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NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



All likeness and unlikeness of which we have any cogni- 

 zance, resolve themselves into likeness and unlikeness between 

 states of our own, or some other, mind. When we say that 

 one body is like another, (since we know nothing of bodies but 

 the sensations which they excite,) we mean really that there is 

 a resemblance between the sensations excited by the two bodies, 

 or between some portions at least of those sensations. If we 

 say that two attributes are like one another, (since we know 

 nothing of attributes except the sensations or states of feeling 

 on which they are grounded,) we mean really that those 

 sensations, or states of feeling, resemble each other. We may 

 also say that two relations are alike. The fact of resemblance 

 between relations is sometimes called analogy, forming one of 

 the numerous meanings of that word. The relation in which 

 Priam stood to Hector, namely, that of father and son, resem- 

 bles the relation in which Philip stood to Alexander ; resembles 

 it so closely that they are called the same relation. The rela- 

 tion in which Cromwell stood to England resembles the rela- 

 tion in which Napoleon stood to France, though not so closely 

 as to be called the same relation. The meaning in both these 

 instances must be, that a resemblance existed between the 

 facts which constituted the fundamentum relationis. 



This resemblance may exist in all conceivable gradations, 

 from perfect undistinguishableness to something extremely 

 slight. When we say, that a thought suggested to the mind 

 of a person of genius is like a seed cast into the ground, 

 because the former produces a multitude of other thoughts, 

 and the latter a multitude of other seeds, this is saying 

 that between the relation of an inventive mind to a thought 

 contained in it, and the relation of a fertile soil to a seed 

 contained in it, there exists a resemblance : the real resem- 

 blance being in the two fundamenta relationis, in each 

 of which there occurs a germ, producing by its develop- 

 ment a multitude of other things similar to itself. And 

 as, whenever two objects are jointly concerned in a pheno- 

 menon, this constitutes a relation between those objects, 

 so, if we suppose a second pair of objects concerned in a 

 second phenomenon, the slightest resemblance between the 



