Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were two great
intellectuals of the present century. Shaw, to quote A,C. Ward, “behaved
consciously as a mountebank employing the weapons of laughter and ridicule to
attack bad housing, bad education, bad conditions of labor, bad morals and
other social evils.” Russell had to suffer a lot for his pacifist views. He was
called a trailer by his compatriots. All the same, he remained’ as a
conscientious objector. He was a great humanitarian who used all his erudition
to bring home to the people the terrible destructiveness of a nuclear war and
the necessity of scientific temper.
Iqbal was
the Chief exponent of the early phase of the 20th century. He awakened the Muslims
from the deep slumber and gave new meanings to Muslim nationalism.
Intellectuals have helped us greatly to pull
ourselves out of the rut of conventions, customs and superstitious beliefs and
other evils that impeded human progress. Mankind would have been poorer indeed
had not they lighted their torches of wisdom, rationality and human goodness.