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to be mad or irascible in virtue of these. Similarly those abnormal

psychic states which are not inborn, but arise from the concomitance

of certain other elements, and are difficult to remove, or

altogether permanent, are called qualities, for in virtue of them

men are said to be such and such.

Those, however, which arise from causes easily rendered

ineffective are called affections, not qualities. Suppose that a man

is irritable when vexed: he is not even spoken of as a bad-tempered

man, when in such circumstances he loses his temper somewhat, but

rather is said to be affected. Such conditions are therefore termed,

not qualities, but affections.

The fourth sort of quality is figure and the shape that belongs to a

thing; and besides this, straightness and curvedness and any other

qualities of this type; each of these defines a thing as being such

and such. Because it is triangular or quadrangular a thing is said

to have a specific character, or again because it is straight or

curved; in fact a thing's shape in every case gives rise to a

qualification of it.

Rarity and density, roughness and smoothness, seem to be terms

indicating quality: yet these, it would appear, really belong to a

class different from that of quality. For it is rather a certain

relative position of the parts composing the thing thus qualified

which, it appears, is indicated by each of these terms. A thing is

dense, owing to the fact that its parts are closely combined with

one another; rare, because there are interstices between the parts;

smooth, because its parts lie, so to speak, evenly; rough, because

some parts project beyond others.

There may be other sorts of quality, but those that are most

properly so called have, we may safely say, been enumerated.

These, then, are qualities, and the things that take their name from

them as derivatives, or are in some other way dependent on them, are

said to be qualified in some specific way. In most, indeed in almost