'No, even without lenses and parabolic mirrors, Newton and Hooke see things that you and I don't. Leibniz is proposing a strange inversion of what we normally mean when we describe a man as distinguished, or unique. Normally when we say these things, we mean that the man himself stands out from a crowd in some way. But Leibniz is saying that such a man's uniqueness is rooted in his ability to perceive the rest of the universe with unusual clarity – to distinguish one thing from another more effectively than ordinary souls.'