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of government into Wytown the burden of proof is on the affirmative to show that the Des Moines plan of city government will cure the evils of the present government of Wytown. With the audience assumed (see p. 43), there is no burden of proof on the affirmative to establish the need of a change.

      EXERCISES

      1. In three subjects which you might choose for an argument show where the burden of proof would lie.

      2. In the case of one of these arguments show how the burden of proof might change with the argument.

      17. The Brief. When you have settled these preliminary questions of the audience you wish to win over to your view, and of the way their prepossessions and knowledge of the subject will affect your responsibilities for the burden of proof, you are ready to begin work on the brief, as the plan for an argument is called. This brief it is better to think of as a statement of the logical framework of the argument, which you are constructing for the purpose of clearing up your own mind on the subject, and especially to help you to see how you can most effectively arrange your material. It differs from the usual brief in a case at law in that the latter is ordinarily a series of compact statements of legal principles, each supported by a list of cases already decided which bear on that principle. The brief you will be making now will consist of an introduction, which states whatever facts and principles are necessary to an understanding of the brief, and the brief itself, which consists of a series of propositions, each supporting your main contention, and each in turn supported by others, which again may each be supported by another series. Such an analysis will thoroughly display the processes of your reasoning, and enable you to criticize them step by step for soundness and coerciveness.

      I shall first explain the several steps which go to the making of the introduction to the brief; and then come to the making of the brief itself.

      18. The Proposition. The first step in making the introduction to your brief is to formulate the question or proposition (the two terms are interchangeable in practice). Until you have crystallized your view of the subject into a proposition you have nothing to argue about. "Commission form of government" is a subject, but it is not arguable, for it gives you no hold either for affirming or denying. "Commission government should be adopted in Wytown," or "Commission government has improved political conditions in Des Moines," are both propositions which are arguable (though not yet specific enough), for it is possible to maintain either the affirmative or the negative of either of them.

      The proposition must be single. If it be double, you have what the lawyers call "a squinting argument," that is, an argument which looks in two directions at the same time. For example, the proposition, "Commission government would be a good thing for Wytown, but the initiative and referendum are wrong in principle," involves two separate and unconnected principles, since commission government as first embodied at Galveston does not include the initiative and referendum. Many people, including those of Galveston and other places in Texas, would accept the first half of the proposition, and disagree with the second half. On the other hand, "Wytown should adopt a commission government on the Des Moines plan," would not be a double proposition, though this plan includes the initiative and referendum; for the proposition makes the issue that the plan should be adopted or rejected as a whole.

      In some cases a proposition may be grammatically compound, and yet carry a single assertion. "Municipal government by commission is more economical and efficient than municipal government with a mayor and two chambers," is really a single assertion of the superiority of the commission plan of government. In this case there is no danger of getting into a split argument; but even here it is safer to reduce the proposition to one which is grammatically single, "Municipal government by commission has proved itself superior to municipal government with a mayor and two chambers." A predicate wholly single is a safeguard against meaning two assertions.

      The proposition must not be so abstract or vague in terms that you do not know whether you agree or disagree with it. Macaulay summed up this difficulty in one of his speeches in Parliament:

      Surely my honorable friend cannot but know that nothing is easier than to write a theme for severity, for clemency, for order, for liberty, for a contemplative life, for an active life, and so on. It was a common exercise in the ancient schools of rhetoric to make an abstract question, and to harangue first on one side and then on the other. The question, Ought popular discontents to be quieted by concession or coercion, would have been a very good subject for oratory of this kind. There is no lack of commonplaces on either side. But when we come to the real business of life, the value of these commonplaces depends entirely on the particular circumstances of the case which we are discussing. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise proving that it is lawful to resist extreme tyranny. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise setting forth the wickedness of wantonly bringing on a great society the miseries inseparable from revolution, the bloodshed, the spoliation, the anarchy. Both treatises may contain much that is true; but neither will enable us to decide whether a particular insurrection is or is not justifiable without a close examination of the facts.⁴

      In other words, though the word "insurrection" seems to be plain in meaning, yet when we make it one term of a judgment of which the other term is "justifiable," we find that we do not know whether we agree or not. The terms of the proposition are so vague that there can be no meeting of minds. If we limit the subject to a specific case, insurrection in Venezuela, or insurrection in Cuba, then we have made a beginning toward making the proposition arguable. In these particular cases, however, it would probably be necessary to go further, and specify which insurrection in Venezuela or in Cuba was intended, before the average American would be prepared either to affirm or to deny. Wherever the terms of a proposition are too vague to provoke profitable discussion they must be narrowed down to a specific case which will draw forth affirmation and denial.

      A common case where the vagueness of the proposition leads to difficulties in the argument is described in the following passage:

      An equally common form of argument, closely allied to the argument by analogy, and equally vague, is that which is popularly known as the objection to a thin end of a wedge. We must not do this or that, it is often said, because if we did we should be logically bound to do something else which is plainly absurd or wrong. If we once begin to take a certain course there is no knowing where we shall be able to stop with any show of consistency; there would be no reason for stopping anywhere in particular, and we should be led on, step by step, into action or opinions that we all agree to call undesirable or untrue. …

      For it must not be forgotten that in all disputes of this kind there are two parties opposed to each other, and that what divides them is precisely their lack of agreement on the question what principle is really involved. Those who see a proposal as a thin end of a wedge always see the principle as a wider, more inclusive one, than those who make the proposal; and what gives them freedom so to see it is merely the fact that it remains indefinite.⁵

      As a practical example of this confusion, consider the following extract from a speech in the United States Senate opposing the popular election of senators:

      Every intelligent student of the present rapid trend toward popular government must see what would happen when this sentimental bar of the States being represented by two Senators instead of by the people in the United States Senate is thrown down. The initiative, the referendum, and the recall are but symptoms of the times. That the people will have their way, because they, and they alone, are the government, is the underlying spirit of our institutions, of our newest State Constitutions, and of our progressive laws. Skillful agitation seizes upon every pretext and eagerly grasps and enlarges every opportunity for appeal to the passions in an advancement of its purposes. The next cry will necessarily be, "Why not elect the Supreme Court of the United States by popular vote? Why not elect the Federal Judiciary everywhere by popular vote?"⁶

      Here the proposition, "That the people will have their way, because they, and they alone, are the government, is the underlying spirit of our institutions, of our newest state constitutions, and of our progressive laws," is not only obscure in terms, but it is wholly vague, for it does not define how far the progressive party propose to carry popular direct government. Until the two sides

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