For while there is a contrariety also between pale man and
dark horse, and it is a contrariety in species, it does not depend
on the paleness of the one and the darkness of the other, since even
if both had been pale, yet they would have been other in species.
But male and female, while they are modifications peculiar to
'animal', are so not in virtue of its essence but in the matter, ie.
the body. This is why the same seed becomes female or male by being
acted on in a certain way. We have stated, then, what it is to be
other in species, and why some things differ in species and others
do not.
10
Since contraries are other in form, and the perishable and the
imperishable are contraries (for privation is a determinate
incapacity), the perishable and the imperishable must be different
in kind.
Now so far we have spoken of the general terms themselves, so that
it might be thought not to be necessary that every imperishable
thing should be different from every perishable thing in form, just as
not every pale thing is different in form from every dark thing. For
the same thing can be both, and even at the same time if it is a
universal (e.g. man can be both pale and dark), and if it is an
individual it can still be both; for the same man can be, though not
at the same time, pale and dark. Yet pale is contrary to dark.
But while some contraries belong to certain things by accident
(e.g. both those now mentioned and many others), others cannot, and
among these are 'perishable' and 'imperishable'.
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