SELL, 3RD EARL, F.R.S. (1872– ), was born May 18, 1872.
His grandfathers were Lord John Russell and the second Lord Stanley of Alderley. At the age of three he was left an orphan. His father had wished him to be brought up as an agnostic ; to avoid this he was made a ward of Court, and brought up by his grandmother at Pembroke lodge, in Richmond park. Instead of being sent to school he was taught by governesses and tutors, and thus acquired his perfect knowledge of French and German. In October 1890 he went into residence, as a very shy undergraduate, at Trinity college, Cambridge. After being a very high Wrangler and obtaining a First Class with distinction in philosophy he was elected a fellow of his college in the autumn of 1895. But he had already left Cambridge in the summer of 1894 and for some months was attache at the British embassy at Paris. In Decem ber 1894 he married Miss Alys Pearsall Smith at the Friends meeting house at Westminster. After spending some months in Berlin studying social democracy (German Social Democracy, 1896), they went to live at a small cottage, some miles from Haslemere, where he devoted his time to the study of philosophy. A visit to the Mathematical Congress at Paris in 1900 with his friend Alfred Whitehead (afterwards professor of philosophy at Harvard) had important results. Russell was impressed with the ability of the pupils of the Italian mathematician Peano, and immediately studied Peano's works. In a short time he wrote his first important book, The Principles of Mathematics (1903) and in collaboration with Alfred Whitehead proceeded to develop and extend the mathematical logic of Peano and Frege. The first volume of their joint book, Principia Mathematica, was published in 1910.
During all this period Russell lived very simply and worked very hard. He and his wife had moved to a small house near Ox ford, but he often went abroad, and from time to time, as when Mr. Chamberlain started his tariff reform campaign, abandoned philosophy for politics. In 1910 he was appointed lecturer at his old college. After the World War broke out he took an active part in the No Conscription fellowship. He was fined Imo as the
author of a leaflet describing an early Christian conscientious objector. His library was seized to pay the fine; it was bought in by a friend; but many valuable books were lost. His college deprived him of his lectureship. He was offered a post at Harvard university, but was refused a passport. He intended to give a course of lectures (afterwards published in America as Political Ideals, 1918) but was prevented by the military authori ties. In 1918 he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for an article he had written in the Tribunal. His excellent Introduc tion to Mathematical Philosophy (1919) was written in prison. His Analysis of Mind (1921) was the outcome of some lectures he gave in London which were organised by a few friends who got up a subscription for the purpose. The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920) was written after a short visit to Russia to study the conditions on the spot.
In the autumn of 1920 he went to China to lecture on philo sophy at the Peking university. In the spring he caught pneu monia, and for three weeks was on the point of death. To the distress of his friends some enterprising Japanese newspapers an nounced his death. The more philosophic Chinese, who wished to be present at the deathbed of the philosopher Lo Sou, offered to bury him by the Western Lake. But the German doctors saved his life. On his return in September 1921 he married Miss Dora Black and they lived for six years in a small house in Chelsea during the winter months. He earned a livelihood by lecturing, journalism and writing popular books such as the A.B.C. of Atoms (1923), the A.B.C. of Relativity (1925) and On Education (1926). The summers, spent near Lands End, were devoted to serious work such as the new Introduction to the second edition of the Principia Mathematica; the Analysis of Matter (1927) ; the Outline of Philosophy (1928) ; Mysticism and Logic (1929); Marriage and Morals (1929). He also in 1924 and 1927 lectured in the United States. In 1927 he and his wife started a school for young children. He succeeded to the earldom in 1931.