The Making of Arguments

stir one part of your audience in one way, and the other part in just the opposite way, you are dealing with an uncomfortable kind of ambiguity. It is easy to get into the way of thinking that the denotation of a word—the things which it names—is the only part of its meaning that counts; but with many words the connotation—I use the word in the rhetorical rather than in the logical sense, to include its implications, associations, and general emotional coloring—has more effect on human nature. There is a good deal of difference between telling a man that his assertion is "incorrect," "untrue," or "false"; if you use the last and he is at all choleric you may bring on an explosion. In argument, where you are aiming to persuade as well as to convince, the question of the feelings of your audience and how they will be affected by the terms you use is obviously of great importance. And if you are using such terms as "gentleman," "political honesty," "socialist," "coeducation," you must not forget that such words have a definite emotional connotation, which will vary largely with the reader. 47. Begging the Question. The fallacy of "begging the question" consists of assuming as true something that the other side would not admit. It is especially insidious in the condensed arguments of which I spoke a few pages back. A common form of the fallacy consists of slipping in an epithet which quietly takes for granted one's own view of the question, or of using some expression that assumes one's own view as correct. For example, in an argument for a change in a city government, to declare that all intelligent citizens favor it would be begging the question. In an argument for the protection of crows, to begin, "Few people know how many of these useful birds are killed each year," would be to beg the question, since the argument turns on whether crows are useful or not. A gross and uncivil form of this fallacy is to use opprobrious epithets in describing persons who take the other view, as in the following sentence from an article in a magazine on the question of examinations for entrance to college: As for interest and variety, what could destroy and taboo both more effectually than the rigid and rigorous demands of a formal set of examinations prepared, as a rule, by pedantic specialists who know practically nothing of the fundamental problems and needs of the high school. Begging the question is often committed in the course of defining terms, as in the following passage from Cardinal Newman's "Idea of a University": It is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to erect so-called Universities, without making any provision in them at all for Theological chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here [Ireland] and in England. Such a procedure, though defended by writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument and not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity; and my reason For saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form of a syllogism:—A University, I should lay down, by its very name professes to teach universal knowledge; Theology is surely a branch of knowledge; how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them? I do not see that either premise of this argument is open to exception.51 The obvious answer is that "university" is a vague term and that there may be many kinds of universities, as indeed there are in this country; moreover, the importance of theology is an arguable matter even among church members. A well-recognized, but often subtle, form of begging the question is what is known as "arguing in a circle." Usually the fallacy is so wrapped up in verbiage that it is hard to pick out. Here is a clear and well-put detection of a case of it: There is an argument in favor of child labor so un-American and so inhuman that I am almost ashamed to quote it, and yet it has been used, and I fear it is secretly in the minds of some who would not openly stand for it. A manufacturer standing near the furnace of a glasshouse and pointing to a procession of young Slav boys who were carrying the glass on trays, remarked, "Look at their faces, and you will see that it is idle to take them from the glasshouse in order to give them an education: they are what they are, and will always remain what they are." He meant that there are some human beings—and these Slavs of the number—who are mentally irredeemable, so fast asleep intellectually that they cannot be awakened; designed by nature, therefore, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. This cruel and wicked thing was said of Slavs; it is the same thing which has been said from time immemorial by the slave owners of their slaves. First they degrade human beings by denying them the opportunity to develop their better nature: no schools, no teaching, no freedom, no outlook; and then, as if in mockery, they point to the degraded condition of their victims as a reason why they should never be allowed to escape from it.52 In a diffuse and disorderly argument there is always a chance to find some begging of the question which may consist either of getting back to an assumption of the original proposition and so arguing in a circle, or of simply assuming that what has been asserted has been proved. The fallacy of the invented example, in which a fictitious case is described as an illustration, and presently assumed as a real case, is a not uncommon form of begging the question. 48. Ignoring the Question. This is a closely allied error in reasoning that is apt to be due to the same kind of confused and woolly thinking. It consists in slipping away from the question in debate and arguing vigorously at something else. A famous exposure of the fallacy is Macaulay's denunciation of the arguments in favor of Charles I: The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony as to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood! We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.53 In an argument for woman suffrage on the ground that suffrage is a right which ought not to be denied, it would be ignoring the question merely to enumerate the various ways in which the responsibility of a vote might help to better the condition of women. To ignore the question by trying to lead the public off on a false scent is a constant device of officials who are accused of misconduct. A United States senator whose election had been questioned gave in his defense a full and harrowing account of the struggles of his boyhood. A board of assessors who had been charged with incompetence ended their defense, in which they had taken no notice of the charges, as follows: Criticism of the Board of Assessors comes with poor grace from those whose endeavors for the common good are confined to academic essays on good government. It savors too much of the adroit pickpocket, who, finding himself hard pressed, joins in the chase, shouting as lustily as any of the unthinking rabble, "Stop, thief!" The curious thing is that this trick of crossing the scent does lead so many people off the trail. The so-called argumentum ad hominem and the argumentum ad populum are special cases of ignoring the question: they consist of appeals to the feelings or special interests of the reader or the audience which run away from the question at issue. They are not uncommon in stump speeches, and in other arguments whose chief purpose is to arouse enthusiasm. An argument on the tariff, for example, sometimes runs off into appeals to save this grand country from ruin or from the trusts or from some other fate which the speaker pictures as hanging over an innocent and plain people. An argument for the restoration of the classical system of education which should run off into eulogies of the good old times might easily become an argumentum ad populum; an argument in favor of a new park which should dwell on selfish advantages which might be gained by the abutters without regard to larger municipal policy would probably be an argumentum ad hominem. Obviously these two forms of shifting the issue trench closely on the element of persuasion in an argument, and in making the distinction you must apply common sense. Your adversary may reprove you for an argumentum ad hominem or ad populum, when you believe that you are keeping well within the bounds of legitimate persuasion; but in general it is safe to guard your self-respect by drawing a broad line between dodging and unworthy appeals to prejudice and justifiable appeals to feeling and personal interest. EXERCISES 1. Name a question of policy which would be settled by the establishment of some controverted fact. 2. Find in the daily papers an account of a trial in which evidence was declared inadmissible under the rules of law which would have been taken into account by the average man outside the court in making up his own mind. 3. Name three questions in which the evidence would be affected by temperamental and other prepossessions of the witness. 4. Name a scientific question in which some important fact is established by reasoning from other facts. 5. Cite a case, either from real life or from fiction, in which a fact was established by circumstantial evidence; analyze the evidence and show how it rests on reasoning from similarity. 6. Give a case in which what you believed to be direct observation of a fact deceived you. 7. Give an example from your own experience within a week where vague authorities have been cited as direct evidence. 8. What would you think of the writer of the following sentences as a witness to the numbers and importance of the participants in the woman suffrage procession he is reporting? Fifth Avenue has seldom, if ever, been more crowded than on Saturday afternoon, and never anywhere have I seen so many women among the spectators of a passing pageant. Throngs, many tiers deep, flanked the line of march, and these throngs were overwhelmingly composed of women. As I passed from block to block I could not get away from the