30. Criticize the reasoning in the following portion of an argument for prohibition:
Dr. Williams says, "We find no evidence that the prohibition laws have in the past been effective in diminishing the consumption of alcoholic beverages." ... The absence of logic in Dr. Williams's conclusion will be readily seen by substituting the homicide evil and the greed evil for the liquor evil in his argument.
Since its establishment the United States has sought to remedy with prohibition the homicide evil. Every state has laws with severe penalties prohibiting murder. And yet the number of homicides in the United States has steadily increased until the number in 1910 was eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-five. Since, then, homicides have steadily increased during the past hundred years under a law with severe penalties prohibiting them, a prohibitory law has not been and cannot be a remedy for homicide.
31. Criticize the reasoning in the following extract from an argument for the electrification of the terminal part of a railroad:
It is true that locomotive smoke and gas do not kill people outright; but that their influence though not immediately measurable is to shorten life cannot, I submit, be successfully combated.... A few years ago I made some calculations based on the records of ten years' operation of the railroads in this state, and found that if a man should spend his whole time day and night riding in railroad trains at an average rate of thirty miles an hour, and if he had average good luck, he would not be killed by accident, without his fault, oftener than once in fifteen hundred years, and that he would not receive any injury of sufficient importance to be reported oftener than once in five hundred years. I ask you to estimate how long a man would, in your opinion, live if he were obliged continuously day and night to breathe the air of our stations without any opportunity to relieve his lungs by a breath of purer and better air.
32. Give an example in which you yourself have used the method of agreement in arriving at a conclusion in the last week.
33. Give an example, from one of your studies, of the use of the method of agreement.
34. Give an example, which has recently come to your notice, of the use of the method of difference.
36. Criticize the following syllogisms, giving your reasons for thinking them sound or not:
a. All rich men should be charitable with their wealth; Charitable men forgive their enemies; Therefore all rich men should forgive their enemies.
b. Every man who plays baseball well has a good eye and quick judgment; Every good tennis player has a good eye and a quick judgment; Therefore every good tennis player is a good baseball player.
c. Whenever you find a man who drinks hard you find, a man who is unreliable; Our coachman does not drink hard; Therefore he is reliable.
d. All the steamships which cross the ocean in the quickest time are comfortable; This steamship is slow; Therefore she is not comfortable.
e. All dogs who bark constantly are not bad-tempered; This dog does not bark constantly; Therefore he is not bad-tempered.
f. All cold can be expelled by heat; John's illness is a cold; Therefore it can be expelled by heat. (From Minto)
g. The use of ardent spirits should be prohibited by law, seeing that it causes misery and crime, which it is one of the chief ends of law to prevent. (From Bode)
h. Rational beings are accountable for their actions; brutes not being rational, are therefore exempt from responsibility. (From Jevons)
36. Expand the following arguments into syllogisms and criticize their soundness: