A fresh stand is made among these rudimentary
universals, and the process does not cease until the indivisible
concepts, the true universals, are established: e.g. such and such a
species of animal is a step towards the genus animal, which by the
same process is a step towards a further generalization.
Thus it is clear that we must get to know the primary premisses by
induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants
the universal is inductive. Now of the thinking states by which we
grasp truth, some are unfailingly true, others admit of error-opinion,
for instance, and calculation, whereas scientific knowing and
intuition are always true: further, no other kind of thought except
intuition is more accurate than scientific knowledge, whereas
primary premisses are more knowable than demonstrations, and all
scientific knowledge is discursive. From these considerations it
follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of the primary
premisses, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than
scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary
premisses-a result which also follows from the fact that demonstration
cannot be the originative source of demonstration, nor,
consequently, scientific knowledge of scientific knowledge.
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