200 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



of the dissipation of energy would be contradicted by 

 Maxwell's fiction. 1 



Let it be well understood : Maxwell's argument rests 

 upon a fiction, and does not assert that life contradicts 

 any energetical law. But it is important, since now, after 

 our own analytical discussions, it may really be applied 

 to life as to a natural autonomous reality. 



1 It has often been said that the "second principle" of energetics does 

 not hold for mechanics, but the "true second" and the "empirical third" 

 principle have always been confused in such an analysis. It seems to me 

 that the true second principle (" principle of becoming") finds its mechanical 

 expression in the simple phrase that a system of bodies all moving in the 

 same direction with the same velocity is unable to change its individual 

 velocities. The law of dissipation, our "third empirical" principle, has 

 been applied to mechanics by Boltzmann on the basis of calculations on 

 probability. To express the chief point in our terminology : a homogeneous 

 distribution in any system of moving bodies, endowed with different 

 velocities, is more "probable" than a heterogeneous distribution. 



