INTEREST ARISING FROM ANALOGY. 989 
the uniformity of truth, the universality, the grandeur, 
and the simplicity of nature’s laws, obtains, in the act 
of learning, a delightful relaxation from the continued 
pressure of abstract scientific or doctrinal instruction: 
it recreates itself in the contemplation of the revo- 
lution of the seasons, or the diurnal course of the 
earth, and yields itself up a willing convert to the 
truth, over which such loveliness and harmony is 
diffused. Further, while analogy appeals so forcibly 
to the pleasure of association, making us acquainted 
with new things by the reflection cast upon them 
from other things with which we have long been 
familiar,—it also unites in its effect, as a means of 
instruction, a pleasure akin to that produced by imi- 
tation in the fine arts. These accomplish their 
purpose, by exciting that admiration which arises 
from perceiving some effect observed in nature 
attained under an artificial mode of execution.* An 
analogous fact may, in like manner, be considered 
as an imitation, under a different form, of another 
fact to which it is analogous. It is a resemblance, 
as close as the nature of the subjects, to which they 
respectively belong, will admit. We are pleased 
accordingly with the detection of such a resem- 
blance, formed, as it were, in spite of the real dis- 
crepance of the subjects. ‘The unexpected conform- 
ity of the different instances excites our admiration, 
and disposes us to a ready acquiescence in the 
belief that such analogies are not fanciful, but 
founded on a general law of nature. 
(200.) The force of conviction which analogy, 
* Adam Smith’s Works, vol. vy. p. 243. 
U 2 
