Similitude

“ That basis is, that all events whatever, the events of our own personal and social29 life included, are always subject to natural relations of sequence and similitude, which in all essential respects lie beyond the reach of our interference. ”

“ Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of things. ”

“ Is there no design of analogy in this Universe? Are these striking resemblances that wed remote parts, these family traits that break out all through nature and that show the unity of the creating mind, the work of chance? Are these resemblances and mutual answerings of part to part that human intelligence sees and recognizes only in its most exalted moments—when its vision is clearest—a mere accident? ”

“ I here assume, what is agreed on by most writers, that beauty of form—so far as it is independent of sensuous pleasure on the one hand, and pleasures of association and suggestion on the other, is resolvable into the presence of a certain order among manifold details, which order is commonly spoken of as unity in variety. With respect, first of all, to the way in which the element of variety and contrast presents itself in visible form, a word or two will suffice. ”

“ Thus for instance, we never fail, in our arrangement of bodies, to place those which are resembling in continuity to each other, or at least in correspondent points of view; because we feel a satisfaction in joining the relation of contiguity to that of resemblance, or the resemblance of situation to that of qualities. ”

“ We look on all that in ourselves with which we can discover a resemblance in others; and consider those resemblances as the materials of moral knowledge. It is in the differences that it actually consists. ”

“ In Reality, all Arguments from Experience are founded on the Similarity, which we discover among natural Objects, and by which we are induc'd to expect Effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such Objects. ”

“ But by how much the higher we ascend, and elevate ourselves to the sameness both in form and essence, of first natures, and proceed from parts to wholes, by so much the more shall we discover the union which has an eternal existence, and survey the essence, which has a precedaneous and more principal subsistence, and possesses about, and in itself, difference and multitude. ”

“ Accordingly we find, that where, beside the general resemblance of our natures, there is any peculiar similarity in our manners, or character, or country, or language, it facilitates the sympathy. The stronger the relation is betwixt ourselves and any object, the more easily does the imagination make the transition, and convey to the related idea the vivacity of conception, with which we always form the idea of our own person. ”

“ They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. ”

“ For I immediately reply, that a succession of related objects places the mind in this disposition, and is considered with the same smooth and uninterrupted progress of the imagination, as attends the view of the same invariable object. The very nature and essence of relation is to connect our ideas with each other, and upon the appearance of one, to facilitate the transition to its correlative. ”

“ In this sense, when we say, "What a wonderful idea!" we really mean, what a wonderful fitness of form to idea,— which is the same as saying, what a wonderful form, or more technically, what a wonderful unity. ”

“ The actions which are classed under the general appellation of marriage, education, friendship, &c., are perpetually going on, and to a superficial glance, are similar one to the other.
But, if we would see the truth of things, they must be stripped of this fallacious appearance of uniformity. In truth, no one action has, when considered in its whole extent, any essential resemblance with any other. ”

“ The analogies of this synthetic method, which, like the analytic, has its own limits and advantages, lie between human characters, as wholes, and the objects of nature: thus between the concrete terms of friendship, love, obedience, constancy, inconstancy, pride, vanity, coquetry, or any of the other phrases which express the practical shades of difference observable in private life: also between the various systems, political, social, commercial, with their numberless details, and the same objects of nature ”

“ Fourthly, As the individuals are collected together, and plac’d under a general term with a view to that resemblance, which they bear to each other, this relation must facilitate their entrance in the imagination, and make them be suggested more readily upon occasion. And indeed if we consider the common progress of the thought, either in reflexion or conversation, we shall find great reason to be satisfy’d in this particular. ”

“ Did you ever think that the desire of distinction was one of the most, perhaps the most, intense purely spiritual emotion of the human soul? Look at the way these people live here, grubbing away at the soil like ants. ”

“ But in order to indicate how they share in an essence supremely simple and supremely one, it may consistently be said, and conceived, that the one is so identical with the other that the one possesses the essence of the other. ”

“ Without the category of Sameness, in the objects of concrete experience, and in the objects of our thoughts about possible experience at various times, the whole theory about possibilities of experience would be meaningless. ”

“ Let us take an example, which shows how our world is a coherent whole and how we can take from different parts which do not seem to have any connection whatever, and bring them into relation with each other. ”

“ Having by these divisions given an order and arrangement to our objects, we may now apply ourselves to consider with the more accuracy their qualities and relations. The first circumstance, that strikes my eye, is the great resemblance betwixt our impressions and ideas in every other particular, except their degree of force and vivacity. ”

“ If objects are compared in reference to the succession {107} of our conceptions or perceptions, we gain the ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms firstly, secondly, and thirdly. If objects are compared in reference to the degree of any quality, we gain an idea of such relations as are expressed by the terms brighter, sweeter, harder, louder. If objects are compared in reference to proportion, we gain ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms an eighth, a half. ”

“ The similarity of really distinct individuals, which is the conceptual identity of their qualities, is the ground on which we conceptually identify their essences. Now is there any reason for thinking that these grounds of similarity, as found in the individual, are really distinct from one another in the latter? ”

“ For, numerous and diverse as are the objects in nature, they are so constituted and connected—so dependent on and related to one another—as to compose a whole which exhibits a marvellous unity in variety. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And every unity, every identity, every classification is rightly called fanciful unless it serves some other end than the mere satisfaction, emotion, or inspiration caught by momentarily believing in it. ”

“ In order to yield satisfaction, the different parts of life must exemplify identity of motive, continuity and orderliness in the fulfillment of purpose, lucidity of relation, yet diversity for stimulation and totality. ”

“ This more pluralistic style of feeling seems to me both to allow of a warmer sort of loyalty to our past helpers, and to tally more exactly with the mixed condition in which we find the world as to its ideals. What if we did come where we are by chance, or by mere fact, with no one general design? What is gained, is gained, all the same. ”

“ Synthesis: Conscious Relating.—In the second place all thought is integrating or combining, or, as it is commonly expressed, a process of Synthesis. In thinking we never merely isolate or abstract. We analytically resolve the presentative complexes of our concrete experience only in order to establish certain relations among them. The most appropriate term for all such conscious relating or discernment of relation is Comparison. ”

“ The most delightful and fruitful of all the intellectual energies is the perception of similarity and agreement, by which we rise from the individual to the general, trace sameness in diversity, and master instead of being mastered by the multiplicity of nature. ”

“ The goal of every progress therefore may be taken as already attained in Reality and as now present and actual. I do not mean that without exception all immediate sameness must pass through the relational consciousness. ”

“ It is a kinship of soul and sympathy, as well as of race—a similarity of aim and influence upon humanity; a similarity, even in the kind of effect produced, and the means employed to produce it, which renders them largely interdependent and reciprocally helpful. The purpose of both is expression, chiefly emotional expression, descriptions of nature and references to natural phenomena being introduced merely as accessories, as background or setting for the human life and interest, which are of primary importance. ”

“ All that I have seen and heard has tended to attach me more firmly to you by the double effect of resemblance and of contrast. Every agreeable person recalls you; every disagreeable, makes me exclaim, how different, etc. ”

“ And what would you say of the many beautiful—whether men or horses or garments or any other things which are named by the same names and may be called equal or beautiful,—are they all unchanging and the same always, or quite the reverse? May they not rather be described as almost always changing and hardly ever the same, either with themselves or with one another? ”

“ Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures. ”

“ The points of resemblance thus selected or abstracted from a number of particulars compose what we call an abstract or general idea, and from a comparison of such abstract or general ideas with each other we arrive at general conclusions, which define the relations of the ideas to each other. ”

“ In truth, the psychological development of the idea of individuality proceeds along with that of generality, each being grasped as a different way of interpreting partial similarity among our percepts. ”

“ Relations imply a unity in which they subsist, and apart from which they have no meaning or existence. (c) Every kind of diversity, both terms and relations alike are adjectives of one reality, which exists in them and without which they are nothing. ”

“ For all words of that sort by which we express any objects in our mind, that is, conceive of them, are likenesses and images of the objects to which they correspond; and every likeness or image is more or less true, according as it more or less closely imitates the object of which it is the likeness. ”

“ The one fuses or crystallizes external objects and circumstances in the medium of human feeling and passion; the other is concerned with the relations of objects and circumstances among themselves, including in them all the facts of human consciousness, and with the discovery and classification of these relations. ”

“ The common sense, imperfect recognition of our neighbor implies rather realization of the external aspect of his being, as that part of him which affects us, than realization of his inner and peculiar world of personal experience. ”

“ If therefore it is merely an extraordinary degree of resemblance in the objects which produces an extraordinary degree of strength in the habitual affection, a more remote and imperfect resemblance in the objects ought to produce proportionable effects. ”

“ It is not the spontaneous life of the fact in its concrete manifestation, but the prosaic division between notion and reality, a mere relation of both to each other and a mere demand for their union, which constitutes the fundamental type under consideration. ”

“ But the dispassionate reader, turning over these sulphurous leaves, will perceive deeply-rooted similarity in that narrowness of view, and that undisturbed consciousness that it alone is right, which distinguish the reflections, and are found in the observations, of 'Arry when he views society from his lower standpoint. ”

“ VII. Our original bodily make, and the impressions and associations which affect us in passing through life, are so much alike, and yet not the same, that there must be both a great general resemblance amongst mankind, in respect to their intellectual affections, and also many particular differences. ”