ANALOGY

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) In Geometry, signifies the same thing as proportion, or the equality or similitude of ratios. {See Proportion, and Ratio.) Analogy. In modern Zoologj", this term is restricted to the relation which animals bear to one another in the similarity of a smaller proportion of their organisation: thus, the Ascalaphus italic us, in the length and knobbed extremities of its antennae, the colouring of its wings, and its general aspect, exhibits a striking resemblance to a butterfly; but in all the e ential parts of its organisation it adheres to the neuropterous type of structure; its relation to the Lepidoptera is therefore said to be one of analogy, while it is connected to the ant-lions by the order of affinity. As it has been found in some instances, that two series of animals, arranged according to the greater amount of resemblances, or the relation of affinity, are connected to one another by analogical resemblances at given points of the series, the relation of analogy has been regarded as diff i ering from that of affinity not only in degree, but in kind. If a zoologist, for example, were led, by a too superficial glance at the external resemblances of two animals, to [s. 56]