Hence the dual definition of analysis: reduce complex ideas 'to the simple ideas of which they are made up and follow the progress of their generation';' and seek the truth 'by a kind of calculation, that is, by composing and decomposing notions and comparing themi the most favourable way with the discoveries that one has in view This ambiguity had its effect on clinical method, but this method followed a conceptual 'slope' that was the exact opposite of Condillac's development: the term by term reversal of the point of origin and the point of culmination.