The Making of Arguments Part 15

Lincoln knew that this doctrine that no state could interfere with slavery would be intolerable to the people of Illinois, before whom he was carrying on his campaign; and this syllogism made clear to them the consequences of the decision of the Supreme Court.

Or you can use a syllogism to make obvious a flaw in the reasoning of your opponent, as in the following example:

In view of the history of commission government in this country so far as it has been made, the burden of proof rests with those who attempt to show that a government which has been so successful in cities of moderate size will not be successful in our largest cities. The syllogism they are required to prove runs briefly thus:

Commission government is acknowledged to have been successful in cities as large as one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, but

It has not been tried in cities containing more than one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants;

Therefore, it will not be successful in cities of four hundred thousand or larger, which is a _reductio ad absurdum_.

The folly of the attempt is shown by the very statement of the conclusion.[44]

44. The Dilemma. One special form of the syllogism is at times so strong an argument that it deserves special mention here, namely, the dilemma. This is a syllogism in which the major premise consists of two or more hypothetical propositions (that is, propositions with an "if"

clause) and the minor of a disjunctive proposition (a proposition with two or more clauses connected by "or").

In the course of the Lincoln-Douglas debate a question was put by Lincoln to Douglas, as follows: "Can the people of a United States territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizens of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a state const.i.tution?" The question may be viewed as the source of a dilemma, both in the practical and in the syllogistic sense of the term.

In fact it involved a situation which, syllogistically, comprised more than one dilemma. They may be stated as follows:

I. If Douglas answers yes, he offends the South, and if he answers no, he offends the North;

But he must answer either yes or no;

Therefore he will offend either the South or the North.

II. If Douglas offends the South, he loses the nomination for the Presidency in the next convention; and if he offends the North, he loses the election to the United States Senators.h.i.+p (and his chances for the Presidency);

But he must offend either the South or the North;

Therefore he loses either the Presidency or the Senators.h.i.+p.

Or, III. If Douglas offends the South, he cannot become President; and if he offends the North, he cannot become President;

But he must offend either the South or the North;

Therefore he cannot become President.[45]

The dilemma, if it leaves no hole for the other side to creep through, is an extremely effective argument in politics and in compet.i.tive debate. If you can thus get your adversary between the devil and the deep sea on a point that in the eyes of your audience is interesting and critical, you have crippled his case. But if the point is not momentous, though your audience may find the dilemma amusing, you run the risk of the reproach of "smartness" if you crow very loudly over it.

On the other hand, a dilemma that is not exhaustive will hold no one.

Many of the arguments against the imposition of a federal tax on corporations a.s.sumed that if the tax were imposed it would soon be made unreasonable in amount. Most arguments that the other side will abuse any power that is given to them may be regarded as falling into the cla.s.s of incomplete dilemma. A speaker who uses a leaky dilemma must have great confidence in the unintelligence of his audience, but it is surprising to see how often such dilemmas occur in political debates.

45. Reasoning from Circ.u.mstantial Evidence. The third type of reasoning from similarity named on page 120 is reasoning from circ.u.mstantial evidence. The term is familiar to every one from murder trials and detective stories. Webster's argument in the White Murder Case, from which I print a short extract on page 157, is a famous example of an argument on circ.u.mstantial evidence; and in fiction Sir Conan Doyle has created for our delectation many notable and ingenious cases of it. But reasoning from circ.u.mstantial evidence is far from being confined to criminal cases and fiction; as Huxley points out (see p. 241), it is also the basis of some of the broadest and most illuminating generalizations of science; and the example below from Macaulay is only one of innumerable cases of its use in history.

Reasoning from circ.u.mstantial evidence differs from reasoning from a.n.a.logy or generalization in that it rests on similarities reaching out in a number of separate directions, all of which, however, converge on the case in hand. This convergence is pointed out by Macaulay in the following admirable little argument on the authors.h.i.+p of the _Junius Letters_, which were a series of pseudonymous and malignant attacks on the British government about 1770:

Was he [Francis] the author of the Letters of Junius? Our own firm belief is that he was. The evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised.

As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the secretary of state's office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the war office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and look notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of deputy secretary-at-war; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis pa.s.sed some years in the secretary of state's office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of these speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerks.h.i.+p at the war office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis.

We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this agreement does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circ.u.mstantial evidence.[46]

Here the five points or marks of similarity between the writer of the letters and Philip Francis are of such diversity that it would be an extraordinary coincidence if there had happened to be two men whom they would fit: where so many lines converge so closely at a single point it would hardly be possible for them to meet on more than one person.

The following brief extract from Webster's argument in the White Murder Case shows the same sort of convergence of similarities: each circ.u.mstance in itself is hardly strong enough to furnish ground for an argument on a.n.a.logy, but taken all together they point irresistibly in one direction, namely, to the fact of a conspiracy.

Let me ask your attention, then, in the first place, to those appearances, on the morning after the murder, which have a tendency to show that it was done in pursuance of a preconcerted plan of operation.

What are they? A man was found murdered in his bed. No stranger had done the deed, no one unacquainted with the house had done it. It was apparent that somebody within had opened, and that somebody without had entered. There had obviously and certainly been concert and cooperation.

The inmates of the house were not alarmed when the murder was perpetrated. The a.s.sa.s.sin had entered without any riot or any violence.

He had found the way prepared before him. The house had been previously opened. The window was unbarred from within, and its fastening unscrewed. There was a lock on the door of the chamber in which Mr.

White slept, but the key was gone. It had been taken away and secreted.

The footsteps of the murderer were visible, outdoors, tending toward the window. The plank by which he entered the window still remained. The road he pursued had thus been prepared for him. The victim was slain, and the murderer had escaped. Everything indicated that somebody within had cooperated with somebody without. Everything proclaimed that some of the inmates, or somebody having access to the house, had had a hand in the murder. On the face of the circ.u.mstances, it was apparent, therefore, that this was a premeditated, concerted murder; that there had been a conspiracy to commit it.[47]

The strength of reasoning from circ.u.mstantial evidence lies in the number and the diversity of the points of similarity to the point in hand. If there are few of them, the possibility of coincidence increases, as it also does when the points of similarity come from the same source or are of the same nature. This possibility of coincidence is a good rough test of the value of reasoning from circ.u.mstantial evidence: where the theory of a coincidence would stretch all probabilities one may safely leave it out of account.

In practice the argument from circ.u.mstantial evidence is more frequent in the experience of lawyers than in that of other men; but sooner or later everybody has to pa.s.s on such reasoning, for wherever direct evidence is out of the question it may be necessary to piece the situation together by circ.u.mstantial evidence. There is some prejudice against such evidence, springing from reported cases of miscarriage of justice in convictions based on it. Such cases, however, are very rare in reality, and probably do not equal in number the cases in which mistaken or false direct testimony has caused injustice.

46. Some Pitfalls of Reasoning--Ambiguity. I have already spoken of some of the dangers to which reasoning is subject--false a.n.a.logy, faulty generalization of various kinds, and various sins against the rules of the syllogism. There are still a few general dangers to speak about. It should be noted that the various kinds of fallacies run into each other, and not infrequently a given piece of bad reasoning can be described under more than one of them.

Of all the sources of faulty and misleading reasoning, ambiguity is the most fruitful and the most inclusive.

It springs from the facts that words, except those which are almost technically specific, are constantly used in more than one sense, and that a great many of the words which we use in everyday life are essentially vague in meaning. Such common words as "liberty," "right,"

"gentleman," "better," "cla.s.sic," "honor," and innumerable others each need a treatise for any thorough definition; and then the definition, if complete, would be largely a tabulation of perfectly proper senses in which the words can be used, or a list of the ways in which different people have used them. Besides this notorious vagueness of many common words, a good many words, as I have already shown (p. 54), have two or more distinct and definable meanings.

Strictly speaking, the ambiguity does not inhere in the word itself, but rather in its use in an a.s.sertion, since ambiguity can arise only when we are making an a.s.sertion. It has been defined as "the neglect of distinctions in the meaning of terms, when these distinctions are important for the given occasion."[48] Suppose, for example, you are arguing against a certain improvement in a college dormitory, on the ground that it makes for luxury: clearly "luxury" is a word that may mean one thing to you, and another to half of your audience. By itself it is an indefinite word, except in its emotional implication; and its meaning varies with the people concerning whom it is used, since what would be luxury for a boy brought up on a farm would be bare comfort to the son of wealthy parents in the city. Indeed the advances of plumbing in the last generation have completely changed the relative meanings of the words "comfort" and "luxury" so far as they concern bathrooms and bathtubs. In the case of such a word, then, the weight of the definition above falls on the last clause, "when these distinctions are important for the given occasion"; here is a case where the occasion on which the word "luxury" is used determines nearly the whole of its meaning. In practice, if you have a suspicion that a word may be taken in another sense than that you intend, the first thing to do is to define it--to lay down as exactly as possible the cases which it is intended to cover on the present occasion, and the meaning it is to have in those cases.

For good examples of this enlightened caution, see the definitions on pages 54-65, especially that from Bagchot.

A similar difficulty arises with the words which, in the somewhat slipshod use of everyday life, have come to have as it were a sliding value.

We may raise no difficulty about understanding the a.s.sertions that Brown, and Jones, and Robinson are "honest," but when we come to the case of Smith we discover a difficulty in placing him clearly on either side of the line. That difficulty is nothing less than the difficulty of knowing the meaning given to the word in this particular a.s.sertion. We might, for instance, agree to mean by Smith's "honesty" that no shady transactions could be legally proved against him, or that he is "honest according to his lights," or again that he is about as honest as the majority of his neighbors or the average of his trade or profession.[49]

That this is not a fanciful case can be shown by noticing how often we speak of "transparent" honesty, or of "absolute" honesty: this is notably one of the words for which we have a sliding scale of values, which vary considerably with the age and the community. "Political honesty" has a very different meaning in the England of to-day from that which it had in the eighteenth century. To get at the exact meaning of honesty, then, either for Mr. Sidgwick's Brown, Jones, Robinson, and Smith, or for Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour as compared with Walpole or Pitt, we need a good deal more than a dictionary definition. What has already been said (p. 65) on the use of the history of the case to get a preliminary understanding of the question which is to be argued, and the terms to be used in it, applies all through the reasoning involved in the argument. Scrutinize all the terms you use yourself, as well as those used in arguments on the other side. I have already pointed out the ambiguity there is in the emotional implications of words; but the danger from it is so subtle and so besetting that it will be worth while to dwell on it again. There are many cases in which there is no doubt as to the denotation of the word,--the cases which it is intended to name,--but in which the two sides to a controversy use the word with a totally different effect on their own and other people's feelings.

Before the Civil War pretty much the whole South had come to use the word "slavery" as implying one of the settled inst.i.tutions of the country, more or less sanctified by divine ordinance; at the same time a large portion of the North had come to look on it as an abomination to the Lord.

Here there was no doubt as to the denotation of the word; but in a highly important respect it was ambiguous, because it implied a totally different reaction among the people who used it. In a case where the contrast is so glaring there is little danger of confusion; but there are a good many cases where a word may have very different effects on the feelings of an audience without the fact coming very clearly to the surface. "Liberal" is to most Americans a term implying praise, so far as it goes; to Cardinal Newman it implied what were to him the irreverent and dangerous heresies of free thought, and therefore in his mouth it was a word of condemnation.[50] "Aesthetic" to many good people has an implication of effeminacy and of trifling which is far from praiseworthy; to artists and critics it may sum up what is most admirable in civilization. If in an argument on abolis.h.i.+ng football as an intercollegiate sport you describe a certain game as played "with spirit and fierceness," football players would think of it as a good game, but opponents of football would hold that such a description justified them in cla.s.sing the game with prize fighting. When one of the terms you use may thus stir one part of your audience in one way, and the other part in just the opposite way, you are dealing with an uncomfortable kind of ambiguity.

It is easy to get into the way of thinking that the denotation of a word--the things which it names--is the only part of its meaning that counts; but with many words the connotation--I use the word in the rhetorical rather than in the logical sense, to include its implications, a.s.sociations, and general emotional coloring--has more effect on human nature. There is a good deal of difference between telling a man that his a.s.sertion is "incorrect," "untrue," or "false"; if you use the last and he is at all choleric you may bring on an explosion. In argument, where you are aiming to persuade as well as to convince, the question of the feelings of your audience and how they will be affected by the terms you use is obviously of great importance.

And if you are using such terms as "gentleman," "political honesty,"

"socialist," "coeducation," you must not forget that such words have a definite emotional connotation, which will vary largely with the reader.

47. Begging the Question. The fallacy of "begging the question"

consists of a.s.suming as true something that the other side would not admit. It is especially insidious in the condensed arguments of which I spoke a few pages back. A common form of the fallacy consists of slipping in an epithet which quietly takes for granted one's own view of the question, or of using some expression that a.s.sumes one's own view as correct. For example, in an argument for a change in a city government, to declare that all intelligent citizens favor it would be begging the question. In an argument for the protection of crows, to begin, "Few people know how many of these useful birds are killed each year," would be to beg the question, since the argument turns on whether crows are useful or not. A gross and uncivil form of this fallacy is to use opprobrious epithets in describing persons who take the other view, as in the following sentence from an article in a magazine on the question of examinations for entrance to college:

As for interest and variety, what could destroy and taboo both more effectually than the rigid and rigorous demands of a formal set of examinations prepared, as a rule, by pedantic specialists who know practically nothing of the fundamental problems and needs of the high school.

Begging the question is often committed in the course of defining terms, as in the following pa.s.sage from Cardinal Newman's "Idea of a University":

It is the fas.h.i.+on just now, as you very well know, to erect so-called Universities, without making any provision in them at all for Theological chairs. Inst.i.tutions of this kind exist both here [Ireland] and in England. Such a procedure, though defended by writers of the generation just pa.s.sed with much plausible argument and not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity; and my reason For saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form of a syllogism:--A University, I should lay down, by its very name professes to teach universal knowledge; Theology is surely a branch of knowledge; how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them? I do not see that either premise of this argument is open to exception.[51]

The obvious answer is that "university" is a vague term and that there may be many kinds of universities, as indeed there are in this country; moreover, the importance of theology is an arguable matter even among church members.