Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 556.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 08:37:10 +0000
From: Willard McCarty <willard@mccarty.me.uk>
Subject: the lone scholar in the sciences
Albert Einstein, from an address at a celebration of Max Planck's 60th
birthday (1918), delivered before the Physical Society in Berlin; published
in Mein Weltbild (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934); the following is from
Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, transl. Sonja Bargmann (New York:
Three Rivers Press, 1954): 224-5.
"In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they
that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to
science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is
their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the
satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who
have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely
utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the
people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage
would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both
present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is
why we love him.
"I am quite aware that we have just now light-heartedly expelled in
imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly,
responsible for the building of the temple of science; and in many cases
our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I
feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there
were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can
grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of
human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become
engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances. Now
let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most
of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less
like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts
of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult
question and no single answer will cover it. To begin with, I believe with
Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men to art and
science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless
dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever shifting desires. A finely
tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of
objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the
townsman's irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped
surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges
freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful
contours apparently built for eternity."
Yours,
WM
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
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