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(Continued from previous page)
 Rule
1st. The terms, in which the question in debate is expressed,
and the precise point at issue, should be so clearly defined,
that there could be no misunderstanding respecting them. If
this is not done, the dispute is liable to be, in a great
degree, verbal. Arguments will be misapplied, and the
controversy protracted, because the parties engaged in it have
different apprehensions of the question.
Rule
2d. The parties should mutually consider each other, as
standing on a footing of equality in respect to the subject in
debate. Each should regard the other as possessing equal
talents, knowledge, and desire for truth, with himself; and that
it is possible, therefore, that he may be in the wrong, and his
adversary in the right. In the heat of controversy, men are
apt to forget the numberless sources of error, which exist in
every controverted subject, especially of theology and metaphysics.
Hence arise presumptions, confidence, and arrogant language; all
which obstruct the discovery of truth.
Rule
3d. All expressions, which are unmeaning, or without effect
in regard to the subject in debate, should be strictly avoided.
All expressions may be considered as unmeaning, which contribute
nothing to the proof or the question; such as desultory remarks
and declamatory expressions...
Rule
4th. Personal reflections on an adversary should in no
instance be indulged.... Personal reflections are not only
destitute of effect, in respect to the question in discussion,
but they are productive of real
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evil... They indicate in him, who uses
them, a mind hostile to the truth; for they prevent even solid
arguments from receiving the attention to which they are justly
entitled.
Rule
5th. No one has aright to accuse his adversary of indirect
motive. Arguments are to be answered, whether he, who
offers them, be sincere or not; especially as his want of
sincerity, if real, could not be ascertained. To inquire into
his motives, then, is useless. To ascribe indirect ones to him
is ... hurtful.
Rule
6th. The consequences of any doctrine are not to be charged
on him who maintains it, unless he expressly avows them. If
an absurd consequence be fairly deductible from any doctrine, it
is rightly concluded that the doctrine itself is false; but it
is not rightly concluded that he who advances it, supports the
absurd consequence. The charitable presumption, in such a case,
would be, that he had never made the deduction; and that, if he
had made it, he would have abandoned the original doctrine.
Rule
7th. As truth, and not victory, is the professed object of
controversy, whatever proofs may be advanced, on either side,
should be examined with fairness and candor; and any attempt to
ensnare an adversary by the arts of sophistry, or to lessen the
force of his reasoning, by wit, caviling, or ridicule, is a
violation of the rules of honorable controversy.
BRETHREN,
CAN WE LIVE WITH THE RULES?
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