236 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. VIII. 



the direct method with respect to analogy, and then, if 

 necessary, deduce by reciprocation the theory of puns. 



" That analogies appear to exist is plain in the face of 

 things, for all parables, fables, similes, metaphors, tropes, and 

 figures of speech are analogies, natural or revealed, artificial or 

 concealed. The question is entirely of their reality. Now, no 

 question exists as to the possibility of an analogy without a 

 mind to recognise it that is rank nonsense. You might as 

 well talk of a demonstration or refutation existing uncondi- 

 tionally. Neither is there any question as to the occurrence 

 of analogies to our minds. They are as plenty as reasons, 

 not to say blackberries. For, not to mention all the things 

 in external nature which men have seen as the projections of 

 things in their own minds, the whole framework of science, 

 up to the very pinnacle of philosophy, seems sometimes a dis- 

 sected model of nature, and sometimes a natural growth on 

 the inner surface of the mind. Now, if in examining the 

 admitted truths in science and philosophy, we find certain 

 general principles appearing throughout a vast range of 

 subjects, and sometimes re-appearing in some quite distinct 

 part of human knowledge ; and if, on turning to the con- 

 stitution of the intellect itself, we think we can discern there 

 the reason of this uniformity, in the form of a fundamental 

 law of the right action of the intellect, are we to conclude 

 that these various departments of nature in which analogous 

 laws exist, have a real inter -dependence ; or that their rela- 

 tion is only apparent and owing to the necessary condi- 

 tions of human thought ? 



" There is nothing more essential to the right under- 

 standing of things than a perception of the relations of 

 number. Now the very first notion of number implies a 

 previous act of intelligence. Before we can count any 

 number of things, we must pick them out of the universe, 

 and give each of them a fictitious unity by definition. Until 

 we have done this, the universe of sense is neither one nor 

 many, but indefinite. But yet, do what we will, Nature 

 seems to have a certain horror of partition. Perhaps the 

 most natural thing to count " one " for is a man or human 



