罗素自传（全本）-5

Without you I can do,And I think you’ll very soon be out of fashion.I remember her saying to me once after I was grown-up: ‘I hear you arewriting another book’, in the tone of voice in which one might say: ‘I hear youhave another illegitimate child!’ Mathematics she did not positively object to,though it was di?cult for her to believe that it could serve any useful pur-pose. Her hope for me was that I should become a Unitarian minister. I heldmy tongue as to my religious opinions until I was twenty-one. Indeed, afterthe age of fourteen I found living at home only endurable at the cost ofcomplete silence about everything that interested me. She practised a form ofhumour, which, though nominally amusing, was really full of animus. I didnot at that time know how to reply in kind, and merely felt hurt and miser-able. My Aunt Agatha was equally bad, and my Uncle Rollo at the time hadwithdrawn into himself through sorrow at his ?rst wife’s death. My brother,who was at Balliol, had become a Buddhist, and used to tell me that the soulcould be contained in the smallest envelope. I remember thinking of all thesmallest envelopes that I had seen, and I imagined the soul beating againstthem like a heart, but from what I could tell of esoteric Buddhism from mybrother’s conversation, it did not o?er me anything that I found of service.After he came of age, I saw very little of him, as the family considered himthe autobiography of bertrand russell 34wicked, and he therefore kept away from home. I was upheld by thedetermination to do something of importance in mathematics when I grewup, but I did not suppose that I should ever meet anybody with whom I couldmake friends, or to whom I could express any of my thoughts freely, nor didI expect that any part of my life would be free from great unhappiness.Throughout my time at Southgate I was very much concerned with politicsand economics. I read Mill’s Political Economy, which I was inclined to acceptcompletely; also Herbert Spencer, who seemed to me too doctrinaire in TheMan Versus The State, although I was in broad agreement with his bias.My Aunt Agatha introduced me to the books of Henry George, which shegreatly admired. I became convinced that land nationalisation would secureall the bene?ts that Socialists hoped to obtain from Socialism, and continuedto hold this view until the war of 1914–18.My grandmother Russell and my Aunt Agatha were passionate supporters ofGladstone’s Home Rule policy, and many Irish M.P.s used to visit PembrokeLodge. This was at a time when The Times professed to have documentaryproof that Parnell was an accomplice in murder. Almost the whole upper class,including the great majority of those who had supported Gladstone till 1886,accepted this view, until, in 1889, it was dramatically disproved by the forgerPiggot’s inability to spell ‘hesitancy’. My grandmother and aunt alwaysvehemently rejected the view that Parnell’s followers were in alliance withterrorists. They admired Parnell, with whom I once shook hands. But when hebecame involved in scandal, they agreed with Gladstone in repudiating him.Twice I went with my Aunt Agatha to Ireland. I used to go for walks withMichael Davitt, the Irish patriot, and also by myself. The beauty of the scenerymade a profound impression on me. I remember especially a small lake inCounty Wicklow, called Lugala. I have associated it ever since, though for nogood reason, with the lines:Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore,So do our minutes hasten to their end.Fifty years later, when visiting my friend Crompton Davies in Dublin, Iinduced him to take me to Lugala. But he took me to a wood high above thelake, not to the ‘pebbled shore’ that I had remembered, and I went awayconvinced that one should not attempt to renew old memories.In the year 1883 my Uncle Rollo bought a house on the slopes ofHindhead, where, for a long time, we all visited him for three months inevery year. At that time there were no houses on Hindhead except two dere-lict coaching inns, the ‘Royal Huts’ and the ‘Seven Thorns’. (They are notnow derelict.) Tyndall’s house, which started the fashion, was being built. Iwas frequently taken to see Tyndall, and he gave me one of his books, Theadolescence 35Forms of Water. I admired him as an eminent Man of Science, and stronglydesired to make some impression upon him. Twice I had some success. The?rst time was while he was talking to my Uncle Rollo, and I balanced on one?nger two walking sticks with crooks. Tyndall asked me what I was doing,and I said I was thinking of a practical method of determining the centre ofgravity. The second time, some years later, was when I told him that I hadclimbed the Piz Palü. He had been a pioneer Alpinist. I found inexpressibledelight in walks through the heather, over Blackdown, down the Punchbowl,and as far as the Devil’s Jumps at Churt. I particularly remember exploring asmall road called ‘Mother Bunch’s Lane’ (it is now full of houses, and hasa sign saying ‘Bunch Lane’). It continually diminished, and at last became amere path leading to the crest of Hurt Hill. Quite suddenly, when I expectednothing, I came upon an enormous view, embracing half of Sussex andalmost all of Surrey. Moments of this sort have been important in my life. Ingeneral, I ?nd that things that have happened to me out of doors have made adeeper impression than things that have happened indoors.APPENDIX: ‘GREEK EXERCISES’1888. March 3. I shall write about some subjects which now interest me. Ihave in consequence of a variety of circumstances come to look into the veryfoundations of the religion in which I have been brought up. On some pointsmy conclusions have been to con?rm my former creed, while on others Ihave been irresistibly led to such conclusions as would not only shock mypeople, but have given me much pain. I have arrived at certainty in fewthings, but my opinions, even where not convictions, are on some thingsnearly such. I have not the courage to tell my people that I scarcely believe inimmortality. I used to speak freely to Mr Ewen on such matters, but now Icannot let out my thoughts to any one, and this is the only means I have ofletting o? steam. I intend to discuss some of my problems here.19th. I mean today to put down my grounds for belief in God. I may say tobegin with that I do believe in God and that I should call myself a theist if Ihad to give my creed a name. Now in ?nding reasons for believing in God Ishall only take account of scienti?c arguments. This is a vow I have madewhich costs me much to keep, and to reject all sentiment. To ?nd thenscienti?c grounds for a belief in God we must go back to the beginningof all things. We know that the present laws of nature have always been inforce. The exact quantity of matter and energy now in the universe mustalways have been in existence, but the nebular hypothesis points to nodistant date for the time when the whole universe was ?lled with undi?eren-tiated nebulous matter. Hence it is quite possible that the matter and forcethe autobiography of bertrand russell 36now in existence may have had a creation, which clearly could be only bydivine power. But even granting that they have always been in existence, yetwhence came the laws which regulate the action of force on matter? I thinkthey are only attributable to a divine controlling power, which I accordinglycall God.March 22. Now let us look into the reasonableness of the reasoning. Let ussuppose that the universe we now see has, as some suppose, grown by merechance. Should we then expect every atom to act in any given conditionsprecisely similarly to another atom? I think if atoms be lifeless there is noreason to expect them to do anything without a controlling power. If on theother hand they be endowed with free will we are forced to the conclusionthat all atoms in the universe have combined in the commonwealth and havemade laws which none of them ever break. This is clearly an absurd hypoth-esis and therefore we are forced to believe in God. But this way of proving hisexistence at the same time disproves miracles and other supposed manifes-tations of divine power. It does not however disprove their possibility, for ofcourse the maker of laws can also unmake them. We may arrive in anotherway at a disbelief in miracles. For if God is the maker of the laws, surely itwould imply an imperfection in the law if it had to be altered occasionally,and such imperfection we can never impute to the divine nature, as in theBible, God repented him of the work.April 2. I now come to the subject which personally interests us poormortals more perhaps than any other. I mean the question of immortality.This is the one in which I have been most disappointed and pained bythought. There are two ways of looking at it, ?rst by evolution and compar-ing men to animals, second, by comparing men with God. The ?rst is themore scienti?c, for we know all about the animals but not about God. Well, Ihold that, taking free will ?rst, to consider there is no clear dividing linebetween man and the protozoan, therefore if we give free will to men wemust give it also the protozoan; this is rather hard to do. Therefore, unless weare willing to give free will to the protozoan we cannot give it to man. Thishowever is possible but it is di?cult to imagine, if, as seems to me probable,protoplasm only came together in the ordinary course of nature without anyspecial providence from God; then we and all living things are simply keptgoing by chemical forces and are nothing more wonderful than a tree, whichno one pretends has free will, and even if we had a good enough knowledgeof the forces acting on anyone at any time, the motives pro and con, theconstitution of his brain at any time, then we could tell exactly what he willdo. Again from the religious point of view free will is a very arrogant thingfor us to claim, for of course it is an interruption of God’s laws, for by hisadolescence 37ordinary laws all our actions would be ?xed as the stars. I think we mustleave to God the primary establishment of laws which are never broken anddetermine everybody’s doings. And not having free will we cannot haveimmortality.Monday, April 6. I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes mequite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhap-pily for himself, with consciousness. But no other theory is consistent withthe complete omnipotence of God of which science, I think, gives amplemanifestations. Thus I must either be an atheist or disbelieve in immortality.Finding the ?rst impossible I adopt the second and let no one know. I think,however disappointing may be this view of men, it does give us a wonderfulidea of God’s greatness to think that He can in the beginning create lawswhich by acting on a mere mass of nebulous matter, perhaps merely etherdi?used through this part of the universe, will produce creatures like our-selves, conscious not only of our existence but even able to fathom to acertain extent God’s mysteries. All this with no more intervention on his part.Now let us think whether this doctrine of want of free will is so absurd. If wetalk about it to anyone they kick their legs or something of that sort. Butperhaps they cannot help it for they have something to prove and thereforethat supplies a motive to them to do it. Thus in anything we do we alwayshave motives which determine us. Also there is no line of demarcationbetween Shakespeare or Herbert Spencer and a Papuan. But between themand a Papuan there seems as much di?erence as between a Papuan and amonkey.April 14th. Yet there are great di?culties in the way of this doctrine thatman has not immortality nor free will nor a soul, in short that he is nothingmore than a species of ingenious machine endowed with consciousness. Forconsciousness in itself is a quality quite distinguishing men from dead matterand if they have one thing di?erent from dead matter why not have another,free will? By free will I mean that they do not for example obey the ?rstlaw of motion, or at least that the direction in which the energy they containis employed depends not entirely on external circumstances. Moreover itseems impossible to imagine that man, the Great Man, with his reason, hisknowledge of the universe, and his ideas of right and wrong, Man with hisemotions, his love and hate and his religion, that this Man should be a mereperishable chemical compound whose character and his in?uence for goodor for evil depend solely and entirely on the particular motions of the mol-ecules of his brain and that all the greatest men have been great by reason ofsome one molecule hitting up against some other a little oftener than in othermen. Does not this seem utterly incredible and must not any one be mad whothe autobiography of bertrand russell 38believes in such absurdity? But what is the alternative? That, accepting theevolution theory which is practically proved, apes having gradually increasedin intelligence, God suddenly by a miracle endowed one with that wonderfulreason which it is a mystery how we possess. Then is man, truly called themost glorious work of God, is man destined to perish utterly after he hasbeen so many ages evolving? We cannot say, but I prefer that idea to God’shaving needed a miracle to produce man and now leaving him free to do ashe likes.April 18th. Accepting then the theory that man is mortal and destitute offree will, which is as much as ever a mere theory, as of course all these kindsof things are mere speculation, what idea can we form of right and wrong?Many say if you make any mention of such an absurd doctrine as predestin-ation, which comes to much the same thing, though parsons don’t think so,why what becomes of conscience, etc., which they think has been directlyimplanted in man by God. Now my idea is that our conscience is in the?rst place due to evolution, which would of course form instincts of self-preservation, and in the second place to education and civilisation, whichintroduces great re?nements of the idea of self-preservation. Let us take forexample the ten commandments as illustrative of primitive morality. Many ofthem are conducive to quiet living of the community which is best for thepreservation of the species. Thus what is always considered the worst possiblecrime and the one for which most remorse is felt is murder, which is directannihilation of the species. Again, as we know, among the Hebrews it wasthought a mark of God’s favour to have many children, while the childlesswere considered as cursed of God. Among the Romans also widows werehated and I believe forbidden to remain unmarried in Rome more than a year.Now why these peculiar ideas? Were they not simply because these objects ofpity or dislike did not bring forth fresh human beings? We can well under-stand how such ideas might grow up when men became rather sensible, for ifmurder and suicide were common in a tribe that tribe would die out andhence one which held such acts in abhorrence would have a great advantage.Of course among more educated societies these ideas are rather modi?ed.My own I mean to give next time.April 20th. Thus I think that primitive morality always originates in theidea of the preservation of the species. But is this a rule which a civilisedcommunity ought to follow? I think not. My rule of life, which I guide myconduct by, and a departure from which I consider as a sin, is to act in themanner which I believe to be most likely to produce the greatest happiness,considering both the intensity of the happiness and the number of peoplemade happy. I know that Granny considers this an impractical rule of life andadolescence 39says that since you can never know the thing which will produce the greatesthappiness you do much better in following the inner voice. The conscience,however, can easily be seen to depend mostly upon education, as for examplecommon Irishmen do not consider lying wrong, which fact alone seems tome quite su?cient to disprove the divine value of conscience. And since, as Ibelieve, conscience is merely the combined product of evolution and educa-tion, then obviously it is an absurdity to follow that rather than reason. Andmy reason tells me that it is better to act so as to produce maximum happinessthan in any other way. For I have tried to see what other object I could setbefore me and I have failed. Not my own individual happiness in particular,but everybody’s equally, making no distinction between myself, relations,friends, or perfect strangers. In real life it makes very little di?erence to me aslong as others are not of my opinion, for obviously where there is any chanceof being found out it is better to do what one’s people consider right. Myreason for this view: ?rst that I can ?nd no other, having been forced, aseverybody must who seriously thinks about evolution, to give up the old ideaof asking one’s conscience, next that it seems to me that happiness is the greatthing to seek after. As an application of the theory to practical life, I will saythat in a case where nobody but myself was concerned, if indeed such a caseexist, I should of course act entirely sel?shly to please myself. Suppose foranother instance that I had the chance of saving a man who would be betterout of the world. Obviously I should consult my own happiness best byplunging in after him. For if I lost my life, that would be a very neat way ofmanaging it, and if I saved him I should have the pleasure of no end of praise.But if I let him drown I should have lost an opportunity of death and shouldhave the misery of much blame, but the world would be better for his lossand, as I have some slight hope, for my life.April 29th. In all things I have made the vow to follow reason, not theinstincts inherited partly from my ancestors and gained gradually by them,owing to a process of natural selection, and partly due to my education.How absurd it would be to follow these in the questions of right and wrong.For as I observed before, the inherited part can only be principles leadingto the preservation of the species to which I belong, the part due to educationis good or bad according to the individual education. Yet this inner voice,this God-given conscience which made Bloody Mary burn the Protestants,this is what we reasonable beings are to follow. I think this idea mad and Iendeavour to go by reason as far as possible. What I take as my ideal isthat which ultimately produces greatest happiness of greatest number. ThenI can apply reason to ?nd out the course most conducive to this end. Inmy individual case, however, I can also go more or less by conscienceowing to the excellence of my education. But it is curious how peoplethe autobiography of bertrand russell 40dislike the abandonment of brutish impulses for reason. I remember poorEwen getting a whole dinner of argument, owing to his running downimpulse. Today again at tea Miss Buhler and I had a long discussion becauseI said that I followed reason not conscience in matters of right and wrong. Ido hate having such peculiar opinions because either I must keep thembottled up or else people are horri?ed at my scepticism, which is as badwith people one cares for as remaining bottled up. I shall be sorry whenMiss Buhler goes because I can open my heart easier to her than to my ownpeople, strange to say.May 3rd. Miss Buhler is gone and I am left again to loneliness and reserve.Happily, however, it seems all but settled that I am going to Southgate andprobably within the week. That will save me I feel sure from those morosecogitations during the week, owing to the amount of activity of my life, andnovelty at ?rst. I do not expect that I shall enjoy myself at ?rst, but after a timeI hope I shall. Certainly it will be good for my work, for my games and mymanners, and my future happiness I expect....May 8th. What a much happier life mine would be but for these wretchedideas of mine about theology. Tomorrow I go, and tonight Granny prayed abeautiful prayer for me in my new life, in which among other things she said:May he especially be taught to know God’s in?nite love for him. Well that is aprayer to which I can heartily say Amen, and moreover it is one of which Istand in the greatest need. For according to my ideas of God we have noparticular reason to suppose he loves us. For he only set the machine inworking order to begin with and then left it to work out its own necessaryconsequences. Now you may say his laws are such as a?ord the greatestpossible happiness to us mortals, but that is a statement of which there can beno proof. Hence I see no reason to believe in God’s kindness towards me, andeven the whole prayer was more or less a solemn farce to me, though I wastruly a?ected by the simple beauty of prayer and her earnest way in saying it.What a thing it is to have such people! What might I be had I been worsebrought up!By the way, to change to a more cheerful subject: Marshall4and I had anawfully ?ne day of it. We went down to the river, marched into Broom Hall,5bagged a boat of Frank’s we found there, and rowed up the river beyondKingston Bridge without anybody at Broom Hall having seen us except one oldman who was lame. Who the dickens he was I haven’t the faintest idea. Marshallwas awfully anxious to have some tea and we came to an nth rate inn whichhe thought would do. Having however like idiots left our jackets in theboat-house at Teddington we had to march in without coats and were servedby the cheekiest of maids ever I saw who said she thought we were theadolescence 41carpenters come to mend the house. Then we rowed back as hard as possibleand got home perspiring fearfully and twenty minutes late which produced asmall row.May 20th. Here I am home again for the ?rst time from Southgate. It seemsa pleasant place but it is sad really to see the kind of boys that are commoneverywhere. No mind, no independent thought, no love of good books norof the higher re?nements of morality. It is really sad that the upper classes ofa civilised and (supposed to be) moral country can produce nothing better. Iam glad I didn’t go away from home sooner as I should never have come tomy present state had I done so, but should have been merely like one of them.(By the way, how terribly pharisaical I am getting.) I think the six monthssince Baillie went have made a great alteration in me. I have become of acalmer, thoughtfuller, poeticaller nature than I was. One little thing I thinkillustrates this well. I never before thought much of the views in spring,whereas this year I was so simply carried away by their beauty that I askedGranny if they were not more beautiful than usual, but she said not. I likepoetry much better than I did and have read all Shakespeare’s historical playswith great delight, and long to read In Memoriam.May 27th. As I said last time, I attempt to work according to my principleswithout the smallest expectations of reward, and even without using the lightof conscience blindly as an infallible guide . . . It is very di?cult for anyone towork aright with no aid from religion, by his own internal guidance merely. Ihave tried and I may say failed. But the sad thing is that I have no otherresource. I have no helpful religion. My doctrines, such as they are, help mydaily life no more than a formula in Algebra. But the great inducement to agood life with me is Granny’s love and the immense pain I know it gives herwhen I go wrong. But she must I suppose die some day and where then willbe my stay? I have the very greatest fear that my life hereafter be ruined by myhaving lost the support of religion. I desire of all things that my religion shouldnot spread, for I of all people ought, owing to my education and the caretaken of my moral well-being, to be of all people the most moral. So I believe Imight be were it not for these unhappy ideas of mine, for how easy it is whenone is much tempted to convince oneself that only happiness will be producedby yielding to temptation, when according to my ideas the course one hasbeen taught to abhor immediately becomes virtuous. If ever I shall become anutter wreck of what I hope to be I think I shall bring forward this book as anexplanation. We stand in want of a new Luther to renew faith and invigorateChristianity and to do what the Unitarians would do if only they had a reallygreat man such as Luther to lead them. For religions grow old like trees unlessreformed from time to time. Christianity of the existing kinds has had itsthe autobiography of bertrand russell 42day. We want a new form in accordance with science and yet helpful to agood life.June 3rd. It is extraordinary how few principles or dogmas I have been ableto become convinced of. One after another I ?nd my former undoubtedbeliefs slipping from me into the region of doubt. For example, I used neverfor a moment to doubt that truth was a good thing to get hold of. But now Ihave the very greatest doubt and uncertainty. For the search for truth has ledme to these results I have put in this book, whereas had I been content toaccept the teachings of my youth I should have remained comfortable. Thesearch for truth has shattered most of my old beliefs and has made mecommit what are probably sins where otherwise I should have kept clear ofthem. I do not think it has in any way made me happier. Of course it has givenme a deeper character, a contempt for tri?es or mockery, but at the same timeit has taken away cheerfulness and made it much harder to make bosomfriends, and worst of all it has debarred me from free intercourse with mypeople, and thus made them strangers to some of my deepest thoughts,which, if by any mischance I do let them out, immediately become thesubject for mockery, which is inexpressibly bitter to me though not unkindlymeant. Thus in my individual case I should say the e?ects of a search for truthhave been more bad than good. But the truth which I accept as such may besaid not to be truth and I may be told that if I get at real truth I shall be madehappier by it, but this is a very doubtful proposition. Hence I have greatdoubt of the unmixed advantage of truth. Certainly truth in biology lowersone’s idea of man which must be painful. Moreoever, truth estranges formerfriends and prevents the making of new ones, which is also a bad thing. Oneought perhaps to look upon all these things as a martyrdom, since very oftentruth attained by one man may lead to the increase in the happiness of manyothers though not to his own. On the whole I am inclined to continue topursue truth, though truth of the kind in this book, if that indeed be truth, Ihave no desire to spread but rather to prevent from spreading.July 15th. My holidays have begun about a week now and I am gettingused to home and beginning to regard Southgate as an evil dream of the past.For although I tell people I like it very much, yet really, though better than Iexpected, life there has great trials and hardships. I don’t suppose anybodyhates disturbance as I do or can so ill stand mockery, though to outwardappearance I keep my temper all right. Being made to sing, to climb onchairs, to get up for a sponging in the middle of the night, is to me ?fty timesmore detestable than to others. I always have to go through in a moment along train of reasoning as to the best thing to say or do, for I have su?cientself-control to do what I think best, and the excitement, which to othersadolescence 43might seem small, leaves me trembling and exhausted. However, I think it isan excellent thing for me, as it increases my capacity for enjoyment andstrengthens me morally to a very considerable extent. I shan’t forget in ahurry their amazement that I had never said a ‘damn’, which with things likeit goes near to making me a fanfaron de crimes. This, however, is a bad thing tobe, when only too many real crimes are committed. . . . I am glad I didn’t goto school before. I should have wanted strength and have had no time for theoriginal thought, which though it has caused me much pain, is yet my chiefstay and support in troubles. I am always kept up by a feeling of contempt,erroneous though it may be, for all who despitefully use me and persecuteme. I don’t think contempt is misplaced when a chap’s habitual language isabout something like ‘who put me on my cold, cold pot whether I would ornot? My mother,’ sung to the tune of ‘Thy will be done’. Had my education,however, been the least bit less perfect than it is I should probably have beenthe same. But I feel I must enjoy myself at home much better than ever before,which with an imaginary feeling of heroism reconciles me to a great deal ofunhappiness at Southgate.