The word synechism is the English form of the Greek {synechismos}, from {synechés}, continuous. For two centuries we have been affixing -ist and -ism to words, in order to note sects which exalt the importance of those elements which the stem-words signify. Thus, materialism is the doctrine that matter is everything, idealism the doctrine that ideas are everything, dualism the philosophy which splits everything in two. In like manner, I have proposed to make synechism mean the tendency to regard everything as continuous.

[—] I carry the doctrine so far as to maintain that continuity governs the whole domain of experience in every element of it.