in which an incommensurable number was regarded as the common frontier of two classes of rational numbers. Such is the origin of the continuum of the second order, which is the mathematical continuum properly so called.
Summary.—To sum up, the mind has the faculty of creating symbols, and it is thus that it has constructed the mathematical continuum, which is only a particular system of symbols. The only limit to its power is the necessity of avoiding all contradiction; but the mind only makes use of it when experiment gives a reason for it.
In the case with which we are concerned, the reason is given by the idea of the physical continuum, drawn from the rough data of the senses. But this idea leads to a series of contradictions from each of which in turn we must be freed. In this way we are forced to imagine a more and more complicated system of symbols. That on which we shall dwell is not merely exempt from internal contradiction,—it was so already at all the steps we have taken,—but it is no longer in contradiction with the various propositions which are called intuitive, and which are derived from more or less elaborate empirical notions.
Measurable Magnitude.—So far we have not spoken of the measure of magnitudes; we can tell if any one of them is greater than any other, but we cannot say that it is two or three times as large.
So far, I have only considered the order in which
