 But (x) is impossible. The new maximum (x) would be greater than the previous maximum (k), which is absurd—a maximum cannot be increased. Therefore, he concludes, the amount of contraries is limited by the absolute maximum degrees of the quality measured. Qualities and their contraries, consequently, cannot be intensified in the same object beyond this maximum limit. There are undeniable quantitative features to this argument, comparable to the geometrical intuitions that animated fourteenth-century theorists such as Oresme. At the same time, the qualities of heat and cold are not reimagined as mathematical objects and are still firmly in the realm of Aristotelian natural philosophy. Indeed, the point of the example is to defend rather than undermine Aristotle’s account of contraries (found, inter alia, in Topics 2). Like his predecessors, then, instead of making natural philosophy mathematical, Lefèvre used mathematics to clarify and exemplify Aristotelian physical concepts. (On this example see further Oosterhoff 2018: 190–199.)