"I'm Telling You"

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Title:     "I'm Telling You"
Author: A. G. Gardiner [More Titles by Gardiner]

The other day I went into the Law Courts to hear a case of some interest, and I soon became more interested in the counsel than in the case. They offered a curious contrast of method. One was emphatic and dogmatic. "I'm not asking you," he seemed to say to the judge and jury, "I'm telling you." The other was winning and conciliatory. He did not thrust his views down the jury's throats; he seemed to offer them for their consideration, and leave it at that. He was not there to dictate to them, but to hold his client's case up to the light, as it were, just as a draper holds a length of silk up before his customer. Now, as a matter of fact, I think the dogmatic gentleman had the better case and the stronger argument, but I noticed next day that the verdict went against him. He won his argument and lost his case.

That is what commonly happens with the dogmatic and argumentative man. He shuts up the mind to reason. He changes the ground from the issue itself to a matter of personal dignity. You are no longer concerned with whether the thing is right or wrong. You are concerned about showing your opponent that you are not to be bullied by him into believing what he wants you to believe. Even Johnson, who was, perhaps, the most dogmatic person that ever lived, knew that success in the argument was often fatal to success in the case. Dr. Taylor once commended a physician to him, and said: "I fight many battles for him, as many people in the country dislike him." "But you should consider, sir," replied Johnson, "that by every one of your victories he is a loser; for every man of whom you get the better will be very angry, and resolve not to employ him; whereas if people get the better of you in argument about him, they'll think, 'We'll send for Dr. ----, nevertheless.'"

But Johnson fought not to convince, but for love of the argumentative victory. A great contemporary of his, whom he never met, and whom, if he had met, he would probably have insulted--Benjamin Franklin, to wit--preferred winning the case to winning the argument. While still a boy, he tells us, he was fascinated by the Socratic method, and instead of expressing opinions asked leading questions. He ceased to use words like "certainly," "undoubtedly," or anything that gave the air of positiveness to an opinion, and said "I apprehend," or "I conceive," a thing to be so and so.

"This habit," he says, "has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I have been engaged from time to time in promoting. And as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning and sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition and to defeat most of those purposes for which speech was given us. In fact, if you wish to instruct others, a positive dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion opposition and prevent a candid attention. If you desire instruction and improvement from others, you should not at the same time express yourself fixed in your present opinions. Modest and sensible men, who do not love disputation, will leave you undisturbed in the possession of your errors."

It is really, I suppose, our old friend "compulsion" again. We hate Prussianism in the realm of thought as much as in the realm of action. If I tell you you've got to believe so-and-so, your disposition is to refuse to do anything of the sort. It was the voluntary instinct that breathes in all of us that made Falstaff refuse to give Prince Hal reasons: "I give thee reasons? Though reasons were as plenty as blackberries I would not give thee reasons on compulsion--I."

I was once talking to a member of Parliament, who was lamenting that he had failed to win the ear of the House. He was puzzled by the failure. He was a fluent speaker; he knew his subject with great thoroughness, and his character was irreproachable; and yet when he rose the House went out. He was like a dinner-bell. He couldn't understand it. Yet everybody else understood it quite well. It was because he was always "telling you," and there is nothing the House of Commons dislikes so much as a schoolmaster. Probably the most successful speaker, judging by results, who ever rose in the House of Commons was Cobden. He was one of the few men in history who have changed a decision in Parliament by a speech. He did it because of his extraordinarily persuasive manner. He kept the minds of his hearers receptive and disengaged. He did not impress them with the fact that he was right and they were wrong. They forgot themselves when they saw the subject in a clear, white light, and were prepared to judge it on its merits rather than by their prejudices.

One of the few persuasive speakers I have heard in the House of Commons in recent years is Mr. Harold Cox. Many of his opinions I detest, but the engaging way in which he presents them makes you almost angry with yourself at disagreeing with him. You feel, indeed, that you must be wrong, and that such open-mindedness and such a friendly conciliatory manner as he shows must somehow be the evidence of a right view of things. As a matter of fact, of course, he is really a very dogmatic gentleman at the bottom--none more so. As indeed Franklin was. But he has the art to conceal the emphasis of his opinions, and so he makes even those who disagree with him listen to his case almost with a desire to endorse it.

It is a great gift. I wish I had got it.

[The end]
A. G. Gardiner's essay: "I'm Telling You"

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