DOCS.
623,
624
SEPTEMBER
1918
651
Address
until the
first Oct. Bad Rothenfelde.
Teutoburger
Forest. Dietrich
House;
from
1
Oct.
on,
Halle-on-S[aale],
15
Reichardt St.
P.S. If
you consent,
the addition
to
the
four-page program
will
be
changed
correspondingly,
of
course.
You would
probably
have to be listed
either
as a
representative
of
mathematical
mechanics
or
of
general mechanics,
or as a
repre-
sentative of
the
inorganic
sciences beside
P.
Volkmann. Please advise
me on
this.
Note at
head
of
document:
“Dictation. Confidential.”
624. To
Eduard
Study
[Berlin,]
25 September 1918
Highly
esteemed
Colleague,
Many
thanks
for
the
amicable
letter.[1]
I do not
yet
have
your
“Kinematics”[2]
and
would therefore
be
very pleased
to
have
it.
I
am
supposed
to tell
you
my
reservations?[3]
By emphasizing them,
it
would
appear
that
I wanted
to
pick
holes
in
everything.
But it
is
not
so
serious because
I
don’t
feel
very
comfortable
or
at
home
with
any
of
the
“isms.”
It
always
seemed to
me
as
though
such
an
ism
was
powerful only
as long as
it
fed off
the weakness of its
counter-ism;
once
the latter
is
struck
dead and
it
is
alone
on
the
deserted
stage,
it then
proves
to be
just
as
weak-kneed.
So
here
goes
with
the
cavilling!
“The
physical
world
is
real.” This
is
supposed
to
be
the
basic
hypothesis.
What does
“hypothesis”
mean
here? For
me,
a
hypothesis
is
a
statement whose
truth
is temporarily assumed, whose
meaning, however,
must
be
beyond
all
doubt.
The above statement
seems
to
me
intrinsically
senseless
though,
like
when
some-
one
says:
“The
physical
world
is
cock-a-doodle-doo.”
It
appears
to
me
that
“real”
is
an
empty, meaningless category
(drawer)
whose immense
importance
lies
only
in
that
I
place
certain
things
inside
it
and not certain others.
It
is
true
that
this classification
is
not
a
random
one
but........now
I
see
you
grinning
and
expecting
me
to fall into
pragmatism so
that
you
can
then
bury
me
alive.[4]
However,
I
prefer
to do
as
Mark
Twain,
by
suggesting
that
you
end
the horror
story
yourself, as you
please.[5]
Real
and
unreal
seem
to
me
to be
like
right
and
left.