Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/249

Rh living force, or, which is the same thing, of motive power, if the bodies act upon each other without directly touching each other, without actual collision. Now everything leads us to believe that the molecules of bodies are always separated from each other by some space, that they are never actually in contact. If they touched each other, they would remain united, and consequently change form.

If the molecules of bodies are never in close contact with each other whatever may be the forces which separate or attract them, there can never be either production or loss of motive power in nature. This power must be as unchangeable in quantity as matter. Then the direct re-establishment of equilibrium of the caloric, and its re-establishment with production of motive power, would be essentially different from each other.

Heat is simply motive power, or rather motion which has changed form. It is a movement among the particles of bodies. Wherever there is destruction of motive power there is, at the same time, production of heat in quantity exactly proportional to the quantity of motive power destroyed. Reciprocally, wherever there is destruction of heat, there is production of motive power.