The secretary of a self-help group federation tells the general body: 'The report that eleven months of the federation's entries are missing must be false. Were the members to believe it they would take back their savings within the week and the federation would be wound up.' The secretary's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the ground that it

Eleven months of entries are either there or missing, and a run on the savings would follow the belief and not the truth — the books would be in exactly the same state whether the members panicked or slept soundly. The secretary has given the general body a reason to dread the report and none at all to doubt it. He does not say the members cannot judge; he asks them not to. He is not obliged to name the reporter for his argument to work, so that omission is not the error. And he nowhere appeals to an absence of complaints — he is answering a report that has plainly been made.