AE - DL XI - There are degrees of affections and uses.

AE - Divine Love XI

There are continuous degrees and discrete degrees. Both of these are in every form in the spiritual world and in the natural world. All are acquainted with continuous degrees; few however, have any knowledge of discrete degrees....
Continuous degrees, which all know about, are like the degrees from light to shade, from heat to cold, from rarity to density....
[2] But discrete degrees are wholly different. These do not advance in one plane to the sides around, but from highest to lowest; and for this reason they are called descending degrees.