PROPOSITION XLIII.

Matter, as informed by indeterminate Quantity, cannot be the intrinsic constitutive principle of Individuation in material substances.

This Proposition is so self-evident, that it only requires a brief declaration. That which is really the intrinsic constitutive principle of Individuation, must itself be real. But indeterminate Quantity is purely conceptual; for it is impossible that Quantity should really exist, save under definite shape and dimensions. We may think of a line indefinitely prolonged; but, de facto, there is no line which is not defined by its two extreme points. We may think of bulk, without precising in the concept its boundaries and configuration; but such bulk is a pure abstraction of the intellect, and cannot exist, as such, in the world of nature. Yet, nothing is more obvious, than that a pure conceptual abstraction cannot be the constituent principle of Individuation.