relief by adopting this plan of municipal administration. 8. (1) Some Italians are good musicians. (2) This man is an Italian. (3) Therefore this man is a good musician. 9. (1) All college students are interested in athletics. (2) Ira Simpson is not a college student. (3) Therefore Ira Simpson is not interested in athletics. 10. My opponent must remember that the finger of suspicion has pointed to him as the one who willfully misrepresented that great mine disaster. Does he dare to assert that he is now telling the truth? II. The capitalistic class has always oppressed the working man. It has ground into the dust the man who toils for his living. It has enjoyed its ill-gotten wealth by living in luxury while the laboring man has earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. Now, my fellow workmen, shall we cast our vote for one of the most vicious members of this class? 12. Never in its history has the town of Grogan stooped to borrow money for public improvements. No one will dare maintain that this time honored custom, founded upon reason and common sense, should now be broken. 13. Brown County is overwhelmingly Republican in politics; it is therefore quite probable that your cousin who lives in that county is a Republican. 14. The very foundation of this great republic is the idea of democracy. Why, then, should not every right minded citizen recognize his duty to support the Democratic party in the coming election? 15. This climate is very healthful, for if it were not healthful the people who live here would not be free from disease. 16. There must be a substantial reason back of the opinion that the tariff should be lowered, for the prevalence of this opinion throughout the country shows that it has a sound foundation. 17. The inhuman method of killing murderers by electrocution should be abolished. 18. It is evident that the recommendations of the Simplified Spelling Board should be adopted because one of the members of that board is the most eminent authority on the English Language in this country. 19. The price of wheat is bound to increase rapidly within the next few months because the recent flood of the Arkansas River has destroyed many hundred acres of this crop. 20. James was quite sure that something disagreeable would occur because only last night he saw the new moon over his left shoulder. 21. Since this tax has worked well in England there can be no doubt of its practicability if it is adopted in the United States. II. Each student should write out and bring to the class at least one fallacy which he has found in the conversation of his fellowstudents. III. Whenever possible use diagrams to show the fallacies in the specimens under I. CHAPTER VI REFUTATION In discussing the Practice of Argumentation and Debate we have considered the importance of refutation in both the main argument and in rebuttal. We have seen that refutation must be introduced into the main arguments whenever the prominence of opposing arguments makes it necessary. We have seen that rebuttal consists largely of refutation. In fact, rebuttal and refutation are used by some writers as synonymous terms. However, in the chapter on rebuttal a distinction was made by which that term was used to indicate the practical work of defending an argument and attacking an opponent. In this chapter on Refutation we shall consider the theory of the various methods employed in attacking an opponent's argument. Refutation is entirely destructive as distinguished from constructive argument. While the work of rebuttal includes both a defense of one's own argument and an attack upon that of an opponent, refutation consists of weakening or destroying the arguments of the opposition. From the destructive nature of refutation it is plain that it must be adapted to the argument against which it is directed. This involves keen powers of analysis and adaptation, an exact knowledge of the theory and practice of argumentation, and a thorough insight into both sides of the proposition under discussion. The first essential in refutation is that the writer or speaker make perfectly plain the exact argument that he is refuting. He must then show just how the refutation which he is making bears upon that argument. Finally he must show plainly that his refutation has weakened or destroyed the argument against which it was directed. These three steps in refutation must be indicated plainly. In refutation it is proper to establish a contrary proposition or to refer to the fact that such a contrary proposition has been established. The actual destructive work may be accomplished in any legitimate manner. Of the methods employed in refutation the following are the most important. I. Revealing a fallacy. The chapter on fallacies has pointed out the argumentative defects of reasoning most frequently encountered. The student must not assume that these errors will always occur in the exact form in which they have been treated in any text-book. They are sure to appear in many and varied guises. To identify and expose them requires the keenest qualities of mind. Each student should pride himself on his ability to detect a fallacy quickly and should look back with humiliation upon any occurrence when he has allowed a fallacious argument to pass by unchallenged. Familiarity with the valid forms of logical reasoning and with the errors to which they are subject are prerequisites to success. It is not sufficient that the student have a vague feeling that there is something wrong with an argument; he must be able to locate the defect exactly and to point it out to others in such a way that they will see it. Vagueness and ambiguity are the very substance of fallacies. Sometimes the student must use his knowledge of constructive logic to build up a parallel argument in the way it ought to stand and show more plainly by means of contrast the defects of the unsound argument. In such cases it often happens that the evidence points in an opposite direction from that which is needed to support a valid argument. All of these devices should be utilized in making plain the existence of fallacies. II. Reductio ad absurdum. This method of refutation adopts for the time being the argument of an opponent and then by carrying out that argument to its logical conclusion shows that it is absurd. For example, Beecher answered those who favored the South, during the late Civil War, because they were "the weaker party," by reducing their argument to an absurdity. He said, "Nothing could be more generous than your doctrine that you stand for the 'weaker' party in a controversy, when that weak party stands for its own legitimate rights against imperious pride and power. But who ever sympathized with a weak thief, because three constables had got hold of him? And yet the one thief in three policemen's hands is the weaker party. I suppose you would sympathize with him." The following quotation from Laycock and Scales' Argumentation and Debate still further illustrates this method of refutation. "This method is effective because of its simplicity and directness. It also has in it an element of ridicule that is persuasive against an opponent. William Ellery Channing, in a reply to Henry Clay on the slavery question, used this method as follows: 66 6 But this property, we are told, is not to be questioned on account of its long duration. "Two hundred years have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." Nothing but respect for the speaker could repress criticism on this unhappy phraseology. We will trust it escaped him without thought. But to confine ourselves to the argument from duration; how obvious the reply! Is injustice changed into justice by the practice of ages? Is my victim made a right |