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208 KAREL HUBKA of (31) can be viewed as a zero expression of universality. The regular structure of all three couples of Valerianus' syllogisms allows easily for this kind of economy. 2) A similar kind of economy of the verbal expression of universal propositions is very old. It is being men– tioned as early as in the second century A.D., in Galenus' Institutio logica 20 • 3. The order of premises One more question remains to be settled, namely why Valerianus states his syllogisms in a reverse order of premises (minor - major) as compared to the traditional order (major - minor). The order of prem– ises is, of course, irrelevant from purely logical point of view. For Valerianus, however, it is of both epistemological and practical importance. Two features of his doctrine are directly responsible for the order of premises in his syllogisms. 1) He conceives of the course of reasoning as of « motus rationis per notiora ad notitiam ignoti » 21 • E.g. given the syllogism: Sol movetur. Id, quod movetur, necessario movetur ab alio motore. Ergo sol movetur ab alio motore. The first premise is an empirical fact ( « cognosco oculis immediate solem, de qua affirmo immediate motum ») 22 , while the second is a sort of necessary truth ( « necessaria, aeterna, incommutabilis ») enabling our reason to move from the obvious first premise to a less obvious conclusion. 2) Valerianus emphasizes the importance of the possibility to construct a chain of inferences ( « illatio conexa ») with the same subject repeating in all their conclusions 23 • His own exam– ple of such a chain can be abbreviated as follows: Li M L Luna MaR M movens regulariter LiR (12) R motum a movente regulari Ra I I motum a movente indefatigabili Li I (12) C motum a corpore 20 Galeni, Institutio logica, ed. C. Kalbfleisch, Lipsiae 1896, c. 12, § 7s. 21 Opus philosophicum cit. 9. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 18s. Valerianus complains that in the Aristotelian logic « illatio conexa » is missing (ibid. 61).