146 RECONSTRUCTION. 



analogy, our principle of explanation Is chopped and 

 chipped, In deference to the apparent exigencies of 

 the facts, until its elements may at last become 

 mutually contradictory, and the original points of 

 analogy may entirely disappear. We have already 

 had occasion to criticize such confused anthropo- 

 morphisms from a sceptical point of view (ch. Hi. § 4), 

 and shall have further occasion to do so from that 

 of a consistent and conscious anthropomorphism. 

 And yet it is In the Interests of these weatherbeaten 

 old anthropomorphisms, whose original shape is often 

 scarce recognizable, that protests are generally raised 

 against anthropomorphism which keeps closer to the 

 primary principles of explanation. This confused 

 anthropomorphism, though not often wholly wrong, 

 Is generally ridiculous, and its claims to superiority 

 over the rest are simply monstrous. For even 

 where the mutilations It has suffered In the course 

 of its chequered career have not rendered It unfit 

 for service, even where its modifications have 

 brought it nearer to the facts, it is a lamentable 

 truth that just in proportion as it departs from the 

 analogy of human action its value as an explanation 

 diminishes, and the process it attempts to describe 

 becomes as unintelligible as it was before explan- 

 ation was essayed at all. The absolute Infinite, e.g. 

 may be the full and final explanation of all things, 

 only unfortunately it is a conception which has 

 exalted Itself so far beyond our grasp that it appears 

 to the human reason a mere bundle of contradict- 

 ions. Again, when a soporific virtue Is assigned 

 as the reason why poppies put us to sleep, and a 

 universal force of gravitation as the reason why 

 bodies attract one another, we feel that the value of 

 the explanation has been reduced to a minimum. 



