Posterior Analytics (Bouchier)/Book II/Chapter XVIII
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Chapter XVIII: Which is the prior cause, that which is nearer the particular, or the more universal?[edit]
- Particular effects are produced by causes which lie nearer to the particular than to the universal.
Which middle term produces effects in individual subjects? Is it the middle term which stands first on reckoning from the universal, or the middle which stands next to the particular? Clearly the middle terms nearest to the subjects in which the effect is produced, since it is those middle terms which are the cause of the major term falling under the universal law; e.g. C is the cause of B being true of D. Now C is the cause why A is predicable of D, B the cause why A predicable of C; that A is predicable of B is due to B alone and to no further cause.