Public Speaking Part 25

You will comment upon this that its evident silliness would prevent any speaker from using such a form in serious argument. But recall that in the discussion of any idea a term may get its meaning slightly changed. In that slight change of meaning lurks the error ill.u.s.trated here, ready to lead to false reasoning and weakening of the argument.

Certain words of common use are likely to such s.h.i.+fting meanings--_republic, equality, representative, monarchy, socialistic_.

Any doubtful pa.s.sage in which such an error is suspected should be reduced to its syllogistic form to be tested for accuracy.

A representative of the people must vote always as they would vote.

A Congressman is a representative of the people.

Therefore, Congressmen must vote always as the people who elect them would vote.

Is not the expression, _representative of the people_, here used in two different senses?

When an argument is delivered, one of the premises--being a statement which the speaker a.s.sumes everyone will admit as true--is sometimes omitted. This shortened form is called an enthymeme.

Smith will be a successful civil engineer for he is a superior mathematician.

Supply the missing premise. Which is it?

In the bald, simple forms here set down, the syllogism and enthymeme are hardly suited to delivery in speeches. They must be amplified, explained, emphasized, in order to serve a real purpose. The following represent better the way a speaker uses deductive reasoning.

The appointing power is vested in the President and Senate; this is the general rule of the Const.i.tution. The removing power is part of the appointing power; it cannot be separated from the rest.

DANIEL WEBSTER: _The Appointing and Removing Power_, 1835

Then Daniel Webster stated in rather extended form the conclusion that the Senate should share in the removing proceedings.

Sir, those who espouse the doctrines of nullification reject, as it seems to me, the first great principle of all republican liberty; that is, that the majority _must_ govern. In matters of common concern, the judgment of a majority _must_ stand as the judgment of the whole.

DANIEL WEBSTER: _Reply to Calhoun_, 1853

Then, he argues, as these revenue laws were pa.s.sed by a majority, they must be obeyed in South Carolina.

Methods of Proof. In extended arguments, just as in detailed exposition, many different methods of proof may be employed.

Explanation. Often a mere clear explanation will induce a listener to accept your view of the truth of a proposition. You have heard men say, "Oh, if that is what you mean, I agree with you entirely. I simply didn't understand you." When you are about to engage in argument consider this method of exposition to see if it will suffice.

In all argument there is a great deal of formal or incidental explanation.

Authority. When authority is cited to prove a statement it must be subjected to the same tests in argument as in explanation. Is the authority reliable? Is he unprejudiced? Does his testimony fit in with the circ.u.mstances under consideration? Will his statements convince a person likely to be on the opposing side? Why has so much so-called authoritative information concerning conditions in Europe been so discounted? Is it not because the reporters are likely to be prejudiced and because while what they say may be true of certain places and conditions it does not apply to all the points under discussion? The speaker who wants the support of authority will test it as carefully as though its influence is to be used against him--as indeed, it frequently is.

Examples. Where examples are used in argumentation they must serve as more than mere ill.u.s.trations. In exposition an ill.u.s.tration frequently explains, but that same example would have no value in argument because while it ill.u.s.trates it does not prove. A suppositious example may serve in explanation; only a fact will serve as proof. The more inevitable its application, the more clinching its effect, the better its argumentative value. Notice how the two examples given below prove that the heirs of a literary man might be the very worst persons to own the copyrights of his writings since as owners they might suppress books which the world of readers should be able to secure easily.

While these examples ill.u.s.trate, do they not also prove?

I remember Richardson's grandson well; he was a clergyman in the city of London; he was a most upright and excellent man; but he had conceived a strong prejudice against works of fiction. He thought all novel-reading not only frivolous but sinful. He said--this I state on the authority of one of his clerical brethren who is now a bishop--he said that he had never thought it right to read one of his grandfather's books.

I will give another instance. One of the most instructive, interesting, and delightful books in our language is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. Now it is well known that Boswell's eldest son considered this book, considered the whole relation of Boswell to Johnson, as a blot in the escutcheon of the family.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY: _Copyright_, 1841

a.n.a.logy. In argument by a.n.a.logy the speaker attempts to prove that because certain things are known to be true in something that can be observed they are likely to be true in something else which in so far as it can be observed is quite like the first. We continually argue by a.n.a.logy in daily life. Lincoln was really using a.n.a.logy when he replied to the urging to change his army leaders during the Civil War, that he didn't think it wise to "swap horses while crossing a stream." Scientists use this method to draw conclusions when it is impossible to secure from actual observation or experiment a certain last step in the reasoning. The planet Mars and the earth are similar in practically all observable matters; they are about the same distance from the sun, they have the same surface conditions. The earth has living creatures upon it. Hence--so goes the reasoning of a.n.a.logy--Mars is probably inhabited. Reasoning by a.n.a.logy is used to prove that universal suffrage is good for the United States because it has been good for one particular state. A student may argue by a.n.a.logy that the elective system should be introduced into all high schools, because it has been followed in colleges. It may be a.s.serted that a leading bank president will make a good university president, because he has managed one complex inst.i.tution. The essence of all good reasoning by a.n.a.logy is that the two things considered must be so nearly alike in all that is known that the presumption of belief is that they must also be alike in the one point the arguer is trying to establish. This is the test he must apply to his own a.n.a.logy arguments.

Our community frowns with indignation upon the profaneness of the duel, having its rise in this irrational point of honor. Are you aware that you indulge the same sentiment on a gigantic scale, when you recognize this very point of honor as a proper apology for war? We have already seen that justice is in no respect promoted by war. Is true honor promoted where justice is not?

CHARLES SUMNER: _The True Grandeur of Nations_, 1845

Residues. The method of residues is frequently employed when the speaker is supporting a policy to be carried out, a measure to be adopted, a change to be inst.i.tuted, or a law to be pa.s.sed. Granting the a.s.sumption that something must be done he considers all the various methods which may be employed, disposes of them one by one as illegal, or unsuited, or clumsy, or inexpedient, leaving only one, the one he wants adopted, as the one which must be followed.

This is a good practical method of proof, provided the speaker really considers _all_ the possible ways of proceeding and does show the undesirability of all except the one remaining.

A speaker pleading for the installation of a commission form of city control might list all the possible ways of city government, a business manager, a mayor, a commission. By disposing completely of the first two, he would have proven the need for the last. A good speaker will aways go farther than merely to reach this kind of conclusion. He will, in addition to disproving the unworthy choices, strongly support his residue, the measure he wants adopted. In supporting amounts of taxes, a.s.sessments, etc., this method may be used. One amount can be proven so large as to cause unrest, another so small as to be insufficient, a third to produce a total just large enough to meet all antic.i.p.ated expenses with no surplus for emergencies; therefore the correct amount must be just larger than this but not reaching an amount likely to produce the result caused by the first considered. Used in trials of criminal cases it eliminates motives until a single inevitable remainder cannot be argued away.

This may be the clue to follow, or it may be the last one of all suspected persons. Burke considered several possible ways of dealing with the American colonies; one he dismissed as no more than a "sally of anger," a second could not be operated because of the distance, a scheme of Lord North's he proved would complicate rather than settle matters, to change the spirit of America was impossible, to prosecute it as criminal was inexpedient, therefore but one way remained, to conciliate the spirit of discontent by letting the colonies vote their own taxes. It is interesting that what Burke described as the sally of anger was the way the matter was actually settled--Great Britain had to give up the American colonies.

This method is also called elimination.

Cause to Effect. Just as the explainer may pa.s.s from cause to effect so may the arguer. Other names for this method are antecedent probability and _a priori_ argument. In argument from a known cause an effect is proven as having occurred or as likely to occur. In solving crime this is the method which uses the value of the motives for crime as known to exist in the feelings or sentiments of a certain accused person. A person trying to secure the pa.s.sage of a certain law will prove that it as the cause will produce certain effects which make it desirable. Changed conditions in the United States will be brought forward as the cause to prove that the Federal government must do things never contemplated by the framers of the Const.i.tution. Great military organization as the cause of the recent war is used now in argument to carry on the plea for the securing of peace by disarmament.

The main difficulty in reasoning from cause to effect is to make the relations.h.i.+p so clear and so close that one thing will be accepted by everybody as the undisputed cause of the alleged effect.

Effect to Cause. In reasoning from effect to cause the reverse method is employed. This is also termed argument from sign or the _a posteriori_ method. In it, from some known effect the reasoning proves that it is the result of a certain specified cause. Statistics indicating business prosperity might be used as the effect from which the arguer proves that they are caused by a high protective tariff. A speaker shows the good effects upon people to prove that certain laws--claimed as the causes--should be extended in application.

Arguments from effect to cause may be extremely far reaching; as every effect leads to some cause, which is itself the effect of some other cause, and so on almost to infinity. The good speaker will use just those basic causes which prove his proposition--no more.

In actual practice the two forms of reasoning from cause to effect and from effect to cause are frequently combined to make the arguments all the more convincing. Grouped together they are termed causal relations.

Persuasion. When a speaker has conclusively proven what he has stated in his proposition, is his speech ended? In some cases, yes; in many cases, no. Mere proof appeals to the intellect only; it settles matters perhaps, but leaves the hearer cold and humanly inactive. He may feel like saying, "Well, even if what you say is true, what are you going to do about it?" Mathematical and scientific proofs exist for mere information, but most arguments delivered before audiences have a purpose. They try to make people do something. A group of people should be aroused to some determination of purposeful thought if not to a registered act at the time. In days of great stress the appeal to action brought the immediate response in military enlistments; in enrollment for war work; in pledges of service; in signing members.h.i.+p blanks and subscription blanks; in spontaneous giving.

Persuasion Produces a Response. The end of most argumentative speaking is to produce a response. It may be the casting of a vote, the joining of a society, the repudiation of an unworthy candidate, the demonstrating of the solidarity of labor, the affiliating with a religious sect, the changing of a mode of procedure, the purchasing of a new church organ, the wearing of simpler fas.h.i.+ons, or any of the thousand and one things a patient listener is urged to do in the course of his usual life.

When the speaker pa.s.ses on from mere convincing to appealing for some response he has pa.s.sed from argumentation to persuasion. Nearly every argumentative speech dealing with a proposition of policy shows first what ought to be done, then tries to induce people to do it, by appealing as strongly as possible to their practical, esthetic, or moral interests. All such interests depend upon what we call sentiments or feelings to which worthy--note the word _worthy_--appeals may legitimately be addressed. Attempts to arouse unworthy motives by stirring up ignorance and prejudice are always to be most harshly condemned. Such practices have brought certain kinds of so-called persuasion into well-deserved contempt. The high sounding spell-binder with his disgusting spread-eagleism cannot be muzzled by law, but he may be rendered harmless by vacant chairs and empty halls. Real eloquence is not a thing of noise and exaggeration. Beginning speakers should avoid the tawdry imitation as they would a plague.

Elements of Persuasion. What elements may aid the persuasive power of a speech? First of all, the occasion may be just the right one. The surroundings may have prepared the audience for the effect the speaker should make if he knows how to seize upon the opportunity for his own purpose. The speaker must know how to adapt himself to the circ.u.mstances present. In other cases, he must be able to do the much more difficult thing--adapt the circ.u.mstances to his purpose.

Secondly, the subject matter itself may prepare for the persuasive treatment in parts. Everyone realizes this. When emotional impulses are present in the material the introduction of persuasion is inevitable and fitting, if not overdone.

Thirdly, the essence of persuasion depends upon the speaker. All the good characteristics of good speaking will contribute to the effect of his attempts at persuasion. A good speaker is sincere to the point of winning respect even when he does not carry conviction. He is in earnest. He is simple and unaffected. He has tact. He is fair to every antagonistic att.i.tude. He has perfect self-control. He does not lose his temper. He can show a proper sense of humor. He has genuine sympathy. And finally--perhaps it includes all the preceding--he has personal magnetism.

With such qualities a speaker can make an effective appeal by means of persuasion. If upon self-criticism and self-examination, or from outside kindly comment, he concludes he is lacking in any one of these qualities he should try to develop it.

EXERCISES

Prepare and deliver speeches upon some of the following or upon propositions suggested by them. If the speech is short, try to employ only one method of proof, but make it convincing. Where suitable, add persuasive elements.

1. Make a proposition from one of the following topics. Deliver an argumentative speech upon it. The next election. Entrance to college.

Child labor. The study of the cla.s.sics. The study of science.

2. Recommend changes which will benefit your school, your club or society, your church, your town, your state.

3. The j.a.panese should be admitted to the United States upon the same conditions as other foreigners.

4. Men and women should receive the same pay for the same work done.

5. All church property should be taxed.