Now the
superior demonstration is that which proceeds from better known and
prior premisses, and while both these forms depend for credence on the
not-being of something, yet the source of the one is prior to that
of the other. Therefore negative demonstration will have an
unqualified superiority to reductio ad impossibile, and affirmative
demonstration, being superior to negative, will consequently be
superior also to reductio ad impossibile.
27
The science which is knowledge at once of the fact and of the
reasoned fact, not of the fact by itself without the reasoned fact, is
the more exact and the prior science.
A science such as arithmetic, which is not a science of properties
qua inhering in a substratum, is more exact than and prior to a
science like harmonics, which is a science of pr,operties inhering
in a substratum; and similarly a science like arithmetic, which is
constituted of fewer basic elements, is more exact than and prior to
geometry, which requires additional elements. What I mean by
'additional elements' is this: a unit is substance without position,
while a point is substance with position; the latter contains an
additional element.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98