D O C U M E N T 1 1 3 A U G U S T 1 9 2 0 2 4 3
judgment: but I number among those who have long followed this theory’s devel-
opment with profoundest intellectual engagement and I know how very much pa-
tient, persistent, and professional work and theoretical effort is concentrated and
incorporated within it. That even this work, in which anyone with the slightest
sense for intellectual merit could find pleasure and encouragement, has now been
dragged down into the sphere of slander and political intrigue is deeply
humiliating.[3]
On the other hand, though, I am firmly convinced that all these
things cannot touch you personally in any way and won’t divert you from your path
for a single moment. So neither do I believe the rumor, which was also represented
in the last issue of the Berliner Tageblatt, that by reason of these last events you had
taken the decision to leave
Germany.[4]
German science as a whole obviously has
nothing to do with attacks by some political rabble-rousers and individual mono-
maniac scientists. If you let yourself be influenced by them in any way, it would
come down to giving these attacks quite undeserving importance. The more condi-
tions here worsen, the more we need the men who guide us about how to return to
critical rationalness and staid, factual inquiry. Now I am glad that my little work on
relativity theory is out of press and is just about to
appear;[5]
—thus I hope to be able
to do my part in contributing at least a little toward checking the mental confusion
about these things that still seems to exist in so many minds and seems to be delib-
erately exploited by some quarters.
In expressing my sincere respect, I am yours very truly,
Ernst Cassirer
113. From Ina Dickmann
Charlottenburg, 16 Eosander St., 28 August 1920
Esteemed Professor,
Following an inner compulsion, a layman would also like to write you a few
words.
I listened to the talks organized by the “Syndicate of German
Scientists,”[1]
deeply ashamed of having to witness that the method of political election cam-
paigns is now being used to bludgeon undesirable thinkers to death. I have never
seen German representatives of science sink down so low as during that evening.
How much I would have liked to shake your hand, but as a stranger I did not dare
to approach.