12. If then we do not propose to divide Quality in this [fourfold] manner, what basis of division have we?
We must examine whether qualities may not prove to be divisible on the principle that some belong to the body and others to the soul. Those of the body would be subdivided according to the senses, some being attributed to sight, others to hearing and taste, others to smell and touch. Those of the soul would presumably be allotted to appetite, emotion, reason; though, again, they may be distinguished by the differences of the activities they condition, in so far as activities are engendered by these qualities; or according as they are beneficial or injurious, the benefits and injuries being duly classified. This last is applicable also to the classification of bodily qualities, which also produce differences of benefit and injury: these differences must be regarded as distinctively qualitative; for either the benefit and injury are held to be derived from Quality and the quale, or else some other explanation must be found for them.
A point for consideration is how the quale, as conditioned by Quality, can belong to the same category: obviously there can be no single genus embracing both.
Further, if "boxer" is in the category of Quality, why not "agent" as well? And with agent goes "active." Thus "active" need not go into the category of Relation; nor again need "passive," if "patient" is a quale. Moreover, agent" is perhaps better assigned to the category of Quality for the reason that the term implies power, and power is Quality. But if power as such were determined by Substance [and not by Quality], the agent, though ceasing to be a quale, would not necessarily become a relative. Besides, "active" is not like "greater": the greater, to be the greater, demands a less, whereas "active" stands complete by the mere possession of its specific character.
It may however be urged that while the possession of that character makes it a quale, it is a relative in so far as it directs upon an external object the power indicated by its name. Why, then, is not "boxer" a relative, and "boxing" as well? Boxing is entirely related to an external object; its whole theory pre-supposes this external. And in the case of the other arts- or most of them- investigation would probably warrant the assertion that in so far as they affect the soul they are qualities, while in so far as they look outward they are active and as being directed to an external object are relatives. They are relatives in the other sense also that they are thought of as habits.
Can it then be held that there is any distinct reality implied in activity, seeing that the active is something distinct only according as it is a quale? It may perhaps be held that the tendency towards action of living beings, and especially of those having freewill, implies a reality of activity [as well as a reality of Quality].
But what is the function of the active in connection with those non-living powers which we have classed as qualities? Doubtless to recruit any object it encounters, making the object a participant in its content.
But if one same object both acts and is acted upon, how do we then explain the active? Observe also that the greater- in itself perhaps a fixed three yards' length- will present itself as both greater and less according to its external contacts.
It will be objected that greater and less are due to participation in greatness and smallness; and it might be inferred that a thing is active or passive by participation in activity or passivity.
This is the place for enquiring also whether the qualities of the Sensible and Intellectual realms can be included under one head- a question intended only for those who ascribe qualities to the higher realm as well as the lower. And even if Ideal Forms of qualities are not posited, yet once the term "habit" is used in reference to Intellect, the question arises whether there is anything common to that habit and the habit we know in the lower.
Wisdom too is generally admitted to exist There. Obviously, if it shares only its name with our wisdom, it is not to be reckoned among things of this sphere; if, however, the import is in both cases the same, then Quality is common to both realms- unless, of course, it be maintained that everything There, including even intellection, is Substance.
This question, however, applies to all the categories: are the two spheres irreconcilable, or can they be co-ordinated with a unity?