CHAPTER XVII
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE THEORY

According to our theory of the reversibility of the universe,
the second law of thermodynamics represents one of two
opposite tendencies found in the universe in equal proportions.
These tendencies we have named the positive and the negative
tendency. The positive tendency is that which follows the second
law of thermodynamics, while the negative tendency reverses it.
The phenomena of the two tendencies correspond to each other
to the smallest detail, each being the reverse of the other with
respect to the time-element. Thus, a moving picture of the
negative phenomena could be obtained by taking a moving
picture of ordinary, that is, positive, phenomena, and running
the reel backwards when the reel is being projected onto the
screen.
The ordinary physical bodies obey the second law of
thermodynamics, that is, they belong to the positive tendency;
while living bodies, on the contrary, follow the negative tendency,
and therefore reverse the second law of thermodynamics. If we
reverse ordinary events with respect to time, as, for instance,
with the device of running a motion-picture wheel backwards,
the living and the lifeless would change places, though, indeed,
the shapes and the structures of everything would remain
unchanged. So, also, would every physical law not derived from
the second law of thermodynamics, so that everything in such a
reversal could be explained on the basis of physical laws. The
reverse of the ordinary physical body is an organic form of life;
while the reverse of an ordinary living body is what we have
called a pseudo-living organism, having the organic structure
of life but not its vital activity.
Occasionally, in moving pictures, in order to get an effect
which cannot be obtained in actuality, such as a man going up
a smooth vertical wall, the device of reversing the reel is used.
In watching the picture produced by such a reversed reel, an
apparently unnatural effect is noticed, though it is difficult to say
what is so unusual about it. For instance, in one case, a motion
picture represented a number of persons diving into the ocean
from a high springboard and finding under the water something
that frightened them. They were then represented as immediately
jumping backwards out of the water on to the springboard. This
last part of the film was obviously a reversal of the part
representing the diving; but it was noticeable that there were
circular water waves converging towards a center before anyone
came to the surface, and, just as the waves came to the center to
produce a big splash, the undercurrents brought the people to the
surface while, instead of jumping, the picture represented them
as being splashed by the water into the air. The people
themselves, on the other hand, lost in this reversal all appearance
of activity; around them the water and everything else was jumping
and moving, they were being moved in a passive way, as though
the water and springboard were living and they were dead.
Another way of expressing the distinction between the two
tendencies is by drawing the distinction between available
energy, energy which can be used under the second law of
thermodynamics, on the one hand, and reserve energy, energy
below the level required by that law, on the other hand. Of the
energy of the universe, part comes under one heading and part
under the other. The positive tendency uses up available energy
and builds it up into a store of reserve energy, while the negative
tendency, on the contrary, utilizes that store of reserve energy
that the positive tendency has built up and creates available
energy out of it once more. In other words, lifeless objects build
up the energy of the universe into a reserve store, which they
themselves cannot use; for them, the energy is running down
into an unavailable form. But there are always present living
bodies which utilize the reserve energy and again build it up
into an available form.
Our section of the universe is one in which the positive
tendency prevails; but this is true for a finite section of space;
in general, there are certain places and times in which one
tendency prevails. Taking a given amount of time, this division
between the two tendencies divides space into an infinite
number of approximately brick-shaped sections, alternatively
positive and negative. When we are in a positive section, we
can see only the particular section we are in, though we may
have other evidence (e. g., gravitational) of matter beyond that
section. A stellar system, as it moves from one section into
another, gradually evolves from a set of lifeless bodies with life
on them, through a living stage where there are some
pseudo-living organisms, into a nebular stage, then finally, on
entering a positive section, becoming a "temporary star" and
going through the reverse process, from the nebula back to
the cooler stages.
One tendency is as universal as its opposite. Life must be
found everywhere, under all conditions, precisely as lifeless
bodies are. There is no spontaneous generation of life, and
therefore life can be traced back as far as we can trace back
the matter of which the solar system is made, that is, to an
eternity past.
But the basis of the distinction is that living bodies are
sensitive towards the past, and lifeless bodies are sensitive
only towards the future. If a lifeless bodycan develop a
sufficiently complicated organic structure to manifest mental
phenomena, or anything analogous, this sensitiveness towards
the future involves a memory of the future only, and, as a result,
an illusion of a flow of time from the future towards the past,
instead of the reverse as we suppose it to be. The sensitiveness
of living bodies toward the past and of lifeless bodies toward the
future is due to the fact that, under the second law of
thermodynamics, large causes are likely to produce small effects,
while, under the reversal of that law, it is small causes that are
likely to produce larger effects. Another consequence of the
same fact is, that lifeless phenomena are more easily explained
by their causes, while living phenomena, on the contrary, though
equally the rigid result of causality, are to be more easily
explained by the future chains of the causal relation, or as that
which is to produce certain effects. That is, living phenomena,
phenomena which follow the negative tendency, are
characterized by an apparent teleology or functionality that is
absent (or at least, apparently so) in lifeless phenomena.
There are also the properties of both tendencies as
majority or as minority tendencies. For instance, in one
part of the universe, the positive tendency is a majority
tendency, and the negative tendency is a minority tendency.
In other parts of the universe, on the contrary, the reverse
is the case: the majority tendency is the negative, or life,
while the lifeless phenomena constitute the minority tendency.
We may note that there are various characteristics of the
minority tendency such as the formation of complex
endothermic compounds and of an organic structure;
while the majority tendency, whether positive or negative,
is characterized by an inorganic structure and the formation
of exothermic compounds. The minority tendency, again,
whether positive or negative, is characterized by a metabolic
process wherever there is not too much heat to permit of such
chemical reactions going on.
We may use the diagram in Chapter XVI to illustrate the
alternation in any part of the universe between the positive
and negative tendency, remembering that the lower parts of
the curve represent a condition where there is less available
and more reserve energy. We may make an additional remark
on the curve in that diagram, that atoms integrate where the
curve is concave towards the left, and dissociate where the
curve is concave towards the right; in other words, the
concave side of the curve always faces that direction in time
toward which we find smaller atoms.
Besides the positive and negative tendency, there is also
a bordering tendency, which we have called the neutral tendency.
This is comparatively rare, and it suffices to say that it has no
tendency even to form compound particles, but remains
decomposed into the separate ultimate particles. It therefore is
not to be found (unless maybe for a single moment in time) in any
known substance, for no substances will be formed under the
neutral tendency. But the neutral tendency is probably to be found
in the spaces between the heavenly bodies, where it represents
the phenomenon of a substance with impenetrability but with no
resistance to the passage of a body through it.
We may tabulate as follows the similarities and differences
between the positive and the negative tendency:
THE POSITIVE TENDENCY
THE NEGATIVE TENDENCY
1. Follows the second law of thermodynamics.
1. Reverses the second law of thermodynamics.
2. Decreases difference of energy level.
2. Increases difference of energy level.
3. Forms unavailable reserve energy.
3. Uses this reserve energy.
4. Uses up available energy.
4. Forms available energy.
5. Lifeless; appears passive.
5. Living; appears active.
6. Inelastic collisions.
6. Super-elastic collisions.
7. Mechanical efficiency less than 100%.
7. Mechanical efficiency over 100%.
8. Larger causes produce smaller effects.
8. Smaller causes produce larger effects.
9. Explained easiest by cause; apparent rigidity of causality.
9. Explained easiest by effect; apparent teleology.
10. Appear living when reversed.
10. Appear lifeless when reversed.
11. Absence of irritability.
11. Irritability
12. Atoms integrate at great heat, otherwise dissociate.
12. Atoms dissociate at great heat, otherwise integrate.
13. Chemical reactions tend towards exothermic compounds.
13. Chemical reactions tend towards endothermic compounds.
14. Spontaneous and complete generation from opposite tendency possible.
14. Spontaneous or complete generation from opposite tendency impossible.
15. Can generate opposite tendency only by gradual growth from a living center.
15. Generates opposite tendency, spontaneously, suddenly, and completely.
16. Partly remains when there is transformation into the opposite tendency.
16. Is needed if more is to be formed.
17. Hot bodies give out light etc.
17. Hot bodies absorb light etc.
18. Light tends not to enter the positive section of the universe.
18. Light tends not to leave the negative section of the universe.

AS A MAJORITY TENDENCY
19. Tends to include exothermic compounds.
19. Tends to include exothermic compounds.
20. Ordinary lifeless objects.
20. Inorganic life.

AS A MINORITY TENDENCY
21. Tends to include complex endothermic compounds.
21. Tends to include complex endothermic compounds.
22. Pseudo-living organisms.
22. Living organisms.
23. Metabolism.
23. Metabolism.

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS PROPERTIES
24. Obeys the three laws of motion and the law of gravitation.
24. Obeys the three laws of motion and the law of gravitation.
25. Conservation of mass and of energy.
25. Conservation of mass and of energy.
26. Sensitive only to the future.
26. Sensitive only to the past.
27. Organisms conceive of time and events as reversed.
27. Organisms conceive of time and events in the order in which they occur.
28. Memory must refer to future.
28. Memory must refer to past.
29. Illusion in positive mental phenomena of flow of time from future to past.
29. Illusion in negative mental phenomena of flow of time from past to future.
30. All positive phenomena fully determined by either cause or effect.
30. All negative phenomena fully determined by either cause or effect.