g. the definition of
similarity not unqualified but restricted to colours and to figures;
the definition of acuteness, but only of sound-and so proceed to the
common universal with a careful avoidance of equivocation. We may
add that if dialectical disputation must not employ metaphors, clearly
metaphors and metaphorical expressions are precluded in definition:
otherwise dialectic would involve metaphors.
14
In order to formulate the connexions we wish to prove we have to
select our analyses and divisions. The method of selection consists in
laying down the common genus of all our subjects of investigation-if
e.g. they are animals, we lay down what the properties are which
inhere in every animal. These established, we next lay down the
properties essentially connected with the first of the remaining
classes-e.g. if this first subgenus is bird, the essential
properties of every bird-and so on, always characterizing the
proximate subgenus. This will clearly at once enable us to say in
virtue of what character the subgenera-man, e.g. or horse-possess
their properties. Let A be animal, B the properties of every animal, C
D E various species of animal.
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