Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/186

162 it is clear that in either case the operations may be performed in the reverse order, with every thermal and mechanical effect reversed. Thus, in the steam-engine, we may commence by placing the cylinder on the impermeable stand, allow the piston to rise, performing work, to the position E3 F3 ; we may then place it on the body B, and allow it to rise, performing work, till it reaches E2 F2 ; after that the cylinder may be placed again on the impermeable stand, and the piston may be pushed down to E1 F1 ; and, lastly, the cylinder being removed to the body A, the piston may be pushed down to its primitive position. In this inverse cycle of operations a certain amount of work has been spent, precisely equal, as we readily see, to the amount of mechanical effect gained in the direct cycle described above; and heat has been abstracted from B, and deposited in the body A, at a higher temperature, to an amount precisely equal to that which in the direct style was let down from A to B. Hence it is impossible to have an engine which will derive more mechanical effect from the same thermal agency than is obtained by the arrangement described above; since, if there could be such an engine, it might be employed to perform, as a part of its whole work, the inverse cycle of operations, upon an engine of the