As we intimated at the beginning, a sufficient grasp of what the case was about would have resulted in there being no case, or in there being quite a different case. As the events turned out science received, in the popular estimation, a check in the trial but a moral victory, and this only led to more misunderstanding of the province of science in human affairs. The law of the State of Tennessee won a victory which was regarded as pyrrhic because it was generally felt to have made the law and the lawmakers look foolish. This also was a disservice to the common weal. Both of these results could have been prevented if it had been understood that science is one thing and law another. An understanding of that truth would seem to require some general dissemination throughout our educated classes of a _Summa Dialectica_. This means that the educated people of our country would have to be so trained that they could see the dialectical possibility of the opposites of the beliefs they possess. And that is a very large order for education in any age. Chapter III EDMUND BURKE AND THE ARGUMENT FROM CIRCUMSTANCE We are now in position to affirm that the rhetorical study of an argument begins with a study of the sources. But since almost any extended argument will draw upon more than one source we must look, to answer the inquiry we are now starting, at the prevailing source, or the source which is most frequently called upon in the total persuasive effort. We shall say that this predominating source gives to the argument an aspect, and our present question is, what can be inferred from the aspect of any argument or body of arguments about the philosophy of its maker? All men argue alike when they argue validly because the modes of inference are formulas, from which deviation is error. Therefore we characterize inference only as valid or invalid. But the reasoner reveals his philosophical position by the source of argument which appears most often in his major premise because the major premise tells us how he is thinking about the world. In other words, the rhetorical content of the major premise which the speaker habitually uses is the key to his primary view of existence. We are of course excluding artful choices which have in view only _ad hoc_ persuasions. Putting the matter now figuratively, we may say that no man escapes being branded by the premise that he regards as most efficacious in an argument. The general importance of this is that major premises, in addition to their logical function as part of a deductive argument, are expressive of values, and a characteristic major premise characterizes the user.