"I am Martin Worthington. I wish to state that the logic is excellent and the delivery was superb. May I ask if the pursuit of such impeccable logic is a matter of training, logical instinct, or by sheer imaginative power, did Mr. Barden momentarily convince himself of the truth of his premise and build up on that basis?"
Barden smiled. "The latter is true. Also, Mr. Worthington, I am still convinced of the truth of the basic premise."
The hall rang with laughter.
When it died, Barden continued. "Not only am I convinced of the validity of this theory, but I am willing to give all I have or ever hope to have for a chance to prove its worth."
"Then," said Worthington, "we are not so much to be impressed by the excellence of semantic reasoning as we have been. True sophistry is brilliant when the reasoner admits that his basic premise is false. Sophistry is just self-deception when the entire pattern is a firm conviction of the reasoner."
The crowd changed from amusement to a slight anger. The speaker, Barden, had not presented a bit of sheer reasoning. He had been talking on a theme which he firmly believed in!
Another hand went up and was recognized. "I am William Hendricks. May I ask if the speaker has any proof of the existence of such phenomena?"
"Only the mathematical proof presented here—and a more complete study at home. These were culled from the larger mass as being more to the point. It is my belief that the force-fields indicated in equation one may be set up, and that they will lead to the results shown in equation three."
"But you have no way of telling?"
"Only by mathematical prediction."