of the new school proved to them that
they were quite right, and had really failed to understand it, they
were in a very bad humour.

This is a trick which may be used only when you are quite sure that
the audience thinks much better of you that of your opponent. A
professor, for instance may try it on a student.

Strictly, it is a case of the preceding trick: it is a particularly
malicious assertion of one's own authority, instead of giving reasons.
The counter-trick is to say: "I beg your pardon; but, with your
penetrating intellect, it must be very easy for you to understand
anything; and it can only be my poor statement of the matter that is
at fault"; and then go on to rub it into him until he understands it
_nolens volens_, and sees for himself that it was really his own fault
alone. In this way you parry his attack. With the greatest politeness
he wanted to insinuate that you were talking nonsense; and you, with
equal courtesy, prove to him that he is a fool.

XXXII.

If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of
getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by
putting it into some odious category; even though the connection
is only apparent, or else of a loose character. You can say,
for instance, "That is Manichasism," or "It is Arianism," or
"Pelagianism," or "Idealism," or "Spinozism," or "Pantheism," or
"Brownianism," or "Naturalism," or "Atheism," or "Rationalism,"
"Spiritualism," "Mysticism," and so on. In making an objection of this
kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is
identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited--that
is to say, you cry out, "Oh, I have heard that before"; and (2) that
the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain
a word of truth.

XXXIII.

"That's all very well in theory, but it won't do in practice." In
this sophism you admit the premisses but deny the conclusion, in
contradiction with a well-known rule of logic. The assertion is
based upon an impossibility: what is right in theory _must_ work
in practice; and if it does not, there is a mistake in the theory;
something has been overlooked and not allowed for; and, consequently,
what is wrong in practice is wrong in theory too.

XXXIV.

When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you
no direct answer or reply, but evades it by a counter-question or an
indirect answer, or some assertion