André-Marie Ampère Quote

Either one or the other [analysis or synthesis] may be direct or indirect. The direct procedure is when the point of departure is known-direct synthesis in the elements of geometry. By combining at random simple truths with each other, more complicated ones are deduced from them. This is the method of discovery, the special method of inventions, contrary to popular opinion.

André-Marie Ampè, in André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment and Electrodynamics, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 159