BY MOLECULAR COALESCENCE. 69 
and as this force cannot act effectively upon it until its 
vis inertie is first overcome, it is perfectly conceivable that 
the quaytity of matter, when coming into existence, may 
be so small as to be affected more by imertia than by 
gravity or impulsion, and may thus remain for an instant 
undetached from the surrounding material substances, until 
the quantity becoming augmented sufficiently to cause its 
removal by the action of the predominant physical force, 
it becomes detached as a part of a crystal, or a part of a 
sphere, according to the nature of that force, whether it be 
attractive or impulsive; and hence the size of this particle 
may easily be imagined to vary, that depending partly 
upon the intensity of the physical force and partly upon 
the nature of the matter acted upon; but its form, not 
being necessarily either spherical or rectilinear, must, for 
the reasons just given, be uncertain; consequently, it may 
be inferred that all molecules are amorphous, and that, if 
there ever was a period when matter existed unacted upon 
by attraction or impulsion, it must have been in a chaotic 
or amorphous state—a something “without form, and 
void.”’ 
