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particular man. They are stated in an abstract general way, with complete indifference to the owner's state of mind when he has to pay the bill.
Now think a bit further as to what all this means. The building of a house is a complicated set of circumstances. It is impossible to begin to apply the law, or to test it, unless amid the general course of events it is possible to recognize a definite set of occurrences as forming a particular instance of the building of a house. In short, we must know a house when we see it, and must recognize the events which belong to its building. Then amidst these events, thus isolated in idea from the rest of nature, the two elements of the cost and cubic content must be determinable; and when they are both determined, if the law be true, they satisfy the general formula
.
But is the law true? Anyone who has had much to do with building will know that we have here put the cost rather high. It is only for an expensive type of house that it will work out at this price. This brings out another point which must be made clear. While we are making mathematical calculations connected with the formula , it is indifferent to us whether the law be true or