 Recall from  Section 3  above that on al-Fārābī’s understanding, the correct methods of logic were known by the time of Plato, who had them “according to matter”, and it was Aristotle who reformulated them as “universal rules”. He very probably has the same thing in mind when he says that Aristotle in Prior Analytics considered declarative sentences “from the point of view of their composition (ta’līf) and not of their matter” ([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 53.3f). The point he is making here becomes clear if we go back to the example syllogism spelled out at  (*) in Section 5 above.  This is actually al-Fārābī’s second shot at this syllogistic mood. In his first shot ([Syllogism] 26.11f) he followed Aristotle’s preferred style and used letters A, B, C in place of the “matters” stone, animal, and body respectively. So a corresponding paraphrase will read