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It is also clear that if the premisses from which the syllogism
proceeds are commensurately universal, the conclusion of such i.e.
in the unqualified sense-must also be eternal. Therefore no
attribute can be demonstrated nor known by strictly scientific
knowledge to inhere in perishable things. The proof can only be
accidental, because the attribute's connexion with its perishable
subject is not commensurately universal but temporary and special.
If such a demonstration is made, one premiss must be perishable and
not commensurately universal (perishable because only if it is
perishable will the conclusion be perishable; not commensurately
universal, because the predicate will be predicable of some
instances of the subject and not of others); so that the conclusion
can only be that a fact is true at the moment-not commensurately and
universally. The same is true of definitions, since a definition is
either a primary premiss or a conclusion of a demonstration, or else
only differs from a demonstration in the order of its terms.
Demonstration and science of merely frequent occurrences-e.g. of
eclipse as happening to the moon-are, as such, clearly eternal:
whereas so far as they are not eternal they are not fully
commensurate.
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