It is often said that quantum phenomena are inconsistent with ordinary mechanics, and proofs of this assertion are often offered. I believe that no such proof, in the spirit in which the attempt is usually made, can be correct, for it seems to me that the remark of Poincaré applies, namely, that any sort of behavior can be imitated by a mechanical system, provided it is only complicated enough. A peremptory proof of this can be given to any one who is not a believer in vitalism. If a sentient being can be regarded as a mechanical system, we merely have to station inside each atom a Maxwell demon, with instructions to make the atom react according to quantum rules. Opposed to the spirit of this sort of reduction of quantum phenomena to mechanical terms, we have to remember that it makes sense to talk about the character of our conceptual structure only when the number of concepts is reduced to the number that have independent operational significance, that is, to the minimum number. In the meantime let us examine what may be the significance in the light of present experiment of statements like those ascribed to Bohr that our usual concepts of space and time may be inapplicable in dealing with quantum phenomena. This idea is often given the more explicit form that space and time may be essentially discontinuous at the quantum level. From the operational point of view, it is most difficult to see exactly what this more explicit statement means, at least in terms of those operations by which length and time were originally defined. Thus if space were discontinuous, it might mean that a point exists which may be reached by laying off a meter stick fourteen times, for example, and another point by laying off sixteen times, but that no point can be found with fifteen applications. Such a state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with our definition of the counting operation and to have no concern with any properties of space; for what shall we mean by laying off a meter stick sixteen times if it cannot be laid off fifteen times? It is conceivable that space might end, in the sense that beyond a certain limit there might be some irremovable physical hindrance to the continued laying off of distances with a meter stick (although I think that we should be inclined to describe such a state of affairs in terms of matter enclosing empty space rather than as the end of space), but to say that space may be discontinuous seems to be meaningless. In the same way, I believe it meaningless to speak of discontinuous time. We may have phenomena discontinuous in space and time, but not discontinuous space or time.