so when he was asked, “Do you maintain that motion is other than the thing in motion, and that the black thing is other than blackness?” he refused to admit this and replied, “My statement, ‘the body is in motion,’ is merely a report about a body and a motion; therefore it is impermissible for me to say, ‘motion is other than the moving thing’).

He ⦗1⦘ said: Some of the proponents of elemental natures held that all bodies are composed of four natures—heat, cold, moisture, and dryness—and that these four natures ⦗2⦘ are themselves bodies. They acknowledged nothing besides these four natures ⦗3⦘, denied the existence of motions, and claimed that colors, tastes, and fragrances ⦗4⦘ are nothing but the four natures.

Another group among them said: “Bodies are made of four natures; we affirm motions and no accident other than motion, and we derive ⦗5⦘ colors and fragrances ⦗6⦘ from these natures.”

Others said: “Bodies consist of four natures together with a spirit that swims ⦗7⦘ within them; we can conceive of no body except these five things, and we regard motions as accidents.”

He ⦗8⦘ said: A further faction rejected the existence of accidents, motion, and rest altogether. They affirmed blackness, saying it is the ʿayn (very essence) of the black thing and nothing beyond it; the same, they held, applies to whiteness and all other colors, and likewise to sweetness, sourness, and every other taste, as well as to fragrances ⦗10⦘