PROPER USE OF THE WORD ARGUMENT. 



323 



ignorantiam, ad hominem and ad judicium, are not distinguished by forms and processes of 

 reasoning, but merely by the topic selected; so that in this use the word "argument" bears its 

 proper meaning. This examination also explains how the word " topic," which is substi- 

 tuted for TOTTo? or place, has become a synonym for " argument," — the rhetorical argument 

 being found in the " common-place," — and how it has come to pass that both words are used 

 to denote the pith or marrow, the real contents, the subject-matter, the hypothesis or starting-' 

 point of that which is discussed, argued, or even pictorially represented. 



In its logical use, then, by the best writers, argumentutn does not mean the syllogism, but 

 that on which the syllogism depends. It is the iXe-y-^o^ or (iaaavos, the test and touchstone 

 of the reasoning, and in conformity with its other applications it denotes that which tries the 

 soundness of the object to be proved. As (idaai'os is used in exactly the same sense as argu- 

 mentum, e. g. Soph. (Ed. T. 499, it is worth remarking that the /Sacrayo? or lapis Lydius, which 

 was used as a touchstone of gold, was called lapis index. Ovid, Metamorph. ii. 706: in du- 

 rum lapidem qui nunc quoque dicitur index. And I have shown that argumentutn and indi- 

 cium are all but synonymous ; cf. Juvenal, x. 70 : quibus indiciis, quo teste proharit. 



It is satisfactory to know that in spite of the popular abuse of the term, which has been 

 sanctioned by the authority of the text-books at Oxford*, the classical usage of argumentum 

 is still maintained by the best logicians. " In technical propriety," says Sir W. Hamilton 

 {Edinh. Rev. Vol. lvii. No. 115, p. 218), "argument cannot be used for argumentation, as i« 

 done by Dr Whately — but exclusively for its middle term. In this meaning the word (though 

 not with uniform consistency) was employed by Cicero, Quintilian, Boetliius, &c. ; it was thus 

 subsequently used by the Latin Aristotelians, from whom it passed even to the Ramists ; and 

 this is the meaning which the expression always first and most naturally suggests to a logician." 

 And in a note he adds: "Ramus in his definition indeed abusively extends the word to both 

 the other terms ; the middle he calls the tertium argumentum. Throughout his writings, 

 however, — and the same is true of those of his friend Talaeus — argumentum, without an adjec- 

 tive, is uniformly used for the middle term of a syllogism ; and in this he is followed by the 

 Ramists and Semi-Ramists in general." 



The academical disputations which used to be practised in our public Schools at Cambridge 

 departed from this proper usage of the word argument. It was generally supposed that the 

 argument included the three constructive conditional syllogisms, which were generally produced 

 by an opponent in these disputations; and while the consequent of the first syllogism was 

 always cadit quoestio, and that of the second either valet consequentia, or valet minor, the 

 third always concluded with either valent consequentia et argumentum or valent minor et 

 argumentum. It is possible that this lax usage was due to the influence of Crackanthorpe and 

 Wallis, who were regarded as authorities at Cambridge as well as at Oxford. Our mathema- 

 ticians, on the other hand, seem to have been more happy in their technical use of the word 

 argument as an astronomical term. " Argument, in Astronomy," says Button {Phil, and Math. 

 Diet. I. p. 144), " is an arc given, by which another arc in some proportion to it is found." 



" We must of course except Mr M ansel's edition of Aldrich, 

 where the necessary correction is introduced (artis logicie rudi- 

 menta, ed. iii, p. 63). Aldrich himself had said : " tertia pars 



logica: agit de argumento sive syllogismo, quod est signum 

 tertisE operationis intellectus : nempe Dis6ur$ita vel Halio- 

 oinium propositionibus expressum." 



