Princeton, 11 November 1940

On the hopeless existence of his son Eduard, and on his own 'stubborn and undeterred' scientific work.

Besso has sent Einstein a poem by his younger son Eduard (who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia some ten years previously): 'Of course I immediately recognise my boy's style and very much treasure his aphorisms [Gedankensplitter] and their acutely penetrating expression ... It is a thousand pities for the boy that he must spend his life without any hope of a normal existence. Since the insulin treatment finally came to nothing I no longer think of medical assistance ... I think it on the whole better to leave nature to take its course without interference'. Einstein is always happy to hear Besso's news, and hopes that the present situation in Switzerland (its unmolested neutrality during the war) will endure: 'For myself I pursue my scientific goal stubborn and undeterred, sticking to the path to which instinct leads me. I believe that in spite of its important successes, the path founded in principle on statistics is not the right one'. The letter ends with an expression of satisfaction, apparently about the course of the war: 'It seems to me to my satisfaction that God's mills are at last slowly beginning to grind'.