Georg Cantor, the subject of the following letter, was, in my opinion, one of the greatest intellects of
the nineteenth century. The controversy with Poincaré which he mentions is still (1949) raging,
though the original protagonists are long since dead. After reading the following letter, no one will
the autobiography of bertrand russell 210be surprised to learn that he spent a large part of his life in a lunatic asylum, but his lucid
intervals were devoted to creating the theory of in?nite numbers.
He gave me a book on the Bacon–Shakespeare question, and wrote on the cover: ‘I see your
motto is “Kant or Cantor” and described Kant as “yonder sophistical Philistine who knew so little
mathematics.”’ Unfortunately I never met him.
75 Victoria Street
S.W.
16.9.11
Dear Mr Russell
By accident I met to-day Professor Georg Cantor, professor of Mathematics
at Halle University, and his chief wish during his stay in England is to meet
you and talk about your books. He was overcome with pleasure when he
learnt on talking of Cambridge that I knew you a little – you must forgive my
boasting of my acquaintance with an English ‘Mathematiker’ and I had to
promise I would try to ?nd out if he could see you. He proposes to visit
Cambridge on Tuesday and Oxford on Thursday, and meanwhile is staying
for a week at 62 Nevern Square, South Kensington.
It was a great pleasure to meet him though if you are kind enough to
see him you will sympathise with my feeling worn out with nearly four
hours conversation. He was like a fog horn discoursing on Mathematics – to
me! – and the Bacon theory.
8
Could you send a line to him or to me at Woodgate, Danehill, Sussex.
He is a Geheimrath & so forth. I could relate his whole family history
to you!
Yours sincerely and with many apologies
Margery I. Corbett Ashby
To the Hon. Bertrand Russell 19 Sept. 1911
Trinity College, Cambridge 62 Nevern Square
South Kensington
London
Sir and dear Colleague!
From Mrs Margaret Corbett Ashby I have to present you with the ensuing
letter. I am now staying here for a week about, with my daughter Mary,
probably unto Sunday 24 Sept. on which day I will depart perhaps to Paris
also for a week about, or to go at home. It would give me much pleasure if
you could accompany us to Paris. There we could meet perhaps Monsieur
Poincaré together, which would be a ?ne jolly ‘Tr io’.
As for myself you do know perhaps, that I am a great heretic upon many
scienti?c, but also in many literary matters as, to pronounce but two of them:
I am Baconian in the Bacon–Shakespeare question and I am quite an adversary of
Old Kant, who, in my eyes has done much harm and mischief to philosophy,
cambridge again 211even to mankind; as you easily see by the most perverted development of
metaphysics in Germany in all that followed him, as in Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Herbart, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Nietzsche, etc. etc. on to this very
day. I never could understand that and why such reasonable and enobled
peoples as the Italiens, the English and the French are, could follow yonder
sophistical philistine, who was so bad a mathematician.
And now it is that in just this abominable mummy, as Kant is, Monsieur
Poincaré felt quite enamoured, if he is not bewitched by him. So I understand
quite well the opposition of Mons. Poincaré, by which I felt myself honoured,
though he never had in his mind to honour me, as I am sure. If he perhaps
expect, that I will answer him for defending myself, he is certainly in great a
mistake.
I think he is about ten years younger than I, but I have learned to wait in all
things and I foresee now clearly, that in this quarrel I will not be the succumbent.
I let him do at his pleasure.
But I feel no forcing to enter myself into the battle; others will him
precipitate and I allowed to do with greater and more important things. As
for the little di?erences between you and me, I am sure, that they will
disappear soon after an oral discourse.
I intend to pay a visit today to Major Macmahon.
I hope to see you in these days in Cambridge or in London, and so I am, Sir,
Your very faithfull
Georg Cantor
On Thursday to Friday we are to follow an invitation of Mrs Constance
Pott, an old friend and correspondent of mine, of London, staying now in
Folkestone, 15 Clifton Crescent.
As to Kant and his successors I see, and will show you the real cause of
his standing upon so seeming-fermly ground of success, honour, veneration,
idolatry. This cause is, that the German Protestantism in his development to
‘Liberalism’ needs himself a fundament on which to build his seeming-Christianity,
so Kant or one of his successors are picked out, by the protestant Theologians
of divers scools, to be their Atlas. One hand washes the other, one depends on
the other and one has to fall with the other!
I never did harm to Monsieur Poincaré; au contraire, je l’honorait
fortement dans mes ‘grundlagen einer allgemeinen-M. lehre’.
To the Hon. Bertrand Russell London
Trinity College, Cambridge 19 Sept. 1911
Dear Sir
My ?rst letter to you was just ?nished as I received your despatch. If
I would be free and would not depend upon the freewill of two young
the autobiography of bertrand russell 212German Ladies, my daughter Mary and my niece Fr?ulein Alice Guttmann of
Berlin, I would come this just day to meet you in Ipsden Wallingford. So
probably I can generally not come to you!
Yours faithfully
Georg Cantor
This second letter being ?nished, just I receive the following despatch
from my dear wife at home.
‘Erich erkrankt – sofort Halle kommen.’
You see, dear Sir, destiny playing upon me. The two young ladies I spoke
of, are just departed to see Westminster.
It is my only son Erich, quite healthy when I left him; he is the Doctor of one
division of a large Hospital of alienates in Bunzlau (Silesia). He is 32 years old.
I will hope that the worst has not happened.
He had been married three months ago and we assisted at his wedding
with a very amiabel good and clever young girl, daughter of a tanner in the
little Saxonia town Nossen in the Kingdom of Saxony.
My address in Halle a.d. Saale is: Handelstr. 13. We depart this evening.
I hope to be here in the last half of August 1912 to the international
Congress.
I had been also just writing a short description of my journey to and
sojourning at Saint Andrews, and I intented to o?er it to the editor of ‘Review
of Reviews’.
I could not go to Major Macmahon as had been my intention to do; you
will see it in my ?rst letter.
In Saint Andrews I have seen with great pleasure my very good friend Mr
Hobson of Cambridge, who was going to Mailand to a congress of Mr Felix
Klein, the great ?eld-marshall of all german Mathematicians. Neither my
father nor my mother were of german blood, the ?rst being a Dane, borne in
Kopenhagen, my mother of Austrian Hungar descension. You must know, Sir,
that I am not a regular just Germain, for I am born 3 March 1845 at Saint
Peterborough, Capital of Russia, but I went with my father and mother and
brothers and sister, eleven years old in the year 1856, into Germany, ?rst
sojourning at Wiesbaden, then at Frankfort a/Main, then at Darmstadt, four
years, then at Zürich, Berlin and G?ttingen, coming then as ‘Privat Dozent’
Easter of the year 1869 to Halle a.d. Saale where I stay now forty two years
and more.
Dear Sir
The last word of mine to you is a good one, just I receive from my wife the
second telegram: ‘Erich besser.’ But you will understand that we must return
this evening at home.
cambridge again 21341 Grosvenor Road
Westminster Embankment
October 11th (1912)
My dear Bertrand
I was so sorry not to see you when you called the other day, and I feel that I
cannot let your visit pass in silence.
Now don’t be angry with me, if I ask you to put yourself in our place.
Supposing you and Alys were living in absolute happiness in complete
comradship [sic], and you became aware that Sidney had repudiated me, and
that I was ‘living on in a state of dark despair’. Would you not, both of you,
feel rather sore with Sidney?
I know nothing of the cause of your estrangement – all I know is that Alys
wants us to be friends with you. And that is also my own instinct. I have always
admired your very great intelligence, and tho’ I have sometimes had my doubts
about the strength of your character, I have always felt its peculiar charm.
So don’t think that I have withdrawn my friendship; and if, at any time, I
can be of use to you, with or without your complete con?dence let me know
and come and see me. And now that I have expressed quite frankly what is in
my mind come and see us, if you feel inclined, and talk about the world’s
a?airs without reference to your and Alys’ troubles.
We had a delightful time in the Far East and India – there are wonderful
new outlooks in Human Purpose and Human Destiny, both in Japan and
among the Hindus in India. We were wholly unable to appreciate China and
found ourselves unsympathetic to Mohamedan India.
Now we are again immersed in British problems: but the memory of our
travels is a constant refreshment. Why don’t you go for a long holiday and
complete change of thought?
Ever your friend
Beatrice Webb
37 Alfred Place W
South Kensington, S.W.
13 October 1912
Dear Mr Russell
Thanks for your kind letter. I will ask Dr Seal to pay you a visit at
Cambridge, when you will have an opportunity to know him.
I read your article on the Essence of Religion in the last issue of the Hibbert
Journal with very great interest. It reminded me of a verse in the Upanishad
which runs thus –
‘Yato vácho nivartanté aprápya manasá saha
ánandam Brahmano Vidván na vibhéti Kutushchana.’
the autobiography of bertrand russell 214‘From him words, as well as mind, come back ba?ed. Yet he who knows
the joy of Brahman (the In?nite) is free from all fear.’
Through knowledge you cannot apprehend him; yet when you live the life
of the In?nite and are not bound within the limits of the ?nite self you realise
that great joy which is above all the pleasures and pains of our sel?sh life and
so you are free from all fear.
This joy itself is the positive perception of Brahman. It is not a creed which
authority imposes on us but an absolute realisation of the In?nite which we
can only attain by breaking through the bonds of the narrow self and setting
our will and love free.
Yours sincerely
Rabindranath Tagore
Trinity College
13th Feb. 1913
My dear Goldie
It was very nice to see your handwriting, and such parts of your letter as I
could decipher interested me very much! (In fact, there was very little I didn’t
make out in the end.) I am interested to see that India is too religious for you.
Religion and daily bread – superstition and the belly – it doesn’t sound
attractive. I expect you will ?nd China much more interesting – much more
civilised, and more aware of the subtler values – at least if you could get in
touch with the educated people.
I haven’t much news. I suppose you have become aware that the Tories
have dropped food taxes, and are on the move about protection in general;
also that the Germans are accepting a 16 to 10 naval proportion, so that
the public world is rather cheerful. Here in Cambridge things go on as
usual. There is another agitation against Little-Go Greek being got up, and
everybody is saying what they have always said. It all seems rather remote
from anything of real importance. My friend Wittgenstein was elected to the
Society, but thought it a waste of time, so he imitated henry john roby9
and
was cursed. I think he did quite right, though I tried to dissuade him. He
is much the most apostolic and the ablest person I have come across
since Moore.
I have done nothing to my Discourse. All the later summer I tried in vain to
recapture the mood in which I had written it, but winter in England being in
any case hopeless for that sort of writing I gave up for the present, and have
been working at the philosophy of matter, in which I seem to see an opening
for something important. The whole question of our knowledge of the
external world is involved. In the spring of next year, I am going to Harvard for
three months to lecture. I doubt if the people there are much good, but it will
be interesting. Santayana has brought out a new book, Winds of Doctrine, mostly
cambridge again 215on Bergson and me. I have only looked it through so far – it has his usual
qualities. Karin read a paper in praise of Bergson to the Aristotelian the other
day – Moore and I attacked her with all imaginable ferocity, but she displayed
undaunted courage. – Frank Darwin is going to marry Mrs Maitland, as
I suppose you have heard. – There – that is all the news I can think of – it
all seems curiously trivial. We here in Cambridge all keep each other going
by the unquestioned assumption that what we do is important, but I often
wonder if it really is. What is important I wonder? Scott and his companions
dying in the blizzard seem to me impervious to doubt – and his record of
it has a really great simplicity. But intellect, except at white heat, is very apt to
be trivial.
I feel as if one would only discover on one’s death-bed what one ought
to have lived for, and realise too late that one’s life had been wasted. Any
passionate and courageous life seems good in itself, yet one feels that some
element of delusion is involved in giving so much passion to any humanly
attainable object. And so irony creeps into the very springs of one’s being. Are
you ?nding the Great Secret in the East? I doubt it. There is none – there is
not even an enigma. There is science and sober daylight and the business of
the day – the rest is mere phantoms of the dusk. Yet I know that when the
summer comes I shall think di?erently.
I wish I were with you, or you with me. Give my love to Bob.
10
Yours ever
B. Russell
The Doves Press
April 1913
My dear Bertie
At last, at last the Miltons are bound and I am sending them to your address
at Trinity. I also was at Trinity this year just half a century ago and this same
year just the same long time ago ?rst saw your mother then Kate Stanley. I am
not sorry then to have so long delayed as to make my little o?ering in this
same year of grace.
In a little while this will be closed and I shall be printing no more books –
did I send you my swan-song? I forget. But before I close I shall have
printed the letters in their year of anniversary, 1914, and that will make a
?tting end.
Let me hear of you and see you when next you come to Town.
A?ectionately always
T. J. Cobden-Sanderson
the autobiography of bertrand russell 216Hon. B. A. W. Russell 29 Sparks Street
Trinity College Cambridge, Mass.
Cambridge, Eng. June 15, 1913
Esteemed Colleague
My son, Norbert Wiener, will this week receive his degree of Ph.D. at
Harvard University, his thesis being ‘A comparative Study of the Algebra of
Relatives of Schroeder and that of Whitehead and Russell’. He had expected
to be here next year and have the privilege of being your student in the
second semester, but as he has received a travelling fellowship, he is obliged
to pass the whole of the year in Europe, and so he wishes to enjoy the
advantage of studying under you at Trinity during the ?rst half of the
academic year. He intended to write to you about this matter, but his great
youth, – he is only eighteen years old and his consequent inexperience with
what might be essential for him to know in his European sojourn, leads me to
do this service for him and ask your advice.
Norbert graduated from College, receiving his A.B., at the age of four-
teen, not as the result of premature development or of unusual precocity,
but chie?y as the result of careful home training, free from useless waste,
which I am applying to all of my children. He is physically strong
(weighing 170 lbs.), perfectly balanced morally and mentally, and shows no
traits generally associated with early precocity. I mention all this to you that
you may not assume that you are to deal with an exceptional or freakish boy,
but with a normal student whose energies have not been mis-directed.
Outside of a broad, and liberal classical education, which includes Greek,
Latin, and the modern languages, he has had a thorough course in the
sciences, and in Mathematics has studied the Di?erential and integral
Calculus, Di?erential Equations, the Galois Theory of Equations, and some
branches of Modern Algebra (under Prof. Huntington). In philosophy he
has pursued studies under Professors Royce, Perry, Palmer, Münsterberg,
Schmidt, Holt, etc., at Harvard and Cornell Universities.
11
His predilection
is entirely for Modern Logic, and he wishes during his one or two years’
stay in Europe to be bene?ted from those who have done distinguished
work in that direction.
Will he be able to study under you, or be directed by you, if he comes to
Cambridge in September or early October? What should he do in order to
enjoy that privilege? I have before me The Student’s Handbook to Cambridge
for 1908, but I am unable to ascertain from it that any provisions are made
for graduate students wishing to obtain such special instruction or advice.
Nor am I able to ?nd out anything about his residence there, whether he
would have to matriculate in Trinity College or could take rooms in the city.
This is rather an important point to him as he is anxious, as far as possible,
to get along on his rather small stipend. For any such information, which
cambridge again 217would smooth his ?rst appearance in a rather strange world to him I shall be
extremely obliged to you.
I shall take great pleasure to thank you in person for any kindness that thus
may be shown to my son, when, next year, you come to our American
Cambridge to deliver lectures in the Department of Philosophy.
Sincerely Yours
Leo Wiener
Professor of Slavic Languages and
Literatures at Harvard University
Capel House
Orlestone
Nr. Ashford, Kent
4 Sept. 1913
Dear Sir
Why bring a bicycle in this windy, uncertain weather? The true solution
is to take a ticket (by the 11 a.m. train from Charing Cross I presume)
to Hamstreet (change in Ashford after a few minutes’ wait) where my boy will
meet you with our ancient pu?er and bring you to the door before half past
one. Then there is a decent train at 5.48 from Ashford to get back to town a
few minutes after seven.
Whether there’s anything in me to make up for you the grind of the
journey I don’t know. What’s certain is that you will give me the very greatest
pleasure by coming. So you may look upon the expedition as something in
the nature of ‘good works’. I would suggest Wednesday, since, as far as I
know, there is no Act of Parliament as yet to stop the running of trains on that
day of the week – our new secular Sunday.
Believe me very faithfully yours
Joseph Conrad
Capel House
Orlestone, Nr. Ashford
13 Sept. 1913
My dear Russell
Your letter has comforted me greatly. It seems to me that I talked all the
time with fatuous egotism. Yet somewhere at the back of my brain I had the
conviction that you would understand my unusual talkativeness. Generally I
don’t know what to say to people. But your personality drew me out. My
instinct told me I would not be misread.
Let me thank you most heartily for the pleasure of your visit and for
the letter you had the friendly thought to write.
Believe me sincerely yours
Joseph Conrad
the autobiography of bertrand russell 218Capel House
Orlestone, Nr. Ashford
22 Dec. 1913
My dear Russell
Just a word of warmest good wishes from us all.
I am glad I read the little book before coming to your essays. If in reading
the ?rst I felt moving step by step, with delight, on the ?rmest ground, the
other gave me the sense of an enlarged vision in the clearest, the purest
atmosphere. Your signi?cant words so signi?cantly assembled, seemed to
wake a new faculty within me. A wonderful experience for which one cannot
even express one’s thanks – one can only accept it silently like a gift from the
Gods. You have reduced to order the inchoate thoughts of a life-time and
given a direction to those obscure mouvements d’ame which, unguided, bring
only trouble to one’s weary days on this earth. For the marvellous pages on
the Worship of a free man the only return one can make is that of a deep
admiring a?ection, which, if you were never to see me again and forgot
my existence tomorrow, will be unalterably yours usque ad ?nem.
Yours ever
J. Conrad
P.S. – I have been reading you yesterday and today and I have received too
many di?erent kinds of delight (I am speaking soberly) to be able to write
more today.
3 Claremont Crescent
Weston-super-Mare
Jan. 31, ’14
Dear Mr Russell
Many thanks for your letter which has come on here where I am, I hope,
getting over a short period of illness and incapacity. I am sure that I need not
tell you that my expressions of admiration for your work were not mere
words. I am not able to agree with your views in some points (at least as I
understand them) but I don’t feel the smallest doubt about their great value.
And I am full of hope and expectation that you will go on to do still better
and better, though I am afraid that I can’t hope for much longer to be able to
appreciate and enjoy any speculation.
I think I understand what you say as to the way in which you philosophise. I
imagine that it is the right way and that its promises are never illusions, though
they may not be kept to the letter. There is something perhaps in the whole of
things that one feels is wanting when one considers the doctrines before one,
and (as happens elsewhere) one feels that one knows what one wants and that
what one wants is there – if only one could ?nd it. And for my part I believe
cambridge again 219that one does ?nd it more or less. And yet still I must believe that one never
does or can ?nd the whole in all its aspects, and that there never after all will be
a philosopher who did not reach his truth, after all, except by some partiality
and one-sideness – and that, far from mattering, this is the right and the only
way. This is however only faith and I could not o?er to prove it.
I am sure that in my own work, such as it is, I have illustrated the
partiality – if nothing else. I am afraid that I always write too con?dently –
perhaps because otherwise I might not write at all. Still I don’t see that in
doing so one can do much harm, or run the risk of imposing on anyone
whose judgment is of any value.
If I have helped you in any way by my objections, that I feel will justify
their existence more or less – even where they are quite mistaken – and it will
be a very great satisfaction to me always to have had your good opinion of
my work.
Perhaps I may add that I am getting the impression that I have been tending
more and more to take refuge in the unknown and unknowable – in a way
which I maintain is right, but which still is not what I quite like.
Wishing you all success with your work and venturing to express the hope
that you will not allow yourself to be hurried.
I am
Yours truly
F. H. Bradley
the autobiography of bertrand russell 2201914–1944The De?led Sanctuary
by William Blake
I saw a chapel all of gold
That none did dare to enter in,
And many weeping stood without,
Weeping, mourning, worshipping.
I saw a serpent rise between
