THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

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THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
appeared." He began to understand that this dramatic overturn, with all
its sacrifices and all its heroism, was only Russia's 1789.
Perhaps he was more at home when he went for a year to teach in
one could
China; there was less mechanism there, and a slower pace;
sit down and reason, and life would stand still while one dissected it. In
that vast sea of humanity new perspectives came to our philosopher; he
realized that is Europe but the tentative pseudopodium of a greater
all his the-
continent and an older and perhaps profounder culture;
ories and syllogisms melted into a modest relativity before this mastodon
of the nations. One sees his system loosening as he writes:
I have come to realize that the white race isn't as important as I used to
think it was. If Europe and America kill themselves off in war it will not
necessarily mean the destruction of the human species, nor even an end to
civilization. There will still be a considerable number of Chinese left; and
in many ways China is the greatest country I have ever seen. It is not only
the greatest numerically and the greatest culturally, but it seems to me the
greatest intellectually. I know of no other civilization where there is such
opeu-mindedness, such realism, such a willingness to face the facts as they
are, instead of trying to distort them into a particular pattern. 48
It is a little difficult to pass from England to America, and then to
Russia, and then to India and China, and yet keep one's social philosophy
unchanged. The world has convinced Bertrand Russell that it is too big
for his formulae, and perhaps too large and heavy to move very rapidly
towards his heart's desire. And there are so many hearts, and so many
different desires! One finds him now "an older and a wiser man/ 9
mellowed
by time and a varied life; as wide awake as ever to all the ills that
flesh is heir to and yet matured into the moderation that knows the
difficulties of social change. All in all, a very lovable man: capable of
the profoundest metaphysics and the subtlest mathematics, and yet speaking
always simply, with the clarity which comes only to those who are
sincere; a man addicted to fields of thought that usually dry up the springs
of feeling, and yet warmed and illumined with pity, full of an almost
mystic tenderness for mankind. Not a courtier, but surely a scholar and
a gentleman, and a better Christian than some who mouth the word.
Happily, he is still young and vigorous, the flame of life burns brightly
in him yet; who knows but this next decade will see him grow out of dis-
illusionment into wisdom, and write his name among the highest in "the
serene brotherhood of philosophs"?
^Interview in New York World, May 4, 1934*