SYNDICSYNTHESIS. 



501 



who honoured Plato much, but were unwilling to 

 give up Aristotle entirely, were called syncretists. 

 In the same way the term syncretism was applied to 

 the union of the academicians and peripatetics. It 

 was particularly used of the Alexandrian school. 

 This word came into general use in Germany after 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century, when 

 George Calixtus, professor of theology at Helm- 

 stadt, having acquired liberal opinions far in ad- 

 vance of his age, attempted a union of the various 

 religious parties. Syncretist then became a word 



of great odium See Walch's Introduction to the 



Controversies of the Lutheran Church (in German). 



SYNDIC, in government and commerce ; an 

 officer, in various countries, intrusted with the af- 

 fairs of a city, or other community, company of art 

 or trade, &c., who calls meetings, makes represen- 

 tations and solicitations to the magistracy, &c. 



Syndic is also a person appointed to act in some 

 particular affair, in which he has a common interest 

 with his constituents, as when he is one among 

 several creditors of the same debtor. 



SYNECDOCHE, in rhetoric ,: a figure in which 

 the whole of a thing is put for a part of it only, or 

 a" part for a whole. This figure is of very consider- 

 able latitude, and is used, 1. when the genus is put 

 for the species ; 2. when the species is put for the 

 genus ; 3. when the essential whole is put for one 

 of its parts; 4. when the matter or form is put for 

 the whole being ; 5. the whole for a part ; or, lastly, 

 the part for the whole. 



SYNEDRIUM. See Sanhedrin. 



SYNOCHA, AND SYNOCHUS. See Fever. 



SYNOD; an ecclesiastical assembly convened to 

 consult on church affairs. (See Council.') A 

 synod may be composed of a bishop and the clergy 

 of his diocese (synodus diacesalis, diocesan synod), 

 or of an archbishop and the bishops of his province 

 (synodus provincialis), or of the whole clergy of a 

 state under a papal legate {synodus universalis, or na- 

 tionalis). Synods, in the Presbyterian church, are 

 composed of several adjacent presbyteries. (See 

 Assembly, General, and Scotland, Church of.) The 

 convocations of the English clergy are provincial 

 synods ; but they have virtually expired. (See 

 Convocation, and England, Church of.) The holy 

 synod at Petersburg is the supreme ecclesiastical 

 council of the Greek church in Russia. (See Greek 

 Church, and Russia.) The superintendents and 

 inspectors, with their parochial clergy, also form 

 synods in Lutheran countries, but rather for pur- 

 poses of advice and mutual encouragement, than of 

 exercising any controlling authority. 



SYNONYMES, or words having the same sig- 

 nification, strictly speaking, do not exist in any 

 language. Different dialects of the same language 

 may indeed have different words of the same mean- 

 ing ; but as soon as these pass from the dialect 

 into the literary or generally adopted language, 

 they either take the place of some other word of 

 the same signification, or receive themselves a new 

 shade of meaning, and are then added to the others. 

 It is true that the similarity in the meaning of 

 words is often so great that much discrimination is 

 required to ascertain the different shade of each 

 word ; and an abundance of such synonymes proves 

 great acuteness in a nation. The languages of the 

 East, so rich in metaphors and imagery, manifest the 

 vivid imagination of its inhabitants, while most of 

 the languages of Western Europe, by their numer- 

 ous synonymes, demonstrate the acuteness of those 

 who speak them The Arabian language, equally 



distinguished for the copiousness of its imagery and 

 the number of its synonymes, strikingly exhibits the 

 wit, imagination and discrimination of this people. 

 The more a nation advances in civilization, the more 

 it classifies ideas, unites the various species under 

 the genus, and the more synonymes are required, 

 as they are words which, with a general resem- 

 blance, have characteristic differences, as cruel- 

 ty and atrocity, riches and treasures. Synonymes 

 form an important subject of philological study, and 

 one which requires much knowledge of the etymo- 

 logy and history of the language investigated. The 

 want of works in this branch of study was early felt. 

 Towards the end of the second century, Jul. Pollux 

 wrote his Onomasticon a work of some merit, on 

 Greek synonymes. Vaugelas, Girard, Beauzee and 

 Roubaud have written on French synonymes ; 

 Blair, David Booth, and Crabb on English ; Stosch, 

 Heynatz, Eberhard (continued by Maass and Gru- 

 ber), on German ; and doctor Ramshorn (Alten. 

 burg, 1828) has lately republished the Latin syno- 

 nymes of Dumesnil (Ernesti's edition). 



SYNTAX (ffutrafys, construction) ; that part of 

 grammar which treats of the manner of connecting 

 words into regular sentences. A word expresses a 

 single notion, but by itself is little more tlian an 

 articulate sound, which, like the cry of animals, 

 intimates a wish or a feeling. A succession of such 

 sounds, properly arranged and connected, becomes 

 language. The art of constructing sentences is, 

 therefore, not less important than the power of 

 speech ; it is, indeed, the intellectual part of lan- 

 guage, and a characteristic of reason. One class of 

 words the particles, or the accessory parts of 

 speech, as they are sometimes called serve merely 

 to indicate the relations in which the principal or 

 necessary parts (noun and verb) stand towards each 

 other, or rather like the sinews of the human body, 

 to bind together what would otherwise be a heap 

 of disconnected and useless limbs. In every lan- 

 guage, there is some fundamental principle, which 

 pervades and regulates its whole construction, al- 

 though it may occasionally admit of particular va- 

 riations. Passion, or the excited imagination, for 

 instance, will often violate, as the grammarians call 

 it, the general laws of construction. In some lan- 

 guages, the principle of juxtaposition prevails, and 

 little diversity of arrangement is possible. The 

 relations of the subject, the action and the object 

 are indicated by their respective positions. In the 

 transpositive languages, these relations are indj 

 cated by the changes in the forms of the words ; ano 

 the modes of arrangement are various. Still, in the 

 structure and disposition of sentences and parts o- 

 sentences, the logical relations of the thoughts must 

 regulate the construction, even where it appears to 

 be most arbitrary. See Language and Philology. 



SYNTHESIS (literally, connexion, union) is :i 

 term used generally as contradistinguished to ana- 

 lysis. Combining and separating are the chief opera- 

 tions by which we acquire knowledge ; the former, 

 however, is first in time. When an object is pre- 

 sented to our vision, we form the idea of a whole 

 out of its parts ; but the intellect in forming gene- 

 ral notions, separates the given subject (analysis), 

 \ and then unites (synthesis) what is common to 

 several things, excluding what is peculiar to each. 

 A synthetic or progressive proof or demonstration 

 is one which proceeds from the reasons to the con- 

 I sequences, or from the general to the special : an 

 ' analytical or regressive one ascends from the con- 

 | sequences to the reasons. This also explains the 



