SPACE, TIME 293 



indefinite number of elements between any two ; in perceptual 

 space and time the atoms are adjacent to one another. All 

 of this may be summarized by saying that empirical space 

 and time are describable rather as discrete series, in the tech- 

 nical sense defined in the preceding chapter, than as linear 

 continua. 



According to the third sense of "continuity," viz., "ab- 

 sence of gaps," empirical space and time may be said to be 

 discontinuous, provided, of course, one recognizes the legit- 

 imacy of using scientific space and time as referential sys- 

 tems. From the strictly empirical point of view neither 

 space nor time exhibits gaps, for an empty space would 

 not be space and an empty time would not be time. When 

 one spends the night in a deep dreamless sleep, the moment 

 of going to sleep is strictly contiguous with the moment of 

 waking in the morning; the time of the night's passage does 

 not exist for the individual. In the same way, when one 

 spends the night in a Pullman the view from the window on 

 retiring is strictly contiguous with the view on arising; the 

 space intervening does not exist for the individual. But 

 through communication with others who remained awake 

 all night the individual learns of the occurrence of inter- 

 vening temporal and spatial events. He is then obliged to 

 separate the contiguous events of his experience, and to 

 insert empty time and empty space between them. This 

 gives rise to gaps in his space and time. None of this occurs, 

 of course, at the strictly empirical level, for at this stage 

 space and time for the individual are simply his events, 

 and an empty space and an empty time would be mean- 

 ingless. It is only at the higher stage in which there is a 

 growing recognition of a common space and common time 

 that the notion of gaps has any significance. 



Finitude. If space and time are intimately associated 

 with events, they will exhibit definite limits. The last point 

 in space is, for the individual, the most remote point which 

 he has visited; the first moment in time is his earliest re- 

 membered experience. Strictly, of course, the notion of first 



