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

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
and knowledge.)

My dear Children,

I rejoice to see you before me to-day, happy youth of a sunny and
fortunate land.

Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are
the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite
labour in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as
your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and
one day faithfully hand