The Making of Arguments

THE ARGUMENT WRITTEN OUT 49. The Brief and the Argument. If your brief is thoroughly worked out, and based on a careful canvass of the evidence, the work on your argument ought to be at least two thirds over. The last third, however, is not to be slighted, for on it will largely depend your practical results in moving your readers. Even a legal argument rarely goes to the court on a written brief alone; and the average reader will never put himself to the effort of reading through and grasping such a brief as we have been planning here. Furthermore, if your complete argument is merely a copying out of the brief into consecutive sentences and paragraphs, you will get few readers. The making of the brief merely completes what may be called the architectural part of your labors; the writing of an argument will use all the skill you have in the choice of words and putting them together. We saw in Chapter I that argument has two kinds of appeal to its reader: on the one hand, through its power of convincing it appeals to his reason; on the other, through its persuasive power it appeals to his feelings and his moral and practical interests. Of these two kinds of appeal the convincing power is largely determined by the thoroughness of the analysis and the efficiency of the arrangement, and therefore in large part hangs on the work done in making the brief; the persuasive power, on the other hand, though in part dependent on the line of attack laid out in the brief and the choice of points to argue, is far more dependent on the filling in of the argument in the finished form. Even the severest scientific argument, however, is much more than the bare summary of the line of thought which would be found in a brief; and in an argument like the speeches in most political campaigns a brief of the thought would leave out most of the argument. Wherever you have to stir men up to do things you have only begun when you have convinced their reason. 50. The Introduction of the Argument. Much depends on the first part of your argument, the introduction. Its length varies greatly, and it may differ largely in other ways from the introduction to your brief. If the people you are trying to convince are familiar with the subject, you will need little introduction; a brief but clear statement of fundamentals will serve the purpose. For such an audience it is chiefly important to make the issues stand out, so that they shall see perfectly distinctly the exact points on which the question turns. Then the sooner you are at work on the business of convincing them, the better. In such arguments the introduction will perhaps not differ greatly in substance from the introduction to the brief, though it must be reduced to consecutive and agreeable form. At the other extreme is such an argument as that of Huxley's (p. 233), where he had to prepare the way very carefully lest the prejudice against a revolutionary and unfamiliar view of the animate world should close the minds of his hearers against him before he was really started. Accordingly, before getting through with his introduction he expounded not only the three hypotheses between which the choice must be made, but also the law of the uniformity of nature and the principles and nature of circumstantial evidence. Where one shall stop between these two extremes is a question to be decided in the individual argument. One thing, however, it is almost always wise to do; indeed, one would not go far wrong in prescribing it as a general rule: that is, to state with almost bald explicitness just how many main issues there are, and what they are. In writing an argument it is always safe to assume that most of your readers will be careless readers. Few people have the gift of reading closely and accurately, and of carrying what they have read with any distinctness. Therefore make it easy for your readers to pick up and to carry your points. If you tell them that you are going to make three points or five, they are much more likely to remember those three or five points than if they have to pick them out for themselves as they go along. Huxley, perhaps the ablest writer of scientific argument in the language, constantly practiced this device. In his great argument on evolution, he says (see p. 235): "So far as I know, there are only three hypotheses which ever have been entertained, or which well can be entertained, respecting the past history of nature"; and then, as will be seen, he takes up each in turn, with the numbering "first," "second," and "third." In the same way in his essay "The Physical Basis of Life" he says, not far from the beginning, "I propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these apparent difficulties, a threefold unity—namely, a unity of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition—does pervade the whole living world." Burke, in his great speech "On Conciliation with America," said, "The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are two: first, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be." It is hardly too much to say that those writers whose sense of style is most developed are most likely to state the issues with the baldest and most direct precision. The statement of the issues will bring out the importance of closely limiting the number of main issues. There are few subjects of argument which do not conceivably touch the interests and beliefs of their audiences in many directions; but out of these aspects some obviously count far more than others. If in your introduction you try to state all these issues, small and great, you will surely leave confusion behind you. Very few people are capable of carrying more than three or four issues distinctly enough to affect their judgment of the whole case; and even of these some will not take the trouble to do so. If you can simmer down the case to one or two or three critical points, you are making a good start toward winning over the minds of your readers. A good statement of the history of the case is apt to be a useful and valuable part of an introduction, especially for arguments dealing with public policies. If you remind readers of what the facts have been, you can more easily make clear to them the present situation from which you make your start. An argument for raising or lowering the tariff on some article would be apt to recount the history of the tariff so far as it concerned that article, and the progress in importing it and manufacturing it within the country. In writing out the argument from the brief on page 90 one would almost inevitably include the recent history of the city government. In general it is best to make this preliminary statement of the history of the case scrupulously and explicitly impartial. An audience is likely to resent any appearance of twisting the facts to suit the case; and if on their face they bear against your contentions, it is wiser to prepare for your argument in some other way. There are more ways of beginning an argument than by a statement of facts; and resource in the presentation of a case goes a long way toward winning it. It is often wise to state your definitions with care, especially of terms which are at the bottom of your whole case. The definition from Bagchot on page 58 is a good example. Here is the beginning of an address by President Eliot, in 1896, on "A Wider Range of Electives in College Admission Requirements": As usual, it is necessary to define the subject a little. "A wider range of electives in college admission requirements." What field are we thinking of when we state this subject? If we mean the United States, the range of electives is already very large. Take, for example, the requirements for admission to the Leland Stanford University. Twenty subjects are named, of very different character and extent, and the candidate may present any ten out of the twenty. Botany counts just as much as Latin. There is a wide range of options at admission to the University of Michigan, with its numerous courses leading to numerous degrees; that is, there is a wide range of subjects permissible to a candidate who is thinking of presenting himself for some one of its many degrees. If we look nearer home, we find in so conservative an institution as Dartmouth College that there are three different degrees offered, with three different assortments of admission requirements, and three different courses within the college. I noticed that at the last commencement there were forty-one degrees of the old-fashioned sort and twenty-seven degrees of the newer sorts given by Dartmouth College. Here in Harvard we have had for many years a considerable range of electives in the admission examinations, particularly in what we call the advanced requirements. We therefore need to limit our subject a little by saying that we are thinking of a wider range of admission electives in the Eastern and Middle State colleges, the range of electives farther west being already large in many cases.54 Professor William James, in his essay "The Will to Believe," in which he argues that it is both right and unavoidable that our feelings shall take part in the making of our faiths, begins with a careful definition and illustration of certain terms he is going to use constantly. Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an option. Options may be of several kinds. They may be (1) living or dead; (2) forced or avoidable; (3) momentous or trivial; and for our purposes we may call an option a genuine option when it is of the forced, living, and momentous kind. 1. A living option is one in which both hypotheses are live ones. If I say to you, "Be a theosophist or be a Mohammedan," it is probably a dead option, because for you neither hypothesis is likely to be alive. But if I say, "Be an agnostic or be a Christian," it is otherwise: trained as you are, each hypothesis makes some appeal, however small, to your belief. 2. Next, if I say to you, "Choose between going out with your umbrella or without it," I do not offer you a genuine option, for it is not forced. You can easily avoid it by not going out at all. Similarly, if I say: "Either love me or hate me," "Either call my theory true or call it false," your option is avoidable. You may remain indifferent to me, neither loving nor hating, and you may decline to offer any judgment as to my theory. But if I say, "Either accept this truth or go without it," I put you on a forced option, for there is no standing place outside of the alternative. Every dilemma based on a complete logical disjunction, with no possibility of not choosing, is an option of this forced kind. 3. Finally, if I were Dr. Nansen and proposed to you to join my North Pole expedition, your option would be momentous; for this would probably be your only similar opportunity, and your choice now would either exclude you from the North Pole sort of immortality altogether or put at least the chance of it into your hands. He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed. Per contra the option is trivial when the opportunity is not unique, when the stake is insignificant, or when the decision is reversible if it later prove unwise. Such trivial options abound in the scientific life. A