Chapter III: Evidence and Reasoning (3)

43. The Syllogism in Practical Use. The practical value of the syllogism and its rules comes in the first place, as I have said, when we expand a condensed form of reasoning into its full grounds in the form of a syllogism. Our reasoned judgments ordinarily take the shortened form, _Socrates is mortal, because he is a man; The Corporation Tax Bill is constitutional, because it is a tax on a way of doing business._ In each of these cases we are reasoning from a general principle, which is previously established, and from a particular way of conceiving the special fact before us, but we assume the general principle as understood. In the cases above the meaning is clear without declaring at length, _All men are mortal,_ or _All taxes on a way of doing business are constitutional._

At any time, however, when you find a piece of reasoning in this condensed form, whether your own or some one else's, which seems to you suspicious, if you expand it into a full syllogism you will have all its parts laid bare for scrutiny. Take, for example, the assertion, _"Robinson Crusoe" must be a true story, for everything in it is so minutely described_: if you expand it into the full syllogism, _All books in which the description is minute are true, "Robinson Crusoe" is a book in which the description is minute, Therefore "Robinson Crusoe" is true_, you would at once stick at the major premise. So where you suspect an ambiguity in the use of terms, you can bring it to the surface, if it is there, by the same sort of expansion. In the argument, _Bachelors should be punished, because they break a law of nature_, the ambiguity becomes obvious when you expand: _All law breakers should be punished, Bachelors break a law of nature, Therefore bachelors should be punished_; at once you see that _law_ is used in two senses, one the _law of the land_, the other the statement of a uniformity in nature. In the argument, _These men are good citizens, for they take an interest in politics_, the expansion to _All good citizens are interested in politics, These men are interested in politics, Therefore these men are good citizens,_[41] shows that the reasoning contains a breach of the third rule of the syllogism (see p. 148) and is therefore a case of the fallacy of the undistributed middle.

Whenever you make or find an assertion with a reason attached by such a word as "since," "for," or "because," or an assertion with a consequence attached by a word like "therefore," "hence," or "accordingly," you have a case of this condensed reasoning, which, theoretically at any rate, you can expand into a full syllogism, and so go over the reasoning link by link.

Sometimes, however, the expansion is far from easy, for in many of the practical exigencies of everyday life our judgments are intuitive, and not reasoned. In such judgments we jump to a conclusion by an inarticulate, unreasoned feeling of what is true or expedient, and the grounds of the feeling may be so shadowy and complex that they can never be adequately displayed.

"Over immense departments of our thought we are still, all of us, in the savage state. Similarity operates in us, but abstraction has not taken place. We know what the present case is like, we know what it reminds us of, we have an intuition of the right course to take, if it be a practical matter. But analytic thought has made no tracks, and we cannot justify ourselves to others. In ethical, psychological, and aesthetic matters, to give a clear reason for one's judgment is universally recognized as a mark of rare genius. The helplessness of uneducated people to account for their likes and dislikes is often ludicrous. Ask the first Irish girl why she likes this country better or worse than her home, and see how much she can tell you. But if you ask your most educated friend why he prefers Titian to Paul Veronese, you will hardly get more of a reply; and you will probably get absolutely none if you inquire why Beethoven reminds him of Michael Angelo, or how it comes that a bare figure with unduly flexed joints, by the latter, can so suggest the moral tragedy of life.... The well-known story of the old judge advising the new one never to give reasons for his decisions, 'the decisions will probably be right, the reasons will surely be wrong,' illustrates this. The doctor will feel that the patient is doomed, the dentist will have a premonition that the tooth will break, though neither can articulate a reason for his foreboding. The reason lies embedded, but not yet laid bare, in all the previous cases dimly suggested by the actual one, all calling up the same conclusion, which the adept thus finds himself swept on to, he knows not how or why."[42]

The small boy who said that he could not keep step because he had a cold in his head was relying on a sound general truth, _Colds in the head make one stupid_, for his major premise, but his condition prevented his disentangling it; and all of us every day use minor premises for which we should be incapable of stating the major.

A second practical use of the syllogism is to set forth a chain of reasoning in incontrovertible form. If you have a general principle which is granted, and have established the fact that your case certainly falls under it, you can make an effective summing up by throwing the reasoning into the form of a syllogism.

Conversely, you can use a syllogism to bring out some essential part of the reasoning of an opponent which you know will not commend itself to the audience, as did Lincoln in his debate with Douglas at Galesburg. Douglas had defended the Dred Scott decision of the United States Supreme Court, which decided that the right of property in a slave is affirmed by the United States Constitution. Lincoln wished to make the consequences of this doctrine as glaringly evident as possible. He did so as follows:

I think it follows, and I submit to the consideration of men capable
of arguing, whether as I state it, in syllogistic form, the argument
has any fault in it.

Nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy a right
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the United
States.

The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly
affirmed in the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can
destroy the right of property in a slave.

I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument;
assuming the truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I have
capacity at all to understand it, follows inevitably.[43]

Lincoln knew that this doctrine that no state could interfere with slavery would be intolerable to the people of Illinois, before whom he was carrying on his campaign; and this syllogism made clear to them the consequences of the decision of the Supreme Court.

Or you can use a syllogism to make obvious a flaw in the reasoning of your opponent, as in the following example:

In view of the history of commission government in this country so far as it has been made, the burden of proof rests with those who attempt to show that a government which has been so successful in cities of moderate size will not be successful in our largest cities. The syllogism they are required to prove runs briefly thus:

Commission government is acknowledged to have been successful in cities as large as one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, but

It has not been tried in cities containing more than one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants;

Therefore, it will not be successful in cities of four hundred thousand or larger, which is a _reductio ad absurdum_.

The folly of the attempt is shown by the very statement of the conclusion.[44]

44. The Dilemma. One special form of the syllogism is at times so strong an argument that it deserves special mention here, namely, the dilemma. This is a syllogism in which the major premise consists of two or more hypothetical propositions (that is, propositions with an "if" clause) and the minor of a disjunctive proposition (a proposition with two or more clauses connected by "or").

In the course of the Lincoln-Douglas debate a question was put by Lincoln to Douglas, as follows: "Can the people of a United States territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizens of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a state constitution?" The question may be viewed as the source of a dilemma, both in the practical and in the syllogistic sense of the term. In fact it involved a situation which, syllogistically, comprised more than one dilemma. They may be stated as follows:

I. If Douglas answers yes, he offends the South, and if he answers no, he offends the North;

But he must answer either yes or no;

Therefore he will offend either the South or the North.

II. If Douglas offends the South, he loses the nomination for the Presidency in the next convention; and if he offends the North, he loses the election to the United States Senatorship (and his chances for the Presidency);

But he must offend either the South or the North;

Therefore he loses either the Presidency or the Senatorship.

Or, III. If Douglas offends the South, he cannot become President; and if he offends the North, he cannot become President;

But he must offend either the South or the North;

Therefore he cannot become President.[45]

The dilemma, if it leaves no hole for the other side to creep through, is an extremely effective argument in politics and in competitive debate. If you can thus get your adversary between the devil and the deep sea on a point that in the eyes of your audience is interesting and critical, you have crippled his case. But if the point is not momentous, though your audience may find the dilemma amusing, you run the risk of the reproach of "smartness" if you crow very loudly over it.

On the other hand, a dilemma that is not exhaustive will hold no one. Many of the arguments against the imposition of a federal tax on corporations assumed that if the tax were imposed it would soon be made unreasonable in amount. Most arguments that the other side will abuse any power that is given to them may be regarded as falling into the class of incomplete dilemma. A speaker who uses a leaky dilemma must have great confidence in the unintelligence of his audience, but it is surprising to see how often such dilemmas occur in political debates.

45. Reasoning from Circumstantial Evidence. The third type of reasoning from similarity named on page 120 is reasoning from circumstantial evidence. The term is familiar to every one from murder trials and detective stories. Webster's argument in the White Murder Case, from which I print a short extract on page 157, is a famous example of an argument on circumstantial evidence; and in fiction Sir Conan Doyle has created for our delectation many notable and ingenious cases of it. But reasoning from circumstantial evidence is far from being confined to criminal cases and fiction; as Huxley points out (see p. 241), it is also the basis of some of the broadest and most illuminating generalizations of science; and the example below from Macaulay is only one of innumerable cases of its use in history.

Reasoning from circumstantial evidence differs from reasoning from analogy or generalization in that it rests on similarities reaching out in a number of separate directions, all of which, however, converge on the case in hand. This convergence is pointed out by Macaulay in the following admirable little argument on the authorship of the _Junius Letters_, which were a series of pseudonymous and malignant attacks on the British government about 1770:

Was he [Francis] the author of the Letters of Junius? Our own firm belief is that he was. The evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the secretary of state's office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the war office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and look notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of deputy secretary-at-war; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the secretary of state's office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of these speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the war office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this agreement does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.[46]

Here the five points or marks of similarity between the writer of the letters and Philip Francis are of such diversity that it would be an extraordinary coincidence if there had happened to be two men whom they would fit: where so many lines converge so closely at a single point it would hardly be possible for them to meet on more than one person.

The following brief extract from Webster's argument in the White Murder Case shows the same sort of convergence of similarities: each circumstance in itself is hardly strong enough to furnish ground for an argument on analogy, but taken all together they point irresistibly in one direction, namely, to the fact of a conspiracy.

Let me ask your attention, then, in the first place, to those appearances, on the morning after the murder, which have a tendency to show that it was done in pursuance of a preconcerted plan of operation. What are they? A man was found murdered in his bed. No stranger had done the deed, no one unacquainted with the house had done it. It was apparent that somebody within had opened, and that somebody without had entered. There had obviously and certainly been concert and cooperation. The inmates of the house were not alarmed when the murder was perpetrated. The assassin had entered without any riot or any violence. He had found the way prepared before him. The house had been previously opened. The window was unbarred from within, and its fastening unscrewed. There was a lock on the door of the chamber in which Mr. White slept, but the key was gone. It had been taken away and secreted. The footsteps of the murderer were visible, outdoors, tending toward the window. The plank by which he entered the window still remained. The road he pursued had thus been prepared for him. The victim was slain, and the murderer had escaped. Everything indicated that somebody within had cooperated with somebody without. Everything proclaimed that some of the inmates, or somebody having access to the house, had had a hand in the murder. On the face of the circumstances, it was apparent, therefore, that this was a premeditated, concerted murder; that there had been a conspiracy to commit it.[47]

The strength of reasoning from circumstantial evidence lies in the number and the diversity of the points of similarity to the point in hand. If there are few of them, the possibility of coincidence increases, as it also does when the points of similarity come from the same source or are of the same nature. This possibility of coincidence is a good rough test of the value of reasoning from circumstantial evidence: where the theory of a coincidence would stretch all probabilities one may safely leave it out of account.

In practice the argument from circumstantial evidence is more frequent in the experience of lawyers than in that of other men; but sooner or later everybody has to pass on such reasoning, for wherever direct evidence is out of the question it may be necessary to piece the situation together by circumstantial evidence. There is some prejudice against such evidence, springing from reported cases of miscarriage of justice in convictions based on it. Such cases, however, are very rare in reality, and probably do not equal in number the cases in which mistaken or false direct testimony has caused injustice.

46. Some Pitfalls of Reasoning--Ambiguity. I have already spoken of some of the dangers to which reasoning is subject--false analogy, faulty generalization of various kinds, and various sins against the rules of the syllogism. There are still a few general dangers to speak about. It should be noted that the various kinds of fallacies run into each other, and not infrequently a given piece of bad reasoning can be described under more than one of them.

Of all the sources of faulty and misleading reasoning, ambiguity is the most fruitful and the most inclusive.

It springs from the facts that words, except those which are almost technically specific, are constantly used in more than one sense, and that a great many of the words which we use in everyday life are essentially vague in meaning. Such common words as "liberty," "right," "gentleman," "better," "classic," "honor," and innumerable others each need a treatise for any thorough definition; and then the definition, if complete, would be largely a tabulation of perfectly proper senses in which the words can be used, or a list of the ways in which different people have used them. Besides this notorious vagueness of many common words, a good many words, as I have already shown (p. 54), have two or more distinct and definable meanings.

Strictly speaking, the ambiguity does not inhere in the word itself, but rather in its use in an assertion, since ambiguity can arise only when we are making an assertion. It has been defined as "the neglect of distinctions in the meaning of terms, when these distinctions are important for the given occasion."[48] Suppose, for example, you are arguing against a certain improvement in a college dormitory, on the ground that it makes for luxury: clearly "luxury" is a word that may mean one thing to you, and another to half of your audience. By itself it is an indefinite word, except in its emotional implication; and its meaning varies with the people concerning whom it is used, since what would be luxury for a boy brought up on a farm would be bare comfort to the son of wealthy parents in the city. Indeed the advances of plumbing in the last generation have completely changed the relative meanings of the words "comfort" and "luxury" so far as they concern bathrooms and bathtubs. In the case of such a word, then, the weight of the definition above falls on the last clause, "when these distinctions are important for the given occasion"; here is a case where the occasion on which the word "luxury" is used determines nearly the whole of its meaning. In practice, if you have a suspicion that a word may be taken in another sense than that you intend, the first thing to do is to define it--to lay down as exactly as possible the cases which it is intended to cover on the present occasion, and the meaning it is to have in those cases. For good examples of this enlightened caution, see the definitions on pages 54-65, especially that from Bagchot.

A similar difficulty arises with the words which, in the somewhat slipshod use of everyday life, have come to have as it were a sliding value.

We may raise no difficulty about understanding the assertions that Brown, and Jones, and Robinson are "honest," but when we come to the case of Smith we discover a difficulty in placing him clearly on either side of the line. That difficulty is nothing less than the difficulty of knowing the meaning given to the word in this particular assertion. We might, for instance, agree to mean by Smith's "honesty" that no shady transactions could be legally proved against him, or that he is "honest according to his lights," or again that he is about as honest as the majority of his neighbors or the average of his trade or profession.[49]

That this is not a fanciful case can be shown by noticing how often we speak of "transparent" honesty, or of "absolute" honesty: this is notably one of the words for which we have a sliding scale of values, which vary considerably with the age and the community. "Political honesty" has a very different meaning in the England of to-day from that which it had in the eighteenth century. To get at the exact meaning of honesty, then, either for Mr. Sidgwick's Brown, Jones, Robinson, and Smith, or for Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour as compared with Walpole or Pitt, we need a good deal more than a dictionary definition. What has already been said (p. 65) on the use of the history of the case to get a preliminary understanding of the question which is to be argued, and the terms to be used in it, applies all through the reasoning involved in the argument. Scrutinize all the terms you use yourself, as well as those used in arguments on the other side. I have already pointed out the ambiguity there is in the emotional implications of words; but the danger from it is so subtle and so besetting that it will be worth while to dwell on it again. There are many cases in which there is no doubt as to the denotation of the word,--the cases which it is intended to name,--but in which the two sides to a controversy use the word with a totally different effect on their own and other people's feelings. Before the Civil War pretty much the whole South had come to use the word "slavery" as implying one of the settled institutions of the country, more or less sanctified by divine ordinance; at the same time a large portion of the North had come to look on it as an abomination to the Lord.

Here there was no doubt as to the denotation of the word; but in a highly important respect it was ambiguous, because it implied a totally different reaction among the people who used it. In a case where the contrast is so glaring there is little danger of confusion; but there are a good many cases where a word may have very different effects on the feelings of an audience without the fact coming very clearly to the surface. "Liberal" is to most Americans a term implying praise, so far as it goes; to Cardinal Newman it implied what were to him the irreverent and dangerous heresies of free thought, and therefore in his mouth it was a word of condemnation.[50] "Aesthetic" to many good people has an implication of effeminacy and of trifling which is far from praiseworthy; to artists and critics it may sum up what is most admirable in civilization. If in an argument on abolishing football as an intercollegiate sport you describe a certain game as played "with spirit and fierceness," football players would think of it as a good game, but opponents of football would hold that such a description justified them in classing the game with prize fighting. When one of the terms you use may thus stir one part of your audience in one way, and the other part in just the opposite way, you are dealing with an uncomfortable kind of ambiguity.

It is easy to get into the way of thinking that the denotation of a word--the things which it names--is the only part of its meaning that counts; but with many words the connotation--I use the word in the rhetorical rather than in the logical sense, to include its implications, associations, and general emotional coloring--has more effect on human nature. There is a good deal of difference between telling a man that his assertion is "incorrect," "untrue," or "false"; if you use the last and he is at all choleric you may bring on an explosion. In argument, where you are aiming to persuade as well as to convince, the question of the feelings of your audience and how they will be affected by the terms you use is obviously of great importance. And if you are using such terms as "gentleman," "political honesty," "socialist," "coeducation," you must not forget that such words have a definite emotional connotation, which will vary largely with the reader.

47. Begging the Question. The fallacy of "begging the question" consists of assuming as true something that the other side would not admit. It is especially insidious in the condensed arguments of which I spoke a few pages back. A common form of the fallacy consists of slipping in an epithet which quietly takes for granted one's own view of the question, or of using some expression that assumes one's own view as correct. For example, in an argument for a change in a city government, to declare that all intelligent citizens favor it would be begging the question. In an argument for the protection of crows, to begin, "Few people know how many of these useful birds are killed each year," would be to beg the question, since the argument turns on whether crows are useful or not. A gross and uncivil form of this fallacy is to use opprobrious epithets in describing persons who take the other view, as in the following sentence from an article in a magazine on the question of examinations for entrance to college:

As for interest and variety, what could destroy and taboo both more effectually than the rigid and rigorous demands of a formal set of examinations prepared, as a rule, by pedantic specialists who know practically nothing of the fundamental problems and needs of the high school.

Begging the question is often committed in the course of defining terms, as in the following passage from Cardinal Newman's "Idea of a University":

It is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to erect
so-called Universities, without making any provision in them at all
for Theological chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here
[Ireland] and in England. Such a procedure, though defended by
writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument
and not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity; and my
reason For saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form
of a syllogism:--A University, I should lay down, by its very name
professes to teach universal knowledge; Theology is surely a branch
of knowledge; how then is it possible for it to profess all branches
of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching
one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of
them? I do not see that either premise of this argument is open to
exception.[51]

The obvious answer is that "university" is a vague term and that there may be many kinds of universities, as indeed there are in this country; moreover, the importance of theology is an arguable matter even among church members.

A well-recognized, but often subtle, form of begging the question is what is known as "arguing in a circle." Usually the fallacy is so wrapped up in verbiage that it is hard to pick out. Here is a clear and well-put detection of a case of it:

There is an argument in favor of child labor so un-American and so inhuman that I am almost ashamed to quote it, and yet it has been used, and I fear it is secretly in the minds of some who would not openly stand for it. A manufacturer standing near the furnace of a glasshouse and pointing to a procession of young Slav boys who were carrying the glass on trays, remarked, "Look at their faces, and you will see that it is idle to take them from the glasshouse in order to give them an education: they are what they are, and will always remain what they are." He meant that there are some human beings--and these Slavs of the number--who are mentally irredeemable, so fast asleep intellectually that they cannot be awakened; designed by nature, therefore, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. This cruel and wicked thing was said of Slavs; it is the same thing which has been said from time immemorial by the slave owners of their slaves. First they degrade human beings by denying them the opportunity to develop their better nature: no schools, no teaching, no freedom, no outlook; and then, as if in mockery, they point to the degraded condition of their victims as a reason why they should never be allowed to escape from it.[52]

In a diffuse and disorderly argument there is always a chance to find some begging of the question which may consist either of getting back to an assumption of the original proposition and so arguing in a circle, or of simply assuming that what has been asserted has been proved. The fallacy of the invented example, in which a fictitious case is described as an illustration, and presently assumed as a real case, is a not uncommon form of begging the question.

48. Ignoring the Question. This is a closely allied error in reasoning that is apt to be due to the same kind of confused and woolly thinking. It consists in slipping away from the question in debate and arguing vigorously at something else. A famous exposure of the fallacy is Macaulay's denunciation of the arguments in favor of Charles I:

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony as to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.[53]

In an argument for woman suffrage on the ground that suffrage is a right which ought not to be denied, it would be ignoring the question merely to enumerate the various ways in which the responsibility of a vote might help to better the condition of women.

To ignore the question by trying to lead the public off on a false scent is a constant device of officials who are accused of misconduct. A United States senator whose election had been questioned gave in his defense a full and harrowing account of the struggles of his boyhood. A board of assessors who had been charged with incompetence ended their defense, in which they had taken no notice of the charges, as follows:

Criticism of the Board of Assessors comes with poor grace from those whose endeavors for the common good are confined to academic essays on good government. It savors too much of the adroit pickpocket, who, finding himself hard pressed, joins in the chase, shouting as lustily as any of the unthinking rabble, "Stop, thief!"

The curious thing is that this trick of crossing the scent does lead so many people off the trail.

The so-called _argumentum ad hominem_ and the _argumentum ad populum_ are special cases of ignoring the question: they consist of appeals to the feelings or special interests of the reader or the audience which run away from the question at issue. They are not uncommon in stump speeches, and in other arguments whose chief purpose is to arouse enthusiasm.

An argument on the tariff, for example, sometimes runs off into appeals to save this grand country from ruin or from the trusts or from some other fate which the speaker pictures as hanging over an innocent and plain people. An argument for the restoration of the classical system of education which should run off into eulogies of the good old times might easily become an _argumentum ad populum_; an argument in favor of a new park which should dwell on selfish advantages which might be gained by the abutters without regard to larger municipal policy would probably be an _argumentum ad hominem_.

Obviously these two forms of shifting the issue trench closely on the element of persuasion in an argument, and in making the distinction you must apply common sense. Your adversary may reprove you for an _argumentum ad hominem_ or _ad populum_, when you believe that you are keeping well within the bounds of legitimate persuasion; but in general it is safe to guard your self-respect by drawing a broad line between dodging and unworthy appeals to prejudice and justifiable appeals to feeling and personal interest.

EXERCISES

1. Name a question of policy which would be settled by the establishment of some controverted fact.

2. Find in the daily papers an account of a trial in which evidence was declared inadmissible under the rules of law which would have been taken into account by the average man outside the court in making up his own mind.

3. Name three questions in which the evidence would be affected by temperamental and other prepossessions of the witness.

4. Name a scientific question in which some important fact is established by reasoning from other facts.

5. Cite a case, either from real life or from fiction, in which a fact was established by circumstantial evidence; analyze the evidence and show how it rests on reasoning from similarity.

6. Give a case in which what you believed to be direct observation of a fact deceived you.

7. Give an example from your own experience within a week where vague authorities have been cited as direct evidence.

8. What would you think of the writer of the following sentences as a witness to the numbers and importance of the participants in the woman suffrage procession he is reporting?

Fifth Avenue has seldom, if ever, been more crowded than on Saturday
afternoon, and never anywhere have I seen so many women among the
spectators of a passing pageant. Throngs, many tiers deep, flanked
the line of march, and these throngs were overwhelmingly composed of
women. As I passed from block to block I could not get away from the
thought that the vastest number of these were sick of heart and
ashamed that they, too, were not in line behind the kilted band that
headed the procession, the historic symbolic floats, and the
inscribed banners, along with their three thousand or more sisters.
Here were women, fighting a good fight for the cause of women--for
the underpaid factory workers and the overfed lady of fortune who is
deprived the right of voice in the government over her inherited
property. (Report in a daily paper, May 8, 1911)

9. Find an example of historical evidence in a case where there are no direct witnesses to the fact; discuss it according to S. R. Gardiner's tests (p. 103).

10. Find two examples from the daily papers where statistics are used to establish a complex fact.

11. Name two subjects on which you could gather statistics, and the sources from which you would draw them.

12. Bring to class the testimony of a recognized authority on some complex fact, and explain why his testimony carries weight.

13. Name a subject on which you can speak with authority, and explain why your testimony on that subject should carry weight.

14. Give an example from your own experience of a case in which it is hard to distinguish between direct and indirect evidence.

15. Find in the daily papers or current magazines an argument based on reasoning by analogy; one based on reasoning by generalization; one based on circumstantial evidence; explain the character of each.

16. Find an example of an argument based on reasoning from a causal relation.

17. Find an example of an argument from enumeration of like cases which might be easily upset.

18. In the proposition, "A gentleman ought not to become a professional baseball player," what meaning could be given to the word "gentleman"?

19. Distinguish between the meanings of _law_ in the phrases "moral law," "natural law," and "law of the land."

20. What different meanings would the word "comfort" have had in the days of your grandfather, as compared with the present day?

21. Give, two examples of words with "sliding meanings."

22. Give two examples of words whose denotation is fixed, but whose connotation or emotional implications would be different with different people.

23. Find an example of false analogy.

24. Criticize the reasoning in the following extract from a letter to a newspaper urging Republican and Democratic tickets at the municipal election in a small city in the country.

It is an acknowledged fact that competition in the business life of
our city is beneficial to the consumer. If that be so, why will not
competition in city affairs bring equally good results to the
taxpayer?

25. Give an example you have recently heard of hasty generalization; explain its weakness.

26. Give an example of your own of the _post hoc_ fallacy.

27. Give an example of false reasoning based on assuming a complex fact to be simple.

28. Criticize the reasoning in the following extracts:

a. [Dispatch to a daily paper.] Haverhill, March 30, 1911. Opponents
of commission form of government are deriving no little satisfaction
from the development of testimony borne out by figures taken from
the auditing department of the city of Haverhill that this method
of administering municipal affairs has proved thus far to be a
costly experiment there.... The total amount of bonds issued during
the past twenty-seven months, covering the period of operation of
commission form of government, was $576,000; the present borrowing
capacity of the city is only approximately $35,000; that the city's
bonded debt has increased from $441,264 to $1,181,314 in the past
five years; the net bonded debt has more than doubled within three
years; that the assessed valuation has increased $5,000,000; and the
tax rate has been raised from $17.40 to $19 in five years. The
borrowing capacity of $341,696 on January 1, 1906, has decreased to
$95,000 on January 1, 1911.... Commission form of government went
into effect in Haverhill on the first Monday in January, 1909.

b. From an article in a magazine, opposing the plan of the
postmaster-general to increase the postage on the advertising
sections of magazines: consider especially the word "censorship":

We see two grave objections to the postmaster-general's plan. First,
it requires a censorship to determine what periodicals are
"magazines" whose advertising pages are to be taxed, and what are
the educational and religious periodicals which are to continue to
enjoy what the President calls a "subsidy." Such a censorship would
be a new feature in postal administration, and it would seem to be a
thing very difficult to work out on any fair basis.

29. In a newspaper report of an inquiry made by the director of the Columbia University gymnasium into the effects of smoking, the following sentences occur:

In scholarship the nonsmokers had the distinct advantage. The
smokers averaged eighty per cent in their studies at entrance,
sixty-two per cent during the first two years, and seven per cent of
failure. The nonsmokers got ninety-one per cent in their entrance
examinations and sixty-nine per cent in their first two years in
college, while only four per cent were failures. In this respect Dr.
Meylan thinks there is a distinct relation between smoking and
scholarship.

Of the same set of students forty-seven per cent of the smokers won
places on varsity athletic teams, while only thirty-seven per cent
of the nonsmokers could get places.

If the next to the last sentence had read, "Smoking therefore seems to be a cause of low scholarship," what should you think of the reasoning?

30. Criticize the reasoning in the following portion of an argument for prohibition:

Dr. Williams says, "We find no evidence that the prohibition laws
have in the past been effective in diminishing the consumption of
alcoholic beverages." ... The absence of logic in Dr. Williams's
conclusion will be readily seen by substituting the homicide evil
and the greed evil for the liquor evil in his argument.

Since its establishment the United States has sought to remedy with
prohibition the homicide evil. Every state has laws with severe
penalties prohibiting murder. And yet the number of homicides in
the United States has steadily increased until the number in 1910
was eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-five. Since, then,
homicides have steadily increased during the past hundred years
under a law with severe penalties prohibiting them, a prohibitory
law has not been and cannot be a remedy for homicide.

31. Criticize the reasoning in the following extract from an argument for the electrification of the terminal part of a railroad:

It is true that locomotive smoke and gas do not kill people
outright; but that their influence though not immediately measurable
is to shorten life cannot, I submit, be successfully combated.... A
few years ago I made some calculations based on the records of ten
years' operation of the railroads in this state, and found that if a
man should spend his whole time day and night riding in railroad
trains at an average rate of thirty miles an hour, and if he had
average good luck, he would not be killed by accident, without his
fault, oftener than once in fifteen hundred years, and that he would
not receive any injury of sufficient importance to be reported
oftener than once in five hundred years. I ask you to estimate how
long a man would, in your opinion, live if he were obliged
continuously day and night to breathe the air of our stations
without any opportunity to relieve his lungs by a breath of purer
and better air.

32. Give an example in which you yourself have used the method of agreement in arriving at a conclusion in the last week.

33. Give an example, from one of your studies, of the use of the method of agreement.

34. Give an example, which has recently come to your notice, of the use of the method of difference.

36. Criticize the following syllogisms, giving your reasons for thinking them sound or not:

a. All rich men should be charitable with their wealth; Charitable
men forgive their enemies; Therefore all rich men should forgive
their enemies.

b. Every man who plays baseball well has a good eye and quick
judgment; Every good tennis player has a good eye and a quick
judgment; Therefore every good tennis player is a good baseball
player.

c. Whenever you find a man who drinks hard you find, a man who is
unreliable; Our coachman does not drink hard; Therefore he is
reliable.

d. All the steamships which cross the ocean in the quickest time are
comfortable; This steamship is slow; Therefore she is not
comfortable.

e. All dogs who bark constantly are not bad-tempered; This dog does
not bark constantly; Therefore he is not bad-tempered.

f. All cold can be expelled by heat; John's illness is a cold;
Therefore it can be expelled by heat. (From Minto)

g. The use of ardent spirits should be prohibited by law, seeing
that it causes misery and crime, which it is one of the chief ends
of law to prevent. (From Bode)

h. Rational beings are accountable for their actions; brutes not
being rational, are therefore exempt from responsibility. (From
Jevons)

36. Expand the following arguments into syllogisms and criticize their soundness:

a. The snow will turn to rain, because it is getting warmer.

b. The boy has done well in his examination, for he came out looking
cheerful.

c. We had an economical government last year, therefore the tax rate
will be reduced.

d. Lee will be a good mayor, for men who have energy and good
judgment can do incalculable good to their fellow citizens.

e. There is unshaken evidence that every member of the board of
aldermen received a bribe, and George O. Carter was a member of that
board.

f. The candidate for stroke on the freshman crew came from Santos
School, therefore he must be a good oarsman.

37. Criticize the reasoning in the following arguments, pointing out whether they are sound or unsound, and why:

a. It costs a Nebraska farmer twenty cents to raise a bushel of
corn. When corn gets down to twenty cents he cannot buy anything,
and he cannot pay more than twelve or fifteen dollars a month for
help. When it gets up to thirty-five cents the farmer gives his
children the best education possible, and buys an automobile.
Therefore the farmer will be ruined if the tariff on corn is not
raised.

b. For many years the Democratic platforms have declared explicitly
or implicitly against the duties on sugar; if the Democrats should
come into power and reduce the duties, they would lose their
strength in the states producing cane sugar and beet sugar; if they
do not reduce the duty, they admit that their platforms have been
insincere. (Condensed from an editorial in a newspaper. March, 1911)

c. I hardly need say that I am opposed to any such system as that of
Galveston, or to call it by its broader name, the commission system.
It is but another name for despotism. Louis XIV was a commissioner
for executing the duties of governing France. Philip II was the same
in Spain. The Decemvirs and Triumvirs of Rome were but the same sort
of thing, as was also the Directory in France. They all came to the
same end. Says Madison, in No. XLVII of _The Federalist_: "The
accumulation of all powers, legislative and judiciary, in the same
hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary,
self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very
definition of tyranny." Mr. justice Story said, "Whenever these
departments are all vested in one person or body of men, the
government is in fact a despotism, by whatever name it be called,
whether a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy."

d. The procedure of Berlin has in it an element of fairness worthy
of our consideration; those representing large property interests
have a surety of being at least represented. Some such system must
be devised if the holding of properly at all be regarded as moral
and necessary to our civilization. Remember that you are, in a large
sense, but a chartered joint-stock corporation. Can you imagine the
control of any other joint-stock corporation delivered over to those
who have no stock or the least stock in it? Can you imagine the New
York & New Haven Railroad, for example, controlled by the
passengers, to the exclusion of the stock holders? Now this, to a
very great degree, is what has happened in many of our cities. We
have deprived the true stockholders, in some cases, of any
representation whatever. I thus hold that to give property some
voice in the control of a municipal corporation is but sense and
justice.

e. We have tried commissions in Buffalo in branches of our city
government. They have tried them in nearly every city in this
country. We have governed our police by commissions, our parks by
commissions, our public works by commissions. Commission government
was for many years a fad in this country, and it has become
discredited, so that of late we have been doing away with
commissions and coming to single heads for departments having
executive functions and some minor legislative functions, such as
park boards, and police boards, and have been trying to concentrate
responsibility in that way. In Erie County and throughout New York a
commission elected by the people governs our counties. The board of
supervisors is a commission government. It has never been
creditable--always bad, even as compared with our city governments.
To be sure, it is not just that kind of commission government. It is
a larger commission; it is not elected at large, but by districts,
but it is an attempt at the same thing. So I say there is nothing
new about this idea of government by a commission.