[51]
The obvious answer is that "university" is a vague term and that there
may be many kinds of universities, as indeed there are in this country;
moreover, the importance of theology is an arguable matter even among
church members.
A well-recognized, but often subtle, form of begging the question is
what is known as "arguing in a circle." Usually the fallacy is so
wrapped up in verbiage that it is hard to pick out. Here is a clear and
well-put detection of a case of it:
There is an argument in favor of child labor so un-American and so
inhuman that I am almost ashamed to quote it, and yet it has been used,
and I fear it is secretly in the minds of some who would not openly
stand for it. A manufacturer standing near the furnace of a glasshouse
and pointing to a procession of young Slav boys who were carrying the
glass on trays, remarked, "Look at their faces, and you will see that it
is idle to take them from the glasshouse in order to give them an
education: they are what they are, and will always remain what they
are." He meant that there are some human beings--and these Slavs of the
number--who are mentally irredeemable, so fast asleep intellectually
that they cannot be awakened; designed by nature, therefore, to be
hewers of wood and drawers of water.
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