…or is its efficient cause; for this may obtain in certain cases—such as a particular effect that is inseparably bound to its cause—whereas most consequents are not produced by their antecedents. Whether one supposes them to be produced or not, the claim that “the quiddity, simply by being what it is, necessitates that consequent” is an imprecise statement, for to say that something is consequent to another means only that whenever the antecedent is realized, the consequent is realized. Hence the assertion that “the quiddity, insofar as it is what it is, demands that consequent” is ambiguous; its being consequent is a perfectly intelligible fact, but the phrase “insofar as it is what it is” suggests that inherence is of two kinds: inherence by virtue of the very essence and inherence by virtue of something other than the essence.

If someone says, “Yes, to my mind inherence is of two types: the self-evident consequent that needs no middle term is consequent by virtue of the essence itself, whereas the consequent that requires a middle term is consequent on account of that middle, not on account of the essence,” we reply: The dispute concerns precisely this distinction. You wish to prove that whatever inheres without a middle term is self-evident, needing no demonstration and belonging to the first principles, so that merely conceiving the two sides of the proposition is enough to know it. Yet your opponent will answer that a consequent may be without a middle term in external reality—like an effect with its cause—while still being known only through a proof and a middle term that exist in mind and thought, not in the external world. You, however, have claimed that everything that requires a middle term in the intellect requires one in existence, and that whatever needs no middle term in existence needs none in the intellect; on this basis you have attempted to erect your proof.

We say that once your assertion is fully and accurately conceived, it yields immediate, necessary knowledge of its falsehood. Nevertheless, we shall also expose the unsoundness of the argument you offered in support of your claim, just as we dismantle the sophists’ specious objections, however proudly they may label them “proofs.” You have simply begged the question, taking the very point under dispute as a premise to prove itself. You could not even begin your argument until you had assumed—without evidence—that consequents fall into two classes: the self-evident, which inheres by virtue of the essence, and the consequent with a middle term, which in fact needs a middle term. Your opponent, on the other hand, does not concede that any consequent requires a middle term in reality; rather, all consequents follow directly from their antecedents, even though some antecedents serve as conditions for others—just as knowledge is conditioned by life and volition is conditioned by knowledge—so that the condition is not a middle term necessitated by the second consequent, just as…