LARGE AND SMALL ARE CONCEPTIONS BELONGING TO QUANTITY.
Should "large" and "small" be classified within the genus of quantity? Yes: for the large is large by a certain dimension, and dimension is not a relation. As to "greater" and "smaller," they belong to relation; for a thing is greater or smaller in relation to something else, just as when it is double. Why then do we sometimes say that a mountain is large, and that a grain of millet is small? When we say that a mountain is small, we use the latter term instead of smaller; for they who use this expression themselves acknowledge that they call a mountain small only by comparing it to other mountains, which implies that here "little" stands for "smaller." Likewise, when we say that a grain of millet is large, this does not mean "large" in any absolute sense, but large only for a grain of millet; which implies that one compares it to things of the same kind, and that here "large" means "larger."[383]