Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

THIS SECOND VOLUME of collected essays by Albert Einstein covers a period of about fifteen years—1934 to 1950; the first anthology, published under the title
The World As I See It,
comprising material from 1922 to 1934.

Albert Einstein does not belong to that group of scholars who live in the “ivory tower” of their research work, oblivious to the world around them. On the contrary, he has always been an astute and critical observer of the trends and needs of his time. Indeed, frequently did he intervene by written as well as spoken appeal, and always, we should like to emphasize, for a humanitarian cause.

In this sense
Out of My Later Years
mirrors the philosophical, as well as political and social attitudes of its author. The chapters themselves represent addresses, articles, letters, appeals and miscellaneous papers hitherto unpublished.

We feel privileged to offer them to the public with hardly any editorial change—a moving document of the workings of a conscientious, profound and deeply humane mind.

Convictions and Beliefs

Self-Portrait

OF WHAT IS SIGNIFICANT in one’s own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?

The bitter and the sweet come from the outside, the hard from within, from one’s own efforts. For the most part I do the thing which my own nature drives me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it. Arrows of hate have been shot at me too; but they never hit me, because somehow they belonged to another world, with which I have no connection whatsoever.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

Ten Fateful Years

READING ONCE AGAIN the lines I wrote almost ten years ago,
^*I receive two strangely contrasting impressions. What I wrote then still seems essentially as true as ever; yet, it all seems curiously remote and strange. How can that be? Has the world changed so profoundly in ten years, or is it merely that I have grown ten years older, and my eyes see everything in a changed, dimmer light? What are ten years in the history of humanity? Must not all those forces that determine the life of man be regarded as constant compared with such a trifling interval? Is my critical reason so susceptible that the physiological change in my body during those ten years has been able to influence my concept of life so deeply? It seems clear to me that such considerations cannot throw light upon a change in the emotional approach to the general problems of life. Nor may the reasons for this curious change be sought in my own external circumstances; for I know that these have always played a subordinate part in my thoughts and emotions.

No, something quite different is involved. In these ten years confidence in the stability, yes, even the very basis for existence, of human society has largely vanished. One senses not only a threat to man’s cultural heritage, but also that a lower value is placed upon all that one would like to see defended at all costs.

Conscious man, to be sure, has at all times been keenly aware that life is an adventure, that life must, forever, be wrested from death. In part the dangers were external: one might fall downstairs and break one’s neck, lose one’s livelihood without fault, be condemned though innocent, or ruined by calumny. Life in human society meant dangers of all sorts; but these dangers were chaotic in nature, subject to chance. Human society, as a whole, seemed stable. Measured by the ideals of taste and morals it was decidedly imperfect. But, all in all, one felt at home with it and, apart from the many kinds of accidents, comparatively safe in it One accepted its intrinsic qualities as a matter of course, as the air one breathed. Even standards of virtue, aspiration, and practical truth were taken for granted as an inviolable heritage, common to all civilized humanity.

To be sure, the first World War had already shaken this feeling of security. The sanctity of life vanished and the individual was no longer able to do as he pleased and to go where he liked. The lie was raised to the dignity of a political instrument. The war was, however, widely regarded as an external event, hardly or not at all as the result of man’s conscious planful action. It was thought of as an interruption of man’s normal life from the outside, universally considered unfortunate and evil. The feeling of security in regard to human aims and values remained, for the main part, unshaken.

The subsequent development is sharply marked by political events that are not as far-reaching as the less easily grasped socio-psychological background. First a brief, promising step forward characterized by the creation of the League of Nations through the grandiose initiative of Wilson, and the establishment of a system of collective security among the nations. Then the formation of Fascist states, attended by a series of broken pacts and undisguised acts of violence against humanity and against weaker nations. The system of collective security collapsed like a house of cards—a collapse the consequences of which cannot be measured even today. It was a manifestation of weakness of character and lack of responsibility on the part of the leaders in the affected countries, and of shortsighted selfishness in the democracies—those that still remain outwardly intact—which prevented any vigorous counterattack.

Other books

What Lies Within by Karen Ball

Arisen : Genesis by Fuchs, Michael Stephen

Ordinary Sins by Jim Heynen

4 Hemmed In by Marjorie Sorrell Rockwell

El Manuscrito Hallado en una Botella by Edgar Allan Poe

Embracing Danger by Olivia Jaymes

The Doctor and Mr. Dylan by Rick Novak

Dead Fall by Matt Hilton

People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) by Gear, W. Michael, Gear, Kathleen O'Neal

Too Near the Edge by Lynn Osterkamp