and conversation.

To begin with the first proposition, THAT THE MIND CANNOT FORM ANY NOTION
OF QUANTITY OR QUALITY WITHOUT FORMING A PRECISE NOTION OF DEGREES OF
EACH; we may prove this by the three following arguments. First, We have
observed, that whatever objects are different are distinguishable, and
that whatever objects are distinguishable are separable by the thought
and imagination. And we may here add, that these propositions are
equally true in the inverse, and that whatever objects are separable are
also distinguishable, and that whatever objects are distinguishable, are
also different. For how is it possible we can separate what is not
distinguishable, or distinguish what is not different? In order therefore
to know, whether abstraction implies a separation, we need only consider
it in this view, and examine, whether all the circumstances, which we
abstract from in our general ideas, be such as are distinguishable and
different from those, which we retain as essential parts of them. But
it is evident at first sight, that the precise length of a line is not
different nor distinguishable from the line itself. nor the precise
degree of any quality from the quality. These ideas, therefore, admit no
more of separation than they do of distinction and difference. They are
consequently conjoined with each other in the conception; and the general
idea of a. line, notwithstanding all our abstractions and refinements,
has in its appearance in the mind a precise degree of quantity and
quality; however it may be made to represent others, which have different
degrees of both.

Secondly, it is contest, that no object can appear to the senses; or in
other words, that no impression can become present to the mind, without
being determined in its degrees both of quantity and quality. The
confusion, in which impressions are sometimes involved, proceeds only