Thirdly, your use of 'want' and his use of 'want' may be different. In 'ye olde English', "having want of something" means: needing it. For Russell, want and ne

Thirdly, your use of 'want' and his use of 'want' may be different. In 'ye olde English', "having want of something" means: needing it. For Russell, want and need may be more synonymous than for you. Great point! I completely missed that reading the piece, but you're right: the evolution of "want" from "need" to "wish" was far from complete in 1932. A famous example of the older usage is "That soup wants salt". It also survives in proverbs like "Waste not, want not". In this case it's not just a linguistic curiosity, but affects the meaning of the whole thing. Edit: it also provokes thought as to what the difference between the two really is.