I 4 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



assumptions &quot; l which all investigators have sometimes to make, and which 

 are perfectly legitimate in their proper sphere ; but an inquiry into the grounds 

 of this erroneous tendency in modern philosophy would not be opportune 

 here. 



Aristotle and the Scholastics examined in minute detail the requirements 

 of the synthetic processes through which we advance by demonstrative rea 

 soning from simple, self-evident first principles to more complex scientific 

 conclusions. Their teaching will be outlined in the chapter on Demonstration. 



The remainder of the present chapter will be devoted to the application 

 of analysis and synthesis to the teaching or exposition, as distinct from the 

 discovery and proof, of truth. 



204. DIDACTICS: ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS IN TEACHING. When 

 our object is not to discover truth as yet unknown to us, but to communicate 

 what we know already to others, our method will be no longer constructive or 

 inventive, but instructive or educative ; instructive if it aims merely at the 

 communication of knowledge to the intellect ; educative if it aims at the 

 formation of right mental habits and character as well. The latter is the 

 scope of the art of Pedagogics ; the former alone, that of Didactics. This 

 latter, therefore, is the sole concern of the logician. 



What, then, is the proper method of teaching or exposition ? Broadly- 

 speaking, it is laid down that while the analytic method is the great method of 

 discovery the synthetic method is the great method of instruction. And in 

 general terms this is correct. But the statement needs to be carefully limited 

 and qualified. 



The analytic method is not exclusively the method of discovery ; as witness 

 the many discoveries of pure and applied mathematics. Nor, similarly, is the 

 synthetic method always the best method of exposition. It is, of course, 

 obviously the best in teaching the pure deductive sciences ; for in these the 

 abstract principles, being simpler than their complex applications and 

 conclusions, are more easily grasped by the beginner. But even here we 

 need initial observation of concrete facts or instances as an aid to the abstrac 

 tion of the simple notions, and to the intuition of the principles from which 

 these sciences start. This initial stage is analytic in its character. The teacher 

 familiarizes his pupils with concrete instances, facts, models, embodying the 

 abstract principles he wishes them to grasp. In dealing with children 

 especially, it is necessary to dwell at length on concrete things : these are more 

 familiar : and the child s power of grasping even the simplest abstract 

 principles, and reasoning from them, is comparatively undeveloped. The 

 aim, at this early stage, will rather be to awaken the child s powers of obser 

 vation and intuition, to arouse its curiosity and stimulate its interest by pre 

 senting to it simple but attractive facts, combined with judicious interrogations 

 and suggestions, calculated to draw out the pupil s powers of observation, 

 comparison, and inference. 2 



1 Cf. JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 523. Cf. infra, 237. 



2 Professor Willmann, in Germany, has published, under the title of Didaktik 

 als Bildungslehre, a work of the highest merit on intellectual training. Habrich, a 

 pupil of Willmann s, has supplied the teachers of intermediate education in Germany 

 with a useful treatise on psychology, &quot; Paedagogische Psychologic&quot; in harmony with 

 the principles of scholastic teaching. From another standpoint, cf. Herbert Spencer s 

 works on Education. 



