Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 1 (1853).djvu/342

 peculiar principles, and that these alone indicate its substance, and that the whole is its peculiarity? for this is its essence. Or again, has a person assumed the very nature of a thing in this also? for we must necessarily demonstrate through a middle term. Moreover, as in a syllogism, we do not assume what is to have been syllogisticaliy concluded, (for the proposition is either a whole or a part, from which the syllogism consists,) thus neither ought the very nature of a thing to be in a syllogism, but this should be separate from the things which are laid down, and in reply to him who questions whether this has been syllogistically concluded or not, we must answer that it is, for this was the syllogism. And to him who asserts that the very nature of the thing was not concluded, we must reply that it was, for the very nature of the thing was laid down by us, so that it is necessary that without the definition of syllogism, or of the definition itself, something should be syllogistically inferred.

Also, if a person should demonstrate from hypothesis, for instance, if to be divisible is the essence of evil; but of a contrary, the essence is contrary of as many things as possess a contrary; but good is contrary to evil, and the indivisible to the divisible, then the essence of good is to be indivisible. For here he proves assuming the very nature of a thing, and he assumes it in order to demonstrate what is its very nature: let however something be different, since in