‘The serious part of my life ever since boyhood has been devoted to two different objects which for a long time remained separate and have only in recent years united into a single whole. I wanted, on the one hand, to find out whether anything could be known; and, on the other hand, to do whatever might be possible toward creating a happier world. Up to the age of thirty-eight I gave most of my energies to the first of these tasks. I was troubled by skepticism and unwillingly forced to the conclusion that most of what passes for knowledge is open to reasonable doubt. I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I discovered that many accept, were full of fallacies, and that, if certainty were indeed discoverable in mathematics, it would be in a new kind of mathematics, with more solid foundations than those that had hitherto been thought secure. But as the work proceeded, I was continually reminded of the elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge [indubitable]. Then came the First World War, and my thoughts became concentrated on human misery and folly. Neither misery nor folly seems to me any part of the inevitable lot of man. And I am convinced that intelligence, patience, and eloquence can, sooner or later, lead the human race out of its self-imposed tortures provided it does not exterminate itself meanwhile.
On the basis of this belief, I have had always a certain degree of optimism, although, as I have grown older, the optimism has grown more sober and the happy issue more distant. But I remain completely incapable of agreeing with those who accept fatalistically the view that man is born to trouble. The causes of unhappiness in the past and in the present are not difficult to ascertain. There have been poverty, pestilence, and famine, which were due to man’s inadequate mastery of nature. There have been wars, oppressions and tortures which have been due to men’s hostility to their fellow men. And there have been morbid miseries fostered by gloomy creeds, which have led men into profound inner discords that made all outward prosperity of no avail. All these are unnecessary. In regards to all of them, means are known by which they can be overcome. In the modern world, if communities are unhappy, it is often because they have ignorances, habits, beliefs, and passions, which are dearer to them than happiness or even life. I find many men in our dangerous age who seem to be in love with misery and death, and who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think hope is irrational and that, in sitting down to lazy despair,
They are merely facing facts.
I cannot agree with these men. To preserve hope in our world makes calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In those who despair it is frequently the energy that is lacking…..
我愿附上另一段他写给Ottoline Morrel( R ussell Autobiography, p370):
28th October, 1920
Since landing in China we have had a most curious and interesting time, spent, so far, entirely among Chinese students and journalists, who are more or less Europeanized. I have delivered innumerable lectures – On Einstein, education and social questions. The eagerness for knowledge on the part of students is quite extraordinary. When one begins to speak, their eyes have the look of starving men beginning a feast. Everywhere they treat me with a most embarrassing respect.
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Apart from the influence of Europeans, China makes the impression of What Europe would have become if the eighteenth century had gone on till now without industrialism or the French Revolution. People seem to be rational hedonists, knowing very well how to obtain happiness, exquisite through intense cultivation of their artistic sensibilities, differing from Europeans through the fact that they prefer enjoyment to power. People laugh a great deal in all classes, even the lowest.
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The Governor of Hu-Nan is the most virtuous of all the Governors of Chinese provinces, and entertained us last night at a magnificent banquet. Professor and Mrs Dewey were present; it was the first time I had met them. The Governor cannot talk any European language, so, though I sat next to him, I could only exchange compliments through an interpreter. But I got a good impression of him; he is certainly very anxious to promote education, which seems the most crying need of China. Without it, it is hard to see how better government can be introduced. It must be said that bad government seems somewhat less disastrous in China than it would be in a European nation, but this is perhaps a superficial impression which time may correct.
接着,在他母亲离开人间18个月后,他的父亲也离他而去。父母双亡,对于一个三岁的孩子,精神上的创伤无疑是巨大的。在他自传中:‘My father and mother were dead, and I used to wonder what sort of people they had been. In solitude I used to wander about the garden, alternately collecting birds’ eggs and meditating on the flight of time.”