The Analysis of Mind

One of Russell’s most important and interesting books which reconciles the materialistic tendency of psychology with the anti-materialistic tendency of physics.

“A most brilliant essay in psychology” — New Statesman

As to yourself I have been dwelling with you mentally for several days between the covers of your book [The Analysis of Mind] – an habitation of great charm and most fascinatingly furnished; not to speak of the wonderful quality of light that reigns in there. Also all the windows (lam trying to write in images) are, one feels, standing wide open. Nothing less stuffy – of the Mansions of the mind – could be conceived! I am sorry for the philosophers (p. 212 – end) who (like the rest of us cannot have their cake and eat it. There’s no exactitude in the vision or in the words. I have a notion that we are condemned in all things to the a-peu-pres, which no scientific passion for weighing and measuring will ever do away with.

“It is very possible that I haven’t understood your pages – but the good try I have had was a delightful experience. I suppose you are enough of a philosopher not to have expected more from a common mortal.” — Joseph Conrad, in a letter to Russell, 2 November 1921.