Not when Newton discovered it they were not. The early versions of laws of thermodynamics were derived by just considering invariants (leading to conservation l

Not when Newton discovered it they were not. The early versions of laws of thermodynamics were derived by just considering invariants (leading to conservation laws), not symmetries. Such that things didn't just start moving on their own with no explanation. This is also why gravity was easier to approximate to them than heat. (Heat is symmetrical but hard to keep invariant, unlike motion.) This is also why heat was considered an item (phlogiston / caloric theory) not a property of matter until quite late. (With Joule.) Or why the link between light and heat had to wait for so much longer. Symmetries are actually much harder to pull off and verify. The big change there came with Maxwell or thereabouts.