by the analogy of our own experience to the belief in an
intelligent First Cause; but mere analogy would not produce that belief
without the great law of causality, which demands an adequate cause for
every effect, nor is this law deprived of its necessary and absolute
certainty merely because it comes into action along with, and is
stimulated by, the perception of obvious analogies. Is it not equally
true, that it is only by our own mental consciousness that we are
qualified to conceive of other minds, and that we are, to a certain
extent, guided by analogy to the belief that our fellow-men are
possessed, like ourselves, of intelligence and design? But who would say
that this conclusion is no more than a _probable_ conjecture, or that,
depending as it does in part on the analogy of our own experience, it
cannot yield absolute certainty? In so far as it is _merely_ analogical,
it might be only more or less probable; but being founded also on the
law of causality, it is an inductive inference, and, as such, one of the
most certain convictions of the human mind.

And so the argument derived from marks of design in Nature may be stated
in one or other of two ways:--it may be stated _analogically_ or
_inductively_. The difference between analogy and induction, which is
not always duly considered, should be carefully marked. Analogy proceeds
on _partial_, induction on _perfect_ resemblance. The former marks a
resemblance or agreement _in some respects_ between things which differ
_in other respects_: the latter requires a strict and entire similarity
_in those respects_ on which the inductive inference depends. The one by
itself may only yield a _probable_ conjecture, but the other, when
combined with it, may produce a _certain_ conviction. Accordingly the
design argument may be thrown either into the _analogical_ or the
_inductive_ form. Stated _analogically_, it stands thus: "There is an
ascertained partial resemblance between organs seen in art and organs
seen in nature; as, for instance, between the telescope and the eye.

"It is probable from analogy that there is in some further respect a
partial resemblance between organs seen in art and organs seen in
nature: in art the telescope has been produced by a _contriver_, analogy
makes it probable that in nature the eye also will have been produced by
a _contriver_."

But stated inductively, it stands thus: "If there be in nature the
manifestation of supernatural contriv