CHAPTER 3

ALYS PEARSALL SMITH

Russell at Cambridge.

The time spent at Cambridge was one of intellectual blossoming for young Bertrand. He was away from the repressive atmosphere and the watchful eyes of Pembroke Lodge. This was a time when Bertrand came out of his shell and discovered that he was as good as, or better than, as in some cases, most scholars present at Cambridge. It was while at Cambridge that he tasted freedom, both physical and intellectual so much so that he contrived reasons to stay back at the university even during vacations. Bertrand enters Cambridge as a shy young man who was reluctant even to ask the way to the toilet. However, his sense of alarm and shyness was not as bad as it was while at Pembroke Lodge. Cambridge helped him thaw with its warmth. He was sought out by the senior students and well known scholars. His own tutor Mr. Andrew Whitehead had instructed them to look out for him. Bertrand was quick to make friends and was soon recognised as an intellectual. His meeting Sanger, another freshman is note worthy. When Bertrand went to Sanger’s room he was wonder struck by the books on the shelves. Bertrand said, "I see you have Draper’s Intellectual Development of Europe which I think a very good book." Sanger’s reply is used by Russell to establish himself as an intellectual: " You are the first person I have ever met who has heard of it!" What follows in the autobiography is a portrait of Sanger who in later life was Russell’s good friend. About Sanger Russell says, " He was one of the kindest men that ever lived, and in the last years of his life my children loved him as much as I have done. I have never known anyone else with such a perfect combination of penetrating intellect and warm affection" (Russell 1: 57).

A marvellous array of portraits is presented in the rest of the chapter. These portraits of Cambridge scholars of his time were those of young men who were to become distinguished scholars in later life. They afford the reader an excellent window to the world around Bertrand and the University of his Days. They also establish Bertrand’s intellectual aristocracy. After the portrait of Sanger two of his closest friends, Crompton and Theodore Llewelyn Davies are introduced. Their father was the vicar of Kirkby Londsdale. Both Crompton and Theodore are depicted as handsome young men. The untimely death of Theodore comes as a shock to Bertrand and Crompton. Bertrand spent weeks with Crompton after the unfortunate event. Of this loss Russell says, "Ever since, the sound of Westminster Chimes has brought back to me the nights I lay awake in misery at this time"(Russell 1: 58). Crompton remained to be Russell’s life long friend. Bertrand had met him on a dark winding college staircase and he remembers Crompton reciting passionately Blake’s "Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright." Bertrand had never heard of Blake before this intoxicating experience. He says, "I had never till that moment, heard of Blake and the poem affected me so much that I became dizzy and had to lean against the wall" (Russell 1: 58). Bertrand liked Crompton because "His loyalties were unusually peculiar to himself. He was incapable of following a multitude, either for good or evil. He would profess contempt and amusement for all the causes in which his friends excited themselves . . . " (Russell 1: 59). His strong likes and dislikes his humour and his honesty made Crompton an admirable character. According to Russell, Crompton was inclined to anarchism. He uses a beautiful instance to illustrate this view. Once when Bertrand and Crompton were standing on the Westminster Bridge, Crompton pointed to a tiny donkey-cart admist the heavy automobile traffic and said, " that is what I like, freedom for all sorts" (Russell 1: 61). Bertrand was influenced by Crompton’s view of life: "His opinions were often some what way ward, and he had no objection to giving his prejudices free rein. He admired rebels rather more, perhaps, than was wholly rational. He had an horror of anything that seemed calculating . . . . Many of his prejudices were so consonant to my feelings that I never had the heart to argue with them -- which in any case would have been an hopeless task" (Russell 1: 62). Crompton’s death was sudden. He died of heart failure at a dinner party.

Russell in his Cambridge days was a Hegelian for a short period. This is attributed to his association with McTaggart. McTaggart was a philosopher who was shyer than Bertrand was. Of this Hegelian period Russell says:

McTaggart was a Hegelian, and at that time still young and enthusiastic. He had a great intellectual influence upon my generation, though in retrospect I do not think it was a very good one. For two or three years, under his influence, I was a Hegelian. I remember the exact moment during my fourth year when I became one. I had gone out to buy a tin of tobacco and was going back with it along Trinity lane, when suddenly I threw it up in the air and exclaimed, ‘Great God in boots the ontological argument is sound!’ (Russell 1: 63)

After 1898, Russell says that he no longer accepted McTaggart’s philosophy. Despite Bertrand’s shyness and the fact that he was educated at home, he found that Cambridge had a congenial atmosphere. He became more outspoken and less and less solemn. He says, "At first the discovery that I could say things that I thought, and be answered with neither horror nor derision but as if I had said something quite sensible, was intoxicating"(Russell 1: 64). During his second year at Cambridge, Bertrand gained enough self- confidence to be able to say that he knew "all the cleverest people in the university." Bertrand soon shed his inhibition and prepared to take up the ardently desired mantle of an intellectual.

In his third year, Bertrand met G.E. Moore about whom Russell says, "Moore, like me, was influenced by McTaggart, and was for a short time a Hegelian. But he emerged more quickly than I did, and it was his conversation that led me to abandon both Kant and Hegel. In spite of his being two years younger than me, he greatly influenced my philosophical outlook (Russell 1: 64).

The three Trevelyan brothers were also Bertrand’s friends. Charles Trevelyan, Russell says, was considered the least able of the three. About George Trevelyan Russell has an interesting episode to relate. Bertrand and George were in the habit of going on long walking tours. On George’s wedding day, Bertrand reached an inn called the Lizard after a long walk. He intended to spend the night there. The innkeeper asked whether he was Mr. Trevelyan. Answering "no," Bertrand enquired whether they were expecting him. To this, the innkeeper replied that Mr. Trevelyan’s wife was already waiting for George. George arrived late in the night after a forty-mile walk exhausted but greatly satisfied.

Russell pictures Bob Trevelyan as a very bookish person: "What is in books appeared to him interesting, whereas what is only real life was negligible. Like all the family, he had a minute knowledge of the strategy and tactics concerned in all the great battles of the world, so far as these appear in reputable books of history" (Russell 1:65).

Russell on very rare occasions exhibits his ability of being humorous. One such occasion in this chapter is when George’s wife waits for him in an inn on their wedding night. The other is where Bertrand asks a question to Bob and some others present. The question was what they would do if they had the power to destroy the world. Bob’s quick answer was, "What? Destroy my library? - Never!" Though, these would have been very humorous situations Russell fails to bring the humour across to the reader.

About his dons at Cambridge, Bertrand had a very poor opinion. "The master," says Russell, came "straight out of Thackeray’s Book of Snobs" (Russell 1:66). On the pretext of revealing the epistolary style of the master Russell the autobiographer quotes one of his letters. The real intention behind quoting the letter, which was written to congratulate Bertrand on his being placed seventh wrangler, was more to convey the contents of the letter to the reader than to comment on the style of the letter. Bertrand does not have anything positive to say about the masters of Cambridge:

While I was an undergraduate, I had regarded all these men merely as figures of fun, but when I became a Fellow and attended college meetings, I began to find that they were serious forces of evil. When the Junior Dean, a clergyman, who raped his little daughter and became paralysed with syphilis, had to be got rid of in consequence, the Master went out of his way to state at college meeting that those of us who did not attend chapel regularly had no idea how excellent this worthy’s sermons had been. (Russell 1: 67)

Another episode Russell mentions concerns the Senior Porter. The Council met on five successive days with utmost secrecy but Bertrand later found out that this secret meeting was to discuss the improper relations the Senior Porter had with five bed makers (Russell 1:67).

Russell and Alys.

In 1889, Uncle Rollo took Bertrand to meet a new American family that had come to stay at Friday’s Hill near Fernhurst. They were the Pearsall Smiths. The father and the mother had been evangelistic preachers. The other members were a married daughter and her husband, a son who was from Balliol and finally a very beautiful daughter who studied at Bryn Mawr College. Describing his meeting with the family, Russell says that he felt as though " he was in touch with reality." Such were the topics discussed at the Pearsall Smith household. (Russell 1: 75). "But it was the daughter from Bryn Mawr who especially interested me" says Russell about the young girl. As though to prove that Miss Alys Pearsall Smith was very beautiful Russell quotes from a news paper report that had appeared in 1921 and spoke of Alys who was then newly married to Russell. The extract from the Bulletin, Glasgow, 10 May 1921 reads thus:

I remember meeting Mrs. Bertrand Russell at a civic reception or something of the kind in Edinburgh twenty odd years ago. She was then at that time one of the most beautiful women it is possible to imagine, and gifted with a sort of imperial stateliness, for all her Quaker stock. We who were present admired her so much that in a collected and dignified Edinburgh way we made her the heroine of the evening. (Russell 1: 75)

Bertrand was attracted to her, even at their first meeting, as she seemed to be more emancipated than any other young woman he had known. She was intelligent and Bertrand was impressed when she asked him whether he had read a German book called Ekkehard. Bertrand was soon to take a liking to the Pearsall Smiths for their lack of prejudices that hampered him at Pembroke Lodge. At this point of the narrative, Russell introduces the Webbs, whose portraits follow, interrupting the Alys narrative. Russell practises this technique of postponing an interesting story throughout the autobiography. The change in the atmosphere felt at the Pearsall Smith household is accentuated by the portraits of the Webbs who were regular visitors at Friday’s Hill. Both Sidney and Beatrice Webb were well known intellectuals of the time. It is also interesting to note that the Webb portraits open with a comment made by Beatrice about marriage:

Sidney and Beatrice Webb, whom I knew intimately for a number of years, at times sharing a house with them, were the most completely married couple that I have known. They were, however very averse from any romantic view of love or marriage. Marriage was a social institution designed to fit instinct into a legal framework. During their first ten years of marriage, Mrs. Webb would remark at intervals, ‘as Sidney always says, marriage is the wastepaper basket of the emotions.’ (Russell 1: 76)

Here the autobiographer Russell gives a forewarning of what is to follow in the married life of Bertrand and Alys. What made Bertrand happy while with the Pearsall Smiths was the fact that they drew him out in such a way as to make him feel quite Intelligent. With them, he was talkative and free from timidity. About Alys Russell says:

With each year that passed, I became more devoted to Alys, the unmarried daughter. She was less flippant than her brother Logan, and less irresponsible than her sister, Mrs. Costelloe. She seemed to me to possess all the simple kindness which I still cherished in spite of Pembroke Lodge, but to be devoid of priggery and prejudice. I wondered whether she would remain unmarried until I grew up, for she was five years older than I was. (Russell 1: 80)

In 1893 when Bertrand acquired legal and financial independence, he contemplated proposing to Alys. Though he was twenty-one years of age, Bertrand did not have the courage to approach her with the matter. He prepared the background by discussing divorce with her, to which she was more favourable than he was. He also found that in theory Alys was an advocate of free love. Finally, with infinite hesitation and alarm he managed to propose but was given no definite reply. They agreed to go on seeing each other and corresponding with each other and let time decide one way or the other. Pembroke Lodge was horrified at this news. There was a very strong opposition at home when Bertrand announced his engagement to Alys. A storm of Victorian morality coloured with aristocratic preferences raged at Pembroke Lodge. Russell the autobiographer uses this stage in his life as a period of "crisis." Bertrand refused to be moved as he had financial independence. Alys was called names by the elders at Pembroke Lodge: "She was no lady, a baby snatcher, a low class adventuress, a designing female taking advantage" of young Bertrand’s inexperience, "a person incapable of all finer feelings, a woman whose vulgarity would perpetually" put him to shame (Russell 1: 82). There was no dearth for expletives. The truth was that Bertrand’s grandmother never liked anyone in the family getting married. Russell, in a foot note says that according to his aunt Gregory, " even in old times at the slightest thought of marriage my grandmother used to get into a sort of fever and be fussy and worried about it" (Russell 1: 82).

As the displeasure at home was intense, Bertrand developed the habit of keeping a secret diary where he recorded all that went on between him and Alys. During this time, a diary kept by his father, while he was Bertrand’s age came into his hands. To his dismay, Bertrand found that his grandmother had said almost exactly the same things to him as she had said to Bertrand and his father had recorded exactly the same reflections in his diary as Bertrand had recorded. Bertrand’s family conspired with the family doctor to break off his relationship with Alys. Lunacy in the family that could be carried over to the next generation and the supposed danger that lay in contraception were the matters used to dissuade Bertrand from going ahead with his plan. This indoctrination affected his mind so much that he had unhappy dreams about his mother. The influence of his people on him was oppressive and Pembroke Lodge was to him "like a family vault haunted by the ghosts of maniacs" (Russell 1: 85). Bertrand and Alys were able to consult another doctor who told them that contraception would in no way ruin their health. Having dispelled all the fears and indecision, they decided to get married. When Bertrand stayed with Alys’ people at Friday’s Hill to finish his Fellowship dissertation, he found happiness as he was "getting mental health from Alys." His people wrote him incessantly about "the life you are leading"(Russell 1: 86). When Bertrand refused to listen, his grandmother requested Lord Dufferin to offer Bertrand the honorary post of attaché at Paris. This last attempt was to lead him away from Alys for at least three months if not forever. Bertrand agreed to spend three months at Paris. However, at the end of three months he decided that he was unsuitable for a political career and returned to Alys. Bertrand writes about the tormenting experience that he had, with emotion. The fears that have pursued Bertrand have their origin in the Pembroke Lodge of his childhood days. Their single source was his grandmother:

The fears generated at that time have never ceased to trouble me subconsciously. Ever since, but not before, I have been subject to violent nightmares in which I dream that I am being murdered, usually by a lunatic. I scream out loud, and on one occasion, before waking up, I nearly strangled my wife, thinking that I was defending myself against a murderous assault.

The same kind of fear caused me, for many years, to avoid all deep emotion, and live as nearly as I could, a life of intellect tempered by flippancy. Happy marriage gradually gave me mental stability, and when, at a later date, I experienced new emotional storms, I found that I was able to remain sane. This banished the conscious fear of sanity, but the unconscious fear has persisted. (Russell 1: 86)

Russell has appended forty-seven letters to the chapter titled "Engagement." These letters break the continuity of the narrative but provide views of the autobiographer from different angles. Out of these letters, eleven are from Logan Pearsall smith, Alys’ brother. Sixteen are addressed to Alys and the rest are from E.H. Marsh, Charles Percy Sanger, Bertrand’s grandmother, aunt Agatha, and Lord Dufferin. It is note worthy that Russell has not included any of the letters received from Alys. Logan in one of his letters expresses his delight at Bertrand’s decision to go ahead with his relationship with Alys. However, he warns him of the consequences, which sadly proves to be true, later. In a letter dated 2 December 1893 he says:

. . . I don’t know of anyone who I should like better as a brother - in - law nor indeed do I think there is anyone who would make a better husband for Alys. But sincerely I think you would make a mistake by engaging yourself too soon- but I dare say you don’t intend to do that. One never knows what one will develop into, and any how the first few years after 21 should be given to self education and the search for one’s work, and marriage or even a settled engagement, interferes sadly with all that . . . . your friends all have the highest idea of your ability and promise, only keep yourself free and interested in your work. Love should be the servant and not the master of life. (Russell 1: 95)

Bertrand’s letters to Alys are of intense emotions expressing his desire to be with her and his regret for having to spend time at Pembroke Lodge with his grandmother. Alys is described as a scarcely possible distant heaven with all the indifference that goes with it (Russell 1: 97). Letters from his grandmother sound very pathetic and express her intense pain at Bertrand’s decision to marry Alys whom she could never accept. About Alys she writes thus: "I cannot but be saddened by the thought that the person you love is one who refuses to see me and therefore I can never know any better even if I live longer than is likely"(Russell 1: 120).

Bertrand, though he wanted to break away from the influence of his grandmother, perhaps had a feeling of guilt for having disobeyed her. The last letter from his grandmother appended to this chapter is perhaps his way of making up for the injury done to her. This letter puts the autobiographer in a very negative light – as a thankless person who acted selfishly and who was punished later, quite deservedly. In the letter written on 10 December 1894, just before his marriage to Alys, his grandmother complains sadly:

You came to us as an innocent, unconscious little comforter in our darkened home, and have been to us all three as our very own child. You were intertwined with our very being, our life was shaped and ordered with a view to your good; and as you grew in heart and mind you became our companion as well as our child. How thankfully I remember that all through your childhood and boyhood you would always cheerfully give up your own wishes for those of others, never attempt an excuse when you had done wrong, and never fail to receive warning or reproof as gratefully as praise. We trusted you and you justified our trust, and all was happiness and affection.

Manhood came and brought with it fresh cause for thankfulness in your blameless and honourable university career. But manhood brings also severance and change. You are leaving us now for a new life, a new home, new ties and new affections. But your happiness and welfare must still be ours and our God will still be yours. May you take with you only that which has been best, and ask His forgiveness for what has been wrong, in the irrevocable past. May He inspire you to cherish holy thoughts and noble aims. May you remember that humble loving hearts alone are dear to Him. May such a heart ever be yours, and hers who is to travel life’s journey by your side. God bless you both and grant you light to find and to follow the heaven ward path. (Russell 1: 122)

This letter helps the autobiographer to legitimise in an indirect way, his actions for which he had a feeling of guilt. Bertrand leaves home for a new life. On 13 December 1894, Bertrand Russell married Alys Pearsall Smith. According to Russell, in his autobiography, the early years of his married life brought immense happiness to him. His first marriage was a turning point in his life in the sense that Alys’ arrival into his life liberated Bertrand from the confines of Pembroke Lodge. They travelled extensively and both Bertrand and Alys were exposed to various new ideas. Alys became a springboard of ideas concerning Religion, Morality and Politics. Though they differed in their views, Bertrand’s ideas on these topics stemmed partially from the discussions he had with his first wife. During his engagement days, they had frequent arguments about Christianity. About sex, Alys had very strange ideas, which he dare not argue about. Personally, she believed that sex was beastly and all women hated sex. For her, sexual intercourse should take place only when children were desired.

In 1895, both Bertrand and Alys spent three months in Berlin. On his return from Berlin, Bertrand gave lectures on "German Social Democracy" at the London School of Economics. These lectures in 1896 were published as his first book titled German Social Democracy. Russell says that intellectually the early years of his first marriage were the most fruitful of his life. In a passage that becomes a glowing tribute to his first wife, Russell expresses his sincere happiness:

With my first marriage, I entered upon a period of great happiness and fruitful work. Having no emotional troubles, all my energy went in intellectual directions. Throughout the first years of my marriage, I read widely, both in Mathematics and in Philosophy. I achieved a certain amount of original work, and laid the foundation for other work later. I travelled abroad, and in my spare time I did a great deal of solid reading. (Russell 1: 126)

The picture of Bertrand’s and Alys’ marriage that one gets from his autobiography is different from the one Ray Monk presents in his biography of Russell. Monk in his The Spirit of Solitude says:

Throughout these years of intellectual absorption and progress, it is striking what little impact on Russell’s life his marriage to Alys seems to have had. One has the impression that she was merely there in the background, a necessary means for Bertrand of keeping the wheels of day to day life moving but not other wise of much interest to him. Alys kept up her work on temperance, feminism and socialism and was often away at meetings and campaigns, but Bertrand seems to have remained entirely aloof from this side of her life; the few references to her work in his letters to her from this time tend to be sardonic and flippant, rather than indicative of any genuine interest, and the vision he had entertained of fusing his intellectual interests with her practical concerns seems to have died along with his religious and emotional investment in Hegelianism. (119)

Again Monk quotes Helen Thomas, a friend of Bertrand’s, as saying: " ‘To outsiders,’ " Helen Thomas commented to a friend, after seeing Bertrand and Alys at Bryn Mawr, " ‘she seems really to be a slave. It’s quite tragic, I think. I keep wondering whether Bertie is worth it, and how long it will last’ " (119).

The marriage, as matter of fact, did not last long. In 1897, Bertrand wrote his Self-Appreciation for the Golden Urn under the pseudonym Orlando. These lines quoted by Monk shows the reader a Russell whom one fails to see in his autobiography:

I am quite indifferent to the mass of human creatures; though I wish, as a purely intellectual problem, to discover some way in which they might all be happy . . . I live most for myself -- everything has for me, a reference to my own education. I care for very few people, and have several enemies -- two or three at least whose pain is delightful to me. I often wish to give pain, and when I do, I find it pleasant for the moment. I feel myself superior to most people. (Monk 120)

The marriage narrative in the chapter "First Marriage" is interrupted by the portraits of Whitehead, Carey Thomas and Louis Couturat. Very little is said about Bertrand’s relationship with Alys. It seems as though these portraits are used for two purposes. Russell wants to establish his intellectual aristocracy and he wants to postpone the statement that he has to make about his loss of love for Alys. The attitude of non-chalance seen in his Self-Appreciation is reflected in the autobiography where he glosses over the death of his grandmother who had undoubtedly been the most important person in his life. Her death is mentioned only in a footnote to a letter received from his Aunt Agatha (Russell 1: 139).

The impassibility seen in his communion with the people around him and especially his wife, was not seen in his relationship with the other women he came across. Monk speaks of a letter Russell wrote to Alys about his spending a few days with her sister Mary: " In September 1897, he was delighted to find himself alone with Mary for a few days at her Villa in Fiesole. The two of them, he wrote to Alys ‘had a jolly tête-à-tête dinner last night and revived the pleasant feelings of Paris, without their very serious drawbacks’ "(Monk 120). In another letter Russell said that she was " ‘more charming than ever, and I enjoyed having her to myself, as well as the opportunity to kiss her on suitable occasions’ "(120). It is interesting to note that this tête-à-tête episode is repeated on a later occasion with Lady Ottoline Morrell.

In the Autumn of 1896, Bertrand and Alys went to America for three months. This period is represented in the autobiography by the portraits of all the women he met at Bryn Mawr. He has a portrait of Carey Thomas and about her sister Helen Thomas Bertrand says:

The Thomas’ were a curious family. There was a son at John Hopkins who was very brilliant in brain surgery; there was a daughter, Helen, at Bryn Mawr, who had the misfortune to be deaf. She was gentle and kind, and had very lovely red hair. I was very fond of her for a number of years, culminating in 1900. Once or twice I asked her to kiss me, but she refused. (Russell 1:132)

Another lady Bertrand was interested in at this time was Miss. Sally Fairchild. He had met her at Boston. Monk quotes form a letter written by Mary, Alys’ sister: " ‘Poor mother is dreadfully worried about Bertie’s evident flirtation with Miss Fairchild. They go for long walks every evening, and Bertie has deserted his hitherto invariable habits of study and cards, from which nothing used to be able to tear him. And of course they have nothing in common except flirtation’ " (Monk 121).

The chapter is brought to a close with the mention of the Boer War, which broke out in 1899. Bertrand confesses that at that time he was a liberal imperialist. British defeats caused him much anxiety and he could think of nothing else but the war. However, when the Boers began to be defeated, says Russell, he lost interest and later became a pro-Boer. This indeed is a curious way to change allegiances. Though the topic of the Boer war is dismissed in a cursory manner, it resurfaces in a more significant way in the incident narrated later about Mrs. Whitehead that could be called the conversion passage of the autobiography.

The chapter has a few letters appended to it. Two letters received from his grandmother express her deep agony and her complaint: " The fact is that you take only the fag - end of the fragment of the shred of a minute or two for your letters to us" (Russell 1:137). In the second letter she says: "it is rather painful dear Bertie, that knowing our love for Miss Walker, you still leave the death unmentioned. Nor do you say a word of dear Lady Tennyson’s although so near you" (Russell 1: 138). Her letter to Alys is an affectionate one with a promise to send her a book as a birthday gift. Another letter from aunt Agatha speaks of his grandmother’s death and the partition of Pembroke Lodge: "I shall think of you very much tomorrow and of happy birthdays long ago when she was with us to guide, counsel and inspire to all good and when you were still the child brightening our home and filling us with hope of what you might some day become dear, dear Bertie has it been an upward growth since those days?" (Russell 1: 139). All these letters show Bertrand as having drifted away from his people. Russell, as an autobiographer, has included these letters deliberately to show himself drifting away from his people, which would put him in an unfavourable light. The autobiographer is here preparing for the "conversion" scene, which is to follow in the next chapter.

According to John Sturrock, a life storied is a life made meaningful, and any life however vapid, is at least storiable. He calls this process of making meaningful "conversion" (Sturrock 20). The conversion paradigm was first introduced by St. Augustine in his autobiography Confessions. Later secular models turned it into what is called the crisis experience. Susan Nalbantian says about conversion in Augustine’s Confessions:

The autobiography proceeds in the first nine books through retrospective narration and then moves on in the last books dismissing chronology altogether, to a philosophical meditation. What separates these parts is the crucial conversion scene, as the narrative self, aged 44, converted and religious, overrides the protagonist self, aged from one to thirty-three, pagan and sinful. After the conversion, the chronology and the narration stop, as there is no longer the need for time since Augustine’s relationship with his God is cast in terms of eternity. (Nalbantian 4)

A letter quoted in Monk’s biography of Russell proves that Russell had read Augustine’s Confessions. The letter dated 17 June 1902 reads as follows: " I am working very hard and reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. Life to me is wholly unemotional and dry at present: formal logic fills the crannies of my brain" (Monk 153). Again in a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell where Russell recounts the Evelyn Whitehead episode he says, "The moment of my first conversion was this way . . . " (Monk 153).

In the whole of the autobiography, the conversion passage could be described as a singularly moving incident related with boundless passion. Its sequel unfortunately is the story of Alys’ banishment from Bertrand’s heart. He tells the story of his loss of love for her immediately after the Evelyn episode. Though he says that his self-righteousness in retrospect was repulsive, at that time he felt his love for Alys waning. This statement makes the autobiographer no less inclement. Autobiographically Russell wins the trust of the reader who would willingly swallow any deliberate lie he dishes out here after. This loss of love for Alys is not so abrupt as it is made out to be in the autobiography. Ray Monk establishes the fact that Bertrand was bored within a couple of years of his marriage and he was in search of amorous opportunities with other women – Mary, Sally Fairchild and Helen Thomas to name a few (Monk 120- 121).

Bertrand makes the discovery that he no longer loved Alys, while taking a bicycle ride, along a country road. He says: "I went out bicycling one afternoon, and suddenly, as I was riding along a country road, I realised that I no longer loved Alys. I had had no idea until this moment that my love for her was even lessening. The problem presented by this discovery was very grave" (Russell 1: 147). This problem "was very grave" for Alys but not for Bertrand. Monk says that she had " . . . no doubt ‘perceived that something was amiss’ a good deal before this famous bicycle ride, as her depressions during the spring and summer of 1901 surely indicate" (Monk 145). According to Monk Alys had taken a "rest cure" in Brighton during the period. "The original intention was for her to spend just ten days there, but Bertrand persuaded her to stay longer, first for four weeks, and then throughout the whole May and most of June as well" (Monk 147). It is plain that either Alys was seriously disturbed, mentally, or Bertrand wanted her out of the way.

Russell defends his position by finding faults with Alys. According to him, Alys "tried to be more impeccably virtuous than is possible to human beings." "She was malicious and liked to make people think ill of each other." Another charge against her was that she told Mrs. Whitehead that as Bertrand could not bear children, the Whitehead children should be kept out of his way. Simultaneously, she told Bertrand that Mrs. Whitehead was a bad mother who did not care for her children (Russell 1: 148). Earlier, during their courtship days, one of the things that Bertrand had considered desirable in Alys was the fact that she was an advocate of free love. Unfortunately, Alys only preached free love but could not practise it. Further Bertrand had wanted to have children and Alys had proven to be barren. Monk writes of Bertrand’s last attempt to have a child with Alys: "The last sacrifice he had made in March had, unsurprisingly, failed to make Alys pregnant, and much to Bertrand’s relief, she confessed that she hated it and did not want a repetition" (Monk 165). All these facts were enough for Bertrand to banish Alys from his heart. Beatrice Webb did whatever she could do to help both Bertrand and Alys during the last four weeks that Alys was in the sanatorium. Monk quotes Beatrice as saying; "All the same, I believe I have done her good, I have given her a sane perspective of her own and Bertrand’s life. She is a warm - hearted, intelligent and attractive woman and deserves to be happy and useful."(Monk 157). The issue was complicated. There was much to be said on both sides but Beatrice had tried to make Alice see that it was not entirely her own fault.

To the world, at large, Bertrand and Alys were husband and wife. Until their legal separation, however, they were emotionally divorced. Much of these facts are concealed in the autobiography. The pain that Alys had to go through goes unmentioned and so does the fact that it was Bertrand’s infatuation with Evelyn Whitehead that was at the bottom of his loss of love for Alys. Bertrand’s two women friends, Lucy Donnelly and Helen Thomas exchanged letters and discussed Bertrand’s and Alys’ shattered marriage. Monk writes:" Several times, she commented on the deteriorating relationship between Bertrand and Alys, and made a shrewd guess as to the cause. Russell, she told Helen, "is in love or in some way involved with Mrs. Whitehead"(Monk 171).

Russell and Politics

The person, who influenced Bertrand in his early life, especially in his Pembroke Lodge days, was Lady Russell, his grandmother. Russell describes her as "a Scotch Presbyterian, liberal in politics and religion . . . but extremely strict in all matters of morality" (Russell 1: 20). As Bertrand grew up, there were many issues, both personal and social, where he disagreed with his grandmother and the other members of the family. However, his views on politics and other social questions were guided by the basic tenet that the happiness of mankind should be the aim of all action. This lesson was perhaps picked up in his early childhood when Lady Russell was a powerful guiding spirit for young Russell. Notwithstanding the differences of opinion he had with grandmother, many of her qualities he inherited from her, are acknowledged with deep gratitude. Her fearlessness, her public spirit her contempt for convention are some of the traits we see in Russell the man who wrote and spoke about social issues besides his work on Mathematics and Philosophy. His grandmother had presented him with a copy of the Bible with her favourite texts written on the flyleaf. Russell says that among these, " ‘Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil’ " was a command he found easy to follow. It gave him the courage to take bold steps in later life and not to be afraid to belong to small minorities (Russell 1: 22).

Bertrand went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1890. He was examined by Alfred North Whitehead, who discovered the shy genius that Bertrand was. Whitehead saw to it that Bertrand was selected as a mathematics scholar and instructed some of his senior students to keep an eye on this promising scholar. During his early days at Cambridge, he came into contact with many young men who were later on to become well known thinkers. Bertrand was able to assess himself after he met them. They were the Trevelyan brothers, Charles Sanger, the Llewelyn Davises and G.E. Moore. All of them belonged to a society called the Apostles, which met periodically. Bertrand was soon inducted into this society. The chapter titled "Cambridge" provides an excellent portrait gallery of all these eminent personages (Russell 1: 56 – 74). What Russell says about them is of much interest regarding their influence on Russell’s work on political and social issues: "We believed in ordered progress by means of politics and free discussion. The more self - confident among us may have hoped to be leaders of the multitude, but none of us wished to be divorced from it" (1: 70). Even as a student of Mathematics Russell was interested in political issues.

In chapter five titled "First Marriage" of his autobiography, he tells how he was initiated into politics. Both Alys and Bertrand after their marriage had decided to visit foreign countries. The first three months of 1895 was thus spent in Berlin. There Bertrand went to the Berlin University where he studied Economics. Bertrand and Alys would go for concerts three times a week and soon got to know the German Social Democrats. Alys and Bertrand did not know that the Social Democrats were considered very wicked in Berlin and had unknowingly mentioned to the ambassador that they had met some of the Social Democrats. The result which was unexpected by the young couple was that the attaches and the other officers at the embassy carefully avoided them. Later, in 1895, after Bertrand’s fellowship election, they went back to Berlin to study German Social Democracy. On this visit Bertrand and Alys associated almost exclusively with Socialists (Russell 1: 126). On their return to England, Bertrand gave a course of lectures on German Social Democracy at the London School of Economics. These lectures were published in 1896. This was Russell’s first book.

Speaking about the Boer War, which broke out in 1899,Russell says that he was by no means a pro-Boer, but a liberal imperialist at the time. The early defeats that Britain had to suffer caused a great deal of concern and Bertrand was very much preoccupied with the war news. He says in his autobiography that when the Boers began to be defeated his interest diminished and in 1901, he became a pro-Boer. He does not say how he changed his imperialistic views and became a Boer-sympathiser. This conversion is attributed to a personal crisis detailed else where in his autobiography (Russell 1: 146). This personal crisis of 1901 is connected with the illness of Mrs. Whitehead. Bertrand had witnessed her agony, which caused him to sympathise with other people who suffered. The reasons are less political than personal. Louis Couturat the Swiss mathematician and Internationalist, who was in correspondence with Bertrand, expressed his view that the Boer war was " ‘simple bullying by a great power’ " (Ryan 33). Couturat in his letter complained of the gross injustice done to a poor people. Bertrand’s answer to this was peremptory. Bertrand said, "political justice was whatever was demanded by the larger interests of the human race." He said there were larger interests and smaller interests. The British were on the side of the largest interest of all, that of the "genre humain," British rule meant progress and therefore justice (Ryan 34). Again, in another letter to Couturat dated 5 October 1903, Bertrand wrote about the agony he underwent witnessing Mrs. Whitehead’s illness and in the same breath reiterated and defended his previous moderate imperialism (34). The conclusion one reaches is that, Russell may have suffered emotionally seeing the agony of Mrs. Whitehead but it is improbable that this suffering changed his political convictions.

One of the letters appended to the chapter "First Marriage" addressed to Wallas is of some significance. This was written from Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia. Bertrand had witnessed the election of the Sheriff and was shocked to see the way it was conducted. He writes about the ballot paper: "I have never seen a document more replete with the theory of Politics, or illustrating more neatly the short road from bad metaphysics to political corruption." Bertrand noticed that the vouchers were printed in such a way that they were not fool proof and could enable any man to vote without his name being on the register. Another thing he noted was that, outside the polling booth a sub - deputy stood instructing the illiterate voters how to vote. Bertrand saw him watching the process of voting, which was illegal. During the election, there were irregularities all over the state and corruption was rampant. Bertrand says that a local rich man named Wanamaker spent about $80000 to bribe the officials and to become the postmaster general of New York State. The people were unable to react: "The Quakers and the puritans, so far as I have come across them, are the greatest liars and hypocrites I have seen and are as a rule totally destitute of vigour" (Russell 1: 140). Another observation he makes in the same letter is about individual Americans. He says: "Whether from lack of courage or from decentralisation, they do not form a society of frank people, and all in turn complain that they would be universally cut if they ever spoke their minds. I think this is largely due to the absence of a capital" (Russell 1: 141).

Bertrand’s first active participation in a political issue is recorded in chapter 6, titled "Principia Mathematica," of his autobiography. Here he says: "When Joseph Chamberlain began to advocate Protection, I found myself a passionate Free Trader." Though this is a casual remark, the real issues involved, when examined throw more light on Russell’s early political activities. Joseph Chamberlain was the Colonial Secretary and in 1903, he launched a campaign in favour of Tariff Reform. This would in effect countermine the doctrine of Free Trade to favour a system of Protective tariffs, which would help Britain and her colonies to compete with other countries. Evidently, this was a sure case of Imperialism against Liberalism, which Bertrand could hardly tolerate mainly because of his inherited Whiggism. Bertrand worked at Free Trade keeping aside Mathematics for a while. Unfortunately, his strained relationship with his first wife came in the way. However, a letter written to Lucy Donnelly included in the autobiography, shows how deeply concerned Bertrand was about this issue: "We are wildly excited about Free Trade, it is to me the last piece of sane internationalism left, and if it went I should feel inclined to cut my throat. But there seems no chance whatever of Chamberlain’s succeeding -- all the brains are against him, in every class of society" (Russell 1: 170).

In 1902, Bertrand became a member of a dining club called "The Coefficients." This was a venue where political issues were discussed with an imperialist slant. Sidney Webb was responsible for setting it up and making Bertrand join it. Bertrand soon understood that most of the members had shocking views about the war. In his Autobiography Russell points out that he had opposed the first war at the earliest possible moment. When Sir. Edward Grey had advocated the policy of Entente, Bertrand had stated his objections strongly and said that it would lead to a war. As no one agreed with him, Bertrand resigned from "The Coefficients." Defending Free Trade was the next task that Bertrand took up. This was also his maiden attempt at public speaking.

After the 1906 election, when it was no longer necessary to fight for Free Trade, he took up the cause of Women's Suffrage. He was a candidate for parliament at a by-election supporting this issue. The opposition that he encountered during his campaign was cause enough for a lot of bitterness. Russell in his autobiography quotes a newspaper report on the Wimbledon campaign. The audience was hostile says the report, even at the very outset of the meeting. The distinguished speakers, who included Bertrand the candidate for Wimbledon, Mrs. Russell, Mr. O.H. Beatty and many others, were silenced by the noisy agitators. Rats were let loose and there was total pandemonium in the hall. Of his experience as a candidate for the parliament election, Russell says: "The savagery of the males who were threatened with the supremacy was intelligible. However, the determination of large numbers of women to prolong the contempt of the female sex was odd. I cannot recall any violent agitation of Negroes or Russian serfs against emancipation. The most prominent opponent of political rights for women was Queen Victoria" (Russell 1: 155). In keeping with his liberal leanings, Bertrand left the orthodox suffragists and joined a body set up by Margaret Davies who advocated adult suffrage. As he was interested in the struggle between the Liberals and the Lords about the budget and the parliament act Bertrand decided to go into active politics and applied to the Liberal headquarters for a constituency. Prior to Bertrand 's address to the Liberal Association, he was taken into a small room where he was subjected to a kind of religious screening. The question and answers quoted in his autobiography reveal much about the Liberalism of the Liberals and Russell the man. When Bertrand stated that he and his wife were not members of the Church of England and that they being non-conformists were not likely to go to Church the Liberal Association selected one Mr. Kellaway as their candidate. He became the Postmaster General and according to Russell, held the "correct opinions" during the war. As for Russell, he says he was lucky to have escaped for soon he received an invitation to join Trinity College.

The second volume of Russell's autobiography begins with the statement that the First World War was to Bertrand what Mephistopheles was to Faust. He was "rejuvenated" by Lady Ottoline first, and then by the war which shook him out of his "prejudices" and made him "think afresh on a number of fundamental questions" (2: 15). The war provided him with a new kind of activity and afforded him the freedom from the staleness and boredom of work on Mathematical Logic. Bertrand felt that England should remain neutral in the First World War and thus collected the signatures of a large number of professors and fellows to a statement, which appeared in Manchester Guardian. To his utter surprise, Bertrand found that on the day the war was declared, all of them who had signed supported the war. He found that "average men and women were delighted at the prospect of war" (Russell 2: 16).

Bertrand was let down by many of his friends. Massingham, the editor of The Nation newspaper welcomed Bertrand 's offer to write opposing the war when they met for lunch on fourth of August. But the next day Bertrand got a letter beginning: " ‘Today is not yesterday . . . ,’ " and stating that his opinions had completely changed. Bertrand 's only solace was in the fact that Lady Ottoline and her husband shared his views. It was at their home in Bedford Square that the first meeting of the Union of Democratic Control was held. A few pacifist Members of the Parliament were present at the meeting but Russell says that they were "more concerned with the question which of them should lead the anti-war movement than with the actual work against the war" (Russell 2: 17). Bertrand who was now a pacifist discovered to his dismay, that men and women liked destruction better than their own children or their wealth. Intellectuals preferred popularity to truth. He says: "I became filled with despairing tenderness towards the young men who were to be slaughtered, and with rage against all the statesmen of Europe. For several weeks, I felt that if I should happen to meet Asquith or Grey I should be unable to refrain from murder." (Russell 2: 17)

This statement reveals the magnitude of Bertrand 's pacifist work against the war. During the summer of 1915 Bertrand wrote Principles of Social Reconstruction. It was called Why Men Fight in America, without Bertrand 's consent. The ideas in the work become the foundation for all his later work on politics. Principles of Social Reconstruction propounds Russell's philosophy of politics. About the work he says:

In it I suggested a philosophy of politics based upon the belief that impulse has more effect than conscious purpose in moulding men’s lives I divided impulses into two groups, the possessive and the creative, considering the best life that which is most built on creative impulses. I took, as examples of embodiments of the possessive impulses, the state, war and poverty; and of the creative impulses, education, marriage and religion. Liberation of creativeness, I was convinced, should be the principle of reform. (Russell 2: 20)

Bertrand 's anti-war campaign attained international attention when he wrote an open letter to President Wilson to help end the war (Russell 2: 28 – 31). He wrote: "You sir, can put an end to it. Your power constitutes an opportunity and a responsibility; and from your previous actions I feel confidant that you will use your power with a degree of wisdom and humanity rarely to be found among statesmen." In this letter, we find Russell's fears about the aftermath of a war that attained global dimensions. According to Russell, no victory to either side was possible. Millions, he said, have been killed and even a greater number have been maimed for life. "The whole standard of civilisation have been lowered." The enmity and anger has been nurtured by fear instilled by the war time conditions. "Terror and savagery have become the very air we breathe’" said Russell in the long letter that was expected to induce America, a super power to take adequate steps to curb the war that was destructive enough to put Europe centuries backwards in time. "There is a very real danger that, if nothing is done to check the fury of national passion, European Civilisation as we have known it will perish as completely, as it perished when Rome fell before the Barbarians" (Russell 2: 29). This letter, was taken to America by Helen Dudley’s sister, Katherine, and was handed over to a committee of American Pacifists, who published it in almost every newspaper in America. There was no immediate response from the President, but months later much to Bertrand 's dismay, America joined the allies in the war. Bertrand 's plans to persuade America to use its power to end the war were thus thwarted.

From the middle of 1916 to 1918 Bertrand participated in the activities of the No Conscription Fellowship. He spoke at numerous meetings in order to form organisations in the various districts of England and Scotland. The idea was to form workers’ and soldiers’ councils on the Russian model. The resistance encountered on such meetings was enormous. The incident at the Brotherhood Church in Southgate Road shows how unpopular pacifist views were at that time. Some of the patriotic newspapers distributed leaflets saying that the NCF workers were German spies. Consequently while the meeting was being conducted, the people from the slums in the neighbourhood mobbed the church. On another occasion, the pulpit of the church where Bertrand was to speak was set on fire.

In 1916, Bertrand wrote a leaflet titled Two Years’ Hard Labour For Refusing To Disobey The Dictates Of The Conscience (Russell 2: 63). The leaflet when published did not carry Bertrand 's name but he found to his amazement that the NCF workers who distributed it were sent to prison. Bertrand therefore, wrote a letter to the editor of the Times saying, "Six men have been condemned to varying terms of imprisonment with hard labour for distributing the leaflet. I wish to make it known that I am the writer of the leaflet, and if anyone is to be prosecuted I am the person primarily responsible" (Russell 2: 64). Soon, Bertrand was prosecuted and a fine of one hundred pounds was imposed on him. He did not pay the fine, as he wanted to be imprisoned, as that would bring him and the pacifists publicity. However, when the authorities auctioned his belongings to realise the fine his friends bought them and returned them to him. About this incident, Russell says that he felt that his protest had been futile. Bertrand 's speeches were reported by the detectives and the war office issued an order to the effect that Bertrand should not be allowed in any prohibited area. The prohibited areas included the whole of the seacoast. This curbing of Bertrand 's freedom enraged him. However, he continued with his pacifist activities.

For having written an article for The Tribunal, in which Bertrand said that "American soldiers would be employed as strike breakers in England, an occupation to which they were accustomed when in their own country," he was sentenced for six months imprisonment. Prison life was comfortable as he was placed in first division. He says: "I found prison in many ways agreeable. I had no engagements, no difficult decisions to make no fear of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a book, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, a semi - popular version of the Principles of Mathematics and began the work for Analysis of the Mind (Russell 2: 32).

Other repercussions came in the wake of Bertrand 's imprisonment. Trinity College was quick to act against him. Russell quotes a letter from the college council dated 11 July 1916, in his autobiography. The letter informed him of his dismissal from his lectureship in the college. The reason cited was his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act, and the confirmation of the conviction on appeal. Bertrand was soon to receive many letters condemning the action of the college council (Russell 2: 68-71). " ‘Trinity’s action is both intolerant and impertinent’ " wrote S. Alexander, the distinguished philosopher. Russell has included numerous letters from eminent personalities expressing their support and their sympathy in this matter. His own reaction to this is recorded in a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell. There he says that he would be glad if Trinity turns him out as that would let him advertise academic lectures in London on Philosophical subjects. He hopes that it might lead him to great things (2:67).

Arthur Waley sent Russell the translation of a Chinese poem, which he had not published. Russell quotes it in his autobiography to convey his feelings at the time. It reads as follows:

The Red Cockatoo

Sent as a present from Annam –

A red cockatoo.

Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,

Speaking with the speech of men

And they did to it what is always done

To the learned and the eloquent.

They took a cage with stout bars

And shut it up inside. (Russell 2:34)

The poem speaks of the thoughtless cruelty of imprisoning pacifists but when the Armistice was announced Russell says that he felt "strangely solitary amid the rejoicings." He wrote:

Throughout my life, I have longed to feel that oneness with large bodies of human beings that is experienced by the members of enthusiastic crowds. The longing has often been strong enough to lead me to self-deception. I have imagined my self in turn a Liberal, a Socialist, or a Pacifist, but I have never been any of these things, in any profound sense. Always the sceptical intellect, when I have most wished it silent, has whispered doubts to me, has cut me off from the facile enthusiasms of others, and transported me into a desolate solitude. (Russell 2: 38)

The chapter is concluded with a very significant evaluation of his own war time pacifist activities. Russell sees all that he had done as totally irrelevant except to himself. Here he reveals the sceptic in him. The cause for his scepticism was the fact that he felt he had not saved a single life or shortened the war by a minute. On the positive side, he says, he had not "been an accomplice in the crime of all belligerent nations, and for myself I had acquired a new philosophy and a new youth" (Russell 2: 40).

Russell is always criticised for the inconsistency in his arguments, especially, those related to the Second World War. In 1932 when Russell needed money, he wrote a book called Which Way to Peace? This was about the daily increasing menace of war. Unlike the early days, he was now in favour of the use of force especially if a world government was established. According to Russell "it would be desirable to support it by force against rebels" (Russell 2: 191). But regarding the war Russell said that he was in favour of conscientious objection. He would rather support Kaiser’s Germany than the greater evil, another war. It was with much difficulty that he clung on to pacifist ideals. When England was threatened with defeat Russell said he would support "what was necessary for victory in the Second World War, however difficult victory might be to achieve, and however painful its consequences." Russell admits that he had never been a complete adherent to the doctrine of non-resistance: "I had always recognised the necessity of the police and the criminal law, and even during the first world war I had maintained publicly that some wars are justifiable." About the change in his views he says:

The gradual change in my views, from1932 to 1940 was not a revolution; it was only a quantitative change and a shift of emphasis. I had never held the non-resistance creed absolutely, and I did not now reject it absolutely. But the practical difference, between opposing the first war and supporting the second was so great as to mask the considerable degree of theoretical consistency that in fact existed…My whole nature had been involved in my opposition to the first war, where as it was a divided self that favoured the second. (Russell 2: 192)

Bertrand wrote in the Manchester Guardian about the use of atomic weapons. He echoes the general opinion of experts that in a world war the western powers will be defeated if they do not use the bomb, but victorious if they use it. There is only one way to prevent this choice, and that is to prevent a world war (Russell 3: 56). In an interview with Robert Waithman, published in the News Chronicle, 1 April 1954, Bertrand puts forward one alternative for the human race. He said, "I think the existence of the hydrogen bomb presents a perfectly clear alternative to all the governments of the world. Will they submit to an international authority, or shall the human race die out?" Another suggestion he puts forward is that an arrangement will have to be set up "under which all fissionable raw materials is owned by an international authority, and is only mined and processed by that authority. No nation or individual must have access to fissionable raw material" (Russell 3: 63). This statement has more relevance today, at the turn of the century, than ever.

Bertrand was the chairman of the continuing committee of the Pugwash Conference, a gathering of scientists. At the first conference three committees were formed. First, on the hazards arising from the use of atomic energy; second, on the control of nuclear weapons, which outlined the general objectives of disarmament which subsequent conferences discussed in detail; and third, on the social responsibilities of socialists.

In January 1958, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was set up. Bertrand was the president. Long marches were conducted, and meetings were held at Trafalgar Square condemning the use of nuclear weapons. The objectives of the CND was unilateral disarmament, believing that if Great Britain gave up her part in the nuclear race and even demanded the departure of United states bases from her soil, other nations might follow suit" (Russell 3: 104). Though Bertrand participated in all the CND activities as much as his health would permit, he was not optimistic about its functioning on an International scale. After meeting Ralph Schoenman, Bertrand felt that the CND was not radical enough as it did not favour civil disobedience. The Committee of 100 was formed and Bertrand participated in all its discussions and even took part in a sit down out side the Ministry of Defence in which two thousand people participated.

Bertrand 's participation in the election campaign supporting Philip Morrell and the liberal cause for which he stood, Bertrand 's own decision to be a candidate for the election to the parliament, his work as a pacifist during the First World War and his involvement in the nuclear disarmament campaign during and after the Second World War, all point to an unshaken philosophy which he thought necessary for the peaceful existence of the human species. Man has proved himself adept at devising sure and efficient ways of exterminating his own species. Political unrest that lead to war and then to the ultimate destruction of mankind if examined with care will lead us to the individual and the State which together as complementary forces have to be the stable foundation on which the future world has to be based. Our nuclear weapons have the power to wipe out the thin film of life on the face of the Earth. The individual thus should know what his role in society is and the State should provide the adequate support and freedom for the individual to function meaningfully. Without a restructuring of the present socio-political system along these principles, the future of mankind is bleak. It is evident from his autobiography that the ideas seen in his political writings and speeches have their genesis in Russell's involvement in practical politics, which takes into account the problems of common man. His works like Political Ideals and Principles of Social Reconstruction afford us a view into the theoretical aspects of Russell’s world- view. In his Roads to Freedom, Russell wrote about a form of Socialism, which he called Guild Socialism. The industrial worker is to be given effective voice in this system of Socialism. The responsibility for organising ways and means of production is allowed to devolve onto the workers themselves. Managers are elected in each factory to control methods of production. The national guild of all factories deals with the marketing and the general interests of that industry. The State provides the machinery and the raw material necessary for the Guild and the Guild pays a tax to the State. The profits of production are divided among the members of the Guild. A joint committee of parliament comprising the parliament of geographically elected representatives and the Guild Congress acts as the governing body of the committee. Russell’s writings on Guild Socialism raise a large number of interesting and important questions, and can hardly be denied that he presents the leading ideas in an attractive light.

 


 

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