Conviction and persuasion complementary. Though persuasion, in the sense of emotional appeal, may appear alone as a paragraph, division, or even a complete speech

supposed that it is in a letter to a man who has a prejudice against all deductions from handwriting, believing them worthless, or to a person who has the idiosyncrasy that his handwriting has given him trouble because it is so much like that of several friends. In either case, the whole paragraph, if used at all, must be rewritten, with reference to the prejudice or idiosyncrasy.

1 The following appeal forms part of a speech which is almost entirely persuasive. In the course of the debate on American affairs, November 18, 1777, Lord Suffolk, Secretary for the Northern Department, urged that the Indians should be used in the war on grounds of policy, necessity, and because "it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God and nature put into our hands." In protesting, Lord Chatham said: "These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and the pious pastors of our Church - I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the Bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned Judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion - the Protestant religion - of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us-to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage - against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hellhounds of savage war - hell-hounds, I say, of savage war! Spain armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we

or article, conviction, except in paragraphs, very rarely appears without persuasion. Really, as the definition of persuasion already given suggests, the two are complementary, one being the warp, the other the woof of argumentation. He who addresses the intellect only, leaving the feelings, the emotions, untouched, will probably be dull, for his work will lack warmth and color; and he will not produce action, for to accept something as true does not, in nearly all cases, mean to act promptly or steadily on that idea. He who only persuades runs the dangers of all excited action: that it is liable to stop as suddenly as it began, leaving no principle of conduct behind; and is liable to cease at any moment before a clear and convincing statement of the reasons why such conduct is ill-judged.1 Ideal argumentation would, then, unite perfection of reasoning, that is, complete convincingness, with perfection of persuasive power - masterly adaptation of the material to interests, prejudices, and idiosyncrasies of the audience, combined with excitation of the emotions to just the extent necessary for the desired ends. The history of argumentation shows that usually conviction is preceded or followed by persuasion, and that often the very exposition

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which convinces is made also to persuade.1 All argument is really a dialogue; "the other man is always resisting, trying to block progress. Therefore a writer must remember that his test should not be: Am I stating this matter so that it is clear to me, so that it interests and stirs me? but Am I stating this matter so that my reader cannot fail to see what I mean, and must be stirred by my way of writing because I have so well understood his knowledge of it, his feelings about it, and his personal peculiarities? In brief, let a writer remember "the other man" in his work, and he can hardly forget that conviction and persuasion are not independent but complementary.

For purposes of instruction it will, however, be convenient to treat first the principles which underlie successful conviction and then those which make for effective persuasion; but a reader should never forget that this separation is artificial and made wholly for pedagogic

reasons.

The divisions of an argument. An argument normally has three divisions, though they are rarely marked as such. They are the Introduction, the Argument Proper, and the Peroration.2

1 A fine specimen of blended conviction and persuasion is Henry Ward Beecher's Liverpool speech in behalf of the Northern party in the Civil War. A blending of the two methods, with the emphasis on conviction, but so subtle that the persuasion helps to conviction, is Lord Erskine's "Defense of Lord George Gordon." Specimens of Argumentation, pp. 154-178, 86-153. Holt & Co. For skillful handling of persuasion, see pp. 90, 94, 130, 151.

The work of the Introduction usually is twofold, - to expound and to persuade. It phrases only what both sides must admit to be true, if there is to be any discussion, and states clearly what the question in dispute is. The final test of it as exposition is that it shall give a reader just the information which will make clear to him the development of the Argument Proper. But readers may be indifferent to a subject, hostile to it or the writer, or likely to be made hostile in the development of the argument. In any of these cases it will evidently be helpful at the outset to overcome or decrease the indifference or hostility, or to offset in some way the ill feeling the discussion may cause. Herein lies the persuasive work of the Introduction.

The Argument Proper also has a twofold work, to convince by giving in literary form the evidence for which the case calls, and to persuade either by appeals to the emotions in regard to the ideas advanced or by relating these ideas to interests, prejudices, or idiosyncrasies of the readers.

The aim of the Peroration is to bring the argument to a full and perfect close. It also has double work to do, to summarize the argument developed and to make the last persuasive appeals and applications.

Direct proof and refutation. The material with which a writer develops the argument itself divides into Direct Proof and Refutation. The first signifies the material of

in that not the interest of the student but the will of the teacher determines the choice of topic and in that the forensic is written not for a general audience but for the severe, if judicial, criticism of the instructor. It is the work of a teacher, when a student has, by writing forensics, mastered the principles just mentioned, to show him how an intelligent use of the principles underlying persuasion, and a vigorous style, may transmute the rigid forensic into a readable, persuasive address or article successfully adjusted to the peculiarities of some special audience. For methods of transmutation, see Chap. V.

all kinds with which a writer supports his own opinions; the second means the material of all kinds which he offers against ideas urged in disproof of his main thesis or of any of the ideas advanced by him.1

The field of argumentation. For clear thinking, the first desideratum in good argumentation, it is imperative to know just what the topic under discussion means. This signifies ascertaining what is the point in dispute, and what ideas must be proved true (direct proof), as well as what ideas shown to be false (refutation), if a conclusion is to be reached. All this rests, first, on a process called analysis, and secondly, on study of the rules of evidence which distinguish good evidence from bad. But when these steps have been taken, appears the equally important second desideratum in good argument, - presentation of what you believe so that it shall be for other people both convincing and persuasive. For success in this it is necessary to understand structure (brief-drawing), the presentation of evidence, and the principles of persuasion. The first step, then, in argumentation is to master analysis.