* 右下イラスト出典:B. Russell's The Good Citizen's Alphabet, 1953. * 美作太郎「バートランド・ラッセル-『社会改造の原理』を読んだ頃」 * 清水正義「第一次世界大戦におけるイギリスの戦争目的について」 * 大木英夫(著)『ピューリタン』(松岡正剛の千夜千冊n.n.620) 第一章 第一次世界大戦(承前)
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The War of 1914-18 changed everything for me. I ceased to be academic and took to writing a new kind of books. I changed my whole conception of human nature. I became for the first time deeply convinced that Puritanism does not make for human happiness. Through the spectacle of death I acquired a new love for what is living. I became convinced that most human beings are possessed by a profound unhappiness venting itself in destructive rages, and that only through the diffusion of instinctive joy can a good world be brought into being. I saw that reformers and reactionaries alike in our present world have become distorted by cruelties. I grew suspicious of all purposes demanding stern discipline. Being in opposition to the whole purpose of the community, and finding all the everyday virtues used as means for the slaughter of Germans, I experienced great difficulty in not becoming a complete Antinomian. But I was saved from this by the profound compassion which I felt for the sorrows of the world. I lost old friends and made new ones. I came to know some few people whom I could deeply admire, first among whom I should place E. D. Morel. I got to know him in the first days of the War, and saw him frequently until he and I were in prison. He had single-minded devotion to the truthful presentation of facts. Having begun by exposing the iniquities of the Belgians in the Congo, he had difficulty in accepting the myth of 'gallant little Belgium'. Having studied minutely the diplomacy of the French and Sir Edward Grey in regard to Morocco, he could not view the Germans as the sole sinners. With untiring energy and immense ability in the face of all the obstacles of propaganda and censorship, he did what he could to enlighten the British nation as to the true purposes for which the Government was driving the young men to the shambles. More than any other opponent of the War, he was attacked by politicians and the press,. and of those who had heard his name ninety-nine per cent believed him to be in the pay of the Kaiser. At last he was sent to prison for the purely technical offence of having employed Miss Sidgwick, instead of the post, for the purpose of sending a letter and some documents to Romain Rolland. He was not, like me, in the frrst division, and he suffered an injury to his health from which he never recovered. In spite of all this, his courage never failed. He often stayed up late at night to comfort Ramsay MacDonald, who frequently got 'cold feet', but when MacDonald came to form a government, he could not think of including anyone so tainted with pro-Germanism as Morel. Morel felt his ingratitude deeply, and shortly afterwards died of heart disease, acquired from the hardships of prison life. |