Quantity

A determination inherent in things corresponding to “quality”. It is the determination of the scale, degree, velocity of the existence and development of things and the arrangement and combination of their components in space that can be expressed in terms of quantity. For example, the size of an object, the density of its texture, the speed of its motion, the temperature, the number of atoms in a molecule, and the different arrangement and combinations of them, are all quantitative determination of things. Quantitative determination can be distinguished into intensive quantity and extensive quantity. Extensive quantity is the quantity that expresses the quantity of the scope and breadth of the being of things; intensive quantity is the quantity that expresses the degree of hierarchy, the mode of constitution and the process of function of things.

Quality has an immediate identity with the being of things, but quantity is not immediately identical with the being of things. An increase or decrease in quantity, a change in function or a change in structure of the same thing in a certain scope does not affect the thing as it is. There is always a certain range of variation in the quantity of things.