PERSUASION

THE SCOPE OF PERSUASION
PERSUASION
I. THE SCOPE OF PERSUASION
81.	Persuasion is that kind of composition which seeks to win assent It is trying to make you believe, or even act, as I wish. It is an appeal from person to person. Thus it is of all kinds the most direct. Exposition is properly impersonal, dispassionate ; per¬suasion may be passionate and is always personal. The image of persuasion is Peter the Hermit preaching the first Crusade.
82.	Persuasion includes all that the ancients meant by rhetoric (§§ I, 2). As the fine art of composition reached its height for them in the drama and was expounded in Aristotle's Poetic, so the useful art of composition was summed up in the orator and had its system of rhetoric. Rhetoric is literally the art of the orator, the art of public speaking. That the word is applied to-day more commonly to writing shows a change in the way of the world ; that many principles of the ancient rhetoric, and these the most important, are still current, shows the change to be merely in the accidents, not in the substance of the art.	The practical end of Composition is still per 
suasion. That we persuade now largely by print is an important change ; but it only modifies, not abrogates, the ancient rhetoric.
83. Persuasion, then, is the field of rhetoric in its
 
FEELING AND REASON 6
original signification and, in a wide sense, its final signification. For the common concern with words is to win assent and action. That is the concern of the orator and of the commercial traveller. In this sense rhetoric can never cease to be practical. Oratory may be decaying, as we often hear ; but though we may be dubious concerning legislatures, there are no signs of decay in pleading at the bar, nor in that pure form of oratory, the sermon. As for the sup¬planting newspaper, whatever else it may be, it is essentially persuasion. The difference between speech and print is largely a difference of force, a difference of degree rather than of kind. The living voice of Macaulay was much greater than the printed words of his speeches, and the living voice is usually stronger ; but Burke was far stronger in print, and Stevenson's Father Damien, which is a printed letter, moved men wherever it went. Small modifications in detail have not disturbed the tradition of rhetoric.
84. The appeal for assent, which is persuasion, is to feeling or to reason. About the feelings and appeals to them tradition speaks in general terms and by maxims ; and the modern science of psychology has not yet brought much that is more specific. As in general the best equipment for the business Of per¬suasion is knowledge of human nature, so on each particular occasion the force of appeal depends on the gauging of the audience. That is, persuasion is partly the winning of sympathy. But there is no art of human nature, nor any science. The guides to knowledge of the feelings take us but a little way. Skill in these matters is quite simply sagacity, coming only by experience.
 
62 PERSUASION
It must never be forgotten, however, that the engaging of the feelings, at least to the extent of keeping the interest of the whole audience, is a practical necessity. For the strong¬est evidence remains inoperative without a man's pushing of it home. Since the mite enunciation of truths is not per¬suasion, a speaker to his fellow-men must not permit himself to be listless. What is popularly called magnetism, though it proceeds sometimes — always, perhaps, when it is at its strongest—from inborn gift, yet seems to some degree attain¬able by deliberate effort. At least it may be roughly analyzed into two elements. The first, the prerequisite, is wishing peo¬ple to listen. Without that no speaker should expect any result. The audience will most certainly care no more than you care yourself. The second — and this is more properly what is meant by magnetism — is forcing people to listen. It consists (a) in watching individuals, in speaking, not to the mass, but to the man in the sixth row and the woman by the pillar, in looking at them, making them look at you. If you have the inborn gift of the Ancient Mariner, they cannot choose but hear ; if not, you must take measures to recall anybody's wandering at once. Thus (b) a broken current of attention may often be reestablished by a change of tone ; either (t) a physical change of voice, as by inflection to break monotony, or (2) a change of intellectual tone, as by illustra¬tion, question, or dialogue. If some people still remain apa¬thetic, you may as a last resort (c) make direct appeal, sometimes even to these particular people. Obviously this must be a last resort, for it is implicitly a confession of weak¬ness. But by all means people must listen. Obviously also no one can command an audience if he is not already in com¬mand of his matter and order. First, then, grasp your speech entirely ; then devote yourself entirely to the individuals of your audience. Given something worth saying, failures to secure attention are due not so often to lack of natural elo¬quence as to indolence. Most intelligent men can gain
 
FEELING AND REASON	63
power in persuasion if, both before they speak and while they speak, they will work hard enough.
85.	Another obvious means of persuasion lies not only beyond art but above speech, the persuasion of personality. This stands first in Aristotle's scientific division, and rightly. What made men renounce the world to seek misery with that young Sicilian who was afterwards called St. Francis of Assisi ? Daniel Webster once stood in Faneuil Hall and said : "Gentlemen, I am a Whig, a Constitutional Whig, a Fa.netlil Hall Whig ; and, if you break up the Whig party, where am Ito go ?"
"But," says Wendell Phillips, "if he had been five feet, three— "
That cry of Felix, "With but little persuasion thou wouldst fain make me a Christian," suggests an amazing influence of the speaker's personality, as St. Paul implies in his famous rejoinder. But all this amounts practically to the truism that much depends on what is called the speaker's presence. A man whose presence is an impediment would better confine his persuasion to writing ; and, on the other hand, no writ¬ing can transmit the power of a great speech by a great speaker.
86.	But that division into appeal to feeling and appeal to reason is somewhat misleading. We are not so crudely twofold that it is easy to find feeling without reason, or reason without feeling. Pure reason is rather a notion than a fact of human nature; and all great orators have acted accordingly. Feeling, again, hardly ever has way among civilized people without at least some show of reason. Even Mark Antony's speech to
 
64 PERSUASION
the mob is at least in form argumentative. At any rate, the distinction between address to the feelings (in which the imagination is usually included by implication) and address to the reason, is impracticable ; for in most persuasion the two have always been inextricably com¬mingled.
87.	It is sometimes said that the object of persuasion is action ; the object of argument, conviction. But con-viction is not sought for itself, except in exercises purely academic ; it is sought only as a means of per-suasion. Outside of pure science, how many pieces are there of pure conviction without intent to persuade ? Certainly the aim of argument is to convince ; but it is not an ultimate aim, nor gained by a process sharply distinct in practice from that other, the appeal to feel¬ing. Feeling and reason are appealed to, not separately, but together ; and all the means of appeal are included in the idea of persuasion. Thus argument is not some¬thing distinct from persuasion ; it is a part of persuasion.
88.	Still, whereas the appeal to feeling seems to reject analysis, or at any rate analysis that can be made a useful basis for practice, appeal to reason, argument, has been analyzed fully. Thus almost all the doctrine of persuasion is concerned with the methods and processes of argument.
II. ARGUMENT
a. The Tabulation of Proof
89. Argument is the giving of reasons in support of a proposition. The word is both general and particular; that is, it may mean either one reason for a proposition or a whole body of reasons taken together. Its
 
THE TABULATION OF ARGUMENTS 65
end, its conclusion, is a proposition, and it proceeds always by propositions. It is impossible to argue a term, such as Filipinos, free trade, State control of rail. ways. There must always be a sentence : The Filipinos are uncivilized. The United States should adopt free trade. Railways should be owned and operated by the State. That is, there must always be an explicit state-ment of fact or judgment, or there can be no end to the argument.
90. But any giving of reasons for a proposition, how-ever informal, is argument. In fact, most argument is informal.
You ought to study medicine in New York, where the greatest professors are and the best hospitals, not in this small city just because this would be cheaper. Don't be "penny wise and pound foolish."
Here is an everyday argument. What it amounts to, and what its relations are, is shown best by setting down the reasons under the proposition thus :
Proposition.— You ought to study medicine in New York. Reason i. New York has better professors.
Reason 2. New York has better hospitals.
Reason 3. That New York would cost more is not a suffi¬cient objection.
Reason for 3. (a) The ultimate gain would make the present expense cheap.
Of this argument two points are positive or direct, and the third negative or indirect (i.e. argument by refuta-tion of the other side). Observe in the analysis that a bears the same relation to 3, as 3 to the proposition ;
it is a reason of a reason. This method of tabulation is of great practical service.
 
66	PERSUASION
Suppose now an argument on the other side.
I don't need to be told that the New York hospitals are the best ; but a man can't get more than so much experience in two years, and there is enough here to keep me busy. As to professors, they are not better in New York; they are only better known. Smith here knows all there is to know about anatomy, and he will give me more of his time than any professor in New York can ever give to any single man in those large classes. Besides, I can't go to New York with¬out borrowing of father. If I stay here, I shall be indepen-dent; and he'd like to have me stay, though he wouldn't refuse me the money to go.
By the same system of tabular analysis this arranges itself as follows :
I ought not to study medicine in New York.
t. The fact that New York hospitals are better is not important.
a. The hospital here will give me all the experi-ence I can assimilate in two years.
2. The assertion that the New York professors are better is not true in the sense in which the word is used.
a.	Though they are more eminent, they know no more about their subjects.
x. Professor Smith here knows all anatomy.
b.	Even if they did know more, they could teach any given man rather less than more.
x. The size of the class precludes much atten¬tion to the individual.
3. The "penny wise, pound foolish" proverb is not in point.
a.	I could not go to New York without borrowing money.
b.	By borrowing I should sacrifice my independence.
 
THE TABULATION OF ARGUMENTS	67
c. By borrowing I should impose on my father's generosity.
4. It would please my father better, if I didn't.
Here, as often in debate, the reply consists almost exclusively of refutation.
But suppose the first speaker persists in his conten-tion, reviewing the case, and adding new arguments to the following effect :
You ought to study medicine in New York.
1. New York has better teaching.
a.	It is admitted that the professors are more emi¬nent.
b.	It is only fair to presume that the reputation of a great school demands, and its endowments secure, the best teaching.
c. The argument that the professors are merely more eminent, without having more knowledge, is fallacious.
x.	Eminence makes superiority highly prob¬able.
(2) An undeserved name cannot be held long in the competition of a great city.
y.	The instance of Professor Smith, who "knows all there is to know about anat¬omy," is not sufficient.
(r) It is only one case.
(2)	The contention assumes that the science of anatomy is complete, finished for-ever ; and this is not true.
(3)	The other branches of study are still more subject to the revision of recent investigations.
 
68	PERSUASION
a.	Physiology is yearly made more exact.
b.	Therapeutics undergo perpetual re¬vision.
c. Even the materia media: is not fixed. (4) Only the large schools benefit by recent discoveries at once.
d. The advantage of the small school, that the pro¬fessors can give more time to the individual student, is overbalanced by the advantages of the large school.
x.	It is admitted that the lectures in the large school are at least equal.
y.	The teaching of the individual student is
carried on more thoroughly by the
" quizzes " of the large school than by the
professor in the small school.
x. The appliances of the large school, as models, charts, specimens, and especially dissect¬ing rooms, are superior.
2. New York has better hospitals.
a.	The New York hospitals offer far greater variety for clinics.
b.	The New York hospitals show the latest methods in both medicine and surgery.
c. The assertion that a man may learn all he can hold from two years in any hospital is fallacious.
x.	If it means that the student cannot profit by variety and by superior methods, it is un¬true.
y.	It ignores the superior opportunity for ap-pointment to a city hospital after gradua¬tion.
3. The lack of present funds is not a sufficient bar. a. It is admitted that money can be borrowed.
 
THE TABULATION OF ARGUMENTS	69
b. The argument for independence is fallacious.
x.	Independence thus gained might be but temporary.
y.	Permanent independence is promised more quickly by superior training.
z. It is open to you to borrow at interest.
4. The present gratification of your father is not a strong argument.
a.	Your father would rather forego present gratifica¬tion for the future gratification of greater good to you.
x. This appears in his willingness to advance you money for New York.
b.	Your father has the comfort of your younger brothers.
c. The experience of your elder brother shows this.
x. Your father has repeatedly expressed his
satisfaction at your elder brother's going
to New York to study engineering.
Y. Your brother spent nearly as much time in
the company of his family during vaca 
tions as he could have spent if he had
studied at home.
91. Here, set down in formal analysis,1 is the elabo¬ration of the previous simple arguments. The definite¬ness evidently necessitated by such analysis makes it
This system of analysis was devised by Professor George P. Baker of Harvard University. It was published first in his Sfieci-mem of Argumentation (New York, Henry Holt & Co.), elaborated and fully explained in his Princifiles of Argumentation (Boston, Ginn & Co.), to which the student is referred as to the most impor¬tant contribution of our time to the teaching of argumentation. I wish to express my thanks for the permission to apply here what some years of experience have shown to be an essential method.
 
70 PERSUASION
constantly serviceable as a test. As a test it is further serviceable in determining the exact bearing of every part. Thus it is seen to be essentially the same as the expository plan (I 77). But whereas in the expository plan the minor parts may stand in any relation to the major parts (as of example or illustration or exception), in the argumentative plan the relation is always the same — the relation of proof. Each part must be a direct reason for the part next above ; and conversely, when a part will not so stand, it is seen to be either out of place or fallacious.
Thus in drawing up an argumentative plan, first state the proposition so as to express the issue definitely and also fairly to both sides ; secondly, set down each sup¬porting proposition under the proposition that it directly supports. If, for the argument above, the proposition had been put, The New York schools of medicine are superior, a large part of the argument would have been fighting the air; for.that was not the whole issue. And again, if the argument from superior appliances had been made major instead of minor (e, instead of z under d), it would have been found not coordinate with a, b, c, and d.
The typical use of this system of analysis is to test or exhibit the purely logical relations of part to part in a finished written argument. Incidentally it is also very useful in de¬tail, to test a doubtful bearing, or sum up the progress made at any stage of research ; but the complete plan of the whole argument is best made after the first draught of the whole is finished (§ 135). Drawn up then, it serves as a guide in revision, especially of emphasis, and, when it has itself been revised to correspond to the final draught, as a chart for the reader. Like the "expository plan" (§ 77), it is independent
 
THE TABULATION OF ARGUMENTS 71
of paragraphs, as of all other literary considerations. It must be drawn up throughout in sentences or it ceases to be a test ; and it may relieve the written speech by carrying in the mar-gin all the citations. With such full citation it may also be used very profitably as a separate exercise, either for a brief to be submitted as a preliminary to formal debate, or, with no view to composition, spoken or written, simply to exhibit or preserve the fruits of research — as it were to map out a survey.
ANALYSIS OF SELECTION IV. INTERSTATE COMMERCE
92. Analysis of the Opinion of the Supreme Court in the Case of Gibbons versus Ogden, given by Chief Justice Marshall.
PROPOSITION
The judgment of the lower court is repugnant to that clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce among the states ; i.e., The Steam- ship, Bellona has the right to carry passengers and freight between Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, and New York.
INTRODUCTION
[The state of New York granted, for a term of years, an exclusive right to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton to navigate the waters of that state with boats moved by steam ; and from them Ogden derived the right. Gibbons having established two steamboats on the waters between Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and the city of New York, Ogden obtained an injunction against him ; and upon the hearing of the case in the Court of Chancery in New York, the defence of Gibbons, which was that his boats were regu¬larly licensed as coasters under the laws of Congress, was overruled, and the injunction made perpetual. Gibbons took the case to the Court of Errors, which affirmed the
 
72	PERSUASION
decree in chancery ; and as that was the highest state tribunal, he now brought it, on a writ of error, to the Supreme Court. The opinion of the Supreme Court was given by Chief Justice Marshall.] 1
The facts are not in dispute ; this is purely a ques-tion of right.
2
The appellant pleads that his United States license confers on him the right set forth in the proposition.
3
The respondent pleads that the right conferred by the United States license is not broad enough to cover the case.
a. The state of New York is competent to regulate, as in this case she has done by charter, navigation from New Jersey into New York harbour.
4
The issue, then, is between the United States license and the state charter, i.e., between the federal power and the state power.
PROOF
A. The relations of the states to the federal government are to be determined only by the Constitution.
I. Their previous status was changed by the adoption of the Constitution.
2. No other consideration is determining.
Quoted, with slight changes, from The Writings of John Mar¬shall Von the Federal Constitution, Boston, 1839, page 287. See the head-note to Selection IV.
 
THE TABULATION OF ARGUMENTS	73
B.	The interpretation of the Constitution is not a priori lim¬ited to "strict construction."
C.	The constitutional power of Congress to regulate com-merce includes navigation from one state into another.
1.	It includes navigation.
2.	It includes navigation from state to state.
D. The constitutional power of Congress to regulate inter¬state commerce is exclusive.
i. The parallels urged to the contrary are not sufficient to show the recognition by Congress of a concurrent power of a state to regulate interstate commerce.
a. The power of a state to tax is not in point.
x.	It is not analogous.
y.	It does not imply concurrent right.
b. The power of a state to make inspection laws is not a power to regulate commerce.
c.	The act of 1803 concerning the importation of slaves is evidently no more than an exception for a limited period.
d.	The act of 1789 concerning pilots, etc., does not imply a concurrent power in the several states.
e. The right to construct lighthouses, if it proves anything, proves too much.
2.	The words to regulate imply exclusive regulation.
3.	Even assuming a concurrent power in the several states, any exercise of that power which contravenes the exercise of the power of Congress is ipso facto null and void.
E. The exercise of this constitutional power by Congress in granting a license confers on steam vessels so licensed a right to pursue the coasting trade between ports in different states.
93. In drawing up an analysis of this sort, remember: (I) that the "introduction," being essentially distinct
 
74 PERSUASION
from the proof, should be strictly expository, not argu-mentative. Corresponding to the " statement " in a lawyer's brief, it should be simply a clear and concise exposition of the issue, avoiding what is not accepted by both sides and any terms that imply prejudice (§ 52).
(2)	that since this system of analysis is essentially to put every proposition over the grounds for it by
saying
A is B
for c is d
1
the word therefore can never be used ; for it would	1
reverse the order to
c is d
Therefore A is B
The two forms are equally logical ; but one or the other must be used exclusively, and the former is much the more practicable.
(3)	that a large number of major divisions suggests imperfect analysis, the need of better grouping ; for in such cases the major divisions are usually found to be not all coordinate.
b. The Logic of Proof
94. The preceding plans exhibit most of the ordinary procedure in ordinary cases and a method of analysis useful in all cases. This, then, is argument practically. What argument is theoretically, and what are its scope, its divisions, its limitations, its methods, these are the subject-matter of logic.
The processes of argument are divided by formal logic into (I) reasoning from principles or generaliza-tions already accepted to a conclusion as to a particular case, the attempt to conclude a case by bringing it
 
A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI 75
within the generalizations of experience, reasoning from the general ; and (2) reasoning from particular facts accumulated for the purpose to a conclusion general enough to cover all facts of the same class, the attempt to conclude a case by the evidence of investigation into that case, reasoning from the particular. The first kind, argument before or without investigation, as when we conclude that a man will go to Mass on Sunday because he is a Catholic, is called a priori; 1 a posteriori, on the other hand, is sometimes used of the second class, as when we conclude from investigation that an epidemic of typhoid is due to contaminated milk. These two terms correspond roughly to the more definite terms deduction and induction. Deduction, or a priori reasoning, then, is reasoning from gen¬eral principles, from one's store of previous generaliza¬tions; induction, or a posteriori reasoning, is reasoning from particular facts collected and interpreted for the purpose.
95. The terms general and particular being relative, it should be observed that sometimes the same conclu¬sion may be reached both deductively and inductively. In the one process the premises would be more general than the conclusion ; in the other, less general. What is of more consequence, the generalizations reached by induction may be the basis for subsequent deduction ; the conclusions of either process may be tested by the other ; and finally, the two processes are habitually used by turns. One may be called the method of reflection ; the other, the method of research.
'A firiori is sometimes still defined to mean reasoning from cause to effect (a fiosterion; reasoning from effect to cause) ; but this definition is not commensurate with current use.
 
76	PERSUASION
I. DEDUCTION
(a) Argument from Antecedent Probability
96. That form of deductive reasoning which is perhaps most obviously a priori is the argument from antecedent probability. My friend A is accused of forgery. Before hearing any of the evidence I argue that the charge is false because it is not in A to com¬mit forgery. We all recognize this as a fair way of rejecting some propositions. If a newspaper should announce the invention of an air-ship 6apable of carry¬ing one hundred passengers across the Atlantic at a speed of three hundred miles an hour, most of us would doubt, and some of us would utterly deny, the statement without investigation. In approaching an investigation, moreover, antecedent probability is most useful (§ 29). We say to ourselves, "No use in spending time on such testimony " ; or, "There should be traces here " ; or, more generally, "It will not be hard to make a great array of supporting evidence" ; or, "This cannot be settled by evidence ; it must be fought out on gen¬eral considerations." In fact, this is the chief use of antecedent probability — to clear the way, to forecast. • It is preliminary, not final. Though I rightly refuse to tolerate a charge of forgery against my friend, yet I must admit that even his well-known uprightness does not, as against positive evidence of his having signed such and such cheques, prove his innocence. The argument from antecedent probability shows which way the probabilities lean before the case is investi¬gated; it establishes a presumption. In some cases we are content to accept it as sufficient; in other cases,
 
SYLLOGISM AND ENTHYMEME	77
as sometimes in astronomy and philology, we have nothing better ; in most cases we go on to the evidence.
(b) Syllogism
97.	The typical form of deductive reasoning is the syllogism :
Major Premise. Marriage with a divorced person is contrary to Catholic law.
Minor Premire. A's marriage was with a divorced person. Conclusion.	A's marriage.was contrary to Catholic law.
The major premise is ideally a univeral, indisputable truth ; the minor premise indicates the course of the argument, which is to prove that a particular instance falls within that universal, indisputable truth ; the con-clusion follows of necessity. The conclusion, being necessary, being demonstrated as a universal, indisput-able truth, becomes in turn the major premise for suc-ceeding syllogisms, and so on. Thus geometry is a chain, or rather a web, of syllogisms ; and, conversely, all syl-logistic argument may be carried back and back until it rests on some axiom.
(c) Enthymeme
98.	In common speech we express the syllogistic argument less formally. We say.: "He must go the way of all men " ; "Nothing else could come of that vice in the blood," — implying those links of reasoning with which every one is familiar. And we use it less absolutely ; else (except as a formal test) we could never use it at all ; for persuasion, as Aristotle says, is not absolute and abstract, but relative and concrete. Our
 
78 PERSUASION
arguments concern "things which appear to admit the possibility of conclusion either way . . . for no one ever deliberated about things which offer no alternative, which can exist or issue only in one way." An infor¬mal syllogism, or a syllogism whose major premise is not the ideal "universal," but simply an accepted gen-eralization, is called an enthymeme. Persuasion, then, according to Aristotle, deals with enthymemes, with incomplete syllogisms.
2. INDUCTION
(a) Mill's Canons
99. Inductive argument, or reasoning from evidence, is ultimately the investigation of causes. Inductive logic, therefore, sets forth the conditions of a valid infer¬ence of cause. These were formulated by John Stuart Mill in the five " canons " that are known by his name.
"I. The Canon of Agreement.
"If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon."
In an epidemic of typhoid the only circumstance in which all the cases are found to agree is the use of milk from a particular herd of cows. Therefore it is argued that the immediate cause of the typhoid is that milk. The "charac¬teristic imperfection" of this method is "the impossibility of assuring ourselves that we know all the antecedents in our instances." It is hard enough in a country village to be
Killick, Handbook to Mill, page
 
MILL'S CANONS	79
sure that milk from a particular source is the only thing in which all the cases agree (one of the patients was out of town a part of every day before his illness ; another has a contam¬inated well, which may have been used by disobedient chil¬dren; etc.); in a great city, it may easily be impossible. Hence there is further
"II.	The Canon of Difference.
"If an instance in which the phenomenon under inves¬tigation occurs and an instance in which it does not occur have every circumstance save one in common, that one occurring only in the former, the circumstance in which alone the two instances differ is the effect, or cause, or a necessary part of the cause, of the phenom¬enon."
"The principle is that of comparing an instance of the occurrence of a phenomenon with a similar instance in which it does not occur, to discover in what they differ." This is typically the method of experiment. If after pressure upon a certain point of a monkey's brain certain muscles of the monkey's right leg are immediately paralyzed, no other change having occurred in the animal's physical conditions, it is inferred that the nerve-centre thus injured is the motor-centre for those leg-muscles. And, in fact, experiments of this sort have enabled physicians, from certain symptoms, to locate the exact spot of a human brain at which an operation is neces¬sary to relieve pressure.
"III.	The Canon of the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference.
"If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in common, while
1 Killick, Handbook to Mill, page 120.
 
80	PERSUASION
two or more instances in which it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of that circum-stance, the circumstance in which alone the two sets of instances differ is the effect, or cause, or a necessary part of the cause, of the phenomenon."
"If a man finds that whenever he eats cucumber he suffers from indigestion, this indicates by Agreement that cucumber is the cause of his pain. But, if he is fond of cucumber, he will put the fault upon other ingredients of his diet taken at the same time, such as cheese, salmon, or pastry, which he likes less. Making, however, a second list of dinners (say) when visiting, at which cucumber is not served, whilst cheese, salmon, pastry, etc., all occur, and finding that he does not suffer from indigestion, the conclusion seems to be forced upon him that cucumber is the only pleasure of the table that must be bought with pain."
"IV. The Canon of Residues.
" Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of certain ante¬cedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedents."
Certain college debaters are defeated. They learn from trustworthy testimony that in the opinion of the judges they equalled their opponents in weight of evidence and force of logic. The judges being assumed to have freed their deci¬sion from bias, the beaten debaters conclude the reason for their defeat to be inferiority in the only other possible ele¬ment of the decision — in manner, in form.
" V. The Canon of Concomitant Variations.
"Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner, when¬ever another phenomenon varies in some particular
1 Carveth Read, Logic Deductive and Inductive, page 178.
 
MILL'S CANONS 81
manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenome-non, or is connected with it through some fact of causation."
Examples of this canon appear graphically in charts of statistics ; e.g. in charts showing the rise and fall of prices according to the degree of the prevalence of certain other economic conditions. Thus also we infer familiarly the advantages of thrift or cleanliness, or the demoralizing effects of stimulants or high temperatures. Thus, also, in cases where the other methods are not applicable, we argue by "progres¬sive approach," as that the nearer men come toward fulfilling the counsels of the Gospels, the happier they become and the more beneficent.
100. These canons are all based on the uniformity of nature, on the theory that the phenomena of the uni¬verse are going on, and will go on, as they have gone on. This, as Cardinal Newthan insists and Mill agrees, is an assumption ; it cannot be absolutely proved. Only it is an assumption on which, in most cases at least, we are wont to act. Again, the canons are applicable primarily to the investigation of the phenomena of nature ; and they are usually inapplicable strictly to the phenomena of human life; for we cannot separate emo¬tions and weigh temperaments and tendencies as we can separate and weigh the chemical elements. But as, even in the natural sciences, the canons cannot achieve absolute demonstration, must be content with formulat¬ing tendencies, so on the other hand in the inductions of everyday research, in matters which do not admit of demonstration by any process, they offer a safeguard against fallacy and a guide to sound results. They apply profitably, though the results be even farther from demonstration than in the fields of science, to the
 
82 PERSUASION
processes of ordinary discussion. For the methods of ascertaining truth or forming hypotheses are not essen¬tially different from those of supporting them.
(b) Working Rules for Ordinary Induction
101. From these scientific canons, then, emerge some simple working rules :
(t) Do not be content with a few instances of a sup-posed cause or effect, but get as many as you reason-ably can. Beware of rash generalizations [method of agreement].
(2)	Test your supposed cause or effect both posi-tively and negatively ; i.e. try to show not only that the result follows when the alleged cause is present, but that it does not follow when the alleged cause is absent [joint method].
(3)	Try to show that your alleged cause is not merely a new condition preceding the known result, but that it is the only new condition, the only material change in the circumstances preceding the result [method of dif¬ference].
(4)	Or show, not only that your supposed cause reasonably accounts for the known result, but that no other supposed cause accounts so well [method of residues. See also § 124].
(5)	Look for a parallel rise and fall of your supposed cause and effect, as of democracy and personal liberty, of average temperature and average human energy [method of concomitant variations].
(c) Circumstantial Evidence
102. Where Mill's canons can be applied to even smaller extent, a certain degree of probability can be
 
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE	83
shown by a collection of facts which, though it is not sufficient for a solid inference of cause, yet points in that direction. This is called circumstantial evidence. It is inconclusive ; but it may fortify better evidence; and of itself it has a value in proportion, of course, as the number of particular instances increases toward the point where their united force would withstand the test of the canons.
The hypothesis that a certain prisoner caused the death of his neighbour may be rendered probable by a number of cir-cumstances shown from credible testimony ; as that the deceased had more than once injured the prisoner, that the prisoner returned home later than usual on the night of the death, that he purchased, some days before, a pistol of the same caliber as the fatal bullet, that he left town very early the next morning, etc. But since any of these facts, and all together, will bear another explanation than murder, it is accounted unjust to infer murder without further evi¬dence. The inference will not stand the test of the canon of difference. It is not clear whether the facts established are significant, or are merely coincident circumstances.
A man once went on a steamer wharf in New York to meet a friend returning from Europe. The satchel in his hand contained a guide-book for Paris and a necklace bearing the trade-mark of a French jeweller. On leaving the wharf he was challenged by the customs officers, and was naturally unable to convince them that he had brought the dutiable jewellery from the street, not from the steamer, until he was supported by unimpeachable testimony. The facts were that he had carried the guide-book and the necklace on a visit to New Jersey, to talk over the one and exhibit the other ; cir-cumstantial evidence pointed to an attempt to smuggle.
 
84	PERSUASION
3. ANALOGY
Mt Another form of reasoning, not strictly either deductive or inductive, is the argument from analogy [a part], the argument from history. This amounts to saying that like things have like results. Its force depends on the extent and degree of the likeness.
"He who believes the Scripture," says Origen, "to have proceeded from Him who is the Author of nature may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it as are found in the constitution of nature" (as quoted by Butler in the introduction to The Analogy of Religion).
Patrick Henry cried out on a memorable occasion : " Cmsar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Cromwell, and George III. — may profit by their example."
Colonial expansion, it is alleged, the increase of the stand¬ing army, the concentration of wealth and the increase of luxury among the few, made of the Roman republic an empire. Like conditions appear in the United States to-day. Therefore we may look for an empire here.
104.	A particular form of the a pari argument is the a fortiori, the "much more" argument. "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith ? "
105.	The advantages of this method of argument are : (I) it is popular with most audiences; people like to have their learning appealed to ; (2) it gives scope to a speaker's ingenuity and penetration ; (3) it is available in cases that do not admit either full deduction or full induction, and especially in argument as to the future of men and societies.
 
ANALOGY 85
"That which chiefly constitutes probability is expressed in the word likely ; i.e. like some truth [vericimik] or true event ; like it in itself, in its evidence, in some more or fewer of its circumstances. For when we determine a thing to be probably true, suppose that an event has or will come to pass, it is from the mind's remarking in it a likeness to some other event which we have observed has come to pass." (Butler, introduction to The Analogy of Religion, second paragraph.)
106. Its disadvantage is that it needs more careful use than almost any other method. Things that are loosely and popularly called like, as the Roman republic and the American republic, or Charles I. and George III., must, in order to have any force whatever in the argu¬ment, appear to be like essentially. If one essential difference can be pointed out, the argument is at least seriously weakened ; if more than one essential differ¬ence, it is practically destroyed. In other words, the analogy, and conversely the difference, must be not only in a number of details (and, of course, the more the stronger), but in those particular details which are characteristic, or at least in those details which are for the purposes of the argument essential. And the con¬clusion of an analogy is a probability, greater in propor¬tion as the argument approaches full deduction or full induction, but in popular_ use merely a presumption for or against what is to be proved or disproved otherwise. The conclusions of most arguments from analogy are only, This has happened before ; it may have happened in this case ; or, it may happen again : but more consid¬erate use may reach the far more useful conclusion. The past plainly teaches us in our conditions to expect so-and-so. It may not come ; but, if we are wise, we shall prepare for it.
 
86	PERSUASION
c. Degrees of Proof
107.	Are there degrees, then, of proof ? No, if by proof be meant "demonstration," such a result as is obtained in geometry ; yes, if by proof be meant the reaching of what we call practical certainty, which is the limit of argument on many important matters ; yes still more, if we should admit, as we daily do, conclu-sions of such fair probability as is the limit of argument in subjects of discussion still more numerous. The latter use of the word proof is too general to be im¬proper. In this sense proof has degrees ; it expresses greater or lesser probability. If we may never call a proposition proved until it has been shown to be abso¬lutely certain, then we must never, in the matters about which we usually argue, use the word proof at all; and conversely, since the conclusions that we actually reach are so highly probable as to be accepted for "practically certain," or are fairly probable, or probable so far as we know, it is convenient and natural to speak of degrees of proof ; and it is very useful to estimate, in any given case, what degree we can attain, how far the argument can be carried.
108.	The ideal, of course, is certainty. This is the ideal of the syllogism. But, as Aristotle says, persua-sion deals, not with complete syllogisms, but with enthymemes, with incomplete syllogisms (§ 98), and this by a practical necessity. Complete syllogistic demonstration is not applicable to those cases to which argument is limited in ordinary practice. The syllo-gistic argument is constantly used and constantly useful in details ; but the ordinary argument as a whole cannot be carried to demonstration ; else there would be no
 
DEGREES OF PROBABILITY 87
argument. We argue about free trade, our consular service, country roads, the government of cities, the putting of a crew on the water, the elective system in freshman year, the " honour " system in examinations ; and not one of these subjects will give us, for all our searching, an indisputable major premise, a "universal." The very fact that they are in dispute implies that they cannot be settled by syllogisms.
So there is good ground for the popular distrust of the syllogism in matters that concern men nearly, of abstract reasoning in concrete matters. It is too neat, people say, too simple ; there is juggling in it some-where. They cannot disprove it, perhaps ; but they will not assent. Perhaps the longest and most complete instance of the syllogistic argument applied to matter of actual dispute is Bishop Pecock's The Repressor of Over¬much Blaming the Clergy; and it would be hard to find an equally elaborate piece of argumentation so tiresome and so futile practically.
109. And induction does not attain to certainty. Mill prints a formal warning against regarding the conclu-sions even of scientifically rigid induction in what we call the exact sciences as absolute, final truths. These " laws " of science, he says, must always be regarded as tendencies, that is as true so far as we can now determine, but possibly subject to counteraction from causes as yet undiscovered. Much more, then, in other fields, in economics, in politics — in short, in those very fields where we have occasion for most of our argument, induction reaches something less than certainty.
There are few notions more misleading than that any conceivable logic can provide an applicable test of the truth
 
88 PERSUASION
of generalizations, so as to enable us to say of some that they are "logically proved "while others are not. Excluding . . . those which demand no proof, actual generalizations are more or kss proved, from their first formation onward to their ex¬treme development ; they are theories from first to last, and of no theory do we ever know for certain that it has reached its final and perfect form. Further facts may always be dis¬covered which shall compel us to modify even the best of our accepted views of natural science ; or the old facts may come to be seen in a clearer light. To claim to have "fully estab¬lished" any piece of theory is either merely a loose and con¬venient way of speaking, or else an unnecessary pretence. Practical, working certainty is what we want ; and this we often get, — until the exceptional facts arrive which break it down and put some completer practical certainty in place of it. — SIDGWICK : The Process of Argument, pages 88-89.
This is what is meant by a proposition being "as good as proved," a conclusion as undeniable "as if it were proved," and by the reasons for it "amounting to a proof," for a proof is the limit of converging probabilities. — NEWMAN : Gram 
mar of Assent, page 321.
110. This is to say, not that truth is only an idea, but simply that since we must in most cases act on gener-alizations short of certainty, it is toward such generaliza-tions that we direct our argument.
Probable evidence, in its very nature, affords but an im-perfect kind of information, and is to be considered as rela¬tive only to beings of limited capacities. For nothing which is the possible object of knowledge, whether past, present, or future, can be probable to an infinite Intelligence ; since it cannot but be discerned absolutely as it is in itself, cer¬tainly true or certainly false. But to us probability is the very guide of life. — BUTLER: Analogy of Religion, Introduc¬tion, paragraph 3.
 
DEGREES OF PROBABILITY	89
It means that we deceive ourselves, perhaps others, in setting as our goal proof in the sense of absolute, final demonstration. All that we can attain — and since it is enough to act on, it is enough to prove — is what we call practical sufficiency. Our lives are not regulated by absolute demonstrations. We live by probabilities — and by faith.
111. Practically, then, a proposition is said to be proved when the process of proof, having been carried as far as is practicable, leaves in men generally no doubt This is the highest degree of practical suffi-ciency.
Thus is proved that comets recur at fixed intervals. The ultimate major premise here is the assumption of the uni¬formity of nature (§ zoo). We all agree that comets recur at fixed intervals ; but we may have some hesitation in assert¬ing that a particular comet will reappear in 1985. It occurs to us that influences now unknown may intervene ; that is, we are not absolutely certain whether our proposition is uni¬versally true or but generally true. Yet the proof of it is so far complete as to be generally accepted. It is practically sufficient proof.
That this test of sufficiency needs more explicit statement appears when, though still keeping in the same domain of natural science, we enunciate a proposition that has passed into popular discussion — All forms of life have arisen from an ultimate protoplasm. Has the proof of that the same de-gree of force ? Not if we measure by extent of acceptance. Yet it may pertinently be said that the proposition — The earth revolves about the sun —was long in winning general accept¬ance, and that even in our day a negro preacher argued before large crowds — " The sun do move." By general accept¬ance, then, we mean the acceptance of men intelligent, edu¬cated, and sufficiently informed to reason in the premises.
 
90 PERSUASION
And as we will not hear the negro's argument about the sun, so we may abstain from arguing about protoplasm. We may say that we cannot weigh the evidence, that we do not know enough. Without denying the proposition we may withhold our assent ; or, on the other hand, we may assent without grasping the proof, we may accept the proposition on author¬ity. In either case we acknowledge a modification of this test of sufficiency. Proof is practically sufficient when it wins the general assent of those capable of understanding it.
112. Below this degree of sufficiency are several degrees of force to which is commonly given the name of proof. Loosely a proposition is said to be proved when a fair degree of probability is made out for it.
Mary Queen of Scots was an accomplice in the murder of Darnley. The Man with the Iron Mask was the brother of Louis XIV. Swift married Stella. These propositions can¬not be proved at all ; nor can they be disproved. The evidence is simply insufficient. What can be proved to practical sufficiency is : Mary Queen of Scots was probably innocent of the murder of Darnley. The Man with the Iron Mask probably was not the brother of Louis XIV. Swift probably married Stella. So with most questions of past fact, as of the objective reality of the visions of Joan of Arc ; that they remain in dispute suggests that the evidence is insufficient for their settlement.
A nearer approach to sufficiency may often be attained for propositions concerning past right, justice, expediency, bene¬fit. Webster was justified in his attitude toward the Clay Com-promise. Henry VIII. was not justified in suppressing the monasteries. The administration of Andrew Jackson did more harm than good to this country. The system of Indian agencies is a mistake. Napoleon III. was personally responsible for the Franco-Prussian War. These propositions may be main 
 
tamed or attacked with more nearly conclusive proof. But was the United States justified in the Mexican War ? Has the Reformation proved, on the whole, a blessing to man-kind ? These questions are more hotly discussed and farther from conclusion.
They are more hotly discussed because they bear some-what on the present and the future. Of propositions that look entirely to the present and future, that express what we conceive to be our rights and duties, our privileges and opportunities, proof may mean no more than the showing of evidence stronger than can be shown for the counter-proposi¬tion. The test of sufficiency thus becomes practically an adversary's analysis in refutation. These questions are per¬petually in debate ; and anything worthy to be called proof of them is reached but slowly. That is implied in calling them live questions or living issues. The propositions that frame them not only cannot be proved absolutely ; they cannot even be shown to have that high degree of probability which is attainable for the theories of natural science. We cannot be certain about them as we are certain about the recurrence of comets, or even of the guilt of Napoleon III.
Yet we may support them with great force of argument. We may be persuaded and persuade others that this or that is the sounder public policy ; that the United States ought to develop a merchant marine by subsidies, that railroads should not be owned by the State, that trades unions should be restricted by federal law, that there should be a national divorce law. These propositions being of the stuff of actual debate, in each case we have in mind to prevail over the counter-proposition held by opponents. The force of our proof is not absolute, but relative ; the probability of our proposition we conceive to be not merely strong, but rela¬tively stronger. Thus we set out to prove that our college should put a crew on the water. Aware that the lack of a crew would not subvert morality, nor even damage scholar 
 
ship, we are yet persuaded "for good and sufficient reasons" that it is better to have a crew. Thus, also, we have the weightiest practical reasons to show that our city should establish a certain system of drainage, or our state separate the election of state officials from those of federal officials. In a certain sense these propositions cannot be proved, — if they could be, we should hardly have to argue ; but they can be proved in the sense that our fellow-students or fellow-citi¬zens can be convinced of their expediency. Men can be won to agree to them.
113. Though this lower range of sufficiency is the proper domain of persuasion, it should not, therefore, be said that persuasion is not concerned with truth. Our view of truth in matters of common argument we know to be incomplete. It grows ; and toward its growth no small work is done by persuasion. And again, though any argument, if pushed far enough, may involve truth, involve certainties, we do not usually push an argument so far. The conclusions that in matters of common argument fall short of demonstra¬tion, do so partly for the very reason that they formu¬late, not certitudes, but opinions. They may be opinions very strongly held ; we may say we are certain of them, but we then use the word certain loosely. A man is certain of his creed in religion; he is also certain of his creed in politics ; but the word may not express the same attitude of mind in the one case as in the other. Inquiry may show that he holds the one set of propositions to be absolutely true, to be irrefragable ; the other set to be very highly probable, to be very strong, or perhaps only to be far stronger than the creed of the other party.
 
When the proposition frames, not opinion, but certitude, it may still be unnecessary to produce complete demonstration. Whether certitude without complete demonstration is reason-able ; whether, that is, it is reasonable to hold absolute truth without being able to exhibit absolute proof,— this is the in-quiry of Newman's Grammar of Assent, to which, and to James's The Will to Believe, the inquirer is referred once for all. Newman's detailed application to religion is in fact the practical application. Except in religion, absolute truth is not for most men of real concern.
Persuasion, then, moves for the most part in prob-abilities, in matters about which we feel more than we know; and it so moves, not as though truth were sub-jective, but because in so many of our affairs, unable to be certain, we must proceed upon probabilities. As we learn more we revise our judgments, we reach higher and higher probability, nearer and nearer approxima¬tions to truth ; and in this process an important part is played by persuasion. Thus, in politics, only time gives us the truth ; but meanwhile, as one proposition after another is settled, it passes from discussion, and the others that become instant are only less doubtful than their predecessors were. Among these is per¬suasion, always of the living present, statesman and demagogue contending for the minds of men.
But since persuasion, more perhaps than any other kind of composition, takes colour from its material, rising with its subject, it is likely to be highest, to reach the pitch of eloquence, when it presents the highest motives, the weightiest sanctions, the final obligations. So modern eloquence is found oftenest, perhaps, in the pulpit. There, too, persuasion is devoted largely to winning assent to authority, to moving men, not indeed
 
without reason, but, since the hearers are not commonly in a position to measure the proof, without proof. With and without proof, persuasion, though having its usual concern with probabilities, finds its high concern in truth. Its journey-work is to win assent to proba-bilities; its great opportunity is to help men toward certitudes.
d. Refutation
114.	Refutation is not a separate kind of argument, but simply a separate application. It is essentially the subjection of an opponent's argument to destructive analysis. As such, it is prepared along with the direct argument for one's own side ; for the only adequate preparation of one's own side includes knowing the other side as well. The fundamental questions in refu-tation (§ i34) are : How do you know? and What of it f 1 That is, refutation, (I) negatively, (a) denies premises, either absolutely or in the form in which they are stated, (b) attacks the processes of argument as fallacious, (c) attacks the sufficiency of the proof as a whole ; or (2) positively, exhibits counter-propositions as more prob¬able ; i.e. more reasonable, practicable, or just.
I. REFUTATION OF PREMISES
115.	Absolute denial of premises, though not often feasible, is of course final.
To some one that defended his questionable practices by the proposition, "A man must live," Dr. Johnson made the famous retort, "Sir, I do not see the necessity." And again,
1 The phraseology is borrowed from the teaching of Professor William G. Sumner.
 
when Boswell alleged the image-worship of Roman Catholics as essentially vitiating their religion, he replied, "They do not worship images." If the denial is warranted, there is noth¬ing more to say.
116.	More frequently a premise is open to attack in the form in which it appears.
A good deal of futile argument against the teaching of composition in schools and colleges can be shown to rest on the premise, "Writing cannot be taught," or "The ability to write is a natural gift, not an acquired skill." This proposi¬tion is accepted of writing marked by the quality that we call literary ; it is not accepted of writing in general. Argument from this premise, therefore, does not touch the issue. Such a term as writing is said to "beg the question " ;1 and the equivocal use of it, one sense• in one premise, another sense in the other, is called by formal logic the fallacy of ambig¬uous middle. In general it may be said that refutation should first of all and above all scrutinize an opponent's terms.
117.	But the commonest opportunity for attack on premises is some flaw in the evidence, some insuffi-ciently supported assumption, some omission of a mate¬rial circumstance [Suppressio veri suggestio falsi, says the Latin proverb], some statement contradicted by other testimony equally trustworthy, some substitution of inference for fact, of unconditional for conditional probability.
At an open-air meeting in a university town a candidate for the presidency encountered so much noise and disorder
"Begging the question" [fietitio firincifiti] arises usually from the equivocal use of a term, a "question-begging" word; but the name applies generally to any use as a premise of what is substan-tially equivalent to the conclusion.
 
that he was finally forced to retire. Some newspapers next morning reported the occurrence as an assault by students whose family interests were menaced by the speaker's theo¬ries. It was replied that, though students were on the ground in large numbers, they were not in large numbers hostile to the speaker's theories ; that the agency of students in the disorder was assumed, not proved ; and that the real occasion of the tumult, the coincidence of the political meeting with a military review to military music, was ignored in these reports.
2. REFUTATION OF INFERENCES: FALLACIES
118.	Refutation by attack on the processes of argu-ment is the exposure of fallacies. Fallacies in deduc-tion are summed up in the general term non sequitur. They are analyzed under heads by formal logic ; for the syllogism, to use the admirable phrase of Professor Minto, is "the logic of consistency." The main practi-cal value of the complete syllogism, the reason for the great space devoted to it by formal logic, is its constant value as a test. No ordinary argument can be carried on, as a whole; by syllogisms (§ Io8); but in testing the whole process or any of its parts the syllogism has con¬stant value in any argument. Without it, indeed, rea¬soning can hardly go on a sure foot. Deductive logic, by its elaborate analysis of the forms in which we are wont to reason, enables us to scrutinize inferences, to detect surely what is invalid, to confirm what is valid. The very absoluteness of syllogistic demonstration, its freedom from exception and contingency, gives to its formulas, so far as they go, constant value as tests.
119.	Fallacies in induction may be summed up under another term of formal logic, non causa pro causa, insuffi¬cient proof of cause, the assumption of something as a
 
cause which need not be accepted as a cause (§102). Of this the commonest type is post hoc ergo propter hoc, arguing that P is the effect of S simply because it fol¬lows S.
One of the persons to whom we referred the other day as believing in divining rods, though apparently sane, has sent us a most interesting letter on the subject and with it two photographs, one of a lean rustic grasping a forked twig which points upward, and the other of the same individual in another place with the same twig pointing downward. These pictures our correspondent considers of importance because, first, they are, so far as he knows, the only ones ever taken of a " dowser " in the act of practising his mystical art, and, second, because water was found on digging at the spot where the twig turned downward. This "dowser," the letter tells us, has hunted water for years up in the Lake George region, and his photographer "has never heard of an entire failure." In other words, people who have followed the "dowser's " advice have rarely dug wells in vain. But on studying the two pictures we notice that in one case the twig was so held that it had to point upward, and in the second so that it had to point downward, whether any occult influence affected it or not ; and also that it pointed upward at a place where the vegetation was only so-so, while an almost tropical luxuriance is revealed at the place where the spell worked. That, to say the least of it, is suggestive. One must remem¬ber, too, in considering the triumphs of "dowsers," that it is much harder, in regions not distinctly arid, to find places where water cannot be obtained by digging than it is to find places where it can be obtained. In this country, for instance, practically every farmhouse has its well, and it is not the well that determines the position of the farmhouse, but vice versa. We are quite prepared to believe that our correspondent's " dowser " not only can find, but often has
 
found water ; we do not refuse to believe that he is perfectly honest in his necromancy, for the possibilities of self-decep¬tion are infinite. Our incredulity is for the explanation, not the facts. — New York Times, November 23, 1901.
The refutation, obviously, is to show that P follows, not only S, but also M; or that S is followed, not only by P, but also by Q. (See §§ 99, II.; lot, (3).)
120. This and all other fallacies of induction are due commonly to hasty generalization, especially to the neglect of negative instances. A very effective refuta-tion of false induction is to turn an opponent's evidence against himself.
It would be easy to make out a long list of squires, mer¬chants, lawyers, surgeons, yeomen, artisans, ploughmen, whose blood, barbarously shed during the late evil times, cries for vengeance to heaven. But what single member of your House, in our days, or in the days of our fathers, or in the days of our grandfathers, suffered death unjustly by sen¬tence of the Court of the Lord High Steward ? Hundreds of the common people were sent to the gallows by common juries for the Rye House Plot and the Western Insurrection. One peer and one alone, my Lord Delamere, was brought at that time before the Court of the Lord High Steward, and he was acquitted. You say that the evidence against him was legally insufficient. Be it so. But so was the evidence against Sydney, against Cornish, against Alice Lisle : yet it sufficed to destroy them. You say that the peers before whom my Lord Delamere was brought were selected with shameless unfairness by King James and by Jeffreys. Be it so. But this only proves that under the worst possible King, and under the worst possible High Steward, a lord tried by lords has a better chance for life than a commoner who puts him 
self on his country. — EARL MONTAGUE : Defence of the
Court of the Lord High Steward; quoted by Bain, page 239.
 
121.	A class of fallacies common to both deduction and induction may be summed up in the term ignoratio elenchi, ignoring the issue, arguing beside the point. To call attention to this is in itself sufficient refutation. It appears sometimes in the argumentum ad hominem, leav-ing the discussion of a proposition, to attack its sup-porters ; sometimes in the argumentum ad tetrorem, leaving the discussion of a proposition to forecast such consequences of it as can be made to alarm prejudice ; and in other ways of making a diversion to cover a retreat. The same motive, conscious or unconscious, gives rise to the fallacy of objections. Merely to heap objections against a proposition is not to disprove it. The task is to show (I) that these objections are essen-tial in the proposition, i.e. that the same objections would not exist otherwise ; (2) that the combined weight of all the objections is greater than the weight of the support.
A particular form of the fallacy of objections is unfairly to object to the degree of proof. Where the proposition, for example, expresses a fair probability, to show that the proof of it does not reach demonstration is sophistical and beside the mark.
122.	Besides these specific fallacies, other false infer¬ences may arise from mere confusion. When a general statement is used so as unfairly to imply the inclusion of some particular, the refutation must "pin down" to specific statement, must call for particulars. What is brought forward as one argument is sometimes shown by destructive analysis to be two, the second being suggested under cover of the first ; or what is brought forward as two arguments may be only one, the second being merely
 
an iteration in different form. Here again, of course, exposure is refutation ; and here again the counsel recurs, never to let a term pass without scrutinizing its implication.
3. THE BURDEN OF PROOF
123. The sufficiency of any argument as a whole depends somewhat on "the burden of proof." Burden of proof is a legal phrase to express the degree of proof necessary for one side as compared with that necessary for the other. It is expressed in the legal maxim, "He who affirms must prove."
A is District Attorney. B charges him with using his office for private gain. The burden of proof is on B; i.e. at law or in ordinary discussion, A is not obliged on hearing his charge to prove his innocence — else a man must be publish¬ing himself daily ; but B is obliged to prove A's guilt. Ac¬tually A may content himself with showing the insufficiency of B's arguments against him, or he may bring forward direct arguments for his own innocence ; but since the burden of proof is on B, A will be right, and probably wise, in simply meeting what B brings forward.
So he who affirms that Christian missions in China should be suspended has the burden of proof. The supporters of the negative have done enough if they show his reasons to be insufficient. They do not have to establish, from the foundation up, that Christian missions in China should be pursued. So in general the attacking party, supposing the proposition to express, as it always should, a real issue, has the harder task ; for the defence has the advantage of posi¬tion. So, in another aspect, the burden of proof is on who¬ever attacks an old or recognized institution or practice ; or, conversely, the presumption is in favour of what is accepted by custom or tradition.
 
BURDEN OF PROOF IOI
In the course of argument the burden may be shifted from one side to the other. Thus if A wishes the public (or a court of law) to believe that B's attack upon him is mali¬cious, or that B received money for making the attack, he must prove. The burden of proof then falls on him. For he that makes a particular affirmation, as of fact, not less than he that makes a general affirmation, as of principle, practice, or policy, has the burden of proof.
4. METHODS OF REFUTATION
124. Though refutation is not a separate kind of argument, it uses, more commonly than direct argument does, certain distinct methods. These are the logical exclusion, the dilemma, and the reductio ad absurdum. Logical exclusion consists in proving the proposition to be the only satisfactory solution by proving in succes-sion every other solution to be unsatisfactory. Ideally this kind of destructive analysis must first make a com¬plete division (§ 57); that is, it must not overlook any essential consideration. Then it must show sufficient grounds for rejecting successively each rival proposition until only the one remains. In this ideal form it is like Mill's canon of residues (§ 99, iv.); it is absolute demon¬stration; and, like other sorts of absolute demonstration, it is not applicable in ordinary arguments. But in ordi-nary arguments it has great cogency even though it cannot be pushed to completeness.
As far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which pre¬vails in your colonies and disturbs your government. These are : to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes ; to prosecute it as criminal ; or to comply with it as
 
102	PERSUASION
necessary. — BURKE : Conciliation with America (Select Works, ed. Payne, vol. I., page 187).
Burke then proceeds to show that neither of the first two ways is feasible. But he does not rest there ; for his proof cannot be final, since his division may not be exhaustive. He goes on, therefore, to show directly that the third way would be adequate, feasible, and advantageous, and that it is practi¬cally necessary.
In like manner Huxley's argument' for the theory of the development of all forms of life from protoplasm is conducted by successive rejections of all other theories. The conclu¬sion is that the protoplasm theory is true — so far as we know. Since it is not inconceivable that another hypothesis may arise from subsequent discoveries, a hypothesis it remains ; but the hypothesis embodies what we now know of the truth, and the method of reaching it is largely useful in refutation.
125. In detail, logical exclusion may be used to over¬throw an opponent's argument by showing that his proposition, general or particular, involves untenable premises or inferences. "My opponent's position as to this can be based on (or can lead to) only X, Y, or Z. But X is untenable, and Y, and Z. Therefore the position is untenable." Where the analysis reduces the position to alternatives, it is called a dilemma, and the holder of the position is said to be on the horns of the dilemma. Either way involves him in difficulty.
The next fault is that the inflicting of that punishment is not on the opinion of an equal and public judge, but is referred to the arbitrary discretion of a private, nay, interested and irritated individual. He who formally is, and substan¬tially ought to be, the judge, is in reality no more than minis-
1 On the Physical Basis of Life.
 
METHODS OF REFUTATION 103
terial, a mere executive instrument of a private man, who is at once judge and party. Every idea of judicial order is subverted by this procedure. If the insolvency be no crime, why is it punished with arbitrary imprisonment ? If it be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands to pardon with¬out discretion, or to punish without mercy and without measure ? — BURKE : To the Electors of Bristol (quoted in Genung's Rhetoric).
This is highly effective; but, as generally in logical exclusion, care must be taken to provide against any other possible way out, against what formal logic calls the tertium quid. The dilemma must present absolute alternatives.
126.	Reductio ad absurdum is showing that an oppo-nent's position involves an absurd conclusion. Formally, it assumes the opponent's position, and then deduces from it a conclusion manifestly untenable. Informally, as in the Platonic dialogues of Socrates, or in actual discussion by question and answer, it leads an oppo¬nent on, step by step, to admit the absurd conclusion himself.
Like this is showing that an opponent's argument "proves too much"; i.e. that if it were applicable at all, it would be applicable also to some other case in which it is manifestly inadmissible.
127.	This and all other applications of the method of exclusion demand great care. They are edged tools ; if they fail to cut one's adversary, they are pretty sure to cut oneself. Moreover, they should be used only when the exclusion will be seen by the audience to be com¬plete, to be real. And, in general, refutation must al¬ways be within the grasp of the audience, it must never
 
104 PERSUASION
go into subtleties that may seem like quibbles, and it must not try to answer every point singly. In fact, the best general counsel as to refutation is to meet the issue plainly oneself, and to insist that it be met plainly by one's opponent. If he shift his ground, leaving his line of attack to pursue another, this must be pointed out as a damaging admission ; but, on the other hand, it is neither fair nor wise to allege admissions that are not necessarily implied; and it is both dangerous and puerile to impute unworthy motives or inferior intelligence. It must never be forgotten that refutation is not trick, and that its proper object is a proposition, not a man.
128.	Finally, it must not be forgotten that refutation has to meet, not only the separate forces of the oppo¬nent's arguments, but also the combined force of his argument as a whole. The opponent's case must appear, not merely weak here and weak there, but weaker as a whole than one's own case (§ 121). Refutation, then, is not merely analysis in the sense of detaching separate points for answer. This is a necessary part of it, but not the whole. It is destructive, but it is also construc¬tive; it meets the other side as a whole by proving one's own side as a whole the stronger.
e. The Preparation of Proof
I. ANALYSIS A PRIORI
129.	In most argumentation the proposition is fixed beforehand by formal or informal agreement. When this is not done, when the speaker has to fix his own proposition, he must spend his first pains in stating it definitely, so that it shall be beyond mistake, and then
 
ANALYSIS A PRIORI 105
also fairly, so as fully to make the issue. Once fixed, the proposition deserves a good deal of preliminary re-flection. There is usually a gain of time in considering a priori how far the proof must be carried for sufficiency, and by what sort of evidence ; whether the question is of fact or of the interpretation of fact, and, if the latter, whether purely of expedience or also of right, or of both ; what is the extent of common ground, the agree¬ment, the starting-point ; on what the argument will probably turn, and especially what will probably be the adversary's line of attack, what must be fortified and what may be touched lightly. The habit of thus ques¬tioning one's own mind was formally inculcated in the ancient rhetoric. Cicero sums up the precepts in three questions : (I) What kind of case is it (naturam causer)? i.e. of fact or of the interpretation of fact ; (2) On what does it turn (quid faciat causam ; id est, quo sublato con¬troversia stare non possit)? (3) Why is it disputed (quid veniat judicium)f
Suppose during the recent disturbances in China a ques¬tion to have arisen concerning Christian missions, and to have taken form in the proposition, Christian missions in China should be suspended; and suppose A to be supporting the negative. The question evidently involves both political ex-pediency and moral duty. The latter will be admitted, theo¬retically at least, to be the higher and the more compelling consideration. Here A's side seems at once far the stronger ; but cannot his opponent meet him on that ground ? Will the opponent be able to dispute, with any chance of success, the assumption that Christianity is always and everywhere the best possible religion ? Must that be debated ? At any rate, he can object to the assumption that even the best possible religion should be urged by propaganda on an unwilling people.
 
106 PERSUASION
A has heard most of disturbances apparently resultant upon Roman Catholic missions. Can he show that his oppo¬nent's arguments apply only to these ? Can widely different propaganda under the same general name be fairly discussed as one thing ? Will the confusion and clash of different mis¬sionary interests be a strong argument against missions as a whole ? Are these difficulties really very great ? Every question here leads at once to the questions of fact, to the evi¬dence.
Where is A to find the best evidence ? Some important points may be settled at once by standard books on China, and by the latest year-books and maps. But in this case recent facts are in dispute as well as inferences. Is A to depend on the reports of missionaries ? These might be aspersed as being veracious, indeed, missionaries being gen¬erally accepted as truthful, but probably biassed, missionaries being regarded as prone to overlook or misinterpret facts through zeal for their cause. This evidence, then, must be used with caution ; that is, such facts must be sought in their reports as zeal could give no occasion for unconsciously mis¬representing. But A may go farther. Consular reports have not the same suspicion of bias. Wherever they mention missionary operations, their evidence will count for more. At points they will doubtless corroborate the reports of mis¬sionaries; and though they probably have little to say about missions, they may have more about the riots, burnings, and assassinations. A decides to begin with missionary maga¬zines, looking primarily for facts cited with corroboration of consuls or other less partial witnesses, and verifying the cita¬tions. He decides to save time, too, by a preliminary survey of recent articles in magazines and reviews, looking out for particular reports of consuls or commissioners.
The opponent's main reliance will doubtless be the recent disturbances in China, disturbances great enough to involve the whole civilized world. He will try to lay these disturb 
 
ANALYSIS A PRIORI 107
ances at the door of the missions. Now, first, A reflects that this does not exhaust the case, if he can convince the audience, the judges, that even so great disturbance and blood are not too great a price to pay for the spread of Chris¬tianity. Still, the disturbances must then appear to be the price of success, not the price of failure. Are they of a nature to show that Christianity cannot prevail among the Chinese ? And further, though the imagined argument of A's opponent fall short, still it is strong enough to be met squarely. A sees, then, that he must be master, (i) not only of the facts in general, but of well attested particular disturbances, their character, their number ; (2) of the inference, of all that these facts fairly mean — how far they can be interpreted to prove the missions, directly or in¬directly, causes. Here A feels a strong case, for his oppo¬nent has the burden of proof. His opponent must show, not merely that such and such missionaries were disturbers, but that missionaries have been disturbers in general and in the pursuit of their missions ; while A has only to show negative instances enough to break down a difficult generalization. Still, he must beware of abusing this advantage. Since fair probability is the highest degree of proof now attainable for generalizations as to China, to demand more is to quibble.
But how are Christian missions to be suspended ? By consent, or by governmental injunction ? If there be in effect no third way, A plots a dilemma (§ 125) for his op¬ponent, either of these two ways being demonstrably chimeri¬cal. But can his opponent refuse, on the basis of the proposition, to go beyond proof of abstract advantage ? Can he fairly say that the proposition is satisfied when he shows that it would be better if the missions were suspended ; that whether they can be or not is another matter ? Not at all, thinks A; but here A also bethinks him that he is not estimating high enough the possibilities of the other side ; and finally it occurs to him that a wise opponent, instead of
 
108	PERSUASION
joining battle on the missions' having produced the disturb¬ances, might rather argue : "Christian missions are in effect suspended by present military operations ensuing upon certain disturbances. This suspension is right and should continue, even at the cost of governmental interference, until the country is tranquilized; for missionary efforts in present conditions are hopeless, they are quite unduly dan¬gerous to the missionaries, and they tend, at least in con¬nection with armed interference, to prolong the disturbances and thus to defeat, not only the ends of diplomacy, but their own ends as well."
This line of attack, appearing more formidable and there¬fore more probable, throws A upon other considerations. Are the missions in effect suspended ? What prospect is there of tranquillity in a year ? in five years ? The question remains whether the missions have been causes of disturbance, but in a different form ; i.e. whether missionaries as well as invading troops are hated as "foreign devils." And, sup¬posing them to be, what then ? Shall the Christian nations wait an indefinite time for the Chinese to reach saner views ? How are they to reach saner views ? Have missions usually preceded or followed or accompanied the introduction of a foreign civilization ? What may be argued from the analogy of Japan ? Are the Christian nations to protect merchants without protecting missionaries ? Is it not better, since armed intervention came unsought as an instant necessity, to reap from it first of all the security of Christian missions now ? Would this establishment of missions at the point of the sword put them under a cloud, make them permanently objects of hatred and distrust ? Would the missions appear in any better light, if they were given up, even for a, time, because of opposition ? etc.
So far A has not opened a book or a paper. He has simply thought the ground over in the light of his general knowledge and of his experience in argument. This a priori
 
ANALYSIS A POSTERIORI I09
survey needs correction ; but it saves time that might else be wasted in ill-directed reading. So long as one keeps guard against prejudice, against ignoring evidence that upsets his preconceptions, he does well thus to plan his research a priori. The danger of a priori is simply in going no farther (§ 96).
2. ANALYSIS A POSTERIORI
130.	The gathering of evidence is not essentially different from the research for exposition (§§ 62--70); but the distinguishing between fact and opinion, the verification and citation of references, and the scrutiny of relevancy, are all of increased importance. At each point, major and minor, the question is simple. Is this probative ? Is it sufficiently probative, or must there be further evidence for confirmation ? Is this the strongest evidence obtainable ? The sifting will be careful enough only when one keeps in mind how his evidence will be analyzed by his adversary.
131.	Each line of the preliminary survey brings up at the twofold question, What are the facts and what do they mean ? These two inquiries, though they go on together, may be considered separately. What are the facts ? First, what do we understand by that word fact f A fact is a past happening or present condi¬tion; it is not an inference. A fact is concrete, not abstract.
Christian missions in China began in—. The present to¬tal of converts is—. Our treaty with China provides—. The mission house at—was attacked by the Chinese in —. The local authorities made no serious efforts to pro¬tect it. These are statements of fact. The Chinese are averse to Christianity —that is not a statement of fact. It may be true or false ; but in either case it is an inference
 
1 10 PERSUASION
from facts, a generalization. Whether the truth be that the Chinese are averse to Christianity or averse to certain methods of Christianizing ; whether it be the government that is averse, or the people, — is an inquiry to be conducted only by determining many facts of detail.
Even the so-called facts of one's own observation need to be disentangled from inference. A declares that the United States War Department in 1898 mismanaged the camps, supplies, hospital arrangements, and transportation. A him¬self saw the mismanagement in the camp at Montauk. Now what did A see ? He saw landings from the transports de¬layed, the railway tracks crowded at the terminus, emaciated soldiers, hardly able to walk along the platforms, crowded into cars of any sort, — dust, confusion, hideous details of disease. If A saw these things, these are the facts. He did not see mismanagement ; he inferred it, and the inference must be tested as an inference. Mismanagement is not the only possible cause. The cause may have been partly the unavoidable climate of Cuba, partly the impossible demands of a condition not to be foreseen. Moreover, A saw only a part. Was that part typical or exceptional ? Subsequent governmental inquiry failed to prove mismanagement. A's inference, whether valid or invalid, he must not set down as fact.
Again, the alleged right of the Chinese to restrict mission¬ary effort is not a fact either. Right is abstract ; facts are concrete. The strike of the coal-miners of Pennsylvania in September, 1900, was a thing seen, heard, felt ; it was con¬crete; it is a fact, composed of many separate facts ; their right to strike is an idea in their minds and in the minds of many others ; it cannot be seen, heard, reported to witnesses ; it is abstract ; it is not a fact, nor composed of facts.
132. A statement of fact, then, being a statement of past happening or present condition, not an inference,
 
TESTIMONY AS TO FACT III
being concrete, not abstract, when is such a statement to be accepted ? In general, every alleged fact must be proved to be a fact by sufficient testimony ; in general also, the only testimony sufficient in a given case is the best testimony obtainable in that case. This latter is a maxim of law. Thus the law demands, whenever it is possible, oral testimony by witnesses subject to cross- examination. Though cross-examination is beyond the possibilities of everyday investigation, the maxim is a binding principle. Not only law, but also the common sense of educated people, demands the verification of facts by the best tests in any given case available. No statements not thus supported need be accepted ; no witness need be credited that does not appear reason¬ably careful in his observations, responsible, and free from bias and self-interest. Without such checks most argument remains in the air. The first challenge of one's opponent is, How do you know ?
133. Testimony as to Fact
1.	In general, since it is notorious that few people are habitually accurate observers beyond the rather nar¬row range of their interests or preoccupations, anybody's report of his observations should be analyzed, so far as possible, into its particulars for scrutiny. That is, testi¬mony should be considered, never in bulk, but always in detail, point by point.
2.	Then is the witness intelligent, of established char-acter, responsible for his statements, clear from suspicion of bias or self-interest, and consistent ?
3. Further, is the testimony corroborated or does it stand alone ? Is there any testimony of fairly equal moral weight to contravene it ?
 
12 PERSUASION
4.	Testimony given unwittingly (i.e. without con-sciousness of its import), or against the bias or interest of the witness, may have thereby an added significance.
5.	Particular value attaches also to the testimony of a witness 1 expert in the observation of the class of facts involved.
Practically this means seek evidence that cannot easily be challenged. Most argument outside of law courts being based on evidence in print, sufficient testimony to fact is practically (t) the primary publications, the orig¬inal documents (subject to the tests of credibility above), or as far back toward them as research can reasonably extend ; (2) authority, i.e. accepted sources of information, as standard gazetteers, publications of government bureaus, etc. It is futile to argue about forestry or the adulteration of food products from an article in a popular magazine when every large library contains the reports of the Department of Agriculture ; to take statistics about the Philippines from a campaign speech when one's opponent may counter with the Congressional Record or the reports of the Philippine Commission ; to be content with information about the Siberian Rail¬way from an article written to entertain, when the latest gazetteers and the publications of geographical societies furnish statistics far less liable to dispute. Unless you must, do not rest on information at second hand.
And again, be familiar with the standard sources ; with the particular advantages of the various cyclopmdias,
1 By this is not meant "expert testimony," which may be the opinion of some one recognized as an authority in the matter involved ; e.g. the report of a physician to the effect that a certain death was caused by chloroform, or of a bank teller to the effect that a certain signature was made by a certain man.
 
TESTIMONY AS TO FACT 113
atlases, gazetteers, compends of history and of the arts and sciences; and also with other recognized publications of statistical information in particular fields. Know what guide-books will tell you where to look for author¬ity in a given matter; turn from a book that cites a better witness to that witness himself ; always keep note of the source of your every statement of fact ; and never cite somebody else's citation without first verifying it your¬self.
This habit of care will give some skill in weigh¬ing more doubtful evidence. Many arguments involve mere current report; and in some cases nothing better can be had. In such cases it should be remembered that conclusions are only tentative and temporary, that proof is of the lowest degree. For the rest, the student must compare different accounts, keep himself on the alert against bias and interest, and accustom himself to separate, in newspaper reports and credulous histories, probable fact from probable garnish of art or inference. Remembering that unsupported testimony, except from witnesses whose observation and character are so well known as to compel belief, is weak, he must try to for-tify, or conversely, to offset one testimony by another. In a word, he must learn to read critically.
134. Thus fortified against an opponent's How do you know? one must also make ready against another ques¬tion, What of it? (§114). How do you know? challenges the facts ; What of it? challenges the inferences. In this case, and that, and that, the attacks of the Chinese " Boxers " were directed against mission stations. What of it ? Does that prove the missions causes of the out¬break ? In this case, and that, and that, —in all known cases, the grazing of sheep in our western forests has
 
114 PERSUASION
been followed by the decline of the forests. What of it ? Does that prove the grazing the cause of the decline ? These two different cases are alike typical in presenting the ultimate inquiry as to all inferences. At the long last we come down to this question, Do the• facts establish this as cause of that ? The answer is in Mill's Canons (§ 99). One's deductions, too, as well as his inductions, should be tested (§ 118). Neither, of course, will bear a test for demonstration (§108-1o9) ; but since to a certain degree we always use both, since the enthymeme supports the partial induction, and vice versa, the use of both must be brought to habitual accuracy.
In all this analysis, a priori and a posteriori, what pre¬vails, of course, is penetration. All that logic and rhetoric can supply is the tests formulated by experience. Everybody must acquire for himself the skill to see habitually and promptly what is in a case and what is to be done with it.
3. COMPOSITION
(a) Working Plan
135. When the evidence has been explored, the field gone over, the next step is to group the argument under as few main heads as possible, and these in an order at once easy to remember and forcible by its sequence. This counsel applies to writing, but much more forcibly to speaking. A complete plan (§ 91, fine print) is not for use in one's hand ; its value is quite different. The notes for speaking, in one's hand or in his head, should be few and simple. An elaborate scheme, since it afflicts the memory and hinders quick adaptation, is unwieldy. An unexpected turn of an adversary, an unexpected disposition in an audience, may throw it out
 
WORKING PLAN, ESSENTIAL PARTS 115
and leave the speaker at a stand. Besides, even the complete plan gets its fulness from detail. A good argument, however elaborately analyzed, will be found to have only a few main points. Only a few main points, then, with their main support, should be re¬garded as fixed beforehand. Behind that the whole evidence must be ready, so far as possible, for use where it may be needed, but not all in a fixed adjust¬ment from which it cannot readily be detached.
(b) Essential Parts
136. Aristotle says that argumentation has but two essential parts ; the statement of the case, and the proof. The former is exposition ; and the more purely expository it is, the freer from argumentative turns, the stronger will be its effect. Clear, unbiassed state¬ment, excluding whatever is disputed, as it is the only fair way, so is the only wise way in this part. The statement of the case is sometimes called the narrative, since it is sometimes, especially at the bar, a rehearsal of events in chronological order ; sometimes, and better, the introduction, since it is necessarily preliminary. It is the definition and division of the proposition, show¬ing the meaning of the terms, their extent and implica¬tion, and the issue or issues, surveying and staking out the ground so that every step in the argument may be followed easily. It marks out the common ground of agreement from the debatable ground, and here it must be careful to assume neither too much nor too little : not too much, lest the adversary by fair objec¬tion undermine one's foundations ; not too little, lest time be wasted in proving more than is necessary.
 
116 PERSUASION
Here the expository part may merge in the proof. Definition may be made, often is made, in effect argu-mentative; and conversely, an unfair assumption or implication must be overthrown. But generally it is not hard to establish a fair agreement as to the limits of necessary proof ; and generally this part may be regarded as purely expository.
(c) Formal Parts
137. But Aristotle makes another division, the four formal parts of a speech, exordium, statement, proof, peroration ; and though these are not all essential, they have been at all times common. The two added parts, the first and the last, may be called purely rhetorical. They add nothing to the argument ; they may add much to persuasion. Thus the office of the exordium, or rhetorical introduction, according to the concise and final definition of Cicero, is to dispose an audience to good will, attention, and open mind —red¬dere auditores benevolos, attentos, dociles. The means to this end are as various as audiences and speakers. The office of the peroration, or rhetorical conclusion, is correspondingly to leave a clear remembrance and a strong impression. It is the natural place for recapitu¬lation and summary, and the recognized place for appeal to feeling. Summary is generally stronger than recapitulation. It is better to put the whole in a nutshell than to risk being tiresome. But when impor¬tant points seem to have missed their due impression, it is better to repeat them, and so of any points slighted by an adversary. Appeal to feeling is proper to the peroration, negatively because earlier in the speech the
 
FORMAL PARTS, DEBATE 117
audience is not so likely to be open to it, has not, as we say, been worked up ; and positively because a strong impression implies, almost of necessity, engaging the feelings. To have presented reasons without engaging sympathy is to leave an audience cold. The peroration, then, is the place for applying the discussion to men's real concerns, or, as we say in a metaphor full of import, for bringing it home.
(d) Division for Debate
138. Intercollegiate debating has fairly fixed a custom of dividing an argument among three speakers. This threefold division should be such that each speaker may clearly support his predecessor and clearly carry the discussion on toward the conclusion. The case must be complete in an order outlined at the start, carried steadily forward, definitely concluded. On the other hand, the case must not be inflexible. No case, of course, is worth the making which has not considered attentively all probable arguments of the other side, and also forecast probable groupings of these arguments ; but completely to forecast the line of the other side is rarely possible. Therefore the plan laid out by any three speakers must also be flexible enough to throw emphasis where emphasis is in the actual debate found necessary. It must also leave some spare time for such answers as may serve to remove an impression that the line has been blocked or broken. Rebuttal is separately provided, by present custom, in a brief second speech from each debater ; but since a case loses much of its force which seems at any time to be thwarted, it is both customary and practically necessary for attack and
 
118 PERSUASION
defence to meet arguments, at least briefly, as they come up. A good line of debate, then, is both a very nice adjustment for emphasis and coherence, and at the same time flexible to immediate pressure.
The practical result of these considerations is some-what as follows : The first affirmative speech is largely an introduction (§ 136), i.e. is largely expository. In defining the issues and the line of proof it should be prepossessing, but above all fair and lucid. The hear¬ers must find the case, or so much of it as is not with¬held for strategy, plausible from the start ; but first and foremost they must be prepared to follow it easily. The first speaker for the negative has much the same office ; but he has also something to attack. It is usually advis¬able, sometimes necessary, to point out a general defi¬ciency or a particular omission, to insist on a slighted issue, to rebut an ill-advised contention, or to note an implied admission ; in general, to reply. This may be done by way of preface, or better, if there be convenient opportunity, in connection with the points of his own case. But since the bringing forward of his own case is his main business, since the clearness of that case depends largely on him, since the case is presumably strong as a whole against the affirmative as a whole, he must not, in an attempt to meet all his adversary's points, leave his own ground. His colleagues are there to carry on the attack in detail; he is there rather to make clear from the start that the case is strong as a whole. There¬fore, contenting himself with general reply and the hint that this will be supported later, or with a reply directed against one or two important points, he must keep his main time free for his own case.
The second speeches elaborate and carry on. If the
 
DIVISION FOR DEBATE 119
first speaker has elaborated one main point, as is usual, the second confirms this against attack, shows how the following points, assigned to him, follow and lead on to the next, and elaborates these points of his own most where there appears to be most need. As to rebuttal, though the counsels for the first speech on the negative hold good in general, the second speeches should be the most flexible because they have most room. They have the most favourable opportunity for breaking the oppo¬site line if it has been forecast ; and, if it is unexpected, the most favourable opportunity for meeting it by a change of emphasis and by larger use of rebuttal. Pro¬vided he leave time enough for that carrying forward of his own case which is essential in a middle speech, a second speaker may spend more or less time in reply according to the exigencies of the occasion. The ideal, as before, is to weave the reply into his own positive argument.
The third speakers have both to elaborate the final points and to conclude. The conclusion should sum up, of course ; but it should also show that the final points complete a strong line, that they clinch the proof. The proportion of rebuttal must be determined, on con-sultation with the other speakers, from what has pre¬ceded and what seem to be the opportunities of the short speeches following. It is usually well to make clear by iteration that the strong points of the opposi¬tion are met ; it is usually unwise to dissipate time over many separate points of rebuttal ; it is always and above all necessary to make a strong conclusion of the whole.
The short second speeches of rebuttal depend for their strength so largely on skill in seeing opportunities, and this skill comes so largely from actual practice in
 
120 PERSUASION
debate, that not much can be said in general counsel. But in general here is the place for filling gaps, especially in the evidence ; on the other hand, for demanding par¬ticulars and exposing fallacies in detail or weaknesses in the sequence of the whole. Since it is not necessary to keep the same order of speakers as at first, it is wise to place at the end that man who can most readily turn unexpected currents of rebuttal into the channel of his own side. For the main speeches the first man should be the most lucid ; the second, the readiest ; the third, the steadiest : for the rebuttals the. readiest is often put last ; but this man must also know how, by rapid sum¬mary of both positions, to close with the iteration of his own. Principles and methods of refutation have been discussed already (§§ 114-128); but it is worth while to repeat that rebuttal which degenerates into scattering objections (§ 1 n ) seriatim makes little total impression. Rebuttal, like everything else, must be massed on main points.
(e) Emphasis
139. Within the proof proper the arrangement must be determined by the exigencies of each case considered separately. There is no rule for determining whether to begin with refutation or with direct proof, whether to present the points of refutation together or separately. All questions of the order of main parts must be settled, partly by the tactics of the other side, mainly by the general principle of emphasis. The ancient maxim that weaker arguments should not come first nor last is only an application of the general law of emphasis by position (§§ 9,21). More important is the emphasis by space (§§ 10, 22), the dwelling by greater fulness of evidence
 
EMPHASIS 121
and by iteration and illustration on the arguments of main dependence, and conversely, the compression, within the paragraphs that develop these arguments of main dependence, of subordinate arguments. Thus is answered the recurring question of technic, Shall this argument be combined in one paragraph with others or have a paragraph to itself, or be developed in several successive paragraphs ? It is only the old problem of emphasis ; but in persuasion emphasis, like the other principles of rhetoric, is of more immediate importance.
140. Emphasis is not less important in oral argumen¬tation from the simple working plan ; it is simply less obvious as emphasis of space, and more obvious as emphasis of position. As to space, the audience is con-scious, indeed, that the speaker is devoting to an argu-ment much or little time ; but the estimate is rougher. Only when an adversary is able to reply, My opponent has spent a great deal of time on this point ; but I fear it is time wasted, for I am not bound to meet him there, is the audience alive usually to the emphasis of space. Again, iteration is so far less obvious in oral argumen¬tation that it may well be more frequent and more explicit. As to emphasis of position, on the other hand, though the paragraph is not present as a whole to an audience, nor always formally present to the speaker, still the close of that half-impromptu devel-opment of a given stage which may be called the ora-torical paragraph is, more than in print, a position of em¬phasis, because it is, more than in print, a place of pause. And further, the emphasis that arises from position after a parenthesis (§ 44) is seen clearly in the oratorical trick of pausing before the delivery of a strong blow,
 
122	PERSUASION
(f) Coherence
141.	The next consideration is coherence, or, as it may be called literally in argumentation, logical prog¬ress. Arguments have force of themselves (ex .proprio vigore); they derive force from the emphasis of presen¬tation; and finally, they give force as leading on to others, as opening the way. Thus they must be made to hang together ; and this appears in no other way more clearly than in the invariable attempt of an adver¬sary to make them, according to Franklin's famous witticism, hang separately. The attempt in refutation of a strong sequence of arguments is always to draw attention from that sequence by attacking its members separately. Thus the persuasive force of any good piece of proof is more than the sum of the forces of its separate arguments. It is the force, not merely of addi¬tion, but almost of multiplication.
142.	The importance attached to sequence by orators appears in their elaboration of connectives. In oral argument the links between the parts, the explicit reference (§ 17), must be fuller and more careful than in written argument, for the obvious reason that defects cannot be corrected by glancing back ; but in both explicit reference is more important than in any other kind of composition, because more importance attaches to the sequence that it indicates. Logical progress is an added virtue in exposition (§ 74); in persuasion it is a practical necessity. Rhetorically there is all the dif¬ference in the world between an enumeration of argu¬ments and a line, or chain, of proof. A speech must be something more even than the expansion of a well- ordered plan. In persuasion there are few victories by
 
COHERENCE 123
sheer force of numbers, and many defeats from lack of good marshalling. Emphasis demands first considera-tion because coherence depends on emphasis (§ 24); but the more important is coherence, logical progress.
143. Nor must logical progress be taken to exclude either appeal to feeling or that constant means to clearness in speaking which is yet inexpressible in any scheme of purely logical analysis —iteration. Itera¬tion, in fact, contributes alike to emphasis in speaking and to coherence ; and it may serve both by an effect of cumulation. This is the theory of those sermons that come round again and again to the text. It may be applied more strikingly in almost any sort of public speaking by a plan somewhat as follows :
t. Introduction and statement of the proposition. In a sermon the proposition is the text ; for other occa¬sions it should be clear, of course, but also brief and striking.
2.	First approach. The speaker starts apparently at a distance. A brief narrative or description, a detail of the proof, something whose bearing, though real, is not obvious, is used to pique curiosity. From this he proceeds inductively, after the fashion of the periodic paragraph (§ 2 ), and steadily to his proposi¬tion. The hearers, not seeing what he will be at, yet are carried on so naturally that they reach the goal, surprised indeed, but satisfied.	The proposition is
then repeated in the exact words of its first announce-ment.
3.	Second approach. The speaker starts from a different direction, perhaps with a proverb or a refer-ence to some conviction latent in the minds of his hearers. He moves again by the same plan back to
 
124	PERSUASION
his proposition ; and again he repeats it in the same words.
4.	Third approach. The speaker leads in the same way from a third direction. By this the audience knows what is coming, at first does not know how, then divines, then seizes on the third iteration.
5.	Brief, pointed summary or application.
This plan, by providing natural pauses for relaxing the attention (§ 151), combines the force of suspense with the force of variety. It also facilitates appeal to emotion ; for the start may be made in each case from some point of popular concern, and the grada¬tion of each part may prepare alike acceptance and sympathy. In fact, so far as concerns appeal, it has somewhat the effect of three or four perorations in¬stead of one. Finally, if the successive approaches be arranged in ascending scale, the effect of the whole will be cumulative climax (§ 40). But observe that the plan demands the conception of the whole in a few carefully shaped masses. A series of many short approaches, far from having the same effect, might be both futile and wearisome. The hearer must have time in each case to feel progress. At bottom, then, is the same principle of coherence.
The technical means toward coherence have all been discussed (§§ 7, 17), and that constantly service¬able test, the paragraph summary (§ 76); but logical progress is not, of course, to be had by external means. It is a habit gained by discipline. The only way to gain the force of order is always to think of order, never to be content with looseness. Persuasion is most exacting ; and for that very reason it is to all students of composition most repaying.
 
LITERARY FORMS	125
III. THE LITERARY FORMS OF PERSUASION
144. The literary forms of persuasion have in all times corresponded pretty closely to the kinds of per-suasion distinguished by Aristotle according to the kinds of audiences. The first kind, says Aristotle, is crtipRotatvrticdv, deliberative, proceeding by exhorta-tion or dissuasion in the proof of expediency or inex-pediency, looking to the future, the speech of the senate and the platform ; the second, 8ticavixdv, forensic, proceeding by accusation or defence in the proof of guilt or innocence, looking to the past, the speech of the bar ; the third, hrtSeurrucdv, panegyric, proceeding by eulogy or censure in the proof of honour or dishon-our, looking to the present, the speech of the occasion. The division is scientifically complete. To make a fourth class of sermons seems logically impossible ; for sermons seem to fall sometimes in the third class, usually in the first, never, so far as they are persuasion, outside of both. In so far as it is persuasion, and of course it may be largely or even entirely exposition, a sermon seems not to be a distinct form. Examples of the first form are found in almost any morning paper, both in the reports of legislative proceedings and " campaign " speeches and in the editorials. The second form is equally obvious and common. Of the third form are Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, Webster's at Bunker Hill, and most prize speeches at college, together with " baccalaureate " and funeral sermons.
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER IV
THE ELEMENTS OF LITERARY COMPOSITION
145. The principles of literary composition, though ultimately the same, perhaps, as the principles of logical composition, at least presume a different point of view and lead to different applications. This difference in view and application arises from a difference between the two kinds that is certainly essential. Logical com¬position proceeds by propositions (§ 2), by explicit state¬ment; artistic composition proceeds by kindling the imagination to grasp without the aid of explanation, — proceeds, that is, by implicit suggestion. For the reali¬zation sought in artistic composition is not so much in¬tellectual as emotional. It may, indeed, be both ; but it is typically the latter.
An essay may seek either ; for essay is in the borderland. It may be logical as in Bacon, or emotional as in Hazlitt, or both, and in infinitely variable proportions. But in structure, as a piece of composition, it is logical. Such artistic quality as it has is rather of diction ; and this quality it may have, as appears through a large part of the eighteenth century, without much direct appeal to emotion. On the other hand, a purely artistic form, a form determined in its composition, as for example the short story, by considerations quite out¬side of logic, makes its appeal as a whole, whatever be the character of the diction or the space conceded to logic, dis¬tinctively to emotion.
129
 
130 THE ELEMENTS OF LITERARY COMPOSITION
A work of art attains its goal when the artist's con-ception becomes our conception, when we sympathize. If his object be at all to make us believe with him, still he seeks this incidentally to making us see and feel with him. This appeal primarily to emotion is more largely characteristic of the other arts, perhaps, than of litera¬ture, and is most direct in music ; but it is also character¬istic of literature. The primary aim, and therefore the method, of Macbeth, of The Vicar of Wakefield, of Pil¬grim's Progress, widely different as these pieces of litera¬ture are, is in various degrees emotional; and the methods toward emotional realization, of whatever degree, are methods, not of explanation, but of suggestion.
146. Another aspect of the same distinction appears when we observe that the mode of logical composition is abstract; of literary composition, concrete. Character, emotion, scenery, in a work of art are not summed up after analysis ; they are communicated somewhat as they are communicated in actual experience, by look, gesture, colour, action, —by what appeals to the intellect in¬directly through the senses, — in a word, by the con¬crete (§ 226). Exposition sums up experience in the abstract, puts it into a formula ; narration or description selects from experience the light, sound, colour, gesture, the physical details from which experience received sug¬gestions and which may be suggestive to the experience of others, — puts experience into a parable. Both methods may be found in a single literary form, of course most commonly in the essay ; but none the less for that the typically literary method differs thus from the typically logical method. The Book of Job is a poem of the soul made perfect through suffering ; much the same idea is summed up abstractly in Bacon's
 
UNITY	131
essay on adversity (§ 6). Logical composition, then, states in the abstract ; artistic composition suggests in the concrete.
I; UNITY
a. as arising from personal selection
147. From this essential difference, as between pro-pounding or explaining experience and narrating or describing experience, ensues a different view of the cardinal principles, unity, emphasis, and coherence. These are principles of logic, but not exclusively. In artistic composition unity is regulated by logical rele-vancy but secondarily. Primarily the unity of artistic composition, whatever the art, is regulated by such selection of a few details as makes further detail and all explanation superfluous. Thus in narration unity means primarily the selection of such details as induce the intended mood and lead to the climax. The selec-tion of these implies the omission of others ; for art is a simplification of life, arbitrary because it is personal. Art is not so much a transcript of experience as a coloured interpretation. Its truth is measured not so much by its literal accuracy, its faithfulness to the rules of evidence, as by its faithfulness to the impression of the writer, the colouring of his own vision. This that I saw myself, he seems to say, had this meaning to me. In a word, artistic unity is unity of conception. True, in literature the matter, the subject, must always be of relatively greater importance than in painting. In painting—sheep, fields, the human face, what difference? We care only for the painter's expression. In literature we care relatively more for subject-matter ; but even in
 
132 THE ELEMENTS OF LITERARY COMPOSITION
literature the measure is personal interpretation. With¬out some interpretation there is no artistic unity, indeed no art ; and interpretation necessitates, consciously or unconsciously, the selection of this, the omission of that.
For selection is at once the limitation and the method of all art. The painter reduces a landscape to a few colours laid upon a square of canvas. For being ten times that size his picture would not be the nearer to rendering complete account of the infinite detail of nature. So the narrator, whether of fact or of fiction, can make no approach to complete rendering of that complicated succession of details, external and internal, which makes up a human life. Thus to render one day would demand the length of a novel. A painstaking biography is often far smaller than the bulk of the mere correspondence from which it is drawn ; and a man's correspondence fills but a small part of his days. Mere physical necessity, then, demands selection. But even if the artist could present the detail of nature, he would not. That is not his way. To say that he is an artist is to say that he has the impulse to express his own view of life, his interpretation, his own personality. And the value of his work to us is measured but second¬arily by the number and accuracy of its facts ; that is the measure of science : it is measured primarily by the truth and beauty with which facts are interpreted by him ; that is the measure of art. Art does not try to compete with the impressions of life, nor even to record them, such record being the business of laboratories for re-search in psychology, but to interpret them through the simplifying medium of personal selection.
 
UNITY	133
b. as producing singleness of impression
148.	The unity of literary composition, then, appear¬ing in the essential artistic method of selection, is a unity not illogical, indeed, but not determined by logic. It is a unity of impression. The writer keeps us in a mood, leads us to a dominant emotion, makes the whole open a single vision. Unity in this sense often eludes formulation. Macbeth has unity. Will any one venture to sum up Macbeth in a sentence ? The unity is felt, and, being felt, needs no statement. The Ancient Mari-ner seems to be summed up in :
"He prayeth best who loveth best — "
but reflection finds this stanza summary of the message, or moral, of the poem, not of its whole meaning. So The Fall of the House of Usher is a very subtle harmoni¬zation of the single theme of fear. But that word fear, or any nicer synonym, is quite inadequate to express the constant dominance of a single, strong impression. Whether formulation, then, is helpful or not, whether or not it is even possible, a work of art is unified only when the unity is felt.
IL COHERENCE
149.	The principle of coherence again, though the statements of it at §§ 7, 17, 75, hold for both kinds, means in artistic composition more than logical prog-ress. The progress of the Sentimental Journey, indeed, is even illogical; but, logical or not, the coherence of artistic composition must be something more. When the hero leaves the room he may be made to go any-where. A ship leaving the wharf of a description
 
134 THE ELEMENTS OF LITERARY COMPOSITION
might be bound for the Indies or the Pole. But it must not seem so to the reader. To him the destination of everything must seem inevitable from what went before. This is the effect of artistic gradation, part so laid to part that the progress may seem inevitable, spontaneous because the connection seems almost organic.
150. Of artistic coherence most that is not detail (§ 192) may be summed up in the word movement. The arrangement and the transitions must be such that the composition may seem to move always, to move naturally, and to move without being from time to time wound up. In a word, artistic coherence is movement without interruption. The fine workman is known by his transitions ; and where else are we so sure to detect the 'prentice hand? Explanatory interpolations ("where we arrived," "presents an appearance," "due to the discouragement of fatigue," see § 195) are not always pared off by the mere process of selection; and further, the information that remains necessary to clearness and yet is not really part of the action or scene to be sug¬gested, must be provided without obvious intrusion (§§ 17o-172). Thus the antecedent action of a story or drama is made to transpire through the action proper and the dialogue while both at the same time are mov¬ing on. Thus the necessary information in description is insinuated in subordinate clauses and suggested by the implication of the descriptive words. To describe as follows is distinctly inartistic :
I took an electric car from the green. When we reached the end of the line at Burgess Street I saw on the left a high bank of red clay. There were few trees anywhere except a grove of dark green pines at the top of this bank. Several street boys, having left their clothes under the trees, ran
 
COHERENCE: TRANSITIONS 135
down the bank and plunged into the river, which winds here through salt meadows before emptying into the harbour. Their naked bodies flashed in the sun ; and they yelled as they ran down.
All that this expresses descriptively is :
From the dark grove of pines naked bodies flashed down the steep red clay bank into the river, till the salt harbour meadow was alive with the cries and splashing of street boys.
This very obvious case shows that artistic conciseness, which is primarily achieved through selective omission (§ i47), depends also on movement without interruption, that is on artistic coherence. Delicacy in this art of transitions is seen at its finest in the Sentimental Journey:
I looked at Monsieur Dessein through and through ; eyed him as he walked along in profile, then en face; thought him like a Jew, then a Turk ; disliked his wig ; cursed him by my gods ; wished him at the devil.
And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beg¬garly account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the most I can be overreached in ? "Base passion 1" said I, turning myself about as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment ; "Base, ungentle passion 1 thy hand is against every man, and every man's hand against thee." "Heaven forbid 1" said she, raising her hand up to her forehead ; for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conversation with the monk : she had followed us unper¬ceived. "Heaven forbid, indeed 1" said I, offering her my own. She had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two fore-fingers — so accepted it without reserve, and I led her up to the door of the remise.
 
136 THE ELEMENTS OF LITERARY COMPOSITION
ILL EMPHASIS
151.	In like manner the principle of emphasis in artistic composition implies a subordination not merely, nor necessarily, logical. With this modification, how¬ever, the rules read for the one almost as for the other. A part must have space proportional to its significance, to the directness of its bearing in this sense on the main point (§§ 8-10), which in narrative is the issue, the event. In detail, too, the rules of climax (§§ 40, 41), of suspense (§ 37), of the prominence given by a pause to what follows (§§ 44, 140), are as good for the one kind as for the other. The single aspect that needs exten¬sion is variety, which has heretofore been considered only in its application to single paragraphs (§ 27). More largely applied, as to the order and relation of incidents, the principle of variety is not so much an exception to the principle of unity as an instance of that kind of emphasis which is seen most simply in the rule of contrast, more widely in the pleasure of surprise in stories and the relief of comic scenes in tragedy. Be¬sides the force arising from strict subordination to one end, there is also a force arising from a just estimate of flux and reflux in our impressions, of the reaction that follows action. Unity and emphasis say, Never lose the key ; variety says, Provide the relief of inci¬dental change without letting the change be more than incidental.
152.	These counsels of art have a value even for those who, without assurance of talent, practise artistic com-position to the end of bettering their appreciation. No one understands quite so fully the beauty of picture or story as he that has worked, faithfully if feebly, with
 
EMPHASIS 137
his own brush or pen. It is not simply the craft of details that thus emerges from the study to express one¬self, but, what is far more important, a sense of artistic structure, of adjustment, relations, proportion. Besides, almost every man of open mind has occasions beyond mere academic practice for expressing himself. Life would be richer if people extended and applied their education by informing their letters and conversation with their own personalities. That letters and conversa¬tion are commonly trite and colourless arises not so much from lack of personality as from indolence. The expression of oneself is the result oftener of persever¬ance than of effortless spontaneity ; and something, at least, of this, the degree varying all the way from a sincere letter to a great novel, every one may learn. Thus the study of artistic composition, though it con¬tributes little to the business of life, has for the average man in college a twofold value : it widens and deepens his criticism, and it opens some expression of his per¬sonality. In this aspect it is good for artisans as well as for artists.