has to be proved, either (1) under another name; for instance, "good
repute" instead of "honour"; "virtue" instead of "virginity," etc.;
or by using such convertible terms as "red-blooded animals" and
"vertebrates"; or (2) by making a general assumption covering the
particular point in dispute; for instance, maintaining the uncertainty
of medicine by postulating the uncertainty of all human knowledge. (3)
If, _vice versâ_, two things follow one from the other, and one is to
be proved, you may postulate the other. (4) If a general proposition
is to be proved, you may get your opponent to admit every one of the
particulars. This is the converse of the second.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Idem_, chap. 11. The last chapter of this work contains
some good rules for the practice of Dialectics.]


VII.

Should the disputation be conducted on somewhat strict and formal
lines, and there be a desire to arrive at a very clear understanding,
he who states the proposition and wants to prove it may proceed
against his opponent by question, in order to show the truth of the
statement from his admissions. The erotematic, or Socratic, method was
especially in use among the ancients; and this and some of the tricks
following later on are akin to it.[1]

[Footnote 1: They are all a free version of chap. 15 of Aristotle's
_De Sophistici Elenchis_.]

The plan is to ask a great many wide-reaching questions at once, so as
to hide what you want to get admitted, and, on the other hand, quickly