I was trying to write something about taking the energy we invest in assumption and putting it toward patience. The whole time I was typing, Bertrand Russell was looking over my shoulder yelling at me. Things like, “You’re missing the point entirely!” and “Oh, for Christ’s sake, would you like to borrow my thesaurus?”
When he resorted to picking at my use of commas, I knew it wasn’t simply a matter of him not appreciating what I was writing. It was that he wanted to do it himself. He gets that way sometimes.
A little hypocritical given the way he just behaved if you ask me, but here’s what he came up with:
I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.
The moral thing I should wish to say…I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more closely and closely interconnected we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.
Alright Bertrand, pretty good. But next time just ask if you can write the damned thing.