14. Let us now pass on to quality. Why does quality also fail to
appear among the primary genera? Because quality also is posterior
to them; it does indeed follow after being. The first Being must
have these (quantity and quality) as consequences, though being is
neither constituted nor completed thereby; otherwise, being would be
posterior to them. Of course, as to the composite beings, formed of
several elements, in which are both numbers and qualities, they indeed
are differentiated by those different elements which then constitute
qualities, though they simultaneously contain common (elements). As to
the primary genera, however, the distinction to be established does
not proceed from simpleness or compositeness, but of simpleness and
what completes being. Notice, I am not saying, "of what completes 'some
one' being"; for if we were dealing with some one being, there would
be nothing unreasonable in asserting that such a being was completed
by a quality, since this being would have been in existence already
before having the quality, and would receive from the exterior only the
property of being such or such. On the contrary, absolute Being must
essentially possess all that constitutes it.