Secondary Laws. ioi 



2. — Chemical Decomposition : 

 Definition. — CJiemical decomposition, or chemical 

 repulsion, is the force which reduces substances 

 to a more elementary condition. 



Contrasted with chemical combination, chemical 

 decomposition has been almost ignored by chemists. 



From our knowledge of the inevitably cyclic nature 

 of all existence, both forces (chemical repulsion and 

 chemical attraction) must be indissolubly united, for 

 all observation and experiment affirm that every 

 manifestation of energy is dual. Every force pulling 

 one way involves its counterpart pulling the other 

 way. Everything built has to be demolished ; every- 

 thing evolved has to be dissolved ; everything living 

 has to die. All actions are but motions in circles, 

 and all products but successions of cycles. The 

 methods and the results, the operations and the 

 effects, may vary, but the transitions imperceptibly 

 glide after one another until the first break comes 

 round again. Like spokes in an ever-going wheel, 

 all different, yet mortised to the one central hub and 

 swinging round the one circumference, all natural 

 laws but dovetail into one all-comprehensive law, and 

 tail to one another endlessly. Thus is individual 

 motion subordinated to universal motion, and indi- 

 vidual existence to universal existence, the great 

 cosmos itself being but one vast mechanism ending 

 but to begin again, a ceaseless resurrection of primary 

 elements in primary motion, after ceaseless Days of 

 Judgment, 



