(_d_) Can the deduction be shown to prove too much?
(_a_) Are the cases parallel at enough points to warrant an inference of similar cause or effect?
(_b_) Are the cases parallel at the vital point at issue?
(_d_) Are there no other parallels that would point to a stronger contrary conclusion?
(_a_) Are the antecedent conditions such as would make the allegation probable? (Character and opportunities of the accused, for example.)
(_b_) Are the signs that point to the inference either clear or numerous enough to warrant its acceptance as fact?
(_c_) Are the signs cumulative, and agreeable one with the other?
(_d_) Could the signs be made to point to a contrary conclusion?
(_a_) Have any steps been omitted in the syllogisms? (Such as in a syllogism _in enthymeme_.) If so, test any such by filling out the syllogisms.
(_b_) Have you been guilty of stating a conclusion that really does not follow? (A _non sequitur_.)
(_c_) Can your syllogism be reduced to an absurdity? (_Reductio ad absurdum._)
1. Show why an unsupported assertion is not an argument.
2. Illustrate how an irrelevant fact may be made to seem to support an argument.
3. What inferences may justly be made from the following?
During the Boer War it was found that the average Englishman did not measure up to the standards of recruiting and the average soldier in the field manifested a low plane of vitality and endurance. Parliament, alarmed by the disastrous consequences, instituted an investigation. The commission appointed brought in a finding that alcoholic poisoning was the great cause of the national degeneracy. The investigations of the commission have been supplemented by investigations of scientific bodies and individual scientists, all arriving at the same conclusion. As a consequence, the British Government has placarded the streets of a hundred cities with billboards setting forth the destructive and degenerating nature of alcohol and appealing to the people in the name of the nation to desist from drinking alcoholic beverages. Under efforts directed by the Government the British Army is fast becoming an army of total abstainers.
The Governments of continental Europe followed the lead of the British Government. The French Government has placarded France with appeals to the people, attributing the decline of the birth rate and increase in the death rate to the widespread use of alcoholic beverages. The experience of the German Government has been the same. The German Emperor has clearly stated that leadership in war and in peace will be held by the nation that roots out alcohol. He has undertaken to eliminate even the drinking of beer, so far as possible, from the German Army and Navy.