Einstein on Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms

Albert Einstein

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486470108
• eBook ISBN: 9780486113128
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy & Ethics in Science

Science and religion are compatible, declares the famous physicist. In these essays, Einstein views science as the basis for a "cosmic" religion, embraced by scientists, theologians, and all who share a sense of wonder in the rationality and beauty of the universe.
In the course of his career, Einstein wrote more than 300 scientific and 150 nonscientific publications. These essays date from the 1930s and 40s. In direct, everyday language the author develops a coherent view that transcends both the antiquated religion of fear and the modern religion of ethics. His concept of cosmic religion combines science and religion, with science forming the basis for a more enlightened religion. In these essays and aphorisms, Einstein also reflects on pacifism, disarmament, and Zionism. In addition to a brief biography of the author, this volume includes a warm appreciation by George Bernard Shaw.

OPINIONS AND APHORISMS

ON RADIO

One ought to be ashamed to make use of the wonders of science embodied in a radio set, the while appreciating them as little as a cow appreciates the botanic marvels in the plants she munches.

Let us not forget how humanity came into possession of this wonderful means of communication. The source of all scientific advancement is the God-given curiosity of the toiling experimenter and the constructive fantasy of the technical inventor.

Remember Oerstedt, who first discovered the magnetic influence of electro-magnetic currents; remember Reis, who first employed this influence to create sound in an electro-magnetic way; Bell, who, by using sensitive contacts, transferred sound waves with his microphone into variable electric currents. Remember furthermore, Maxwell, who mathematically proved the existence of electric waves, and Hertz, who first created them with the help of a spark. Think especially of Lieben, who, with his Fleming valve, invented an incomparable detector organ for electric waves which simultaneously turned out to be an ideally simple instrument for the creation of electric waves. Remember thankfully the army of nameless technicians who simplified radio instruments and adapted them to mass production so that they became accessible to everybody.

It was the scientists who first made true democracy possible, for not only did they lighten our daily tasks but they made the finest works of art and thought, whose enjoyment until recently was the privilege of the favored classes, accessible to all. Thus they awakened the nations from their sluggish dullness.

The radio broadcast has a unique function to fill in bringing nations together. It can be used for strengthening that feeling of mutual friendship which so easily turns into mistrust and enmity.

Until our day people learned to know each other only through the distorting mirror of their own daily press. Radio shows them to each other in the liveliest form, and, in the main, from their most lovable sides.

ON SCIENCE

I believe in intuition and inspiration. . . . At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

The basis of all scientific work is the conviction that the world is an ordered and comprehensive entity, which is a religious sentiment. My religious feeling is a humble amazement at the order revealed in the small patch of reality to which our feeble intelligence is equal.

By furthering logical thought and a logical attitude, science can diminish the amount of superstition in the world. There is no doubt that all but the crudest scientific work is based on a firm belief—akin to religious feeling—in the rationality and comprehensibility of the world.

Music and physical research work originate in different sources, but they are interrelated through their common aim, which is the desire to express the unknown. Their reactions are different, but their results are supplementary. As to artistic and scientific creation, I hold with Schopenhauer that their strongest motive is the desire to leave behind the rawness and monotony of everyday life, so as to take refuge in a world crowded with the images of our own creation. This world may consist of musical notes as well as of mathematical rules. We try to compose a comprehensive picture of the world in which we are at home and which gives us a stability that cannot be found in our external life.

Science exists for Science’s sake, like Art for Art’s sake, and does not go in for special pleading or for the demonstration of absurdities.

A law cannot be definite for the one reason that the conceptions with which we formulate it develop and may prove insufficient in the future. There remains at the bottom of every thesis and of every proof some remainder of the dogma of infallibility.

In every naturalist there must be a kind of religious feeling; for he cannot imagine that the connections into which he sees have been thought of by him for the first time. He rather has the feeling of a child, over whom a grown-up person rules.

We can only see the universe by the impressions of our senses reflecting indirectly the things of reality.

Among scientists in search of truth wars do not count.

There is no universe beyond the universe for us. It is not part of our concept. Of course, you must not take the comparison with the globe literally. I am only speaking in symbols. Most mistakes in philosophy and logic occur because the human mind is apt to take the symbol for the reality.

I see a pattern. But my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern. I see the clock. But I cannot envisage the clock-maker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions. How can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?

Imagine a bedbug completely flattened out, living on the surface of a globe. This bedbug may be gifted with analysis, he may study physics, he may even write a book. His universe will be two-dimensional. He may even intellectually or mathematically conceive of a third dimension, but he cannot visualize it. Man is in the same position as the unfortunate bedbug, except that he is three-dimensional. Man can imagine a fourth dimension mathematically, but he cannot see it, he cannot visualize it, he cannot represent it physically. It exists only mathematically for him. The mind cannot grasp it.

MISCELLANEOUS

Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he must burst it open, and that in his youth, and so try to test his ideas on reality. But in a couple of centuries there comes another, perhaps, who refutes him. It is true that this will not happen to the artist...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
• AN APPRECIATION BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
• COSMIC RELIGION
• PACIFISM
• THE JEWS
• OPINIONS AND APHORISMS