Talks on Writing English

First: Men who make war a trade are likely to betray a country.

Men likely to betray are a danger.

Hence, men who make war a trade are a danger.

Second: Men in standing army become identified with the country.

Men identified with the country less likely to betray.

Hence, men in standing army less likely to betray.

Third: Whatever most decreases chance of betrayal is best.

To form standing army most decreases the chance of betrayal.

Hence, to form standing army is best, or least dangerous.

This illustrates how intricately interwoven is Argument with other forms of composition, and how easily one may overlook the fact that he is reading or writing it.

Formally speaking, the difference between Exposition and Argument is the difference between peace and war. One is a hidden and the other an avowed struggle. In Exposition the writer declares; in Argument he defends. In the former there is no necessary endeavor to convince. The writer concerns himself with setting forth facts, views, or theories; he nominally deals with statement pure and simple. In the latter he attempts to enforce assent to his proposition; to convince is his declared and primary object. Exposition is the teacher; Argument, the soldier.

The danger of Argument is that of all contest. To make an effort to effect a given thing, to endeavor to enforce a view, is of course to expose one’s self to the chance of arousing opposition. It is to invite attack, and to run the risk of defeat. For this reason it is necessary to use not a little shrewdness in deciding whether it is best to put what one has to say into the form of declared argument. Often it is wiser to endeavor to produce an exposition so clear that it shall carry with it the conclusion which the writer desires to establish. It is at least safe to assert that in writings meant to convince, the more fully the appearance of not arguing can be maintained the more satisfactory will be the effect. The reader will certainly go as far as he can be made to suppose himself and not the author to be drawing conclusions. Most editorial argumentative writing, and especially that which deals with political questions, is almost of necessity disguised in a semblance as close to Exposition as possible. Where passion is aroused, prejudices excited, and the mind of the reader armed against attempts to convince, whatever is done must be done in a way calculated to soothe rather than to excite.

When Argument avowed and formal is attempted, no pains should be spared to make it irresistible. Reasoning which does not succeed is the strongest presumption against the proposition it seeks to defend. Indeed, logic which fails seems almost to establish the truth of the opposite proposition. “He that taketh the sword shall fall by the sword,” and he who advances an argument must either prevail by it or fall altogether. The proposition which before it is argued is viewed at worst with indifference is discredited and disbelieved when once an attempt to establish its credibility has been made and has failed.

The strength of an argument lies in that quality which is called logical accuracy. To cover the whole subject of reasoning minutely it would be necessary to go over the entire field of formal logic; but here we must content ourselves with considering points which are essential and which pretty fairly cover the needs of argumentative composition in a literary sense.

Before beginning a chain of reasoning it is wise to fix what is named the burden of proof. In other words it is well to decide how much one is called upon to prove. It is important to know whether the presumption lies for or against the proposition at issue, to be clear what may be assumed. In many cases this has no especial practical bearing, but it is well to be sure where one stands. It is always easier to defend than to attack, and in so far as a writer can put from him the burden of proof, in so far he has rendered his task lighter. The received theory and the existing state of things have in their favor a presumption which may be advanced by him who argues in their favor and which must always be done away with by him who reasons against them. The writer who attacks civilization, for instance, who decries the existing religion or the value of literature, has upon him the burden of proof; while he who defends them has the advantage of an affirmative assumption. The former is called upon to produce arguments to prove his claim; the latter need do no more than to refute the reasoning of his opponent. On the one hand it is a question of attack; while on the other it is a matter of defense.

The first thing in establishing a line of argument is to define clearly the proposition to be proved. Nothing further can be done until the writer has made the question at issue clear beyond all possibility of mistake. It is necessary to force one’s own mind to an understanding so sharp and exact that confusion is impossible. The most common failing of mankind is mental ambiguity; and nothing is more frequent than for writers to be entirely mistaken in what they suppose themselves to mean. The whole so-called Socratic method of reasoning – the most teasingly irritating form of logic ever devised; the Spanish-fly form of conviction – consists chiefly in badgering an opponent into a realization of the fact that he does not know what he is talking about; that he is entirely wrong in his notion of his own meaning. The philosopher who in these less patient days should devote himself to questioning so vexing as that with which Socrates is said to have roasted opponents in his time would run imminent risk of a broken head; but the class of illogical arguers against whom he contended is with us to this day.

Once the proposition is clear in the mind, it is necessary to find means to convey it to the understanding of others; to convey it, be it remembered, so that it shall arrive with meaning and sharpness of outline unimpaired. It is the old question of Clearness. An idea which leaves one mind with all the beauty and symmetry of a snow-crystal often gets to another mind as a mere formless drop of snow-water. To the end that the proposition come to the reader with the identity and form uninjured, it is often needful to declare at the outset the sense in which are used the words, terms, and phrases which follow. The only sure way of dealing with a doubtful case is to say plainly: “When such a word is introduced, it means exactly this.” In close writing such defining is almost always essential to the success of the work. You may remember, as an illustration, how Ruskin defines his terms at the beginning of “Modern Painters.” In this way only is it possible to avoid the pitfalls which the varied meanings of the language spread for the foot of the unwary. Some of the many possible errors are dangerous, some easily detected. No one, for instance, need be fooled by a fallacy like the following: —

An artist is an interpreter of the beautiful.

Mr. Rothschild’s chef is an artist.

Hence, Mr. Rothschild’s chef is an interpreter of the beautiful.

There may be those whose respect for gastronomy is so high that they would not shrink from this conclusion, but taking the argument as it stands, it is evident that the word “artist” is used in a double sense. In the first assertion it signifies one who labors in what we call the fine arts; one gifted with that incommunicable power of which we spoke at the beginning of these talks. In the second assertion, the word “artist” signifies one clever and skillful in the practice of his profession.

To take a more serious illustration, the much mooted question whether Walt Whitman is or is not a poet can be argued only after an agreement upon the sense in which “poet” is to be understood. If “poet” means one who writes verse in metrical forms, the proposition cannot be even discussed, because the fact that Whitman did not write formal metrical verse is admitted by everybody. If, on the other hand, the term “poet” be extended to include writers of imaginative and dithyrambic prose, a discussion becomes almost inevitable. Most of the magazine essays which nominally deal with the question stated are really occupied chiefly with the inquiry, “What sense shall we give to the term ‘poet’?”

It is true that the ordinary reader will often fail to make a distinction of this sort. If he be told that the point at issue is Whitman’s poetic standing, he will generally accept the statement, however widely the discussion may depart from the proposition. It might seem to follow that it is of little consequence whether a writer is logical or not; but it is always to be remembered that the fact that a reader does not know by what means he is impressed does not necessarily weaken the impression. Indeed, it is probably true that those who are least aware of the processes of literature are often those most vividly affected by them. The writer who has command of literary forms, who understands clearly what he desires to do and how it is best done, will reach and control the mind of the reader, and need not be disturbed by the fact that the latter does not in the least appreciate the art which has seized and which holds him.

It is of the highest importance to keep in mind when defining propositions or terms that the basis of all discussion must be mutually accepted by writer and reader. Until a starting-point where these two are in accord is found, it is manifestly idle to attempt to draw inferences. The writer who argues with the view of convincing the general public is forced to take as premises truth universally allowed, and facts generally known or which can be supported by easily convincing evidence. He is at the outset met with the difficulty that words are seldom free from ambiguity, and that fact and fiction are as inextricably intertangled as are the rootlets of two trees growing side by side. The nicest judgment must be used in determining how far any statement is admittedly true; not, be it noted, how far it is true, but how far common consent admits its verity. The premise of any argument addressed to the general reader can go no farther than general conviction goes. Even here a writer is often hampered by the fact that the sense of ambiguity is apt to cling to any question concerning which there has been dispute. This is especially true of subjects about which there has been extensive controversy. It is admitted by everybody, for instance, that there are things in Scripture which are not to be accepted with absolute literalness; yet to assume this in argument is almost inevitably to arouse suspicion if not opposition. No matter how carefully the writer endeavors to keep within bounds of common belief, the uncertainty and the doubt which belong to the proposition in its extreme are apt to interfere with its being given even the weight which it may deserve when carefully guarded.

The best guides here are two: that homely, domestic angel of the mind which we call common sense, and the sincere desire to arrive at and to establish the truth, as distinguished from eagerness to win in argument. If a writer can divest himself of a wish to prevail even if wrongfully, he has increased tenfold his chance of winning rightly. If he can bring his mind to the attitude of simple, unsophisticated truth-seeking, without affectation and without vanity, he is in the best possible condition for arguing successfully. Enthusiasm tells in this as in any other form of composition; but Argument is primarily an appeal to the intellect, and since the reason of the reader is aroused to meet the logic advanced, the writer has need of all his coolness and self-control in devising and arranging his arguments.

The choice of the line of proof which is to be employed is one of the most delicate matters connected with this form of composition. If one undertakes to convince, it is evident that no means which may secure conviction should be slighted; and it is of importance to select the train of reasoning along which the mind of the reader will move with the least opposition. Here advice cannot avail much. The student must depend upon care, good judgment, and practice, with the study and analysis of the masterpieces of reasoning. The choice of methods in arguing is the selection of the order of battle; on it depends much of the success alike of attack and of defense.

The sense of the proposition, the meaning of the terms, and the line of argument having been determined, they must be held to firmly to the end. No defect in disputation is more common than that of shifting ground. Sometimes, especially in debate, this is deliberate. A clever dialectician, one who is able deftly to twist words to varied uses and to turn phrases about, has little difficulty, if he finds himself cornered, in altering his position completely. He easily confuses the terms so that the point at issue is changed. He raises a cloud of phrases under cover of which his attack is shifted to another quarter, as a line of battle is sometimes altered behind a cloud of smoke. This is less often possible in written conflict than in oral, yet there it may sometimes be done. It is at best, however, merely a temporization. What is set down in “the cold permanence of print” may be examined until its inaccuracies are brought to light. The swiftness of speech and the glamour of personal persuasiveness will cover fallacies which could avail nothing if put upon paper. Any change of position, moreover, is a confession of weakness; and once it is observed, the effect of the entire chain of reasoning is weakened, if not destroyed altogether.

A change of base in argument is the result of deliberate intention less often than of mental confusion. Few of us realize how seldom we think clearly; how much more rarely we think clearly and consecutively; and how most rare it is that we think clearly, consecutively, and logically. Much training is required to bring the mind to the power of holding fast to a single issue in discussion, of persisting in a single line of proof, of resisting all temptations to turn to side issues.

Nor is this solely from a lack of intellectual power; it is in part due to an instinctive desire to escape unwelcome results. One of the surest indications of a firm and well-disciplined mind is that it does not shrink from its own conclusions. The natural, human tendency is to escape from a distasteful result of investigation or reasoning by assuming that the process must be wrong because the decision arrived at is unpleasant. Yet to dislike a proposition is not to disprove it. To protest against the fact established by sound logic no more destroys it than the wail of a child brings down from heaven the round yellow moon for which he cries. All intellectual growth and all character stand upon the willingness of the mind to accept and to act upon the conclusions at which it arrives by the exercise of its best reasoning powers. It is much to be able to think; it is more to dare to think; but it is most of all to be able to accept without shrinking or evasion the results of thought, whether one’s own or others’.

XIII

ARGUMENTATIVE FORM

It is proper and perhaps even important that the student shall learn the distinction which is made by logicians between reasoning which is inductive and that which is deductive. As a matter of practical work in the writing of arguments, the distinction is of less importance than might seem from the formality with which these terms are treated; but as Induction and Deduction are words which the true logician cannot mention without at least a seeming impulse to cross himself, it is well to know what the difference is.

Induction, then, is reasoning from the particular to the general; the establishment of an hypothesis by showing that the facts agree with it. It is preëminently the scientific method. By observing natural phenomena, the scientist conceives what the law which governs them must be. This idea of the general principle is then the hypothesis which he attempts to prove; and his method is to examine the facts under all conditions possible, establishing his proposition by showing that the facts are in accord with it.

Deduction is the converse of this, and consists in drawing out particular truths from general ones. A universal proposition may be regarded as a bundle in which are bound together many individual ones. It is the work of deduction to take these out, – to separate any one of them from the rest. The general truth, “All metals are elements,” includes in it the especial truths, “Iron is an element,” “Gold is an element,” and so on for each metal which could be named. Deduction is the process of separating one of these from the whole. Speaking broadly, scientific reasoning is more likely to be inductive, while other reasoning is more likely to be deductive.

As a matter of practical composition, Argument is the statement of a proposition, and the arrangement of the proofs which the writer believes will establish its truth. The essential matter is to begin with some truth or fact generally acknowledged, and to lead the mind of the reader on by deductions which cannot be disputed, until the proposition to be proved is reached as an unassailable conclusion.

This process may be very simple, or extremely complex; the steps may be slight, or they may be, like the platforms of the pyramids, barely scalable. In discussing methods, it is necessary to use some technical expressions which it is well to define: —

A Term is a word or combination of words used to name some thing or idea in reasoning.

A Proposition is a statement of the relation between two terms.

If we say, “The man is a patriot,” we have a sentence in which is a statement of the relation between the thing “man” and the thing “patriot.” This is therefore a proposition. Here the terms are “man” and “patriot,” because these are the names of the things of which we speak in reasoning.

We might now make another proposition, this time general, and say, “A patriot is a valuable citizen.” Here the terms are “patriot” and “valuable citizen,” and the proposition asserts a relation between them.

If these two propositions are examined, they are found to have in common the term “patriot,” and it is seen to be possible to draw from them another proposition. If the man of whom mention is made is a patriot, and a patriot is a valuable citizen, it is evident enough that the man must be a valuable citizen. It is merely an application of the principle that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. And this brings us to a third definition: —

A Syllogism is a group of three propositions, of which, if the first two are true, the third must follow as a deduction from them.

A complete syllogism has just been given: The man is a patriot; a patriot is a valuable citizen; hence the man is a valuable citizen.

It is possible to draw a third proposition only from two that have one term in common. It follows that there are three terms in a syllogism, – the first and second propositions having one term alike, and each having a particular term which reappears in the third proposition. This third proposition is that which the endeavor is made to prove. To establish a proposition by syllogism, then, it is necessary to find two others which contain each one of its terms, and which have a term in common. It is necessary to add that not from every pair of propositions which contain a common term is it possible to draw a third, and thus to form a syllogism. If we say, “A rose is a flower,” “A lily is a flower,” we have two propositions which have a common term, yet we cannot go on to make the third proposition, “Hence a rose is a lily.” The term which is common to both propositions must in one of them be spoken of as a whole, or in a general way. Logicians say that it must be “distributed;” in other words, one assertion must cover the term in its entire extent. In the first syllogism which we examined, the common – it is usually called the “middle” – term is in the second proposition spoken of in a general way. “A patriot is a valuable citizen” is an assertion of all patriots. In the false syllogism, “A rose is a flower; a lily is a flower,” there is nothing said of all flowers, and yet “flower” is the middle term. The rose is one flower, the lily is one flower, but until there is something said of all flowers it is not possible to draw out a new conclusion, – to form a syllogism.

He who wishes to exercise his wits with pretty mental gymnastics may learn from books on logic that there are a great many varieties of syllogisms. There are twenty-four valid ones, and a crowd of poor relatives, which exist under the discrediting title, “imperfect syllogisms,” and which, paradoxically, are of no use until they have been “reduced.” When it is added that each has a fine Latin name, the reader may appreciate that he is here being spared a good deal.

Although it is not possible to take space for a very intricate example of the skeleton of an argument, it is hardly fair to give nothing more complex than a simple syllogism; and the following may assist the formation of a more clear conception of the form in which reasoning should be put. Suppose the proposition which is to be proved to be, “The Norsemen discovered America before Columbus.”

Taking a few of the more obvious arguments which might be advanced in support of this proposition, and arranging them so as to begin with the more generally allowed and easily proved, we have:

1. The frequent appearance in European literature before Columbus of allusions to a land across the sea.

2. The story in the Icelandic Sagas.

3. Norse remains in America.

These proofs will be sufficient for purposes of illustration. Let us examine them in detail a little. Under each of these proofs – which it is convenient to call subordinate propositions – lies a syllogism, whether it is fully stated or not. The writer must be entirely clear in his own mind what this is, whether it seem to him well to state it explicitly or not. Here the syllogism of the first subordinate proposition, briefly stated, is: —

Allusions to a land over sea prove knowledge of such a land.

In pre-Columbian literature are allusions to land over sea.

Hence there must have been knowledge of such a land.

This brings us face to face with the necessity of supporting premises with facts. To support the first sub-proposition there must be citations from pre-Columbian literature. This is a mere matter of research. One reason for putting this especial proof first is that in supporting it it is possible to begin with facts which cannot be questioned. It is true that the very next step will bring us upon doubtful territory, but we start from firm ground. The moment that the passages are quoted, the possibility occurs to the mind that they may be taken to refer to lands then known, or as the expression of mythical fancies. These objections must be met. An argument can no more pass an unanswered objection than a locomotive can cross a bridge from which a span is missing. Reasons must here be given for connecting with the New World the passages cited. It will be no less important to show the reasons for supposing that the information which the ancient writers possessed of the New World came from the Norsemen. The rest may all be allowed, and yet be held to have no bearing on the thing to be proved, so that this link in the chain must be made strong and evident.

This last point illustrates the sort of questions which are likely to arise in regard to arrangement. Is it well to introduce here the proofs that this knowledge of another continent came from the Norse, or would it be better to wait until the Icelandic Sagas have been spoken of? In the latter case, the parts of the argument may be more closely bound together, and it gives an air of fairness to the whole when the writer is willing to go back a good way in his argument to take up possible objections and answer them. Against this is to be balanced the possibility that the reader may be put into a suspicious state of mind by finding that a doubtful point is passed over, and so be less easily convinced than he otherwise might be. The writer of an argument must consider these things, and upon the good judgment with which he settles such questions much of his success depends.

In this first sub-proposition there is no need of stating formally the syllogism involved, since, if the first or major premise is successfully defended, the rest follows obviously. As a matter of practical arrangement, then, the sub-proposition and its defense might stand in this order: —