Einstein

by Philipp Frank

  Basically his position was always clear: he would never support principles because of their beautiful sound, if they led to consequences which he could not approve.

  For this reason the attacks on Einstein by those who opposed war on principle were of the same character as those of some of his opponents in physics who attacked him with the reproach that he had first advanced the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light in the special relativity theory of 1905, and had then abandoned it in his theory of gravitation, since according to the latter the velocity with which light is propagated depends on the intensity of the gravitational field. Some of Einstein’s opponents accused him of being inconsistent and of trying to hide this inconsistency. This description, however, is somewhat misleading. The constancy of the velocity of light is true only under very specific conditions — namely, when strong gravitational fields are not present. By enumerating the restrictions under which a certain principle is valid, one is not being inconsistent, but only adding to our knowledge of the world.

  The same is true of Einstein’s attitude to the question of military service. At that time I had no opportunity to discuss this matter personally with him, but soon after Einstein’s arrival in America the same question became acute there. The radical youth movement, as represented by the American Youth Congress, at first wanted to uphold the principle of absolute opposition to war, even in the case of a war of the democratic states against fascism, because such a war for them was in principle an imperialist war. Einstein, however, did not let himself be confused by such arguments, and saw that here as in Belgium these “opponents of war” were only working for the victory of the greatest military power. As a result they would achieve the very opposite of what they thought they were working for. Einstein thought that the principle of absolute non-participation in war made sense only when a victory of the different powers did not lead to very different consequences for the population. In Europe after 1918 one might have said: It does not make much difference whether one is ruled by the French or the German Republic, by the United. States or Great Britain. This difference does not justify war. But this standpoint can no longer be maintained when there are states whose principles of government differ as radically from each other as do those of Nazi Germany from those of the states around it. Under these conditions no one can remain indifferent to who will be the victor. Just as the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light is valid only if no great differences of gravitational potential and therefore no great forces are present, so the principle of absolute refusal to perform military service is valid only when there are no extreme differences between the governmental principles of opposing states.

  In U.S.A. opponents of military service such as Bertrand Russell and Archibald MacLeish drew the same consequences from the situation. Various metaphysically thinking authors characterized such men as “inconsistent” and wondered that logicians such as Russell could be so illogical. Einstein’s case, however, would already have shown them that consistency in a metaphysical sense — that is, to hold fast to the letter of a principle — is not consistency in a scientific sense which means to hold fast to the desirable consequences of a principle. Thus, because of his direct and honest thinking, Einstein once again became an object of attacks, even before he had actually departed from Europe, and this time the attacks came from “progressive” and “radical” circles.

  At this time Einstein was most immediately concerned with the many hundreds and soon thousands of scholars and scientists, both young and old, who were expelled from their positions by the purge in Germany. English scientists tried to give the refugees some opportunity to continue their work under more favorable conditions. The great English physicist Rutherford put himself at the head of this movement and organized the Academic Assistance Council in London. At its first meeting Einstein was to be presented to the public as a symbol of the victims, and with his great prestige was to make an appeal for this cause. One can very well imagine that this was not very pleasant for Einstein. He did not like to appear publicly in any matter where he was personally involved. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the situation and the importance of the relief measures induced him to go to London and deliver an address on the subject “Science and Liberty.” At the meeting he sat next to Lord Rutherford, who presided. Immediately after his introductory words Rutherford pointed to his neighbor with an energetic gesture and presented him proudly: “Ladies and gentlemen, my old friend and colleague Professor Einstein.”

  Einstein spoke with great reserve. He tried to point out the need for relief measures, while avoiding all political attacks. Strong words were superfluous, the cause spoke for itself. Einstein said: “It cannot be my task to act as judge of the conduct of a nation which for many years has considered me as her son. Perhaps it is an idle task to judge in times when action counts.”

  Soon after this meeting, which took place early in October 1933, Einstein was waiting at Southampton for a passenger vessel of moderate size that was coming from Antwerp and was to bring him to New York.

  But before I describe Einstein’s new life in America, we will remain awhile yet in Europe to see the remarkable manner in which Einstein’s abstract theories were utilized by political and religious groups for their purposes.

  XI

  EINSTEIN’S THEORIES AS POLITICAL

  WEAPONS AND TARGETS

  1. Scientific Theories and Political Ideologies

  To a physicist or mathematician who actually understands, or believes that he understands, Einstein’s theories, it must seem strange and frivolous when people whose understanding of this matter is much more limited argue whether his theory is a product of the Bolshevization of Europe or perhaps a stage in the development of Europe from liberalism to fascism; whether it is a support for religion in its fight against materialism or whether it helps to breed disbelief in everything that traditional religion teaches about the universe. The professional physicist will not find any trace of these ideas in Einstein’s theories. He believes that their validity depends only on the correctness of certain computations, and on whether certain delicate experiments are carried out with the necessary care. Consequently he must feel that these disputes over Einstein’s theories have been simply a result of ignorance and madness.

  But whoever investigates the fate of other radically new theories about the universe — for example, the fate of the Copernican system, the Newtonian theory, the laws of energy — will find that all these theories led to discussions that from the standpoint of the physicist or mathematician appeared to be either superfluous or even foolish.

  The transition from science to political ideology occurs by means of philosophy. The generalizations of science are expressed in philosophical language, in which terms such as “idealism,” “materialism,” “force,” “energy,” and others play a part. The same words also appear in the philosophical doctrines that tell men how to act in private as well as in political life. In this way the generalizations of science are gradually transformed into principles of moral and political philosophy.

  On this point Viscount Samuel, a man who is conversant with science, philosophy and politics, and who in addition has been connected with Einstein in a number of ways, said:

  “Philosophy of some kind moves the nations. Every land resounds with the tramp of armies, behind the armies are the dictators and the parliaments, behind them are the political creeds — Communism, National Socialism, Fascism, Democracy — and behind the creeds are the philosophers — Marx, Engels, Hegel, Nietzsche, Sorel, Mill, and others.”

  Philosophical systems like to make use of the newest scientific theories in order to have “exact” foundations. But the help that philosophy gets in this way does not lead to unambiguous results. One and the same scientific theory can be used to support different political creeds. Bertrand Russell gave a very good characterization of this ambiguity:

  “There has been a tendency, not uncommon in the case of a new scientific theory, for e
very philosopher to interpret the work of Einstein in accordance with his own metaphysical system and to suggest that the outcome is a great accession of strength to the views which the philosopher in question previously held.”

  This ambiguity arises from the fact that it is not the physical content of a theory that is responsible for its philosophical interpretations. Frequently it is rather the language in which the theory is formulated, its images and analogies that are interpreted.

  The interpretation of Einstein’s Relativity is usually connected with two characteristics of the language in which he and his followers clothed his theory. The first characteristic is the abandonment of mechanical analogies. There is no mention of any mechanism in the sense in which this word is used in daily life; for instance, there is no mechanism for the shortening of a body by rapid motion. Instead, a logical-empirical mode of expression is employed; that is, a system of mathematical formulae is given and the operations are described by which the magnitudes in these formulæ can be measured empirically. The second characteristic is the use of the expression “relative to a certain body.” The use of this mode of expression gives rise to a comparison with the language of so-called “relativism”; for example, ethical relativism, which asserts that any human action can be called good or bad only “relative to a certain ethnical group and historical period,” and so forth.

  By abandoning the mechanical analogy Einstein’s theory harmonized to a certain extent with all the currents of thought that opposed the mechanistic conception of the world and the materialistic philosophy connected with it. The second characteristic of his mode of expression brought him close to those who were called ethical skeptics and who were frequently linked to a materialistic philosophy.

  Thus Einstein’s theories could be used equally well as propaganda for materialism or against it. And since words such as “materialism,” “idealism,” “relativism,” and so forth, are frequently used as the catchwords of political ideologies, we can understand that Einstein’s theories were very often used as a weapon in the struggle of political parties.

  2. Pro-Fascist Interpretation

  The fascist groups always have asserted that the Communist philosophy is materialistic, while theirs is anti-materialistic, or idealistic. Consequently Einstein’s theories could be used as weapons for fascism if they were interpreted as arguments against materialism and for idealism.

  As early as 1927 — that is, before the seizure of power by the Nazis — Joseph Goebbels had shown how the language of German idealistic philosophy could be employed in the service of his party. First of all he presented an interpretation of the Kantian expression “thing-in-itself” (Ding an sich), the characteristic concept of German idealism. Goebbels said: “The folk is a constituent of humanity. Humanity is not a thing-in-itself, nor is the individual a thing-in-itself. The folk is the thing-in-itself.…”

  “The materialist,” Goebbels continued, “regards the folk only as an instrument and does not want to concede that it is an independent objective reality. For him the folk is an intermediate thing between man and humanity, and mankind is for him the ultimate.… Therefore the materialist is necessarily a democrat. The idealist sees in the word ‘humanity’ only a concept. Humanity is only something imagined, not a fact.…”

  By emphasizing its anti-mechanistic aspects it was, indeed, possible to employ Einstein’s relativity theory as a weapon in the fight against “materialistic” democracy. German physicists who considered it desirable to teach Einstein’s theories even in National Socialist Germany occasionally made use of this possibility. Pascual Jordan, for instance, in his book The Physics of the Twentieth Century, recommended Einstein’s theory of relativity to National Socialists as a weapon in the fight against materialistic philosophy. Jordan said that the eradication of this philosophy is an “integral aspect of the unfolding new world of the twentieth century that has already begun, especially in Italy and Germany.” The “new world” is that of Fascism and National Socialism.

  Since many opponents of Einstein’s theories wanted to make use of the political power of the National Socialist Party in their fight against Einstein, they were very much upset by efforts such as that of Jordan. Thus, for instance, Hugo Dingler, who had already agitated against Einstein without any great success long before National Socialism, remarked with indignation about Jordan’s book: “To hang this destructive Einstein philosophy on the skirts of the national movements in Germany and Italy is really a little too much.”

  With the adjective “destructive” Dingler touched directly upon the other feature in the language of the theory of relativity, the use of the expression “relative.” He connected Einstein’s theories with the English philosophy of enlightenment of David Hume, which according to popular conception is only a variant of materialism, and which the National Socialist Party felt obliged to oppose.

  If the theory of relativity had been advanced by someone other than Einstein, it is entirely possible that it would not have been unanimously condemned by the National Socialist Party. The relativity theory would very possibly have remained a constant object of controversy in these circles like various other philosophies. Einstein’s Jewish ancestry, however, and his political attitude as a pacifist made the condemnation of his theory inevitable.

  3. Einstein’s Theories Attacked as Expressions of Jewish Mentality

  In general, National Socialist writers regarded two groups of characteristics as typical of Jewish thinking. In the first place, it was said, the Jew prefers pure speculation to experimental observations of nature. Secondly, it was asserted that the Jew does not recognize purely mental concepts, but believes only in truths that can be discovered by sensory experience of material things. Obviously it is not difficult to find one of these characteristics in any physicist.

  Among those who attacked Einstein on the ground that his theories were purely speculative, the most ardent was Philipp Lenard, who has been mentioned several times already. In his book German Physics he said:

  “Jewish physics can best and most justly be characterized by recalling the activity of one who is probably its most prominent representative, the pure-blooded Jew Albert Einstein. His relativity theory was to transform and dominate all physics; but when faced with reality, it no longer has a leg to stand on. Nor was it intended to be true. In contrast to the equally intractable and solicitous desire for truth of the Aryan scientist, the Jew lacks to a striking degree any comprehension of truth — that is, of anything more than an apparent agreement with a reality that occurs independently of human thought.”

  In a lecture delivered at Munich in 1937 before the association of provincial teachers and students (Gaudozentenbund und Gaustudentenbund), the origin and development of this “Jewish” way of looking at nature was related to political conditions after the first World War. It was said:

  “The entire development of natural science is a communal effort of Aryan scientists, among whom the Germans are numerically foremost. The period of Heinrich Hertz coincides with the gradual development of a Jewish natural science, which took advantage of the obscure situation in the physics of the ether and branched off from the course of development of Aryan physics. By systematically filling academic positions with Jews and by assuming an increasingly dictatorial attitude, this Jewish natural science tried to deprive Aryan physics of its foundations, to dogmatize, and to oppress all thinking about nature. Ultimately it replaced these foundations by a deceptive imaginary structure known as the relativity theory, above which it simultaneously inscribed the typically Jewish taboo — that is, ‘not to be touched.’ This development was temporarily and causally coincident with the victory of Jewry in other fields during the postwar period.”

  In 1938 the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Naturwissenschaft (Journal for General Science) was founded for the specific purpose of propagating the National Socialist conception in science. In an article: “Racial Dependence of Mathematics and Physics,” we read the following:

  “Th
e influence of the Jews on the development of natural science is due first of all to a difference in their attitude toward the fundamental relation between experiment and theory in favor of the latter. Theories were constructed without regard for the forms of human thought and perception and without any rigorous methodology of reasoning.… Einstein’s theory of relativity offers us the clearest example of a dogmatic Jewish type of theory. It is headed by a dogma, the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light. In a vacuum the velocity of light is supposed to have constant magnitude independent of the state of motion of the light sources and the observer. It is falsely asserted that this is a fact of experience.”

  Actually Einstein’s principle of the constancy of the velocity of light is just as much and just as little a fact of experience and a dogma as any other of the basic hypotheses of a physical theory. It is only because of erroneous and defective presentations of Einstein’s theory that many persons believe the relation between theory and experience to be different here from what it was in the older theories.

  This alleged preference of the Jews for theoretical deliberations was contrasted with the striving of the Aryan German for concrete action. The same contrast was seen in politics: the eternal pondering and indecision of the democratic states; and the firm action of National Socialist Germany.

  But by the average spokesmen of Nazi philosophy Einstein’s theories were branded as materialistic and thus linked with Marxism. In 1936 a lecture was given at the camp of the Natural Scientific Professional Group of the National Socialist Student Association, in which it was said: