654 FALLACIES. 



a real induction, which are employed to strengthen the argument drawn 

 from a simple resemblance. Though A, the property common to the two 

 cases, can not be shown to be the cause or effect of B, the analogical rea- 

 soner will endeavor to show that there is some less close degree of connec- 

 tion between them ; that A is one of a set of conditions from which, when 

 all united, B would result ; or is an occasional 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 connection be- 

 tween 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, perceives 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 employment of argu- 

 ments of analogy. There is another, more properly deserving the name 

 of fallacy; namely, when resemblance in one point is inferred from resem- 

 blance in another point, though there is not only no evidence to connect 

 the two circumstances 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 favorite argument in defense of 

 absolute power, drawn from the analogy of paternal government in a fam- 

 ily, which government, however much in need of control, is not and can 

 not be controlled by the children themselves, while they remain children. 

 Paternal government, says the argument, works well ; therefore, despotic 

 government in a state will work well. I waive, as not pertinent in this 

 place, all that could be said in qualification of the alleged excellence of 

 paternal government. However this might be, the argument from the 

 family to the state would not the less proceed on a false analogy ; imply- 

 ing that the beneficial working of parental government depends, in the 

 family, on the only point which it has in common with political despotism, 

 namely, irresponsibility. Whereas it depends, when real, not on that but 

 on two other circumstances of the case, the affection of the parent for the 

 children, and the superiority of the parent in wisdom and experience ; 

 neither of which properties can be reckoned on, or are at all likely to exist, 

 between a political despot and his subjects; and when either of these cir- 

 cumstances fails even in the family, and the influence of the irresponsibil- 

 ity is allowed to work uncorrected, the result is any thing but good govern- 

 ment. This, therefore, is a false analogy. 



Another example is the not uncommon dictum that bodies politic have 

 youth, maturity, old age, and death, like bodies natural ; that after a cer- 

 tain duration of prosperity, they tend spontaneously to decay. This also 



