More than this--much more than this--must be the difference between the
transforming systems of physics and the evolving systems of biology.
There is a quality, or sense, or direction in all naturally occurring
inorganic processes which is not like that of organic evolutionary
processes. We return now to the consideration of the second law of
thermodynamics, for only in this way can we approach the notion of
the vital impetus. If an energy-transformation occurs in inorganic
nature, that is to say, if anything happens, the transformation occurs
or the thing happens because there were diversities in the system in
which it occurred. The condition for inorganic happening is that there
must have been differences of energy in the different parts of the
system: in the most general sense there must have been diversity of
the elements. But with the transformation this diversity disappears,
or tends to disappear, and it cannot be restored--that is, differences
of energy cannot again be established unless by a compensatory
energy-transformation; that is, energy must be expended on the system
from without by some external agency. Whatever else physics shows
us it shows us an unitary universe, that is, an universe in which
anything that happens affects, to some extent, all the other parts.
Therefore the diminution of diversities, or energy-differences, is
something that cannot be undone, or compensated, for there is nothing
without the universe.[32] Everything that happens in our universe
reduces the possibility of further happening. We desire, at the risk
of reiteration, that this principle of energetics should be perfectly
clear: inorganic happening, of whatever kind it may be, is a case or
consequence of the second law of energetics--_is_ the second law itself
in a sense. All energy-transformations occur because energy-differences
are being diminished, because diversities are being abolished. This is
the sense, or quality, or direction of inorganic phenomena.
[32] It is assumed that the universe is a finite one. If it were
infinite the whole discussion becomes meaningless, and we must _give
up_ this and other problems.
It is not the direction of organic evolution. In the development of
the individual organism what we most clearly see is the progressive
increase of diversity of the parts. In phylogenetic evolution one,
or a few, simple morphological forms of life have become, and are
becoming, indefinitely numerous morphological forms. Diversity is
continually increasing. If we cling to the mechanistic view of life,
we must suppose that the diversity of the fully developed organism, or
that of the organic world with all its species, was also the diversity
of the fertilised ovum or that of the primitive life-substance in
another phase. Then we commit ourselves to all the crudities of modern
speculations on heredity.
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