iron on an anvil may bring it to a red heat. A shell which passes through an armour plate is heated, and melts and volatilizes the metal all round the hole it has made. By utilizing mechanical action under the form of friction all energy can be converted into heat.
The inverse transformation of heat into work, on the contrary, cannot be complete. The best motor that we can think of, and à fortiori the best we can realize, can only transform a third or a fourth of the heat with which it is supplied.
This is an extremely important fact. It is of incalculable importance to natural philosophy, and may be ranked among the greatest discoveries.
Higher and Degraded Forms of Energy.—Of these we may give an account by distinguishing among the forms of universal energy higher forms, and lower or degraded forms. Here we have the principle of the degradation of energy on its trial, and it may be regarded as a particular aspect of the second principle of energetics, or Carnot's principle. Mechanical energy is a higher form. Thermal energy is a lower form, a degraded form, and one which has degrees in its degradation. Higher energy, in general, may be completely converted into lower energy; for example, work into heat: the slope is easy to descend, but it is difficult to retrace our steps; lower energy can be only partially transformed into higher energy, and the fraction thus utilizable depends upon certain conditions on which Carnot's principle has thrown considerable light.
Thus, although in theory the thermal energy of a body may have its equivalent in mechanical energy, the complete transformation is only realizable from the latter to the former, and not from the former to
