CONTENTS
The living landscape of Britain
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Author: Shepherd Walter
Year: 1952
(On entropy)
If there is a Genius behind inanimate nature, controlling the forms and processes of gross matter, he is surely the archetype of all demolition agents, an uncompromising Leveller of the first order. At his command mountains are laid low, the cliffs crumble away, and their very stones are ground to formless mud for the filling and obliteration of the sea. His whole object is to reduce the earth to a smooth sphere of featureless dust, to be encased - finally - in a glassy film of ice, and none can deny that he is a tireless and relentless worker.... The cosmic programme is depressing enough (in all senses of the word), but we have the antidote. It is true that inanimate nature runs inevitably downhill, but the earth is inhabited, and the great characteristic of life is its ability - nay, compulsion - to run uphill, to defy gravity, to thwart destruction, to complicate nature, to raise levels, to preserve idiosyncrasies, to maintain form and individuality, and to multiply beauties. If beauty has any dynamic significance, it is surely of this struggle against disorganisation which is the basic function of life.
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