argument as a horny-hided Siegfried, dipped in the flood of incapacity, and unable to think or judge.  Before a tribunal the dispute is one between authorities alone,—­such authoritative statements, I mean, as are laid down by legal experts; and here the exercise of judgment consists in discovering what law or authority applies to the case in question.  There is, however, plenty of room for Dialectic; for should the case in question and the law not really fit each other, they can, if necessary, be twisted until they appear to do so, or vice versa.

XXXI.

If you know that you have no reply to the arguments which your opponent advances, you may, by a fine stroke of irony, declare yourself to be an incompetent judge:  “What you now say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”  In this way you insinuate to the bystanders, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.  Thus, when Kant’s Kritik appeared, or, rather, when it began to make a noise in the world, many professors of the old ecclectic school declared that they failed to understand it, in the belief that their failure settled the business.  But when the adherents of the new school proved to them that they were quite right, and had really failed to understand it, they were in a very bad humour.

This is a trick which may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you that of your opponent.  A professor, for instance may try it on a student.

Strictly, it is a case of the preceding trick:  it is a particularly malicious assertion of one’s own authority, instead of giving reasons.  The counter-trick is to say:  “I beg your pardon; but, with your penetrating intellect, it must be very easy for you to understand anything; and it can only be my poor statement of the matter that is at fault”; and then go on to rub it into him until he understands it nolens volens, and sees for himself that it was really his own fault alone.  In this way you parry his attack.  With the greatest politeness he wanted to insinuate that you were talking nonsense; and you, with equal courtesy, prove to him that he is a fool.

XXXII.

If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by putting it into some odious category; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose character.  You can say, for instance, “That is Manichasism,” or “It is Arianism,” or “Pelagianism,” or “Idealism,” or “Spinozism,” or “Pantheism,” or “Brownianism,” or “Naturalism,” or “Atheism,” or “Rationalism,” “Spiritualism,” “Mysticism,” and so on.  In making an objection of this kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited—­that is to say, you cry out, “Oh, I have heard that before”; and (2) that the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain a word of truth.