BRACERS Record Detail for 52351

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Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
71D
Source if not BR
Bodleian Library
Recipient(s)
Murray, Gilbert
Sender(s)
BR
Date
1911/08/12
Form of letter
ALS(X)
Pieces
2
BR's address code (if sender)
SLL
Notes and topics

BR has written the last chapter of The Problems of Philosophy and responds on rat-catchers and earwigs, and dreams.

Transcription

BR TO GILBERT MURRAY, 12 AUG. 1911
BRACERS 52351. ALS. Murray papers, Bodleian
Edited by W. Bruneau. Proofread by A.G. Bone


Lockeridge
near Marlborough1
12. Aug. 1911

Dear Gilbert

Many thanks for your letter. I am greatly relieved that you like the stuff. I send you Chap. XII which you ought to have had before; also another copy (corrected) of XIII and XIV. Please send me the copy of them you already have. (Trinity is still my best address.) Chap. XV (the last) is written and should reach you in a day or two.

The letter from the firm2 is conciliatory in intention, no doubt. I am grateful for the offer of the rat-catcher and will let him have the earwig as a perquisite if he can catch it.

I did not mean to say that physical objects were in any way connected with dreams, but that objects one would naturally infer from the sense-data in dreams don’t exist — e.g. the Black Hole in your dream. I will add something to make the point clear. As regards the cat, the theories you suggest are of course possible, but seem to me less simple than the hypothesis of a real cat.

Goathland is very remote. Will you be returning to any portion of the civilized world during Sept? Any date in the latter half of Sept. is what would suit me best. Will you suggest a date and place?

Yrs ever
Bertrand Russell

  • 1

    [document] Proofread against a photocopy of the original letter.

  • 2

    letter from the firm Published in Auto. 1: 216–17, the letter (actually by Murray) is dated 10 August 1911.

Permission
Everyone
Transcription Public Access
Yes
Record no.
52351
Record created
Jun 15, 2004
Record last modified
Dec 15, 2025
Created/last modified by
duncana