Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 6. Charles S. Peirce

If your making your men work in your powder-mill at night would lose you much money, you would get your property insured. If fire is dropped into a barrel of gunpowder, there will be a terrific explosion. If the certainty that a terrific explosion would lose you much money would lead you to insure your property, you would be sure to find that no company would take the risk. Hence, if your making your men work in your powder-mill at night would make danger of fire being dropped into a barrel of gunpowder, you cannot get any company to insure your property. Show whether or not this follows.

       A young king, on coming to the throne, found himself attacked by a powerful neighbor, and thereupon made the following reflections. I shall either prove myself to be a great man and conquer in the first campaign, or a prudent man and trust implicitly in my chancellor, or a fool and ruin the dynasty by headstrong rashness. If I am a great man, or popular with the army, my soldiers will stand by me. If I am a prudent man, or have good counsellors, I shall obtain the assistance of some of the neighboring princes. If I am a fool, or behave like a coward, I shall alienate my people. If my soldiers stand by me and I conquer in the first campaign, I shall reduce my enemy to vassalage, unless I ruin the dynasty by headstrong rashness in spite of good counsellors. If I gain the assistance of a neighboring prince, and trust implicitly to my chancellor, I shall certainly be compelled to behave like a coward, but I shall not ruin the dynasty by headstrong rashness. If I do not conquer in the first campaign, I shall not be positively popular with the army Of all these things I am profoundly convinced; and they afford me a legitimate ground of confidence; for I have only to resolve that I will do nothing to alienate my people unless it assures my popularity with the army, and that if I have good counsellors I will trust implicitly to my chancellor, and thus I shall be assured of reducing my enemy to vassalage. Was this conclusion well-drawn?

       In a certain college, there is at least one student having an examiner and never studying unless during the recitation of some one or other of his examiners. (But it is not herein implied that there are any recitations.) Moreover, every examiner lectures at some time during the studying of all those whom he examines. Draw two conclusions, one without saying anything about examining, the other without saying anything about studying.

       Required the conclusion from the following premises: 1st. There is somebody who accuses everybody to everybody, unless perhaps not to some persons who have servants who love the parties who would otherwise be accused. 2nd. There are two persons one of whom accuses every servant of the other to everybody whom that other does not benefit.

       Explain how the conclusion of the following argument might be false, though the premises were true, and give the additional premise required to make it irrefragable.

      Every Corsican kills a Corsican;

      But nobody is killed by more than one person;

      Hence, every Corsican is killed by a Corsican.

       Truth being the conformity of a statement with fact, what are the facts conformity with which constitutes the truth of a hypothetical proposition, such as, “If A is true, then B is true”?

       It has been held that a man is responsible for the proximate, but not for the remote, effects of his actions and negligences. Define these two kinds of effects.

       Criticise the ordinary definition of a pronoun, showing that it yields no positive idea; and propose a better definition.

       Show that the ordinary definition of a circle contains something superfluous.

      

5

      Directions to Agents

Winter-Spring 1887

Houghton Library

      CLASSES TO BE ADDRESSED. The mayor. Clergymen, lawyers, doctors. Superintendent of schools, principal of the high-school (having interested him, you get permission to address the pupils, most easily on a Saturday. The same applies to all other classes of teachers). Teachers of private schools, young ladies’ academies, business colleges, law schools, divinity schools, etc. Leave circulars in the bookstores and apothecaries, after making friends with the booksellers and the apothecaries. Get hold of the young men directly wherever you can. In the country, you can interest one young man, and take him about in a buggy to pick up others whom he knows on promise of $1 to him for everyone you get.

      GENERAL METHOD OF TALKING. You must never lose yourself in your talk. Keep wide awake to the situation. Know exactly what effect you are aiming to produce, and watch to see when it is produced. Hammer away until you produce it, and then at once go on to the next point. Though you will have great need of arguments, you must not, of course, suppose that these are to produce their effect by their action on the understanding alone. The levers upon which you have to rely are first, cupidity, second, shame, and third, fatigue. You can offer a clergyman or a teacher a commission. You will put it in this way: that Mr. Peirce insists upon paying it in every case, whether it is asked for or not, but with the distinct understanding that no portion is to be refunded to the pupil, and to that end nothing is paid on the first pupil an agent (resident) obtains. You will understand that if you offer such commissions, you will have to pay them yourself out of your own. Whenever you are talking to a young man, who may become himself a pupil, you will represent the certainty of success in life which this instruction brings with it. Say it is unfortunate that pupils almost always insist on their names being kept secret; otherwise your interlocutor would be surprised to learn how many successful Wall Street men there are among the number, and the sons of Bankers form a large proportion of those who are now taking the course. In Wall Street, the value of sound reasoning is understood, etc. 2^nd, whenever you see an opportunity to do so, you should manoeuvre to put the person to whom you are talking into a position in which he is ashamed to send you away empty-handed. Americans are particularly subject to the passion of shame. As soon as you see that a man begins to be strongly interested, pretend that you are going, say you have much more interesting things to tell him, but you will not allow yourself to trespass on his indulgence longer. When he says you need not mind, say that to tell the truth you have an appointment to see a gentleman who has agreed to take one ticket, but is doubtful about another for another member of his family, and owing to his high position you dare not offend him, but you will stay a few minutes, and then stay a good long while, so as to be able to hint that you have fooled away a lot of valuable time, satisfying your present man’s curiosity, and so make him ashamed not to take one ticket at least. Remember this: that if the person whom you address is very rude at the outset, it gives you an immense advantage. Such men are generally unskillful in talk, and are more easily handled than others. You will behave with perfect good temper, dignity, and politeness. Make him feel that he has a gentleman to deal with, for whose good opinion he cannot but have some regard. You say: I have not come to sell you anything. I do not expect you to enter as a pupil. I have simply come because I have understood that you were one of the most prominent and respected citizens of the town, who would be likely to take an interest in anything tending to ameliorate the condition of the people and calculated to conduce to the well-being of the community. Without a pause, you then proceed to explain what you mean by “ameliorating the condition of the people and conducing to the well-being of the community” and