598 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



in the trunk, where all branches and all roots meet, 

 there are in both directions numberless ways of rami- 

 fication or dissipation into the twigs or the root-fibres. 

 The statistical view measures the chances of an orderly 

 arrangement compared with disorder, of a commanding 

 unique position compared with the average or mean 

 position, by saying the odds are infinity to one against 

 it. The orderly exceptional position and arrangement 

 of a crowd does not possess more actual energy, but its 

 energy is directed, arranged, it has become available 

 get-at-able. 

 32. And what is it that changes disorder into order ? It 



"Selection" 



as conceived 1S a process of selection. Maxwell imagined a sorting 



by Maxwell. 



demon endowed with powers of perceiving and dividing 

 the immeasurably small movements of a gaseous body 

 i.e., of a crowd of particles in turbulent to and fro move- 

 ment. Such a being could, by mere selection and 

 separation of the slow and fast moving particles, bring 

 order into disorder, converting the unavailable energy 

 into available energy. It would be a process of mere 

 sifting and arranging, such as is apparently carried out 

 in the living creation and by organic structures. 1 And 

 Maxwell went a step further, and conceived the idea 



1 See supra, chap. x. p. 437, note, 

 where the selective action of certain 

 organisms is referred to in connec- 

 tion with Prof. Japp's Address to 

 the Brit. Assoc. in 1898. Lord Kel- 

 vin says ("On the Dissipation of 

 Energy," 1892, 'Popular Lectures 

 and Addresses,' vol. ii. p. 463, &c.) : 

 " It is conceivable that animal life 

 might have the attribute of using 

 the heat of surrounding matter, at 

 its natural temperature, as a source 

 of energy for mechanical effect. . . . 



The influence of animal or vegetable 

 life on matter is infinitely beyond 

 the range of any scientific inquiry 

 hitherto entered on. Its power of 

 directing the motions of moving 

 particles, in the demonstrated daily 

 miracle of our human free-will, and 

 in the growth of generation after 

 generation of plants from a single 

 seed, are infinitely different from 

 any possible result of the fortuitous 

 concourse of atoms. " 



