a. (sb.) [ad. Gr. θετικ-ός such as is placed or is fit to be placed; positive, affirmative, f. θέτος placed, f. root θε- to place.]
1. Characterized by laying down or setting forth; involving positive statement: cf. THESIS 4.
1678. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, III. Pref. To render our Discourse the lesse offensive, we have cast it into a thetic and dogmatic method, rather than agonistic and polemic.
1837. E. Bickersteth, Life Francke, iv. 61. Thetic and historical divinity were not the fields which Francke had chosen to lecture upon.
1882. A. M. Fairbairn, in Contemp. Rev., Dec., 862. His [Mohammed’s] genius was not thetic, but synthetic, not creative but constructive.
2. Pros. That bears the thesis; stressed.
1815. J. Grant, in Monthly Mag., XXXIX. 303. The first syllable of each being thetic or emphatic and the remainder of the foot being in arsis or remiss.
b. ‘Beginning with a thesis’ (Cent. Dict., 1891).
B. sb. (pl.) Thetics (nonce-wd.), the art of laying down principles or putting forth propositions.
1864. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XVI. v. (1873), VI. 182. Polemics, Thetics, Exegetics.
