press. A new work on "Church and State," by Lord Robert Montague, is promised by Messrs. Longman. Sir Benjamin Brodie's works are to be issued in a collected edition, with an autobiographical memoir edited by Mr. C. Hawkins. The Longmans have had moveable types of the Egyptian character produced expressly for the completion of Bunsen's work on "Egypt's Place in Universal History." The census of 1861 enumerates the "authors, editors, and writers" of England and Wales as 1,528 males and 145 feinales, an increase altogether of five dozen over those of 1851; 24 of the former, 36 of the latter. Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" is being translated into Arabic by Sheikh Faris Effendi Shedrak. Rev. Orby Shipley is editing "Lyra Messianica," original and selected. Dr. C. Mackay (b. 1814), author of "Voices from the Crowd," &c., bas in the press "Studies from the Antique, and Sketches from Nature," a book of poems. "Lives of the Lord Mayors of London," by Mrs. Hall, are announced. Henry Fawcett, M A., author of a "Manual of Folitical Economy," has been appointed (unendowed?) Professor of that science at Cambridge. Rev. J. B. M'Caul is preparing & Biography of his father, Dr. A. M'Caul. Messrs. Murray promise Vols. I. to III. of a new edition of Pope's Works, with new Life, Introduction, and Notes, by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin, editor of the Quarterly. Wm. Robson, author of "The Old Playgoer," ," "The Great Sieges of History," translator of Michaud's "Crusades," Bonnechose's "France," &c., died 17th Nov., aged 78. J. Neuberg's translation of Carlyle's "Frederick" has been issued as a people's edition. Prescott's "Life," by George Ticknor, is out. Cousin, it is said, has bequeathed his extensive library to the State. Imm. Bekker, professor of Greek, Berlin (where he was born, 1785), has republished in one work all that he has written on Homer for half a century. 66 Investigations regarding Rome," by Theod. Mommsen, are promised. 66 Corneille, Shakspere, and Goethe," is the title of a pamphlet issued at Berlin. P. B. Duncan, author of an "Essay on Sculpture," &c., died 12th inst., aged 92. An authorized Commentary on the Scriptures has been projected by the Speaker of the House of Commons. It is to be edited by the Archbishop of York, and thirty of the best men in the Church of England have been chosen as collaborateurs. Prof. Goldstücker is preparing a "Concise Grammar and Dictionary of Sanscrit." Renan is preparing "Lives of the Apostles." A memoir of Madame de Lamartine, with specimens of her literary productions, will shortly appear. Prof. J. R. Lowell, author of "Biglow Papers," &c., is to edit a Collection of Old English Plays," and Kichard G. White is to edit a new edition of Shakspere. Epoch Men. DR. JOSEPH BUTLER-THE LOGIC OF ANALOGY. REASON and Faith are the twin guides of human life. The former searches for certainty and truth, the latter contents herself with credibility and trustworthiness. Knowledge is certainty resulting from reasoning; it is perspicuous, systematic, and objective. In its highest form it constitutes science. Belief is credibility attained by reasoning; it is satisfying, effective, and subjective. Its noblest issue is religion. A moral act performed in consequence of knowledge is right, but seldom looked upon as meritorious. A moral act having its origin in faith, even when mistaken, excites admiration, and is credited with worthiness. Merit is possible only where there has been choice. Choice is the result of determination, i. e., a decision of the will in a case admitting of other preferences or volitions than that made. The region of merit, therefore, lies within the region of faith. Man is a being placed amid both actualities and possibilities as a self-directing agent. Among actualities, when he knows them, he can hold his course unchequeredly and sure; among possibilities the danger of wandering and error arises. It is to activity in the latter sphere that merit and demerit are assigned. It is to influence decisions in this region that rewards are offered, or that threats are made. The unconditional assent of every sane mind is unresistingly given to the objective and the actual. No such overpowering force exists among the multitude of possibilities amid which man's life-day is spent, or this would be no state of probation. Were the evidences and objects of faith as full, obvious, and impressive as those of the experiences out of which reason constructs the sciences, there would be no trial or discipline of will, passion, or prejudice; no exercise of self-denial, humility, or honesty of thought; no employment of singleness of heart, guardianship of motives, or training to submissiveness and obedience. Where there are no difficulties there are no triumphs. The entire system of nature is one in which reason and faith are co-active, not inimical. Any enforced antithesis is unnatural and absurd. Each has its due field in the labour of life. Reason goes forth to subject all things to science; faith exerts herself to subdue all life to religion: the former is the lord of intellectual, the latter the mistress of moral, life. To acquire a knowledge of the unknown from the known-to extend the subjugating power of experience beyond the range of the immediate-to stretch the influences of the human will beyond the circle which the sceptre of experience can touch, man employs logic. Logic consents to aid him, if he will obey her laws. These, therefore, are decreed to be 1861. G irrefragable. Logic accepts the premises supplied to it, and, by an impartial application of its laws, determines the result which must follow from their acceptance. Reason brings its inductions to the "mistress of the sciences," and she precipitates the truths they yield. Faith brings the analogies she has observed, and "the queen of thought" spreads out before her the results. Inductions and analogies are thinkable, and of the laws of the thinkable logic is the sole administratrix. There must, therefore be a logic of analogy, as well as a logic of induction. The logic of induction is well known; the logic of analogy has scarcely found a place in science. The merit of seeing the true place and the due importance of analogy, as a method of reasoning, was reserved for a man of humble origin, but of extraordinary powers; one who, by his discovery, lifted himself from the common ranks of men into that of world-benefactors-Dr. Joseph Butler. Plato has wisely said there are three criteria of truth-experience, prudence, and reason. Experience supplies induction with its materials; prudence depends upon analogies; reason uses both for the harmony of life and the satisfaction of the soul: for the highest form of life is that in which faith and reason, by unity of influence, teach man to know, appreciate, and trust in science and religion, and by a happy consilience bring into harmonious activity the intellectual and moral capacities of human nature. Leaving the logic of induction-of which Bacon had but lately become the re-interpreter-to science, as the true basis for reasoning regarding actualities, Butler reclaimed to religion the logic of analogy-the method of reasoning on probabilities, possibilities, and presumptions. The relevancy of analogy as a principle of reasoning is as great as that of induction, though the one has been much less studied than the other. The mind, by an original impulse or desire, feels constrained to reduce all its knowledge to the unity of a system; hence, if it observes a number of objects (ideas), referrible to the same class, possessed of any special attribute, it infers that all objects referrible to that class possess the same attribute-induction; and if it observes that certain similarities, essential and material, cohere and exist in one or more objects (ideas), these objects are alike, or nearly alike, in proportion to their identities-analogy. Induction is the instrument of reason; analogy, of faith. Logic overrules both, and subjects them to a criticism intended to preserve their formal adherence to the laws of inference, and their real harmony with the requirements of truth. 66 Analogy is the identity of ratios and the similarity of relations. Although proportion strictly signifies the habitude or relation of one quantity to another, yet, in a looser and translated sense, it hath been applied to signify all similitude of relations or habitudes whatsoever."* Employed as an argument, analogy depends upon 66 * Berkeley's "Minute Philosopher," Dialogue IV., 21. the canon-The same attributes may be assigned to distinct but similar things, provided they can be shown to accompany the points of resemblance in the things, and not in the points of difference."* It has two conditions, viz., 1st, that two or more of the particulars with which the reasoning is concerned must be known to agree in the possession of some one or more attributes. In proportion to the number of the points of similarity is the likelihood of the inferred coincidence in other points to be correct. 2nd, that the particulars agree in positive characteristics and essential matter. The law of similarity is-that realities or ideas resembling each other suggest each other; of which the sub-law is-that the greater the concomitancy of resemblances, the more actively and accurately re-suggestion occurs. Analogy is, therefore, founded on experience, inasmuch as it reasons from a collection of observations regarding the properties of the more known to the inference of attributes possessed by the less known. It is essential, of course, that the known agreeing points exceed the known diverse ones, and that the inference be drawn from the material attribute or attributes on which the consequences involved in the reasoning depend. The extent of ascertained resemblance, compared first with the amount of ascertained difference, and next with the extent of the unexplored region of unascertained properties, forms the measure of the strength of the reasoning involved in any analogical argument. Reasoning by "analogy," therefore, "is certain in proportion-1st, to the number of congruent observations; 2nd, to the number of the congruent characters observed; 3rd, to the importance of these characters, and their essentiality to the objects; and 4th, to the certainty that the characters really belong to the objects, and that a partial correspondence exists.”+ Butler, as we have said, first appreciated the true value of analogy as a form of reasoning, and as a means of "leading us on without leading us astray." I am aware, of course, that many of the elder logicians hinted at its power, and that Rudiger (1673-1731) had given it a specific place in logic-an improvement in which he has been followed by, among other Continental schoolmen, Crousaz, Maas, Krug, Hoffbauer, Esser, and Fries-an example too little followed by our own philosophical writers; but no one, we believe, will dispute our affirmation that the earliest effective writer on analogy was the person of whose life we now proceed to give the reader a brief sketch. Joseph Butler was born May 18th, 1692, at Wantage, a small town situated in the Vale of the White Horse. He was the youngest of the eight children of Mr. Thomas Butler, a retired linen and woollen draper, then residing at the Priory in the outskirts of that irregularly built Berkshire market town. The tenant of the Priory, a man of no slight importance in the sparse community of * Thomson's "Laws of Thought," Part IV., 123. Sir Wm. Hamilton's "Lectures on Logic," Vol. II., Lecture xxxii., p. 172. which he was a member, though connected with the body of Independents as a worshipper, permitted his son Joseph to receive the rudiments of his education in the free grammar school of his native place, then under the care of the Rev. Philip Barton, a clergyman of the Church of England. Here he displayed such aptitude for learning, and gave such indications of talent, that his parents resolved to educate him for the Christian ministry, in the persuasion to which they themselves were attached. He was, for this purpose, placed in an academy intended for the training of Dissenting clergymen, where the education was exact and critical, and though professional yet liberal. The tutor, Mr. Samuel Jones, was a man of more than ordinary ability and skill. His establishment was at first set up in Gloucester, but was subsequently removed from that county city to the market town of Tewkesbury, about ten miles distant. Singularly enough, Butler had for fellow-pupils in this seminary, Samuel (afterwards Dr.) Chandler, the eminent_Nonconformist divine of Old Jewry, London, 1693—1766, and Thomas Secker, who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury. In this academical institution, by Severn's side, the foundations of theological learning were thoroughly laid in the minds of those three life-friends. Of the singular acuteness which his mind possessed, Butler gave proof in those remarkable letters-the first of which is dated Nov. 4th, 1713—which he addressed, while yet a student in Tewkesbury, to Dr. Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), whose sermons on the Evidences delivered in 1704 and 1706, in London, as "the Boyle Lectures," expanded into the form of treatises, had been published but shortly before, and had attracted the attention of the theological student. Those massive volumes on "The Being and Attributes of God," and "The Evidences of Natural aud Revealed Religion," have secured to their author a lasting European reputation as a metaphysician and a theologian. Of the worth of the à priori argument employed by the lecturer there may be some doubts justly entertained, but of the force, profundity, elaboration, and piety of the treatises Clarke supplied to the world, there can be little question. Yet in his twentieth year Butler could wend his way through these labyrinthine metaphysics with fearless foot, keen eye, steady head, and critical intellect, and win from his opponent the best of all commendations, a correspondence in which Clarke laboriously replied to the objections of his young anonymous critic-a correspondence made classic by being published by Dr. Clarke, as an appendix to his learned and thoughtful speculations, as fully up to the height of the great argument." It forms a splendid specimen of metaphysical controversy, and the courtesy of noble and well-matched minds. "In that correspondence,' says the Rev. F. D. Maurice, "he [Butler] appears as a young man, questioning with a modesty and subtlety which were no less characteristic of him in his latest years, those demonstrations of the necessary existence and omnipresence of God which seemed to Clarke, and to many besides him, so decisive. He wishes to think 66 |