These principles, joined with an
obvious predilection for Plato and Leibnitz among philosophers, lead
to the following doctrines, among others: that the mind or soul is an
entity separate from its thoughts and pre-existent; that a material
world exists in space and time; that its substantial elements may be
infinite in number, having position and quality, but no extension, so
that each mind or soul might well be one of them; that both the
existent and the ideal worlds may be infinite, while the ideal world
contains an infinity of things not realised in the actual world; and
that this ideal world is knowable by a separate mental consideration,
a consideration which is, however, empirical in spirit, since the
ideal world of ethics, logic, and mathematics has a special and
surprising constitution, which we do not make but must attentively
discover.
The reader will perceive, perhaps, that if the function of philosophy
is really, as the saying goes, to give us assurance of God, freedom,
and immortality, Mr. Russell's philosophy is a dire failure. In fact,
its author sometimes gives vent to a rather emphatic pessimism about
this world; he has a keen sense for the manifold absurdities of
existence. But the sense for absurdities is not without its delights,
and Mr.
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