Fact and Fiction by Russell Bertrand

Author:Russell, Bertrand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humanities
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2009-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Part III

Divertissements

1

CRANKS

I have long been accustomed to being regarded as a crank, and I do not much mind this except when those who so regard me are also cranks, for then they are apt to assume that I must of course agree with their particular nostrum. There are those who think that one should only eat nuts. There are those who think that all wisdom is revealed by the Great Pyramid, and among these there are not a few who think that priests carried its wisdom to Mexico and thus gave rise to the Maya civilization. I have come across men who think that all matter is composed of atoms which are regular solids having twenty faces. Once, when I was about to begin a lecture tour in America, a man came to me and very earnestly besought me to mention in each lecture that the end of the world would occur before my tour was ended. Then there was the old farmer who thought that all government, both national and local, ought to be abolished because Public Bodies waste so much water. And there was the amiable gentleman who told me that, although he could not alter the past, he could by faith make it always have been different from what it otherwise would have been. He, I regret to say, was sent to prison for a fraudulent balance sheet and he found, to his surprise, that the law courts did not take kindly to his application of faith to arithmetic. Then there was the letter sent from a suburb of Boston, which informed me that it came from the God Osiris, and gave me His telephone number. It advised me to ring up quickly since He was about to re-establish His reign on earth when the Brotherhood of the True Believers would live with Him in bliss, but the rest of mankind would be withered by the fire of His eyes. I must confess that I never answered this letter, but I am still awaiting the dread moment.

There was an incident which illustrates the perils of country life: on a very hot day, in a very remote place, I had plunged into a river in the hopes of getting cool. When I emerged, I found a grave and reverend old man standing beside my clothes. While I was getting dry, he revealed the purpose of his presence. ‘You,’ he said, ‘in common with the rest of our nation, probably entertain the vulgar error that the English are the lost Ten Tribes. This is not the case. We are only the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.’ His arguments were overwhelming, and I could not escape them as I had to put on my clothes.

Experience has gradually taught me a technique for dealing with such people. Nowadays when I meet the Ephraim-and Manasseh devotees, I say, ‘I don’t think you’ve got it quite right. I think the English are Ephraim and the Scotch are Manasseh’. On this basis, a pleasant and inconclusive argument becomes possible.

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