Supposing we should succeed in exchanging thoughts with the inhabitants of distant worlds and should, through them, acquire the elements of a civilization superior to our own, would this knowledge prove a blessing to us or the reverse?
The word "superior" must, of course, be treated circumspectly. It is to denote only that, relatively, this distant civilization bears somewhat the same relation to our civilization of to-day as our own bears to that of an Australasian negro or an anthropoid ape. There are fanatics of progress whose wishes plunge headlong and without restraint into the future, and to whom nothing could be more desirable than the sudden appearance of a civilization that, as they opine, would at one stroke carry us "forward" many thousands of years.
But the view of these magicians with their seven-league boots is untenable. Let me cite a mere outline of the many opposing arguments in a few words of Einstein. "Every sudden change in the conditions of existence, even if it occurred in the form of a higher development, would come upon us like a doom, and would probably annihilate us, just as the Indians succumb to the civilization that has outstripped them. The tragedy of our own highly civilized times is that we cannot create the social organizations that have become necessary as a consequence of the technical advances of the last century. This has given rise to the crises, impasses, and senseless competition between nations, and to the impoverishment of defenceless individuals. These deplorable conditions would become inconceivably accentuated if we were to be invaded by extra-mundane technical sciences of a higher order."
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Nevertheless, there is still a possibility that the "superior civilization" might contain indications of the organizations which we lack. Instead of entering on the question of this Utopia, we confined ourselves to comparing past conditions in our world with present ones. Did we not have the most promising preliminaries for an organization that was devoid of friction and tended to reduce the competition between nations in the numerous international institutions that drew together a great section of the intellectual world to work in co-operation? Are there hopes that this international coalition will be resumed?
Einstein expressed himself optimistically, not to do homage to an organization artificially formed, but to extol the world-wide mastery of intellect. "Even if international congresses were to be swept away," he said, "international co-operation would not be abolished, as it effects itself automatically." I should venture to assert that if all these congresses were to cease, we should not even have cause to fear that there would be an appreciable diminution in the combined effort of research. If certain developments are hindered by political conditions, it is only due to the resulting economic hardships affecting individuals in their work and robbing them of their intellectual freedom. The real friends of Truth have always clung together, and do so actually now; indeed, many feel the tie to be closer than that connecting them to their own country. In spite of all obstacles and boundaries they will never cease to find contact with one another!
CHAPTER XI
EINSTEIN'S LIFE AND PERSONALITY
WE know from the biographies of great thinkers that they seldom personify the character of a dramatic ideal. They are not heroes of fiction who pass through complex experiences and struggle with mysterious problems of existence that may unduly excite the imagination of observers. Whoever follows their development remarks in the majority of cases the predominance of the inner life, the course of which is discoverable only by study of their works, no clue being given in the confusion of ordinary exterior manifestations. An eminent man of thought, whose energies are concentrated on mental effort, rarely finds time to present in addition an interesting figure in the epic sense. The poet who moulds his forms from life finds little scope in him as a model, and only in exceptional cases has he succeeded in idealizing the savant in a work of art.
It would be a fruitless undertaking to treat Einstein's life as one of these exceptional cases. It is possible to trace the various phases of his development, yet neither the writer nor the reader must disguise from himself the fact that such outlines give only the external picture of the man and chronological events of importance. Nevertheless, a book of which he forms the theme cannot pass over the task of giving his curriculum vitæ. And if it should partly appear aphoristic and disjointed, it must be borne in mind that this account originated from conversations and scraps of conversation that touched on various episodes of his life, according as they had a bearing on the subject under discussion.
The story of Einstein's life begins at Ulm, the town which possesses the highest building in Germany. Gladly would I stand on the belfry of the Ulm Cathedral in order to obtain a general survey of Einstein's youth. But the view discloses nothing beyond the bare fact that he was born there in March 1879. The detail which has already been mentioned above, namely, that it was something physical that first arrested the child's attention, remains to be noted. His father once showed the infant, as he lay in his cot, a compass, simply with the idea of amusing him—and in the five-year-old boy the swinging metal needle awakened for the first time the greatest wonderment about unknown cohesive forces, a wonderment that was an index of the research spirit that was still lying dormant in his consciousness. The remembrance of this psychical event has a significant meaning for the Einstein of to-day. In him all the impressions of early childhood seem to be still vivid, the more so as all other physical occurrences, such as the falling of an unsupported body, left no impression on him. His attention was fixed on the compass, and the compass alone. This instrument addressed him in oracular language, indicating to him an electromagnetic field that was in later years to serve him as a domain for fruitful research.