p Any object is a totality (a system) of various interacting components, characteristics and aspects. What has to be done to determine the intricately linked components of an object and find out its essence? An important role in the investigation of such systems is played by analysis. Analysis is the breaking up of an object into its fundamental elements in order to ascertain their place and pick out the most essential ones. Analysis, Lenin wrote, is “separation of components”, a division of the given concrete phenomenon. There can be a factual analysis and a logical analysis. The factual analysis is mainly used to investigate inorganic nature. For instance, a chemical analysis divides a molecule into its components—atoms, ions and radicals. If, for certain reasons, the object cannot be destroyed then logical analysis is used. It is most widely employed in studying living organisms and social systems. Only the analytical activity of thought can disclose the diversity and complexity of a socio-economic formation, class, nation and other social phenomena.

p As distinct from analysis, synthesis is the material or mental combination of an object’s components and aspects with the view to determining their inner, essential links and consequently its inherent laws. Chemists, for instance, synthesise molecules out of atoms, radicals and ions, and study the laws of chemical motion. Sociologists mentally unite various aspects of the life of society and thus obtain a general idea of society.

p Man acquired his aptitude for analytical and synthetical cognition in the course of practical activity. During his life and work man encountered numerous objects and phenomena which he divided into parts and united into various implements of labour, mechanisms and structures. Pondering the results of practical analysis and synthesis he gradually turned them into very efficient methods of scientific research.

Analysis and synthesis are a unity since the object and its components are also a unity. They are interacting aspects of a single analytical and synthetical method of scientific cognition. Marx, investigating in his Capital the capitalist mode of production, at first broke it up into its components (production proper, circulation, distribution, etc.) and 174 studied them. After that he united all these components and acquired a thorough knowledge of capitalism as a whole. As a result, he fathomed the secret of capitalist exploitation, disclosed the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism and concluded that its doom was inevitable.