474 JOURNEY S END
and on questions of principle regarding the quantum theory. His published work
during that period includes eight papers on unified field theory; a contribution to
Dialectica, written at the instigation of Pauli, in which he explained his views on
quantum mechanics [E2]; and his necrology, as he called it, the important essay
entitled 'Autobiographisches' [E3]. On rare occasions, he would give a seminar
about his work at the Institute. In order to avoid curiosity-seekers, especially the
press, announcements of such talks were made only by word of mouth. The sem-
inars themselves were lucid, inconclusive, and other-worldly. Those were the days
of striking advances in quantum electrodynamics and unexpected discoveries of
new particles, days in which the gap between Einstein's physics and the physics
of younger generations was ever widening.
At no time did Einstein immerse himself more in problems of policy and politics
than during the years following the end of the Second World War. 'The war is
won but peace is not,' he told an audience in December 1945 [E4]. He regarded
the post-war world as dangerously unstable and believed that new modes of gov-
ernance were called for. 'The first atomic bomb destroyed more than the city of
Hiroshima. It also exploded our inherited, outdated political ideas' [E5]. As early
as September 1945, he suggested that 'the only salvation for civilization and the
human race lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations
founded upon law' [E6]. In his opinion, such a world government should be given
powers of decision which would be binding on the member states. He was skep-
tical of the United Nations because it lacked such powers. World government
remained a theme with variations to which he returned time and again in his
remaining years. He repeated it in 1950 in a message 'on the moral obligation of
a scientist': 'Mankind can be saved only if a supranational system, based on law,
is created to eliminate the methods of brute force' [E7]. That, he believed, is what
man should strive for, even if the environment were hostile to such ideals. 'While
it is true that an inherently free and scrupulous person may be destroyed, such an
individual can never be enslaved or made to serve as a blind tool' [E7]. In several
instances,* celebrated in their day, he advocated civil disobedience. 'It is my belief
that the problem of bringing peace to the world on a supranational basis will be
solved only by employing Gandhi's method on a large scale' [E8]. 'What ought
the minority of intellectuals to do against [the] evil [of suppressing freedom of
teaching]? Frankly, I can see only the revolutionary way of non-cooperation in
the sense of Gandhi's' [E9]. These statements, dating from the ugly McCarthy
period, were rather uncommon for that time.
Einstein further believed in the necessity 'to advance the use of atomic energy
*In a letter concerning a conscientious objector [Nl] and in another one to William Frauenglass, a
high-school teacher who had been called to appear before the House Committee on Un-American
Activities [N2].