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Updated: June 13, 2025
But when he has thought of something, science can tell him whether that which he has thought of will suit his purpose or not. The inquirer or arguer must be guided by his own knowledge and sagacity in the choice of the inductions out of which he will construct his argument.
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.
He is a bad arguer; but his arguments are couched in rhetoric so persuasive that the very critics who detect his fallacies would almost consent to forfeit the power of detecting, if they could acquire that of constructing, such delightful paralogisms.
Unless a condition or an event its possibility being admitted can be affirmed or denied by reliable witnesses who testify from their own personal knowledge of the matter, the most that any arguer can do is to establish a balance of probability.
In all arguments, everywhere but in the schools, some of the links are suppressed; a fortiori when the arguer either intends to deceive, or is a lame and inexpert thinker, little accustomed to bring his reasoning processes to any test; and it is in those steps of the reasoning which are made in this tacit and half-conscious, or even wholly unconscious manner, that the error oftenest lurks.
Whenever an arguer avoids the question at issue and makes an attack upon the character, principles, or former beliefs or personal peculiarities of his opponent, he commits the special form of this fallacy known as argumentum ad hominem.
We might multiply examples, for all we need do would be to call up Moliere's doctors, one after the other. However far, moreover, comic fancy may seem to go, reality at times undertakes to improve upon it. It was suggested to a contemporary philosopher, an out-and-out arguer, that his arguments, though irreproachable in their deductions, had experience against them.
Failure to cast aside all questions that are not real issues may cause equal embarrassment: an arguer never wishes to waste time and effort in establishing proof that is not essential to the argument, or that is admitted by the other side. It is hardly possible even to suggest all the various kinds of questions that may be asked about debatable subjects.
I do not fear him; I fear only lest, able to see and write these things, I should fail of witnessing, and myself be, after all, a castaway no king, but a talker; no disciple of Jesus, ready to go with him to the death, but an arguer about the truth; a hater of the lies men speak for God, and myself a truth-speaking liar, not a doer of the word.
In the case of newspaper "stories" and editorials, one should find out on what general policy and principles the paper is conducted. A cautious arguer will always avoid, as far as he can, the use of evidence that comes from a doubtful source. If one finds that an opponent has used the testimony of questionable witnesses, he can, by exposing the fact, easily refute the argument.
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