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intellectual e?ort. I remember, for instance, the occasion mentioned earlierwhen Maynard Keynes came to spend Saturday to Monday with us at Tilford.In 1905 things began to improve. Alys and I decided to live near Oxford,and built ourselves a house in Bagley Wood. (At that time there was no otherhouse there.) We went to live there in the spring of 1905, and very shortlyafter we had moved in I discovered my Theory of Descriptions, which wasthe ?rst step towards overcoming the di?culties which had ba?ed me forso long. Immediately after this came the death of Theodore Davies, of whichI have spoken in an earlier chapter. In 1906 I discovered the Theory of Types.After this it only remained to write the book out. Whitehead’s teaching workleft him not enough leisure for this mechanical job. I worked at it from ten tothe autobiography of bertrand russell 142twelve hours a day for about eight months in the year, from 1907 to 1910.The manuscript became more and more vast, and every time that I went outfor a walk I used to be afraid that the house would catch ?re and the manu-script get burnt up. It was not, of course, the sort of manuscript that could betyped, or even copied. When we ?nally took it to the University Press, it wasso large that we had to hire an old four-wheeler for the purpose. Even thenour di?culties were not at an end. The University Press estimated that therewould be a loss of ￡600 on the book, and while the syndics were willing tobear a loss of ￡300, they did not feel that they could go above this ?gure. TheRoyal Society very generously contributed ￡200, and the remaining ￡100 wehad to ?nd ourselves. We thus earned minus ￡50 each by ten years’ work.This beats the record of Paradise Lost.The strain of unhappiness combined with very severe intellectual work, inthe years from 1902 till 1910, was very great.3At the time I often wonderedwhether I should ever come out at the other end of the tunnel in whichI seemed to be. I used to stand on the footbridge at Kennington, near Oxford,watching the trains go by, and determining that tomorrow I would placemyself under one of them. But when the morrow came I always found myselfhoping that perhaps Principia Mathematica would be ?nished some day. More-over the di?culties appeared to me in the nature of a challenge, which itwould be pusillanimous not to meet and overcome. So I persisted, and in theend the work was ?nished, but my intellect never quite recovered from thestrain. I have been ever since de?nitely less capable of dealing with di?cultabstractions than I was before. This is part, though by no means the whole, ofthe reason for the change in the nature of my work.Throughout this period my winters were largely occupied with politicalquestions. When Joseph Chamberlain began to advocate Protection, I foundmyself to be a passionate Free Trader. The in?uence which Hewins hadexerted upon me in the direction of Imperialism and Imperialistic Zollvereinhad evaporated during the moments of crisis in 1901 which turned me into aPaci?st. Nevertheless in 1902 I became a member of a small dining clubcalled ‘The Coe?cients’, got up by Sidney Webb for the purpose of consider-ing political questions from a more or less Imperialist point of view. It was inthis club that I ?rst became acquainted with H. G. Wells, of whom I had neverheard until then. His point of view was more sympathetic to me than that ofany other member. Most of the members, in fact, shocked me profoundly.I remember Amery’s eyes gleaming with blood-lust at the thought of a warwith America, in which, as he said with exultation, we should have to armthe whole adult male population. One evening Sir Edward Grey (not then ino?ce) made a speech advocating the policy of the Entente, which had notyet been adopted by the Government. I stated my objections to the policyvery forcibly, and pointed out the likelihood of its leading to war, but no one‘principia mathematica’ 143agreed with me, so I resigned from the club. It will be seen that I began myopposition to the ?rst war at the earliest possible moment. After this I took tospeaking in defence of Free Trade on behalf of the Free Trade Union. I hadnever before attempted public speaking, and was shy and nervous to such adegree as to make me at ?rst wholly ine?ective. Gradually, however, mynervousness got less. After the Election of 1906, when Protection ceasedfor the moment to be a burning question, I took to working for women’ssu?rage. On paci?st grounds I disliked the Militants, and worked always withthe Constitutional party. In 1907 I even stood for Parliament at a by-election,on behalf of votes for women. The Wimbledon Campaign was short andarduous. It must be quite impossible for younger people to imagine thebitterness of the opposition to women’s equality. When, in later years, Icampaigned against the ?rst world war, the popular opposition thatI encountered was not comparable to that which the su?ragists met in 1907.The whole subject was treated, by a great majority of the population, as onefor mere hilarity. The crowd would shout derisive remarks: to women, ‘Gohome and mind the baby’; to men, ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ nomatter what the man’s age. Rotten eggs were aimed at me and hit my wife. Atmy ?rst meeting rats were let loose to frighten the ladies, and ladies whowere in the plot screamed in pretended terror with a view to disgracing theirsex. An account of this is given in the following newspaper report:Election UproarRats let loose to scare women su?ragistsWimbledon ?ghtThe Hon. Bertrand Russell, the suffragist candidate for the Wimbledondivision, opened his campaign on Saturday night, when he addressed acrowded and rather noisy meeting in Worple Hall. A mixed reception wasgiven to the chairman, Mr O. H. Beatty, a member of the local LiberalAssociation executive council, and the platform party, which included thecandidate, Mrs Russell, Mr St George Lane Fox-Pitt, the unsuccessful Liberalcandidate at the General Election, Mrs Philip Snowden, Miss Alison Garland,and many others connected with the National Union of Women’s SuffrageSocieties.From the outset it was apparent that a section of the audience – about2,000 – was hostile to the promoters. The chairman often appealed in vainfor silence. Within ten minutes of the start a free ?ght took place in onecorner of the hall, and ?ve minutes elapsed before peace was restored.People jumped on to the forms and chairs and encouraged the squabblers.At another stage two large rats were let loose from a bag, and ran about the?oor of the hall among a number of ladies sitting in the front seats. For athe autobiography of bertrand russell 144moment there was great commotion, the ladies jumping on the chairs, whilsta number of men hunted the rats about the seats, and at last managed to killthem. After the meeting one of the dead rats was taken to Victoria Crescentand ?ung into the candidate’s committee room.The rowdyism of the meeting, however, was con?ned to a large crowd ofirresponsible young men and youths, who ought never to have been admit-ted, and it would therefore be unfair to blame the general body of Wimbledonelectors for the blackguardly conduct of the political rabble.Mr Russell was greeted with loud applause and general interruptions, and,the latter being persisted in, the chairman remarked: ‘Surely this is not theway that Wimbledon men and women greet a stranger.’ (A Voice: ‘Are wedown-hearted?’ and cries of ‘No’.) A minute or so later the chairman againmade an appeal to the rowdy section, and by asking them not to disgrace thename of Wimbledon he secured quietness for a time.Mr Russell declared that he stood ?rst and foremost for the suffrage forwomen on the same terms as men, and on the terms on which hereafter itmight be granted to men. (A Voice: ‘Do we want petticoats?’ and cries of‘No’.)Proceeding, the candidate said he supported the present Government.(Cheers and uproar.) The most important of all the questions that divided theLiberal and Conservative parties was Free Trade, and a question closelyassociated with Free Trade was taxation of land values.Mr Fox-Pitt rose, with a broad smile on his face. He wanted to tell themsomething about Mr Chaplin’s history, but the meeting would have none of it,and he too gave up the task as hopeless.Mrs Philip Snowden showed greater determination, and although at thestart she was howled and jeered at, she was given a fairly good hearing. MrsArthur Webb, Miss Alison Garland, and Mr Walter MacLaren also spoke, anda resolution in support of Mr Russell was carried by an overwhelmingmajority.The savagery of the males who were threatened with loss of supremacy wasintelligible. But the determination of large numbers of women to prolongthe contempt of the female sex was odd. I cannot recall any violent agitationof Negroes or Russian serfs against emancipation. The most prominentopponent of political rights for women was Queen Victoria.I had been a passionate advocate of equality for women ever since inadolescence I read Mill on the subject. This was some years before I becameaware of the fact that my mother used to campaign in favour of women’ssu?rage in the ’sixties. Few things are more surprising than the rapid andcomplete victory of this cause throughout the civilised world. I am glad tohave had a part in anything so successful.‘principia mathematica’ 145Gradually, however, I became convinced that the limited enfranchisementof women which was being demanded would be more di?cult to obtainthan a wider measure, since the latter would be more advantageous to theLiberals, who were in power. The professional su?ragists objected to thewider measure, because, although it would enfranchise more women, itwould not enfranchise them on exactly the same terms as men, and wouldtherefore not, in their opinion, concede the principle of women’s equalitywith men. On this point I ?nally left the orthodox su?ragists, and joined abody which advocated adult su?rage. This body was got up by MargaretDavies (the sister of Crompton and Theodore), and had Arthur Henderson asits chairman. In those days I was still a Liberal, and tried to suppose thatArthur Henderson was somewhat of a ?re-brand. In this e?ort, however,I was not very successful.In spite of amusing and pleasant interludes, the years from 1902 to 1910were very painful to me. They were, it is true, extremely fruitful in the way ofwork, but the pleasure to be derived from the writing of Principia Mathematicawas all crammed into the latter months of 1900. After that time the di?cultyand the labour were too great for any pleasure to be possible. The last yearswere better than the earlier ones because they were more fruitful, but theonly really vivid delight connected with the whole matter was that which Ifelt in handing over the manuscript to the Cambridge University Press.LETTERSTo and from Gilbert Murray:Downing CollegeCambridgeFebruary 26, 1901Dear GilbertI have now read the Hippolytus, and feel impelled to tell you how much ithas a?ected me. Those of us who love poetry read the great masterpiecesof modern literature before we have any experience of the passions they dealwith. To come across a new masterpiece with a more mature mind is awonderful experience, and one which I have found almost overwhelming.It had not happened to me before, and I could not have believed how muchit would a?ect me. Your tragedy ful?ls perfectly – so it seems to me – thepurpose of bringing out whatever is noble and beautiful in sorrow; and tothose of us who are without a religion, this is the only consolation of whichthe spectacle of the world cannot deprive us.The play itself was entirely new to me, and I have felt its power mostkeenly. But I feel that your poetry is completely worthy of its theme, and is tobe placed in the very small list of truly great English poems. I like best of allthe autobiography of bertrand russell 146the lyric with which you ended your reading at Newnham. I learnt it by heartimmediately, and it has been in my head ever since. There is only one word init which I do not wholly like, and that is the word bird-droves. Metrically it isexcellent, but a drove seems to me to be something driven, which spoils thepeacefulness of the idea to my mind.Yours everBertrand RussellBarford, Churt,Farnham, SurreyMarch 2, 1901My dear BertieI will not say that I feel pleased or delighted by your great enjoyment of myHippolytus, because my feelings are quite di?erent from that. It is rather thatyour strong praise makes a sort of epoch in my life and in my way of regard-ing my work. Of course I have felt great emotion in working at the Hippolytus; Ihave been entranced by it. And then the thought has always come to me, thatthere were dozens of translations of the Greek Tragedians in all the second-hand shops; and that I could not read any of them with the least interest; andthat probably the authors of nearly all of them had felt exactly as I was feelingabout the extraordinary beauty and power of the matter they were writingdown. A translator, if he takes pains, naturally gets nearer to understandinghis author than an ordinary reader does; and every now and again the poemmeans to him something approaching that which it meant to the poet.Of course all authors – in di?erent degrees, but all enormously – fail toconvey their meaning. And translators, being less good writers and havinga harder task, fail even more deplorably. That is the normal state of the case.But what seems to have happened in our case is that you have somehow orother understood and felt the whole of what I meant to convey.I do not mean that I had anything mysterious or extraordinary to say; butmerely that, even in the case of a bad poet or the Man-in-the-Street when incertain moods, if you could really understand what was in his mind it wouldbe something astonishingly beautiful compared with what one ordinarilygets from reading a very good poem. When I am bored with poetry,I constantly have the feeling that I am simply not understanding the man orhe is not expressing himself, and that probably something very ?ne indeed isgoing on inside him. And in some moment of special insight one might seeinside him and get the ?ne thing.I see what you mean about ‘Bird-droves’. I will try to change it, butI cannot think of anything better so far. The ?? arrived all right.Yours everGilbert Murray‘principia mathematica’ 147Friday’s HillApril 3, 1902Dear GilbertIn all our discussions on ethical subjects, I observe a di?erence as topremisses, a real divergence as to moral axioms. As I am very anxious tobe clear on the subject of immediate moral intuitions (upon which, as isevident, all morality must be based), and as a divergence upon fundamentalsraises doubts, I should like to make an attempt to discover precisely what ourdi?erences are, and whether either of us holds at the same time mutuallyincompatible axioms.Our di?erences seem to spring from the fact that you are a utilitarian,whereas I judge pleasure and pain to be of small importance comparedto knowledge, the appreciation and contemplation of beauty, and a certainintrinsic excellence of mind which, apart from its practical e?ects, appears tome to deserve the name of virtue. What I want to discover is, whether youtoo do not hold moral principles not deducible from utilitarianism, andtherefore inconsistent with it. (It is important to observe that the method ofSidgwick’s Ethics, in which a number of commonly received moral axioms areshown to be roughly such as Utilitarianism would deduce as ‘middle axioms’,is fallacious if, with Sidgwick, we accept the general basis of Intuitionism –i.e. the doctrine that immediate intuitions are the only source (for us) ofmoral premisses. For, if such axioms are immediate deliverances of moralconsciousness, they are to be accepted even in those exceptional cases inwhich they are inconsistent with Utilitarianism; and thus any axiom notrigidly deducible from Utilitarianism is inconsistent with it.)I may as well begin by confessing that for many years it seemed to meperfectly self-evident that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil.Now, however, the opposite seems to me self-evident. This change has beenbrought about by what I may call moral experience. The ordinary a prioriphilosopher will tell you that experience has nothing to do with morals,since it tells us only what is, not what ought to be. This view seems to mephilosophically and practically erroneous; it depends upon the sensationaltheory of knowledge, which, alas, is held in some form by many would bea priori philosophers. Having recognised that, in perception, our knowledge isnot caused by the object perceived, it is plain that, if perception is experience,so is any other genesis in time, due to whatever cause, of knowledge notobtained by inference from other knowledge. Now circumstances are apt togenerate perfectly concrete moral convictions: this or that, now presentto me, is good or bad; and from a defect of imagination, it is often impossibleto judge beforehand what our moral opinion of a fact will be. It seems to methat the genuine moral intuitions are of this very concrete kind; in fact thatwe see goodness or badness in things as we see their colours and shapes. Thethe autobiography of bertrand russell 148notion that general maxims are to be found in conscience seems to me to bea mistake fostered by the Decalogue. I should rather regard the true methodof Ethics as inference from empirically ascertained facts, to be obtained inthat moral laboratory which life o?ers to those whose eyes are open to it.Thus the principles I should now advocate are all inferences from suchimmediate concrete moral experiences.What ?rst turned me away from utilitarianism was the persuasion thatI myself ought to pursue philosophy, although I had (and have still) no doubtthat by doing economics and the theory of politics I could add more tohuman happiness. It appeared to me that the dignity of which human exist-ence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life, and thatunless the contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind willbecome no better than well-fed pigs. But I do not believe that such contem-plation on the whole tends to happiness. It gives moments of delight, butthese are outweighed by years of e?ort and depression. Also I re?ected thatthe value of a work of art has no relation whatever to the pleasure it gives;indeed, the more I have dwelt upon the subject, the more I have come toprize austerity rather than luxuriance. It seems to me now that mathematics iscapable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater;not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, eitherin intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, butbecause it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic ofgreat art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, infact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect and yet true.Again, in regard to actual human existence, I have found myself giving hon-our to those who feel its tragedy, who think truly about Death, who areoppressed by ignoble things even when they are inevitable; yet these qualitiesappear to me to militate against happiness, not only to the possessors, but toall whom they a?ect. And, generally, the best life seems to me one whichthinks truly and feels greatly about human things, and which, in addition,contemplates the world of beauty and of abstract truths. This last is, perhaps,my most anti-utilitarian opinion: I hold all knowledge that is concerned withthings that actually exist – all that is commonly called Science – to be of veryslight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and math-ematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from thismiserable world which God has made.My point, in all this, is to suggest that my opinions would be shared bymost moral people who are not biassed by a theory. Archimedes, I believe,was despised by contemporary geometers because he used geometry to makeuseful inventions. And utilitarians have been strangely anxious to prove thatthe life of the pig is not happier than that of the philosopher – a mostdubious proposition, which, if they had considered the matter frankly, could‘principia mathematica’ 149hardly have been decided in the same way by all of them. In the matter of Art,too, I certainly have educated common sense on my side: anyone would holdit a paradox to regard Home Sweet Home as better than Bach. In this connec-tion, too, it is necessary for the Utilitarian to hold that a beautiful object is notgood per se, but only as a means; thus it becomes di?cult to see why thecontemplation of beauty should be specially good, since it is scarcely deni-able that the same emotion which a person of taste obtains from a beautifulobject may be obtained by another person from an ugly object. And a personof taste can only be de?ned as one who gets the emotion in question frombeauty, not from ugliness. Yet all of us judge a person to be the better for thepossession of taste, though only a blind theorist could maintain that tasteincreases happiness. Here is a hard nut for the Utilitarian!All these arguments are at least as old as Plato; but I should like to know,when you have leisure, what answer a Utilitarian can make to them. Thebooks contain only sophistries and lies – opinions possible, perhaps, to menwho live only in the study, and have no knowledge of life whatever, but quiteuntenable by anyone who faces this ghastly world of ignoble degradation, inwhich only virtue is punished and vice lives and dies happy and respected.Yours everBertrand Russell14 Cheyne WalkChelsea, S.W.November 27, 1902Dear GilbertI have been reading the Bacchae over again, and it seems to me now a muchgreater play than the Hippolytus, more marvellous, indeed, than any play I haveever read, unless perhaps Hamlet and Lear. It has been growing on me graduallyever since I read it ?rst; like all great things, it is impossible to see the wholeof it, but new points perpetually strike one.The strange mystic exaltation of the chorus is very haunting, and the waythat their world of frenzy and beauty supports itself till just the end againstthe everyday world is extraordinarily powerful. As a whole, I confess, the playdoes not strike me as at all puzzling: it is surely intelligible enough how thoseto whom such divine intoxication comes are ?lled with fury against thesceptics who try to drag them back to common life. And it is a commonplacethat the worship of beauty makes for anarchy. It would have been absurd tomake Pentheus a sympathetic character; I suppose he represents the BritishPublic and Middle Class Respectability, and the respectable, though theyare undoubtedly morally superior to the worshippers of Bacchus, are yetobviously unlovable in the con?ict which they stir up.I think your metres, now that I have mastered them, are exceedingly ?nethe autobiography of bertrand russell 150and wonderfully suited to the emotions they are meant to express: althoughthere is perhaps no single chorus as good as some in the Hippolytus, I think youhave shown more skill than you showed there; and altogether you are verymuch to be congratulated. Do you not think you would do well to makemore translations? The two you have done have both been to me a really greathelp in trying times, helping me to support faith in the world of beauty, andin the ultimate dignity of life, when I was in danger of losing it: withoutthem I should have often found the day much harder to get through. Surelythere would be many who would feel the same, and as you have the poweryou have also the duty, have you not? Each of us is an Atlas to the world of hisown ideals, and the poet, more than anyone else, lightens the burden forweary shoulders.I wish I knew how to reconcile the world of beauty and the world ofmorals: some virtues, it is true, are beautiful, but many do not seem so.I have been reading the Republic, and I agree with Plato that tragic poetsought to make us feel virtue to be beautiful, and ought (on the whole) toavoid the praises of vice. His austerity in matters of Art pleases me, for it doesnot seem to be the easy condemnation that comes from the Philistine.Yours gratefullyBertrand Russell14 Cheyne WalkChelsea, S.W.December 4, 1902Dear GilbertI am glad my appreciation of your work is encouraging to you. Yes, an‘elegant leisure devoted to translating the classics’ doesn’t sound very nice asan epitaph! But one must choose more inspiring phrases to describe one’sactivity to oneself.I have looked up again the chorus beginning ‘O hounds raging and blind’,and I still fail to ?nd any di?culty in it. It seems very probable that the ‘oldbottles’ is, as a matter of fact, the explanation of the savagery; but it is easyenough, if one wants such things, to ?nd a psychological explanation. Haveyou never, when you were admiring the sunset, suddenly been jarred into‘Hell and Damnation, there are the so-and-so’s come to call’? A countryneighbour, under such circumstances, may easily be felt as a ‘spy upon God’spossessed’. And do you not know, when a Philistine breaks in upon a delicateimaginary world, the oscillation backwards and forwards between theexquisite mood one is loath to lose and rage against the wretch who isdesecrating one’s Holy of Holies? Do you know Blake’s De?led Sanctuary,beginning ‘I saw a chapel all of gold’, and ending ‘So I turned into a sty, Andlaid me down among the swine’? This is from a worshipper of Bacchus who‘principia mathematica’ 151had been unable to combat his Pentheus. It was on account of the rapidalternation that I instanced Levine as a parallel. But I feel no doubt that it is thework of clari?cation that you have put into your translation that has made theBacchae seem plain to me.Yes, I know who the Storrs are and I can imagine that it is very hard for youto get away at present; it must make more of a burden on Mary when you areaway. I am sorry you are sleepless and bedevilled. Sometimes sleepless nightsare a time for thoughts that remain with one as a comfort through the day:I ?nd darkness a help to isolating the essentials of things and ?xing one’swhole attention upon them. But I gather you do not ?nd that compensation.Alys is keeping well. The river shines like burnished bronze under thefrosty sun, and the barges ?oat dimly through the brightness like dream-memories of childhood.Give my love to Mary, and write again when you can ?nd time. I like tohear how domestic matters go – how Rosalind is, and so on.Yours everBertrand Russell