12 THE WORK OF 8ADI CARNOT. 



dently inclined to regard as such, his process and 

 argument are perfectly correct.* 



Throughout his whole work are distributed con- 

 densed assertions of principles now well recognized 

 and fully established, which indicate that he not 

 only had anticipated later writers in their estab- 

 lishment, but that he fully understood their real 

 importance in a theory of heat-energy and of heat- 

 engines. In fact, he often italicizes them, placing 

 them as independent paragraphs to more thor- 

 oughly impress the reader with their fundamental 

 importance. Thus he says : " Partout ou il existe 

 une difference de temperature, il pent y avoir pro- 

 duction de puissance motrice;" and again, this 

 extraordinary anticipation of modern science : ' ' le 

 maximum de puissance resultant de I'emploi de la 

 vapeur est aussi le maximum de puissance motrice 

 realisable par quelque moyen que ce soit." 



(( La puissance motrice de la chaleur est inde- 

 pendante des agents mis en ceuvre pour la realiser ; 

 sa quant ite est fixee uniquement par les temper a- 



* Account of Carnot's Theory of the Motive Power of 

 Heat; Sir Wm. Thomson; Trans. Roy. Soc. of Edin- 

 burgh, xvi. 1849; and Math, and Phys. Papers, xli. vol. 1 

 (Cambridge, 1882), p. 113. In this paper the corrections due 

 to the introduction of the dynamic theory are first applied. 



