date

21 Aug 1814 Logic Ch. Division
21 Aug 1814

Logic

Ch. Division

'. Synthesis and Analysis

correspond not

4

From /By/ certain terms, which, in the description of this process, have sometimes been employed, (viz. synthesis and analysis) it seems as if it had been taken for granted that the two operations thus denominated were each of them the exact counterpart and converse of the other: that the stages passed over in the one process and in the other would every where and on all occasions be exactly the same, consequently and the number of those stages likewise: and that whatsoever had by synthesis been put together, the putting of that asunder - of that of all that, as far as it /they both/ went/ and no more than that, was that of /in/ which analysis [...?] /the operation performed by analysis/.

Wide indeed from the truth of the case would any such conception however be found. Few have /Small has/ probably been the number of the successive operations of the kind in question, viz. abstractions by which - correspondently small the /that of/ number of the steps at which /stages on /in passing/ or through which/ the idea of the most amply extensive classical aggregate of which the mind is capable of forming to itself the /an/ idea, has in this way been formed. Of this most extensive aggregate, termed by the logicians of antiquity the genus generalissimum, being or existence or entity, is the name. Five or at the utmost six has accordingly been the number of steps successively taken by the mind in its ascent towards this most exalted pinnacle: five, or, at the utmost, six, the number of stages at which it has stopped. Of these abstractions, these distillations, these steps, these stages, the number corresponds to and is indicated by the number of the ramifications exhibited by the famous Porphyrian Tree and of these operations and their results, indication has been given, and at the same time recordation made, by the names respectively employed for the designation of the classical aggregates of different amplitudes which have been their respective products.
Similar Items
  • Title: [21 Aug 1814 Logic Ch. Division]
    Description: 21 Aug 1814

    Logic

    Ch. Division

    '. Synthesis and Analysis

    correspond not

    3

    In the formation of the idea /aggregate idea/ corresponding /designated/ to the term man - in the formation of the classical psychical aggregate termed man, the attention has turned itself aside from all the several simple ideas presented alike /that have alike been presented/ by the abovementioned individual aggregates, turning itself at the same time, and therefore confining itself to such of those simple ideas as have been presented by every individual of /belonging to/ that class comprised /comprehended/ under that appellation /appellative/; and those to which it has thus exclusively turned itself and confined itself it may be said by so doing to have abstracted i.e. drawn off from the rest. It is thus that, to the process or operation or process by which in this way {these} classical aggregates are formed, the term abstraction has been applied, and to the classical aggregates themselves, the term abstract ideas, as well as /in coordination /in opposition to and/ with that of/ general ideas.

    These explanations premised, the time may have come for observing, that, where of the name of a classical aggregate the extent is to a certain degree considerable, it will scarcely have been formed but by a repetition /repeated perfromances /exercises// or repetiotion of the process of abstraction, a certain number /cluster/ of ideas having been first abstracted or as it were distilled from the cluster contained in the several individual i.e. physical aggregates, and from the product of this first distillation others drawn off to compose what may be termed a classical aggregate of the 2nd stage from the bottom, from this product of the 2nd distillation others again drawn off to compose an aggregate of the 3rd order /stage from the bottom/, and so on.

    207
  • Title: [20 Oct. 1814 Logic 9]
    Description: 20 Oct. 1814

    Logic

    9

    Methodization

    Ch.

    Saunderson p.166

    15

    Examine Condillac's Logic, by whom denomination[?] is called analysis: and the more pointedly[?] the more extreme the term employed: i.e. the further synthesis is pushed. Dissolving a genus into its species this indeed is analysis.

    Unfortunate indeed have been, from the earliest times known to us, these two magnificent species of method, the analytic and the synthetic: a decompounding method which decompounds, and a compounding method which, instead of compounding, decompounds likewise.

    Frequent indeed is it to see these two terms especially the word analytic, and its conjugates analysis and analyse, brought to view: never it is believed from the supposed distinction from the supposed contrast has any light been diffused. To the word analysis when standing by itself its proper meaning seems not unfrequently to be annext: but where, as significative of the opposite meaning, the word synthesis is introduced, such is the effect, between the one and the other, both the meaning of the one and of the other are wrapped in clouds.

    In Algebra, quantity is considered without regard to figure: in Geometry, not but with regard to figure. The Algebraical is termed the analytic method: the geometrical, the synthetic. But in either of them, what is there either of analysis or of synthesis - of decomposition or of composition - more than in the other.

    In both instances, the ideas belonging to them are abstract - general: extensive, in the extreme: in the instance of algebra still more so than in the other, the idea of figure being laid out of the case, and nothing left but that of quantity. But still, in either, what is there of analysis more than of synthesis. The parts of a geometrical proposition are put together, and so are those of an algebraical investigation, and here we have Synthesis. The parts of which they are respectively composed may be considered one after another in the one case and so may they in the other: and here we have analysis.
  • Title: [19 Aug 1814 Logic 1]
    Description: 19 Aug 1814

    Logic

    1

    C

    Ch. Division

    Sec. 4

    '. Synthesis and analysis compared

    1

    For an example of Synthesis and Analysis see [...?]-[...?], p.4[...?]

    '. Synthesis, like analysis, is distinguishable into physical and psychical. In neither [...?] is the number of degrees established in the analytic order /method/ determined by d of d in synthetic.

    Psychical say logical division supposes the prior /antecedent/ existence of psychical or say logical aggregation. {A bushel of apples - a bushel of wheat - can not be divided, before /until/ it has been collected.} Psychical division has no subject but the ideas commonly called general ideas. These general ideas are all so many aggregate /aggregate ideas/ or say abstract ideas, formed by aggregation and abstraction out of simple ones.

    Of the aggregate thus formed, the extent is determined and measured by that of the import of the term, /the name - the appellative/ employed for the expression of it.

    205