2. But we must enquire into Quality in itself: to know its nature is certainly the way to settle our general question.
The first point is to assure ourselves whether or not one and the same thing may be held to be sometimes a mere qualification and sometimes a constituent of Reality — not staying on the point that qualification could not be constitutive of a Reality but of a qualified Reality only.
Now in a Reality possessing a determined quality, the Reality and the fact of existence precede the qualified Reality.
What, then, in the case of fire is the Reality which precedes the qualified Reality?
Its mere body, perhaps? If so, body being the Reality, fire is a warmed body; and the total thing is not the Reality; and the fire has warmth as a man might have a snub nose.
Rejecting its warmth, its glow, its lightness — all which certainly do seem to be qualities — and its resistance, there is left only its extension by three dimensions: in other words, its Matter is its Reality.
But that cannot be held: surely the form is much more likely than the Matter to be the Reality.
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