Psychological Diagnosis and the Psychonomic Orientation of Analytic Science

Man's progress toward what we consider enlightenment and culture has come through the refinements of analytical discrimination. Though civilization, even in western Europe and America, is of romantic origin, successful thinking is predominantly analytic. Religion is a romantic emotion, but theology, like every other branch of learning is analytic, and the differentiating catechisms of the Christian churches are the joint product of romance and discernment. Mysticism struggles toward truth without analysis. Its measure of success is the prevalence of the pre-analytic generalization?what Kant called a "synthetic judgment a prioriand which many women fondly idealize as "intuition." Greek thought is the first to turn resolutely away from romantic and pre-analytic generalizations of Eastern origin. European science and art, in consequence, are successful in proportion as they follow the Hellenic trail to such perfection of judgment as may be evolved from discerned and discernible knowledge.