Maxim. This term with which we are all so familiar is of purely philosophical origin. The τόποι or places of Aristotle, the loci communes of the Latins, if shaped into propositions (1) were called by Boëthius the maximœ propositiones; also propositiones supremœ, principales, indemonstrabiles, per se notœ, which being admitted on all hands, were capable of serving as premisses in reasoning.
«Maximas propositiones vocamus quæ et universales sunt, et ita notæ atque manifestæ, ut probatione non egeant, eaque potius quæ in dubitatione sunt probent.» Passing into the hands of the schoolmen, the substantive propositio was soon dropped, and the adjective came to be used substantively as a recognised term of art; the same thing having more or less contemporaneously occurred among the Greek logicians, with whom the μέγισται προτάσεις became simply μέγισται.
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(1) A distinction was drawn by some of the schoolmen between the locus and the place, for which see Topic.
