xt780g3gxq8d https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt780g3gxq8d/data/mets.xml Baker, George Pierce, 1866-1935. 1905 books b92-170-30117194 English Ginn, : Boston : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. English language Rhetoric. Debates and debating.Huntington, Henry Barrett, 1875- Principles of argumentation / by George Pierce Baker and Henry Barrett Huntington. text Principles of argumentation / by George Pierce Baker and Henry Barrett Huntington. 1905 2002 true xt780g3gxq8d section xt780g3gxq8d

THE PRINCIPLES OF

ARGUMENTATION

(REVISED AND AUGMIENTED)

GEORGE PIERCE BAKER
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

AND

HENRY BARRETT HUNTINGTON
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN BROWN UNIVERSITV

"Using words to convey truth and to arouse
emotion" (Father Damien). -STEVENSON

GINN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW Y itK CHICAGO - LONDON

BY GEORGE PIERCE BAKER

612.3

Tbt a1tbenrcum Sagre
GINN COMPANY . PRO-
PRIETORS . BOSTON U.S.A.

ADAMS SHERMAN HILL
BOYLSTON PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ORATORY
EIEMRITUS IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

AS HE WITHDRAWS FROM ACTIVE PARTICIPATION

IN WORK WHICH IS MAINLY HIS CREATION

TWO FORMER PUPILS

GRATEFULLY REDEDICATE THIS BOOK

ili

This page in the original text is blank.

PREFACE

The study of argumentation has increased so rapidly in
schools and colleges during the ten years since the first
edition of this book was published that it is no longer
necessary to justify the educational importance of the
subject. Nor is it necessary now to explain in detail the
kind of argumentation taught in this book. For these
reasons a large amount of justificatory and explanatory
material which filled the early pages of the first edition
has been removed. On the other hand, in the ten years
since the Principles of Argumentation appeared, it has
become steadily clearer that the principles of analysis
needed restating for greater accuracy and simplicity; that
the difficult subject of evidence, especially refutation,
should be given fuller treatment; that the material in the
chapter on brief-drawing could be simplified and clarified
by rearrangement and a different emphasis; that persua-
sion needed much more detailed exposition; and that,
perhaps the most marked need of all, the importance
of rhetoric in argumentation should be given insistent
emphasis.
The purpose of the editors in their thorough rewriting
of the old book has been to represent as exactly as possible
the theory of argumentation as they have been teaching

PREFACE

it during the last two or three years. The new book
contains no untried theorizing: it is the result of repeated
class-room exercises, extensive reading of manuscripts, and
consultation with many kinds of students at Harvard
University, Brown University, and elsewhere. The authors
wish to insist that this book is not meant to be used by
the teacher as the basis of lectures on the subject, but
should be constantly in the hands of the class. In a sub-
ject like argumentation, theory should be but the stepping-
stone to practice, and a practice that is frequent and varied.
Convinced of this from experience with their classes, the
authors have provided a large amount of illustration of
the theory set forth, and exercise material which should
be ample enough to provide a teacher for two or three
years without important repetition. The work of the
teacher using the revised Principles should be not merely
to repeat it to the class, but to amplify, reemphasize,
re-illustrate, and, above all, by quizzes and exercises to
make sure that his class can successfully apply the theory
expounded. The more the student can be made to do for
himself the better: as far as possible the teacher should be
only the guide and critic who leads him, or, if necessary,
obliges him to grasp by application the principles which
he has read in the book. Good argumentation rests ulti-
mately on the ability to think for oneself.
Perhaps the chief weakness to-day of the greatly
increased number of courses in argumentation is so rigid
an observance of rules that the product is nearly or

PREFACE vii

entirely lacking in literary value. Such a result shows
either that the students are still so hampered by con-
sciousness of principles to be observed as to be unable
to combine with them their preceding knowledge of rhet-
oric, or that the teacher fails to recognize that argument
is really good only when, as in other forms of expression,
it has attained the art that conceals art. Throughout
the present volume the authors have tried to keep before
their readers the relation of thought to style and have
meant to decry steadily any rigidity or formality of
expression when the principles have once been mastered.
In good argument, thought must of course precede pre-
sentation, but without fitting presentation even good
thinking often becomes futile.
It is a pity that in many instances study of argument
is regarded only as a stepping-stone to successful debating,
the most rigid of argumentative forms. In reality it is
a training, often much needed among college students, in
habits of accurate thinking, fair-mindedness, and thorough-
ness. If this new edition helps to instruction in which
argument is regarded from the start by teacher and pupil
as above all a means to accurate, thorough, formulated
thinking, enjoyable to the thinker, presented in a well-
phrased and individual style, the chief desire of the authors
in their revision will be fulfilled.
Acknowledgment is due the many teachers whose help-
ful comment and criticism on the old book have helped
greatly in reworking its material. The authors wish to

viii PREFACE

thank also the following students past or present of Har-
vard, Brown and Yale Universities for work of theirs
included among the illustrations: Messrs. J. J. Shepard,
H. H. Thurlow, A. W. Manchester, R. D. Brackett, R. W.
Stearns, A. XV. Wyman, R. H. Ewell, A. Fox, C. D.
Lockwood, I. Grossman, and F. B. Wagner. They are
indebted to Mr. G. W. Latham, Instructor in English at
Brown University, for helpful suggestions as the book has
been in preparation; as well as to Assistant Professor
W. T. Foster of Bowdoin College for material used in the
Appendix; and especially to Mr. R. L. Lyman, Instructor
in English at Harvard University, both for aid in prepar-
ing illustrative material printed in the Appendix and for
constant helpful suggestions.
GEORGE P. BAKER
CAMIBRIDGE, February, 1905 H. 13. HUNTINGTON

CONTENTS

'JIAPTER PAS,.
I. NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION 1
EXERCISES .. .13

II. ANALYSIS .14
1. WHAT ANALYSIS IS .14
2. THE FIRST STEP IN ANALYSIS-PHRASING A PROPO-
SITION .17
3. TIE SECOND STEP-DEFINING TJIE TERMS 20
4. THE THIRD STEP-FINDING THE SPECIAL ISSUES 43
5. THE FOURTH STEP-CONSTRUCTING THE CASE 60
SUMMARY OF STEPS IN ANALYSIS . . . . 60
EXERCISES .. .61

III. EVIDENCE . .64
1. ASSERTION AND EVIDENCE .64
2. THE NATURE OF EVIDENCE. 78
3. THE KINDS OF EVIDENCE 84
4. TE TESTS OF EVIDENCE .11
I. Testing the Statements of Witnesses . 111
II. Testing the Conditions under which the State-
ments were made . .120
III. Examining the Witness Himself. 122
IV. Three Kinds of Trustworthy Evidence 130
V. Fallacies arising from Lack of Definition 137
VI. Fallacies arising from Errors of Observation 142
VII. Fallacies due to Errors in Reasoning 146
6. REFUTATION . .168
EXERCISES .. .194
ix

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
IV. BRIEF-DRAWING .205
1. WHAT THE BRIEF IS .205
2. THE INTRODUCTION .217
3. THE BRIEF PROPER 230
4. THE CO-NCLUSO1N .253
RULES FOR BRIEF-DRAWING 255
EXERCISES ..... 285

V. PRESENTATION . .290
1. PERSUASION 290
I. Persuasion arising from the Nature of the Subject 296
II. Persuasion arising from the Relation of the
Speaker to his Audience or Subject . . 297
III. Persuasion arising from the Relation of the Audi-
ence to the Subject-Matter 314
IV. Excitation .. . 331
2. THE RHETORIC OF ARGUMENT 341
EXERCISES . .... 394

VI. DEBATING .398
EXERCISES .423

APPENDIX .425

, 669

INDEX

ARGUMENTATION

CHAPTER I

THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION

No man can escape thinking. At times he must face
questions on which it is vital to his happiness or success
that he should think clearly; at times, too, it wvill be
essential to his own welfare or that of those dear to him
to be able so to present the result of his clear and cogent
thinking as to make his hearers act as he wishes. Herein
lies the importance of Argumentation for all men. But
any one who has tried to make another person act in some
particular way knows that he has often failed, even when
feeling strongly the rightness of what he advocated, because
he could not convey to the' other person his sense of its
rightness, or, even when the desirability of the act was
admitted, could not move him to do it. Too often the
root of the difficulty is that, though the speaker feels
strongly on the subject, he has not thought clearly on it.
What is more common than the sight of grown men talking
on political or moral or religious subjects in that off-hand,
idle way, which we signify by the word unreal "That they
simply do not know what they are talking about" is the
spontaneous, silent remark of any man of sense who heard
them. Hence such persons have no difficulty in contradicting
1

I THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION

themselves in successive sentences without being conscious
of it. Hence others, whose defect in intellectual training is
more latent, have their most unfortunate crotchets, as they are
called, or hobbies, which deprive them of the influence which
their estimable qualities would otherwise secure. Hence others
can never look straight before them, never see the point, and
have no difficulties in the most difficult subjects. Others are
hopelessly obstinate and prejudiced, and, after they have been
driven from their opinions, return to them the next moment
without even an attempt to explain why. Others are so intem-
perate and intractable that there is no greater calamity for a
good cause than that they should get hold of it.... I am refer-
ring to an evil which is forced upon us in every railway car-
riage, in every coffee-room or table-d'hote, in every mixed
comipany.1
Argumentation is not contentiousness. At the outset it
should be understood that argumentation is not what
too many people think it, - contentiousness, that is, dis-
cussion carried on " with no real expectation of changing
anyone's opinion. Such are most of the partisan speeches
in legislative bodies: speeches for or against a tariff or
other party measure are in most cases merely attempts to
put the other side in a hole; to establish such a dilemma as
will make the majority or the minority, as the case may be,
appear inconsistent or absurd, or to show them up as the
foes of honest labor. In such kind of argument the height
of success is to make it indecent for the majority to pro-
ceed; if the majority is really solid, such success is rare.
So the common run of stump speeches, which pass by the
name of argument, are argumentative only in so far as they
are efforts to rouse the voters from indifference. In short,
I Idea of University. Newman. Preface, pp. xvii-xviii. Longmans,
Green Co. 1888.

ARGUMENTATION IS NOT CONTENTIOUSNESS 3

many modes of speech are contentious which are not argu-
ment. When you look for the reason why they do not rise
to such dignity, you will find that it is because they are
not expository. For the essential part of every argument
which is worthy of the name is that it offers to the
reader an explanation of the facts, a theory or a policy,
better, more rational, more thorough, or more for his per-
sonal advantage-than that which he or somebody else
has maintained." 1
The following newspaper comment on part of President
Roosevelt's letter accepting the presidential nomination,
1904, illustrates contentiousness.

The President has but little to say on changes in our
currency laws. It is all covered in six lines, which run as
follows: " The record of the last seven years proves that the
party now in power can be trusted to take the additional
action necessary to improve and strengthen our monetary
system, and that our opponents cannot be so trusted." It may
be noted that the President goes back only seven years; evi-
dently even he admits that prior to that his party was almost
as untrustworthy as its political opponents. His party cer-
tainly did not have any leader who could be trusted to labor
as diligently and efficiently for the retention of the gold
standard as the Democratic President, Grover Cleveland.
The words "s improve and strengthen," which the President
uses, may, like charity, cover a multitude of sins. He takes
no definite stand either for or against the numerous schemes
for currency inflation that have been proposed by Republican
secretaries of the treasury in the last two administrations.
Does "1 improve and strengthen " mean a declaration in favor
of asset currency If so, the gold standard is far safer in

1 The Forms of Prose Literature. J. H. Gardiner. pp. 61-62. Charles
Scribner's Sons. 1901.

THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION

the control of Judge Parker. Or does it mean that the Presi-
dent has no views of his own worth expressing on the cur-
rency and that he merely included this one sentence in his
letter so that he might later adopt the policy outlined for
him by the Republican members of the Senate finance com-
mittee Those senators, it may be remembered, labored all
through the summer of 1903 to map out a policy that would
be acceptable to the banking interests and at the same time
not be antagonized by those who do not care to see the govern-
ment grant further privileges to the banks. We made the
prediction at that time that no financial legislation would be
enacted prior to the national election of 1904. After that
election, however, if the Republicans are continued in power,
an attempt will unquestionably be made to change our finan-
cial laws, and if the changes should run in the line proposed
by the Republican secretaries of the treasury, they might easily
prove a serious menace to our currency. Yes, even to the
retention of the gold standard.

Compare the contentiousness of the preceding with this
strictly argumentative excerpt from a speech of Carl Schurz.

Mark well that all these evil consequences are ascribed to
the demonetization of silver in the United States alone -not
to its demonetization anywhere else. This is to justify the
presentation, as a sufficient remedy, of the free coinage of
silver in the United States alone, " without waiting for the aid
or consent of any other nation." This platform is amplified
by free-coinage orators, who tell us that the act of 1873,
called " the crime of 1873," has surreptitiously " wiped out "
one half of the people's money, namely, silver; that in conse-
quence the remaining half of our metallic money, namely, gold,
as a basis of the whole financial structure, has to do the same
business that formerly was done by gold and silver together;
that thereby gold has risen to about double its former purchas-
ing power, the gold dollar being virtually a 200-cent dollar;

ARGUMENTATION IS NOT CONTENTIOUS.NESS 5

that the man who produces things for sale is thus being robbed
of half the price, while debts payable on the gold basis have
become twice as heavy, and that this fall of prices and increase
of burdens is enriching the money changers and oppressing
the people.
Are these complaints well founded Look at facts which
nobody disputes. That there has been a considerable fall in
the prices of many articles since 1873 is certainly true. But
was this fall caused by the so-called demonetization of silver
through the act of 1873 Now, not to speak of other periods
of our history, such as the period from 1846 to 1851, every-
body knows that there was a considerable fall of prices, not
only as to agricultural products - cotton, for instance, dropped
from 1 a pound in 1864 to 17 cents in 1871 - but in many
kinds of industrial products, before 1873. What happened
before 1873 cannot have been caused by what happened in
1873. This is clear. The shrinkage after 1873 may, there-
fore, have been caused by something else.
Another thing is equally clear. Whenever a change in
the prices of commodities is caused by a change in supply or
demand, or both, then it may affect different articles differ-
ently. Thus wheat may rise in price, the supply being propor-
tionately short, while at the same time cotton may decline in
price, the supply being proportionately abundant. But when
a change of prices takes place in consequence of a great change
in the purchasing power of the money of the country, espe-
cially when that change is sudden, then the effect must be
equal, or at least approximately so, as to all articles that are
bought or sold with that money. If by the so-called demon-
etization of silver in 1873 the gold dollar, or the dollar on the
gold basis, became a 200-cent dollar at all, then it became a
200-cent dollar at once and for everything. It could not possi-
bly be at the same time a 200-cent dollar for wheat and a 120-
cent dollar for coal, and a 150-cent dollar for cotton, and a
100-cent dollar for corn or for shovels. I challenge any one
to gainsay this.

THE NATURE OF ARGUMAIENTATION

Now for the facts. The act of 1873 in question became a
law on the 12th of February. What was the effect Wheat,
rye, oats, and corn rose above the price of 1872, while cotton
declined. In 1874 wheat dropped a little; corn made a jump
upward; cotton declined; oats and rye rose. In 1875 there
was a general decline. In 1876 there was a rise in wheat and
a decline in corn, oats, rye, and cotton. In 1877 there was
another rise in wheat carrying the price above that of 1870
and up to that of 1871, years preceding the act of 1873. Evi-
dently so far the 200-cent dollar had not made its mark at all.
But I will admit the possible plea, that, as they say, the act
of 1873 having been passed in secret, people did not know
anything about it, and prices remained measurably steady, in
ignorance of what dreadful things had happened. If so, then
it would appear that, if the knowing ones had only kept still
about it, the gold dollar would have modestly remained a 100-
cent dollar, and nobody would have been hurt. But, seriously
speaking, it may be said that when the act of 1873 was passed
we were still using exclusively paper money; that neither gold
nor silver was in circulation, and that therefore the demon-
etization would not be felt. Very well. But then in 1879
specie payments were resuined. Metallic money circulated
again. And, more than that, the cry about "' the crime of
1873 " resounded in Congress and in the country. Then, at
last the 200-cent gold dollar had its opportunity. Prices
could no longer plead ignorance. What happened In 1880
wheat rose above the price of 1879, likewise corn, cotton, and
oats. In 1881 wheat rose again, also corn, oats, and cotton.
In 1882 wheat and cotton declined, while corn and oats rose.
The reports here given are those of the New York market.
They may vary somewhat from the reports of farm prices, but
they present the rises and declines of prices with substantial
correctness.
These facts prove conclusively to every sane mind that for
nine years after the act of 1873 - six years before and three
years after the resumption of specie payments - the prices of

CONVICTION AND PERSUASION DISTINGUISHED 7

the agricultural staples mentioned, being in most instances
considerably above 1860, show absolutely no trace of any
such effect as would have been produced upon them had a
great and sudden change in the purchasing power of the
money of the country taken place; that it would be childish
to pretend that but for the act of 1873 those prices would be
100, or 50, or 25, or 10 per cent higher; and that, therefore,
all this talk about the gold dollar having become a 200-cent
dollar, or a 150-cent dollar, or a 125-cent dollar, is -pardon
the expression-arrant nonsense.'

Conviction and persuasion distinguished. In brief, argu-
mentation is the art of producing in the mind of another
person acceptance of ideas held true by a writer or speaker,
and of inducing the other person, if necessary, to act in
consequence of his acquired belief. The chief desiderata
in argumentation are power to think clearly and power
so to present one's thought as to be both convincing and
persuasive. Conviction aims only to produce agreement
between writer and reader; persuasion aims to prepare the
way for the process of conviction or to produce action as
a result of conviction. In pure conviction one appeals
only to the intellect of a reader by clear and cogent reason-
ing. In persuasion one may produce desired action either
by arousing emotion in regard to the ideas set forth or by
adapting the presentation of one's case as a whole or in
part to special interests, prejudices, or idiosyncrasies of a
reader. Pure conviction is best illustrated by the demon-
stration of some theorem in geometry, -as that the square
of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to
the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Here all

I Speech before American Honest Money League, Chicago, September 6,
1896, Carl Schurz.

8 THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION

the explanation of truth given, that is, all the "proof,"
appeals solely to the intellect, and rests for its force on
truths already known to the reader or acceptable as soon
as properly stated. But this kind of demonstration of
truth is clearly not argumentation in the ordinary use of
the word, for in everyday life it can be duplicated only
when the demonstrator moves freely, as in geometry,
through a number of related ideas or principles, as true
for his reader as for him, to a fresh application of one of
the ideas or principles so clearly stated that it is at once
convincing. This set of conditions may at times be found
in the world of science among a group of men in whom
all other interests and emotions are subordinated to eager
desire for truth, but ordinarily the people with whom we
argue have many prejudices or idiosyncrasies which make
it difficult to develop our case unobstructed.'
1 The following illustrates an attempt to use the process of conviction
only. " Madame Blavatsky was accused of having forged letters from a
mysterious being named Koot Hoomi which were wont to drift out of
methetherial space into the common atmosphere of drawing-rooms. A
number of Koot Hoomi's later epistles, with others by Madame Blavatsky,
were submitted to Mr. Nethercliffe, the expert, and to Mr. Sims of the
British Museum. Neither expert thought that Madame Blavatsky had
written the letters attributed to Koot Hloomi. But Dr. Richard Hodgson
and Mrs. Sidgwick procured earlier letters by Koot Hoomi and Madame
Blavatsky. They found that, in 1878, and 1879, the letter d, as written
in English, occurred 210 times as against the German d, 805 times. But
in Madame Blavatsky's earlier hand the English d occurred but 15 times,
to 2200 of the German d. The lady had, in this and other respects,
altered her writing, which therefore varied more and more from the hand
of Koot Hoomi. Mr. Nethercliffe and Mr. Sims yielded to this and other
proofs: and a cold world is fairly well convinced that Koot Hoomi did
not write his letters. They were written by Madame Blavatsky."1 The
Mystery of Mary Stuart. A. Lang. pp. 278-279. Longmans, Green
Co. 1901.
The way in which prejudice or idiosyncrasy might make it impossible
to produce any effect with the paragraph just quoted will be seen if it be

CONVICTION AND PERSUASION COMPLEMENTARY 9

Conviction and persuasion complementary. Though per-
suasion, in the sense of emotional appeal, may appear
alone as a paragraph, division, or even a complete speech

supposed that it is in a letter to a man who has a prejudice against all
deductions from handwriting, believing them worthless, or to a person
who has the idiosyncrasy that his handwriting has given him trouble
because it is so much like that of several friends. In either case, the
whole paragraph, if used at all, must be rewritten, with reference to
the prejudice or idiosyncrasy.
1 The following appeal forms part of a speech which is almost entirely
persuasive. In the course of the debate on American affairs, November 18,
17-77, Lord Suffolk, Secretary for the Northern Department, urged that
the Indians should be used in the war on grounds of policy, necessity,
and because "it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God
and nature put into our hands." In protesting, Lord Chatham said:
"s These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them,
demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend
bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and the pious pastors of our
Church - I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the
religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned
bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the
Bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned
Judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollu-
tion. I call upon the honor of your Lordships to reverence the dignity
of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and
humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke
the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls,
the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the
disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the
boasted Armada of Spain; in vain lie defended and established the honor,
the liberties, the religion- the Protestant religion-of this country,
against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these
more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among
us -to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections,
friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of
man, woman, and child ! to send forth the infidel savage-against whom
against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate
their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-
hounds of savage war-hell-hounds, I say, of savage war! Spain armed
herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America,
and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we

10 THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION

or article, conviction, except in paragraphs, very rarely
appears without persuasion. Really, as the definition of
persuasion already given suggests, the two are comple-
mentary, one being the warp, the other the woof of argu-
mentation. He who addresses the intellect only, leaving
the feelings, the emotions, untouched, will probably be dull,
for his work will lack warmth and color; and he will not
produce action, for to accept something as true does not,
in nearly all cases, mean to act promptly or steadily on
that idea. He who only persuades runs the dangers of all
excited action: that it is liable to stop as suddenly as it
began, leaving no principle of conduct behind; and is liable
to cease at any moment before a clear and convincing state-
ment of the reasons why such conduct is ill-judged.' Ideal
argumentation would, then, unite perfection of reasoning,
that is, complete convincingness, with perfection of per-
suasive power -masterly adaptation of the material to
interests, prejudices, and idiosyncrasies of the audience,
combined with excitation of the emotions to just the extent
necessary for the desired ends. The history of argumen-
tation shows that usually conviction is preceded or fol-
lowed by persuasion, an(l that often the very exposition
turn loose these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen
in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared
to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity." For the whole speech
see Appendix.
1 The first part of the speech of Antony (Julius Ccesar, III, 2) is vivid
and stirring, and Antony takes care not to cease until the mob has found
an object upon which to vent its excitement; but had Brutus, instead of
balancing clauses and dealing in vague statements as to Caesar's wrong-
doing, shown cogently wherein his power was dangerous to Rome, Antony's
words would have lost a large part of their force. Antony, with nothing
against him except vague charges, skillfully turned from these to stirring
the hearts of his hearers by bringing out whatever in the life and the fate
of Caesar could move their sympathies.

TME DIVISIONS OF AN ARGUMENT

which convinces is made also to persuade.' All argu-
ment is really a dialogue; "Ithe. other man" is always
resisting, trying to block progress. Therefore a writer
must remember that his test should not be: Am I stating
this matter Po that it is clear to me, so that it interests and
stirs me but Am I stating this matter so that my reader
cannot fail to see what I mean, and must be stirred by my
way of writing because I have so well understood his knowl-
edge of it, his feelings about it, and his personal peculiari-
ties In brief, let a writer remember " the other man" in
his work, and he can hardly forget that conviction and
persuasion are not independent but complementary.
For purposes of instruction it wvill, however, be con-
venient to treat first the principles which underlie suc-
cessful conviction and then those which make for effective
persuasion; but a reader should never forget that this
separation is artificial and made wholly for pedagogic
reasons.
The divisions of an argument. An argument normally
has three divisions, though they are rarely marked as such.
They are the Introduction, the Argument Proper, and the
Peroration.'
1 A fine specimen of blended conviction and persuasion is Henry
Ward Beecher's Liverpool speech in behalf of the Northern party in the
Civil War. A blending of the two methods, with the emphasis on con-
viction, but so subtle that the persuasion helps to conviction, is Lord
Erskine's "Defense of Lord George Gordon." Specimens of Argumnen-
tation, pp. 154-178, 86-153. Holt Co. For skillful handling of persua-
sion, see pp. '90, 94, 130, 151.
2 Though the adjective "forensic" means connected with courts of
law, the noun "forensic " has recently, with teachers, come to mean
a special kind of written exercise in argumentation. It is treated as
if it could and should drill students only in the principles of analysis,
structure, and the selection and the presentation of evidence. Conse-
quently it is likely to be rigid and hard. It differs from everyday work

12 THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION

The work of the Introduction usually is twofold, -to
expound and to persuade. It phrases only what both sides
must admit to be true, if there is to be any discussion, and
states clearly what the question in dispute is. The final
test of it as exposition is that it sha