cive force.

Where there are really strong points on the other side, in either kind
of argument, it is often sound policy to admit their strength. This is
especially true in arguments of policy where the advantages are closely
balanced. If you are trying to convince a boy that he should go to your
college rather than to another, you do not gain anything by telling him
that the other college is no good; if he is worth gaining over he will
know better than that. And in general if you have given a man to
understand that there is nothing to be said for the other side, and he
afterwards finds that there are strong grounds for it, your argument
will have a fall in his estimation.

In the manner of your refutation lean towards the side of soberness and
courtesy. It has been said that the poorest use you can put a man to is
to refute him; and it is certain that in the give and take of argument
in active life the personal victories and defeats are what are soonest
forgotten. If after a while you have to establish a fact in history or
in biology, or to get a verdict from a jury or a favorable report from
the committee of a legislature, you will think a good deal more about
the arguments of your opponents than about them personally. There are
few arguments in which you can afford to take no notice of the strong
points of the other side; and where the burden of proof is strongly with
you, your own argument may be almost wholly refutation; but it is
always worth bearing in mind that if it is worth while for you to be
arguing at all, there is something, and something of serious weight, to
be said on the other side.

53. The Conclusion. The conclusion of your argument should be short
and pointed. Gather the main issues together, and restate them in terms
that will be easy to remember. Mere repetition of the points as you made
them in your introduction may sound too much like lack of resource; on
the other hand, it helps to make your points familiar, and to drive them
home. In any event make your contentions easy to remember. Most of us go
a long way towards settling our own minds on a puzzling question when we
repeat to some one else arguments that we have read or heard. If you can
so sum up your argument that your readers will go off and unconsciously
retail your points to their neighbors, you probably have them. On the
other hand, when you have finished your argument, if you start in to
hedge and modify and go back to points that