the framers. The success of Mr. Choate's argument, then, lay in the fact that it thus offered a single principle which would explain, logically and consistently, all the facts.

As I shall presently show, the means of reaching and stirring your readers' feelings, and the function. of pure style, are of more importance, relatively, in argument than in explanation, and must be treated at more length. But certainly there is none of the doctrine of explanation which does not apply to argument, except that of laying out all parts of the subject in their due proportions. That doctrine is to some extent superseded by the necessity of emphasizing the crucial points of your explanation. Even this is an exception to be taken cautiously, however, for any appearance of special pleading is fatal to the convincing power of an argument. Your first conception of your argument, then, should be to offer the truest explanation of the subject or the best policy for all concerned. If you can get the confidence of your audience by making them believe that you thoroughly understand your subject, and that you are laying down for their consideration a fair and undistorted view of it, you will have gone a long way towards moulding their convictions.

22. I have said that the differences in form between writing which is purely expository in purpose and that which is argumentative lie in the emphasis on crucial points and in the new element which is called persuasion. The former is closely connected with

the appeal to your reader's thought, the latter with the appeal to his feeling; I will therefore discuss them separately.

Much of the unsymmetrical emphasis which distinguishes argumentative writing from expository is accomplished by the natural simmering down of the matter under debate to narrow and distinct issues of fact or theory. Mr. Choate could not throw greater emphasis on the central point of his theory than he does in the following words :

"I therefore present the case as to direct taxes upon somewhat narrower grounds distinctly stated in the brief, grounds consistent with every case that has yet been decided by this Court, grounds maintained by the uniform course of the Federal Government in its legislative capacity for over half a century after the adoption of the Constitution. If your Honors should conclude that it is not possible to condemn this entire tax law as unconstitutional because entirely a direct tax, my purpose is to present, then, the only safe and practicable alternative upon which your Honors can place, as I believe, any decision, and which is based upon the clear distinction which we find in the Constitution itself, between direct taxes upon the one hand and duties, imposts, and excises upon the other."

So in Mr. Collins' argument against the truth of the legend of Swift's marriage: he reduces the testimony to its different kinds, and shows that each is conclusive against the theory of marriage; and Professor James declares his thesis with equal explicitness (page 293). The finger posts that are necessary in a clear explanation are thus in an argument made

more salient and more vivid at the points in the explanation where the two sides part company. If the matter is familiar, the part of the case which is not in dispute is then left to the intelligence of the reader; or it may be briefly run over in some introductory paragraph. The very withdrawing of it to the background serves to heighten the attention paid to the rest of the case.

This emphasis on the crucial points is only another name for proof and refutation: they are the presentation of the crucial facts in the case, the facts that decide which of the opposing theories can explain the whole matter. In the case of Dean Swift's marriage, Mr. Collins relies for his proof on the absence of any documentary testimony, and on the opinions of all the parties who were most closely connected with the Dean and with Stella; he asks:

"How, then, stands the case? Even thus. Against the marriage we have the fact that there is no documentary evidence of its having been solemnized; that so far from there being any evidence of it deducible from the conduct of Swift and Stella, Orrery himself admits that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that they had ever been alone together during their whole lives. We have the fact that Esther Johrson, at a time when there could have been no possible motive for falsehood, emphatically asserted that she was unmarried; the fact that Swift led every one to believe that he was unmarried; the fact that Esther Johnson's bosom friend and inseparable companion was satisfied that there had been no marriage; the fact that two of Swift's housekeepers, two of Stella's executors, and Dr.

Lyon, were satisfied that there had been no marriage. It is easy to say that all that has been advanced merely proves that the marriage was a secret, and that the secret was well kept. But that is no answer. The question must be argued on evidence; and it is incumbent on those who insist, in the teeth of such evidence as has been adduced, that a marriage was solemnized, to produce evidence as satisfactory. This they have failed to do."

Or to put it in the other way: If the other side cannot find a more satisfying and rational explanation of these unquestioned facts, or if they cannot show some facts which knock my theory to pieces, they have no case.

What is called direct proof, then, is the putting forward, with fitting emphasis, of some of the facts which can be harmonized with all the other facts only by your explanation. It is possible, of course, only in such cases as can be brought down to an issue of physical fact; questions of opinion or of policy can lead at the best only to an overwhelming probability: of them I will speak presently. In the murder case Professor Baker in his "Principles of Argumentation" cites 1 from Herndon's "Lincoln" there is a good case of direct proof. Lincoln defending a man accused of murder showed first that the theory of the prosecution turned on the fact that one witness saw the prisoner strike the blow; then when this witness declared that he saw the deed by moonlight Lincoln introduced a new fact in the case by showing from a calendar that there was no moon that night.

He thus shattered the explanation of the prosecution by showing that it could not explain all the facts. This proof he emphasized by showing that the evidence of this particular witness was the only weighty evidence against the prisoner, dwelling on it until the jury saw that it was the one fact on which the case must turn; then he suddenly threw in the new fact that there was no moon in such a way that they could not miss the conclusion. Such a case is an excellent example of the method of direct proof, or of refutation to put it from the other side. Whether you call it proof or refutation, it amounts to finding a fact which is a final test of the explanations which are offered.

When you are arguing on questions of fact, therefore, the first task is to know your facts thoroughly and intimately. Just as a successful jury lawyer must prepare his case so thoroughly that he can draw from the witnesses testimony and admissions to fortify his own theory and demolish his opponent's, so you must mull over the facts before you and hunt out new ones until you find something that only your view will explain. In such arguments the sagacity to seize the crucial fact is the essential to success.1

Often even in cases of physical fact, however, there can be no direct proof. In the question of Swift's marriage, for example, or of the authorship of the "Junius" letters, there are not now extant enough facts to bring the matter to direct proof: the best that you can do is to reason that most of the facts

1 See James, "Psychology,” vol. ii. p. 330.