We thus come again into the route traced by Clausius, and
from this point we may follow it strictly.
Whatever the point of view adopted, whether we regard the proposition
of M. Perrin as the corollary of another experimental postulate, or
whether we consider it as a truth which we admit _a priori_ and verify
through its consequences, we are led to consider that in its entirety
the principle of Carnot resolves itself into the idea that we cannot
go back along the course of life, and that the evolution of a system
must follow its necessary progress.
Clausius and Lord Kelvin have drawn from these considerations certain
well-known consequences on the evolution of the Universe. Noticing
that entropy is a property added to matter, they admit that there is
in the world a total amount of entropy; and as all real changes which
are produced in any system correspond to an increase of entropy, it
may be said that the entropy of the world is continually increasing.
Thus the quantity of energy existing in the Universe remains constant,
but transforms itself little by little into heat uniformly distributed
at a temperature everywhere identical.
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