Prior Analytics - Book II   

shall be able to infer character from features. For if there is an

affection which belongs properly to an individual kind, e.g. courage

to lions, it is necessary that there should be a sign of it: for ex

hypothesi body and soul are affected together. Suppose this sign is

the possession of large extremities: this may belong to other kinds

also though not universally. For the sign is proper in the sense

stated, because the affection is proper to the whole kind, though

not proper to it alone, according to our usual manner of speaking. The

same thing then will be found in another kind, and man may be brave,

and some other kinds of animal as well. They will then have the

sign: for ex hypothesi there is one sign corresponding to each

affection. If then this is so, and we can collect signs of this sort

in these animals which have only one affection proper to them-but each

affection has its sign, since it is necessary that it should have a

single sign-we shall then be able to infer character from features.

But if the kind as a whole has two properties, e.g. if the lion is

both brave and generous, how shall we know which of the signs which

are its proper concomitants is the sign of a particular affection?

Perhaps if both belong to some other kind though not to the whole of

it, and if, in those kinds in which each is found though not in the

whole of their members, some members possess one of the affections and

not the other: e.g. if a man is brave but not generous, but possesses,

of the two signs, large extremities, it is clear that this is the sign

of courage in the lion also. To judge character from features, then,

is possible in the first figure if the middle term is convertible with

the first extreme, but is wider than the third term and not

convertible with it: e.g. let A stand for courage, B for large

extremities, and C for lion. B then belongs to everything to which C

belongs, but also to others. But A belongs to everything to which B

belongs, and to nothing besides, but is convertible with B: otherwise,

there would not be a single sign correlative with each affection.


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