EVOLUTION AND ENTROPY 325 



of what is "burned up " in the movement toward form. But 

 what loses and what gains? It must be a substratum indifferent 

 to either process, the subject in which privation and form 

 succeed one another. 



IV 



Though not concerned with the physical meaning of evolu- 

 tion and of entropy but more with logic and pedagogy, there 

 is one final observation that may be in place here. For we have 

 argued that the philosopher of nature is not dependent on the 

 evidence of entropy and evolution to establish his three first 

 principles of all change. He knows them because, in the order 

 of learning, the analysis of nature on a general level precedes the 

 specialized knowledge like that achieved in modern science; 

 this pedagogical order is commanded by the very nature of 

 human knowing.'" Does our study of evolution and entropy 

 lend any confirmatory weight to this order in our reasoned 

 knowledge of nature.? 



Let us look at this matter closely, not because it is a physical 

 problem but only because evolution and entropy have been in 

 focus. Our question, to phrase it properly, concerns the level 

 where our reasoned knowledge of nature should begin in order 

 to be truly sure of itself. Should it begin with the micro- 

 physical, the astrophysical, or at some other level.? 



Our authentic science of nature, sure of where it is starting 

 and of the principles it finds there, cannot begin with the 

 microphysical. For there may be forces and factors operating 

 in the universe at large which will not show up in microphysical 

 analysis. Thus, there could be no entropy to a single particle, 

 and for the same reason, the scientist could not speak of 

 evolution at this atomistic level. Even the biological evolu- 

 tionist cannot discuss evolution in the case of single individuals. 

 He speaks of populations. " Complete knowledge of the indi- 

 vidual events in the history of life," according to Simpson, " is 

 absolutely unobtainable, even in principle." '"■ By the same 



^" Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 3. 



''^ " The History of Life " in The Evolution of Life, op. cit., p. 121. 



