Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/61

Rh for rational method does not isolate a fact from all its connections, but sees it in its relations, and in due proportion. Thus only can valuable knowledge be acquired.

Neither is analysis science. It is only when the observations of analysis are corrected and proved by synthesis that the truth of science can be obtained.

A clear recognition of the different use of analysis and of synthesis is essential in any claim of research to be called scientific. 'Although by analysis we separate, and by synthesis we combine, yet in the synthesis there is more than in all the parts taken analytically. The mere synthesis introduces something entirely new.'

Kant, in speaking of the use of analysis and synthesis in logic, lays down the test of all scientific inquiry. He says: 'Analysis is the ﬁrst and chief requirement in making our knowledge distinct. For the more distinct our knowledge of a thing is, the stronger and more effective it can be; only the analysis must not go so far that at last the object itself disappears.'

Truth being a unity, the science which demonstrates it must correlate all knowledge.