バートランド・ラッセル「ケンブリッジ大学生時代」
* 原著：The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, v.１
* 出典：牧野力(編)『ラッセル思想辞典』所収
以下は、牧野力氏の訳ではなく、執筆を分担した日高一輝氏の要旨訳（ただし字句を少し修正）です。そこで、ラッセルの原文は該当する部分を以下抜書します。
私は数学に興味を持っていたので、ケンブリッジ大学に入学した。1890年の10月の始めに大学へ入学してから、全てうまく行った。知的に優秀な学生の中で、自信を得た。 短期間であったが、 私もヘーゲルに心酔した。 G・ E・ムーアとの対話から、私もカントとヘーゲルを棄てた。 大学４年の時、おびただしい数理哲学の本と共に、偉大な哲学者の著書を読んだ。学生時代の最大の幸福は、「ザ・ソサイエティ」と呼ばれ、1820年以来存続してきた大学内の優秀な学生の集まる秘密団体の会員に、第二学年の中頃に選ばれたことである。 毎週土曜日の夜会合し、夜半まで議論し合った。
ケインズの知性は私の知る限りで最も鋭くかつ明晰であった。彼と議論した時、私は寿命が縮まる思いをしたし、しばしば自分が愚か者に見えた。 賢過ぎる者は深さに欠けると時折私は考えていたが、それは正しくないことを思い知らされた。
大学は私に友を与え、 知的討論の経験をもたらしてくれた、私の生涯で重要な場所であった。大学で得た真に価値ある考え方の習慣と言えば、「知的正直さ」ということであった。この美徳は友人の間にも教師の間にも確かに存在していた。ここだけが、この地上においてただ一つのわが家とみなせる所と思っていた。（日高一輝）
(My father had been at Cambridge, but my brother was at Oxford. I went to Cambridge because of my interest in mathematics.. From the moment that I went to Cambridge at the beginning of October 1890 everything went well with me.
Moore, like me, was infiuenced by McTaggart, and was for a short time a Hegelian. But he emerged more quickly than I did, and it was largely his conversation that led me to abandon both Kant and Hegel. ...)
The greatest happiness of my time at Cambridge was connected with a body whom its members knew as 'The Society', but which outsiders if they knew of it, called 'The Apostles'. This was a small discussion society, containing one or two people from each year on the average, which met every Saturday night. It has existed since 1820, and has had as members most of the people of any intellectual eminence who have been at Cambridge since then. It is by way of being secret, in order that those who are being considered for election may be unaware of the fact. ...
Keynes's intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool. I was sometimes inclined to feel that so much cleverness must be incompatible with depth, but I do not think this feeling was justified. ...
The one habit of thought of real value that I acquired there was intellectual honesty. This virtue certainly existed not only among my friends, but among my teachers. I cannot remember any instance of a teacher resenting it when one of his pupils showed him to be in error, though I can remember quite a number of occasions on which pupils succeeded in performing this feat. Once during a lecture on hydrostatics, one of the young men interrupted to say: 'Have you not forgotten the centrifugal forces on the lid? The lecturer gasped, and then said : 'I have been doing this example that way for twenty years, but you are right.'
It was a blow to me during the War to find that, even at Cambridge, intellectual honesty had its limitations. Until then, wherever I lived, I felt that Cambridge was the only place on earth that I could regard as home.)
