[38] Analyt. Post. I. xii. p. 77, b. 16-33. Propositions within the limits of the science, but false as to matter, are styled by Aristotle ψευδογραφήματα. See Aristot. Sophist. Elench. xi. p. 171, b. 14; p. 172, a. 1.
“L’interrogation syllogistique se confondant avec la proposition, il s’ensuit que l’interrogation doit être, comme la proposition, propre à la science dont il s’agit.� (Barthélemy St Hilaire, note, p. 70). Interrogation here has a different meaning from that which it bears in Dialectic.
[39] Ibid. I. xii. p. 77, b. 34 seq. This passage is to me hardly intelligible. It is differently understood by commentators and translators. John Philoponus in the Scholia (p. 217, b. 17-32, Brandis), cites the explanation of it given by Ammonius, but rejects that explanation, and waits for others to supply him with a better. Zabarella (Comm. in Analyt. Post. pp. 426, 456, ed. Venet 1617) admits that as it stands, and where it stands, it is unintelligible, but transposes it to another part of the book (to the end of cap. xvii., immediately before the words φανερὸν δὲ καὶ ὅτι, &c., of c. xviii.), and gives an explanation of it in this altered position. But I do not think he has succeeded in clearing it up.
[40] Ibid. I. xii. p. 77, b. 40-p. 78, a. 13.
Knowledge of Fact and knowledge of the Cause must be distinguished, and even within the same Science.[41] In some syllogisms the conclusion only brings out τὸ ὅτι — the reality of certain facts; in others, it ends in τὸ διότι — the affirmation of a cause, or of the Why. The syllogism of the Why is, where the middle term is not merely the cause, but the proximate cause, of the conclusion. Often, however, the effect is more notorious, so that we employ it as middle term, and conclude from it to its reciprocating cause; in which case our syllogism is only of the ὅτι; and so it is also when we employ as middle term a cause not proximate but remote, concluding from that to the effect.[42] Sometimes the syllogisms of the ὅτι may fall under one science, those of the διότι under another, namely, in the case where one science is subordinate to another, as optics to geometry, and harmonics to arithmetic; the facts of optics and harmonics belonging to sense and observation, the causes thereof to mathematical reasoning. It may happen, then, that a man knows τὸ διότι well, but is comparatively ignorant τοῦ ὅτι: the geometer may have paid little attention to optical facts.[43] Cognition of the διότι is the maximum, the perfection, of all cognition; and this, comprising arithmetical and geometrical theorems, is almost always attained by syllogisms in the First figure. This figure is the most truly scientific of the three; the other two figures depend upon it for expansion and condensation. It is, besides, the only one in which universal affirmative conclusions can be obtained; for in the Second figure we get only negative conclusions; in the Third, only particular. Accordingly, propositions declaring Essence or Definition, obtained only through universal affirmative conclusions, are yielded in none but the First figure.[44]
[41] Ibid. I. xiii. p. 77, a. 22 seq.
[42] Themistius, p. 45: πολλάκις συμβαίνει καὶ ἀντιστρέφειν ἀλλήλοις τὸ αἰτιον καὶ τὸ σημεῖον καὶ ἄμφω δείκνυσθαι δι’ ἀλλήλων, διὰ τοῦ σημείου μὲν ὡς τὸ ὅτι, διὰ θατέρου δὲ ὡς τὸ διότι.
“Cum enim vera demonstratio, id est τοῦ διότι, fiat per causam proximam, consequens est, ut demonstratio vel per effectum proximum, vel per causam remotam, sit demonstratio τοῦ ὅτιâ€� (Julius Pacius, Comm. p. 422).
M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire observes (Note, p. 82):— “La cause éloignée non immédiate, donne un syllogisme dans la seconde figure. — Il est vrai qu’Aristote n’appelle cause que la cause immédiate; et que la cause éloignée n’est pas pour lui une véritable cause.�
See in Schol. p. 188, a. 19, the explanation given by Alexander of the syllogism τοῦ διότι.