THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

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THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that if such and
such a is proposition true of anything, then such and such another proposition
is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first propo-
sition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is of which it is
supposed to be true. . . . Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject
in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we
are saying is true. 9 ' 42
And perhaps (if one may rudely interrupt exposition with opinion)
this description does no great injustice to mathematical philosophy. It is
a splendid game for those who like it; guaranteed to "kill time" as rapidly
as chess; it is a new form of solitaire, and should be played as far as
possible from the contaminating touch of things. It is remarkable that
after writing several volumes of this learned moonshine, Bertrand Russell
should suddenly come down upon the surface of this planet, and begin
to reason very passionately about war, and government, and socialism,
and revolution, and never once make use of the impeccable formulae
piled like Pelion upon Ossa in his Principia Mathematics Nor has anyone
else, observably, made use of them. To be useful, reasoning must be
about things, and must keep in touch with them at every step. Abstrac-
tions have their use as summaries; but as implements of argument they
require the running test and commentary of experience. We are in danger
here of a scholasticism beside which the giant Summa's of medieval
philosophy would be models of pragmatic thought.
From such a starting point, Bertrand Russell was almost fated to pass
into agnosticism. He found so much in Christianity that could not be
phrased in mathematics, that he abandoned it all except its moral code.
He speaks scornfully of a civilization that persecutes men who deny
Christianity, and imprisons those who take it seriously. 48 He can find no
God in such a contradictory world; rather, only a humorus Mephistoph-
eles could have produced it, and in a mood of exceptional deviltry.**
He follows Spencer in his vision of the end of the world, and rises to elo-
quence in describing the Stoic's resignation
to the ultimate defeat of
every individual and every species. We talk of evolution and progress;
but progress is an egotistical phrase and evolution is but one half of an
unmoral cycle of events terminating in dissolution and death. "Organic
life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the
philosopher; and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance.
Unfortunately, it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives
us this assurance." 45 The "free man" cannot comfort himself with childish
hopes and anthropomorphic gods; he has to keep his courage up even
"Mysticism and Logic, pp. 76 and 75.
*Why Men Fight, New York, 1917; p. 4*.
"Mysticism and Logic, pp. 76 and 75.
d., p. 106.