Full Idea
The desire for unadulterated truth is often obscured, in professional philosophers, by love of system: the one little fact which will not come inside the philosophical edifice has to be pushed and tortured until it seems to consent.
Gist of Idea
Philosophers sometimes neglect truth and distort facts to attain a nice system
Source
Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 8)
Book Reference
Russell,Bertrand: 'Our Knowledge of the External World' [Routledge 1993], p.241
A Reaction
Bit of hypocrisy here. Russell was continually trying to find a system, grounded in physics and logic. Presumably his shifting views are indications of integrity, because he changes the system rather than the facts.