  Note how much Boltzmann's strategy has shifted: whereas previously the idea was that a gas system should approach equilibrium because of the H-theorem; Boltzmann's idea is now, apparently, that regardless of the behavior of \(H\) as a function of time, there are independent reasons for assuming that the system approaches equilibrium. Boltzmann's contentions may of course very well be true. But they do not follow from the H-theorem, or by ignoring its exceptions, and would have to be proven otherwise.