Europe, than the order of St. Francis. In Ireland at present, a peer holds a far higher station in society than a Roman Catholic priest, yet there are in Munster and Connaught few counties where a combination of priests would not carry an election against a combination of peers."-Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 333.

9. Examples are often employed in conversational dis

cussion.

In this case they usually assume the form of anecdotes. The word anecdote signifies not published, a meaning that does not apply in our times, as all anecdotes are sure to be published, and we have volumes of them upon almost every subject.

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All anecdotes are arguments. They all prove something, or may be so applied as to prove something; and they should, when related, be associated with the principle they are adapted to prove. "A writer of penetration," says Disraeli, sees connexions in literary anecdotes which are not immediately perceived by others: in his hands. anecdotes, even should they be familiar to us, are susceptible of deductions and inferences which become novel and important truths. Facts of themselves are barren: it is when these facts pass through reflections, and become interwoven with our feelings or our reasonings, that they are the finest illustrations; that they assume the dignity of philosophy teaching by example;' that in the moral world they are what the wise system of Bacon inculcated in the natural knowledge deduced from experiments-the study of nature in her operations. • When examples are pointed out to us,' says Lord Bolingbroke, there is a kind of appeal, with which we are flattered, made to cur senses as well as to our understandings. The instruction comes then from our authority-we yield to fact when we resist speculation."-Curiosities of Literature.

The principles of morality and religion are enforced by collections of anecdotes. We have seen books, both in French and English, entitled "The Beauties of History," in which the anecdotes gleaned from history are classified under the names of the moral virtues, as Industry, Filial affection, Humanity, &c. An "Encyclopedia of Religious Anecdotes" has recently been published by the Rev. Geo.

Cheever of New York; and Mr. Wilson, a Wesleyan clergyman, has published a collection under the title of "Facts and Incidents, illustrative of the Scripture Doctrines as set forth in the First and Second Catechisms of the Wesleyan Methodists."

As an anecdote records only one example, it may not of itself amount to proof; but it may be an additional item in the accumulated proofs by which a certain proposition is established. All travellers relate anecdotes denoting the peculiar characters of the people among whom they have travelled. This is in fact the chief kind of evidence we can have upon the subject. Travellers into the East have recorded many anecdotes tending to explain some of the passages of the Holy Scriptures. On this ground "Burder's Oriental Customs" and the writings of Dr. Kitto are exceedingly valuable. Some anecdotes refer only to individual character. You have an abundance of them in Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Anecdotes have often a good effect when discreetly related at public meetings. The Rev. R. Bickersteth of Clapham, in a speech before the Tract Society, thus illustrates the advantages that may be obtained from the union of a great number of small exertions:

"He remembered to have heard of a vessel being wrecked in one of the beautiful bays on the coast of that beautiful islandJersey. A number of the inhabitants crowded the cliff, and looked on with feelings of despair, for they felt that it was hopeless to attempt doing anything for the crew. At length it was suggested by one present that they should all hurry away, to find as much rope as possible, and then return to try to aid those who were in such jeopardy. The advice was acted upon, and some brought long pieces, and some short. Joining them all together, they stretched the united rope from cliff to cliff, suffering the middle of it to dip down into the unfortunate vessel stranded on the rocks. By that means the poor mariners were enabled to lash themselves to the cord, and were drawn up safely to the top of the cliff. Those who went to fetch the rope did not argue, because they could not bring a long piece, that therefore their contribution was useless; but they brought as much as they could, and all joined together effected the rescue."

We transcribe the following anecdotes from Sydney Smith, as illustrating the nature of wit, of a pun, and of a bull :

"WIT.-Louis XIV. was exceedingly molested by the solicitations 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. A 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."

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—

"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