Bertrand Russell: Why Men Fight

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First published in 1916

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ISBN 0-203-86469-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 10: 0–415–48738–2

ISBN 10: 0–203–86469–7 (ebk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–415–48738–2

ISBN 13: 978–0–203–86469–2 (ebk)

1Bertrand Russell, Library of Living Philosophers , vol. 5, The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell , ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp (Evanston, Illinois, 1944), p. 726.

2 Principles of Social Reconstruction (London, 1916), p. 67.

3Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey (London, 1968), vol. 2, p. 173.

4 Principles of Social Reconstruction , p. 167.

5Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1914–1942 (London, 1968), vol. 2, p. 20.

6Ibid., p. 76.

1On this subject compare Bernard Hart’s “Psychology of Insanity” (Cam-bridge University Press, 1914), chap. v, especially pp. 62–5.

2This was written before Christianity had become punishable by ten years’ penal servitude under the Military Service Act (No. 2). [Note added in 1916.]

1The blasphemy prosecutions.

2The syndicalist prosecutions. [The punishment of conscientious objectors must now be added, 1916.]

3“In a democratic country it is the majority who must after all rule, and the minority will be obliged to submit with the best grace possible” ( Westminster Gazette on Conscription, December 29, 1915).

4“Some very strong remarks on the conduct of the ‘white feather’ women were made by Mr. Reginald Kemp, the Deputy Coroner for West Middlesex, at an inquest at Ealing on Saturday on Richard Charles Roberts, aged thirty-four, a taxicab driver, of Shepherd’s Bush, who committed suicide in consequence of worry caused by his rejection from the Army and the taunts of women and other amateur recruiters.

It was stated that he tried to join the Army in October, but was rejected on account of a weak heart. That alone, said his widow, had depressed him, and he had been worried because he thought he would lose his licence owing to the state of his heart. He had also been troubled by the dangerous illness of a child.

A soldier relative said that the deceased’s life had been made ‘a perfect misery’ by women who taunted him and called him a coward because he did not join the Army. A few days ago two women in Maida Vale insulted him ‘something shocking.’

The Coroner, speaking with some warmth, said the conduct of such women was abominable. It was scandalous that women who knew nothing of individual circumstances should be allowed to go about making unbearable the lives of men who had tried to do their duty. It was a pity they had nothing better to do. Here was a man who perhaps had been driven to death by a pack of silly women. He hoped something would soon be done to put a stop to such conduct” ( Daily News , July 26, 1915).

5By England in South Africa, America in the Philippines, France in Morocco, Italy in Tripoli, Germany in South-West Africa, Russia in Persia and Manchuria, Japan in Manchuria.

6This was written in 1915.

7This would be as true under a syndicalist régime as it is at present.

1These changes, which are to be desired on their own account, not only in order to prevent war, will be discussed in later lectures.

2What is said on this subject in the present lecture is only preliminary, since the subsequent lectures all deal with some aspect of the same problem.

1Booth’s “Life and Labour of the People,” vol. iii.

1As regards the education of young children, Madame Montessori’s methods seem to me full of wisdom.

2We have reached lately a depth even lower than the distortion of the minds of children. Children are to be organized so as to become the innocent tools for hate and cruelty to be implanted through parental affection. For the way of doing this see the Teacher’s World , September 5, 1917. On a given day every boy and girl in school is to write a letter to a friend on active service. “Their letters must give their hearers a hearty greeting; a real firm hand-shake. The letters must not just say, ‘How do you do?’ but ‘You are winning. We are proud of you. We’ll see it through with you. Everybody is helping,’ and so forth.” “Above all, the letters must be natural. … The older children should write their letters entirely by themselves. The younger ones should have as little help as possible. Very young ones might just send a cheery line or two from the teacher’s copy on the blackboard.”

3What Madame Montessori has achieved in the way of minimizing obedience and discipline with advantage to education is almost miraculous.

1There was a provision for suits in forma pauperis , but for various reasons this provision was nearly useless; a new and somewhat better provision has recently been made, but is still very far from satisfactory.

2The following letter ( New Statesman , December 4th, 1915) illustrates the nature of his activities:—

Divorce and War. To the Editor of the “New Statesman.”

Sir,—The following episodes may be of interest to your readers. Under the new facilities for divorce offered to the London poor, a poor woman recently obtained a decree nisi for divorce against her husband, who had often covered her body with bruises, infected her with a dangerous disease, and committed bigamy. By this bigamous marriage the husband had ten illegitimate children. In order to prevent this decree being made absolute, the Treasury spent at least £200 of the taxes in briefing a leading counsel and an eminent junior counsel and in bringing about ten witnesses from a city a hundred miles away to prove that this woman had committed casual acts of adultery in 1895 and 1898. The net result is that this woman will probably be forced by destitution into further adultery, and that the husband will be able to treat his mistress exactly as he treated his wife, with impunity, so far as disease is concerned. In nearly every other civilized country the marriage would have been dissolved, the children could have been legitimated by subsequent marriage, and the lawyers employed by the Treasury would not have earned the large fees they did from the community for an achievement which seems to most other lawyers thoroughly anti-social in its effects. If any lawyers really feel that society is benefited by this sort of litigation, why cannot they give their services for nothing, like the lawyers who assisted the wife? If we are to practise economy in war-time, why cannot the King’s Proctor be satisfied with a junior counsel only? The fact remains that many persons situated like the husband and wife in question prefer to avoid having illegitimate children, and the birth-rate accordingly suffers.