158 THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



transcend thermodynamics as thermodynamics 

 transcends mechanics. 



The thought that living beings may escape 

 from the law of entropy we owe to Helmholtz, 

 although many years earlier Kelvin^ also had 

 written ^dth respect to the second law, "It is 

 impossible by means of an inanimate material 

 agency to derive mechanical effect. . . ." The 

 few experiments which have so far been made 

 with a view of finding an actual reduction of 

 entropy in systems containing living organisms 

 have been unsuccessful, but even if they con- 

 tinue to fail, vet when we observe the enormous 

 complexity of animate forms it is hard to believe 

 that they could be the result of a blind fortui- 

 tous shuffling of atoms. 



Borel" makes the amusing supposition of a 

 million monke3^s allowed to play upon the keys 

 of a million typewriters. What is the chance 

 that this wanton activity should reproduce 

 exactly all of the volumes which are contained 

 in the library of the British Museum .^^ It cer- 

 tainly is not a large chance, but it may be 

 roughly calculated, and proves in fact to be 



6 W. Thomson, Dynamical Theory of Heat. 



7 Emile Borel, Le Hasard. Elements of the Theory of 

 Probability. 



