54 



CHAPTEE V. 



NATURAL SELECTION IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 



IT has been said, with some exaggeration, that 

 Butler's entire work on the Analogy of Religion to the 

 Constitution of Nature is a commentary on the text 

 which he quotes from Origen, that " he who believes 

 the Scripture to have proceeded from the Author of 

 nature, may well expect to find the same sort of 

 difficulties in it as are found in the constitution of 

 nature." 



Analogy is defined as resemblance of relations. 

 When there are similar relations between similar 

 things, analogical reasoning implies no principle more 

 recondite than the legal maxim of "like case, like 

 rule." But when the things between which the 

 analogies subsist are unlike, the most difficult ques- 

 tions of philosophy may arise in determining whether 

 the analogies are real; and, if they are real, what 

 weight of inference they are able to bear. Now 

 granting, what I regard as unquestionably true, that 

 the books of Nature and of Revelation are two works 



