154. THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



alty. Stripped of its finery we find that the 

 second law states that if a pack of cards is 

 thrown into a shuffling machine the chances are 

 that it will become shuffled. 



If this discovery comes to us as a great dis- 

 illusionment it is only because our minds are 

 tinged from infancy with the hoary supersti- 

 tion of the absolute. We say, "If this great law 

 is not always true what becomes of our other 

 exact laws.f^" But can we have no reverence for 

 any institution without making the childish as- 

 sumption of its infallibility .f^ Can we not see 

 that exact laws, like all the other ultimates and 

 absolutes, are as fabulous as the crock of gold 

 at the rainbow's end.^ We have a sense of con- 

 tentment as we travel day by day through the 

 beautiful and fertile lands into which we are 

 led by one of these will-o'-the-wisps. It is only 

 after someone cries, "I have caught it in my 

 hands," that we experience the bitterness of 

 disappointment. 



Our respect for the great law of entropy need 

 be no less because it has its exceptions, nor yet 

 because it can be reduced to the obvious. Think 

 of all the propositions of Euclidean geometry 

 which can be reduced to the simple statement 

 that there are parallel lines and that there are 



