relations and indifference to sensuous and poetic effects was a born natural philosopher, or Milton by the opposite character was a born poet. That nature should chance to turn out a legal mind is not singular or surprising, for it is only a variety of the scientific or logical intellect using verbal forms as the instrument, and implying an obtuseness to all the more popular and interesting features of human life. To secure a vigorous uniformity of dealing with disputes, scientific definitions must be made and equally applied in spite of the widest diversity in the cases; even though the consequence sometimes be that a wrongdoer is set free and an innocent man punished. The same remark would apply to the discrimination of disease by the medical practitioner. To identify a set of symptoms with former cases on the real circumstance that determines the disease and the treatment, and not on a circumstance pointing to some other disease, is the essence of professional skill. No incidental accompaniments must blind him to the true features of identity; his sense of the essential symptoms needs to be keen and unwavering in the midst of a variety of confusing elements. If the natural impressibility of his eye, or his hand, be for appearances or effects not relevant in the discrimination of disease, he lodges an enemy in his own frame, and would better have sought some other occupation. In such a mind the greater the force of similarity the more misleading its workings, until a laborious education has made the faint but true perceptions victorious over the vivid and false. 40. The last form of practical ability that I shall here advert to is Persuasion. This implies that some course of conduct shall be so described or expressed as to coincide, or be identified, with the active impulses of the individuals addressed, and thereby command their adoption of it by the force of their own natural dispositions. A leader of banditti has to deal with a class of persons whose ruling impulse is plunder; and it becomes his business to show them that any scheme of his proposing will lead to this end. A people with an intense overpowering patriotism, as the old Romans, can be acted on by showing them that the interests of country are at M M stake. The fertile oratorical mind is one that can identify a case in hand with a great number of the strongest beliefs of an audience; and more especially with those that seem at first sight to have no connexion with the point to be carried. The discovery of identity in diversity is never more called for than in the attempts to move men to adopt some new and unwonted course of proceeding. When some new reform is introduced in the state, it is usually thought necessary to reconcile and identify it in many ways with the ancient venerated constitution, or with the prevailing maxims and modes of feeling with which it would seem at variance. To be a persuasive speaker it is necessary to have vividly present to the view all the leading impulses and convictions of the persons addressed, and to be ready to catch at every point of identity between these and the propositions or projects presented for their adoption. The first of these qualifications grows out of the experience and study of character; the other is the natural force of similarity, which has often been exemplified in its highest range in oratorical minds. In the speeches of Burke we see it working with remarkable vigour. Perhaps the most striking instance of this fertility of identification for persuasive ends is exhibited in Milton's Defence of Unlicensed Printing. Of the class of preachers, Barrow is among the most abundant in his command of topics of persuasion and inducement towards the performance of religious and moral duties; in him no less than in Milton we have everywhere the tokens of an identifying mind of the highest order, ILLUSTRATIVE COMPARISONS AND LITERARY ART. 41. When two remote phenomena are brought into comparison by a flash of the identifying intellect, they may turn out to be repetitions of the same natural power working in different situations, as in the cases of lightning and the electrical discharge, the fall of a stone and the moon's gravitation to the earth. The comparison in these cases is real or substantial. It is illustrative and instructive in no ordinary ILLUSTRATIONS FOR AIDING COMPREHENSION. 531 degree, but it is more than an illustration, it is a scientific discovery. The two things identified are so thoroughly of a piece that we can go all lengths in reasoning from the one to the other. But there is also a useful class of comparisons where real identity is wanting; the likeness being yet sufficient to aid us in comprehending the more obscure and remote by the more intelligible and familiar of the two; as when in speaking of the action of supply and demand in commerce we say that these are constantly finding their level. Here the subjects compared are of quite different nature, the one belonging to the province of mind, and somewhat obscure, while the other is a physical phenomenon of a very palpable and intelligible sort. Illustration after this fashion is one of our devices for representing to the mind what is either naturally obscure or accidentally concealed from the view. If we can only see enough of the object to suggest an appropriate comparison, we make use of this to supply the rest. The force of similarity finds extensive scope in this department of invention. Illustration is particularly wanted to convey scientific notions and abstractions. These are often so artificial and abstruse that an ordinary mind has great difficulty in seizing them. The propagation of the pulses of sound, the phenomena of latent heat, polarity, chemical affinity,-all admit of elucidation by illustrative similes. Human actions, feelings, and thoughts, are often so concealed in their workings, that they cannot be represented without the assistance of material objects used as comparisons; hence the great abundance of the resemblances struck between matter and mind. We speak of a clear head, a warm heart, a torrent of passion, a poet's fire. The comparisons brought to bear upon the complexities of social life are likewise very numerous; in fact there are many social phenomena that we never conceive otherwise than in some matrix of material analogy. If we take for example the different ideas connected with social order and disorder, we find the language almost wholly derived from other things; scarcely a phrase is literal, all is metaphorical. 'The vessel of the state weathers the storm, or is in danger of wreck;' anarchy is described ' chaos,' 'confusion;' the govern ment is said to be shaken,' or 'stable,' or 'tottering;' law is erected,' 'overthrown.' We speak of the 'life' and 'growth' of society; when we conceive of progress it is generally in a figure; we call it 'movement,'' development,' ' enlightenment,' and so forth. Of all existing compositions, the writings of Lord Bacon are perhaps the richest in illustrative comparisons of the kind now under discussion; not being scientific identities, and yet serving in an eminent degree the purpose of assisting the popular intellect to embrace difficult notions. In virtue of this surprising power, Bacon's doctrines became clothed in 'winged words.' According to him, science is the 'interpretation' of nature; a comparison that transfixes the mind with. the idea of observing, recording, and explaining the facts of the world. Final causes, he says, are 'vestal virgins;' they bear no fruit. But for the simile, it is doubtful if this notion would have stuck in men's minds and been the subject of keen controversy in the way that we have seen. His classification of Instances' or forms of experiment and proof, is wholly embedded in strong metaphors; the 'experimentum crucis,' the leading post between two ways, has been adopted in every civilized tongue. Fallacies or modes of mental bias are with him 'idols;' idols of the tribe,' idols of the 'den,' idols of the market-place,' idols of the theatre.' A remarkably powerful identifying intellect, working upon the concrete facts of nature and human life and the history and literature of the past, is implied in this mode of genius, of which Bacon is the highest instance. The susceptibility to certain classes of objects and impressions determines the particular element that the resuscitating faculty must work in; and in some men this susceptibility is to the concrete in general, rather than to the select and narrow class of the artistic or poetic concrete. Thus although Bacon's imagery sometimes rises to poetry, this is not its general character; his was not a poetic sense of nature, but a broad general susceptibility, partaking more of the natural historian than of the poet; by which all the objects coming before his view or presented to his imagination took a deep hold, and by the help of POETIC ILLUSTRATION. 533 his intense attraction of similarity were recalled on the slightest similitude. Many great writers in English literature have had this strong susceptibility to the sensible world at large, without a special poetic sense; while some have had the poetic feeling superadded; these last are our greatest poets, Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare. 42. This leads me to notice the second class of illustrative comparisons, those serving not for intellectual comprehension, but for ornament, effect, or emotion. I have said that Bacon's comparisons rarely grew out of a poetic choice, though from their reach, their aptness, and their occasional picturesqueness, they might sometimes be quoted as a kind of poetry. His purpose was to enlighten, not to adorn. But similarity is the instrument of adding ornament and force to compositions; when an idea or picture is intended to kindle emotion of any kind, the effect can always be heightened by adducing illustrative comparisons more impressive than the original. When Sir Philip Sydney, to describe the moving effect of the ballad of Chevy Chase, says that it stirs the heart like the sound of a trumpet,' he enforces a weaker impression by one much stronger as well as more familiar. The following lines of Chaucer contain two exquisite comparisons for enriching the emotional effect of the subject; it is part of his description of the youthful Squire. Embroided was he, as it were a mead, He was as fresh as is the month of May. To find powerful and touching comparisons in keeping with the original subject of the description is one of the constant endeavours of the poet, and puts his genius to the severest test. But the same demand is made upon the orator, who has also to stir up the emotions of his audience, to kindle their likings and dislikings with a view of moving them in some one direction. Hence in oratory of every kind we find abundant use of the figures of speech growing out of comparison. In panegyric, elevating similitudes are employed, in denunciation such as degrade. Derision and merriment grow |