AVICENNA

...and impression, then two contraries in the same composite would simultaneously possess their own operation and produce their own impression, which is false and impossible. For an overcome contrary in a composite—although it does not actually possess its own property because it has been overcome and its quality has been weakened original: remissa, a technical term in medieval physics for a quality that has lost its intensity by the overcoming contrary—nevertheless, because that contrary is there in the composite substantially, it remains present. Therefore, just as heated water does not actually possess "coldness" but possesses it virtually and in potentiality, the same must be said of the overcome contrary in the aforementioned composite: it does not have its property in actuality. Rather, the purpose of the operation of that overcome contrary in the composite is so that, during the time of mixing, a reduction and weakening of the power of the dominant contrary occurs.

This happens so that in a composition made of contrary elements, before a temperament original: complexio, referring to the specific balance of qualities like hot, cold, moist, and dry that defines a thing's nature and a third entity results from them, the overcome and less powerful contrary "breaks" and diminishes the power of the dominant contrary element. For if the dominant element were not weakened, then neither a temperament nor a mixture would result, because the dominant contrary would conquer entirely and destroy the element that is not dominant. Wherefore, the goal of the overcome or non-dominant element during the time of mixing is to weaken and diminish the power of the dominant contrary.

But after the temperament is made and the mixture is perfected, the overcome contrary does not possess its property in its essence in actuality, but certainly does so virtually. Such an overcome contrary makes no impression, unlike the dominant element which moves the mixture upward or downward This refers to the theory that "heavy" elements like earth move down and "light" elements like fire move up, and by reason of which the mixture grows cold or hot, and so on.

And because it has been said that elements remain in a mixture substantially or formally, it should be known that certain later Arabic thinkers—as is evident in the Arabic book called The Tree of Philosophy original: Arbor Philosophiae—hold that i elements do not remain in the mixture formally.

But this is doubted according to the way of Avicenna The Latinized name of the Persian polymath Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037): for if the elements were to remain formally in the mixture, then the qualities of those contrary elements would remain in the mixture, and thus two contraries would exist simultaneously in the same subject.

The answer is that it is impossible for two "remote contraries" to exist in the same subject in an intense state without being weakened. It is noted that they are called "remote contraries" because white and green are not remote contraries in the same way that white and black are. It was also specified that they cannot exist "in an intense state, without being weakened," because it is not unsuitable for weakened and "broken" original: refracta contraries to exist in the same subject. For as was shown above through Avicenna, in a composite made of contrary elements, neither a property nor an impression is found in the overcome element once the temperament is formed from them. For only the dominant element operates and leaves an impression, as long as the mixture remains in its natural disposition and nothing external happens to it. The overcome contrary in the mixture does not operate except before the temperament is completed; for then the overcome contrary operates by weakening the quality of the dominant contrary, so that from the weakening...