Page:The World and the Individual, Second Series (1901).djvu/110

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THE LINKAGE OF FACTS
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this process, through m. For the very discovery of m, and of the dependence now in question, constitutes for me the direction of this ideal process. I now begin to construct the Many by one sort of activity. And in doing so, I also find what structure my objects themselves, as so far known to me, appear to possess.

It is perfectly true that such a process as this is far from answering all my questions about the One and the Many. On the contrary, it constantly arouses new ones. But it also suggests a systematic plan for attempting to move towards an answer to every such question. Let me find, if possible, by means of further experience, not only the triad, ɑ, m, b, but also yet other objects similarly disposed, — a whole series of further intermediaries (m1 between ɑ and m, m2 between m and b, and so on). If I succeed in my search, I then gradually get, by means of a well-ordered series of acts of my own, a series resembling a collection of points in order on one line, thus:

ɑ . . . . m1 . . . . m . . . . m2 . . . . b.

But there is room, in this series, for the conception of new intermediate terms indefinitely; and I can continue the search for such in my experience. The objects of the series are such that any three form a triad, with one of the triad between the two others (in our present sense of between), while all the triads are thus linked in one series, beginning with ɑ, ending with b, and having intermediaries such as are determined by a recurrent process of conceiving, and, if possible, of finding in experience, ever new triads within the series. The whole series, so far as I can conceive and verify it at all, will define stages