Chapter III: Part 3

“He never does know it,” growled Scholasticus. “And what’s worse, he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know it. By this painless method he has never been compelled to charge his mind with it and to reason it out. And besides, it’s death on the teacher. Ezekiel Cheever taught that Boston Latin School till he was over ninety years old, and never had a touch of nervous prostration. He didn’t have to lie awake planning how to hold the rapt attention of his pupils. If there was any chance of the grammar rules not being learned, he let them do the worrying. It was good for them. There was a race of sturdy thinkers in those days. They knew how to deal with knotty problems. If they survived the school, they could not be downed in the town meeting.”

“Scholasticus,” I said, “I don’t like the way you talk. The trouble with you is that you took your education too hard. I fancy that I see every lesson you ever learned sticking out of your consciousness like the piles of stones in a New Hampshire pasture. They are monuments of industry, but they lack a certain suavity. You are doing what most Americans do,--whenever they find anything wrong they lay the blame on the public schools. Just because some of the younger men at your club argue somewhat erratically, you blame the whole modern system of education. It’s a way you clever people have,--you are not content with one good and sufficient reason for your statement of fact. You must reinforce it by another of a more general character. It makes me feel as I do when, a faucet needing a new washer, I send for a plumber,--and behold twain! One would be enough, if he would attend strictly to business. Every system has its failures. If that of the present day seems to have more than its share, it is because its failures are still in evidence, while those of your generation are mostly forgotten. Oblivion is a deft housemaid, who tidies up the chambers of the Past, by sweeping all the dust into the dark corners. On the other hand, you drop into the Present amid the disorder of the spring cleaning, when everything is out on the line. If you could recall the shining lights in your Logic class, you might admit that some of them had the form of reasoning without the power thereof. It was in your day, wasn’t it, that the criticism was made on the undergraduate thesis:--

Although he wrote it all by rote,
He did not write it right.

I couldn’t help thinking of those lines when I was listening just now to your reasoning. The real point, Scholasticus, is this, which seems to have escaped you. You talk of the laws of the mind. When you were in college it seemed a very simple thing to formulate these laws. There was no Child Psychology, giving way before you knew it to Adolescence, where everything was quite different. There was no talk about subliminal consciousness, where you couldn’t tell which was consciousness and which was something else. The mind in your day came in one standard size.”

“Yes,” said Scholasticus, “when we were in the Academy, we had Watts on the Mind. Watts treated his subject in a straightforward way; he had nothing about nervous reactions; he gave us plain Mind. When we got into college we had Locke on the Understanding. When it was time to take account of conscience, we had Paley’s ‘Moral Science.’ This, with the ‘Evidences,’ made a pretty good preparation for life.”

“So it did,” I said, “and you have done credit to your training. But since that time Psychologists have made a number of discoveries which render it necessary to revise the old methods.”

Seeing that he, for the first time, was giving me his attention, I thought that it might be possible to win him away from that futile and acrid criticism of the present course of events, which is the besetting sin of men of his age, to the more fruitful criticism by creation.

“Scholasticus,” I said, “here is your opportunity. You complain that Logic is going out. The trouble is that it has been taught in an antiquated way. The logicians followed the analogy of mathematics. They invented all sorts of formal figures and diagrams, and were painfully abstract. When you were learning to reason, you had to commit to memory a formula like this: ‘Every y is x; every z is y; therefore every z is x. _E.g._, let the major term (which is represented by x) be “One who possesses all virtue,” the minor term (z) “Every man who possesses one virtue,” and the middle term (y) “Every man who possesses prudence,” and you have the celebrated argument of Aristotle that “the virtues are inseparable.”’

“Now you can’t make the youth of this generation submit to that kind of argumentation. They are willing to admit the virtues are inseparable, if you say so, but they are not going to take time to figure it out. You can’t arouse their interest by demonstrating that ‘If A is B, C is D, C is not D, therefore A is not B.’ They say, ‘What of it?’ They refuse to concern themselves about the fate of letters of the alphabet. Such methods prejudice them against Logic. They prefer not to reason at all, rather than do it in such an old-fashioned way. Besides, they have peeped into the Psychology for Teachers, and they know their rights. Such teaching is not good pedagogics. The youthful mind must be shielded from abstractions; if it is not, there’s no knowing what might happen. It will not do to go at your subject in such a brutal way. This is the age of the concrete and the vital. Things are observed in the state of nature. The birds must be in the bush, and the fishes in the water, and the flowers must be caught in the very act of growing. That’s what makes them interesting. If the youthful mind is to be induced to love Nature, Nature must do her prettiest for the youthful mind. Otherwise it will be found that the mental vacuum abhors Nature.

“If there is to be a revival of Logic, it must be attached to something in which people are already interested. People are interested in biological processes. They like to see things grow, and to help in the process as far as they can without disturbing Nature. Why don’t you, Scholasticus, try your hand at a text-book which shall insinuate a sufficient knowledge of the principles of sound reasoning, under the guise of Botany or Hygiene or Physical Culture, or some of the branches that are more popular? I believe that you could make a syllogism as interesting as anything else. All you have to do is to make people think that it is something else.”

At the time Scholasticus only sniffed scornfully at my suggestion; but not many days had passed before I began to notice a change in his demeanor. Instead of his usual self-sufficiency, there came into his eyes a wistful plea for appreciation. He had the chastened air of one who no longer sits in the chair of the critic, but is awaiting the moment when he shall endure criticism.

From such signs as these I inferred that Scholasticus was writing a book. There is nothing that so takes the starch out of a man’s intellect and reduces him to a state of abject dependence on the judgment of his fellow beings as writing a book. For the first question about a book is not, “Is it good?” but, “Will anybody read it?” When this question is asked, the most commonplace individual assumes a new importance. He represents the Public. The Author wonders as to what manner of man he is. Will he like the Book?

I was not therefore surprised when one day Scholasticus, in a shamefaced way, handed me the manuscript of a work entitled, “How to Know the Fallacies; or Nature-Study in Logic.”

In these pages Scholasticus shows a sincere desire to adapt himself to a new order of things. He no longer stands proudly on the quarter-deck of the good ship Logic, with a sense of fathomless depths of rationality under the keel. Logic is a poor old stranded wreck. His work is like that of the Swiss Family Robinson: to carry off the necessities of life and the more portable luxuries, and to use them in setting up housekeeping on the new island of Nature-Study.

I cannot say that he has been entirely successful in making the art of reasoning a pleasant out-of-door recreation. He has not altogether overcome the stiffness which is the result of his early education. In treating thought as if it were a vegetable, he does not always conceal the fact that it is _not_ a vegetable. There are, therefore, occasional jolts as he suddenly changes from one aspect of his subject to another.

I was, however, much pleased to see that, instead of ambitiously attempting to treat of the processes of valid reasoning, he has been content to begin with those forms of argumentation which are more familiar.

His preface does what every good preface should do: it presents the Author not at his worst nor at his best, but in a salvable condition, so that the reader will say, “He is not such a bad fellow, after all, and doubtless when he gets warmed up to his work he will do better.” It may be as well to quote the Preface in full.

“Careless Reader, in the intervals between those wholesome recreations which make up the more important portion of life, you may have sometimes come upon a thought. It may have been only a tiny thoughtlet. Slight as it was in itself, it was worthy of your attention, for it was a living thing. Pushing its way out of the fertile soil of your subconscious being, it had come timidly into the light of day. If it seemed to you unusual, it was only because you have not cultivated the habit of noticing such things. They are really very common.

“If you can spare the time, let us sit down together and pluck up the thoughtlet by the roots and examine its structure. You may find some pleasure, and perhaps a little profit, in these native growths of your mind.

“When you take up a thought and pull it to pieces, you will see that it is not so simple as it seems. It is in reality made up of several thoughts joined together. When you try to separate them, you find it difficult. The connective tissue which binds them together is called inference. When several thoughts growing out of the same soil are connected by inference, they form what is called an argument. Arguments, as they are found in the state of Nature, are of two kinds; those that hang together, and those that only seem to hang together; these latter are called Fallacies.

“In former times they were treated as mere weeds and were mercilessly uprooted. In these days we have learned to look upon them with a kindlier eye. They have their uses, and serve to beautify many a spot that otherwise would remain barren. They are the wild flowers of the intellectual world. I do not intend to intrude my own taste or to pass judgment on the different varieties; but only to show my readers how to know the fallacies when they see them. It may be said that mere nomenclature is of little value. So it is in itself; yet there is a pleasure in knowing the names of the common things we meet every day. The search for fallacies need never take one far afield. The collector may find almost all the known varieties growing within his own enclosure.

“Let us then go out in the sunshine into the pleasant field of thought. There we see the arguments--valid and otherwise--as they are growing. You will notice that every argument has three essential parts. First is the root, called by the old logicians in their crabbed language the Major Premise. Growing quite naturally out of this is the stem, called the Minor Premise; and crowning that is the flower, with its seed vessels which contain the potentialities of future arguments,--this is called the Conclusion.

“Let the reader observe this argument: ‘Every horse is an animal;’ that is the root thought. ‘Sheep are not horses;’ that is the stem shooting into the air. ‘Therefore, sheep are not animals;’ that is the conclusion, the full corn in the ear.

“There is a pleasing impression of naturalness about the way in which one thought grows out of that which immediately preceded it. There is a sudden thrill when we come to the ‘therefore,’ the blossoming time of the argument. We feel that we are entering into one of Nature’s secret processes. Unless our senses are deceiving us, we are actually reasoning.

“After a while, when curiosity and the pride of possession lead us to look more carefully at our treasure, we are somewhat surprised. It is not as it seemed. A little observation convinces us that, in spite of our argumentation, sheep are animals, and always have been. Thus, quite by accident, and through the unaided exercise of our own faculties, we have come upon one of the most ancient forms of reasoning, one that has engaged the attention of wise men since Aristotle,--a fallacy.”

In the opening chapters, Scholasticus gives a description of the more common fallacies, with an account of their habits of growth and of the soils in which they most flourish. “_Petitio Principii_, or begging the question. This is a very pretty little fallacy of vine-like habit. It is found growing beside old walls, and wherever it is not likely to be disturbed. It is easily propagated from slips, each slip being capable of indefinite multiplication, the terminal buds sending down new roots, and the process of growth going on continuously. So tenacious is it that it is practically impossible to eradicate the _petitio_, when once it has fairly established itself. It recommends itself on the ground of economy. In most arguments the attempt is made to prove one thing by means of another thing. This, of course, involves a considerable waste of good material. In begging the question, by means of one proposition we are enabled to prove a proposition that is identical with it. In this way an idea may be made to go a long way.

“The most familiar variety of this fallacy is that known as the Argument in a Circle. To those who are fond of arguments, but who can afford very little mind space for their cultivation, this is an almost ideal fallacy. It requires only the slightest soil, deriving its nutriment almost wholly from the air, and reproducing itself without the slightest variation in type.

“Its hardiness and exuberant efflorescence make it desirable for many purposes. It is useful as a screen to hide the more unsightly parts of one’s intellectual grounds. Often, too, there may be an argumentative structure that has fallen into decay. Its real reason for existence is no longer obvious, yet it may have associations which make us reluctant to tear it down. In such a case, nothing is easier than to plant a slip of the circular argument. In a short time the old ruin becomes a bower, covered with an exuberant efflorescence of rationality. This argument is to be recommended for a Woman’s Hardy Garden of Fallacies.

“It is one which gives great pleasure to a home-loving person who finds satisfaction in that which is his own. Often have I seen a householder sitting under its sweet shade, well content. He was conscious of having an argument which answered to all his needs, and which protected him alike from the contradiction of sinners and from the intrusive questioning of the more critical sort of saints. He had such satisfaction as came to Jonah, when the booth he had constructed, with such slight skill as belonged to an itinerant preacher, was covered by the luxuriant gourd vine. Things were not going as he had expected in Nineveh, and current events were discrediting his prophecies, but Jonah ‘rejoiced with great joy over the gourd.’

“I may be pardoned, in treating the circular argument, for deviating, for a moment, from the field of botany into the neighboring field of zoölogy. For after all, the same principles hold good there also, and as we are forming the habit of looking at thought as a kind of plant, we may also consider it as a kind of animal,--let us say, if you please, a goldfish. You have often paused to watch the wonders of marine life as epitomized in a glass globe upon your centre-table. Those who go down to the sea in ships have doubtless seen more of the surface of waters, but they have not the same facilities for looking into its interior life that you have in your aquarium. A school of goldfishes represent for you the finny monsters of the deep. You see the whole world they move in. The encircling glass is the firmament in the midst of the waters. The goldfishes go round and round, and have a very good time, and have many adventures, but they never get out of their crystal firmament. You may leave them for half a day, but when you come back you know just where to find them. An aquarium is a much safer place for goldfishes to swim in than the ocean; to be sure, they do not get on far, but on the other hand they do not get lost, and there are no whales or even herrings, to make them afraid. There is the same advantage in doing our reasoning in a circle. We can keep up an argument much longer when we are operating in friendly waters and are always near our base of supplies. The trouble with thinking straight is, that it is likely to take us too far from home. The first we know we are facing a new issue. From this peril we are saved by the habit of going round and round. He who argues and runs away from the real difficulty lives to argue another day, and the best of it is the argument will be just the same.

“_Argumentum ad Hominem._ This is a large family, containing many interesting varieties. The _ad hominem_ is of parasitic growth, a sort of logical mistletoe. It grows not out of the nature of things, but of the nature of the particular mind to which it is addressed. In the cultivation of this fallacy it is only necessary to remember that each mind has its weak point. Find out what this weak point is, and drop into it the seed of the appropriate fallacy, and the result will exceed your fondest anticipation.

“Again with the reader’s kind permission, I will stray from the field of botany; this time into that of personal experience. At the risk of falling into obsolete and discredited methods of instruction, I will ask you for the moment to look in and not out.

“Dear Reader, often, when reasoning with yourself, especially about your own conduct, you have found comfort in a syllogism like this:--

I like to do right.
I do what I like.
Therefore, I do what is right.

The conclusion is so satisfactory that you have no heart to look too narrowly at the process by which it is attained. When you do what you like, it is pleasant to think that righteousness is a by-product of your activity. Moreover, there is a native generosity about you which makes you willing to share with others the more lasting benefits which may ensue. You are ready to believe that what is profitable to you must also be profitable to them in the long run,--if not in a material, then in a spiritual way. All the advantage that comes to you is merely temporary and personal. When you have reaped this scanty harvest, you do not begrudge to humanity in general its plentiful gleanings. In your altruistic mood you do not consider too carefully the particular blessing which your action has bestowed on the world; you are content with the thought that it is a good diffused.

“When out of what is in the beginning only a personal gratification there grows a cosmic law, we have the _Argumentum ad Hominem_. There are few greater pleasures in life than that of having all our preferences justified by our reason. There are some persons who are so susceptible to arguments of this kind that they never suffer from the sensation of having done something wrong,--a sensation which I can assure you is quite disagreeable. They might suspect they had done wrong, were it not that as soon as they begin to reason about it they perceive that all that happened was highly to their credit. The more they think about it, the more pleased they are with themselves. They perceive that their action was much more disinterested than, at the time, they intended. They are like a person who tumbles into the Dead Sea. He can’t go under even if he tries. It is, of course, a matter of specific gravity. When a conscience is of less specific gravity than the moral element into which it is cast, it cannot remain submerged. The fortunate owner of such a conscience watches it with satisfaction when it serenely bobs to the surface; he advertises its superlative excellence,--‘Perfectly Pure! It floats.’

“The great use of the _ad hominem_ argument is like that of certain leguminous plants which enrich the soil by giving to it elements in which it had been previously lacking. After a crop of _ad hominem_ arguments has grown and been turned under, we may expect a rich harvest of more commercially valuable fallacies in the next season. To thus enrich the soil is an evidence of the skill of the culturist.

“Suppose, for example, you were to attempt to implant this proposition in the unprepared mind of an acquaintance, ‘All geese are swans.’ The proposition is not well received. All your friend’s ornithological prejudices are against it. There is no foodstuff to support your theory.

“But suppose you prepare the soil by a crop of the _ad hominem_ argument. You say to your friend, after looking admiringly at his possessions, ‘It seems to me that all _your_ geese are swans.’ He answers cordially, ‘That’s just what I was thinking myself.’ Now you have nicely prepared the ground for further operations.

“While controversial theologians have always had a fondness for arguments in a circle, the _ad hominem_ arguments have been largely cultivated by politicians. More than a generation ago Jeremy Bentham published a work called ‘Political Fallacies.’ He described those that are indigenous to the British Isles. Almost all on his list were of the _ad hominem_ variety. He described particularly those which could be grown to advantage in the Houses of Parliament. Since Bentham’s day, much has been done in America in the way of propagating new varieties. Many of these, though widely advertised, have not yet been scientifically described. I have thought that if my present book is well received, I might publish another covering this ground. It will probably be entitled, ‘Reasoning for Profit; or Success with Small Fallacies.’

“The great essential in arguments of this kind is to have a thorough knowledge of the soil. Given the right soil, and the most feeble argument will flourish. Take, for example, the arguments for the divine right of kings to rule, once much esteemed by court preachers. Of course the first necessity was to catch your kings. The arguments in themselves were singularly feeble, but they flourished mightily in the hotbeds of royalty. The trouble was that they did not bear transplanting.

“Half a century ago there were a dozen thrifty arguments for human slavery. They are, abstractly speaking, as good now as they ever were, but they have altogether passed out of cultivation.

“In landscape gardening groups of the _ad hominem_ arguments skillfully arranged are always charming. Much discrimination is needed for the adornment of any particular spot. Suppose you were called upon to furnish fallacies for an Amalgamated Society of Esoteric Astrologers. You might safely, in such fertile soil and tropical climate, plant the most luxuriant exotics. Such airy growths, however, would be obviously inappropriate for a commercial club composed of solid business men. You would for them choose rather a sturdy perennial, for example, the _argumentum ad Pennsylvaniam_, or tariff-bearing argument.

“It grows thus:--

The tariff is that which conduces to our prosperity.
A tax does not conduce to our prosperity.
Therefore, a tariff is not a tax.

“Persons who have confined their logical exercises to the task of convincing impartial minds have no idea of the exhilaration which comes when one has only to convince a person of the wisdom of a course of action he has already taken. There is really no comparison between the two. There is all the difference that there is between climbing an icy hill and sliding down the same hill on a toboggan. There is no intellectual sport equal to that of tobogganing from a lofty moral premise to a congenial practical conclusion. We go so fast that we hardly know how we got to the bottom, but there we are, safe and sound. We have only to choose our company and hold on; gravitation does the rest. It is astonishing what conclusions we can come to when we do our reasoning in this pleasantly gregarious fashion.

“_Ignoratio Elenchi_, or the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion. This is not a natural species, but the result of artifice. It is a familiar kind of argument. It begins well, and it ends well, but you have a feeling that something has happened to it in the middle. You have noticed in the orchard an apple tree that starts out to be a Pippin, but when the time comes for it to bear fruit it has apparently changed its mind, and has concluded to be a Rhode Island Greening. Of course you are aware that it has not really changed its mind, for the laws of Nature are quite invariable. The whimsicality of its conduct is to be laid not upon Nature, but upon Art. The gardener has skillfully grafted one stock upon another. The same thing can be done with an argument. You have often observed the way in which a person will start out to prove one proposition and after a little while end up with the triumphant demonstration of something that is quite different. He shows such an ability at ratiocination that you cannot help admiring his reasoning powers, though it is hard to follow him. Your bewilderment comes from the fact that you had expected the original seedling to bring forth after its kind, and had not noticed the point where the scion of a new proposition had been grafted on.

“Many persons are not troubled at all when the conclusions are irrelevant. They rather like them that way. If an argument will not prove one thing, then let it prove another. It is all in the day’s work. To persons with this tolerant taste the variety afforded by the use of the _ignoratio elenchi_ is very pleasing.”

A chapter is given to the Cross-fertilization of Fallacies. The author shows how two half-truths brought together from two widely separated fields of thought will produce a new and magnificently variegated form of opinion. The hybrid will surpass specimens of either of the parent stocks both in size and showiness. Thus a half-truth of popular religion cross-fertilized by a half-truth of popular science will produce a hybrid which astonishes both the religious and the scientific world. If we were following the analogy of mathematics we might assume that two half-truths would make a whole truth. But when we are dealing with the marvelous reproductive powers of nature we find that they make much more than that.

Scholasticus gives a page or two to the Dwarfing of Arguments. “The complaint is sometimes heard that an argument which is otherwise satisfactory proves too much. This may seem a good fault to those whose chief difficulty is in making their arguments prove anything at all. But I assure you that it is really very troublesome to find that you have proved more than you intended. You may have no facilities for dealing with the surplus conclusions, and you may find all your plans disarranged. For this reason many persons, instead of cultivating arguments of the standard sizes which take a good deal of room, prefer the dwarf varieties. These are very convenient where one does not wish one principle to crowd out another that may be opposed to it. Persons inclined to moderation prefer to cultivate a number of good ideas without crowding. The dwarf varieties are pleasing to the cultivated taste, as they are generally exceedingly symmetrical, while full-grown ideas, especially in exposed places, are apt to impress one as being scraggly.

“Dean Swift, who had no taste for miniature excellencies, spoke scornfully of those who plant oaks in flower-pots. I have, however, frequently seen very pleasing oaks grown in this way, and they were not in very big flower-pots, either.

“In moral reasoning, it is especially difficult to keep our conclusions moderate enough for our convenience. An ordinary argument always tends to prove too much. This is disconcerting to those who are endeavoring to live up to their favorite text, ‘Be not overmuch righteous.’ The danger of overmuchness is obviated by cultivating the fashionable dwarf varieties of righteousness.

“Various methods of dwarfing are practiced with success. Training will do much; you have seen trees dwarfed by tying them to a trellis or against a wall or to stakes, and preventing their growth beyond the prescribed limits. Incessant pruning is necessary, and each new growth must be vigorously headed back. By using the same means we may cultivate a number of fine ideas, and at the same time keep them fairly small.”

The least satisfactory chapter is that on Pests. “It is easy enough,” says Scholasticus, “to describe a pest, but it is another matter to get rid of it. The most painstaking fallacy culturist must expect to awake some morning and behold his choicest arguments laid low by some new kind of critic. There seems to be no limit to the pestiferous activity of these creatures. They are of two kinds: those that bite, cutting off the roots of the argument, and those that suck out the juices. These latter destroy the vital tissue of inference on which everything depends. I never met any one who cultivated arguments on a large scale who did not have his tale of woe.

“I had at one time a theological friend who had great reputation as a dogmatist. He had for many years a garden of fallacies which was one of the show places. It was in a sheltered situation, so that many fine old dogmas flourished which we do not often, in these days, see growing out of doors. Everything went well until the locality became infested with destructive criticism. He tried all the usual remedies without success. At last he became utterly discouraged, and cut out all the dead wood, and uprooted all the dogmas that were attacked by the pest. Since then he has given up his more ambitious plans, and he has only a simple little place where he cultivates those fruits of the spirit which are not affected by destructive criticism. It is only fair to say that he is making a very pleasant place of it.

“For the encouragement of those who are not ready to take such heroic methods, it may be said that eternal vigilance, though not a panacea, will do much. Some of the most dreaded species of critics are not so dangerous as they seem. Many persons fear the _Criticus Academicus_. I have, however, seen fallacies which survived the attacks of this species and fell easy victims to the more troublesome _Criticus Vulgaris_, or Common Gumption.

“The worst pest is what is known as the _Reductio ad Absurdum_. This is a kind of scale which grows upon a promising argument and eats out its life. It is so innocent in its appearance that at first one does not suspect its deadly character. In fact, it is sometimes taken as an agreeable ornament. After a little while the argument is covered over with a sort of dry humor. There is then no remedy.”

In the chapter on the use of artificial fertilizers, Scholasticus deals particularly with statistics. He refers incidentally to their use in the cultivation of valid arguments. Their importance here is universally acknowledged. “It should be remembered,” he says, “that in this case success depends upon the extreme care with which they are used. An unusual amount of discrimination is demanded in their application. For this reason, if solid conclusions, that head well, are expected, only experts of good character can be trusted to do the work.

“There is no such difficulty in the use of statistics, if the grower is content with arguments of the fallacious order. Statistics are recommended for a mulch. By covering a bed of fallacies with a heavy mulch of miscellaneous statistical matter it is protected from the early frosts and the later drought. The ground of the argument is kept thus in a good condition. No particular care is here needed in the application of statistics; any man who can handle a pitchfork can do all that is required. I have seen astonishing results obtained in this way. No one need be deterred by the consideration of expense. In these days statistics are so cheap that they are within the reach of all. If you do not care to use the material freely distributed by the government, you can easily collect a sufficient amount for yourself.

“The best way is to prepare circulars containing half a dozen irrelevant questions, which you send to several thousand persons,--the more the better. If you enclose stamps, those who are good-natured and conscientious will send you such odd bits of opinion as they have no other use for, and are willing to contribute to the cause of science. When the contributions are received, assort them, putting those that strike you as more or less alike in long, straight rows. Another way, which is more fancy, is that of arranging them in curves. This is called ‘tabulating the results.’ When the results have been thoroughly tabulated, use in the manner I have described for the protection of your favorite arguments.”

* * * * *

In this way the book ran on for some three hundred pages. After I had read it, I congratulated Scholasticus on his effort. “You have almost succeeded,” I said, “in making Logic interesting; that is, if it is Logic. Now that you have made such a good beginning, I wish you might go further. You have taught us, by a natural method, how to reason fallaciously. I wish you would now teach us how to reason correctly.”

“I wish I could,” said Scholasticus.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE PEACEMAKERS

To one who aspires to “sit and shake in Rabelais’ easy-chair,” the greeting “Peace on Earth” is a godsend. Was ever such a provocative to satire? Did ever human nature appear in a disguise more ridiculously transparent than when assuming the part of Peacemaker in the midwinter pantomimes, and impudently laying claim to the very choicest beatitude? The bold masquerader has not even the grace to hide his big stick, but waves it as a wand. We are asked to believe that the vigorous flourishes of this same big stick prepare for the age of peace “by prophets long foretold.”

“Have you ever been to a Peace Convention?” asks the amateur cynic. “It is good fun if you are fortunate enough to be able to watch the proceedings from the seat of the scornful. First come the advocates of Peace pure and simple, enthusiasts for non-resistance. As you listen to the reports of the delegates you feel that the time has already come when ‘the lion shall eat straw like the ox.’ Your sympathies go out to the poor beast in his sudden change of diet,--for we of the Carnivora have no great appetite for straw. After a time the lions are led out to speak for themselves. Representatives of the different nations give greetings. It appears from their remarks that the cause is one that has always been nearest to their valiant hearts. No need to take measures to convert them,--they have always been on the right side. What were teeth and claws invented for, if not to enforce peace on earth?

“Each nation points with pride to its achievements. Has not Great Britain made peace in South Africa, and the United States of America established it in the Philippines; and was not Russia a while ago endeavoring to establish it in Manchuria? Even the little powers are at work for the same end. Is not disinterested Belgium making peace on the banks of the Congo, with rubber and ivory as a by-product? Has not Holland for these many years been industriously weeding out the malcontents in Java? The Christian message of good will has now reached the most remote recesses of the earth. Even the monks in Thibet have heard the good news. They must pay a good round sum for it, to be sure; but what else could they expect when the message must be carried to them away up on the roof of the world, quite beyond the limits of the free delivery? It’s their own fault that they never got into full connection with Christendom before. These unsocial creatures have for generations been enjoying a selfish peacefulness of their own. They have been like a householder who has a telephone, but will not allow his number to go on the book. He likes to bother other people, but will not allow them to bother him. It has long been known that the Mahatmas in Llassa were in the habit of projecting thought vibrations to the ends of the earth, and muddling the brains of the initiated; but the general public could not reciprocate. The British expedition has changed all that. Now when Christendom rings them up they’ve got to answer.”

That word “Christendom” has a singular effect upon the cynic. It draws out all his acrid humor; for it seems to him the quintessence of hypocrisy.

“Christian nations! Christian civilization! A fine partnership this, between the brutal and the spiritual! In the pre-Christian era war was a very simple thing. Read the record of an Israelitish expedition in the Book of Chronicles. ‘And they went to the entrance of Gedor, even unto the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks. And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide and quiet and peaceable; for they of Ham had dwelt there of old. And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and smote their tents and the habitations that were found there, and destroyed them utterly unto this day, and dwelt in their rooms; because there was pasture there for their flocks.’

“What an unsophisticated account of an ordinary transaction! Even the sons of Ham could understand the motive. There was no profession of benevolent intent, not even an eloquent reference to manifest destiny; the fat pastures were a sufficient reason. In these days the unwilling beneficiaries of civilization have a harder time of it. No sooner are they dispossessed of their lands than they are called together to rejoice over the good work that has been done for them. This is A. D. and not B. C. The new era began with an angel chorus; let us all join in the refrain. First of all, decorum requires that the bare facts be decently arrayed in spiritual garments. With the skill that is the result of long practice the ugliest fact is fitted. It is a triumph of dressmaking. The materials may be a trifle threadbare, but with a little fullness here and a breadth taken out there, each garment is made as good as new. Not a blood-stain shows.”

* * * * *

This is a free country, and the cynic must be allowed his fling. But if he has license to speak his mind in regard to the simple-hearted people who believe in Peace, we must be privileged to say what we think of him. The truth is that we think him to be a rather shallow-pated fellow who has been educated above his deserts. For all his knowing ways he has had but little knowledge of the world. He has seen the things which are obvious, the things that are shown to every outsider. He prides himself on his familiarity with accomplished facts, not realizing that these belong to the world that is passing away. The interesting things to see are those which belong to the world that is in process of becoming. These are not visible from the seat of the scornful.

The sweeping accusation of hypocrisy against men or nations whenever an incongruity is perceived between a professed purpose and an actual achievement is an indication of too great simplicity of mind. It is the simplicity that is characteristic of one without experience in the work of creation.

The cynic, perceiving the shortcomings of those who “profess and call themselves Christians,” greets their professions with a bitter laugh. He cannot tolerate their pretensions, and he urges them to return to a frank profession of the paganism which their deeds proclaim. Now it is eminently desirable that all who profess and call themselves Christians should _be_ Christians,--but that takes time. The profession is the first step; that puts a whip into the hand of conscience. Not only do a man’s friends, but particularly his enemies, insist that he shall live up to his name. It is a wholesome discipline. In a new country two or three houses set down in a howling wilderness are denominated a city. It is a mere name at first, but if all goes well other metropolitan features are added in due time. I remember a most interesting visit which I once made to a university in a new commonwealth. The university consisted of a board of regents, an unfenced bit of prairie for a “campus,” a president (who was also professor of the Arts and Sciences), a janitor, and two unfinished buildings. A number of the village children took courses which, if persisted in for a number of years, might lead to what is usually termed the Higher Education. One student from out of town dwelt in solitary state in the dormitory. The president met me with great cordiality, and after showing me “the plant” introduced me to the student. It was evident that they were on terms of great intimacy, and that discipline in the university was an easy matter, owing to the fact that the student body was homogeneous.

Now it would be easy for one under such circumstances to laugh at what seemed mere pretentiousness. “It was nothing more than a small school; why not call it that and be done with it?” The reason for not doing so was that it aimed at being a university. Its name was a declaration of purpose. “Despise not the day of small things.” The small things may be very real things; and then they have a trick of growing big before you know it.

In the world of creative activity the thought precedes the deed, the profession comes before the achievement. The child makes believe that he is a man, and his play is prophetic. Let us grant that multitudes who profess and call themselves Christians are only playing at Christianity; they have not yet begun to take the beatitudes seriously. It is a good thing to play at, and the play is all the time deepening into earnest work.

When it becomes earnest, it is still far from perfect; but imperfection of workmanship is no evidence of insincerity. He would be a poor critic who at the spring exhibition should accuse the artist of attempt to deceive because of his failure to achieve his professed purpose.

“Do you call that a picture of the Madonna? False-hearted hypocrite! Are you wicked enough to attempt to poison our minds and prejudice us against one who has been an object of worship? You are foisting upon us an image of absolute imbecility.”

And yet the poor artist is no hypocrite,--he is only a poor artist, that is all. He has striven to express what he has actually felt, and he has had bad luck. He has been thrilled by an image of perfect womanhood, and he sought to reproduce it for the joy of others. He wrought with sad sincerity, and this is what came of it!

In the work of creating a condition of peace and good will among men the Christian nations have not gone very far. But why twit on facts? Let us be reasonable. Why should we take it as a grievance that our birth has not been delayed till the Millennium, but that we have been placed among those who are responsible for bringing it in? There is a satisfaction in being allowed a part in the preliminary work. And what if many well-meant endeavors have come to nought? Let us not spend our time crying over the spilt milk of human kindness. It is natural that the first attempts at peacemaking should be awkward. It takes time to get the knack of it. It is foolish to reserve all our praise for perfection. That gives an unpleasant impression, such as that which we receive from a person who, when there is a call for small change, produces a bank bill of a large denomination, which he knows no one can break for him.

“Peace on earth” is not a statement of accomplished fact, but a prophecy. Now it is nothing against a prophecy that it has not yet been fulfilled. The farther off it is, the more credit to the eyes that see and to the stout hearts that patiently wait and work for it. The practical question is not “Has it come?” but “Is it on the way?” We are considering a bit of the unfinished business of the world.

First we must listen to the report of the progress already made. It is such a modest report that we must prepare our minds in order to appreciate it. The simple-minded cynic must be instructed in regard to the extreme difficulty and complexity of the work that has been undertaken. It is nothing less than the transformation of a carnivorous, not to say cannibalistic, species into an orderly society in which each member shall joyously and effectively work for the welfare of all. The first thing, of course, is to catch your cannibals. This of itself is no easy task, and has taken many centuries. It has involved a vast amount of wood-chopping and road-making, and draining of swamps and exploring of caves and dens. It is a task that is still far from accomplished. Savagery is a condition which cannot be abolished till there is a conquest of the earth itself. When the cannibals have been caught and tamed there comes the problem of keeping them alive. They must eat _something_--a point which many of the missionaries of civilization have not sufficiently considered. Ethical progress is delayed by all sorts of economic complications. When the natural man is confronted with the necessity of getting a living, robbery is the first method which suggests itself to him. When this is prohibited he turns upon his moral adviser with, “What more feasible way do you propose?” The moral adviser has then to turn from the plain path of pure ethics, and cudgel his poor wits trying to “invent a little something ingenious” to keep his pupil from starving. The clever railer at human kind who has always had a bank account to fall back upon has no idea how much time and thought have been taken up in such contrivances.

Then it should be remembered that the missionaries of civilization have not themselves been above reproach. The “multitudes of the heavenly hosts” might be heard for a moment singing of good will among men, but they did not remain to do the work. The men of good will who were to work out the plan were very human indeed. Milton, in the Hymn “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” warns us of the long interval between the Christmas prophecy and its historical fulfillment.

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the age of gold;
And speckled vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;

* * * * *

Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering:
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But all the imagery of the gala day of peace fades away before the immediate reality.

But wisest Fate says no,
This must not yet be so.

This veto of “wisest Fate” is not absolute. It only calls a halt upon our imagination until the rest of our nature catches up with it. Mankind is not to have peace till it has suffered for it and worked for it. The workmen must do their work over and over again till they have learned the right way.

That the “Christian nations” are not hypocrites, but novices who have been making some progress toward the Christian ideal, becomes evident when we look back over their history. They are not the descendants of the simple shepherds of the plains of Bethlehem. Far from it! When they first began to “profess and call themselves Christians,” they were not thinking of the beatitudes. They had not got that far.

Turn to the Heimskringla and read how King Olaf converted the pagan bonders.

“So King Olaf went into the God-house and a certain few of his men with him, and a certain few of the bonders. But when the king came whereas the gods were, there sat Thor the most honored of all the gods, adorned with gold and silver. Then King Olaf hove up the gold-wrought rod that he had in his hand and smote Thor that he fell down from the stall; and therewith ran forth all the king’s men and tumbled down all the gods from their stalls. But whiles the king was in the God-house was Iron-Skeggi slain without, even at the very door, and that deed did the king’s men. So when the king was come back to his folk he bade the bonders take one of two things, either all be christened, or else abide the brunt of battle with him. But after the death of Skeggi there was no leader among the folk of the bonders to raise up a banner against King Olaf. So the choice was taken of them to go to the king and obey his bidding. Then King Olaf christened all folk that were there and took hostages of the bonders that they would hold to their christening. Thereafter King Olaf caused men of his wend over all parts of Thrandheim; and now spoke no man against the faith of Christ. And so were all folk christened in the country-side.”

That is the way the nations of the north were first christianized. What is the difference between Thor and the Christ? the simple-hearted people would ask. “The difference,” said King Olaf, “is very fundamental, and it requires little theological training to see it. It is this: the Christ is stronger. If you don’t believe it, I’ll”--but they did believe it.

It is evident that there were some points in Christianity that King Olaf did not appreciate. To cultivate these fruits of the spirit required men of a different temper. Their work is not all done yet. It is progressing.

* * * * *

There is one complication in the work of peacemaking which has not been sufficiently considered. It is the recurrence of Youth. I have listened to the arguments against war at a great Peace Congress. The reasoning was strong, the statement of facts conclusive. War was shown to be cruel and foolish, and incredibly expensive. The audience, consisting of right-minded and very intelligent people, was convinced of the justice of the cause of Peace. Why, then, does not the cause triumph?

In such cases I am in the habit of looking about with the intent to fix the responsibility where it belongs, on those who were not at the meeting. Mature life was well represented, but there was a suspicious absence of young men in the twenties. Ah! I said, there is the difficulty. We can’t be sure of lasting peace until we make it more interesting to these young absentees. They’ll all be peace men by and by, but meanwhile there is no knowing what trouble they may get us into.