BR TO W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. / WARDER NORTON, 27 JAN. 1931
BRACERS 47003. TLS. Norton papers, Columbia U. Auto. 2: 200-1
Proofread by A. Duncan

<letterhead>
Beacon Hill School
Harting,
Petersfield,1
27th Jan. 1931.

Dear Norton,

Thank you for your letter of January 14th. Aannestad let me know of his arrival, and I dined with him the other night. It is quite true about Garland’s Hotel: the only English people one ever sees there are a few, decayed baronets and such, who (I imagine) are given their board and lodging on condition of being very English. It belongs in the same class with The Cheshire Cheese, and Stratford-on-Avon, and the King.

With regard to The Meaning of Science, I have an abstract of it2 and have done some 10,000 words. I am afraid I could not do the sort of conclusion that you suggest. I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness which I attribute to defaecating twice a day with unfailing regularity.a Science in itself appears to me neutral, that is to say, it increases men’s power whether for good or for evil. An appreciation of the ends of life is something that must be superadded to science if it is to bring happiness. I do not wish, in any case, to discuss individual happiness, but only the kind of society to which science is apt to give rise. I am afraid you may be disappointed that I am not more of an apostle of science, but as I grow older, and no doubt as a result of the decay of my tissues, I begin to see the good life more and more as a matter of balance and to dread all over-emphasis upon any one ingredient. This had always been the view of elderly men and must therefore have a physiological source, but one cannot escape from one’s physiology by being aware of it.

I am not surprised at what people thought of The Conquest of Happiness on your side of the Atlantic. What surprised me much more was that English highbrows thought well of it. I think people who are unhappy are always proud of being so, and therefore do not like to be told that there is nothing grand about their unhappiness. A man who is melancholy because lack of exercise has upset his liver always believes that it is the lossb of God, or the Menace of Bolshevism, or some such dignified cause that makes him sad. When you tell people that happiness is a simple matter, they get annoyed with you.

All best wishes,

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  [document] Proofread against a microfilm printout of the original.

• 2

  abstract of it A 3-page abstract of “The Meaning of Science” follows this letter.

Textual Notes

• a

  which I attribute … regularity. inserted

• b

  loss replaced laws