hoped, prove its justification.]

128. Thus a privative term stands midway in meaning between the
other two, being partly positive and partly negative--negative in so
far as it indicates the absence of a certain attribute, positive in so
far as it implies that the thing which is declared to lack that
attribute is of such a nature as to be capable of possessing it. A
purely negative term conveys to the mind no positive information at
all about the nature of the thing of which it is predicated, but
leaves us to seek for it among the universe of things which fail to
exhibit a given attribute.

A privative term, on the other hand, restricts us within a definite
sphere. The term 'empty' restricts us within the sphere of things
which are capable of fulness, that is, if the term be taken in its
literal sense, things which possess extension in three dimensions.

129. A positive and a negative term, which have the same matter,
must exhaust the universe between them, e.g. 'white' and 'not-white,'
since, according to the law of excluded middle, everything must be
either one or the other. To say, however, that a thing is 'not-white'
is merely to say that the term 'white' is inapplicable to it.
'Not-white' may be predicated of things which do not possess extension
as well as of those which do. Such a pair of terms as 'white' and
'not-white,' in their relation to one another, are called
Contradictories.

130. Contrary terms must be distinguished from
contradictory. Contrary terms are those which are most opposed under
the same head. Thus 'white' and 'black' are contrary terms, being the