1 6 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



unfamiliar, is observed by the chemist. In his investigation he commences 

 with that which is most familiar to ordinary mortals (nobis notiora), the water 

 of the spring where thousands have drunk or bathed, and thence proceeds to 

 the various chemical agents it contains which are to us a mystery, though in 

 themselves they may be so simple as to admit of no further analysis. In im 

 parting to others the results of his experiments he begins from what is simpler 

 in itself and therefore more familiar to nature (naturae notiora), and thence 

 proceeds to the complex results with which ordinary men are familiar, however 

 complex they may in themselves be.&quot; But, if the audience is composed of 

 &quot; ordinary mortals &quot; to whom the elements however much simpler and more 

 knowable they may be in themselves are so many &quot; mysteries,&quot; would not 

 the lecturer be better advised to commence his exposition with the more 

 familiar water, and to lead his audience along substantially the same path as 

 he himself had followed in the first instance ? 



It seems rather a mistake, therefore, to apply the synthetic method 

 exclusively, to the exposition of the subject-matter of those sciences in which 

 analysis has been the main instrument of discovery. It is rightly used in the 

 teaching of the pure deductive sciences such as mathematics ; but the 

 exposition at least the early stages of the exposition of those sciences in 

 which analysis, observation, and experiment have played a conspicuous part, 

 should be rather analytic than synthetic. For example, the method followed 

 by Maher and Mercier in their well-known treatises on psychology the 

 analytic or empirical phase leading up to the synthetic or rational one is very 

 much superior to the exclusively synthetic method adopted by many Scholastic 

 writers in their Latin treatises on the subject. In accordance with the Scholastic 

 axiom, Operari sequitur Esse, we ought to commence by examining and 

 analysing the data on which our scientific knowledge of man is based, -viz, his 

 activities, to arrive next at a knowledge of his faculties, and ultimately of 

 his nature, origin, and destiny. 



We are only following nature in adopting such a course of analytico- 

 synthetic exposition. The manner of using analysis in teaching will, however, 

 be slightly different from the manner of using it in discovery. 1 In the 

 process of discovery, our analysis is necessarily slow, tedious, tentative, guided 

 merely by analogy and hypothesis, often erratic owing to our being misled by 

 false analogies and wrong hypotheses ; our experiments are necessarily multi 

 plied and often practically blind, though seldom quite aimless. But in the 

 process of exposition it is manifest that, having traversed the way before, and 

 being now in possession of the scientific knowledge which was our goal, our 

 didactic analysis may be much more direct and definite. We may exclude 

 all the gropings and deviations that occurred in the first search after the truth, 

 the misleading analogies and wrong hypotheses ; we may carefully select the 

 most appropriate instances and experiments for disclosing the law in question 

 to our pupils, and thus shorten the road for them : but we shall be travelling 

 substantially the same road and employing the same method as previously. 



205. SCHOLASTIC METHODS OF EXPOSITION AND DEBATE. The mediaeval 

 Schoolmen followed the advice of the founder of the Lyceum : &quot; Before you 

 try to solve any problem,&quot; wrote Aristotle, &quot; set forth clearly the reasons or 

 difficulties that militate against the solution you are about to propose. In that 



1 Cf. WELTON, ii., p. 220. 



