THE DEBATER'S HANDBOOK AND Controversialist's Companion A MANUAL OF THE NATURE, PRINCIPLES, ART AND METHODS OF CONTROVERSY WITH A LIST OF UPWARDS OF One Thousand Two Hundred Subjects suitable for Discussion COLLECTED AND CLASSIFIED BY SAMUEL NEIL AUTHOR OF "THE ART OF REASONING; ""THE YOUNG DEBATER; 99 66 COMPOSITION AND 66 'SHAKESPERE, A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY;" THE LIFE OF LUTHER," ETC. "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our Bli SEP '80 PREFACE. THE Debater's Handbook" is intended for the use of young men who are desirous of engaging in the culture of active personal thought. It is less a guide to the exercise of the acquisitive than the inquisitive faculties. Its aim is to aid the investigative more than the receptive powers. It assumes the inclination to reason on facts, experiences, statements, proposals, and theories, and the disposition to employ the critical capacity for the discovery of the right, the true, and the good. Already its author has supplied "the young debater" with a work suited to the earlier stages of life. He now supplements and extends that tract so as to afford counsel and help to those who are eager to engage in a life of thoughtful activity among their fellows in the studious culture of their intelligence, and in the considerate co-operation of thought required so much in our day to secure the proper progress of society. The author hopes that by bringing the laws of controversial thought before his readers he will assist them to take their places in society as living powers, and aid them in being centres of intellectual influence wherever they are. In the following pages he proposes to place before the reader some of those ideas concerning controversy which have had weight with himself and have been influential on the minds of many who, having exercised their energies in the arena afforded by the debating society, have thereafter taken their place among the considerate promoters of education and activity of thought, the careful critics of public measures, and the practical directors of those movements for the amelioration of life for which our age is remarkable. Of these not a few have passed into the influential circles of social, political, and ecclesiastical life, and have found the benefit derived from their patient labours in acquiring the power to employ critical reflectiveness on the ideas brought before them, to be great and manifold. In the hope that the matter now to be subjected to the perusal of the thoughtful and ingenuous may be found profitable in directing them to form correct opinions regarding the nature and uses of controversy, to acquire proper notions of its art and methods, and to gain such an acquaintance with its laws and forms as shall enable them to act as judicious competitors in their debating societies now, and to employ cultured thought in the investigation of truth hereafter in the wider stage of public life, the book in the reader's hands has been composed. PREFACE CONTENTS. OPINION, AND HOW IT IS INFLUENCED BY DEBATE CLASSIFIED LIST OF SUBJECTS SUITABLE FOR DEBATE :- |