Note (return) — Chapter XII
Reading edition
Both these processes are based upon an anterior knowledge. Demonstrative science must be from things true, first, immediate, more known than, prior to, and the causes of, the conclusion, for thus there will be the appropriate first principles of whatever is demonstrated. 696 The first principles of demonstration, the material of thought, must, consequently, be supplied by some power or faculty of the mind other than that which is engaged in generalization and deductive reasoning. Whence, then, is this "anterior knowledge" derived, and what tests or criteria have we of its validity?