In philosophy, hitherto, ethical neutrality has been seldom sought and hardly ever achieved. Men have remembered their wishes, and have judged philosophies in relation to their wishes. Driven from the particular sciences, the belief that the notions of good and evil must afford a key to the understanding of the world has sought a refuge in philosophy. But even from this last refuge, if philosophy is not to remain a set of pleasing dreams, this belief must be driven forth [out]. It is a commonplace that happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly; and it would seem that the same is true of the good. In thought, at any rate, those who forget the good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In philosophy, hitherto, ethical neutrality has been seldom sought and hardly ever achieved. Men have remembered their wishes, and have judged philosophies in relation to their wishes. Driven from the particular sciences, the belief that the notions of good and evil must afford a key to the understanding of the world has sought a refuge in philosophy. But even from this last refuge, if philosophy is not to remain a set of pleasing dreams, this belief must be driven forth [out]. It is a commonplace that happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly; and it would seem that the same is true of the good. In thought, at any rate, those who forget the good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires." in the context of "Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy (1914)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.