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 B, and B from C, and that if we have not been aware of this, it is due to the imperfections of our senses.

The Creation of the Mathematical Continuum: First Stage.—So far it would suffice, in order to account for facts, to intercalate between A and B a small number of terms which would remain discrete. What happens now if we have recourse to some instrument to make up for the weakness of our senses? If, for example, we use a microscope? Such terms as A and B, which before were indistinguishable from one another, appear now to be distinct: but between A and B, which are distinct, is intercalated another new term D, which we can distinguish neither from A nor from B. Although we may use the most delicate methods, the rough results of our experiments will always present the characters of the physical continuum with the contradiction which is inherent in it. We only escape from it by incessantly intercalating new terms between the terms already distinguished, and this operation must be pursued indefinitely. We might conceive that it would be possible to stop if we could imagine an instrument powerful enough to decompose the physical continuum into discrete elements, just as the telescope resolves the Milky Way into stars. But this we cannot imagine; it is always with our senses that we use our instruments; it is with the eye that we observe the image magnified by the microscope, and this image must therefore always retain the