ENTROPY AND BECOMING 91 



meaning. The view here advocated is tantamount to an 

 admission that consciousness, looking out through a pri- 

 vate door, can learn by direct insight an underlying char- 

 acter of the world which physical measurements do not 

 betray. 



In any attempt to bridge the domains of experience 

 belonging to the spiritual and physical sides of our na- 

 ture, Time occupies the key position. I have already re- 

 ferred to its dual entry into our consciousness — through 

 the sense organs which relate it to the other entities of 

 the physical world, and directly through a kind of pri- 

 vate door into the mind. The physicist, whose method 

 of inquiry depends on sharpening up our sense organs by 

 auxiliary apparatus of precision, naturally does not look 

 kindly v on private doors, through which all formsl of 

 superstitious fancy might enter unchecked. But is he 

 ready to forgo that knowledge of the going on of time 

 which has reached us through the door, and content 

 himself with the time inferred from sense-impressions 

 which is emaciated of all dynamic quality? 



No doubt some will reply that they are content; to 

 these I would say — Then show your good faith by 

 reversing the dynamic quality of time (which you may 

 freely do if it has no importance in Nature), and, just 

 for a change, give us a picture of the universe passing 

 from the more random to the less random state, each 

 step showing a gradual victory of antichance over 

 chance. If you are a biologist, teach us how from Man 

 and a myriad other primitive forms of life, Nature in 

 the course of ages achieved the sublimely simple struc- 

 ture of the amoeba. If you are an astronomer, tell how 

 waves of light hurry in from the depths of space and 

 condense on to the stars; how the complex solar system 

 unwinds itself into the evenness of a nebula. Is this the 



