the highest and most universal expression of them is to be preferred, as affording the largest grasp for the purpose of obtaining a suitable middle term.[55] It will be seen (as has been declared already) that every syllogism obtained will have three terms and two propositions; and that it will be in one or other of the three figures above described.[56] [Footnote 54: Analyt. Prior. I. xxviii. p. 43, b. 39-p. 44, a. 35.] [Footnote 55: Ibid. p. 44, a. 39. Alexander and Philoponus (Scholia, p. 177, a. 19, 39, Brandis) point out an inconsistency between what Aristotle says here and what he had said in one of the preceding paragraphs, dissuading the inquirer from attending to the highest generalities, and recommending him to look only at both subject and predicate in their special place on the logical scale. Alexander's way of removing the inconsistency is not successful: I doubt if there be an inconsistency. I understand Aristotle _here_ to mean only that the universal expression KZ ([Greek: to\ katho/lou Z]) is to be preferred to the indefinite or indeterminate (simply Z, [Greek: a)dio/riston]), also K[Greek: G] ([Greek: to\ katho/lou G]) to simple [Greek: G (a)dio/riston)]. This appears to me not inconsistent with the recommendation which Aristotle had given before.] [Footnote 56: Ibid. p. 44, b. 6-20.] The way just pointed out is the only way towards obtaining a suitable middle term. If, for example, you find some predicate applicable both to A and E, this will not conduct you to a valid syllogism; you will only obtain a syllogism in the Second figure with two affirmative premisses, which will not warrant any conclusion. Or if you find some predicate which cannot belong either to A or to E, this again will only give you a syllogism in the Second figure with two negative premisses, which leads to nothing. So also, if you have a term of which A can be predicated, but which cannot be predicated of E, you derive from it only a syllogism in the First figure, with its minor negative; and this, too, is invalid. Lastly, if you have a subject, of which neither A nor E can be predicated, your syllogism constructed from these conditions will have both its premisses negative, and will therefore be worthless.[57] [Footnote 57: Analyt. Prior. I. xxviii. p. 44, b. 25-37.]