"WIT.-Louis XIV. was exceedingly molested by the solici tations of a general officer at the levee, and cried out loud enough to be overheard, 'That gentleman is the most troublesome officer in the whole army.' The officer replied, "Your majesty's enemies have more than once said the same thing."""A PUN.-Miss Hamilton, in her book on education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful that he could never be brought to read the word patriarchs, but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her that it could hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game of the patriarchs."-"A BULL.-A gentleman, in speaking of a nobleman's wife of great rank and fortune, lamented very much that she had no children. medical gentleman who was present observed, that to have no children was a great misfortune, but he thought he had remarked that it was hereditary in some families."

A

The following anecdote may be related to illustrate the rule that when you have advanced arguments enough to prove your point you should advance no more.

"EIGHTEEN REASONS FOR ABSENCE.-The Prince of Condé passing through Beaune, the public authorities went to meet him at the gates of the town. After many high-flown compliments, the mayor added:-'To display our joy, we wished to receive you with the reports of a numerous artillery, but we have not been able to fire the cannons for eighteen reasons;-in the first place, we have none: secondly,'-My good friend,' said the prince, 'the first reason is so good, I will excuse the other seventeen.' -Laughing Philosopher.

It is well to store our minds with anecdotes. But every anecdote should be associated with some principle that it is adapted to prove or to illustrate. Then the recollection of the anecdote will remind us of the principle, and the recollection of the principle will remind us of the anecdote. When you relate them, they should be related in illustration of the principle that may be the subject of the conversation, and introduced with propriety and good taste. Do not tell long anecdotes, as they will become tedious. If any other person is about to relate an anecdote that you know, do not interrupt him, but observe how he relates it, that you may learn to relate it better yourself. There is an art in this as in other things. It is generally best to begin with the time or occasion when the event occurred, then the

persons, and then the actions. The following will illustrate the order I mean :-" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." "While he was teaching in the temple the Pharisees came unto him." The gist or point of the anecdote should always be related last. To learn how anecdotes may be related argumentatively, read Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature.

SECTION II.

REASONING FROM ANALOGY, COMPARISON, AND CONTRAST.

ANALOGY is different from either deduction or induction. The word analogy means resemblance. By "reasoning from analogy" we mean reasoning about one thing from its resemblance to another thing.

1. The following are examples of this kind of reasoning: "And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better that a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days."-Matt. xii. 10-12.

"It would be a very curious question to agitate, how far understanding is transmitted from parent to child; and within what limits it can be improved by culture: whether all men are born equal with respect to their understanding; or whether there is an original diversity antecedent to all imitation and instruction. The analogy of animals is in favour of the transmissibility of mind. Some ill-tempered horses constantly breed ill-tempered colts; and the foal never has seen the sire, therefore, in this, there can be no imitation. If the eggs of a wild duck are hatched under a tame duck, the young brood will be much wilder than any common brood of poultry: if they are kept all their lives in a farm-yard, and treated kindly, and fed well, their eggs hatched under another bird produce a much tamer race."-Sydney Smith's Sketches of Moral Philosophy.

'I suppose it will be allowed, that, to advance a direct falsehood, in recommendation of our wares, by ascribing to them some quality which we know that they have not, is dishonest. Now, compare with this the designed concealment of some fault, which

we know that they have; the motive in these two cases is the same, and the prejudice to the buyer is also the same.

The practice of passing bad money is sometimes defended by a vulgar excuse, that we have taken the money for good, and must therefore get rid of it. Which excuse is much the same as if one who had been robbed on the highway, should imagine he had a right to reimburse himself out of the pocket of the first traveller he met."-Paley's Moral Philosophy.

2. We shall now show the application of this kind of reasoning to several of the sciences.

"In almost every department of human knowledge," says Mr. Blakey, "analogical reasonings are employed to a great extent, and are found to be of great utility. In the science of comparative anatomy, for example, it is of singular importance to trace out the resemblances between the structures of different animals, their organs of sensation, digestion, and motion; and from this analogical inquiry we may draw useful conclusions for the government of our own conduct and constitution, and the promotion of our interests. For example, we make experiments with certain kinds of food on the digestive organs of dogs, and from these we infer or draw conclusions that such and such effects will result to ourselves from taking these same kinds of food and these experiments have often led to the formation of rules of diet and regimen of considerable importance to our bodily health. Many highly beneficial discoveries in medicine may be traced to experiments and observations made upon the inferior animals, founded upon the resemblance between their functions of life and our own."-Essay on Logic.

The principle of analogy has been applied to some of our reasonings in connexion with astronomy. We have given you one example of this at page 42. Here is another—

ck

"A person on the earth can no more be sensible of its undisturbed motion on its axis, than one in the cabin of a ship on smooth water, can be sensible of the ship's motion, when it turns gently and uniformly round. It is, therefore, no argument against the earth's diurnal motion, that we do not feel it, nor is the apparent revolution of the celestial bodies every day a proof or the reality of these motions, for whether we or they revolve, the appearance is the very same. A person looking through the cabin windows of a ship, as strongly fancies the objects on land to go

round when the ship turns, as if they were actually in motion." -Encyclopædia Britannica.

The principle of analogy is also often employed in our moral reasonings.

"Public companies are analogous to other collective bodies who are acknowledged to be moral agents.

“It will not be denied that a nation may declare an unjust war -may carry it on in a cruel manner-may treat a conquered nation with oppression, or may conduct a treaty of peace with duplicity and fraud. Nor will it be denied, that a nation may become immoral by the extinction of moral feeling in its rulers, and throughout the population."

As, then, large bodies of men, like nations, are rewarded or punished in their collective capacity, for their virtuous or vicious actions, it would seem to follow, that smaller bodies of men, like public companies, may be subjected to the same moral discipline.

"A public company, like a nation, is composed of a number of individuals who have a government for the regulation of their affairs, and whose acts are considered as the acts of the whole body. It is true that a public company is composed of a smaller number of persons than a nation, but that cannot affect the moral character of its actions. It is also true, that while a nation must always act through its government, a public company may, and often does, at the general meeting of its shareholders, act independently of its government; but neither can this alter its moral agency, for whether the form of government be aristocratical or democratical, the duties of a nation, or of a public company, remain the same.

"In opposition to this doctrine, it may be contended that, to render public bodies of men responsible in their collective capacity, would be destructive of personal or individual responsibility. But this is not the case. A nation may be punished for its national crimes, and yet the individual who may have caused these crimes, may sustain an individual punishment. Thus, Jeroboam, Ahab, and other kings of Israel were individually punished, while, at the same time, the nation was also punished in its collective capacity. So a public company may be punished or rewarded for its actions, while, at the same time, any individual who caused these actions, may also be personally rewarded or punished. It may too be objected, that if a public company is to be punished, as such, for its acts, then all the partners would share in the punishment, though many of them may have been quite innocent of the crime. To this we answer, that the same objection would apply to the doctrine of national responsibility.* It is not pos

* The logical reader need not be reminded, that in arguments from analogy it is a sufficient answer to an objection to show that the objection applies with equa

H

sible in the case of a large body of men, for every individual to take part in its actions. The act of the authorized government, or of the majority of the members, must be regarded as the act of the whole community, and every individual must share in the prosperity or adversity resulting from such acts."-Gilbart's Practical Treatise on Banking.

Analogy is also used in legal argumentation :—

"When a point of law has been once adjudged, neither that question, nor any which completely and in all its circumstances corresponds with that, can be brought a second time into dispute : but questions arise, which resemble this only indirectly and in part, in certain views and circumstances, and which may seem to bear an equal or a greater affinity to other adjudged cases; questions which can be brought within any affixed rule only by analogy, and which hold a relation by analogy to different rules. It is by the urging of these different analogies that the contention of the bar is carried on: and it is in the comparison, adjustment, and reconciliation of them with one another; in the discerning of such distinctions, and in the framing of such a determination, as may either save the various rules alleged in the cause, or, if that be impossible, may give up the weaker analogy to the stronger, that the sagacity and wisdom of the court are seen and exercised. Amongst a thousand instances of this, we may cite one of general notoriety, in the contest that has lately been agitated concerning literary property. The personal industry which an author expends upon the composition of his work, bears so near a resemblance to that by which every other kind of property is earned, or deserved, or acquired; or rather there exists such a correspondency between what is created by the study of a man's mind, and the production of his labour in any other way of applying it, that he seems entitled to the same exclusive, assignable, and perpetual right in both; and that right to the same protection of law. This was the analogy contended for on one side. On the other hand, a book, as to the author's right in it, appears similar to an invention of art, as a machine, an engine, a medicine: and since the law permits these to be copied and imitated, except where an exclusive use or sale is reserved to the inventor by patent, the same liberty should be allowed in the publication and sale of books. This was the analogy maintained by the advocates of an force to the doctrine from which the analogy is drawn. Thus, in the text, the moral responsibility of nations is assumed as admitted by all parties, and, therefore, requiring no further proof. From the resemblance, or analogy between the two cases, we infer the moral responsibility of public companies. It is, therefore, a sufficient answer to any objection against the latter doctrine, to show that it will equally apply to the former. Indeed, the more numerous the objections, if they will apply equally in both cases, the more the argument is strengthened; as they are confirmatory of the soundness of the analogy.