Mortals And Others: Bertrand Russell's Forgotten Masterpiece Of Wit And Wisdom

What makes Mortals and Others by Bertrand Russell still feel startlingly relevant in today’s chaotic world? Because Russell understood something we’ve forgotten: the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Overview

Mortals and Others (Volumes I & II) collects 156 essays Bertrand Russell wrote for American newspapers between 1931 and 1935—during the Great Depression, the rise of Nazism, and the collapse of global order.

These aren’t dry philosophical treatises; they’re sharp, witty, deeply human meditations on everything from marriage and education to war, boredom, and the absurdity of human pretension.

Russell writes with the clarity of a mathematician and the warmth of a friend who’s seen too much to take himself too seriously. If you’ve ever wondered why smart people believe stupid things, why we admire strength while fearing it, or why Christmas at sea feels different at sixty than at twenty-five, Mortals and Others will speak to you.

Introduction

In the early 1930s, William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper empire published a literary page featuring some of the most distinguished writers of the era: Aldous Huxley, G.K. Chesterton, Havelock Ellis, Rebecca West, James Thurber, and H.L. Mencken. Among them was Bertrand Russell—already a Nobel laureate, already a legend in philosophy and mathematics, already a man who had been imprisoned for his pacifism during World War I.

Between July 1931 and May 1935, Russell contributed 156 essays to these pages. Most were never reprinted. They were scattered, forgotten, buried in the archives of newspapers that had long since turned to dust. It wasn’t until 1975 that Volume I of Mortals and Others appeared, and Volume II followed in 1998.

Why does this matter? Because these essays represent Russell at his most accessible, his most human, his most unguarded. He wasn’t writing for philosophers or academics. He was writing for ordinary Americans—people struggling through the Great Depression, watching Hitler rise in Germany, wondering if civilisation itself was about to collapse.

The central thesis of Mortals and Others emerges clearly across both volumes: human beings are simultaneously magnificent and ridiculous, capable of profound wisdom and staggering stupidity, and our only hope lies in clear thinking, genuine kindness, and the courage to face reality without flinching.

Background

To understand these essays, you need to know something about the man who wrote them.

By 1931, Bertrand Russell had lived more lives than most people could imagine. He had:

Co-authored Principia Mathematica, one of the most important works of logic ever written
Been imprisoned in 1918 for criticizing the British government’s war policies
Traveled to Russia and interviewed Lenin
Served as a visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Peking
Written bestselling books on Bolshevism, atoms, relativity, education, marriage and morals, happiness, and the scientific outlook
Survived two world wars, multiple love affairs, and the constant controversy that followed his unflinching honesty

He was, in other words, exactly the kind of person you’d want to read if you were trying to make sense of a world gone mad.

The essays in Mortals and Others reflect this extraordinary range of experience. Russell writes about Christmas at sea, the nature of boredom, the psychology of snobbery, the dangers of nationalism, the art of persuasion, the problem of leisure, and the question of whether dogs can think.

He quotes Confucius and Descartes, Shakespeare and Pavlov, Nietzsche and the Duke of Wellington.

But here’s what makes these essays special: Russell never lectures. He never condescends. He writes as one mortal to another, sharing what he’s learned without pretending to have all the answers.

Mortals and Others Summary

Let me walk you through the themes that run through this collection. I’ve organized them not chronologically but thematically, because that’s how Mortals and Others reveals its deepest insights.

1. The Human Condition: Between Grandeur and Absurdity

Russell opens Volume II of Mortals and Others with an essay called “Christmas at Sea,” written on a ship crossing the Atlantic. He contrasts his feelings at age twenty-five with his feelings at age sixty:

“Thirty-five years ago I was lately married, childless, very happy, and beginning to taste the joys of success. Family appeared to me as an external power hampering to freedom: the world, to me, was a world of individual adventure… Now I realise what I did not know then, that this attitude was dependent upon a superabundant vitality.”

This is Russell at his most personal, most vulnerable. He admits that time has made him afraid—not of death or poverty, but of “the treachery of friends, the death of those whom we love, the discovery of the cruelty that lurks in average human nature”.

Yet he doesn’t wallow. He concludes:

“The indoor warmth of the traditional Christmas is good, but so is the south wind and the sun rising out of the sea, and the freedom of the watery horizon. The beauty of these things is undiminished by human folly and wickedness, and remains to give strength to the faltering idealism of middle age.”

This tension—between the need for human connection and the longing for freedom—runs through the entire collection.

2. The Psychology of Self-Deception

One of Russell’s recurring themes is how we fool ourselves into thinking we’re better, smarter, and more virtuous than we really are.

In “How People Take Failure,” he observes:

“With very few exceptions, they find reasons quite other than their own lack of skill; as a rule, it is the wickedness of enemies that they regard as responsible.”

He notes that businesspeople who go bankrupt are more likely to commit suicide than artists whose work isn’t appreciated, because businesspeople can’t comfort themselves with “posthumous fame”.

In “On Conceit,” Russell delivers a devastating portrait of the person who:

“…will boast of her inability to endure the east wind or the rain; she will tell you of her delicate digestion as though it were creditable to the body to be unable to do its work, although she would not think of boasting that her car goes out of order more easily than anyone else’s.”

The problem, Russell suggests, isn’t that we’re conceited—it’s that our conceit blinds us to reality.

3. The Crisis of Modernity

Writing during the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, Russell was acutely aware that something had gone terribly wrong with the modern world.

In “The Triumph of Stupidity” (1933), he writes:

“What has been happening in Germany is a matter of the gravest portent for the whole civilised world. Throughout the last hundred and fifty years, individual Germans have done more to further civilisation than the individuals of any other country; during the latter half of this period, Germans, collectively, have been equally effective in degrading civilisation.”

How did this happen? Russell’s answer is characteristically blunt:

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

This observation—made in 1933—has only become more relevant with time.

In “The Paralysis of Statesmanship,” Russell diagnoses the problem of international cooperation:

“Why is statesmanship so powerless at the present time? The reason is that what is wanted is organisation—both political and economic—and that organisation among equals has hardly ever been successfully achieved.”
He offers a grim prediction:

“The prospect is one of a series of world wars, each more destructive than the last, until in the end some one power acquires dominion over the whole world and puts an end to international conflict by means of a world-wide despotism.”

4. Education and the Young

Russell was deeply interested in education—he had founded a progressive school with his second wife, Dora, and written extensively on the subject.

In “On Being Edifying,” he delivers a characteristically sharp critique of moral education:

“The essence of edification, in fact, is falsehood: it consists in giving a reason for something which is not the real reason.”
He argues that we should teach children the real consequences of their actions, not abstract moral principles:

“Immoral acts are harmful acts, and in general there are social penalties for socially harmful acts, so that socially harmful acts are not in the interests of the individual. All this can be made plain to the young without bringing in lofty sentiments.”

In “Should Children Be Happy?” Russell takes on the common belief that unhappiness builds character:

“For my part, I cannot believe that the recipe for great achievement is as simple as all that. To make children unhappy is even easier than to make them happy, and the methods have been carried to great perfection by many generations of educational experts. If that were all, geniuses ought to be as common as blackberries.”

He concludes:

“There is only one kind of unhappiness that is really fruitful, and that is the kind which springs from good things imagined but not realised. This form of unhappiness is inseparable from the creative impulse, but the creative impulse itself is only hampered and weakened by personal troubles.”

5. Love, Marriage, and the Battle of the Sexes

Russell wrote extensively about marriage and sexuality—his book Marriage and Morals had caused a scandal in 1929. These essays continue that theme.

In “Sex and Happiness,” he observes:

“Almost all the young men and young women that I know suffer acutely in one way or another through its workings. Can you, reader, lay your hand on your heart and say that you have derived more pleasure than pain from sex and its consequences?”

He traces the problem to unrealistic expectations:

“A great deal of our modern trouble has come from mixing up romantic love, which is a poetic and anarchic impulse, with marriage, which is a social institution.”

In “Marriage,” he recounts a conversation with a New York taxi driver who said he had “ceased to be a person” after getting married. Russell reflects:

“Why should marriage, which ought to be the fulfilment of personality, be felt as quite the opposite?”

His answer: economics and social convention. Husbands and wives spend too much time together, and money worries crush spontaneity.

6. Politics and Power

Russell was never a party politician—he was too independent, too willing to criticize everyone. But he had strong views on how societies should be organized.

In “Politics and Sport,” he argues that the two-party system in English-speaking countries is rooted in the analogy of sport:

“One cannot imagine a football match conducted on the group system which prevails in continental politics. Consequently, those who conceive politics on the analogy of a football match naturally desire that in politics, as in football, there should be two sides whose opposition to each other is clear and definite.”

This sounds harmless, but Russell identifies a danger:

“When people think of politics in this way, they do not demand that it should make any difference which side wins beyond the honour and glory of victory. The construction of the party platform is an important element in the skill with which the game is played but should not have any influence upon the subsequent behaviour of the party.”

In “On National Greatness,” he explores the psychology of collective achievement:

“The effect of national success is greatest where the young are concerned. Remarkable achievement requires, in the individual, two conditions: first, ability, partly congenital and partly the result of education; second, confidence in his own capacity to accomplish things not possible for the average man. It is this second condition that is influenced by political circumstances.”

7. The Nature of Progress

One of the most striking themes in these essays is Russell’s ambivalence about progress. He saw the benefits of science and technology, but he also saw their dangers.

In “The End of Pioneering,” he writes:

“The pioneer depended for his success upon the existence of empty regions or regions where the existing population could easily be deprived of their wealth. As the empty regions filled up, the pioneer became increasingly predatory; his adventurousness had to be exercised against somebody.”

He concludes:

“The pioneering spirit is not the one in which our problems can be solved. In its day it deserved the admiration which was bestowed upon it, but its day is over.”

In “In Praise of Dullness,” Russell defends the value of boredom:

“All the most important ways of feeling, from the standpoint of literature and art, are the product of slow years of an almost uniform environment. There is a kind of wisdom which never comes to those who have no leisure for reflection, and there is a delicacy of perception only possible to those who have learnt to notice the small differences in familiar scenes.”

Yet he also recognizes the dangers of monotony:

“I do not doubt that, among the country population, there is less insanity than there used to be, and probably there are fewer murders. Monotony, if a man has troubles, is very hard to bear, and leaves him with no resource except to brood on his wrongs.”

8. The Art of Living

Throughout these essays, Russell offers practical wisdom about how to live well.

In “What Makes People Likeable,” he observes:

“The way to be liked is to make the people you meet think well of themselves. Conscious flattery is not the best way of achieving this. The best way is to enjoy their company and above all to enjoy the display of their powers.”

In “On Being Argumentative,” he argues for the value of honest disagreement:

“If good manners, instead of demanding silence as to our opinions, were held to demand philosophic calm when adverse opinions were expressed, we should all acquire a deeper tolerance than we have at present, since it would extend to our thoughts and not only to our social behaviour.”
In “On Useless Knowledge,” he defends learning for its own sake:

“Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant. I enjoy peaches and apricots more since I have known that they were first cultivated in China in the early days of the Han dynasty.”

Mortals and Others Analysis

Reading Mortals and Others in the 2020s feels almost eerily timely. Russell writes about political polarization, economic anxiety, the rise of authoritarianism, and the difficulty of maintaining hope in a world that seems determined to destroy itself.

What Russell Gets Right

1. The psychology of self-deception. Russell understood that we’re all experts at fooling ourselves. His observations about how people explain away failure, justify their prejudices, and maintain their self-esteem are as sharp as anything in modern psychology.

2. The danger of certainty. Russell’s famous line—”the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt”—has become a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. He saw that dogmatism is the enemy of wisdom.

3. The importance of clear thinking. Russell never stopped believing that reason could save us. He wasn’t naive—he knew that people are driven by passion and prejudice—but he insisted that we could choose to think clearly.

4. The value of kindness. Underneath Russell’s sharp wit and devastating critiques, there’s a deep current of human sympathy. He cared about suffering, and he wanted to reduce it.

What Russell Gets Wrong (or What’s Dated)

1. Some gender assumptions. Russell was progressive for his time—he supported women’s suffrage and equality—but some of his comments about women feel dated. His essay “On Relicence,” for example, generalizes about women’s lack of reticence in ways that seem unfair.

2. Over-optimism about reason. Russell believed that if people would just think clearly, they’d solve their problems. History suggests he was overly optimistic. People often choose passion over reason, even when they know better.

3. Eurocentrism. Russell was a product of his time and place. His perspective is firmly European, and his references to “primitive” peoples reflect the anthropological assumptions of his era.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

1. Accessibility. These essays are a pleasure to read. Russell’s prose is clear, direct, and often funny. He never talks down to his readers.

2. Range. From economics to education, from marriage to war, from the nature of boredom to the psychology of nationalism—Russell covers everything.

3. Honesty. Russell doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. He shares his doubts and his struggles.

4. Historical value. These essays offer a unique window into the 1930s—a period that, in many ways, resembles our own.

Weaknesses

1. Repetition. Some themes recur across multiple essays. Russell’s critique of nationalism, for example, appears again and again.

2. Dated references. Some essays assume knowledge of events and personalities that most modern readers won’t recognize.

3. Lack of systematic argument. These are newspaper essays, not philosophical treatises. They’re insightful, but they don’t build sustained arguments.

Comparison with Similar Works

George Orwell’s essays. Orwell wrote in a similar vein—sharp, clear, politically engaged, and deeply humane. Like Russell, Orwell combined a commitment to truth with a willingness to criticize everyone.

Aldous Huxley’s essays. Huxley was another contributor to the same Hearst pages. His essays share Russell’s wit and range, though Huxley was more mystical and less politically engaged.

Bertrand Russell’s other works. If you’ve read The Conquest of Happiness or In Praise of Idleness, you’ll recognize the voice. But these essays are more informal, more personal.

Conclusion

Who Should Read Mortals and Others?

Mortals and Others is not a book you read for answers. It’s a book you read for company—the company of a brilliant, compassionate, often funny man who faced the same problems we face and refused to give up hope.

Who will love Mortals and Others:

Readers who enjoy thoughtful essays
Anyone interested in the history of ideas
People who appreciate clear, direct writing
Those who want to understand the 1930s
Anyone who’s ever felt that the world is going mad

Who might bounce off:

Readers seeking systematic philosophy
Those who prefer their social commentary less personal
Anyone who can’t stomach sharp criticism of sacred cows

Final Thoughts

Reading Mortals and Others feels like sitting down with a brilliant, cantankerous, deeply humane uncle who’s seen it all and isn’t afraid to tell you what he thinks. Russell doesn’t have all the answers—he’s the first to admit that—but he has the right questions.

And in a world that seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, that might be exactly what we need.