Science and Civilisation (Albert Einstein, 1933)

Table of Contents

Text of the speech Albert Einstein delivered on October 3rd, 1933 in the Royal Albert Hall, London, during a meeting organised by the Refugee Assitance Fund.¹ The lines in bold are the ones broadcasted in a British Paramound Newsreel (see British Pathe archive) a few days later. For historical background: click here

Einstein Royal Albert Hall, 1933 – Acadademics, scholars, spiritual leaders, and political activists, united against Hitler. Recognisable on the first row: Ernest Rutherford (physicst, director of the Academic Assistance Council ), Austen Chamberlain (brother of Neville), Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil (the Bishop of Exeter – with beard and cross).

Text pronounced by Albert Einstein

I am glad that you have given me the opportunity of expressing to you here my deep sense of gratitude as a man, as a good European, and as a Jew. Through your well-organised work of relief you have done a great service not only to innocent scholars who have been persecuted, but also to humanity and science. You have shown that you and the British people have remained faithful to the traditions of tolerance and justice which for centuries you have upheld with pride. It is in times of economic distress such as we experience everywhere today, one sees very clearly the strength of the moral forces that live in a people. Let us hope that a historian delivering judgment in some future period when Europe is politically and economically united, will be able to say that in our days the liberty and honour of this Continent was saved by its Western nations, which stood fast in hard times against the temptations of hatred and oppression; and that Western Europe defended successfully the liberty of the individual, which has brought us the advance of knowledge and invention – liberty without which life to a self-respecting man is not worth living.
It cannot be my task to-day to act as judge of the conduct of a nation which for many years has considered me as her own ; perhaps it is an idle task to judge in times when action counts. To-day, the questions which concern us are : how can we save mankind and its spiritual acquisitions of which we are the heirs? How can one save Europe from a new disaster?
It cannot be doubted that the world crisis and the suffering and privations of the people resulting from the crisis are in some measure responsible for the dangerous upheavals of which we are the witness. In such periods discontent breeds hatred, and hatred leads to acts of violence and revolution, and often even to war. Thus distress and evil produce new distress and new evil. Again the leading statesmen are burdened with tremendous responsibilities just the same as twenty years ago. May they succeed through timely agreement to establish a condition of unity and clarity of international obligations in Europe so that for every State a war-like adventure must appear as utterly hopeless. But the work of statesmen can succeed only if they are backed ·by the serious and determined will of the people.
We are concerned not merely with the technical problem of securing and maintaining peace, but also with the important task of education and enlightenment. If we want to resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom we must keep clearly before us what is at stake, and what we owe to that freedom which our ancestors have won for us after hard struggles.
Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur and no Lister. There would be no comfortable houses for the mass of the people, no railway, no wireless, no protection against epidemics, no cheap books, no culture and no enjoyment of art for all. There would be no machines to relieve the people from the arduous labour needed for the production of the essential necessities of life. Most people would lead a dull life of slavery just as under the ancient despotisms of Asia. It is only men who are free, who create the inventions and intellectual works which to us moderns make life worth while.
[… about scientist working quietly as lighthousekeepers… ]
Shall we worry over the fact that we are living in a time of danger and want ? I think not. Man like every other animal is by nature indolent. If nothing spurs him on, then he will hardly think, and will behave from habit like an automaton. I am no longer young and can, therefore, say, that as a child and as a young man I experienced that phase — when a young man thinks only about the trivialities of personal existence, and talks like his fellows and behaves like them. Only with difficulty can one see what is really behind such a conventional mask. For owing to habit and speech his real personality is, as it were, wrapped in cotton wool.
How different it is to-day ! In the lightning flashes of our tempestuous times one sees human beings and things in their nakedness. Every action and every human being reveal clearly their aims, powers and weaknesses, and also their passions. Routine becomes of no avail under the swift change of conditions; conventions fall away like dry husks.
Men in their distress begin to think about the failure of economic practice and about the necessity of political combinations which are supernational. Only through perils and upheavals can Nations be brought to further developments. May the present upheavals lead to a better world.
Above and beyond this valuation of our time we have this further duty, the care for what is eternal and highest amongst our possessions, that which gives to life its import and which we wish to hand on to our children purer and richer than we received it from our forebears. Towards these purposes you have affectionately contributed with your blessed services.

The programme of the event

The organisers

William Beveridge

The refugee crisis caused by the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was a major test which few if any states outside Germany passed with distinction. It was left to a handful of individuals working through a number of hastily constructed organisations to rise to the occasion. One of these was the Academic Assistance Council (AAC) formed shortly after the Nazis announced their intention to ban Jews and other “undesirables” from German public life. Although many made a key contribution to the work of the AAC – including one remarkable woman, Tess Simpson and the brilliant Hungarian physicist, Leo Szilard – it was the then LSE Director, William Beveridge, who played the central role in turning the Council into an effective organisation. From 1933 to 1938, Beveridge was the heart and soul of the British effort to rescue academics. Beveridge provided his version of the events leading to this event, in his 1959 book, A Defence of Free Learning. A fine summary of this organisation and the role he played, can be read in an article by Prof. Michael Cox on the blog of the London School of Economics:

There exists also a publication in which similar thoughts are expressed. I don’t know the exact occassion, but the content of it suggests that the ‘Friends of Europe’ did ask Einstein to elaborate on his speech for publication. In the first part the same line “without freedom there would have been no Shakespeare…’ But the development afterwards is more political, analytical than the speech. I published the text on a separate page (some photo’s of the pamphlet below – found at the dynasty autions website, 2024, sold for $ 440).

Title and text are copied from the programme, kept in the Bodleian library, and shared publicly by CARA on their website as a PDF. The text is also published by Einstein himself in ‘Out of my later years’, ch. 24. The speech in Albert Einstein, Europe’s Danger, Europe’s Hope, Issue 4 of Friends of Europe, London 1933, is similar, but not the same. It seems a more political elaboration, for a select audience. Was there another meeting in London, on the same date?