lities 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.

Whiteness and blackness, however, and the other colours, are not said
to be affective qualities in this sense, but -because they themselves
are the results of an affection. It is plain that many changes of
colour take place because of affections. When a man is ashamed, he
blushes; when he is afraid, he becomes pale, and so on. So true is
this, that when a man is by nature liable to such affections, arising
from some concomitance of elements in his constitution, it is a
probable inference that he has the corresponding complexion of skin.
For the same disposition of bodily elements, which in the former
instance was momentarily present in the case of an access of shame,
might be a result of a man's natural temperament, so as to produce the
corresponding colouring also as a natural characteristic. All
conditions, therefore, of this kind, if caused by certain permanent and
lasting affections, are called affective qualities. For pallor and
duskiness of complexion are called qualities, inasmuch as we are said
to be such and such in virtue of them, not only if they originate in
natural constitution, but also if they come about through long disease
or sunburn, and are difficult to remove, or indeed remain throughout
life. For in the same way we are said to be such and such because of
these.

Those conditions, however, which arise from causes which may easily be