INTEREST ARISING FROM ANALOGY. 289 



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. v. p. 24S. 

 U 



