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Elements of thought; or, First lessons in the knowledge of the mind
Elements of thought or First lessons in the knowledge of the mind Author:Isaac Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: there may be an agreement of exchangeable value ; that is to say, the one may be purchasable by the same number of pieces of money as the other. Analogy; F... more »rom dvaXoyia, conformity of reason, or causation. Analogy is a real or true agreement, or similarity of causes. A similarity in appearances, or in effects, or in incidental circumstances, is the foundation of metaphor, allegory, emblem, and rhetorical figure. Analogy addresses itself to the reasoning faculty. Allegory and metaphor address the imagination. Analogy, carefully pursued, may afford a solid foundation of argument. Metaphors prove nothing, and are useful only in the way of illustration, or embellishment. Whenever we anticipate or predict certain effects to take place, on the supposition that certain causes, with which in some other case we have become acquainted, are in operation, we reason from analogy. After it had been observed that rice nourishes in the hot and humid plains of Egypt, it was by reasoning from analogy that it was inferred that it might advantageously be cultivated in the sultry swamps of Carolina. The heat of the climate and the abundance of water, are presumed to be the causesof the productiveness of rice; and it is inferred that an ardent sun and a marshy soil will, in any country, favour the growth of the same species of grain. We reason from analogy when we suppose that the stars, like the sun, are surrounded with planets, which derive from them light and heat; The same Divine Wisdom which is seen to have made this admirable arrangement in one instance, is presumed to have made it also in others. When we see that every part of the earth's surface, and every drop of water, is crowded with animated beings, we reason from analogy in supposing that the Divine Benevolence, which has filled one s...« less