ANALYSIS

(Gr. di/aXt><», 1 di ulvt.) A Greek word which signifies the resolution of a Ih.ng into its component parts. — la Logic, analysis is used in opposition to synthesis, as a method of arriving at adequate definitions. In the synthetical method, we begin by a uming some quality which the subject is known to po e . Finding this to be • common to other subjects than the one we wish to define, | we add on some further property and so on, until we have adequately distinguished it from all other things. Thus, man is an animal, man is a hot blooded animal, man is a hot-blooded viviparous animal, . , may be taken as a specimen of a synthetical proce . In analysis we should reverse the method; a uming the most distinguishing characteristic, and descending, through succe ive gradations, to that which is least so. Correspondently with this distinction, an analytical proposition is one in which the subject is implied in the predicate; e. g, " matter is extended." A synthetical proposition, on the contrary,is that in which the terms have no nece ary connection: e.g. "John is tall:" "the world is round." As applied to mental phenomena, analysis is the referring them to the acts or faculties of the mind which they nece arily imply, either as contemporaneously contributing to their production, or as rendering their production po ible by their past operation. The distinction frequently made between analytic and synthetic reasoning, rests on a somewhat vague use of language. Strictly speaking, all reasoning can be but of one kind. A proce of ratiocination admits, however, of being 44 [s. 58]