believe that war is due to diplomatists and governments; while as for those “passive” pacifists whose impulsiveness and active energy is atrophied, he even thinks that “the supporters of war would be right in decrying such men.” Mr. Russell himself is an “active” pacifist; he advocates a pacifism which would not weaken or cripple the activity and energy of men; he maintains, indeed, that this activity and energy can and should be strengthened. Yet his ideal is to create such a universal condition of society as would make war unnecessary and impossible.
Mr. Russell believes that the right kind of pacifism must become the foundation of a new political philosophy which will promote “life,” by which he means activity and energy. According to this view of pacifism, activity springs from impulses—for conscious purposes, he says, play a very small part in moulding human life—and these impulses are of two kinds, the “creative” and the “possessive”; the best life is that which is built on the former at the expense of the latter. The liberation of creativeness must therefore be the root principle of reform in politics and economics; for political and economical institutions have great influence on the dispositions of men. State, war, property, are classed as the chief political embodiments of the “possessive” impulses; while education, marriage, religion, ought to embody the creative impulses, although at present they do so very inadequately. In other words, civilised society is too passive, it is even decaying; and, therefore, if it is to be saved, the civilised world has need of a fundamental change.
Traditional Liberalism, Mr. Russell argues, cannot inspire this change. Mankind needs a new, a higher philosophy of politics.
The philosophical interest of Mr. Russell’s “Principles” lies in his conception of human activity, its origin and value. Mr. Russell presents a peculiar system of activism which reminds us of Schopenhauer and some recent psychologists, or rather psychiatrists (indeed, he quotes Hart’s “Psychology of Insanity”), and in which he emphasises the co-called unconscious or subconscious mental processes. Man, according to Mr. Russell’s psychology, is an active being, and impulses and desires derived from the instincts of self-preservation and reproduction are the main source of human activity. Like Schopenhauer, Mr. Russell thinks these impulses and desires are blind; but in contradistinction to Schopenhauer
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