GENERAL OUTLINE OF METHOD 9 



sary deductions (Ueberweg, Logic, p. 465). . . . A demonstration 

 of this kind is, therefore, called . . . Analytic&quot;. 



It is usual to draw a distinction between the two scientific 

 methods : the synthetic, or that of the rational, deductive sciences ; 

 and the analytic, or that of the experimental, inductive sciences. - 

 There is reason for such a distinction : but only in this sense, that 

 synthesis is the predominant feature of the former, and analysis of 

 the latter ; not in the sense that either feature belongs exclusively 

 to either group. No such separation of analysis from synthesis is 

 possible in actual thought. As a matter of fact, the self-evident, 

 a priori axioms of the rational sciences necessarily presuppose the 

 mental analysis of some few elementary observations, by which the 

 mind is equipped with the concepts that form those rational prin 

 ciples. On the other hand, the general laws that are reached by 

 the long and laborious analyses and inductions of the experimental 

 scientist furnish us, in turn, with principles or starting points for 

 synthetic or deductive reasoning processes. 



In reality, therefore, there is one and only one scientific method : 

 the analytico-synthetic, or combined inductive and deductive method. 1 



Whether analysis or synthesis will predominate in any parti 

 cular science, or at any particular stage in the growth of a science, 

 will depend on whether the subject-matter is best approached 

 from the side of the abstract universal, or of the concrete particular. 

 But the two methods are not essentially opposed ; rather they 

 &quot;differ only as the road by which we ascend from a valley to a 

 mountain does from that by which we descend from the mountain 

 into the valley, which is no difference of road, but only a difference 

 in the going&quot;. 2 



This, moreover, is what we should expect when we reflect on the unity of 

 human nature ; and it is confirmed by the findings of psychology. Man derives 

 his abstract ideas from data furnished by his senses. Sense observation must, 

 therefore, be the forerunner of all rational speculation. The formation of 

 abstract concepts from the data of sense experience involves analysis of the 

 latter. These abstract concepts are in turn combined in manifold ways by 

 the activity of the intellect, and are being constantly reapplied to the facts of 

 sense observation. Thus it is that rational speculation is ever returning to those 

 same sense realities which first awake its activity. All science is &quot; of the uni 

 versal and necessary &quot; (to use the language of Aristotle) ; but it is no less true 

 that all science must aim at explaining the contingent, individual facts of our 

 sense experience. It must not only ascend by analysis and abstraction from 

 the particular to the universal, from fact to law, from effect to cause, but it 



1 C/. MELLONE, Introd. Text-Book of Logic, pp. 383 sqq. 



*Port Royal Logic, p. 314, quoted by Professor Welton, Logic, ii., p. 212. 



