Rhetorical Analysis and Synthesis [pp. 456-483]

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS.
distinct and congruous image to the imagination. In each of
these cases a sort of triangular conception is formed. If there
were four parts, instead of three, the analogical reference might
be to an oblong or a square. In this way Christian society is
conceived of by St. Paul under the image of the human organism, and all its parts as members or organs of the body.
Society at large is represented by Hobbes as a great "Leviathan;"
and science, by Mr. Henry Carey, as a tree.
The special relations with reference to which dissimilar things,
both abstract and concrete, are thus synthesized, are many and
various and more or less close, according to the nature of the
whole which they form. In the synthesis of the diverse parts
of an organism their organic relations to each other will commonly be regarded. In the parts of a house we naturally
regard some or other of their mechanical relations. In synthesizing the parts of a sentence, or speech, or discourse of any
kind, the grammatical, logical and rhetorical relations must be
kept in view. But if all things that exist be grouped together
in one whole, the sole relation which can be regarded is that of
a common existence.
XXII. Sythesis corrects the errors of analysis, and is the principal source of condensation in style.
The grand utility of the synthetic process is evident from the
preceding discussion. For, as has been said, co-ordinately with
analysis it underlies and pervades all the processes of thought
and expression. Even in analysis itself the orderly enumeration
of the parts is strictly a synthetic process..All single words,
sentences, paragraphs, divisions, speeches, treatises, books, are
thus composed. Synthesis enters fundamentally into the
rhetorical processes of narration, description, exemplification,
comparison, induction and deduction. Discourse itself is entire ly made up of higher and lower, more or less extensive and
intensive wholes of thought, which have been synthetically
composed and expressed. It is necessary, however, to exhibit
here one or two of the more special uses of this process as
examples of the rest.
1. Synthesis corrects the errors of analysis. For by analysis,
as we have seen, [XVIII. 1] we obtain the heads, or divisions,
captions and topics of discourse, which, even when they do not
require to be formally expressed, should always be carried in
1874.]
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