Writing in 1925 as a companion to his gloomier Icarus, Russell sets out his hopes in five brisk chapters: man as a part of nature, the good life as one inspired by love and guided by knowledge, the failure of conventional moral rules, salvation individual and social, and what science can do for happiness. Education that teaches children to stop asking inconvenient questions comes in for particular scorn.
A compact, lucid entry point to Russell’s humanism and free thought, still sharp a century on. Download the free EPUB.