Elements of Debating Part 4

10. Give two reasons why you believe it is or is not beneficial to study argumentation and debating.

11. If you were debating the question, "This [your own school] Should Establish a School Lunch-Room," would you take as one of the issues, "All students could obtain a warm meal at noon." Why, or why not?

LESSON V

HOW TO PROVE THE ISSUES

I. What "proof" is.

II. A consideration of how "proof" of anything is accomplished.

III. An infallible test of what the audience will believe.

IV. The material of proof-evidence.

V. Evidence and proof compared.

Having determined what the issues are, and having shown the audience why the establishment of these issues should logically win belief in your proposition, all that remains is to prove the issues.

Now it is clear that neither the audience nor the judges can be led to agree with us and to accept our issues as proved, by our telling them that we should like to have them believe in the soundness of our views. Neither can we succeed in convincing them by telling them that they ought to believe as we wish. The modern audience is not to be cajoled or browbeaten into belief. How, then, are we to persuade our hearers to accept our a.s.sertions as true? The only method is to give them what they demand--reasons. We must tell _why_ every statement is true. This process of telling why the issues are true so effectively that the audience and judges believe them to be true is called the _proof_.

Naturally, the reasons that we give in support of the issues will be no better than the issues themselves, unless we know what reasons the audience will believe. And how are we to know what reasons the audience will believe? We can best answer that question by determining why we ourselves believe those things which we accept. Why do we believe anything? We believe that water is wet; the sky, blue; fire, hot; and sugar, sweet, because in our _experience_ we have always found them so. These things we believe because we have _experienced_ them ourselves. There are other things that we believe in a similar way. We believe that not every newspaper report is reliable. We believe that a statement in the _Outlook_, the _Review of Reviews_, or the _World's Work_ is likely to be more trustworthy than a yellow headline in the _Morning Bugle_. Our own experience, plus what we have heard of the experience of others, has led us to this belief. But there are still other things that we believe although we have not experienced them at all. We believe that Columbus visited America in 1492, that Grant was a great general, that Washington was our first president. Directly, these things have never been experienced by us, but indirectly they have. Others, within whose experience these things have fallen, have led us to accept them so thoroughly that they have become our experience second hand.

If we are told that a man who was in the Iroquois Theater fire was seriously burned, it seems reasonable to us because our experience recognizes burning as the result of such a situation. But if we are told that a man who fell into the water emerged dry, or that a general who served under Washington was born in 1830, we discredit it because such statements are not in accord with our experience. We are ready, then, to answer our question: _"What reasons will those in the audience believe?" They will believe those statements which harmonize with their own experience, and will discredit those which are at variance with their experience._ This experience, as we have seen, may be first hand, or direct; or it may be indirect, or second hand.

In every case, the speaker's argument must base every issue upon reasons that rest on what the hearers believe because of their own direct or indirect experience. Suppose I a.s.sert: "John Quinn was a dangerous man." Someone says: "Prove that statement." I answer: "He was a thief." Someone says: "If that is true, he was a bad man, but can you prove him a thief?" Then I produce a copy of a court record which states that, on a certain day, a duly const.i.tuted court found John Quinn guilty of robbing a bank. All my hearers now admit, not only that he was a thief, but also that he was a dangerous person. I have given them a reason for my statement, and a reason for that reason, until at last I have shown them that my a.s.sertion, that John Quinn is a dangerous citizen, rests on what they themselves believe--that a court record is reliable.

Sometimes an issue cannot be supported by a reason that will come at once within the experience of the audience. It is then necessary to support the first by a second reason that does come within its experience. Remember, then, as the fundamental rule, that the judges and audience will believe the issues of the proposition, and, as a result, the proposition itself, only when we show them, by the standard of their own experience, that we are right.

The reasons that we give in support of the issues are, in debating, called _evidence_. Evidence is not proof; evidence is the material out of which proof is made. Evidence is like the separate stones of a solid wall: no one alone makes the wall; each one helps make it strong. Evidence is like the small rods and braces of the truss bridge: no one alone supports the weight; each helps to sustain the great beams that are the real support of the bridge.

Suppose we had the proposition: "The Honor System of Examinations Should Be Established in the Greenburg High School." We a.s.sert: "There is but one issue: Will the students be honest in the examination?"

Now, what evidence shall we use to show that they will be honest? We may turn to the experience of other schools. After a careful investigation we find evidence with which we may support the a.s.sertion in the following way:

The Honor System should be established in the Greenburg High School, for:

I. The student will do honest work under that system, for:

1. Experience of similar schools shows this, for:

(1) This plan was a success in X High School, for:

a) The princ.i.p.al of that school states [quotation from princ.i.p.al], for:

(a) See _School Review_, Mar., 1900.

(2) This plan is approved by Y High School, for:

a) Etc.

Here the statements used in support of the issue are evidence. If the evidence is strong enough to bring conviction to the audience to which you are speaking, it is proof.

But notice here an important point. Why should this tend to make those in the audience believe that the honor system should be adopted?

Simply because we have shown them that it has worked well elsewhere, and _their own experience tells them that what has been a benefit in other schools similar to this will be a benefit here_.

And in its final a.n.a.lysis this evidence is no stronger than the words of the men who state that it has worked in schools (X) and (Y).

_If the experience of the audience_ is that these men are untruthful or likely to exaggerate, our evidence will not be good evidence. If the experience of the audience is that these men are capable, honest, and reliable, this evidence will go far toward gaining acceptance of, and belief in, our proposition.

Many attempts have been made to put evidence into different cla.s.ses and to give tests of good evidence. There is but one rule that the debater needs to use: _In judging evidence for a debate consider what the effect will be on the audience and the judges. Will it be convincing to them_? In other words, will it make their own experience quickly and strongly support the issues?

Time is always limited in a debate. The wise debater will then choose that evidence which will most quickly make his hearers feel that their own experience proves him right. When the speaker has done this, he has chosen the best evidence and has used enough of it.

In courts of law where witnesses appear in every case and testify as to circ.u.mstances that did or did not occur, it is necessary that the jury be able to distinguish carefully between what it should and should not believe. Witnesses often have a keen personal interest in the verdict and, therefore, are inclined to tell less or more than the truth. Sometimes witnesses are relatives of persons who would suffer if the case were decided against them and they have a tendency to give unfair testimony.

In order that the jury may decide as fairly as possible what evidence is sound and what is not, the attorneys on each side of the case make out a copy of what are called instructions. These are given to the judge who, provided he approves of them, reads them to the jury.

Usually these instructions urge the jurors to consider four things.

They must consider, first, whether or not the statements of the witness are probable; that is, are they consistent with human experience? Do they seem reasonable and natural? A second thing which the jury is told to bear in mind is the opportunity which the witness had of observing the facts of which he speaks. Was he in a position to be familiar with the thing he describes? In this connection, the jury is sometimes instructed to consider the physical and mental qualities of the witness. Is he a man who is physically and mentally able to judge what he observes under such circ.u.mstances? A third factor which the jury must consider is the possibility of prejudice on the part of the witness. Has he any reason to feel more favorably toward one side than toward the other? Is the defendant his friend or relative or employer? A final consideration is what is commonly called "interest in the case." It is clear that if the witness will be benefited by a certain verdict, he may be inclined to frame his evidence in such a way that it will tend toward that verdict. All these considerations are based on the rule of referring to experience. What a judge really says in a charge to the jury is this: "Does your experience warn you that the testimony of some of these witnesses is unsound? Determine upon that basis in what respects these witnesses have told the whole truth and in what respects they have not."

To summarize: The issues of a proposition are proved by being supported with evidence. Since evidence is the material with which we build the connection between the issues and the experience of the audience, that evidence will be best which will receive the quickest and strongest support from the experience of the hearers.[3]

SUGGESTED EXERCISES

1. In the following extract from a speech of Burke, the famous debater has a.s.serted that it is undesirable to use force upon the American colonies. State the four main reasons why he thinks so. Under each princ.i.p.al reason, put the reasons or evidence with which it is supported. Is this evidence convincing? Why, or why not?

First, Sir, permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is that you impair the object by your very endeavor to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own, because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; and still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit: because it is the spirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our Colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so. But we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it; and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.

2. Wells's _Geometry_ gives the following proposition: "Two perpendiculars to the same straight line are parallel." The evidence given is: "If they are not parallel, they will, if sufficiently produced, meet at some point, which is impossible, because from a given point without a straight line but one perpendicular can be drawn." Is this evidence sufficient to const.i.tute proof? Does it convince you? Why, or why not?

3. Set down as much evidence as you can think of in ten minutes, to convince a business man that a high-school education is an advantage in business life.

4. Support the statement that football has benefited or harmed this school, with five truthful statements that are evidence. Indicate which ones would be most effective, if you were speaking to the students, and which would make the strongest impression on the faculty.

5. In the following statements of testimony, tell which ones would be good evidence and which not. Tell why or why not in each case.

(1) X, a student, was told that unless he should point out the pupil who had put matches on the floor, he would be expelled. X then said that Y was guilty.