AN EXERPT FROM A. EINSTEIN /IDEAS AND OPINIONS /

"When we survey our life and endeavors, we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions an desires are is bound up with the existence of other human beings. Wee noticed that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eate food tha others have produced, wear clothes that others have made,leave in hauses thao others have built. The greaters part of our knowlege and beliefs has been communicatet to us by other people troungh the medium of a language which othher have created. Without languge our mental capacities would be pour indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals, we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage ower the beasts to the fact of leaving in human socity.The individual is wht hi is and was the significance ha he was not so much in virue of his individuality, but rather as mamember of a great human commmunity, which direct his material and spiritual existence from the crable to the grave. A man's value to the community depend primarily on wow far his feelings,thoughts, and actions are directed toward the promoting the good of his fellows, we call him good or bad accordinng to his attitude in ti respect. It looks at firs sight as our intimate of a men depended entirely on his social qualities. And yet such attitude woulbe wrong. It can easely be seen that all the valuable achievements, material, spiritual, and moral which w e receive from societyhave been brought about in th countless generations by creative individual. Someone once discoverd the use if fire, someone the cultivation of edible lants, and someone the steam engine. Only individual can think, and thereby create new values for socity, nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community comforms. Without cretive personalities able to think and judge independatly, the upvard development of society is as the development unthicably as the develompmet of the individua personalit without he nouirishing soilmof the community. The health of socity thus depends quite as much of the independance of the idndiviuals composing it as on their close social cohesion. It has rightly been sid that the every basis of Graeco-European-American culture, and in particular of its brilliant flovering in Italin Renaisance, which poor an end to the stagnation of the midieval Europe, has been the liberation and comparative isolation of the individual. Let as now consider the times in which we live. How does society fare, how the individuall ? Th eopulation of the civilized countries is extremely dense as compered with formre times; Europe todaday contains about three times as many people as it did hundred years ago. But the number of leading personalities have decreased out of all prroportion, Only a fev people are known to the masess as individuals, through teir creative achievements, Organization has to some extent taken the place of leading personalities, particularly in the thecnical sphere, but also to a very perceptible extend in the scietific. The lack of outstanding figures is particuraly striking in the domain of art. Pinting and music have definitly degenerated and largerly lost they popular appeal. In politics not only are leaders lacking, but the inempendance of spirit and the sense of justice of the citizen have to a great extnt declaind. The democratic parlamentarian regimes, which is based od such independance, has in many places bee shaken; dictatorships have srung up and are tolerated, because men's sense of the dignity and the rights of the individua is no longer strong enough. In two weeks the sheepliked masses of any country can be worked up by the newspepers into such a state of exited fury tha men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid end of a few intersted parties. Compusory military service seems to me the most disgrafull symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankin is suffering today. No wonder there is no lack of prophets who prophesy the early eclipse of our civilization. I am not one of these pessimistes. I belive tht better times are coming. Let me briefly state my reasons for such confidence. In my oppinion, the present manifestations of decadence are explained by the fact that economic and tehnologic developmennts have highly intesified the strugle for existence, greatly to the detriment of the free development of the individual. But the development of tecnology means that less and less work is needed for the individual for the sadisfaction of the community's needs.A planned division of labor is becoming more and more of a crying security of the individual.