IMPORTANCE OF ANALOGY. 287 
themselves which it connects, may be equally know- 
able in themselves, it does not follow that they are 
equally so to different minds. A simple truth, which 
to a particular mind seems isolated in itself, may be 
powerfully reflected upon by another truth, which 
peculiar habits of thought in that mind have rendered 
more familiar. Thus, if a divine was told that the 
progression of natural affinities, in any given group 
of animals, was in a circle, he might at first consider 
it, not being himself a naturalist, as a simple fact 
belonging only to zoological science; but if he re- 
flected a moment on the subject, other truths with 
which he was more familiar would arise in his mind: 
it would occur to him, that the life of man, the course 
of the seasons, and the motion of the heavenly bodies, 
had their progression on the same principle ; and that 
these were but types and shadows of that immense 
circle of eternity, which has had no beginning, and 
will have no end. With these truths he is familiar ; 
with the former he was not: but applying the one to 
the other, he sees their mutual relations of analogy ; 
and that which at first appeared to him an isolated 
fact, or an admitted truth, disconnected with those 
he was accustomed to contemplate, becomes irradi- 
ated with a flood of light, which is again reflected 
upon those truths which have been instrumental in 
enabling him to discern the vast extent of a simple 
law of nature. 
(198.) From the tacit conviction of the uni- 
formity of truth which every reflecting mind has 
acquired, we cannot be satisfied to see a truth 
unfolded to our apprehension in a single instance 
only, but we desire to perceive the instruction con- 
veyed by any particular fact, depicted also in another 
