$4 THE RUNNING-DOWN OF THE UNIVERSE 



Travelling backwards into the past we find a world 

 with more and more organisation. If there is no barrier 

 to stop us earlier we must reach a moment when the 

 energy of the world was wholly organised with none of 

 the random element in it. It is impossible to go back 

 any further under the present system of natural law. 

 I do not think the phrase "wholly organised" begs the 

 question. The organisation, we are concerned with is 

 exactly definable, and there is a limit at which it becomes 

 perfect. There is not an infinite series of states of 

 higher and still higher organisation; nor, I think, is the 

 limit one which is ultimately approached more and more 

 slowly. Complete organisation does not tend to be 

 more immune from loss than incomplete organisation. 



There is no doubt that the scheme of physics as it 

 has stood for the last three-quarters of a century postu- 

 lates a date at which either the entities of the universe 

 were created in a state of high organisation, or pre- 

 existing entities were endowed with that organisation 

 which they have been squandering ever since. More- 

 over, this organisation is admittedly the antithesis of 

 chance. It is something which could not occur for- 

 tuitously. 



This has long been used as an argument against a 

 too aggressive materialism. It has been quoted as 

 scientific proof of the intervention of the Creator at a 

 time not infinitely remote from to-day. But I am not 

 advocating that we drew any hasty conclusions from it. 

 Scientists and theologians alike must regard as some- 

 what crude the naive theological doctrine which 

 (suitably disguised) is at present to be found in every 

 textbook of thermodynamics, namely that some billions 

 of years ago God wound up the material universe and 

 has left it to chance ever since. This should be regarded 



