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94
PLOTINUS

would be better, in view of their composite nature, not to include the negations in the same genus as the affirmations.

What view, then, shall we take of privations? If they are privations of qualities, they will themselves be qualities: "toothless" and "blind," for example, are qualities. "Naked" and "clothed," on the other hand, are neither of them qualities but states: they therefore comport a relation to something else.

(With regard to passive qualities:)

Passivity, while it lasts, is not a quality but a motion; when it is a past experience remaining in one's possession, it is a quality; if one ceases to possess the experience then regarded as a finished occurrence, one is considered to have been moved—in other words, to have been in Motion. (Such is the theory.) But in none of these cases is it necessary to conceive of anything but Motion; the idea of time should be excluded; even present time has no right to be introduced.

"Well" and similar adverbial expressions are to be referred to the single generic notion (of Quality).

It remains to consider whether blushing should be referred to Quality, even though the person blushing is not included in this category. The fact of becoming flushed is rightly not referred to Quality; for it involves passivity—in short, Motion. But if one has ceased to become flushed and is actually red, this is surely a case of Quality, which is independent of time. How indeed are we to define Quality but by the aspect which a substance presents? By predicating of a man redness, we clearly ascribe to him a quality.

We shall accordingly maintain that states alone, and not dispositions, constitute qualities: thus, "hot" is a quality but not "growing hot," "ill" but not "turning ill."

20.

We have to ascertain whether there is not to every quality a contrary. In the case of virtue and vice even the mean appears to be contrary to the extremes.

But when we turn to colours, we do not find the intermediates so