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ward in giving their opinions; every man has an opinion of his own upon every subject, even though it be one that he never heard of before; and if you would converse with him on such a point, instead of commencing the examination with a view to the discovery of truth, and the enlargement of his understanding, he begins by giving you his opinions on the matter, although he never thought about it before, and finishes, by supporting them right or wrong. With such a man it is in vain to argue; indeed I almost think it a sin to argue with a man of that description, when we are fully satisfied that he is in such a dilemna; for it is only forcing our brother to more desperate measures of continuing what, in his pride, he has begun and he who, notwithstanding this, would pursue the argument in the hope of convincing such a man, would, in my opinion, evince no small degree of pride, or weakness of judgment, himself; for what can be more unlikely than to expect to convince a man who does not wish to be convinced-who is not arguing for convictionwho in fact cannot, according to the very nature of things, be convinced, while he is supporting that which is opposed to all conviction, namely, his own opinion? Here, however, is a field in which every man will claim to himself the privilege of being on the right side; and as it is impossible for human reason to demonstrate to all parties who is right, and who is wrong, the conclusion seems to come with more than its usual force, that the great business of every one is to correct himself.

Let every one, then, who would wish to be right, take especial care of their motives when they enter into an argument; for arguing is like beating a way through an untrodden desert, in which undertaking, if a man set out wrong, it is twenty to one against him that he ever gets right. If the motive be wrong, correct it, or speedily decline the contest; for it is much better that a man should be silent, than, for the sake of talking, suffer himself to be led into a maze, from which he will find it no easy matter to escape. By listening to others he may perhaps gain some information; but arguing from any but a right motive cannot possibly come to good.

Next to possessing a pure motive, it is necessary that a disputant should make himself clearly understood; for as the object of every man when he argues is, or ought to be, to convey his own ideas into the mind of his antagonist, if the words which he uses fall short of that, he might as well hold his tongue, for no good can possibly arise when mea argue without understanding each other. This, however,

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seems to be an universal error: men think, when they jorn in an argument, that all they have to do is to express their ideas; but that is not the case-their principal business is, to see that their opponent comprehends what they express, otherwise they may send forth a thousand ideas, and not advance one step. Words are the chief signs by which we make known our ideas, and when we use them, our object should be not to choose such words as would be archetypes to our own minds of the ideas we wish to express, but such as are most likely to be correct archetypes to the minds of those with whom we converse. This is an error which I think we are by no means sufficiently attentive to: of what use would it be for me to converse in English with a Frenchman who knows nothing of the English language? and yet the words which I should then use would, most likely, be such as would clearly convey to my own mind the ideas I wished to express, if they were used by another person; but if I speak to that man in the French language, he would, in all probability, comprehend me, because the archetypes which I should then use would be such as he was familiar with. Hence the necessity of attending to the use of words: Mr. Locke hath well observed on this subject, that "if men would tell what ideas they make their words stand for, there could not be half that obscurity or wrangling in the search or support of truth that there is."

There are many things which lead to this obscurity of expression, and which it would be well for those who would argue with effect to avoid. It too frequently happens that the ideas themselves are obscure, and when that is the case, their archetypes, however correct, must necessarily be so too. On this account, we should be careful to get clear and settled notions ourselves, before we attempt to convey them to others; for when the idea itself is obscure, it is not words, but thinking, that will make it clear.

Bad language, and a paucity of words, are also causes of confusion. I have known persons who have possessed excellent ideas, but for want of good language, and a sufficient quantity of words, have made sad havoc with good sense, and rendered it almost disagreeable to listen to them. The labour and experience of ages have settled for us those modes of expression, which, in the present state of knowledge, are best adapted to the mind of man; it is folly, therefore, for any man to deviate from those modes, unless on the ground of improvement, and it manifests great carelessness in not attending to them. How lamentable it is to hear one's mother-tongue torn into a thousand tatters to express one

idea; and that, when it does comes forth, is so dilapidated, that one had need put together its pieces before we can make out what it is; and it is equally grating to hear a man belabour a fine sentiment with half a dozen words, when, by giving himself a little trouble, he might acquire as many hundred. The former of these errors is to be corrected by a little attention to grammar; and the latter, by reading books of good composition, and conversing with those who have a good style of expression: and if any one hath his doubts whether these things are worth attending to, let him but compare the language of Addison or Burke with the sublime. orations of Billingsgate, and he will then see which of the two have the advantage. I would, however, caution the student of language not to be too verbose: a prolixity of words is almost as bad as a paucity. I have known men so full of sound, using at least five times as many words as necessity requires, and withal so tedious in expression, that one might, near-upon, take a gentle nap while they are speaking, so wide is the cavity between their ideas, and their discourse so

"Full of empty sound, signifying nothing."

Another error, very common in argument, is the assump tion of false premises, by substituting assertion for acknowledged principle. People in general are much more desirous of supporting and propagating their own opinions than of examining whether those opinions are right; and as it happens that most of their sentiments are held without being founded on any just principle, they very naturally find it difficult to support them, without having something like a foundation on which to rest them. The proper foundation they are unacquainted with; it therefore becomes necessary that they should assume one; and this leads them to the error in question. I witnessed a very simple instance of this description but a few hours ago :-Two gentlemen were conversing on a topic, the drift of which was the consequences resulting from associating with an immoral character. The one, from the circumstances which he knew relative to that character, conceived it to be highly immoral, and from this conviction he shewed, by very pointed inferences, the consequences that might result from such an association. The inferences were correctly drawn, and so they appeared to his companion, who, nevertheless, was not convinced of their propriety. This induced the opposite party to attribute his want of conviction to pride; but it shortly appeared that, although the inferences were allowed on both sides to

be correctly drawn, yet the premises from which they were taken was a disputed point. The one believed the character to be immoral, the other did not believe it; and while their opinions on this subject continued the same, they might have argued till doomsday, without coming to a decision. The proper mode in this dispute should have been, to settle the point whether the character was immoral or not, before any inferences were drawn; for until that was done, the premises were not substantiated, they were only assumed. It is such incorrect modes of reasoning as these that produce so much animosity between disputants; the one thinks the other a fool because he is not convinced, when the failure too frequently proceeds from the improper method which he takes of convincing.

I have heard it said that there is nothing but what may be done, if men take the right way of doing it; but when we fail, we are always ready to throw the blame upon some other person, even when the unsuccessful attempt itself af fords strong presumptive evidence of where the error lies. The vanity, however, of some men is so great, that they are always attempting what they cannot perform, and their dis appointment throws out the arrows of censure in every direction. In all argument it should be the business of dispu tants to settle the ground-work, the law, the principle by which they agree to try the merits of the question in dis pute; and in all cases never to attempt to reason from any position, until their opponent can perceive its truth, for this would be arguing to no purpose, save that of disaffection, which every good man would wish to avoid. On this subject I cannot refrain from inserting the opinion of that sound reasoner Mr. Locke, with which I am persuaded my readers will be much pleased and I hope benefitted. In treating on the degrees of assent he proceeds thus :-" Since therefore it is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not all, to have several opinions without certain and indubitable proofs of their truths; and it carries too great an imputation of ig norance, lightness, or folly, for men to quit and renounce their former tenets presently, upon the offer of an argument which they cannot immediately answer and shew the insufficiency of, it would, methinks, become all men to maintain peace and the common offices of humanity and friendship in the diver sity of opinions; since we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own opi nion, and embrace ours, with a blind resignation to an au thority which the understanding of man acknowledges not; for however it may often mistake, it can own no other guide

hat reason, nor blindly submit to the will and dictates of another. If he you would bring over to your sentiments be one that examines before he asserts, you must give him leave at his leisure to go over the account again, and recalling what is out of his mind examine all the particulars to see on which side the advantage lies; and if he will not think our arguments of weight enough to engage him anew in so much pains, it is but what we do often ourselves in the like case, and we should take it amiss if others should prescribe to us what points we should study; and if he be one who takes his opinions upon trust, how can we imagine that he should renounce those tenets which time and custom have so settled in his mind, that he thinks them self-evident, and of an unquestionable certainty, or which he takes to be impressions he has received from God himself, or from men sent by him? How can we expect, I say, that opinions thus settled should be given up to the arguments or authority of a stranger or adversary, especially if there be any supposition of interest or design, as there never fails to be when men find themselves ill-treated? We should do well to commiserate our mutual ignorance, and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of information, and not instantly treat others as obstinate and perverse, because they will not renounce their own and receive our opinions, or at least those we would force upon them, when it is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing some of theirs; for where is the man that has incontestible evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns, or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own or other men's opinions?"

To these remarks I will add, that if we wish to do good to others by shewing them the fallacy of their opinions, and thereby inducing them, to correct the habits and consequences which may have resulted from those opinions, the worst mode we can possibly adopt is that which is calculated to give offence; for when a man's indignation is roused, no matter whether justly or unjustly, his feelings are engaged on the side of his opinion, he is disgusted with the man who excited them, and conviction by plain reason is all over. Even an indifferent person would find it difficult to satisfy him, much more so the man on whom he looks with the eyes of anger.

Another great error in argument consists in making wrong inferences, and substituting sophistry for sense. Nothing is more common than for people to make, in the first case, inferences that are not warranted by the premises from

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