CHAPTER XI.
Training of the Sense of Resemblance and Relation, and of the Perception of Analogy.
As early developed almost as the conceptive faculty, the sense of Resemblance agrees with it in the circumstance that it comes into play independently of any conscious effort of the mind: it is an intuition; and the culture of both may be carried very far without making any demand upon the power of continuous attention, and therefore, without expending that force which we wish to keep in reserve. The same nearly may be affirmed concerning the perception of analogy.
Nevertheless, while a field is open to us in this direction, where much may be done with little labour, the ultimate product of the means we are using is great and manifold. The culture of these spontaneous faculties may be compared to the farming of pasture land, where the produce is large in proportion to the number of hands employed, or to the labour annually bestowed; but the culture of the abstractive and reasoning faculties, is like the farming of arable land; where the crop, how valuable soever it may be, is hardly obtained, by dint of toil—acre by acre, rood by rood, foot by foot.
The due culture of the two, that is to say of the Conceptive faculty, and of the perception of Resemblance and Analogy, constitutes the preparation for whatever else,
