VARIOUS DERIVATIVES OF THE CATEGORY OF QUALITY.
19. As has been indicated above, the genus of quality contains the (beings) which are said to be qualified (qualitative entities), inasmuch as they contain some quality (as, for instance, the handsome man, so far as he is endowed with beauty).[410] These (beings) however do not properly belong to this genus, for otherwise there would here be two categories. It suffices to reduce them to the quality which supplies their name.
So non-whiteness, if it indicate some color other than white, is a quality; if it express merely a negation, or an enumeration, it is only a word, or a term which recalls the object; if it be a word, it constitutes a movement (so far as it is produced by the vocal organ); if it be a name or a term, it constitutes, so far as it is a significative, a relative. If things be classed not only by genera, if it be admitted that each assertion and expression proclaim a genus, our answer must be that some affirm things by their mere announcement, and that others deny them. It may perhaps be best not to include negations in the same genus as things themselves, since, to avoid mingling several genera, we often do not include affirmations.
As to privations, it may be remarked that if the things of which there are privations are qualities, then the privations themselves are qualities, as "toothless," or "blind."[411] But "naked" and (its contrary) "clothed" are neither of them qualities; they rather constitute habits, and thus belong among relatives.
Passion, at the moment it is felt, does not constitute a quality, but a movement; when it has been experienced, and has become durable, it forms a quality;[410] further, if the (being) which has experienced the passion have kept none of it, it will have to be described as having been moved, which amounts to the same thing as really being moved. However, in this case, the conception of time will have to be abstracted from that of movement; for we must not add the conception of the present to that of movement.[412]
Finally, (the adverb) "well," and the other analogous terms may be reduced to the simple notion of the genus of quality.
It remains to examine if we must refer to the genus of quality "being red" without also doing so for "reddening"[410] for "blushing" does not belong to it, because he who blushes suffers (experiences), or is moved. But as soon as he ceases blushing, if he have already blushed, this is a quality; for quality does not depend on time, but consists in being such or such; whence it follows that "having blushed" is a quality. Therefore we shall regard as qualities only habits, and not mere dispositions;[410] being warm, for instance, and not warming up; being sick, but not becoming sick.