The World As I See It

by Albert Einstein

  In this case, as in many mental disorders, the cure lies in a clear knowledge of one’s condition and its causes. We must be conscious of our alien race and draw the logical conclusions from it. It is no use trying to convince the others of our spiritual and intellectual equality by arguments addressed to the reason, when their attitude does not originate in their intellects at all. Rather must we emancipate ourselves socially and supply our social needs, in the main, ourselves. We must have our own students’ societies and adopt an attitude of courteous but consistent reserve to the Gentiles. And let us live after our own fashion there and not ape duelling and drinking customs which are foreign to our nature. It is possible to be a civilized European and a good citizen and at the same time a faithful Jew who loves his race and honours his fathers. If we remember this and act accordingly, the problem of anti-Semitism, in so far as it is of a social nature, is solved for us.

  A Letter to Professor Dr. Hellpach, Minister of State

  DEAR HERR HELLPACH,

  I have read your article on Zionism and the Zurich Congress and feel, as a strong devotee of the Zionist idea, that I must answer you, even if it is only shortly.

  The Jews are a community bound together by ties of blood and tradition, and not of religion only: the attitude of the rest of the world towards them is sufficient proof of this. When I came to Germany fifteen years ago I discovered for the first time that I was a Jew, and I owe this discovery more to Gentiles than Jews.

  The tragedy of the Jews is that they are people of a definite historical type, who lack the support of a community to keep them together. The result is a want of solid foundations in the individual which amounts in its extremer forms to moral instability. I realized that the only possible salvation for the race was that every Jew in the world should become attached to a living society to which the individual rejoiced to belong and which enabled him to bear the hatred and the humiliations that he has to put up with from the rest of the world.

  I saw worthy Jews basely caricatured, and the sight made my heart bleed. I saw how schools, comic papers, and innumerable other forces of the Gentile majority undermined the confidence even of the best of my fellow-Jews, and felt that this could not be allowed to continue.

  Then I realized that only a common enterprise dear to the hearts of Jews all over the world could restore this people to health. It was a great achievement of Herzl’s to have realized And proclaimed at the top of his voice that, the traditional attitude of the Jews being what it was, the establishment of a national home or, more accurately, a centre in Palestine, was a suitable object on which to concentrate our efforts.

  All this you call nationalism, and there is something in the accusation. But a communal purpose, without which we can neither live nor die in this hostile world, can always be called by that ugly name. In any case it is a nationalism whose aim is not power but dignity and health. If we did not have to live among intolerant, narrow-minded, and violent people, I should be the first to throw over all nationalism in favour of universal humanity.

  The objection that we Jews cannot be proper citizens of the German State, for example, if we want to be a “nation,” is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the State which springs from the intolerance of national majorities. Against that intolerance we shall never be safe, whether we call ourselves a “people” (or “nation”) or not.

  I have put all this with brutal frankness for the sake of brevity, but I know from your writings that you are a man who attends to the sense, not the form.

  Letter to an Arab

  MARCH 15, 1930

  Sir,

  Your letter has given me great pleasure. It shows me that there is good will available on your side too for solving the present difficulties in a manner worthy of both our nations. I believe that these difficulties are more psychological than real, and that they can be got over if both sides bring honesty and good will to the task.

  What makes the present position so bad is the fact that Jews and Arabs confront each other as opponents before the mandatory power. This state of affairs is unworthy of both nations and can only be altered by our finding a via media on which both sides agree.

  I will now tell you how I think that the present difficulties might be remedied; at the same time I must add that this is only my personal opinion, which I have discussed with nobody. I am writing this letter in German because I am not capable of writing it in English myself and because I want myself to bear the entire responsibility for it. You will, I am sure, be able to get some Jewish friend of conciliation to translate it.

  A Privy Council is to be formed to which the Jews and Arabs shall each send four representatives, who must be independent of all political parties.

  Each group to be composed as follows:—

  A doctor, elected by the Medical Association;

  A lawyer, elected by the lawyers;

  A working men’s representative, elected by the trade unions;

  An ecclesiastic, elected by the ecclesiastics.

  These eight people are to meet once a week. They undertake not to espouse the sectional interests of their profession or nation but conscientiously and to the best of their power to aim at the welfare of the whole population of the country. Their deliberations shall be secret and they are strictly forbidden to give any information about them, even in private. When a decision has been reached on any subject in which not less than three members on each side concur, it may be published, but only in the name of the whole Council. If a member dissents he may retire from the Council, but he is not thereby released from the obligation to secrecy. If one of the elective bodies above specified is dissatisfied with a resolution of the Council, it may replace its representative by another.

  Even if this “Privy Council” has no definite powers it may nevertheless bring about the gradual composition of differences, and secure as united representation of the common interests of the country before the mandatory power, clear of the dust of ephemeral politics.

  Christianity and Judaism

  IF ONE PURGES THE Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity.

  It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can. If he makes an honest attempt in this direction without being crushed and trampled under foot by his contemporaries, he may consider himself and the community to which he belongs lucky.

  1 Jewish charitable associations.

  A Biography of Albert Einstein

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is among modern history’s greatest and most influential minds. He authored more than 450 scholarly works during his lifetime, and his advancements in science—including the revolutionary Theory of Relativity and E=mc2, which described for the first time the relationship between an object’s mass and its energy—have earned him renown as “the father of modern physics.”

  Born in Ulm, in southwest Germany, Einstein moved to Munich with his family as an infant. As a child, Einstein spoke so infrequently that his parents feared he had a learning disability. But despite difficulties with speech, he was consistently a top student and showed an early aptitude for mathematics and physics, which he later studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich after renouncing his German citizenship to avoid military service in 1896.

  After graduation, Einstein married his college girlfriend, Mileva Mari?, and they had three children. He attended the University of Zurich for his doctorate and worked at the patent office in Bern, a post he left in 1908 for a teaching position at the University of Bern, followed by a number of professorships throughout Europe that ultimately led him back to Germany in 1914. By this time, Einstein had already become recognized throughout the world for his groundbreaking papers on special relativity, the photoelectric effect, and the relationship between en
ergy and matter. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

  In 1933, Einstein escaped Nazi Germany and immigrated to the United States with his second wife, Elsa Löwenthal, whom he had married in 1919. He accepted a position at Princeton University in New Jersey, where he stayed for the remainder of his life. At Princeton, Einstein dedicated himself to finding a unified field theory and played a key role in America’s development of atomic weapons. He also campaigned for civil rights as a member of the NAACP and was an ardent supporter of Israel’s Labor Zionist Movement.

  Still, Einstein maintained a special affinity for his homeland. His connection to all things German and, in particular, to the scientific community in Berlin was probably the reason that throughout his years in America he so strongly valued his relationships with other German-speaking immigrants. He maintained a deep friendship with the founder of Philosophical Library, Dr. Dagobert D. Runes, who, like Einstein, was a humanist, a civil rights pioneer, and an admirer of Baruch Spinoza. Consequently, many of Albert Einstein’s works were published by Philosophical Library.

  At the time of Einstein’s death in 1955, he was universally recognized as one of history’s most brilliant and important scientists.

  Einstein with his first wife, Mileva Mari?, and their son Hans Albert, in 1904. Their second son, Eduard, would be born six years later.

  Paper silhouettes created by Einstein in 1919, the year of his marriage to his second wife, Elsa. The silhouettes depict, from left to right, himself, Elsa, and his stepdaughters Ilse and Margot.

  Albert Einstein standing on a Berlin street in 1920.

  Einstein lecturing in Vienna, Austria, in January of 1921, the same year he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. 1921 also marked the year of Einstein’s first visit to New York City, followed by weeks of lectures at some of the East Coast’s most prestigious universities.

  Einstein seated with a pipe on April 27, 1921.

  Einstein with Elsa in Migdal, Israel, on February 12, 1923.

  Einstein in 1928, seated on a terrace in Berlin

  Albert Einstein in 1933.

  Einstein smoking a pipe on the porch of his home in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1938. He was a very ardent pipe smoker and treasured the ritual of selecting different tobaccos and preparing them to be smoked.

  Draft of poem and some of Einstein’s calculations.

  An envelope Einstein used as scribbling paper.

  Manuscript for the first page of Interviews

  First page of Letter to an Arab

  A manuscript page from Einstein’s Germany and France

  A manuscript page from Einstein’s Manifesto

  A page from Einstein’s To the Schoolchildren of Japan

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  This book is the authorized English translation of the volume “Mein Weltbild” by Albert Einstein.

  copyright © 1956, 1984, 2010 by the Estate of Albert Einstein

  cover design by Milan Bozic

  ISBN: 978-1-4532-0497-9

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