Dr. Watts gives the following examples of arguments founded on comparison :-" Knowledge is better than riches; virtue is better than knowledge; therefore, virtue is better than riches. A dove will fly a mile a minute.; a swallow flies swifter than a dove; therefore a swallow will fly more than a mile a minute."

The following comparison is drawn by the Rev. Sydney Smith, between books and conversation :—

"A book has no eyes, and ears, and feelings; the best are apt every now and then to become a little languid; whereas a living book walks about, and varies his conversation and manner, and prevents you from going to sleep. There is certainly a great evil in this, as well as a good; for the interest between a man and his living folio becomes sometimes a little too keen, and in the competition for victory they become a little too animated towards, and sometimes exasperated against each other; whereas a man and his book generally keep the peace with tolerable success; and if they disagree, the man shuts his book, and tosses it into a corner of the room, which it might not be quite so safe or easy to do with a living folio. It is an inconvenience in a book, that you cannot ask questions; there is no explanation; and a man is less guarded in conversation than in a book, and tells you with more honesty the little niceties and exceptions of his opinions; whereas, in a book, as his opinions are canvassed where they cannot be explained and defended, he often overstates a point for fear of being misunderstood; but then, on the contrary, almost every man talks a great deal better in his books, with more sense, more information, and more reflection, than he can possibly do in his conversation, because he has more time."-Moral Philosophy.

The following is a comparison of different places in the vicinity of London :

"""Twould add thirty years to your life-and think what a blessing that would be to me; not that I shall live a tenth part of the time-thirty years, if you'd take a nice little house somewhere at Brixton. You hate Brixton? I must say it, Caudle, that's so like you: any place that's really genteel, you can't abide. Now Brixton and Balaam Hill I think delightful. So select ! There, nobody visits nobody, unless they're somebody. To say nothing of the delightful pews that make the churches so respectable.

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'However, do as you like. If you won't go to Brixton, what do you say to Clapham Common? Oh, that's a very fine story! Never tell me! No; you wouldn't be left alone, a Robinson

Crusoe with wife and children, because you're in the retail way. What! The retired wholesales never visit the retired retails at Clapham? Ha! that's only your old sneering at the world, Mr. Caudle; but I don't believe it. And after all, people should keep to their station, or what was this life made for? Suppose a tallowmerchant does keep himself above a tallow-chandler,-I call it only a proper pride. What? You call it the aristocracy of fat? I don't know what you mean by aristocracy; but I suppose it's only another of your dictionary words, that's hardly worth the finding out.

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What do you say to Hornsey or Muswell Hill? Eh? Too high? What a man you are! Well, then-Battersea? Too low? You're an aggravating creature, Caudle, you must own that! Hampstead, then? Too cold? Nonsense; it would brace you up like a drum, Caudle; and that's what you want. But you don't deserve anybody to think of your health or your comforts either. There's some pretty spots, I'm told, about Fulham. Now, Caudle, I won't have you say a word against Fulham. That must be a sweet place: dry, and healthy, and every comfort of life about it-else is it likely that a bishop would live there ?” ”—Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures.

Comparison is a principle of extensive use in reasoning. In deliberating upon any step we are about to take, we make a comparison between the good and the evil effects it is likely to produce. We make comparisons between different men, and different qualities, and different actions, and between the laws and customs of different countries; and we approve or disapprove, according to the award of our judgments. And indeed our descriptions of persons, places and things, consist chiefly of points of comparison with other persons, places and things.

"Lord Campbell says of Holt-Of all the lawyers in our annals, Holt has gained the highest reputation, merely by the exercise of judicial functions. He was not a statesman like Clarendon-he was not a philosopher like Bacon-he was not an orator like Mansfield; yet he fills nearly as great a space in the eye of posterity; and some enthusiastic lovers of jurisprudence regard him with higher veneration than any English judge who preceded or has followed him.'"-Lives of the Chancellors.

"In America all our farms a'most have what we call the rough pastur—that is, a great rough field of a hundred acres or so near the woods, where we turn in our young cattle, and breedin' mares, and colts, and dry cows, and what not, where they take care of themselves, and the young stock grow up, and the old stock grow

fat. It's a grand outlet thut to the farm, that would be overstocked without it. We could not do without it nohow. Now, your colonies are a great field for a redundant population, a grand outlet."-Sam Slick.

"Let us consider some of those points in which other nations offer us a high example. We may mention, for instance, that there is among the continental nations a general amenity of manners, a freedom of intercourse between the various classes of society, which certainly gives them the appearance of great amiability, besides that it is the source of other advantages. Again, we find in the nations that belong to the Roman Catholic Church, a straightforward unaffected boldness in the profession of their religion, which is worthy of a purer creed. There is also in Roman Catholic countries a regard to the outward forms of religion which, though not in itself all that is required of the Christian, nor even the most important part of his duty, is yet the natural manner in which a real spirit of religion should exhibit itself. It is, however, in the eastern world that religious feeling is exhibited in the most natural manner. We may perhaps have among the approaching throng of interested spectators some of the followers of Mahomet, whose well-known custom it is frequently to ejaculate their brief confession of faith, and who would never think of writing a book without prefacing it by an inscription of praise to God. We shall doubtless have a close criticism instituted upon our mode of education, and inquiry as to the degree in which it meets the wants of our population. The inhabitants of those countries where attendance upon schools is compulsory upon children of a suitable age, or of those in which it is universally adopted from a real estimation of the benefits to be derived therefrom, may perhaps be surprised at the defects and imperfections which are allowed to exist in our system. The ample provision which has been made in many of the American States, for this purpose, at a very early period too after their first establishment, deserves to be noticed as affording an example most worthy of imitation. We might go on in the same strain and speak of that high sense of filial duty, which the disciples of Confucius would expect to find in us, and which is among themselves an effectual principle of government, or of that tenderness towards dumb animals, and that strong feeling of brotherhood pervading the different sects, and superseding all necessity for poor-houses, which are so generally manifested by the worshippers of Brahma, and which may therefore be considered by them as the best evidences of moral excellence."-Great Exhibition Prize Essay.

5. In reasoning from analogy or comparison, if the case to be proved appears to be stronger even than the case with which it is compared, the analogy is called by scho

lastic logicians, an argumentum à fortiori, that is, "a stronger argument.’

This kind of argument is often denoted in Scripture by the words, "How," "How much more," or "How much rather." The following are examples :

"And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said unto them, As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, when one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings: how much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth? 2 Sam. iv. 9-11.

"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ?"Matt. vi. 28-30. See also Matt. vii. 11; Matt. xxiii. 16—19; 2 Chron. vi. 18; Rom. viii. 32; Heb. ii. 1-3; Jonah iv. 10, 11; Job iv. 19; 1 Tim. iii. 5; Heb. ii. 2, 3; ix. 13, 14; xii. 9.

The text, Matt. xix. 9-" And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery"contains an à fortiori argument against polygamy. For if it is criminal for a man to put away his wife and marry another, then, à fortiori, it must be criminal for him to marry another without putting the first away.

The following is a comparison of this kind that formed part of the indictment of Guy Fawkes :

"The matter that is now to be offered to you, my Lords the Commissioners, and to the trial of you the knights and gentlemen of the jury, is matter of treason; but of such horror and monstrous nature, that before now the tongue of man never delivered, the ear of man never heard, the heart of man never conceited, nor the malice of hellish or earthly devil ever practised. For if it be abominable to murder the least; if to touch God's anointed be to oppose themselves against God; if (by blood) to subvert princes, states, and kingdoms, be hateful to God and man, as all

true Christians must acknowledge; then how much more than too monstrous shall all Christian hearts judge the horror of this treason, to murder and subvert such a king, such a queen, such a prince, such a progeny, such a state, such a government, so complete and absolute; that God approves: the world admires: all true English hearts honour and reverence: the Pope and his disciples only envy and malign.”

The following à fortiori argument is used by the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, Member of Congress for the state of Ohio, with reference to the Fugitive Slave Bill. This bill requires the inhabitants of the free states to assist in apprehending the fugitive slaves, and delivering them back to the state from which they had escaped :

Thus, fellow-citizens, you and I are liable at any hour, to be called upon to pursue the flying bondman as he hastens towards a land of freedom. We have become a nation of slave-hunters, and slave-catchers.

"The man who shall seize a slave upon the African coast, is by our law consigned to the gallows, and deemed unworthy of an existence among civilized, and even barbarous people; but how much greater must be the guilt of him who seizes the enlightened and intelligent Christian, one who holds the same religion, and trusts in the same salvation as himself, and riveting the cold iron upon his trembling limbs, sends him back to bondage and suffering.

"We know that the benighted African is unconscious of his rights, and incapable of appreciating his degradation: yet we hang the man who arrests and consigns him to slavery. This we regard as just: but what penalty can be regarded as commensurate with the crime of seizing upon our fellow-man whose mind has been enlightened, who knows the rights with which God has endowed him, who comprehends the crime committed against him, and of sending him back to a land of chains, and whips, and suffering? In my opinion, such crime far transcends that of the ordinary pirate. Indeed, I think the thief or the pirate far more entitled to our friendship, than he who under such circumstances will lend himself to the commission of the crimes which the law requires us to perpetrate."

Sometimes clergymen take a text referring to temporal affairs and apply it to such as are spiritual, contending that the duty enforced in reference to things of this life is still more important when applied to the life to come. Thus, from the text, "Be thou diligent to know the state