368 FALLACIES. 



sional effect of some cause which has been known also to 

 produce B ; and the like. Any of which things, if shown, 

 would render the existence of B by so much more probable, 

 than if there had not been even that amount of known con- 

 nexion between B and A. 



Now an error or fallacy of analogy may occur in two ways. 

 Sometimes it consists in employing an argument of either of 

 the above kinds with correctness indeed, but overrating its 

 probative force. This very common aberration is sometimes 

 supposed to be particularly incident to persons distinguished 

 for their imagination ; but in reality it is the characteristic 

 intellectual vice of those whose imaginations are barren, 

 either from want of exercise, natural defect, or the narrowness 

 of their range of ideas. To such minds objects present 

 themselves clothed in but few properties; and as, therefore, 

 few analogies between one object and another occur to them, 

 they almost invariably overrate the degree of importance of 

 those few : while one whose fancy takes a wider range, per- 

 ceives and remembers so many analogies tending to conflicting 

 conclusions, that he is much less likely to lay undue stress 

 on any of them. We always find that those are the greatest 

 slaves to metaphorical language, who have but one set of 

 metaphors. 



But this is only one of the modes of error in the employ- 

 ment of arguments of analogy. There is another, more pro- 

 perly deserving the name of fallacy ; namely, when resemblance 

 in one point is inferred from resemblance in another point, 

 though there is not only no evidence to connect the two cir- 

 cumstances by way of causation, but the evidence tends posi- 

 tively to disconnect them. This is properly the Fallacy of 

 False Analogies. 



As a first instance, we may cite that favourite argument 

 in defence of absolute power, drawn from the analogy of 

 paternal government in a family, which government, however 

 much in need of control, is not and cannot be controlled by 

 the children themselves, while they remain children. Paternal 

 government, says the argument, works well; therefore, de- 

 spotic government in a state will work well. I wave, as not 



