| HN Mirror

Then it cites Einstein again:

"I'm no atheist, and I don't think that I could define myself as pantheist. We are in the situation of a child which enters a huge library, full of books written in many different languages. The child knows that someone must have written these books, but doesn't know how. And it doesn't know the languages the books are written in. The child suspects being a mysterious order in the disposition of the books, but doesn't know which. This seems to me the human position, even of the most intelligent ones, in front of God..."

Thank you. Here is the actual quote: http://www.google.com/search?q=einstein+child+library+books+...

http://www.deism.com/einstein.htm

(The following is from Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer, Princeton University Press)

"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

Here is the Google Books page for Einstein and Religion By Max Jammer: http://books.google.com/books?id=TnCc1f1C25IC&pg=PA48&#3...

The previous page of Jammer's book states:

Unrestricted determinism, Einstein argued, does not admit a "God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and whose purposes are modeled after our own."

Like Spinoza, Einstein denied the existence of a personal God, modeled after the ideal of a superman, as we would say today.*

On the next page, Jammer extends the above Einstein quote:

"[...] Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contribution to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and body as one, and not two separate things."

Jammer attributes the Einstein quote to:

G. S. Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (Macauley, New York, 1930), quoted by D. Brian, Einstein - a Life, p. 186.

This webpage advises: http://kirtimukha.com/Krishnaswamy/Einstein/on_atheism.htm

You might want to take this quotation with a grain of salt. According to Brian, the Americanized German Viereck became known as a "big-name hunter" after "capturing" Kaiser Wilhelm II; Premier Georges Clemenceau of France; Henry Ford; Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis; and the playwright George Bernard Shaw. Because of his desire to interview the great and because of his inordinate egotism, Freud accused him of having a "superman complex." Upton Sinclear referred to him as "a pompous liar and hypocrite," and George Bernard Shaw questioned his accuracy.

Is the quotation authentic? For what it's worth, here it is.

When asked whether he believes in the God of Spinoza, Einstein is supposed to have replied as follows:

  "I can't answer with a simple yes or no.
  I'm not an atheist and I don't think I
  can call myself a pantheist. We are in
  the position of a little child entering
  a huge library filled with books in many
  different languages. [...] Our limited
  minds cannot grasp the mysterious force
  that moves the constellations. I am
  fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but
  admire even more his contributions to
  modern thought because he is the first
  philosopher to deal with the soul and
  the body as one, not two separate
  things."

Did Einstein actually say this? The nonsense phrase "mysterious force that moves the constellations" troubles me. This seems much more likely to have been inserted by the scientifically ignorant Viereck than it does something that Einstein would say.

The Viereck interview with Einstein appeared first in the Saturday Evening Post (Oct. 26, 1929, p.17) under the title "What Life Means to Einstein."It is curious that Einstein's statement about Spinoza does not appear in that article. Did Viereck choose not include it? Did Einstein object to its inclusion in the article? Or was the Spinoza material removed by the editors? [...]

The quotation may not be completely inauthentic. It seems improbable that Viereck could have recorded Einstein's answer verbatim during an interview. Surely Viereck would have taken brief abbreviated notes that he expanded later. Or perhaps he jotted down the conversation at some time afterwards, putting down Einstein's answers from memory. In neither case would you expect 100% accuracy.