s thinker, through an extended group of
paragraphs will end by taking as proven exactly the proposition he
started out to prove, when close analysis will show that nowhere
during the discussion does he actually prove it. As this is frequent
in amateur debates, students should be on their guard against it.

Ignoring the Question. The same kind of flimsy mental process results
in ignoring the question. Instead of sticking closely to the
proposition to be proved the speaker argues beside the point, proving
not the entire proposition but merely a portion of it. Or in some
manner he may shift his ground and emerge, having proven the wrong
point or something he did not start out to consider. An amateur
theatrical producer whose playhouse had been closed by the police for
violating the terms of his license started out to defend his action,
but ended by proving that all men are equal. In fact he wound up by
quoting the poem by Burns, "A Man's a Man for A' That." Such a
shifting of propositions is a frequent error of speakers. It occurs so
often that one might be disposed to term it a mere trick to deceive,
or a clever though unscrupulous device to secure support for a weak
claim. One of the first ways for the speaker to avoid it is to be able
to recognize it when it occurs. One of the most quoted instances of
its effective unmasking is the following by Macaulay.

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other
malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced,
generally decline all controversy about the facts, and
content themselves with calling testimony to character. He
had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no
private virtues! Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies
themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And
what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A
religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and
fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary
household decencies which half the tombstones in England
claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good
husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of
persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we
are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of
having given up his people to merciless inflictions of the
most hot-headed and hard-hea