5 8 HERBERT SPENCER

ponents and relations, facilitates the perception of
likeness between things -which externally are quite
unlike—perhaps so utterly unlike that, by an un-
analytical intelligence, they cannot be conceived to
have any resemblance whatever." It is this kind of
insight which enables the morphologist to unify a
whole series of organic types by detecting the simi-
larities of architecture underlying the exceedingly
diverse external expression. It was this kind of
insight which led Spencer to his analogy between a
social organism and an individual organism, and to
many others which have been found fruitful, But it
is to be feared that some of his analogies, notably
that between inanimate mechanisms and living creatures
led him far astray.

5. Another power strongly developed was construc-
tive imagination. The boy who was so fond of building
castles in the air, who grudged the sleep which put
an end to his fanciful adventures, grew up a man
whose mind was his kingdom. All sorts of things
and thoughts pulled the trigger of his imagination,
with which he was often so preoccupied that hck
would pass those living in the same house with him
and look them in the face without knowing that he?
had seen them,

Spencer found in the delight of constructive imagination
part of the explanation of his versatility. The producta of
hi8 mental action ranged " from a doctrine ol State functions
to a levelling-atiuT; from the genesis of religious ideas to a
watch escapement; from the circulation in plants to un
invalid bed; from the law of organic symmetry to plining
machinery $ from principle! of ethics to i velocimeter j from
a metaphysical doctrine to a binding-pin j from a classifica-
tion of the sciences to an improved fishing-rod joint? from and