bi? LOGIC: OR, THE RIGHT USE oC REASON. make sentences and discourses. So the physician and.apothe. cary knows the nature and powers of his simples, namely, his drugs, his herbs, his minerals, &c. and putting them together, and considering their several virtues, he finds what will be the nature and powers of the bolus, or any compound medicine ; this is the synthetic method. But if we are better acquainted with the whole than we are with particular parts, then we divide or resolve the whole into its parts, and thereby gain a distinct knowledge of them. So in vulgar life we learn in the gross what plants,or minerals are ; and then by chemistry we gain the knowledge of salt, sulphur, spirit, water, earth, which are the principles of them. So we are first acquainted with the whole body of an animal, and then by anatomy or dissection, we -come to learn the inward and out- ward parts of it. This is the analytic method. According to this most general and obvious idea of synthe- tic and analytic method, they differ from each other as the way which leads up from a valley to a mountain differs from itself, considered as it leads down from the mountain to the valley; or as St. Matthew and St. Luke prove Christ to be the Son of Abraham ; Luke finds it out by analysis, rising from Christ to his ancestors; Matthew teaches in the synthetic method, begin- Mktg from Abraham, and spewing that Christ is found among his posterity. Therefore it is a usual thing in the sciences, when we have by analysis found out a truth, we use the synthetic method to explain and deliver it, and prove it to be true. In this easy view of things, these two kinds of method may be preserved conspicuously, and entirely distinct ; but the subjects of knowledge being infinite, and the ways whereby we _arrive at this knowledge being almost infinitely various; it is very difficult, and almost impossible, always to maintain the precise dis- tinction between these two methods. This will evidently appear in the following observations I. Analytic method being used chiefly to find out things unknown, it is not limited or confined merely to begin with some whole subject, and proceed to the knowledge of its parts, but it takes its rise sometimes from any single part or property, or from any thing whatsoever that belongs to a subject which hap- pens to be first or most easily known, and thereby enquires into the more abstruse and unknown parts, properties, causes, effects, and modes of it, whether absolute or relative : as for instance, (1.) Aolysis finds out causes by their effects. So in the spe- culative part of natural philosophy when we observe light, colours, motions, hardnéss, softness, and other properties and powers of bodies, or any of the common or uncommon appearances of things either on earth or in heaven, we search out the causes of them. So -by the various creatures we find out the Creator, and learn his wisdom, power and goodness.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=