If quality consist in a form, in a character and a reason, how
could one thus explain impotence and ugliness? We shall have to do
so by imperfect reasons, as is generally recognized in the case of
ugliness.[268] But how can a "reason" be said to explain sickness? It
contains the reason of health, but somewhat altered. Besides, it is
not necessary to reduce everything to a reason; it is sufficient to
recognize, as common characteristic, a certain disposition foreign to
being, such that what is added to being be a quality of the subject.
Triangularity is a quality of the subject in which it is located, not
by virtue of its triangularity, but of its location in this subject,
and of enduing it with its form. Humanity has also given to man his
shape, or rather, his being.
THERE IS ONLY ONE KIND OF QUALITY; OF WHICH CAPACITY AND DISPOSITION
PARTAKE.
11. If this be so, why should we recognize several kinds of qualities?
Why should we distinguish capacity and disposition? Whether quality be
durable or not, it is always the same; for any kind of a disposition
is sufficient to constitute a quality; permanence, however, is only
an accident, unless it should be held that simple dispositions are
imperfect forms, and that capacities are perfect forms. But if these
forms be imperfect, they are not qualities; if they be already
qualities, permanence is but an accident.