This is Bertrand Russell: An introduction

Bernard Shaw said, “Hamlet is a half-dozen characters rolled into one”, the same can be said of Bertrand Russell who is a mathematician, philosopher, logician, writer/Nobel laureate (in literature), atheist, and advocate for social reform/pacifist.

Noble and aristocratic origin

He was born into an aristocratic family; his grand father, John Russell, 1^st Earl Russell, was twice the Prime Minister for Queen Victoria. He was left an orphan at age of 3 and was raised by his grand parents.  Queen Victoria once stopped by to visit his grand father and Bertrand Russell was sitting on the Queen Victoria’s lap. I’ll quote some of his family myth of interest; he wrote in his autobiography:

"Edith [his 4^th wife, an American, as was his 1^st wife] and I each had family myths to relate.  Mine began with Henry VIII, of whom the founder of my family had been a protégé, watching on his Mount for the signal of Anne Boleyn’s death at the Tower.  It continued to my grandfather’s speech in 1815, urging (before Waterloo) that Napoleon should not be opposed.  Next came his visit to Elba [where Napoleon was exiled to], in which Napoleon was affable and tweaked his ear. . . ."

He succeeded to the earldom in 1931 when his brother died; he wouldn’t use the title except when strictly necessary for formal occasions.  Friends asked Alfred North Whitehead (Russell’s teacher/colleague/friend) how to call him, Whitehead answered, “Well, it is difficult to say, I always call him Berti.”  In a letter to his publisher friend, Russell wrote,

“You will have seen my brother died suddenly in Marseilles, I inherit from him a title, but not a penny, as he was bankrupt.  A title is a great nuisance to me, as I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work.”

Alfred North Whitehead:  mentor, colleague, collaborator, and friend

an excellent book

Thanks to Harry and Peggy’s giving me Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, I came to know Bertrand Russell.  Whitehead and Russell collaborated on the epochal Principia Mathematica.  Whitehead was 11 years his senior and recruited him to the elite, prestigious and intellectual Apostles Society at Cambridge University.  Russell at one time moved into Whitehead’s house working on the Principia Mathematica, the 1^st of 3 volumes was published in 1910. (Carnegie Library does have these books, bur are considered reference books and are not allowed to be checked out.)

But, the difference in temperament and political view pulled them apart.  In his autobiography (Volume II, 1914-1944) he wrote, “The first days of the war [WWI] were utterly amazing.  My best friends, such as the Whiteheads, were savagely warlike.”

While serving a six-months imprisonment in 1918 for his pacifistic action, Russell wrote a letter to the Whiteheads whose youngest son, Eric, was killed serving in the Royal Flying Corps. (the letter didn’t survive) Mrs. Whitehead, Evelyn, replied,

“. . . Hearts don’t break so here we are; indeed, I will try to make life sweet still for North and Jessie, but I am not clever at facing it without my Eric. . . I cannot tell you about Alfred, he looks much older. . . Dear Bertie, which ever one of us you prefer to see will go; just choose the one who will best fit your mood—You will hold out—old friendships strain but do not break.  Later on we will talk of all this time of divergence and of my beloved Eric—With dear love from us all, Yours affectionately . . .”

In his biography, The Life of Bertrand Russell (by Ronald Clark), it was mentioned that Russell and Mrs. Whitehead, Evelyn, might have something romantic more than affectionate friendship.  Russell kept silent in his 3-volumes autobiography, but in one of his letters to Ottoline Morrell (his “soul mate” so to speak), with whom he had a long affair, he wrote,

“Much my strongest affection after my love for you is affection for Mrs. Whitehead.  This is rooted in years of difficult and very painful cooperation in tasks which both think very important—chiefly keeping Whitehead from knowledge of things which upset his balance.  It is not a feeling in which there is anything to cause you jealousy but it is quite indestructible and very deep."

When Alfred Whitehead died in 1947, Evelyn burnt all the letters Bertrand Russell wrote to Alfred or her.

Why I am not a Christian – by Bertrand Russell 1927

Russell lectured at Peking University for one year in 1920.  It is reputed that both Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai attended his lectures.  During his visit to China, 趙元任 was his translator, accompanying him traveling across China.

He wrote in his autobiography,

“I was told that the Chinese said that they would bury me by the Western Lake 西湖, and build a shrine to my memory.  I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.”

His letter to Colette or Ottoline (both had affair with Russell) echoed his eerie sentiment.
“I have missed much by not dying here, as the Chinese were going to have given me a terrific funeral in Central Park; then bury me on an island in the Western Lake 西湖, where the greatest poets and emperors lived, died and were buried.  Probably I should have become a God.  What an opportunity missed.”

When asked what he would say to God if he found himself before Him, Russell answered, “I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence.”

Many of the great minds whose work attract me are all atheists:  Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehaed (an agnostic at one time), Richard Dawkins, James Watson, Francis Crick, Lin Yu-Tong, . . . the list goes on.  The thought of it at times frightened me until one day it dawned on me that I was attracted by their being among the greatest intellectuals in general, not by their atheistic views in particular.  They are men of courage, of superman power; they are superhuman being, and not the ordinary mortals.  They can be sustained in times of sorrow without the mercy and comfort of the Almighty; they can “walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil’ even though they do not feel “thou art with them.”

Reading science is to seek the ‘truth’ of Nature, and that of humanity/literature, beauty of life and yet neither science nor art can provide the strength or comfort in time of sorrow and trial, which comes from the merciful Almighty, and that is where religion/faith comes into play.

Immoral personal life for one with strong moral conviction

He was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 (Churchill was his runner-up then, and had to wait another 3 years for his laurel) “In recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humantarian ideals and freedom of thoughts.”  He fought ferociously with force and style for his strong moral conviction, however unconventional and unpopular it might be. 

However, it is ironic, in my view, that his personal life leaves a lot to be desired as far as the morality goes.  While reading his biography and autobiography, it is not a small task to keep track his four marriages and numerous affairs/liaisons that include Lady Ottoline Morrell, Colette (Lady Constance Malleson), T.S. Eliot’s wife, the list goes on.

He went to China with Dora Black (his former student and eventually 2^nd wife) in 1920 while still marrying to his first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith (an American quaker).  During his one-year stay in China, he got Dora pregnant while writing love letters to both Ottoline and Colette staying behind in England.  He probably should have listened to the lyric of Jolene (by Dolly Paton) “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I 'm begging of you, please don't take my man even though you can.” Something you don't do it just because you can.  On emerging from his delirium (from pneumonia) his first action was to write to Ottoline:

Dear O,

I am just able to write again so I want to tell you how profoundly you have been in my thoughts all this strange time.  I am told I tried to write to you during my delirium but of course I could only produce a meaningless scrawl.           . . . My most true love, B

His affair with Ottoline began at a dinner’s invitation by the Morrells and her husband, Philip, was unexpectedly called away, and after dinner Russell and Ottoline sat talking over the fire until four in the morning.  Russell wrote recording the event, “I did not know I love you till I heard myself telling you so.”

He didn’t admit some of the affairs in his autobiography (He might be brutely honest at time, he is still no Jean Jacques Rousseau after all and was not writing a Confession), he wrote, “I became great friends with him [T.S. Eliot], and subsequently with his wife, whom he married early in 1915.  As they were desperately poor, I lent them one of the two bedrooms in my flat, with the result that I saw a great deal of them.  I was fond of them both, and endeavoured to help them in their troubles until I discovered that their troubles were what they enjoyed.”  T. S. Eliot was Russell’s student when he was lecturing at Harvard, as J. Robert Oppenheimer ('Oppei') was Alfred North Whitehead's, also at Harvard.

Russell, not a man without blemish

Russell is not a man without blemish; he might twist the fact or conveniently ignored evidence to make his point.

He was denied a passport to lecture at Harvard in 1916, upon hearing the news he wrote, “I loathed the thought of the exile.  But you cannot imagine how it infuriates me as a piece of tyranny.  I want a fuss made about it.  I want it pointed out that I was going to teach logic that the Government thinks logic wd. put America against us.”  The fact is that Professor Woods of Harvard Philosophy Department explicitly stated on his invitation that the courses based on his political views of War would be included.

Woods also made arrangement of lecture-engagements at half a dozen other universities, and only University of Michigan wanted Russell only on philosophy, “owing to the strong local feeling for the Allies”.

He wrote in his autobiography (Volume 3, 1944-1969),

“When I was called to Stockholm, at the end of 1950, to receive the Nobel Prize—somewhat to my surprise, for literature, for my book Marriage and Morals—I was apprehensive, since I remembered that, exactly three hundred years earlier, Descartes had been called to Scandinavia by Queen Christina in the wintertime and had died of cold.”

I read the Nobel presentation speech, which emphasizes he ‘champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”  Several of his nearly 100 books were mentioned including A History of Western Philosophy, but not Marriage and Morals (1929) in which he expressed very liberal views that shocked his contemporaries or even the fainthearted of our time.  He argued that “a lapse into sexual unfaithfulness by either married partner should not, necessarily, be a ground for divorce.” (from his Biography) Admittedly, he might be just ahead of his time; some of his proposals in the book were made into laws in England.

If you can read only one book of his, pick A History of Western Philosophy, you’ll be ‘entertained’ intellectually. (I use 'entertain' instead of 'enlighten', as it may be more enticing to get one to read.)  It was a ‘best seller’ in America when it was published in 1946.  Russell wrote, “I had no idea it would have a success which, none of my other books have had, even, for a time, shining high upon the Americanlist of best sellers.”

No pacifist can survive Hitler, not even Bertrand Russell

He was a staunch pacifist during the WWI, but he realized there will be no peace as long as Hitler is around; he wrote,

". . . But Hitler’s Germany was a different matter.  I found the Nazis utterly revolting—cruel, bigoted, and stupid.  Morally and intellectually they were alike odious to me.  Although I clung to my pacifist convictions, I did so with increasing difficulty.  When, in 1940, England was threatened with invasion, I realized that, throughout the First War, I had never seriously envisaged the possibility of utter defeat.  I found this possibility unbearable, and at last consciously and definitely decided that I must support what was necessary for victory in the Second War, however difficult victory might be to achieve, and however painful in its consequence."

In a letter to a friend, he wrote on Dec 22, 1939, “I try hard to remain a pacifist, but the thought of Hitler and Stalin triumphant is hard to bear.”

To the same friend, he wrote on May 19, 1940, “Perhaps it would have been better if the Kaiser had won, seeing Hitler is so much worse.  I find that this time I am not a pacifist, and consider the future of civilization bound up with our victory.  I don’t think anything so important has happened since the fifth century, the previous occasion on which the Germans reduced the world to barbarism.”  He was talking like a Churchill!

He was an outspoken critic of the American military intervention in Viet-Nam (and, for sure, Iraq, if he were still with us.)  This is his broadcast after the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb, “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.  If you can do so, the way lies open to a new paradise:  If you can not, nothing lies before you but universal daeth.” 

In the end, Russell prevailed and the true character shown on those supported him in time of trials

Being an atheist, pacifist and political activist advocating provacative, unpopular, liberal, or revolutionary views on all things, Russell ran into trouble at all times:  imprisonment twice, dismissals from Trinity College (in 1916 and was reappointed in 1944) and the City College of New York.  But, in the end, he prevailed.  He was bestowed on the honors of the Order of Merit (OM) in 1949 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.

During the debacle of the City College affair in 1940, John Dewey, Whitehead and many other academics came to Russell’s defense.  Aldous Huxley sent him a letter.

Dear Bertie:

     Symapthy, I am afraid, can’t do much good; but I feel I must tell you how much I feel for you and Peter in the midst of the obscene outcry that has broken out around your name in New York.

                                                                                                Aldous Huxley

When the Student Council of the City College sent him a letter of support, Russell replied,
“I am very happy to have the support of the student council in the fight.  Old York was the first place where Christianity was the state religion, and it was there that Constantine assumed the purple.  Perhaps New York will be the last place to have this honor. . . “

“I am afraid that if and when I take up my duties at the City College you will all be disappointed to find me a very mild and inoffensive person, totally destitute of horns and hoofs.”
In a long letter, John Dewey wrote,

“ . . . If men are going to be kept out of American colleges because they express unconventional, unorthodox or even unwise views (but who is to be the judge of wisdom or lack of wisdom?) on political, economic, social, or moral matters, . . . I am heartily glad my own teaching days have come to an end.”

When Russell was reappointed as a Fellow at the Trinity College, Whitehead sent him a letter on Jan. 3, 1944, saying “ . . . Our warmest congratulations.  It is exactly what ought to have happened.”

Bertie is a fervid egoist

“Bertie is a fervid egoist.” Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary about her friend.  What a great observation!  Russell's own assessment, “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:  the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

He died of influenza on February 2, 1970 at age of 98—a long, arduous life, “not entirely uneventful.” as Churchill spoke of his own.