is not an inference from a particular to a universal, or from the specific to the general. Rather, it is an inference from one of two mutually entailing things to the other. For if that judgment holds for every individual instance of a general universal, it must necessarily hold for that universal.

Their claim that this is an inference from what is specific and particular to what is general and universal is therefore untrue. How could that be so, when the evidence must entail what it proves? For if the evidence could exist without what it proves, and what it proves did not necessarily follow from it, then knowing that the evidence was present would not enable us to know that what it proves was also present—if we knew that the latter sometimes accompanied it and sometimes did not. If we knew this and then said that it always accompanied it, we would be affirming two contradictories simultaneously.

The necessary connection we are discussing here makes inference possible, whatever form that connection takes. The stronger, more complete and more evident the connection, the stronger, more complete and more evident its indication. This is the case with created things, which point to the Creator, glorified and exalted is He. Every created thing necessarily entails its Creator: it cannot exist without its Creator’s existence, nor indeed without His knowledge, power, will, wisdom and mercy. Every created thing points to all of these.

If what is proved necessarily follows from the evidence, then it is evident that a necessary consequent must be either coextensive with that which entails it or broader in scope. Thus, the evidence can only be broader in scope than what it proves.

When they say that in syllogistic reasoning one infers the particular from the universal, the particular is not the judgment being proved. Rather, it is the subject being described and spoken of as the locus of the judgment. This may be narrower in scope than the evidence or coextensive with it. The judgment, by contrast—which is the formulation concerning that subject and the ruling asserted of it—can only be broader in scope than the evidence or coextensive with it. For this is what is proved and necessarily follows from the evidence, while the evidence itself necessarily follows from the subject being spoken of and described.