484 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
circumstances are responsible for man’s activity If it were so, contends the behaviourist, it would presuppose a quiescent being which is a biological untruth. Man, it propounds, has the springs of action within him for he is born with certain tendencies to act. External circumstances do not induce activity. They only re-direct it. These tendencies to act, further says the behaviourist, in their working, become modified by the effect of the Social milieu in which they function. The modifications which these original tendencies undergo are of the highest importance, They constitute Education in the broadest sense of the word. All modifications, however, are not equally valuable and it is the business of the reformer to eliminate the circumstances and institutions that modify these tendencies for the socially worse and preserve and introduce those that will modify them for the socially better. Whatever that may be, it is of immense social value that these tendencies are capable of indefinite modifications. This is possible only because as Mr. Russell says “ Man’s impulses are not fixed from the beginning by his native dispositions. Within certain limits, they are profoundly modified by his circumstances and his way of life. The nature of these modifications ought to be studied, and the results of his study ought to be taken account of in judging the good or harm that is done by political and social institutions.” [5]
In six illuminating chapters Mr. Russell studies the modifications that human nature has undergone under the institutions of State, War, Property, Education, Marriage and Religion. It is impossible to give an adequate idea of Mr. Russell’s social philosophy by summarizing the contents of each one of these chapters. They are living contributions to the literature of the several subjects they deal with. Full of suggestions, they provoke thought and ought therefore to be read from the original. This might be unconventional so far as reviewing is concerned but is justified by the fact that this review is meant for an economic journal for the purposes of which, we need only attend to the analysis of the institution of Property and the modifications it is alleged by Mr. Russell to produce in human nature.
Before, however, proceeding to the task, it may be worth while discussing how the philosophy of war is related to the principles of growth as expounded by Mr. Russell.
At the outset it must be said that, because his is an anti-war book, those who read in him the philosophy of quieticism will have read him all wrong. For, though Mr. Russell is anxious for the abolition of war, he explicitly states that “in spite of all the destruction which is wrought by the impulses that lead to war, there is more hope for a nation which has these impulses
- Principles of Social Reconstruction, p. 19.