Well he went back later but he did have a nervous break down after something that happened at the University of Chicogo. The story is about him taking his son on a cross country motorcycle trip when he was starting to show signs of mental illness.
His depression left him catatonic and they had to give him electric shook or they were going to lose him. In addition to trying to sort out his son's problems he is also trying to remember who he was before. It has it's little gems, I always liked this one:
In the temple of science are many mansions -- and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them there.
Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier but there would still be some men of both present and past times left inside -- . If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers -- those who have found favor with the angel -- are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other than the hosts of the rejected.
What has brought them to the temple -- no single answer will cover -- escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from his noisy cramped surroundings into the silence of the high mountains where the eye ranges freely through the still pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.
The passage is from a 1918 speech by a young German scientist named Albert Einstein.
He eventually became a Buddhist and it's not a serious philosophical work. I've seen it in major libraries under 'Travel', that ought to tell you something. I do think the quote I originally shared with you emphasizes that limited use of science as epistemology and the need to find deeper answers elsewhere. Science is great at what it does but like all philosophy it has borders and boundaries. That's why I wish these scientific apologists would quit passing off their skepticism of Biblical doctrines like creation as scientific. It's more like a pretense then a standard of proof.
Grace and peace,
Mark
