ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz analysis of extension as a general and ultimate feature of matter. Leibniz is accordingly faced with the necessity of showing how the character of extension, which he and the atomists agree is a primary feature of a composite body. Leibniz fully accepted the doctrine, which had originated in the first quarter of the century with Sebastian Basso and others, that a body is a composite entity and not itself a single unitary substance. But for Newton and the theory of material atomism in general, there is no difference in ontological nature between the atoms and the composite body. The chapter also presents the fundamental concept of the modern theory of nature, namely that of matter as substance and as in its essential nature extensive. Also, like Leibniz, Whitehead maintains that continuity, which is the fundamental character of extension, pertains to potentiality and not to actuality.
