1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/A Fortiori
From Wikisource
| ←Afium-kara-hissar | 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica A Fortiori |
Afranius, Lucius (Roman general)→ |
| See also A fortiori argument on Wikipedia, and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer. |
A Fortiori (Lat. "from a stronger [reason]"), a term used of an argument which justifies a statement not itself specifically demonstrated by reference to a proved conclusion which includes it; thus, if A is proved less than B, and is known to be greater than C, it follows a fortiori that C is less than B without further proof. The argument is frequently based merely on a comparison of probabilities (cf. Matt. vi. 30), when it constitutes an appeal to common sense.
