ox THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATUKE. GO.i 



as l)esides the i>urt'l}' luecluiuical luoveiuents uud their 

 summation, it must contain a reference to the nature of 

 our own faculties — a principle which indicates to what 

 extent the elementary movements come under our control 

 or escape it. There must be a principle which measures 

 the availability and usefulness — for our powers — of natural 

 processes, marking of!" what is orderly for our senses and 

 accessible to our powers, from what is disorderly and in- 

 accessible. This principle the founders of the science of 

 Thermodynamics — liankine, Clausius, and Thomson — had 

 empirically established : Thomson haA'ing foreseen its 

 far-reaching importance in the economy of nature and 

 the applications of industry. The statistical view of 34. 



As opposed 



natural phenomena forced upon us by atomism and to historical 



*- L */ ana laeciian- 



kinetics has shown us that it is not a purely me- ledge."""'' 

 chanical^ principle. It is one belonging to the theory 

 of averages and probability. The scientific view of 

 nature is thus, as Clerk-Maxwell says, neither purel}' 

 historical nor purely mechanical — it is statistical." 



To this view of the scientific treatment of natural 

 phenomena Clerk-Maxwell has attached a further con- 



^ Clerk-Maxwell, m a review of commercial and the technical 



Tait's "Thermodynamics" (' Scien- chiefs. As regularity is in many 



tific Papers,' vol. ii. p. 670) : "The i instances the condition of success, 



truth of the second law is therefore ' any Ijreak of its routine is care- 



a statistical, not a mathematical, fully examined and criticised. In 



truth, fur it depends on the fact such cases the technical man will 



tbit the bodies we deiil with consist i look to the proximate mechanical 



of millions of molecules, and that 

 we never can get hold of single 

 molecules." 



" Any one who has had occasion 



causes for an e.Kplanation, whereas 

 the commercial man, unable to 

 reflect on the technical and mechani- 

 cal conditions of tlie special case. 



to observe the internal work of any , will always refer to his statistics of 



large industrial or manufacturing the past as a guide in judging the 



organisation, will have noticed the immediate difficulty that is before 



twofold way in which important I him. 

 occurrences are looked at bv the ' 



