Note 525 — Chapter XI · FAUSTIAN AND APOLLINIAN NATURE-KNOWLEDGE (continued 2)

This sentence follows the original word for word and phrase for phrase. Its significance depends wholly on the precise meaning to be attached to such words as “dead,” “free,” “latent,” and to attempt any sharper formulation of the processes in English would require not only the definition of these (or other) basic terms but also extended description of what they imply.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is something which is absorbed by, rather than specified for, the student. Elsewhere in this English edition, indications have been frequently given to enable the ordinary student to follow up matters referred to more allusively in the text. But in this difficult domain such minor aids would be worthless. All that is possible is to recommend such students to make a very careful study of some plain statement of the subject like Professor Soddy’s “Matter and Energy” (especially chapters 4 and 5) and to follow this up—to the extent that his mathematical knowledge permits—in the articles Energy, Energetics and Thermodynamics in the Ency. Brit., XI ed.—Tr.