There
the end is the truth seen (for, when one conceives the two
premisses, one at once conceives and comprehends the conclusion),
but here the two premisses result in a conclusion which is an
action- for example, one conceives that every man ought to walk, one
is a man oneself: straightway one walks; or that, in this case, no man
should walk, one is a man: straightway one remains at rest. And one so
acts in the two cases provided that there is nothing in the one case
to compel or in the other to prevent. Again, I ought to create a good,
a house is good: straightway I make a house. I need a covering, a coat
is a covering: I need a coat. What I need I ought to make, I need a
coat: I make a coat. And the conclusion I must make a coat is an
action. And the action goes back to the beginning or first step. If
there is to be a coat, one must first have B, and if B then A, so
one gets A to begin with. Now that the action is the conclusion is
clear. But the premisses of action are of two kinds, of the good and
of the possible.
And as in some cases of speculative inquiry we suppress one
premise so here the mind does not stop to consider at all an obvious
minor premise; for example if walking is good for man, one does not
dwell upon the minor 'I am a man'.
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