INSUFFICIENCY OF PRIMARY LAW 107 



I am not trying to argue that there is in the external 

 world an objective entity which is the picture as distinct 

 from the myriads of particles into which science has 

 analysed it. I doubt if the statement has any meaning; 

 nor, if it were true, would it particularly enhance my 

 esteem of the picture. What I would say is this: 

 There is a side of our personality which impels us to 

 dwell on beauty and other aesthetic significances in 

 Nature, and in the work of man, so that our environ- 

 ment means to us much that is not warranted by any- 

 thing found in the scientific inventory of its struc- 

 ture. An overwhelming feeling tells us that this is 

 right and indispensable to the purpose of our existence. 

 But is it rational? How can reason regard it otherwise 

 than as a perverse misrepresentation of what is after all 

 only a collection of atoms, aether-waves and the like, 

 going about their business? If the physicist as advocate 

 for reason takes this line, just whisper to him the word 

 Entropy. 



Insufficiency of Primary Law. I daresay many of my 

 physical colleagues will join issue with me over the 

 status I have allowed to entropy as something foreign 

 to the microscopic scheme, but essential to the physical 

 world. They would regard it rather as a labour-saving 

 device, useful but not indispensable. Given any practical 

 problem ordinarily solved by introducing the conception 

 of entropy, precisely the same result could be reached 

 (more laboriously) by following out the motion of each 

 individual particle of matter or quantum of energy under 

 the primary microscopic laws without any reference to 

 entropy explicit or implicit. Very well ; let us try. There's 

 a problem for you — 



[A piece of chalk was thrown on the lecture table 

 where it rolled and broke into two pieces.] 



