TIME; THE REFRESHING RIVER 



that biological order and thermodynamic order are identical, but 

 that the former is over-compensated, should be rejected in favour of 

 a wider generalisation. We are led, in fact, to the second hypothesis 

 mentioned above, namely that thermodynamic order and biological 

 organisation are entirely different things.^ Only we should now 

 perhaps have to call the latter by some such term as "holistic" in 

 order to indicate that pattern is not the biologist's perquisite, but 

 occurs also at non-living levels. 



As David Watson has well put it: 



"The suggestion I wish to make is that all material organisation, 

 whether living or lifeless, has its roots in the same facts, and that the 

 symmetry and beauty of the products of the synthetic chemist, of 

 geological formations, of trees, of flowers, and of young girls, are 

 in essence traceable to the same kinds of designing agents." 



Let us now return to the fundamental definition of Willard Gibbs 

 - — entropy is "mixed-up-ness." The opposite of mixed-up-ness is 

 separatedness, not organisation. From this point of view, one can see 

 that in the early stages of our world's development all the elementary 

 particles -of physics were in fact separated from one another, and free 

 energy was then at its maximum. But as time went on, the temperature 

 fell, and mixed-up-ness increased — or perhaps we ought to say that 

 time went on because mixed-up-ness increased. The basic miscon- 

 ception we have unearthed comes to light here, namely that mixed- 

 up-ness necessarily means chaotic mixed-up-ness; on the contrary 

 there may also be patterned mixed-up-ness. Indeed it is hard to see 

 how the most complex patterns could ever have been formed if there 



thermodynamics and life from the physiological point of view (Handbuch d. Physik, 

 1926, 11, 238). "In unseren Augen," he says, "stellen die Lebewesen eine hohere 

 Organisationsform der unbelebten Materie dar, die sich etwa zur Organisation der 

 Molekiile (oder Atome) so verhalt, wie diese sich zu den Elektronen und Protonen, 

 aus denen sie aufgebaut sind. Auch das Molekiil und Atom stellt nur eine Struktur- und 

 Funktionseinheit dar, von relativer Stabilitat, von annahernd, aber nicht voUstandig 

 bestimmter Form, wechselndem Energiegehalt und numerisch bestimmten, aber 

 individuell unbestimmten, d.h. austauschbaren, Elementarbestandteilen. Ja, dariiber 

 hinaus differieren sogar die Atome eines Elements unter sich unter gleichen Umstanden, 

 wie die Statistik des radioaktiven Zerfalls beweist, haben verschiedene Lebensdauer und 

 besitzen demnach eine Individualitat." Meyerhof, however, does noc consider the problem 

 of evolutionary rise in organisation as opposed to thermodynamic increase of disorder. 

 ^ This is also the standpoint of David L. Watson in an important paper (Quart. Rev. 

 Biol., 1931,6, 143). Probability, he says, with Lotka, is essentially a matter of classification. 

 An improbable event is one that is a member of a small class, and whether it is so or 

 not depends on our system of classification. A classification based on morphological 

 form and efficiency of function (means to ends) would give a different picture from 

 that of statistical mechanics. 



226 



