Einstein's eulogy of the Ethics of Spinoza

Einstein (1879-1955) admired Benedictus Spinoza. On November 2, 1920, he visited Spinoza’s house in Rijnsburg (near Leiden, Holland). His signature is in the guestbook. When Einstein was once asked what his views on God were, he replied, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." Incidentally, Spinoza is mentioned more than once in Einstein's texts.

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Signature of Einstein in guestbook of Spinoza's house in Rijnsburg

There is also a eulogy of Spinoza's Ethics written by Einstein. Perhaps it was written on his visit to Rijnsburg or shortly afterwards. The poem testifies to his interest and admiration for Spinoza and his Magnum Opus.

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Zu Spinozas Ethik
 
Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann
Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann.
Doch fürcht ’ich, dass er bleibt allein
Mit seinem strahlenden Heiligenschein.
 
So einen armen kleinen Wicht
Den führst Du zu der Freiheit nicht.
Der amor dei lässt ihn kalt
Das Leben zieht ihn mit Gewalt.
 
Die Höhe bringt ihn nichts als Frost
Vernunft is  für ihn schale Kost
Besitz und Weib und Ehr' und Haus
Das füllt ihn von oben bis unten aus.
 
Du musst schon gütig mir verzeih’n
Wenn hier mir fällt Münchhausen ein,
Dem als Einzigen das Kunststück gedieh’n
Sich am eigenen Zopf aus dem Sumpf zu zieh’n.
 
Du denkst sein Beispiel zeiget uns eben
Was dies Lehre dem Menschen kann geben.
Vertraue nicht dem tröstlichen Schein:
Zum Erhabenen muss man geboren sein.

On the Ethics of Spinoza.

How I love this noble man
more than words can say.
I fear though he will be all alone
in the beams of his sacred halo.
 
Do not put a poor little fella
On the sroad that leads to freedom.
Amor Dei does not appeal to such a person,
earthly life keeps him under a spell.
 
Height gives him nothing but frost,
Intellect is tasteless food to him,
property, wife, honour, and house,
fill him from head to toe.
 
Forgive me for thinking
on Münchhausen, 
the only one who understood the art
to hoist himself out of the swamp by his wig.
 
You think, his example teaches us
the Ethics can offer man a grip.

But do not rely on appearances:
for the higher one must be born.

​(© translation. Willy Schuermans - 16.12.20)

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Explanation

In his poetry Albert Einstein emphasizes the unique and superhuman thought achievement that Spinoza accomplished in writing down his Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata. No one will be able to imitate him, says Einstein. Those who think they can follow in Spinoza's footsteps will likely return from a bare journey. In the last stanza, Einstein suggests that for the higher spiritual life one must be born, understand, be determined.

First stanza
Einstein loves Spinoza. He has no words for his affection ... this shortage of words is an experience known to everyone. Spinoza had to deal with it occasionally and spoke of a ‘shortage of words.’
Einstein, however, fears that Spinoza, as a thinker and as a human being who lived by his teachings, made an exceptional and hard to match achievement.

Second stanza
An average person (for Spinoza this is a member of the masses, the crowd, the people) cannot tempt you to a higher spiritual life. Intellectual love for God (amor dei intellectualis) leaves him cold and does not belong in the slightest to his sphere of interest, he is shackled by the materiality of life.

Third stanza
Ordinary people are not interested in a higher spiritual life: it gives them shivers and leaves them freezing cold. Making room for reason and reason in life is not an option: they are usually guided by fantasy and sentiment. The life of the common man revolves around property, wife, honour, and home: a reference to wealth, sensuality, in the first part of his Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (Ref. §1- §16, Bruder).

Fourth stanza
This situation reminds Einstein of the Baron von Münchhausen, an imaginative novelist who experienced the most wonderful adventures, described in 1785 by Rudolf Erich Raspe. Einstein finds his Münchhausen association somewhat strange and therefore asks the reader for an excuse: to mention the lie baron in the same breath with Spinoza, a passionate truth-seeker is indeed a bit daring. But Einstein simply wants to emphasize that Spinoza's life and achievements in thinking are just as exceptional and (almost) as impossible as the Münchhausen story that is alluded to.

Fifth stanza
Anyone who now quickly concludes that the teachings of Spinoza can also lift people out of the swamp of life should not miss out: not everyone is reserved for the higher, i.e., not everyone is suitable for setting the true and highest good as the ultimate goal of life. Spinoza did that himself, but not without effort. Anyone can read about it in the above section of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.
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The last line of Einstein's poem echoes the very last (not very encouraging) sentence of Spinoza's Ethics, a sentence he (slightly adapted) from Cicero (1st century BC):

SED OMNIA PRAECLARA TAM DIFFICILIA QUAM RARA SUNT.
(Everything worthwhile is as hard as it is rare)

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