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 



