Equivalently, it says that all relations of adicity greater than 3 may be reduced to relations of adicities 1, 2, and/or 3. The negative component of the Thesis says, first, that relations of adicity 2 may not in general be constructed from (reduced to) relations exclusively of adicity 1; and, second, that relations of adicity 3 and greater may not in general be constructed from (equivalently: reduced to) relations exclusively of adicities 1 and/or 2.
1997, Robert W. Burch, 13: Peirce's Reduction Thesis, Nathan Houser, Don D. Roberts, James Van Evra (editor), Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders Peirce, Indiana University Press, page 233