Orthodoxy Reading Note

/Chesterton, Gilbert Keith

Do we know what it means to question well?

我们知道如何质疑吗？

Faith isn’t the sort of thing that will endure as long as our eyes are closed. The opposite, in fact: faith helps us see, and that means not shrinking from the ambiguities and the difficulties that provoke our most profound questions.

信仰不是那种只要我们闭上眼睛就会持续的东西。事实上，恰恰相反：信仰帮助我们看清，这意味着不回避引发我们最深刻问题的模糊性和困难。

This book steps into the gap between non-questioning certitude and wishy-washy “dialogue for the sake of dialogue” to help us determine the role of questioning in our lives.

这本书填补了不质疑的确定性与空洞的“为了对话而对话”之间的空白，帮助我们确定质疑在我们生活中的作用。

“How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?”

His book is not a defense of the Christian faith, at least not primarily, so much as an attempt to explain how the startling paradoxes and sharp edges of the creed explain everything else.

We long to find ourselves in the “mixture of familiar and unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance,” to be brought into a world that is “full of poetical curiosity.”

Yet Chesterton was no stranger to pain—he knew well the temptations of despair, because he’d almost given in to them himself. But then, as he puts it himself, “Solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.”

He will not call it his philosophy, as he puts it, because “God and humanity made it; and it made [him.]”

That sort of bold confidence has become uncomfortable to many of us only because it seems so unusual. We are more inclined to hide behind the safe, protective confines of “it seems” and “I think” and every other qualifier that traps us in our heads. Humility is a virtue, of course, and one that has always been on short supply.

If anything, Chesterton drew sharp lines between Christianity and everything else because he discerned them, and because those lines are essential to love.

Unlike many of us, Chesterton was never afraid of difference—he seems to have reveled in it because Christianity revels in it. Chesterton could drink disagreement like wine because he loved the truth like water (to flip his own phrase around). He held his convictions courageously because he knew they were not his at all, but he was theirs.

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial.

With what end in view do you again and again walk along difficult and laborious paths? — AUGUSTINE1

你为什么一次又一次地走在困难和艰辛的道路上？——奥古斯丁

I did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished in the fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths: but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom.

I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.

I said to him, “Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.”

Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has ‘Hanwell’ written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus.” And to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply, “Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?”

It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itself attractive. But a moment’s thought will show that if disease is beautiful, it is generally some one else’s disease.

It is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, and which makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his idea that we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see the irony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell at all.

In short, oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are always complaining of the dullness of life.

The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the center is not central.

The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of today discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.

Now, if we are to glance at the philosophy of sanity, the first thing to do in the matter is to blot out one big and common mistake. There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man’s mental balance.

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity.

Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health.

Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else.

The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

普遍的事实很简单。诗歌是理智的，因为它很容易漂浮在无限的大海中；理性试图穿越无限的大海，从而使它有限。结果是精神上的精疲力竭，就像霍尔拜因先生的身体上的精疲力竭一样。接受一切是一种锻炼，理解一切是一种紧张。诗人只渴望提升和扩展，一个可以伸展自己的世界。诗人只要求把他的头伸向天堂。是逻辑学家试图把天堂放进他的头里。而他的头却裂开了。

A flippant person has asked why we say, “As mad as a hatter.” A more flippant person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head.

Mr. R. B. Suthers said that free will was lunacy, because it meant causeless actions, and the actions of a lunatic would be causeless.

Every one who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probably that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

因为疯子（像决定论者一样）通常在每件事中看到太多的原因。疯子会把这些空洞的活动解读为阴谋。

每一个不幸与精神失常的人交谈过的人都知道，他们最邪恶的品质是可怕的细节清晰度；将一件事与另一件事联系起来，就像一张比迷宫更复杂的地图。如果你与一个疯子争论，你很可能会输；因为在许多方面，他的思想移动得更快，因为好的判断力不会被事情所阻碍。他没有幽默感或慈善感，也没有经验的愚蠢确定性。他失去了某些理智的感情，因此更加合乎逻辑。事实上，在这一点上，疯子的常见说法是一个误导性的说法。疯子不是失去理智的人。疯子是除了理智之外失去一切的人。

His explanation covers the facts as much as yours.

Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s.

或者，如果一个人说他是耶稣基督，告诉他说世界否认他的神性并不是答案；因为世界否认基督的神性。

In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large. A bullet is quite as round as the world, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic’s theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way.

疯狂的解释和理智的解释一样完整，但它没有那么大。一颗子弹和世界一样圆，但它不是世界。有一种狭窄的普遍性；有一种狭小而局促的永恒；你可以在许多现代宗教中看到它。现在，从外部和经验主义的角度来说，我们可以说，疯狂的最强烈和最明显的标志是逻辑的完整性与精神收缩的结合。疯子的理论解释了许多事情，但它没有以大方式来解释它们。

你会开始对他们感兴趣，因为他们对你不感兴趣。你会从这个小小的、俗气的舞台上走出来，在这个舞台上，你自己的小情节总是在上演，

Nothing can save him but a blind hunger for normality, like that of a beast. A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his mere reason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round and round his logical circle, just as a man in a third-class carriage on the Inner Circle will go round and round the Inner Circle unless he performs the voluntary, vigorous, and mystical act of getting out at Gower Street.

Their attitude is really this: that the man must stop thinking, if he is to go on living. Their counsel is one of intellectual amputation. If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell—or into Hanwell.

除了对正常性的盲目渴望，就像野兽一样，没有什么能拯救他。一个人不可能通过思考来摆脱精神上的邪恶；因为实际上，思想器官已经变得病态、无法控制，而且可以说，它已经独立了。他只能通过意志或信仰来拯救自己。只要他的理性一动，它就会沿着旧有的循环轨道前进；他会一遍又一遍地绕着逻辑的圆圈转，就像在内环的三等车厢里的人一样，会一遍又一遍地绕着内环转，除非他自愿、有力、神秘地从高尔街下车。在这里，决定就是一切；必须永远关上一扇门。每一种疗法都是绝望的疗法。

Such is the man of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point.

He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity.

As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.

He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding.

作为一种对世界的解释，唯物主义有一种疯狂的简单性。它只有疯子的论点的品质；我们立刻就有一种感觉，它涵盖了一切，又有一种感觉，它把一切都排除在外。

他理解一切，但一切似乎都不值得理解。

You can explain a man’s detention at Hanwell by an indifferent public by saying that it is the crucifixion of a god of whom the world is not worthy. The explanation does explain. Similarly you may explain the order in the universe by saying that all things, even the souls of men, are leaves inevitably unfolding on an utterly unconscious tree—the blind destiny of matter.

The parts seem greater than the whole.

你可以通过一个漠不关心的公众来解释一个人在汉韦尔的拘留，说这是世界不值得的神的十字架。这个解释确实解释了。同样，你也可以通过说宇宙中的所有事物，甚至人的灵魂，都是不可避免地展开在一棵完全无意识的树上——物质的盲目命运——来解释宇宙中的秩序。

In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves.

But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.

The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken.

基督徒完全可以相信，宇宙中有相当多的既定秩序和不可避免的发展。但是，唯物主义者不允许他的完美机器中出现一丝一毫的唯心主义或奇迹。

It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not loose. They may well call their law the “chain” of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being.

当你只用自由思想来破坏自由意志时，说你在特别推进自由是荒谬的。决定论者来束缚，而不是放松。他们可能会称他们的法律为因果关系的“链”。这是有史以来束缚人类的最糟糕的链。

The determinist does not believe in appealing the will, but he does believe in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner, “Go and sin no more,” because the sinner cannot help it. But he can put him in boiling oil; for the boiling oil is an environment. Considered as a figure, therefore, the materialist has the fantastic outline of the figure of the madman. Both take up a position at once unanswerable and intolerable.

宿命论既可能导致残忍，也必然导致懦弱。

决定论者不相信诉诸于意志，但他确实相信改变环境。他不能对罪人说，“不要再犯罪了”，因为罪人无法控制自己。但他可以把他放在滚烫的油里；因为滚烫的油是一种环境。因此，从形象的角度来看，唯物主义者有着疯子形象的奇幻轮廓。两者都立即占据了一个无法回答和无法容忍的立场。

, those writers who talk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life for the world, all these people have really only an inch between them and this awful emptiness. Then when this kindly world all round the man has been blackened out like a lie; when friends fade into ghosts, and the foundations of the world fail; then when the man, believing in nothing and in no man, is alone in his own nightmare, then the great individualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony. The stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother’s face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, “He believes in himself.”

它在理论上同样完整，在实践中同样具有破坏性。

The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end.

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also.

He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man.

The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.

Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.

神秘主义使人保持理智。只要你有神秘感，你就有健康；当你破坏神秘感时，你就会产生病态。普通人一直保持理智，因为普通人一直是神秘主义者。他允许朦胧的存在。他总是一只脚踩在人间，另一只脚在仙境。他总是让自己自由地怀疑自己的神；但（与今天的不可知论者不同）也自由地相信他们。他总是更关心真理，而不是一致性。如果他看到两个似乎相互矛盾的真理，他会接受这两个真理和它们之间的矛盾。他的精神视野是立体的，就像他的身体视野一样：他一次看到两张不同的图片，但正因为如此，他看得更好。因此，他一直相信有命运这种东西，但也有自由意志这种东西。

神秘主义的全部秘密在于：人可以通过他所不懂的东西来理解一切。病态的逻辑学家试图使一切变得清晰，结果却使一切变得神秘。神秘主义者允许一件事保持神秘，其他一切都变得清晰。

佛教是向心的，但基督教是离心的：它爆发了。因为圆是完美的，它的本质是无限的，但它的大小是固定的，它永远不会变大或变小。但是十字架，虽然它的中心有冲突和矛盾，但它的四条手臂可以永远延伸而不改变形状。因为它的中心有一个悖论，它可以成长而不改变。圆回到自己身上并被束缚。十字架向四风敞开它的手臂；它是自由旅行者的路标。

The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.

And there is no more subtle truth than that of the everyday phrase about a man having “his heart in the right place.” It involves the idea of normal proportion; not only does a certain function exist, but it is rightly related to other functions. Indeed, the negation of this phrase would describe with peculiar accuracy the somewhat morbid mercy and perverse tenderness of the most representative moderns.

没有什么比日常短语“他的心在正确的位置”更微妙的真理了。它涉及正常比例的概念；不仅存在某种功能，而且它与其他功能有正确的关系。事实上，否定这个短语将非常准确地描述最具代表性的现代人的某种病态的仁慈和反常的温柔。

The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless.

As the other extreme, we may take the acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing of the heart.

现代世界充满了发疯的旧基督教美德。美德之所以发疯，是因为它们彼此孤立，独自游荡。

作为另一个极端，我们可以选择一个刻薄的现实主义者，他故意在自己身上扼杀了人类在幸福故事或心灵治愈中的所有快乐。

Hence it became evident that if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.

如果一个人想使他的世界变大，他必须始终使自己变小。

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason.

Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature.

一个人应该对自己有怀疑，但对真理没有怀疑；这已经被完全颠倒了。如今，一个人所坚持的部分正是他不应该坚持的部分——他自己。他怀疑的部分正是他不应该怀疑的部分——神圣的理性。

Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern skeptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.

古代的嘲笑者过于骄傲，无法被说服；但现代的怀疑者过于谦卑，无法被说服。温顺的人确实继承了地球；但现代的怀疑者过于温顺，甚至无法宣称他们继承了地球。正是这种智力上的无助，是我们的第二个问题。

The last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of observation: that what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from his reason than his imagination. It was not meant to attack the authority of reason; rather it is the ultimate purpose to defend it. For it needs defence. The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower already reels.

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith.

If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?” The young sceptic says, “I have a right to think for myself.” But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, “I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.”

Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first.

In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum.

人类有一种盲目的本能，知道一旦事情被疯狂地质疑，理性可能会首先受到质疑。

在宗教消失的地方，理性也在消失。因为它们都是不能自我证明的证明方法。在摧毁神圣权威观念的过程中，我们很大程度上摧毁了人类权威的观念，我们正是通过人类权威来进行长除法运算的。

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself.

At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind;

Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am.” The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, “I am not; therefore I cannot think.”

Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected.

If the standard changes, how can there be improvement, which implies a standard? Nietzsche started a nonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil; if it were so, we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of them.

The pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. But precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. This philosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist.

实用主义有一个极端的应用，即涉及所有真理的缺失。

实用主义者告诉一个人思考他必须思考的东西，而不必在意绝对真理。但恰恰是他必须思考的东西之一就是绝对真理。这种哲学，实际上，是一种口头上的悖论。实用主义是人类需求的问题；而人类需求的首要问题之一就是成为比实用主义者更优秀的人。

它不再有问题要问；它已经质疑了自己。你不可能唤起比一个城市更狂野的景象，在这个城市里，人们问自己是否有自我。

你不能想象一个比怀疑世界是否存在的世界更怀疑的世界。如果它没有被不可辩驳的亵渎法律或现代英国是基督徒的荒谬假象所软弱地阻碍，那么它肯定更快、更干净地破产了。

At the beginning of this preliminary negative sketch I said that our mental ruin has been wrought by wild reason, not by wild imagination. A man does not go mad because he makes a statue a mile high, but he may go mad by thinking it out in square inches.

They see that reason destroys; but Will, they say, creates. The ultimate authority, they say, is in will, not in reason. The supreme point is not why a man demands a thing, but the fact that he does demand it. I have no space to trace or expound this philosophy of Will. It came, I suppose, through Nietzsche, who preached something that is called egoism. That, indeed, was simple-minded enough; for Nietzsche denied egoism simply by preaching it. To preach anything is to give it away.

He says that a man does not act for his happiness, but from his will. He does not say, “Jam will make me happy,” but “I want jam.” And in all this others follow him with yet greater enthusiasm. Mr. John Davidson, a remarkable poet, is so passionately excited about it that he is obliged to write prose.

Even Mr. H. G. Wells has half spoken in its language; saying that one should test acts not like a thinker, but like an artist, saying, “I feel this curve is right,” or “that line shall go thus.” They are all excited; and well they may be. For by this doctrine of the divine authority of will, they think they can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They think they can escape.

他们看到理性会摧毁；但他们说，意志会创造。他们说，最终的权威在于意志，而不是理性。最高点不在于一个人为什么要求某样东西，而在于他确实要求这样东西的事实。我没有空间来追溯或阐述这种意志哲学。我想，它是通过尼采传来的，他宣扬了一种被称为利己主义的东西。这确实够简单的了；因为尼采只是通过宣扬利己主义来否认利己主义。宣扬任何东西都是给予它。

他说，一个人不是为了他的幸福而行动，而是从他的意志出发。他不会说，“果酱会让我幸福”，而是说，“我想要果酱。”在所有这些方面，其他人都更加热情地追随他。著名诗人约翰·戴维森对此非常兴奋，以至于他不得不写散文。

他说，人们不应该像思想家一样检验行为，而应该像艺术家一样，说“我觉得这个曲线是对的”，或者说“这条线应该这样走”。他们都很兴奋；他们有理由兴奋。因为他们认为，通过这一意志的神圣权威学说，他们可以打破理性主义的必死堡垒。他们认为他们可以逃脱。

This pure praise of volition ends in the same break up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic. Exactly as complete free thought involves the doubting of thought itself, so the acceptation of mere “willing” really paralyzes the will.

幸福测试和意志测试之间的真正区别在于，幸福测试是一种测试，而其他测试不是。你可以讨论一个人跳下悬崖的行为是否指向幸福；你不能讨论它是否来自意志。

A brilliant anarchist like Mr. John Davidson feels an irritation against ordinary morality, and therefore he invokes will—will to anything. He only wants humanity to want something. But humanity does want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebels against the law and tells us to will something or anything. But we have willed something. We have willed the law against which he rebels.

他只希望人性想要一些东西。但人性确实想要一些东西。它想要普通道德。他反抗法律，告诉我们要意志一些事情或任何事情。但我们已经意志了一些事情。我们已经意志了他所反抗的法律。

All the will-worshippers, from Nietzche to Mr. Davidson, are really quite empty of volition. They cannot will, they can hardly wish.

It can be found in this fact: that they always talk of will as something that expands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

but it is surely obvious that “Thou shalt not” is only one of the necessary corollaries of “I will.”

The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature.

The artist loves his limitations: they constitute the thing he is doing. The painter is glad that the canvas is flat. The sculptor is glad that the clay is colourless.

所有的意志崇拜者，从尼采到戴维森先生，实际上都没有意志。他们不能意志，他们几乎不能希望。

这个事实可以证明这一点：他们总是把意志说成是扩张和爆发的东西。但事实恰恰相反。每一个意志行为都是自我限制的行为。渴望行动就是渴望限制。从这个意义上说，每一个行为都是自我牺牲的行为。当你选择任何东西时，你都会拒绝其他东西。这个学派的人曾经对婚姻行为提出反对，实际上是对所有行为提出反对。每一个行为都是一个不可撤销的选择和排除。

但很明显，“你不应该”只是“我愿意”的一个必要推论。

当你踏入事实世界的那一刻，你就踏入了一个限制的世界。你可以从外来的或偶然的法律中解放事物，但不能从其自身性质的法律中解放事物。

艺术家爱他的局限性：它们构成了他所做的事情。画家很高兴画布是平的。雕塑家很高兴粘土是无色的。

In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

但是，新的反抗者是一个怀疑论者，他不会完全信任任何东西。他没有忠诚；因此他永远不会真正成为一个革命者。当他想要谴责任何事情时，他怀疑一切的事实真的会阻碍他。因为所有的谴责都意味着某种道德学说；现代革命者不仅怀疑他谴责的制度，而且怀疑他谴责的学说。

一个人谴责婚姻是谎言，然后谴责贵族放荡者把它当作谎言。

简而言之，现代革命家是一个无限的怀疑论者，他总是从事破坏自己地雷的工作。在他的政治书中，他攻击人们践踏道德；在他的伦理学书中，他攻击道德践踏人们。因此，现代反叛者实际上对所有反叛目的都无用。通过反抗他所失去的一切，他失去了反抗任何东西的权利。

And the curious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance of the fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about. Nietzsche had some natural talent for sarcasm: he could sneer, though he could not laugh; but there is always something bodiless and without weight in his satire, simply because it has not any mass of common morality behind it. He is himself more preposterous than anything he denounces. But, indeed, Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence.

Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.

而讽刺文学在我们的文学中奇怪地消失，是激烈的事情因为缺乏任何原则而消失的一个例子。尼采有一些讽刺的天赋：他可以嘲笑，尽管他不能笑；但他的讽刺总是有些无实体和没有重量，仅仅是因为它没有任何普通道德的支撑。他本人比他谴责的任何事情都荒谬。但是，事实上，尼采确实很好地代表了整个抽象暴力的失败。

孤立和骄傲的思考最终会变成一个白痴。

Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvâna. They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan’s will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite’s will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the crossroads.

尼采攀登令人眩晕的高山，但最终出现在西藏。他坐在托尔斯泰身边，在空无一物的土地上，在涅槃中。他们都无能为力——一个是因为他不能抓住任何东西，另一个是因为他不能放弃任何东西。托尔斯泰的意志被一种佛教本能冻结，这种本能认为所有的特殊行为都是邪恶的。但尼采的意志同样被他的观点冻结，即所有的特殊行为都是好的；因为如果所有的特殊行为都是好的，那么它们都不是特殊的。他们站在十字路口，一个讨厌所有的路，另一个喜欢所有的路。结果是——嗯，有些事情并不难计算。他们站在十字路口。

In front of me, as I close this page, is a pile of modern books that I have been turning over for the purpose—a pile of ingenuity, a pile of futility. By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon. They are all on the road to the emptiness of the asylum.

So he who wills to reject nothing, wills the destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, but the rejection of almost everything.

It is called “Jeanne d’Arc,” by Anatole France. I have only glanced at it, but a glance was enough to remind me of Renan’s “Vie de Jésus.” It has the same strange method of the reverent sceptic.

Joan of Arc was not stuck at the crossroads, either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt.

在我合上这一页时，在我面前的是一堆我一直在翻阅的现代书籍——一堆独创性，一堆徒劳。由于我目前的疏远，我可以清楚地看到叔本华和托尔斯泰、尼采和萧的哲学不可避免的崩溃，就像从气球上可以看到不可避免的铁路崩溃一样。他们都在通往精神病院的空虚之路上。因为疯狂可以被定义为使用精神活动以达到精神无助；而他们几乎达到了这一点。

如果一个人想要拒绝任何东西，那么他就想要摧毁意志；因为意志不仅是对某物的选择，而且是对几乎所有事物的拒绝。

这本书是法国作家阿纳托尔·法朗士的《圣女贞德》。我只是匆匆浏览了一下，但匆匆一瞥就足以让我想起勒南的《耶稣传》。它有着同样的虔诚怀疑的奇怪方法。

圣女贞德并没有像托尔斯泰那样拒绝所有的道路，也没有像尼采那样接受所有的道路。她选择了一条道路，然后像一道闪电一样走了下去。然而，当我想到圣女贞德时，她身上有托尔斯泰和尼采身上所有真实的东西，他们身上所有甚至可以容忍的东西。

我想到了托尔斯泰身上所有高尚的东西，对平凡事物的乐趣，特别是对平凡的同情的乐趣，对地球现实的敬畏，对穷人的尊重，对鞠躬的尊严。圣女贞德身上有这一切，除此之外，她还忍受着贫穷，同时也钦佩贫穷；而托尔斯泰只是个典型的贵族，试图发现贫穷的秘密。

仿佛对人类的爱和对非人性的恨之间有任何不一致！利他主义者用微弱、细小的声音谴责基督是利己主义者。利己主义者（用更微弱、更细小的声音）谴责他是利他主义者。

WHEN THE BUSINESS MAN rebukes the idealism of his office boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: “Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is.”

As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

当商人斥责办公室男孩的理想主义时，他通常会说这样的话：“啊，是的，当一个人年轻的时候，他在抽象中拥有这些理想，在空中拥有这些城堡；但到了中年，它们都像云一样消散了，一个人开始相信实际的政治，使用自己拥有的机器，继续与现实世界打交道。”

I can only pause for a moment to explain that the principle of democracy, as I mean it, can be stated in two propositions. The first is this: that the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things are more valuable than extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. Man is something more awful than men; something more strange. The sense of the miracle of humanity itself should be always more vivid to us than any marvels of power, intellect, art, or civilization. The mere man on two legs, as such, should be felt as something more heartbreaking than any music and more startling than any caricature. Death is more tragic even than death by starvation.

我所指的民主原则可以用两个命题来表述。第一个命题是：所有人的共同点比任何人的独特点更重要。普通事物比不普通的事物更有价值；不，它们更不普通。人类比人类更可怕；更奇怪。人类本身的奇迹应该比任何权力、智力、艺术或文明的奇迹更生动地展现在我们面前。仅仅作为两条腿的人，应该比任何音乐更令人心碎，比任何讽刺更令人震惊。死亡甚至比饥饿而死更悲惨。

In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves – the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed.

It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record.

If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.

它信任的是共同人类声音的共识，而不是某些孤立或武断的记录。

如果我们在处理日常事务时非常重视普通人的意见，那么我们就没有理由在处理历史或寓言时忽视它。传统可以被定义为选举权的延伸。传统意味着给最卑微的阶级投票，即我们的祖先。

Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.

Before we come to any theoretic or logical beginnings I am content to allow for that personal equation; I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I be long. I prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside.

在我们开始任何理论或逻辑上的讨论之前，我愿意接受这种个人等式；我总是更倾向于相信那些辛勤工作的人，而不是相信那些特殊而麻烦的文学阶层，因为我属于后者。我甚至更喜欢那些从内部看待生活的人的奇思妙想和偏见，而不是那些从外部看待生活的人最清晰的证明。

Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not “appreciate Nature,” because they said the Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads.

现代的抒情诗人是自然主义者，谈论灌木丛或小溪；但古代史诗和寓言的演唱者是超自然主义者，谈论小溪和灌木丛的众神。这就是现代人所说的古代人“不欣赏自然”的意思，因为他们说自然是神圣的。老保姆不会告诉孩子们关于草的事情，而是关于在草地上跳舞的仙女；古希腊人看不到树，因为树上有树神。

But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them. there is the chivalrous lesson of “Jack the Giant Killer”; that giants should be killed because they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such.

There is the lesson of “Cinderella,” which is the same as that of the Magnificat—exaltavit humiles. There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable. There is the terrible allegory of the “Sleeping Beauty,” which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts, yet cursed with death; and how death also may perhaps be softened to a sleep. But I am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of elfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I learnt before I could speak, and shall retain when I cannot write. I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.

但我在这里处理的是从童话故事中产生的道德和哲学。如果我详细描述它们，我可以指出许多高尚和健康的原则，这些原则来自它们。有“巨人杀手杰克”的骑士精神教训；巨人应该被杀，因为他们是巨大的。这是对傲慢的男子气概的叛乱。

有“灰姑娘”的教训，这和《圣母颂》的教训是一样的——提升卑微者。有“美女与野兽”的伟大教训；一件东西必须被爱，然后才能被爱。有“睡美人”的可怕寓言，它讲述了人类如何被赐予所有生日礼物，却受到死亡的诅咒；以及死亡如何可能被软化为睡眠。但我不关心精灵国的任何单独法令，而是关心其法律的整体精神，我在能说话之前就学到了这种精神，在我不能写字时也会保留这种精神。我关心一种看待生活的方式，这种方式是由童话故事在我心中创造的，但后来被纯粹的事实所证实。

We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities. We believe that a Beanstalk climbed up to Heaven; but that does not at all confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five.

在我们的童话故事中，我们始终保持着这种对精神关系的科学和物理事实的科学之间的鲜明区别，前者确实有定律，后者没有定律，只有奇怪的重复。我们相信身体上的奇迹，但不相信精神上的不可能。我们相信一根豆茎爬到了天堂；但这丝毫不混淆我们对哲学问题“多少颗豆子等于五颗豆子”的信念。

The witch in the fairy tale says, “Blow the horn, and the ogre’s castle will fall”; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubtless she has given the advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason.

童话中的女巫说，“吹响号角，巨魔的城堡就会倒塌”；但她没有说，好像这种效果显然是由原因引起的。毫无疑问，她给许多勇士提过建议，也看到过许多城堡倒塌，但她既没有失去她的惊奇，也没有失去她的理智。

Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none.

不，普通的科学家严格来说是感伤主义者。从本质上说，他是一个感伤主义者，他沉浸在纯粹的联想中。他经常看到鸟儿飞翔和下蛋，他觉得这两个想法之间一定有某种梦幻般的、温柔的联系，而实际上没有。

This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

这个人在街上走来走去，可以看到和欣赏一切；只是他记不起自己是谁。好吧，每个人都是故事中的那个人。每个人都忘记了自己是谁。一个人可以理解宇宙，但永远不能理解自我；自我比任何星星都遥远。

我们都在同样的精神灾难中；我们都忘记了自己的名字。我们都忘记了我们真正是什么。我们所称的常识、理性、实用主义和实证主义，只意味着对于我们生命中某些死气沉沉的水平，我们忘记了我们已经忘记。我们所称的精神、艺术和狂喜，只意味着在一个可怕的时刻，我们记得我们忘记了。

世界是一个冲击，但不仅仅是冲击；存在是一个惊喜，但这是一个愉快的惊喜。

the Doctrine of Conditional Joy

The vision always hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling things that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden.

条件快乐主义

所有的愿景都取决于一个否决权。所有令人眼花缭乱和巨大的让步都取决于一个小小的拒绝。所有被释放的狂野和旋转的事物都取决于一件被禁止的事情。

在仙境中，一种不可理解的幸福建立在一种不可理解的条件之上。打开一个盒子，所有的邪恶都会飞出来。忘记一个字，城市就会毁灭。点燃一盏灯，爱就会飞走。摘下一朵花，人类的生命就会被剥夺。吃下一个苹果，上帝的希望就会消失。

For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle as the window-pane; and when the heavens were compared to the terrible crystal I can remember a shudder. I was afraid that God would drop the cosmos with a crash.

Such, it seemed, was the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on not doing something which you could at any moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should not do.

幸福取决于不要做任何你随时都可以做的事情，而且，你往往不知道自己为什么不应该这样做。

在我看来，存在本身就是非常古怪的遗产，因此，当我不了解他们所限制的视野的局限性时，我无法抱怨自己不了解视野的局限性。画框并不比画更陌生。否决权很可能和视野一样疯狂；它可能像太阳一样令人震惊，像水一样难以捉摸，像高耸的树木一样奇幻而可怕。

I could never mix in the common murmur of that rising generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself. To be allowed, like Endymion, to make love to the moon and then to complain that Jupiter kept his own moons in a harem seemed to me (bred on fairy tales like Endymion’s) a vulgar anti-climax. Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman. To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not an exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it.

The aesthetes touched the last insane limits of language in their eulogy on lovely things. The thistledown made them weep; a burnished beetle brought them to their knees. Yet their emotion never impressed me for an instant, for this reason, that it never occurred to them to pay for their pleasure in any sort of symbolic sacrifice.

我从未加入过那个时代年轻人对一夫一妻制的普遍抱怨，因为对性的限制似乎比性本身更奇怪和出乎意料。被允许像恩底弥翁一样，与月亮做爱，然后抱怨朱庇特把他的月亮保存在后宫里，这对我来说（在恩底弥翁这样的童话故事中长大）似乎是一种庸俗的反高潮。为了看一个女人，保持对一个女人的忠诚是微不足道的代价。抱怨我只能结一次婚就像抱怨我只生过一次一样。这与人们所谈论的可怕兴奋感是不成比例的。它表明的不是对性的过度敏感，而是对性的奇怪迟钝。

唯美主义者在赞美美好事物时，达到了语言的最后疯狂极限。蒲公英让他们哭泣；一只擦亮的甲虫让他们跪下。然而，他们的情感从未给我留下任何印象，原因在于，他们从未想过要为他们的快乐付出任何象征性的牺牲。

当然，人们可以用普通道德来为非凡的快乐买单。奥斯卡·王尔德说，日落之所以没有价值，是因为我们无法为日落买单。但奥斯卡·王尔德错了；我们可以为日落买单。我们可以通过不成为奥斯卡·王尔德来为日落买单。

I have explained that the fairy tales founded in me two convictions; first, that this world is a wild and startling place, which might have been quite different, but which is quite delightful; second, that before this wildness and delight one may well be modest and submit to the queerest limitations of so queer a kindness. But I found the whole modern world running like a high tide against both my tendernesses; and the shock of that collision created two sudden and spontaneous sentiments, which I have had ever since and which, crude as they were, have since hardened into convictions.

我已经解释过，这些童话故事让我产生了两个信念：第一，这个世界是一个狂野而令人震惊的地方，它可能完全不同，但它非常令人愉快；第二，在这狂野和愉快面前，一个人完全可以谦虚，接受这种奇怪的好意最奇怪的限制。但我发现整个现代世界像潮水一样涌动，冲击着我的柔情；这种碰撞的冲击产生了两种突然而自发的情感，从那以后，这些情感虽然粗糙，但已经固化为信念。

The modern world as I found it was solid for modern Calvanism, for the necessity of things being as they are. But when I came to ask them I found they had really no proof of this unavoidable repetition in things except the fact that the things were repeated.

I speak here only of an emotion, and of an emotion at once stubborn and subtle. But the repetition in Nature seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition, like that of an angry schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again.

我发现现代世界是现代加尔文主义的坚实基础，因为事物就是这样。但当我问他们时，我发现他们除了事实之外，根本没有证据证明事物不可避免的重演。

我在这里只说一种情感，一种既顽固又微妙的情感。但自然中的重复有时似乎是一种兴奋的重复，就像一个愤怒的校长一遍又一遍地说同样的话一样。

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork.

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grow-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.

The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bring forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain.

Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.

所有主宰现代思想的高大物质主义最终都建立在一个假设之上；一个错误的假设。人们认为，如果一件事不断重复，它很可能已经死了；就像钟表一样。

一个孩子有节奏地踢腿，不是因为缺乏生命，而是因为生命的匆忙。因为孩子们有充沛的活力，因为他们在精神上是凶猛和自由的，因此他们希望事情重复不变。他们总是说，“再做一次”；而成年人再做一次，直到他快死了。

并不是必然性让所有的雏菊都一样；也许上帝是单独创造每一朵雏菊的，但他从未厌倦过创造它们。

自然中的重复可能不仅仅是一种重现；它可能是一种戏剧性的返场。天堂可能会为下蛋的鸟儿返场。如果人类怀上并生下一个人类孩子，而不是生下一条鱼、一只蝙蝠或一只狮鹫，原因可能不是我们被固定在没有生命或目的的动物命运中。也许我们的小悲剧触动了众神，他们在繁星密布的天堂里欣赏它，在每个人类戏剧的结尾，人类一次又一次地被叫到幕前。重复可能会持续数百万年，仅仅是因为选择，在任何时刻它都可能停止。人可以一代又一代地站在地球上，但每个出生都是他绝对的最后一次出现。

In short, I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profound emotion always present and subconscious; that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.

简而言之，我一直相信，这个世界涉及魔法：现在我认为，也许它涉及一个魔术师。这指向了一种始终存在和潜意识的深刻情感；我们这个世界有一些目的；如果有目的，就有一个人。我一直觉得生活首先是一个故事：如果有一个故事，就有一个讲故事的人。

This modern universe is literally an empire; that is, it was vast, but it is not free. One went into larger and larger windowless rooms, rooms big with Babylonian perspective; but one never found the smallest window or a whisper of outer air.

一个人既不能有遵守法律的坚定性，也不能有违反法律的乐趣。

这个现代宇宙实际上是一个帝国；也就是说，它很广阔，但它不是自由的。一个人走进越来越大、没有窗户的房间，这些房间大得像巴比伦的透视图；但一个人永远找不到最小的窗户或外界空气的微风。

A man chooses to have an emotion about the largeness of the world: why should he not choose to have an emotion about its smallness?

一个人选择对世界的广度产生情感：他为什么不选择对世界的狭小产生情感呢？

These people professed that the universe was one coherent thing; but they were not fond of the universe. But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind. Actually and in truth I did feel that these dim dogmas of vitality were better expressed by calling the world small than by calling it large. For about infinity there was a sort of carelessness which was the reverse of the fierce and pious care which I felt touching the pricelessness and the peril of life. They showed only a dreary waste; but I felt a sort of sacred thrift. For economy is far more romantic than extravagance.

这些人声称宇宙是一个连贯的东西；但他们并不喜欢宇宙。但我非常喜欢宇宙，想用昵称来称呼它。我经常这样做；它似乎从不介意。事实上，我确实觉得，这些关于活力的模糊教条，用小来形容世界比用大来形容世界更好地表达了出来。大约在无限的时间里，有一种漫不经心的态度，这与我对生命珍贵和危险的强烈虔诚态度相反。他们只表现出一种乏味的浪费；但我感到一种神圣的节俭。因为节俭远比挥霍更浪漫。

Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Greet Might-Not-Have-Been.

在我孩提时代，人们经常谈论受到限制或毁坏的天才：人们常说，许多人是一个伟大的可能。对我来说，这是一个更坚实和令人震惊的事实，即街上任何一个人都是一个伟大的可能没有。

this world does not explain itself

There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects

the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint

there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin.

在我能够写作之前，我以某种黑暗的方式思考过，在我能够思考之前，我以某种黑暗的方式感受过：我们以后可能会更容易前进，我现在将粗略地概括一下。我深信不疑；首先，这个世界无法自我解释。

第二，我感到魔术必须有意义，而意义必须有某人来表达。世界上有某种个人的东西，就像一件艺术作品一样；无论它意味着什么，它都意味着强烈。第三，我认为这个目的在它的旧设计中是美丽的，尽管它有缺陷，比如龙。第四，对它的适当形式的感谢是某种形式的谦卑和克制：我们应该感谢上帝的啤酒和勃艮第，而不是喝得太多。我们也应该服从使我们成为这样的人。

最后，也是最奇怪的是，我的脑海中出现了一种模糊而巨大的印象，即在某种程度上，所有的善都是从某种原始的废墟中储存和保存下来的。人类像鲁滨逊救他的货物一样拯救了他的善：他从沉船中拯救了它们。所有这些我都感受到了，但时代没有鼓励我感受到这些。在这段时间里，我甚至没有想过基督教神学。

WHEN I WAS A BOY there were two curious men running about who were called the optimist and the pessimist.

I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

乐观主义者认为一切都是好的，除了悲观主义者，而悲观主义者认为一切都是坏的，除了他自己。

Whatever the reason, it seemed and still seems to me that our attitude towards life can be better expressed in terms of a kind of military loyalty than in terms of criticism and approval. My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism.

不管什么原因，在我看来，我们对生活的态度可以用一种军事忠诚来表达，而不是用批评和认可来表达。我对宇宙的接受不是乐观主义，更像是爱国主义。这是一个首要忠诚的问题。

People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

人们首先向一个地方表示敬意，然后为它赢得荣耀。人们不是因为罗马伟大而爱罗马。她之所以伟大，是因为他们爱她。

他们通过保护自己的宗教而获得了道德。他们没有培养勇气。他们为圣殿而战，发现他们变得勇敢了。他们没有培养清洁。他们为了祭坛而净化自己，发现他们是干净的。

《十诫》基本上是全人类所共有的，只是军事命令；一套军队命令，发布给穿越沙漠的某个特定的方舟。无政府状态是邪恶的，因为它危及神圣。只有当他们为上帝设立了一个神圣的日子时，他们才发现他们为人类设立了一个节日。

The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men, but that he does not love what he chastises—he has not this primary and supernatural loyalty to things.

What is the evil of the man commonly called an optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to defend the honour of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, “My cosmos, right or wrong.”

He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. All this (which is true of a type of optimist) leads us to the one really interesting point of psychology, which could not be explained without it.

悲观者的邪恶不在于他责备神和人，而在于他不爱他所责备的东西——他没有这种对事物的首要和超自然的忠诚。

We say there must be a primal loyalty to life: the only question is, shall it be a natural or a supernatural loyalty? If you like to put it so, shall it be a reasonable or an unreasonable loyalty? Now, the extraordinary thing is that the bad optimism (the whitewashing, the weak defence of everything) comes in with the reasonable optimism.

The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason.

Nowhere else is patriotism more purely abstract and arbitrary; and nowhere else is reform more drastic and sweeping. The more transcendental is your patriotism, the more practical are your politics.

我们说，必须有一种对生命的原始忠诚：唯一的问题是，这是自然的还是超自然的忠诚？如果你愿意这么说，这是合理的还是不合理的忠诚？现在，不寻常的是，坏的乐观主义（粉饰，弱化对一切的辩护）与合理的乐观主义一起出现。

最有可能毁掉他所爱的地方的人，正是用理性爱着它的人。将改善这个地方的人，正是没有理由爱着它的人。

在其他任何地方，爱国主义都更加纯粹抽象和武断；在其他任何地方，改革都更加彻底和全面。你的爱国主义越超凡脱俗，你的政治就越实用。

A man must be interested in life, then he could be disinterested in his views of it.

It will be said that a rational person accepts the world as mixed of good and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decent en durance. But this is exactly the attitude which I maintain to be defective.

一个人必须对生活感兴趣，然后他才能对他对生活的看法不感兴趣。

人们会说，一个理性的人接受世界是善与恶的混合体，带着体面的满足和体面的坚持。但这就是我坚持认为有缺陷的态度。我知道，这在这个时代非常普遍；马修·阿诺德平静的诗句中完美地表达了这一点，这些诗句比叔本华的尖叫更令人难以置信的亵渎——

Enough we live:—and if a life,


With large results so little rife,


Though bearable, seem hardly worth


This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth.

I know this feeling fills our epoch, and I think it freezes our epoch. For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent.

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.

没有人怀疑一个普通人可以适应这个世界：但我们要求的不是足够适应它的力量，而是足够改变它的力量。他能恨它到足以改变它吗？他能爱它到足以认为它值得改变吗？他能仰望它的巨大善而不感到默许吗？他能仰望它的巨大恶而不感到绝望吗？简而言之，他能否同时既是一个悲观主义者，又是一个乐观主义者，既是一个狂热的悲观主义者，又是一个狂热的乐观主义者？他是否是一个足够异教徒的人，可以为世界而死，是否是一个足够基督徒的人，可以为世界而死？我坚持认为，在这种组合中，理性的乐观主义者失败了，非理性的乐观主义者成功了。他准备为了它而粉碎整个宇宙。

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world.

There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man’s crime is different from other crimes—for it makes even crimes impossible.

自杀不仅是一种罪恶，而且是一种罪恶。它是终极和绝对的邪恶，拒绝对存在感兴趣；拒绝对生命的誓言。杀死一个人，就是杀死一个人。自杀的人，杀死了所有人；就他而言，他抹杀了整个世界。

把自杀者单独埋葬是有意义的。这个人的罪行不同于其他罪行——因为它使犯罪成为不可能。

In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe.

Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the very poetry of pessimism.

殉道者是一个非常关心他之外的事物的人，以至于他忘记了自己的个人生活。自杀者是一个非常关心他之外的一切的人，以至于他希望看到一切的终结。

历史上的基督教被指责将殉道和禁欲主义推向极端，变得荒凉和悲观。早期的基督教殉道者带着可怕的快乐谈论死亡。他们亵渎了身体的美好职责：他们像嗅一朵花一样嗅着远处的坟墓。对许多人来说，这一切似乎都是悲观主义的诗意。

It is commonly the loose and latitudinarian Christians who pay quite indefensible compliments to Christianity. They talk as if there had never been any piety or pity until Christianity came, a point on which any medieval would have been eager to correct them. They represent that the remarkable thing about Christianity was that it was the first to preach simplicity or self-restraint, or inwardness and sincerity.

Christianity was the answer to a riddle, not the last truism uttered after a long talk.

Their dignity, their weariness, their sad external care for others, their in curable internal care for themselves, were all due to the Inner Light, and existed only by that dismal illumination.

The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.

通常是那些不严谨、不严格的基督徒对基督教大加赞美。他们说话时，就好像在基督教到来之前，从来没有过任何虔诚或怜悯，任何中世纪的人都会急于纠正他们。他们认为，基督教的非凡之处在于，它是第一个宣扬简单或自我克制、或内在和真诚的宗教。

基督教是谜语的答案，而不是长谈后的最后一句真理。

他们的尊严、他们的疲惫、他们对他人的悲伤的外在关心、他们对自己无法治愈的内在关心，都归功于内在之光，而且只能通过这种阴郁的照明才能存在。

在所有可怕的宗教中，最可怕的是对内在神灵的崇拜。任何了解任何人的人都知道它会如何运作；任何从高等思想中心了解任何人的人都知道它会如何运作。

做一个基督徒的唯一乐趣是，一个人不会被独自留在内心的光明中，而是明确地认识到外在的光明，就像太阳一样明亮，就像月亮一样清晰，就像一支有旗帜的军队一样可怕。

Because the earth is kind, we can imitate all her cruelties. Because sexuality is sane, we can all go mad about sexuality. Mere optimism had reached its insane and appropriate termination. The theory that everything was good had become an orgy of everything that was bad.

尽管如此，如果琼斯不崇拜太阳和月亮，那也会很好。如果他崇拜，他就有一种模仿它们的倾向；也就是说，因为太阳能活活烧死昆虫，他可能会活活烧死昆虫。

因为地球是善良的，我们可以模仿她所有的残忍。因为性是理智的，我们可以对性都发疯。单纯的乐观主义已经达到了其疯狂和适当的终结。认为一切都是好的理论已经变成了一切都是坏的狂欢。

马库斯·奥里利乌斯和他的朋友们确实放弃了宇宙中任何神的概念，只关注内心的神。他们不指望自然中的任何美德，几乎不指望社会中的任何美德。他们对外部世界没有足够的兴趣，不足以摧毁或革命化它。

因此，古代世界正好处于我们自己的荒凉困境中。唯一真正享受这个世界的人正在忙于破坏它；而善良的人对他们并不那么关心，不足以把他们打倒。在这种困境中（与我们一样）基督教突然介入，提供了一个独特的答案，世界最终接受了这个答案。这是当时的答案，我认为这是现在的答案。

I had found this hold in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.

My sense that happiness hung on the crazy thread of a condition did mean something when all was said: it meant the whole doctrine of the Fall.

And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe’s ship-even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

我在世界上找到了这个立足点：一个人必须以某种方式找到一种爱世界而不信任世界的方式；一个人必须爱世界而不世俗。

我认为幸福取决于一种疯狂的状态，这确实是有意义的：它意味着整个堕落的教义。

我萦绕不去的本能是，善并不只是可以使用的工具，而是一件需要守护的遗物，就像克鲁索的船上的货物一样，甚至这最初是智慧的野性低语，因为根据基督教，我们确实是一艘沉船的幸存者，是一艘在世界开始之前沉没的黄金船的船员。

I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world.

The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.

我经常称自己为乐观主义者，以避免明显的亵渎悲观主义。但所有时代的乐观主义都是虚假和令人沮丧的，因为这个原因，它总是试图证明我们适应世界。基督教的乐观主义是基于这样一个事实，即我们并不适应世界。我曾试图通过告诉自己人类是动物来让自己快乐，就像其他任何寻求上帝赐予的肉食的动物一样。

现代哲学家一遍又一遍地告诉我，我处于正确的位置，即使我默许，我仍然感到沮丧。但我听说我处于错误的位置，我的灵魂像春天里的鸟儿一样欢唱。知识发现并照亮了黑暗的婴儿屋中的被遗忘的房间。我现在知道为什么草对我来说总是像巨人的绿色胡须一样奇怪，为什么我在家里会感到思乡。

THE REAL TROUBLE with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.

我们这个世界的真正麻烦不是它是一个不合理的世界，甚至也不是它是一个合理的世界。最常见的一种麻烦是，它几乎是合理的，但并不完全合理。生活不是不合逻辑的；然而，它是逻辑家的陷阱。它看起来比实际情况更数学化和规律化；它的精确性是显而易见的，但它的不精确性是隐藏的；它的野性在等待着。

一个苹果或一个橙子圆得足以被称为圆形，但终究不是圆的。地球本身被塑造成橙子的形状，以引诱一些简单的天文学家称它为地球。

When once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, as scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich it is in discoveries.

一旦一个人相信一个信条，他就为它的复杂性而自豪，就像科学家为科学的复杂性而自豪一样。它表明它是多么富有发现。

No sooner had one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east than another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far to the west.

一个理性主义者刚刚证明它离东方太远，另一个理性主义者就同样清晰地证明它离西方太远。

我的愤怒还没有平息，它就变得尖锐和咄咄逼人，我的愤怒还没有平息，它又变得软弱和肉欲，我的愤怒还没有平息，我的愤怒还没有平息，我就再次被唤醒，注意到并谴责它的软弱和肉欲。

Thus, for instance, I was much moved by the eloquent attack on Christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought (and still think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. Insincere pessimism is a social accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately nearly all pessimism is insincere.

One great agnostic asked why Nature was not beautiful enough, and why it was hard to be free.

因此，例如，我被对基督教的雄辩攻击所感动，认为基督教是一种不人道的阴郁；因为我认为（现在仍然认为）真诚的悲观主义是不可饶恕的罪过。不真诚的悲观主义是一种社会成就，相当令人愉快；幸运的是，几乎所有的悲观主义都是不真诚的。

一位伟大的不可知论者问，为什么自然界不够美丽，为什么它很难自由。

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean, the world has grown gray with Thy breath.

你已经征服了，苍白的加利利人，世界已经因你的呼吸而变得灰暗。

The very man who denounced Christianity for pessimism was himself a pessimist. I thought there must be something wrong. And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other.

正是这位谴责基督教悲观主义的人自己就是一个悲观主义者。我认为一定有什么地方出了问题。有一瞬间，我突然想到，也许，那些人并不是宗教与幸福关系的最佳评判者，因为他们自己既没有宗教信仰，也没有幸福。

我觉得，反对基督教的有力证据在于，所有被称为“基督教”的东西都有某种怯懦、僧侣主义和缺乏男子气概的特质，尤其是在对待抵抗和战斗的态度上。19 世纪伟大的怀疑论者基本上都很阳刚。布拉德洛以一种宏大的方式，赫胥黎以一种沉默的方式，都无疑是男子汉。相比之下，基督教的劝告似乎确实有某种软弱和过于耐心的特质。

基督教的形式每时每刻都变得更加奇怪。

The one real objection to the Christian religion is simply that it is one religion. The world is a big place, full of very different kinds of people. Christianity (it may reasonably be said) is one thing confined to one kind of people; it began in Palestine, it has practically stopped with Europe.

I was duly impressed with this argument in my youth, and I was much drawn towards the doctrine often preached in Ethical Societies—I mean the doctrine that there is one great unconscious church of all humanity founded on the omnipresence of the human conscience. Creeds, it was said, divided men; but at least morals united them. The soul might seek the strangest and most remote lands and ages and still find essential ethical common sense.

I found that the very people who said that mankind was one church from Plato to Emerson were the very people who said that morality had changed altogether, and that what was right in one age was wrong in another. If I asked, say, for an altar, I was told that we needed none, for men our brothers gave us clear oracles and one creed in their universal customs and ideals. But if I mildly pointed out that one of men’s universal customs was to have an altar, then my agnostic teachers turned clean round and told me that men had always been in darkness and the superstitions of savages.

基督教宗教的一个真正反对意见只是因为它是一种宗教。世界是一个大地方，充满了非常不同的人。基督教（可以说）是局限于一种人的东西；它始于巴勒斯坦，实际上在欧洲停止了。

人类有一个伟大的无意识教会，建立在人类良心的无所不在的基础之上。信条，据说，使人们分裂；但至少道德使他们团结起来。灵魂可能寻求最奇怪和最遥远的土地和时代，但仍会发现基本的道德常识。

我发现，那些说人类从柏拉图到爱默生是一个教会的人，正是那些说道德已经完全改变的人，一个时代的正确在另一个时代是错误的。如果我要求一个祭坛，我会被告知我们不需要祭坛，因为我们的兄弟们给了我们明确的启示，他们的普遍习俗和理想只有一个信条。但是，如果我温和地指出，男人的普遍习俗之一就是有一个祭坛，那么我的不可知论老师就会彻底改变态度，告诉我，男人一直处于黑暗之中，是野蛮人的迷信。

Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the center. Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are mad—in various ways.

For instance, it was certainly odd that the modern world charged Christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp.

也许（简而言之）这件不可思议的事情实际上是平凡的事情；至少是正常的事情，是中心。也许，归根结底，基督教是理智的，而它的所有批评者都是疯狂的——以各种方式。

例如，现代世界立即指责基督教禁欲主义和艺术浮华，这当然很奇怪。但是，现代世界本身将极端的身体奢侈与极端缺乏艺术浮华结合在一起，这也很奇怪，非常奇怪。

that we want not an amalgam or compromise, but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning. Here I shall only trace it in relation to ethics. But I need not remind the reader that the idea of this combination is indeed central in orthodox theology. For orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not a being apart form God and man, like an elf, nor yet a being half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God. Now let me trace this notion as I found it.

我们不需要一个混合物或妥协，而是两者都充满活力；爱与愤怒都燃烧着。在这里，我只会追溯它与伦理学的关系。但我不需要提醒读者，这种组合的想法确实是正统神学的中心。因为正统神学特别强调，基督不是一个独立于上帝和人类的存在，像一个精灵，也不是一个半人半兽的存在，像一个半人马，而是两者同时存在，两者都彻底，非常人，非常神。现在，让我追溯这个想法，就像我找到的那样。

He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying.

勇气几乎是一个矛盾的术语。它意味着强烈的生存欲望，以准备死亡的形式出现。“愿意失去生命的人，同样会拯救生命，”这不是圣人和英雄的神秘主义。

他不能仅仅等待死亡，因为那样他会成为一个自杀者，不会逃脱。他必须在对生命的狂热漠不关心中寻求生命；他必须像喝水一样渴望生命，却像喝酒一样渴望死亡。我想，没有哪个哲学家曾经以足够的清晰表达过这个浪漫的谜语，我当然也没有。但基督教做了更多：它在自杀者和英雄的可怕坟墓中标明了它的界限，显示了为生活而死的人和为死亡而死的人之间的距离。

Take, for instance, the matter of modesty, of the balance between mere pride and mere prostration. The average pagan, like the average agnostic, would merely say that he was content with himself, but so insolently self-satisfied, that there were many better and many worse, that his deserts were limited, but he would see that he got them. In short, he would walk with his head in the air; but not necessarily with his nose in the air. This is a manly and rational position, but it is open to the objection we noted against the compromise between optimism and pessimism—the “resignation” of Matthew Arnold. Being a mixture of two things, it is a dilution of two things; neither is present in its full strength or contributes its full colour.

以谦逊为例，在骄傲和屈服之间找到平衡。普通的异教徒，就像普通的不可知论者一样，只会说他对自己很满意，但他如此傲慢地自满，认为有很多比他好的人，也有很多比他差的人，他的功绩是有限的，但他会看到他得到了功绩。简而言之，他会昂首阔步地走路；但不一定会趾高气扬地走路。这是一种勇敢和理性的立场，但它容易受到我们反对乐观主义和悲观主义妥协的指责——马修·阿诺德的“顺从”。作为两种东西的混合物，它是两种东西的稀释；两种东西都没有以全盛的力量出现，也没有以全盛的色彩出现。

因此，它失去了骄傲和谦卑的诗意。基督教通过同样的奇怪手段来拯救两者。

It separated the two ideas and then exaggerated them both. In one way Man was to be haughtier than he had ever been before; in another way he was to be humbler than he had ever been before. In so far as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of sinners. All humility that had meant pessimism, that had meant man taking a vague or mean view of his whole destiny—all that was to go.

One can hardly think too little of one’s self. One can hardly think too much of one’s soul.

它把这两个想法分开，然后夸大了它们。在某种程度上，人类比以往任何时候都更加傲慢；在另一种意义上，人类比以往任何时候都更谦卑。就我是人类而言，我是万物的首领。就我是人类而言，我是罪魁祸首。所有意味着悲观主义的谦卑，所有意味着人类对自己的整个命运持模糊或卑鄙看法的谦卑——所有这些都消失了。

一个人很难对自己的自我想得太少。一个人很难对自己的灵魂想得太多。

Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainly means one of two things—pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people.

And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

我越是考虑基督教，我就越发现，虽然它建立了规则和秩序，但这种秩序的主要目的是给好事留出空间。

The ordinary aesthetic anarchist who sets out to feel everything freely gets knotted at last in a paradox that prevents him feeling at all. He breaks away from home limits to follow poetry. But in ceasing to feel home limits he has ceased to feel the “odyssey.”

For if there is a wall between you and the world, it makes little difference whether you describe yourself as locked in or as locked out. What we want is not the universality that is outside all normal sentiments; we want the universality that is inside all normal sentiments.

How can man be approximately free of fine emotions, able to swing them in a clear space without breakage or wrong? This was the achievement of this Christian paradox of the parallel passions.

因为如果你与世界之间有一堵墙，那么你把自己描述为被锁在墙内还是被锁在墙外并没有什么区别。我们想要的不是脱离所有正常情感的普遍性；我们想要的是存在于所有正常情感中的普遍性。

一个人如何能大致上从美好的情感中获得自由，能够在一个清晰的空间中挥舞它们，而不破碎或错误呢？这是这个基督教关于平行情感的悖论的成就。承认神与恶魔之间的战争、世界的反抗和毁灭、他们的乐观和悲观，就像纯粹的诗一样，可以像白内障一样放松。

By defining its main doctrine, the Church not only kept seemingly inconsistent things side by side, but, what was more, allowed them to break out in a sort of artistic violence otherwise possible only to anarchists. Meekness grew more dramatic than madness. Historic Christianity rose into a high and strange coup de théatre of morality—things that are to virtue what the crimes of Nero are to vice. The spirits of indignation and of charity took terrible and attractive forms, ranging from that monkish fierceness that scourged like a dog the first and greatest of the Plantagenets, to the sublime pity of St. Catherine, who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody head of the criminal.

通过定义其主要教义，教会不仅让看似矛盾的事物并排存在，而且，更重要的是，允许它们以一种只有在无政府主义者身上才可能出现的艺术暴力爆发出来。顺从变得比疯狂更戏剧化。历史上的基督教崛起成为一场高明的道德闹剧——就像尼禄的罪恶之于美德一样。愤怒和慈善的精神以可怕而吸引人的形式出现，从那个像狗一样鞭打第一个和最伟大的金雀花王朝的僧侣的狂热，到圣凯瑟琳的崇高怜悯，她在官方的屠场上亲吻了罪犯血淋淋的头。

确实，历史上的教会既强调独身，又强调家庭；既（如果可以这么说的话）强烈主张生孩子，又强烈主张不生孩子。它把它们像两种强烈的颜色一样放在一起，就像圣乔治盾牌上的红白两色一样。

我在这里所强调的一切都可以用这样一句话来表达：基督教在大多数情况下都试图让两种颜色共存，但保持纯洁。

It is true that the Church told some men to fight and others not to fight; and it is true that those who fought were like thunderbolts and those who did not fight were like statues. All this simply means that the Church preferred to use its Supermen and to use its Tolstoyans.

And sometimes this pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all the prophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down with the lamb.

事实是，教会告诉一些人战斗，告诉另一些人不要战斗；事实是，那些战斗的人就像霹雳一样，那些不战斗的人就像雕像一样。所有这一切都意味着，教会更喜欢使用它的超人，使用它的托尔斯泰主义者。

有时，这种纯粹的温柔和纯粹的凶猛相遇，证明了他们的结合是合理的；所有先知的矛盾得到了实现，在圣路易斯的灵魂中，狮子和羔羊躺在一起。

Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe—that was to anticipate a strange need of human nature.

Any one might say, “Neither swagger nor grovel”; and it would have been a limit. But to say, “Here you can swagger and there you can grovel”—that was an emancipation.

基督教教义发现了生活的怪癖。它不仅发现了规律，而且预见到了例外。那些低估基督教的人说，它发现了仁慈；任何人都可以发现仁慈。事实上，每个人都发现了。但是，发现一个仁慈和严厉的计划——这是预见人类特性的奇怪需要。

任何人都可以说，“既不要趾高气扬，也不要卑躬屈膝”；这将是一种限制。但是，说“在这里你可以趾高气扬，在那里你可以卑躬屈膝”——这是一种解放。

这是基督教伦理的大事实；发现新的平衡。

I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair’s breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful.

我的意思是，关于神学小问题的可怕战争，对一个手势或一个词的强烈情感。这只是一个英寸的问题；但当你平衡时，一英寸就是一切。如果教会要继续她伟大的、大胆的不规则平衡实验，她就不可能在某些事情上偏离毫厘。一旦让一个想法变得不那么强大，其他想法就会变得过于强大。

It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.

堕落总是很容易的；从各个角度跌倒，只有一个角度是站立的。

但是，要避免所有这些，是一场旋风般的冒险；在我的想象中，天上的战车轰隆隆地飞过时代，平庸的异端歪歪扭扭地匍匐在地，狂野的真理摇摇晃晃但屹立不倒。

THE FOLLOWING propositions have been urged: First, that some faith in our life is required even to improve it; second, that some dissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to be satisfied; third, that to have this necessary content and necessary discontent it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the Stoic.

以下论点被提出：第一，即使是为了改善生活，也需要对生活抱有一定程度的信心；第二，即使是为了感到满足，也需要对现状抱有一定程度的不满；第三，为了拥有这种必要的内容和必要的不满，仅仅拥有斯多葛学派明显的平衡是不够的。

Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a circle—that circle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mere rationalism. Evolution is only good if it produces good; good is only good if it helps evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and the tortoise on the elephant.

关于这个问题的大多数现代讨论都只是一个循环论证——我们已经把这个循环论证符号化为疯狂和纯粹理性主义。只有进化产生好的东西，进化才是好的；只有帮助进化的东西才是好的。大象站在乌龟身上，乌龟站在大象身上。

For instance, the cheap anti-democrat of today will tell you solemnly that there is no equality in nature. He is right, but he does not see the logical addendum. There is no equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature. Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value.

To read aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as to read democracy into it. Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are more valuable.

But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first. Or he might feel that he had actually inflicted frightful punishment on the cat by keeping him alive.

You cannot even say that there is victory or superiority in nature unless you have some doctrine about what things are superior.

例如，当今廉价的反民主主义者会庄严地告诉你，自然中没有平等。他是对的，但他没有看到逻辑上的补充。自然中没有平等，也没有不平等。不平等和平等一样，都意味着一种价值标准。

把贵族制解读为动物的无政府状态，就像把民主解读为动物的无政府状态一样感性。贵族制和民主制都是人类的理想：一个说所有人都是有价值的，另一个说有些人更有价值。

但自然并没有说猫比老鼠更有价值；自然对这个问题没有发表评论。她甚至没有说猫是令人羡慕的，老鼠是可怜的。我们认为猫是优越的，因为我们（或我们大多数人）有一种特殊的哲学，认为生命比死亡更好。但如果老鼠是德国悲观主义者老鼠，他可能不会认为猫打败了他。他可能会认为他先到达坟墓，打败了猫。或者他可能会觉得，他实际上通过让猫活着，对猫进行了可怕的惩罚。

你甚至不能说自然中有胜利或优越，除非你有一些关于什么是优越的学说。

Other vague modern people take refuge in material metaphors; in fact, this is the chief mark of vague modern people. Not daring to define their doctrine of what is good, they use physical figures of speech without stint or shame, and, what is worst of all, seem to think these cheap analogies are exquisitely spiritual and superior to the old morality.

其他模糊的现代人则躲藏在物质隐喻中；事实上，这是模糊的现代人的主要标志。他们不敢定义自己的善理论，他们毫不吝啬地使用身体隐喻，最糟糕的是，他们似乎认为这些廉价的类比是精致的精神，并优于旧道德。

Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker.

尼采总是用身体隐喻来逃避问题，就像一个快乐的小诗人。他说“超越善与恶”，因为他没有勇气说“比善与恶更好”，或者“比善与恶更坏”。如果他不用隐喻来面对自己的思想，他就会发现这是胡说八道。因此，当他描述他的英雄时，他不敢说“更纯洁的人”，或者“更快乐的人”，或者“更悲伤的人”，因为所有这些都是思想；而思想是令人震惊的。他说“上等人”，或者“超人”，这是杂技演员或高山攀登者的身体隐喻。

We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road—very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know what shape.

我们不必争论简单的进化或进步：我个人更喜欢称之为改革。因为改革意味着形式。它意味着我们试图以某种特定的形象塑造世界；使它成为我们已经在脑海中看到的东西。进化是一个从自动展开的隐喻。进步是一个从仅仅沿着一条路走——很可能是错误的道路——的隐喻。但改革是理性和坚定的人的隐喻：它意味着我们看到某些东西变形，我们打算把它变成形状。我们知道什么形状。

一个普鲁士老练的诡辩家的狂野一页让人们怀疑这一点。进步应该意味着我们总是在走向新耶路撒冷。它确实意味着新耶路撒冷总是在远离我们。我们不是在改变现实以适应理想。我们在改变理想：这更容易。

So it does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.

因此，（相对而言）人类在模仿自己的理想方面失败了多少次并不重要；因为这样的话，它所有的旧失败都是富有成果的。但是，人类在改变自己的理想方面失败了多少次是极其重要的；因为这样的话，它所有的旧失败都是徒劳的。

A strict rule is not only necessary for ruling; it is also necessary for rebelling. This fixed and familiar ideal is necessary to any sort of revolution. Man will sometimes act slowly upon new ideas; but he will only act swiftly upon old ideas. If I am merely to float or fade or evolve, it may be towards something anarchic; but if I am to riot, it must be for something respectable. This is the whole weakness of certain schools of progress and moral evolution.

What on earth is the current morality, except in its literal sense—the morality that is always running away?

严格的规则不仅是统治的必要条件，也是反叛的必要条件。任何形式的革命都需要这种固定而熟悉的理想。人有时会对新思想行动缓慢，但只会对旧思想行动迅速。如果我只是随波逐流、逐渐消亡或进化，那可能是走向某种无政府状态；但如果我要暴动，那一定是为了某种值得尊敬的东西。

除了字面意义之外，当今的道德到底是什么，它总是在逃跑？

But if the end of the world is to be a piece of elaborate and artistic chiaroscuro, then there must be design in it, either human or divine. The world, through mere time, might grow black like an old picture, or white like an old coat; but if it is turned into a particular piece of black and white art—then there is an artist.

但是，如果世界的终结是一件精心制作的艺术明暗处理作品，那么其中一定有设计，无论是人类的还是神灵的。世界，通过时间，可能会像一幅旧画一样变黑，或者像一件旧外套一样变白；但是，如果它变成了一幅特定的黑白艺术作品——那么就有一个艺术家。

I use the word humanitarian in the ordinary sense, as meaning one who upholds the claims of all creatures against those of humanity. They suggest that through the ages we have been growing more and more humane, that is to say, that one after another, groups or sections of beings, slaves, children, women, cows, or what not, have been gradually admitted to mercy or to justice.

I am here only following the outlines of their argument, which consists in maintaining that man has been progressively more lenient, first to citizens, then to slaves, then to animals, and then (presumably) to plants.

A perpetual tendency to touch fewer and fewer things might—one feels, be a mere brute unconscious tendency, like that of a species to produce fewer and fewer children. This drift may be really evolutionary, because it is stupid.

我用“人道主义者”这个词的普通意义，意思是支持所有生物的权利，而不是人类的权利。他们认为，随着时间的推移，我们变得越来越人道，也就是说，一个接一个的群体或生物，奴隶、儿童、妇女、奶牛等等，都被逐渐纳入了怜悯或正义的范畴。

他们的论点是，人类越来越宽容，先是对公民，然后是对奴隶，然后是对动物，然后（大概）是对植物。

触摸越来越少的东西的永恒趋势——人们感到，这可能只是一个没有意识的野蛮趋势，就像一个物种生产越来越少的孩子一样。这种趋势可能真的是进化的，因为它是愚蠢的。

Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On the evolutionary basis you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you cannot be human.

达尔文主义可以用来支持两种疯狂的道德观，但不能用来支持一种理智的道德观。所有生物的亲缘关系和竞争关系可以用来作为疯狂残忍或疯狂感伤的理由；但不能用来作为对动物健康的爱的理由。在进化的基础上，你可能不人道，也可能荒谬地人道；但你不可能成为人。

If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur: only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother.

The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate.

To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.

如果你想合理地对待一只老虎，你必须回到伊甸园。因为固执的提醒继续出现：只有超自然才对自然有理智的看法。泛神论、进化论和现代宇宙宗教的本质实际上在于这个命题：自然是我们的母亲。

基督教的主要观点是：自然不是我们的母亲：自然是我们的姐妹。我们可以为她的美而自豪，因为我们有同一个父亲；但她没有权威；我们必须钦佩，但不能模仿。

对圣弗朗西斯来说，自然是一个姐妹，甚至是一个小妹妹：一个跳舞的小妹妹，既被嘲笑又被爱。

But the question is, do we want to have longer and longer noses? I fancy not; I believe that we most of us want to say to our noses, “thus far, and no farther; and here shall thy proud point be stayed”: we require a nose of such length as may ensure an interesting face.

Proportion cannot be a drift: it is either an accident or a design.

So with the ideal of human morality and its relation to the humanitarians and the antihumanitarians. It is conceivable that we are going more and more to keep our hands off things: not to drive horses; not to pick flowers. We may eventually be bound not to disturb a man’s mind even by argument; not to disturb the sleep of birds even by coughing. The ultimate apotheosis would appear to be that of a man sitting quite still, nor daring to stir for fear of disturbing a fly, nor to eat for fear of incommoding a microbe.

Is it not quite clear that what we really hope for is one particular management and proposition of these two things; a certain amount of restraint and respect, a certain amount of energy and mastery?

但问题是，我们想要越来越长的鼻子吗？我想不是；我相信，我们中的大多数人会对我们的鼻子说：“到此为止，不能再长了；你的骄傲点就在这里停止。”我们需要一个这样的鼻子长度，可以确保一张有趣的脸。

比例不能是一种趋势：它要么是一种偶然，要么是一种设计。

因此，有了人类道德的理想，以及它与人道主义者和反人道主义者的关系。可以想象，我们将越来越多地袖手旁观：不赶马；不摘花。我们最终可能会被束缚，甚至不能通过争论来打扰一个人的思想；不能通过咳嗽来打扰鸟的睡眠。最终的升华似乎是一个人静静地坐着，不敢动，因为害怕打扰一只苍蝇，也不敢吃，因为害怕打扰一个微生物。

难道不是很清楚，我们真正希望的是对这两件事进行特定的管理和处理；一定程度的克制和尊重，一定程度的精力和掌握吗？

地球上人的完美幸福（如果它真的到来）将不是一件平坦而坚固的事情，就像动物的满足一样。它将是一种精确而危险的平衡；就像一个绝望的浪漫故事一样。人必须对自己有足够的信心去冒险，对自己有足够的怀疑去享受冒险。

Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in with the exact answer that I required. I had said, “The ideal must be fixed,” and the Church had answered, “Mine is literally fixed, for it existed before anything else.” I said secondly, “It must be artistically combined, like a picture”; and the Church answered, “Mine is quite literally a picture, for I know who painted it.” Then I went on to the third thing, which, as it seemed to me, was needed for an Utopia or goal of progress. And of all the three it is infinitely the hardest to express. Perhaps it might be put thus: that we need watchfulness even in Utopia, lest we fall from Utopia as we feel from Eden.

我说过，“理想必须确定下来”，而教会回答说，“我的理想确实是确定的，因为它存在于任何事物之前。”我说过，“它必须像一幅画一样，在艺术上结合起来”，而教会回答说，我的理想确实是一幅画，因为我知道谁画了它。然后我谈到第三件事，在我看来，这是实现乌托邦或进步目标所必需的。在这三件事中，它是最难表达的。也许可以这样表达：即使在乌托邦中，我们也需要保持警惕，以免像从伊甸园中跌落一样从乌托邦中跌落。

But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is with which human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before.

There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution; it is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind its back; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the most private person of our time. It will not be necessary for any one to fight again against the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

但所有的保守主义都是基于这样一个想法：如果你对事情置之不理，它们就会保持原样。但事实并非如此。如果你对一件事置之不理，它就会变成一场变革。

但即使是无生命的事物，这也是真的，在一种非常特殊和可怕的意义上，这是所有人类事物的真相。人类制度在成长中几乎有一种不自然的警觉。在浪漫故事和新闻报道中，人们习惯于谈论在旧暴政下受苦的人。但事实上，人们几乎总是在新暴政下受苦；在暴政下，这些暴政在二十年前还是公共自由。

我们没有必要反对古代；我们必须反对新奇事物。真正支撑现代世界的，是新的统治者，即资本家或编辑。人们不担心现代国王会试图推翻宪法；更有可能的是，他会无视宪法，在宪法背后工作；他不会利用他的王权；更有可能的是，他会利用他的无能为力，利用他不受批评和公开的事实。因为国王是我们这个时代最隐秘的人。任何人都不必再反对新闻审查的提议。我们不需要新闻审查。我们有新闻审查。

Christianity spoke again and said: “I have always maintained that men were naturally backsliders; that human virtue tended of its own nature to rust or to rot; I have always said that human beings as such go wrong, especially happy human beings, especially proud and prosperous human beings. This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained through centuries, you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of progress. If you were a philosopher you would call it, as I do, the doctrine of original sin. You may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like; I call it what it is—the Fall.

基督教再次发言说：“我一直认为，人天生就是背道而驰的；人的美德倾向于自然锈蚀或腐烂；我一直说，人就是这样出错的，特别是快乐的人，特别是骄傲和繁荣的人。这种永恒的革命，这种持续几个世纪的怀疑，你（作为一个模糊的现代人）称之为进步学说。如果你是一个哲学家，你会像我一样称之为原罪学说。你可以随心所欲地称之为宇宙进步；我称之为它本来的样子——堕落。

基督教是唯一一件有真正权利质疑受过良好教育或良好教养的人权力的东西。

看到一个认真的社会主义者孜孜不倦地为所有贵族制度奠定基础，并温和地阐述穷人统治的明显不合适之处，我感到非常有趣。

Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man’s environment, but in man.

In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment.

因为她从一开始就认为，危险不在于人的环境，而在于人。此外，她认为，如果我们谈到一个危险的环境，那么最危险的环境就是舒适的环境。

基督教的全部理由是，一个依赖今生奢华生活的人，是一个精神上、政治上、经济上堕落的人。基督和所有的基督教圣徒用一种野蛮的单调语气说过一件事。他们只是简单地说，富有的人在道德上特别危险。杀死富有的人，因为他们违反了可定义的正义，这并不是不基督教的。

在最好的乌托邦里，我必须准备好在任何职位上的任何人的道德沦丧；特别是我此刻从我的职位上跌落。

Aristocracy is not an institution: aristocracy is a sin; generally a very venial one. It is merely the drift or slide of men into a sort of natural pomposity and praise of the powerful, which is the most easy and obvious affair in the world.

贵族制度不是一种制度：贵族制度是一种罪恶；通常是一种非常轻微的罪恶。它只是人们逐渐或滑向一种自然的高傲和对权力的赞美，这是世界上最容易和最明显的事情。

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

在完美的力量中有一种轻浮，一种可以在空气中维持自己的轻浮。

沉重是容易的：轻浮是困难的。撒旦因万有引力而堕落。

There aristocracy is far more awful, because it is far more intellectual. It is seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale of spiritual values; that the baker is better than the butcher in an invisible and sacred sense. But no Christianity, not even the most ignorant or perverse, ever suggested that a baronet was better than a butcher in that sacred sense.

It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.

欧洲的贵族要可怕得多，因为欧洲的贵族更有知识。人们确实认为，阶级的规模是精神价值的尺度；从一种无形而神圣的意义上讲，面包师比屠夫好。但是，任何基督教，甚至是最无知或最反常的基督教，都从未暗示男爵比屠夫在神圣的意义上好。

这可能只是爱国偏见，尽管我不这么认为，但在我看来，英国贵族不仅是类型，而且是所有实际贵族的皇冠和花朵；它拥有寡头政治的美德和所有缺点。它是随意的，是善良的，在明显的事情上是勇敢的；但它有一个伟大的优点，甚至超过了这些优点。英国贵族的伟大而明显的优点是，没有人可能认真对待它。

The whole history of my Utopia has the same amusing sadness. I was always rushing out of my architectural study with plans for a new turret only to find it sitting up there in the sunlight, shining, and a thousand years old. For me, in the ancient and partly in the modern sense, God answered the prayer, “Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings.” Without vanity, I really think there was a moment when I could have invented the marriage vow (as an institution) out of my own head; but I discovered, with a sigh, that it had been invented already.

我乌托邦的全部历史都有同样的有趣而悲伤。我总是匆匆忙忙地从我的建筑研究中跑出来，带着新塔楼的计划，却发现它坐在阳光下，闪闪发光，已经有一千年的历史了。对我来说，在古代和某种程度上在现代的意义上，上帝回应了祈祷，“主啊，阻止我们的一切行为。”毫不自夸地说，我真的认为，我曾经有一刻可以凭自己的头脑发明婚姻誓言（作为一种制度）；但我叹了口气，发现它已经被发明出来了。

我无法想象或容忍任何乌托邦，它没有给我最关心的自由，即约束自己的自由。

基督教婚姻是真正和不可逆转的结果的伟大例子；这就是为什么它是我们所有浪漫写作的主要主题和中心。

All my modern Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully, for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties. But again I seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the world. “You will have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when you get to my Utopia. But the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure is to get there.”

IT IS CUSTOMARY to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle.

抱怨我们这个时代的喧嚣和忙碌是司空见惯的。但事实上，我们这个时代的主要标志是深刻的懒惰和疲惫；事实上，真正的懒惰是表面喧嚣的原因。

简而言之，我们发现，寡头政治的唯一逻辑否定在于肯定原罪。因此，我坚持认为，在其他所有情况下都是如此。

Those words have a profound and even a horrible truth. In their doubt of miracles there was a faith in a fixed and godless fate; a deep and sincere faith in the incurable routine of the cosmos. The doubts of the agnostic were only the dogmas of the monist.

这些话有一个深刻甚至可怕的事实。在他们对奇迹的怀疑中，有一种对固定而无神的命运的信仰；一种对宇宙不可治愈的例行程序的深刻而真诚的信仰。不可知论者的怀疑只是一元论的教条。

Here we are only concerned with this clear point; that in so far as the liberal idea of freedom can be said to be on either side in the discussion about miracles, it is obviously on the side of miracles.

A miracle only means the liberty of God. You may conscientiously deny either of them, but you cannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea.

在这里，我们只关心这一点；在关于奇迹的讨论中，自由主义自由的概念可以说在任何一方，它显然是在奇迹的一方。

奇迹只意味着上帝的自由。你可以认真地否认它们中的任何一个，但你不能把你的否认称为自由主义思想的胜利。

But if he can believe in miracles, he is certainly the more liberal for doing so; because they mean first, the freedom of the soul, and secondly, its control over the tyranny of circumstance. Sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naïve way, even by the ablest men.

因为奇迹首先意味着灵魂的自由，其次意味着它对环境暴政的控制。有时，这个真理被以一种特别天真的方式忽视，甚至被最聪明的人忽视。

But I must pass on to the larger cases of this curious error; the notion that the “liberalizing” of religion in some way helps the liberation of the world. The second example of it can be found in the question of pantheism—or rather of a certain modern attitude which is often called immanentism, and which often is Buddhism.

但我必须谈到这个奇怪错误的大案例；认为宗教的“自由化”在某种程度上有助于解放世界。它的第二个例子可以在泛神论的问题上找到——或者更确切地说，是某种现代态度，通常被称为内在主义，也常常被称为佛教。

There is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliaments of religion: “the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they are the same in what they teach.” It is false; it is the opposite of the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach.

You may walk round and round them and subject them to the most personal and offensive study without seeing anything Swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in their souls that they are divided.

在道德协会和宗教议会中，人们一再听到一个轻率的自由主义短语：“地球上的宗教在仪式和形式上各不相同，但在教义上却是相同的。”这是错误的；这是事实的相反。地球上的宗教在仪式和形式上的差异并不大；它们在教义上的差异确实很大。

你可以围着他们转来转去，对他们进行最个人化和冒犯性的研究，却看不到他们的帽子上有任何斯韦登伯格的痕迹，也看不到他们的雨伞上有任何特别的无神论痕迹。他们之间的区别恰恰在于他们的灵魂。

That Buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is not to say that it is specially like Christianity; it is only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence. Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess. But to say that Buddhism and Christianity give the same philosophy of these things is simply false. All humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most of humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to what is the way out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity.

佛教赞成仁慈或自我约束，并不意味着它特别像基督教；这仅仅意味着它与所有人类的存在并不完全不同。佛教徒在理论上不赞成残忍或过度，因为所有理智的人类在理论上都不赞成残忍或过度。但说佛教和基督教在这些事情上的哲学是相同的，这完全是错误的。所有人类都同意，我们处于罪恶的网中。大多数人同意，有一些出路。但至于出路是什么，我不认为在宇宙中有两种制度会如此明显地相互矛盾，就像佛教和基督教一样。

The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The medieval saint’s body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things.

这种对立存在于每一个点上；但也许最简短的表述是，佛教圣徒总是闭着眼睛，而基督教圣徒总是睁着眼睛。佛教圣徒有一个光滑和谐的身体，但他的眼睛沉重而沉睡。中世纪圣徒的身体被消耗到疯狂的骨头上，但他的眼睛却可怕地活着。产生如此不同象征的力量之间不可能有任何真正的精神共同体。诚然，这两种形象都是铺张浪费，都是对纯粹信条的歪曲，但一定存在某种真正的分歧，才会产生如此截然相反的铺张浪费。佛教徒以一种特殊的专注凝视内心。基督徒以一种疯狂的专注凝视外部。如果我们坚持这条线索，就会发现一些有趣的事情。

According to Mrs. Besant this universal Church is simply the universal self. It is the doctrine that we are really all one person; that there are no real walls of individuality between man and man.

I want to adore the world, not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is one’s self, but as one loves a woman, because she is entirely different. If souls are separate love is possible. If souls are united love is obviously impossible. A man may be said loosely to love himself, but he can hardly fall in love with himself, or, if he does, it must be a monotonous courtship.

But upon Mrs. Besant’s principle the whole cosmos is only one enormously selfish person.

根据贝赞特夫人的说法，这个普遍的教会只是普遍的自我。这是我们实际上都是一个人；人与人之间没有真正的个性墙。

我想崇拜世界，不是像喜欢镜子一样，因为它是自己，而是像爱女人一样，因为她是完全不同的。如果灵魂是分离的，那么爱是可能的。如果灵魂是统一的，那么爱显然是不可能的。可以说一个人爱他自己，但他几乎不可能爱上他自己，或者，如果他真的爱上了他自己，那一定是一种单调的追求。

但根据贝赞特夫人的原则，整个宇宙只是一个极其自私的人。

It is just here that Buddhism is on the side of modern pantheism and immanence. And it is just here that Christianity is on the side of humanity and liberty and love. Love desires personality; therefore loves desires division. It is the instinct of Christianity to be glad that God has broken the universe into little pieces, because they are living pieces. It is her instinct to say “little children love one another” rather than to tell one large person to love himself. This is the intellectual abyss between Buddhism and Christianity; that for the Buddhist or Theosophist personality is the fall of man, for the Christian it is the purpose of God, the whole point of his cosmic idea. The world-soul of the Theosophists asks man to love it only in order that man may throw himself into it. But the divine center of Christianity actually threw man out of it in order that he might love it.

It is as true of democratic fraternity as a divine love; sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in bloodshed.

就在这里，佛教站在现代泛神论和内在性的一边，而基督教站在人性、自由和爱的一边。爱渴望个性；因此，爱渴望分裂。基督教的本能是高兴上帝把宇宙分成碎片，因为它们是活着的碎片。她的本能是说“小孩子彼此相爱”，而不是告诉一个大人爱他自己。这是佛教和基督教之间的知识深渊；对佛教徒或神智学者来说，个性是人类的堕落，对基督教来说，这是上帝的目的，是他宇宙观念的全部要点。

神圣的爱也是如此；虚假的爱以妥协和共同哲学告终；但真正的爱总是以流血告终。

This is the meaning of that almost insane happiness in the eyes of the medieval saint in the picture. This is the meaning of the sealed eyes of the superb Buddhist image. The Christian saint is happy because he has verily been cut off from the world; he is separate from things and is staring at them in astonishment. But why should the Buddhist saint be astonished at things?—since there is really only one thing, and that being impersonal can hardly be astonished at itself.

基督教圣徒是幸福的，因为他真正地与世隔绝；他与事物分离，惊讶地凝视着它们。但是，佛教圣徒为什么要对事物感到惊讶呢？因为实际上只有一件事，而那件事是非个人的，很难对自己感到惊讶。

What doest thou now


Looking Godward to cry


I am I, thou art thou,


I am low, thou art high,


I am thou that thou seekest to find him,


 find thou but thyself, thou art I.

你现在在干什么？向上帝哭喊我是我，你是你，
我卑微，你崇高，
我是你寻找的他，
 你只找到了你自己，你就是我。

事实是，西方推翻暴君的能量直接源于西方神学，即“我是我，你是你”。同样的精神分离，抬头看到宇宙中有一个好国王，低头看到那不勒斯有一个坏国王。

If we want reform, we must adhere to orthodoxy: especially in this matter (so much disputed in the counsels of Mr. R. J. Campbell), the matter of insisting on the immanent or the transcendent deity. By insisting specially on the immanence of God we get introspection, self-isolation, quietism, social indifference—Tibet. By insisting specially on the transcendence of God we get wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous indignation—Christendom. Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself.

如果我们想要改革，我们必须坚持正统：特别是在这个问题上（在R.J.坎贝尔先生的建议中引起了如此多的争论），坚持内在或超越的神的问题上。通过特别坚持上帝的内在性，我们得到了内省、自我隔离、静观主义和社会冷漠——西藏。通过特别坚持上帝的超越性，我们得到了惊奇、好奇、道德和政治冒险、正义的愤怒——基督教世界。坚持上帝在人之内，人总是在他自己之内。通过坚持上帝超越人，人已经超越了自己。

To the Buddhist or the eastern fatalist existence is a science or a plan, which must end up in a certain way. But to a Christian existence is a story, which may end up in any way.

对佛教徒或东方宿命论者来说，存在是一门科学或计划，最终必须以某种方式结束。但对基督徒来说，存在是一个故事，最终可能会以任何方式结束。

Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king.

When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.

基督教是唯一一种感到上帝要成为完全的神，必须既是一个国王，又是一个叛逆者的宗教。

当世界动摇，太阳从天堂消失时，这不是在十字架上，而是在十字架上的哭声：这个哭声承认上帝被上帝遗弃了。现在，让革命者从世界上所有的信条中选择一个信条，从世界上所有的神中选择一个神，仔细权衡所有不可避免的回归和不可改变的力量的神。他们不会找到另一个自己反叛的神。不，（这个问题太难了，人类语言无法表达），但让无神论者自己选择一个神。他们只会发现一个神曾经说过他们的孤立；只有一个宗教，上帝似乎在一瞬间是一个无神论者。

He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all.

为了维持这一立场，他承认，从尼禄到利奥波德国王的所有暴君都没有犯下任何反对人类的罪。我认识一个人，他如此热衷于证明他在死后将没有个人存在，以至于他退回到他现在没有个人存在的立场。

我们并不钦佩，我们几乎不能原谅，那些为了爱别人而破坏这个世界的狂热分子。

他准备破坏所有事物赖以生存的基本道德，因为他对一个从未活过的人的奇怪而永恒的报复。

Its opponents only succeed in destroying all that they themselves justly hold dear. They do not destroy orthodoxy; they only destroy political and common courage sense. They do not prove that Adam was not responsible to God; how could they prove it? They only prove (from their premises) that the Czar is not responsible to Russia.

With their oriental doubts about personality they do not make certain that we shall have no personal life hereafter; they only make certain that we shall not have a very jolly or complete one here. With their paralyzing hints of all conclusions coming out wrong they do not tear the book of the Recording Angel; they only make it a little harder to keep the books of Marshall & Snelgrove. Not only is the faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are the fathers of all worldly energies, but its foes are the fathers of all worldly confusion.

The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.

它的反对者只成功地摧毁了他们自己理应珍视的一切。他们没有摧毁正统；他们只摧毁了政治和普通人的勇气。

他们用东方对个性的怀疑，不能确定我们将来没有个人生活；他们只确定我们将来不会有一个非常愉快或完整的个人生活。他们用所有结论都会出错的令人瘫痪的暗示，不能撕开记录天使的书；他们只让马歇尔和斯内尔格罗夫的书更难保存。不仅是信仰是一切世俗能量的母亲，而且它的敌人是一切世俗能量的父亲，但它的敌人是一切世俗混乱的父亲。

If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian.

And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.

如果我们特别希望坚持慷慨的平衡，而不是可怕的独裁，我们就会本能地成为三位一体论者，而不是一神论者。

如果我们想歌颂被驱逐者和被钉十字架的人，我们更应该认为一个真正的上帝被钉十字架，而不是一个圣贤或英雄。最重要的是，如果我们想保护穷人，我们就会支持固定的规则和明确的教条。俱乐部的规则有时有利于穷会员。俱乐部的发展总是有利于富会员。

The first answer is simply to say that I am a rationalist. I like to have some intellectual justification for my intuitions. If I am treating man as a fallen being it is an intellectual convenience to me to believe that he fell; and I find, for some odd psychological reason, that I can deal better with a man’s exercise of free will if I believe that he has got it.

第一个答案是简单地说，我是一个理性主义者。我喜欢为我的直觉提供一些智力上的理由。如果我把人当作堕落的人来对待，那么相信他堕落对我来说是一种智力上的便利；我发现，出于某种奇怪的心理原因，如果我相信他拥有自由意志，我就能更好地处理一个人行使自由意志的问题。

在这里，我只是描述了自己在精神确定性方面的成长。

If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I believe in Christianity, I can only answer, “For the same reason that an intelligent agnostic disbelieves in Christianity.” I believe in it quite rationally upon the evidence. But the evidence in my case, as in that of the intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that alleged demonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous facts. The secularist is not to be blamed because his objections to Christianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy; it is precisely such scrappy evidence that does convince the mind. I mean that a man may well be less convinced of a philosophy from four books, than from one book, one battle, one landscape, and one old friend. The very fact that the things are of different kinds increases the importance of the fact that they all point to one conclusion. Now, the non-Christianity of the average educated man today is almost always, to do him justice, made up of these loose but living experiences.

No; the chasm between man and other creatures may have a natural explanation, but it is a chasm. We talk of wild animals; but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type. All other animals are domestic animals; man alone is ever undomestic, either as a profligate or a monk. So that this first superficial reason for materialism is, if anything, a reason for its opposite; it is exactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins.

如果有人问我，作为一个纯粹的学术问题，我为什么相信基督教，我只能回答，“因为一个聪明的不可知论者不相信基督教的原因是一样的。”我相信它是完全理性的，有证据的。但我的证据，就像聪明的不可知论者的证据一样，不是这个或那个所谓的证明；它是一大堆小而一致的事实。世俗主义者不应受到责备，因为他对基督教的反对是杂乱无章的，甚至是零散的；正是这种零散的证据才说服了思想。我的意思是，一个人很可能对四本书中的哲学不如对一本书、一场战斗、一幅风景和一个老朋友更信服。事情的种类不同，这一事实本身就增加了它们都指向一个结论这一事实的重要性。现在，普通受过教育的人的非基督教信仰几乎总是由这些松散但活生生的经历组成的。

人与其他生物之间的鸿沟可能有一个自然的解释，但这是一个鸿沟。我们谈论野生动物；但人类是唯一一种野生动物。是人类爆发了。所有其他动物都是驯服的动物；遵循部落或类型的粗犷体面。所有其他动物都是家畜动物；只有人类是不家畜的，无论是放荡还是僧侣。因此，唯物主义的第一个表面原因是，如果有的话，它的反面的一个原因；它正是生物学结束的地方，所有宗教开始的地方。

一个经常像愤怒的神一样行事的人——而且总是像神一样。

Given this conviction that the spiritual phenomena do occur (my evidence for which is complex but rational), we then collide with one of the worst mental evils of the age. The greatest disaster of the nineteenth century was this: that men began to use the word “spiritual” as the same as the word “good.” They thought that to grow in refinement and uncorporeality was to grow in virtue. When scientific evolution was announced, some feared that it would encourage mere animality. It did worse: it encouraged mere spirituality.

He was indeed; he was on the side of the fallen angels. He was not on the side of any mere appetite or animal brutality; but he was on the side of all the imperialism of the princes of the abyss; he was on the side of arrogance and mystery, and contempt of all obvious good. Between this sunken pride and the towering humilities of heaven there are, one must suppose, spirits of shapes and sizes. Man, in encountering them, must make much the same mistakes that he makes in encountering any other varied types in any other distant continent.

鉴于这种信念，即精神现象确实存在（我的证据是复杂的，但理性的），我们遇到了这个时代最严重的精神恶习之一。19世纪最大的灾难是：人们开始将“精神”一词与“善”一词等同起来。他们认为，提高精神和非物质性就是提高美德。当科学进化被宣布时，一些人担心这会鼓励纯粹的动物性。它做得更糟糕：它鼓励纯粹的精神性。

他不是站在任何单纯的食欲或动物暴力的一边；但他站在深渊王子的所有帝国主义的一边；他站在傲慢和神秘的一边，蔑视所有明显的善。在这种沉没的骄傲和天堂的高傲之间，一定有各种形状和大小的灵魂。人在遇到他们时，必须犯下与在任何其他遥远大陆遇到任何其他不同类型的人时几乎相同的错误。

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before.

一个与他所认为的活着的教会保持接触的人，是一个总是期待明天早餐时遇到柏拉图和莎士比亚的人。他总是期待看到一些他从未见过的真理。

真正的事情已经完成了，感谢上帝，几乎总是由女性完成的。每个男人都是女性化的，仅仅因为他们出生了。他们谈论男性化的女人；但每个男人都是女性化的男人。

牧师可能像猫一样明显无用，但他也很迷人，因为他的存在一定有某种奇怪的原因。

教会需要各种各样的人；她没有要求我独身。但我对独身者没有欣赏，我接受这一点，就像我对音乐没有欣赏一样。最好的人类经验与我作对，就像巴赫的问题一样。独身是我父亲花园里的一朵花，我还没有被告知它甜蜜或可怕的名字。但我可能随时被告知。

例如，神智学者会宣扬一个明显有吸引力的想法，比如轮回；但如果我们等待它的逻辑结果，那就是精神上的傲慢和种姓的残酷。

To the pagan the small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out of the mountain; but the broad things are as bitter as the sea. When the pagan looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind the gods, who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly. Nay, the fates are worse than deadly; they are dead. And when rationalists say that the ancient world was more enlightened than the Christian, from their point of view they are right. For when they say “enlightened” they mean darkened with incurable despair.

对于异教徒来说，小事就像从山中奔流而出的小溪一样甜蜜；但大事就像大海一样苦涩。当异教徒凝视宇宙的核心时，他会不寒而栗。在众神的背后，是专制的命运女神，她们是致命的。不，命运女神比致命更糟；她们已经死了。当理性主义者说古代世界比基督教世界更开明时，从他们的角度来看，他们是正确的。因为当他们说“开明”时，他们指的是被无法治愈的绝望所笼罩。

The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my last dogma defiantly) it is not native to man to be so. Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul.

The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick-room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce.

大多数人被迫对小事感到高兴，但对大事感到悲伤。尽管如此（我大胆地提出我的最后一个教条），人天生不是这样的。当快乐是人的基本东西，悲伤是表面的东西时，人更像他自己，更像人。忧郁应该是一个无辜的插曲，一种温柔而短暂的心态；赞美应该是灵魂的永恒脉动。悲观主义充其量是一种情绪化的半日假；快乐是万物生存的喧闹劳动。

我们头顶上的拱顶并不是聋的，因为宇宙是一个白痴；沉默并不是一个无限而漫无目的的世界的无情沉默。相反，我们周围的小小而可怜的寂静就像病房里的催眠寂静一样。我们也许被允许悲剧，作为一种仁慈的喜剧：因为神圣事物的疯狂能量会像一场醉汉闹剧一样将我们击倒。

Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.

当上帝走在我们的地球上时，有些事情太伟大了，上帝无法向我们展示；我有时幻想那是他的欢乐。

Do we know what it means to question well?

我们知道如何质疑吗？

Faith isn’t the sort of thing that will endure as long as our eyes are closed. The opposite, in fact: faith helps us see, and that means not shrinking from the ambiguities and the difficulties that provoke our most profound questions.

信仰不是那种只要我们闭上眼睛就会持续的东西。事实上，恰恰相反：信仰帮助我们看清，这意味着不回避引发我们最深刻问题的模糊性和困难。

This book steps into the gap between non-questioning certitude and wishy-washy “dialogue for the sake of dialogue” to help us determine the role of questioning in our lives.

这本书填补了不质疑的确定性与空洞的“为了对话而对话”之间的空白，帮助我们确定质疑在我们生活中的作用。

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Collected by Fang Wang