Composition-Rhetoric

by Stratton D. Brooks; Marietta Hubbard

EXERCISES

Notice in the following selections that the truth of the conclusion is shown by giving particular examples:—

1. It is curious enough that we always remember people by their worst points, and still more curious that we always suppose that we ourselves are remembered by our best. I once knew a hunchback who had a well-shaped hand, and was continually showing it. He never believed that anybody noticed his hump, but lived and died in the conviction that the whole town spoke of him no otherwise than as the man with the beautiful hand, whereas, in fact, they only looked at his hump, and never so much as noticed whether he had a hand at all. This young lady, so pretty and so clever, is simply the girl who had that awkward history with So-and-so; that man, who has some of the very greatest qualities, is nothing more than the one who behaved so badly on such an occasion. It is a terrible thing to think that we are all always at watch one upon the other, to catch the false step in order that we may have the grateful satisfaction of holding our neighbor for one who cannot walk straight. No regard is paid to the better qualities and acts, however numerous; all the attention is fixed upon the worst, however slight. If St. Peter were alive he would be known as the man who denied his Master; St. Paul would be the man who stoned Stephen; and St. Thomas would never be mentioned in any decent society without allusions to that unfortunate request for further evidence. Probably this may be the reason why we all have so much greater a contempt for and distrust of each other than would be warranted by a correct balance between the good and the evil that are in each.

—Thomas Gibson Bowles: Flotsam and Jetsam.

2. In the first place, 227 withered leaves of various kinds, mostly of English plants, were pulled out of worm burrows in several places. Of these, 181 had been drawn into the burrows by or near their tips, so that the footstalk projected nearly upright from the mouth of the burrow; 20 had been drawn in by their bases, and in this case the tips projected from the burrows; and 26 had been seized near the middle, so that these had been drawn in transversely and were much crumpled. Therefore 80 per cent (always using the nearest whole number) had been drawn in by the tip, 9 per cent by the base or footstalk, and 11 per cent transversely or by the middle. This alone is almost sufficient to show that chance does not determine the manner in which leaves are dragged into the burrows.

—Darwin: Vegetable Mold and Earthworms.

3. The catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and, failing that, there is none. The catastrophe of King Lear is owing to his own want of judgment, his impatient vanity, his misunderstanding of his children; the virtue of his one true daughter would have saved him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had cast her away from him; as it is, she all but saves him. Of Othello, I need not trace the tale; nor the one weakness of his so mighty love; nor the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that even of the second woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against his error:—

"Oh, murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool
Do with so good a wife?"

In Romeo and Juliet, the wise and brave stratagem of the wife is brought to ruinous issue by the reckless impatience of her husband. In The Winter's Tale, and in Cymbeline, the happiness and existence of two princely households, lost through long years, and imperiled to the death by the folly and obstinacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last by the queenly patience and wisdom of the wives. In Measure for Measure, the foul injustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice of the brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and adamantine purity of a woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's counsel, acted upon in time, would have saved her son from all evil; his momentary forgetfulness of it is his ruin; her prayer, at last, granted, saves him—not, indeed, from death, but from the curse of living as the destroyer of his country.

—Ruskin: Sesame and Lilies.

4.

_Bas. _So may the outward shows be least themselves;
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk;
And these assume but valor's excrement
To render them redoubted! Look on beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulcher.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;
Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
'Tween man and man: but thou, though meager lead,
Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence;
And here choose I: joy be the consequence!

—Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice.

+Theme XCVII.+—Write a paragraph proving the truth of one of the following statements:—

1. It is a distinct advantage to a large town to be connected with the smaller towns by electric car lines.

2. Vertical penmanship should be taught in all elementary schools.

3. Examinations develop dishonesty.

4. Novel reading is a waste of time.

5. Tramps ought not to be fed.

(Make a brief. Consider the arrangement of your arguments. Read Section 72.)

+176. Errors of Induction.+—A common error is that of too hasty generalization. We conclude that something is always so because it happened to be so in the few cases that have come under our observation. A broader experience frequently shows that the hastily made generalization will not hold.

Some people are led to lose faith in all humanity because one or two of their acquaintances have shown themselves unworthy of their trust. Others are ready to pronounce a merchant dishonest because some article purchased at his store has not proved to be so good as it was expected to be. There are those who are superstitious concerning the wearing of opals, claiming that these jewels bring the wearer ill luck, because they have heard of some instances where misfortune seemed to follow the wearing of that particular stone. What may seem to be causes and effects at first may, upon further investigation or inquiry, prove to be merely chance coincidences. In your work in argument, whether for the class room or outside, be careful about this point. Remember that your induction will be weak or even worthless if you draw conclusions from too few examples.

Often one example seems sufficient to cause belief. We might believe that all giraffes have long necks, even though we had seen but one; but such a belief would exist because, by many examples of other animals, we have learned that a single specimen will fairly represent all other specimens of the same class. On the other hand, if this one giraffe should possess one brown eye and one white eye, we should not expect all other giraffes to have such eyes, for our observation of many hundreds of animals teaches us that the eyes of an animal are usually alike in color. In order to establish a true generalization, the essential characteristics must be selected, and these cannot be determined by rule, but rather by common sense.

+177. Deductive Reasoning.+—When once a general principle has been established, we may demonstrate the truth of a specific proposition by showing that the general principle applies to it. We see a gold ring and say, "This ring is valuable," because we believe the general proposition, "All articles made of gold are valuable." Expressed in full, the process of reasoning would be—

A. All articles made of gold are valuable. B. This ring is made of gold. C. Therefore this ring is valuable.

A series of statements such as the above is called a syllogism. It consists of a major premise (A), a minor premise (B), and a conclusion (C).

Of course we shall not be called upon to prove so simple a proposition as the one given, but with more difficult ones the method of reasoning is the same. The process which applies a general proposition (A) to a specific instance (C), is called deductive reasoning.

+178. Relation between Inductive and Deductive Reasoning.+—Deductive reasoning is shorter and seems more convincing than inductive reasoning, for if the premises are true and the statement is made in correct form, the conclusions are irresistible. Each conclusion carries with it, however, the weakness of the premises on which it is based, and as these premises are general principles that have been themselves established by inductive reasoning, the conclusions of deductive reasoning can be no more sure than those of inductive reasoning. Each may prove only that the proposition is probably true rather than that it is surely true, though in many cases this probability becomes almost a certainty.

+179. The Enthymeme.+—We seldom need to state our argument in the syllogistic form. One of the premises is usually omitted, and we pass directly from one premise to the conclusion. If we say, "Henry will not succeed as an engineer," and when asked why he will not, we reply, "Because he is not good in mathematics," we have omitted the premise, "A knowledge of mathematics is necessary for success in engineering." A shortened syllogism, that is, a syllogism with one premise omitted, is called an enthymeme.

Thus in ordinary matters our thought turns at once to the conclusion in connection with but one premise. We make a thousand statements which a moment's thought will show that we believe because we believe some unexpressed general principle. If I should say of my dog, "Fido will die sometime," no sensible person would doubt the truth of the statement. If asked to prove it, I would say, "Because he is a dog, and all dogs die sometime." Thus I apply to a specific proposition, Fido will die, the general one, All dogs die, a proposition about which there is no doubt.

Frequently the suppressed premise is not so well established as in this case, and the belief or nonbelief of the proposition will be determined by the individuals addressed, each in accordance with his experience. Suppose that in reading we find the statement, "A boy of fourteen ought not to be allowed to choose his own subjects of study, because he will choose all the easy ones and avoid the more difficult though more valuable ones." The omitted premise that all boys will choose easy studies, needs to be established by induction. If a high school principal had noticed that out of five hundred boys, four hundred elected the easy studies, he would admit the truth of the omitted premise, and so of the conclusion. But if only one hundred had chosen the easy subjects, he would reject the major premise and likewise the conclusion.

It is evident that in order to be sure of the truth of a proposition we must determine the truth of the premises upon which it is based. An argument therefore is frequently given over wholly to establishing the premises. If their truth can be demonstrated, the conclusion inevitably follows.