FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 421 



would render the existence of B by so much more 

 probable, than if there had not been even that amount 

 of known connexion 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 correct- 

 ness 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 not so likely to 

 lay undue stress upon 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 arguments of analogy. There is 

 another, more properly deserving the name of fallacy ; 

 namely when resemblance in one point is inferred 

 from resemblance in another point, although there is 

 not only no evidence to connect the two circum- 

 stances by way of causation, but the evidence tends 

 positively 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 



