This dissertation attempts to make a brief assessment of Bertrand Russell as a man and his ideas with his autobiography as the basis. As most other studies on Russell portray him as a mathematician or as a philosopher, no further attempt is made at repetition. On the other hand, the present work is hopefully, designed as a sketch of Russell as a man. In examining his ideas, his works on Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy have been excluded. An attempt will be made here to see, whether his socio-political ideas originate from his real life experiences, which are recorded in his autobiography, and also how Russell who is a mathematician and a philosopher functions as an autobiographer. Russell’s autobiography will be examined for the autobiographical characteristics it carries. It would be examined against a framework of theory gleaned from the studies on the genre made by Susan Nalbantian and John Sturrock. Russell’s biography The Spirit of Solitude by Ray Monk is also used as a reference to examine Russell’s autobiography, which incidentally, is the latest, authentic source of facts concerning Russell’s life. As a major part of the autobiography has been dedicated to record his activities as a socio-political reformer, commentator and an activist, his ideas on Education, Politics, Religion and Ethics expressed in his autobiography will be examined, in the present study. Bertrand Russell’s ideas, especially those related to nuclear disarmament, are highly relevant today when the existence of the human race has become more precarious than it was when Russell wrote his socio-political essays and his autobiography.

This dissertation contains six chapters. Chapter one the Introduction has an outline of Russell’s life, and a brief over-view of the theory of autobiography relevant to this study. Chapter two discusses Russell’s childhood and adolescence, the Pembroke Lodge and its influence on him. Chapter three deals with Russell’s Cambridge days, his marriage with Alys Pearsall Smith and his ideas on Politics, which has its source in his relationship with his grandmother and his first wife Alys. Chapter four traces Russell’s relationship with other women. It also has an overview of Russell’s ideas on Marriage, Sex, Divorce and Religion. Chapter five is devoted to Russell’s relationship with his second wife Dora Black and the school they founded together. It also has a brief survey of Russell’s ideas on Education. Chapter six forms the conclusion of the study. This is followed by the list of works cited. In the chapters, the name "Bertrand" has been used to refer to the past self of the autobiographer and "Russell" to indicate the autobiographer wherever possible.

Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872, to Viscount Amberley and Kate Stanley (Monk 4). More than a hundred and twenty five years have gone by since the birth of this child who was to become, to say the least, a widely known philosopher, mathematician and a political activist. His career was exceptionally long, and during this highly productive period he published over ninety books on subjects ranging from Mathematics to Marriage and Ethics. His name and ideas are known to a world wide reading fraternity and his philosophy is accepted as one of the most significant of the twentieth century.

Russell’s ancestors were not themselves undistinguished. His grandfather had twice been Prime Minister of Britain in the latter half of the last century. His father was John Russell, Viscount Amberley, the eldest son of Lord John Russell. His mother Kate Stanley was daughter of the second Lord Stanley. Both of them were popular through their support of radical movements of their time as female suffrage and birth control. Unfortunately, both of them died before he turned three. Lady Amberley died from diphtheria that she contracted while nursing her daughter who also died of the same disease. After the death of his daughter and his wife Kate, Viscount Amberley had no will to live. He grew gradually weaker and wasted himself away being in the clutches of bronchitis. He died at home on 9 January 1876, just eighteen months after the death of his wife and daughter.

In his death will Viscount Amberley had entrusted the education and bringing up of his two children, Frank and Bertrand with two atheists (Monk 10). His grandparents were scandalised when they learnt that these two people were unfit to be the guardians of their grandchildren. Frank and Bertrand were thus brought to Pembroke Lodge, the home of their Russell grandparents. Here Bertrand was to spend the whole of his childhood. While at Pembroke Lodge, which was in Richmond Park, young Bertrand, was educated by governesses and tutors as well as his grandmother, his Aunt Agatha and his Uncle Rollo. Bertrand’s early life was one of loneliness. Frank was sent away to a boarding school and he was at Pembroke Lodge only for vacation. None of his tutors was allowed to stay too long lest they should develop an intimacy with young Bertrand. After his primary education, Bertrand was sent to an Army Crammer in London to prepare for an entrance examination that was necessary to study at Cambridge. Bertrand performed well at the examination and obtained admission at Cambridge with a minor scholarship. While reading his paper, Alfred North Whitehead who was his examiner saw that Bertrand had more ability than most other candidates (Russell 1: 56). It was Whitehead who recommended Russell for the scholarship. More than that he encouraged the senior students to take Bertrand into their fold. During his Cambridge days, Bertrand enjoyed the intellectual debates with his friends. He could not have this activity at Pembroke Lodge. Bertrand’s shyness and priggishness began to fade and he realised that he was intellectually superior to most other students of his time.

Russell completed his Mathematical Tripos in 1893. Although his intellectual capacity as a student was well known, he did not achieve the top place, instead he became the seventh wrangler. Bertrand Russell says that his failure to gain a higher place was because he found the way Mathematics was taught at Cambridge unsatisfactory.

Russell realised that foundational work in any branch of learning requires knowledge of Philosophy. Thus, he continued to stay on at Cambridge to study Moral Sciences Tripos. He studied the core of Philosophy, its modern history, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Ethics. Russell was awarded first class honours in the examination. Subsequently he became a fellow at Trinity and held the position until 1901.

Putting in tremendous effort, Russell wrote his Principia Mathematica in 1910. It was during this time that he took up the post of lecturer in Philosophy at Trinity on a five-year contract. His visit to Germany in 1895 gave him an opportunity to acquaint himself with the ideas of the Social Democrats. The outcome of this visit was his German Social Democracy (1896). In later years, Russell spent time in Russia and China and published essays and books on social and political problems of these countries. The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920) and The Problem of China (1922) are two such works. Russell was able to meet Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky on his visit to Russia. He was also able to see at first hand the changes brought about by the Communists. In China, Russell spent a year at the invitation of the Chinese Lecture Association. He was impressed by the social and political conditions in the pre-Revolutionary China. Russell also visited America in 1914. There at Boston he gave the Lowell lectures and for a short period worked as a lecturer, at Harvard University. Russell’s most controversial book during this period was Why I Am Not A Christian (1957), which contains his seething criticism of religious belief. Again, he went back to America in 1938 to lecture at the University of Chicago and the University of California. In 1940, he was invited to teach Philosophy at the City College of New York. Though Russell resigned his teaching post at the University of California he was not permitted to join the City College as there occurred a law suit filed by a certain Mrs. Kay who finally succeeded in getting the appointment revoked (Russell 2: 219). Public opinion was of a mixed nature; however, Russell suffered considerably. Russell details this bitter experience in his Autobiography.

Before the First World War, Russell’s fellow travellers were the Fabians of whom H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb were the leading figures. Russell has two works on Politics that are well known: Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916) and Political Ideals (1917). Russell was prominent through his activities in public affairs for two periods in his life. The first was during the First World War and the second from the end of the Second World War to his death in 1970. For his pacifist campaigns, Russell was fined and even imprisoned. He lost his position at Trinity on the charge that he was taken to court as an accused. Though Russell was reinstated after the war, he did not go back to Trinity until 1944. Russell became a public figure through his work with the No Conscription Fellowship (Russell 2: 24). Considerable hostility brewed against him as he wrote in favour of the Germans. Holding him responsible for a pamphlet issued by the No Conscription Fellowship which denounced the harsh punishment of the Conscientious Objectors, he was fined one hundred pounds. He was also refused a passport by the foreign office whereby it made it impossible for Russell to undertake foreign lecture tours during the war. Russell was also banned from delivering speeches at public meetings in coastal towns. In short, Russell was treated as an enemy of the nation during the war.

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Russell worked to stir up public awareness of the danger of a nuclear war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had become inhuman examples of what man could do to his fellow human beings (Russell 3:17). Russell felt that the one hope left of escaping a global destruction was the constituting of a single world government. He made numerous public appearances and radio broadcasts in the early fifties emphasising the dangers inherent in the possession of nuclear warheads. More than twenty-five years have gone by after his death but it remains a fact that the governments of the world nations have not gone any far in solving this issue. This fact makes Russell’s work especially extremely relevant today.

Russell was the president of the Pugwash Conferences (Russell 3: 85). The Aldermaston marches were conducted in the late fifties when Russell was president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament movement. Commonsense and Nuclear Warfare (1959) and Has Man A Future? (1961) were written as apart of this campaign. Feeling that more effective methods of stirring up public demand for change in government policies were needed, Russell formed the more militant Committee of Hundred. This was a movement for mass civil disobedience. They held the Trafalgar Square Rally and organised a sit down at the Ministry of Defence in February 1961. On Hiroshima day, 6 August 1961, they held a second rally at Hyde Park. On this occasion, Russell, his wife and other members of the Committee of Hundred were held responsible for inciting civil disobedience. Russell and his wife were sentenced to two month’s imprisonment. However, considering his age the court commuted his punishment to seven days. The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the Indo-Sino border dispute and the American involvement in Vietnam were some of the other major issues that Russell worked for.

Among his public honours were the Order of Merit in 1949, the Nobel Prize for Literature in1950, the UNESCO Kalinga Prize in 1957 and the Danish Sonning Prize in 1960 (Russell, vol. 3). Russell died at the age of ninety-eight in 1970. It can easily be said that he was one of the most remarkable thinkers of his time. His works are a challenge to anyone seeking to understand him. One of the most stimulating writers of the century, he will be remembered as the driving force behind several waves of popular protests related to the hoarding of nuclear war heads, besides for his contribution to the world as a philosopher and an academician.

The evolution of the genre Autobiography can be traced from St. Augustine’s Confessions to the works of numerous present day autobiographers. However, it was only in 1890, in the Quarterly Review, that Robert Southey coined the term Autobiography. To distinguish it from the autobiographical novel modern critics call it autobiography "proper," "standard," or "strictly speaking." Philippe Lejune defined it as "retrospective prose narrative concentrating on the history of an individual personality" (Nalbantian 1). St. Augustine used his autobiography for a religious purpose, but there has been a gradual shift from the religious to the secular and even to the poetic. Benvenuto Celleni’s requirements for an autobiographer and an autobiography are: "All men of whatsoever quality they be, who have done anything of excellence, ought, if they are persons of truth and honesty, to describe their life with their own hand; but they ought not to attempt so fine an enterprise till they have passed the age of forty" (Nalbantian 2). Many ideas as to the nature of the genre are implicit in this description made by Cellini. They are: 1) Autobiographers should be men of excellence. 2) They should be persons of truth and honesty. 3) They should write their life stories themselves .4) This being a fine enterprise, it should be attempted only after they have crossed the age of forty. The autobiographical act is a looking back and a recording of the activities and thoughts of the past self by the writing self. There then is a distinction in the process of writing autobiography between the past self and the present self. In the process of this recording, the past self is often coloured by the writing self. Some autobiographers make their readers believe that whatever they have said in the autobiography are all as verifiable and truthful as historical facts. Nalbantian says that most writers of autobiography begin their works with the period of childhood and dwell on the crucial incidents of this period, which normally is around the age of six. Childhood incidents in autobiography become "turning points," "epiphanies" or "spots of time." Similarly, the age sixteen is another crucial time in standard autobiography. Here acts of theft, rebellion, severance of certain relationships, and crisis of religion become the cause of turning points in the narrative. These turning points are sometimes embellished and at other times presented literally. Modern critics speak of certain common elements internal laws and conventions that can be seen in standard autobiographies.

The first formal autobiography that has become a frame of reference for most standard autobiographers in the western traditions is Saint Augustine’s Confessions. The work is addressed to God. This narrative strategy is adopted to induce the reader to imitate Augustine’s example of repentance, confession and conversion. Later autobiographers followed Augustine’s path in including conversion or such similar elements, which mark a kind of identity formation. Another common element in standard autobiography is the narration of parental relationships. It is a common practice that the emphasis is laid on either the father or the mother.

Benvenuto Cellini’s Life, [written between 1558 – 66] according to Nalbantian, is a record of the achievements of his life. The narrative unfolds chronologically and Celleni makes the self that emerges out of this work, larger than life. The truth claim that Celleni makes does not help the reader to get any closer to the autobiographical self. She quotes John Addington Symonds who says that Celleni is not introspective in writing the autobiography. Celleni is more concerned about the description of the external world. Celleni does not stop to analyse himself. His autobiography, according to Hippolyte Taine, says Nalbantian, is rich in informative externality and cultural relevance. However, it is wanting in introspection and self-analysis. Autobiographers, as Cellini’s work proves, trace their distinguished genealogy. This act places the autobiographical self in a convenient place in the milieu, from where he could be shown either to rise or to fall. As for Cellini’s Life, it is full of comical anecdotes in which Celleni is the abused one. This strategy Nalbantian writes, lends a defensive tone to the narrative. The conventions that could be garnered from Celleni’s Life are: 1) The narration can be chronological or achronological in an autobiography. 2) Autobiographers often make a truth claim especially when their works are purported to be "standard." 3) The autobiographer holds a mirror to his society and times. 4) Passages of introspection, digressions and embellishments provide a view of the transformation of the character of the autobiographical self.

Recollecting one’s life is the next best thing to living it all over again says Nalbantian. It can be made permanent by recording it in some form. In spite of the truth claim Ben Franklin made in his autobiography, his biographers found out that he was guilty of concealment. A "standard" autobiographer can narrate his own life or make a persona do it for him. He can speak of problematic relationships in his life to bring in the crisis experience, which shows the autobiographical self in a favourable light, or even be a moral lesson for the reader. His life can be recorded in all sincerity and truthfulness or by selective concealment. Concealment is a technique that is as expressive as truthfulness or transparency is in autobiography, as what is left unsaid is as important as what is stated. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Les Confessions [written between 1765 – 70] makes a claim of transparency. In his view, the reader must be given all the facts of the life of the autobiographer. "It is not for me to judge of the relative importance of events; I must relate them all, and leave the selection to him . . . I have only one thing to fear in this enterprise; not that I may say too much or tell untruths, but that I may not tell everything and may conceal the truth" (Nalbantian 10).

An author thus may have the desire to present a true picture of his life to the reader, but it is also possible that unintentionally he may conceal certain aspects of his life. On the other hand, concealment may also be intentional. Nalbantian writes that Rousseau was self-conscious of his role in the development of the genre. "He was radical in shunning any intended falsification, ornamentation or artifice in a virtual Romantic manifesto of sincerity and authenticity" (11). This widely read work according to her, is the first one of its kind "to contain a historical self-consciousness of the genre itself" (11). Throughout the narrative, there is a self-conscious commentary on his process of recollection. When part one of Les Confessions presents a youth full of errors and faults, part two is his defence against his political enemies. Rousseau, in spite of all the claims of originality he makes, alludes to St. Augustine’s autobiography when he narrates an incident of theft, which later becomes a convention of autobiography. About the purpose of autobiography, Rousseau has the following words:

I may omit or transpose facts, or make mistakes in dates; but I cannot go wrong about what I have felt or about what my feelings have led me to do; and these are the chief subjects in my story. The true object of my confessions is to reveal my inner thoughts exactly in all the situations of my life. It is the history of my soul that I have promised to recount. (qtd. in Nalbantian 14)

Nalbantian continues to say that the autobiographies of Darwin, Butler and Spenser and Edmund Gosse are departures from the classical models. Most of the autobiographies that were written in the second half of the nineteenth century are scientifically oriented. When scientists recounted their stories of their scientific inventions, they adopted a positivistic and scientific narrative technique. This style is adopted by Edmund Gosse though his autobiography is a record of " ‘Psychic facts.’ " Gosse deals with the telling psychic moments in his autobiography in an objective manner. According to Nalbantian, Gosse was attacking the influence of Rousseau on the genre. She quotes the following statement he makes in the preface to his Father and Son: " ‘Perhaps an even more common fault in such autobiographies is that they are sentimental and are falsified by self admiration and self pity’ " (Nalbantian15). This definitely is an indication of a change in the character of the genre, with the passage of time. Gosse’s autobiography contains material, which is more than mere scientific documentation. It also has elements of fiction. This is his contribution to the development of the genre. Nalbantian says: "this representatively modern autobiography is selective in treating a slice of life from the ages of three to seventeen. Psychic facts are featured as emerging from traumatic experiences of early childhood and are dealt with analytically by the author" (Nalbantian 15). He rejects religion and accepts agnosticism. This brings in a new convention -- that of epiphany, to the genre.

John Sturrock in his introduction to his book The Language of autobiography defines autobiography as a genre which invites the reader into itself without any reservations (Sturrock 1). According to him, autobiography is the "certificate of a unique human passage through time" and it "integrates the past lives of the autobiographers and their present selves. It is not life itself but a certain artful representation of life." Autobiography enables the writer to reply to "the injuries that have been done to him." It is a "forensic genre," and "a backward looking story" which lets the autobiographer, free himself from a fault or error. In writing, the autobiographer is free to conspire against the circumstances, which he believes has conspired against him. The plot of his autobiography is also a counter plot. The writer of an autobiography defends himself against "fanatical intrigues." It is a truth telling genre. Its claims are moral and aesthetic. It displaces the false reports previously attached to its author. As a literary form, it "rises above the mutability of daily life." Autobiographical writing is self-conscious writing. It achieves an intimacy by an indirect means and as an autobiography is in the written form, the autobiographer can afford to be "calm and composed even when handling the most emotional matters." A true autobiographer must "incorporate even the unhappiest contingencies of his life into the telos of his narrative." The autobiography brings all the happenings of the writer’s life together. It records the writer’s acquisition of worldly wisdom, knowledge and position (Sturrock 1-19).

According to John Sturrock, autobiographies are the tangible evidence of the identity of the autobiographer (Sturrock 5). Autobiographers write their life stories with a purpose. In the case of Rousseau, his autobiography was written to defend himself. Nietzsche wrote his autobiography to make the reader read other works of his (Sturrock 8). All autobiographies are a demand for attention written with the desire to prompt feeling in whoever reads them (Sturrock 32). Besides recording the inner life of the autobiographer, they report on the outside world as well (Sturrock10). All autobiographies are in practice part portraits, just as all portraits are in part stories. Hence, autobiography wills the unity of its subject (Sturrock 5). Autobiographies become an attractive and useful source for historians as they record all seemingly insignificant detail (Sturrock 12). They convey past ignorance through the prism of present knowledge (Sturrock 115). Autobiographers do not stop living in order to write and their perspective on their own past changes all the time (Sturrock161). An autobiography may have a therapeutic effect on the writer, privately in the easing of psychic injury or confusion, publicly in the acquisition of a new social and professional standing (Sturrock 228).

The autobiographical act, according to Sturrock is the conversion of the past of the autobiographer into a story. His past is a hypothesis or a hypotext, which we bring with us as readers of autobiography. "It is the pretextual, wordless reality from which an autobiography has arisen, a potential nebula of thoughts and sensations which both underlies and brings pathos to the stable order of the narrative that we are given to read" (Sturrock 24). Autobiographers gather their readers around them to tell their story confidentially. But it is "told by a means so strikingly formal as to produce in us a critical reserve complicating if not downright destructive of the intimacy they are inviting" (Sturrock 1).

Cardano, whom Sturrock calls the archetypal autobiographer, makes a catalogue of things in his autobiography that are capable of making him happy. Some of them are "rest," "serenity" and "modesty." But there is another "good thing" that he enjoys and that is "the satisfaction of recalling an orderly disposition of the past" (Sturrock 123). Sturrock points out that for Cardano satisfaction comes from "recalling" and not from "creating" a past. Thus the autobiographical act according to Sturrock, is the recalling of an orderly disposition of the past and not the creating of it. The reader expects the autobiographer to "extend his past life cumulatively stage by stage, as he advances towards the maturity out of which he is writing, not to collapse his present middle age regressively into his adolescence as if the long interval of time between the two had failed to mature him at all" (Sturrock 192). This brief outline of the major characteristics of the genre autobiography garnered from Nalbantian’s and Sturrock’s works serves as a source of reference for the present study.