The Making of Arguments

and following out the implications or consequences of one or more of the parts.24 For example, if I infer, when my dog comes out of a barnyard with an apologetic air, and with blood and feathers on his mouth, that he has been killing a hen, I am breaking up the whole phenomenon of the dog's appearance, and paying attention only to the blood and feathers on his head; and these lead me directly to similar appearances when I have caught him in the act. If I reason, Every student who can concentrate his attention can learn quickly, George Marston has a notable power of concentration, Therefore George Marston can learn quickly, I again break up the abstraction student, and the concrete fact George Marston, and pay attention in each to the single characteristic, concentration of attention. Thus by means of these similar parts of different wholes I pass from the assertion concerning the class as a whole to the assertion concerning the concrete case. This process first of analysis and then of abstraction of similars is the essential part of every act of reasoning. In intuitive or unreasoned judgment, on the other hand, we jump to the conclusion without analyzing the intermediate steps. If I say, I have a feeling in my bones that it will rain to-morrow, or, it is borne in on me that our team will win, the sensations and ideas that I thus lump together are too subtle and too complex for analysis, and the conclusion, though it may prove sound, is not arrived at by reasoning. The difference between such intuitive and unreasoned judgments, and reasoning properly so called, lies in the absence or the presence of the intermediate step by which we consciously recognize and choose out some single attribute or characteristic of the fact or facts we are considering, and pass from that to other cases in which it occurs. The skill of the reasoner therefore consists of two parts: first, the sagacity to pick out of the complex fact before him, the attribute or characteristic which is significant for his present purpose; and second, the large knowledge of the subject which will enable him to follow it into other cases in which it occurs with different circumstances, or, in other words, to follow a similarity through diverse cases. Darwin's great achievement in establishing the principle of evolution lay first in the scientific sagacity which flashed home on him, after years of patient study, that the one common fact in all the multitude of plants and animals is that in the struggle for existence by which all living beings persist, those who are best fitted to their circumstances survive; and second, in his rich knowledge of the world of nature, which made it possible for him to follow out this characteristic in all kinds of plants and animals, and so to reach the general law. But whether it be so world-sweeping a conclusion as his, or my conclusion that my dog has killed a hen, the process is the same: analysis or breaking up of the complex fact, and following out the consequences or implications of some selected part of it into other cases. All reasoning thus reduces itself in the end to a process of passing from like to like: we notice that the present case is like other cases which we already know: then, since these cases have always in the past been accompanied by certain circumstances or consequences, we believe that the present case will also show these same circumstances or consequences. Whenever my dog has killed when the cases have been similar in the blood and feathers on his mouth; in this case he has blood and feathers on his mouth; therefore he must have killed a hen. Individual plants and animals survive which are fitted to their environment by special characteristics, and those which are not so fitted die; species of plants and animals, as well as individuals, show special adaptation to their environment; therefore species have survived through the same process of natural selection. It follows that reasoning, whether it results in a general law or in concrete judgment, depends on the assumption that nature—and in nature we mean here the whole universe as we know it is uniform; that there are ties between facts which make it possible for us to be certain that if a given fact occurs, then another fact always occurs with it as an effect, or as a cause, or connected with it in some other manner. Without this certainty of the uniformity of things there would be no reasoning, and therefore no argument from indirect evidence. Huxley sets forth this fundamental truth clearly and impressively at the beginning of the first of his "Lectures on Evolution" (see p. 234). For practical purposes the various types of this inference from similarity can be conveniently thrown into three groups. As will be obvious, there is no fixed and impassable line between them. "If an inference relies upon a resemblance that is newly seen, rare, or doubtful, it is called an inference from analogy; if it is made upon the basis of an established classification, it is called a generalization; if it involves a variety of resemblances so combined as to bear upon a single point, it is usually or frequently called an inference from circumstantial evidence."25 I will take up each of these types and show how we use them in the practical work of argument. It will be seen that they vary greatly in certainty of results. 34. Reasoning from Analogy. Analogy in its most tenuous form is weak as a basis for an actual inference, though it is often effective as a means of expressing an intuitive judgment where the reasons are too subtle and diffused for formal explanation. When Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War said that men do not swap horses while they are crossing a stream, the analog, though subtle, was felt to be real. Popular adages and proverbs are common modes of expressing such deep-lying analogies: for example, "Where there is smoke there is fire"; "The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way." Poetry too is full of these subtle, pregnant similarities which link things in some one aspect, but fail for all others. To die; to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die; to sleep;— To sleep? Perchance to dream! Ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffl'd off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. But, as in this case of Hamlet's, poetical analogies will not bear much strain; the aspect in which the similarity holds is usually the only aspect the two cases have in common, and to take poetry as a precise formulation of fact is to sin against both humor and sound reasoning. In daily life we are constantly reasoning by analogy. If you argue that a certain man who has been successful at the head of a railroad will therefore make a good president for a college because that also is a complex institution, or that because self-government has worked well in a certain school it will probably work well in a college, or that because a friend has been cured of sleeplessness by taking a walk just before going to bed therefore everybody who sleeps badly can be cured in the same way,—in all these cases you are reasoning by analogy. In each case it will be noticed you would pass from a similarity which exists in a single case or in a small number of cases to the conclusion. The reasoning is sound, however, only in so far as the similarity bears on the actual purpose in hand: in the first example, if the success of the railroad president arises from the power of understanding men and of philosophic insight into large problems, the reasoning will probably be valid; in the last example, if applied to insomnia due to overwork, it might be bad. In practical affairs it is easy to find examples of reasoning from analogy, especially in arguments of policy. The first trial of city government by commission depended on such reasoning: when Galveston, Texas, was devastated by a storm it was reasoned that in business matters a small body of picked men with absolute powers are most efficient in an emergency, and that since the reconstruction of the city was essentially a matter of business, such a body would best meet the emergency. So the extension of commission government in other states at first followed reasoning by analogy: government by commission worked well in Galveston; it would probably work well in Des Moines. In the same way with the arguments for a parcels post: they proceed from the analogy of the present postal service, which has been successful so far as it goes, and from the success of the parcels post in almost all the countries of Europe. If you were arguing that "Association" (or "soccer") football should be made one of the major sports at your college, you would reason from the analogy of its great popularity with Englishmen all over the world that it would also probably be popular in America. When you use the argument from analogy, however, you must make sure that the similarity between the two cases runs to the point you wish to establish. In the following extract from an argument in favor of commission government for all cities, the author explicitly limits his reasoning from the analogy of Washington to the point of the extension of the system to large cities. If we look for successful governments by commission in this country, it is not difficult to find them in our largest cities. The city of Washington is governed by a small commission, and is acknowledged to be one of our best-governed cities. While this commission originated in an entirely different way from that of the commission form of government, successful administration under its rule is a valid answer to the argument that small commissions are suited only to the administration of small cities.26 Whenever you use this type of reasoning, it is wise thus to limit its bearing. If in an argument in favor of allowing secret societies in a high school you rely on the analogy of college life, take pains to show that the resemblance covers the social life of a school. If you were arguing that your city should establish a municipal gymnasium, and relied on the reasoning from the analogy of a family, in which all the members have a direct interest in the health of the others, show that this interest has practical grounds of welfare, and does not rest wholly on affection. In every case, unless the limits of the analogy are obvious, specify them in order to carry your readers safely with you. 35. False Analogy. A peculiar danger of the argument from analogy is the fallacy which is known as false analogy, or reasoning to a conclusion which the similarity does not support. Arguments in which there are many figures of speech, especially when the style is at all florid, are apt to slop over into this fallacy. To liken education to the unfolding of a flower is all very well, if you do not go on to argue that because the lily of the field neither toils nor spins, therefore a child should do no work in school. It is said that M. Stolypin, the late premier of Russia, once half apologized In the Duma for the slowness of his reforms, saying that he Was like a man shooting with a flintlock musket; to which one of the Liberal members replied that it was not a question of weapons, but of aim, and that if his Excellency was to