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By Root 194 0

only in religion. There are priests in philosophy and priests in politics. Every philosophical school has its priests. Often they are very learned; it is their business to administer the idea of the original thinker, to impart it, to interpret it, to make it into a museum object and thus to guard it. Then there are the political priests; we have seen enough of them in the last 150 years. They have administered the idea of freedom, to protect the economic interests of their social class. In the twentieth century the priests have taken over the administration of the ideas of socialism. While this idea aimed at the liberation and independence of man, the priests declared in one way or another that man was not capable of being free, or at least that he would not be for a long time. Until then they were obliged to take over, and to decide how the idea was to be formulated, and who was a faithful believer and who was not. The priests usually confuse the people because they claim that they are the successors of the prophet, and that they live what they preach. Yet, while a child could see that they live precisely the opposite of what they teach, the great mass of the people are brainwashed effectively, and eventually they come to believe that if the priests live in splendor they do so as a sacrifice, because they have to represent the great idea; or if they kill ruthlessly they only do so out of revolutionary faith.

No historical situation could be more conducive to the emergence of prophets than ours. The existence of the entire human race is threatened by the madness of preparing nuclear war. Stone-age mentality and blindness have led to the point where the human race seems to be moving rapidly toward the tragic end of its history at the very moment when it is near to its greatest achievement. At this point humanity needs prophets, even though it is doubtful whether their voices will prevail against that of the priests.

Among the few in whom the idea has become manifest in the flesh, and whom the historical situation of mankind has transformed from teachers into prophets, is Bertrand Russell. He happens to be a great thinker, but that is not really essential to his being a prophet. He, together with Einstein and Schweitzer, represents the answer of Western humanity to the threat to its existence, because all three of them have spoken up, have warned, and have pointed out the alternatives. Schweitzer lived the idea of Christianity by working in Lambaréné. Einstein lived the idea of reason and humanism by refusing to join the hysterical voices of nationalism of the German intelligentsia in 1914 and many times after that. Bertrand Russell for many decades expressed his ideas on rationality and humanism in his books; but in recent years he has gone out to the marketplace to show all men that when the laws of the country contradict the laws of humanity, a true man must choose the laws of humanity.

Bertrand Russell has recognized that the idea, even if embodied in one person, gains social significance only if it is embodied in a group. When Abraham argued with God about Sodom’s fate, and challenged God’s justice, he asked that Sodom be spared if there were only ten just men, but not less. If there were less than ten, that is to say, if there were not even the smallest group in which the idea of justice had become embodied, even Abraham could not expect the city to be saved. Bertrand Russell tries to prove that there are the ten who can save the city. That is why he has organized people, has marched with them, and has sat down with them and been carried off with them in police vans. While his voice is a voice in the wilderness it is, nevertheless, not an isolated voice. It is the leader of a chorus; whether it is the chorus of a Greek tragedy or that of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony only the history of the next few years will reveal.

Among the ideas which Bertrand Russell embodies in his life, perhaps the first one to be mentioned is man’s right and duty to disobedience.

By disobedience I do not refer to the disobedience of the “rebel