The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

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, and so on: for
people are said to be mad or irascible in virtue of these.
Similarly those abnormal psychic states which are not inborn, but
arise from the concomitance of certain other elements, and are
difficult to remove, or altogether permanent, are called qualities,
for in virtue of them men are said to be such and such.
    Those, however, which arise from causes easily rendered
ineffective are called affections, not qualities. Suppose that a
man is irritable when vexed: he is not even spoken of as a
bad-tempered man, when in such circumstances he loses his temper
somewhat, but rather is said to be affected. Such conditions are
therefore termed, not qualities, but affections.
    The fourth sort of quality is figure and the shape that belongs
to a thing; and besides this, straightness and curvedness and any
other qualities of this type; each of these defines a thing as
being such and such. Because it is triangular or quadrangular a
thing is said to have a specific character, or again because it is
straight or curved; in fact a thing’s shape in every case gives
rise to a qualification of it.
    Rarity and density, roughness and smoothness, seem to be terms
indicating quality: yet these, it would appear, really belong to a
class different from that of quality. For it is rather a certain
relative position of the parts composing the thing thus qualified
which, it appears, is indicated by each of these terms. A thing is
dense, owing to the fact that its parts are closely combined with
one another; rare, because there are interstices between the parts;
smooth, because its parts lie, so to speak, evenly; rough, because
some parts project beyond others.
    There may be other sorts of quality, but those that are most
properly so called have, we may safely say, been enumerated.
    These, then, are qualities, and the things that take their name
from them as derivatives, or are in some other way dependent on
them, are said to be qualified in some specific way. In most,
indeed in almost all cases, the name of that which is qualified is
derived from that of the quality. Thus the terms ‘whiteness’,
‘grammar’, ‘justice’, give us the adjectives ‘white’,
‘grammatical’, ‘just’, and so on.
    There are some cases, however, in which, as the quality under
consideration has no name, it is impossible that those possessed of
it should have a name that is derivative. For instance, the name
given to the runner or boxer, who is so called in virtue of an
inborn capacity,