Avoid
the use of the "major premise, minor premise, argument, and logical
conclusion." _You cannot debate yourself into a job_, for the judge is
made antagonistic by your method, which puts him on the defensive. It is
human nature to resist a decision that logic tries to force. No man
arrives at his conclusions of mind by putting himself through a
reasoning process. A normal person does not need to reason about things
he knows. _He knows without reasoning._ He attempts to use logic only
when he is _uncertain_ what to think. If logic is used by the salesman
to convince the other man, it will be ineffective because it is an
unnatural means that the prospect almost never employs to convince
himself, and of which he is suspicious.
[Sidenote: Why Reasoning is Futile]
A major premise is but an assumption unless it is already known. If it
is known, why should it be proved? Since the correctness of the
conclusion depends entirely upon the validity of the premise, it is
evidently absurd to attempt to prove a truth from the basis of an
admitted assumption.
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