ii8 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVIII. No. 447 



SCIENCE; 



A WSM^LY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES. 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



Subscriptions.— United States and Canada ...$3.50 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4.50 a year. 



Communications will be welcomed from any quarter. Abstracts of scientific 

 papers are solicited, and one hundred copies of the issue containing such will 

 be mailed the author on request in advance. Rejected manuscripts "will be 

 returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accom- 

 panies the manuscript. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti- 

 cated by the name and address of the writer; not necessarily for publication, 

 but as a guaranty of good faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for 

 any view or opinions expressed in the communications of our correspondents. 



Attention is called to the "Wants" column. All are invited to use it in 

 soliciting information or seeking new positions. The name and address of 

 applicants should be given in full, so that answers will go direct to them. The 

 ** Exchange " column is likewise open. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ANALOGY.' 



By the natural history of analogy is meant the treatment 

 according to the methods of natural science of a type of 

 mental action interesting at once as a psychological process, 

 and again from its practical results as a factor in the an- 

 thropological history of the race. While logically an anal- 

 ogy may be defined as an inference of a further degree of 

 resemblance from a given degree of resemblance, it would 

 be well tt) include in the present survey types of argument 

 diverging somewhat from the standard. It should also be 

 borne in mind that these reasonings may be unconsciously 

 conducted without analysis, and yet be communicable from 

 mind to mmd, and influential in the fixation of belief and 

 the guidance of conduct. 



It will appear that the progress from the attitude of the 

 savage to that of the civilized man with respect to the un- 

 derstanding of the natural and physical world, may, to a 

 considerable extent, be regarded as a shifting of the position 

 occupied by the argument by analogy. It would appear, 

 too, that this form of argument, used by the scientist of to- 

 day only with the greatest caution, is a predominant one in 

 more primitive forms of thought. For example of such ar- 

 guments we turn to three departments of mental action, 

 closely related to one another, and each contributing to the 

 value of the general results. We look first amongst the 

 customs and beliefs of primitive people, then amongst the 

 doings and sayings of children, and thirdly amongst that 

 very extensive class of superstitions and folk-lore customs 

 which no nation, however high or low in the scale of civili- 

 zation, is without. The Zulu chewing a bit of wood to 

 soften the heart of the man he wants to buy oxen from, the 

 Illinois' Indian stabbing the figures of those whose days they 

 desire to shorten, the operation upon a lock of bair or the 

 parings of the finger-nails, together with the endless forms 



^ Abstract of an address before the Section of Anthropology of the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Science, at Washington, D.C., Aug. 

 19-25, 189], by Joseph Jastrow, vice-president of the section. 



of primitive witchcraft, rest upon the notion that one kind of 

 connection will bring with it others. The same idea under- 

 lies the customs directing and prohibiting the use of certain 

 food. The Malays eat tiger to acquire the cunning of that 

 animal, the Dyaks refuse to eat deer for fear of becoming 

 faint-hearted, and in the Mexican rite called the " eating of 

 the god " is found an elaborated form of the same belief. 



The interpretation of omens among primitive people also 

 proceeds by analogy, the relation between omen and issue 

 being guided by a sense of analogical fitness. To determine 

 whether war is to be upheld or let fall, a stick is set in a 

 bowl of rice, and if it stand the war is continued, and if it 

 fall the war is let fall also. A somewhat less direct form of 

 ana:logy appears in customs relating to images and names. 

 The name becomes an essential part of the thing, and thus 

 what is done to the name will affect the thing; hence the 

 origin of the taboo, changing of the name in case of sick- 

 ness, and the like. Even vaguer and more general princi- 

 ples of analogy may underlie important customs, such as. 

 that things go by contraries, for example, or that to produce 

 unusual effects, drastic means and rare substances must be 

 employed. The bizarre fancies, the grotesque performances,, 

 and the uncanny pharmacopoeia of the medicine-men in part 

 derive their character from this source. All these are but 

 partial illustrations of the savage's fondness for the use of 

 arguments by analogy and the naturalness with which he 

 observes and assimilates all phenomena according to this 

 habit. 



The study of children reveals evidence of similar argu- 

 ments, although the earnestness of the belief cannot be sa 

 readily tested. Moreover, we have no good collection of 

 children's sayings and doings for such examples. In spite 

 of this, however, their fondness for analogical arguments, 

 may be regarded as an additional point of resemblance con- 

 necting the infancy of the individual with that of the race. 



The superstitions current among us — survivals from a 

 culture which they are of to a culture which they are in — 

 abound in instances of analogy, simple and complex. Espe- 

 cially fertile fields for such instances are the beliefs concern- 

 ing dream-interpretation, those underlying the practices of 

 folk-medicine, those connected with names and numbers, 

 and, in more systematized form, the doctrine of sympathy, and. 

 signatures of astrology and kindred sciences. The modern 

 cheap dreambook is full of quaint arguments by analogy. 

 Whan it tells us that to dream of gloom means imprison- 

 ment, that the pine-apple in dreams is the omen of crosses; 

 and troubles, that to dream " of being mounted on stilts de- 

 notes that you are puffed up with vain pride," to dream of 

 onions indicates the betrayal of secrets, to dream "' of a dairy 

 showeth the dreamer to be of a milksop nature," and that a 

 zebra indicates a checkered life, — we see what various and 

 peculiar results may be reached by such logic. The manj' 

 customs and superstitions connected with such numbers as- 

 three, seven, and thirteen need but be referred to to show 

 bow thoroughly this variety of thought-habits is permeated 

 with the argument by analogy. 



The remedies of folk-medicine easily reveal the analogies 

 through which they originated. The connection of toads 

 with warts is due to nothing more than the warty appear- 

 ance of the toad's skin; the snail is used for ear-ache because 

 of the many snail-like passages in the ear, red things are 

 used for fevers, yellow things for liver complaints, and 

 many of the peculiar and disgusting remedies of our fore- 

 fathers clearly imply that out-of-the-way substances must 

 have special efficacy. 



