380 SISTER MARGARET ANN 



of order, for rhythm is a species of order. Taking order as 

 " the sequence of one thing upon another according to some 

 principle," the solar, lunar, tidal (and possibly extra-galatic) 

 rhythms of organisms are instances of order. Events in these 

 organisms are observed to repeat themselves at certain inter- 

 vals: these rhythmic intervals express the principle involved. 



What is the source of this order? There is no theoretical 

 reason, nor any experimental data, to hint that the cosmic 

 order implied by the rhythms must be the result of random 

 events. Rather there is implied what sound science implies in 

 all its searchings: the presence of an intelligent and intelligible 

 pattern in the uni verse. ^^ 



The discovery of order as in the rhythmicity of fiddler crabs 

 and other organisms, far from granting any substantiation to 

 the theory of random beginnings, militates strongly against it. 

 The tendency of these findings is to suggest, not that the 

 observed order is the result of chance, but rather that what 

 was thought to be chance is seen to be more likely an aspect 

 of order. Thus the interruption of periodicity in fiddler crabs, 

 at first considered a random event, later seemed more likely 

 to be, when a simultaneous variation of sunspots was learned 

 of, an instance of the influence of a certain rhythmicity hitherto 

 not considered by the researchers. This is scarcely astonishing, 

 for events which may appear to be random to one considering 

 only particular causes in a limited range, may be seen to be 

 co-ordinated when one becomes conscious of a broader picture."" 



"^ Writers as diverse as Einstein and Aquinas are agreed on this. The familiar 

 " Der Herr Gott ist raffiniert, aber boshaft ist er nicht " can be compared with St. 

 Thomas' commentary on the Aristotelian dictum, "Art imitates nature." (Phys., II, 

 194a20) " The reason why art imitates nature" say St. Thomas, " is that the prin- 

 ciple in the activity of art is knowledge. But all our knowledge is received through 

 the senses from sensible and natural things; whence we operate in artifacts according 

 to the likeness of natural things. But the reason why natural things are imitable by 

 art is that the whole of nature is ordered by some intellective principle to its end, 

 in such a way that the work of nature is perceived to be the work of an intelligence, 

 as it proceeds through determinate means to certain ends, which process art indeed 

 imitates in its operation." In II Phys., lect. 4, n. 6. 



*" " It is plain that effects as related to some lower cause appear to have no order 

 to each other, but to coincide accidentally, which, if they are referred to a higher 



