William Atkinson - The Essential Works of William Walker Atkinson - 50+ Books in One Edition

Reid says: “We may observe a very great similitude between this earth which we inherit, and the other planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. They all revolve around the sun, as the earth does, although at different distances and in different periods. They borrow all their light from the sun, as the earth does. Several of them are known to revolve around their axis like the earth, and by that means have like succession of day and night. Some of them have moons, that serve to give them light in the absence of the sun, as our moon does to us. They are all, in their motions, subject to the same law of gravitation as the earth is. From all this similitude it is not unreasonable to think that these planets may, like our earth, be the habitation of various orders of living creatures. There is some probability in this conclusion from analogy.”

Argument based upon Analogy is quite popular, and in many cases it is valid. From the very nature of things we are compelled to resort to this form of reasoning and expression in the absence of the direct proof of positive evidences of the senses covering the entire proposition or points at issue. As Brooks says: “This principle is in constant application in ordinary life and in science. A physician visiting a patient, says this disease corresponds in several particulars with typhoid fever, hence it will correspond in all particulars, and is typhoid fever. So, when a geologist discovers a fossil animal with large, strong, blunt claws, he infers that it procured its food by scratching or burrowing in the earth. It was by analogy that Dr. Buckland constructed an animal from a few fossil bones, and, when subsequently the bones of the entire animal were discovered, his construction was found to be correct.”

But there is a limit to reasoning by Analogy, and the argument based thereon. There is a great danger of falling into the fallacies connected with this form of reasoning—and, in fact, many speakers deliberately advance these fallacies hoping thereby to deceive and delude their hearers. Jevons says: “Reasoning by analogy is found to be a very uncertain guide. In some cases unfortunate mistakes are committed. Children are sometimes killed by gathering and eating poisonous berries, wrongly inferring that they can be eaten, because other berries, of a somewhat similar appearance, have been found agreeable and harmless. Poisonous toadstools are occasionally mistaken for mushrooms, especially by persons not accustomed to gather them. * * * The beaten dog fears every stick, and there are few dogs which will not run away when you pretend to pick up a stone, even though there be no stone to pick up.”

Brooks says: “The argument from Analogy is plausible, but often deceptive. Thus to infer that since American swans are white the Australian swan is white, gives a false conclusion, for it is really black. So to infer that because John Smith has a red nose, and is a drunkard, that Henry Jones who has also a red nose is also a drunkard, would be a dangerous inference. * * * Conclusions of this kind, drawn from analogy, are frequently fallacious. Mandeville uses the following argument against popular education: ‘If the horse knew enough, he would soon throw his rider.’ He intends to imply two pairs of related terms; thus ‘As the horse is to the rider, so are the people to their rulers;’ which is, of course, a fallacy, since the relations are not similar.”

Hill says: “* * * the danger lies in making a hasty generalization from insufficient data and ignoring whatever supports an opposite conclusion. This fallacy is committed by those who argue from the examples of Franklin and Lincoln that men who do not go to college are more likely to succeed in life than men who do, and by those who argue from a few instances of the use or non-use of tobacco, that marriage or celibacy conduces to a long life, that a quick temper goes with red hair, or good nature with blue eyes, that a college degree implies scholarship.”

Jevons says: “There is no way in which we can really assure ourselves that we are arguing safely by analogy.” Brooks says: “The probability of analogy depends upon the number of observed resemblances. Every similarity which is noticed between two objects increases the probability that the two objects resemble each other in some other property. * * * In comparing two objects, the differences as well as the similarities must be taken into consideration.”

Many persons, untrained in logical thinking, ·often mistake figurative illustrations, metaphor, etc., for forms of analogous proof. Hill says: “One who perceives many analogies is in danger of mistaking fanciful for real ones, of making a mere metaphor do duty as an argument.” Mill cites Bacon as being “equally conspicuous in the use and abuse of figurative illustration.” “George Eliot says: “O Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being “the freshest modern” instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with a lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor— that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is something else!”

Argument based upon Association has for its general principle the well-known Law of the Association of Ideas and Things. This form of argument is closely allied to what is called Circumstantial Evidence. Hyslop says: “This is a form of inductive and synthetic proof, and is that form of argument which endeavors to prove a thesis by the presence of certain signs or incidents which suggest it. * * * A man is charged with murder. We wish to prove the accusation. We find certain characteristics in the boot tracks going away from the murdered person. If we find that the boots of the accused correspond exactly to these characteristics, we have at least presumptive evidence of his guilt. If, further, we find that the accused possesses bullets or slugs like those found in the body of the murdered person, we have corroborative circumstantial evidence. Unless this can be of a large and cumulative amount or of a particular quality, it does not suffice for demonstrative proof, but only establishes a certain degree of probability. It is simply an argument from certain signs, marks, characteristics, coincidences, etc., to the probability that a given thesis is true. Whenever we argue from any given attribute or phenomenon to an unknown cause, we in fact employ the argument from circumstantial evidence * * *”

Hill says: “The force of an argument from sign (association) depends, moreover, not upon the magnitude of that which serves as a sign, but also upon the closeness of its connection with the thing signified. It matters not how trifling a circumstance is in itself if it is a link in a chain of evidence. ‘A skilful forgery is detected by an inspection of small points; a mutilated body has been identified by a peculiarity of the teeth; a murderer has been tracked by the print of the nails in his shoes.”

This form of Argument is generally associated with a Hypothesis, the associated ideas and facts, and the circumstantial evidence, serving to support or sustain the hypothesis itself. A hypothesis is: “A supposition or conjecture to account for facts or phenomena.” The probability of a hypothesis is determined by the number of facts and phenomena it will explain. The larger the number of facts and phenomena explained or accounted for by a hypothesis, the greater is held to be its degree of probability. Verification of a hypothesis is obtained by showing that it will account for all the facts and phenomena in question. Some authorities hold that more than this is required for verification, and that perfect verification exists not simply when the hypothesis will account for all the facts and phenomena, but when also there is no other possible hypothesis which will account for them. It has been often found that an entire structure of circumstantial evidence built up around a certain hypothesis will also answer to verify another, and a totally different hypothesis.