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Only individuals have a sense of responsibility. --Nietzsche
This book does not represent a complete collection of the articles,
addresses, and pronouncements of Albert Einstein; it is a selection made
with a definite object-- namely, to give a picture of a man. To-day this man
is being drawn, contrary to his own intention, into the whirlpool of
political passions and contemporary history. As a result, Einstein is
experiencing the fate that so many of the great men of history experienced:
his character and opinions are being exhibited to the world in an utterly
distorted form.
To forestall this fate is the real object of this book. It meets a wish
that has constantly been expressed both by Einstein's friends and by the
wider public. It contains work belonging to the most various dates-- the
article on "The International of Science" dates from the year 1922, the
address on "The Principles of Scientific Research" from 1923, the "Letter to
an Arab" from 1930--and the most various spheres, held together by the unity
of the personality which stands behind all these utterances. Albert Einstein
believes in humanity, in a peaceful world of mutual helpfulness, and in the
high mission of science. This book is intended as a plea for this belief at
a time which compels every one of us to overhaul his mental attitude and his
ideas.
EDITION
In his biography of Einstein Mr. H. Gordou Garbedian relates that an
American newspaper man asked the great physicist for a definition of his
theory of relativity in one sentence. Einstein replied that it would take
him three days to give a short definition of relativity. He might well have
added that unless his questioner had an intimate acquaintance with
mathematics and physics, the definition would be incomprehensible.
To the majority of people Einstein's theory is a complete mystery.
Their attitude towards Einstein is like that of Mark Twain towards the
writer of a work on mathematics: here was a man who had written an entire
book of which Mark could not understand a single sentence. Einstein,
therefore, is great in the public eye partly because he has made
revolutionary discoveries which cannot be translated into the common tongue.
We stand in proper awe of a man whose thoughts move on heights far beyond
our range, whose achievements can be measured only by the few who are able
to follow his reasoning and challenge his conclusions.
There is, however, another side to his personality. It is revealed in
the addresses, letters, and occasional writings brought together in this
book. These fragments form a mosaic portrait of Einstein the man. Each one
is, in a sense, complete in itself; it presents his views on some aspect of
progress, education, peace, war, liberty, or other problems of universal
interest. Their combined effect is to demonstrate that the Einstein we can
all understand is no less great than the Einstein we take on trust.
Einstein has asked nothing more from life than the freedom to pursue
his researches into the mechanism of the universe. His nature is of rare
simplicity and sincerity; he always has been, and he remains, genuinely
indifferent to wealth and fame and the other prizes so dear to ambition. At
the same time he is no recluse, shutting himself off from the sorrows and
agitations of the world around him. Himself familiar from early years with
the handicap of poverty and with some of the worst forms of man's inhumanity
to man, he has never spared himself in defence of the weak and the
oppressed. Nothing could be more unwelcome to his sensitive and retiring
character than the glare of the platform and the heat of public controversy,
yet he has never hesitated when he felt that his voice or influence would
help to redress a wrong. History, surely, has few parallels with this
introspective mathematical genius who laboured unceasingly as an eager
champion of the rights of man.
Albert Einstein was born in 1879 at Ulm. When he was four years old his
father, who owned an electrochemical works, moved to Munich, and two years
later the boy went to school, experiencing a rigid, almost military, type of
discipline and also the isolation of a shy and contemplative Jewish child
among Roman Catholics-- factors which made a deep and enduring impression.
From the point of view of his teachers he was an unsatisfactory pupil,
apparently incapable of progress in languages, history, geography, and other
primary subjects. His interest in mathematics was roused, not by his
instructors, but by a Jewish medical student, Max Talmey, who gave him a
book on geometry, and so set him upon a course of enthusiastic study which
made him, at the age of fourteen, a better mathematician than his masters.
At this stage also he began the study of philosophy, reading and re-reading
the words of Kant and other metaphysicians.
Business reverses led the elder Einstein to make a fresh start in
Milan, thus introducing Albert to the joys of a freer, sunnier life than had
been possible in Germany. Necessity, however, made this holiday a brief one,
and after a few months of freedom the preparation for a career began. It
opened with an effort, backed by a certificate of mathematical proficiency
given by a teacher in the Gymnasium at Munich, to obtain admission to the
Polytechnic Academy at Zurich. A year passed in the study of necessary
subjects which he had neglected for mathematics, but once admitted, the
young Einstein became absorbed in the pursuit of science and philosophy and
made astonishing progress. After five distinguished years at the Polytechnic
he hoped to step into the post of assistant professor, but found that the
kindly words of the professors who had stimulated the hope did not
materialize.
Then followed a weary search for work, two brief interludes of
teaching, and a stable appointment as examiner at the Confederate Patent
Office at Berrie. Humdrum as the work was, it had the double advantage of
providing a competence and of leaving his mind free for the mathematical
speculations which were then taking shape in the theory of relativity. In
1905 his first monograph on the theory was published in a Swiss scientific
journal, the Annalen der Physik. Zurich awoke to the fact that it possessed
a genius in the form of a patent office clerk, promoted him to be a lecturer
at the University and four years later--in 1909--installed him as Professor.
His next appointment was (in 1911) at the University of Prague, where
he remained for eighteen months. Following a brief return to Zurich, he
went, early in 1914, to Berlin as a professor in the Prussian Academy of
Sciences and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Theoretical
Physics. The period of the Great War was a trying time for Einstein, who
could not conceal his ardent pacifism, but he found what solace he could in
his studies. Later events brought him into the open and into many parts of
the world, as an exponent not only of pacifism but also of world-disarmament
and the cause of Jewry. To a man of such views, as passionately held as they
were by Einstein, Germany under the Nazis was patently impossible. In 1933
Einstein made his famous declaration: "As long as I have any choice, I will
stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of
all citizens before the law are the rule." For a time he was a homeless
exile; after offers had come to him from Spain and France and Britain, he
settled in Princeton as Professor of Mathematical and Theoretical Physics,
happy in his work, rejoicing in a free environment, but haunted always by
the tragedy of war and oppression.
The World As I See It, in its original form, includes essays by
Einstein on relativity and cognate subjects. For reasons indicated above,
these have been omitted in the present edition; the object of this reprint
is simply to reveal to the general reader the human side of one of the most
dominating figures of our day.
The World As I See It
The Meaning of Life
What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To
answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you
ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of
his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost
disqualified for life.
The World as I see it
What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is
here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes
thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going
deeper, we exist for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose
smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown
to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of
sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer
life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must
exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am
still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often
oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the
labour of my fellow-men. I regard class differences as contrary to justice
and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living
is good for everybody, physically and mentally.
In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a
disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in
accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do
as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my
youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience
in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling
mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes
paralysing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too
seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its
due place.
To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of
creation generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of
view. And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of
his endeavours and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon
ease and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call more
proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and
time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been
Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of
like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable
in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me
empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavour--property, outward success,
luxury--have always seemed to me contemptible.
My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has
always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct
contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait
and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my
immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have
never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude--a
feeling which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet
without regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and
sympathy with one's fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something
in the way of geniality and light-heartedness ; on the other hand, he is
largely independent of the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows
and avoids the temptation to take his stand on such insecure foundations.
My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as
an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have
been the recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows
through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the
desire, unattainable for many, to understand the one or two ideas to which I
have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite
aware that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that
one man should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the
responsibility. But the led must not be compelled, they must be able to
choose their leader. An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon
degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it
to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as
we see in Italy and Russia to-day. The thing that has brought discredit upon
the prevailing form of democracy in Europe to-day is not to be laid to the
door of the democratic idea as such, but to lack of stability on the part of
the heads of governments and to the impersonal character of the electoral
system. I believe that in this respect the United States of America have
found the right way. They have a responsible President who is elected for a
sufficiently long period and has sufficient powers to be really responsible.
On the other hand, what I value in our political system is the more
extensive provision that it makes for the individual in case of illness or
need. The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not
the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone
creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in
thought and dull in feeling.
This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the
military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in
formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has
only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This
plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that
does by the name of patriotism--how I hate them! War seems to me a mean,
contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in
such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my
opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared
long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically
corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools
and the Press.
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is
as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of
mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of
the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the
profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to
our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this
emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in
this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who
rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we
are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical
death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such
notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me
the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous
structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to
comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests
itself in nature.
The Liberty of Doctrine--Ю propos of the Guntbel Case
Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few;
lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who
genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small. Nature scatters her
common wares with a lavish hand, but the choice sort she produces but
seldom. We all know that, so why complain? Was it not ever thus and will it
not ever thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what Nature gives as one
finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an
attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed
on from individual to individual and gives a society its particular tone.
Each of us has to do his little bit towards transforming this spirit of the
times.
Compare the spirit which animated the youth in our universities a
hundred years ago with that prevailing to-day. They had faith in the
amelioration of human society, respect for every honest opinion, the
tolerance for which our classics had lived and fought. In those days men
strove for a larger political unity, which at that time was called Germany.
It was the students and the teachers at the universities who kept these
ideals alive.
To-day also there is an urge towards social progress, towards tolerance
and freedom of thought, towards a larger political unity, which we to-day
call Europe. But the students at our universities have ceased as completely
as their teachers to enshrine the hopes and ideals of the nation. Anyone who
looks at our times coolly and dispassionately must admit this.
We are assembled to-day to take stock of ourselves. The external reason
for this meeting is the Gumbel case. This apostle of justice has written
about unexpiated political crimes with devoted industry, high courage, and
exemplary fairness, and has done the community a signal service by his
books. And this is the man whom the students, and a good many of the staff,
of his university are to-day doing their best to expel.
Political passion cannot be allowed to go to such lengths. I am
convinced that every man who reads Herr Gumbel's books with an open mind
will get the same impression from them as I have. Men like him are needed if
we are ever to build up a healthy political society.
Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has
himself read, not by what others tell him.
If that happens, this Gumbel case, after an unedifying beginning, may
still do good.
Good and Evil
It is right in principle that those should be the best loved who have
contributed most to the elevation of the human race and human life. But, if
one goes on to ask who they are, one finds oneself in no inconsiderable
difficulties. In the case of political, and even of religious, leaders, it
is often very doubtful whether they have done more good or harm. Hence I
most seriously believe that one does people the best service by giving them
some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them. This applies
most of all to the great artist, but also in a lesser degree to the
scientist. To be sure, it is not the fruits of scientific research that
elevate a man and enrich his nature, but the urge to understand, the
intellectual work, creative or receptive. It would surely be absurd to judge
the value of the Talmud, for instance, by its intellectual fruits.
The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure
and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.
Society and Personality
When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the
whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other
human beings. We see that our whole nature resembles that of the social
animals. We eat food that others have grow, wear clothes that others have
made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our
knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through
the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our
mental capacities wuuld be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher
animals; we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage
over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if
left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts
and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what
he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his
individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which
directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his
feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of
his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this
matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended
entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the
valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from
society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative
individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam
engine--each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for
society--nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the
community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging
personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the
development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the
community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of
the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion. It has
been said very justly that GrФco-Europeo-American culture as a whole, and in
particular its brilliant flowering in the Italian Renaissance, which put an
end to the stagnation of mediФval Europe, is based on the liberation and
comparative isolation of the individual.
Let us now consider the times in which we live. How does society fare,
how the individual? The population of the civilized countries is extremely
dense as compared with former times; Europe to-day contains about three
times as many people as it did a hundred years ago. But the number of great
men has decreased out of all proportion. Only a few individuals are known to
the masses as personalities, through their creative achievements.
Organization has to some extent taken the place of the great man,
particularly in the technical sphere, but also to a very perceptible extent
in the scientific.
The lack of outstanding figures is particularly striking in the domain
of art. Painting and music have definitely degenerated and largely lost
their popular appeal. In politics not only are leaders lacking, but the
independence of spent and the sense of justice of the citizen have to a
great extent declined. The democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is
based on such independence, has in many places been shaken, dictatorships
have sprung up and are tolerated, because men's sense of the dignity and the
rights of the individual is no longer strong enough. In two weeks the
sheep-like masses can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of
excited fury that the men are prepared to put on uniform and kill and be
billed, for the sake of the worthless aims of a few interested parties.
Compulsory military service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that
deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering
to-day. No wonder there is no lack of prophets who prophesy the early
eclipse of our civilization. I am not one of these pessimists; I believe
that better times are coming. Let me shortly state my reasons for such
confidence.
In my opinion, the present symptoms of decadence are explained by the
fact that the development of industry and machinery has made the struggle
for existence very much more severe, greatly to the detriment of the free
development of the individual. But the development of machinery means that
less and less work is needed from the individual for the satisfaction of the
community's needs. A planned division of labour is becoming more and more of
a crying necessity, and this division will lead to the material security of
the individual. This security and the spare time and energy which the
individual will have at his command can be made to further his development.
In this way the community may regain its health, and we will hope that
future historians will explain the morbid symptoms of present-day society as
the childhood ailments of an aspiring humanity, due entirely to the
excessive speed at which civilization was advancing.
Address at the Grave of H. A. Lorentz
It is as the representative of the German-speaking academic world, and
in particular the Prussian Academy of Sciences, but above all as a pupil and
affectionate admirer that I stand at the grave of the greatest and noblest
man of our times. His genius was the torch which lighted the way from the
teachings of Clerk Maxwell to the achievements of contemporary physics, to
the fabric of which he contributed valuable materials and methods.
His life was ordered like a work of art down to the smallest detail.
His never-failing kindness and magnanimity and his sense of justice, coupled
with an intuitive understanding of people and things, made him a leader in
any sphere he entered. Everyone followed him gladly, for they felt that he
never set out to dominate but always simply to be of use. His work and his
example will live on as an inspiration and guide to future generations.
H. A. Lorentz's work in the cause of International Co-operation
With the extensive specialization of scientific research which the
nineteenth century brought about, it has become rare for a man occupying a
leading position in one of the sciences to manage at the same time to do
valuable service to the community in the sphere of international
organization and international. politics. Such service demands not only
energy, insight, and a reputation based on solid achievements, but also a
freedom from national prejudice and a devotion to the common ends of all,
which have become rare in our times. I have met no one who combined all
these qualities in himself so perfectly as H. A. Lorentz. The marvellous
thing about the effect of his personality was this: Independent and
headstrong natures, such as are particularly common among men of learning,
do not readily bow to another's will and for the most part only accept his
leadership grudgingly. But, when Lorentz is in the presidential chair, an
atmosphere of happy co-operation is invariably created, however much those
present may differ in their aims and habits of thought. The secret of this
success lies not only in his swift comprehension of people and things and
his marvellous command of language, but above all in this, that one feels
that his whole heart is in the business in hand, and that, when he is at
work, he has room for nothing else in his mind. Nothing disarms the
recalcitrant so much as this.
Before the war Lorentz's activities in the cause of international
relations were confined to presiding at congresses of physicists.
Particularly noteworthy among these were the Solvay Congresses, the first
two of which were held at Brussels in 1909 and 1912. Then came the European
war, which was a crushing blow to all who had the improvement of human
relations in general at heart. Even before the war was over, and still more
after its end, Lorentz devoted himself to the work of reconciliation. His
efforts were especially directed towards the re-establishment of fruitful
and friendly co-operation between men of learning and scientific societies.
An outsider can hardly conceive what uphill work this is. The accumulated
resentment of the war period has not yet died down, and many influential men
persist in the irreconcilable attitude into which they allowed themselves to
be driven by the pressure of circumstances. Hence Lorentz's efforts resemble
those of a doctor with a recalcitrant patient who refuses to take the
medicines carefully prepared for his benefit.
But Lorentz is not to be deterred, once he has recognized a course of
action as the right one. The moment the war was over, he joined the
governing body of the "Conseil de recherche," which was founded by the
savants of the victorious countries, and from which the savants and learned
societies of the Central Powers were excluded. His object in taking this
step, which caused great offence to the academic world of the Central
Powers, was to influence this institution in such a way that it could be
expanded into something truly international. He and other right-minded men
succeeded, after repeated efforts, in securing the removal of the offensive
exclusion-clause from the statutes of the "Conseil." The goal, which is the
restoration of normal and fruitful co-operation between learned societies,
is, however, not yet attained, because the academic world of the Central
Powers, exasperated by nearly ten years of exclusion from practically all
international gatherings, has got into a habit of keeping itself to itself.
Now, however, there are good grounds for hoping that the ice will soon be
broken, thanks to the tactful efforts of Lorentz, prompted by pure
enthusiasm for the good cause.
Lorentz has also devoted his energies to the service of international
cultural ends in another way, by consenting to serve on the League of
Nations Commission for international intellectual co-operation, which was
called into existence some five years ago with Bergson as chairman. For the
last year Lorentz has presided over the Commission, which, with the active
support of its subordinate, the Paris Institute, is to act as a go-between
in the domain of intellectual and artistic work among the various spheres of
culture. There too the beneficent influence of this intelligent, humane, and
modest personality, whose unspoken but faithfully followed advice is, "Not
mastery but service," will lead people in the right way.
May his example contribute to the triumph of that spirit !
In Honour of Arnold Berliner's Seventieth Birthday
(Arnold Berliner is the editor of the periodical Die
Naturrvissenschaften.)
I should like to take this opportunity of telling my friend Berliner
and the readers of this paper why I rate him and his work so highly. It has
to be done here because it is one's only chance of getting such things said;
since our training in objectivity has led to a taboo on everything personal,
which we mortals may transgress only on quite exceptional occasions such as
the present one.
And now, after this dash for liberty, back to the objective! The
province of scientifically determined fact has been enormously extended,
theoretical knowledge has become vastly more profound in every department of
science. But the assimilative power of the human intellect is and remains
strictly limited. Hence it was inevitable that the activity of the
individual investigator should be confined to a smaller and smaller section
of human knowledge. Worse still, as a result of this specialization, it is
becoming increasingly difficult for even a rough general grasp of science as
a whole, without which the true spirit of research is inevitably
handicapped, to keep pace with progress. A situation is developing similar
to the one symbolically represented in the Bible by the story of the Tower
of Babel. Every serious scientific worker is painfully conscious of this
involuntary relegation to an ever-narrowing sphere of knowledge, which is
threatening to deprive the investigator of his broad horizon and degrade him
to the level of a mechanic.
We have all suffered under this evil, without making any effort to
mitigate it. But Berliner has come to the rescue, as far as the
German-speaking world is concerned, in the most admirable way: He saw that
the existing popular periodicals were sufficient to instruct and stimulate
the layman; but he also saw that a first-class, well-edited organ was needed
for the guidance of the scientific worker who desired to be put sufficiently
au courant of developments in scientific problems, methods, and results to
be able to form a judgment of his own. Through many years of hard work he
has devoted himself to this object with great intelligence and no less great
determination, and done us all, and science, a service for which we cannot
be too grateful.
It was necessary for him to secure the co-operation of successful
scientific writers and induce them to say what they had to say in a form as
far as possible intelligible to non-specialists. He has often told me of the
fights he had in pursuing this object, the difficulties of which he once
described to me in the following riddle: Question : What is a scientific
author? Answer: A cross between a mimosa and a porcupine.* Berliner's
achievement would have been impossible but for the peculiar intensity of his
longing for a clear, comprehensive view of the largest possible area of
scientific country. This feeling also drove him to produce a text-book of
physics, the fruit of many years of strenuous work, of which a medical
student said to me the other day: "I don't know how I should ever have got a
clear idea of the principles of modern physics in the time at my disposal
without this book."
Berliner's fight for clarity and comprehensiveness of outlook has done
a great deal to bring the problems, methods, and results of science home to
many people's minds. The scientific life of our time is simply inconceivable
vzthout his paper. It is just as important to make knowledge live and to
keep it alive as to solve specific problems. We are all conscious of what we
owe to Arnold Berliner.
*Do not be angry with me for this indiscretion, my dear Berliner. A
serious-minded man enjoys a good laugh now and then.
Popper-Lynhaus was more than a brilliant engineer and writer. He was
one of the few outstanding personalities who embody the conscience of a
generation. He has drummed it into us that society is responsible for the
fate of every individual and shown us a way to translate the consequent
obligation of the community into fact. The community or State was no fetish
to him; he based its right to demand sacrifices of the individual entirely
on its duty to give the individual personality a chance of harmonious
development.
Obituary of the Surgeon, M. Katzenstein
During the eighteen years I spent in Berlin I had few close friends,
and the closest was Professor Katzenstein. For more than ten years I spent
my leisure hours during the summer months with him, mostly on his delightful
yacht. There we confided our experiences, ambitions, emotions to each other.
We both felt that this friendship was not only a blessing because each
understood the other, was enriched by him, and found ins him that responsive
echo so essential to anybody who is truly alive; it also helped to make both
of us more independent of external experience, to objectivize it more
easily.
I was a free man, bound neither by many duties nor by harassing
responsibilities; my friend, on the contrary, was never free from the grip
of urgent duties and anxious fears for the fate of those in peril. If, as
was invariably the case, he had performed some dangerous operations in the
morning, he would ring up on the telephone, immediately before we got into
the boat, to enquire after the condition of the patients about whom he was
worried; I could see how deeply concerned he was for the lives entrusted to
his care. It was marvellous that this shackled outward existence did not
clip the wings of his soul; his imagination and his sense of humour were
irrepressible. He never became the typical conscientious North German, whom
the Italians in the days of their freedom used to call bestia seriosa. He
was sensitive as a youth to the tonic beauty of the lakes and woods of
Brandenburg, and as he sailed the boat with an expert hand through these
beloved and familiar surroundings he opened the secret treasure-chamber of
his heart to me--he spoke of his experiments, scientific ideas, and
ambitions. How he found time and energy for them was always a mystery to me;
but the passion for scientific enquiry is not to be crushed by any burdens.
The man who is possessed with it perishes sooner than it does.
There were two types of problems that engaged his attention. The first
forced itself on him out of the necessities of his practice. Thus he was
always thinking out new ways of inducing healthy muscles to take the place
of lost ones, by ingenious transplantation of tendons. He found this
remarkably easy, as he possessed an uncommonly strong spatial imagination
and a remarkably sure feeling for mechanism. How happy he was when he had
succeeded in making somebody fit for normal life by putting right the
muscular system of his face, foot, or arm! And the same when he avoided an
operation, even in cases which had been sent to him by physicians for
surgical treatment in cases of gastric ulcer by neutralizing the pepsin. He
also set great store by the treatment of peritonitis by an anti-toxic
coli-serum which he discovered, and rejoiced in the successes he achieved
with it. In talking of it he often lamented the fact that this method of
treatment was not endorsed by his colleagues.
The second group of problems had to do with the common conception of an
antagonism between different sorts of tissue. He believed that he was here
on the track of a general biological principle of widest application, whose
implications he followed out with admirable boldness and persistence.
Starting out from this basic notion he discovered that osteomyelon and
periosteum prevent each other's growth if they are not separated from each
other by bone. In this way he succeeded in explaining hitherto inexplicable
cases of wounds ailing to heal, and in bringing about a cure.
This general notion of the antagonism of the tissues, especially of
epithelium and connective tissue, was the subject to which he devoted his
scientific energies, especially in the last ten years of his life.
Experiments on animals and a systematic investigation of the growth of
tissues in a nutrient fluid were carried out side by side. How thankful he
was, with his hands tied as they were by his duties, to have found such an
admirable and infinitely enthusiastic fellow-worker in FrДlein Knake! He
succeeded in securing wonderful results bearing on the factors which favour
the growth of epithelium at the expense of that of connective tissue,
results which may well be of decisive importance for the study of cancer. He
also had the pleasure of inspiring his own son to become his intelligent and
independent fellow-worker, and of exciting the warm interest and
co-operation of Sauerbruch just in the last years of his life, so that he
was able to die with the consoling thought that his life's work would not
perish, but would be vigorously continued on the lines he had laid down.
I for my part am grateful to fate for having given me this man, with
his inexhaustible goodness and high creative gifts, for a friend.
Congratulations to Dr. Solf
I am delighted to be able to offer you, Dr. Solf, the heartiest
congratulations, the congratulations of Lessing College, of which you have
become an indispensable pillar, and the congratulations of all who are
convinced of the need for close contact between science and art and the
public which is hungry for spiritual nourishment.
You have not hesitated to apply your energies to a field where there
are no laurels to be won, but quiet, loyal work to be done in the interests
of the general standard of intellectual and spiritual life, which is in
peculiar danger to-day owing to a variety of circumstances. Exaggerated
respect for athletics, an excess of coarse impressions which the
complications of life through the technical discoveries of recent years has
brought with it, the increased severity of the struggle for existence due to
the economic crisis, the brutalization of political life--all these factors
are hostile to the ripening of the character and the desire for real
culture, and stamp our age as barbarous, materialistic, and superficial.
Specialization in every sphere of intellectual work is producing an
everwidening gulf between the intellectual worker and the non-specialist,
which makes it more difficult for the life of the nation to be fertilized
and enriched by the achievements of art and science.
But contact between the intellectual and the masses must not be lost.
It is necessary for the elevation of society and no less so for renewing the
strength of the intellectual worker; for the flower of science does not grow
in the desert. For this reason you, Herr Solf, have devoted a portion of
your energies to Lessing College, and we are grateful to you for doing so.
And we wish you further success and happiness in your work for this noble
cause.
Of Wealth
I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity
forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The
example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine
ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts
its owners irresistibly to abuse it.
Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of
Carnegie?
Education and Educators
A letter.
Dear Miss _____,
I have read about sixteen pages of your manuscript and it made
me--smile. It is clever, well observed, honest, it stands on its
own feet up to a point, and yet it is so typically feminine, by
which I mean derivative and vitiated by personal rancour. I
suffered exactly the same treatment at the hands of my teachers,
who disliked me for my independence and passed me over
when they wanted assistants (I must admit that I was somewhat
less of a model student than you). But it would not have been
worth my while to write anything about my school life, still less
would I have liked to be responsible for anyone's printing or
actually reading it. Besides, one always cuts a poor figure if one
complains about others who are struggling for their place in the
sun too after their own fashion.
Therefore pocket your temperament and keep your manuscript
for your sons and daughters, m order that they may derive
consolation from it and--not give a damn for what their teachers
tell them or think of them.
Incidentally I am only coming to Princeton to research, not to
teach. There is too much education altogether, especially in
American schools. The only rational way of educating is to be an
example--of what to avoid, if one can't be the other sort.
With best wishes.
To the Schoolchildren of Japan
In sending this greeting to you Japanese schoolchildren, I can lay
claim to a special right to do so. For I have myself visited your beautiful
country, seen its cities and houses, its mountains and woods, and in them
Japanese boys who had learnt from them to love their country. A big fat book
full of coloured drawings by Japanese children lies always on my table.
If you get my message of greeting from all this distance, bethink you
that ours is the first age in history to bring about friendly and
understanding intercourse between people of different countries; in former
times nations passed their lives in mutual ignorance, and in fact hated or
feared one another. May the spirit of brotherly understanding gain ground
more and more among them. With this in mind I, an old man, greet you
Japanese schoolchildren from afar and hope that your generation may some day
put mine to shame.
Teachers and Pupils
An address to children
(The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation