Saint Thomas and Analogy

The importance of analogy in the philosophy of St. Thomas literally cannot be overestimated. There is not a problem either in the order of being, or in the order of knowing, or in the order of predicating, which does not depend for its ultimate solution on the principle of analogy. Not a question can be asked either in speculative or practical philosophy which does not require for its final answer an understanding of analogy.
[O]ne can never be a metaphysician without knowing that being is instrinsically analogical. Analogy is axiomatic in metaphysics. If, moreover, philosophy is to be what philosophy must be, knowledge of things in their ultimate causes, a wisdom, then there can be no philosophy truly worthy of the name in which metaphysics is not the "scientia rectrix." It is for this reason that the doctrine of analogy is so important in the philosophy of St. Thomas, for it is, indeed, a philosophy which is what a philosophy should be.