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not a 'privative'. Moreover, if 'blindness' were equivalent to

'being blind', both would be predicated of the same subject; but

though a man is said to be blind, he is by no means said to be

blindness.

To be in a state of 'possession' is, it appears, the opposite of

being in a state of 'privation', just as 'positives' and

'privatives' themselves are opposite. There is the same type of

antithesis in both cases; for just as blindness is opposed to sight,

so is being blind opposed to having sight.

That which is affirmed or denied is not itself affirmation or

denial. By 'affirmation' we mean an affirmative proposition, by

'denial' a negative. Now, those facts which form the matter of the

affirmation or denial are not propositions; yet these two are said

to be opposed in the same sense as the affirmation and denial, for

in this case also the type of antithesis is the same. For as the

affirmation is opposed to the denial, as in the two propositions 'he

sits', 'he does not sit', so also the fact which constitutes the

matter of the proposition in one case is opposed to that in the other,

his sitting, that is to say, to his not sitting.

It is evident that 'positives' and 'privatives' are not opposed each

to each in the same sense as relatives. The one is not explained by

reference to the other; sight is not sight of blindness, nor is any

other preposition used to indicate the relation. Similarly blindness

is not said to be blindness of sight, but rather, privation of

sight. Relatives, moreover, reciprocate; if blindness, therefore, were

a relative, there would be a reciprocity of relation between it and

that with which it was correlative. But this is not the case. Sight is

not called the sight of blindness.

That those terms which fall under the heads of 'positives' and

'privatives' are not opposed each to each as contraries, either, is

plain from the following facts: Of a pair of contraries such that they

have no intermediate, one or the other must needs be present in the