The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

village: or we say that a house has many
in it, and a theatre few, though those in the theatre far outnumber
those in the house. The terms ‘two cubits long, “three cubits
long,’ and so on indicate quantity, the terms ‘great’ and ‘small’
indicate relation, for they have reference to an external standard.
It is, therefore, plain that these are to be classed as
relative.
    Again, whether we define them as quantitative or not, they have
no contraries: for how can there be a contrary of an attribute
which is not to be apprehended in or by itself, but only by
reference to something external? Again, if ‘great’ and ‘small’ are
contraries, it will come about that the same subject can admit
contrary qualities at one and the same time, and that things will
themselves be contrary to themselves. For it happens at times that
the same thing is both small and great. For the same thing may be
small in comparison with one thing, and great in comparison with
another, so that the same thing comes to be both small and great at
one and the same time, and is of such a nature as to admit contrary
qualities at one and the same moment. Yet it was agreed, when
substance was being discussed, that nothing admits contrary
qualities at one and the same moment. For though substance is
capable of admitting contrary qualities, yet no one is at the same
time both sick and healthy, nothing is at the same time both white
and black. Nor is there anything which is qualified in contrary
ways at one and the same time.
    Moreover, if these were contraries, they would themselves be
contrary to themselves. For if ‘great’ is the contrary of ‘small’,
and the same thing is both great and small at the same time, then
‘small’ or ‘great’ is the contrary of itself. But this is
impossible. The term ‘great’, therefore, is not the contrary of the
term ‘small’, nor ‘much’ of ‘little’. And even though a man should
call these terms not relative but quantitative, they would not have
contraries.
    It is in the case of space that quantity most plausibly appears
to admit of a contrary. For men define the term ‘above’ as the
contrary of ‘below’, when it is the region at the centre they mean
by ‘below’; and this is so, because nothing is farther from the
extremities of the universe than the region at the centre. Indeed,
it seems that in defining contraries of every kind men have
recourse to a spatial metaphor, for they say that those things are
contraries which, within the same class, are separated by the
greatest possible distance.
    Quantity does not, it appears, admit of variation of degree. One
thing cannot be two cubits long in a greater degree than another.
Similarly with regard to number: what is ‘three’ is not more truly
three than what is ‘five’ is five; nor is one set of three more
truly three than another set. Again, one period of time is not said
to be more truly time than another. Nor is there any other kind of
quantity, of all that have been mentioned, with regard to which
variation of degree can be predicated. The category of quantity,
therefore, does not admit of variation of degree.
    The most distinctive mark of quantity is that equality and
inequality are predicated of it. Each of the aforesaid quantities
is said to be equal or unequal. For instance, one solid is said to
be equal or unequal to another; number, too, and time can have
these terms applied to them, indeed can all those kinds of quantity
that have been mentioned.
    That which is not a quantity can by no means, it would seem, be
termed equal or unequal to anything else. One particular
disposition or one particular quality, such as whiteness, is by no
means compared with another in terms of equality and inequality but
rather in terms of similarity. Thus it is the distinctive mark of
quantity that it can be called equal and unequal.
7
    Those things are called relative, which, being either said to be
of something else or related to something else, are explained by
reference to that other thing. For instance, the word ‘superior’ is
explained by reference to something else, for it is superiority
over something else that is meant. Similarly, the expression
‘double’ has this external reference, for it is the double of
something else that is meant. So it is with everything else of this
kind. There are, moreover, other relatives, e.g. habit,
disposition, perception, knowledge, and attitude. The significance
of all these is explained