That those terms which fall under the heads of 'positives' and
'privatives' are not opposed each to each as contraries, either, is
plain from the following facts: Of a pair of contraries such that they
have no intermediate, one or the other must needs be present in the
subject in which they naturally subsist, or of which they are
predicated; for it is those, as we proved, in the case of which this
necessity obtains, that have no intermediate. Moreover, we cited health
and disease, odd and even, as instances. But those contraries which
have an intermediate are not subject to any such necessity. It is not
necessary that every substance, receptive of such qualities, should be
either black or white, cold or hot, for something intermediate between
these contraries may very well be present in the subject. We proved,
moreover, that those contraries have an intermediate in the case of
which the said necessity does not obtain. Yet when one of the two
contraries is a constitutive property of the subject, as it is a
constitutive property of fire to be hot, of snow to be white, it is
necessary determinately that one of the two contraries, not one or the
other, should be present in the subject; for fire cannot be cold, or
snow black. Thus, it is not the case here that one of the two must
needs be present in every subject receptive of these qualities, but
only in that subject of which the one forms a constitutive property.
Moreover, in such cases it is one member of the pair determinately, and
not either the one or the other, which must be present.