After Herostratus had burnt to ashes the consecrated temple, the Ionian cities issued a proclamation that his name was to be condemned to perpetual oblivion! The iconoclast Dühring is immortalized, for, apart from the charge of arson, he is notable in himself. In his case we found ourselves confronted with unfathomable problems of a scholar's complex nature, problems which even a searcher like Einstein failed to solve. The simplest solution would be to turn the tables and to apply the term "paranoia" as a criticism to the book on Robert Mayer, and thus demolish it. But this will not do, for if we merely pass over the pages of distorted thought, we are still left with a considerable quantity of valuable material.
Does Dühring, after all, himself deserve a place in our Valhalla? The question seems monstrous, and yet cannot be directly answered in the negative. The individual is to be judged according to his greatest achievement, and not according to his aberrations. The works of Aristotle teem with nonsensical utterances, and Leonardo's Bestiarius is an orgy of abstruse concoctions. If Dühring had written nothing beyond his studies of personalities ranging from Archimedes to Lagrange, the portals would yet have been open to him. Even in his eulogy of Robert Mayer, which is besmirched with unseemly remarks, he displays at least the courage of his convictions.
The attempt at a comparison between Robert Mayer and Helmholtz is doomed to failure even when considered dispassionately, inasmuch as the disturbing factor of priority here intrudes itself. The definite fixing of the Law of Energy is certainly to the credit of Helmholtz, but perhaps he would have gained by laying more stress on the discovery of it five years earlier by the doctor in Heilbronn. And again, this would not have been final, for the invariance of the sum of energy during mechanical actions was known even by Huyghens. The Heilbronn doctor performed one act of genius in his life, whereas Helmholtz during his whole life moved asymptotically to the fine of genius without ever reaching it. If my interpretation of Einstein's opinion is correct, Helmholtz is to be credited with having the splendour of an overpowering gift for research predominant in his nature, but is not necessarily to be given a seat among the most illustrious of his branch of science. Einstein wishes to preserve a certain line of demarcation between this type and not only the Titans of the past, but also those of the present. When he speaks of the latter, his tone becomes warmer. He does not need circuitous expressions, each syllable rings with praise. He has in mind, above all, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz in Leyden, Max Planck, and Niels Bohr; we then see that he feels Valhalla about him.
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The reason that I have tried to maintain the metaphor of a Temple of Fame is due to an echo of Einstein's own words at a celebration held in honour of the sixtieth birthday of the physicist Planck in the May of 1918. This speech created the impression of a happy harmony resulting from a fusion of two melodies, one springing from the intellect, the other rising from the heart. We were standing as at the Propylons with a new Heraclitus uttering the cry: Introite, nam et hic dii sunt!
I should like to give the gist of this beautiful address in an extract uninterrupted by commentaries.
"The Temple of Science"—so Einstein began—"is a complex structure of many parts. Not only are the inmates diverse in nature, but so also are the inner forces that they have introduced into the temple. Many a one among them is engaged in Science with a happy feeling of a superior mind, and finds Science the sport which is congenial to him, and which is to give him an outlet for his strong life-forces, and to bring him the realization of his ambitions. There are, indeed, many, too, who offer up their sacrifice of brain-matter only in the cause of useful achievements. If now an angel of heaven were to come and expel all from the temple who belonged to these two categories, a considerable reduction would result, but there would still remain within the temple men of present and former times: among these we count our Planck, and that is why he has our warm affection.
"I know full well that, in doing this, we have light-heartedly caused many to be driven out who contributed much to the building of the temple; in many cases our angel would find a decision difficult.... But let us fix our gaze on those who find full favour with him! Most of them are peculiar, reserved, and lonely men, who, in spite of what they have in common, are really less alike than those who have been expelled. What led them into the temple?... In the first place, I agree with Schopenhauer that one of the most powerful motives that attract people to Science and Art is the longing to escape from everyday life with its painful coarseness and unconsoling barrenness, and to break the fetters of their own ever-changing desires. It drives those of keener sensibility out of their personal existence into the world of objective perception and understanding. This motive force is similar to the longing which makes the city-dweller leave his noisy, confused surroundings and draws him with irresistible force to restful Alpine heights, where his gaze covers the wide expanse lying peacefully before him on all sides, and softly passes over the motionless outlines that seem created for all eternity. Associated with this negative motive is a positive one, by virtue of which Man seeks to form a simplified synoptical view of the world in a manner conformable to his own nature, in order to overcome the world of experience by replacing it, to a certain degree, by this picture. This is what the painter does, as also the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the research scientist, each in his own way. He transfers the centre of his emotional existence into this picture, in order to find a sure haven of peace, one such as is not offered in the narrow limits of turbulent personal experience.
"What position does the world-picture of the theoretical physicist occupy among all those that are possible? He demands the greatest rigour and accuracy in his representation, such as can be gained only by using the language of mathematics. But for this very reason the physicist has to be more modest than others in his choice of material, and must confine himself to the simplest events of the empirical world, since all the more complex events cannot be traced by the human mind with that refined exactness and logical sequence which the physicist demands.... Is the result of such a restricted effort worthy of the proud name 'world-picture'?
"I believe this distinction is well deserved, for the most general laws on which the system of ideas set up by theoretical physics is founded claim to be valid for every kind of natural phenomenon. From them it should be possible by means of pure deduction to find the picture, that is, the theory, of every natural process, including those of living organism, provided that this process of deduction does not exceed the powers of human thought. Thus there is no fundamental reason why the physical picture of the world should fall short of perfection....