A Star Is Drawing On Some Vast

Philosophically, The Notion Of A Beginning Of The Present Order Of Nature Is Repugnant To Me ... I Should Like To Find A Genuine Loophole.

What We Makes Of The World Must Be Largely Dependent On The Sense-organs That We Happen To Possess. How The World Must Have Changed Since The Man Came To Rely On His Eyes Rather Than His Nose.

There Is Only One Law Of Nature-the Second Law Of Thermodynamics-which Recognises A Distinction Between Past And Future More Profound Than The Difference Of Plus And Minus. It Stands Aloof From All The Rest. ... It Opens Up A New Province Of Knowledge, Namely, The Study Of Organisation; And It Is In Connection With Organisation That A Direction Of Time-flow And A Distinction Between Doing And Undoing Appears For The First Time.

Man Is Slightly Nearer To The Atom Than To The Star. ... From His Central Position Man Can Survey The Grandest Works Of Nature With The Astronomer, Or The Minutest Works With The Physicist. ... [k]nowledge Of The Stars Leads Through The Atom; And Important Knowledge Of The Atom Has Been Reached Through The Stars.

Let Us Suppose That An Ichthyologist Is Exploring The Life Of The Ocean. He Casts A Net Into The Water And Brings Up A Fishy Assortment. Surveying His Catch, He Proceeds In The Usual Manner Of A Scientist To Systematise What It Reveals. He Arrives At Two Generalisations: No Sea-creature Is Less Than Two Inches Long. (2) All Sea-creatures Have Gills. These Are Both True Of His Catch, And He Assumes Tentatively That They Will Remain True However Often He Repeats It.