Authority and the Individual

Abstract

LORD RUSSELL'S Reith Lectures were excellent to list to and are just as good to read ; the manner calls for nothing but praise. The matter, though not so completely immune from criticism, is valuable. It is essentially a political sermon based onthe doctrine of J S Mill ; a doctrine that is needed at the present day even more than it was a century ago. I use the term ‘doctrine', but without the implication that Mill or Lord Russell is doctrinaire. They are empiricists in the best sense of the term. For them questions of authority and liberty, of what things should be decided by government and enforced by it, and what should be left to the initiative and judgment of the individual are to be answered from observation of what, in fact, makes for social welfare and what for the opposite. Social welfare means the welfare of individual persons and not of any abstraction, like ‘State', ‘race’ or ‘toiling masses'. Variety in human affairs is taken as being on the whole good, and uniformity as never better than a convenience. Thus the issue of laisser faire and private capitalism against collectivism becomes a secondary matter and one of expediency, not of principle. Authority and the Individual By Bertrand Russell. (The Reith Lectures for 1948–9.) Pp. 125. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1949.) 6s. net.