10. It may well be asked (by Stoics) how matter can be evil, as it is
without quality?[187] That matter possesses no qualities can be said
in the sense that by itself it has none of the qualities it is to
receive, or to which matter is to serve as substrate; but cannot be
said in the sense that it will possess no nature. Now, if it have a
nature, what hinders this nature from being bad, without this being bad
being a quality? Nothing indeed is a quality but what serves to qualify
something different from itself; a quality is, therefore, an accident;
a quality is that which can be mentioned as the attribute of a subject
other than itself.[188] But matter is not the attribute of something
alien; it is the subject to which accidents are related. Therefore,
since every quality is an accident, matter, whose nature is not to be
an accident, is without quality.[189] If, besides, quality (taken in
general), itself be without quality, how could one say of matter, so
far as it has not yet received any quality, that it is in some manner
qualified? It is, therefore, possible to assert of matter that, it both
has no quality, and yet is evil. Matter is not evil because it has a
quality, but just because it has none. If, indeed, matter possessed a
form, it might indeed be bad; but it would not be a nature contrary to
all form.