and so they went astray and led others astray. Whoever says that it cannot be seen at twelve degrees, ten degrees, or the like is mistaken. Some people see it at less than that, while others do not see it even at that point. Thus, they neither took reason into account nor understood the revealed Law. For this reason, the accomplished experts in their own discipline rejected their claims.

He then said:

The validity of the syllogistic form is not denied. Rather, we explain that it yields no knowledge of existing things. Likewise, their stipulation of exactly two premises, neither more nor fewer, is invalid. Even if it produces certainty, it does not, as such, yield any sought-after certainty about anything that exists.

We say, then:

There is no doubt that the syllogistic form yields certainty when its content is known. If it is said, “Every A is B, and every B is C,” and both premises are known to be true, then this arrangement undoubtedly yields knowledge that every A is C. Yet we say that their elaborate account of the many figures and the conditions under which they yield conclusions is a lengthy treatment of little benefit and much trouble. Whenever the content is sound, it can be expressed in the first figure, which is naturally grasped. The remaining figures are therefore unnecessary. They yield conclusions only by being reduced to the first figure, whether by refuting the contradictory proposition, as in a proof by contradiction, or through simple conversion or contraposition. For establishing one of two contradictories entails negating the other, provided they are contradictory in every respect. Thus, from the truth of a proposition they infer the falsity of its negation and the truth of its simple converse and its contrapositive. Indeed, the mind’s conception