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Since things which differ may differ from one another more or less,
there is also a greatest difference, and this I call contrariety. |
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But surely that which is greatest in each class is complete. |
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This being so, it is clear that one thing have more than one contrary
(for neither can there be anything more extreme than the extreme,
nor can there be more than two extremes for the one interval), and,
to put the matter generally, this is clear if contrariety is a difference,
and if difference, and therefore also the complete difference, must
be between two things. |
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And the other commonly accepted definitions of contraries are also
necessarily true. |
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For not only is (1) the complete difference the
greatest difference (for we can get no difference beyond it of things
differing either in genus or in species; |
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but also (2) the things in the same genus which
differ most are contrary (for the complete difference is the greatest
difference between species of the same genus); |
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and (3) the things
in the same receptive material which differ most are contrary (for
the matter is the same for contraries); |
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and (4) of the things which
fall under the same faculty the most different are contrary (for one
science deals with one class of things, and in these the complete
difference is the greatest). |
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The primary contrariety is that between positive state and privation - not
every privation, however (for 'privation' has several meanings), but
that which is complete. |
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And this is obvious also by induction. |
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created 1996/11/25 modified 2009/04/26