Brixton Letter 101
BR to Gilbert Murray
September 9, 1918
- TL(TC)
- Bodleian
- Edited by
Kenneth Blackwell
Andrew G. Bone
Nicholas Griffin
Sheila Turcon
Cite The Collected Letters of Bertrand Russell, https://russell-letters.mcmaster.ca/brixton-letter-101
BRACERS 52370
<Brixton Prison>1
9 Sep 1918
Please communicate the following to Gilbert Murray and anyone else who may be able to give me the information I desire: I am trying to discover the essential principles of symbolism and I do not wish to be misled by peculiaritiesa of the Indo-European languages. It has become obvious to me that the language of the Principia Mathematica, which has neither vocabulary nor inflections, is nevertheless through its syntax, an Indo-European language. I think all European philosophy from Plato downwards is dominated in its view of the structure of the universe,b by the structure of the languages familiar to the philosophers.2 I wish therefore to know something of the structure (syntax and a little grammar) of the familiar languagesc Chinese, Japanese, but above all primitive languages, Red Indian,d Australian, and African. I know absolutely nothing of this subject. I want, to begin with, 2 or 3 very modern text books on such topics as origin of language, and comparative grammar and syntax. If these text books contain bibliographies I shall then be able to get on by myself. I don’t so much want theories as facts.
- 1
[document] The letter was edited from a typed message with corrections in the hand of Gladys Rinder. The message is headed “Extract from letter from Bertrand Russell dated 9 Sep 1918”, which was likely addressed to her. The sheet is hand-numbered 69 from a bound sequence in the Murray papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
- 2
I think all ... languages familiar to the philosophers. In 1903 BR had claimed that grammar was a better guide to logic than the current opinions of philosophers. The constituents of the proposition that a sentence expressed could be revealed by assigning the meaning to each word in the sentence, a process that was more accurate as the language to which the sentence belonged contained fewer inflexions (The Principles of Mathematics, p. 42). After discovering his theory of descriptions in 1905, BR came to think that the sentences of natural language required a good deal of prior analysis before the propositions expressed by them could be revealed, a view embodied in the formal language of Principia Mathematica. But despite the sophistication of the grammatical analysis, the atomic sentences for which PM provided the syntax are invariably composed of subject and predicate, or terms and relation, and this gibes very well with the view of the universe expressed in PM: “The universe consists of objects having various qualities and standing in various relations” (1: 43). Although BR was far from explicit about his present concerns, it seems very likely that his worry was that substance/accident ontologies like this were in fact being dictated by the subject/predicate grammar of the Indo-European languages and that this might be merely an accidental feature of those languages. BR never did undertake the study of comparative grammar that he proposed here: he was released from prison before the requisite books could be found for him. But next year BR told Colette: “I have read two books on Language, and am looking out for others” (4 March 1919, BRACERS 19443). The only one he mentioned in his brief discussion of language in The Analysis of Mind was Wilhelm Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie (1904), which was not in his prison reading (see Papers 8: App. III).
Textual Notes
- a
peculiarities Misspelt as “peculiarites”.
- b
universe Misspelt as “unuverse”.
- c
familiar languages BR may have written, or intended, “unfamiliar” in the lost original of the letter, since he had just stated that Indo-European languages were familiar to philosophers and now he instanced non-Indo-European languages.
- d
Red Indian Comma added following.
Brixton Prison
Located in southwest London Brixton is the capital’s oldest prison. It opened in 1820 as the Surrey House of Correction for minor offenders of both sexes, but became a women-only convict prison in the 1850s. Brixton was a military prison from 1882 until 1898, after which it served as a “local” prison for male offenders sentenced to two years or less, and as London’s main remand centre for those in custody awaiting trial. The prison could hold up to 800 inmates. Originally under local authority jurisdiction, local prisons were transferred to Home Office control in 1878 in an attempt to establish uniform conditions of confinement. These facilities were distinct from “convict” prisons reserved for more serious or repeat offenders sentenced to longer terms of penal servitude.
Constance Malleson
Lady Constance Malleson (1895–1975), actress and author, was the daughter of Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley, and his second wife, Priscilla. “Colette” (as she was known to BR) was raised at the family home, Castlewellan Castle, County Down, Northern Ireland. Becoming an actress was an unusual path for a woman of her class. She studied at Tree’s (later the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), debuting in 1914 with the stage name of Colette O’Niel at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London, in a student production. She married fellow actor Miles Malleson (1888–1969) in 1915 because her family would not allow them to live together. In 1916 Colette met BR through the No-Conscription Fellowship and began a love affair with him that lasted until 1920. The affair was rekindled twice, in 1929 and 1948; they remained friends for the rest of his life. She had a great talent for making and keeping friends. Colette acted in London and the provinces. She toured South Africa in 1928–29 and the Middle East, Greece and Italy in 1932 in Lewis Casson and Sybil Thorndike’s company. She acted in two films, both in 1918, Hindle Wakes and The Admirable Crichton, each now lost. With BR’s encouragement she began a writing career, publishing a short story in The English Review in 1919. She published other short stories as well as hundreds of articles and book reviews. Colette wrote two novels — The Coming Back (1933) and Fear in the Heart (1936) — as well as two autobiographies — After Ten Years (1931) and In the North (1946). She was a fierce defender of Finland, where she had lived before the outbreak of World War II. Letters from her appeared in The Times and The Manchester Guardian. Another of her causes was mental health. She died five years after BR in Lavenham, Suffolk, where she spent her final years. See S. Turcon, “A Bibliography of Constance Malleson”, Russell 32 (2012): 175–90.
Gladys Rinder
W. Gladys Rinder worked for the No-Conscription Fellowship and was “chiefly concerned with details in the treatment of pacifist prisoners” (BR’s note, Auto. 2: 88). More specifically, she helped administer the Conscientious Objectors’ Information Bureau, a joint advisory committee set up in May 1916 and representing two other anti-conscription organizations — the Friends’ Service Committee and Fellowship of Reconciliation — as well as the NCF. One C.O. later testified to her “able and zealous” management of this repository of records on individual C.O.s (see John W. Graham, Conscription and Conscience: a History, 1916–1919 [London: Allen & Unwin, 1922], p. 186). Rinder exhibited similar qualities in assisting with the distribution of BR’s correspondence from prison and in writing him official and smuggled letters. Her role in the NCF changed in June 1918, and after the Armistice she assumed control of a new department dedicated to campaigning for the immediate release of all imprisoned C.O.s. She appears to have lost touch with BR after the war but continued her peace advocacy, which included publishing occasionally on international affairs. In 1924 she travelled to Washington, DC, as part of the British delegation to a congress of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Decades later Colette remembered Rinder to Kenneth Blackwell as somebody who “seemed about 40 in 1916–18. She was a completely nondescript person, but efficient, and kind” (BRACERS 121687).
Gilbert Murray
Gilbert Murray (1866–1957), distinguished classical scholar and dedicated liberal internationalist. He was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, 1908–36, and chair of the League of Nations Union, 1923–36. He and BR enjoyed a long and close friendship that was ruptured temporarily by bitter disagreement over the First World War. After Murray published The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, 1906–1915, in defence of Britain’s pre-war diplomacy, BR responded with a detailed critique, The Policy of the Entente, 1904–1914: a Reply to Professor Gilbert Murray (37 in Papers 13). Yet Murray still took the lead in campaigning to get BR’s sentence reassigned from the second to the first division and (later) in leading an appeal for professional and financial backing of an academic appointment for BR upon his release (the “fellowship plan”, which looms large in his prison correspondence). BR was still thankful for Murray’s exertions some 40 years later. See his portrait of Murray, “A Fifty-Six Year Friendship”, in Murray, An Unfinished Autobiography with Contributions by His Friends, ed. Jean Smith and Arnold Toynbee (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960).