However, to avoid committing ourselves to more than is yet proved, we
must be content with saying that such are the law and the cause of all
progress that is known to us. Should the Nebular Hypothesis ever be
established, then it will become manifest that the Universe at large,
like every organism, was once homogeneous; that as a whole, and in every
detail, it has unceasingly advanced towards greater heterogeneity. It
will be seen that as in each event of to-day, so from the beginning, the
decomposition of every expended force into several forces has been
perpetually producing a higher complication; that the increase of
heterogeneity so brought about is still going on and must continue to go
on; and that thus progress is not an accident, not a thing within human
control, but a beneficent necessity.