  As Weyl saw it, there is an unbridgeable gap between intuitively  given continua (e.g. those of space, time and motion) on the one  hand, and the “discrete” exact concepts of mathematics  (e.g. that of natural   number[13])  on the other. The presence of this chasm meant that the construction  of the mathematical continuum could not simply be “read  off” from intuition. It followed, in Weyl’s view, that the  mathematical continuum must be treated as if it were an element of  the transcendent realm, and so, in the end, justified in the same way as a physical theory. It was not enough that the mathematical theory  be consistent; it must also be reasonable. 