heat which passes through it disappears as heat, utterly and absolutely, to reappear as mechanical effect. There is, however, one condition which must be rigidly fulfilled, whenever heat is changed into mechanical effect—there must be a difference of temperature, and heat will only be changed into work, while it passes from a body of high temperature to one of low.
Carnot, the celebrated French physicist, has ingeniously likened the mechanical power of heat to that of water; for just as you can get no work out of heat unless there be a flow of heat from a higher temperature level to a lower, so neither can you get work out of water unless it be falling from a higher level to a lower.
150. If we reflect that heat is essentially distributive in its nature, we shall soon perceive the reason for this peculiar law; for, in virtue of its nature, heat is always rushing from a body of high temperature to one of low, and if left to itself it would distribute itself equally amongst all bodies, so that they would ultimately become of the same temperature. Now, if we are to coax work out of heat, we must humour its nature, for it may be compared to a pack of schoolboys, who are always ready to run with sufficient violence out of the schoolroom into the open fields, but who have frequently to be dragged back with a very considerable expenditure of energy. So heat will not allow itself to be confined, but will resist any attempt to accumulate it into a limited space. Work cannot, therefore, be gained by
