被三种激情支配的一生——《从剑桥走出的多情才子Bertrand Russell》

这是一本国人执笔的传记，用板块式结构而非常用的线性时间轴来梳理西方文化巨匠——Bertrand Russell的一生，它从罗素的才情、学术成就、感情世界、政治热情、和平主义理念等多方面浮光掠影般将一个风流倜傥、才华横溢的学界泰斗呈现读者眼前。

有人认为：针对传主，传记执笔者应该既不是辩护者，也不是指控者。我以为，对于执笔者，要做到不把一己立场横亘在读者和传主之间，尽量秉持客观中立的立场，如实还原记录传主的生活与思想的历史轨迹，绝非一件易事。尤其要在大量的针对同一传主的传记中，写出独特新颖的闪光点来，更是难上加难。

至于此书，因为这是第一本我读过的有关罗素的传记，因为执笔者是国人，我不知道他花了多少时间追寻罗素的踪迹，有否寻访求证过罗素的亲朋好友，是否大量阅读罗素本人的各类著作以期了解传主的思想轨迹，还是仅仅剪刀加浆糊式的重新包装，或者就是条件所限书斋内的个人阅读加理解。但无论如何，它让我们得以管豹一窥作为哲学家和思想家的罗素是怎样在一个动荡不安的世纪中，以其人格魅力、卓越才智和煌煌巨著，在哲学、数学、科学、伦理学、社会学、政治、教育、历史、宗教等各领域留下一串串闪光的脚印。

罗素的生平，最好的总结莫过于他自己在《我为什么而活着》的序言里所概况的：

对爱情的渴望，对知识点追求，对人类苦难不可遏制的同情心，这三种纯洁但无比强烈的激情支配着我的一生。这三种激情，就像飓风一样，在深深的苦海上，肆意地把我吹来吹去，吹到濒临绝望的边缘……爱情和知识，尽其可能地把我引上天堂，但是同情心总把我带回尘世……

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.