BERTRAND RUSSELL.

BERTRAND ARTHUR WILLIAM RUSSELL,  [18 May 1872-2 February 1970]. He was a British Philosopher, Logician, Mathematician, Historian, Writer, Social Critic and Political Activist. He was  the founding figure in the analytic movement in Anglo-American philosophy. Russell was born in Ravens-croft, Trellech, Monmouth-shire, the country home of his influential and liberal parents of the British aristocracy. Viscount and Viscountess Amberley were radical for their times. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were advocates of Birth Control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley was an atheist and his atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher, John Stuart Mill to act as a Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effecft on Russell's life. His paternal grandfather, the Earl Russell, had been asked twice by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s. The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and the peerage with the rise of the Tudor Dynasty.
Russell's early life was marred by tragedy and bereavement. By the time he was six years old, his mother and sister, Rachel (four years older) died of diphtheria, his father died of bronchitis, and his grandfather also died and was remembered by Russell as a kindly old man in a wheelchair. He and his brother Frank were left in the care of their grandmother, Countess Russell, a dominant family figure for the rest of his childhood and youth. Frank was sent to Winchester School while he was educated privately at home. To his great regret, his childhood was spent largely in isolation from other children. He was very lonely in his adolescence years and often he contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were religion and mathematics, and from that only his wish to know more mathematics kept him alive.
The atmosphere at home was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression, and formality. The grandmother was from a Scottish Presbyterian family. Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas and her influence on Bertrand remained with him throughout his life. He learned to hide his feelings.
In 1890, his isolation came to an end. He entered Trinity College, University of Cambridge, to study Mathematics. There he made lifelong friends through his membership in the famously secretive student society "The Apostles," whose members included some of the most influential philosophers of the day. Inspired by the group, Russell abandoned mathematics for philosophy.
When he died Russell was far better known as an antiwar campaigner. In retrospect, however, it is possible to see that it is for his great contributions to philosophy that he will be remembered by the future generations. Here we have some of his thoughts:
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt Reason and Science as our guidelines."
"There is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, than that, there is no reason to wish that they are true. Man is not subject to natural forces, he is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity."
"Man is a credulous and rational animal, and must believe in something; in the absence of good grounds, he will be satisfied with bad ones."
"It seems to me that people who have held high positions of authority to the Christian religion have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious that the more intense has been the religion of any period, the more profound has been the dogmatic belief. The greater the cruelty the worse the state of affairs. In the so-called Ages of Faith, when men really did believe in Christianity and in all its completeness, there was Inquisition, with all its tortures. There were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of Religion."
"My own view of Religion is that of Lucretius. It is a disease born of Fear. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization."
"Fear is the parent of cruelty. Cruelty and Religion have gone hand-in hand. It is because Fear is at the basis of those two things."
"Three passions have governed my life: the longing for Love, the search for Knowledge, and unbearable Pity for the suffering of mankind. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
"My whole Religion is this: Do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter."