me 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
subject in which they naturally subsist, or of which they are
predicated; for it is those, as we proved,' in the case of which this
necessity obtains, that have no intermediate. Moreover, we cited health
and disease, odd and even, as instances. But those contraries which
have an intermediate are not subject to any such necessity. It is not
necessary that every substance, receptive of such qualities, should be
either black or white, cold or hot, for something intermediate between
these contraries may very well be present in the subject. We proved,
moreover, that those contraries have an intermediate in the case of
which the said necessity does not obtain. Yet when one of the two
contraries is a constitutive property of the subject, as it is a
constitutive property of fire to be hot, of snow to be white, it is
necessary deter