Some years ago a Czech writer, Karel Capek, published a novel called The Absolute at Large in which he pictures an inventor who succeeds in utilizing the energy of the atom, not for military purposes but only for peacetime industrial purposes. In the same book, he imagines the effect of this discovery upon religion and metaphysics. Supporting the doctrine of pantheism and affirming that divinity is present in all matter, he pictures a divine by-product issuing from each atomic turbine. The consequence is that all the people in the neighbourhood of the turbine become spiritually-minded! They begin to renounce the world, to talk inspirationally, to perform miracles, and to engage in revivals. The idea is a clever one, but is it a true one? How can spirituality be turned on by a mechanical instrument and let loose upon the people? The basic fallacy in Capek's notion is that divinity is contained within the atom. On the contrary, philosophy says that the atom itself is in divinity, which requires no machine to release it. It is everywhere and always present and if it is to be released and communicated, that can only be done through a human instrument, not through an arrangement of steel and springs.
-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 4 : Reflections On Specific Arts > # 122
