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PARTISAN REVIEW
poetic view of the world." In the essay on Bergson, Russell notes such
a possible appreciation to brush it instantly aside. Philosophy is a serious
business, a moral business, and the wild men must be not contemplated
or aesthetically enjoyed or even understood, but condemned. Our day is
proving openly enough how much closer are the dark myths than the
bright syllogisms to the springs of human action. That, in part, is why
Russell seems now old-fashioned, and why he seems not less but more
humanly attractive than when he was as in the past either a great logician
or a superficial iconoclast. Russell and his values are on the defensive, at
the last defenses. Nearing the end of his career, he is forced back to the
original and inherited base: to Hume-Hume's matter of fact empiricism,
not his radical skepticism; to the inelegant but plain humanity of the
utilitarians; to distrust of "subjectivistic madness" and objectivistic
"holism"; to John Locke, for all his logical errors; to checks and balances
and the piecemeal; to civil rights and the middle road between power
and anarchy; to the Revolution of 1688, "the most moderate and the
most successful of all revolutions." Russell returns to his roots, in his
philosophical values as in his actions. His philosophy turns out to be
indeed "an integral part of social and political life," part exactly of
England.
England is very far from the best, but it is almost the best that
there has been. Unfortunately, England, and thus Russell's philosophical
values as well as his country, are being pounded by a tide that even the
cliffs of Dover and the tt'aditions of 600 years do not seem able to with–
stand much longer.
jAMES BuRNHAM
PROFESSIONAL LITERARY REBEL
THE MEMOIRS OF A SHY PoRNOGRAPHER.
By Kenneth Patchen. New
Directions.
$3.00.
IT
USED
to be rumored that the slick magazines instructed their ·writers
to pad their stories with descriptions of elegant homes, expensive food,
clothing and automobiles, in order to stimulate an appetite for the com–
modities displayed in the advertisements. For this work the magazines
needed professionals who knew their business so thoroughly that con–
formity was second nature. In much the same way, Kenneth Patchen is
the professional literary rebel. He can always be depended upon to deliver
the goods in accordance with definite specifications. First there are the
"fascinating" chapter titles: Does The Famous Detective Know That
Love In A Mist Is Only The Great White Whale Going Down For
