''On an excursion to Todelo in 1923, Einstein asked Ortega y Gasset how an abstract idea like relativity could be of interest to the masses. Ortega thought the mass appeal had to do with the conjunction of a new cosmological theory with the post-World War I loss of faith in European society: 'In such a circumstance there appeared your work, in which laws are promulgated for the stars, which obey them. The human masses have always perceived astronomical phenomena as religious. In them, science is conjoined with mythology and the scientific genius who masters them acquires a magical halo. You, Sr. Einstein, are the new magus, the confidant of the stars.'''
In Glick, ''Cultural Issues and Relativity,'' in The Comparative Reception of Relativity, pp. 392‐393.
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