He says that the air is by nature dark, and uses this
[p. 470]
as an argument of its being also the first cold; for that its
darkness is opposite to the brightness, and its coldness to
the heat of fire. Moving this in his First Book of Natural
Questions, he again in his treatise of Habits says, that
habits are nothing else but airs; for bodies are contained
by these, and the cause that every one of the bodies contained in any habit is such as it is, is the containing air,
which they call in iron hardness, in stone solidness, in
silver whiteness. These words have in them much absurdity and contradiction. For if the air remains such as it is
of its own nature, how comes black, in that which is not
white, to be made whiteness; and soft, in that which is not
hard, to be made hardness; and rare, in that which is
not thick, to be made thickness? But if, being mixed with
these, it is altered and made like to them, how is it a habit
or power or cause of these things by which it is subdued?
For such a change, by which it loses its own qualities, is
the property of a patient, not of an agent, and not of a
thing containing, but of a thing languishing. Yet they
everywhere affirm, that matter, being of its own nature idle
and motionless, is subjected to qualities, and that the qualities are spirits, which, being also aerial tensions, give a
form and figure to every part of matter to which they adhere. These things they cannot rationally say, supposing
the air to be such as they affirm it. For if it is a habit
and tension, it will assimilate every body to itself, so that it
shall be black and soft. But if by the mixture with these
things it receives forms contrary to those it has, it will be
in some sort the matter, and not the cause or power of
matter.
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