There is a certain way of searching for the truth in mathematics that Plato is said first to have discovered; Theon named it analysis, and defined it as the assumption of that which is sought as if it were admitted and working through its consequences to what is admitted to be true. This is opposed to synthesis, which is the assuming what is admitted and working through its consequences to arrive at and to understand that which is sought.

Ch. 1 as quoted by Douglas M. Jesseph, Squaring the Circle: The War Between Hobbes and Wallis (1999) p. 225 - In artem analyticem Isagoge (1591)