Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/77

Rh number of alternative operations of this sort could be carried on without in the end having either produced motive power or transferred caloric from one body to the other.

Now if there existed any means of using heat preferable to those which we have employed, that is, if it were possible by any method whatever to make the caloric produce a quantity of motive power greater than we have made it produce by our first series of operations, it would suffice to divert a portion of this power in order by the method just indicated to make the caloric of the body B return to the body A from the refrigerator to the furnace, to restore the initial conditions, and thus to be ready to commence again an operation precisely similar to the former, and so on: this would be not only perpetual motion, but an unlimited creation of motive power without consumption either of caloric or of any other agent whatever. Such a creation is entirely contrary to ideas now accepted, to the laws of mechanics and of sound physics. It is inadmissible. We should then conclude that the maximum of motive power resulting from the employment of steam is also the maximum of motive power realizable by any means whatever. We will