INSUFFICIENCY OF PRIMARY LAW 109 



problem he can give the readings of the clock at each 

 stage. There is much to be said for excluding the whole 

 field of significance from physics; it is a healthy reaction 

 against mixing up with our calculations mystic con- 

 ceptions that (officially) we know nothing about. 

 I rather envy the pure physicist his impregnable position. 

 But if he rules significances entirely outside his scope, 

 somebody has the job of discovering whether the physi- 

 cal world of atoms, aether and electrons has any signifi- 

 cance whatever. Unfortunately for me I am expected in 

 these lectures to say how the plain man ought to regard 

 the scientific world when it comes into competition with 

 other views of our environment. Some of my audience 

 may not be interested in a world invented as a mere 

 calculating device. Am I to tell them that the scientific 

 world has no claim on their consideration when the eter- 

 nal question surges in the mind, What is it all about? I 

 am sure my physical colleagues will expect me to put up 

 some defence of the scientific world in this connection. 

 I am ready to do so; only I must insist as a preliminary 

 that we should settle which is the right way up of it. 

 I cannot read any significance into a physical world 

 when it is held before me upside down, as happened 

 just now. For that reason I am interested in entropy 

 not only because it shortens calculations which can be 

 made by other methods, but because it determines an 

 orientation which cannot be found by other methods. 



The scientific world is, as I have often repeated, a 

 shadow-world, shadowing a world familiar to our con- 

 sciousness. Just how much do we expect it to shadow? 

 We do not expect it to shadow all that is in our mind, 

 emotions, memory, etc. In the main we expect it to 

 shadow impressions which can be traced to external 

 sense-organs. But time makes a dual entry and thus 



