|
|
Categories 
terms 'two cubits long, "three cubits long,' and so on indicate
quantity, the terms 'great' and 'small' indicate relation, for they
have reference to an external standard. It is, therefore, plain that
these are to be classed as relative.
Again, whether we define them as quantitative or not, they have no
contraries: for how can there be a contrary of an attribute which is
not to be apprehended in or by itself, but only by reference to
something external? Again, if 'great' and 'small' are contraries, it
will come about that the same subject can admit contrary qualities
at one and the same time, and that things will themselves be
contrary to themselves. For it happens at times that the same thing is
both small and great. For the same thing may be small in comparison
with one thing, and great in comparison with another, so that the same
thing comes to be both small and great at one and the same time, and
is of such a nature as to admit contrary qualities at one and the same
moment. Yet it was agreed, when substance was being discussed, that
nothing admits contrary qualities at one and the same moment. For
though substance is capable of admitting contrary qualities, yet no
one is at the same time both sick and healthy, nothing is at the
same time both white and black. Nor is there anything which is
qualified in contrary ways at one and the same time.
Moreover, if these were contraries, they would themselves be
contrary to themselves. For if 'great' is the contrary of 'small', and
the same thing is both great and small at the same time, then
'small' or 'great' is the contrary of itself. But this is
impossible. The term 'great', therefore, is not the contrary of the
term 'small', nor 'much' of 'little'. And even though a man should
call these terms not relative but quantitative, they would not have
contraries.
It is in the case of space that quantity most plausibly appears to
admit of a contrary. For men define the term 'above' as the contrary
of 'below', when it is the region at the centre they mean by
|
