Bertrand Russell, O.M., by Harry W. Leggett
* Source: Bertrand Russell, O.M., by Harry W. Leggett (London; Lincolns-Prager, c1949. 79 p. port., illus. 25 cm.1. Philosopher and prophet 冒頭部分
The Victorians lived by precept. Today we try to live by the light of reason. The effort is spasmodic(間歇的な) and often ineffective; but all the same we have, in the course of the past fifty years, changed our whole way of life: the relations between parents and children, between the sexes outside marriage, between husband and wife, between employer and employed, between teacher and pupil. The change is reflected also in literature and the other arts, in the way we dress and furnish our homes and in the manner in which we occupy our leisure. This transformation in personal outlook has been accompanied, in Britain, by a peaceful economic, political and social revolution which has left us as stable a community as any in the world.
To suppose all this happened without a specific cause would be ridiculous. True, a reaction from Victorianism was due and was inevitable, just as a reaction from the nineteenth century was inevitable, and occurred, in many other countries; but it might easily have taken a very different shape or direction; as it did, indeed, in U.S.A., Germany and France.
Again, Great Britain's ability to conduct its periodical revolutions peacefully, or if not peacefully, with a very moderate degree of upheaval, is notoriously due to the innate moderation of the race, plus a wholesome regard for the claims of business. But the collapse of Victorianism was so rapid and so complete as to require an additional explanation. That explanation is to be found largely in the writings of three men, whose influence on public opinion since the turn of the century has been profound. They had predecessors, particularly in the nineties, and they have had the support of a small host of their contemporaries; but they have been primarily responsible for our so successful emergence from a very hazardous transition period in our domestic affairs.
Victorianism, when the time came, allowed itself to be swept aside largely because George Bernard Shaw had undermined its foundations by making fun of it and all it stood for; ridicule was a thing the Victorians could not stand. Into the void that was left H. G. Wells insinuated(徐々に植え付ける) his vision of a new kind of society, a vision which captured the imaginations of a great number of the generation just then reaching manhood and womanhood. Close on their heels came Bertrand Russell, an aristocrat by birth, a world-renowned mathematician and philosopher, but a convinced democrat, who believed passionately in two things above all others: freedom and reason; and backed up his beliefs by his actions.
Today only those who were born before or at the turn of the century can possibly appreciate the impact of Wells and Russell on the younger intellectuals of that generation which was just beginning to struggle free of the debris(残骸) of nineteenth century politics, economics, morality and religiosity.
None of the three was a social reformer by profession ; but this was scarcely a handicap. The British, as a nation, are indifferent material for propaganda. In this they are distinguished from the Germans and the Americans, and even from the French. The British are instinctively and obstinately suspicious of anybody who tries to persuade them of anything - except, perhaps, the potency of a patent medicine(売薬). But, as Lord Northcliffe was shrewd(鋭敏な) enough to realise, they will pay at least a passing attention to the views of an amateur on any subject: an actor on the fighting qualities of the German navy, for example, or a trade union leader on the standard of artistic achievement represented by a Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
So they listened, some tolerantly, some eagerly, to a playwright(劇作家) laying down the law - his own - on economics and sociology, a novelist offering a new Utopia as a working model for the modern world, and a mathematician telling people how to educate their children, conduct their married life, protect themselves against Government encroachments(侵害) on their freedom, interpret history and - be happy.
Neither Shaw, Wells nor Russell gave much impetus(推進力) to any political movement nor indeed to any positive, national policy. Their influence was exercised chiefly on the attitude, the outlook, of their contemporaries, and this is particularly true of Russell. He has always stood for tolerance and for confidence in the capacity of reason to solve most social, political and economic problems if it is allowed a fair chance to do so. Except in the realm of philosophy, where he was largely responsible for bringing about a fundamental break with the past and establishing a new conception of what philosophy stood for and might hope to achieve, it can hardly be said that the practical application of his views has had much effect. His pacifist opposition to the 1914-18 war neither stopped the war, prevented conscription nor substantially affected the issue in any way, although his fight for conscientious objectors certainly did a great deal to secure for them some measure of justice. His ideas of bringing up the very young have not been widely adopted. His views on marriage and relations between the sexes outside marriage have convinced very few people of their practically. His warnings, as far back as the early twenties, against Bolshevism were virtually ignored even by his warmest admirers. ...