Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... been called to give testimony must be consistent. Any inconsistency may prove fatal to the acceptance of his testimony. In like manner any inconsistency in an argument may prove fatal to its acceptance. The exposure of such inconsistencies in an opponent's argument is one of the most important methods of refutation. In most cases the difficulty of the task is greatly increased by the form in which such inconsistencies usually occur. Seldom are they apparent. In most cases the error is revealed only after the argument has been carefully analyzed and the inconsistent parts stripped of their covering of confusing language. The following quotation taken from the argument of Lincoln in one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates shows the application of this method. Douglas had maintained that slavery could be lawfully excluded from a territory in spite of the Dred Scott decision. In refuting this argument by exposing the inconsistency which it contained, Lincoln said: -- "The Dred Scott Decision expressly gives every citizen of the United States a right to carry his slaves into the United States Territories. Now, there was some inconsistency in saying that the decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it, --all the chaff was fanned out of it, -- it was a bare absurdity: no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and that is the naked truth for his proposition--that a thing may be lawfully driven from the place where it has a lawful right to stay." VI. Adopting an opponent's evidence. This method of refutation consists in...