Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II ANALYSIS OF THE QUESTION Given a good subject for debate, stated affirmatively and in unambiguous language, the next step for the debater is to ask himself such questions as these: Just what does this question mean? What issue or issues are raised by it? What must be proved to establish the affirmative of the question? and what must be proved to defend the negative? In other words, he must analyze the question. Analysis is the process whereby the proposition for debate is resolved into its constituent elements. It is a process of critical examination, in order to extract the essence of the question and to ascertain the single propositions that enter into the argument of the proposition as a whole. Now, analysis enters into debating at every step, in the development of the direct argument, and in rebuttal. The skillful debater will not only analyze the argument for himself, but at every point will analyze the argument of his opponent, so that, as the debate proceeds, he is able to state, concisely and clearly, the point toward which the argument leads, and the stage of development inthe arguments on either side. "An analysis of the debate at this point," he will frequently be led to observe, "shows that the affirmative rest their argument on such and such lines of proof, and the negative base their contention on such and such points." He thus makes plain to the audience the relation of his further argument to what has preceded, and points out any fallacies in the argument of his opponent. The well-known opening words of Webster, in his famous Reply to Hayne, is illustrative : When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to tak...