Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/840

Rh 796 ANALYSIS {by weight) in which, the constituents are present in a definite quantity of the substance. There are correspond ing varieties of synthesis. Now here the subject-matter is so manifestly different from what it is in mathematics, that it is idle to look for exact correspondence in the processes practised under the same names within the two sciences. In fact, however, the correspondence is greater than may at first sight appear. Chemical analysis of a given substance is a process of dis covery real and actual, like the analysis of a mathematical problem, and proceeds similarly by taking what is given, and working with it in relation to other substances, to see whether it can be made to yield up aught that is already known, or may be regarded as fixed and certain. Again, just as mathematical synthesis may be a process of inven tion, either generally, by way of combination of principles, or sometimes specially, in reference to particular questions, so does chemical synthesis give a knowledge of new forms of matter, or haply solve the question as to the constitution of particular substances in hand. Once more, the relation of analysis and synthesis as two complementary phases of one process (instead of their being regarded as two processes) is exhibited as plainly in chemistry as in mathe matics. It may seem to be exhibited even more impres sively, when the very constituents got out by analysis of a substance are used in the synthesis to give it being again. This circumstance, however, is far from giving to the science of chemistry a character of evidence superior to that of mathematics: its inferiority in this respect is but too well marked, and has a reason that at the same time explains what else is peculiar in its application of analysis and synthesis. The chemist deals with things known only by experience, and connected by way of physical causation : true, they are things with which he can freely experiment and this gives to chemistry a prerogative character among the natural sciences but the things are taken as they are found, and experience is constantly dis closing in each new attributes which have simply to be accepted, at least in the present state of our knowledge, by the side of the others. On the contrary, the mathe matician deals with things over which he has full power of construction, and whose relations in the fact of con structing he constitutes, whether they are internal or ex ternal relations. But positive construction carries with it an insight which is wanting in experiment, be the physical conditions ever so favourable ; and thus analysis and synthesis have in mathematics, along with perfect freedom of scope, a determinateness far surpassing anything that is attainable in chemistry. III. Psychological Analysis and Synthesis. Passing for the next signal application of analysis from the world of matter to mind, we have here a subject which more perhaps than any other calls for an exercise of the pro cess in order to be scientifically understood. Physical things in their superficial relations lie to a great extent open to direct apprehension, and, whatever deeper connec tions there may be to be traced out among things the most remote in their nature as apprehended, yet the fact of their .separation in space involved in our perception of them is already something done, leaving the scientific function {analytic and synthetic) to be exercised chiefly in the Attempt to comprehend them. Very different is the state of affairs in mind, where everything, as it were, runs or melts into everything else. Even to lay hold of par ticular mental phenomena, with a view to the explanation of them, implies already an express scientific attitude, which must be called analytic. Particular mental states being supposed to be got, with such definiteness of apprehension (always more or less imperfect) as the subject-matter admits of, the business of the psychologist becomes substantially one with that of the physical inquirer. Accordingly, it is often urged that com plex mental states conform to the two types of mechanical and chemical composition, in the sense that some are to be resolved after the manner of complex phenomena of motion, and others by a process analogous to that em ployed in chemistry for the qualities of concrete substances. The analogy, however, especially in the second class of states, is decidedly loose. Psychological phenomena of cognition or emotion, held to be developed, under general mental laws, out of simpler states of sense, resemble chemi cal compounds only in having a character unlike that of any of the elements that go to make them; in particular, they do not admit of that actual resolution into their elements which lends so much evidence to the processes of chemistry. The realm of nature supplies a far apter ana logy in the phenomena of organic growth, more especially as mental states do, in fact, stand in direct relation with states of the bodily organism. It is as impossible to make an actual analysis or synthesis of the physiological complex of life as of the psychological complex of mind; and it is only more difficult (the phenomena being xindoubtedly more recondite and fluctuating) to practise experiments in psychology than in physiology. But, at all events, there is no new principle involved in the scientific treatment of mind; nor again in the treatment of moral and social questions, for an insight into which psychological know ledge is indispensable. IV. Logical Analysis and Synthesis. To logic, taken in its widest sense as the methodology of all science, it belongs to appreciate the general import of all such applica tions of analysis and synthesis as have now been considered. There remains, however, a special variety which is itself entitled logical analysis and synthesis, and which has the more carefully to be distinguished from the other heads, because it stands in an opposition to them all. Logical analysis is the same process as that which is otherwise called metaphysical division. (The process called logical division is different. See LOGIC and DIVISION.) Given, say, a concrete subject like man, this may be divided physically into a number of parts in space, or, as a concept, metaphysically into a number of qualities or attributes, metaphysically, because none of these has an independent subsistence or physical existence apart. They are distin guished in the way of mental consideration, or, as it is technically called, abstraction; and, this being a thought- process or logical act, the resolution of the given complex into such conceptual elements gets the name also of logical analysis. The corresponding act of synthesis pro ceeds by the way that is technically called determination ; thus the general concept man, to take the traditional example, has the attribute of rational joined to the attri butes of animal, or is determined by that addition, and much else has to be added in a similar way before the par ticular concrete can be determined. Now it is evident that such analysis and synthesis have an application to any kind of thought that the mind can conceive; and thus logicians, in meaning, as they have commonly done, nothing more by the names, have sig nalised processes that are in truth of no small account for knowledge in general. There is no kind of scientific inquiry, strictly so called, and whatever be its scope and method, that does not involve at all stages from the first such analysis or abstract mental consideration. Nay, it may be said that science, as opposed to the natural experi ence of things, or to the artistic interest which centres upon fully bodied-out concretes, is analysis in this pre sent sense, everywhere breaking up to find community of character under the mask of superficial difference, and sift ing out the one from the many. But when logicians, not