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Einstein, Albert - The Rules and Systems of the Universe
Identifier
002974
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Einstein - Science, Philosophy and Religio
Proceedings from the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941
Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover rules which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements.
It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusions.
But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence.
By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man.