英语专业晨读美文-人物篇 10 Becoming a Freethinker

（单词翻译）

[00:03.79]Becoming a Freethinker and a Scientist
[00:06.12]When I was a fairly precocious¹ young man
[00:08.98]I became thoroughly² impressed with the futility³ of the hopes
[00:12.19]and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life.
[00:15.48]Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase,
[00:19.60]which in those years was much more carefully covered up
[00:22.74]by hypocrisy⁴ and glittering words than is the case today.
[00:26.32]By the mere⁵ existence of his stomach
[00:28.84]everyone was condemned⁶ to participate in that chase.
[00:32.35]The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation⁷,
[00:35.89]but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.
[00:40.22]As the first way out there was religion,
[00:42.96]which is implanted into every child
[00:45.02]by way of the traditional education-machine.
[00:47.55]Thus I came through the child of entirely⁸
[00:50.83]irreligious (Jewish) parents to a deep religiousness,
[00:54.78]which, however, reached an abrupt⁹ end at the age of twelve.
[00:58.64]Through the reading of popular scientific books
[01:01.92]I soon reached the conviction that
[01:03.54]much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.
[01:06.35]The consequence was a positively¹⁰ fanatic¹¹ orgy
[01:10.05]of freethinking coupled with the impression
[01:12.41]that youth is intentionally¹² being deceived
[01:14.73]by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.
[01:17.93]Mistrust of every kind of authority
[01:20.41]grew out of this experience,
[01:22.29]a skeptical¹³ attitude toward the convictions
[01:24.53]that were alive in any specific social environment-
[01:27.85]an attitude that has never again left me, even though,
[01:31.51]later on, it has been tempered by a better insight
[01:34.72]into the causal connections.
[01:37.02]It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth,
[01:40.11]which was thus lost, was a first attempt to
[01:43.22] free myself from the chains of the “merely personal”,
[01:45.58]from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes,
[01:49.20]and primitive¹⁴ feelings.
[01:51.35]Out yonder there was this huge world,
[01:53.44]which exists independently of us human beings
[01:55.80]and which stands before us like a great,
[01:58.57]eternal riddle¹⁵, at least partially¹⁶ accessible to
[02:01.56]our inspection¹⁷ and thinking.
[02:03.77]The contemplation of this world beckoned¹⁸ as a liberation,
[02:07.69]and I soon noticed that many a man
[02:10.26]whom I had learned to esteem¹⁹ and to admire
[02:12.96]had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit.
[02:15.99]The mental grasp of this extra-personal world
[02:19.19]within the frame of our capabilities²⁰
[02:21.40]presented itself to my mind, half consciously,
[02:23.78]half unconsciously, as a supreme²¹ goal.
[02:26.09]Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past,
[02:30.02]as well as the insights they had achieved,
[02:33.35]were the friends who could not be lost.
[02:35.70]The road to this paradise was not as comfortable
[02:38.68]and alluring²² as the road to the religious paradise;
[02:41.17]but it has shown itself reliable,
[02:43.67]and I have never regretted having chosen it.