himself up quietly and freely to what is presented, but makes no special effort to assimilate experiences to which his being does not spontaneously react. There would be no meaning in seeking to mark off the limits of his receptivity in accordance with this, and to tell him that it is too limited, and that it should be enlarged, and that he should not regard as an opinionated exaggeration what appears to others to be a deep and mighty revelation, or seems to be possessed of divine sweetness. He would be able to point out that even in the case of masters of the musical art a change of faith was not a rare occurrence, and that they learned anew, or rejected what they once idolized, and very often found no permanent haven in their own faith. Whoever, like Einstein, gives himself up to the simply contemplative, and feels no impulse towards sensationalism, is spared the task of learning afresh, and finds still one world left for him even if many other worlds are inaccessible. To mention only the main features, then, neither Beethoven as a composer of symphonies, nor Richard Wagner, denote the pinnacles of music for him; he could live without the Ninth Symphony, but not without Beethoven's ensemble music. The number of composers and compositions which are not a necessity of life for him is very considerable. It includes the majority of romanticists, the erotically inclined school of Chopin and Schumann, which revels in sensation, and, as already mentioned, the neo-German dramatic composers. He has much objective admiration for them, yet he does not conceal the fact that he also feels lively opposition in the gamut of his sensations. He regards the properly modern productions as interesting phenomena, and has various degrees of disapproval for them, extending to complete aversion. It costs him an effort to hear an opera of Wagner, and when he has done so, he returns home bearing with him the _leitmotiv_ of Meister Eckhard: "The lust of creatures is intermingled with bitterness." In general he seems to take up approximately the point of view of Rossini. Wagner gives him wonderful moments, followed, however, by periods of acute emotional distress. I need hardly add that I myself, who confess to being an ultra-Wagnerite, never strove in my conversations with Einstein to make my opinion prevail against his. For I am deeply convinced that in this matter there is no question of right and wrong, and that every musical valuation represents no more than an accidental judgment dependent on one's own nature, entirely egocentric and thus objectively of no account.