Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 1 (1853).djvu/55

CHAP. X.] sentence, but nothing which falls under affirmation and negation is a sentence (but a thing). Still these are said to be mutually opposed, as affirmation and negation, since in them the mode of opposition is the same, for as affirmation is sometimes opposed to negation, for example, "he sits" to "he does not sit," so that thing which is under each is opposed, as "sitting" to "not sitting."

But that privation and habit, are not opposed as relatives, is evident, since what a thing is, is not asserted of its opposite, for sight is not the sight of blindness, nor in any other way spoken in reference to it, so also blindness, cannot be called the blindness of sight, but blindness indeed is said to be the privation of sight, not the blindness of sight. Moreover, all relatives are referred to reciprocals, so that if blindness were relative, it would reciprocate with that to which it is referred, but it does not reciprocate, for sight is not said to be the sight of blindness.

From these things, also, it is manifest that those which are predicated, according to privation and habit, are not contrarily opposed, for of contraries which have no intermediate, one must always necessarily be inherent, wherein it is naturally adapted to be inherent, or of which it is predicated, but between these, there is no intermediate thing wherein it was necessary that the one should be in what was capable of receiving it, as in the case, of disease and health, in odd and the even number. Of those however between which there is an intermediate, it is never necessary that one should be inherent in every thing; for neither is it necessary that every thing capable of receiving it, should be white or black, or hot or cold, since there is no prevention to an intermediate being between them. Again, of these also there was a certain medium, of which it was not requisite that one should be in its recipient, unless where one is naturally inherent, as in fire to be hot, and in snow to be white: still in these, one, must of necessity be definitely inherent, and not in whatever way it may happen, for neither does it happen that fire is cold, nor that snow is black. Wherefore it is not necessary that one of them should be in every thing capable of receiving it, but