Analogy

“ Instead of thoughts of concrete things patiently following one another in a beaten track of habitual suggestion, we have the most abrupt cross-cuts and transitions from one idea to another, the most rarefied abstractions and discriminations, the most unheard-of combinations of elements, the subtlest associations of analogy ”

“ Having interrogated sense and science, with the solution of our enigma anything but complete, we resort last of all to the argument from analogy. If this can illumine the obscurity, it will all be on the positive side of the inquiry. ”

“ This is a very noble form of the study of universal analogy, in no way contrary to the analytic form, though much more concrete, and dealing with masses of thought, and expressing its results in new terms; also criticising man for his politics and social laws, rather than for his religious principles; in a word, judging of ages by their fruits, both in action, and in the representations or tableaux of the universe. ”

“ True, by analogies one may conceive it, as the religious man thinks of God's personality, or as the philosopher thinks of the unity of his world, or as the scientist thinks of nature's law; but the analogies are always so many tethers, and are accordingly necessarily partial, whereas no whole can ever be quite in kind with any of its parts. We may conceive reality, then, by the use of analogy—that is, by projecting what we do know of one or another side of life beyond its natural sphere ”

“ With the earliest development of intelligence came the discovery of likeness and difference in things, and the search for analogy was carried out along both sensible and absurd lines, the latter drifting into a double analogy of thought and form, of which the conundrum is the logical product.
The literatures of all peoples contain the riddle, which might be witty or serious as impulse prompted. ”

“ If we say that two attributes are like one another (since we know nothing of attributes except the sensations or states of feeling on which they are grounded) , we mean really that those sensations, or states of feeling, resemble each other. We may also say that two relations are alike. The fact of resemblance between relations is sometimes called analogy, forming one of the numerous meanings of that word. ”

“ When we form our notions of the operations of the mind by analogy, this way of conceiving them seems to be very natural, and offers itself to our thoughts: for as every thing which is felt must make some impression upon the body, we are apt to think, that every thing which is understood must make some impression upon the mind.
From such analogical reasoning, this opinion of the existence of ideas or images of things in the mind, seems to have taken its rise, and to have been so universally received among philosophers. ”

“ Reasoning by analogy differs only in degree from that kind of reasoning called 'generalization.' When many things resemble each other in a few properties, we argue about them by generalization. When a few things resemble each other in many properties, it is a case of analogy. ”

“ Words, moreover, as we have already said, form the pegs upon which we can hang up, for ready reference, the products of abstraction and generalization, or, to modify the analogy, they form the bodies of which these products are the rational soul. ”

“ It is by analogy with the exercise of intellect, and the volition, or power of moral causation, of which we are conscious within ourselves, that we speak of the Supreme Mind and Moral Cause of the Universe, of whose operation, order, arrangement and adaptation, are the external manifestations. Order implies what by analogy we call intelligence; subserviency to an observed end implies intelligence foreseeing which by analogy, we call Design. ”

“ The analogy consists in this: good and evil fruits, though incompatible, dwell together; similarly, knowledge, though not material, resides in the material body. Of course, knowledge is used here in the sense of the mind or the understanding. ”

“ The power of the analogy, for which we are laying the foundations, to seize and impress the mind, will largely depend on the vividness with which one realizes the gulf which Nature places between the living and the dead. ”

“ When, therefore, we find that like results are produced through the instrumentality of totally dissimilar causes, we must attribute the analogy to some prior and more potent cause, influencing the whole alike. ”

“ This is what the philosophers call analogy. Analogy is thus founded on experience, and is, therefore, far less perfect than intuition or demonstration. That gravitation will always continue is analogical ”

“ The natural history account of analogy will consider the status in less advanced stages of human development, and the evolution of this form of thought, which scientists to-day use only with the greatest caution, and to which they at best assign but a limited and corroborative value. It will appear that analogy is dominant in primitive types of thought ”

“ If it be analogous, we may hope to explain its causes from analogy, and trace it up to more general principles. Now that there is a greater firmness and solidity in the conceptions, which are the objects of conviction and assurance, than in the loose and indolent reveries of a castle-builder, every one will readily own. ”

“ The danger of analogy lies in the fact that we prefer naturally to depend on something already known, and that the preference is the greater in proportion to our feeling of the strangeness and ominousness of the particular intellectual or natural regions in which we find ourselves. ”

“ Analogy points in this direction, and though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have. ”

“ But, besides that the ordinary course of nature may convince us, that almost everything is regulated by principles and maxims very different from ours; besides this, I say, it must evidently appear contrary to all rules of analogy to reason, from the intentions and projects of men, to those of a Being so different, and so much superior. ”

“ And when the whole circle of truth is brought into view, this explanation is found to cover only a small part of the whole.
We seem to learn best about God by analogies. The analogy never brings all there is to be learned. ”

“ But as wise men have found it for the express purpose of being able to convey to us some notion of Him who is the first, the unspeakable Being,—a notion, namely, which may represent Him to us through the medium of other objects,—they endeavour either by synthesis, which is the combining of various qualities, or by analysis, which is the separation and setting aside of some qualities, or finally by analogy;—in these ways, I say, they endeavour to set before us that which it is impossible to express in words. ”

“ Analogical reasoning has a prominent place in our mental operations. Analogy lies at the basis of simile, metaphor, and personification, which are often used in argumentation. We frequently use analogical processes in the practical affairs of life, inferring, for example, that there will be rain to-day because the temperature, appearance of the clouds, and the condition of the atmosphere resemble those of a rainy day last week. ”

“ If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples. If it be unfamiliar, trace some point of analogy in it with the known. If it be inhuman, make it figure as part of a story. If it be difficult, couple its acquisition with some prospect of personal gain. Above all things, make sure that it shall run through certain inner changes, since no unvarying object can possibly hold the mental field for long. ”

“ In the childhood of the race natural events were interpreted by means of analogy. The wind blowing through the trees made sounds much like the human voice; hence these noises were attributed to spirits. Primeval man was led to believe by analogy that everything which moved was alive. ”

“ It is best to avoid analogy except for purposes of sug­ges­tion, or as a rhetorical device for explaining an idea already arrived at by other means. ”

“ All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy; ”

“ Another way to find whether an analogy is fallacious is to see whether you can discover a counter analogy. Surely this is the most effective practice in refuting analogy in argument. ”

“ And, as we have already seen, and in the present lecture shall further illustrate, the relation of partial and total meaning is, at the same time, the relation of any finite will to the expression of the complete intent of that same will. Without contradiction, therefore, you are unable to assert the real Being of any world, unless you conceive that world as the expressed will whose partial momentary embodiment you even now observe, whenever you get any rational idea before your mind. ”

“ Soul, mind, spirit, these old and simple words are the strongest, the profoundest, the surest; age cannot antiquate them, nor science undo them; they last with the rocks, and still go beyond. But, having in view rather the operation than the cause, we find a use also in such alternative phrases as “mode of thinking,” “mode of feeling and thinking,” “habit of thought,” “moral and intellectual character or constitution,” and the like. ”

“ We may conclude with logic as sound and certain as is used in any scientific deduction, that every sense, faculty, and hope of the human soul has an objective reality in relation to which it is developed as surely as the wing argues an atmosphere, or the eye an ether. ”

“ We have words which are proper, and not analogical, to express the various ways in which we perceive external objects by the senses; such as feeling, sight, taste: but we are often obliged to use these words analogically, to express other powers of the mind which are of a very different nature. And the powers which imply some degree of reflection, have generally no names but such as are analogical. The objects of thought are said to be in the mind, to be apprehended, comprehended, conceived, imagined, retained, weighed, ruminated. ”

“ I assent to the veracity of sense, and I believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object, and on no account whatever will I consent 'to disclaim this principle.' Your philosophy—your more rational opinions— representation—your reasonings which, you say, necessitate me to depart from my primary instincts—all these I give, without reservation, to the winds. ”

“ But truly in comparison with the wonderful fact that our thoughts, however different otherwise, can still be of the same, the question whether that same be a single thing, a whole class of things, an abstract quality or something unimaginable, is an insignificant matter of detail. Our meanings are of singulars, particulars, indefinites, problematics, and universals, mixed together in every way. ”

“ We find the inner ground for this systematisation of judgments in the circumstance that when the Notion, which is the unity of Being and Essence in a comprehensive thought, unfolds, as it does in the judgment, it must reproduce these two stages in a transformation proper to the notion. ”

“ All the secondary qualities, colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, hardness, everything, in short, which is an affection of sense, may be generalised at one sweep into our mere knowledge of things. But the primary qualities, which are usually restricted to extension and figure, and which constitute, it is said, the objective or real essence of things, and which are entirely independent of us, into what shall they be generalised? ”

“ On the other side, the distinguishing and discerning reason comes in with its questions and doubts, and chemical analysis, to resolve every thing finally into naught, and to explain all the conceptions of the mind as groundless and unsubstantial, as so many pure illusions of the senses, conceits of caprice, prejudices of a limited understanding, and mere pictures or creations of fancy. ”

“ By thus first distinguishing sharply between the conscious internal meaning of an idea and its apparently external meaning, we get before us an important way of stating the problem of knowledge or, in other words, the problem of the whole relation between Idea and Being. ”

“ Our preference, however, for the objects of sense, for the pen, and the sun, as typical instances of objects of ideas, arises from the fact that in case of just these objects, it is especially easy, by observing, from without, the acts of the person who has these ideas, to form confident and, for common-sense purposes, relatively exact notions of the selection to which the internal meaning of the ideas has bound the maker of any given judgment about objects. ”

“ Now, if we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of what we can conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered in itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. ”

“ My purpose, in imagining these illustrations, was to render obvious and palpable the limitations of the intellect, when it attempts to translate feelings into terms of reason, or when it attempts to substitute scientific calculations for spontaneous emotions. The essence of one is [Pg 177] feeling; the essence of the other is logic ”

“ At bottom the process is one of conception, and is everywhere, even in the sphere of simple sensible qualities, the same as that by which we are usually understood to attain to the notions of abstract goodness, perfect felicity, absolute power, and the like: the direct perception of a difference between compounds, and the imaginary prolongation of the direction of the difference to an ideal terminus, the notion of which we fix and keep as one of our permanent subjects of discourse. ”

“ That an analogous course of events, or chain of causes and effects, takes place in morals as in physics: that is to say, in examining those qualities, of the matter composing our own bodies, which we call mind, we can only trace a train of occurrences, in like manner as we do in the external world; that our sensations, thoughts, and emotions, are simply effects following causes, a series of consecutive phenomena, mutually producing and produced. ”