of the term 'small', nor 'much' of 'little'. And even though a
man should call these terms not relative but quantitative, they
would not have contraries.

It is in the case of space that quantity most plausibly appears
to admit of a contrary. For men define the term 'above' as the
contrary of 'below', when it is the region at the centre they
mean by 'below'; and this is so, because nothing is farther from
the extremities of the universe than the region at the centre.
Indeed, it seems that in defining contraries of every kind men
have recourse to a spatial metaphor, for they say that those
things are contraries which, within the same class, are separated
by the greatest possible distance.

Quantity does not, it appears, admit of variation of degree. One
thing cannot be two cubits long in a greater degree than another.
Similarly with regard to number: what is 'three' is not more
truly three than what is 'five' is five; nor is one set of three
more truly three than another set. Again, one period of time is
not said to be more truly time than another. Nor is there any
other kind of quantity, of all that have been mentioned, with
regard to which variation of degree can be predicated. The
category of quantity, therefore, does not admit of variation of
degree.

The most distinctive mark of quantity is that equality and
inequality are predicated of it. Each of the aforesaid quantities
is said to be equal or unequal. For instance, one solid is said
to be equal or unequal to another; number, too, and time can have
these terms applied to them, indeed can all those kinds of