310 DANGER OF ANALOGIES. 



qualities of all manner of esculent roots, stems, 

 leaves, and fruits, it would be passing strange if 

 their culture could do nothing for an oak tree, 

 but make it more worthless timber. If all the 

 earth were given to man for improvement, and he 

 had improved much of it as he actually has 

 done, it would be a perfect anomaly, if timber, 

 which is so very useful, should be the single 

 article on which he could not lay his hand of 

 culture without doing it an injury. It is impos- 

 sible to believe that such an anomaly can exist in 

 nature; and, therefore, the only way is to cate- 

 chise the man who makes the attempt ; and, if he 

 does not understand what he is doing, send 

 him back to nature to inform himself as to what 

 he should do. 



There is a custom, and a very inveterate custom 

 which we have, and that is the custom of gene- 

 ralizing analogies. If there be a way in which 

 one thing answers very well with us, we are apt 

 to think that same way will do as well in all other 

 things, even though the things are, in their nature, 

 quite different. We go about to persuade our- 

 selves that the way of doing one thing is the way 

 of doing every thing, just as Lord Peter, in 

 Swift's " Tale of a Tub," went about to persuade 

 his two brothers, Martin and Jack, that the brown 

 loaf was beef, and mutton, and venison, and 

 custard; and as we are always very willing to 

 believe ourselves, we are far more ready believers 

 than Lord Peter's brothers. 



Now, in all our cultivations of vegetables, there 

 is none save that of timber trees, in which the 

 quality of the wood is any consideration ; and 

 there is, perhaps, none of them in which the 



