In a memoir, of which some extracts appeared as early as 1869, a modest scholar, M.Massieu, indicated in particular a remarkable function which he termed a characteristic function, and by the employment of which calculations are simplified in certain cases.
In the same way J.W.Gibbs, in 1875 and 1878, then Helmholtz in 1882, and, in France, M.Duhem, from the year 1886 onward, have published works, at first ill understood, of which the renown was, however, considerable in the sequel, and in which they made use of analogous functions under the names of available energy, free energy, or internal thermodynamic potential.

The magnitude thus designated, attaching, as a consequence of the two principles, to all states of the system, is perfectly determined when the temperature and other normal variables are known.

It allows us, by calculations often very easy, to fix the conditions necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of the system in equilibrium by foreign bodies taken at the same temperature as itself.
One may hope to constitute in this way, as M.Duhem in a long and remarkable series of operations has specially endeavoured to do, a sort of general mechanics which will enable questions of statics to be treated with accuracy, and all the conditions of equilibrium of the system, including the calorific properties, to be determined.

Thus, ordinary statics teaches us that a liquid with its vapour on the top forms a system in equilibrium, if we apply to the two fluids a pressure depending on temperature alone.

Thermodynamics will furnish us, in addition, with the expression of the heat of vaporization and of, the specific heats of the two saturated fluids.
This new study has given us also most valuable information on compressible fluids and on the theory of elastic equilibrium.