express those reasons to a hearer or hearers in such a manner as to induce belief.

But belief is often not sufficient. An individual, a jury, or an audience may be convinced of the truth or falsity of a proposition, and yet there may be no change in conduct. We may be convinced that there is poverty about us and that it is our duty to aid, and yet not contribute a cent for its relief.

I see the right, and I approve it, too,

Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.

Except in a purely academic discussion, where truth alone is the ultimate goal, the task of the debater is not completed until his auditors act upon their belief. Human conduct depends more upon arousing the emotions than upon satisfying the intellect. Man acts because his will has been stimulated. We do what we will to do. Passion and prejudice, fear and hate, love and sympathy, move mankind to acts of crime and to deeds of heroism more frequently than statistics and logic. Many people pride themselves on their intellect, and state with much gusto that they act only after due deliberation and from motives which have appealed to their reason, and scorn to be moved by any other means. There are such individuals, and their tribe is increasing. But the normal individual acts when his attention is centered on an act and there are no conflicting impressions. We act when only one idea or side of a proposition dominates our attention. Deliberation invariably inhibits conduct. Thus we see that action is not the result of overwhelming evidence and argument, nor of aroused emotion, alone, but may be due to either and most frequently to both.

It may be said that formal and interscholastic debates are primarily and fundamentally informational and academic, and, therefore, no attempt is made to influence the audience to action. The nature of the questions discussed and the personnel of the audience preclude any immediate action; but an audience can and does register its choice, and to choose is a volitional act as much as that resulting in some form of physical action. It should be added that emotional appeals alone, with an audience of even average intelligence, are ineffective unless such appeals are based upon and naturally follow a course of reasoning. A debater who continually appeals to our love of home and mother, our reverence for our ancestors, our pride in our country, or presents to our imagination vivid pictures to influence our passion and arouse our prejudice, in lieu of sound logic, we unhesitatingly label as a weak debater.

Persuasion, however, is not without its proper function in debating, and a subsequent chapter will deal with this important topic.

A

CHAPTER I

THE PROPOSITION-MATTER AND FORM

PROPOSITION necessary in debate. A debatable question implies that a given proposition is maintained by one and doubted or denied by another. It implies a disagreement, else there is nothing to debate. In the questions on which people disagree, as discussions arise in every-day life, there is ordinarily no stated proposition to formulate the matter in dispute; and one of the first things that one skilled in argument will do is to reduce the discussion to such form, whereupon one of three situations will develop: either the disputants' views are (1) identical, or (2) they are discussing two wholly different propositions, or (3) they take issue squarely with each other. In the first instance, the formulation of the subject under discussion into a clear statement removes any seeming disagreement. In the second instance, the discussion would be as if two trains passed each other in opposite directions on parallel tracks. In the last instance, there is what may be called a debate "head on"-a direct, square collision. A proper subject for debate, then, must be capable of affirmation and denial, and a proposition is the only rhetorical form that lends itself to this requirement. A proposition is "a form of speech in which a predicate is affirmed or denied of a subject"; it is a statement that something is or is not. And something must always be predicated of a subject in order to raise an issue for debate. "The Chinese in America" might be a proper subject for a lecture or an oration, but in order to debate the Chinese question some proposition regarding the Chinese in America, as "The Chinese Exclusion laws should be repealed," must be laid down. You cannot argue a mere term or phrase. You may explain a term, but only a proposition is susceptible of proof or disproof. The advocate, for example, may need to make clear by exposition what larceny or arson is, but he cannot argue the terms "arson" and "larceny"; he can argue that "This man is guilty of arson," or that "My client is innocent of larceny." "Argumentation attempts not only to explain why certain ideas are as they are, but also to convince the understanding that they are as they are, or that they ought to be as they are not." And in order to do this, argument requires for a starting-point the affirmation or denial of a definite proposition.

SELECTING THE PROPOSITION

As questions for debate arise in practical life, one does not usually select the subjects-they

come.

But whenever the subjects are to be deliberately chosen, as in debating societies and class exercises, some care should be used in selecting questions, and some general suggestions may well be heeded. What sort of questions should be chosen? Let us partially answer this question by a process of exclusion, and consider certain classes of subjects to be avoided for formal debate.

1. The proposition should be debatable. In the first place, it must not be self-evident. A bald example of such propositions would be a geometrical theorem. Or, “Resolved, that the Caucasian is a white man," is not a debatable question. There are no black Caucasians. Nor could any one advantageously debate such obvious propositions as, "Resolved, that Shakespeare was a great poet"; or, "Resolved, that the murder of President McKinley was reprehensible." A question not having two sides seriously disputed, or one whose obviousness is concealed by the form of statement, should never be chosen for debate; in short, the question should be really debatable.

Secondly, the proposition must be capable of approximate proof or disproof. Although the truth or error of most debatable propositions, as they arise in real life, cannot be demonstrated with mathematical exactness, yet those questions which are capable of only a slight degree of approximation to proof should be avoided. For example, take such time-worn questions as, "Resolved, that the pulpit affords more opportunities for eloquence than the bar"; "Resolved, that the pen is mightier