and incalculable body of
facts is not.

To take another example from the brief we shall be working out in this
chapter, the proposition, "Wytown should adopt the commission form of
government," is not definite enough, for there are various forms of
commission government, such as the Galveston plan, the Des Moines plan,
and by this time a considerable variety of others; and citizens who are
at all particular in their voting would want to know just which of these
was proposed for their approval. The proposition, therefore, would have
to be limited to, "Wytown should adopt a commission government after the
Des Moines plan."

The exact form of your proposition will not always come to you at the
first try. It may easily happen that you will not see the exact issue
involved in the argument until you have gone some way with the processes
of analysis which we shall be considering in the rest of this chapter.
Always hold yourself ready to amend your proposition, if you can thereby
come closer to the question.

Notebook. Enter the exact proposition which you are to argue.

Illustration. Wytown should adopt the commission form of
government, in the form now in practice at Des Moines, Iowa.

EXERCISES

1. Make three arguable propositions on the subject, "Entrance
examinations for college."

2. Criticize the following propositions and amend them, if necessary, so
that they might be argued with profit:

a. Freshmen should be required to keep reasonable hours.

b. The honor system should be introduced everywhere.

c. This city should do more for its boys.

d. The street railway companies in this city should be better
regulated.

e. The amateur rules for college athletes are too stringent.

f. Intercollegiate football is beneficial.

19. Definition of Terms. Making a proposition definite is chiefly
a process of defining terms which are found in it; but when these are
defined you may still in your argument use others which also need
definition. In general the definition of terms, whether in the
proposition or not, implies finding out just what a term means for the
present purpose. Almost every common word is used for some variety of
purposes. "Commission," for example, even within the field of
government, has two very different meanings:

As applied to state and national administration, the term "commission
government" is used in connection with the growing practice of
delegating to app