Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-06

Most human beings detest being cross
examined. particularly in private.
It Is bad enough to be hauled onto
.. the witness stand, but to be put through
a REORGANIZATION in the guise of q
friendly conversation is tnsufferable.
The legal mind, after all, Is a curious
thing.
living. It puts It's faith in logic, when
all the world knows that man Is the
most illogical animal alive.
The typical legal mind Is to be fought
best by the honest and the illogical.
So long as you stick to the truth,
and do not bow down to the sO-called
truths of logic. you have no reason to
fear a legal mind.
At great expense OF time and money,
men train themselves to the legal mind,
and the exercise thereof, which, achiev-
ing ever thereafter they are bound
down by rules.
You cannot meet a lawyer in ordinary
polite society without encountering
Hughes ON Evidence" although he
will never mention the name, Of course.
Yes. we detest being cross-examined,
especially in the ordinary walks OF life.
We shy from it as horse once did
when he caught sight OF a piece OF
paper fluttering by the side OF the
road.
How that logical mind bores in,
proudly self-conScious that we. poor
fellow. had better watch out. or be trip
ped up prettily (see chapter v, section
Xi etcD!
Again let us protest that the thing
is bad enough on the witness stand.
There one knows what to expect, at
least to some extent, but here the law
books are hidden, carefully concealed
beneath the table so that we are caught
off guard unless we know the mans
style from the beginning.
We expected ordinary conversation,
with the usual play Of polite IFS and
butts" tn remark withheld because
OF its poss BILE offenSe, the withdrawal
from a given train Of thought because
of the effect on another.
Suddenly we realize, almost with q
gasp that this fellow Is no converse
tionalist. but an adversary! Just in
time do we realize it, because one
more admission, on our part, and we
are lost to logic.
What, happily, the man does not
realize Is that We as human being,
have no particular respect for logic.
In the old days, before science, the
logical mind was the penetrating mind.
The cool, calculated train or thought
was all-in-all, before men got down
to basic studies Of matter, the stuff of
the universe. When no man alive knew
the difference between the ultraviolet
rays of the sun and the mira red rays,
for instance, he who could argue that
il so and so were true, and this and
this were true, then so-and-so must
logically follow, why he was a great
, man, in his way, and the simple yokels
who could not so follow an argument
took off their old worn hats to him.
The logician had the world standing
with It's collective hat of for several
thousands OF years, until Science came
into its own. Now the world has put
its hat back on its head, and refuses
to bow its head to anything but the
truth.
The legal mind almost alone refuses
to admit that its thought processes
are back numbers in the triumphant
march of life along the road that had
no back-turning.
y
This tendency OF the legal mind to
pin one down in ordinary conversation
is reprehensible because 1t strikes at
the very basis Of polite usage, in which
the word polite" has more force than
usage"
For the courts, we may admit, for