The Summary of Physics Restored

15The philosopher would have done better had he freed that first matter from the conflict of contraries and recognised it as free from opposition. For not even the elements themselves contain an inherent contrariety: contrariety results from the intensity of qualities, as our common experience of fire and water teaches us, since whatever opposition they contain proceeds from the intensity of their qualities. But in the true elements of things, which come together in the generation of compounds, the qualities present in a moderated degree do not oppose one another. Temperate things admit no contrariety.