FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 427 



to be analogous, the same law is really operating ; that 

 between the known resemblance and the inferred one 

 there is some connexion by means of causation. 

 Cicero and Cato might have bandied opposite analo- 

 gies for ever : it rested with each of them to prove 

 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 circumstances upon 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 vividly com- 

 prehended what it is that the person who employs the 

 metaphor is proposing to make out ; and sometimes 

 also, by what media he proposes to do so. For an 

 apt metaphor, though it cannot prove, often suggests 

 the proof. 



For instance, when Mr. Carlyle, rebuking the 

 Byronic vein, says that " strength does not manifest 

 itself in spasms, but in stout bearing of burdens;" the 

 metaphor proves nothing, it is no argument, only an 

 allusion to an argument ; in no other way however 

 could so much of argument be so completely suggested 

 in so few words. In fact, this admirable expression 

 suggests a whole train of reasoning, which it would 

 take many sentences to write out at length. As thus: 

 Motions which are violent but brief, which lead to no 

 end, and are not under the control of the will, are, in 

 the physical body, more incident to a weak than to a 

 strong constitution. If this be owing to a cause 

 which equally operates in what relates to the mind, 

 the same conclusion will hold there likewise. But 

 such is really the fact. For the body's liability to 

 these sudden and uncontrollable motions arises from 

 irritability, that is, unusual susceptibility of being 



