The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

whose head or
hand is meant. Thus these are not relatives, and, this being the
case, it would be true to say that no substance is relative in
character. It is perhaps a difficult matter, in such cases, to make
a positive statement without more exhaustive examination, but to
have raised questions with regard to details is not without
advantage.
8
    By ‘quality’ I mean that in virtue of which people are said to
be such and such.
    Quality is a term that is used in many senses. One sort of
quality let us call ‘habit’ or ‘disposition’. Habit differs from
disposition in being more lasting and more firmly established. The
various kinds of knowledge and of virtue are habits, for knowledge,
even when acquired only in a moderate degree, is, it is agreed,
abiding in its character and difficult to displace, unless some
great mental upheaval takes place, through disease or any such
cause. The virtues, also, such as justice, self-restraint, and so
on, are not easily dislodged or dismissed, so as to give place to
vice.
    By a disposition, on the other hand, we mean a condition that is
easily changed and quickly gives place to its opposite. Thus, heat,
cold, disease, health, and so on are dispositions. For a man is
disposed in one way or another with reference to these, but quickly
changes, becoming cold instead of warm, ill instead of well. So it
is with all other dispositions also, unless through lapse of time a
disposition has itself become inveterate and almost impossible to
dislodge: in which case we should perhaps go so far as to call it a
habit.
    It is evident that men incline to call those conditions habits
which are of a more or less permanent type and difficult to
displace; for those who are not retentive of knowledge, but
volatile, are not said to have such and such a ‘habit’ as regards
knowledge, yet they are disposed, we may say, either better or
worse, towards knowledge. Thus habit differs from disposition in
this, that while the latter in ephemeral, the former is permanent
and difficult to alter.
    Habits are at the same time dispositions, but dispositions are
not necessarily habits. For those who have some specific habit may
be said also, in virtue of that habit, to be thus or thus disposed;
but those who are disposed in some specific way have not in all
cases the corresponding habit.
    Another sort of quality is that in virtue of which, for example,
we call men good boxers or runners, or healthy or sickly: in fact
it includes all those 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