time: the refreshing river 



uniformity, of the second law. So also Levy,^ in his popular exposition 

 of the sciences, remarks: 



"The fact is that the second law of thermodynamics, which 

 regards systems as passing from orderly arrangement to dis- 

 orderly randomness, classifies any future pattern or more complex 

 orderly arrangement that may arise subsequent to the original 

 order, as one of the innumerable accidental situations that have 

 no special significance for man; as if a complex computing 

 machine were indeed a random combination of parts. It may 

 indeed mean that the energy of the original material from which 

 the metal was drav/n is now less available in one sense, but as a 

 computing machine, it has now made available a mass of energy 

 that was not previously capable of being tapped. Side by side, 

 therefore, with the second law of the thermodynamics, in so far as 

 it may be valid for large-scale systems — if it is so valid — there 

 must exist a law for the evolution of novel forms of aggregated 

 energy and the emergence of new qualities. A generalisation of 

 this nature has not yet been made but that a general rule of this 

 type must exist is evident." 



One wonders why Levy did not allude at this point to the law of 

 biological, psychological and sociological evolution. Long before, 

 Engels, whom nothing escaped, had faced the problem, as we see 

 from the following passage (in his Ludwig Feuerbach) : 



"It is not necessary here to go into the question of whether 

 this mode of outlook [evolutionary dialectical materialism] 

 is thoroughly in accord with the present position of natural 

 science which predicts a possible end for the earth, and for its 

 habitability a fairly certain one; which therefore recognises that 

 for the history of humanity also there is not only an ascending 

 but also a descending curve. At any rate we still find ourselves 

 a considerable distance from the turning point at which the 

 historical course of society becomes one of descent, and we 

 cannot expect Hegelian philosophy to have been concerned with 

 a subject which natural science had at that time not as yet placed 

 upon the agenda." ^ 



^ H. Levy, Modern Science; A Study of Physical Science in the World Today (London, 

 1939), p. 203. 



^ F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the outcome of Classical German Philosophy 

 (London, n.d.), P- 2i. 



214 



