Or you can use a syllogism to make obvious a flaw in the reasoning of
your opponent, as in the following example:
In view of the history of commission government in this country so far
as it has been made, the burden of proof rests with those who attempt to
show that a government which has been so successful in cities of
moderate size will not be successful in our largest cities. The
syllogism they are required to prove runs briefly thus:
Commission government is acknowledged to have been successful in cities
as large as one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, but
It has not been tried in cities containing more than one hundred and
thirty thousand inhabitants;
Therefore, it will not be successful in cities of four hundred thousand
or larger, which is a _reductio ad absurdum_.
The folly of the attempt is shown by the very statement of the
conclusion.[44]
44. The Dilemma. One special form of the syllogism is at times so
strong an argument that it deserves special mention here, namely, the
dilemma. This is a syllogism in which the major premise consists of two
or more hypothetical propositions (that is, propositions with an "if"
clause) and the minor of a disjunctive proposition (a proposition with
two or more clauses connected by "or").
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