32 LITERARY VALUES 



and a vital analogy may reach and move the reason. 

 Thus when Eenan, referring to the decay of the old 

 religious beliefs, says that people are no poorer for 

 being robbed of false bank notes and bogus shares, 

 his comparison has a logical validity, — as has also 

 Herbert Spencer's figure when he says, " The illusion 

 that great men and great events came oftener in early 

 times than now is partly due to historical perspec- 

 tive. As in a range of equidistant columns the far- 

 thest off look the closest, so the conspicuous objects 

 of the past seem more thickly clustered the more 

 remote they are." We seem to see the identity of 

 law in both these cases. We are treated to a pic- 

 torial argument. 



We are using analogy in a legitimate and forceful 

 way when we speak of our fund or capital of bodily 

 health and strength, and of squandering or impairing 

 it, or of investing it poorly. 



The accidental analogies or likenesses are limit- 

 less and are the great stock in trade of most writers 

 and speakers. They tickle the fancy and enliven 

 the page or the discourse. But essential analogies, 

 or those that spring from unity of law, are more 

 rare. These have the force of logic; they shed a 

 steady light. 



St. Paul's famous comparison of the body dead 

 and buried with the seed in the soil, which, he says, 

 dies before it can grow, is used with logical intent. 

 But will it bear examination ? Is the germinating 

 seed dead in any sense that the body is dead ? It is 

 no more dead than the egg buried beneath the mo- 



