Note 468 — ON THE UPÁDHI (cf. supra, pp. 7, 8, 174, 194).

The upádhi is the "condition" which must be supplied to restrict a too general middle term. If the middle term, as thus restricted, is still found in the minor term, the argument is valid; if not, it fails. Thus, in "The mountain has smoke because it has fire" (which rests on the false premise that "all fire is accompanied by smoke"), we must add "wet fuel" as the condition of "fire;" and if the mountain has wet fuel as well as fire, of course it will have smoke. Similarly, the alleged argument that "B is dark because he is Mitrá's son" fails, if we can establish that the dark colour of her former offspring A depended not on his being her son, but on her happening to have fed on vegetables instead of ghee. If we can prove that she still keeps to her old diet, of course our amended middle term will still prove B to be dark, but not otherwise.