they had a different meaning from what they now have. The oldest definition of mathematical analysis as opposed to synthesis is that given in Euclid, XIII. 5, which in all probability was framed by Eudoxus: "Analysis is the obtaining of the thing sought by assuming it and so reasoning up to an admitted truth; synthesis is the obtaining of the thing sought by reasoning up to the inference and proof of it." The analytic method is not conclusive, unless all operations involved in it are known to be reversible. To remove all doubt, the Greeks, as a rule, added to the analytic process a synthetic one, consisting of a reversion of all operations occurring in the analysis. Thus the aim of analysis was to aid in the discovery of synthetic proofs or solutions.
Plato is said to have solved the problem of the duplication of the cube. But the solution is open to the very same objection which he made to the solutions by Archytas, Eudoxus, and Menæchmus. He called their solutions not geometrical, but mechanical, for they required the use of other instruments than the ruler and compass. He said that thereby "the good of geometry is set aside and destroyed, for we again reduce it to the world of sense, instead of elevating and imbuing it with the eternal and incorporeal images of thought, even as it is employed by God, for which reason He always is God." These objections indicate either that the solution is wrongly attributed to Plato or that he wished to show how easily non-geometric solutions of that character can be found. It is now generally admitted that the duplication problem, as well as the trisection and quadrature problems, cannot be solved by means of the ruler and compass only.
Plato gave a healthful stimulus to the study of stereometry, which until his time had been entirely neglected. The sphere and the regular solids had been studied to some extent, but the prism, pyramid, cylinder, and cone were hardly known to
