A sincere thinker may believe that trial before a group of competent judges is a better procedure than trial by jury. Were he to speak upon such a proposition he would realize that he would meet at once the solid opposition of the general opinion that jury trials, sanctioned by long practice, are in some mysterious way symbolic of the liberty and equality of mankind. Before he could expect to arouse sympathetic understanding he would have to answer all the possible objections and reasons against his new scheme. This he would do by refutation, by disproving the soundness of the arguments against his scheme. He could cite the evident and recorded injustices committed by juries. He could bring before them the impossibility of securing an intelligent verdict from a group of farmers, anxious to get to their farms for harvest, sitting in a case through July, while the days passed in lengthy examinations of witnesses—one man was on the stand eight days—and the lawyers bandied words and names like socialist, pagan, bolsheviki, anarchy, ideal republic, Aristotle, Plato, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Tolstoi, Jane Addams, Lenin. Then when he felt assured he had removed all the reasons for supporting the present jury system he could proceed to advance his own substitute.
Need and Value of Refutation. In all argumentation, therefore, refutation is valuable and necessary. By it opposing arguments are reasoned away, their real value is determined, or they are answered and demolished if they are false or faulty. To acquire any readiness as a speaker or debater a person must pay a great deal of attention to refutation. It has also an additional value. It has been stated that every argumentative speaker must study the other side of every question upon which he is to speak. One great debater declared that if he had time to study only one side of a proposition or law case he would devote that time to the other side. Study your own position from the point of view of the other side. Consider carefully what arguments that side will naturally advance. In fact, try to refute your own arguments exactly as some opponent would, or get some friend to try to refute your statements. Many a speaker has gained power in reasoning by having his views attacked by members of his family who would individually and collectively try to drive him into a corner. In actual amount, perhaps you will never deliver as much refutation of an opponent as you will conjure up in your mind against your own speeches. Perhaps, also, this great amount advanced by you in testing your own position will prevent your opponents from ever finding in your delivered arguments much against which they can pit their own powers of refutation.
In judging your own production you will have to imagine yourself on the other side, so the methods will be the same for all purposes of self-help or weakening of an opponent's views.
Contradiction Is Not Refutation. In the first place contradiction is not refutation. No unsupported fact or statement has any value in argumentation. Such expressions as "I don't believe, I don't think so, I don't agree" introduce not arguments, but personal opinions. You must, to make your refutation valuable, prove your position. Never allow your attempts at refutation to descend to mere denial or quibbling. Be prepared to support, to prove everything you say.
Three Phases of Refutation. In general, refutation consists of three phases:
1. The analysis of the opposite side.
2. The classification of the arguments according to importance.
3. The answering of only the strongest points.
Analysis of Opposing Side for Accuracy. In the first analysis, you will probably examine the opposing statements to test their accuracy. Mere slips, so evident that they deceive no one, you may disregard entirely, but gross error of fact or conclusion you should note and correct in unmistakably plain terms. The kind of statement which gives insufficient data should be classed in analysis with this same kind of erroneous statement. A shoe dealer in arguing for increased prices might quote correctly the rising cost of materials, but if he stopped there, you in refutation should be able to show that profits had already risen to 57%, and so turn his own figures against him. Another class of refutation similar to this is the questioning of authorities. Something concerning this has already been said. In a recent trial a lawyer cast doubt upon the value of a passage read from a book by declaring its author could never have written such a thing. In refutation the opposing lawyer said, "You will find that passage on page 253 of his Essays and Letters." Public speakers, realizing that errors of statement are likely to be the first to be picked out for correction, and recognizing the damaging effect of such conviction in error of fact and testimony, are extremely careful not to render themselves liable to attack upon such points. Yet they may. We are told by Webster's biographers that in later periods of his life he was detected in errors of law in cases being argued before the court, and refuted in statement. To catch such slips requires two things of the successful speaker. He must be in possession of the facts himself. He must be mentally alert to see the falsity and know how to answer it.
Begging the Question. The expression "begging the question" is often heard as a fallacy in argument. In its simplest form it is similar to inaccurate statement, for it includes assertions introduced without proof, and the statement of things as taken for granted without attempting to prove them, yet using them to prove other statements. Sometimes, also, a careless thinker, through an extended group of paragraphs will end by taking as proven exactly the proposition he started out to prove, when close analysis will show that nowhere during the discussion does he actually prove it. As this is frequent in amateur debates, students should be on their guard against it.
Ignoring the Question. The same kind of flimsy mental process results in ignoring the question. Instead of sticking closely to the proposition to be proved the speaker argues beside the point, proving not the entire proposition but merely a portion of it. Or in some manner he may shift his ground and emerge, having proven the wrong point or something he did not start out to consider. An amateur theatrical producer whose playhouse had been closed by the police for violating the terms of his license started out to defend his action, but ended by proving that all men are equal. In fact he wound up by quoting the poem by Burns, "A Man's a Man for A' That." Such a shifting of propositions is a frequent error of speakers. It occurs so often that one might be disposed to term it a mere trick to deceive, or a clever though unscrupulous device to secure support for a weak claim. One of the first ways for the speaker to avoid it is to be able to recognize it when it occurs. One of the most quoted instances of its effective unmasking is the following by Macaulay.
The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues! Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!