absurdity. He who says
that time is infinite does not say much; he is not affirming the
existence of some sort of a thing; he is merely affirming a theoretical
possibility, and is it not a theoretical possibility that there may be an
endless succession of real changes in a real world?

(3) It is evident, furthermore, that, when one has grasped firmly the
significance of the distinction between apparent time and real time, one
may with a clear conscience speak of time as infinitely divisible. Of
course, the time directly given in any single experience, the minute or
the second of which we are conscious as it passes, cannot be regarded as
composed of an infinite number of parts. We are not directly conscious
of these subdivisions, and it is a monstrous assumption to maintain that
they must be present in the minute or second as perceived.

But no such single experience of duration constitutes what we mean by
real time. We have seen that real time is the time occupied by the
changes in real things, and the question is, How far can one go in the
subdivision of this time?

Now, the touch thing which usually is for us in common life the real
thing is not the real thing for science; it is the appearance under which
the real world of atoms and molecules reveals itself. The atom is not
directly perceivable, and we may assign to its motions a space so small
that no one could possibly perceive it as space, as a something with part
out of part, a something with a here and a there. But, as has been
before pointed out (section 26), this does not prevent us from believing
the atom and the space in which it moves to be real, and we can
_represent_ them to ourselves as we can the things and the spaces with
which we have to do in common life.

It is with time just as it is with space. We can perceive an inch to
have parts; we cannot perceive a thousandth of an inch to have parts, if
we can perceive it at all; but we can represent it to ourselves as
extended, that is, we can let an experience which is extended stand for
it, and can dwell upon the parts of that. We can perceive a second to
have duration; we cannot perceive a thousandth of a second to have
duration; but we can conceive it as having duration, _i.e._ we can let
some experience of duration stand for it and serve as its representative.

It is, then, reasonable to speak of the space covered by the vibration of
an atom, and it is equally reasonable to speak of the tim