Einstein letters up for sale

LONDON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Five letters from Albert Einstein, four of them discussing Russia's position in the post-World War II world, are going on the auction block in London.

Bloomsbury Auctions has scheduled the sale for Thursday, The Guardian reported.

The letters on Russia were written to Walter Marseille, a psychoanalyst and advocate of world government.

"In my view it is much better, both morally and practically, to attempt to bring about a state of affairs in which the Russians, out of pure self-interest, find it preferable to give up their separatist position," Einstein wrote in the third letter in the series.

The typewritten letters are going on sale as a single lot.

The fifth letter is a handwritten response to Adrien Wils, a member of the public who wrote Einstein criticizing the theory of relativity. In his answer, Einstein referred to the idea that relativity is hard to understand as "twaddle."

In May, an Einstein letter that calls religious faith a "product of human weakness" sold for 170,000 pounds or almost $300,000, a record for Einstein's letters.