 Kilwardby denies (NLP II.33) that the first principles of demonstration are innate or demonstrable. Kilwardby argues, instead, that they are acquired from pre-existing sensory knowledge (NLP II.33, 506). The knowledge of propositions must be preceded by the knowledge of the terms that enter into its composition, that is, what it is that is predicated and what the thing is of which something is predicated (NLP I.2, 16). By abstraction the intellect comes to know the universals that function as subject and predicate in syllogistic propositions.