An example of an analogy used in scientific argument,
"…since the minimal and indivisible corpuscles, which are called atoms, are not perceptible to sense, they do not, when taken in twos or in some small number, constitute a visible body; but they can be taken in such a large quantity that there will at last be enough to form a visible magnitude. So it is as regards the place of the earth; for although it is not at the centre of the world, nevertheless the distance is as nothing, particularly in comparison with the sphere of the fixed stars."
Nicolaus Copernicus (1543/1995) On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (Translator: Charles Glenn Wallis) Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books
Copernicus argued against the widely held traditional idea that the earth was at the very centre of the universe (a notion that no longer has a clear scientific meaning today), suggesting the true centre was near the sun (around which he claimed the earth moved). However, he tries to suggest that the distance of the earth from the world's centre was so small compared with the scale of the cosmos that it should be treated as in effect 'nothing'.
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