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terms which refer to inborn capacity or
incapacity. Such things are not predicated of a person in virtue of
his disposition, but in virtue of his inborn capacity or incapacity
to do something with ease or to avoid defeat of any kind. Persons
are called good boxers or good runners, not in virtue of such and
such a disposition, but in virtue of an inborn capacity to
accomplish something with ease. Men are called healthy in virtue of
the inborn capacity of easy resistance to those unhealthy
influences that may ordinarily arise; unhealthy, in virtue of the
lack of this capacity. Similarly with regard to softness and
hardness. Hardness is predicated of a thing because it has that
capacity of resistance which enables it to withstand
disintegration; softness, again, is predicated of a thing by reason
of the lack of that capacity.
    A third class within this category is that of affective
qualities 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 rendered ineffective or speedily removed, are called, not
qualities, but affections: for we are not said to be such virtue of
them. The man who blushes through shame is not said to be a
constitutional blusher, nor is the man who becomes pale through
fear said to be constitutionally pale. He is said rather to have
been affected.
    Thus such conditions are called affections, not qualities.
    In like manner there are affective qualities and affections of
the soul. That temper with which a man is born and which has its
origin in certain deep-seated affections is called a quality. I
mean such conditions as insanity, irascibility,