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we call men good boxers or runners, or healthy or sickly: in fact it

includes all those terms which refer to inborn capacity or incapacity.

Such things are not predicated of a person in virtue of his

disposition, but in virtue of his inborn capacity or incapacity to

do something with ease or to avoid defeat of any kind. Persons are

called good boxers or good runners, not in virtue of such and such a

disposition, but in virtue of an inborn capacity to accomplish

something with ease. Men are called healthy in virtue of the inborn

capacity of easy resistance to those unhealthy influences that may

ordinarily arise; unhealthy, in virtue of the lack of this capacity.

Similarly with regard to softness and hardness. Hardness is predicated

of a thing because it has that capacity of resistance which enables it

to withstand disintegration; softness, again, is predicated of a thing

by reason of the lack of that capacity.

A third class within this category is that of affective qualities

and affections. Sweetness, bitterness, sourness, are examples of

this sort of quality, together with all that is akin to these; heat,

moreover, and cold, whiteness, and blackness are affective

qualities. It is evident that these are qualities, for those things

that possess them are themselves said to be such and such by reason of

their presence. Honey is called sweet because it contains sweetness;

the body is called white because it contains whiteness; and so in

all other cases.

The term 'affective quality' is not used as indicating that those

things which admit these qualities are affected in any way. Honey is

not called sweet because it is affected in a specific way, nor is this

what is meant in any other instance. Similarly heat and cold are

called affective qualities, not because those things which admit

them are affected. What is meant is that these said qualities are

capable of producing an 'affection' in the way of perception. For

sweetness has the power of affecting the sense of taste; heat, that of

touch; and so it is with the rest of these qualities.