5000 YEARS HENCE

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20728, 11 February 1939, Page 10

5000 YEARS HENCE

WHAT EINSTEIN THINKS Professor Einstein has sought to describe our age for the benefit of a remote posterity. In a letter addressed to the world of 5000 years hence he records our richness in invention, our command of mechanical power our lack (nevertheless) of economic security and our persistence in warfare, says the Observer, London. Philosophers in exile are not alone n putting a moderate estimate upon their times. Scarcely since tlie Homans abandoned us to the tender mercies of the “ winged hats " has there been such a widespread impression af a world going downhill, our descendants, however (who, we hope, tvill also have proved themselves ascendants , may be somewhat misled J they read too much misery into

Professor Einstein’s account of an existence in which “ the production and distribution of commodities is , entirely unorganised, so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle, in this way suffering for the want of everything." The survival of “ poverty in the midst of plenty ” is, indeed, an accusing paradox. But in sober truth the level of material prosperity is al- ; most everywhere higher than it lias been iri history. Professor Einstein’s disparagement is justified only by the use of perfectionist standards. Psychology of War It does not follow, of course, that, because people are better fed and bet- . ter housed, they are proportionately happier. Happiness is a fraction in which actuality is the numerator and expectation I he denominator. The denominator just now is unusually large, because so many people have adopted the perfectionist standard 4 ana feel that somebody Govern-

ment ’’ for choice) should realise it for them. As fast as their circumstances improve they think of more perfections, and sq the ratio of their discontent remains the same, if they have no other source of happiness 'han “ distribution of commodities,” they have about the same prospect of felicity as Sisyphus with his stone. Professor Einstein is a better mathematician than psychologist, or he would not hold out that, because of the recurrence of war, “anyone who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror." The sources of fear and terror are not external, but infernal. To the natural man hazard is not a depressant. Stevenson, truly said, that if Mr Malock were liable to have his coat-tails pinned to tne wall by a javelin on his way to the publisher’s, he would write no more books on whether life was worth living. The world of 6939 A.D., if it come across Professor Einstein's bulletin. will not give us the benefit of the pathetic fallacy that it seems to invoke.