everything that is bread, whether it has the shape of a loaf or some other shape.
What they and the logicians have said has been discussed at length in the treatment of al-Muhassal and elsewhere. This can be seen in abstract examples. If the aim is to establish C of A, and the middle term is B, then the statements:
“All A is B, and all B is C”
yield the conclusion:
“All A is C.”
Likewise, suppose one says:
“All A is C, by analogy with D, because D is C, and it is C only because it is B. A is also B, so A is C, since both share what entails C, namely B.”
This is sound and equivalent in meaning to the first argument, but it adds an example to which A is compared, even though the middle term, B, is already present in A.
If it is objected:
“What you have stated—that a demonstration must contain a universal proposition—is correct. This is why they use it to establish only a universal conclusion. They say that demonstration yields knowledge only of universals, and that the noblest universals are purely intellectual ones that admit neither change nor alteration. Through these the soul attains perfection, becoming an intelligible world corresponding to the world that exists, unlike propositions that change and vary. And if what is sought through demonstration is intellectual universals that admit neither alteration nor change,