Free The World as I See It by Albert Einstein

influence predominates in the Commission. This impression is further strengthened by the fact that so far a Frenchman has also been chairman of the Commission itself. Although the individuals in question are men of the highest reputation, liked and respected everywhere, nevertheless the impression remains.
    Dixi et salvavi animam meant. I hope with all my heart that the new Institute, by constant interaction with the Commission, will succeed in promoting their common ends and winning the confidence and recognition of intellectual workers all over the world.
    A Farewell
    A Letter to the German Secretary of the League of Nations
    DEAR HERR DUFOUR-FERONCE ,
    Your kind letter must not go unanswered, otherwise you may get a mistaken notion of my attitude. The grounds for my resolve to go to Geneva no more are as follows: Experience has, unhappily, taught me that the Commission, taken as a whole, stands for no serious determination to make real progress with the task of improving international relations. It looks to me far more like an embodiment of the principle ut aliquid fieri videatur. The Commission seems to me even worse in this respect than the League taken as a whole.
    It is precisely because I desire to work with all my might for the establishment of an international arbitrating and regulative authority superior to the State , and because I have this object so very much at heart, that I feel compelled to leave the Commission.
    The Commission has given its blessing to the oppression of the cultural minorities in all countries by causing a National Commission to be set up in each of them, which is to form the only channel of communication between the intellectuals of a country and the Commission. It has thereby deliberately abandoned its function of giving moral support to the national minorities in their struggle against cultural oppression.
    Further, the attitude of the Commission in the matter of combating the chauvinistic and militaristic tendencies of education in the various countries has been so lukewarm that no serious efforts in this fundamentally important sphere can be hoped for from it.
    The Commission has invariably failed to give moral support to those individuals and associations who have thrown themselves without reserve into the business of working for an international order and against the military system.
    The Commission has never made any attempt to resist the appointment of members whom it knew to stand for tendencies the very reverse of those it is bound in duty to foster.
    I will not worry you with any further arguments, since you will understand my resolve well enough from these few hints. It is not my business to draw up an indictment, but merely to explain my position. If I nourished any hope whatever I should act differently—of that you may be sure.
    The Question of Disarmament
    THE GREATEST OBSTACLE to the success of the disarmament plan was the fact that people in general left out of account the chief difficulties of the problem. Most objects are gained by gradual steps: for example, the supersession of absolute monarchy by democracy. Here, however, we are concerned with an objective which cannot be reached step by step.
    As long as the possibility of war remains, nations will insist on being as perfectly prepared militarily as they can, in order to emerge triumphant from the next war. It will also be impossible to avoid educating the youth in warlike traditions and cultivating narrow national vanity joined to the glorification of the warlike spirit, as long as people have to be prepared for occasions when such a spirit will be needed in the citizens for the purpose of war. To arm is to give one’s voice and make one’s preparations not for peace but for war. Therefore people will not disarm step by step; they will disarm at one blow or not at all.
    The accomplishment of such a far-reaching change in the life of nations presupposes a mighty moral effort, a deliberate departure from deeply