REMARKS ON ANALOGIES. Ill 



ficult to be explained in no unsatisfactory manner. The 

 other three analogies, having already been enlarged upon, 

 require no further elucidation, but may be left to speak 

 for themselves. 



{99'} Before proceeding further in this inquiry, 

 we shall here irtroduce a few observations upon the 

 nature of analogies in general, which have only been 

 glanced at in our former volumes; the more so, be- 

 cause, upon further reflection, some considerations have 

 arisen which seem to us of much importance. It has 

 not been — although it may be — objected to these tables 

 of analogies, that the resemblance between two groups, 

 supposed to represent each other, is usually confined 

 to two, and often to one, analogical character only; 

 "while, in all other points of structure, there is a marked 

 dissimilarity. This objection, upon a first view, seems 

 not easily surmounted, because it may be further urged 

 — If these two groups really represent each other, why 

 are they not more ahke ? Why are we so frequently 

 obliged to labour and search for the purpose of finding a 

 single point of resemblance^ which^ after all, is sometimes 

 so trivial, and depends on a modification of structure 

 so secondary, that no great importance can be attached 

 to it ? To this w^e should reply, that the importance of 

 a character is by no means to be measured by mere in- 

 dividual or preconceived opinions, but by its constancy 

 in certain groups, whereby affinities or analogies may be 

 detected. And in answer to the main objection, we main- 

 tain that this paucity of mutual or common characters, 

 so far from being a stumbling-block, is both inevitable 

 and essential to our theory. Did two analogous groups 

 present such strong resemblances, in most of their cha- 

 racters, that every one would immediately confess the 

 likeness, there would not be a hundredth part of that 

 variety in nature which actually exists. This will be 

 apparent to the reader, when he remembers^ that, on the 

 principle of universal representation which we now 

 assume, every group shows an analogy, direct or in- 



