Moreover the procedure, where the analogy is justified, is complex.
“With insight,” says Trendelenburg, “did the ancients regard analogy as
important. The power of analogy lies in the construction and induction
of a general term which binds the subconcept with regard to which a
conclusion is desired, together with the individual object which is
compared with the first, and which is to appear as a mediating concept
but can not. This new general term is not, however, the highest concept
among the three termini of the conclusion; it is the middle one and is
nothing else than the terminus medius of the first figure.” This clear
statement shows not only how circumstantial every conclusion from
analogy is, but also how little it achieves. There is hardly any doubt
of the well-known fact that science has much to thank analogy for, since
analogy is the simplest and easiest means for progress in thought. If
anything is established in any one direction but progress is desired in
another, then the attempt is made to adapt what is known to the
proximate unknown and to draw the possible inference by analogy.
Thousands upon thousands of analogies have been attempted and have
failed,--but no matter; one successful one became a hypothesis and
finally an important natural law. In our work, however, the case is
altogether different, for we are not concerned with the construction of
hypotheses, we are concerned with the discovering of truth, or with the
recognition that it cannot be discovered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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