If A Writer Is Convinced That He

He Was A Physicist, More Precisely An Astrophysicist, Diligent And Eager But Without Illusions: The Truth Lay Beyond, Inaccessible To Our Telescopes, Accessible To The Initiates. This Was A Long Road Which He Was Traveling With Effort, Wonderment, And Profound Joy. Physics Was Prose: Elegant Gymnastics For The Mind, Mirror Of Creation, The Key To Man's Dominion Over The Planet; But What Is The Stature Of Creation, Of Man And The Planet? His Road Was Long And He Had Barely Started Up It, But I Was His Disciple: Did I Want To Follow Him?

Conquering Matter Is To Understand It, And Understanding Matter Is Necessary To Understanding The Universe And Ourselves: And That Therefore Mendeleev's Periodic Table, Which Just During Those Weeks We Were Learning To Unravel, Was Poetry.

Auschwitz Is Outside Of Us, But It Is All Around Us, In The Air. The Plague Has Died Away, But The Infection Still Lingers And It Would Be Foolish To Deny It. Rejection Of Human Solidarity, Obtuse And Cynical Indifference To The Suffering Of Others, Abdication Of The Intellect And Of Moral Sense To The Principle Of Authority, And Above All, At The Root Of Everything, A Sweeping Tide Of Cowardice, A Colossal Cowardice Which Masks Itself As Warring Virtue, Love Of Country And Faith In An Idea.

The Work Of Bestial Degradation, Begun By The Victorious Germans, Had Been Carried To Its Conclusion By The Germans In Defeat.

A Man Who Would Mutilate Himself Is Well Damned, Isn't He?