"Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, it will happen that,
when the nebulous mass has reached a particular stage of condensation--when
its internally situated atoms have approached to within certain distances,
have generated a certain amount of heat, and are subject to a certain
mutual pressure (the heat and pressure increasing as the aggregation
progresses), some of them will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether
the binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, which is
possible, or whether they be of kinds simpler than any we know, which is
more probable, matters not to the argument. It suffices that molecular
combinations of some species will finally take place." We have, then, here
a new and important change of relations. Matter, primordially uniform, has
itself become heterogeneous; and in as many places as it has thus changed
its state, it must, in virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto
novel relations, and so, in many cases, to new laws.[22]
It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this genesis of natural law
any further: indeed, it would be quite impossible so to trace it for any
considerable distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes of
relations renders all speculation as to the actual processes quite useless.
This fact, however, as before insisted, in no wise affects the only
doctrine which I here enunciate--viz.
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