The Court: Well, isn’t that an effort to ascertain the truth?
Mr. Darrow: No, it is an effort to show prejudice. Nothing else. Has there been any effort to ascertain the truth in this case? Why not bring in the jury and let us prove it?
The truth referred to by the judge was whether the action of Scopes fell within the definition of the law; the truth referred to by Darrow was the facts of evolution (not submitted to the jury as evidence); and “prejudice” was a crystallized opinion of the theory of evolution, expressed now as law.
If we have appeared here to assign too complete a forensic victory to the prosecution, let us return, by way of recapitulating the issues, to the relationship between positive science and dialectic. Many people, perhaps a majority in this country, have felt that the position of the State of Tennessee was absurd because they are unable to see how a logical position can be taken without reference to empirical situations. But it is just the nature of logic and dialectic to be a science without any content as it is the nature of biology or any positive science to be a science of empirical content.
We see the nature of this distinction when we realize that there is never an argument, in the true sense of the term, about facts. When facts are disputed, the argument must be suspended until the facts are settled. Not until then may it be resumed, for all true argument is about the meaning of established or admitted facts. And since this meaning is always expressed in propositions, we can say further that all argument is about the systematic import of propositions. While that remains so, the truth of the theory of evolution or of any scientific theory can never be settled in a court of law. The court could admit the facts into the record, but the process of legal determination would deal with the meaning of the facts, and it could not go beyond saying that the facts comport, or do not comport, with the meanings of other propositions. Thus its task is to determine their place in a system of discourse and if possible to effect a resolution in accordance with the movement of dialectic. It is necessary that logic in its position as ultimate arbiter preserve this indifference toward that actuality which is the touchstone of scientific fact.
It is plain that those who either expected or hoped that science would win a sweeping victory in the Tennessee courtroom were the same people who believe that science can take the place of speculative wisdom. The only consolation they had in the course of the trial was the embarrassment to which Darrow brought Bryan in questioning him about the Bible and the theory of evolution (during which Darrow did lead Bryan into some dialectical traps). But in strict consideration all of this was outside the bounds of the case because both the facts of evolution and the facts of the Bible were “items not in discourse,” to borrow a phrase employed by Professor Adler. That is to say, their correctness had to be determined by scientific means of investigation, if at all; but the relationship between the law and theories of man’s origin could be determined only by legal casuistry, in the non-pejorative sense of that phrase.
As we intimated at the beginning, a sufficient grasp of what the case was about would have resulted in there being no case, or in there being quite a different case. As the events turned out science received, in the popular estimation, a check in the trial but a moral victory, and this only led to more misunderstanding of the province of science in human affairs. The law of the State of Tennessee won a victory which was regarded as pyrrhic because it was generally felt to have made the law and the lawmakers look foolish. This also was a disservice to the common weal. Both of these results could have been prevented if it had been understood that science is one thing and law another. An understanding of that truth would seem to require some general dissemination throughout our educated classes of a Summa Dialectica. This means that the educated people of our country would have to be so trained that they could see the dialectical possibility of the opposites of the beliefs they possess. And that is a very large order for education in any age.
Chapter III
EDMUND BURKE AND THE ARGUMENT FROM CIRCUMSTANCE
We are now in position to affirm that the rhetorical study of an argument begins with a study of the sources. But since almost any extended argument will draw upon more than one source we must look, to answer the inquiry we are now starting, at the prevailing source, or the source which is most frequently called upon in the total persuasive effort. We shall say that this predominating source gives to the argument an aspect, and our present question is, what can be inferred from the aspect of any argument or body of arguments about the philosophy of its maker? All men argue alike when they argue validly because the modes of inference are formulas, from which deviation is error. Therefore we characterize inference only as valid or invalid. But the reasoner reveals his philosophical position by the source of argument which appears most often in his major premise because the major premise tells us how he is thinking about the world. In other words, the rhetorical content of the major premise which the speaker habitually uses is the key to his primary view of existence. We are of course excluding artful choices which have in view only ad hoc persuasions. Putting the matter now figuratively, we may say that no man escapes being branded by the premise that he regards as most efficacious in an argument. The general importance of this is that major premises, in addition to their logical function as part of a deductive argument, are expressive of values, and a characteristic major premise characterizes the user.