 The eventual triumph of the atomic theory in physics and chemistry in the nineteenth century paved the way for the idea of “atomism”, as applying to matter, at least, to become widely familiar: it might well be said, to adapt Sir William Harcourt’s famous observation in respect of the socialists of his day, “We are all atomists now”. Nevertheless, only a minority of philosophers of the past espoused atomism at a metaphysical level, a fact which may explain why the analogous doctrine upholding continuity lacks a familiar name: that which is unconsciously acknowledged requires no name. Peirce coined the term synechism (from Greek syneche, “continuous”) for his own philosophy—a philosophy permeated by the idea of continuity in its sense of “being  connected”.[4]  In this article I shall appropriate Peirce’s term and use it in a sense shorn of its Peircean overtones, simply as a contrary to atomism. I shall also use the term “divisionism” for the more specific doctrine that continua are infinitely divisible.