GASOLENE 21 



What, to begin with, does man want of an engine? He 

 wants it usually to turn a wheel. And right here man 

 shows his superiority to all other animate beings, for 

 none of them makes use of a wheel. Man has no wheels 

 in his body, whatever he may have in his head. If he 

 wants, say, to turn a grindstone, he must do it by a to- 

 and-fro motion of his arm. But in the course of many 

 thousand years man got tired of this and then it oc- 

 curred to him to shift the work from his muscles to the 

 molecules. Man is naturally a shifter; therein lies the 

 secret of his progress. Where could man find a multi- 

 tude of molecules which would be so manageable that he 

 could make them work for him for nothing? He found 

 them where Lenin and Trotzky found their docile 

 Bolsheviki, in a state of anarchy. In any gas the mole- 

 cules have lost all sense of solidarity and reached a state 

 of complete freedom and independence such as man 

 fortunately has never been able to attain. It is self- 

 determination carried to the limit, for in any gas each 

 molecule is at liberty to do what it likes without regard 

 to what any other molecule may do. Every molecule 

 therefore goes straight ahead in its own way until it runs 

 up against some other molecule or a wall; then it gives 

 the obstacle a kick and goes off in some other direction. 

 The kick is light since the molecule is small, but if all 

 the kicks could be combined and turned in one direction 

 they would amount to something and could be used for 

 something. Force directed by intelligence produces 

 power, and power directed by intelligence produces prog- 

 ress. As soon as man acquired the intelligence he util- 

 ized the aimless force of the molecules knocking against 



