36 LITERARY VALUES 



tion, based upon our own solar system, is that they 

 have. But could we infer other suns, from the ex- 

 istence of our own, were no others visible ? Could 

 we predict the future of the earth did we not know 

 its past, or read aright its past did we not know its 

 present state ? From an arc we can complete a cir- 

 cle. We can read the big in the little. The mo- 

 tion of a top throws light upon the motion of the 

 earth. An ingenious mind finds types everywhere, 

 but real analogies are not so common. 



The likeness of one thing with another may be 

 valid and real, but the likeness of a thought with a 

 thing is often merely fanciful. We very frequently 

 unconsciously counterfeit external objects and laws 

 in the region of mind and morals. Out of a physi- 

 cal fact or condition we fabricate a mental or spirit- 

 ual condition or experience to correspond. Thus a 

 current journal takes the fact that the sun obscures 

 but does not put out the light of the moon and the 

 stars, and from it draws the inference that the light 

 of science may dim but cannot blot out the objects of 

 faith. It counterfeits this fact and seeks to give it 

 equal force and value in the spiritual realm. The 

 objects of faith may be as real and as unquenchable 

 as the stars, but this is the very point in dispute, and 

 the analogy used assumes the thing to be proved. If 

 the objects of faith are real, then the light of science 

 will not put them out any more than the sun puts 

 out the stars ; but the fact that the stars are there, 

 notwithstanding the sunlight, proves nothing with 

 regard to the reality of the objects of faith. The 



