Formal Argumentation.

Formal Argumentation. Formal argumen¬tation grows very naturally out of that used in con¬versation, as the following example will show. This example may be turned into a dialogue between Ma¬caulay and his opponents on the qUestion whether or not the regicides were justified in putting Charles I. to death. The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. . . . We charge him with having broken his coronation oath ; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot¬headed and hard-hearted of prelates ; and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him ! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them ; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning ! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present genera¬tion. - THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, Essay on Milton. This example resembles conversation in the order in which the arguments are presented. In conver¬sation we have direct proof, refutation ; direct proof, refutation ; and so on. In this quotation, too, the opposing views are presented in sentences, and not in definitely organized paragraphs or series of para¬graphs.