British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV: July and October, 1871Various
History
British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV: July and October, 1871
Various
English periodicals
In the third place, so far as bridging the chasm between the two
orders of phenomena, it is not accomplished by the poetic intuition (to
which we shall immediately refer), but by the human intellect, it
seems legitimated by _analogy_. In our inductive interpretation of
nature we perceive resemblances, and infer a likeness. 'Analogy is the
soul of induction.' If, therefore, it be an illicit act of the reason
which ventures to trace a parallel between nature and man, and
interpret the former by the latter, how fares it with the foundations
of human knowledge, and with the pillars of science herself? Is not
all physical science the rational interpretation of nature? If we may
not read the meaning of the great central force in the light of that
force which we carry in the will, how can we warrantably interpret the
laws of nature, in the light of that which we carry in the intellect?
Are we not left in uncertainty as to the character of the entire
fabric of our knowledge? The oracle is altogether dumb. If the way
which seems to lead from the interior of the human will into the
temple of outward nature be really a _cul-de-sac_, what warrant have
we for opening a door on the other side, and walking down the avenues
of positive science, imagining that in these pathways we shall find
the only key to nature? To bring the analogy into effect, let us take
two instances: the force with which I discharge a projectile and the
force of gravitation. The former proceeds from the will, which is the
originating power, though mechanical and physiological causes
intervene. Since, therefore, similar effects have similar or
resembling causes, it is a strictly analogical inference that as the
effects correspond, the causes will resemble each other, and the
essential part of the correspondence will not consist in the apparatus
used (the phenomena), but in the will underlying, which is
noumenal.[17]
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