An historical example of an analogy used to explain science:
"The ground is the STOMACH of plants, the root is their VESSELS THAT CARRY CHYLE, the trunk is their BONES, the leaves are their LUNGS,and heat is their HEART; for this reason, a plant was called, by the ancients, an animal turned upside down.
Long ago, a plant was called an animal turned upside down; it draws juice, by means of its root, from very small particles of earth, as if by lacteal vessels; and that goes up through the rigid stem; in the branching of the latter, the genitals sprout forth. Plants have no heart, but heat does it all; and there is no need of a heart where an effect of perpetual motion is not necessary, and there is propulsion, not circulation, of liquids. The leaves, which are set in motion and keep breathing, correspond in this way to the lungs; but in themselves they are really analogous to a muscle, even though they are not fixed by the tail as in animals, since voluntary motion cannot occur in them."
Carl Linnæus
Carl Linnæus (1751), Philosophia Botanica (translated by Stephen Freer)
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