The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

world, about the adventures that come his way and
the more marvelous adventures that will come his
way when he is grown up. But behind all these
external interests there is the feeling that he will be
protected from disaster by parental affection. The
child from whom for any reason parental affection
is withdrawn is likely to become timid and
unadventurous, filled with fears and self-pity, and
no longer able to meet the world in a mood of gay
exploration. Such a child may set to work at a
surprisingly early age to meditate on life and death
and human destiny. He becomes an introvert,
melancholy at first, but seeking ultimately the
unreal consolations of some system of philosophy
or theology. The world is a higgledy-piggledy
place, containing things pleasant and things
unpleasant in haphazard sequence. And the desire
to make an intelligible system or pattern out of it is
at bottom an outcome of fear, in fact a kind of
agoraphobia or dread of open spaces. Within the
four walls of his library the timid student feels
safe. If he can persuade himself that the universe is
equally tidy, he can feel almost equally safe when