But it is very easy to embarrass
them by the introduction of counter-possibilities, which rest upon
quite as good a foundation. Such, for example, is the possibility of
the division of a simple substance into several substances; and
conversely, of the coalition of several into one simple substance.
For, although divisibility presupposes composition, it does not
necessarily require a composition of substances, but only of the
degrees (of the several faculties) of one and the same substance.
Now we can cogitate all the powers and faculties of the soul- even
that of consciousness- as diminished by one half, the substance
still remaining. In the same way we can represent to ourselves without
contradiction, this obliterated half as preserved, not in the soul,
but without it; and we can believe that, as in this case every.
thing that is real in the soul, and has a degree- consequently its
entire existence- has been halved, a particular substance would
arise out of the soul. For the multiplicity, which has been divided,
formerly existed, but not as a multiplicity of substances, but of
every reality as the quantum of existence in it; and the unity of
substance was merely a mode of existence, which by this division alone
has been transformed into a plurality of subsistence.
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