The World as I See It (6 page)

Fascism and Science

A letter to Signor Rocco, Minister of State, Rome.

MY DEAR SIR
,

Two of the most eminent and respected men of science in Italy have applied to me in their difficulties of conscience and requested me to write to you with the object of preventing, if possible, a piece of cruel persecution with which men of learning are threatened in Italy. I refer to a form of oath in which fidelity to the Fascist system is to be promised. The burden of my request is that you should please advise Signor Mussolini to spare the flower of Italy’s intellect this humiliation.

However much our political convictions may differ, I know that we agree on one point: in the progressive achievements of the European mind both of us see and love our highest good. Those achievements are based on the freedom of thought and of teaching, on the principle that the desire for truth must take precedence of all other desires. It was this basis alone that enabled our civilization to take its rise in Greece and to celebrate its rebirth in Italy at the Renaissance. This supreme good has been paid for by the martyr’s blood of pure and great men, for whose sake Italy is still loved and reverenced to-day.

Far be it from me to argue with you about what inroads on human liberty may be justified by reasons of State. But the pursuit of scientific truth, detached from the practical interests of everyday life, ought to be treated as sacred by every Government, and it is in the highest interests of all that honest servants of truth should be left in peace. This is also undoubtedly in the interests of the Italian State and its prestige in the eyes of the world.

Hoping that my request will not fall on deaf ears, I am, etc.

A.E.

Interviewers

TO BE CALLED TO
account publicly for everything one has said, even in jest, an excess of high spirits, or momentary anger, fatal as it must be in the end, is yet up, to a point reasonable and natural. But to be called to account publicly for what others have said in one’s name, when one cannot defend oneself, is indeed a sad predicament. “But who suffers such a dreadful fate?” you will ask. Well, everyone who is of sufficient interest to the public to be pursued by interviewers. You smile incredulously, but I have had plenty of direct experience and will tell you about it.

Imagine the following situation. One morning a reporter comes to you and asks you in a friendly way to tell him something about your friend N. At first you no doubt feel something approaching indignation at such a proposal. But you soon discover that there is no escape. If you refuse to say anything, the man writes: “I asked one of N.’s supposedly best friends about him. But he prudently avoided my questions. This in itself enables the reader to draw the inevitable conclusions.” There is, therefore, no escape, and you give the following information: “Mr. N. is a cheerful, straightforward man, much liked by all his friends. He can find a bright side to any situation. His enterprise and industry know no bounds; his job takes up his entire energies. He is devoted to his family and lays everything he possesses at his wife’s feet. …”

Now for the reporter’s version: “Mr. N. takes nothing very seriously and has a gift for making himself liked, particularly as he carefully cultivates a hearty and ingratiating manner. He is so completely a slave to his job that he has no time for the considerations of any non-personal subject or for any mental activity outside it. He spoils his wife unbelievably and is utterly under her thumb. …”

A real reporter would make it much more spicy, but I expect this will be enough for you and your friend N. He reads this, and some more like it, in the paper next morning, and his rage against you knows no bounds, however cheerful and benevolent his natural disposition may be. The injury done to him gives you untold pain, especially as you are really fond of him.

What’s your next step, my friend? If you know, tell me quickly, so that I may adopt your method with all speed.

Thanks to America

MR. MAYOR, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN
,

The splendid reception which you have accorded to me to-day puts me to the blush in so far as it is meant for me personally, but it gives me all the more pleasure in so far as it is meant for me as a representative of pure science. For this gathering is an outward and visible sign that the world is no longer prone to regard material power and wealth as the highest goods. It is gratifying that men should feel an urge to proclaim this in an official way.

In the wonderful two months which I have been privileged to spend in your midst in this fortunate land, I have had many opportunities of observing what a high value men of action and of practical life attach to the efforts of science; a good few of them have placed a considerable proportion of their fortunes and their energies at the service of scientific enterprises and thereby contributed to the prosperity and prestige of this country.

I cannot let this occasion pass without referring in a spirit of thankfulness to the fact that American patronage of science is not limited by national frontiers. Scientific enterprises all over the civilized world rejoice in the liberal support of American institutions and individuals—a fact which is, I am sure, a source of pride and gratification to all of you.

These tokens of an international way of thinking and feeling are particularly welcome; for the world is to-day more than ever in need of international thinking and feeling by its leading nations and personalities, if it is to progress towards a better and more worthy future. I may be permitted to express the hope that this internationalism of the American nation, which proceeds from a high sense of responsibility, will very soon extend itself to the sphere of politics. For without the active co-operation of the great country of the United States in the business of regulating international relations, all efforts directed towards this important end are bound to remain more or less ineffectual.

I thank you most heartily for this magnificent reception and, in particular, the men of learning in this country for the cordial and friendly welcome I have received from them. I shall always look back on these two months with pleasure and gratitude.

The University Course at Davos

SENATORES BONI VIRI
, senatus autem bestia.
So a friend of mine, a Swiss professor, once wrote in his irritable way to a university faculty which had annoyed him. Communities tend to be less guided than individuals by conscience and a sense of responsibility. What a fruitful source of suffering to mankind this fact is! It is the cause of wars and every kind of oppression, which fill the earth with pain, sighs, and bitterness.

And yet nothing truly valuable can be achieved except by the unselfish co-operation of many individuals. Hence the man of good will is never happier than when some communal enterprise is afoot and is launched at the cost of heavy sacrifices, with the single object of promoting life and culture.

Such pure joy was mine when I heard about the university courses at Davos. A work of rescue is being carried out there, with intelligence and a wise moderation, which is based on a grave need, though it may not be a need that is immediately obvious to everyone. Many a young man goes to this valley with his hopes fixed on the healing power of its sunny mountains and regains his bodily health. But thus withdrawn for long periods from the will-hardening discipline of normal work and a prey to morbid reflection on his physical condition, he easily loses the power of mental effort and the sense of being able to hold his own in the struggle for existence. He becomes a sort of hot-house plant and, when his body is cured, often finds it difficult to get back to normal life. Interruption of intellectual training in the formative period of youth is very apt to leave a gap which can hardly be filled later.

Yet, as a general rule, intellectual work in moderation, so far from retarding cure, indirectly helps it forward, just as moderate physical work does. It is in this knowledge that the university courses are being instituted, with the object not merely of preparing these young people for a profession but of stimulating them to intellectual activity as such. They are to provide work, training, and hygiene in the sphere of the mind.

Let us not forget that this enterprise is admirably calculated to establish such relations between members of different nations as are favourable to the growth of a common European feeling. The effects of the new institution in this direction are likely to be all the more advantageous from the fact that the circumstances of its birth rule out every sort of political purpose. The best way to serve the cause of internationalism is by co-operating in some life-giving work.

From all these points of view I rejoice that the energy and intelligence of the founders of the university courses at Davos have already attained such a measure of success that the enterprise has outgrown the troubles of infancy. May it prosper, enriching the inner lives of numbers of admirable human beings and rescuing many from the poverty of sanatorium life!

Congratulations to a Critic

TO SEE WITH ONE’S
own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a snappy sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word—is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congratulation?

Greeting to G. Bernard Shaw

THERE ARE FEW ENOUGH
people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them. And these isolated few usually soon lose their zeal for putting things to rights when they have come face to face with human obduracy. Only to a tiny minority is it given to fascinate their generation by subtle humour and grace and to hold the mirror up to it by the impersonal agency of art. To-day I salute with sincere emotion the supreme master of this method, who has delighted—and educated—us all.

Some Notes on My American Impressions

I MUST REDEEM MY
promise to say something about my impressions of this country. That is not altogether easy for me. For it is not easy to take up the attitude of an impartial observer when one is received with such kindness and undeserved respect as I have been in America. First of all let me say something on this head.

The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque The consciousness of this extraordinary state of affairs would be unbearable but for one great consoling thought: it is a welcome symptom in an age which is commonly denounced as materialistic, that it makes heroes of men whose ambitions lie wholly in the intellectual and moral sphere. This proves that knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in America, which is usually decried as a particularly materialistic country. After this digression I come to my proper theme, in the hope that no more weight will be attached to my modest remarks than they deserve.

What first strikes the visitor with amazement is the superiority of this country in matters of technics and organization. Objects of everyday use are more solid than in Europe, houses infinitely more convenient in arrangement. Everything is designed to save human labour. Labour is expensive, because the country is sparsely inhabited in comparison with its natural resources. The high price of labour was the stimulus which evoked the marvellous development of technical devices and methods of work. The opposite extreme is illustrated by over-populated China or India, where the low price of labour has stood in the way of the development of machinery. Europe is half-way between the two. Once the machine is sufficiently highly developed it becomes cheaper in the end than the cheapest labour. Let the Fascists in Europe, who desire on narrow-minded political grounds to see their own particular countries more densely populated, take heed of this. The anxious care with which the United States keep out foreign goods by means of prohibitive tariffs certainly contrasts oddly with this notion. … But an innocent visitor must not be expected to rack his brains too much, and, when all is said and done, it is not absolutely certain that every question admits of a rational answer.

The second thing that strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life. The smile on the faces of the people in photographs is symbolical of one of the American’s greatest assets. He is friendly, confident, optimistic, and—without envy, The European finds intercourse with Americans easy and agreeable.

Compared with the American, the European is more critical, more self-conscious, less good-hearted and helpful, more isolated, more fastidious in his amusements and his reading, generally more or less of a pessimist.

Great importance attaches to the material comforts of life, and peace, freedom from care, security are all sacrificed to them. The American lives for ambition, the future, more than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being. In this respect he is even further removed from the Russian and the Asiatic than the European is. But there is another respect in which he resembles the Asiatic more than the European does: he is less of an individualist than the European—that is, from the psychological, not the economic, point of view.