ABSTRACT
In Descartes' doctrine res extensa was the physical actuality, and it was conceived as basically mathematical. As such it was both infinitely extended and essentially continuous. Another consequence of the conception of the ultimate acting as not itself actual, is that it must accordingly be potential. It is the potentiality for actuality. For actualization is the individualization of this substrate acting in individual actings, and this substrate acting is thus the ultimate potential for actualization. Thus for Descartes continuity pertained to actuality, to physical actuality. In the understanding of nature, of the physical, one of the fundamental issues that have encountered throughout this inquiry is that of continuity, and the basic question which has always arisen is that of the ontological status of continuity. It is necessary to recall the other part of Aristotle's acute analysis of the concept of the infinite, namely that the concept of infinity cannot pertain to actuality as an attribute.
