(p. 15), etc. the psychological embarrassment becomes rather oppressive. And yet I would not say that Mr. Russell is quite wrong; at least his psychology is to me a very interesting attempt to escape from the old naïve English psychology of passive association, and to build up a psychology of activity and creation. But the analysis is not clear enough; psychology, ethics, politics, history, are mixed and entangled in a rather confusing manner, and the theory of creativeness and of its freedom is not fully elucidated.
Mr. Russell’s object is to delineate a new philosophy of politics; but although his aims are noble, acceptable and many of them even desirable, yet the system by which he proposes to achieve them is rendered scientifically unsound by reason of its uncertain psychological foundation. I will adduce only one instance to show this fatal insufficiency of Mr. Russell’s psychology. His principal task would seem to be to show how the individual forces of men operate in and for the community, in and for society, and how these individual forces affect or make the historical process. Mr. Russell makes no such attempt; he simply opposes to “individual” impulses the “general” impulses of the community, and adds that they are contagious (p. 11); but the historical process, the social development and progress are not considered.
Assuming that human nature is governed by blind impulses, we would like to hear how society can progress, how changes are brought about, which forces lead to improvement. Is it a blind teleology which leads mankind?
Mr. Russell hopes for a new philosophy of life or (p. 245) a religion which will promote life. We shall not insist now on the relation of this philosophy to religion; we learn that this religion “starts” from the spirit and “endeavours” to dominate and inform the life of instinct (p. 207), but what does this mean in reality? What or who guarantees the aims of this religion (or philosophy)? It is not enough to say that we must promote and liberate creativeness—which aims, which principles, must we accept and on what reason and authority? If religion is the real and supreme leader of society what will be the relation of this religion to the State, which, according to Mr. Russell, will continue to subsist?
John Stuart Mill, speaking of the logic of sociology, very aptly shows the insufficiency of a method which he calls the geometrical, or mathematical: I fear Mr. Russell’s previous
345
