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1 The major premise of a practical syllogism is universal, a general rule; the minor is particular, the application of the rule to the case in hand. The next sentence points out that this application really requires two syllogisms; in the first, the personal term of the major premise is predicated in the minor of the particular person concerned （Dry food is good for all men: I am a man: therefore dry food is good for me） ; in the second, the other universal term is predicated in the minor of a particular thing about which the person is deliberating （Dry food is good for me: this stale loaf is dry food: therefore this stale loaf is good for me）. It is the minor premise of the second syllogism, viz. the application of the general rule not to himself but to the thing in question, that the unrestrained man seems not to know, or not to think of, at the time. This illustration is confused in the text by the insertion of another minor premise ἢ ὅτι ξηρὸν τὸ τοιόνδε, ‘or that food of a certain kind [e.g. stale bread] is dry.’ It would have been enough to write ἀλλ᾽ εἰ τόδε ξηρόν, ‘but whether this [stale loaf] is dry.’
2 The reference is to persons of weak will uttering sound moral maxims almost at the very moment of yielding to temptation.