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The following subjects further illustrate those which cannot be readily supported by such evidence as any ordinary reader can use for a basis for judgment, and hence are unsuitable for our use:

Is ambition productive of more good than evil?

That popular music is more useful than classical.

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4. Compound propositions, or propositions that call for proof along several utterly divergent or even opposite lines, are likely to prove unprofitable if not baffling. Years ago some debaters came to grief over the question, “Should England keep her present governmental control of Egypt? One side began by showing how splendidly England was doing and that a lessened control would endanger these results. The other side opened by admitting every word of the first speaker except the unemphasized word "present" and contended that thoroughgoing complete control should be substituted for the partial "present" control because of the splendid results proved by the first speaker. Obviously those who supported the affirmative proposition had to defend their plan against both those who wanted more control and those who wanted less.

The following subjects illustrate this difficulty:

Is the English government superior in form and in operation to that of the United States?

That a union of the Christian churches is neither possible nor desirable.

Keen students will note that the argument for any reform is likely to suffer somewhat from this same disadvantage, and they will be on their guard accordingly. When a reform is seriously advanced as a remedy for genuine evils, thorough analysis of opposing sides generally makes clear whether emphasis should be laid on the superiority of the reform to existing conditions or to some rival reform strongly favored by many. The argument can then be organized accordingly. It is an unenviable position when one is forced to show in an argument that a certain reform will not only improve a con

dition recognized to be bad, but also be better than a more drastic change. Essentially this is one difficulty facing those who are now arguing for legalizing the sale of light wines and beers. Such questions if used must be treated with great care, as they call for defense in all directions at once.

5. Finally, the student studying his chosen topic so as to analyze it into a disputable proposition should exercise great care to secure a question that will admit of clear and definite phrasing and thus avoid the fifth difficulty of vague and even ambiguous terms. Take the question, "Has the automobile increased the happiness of man?" Just what is meant by happiness in such a connection, and how can you discuss its increase by any machine? "Journalism offers greater rewards to the writer than does literature" is very vague as to what rewards should be considered, while the answer to such a question as " Is the constant reading of fiction injurious to the mind?" depends largely on what sort of fiction is read, and most of all on whose mind is being affected. Some fiction would injure no minds, and presumably some minds would not be injured by any fiction. It is generally well to avoid questions in which the personal equation plays so obvious a part. Since it is very difficult to agree on what makes a character truly fine, and since history presents several well-known Earls of Shaftesbury, the question, "Was the Earl of Shaftesbury a fine character?" is both vague and ambiguous. The number of well-supported interpretations of the Monroe Doctrine is likely to produce ambiguity in the proposition, "The League of Nations is incompatible with the Monroe Doctrine," or at least to make the discussion deal much more with the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine than with the workings of the League of Nations, which is the real question of the hour.

A subject for argument, then, should be in the form of a single disputable proposition or question, unprejudiced and unambiguous in its meaning, and phrased so far as possible in specific, definite, and brief terms.

Students should be on their guard especially against the following:

1. Subjects that are not in disputable form.

2. Propositions implying their own answer (questionbegging).

3. Propositions that do not supply impressive evidence. 4. Propositions with too divergent lines of proof (doubleheaded).

5. Vague propositions.

EXERCISES

1. Phrasing propositions. Let the students phrase propositions on the following terms: student government, honor system, fraternities, prohibition, republican or democratic party, next Congress, city government.

2. Choosing propositions. Let the students bring into class five propositions on which they would be interested to write arguments.

3. Discuss the merits and defects of the following propositions: 1. Is jazz music approved by persons of good taste?

2. Should the United States join the League of Nations without reservations?

3. Was the inhuman policy of our marines in Haiti justifiable? 4. The reëlection of President Coolidge is for the best interests of the people of the United States.

5. Why should we not have free speech in a democratic country? 6. Mr. John W. Davis is the greatest living American lawyer. 7. Is poetry more valuable than science?

8. Is legalizing the sale of light wines and beers (constitutional prohibition in other respects being assumed) the best method of dealing with the liquor problem?

9. Do conditions in the United States demand a new major political party?

10. Fraternity houses should be maintained on the present luxurious scale.

4. Rephrase five of the propositions in the foregoing list so as to make them more useful for argument.

ANALYSIS

CHAPTER III

II. DEFINING THE TERMS

Much has been said in regard to phrasing the proposition in clear and definite terms. Yet, when all reasonable care has been taken to secure such phrasing, the task of establishing the true content of the question and the exact boundaries of the argument, that is, of defining' the question, is only well begun.

The need of definition. Careless or untrained students, glancing at a proposition or question given them, assume, because the terms are not without meaning for them, that they can dash into discussion at once. Probably the terms of the question recently much discussed, "Should tolls for the use of the Panama Canal be imposed on our coastwise shipping?" have some meaning for every intelligent collegian, but it is unsafe for him to assume in consequence that he can begin arguing at once. After he has made sure just what is the content of his own mind on the topic as he understands it, he must by investigation ascertain what meaning or meanings the public in its discussion of the question has put on the terms. He will probably be surprised to discover that the question is one more of international comity and treaty rights than of economic laws and domestic policies. Few debated questions have but one possible meaning and that unmistakable.

1 This term defining, used formally to designate the second step in analysis, is unfortunate in its suggestion of the narrow and stiff paraphrases used in dictionaries. The derivative suggestion of fines, boundaries, territory, is more useful. Strive in this second step so to explain the question as to establish its true boundaries and map out its proper territory.

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"Is a constitutional government better for a population than an absolute rule?" What a number of points have to be clearly apprehended before we are in a position to say one word on such a question! What is meant by "constitution"? by constitutional government"? by "better"? by "a population"? and by "absolutism"? The ideas represented by these various words ought, I do not say, to be as perfectly defined and located in the minds of the speakers as objects of sight in a landscape, but to be sufficiently, even though incompletely, apprehended, before they have a right to speak. "How is it that democracy can admit of slavery, as in ancient Greece?" "How can Catholicism flourish in a republic?" Now, a person who knows his ignorance will say, "These questions are beyond me"; and he tries to gain a clear notion and a firm hold of them, and, if he speaks, it is as investigating, not as deciding. On the other hand, let him never have tried to throw things together, or to discriminate between them, or to denote their peculiarities, in that case he has no hesitation in undertaking any subject, and perhaps has most to say upon those questions which are most new to him. This is why so many men are one-sided, narrow-minded, prejudiced, crotchety. This is why able men have to change their minds and their line of action in middle age, and begin life again, because they have followed their party, instead of having secured that faculty of true perception as regards intellectual objects which has accrued to them, without their knowing how, as regards the objects of sight.1

For students of literary criticism the terms in "Is Goethe's Egmont a tragic character?" would probably need no definition, but for a general audience there would be need to explain how Goethe represented Egmont, and especially what there is involved in a truly tragic character that has aroused this discussion. Moreover, how can we hope clearly to discuss "Is the utilitarian theory of morals defensible?" or "Should the United States have exclusive jurisdiction over Bering Sea?" unless we first decide what is meant by "utilitarian theory of morals," "exclusive jurisdiction,"

1 J. H. Newman, Idea of a University, pp. 498–499. Longmans, Green & Co., 1888.

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