The Domain of Physical Science 209 



includes the physical aspects of mind) can be analysed into atoms 

 of matter. Still less do I suppose that the chemical atoms are, as it 

 were, endowed with tiny elementary minds, which when they get 

 together in certain combinations can build up a complete human 

 intelligence. That would be like believing that each digit of a 

 man's telephone number represents a homunculus, of which four 

 combine to form a man. The kind of view which seems to be 

 required is that in the world which is the basis of both spiritual and 

 material phenomena, the physicist studying certain aspects finds his 

 cycle of entities. In virtue of their cyclic connection they form a 

 domain which can be studied without reference to other aspects. 

 Having selected these aspects and set the rest on one side, we have 

 before us the world of physics. It is after this selection that the 

 magnifying glass becomes useful and the resolution into atoms, 

 electrons, and so forth, is effected. It may be added, moreover, 

 that it is after this selection and with reference only to this selection 

 that space itself appears in the scheme, so that magnification would 

 be a metaphor of doubtful meaning if applied outside the selected 

 domain. 



4. The Responsibility of Mind 



We have left the scheme of theoretical physics maintaining 

 a. precarious independence of extraneous support like a serpent 

 swallowing its own tail. It may be expected that such indepen- 

 dence will be of a limited character. Everyone will agree that 

 without infringing any law of nature known, or as yet unknown, 

 the world might quite well be different from what it actually is. 

 Let us take two such worlds : A, the actual world, and B, a world 

 which might have been. That is to say, B is ruled by the same 

 laws of nature, but with different and differently distributed stars, 

 planets, mountains, cities, animals, etc. How can a physicist test 

 (by his own resources) that when I am describing the world B, I 

 am not describing the actual world. I refer to a piece of matter 

 of the world B ; it is not real matter, but what right has the 

 physicist to call it unreal ? It attracts every other particle of 

 (unreal) matter according to the law of gravitation, since the usual 

 natural laws are obeyed in B. With my unreal matter I construct 

 unreal scales and clocks which measure wrong intervals between 

 points ; but the physicist cannot say they are wrong unless he has 



