232 WORLD BUILDING 



concession in this direction will enable us to link the 

 whole into a structure. 



We assume then that, considering a relation between 

 two relata, it will in general be possible to pick out two 

 other relata close at hand which stand to one another 

 in a "like" relation. By "like" I do not mean "like in 

 every respect", but like in respect to one of the aspects 

 of the composite relation. How is the particular aspect 

 selected? If our relata were human individuals different 

 judgments of likeness would be made by the geneal- 

 ogist, the economist, the psychologist, the sportsman, 

 etc.; and the building of structure would here diverge 

 along a number of different lines. Each could build his 

 own world-structure from the common basal material 

 of humanity. There is no reason to deny that a similar 

 diversity of worlds could be built out of our postulated 

 material. But all except one of these worlds will be 

 stillborn. Our labour will be thrown away unless the 

 world we have built is the one which the mind chooses 

 to vivify into a world of experience. The only definition 

 we can give of the aspect of the relations chosen for the 

 criterion of likeness, is that it is the aspect which will 

 ultimately be concerned in the getting into touch of mind 

 w T ith the physical world. But that is beyond the province 

 of physics. 



This one-to-one correspondence of "likeness" is only 

 supposed to be definite in the limit when the relations 

 are very close together in the structure. Thus we avoid 

 any kind of comparison at a distance which is as 

 objectionable as action at a distance. Let me confess at 

 once that I do not know what I mean here by "very 

 close together". As yet space and time have not been 

 built. Perhaps we might say that only a few of the 

 relata possess relations whose comparability to the first 



