BR TO ALYS RUSSELL, 19 AUG. 1893
BRACERS 20362. ALS(M). Camellia Collections. SLBR 1: #10
Edited by N. Griffin. Proofread by A. Duncan and K. Blackwell

Penrhos
Holyhead1
Aug. 19. 1893

Dear Alys,

I was very glad of your letter and paper. I cannot write an answer to the latter till I get away from this conventional atmosphere. I should be too harsh upon conventional views if I wrote from here: besides I am unable to keep my moral sense untroubled in a place where virtue is identified with respectability. — I have however been thinking a great deal of what you said about independence: as a motive it is of course a non-moral one and might be overcome as you said by the non-moral motive of falling in love. But as an ideal I am convinced it cannot stand a moment: in thea practical regulation of one’s life it occupies the same position in relation to the higher ideal that laissez faire did in relation to Socialism; that the individualist philosophy of last century does to the modern, which regards the only reality as Spirit, and the whole universe as a unity of spirits connected as the members of the body are, in working together for a common end.b — I agree with all you say about the impossibility of love subsisting without immense mutual sacrifice: but no more can anything of value in itself. Where people have been moral and therefore accustomed to the daily and hourly renunciation of their desires for the sake of virtue only, perhaps either unknown to their companions or contrary to their judgment; surely in such a case it cannot be very hard to do so for the preservation of the one thing that makes life valuable from a selfish point of view.

It is a dangerous fallacy to suppose virtue an end in itself: virtue is the necessary means to the best ends, but is not itself an end. In McTaggart’s pamphlet which I was looking for2 he says (and proves) that there can be no Virtue in Heaven: “Virtue like all other vices will have to be left outside the door of heaven”. I will write an answer to your paper if I can find arguments against it which would not be a repetition of the old ones. — I stay here till Aug. 25th.

Yours ever
Bertrand Russell

• 1

  Penrhos Holyhead Penrhos, on the Anglesey coast, was the second country home of Russell’s uncle, Lyulph Stanley.

• 2

  McTaggart’s pamphlet which I was looking forThe Further Determination of the Absolute (privately printed, 1893). McTaggart there argues that the Absolute is a system of spirits united by bonds of love. Russell had wanted to show Alys the pamphlet when she was in Cambridge but was unable to find it. At this time, Russell was just beginning to come under the influence of McTaggart’s neo-Hegelian philosophy.

Textual Notes

• a

  the inserted

• b

  in working together for a common end inserted