ent in the body, inasmuch as it is not true to say that
everybody must be white or black. Badness and goodness, again, are
predicated of man, and of many other things, but it is not necessary
that either the one quality or the other should be present in that of
which they are predicated: it is not true to say that everything that
may be good or bad must be either good or bad. These pairs of
contraries have intermediates: the intermediates between white and
black are grey, sallow, and all the other colours that come between;
the intermediate between good and bad is that which is neither the one
nor the other.

Some intermediate qualities have names, such as grey and sallow and all
the other colours that come between white and black; in other cases,
however, it is not easy to name the intermediate, but we must define it
as that which is not either extreme, as in the case of that which is
neither good nor bad, neither just nor unjust.

(iii) 'privatives' and 'Positives' have reference to the same subject.
Thus, sight and blindness have reference to the eye. It is a universal
rule that each of a pair of opposites of this type has reference to
that to which the particular 'positive' is natural. We say that that is
capable of some particular faculty or possession has suffered privation
when the faculty or possession in question is in no way present in that
in which, and at the time at which, it should naturally be present. We
do not call that toothless which has not teeth, or that blind which has
not sight, but rather that which has not teeth or sight at the time
when by nature it should. For there are some creatures which from birth
are without sight, or without teeth, but these are not called toothless
or blind.

To be without some faculty or to possess it is not the same as the
corresponding 'privative' or 'positive'. 'Sight' is a 'positive',
'blindness' a 'privative', but 'to possess sight' is not equivalent to
'sight', 'to be blind' is not equivalent to 'blindness'. Blindness is a
'privative', to be blind is to be in a state of privation, but is 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 sa