seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether beyond the ether,
filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate the difficulty of
conceiving of action at a distance.


[1] Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my
_A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_, to which reference has already been
made.


According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived,
not understood--is absolutely continuous (_i.e_. not amenable to
numerical treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that
we cannot, he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously,
grasping only, so to speak, a cinematographic view of life,
made up of an immense number of instantaneous glimpses.
All that passes between the glimpses is lost, and so the true whole,
reason can never synthesise from that which it possesses.
On the other hand, one might also argue--extending, in a way,
the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between
the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery
of the significance of the ether of space--that reality is
essentially discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being
a mere illusion arising from the coarseness of our senses.
That might provide a complete vindication of the Pythagorean view;
but a better vindication, if not of that theory, at any rate
of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, is forthcoming, I think,
in the fact that modern mathematics has transcended the shackles
of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as to include
quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been