proof and bring forth your heavy guns only after he had wasted his time with refutable arguments. 4. GENERAL BEARING Finally, preserve a bearing of fairness and calm. One who reasons must not be excited and he must not seem excited. Prejudice, bitterness, hatred, and other strong feeling not only tend to befuddle the thinking of the speaker but they also give the audience the impression of partisanship and bias. Of course, if you are talking to those who hold the same views as you and do not need to be convinced, get as bitter, indignant, and excited as you please; but in such a case, you are not arguing, you are exhorting. Where argument is necessary, calm is necessary. This admonition is not at all intended to disparage the natural enthusiasm which goes with strong, forceful delivery. There is a great difference between the force resulting from the stimulus of interest and intense application, and the emotional outburst which is fanned by prejudice and intolerance. If the audience gets the impression that your feeling is stronger than your judgment, your argument will be weakened in their eyes. In meeting an opponent and in addressing a strange audience, always be most courteous and more than fair. One who argues contends against fallacy, not against persons; he deals in truths, not in personalities. His preparation consists in thorough, patient research; his floor generalship consists in control of himself. ASSIGNMENT OF WORK The written exercises in this entire lesson should be carefully worked out. Keep copies of the written exercises in your notebook. First Day. Find in the Congressional Record or some book of speeches, or even in some magazine article, an argument. Read it carefully and then cast it in the brief form described in this lesson. Place this brief in your notebook, with an appended criticism of possible weaknesses. Second Day.-Carefully study the type brief and note (a) whether any particular argument in the first column is logically weak, (b) if there is any statement not fully warranted by the facts offered opposite it, and (c) where arguments are directly from authority. Third Day.-Recast all the material in the type brief in a new brief using the following as the main issues: A-Retention of the Philippines will benefit the United States. B-Retention of the Philippines will benefit the Philippines. C-Retention of the Philippines will benefit the civilized world. Fourth and Fifth Days.-Formulate a proposition on any subject on which you have convictions and to the facts of which you have access. Gather the material as thoroughly as possible and construct a good brief. TEST QUESTIONS They These questions are for the student to use in testing 1. How does a technical brief differ from a simple outline? What is meant by a real proposition, in contradistinction to one which is logically unreal? 3. In the introduction, why do we give first a general survey, then detailed facts, etc.? Is there any principle of procedure here? Is there a gradual focusing and narrowing of the attention? 4. Is there any set way of determining just what the main issues of a given proposition should be? Can the same opinion be established by dividing it in different ways and summing up each division with its own proposition? Can you cut up a pie in more than one way? 5. Why is it well to restate the main proposition just before taking up the details of proof? 6. Why should every entry in the inference column be in the form of a complete proposition? 7. What are the tests to which any proposition may be subjected? 8. Why is it unwise to adopt the opinions of others without checking up the facts to which they had original access? 9. What do we mean by connectives which may be used during delivery? What is their importance in the argumentative form of discourse? Do they promote beauty in other forms of composition? 10. Are repetitions and summaries of much value in a debate or straight argument? 11. What is the ideal to be attained in the presentation of a mass of statistics to an audience? 12. What do you mean by the burden of proof? 13. Do you know of cases in real life where people who are proposing new things act as though they did not expect to bear the burden of proof? 14. Is it well to make sweeping denials of the assertions of opponents when they are not properly supported? What is a better policy? 15. What is your ideal of the general bearing of one who is trying to convince by appeals to the judgment? Is any other kind of appeal logical? Does the recognition of the value of calm logic in any way overlook the possibility of other kinds of appeal? LESSON 16 THE APPEAL TO ACTION As a practical success in the world of men, the speaker is judged according to his skill in moving others to action. To sway the multitude that is the pinnacle of eloquence. What avails a beautifully modulated voice if its pleadings alter not the course of human events? Why convince men if the beliefs implanted work themselves not out in deeds? One who speaks pleasingly, who marshals his ideas clearly, and yet who cannot secure action, falls short of oratorical effectiveness. In this lesson, we shall consider the aspects of speaking which are most closely connected with the obtaining of action from the hearers. 1. NATURE OF ACTION (a) Conscious Action All actions are movements in response to some exciting cause or stimulus. This cause may be outside the individual, as a concrete situation which he faces, or it may be an image or idea arising in his own mind. To put it another way, a man seeing a cigar in a store window has a train of ideas started by the sight of that cigar, which leads him to go in, buy it, and finally smoke it; or, while in his office, he may get the notion that a cigar would be very gratifying and consequently send out for one to smoke. Again, a man may come into a room, sit at his desk, and then, feeling a draft, close the window. This is the |