Russell
Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
PREFACE
larger space than metaphysics in the present volume, and some topics
1912
determines to reject, but that which considers each piece of apparent
Philosophy may claim justly that it diminishes the risk of error, and
CHAPTER XV
Having now come to the end of our brief and very incomplete review of
is impossible.
This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong
only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study
value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices
this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs,
who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of
the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well
off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible
society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at
the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and
only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded
system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a
and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any
truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as
long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question
study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by
becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now
philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the
This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty
of philosophy. There are many questions, and among them those that
as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its
powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has
life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the
habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which
chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which
to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which
thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while
somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the
philosophy has a value, perhaps its chief value, through the greatness
of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and
family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not
regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle
life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this
strife.
contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into
two hostile camps, friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good and
it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe
operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects
should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the
not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the
without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this
makes the world of less account than Self, and the Self sets bounds to
start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the boundaries of
Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which
philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the
measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and
the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there
account for us. This view, if our previous discussions were correct,
making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond. The man
who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who
never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.
distorts the object, and hence impairs the union which the intellect
free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now,
without hopes and fears, without the trammels of customary beliefs and
free intellect will value more the abstract and universal knowledge
into which the accidents of private history do not enter, than the
be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view and a body whose
The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality
view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence
in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man's deeds.
and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and
contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also
the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest.
true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because
closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through
also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the