D O C U M E N T 2 2 J U LY 1 9 2 5 6 9 ganisation internationale du travail scientifique, et servir l’idéal de la Société des Nations en amenant peu à peu,—progressivement,—les savants du monde entier à se rapprocher les uns des autres. Pour ce qui est de l’Institut offert à la Commission par le gouvernement français, il a été décidé par notre Commission d’abord, puis par la Société des Nations, qu’il serait rigoureusement et pleinement international.[5] Telle était d’ailleurs déjà, cer- tainement, l’intention du gouvernement français en l’offrant. Si cette création s’inspirait (comme certains, d’après ce que vous m’écrivez, paraissent le craindre) d’une pensée d’intérêt national, on ne comprendrait pas la froideur de l’accueil qui a été fait en France au projet. Vous savez que pendant six mois le Sénat a tenu ce projet en suspens —il vient seulement de le voter.[6] La vérité est qu’on a vu dans cette création d’un Institut international ce qui s’y trouve réellement, un cadeau fait par la France à la Société des Nations (et cela, dit-on, à un moment la France n’a guère les moyens de faire des cadeaux). Croyez, je vous prie, mon cher Collègue, à mes sentiments les plus dévoués H. Bergson ALS. [34 814]. [1]Bergson spent the summer months at L’Echappée, his villa with a view of the Mont Blanc, which he had built in 1914 in Saint-Cergue (Mossé-Bastide 1955, p. 46). [2]He suffered from debilitating degenerative rheumatism (see King 2015, p. 71). [3]The ICIC, of which Bergson was the chairman. Its sixth session was to be held in Geneva on 27– 30 July. A week prior to this document, the third assembly of the Conseil international de recherches had met in Brussels to discuss the continued exclusion of German and Austrian scholars from inter- national scientific associations (see Doc. 58, note 11). [4]Einstein had been invited to join the ICIC in mid-May 1922 (see Eric Drummond to Einstein, 17 May 1922 [Vol. 13, Doc. 192]). The issue of whether Einstein represented Germany or Switzerland on the committee was quite complex. Einstein himself displayed ambiguity on the matter, claiming, on the one hand, that he was the only member “from Germany” (“aus Deutschland”) who would be acceptable to the committee, and, on the other, that the reasons for resigning from the committee in July 1922 were his Swiss citizenship, his Jewish nationality, and the inability to be seen as a legitimate representative by his fellow German intellectuals. Gilbert Murray, vice-chairman of the ICIC, argued that individual members of the committee did not represent their nations but rather were chosen for their qualifications. At the time of his joining the committee in May 1922, Einstein viewed himself as a Swiss citizen only. After winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in late 1922, the issue of whether Einstein was a German or a Swiss citizen became a matter of interest to the authorities of both coun- tries. It was only in early 1924 that Einstein assented to the view of the Prussian government that he had become a Prussian citizen in 1914 (see Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 18 June 1922 [Vol. 13, Doc. 241] Gilbert Murray to Einstein, 17 July 1922 [Vol. 13, Doc. 296] Einstein to Gilbert Murray, 25 July 1922 [Vol. 13, Doc. 309] “Note on Prussian Citizenship,” 7 February 1924 [Vol. 14, Doc. 209]). [5]Einstein was originally opposed to the IIIC being located in Paris, yet his concerns were subse- quently temporarily assuaged (see Einstein to Betty Neumann, 6 and 8 August 1924 [Vol. 14. Doc. 300]). On the background of the founding of the institute, see Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, 27 October 1924 (Vol. 14, Doc. 348), note 4. [6]The French senate had approved the establishment of the IIIC the previous week, on 8 July (see Renoliet 1999, p. 69).
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