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 [ s 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, I The influence of animal or vegetable 



where the selective action of certain ' life on matter is infinitely beyond 



organisms is referred to in connec- i the range of any scientific inquiry 



tion with Prof. Japp's Address to ! hitherto entered on. Its power of 



the Brit. Assoc. in 1898. Lord Kel- | directing the motions of moving 



vin says (" On the Dissipation of | particles, in the demonstrated daily 



Energy," 1892, 'Popular Lectures I miracle of our human free-will, and 



and Addresses,' vol. ii. p. 463, &c.): in the growth of generation after 



" It is conceivable that animal life generation of plants from a single 



might have the attribute of using j seed, are infinitely different from 



the heat of surrounding matter, at j any possible result of the fortuitous 



its natural temperature, as a source concourse of atoms. " 



of energy for mechanical effect. . . . i 



