The first of four Maxims of Root Metaphors in World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence (1942) specifies the relation between a _world hypothesis_ and a _root metaphor_ as one-to-one.
A world theory is approached through development of a world hypothesis to a level of adequacy.
> ... we suggested that Anaximenes and Empedocles represented the generating-substance theory at the height of its Greek development. > * It is always possible that a theory may develop farther than the best statement we have of it. In a sense, Herbert Spencer's statement was a development beyond the Greek. > * It was a development, however, chiefly in respect to the vast accumulation of factual detail over what the Greeks had, and hardly a development at all in respect to the refinement of the categories. > * It is the latter sort of development we chiefly have in mind when we speak of the development of a world hypothesis. > For its adequacy depends on its potentialities of description and explanation rather than upon the accumulation of actual descriptions, though its power of description is never fully known short of actual performance. [p. 97, editorial paragraphing added]
Pragmatically, we can't fully test the full scope of a world hypothesis. Philosophers are, however, accustomed to criticizing.
> This fact brings out that the unlimited scope essential to a world hypothesis is more a matter of intent and accepted responsibility than a matter of actual test. > * Obviously, all the facts in the world can never be described literally by any hypothesis. The testing of a world hypothesis consists in presenting to it for description types of fact or specimens from diverse fields of facts, and if it can adequately describe these we assume that it can describe the rest. > * Experience has made philosophers pretty well aware of what are likely to be the hardest facts for a world theory to handle, and these are at once respectfully presented for solution to any young hypothesis that ventures to claim world-wide scope. > If the description of these facts tolerably well passes criticism, critics scour the universe for some other evidence which will break the theory down. The world-wide scope of a theory, therefore, is actually a challenge rather than an accomplishment. [p. 97-98, editorial paragraphing added]
The quality of a world hypothesis is subjectively judged, relatively.
> Our best world hypotheses, however, seem to have this scope. They seem to handle fairly adequately any fact that is presented to them. Their inadequacies arise not so much from lack of scope as from internal inconsistencies, so that the minimum requirement nowadays for a world hypothesis is unlimited scope. We therefore speak only of the relative inadequacies of world theories, their world wide scope being taken for granted. [p. 98]