Einstein expressed himself optimistically, not to do homage to an organization artificially formed, but to extol the world-wide mastery of intellect. "Even if international congresses were to be swept away," he said, "international co-operation would not be abolished, as it effects itself automatically." I should venture to assert that if all these congresses were to cease, we should not even have cause to fear that there would be an appreciable diminution in the combined effort of research. If certain developments are hindered by political conditions, it is only due to the resulting economic hardships affecting individuals in their work and robbing them of their intellectual freedom. The real friends of Truth have always clung together, and do so actually now; indeed, many feel the tie to be closer than that connecting them to their own country. In spite of all obstacles and boundaries they will never cease to find contact with one another! CHAPTER XI EINSTEIN'S LIFE AND PERSONALITY WE know from the biographies of great thinkers that they seldom personify the character of a dramatic ideal. They are not heroes of fiction who pass through complex experiences and struggle with mysterious problems of existence that may unduly excite the imagination of observers. Whoever follows their development remarks in the majority of cases the predominance of the inner life, the course of which is discoverable only by study of their works, no clue being given in the confusion of ordinary exterior manifestations. An eminent man of thought, whose energies are concentrated on mental effort, rarely finds time to present in addition an interesting figure in the epic sense. The poet who moulds his forms from life finds little scope in him as a model, and only in exceptional cases has he succeeded in idealizing the savant in a work of art. It would be a fruitless undertaking to treat Einstein's life as one of these exceptional cases. It is possible to trace the various phases of his development, yet neither the writer nor the reader must disguise from himself the fact that such outlines give only the external picture of the man and chronological events of importance. Nevertheless, a book of which he forms the theme cannot pass over the task of giving his _curriculum vitæ_. And if it should partly appear aphoristic and disjointed, it must be borne in mind that this account originated from conversations and scraps of conversation that touched on various episodes of his life, according as they had a bearing on the subject under discussion.