say that it seems to me of the utmost importance that the professional
writer, and especially the young aspirant for literary honors, keep a
note-book. It is as foolish to start upon a literary career without
the habit of jotting things down as it would be to put to sea without
water in the casks. The need is especially great if one is going into
any sort of journalistic work, because there is always danger of being
called upon to produce “copy” without warning and without material
offered either by the editor or by circumstances. There is at such
times a great practical value in a well-filled note-book, while the
moral support is perhaps of importance even greater. No man who has
had literary experience will fail, I believe, to realize the folly of
trusting to memory to hold and to bring forward at the right time the
thoughts, the reflections, or the facts which come to one unexpectedly.
The memory is apt to be a careless servant. It mislays, it injures,
it mars the things which are intrusted to it. It is necessary to
acquire the habit of setting thoughts down, and of setting them down
at once. Do not delude yourself with the notion that you will recall
in the morning the clever phrase or acute deduction which your brain
evolves after you are tucked safely into bed at night; that you can
put upon paper at the end of the journey the incident which struck you
in traveling. You may remember to make the record later, but a thought
is like a sunset,--the instant it reaches its full glory it begins to
fade. What is written while it is fresh has a vitality, a spontaneity
which nothing can have that is recalled and set down later. If you are
reading and the thought of the author suggests a reflection, throws a
sudden illumination upon some spot in your mind hitherto in darkness,
do not wait to finish the chapter, but interrupt your reading to write
it down. It is a bother. No reader likes to break off to use pencil
and note-book,--but the professional writer is forbidden to consider
whether he like a thing or not, if it will assist his progress. The
first thing in his life is his art,--moral questions aside,--and to
this he is to sacrifice everything.
Of the cultivation of the habit of observing, one is almost ashamed
to say anything, so often has this been discussed. Every one who
discourses upon this subject has spoken of the prime necessity of
training the faculties of observation; yet every one who shall
discourse hereafter is likely to be called upon to say the same thing.
Remember that if you lack material for writing, the fault is entirely
your own. The world is around you, infinite and inexhaustible; the
question is whether you take what is at hand. Our daily walks and ways
afford us all that is needed--except the eye to see and the heart to
understand.
Yesterday--which you remember was a sharply cold day--I had occasion to
go down town. I noticed at least three things any one of which a clever
writer might make the theme of a charming little essay. I saw in the
street-car a large, middle-aged man, coarsely dressed, and of rather
a forbidding face. He was seated in a corner, and gave an impression
of surly ill-nature. A little, thin, weazened lad of not more than six
or seven, with pinched features and starved look, poorly clad, and
seeming to have been always cold or hungry when he was not both, came
in and took the seat next to this man. There was nothing to indicate
that the two knew each other, and indeed the boy’s air showed plainly
enough that they did not; but when the poor forlorn little fellow blew
on his small, grimy fists, in vain attempt to warm them, the big,
sulky-looking man put out a great hand hardly cleaner, took the boy’s
blue fingers between his palms, and held them there to warm them. His
grim face hardly relaxed, but the kindliness of the act, and the queer
mingling of astonishment and pleasure on the child’s face, made the
incident good to see.
Again, on Washington Street I passed a woman in Quaker garb, who stood
looking in at the window of a jeweler. She regarded placidly, yet
with an inscrutable look, the gems on velvet cushions within. What
she was thinking it would not be easy to say; but what a delightful
essay Charles Lamb might have written “On a Quakeress looking in at a
Jeweler’s Window”!
Half an hour later I passed the silk counter of one of the large
dry-goods stores. There a couple of nuns were selecting a sumptuous
white brocade, examining it with an air serious and absorbed, and yet
subtilely suggestive of feminine delight in the beauty of the stuff.
What to them were the pomps and vanities of this world that their taste
should be concerned in a purchase so incongruous? Did they buy a new
robe wherein the image of some Madonna is to shine forth in splendor at
the coming Christmastide, or the garment which some young novice shall
wear at her mystic spousals with the church, thenceforth to know no
raiment but the strait livery of the sisterhood?
I grant you that one does not chance upon three things so suggestive
as these in every trip down town; but there is always something. Learn
to see and to hear. Seeing and hearing are more matters of the brain
than of eye and ear. Train the mind to observe, and no less train it
to phrase; then the whole question of material is settled. Exposition
demands, of course, the exercise of reason as well as of observation,
but the two are closely bound together; and the mind which is trained
to see is as sure to reason about what it sees as the plant which
thrusts its rootlets into rich soil is to grow.
XII
ARGUMENT
It is one of the most trying conditions of human life that conviction
is not proof. It is hard to be brought face to face with the fact that
the most ardent belief does not make a thing true. We have most of us
known moments when it seemed that there could be no justice in the
universe because some hope or some faith which we have cherished with
the whole soul was found after all to be but a delusion. Truth in this
world must be tried not by desire but by reason; and we can hardly be
too careful in studying the processes by which reason attempts its
proofs.
Argument has been defined as the endeavor to establish the truth
or the falsity of an idea or a proposition. Naturally a written
argument is supposed to be addressed to others, but the methods used
in constructing it are those which we employ in examining a theory
or a proposition in our own minds. It is necessary to study these
for the sake of using them in composition; yet it is of no less
importance that we apply their principles to our thinking. It may
seem to you that I have a tendency to treat English Composition as if
it involved the whole duty of man, but it is certainly true that the
advantages of familiarity with legal processes may be very great, not
only intellectually, but ethically. Since conviction is not proof,
either in things emotional or things ethical any more than in things
intellectual, it follows that it is essential to be provided with the
means of testing the many propositions and ideas which life puts before
us. It is not my intention to discuss Argument as a means of spiritual
advancement, yet it is not amiss to call attention to its great value,
even for one who never intends to write at all.
Looking at Argument simply as a division of composition, we need not
have difficulty in perceiving its importance. No intellectual necessity
is more common than that of endeavoring to make others think or believe
as we think or believe. The effort to establish truth by argument is
one which from the dawn of civilization has occupied the best powers
of mankind. Openly, in avowed reasoning, or covertly, in cunningly
disguised forms, those who write are constantly arguing for one theory
or another, for some idea, for some conviction. The writer who is
trained to the craft of logic has the same advantage in discussion with
one who has not that a trained boxer has in an encounter with a green
hand.
It must be evident to any one that Argument is closely allied to
Exposition. Much discussion may be resolved into a dispute over
definitions, and when thinkers disagree it is more often about terms
than about principles. It has happened before now that men have gone to
the stake upon a question whether a thing in regard to which everybody
was in substantial accord should be called by one name or by another;
and it is evident that Exposition may sometimes be more effectively
convincing than formal Argument, since if a truth is clearly set forth
it is likely to carry conviction with it.
Macaulay’s “Machiavelli,” which we have examined, goes very near
the line of Argument, since, as has been said, it is essentially an
endeavor to prove that the vices of the Italians of the fifteenth
century were national rather than personal and individual. Indeed, in
perhaps the majority of expositions of any complexity there is likely
to be an underlying basis of argument. It is difficult to suppose a
logical sequence of facts or ideas which does not involve argumentative
reasoning, at least tacitly. Here, as everywhere in composition, one
form passes into another, and no arbitrary line of division can be
drawn. Exposition and Argument are constantly united; and moreover
it is true that the latter is constantly given the guise of the
former, so that at first glance a chain of logical reasoning is easily
mistaken for a simple statement of facts. To quote once more from the
“Machiavelli:”--
When war becomes the trade of a separate class, the least
dangerous course left to a government is to form a standing
army. It is scarcely possible that men can pass their lives in
the service of one state without feeling some interest in its
greatness. Its victories are their victories. Its defeats are
their defeats. The contract loses something of its mercantile
character. The services of the soldier are considered as the
effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tribute of national
gratitude. To betray the power which employs him, to be even
remiss in its service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and
degrading of crimes.
This is a complete argument, easily reducible to logical terms. It
opens with the proposition that if war becomes a trade the nation
should enlist and control the army; and the remainder of the paragraph
is taken up with the proof of this statement. It is not all expressed;
but it may be said to consist of three propositions supported as
follows:--
First: Men who make war a trade are likely to betray a country.
Men likely to betray are a danger.
Hence, men who make war a trade are a danger.
Second: Men in standing army become identified with the country.
Men identified with the country less likely to betray.
Hence, men in standing army less likely to betray.
Third: Whatever most decreases chance of betrayal is best.
To form standing army most decreases the chance of betrayal.
Hence, to form standing army is best, or least dangerous.
This illustrates how intricately interwoven is Argument with other
forms of composition, and how easily one may overlook the fact that he
is reading or writing it.
Formally speaking, the difference between Exposition and Argument is
the difference between peace and war. One is a hidden and the other
an avowed struggle. In Exposition the writer declares; in Argument he
defends. In the former there is no necessary endeavor to convince. The
writer concerns himself with setting forth facts, views, or theories;
he nominally deals with statement pure and simple. In the latter he
attempts to enforce assent to his proposition; to convince is his
declared and primary object. Exposition is the teacher; Argument, the
soldier.
The danger of Argument is that of all contest. To make an effort to
effect a given thing, to endeavor to enforce a view, is of course to
expose one’s self to the chance of arousing opposition. It is to invite
attack, and to run the risk of defeat. For this reason it is necessary
to use not a little shrewdness in deciding whether it is best to put
what one has to say into the form of declared argument. Often it is
wiser to endeavor to produce an exposition so clear that it shall carry
with it the conclusion which the writer desires to establish. It is at
least safe to assert that in writings meant to convince, the more fully
the appearance of not arguing can be maintained the more satisfactory
will be the effect. The reader will certainly go as far as he can be
made to suppose himself and not the author to be drawing conclusions.
Most editorial argumentative writing, and especially that which deals
with political questions, is almost of necessity disguised in a
semblance as close to Exposition as possible. Where passion is aroused,
prejudices excited, and the mind of the reader armed against attempts
to convince, whatever is done must be done in a way calculated to
soothe rather than to excite.
When Argument avowed and formal is attempted, no pains should be
spared to make it irresistible. Reasoning which does not succeed is
the strongest presumption against the proposition it seeks to defend.
Indeed, logic which fails seems almost to establish the truth of the
opposite proposition. “He that taketh the sword shall fall by the
sword,” and he who advances an argument must either prevail by it or
fall altogether. The proposition which before it is argued is viewed
at worst with indifference is discredited and disbelieved when once an
attempt to establish its credibility has been made and has failed.
The strength of an argument lies in that quality which is called
logical accuracy. To cover the whole subject of reasoning minutely
it would be necessary to go over the entire field of formal logic;
but here we must content ourselves with considering points which are
essential and which pretty fairly cover the needs of argumentative
composition in a literary sense.
Before beginning a chain of reasoning it is wise to fix what is named
the burden of proof. In other words it is well to decide how much
one is called upon to prove. It is important to know whether the
presumption lies for or against the proposition at issue, to be clear
what may be assumed. In many cases this has no especial practical
bearing, but it is well to be sure where one stands. It is always
easier to defend than to attack, and in so far as a writer can put
from him the burden of proof, in so far he has rendered his task
lighter. The received theory and the existing state of things have in
their favor a presumption which may be advanced by him who argues in
their favor and which must always be done away with by him who reasons
against them. The writer who attacks civilization, for instance, who
decries the existing religion or the value of literature, has upon him
the burden of proof; while he who defends them has the advantage of an
affirmative assumption. The former is called upon to produce arguments
to prove his claim; the latter need do no more than to refute the
reasoning of his opponent. On the one hand it is a question of attack;
while on the other it is a matter of defense.
The first thing in establishing a line of argument is to define clearly
the proposition to be proved. Nothing further can be done until the
writer has made the question at issue clear beyond all possibility of
mistake. It is necessary to force one’s own mind to an understanding so
sharp and exact that confusion is impossible. The most common failing
of mankind is mental ambiguity; and nothing is more frequent than
for writers to be entirely mistaken in what they suppose themselves
to mean. The whole so-called Socratic method of reasoning--the most
teasingly irritating form of logic ever devised; the Spanish-fly
form of conviction--consists chiefly in badgering an opponent into
a realization of the fact that he does not know what he is talking
about; that he is entirely wrong in his notion of his own meaning.
The philosopher who in these less patient days should devote himself
to questioning so vexing as that with which Socrates is said to have
roasted opponents in his time would run imminent risk of a broken head;
but the class of illogical arguers against whom he contended is with us
to this day.
Once the proposition is clear in the mind, it is necessary to find
means to convey it to the understanding of others; to convey it, be
it remembered, so that it shall arrive with meaning and sharpness of
outline unimpaired. It is the old question of Clearness. An idea which
leaves one mind with all the beauty and symmetry of a snow-crystal
often gets to another mind as a mere formless drop of snow-water. To
the end that the proposition come to the reader with the identity and
form uninjured, it is often needful to declare at the outset the sense
in which are used the words, terms, and phrases which follow. The only
sure way of dealing with a doubtful case is to say plainly: “When such
a word is introduced, it means exactly this.” In close writing such
defining is almost always essential to the success of the work. You
may remember, as an illustration, how Ruskin defines his terms at the
beginning of “Modern Painters.” In this way only is it possible to
avoid the pitfalls which the varied meanings of the language spread for
the foot of the unwary. Some of the many possible errors are dangerous,
some easily detected. No one, for instance, need be fooled by a fallacy
like the following:--
An artist is an interpreter of the beautiful.
Mr. Rothschild’s _chef_ is an artist.
Hence, Mr. Rothschild’s _chef_ is an interpreter of the beautiful.
There may be those whose respect for gastronomy is so high that they
would not shrink from this conclusion, but taking the argument as it
stands, it is evident that the word “artist” is used in a double sense.
In the first assertion it signifies one who labors in what we call
the fine arts; one gifted with that incommunicable power of which we
spoke at the beginning of these talks. In the second assertion, the
word “artist” signifies one clever and skillful in the practice of his
profession.
To take a more serious illustration, the much mooted question whether
Walt Whitman is or is not a poet can be argued only after an agreement
upon the sense in which “poet” is to be understood. If “poet” means
one who writes verse in metrical forms, the proposition cannot be even
discussed, because the fact that Whitman did not write formal metrical
verse is admitted by everybody. If, on the other hand, the term “poet”
be extended to include writers of imaginative and dithyrambic prose, a
discussion becomes almost inevitable. Most of the magazine essays which
nominally deal with the question stated are really occupied chiefly
with the inquiry, “What sense shall we give to the term ‘poet’?”
It is true that the ordinary reader will often fail to make a
distinction of this sort. If he be told that the point at issue is
Whitman’s poetic standing, he will generally accept the statement,
however widely the discussion may depart from the proposition. It might
seem to follow that it is of little consequence whether a writer is
logical or not; but it is always to be remembered that the fact that a
reader does not know by what means he is impressed does not necessarily
weaken the impression. Indeed, it is probably true that those who are
least aware of the processes of literature are often those most vividly
affected by them. The writer who has command of literary forms, who
understands clearly what he desires to do and how it is best done, will
reach and control the mind of the reader, and need not be disturbed by
the fact that the latter does not in the least appreciate the art which
has seized and which holds him.
It is of the highest importance to keep in mind when defining
propositions or terms that the basis of all discussion must be
mutually accepted by writer and reader. Until a starting-point where
these two are in accord is found, it is manifestly idle to attempt to
draw inferences. The writer who argues with the view of convincing
the general public is forced to take as premises truth universally
allowed, and facts generally known or which can be supported by easily
convincing evidence. He is at the outset met with the difficulty that
words are seldom free from ambiguity, and that fact and fiction are
as inextricably intertangled as are the rootlets of two trees growing
side by side. The nicest judgment must be used in determining how far
any statement is admittedly true; not, be it noted, how far it _is_
true, but how far common consent admits its verity. The premise of any
argument addressed to the general reader can go no farther than general
conviction goes. Even here a writer is often hampered by the fact that
the sense of ambiguity is apt to cling to any question concerning which
there has been dispute. This is especially true of subjects about which
there has been extensive controversy. It is admitted by everybody,
for instance, that there are things in Scripture which are not to be
accepted with absolute literalness; yet to assume this in argument is
almost inevitably to arouse suspicion if not opposition. No matter how
carefully the writer endeavors to keep within bounds of common belief,
the uncertainty and the doubt which belong to the proposition in its
extreme are apt to interfere with its being given even the weight which
it may deserve when carefully guarded.
The best guides here are two: that homely, domestic angel of the mind
which we call common sense, and the sincere desire to arrive at and
to establish the truth, as distinguished from eagerness to win in
argument. If a writer can divest himself of a wish to prevail even if
wrongfully, he has increased tenfold his chance of winning rightly.
If he can bring his mind to the attitude of simple, unsophisticated
truth-seeking, without affectation and without vanity, he is in the
best possible condition for arguing successfully. Enthusiasm tells in
this as in any other form of composition; but Argument is primarily an
appeal to the intellect, and since the reason of the reader is aroused
to meet the logic advanced, the writer has need of all his coolness and
self-control in devising and arranging his arguments.
The choice of the line of proof which is to be employed is one of the
most delicate matters connected with this form of composition. If one
undertakes to convince, it is evident that no means which may secure
conviction should be slighted; and it is of importance to select the
train of reasoning along which the mind of the reader will move with
the least opposition. Here advice cannot avail much. The student must
depend upon care, good judgment, and practice, with the study and
analysis of the masterpieces of reasoning. The choice of methods in
arguing is the selection of the order of battle; on it depends much of
the success alike of attack and of defense.
* * * * *
The sense of the proposition, the meaning of the terms, and the line
of argument having been determined, they must be held to firmly to the
end. No defect in disputation is more common than that of shifting
ground. Sometimes, especially in debate, this is deliberate. A clever
dialectician, one who is able deftly to twist words to varied uses
and to turn phrases about, has little difficulty, if he finds himself
cornered, in altering his position completely. He easily confuses the
terms so that the point at issue is changed. He raises a cloud of
phrases under cover of which his attack is shifted to another quarter,
as a line of battle is sometimes altered behind a cloud of smoke. This
is less often possible in written conflict than in oral, yet there it
may sometimes be done. It is at best, however, merely a temporization.
What is set down in “the cold permanence of print” may be examined
until its inaccuracies are brought to light. The swiftness of speech
and the glamour of personal persuasiveness will cover fallacies
which could avail nothing if put upon paper. Any change of position,
moreover, is a confession of weakness; and once it is observed, the
effect of the entire chain of reasoning is weakened, if not destroyed
altogether.