the only one a man of sense can dwell in.' In my opinion, the argument was weak; personal fancies, in my judgment, are not authorities. A people, on being consulted, may, indeed, tell the form of government they like, but not the form they need; this is possible only through experience; time is required to ascertain if the political dwelling is convenient, durable, proof against inclemencies, suited to the occupant's habits, pursuits, character, peculiarities, and caprices. Now, as proof of this, we have never been content with our own; within eighty years we have pulled it down thirteen times in order to rebuild it, and this we have done in vain, not having yet found one that suits us.' 1 from analogy: Whately; Analogy, one of the most common forms of the argument from example, is defined by Archbishop Arguments Whately, in conformity with the primitive defined by meaning given to it by mathematicians, as by Mill. "a resemblance of ratios," the reasoning, on this theory, being drawn, not from a direct resemblance between the two things compared, but from a resemblance in the relation they bear to certain other things. "Thus an egg and a seed are not in themselves alike, but bear a like relation to the parent bird and to her future nestling, on the one hand, and to the old and young plant on the other, respectively; this relation being the genus which both fall under: and many arguments might be drawn from this analogy.' 12 Whately, however, admits that, in the language of eminent writers as well as in that of common speech, Analogy is used in a much wider sense. This sense is more accurately expressed in Mill's definition, which extends the name of analogical evidence to arguments drawn from any sort of resemblances, provided they do not amount to a complete induction.3 66 Analogy agrees with induction in this, that they both argue that a thing known to resemble another in certain circumstances 1 Taine: The Ancient [Ancien] Régime; Preface. Translation of John Durand. 2 Whately: Rhetoric, part i. chap ii. sect. vii. 3 Sce p. 183. (call those circumstances A and B) will resemble it in another circumstance (call it C). But the difference is that in induction A and B are known, by a previous comparison of many instances, to be the very circumstances on which C depends, or with which it is some way connected. When this has not been ascertained, the argument amounts only to this, that, since it is not known with which of the circumstances existing in the known case C is connected, they may as well be A and B as any others; and therefore there is a greater probability of C in cases where we know that A and B exist, than in cases of which we know nothing at all. This argument is of a weight very difficult to estimate at all, and impossible to estimate precisely. It may be very strong, when the known points of agreement, A and B &c., are numerous, and the known points of difference few; or very weak, when the reverse is the case: but it can never be equal in validity to a real induction." 1 One of Mill's examples renders his meaning plain. From the fact that there are numerous resemblances between the earth and the other planets, it might be inferred that the latter are inhabited because the former is. Now, if the existence of human beings could be proved to depend upon one or more of these points of resemblance, to be the effect of this or that cause which is in operation on the other planets as well as on the earth, or if it could be proved that the presence of human beings is the effect of some circumstance not common to the other planets and the earth, the argument drawn from such facts of causation would in each case be of an inductive character. 66 So long, however, as we do not know what the conditions of life are, they may be connected by some law of Nature with those common properties; and to the extent of that possibility the planets are more likely to be inhabited than if they did not resemble the earth at all. This non-assignable and generally small increase of probability, beyond what would otherwise exist, is all the evidence which a conclusion can derive from analogy. For if we have the slightest reason to suppose any real connection between the two properties A and B, the argument is no longer one of analogy. If it had been ascertained (I purposely put an absurd supposition) that there was a connection by causation between 1 Mill: Three Essays on Religion, part i. pp. 168, 169. the fact of revolving on an axis and the existence of animated beings, or if there were any reasonable ground for even suspecting such a connection, a probability would arise of the existence of inhabitants in the planets, which might be of any degree of strength, up to a complete induction; but we should then infer the fact from the ascertained or presumed law of causation, and not from the analogy of the earth." 1 False Analogies. Arguments from Analogy are valid when confined to the point of resemblance, and allowed no more than their just weight; but they are often used as if a resemblance between two things in one point meant a resemblance in points in which they really differ, or as if a superficial and partial resemblance implied a complete and fundamental one dependent on a common cause: the analogy is either false, or it is treated as if it amounted to an induction. The fol-lowing are examples of false analogies:— "If,' they say, 'free competition is a good thing in trade, it must surely be a good thing in education. The supply of other commodities of sugar, for example is left to adjust itself to the demand; and the consequence is, that we are better supplied with sugar than if the Government undertook to supply us. Why, then, should we doubt that the supply of instruction will, without the intervention of the Government, be found equal to the demand?' "Never was there a more false analogy. Whether a man is well supplied with sugar is a matter which concerns himself alone. But whether he is well supplied with instruction is a matter which concerns his neighbors and the State. If he cannot afford to pay for sugar, he must go without sugar. But it is by no means fit that, because he cannot afford to pay for education, he should go without education. Between the rich and their instructors there may, as Adam Smith says, be free trade. The supply of music masters and Italian masters may be left to adjust itself to the demand. But what is to become of the millions who are too poor 1 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. to procure without assistance the services of a decent schoolmaster? It is argued that "a great and permanent diminution in the quantity of some useful commodity, such as corn, or coal, or iron, throughout the world, would be a serious and lasting loss; and that if the fields and coal-mines yielded regularly double quantities, with the same labor, we should be so much the richer: hence it night be inferred that, if the quantity of gold and silver in the world were diminished one-half, or were doubled, like results would follow, the utility of these metals, for the purposes of coin, being very great. Now there are many points of resemblance, and many of difference, between the precious metals on the one hand, and corn, coal, &c. on the other; but the important circumstance to the supposed argument is that the utility of gold and silver (as coin, which is far the chief) depends on their value, which is regulated by their scarcity, or rather, to speak strictly, by the difficulty of obtaining them, whereas, if corn and coal were ten times more abundant (i. e. more easily obtained), a bushel of either would still be as useful as now. But if it were twice as easy to procure gold as it is, a sovereign would be twice as large; if only half as easy, it would be of the size of a half-sovereign: and this (besides the trifling circumstance of the cheapness or dearness of gold ornaments) would be all the difference. The analogy, therefore, fails in the point essential to the argument.” 2 "Because a just analogy has been discerned between the metropolis of a country, and the heart of the animal body, it has been sometimes contended that its increased size is a disease,—that it may impede some of its most important functions, or even be the cause of its dissolution." 3 "Another example is the not uncommon dictum that bodies politic have youth, maturity, old age, and death, like bodies natural; that after a certain duration of prosperity they tend spontaneously to decay. This also is a false analogy, because the decay of the vital powers in an animated body can be distinctly traced to the natural progress of those very changes of structure which, in 1 Macaulay, in the House of Commons; Trevelyan's Selections, p. 448. 2 Whately: Rhetoric, part i. chap. ii. sect. vii. 3 Bishop Copleston: Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination, note to Discourse iii; quoted by Whately. their earlier stages, constitute its growth to maturity; while in the body politic the progress of those changes can not, generally speaking, have any effect but the still further continuance of growth: it is the stoppage of that progress, and the commencement of retrogression, that alone would constitute decay. Bodies politic die, but it is of disease, or violent death; they have no old age." 1 A false analogy has been made the basis of an argument in favor of despotic government. It has been likened to the government exercised by a father over his children, a government which it resembles only in its irresponsibility, that is, in the fact that it is a despotism; whereas the beneficial working of paternal government depends, when real, not on its irresponsibility, but "on two other circumstances of the case, - the affection of the parent for the children and the superiority of the parent in wisdom and experience." The argument from this false analogy is usually summed up in the convenient phrase, “paternal government,”—the fallacy lurking in the word paternal,2 a word which may refer to the power of a father or to his power judiciously exercised; it may mean like a father or like a good and wise father. Fanciful Analogies. The error which consists in overrating the probative force of arguments from analogy is said to be "the characteristic intellectual vice of those whose imaginations are barren, either from exercise, natural defect, or the narrowness of their range of ideas." want of "To such minds objects present themselves clothed in but few properties; and as, therefore, few analogies between one object and another occur to them, they almost invariably overrate the degree of importance of those few; while one whose fancy takes a wider range perceives and remembers so many analogies tending to conflicting conclusions, that he is much less likely to lay undue stress on any of them. We always find that those are the greatest slaves to metaphorical language who have but one set of metaphors." 3 1 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. 3 Mill: Logic, book v. chap. v. sect. vi. |