A deep contradiction exists between continuity and form as ultimate world-shaping principles. Form means limits, contrast against what is neighboring, cohesion of a boundary by way of a real or ideal center to which, as it were, the ever flowing sequences of contents or processes bend back, and which provides every circumference with a source of resistance against dissolution in the flux. If one takes seriously the concept of continuity, the extensive representation of the absolute unity of being, such autonomy of an enclave of being is not admissible. … Form, however, is individuality. It can be identically reproduced in countless bits of matter; but that it should exist twice as pure form makes no sense. That would be as if the sentence—two times two equals four—could, as ideal truth, exist twice, although it can of course be realized by countless centers of consciousness.

DEFINE: Form is defined by limits and bounding centers, contrasted against continuous flux.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 819