again, and so on indefinitely. We thus get an unlimited number of terms, and these will be the numbers which we call fractional, rational, or commensurable. But this is not yet all; between these terms, which, be it marked, are already infinite in number, other terms are intercalated, and these are called irrational or incommensurable.
Before going any further, let me make a preliminary remark. The continuum thus conceived is no longer a collection of individuals arranged in a certain order, infinite in number, it is true, but external the one to the other. This is not the ordinary conception in which it is supposed that between the elements of the continuum exists an intimate connection making of it one whole, in which the point has no existence previous to the line, but the line does exist previous to the point. Multiplicity alone subsists, unity has disappeared—"the continuum is unity in multiplicity,“ according to the celebrated formula. The analysts have even less reason to define their continuum as they do, since it is always on this that they reason when they are particularly proud of their rigour. It is enough to warn the reader that the real mathematical continuum is quite different from that of the physicists and from that of the metaphysicians.
It may also be said, perhaps, that mathematicians who are contented with this definition are the dupes of words, that the nature of each of these sets should be precisely indicated, that it should
