may be seeking to divert attention from other questions relating to his affairs, or he may be about to retire from business. In any such case, his admissions concerning the abuses of child-labor could not be given the weight usually attached to reluctant testimony.

7. Is the Authority aware of the Significance of his Testimony? Remarks which a person makes incidentally, with no idea of their bearing on the question at issue, may be enough to win or lose a case. People who swear falsely take most pains with the aspects which seem to them most important, whereas a whole question may hinge on a seemingly trivial detail. A beggar-woman, who insisted that her husband was a temperate man, later declared that she had used all of her money to bail out her husband, who was held on a charge of drunkenness. An editorial from the Chicago Herald points out the force of undesigned testimony:

Maroney is reported as saying that "there was not a member of the Clan-na-Gael but that wanted the murderers of Dr. Cronin discovered and punished"; and, he added, "The records of the Clan-na-Gael will show that I have always opposed murders, or assassinations, for revenge or for any cause whatever." This is the most significant and startling confession yet made. That it was unpremeditated, and uttered while the speaker was apparently in a state of considerable excitement, if not alarm, is evident; and that adds to its importance. The inference is inevitable. If the records of the Clan-na-Gael show that Maroney "always opposed murders and assassinations for revenge," they must show that measures of murder and assassination were considered by the Clanna- -Gael, and were an essential part of its methods.1

Undesigned testimony (or incidental testimony, as it is sometimes called) owes its special effectiveness to the

1 Quoted by E. J. McEwan, Essentials of Argumentation. D. C. Heath & Co., 1898.

very fact that the authority is unaware of its signifi

cance.

8. Is too Great Reliance placed on One Authority?— Writers and speakers seldom address a group of people who are willing to accept the testimony of any one man as final. To rely on one authority is therefore dangerous. Moreover, the repeated reference to one book, one report, one source of information, does not indicate that breadth of investigation on the part of a writer which gives confidence in his words.

The Concurrent Testimony of two or more authorities to the same essentials, where there has been apparently no opportunity or motive for previous agreement, strengthens the probability of truth. Thus, Burke, in speaking of the repeal of the Law of 1699 against Roman Catholics, pointed out the force of concurrent testimony:

With this mover and this seconder agreed the whole House of Commons; the whole House of Lords; the whole bench of bishops; the King; the Ministry; the Opposition; all the distinguished clergy of the establishment; all the eminent lights (for they were consulted) of the dissenting churches. . . . In weighing this unanimous concurrence of whatever the nation has to boast of, I hope you will recollect that all these concurring parties do by no means love one another enough to agree in any point which was not both evidently and importantly right.1

Another example of concurrent testimony is from an address by Dr. Dudley A. Sargent: 2

As a matter of fact, criminals, dullards, the feeble-minded, and the insane as a class are considerably below the average

1 Burke, Speech at Bristol, September 6, 1780.

2 Address of Dr. Dudley A. Sargent, before the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, October 12, 1907.

normal individual in physique, as shown by height and weight, while the members of any organization known for distinguished mental ability, like those of the Royal Society of England, will be found to be above the average normal height and weight. By ascertaining the physical condition of large numbers of people the natural correlation between body and mind may be readily shown. In the year 1893, Dr. William T. Porter examined some thirty thousand children who were in the public schools of St. Louis. He found that, among pupils of the same age, the average height and weight of those who were of the higher grades was greater than that of those who were in the lower grades. In other words, he found that those pupils who were mentally the most precocious were also physically the most precocious. This announcement called forth considerable criticism at the time, and many teachers, recalling a number of exceptionally bright pupils who were small in stature for their age, doubted the truth of the statement. It may be of interest, therefore, to note that Dr. Porter's conclusions have since been confirmed by observations made by Dr. Hastings in Omaha, Nebraska, Dr. Byer in Cambridge, Dr. Christopher in Chicago, by Dr. Roberts in London, England, and by Dr. Leharzig in St. Petersburg, Russia. In face of such a body of concurrent statistics from different parts of this country and Europe, no one can doubt for a moment the natural relationship between a vigorous brain and a vigorous body.

9. Is the Authority used by Opponents? - Sometimes it is effective to quote, in favor of your side of the question, an authority already used by the other side. Presumably they will be forced to recognize the source as good. But you should guard against the error of concluding that the authority is sound simply because employed by the other side. The audience may regard the source as useless for either side. If possible, quote a later opinion of a given authority than that quoted by your opponents, and show reasons for the change of opinion.

In a debate not long ago, one speaker quoted a passage from John Stuart Mill's Essay on Liberty in which he condemned the Maine Prohibitory Law. The next speaker presented in refutation the following passage from the same essay: "As soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it. . . . To individuality should belong the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society the part which chiefly interests society. . . . Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of morality or law." Having cited this quotation, the debater then showed how it nullified the one from the same authority used by the previous speaker.

10. Is the Authority likely to be accepted ?— A writer or speaker should never forget his audience. All other tests of authority should be applied with reference to this final test, - Is the authority likely to be accepted as such by the particular audience? If not, a speaker can hardly afford to spend his limited time in urging the authority on unwilling ears. The effectiveness of the authority is determined rather by the confidence his name inspires in the audience than by the speaker's high opinion of him. The moment the audience doubts either the honesty of an authority or his fitness to speak on the subject at hand, his words are for them mere assertion, in need of supporting evidence, quite regardless of the question whether the doubts of the audience are justified.

If an opponent in debate presents an authority which is highly regarded by the audience, a direct attack on that authority is inadvisable. The better plan is to treat

the authority with respect, while citing on the other side of the question an authority recognized by the audience as equally trustworthy. Or, without questioning the worth of the opposing authority, one may argue so effectively that the audience will themselves conclude that the man in whom they believe must be for once mistaken. The persuasive method is to undermine cherished beliefs rather than to storm them; human nature will often yield unconsciously what it refuses on compulsion.

In his speech on the Dred Scott Decision, Lincoln thus tests the Supreme Court as an authority in this particular case:

Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents according to circumstances. That this should be so accords both with common sense and the customary understanding of the legal profession.

If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part based on assumed historical facts, which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court more than once and had there been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay even revolutionary, not to acquiesce in it as a precedent.

But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the public confidence, it is not factious, it is not even disrespectful, to treat it as not having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the country.

A writer should apply all of these tests to his own authorities and to those of his opponents.