The Purloined Thesis
by Michael Fowler
In the year 1914, I had the privilege of reading philosophy under the distinguished scholars Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore at Trinity College, Cambridge. One Friday morning following Russell’s lecture, I approached him and announced that I had important information to impart to him regarding my classmate Ludwig Wittgenstein, and he motioned for me to come with him back to his rooms, only a short walk away. Once there, he promptly sat at his desk and began writing what looked like a letter, keen as a bird of prey.
“Well, Miss Bones,” he said, for Shirley Bones was my name, as the often preoccupied philosopher and logician sometimes remembered, “what is it?”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” I said. “But I think I may be able to shed some light on the missing manuscript you mentioned in class, the one that belongs to Wittgenstein.”
“Ah,” said Russel, steadying his pen and giving me a piercing look, “you are familiar with the recent comings and goings of Mr. Wittgenstein, or ‘my German,’ as I call him, since as an Austrian he naturally speaks German?”
“Well, I believe I have some knowledge about how his document went missing.”
“Yes, missing it is, a most frightful situation. You doubtless observed that Wittgenstein was not present in class this morning, as he, too, has gone missing, along with his papers. In fact, he called on me in my rooms today at the crack of dawn, when he was still in possession of his work, to inform me that he was going off to join the Austrian Army and fight in the war. As an Austrian, he feels it his duty to fight for his country. He had been brooding over his decision for days and was out of sorts, but he had at last made up his mind. He takes duty to country quite seriously, you see, Miss Bones.”
“I understand, sir,” I said, though I could hardly put myself in Wittgenstein’s position, that of a foreign student at an English university, a male at that, whose homeland on the continent had gone to war. I sat in the chair toward which Russell pointed his pen and faced him at his desk.
“But to return to the manuscript,” said Russell, tapping the pen on the desk, “after calling on me, Wittgenstein led me to his room, where two packed suitcases stood, and told me, as if I were his caretaker, to have everything cleared away. He was referring to his furniture, as there was nothing else to be seen. The only possession he cared about was the thesis he’d been working on for his doctoral dissertation. He had stuffed the manuscript papers into a large yellow envelope marked ‘L. Wittgenstein,’ and this he handed to me for safekeeping until such time as he might return from the war.”
Russell paused in his narrative, laid aside his pen and lit a pipe, drawing on it vigorously. “As a pacifist, I objected, of course, to his chosen course of action and tried to change his mind. His reaction was to bolt out the door carrying his bags, announcing that his destination was the Cambridge train station and thence his home, leading me on in close pursuit.
“When he accelerated to a sprint, however, I gave him up. I returned to his room to take possession of the sealed papers I’d left behind, only to find them missing. It has been, as you see, quite an eventful morning.” He exhaled a stream of pungent smoke in my direction. “So then, Miss Bones, do you have further information concerning this affair?”
“I may have, sir,” I replied to the smokey figure. “I suspect a classmate of mine and Wittgenstein’s of thievery. I mean Phillip Watkins who, like Wittgenstein, was absent from your class this morning. After a sleepless night with a headache, I headed out for a walk at about sunrise this morning from Whewell Court, where my room is on the same staircase as those of Watkins and Wittgenstein. I then saw Watkins descending from Wittgenstein’s room and carrying under his jacket what looked like a notebook or slim package of some sort, though I admit I couldn’t make it out clearly.”
“Hmm,” said Russell, nodding his head.
I cleared my throat and continued. “I’m friendly with Watkins and we often associate with each other, but his presence alarmed me, because he had told me days ago that he was angry with Wittgenstein and might harm him if the opportunity arose. Seeing him abroad at such an early hour, I thought that he might be about to carry out his threat. He knew from Wittgenstein himself, as I did also, that our Austrian classmate was thinking of leaving the country to go home and enlist, and Watkins may have decided to do him harm before he escaped.”
“But why harm Wittgenstein?” interrupted Russell, poking the stem of his pipe at me. “Why should he want to do that?”
“Well, you see, sir, Watkins is the nephew of Professor Moore and idolizes Moore’s ethical theories.”
“As do we all, I should think,” put in Russell.
“Except Wittgenstein,” I said. “Wittgenstein strolled into Moore’s classroom one afternoon a week or so ago and quite simply took over the discussion, first informing Moore that he was going about philosophy all wrong. For the rest of the session, Moore was unable to utter a word and was reduced to sitting at a student’s desk with his mouth sealed shut, listening to this upstart, as he must have thought him.
“Watkins also knew that, prior to this incident, Wittgenstein had called Moore brainless and a relic. After that, Watkins in my hearing swore to avenge his uncle, though he didn’t specify exactly what he had in mind. Yet I was worried enough that, after I spied him skulking away from Wittgenstein’s room early this morning, I took a peek inside that chamber to be sure Wittgenstein was safe. It lay open but was completely cleaned out down to the bare furniture, with no one within.”
“It appears,” said Russell, “that Wittgenstein has led us both on a merry chase today. At the time you were searching his room, I must have been running after him across campus, most unsuccessfully, as I indicated. In any case, I trust that Wittgenstein arrived safely at the Cambridge train station and by now is well on his way to Vienna, where his family resides. As for Watkins, do you have any idea where he may have got to? He may still have Wittgenstein’s thesis about him, and I feel I should look into that.”
“Well, before attending your class, I took the liberty of examining Watkins’s room also, since it was lying open as well. Watkins wasn’t there, but then he never locks up, believing as he does in the essential goodness and selfless motives of his fellow man. And I confess I discovered among his things no package or yellow envelope marked L. Wittgenstein.”
I took a deep breath before stating my conclusion. “But I believe I may know of Watkins’ present whereabouts. He’s been talking for the last week about a certain anti-war and universal brotherhood forum now taking place at Coe Fen, not more than several miles from Trinity College. The meadowland lies not far from the Cambridge train station, in fact, and pacifists and spiritualists and benevolent pagans are gathering there for a weekend of love and anti-war sentiment.”
Here I took out a blue flyer, that I had earlier folded into quarters and inserted into the pocket of my loose jacket, and smoothing it out, handed it across to Russell. “From Watkins’s desk,” I said.
The philosopher studied the uneven printing and felt between his thumb and forefinger the cheap blue paper that marked it as having been run off a student press. He read aloud, “The Cambridge Forum on Peace Love and Unity, Coe Fen, Friday August the Third Through Sunday August the Sixth, Open to All.”
Russell shot me a sharp look and said, “You know, I’ve seen this bulletin already. I found a duplicate of it in Wittgenstein’s room when I went in search of his thesis. I almost didn’t notice it, as it was lying on the floor and was the only bit of stray rubbish in that austere den. After reading it, I tossed it out and thought no more about it.”
“I think it within the realm of possibility,” I said, “that Watkins went to Wittgenstein’s room and handed a copy of this flyer to him, sometime before Wittgenstein had quite made up his mind to go to Vienna and join the army, or as late as this very morning, before Wittgenstein called on you. Watkins may have considered the provocation of promoting peace to the warlike Wittgenstein to be justified in light of his behavior toward Moore.”
“That is possible, I suppose,” said Russell with a frown, “but entirely useless. The Wittgenstein I know has decided to go off to war and isn’t about to be dissuaded.”
“But what if,” I said, “Watkins managed somehow to change Wittgenstein’s mind, or something else quite extraordinary happened between these two men? We don’t know that Wittgenstein is actually on his way to Vienna, after all.”
Russell weighed this second odd hypothesis. “Wittgenstein runs hot and cold, it’s true. He began by studying aeronautical engineering at Manchester University, then came to Trinity College to study number theory with me, and I have noticed a strong streak of mysticism in the man, asceticism as well. I once told him he would make an excellent monk if mathematical logic failed him, and he did not disagree. It may be, I suppose, that he allowed himself to be sidetracked while on his way to Vienna, but I strongly doubt it. As I say, the man seems bent on becoming a soldier.”
“I imagine you are right, sir,” I said, wondering what I, an Englishwoman, would do if England went to war. “But in any case I think I’ll visit the forum, since there seems ample reason to suppose that Watkins is there, and he may possess the answer to everything. The forum runs from Friday today through Sunday evening, and it’s a pleasant walk, if you’d care to join me.” I rose to my feet, and as I had put on walking shoes and comfortable trousers first thing that morning, I was already set for a stroll in the countryside.
“I will accompany you gladly,” said Russell, also rising and putting away his pipe. “I love a walk, for no reason besides the pleasure of walking itself, and my little letter to the logician Gottlob Frege in Jena can wait a few hours. Let’s be off.”
We arrived at a grassy expanse near some woods by the gentle River Cam in under thirty minutes. Warm and filled with sunlight, Coe Fen was given over to a sprawling anti-war protest attended mainly by the educated class, though at this time of day, mid-morning, not many educated souls had yet appeared.
In the field before us, a red-faced man held forth on the evils of war, clearly meeting with Russell’s approval, and Russell remarked that, sadly, he and I were almost the only listeners. Other sights included poets reading aloud to each other from picnic blankets spread out on the grass and wandering musicians playing pastoral ditties on Shakespearean lutes.
The working class was also present, represented by a man with pigeons trained to turn somersaults, a woman selling bonnets and crystals, and the keeper of a so-called fairy kingdom set off in the shade of some trees, where for an admission fee one could see glowing in the dark a small enchanted community of sprites and elves, not to be approached too closely. There was also a gypsy fortune teller’s tent and a booth where cold pork pies could be had.
As Russell and I strolled anxiously about, a bearded man stripped to the waist and covered with mud, accompanied by a muddied woman, fully clothed but with wildflowers in her tangled, too-long hair, came up to the logician — and this I swear — snorted at him like two pigs in a stye.
“Ah, Strachey,” Russell retorted, not in the least perturbed, “I see you are immersed in the rural ambiance.”
To this the feral man and woman made no human reply but, clucking like chickens, moved off toward the river, perhaps to bathe. Turning to me, Russell said, “That was the writer Lytton Strachey and his companion, the painter Dora Carrington. Strachey believes that men, even Victorian men, are no more civilized than beasts, and he often acts accordingly. The lady artist, I assume, indulges him.”
It didn’t take us long to locate Watkins, who stood off by the woods delivering his own impassioned anti-war speech to an audience of two or three. Perhaps to ward off stage fright, or for consultation in case a debate arose, he had armed himself with a copy of his uncle’s great work on good and evil called Principia Ethica, holding the tome tightly to his side under his arm. When he saw us standing nearby, he cut short his speech and walked over to greet us.
“Professor Russell,” he said, and gave a friendly nod to me. “Hello, Bones,” he said, addressing me as almost all my friends, male or female, customarily did.
“Watkins,” replied Russell, coming straight to the point, “there’s been a report that you were seen near Wittgenstein’s room this morning, and some of the man’s papers have gone missing. I must ask if you know anything about this, as I was placed in charge of those papers by Wittgenstein himself.”
“Why, yes, yes,” Watkins muttered, and guided us to a couple of unoccupied benches near the fairy grove. “You see, I became quite upset lately with Wittgenstein over his disrespect toward Moore, my uncle, and desired to reproach him about it. You may have heard about his upstaging Moore in his classroom and his name-calling. In fact, I was outraged with Wittgenstein and called on him very early this morning, intending to rouse him from sleep and have it out with him before he left Cambridge, as I had heard he planned to return home and fight in the war.
“When I found his room open and him gone, I gave in to my feelings of vindictiveness and snatched up the envelope marked with his name. I felt he must attach a good deal of importance to it, and that I could somehow use it against him, or perhaps just destroy its contents.”
“And did you destroy them?” asked Russell, looking aghast.
“No, I did not. I carried them outside, and saw Wittenstein lugging traveling bags across campus in the direction of the train station and you with him, sir, though you abruptly abandoned him and headed back toward the college, looking distraught. You didn’t see me, I think.”
“That’s so,” said Russell. “I was undoubtedly blinded by emotion at the time. I had just failed in preventing Wittgenstein from going to war.”
We three distributed ourselves on two benches and, as we turned to face each other, Watkins continued his recitation. “The thing is, I ran down Wittgenstein, not ten paces from where we are now sitting, and offered to return his envelope to him. I was suddenly overcome by feelings of remorse, and realized that Professor Moore would in no way approve of actions taken in anger and desire for vengeance.
“To my surprise, Wittgenstein listened patiently to me, and we two became involved in a discussion on ethics, lasting well over an hour, I think. While Wittgenstein disagrees with my uncle regarding whether war might be justified, he holding that it could be and Moore that it could never be, I found his notions carefully weighed and calm, and saw how seriously he took them. Gone was the swagger and conceit he had displayed on co-opting Moore’s class that day, behavior that he now acknowledged to me to have been improper.”
Russell, noting as did I that Watkins bore no yellow envelope, made a quick inference.
“Then Wittgenstein has his papers again?” he said.
“Yes, he took them from me,” said Watkins, “though he hasn’t decided yet what to do with them.” Here, Watkins pointed in the near distance, at what I wasn’t sure until he identified it. “He’s gone to have his fortune told by the gypsy in her tent over yonder. That will determine his actions regarding his thesis, he told me, though I’m sure he was jesting.”
“And yet he does possess a strong mystical streak,” said Russell. “But look, there he is now.”
A smallish, studious-looking man in a traveling suit and bearing two suitcases emerged from the fortune-teller’s squat brown tent, noticed the three of us looking his way, and hurried over.
“It’s long past time for me to leave England and catch a train homeward,” said Wittgenstein in a light German accent, glancing from face to face and then to his wristwatch. “Moreover, the prognostication is favorable: I am to survive the war. And so I’ll carry my manuscript with me after all, Russell, here in my bag beside my toothbrush. Who knows but that I’ll be taken prisoner of war and locked up in a comfortable cell, suitable for thinking and writing, and finish my work there.”
“And if the gypsy had foretold your death, Wittgenstein?” Russell asked, maintaining the conceit.
“Then I would leave my work for you to finish,” answered the young Austrian. With that he waved goodbye to us and departed for the train station. We watched him go, Russell saying, “If he does survive, I think he’ll be the future of philosophy. He’s only my student now, but he already surpasses me in every branch of thought. No, I shouldn’t be able to finish what he has begun.”
Copyright © 2025 by Michael Fowler
