Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/124

 all things the Absolute existed in the form of an Infinite Free Energy. For some cogent physical or moral reason, this Free Energy began to be creative. It became Working Energy, and following the laws of inversion, it was transformed into a state of Infinite Imprisoned Energy. It lost itself somehow in its own handiwork, i.e. in created matter, and remained there latent, as if under a spell. And if this is hard to understand, I cannot help you.

And now, apparently as a result of the perfect combustion effected by Marek's atomic motors, this imprisoned energy was liberated, freed of the fetters of matter which had held it fast. It became once more Free Energy or active Absolute, as free as it was before the Creation. It was the sudden release of that same inscrutable and unresting power which had already manifested itself once in the Creation of the World.

If the whole cosmos at once were to undergo complete combustion, the first act of creation might be repeated; for that would indeed be the end of the world, a complete liquidation which would make possible the establishment of a new world-firm, Cosmos the Second. Meanwhile, as you know, Marek's Karburators were only burning up the material world by kilogrammes at a time. Being thus released in small quantities only, the Absolute