ANALOGY. 97 



directors, but that Parliament stands in the same 

 relation to the nation in which a board of directors 

 stands to a joint stock company. Now, in an argu- 

 ment of this nature,, there is no inherent inferiority of 

 conclusiveness. Like other arguments from resem- 

 blance, it may amount to nothing, or it may be a 

 perfect and conclusive induction. The circumstance 

 in which the two cases resemble, may be capable of 

 being shown to be the material circumstance ; to be 

 that on which all the consequences, necessary to be 

 taken into account in the particular discussion, depend. 

 In the case in question, the resemblance is one of 

 relation ; the fundamentum relationis being the manage- 

 ment, by a few persons, of affairs in which a much 

 greater number are interested along with them. Now, 

 some may contend that this circumstance which is 

 common to the two cases, and the various conse- 

 quences which follow from it, have the chief share in 

 determining all those effects which make up what we 

 term good or bad administration. If they can esta- 

 blish this, their argument has the force of a rigid 

 induction : if they cannot, they are said to have failed 

 in proving the analogy between the two cases; a mode 

 of speech which implies that when the analogy can 

 be proved, the argument founded upon it cannot be 

 resisted. 



2. It is on the whole more usual, however, to 

 extend the name of analogical evidence to arguments 

 from any sort of resemblance, provided they do not 

 amount to a complete induction; without peculiarly 

 distinguishing resemblance of relations. Analogical 

 reasoning, in this sense, may be reduced to the follow- 

 ing formula: Two things resemble each other in one 

 or more respects ; a certain proposition is true of the 



VOL. II. H 



