand there. The small rough
tongue going over and over the palm of his hand produced the strange
sensation he felt. — {Meredith: "Richard Feverel," chap. XLII.)i
APPENDIX D
The Imagery oe Argument and of Poetry
By contrasting the sermons of Jonathan Edwards relating
to hell with the treatment by Dante of the same theme in the
"Inferno," Doctor DeWitt makes clear the purely incidental
function of imagery in argument and its prime function in
poetry. He cites in illustration the passage when Dante was sail-
ing through the Lake of Mud in the Fifth Circle of Hell. The
' Ibid., Appendix.
270 APPENDIX
latter, it will be recalled, made reply to Philippe Argenti: "Mas-
ter, I should like to see him ducked in this broth before we de-
part from the lake."
There is nothing in Edwards which, so far as I can judge, equals this
in its horrid imagery and suggestion. And yet men enjoy Dante and
the "Inferno." They do not "execrate" him for a "monster," as Doctor
Allen says they do Edwards. And in his great essay on Dante, Mr.
James Russell Lowell makes this very scene the text of an eloquent lauda-
tion of Dante's moral quality, in which he says of him: "He believed
in the righteous use of anger, and that baseness was its legitimate quarry."
Why is it that the attitude of the general public, thus represented by
Mr. Lowell, toward the hell of Dante is so different from the attitude
of the same public toward the hell of Edwards? I think we shall find
an answer to this question in what I may call Edwards's spiritual realism.
Of course, Dante is a realist also. How often this quality of his poem
has been pointed out to us ! But Dante's is the realism of the artist,
the poet who appeals to our imagination. Our imagination being grati-
fied, we enjoy the picture and even the sensations of horror which the
picture starts. Of all this there is nothing in Edwards. There is no
picture at all. There is scarcely a symbol. Here and there there is an
illustration. But the illustrations of Edwards are never employed to
make his subject vivid to the imagination. They are intended simply
to explicate it to the understanding. The free, responsible, guilty, and
immortal spirit is immediately addressed; and the purely spiritual ele-
ments of the hell of the wicked, separated from all else, are made to ap-
pear in their terrible nakedness before the reason and the conscience.
The reason and the conscience respond. We are angry because startled
out of our security. And we call him cruel, because of the conviction
forced on us that we are in the presence of a terrible, even if mysterious,
spiritual reality. Edwards always spoke, not to the imagination, but
to the responsible spirit. Men realized when he addressed them that
because they are sinners their moral constitution judicially inflicts upon
their personality remorse; and that remorse is an absolute, immitigable
and purely spiritual pain, independent of the conditions of time and
space and, therefore, eternal.'
Imagery is merely an instrument used in communicating our
ideas to others. The chief function of Dante's imagery was to
make vivid; that of Edwards generally to explicate. The latter,
moreover, appealed to the reason, the understanding, and the
» " Jonathan Edwards, a Study," by John DeWitt,
APPENDIX 271
responsible will. This, indeed, is "the serious business" of argu-
ment, as expounded by the philosopher Kant:
The arts of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of
carrying on a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free
play of the imagination; poetr>' the art of conducting a free play of the
imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding.
The orator then promises a serious business, and in order to entertain
his audience conducts it as if it were a mere play with ideas. The poet
merely promises an entertaining play with ideas, and yet it has the same
effect upon the understanding as if he had only intended to carry on
its business.'
The same authority recognizes the impressiveness of per-
suasion, but condemns its use before judgments are formed:
Rhetoric, in so far as this means the art of persuasion, i. e., of deceiv-
ing by a beautiful show (ars oratoria), and not a mere elegance of speech
(eloquence and style), is a dialectic, which borrows from poetry only so
much as is needful to win minds to the side of the orator before they
have formed a judgment and to deprive them of their freedom; it cannot,
therefore, be recommended either for the law-courts or the pulpit.*
The legitimate use of persuasion has been previously dis-
cussed; rhetoric is not deceptive and need not, of course, be
employed to "win minds to the side of the orator before they
have formed a judgment." Verily, truth and justice may as
well surrender in despair, if, for instance, we deprive the speaker
of the right to induce in the hearer a willingness to listen in-
cluding an interest in doing so, or the right to implant a wish
to know what is true and just.
Indeed, though Kant always fears and often assumes the
abuse of persuasion, he recognizes its use as legitimate and proper
when employed "in a lively sympathy with what is truly good ":
The man who, along with a clear insight into things, has in his power
a wealth of pure speech, and who with a fruitful imagination capable
of presenting his ideas unites a lively sympathy with what is truly good,
is the vir bonus dicendi perilits, the orator without art but of great im-
pressiveness, as Cicero has it; though he may not always remain true
to this ideal.'
' "Kant's Kritik of Judgment," translated by J. H. Bernard, p. 207.
272 APPENDIX
Further, we may agree with Kant in his appreciation and
glorification of poetry, without accepting his impUcations as
necessary, in so far as they involve the honesty of the orator.
Oratory is no more illusory or deceptive than poetry. It is dif-
ficult to conceive, for instance, how the penumbrations of con-
notative words are more Hable to mislead in prose than in the
rhythmic beats of verse. Certainly, we may properly image a
concept in prose; soundly as respects the truth, honestly as
respects the individual who utters it, and effectively as respects
the hearer, if driven home with all the sensible and supersen-
sible instruments of utterance which God has given us to make
the truth prevail ! At all events, in debating, the preHminary
analysis and investigation of all the material relating to a sub-
ject and the opportunity for the immediate detection and ex-
posure of error by means of the rebuttals are sufficient preven-
tives of misrepresentation. The debater who is careless or dis-
honest carries within him the seeds of his own destruction.
APPENDIX E
Addresses
I
"PEACE FOUNDED ON THE ROCK OF VINDICATED
JUSTICE "1
Lloyd George's Guildhall Address
My Lord Mayor, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen: The
chancellor of the exchequer [Bonar Law] in his extremely lucid
and impressive speech has placed before you the business side
of this proposal, and I think you will agree with me, after hear-
ing his explanation of his scheme, that he has offered for sub-
scription a loan which possesses all the essential ingredients of
an attractive investment. They are the most generous terms
1 This address, which was delivered at the Guildhall London, January
II, 1917, appealed primarily for subscriptions to the new war loan, but
also touched largely upon questions in the peace discussions.
APPENDIX 273
that the government can offer without injury to the taxpayer.
I agree that the chancellor was right in offering such liberal
terms because it is important that we should secure a big loan
now, not merely in order to enable us to finance the war effec-
tively, but as a demonstration of the continued resolve of this
country to prosecute the war; and it is upon that aspect of the
question that I should like to say a few words.
The German Kaiser a few days ago sent a message to his
people that the Allies had rejected his peace offers. He did so
in order to drug those whom he could no longer dragoon. Where
are those offers? We have asked for them; we have never seen
them. We were not offered terms; we were offered a trap baited
with fair words. They tempted us once, but the lion has his eyes
open. We have rejected no terms that we have ever seen. Of
course, it would suit them to have peace at the present moment
on their terms. We all want peace; but when we get it it must
be a real peace.
The allied powers separately and in council together have
come to the same conclusion. Knowing well what war means,
knowing especially what this war means in suffering, in burdens,
in horrors, they have still decided that even war is better than
peace at the Prussian price of domination over Europe. We
made it clear in our reply to Germany; we made it still clearer
in our reply to the United States.
Before we attempt to rebuild the Temple of Peace we must
see now that the foundations are solid. They were built before
upon the shifting sands of Prussian faith; henceforth, when
the time for rebuilding comes, it must be on the rock of vin-
dicated justice.
I have just returned from a council of war of the four great
allied countries upon whose shoulders most of this terrible war
falls. I cannot give you its conclusions; they might be informa-
tion to the enemy. There were no delusions as to the magni-
tude of our task; neither were there any doubts about the re-
sults.
I think I can say what was the feeling of every man there.
It was one of the most businesslike conferences I ever attended.
We faced the whole situation, probed it thoroughly, and looked
its difiQculties in the face, and made arrangements to deal with
them. We separated feeling more confident than ever. All
274 APPENDIX
felt that if victory were difficult, defeat was impossible. There
was no flinching, no wavering, no faint-heartedness, no infirmity
of purpose.
There was a grim resolution at all costs that we must achieve
the high aim with which we accepted the challenge of the Prus-
sian military caste and rid Europe and the world forever of her
menace. No country could have refused the challenge without
the loss of honor. None could have rejected it without impair-
ing national security. No one would have failed to take it up
without forfeiting something which is of greater value to every
free and self-respecting people than life itself. Those nations
did not enter into the war lightly. They did not embark upon
this enterprise without knowing what it really meant. They
were not enticed by the prospects of immediate victory.
Take this country. The millions of our men who enlisted in
the army enlisted after the German victories of August, 1914,
when they knew the accumulated and concentrated power of
the German military machine. That was when they placed
their lives at the disposal of their country. What about the
other lands? They knew what they were encountering; that
they were fighting an organization which had been perfected
for generations by the best brains of Prussia — perfected with
one purpose, the subjugation of Europe.
Why did they do it? I passed through hundreds of miles
of the beautiful land of France and of Italy, and as I did so I
asked myself this question: Why did the peasants leave by
myriads these sunny vineyards and corn-fields in France ? Why
did they quit these enchanting valleys, with their comfort, their
security, their charm, in order to face the grim and wild horrors
of the battle-field? They did it for one purpose, and one pur-
pose only. They were not driven to the slaughter by Kings.
These are great democratic countries. No government would
have lasted twenty-four hours that had forced them into an
abhorrent war against their own free will. They embarked
upon it because they knew the fundamental issue had been raised
which no country could shirk without imperilling all that has
been won in the centuries of the past and all that remains to
be won in the ages of the future.
That is why, as the war proceeds and the German purpose
becomes more manifest, the conviction is becoming deeper in
APPENDIX 275
the minds of those people that they must work their way through
to victory in order to save Europe from an unspeakable
despotism. That was the spirit that animated the allied con-
ference in Europe last week.
But I tell you one thing that struck me, and strikes me more
and more each time I attend these conferences and visit the
Continent: the increasing extent to which the allied peoples
are looking to Great Britain. They are trusting her rugged
strength and great resources more and more. She is to them
like a great tower in the deep. She is becoming more and more
the hope of the oppressed and despair of the oppressor; and I
feel more and more confident that we shall not fail the people
who put their trust in us.
But when that arrogant Prussian caste flung the signature
of Britain in the treaty in the waste-paper basket as if it were
of no account, they knew not the pride of the land they were
treating with such insolent disdain. They know it now. Our
soldiers and our sailors have taught them to respect it. You
had an eloquent account from my colleague, the chancellor of
the exchequer, of the achievements of our soldiers; our sailors
are gallantly defending the honor of the country on the high
seas. They have strangled the enemy's commerce; they will
continue to do so in spite of all the piratical devices of the foe.
In 1914 and 191 5, for two years, a small, ill-equipped army
held up the veterans of Prussia, with the best equipment in
Europe; in 1916 hurling them back and delivering a blow from
which they are reeling. In 1917 the armies of Britain will be
more formidable than ever in training, in efficiency, in equip-
ment; and you may depend upon it, if you give them the neces-
sary support, they will cleave a road to victory through the
dangers and perils of the next few months.
But we must support them; they are worth it. Have you
ever talked to a soldier who has come back from the front?
There is not one of them who will not tell you how he is
encouraged and sustained by hearing the roar of the guns be-
hind him.
I will tell you what I want to do. I want to see checks hur-
tling through the air, fired from the city of London; fired from
every city, town, and village and hamlet throughout the land;
fired straight into the intrenchraents of the enemy.
276 APPENDIX
Every well-directed check, well loaded, properly primed, is
a more formidable weapon of destruction than a twelve-inch
shell. It clears a path to the barbed-wire entanglements for
our gallant fellows to march through. A big loan helps you,
insures victory; a big loan will help shorten the war; it will
help save lives; it will help save the British Empire; it will
help save Europe; it will help save civilization.
That is why we want the country to rise to this occasion and
show that the old spirit of Britain, represented by those great
men [pointing to the monuments in the hall] you have here, is
still alive, alert, and as potent as ever.
I want to appeal to the men at home — yes, and to the women.
I want to appeal to both; they have done their part nobly in
this war. A man who has been a munitions minister for twelve
months must feel a debt of gratitude to the women for what
they have done. They have helped to win the war, and with-
out them we could not have done it; but I want to make special
appeal, or rather to enforce the special appeal of the chancellor
of the exchequer.
Let no money be squandered in luxury and indulgence which
can be put into the fight and which counts — every penny of
it; every ounce has counted in this struggle. Do not waste it,
do not throw it away; put it there to help the valor of our brave
young boys. Back them up ! Let every one contribute to as-
sist them, with greater pride in it than in costly garments. It
will become them; they will feel prouder of it to-day, and their
pride will increase in the years to come, when the best garment
they have got will have rotted, when the glisten and glitter of
it will improve with the years. They can put it on in old age
and say, "This is something I contributed in the great war,"
and they will be proud of it.
Men and women of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland!
The first charge upon all your surplus money, over your needs
for yourselves and your children, should be to help those gallant
young men who tendered their lives to the cause of humanity.
The more we get the surer the victory; the more we get the
shorter the war; the more we get the less it will cost in treasure,
and the greatest treasure of all is brave blood. The more we
give the more you will be enriched by your contribution, by
your sacrifices of extravagance.
APPENDIX 277
I want to bring this home to every man and woman. This
extravagance during the war has cost blood — valiant blood,
the blood of heroes. It will be worth millions to save one of
them — the big loan will save myriads of them. Help them not
merely to win; help them to come home, to shout for the vic-
tory which they have won.
It means better equipment for our troops, it means better
equipment for the Allies as well; and this I say for the fiftieth,
if not the hundredth, time: this is a war of equipment. That is
why we are appealing for your assistance. Most of us could
not do more, but what we can do it is our duty, it is our pride,
to do.
I said it was a war of equipment. Why are the Germans
pressing back our gallant Allies in Rumania? It is not that
they are better fighters; they certainly are not. The Rumanian
peasant has proved himself to be one of the doughtiest fighters
in the field when he has the chance — he never had much — and
as for the Russian, the way in which, with bared breast, he has
fought for two years and a half, with inferior guns, insufiicient
rifles, inadequate supplies of ammunition, is one of the tales
of heroism of the world.
Let us help to equip them, and there will be another story
to tell soon; but it is for us to do so, and that is why I am glad
to follow the chancellor of the exchequer in the appeal he has
made to the patriotism of our race — but with true Scottish in-
stinct he put the appeal to prudence first. He had a good founda-
tion for patriotism, and reserved that for his peroration. I am
going to reverse the order, belonging to a less canny race. I
want to say it is a good investment, after all; the old country
is the best investment in the world. It was a sound concern
before the war; it will be sounder and safer than ever after the
war, and especially safer.
I do not know the nation that will care to touch it after this
war. They had forgotten what we were like in those days, and
it will take them a long time to forget these. It will be a safer
investment than ever, and a sounder one.
Have you been watching what is going on? Before the war
we had a good many shortcomings in our business, our com-
merce, our industry. The war is settling them all right in the
most marvellous way. You ask a great business man like my
278 APPENDIX
friend, Lord Pirrie, what is going on in those great factories
throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Old machinery is
scrapped; the newest, the best, and the latest is set up; slip-
shod and wasteful methods are scrapped, and hampering cus-
toms discontinued. Millions are brought into the labor-market
to help to produce who were before purely consumers.
I do not know what the national debt will be at the end of
this war, but I will make a prediction: whatever it is, what is
added in real assets to the real riches of the nation will be in-
finitely greater than any debt we ever acquire. The resources
of the nation in every direction have been developed and di-
rected; the nation itself disciplined, braced up, quickened, has
become a more alert people. We have thrown off the useless
tissues; we are a nation that has been taking exercise. We
are a different people.
I will tell you another thing: the Prussian menace was a run-
ning mortgage which detracted from the value of our national
security. Nobody knew what it meant. We know too well
now. You could not tell whether it meant millions or hundreds
of millions or thousands of millions, or how many of them. You
could not tell that it would not mean ruin.
That mortgage will be cleared off forever — better security
on a better foundation, safer security, and at a better rate of
interest. The world will then be able, when this war is over,
to attend to its business in peace. There will be no war or rumors
of war to disturb and to distract. We can build up, we can re-
construct, we can till, we can cultivate and enrich, and the burden
and terror and waste of war will have gone.
The peace and security for peace will be that the nations will
band themselves together to punish the first peacebreaker who
comes out.
As to the armies of Europe, every weapon will be a sword
of justice in the government of men; every arm will be a con-
stabulary of peace. There were men who had hoped to see this
achieved in the way of peace. We were disappointed. It was
ordained that you should not reach that golden era except along
the path which was paved with gold — yea, and cemented with
valiant blood. There are millions who have given of the latter
who are ready — nay, millions more ready, myriads more ready
— for the sacrifice, if the country needs it.
APPENDIX 279
It is for us to contribute the former. Let no man, no woman,
in this crisis of the nation's fate, through indolence, greed,
avarice, or selfishness, fail. If they are doing their part, then,
when the time comes for the triumphal march through the dark-
ness and terror of the night into the bright dawn of the morn-
ing of the new age, they will each feel that they have done their
share.
n
"FORCE TO THE UTMOST"*
President WUson's Speech
Fellow Citizens: This is the anniversary of our acceptance
of Germany's challenge to fight for our right to live and be free,
and for the sacred rights of freemen everywhere. The nation
is awake. There is no need to call to it. We know what the
war must cost, our utmost sacrifice, the lives of our fittest men,
and, if need be, all that we possess.
The loan we are met to discuss is one of the least parts of what
we are called upon to give and to do, though in itself imperative.
The people of the whole country are alive to the necessity of
it, and are ready to lend to the utmost, even where it in-
volves a sharp skimping and daily sacrifice to lend out of meagre
earnings. They will look with reprobation and contempt upon
those who can and will not, upon those who demand a higher
rate of interest, upon those who think of it as a mere commercial
transaction. I have not come, therefore, to urge the loan. I
have come only to give you, if I can, a more vivid conception
of what it is for.
The reasons for this great war, the reason why it had to come,
the need to fight it through, and the issues that hang upon its
outcome, are more clearly disclosed now than ever before. It
is easy to see just what this particular loan means, because the
cause we are fighting for stands more sharply revealed than at
' This address was delivered in the sth Regiment Armory, Balti-
more, April 6, 191 8, at the opening of the Third Liberty Loan Cam-
paign.
280 APPENDIX
any previous crisis of the momentous struggle. The man who
knows least can now see plainly how the cause of justice stands,
and what is the imperishable thing he is asked to invest in. Men
in America may be more sure than they ever were before that
the cause is their own, and that, if it should be lost, their own
great nation's place and mission in the world would be lost wit'h
it.
I call you to witness, my fellow countrymen, that at no stage
of this terrible business have I judged the purposes of Germany
intemperately. I should be ashamed in the presence of affairs
so grave, so fraught with the destinies of mankind throughout
all the world, to speak with truculence, to use the weak language
of hatred or vindictive purpose. We must judge as we would
be judged. I have sought to learn the objects Germany has in
this war from the mouths of her own spokesmen, and to deal
as frankly with them as I wished them to deal with me. I have
laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes, without reserve
or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as plainly what
it is that they seek.
We have ourselves proposed no injustice, no aggression. We
are ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to
the German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with
all others. There can be no difference between peoples in the
final judgment, if it is indeed to be a righteous judgment. To
propose anything but justice, even-handed and dispassionate
justice, to Germany at any time, whatever the outcome of the
war, would be to renounce and dishonor our own cause, for we
ask nothing that we are not willing to accord.
It has been with this thought that I have sought to learn
from those who spoke for Germany whether it was justice or
dominion and the execution of their own will upon the other
nations of the world that the German leaders were seeking. They
have answered — answered in unmistakable terms. They have
avowed that it was not justice, but dominion and the unhin-
dered execution of their own will. The avowal has not come
from Germany's statesmen. It has come from her military
leaders, who are her real rulers. Her statesmen have said that
they wished peace, and were ready to discuss its terms when-
ever their opponents were willing to sit down at the conference
table with them. Her present chancellor has said — in indefinite
APPENDIX 281
and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that often seem
to deny their own meaning, but with as much plainness as he
thought prudent — that he believed that peace should be based
upon the principles which we had declared would be our own
in the final settlement.
At Brest-Litovsk her civilian delegates spoke in similar terms;
professed their desire to conclude a fair peace and accord to
the peoples with whose fortunes they were dealing the right to
choose their own allegiances. But action accompanied and
followed the profession. Their military masters, the men who
act for Germany and exhibit her purpose in execution, pro-
claimed a very difTerent conclusion. We cannot mistake what
they have done — in Russia, in Finland, in the Ukraine, in Ru-
mania. The real test of their justice and fair play has come.
From this we may judge the rest.
They are enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph in which no
brave or gallant nation can long take pride. A great people,
helpless by their own act, lies for the time at their mercy. Their
fair professions are forgotten. They nowhere set up justice,
but everywhere impose their power and exploit everything for
their own use and aggrandizement, and the peoples of conquered
provinces are invited to be free under their dominion !
Are we not justified in believing that they would do the same
things at their western front if they were not there face to face
with armies whom even their countless divisions cannot over-
come? If, when they have felt their check to be final, they
should propose favorable and equitable terms with regard to
Belgium and France and Italy, could they blame us if we con-
cluded that they did so only to assure themselves of a free hand
in Russia and the East?
Their purpose is, undoubtedly, to make all the Slavic peoples,
all the free and ambitious nations of the Baltic Peninsula, all
the lands that Turkey has dominated and misruled, subject to
their will and ambition, and build upon that dominion an empire
of force upon which they fancy that they can then erect an em-
pire of gain and commercial supremacy — an empire as hostile
to the Americas as to the Europe which it will overawe — an
empire which will ultimately master Persia, India, and the
peoples of the Far East.
In such a programme our ideals, the ideals of justice and hu-
282 APPENDIX
manity and liberty, the principle of the free self-determination
of nations, upon which all the modern world insists, can play
no part. They are rejected for the ideals of power, for the prin-
ciple that the strong must rule the weak, that trade must follow
the flag, whether those to whom it is taken welcome it or not,
that the peoples of the world are to be made subject to the
patronage and overlordship of those who have the power to
enforce it.
That programme once carried out, America and all who care
or dare to stand with her must arm and prepare themselves to
contest the mastery of the world — a mastery in which the rights
of common men, the rights of women and of all who are weak,
must for the time being be trodden under foot and disregarded
and the old, age-long struggle for freedom and right begin again
at its beginning. Everything that America has lived for and
loved and grown great to vindicate and bring to a glorious real-
ization will have fallen in utter ruin and the gates of mercy once
more pitilessly shut upon mankind !
The thing is preposterous and impossible; and yet is not that
what the whole course and action of the German armies has
meant wherever they have moved ? I do not wish, even in this
moment of utter disillusionment, to judge harshly or unright-
eously. I judge only what the German arms have accomplished
with unpitying thoroughness throughout every fair region they
have touched.
What, then, are we to do? For myself, I am ready, ready
still, ready even now, to discuss a fair and just and honest peace
at any time that it is sincerely purposed — a peace in which the
strong and the weak shall fare alike. But the answer, when
I proposed such a peace, came from the German commanders
in Russia and I cannot mistake the meaning of the answer.
I accept the challenge. I know that you accept it. All the
world shall know that you accept it. It shall appear in the utter
sacrifice and self -forget fulness with which we shall give all that
we love and all that we have to redeem the world and make it
fit for freemen like ourselves to live in. This now is the mean-
ing of all that we do. Let everything that we say, my fellow
countrymen, everything that we henceforth plan and accom-
plish, ring true to this response till the majesty and might of
our concerted power shall fill the thought and utterly defeat
APPENDIX 283
the force of those who flout and misprize what we honor and
hold dear.
Germany has once more said that force, and force alone, shall
decide whether justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of
men, whether right as America conceives it or dominion as she
conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind. There
is, therefore, but one response possible from us: force, force
to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and
triumphant force which shall make right the law of the world
and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust.
APPENDIX F
Bibliography
The following list of books, including manuals, books of
specimens, and works referring to special phases of the sub-
ject, may be found useful:
Adam, G. Mercer, "Speeches of Abraham Lincoln."
Adams, C. K., and Alden, John, "British Eloquence."
Alden, Raymond M., "The Art of Debate."
Askew, John Bertram, "Pros and Cons."
Bacon, Corinne, "Debaters' Handbook Series."
Baker, George P., "Specimens of Argumentation."
Baker, G. P., and Huntington, H. B., "The Principles of Argu-
mentation."
Bradley, Cornelius P., "Orations and Arguments."
Brookings, W. D., and Ringwalt, R. C, "Briefs for Debate."
Buck, Gertrude, "Argumentative Writing."
Curry, C. C, "Imagination and Dramatic Instinct."
Denny, Duncan, and McKenny, "Argumentation and De-
bate."
Foster, William T., "Argumentation and Debate."
George, A. J., "Select Speeches of Daniel Webster."
Harper, George McLean, "President Wilson's Addresses.'
Hibbefi, John Grier, "Logic— Deductive and Inductive."
Holyoake, George J., "Public Speaking and Debate."
)>
284 APPENDIX
Houghton, Harry Garfield, "The Elements of Public Speak-
ing."
Johnston, Alexander, "American Orations."
Ketcham, Victor A., "The Theory and Practice of Argumenta-
tion and Debate."
Kleiser, Grenville, "How to Argue and Win."
Lee, Guy Carleton, "Principles of Public Speaking."
MacEwan, Elias J., "Essentials of Argumentation."
Maxcy, CarroU L., "The Brief."
Miller, Irving Elgor, "The Psychology of Thinking."
Nichols, Egbert Ray, "Intercollegiate Debates," vols. I- VII.
O'Neill, Laycock, and Scales, "Argumentation and Debate."
Perry, Bliss, "Lincoln," "Webster," in "Little Masterpieces."
Phillips, Arthur Edward, "Effective Speaking."
Ringwalt, Ralph Curtis, "Briefs on Public Questions."
Robinson, Frederick B., "Effective Public Speaking."
Scott, Walter Dill, "The Psychology of Pubhc Speaking," "In-
fluencing Men in Business."
Shurter, Edward Du Bois, "How to Debate." (igi?-)
Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, "Digest of the Law of Evidence."
Stone, A. P., and Garrison, S. L., "Essentials of Argument."
Thomas, Ralph W., "A Manual of Debate."
Titchener, Edward B., "A Text-book of Psychology."
Wigmore, John Henry, "Principles of Judicial Proof."
Winans, James Albert, "Public Speaking."
Winter, Irving Lester, "Public Speaking and Practice."
APPENDIX G
Resolutions for Debate
Resolved:
That after the present war the United States should take
steps to secure the adoption of the programme of the League
to Enforce Peace.
That the federal government should adopt a permanent
policy of price control.
That a war tax of twenty per cent should be levied on all in-
comes over two thousand dollars.
APPENDIX 285
That after the war an international police force should be
created to preserve peace.
That the successful prosecution of the war requires that all
citizens of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey now re-
siding in the United States be interned until peace is declared.
That the war-time scope of federal regulation should, in prin-
ciple, be continued in times of peace.
That the administration be granted absolute censorship of
the press in time of war.
That Congress should enact legislation providing for the com-
pulsory arbitration of interstate public utility disputes as a
permanent policy.
That the federal government should require compulsory ar-
bitration (with power to enforce decision) of disputes between
organized labor and interstate public service corporations, con-
stitutionality granted.
That the States should adopt the cabinet-parliamentary form
of government.
That the government, in financing the war for the future,
should obtain a larger percentage of its funds from taxes than
from bonds.
That the Japanese should be admitted to the United States
and to citizenship therein on the same basis as foreigners of
other nations.
That the federal courts should be deprived of the power to
declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.
That conscription of labor should be adopted by the govern-
ment.
INDEX
Accent, fallacy, loi.
Adams, C. K., 170.
Adams, John, 210.
Adams, Samuel, 230, App. B.
Adaptation, the principle, g.
Adjectives, personal, 221.
Advertising, suggestion in, igo.
Ames, Fisher, 171.
Amphibology, loi.
Anecdote, the, 167.
Antecedent probability, 42.
Anticipation images, 162.
Argument — definition, 4, sq; classes
of, 3g; incomplete, 40; relations
in, not always known, 41; names
applied, 42.
Aristophanes, 155.
Arnold, Matthew, ag.
Assertion, 115.
Association-reactions, App. B.
Attention theory, the, 244.
Auditory images, 163, App. B.
Authority, 132, 135.
Bacon, Sir Francis, 165.
Bank referendum, 133.
Bardell vs. Pickwick, log.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 72, 77, 166,
igg.
Benton's "Debates of Congress," 137.
Best, W. M., 113, 121.
Blackstone, Sir William, 53.
Brief, the, defined, 16; analysis,
classification, and arrangement,
17-23; unity, logical sequence, and
proportion, 25-26; language in a,
28; parallel structure in a, 2g; two
laws of structure, 31; rules for a,
32; three parts of a, 32; specimen
briefs, 34, App. A.
Briefs, specimen. Lord Chatham on
the removal of troops, 34; first
Junius letter, App. A; in defense
of Darnay, App. A.
Brink, C. M., 205.
Brooke, Stopford A., 48.
Browning, Robert, App. B,
Bryan, \Vm. J., ig8.
Burden of proof, 3, 126.
Burke, Edmund, learning, 16; "Con-
ciliation," 2g, 142, 180, 232; theory
of representation, 54; resemblance,
6g; vindication of natural society,
74; taxation, 108; citation of
authority, 142; imagery, i6g;
Warren Hastings, 230.
Cabots, the, 162.
Caine, Hall, 155.
Calhoun, John C, 80.
Camden, Lord, 54.
Causal relation, argument from, 87;
rule of adequacy, 88; interaction of
cause and effect, go; partial and
temporary causes, gi; multiplicity
of causes, gi; relative value of
causes, g2 ; causal and other sources
of reasoning, g2; differences of
view-point, g3.
Chatham, Lord, 34, 54.
Choate, Rufus, 222.
Cicero, 235.
Circumstantial evidence, 118.
Classics, the, 212.
Climax, 24, 30, 22g.
Clinton, H. L., 174.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 31.
Columbus, 162.
Common ground, in argument, 102.
Composition, fallacy, loi; a basis of
debate, 8.
Concept, 8, 14, 166, 182.
Conceptual view-point, the advantage
of the, to the debater, 182.
Confidence, 237.
Consciousness, appeal to, ig2.
Consistency, 127.
Constructive thinking, g.
Contrast, a principle of association in
argument from example, by re-
ductio ad absurdum. the dilemma,
and the method of the residue, Og.
Creative imagination, the, isg.
Curtis, George W., 52.
287
288
INDEX
Dana, Edward S., 123.
Dante, App. D.
Darnay, in defense of, App. B.
Dartmouth College case, 52.
Darwin, Charles, 135.
Debate, meaning of term, i, 4, 201;
universality of, i; informal and
formal, 2; how it originates, 3, 4;
varied background, 4; a presenta-
tion of ideas, 8.
Debater himself, the, 12.
Decision, the, 244.
Deduction, 97; supplemented by in-
duction, 97; a method of criticism,
g8; the syllogism, 98; the enthy-
meme, 99; the chain of reasoning,
100.
Delivery, common defects in, 240.
Demosthenes, 235.
DeWitt, John, App. D.
Dickens, Charles, 109, 214, App. B.
Dilemma, the, 79; two kinds, 80; its
use, 81; how answered, 81.
Dionysius, 51.
Direct evidence, 118.
Division, fallacy, loi.
Documents, their interpretation, 139.
Draper, Sir William, 74.
Ehbinghaus, Hermann, 205.
Emerson, O. F., 208.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 226.
Emotions, the, 11, 197, 221.
Epictetus, 100.
Equivocation, fallacy, loi.
Erskine, Lord, 53, 61, 128, 160, 214,
236.
"Eugene Aram," 119.
Euripides, 155.
Everett, Edward, 137.
Evidence, a basis of debate, 4; mean-
ing of term, 113; need of, 113; need
of assumptions, 116; classes of,
118; jury verdicts upon circum-
stantial, 120; personal, real, and
documentary, 121; the law of, 126;
examining testimony, 127; use of
evidence outside the courts, 130;
debaters' chief source of, 132;
authority, two classes of, 132; ex-
amining evidence from authority,
135; suggestions for reporting evi-
dence, 140; the reasonableness of an
opmion, 143; the danger of partial
quotation, 144; the card system,
I4S-
Example, argument from, based on
resemblance, 50; by generalization,
50; by analogy, 66; based on con-
trast, 69; always involves a prin-
ciple, 52; table showing steps in the
process, 57; definition, and rules of
relevancy, 58; need of support by
other arguments, 61; fallacy, beg-
ging the question, 62; answering a
causal argument by alleging a dif-
ferent cause, 6s; special types of
example used in refutation, 69.
Fallacies, two classes of, loi.
Femald, M. R., App. B.
Fletcher vs. Peck, 52.
Fox, W. J., 84.
Franklin, Benjamin, 238.
Freeman, E. A., 143.
Frequency, 190.
Gales and Seaton's Reports, 137.
George, Lloyd, address, "Peace
Founded on the Rock of Justice,"
App. E.
Gesture images, 202.
Gibbon, Edward, 217.
Goodrich, Charles A., 7. 160. 2i4-
Grattan, Henry, 78, 214.
Greenleaf, Simon, 113. *
Greenough, James B., 45.
Gustatory images, 163.
Hamerton, P. G., i3S-
Hamilton, Alexander, 167.
Hans, Clever, 43.
Hazlitt, William, 160.
Henry, Patrick, 51. i9S. 227, App. B.
Hibben, President John G., 59. 98.
Hill, A. S., 143-
Houghton, H. G., 204.
Hugo, Victor, 168, 217.
Huxley, T. H., 13S. 224.
Idea, an, 158.
Ignoratio elenchi, 102.
Image ad absurdum, the, igo-
Imagery, an imperfect means, 210.
Imagery, illustrative, 217.
Imagery of argument and poetry,
App. D.
Imagery, the special study of; varied
appeals; auditory, and the dis-
agreeable; auditory and the agree-
able; mixed types; other forms of,
App. C.
INDEX
289
Imagery, tonal, 213.
Images, types of, 163, 183, 213, App. B.
Imagination, 8, 150; need of, 150;
psychological view-point and proc-
esses, 154; images, a psychological
inference, 157; mental processes,
158; the creative imagination, 159;
the poverty of mere facts, 160;
the vision of new ideas, 161; an-
ticipation images, 162; perceptual
aspect of imagery, 163; imaging a
concept, 166; an analogy, 167;
a cause, 16S; a conclusion, i6g;
affection and desire, 172; in a team
debate, 175; in general, 178; the
advantage of the conceptual view-
point to the debater, 182; types of
imagep', 183.
Imperative, the, 228.
Imperfect induction, g6.
Independence of the Philippine
Islands, 4.
Inductive argument, 93; the inevita-
ble assumption, 95; the formula,
95; induction, the scientific method
of investigation, 96; kinds of in-
duction, 96.
Inhibitions, 9, 189; hurtful admis-
sions, 19s; immediate removal of,
195; logical fallacies as, 197;
removing an inhibiting wish, 199;
the inhibiting function in debating,
201.
Instruments of suggestion, 188, 201,
212.
Interest and belief, as ends in debate,
193-
Interestedness, 239.
Interrogatory, the, 227.
Invective, 197.
Irony, 74, i97-
Irving, Henry, 134.
Issue, 3; types of issues, 11.
Jacoby, Dr. George W., 44.
James, William, 103.
Jefferson, Thomas, 210.
Jevons, W. Stanley, 6.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 98, 106.
Junius, 6, 24, 29, 48, 76, App. A.
Kant, Immanuel, App. D.
Keats, John, App. C.
Kinaesthetic images, App. B.
Kittredge, George L., 45-
Knowledge, matters of, 122.
La Fontaine, the Fables of, 63.
Lamb, Charles, 152.
Laughter, 197.
Law of evidence, the, 126.
Law of the mental level, 208.
Laws of structure, 31.
Lincoln, Abraham, Cooper Institute,
3; analogies, 67; contrast, 69, 70;
Dred Scott, 70; dilemma, 79, 82;
imagery, 157, 167; ad absurdum,
200; personalities, 219; the phrase,
226.
Lindsley, C. F., 242.
Locke, John, 54.
Logic, a basis of debate, 6.
Logical organization, 13.
•
Macaulay, T. B., 72, 98, n6.
Major premise, 99.
Mandeville, Sir John, 135.
Mansfield, Lord, 54.
McCosh, James, 194.
Media or symbols, the, 9.
Memory, 8, 28, 141, 158, 166, 178, 184.
Mental level, the, 208.
Meredith, George, App. C.
Method of the residue, the, 82-86.
Milton, John, App. C.
Minor premise, 99.
Monroe, James, 133.
Napoleon, 184.
Non causa pro causa, 102.
Non sequitur, 18, 102.
Norton and Sackville, 152.
Nullification, 80.
Olfactory images, 164, App. B.
Onomatopoeia, 213.
Opinion, matters of, 112; reasonable-
ness of an, 143.
Oratory, a basis of debate, 8.
Otis, James, App. B.
Paraleipsis, 235.
Peace, a league to enforce, 191.
Peel, Sir Robert, 84.
Perceptual aspect of imagery, 163.
Perfect induction, 96.
Peroration, the, 174-
Perry, Bliss, 159.
Personalities, 115, 218.
Persuasion, 11, 188, App. D, 271.
Peliiio principii, loi.
Phillips, A. B., 193.
Phrase, the, 325.
290
INDEX
"Pickwick Papers," 109.
Pinkney, William, 141, 222.
Plan, need of a, 15.
Plato, the Republic of, 85.
Pliny, 135.
Plurium inlerrogationum, 102.
Poe, E. A., 49, App. B.
Polo, Marco, 163.
Praleritio, 235.
Presentation, the, 13, 150.
Primary evidence, 125.
Prison reform, report on, 9.
Proof, the, 112.
Proposition, a, 6.
Psychological inference, 157.
Psychological moment, the, 208.
Psychology, a basis of debate, 9.
Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking,
App. B.
Quarterly Journal of Speech Education,
242.
Questions or exercises, 146, App. B.
Quotation, danger of partial, 144.
Randolph, John, App. B.
Recency, 190.
Reductio ad absurdum, 69; illustra-
tions, 69; manner of treatment, 73;
how answered, 76.
Reference to experience, 183.
Refutation, the, 104; preparation,
105; selection, 106; fundamental
criticism, 108; two general methods
of, 109; special types of, 11 1;
avoiding and removing inhibitions
in, 194.
Repetition, 230.
Reproductive imagination, the, 158.
Resemblance, a principle of associa-
tion in argument from example
by generalization and by analogy,
50.
Response, 188, 202, App. B.
Rhythm, 214.
Ringwalt, R. C, 63.
Robert of Gloucester, i.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 167, 192, 214,
237-
Rowland, E. H., 217.
Ruskin, John, 159, 180.
Russell, Lord William, 120.
Ruyssen, Theodore, 89.
Sacken, von Osten, 44.
Saint Matthew, 179.
Saint Paul, 223.
Scott, General Hugh L., 65
Scott, Sir Walter, 1,2.
Scott, Walter Dill, 189, 216.
Secondary evidence, 125.
Sentence forms, 227.
Shakespeare, 0th., 47, 124; M. of V.,
118, 164; Macb., 124, App. C; Jul.
Cass., 124, 165, 232, 234, App. C;
Rom. and Jul, 159; Temp., 182;
Hen. IV, 223, 232; Ham., 235,
App. C; Meas. for Meas., 237.
Ship subsidies, 200.
Sidis, Boris, 209.
Sign, argument from, defined, 43;
early form of mental activity, 43;
words as signs, 44; various defini-
tions, 45 ; force, 47; scientific use
of, 47; observation and inference,
49; common sources of error, 50;
sign reasoning in constructive
thinking, 9; signs as the back-
ground of an argument, 157.
Sincerity, 211, 239.
Smith, L. W., 206.
Smith, Sidney, 224.
Spencer, Herbert, 68.
Stephen, James F., 5, 113, 129.
Stevenson, R. L., 217.
Story, Justice Joseph, 52.
Subconscious, the, 188, App. C.
Suggestion in argument, 8, 188; laws
of, and their use in debating, 189;
instruments of suggestion, 201 ; ges-
ture images as instruments of, 202;
word images, 204; variability of
meanings, 207; imagery an imper-
fect means, 210.
Summary, the, 34, 230.
Swift, J., 74-
Swiss military system, 175.
Switzerland, the military organization
of, 59-
Syllogism, the, gS.
Tactual or tactile images, 163, App.
B.
Taft, William H., 192.
Telegraph-lines, government owner-
ship of, 46.
Tell, WilUam, 137.
Terman, L. M., App. B.
Testimony, 127.
Thucydides, 137,
Thurston, Senator, 180.
Transition, the, 240.
INDEX
291
Types, of audiences, ii; of issues, ii;
of mind, lo.
Udall, Nicholas, 152.
Variety, 231.
Verrazzano, 162.
Visual images, 163, App. B.
Vividness, 190.
Vocabulary development, 204, 212,
App. B.
Vocal shadings, 207.
Washington, George, 133, 226.
Webster, Daniel, bank credit, 71
on South CaroUna doctrine, 89
reply to Hayne, 136; memory, 141
the great expounder, 167; eulogy of
his State, 185; mental sketch-map,
217; personalities, 21 8; irony, 230;
paraleipsis, 236; sentiment and
memory, 237.
Whately, Archbishop, by, 74.
Whitney, W. D., App. B.
Wilson, President Woodrow, imagery,
157; the apt story, 167; for a
league to enforce peace, 192, 209;
an immortal phrase, 226; his
Baltimore address, "Force to the
Utmost," App. E.
Winans, James A., 244.
Winter, Irving L., 241.
Wish, 199.
Wit, 197.
Word images, 204.
Word-recognition test, App. B.
Words, connotation of, 44; as instru-
ments of suggestion, 201, 204, 212.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 237.
Wordsworth, Wilham, 225.
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