Georg Cantor, the subject of the following letter, was, in my opinion, one of the greatest intellects ofthe nineteenth century. The controversy with Poincaré which he mentions is still (1949) raging,though the original protagonists are long since dead. After reading the following letter, no one willthe autobiography of bertrand russell 210be surprised to learn that he spent a large part of his life in a lunatic asylum, but his lucidintervals were devoted to creating the theory of in?nite numbers.He gave me a book on the Bacon–Shakespeare question, and wrote on the cover: ‘I see yourmotto is “Kant or Cantor” and described Kant as “yonder sophistical Philistine who knew so littlemathematics.”’ Unfortunately I never met him.75 Victoria StreetS.W.16.9.11Dear Mr RussellBy accident I met to-day Professor Georg Cantor, professor of Mathematicsat Halle University, and his chief wish during his stay in England is to meetyou and talk about your books. He was overcome with pleasure when helearnt on talking of Cambridge that I knew you a little – you must forgive myboasting of my acquaintance with an English ‘Mathematiker’ and I had topromise I would try to ?nd out if he could see you. He proposes to visitCambridge on Tuesday and Oxford on Thursday, and meanwhile is stayingfor a week at 62 Nevern Square, South Kensington.It was a great pleasure to meet him though if you are kind enough tosee him you will sympathise with my feeling worn out with nearly fourhours conversation. He was like a fog horn discoursing on Mathematics – tome! – and the Bacon theory.8Could you send a line to him or to me at Woodgate, Danehill, Sussex.He is a Geheimrath & so forth. I could relate his whole family historyto you!Yours sincerely and with many apologiesMargery I. Corbett AshbyTo the Hon. Bertrand Russell 19 Sept. 1911Trinity College, Cambridge 62 Nevern SquareSouth KensingtonLondonSir and dear Colleague!From Mrs Margaret Corbett Ashby I have to present you with the ensuingletter. I am now staying here for a week about, with my daughter Mary,probably unto Sunday 24 Sept. on which day I will depart perhaps to Parisalso for a week about, or to go at home. It would give me much pleasure ifyou could accompany us to Paris. There we could meet perhaps MonsieurPoincaré together, which would be a ?ne jolly ‘Tr io’.As for myself you do know perhaps, that I am a great heretic upon manyscienti?c, but also in many literary matters as, to pronounce but two of them:I am Baconian in the Bacon–Shakespeare question and I am quite an adversary ofOld Kant, who, in my eyes has done much harm and mischief to philosophy,cambridge again 211even to mankind; as you easily see by the most perverted development ofmetaphysics in Germany in all that followed him, as in Fichte, Schelling,Hegel, Herbart, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Nietzsche, etc. etc. on to this veryday. I never could understand that and why such reasonable and enobledpeoples as the Italiens, the English and the French are, could follow yondersophistical philistine, who was so bad a mathematician.And now it is that in just this abominable mummy, as Kant is, MonsieurPoincaré felt quite enamoured, if he is not bewitched by him. So I understandquite well the opposition of Mons. Poincaré, by which I felt myself honoured,though he never had in his mind to honour me, as I am sure. If he perhapsexpect, that I will answer him for defending myself, he is certainly in great amistake.I think he is about ten years younger than I, but I have learned to wait in allthings and I foresee now clearly, that in this quarrel I will not be the succumbent.I let him do at his pleasure.But I feel no forcing to enter myself into the battle; others will himprecipitate and I allowed to do with greater and more important things. Asfor the little di?erences between you and me, I am sure, that they willdisappear soon after an oral discourse.I intend to pay a visit today to Major Macmahon.I hope to see you in these days in Cambridge or in London, and so I am, Sir,Your very faithfullGeorg CantorOn Thursday to Friday we are to follow an invitation of Mrs ConstancePott, an old friend and correspondent of mine, of London, staying now inFolkestone, 15 Clifton Crescent.As to Kant and his successors I see, and will show you the real cause ofhis standing upon so seeming-fermly ground of success, honour, veneration,idolatry. This cause is, that the German Protestantism in his development to‘Liberalism’ needs himself a fundament on which to build his seeming-Christianity,so Kant or one of his successors are picked out, by the protestant Theologiansof divers scools, to be their Atlas. One hand washes the other, one depends onthe other and one has to fall with the other!I never did harm to Monsieur Poincaré; au contraire, je l’honoraitfortement dans mes ‘grundlagen einer allgemeinen-M. lehre’.To the Hon. Bertrand Russell LondonTrinity College, Cambridge 19 Sept. 1911Dear SirMy ?rst letter to you was just ?nished as I received your despatch. IfI would be free and would not depend upon the freewill of two youngthe autobiography of bertrand russell 212German Ladies, my daughter Mary and my niece Fr?ulein Alice Guttmann ofBerlin, I would come this just day to meet you in Ipsden Wallingford. Soprobably I can generally not come to you!Yours faithfullyGeorg CantorThis second letter being ?nished, just I receive the following despatchfrom my dear wife at home.‘Erich erkrankt – sofort Halle kommen.’You see, dear Sir, destiny playing upon me. The two young ladies I spokeof, are just departed to see Westminster.It is my only son Erich, quite healthy when I left him; he is the Doctor of onedivision of a large Hospital of alienates in Bunzlau (Silesia). He is 32 years old.I will hope that the worst has not happened.He had been married three months ago and we assisted at his weddingwith a very amiabel good and clever young girl, daughter of a tanner in thelittle Saxonia town Nossen in the Kingdom of Saxony.My address in Halle a.d. Saale is: Handelstr. 13. We depart this evening.I hope to be here in the last half of August 1912 to the internationalCongress.I had been also just writing a short description of my journey to andsojourning at Saint Andrews, and I intented to o?er it to the editor of ‘Reviewof Reviews’.I could not go to Major Macmahon as had been my intention to do; youwill see it in my ?rst letter.In Saint Andrews I have seen with great pleasure my very good friend MrHobson of Cambridge, who was going to Mailand to a congress of Mr FelixKlein, the great ?eld-marshall of all german Mathematicians. Neither myfather nor my mother were of german blood, the ?rst being a Dane, borne inKopenhagen, my mother of Austrian Hungar descension. You must know, Sir,that I am not a regular just Germain, for I am born 3 March 1845 at SaintPeterborough, Capital of Russia, but I went with my father and mother andbrothers and sister, eleven years old in the year 1856, into Germany, ?rstsojourning at Wiesbaden, then at Frankfort a/Main, then at Darmstadt, fouryears, then at Zürich, Berlin and G?ttingen, coming then as ‘Privat Dozent’Easter of the year 1869 to Halle a.d. Saale where I stay now forty two yearsand more.Dear SirThe last word of mine to you is a good one, just I receive from my wife thesecond telegram: ‘Erich besser.’ But you will understand that we must returnthis evening at home.cambridge again 21341 Grosvenor RoadWestminster EmbankmentOctober 11th (1912)My dear BertrandI was so sorry not to see you when you called the other day, and I feel that Icannot let your visit pass in silence.Now don’t be angry with me, if I ask you to put yourself in our place.Supposing you and Alys were living in absolute happiness in completecomradship [sic], and you became aware that Sidney had repudiated me, andthat I was ‘living on in a state of dark despair’. Would you not, both of you,feel rather sore with Sidney?I know nothing of the cause of your estrangement – all I know is that Alyswants us to be friends with you. And that is also my own instinct. I have alwaysadmired your very great intelligence, and tho’ I have sometimes had my doubtsabout the strength of your character, I have always felt its peculiar charm.So don’t think that I have withdrawn my friendship; and if, at any time, Ican be of use to you, with or without your complete con?dence let me knowand come and see me. And now that I have expressed quite frankly what is inmy mind come and see us, if you feel inclined, and talk about the world’sa?airs without reference to your and Alys’ troubles.We had a delightful time in the Far East and India – there are wonderfulnew outlooks in Human Purpose and Human Destiny, both in Japan andamong the Hindus in India. We were wholly unable to appreciate China andfound ourselves unsympathetic to Mohamedan India.Now we are again immersed in British problems: but the memory of ourtravels is a constant refreshment. Why don’t you go for a long holiday andcomplete change of thought?Ever your friendBeatrice Webb37 Alfred Place WSouth Kensington, S.W.13 October 1912Dear Mr RussellThanks for your kind letter. I will ask Dr Seal to pay you a visit atCambridge, when you will have an opportunity to know him.I read your article on the Essence of Religion in the last issue of the HibbertJournal with very great interest. It reminded me of a verse in the Upanishadwhich runs thus –‘Yato vácho nivartanté aprápya manasá sahaánandam Brahmano Vidván na vibhéti Kutushchana.’the autobiography of bertrand russell 214‘From him words, as well as mind, come back ba?ed. Yet he who knowsthe joy of Brahman (the In?nite) is free from all fear.’Through knowledge you cannot apprehend him; yet when you live the lifeof the In?nite and are not bound within the limits of the ?nite self you realisethat great joy which is above all the pleasures and pains of our sel?sh life andso you are free from all fear.This joy itself is the positive perception of Brahman. It is not a creed whichauthority imposes on us but an absolute realisation of the In?nite which wecan only attain by breaking through the bonds of the narrow self and settingour will and love free.Yours sincerelyRabindranath TagoreTrinity College13th Feb. 1913My dear GoldieIt was very nice to see your handwriting, and such parts of your letter as Icould decipher interested me very much! (In fact, there was very little I didn’tmake out in the end.) I am interested to see that India is too religious for you.Religion and daily bread – superstition and the belly – it doesn’t soundattractive. I expect you will ?nd China much more interesting – much morecivilised, and more aware of the subtler values – at least if you could get intouch with the educated people.I haven’t much news. I suppose you have become aware that the Torieshave dropped food taxes, and are on the move about protection in general;also that the Germans are accepting a 16 to 10 naval proportion, so thatthe public world is rather cheerful. Here in Cambridge things go on asusual. There is another agitation against Little-Go Greek being got up, andeverybody is saying what they have always said. It all seems rather remotefrom anything of real importance. My friend Wittgenstein was elected to theSociety, but thought it a waste of time, so he imitated henry john roby9andwas cursed. I think he did quite right, though I tried to dissuade him. Heis much the most apostolic and the ablest person I have come acrosssince Moore.I have done nothing to my Discourse. All the later summer I tried in vain torecapture the mood in which I had written it, but winter in England being inany case hopeless for that sort of writing I gave up for the present, and havebeen working at the philosophy of matter, in which I seem to see an openingfor something important. The whole question of our knowledge of theexternal world is involved. In the spring of next year, I am going to Harvard forthree months to lecture. I doubt if the people there are much good, but it willbe interesting. Santayana has brought out a new book, Winds of Doctrine, mostlycambridge again 215on Bergson and me. I have only looked it through so far – it has his usualqualities. Karin read a paper in praise of Bergson to the Aristotelian the otherday – Moore and I attacked her with all imaginable ferocity, but she displayedundaunted courage. – Frank Darwin is going to marry Mrs Maitland, asI suppose you have heard. – There – that is all the news I can think of – itall seems curiously trivial. We here in Cambridge all keep each other goingby the unquestioned assumption that what we do is important, but I oftenwonder if it really is. What is important I wonder? Scott and his companionsdying in the blizzard seem to me impervious to doubt – and his record ofit has a really great simplicity. But intellect, except at white heat, is very apt tobe trivial.I feel as if one would only discover on one’s death-bed what one oughtto have lived for, and realise too late that one’s life had been wasted. Anypassionate and courageous life seems good in itself, yet one feels that someelement of delusion is involved in giving so much passion to any humanlyattainable object. And so irony creeps into the very springs of one’s being. Areyou ?nding the Great Secret in the East? I doubt it. There is none – there isnot even an enigma. There is science and sober daylight and the business ofthe day – the rest is mere phantoms of the dusk. Yet I know that when thesummer comes I shall think di?erently.I wish I were with you, or you with me. Give my love to Bob.10Yours everB. RussellThe Doves PressApril 1913My dear BertieAt last, at last the Miltons are bound and I am sending them to your addressat Trinity. I also was at Trinity this year just half a century ago and this sameyear just the same long time ago ?rst saw your mother then Kate Stanley. I amnot sorry then to have so long delayed as to make my little o?ering in thissame year of grace.In a little while this will be closed and I shall be printing no more books –did I send you my swan-song? I forget. But before I close I shall haveprinted the letters in their year of anniversary, 1914, and that will make a?tting end.Let me hear of you and see you when next you come to Town.A?ectionately alwaysT. J. Cobden-Sandersonthe autobiography of bertrand russell 216Hon. B. A. W. Russell 29 Sparks StreetTrinity College Cambridge, Mass.Cambridge, Eng. June 15, 1913Esteemed ColleagueMy son, Norbert Wiener, will this week receive his degree of Ph.D. atHarvard University, his thesis being ‘A comparative Study of the Algebra ofRelatives of Schroeder and that of Whitehead and Russell’. He had expectedto be here next year and have the privilege of being your student in thesecond semester, but as he has received a travelling fellowship, he is obligedto pass the whole of the year in Europe, and so he wishes to enjoy theadvantage of studying under you at Trinity during the ?rst half of theacademic year. He intended to write to you about this matter, but his greatyouth, – he is only eighteen years old and his consequent inexperience withwhat might be essential for him to know in his European sojourn, leads me todo this service for him and ask your advice.Norbert graduated from College, receiving his A.B., at the age of four-teen, not as the result of premature development or of unusual precocity,but chie?y as the result of careful home training, free from useless waste,which I am applying to all of my children. He is physically strong(weighing 170 lbs.), perfectly balanced morally and mentally, and shows notraits generally associated with early precocity. I mention all this to you thatyou may not assume that you are to deal with an exceptional or freakish boy,but with a normal student whose energies have not been mis-directed.Outside of a broad, and liberal classical education, which includes Greek,Latin, and the modern languages, he has had a thorough course in thesciences, and in Mathematics has studied the Di?erential and integralCalculus, Di?erential Equations, the Galois Theory of Equations, and somebranches of Modern Algebra (under Prof. Huntington). In philosophy hehas pursued studies under Professors Royce, Perry, Palmer, Münsterberg,Schmidt, Holt, etc., at Harvard and Cornell Universities.11His predilectionis entirely for Modern Logic, and he wishes during his one or two years’stay in Europe to be bene?ted from those who have done distinguishedwork in that direction.Will he be able to study under you, or be directed by you, if he comes toCambridge in September or early October? What should he do in order toenjoy that privilege? I have before me The Student’s Handbook to Cambridgefor 1908, but I am unable to ascertain from it that any provisions are madefor graduate students wishing to obtain such special instruction or advice.Nor am I able to ?nd out anything about his residence there, whether hewould have to matriculate in Trinity College or could take rooms in the city.This is rather an important point to him as he is anxious, as far as possible,to get along on his rather small stipend. For any such information, whichcambridge again 217would smooth his ?rst appearance in a rather strange world to him I shall beextremely obliged to you.I shall take great pleasure to thank you in person for any kindness that thusmay be shown to my son, when, next year, you come to our AmericanCambridge to deliver lectures in the Department of Philosophy.Sincerely YoursLeo WienerProfessor of Slavic Languages andLiteratures at Harvard UniversityCapel HouseOrlestoneNr. Ashford, Kent4 Sept. 1913Dear SirWhy bring a bicycle in this windy, uncertain weather? The true solutionis to take a ticket (by the 11 a.m. train from Charing Cross I presume)to Hamstreet (change in Ashford after a few minutes’ wait) where my boy willmeet you with our ancient pu?er and bring you to the door before half pastone. Then there is a decent train at 5.48 from Ashford to get back to town afew minutes after seven.Whether there’s anything in me to make up for you the grind of thejourney I don’t know. What’s certain is that you will give me the very greatestpleasure by coming. So you may look upon the expedition as something inthe nature of ‘good works’. I would suggest Wednesday, since, as far as Iknow, there is no Act of Parliament as yet to stop the running of trains on thatday of the week – our new secular Sunday.Believe me very faithfully yoursJoseph ConradCapel HouseOrlestone, Nr. Ashford13 Sept. 1913My dear RussellYour letter has comforted me greatly. It seems to me that I talked all thetime with fatuous egotism. Yet somewhere at the back of my brain I had theconviction that you would understand my unusual talkativeness. Generally Idon’t know what to say to people. But your personality drew me out. Myinstinct told me I would not be misread.Let me thank you most heartily for the pleasure of your visit and forthe letter you had the friendly thought to write.Believe me sincerely yoursJoseph Conradthe autobiography of bertrand russell 218Capel HouseOrlestone, Nr. Ashford22 Dec. 1913My dear RussellJust a word of warmest good wishes from us all.I am glad I read the little book before coming to your essays. If in readingthe ?rst I felt moving step by step, with delight, on the ?rmest ground, theother gave me the sense of an enlarged vision in the clearest, the purestatmosphere. Your signi?cant words so signi?cantly assembled, seemed towake a new faculty within me. A wonderful experience for which one cannoteven express one’s thanks – one can only accept it silently like a gift from theGods. You have reduced to order the inchoate thoughts of a life-time andgiven a direction to those obscure mouvements d’ame which, unguided, bringonly trouble to one’s weary days on this earth. For the marvellous pages onthe Worship of a free man the only return one can make is that of a deepadmiring a?ection, which, if you were never to see me again and forgotmy existence tomorrow, will be unalterably yours usque ad ?nem.Yours everJ. ConradP.S. – I have been reading you yesterday and today and I have received toomany di?erent kinds of delight (I am speaking soberly) to be able to writemore today.3 Claremont CrescentWeston-super-MareJan. 31, ’14Dear Mr RussellMany thanks for your letter which has come on here where I am, I hope,getting over a short period of illness and incapacity. I am sure that I need nottell you that my expressions of admiration for your work were not merewords. I am not able to agree with your views in some points (at least as Iunderstand them) but I don’t feel the smallest doubt about their great value.And I am full of hope and expectation that you will go on to do still betterand better, though I am afraid that I can’t hope for much longer to be able toappreciate and enjoy any speculation.I think I understand what you say as to the way in which you philosophise. Iimagine that it is the right way and that its promises are never illusions, thoughthey may not be kept to the letter. There is something perhaps in the whole ofthings that one feels is wanting when one considers the doctrines before one,and (as happens elsewhere) one feels that one knows what one wants and thatwhat one wants is there – if only one could ?nd it. And for my part I believecambridge again 219that one does ?nd it more or less. And yet still I must believe that one neverdoes or can ?nd the whole in all its aspects, and that there never after all will bea philosopher who did not reach his truth, after all, except by some partialityand one-sideness – and that, far from mattering, this is the right and the onlyway. This is however only faith and I could not o?er to prove it.I am sure that in my own work, such as it is, I have illustrated thepartiality – if nothing else. I am afraid that I always write too con?dently –perhaps because otherwise I might not write at all. Still I don’t see that indoing so one can do much harm, or run the risk of imposing on anyonewhose judgment is of any value.If I have helped you in any way by my objections, that I feel will justifytheir existence more or less – even where they are quite mistaken – and it willbe a very great satisfaction to me always to have had your good opinion ofmy work.Perhaps I may add that I am getting the impression that I have been tendingmore and more to take refuge in the unknown and unknowable – in a waywhich I maintain is right, but which still is not what I quite like.Wishing you all success with your work and venturing to express the hopethat you will not allow yourself to be hurried.I amYours trulyF. H. Bradleythe autobiography of bertrand russell 2201914–1944The De?led Sanctuaryby William BlakeI saw a chapel all of goldThat none did dare to enter in,And many weeping stood without,Weeping, mourning, worshipping.I saw a serpent rise between