"Albert Einstein. The world as I see it (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

We are assembled to-day to take stock of ourselves. The external reason
for this meeting is the Gumbel case. This apostle of justice has written
about unexpiated political crimes with devoted industry, high courage, and
exemplary fairness, and has done the community a signal service by his
books. And this is the man whom the students, and a good many of the staff,
of his university are to-day doing their best to expel.

Political passion cannot be allowed to go to such lengths. I am
convinced that every man who reads Herr Gumbel's books with an open mind
will get the same impression from them as I have. Men like him are needed if
we are ever to build up a healthy political society.

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has
himself read, not by what others tell him.

If that happens, this Gumbel case, after an unedifying beginning, may
still do good.


Good and Evil


It is right in principle that those should be the best loved who have
contributed most to the elevation of the human race and human life. But, if
one goes on to ask who they are, one finds oneself in no inconsiderable
difficulties. In the case of political, and even of religious, leaders, it
is often very doubtful whether they have done more good or harm. Hence I
most seriously believe that one does people the best service by giving them
some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them. This applies
most of all to the great artist, but also in a lesser degree to the
scientist. To be sure, it is not the fruits of scientific research that
elevate a man and enrich his nature, but the urge to understand, the
intellectual work, creative or receptive. It would surely be absurd to judge
the value of the Talmud, for instance, by its intellectual fruits.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure
and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.

Society and Personality


When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the
whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other
human beings. We see that our whole nature resembles that of the social
animals. We eat food that others have grow, wear clothes that others have
made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our
knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through
the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our
mental capacities wuuld be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher