Part 21 (2/2)
A jury having been empaneled to try him, he pleaded guilty, his counsel urging, as a reason for clemency, that the violation of this statute was a habit of the New York banks in the Wall Street district, and that if the wrecked bank had not followed this law-breaking custom of its compet.i.tors the stock brokers would have withdrawn their account. The plea was successful, and the officer escaped with a small fine. Imagine a burglar or a pickpocket urging a plea for clemency based on the general business habits and customs of his criminal confreres! [Footnote: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 94, p. 173.]
Mr. E. A. Freeman, the historian, once made the statement that English literature cannot be taught. His course of reasoning was to the effect that it is impossible to teach a subject in which one cannot be examined; and he maintained that it is impossible to hold satisfactory examinations in English literature, since this is a subject which is studied for the purpose of cultivating the taste, educating the sympathies, and enlarging the mind. If this reasoning proves anything, it has been pointed out, it proves too much. What Mr. Freeman says of English literature may equally well be said of Latin, Greek, and every other kind of literature. But as Latin and Greek literature have been successfully taught for hundreds of years, Mr. Freeman's argument is absurd.
College students are continually urging as a defense of professionalism in their own athletic teams the argument that since other colleges employ professional players it is necessary for them to do likewise. By carrying this argument a step farther, one could show, with equal reason, that since drinking, stealing and cheating are prevalent in other colleges, these same practices should also be indulged in at the college in question. In the same way one may refute by _reductio ad absurdum_ all such arguments as, ”Custom has rendered the spoils system desirable”; ”The prevalency of the high license law shows its superiority to prohibition”; and ”Since in the past all college students were required to study Latin and Greek, these subjects should be required at the present time.”
II. THE DILEMMA.
Another device an arguer will often find useful in refuting an opponent's statement is the _dilemma_. In the dilemma the arguer shows that the statement he wishes to disprove can be true only through the truth of at least one of several possibilities. He then proves that these possibilities are untenable, and therefore the original statement is false. To represent the dilemma with letters: The truth of A rests upon the truth of either x or y; but as x and y are both false, A is false. Once when it was believed in certain quarters that j.a.pan was about to undertake a war against the United States, many people maintained that if j.a.pan desired to go to war she was amply able to finance such an undertaking. In reply to this contention, a certain newspaper, making use of the dilemma, said that since j.a.pan had no money in the treasury she could meet the expenses of war in only three ways: either by contracting a large debt, or by increasing taxation, or by indemnifying herself at the expense of the enemy. The paper then went on to prove that j.a.pan was not in a position to float a large loan, that taxes in j.a.pan were already as heavy as the people could bear, and that she could not hope, at least for a long time, to secure any indemnity from the enemy. Therefore j.a.pan was not in a financial position to enter upon a war with the United States.
In attempting to show that munic.i.p.alities do not have the moral right to own and operate public utilities, T. Carpenter Smith uses the dilemma. He says:--
”Any commercial business is carried on either at a profit, or at a loss, or in such a way that the expenses equal the income. If the city business of gas or electric lighting is to be carried on at a profit, then those citizens who use gas or electric light will be charged a high price for that light, in order to pay the profit, not only to themselves, but also to those who do not use it. If the works are to be carried on at a loss, then the citizens who do not use the gas or electric light will pay taxes to furnish a convenience or economy to those citizens who do use it. If the works are to be operated exactly at cost, then the city will carry on a business from which it will get nothing, but in which it will have to take the labor and risk incident to such a business in order to benefit only some of its citizens, furnis.h.i.+ng a commodity not desired by all.”
In conversation and debate, the dilemma is frequently introduced by means of a question. The debater, wis.h.i.+ng to trap his opponent, asks him a pertinent question which previous investigation has shown can possibly be answered in only two or three ways, and which the opponent cannot afford to answer at all. A good ill.u.s.tration of this device occurs in the New Testament.
And it came to pa.s.s, on one of the days, as he was teaching the people in the temple, and preaching the gospel, there came upon him the chief priests and the scribes with the elders; and they spake, saying unto him, Tell us: By what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority? And he answered and said unto them, I also will ask you a question; and tell me: The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why did ye not believe him?
But if we shall say, From men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet. And they answered, that they knew not whence _it was_. And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. [Footnote: Luke xx, 1-8.]
During the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, when both men were seeking the United States senators.h.i.+p from Illinois, Lincoln, wis.h.i.+ng either to kill Douglas's senatorial prospects or to head him off from the presidency two years later, asked him a question which put him in a dilemma. Ida M. Tarbell describes the question as follows:--
”Can the people of a United States territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution?”
Lincoln had seen the irreconcilableness of Douglas's own measure of popular sovereignty, which declared that the people of a territory should be left to regulate their domestic concerns in their own way subject only to the Const.i.tution, and the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case that slaves, being property, could not under the Const.i.tution be excluded from a territory. He knew that if Douglas said _no_ to this question, his Illinois const.i.tuents would never return him to the Senate. He believed that if he said _yes,_ the people of the South would never vote for him for President of the United States.
In the last example, Lincoln, by forcing Douglas to answer this question, sought to destroy, and, as history shows, did destroy, the popular conception of Douglas's fitness for public office.
Before one can safely use the dilemma he must carefully investigate every phase of the statement that he wishes to refute. If he is to use the dilemma directly, he must consider every possibility--commonly called the horns of the dilemma--upon which the truth of the statement may rest. If there is a single possibility which he is not ready to meet and overthrow, his whole effort is fruitless. For instance, a debater, in attempting to rebut the statement that college fraternities are harmful, said that his opponent must show that fraternities are either morally, socially, financially or intellectually detrimental to their members; he then proved as best he could that in these respects fraternities are beneficial rather than harmful, and sat down thinking that he had gone a long way toward winning the debate. His opponent then arose and admitting nearly everything that had been said, based his argument on the idea that fraternities were harmful _to the college as a whole_. The first speaker had not considered every alternative. If an arguer is to approach a dilemma through the medium of a question, he must be sure that he knows every reasonable answer that his opponent can make. When one has satisfied these conditions, he can use the dilemma with great effect.
By way of summary it may be said that the successful arguer must both build up his own proof and destroy his opponent's. To accomplish the latter one has to know what to refute and what to leave alone; he must distinguish between the important and the unessential, and he must take care not to ”refute himself.” Since proof consists of evidence and reasoning, the first step for him to take in refuting an argument is to apply the tests for each, and if possible show where his opponent has erred. In the next place, he should see whether he can discover and point out any of the more important fallacies; the ones mentioned here are _begging the question_, _ambiguous terms_, _false cause_, _composition and division_, and _ignoring the question_.
Should the arguer find any of these fundamental weaknesses, it is ordinarily sufficient merely to call attention to them; for the sake of emphasis, however, one may make use of two especially effective methods of refutation, _reductio ad absurdum_ and the _dilemma_.
EXERCISES.
A. Criticize the following arguments and point out the fallacies they contain:--
1. Four thousand men have taken examinations at Princeton under the honor system, and only six of these were found guilty of ”cribbing.”
This record shows conclusively that the honor system restrains dishonest work in examinations.
2. Athletics do not injure a man's scholars.h.i.+p; one of the best players on last year's football team attained such a high grade that he was awarded a fellows.h.i.+p.
3. During the decade from 1870 to 1880, illiteracy among the negroes decreased ten per cent., but the race grew more criminal by twenty- five per cent.; from 1880 to 1890, illiteracy decreased eighteen per cent., but criminality increased thirty-three and one-third per cent.
Who can now say that education does not injure the negro?
4. Since the honor system failed at Franklin and Marshall, it will fail at ---- College.
5. Frequent athletic games benefit a college because they tend to take the students' attention away from their studies.
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