“No more had I. But now, you see, I’m beginning to read that sort of thing. I don’t understand it—it’s terribly difficult stuff for us technical people—but there’s something in it. Do you by any chance believe in God?”
“I? Well, now . . .” G. H. Bondy deliberated. “Upon my word, I couldn’t say. Perhaps there is a God, but He’s on some other planet. Not on ours. Oh, well, that sort of thing doesn’t fit in with our times at all. Tell me, what makes you drag that into it?”
“I don’t believe in anything,” said Marek in a hard voice. “I don’t want to believe. I have always been an atheist. I believed in matter and in progress and in nothing else. I’m a scientific man, Bondy; and science cannot admit the existence of God.”
“From the business point of view,” Mr. Bondy remarked, “it’s a matter of indifference. If He wants to exist, in Heaven’s name, let Him. We aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“But from the scientific point of view, Bondy,” cried the engineer sternly, “it is absolutely intolerable. It’s a case of Him or science. I don’t assert that God does not exist; I only assert that He ought not to exist, or at least ought not to let Himself be seen. And I believe that science is crowding Him out step by step, or at any rate is preventing Him from letting Himself be seen; and I believe that that is the greatest mission of science.”
“Possibly,” said Bondy calmly. “But go on.”
“And now just imagine, Bondy, that——But wait, I’ll put it to you this way. Do you know what Pantheism is? It’s the belief that God, or the Absolute, if you prefer it, is manifest in everything that exists. In men, as in stones, in the grass, the water—everywhere. And do you know what Spinoza teaches? That matter is only the outward manifestation, only one phase of the divine substance, the other phase of which is spirit. And do you know what Fechner teaches?”
“No, I don’t,” the other admitted.
“Fechner teaches that everything, everything that is, is penetrated with the divine, that God fills with His being the whole of the matter in the world. And do you know Leibniz? Leibniz teaches that physical matter is composed of psychical atoms, monads, whose nature is divine. What do you say to that?”
“I don’t know,” said G. H. Bondy. “I don’t understand it.”
“Nor do I. It’s fearfully abstruse. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that God is contained in all forms of physical matter, that He is, as it were, imprisoned in it. And when you smash this matter up completely, He flies out of it as though from a box. He is suddenly set free. He is released from matter as illuminating gas is from coal. You have only to burn one single atom up completely, and immediately the whole cellar is filled with the Absolute. It’s simply appalling how quickly it spreads.”
“Hold on,” Mr. Bondy interrupted. “Say that all over again, but say it slowly.”
“Look at it like this then,” said Marek. “We’re assuming that all matter contains the Absolute in some state of confinement. We can call it a latent imprisoned force, or simply say that as God is omnipresent He is therefore present in all matter and in every particle of matter. And now suppose you utterly destroy a piece of matter, apparently leaving not the slightest residue. Then, since all matter is really Matter plus Absolute, what you have destroyed is only the matter, and you’re left with an indestructible residue—free and active Absolute. You’re left with the chemically unanalysable, immaterial residue, which shows no spectrum lines, neither atomic weight nor chemical affinity, no obedience to Boyle’s law, none, none whatever, of the properties of matter. What is left behind is pure God. A chemical nullity which acts with monstrous energy. Being immaterial, it is not subject to the laws of matter. Thence it already follows that its manifestations are contrary to nature and downright miraculous. All this proceeds from the assumption that God is present in all matter. Can you imagine, for the sake of argument, that He is really so present?”
“I certainly can,” said Bondy. “What then?”
“Good,” said Marek, rising to his feet. “Then it’s the solemn truth.”
IV
GOD IN THE CELLAR
G. H. Bondy sucked meditatively at his cigar.
“And how did you find it out, old chap?” he asked at last.
“By the effect on myself,” said the engineer, resuming his march up and down the room. “As a result of its complete disintegration of matter, my Perfect Karburator manufactures a by-product: pure and unconfined Absolute, God in a chemically pure form. At one end, so to speak, it emits mechanical power, and at the other, the divine principle. Just as when you split water up into hydrogen and oxygen, only on an immensely larger scale.”
“Hm,” said Mr. Bondy. “And then—?”
“I’ve an idea,” continued Marek cautiously, “that there are many of the elect who can separate the material substance in themselves from the divine substance. They can release or distil the Absolute, as it were, from their material selves. Christ and the miracle-workers, fakirs, mediums, and prophets have achieved it by means of their psychic power. My Karburator does it by a purely mechanical process. It acts, you might say, as a factory for the Absolute.”
“Facts,” said G. H. Bondy. “Stick to facts.”
“These are facts. I constructed my Perfect Karburator only in theory to begin with. Then I made a little model, which wouldn’t go. The fourth model was the first that really worked. It was only about so big, but it ran quite nicely. But even while I was working with it on this small scale, I felt peculiar psychical effects—a strange exhilaration—a ‘fey’ feeling. But I thought it was due to being so pleased about the invention, or to being overworked, perhaps. It was then that I first began to prophesy and perform miracles.”
“To do what?” Bondy cried.
“To prophesy and perform miracles,” Marek repeated gloomily. “I had moments of astounding illumination. I saw, for instance, quite clearly, things that would happen in the future. I predicted even your visit here. And once I tore my nail off on a lathe. I looked at the damaged finger, and all at once a new nail grew on it. Very likely I’d formed the wish, but all the same it’s queer and . . . terrible. Another time—just think of it—I rose right up into the air. It’s called levitation, you know. I never believed in any rubbish of that kind, so you can imagine the shock it gave me.”
“I can quite believe it,” said Bondy gravely. “It must be most distressing.”
“Extremely distressing. I thought it must be due to nerves, a kind of auto-suggestion or something. In the meanwhile I erected the big Karburator in the cellar and started it off. As I told you, it’s been running now for six weeks, day and night. And it was there that I first realized the full significance of the business. In a single day the cellar was chock-full of the Absolute, ready to burst with it; and it began to spread all over the house. The pure Absolute penetrates all matter, you know, but it takes a little longer with solid substances. In the air it spreads as swiftly as light. When I went in, I tell you, man, it took me like a stroke. I shrieked out aloud. I don’t know where I got the strength to run away. When I got upstairs, I thought over the whole business. My first notion was that it must be some new intoxicating,
