Exergy (In Which Ruth for the First Time Finds Awe in Thermodynamics Class)

Erwin Schrodinger, in slightly fewer words.  This is probably the closest to theology that I'll get:
What is the characteristic feature of life?  When is a piece of matter said to be alive?  When it goes on ‘doing something,’ moving, exchanging material with its environment, and so forth, and that for a much longer period than we would expect of an inanimate piece of matter to ‘keep going’ under similar circumstances.  When a system that is not alive is isolated or placed in a uniform environment, all motion usually comes to a standstill very soon as a result of various kinds of friction; differences of electric or chemical potential are equalized, substances which tend to form a chemical compound do so, temperature becomes uniform by heat conduction.  The physicist calls this the state of thermodynamical equilibrium, or of ‘maximum entropy.’  How does the living organism avoid decay toward maximum entropy?  A living organism continually increases its entropy, and thus tends to approach the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is of death.  It can only keep aloof from it, i.e. alive, by continually sucking orderliness from its environment.