ABSTRACT
The kind of morality that Lord Russell proposed was one devoid of superstition and organised madness; one where those familiar twins, fear and hate, were absent, and one where men love each other as passionately as they now desire the misery of their enemies. Though it would seem that reasonable men everywhere would rejoice at such a proposal, mankind has thought otherwise and prefers to continue to imitate his barbaric past. As the selections in this chapter will amply reveal, Lord Russell shaved the nonsense from a great variety of popular myths and left each one naked with no place to hide. Consider, for example, the question of voluntary euthanasia. Are civilised men seriously expected to believe that, ‘A wise, omnipotent and beneficent Being finds so much pleasure in watching the slow agonies of an innocent person that He will be angry with those who shorten the ordeal?’ It is this sort of sardonic attack on traditional morality that gives the illustrations in this book that unmistakable Russell touch.
