Einstein remarks to Viereck, in
George Sylvester Viereck, _Glimpses of the Great_ (1930), on 372-374
The library analogy is also in
Jammer, Max. 1999. _Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology_ (USA: Princeton University Press), 279pp., 48,
who obtained the remark from
D. Brian, _Einstein– A Life_ (Wiley, New York, 1966), p. 186,
who obtained the remark from Viereck.
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“I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world.”

“Do you believe in God, the God of Spinoza?”

“I presume your question is inspired by my message in reply to an American friend, informing me that I had been attacked as an atheist by a distinguished ecclesiastic.
My reply was not intended for publication.
No one,” he smiled amusedly to himself— “except an American— could think of sending a man a telegram asking him:
‘Do you believe in God?’”

I laughed guiltily.

“I am afraid, Professor, my own method is at times equally high-handed.
I put a pistol up to a man’s breast and ask him, not for his watch, but for his philosophy of life.
My victims squirm, but my system works nine times out of ten.
Every man has a philosophy of life.
But he is not, as a rule, equipped to express it succinctly.
My question compels him to think and to clarify his convictions.”

“Your question,” Einstein replied, “is the most difficult in the world.
It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no.
I am not an Atheist.
I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist.
The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.

“May I not” he added after a pause, “reply with a parable?
The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe.
We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library, whose walls arc covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues.
The child knows that someone must have written those books.
It does not know who or how.
It does not understand the languages in which they are written.

“The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God.
We see a universe marvellously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly.
Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.

“I am fascinated by Spinoza’s Pantheism.
I admire even more,” Einstein continued, “his contributions to modern thought.
Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”

“Has Spinoza precursors in India?”

“Most philosophers, my dear Mr. Viereck, are indebted to the Hindus.
Spinoza’s contribution springs from his own brain.
The Hindus ignore the body in their philosophy.
They could not, therefore, conceive of the essential unity between body and soul.”

“To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?”

“As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud.
I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.”

“Have you read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus?”

“Emil Ludwig’s _Jesus_” Einstein replied, “is shallow.
Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful.
No man can dispose of Christianity with a _bon mot_.”

“You accept the historical existence of Jesus?”

“Unquestionably.
No one can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus.
His personality pulsates in every word.
No myth is filled with such life.
How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus.
Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”

“Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets.”

“No man,” Einstein replied, “can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor, that His sayings are beautiful.
Even if some of them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as He.”

“Gilbert Chesterton told me that, according to a Catholic writer in a Dublin Review, your theory of relativity merely confirms the cosmology of Thomas Aquinas.”

“I have not,” Einstein replied, “read all the works of Thomas Aquinas, but I am delighted if I have reached the same conclusions as the comprehensive mind of that great Catholic scholar.”

“Do you look upon yourself as a German or as a Jew?”
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