Analogy, the comparison of one set of relations to another, was essential to Humphry Davy’s understanding of chemistry. Throughout his career, Davy used analogical reasoning to direct and to interpret his experimental analyses of the chemical reactions between substances. In his writing, he deployed analogies to organise and to explain his theories about the relations between physical processes and between the properties of different chemical elements and compounds. But Davy also regularly expressed two concerns about analogical comparison: first, that it was founded not on the rational interpretation of facts but on imaginative speculation; and second, that it was a kind of rhetoric, the persuasiveness of which depended not on material evidence but on misleading figures of speech. This article discusses the influences that informed Davy’s ambivalent assessment of the value of analogy, and it examines the distinct yet overlapping ways in which this assessment was expressed in his notebooks, his lectures and treatises on chemistry, his philosophical writings, and his poetry.

中文翻译：

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汉弗莱戴维和类比问题

类比，将一组关系与另一组关系进行比较，对于汉弗莱·戴维 (Humphry Davy) 对化学的理解至关重要。在他的整个职业生涯中，戴维使用类比推理来指导和解释他对物质之间化学反应的实验分析。在他的著作中，他运用类比来组织和解释他关于物理过程之间以及不同化学元素和化合物性质之间关系的理论。但戴维也经常表达对类比比较的两个担忧：第一，它不是建立在对事实的理性解释之上，而是建立在富有想象力的推测之上；其次，这是一种修辞，其说服力不取决于物质证据，而是取决于具有误导性的修辞手法。