This distinction is manifest
from our inability to form a clear and distinct idea of such
substance, if we separate from it such attribute; or to have a clear
perception of the one of two such attributes if we separate it from
the other. For example, because any substance which ceases to endure
ceases also to exist, duration is not distinct from substance except
in thought (RATIONE); and in general all the modes of thinking which
we consider as in objects differ only in thought, as well from the
objects of which they are thought as from each other in a common
object.[Footnote: "and generally all the attributes that lead us to
entertain different thoughts of the same thing, such as, for
example, the extension of body and its property of divisibility, do
not differ from the body which is to us the object of them, or from
each other, unless as we sometimes confusedly think the one without
thinking the other."--FRENCH.] It occurs, indeed, to me that I have
elsewhere classed this kind of distinction with the modal (viz.,
towards the end of the Reply to the First Objections to the
Meditations on the First Philosophy); but there it was only
necessary to treat of these distinctions generally, and it was
sufficient for my purpose at that time simply to distinguish both of
them from the real.
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