If in the two judgments to be compared the relation between the _predicate of the one and the subject of the other_ is the object of the comparison, the _first figure_ appears. This figure alone has the advantage that the conceptions which in the conclusion are subject and predicate both appear already in the same character in the premisses; while in the two other figures one of them must always change its roll in the conclusion. But thus in the first figure the result is always less novel and surprising than in the other two. Now this advantage in the first figure is obtained by the fact that the predicate of the major is compared with the subject of the minor, but not conversely, which is therefore here essential, and involves that the middle should assume both the positions, _i.e._, it is the subject in the major and the predicate in the minor. And from this again arises its subordinate significance, for it appears as a mere weight which we lay at pleasure now in one scale and now in the other. The course of thought in this figure is, that the predicate of the major is attributed to the subject of the minor, because the subject of the major is the predicate of the minor, or, in the negative case, the converse holds for the same reason. Thus here a property is attributed to the things thought through a conception, because it depends upon another property which we already know they possess; or conversely. Therefore here the guiding principle is: _Nota notæ est nota rei ipsius, et repugnans notæ repugnat rei ipsi_.