It Stands To Reason

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Title:     It Stands To Reason
Author: Robert Cortes Holliday [More Titles by Holliday]

On the hotel porch a large, earnest man was delivering the argument. He poised his pipe in his hand; and, moving forward from period to period with judicial deliberation, choosing his words with care, building his sentences with a nice regard for precision, he constructed his exposition in logical sequence. He had time at his command; and, so he gripped his audience, was in no fear of interruption. "For instance, we will take, for instance, just for instance, do you understand? the little town of New York to represent the whole country. Well, here we have the little town of New York. Now, it stands to reason----" One who chanced to overhear passed beyond range.

But what of the disquisition had been caught gave rise to an important reflection. When you examine the subject you find there are three fundamental phrases in arguing, in the dexterous use of which is largely constituted the talent of the born arguer. These home-driving phrases, which are his stock in trade, are: "It stands to reason," "between man and man," and "that's human nature." With these, strongly used, one can do almost anything. "Does capital meet labor?" says the born arguer. "No; what is the consequence? It stands to reason. Labor goes to the wall." Or, again: "You take the generations we have now, the young people." He smokes a while in silence. "It's human nature," comes the philosophical conclusion. And when the arguer addresses his audience "as between man and man," when in this direct, blunt way all the frangipani of class and convention is cleared aside, and only their manhood stands between them, he has got at the bed-rock of argument.

[The end]
Robert Cortes Holliday's essay: It Stands To Reason

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