316. [308] There are also continuous or cohering degrees; each discrete degree has its continuous degree. The continuous degree of each discrete degree is as light verging to shade, and at length to the obscurity of night; and also as the rational thought which is in light to sensual and, as it were, at length to corporeal thought, which is in a dense shade according as it descends to the body. In such a degree continually decreasing is the human mind. In a similar degree, but lower; are man's sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; in like manner his speech and his singing; for man has a tone like the tone of a lyre, and like the sound of a drum. It is also similar with harmonies and beauties; for they proceed by continuous degrees from the highest harmony and beauty, to the least. These degrees are of the cause in itself and of the effect in itself; they are distinguished from the former degrees, because these are of the cause and the effect in themselves. Continuous degrees are called degrees of what is purer or grosser. An idea of these degrees can be had chiefly from light and shade, and also from the aerial atmosphere in its lower and higher regions; for in the lower region it is grosser, denser, and more compressed, and in the higher region it is purer, rarer, and more extended.