英语PK台 第302期:爱因斯坦:我的世界观

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　　人的命运是多么奇妙而不可思议！生命转瞬即逝。但究竟为何而来，我们却不得而知，尽管有时我们觉得自己知道。

　　But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being² our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.

　　但无需深思，从日常生活中便可知：人是为别人而活——首先是为那些我们休戚与共的人，他们的欢乐和健康是我们幸福的全部支柱；

　　A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors⁴ of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

　　我每天都上百次的提醒自己：我的精神生活和物质生活无不依赖于他人的劳动，这些人有的还健在，有的已经过世了。每天我还提醒自己，对于我已经得到的或仍在得到的一切，我必须竭尽全力如数回报。

　　I am strongly drawn⁵ to a frugal⁶ life and am often oppressively aware that I am engrossing⁷ an undue⁸ amount of the labor³ of my fellow-men.

　　我非常安于过俭朴的生活，并时常因为自己占用同胞过多的劳动成果而深感不安。

　　I regard class distinctions as unjustified and,in the last resort,based on force.I also believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody, physically⁹ and mentally.

　　我认为区分阶级是不合理的，而且说到底这是以武力为基础的。我还认为，简朴、内敛的生活对每个人都是有益于身心的。

　　I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical¹⁰ sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.

　　我根本就不相信人类会享有哲学意义上的自由。人的行为不仅受外界的强制，同时也要遵照内心的需求。

　　Arthar Schopen-hauer's* saying," A man can do what he wants,but not want what he wants," has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth;it has been a continual consolation¹¹ in the face of life's hardships, my own and others, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance¹².

　　“人可以做他想做的，但不能要他所想要的”。从青年时代起，阿尔图·叔本华的这句话就深深地激励着我。面对自己和他人生活的种种艰辛，这句话总能让我感到安慰，也是使我宽容忍耐的不尽源泉。

　　This realization¹³ mercifully mitigates¹⁴ the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people all to seriously; it is conducive¹⁵ to a view of life which, in particular, gives humor its due.

　　认识到这一点，就能宽容地减轻易于麻木的责任感，也能防止我们对自己对他人过于苛求，同时这也有助于人生观的培养，特别是那种公平看待幽默的人生观。

　　To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or that of all creatures has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view.

　　探寻个人或一切生物生存的意义或目的，客观而言，我总觉得是荒谬可笑的。

　　And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments¹⁶. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - this ethical¹⁷ basis I call the ideal of a pigsty¹⁸.

　　然而每个人都有自己的理想，这些理想决定其奋斗的方向和判断的标准。就此意义而言，我从不认为安逸和享乐本身就是生活的最终所求——我将这种伦理基础称为“猪圈理想”。

　　The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.

　　一直照亮我前进的道路，并无数次给予我新的勇气使我乐观地直面生活的理念是真、善、美。

　　Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite¹⁹ objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible²⁰.

　　如果没有对志同道合者的那种亲近感，如果没有对客观世界——那个艺术和科学研究永远也无法穷极的世界——的孜孜以求，生命对我来说就是一场空。那些向来为世人竞相追求的目标——财产、奢华和外在的成功——我对此不屑一顾。

　　"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel²¹, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.

　　人类所能享有的最美妙的体验就是神秘感，这是真正的科学与艺术的根源中最基础的情感。无论是谁，如果没有感受过它的魅力，如果不再感到好奇，不再发出惊叹，他就无异于行尸走肉，瞎眼盲心。

　　I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity²² and with knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble²³ attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

　　我满足于对生命的永恒保持神秘感，满足于对现存世界神奇结构的粗浅感知和匆匆一瞥，也满足于通过不懈的努力，对自然本身显露出的一部分“道”进行理解，哪怕只是极其微小的一部分。

　　"My passionate²⁴ sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone²⁵ traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate²⁶ family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude²⁷..."

　　一方面，我有着强烈的社会正义感和社会责任感，另一方面，我的内心又明显没有与他人和社会直接接触的需求，二者形成了一个奇怪的对比。我确实是一个“孤独的旅者”，我的心从未完全地属于过我的祖国、我的家庭、我的朋友，甚至我最亲近的家人。在面对所有这些羁绊时，我从来没有失去过距离感，也没有摆脱掉孤独感——这种感觉随着年岁的增长还在增加。一个人开始强烈地意识到人与人之间的相互理解与和谐一致是有限度的，但却并不为此遗憾时，此人毫无疑问已经失去了部分天真无邪、无忧无虑的童心，但另一方面，他也在很大程度上获得了独立，不再受他人观点、习惯和判断的影响，同时也能避免内心那种要将平衡建立在这种不可靠的基础之上的强烈愿望。

　　"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony²⁸ of fate that I myself have been the recipient²⁹ of excessive admiration³⁰ and reverence³¹ from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained³² through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced³³, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion³⁴ soon degenerates³⁵; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant³⁶ of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient³⁷ individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime³⁸, while the herd³⁹ as such remains⁴⁰ dull in thought and dull in feeling.

　　我的政治理想是民主主义。让每一个人都作为个人而受到尊重，而不让任何人成为崇拜的偶像。我自己受到了人们过分的赞扬和尊敬，这不是由于我自己的过错，也不是由于我自己的功劳，而实在是一种命运的嘲弄。其原因大概在于人们有一种愿望，想理解我以自己的微薄绵力通过不断的斗争所获得的少数几个观念，而这种愿望有很多人却未能实现。我完全明白，一个组织要实现它的目的，就必须有一个人去思考，去指挥，并且全面担负起责任来。但是被领导的人不应该受到强迫，他们必须有可能来选择自己的领袖。在我看来，强迫的专制制度很快就会腐化堕落。因为暴力所招引来的总是一些品德低劣的人，而且我相信，天才的 暴君总是由无赖来继承，这是一条千古不易的规律。就是这个缘故，我总是强烈地反对今天我们在意大利和俄国所见到的那种制度。像欧洲今天所存在的情况，使得民主形式受到了怀疑，这不能归咎于民主原则本身，而是由于政府的不稳定和选举中与个人无关的特征。我相信美国在这方面已经找到了正确的道路。他们选出一个任期足够长的总统，他有充分的权力来真正履行他的职责。另一方面在德国的政治制度中，我所重视的是，它为救济患病或贫困的人作出了比较广泛的规定。在人类生活的壮丽行列中，我觉得真正可贵的，不是政治上的国家，而是有创造性的、有感情的个人，是人格；只有个人才能创造出高尚的和卓越的东西，而群众本身在思想上总是迟钝的，在感觉上也是迟钝的。

　　"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor⁴¹... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism⁴² on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome⁴³ nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism⁴⁴ -- how passionately⁴⁵ I hate them!

　　讲到这里，我想起了群众生活中最坏的一种表现，那就是使我所厌恶的军事制度。文明国家的这种罪恶渊薮应当尽快加以消灭。由命令而产生的勇敢行为，毫无意义的暴行，以及在爱国主义名义下一切可恶的胡闹，所有这些都使我深恶痛绝！

　　"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered⁴⁶ religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate⁴⁷, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive⁴⁸ forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

　　人类所能享有的最美妙的体验就是神秘感，这是真正的科学与艺术的根源中最基础的情感。无论是谁，如果没有感受过它的魅力，如果不再感到好奇，不再发出惊叹，他就无异于行尸走肉，瞎眼盲心。正是这种神秘的体验——即使夹杂着恐惧——促进了宗教的产生。我们知道有某种事物的存在我们无法参透，我们对最深刻的理性与最绚丽的美的感知，只有在它们以最原始的形式出现时才能有所理解——正是这种认知和情感构成了真正的宗教信仰。在这种意义上，也只有在这种意义上，我是一个笃信宗教的人。我无法臆想出一个对自己创造出来的生命加以奖赏和惩罚的上帝，也无法想象他会拥有我们自身所拥有的意志。我无法也不愿想象一个人在肉体死去之后仍然可以活着。让那些脆弱的灵魂，出于恐惧或者可笑的私利，去拥抱这种想法吧。我满足于对生命的永恒保持神秘感，满足于对现存世界神奇结构的粗浅感知和匆匆一瞥，也满足于通过不懈的努力，对自然本身显露出的一部分“道”进行理解，哪怕只是极其微小的一部分。

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