CHAPTER VI
TECHNIQUES OF
BERTRAND RUSSELL'S
WRITING: STYLE AND FORM
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CHAPTER VI
TECHNIQUES OF BERTRAND RUSSELL’S WRITING: STYLE AND FORM
Prose is words in their natural order may be spoken or written by any literate
person extempore. Before 17th century, hardly we can recognize prose as an “Art”
Form. There existed no distinct form in prose as there are in poetry op music or in
painting. Any text of study of history of English literature reveals that the Restoration
is the begining of any entirely new order of prose, which formed the true evolution of
prose in English literature.
The Episcopal literature, which included homilies,
pamphlets and other religious writings, were of utility and satisfied the need of the
day. Then, slowly the change from poetic to the critical temper, which may be
considered as one of the important causes of change in form of prose writing spread
the spirit of common sense both among the writers and the readers. They loved
definiteness and perspicacity, and the hatred of the pedantic and obscure became one
more important aspect, which caused the change in the form of prose writing. The
growth of science also encourages the general movement towards precision and
lucidity. Thus prose which is used as an instrument for argument, persuasion and
satire was successfully satisfying political and religious controversy.
Therefore purpose of writing conveyed the meaning and it is meaning,
which determined the choice of words. The choice of words gave form to the prose,
which made the work of differentiating prose form.
In the Longman’s dictionary of contemporary English, the definition of
'Form’ is “The way in which a work of art is put together”. It gives the meaning that
when a writer completes his work, the literary piece becomes an organic, unified
entity, knit together by an inner principle of organization, and it achieves some pattern
and some significance. It is the final shape, which the work of art assumes called
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“Form”. All Form in literatures includes style, in the same manner that all style
includes diction. Diction means wording or phrasing, there is always, a conscious
choice of words in a good composition. Words are not chosen at random, but with a
sensitive awareness of their suggestive power and their appropriateness to convey the
precise shade of thought or feeling which the writer has in mind. As Walter Pater
defines “the writer makes expression to yield the maximum meaning”. The complex
yet unified structure of any writing would not be possible if each little part did not
contribute and this is achieved with expression, with the effort to realize form. So
style is a means to achieve Form. According to Walter Pater, expression is the chief
problem of the artist, to this end style is fashioned and perfected. Truth of expression
consists for him in the artist giving perfect form to his intuition. All depends upon the
original unity, ihe vital wholeness and identity of the initiatory apprehension or view.
So much is true of all art, which therefore requires always its logic, its comprehensive
reasons, insight, foresight, retrospect, in simultaneous action-true, most of all, of the
literary art as being of all the arts most closely cognate to the abstract intelligence.
Such logical coherency may be evidenced not merely in the lines of composition as a
whole, but in the choice of a single word, while it by no means interferes with, but
may even prescribe, much variety in the building of the sentence for instance or in the
manner, argumentation, descriptive, discursive, of this part or that part or member of
the entire design. It is a very common perception that behaviour of language in prose
is different from its behaviour in verse. It lives for something beyond itself, namely
to communicate a meaning or an idea.
In prose we first become aware of the
distinction between what is said and what is meant i.e,, dialectical and eristical. The
ideal prose of thought would be that in which the two elements were in equilibrium.
“Prose of thought” of 20th century finds its most perfect embodiment in works of
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philosophy. British philosophers who are masters of philosophy and their style have
brought revolution in the arena of philosophy. One can observe that certain
philosophical problems especially those termed metaphysical arise from intractable
elements in language. In other words our common language is not up to the level of
explaining those ambiguous doctrines. Therefore artificial language is developed for
the assertion of rational truth.
Since its chief function is persuasion with rational
progress, it needs no “style”, no verbal opacity merely the transparent revelation of
thought.
Techniques Of Bertrand Russell’s Writing:
The following pages reveal the writings of a radical Edwardian who wrote with same
vigour and spirit all through his life with unflinching courage for the common goodRussell. It is impossible to conceive a rational being or of a society, without implying
the existence of language. Language and thinking are so closely related that they
contribute to our understanding of the human mind. “Some modern philosophers hold
that we know much about language, but nothing about anything else. This view
forgets that language is an empirical phenomenon like another, and that a man who is
metaphysically agnostic must deny that he knows when he uses a word. For my part,
1 believe that, partly by means of the study of syntax, one can arrive at considerable
knowledge concerning the structure of the world”.164 The birth of new realism reveals
the influence of linguistic movement in philosophy, which carried on a double
function. The philosophy of common sense is flowing in, that period where it marks a
new departure in philosophy to embrace reality as a whole. The linguistics movement
gets its recognition with the early writings of Russell, G.E. Moore, Wittgenstein and
I.A. Richards. In these writers philosophy took the form of conversational game. In
radical empiricist’s “discursive prose” there is no absence of emotion. In the work of
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these philosophical analysts and even in the most rigorous of logical positivists even
though it is eristic prose, readers find the presence of emotion and the adoption of
attractive plainness to convey a particular set of emotions. Therefore readers mean
that the “prose of thought” is prose charged with the emotions most suited to
conceptual and dialectical expression. It is prose of sustained elegance excellence of
matter and manner.
Russell is a transitional writer; he remains for all his common sense, a stylist.
He had balance, decency and decorum in his writing.
Moore influenced his
aestheticism. He wrote even when he was in Jail. “The faintest of human passions the love of truth” which is a virtue more marked among empiricists than in rationalists
was the aim of the writer. In his own obituary one finds a very genuine and clear
opinion. “His life for all its waywardness had a certain consistency, reminiscent of
that of the aristocratic rebels of the early 19th Century.”165 Between these two poles
Bacon and Browning or between the foci of the intellect and intuition, the essay in
English has been revolving during the last 400 years. There are the “expository” and
the “personal” essays. Two streams flowing never far apart, not even quite close
together, one broad and slow and rather straight, the other narrow swift and
tantalizingly winding. Both deserve the name of prose as an art.
The ‘Other
Harmony’ Bacon’s essays, Dryden’s prefaces, Burke’s reflection on the ‘French
Revolution’, Malthus writing on population, McCauley’s essays, Froude’s short
studies and in our own time - the essays of Litton Strachey, Bertrand Russell and
164. Russell Bertrand, An Enquiry into Meaning and Truth, London, Allen and
Unwin; 1940, pp. 58
165. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
NewYork, SimonandSchuster, 1967,pp.l5.
326
George Orwell may be cited as being in the great tradition of the “expository essay”.
The work of these duly weighted with purpose, learning and argument, but is also
marked by distinction in “style” and touched with the graces of the writers mind and
the general force of their personality. The “personal essay” has been cultivated by
even more imposing list of writers Browne, Cowley, Addison and Steele, Johnson,
Goldsmith, Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, De-Quincey and Leigh Hunt, R.L. Stevenson,
Walter Pater, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, E.V. Lucas and Max Beerbohm. A
survey of prose of thought of the 20th century reveals a certain rhythmic and cyclic
development. In this development, at each stage, dialectic and an eristic aspect is
detected. This suggests that between the dialectic and eristic elements themselves
there operates a higher dialectic language would be constantly moving towards one or
the other extreme and thus failing as a means of communication.
The idealist
philosophers, taking the Hegelian system as their point o 'departure, found themselves
confronted with the new Realism.
The analytical school taking its stand upon
empiricism tended to assume another form of eristic that directed towards the
demolition of speculative systems in general. Having struggled to find a medium of
expression, transparent to thought, they were finally obliged to re-establish contact
with ordinary language.
Many authors, ancient and modern have willingly taken
pains to make their writings acquire the qualities of simplicity, clarity and
conciseness. Meanwhile a more balanced view of philosophy was slowly emerging in
20lh century. To that extent one can quote from Russell’s writing itself. “I think
myself that ‘meaning can only be understood if we treat language as a bodily habit,
which is learnt just as we learn football or cycling. The only satisfactory way to treat
language, to my mind, is to treat it in this way, as Dr. Watson does. Indeed, I should
regard the theory of language as one of the strongest points in favour of
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behaviourism”166. Being a creature of memory and action both of emotions and not
alone senses and seeing endowed with a mind as also a soul, his articulate language,
can not but record memories, enact actions, convey emotions and besides grow a
“mind element and a soul element as well”. A wide ranging scholarship may give the
writer ample store of words and concepts, while an impeccable taste may help him to
overcome the itch for communication, but more vital than these is the sense of
structure. A work of Art be it in prose or poetry should be a whole, not a patch work,
scattered purple patches do not constitute “style” and the need for “form”, “design”,
pattern involves the architectonics of “style” which is the expression of the mind
element. As far as writing of philosopher is concerned there will inevitably bring
about a resumption of that “disposition to improvise and create, to treat language as
something not fixed and rigid but infinitely flexible and full of life, which has been
characteristic of best expository prose. The 20th century has witnessed the revival of
the essay, but it has no equivalent to Alan, it has produced some distinguished
practioners of this form, the early essays of Middleton Murray and Aldous Huxley
may be cited. Our greatest modern essayists are usually men who imagined that they
were working in a different genre.
We can refer to prose of Wyndham Lewis,
particularly “The Art of Being Ruled (1926) and Time and Western Man (1927).
Bertrand Russell wrote his autobiography when he was over ninety. He deservedly
won Nobel Prize for literature in 1950 and became a pacifist, who worried about the
survival of the globe, who can be recognized in the ranks of scientists and have
managed to convey specialized ideas in unspecialized language, rather than strictly
literary interest. In the works of all these men we find a style
166. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp. 107.
328
mirroring however subtly, a change in outlook. Despite a marked eristic vein in the
works of Russell, we find a vigorous mind wrestling with new ideas and generating an
original prose to embody them. Man alone created out of such noises, the unique
phenomenon of “style” or projection of language. There is something in this “style”
i.e., one of man’s prerogatives, perhaps the supreme prerogative.
“The desire to
understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress
without which human society would stand still or retrogress”.167
“The sense of effort of obstacles laboriously overcome is absent”. That is the
process of creative self-expression is in fact the process is akin to yoga - Sadhana that transforms the inner psychic excitement to the significant form and rhythm of art.
The dualism of subjective feeling and the objective reality is exceeded to create a
unity through transcendence. The violence of the solution is crystallization when the
writer recreates an experience; he is really engaged in giving life anew to something
that is already dead. Crystallization is this kind of glorious rebirth after the “death” in
solution. The words suggest compactness, the lucid symmetry of form, the glow of
life, and the suggestion of autonomy and self-sufficiency “There are two ways of
coping with fear. One is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate
stoic endurance.
The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is
necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. The conquest of fear
is of very great importance.
Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an
obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads to excesses of
cruelty”.168
Since a work of literature is, in the obvious sense, the creation of
language “style” holds the key to the mystery. The dead word now charged with
167. Russell Bertrand, Marriage and Morale, London, Allen and Unwin, Paper, 1985,
pp.192.
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new meaning in the fury of creative excitement becomes the vehicle for expressing
and communicating his stir of feeling, his wrestle with thought, and his climatic
moments of vision and realization. Plot, characterization, feeling, thought, vision,
realization - some or all of them go into the finished artistic creation, yet words alone,
have to achieve the translation, transformation of the excitement of the experience
into the splendor of art. A Nobel Prize winner in literature, Russell displays a mastery
of detail and a precision of presentation that leaves no doubt of his position in the
history of English literature. Whether one agrees or disagrees, his form in writing is
always organic whatever may be the subject, there is clarity of thinking and
lucubrating mind is apparent in all he has done. In most of his writings, in constant
new flow in its topical arrangements and in careful structuring, he has tried to make it
convenient to readers at various levels of special interest. He quite understood how his
personal and professional (also public) lives have become intertwined in all those
pages he has written. An understanding of the subterranean links between literature
and philosophy can enlarge and enrich our understanding of the Russell’s essays and
his contribution to the field of Form and style. The thinking of philosophy is also
literary and those literary texts also live a philosophical life. After this prolegomena to
the study of prose style, there is a study to be made of the variations in quality
throughout a long and colourful career of the prose of Earl Russell. In the early
writings one can find superb command over dialectical style. He has expressed his
immaturity in the beginning of his adolescence in the essay “How I write”. He was
influenced by the writings of J.S. Mill & therefore wanted to write in the style of Mill.
But he was influenced by his mathematical ideal. In the early stage he wanted to put
168. Nobel Lecture December 11, 1950, Presentation Speech.
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aesthetic excellence forcibly forgetting that realistic writing comes out very naturally.
At last he realizes that “to imitate is to be insincere”.
169
“Style” is an important literary word that is being promiscuously used, but
cannot be satisfactorily defined.
It can be used for recognizing approbation or
derogation. The term “style” stands in impressive isolation. It is like “personality”
which is other or more than a man’s background and life, his body or sensory
perceptions, his intellectual accomplishments or spiritual aspirations - though
“personality” may draw something from them all “style” in literature like
“personality” in man is the ultimate mystery, the ultimate fascination and the ultimate
justification. To quote often referred dictum “The style is the man”. Russell justified
these aspects in all his writings.
The connection between an author’s personality and his “style” is being of late
scientifically studied in terms of statistical analysis or “stylostatistics”. “A style is not
good unless it is an intimate and almost involuntary expression of the personality of
the writer, and then only if the writers’ personality is worth expressing”170 Russell
believed that the style of writing is scientific and is connected with the personality
itself.
Russell’s prose (language) is “insistently investigative”.
It does not ever
subdue its subject matter to its purposes. Russell’s prose subtly flatters the reader. If
you celebrate or succumb to his style, is to identify oneself with its sense of
possibility with the triumphal progress of rationality. Our communication with his
personality in his work is unspoken; as it were all the more genuine and we feel
respect for his personality. In his work both philosopher and a literary man seem co169. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.64-65..
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workers. “The truth is that Russell’s writings are extremely obscure. The beautiful
prose which he writes, one easily along and give rise to the delusion that what he is
saying is extremely simple; Actually it is far other wise”.171 When the reader goes
through his philosophical writings, he finds that those mystical, metaphysical,
complicated subjects are explained in so simple words that he feels that they are
meant for common people. A layman read his “unpopular essays” and enjoys them to
have interest created in his life. To quote a review in ‘The Observer’ “Russell is as
incapable of being dull as he is being shallow”. There is no better phrase to introduce
the latest selection of his essays. Dealing with several diverse subjects in his book,
“Unpopular essays” related to philosophy, politics, intellectual rubbish, eminent men
etc. We find the clarity and grace of expression, which is combined successfully with
his intellectual brilliance has made his many expositions of philosophical thought for
the layman with a joy to read his writings. The incident described below is a witness
and experience by Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester.
Both the editors of
Russell’s works were moving from Sir Stanley Unwin’s house to a London hotel after
a pleasant visit. When they were in a Cab, the driver of the vehicle showed interest in
the newly published biography of Russell and expressed. “Is that the new Russell
Biography I have been reading about”? “Yes, and 1 look forward to reading it”.
“So do 1. Wonderful mechanism, is not he?”172
170. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Portraits from memory, Basic
Writings of Bertrand Russell, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1969, pp.65.
171. Paul Arthur Schilpp ed., The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Evanston: North
Western University Press, 1944, pp.369.
172. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.10.
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Russell is a noble speaker; there is total gravity in his speaking and writing.
He commanded where he spoke. He is a great orator. In all his works the reader is
the recipient of a mode of liberal pronouncement and words to the workings of the
writer’s self-absorption.
Bertrand Russell, logically, by training a mathematician and a philosopher,
and besides a master of prose as well, endowed with the gift of supreme lucidity.
Russell published his ‘An Outline of Philosophy’ (1927). The magazine ‘Nation’,
which quoted as follows for that book of real value and appreciated it for its delightful
clarity, welcomed the book. “His writings are always extremely lucid........... it is the
best book there is for explaining to the educated, but non specialist reader, the present
position and prospects of philosophy as based on modern science”.
Readers find the same lucidity and wit and the methods of inquiry in his
another work ‘Human knowledge’ (1948). Therefore, Manchester Guardian a famous
Magazine of the time published the statement by A.D. Ritchie stating, “Lord Russell
here develops his theory of knowledge, fully and comprehensively. He is at the best;
penetrating, acute with a light but firm touch. Nevertheless the subject and book are
not altogether easy”. To quote from Russell writings: “For it is not enough to
recognize that all our knowledge is, in a greater or less degree, uncertain and vague; it
is necessary at the same time, to learn to act upon the best hypothesis without
dogmatically oelieving it”173
Here the term ‘knowledge’ should be interpreted as
scientific knowledge. In ‘Theory of Knowledge’, Russell recognized that the primary
173. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, Basic Writ ings of Bertrand Russell, New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.69.
333
relation between a person and a proposition is understanding, and he investigated it
more fully than belief and other secondary relations.
Russell is a scientist, a mathematician and a great humanist and is enamored of
life. All these qualities are reflected in his wildly exuberant prose. In his writings he
preserves the integrity of achieved distinctions. Thus there is charm in his style of
writing. Where Rowse A.L compares him to Socrates and says ‘the Socrates of our
time’.
Bertrand Russell’s style is worth noticing.
In respect to clarity, wit and
incisive force, he is indisputably one of the great masters of English prose. This was
the statement given in criticism against his publication of his most celebrated essay
“A Free mart’s worship” (1959) and frequently cited “The expanding mental
universe” perhaps no technical philosopher has been more widely read, discussed and
misunderstood. The essays were chosen for their contribution in the intellectual circle
at the time they were written. But he changed his opinions and admitted modern ideas
in the course of his writings, which were indicative of the man and his work over
more than sixty years of astounding productivity. “Freedom comes only to those who
no longer ask of life that it shall yield them of those personal goods that are subject to
the mutations of time”.174
The prose of Russell falls into two categories. He becomes both a philosopher
and a critic. A passionate skeptic and a doctrinaire become distinguished in his
scientific writing. Scientists study truth and reality where there is absence of emotion.
On the other hand philosopher study truth and reality but certain quality of emotion is
likely to enter into philosophic discourse. Therefore Russell’s essays, which can be
174. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.372
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categorized under prose of thought with elegance and manner, which lack emotive
ambivalence charged with emotion and passion suits conceptual and dialectical form
of expression. The philosopher finally obliged to re-establish contact with ordinary
language. As far as Russell’s writing is concerned, he never treated language fixed
and rigid. He allows the language to be infinitely flexible and full of life. These
things become characteristic of Russell’s best expository style. Yet one of the greatest
pleasures of his really good prose is in the critical tracing out of that conscious artistic
structure and pervading sense of it, with intellectual energy. His personality shines out
in whatever he wrote and said. The reader has a special fascination for a lover of
liberty, equality and fraternity and individualism, which recur in his writing.
He
considers harmony between individual and society is essential for happy living. He
brought his intuitive response to bear upon the contemporary issues and events and
his understanding to help and analyse them objectively a id dispassionately committed
to the improvement of the society.
’‘Practically, all progress, artistic, moral and intellectual, has depended upon
such individuals, who have been a decisive factor in the transition from barbarism to
civilization”.175 (Ex: Authority and the Individual). Literature is a social Art and
"style” is the echo, the reverberation of the writer or speaker’s personality and its
success is to be measured by the fullness of the response it evokes in the reader or the
listener. Russell was a brilliant conversationalist. Although he was often a
controversial figure in his time, he took delight in paradoxes. Despite their abstract
•*
subject matter, he shows command of the prose of thought as much by their abundant
175. Russell Bertrand, Authority and the Individual, London, Allen and Unwin, paper,
1977, pp.37.
335
irony and wit as by their patient analysis of particular doctrines. To take but one
example, would be difficult to surpass for sustained lucidity. Indeed in the work of
eminent jurists “the prose of thought” reaches temporary equilibrium, since it is here
that dialectic and eristic enter into partnership. The scientific approach by the writer
affected the fields of education, economics, social and political investigations of the
century with particular observation of reality. Russell a radical reactionary was more
absorbed in his social questions in most of his works. It becomes apt to quote here
most loveable statement. He had fine penetration and intellectual purity to a quite
extra-ordinary degree. It is not merely the social aspect of the man that is considered
in his writings but his inner reactions too are important. “I have never since found
religious satisfaction in any philosophical doctrine that I could accept”.176 The
intellectual hunger was unquenchable and he persuaded at most to most of the
debatable doctrines of the time. In his adolescence when he got admission to
Cambridge he felt recognized when his opinions were respected. They reflected his
intellectual hunger “I found myself at Cambridge fitted me like a glove”. He entered
a world where intelligence was valued and clear thinking was thought to be an
extraordinary gift and caused an intoxicating delight. Russell’s works fall into two
sections. Many of his earlier works are concerned with mathematics and philosophy.
The ordinary reader may not have entry over these. They are meant for academicians
and serious students of science and philosophy. But the other section is for all who
are interested in life. It includes his numerous volumes of essays notably, the
scientific outlook (1931), education and social order (1932), Freedom and
176. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.59.
336
organization (1934), Why I Am Not A Christian (1927) Marriage and Morals (1929),
The conquest of happiness (1930) Authority and the individual (1949) Unpopular
essays (1950), New hope for a changing world (1951), etc. Russell writes with wit
and vigor in the writings mentioned above. It is simple prose without ostentation and
yet forceful.
The words are chosen with precision and they leave a definite
impression on the reader. I quote: “No man is wholly free and no man is wholly a
slave, he needs a personal morality to guide his conduct”.177 Russell’s expression of
his ideas with lucidity and boldness born out of clear reasoning and sincerity of
purpose. The famous autobiographical aside “I like precision, I like sharp outlines, I
hate misty vagueness”.178 He reveals that even at the age of 11 he refused to accept
what tradition had made appear as indestructible as granite. Fascinating precision is a
very obscure subject, to show that all the technical laws of logic are but means of
securing in each all of its apprehensions, the unity, the strict identity with itself of the
apprehending mind. A scholar writing for the scholarly will of course leave something
to the willing intelligence of the reader. Naturalization of the vocabulary of science,
so only if be under the eye of a sensitive scholarship in a liberal naturalization of the
ideas of science too, for after all the chief stimulus of good style is to possess a full,
rich, complex matter to grapple with. The literary artist must be learned in various
arts, sciences and philosophies, he may enrich the language and increase its
expressive power.
To justify the above statements in case of Russell, one has to go through his
177. Russell Bertrand, Authority and the Individual, London, Allen and Unwin, 1977,
pp.83.
178. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp-30.
337
innumerable articles, books of various subjects, his radio talks and his thousands of
letters. "Science has made life less dangerous than it used to be and has thus greatly
diminished the need of fear as a motive.
Education ought from the start to take
account of the fact, and to aim at producing the kind of attitude that leads to lightning
conductors rather than the kind that leads to cowering terror during a
thunderstorm”.179 Russell has indeed been at the centre stage for more than half a
century and this made him the subject of a great amount of literature.
numerous critics and admirers both before and after his death.
He had
He produced a
voluminous mass of books and articles on variety of subjects from origin of man to
modern science. It may not be an exaggeration to remark that no other 20th century
writer has received so much attention in the press as Russell. As a socio-political
writer and social activist he has wielded considerable influence on the younger
generation. In his old age, Russell became a “father - confessor” to many who sought
his advice. He used to receive about a hundred letters a day. From 1952 to 1968, he
wrote about 25 thousand letters mostly answers to various queries on moral, social,
political and personal problems.
His well-known, enjoyable book “Dear Bertrand
Russell” is an outstanding example for his depth of knowledge in any subject
concerned. He contributed extensively not only to philosophy but also to literature
and other branches of knowledge.
As one reads those books, the depth of his
knowledge stuns reader.
He wrote about 2000 letters to his Lady Love Lady Ottoline Morell on all subjects
from religion to women suffrage. Russell’s changing attitude was reinforced by
developments in social psychology. Russell’s “Individual mind as a function of social
179. Russell Bertrand. Impact of Science on Society, London, Allen and Unwin,
Paper, 1952, pp. 87-89.
338
life” who so interestingly represents a fact of modern rationalistic political thinking
was struck by the wastefulness of contemporary conditions. The Victorian
formlessness has welcomed the forces tending to “Rationalize and systematize those
which tended progressive emancipation”. Russell discussed most of the subjects with
a serious purpose, but with a lightness of touch, his approach to any issue is
intellectual and not shallow sentimentalism.
His seminal writing and also strong
background which shaped his views and vision poses curiosity to which extent they
influenced in the formation of his style of writing.
The readiness to speak out, the courage to hold back and the wisdom to
correlate the two movements, all are involved in the art of writing. The style is the
man because it is the whole personality of the man that determines the manner in
which he will shape language to his particular purpose.
Russell’s spontaneous
language in his social, political and other essays are of paramount interest to the
reader since they reflect his personality both in content and in style.
Russell is at his most responsible when he speaks about war, a social evil, sin,
etc. He stresses that right kind of education free from dogmatism can only be an
answer to this. Russell in his writing sets out to combat dogmatism, whether of the
right or of the left. In addressing himself directly to Kennedy, Khrushchev, Nehru
and Chou En-lai, Russell interposed valiantly the small voice of reason during those
frightening weeks of universal annihilation. This is an unarmed victory witnessed in
the 20th Century of historic significance. He speaks aloud in his writing and takes the
reader into confidence and creates thorough awareness in the reader. “I can not but
think that you would rejoice if a way could be found to disperse the pall of fear which
at present dims the hopes of mankind. Never before, since our remote ancestors
descended from the trees, has there been valid reason for such fear. Never before has
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such a sense of futility blighted the visions of youth. Never before has there been
reason to feel that the human race was traveling along a road ending only in a
bottomless precipice.
Individual death we must all face, but collective death has
never, hitherto been a grim possibility”.180 Whether he is writing about life or death.
Education or ignorance, science or superstition, vigour or idleness in those contraries
he spurns out as silken thread woven into the texture of the passage.
We see
something quite different and we find wisdom and paradoxical piquancy when he
writes about religion or politics or any other controversial aspect of the 20th Century
modern thinking.
Russell impresses the readers and holds back them because of his distinct style
partly because of the innate strength and partly because of its humane recognizable
mannerisms. When style becomes a question of technique, a personal way of doing
things with words it is a strong weapon, which brings about social change in the long
run. Thus writing is mightier than sword. It is a means by which a human being gains
contact with others; it is personality clothed in words and character embodied in
meaning. A socio-political egalitarian speaks enthusiastically and courageously in his
works. Russell an Edwardian radical had only limited involvement in the programme
advocated by the New Liberals. “The spirit of our age imposes itself upon our style”.
Russell criticizes intensely on the existing political system and helplessness in his
own words in the statement. “So long as the sources of economic power remains in
private hands, there will be no liberty except for the few who control those
sources”.181 Russell’s free trade papers indicate how effectively he argued the
180. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.727.
340
theoretical and practical merits of free trade. The spectator in its weekly column
assessing the national and international science commented most favourably upon
Russell’s free-trade arguments, in lines probably written by the editor, St. Loe
Strachey referring to Russell’s article in “The Contemporary Review”, “The literature
of the Fiscal Controversy”, the author claimed. “Mr. Russell is generally admitted to
be one of our greatest living mathematicians dealing in speculations so transcendental
that few but senior wranglers can follow them. He has shown in this paper a gift of
Lucid and business like exposition unsurpassed by any writer on the subject”.182
Some of Russell’s correspondence of the time, especially with the French historian
Elie Halevy, also revealed a firm and detailed knowledge of the political scene in
Britain as the fiscal campaign of 1903-04 reached its climax.
Russell showed
considerable insight in his arguments against Haley’s fears that chamberlain would
win, and his analysis of the shifting power structure within the political parties
generally and the liberal party particular. The political optimism, which he absorbed
at Pembroke ledge, seemed validated when the liberals came to power in 1905.
He uses exact words and exact inflexions of phrase to carry the whole sense
whether it is his expository prose or scientific prose or any writing for that matter is
being persuasive, his style is not an ornament, it is not an exercise, not a caper, nor
complication of any sort. It is the sense of one’s self, the knowledge of what one
wants to say and the saying of it in the most fitting words. Thus Russell has got
181. Russell Bertrand, The Future of Science, New York, Philosophial Library 1959,
pp.29-30.
182. St. Loe Strachey, “The literature of the Fiscal Controversy” The Contemprory
Review, (ii) 6th February 1904, pp.223.
341
marvelously buoyant prose in its swiftness and in its vigour. His logical and legal
prose is authoritative. “I have so far assumed as unquestionable. The view that the
truth or falsehood of a belief consists in a relation to a certain fact, namely the
objective of the belief. This view has however, been often questioned. Philosophers
have sought some intrinsic criterion by which true and false beliefs could be
distinguished. I am afraid their chief reason for this search has been the wish to feel
more certainly than seems otherwise possible as to what is true and what is false”.183
Russell’s style is at times tantalizingly personal, something partaking of his own
sturdy, vivacious and arresting temperament. It becomes true when he writes about
politics and politicians. Russell has got admiration for few politicians who are leaders
in the true sense of the word. In his personal correspondence with Lady Ottoline
which contains many references to what Russell considered the fluctuating qualities
of the Liberal Ministry as a whole and to the qualities of limitation of individual
ministers. Russell’s admiration for great leaders who constructively lead the state,
and conversely his contempt for vacillating or stupid politicians exemplified an aspect
of his elitism. He believed that only a few men have the character and intellect to
direct the nation properly. But he loathed unionist administration. Arthur Balfour,
who represented the twilight of almost twenty years of unionist dominance of British
politics becomes an example.
“Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large number of people to
believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires. It is well understood that
such a belief is more readily accepted under the influence of excitement. Brass bands,
mob oratory, lynching and war are stages in the development of the excitement”.184
183. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.325.
342
Russell was at his most self-consciously literary and confessional during the period
1902 to 1914. Not before and never again would he try so hard to shape the materials
of personal experience into literary statements? If the search for a literary form to
embody his views of self eluded him, it was into for want of repeated attempts.
Meditative essay, allegory, lay sermon, spiritual autobiography, treatise on the
philosophy of religion and novella; each served as a vehicle of insight and, by their
formal containment of ideals, they assisted him in coming to terms with “the love of
great ends of which the pursuit makes good lives” as he had expressed in “The
education of the Emotions”.
[This is from his papers called “Contemplation and
action” which describes his life between 1902 and 1914 analytically].
There is no single, definitive statement of how contemplation truths should be
translated into action, but taken together these papers show Russell to have possessed
a Carlyle like impulse to speak prophetically to his age. “Russell needs to be
understood, presumably in terms of certain personalistic and stylistic attributes which
set him off as an unusual and fascinating being. He is obviously an exceedingly
complicated personality with a terrific need for simplicity.
This combination
frequently produces a kind of genius. His tendency to over-simplify breeds a variety
of prose, which is enticing and even at times lyrical. Some of his over simplifications
are using a bit of American idiom “slick”. “Some are shrews and illuminating and
some are down right falsification”.185 From the turn of the century to the outbreak of
the Great World War-I Russell’s thoughts were probably in its greatest flux. For one
whose “Mental life was perpetual battle” and for whose ideas a final synthesis was
never found. It is risky to point to a particular period of strife, when he speaks about
184. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.325.
343
post war social reality. But as Russell’s most original work in philosophy was created
in this era, it should not be surprising that ideas about religion and ethics should also
appear in rich, and sometimes confusing array.
Russell was reacting against the
Cambridge philosopher G.E. Moore whose objectivist ethics had once impressed him.
Both Russell and Bloomsbury group from Moore’s had the belief that right actions are
only valuable in so far as they are means towards achieving good states of mind.
Russell felt that some members of the Bloomsbury set misunderstood Moore than
they claimed. Russell could not deduce what ought to be done, in a platonic fashion,
from the contemplation of the eternally good, he could nonetheless follow the
precepts of right action given by Liberalism and Protestantism in which he was raised
and they were transformed by a kind of mystical experience. That Russell was later to
examine mysticism with more skepticism than credence does not set aside the force of
his own illumination. His puritan ancestry and the political liberalism of his family
should not be forgotten as determiners of his reformism. Contemplation of his ideas
and action were never securely joined but they cohered him to write “Mysticism and
logic”. Russell wish for “something that could be called religious belief’ suggests that
he may have been open to secular forms of conversion affirmative changes in moral
outlook having more to do with inward experience than with true or false statement
about the universe such as those made in the Book of Genesis. Russell’s need for
religious certainty, uneasily coupled with skepticism about it, appears in his post­
conversion attempts to formulate his beliefs.
We can observe that much of the
interest in literary paper comes from watching Russell struggle with contemplative,
mystical and rational sides of his nature, “We want to stand upon our own feet and
185. Schilpp PP.A. ed., The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Evanston, North Western
University Press, 1944, pp.561.
344
look fair andsquare at the world - its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its
ugliness; see
the world as it is, and be not afraid of it.
Conquer the world by
intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from
it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental
despotisms. It is conception quite unworthy of free men”.186
His monumental work ‘The conquest of happiness’ is systematically planned and
written. The
expression.
author knows just what he wants to say and there is brilliancy inhis
It is definitely a helpful book, which guides us in family ties, full of
wisdom and practical ideas. It is indeed good reading as literature. Even though he
advocated freedom in all aspects of life, at the same he suggests how love and
sacrifice frames its own restriction for a happy and harmonious living. The question
of the intellectual and sociological roots of Royal Society is of course very
complicated, and has been the subject of much recent attention. As is true of all other
significant moments in the history of ideas, there is no completely satisfactory way to
explain why so much of scientific talent appeared at the same time. There is a general
agreement that the early society is to be understood not only as an isolated and selfpropelled phenomenon acting decisively on other aspects of culture but equally as a
specialized manifestation of opinion of the period. “An individual human existence
should be like a river---- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks and
rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. They become merged in the
sea and painlessly lose their individual being”.187
186. Edwards Paul, ed., Why I am not a Christian, London, Allen and Unwin, 1957,
pp.88.
187. Russell Bertrand, New Hopes for a Changing World, London, Allen and Unwin,
1951, pp.210.
345
Royal Society of England also has played an important role in the development
of particular type of eristic prose. In the beginning scientific prose was written in
language scarcely understood by the common man. But slowly the Royal Society
stressed the importance of writing scientific papers in simple prose so that common
man gets fascinated towards scientific knowledge of the period and scientists used
simple analytical language in their writings. The phrase by Glanville “Climate of
Opinion” explains how scholars of sociological bent have enumerated the many
forces, which made “The cultural soil of 17th Century England was particularly fertile
for the growth and spread of science”. During the last 400 years. Science has proved
itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force.
In his challenging book, “The
Impact of Science on Society” Russell examines the changes brought about by science
and suggests that its work in transforming human life is only beginning. He discusses
the various effects of science, both positive and negative, concisely and trenchantly.
J.S. Mill was trained to be severely intellectual in his academic brought up. Later
cultivation of the feelings supplied a balance missing in his education. Russell, who
was very much influenced by Mill’s writings, recognized a similar imbalance in his
own education and early life. Another contemporary i.e., Mark Rutherford who like
Russell had a restrictive Calvinist upbringing was converted to humanistic pantheism.
Further, Russell’s brother-in-law Bernard Berenson reported his own
profoundly moving aesthetic conversion. In the autobiography Russell in the light of
the above instances gives centrality to few intensely intuitive moments,,which he felt
leading to moral development.
He called his conversion “a sort of mystic
illumination”. A stoic in the early phase of his brought up and career starts writing
about human sufferings.
Russell’s leap of faith, the aspirations aroused by the
conversion led to high moral standard, which led to his moving fascist credo. But his
346
intellectual integrity was impeccable. “The prevention of free enquiry is unavoidable
so long as the purpose of education is to produce belief rather than thought, to compel
the young to hold positive opinions on doubtful matters rather than to let them see the
doubtfulness and be encouraged to independence of mind”.188 The course of a man’s
style can reflect, sometimes with uncanny fidelity, the progress of deterioration of his
thought. In his middle period, this penetrating thinker seems to have lost his bearings.
The result is an excess of his eristic writing and some measure of flatness in contrast
to the early superb command of dialectic whereas some recent essays notably those
contained in the volume “portrait from memory (1954) reveals a balance and clarity
born of serene and mature reflects”. To suggest that a change in a man’s outlook
exerts direct or immediate influence upon his style would be to venture too far. But
apart from the fact that ideas if coherent at all, are expressed ideas, the movement of a
man’s thought can and does this reflects itself. There are not two things the thought
and style, there is either one thing or a mere string of words nor in this to say that the
manner necessarily changes. The prevailing manner may remain the same, but
transformed into mannerism or caricature. Russell a prolific thinker was very much a
man of ideas. His early essays have an incandescent quality, which lifted their style
to a standard height.
In the middle he was tired and disillusioned. But after his
lectures tours in America and his pacifist movement he became invective in his anti
war writings. When Russell wrote about marriage, old traditional systems based on
dogmas and sexual freedom we find querulous loquacity in his writings. But his
solutions are liberal, innovative and inclusive of bitter irony.
188. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.406.
347
In his work ‘Marriage and Morals’, which holds good for every age and society, when
he speaks about dogmas of church authorities, about sin and Divorce or about double
standards, he speaks with biting sarcasm and bitter irony. “The whole conception of
‘sin’ is one which I find very puzzling doubtless owing to my sinful nature. If ‘sin’
consisted in causing needless suffering, I could understand, but on the contrary sin
often consists in avoiding needles suffering”.189 And “Early Christianity introduced
the belief that there is something inherently impure about sex”.190 He speaks about
sex and freedom very boldly and even suffered because of punishments but he never
felt guilty. His innovative ideas even though lead to conflicts, have contemporariness
and realistic approach too for the 20th Century. His ideas about Education and sex are
best example for this “sex is an interesting subject and it is natural to human beings to
think and talk about it”.191 His philosophic writing commonly represents a serious
discipline.
Russell who was member of Aristotelian society presented his
philosophical paper when he was 24 years of age (1896). One can find almost an
infinite variety of thought in Russellian doctrines. There are admirable features of his
thinking, which chiefly concerns the future historians of 20th century thought.
Russellian style of thinking had that alluring quality with particular intellectual
temper he ruled the empire of philosophical thinking for almost a century. Russell’s
189. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.76.
190. Russell Bertrand, Education and the Social Order, London, Allen and Unwin,
Paper, 1988, pp.80.
191. Russell Bertrand, Education and the Social Order, London, Allen and Unwin,
Paper, 1988, pp.82.
348
writings unlike his contemporaries Mill, Sidgwick, Bradley, Brento, Meinong and
Husserl and even Moore namely in their combination of seriousness with humour.
They had wit and played with words. The only writer who can be compared with
Russell is James. James and Russell found out themselves a style, where they taught
other philosophers and readers at best to pop doctrinal bubbles without drawing
blood, how to be illuminating and unmaliciously naughty, and how without being
frivolous, to laugh off grave conceptual bosh. “The orthodox have a curious objection
to cremation, which seems to show an insufficient realization of God’s Omnipotence.
It is thought that a body, which has been burnt, will be more difficult for him to
collect together again than one, which has been put underground and transformed into
worms. No doubt collecting the particles from the air and undoing the chemical work
of combustion would be somewhat laborious but is surely blasphemous to suppose
such a work impossible for the Deity”.192
Of course stuffiness in diction and
stuffiness in thought were not annihilated but they were used in defensive way. James
and Russell discovered that a Joke could be the beginning though only a beginning of
a blessed release from a strangling theoretical milestone. Much more important was a
new style of philosophical work that Russell brought [virtually single-handed] into the
very tactics of philosophical thinking.
Russell occasionally prescribed and often
deliberately practiced what can be called “Aporetic Experimentation” in his ‘Mind’
article of 1905.
By “Aporetic Experimentation”, it does not mean tentativeness,
diffidence or undogmatic. But Russell meant some of his conceptual experiments to
yield not “perhapses” but definite results. Unlike Wittgenstein, Russell was not
192. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.77.
349
focally, but only peripherally concerned to fix the places in human knowledge of logic
and philosophy. In his work our knowledge of the external world he did try to do this,
he adopted too easily the idea that philosophy could and should be disciplined into a
science among sciences. This sort of promised assimilation of philosophy to science
is not a new kind of dialectical craftsmanship that is thought by him. By the example
he set planned puzzle utilization. Like Moore, Russell constantly preached and
practiced analysis.
In pioneering, he practiced, far more penetrating self-testing
method of enquiry. In his ‘the problems of philosophy’ (1912) Russell declares, what
his writings show he himself knew and “loved the views from the Alpine heights
where there dwelled Plato, Leibniz, and Frege, but also knew and loved the valleys
that were tilled by Hume, Mill and James”.193 Russell was a rare being whose heart
was divided between transcendentalism and naturalism. His mind had been formed in
his youth both by John Stuart Mill and pure mathematics. Indeed Russell, got much of
the impetus and nearly all of the turbulence of his thinking from his being homesick
for the peaks while he was in the plains, and homesick for the plains where he was on
the heights.
However drastic, his reductionisms had some reluctance in them;
however uncompromising, his Platonisms were a little undevout.
Neither
transcendent being nor mundane occurring felt to him either quite real, or gravely
unreal. When in the mood he could think flippantly of either. It is some times said
that Russell merely oscillated, pendulum like, between transcendentalism and
naturalism, or between Platonism and empiricism. The truth is that, anyhow in his
formative and creative years, we find him neither at rest in the valley nor at rest
193. Roberts W. George ed., Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970: Bertrand Russell
Memorial Volume, London, Allen and Unwin, 1971, pp.18.
350
among the peaks, but mountaineering-trying to find a way from the valley back to the
peaks, or a way from the peak back to the valley. He had two homes. But where he
toiled and where he was alone, and where he was happy was on the mountainside.
The cast of the four determining impulses by which Russell directed the course
>
of subsequent philosophy is that, Russell was not only a pioneer formal logician, but
like Aristotle and Frege, he was a logician philosopher. He saw every advance in
formal logic as among other things a potential source of new rigours in philosophy
and he saw every philosophical puzzle or tangle as a lock for which formal logic
might already or might some day provide the key. “When useful and useless
knowledge are combined with forethought which is an aspect of intelligence, they
give rise to civilization”.194
Naturally it was at the beginning, the more dramatic
innovations in Russellean logic that were adopted by philosophers. The new term relation - term pattern of simple propositions was a time expected to accomplish
nearly all the philosophical tasks at which the subject predicate pattern baulked.
Russell, Whitehead and Frege made many philosophers enthusiasts for their new socalled symbolic logic and enthusiasts are always impetuous. The remarkable thing is
that among these three, Russell more than the other two did this enthusiasm. Even
outside the English-speaking world they fired it, partly through the mediation of
Wittgenstein, as far as Vienna and without this mediation as far away as Poland.
There was another massive legacy left by Russell, the logician philosopher, which we
can call the Theory of Types.
In these different, though doubtless internally
connected ways, Russell taught us not to think his thoughts but how to move in our
194. Russell Bertrand, Human Knowledge: its Scope and Limits, London, Allen and
Unwin, 1948, pp. 17-22.
351
own philosophical thinking. After persistent writing Russell evolved a style so fine
that it became intimate and almost involuntary expression of his personality.
wrote trenchantly in the style appropriate to philosophy.
He
One of the eminent
philosopher of the century conceived logic as the theory of inquiry, and it was
therefore important for him to define inquiry in the clearest possible terms.
He
thought much about it, and finally offered this as the considered result “Inquiry is the
controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so
determinate in his constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of
the original situation into a unified whole”195 Bertrand Russell having to comment on
this definition points out that far from distinguishing clearly one intellectual process
from others, it could be taken with at least equal propriety as describing a sergeant
drilling a group of recruits or a bricklayer laying bricks. According to his purpose the
writer chooses the form, for the purpose of writing is to convey meaning and it is
meaning which determines the choice and order of the words. The choice and order of
words form prose in which style may be said to exist. Style then, means the way in
which we use words for the purposes of expression - expressiveness being the gist of
the whole matter. A flawless style must have the qualities of correctness, proportion,
order, clarity, simplicity and exactness. Style must grow naturally as flowers grow in
meadows. “Language most shows a man: speak that I may see thee.” 196 In order to
cultivate lucidity and clarity of expression a writer must know fully what he has to
195. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.210.
196. Kumar Satish, History and Principles of Literary Criticism, Agra, Lakshmi
Narayan Agarwal Educational Publishers, 2002, P-78.
352
say. Choose apt words to say it, and arrange them properly in composition. The
literary artist “begets a vocabulary faithful to the colouring of his own spirit”197 One
calculated to convey his sense of fact in the precise way it has occurred to him. He
should avoid the use of obsolete or worn-out words. The right choice of words is an
important element in style. The next requirement of style is the combination of words
into a unified whole, it is not just a series of sentences held together by their common
purpose, but an architectural design “which foresees the end in the beginning and
never loses sight of it - - - a condition of literary art, which----- -- I shall call the
necessity of mind in style”.198 It is the function of the mind to combine word with
word, phrase with phrase, sentence with sentence - part with part till they become one
whole and are with the subject. Thus mind reveals itself in design, in structure and in
careful adjustment. The personality or soul is the necessary element in style. Besides
construction or design, the style has a tone, a colour an atmosphere, certain subtle
graces that Walter Pater mentions as “The soul in style”.
It is the element of
personality in style. It is the peculiar spirit of which the style is made of it is from this
quality that we know a writer from his works. It is in this sense the style is the man.
It is because of this soul in style that religious writers and preachers are able to
persuade and convert “The true style corresponds to the temper of the writer. It is
solemn, ornamental, severe, cold or gay in accordance with his personality. De
Quincey pointed out “It should be incarnation of thought”.199 Ben Jonson said, “In all
speech words and sense are as the body and soul”.200 It is through this quality that
"we seem to know a person in a book”201 He asserts that the style is the real man.
197, 198, 200 & 201. Kumar Satish, History and Principles of Literary Criticism,
Agra, Lakshtri Narayan Agarwal Educational Publishers, 2002, P-247
199. Ibid, P-73.
353
Summed up as mind and soul that colour and mystic perfume, and that reasonable
structure, it has something of the soul of humanity in it, and finds its logic its
architectural place, in the great structure of human life. Thus Pater’s distinction of
mind and soul elements indicates that every Art has its science.
Russell, in his important work, expresses doubts about the survival of the
scientific society “Can a scientific society be stable?” Russell uses the logic of pure
statements. Its full effect is felt even more forcefully when it is read in the right
context. Russell is picturing a Utopia in terms of scientific possibility and his is an
abstract pattern of conclusions based upon sustained observation and inductive
reasoning. Russell in this work enunciates the four conditions of a stable scientific
civilization.
Russell emphasizes his points as on an anvil with a hammer in all his writings.
He is objective, and he starts from the global external reality. He talks of “parts” of
the world and the aggregates of population and only towards the end refers to
individual initiative. Russell’s diagram of future possibility is built out of units of
meaning inferred from outer circumstances.
Russell uses “Diffusion” twice, the
greatest diffusion of power, without bothering to attempt “Elegant Variation”. Many
critics see the emotional fright of literature as of primary importance, even in prose
that is mainly discursive. Hence epigrams such as “style is the man himself’ or “style
is ingratiation”.202
Certainly the configurations of feeling which accompany any
argument are vital in governing its reception by the reader. The writer must observe
the amenities common to all human relationships by “saying the right thing”. Style
adds the force of personality to the impersonal forces of logic and evidence, and is
thus deeply involved in the business of persuasion. Feeling enters discursive prose,
202. Burke, Kenneth, Permanence and Change, New York, 1935, pp.41.
354
then, as expression and as persuasion. In addition to this, there is a third aspect,
which is almost beyond the power of language to describe.
A sentence, as its
inception, raises questions rather than answering them.
The view of style, which we have been outlining, clearly takes prose as a
serious literary venture, find purely imaginative forms also in good discursive prose.
"The lifeblood of the poetic creation is everywhere the same”. This rather mystical
theory makes good sense if “lifeblood” is translatable to “modes of experience and
habits of feeling”203 There are two main conceptions of rhetoric appear to be at play
when philosophers discuss the topic one is concerned with the means of persuasion,
the other with qualities of style. Of course these cannot always easily be separated for
it may be that certain qualities of style figure prominently among the available means
of persuasion.
“Russell showed less intellectual effort in writing on history than other
works”.204 Russell studied history and man’s life from a new perspective, the
perspective of a realist.
Russell’s determination to become involved in activities
which could have future beneficial effects for mankind are evident in his reflections
concerning history and science “On History” and “Garibaldis Defense of the Roman
Republic” (32) develop themes, he was on the whole to pursue throughout his life and
to apply in his large corpus of historical writings. These two papers also indicate the
degree of his indoctrination at Pembroke lodge in the Whig Interpretation of History.
This approach presumed that the reading of history was a spur to action, that it
203. Spitzer, Leo, Linguistics and Literary History, New York, Princeton, 1948,
pp.18.
204. Paul Arthur Shilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Evanston, North
Western University Press, 1944, pp.646.
355
enjoined moral improvement; particularly through the enlargement of liberty and that
the betterment of mankind was promoted primarily through the actions of great
individuals. History also presented an opportunity for the reader to detach himself
from prosaic or selfish concerns. As Russell wrote in ‘On History’ the discipline
“suggests possibilities of action and feeling which would not have occurred to an
uninstructed mind - - it fills our thoughts with splendid examples and with the desire
for greater ends than unaided reflection would have discovered”.205 Russell’s
emphasis on the role of the individual in history and his belief in the constructive
possibilities of science converge in his guarded approval of eugenics.
In this
advocacy he was typical of one fissionable strand of thought in. the British
intelligentia.
His early argument that special financial concessions are needed to
provide the environment to nurture genius is expounded in. But he continued to be
concerned about the failure of modern societies to provide gifted people with
incentives to procreate. His statement “History is not only an account of this nation or
that nor even of this continent or that, its theme is Man”.206 He creates the awareness
that the awareness of historical knowledge is one of the greatest force in intellectual
world. There has been in realists a balanced style. We find a directly imaged, vividly
presented world of fact. Reed and Russell have the aesthetic of observation and of
instance. At its best Russell’s language has a marvelous patrician fluency a syntactical
ease and command, which imposes on words and ideas its overall control and far
sightedness. Russell’s daughter Katherine once wrote of her father that although he
205. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.524.
206. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.543.
356
was “a passionate believer in liberty and equality” and he was in practice*incapable of
"Fraternity” 207. An aristocrat “who had been taught to think himself superior” such
paradoxes and blind spots are of course, often noted in men of vision and principle. It
would be invidious to lay too uncharitable an emphasis on these words. However, the
comment does indicate a track of vision fundamentally characteristic of Russell. In
intellectual terms he was capable of imposing upon phenomena of most diverse kinds
a synoptic perspective of supreme sweep and rigor, which, nevertheless, coexists with
all sorts of necessary simplification, even evasiveness. As an aspect of this his prose
can come to seem both satisfied in its own superior lucidity and tendentious. An
obvious example of the personal aspect of this is a passage from the initial sentences
of the Autobiography.
“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life; the
longing for love, search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of
mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither----over a deep ocean of anguish reaching to the very verge of despair —”.208 Russell
depends on a congenial sense of an historic philosophical mission, and is adept at
conveying his sense of this to the reader. However, he remains unreflective about the
implications.
His autobiography is characteristic of honest style, which makes it
worth reading. In it an extraordinary life is recalled with the vivid freshness and
clarity, which characterized all Russell’s writing. In his intellectual works at once
readers find dignity, clarity, and judicious expression to quote ‘The Sunday Times’.
“His writings exactly reflect his crystalline, scintillating mind, and I should rank him
among the few living master of English Style”. Thus we venture to submit our ideas
207. Tail Katherine, My Father Bertrand Russell, Lond, Gollancz, 1975, pp.6.
208. Russell Bertrand, Autobiography, London, Allen and Unwin, 1976, pp-9.
357
about his style and form and let Russell and his works speak for themselves to the
reader. Readers pursue to immortalize his technical writing, but Russell himself has
written “1 am in no degree ashamed of having changed my opinions”.209 He feels that
“there are many things that seem to me important to be said, but not best said in a
portentous tone of voice”.210 Thus a genuine intellectual giant of the 20th century
confesses for short of expression at the same time proves his myriad mindedness by
which he taught about more than 15 subjects in well krown universities Russell has
not said the last word on these matters (philosophy or literature) but he has certainly
inspired a great multitude of students to try to say a better one”.211 The readers agree
to that his writings are delightful, whatever may be his place in philosophy, his
literary writings certainly deserve a place in any anthology of English prose.
209. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed., Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.7.
210. Egner E. Robert and Denonn E. Lester, ed.,Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1967, P-7.
211. Ibid, P-27.