behavior will pour into rational human relations, authority will have
reason to justify its existence and social reaction will have reason to
claim that it is right. I think finally, that the little man, who is just at the
point to climb to power in the world, should look at himself first, what
he never does and what he even hates to be reminded of. It is no use
pitying him. He must know what he is doing, just as any teacher or
engineer must know what he is doing or what he is doing wrong.
An accumulator has been shipped to you and is supposed to leave
with the next sailing of the Queen Elizabeth. And a small tube box will
leave by parcel post this week too. I am quite sure that you will not only
enjoy it, but that you will feel objectively much better and healthier if
you use the accumulator regularly.
I am looking forward to your coming. I think you need the rest and
we both need this meeting. I want you to accept my hearty offer to be
my guests during your stay in the U.S. We have a nice cabin for you
and it will be only a pleasure to make your stay as enjoyable as possible.
- • •
Forest Hills, New York
February 6, 1947
My dear Neill:
I feel the need to add a few lines to my letter of yesterday.
My attitude in the matter of the right to criticize, expounded in my
previous letter, may sound to you like an old disappointed man's attitude.
Why not, you may ask, let people gossip and chatter, it does not harm
anyone, and it means an outlet for their pent-up discontentments. I could
agree with you, and I once even did agree with this attitude, hadn't two
facts evolved to tremendous proportions in the meantime.
The first fact is a subjective one: I have to confess that I feel emo
tionally rather worn out after a quarter of a century of an exhausting
struggle to put through most simple and obvious facts. It became obvious
that what is in the way of simple fact getting through to the public is
just the same kind of behavior of people that looks so innocent and so
harmless when you meet it here and there singly. I found out that after
25 years people are "enthusiastic" and "enchanted" by my personality
and my science. But in the general situation of adolescents and their
main misery, practically nothing has changed, because everybody, except
a very few, is chattering and gossiping around and away from it. The
same chattering and gossiping and "being critical" prevents my kind of