(D, 12.7/218 — my emphasis) On the other hand, the atheist may allow that there is some "remote analogy" among the various operations of nature, including "the rotting of a turnip, the generation of an animal, and the structure of human thought" (D, 12.7/218).
Positive law should also be contrasted with "laws by a close analogy" (which includes positive morality, laws of honor, international law, customary law, and constitutional law) and "laws by remote analogy" (e.g., the laws of physics).
Clearly, then, the atheist may concede that there is some remote analogy between God and human minds and still insist that there remain other analogies and hypotheses that are no less plausible.
In other words, the atheist can concede that there is some remote analogy between the first principle of the universe and several other parts of nature only one of which is human thought and mind (D, 12.7/218; and cp. 7.1/176 7).
(See Part XI) At the end of the Dialogue, Philo is willing to grant Cleanthes "that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence" (Part XII; emphasis in original).
All of which terminates in the (vague) conclusion "that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence" (D, 12.33/227 – my emphasis; see also EU, 11.27, where Hume observes that the analogy involved here may be compared to that between "the sun and a waxen taper" [candle]).
Hume concluded that while the argument might constitute some limited grounds for thinking that "the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence" (Hume 1779 [19988, 88) Hume's emphasis)—and that is not a trivial implication it established nothing else whatever.
He gives neat examples of riddles that need to be solved by lateral thinking and remote analogies.
Other than what at best seem to be remote analogies in the form of the minute anterior pores in the meiofaunal gastrotrichs [ 37] no phylum appears to possess comparable structures.
Laughter seemed a remote possibility.
