Practical Argumentation by George K. Pattee (summer reading list .txt) 📖

had seen Armstrong strike Metzker about ten or eleven o’clock in the evening. When asked how he could see, he answered that the moon shone brightly. Under Lincoln’s questioning he repeated the statement until it was impossible that the jury should forget it. With Allen’s testimony unimpeached, conviction seemed certain.

Lincoln’s address to the jury was full of pathos. It was not as a hired attorney that he was there, he said, but to discharge a debt of friendship…. But Lincoln was not relying on sympathy alone to win his case. In closing he reviewed the evidence, showing that all depended on Allen’s testimony, and this he said he could prove to be false. Allen never saw Armstrong strike Metzker by the light of the moon, for at the hour when he said he saw the fight, between ten and eleven o’clock, the moon was not in the heavens. Then procuring an almanac, he passed it to the judge and jury. The moon, which was on that night only in its first quarter, had set before midnight. [Footnote: The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I, p. 272. Ida M. Tarbell. The Doubleday & McClure Co.]

An arguer should also be extremely careful to use evidence that on its face appears reasonable. Only an extremely credulous audience will accept ideas that run counter to human belief and experience. To attribute the occurrence of an event to supernatural causes would bring a smile of derision to any but a most ignorant and superstitious person. To attribute to men qualities and characteristics that human experience has shown they do not possess will bring equal discredit. No one is likely to accept evidence that contradicts his habits of thinking, that is contrary to what his life and experience have taught him is true. For this reason savage people are slow to believe the teachings of the Christian religion. For this reason it is difficult to make an audience believe that any one will deliberately and consistently work against his own interests, or follow any other unusual line of action. Evidence contrary to human experience may be true, but unless the exigencies of the argument demand its use, the arguer will do well to omit it entirely. If he is obliged to use it, he should make it appear as reasonable as he can, and also substantiate it with careful proof.

Huxley appreciated the fact that evidence, to be believed, must be in accordance with man’s experience when he wrote the following:—

If any one were to try to persuade you that an oyster shell (which is also chiefly composed of carbonate of lime) had crystallized out of sea-water, I suppose you would laugh at the absurdity. Your laughter would be justified by the fact that all experience tends to show that oyster-shells are formed by the agency of oysters, and in no other way.

The ease with which an argument that does not satisfy this requirement may be overthrown is clearly shown in the following extract from a student’s forensic:—

To say that the Cuban reconcentrados sunk the Maine in an effort to embroil the United States in a conflict with Spain is the veriest foolishness. There is not one scrap of documentary evidence to show that such was the case. Moreover, such an act would be unparalleled in the annals of history. It is unreasonable, contrary to all experience, that those oppressed people should have brought disaster, involving the destruction of property and the loss of many lives, upon the very nation that they were looking to for assistance.

(2) Is the evidence first-hand or hearsay evidence?

It is universally recognized that hearsay evidence is unreliable. A narrative is sure to become so garbled by passing from mouth to mouth that unless a witness can testify to a fact from his own personal knowledge the evidence he gives is worthy of little credence. There is sufficient chance for error when the person who witnessed the event relates the account himself; if the story is told by a second, and perhaps by a third person, it is likely to reflect but little of what really happened. Every one is familiar with the exaggerations of common rumor; it distorts facts so that they are unrecognizable. The works of Herodotus are untrustworthy because he frequently believed hearsay evidence. Since second-hand evidence both fails to establish anything worth while, if allowed to stand, and is easily overthrown even by a very little first-hand evidence, an arguer will do well to follow the custom of the law courts, and, as a rule, exclude it altogether.

(3) Can the evidence be considered as especially valuable?

(a) Hurtful admissions constitute an especially valuable kind of evidence. Since men are not wont to give evidence detrimental to their personal interest unless impelled to do so by conscientious scruples, any testimony damaging to the one who gives it is in all probability not only truthful, but also the result of careful investigation. When a practising physician admits that half the ailments of mankind are imaginary or so trivial as to need no medical attention, he is making a statement that is likely to injure his business; for this reason he is probably stating the result of his experience truthfully. If a railroad president says that in his opinion government supervision of railroads will benefit the public in the matter of rates and service, it may be taken for granted that he has given his honest belief, and that his natural reluctance to surrender any authority of his own has kept him from speaking carelessly. If a member of the United States Senate admits that that body is corrupt, and selfish, and untrustworthy, he is lowering his own rank; therefore it is reasonable to believe that he is speaking the truth according to his honest belief.

The following is an example of this kind of evidence:—

It was stated during the Manchurian campaign that the Jewish soldiers, of whom Kuropatkin had about 35,000, not only failed to hold their ground under fire, but by their timidity threw their comrades into panic. But good evidence can be cited from the correspondents of the Novoye Vremya, an Anti-Semitic organ, to the effect that among the Jews were found many “intrepid and intelligent soldiers,” and that a number of them were awarded the St. George’s cross for gallantry. [Footnote: The Nation, June 11, 1908.]

It is hardly necessary to add that one who places especial reliance on this kind of evidence must be sure that the admission is really and not merely apparently contrary to the interest of the one who gives it.

(b) Another particularly valuable kind of evidence is negative evidence, or the evidence of silence. Whenever a witness fails to mention an event which, if it had occurred, would have been of such interest to him that he might reasonably have been expected to have mentioned it, his silence upon the matter becomes negative evidence that the event did not occur. For many years no one suggested that Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays; this absence of testimony to the belief that Bacon wrote them is strong evidence that such belief did not exist until recently, a fact that tends to discredit the Baconian theory of authorship. The fact that in the writings of Dickens and Thackeray no mention is made of the bicycle is negative evidence that the bicycle had not then come into use. That Moses nowhere in his writings speaks of life after death is negative evidence that the Hebrews did not believe in the immortality of the soul. If admittedly capable and impartial officials do not inflict penalties for foul playing during a football game, there is strong presumption that little or no foul playing occurred.

The following paragraph, taken from a current magazine, shows how this kind of evidence may be handled very effectively:—

A sharp controversy has been raging in the European press over the question whether Gambetta secretly visited Bismarck in 1878. Francis Laur, Gambetta’s literary executor, has published an article asserting that he did, and giving details (rather vague, it must be admitted) of the conversation between the two statesmen. But he offers not a scrap of documentary proof. He is not even sure whether the interview took place at Friedrichsruh or at Varzin. This is rather disconcerting, especially in view of the fact that Bismarck never made the slightest reference in his reminiscences or letters to the visit of Gambetta, if it occurred, and that the minute Busch never mentioned it. [Footnote: The Nation, September 5, 1907]

 

ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY.

There is a particular kind of evidence frequently available for debaters and argumentative writers known as argument from authority. This evidence consists of the opinions and decisions of men who are recognized, to some extent at least, as authorities on the subjects of which they speak. An eminent scientist might explain with unquestioned certainty the operation of certain natural phenomena. A business man of wide experience and with well recognized insight into national conditions might speak authoritatively on the causes of business depressions. In religious matters the Bible is the highest authority for orthodox Christians; the Koran, for Mohammedans. In legal affairs the highest authorities are court decisions, opinions of eminent jurists, and the Constitution. If a certain college president is considered an authority in the matter of college discipline, then a quotation from him on the evils of hazing becomes valuable evidence for the affirmative of the proposition, “Hazing should be abolished in all colleges.” If the arguer wishes to strengthen his evidence, he may do so by giving the president’s reasons for condemning hazing; but he then departs from pure argument from authority. Pure argument from authority does not consist of a statement of the reasons involved; it asserts that something is true because some one who is acknowledged to be an authority on that subject says it is true.

Argument from authority differs from other evidence in that it involves not merely investigation but also the exercise of a high degree of judgment. The statement that in 1902, in the United Kingdom, two hundred and ninety-five communities of from 8,000 to 25,000 inhabitants were without street-car lines is not argument from authority; the discovery of this truth involved merely investigation. On the other hand, if some reputable statesman or business man should say that street-car facilities in the United States excelled those of England, this evidence would be argument from authority; only through both investigation and judgment could such a statement be evolved.

This kind of evidence is very strong when those addressed have confidence in the integrity, ability, and judgment of the person quoted. If, however, they do not know him, or if they do not consider him reliable, the evidence is of little value. Therefore, the test that an arguer should apply before using this kind of evidence is as follows:—

Is the witness an acknowledged authority on the subject about which he speaks?

Sometimes a short statement showing why the witness quoted is able to speak wisely and conclusively will render the evidence more valuable in the eyes of the audience. In the following example, notice how Judge James H. Blount used “authority” in proving that the Filipinos desired self-government:—

Senator Dubois, of Idaho, who was a member of the Congressional party that visited the Philippines, has since said in the New York “Independent”: All the Filipinos, with the exception of those who were holding positions under and drawing salaries from our Government, favor a government of their own. There is scarcely an exception among them…. There is nobody in the islands, no organization of any kind or description, which favors the policy of our Government toward them.

Senator Newlands, of Nevada, also a member of the Congressional party aforesaid, has declared, in the number of this Review for December, 1905, that practically the whole people desire