The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

bronze’,
‘waxen’, and ‘wooden’ respectively. But when a thing has been
affected and altered in any way we still call it by the original
name: thus we speak of the bronze or the wax being dry or fluid or
hard or hot.
    And not only so: we also speak of the particular fluid or hot
substance as being bronze, giving the material the same name as
that which we use to describe the affection.
    Since, therefore, having regard to the figure or shape of a
thing we no longer call that which has become of a certain figure
by the name of the material that exhibits the figure, whereas
having regard to a thing’s affections or alterations we still call
it by the name of its material, it is evident that becomings of the
former kind cannot be alterations.
    Moreover it would seem absurd even to speak in this way, to
speak, that is to say, of a man or house or anything else that has
come into existence as having been altered. Though it may be true
that every such becoming is necessarily the result of something’s
being altered, the result, e.g. of the material’s being condensed
or rarefied or heated or cooled, nevertheless it is not the things
that are coming into existence that are altered, and their becoming
is not an alteration.
    Again, acquired states, whether of the body or of the soul, are
not alterations. For some are excellences and others are defects,
and neither excellence nor defect is an alteration: excellence is a
perfection (for when anything acquires its proper excellence we
call it perfect, since it is then if ever that we have a thing in
its natural state: e.g. we have a perfect circle when we have one
as good as possible), while defect is a perishing of or departure
from this condition. So as when speaking of a house we do not call
its arrival at perfection an alteration (for it would be absurd to
suppose that the coping or the tiling is an alteration or that in
receiving its coping or its tiling a house is altered and not
perfected), the same also holds good in the case of excellences and
defects and of the persons or things that possess or acquire them:
for excellences are perfections of a thing’s nature and defects are
departures from it: consequently they are not alterations.
    Further, we say that all excellences depend upon particular
relations. Thus bodily excellences such as health and a good state
of body we regard as consisting in a blending of hot and cold
elements within the body in due proportion, in relation either to
one another or to the surrounding atmosphere: and in like manner we
regard beauty, strength, and all the other bodily excellences and
defects. Each of them exists in virtue of a particular relation and
puts that which possesses it in a good or bad condition with regard
to its proper affections, where by ‘proper’ affections I mean those
influences that from the natural constitution of a thing tend to
promote or destroy its existence. Since then, relatives are neither
themselves alterations nor the subjects of alteration or of
becoming or in fact of any change whatever, it is evident that
neither states nor the processes of losing and acquiring states are
alterations, though it may be true that their becoming or perishing
is necessarily, like the becoming or perishing of a specific
character or form, the result of the alteration of certain other
things, e.g. hot and cold or dry and wet elements or the elements,
whatever they may be, on which the states primarily depend. For
each several bodily defect or excellence involves a relation with
those things from which the possessor of the defect or excellence
is naturally subject to alteration: thus excellence disposes its
possessor to be unaffected by these influences or to be affected by
those of them that ought to be admitted, while defect disposes its
possessor to be affected by them or to be unaffected by those of
them that ought to be admitted.
    And the case is similar in regard to the states of the soul, all
of which (like those of body) exist in virtue of particular
relations, the excellences being perfections of nature and the
defects departures from it: moreover, excellence puts its possessor
in good condition, while defect puts its possessor in a bad
condition, to meet his proper affections. Consequently these cannot
any more than the bodily states be alterations, nor can the
processes of losing and acquiring them be so, though their becoming
is necessarily the result of an alteration of the sensitive part of
the soul,