Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Archives

Russell and the Cambridge Moral Sciences Clubl by Jack Pitt IN HIS Autobiography Russell records his extreme satisfaction at being elected to the fraternal discussion group at Cambridge familiarly known as the Apostles. 2 In addition to including a number of congratulatory letters from elder Apostles, he writes: "The greatest happiness of my time at Cambridge was connected with a body whom its members knew as 'The Society,' but which outsiders, if they knew of it, called 'The Apostles.'''3 The subsequent notoriety of this group obscured the fact that Russell I Gratitude is expressed to those at the University of Cambridge who kindly provided access to the Minutes of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club. The Minutes have been invaluable in constructing an historical context in which to locate Russell's participation in the Club, and in providing many details pertinent to that participation. 2 Its complete name is the Cambridge Conversazione Society. Its character and history is treated in Paul Levy's fascinating study, G. E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979). I am indebted to this book for many points of fact in this essay, especially as these concern members of the Society. The interested reader may also wish to consult Peter Allen's The Cambridge Apostles: The Early Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). 3 Autobiography, 1872-1914 (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1967), p. 91. 103 104 Russell winter 1981-82 maintained membership in other Cambridge societies. Philosophically the most important, and the one which will concern us here, is the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club (CUMSC). Doubtless the tone, the ambience, ofthese two organizations was viewed from within Cambridge as strikingly different; yet the overlap of leadership and purpose is noteworthy. Both groups indicate their intent to be the discussion of philosophical topics,4 and during the period which concerns us we find that a significant number of Apostles were active CUMSC members or, more significantly, officers of CUMSO CUMSC was first founded in 1874. But the organization then founded lasted but two years. It was in 1878 that a third-year undergraduate at St. Johns, Alfred Caldecott, brought together a new group of men which set the Club securely on its way. On Saturday, 19 October, of that year he presided as Honorary Secretary over a constitutional meeting held in his rooms. Present were seven other men from S1. Johns and two from Trinity. (For the presence of women at the Club's meetings, see the Appendix.) It was a group with a number of members at the beginning of remarkable careers. Caldecott himself became Professor of Logic and Mental Philosophy (1891-1917) at King's College, London, and Dean of Chapel there from 1913 to 1917. Joseph Jacobs, at twenty-six the senior person present at this meeting, was subsequently a founder, and later President, of the Jewish Historical Society. He was a friend of George Eliot, whose obituary he wrote 4 Frances M. Brookfield, an early historian of the Apostles, writes that the Society had been started by a group ofyoung men who had "a common craving for further investigation than was permitted by the opportunities given by the University into higher philosophy." See her book, The Cambridge "Apostles" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906), p. 3. She also mentions that members of this original group were students at St. Johns-albeit Trinity was quickly to be represented in force. The parallel with the beginnings of the C. U.M.S.C. is noteworthy. 'Apostles active in the C.U.M.S.C. included, in addition to Russell, A. N. Whitehead, G. Lowes Dickinson, Crompton Llewelyn Davies, C. P. Sanger, A. E. A. W. Smyth, G. H. Hardy, John Maynard Keynes and H. T. Norton. Apostles who were officers of the C.U.M.S.C., often for extended periods, included Henry Sidgwick, J. E. McTaggart, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell and the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club 105 for The Athenaeum. Another of those in attendance was Alfred Williams Momerie (Mummery), subsequently Professor of Logic and Metaphysics (1880-91) at King's College, London, and also Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital in London. Both...