The world as I see it - Albert Einstein (easy books to read .txt) 📗

voters betrayed their sacred trust. The
international society of the academies was broken up. Congresses were and
still are held from which colleagues from ex-enemy countries are excluded.
Political considerations, advanced with much solemnity, prevent the triumph
of purely objective ways of thinking without which our great aims must
necessarily be frustrated.

What can right-minded people, people who are proof against the
emotional temptations of the moment, do to repair the damage? With the
majority of intellectual workers still so excited, truly international
congresses on the grand scale cannot yet be held. The psychological
obstacles to the restoration of the international associations of scientific
workers are still too formidable to be overcome by the minority whose ideas
and feelings are of a more comprehensive kind. These last can aid in the
great work of restoring the international societies to health by keeping in
close touch with like-minded people all over the world and resolutely
championing the international cause in their own spheres. Success on a large
scale will take time, but it will undoubtedly come. I cannot let this
opportunity pass without paying a tribute to the way in which the desire to
preserve the confraternity of the intellect has remained alive through all
these difficult years in the breasts of a large number of our English
colleagues especially.

The disposition of the individual is everywhere better than the
official pronouncements. Right-minded people should bear this in mind and
not allow themselves to be misled and get angry: senatores boni viri,
senatus autem bestia.

If I am full of confident hope concerning the progress of international
organization in general, that feeling is based not so much on my confidence
in the intelligence and high-mindedness of my fellows, but rather on the
irresistible pressure of economic developments. And since these depend
largely on the work even of reactionary scientists, they too will help to
create the international organization against their wills.

The Institute for Intellectual Co-operation

During this year the leading politicians of Europe have for the first
time drawn the logical conclusion from the truth that our portion of the
globe can only regain its prosperity if the underground struggle between the
traditional political units ceases. The political organization of Europe
must be strengthened, and a gradual attempt made to abolish tariff barriers.
This great end cannot be achieved by treaties alone. People's minds must,
above all, be prepared for it. We must try gradually to awaken in them a
sense of solidarity which does not, as hitherto, stop at frontiers. It is
with this in mind that the League of Nations has created the Commission de
coopИration intellectuelle. This Commission is to be an absolutely
international and entirely nonpolitical authority, whose business it is to
put the intellectuals of all the nations, who were isolated by the war, into
touch with each other. It is a difficult task; for it has, alas, to be
admitted that--at least in the countries with which I am most closely
acquainted--the artists and men of learning are governed by narrowly
nationalist feelings to a far greater extent than the men of affairs.

Hitherto this Commission has met twice a year. To make its efforts more
effective, the French Government has decided to create and maintain a
permanent Institute for intellectual co-operation, which is just now to be
opened. It is a generous act on the part of the French nation and deserves
the thanks of all.

It is an easy and grateful task to rejoice and praise and say nothing
about the things one regrets or disapproves of. But honesty alone can help
our work forward, so I will not shrink from combining criticism with this
greeting to the new-born child.

I have daily occasion for observing that the greatest obstacle which
the work of our Commission has to encounter is the lack of confidence in its
political impartiality. Everything must be done to strengthen that
confidence and everything avoided that might harm it.

When, therefore, the French Government sets up and maintains an
Institute out of public funds in Paris as a permanent organ of the
Commission, with a Frenchman as its Director, the outside observer can
hardly avoid the impression that French influence predominates in the
Commission. This impression is further strengthened by the fact that so far
a Frenchman has also been chairman of the Commission itself. Although the
individuals in question are men of the highest reputation, liked and
respected everywhere, nevertheless the impression remains.

Dixi et salvavi animam naeam. I hope with all my heart that the new
Institute, by constant interaction with the Commission, will succeed in
promoting their common ends and winning the confidence and recognition of
intellectual workers all over the world.


A Farewell

A letter to the German Secretary of the League of Nations

Dear Herr Dufour-Feronce,

Your kind letter must not go unanswered, otherwise you may get
a mistaken notion of my attitude. The grounds for my resolve to
go to Geneva no more are as follows: Experience has,
unhappily, taught me that the Commission, taken as a whole,
stands for no serious determination to make real progress with
the task of improving international relations. It looks to me far
more like an embodiment of the principle ut aliquid fieri
videatur. The Commission seems to me even worse in this
respect than the League taken as a whole.

It is precisely because I desire to work with all my might for the
establishment of an international arbitrating and regulative
authority superior to the State, and because I have this object
so very much at heart, that I feel compelled to leave the
Commission.

The Commission has given its blessing to the oppression of the
cultural minorities in all countries by causing a National
Commission to be set up in each of them, which is to form the
only channel of communication between the intellectuals of a
country and the Commission. It has thereby deliberately
abandoned its function of giving moral support to the national
minorities in their struggle against cultural oppression.

Further, the attitude of the Commission in the matter of
combating the chauvinistic and militaristic tendencies of
education in the various countries has been so lukewarm that no
serious efforts in this fundamentally important sphere can be
hoped for from it.

The Commission has invariably failed to give moral support to
those individuals and associations who have thrown themselves
without reserve into the business of working for an international
order and against the military system.

The Commission has never made any attempt to resist the
appointment of members whom it knew to stand for tendencies
the very reverse of those it is bound in duty to foster.

I will not worry you with any further arguments, since you will
understand my resolve yell enough from these few hints. It is not
my business to draw up an indictment, but merely to explain my
position. If I nourished any hope whatever I should act
differently--of that you may be sure.

The Question of Disarmament

The greatest obstacle to the success of the disarmament plan was the
fact that people in general left out of account the chief difficulties of
the problem. Most objects are gained by gradual steps: for example, the
supersession of absolute monarchy by democracy. Here, however, we are
concerned with an objective which cannot be reached step by step.

As long as the possibility of war remains, nations will insist on being
as perfectly prepared militarily as they can, in order to emerge triumphant
from the next war. It will also be impossible to avoid educating the youth
in warlike traditions and cultivating narrow national vanity joined to the
glorification of the warlike spirit, as long as people have to be prepared
for occasions when such a spirit will be needed in the citizens for the
purpose of war. To arm is to give one's voice and make one's preparations
not for peace but for war. Therefore people will not disarm step by step;
they will disarm at one blow or not at all.

The accomplishment of such a far-reaching change in the life of nations
presupposes a mighty moral effort, a deliberate departure from deeply
ingrained tradition. Anyone who is not prepared to make the fate of his
country in case of a dispute depend entirely on the decisions of an
international