292 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



and time as continuous. According to the first meaning of 

 "continuity," viz., 'unbrokenness," it seems safe to say 

 that empirical space and time are continuous rather than 

 discontinuous. In other words, in this aspect empirical 

 space and time do not differ from scientific space and time. 

 But whereas the unbrokenness at the scientific level was 

 due to the absence of demarcations and pulsations, at the 

 empirical level it is due to the multiplicity of divisions 

 arising from the intimate association of space and time with 

 events. Any event has such a variety of spatial relations 

 to other events that no single one stands out as the char- 

 acteristic metric; one does not find that space favors, say, 

 the meter unit as over against the yard unit, since events 

 are just as likely to be separated by the one distance as by 

 the other. Similarly, time exhibits no subdivisions at all 

 unless one associates it with clocks or other processes, and 

 in such cases the processes selected are soon seen to be 

 relative. For example, the rising and setting of the sun 

 might seem to contribute a definite metric to time itself, 

 indicating, so to speak, definite lumps in the temporal 

 process. But these events are soon seen to be varying as 

 measured according to certain other processes, such as the 

 number of swings of a pendulum. Hence time seems to ex- 

 hibit only such a metric as is obtained by a completely 

 arbitrary selection of processes. This seems to indicate that 

 empirical space and time are, like scientific space and time, 

 simply unbroken potentialities of division. 



But according to the second meaning of "continuity," 

 viz., "linear continuity," the situation may be different. 

 There seem to be definite limits in our ability to distinguish 

 spatial extents and temporal durations in the direction of 

 the very small. Perceptually one finds neither indefinitely 

 smaller distances nor indefinitely shorter durations; points 

 and instants, in the scientific sense, are not empirically 

 given. Space and time are lumpy, consisting of atoms 

 which represent the minimum discernibles. Nor does one 

 find on the empirical level that space and time exhibit an 



