ideas of
the same degree another general idea, and so on successively, step by
step, always proceeding according to the natural order of things, by
constant analysis, using expressive signs, as with mathematicians in
passing from calculation by the fingers to calculation by numerals, and
from this to calculation by letters, and who, calling upon the eyes
to aid Reason, depict the inward analogy of quantities by the outward
analogy of symbols. In this way science becomes complete by means of a
properly organized language.[3124]--Through this reversal of the
usual method we summarily dispose of disputes about words, escape the
illusions of human speech, simplify study, remodel education, enhance
discoveries, subject every assertion to control, and bring all truths
within reach of all understandings.

V. The Analytical Method.

The analytical method.--Its principle.--The conditions
requisite to make it productive.--These conditions wanting
or inadequate in the 18th century.--The truth and survival
of the principle.

Such is the course to be pursued with all the sciences, and especially
with the moral and political sciences. To consider in turn each distinct
province of human activity, to decompose the leading notions out
of which we form our conceptions, those of religion, society and
government, those of utility, wealth and exchange, those of justice,
right and duty. To revert to manifest facts, to first experiences,
to the simple circumstances in which the elements of our ideas are
included; to extricate from these the precious lode without omission
or mixture; to recompose our idea with these, to define its meaning and
determine its value; to substitute for the vague and vulgar notion with
which we started out the precise scientific definition we arrive at,
and for the impure metal we received the refined metal we recovered,
constituted the prevalent method taught by the philosophers under
the name of analysis, and which sums up the whole progress of the
century.--Up to this point, and not farther, they are right; truth,
every truth, is found in observable things, and only from these can
it be derived; there is no other pathway leading to discovery.-The
operation, undoubtedly, is productive only when the vein is rich, and
we possess the means of extracting the ore. To obtain a just notion of
government, of religion, of right, of wealth, a man must be a historian
beforehand, a jurisconsult a