FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 657 



turn servare possit, omnes aeqiie incontentae sunt; sic peccata, quia discre- 

 pant, ffique discrepant ; paria sunt igitur." To which Cicero himself aptly 

 answers, " aeque contingit omnibus fidibus, ut incontentae sint ; illud non con- 

 tinuo, ut aeque incontentae." The Stoic resumes : " Ut enini, inquit, guber- 

 nator aeque peccat, si palearum navem evertit, et si auri ; item aeque peccat 

 qui parentem, et qui servum, injuria verberat;" assuming, that because the 

 magnitude of the interest at stake makes no difference in the mere defect 

 of skill, it can make none in the moral defect: a false analogy. Again, 

 " Quis ignorat, si plures ex alto emergere velint, propius fore eos quidera 

 ad respirandum, qui ad summani jam aquam appropinquant, sed nihilo 

 magis respirare posse, quam eos, qui sunt in profundo? Nihil ergo adju- 

 vat procedere, et progredi in virtute, quominus miserrimus sit, antequam 

 ad earn pervenerit, quoniara in aqua nihil adjuvat: et quoniam catuli, qui 

 jam despecturi sunt, caeci a?que, et ii qui modo nati ; Platonem quoque ne- 

 cesse est, quoniam nondum videbat sapientiam, aeque caecum animo, ac 

 Phalarim fuisse." Cicero, in his own person, combats these false analogies 

 by other analogies tending to an opposite conclusion. "Ista similia non 



sunt, Cato Ilia sunt similia ; hebes acies est cuipiam oculorum : cor- 



pore alius languescit: hi curatione adhibita, levantur in dies: alter valet 

 plus quotidie: alter videt. Hi similes sunt omnibus, qui virtuti student; 

 levantur vitiis, levantur erroribus." 



§ 7. In these and all other arguments drawn from remote analogies, and 

 from metaphors, which are cases of analogy, it is apparent (especially when 

 we consider the extreme facility of raising up contrary analogies and con- 

 flicting metaphors) that, so far from the metaphor or analogy proving any 

 thing,"the applicability of the metaphor is the very thing to be made out. 

 It has to be shown that in the two cases asserted to be analogous, the same 

 law is really operating; that between the known resemblance and the in- 

 ferred one there is some connection by means of causation. Cicero and 

 Cato might have bandied opposite analogies forever; it rested Avith each 

 of them to pi'ove by just induction, or at least to render probable, that the 

 case resembled the one set of analogous cases and not the other, in the cir- 

 cumstances on which the disputed question really hinged. Metaphors, for 

 the most part, therefore, assume the proposition which they are brought to 

 prove : their use is, to aid the apprehension of it ; to make clearly and viv- 

 idly comprehended what it is that the person who employs the metapiior is 

 proposing to make out ; and sometimes also, by what media he proposes to do 

 so. For an apt metaphor, though it can not prove, often suggests the proof. 



For instance, when D'Alembert (I believe) remarked that in certain gov- 

 ernments only two creatures find their way to the highest places, the eagle 

 and the serpent, the metaphor not only conveys wuth great vividness the 

 assertion intended, but contributes toward substantiating it, by suggesting, 

 in a lively manner, the means by which the two opposite characters thus 

 typified effect their rise. When it is said that a certain person misunder- 

 stands another because the lesser of two objects can not comprehend the 

 greater, the application of what is true in the literal sense of the word com- 

 prehend, to its metaphorical sense, points to the fact which is the ground 

 and justification of the assertion, viz., that one mind can not thoroughly 

 understand another unless it can contain it in itself, that is, unless it pos- 

 sesses all that is contained in the other. When it is urged as an argument 

 for education, that if the soil is left uncultivated, weeds will spring up, the 

 metaphor, though no proof, but a statement of the thing to be proved, 



