Einstein was attending a music salon in Germany before the second world war, with the violinist S. Suzuki. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientists do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way peace and security which he can not find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience. The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment.
Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals.