Provenance
The real passage behind the popular line
- Work
- Religion and Natural Science (Religion und Naturwissenschaft)
- Delivered
- Lecture, 1937
- Translation
- Frank Gaynor, in Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949)
- Popular wording
- Not found in this translation or in any source located
In any case, we may say in summary that according to what exact natural science teaches us, the entire realm of nature, in which we human beings on our tiny mote of a planet play only an infinitesimally small part, is ruled by definite laws which are independent of the existence of thinking human beings; … Thus, natural science exhibits a rational world order to which nature and mankind are subject, but a world order the inner essence of which is and remains unknowable to us …
Closest genuine wording
From Frank Gaynor’s 1949 translation, between the page markers 180 and 181 in the Internet Archive text. Planck’s German reads “eine vernünftige Weltordnung … der Natur und Menschheit unterworfen sind”: a rational world order, not a “meaningful” one. The popular sentence compresses and rewords this passage.
Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949) at the Internet Archive ↗
How we traced it
- Wikiquote’s Talk page for Planck lists the exact sentence under “Unsourced,” noting it is “widely attributed to Planck on the internet, but with no known citation to a published source” (Talk:Max Planck ↗). It is absent from the main Wikiquote page ↗.
- Quote Investigator’s four Planck articles cover other lines and do not address this one (QI: Max Planck tag ↗).
- An Internet Archive full-text search for “order independent of man’s existence” returns zero hits (search result ↗).
- The 1949 Philosophical Library edition of Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers contains the closest genuine passage, “ruled by definite laws which are independent of the existence of thinking human beings” (Internet Archive full-text hits ↗).
The popular English wording has no identifiable source, so we assert no copyright status for it. The genuine passage it paraphrases comes from Planck’s 1937 lecture. Its English translation by Frank Gaynor was published in 1949 by Philosophical Library, a post-1931 publication that should be treated as in copyright.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Context
Why Planck talked about a world order
Planck gave Religion und Naturwissenschaft as a lecture in 1937 (Vatican Observatory ↗). In it he argued that science and religion do not contradict each other. The passage behind this quote is the scientific half of that argument. Nature obeys laws that would hold even if no thinking humans existed. Those laws form an order that binds nature and humanity alike, but its “inner essence” stays unknowable to us.
The popular paraphrase keeps the first point and changes the second. “Rational” becomes “meaningful,” and Planck’s caveat that the order’s essence is unknowable disappears. That gives the line a more purposive feel than Planck’s own sentence has.
a rational world order to which nature and mankind are subject
The German original
Planck’s German, as reprinted in many collections, says that a lawfulness rules nature “welche unabhängig ist von der Existenz einer denkenden Menschheit,” and that it represents “eine vernünftige Weltordnung … der Natur und Menschheit unterworfen sind” (Internet Archive full-text hits ↗). Gaynor’s 1949 translation renders this closely. The viral version does not.