Inversely, the chain of being is linked to human nature by the play of nature: for since the real world, as it presents itself to the gaze, is not merely the unwinding of the fundamental chain of being, but offers jumbled fragments of it, repeated and discontinuous, the series of representations in the mind is not obliged to follow the continuous path of imperceptible differences; extremes meet within it, the same things occur more than once; identical traits are superimposed in the memory; differences stand out.