Bertrand Russell: Why Men Fight

What we have to do practically is different for each one of us, according to our capacities and opportunities. But if we have the life of the spirit within us, what we must do and what we must avoid will become apparent to us.

By contact with what is eternal, by devoting our life to bringing something of the Divine into this troubled world, we can make our own lives creative even now, even in the midst of the cruelty and strife and hatred that surround us on every hand. To make the individual life creative is far harder in a community based on possession than it would be in such a community as human effort may be able to build up in the future. Those who are to begin the regeneration of the world must face loneliness, opposition, poverty, obloquy. They must be able to live by truth and love, with a rational unconquerable hope; they must be honest and wise, fearless, and guided by a consistent purpose. A body of men and women so inspired will conquer—first the difficulties and perplexities of their individual lives, then, in time, though perhaps only in a long time, the outer world. Wisdom and hope are what the world needs; and though it fights against them, it gives its respect to them in the end.

When the Goths sacked Rome, St. Augustine wrote the “City of God,” putting a spiritual hope in place of the material reality that had been destroyed. Throughout the centuries that followed St. Augustine’s hope lived and gave life, while Rome sank to a village of hovels. For us too it is necessary to create a new hope, to build up by our thought a better world than the one which is hurling itself into ruin. Because the times are bad, more is required of us than would be required in normal times. Only a supreme fire of thought and spirit can save future generations from the death that has befallen the generation which we knew and loved.

It has been my good fortune to come in contact as a teacher with young men of many different nations—young men in whom hope was alive, in whom the creative energy existed that would have realized in the world some part at least of the imagined beauty by which they lived. They have been swept into the war, some on one side, some on the other. Some are still fighting, some are maimed for life, some are dead; of those who survive it is to be feared that many will have lost the life of the spirit, that hope will have died, that energy will be spent, and that the years to come will be only a weary journey towards the grave. Of all this tragedy, not a few of those who teach seem to have no feeling: with ruthless logic, they prove that these young men have been sacrificed unavoidably for some coldly abstract end; undisturbed themselves, they lapse quickly into comfort after any momentary assault of feeling. In such men the life of the spirit is dead. If it were living, it would go out to meet the spirit in the young, with a love as poignant as the love of father or mother. It would be unaware of the bounds of self; their tragedy would be its own. Something would cry out: “No, this is not right; this is not good, this is not a holy cause, in which the brightness of youth is destroyed and dimmed. It is we, the old, who have sinned; we have sent these young men to the battlefield for our evil passions, our spiritual death, our failure to live generously out of the warmth of the heart and out of the living vision of the spirit. Let us come out of this death, for it is we who are dead, not the young men who have died through our fear of life. Their very ghosts have more life than we: they hold us up for ever to the shame and obloquy of all the ages to come. Out of their ghosts must come life, and it is we whom they must vivify.”

Publication Titles beginning with ‘A’ or ‘The’ will be filed under the first significant word. Page references to Endnotes will have the letter ‘n’ following the number

abuse of power 13–14

adultery 109, 110;

penalty for 111–12

adventure, mental 105–6

Africa 79, 149

aggression 8–9, 31, 56

Allen & Unwin xiv

alliances of nations 65

America:

B.R.’s reputation in xiv;

and England 26, 65;

as free State 26;

helplessness of citizens in 35;

money, respect for 59;

safety of 36;

War of Independence 147;

and worship of money 71, 73

anarchy 25, 26, 35, 132

anti-capitalist movements 34

Aquinas, Thomas 129

Army 25, 28n, 29, 63

art/artistic creation 6, 10, 21, 59, 138n, 150

artificial injustice, law 78

Athens 99

The Atlantic Monthly xiv

atomist philosophy xv, xvi

Aurelius, Marcus 157

Australia 34

Austria 29

authority:

in education 93;

function of 39;

and institutions 10, 13, 17;

in marriage 121;

and obedience 100;

and religion 14;

of State 37;

traditional bonds based on 122

aversion, common 18, 19

Balance of Power 61

beliefs 2–3, 98

Bentham, Jeremy ix

bias, of Governments 37–38

biological groups 18

birth-rate 114, 115n, 117;

selectiveness of 118, 120

blasphemy prosecutions 26

blind impulses 6, 7

Boer Republics 56

bondage 136

Burns, Delisle xv

Butler, Sir William 56

capital and labour, conflict between 17

capitalism 75, 86, 87

captains of industry 80–81

Carlyle, T. 18, 19, 21

Catholic religion 115, 117, 129, 133

Caxton Hall, London xi, xii

Century Company xiv

children:

expense of 73, 74, 83–84, 113, 119, 120, 125;

love for 144–45;

and marriage systems 109;

need for 125;

see also education

Christianity 13, 26, 33, 108, 132

Church:

dangers of 130–31;

and education 94;

and medieval society 13, 14;

power of 27;

and tribal feeling 30

Church of England 110, 111

City State 45

civilization/civilized life 31, 39, 117, 157, 158

clergymen/clerical profession 130

common purpose 14, 17–18, 30, 152;

and marriage 19–20

common sense 150

community 2–3, 31;

of nations 17

comparative wealth 49

compatriots, instinctive liking for 20, 32

Confédération Générale du Travail 31

conflict 17, 46, 57, 59, 66

conflict of interests 87–88, 114

conservatism 84, 128

constructiveness 10, 85

co-operation 17, 20, 23

co-operative movement xv, 88

corruption 137

cosmopolitanism 33

creativity:

impulse, creative 150–51, 153;

and science 138;

stifling 86, 87

creeds 30, 130–31

crime, fear of 31

Cromwell, Oliver 147

curiosity 5, 134

Dante 129, 130

death, and impulse 9, 10

death-rate, fall in 115n

democracy:

and Great War 8;

industrial 89;

and literacy 40–41;

and obedience 28;

and oppression, prevention of 64;

and reform 159;

and State power 35;

theory of 147

desires:

and happiness 47;

human nature 137;

and impulses 3–4, 6, 11, 152–53;

and needs 125;

of policy makers 53–54;

thwarting of 151;

for wealth 59;

of wives 122;

and worship of money 70

discipline 7, 99, 100, 101–2

distribution systems 77, 78, 81

divorce, expense of 109

eating 137

economic organizations 19, 87

economic system, chief test of 85

education 91–107;

compulsory 40;

dangers of 95;

as a drill 99;

expense of 83–84;

ideals of (B.R.’s views) 99–100, 101;

and patriotism 32;

and politics 92, 95;

possessiveness of 154;

power of 92;

and reverance 93–94;

subjective reporting of facts 96;

theorists 91;

ultimate goal of 91