总目录

女作家写的蠢故事

时尚和死亡的对话

论权力

会饮篇

驳自由之敌

阴谋论

对“什么是启蒙”的回答

论自由

奇迹和偶像崇拜

沉思录

图书在版编目（CIP）数据

女作家写的蠢故事：英汉对照／（英）艾略特著；孙平华，石伟东译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-4343-7

Ⅰ．①女…　Ⅱ．①艾…②孙…③石…　Ⅲ．①文学评论—世界—文集—英、汉　Ⅳ．①I106-53

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2015）第270759号

Penguin Books Ltd，Registered Offices：80 Strand，London WC2R 0RL，England

www.penguin.com

This selection published in Penguin Books 2010

All rights reserved

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版　　次／2016年1月第一版

印　　次／2016年1月第一次

ISBN 978-7-5001-4343-7

定价：22.00元

“企鹅”及相关标识是企鹅图书有限公司已经注册或尚未注册的商标。

未经允许，不得擅用。

中译出版社与企鹅图书有限公司联合出版

《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004．In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20．A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related，even smaller series in Germany．The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world—particularly students．The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development．

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great nonfiction classics．For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction，extensive notes，a bibliography and so on．While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful，I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling—to recreate the atmosphere in which，for example，Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published—where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense．

This method has its severe disadvantages—there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand，some important context might be missing．For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence．The advantages however are very clear—most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important．The sense of anger in Thomas Paine，of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin，of resignation in Seneca—few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives，sometimes for centuries，in many different countries．Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer—our politics，economics，intellectual lives，social planning，religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books，first written down long ago．

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve．In different parts of the world different writers would be included．In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others．In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere．We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas—these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential，but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas—indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas．Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series—for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin，Michel de Montaigne to Seneca．But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series！But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves．We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books．

Simon Winder Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

女作家写的蠢故事

法国女作家：萨布莱夫人

评杰拉尔丁·朱伊斯伯里的《康斯坦斯·赫伯特》

玛格丽特·富勒和玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特

哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托的《德雷德》、查尔斯·里德的《改过不嫌晚》，以及弗雷德里卡·布雷默的《赫莎》

翻译和译者

Contents

Silly Novels by Lady Novelists

Woman in France：Madame de Sablé

Geraldine Jewsbury's Constance Herbert

Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred，Charles Reade's It is Never Too Late to Mend and Frederika Bremer's Hertha

Translations and Translators

返回总目录

译者导读

乔治·艾略特（George Eliot，原名Mary Ann Evans，玛丽·安·伊万斯，1819—1880），英国小说家，与狄更斯和萨克雷齐名。她出生于英国华威郡一个中产阶级商人家庭（父亲曾是木匠，后暴发成为房地产商人）。三十几岁时，她因翻译工作而开始文学生涯，之后还担任《威斯敏斯特评论》杂志的编辑；由于曾在两所宗教气息浓厚的学校就读，艾略特受宗教影响颇深；平日最喜研究语言，拉丁文、法文、德文、意大利文、希伯来文、希腊文皆能通晓。艾略特年近四十岁才开始写作，并发表文章于杂志上；1859年发表了她的第一部长篇小说《亚当·比德》；之后，她发表了两部极为成功的著名之作《织工马南传》与《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》，奠定了在英国文坛的地位。

乔治·艾略特是英国文学发展史上，同时也是女性文学发展史上一位重要的作家。肖尔瓦特曾指出，在英国小说的版图里，女性的领土通常被描绘成四周被山峦包围的荒漠，这些山峦即“奥斯汀巅峰、勃朗特峭壁、艾略特山脉、伍尔夫丘陵”，这足以证明艾略特在英国文坛的重要性。

除了小说，艾略特的论文和书评也饱含了杰出的思辨能力和极高的写作水平。本书收录了六篇艾略特极具代表性的论文以及书评，第一篇就是她非常著名的文章《女作家写的蠢故事》，她在文中颠覆了世人以往对女性作家的看法，提出不能因为作者是女性就在批评时手软。她以俏皮诙谐的口吻讽刺了同时代女性作家互相模仿、不思进取的写作陋习，并且戏谑地将女作家写的愚蠢故事分成了女帽类、白色圣领体、神谕体以及现代仿古类小说。艾略特着重介绍了女帽类小说，借由英国女士们都十分喜爱的帽子来暗讽她们的作品虚有其表，没有实际的用处，并且选取了几本时下流行的女性作品进行分析，文笔活泼犀利，向读者展示了十九世纪英国女性作家的通病；她还在文章结尾处奉劝没有真材实料的女性不要踏入写作这个圈子。

第二篇是《法国女作家：萨布莱夫人》，艾略特首先介绍了女性在法国文学中的重大影响，并且分析了其原因，接着详细描述了低调而谦逊的法国女作家萨布莱夫人，其间穿插着法国女性文学发展史，包括沙龙文学、肖像文学、箴言文学等。艾略特以丰富的背景知识和精练的语言向读者展示了萨布莱夫人独特的人格魅力以及她一些可笑的小缺点。萨布莱夫人一生影响了很多著名的政治家、哲学家、作家和诗人，是众多女性作家中熠熠生辉的一位。

第三篇是《评杰拉尔丁·朱伊斯伯里的〈康斯坦斯·赫伯特〉》，艾略特用短小精悍的篇幅抨击了杰拉尔丁的新小说《康斯坦斯·赫伯特》，她认为作者花费大量篇幅诉说自己的道德观是极不明智的。

在第四篇《玛格丽特·富勒和玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特》中，艾略特对比了美国和英国这两位著名的女权主义作家。这两位作家虽然在时间上相差六十多年，空间上隔着大西洋，但是她们在很多女性观点上都是一致的。艾略特引用了两位作家的一系列观点，例如男性纵容女性的愚昧、男性控制女性的受教育权利、社会上对女性职业的偏见等，呼吁女性应当获得与男性平等的受教育和择业权利。

第五篇是艾略特的另一篇书评，她在该文中评论了当时三位来自不同国家的著名作家的新书：美国作家哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托的《德雷德》，英国小说家查尔斯·里德的《改过不嫌晚》，以及瑞典女权主义者弗雷德里卡·布雷默的《赫莎》。艾略特认为斯托夫人的《德雷德》并没有走出《汤姆叔叔的小屋》的套路，但是书中对希伯来基督教的细致描写是一大看点；里德的《改过不嫌晚》具有夸张的戏剧效果，虽然书中有各种小缺陷，但仍然值得一读；布雷默的《赫莎》则是一本目的很明确的小说，因为作者布雷默把妇女解放看作是一生的追求。

最后一篇是短文《翻译和译者》，艾略特列举了一些著名的翻译者在翻译时犯的错误，以此说明翻译不仅需要天赋，还需要知识的积累，并不是一件易事。

该书是乔治·艾略特个人观点的集中展现，无论是杂文还是书评，都体现了她的机智和幽默。她一方面呼吁女性的觉醒，另一方面又批判当时文学女性的局限性；她希望女性获得和男性平等的权利，也希望文学女性能真正充实自己，避免写出更多的蠢故事。乔治·艾略特具有同时期女作家所没有的批判精神和幽默感，她视野广阔，极具开拓精神，该书是研究乔治·艾略特的宝贵文献，是研究女性文学史及女权主义思潮的参考书籍，也是窥探同时期法国、美国、瑞典等其他国家女性文学作品的重要资料。

女作家写的蠢故事[1]

女作家写的蠢故事内容丰富，风格多样；按照愚蠢的不同特质，它包含了浅薄空洞型、单调涣散型、一片虔诚型、迂腐卖弄型等多种文风。然而，所有这些展示女性愚昧的作品中，有一个分支流派数量最为庞大，我们暂且管它叫女帽类小说[2]。此类蠢故事往往是这样开始的，女主角是一位继承人或者颇有家产的贵族夫人，书中前半部分都在详细描述她的几位情人：一位桀骜不驯的准男爵，一位和善亲切的公爵，以及一位魅力四射的年轻侯爵；中途一定还会有个牧师或诗人追求她；当然，她身后还跟着一群各式各样的追求者，书里只是轻描淡写地一笔带过。通常来说，这位女主角的眼睛闪耀着美丽的光泽，头脑机智非凡；她的鼻子挺拔，就像她的品性那样端庄；她的声音甜美，思维敏捷；她穿戴讲究，笃信宗教。跳舞时，她宛如曼妙的西尔芙精灵；读起书来更是了不得，能读懂原版[3]的《圣经》。另外一种女主角拥有所有这些美好品质，只不过她不是继承人，也没有万贯家财，然而她总是有跻身上流社会的机缘，为了觅得如意郎君而拒绝很多绅士的追求，最终成为了大家眼中正直不阿、极具传统家庭观念的贤良淑女。男人面对她机智的言语常常无力还击，只好保持沉默；或者，在某些适当的场合，她原本表示责难的话，在男士听来也意味深长，反而因此被打动；诚然，这些女主角都有长篇大论滔滔不绝的潜质，甚至连她自己一个人就寝时也能高谈阔论一番。人们能从她文章的字里行间看出她的伶牙俐齿，而从她的谈吐感受到她的诙谐和巧思。她懂得如何通过学习粗浅的哲学道理增加自己的见解和洞察力，她敏锐的直觉就像精确的钟表一样，男人只需跟随她的节奏，一切都能进展顺利。事实上，男人在她身边只是扮演了跑龙套的角色。然而时不时的，你又能从书中某些暗示里感受到男女主人公之间的暧昧关系，让你又开始坚信男女之间亘古不变的自然爱情法则，心里有了些许欣慰。但显然，在该女主角领衔主演的这部漫长人生影片中，男人存在的最终目的也只不过是扮演了女主角的护送者而已。他们的相遇总是很俗套：男人们在一次舞会上对她一见钟情，在某次花展上被她迷住，在短途旅行中被她精湛的骑术所征服，或是在教堂瞥见了她庄重又甜美的姿态。总之，她在感觉、精神甚至穿着上全方位地符合了男性心中理想的女神形象。尽管如此，女主角有时也会嫁给一个桀骜不驯的准男爵，让她饱受情感折磨。但是这个男爵为了她而浪子回头，渐渐完全钟情于咱们的女主角，并愿意为她献出生命。邪恶的男爵最终一定会在决斗中丧生，躺在床上奄奄一息，他请求妻子一定要再嫁给她最爱的人，并且已经自作主张给她的情人派送了信件，就当作是对将死的自己的一种恩赐。当情节发展到此，我们也跟随高贵、可爱、有才的女主角一起体验了她之前诸多的倒霉遭遇，但是无论她经历了多少变迁和苦难，就算曾经哭湿了刺绣镶边的精致手绢，晕倒在价值连城的高档坐垫上，她依旧能在走出马车的那一瞬间保持容光焕发的面貌，或是在心血来潮剪了个短发之后愈发显得明艳动人。这些，都无不让各位读者内心宽慰。

我们可能会这样评价，正是因为淑女小说家写出了这些愚蠢的小说，把我们引入了一个高贵时尚又充满爱的世界，才让我们释怀。我们会因此推断，那些穷困潦倒的女人之所以选择当小说家或是家庭教师，是因为她们实在找不到别的“女性化”生存之道了。基于这样的假设，我们即使发现小说中有语病、有错误，也会像看到盲人卖针垫和睡帽那样，虽然觉得他卖的东西毫无用处且样式丑陋，却会因为心中的同情而原谅这些瑕疵。我们会告诉自己，这些物品虽然有缺陷，但是我们所付的钱却能解救那些穷苦女性。我们的脑海里播放着这样的画面：那些寂寞的单身女性为了生存而苦苦写作，妻子们为了偿还丈夫的债务、女儿们为了给生病的父亲买件礼物而孜孜不倦地辛勤“炮制”着所谓的纯粹英雄主义的小说。在这样的印象下，我们对于淑女小说的评价就比较含蓄了：她的小说有语病，但她的写作动机却无可指责；她的想象力毫无创意，但她坚持不懈的精神令人感动。似乎，我们因作者的困境而原谅了她们写的白痴故事，因为眼泪而相信了那些废话。但事实并不是这样！我们的这种想法以及类似的冠冕堂皇的观点都可以丢弃了！女作家的这些小说是在完全不同于我们想象的状态下写出来的。这些女作家们出行都坐马车，只透过车窗和卖东西的小贩交谈；她们除了和自己的仆人打交道以外和工人阶级毫无交集；她们觉得五百英镑的年薪简直少得可怜；贝尔格莱维亚区[4]和“豪华大别墅”才是她们的最终目标；而男性若不是一位有身份地位的政治家，或者至少是个富有的资本家，那她们甚至连看都不愿看一眼。很显然，她们是坐在优雅的闺房里，用紫罗兰颜色的墨水和红宝石笔尖的钢笔写作的人群；她们对出版商的出价完全不在乎，她们一点都不穷困潦倒，拮据的是她们的脑容量。她们所描绘的上流社会的确惟妙惟肖，令人羡慕；但同时，她们的文字却流露出对其他阶层的陌生。这足以证明，她们生活圈子里的同胞都很富有，否则她们所描写的文人雅士、车马商人就不会如此栩栩如生；以她们的智商，在对自己的所见所闻进行再创作时能保持还原现实的态度，但是对那些没有见过也闻所未闻的事物就只好虚构与想象了。

我们认为，有些女士根本就没有见过五岁以下的孩子，但是最近一部自称“源自真人真事”的女帽类小说《补偿》（Compensation）中，却有一个才四岁的小女孩在以奥西恩式[5]的口吻说话：

“我太开心了，亲爱的外婆！我遇到了一个如此令人心旷神怡的人：他就像所有美好的事物——像芬芳的花朵，像从本洛蒙德山上看到的景致那般——噢！不！比那还要美——当我一想到他、见到他时就非常非常幸福；他唱歌时就像妈妈那样温柔，他的前额如同远方的大海一般，”小女孩手指向蔚蓝色的地中海继续说道，“没有边际；又像温暖的夏夜里，我抬头仰望天空时最爱的那一群星星……不要这样看着我啊，你现在的额头就像是被阳光照射、被风吹皱了的罗蒙湖面，我最喜欢平静湖面上的阳光了……就像现在，天上飘着些深色云朵，当太阳冲破云层，阳光瞬间就给旁边的丛林和紫色的岩石镀上了金色，倒映在湖面上，显得那么美丽。”

文中的神童小女孩完全展现了一个成人在醉酒后才有的滔滔不绝，这并不奇怪，我们就当是她再现了她母亲的特质，所谓有其母必有其女嘛。于是，我们一遍一遍地告诉自己，文中的小女孩就是这样一个对自己的创造力有“自觉意识”的神童，而且她足够幸运，遇上了一个同样“最具独创性”的令她倾心的天才爱人。

按照书中所写，这位神童的爱人虽然与她“在家境和能力”上都惊人地相似，但“在宗教信仰和未来发展上”却更胜一筹。她把他当作自己的“‘挚爱’（Agape）——这个词多么少见——她在读希腊文的圣经新约时学到这个词并且一直憧憬，这完全得益于她平常习得语言的超常能力以及阅读原版经文的习惯”。当然，希腊语和希伯来语对于女主角来说只不过是小菜一碟，要她讲梵语更是易如反掌；事实上，除了英语之外，她还能准确无误地用其他任何语言交流。她不仅会跳波尔卡舞，还通晓数国语言，她简直就是一位穿着裙子的外交家。可怜的男人们！你们有几个看得懂希伯来语，你们唯一可以夸耀的恐怕只是知道博林布鲁克[6]怎么拼写吧；你们可能正在迷恋那些偶尔挂念你们的女人，自己讲的闪族语却还磕磕巴巴呢。然而，我们都知道这样一个道理，女主角常常有一颗“爱美之心”，她的聪明才智因为对服饰搭配和行为举止的关注而过早地被激发出来，因此，对她们而言，选择说东方语言而不讲自己的母语就像是蝴蝶采蜜的本能那样简单。另外，读者根本不用费心去研究女主角的学识到底有多深，因为作者已经写得很明白了。

在另外一本女帽类小说《劳拉·盖伊》（Laura Gay）中，女主角并不精通希腊语和希伯来语，但她对拉丁古典文学的熟稔弥补了这一缺点——她熟读“亲爱的老维吉尔[7]”、“优雅的贺拉斯[8]”、仁慈的西塞罗[9] ，以及“令人愉悦的李维[10]”，各种经典烂熟于心。正如《劳拉·盖伊》中写的那样，当和一群贵妇人以及绅士外出聚会野餐时，女主角能旁征博引拉丁名著是一件多么重要的事情！“那些所谓的高人一等的男性根本不会对这些话题产生嫉妒，是的，一定不会。”书中继续写道，“若在场的多数人是理智且高贵的绅士，他们必定不会对女士的卖弄产生嫉妒感；但在场的若都是温德姆小姐和雷德福先生这种普通之流，那么就必须得作出牺牲证明一下自己了”。我们认为，他们这种引经据典的自我牺牲并不是出于对拉丁经典的狂热兴趣，对于理智且高贵的少数男性来说，他们更愿意主动避免和愚蠢且无知的大多数人产生正面冲突。在男女混合的聚会场所，有教养的男性和女性都很少谈论拉丁名著，他们即使熟读“仁慈的西塞罗”，即便是“令人愉悦的李维”几欲脱口而出，也能在平常的谈话交流中不卖弄自己的学识。然而，对于书中的盖伊小姐来说，拉丁经典西塞罗之类只是她最基础的谈资。一次在帕拉丁山上，她对一众观光客作出了如下脉络清晰、内容全面而丰富的评论：

“真理是完全客观的，甚至那些被分门别类的主观性教义，每一种都多多少少沾染了些许迷信的色彩；例如罗马天主教中的无知、爱好、古老的偶像崇拜、宗教权威等，都在纯正的真理基础之上逐渐积淀，并最终转化成有众多跟随者的大型宗教，这样的转变是多么难得啊！要探索这种积淀就像是发掘出这堆垃圾下价值连城的珍珠一样，需要热忱、勇气与智慧。”

如果仔细想想，我们或许见过很多比劳拉·盖伊更加清新脱俗、思想深刻的女性，但是肯定没遇见过如此啰唆的。有一位刚刚爱上盖伊小姐的贵族牧师正是因为听了以上那一段深沉的评论，于是开始有些怀疑她是个独立思考的女性，担心不好把控。但是他想错了！当他有一次深陷痛苦，想请求“唤起她的回忆，唤醒那种我们很容易忘却、只有在经历过生活的磨难之后才明白的力量和安慰”之时，她却对这种文绉绉的话完全听不懂。所以，虽然《劳拉·盖伊》中所描写的各种奢华财富和高雅生活都散发着正统气息，然而只要我们用“理智的头脑来分析”，或者亲自研读过“仁慈的西塞罗”，就会发现这种正统也不过虚有其表罢了。

相比之下，《补偿》一书更具教条主义风格，但是其中堆砌了更多势利世俗以及荒诞的插曲，夹杂着虔诚与轻浮的矛盾感。书中的女主角琳达比劳拉·盖伊更精明、更聪敏，她的呈现很全面，她的爱人更多；书中还介绍了各种邪恶但令人着迷的女人——甚至包括一个法国悍妇；此书不遗余力地讲述了你对恶俗小说所能想象到的各种令人兴奋的故事。事实上，这本书就是一个大杂烩：有苏格兰人的预言、罗杰斯先生的早餐、意大利强盗、临终剧情大反转、优越感十足的女作家、意大利女教师、毒杀老妇人、有关信仰与宗教的探讨，以及“最具原创性的思想”。书中的女作家苏珊·巴顿小姐是个天才，她提起笔“写小说时一挥而就”，但她拒绝了一桩好婚姻（她拒绝了琳达父亲的求婚）；虽然她的年纪大到已经足够当琳达的母亲，但她最终选择了一位年轻的伯爵，情定这位曾被女主角拒绝过的情人。当然，天赋和道德若不是有合适的支持者，就会显得乏味；同样，虔诚也必须融入到“社会”最好的圈子里才能合乎礼仪。

《阶级与美女》（Rank and Beauty）是一本更加浅薄、宗教色彩相对较弱的女帽类小说。书中是这样写我们的女主角的：“即使她出身卑微，但如果她继承了父亲的风骨、母亲的美貌，加上具有符合她年龄的奔放与热情，这些特质将最终升华成敢爱敢恨的勇气，她的后代会觉得这些是他们能够得到的最好的财富。”这位青春热血的年轻女士在读父亲的报纸时爱上了首相先生。这个住在乡下的灰姑娘温德姆小姐，通过阅读头条新闻以及国会辩论中的个人简介，觉得首相先生就是她在这世间独一无二的真爱，像一颗闪亮的星星照耀着自己。但是她很快就选择做了乌姆弗拉维尔男爵的夫人，当她搬进春日公园的豪宅时，她的美貌和成就惊艳了周围的人，正如你所想的，她不久就将会碰到那位素未谋面的首相先生了。可能“首相”一词总让你想起满脸皱纹、一身赘肉的六十多岁的老头儿，但是现在赶紧把这些印象都抹干净吧，鲁伯特·康威首相“被称为是这个宇宙中青春永驻的男性”，头条新闻和国会辩论的个人简介对他的描述没有丝毫是胡乱编造的，全都符合事实。

“门又打开了，鲁伯特·康威走了进来。伊夫琳[11]小姐抬头看了一眼，这一眼就足够了！他完全没让她失望。这一眼似乎就像是她之前一直盯着一幅画看，而现在画中人竟然走了出来的感觉。他的个头、他非凡的气质，就像是范戴克——他的一位骑士祖先再世。她幻想着他的这位骑士祖先曾经率领乌姆弗拉维尔征战异教徒，将他们赶到了海的另一边。这些都是真实的吗？”

当然不是。

故事的进展很明确，渐渐地，首相先生对她动心了，这发生在乌姆弗拉维尔夫人在温莎堡觐见女王的时候——

这是她（温德姆小姐）在王宫的最后一晚了，骑马回来后，温德姆先生带着她和一群伙伴到围墙顶上看风景。她倚在城墙边，站在最高处俯瞰脚下的城池，不禁感叹：“这风景真是无与伦比的美丽啊！”而这时，鲁伯特正在她身边。

“是很美！但是也只有站在这样的高度才看得到如此美景啊！这次旅行觉得高兴吗？”

“简直令人陶醉！为女王而生，为女王而死，为女王尽忠！”

“哈！”他叫出声来，脸上露出找到知音般的欣喜。

这种“找到知音般的表情”为第三卷中他们最终结婚埋下了伏笔，但是在那美满的结局之前，女主角和一位名叫勒特雷尔·威彻利的先生经历了一段充满误解的复杂感情。这位威彻利先生是一位天才诗人，在各方面都是个非凡的角色。他不仅是浪漫的诗人，潇洒的浪子，还是个愤世嫉俗的才子。他对乌姆弗拉维尔女士的极端爱慕简直穷尽了自己的才华。她拒绝他时，这位先生竟然冲进灌木林在泥里打滚，并且开始了最为邪恶和煞费苦心的报复历程。他伪装成一位从事全科诊疗的江湖医生，并且假装预言伊夫琳生了重病必须由他来医治。最终，他的计划泡汤，他写了一封长信跟她道别，信中洋溢着他的满腹才华：

“噢，亲爱的小姐，当你沉浸在美好和喜悦中时，你能否想起，给你写信的我，这痛苦的灵魂？当你的镀金豪华轮船驶入平静的大海，当你的心境被令人陶醉的乐声抚平时，你能否听到来自远方的，我的叹息？”

总之，虽然故事浅薄空洞，但是和其他两部小说比较起来，大家还是更喜欢这本《阶级与美女》。书中当然也有令人觉得愚蠢无语的时候，但是作者写的对话贴近生活且生机勃勃，没有丁点矫揉造作和卖弄学问的痕迹。读者不需要去研究作者所写的怀疑论者与哲学家的驳斥，也不用分析和探寻宇宙的奥秘问题，就能自然地相信女主角依旧是个智慧十足的女孩儿。

女帽类小说的作者们在写作措辞上都十分雷同。在她们的小说中，总有一位女士或者绅士像见血封喉树一般阴险毒辣，扮演着大反派：他男子气概十足，精神世界丰富多彩，内心却空虚寂寞；他算计朋友，做任何事都追求利益；他性格的形成可以追溯到幼年时期；他的住房简陋，天晴时太阳照耀着他的沙发，下雨时雨滴则掉在他身上，生活对于他来说充满忧伤；阿尔比恩和斯科舍仅仅是他对话中使用的绰号和诨名。这些人物的道德评价也惊人地相似，例如“所有人，无论贫富，都会被不好的榜样所影响，这是个令人忧伤的事实”；“读者在任何一本不起眼的书中都能获取有用的信息”；“邪恶总是能打着美德的幌子横行”；“小说写得再喧嚣浮夸，也没那么容易欺骗熟读何为人性的读者，所以美德和高尚是必不可少的元素”；以及“我们只有被伤害过，才能学会原谅”等等。毫无疑问，这些评论对有一部分读者可以说是一针见血、辛辣刺激。我们常常看到一些读者手握铅笔一遍又一遍地在书上作标注，因为他们的生活与书中描写相差甚远，所以被这些新奇却生硬的创作所打动，那些充满赞叹的标注就是证据。这些小说的语言特点在于使用很多具有独创性的倒装句，并且刻意避免日常生活中的普通用语。愤怒的年轻人这样惊呼“就是这样，我认为”；再听听晚餐前半小时，一位年轻女士和她的邻居谈论她第一次读莎士比亚的经历：“我偷偷溜进公园里，坐在绿色的树冠下，兴高采烈地阅读着这位如同魔术大师般的人所写的带给人无限惊喜的书页。”但是此类女帽类小说家最显著的贡献在于她们的哲学思考。例如《劳拉·盖伊》的女作家让女主角和男主角最终结婚，证明了“如果那些怀疑论者的眼睛只是长期盯着物质看，那么他们就看不到这个人身上别的特点了；当他们的目光移开物质，全心全意投入到精神的福祉当中，就会发现一个人的灵魂和肉体有着不同的起源，其本质也是不一样的。”淑女小说家似乎能看到除却物质层面的其他内容，她们不局限于观察到现象，而是能透过现象洞察更深；自然，她们就比其他任何人更能抗衡那些虽负盛名，但是我们并不熟知的怀疑主义者，并说服他们：一个人的灵魂和肉体在本质上是不一样的。

在淑女作家所写的愚蠢小说中，还有一种“神谕体”（oracular species）最令人惋惜叹气，这类小说致力于阐释作者自己的宗教哲学和道德观。在女性中似乎广泛存在着这样一个概念，她们相信只有通过最简单的言论和行为，才能增长人类的知识，才是启发人类智慧最合适的方式。通过她们的写作来判断，总有那么一些女作家认为，对科学和生活的完全无知，是对复杂的道德及推理问题形成自身观点的最好途径。显然，她们解决类似难题的秘诀都像这样：用一颗女性特有的头脑，加上对哲学和文学零零碎碎的一知半解，对社会固执己见的错误认识，用自己有限的英语水平，每天现学现卖地在书桌前写上好几个小时。你很少能碰见一个“神谕体”的淑女小说家会质疑她自己对神学问题的判断能力，她从不怀疑自己，自认为在任何宗教聚会中都能精确地区分出善与恶；她们能准确地发现男人们迄今为止出了哪些毛病，并且对没有机会向她请教的哲学家们表示遗憾。然而，真正伟大的作家总是谦逊地将自己的经历写进小说，用以展示人和物最本真的样子；与此不同，神谕体女作家认为这种写作能力实在是不敢恭维：“他们并没有解决什么重大问题啊”——于是乎她时刻准备着，通过讲述一个爱情故事来弥补所谓的伟大作家们的缺陷，给读者补习人生道理，普及神学指南；这样的爱情故事中，来自富裕家庭的女士和先生们总是会经历上层社会特有的种种磨难。另外，她还会讲解自然神论者、皮由兹[12]以及极端新教徒（ultra-Protestants）理论，虽然她自己都搞不太清楚；接着，她时而采用浓缩的语句总结，时而通过三百三十多页的长篇大论阐释有关基督教的特殊观点。你会觉得，无论这些先生和女士们在小说中遭遇好运或是不幸，都与你曾经碰到过的人完全不一样。因为，在通常情况下，一个女作家描写她同胞真实生活的能力，与她谈论上帝的能力成反比；而她想要凭借自己的经验来描写从未见过的事物是完全行不通的。

《一个谜团：来自乌尔克里庄园档案中的一页》（The Enigma：A Leaf from the Chronicles of Wolchorley House，后简称《谜团》）是我们能见到的最典型的“神谕体”小说。书中，破解该“谜团”所需要的能力不会超过一个女作家的能力，不多不少，刚刚符合了作者的智力水平。作者已经在小说的第一页提出了难题，答案也欲隐欲现。留着乌黑头发、生机勃勃的年轻女士说，“一切生命都是难以解开的谜团”；而顶着褐色头发的另一位温柔女士，对着自己临摹的圣母像说，“曾几何时，有解开这些谜团的方法”。这种小说的风格同它的目的一样崇高，即使书中有斜体字和小写字母的详细注释，但有些段落我们可能花了很长时间研究却仍然不懂；或许，我们必须等到智力进一步开发才能理解书中的内容。那就让我们来开开眼吧。书中写了一位年轻的模范牧师欧内斯特，无论在什么情况下，他都能把每个人校正到最佳状态，他认为“婚姻是不可交易的，那是对神灵的亵渎”。在某个晚上，“他辗转难眠，悲痛与欢快的情感充斥着他挣扎的内心”，“他不能容忍任何形式的买卖婚姻，即使这种行为自有其价值，不管是出于尊敬抑或是阶级需要，他正直的灵魂都对之深恶痛绝，自欺欺人者的最后结论对于他来说只是一个神圣的谎言，因为他们‘生活在一出虚无的演出中，欺骗别人并且被人欺骗’，而他觉得自己的护经匣以及衣服夸张的下摆并不只是一种社交摆设”。（我们多么希望原文中的斜体字和小写字母有助于读者理解文意啊。）文中另一位莱昂内尔先生是个模范老绅士，“除了不散漫不颓废，人们对中世纪人物的典型印象似乎在他身上都得到了体现，将人们团结在一起的正是一种英雄主义纽带。原始信仰和真理的色彩镌刻在普通人的内心，随着法律准则的出现和积累，融入到更加广泛的兄弟情谊中，并且互相依赖，越来越臻于完美”。是的，看了这句话，你是否能明白这些色彩是如何铭刻在心中，又是怎样融合成一道情谊之桥——显然这是一条彩虹——准则的出现和积累又是如何使得这座情谊之桥越来越完美？看到这里，你肯定还需要更多的提示才知道莱昂内尔先生到底是干什么的。我们接着来告诉你，他的灵魂深处，“相比较于原始脉搏周围晃动的空气，他的逻辑思想更能够显示出善与真的最佳和谐状态！”当他在封信时，“瞧！这位好人胸膛中跳动着一颗充满真与善的心，如同他装满爱意的双眼，充盈着对祖先的崇敬和自豪，似乎在凝视着家族那清晰的箴言——忠诚”。（是不是依旧不知所云？）

小说的作者总是想寻找到高尚的方式来代替庸俗。普通人可能会说休息室的桌上摆着一本莎士比亚手抄本，可是《谜团》的女作家决心迂回地表现自己的文采，会这样描述桌上的书：“《莎士比亚》，那是人类思想和感情的结晶，时刻教化着人们的内心世界。”又比如，一位夜巡人看到某间窗户里的灯比平常亮得久了一些，他就会感慨这些熬夜的人为何傻到有机会早睡却不珍惜；但是，作者唯恐这些事实对于我们来说太过平淡无奇，于是采用了如下这种引人注目且形而上学的方式呈现在我们面前：“他惊叹——因为人们通常会以一种完全独立的人格考虑其他人，于是容易处在错误的精神前提下思考问题（尽管有人不接受这种观点）——自己要如何拥有独树一帜的表现，要如何夸奖一部分人才能让屋内所有的人都欢欣鼓舞呢。”一位叫詹姆斯的普通侍从，他小腿粗壮，发元音总带着气音，现在正开门去迎客，作者立即抓住了这样一个机会开始描写：他是“众多养尊处优的奴仆中的一员，就像是中了该隐[13]一样的诅咒——成为世间的‘流浪者’，通过客人的财富和出价来给他们分级别……噢！英格兰！所有的这些都是你病态子民的浮光而已！”是的，我们曾经听过很多人讲“浮光”，从卡明博士到罗伯特·欧文[14] ，从皮由兹到灵魂导师，但是之前我们还从未听过来自一介女流所谈论的“浮光”。

同样，在《谜团》的作者看来，人们十分普通的生活情节都可能隐藏着最为糟糕的危机；例如那些身着宽下摆长裙和中国水袖的女士，看似贤淑，她们的一言一行却像残暴音乐剧中的女主角。《谜团》中的珀西太太是一位肤浅且虚荣的妇人，她希望自己的儿子贺勒斯能娶一位富有的女继承人：褐色头发的格蕾斯；而贺勒斯却有自己的主张，他爱的是女继承人的表妹：黑头发的凯特，即便凯特没有任何财产；此外，格蕾斯对贺勒斯本来也没有任何好感。在这种情景设定下，儿子一般要么阴沉忧郁，要么脾气暴躁，母亲则强势主动且尖刻易怒，而那位没有财产的灰姑娘只得在夜深人静时躺在床上默默哭泣。我们已经很熟悉这些套路了，就像我们已经了解了天狗吃月的道理，再也犯不着在看到月食的时候敲锣打鼓地把天狗吓跑了。然而，书中的珀西太太在这种状况下的表现真是太出其不意了，读者倒是真没见过。有一天，珀西太太碰巧看到自己的儿子贺勒斯和格蕾斯在窗前谈话，距离远到根本听不见他们在谈什么，而且众所周知，高贵的庄园继承人格蕾斯小姐根本没有任何理由会接受贺勒斯，但是珀西太太就直冲冲地奔了过去，紧紧抱住他们俩，她的脸色因为激动和兴奋而泛红，说道：“幸福的一幕终于上演了啊！那我现在是不是不能叫你格蕾斯了？我的格蕾斯，贺勒斯的格蕾斯！我亲爱的孩子们！”贺勒斯连忙解释，指出这只是一个误会，自己已经和凯特订了婚，于是，我们就看到了以下场景和画面。

她（珀西太太）听到这个消息后，眼睛充满怒火，声音提到了前所未有的高度，她用嘶哑和愤怒的语气吼道：“你这个不孝子！”她双拳紧握继续说：“你不知道这个糟糕的决定会带来什么后果！你简直丢了我们全家的脸！”

“不要诅咒他了！”此刻，从珀西太太身后传来一句低低的反驳声。这一声就像是上天派来的天使，打断了珀西太太恶毒的语言；反正她是被吓住了，停止了讲话。

而与此同时，贺勒斯正双手捂脸，悲伤地跪在母亲的脚下。

母亲的那些可怕语言很过分，已深深刺伤了他，就像是挥之不去的魔咒，将一直留存在他的心间。那一声反驳是谁说的？是他真正的守护神发话了！

站在珀西太太身后的人正是凯特，她脸色苍白，站得笔直，全身笼罩着死寂一般的镇定——她是当下唯一一个冷静的人了，她抑扬顿挫地缓慢地讲着，语气中充满悲愤和哀伤，一字一句都像是敲在人心上。

“他是作了他的决定，但是我并没有接受！所以，你不能，也没有权力诅咒他！我现在，”此时，凯特又大又黑的双眼闪烁着庄严和痛苦的光泽，她伸出一只手向天起誓，“在这里对天发誓，无论福祸甘苦，如果没有贺勒斯母亲的同意和祝福，我绝不答应贺勒斯·乌尔克里先生的求婚！”

看到了吧，女作家所写的蠢故事就是这样的出乎意料，让我们继续来见识一下。《谜团》本来是一个描写现代社会的故事——在这个社会中，人们跳波尔卡，谈论皮由兹主义，而作者写的人物和事件仅仅是捡了这些丰富多彩故事的零头碎末。书中写了一个爱尔兰竖琴家，他是“很久很久以前一位特立独行的吟游诗人的后裔”，他来到这个普通的英国小村庄，在教堂主日学校举办的茶点庆祝会上惊艳出场。另外，有一个疯狂的吉普赛人，她披着鲜红的斗篷，爱唱浪漫的歌曲，在她临终的时候还揭露了一个秘密：年轻的模范牧师欧内斯特是凯特的哥哥。这一秘密是有证人的，是一个矮小、吝啬的商人，他爱诅咒陌生人并且对着他们发出邪恶的笑声。作者还写了一位极其正直的爱尔兰人巴尼，他通过比对一份文件的落款日期和签名日期证实了它是一份假文件，虽然这份文件已经通过了法庭的审核并且已经生效。谈到莱昂内尔先生的住所，那是他古老家族留下来的珍贵房产，而女作家的想象力就此开始跳跃到城堡和城墙，“听啊，守卫吹响了号角”，据普利斯曼·X回忆，居民夜里都住在内屋卧室；一开始，外面的风很微弱，接着渐渐变大，把香柏的枝杈吹到了草地上，于是女作家开始了中世纪式的描述（黑体是我们加的）：“守夜人挥舞着旗帜，旗面随着声音而展开，猫头鹰受到惊吓后突地窜进了常春藤丛；而苍天正透过它的‘天眼’俯瞰着这个世界——天眼是百眼巨人，掌管无声旋律的神。噢，听吧！守卫塔的钟敲了两声，楼下回荡着报时人‘凌晨两点’的回音。”

《谜团》中的故事就是如此混搭，就像我们在观赏一幅完全源自小朋友想象力的画：右边画着一处时髦的别墅，中间却是两个穿着盔甲的骑士在搏斗，而左边竟然画着一只咧着嘴的老虎在丛林中趴着，这些没有联系的事物被混在了一起，仅仅是因为作者觉得它们各自很有特色，或者真正的原因是她在其他的画中见过这些场景，所以全部拿来为己所用。

然而，比起女作家写“神谕体”小说谈论“本我”、“主观”、“客观”，并且将基督教真理划分得一清二楚，一旦人们偏离了这条分界线就得接受她恩赐般的教诲，我们更喜欢她的中世纪写作风格。书中一位名叫茵西奎林的小姐通过醒目的黑体字告诉我们：“作为内心不可或缺的对外表达方式，在这样一个唱诗的年纪，宗教渐渐地吸引了她，这是一种功能，而不是形式。”另一位福音派的美嘉女士，她十分擅长探访病危的女人并且谈论她们的心理状态；她告诉我们，那位模范牧师“并不反对人们顶着巨大的压力，主观上想着善良，而客观上却追求真实的利益”。当她说到句中的黑体字时，我们可以想象着她加重了音调，并且略微点了点下巴。我们在这里就不引用她别的神学教条式段落，因为相对于我们的语言来说，她所讲述的内容实在是太严肃了。

对于《谜团》这本受众很广并且饱含作者心血的小说，我们说它“愚蠢”似乎不太合适。不过，“愚蠢”这个评论的确是经过我们深思熟虑才给出的。如果大家很早之前就公认，大量词语的堆积并不能成就一个智慧的男人，那么以此类推，一半数量的词语堆积也不能成就一个智慧的女人。女性最顽皮的愚蠢形式表现在文学作品上，因为人们往往对妇女的教育背景存有偏见。当男人看到淑女们耗费光阴谈论礼帽和舞会礼服时，看到姑娘们为了爱情时而傻笑时而神伤时，或是看到中年妇女热衷于说长道短而管不好自家孩子时，他们禁不住感叹：“上帝啊！让女孩们多读些书吧！让她们的头脑里多些有价值的东西好吗？”但是，当他们与一位神谕体女作家谈论几个小时，或者读了她的书之后，男人们又会这样说：“算了吧，当女人有了学识，看看她们是怎么利用这些学识的！她的知识仅仅停留在习得时候的样子，并没有融入到文化中去；她并没有结合谦逊和朴素、通过思考或者学以致用的方式将知识吸收，而是急于表现自己的造诣；她脑袋里装了一面精神镜子，并且时不时地沉浸在自己的‘才华’里；她会用形而上学式的问题去嘲讽别人做的小松饼；她会在晚餐桌上利用自己通过旁门左道得来的知识‘战胜’男人；或者是在晚宴上抓住机会与我们讨论终极哲学问题：物质与意识的关系。然后，再看看她写的东西！她错把模糊当作深邃，将夸张的言辞看作文采，把矫揉造作等同于创造力；她在自己作品的第一页还在炫耀自己的学识，眼睛却瞟向下一页，对着第三页做鬼脸，却又在第四页里歇斯底里。她肯定是读过很多伟大的男性作家的作品，以及少许伟大的女性作家的作品，但是她根本就不能分辨他们的风格和自己的风格，就像一个约克郡人分不清自己的口音和伦敦音的区别，大言不惭正是她天生的风格。天呐！所以，一般来说，女人的资质还是像贫瘠且脆弱的土壤，经受不起重量级的耕种，只适合最轻的农作物罢了。”

诚然，男人们仅根据表面观察和片面推断而得出这样的结论并不明智；但我们在此不是要反驳他们的观点——而只是指出，有很大一部分自认为很有才华的女作家恰恰印证了他们的观点。如果一个男人和一位真正有修养的女人交谈过，真正有修养是指那种真正吸收了学识、而不是被学识所淹没的女人，那么他就不会得出以上观点了。一个真正有修养的女人，正如一个真正有修养的男人，她能公正地看待自己以及自己的观点，她越有知识只会越加朴素，越不事张扬。她不会拿知识当垫脚的高台，洋洋自得地以为站在这里便可以对底下所有的人和事一览无余；而会把知识当作一个观察点，由此可对自己形成正确的评价。她不会动不动就口喷诗句或引证西塞罗，这种沉默并不意味着她输给了男人，反而，她觉得脸红脖子粗地和别人比拼记忆力和争论拉丁名著简直是有损自己的优雅气质。她写书不是为了让哲学家困惑，或许正因为她能写出让哲学家感到愉悦的书，在谈话中，她是最不难缠的对象，因为她了解你，而又不想让你知道其实你根本不了解她。她不是在教化你，而是在给你赞同——这才是有教养的最高境界。

比起小众的神谕体小说（被少数高教会派[15]和超验基督徒推崇），数量相对比较庞大的愚蠢小说我们叫作“白色圣领体”[16] ，之所以叫这个名字，是因为牧师脖子上佩戴的白色硬领能展示出福音派[17]的思想氛围和虔诚基调。这类小说描绘的大多是上流社会的有教养人士，可谓是低教会派[18]年轻女士的最爱；人们热衷于寻求新鲜感，于是用福音派小说替代流行小说，把参加五月集会当成是看话剧；就连贵格会[19]的小朋友玩的洋娃娃也与众不同，它不能身着俗气的亮片薄纱裙，必须身穿单色礼服，头戴黑色软帽。而且，这类小说中的年轻女士都有着一段爱情故事，这很正常，她们又不是联合兄弟会教堂的，那里的人们都过着没有任何性生活的婚姻。因此，福音派的年轻女士们拥有福音派爱情故事，这样的爱情经过各种磨难之后，因为重生和赎罪而变得神圣起来。这种小说不同于神谕体小说，就像低教会派女教徒不同于高教会派女教徒一样：她们不那么傲慢，却更加无知，她们的句法使用水平提高了一点，却更加粗俗。

福音派文学的主角一般都是年轻的牧师，从中产阶级的观点来看，牧师衣服上的亚麻带对年轻女士的吸引力就如同军服肩章对非福音派女士的吸引力。这类福音派小说的男主角无一例外都是一个忧国忧民的年轻牧师，市井的老妇们对他可能不屑一顾，但是她们年轻的女儿们“却再也不能忘怀他的布道”，轻易就被他获取芳心；人们只能在讲道坛的阶梯上看到他温柔的一瞥，而不是在话剧包厢里；他的言谈时常引用圣经，而不是文学类诗集；他对女主角感情状态的关心还会深入到对她灵魂的担心。这位牧师的背景总是很好，要么出生在上流社会，要么家庭富裕、衣着得体——其实，福音派小说也具备其他类别小说的愚蠢之处，作者在前一页还在跟你讲赎罪，下一页又开始描写贵族的礼仪和他们的高谈阔论。作者所描绘的上流社会只不过是她的福音派想象力的奇怪彰显罢了；但是在众多白色圣领体小说类别中有一点是异常真实的——万年不变的男主角：传福音的年轻牧师，通常这也是最无聊的一点。

最近刚巧有一本这种类型的小说面世：《古老的灰教堂》（Old Grey Church）。这本书完全平淡无味，本书的作者对小说的受众没有明确定位。我们完全不知所措，揣测她把自己生命经验中的哪个阶段写进了小说，但能确定的是，她粗鲁低俗的用语风格已足以让人明白，虽然她有这种优势，但她并没有发挥好，将那些男男女女的习惯和特征混为一谈，当然这些男女并不像他们的前辈那样被已经完善过的传统主义所蹂躏。她无端地在权威阶层和劳动阶层间做文章，这在福音派小说家来说是比较少见的。可是真正的福音派故事就应当存在于中低产阶级，这个阶层中存在着很多优质的素材，前提是你得有一双善于发现的眼睛，并且能用文字重现这些剧情。难道我们的福音派观点就只能被有权势的人所理解，而不能被弱势群体所接受吗？为什么我们的福音派女作家就不能向大多数普通人展现她们的宗教观点呢？这些“大多数”普通人没钱买马车，“更别说是镶黄铜的轻便型双轮马车了”，甚至在家吃饭的时候连银制的刀叉都用不起，而且女作家们蹩脚的英语在他们看来却是极其通顺的。我们为什么不能描绘一下英国工人阶层的宗教生活，就像斯托夫人[20]描绘黑人宗教生活那样，一定也会很有意思。然而事实上，这些虔敬的女作家却写些令人恶心的老段子，譬如一个世俗的妇女如何被感化而信教：虽然她还是那么喜欢晚宴，但是她不再宴请花花公子而是邀请牧师；她虽仍旧沉迷于服饰，但她挑选颜色和图案的品味却变得严肃和清醒；她的言语依旧琐碎，但琐碎的言论中却充斥着福音而不是小道传闻。在《古老的灰教堂》一书中，我们同样能看到与流行小说一致的滑稽片段，而且总会有各种品行不端却魅力无边的准男爵。有必要引用小说中的一段话来证明，这种出身高贵的人与斯桂尔斯小姐是相配的。这类谈话中充斥着大量的黑体字和显而易见的暗讽。在一个夜晚，年轻的尤斯塔斯牧师为了和勒欣顿小姐能单独谈话，在聚会时带着她去参观罗马斗兽场遗址。准男爵对此很嫉妒，于是就有了以下这段对勒欣顿的气话：

“毫无疑问，勒欣顿和他在一起是十分安全的，因为他有尤斯塔斯教皇一世般的神圣指引。他会给勒欣顿小姐说教，告诉她很多年前，就在这里，在罗马斗兽场，邪恶的异教徒放出凶猛的野兽袭击我们的门徒保罗——噢，不！顺便说一句，我觉得我错了，那并不是门徒保罗，也并不是在罗马斗兽场。但是内容的真假没关系，他依旧可以布道，从这些离谱的故事讲到那些堕落的异教徒，描述他们不恰当的行为，并且以这样的训词结尾：‘醒来吧！不要和他们同流合污！’——而且我确定，勒欣顿小姐，你十分虔诚地遵守了当晚的禁令，因为我们自从到达聚会就没有看见你。可是，大家都公认今晚是个快乐且迷人的聚会，而且我们都十分感激格雷先生提议举办这个聚会，他是如此慷慨的一位向导，我希望他也能觉得愉快。”

这种口水话以及口水叙述就像一幅糟糕的画，什么都没表达出来，或者仅勉强表现了全书有意想要表现的一部分。但是毫无疑问的是，我们和蔼可亲的女作家认为这是一本极具教育意义的小说，虔诚的基督徒妈妈肯定会把这本书塞到她们女儿的手中。我们可能会遇到这样的美国素食者，他们平常只吃干粮，当没有胃口时，会吃些流食改善一下。所以，我们可以把《古老的灰教堂》看作是福音派小说圈子里口味独特的一味菜品，或许有的人读起来还是会觉得很给力很有趣呢。

然而，可能最不具有可读性的蠢故事要数“现代仿古类”[21]小说了。这类小说给读者讲述雅尼和佯庇[22]的家庭生活、亚述王西拿基立[23]的个人感情经历、或是银匠迪米特里厄斯的内心挣扎和最终皈依。其实别的大多数蠢故事至少能够博得读者一笑，而现代仿古类简直就是给人完全呆板和沉重的感觉，其愚昧程度让人禁不住想要咆哮。比起文学女性时常假定某个任务只能由她们和凤毛麟角的天才合作才能完成，还有什么比这类小说更能证明她们根本就没有正确衡量自己的能力呢？重现过去最好的办法只能是模仿——她们通常会在古老的故事脚本中多多少少注入些时代的精神——

“时代精神是什么？

那就是做自我精神的主宰，

由此映射出的时代精神。”[24]

我们承认有些天才对过去任何一个时期都了如指掌，他们可以通过丰富的想象力修复“人类历史之声”里缺失的音符，并且将这些碎片重构成一个整体，从而把久远的过去呈现在我们面前。这种天才的想象力十分稀有，因为它不仅要求有准确和详细的知识，而且需要极其鲜活的创造力。然而，现代仿古类女性作家总用一些适得其反的写作技巧来暴露她们平庸的资质：她们借用古人的名字，把多愁善感用在罗马修女和埃及公主身上，并且引用大量犹太主教和希腊哲学家的修辞论证。这种极度愚昧的小说最近有《亚多尼雅：犹太人驱逐史》（Adonijah，a Tale of the Jewish Dispersion，后简称《亚多尼雅》），这一系列的故事“结合了品味、幽默和合理的原则”。我们能在《亚多尼雅》一书中读到合理的原则，而在其他几本中读到品味和幽默。小说的封面上说，“此书将带你体会与众不同的阅读乐趣”，而且前言这样写道：“如果你对被驱逐的以色列人和朱迪亚人感兴趣，本书会向你提供相关重大历史事件的信息并带来别样的阅读体验。”因为书中所谓的“重大历史事件”并未详细说明，所以有很多深奥的意义我们根本读不懂；然而要说被驱逐的以色列人和朱迪亚人这段历史，任何一个爱读书的女学生知道的都比这本小说中提供的信息要多。至于《亚多尼雅》中的爱情故事可以算是最低能的了，而我们假定它尚且具有一定的教育意义，一是因为小说的男主角是个犹太俘虏，女主角是个罗马修女，他俩以及他们的朋友在经过“促进犹太人改变信仰协会”最简单、最快速的感化之后都皈依了基督教；二是因为作者为了让小说看起来比较复古，并不用普通语来写，而是采用了夸张的书面语言，例如“尼禄大帝毋庸置疑拥有天下最杰出的头脑”、“这一贵族气数将尽”、“他忠贞不渝的床笫伴侣”、“啊！对维斯塔灶神起誓！”“罗马人，尔等听着！”等等。本册书的封面上有众多名人推荐和介绍，有一句来自辛克莱小姐：“理性、智慧、虔诚的人都会坦坦荡荡地选择读这本充满想象力的小说”，据此读者可以愉快地推理，无论是多贝尼医生、米勒先生还是莫里斯先生，都是公开地阅读《亚多尼雅》，而不是将其偷偷藏在沙发垫子底下或者在桌子下断断续续地阅读。

俗语说：“若是黄油做的脑袋，就别去当面包师。”变通一下也可以说，如果没有准备好接受后果，女士们就不要投身于写作事业。我们意识到，我们的评论与别的评论者的语气完全不同。评论者的情感常年循环，完全相似，就像护士对待产妇的重复性工作那样，向每一位女性作家的作品“欣然致敬”。我们同样也意识到，我们所批评的那些女作家已经习惯了别人对她们的夸奖：小说的措辞十分考究，描写的生活十分生动，人物性格刻画突出，风格令人着迷，而且人物的精神高尚等等。但是如果她们怨恨我们正直的言论，我们则建议这些女作家应该好好审视一下那些虚有其表的赞词和无关痛痒的批评，给出这些赞词的评论家认为她们的作品在不久的将来就会成为经典。一位女性一旦展现出她的天赋或是影响力，那么她就应当接受适度的赞扬和严厉的批评。若是用一支温度计来度量女性的才华，那么，如果这位女作家的才华本身为零，媒体夸奖她作品的热度则可能达到沸点；若是她的才华算得上平庸，外界的称赞则能达到酷暑的温度；倘若她才华横溢，外界的评论热情却会降到冰点。哈丽雅特·马蒂诺、柯勒·贝尔以及加斯克尔夫人若是男人，那么她们定会得到骑士般的待遇。如果哪个评论家对女作家的评论很高，那么从原则上来说，他一定得是个中立者，并且不对文学女性的作品有特殊偏好。因为评论女性文学很难做到公平公正，评论者面临的最大问题在于往往忽略了书中所缺乏的智力因素，例如看到女作家的耐心勤奋和对作品的责任心，并且欣赏作者的写作技艺时，就会因主观原因提升了对作品的评价。在女性大部分的著作中，由于缺乏高标准的约束而存在着大量愚昧的拼接或是拙劣的模仿，其实一丁点的自我批评就能使其原形毕露；但是，就好像听歌的人若不能正确给出评价，唱歌的人就会跑调一样；倘若听歌的人有那么一些音乐细胞，就会让唱歌的人闭上嘴。单纯地想让文字变成出版物的虚荣心似乎鼓舞了很多女性，她们错误地认为只要会写作就好像高人一等了，可是写出来的作品却充满智力和道德的退化，毫无用处，她们就是没有这一点自知之明。在这样的前提下，我们认为女性的平均智力被大部分女性文学作品所代表了，而且这种代表有失公平；极少数写作水平很高的女作家则远远超出普通水平，当然，还有多数女作家的写作能力远远低于平均水平。因此，严厉的书评肩负着一项十分具有骑士精神的任务，即剥夺女性作者的虚假威望，制止她们具有迷惑性的吸引力，并且劝阻那些资质平庸的女性就不要写小说了——这是她们作为女性对文坛能做的唯一贡献。

女性不经任何特殊资格证明就成为作家，其根源在于社会上的其他职业长期将女性拒之门外。看来，社会真是个十恶不赦的存在，小到有毒的咸菜，大到糟糕的文学，社会都应当对这些有害身体的物品负责。然而，社会，就像“物质”、女王陛下的政府或者其他崇高的抽象概念一样褒贬参半。如果有一个女性是为了生计而写作，那么必定有三个女性是为了名利而写作；是否为生计工作这一事实很好辨认，然而那些最没用、最雷人的女性文学明显不是迫于生计而产生的。虽然俗语说“一切劳动必有收益”，但是我们认为女性作家的这些蠢故事只能算作是瞎忙活。

幸运的是，我们并不需要去论证、去证明在小说这个领域，女性就不如男性。我们可以列出一长串的女性小说家名字，无论是已故的还是健在的，她们的小说不仅仅写得还行，有的还写得非常好，比起男性小说的阳刚之气，这些女性小说有着宝贵的特性。即使没有受到完整的教育，女性仍然不会被挡在写小说的门外，而其他艺术形式则没有如此简单的入门原则。就好像水晶石可以在任何形态下呈现美丽，而我们只需要在写小说时加入诚恳的观察、幽默以及热情，就能成就好小说。可是，正是因为写小说的门槛太低，才使得很多能力不够的女性也加入了写作的队伍。正如女性的琴技很难骗人，在弹琴的技巧上，只要战胜几处实际的难点，弹奏中的缺点是必然可以克服的。在一定程度上，任何一种讲求绝对技巧的艺术，都会自动抵制能力不足引发的愚蠢行为。然而，在小说写作中，即使你能力不够，也没有什么外在的条件来约束你，也不会阻碍你把愚昧的能力当作写作天赋。于是我们一次又一次地见证了拉封丹的故事：他将鼻孔对准长笛，发现竟然奏出了声音，于是他激动地大叫：“我！我能吹笛子了！”最后，我们把这个寓言故事谨献给那些想加入“写蠢故事的女作家”行列的女性读者，还是好自为之吧。

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[1] 《女作家写的蠢故事》是艾略特1856年写给《威斯敏斯特评论》（Westminster Review）的一篇论文。——译者注

[2] 女帽类小说（mind-and-millinery species），作者借由英国女士们都十分喜爱的帽子来暗讽女作家的作品虽然样式纷繁、精巧别致，但基本上都虚有其表，华而不实。——译者注

[3] 用希伯来语和希腊文写的《圣经》。——译者注

[4] 贝尔格莱维亚区（Belgravia），伦敦的上流住宅区。——译者注

[5] 奥西恩风格（Ossianic fashion）是指十分夸张的口吻，类似现在的琼瑶体。——译者注

[6] 博林布鲁克（Bolingbroke），英格兰国王亨利四世的姓。——译者注

[7] 维吉尔（Virgil，前70—前19），古罗马诗人。——译者注

[8] 贺拉斯（Horace，前85—前8），古罗马诗人，批评家。

[9] 西塞罗（Cicero，前106—前43），古罗马哲学家。——译者注

[10] 李维（Livy，前59—17），古罗马历史学家。——译者注

[11] 伊夫琳·温德姆（Evelyn Wyndham），文中的乌姆弗拉维尔夫人、伊夫琳都是温德姆小姐。——译者注

[12] 皮由兹运动（Puseyism），又称牛津运动，或书册派运动，19世纪中期由英国牛津大学部分教授发动的宗教复兴运动。该运动主张恢复教会昔日的权威和早期的传统，保留罗马天主教的礼仪。运动领导者纽曼、凯布勒、皮由兹等人发表了一系列书册或论文，为这些主张作了理论说明或论证。——译者注

[13] 该隐（Cain），亚当与妻子夏娃所生的两个儿子之一，后来因为嫉妒弟弟亚伯，而将其杀害，受到上帝惩罚。根据《圣经·创世记》4：1-12，耶和华对该隐说：“你做了什么事呢？你兄弟的血的声音通过地里向我哀告。地开了口，从你手里接受你兄弟的血。现在你必从这地受咒诅。你种地，地不再给你效力，你必流离飘荡在地上。”——译者注

[14] 罗伯特·欧文（Robert Owen，1771—1858），英国的空想社会主义者、企业家、慈善家。代表作品有《新社会观》和《新道德世界书》。——译者注

[15] 高教会派（High Churchmen），基督教新教圣公会派别之一。专指英格兰教会和英国国教会中的信徒，追随皮由兹运动。与“低教会派”对立。——译者注

[16] 白色圣领体（white neck-cloth）源自牧师的穿着，牧师一般穿黑色长袍，脖子上戴着白色硬领，习惯上被称作罗马领，牧师在不穿长衫的时候也会把罗马领戴在普通的衬衫上，白色的罗马领成了他们身份的标签。——译者注

[17] 福音派（Evangelical）：这个词始于16世纪，当时的宗教改教者以此称呼表明反对罗马天主教的立场。凡接受基督教新教信仰的人都被称为福音派，福音派重视圣经权威和学术研究，因其较罗马天主教更注重直接与上帝建立信约而不通过耶稣以外的任何人作中保，更加恪守传统教义。——译者注

[18] 低教会派（Low Church）观点较倾向于清教徒而反对倾向于天主教，不赞成高教会派恢复旧制的倡导，认为主教制度、神职圣品与圣事礼仪相对而言并不重要，强调福音派及新教的做法。——译者注

[19] 贵格会（Quaker）是基督教新教的一个教派，又称教友派或者公谊会。该派成立于17世纪，创始人为乔治·福克斯，因一名早期领袖的号诫“听到上帝的话而发抖”而得名Quaker，音译贵格会。该派反对任何形式的战争和暴力，不尊敬任何人也不要求别人尊敬自己，不起誓，主张任何人之间要像兄弟一样，主张和平主义和宗教自由。——译者注

[20] 哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托夫人（Harriet Beecher Stowe，1811—1896），美国小说家，代表作是《汤姆叔叔的小屋》。——译者注

[21] 现代仿古类（Modern-antique）小说的作者一般是胡乱设定某个历史场景作为故事背景，然后完全不考据，便将自己想写的东西套进该时代。——译者注

[22] 雅尼和佯庇（Jannes and Jambres），埃及法老所御用的与摩西斗法的术士。——译者注

[23] 西拿基立（Sennacherib），古亚述国的国王，公元前704至前681在位。——译者注

[24] 出自歌德的《浮士德》。——译者注

法国女作家：萨布莱夫人[1]

1847年，一位名叫康特·利奥波德·菲力的人在帕多瓦[2]去世，留下了一间私人图书馆，其藏书涵盖了世界各国女性作家的作品，多达三万二千多册。我们并不需要像《唐·吉诃德》（Don Quixote）中的牧师那样，在判断这些书籍孰轻孰重时将它们扔到火中检验，我们很清晰地认为，最需要解救和关注的应当数法国女作家的作品。女性文学中品质上乘的小说可谓凤毛麟角，而品质一般的作品如果由男性作者来写则会更优秀；当模仿还不太拙劣时，她们只不过是夸大了男性写作风格，像一个身着男性服装的差劲女演员，大摇大摆地踱着步。女作家的这些作品勉强还算得上是文学，就好像获奖诗作也算作诗一样。很少有英语类女性作家能像理查德森·C．女士那样写作。科学没有性别之分：不论男女，只要他们有认知和推理能力，并且进行正确的探索，那么最终都会经历相同的过程，达到相同的结果。而现在我们可以确定，说文学作品没有性别之分是极大的错误。艺术和文学蕴含着整个生命活动，关系着自然界中的每个细节，任何个体进行的独特修正都会对其产生影响，而女性对于文学与艺术作出的贡献是无与伦比的。对于任何一种可能存在的社会场景，女性必然会有其自身的感受和情绪——这种母性的情感，男性是无从得知的；另外，女性相对来说体力较弱，这一事实很难被改变，女性的这种独特体质必然会产生不同于男性的奇妙感情和情愫，继而引发与众不同的想法与灵感。男女之间的心理差异源自不同的性别，这种差异并不会随着女性智力和道德本性的完全发展而消失。事实上，不论是晨曦的微光还是露水的清香，不管是正午阳光的强度还是亮度，只要它们带给男女不同的感受，那么这种差异就是产生多样性和美好作品的永恒源泉。从17世纪初到18世纪末，那些令人身心愉悦的法国女人为法国的政治和文学史书写了最精彩的几笔，这些女性角色往往富有开拓精神，丝毫不畏惧犯错和付出。她们并没有想过为自己创造一番事业，也根本没想过要成为公众人物；她们只不过是给情人、朋友写信，写日记记录自己每天的生活，描写自己认识的人的爱情故事，描述发生在自己眼前的各种悲喜剧。她们精致有涵养，优雅且诙谐，她们审慎明智，兢兢业业地记录所见所闻、所感所想；她们写作的目的并不是要证明女性和男性一样能够写作，她们也并不想去影响男性的观点或者说解放女性。有人说，至少对于17世纪的女性来说，写作就是她们在记录多彩生活过程中的美丽意外，就像玫瑰花的花瓣随风摇摆，自然而然地散发出了淡淡的芬芳。所以，也只有在法国，女性对文学进步的影响是至关重要的；只有在法国，女性的思想和语言如同电流般清晰确切，不像在其他国家那样沉重且模糊不清；只有在法国，如果没有了女性的文学作品，那么法国的历史将出现断层。

爱国主义者可能又要开始叫嚣了，他们认为英国女作家如果愿意，也能把小说写得像法国女性那样好。但这个问题我们还是留给文学评论者去评说吧。毋庸置疑的是，在女性文学作品的各种类别中，法国女性取得的成就是最高的。我们承认，意大利的女性作家大多被冠以教授权威，她们熟识民法和教会法，但她们的作品令人望而生畏，我们并不熟悉；当然还有很多其他地下女性文学根本没有纳入探讨范围，可是我们确信它们根本不能和市面上的作品匹敌，因此，我们认为有关女性文学之间的较量只存在于英国和法国之间。直到今天，塞维涅夫人依旧是在充满男性成功典范的文学世界中至高无上的女性代表；达钦夫人（Madame Dacier）[3]仍旧是学者界的女王，虽然她不听劝告地学了那么多希腊语；当我们要列举出一位机智非凡的女性时，斯塔尔夫人必定是最先被想到的一位；罗兰夫人深受爱戴，她那充满智慧和严肃的史诗也无人能敌；乔治·桑更是一位无可媲美的女作家，就像让·雅克的评语那样，她对外界的感知十分深刻，能够将人物性格的刻画和悲剧式的浓烈激情融合得恰到好处；这些伟大的名字是法国各个时代的里程碑，她们像高高的松树一样耸立在并不那么引人注目却依旧风采不减的女性作家之林中。另外，在这片树林里，还分布着大量的山楂树、野蔷薇和忍冬，这些女性为人所知的缘由并非她们自己创作的作品，而是她们激发男性创作出的作品。她们发挥自己的聪明才智和个人魅力开辟了文化沙龙这一全新形式；在那里，文学、哲学还有科学得以从陈旧迂腐的束缚中解放出来，进入到一个更加明媚通透的发展阶段。

那么，是什么原因促使了法国文学的早期发展以及女性才华的充分展现呢？最基本的原因可能要追溯到法国种族的生理特征上——他们脑子小，秉性活泼、有生气，这就让本性脆弱的女性具备了创造性才思的最高级原料；而英国人和德国人的大脑相对较大，性格较慢，女性常常爱空想并且态度消极。后者的情感可能更广泛复杂，所以需要更多的条件才能产生出一个完美的标准。纵观动物世界，机能越高的群体，越容易背离标准；我们不常看到进化并不完美的昆虫，但很少看到完美匀称的人类。因此，如果一个女性具有一颗优秀的法国头脑，那么她就不会同时达到日耳曼人的标准。我的这一理论可以由我们自己国家的女性来证实，英国的文学女性通常热情奔放但不复杂，倾向于法国人的特征，而不是日耳曼人类型。另外，那些脑容量大的女性会不停地吸收更多的知识，她的自身条件已经决定了她缺乏对突发情况的应对能力；就好像压力不够集中就不能形成钻石一样，她的脑海中虽然漂浮着各种伟大的思想和念头，却不善于将这些思想固化，即捕捉到这些想法并用语言表述出来。我们认为，比起外部环境等种种因素，这才是造成女性很少在艺术领域开拓创新、在科学领域有所发现、在哲学领域作出深度探索的原因。她们不具备哲学思考所必需的自身条件。然而在充满光明的未来，我们相信这些条条框框将会随着妇女机能的完善得以打破，上述原因也将被推翻。但是就目前来看，我们的这一理论的确为法国女性智力较高提供了生理学基础。

第二个原因则是人们在观念上和实践上对婚姻的散漫态度。但愿我们不要去为法国人的道德观辩论，这一辩论大部分都会是关于婚姻的！但是不可否认，婚姻是随着双方思想和情感的成熟而产生，最后因内心的契合和相互吸引而定下来的，这种联合使得女性给男性带来了更多智力上的支持，并且增加了女性在政治事件中的参与度。对于文化程度高的人来说，他们毫无疑问偏爱稳定且安全的婚姻关系，因为这是他们生活最高品质的表现，但他们缺乏激情。激情是一种神奇的东西，它能唤醒人内心的动力——将懒惰转化为行动，将漠不关心转变成热血沸腾，将模棱两可变得清晰简单，并帮助人们得到最心爱的东西。殷勤和私情虽然本身可鄙，但是相对于刺绣和家务事，却足以激起女性还在沉睡的才华，尤其是在17世纪法国的上流社会，女性受到西班牙骑士精神的熏陶，同时又受到意大利刻薄习俗的约束，这些爱异想天开的少女们在为人妻为人母之后被现实惊醒，她们抛弃了自己幻想出来的幻象，学会爱那个在政治舞台的仇恨和竞争中挣扎着的真真切切的男人；她要拥护他的言论，将自己的财富和影响力都化作他野心的垫脚石；她曾经认定自己就是一支“即将凋谢的玫瑰”，而此刻她决定要改变，这一次，她想成为女主角。女性对于婚姻的鲜明兴趣必定会明显提高她们的智力水平，并督促她们付诸实践；但是与爱情相伴的产物——心痛和悔恨——也同样加深和丰富了她们的本性，她们鼓励自己要克服这些困难，并且继续活下去。我们可以想象，没有哪个明智的人想要回到17世纪的法国社会，除非他认为女性的理想人生应该是十五岁结婚，从二十岁到三十八岁接受男性的殷勤，然后在忏悔和虔诚中度过余生。话虽如此，但这种曾经存在过的社会状态也有其好的结果，就像十字军东征也有积极的影响一样。

当然，法国女性文学发展最无可争议的来源应当是沙龙的影响。全世界都知道，沙龙是一个允许女性与男性智力激荡的地方。在那里，人们谈论的话题从社会现象到笛卡尔的哲学，可谓包罗万象。黎塞留[4]在沙龙里树立了一种将文学品味与社会的文雅习惯和对野心的追求融为一体的风尚。在17世纪前期，巴黎已经出现了大大小小的旅馆，这些旅馆分散在巴黎的大街小巷，或与法院毗邻，或紧挨着贵族和资产阶级矛盾频发的地点；在当时，这种旅馆是各行各业的人交流思想、展示才华的固定场所。在众多旅馆中，洪布耶府邸是最出名的一间，它在1630年达到鼎盛，直到1648年法国兴起投石党运动[5]才逐渐没落，因为出入洪布耶府邸的常客被怀疑有政治目的而遭到迫害。这间沙龙的首席领袖是洪布耶侯爵夫人[6]，她是一个能把各种不协调元素融合在一起的典范；她美貌，却不卖弄风骚；她才华横溢，极其崇尚有才华的人，自己却从不炫耀学问；她谈吐举止精致优雅，而且待人温和，慷慨大方；她不会拿自己的作品愉悦客人，也不会拿自己的广博知识让客人叹服。她曾打算学习拉丁语，后来因为一场大病停止了。在一个缺少本国文学经典的时代，或许只读意大利和西班牙作品更好，因为这些作品是不懂拉丁语的文化人最好的精神食粮。洪布耶夫人温和可人的性格正是融合了西班牙高尚的骑士精神和意大利尖刻的智慧以及精妙的讽刺，并且由此诞生了一种新的艺术风格——极端热烈的感情和极其简练的语言。女性十分适合这种风格，原因如下：首先，她们时常把爱情、感情、想象力混合在一起，并且细化成情绪；其次，她们担心简单困苦或者单调的生活会使得智力负荷过重，于是对轻松空灵的表达产生本能的偏爱，这让她们抛弃冗长啰唆的叙事方式，并且抵制各种长篇大论。在谈话交流中，独具女子气概的特征和装点着黎塞留、高乃依、康德、巴尔扎克和鲍修埃的观点相碰撞时，所产生的结果毋庸置疑是辛辣活泼并且令人着迷的。然而，来光顾洪布耶府邸的著名人士，他们的第一要务并不是和女士们闲聊调情，继而转战酒店角落里讨论自己真正感兴趣的话题，他们更愿意在聪明伶俐有修养的女士面前侃侃而谈，展现自己成熟的观点。当然，他们的谈话不仅限于文学，还包括散发着文雅和睿智的所有话题——战争、政治、宗教，以及日常生活的点滴。另外，洪布耶夫人的府邸并不光是文学者的聚集地，除了作家，还有企业家和军人。在这样一个圈子里，女性自然不会沦为卖弄学问的学者或是不切实际的说教者，她们对世界和人性并不无知，对人对事有着独特的洞察力和深刻的见解。如此，也并不难理解这样一种现象：在巴黎以及其他省份，出现了大批模仿沙龙聚会却并不成功的人，他们将简洁扭曲成矫揉造作，把高贵的情感夸张地理解成超越自然，因此这种高雅派（Précieux）遭到了大量批评和嘲讽，尤其是《可笑的女才子》（Précieuses ridicules）和《女学究》（Les Femmes savantes）[7]这两本书的出版，把该讽刺风潮推到了顶点。这两本书分别出版于1660年和1673年，书中的马德隆和卡多丝作为斯卡莉小姐的直系后裔，就像洪布耶府邸的女主人一样举办沙龙。每周六，聚集在她们沙龙上的团体都是精通文学的学者，偶尔会有几个贵族来拜访，他们满口资产阶级的典雅，醉心于各种情歌、十四行诗，咬文嚼字、玩弄尾韵；他们把装腔作势渗透进优雅的谈吐中，而这种矫揉造作是违背高雅派的初衷的。其实，看到比自己高的阶级但又不甘心屈居其下时才会产生这种可笑的东施效颦。

另外一处影响较大的女性文学出现在卢森堡宫，多奥里昂小姐因为参与了投石党活动而在宫廷里不受待见，于是她自己举办聚会，让自己沉浸在生机勃勃的精神和文学世界中。在一个明媚的早晨，这位公主又邀请来了她聚会的常客，包括塞维涅夫人、拉斐特夫人以及拉罗什福科[8] ，她提议让这些朋友们来个自我描述，带头要求大家能坦白地说出自己的缺点和优点。多亏了公主的这个点子，让平常没有机会或者是不够勇敢为自己写点儿什么的作家找到了契机。

“这就是多奥里昂小姐和她的朋友们在1657年和1658年的娱乐消遣方式，”库辛先生说，“这种消遣却渐渐演变成了一种文学形式。1659年，赛格雷改进了这种自述，增加了大篇幅的散文体甚至是诗歌体描述，并集结成册，取名叫《名人群像》（Divers Portraits），并且以漂亮的四开本出版，印刷极其精美，流传至今的已经十分稀有。多奥里昂小姐当时只印刷了三十本，并不用于出售，而只是当作礼物送给她们。这一作品取得了意想不到的成功，并且满足了斯卡莉小姐窥探别人生活的私欲——她不仅很高兴看到自己的自传被写得如此完美，也满足了对别人传记的好奇。中产阶级总是十分关注并且想要了解贵族圈子都发生了些什么（在那个年代，了解他人生活的途径是很有限的），而那些平常如雷贯耳的名人们也第一次如此详尽地被描述并且全方位地展现在人们面前，这些贵妇人转瞬变成了作家，并且在不知不觉中创造了一种新的写作方式，不需要其他任何书籍的说教，而是对贵族生活最自然的讲述。这种无法给出名字的写作方式融合了自然、朴素、宜人和卓越等特色，一经面世就吸引了整个宫廷和整座小城的眼球；早在1659年，就有书商请求多奥里昂小姐出版这本书的大众版。”

这种人物描写的风潮席卷了整个法国，直到1688年拉布吕耶尔的《品格论》（Characters）出版，他在人物描写中加入了对人物性格的刻画，使之上升到了一个新的高度。现在看来，拉布吕耶尔的作品固然伟大，但仍旧是受到一个女人的启发（多奥里昂小姐的《名人群像》）才写出来的；可见，多奥里昂小姐的沙龙虽然比不上洪布耶夫人的府邸，其影响力也不容小觑。

随着一个国家的文学日渐丰富、文化逐渐分散，相应的，个人力量在创造新的文学形式以及在社会进步中的影响就会变小。不再是圈内人影响文学的发展趋势，而变成文学来影响圈内人；代表“大众”的圈子在前所未有地扩大，取得更大成就的野心在膨胀，沙龙也渐渐退出了历史舞台。曾经长篇大论的谈话都变成写作素材或“文章”，目的不是为了交流，而是保持原创性。随着老式的公路被铁路所代替，新闻界开始将传播的方式从对话转变为报刊，就算读者的范围会因此受到限制，也比“大众”这种根本不明确的抽象概念好。人们开始通过写作来表述自己的观点，而不只是靠谈话。我们（女性）开始在茶几上偷偷翻看《阿西娜神庙》（Athenaeum），在社交晚会上看《哲学日报》（Philosophical Journal）并且做笔记，我们邀请朋友，赠送给他们书籍；我们十分期盼看到“女士”表达她们自己观点的独家报道，相信有一天轻轻松松就能“挺进”《泰晤士报》（Times）。实际上，现在人们的交流方式越来越有限，这一趋势让人们开始担忧面对面的对话将越来越少，唯恐电报的进一步发展会让我们陷入一个无声的世界，或者担心会在昆虫的启示下，开始使用自己发明出来的天线进行沟通。在上个世纪，科技还远远没有达到这个程度；即便文学和社会已经超出了旧圈子的发展，即便那时有很多模仿洪布耶夫人府邸的沙龙，它们也仅仅局限于娱乐消遣，并不构成一种影响力。但毫无疑问的是，那时候的夜晚美好得令人嫉妒，如果时光能够倒流到那个时代，我们会很难抉择，到底是和达兰贝尔、德斯皮纳斯小姐、格林姆一起奔赴乔佛弘夫人的晚宴，还是去三十年后的严肃社团与孔多赛和他年轻美丽的妻子相见。沙龙仍然有它的吸引力，但是它的鼎盛时期已经一去不返：历史的河流越来越宽，越来越深，不是这条小溪所能撼动的。

17世纪和18世纪的法国女人各有千秋，不分伯仲，不过在这一问题上很容易出现不同的派别。前者大多对自己高尚的情操自视甚高，却对自己的才情少有自知之明，甚至比卢梭的噩梦——作家德毕内夫人还不自知。18世纪法国女人的观点更加丰富多彩——并非因为她们有多少独创性，而是指她们比17世纪的女性多了整整一个世纪的素材用来学习和加工。17世纪的女性，当她们的爱情逝去，她们只是温和地默默奉献，而英国女性则拿起笔杆开始写作，绝不妥协；18世纪的女性，当鲍修埃[9]和马西隆让位于伏尔泰和卢梭时，当她们的年轻和美貌都逐渐消逝时，只好将筹码放在自己的道德力量上。

库辛尤其迷恋17世纪的法国女作家。他甚至挤出自己研究哲学的宝贵时间来研读描写她们生活的原始文献。去年，库辛用一卷书的内容向我们展示了他对德·隆格维尔公爵夫人[10]青年时期的研究成果，接下来，他将继续用一卷的篇幅，通过描写公爵夫人与其好朋友萨布莱夫人的关系，来详述公爵夫人的职业生涯。他将要用到的手稿和文献主要来自两位名人：一位是来自法兰西学院的第一秘书康尔特，他是被同辈人视为奇葩却被后辈奉为珍宝的人；另外的手稿则来自瓦兰特，他曾经是一名内科医生，也是萨布莱夫人的秘书兼管家，他在萨布莱夫人晚年时，经允许私藏了大量别人写给萨布莱夫人的信件，以及萨布莱夫人回复给他们的谈论个人或者文学的信件。从这些手稿中，库辛挑选了许多之前并未经过编辑的文件。虽然他的作品经常给读者留下欲言又止、留有悬念的感觉，但是这次他写的介绍萨布莱夫人的新书却很吸引我们，即便书中的故事相当分散，而且包含很多以小号字体标注的解释附录；不过萨布莱夫人的事迹足以让我们连续看完三百多页还保持兴趣。库辛恰如其分地这样描述萨布莱夫人的性格，“（她是）一个充满幸福的混合体，理智、机敏、愉悦且善良”，而且，很少有女性像她那样对所有事物都怀有同情心；她是以整个人格而不是某一特殊品质在影响着我们；她的人格并不耀眼夺目，却像是多种颜色和谐地混合在一起，令人赏心悦目，即便是每天都能看见，也不觉得疲累，就像让眼睛得到了休息。萨布莱夫人是对法国文学有着重大影响的杰出人物之一，因此，她本来就值得被研究。如果读者跟我们想法相同，那么库辛可能会像我们一样，倾向于继续研究萨布莱夫人的生活和性格。

玛德琳·德·苏威尔的父亲古登瓦侯爵是著名的贵族，被路易十三选中为官员。玛德琳生于1599年，在17世纪中期算是一位杰出的天才。她的才华不仅体现在她的头脑，也体现在她的人生经历上。1635年，苏威尔的一位更加出名的朋友波旁小姐，即隆格维尔公爵夫人，第一次出现在洪布耶夫人的府邸，而那时的萨布莱夫人已经经历了女人年轻貌美的时期而进入熟女阶段。萨布莱夫人于1614年嫁给了博伊斯-杜芬的庄园主，萨布莱侯爵菲利普·伊曼纽尔·德·拉瓦尔-蒙莫朗西，除了他在1640年去世，人们对他一无所知，给她留下了四个孩子，同时留下的财富根本不够家用。我们有很多证据可以证明萨布莱夫人不仅有聪明的头脑，还有美丽的外貌和极高的地位，因此我们有十足的理由相信她年轻时期是非常风光的。关于她的美貌，向来严肃冷静的莫特维尔夫人都不惜言辞这样描述她：“光彩照人且真实自然，毫无矫揉造作之感”，并且在以下段落中活灵活现地展现了萨布莱夫人的性格特征：

萨布莱侯爵夫人的美貌甚至可以媲美英国的女王。但是如果她和蔼可亲，那就更好了；这位年轻女士的自恋使得她对男士的眼光十分敏感。那时在法国还保留着凯瑟琳·德·梅第奇从意大利引进的礼节，从马德里引进的新式戏剧、散文和诗歌，所有这些无一不精致且高雅，她（萨布莱夫人）对西班牙人从摩尔人处学到的殷勤十分赞赏。

别人告诉她，男人对女人展现柔情的时候从来不会犯错——为了取悦女性，男性一般都会表现出最好的一面——例如唤醒自己的才华，激发出文采，展现各种美德；但是，另一方面，女性作为世界上不可或缺的装饰品，生来就是被服侍和宠爱的，她们其实只是在乎男性对她们的尊重和关心。我们这位女士以她的智慧和美貌证明了这一点，她在她的时代塑造了权威，而关注她的人越来越多，并且延续到现在，西班牙人管这叫“微妙之处”（finezas）。

这就是最初版本的高雅派淑女的基础元素，莫特维尔夫人曾详细描绘了萨布莱夫人的一位狂热爱慕者——极其有学问的蒙莫朗西公爵。一开始，萨布莱夫人对他的殷勤也有所回应，但是当她发现（具体时间不详）蒙莫朗西公爵对女王暗送秋波之后，她就立刻和公爵分手了。莫特维尔夫人说：“我听她说，她对蒙莫朗西公爵十分高傲，自从蒙莫朗西公爵第一次表现出对她的变心之后，她就决定再也不和他见面，因为她不能忍受和最伟大的公主殿下分享他的爱慕。”塔利门特·德卢克斯的证言虽然不是百分之百可信，但仍旧能证明萨布莱夫人除此之外没有别的风流韵事，当然这一假设也有可能被轻易打破，因为萨布莱夫人有那么多特殊的友谊。和萨布莱夫人关系最好的是她早年间的朋友多娜·德阿蒂琪，然后是摩尔女伯爵，这些友谊陪伴着她度过了无忧无虑的青年时期和充满浪漫爱情的中年时期，直到她1663年离开人世。她友谊中的超验主义思想颇具特色，有个小插曲使得她所有感情都带有超验色彩，这一点值得用大量篇幅详细阐述。一次，德阿蒂琪小姐不满黎塞留对待她亲友的态度，于是怀着悲痛和忧伤离开了巴黎，准备去投奔她的好友萨布莱，而就在此时她偶然发现萨布莱夫人在给洪布耶夫人的信中说自己最大的幸福就是和洪布耶一起相处，其次是和蒙托西耶。她这才意识到，原来她在萨布莱夫人心中并不是最好的朋友，这对于德阿蒂琪来说简直就是塞纳河友谊（lèse-amitié）之罪，再多的解释都不能安抚她。萨布莱的那些文字对她来说是一种冒犯，她不能接受，甚至不能自欺欺人说这种沙龙式语言只不过是萨布莱一时的“胡言乱语”而已。德阿蒂琪放弃了这次行程，并且给萨布莱写了封信。当萨布莱夫人决定销毁自己年轻时期的文献时，唯一选择保留了德阿蒂琪的这一封信，信的内容如下：

“虽然你说那封信都是胡言乱语，但我还是看了信的内容，而且并不觉得你在胡言乱语。相反，你的表达再清晰不过了，你想对洪布耶夫人说的话一清二楚，你说，‘如果我自己想要一段完美且幸福的生活，那么我只想和你洪布耶在一起’。你知道，我是最能信服她才华的人，但是这次，我不得不说你为了讨好她深深地伤害了我们俩之间的友谊。姑且相信你只是为了给她一个令人愉快的赞美，所以才那样写；我不敢相信你的殷勤会背叛你真实的内心，尤其是在这件事情上；我想你更应该掩藏你对洪布耶夫人的这些感情，因为我对你的感情众所周知，尤其是洪布耶。所以我怀疑你如此给她写信，她看到的可能并不是你有多么迷恋她，而是你如何地伤害了我。你的那封信阴差阳错地被我看见，真是应了贝尔托的这句话：

‘无知是一件不幸的事情，

而更加不幸的则是无知还被人知道。’

因为那封信，我对自己的生活支柱丧失了信任，我根本不用再考虑去投奔你。我觉得自己在这样的季节颠簸六十多英里来找你实在是太不合时宜了，因为我是那么地不配你，这么多年来我的真情没有得到你应有的回应，你此生最大的快乐竟然是不要和我在一起。所以我独自一人离开了，我要好好反省，并且消化那些给我带来如此多不愉快的缺点，如若我还没有改正好这些缺点，我见到你只会更困惑，而不会高兴。”

能和如此多愁善感的德阿蒂琪小姐成为朋友，足以证明萨布莱夫人的魅力所在。不过，萨布莱夫人还有很多热情的朋友，例如隆格维尔夫人等等。当然，她有时也会怀疑别人对她的情感，所以只会被动地等待感情的积累，而不会去积极经营。我们能从隆格维尔夫人的言论中找到很多蛛丝马迹，萨布莱夫人一会儿和朋友们隔离，一会儿又在纠结自己的信写得是否完美。下面引用一段能够反映出萨布莱夫人矛盾特质的文字，爱人或朋友都能从中获取些实用经验：

“如果我关心你、在乎你，那么我非常害怕自己知道什么时候能见到你之后，将很长时间不再有那种相见时的快乐，那种快乐是你我做什么都买不到的，因为我发现，每次我们的友谊出现问题，在你没有彻底恢复之时，我的解释只会徒增烦恼，所以我害怕解释。就算解释本身是好的，是出于给人们带来安慰，是为了缓和气氛，但遗憾的是，不得不承认，解释的起因都是不好的，而且若是解释得不合时宜，有时会让两人更加生气，让双方的交流更加不畅。我是从你的举止行为了解这些道理的，所以我觉得，我应该写信问你，今天是否想跟我和好。”

圣佩韦[11]曾描述内克尔夫人有一个缺点，那就是太完美了，显然，萨布莱夫人远远没有这一缺陷，我们能够看到她外表及内心的优美之处恰好是她的不完美，她有对缺点的感知力。隆格维尔夫人在信中谈到这一点，让我们见识了萨布莱在四十不惑的年龄时魅力依旧，她这样写道：“我确信，你是我在这世界上最想要见到的人，我们之间的沟通那样真实可靠，没有人可以替代你。岁月变迁，时光流逝，我对你的喜欢依旧没变；我要感谢上帝赐予我的欢乐，虽然他让我很多的朋友都流失了，但我还是会全心全意地感谢上帝让你一直在我身边。”

既然我们谈到了萨布莱夫人的缺点，那就不得不听听她的朋友们对她的评价——她极端关注自己的健康，特别害怕传染病，甚至怕那种并不会传染的病。或许她的这种忧虑不仅是身体上的，也是美学上的；她对疾病深恶痛绝，不愿让自己的身心受到折磨。她觉得若是感染风寒抑或是肠胃绞痛，那么必定会影响她谈论文艺，势必会影响到她成为“世间的装饰品”，并且不再“受人爱戴”。即便是坚固的友谊也没能让她克服对传染病的恐惧。当波旁小姐成为隆格维尔公爵夫人后染上了天花，洪布耶夫人常常去照看她，萨布莱夫人不仅不敢去探望病人，而且连洪布耶也不敢见了。洪布耶知道这件事后给她写了封信，那个年代的才女们对于处理类似的情况十分熟练，信中都是饱含技术含量的揶揄调侃，我们在此略引用一段：

洪布耶小姐致萨布莱侯爵夫人

要是让沙莱小姐（萨布莱夫人的女性伴侣）来朗读这封信，她一定感同身受。

夫人：

我认为最近来见你是不太可能的事，因为我听说你在见我之前和之后，要花很长的时间斟酌，还要咨询很多医生，需要克服极大的心理恐惧，这些时间足够我出去散散步了。所以，我会选择在离开康德旅馆（隆格维尔公爵夫人生病下榻的地方）三天之后再来拜访你，而且会选择寒冷的一天，我保证会与你隔一个座位坐，并且保持至少四步的距离。你可以在你的卧室里生火取暖，在房间四角燃放杜松，在你身边摆放芸香和苦艾，并且用皇室的熏醋消毒，只要你不要让我剪掉我的头发。如果上述这些条件让你觉得有安全感，我发誓我会立即去执行；如果你对这些条件还有所顾虑，那么我告诉你吧，肖德伯尼先生在探访过德·波旁夫人之后，女王还同意接见他呢；德艾吉永夫人在传染病这些问题上也很讲究，但是她并没有因为我而对此心怀顾虑，她甚至放话，如果我不去见她，她就会主动来找我。

萨布莱夫人面对这样的揶揄显然有些退缩，这在她的回复中有所体现；基于隆格维尔夫人已经康复的事实，她起草了一份十分严肃但礼貌的回复，并且激起了她克服恐惧心理去拜访隆格维尔的勇气。洪布耶夫人后来通过她俩的共同朋友伏尔蒂得知，她的讽刺力度过猛以致于自找麻烦，还得绞尽脑汁给萨布莱一个极具安抚性却又彰显自己尊严的道歉。萨布莱夫人害怕疾病的这种怪癖随着年龄的增长而愈发强烈，因此在十五年之后，我们看到德奥里昂夫人在她的《帕夫拉戈尼亚公主》（Princesse de Paphlagonia）中描绘了如下有趣的场面——该书描写了发生在宫殿中的喧嚣的爱情故事——或者在一定程度上说是一出讽刺剧，讽刺了萨布莱夫人严重的恐病症以及同样具有这个怪癖的她的朋友摩尔伯爵夫人（也就是影射德阿蒂琪小姐）。在这本书中，萨布莱和德阿蒂琪分别化身帕尔泰尼公主和蕾娜·德·米奥尼，出现在读者面前。

“一天中的每时每刻她俩都在一起讨论如何避免死亡、如何长生不老这件事。她们谈话的地点不同于常人，她们总是担心所呼吸的空气太冷或者太热，担心风太干燥或是太湿润——总之，她们总是夸大天气的因素，认为那不利于自己保持健康，于是便待在各自房间里飞信传书。如果这些手稿有幸能被找到，那么都足够出版成一本文集了。我得知她们会为如何养生制定规则，并且适时地服用些预防药剂，但是，这些药剂是用希波克拉底[12]和伽林都没听过的医术炼制而成的。这本文集若要问世，定会惠及大众，给巴黎和蒙彼利埃的相关医疗机构带来暴利；若这些信件曝光，将会因此产生很多优势，因为即便是公主殿下也知道没有什么是永垂不朽的，她们知道自己终有一死。读她们的书信，我们能感受到严谨文雅的风格，以及谈论各种话题时显露出来的优雅气质。她们用各种技巧从自己的伙伴那里了解世界各国发生的事情，几乎无所不知；她们在谈论勇气或者其他事情时，总能给出重要的意见；她们有时还帮忙调停争执和纠纷，有时给朋友们带来惊喜，她们的朋友们总能因她们而获益——总之，她们是那种知道世界上所有秘密的人。帕尔泰尼公主（也就是萨布莱夫人的化身）的味觉如同她的思想般敏锐，她的手艺很少有人能够匹敌，她的每道菜都精致美味；另外，她的洁癖也达到了超乎想象的程度。在她们那个年代，人们才开始写作，在那之前，除了结婚契约是手写的外，书信这种东西连听也没听说过；所以我们真应该感谢她们推动了人类书信交流的进程。”

之后，在1669年，最顽固的波尔罗亚尔信徒[13]开始低调地向萨布莱夫人征税，原因是萨布莱夫人没有在香榭丽舍的波尔罗亚尔女修道院加入他们。我们看到萨布莱夫人给德·赛维尼先生这样写道：“除了放手离开，我没有其他更好的选择了。没有可以为我治疗的医生和医疗技术，这让我非常害怕。”

另外，我们可以看到，萨布莱夫人还十分热爱美食，这也是朋友们对她众多缺点中诟病最多的一个，尤其是当她结束了自己的宗教事业之后。她做甜点十分有一套，知道如何将甜品做得既精致又美味。她神经质的特征还表现在其他方面；她经常给朋友送可口的食物，并且和他们谈论餐桌文化，交流自己的心得和品味。隆格维尔夫人完全没有像萨布莱夫人那样的奢华味觉，她这样写道：“连上帝都知道，你做出来的东西完全没有什么滋味，更谈不上丰盛了。上帝呀，难道就没有什么可以吃的了吗，你知道的，这些都不合我胃口，这让我真的很不安。”但其他朋友则很感激萨布莱的好意。伏尔蒂感谢她送的甜瓜，并且赞扬它们比自己以前吃过的都好；乔伊喜夫人则希望约翰逊主义[14]的思想不要成为萨布莱继续给自己送沙拉的阻碍；拉·罗什富科写信给她：“如果你能给送信人尝尝你的橘子酱和美味的蜜饯那就太好了，我真心乞求你能给他这个机会。如果我能尝到你的两道新菜，我的一生都将感激涕零。”对于我们来说，那些崇尚精神生活的人喜欢将一种缺点转变成一种原则，并且对自己迟钝的味觉引以为荣，我们尽可能要和他们保持亲善，并且不把萨布莱夫人的甜点看作是一种缺点。库辛曾经这样说以表达歉意：

“人们对美味佳肴的过度迷恋以及对故作高雅的些许崇拜还比较容易理解。萨布莱夫人不可能像常人一样吃饭，因为对于高雅的淑女来说那是多么独树一帜的事。我们从莫特维尔夫人那里节选了一段有关萨布莱夫人年轻时在洪布耶夫人府邸的文字，她那时还是主张女性生来就是世界的装饰品，理应得到男性的爱慕和敬仰的。而值得爱慕的那些女性常常不在意物质追求，甚至在最质朴和原始的生活方式中依然坚持着卓越和纯粹的精神世界。民以食为天，但总是被忽略。萨布莱夫人依旧在饮食上坚持着她的洁癖。据她说，并不是每个女人都能在吃饭时泰然自若地面对自己的爱侣，仅仅是吃东西时的面部表情，就足以毁掉所有浪漫的气氛。大鱼大肉这种饭菜还是留给资本家去享受吧，讲究的女人们只用吃一点营养品维持体力就行，她们甚至还很享受吃少许点心、饮料里加冰块的饮食方式。财富并不能满足她们的生活，她们需要的是独特的才智和习惯。萨布莱夫人正是深谙这门艺术的女能人，她成功地将贵族气质、尊贵高雅、文学修养和美味都融入了自己的烹饪技术中。她的晚餐虽不奢华，却被众人追捧并且模仿。”

据此，我们认为萨布莱夫人十分享受味觉的满足，事实上也的确如此。她在波尔罗亚尔修道院的时候，已经年迈到丧失了敏锐味觉的程度，于是她写信给梅尔·艾格尼丝寻求安慰。艾格尼丝在早年就丧失了味觉，她用一种十分神圣和坚定的口吻回复了萨布莱：“我亲爱的姐妹，你已经尝遍美食，如果你把这种损失当作是向上帝的赎罪，那么损失也未尝不是一种收获。”斯卡龙[15]这样描述她：

“与木头或海豚不同，

女士们对自己的要求总是很多。”

这些语句似乎在说，萨布莱做的珍馐美味不仅源自她的个人习惯，还源自她的情感和智慧。

我们知道，一直以来，萨布莱夫人的生活都相当平静，直到1640年她的丈夫过世，留给她一笔财产需要打理。后来，她在勒内-德隆格伊找到了一位朋友，即麦松庄园主热内·德·隆盖帮助自己管理财务。而这位朋友却偷偷地出售她家的房地产，这导致后来1649年巴黎大封锁时，萨布莱不得不住到麦松家。其实，她对麦松的行为早就不满，在和他对簿公堂时，她凭借自己的信誉最终赢得了皇室的审判。除去这些金钱的纷争，最令萨布莱夫人痛心的是她失去了自己最疼爱的儿子——勇敢并且英俊的盖·德拉瓦尔。德拉瓦尔在孔代的竞选时表现突出，但在1646年的敦刻尔克围剿中被杀害，年仅二十四岁。他的人格魅力让他在军中赢得了很多赞誉，尤其是孔代亲王十分重用他，并且给他介绍了瑟桂尔大臣的女儿认识，为他开启了美好的未来。德拉瓦尔的离世可以算是萨布莱夫人生命当中最痛心疾首的事件。接踵而至的则是法国投石党暴乱，导致社会动乱，众叛亲离。一直倚仗古维尔权威的勒内特说，萨布莱夫人因为接受了两千克朗[16]的抚恤金，因此对皇室仍肩负着极大的义务；无论如何，她都始终坚持忠于女王和马萨林，尽可能和其他激烈的党派保持距离；她同时听从两方的部署和裁决，并且维系着两个阵营的朋友，扮演着调停者的角色。德摩尔伯爵虽然是最为顽固的投石党派，但德摩尔伯爵夫人和萨布莱却是一生相惜的朋友；另外，萨布莱夫人与投石党派中可爱且勇敢的女英雄隆格维尔夫人也保持着长久的书信联络。她通过让蒙特鸠家族和投石党的贾布列家族联姻而消减双方的仇恨，她极力撮合孔代亲王以及他的兄弟和马萨林的侄女联姻，并且让马萨林的三个侄女和投石党三位杰出贵族领袖联姻。虽然她的计划没有全部实现，但是她的中间人地位却让她保全了自己的友谊。当这场政治风暴完结之后，萨布莱夫人还是能在她的府邸、在波尔罗亚尔修道院像以前一样集结自己的朋友圈。虽然这时的萨布莱已经步入六十岁，但是她的思想和人格魅力却让她的追随者数量丝毫不逊色于年轻女性，正如她当时所宣扬的宗教理念那样，社会上对“拯救”的关注度变得紧迫起来，这一点都不令人惊讶。她虽然退休不研习宗教了，这意味着她的年龄见长、薪水变少，但是她的个人生活依旧很舒适，并没有影响到她继续接待文人墨客。约翰逊主义开始在当时的天主教中流行，就像皮由兹运动在当今的英格兰本土宗教中流行一样——那是一种极其讲究形式和内容的信仰模式，普通老百姓不信那个，明眼人一看便知道这必定受到附庸风雅的高雅派的追捧。萨布莱夫人退休后去了波尔罗亚尔女修道院，并不是因为她已经相信约翰逊主义，而是想要去了解；她想和来自世界各地的朋友们交谈，她享受这种乐趣，于是她为自己在修道院旁边盖了一套公寓。这里的一切都令人舒心，公寓里住着她的管家兼秘书瓦兰特医生、她之前的女性伴侣以及现在的好友沙莱小姐、一位出色的厨师、几位随从，大部分时间里还有一辆四轮马车和一位车夫。正如库辛所写，萨布莱夫人平常和几位好友不用离家太远，就能远离尘世喧嚣，一方面保鲜着自己的友谊，一方面享受眼前的美好风景——“自由自在地忙于她的永福和健康”。

至此，我们只是单一地了解了萨布莱夫人在文学方面的特征和影响。但她远远不止我们了解的这样：她是贵族女性和杰出男性们值得信赖的珍贵朋友，她是法国社会中令人鼓舞的精神领袖，一种新的文学形式因她而产生；她不仅才华横溢，而且胸怀宽广，连帕斯卡[17]也愿意取悦她，阿尔诺在《论逻辑》（Logic）的前言中感谢她的意见，而对拉罗什福科说：“您知道我认为您对一些章节是不确信的，尤其是这些内心深处的。”瓦兰特秘书所收藏的那些手稿则说明了萨布莱夫人和大量不同阶层形形色色的人都保持着书信联络，萨布莱为了和他们联系一直笔耕不辍。男人把她当作寄托思想的港湾，女人则把她看作倾诉痛苦的知音；一旦她销声匿迹几天，她的朋友们一定会抓狂，就像是在追求心上人时那样心急如焚。隆格维尔夫人在她的耳边诉说自己的烦心事以及遭遇的困难，拉斐特夫人则向她倾诉自己的担忧，她生怕年轻的德圣保罗伯爵发现自己和拉罗什福科之间的亲密关系。[18]少数幸存下来的萨布莱夫人的书信显示了她极其擅长的洪布耶式书信体：其中一封是应帕斯卡的姐夫斐瑞尔先生所托，写给蒙托西耶夫人的，这封信展示了她独特的品味和才华。但是我们更愿意引用她的另一封信，是写给拉特里穆耶公爵夫人的，这封信风格活泼轻快，含义深远，却又不像肥皂泡般一戳就破：

“我认为只有我自己可以面对跟自己如此对立的事，因为尽管您可能会不相信，但您确实是我最尊敬的人了。我深知这并不足以说服您，我不配拥有您的体谅和问候，我已经拖延了太长时间没有给您回信了，而且还必须要再等上十五天才能给您回信表示敬意。事实上，女士，我除此之外对于其他的事都更负有责任。我确实特别喜欢做这样一个人：着手干一件非常艰难但可以证明自我的事。但是，从骨子里，我又觉得自己是如此地无辜，就好像您在千里之外能够感觉到我是如此地尊敬您、崇拜您、爱您一样似的，尽管我没有对您说过一句这样的话。这就给了我直到那时才给您回信的勇气，但是这不会妨碍我很长时间了。我开始被迫食言，犯了很多错误，我为我所做的事感到羞耻，我向您承诺，到了那个时间，如果我还没有得到使我安心的信任——这种从我对您的特殊的爱里提炼出来的品质的话，我就再也不敢让您记起我来了。但是我确信您会忘了这所有的一切，因为我保证：我不会再对我的错误无动于衷了，而且这个保证是永远不可违反的。女士，您真挚的……”

写这封信的女主人将从容惬意和优雅得当结合得恰到好处，她的智慧让人们愿意跟她讨论理性和哲学问题，她的感情真挚动人，她时刻不忘关心他人，作为一个大作家却毫无野心，对做果酱和蔬菜炖肉情有独钟，这样一个人难道不是汇集了各种特质的奇异混合体吗？难怪，她在波尔罗亚尔女隐修院的沙龙是拉菲耶特夫人、蒙托西耶夫人、隆格维尔夫人、奥特福尔夫人以及帕斯卡、拉罗什福科、尼克尔、多玛等人最乐意去拜访的场所。瓦兰特的手稿收藏还展示了他们在沙龙中最常谈起的话题。神学当然是最主要的议题，其次是谈论很广泛的道德问题，有时会讨论到物理和玄学。瓦兰特还保留了一张“论加尔文主义”的会议摘要手稿。当罗奥在帕斯卡的气压试验启发下发明了玻璃管时，索迪斯侯爵随即在纸上写了一篇《水为什么能在玻璃管中上升》的文章向大众普及知识。那时，笛卡尔哲学也是令人兴奋的谈论主题，甚至整个法国都在谈论笛卡尔，有人为其摇旗呐喊，也有人反对质疑，随便拿起一份报纸，上面写的都是《论笛卡尔的思想》。这些高深的主义在不同的讨论中时刻被提及，例如在谈论爱情、友谊、戏剧，以及天地之间所有令人做白日梦的哲学问题时。另外，道德作为对人类感情、情绪，以及行为的概括，也是他们十分钟爱的谈资；探讨的目的是为了锻炼口才，将这些话题缩减为简练的警句模式以便记忆，这就是萨布莱夫人沙龙圈子的特点，当然也是受到沙龙主人的影响。正如洪布耶府邸孕育出了优美的书信体，卢森堡宫廷诞生了“肖像体”和“品格论”，萨布莱夫人的沙龙则培养出了格言体，最出色的当数帕斯卡的《思想录》（Pensées），以及拉罗什福科的《箴言集》（Maximes）。萨布莱夫人自己也在朋友圈子里写些格言，在她去世之后，艾比·德艾丽将这些格言结集出版。我们可以从中感受到萨布莱夫人的丰富情感和高贵情操，但她的格言因缺乏个性而谈不上是天才之作；比起拉罗什福科的《箴言集》，萨布莱夫人的格言用词较为乏味，就像是用粘土制作的花瓶，而拉罗什福科的格言却像是被火焰烧制过的花瓶，晶莹透亮。她写过一篇有关教育的杂文，虽然都是些简短的格言，却得到了拉罗什福科和德艾丽的赞扬，可惜原文早已遗失，或许是因为论教育没有像《论友谊》那样写得精致而用心。显然，萨布莱夫人的长处并不在于自己写作，而在于激发他人写作，她对别人的赞同和欣赏就像早晨的阳光般令人舒适且振奋。她用理解的方式鼓励着他人展现才华，这是女性对文化进步能作出的最好贡献了；另外，独创性的缺失反而让她被更多具有创造力的人所接受。

帕斯卡的《思想录》手稿显示，这不是一部仅仅为宗教作品提供原材料的普通书籍，帕斯卡一遍遍地修改和雕琢它，目的是想达到最大限度的简练和完美，而并非只让别的更伟大的作品去援引它。如果思想只是被当作搜罗来的材料，那就像是盖房子时堆放的石头那样，就不会经过打磨而变成紫水晶或者绿宝石。帕斯卡和他的姐姐斐瑞尔夫人（萨布莱夫人最亲密的朋友之一）是第一批在波尔罗亚尔女隐修院拜访萨布莱夫人沙龙的客人，我们可以想象他们必定需要在大大小小的格言圈里先展示一下自己打磨的珠宝（作品），就像交登记费一样先亮个相。他们出口就是经典的格言，为的就是吸引活力四射、博学多才的女性，他们仿佛是哲圣拉罗什福科附身，甚至达到了一个新的级别。但不可否认的是，萨布莱夫人对帕斯卡的《思想录》起了极大的催化作用，如果没有她，拉罗什福科也写不出《箴言集》。就像在其他沙龙圈子里，有些致力于创造最棒的双关语，有些则致力于创造出最好的字谜，萨布莱夫人的波尔罗亚尔沙龙的消遣方式则是打造最出色的箴言。拉罗什福科说：“树立行为准则的愿望像感冒一样传播着。”但是，他非但没有宣称自己开创了这种写作方式，还指出是雅克·埃斯普利特——另一位萨布莱夫人沙龙的常客——激起了自己写箴言的兴致。埃斯普利特是一位学者，他之前经常出入洪布耶府邸，已经出版了一本名为《韵文箴言集》（Maximes en vers）的书，之后又创作了一本《虚假的人类美德》（La Fausseté des vertus humaines），数落了单调的拉罗什福科主义以及变质的加尔文主义[19]。虽然如此，拉罗什福科还是赞扬了埃斯普利特，请求他给自己评价，邀请他一起创作箴言，并且听从他的意见将作品交给萨布莱夫人征求意见。他还曾将自己写的一些箴言单独给萨布莱，想让她用一种食物来比喻自己的作品：“这是我写的格言，你觉得是像胡萝卜汤还是像炖羊肉呢？”拉罗什福科和埃斯普利特的品味才华互相辉映，但是直到最后，拉罗什福科才意识到自己在格言圈子的杰出性，并且发现自己拥有更加广泛的读者，由此才诞生了家喻户晓、毋庸赘言的《箴言集》。现在，几乎每个人都深信，《箴言集》在形式上十分完美，在内容上包含了毋庸置疑的真实性，却又不全都正确；真实是在于它的内容刚好和社会上依旧流行的人的自私本性相契合，不完全正确则在于它把自私片面当作人性所有的可能性，以偏概全。我们认为拉罗什福科在人性的广泛性上有所摇摆，这种摇摆体现在某些箴言内容上，且时不时地提醒着他，在美德之下还存在着相对应的一面，但是他从未抓住过那一面——这一点甚至从未在他的意识中出现过。

拉罗什福科对以作家的身份出现在公众面前这件事十分担忧和紧张，这尤其令人惊奇。在书稿付梓之时，他还偷偷潜入印刷厂，征询读后感来试探读者的回馈。据萨布莱夫人说，他还将多份手稿送给品味不等、才华各异的男男女女，征求他们的意见和评论，很多收到的回复至今还保存完整。大多数女性读者对箴言不感冒，但是男性则十分赞许。因为这些男性读者大多是神职人员，他们的职责就是拷问人的本性并且启迪思想，渴望达到一种高尚且神圣的思想境界。当时奥古斯丁主义[20]和加尔文主义正主导着宗教思想，其人性堕落的教义和箴言所表现出的愤世嫉俗正好在拉罗什福科的一些观点里找到共鸣，并且以一种辛辣的方式体现，因此得到不少赞许。有个作家写到：“为了使人们信仰上帝，相信他的思想和意愿，我说不出一句比教理者的箴言更准确的话。当圣灵和福音书存在于世界时，我将成为基督教徒，一方面可以教我认识自己的不幸，另一方面则教我恳求救星的到来。”在拉罗什福科的书出版之后，曼特农夫人更赞扬说《箴言集》和《约伯记》（Book of Job）是她唯一愿意读的书。

萨布莱夫人对于拉罗什福科的为人和他的《箴言集》都抱着一种宽容且公正的态度，这种态度一方面体现在他俩一致的写作风格上，他们的箴言都饱含了对美好人性的信心，虽然她的箴言比拉罗什福科的略逊一筹；另一方面还体现在她回复绍姆贝格夫人的批评之中。萨布莱夫人这样说：“作者是通过反省自己的懒散而写出的那些箴言，他有别人无可比拟的闲暇时间来反省，我认为他的内心和他的意志一样闲散懒惰。他从来没有为别人做些什么，在他伟大的欲望和期盼中，我甚至觉得他对自己也是放任不管的。”但是，她对《箴言集》还是非常感兴趣的，在一定程度上她的养女对作者也十分推崇，却并不苛求从作者那里获得任何回报。另外，值得一提的是她的养女深得爱尔维修[21]信徒的喜爱。我们可以看到，萨布莱夫人给了拉罗什福科全方位的支持，不仅为《箴言集》提供批评建议，还提出改进办法，当该书最终出版后，她还为当时唯一的报纸《学者报》（Journal des savants）写了推荐公告。这份公告本来是对作品特点的概述，汇集了对作品支持或反对的两方观点，萨布莱夫人最后用温和的语气赞扬了该作品的机智、才华，以及对人性的深刻洞察力。但是当她把这份公告交给拉罗什福科时，拉罗什福科却并不接受里面的负面意见，且执意让她修改。但是，萨布莱夫人固执地不愿意做任何改动，并且把公告退还给拉罗什福科，还附上了以下便条：

“我给您寄的这篇公告是我精心写出来要发表在《学者报》上的，我选取了您最容易感知的章节，是要让您克服羞愧，使您觉得前言没有什么可以删改的；我不担心选取这一章节，因为我确信您会出版的，尽管您非常喜欢余下的内容。我也向您保证，如果您想按照您自己的意愿对此公告进行修改，我还不如把它烧了，那样我会更加感激您的。像我们这样拥有丰富作品的作者，一点也不害怕失去一篇文章，请来信告诉我您对此有什么看法。”

拉罗什福科利用这份授权，自己“编辑”了萨布莱夫人的公告，他将用词打磨润色，还删掉了其中对作品的反面意见。《学者报》最终刊登了修改后的公告，我们可以看到，当时新闻界的年轻人还是很有远见的。

萨布莱夫人就这样扮演着拉罗什福科的文学知音，同时也是法国“纯文学”（belles lettres）的灵魂人物，引起了社会的极大关注，另外，她同样活跃在雕塑领域。萨布莱夫人仍然同波尔罗亚尔女隐修院的女性们保持着连续不断的交谈或是书信交流，附近的加尔默罗会[22]女修道院的女性们也常常找她攀谈，她们很多都曾是受到追捧和尊敬的“人世间的装饰品”。有证据证明萨布莱夫人也意识到自己得到她们的敬重。当加尔默罗会女隐修院的玛丽·玛德琳公主重病不能亲自拜访萨布莱夫人时，萨布莱夫人派人在她的病房挂了一幅自己年轻时的画像，同时收到了梅尔·艾格尼丝的俏皮留言。没错，我们在上文引用过这位艾格尼丝的警世恒言，这次她的留言描写了这幅画像如何在“我们梅尔女佣”的医院里发挥了它的作用。此外，萨布莱夫人还对圣经《新约》的翻译有浓厚的兴趣。《新约》的翻译是沙西、阿尔诺、尼科尔、勒梅特以及吕纳公爵的共同作品，沙西是主要译者。前文我们提到阿尔诺向萨布莱夫人征求自己《论逻辑》一书前言的意见，由此可见，阿尔诺在其他很多事情上也得到过她的宝贵建议。此外，对波尔罗亚尔信徒的迫害开始时，萨布莱夫人联合隆格维尔夫人一同援助和保护她虔诚的朋友们。鉴于她对约翰逊主义的中庸态度，就像她对其他任何事物的态度一样，不会走极端，萨布莱夫人进行了一次十分著名的谴责奥古斯丁主义的演说，她指出奥古斯丁的教义最初都源自约翰逊；像往常一样，她相信可以通过非暴力的调解方式解决问题，当然她的中庸并不代表没有行动。她曾一度因受到威胁而想离开波尔罗亚尔女隐修院，也曾想过退休，搬到巴黎附近的小村庄奥特伊，住进当地的宗教家庭。事实上，她的确在那里度过了几个夏天。偶尔，她也在自己的兄弟索夫勒司令家避难，或者在蒙托西耶夫人或隆格维尔夫人家。在这些人中，隆格维尔夫人最为勇敢，而且她丰厚的财富以及崇高的地位能给予波尔罗亚尔信徒更加高效的帮助。阿尔诺和尼科尔在隆格维尔夫人的府邸住了五年，正是在她的保全之下才完成了《新约》的翻译；而且，正是因为隆格维尔夫人的不懈努力，在1669年，对波尔罗亚尔隐修院的迫害最终被解除。同样，萨布莱夫人也在竭尽自己的人脉和机智帮助他们，当然，就像她在其他事件里发挥的作用那样，她的价值只是起到联络和催化的作用，激发他人做某事，而不是自己亲力亲为。正是因为她，隆格维尔夫人才得以在波尔罗亚尔事件中获得胜利，而且我们会发现，虽然萨布莱相对来说更加羞怯内向，内心却真挚诚恳，富有真知灼见，勇敢热心的隆格维尔夫人也不时地向她寻求意见和建议。

1669年，当萨布莱夫人最终不再担心受迫害时，她已经七十岁高龄了，而且我们知道，她在接下来的九年里专注于自己的精神修炼。在她风风火火的年轻时代，她对死亡是恐惧的，而现在这种循序渐进、平静沉着的衰老方式抚平了她对死亡的恐惧，最终，她在平静和信任中离开了人世。在她生命的最终时刻，她不希望人们把她和家人葬在一起，甚至不愿意和自己神圣且高尚的同伴们葬在波尔罗亚尔女隐修院——她选择了自己教区的公墓，就像普通人一样被埋在那里，没有浮华的墓碑，也没有盛大的告别仪式，这是一种多么高尚的美德啊。

有一点值得我们注意，在那个封建制度逐渐解体的时代，萨布莱夫人和其他卓越非凡的法国女性一样，被那时的女性同胞所羡慕和关注，并且寄予厚望。当萨布莱夫人五六十岁的时候，她仍被各路哲学家、智者、美人、思想才俊所包围，当然，大家最想知道的是她持久保持这份吸引力的法宝。我们认为她经久不衰的吸引力很大程度上来自于她卓越的智商和情商；她聪慧的智力带给自己深刻的感悟能力，而她宽容的性格则让她能够接纳各种性格迥异的人，这对于当时的女性来说是一件很难得的事。下面我们来谈谈她和隆格维尔夫人的一点区别，以下引用的是圣佩韦发掘出来的由艾比·圣·皮埃尔执笔的有趣段子，放心，我们并没有跑题，这些文字完美地从侧面凸显了我们萨布莱夫人伟大的人格魅力。

“有一天，我让尼科尔先生给我讲讲隆格维尔夫人的智力特点。他说，隆格维尔夫人的洞察力非常敏锐且精细，但是她对科学和推理的理解则十分有限，甚至对于所有不涉及感情的事务都力不从心。他举了一个例子，有一次，他跟夫人打赌说他能证明在巴黎至少有两个人的头发数目是一模一样的，虽然不可能具体指出是哪两个人。但是隆格维尔夫人坚决不同意，她认为除非真正数清了头发的数目，否则是不能够证明的。但是尼科尔已经开始证明了：‘我假定一颗头上最多有二十万根头发，而最少的也得有一根；那么，如果你假设二十万个人的头发数量都不一样，但是每个人的头发数量都在一到二十万根之间，若是这二十万个数字中刚好有两个是相等的，那么我的打赌就赢了。继续假设，这二十万人的头发数量都不相同，但是现在又多了一个人，他的头发数量也不超过二十万根，那么他的头发数量一定在一到二十万根之间，于是就必定和之前的二十万人中的一个人拥有相同的头发数了。现实是，别说比二十万人多了，巴黎的居民都快超过八十万人了，显而易见，他们之中一定至少有两人的头发数量是相等的，而我根本不用去数头发的数量。’隆格维尔始终不能理解这种证明方式，她还是相信唯一的证明是亲自去数清楚。”

当然，大多数对女性文学感兴趣的热情爱慕者都会被隆格维尔夫人这种死脑筋所激怒，转而去崇拜更加智慧的萨布莱夫人。论优雅、精致和女性气质，萨布莱夫人并不逊于隆格维尔夫人，况且，萨布莱夫人还有层次清晰的推理能力，并且对科学感兴趣，这种感性与理性的结合让她拥有了独具一格的魅力：她不是天才，也不是女英雄，男性对她远不止爱——她是他们的挚友、知音和顾问，她不仅能为他们分担欢乐和痛苦，还懂得他们的思想和抱负。

这就是萨布莱夫人，因为她在文学和历史中总是那么谦逊和低调，所以对于很多读者来说她的名字还比较陌生。我们也看到，萨布莱夫人可以算是众多女性作家的苍穹中熠熠生辉的一颗，当历史传记的望远镜对准这一领域时，她的人生经历和人格魅力丝毫不逊色于其他星星。现在，如果读者好好回想一下萨布莱夫人同时期的英国，即在詹姆斯一世和两位查尔斯统治时期，英国上流社会中女性的地位和平均智力水平，那么我们不得不承认，英国女性的地位只能达到法国早期的女性水平，这一事实以及它的原因不仅仅是一个历史问题：直到现在，它仍旧极大地影响着当代英国的女性文学。女性在法国拥有崇高地位，是因为她们被公平对待，她们被认为和男性一样有着相同的思想和目标，这就是法国女性文学得以繁荣发展以及社会和谐的真正根源所在。我们并不奢望女士们都能在女性学术座谈会上滔滔不绝地谈论阿波罗和战神；但是我们却希望学校的机构或学术集会能做出实际行动，将更多的妇女从织布绣花和打扫房间中解救出来。我们希望所有领域的大门都向妇女敞开，我们希望女性特有的细腻情感能填补人类生命中真善美的缺失，而不是像现在的社会这样充满性别歧视和不和谐；只有这种思想的交汇，才会迸发出足够精彩的思想色彩，才能描绘出希望之虹，才能让人类收获真正的幸福。

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[1] 本文最早发表于1854年10月的《威斯敏斯特评论》（Westminster Review）。——译者注

[2] 帕多瓦（Padua）：意大利北部城市。——译者注

[3] 达钦夫人（也就是后来的勒费夫尔小姐Mademoiselle Le Fèvre）给克里斯汀娜女王（Queen Christina）寄过自己的卡里马科斯手抄本。女王这样给她回信：“大家都说你是一位漂亮讨喜的姑娘，但是你如此博学，你不知道女子无才便是德吗？你不为此感到羞愧吗？”

[4] 黎塞留（Richelieu，1585—1642），法国宰相，法国历史上最伟大、最具谋略，也最无情的政治家。——译者注

[5] 投石党运动（Fronde，音译为“福隆德”运动），Fronde是一种投石器，故又称投石党运动，是17世纪中叶在法国发生的反对专制王权的政治运动。运动可分两个时期：前期为1648—1649年高等法院福隆德运动；后期为1650—1653年亲王福隆德运动。——译者注

[6] 洪布耶夫人（Madame Rambouillet，1588—1665），第一座文学沙龙是在1618年成立的，位于洪布耶夫人的府邸。洪布耶夫人原名凯瑟琳（Catherine de Vivonne），十二岁时嫁给洪布耶伯爵，来到法国亨利四世的宫廷之后，对于当时宫廷的粗俗生活感到惊讶和失望，于是决定在自己的家里主持沙龙。——译者注

[7] 法国作家莫里哀（Molière）的两部喜剧作品。Précieuses原本的意思是有价值的女人或珍贵的女人，该词是用来嘲弄她们赋予许多没有价值的东西不该有的价值，首先是她们自己。——译者注

[8] 拉罗什福科（La Rochefoucauld，1613—1680），17世纪法国古典作家，代表作有《箴言集》。——译者注

[9] 鲍修埃（Bossuet，1629—1704），17世纪时主张君权神授的法国神学家、政治理论家。——译者注

[10] 隆格维尔公爵夫人（Duchese de Longueville），原名安妮·德·波旁（Anne Geneviève de Bourbon，1619—1679），法国女王族，以貌美风流和在投石党内战中的影响而闻名。——译者注

[11] 圣佩韦（Sainte-Beuve，1804—1869），法国19世纪文艺批评家。——译者注

[12] 希波克拉底（Hippocrates），希腊名医，被称为医药之父。——译者注

[13] 波尔罗亚尔信徒（Port-Royalists）：17世纪法国天主教约翰逊派教徒，活动中心在巴黎附近的波尔罗亚尔女隐修院。——译者注

[14] 约翰逊主义（Jansenism）是罗马天主教在17世纪的运动，由康内留斯·奥图·约翰逊（Cornelius Otto Jansen，1585—1638）创立，其理论强调原罪、人类的全然败坏、恩典的必要和宿命论。——译者注

[15] 保罗·斯卡龙（Paul Scarron，1610—1660），法国诗人、小说家、剧作家。——译者注

[16] 克朗（crown），英国25便士的货币。——译者注

[17] 布莱士·帕斯卡（Blaise Pascal，1623—1662），法国数学家、物理学家、思想家。——译者注

[18] 我们所提到的这封信中有这样很妙的描写：“我对这个年龄的人恨得要命，他们认为我有追求女人的本事和手段，就好像我们比他们老一百岁似的，他们还处于对人类的问题特别惊讶的状态。”

[19] 加尔文主义主张人类不能通过正义的行为获得救赎，恢复逐渐被天主教所遗弃的奥古斯丁学说“救恩独作说”。——译者注

[20] 奥古斯丁主义涵盖宇宙论、恩宠论、圣事论、教会论、历史观等神学和哲学的领域，认为上帝是宇宙中唯一真实的存在，人类由于始祖犯罪，本性已经败坏，无力行善避恶，只有依靠上帝的恩宠才能得救。——译者注

[21] 克洛德·阿德里安·爱尔维修（Claude Adrien Helvétius，1715—1771）， 18世纪法国哲学家、功利主义与唯物主义者。他的主要著作包括《论精神》和《论人的理智能力和教育》。——译者注

[22] 加尔默罗会（Carmelites），又称圣衣会，会规要求会士安贫、守贞、服从、静默、斋戒。——译者注

评杰拉尔丁·朱伊斯伯里的《康斯坦斯·赫伯特》

本季度的英国小说中，除了查尔斯·金斯利[1]的《向西去！》（Westward Ho！）能吸引人眼球之外，就数《康斯坦斯·赫伯特》（Constance Herbert）这本书还比较有趣了。朱伊斯伯里小姐自己创立的那套评论体系，恐怕只会招来更多的批评。我们若是用她自己的标准来衡量她的小说，只能给个差评；但若是以女性作家的一般水平来衡量，这倒是一篇十分优秀的小说。在这篇小说中我们理所当然地见到了作者在《两姐妹》（Half Sisters）中塑造的美丽淑女形象，让我们忽略了她新创造出来的其他角色；这对于她来说并不公平，如果我们仅仅把眼光放在她作品的不足上，而忽略令我们满意的地方，对于自我要求极高甚至是苛刻的她来说，这更像是一种称赞。这本书叙事简单却让人读着很愉悦，它用一种安详且低调的方式讲述了一些高尚的情感，描写人物的性格和优点时又呈现出难得的真实和坦率，这种沉稳风格给人的感觉是，书的内容均来自深深的信念和历练之泉，而不是人云亦云如暴风雨似的一时热忱；这些优点已经足以让此书凌驾于图书馆中的普通小说之上，可是，它还算不上是一部优秀的小说，或者说并没有达到朱伊斯伯里小姐应有的水平。《康斯坦斯·赫伯特》可以算是一部训导型小说[2]；其中人物和事件的选择都考虑到不能违背某些原则。要实现的大原则是坚定不移地为责任和义务奉献自我，而具体到小说中的小原则是：有精神病遗传史则不能结婚。到目前为止，我们的观点都和朱伊斯伯里小姐一致。但是我们认为她想要树立的模式，不管是通过《使节》（Envoi）中的理论，还是通过小说中的叙述，都是错误的人生观点，而且事实上，她的这种观点正好和她之前的主张相悖。她在《使节》中说：“如果我们成功地在这本书中植入某个原则，那就是恳请我们的读者，鼓起勇气去实践这些既定的最严厉的要求。虽然有时候这好像是在强迫读者，但最终，这些原则被证明是正确的。为了一个更高原则而自我克制，这是值得的。”黑体字是我们用来证明朱伊斯伯里小姐的道德观有问题的证据。她的道德观体现在小说中三位女性的故事上。这三位女士要么抛弃了自己的爱人，要么被爱人所抛弃，她们安慰自己说那些爱人只不过是“无用之人”，达到了一种十分释然的安稳状态。我们并没有在其中看到真正的“自我克制”原则，也没有看到真实的生活；而朱伊斯伯里竟然要花掉三大卷书来说教这样的道德观，这让我们对她的洞察力和真诚深感抱歉。问题不在于我们有义务进行自我克制，或者说这种坚持是否值得；而在于，如果我们有义务这样做，那么自我克制就不再是一种道德英雄主义，而只是一种经过思考的谨慎行为而已了。让我们再看看朱伊斯伯里小姐在小说中描写的这种特殊情况，若是一位女性遇到类似情况，也会像康斯坦斯·赫伯特一样放弃婚姻，因为她不想将精神病带给另一个家庭；她对自己的感情很坚定，不是对菲利普·马奇蒙特那样自私浅薄的世俗之人，而是对一个能带给她幸福生活的人；她曾拒绝他，她会觉得这种因爱而生的牺牲会让他之后的人生越发依恋和感激她。只有在这一点上，我们认为自我克制还算得上是难能可贵，那是一种不需要任何补偿的大义凛然，是凄美与英雄主义的统一。康斯坦斯·赫伯特的高尚之举只有一种动机，那就是对人性的痛苦与不幸的真切同情，女性宁愿牺牲自己，也不会将不幸传递给别人；但是，当人们发现曾经所珍视的一切在现实中竟然毫无价值时，这种动机也是站不住脚的。对于女性来说，任务虽然艰巨，但她自始至终都手捧蜜饯，并且告诉我们总有一天能得到奖赏，这是乐天派最爱采用的伪善之言，她们以为在坎坷的荒野中探寻人生之路就好像找到荷兰园林中的小径那样简单；可是，将外在因素由动机永久地替换为行动，这的的确确破坏了真正的道德发展；相反，一时兴起的激情或正义却足以保证一个人的行为品德端正。我们似乎该讲讲小说这个严肃的话题了，但是朱伊斯伯里小姐花了大量篇幅强调她的道德观，这不得不让我们认为她的书是一本训导书，而不是小说，以致让我们一直在驳斥她的观点，而忽略了她所讲的故事。换一个角度，我们之所以不得不反驳她一下，是因为我们承认她的影响力，所以必须时刻关注她的观点是否把我们领往正确的方向。书中除了哈罗普先生一直在忠心等待着一位妻子给自己的生命增添意义之外，其他男性角色要么懦弱无能，要么背信弃义、卑鄙无赖；而书中所有女性都是宽宏大量、忠贞不二的典型代表；这回狮子们，即女性同胞们，手中有了可以复仇的笔，就可以对从亚当之后所有中伤过自己的男性们进行报复了。或许，我们允许她们写得夸张些，这样会显得比较公平。但是我们仍旧要低调地表示一下我们并不能接受片面的观点，即使是人生楷模玛格丽特姑妈的话。玛格丽特姑妈告诉我们，她在青春貌美时已经具备了高尚的美德和文学造诣，却由于自己一方全心全意的付出而使丈夫疏远了自己。她说：“没有一个男人能忍受完全意义上的付出。”这让我联想到一个酒徒在某个晚上喝了几杯白兰地和白水混合的饮料，隔天的早上抱怨白水让自己身体不适。我们倾向于认为，通常并非是女性的付出使男性疏远了她们，而是掺杂在付出中的东西，比如愚蠢、怒气或紧张，这些情感只要加入些许剂量，就会引起激烈的后果。事实上，男性处在一个很艰难的位置上：一方面，格蕾斯·李小姐或某个像她一样意志坚定的女性，怒斥男性想得到女性的爱戴和敬仰，而憎恨具有自我独立意识的女性；另一方面，一位具有忧郁气质的维尔拉，抱怨男性从来不感激女性的付出，而只关注那些对他们态度漠然的女性。这对于所有男女来说，是个多么令人沮丧的观点啊！严肃地说，我们对于如何理解女性的真实地位关注本来就多，所以当看到朱伊斯伯里小姐这样的女作家在这一问题上又增添了她自己的观点，让我们的认识更加混乱时，我们不能不感到遗憾。

————————————————————

[1] 查尔斯·金斯利（Charles Kingsley，1819—1875），英国作家，代表作《向西去！》写于1855年，内容是伊丽莎白时代反对天主教和击败西班牙舰队的故事。——译者注

[2] 训导型小说（Tendenz-Roman），指通过一定的故事或者说教而让读者接受某种观点，德国人将这种作品称为训导型小说。——译者注

玛格丽特·富勒和玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特

最近新书不多，正好有机会去重新翻阅那些迄今为止被我们忽略的书。在此，我们选了玛格丽特·富勒[1]最新版本的《十九世纪的女性》（Woman in the Nineteenth Century），因为和当时同类别的书比起来，该书的内容更加充实和公正，算得上是同类别书中的翘楚。虽然这本书中也具有和美国其他伟大作品相似的缺点，例如混杂着模棱两可的唯心论以及不切实际的豪言壮语，但是它仍旧十分难得：书中散发着高贵和谐的热忱，全书基调中庸、涉及面广，为读者提供了大量充满活力和修养的内容。书中并没有夸大女性的道德品质抑或智力水平，也没有盲目地去强调女性适合做哪些迄今为止被男性所垄断的事情；作者只是冷静地呼吁废除针对女性的不公正法律以及人为的约束，创造一个能让她们全面发挥资质的空间：

帮助她们摆脱一种寄生状态，这种状态看似在助她们进步，实则在拖她们的后腿；

带领她们来到充满希望和新生的田野，看繁花遍地，帮助她们认识真实的自己；

让全社会都关注并且学习，如何保护和支持与众不同的女性权利。

玛格丽特·富勒的这本书最早在1843年出版，如果把它和六七十年前玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特[2]的《女权辩护》（Rights of Woman）作个对比，那将是一件十分有趣的事。《女权辩护》仅有一卷，但是它所涵盖的内容与富勒的书相比，至少在道德意识上绝对让上世纪的女性受益匪浅。某些评论者对《女权辩护》一书颇有微词，认为它在某些方面应受到谴责，但是读者若是抱着这样的印象翻开此书，只会惊讶地发现这本书实际上十分严肃，而且道德感厚重——或许是因为这本书到1796年已经绝版，而现存的也很稀有了。两本书的观点有时候非常相似，有时候却又大相径庭。两本书都表现出了作者充分的理解力。玛格丽特·富勒的观点似乎总是局限在美国大陆的范围之内，让人常常在刚刚经历了明媚的“透彻”之后又立马进入到神秘纠结的迷雾森林——她经常在前一段还逻辑严密地推理，之后却又如梦呓般含糊其辞；而她所处的独特的文化背景也让她拥有了超强的描写能力。另一方面，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特则极其理性，她的书中没有炫耀性的渊博学识，也没有展示灵动的想象力。我们可以透过这两个作家看到，她们坚硬或是真挚的秉性之下，都跳动着一颗充满爱的女性之心，这让她们不会低估任何一个具有细小关爱和善心的人或机构。玛格丽特·富勒是个激情澎湃的女性，她多愁善感，习惯了以笔抒情、以文明志；而我们认为玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特并不是为了写作而写作，她的写作动机更加复杂。虽然两人生活在不同的时代，但是她们在思想轨迹上却有着惊人的相似之处。《女权辩护》中说，对于男孩和女孩的教育应当将家庭教育和普通的学校教育相结合，除了这一观点，书中其他重要的思想都在玛格丽特·富勒的文章中有所重现。

两位作家都写到过的一个观点是，男性害怕另外一个性别群体的能力和修养也达到自己的水平，所以一直处在一种满足于女性无知、愚昧的状态。玛格丽特·富勒说：

“只要男性的成长环境没有任何贫困和愚昧，充分享受到了家中壁炉的温暖以及生活中的美好，那么此时，女性更具影响力，如果她选择使用这些权力，也经常倾向于这么做，这与她们的无知、幼稚和虚荣心的程度成一定比例。她们根本没考虑过生命的重要性和意义，从小被教导如何卖弄风骚、贪图小便宜，目光仅仅局限于自己某个时刻的享乐，而政府的动荡不安以及市场的萧条竟然能抚慰她们的内心。尽管英国商铺老板的妻子们没有选举权，但是她们却对政治家们奉承般的游说感兴趣。”

她接着说：

“当病人们（容许我们把这样的男性叫作病人）不再戒备时，所有的妻子们，无论品德好坏，无论爱与不爱，都不可避免地会使用到她们所拥有的权力，并且掺杂着自己的情感影响她们的丈夫。”

对于相同的话题，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特这样说：

“女性被囿于自身的愚昧和奴性依赖已经很多很多年了，但是她们依旧怡然自得，喜欢浪子和军人，醉心于玩具，她们的虚荣心让她们更注重成就而忽略美德。历史已经给我们展示了一部令人心寒的女性犯罪记录，这些罪行都是她们试图超越她们的主人、运用自己的智慧犯下的……我把女性说成奴隶是有原因的，这是政治和公民上的含义；她们间接地拥有很多权力，可惜被她们争取不法权力的行为所削弱……成功男士的自由玩乐以及他们的美德，一直是鼓动女人超越男人的强大推力；而这些弱小的女人们，在孩子气和自私的虚荣心的驱使下，将会对男人们所认定的事物产生合理怀疑；而实际上，她们应该采纳他们的判断。对于爱幻想以及对生活乐观的大部分男人，他们都能一方面把自己的人生事务管理得井井有条，另一方面在女性社会中放松自己；当然，我不需要从历史上搬出大量的反例，也不用详述由于好心的愚蠢干涉所引起的悲剧，因为这些反对是由于女性的独断专行造成的。在业务处理中，宁愿和无赖打交道，也不要和傻瓜打交道，因为无赖尚且知道依照计划办事，可以提前认清采取计划的动机，而不是像愚者那样不知何时才能顿悟。有些无耻愚蠢的女人爱管教睿智的男人，她们通常都是臭名昭著的。”

在男性中似乎广泛流传着这样一种观点，那就是一个受过良好教育、具有自己独立观点的女士，更容易变成一个爱唱反调的个性女子：当她的丈夫想要往西时，她却要往东，说话时满口深奥的道理，还喜欢枕边训导。当然，只要你意识到这一点，你就会知道，在不能使用暴力、鞭子、缰绳和脚镣的情况下，你家那位毫不讲理的妻子便是世上最难对付的生物了。但在女性自己看来，通过在体罚的旧俗和现代教育之间找到一种合适的中间状态，以此让男性能够理智地对待他们的妻子是不可能的。当弱小不受控制时它就会泛滥成灾；就好像一位强壮的男人手牵着一个调皮的小孩，你可以看到那小孩是如何为了挣脱大人的束缚而左右拉扯，最后挣扎累了便只好乖乖地跟着大人继续前行。一个真正有教养的女人应当和一个真正有教养的男人一样，都得做好最终被生活琐事所征服的准备。由此可见，松散的逻辑和薄弱的意志之间并没有什么牢固的联系，一位对哲学一窍不通的女士，她对厨房的热情也不会那么不屈不挠。真正有文化的女性不会因为有了学问就自以为高人一等，只有对真知一知半解的女性才会有至高无上的优越感，就像马勒普太太[3]所说，这种优越感源自“女性身上徒劳无益的品质”——她那些知识只是随处搜刮来的，并没被完全吸收，没有真正融入到自己的品格中去。

回到玛格丽特·富勒，她谈及社会上对女性最大的偏见在于对女性性格的绝对定义以及对女性使命的绝对划分。她说：“女人们的性格反映在很多侧面，就好像她们不受规则约束一样，我们必须承认女性性格的多样性。”她接着说：“如果她们的天性不被束缚，她们的言论不被扼杀，这就够了。当她们需要抒发自己的情感时，能够自由地书写或倾诉，那将是多么令人欣慰的一件事。当然，若她们依旧保持一贯的沉默，并不是因为男权的压迫，而是因为神的召唤，那么这种沉默还算不上是灾难。”玛格丽特说了下面这一段话，其中第一句的引用频率颇高：

“如果你问我，女性适合什么职业，我将毫不犹豫地回答：任何职业。我不在乎你假设的情景，如果可以，她们还能当女船长呢，我从不怀疑她们的能力，如果要选择女船长，我将非常荣幸地推荐萨拉戈萨、密淑伦其的少女们，苏列特的女英雄或者艾米丽·普莱特。我认为在这样一个时期，女性尤其需要一个广阔的就业面和众多的职业选择，激发她们潜在的力量……我们会发现，有些小女孩在家里被木工活所吸引，或者自己爱研究木工的器具，如果她们的这种兴趣能被接受并被正确引导，她们将身心愉悦，而且培养出木工的技艺；但是，如果家长们认为木工活不适合女孩子干，那么小女孩们的这种兴致就被扼杀了，她们可能会因此变得易怒且淘气。傅立叶[4]曾经研究过女性的这些兴趣，他认为大人都能看出小女孩的渴望，也很容易看出成年女性的空虚无聊，当然那些具有一技之长或是保有自己兴趣爱好的女性除外。所以，他主张制造业和看护动植物等行业至少要向三分之一的女性开放，让她们具有和男性一样的追求，当然女性职业也应当向三分之一的男性开放。但是，我敢肯定，即便是有这样的呼吁，大部分女性还是会和现在一样选择职业，因为她们迫于很多因素很难改变。母亲们自然而然地会把家庭营造得温暖舒适，这就是天性，就好像想要高飞、想要鸣叫的鸟儿，不需要帮它拍打翅膀，它也能一飞冲天，或者说人们很难发现一只翅膀没有力量的小鸟。唯一需要说明的是，不能因为某些职业不适合女性就认为所有职业都不适合女性。”

针对这一问题，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特提出了这样的建议，该建议已经在美国妇女中开始实施，她说：

“所有的女性，都想成为淑女。当她们接触到一些自己曾经很少关心的领域，总是无精打采、无所事事，那是因为她们不知道该谈论些什么。那么女性在社会中应该干些什么呢？有人可能会这样回答：‘迈着优美的步伐闲逛吗？或者就放任她们哺育小孩子，或是记载些无足轻重的琐事。’不！女性应该学习医术，成为医师或者护士……她们能进军各行各业，前提是她们得到正规的受教育的机会……女性不应当迫于生计而结婚，这样会使男性被动接受婚姻而忽略应尽的义务。”

事实上，男性不愿意鼓励女性自助和独立的同时，也让自己尝尽了苦头。许多青年才俊在日复一日的辛勤工作中度过了自己宝贵的时间，他们设立的“原则”是不让女性们明白自己的小心思，只需要她们安静地待在休息室，就像圣母端坐在神祠里一样。这都没问题。但是，想要改变人们对女性建立起来的陈旧观念，或者放弃偏见，仰视一下自己的妻子，这却显得那么困难。罗马神话中的富豪罗米拉斯说：“就把男人当作神灵吧，就好像他已经死去了一样”；而男人们也这样说女人：“就把她们看作是木偶吧，身穿漂亮的衣物却毫无用处，即便我们不承认她们是严格意义上的人类，我们仍旧得到她们的尊重”。

社会上有一方的观点认为，只有女性的素质提高了，她们的地位才会提高；另一方观点则认为，如果女性的地位没有改变，她们就很难变得更好——这就需要更加公平公正的法律以及针对女性的更广阔的择业机会。然而，与此同时，我们也时常能听到解决人权问题的种种难处。在个体和社会机构之间总是存在着一种作用力和反作用力，难以调和；我们必须尽力去修补双方的关系，哪怕这样的尝试步履维艰，任重道远，但也只有这样才是唯一能改善人权的方式。不幸之处在于，许多过度热心的极端妇女认定自己和男人们是完全平等的——噢！还不止，她们认为女性的道德水平甚至超越了男性——基于此，她们极力倡导将女性从令人窒息的法律法规和社会惯例中解放出来。可是，她们因为错误的定位而大大削弱了自己的力量。如果她们提出的根据是真实的，那么奴隶制度和愚昧无知岂不是成了培养美德的摇篮，人们岂不是就得支持奴役制的延续了？但我们想为女性争取更多自由和文化，因为长久以来，她们习惯了顺从和愚昧，这使得她们的地位下降，可是——

如果她们弱小、脾气傲慢、生活痛苦，

那么男人们又怎么成长？

玛格丽特·富勒和玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特两人有足够的智慧来证明这句看似多愁善感的夸大之词，她们热切地希望女性能改变现状。当谈到男人和女人的道德水平时，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特坚定地说：

“比起男性，女性的情感更加敏锐，可以说更加人性化，因为她们感情专一，并且随时怀揣着怜悯之情；但是她们对愚昧的执着却易发展成为自私或极端的情绪，例如对孩子的溺爱或对野兽的憎恨。我认识很多意志力薄弱的女人，她们原本丰富的情感被丈夫所钝化，甚至连基本的人性情感都所剩无几，只有偶尔会窜出一丝的同情心。一位著名的演说家说过，人性并不是从‘神经质的耳朵里听来的，它应当来自心灵和头脑’。虽然女性这种独特的情感可能让个体变得软弱，但它却不能被当作证明某种性别不如另一性别的证据，因为这种情感是基于各种束缚和压迫后自然产生的。就算是情感十分丰富的女性，如果她们不关注工作和个人规划，很少在意道德品质，那么她们的英雄主义般热烈的情感，抑或是精神，也只会在被爱情驱使的情况下一生只出现一次。我因此倒也同意有些伦理学家主张的‘女人不如男人般慷慨大方’；女性的情感领域时常因为保全正义和仁慈而变得狭窄，这使得在和男性作比较时处于劣势；但是我想说，若是女性不想再被男性的观点所束缚，那么就请打开心房，学会包容和接纳，让心充满力量吧。”

我们还找到了玛格丽特·富勒的一些观点，但是我们的主题只需要点到为止，并不需要长篇大论地赘述，所以此处就略去不引用了；我觉得，上文所列的各种断断续续的内容已经足够向读者说明我的观点了。

————————————————————

[1] 玛格丽特·富勒（Margaret Fuller，1810—1850），美国作家、评论家、社会改革家、早期女权运动领袖。她是新英格兰先验论派的著名成员。——译者注

[2] 玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特（Mary Wollstonecraft，1759—1797），18世纪的英国作家、哲学家和女权主义者。——译者注

[3] 马勒普太太（Mrs．Malaprop），爱尔兰喜剧《情敌》中的人物，喜欢搬弄漂亮的词句，却不懂其含义，因此经常闹出笑话。人们普遍把用词不当称作马勒普风格。——译者注

[4] 夏尔·傅立叶（Charles Fourier，1772—1837），法国空想社会主义者，代表作为《新的工业世界和社会事业》。——译者注

哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托的《德雷德》[1]、查尔斯·里德的《改过不嫌晚》，以及弗雷德里卡·布雷默的《赫莎》

我们终于等来了斯托夫人的新小说，在过去三周里，男女老少都在全神贯注地读着这本小说——书中描绘的美景、幽默或温暖的场景，以及粗鲁的英雄主义让他们时而欢笑，时而哭泣——当然，他们也会对书中所写的粗野行径义愤填膺。这样的一本书是一股很难操纵的力量，评论更是各执一词，有反对也有支持——有人抱怨斯托夫人酷爱重复叙事，导致情节不够完美，全书充斥着赞美诗和宗教对话，拖沓啰唆，由此还产生了不公平的偏见——但这些抱怨的人就像是手拿喷壶去浇灭草原火灾的救火人，力量单薄。在此期间，《德雷德》（Dred）已经被数以百万计的人所阅读，他们大多数认为这是一部天才之作，并且没有那么多苛刻的评论。我承认，我们很多人都在这数以万计之列，只是不习惯与法德拉蒂圣人之流相提并论。我们被德雷德深深感动，并且精确地评估着它与汤姆叔叔[2]的差距；我们也对斯托夫人的套路留下了深刻印象，以至于完全知道她将要写些什么。我们对她小说的钦佩已经超越了废奴制度等大问题，并不只是停留在所谓的“纯文学”上了。即使我们并不完全赞同斯托夫人的观点，认为她夸大了她所塑造的人物形象，但《德雷德》仍旧算是一部少见的优秀小说，因为作者不仅功底深厚，而且所写的故事情节张弛有度。

如果从艺术的角度看，我们没有理由因斯托夫人的新小说还是在继续上一本书里的黑人和殖民者生活的故事而感到遗憾，像司各特[3]刚写完《威弗利》（Waverley），又将苏格兰高地的习惯重复写进了《罗布·罗伊》（Rob Roy）以及《珀斯的美丽姑娘》（The Fair Maid of Perth）。斯托夫人创造了黑人文学小说，此类小说不仅具有新颖的内容、独特的手法，而且包含了奥古斯特·蒂尔里[4]指出的极具罗曼蒂克情节的种族冲突——司各特的《艾凡赫》（Ivanhoe）[5]也是一例。文学作品中的创造力并不像制造男女外套或是防水公寓那样无穷无尽，对于读者来说，读文学作品的乐趣可能就在于看书中各式各样的重复和模仿，所以，我们对斯托夫人又写了一部黑人小说应当持宽容的态度；或许，她只会写这类小说呢，因为她的写作才能的确比较特殊。她写的《夏日记忆》（Sunny Memories）简直搬不上台面，但是不管她还写过什么，或者是以后还会继续写什么，我们都不可否认，《汤姆叔叔的小屋》以及《德雷德》已经让她跻身于一流小说家之列，她以最高的水平给读者描绘了国民生计各个阶段的情形——大众的、贵族的、幽默的、悲伤的、政治的、宗教的——生动而全面。

当然，斯托夫人的小说里并不是只有种族冲突那类宏大的主题，和司各特一样，她的作品中还有另一个重要的内容，从某种程度上讲，她对这一主题的描写成就甚至超过了司各特。这个主题就是对希伯来基督教的细节重现。在当时，希伯来基督教还十分鼎盛，圣经《旧约》的教义渗透在人们日常生活的方方面面。司各特塑造了贝尔福的伯利，生动描写了杜门罗格和博斯维尔布里格战役以及以法莲·麦克布瑞尔的审判，还有谁能超越他的这些成果呢？而斯托夫人所写的德雷德沼泽地的阴暗景色、长老会教徒和循道宗信徒的野营集会则可以与之匹敌，前提是我们忽略掉司各特在《清教徒》（Old Mortality）中描写的精彩打斗。斯托夫人自己的宗教情感是她自身的一种艺术优势，她绝不会让你觉得她在无情地算计后果，你看到的只是她一时之间疯狂的热情、未加思量的信念以及德雷德、缇夫和迪克森神父的烈士精神。不仅如此，敏锐的幽默感也让她的语言远离浮夸和单调；虽然她总是从好的方面描绘虔诚的黑人们，但他们还是黑人，斯托夫人从来不会对自己塑造的人物失去掌控，也不会让本该妙趣横生的对话变成毫无生气的演说。当然了，这就是斯托夫人的特点：她的戏剧本能随时开启着，无论是风格怪异的老缇夫、爱做白日梦的妮娜、直率的智者伯尼姆神父，还是极其绅士的弗兰克·罗素，她都能把这些角色塑造得栩栩如生，使得她在竞争激烈的优秀小说家之林中占据一席之地。

若是从争论角度看待斯托夫人的小说，人们对她的反对意见也是其众多艺术瑕疵中的一个。大家认为她在成名前的小说中没有描写一定比例的黑奴真是太可惜了。从她的观点来看，黑人种族大大优于白人，甚至是在某些非奴隶制国家——这一点足以击败斯托夫人对某些将奴隶制度称作“基督化制度”[6]之人的暗讽和挖苦。如果说奴化的黑人真的如此优良，那么奴隶制度就算得上是道德准则了。但是除了这种自杀式的论点之外，斯托夫人却因触动了种族之间最悲剧的元素而唤醒了被压迫在恶习中的涅墨西斯复仇女神。她暗指奴隶中也有败坏的道德，但并未给予详细的描述，可是，她为什么花了那么长的篇幅来写勒格雷和汤姆·戈登，却在黑奴的道德堕落问题上如此惜字如金呢？

我相信，用不了多久，斯托夫人的这本小说大家就会人手一本，所以我根本就不用提及该书的内容，要做的只是称赞它是一本伟大的小说，衡量政治意义这件事就留给别人去做吧。

合上《德雷德》，我们现在翻开的是查尔斯·里德[7]的《改过不嫌晚》（It is Never Too Late to Mend），这又是一本值得一读的好书，能深深地拨动我们的心弦。这本书在叙事风格和本质特征上与《德雷德》形成鲜明的对比。里德先生的小说再现了一些英国人真实的悲惨生活：正直的青年农夫乔治·菲尔丁赶上了这个“不景气”的时代，在家里农场颗粒无收的情况下，为了和自己心爱的女人苏珊·默顿结婚，他只好到澳大利亚去寻求财富。还有一位聪明的盗贼罗宾逊，他本是菲尔丁在乡下时的房客，作者通过他描写了阴森的监狱生活和无知残暴的监狱长，这些平常很难看到的情节令人不寒而栗。读者跟随英勇的牧师一起在书中抗争这种愚蠢且不公正的迫害，最终导致了伯明翰监狱的悲剧；比起真人真事，人们的同情心似乎更容易被小说激发。接着，我们来到澳大利亚，目睹了菲尔丁的幸运和不幸——首先经历了澳大利亚大牧羊场的考验，然后是极具戏剧性的淘金之旅，这让他收获了四千磅的财富并且及时赶回家，避免了心爱的苏珊被自己的头号情敌娶走。

可以说，这部小说有三个亮点：引人入胜的场景，真挚感人的情感，还有极具说服力的写作水平。在监狱中遇到的那个最佳伙伴可能很令人讨厌，但是当他决定要退场时又让读者舍不得。菲尔丁对苦难生活的抗争在澳大利亚再次上演，但这次，朋友们的友谊点亮了他的惨淡生活，包括那位改过自新的盗贼罗宾逊以及他的小狗卡洛，还有澳大利亚土著人——令人鼓舞的“杰克”，这群鲜活的朋友是吸引你看完整本书的动力。“杰克”是一个全新的人物，他举止优雅并且风趣幽默，完全不像其他野蛮人。而读过这本小说的农夫都会对书中的一些英国生活场景产生共鸣：例如乔治·菲尔丁和兄弟威廉的小口角，女主人苏珊·默顿的保守思想以及其他众多的优点。总之，《改过不嫌晚》是一本非常优秀的小说，不仅适合无所事事和文化程度不高的人读，也适合成天忙碌、博古通今的人阅读。

然而，里德先生的小说还没有超越“机智”这个水平：我们的确能在全书中感受到他高效利用各种素材的天资，因为读者只会赞叹将素材进行重组归纳和再创造的“天才”作者，却常常忽略制造精巧素材的原创人。当然，市面上探讨天才和灵感的废话比比皆是，就好像天才不需要动脑一样；但是，有些作家的作品能让你瞬间着迷，而有些作家只能唤醒你的好奇心，这二者之间还是有很大差别的，差别的根源可能是跟作家的“天赋”有关吧。事实上，这种差别的真正原因可能在于此——第一种作家完全将自己投入了所写的作品，本人的情感与角色融为一体；第二种作家将自己置身于故事之外，只是一个劲儿地装扮着角色。斯托夫人算得上是第一种作家，她对自己的作品充满了激情，并且被自己塑造的每个角色所鼓励着；她丰富的内心，而非下意识的雕琢，最终让她的作品取得了最佳戏剧效果。相反，里德先生似乎总是存在于一种自觉状态中，他时刻经营着自己的角色，一遍一遍地润色修饰；他塑造的人物可能此时是一种状态，而彼时又随着情节的发展和之前的性格相差甚远。这种跳跃式的描写习惯导致他乐于在写作中追寻对比强烈的冲突和夸张的戏剧效果，然而这种快节奏的情节更适合观看舞台剧的观众，并不适合一部小说的读者，因为小说的时间线和容量都比剧本要大，小说应当通过均匀的描写，着重赋予人物更多现实主义色彩，而非仅仅追求情节的起落。看里德的小说，我们仿佛看到了一个被“打造”得非常完美的剧场绅士，注视着舞台下的观众，用抑扬顿挫的语调述说着书中的对话，此处引用一例：当伊登先生做完关于盗窃的晨训之后，监狱长霍斯听了十分赞同，跟狱吏弗赖伊吩咐，应该让大家都听听这样的讲解。于是当天下午弗赖伊又请人举办了一场关于残暴行为的训诫，霍斯问弗赖伊：“我不是让他在神坛上给其他人讲课吗？”弗赖伊答道：“是的，长官，我就是这样说的，可是你有说过想让他在其他人面前说教吗？”“我说过，”霍斯生气地回答，“但不是让他对着我讲！你个笨蛋！”这场景若是在舞台上必然会引起一阵小轰动，同时还展现了些许人物性格；但是出现在小说中时，人们有足够多的时间思考和怀疑这种极端的朴素，还不如自己创造一两句可以感知的诗句呢。

里德先生似乎从来不相信节制和简单。他描写的监狱生活夸张到漏洞百出，前后的重复也让读者产生了审美疲劳；他的男女主角都设定在伯克郡家园，这可以算是一个创举；可是接下来他将浪漫和邪气相结合的努力却显得幼稚且格格不入：伊萨克·利瓦伊是一个拼接式的多重性格的犹太人，极具远见的马基雅维利主义者[8]梅多斯先生竟然穿长筒靴，甚至是他自言自语时也在怒斥人性的弱点，并且召唤上帝和他人见证自己的愤怒，这完全就是混淆了原因和结果的重要性。但是像里德先生这样的大作家，他真正的缺点可能要算过于信赖排版的效果。我们通常认为，在大量理念和大量样式之间很难建立联系，因为这种联系总是会被文字的样式所限制；但是我们的里德先生总能不遗余力地通过现代事物、运用大写字母给读者留下深刻印象，例如突然在书页中出现几个夸张的大字“这个不可思议的时代”。也许，我们如此鸡蛋里挑骨头是件不道德的事，毕竟《改过不嫌晚》带给我们那么多快乐；但不可否认，的确是里德先生的智慧才产生了书中这些可以被吐槽的小缺点，让我们在介绍他的作品时不得不提及。

布雷默[9]小姐的新书让我们回想起十年前，小说界的人们曾热烈讨论《友邻》（The Neighbours）、《总统的女儿》（The President's Daughters）、《H家族》（The H-Family）等瑞典小说的情景。那次大讨论引发了文学界和图书销售界的“瑞典小说”热潮，但是热潮如同昙花一现般很快退去。可能很少有一种类型的小说像布雷默女士的小说那样在英国轰动一时，却在之后的文学史上销声匿迹。没有人再引用它们，也没有人再谈及它们：当人们迈入四十多岁的年纪时，思想成熟，回想起当年对瑞典小说的狂热，不禁会对那时的“年轻不羁”报以一笑。那么为什么会这样？布雷默小姐独特的写作才华不仅给英国读者带来了新鲜感，同时还给写作带来了非同寻常的影响——活泼生动的想象力、诗意的情感、丰富的语言、对细节的感知以及能给日常生活点滴增添色彩的轻快而朴素的幽默感。那么回到之前的问题，为什么布雷默小姐的小说在读者中的评价并不高呢？当我们精读一下《赫莎》（Hertha）就会发现第一个原因，她所有的优点都被过度的多愁善感给毁了，就好像在美洲的森林里看到一只嗅觉并不灵敏的爬行动物，却让人觉得周围弥漫的都是危险气息。她总是在小说中做些怪异的拼接，例如把模糊虚构的空想主义和不同寻常的类荷兰现实主义结合；她在前一页还在写丰盛的香肠三明治、啤酒、牛奶甜酒，而接下来描写的历险记却根本不像是吃三明治喝甜酒的人能干出来的，更像是精灵或是火蜥蜴种族。布雷默小姐的小说经不起时间考验的另一个原因，在于贯穿小说始终的过于绝对的宗教哲学口气。当一个小说家夸口她要表达的理论能解决世人所有的困难时，那么显然，她的小说只不过是自说自话而已。

在《赫莎》中，布雷默的多愁善感和教条式自信这两点表现得十分明显，但是对比她前期的小说，缺少了对细节的描述以及现实主义幽默感。《赫莎》并不是一本单纯出于艺术灵感而写成的小说，它的目标很明确，就是要把女性从有碍她们发展的法律和教育限制中解救出来，把她们从没有工作机会而只能致力于婚姻生活的无聊人生中解救出来。我们认为，所有具有判断能力的人都会佩服布雷默，因为她在很多年前就已经为自己赢得了名声和独立的人格，并且将自己的余生都奉献给了妇女解放事业，她这种慷慨激昂的能量是当时妇女所严重缺乏的。看着她在《赫莎》中阐述的那些智慧且高尚的事，我们不由得惋惜，她提出的所谓解决困难和实际问题的观点，并没有考虑到当时的时代局限性，而只不过像粉色烟雾般浪漫和不切实际罢了。《赫莎》的故事简介如下：

赫莎自幼丧母，她的父亲是个典型的思想狭隘、贪得无厌的传统男人，要求儿女百分之百的顺从。在她二十七岁时，赫莎对父亲的束缚越来越不满，同时，父亲还专横地阻止了赫莎的姐姐阿尔玛同她心爱的人结婚，阿尔玛因此陷入悲痛之中。我们的女主角第一次亮相是在一次化装舞会的预演中，她脸上写满了忧郁和痛苦，舞会将于几天后在孔斯雪平镇举行。她在舞会上认识了不少朋友，其中一位年轻人叫英韦·诺丁，赫莎十分赞同他关于女性地位的论断。接着，我们跟随女主角回到她了无生趣的家，在那里住着她的“独裁者”父亲，父亲会因为她们没有在规定的八点之前回家而狠狠训斥她们；在那里还有她的精神依靠，她的姐姐阿尔玛，她总是向阿尔玛倾吐内心的痛苦以及在父亲的压迫下而滋生的仇恨和叛逆。虽然赫莎和阿尔玛从母亲那里继承了部分财产，但是依据瑞典法律，她们还是未成年人，因此没有实际的财产支配权。就在当晚，镇上发生火灾，破坏范围极大，“独裁父亲”的家也被烧毁，他自己还是被我们的女主角赫莎救出火海的。当时，赫莎冲进父亲的房间，背起瘦弱的父亲冲出了大火。这一孝顺的举动，加上阿尔玛的遗言，为赫莎从父亲那里争取到了自由的许诺，当然，这一自由也是有限制的。父亲仍旧掌管着她的财产权，直到她成年；但是赫莎在家里已经有了地位，并且有更多出门活动的自由。为了帮助火灾中的伤员和病员，妇女们组建了一个“妇女救助社”，赫莎也是其中一员。碰巧的是，她接待的伤员正好是英韦·诺丁，英韦受了重伤，现在寄住在救助社社长——一位好心的牧师家。赫莎照顾英韦的这段日子是他们培养友谊的绝好时机，赫莎发现，诺丁宽大的内心和渊博的学识一方面抚慰了自己的伤痛，一方面激发了自己的思想；后来，这种友谊渐渐发酵，最终变成了爱情。在经历了种种猜忌和怀疑之后，独裁父亲终于勉强答应了英韦对赫莎提出的求婚，前提是英韦必须找到一份稳定的工作。英韦于是出国寻求财富，赫莎为了等他一直延后婚期，一直到七年后，英韦重病奄奄一息的时候，赫莎才放下顾虑嫁给他。在与英韦分离的那七年里，赫莎做了很多有意义的事，她创办并且管理着两所学校——一所是专门给女孩提供基础教学的学校，另一所学校则更像是导师制的护士学院，在那里，学生通过听赫莎的朗读、与她直接交谈，以及受她人格魅力的影响，而提升自己的思想境界和人生追求。她的学校非常成功，但是英韦的去世令她悲痛不已，她随后不久也离开了人世。

这个简要的故事梗概只能展示而不能完全解释我们对《赫莎》一书的批评。我们的批评在于：书中提出的问题大多只能通过十分绝对的观点和特别详细的事实来解决，当然还得用到空洞的口才以及轻浮的爱情故事。试举一例，书中提到是否应该让女性学医并且从事医疗职业。而作家采用女性成功从事医学事业的例子来证明了这一点，我们杰出的女作家认为，只要女性足够认真，学习了足够多的课程，那么根据“生动的观察和坚定的意志必定带来思想顿悟”这一理论，她们仅仅通过在病床旁边观摩病人，再演绎一段爱情故事，而不经过长期的临床试验，就能成为一名好医生、好护士。当然，女性们不用证明自己很情绪化、偶尔狂热和唯心主义，因为这些都是大家所公认的。她们需要证明是：自己也有精确的思维能力、严谨的学习态度和持续的自控力，虽然这几点我们都很难心甘情愿地同意，因为从布雷默小姐的笔下，我们更容易被女主角的满口正义和她精妙的观察能力所吸引。在此，我们实在是没有足够的空间来引用赫莎抱怨其他女性不懂自然科学的长篇大论了，仅仅摘出一小段来：“在我很小的时候，就对自然界中的一切抱着浓厚的兴趣，我爱观察山川河流、一草一木，期望能了解它们的性格，它们的生命，以及它们存在的意义。但是因为自己有限的知识和机会，大自然于我就像是一个高深莫测的谜团，直到现在，我还是会为它迷人的景致和神秘所倾倒，它就像是赋予我生命活力的甘泉，让我源源不断地从它那里汲取灵感。噢！感谢伟大的造物主！”

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[1] 《德雷德》（Dred：a tale of the great Dismal Swamp），全名《德雷德：阴暗的大沼地的故事》，出版于1865年。——译者注

[2] 斯托夫人的另一部作品《汤姆叔叔的小屋》（Uncle Tom's Cabin）中的主角，发表于1863年。——译者注

[3] 沃尔特·司各特（Sir Walter Scott，1771—1832），苏格兰历史小说家、诗人。——译者注

[4] 奥古斯特·蒂尔里（Augustin Thierry，1795—1856），法国历史学家。——译者注

[5] 又译《撒克逊劫后英雄传》。——译者注

[6] 指奴隶从小被灌输敬畏上帝、逆来顺受、忠顺于主人这类的基督教说教。——译者注

[7] 查尔斯·里德（Charles Reade，1814—1884），英国小说家、剧作家，代表作为《患难与忠诚》（The Cloister and the Hearth）。——译者注

[8] 马基雅维利主义（Machiavelianism），又叫权术主义，主张为达目的可以不择手段。——译者注

[9] 弗雷德里卡·布雷默（Fredrika Bremer，1801–1865），瑞典小说家，女权主义者。——译者注

翻译和译者

一位像查尔斯·霍尼曼那样的牧师曾告诉我们，他不到周六晚上是不会着手准备他的布道辞的，因为他“听从天意的安排”。我想，类似“听从天意”的安排也存在于翻译者当中，他们大多数相信有这样一种超能力

可以赋予任何人翻译的能力

即使人们对那种语言一窍不通——

这让我们对早期译者的神奇往事——耶稣的七十个弟子将圣经《旧约》翻译成希腊语的故事——产生了共鸣。传说托勒密将他们分别关在不同的单间里进行翻译，最终比对他们的翻译成果时，竟然发现翻译的结果惊人的吻合！当然，我们认为，七十子译本的译者们肯定还是有一定的语言天赋，否则也不会得到上帝赋予他们的超级翻译能力，因为至少在翻译这件事上，我们相信“天助自助者”；这句话我要献给所有年轻的女士和中年绅士们，尤其是那些对自己母语掌握得不够好的人，以及那些以外语作为基础必备技能的翻译者们。

虽然天才大多从事翻译事业，但是翻译这件事并不需要多少天赋，这是一个事实。翻译所需要的能力会因原始作品难易程度的不同而不同：译者若具有一般的资质，则足以翻译一本普通游记或是轻小说；但是要翻译推理或是科学的作品，则需要能力非凡和知识渊博的译者来完成。后者例如康德的《纯粹理性批判》（Critique of Pure Reason），对于译者来说就是一部很有难度的翻译作品——就像一颗难以敲开的坚果，要将其中要义有条理地铺陈开来不是件容易的事，但是我们很开心地看到，已经有能力很强的译者翻译过这本书了。以前有很多德国形而上学作品的译本都不太对劲，给人的感觉是译者还没学会游泳就一头扎进了深水里，仅仅依靠字典和听从“上帝的指示”进行翻译。而看看我们面前的这个译本，它简直太与众不同了。不得不说，米克尔约翰先生的翻译棒极了，完全还原了原作者应有的大师风范，这也让英国读者第一次有机会读到康德的《纯粹理性批判》。

我们在此提到一部思想如此深刻的书似乎有点奇怪，用博特小姐（或夫人）所编的德国抒情诗集译本中的话来说，这本书就像是装着九十门大炮的大船，一点也不令人轻松愉快。当然，我们在此只谈翻译，不会牵扯到康德的哲学或者德国抒情诗的内容；巧的是，这二者刚好在最近的翻译领域频频出现。若是翻译散文，我们可以用到戈德史密斯的秘诀，他说，译者经历的痛苦越多，就越能理解作者的心，翻译得也就越好；若是翻译诗歌，我们就不能保证这个“痛苦”秘诀能产生令人满意的成果了。这就不得不谈谈博特小姐的《德国诗歌选集》（Specimens of the German Poets）。博特小姐具有其他译者都羡慕的知识和能力，但是她翻译的诗歌缺乏一种诗意，会让那些读过原著的人觉得还不够完美。但是对于那些没有读过原著的读者来说，博特小姐的译本已经足够好了，读者的热情让诗集出了第二版。博特小姐野心颇大，她大胆地尝试着翻译了歌德著名的《奉献》（Zueignung），下面引用一段。歌德伴着神圣的感情和音乐这样唱着——

Für andre wächst in mir das edle Gut，

Ich kann und will das Pfund nicht mehr vergraben，

Warum sucht'ich den Weg so sehnsuchtsvoll，

Wenn ich ihn nicht den Brüdern zeigen soll？

而博特小姐的英语翻译则像是用单簧口琴去演奏钢琴曲般风格迥异——

我的才华渐渐逝去，

但是谁还曾拥有像我这样的智慧？

噢！为什么如此热情地要找到出路

若是我没有带领同胞们一同上路？

这样的版本就好像是著名绅士的脸庞和报纸上的画像对不上号一样。鉴于我们对外国诗人的了解大多间接地来源于一些译作，因此评论家肩上的担子就重了，他们需要对诗歌翻译一遍又一遍地进行批评，才能迫使译者在翻译时力求精益求精。

德国人翻译我们诗作的水平大大超过了我们翻译德文诗作的水平，这是因为他们的语言风格多变，在散文中如同一匹缓慢笨拙的驿马，但在诗歌中则像一匹优雅矫健的阿拉伯战马；而且从事诗歌翻译的德国人大多数都是才华横溢的男性。例如，我们记得弗莱里格拉特的翻译，若是我们首先读到的是英文版，那一定会被诗歌中精妙的语言迷住。诚然，德国人对自己的翻译水平自视甚高，尤其是被一些愚蠢的英国读者追捧后更甚，有些英国人认为施莱格尔翻译的莎士比亚甚至比原著更出彩——不仅仅是指对于德国人来说更容易理解，而且翻译本身就算得上是诗。施莱格尔的翻译的确是精准和典雅的结合，如果比对原著研读他的翻译，那将是一件令人无比快乐的事情，就好像在检阅一座基于最爱的画而创作出的精美木雕。他所使用的德语和英语一样能传达正确的意思——就好像是用另一种优秀的乐器奏响音乐一样。然而他也有翻译得不好的时候，这时他的翻译更像是无力的回音，在通篇华丽的语言里显得毫无吸引力。例如洛兰佐对杰西卡说的这段话。莎士比亚这样写道——

寂静的幽夜，

是最适宜于谐和的乐声。[1]

施莱格尔将其翻译成德语——

Sanfte Still und Nacht

Sie werden Tasten süsser Harmonie

意思是：“寂静的幽夜弹奏出了谐和的乐声。”另外，蒂克（他与施莱格尔的翻译水平不相上下）在《麦克白》（Macbeth）独白的翻译中犯了一个更大的错误。原文的台词如下——

如果这一击能够让事情在这里大功告成，

并毕其功于一役，那么在这里，

在这人世的涯岸与沙滩上，

我们就顾不得来世了。[2]

蒂克将Upon this bank and shoal of time译成Auf dieser Schülerbank der Gegenwart，意思从“在这人世的涯岸与沙滩上”变成了“在这学校里的长凳边”，这个极大的错误就是因为蒂克根本没有完全理解原著。再举一例小错误，科里奥兰纳斯[3]说——

就像是雄鹰在鸽棚上方展翅，

在科里奥利统治着沃尔西人。[4]

施莱格尔在翻译“展翅”时却用了德语里类似“盘旋”一词。这种小瑕疵在翻译中可谓屡见不鲜。

像施莱格尔和蒂克这样聪明杰出的人都会在翻译中出错，更别说那些学问不精的人了，他们更难去理解那些伟大的诗歌作品，这一事实已经被各种有难度的翻译任务所证实。虽然一个极好的译者比不上创作出经典作品的原作家，但是他绝对比那些写出三流作品的作家出色万分。我们想要强调的是，一个译者应当具有以下道德品质——耐心、对原文的忠诚度，以及解读另一种思想时的责任感。当然，我们对这一话题的讨论也不是一天两天了。

————————————————————

[1] 出自《威尼斯商人》第五幕第一景。——译者注

[2] 出自《麦克白》第一幕第七景。——译者注

[3] 科里奥兰纳斯（Coriolanus）是莎士比亚晚年创作的一出可与四大悲剧相媲美的古罗马历史悲剧《科里奥兰纳斯》中的人物。——译者注

[4] 出自《科里奥兰纳斯》第五幕第六景。——译者注

Silly Novels by Lady Novelists

Silly novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species，determined by the particular quality of silliness that predominates in them–the frothy，the prosy，the pious，or the pedantic．But it is a mixture of all these–a composite order of feminine fatuity，that produces the largest class of such novels，which we shall distinguish as the mind-and-millinery species．The heroine is usually an heiress，probably a peeress in her own right，with perhaps a vicious baronet，an amiable duke，and an irresistible younger son of a marquis as lovers in the foreground，a clergyman and a poet sighing for her in the middle distance，and a crowd of undefined adorers dimly indicated beyond．Her eyes and her wit are both dazzling；her nose and her morals are alike free from any tendency to irregularity；she has a superb contralto and a superb intellect；she is perfectly well-dressed and perfectly religious；she dances like a sylph，and reads the Bible in the original tongues．Or it may be that the heroine is not an heiress–that rank and wealth are the only things in which she is deficient；but she infallibly gets into high society，she has the triumph of refusing many matches and securing the best，and she wears some family jewels or other as a sort of crown of righteousness at the end．Rakish men either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees，or are touched to penitence by her reproofs，which，on appropriate occasions，rise to a lofty strain of rhetoric；indeed，there is a general propensity in her to make speeches，and to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom．In her recorded conversations she is amazingly eloquent，and in her unrecorded conversations，amazingly witty．She is understood to have a depth of insight that looks through and through the shallow theories of philosophers，and her superior instincts are a sort of dial by which men have only to set their clocks and watches，and all will go well．The men play a very subordinate part by her side．You are consoled now and then by a hint that they have affairs，which keeps you in mind that the working-day business of the world is somehow being carried on，but ostensibly the final cause of their existence is that they may accompany the heroine on her‘starring’expedition through life．They see her at a ball，and are dazzled；at a flower-show，and they are fascinated；on a riding excursion，and they are witched by her noble horsemanship；at church，and they are awed by the sweet solemnity of her demeanour．She is the ideal woman in feelings，faculties，and flounces．For all this，she as often as not marries the wrong person to begin with，and she suffers terribly from the plots and intrigues of the vicious baronet；but even death has a soft place in his heart for such a paragon，and remedies all mistakes for her just at the right moment．The vicious baronet is sure to be killed in a duel，and the tedious husband dies in his bed，requesting his wife，as a particular favour to him，to marry the man she loves best，and having already dispatched a note to the lover informing him of the comfortable arrangement．Before matters arrive at this desirable issue our feelings are tried by seeing the noble，lovely，and gifted heroine pass through many mauvais moments，but we have the satisfaction of knowing that her sorrows are wept into embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs，that her fainting form reclines on the very best upholstery，and that whatever vicissitudes she may undergo，from being dashed out of her carriage to having her head shaved in a fever，she comes out of them all with a complexion more blooming and locks more redundant than ever．

We may remark，by the way，that we have been relieved from a serious scruple by discovering that silly novels by lady novelists rarely introduce us into any other than very lofty and fashionable society．We had imagined that destitute women turned novelists，as they turned governesses，because they had no other‘lady-like’means of getting their bread．On this supposition，vacillating syntax and improbable incident had a certain pathos for us，like the extremely supererogatory pincushions and ill-devised nightcaps that are offered for sale by a blind man．We felt the commodity to be a nuisance，but we were glad to think that the money went to relieve the necessitous，and we pictured to ourselves lonely women struggling for a maintenance，or wives and daughters devoting themselves to the production of‘copy’out of pure heroism，–perhaps to pay their husband's debts，or to purchase luxuries for a sick father．Under these impressions we shrank from criticizing a lady's novel：her English might be faulty，but，we said to ourselves，her motives are irreproachable；her imagination may be uninventive，but her patience is untiring．Empty writing was excused by an empty stomach，and twaddle was consecrated by tears．But no！This theory of ours，like many other pretty theories，has had to give way before observation．Women's silly novels，we are now convinced，are written under totally different circumstances．The fair writers have evidently never talked to a tradesman except from a carriage window；they have no notion of the working classes except as‘dependants’；they think £500 a year a miserable pittance；Belgravia and‘baronial halls’are their primary truths；and they have no idea of feeling interest in any man who is not at least a great landed proprietor，if not a prime minister．It is clear that they write in elegant boudoirs，with violet-coloured ink and a ruby pen；that they must be entirely indifferent to publishers' accounts，and inexperienced in every form of poverty except poverty of brains．It is true that we are constantly struck with the want of verisimilitude in their representations of the high society in which they seem to live；but then they betray no closer acquaintance with any other form of life．If their peers and peeresses are improbable，their literary men，tradespeople，and cottagers are impossible；and their intellect seems to have the peculiar impartiality of reproducing both what they have seen and heard，and what they have not seen and heard，with equal unfaithfulness．

There are few women，we suppose，who have not seen something of children under five years of age，yet in Compensation，a recent novel of the mind-and-millinery species，which calls itself a‘story of real life’，we have a child of four and a half years old talking in this Ossianic fashion：–

‘Oh，I am so happy，dear gran'mamma；–I have seen，–I have seen such a delightful person：he is like everything beautiful，–like the smell of sweet flowers，and the view from Ben Lomond；–or no，better than that–he is like what I think of and see when I am very，very happy；and he is really like mamma，too，when she sings；and his forehead is like that distant sea，’she continued，pointing to the blue Mediterranean；‘there seems no end–no end；or like the clusters of stars I like best to look at on a warm fine night...Don't look so...your forehead is like Loch Lomond，when the wind is blowing and the sun is gone in；I like the sunshine best when the lake is smooth...So now–I like it better than ever...it is more beautiful still from the dark cloud that has gone over it，when the sun suddenly lights up all the colours of the forests and shining purple rocks，and it is all reflected in the waters below．’

We are not surprised to learn that the mother of this infant phenomenon，who exhibits symptoms so alarmingly like those of adolescence repressed by gin，is herself a phœnix．We are assured，again and again，that she had a remarkably original mind，that she was a genius，and‘conscious of her originality’，and she was fortunate enough to have a lover who was also a genius，and a man of‘most original mind’．

This lover，we read，though‘wonderfully similar’to her‘in powers and capacity’，was‘infinitely superior to her in faith and development’，and she saw in him the‘“Agape”–so rare to find–of which she had read and admired the meaning in her Greek Testament；having，from her great facility in learning languages，read the Scriptures in their original tongues．’Of course！Greek and Hebrew are mere play to a heroine；Sanscrit is no more than a b c to her；and she can talk with perfect correctness in any language except English．She is a polking polyglot，a Creuzer in crinoline．Poor men！There are so few of you who know even Hebrew；you think it something to boast of if，like Bolingbroke，you only‘understand that sort of learning，and what is writ about it’；and you are perhaps adoring women who can think slightingly of you in all the Semitic languages successively．But，then，as we are almost invariably told，that a heroine has a‘beautifully small head’，and as her intellect has probably been early invigorated by an attention to costume and deportment，we may conclude that she can pick up the Oriental tongues，to say nothing of their dialects，with the same aërial facility that the butterfly sips nectar．Besides，there can be no difficulty in conceiving the depth of the heroine's erudition，when that of the authoress is so evident．

In Laura Gay，another novel of the same school，the heroine seems less at home in Greek and Hebrew，but she makes up for the deficiency by a quite playful familiarity with the Latin classics–with the‘dear old Virgil’，‘the graceful Horace，the humane Cicero，and the pleasant Livy’；indeed，it is such a matter of course with her to quote Latin，that she does it at a picnic in a very mixed company of ladies and gentlemen，having，we are told，‘no conception that the nobler sex were capable of jealousy on this subject．And if，indeed，’continues the biographer of Laura Gay，‘the wisest and noblest portion of that sex were in the majority，no such sentiment would exist；but while Miss Wyndhams and Mr Redfords abound，great sacrifices must be made to their existence．’Such sacrifices，we presume，as abstaining from Latin quotations，of extremely moderate interest and applicability，which the wise and noble minority of the other sex would be quite as willing to dispense with as the foolish and ignoble majority．It is as little the custom of well-bred men as of well-bred women to quote Latin in mixed parties；they can contain their familiarity with‘the humane Cicero’without allowing it to boil over in ordinary conversation，and even references to‘the pleasant Livy’are not absolutely irrepressible．But Ciceronian Latin is the mildest form of Miss Gay's conversational power．Being on the Palatine with a party of sightseers，she falls into the following vein of well-rounded remark：–

Truth can only be pure objectively，for even in the creeds where it predominates，being subjective，and parcelled out into portions，each of these necessarily receives a hue of idiosyncrasy，that is，a taint of superstition more or less strong；while in such creeds as the Roman Catholic，ignorance，interest，the bias of ancient idolatries，and the force of authority，have gradually accumulated on the pure truth，and transformed it，at last，into a mass of superstition for the majority of its votaries；and how few are there，alas！whose zeal，courage，and intellectual energy are equal to the analysis of this accumulation，and to the discovery of the pearl of great price which lies hidden beneath this heap of rubbish．

We have often met with women much more novel and profound in their observations than Laura Gay，but rarely with any so inopportunely long-winded．A clerical lord，who is half in love with her，is alarmed by the daring remarks just quoted，and begins to suspect that she is inclined to free-thinking．But he is mistaken；when in a moment of sorrow he delicately begs leave to‘recall to her memory，a dépôt of strength and consolation under affliction，which，until we are hard pressed by the trials of life，we are too apt to forget’，we learn that she really has‘recurrence to that sacred dépôt’，together with the teapot．There is a certain flavour of orthodoxy mixed with the parade of fortunes and fine carriages in Laura Gay，but it is an orthodoxy mitigated by study of‘the humane Cicero’，and by an‘intellectual disposition to analyse’．

Compensation is much more heavily dosed with doctrine，but then it has a treble amount of snobbish worldliness and absurd incident to tickle the palate of pious frivolity．Linda，the heroine，is still more speculative and spiritual than Laura Gay，but she has been‘presented’，and has more，and far grander，lovers；very wicked and fascinating women are introduced–even a French lionne；and no expense is spared to get up as exciting a story as you will find in the most immoral novels．In fact，it is a wonderful pot pourri of Almack's，Scotch second-sight，Mr Rogers's breakfasts，Italian brigands，death-bed conversions，superior authoresses，Italian mistresses，and attempts at poisoning old ladies，the whole served up with a garnish of talk about‘faith and development’，and‘most original minds’．Even Miss Susan Barton，the superior authoress，whose pen moves in a‘quick decided manner when she is composing’，declines the finest opportunities of marriage；and though old enough to be Linda's mother （since we are told that she refused Linda's father），has her hand sought by a young earl，the heroine's rejected lover．Of course，genius and morality must be backed by eligible offers，or they would seem rather a dull affair；and piety，like other things，in order to be comme il faut，must be in‘society’，and have admittance to the best circles．

Rank and Beauty is a more frothy and less religious variety of the mind-and-millinery species．The heroine，we are told，‘if she inherited her father's pride of birth and her mother's beauty of person，had in herself a tone of enthusiastic feeling that perhaps belongs to her age even in the lowly born，but which is refined into the high spirit of wild romance only in the far descended，who feel that it is their best inheritance’．This enthusiastic young lady，by dint of reading the newspaper to her father，falls in love with the prime minister，who，through the medium of leading articles and‘the résumé of the debates’，shines upon her imagination as a bright particular star，which has no parallax for her，living in the country as simple Miss Wyndham．But she forthwith becomes Baroness Umfraville in her own right，astonishes the world with her beauty and accomplishments when she bursts upon it from her mansion in Spring Gardens，and，as you foresee，will presently come into contact with the unseen objet aimé．Perhaps the words‘prime minister’suggest to you a wrinkled or obese sexagenarian；but pray dismiss the image．Lord Rupert Conway has been‘called while still almost a youth to the first situation which a subject can hold in the universe’，and even leading articles and a résumé of the debates have not conjured up a dream that surpasses the fact．

The door opened again，and Lord Rupert Conway entered．Evelyn gave one glance．It was enough；she was not disappointed．It seemed as if a picture on which she had long gazed was suddenly instinct with life，and had stepped from its frame before her．His tall figure，the distinguished simplicity of his air–it was a living Vandyke，a cavalier，one of his noble cavalier ancestors，or one to whom her fancy had always likened him，who long of yore had，with an Umfraville，fought the Paynim far beyond sea．Was this reality？

Very little like it，certainly．

By and by，it becomes evident that the ministerial heart is touched．Lady Umfraville is on a visit to the Queen at Windsor，and，–

The last evening of her stay，when they returned from riding，Mr Wyndham took her and a large party to the top of the Keep，to see the view．She was leaning on the battlements，gazing from that‘stately height’at the prospect beneath her，when Lord Rupert was by her side．‘What an unrivalled view！’exclaimed she．

‘Yes，it would have been wrong to go without having been up here．You are pleased with your visit？’

‘Enchanted！“A Queen to live and die under”，to live and die for！’

‘Ha！’cried he，with sudden emotion，and with a eureka expression of countenance，as if he had indeed found a heart in unison with his own．

The‘eureka expression of countenance’，you see at once to be prophetic of marriage at the end of the third volume；but before that desirable consummation，there are very complicated misunderstandings，arising chiefly from the vindictive plotting of Sir Luttrell Wycherley，who is a genius，a poet，and in every way a most remarkable character indeed．He is not only a romantic poet，but a hardened rake and a cynical wit；yet his deep passion for Lady Umfraville has so impoverished his epigrammatic talent，that he cuts an extremely poor figure in conversation．When she rejects him，he rushes into the shrubbery，and rolls himself in the dirt；and on recovering，devotes himself to the most diabolical and laborious schemes of vengeance，in the course of which he disguises himself as a quack physician，and enters into general practice，foreseeing that Evelyn will fall ill，and that he shall be called in to attend her．At last，when all his schemes are frustrated，he takes leave of her in a long letter，written，as you will perceive from the following passage，entirely in the style of an eminent literary man：–

Oh，lady，nursed in pomp and pleasure，will you ever cast one thought upon the miserable being who addresses you？Will you ever，as your gilded galley is floating down the unruffied stream of prosperity，will you ever，while lulled by the sweetest music–thine own praises，–hear the far-off sigh from that world to which I am going？

On the whole，however，frothy as it is，we rather prefer Rank and Beauty to the two other novels we have mentioned．The dialogue is more natural and spirited；there is some frank ignorance，and no pedantry；and you are allowed to take the heroine's astounding intellect upon trust，without being called on to read her conversational refutations of sceptics and philosophers，or her rhetorical solutions of the mysteries of the universe．

Writers of the mind-and-millinery school are remarkably unanimous in their choice of diction．In their novels，there is usually a lady or gentleman who is more or less of a up as tree：the lover has a manly breast；minds are redolent of various things；hearts are hollow；events are utilized；friends are consigned to the tomb；infancy is an engaging period；the sun is a luminary that goes to his western couch，or gathers the rain-drops into his refulgent bosom；life is a melancholy boon；Albion and Scotia are conversational epithets．There is a striking resemblance，too，in the character of their moral comments，such，for instance，as that‘It is a fact，no less true than melancholy，that all people，more or less，richer or poorer，are swayed by bad example’；that‘Books，however trivial，contain some subjects from which useful information may be drawn’；that‘Vice can too often borrow the language of virtue’；that‘Merit and nobility of nature must exist，to be accepted，for clamour and pretension cannot impose upon those too well read in human nature to be easily deceived’；and that，‘In order to forgive，we must have been injured’．There is，doubtless，a class of readers to whom these remarks appear peculiarly pointed and pungent；for we often find them doubly and trebly scored with the pencil，and delicate hands giving in their determined adhesion to these hardy novelties by a distinct très vrai，emphasized by many notes of exclamation．The colloquial style of these novels is often marked by much ingenious inversion，and a careful avoidance of such cheap phraseology as can be heard every day．Angry young gentlemen exclaim–‘'Tis ever thus，methinks’；and in the half hour before dinner a young lady informs her next neighbour that the first day she read Shakspeare she‘stole away into the park，and beneath the shadow of the greenwood tree，devoured with rapture the inspired page of the great magician’．But the most remarkable efforts of the mind-and-millinery writers lie in their philosophic reflections．The authoress of Laura Gay，for example，having married her hero and heroine，improves the event by observing that‘if those sceptics，whose eyes have so long gazed on matter that they can no longer see aught else in man，could once enter with heart and soul into such bliss as this，they would come to say that the soul of man and the polypus are not of common origin，or of the same texture’．Lady novelists，it appears，can see something else besides matter；they are not limited to phenomena，but can relieve their eyesight by occasional glimpses of the noumenon，and are，therefore，naturally better able than any one else to confound sceptics，even of that remarkable，but to us unknown school，which maintains that the soul of man is of the same texture as the polypus．

The most pitiable of all silly novels by lady novelists are what we may call the oracular species–novels intended to expound the writer's religious，philosophical，or moral theories．There seems to be a notion abroad among women，rather akin to the superstition that the speech and actions of idiots are inspired，and that the human being most entirely exhausted of common sense is the fittest vehicle of revelation．To judge from their writings，there are certain ladies who think that an amazing ignorance，both of science and of life，is the best possible qualification for forming an opinion on the knottiest moral and speculative questions．Apparently，their recipe for solving all such difficulties is something like this：–Take a woman's head，stuff it with a smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small，and with false notions of society baked hard，let it hang over a desk a few hours every day，and serve up hot in feeble English，when not required．You will rarely meet with a lady novelist of the oracular class who is diffident of her ability to decide on theological questions，–who has any suspicion that she is not capable of discriminating with the nicest accuracy between the good and evil in all church parties，–who does not see precisely how it is that men have gone wrong hitherto，–and pity philosophers in general that they have not had the opportunity of consulting her．Great writers，who have modestly contented themselves with putting their experience into fiction，and have thought it quite a sufficient task to exhibit men and things as they are，she sighs over as deplorably deficient in the application of their powers．‘They have solved no great questions’–and she is ready to remedy their omission by setting before you a complete theory of life and manual of divinity，in a love story，where ladies and gentlemen of good family go through genteel vicissitudes，to the utter confusion of Deists，Puseyites，and ultra-Protestants，and to the perfect establishment of that particular view of Christianity which either condenses itself into a sentence of small caps，or explodes into a cluster of stars on the three hundred and thirtieth page．It is true，the ladies and gentlemen will probably seem to you remarkably little like any you have had the fortune or misfortune to meet with，for，as a general rule，the ability of a lady novelist to describe actual life and her fellow-men，is in inverse proportion to her confident eloquence about God and the other world，and the means by which she usually chooses to conduct you to true ideas of the invisible is a totally false picture of the visible．

As typical a novel of the oracular kind as we can hope to meet with，is The Enigma：A Leaf from the Chronicles of Wolchorley House．The‘enigma’which this novel is to solve，is certainly one that demands powers no less gigantic than those of a lady novelist，being neither more nor less than the existence of evil．The problem is stated，and the answer dimly foreshadowed on the very first page．The spirited young lady，with raven hair，says，‘All life is an inextricable confusion’；and the meek young lady，with auburn hair，looks at the picture of the Madonna which she is copying，and–‘There seemed the solution of that mighty enigma．’The style of this novel is quite as lofty as its purpose；indeed，some passages on which we have spent much patient study are quite beyond our reach，in spite of the illustrative aid of italics and small caps；and we must await further‘development’in order to understand them．Of Ernest，the model young clergyman，who sets every one right on all occasions，we read，that‘he held not of marriage in the marketable kind，after a social desecration’；that，on one eventful night，‘sleep had not visited his divided heart，where tumultuated，in varied type and combination，the aggregate feelings of grief and joy’；and that，‘for the marketable human article he had no toleration，be it of what sort，or set for what value it might，whether for worship or class，his upright soul abhorred it，whose ultimatum，the self-deceiver，was to him THE great spiritual lie，“living in a vain show，deceiving and being deceived”；since he did not suppose the phylactery and enlarged border on the garment to be merely a social trick．’（The italics and small caps are the author's，and we hope they assist the reader's comprehension．）Of Sir Lionel，the model old gentleman，we are told that‘the simple ideal of the middle age，apart from its anarchy and decadence，in him most truly seemed to live again，when the ties which knit men together were of heroic cast．The first-born colours of pristine faith and truth engraven on the common soul of man，and blent into the wide arch of brotherhood，where the primæval law of order grew and multiplied，each perfect after his kind，and mutually interdependent．’You see clearly，of course，how colours are first engraven on a soul，and then blent into a wide arch，on which arch of colours–apparently a rainbow–the law of order grew and multiplied，each–apparently the arch and the law–perfect after his kind？If，after this，you can possibly want any further aid towards knowing what Sir Lionel was，we can tell you，that in his soul‘the scientific combinations of thought could educe no fuller harmonies of the good and the true，than lay in the primæval pulses which floated as an atmosphere around it！’and that，when he was sealing a letter，‘Lo！the responsive throb in that good man's bosom echoed back in simple truth the honest witness of a heart that condemned him not，as his eye，bedewed with love，rested，too，with something of ancestral pride，on the undimmed motto of the family–LOIAUTÉ．’

The slightest matters have their vulgarity fumigated out of them by the same elevated style．Commonplace people would say that a copy of Shakspeare lay on a drawing-room table；but the authoress of The Enigma，bent on edifying periphrasis，tells you that there lay on the table，‘that fund of human thought and feeling，which teaches the heart through the little name，“Shakspeare”’．A watchman sees a light burning in an upper window rather longer than usual，and thinks that people are foolish to sit up late when they have an opportunity of going to bed；but，lest this fact should seem too low and common，it is presented to us in the following striking and metaphysical manner：‘He marvelled–as man will think for others in a necessarily separate personality，consequently （though disallowing it）in false mental premise，–how differently he should act，how gladly he should prize the rest so lightly held of within．’A footman–an ordinary Jeames，with large calves and aspirated vowels–answers the door-bell，and the opportunity is seized to tell you that he was a‘type of the large class of pampered menials，who follow the curse of Cain–“vagabonds”on the face of the earth，and whose estimate of the human class varies in the graduated scale of money and expenditure...These，and such as these，O England，be the false lights of thy morbid civilization！’We have heard of various‘false lights’，from Dr Cumming to Robert Owen，from Dr Pusey to the Spiritrappers，but we never before heard of the false light that emanates from plush and powder．

In the same way very ordinary events of civilized life are exalted into the most awful crises，and ladies in full skirts and manches à la chinoise，conduct themselves not unlike the heroines of sanguinary melodramas．Mrs Percy，a shallow woman of the world，wishes her son Horace to marry the auburn-haired Grace，she being an heiress；but he，after the manner of sons，falls in love with the raven-haired Kate，the heiress's portionless cousin；and，moreover，Grace herself shows every symptom of perfect indifference to Horace．In such cases，sons are often sulky or fiery，mothers are alternately manœuvring and waspish，and the portionless young lady often lies awake at night and cries a good deal．We are getting used to these things now，just as we are used to eclipses of the moon，which no longer set us howling and beating tin kettles．We never heard of a lady in a fashionable‘front’behaving like Mrs Percy under these circumstances．Happening one day to see Horace talking to Grace at a window，without in the least knowing what they are talking about，or having the least reason to believe that Grace，who is mistress of the house and a person of dignity，would accept her son if he were to offer himself，she suddenly rushes up to them and clasps them both，saying，‘with a flushed countenance and in an excited manner’–‘This is indeed happiness；for，may I not call you so，Grace？–my Grace–my Horace's Grace！–my dear children！’Her son tells her she is mistaken，and that he is engaged to Kate，whereupon we have the following scene and tableau：–

Gathering herself up to an unprecedented height，（！）her eyes lightning forth the fire of her anger：–

‘Wretched boy！’she said，hoarsely and scornfully，and clenching her hand．‘Take then the doom of your own choice！Bow down your miserable head and let a mother's–’

‘Curse not！’spake a deep low voice from behind，and Mrs Percy started，scared，as though she had seen a heavenly visitant appear，to break upon her in the midst of her sin．

Meantime，Horace had fallen on his knees at her feet，and hid his face in his hands．

Who，then，is she–who！Truly his‘guardian spirit’hath stepped between him and the fearful words，which，however unmerited，must have hung as a pall over his future existence；–a spell which could not be unbound–which could not be unsaid．

Of an earthly paleness，but calm with the still，ironbound calmness of death–the only calm one there，–Katherine stood；and her words smote on the ear in tones whose appallingly slow and separate intonation rung on the heart like the chill，isolated tolling of some fatal knell．

‘He would have plighted me his faith，but I did not accept it；you cannot，therefore–you dare not curse him．And here，’she continued，raising her hand to heaven，whither her large dark eyes also rose with a chastened glow，which，for the first time，suffering had lighted in those passionate orbs，–‘here I promise，come weal，come woe，that Horace Wolchorley and I do never interchange vows without his mother's sanction–without his mother's blessing！’

Here，and throughout the story，we see that confusion of purpose which is so characteristic of silly novels written by women．It is a story of quite modern drawing-room society–a society in which polkas are played and Puseyism discussed；yet we have characters，and incidents，and traits of manner introduced，which are mere shreds from the most heterogeneous romances．We have a blind Irish harper，‘relic of the picturesque bards of yore’，startling us at a Sunday-school festival of tea and cake in an English village；we have a crazy gypsy，in a scarlet cloak，singing snatches of romantic song，and revealing a secret on her death-bed which，with the testimony of a dwarfish miserly merchant，who salutes strangers with a curse and a devilish laugh，goes to prove that Ernest，the model young clergyman，is Kate's brother；and we have an ultra-virtuous Irish Barney，discovering that a document is forged，by comparing the date of the paper with the date of the alleged signature，although the same document has passed through a court of law，and occasioned a fatal decision．The‘Hall’in which Sir Lionel lives is the venerable country-seat of an old family，and this，we suppose，sets the imagination of the authoress flying to donjons and battlements，where‘lo！the warder blows his horn’；for，as the inhabitants are in their bedrooms on a night certainly within the recollection of Pleaceman X．，and a breeze springs up，which we are at first told was faint，and then that it made the old cedars bow their branches to the greensward，she falls into this mediæval vein of description （the italics are ours）：‘The banner unfurled it at the sound，and shook its guardian wing above，while the startled owl flapped her in the ivy；the firmament looking down through her“argus eyes”–

Ministers of heaven's mute melodies．

And lo！two strokes tolled from out the warder tower，and“Two o'clock”re-echoed its interpreter below．’

Such stories as this of The Enigma remind us of the pictures clever children sometimes draw‘out of their own head’，where you will see a modern villa on the right，two knights in helmets fighting in the foreground，and a tiger grinning in a jungle on the left，the several objects being brought together because the artist thinks each pretty，and perhaps still more because he remembers seeing them in other pictures．

But we like the authoress much better on her mediæval stilts than on her oracular ones，–when she talks of the Ich and of‘subjective’and‘objective’，and lays down the exact line of Christian verity，between‘right-hand excesses and left-hand declensions’．Persons who deviate from this line are introduced with a patronizing air of charity．Of a certain Miss Inshquine she informs us，with all the lucidity of italics and small caps，that‘function，not form，AS THE INEVITABLE OUTER EXPRESSION OF THE SPIRIT IN THIS TABERNACLED AGE，weakly engrossed her’．And à propos of Miss Mayjar，an evangelical lady who is a little too apt to talk of her visits to sick women and the state of their souls，we are told that the model clergyman is‘not one to disallow，through the super crust，the undercurrent towards good in the subject，or the positive benefits，nevertheless，to the object’．We imagine the double-refined accent and protrusion of chin which are feebly represented by the italics in this lady's sentences．We abstain from quoting any of her oracular doctrinal passages，because they refer to matters too serious for our pages just now．

The epithet‘silly’may seem impertinent，applied to a novel which indicates so much reading and intellectual activity as The Enigma；but we use this epithet advisedly．If，as the world has long agreed，a very great amount of instruction will not make a wise man，still less will a very mediocre amount of instruction make a wise woman．And the most mischievous form of feminine silliness is the literary form，because it tends to confirm the popular prejudice against the more solid education of women．When men see girls wasting their time in consultations about bonnets and ball dresses，and in giggling or sentimental love-confidences，or middle-aged women mismanaging their children，and solacing themselves with acrid gossip，they can hardly help saying，‘For Heaven's sake，let girls be better educated；let them have some better objects of thought–some more solid occupations．’But after a few hours' conversation with an oracular literary woman，or a few hours' reading of her books，they are likely enough to say，‘After all，when a woman gets some knowledge，see what use she makes of it！Her knowledge remains acquisition，instead of passing into culture；instead of being subdued into modesty and simplicity by a larger acquaintance with thought and fact，she has a feverish consciousness of her attainments；she keeps a sort of mental pocket-mirror，and is continually looking in it at her own‘intellectuality’；she spoils the taste of one's muffin by questions of metaphysics；‘puts down’men at a dinner-table with her superior information；and seizes the opportunity of a soirée to catechize us on the vital question of the relation between mind and matter．And then，look at her writings！She mistakes vagueness for depth，bombast for eloquence，and affectation for originality；she struts on one page，rolls her eyes on another，grimaces in a third，and is hysterical in a fourth．She may have read many writings of great men，and a few writings of great women；but she is as unable to discern the difference between her own style and theirs as a Yorkshireman is to discern the difference between his own English and a Londoner's：rhodomontade is the native accent of her intellect．No–the average nature of women is too shallow and feeble a soil to bear much tillage；it is only fit for the very lightest crops．’

It is true that the men who come to such a decision on such very superficial and imperfect observation may not be among the wisest in the world；but we have not now to contest their opinion–we are only pointing out how it is unconsciously encouraged by many women who have volunteered themselves as representatives of the feminine intellect．We do not believe that a man was ever strengthened in such an opinion by associating with a woman of true culture，whose mind had absorbed her knowledge instead of being absorbed by it．A really cultured woman，like a really cultured man，is all the simpler and the less obtrusive for her knowledge；it has made her see herself and her opinions in something like just proportions；she does not make it a pedestal from which she flatters herself that she commands a complete view of men and things，but makes it a point of observation from which to form a right estimate of herself．She neither spouts poetry nor quotes Cicero on slight provocation；not because she thinks that a sacrifice must be made to the prejudices of men，but because that mode of exhibiting her memory and Latinity does not present itself to her as edifying or graceful．She does not write books to confound philosophers，perhaps because she is able to write books that delight them．In conversation she is the least formidable of women，because she understands you，without wanting to make you aware that you can't understand her．She does not give you information，which is the raw material of culture，–she gives you sympathy，which is its subtlest essence．

A more numerous class of silly novels than the oracular，（which are generally inspired by some form of High Church，or transcendental Christianity，）is what we may call the white neck-cloth species，which represent the tone of thought and feeling in the Evangelical party．This species is a kind of genteel tract on a large scale，intended as a sort of medicinal sweetmeat for Low Church young ladies；an Evangelical substitute for the fashionable novel，as the May Meetings are a substitute for the Opera．Even Quaker children，one would think，can hardly have been denied the indulgence of a doll；but it must be a doll dressed in a drab gown and a coal-scuttle bonnet–not a worldly doll，in gauze and spangles．And there are no young ladies，we imagine，–unless they belong to the Church of the United Brethren，in which people are married without any love-making–who can dispense with love stories．Thus，for Evangelical young ladies there are Evangelical love stories，in which the vicissitudes of the tender passion are sanctified by saving views of Regeneration and the Atonement．These novels differ from the oracular ones，as a Low Churchwoman often differs from a High Churchwoman：they are a little less supercilious，and a great deal more ignorant，a little less correct in their syntax，and a great deal more vulgar．

The Orlando of Evangelical literature is the young curate，looked at from the point of view of the middle class，where cambric bands are understood to have as thrilling an effect on the hearts of young ladies as epaulettes have in the classes above and below it．In the ordinary type of these novels，the hero is almost sure to be a young curate，frowned upon，perhaps，by worldly mammas，but carrying captive the hearts of their daughters，who can‘never forget that sermon’；tender glances are seized from the pulpit stairs instead of the opera-box；tête-à-têtes are seasoned with quotations from Scripture，instead of quotations from the poets；and questions as to the state of the heroine's affections are mingled with anxieties as to the state of her soul．The young curate always has a background of well-dressed and wealthy，if not fashionable society；–for Evangelical silliness is as snobbish as any other kind of silliness；and the Evangelical lady novelist，while she explains to you the type of the scapegoat on one page，is ambitious on another to represent the manners and conversation of aristocratic people．Her pictures of fashionable society are often curious studies considered as efforts of the Evangelical imagination；but in one particular the novels of the White Neck-cloth School are meritoriously realistic，–their favourite hero，the Evangelical young curate，is always rather an insipid personage．

The most recent novel of this species that we happen to have before us，is The Old Grey Church．It is utterly tame and feeble；there is no one set of objects on which the writer seems to have a stronger grasp than on any other；and we should be entirely at a loss to conjecture among what phases of life her experience has been gained，but for certain vulgarisms of style which sufficiently indicate that she has had the advantage，though she has been unable to use it，of mingling chiefly with men and women whose manners and characters have not had all their bosses and angles rubbed down by refined conventionalism．It is less excusable in an Evangelical novelist，than in any other，gratuitously to seek her subjects among titles and carriages．The real drama of Evangelicalism–and it has abundance of fine drama for any one who has genius enough to discern and reproduce it–lies among the middle and lower classes；and are not Evangelical opinions understood to give an especial interest in the weak things of the earth，rather than in the mighty？Why then，cannot our Evangelical lady novelists show us the operation of their religious views among people （there really are many such in the world）who keep no carriage，‘not so much as a brass-bound gig’，who even manage to eat their dinner without a silver fork，and in whose mouths the authoress's questionable English would be strictly consistent？Why can we not have pictures of religious life among the industrial classes in England，as interesting as Mrs Stowe's pictures of religious life among the negroes？Instead of this，pious ladies nauseate us with novels which remind us of what we sometimes see in a worldly woman recently‘converted’；–she is as fond of a fine dinner table as before，but she invites clergymen instead of beaux；she thinks as much of her dress as before，but she adopts a more sober choice of colours and patterns；her conversation is as trivial as before，but the triviality is flavoured with Gospel instead of gossip．In The Old Grey Church，we have the same sort of Evangelical travesty of the fashionable novel，and of course the vicious，intriguing baronet is not wanting．It is worth while to give a sample of the style of conversation attributed to this high-born rake–a style that in its profuse italics and palpable innuendoes，is worthy of Miss Squeers．In an evening visit to the ruins of the Colosseum，Eustace，the young clergyman，has been withdrawing the heroine，Miss Lushington，from the rest of the party，for the sake of a tête-à-tête．The baronet is jealous，and vents his pique in this way：–

There they are，and Miss Lushington，no doubt，quite safe；for she is under the holy guidance of Pope Eustace the First，who has，of course，been delivering to her an edifying homily on the wickedness of the heathens of yore，who，as tradition tells us，in this very place let loose the wild beasties on poor Saint Paul！–Oh，no！by the bye，I believe I am wrong，and betraying my want of clergy，and that it was not at all Saint Paul，nor was it here．But no matter，it would equally serve as a text to preach from，and from which to diverge to the degenerate heathen Christians of the present day，and all their naughty practices，and so end with an exhortation to‘come out from among them，and be separate’；–and I am sure，Miss Lushington，you have most scrupulously conformed to that injunction this evening，for we have seen nothing of you since our arrival．But every one seems agreed it has been a charming party of pleasure，and I am sure we all feel much indebted to Mr Grey for having suggested it；and as he seems so capital a cicerone，I hope he will think of something else equally agreeable to all．

This drivelling kind of dialogue，and equally drivelling narrative，which，like a bad drawing，represents nothing，and barely indicates what is meant to be represented，runs through the book；and we have no doubt is considered by the amiable authoress to constitute an improving novel，which Christian mothers will do well to put into the hands of their daughters．But everything is relative；we have met with American vegetarians whose normal diet was dry meal，and who，when their appetite wanted stimulating，tickled it with wet meal；and so，we can imagine that there are Evangelical circles in which The Old Grey Church is devoured as a powerful and interesting fiction．

But，perhaps，the least readable of silly women's novels，are the modern-antique species，which unfold to us the domestic life of Jannes and Jambres，the private love affairs of Sennacherib，or the mental struggles and ultimate conversion of Demetrius the silversmith．From most silly novels we can at least extract a laugh；but those of the modern-antique school have a ponderous，a leaden kind of fatuity，under which we groan．What can be more demonstrative of the inability of literary women to measure their own powers，than their frequent assumption of a task which can only be justified by the rarest concurrence of acquirement with genius？The finest effort to reanimate the past is of course only approximative–is always more or less an infusion of the modern spirit into the ancient form，–

Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst，

Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist，

In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln．

Admitting that genius which has familiarized itself with all the relics of an ancient period can sometimes，by the force of its sympathetic divination，restore the missing notes in the‘music of humanity’，and reconstruct the fragments into a whole which will really bring the remote past nearer to us，and interpret it to our duller apprehension，–this form of imaginative power must always be among the very rarest，because it demands as much accurate and minute knowledge as creative vigour．Yet we find ladies constantly choosing to make their mental mediocrity more conspicuous，by clothing it in a masquerade of ancient names；by putting their feeble sentimentality into the mouths of Roman vestals or Egyptian princesses，and attributing their rhetorical arguments to Jewish high-priests and Greek philosophers．A recent example of this heavy imbecility is Adonijah，a Tale of the Jewish Dispersion，which forms part of a series，‘uniting，’we are told，‘taste，humour，and sound principles’．Adonijah，we presume，exemplifies the tale of‘sound principles’；the taste and humour are to be found in other members of the series．We are told on the cover，that the incidents of this tale are‘fraught with unusual interest’，and the preface winds up thus：‘To those who feel interested in the dispersed of Israel and Judea，these pages may afford，perhaps，information on an important subject，as well as amusement’．Since the‘important subject’on which this book is to afford information is not specified，it may possibly lie in some esoteric meaning to which we have no key；but if it has relation to the dispersed of Israel and Judea at any period of their history，we believe a tolerably well-informed school-girl already knows much more of it than she will find in this‘Tale of the Jewish Dispersion’．Adonijah is simply the feeblest kind of love story，supposed to be instructive，we presume，because the hero is a Jewish captive，and the heroine a Roman vestal；because they and their friends are converted to Christianity after the shortest and easiest method approved by the‘Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Jews’；and because，instead of being written in plain language，it is adorned with that peculiar style of grandiloquence which is held by some lady novelists to give an antique colouring；and which we recognize at once in such phrases as these：–‘the splendid regnal talents undoubtedly possessed by the Emperor Nero’–‘the expiring scion of a lofty stem’–‘the virtuous partner of his couch’–‘ah，by Vesta！’–and‘I tell thee，Roman’．Among the quotations which serve at once for instruction and ornament on the cover of this volume，there is one from Miss Sinclair，which informs us that‘Works of imagination are avowedly read by men of science，wisdom，and piety’；from which we suppose the reader is to gather the cheering inference that Dr Daubeny，Mr Mill，or Mr Maurice，may openly indulge himself with the perusal of Adonijah，without being obliged to secrete it among the sofa cushions，or read it by snatches under the dinner-table．

‘Be not a baker if your head be made of butter，’says a homely proverb，which，being interpreted，may mean，let no woman rush into print who is not prepared for the consequences．We are aware that our remarks are in a very different tone from that of the reviewers who，with a perennial recurrence of precisely similar emotions，only paralleled，we imagine，in the experience of monthly nurses，tell one lady novelist after another that they‘hail’ her productions‘with delight’．We are aware that the ladies at whom our criticism is pointed are accustomed to be told，in the choicest phraseology of puffery，that their pictures of life are brilliant，their characters well-drawn，their style fascinating，and their sentiments lofty．But if they are inclined to resent our plainness of speech，we ask them to reflect for a moment on the chary praise，and often captious blame，which their panegyrists give to writers whose works are on the way to become classics．No sooner does a woman show that she has genius or effective talent，than she receives the tribute of being moderately praised and severely criticized．By a peculiar thermometric adjustment，when a woman's talent is at zero，journalistic approbation is at the boiling pitch；when she attains mediocrity，it is already at no more than summer heat；and if ever she reaches excellence，critical enthusiasm drops to the freezing point．Harriet Martineau，Currer Bell，and Mrs Gaskell have been treated as cavalierly as if they had been men．And every critic who forms a high estimate of the share women may ultimately take in literature，will，on principle，abstain from any exceptional indulgence towards the productions of literary women．For it must be plain to every one who looks impartially and extensively into feminine literature，that its greatest deficiencies are due hardly more to the want of intellectual power than to the want of those moral qualities that contribute to literary excellence–patient diligence，a sense of the responsibility involved in publication，and an appreciation of the sacredness of the writer's art．In the majority of women's books you see that kind of facility which springs from the absence of any high standard；that fertility in imbecile combination or feeble imitation which a little self-criticism would check and reduce to barrenness；just as with a total want of musical ear people will sing out of tune，while a degree more melodic sensibility would suffice to render them silent．The foolish vanity of wishing to appear in print，instead of being counterbalanced by any consciousness of the intellectual or moral derogation implied in futile authorship，seems to be encouraged by the extremely false impression that to write at all is a proof of superiority in a woman．On this ground，we believe that the average intellect of women is unfairly represented by the mass of feminine literature，and that while the few women who write well are very far above the ordinary intellectual level of their sex，the many women who write ill are very far below it．So that，after all，the severer critics are fulfilling a chivalrous duty in depriving the mere fact of feminine authorship of any false prestige which may give it a delusive attraction，and in recommending women of mediocre faculties–as at least a negative service they can render their sex–to abstain from writing．

The standing apology for women who become writers without any special qualification is，that society shuts them out from other spheres of occupation．Society is a very culpable entity，and has to answer for the manufacture of many unwholesome commodities，from bad pickles to bad poetry．But society，like‘matter’，and Her Majesty's Government，and other lofty abstractions，has its share of excessive blame as well as excessive praise．Where there is one woman who writes from necessity，we believe there are three women who write from vanity；and，besides，there is something so antiseptic in the mere healthy fact of working for one's bread，that the most trashy and rotten kind of feminine literature is not likely to have been produced under such circumstances．‘In all labour there is profit’；but ladies' silly novels，we imagine，are less the result of labour than of busy idleness．

Happily，we are not dependent on argument to prove that Fiction is a department of literature in which women can，after their kind，fully equal men．A cluster of great names，both living and dead，rush to our memories in evidence that women can produce novels not only fine，but among the very finest；–novels，too，that have a precious speciality，lying quite apart from masculine aptitudes and experience．No educational restrictions can shut women out from the materials of fiction，and there is no species of art which is so free from rigid requirements．Like crystalline masses，it may take any form，and yet be beautiful；we have only to pour in the right elements–genuine observation，humour，and passion．But it is precisely this absence of rigid requirement which constitutes the fatal seduction of novel-writing to incompetent women．Ladies are not wont to be very grossly deceived as to their power of playing on the piano；here certain positive difficulties of execution have to be conquered，and incompetence inevitably breaks down．Every art which has its absolute technique is，to a certain extent，guarded from the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility．But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against，no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery．And so we have again and again the old story of La Fontaine's ass，who puts his nose to the flute，and，finding that he elicits some sound，exclaims，‘Moi，aussi，je joue de la flute’；–a fable which we commend，at parting，to the consideration of any feminine reader who is in danger of adding to the number of‘silly novels by lady novelists’．

Woman in France：Madame de Sablé

In 1847，a certain Count Leopold Ferri died at Padua，leaving a library entirely composed of works written by women，in various languages，and this library amounted to nearly 32,000 volumes．We will not hazard any conjecture as to the proportion of these volumes which a severe judge，like the priest in Don Quixote，would deliver to the flames，but for our own part，most of those we should care to rescue would be the works of French women．With a few remarkable exceptions，our own feminine literature is made up of books which could have been better written by men；books which have the same relation to literature in general，as academic prize poems have to poetry：when not a feeble imitation，they are usually an absurd exaggeration of the masculine style，like the swaggering gait of a bad actress in male attire．Few English women have written so much like a woman as Richardson's Lady C．Now，we think it an immense mistake to maintain that there is no sex in literature．Science has no sex：the mere knowing and reasoning faculties，if they act correctly，must go through the same process，and arrive at the same result．But in art and literature，which imply the action of the entire being，in which every fibre of the nature is engaged，in which every peculiar modification of the individual makes itself felt，woman has something specific to contribute．Under every imaginable social condition，she will necessarily have a class of sensations and emotions–the maternal ones–which must remain unknown to man；and the fact of her comparative physical weakness，which，however it may have been exaggerated by a vicious civilization，can never be cancelled，introduces a distinctively feminine condition into the wondrous chemistry of the affections and sentiments，which inevitably gives rise to distinctive forms and combinations．A certain amount of psychological difference between man and woman necessarily arises out of the difference of sex，and instead of being destined to vanish before a complete development of woman's intellectual and moral nature，will be a permanent source of variety and beauty，as long as the tender light and dewy freshness of morning affect us differently from the strength and brilliancy of the mid-day sun．And those delightful women of France，who，from the beginning of the seventeenth to the close of the eighteenth century，formed some of the brightest threads in the web of political and literary history，wrote under circumstances which left the feminine character of their minds uncramped by timidity，and unstrained by mistaken effort．They were not trying to make a career for themselves；they thought little，in many cases not at all，of the public；they wrote letters to their lovers and friends，memoirs of their every-day lives，romances in which they gave portraits of their familiar acquaintances，and described the tragedy or comedy which was going on before their eyes．Always refined and graceful，often witty，sometimes judicious，they wrote what they saw，thought，and felt，in their habitual language，without proposing any model to themselves，without any intention to prove that women could write as well as men，without affecting manly views or suppressing womanly ones．One may say，at least with regard to the women of the seventeenth century，that their writings were but a charming accident of their more charming lives，like the petals which the wind shakes from the rose in its bloom．And it is but a twin fact with this，that in France alone woman has had a vital influence on the development of literature；in France alone the mind of woman has passed like an electric current through the language，making crisp and definite what is elsewhere heavy and blurred；in France alone，if the writings of women were swept away，a serious gap would be made in the national history．

Patriotic gallantry may perhaps contend that English women could，if they had liked，have written as well as their neighbours；but we will leave the consideration of that question to the reviewers of the literature that might have been．In the literature that actually is，we must turn to France for the highest examples of womanly achievement in almost every department．We confess ourselves unacquainted with the productions of those awful women of Italy，who held professional chairs，and were great in civil and canon law；we have made no researches into the catacombs of female literature，but we think we may safely conclude that they would yield no rivals to that which is still unburied；and here，we suppose，the question of pre-eminence can only lie between England and France．And to this day，Madame de Sévigné remains the single instance of a woman who is supreme in a class of literature which has engaged the ambition of men；Madame Dacier still reigns the queen of blue-stockings，though women have long studied Greek without shame；[1]Madame de Staël's name still rises first to the lips when we are asked to mention a woman of great intellectual power；Madame Roland is still the unrivalled type of the sagacious and sternly heroic，yet lovable woman；George Sand is the unapproached artist who，to Jean-Jacques' eloquence and deep sense of external nature，unites the clear delineation of character and the tragic depth of passion．These great names，which mark different epochs，soar like tall pines amidst a forest of less conspicuous，but not less fascinating，female writers；and beneath these again are spread，like a thicket of hawthorns，eglantines，and honeysuckles，the women who are known rather by what they stimulated men to write，than by what they wrote themselves–the women whose tact，wit，and personal radiance，created the atmosphere of the salon，where literature，philosophy，and science，emancipated from the trammels of pedantry and technicality，entered on a brighter stage of existence．

What were the causes of this earlier development and more abundant manifestation of womanly intellect in France？The primary one，perhaps，lies in the physiological characteristics of the Gallic race：–the small brain and vivacious temperament which permit the fragile system of woman to sustain the superlative activity requisite for intellectual creativeness；while，on the other hand，the larger brain and slower temperament of the English and Germans are，in the womanly organization，generally dreamy and passive．The type of humanity in the latter may be grander，but it requires a larger sum of conditions to produce a perfect specimen．Throughout the animal world，the higher the organization，the more frequent is the departure from the normal form；we do not often see imperfectly-developed or ill-made insects，but we rarely see a perfectly-developed，well-made man．And thus the physique of a woman may suffice as the substratum for a superior Gallic mind，but is too thin a soil for a superior Teutonic one．Our theory is borne out by the fact，that among our own countrywomen，those who distinguish themselves by literary production，more frequently approach the Gallic than the Teutonic type；they are intense and rapid rather than comprehensive．The woman of large capacity can seldom rise beyond the absorption of ideas；her physical conditions refuse to support the energy required for spontaneous activity；the voltaic-pile is not strong enough to produce crystallizations；phantasms of great ideas float through her mind，but she has not the spell which will arrest them，and give them fixity．This，more than unfavourable external circumstances，is，we think，the reason why woman has not yet contributed any new form to art，any discovery in science，any deep-searching inquiry in philosophy．The necessary physiological conditions are not present in her．That under more favourable circumstances in the future，these conditions may prove compatible with the feminine organization，it would be rash to deny．For the present，we are only concerned with our theory so far as it presents a physiological basis for the intellectual effectiveness of French women．

A secondary cause was probably the laxity of opinion and practice with regard to the marriage-tie．Heaven forbid that we should enter on a defence of French morals，most of all in relation to marriage！But it is undeniable，that unions formed in the maturity of thought and feeling，and grounded only on inherent fitness and mutual attraction，tended to bring women into more intelligent sympathy with men，and to heighten and complicate their share in the political drama．The quiescence and security of the conjugal relation，are doubtless favourable to the manifestation of the highest qualities by persons who have already attained a high standard of culture，but rarely foster a passion sufficient to rouse all the faculties to aid in winning or retaining its beloved object–to convert indolence into activity，indifference into ardent partisanship，dullness into perspicuity．Gallantry and intrigue are sorry enough things in themselves，but they certainly serve better to arouse the dormant faculties of woman than embroidery and domestic drudgery，especially when，as in the high society of France in the seventeenth century，they are refined by the influence of Spanish chivalry，and controlled by the spirit of Italian causticity．The dreamy and fantastic girl was awakened to reality by the experience of wifehood and maternity，and became capable of loving，not a mere phantom of her own imagination，but a living man，struggling with the hatreds and rivalries of the political arena；she espoused his quarrels，she made herself，her fortune，and her influence，the stepping-stones of his ambition；and the languid beauty，who had formerly seemed ready to‘die of a rose’，was seen to become the heroine of an insurrection．The vivid interest in affairs which was thus excited in woman，must obviously have tended to quicken her intellect，and give it a practical application；and the very sorrows–the heart-pangs and regrets which are inseparable from a life of passion–deepened her nature by the questioning of self and destiny which they occasioned，and by the energy demanded to surmount them and live on．No wise person，we imagine，wishes to restore the social condition of France in the seventeenth century，or considers the ideal programme of woman's life to be a mariage de convenance at fifteen，a career of gallantry from twenty to eight-and-thirty，and penitence and piety for the rest of her days．Nevertheless，that social condition had its good results，as much as the madly-superstitious Crusades had theirs．

But the most indisputable source of feminine culture and development in France was the influence of the salons；which，as all the world knows，were réunions of both sexes，where conversation ran along the whole gamut of subjects，from the frothiest vers de société to the philosophy of Descartes．Richelieu had set the fashion of uniting a taste for letters with the habits of polite society and the pursuits of ambition；and in the first quarter of the seventeenth century，there were already several hôtels in Paris，varying in social position from the closest proximity of the Court to the debatable ground of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie，which served as a rendezvous for different circles of people，bent on entertaining themselves either by showing talent or admiring it．The most celebrated of these rendezvous was the Hôtel de Rambouillet，which was at the culmination of its glory in 1630，and did not become quite extinct until 1648，when，the troubles of the Fronde commencing，its habitués were dispersed or absorbed by political interests．The presiding genius of this salon，the Marquise de Rambouillet，was the very model of the woman who can act as an amalgam to the most incongruous elements；beautiful，but not preoccupied by coquetry or passion；an enthusiastic admirer of talent，but with no pretensions to talent on her own part；exquisitely refined in language and manners，but warm and generous withal；not given to entertain her guests with her own compositions，or to paralyse them by her universal knowledge．She had once meant to learn Latin，but had been prevented by an illness；perhaps she was all the better acquainted with Italian and Spanish productions，which，in default of a national literature，were then the intellectual pabulum of all cultivated persons in France who were unable to read the classics．In her mild，agreeable presence was accomplished that blending of the high-toned chivalry of Spain with the caustic wit and refined irony of Italy，which issued in the creation of a new standard of taste–the combination of the utmost exaltation in sentiment with the utmost simplicity of language．Women are peculiarly fitted to further such a combination，–first，from their greater tendency to mingle affection and imagination with passion，and thus subtilize it into sentiment；and next，from that dread of what over-taxes their intellectual energies，either by difficulty or monotony，which gives them an instinctive fondness for lightness of treatment and airiness of expression，thus making them cut short all prolixity and reject all heaviness．When these womanly characteristics were brought into conversational contact with the materials furnished by such minds as those of Richelieu，Corneille，the Great Condé，Balzac，and Bossuet，it is no wonder that the result was something piquant and charming．Those famous habitués of the Hôtel de Rambouillet did not，apparently，first lay themselves out to entertain the ladies with grimacing‘small-talk’，and then take each other by the sword-knot to discuss matters of real interest in a corner；they rather sought to present their best ideas in the guise most acceptable to intelligent and accomplished women．And the conversation was not of literature only；war，politics，religion，the lightest details of daily news–everything was admissible，if only it were treated with refinement and intelligence．The Hôtel de Rambouillet was no mere literary réunion；it included hommes d'affaires and soldiers as well as authors，and in such a circle，women would not become bas bleus or dreamy moralizers，ignorant of the world and of human nature，but intelligent observers of character and events．It is easy to understand，however，that with the herd of imitators who，in Paris and the provinces，aped the style of this famous salon，simplicity degenerated into affectation，and nobility of sentiment was replaced by an inflated effort to outstrip nature，so that the genre précieux drew down the satire，which reached its climax in the Précieuses ridicules and Les Femmes savantes，the former of which appeared in 1660，and the latter in 1673．But Madelon and Cathos are the lineal descendants of Mademoiselle Scudéry and her satellites quite as much as of the Hôtel de Rambouillet．The society which assembled every Saturday in her salon was exclusively literary，and，although occasionally visited by a few persons of high birth，bourgeois in its tone，and enamoured of madrigals，sonnets，stanzas，and bouts rimés．The affectation that decks trivial things in fine language，belongs essentially to a class which sees another above it，and is uneasy in the sense of its inferiority；and this affectation is precisely the opposite of the original genre précieux．

Another centre from which feminine influence radiated into the national literature was the Palais du Luxembourg，where Mademoiselle d'Orléans，in disgrace at court on account of her share in the Fronde，held a little court of her own，and for want of anything else to employ her active spirit，busied herself with literature．One fine morning，it occurred to this princess to ask all the persons who frequented her court，among whom were Madame de Sévigné，Madame de la Fayette，and La Rochefoucauld，to write their own portraits，and she at once set the example．It was understood that defects and virtues were to be spoken of with like candour．The idea was carried out；those who were not clever or not bold enough to write for themselves employing the pen of a friend．

‘Such，’says M．Cousin，‘was the pastime of Mademoiselle and her friends during the years 1657 and 1658：from this pastime proceeded a complete literature．In 1659，Ségrais revised these portraits，added a considerable number in prose and even in verse，and published the whole in a handsome quarto volume，admirably printed，and now become very rare，under the title，Divers Portraits．Only thirty copies were printed，not for sale，but to be given as presents by Mademoiselle．The work had a prodigious success．That which had made the fortune of Mademoiselle de Scudéry's romances–the pleasure of seeing one's portrait a little flattered，curiosity to see that of others，the passion which the middle class always have had an d will have for knowing what goes on in the aristocratic world （at that time not very easy of access），the names of the illustrious persons who were here for the first time described physically and morally with the utmost detail，great ladies transformed all at once into writers，and unconsciously inventing a new manner of writing，of which no book gave the slightest idea，and which was the ordinary manner of speaking of the aristocracy；this undefinable mixture of the natural，the easy，and at the same time of the agreeable，and supremely distinguished–all this charmed the court and the town，and very early in the year 1659 permission was asked of Mademoiselle to give a new edition of the privileged book for the use of the public in general．

The fashion thus set，portraits multiplied throughout France，until in 1688，La Bruyère adopted the form in his Characters，and ennobled it by divesting it of personality．We shall presently see that a still greater work than La Bruyère's also owed its suggestion to a woman，whose salon was hardly a less fascinating resort than the Hôtel de Rambouillet itself．

In proportion as the literature of a country is enriched and culture becomes more generally diffused，personal influence is less effective in the formation of taste and in the furtherance of social advancement．It is no longer the coterie which acts on literature，but literature which acts on the coterie；the circle represented by the word public，is ever widening，and ambition，poising itself in order to hit a more distant mark，neglects the successes of the salon．What was once lavished prodigally in conversation，is reserved for the volume，or the‘article’；and the effort is not to betray originality rather than to communicate it．As the old coach-roads have sunk into disuse through the creation of railways，so journalism tends more and more to divert information from the channel of conversation into the channel of the Press：no one is satisfied with a more circumscribed audience than that very indeterminate abstraction‘the public’，and men find a vent for their opinions not in talk，but in‘copy’．We read the Athenæum askance at the tea-table，and take notes from the Philosophical Journal at a soirée；we invite our friends that we may thrust a book into their hands，and presuppose an exclusive desire in the‘ladies’to discuss their own matters，‘that we may crackle the Times’at our ease．In fact，the evident tendency of things to contract personal communication within the narrowest limits makes us tremble lest some further development of the electric telegraph should reduce us to a society of mutes，or to a sort of insect，communicating by ingenious antennæ of our own invention．Things were far from having reached this pass in the last century；but even then，literature and society had outgrown the nursing of coteries，and although many salons of that period were worthy successors of the Hôtel de Rambouillet，they were simply a recreation，not an influence．Enviable evenings，no doubt，were passed in them；and if we could be carried back to any of them at will，we should hardly know whether to choose the Wednesday dinner at Madame Geoffrin's，with d'Alembert，Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse，Grimm，and the rest，or the graver society which，thirty years later，gathered round Condorcet and his lovely young wife．The salon retained its attractions，but its power was gone：the stream of life had become too broad and deep for such small rills to affect it．

A fair comparison between the French women of the seventeenth century and those of the eighteenth would，perhaps，have a balanced result，though it is common to be a partisan on this subject．The former have more exaltation，perhaps more nobility of sentiment，and less consciousness in their intellectual activity–less of the femme auteur，which was Rousseau's horror in Madame d'Epinay，but the latter have a richer fund of ideas–not more ingenuity，but the materials of an additional century for their ingenuity to work upon．The women of the seventeenth century，when love was on the wane，took to devotion，at first mildly and by halves，as English women take to caps，and finally without compromise；with the women of the eighteenth century，Bossuet and Massillon had given way to Voltaire and Rousseau；and when youth and beauty failed，then they were thrown on their own moral strength．

M．Cousin is especially enamoured of the women of the seventeenth century，and relieves himself from his labours in philosophy by making researches into the original documents which throw light upon their lives．Last year he gave us some results of these researches，in a volume on the youth of the Duchesse de Longueville，and he has just followed it up with a second volume，in which he further illustrates her career by tracing it in connexion with that of her friend，Madame de Sablé．The materials to which he has had recourse for this purpose，are chiefly two celebrated collections of manuscripts：that of Conrart，the first secretary to the French Academy，one of those universally curious people who seem made for the annoyance of contemporaries and the benefit of posterity；and that of Valant，who was at once the physician，the secretary，and general steward of Madame de Sablé，and who，with or without her permission，possessed himself of the letters addressed to her by her numerous correspondents during the latter part of her life，and of various papers having some personal or literary interest attached to them．From these stores M．Cousin has selected many documents previously unedited；and though he often leaves us something to desire in the arrangement of his materials，this volume of his on Madame de Sablé is very acceptable to us，for she interests us quite enough to carry us through more than three hundred pages of rather scattered narrative，and through an appendix of correspondence in small type．M．Cousin justly appreciates her character as‘un heureux mélange de raison，d'esprit，d'agrément，et de bonté’；and perhaps there are few better specimens of the woman who is extreme in nothing，but sympathetic in all things；who affects us by no special quality，but by her entire being；whose nature has no tons criards，but is like those textures which，from their harmonious blending of all colours，give repose to the eye，and do not weary us though we see them every day．Madame de Sablé is also a striking example of the one order of influence which woman has exercised over literature in France；and on this ground，as well as intrinsically，she is worth studying．If the reader agrees with us he will perhaps be inclined，as we are，to dwell a little on the chief points in her life and character．

Madeline de Souvré，daughter of the Marquis of Courtenvaux，a nobleman distinguished enough to be chosen as governor of Louis XIII，was born in 1599，on the thresh-old of that seventeenth century，the brilliant genius of which is mildly reflected in her mind and history．Thus，when in 1635 her more celebrated friend，Mademoiselle de Bourbon，afterwards the Duchesse de Longueville，made her appearance at the Hôtel de Rambouillet，Madame de Sablé had nearly crossed that table-land of maturity which precedes a woman's descent towards old age．She had been married，in 1614，to Philippe Emanuel de Laval-Montmorency，Seigneur de Bois-Dauphin，and Marquis de Sablé，of whom nothing further is known than that he died in 1640，leaving her the richer by four children，but with a fortune considerably embarrassed．With beauty and high rank added to the mental attractions of which we have abundant evidence，we may well believe that Madame de Sablé's youth was brilliant．For her beauty，we have the testimony of sober Madame de Motteville，who also speaks of her as having‘beaucoup de lumière et de sincérité’；and in the following passage very graphically indicates one phase of Madame de Sablé's character：–

The Marquise de Sablé was one of those whose beauty made the most noise when the Queen came into France．But if she was amiable，she was still more desirous of appearing so；this lady's self-love rendered her too sensitive to the regard which men exhibited towards her．There yet existed in France some remains of the politeness which Catherine de Médici had introduced from Italy，and the new dramas，with all the other works in prose and verse，which came from Madrid，were thought to have such great delicacy，that she （Madame de Sablé）had conceived a high idea of the gallantry which the Spaniards had learned from the Moors．

She was persuaded that men can，without crime，have tender sentiments for women–that the desire of pleasing them led men to the greatest and finest actions–roused their intelligence，and inspired them with liberality，and all sorts of virtues；but，on the other hand，women，who were the ornament of the world，and made to be served and adored，ought not to admit anything from them but their respectful attentions．As this lady supported her views with much talent and great beauty，she had given them authority in her time，and the number and consideration of those who continued to associate with her，have caused to subsist in our day what the Spaniards call finezas．

Here is the grand element of the original femme précieuse，and it appears further，in a detail also reported by Madame de Motteville，that Madame de Sablé had a passionate admirer in the accomplished Duc de Montmorency，and apparently reciprocated his regard；but discovering （at what period of their attachment is unknown）that he was raising a lover's eyes towards the Queen，she broke with him at once．‘I have heard her say，’tells Madame de Motteville，‘that her pride was such with regard to the Duc de Montmorency，that at the first demonstrations which he gave of his change，she refused to see him any more，being unable to receive with satisfaction attentions which she had to share with the greatest princess in the world．’There is no evidence，except the untrustworthy assertion of Tallemant de Réaux，that Madame de Sablé had any other liaison than this；and the probability of the negative is increased by the ardour of her friendships．The strongest of these was formed early in life with Mademoiselle Dona d'Attichy，afterwards Comtesse de Maure；it survived the effervescence of youth and the closest intimacy of middle age，and was only terminated by the death of the latter in 1663．A little incident in this friendship is so characteristic in the transcendentalism which was then carried into all the affections，that it is worth relating at length．Mademoiselle d'Attichy，in her grief and indignation at Richelieu's treatment of her relative，quitted Paris，and was about to join her friend at Sablé，when she suddenly discovered that Madame de Sablé，in a letter to Madame de Rambouillet，had said，that her greatest happiness would be to pass her life with Julie de Rambouillet，afterwards Madame de Montausier．To Anne d'Attichy this appears nothing less than the crime of lèse-amitié．No explanations will appease her：she refuses to accept the assurance that the offensive expression was used simply out of unreflecting conformity to the style of the Hôtel de Rambouillet–that it was mere‘galimatias’．She gives up her journey，and writes a letter，which is the only one Madame de Sablé chose to preserve，when，in her period of devotion，she sacrificed the records of her youth．Here it is：–

I have seen this letter in which you tell me there is so much galimatias，and I assure you that I have not found any at all．On the contrary，I find everything very plainly expressed，and among others，one which is too explicit for my satisfaction–namely，what you have said to Madame de Rambouillet，that if you tried to imagine a perfectly happy life for yourself，it would be to pass it all alone with Mademoiselle de Rambouillet．You know whether any one can be more persuaded than I am of her merit；but I confess to you that that has not prevented me from being surprised that you could entertain a thought which did so great an injury to our friendship．As to believing that you said this to one，and wrote it to the other，simply for the sake of paying them an agreeable compliment，I have too high an esteem for your courage to be able to imagine that complaisance would cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your heart，especially on a subject in which，as they were unfavourable to me，I think you would have the more reason for concealing them，the affection which I have for you being so well-known to every one，and especially to Mademoiselle de Rambouillet，so that I doubt whether she will not have been more sensible of the wrong you have done me，than of the advantage you have given her．The circumstance of this letter falling into my hands，has forcibly reminded me of these lines of Bertaut：–

Malheureuse est l'ignorance．

Et plus malheureux le savoir．

Having through this lost a confidence which alone rendered life supportable to me，it is impossible for me to take the journey so much thought of．For would there be any propriety in travelling sixty miles in this season，in order to burthen you with a person so little suited to you，that after years of a passion without parallel，you cannot help thinking that the greatest pleasure of your life would be to pass it without her？I return，then，into my solitude，to examine the defects which cause me so much unhappiness，and unless I can correct them，I should have less joy than confusion in seeing you．

It speaks strongly for the charm of Madame de Sablé's nature that she was able to retain so susceptible a friend as Mademoiselle d'Attichy in spite of numerous other friendships，some of which，especially that with Madame de Longueville，were far from lukewarm–in spite too of a tendency in herself to distrust the affection of others towards her，and to wait for advances rather than to make them．We find many traces of this tendency in the affectionate remonstrances addressed to her by Madame de Longueville，now for shutting herself up from her friends，now for doubting that her letters are acceptable．Here is a little passage from one of these remonstrances which indicates a trait of Madame de Sablé，and is in itself a bit of excellent sense，worthy the consideration of lovers and friends in general：–

I am very much afraid that if I leave to you the care of letting me know when I can see you，I shall be a long time without having that pleasure，and that nothing will incline you to procure it me，for I have always observed a certain lukewarmness in your friendship after our explanations，from which I have never seen you thoroughly recover；and that is why I dread explanations，for however good they may be in themselves，since they serve to reconcile people，it must always be admitted，to their shame，that they are at least the effect of a bad cause，and that if they remove it for a time they sometimes leave a certain facility in getting angry again，which，without diminishing friendship，renders its intercourse less agreeable．It seems to me that I find all this in your behaviour to me；so I am not wrong in sending to know if you wish to have me to-day．

It is clear that Madame de Sablé was far from having what Sainte-Beuve calls the one fault of Madame Necker–absolute perfection．A certain exquisiteness in her physical and moral nature was，as we shall see，the source of more than one weakness，but the perception of these weaknesses，which is indicated in Madame de Longueville's letters，heightens our idea of the attractive qualities which notwithstanding drew from her，at the sober age of forty，such expressions as these：–‘I assure you that you are the person in all the world whom it would be most agreeable to me to see，and there is no one whose intercourse is a ground of truer satisfaction to me．It is admirable that at all times，and amidst all changes，the taste for your society remains in me；and，if one ought to thank God for the joys which do not tend to salvation，I should thank him with all my heart for having preserved that to me at a time in which he has taken away from me all others．’

Since we have entered on the chapter of Madame de Sablé's weaknesses，this is the place to mention what was the subject of endless raillery from her friends–her elaborate precaution about her health，and her dread of infection，even from diseases the least communicable．Perhaps this anxiety was founded as much on aesthetic as on physical grounds，on disgust at the details of illness as much as on dread of suffering：with a cold in the head or a bilious complaint，the exquisite précieuse must have been considerably less conscious of being‘the ornament of the world’，and‘made to be adored’．Even her friendship，strong as it was，was not strong enough to overcome her horror of contagion；for when Mademoiselle de Bourbon，recently become Madame de Longueville，was attacked by small-pox，Madame de Sablé for some time had not courage to visit her，or even to see Mademoiselle de Rambouillet，who was assiduous in her attendance on the patient．A little correspondence à propos of these circumstances so well exhibits the graceful badinage in which the great ladies of that day were adepts，that we are tempted to quote one short letter．

Mademoiselle de Rambouillet to the Marquise de Sablé

Mademoiselle de Chalais （dame de compagnie to the Marquise）will please to read this letter to Madame la Marquise，out of a draught．

Madame，

I do not think it possible to begin my treaty with you too early，for I am convinced that between the first proposition made to me that I should see you，and the conclusion，you will have so many reflections to make，so many physicians to consult，and so many fears to surmount，that I shall have full leisure to air myself．The conditions which I offer to fulfil for this purpose are，not to visit you until I have been three days absent from the Hôtel de Condé （where Madame de Longueville was ill），to choose a frosty day，not to approach you within four paces，not to sit down on more than one seat．You may also have a great fire in your room，burn juniper in the four corners，surround yourself with imperial vinegar，with rue and wormwood．If you can feel yourself safe under these conditions，without my cutting off my hair，I swear to you to execute them religiously；and if you want examples to fortify you，I can tell you that the Queen consented to see M．Chaudebonne，when he had come directly from Mademoiselle de Bourbon's room，and that Madame d'Aiguillon，who has good taste in such matters，and is free from reproach on these points，has just sent me word that if I did not go to see her，she would come to me．

Madame de Sablé betrays in her reply that she winces under this raillery，and thus provokes a rather severe though polite rejoinder，which，added to the fact that Madame de Longueville is convalescent，rouses her courage to the pitch of paying the formidable visit．Mademoiselle de Rambouillet，made aware，through their mutual friend Voiture，that her sarcasm has cut rather too deep，winds up the matter by writing that very difficult production，a perfectly conciliatory yet dignified apology．Peculiarities like this always deepen with age，and accordingly，fifteen years later，we find Madame d'Orléans，in her Princesse de Paphlagonia–a romance in which she describes her court，with the little quarrels and other affairs that agitated it–giving the following amusing picture，or rather caricature，of the extent to which Madame de Sablé carried her pathological mania，which seems to have been shared by her friend the Countess de Maure （Mademoiselle d'Attichy）．In the romance，these two ladies appear under the names of the Princesse Parthénie and the Reine de Mionie．

There was not an hour in the day in which they did not confer together on the means of avoiding death，and on the art of rendering themselves immortal．Their conferences did not take place like those of other people；the fear of breathing an air which was too cold or too warm，the dread lest the wind should be too dry or too moist–in short，the imagination that the weather might not be as temperate as they thought necessary for the preservation of their health，caused them to write letters from one room to the other．It would be extremely fortunate if these notes could be found，and formed into a collection．I am convinced that they would contain rules for the regimen of life，precautions even as to the proper time for applying remedies，and also remedies which Hippocrates and Galen，with all their science，never heard of．Such a collection would be very useful to the public，and would be highly profitable to the faculties of Paris and Montpelier．If these letters were discovered，great advantages of all kinds might be derived from them，for they were princesses who had nothing mortal about them but the knowledge that they were mortal．In their writings might be learned all politeness in style，and the most delicate manner of speaking on all subjects．There is nothing with which they were not acquainted；they knew the affairs of all the States in the world，through the share they had in all the intrigues of its private members，either in matters of gallantry，as in other things on which their advice was necessary；either to adjust embroilments and quarrels，or to excite them，for the sake of the advantages which their friends could derive from them；–in a word，they were persons through whose hands the secrets of the whole world had to pass．The Princess Parthénie （Madame de Sablé）had a palate as delicate as her mind；nothing could equal the magnificence of the entertainments she gave；all the dishes were exquisite，and her cleanliness was beyond all that could be imagined．It was in their time that writing came into use；previously，nothing was written but marriage contracts，and letters were never heard of；thus it is to them that we owe a practice so convenient in intercourse．

Still later，in 1669，when the most uncompromising of the Port-Royalists seemed to tax Madame de Sablé with lukewarmness that she did not join them at Port-Royal des Champs，we find her writing to the stern M．de Sévigny：‘En vérité，je crois que je ne pourrois mieux faire que de tout quitter et de m'en aller là．Mais que deviendroient ces frayeurs de n'avoir pas de médecins à choisir，ni de chirurgien pour me saigner？’

Mademoiselle，as we have seen，hints at the love of delicate eating，which many of Madame de Sablé's friends numbered among her foibles，especially after her religious career had commenced．She had a genius in friandise，and knew how to gratify the palate without offending the highest sense of refinement．Her sympathetic nature showed itself in this as in other things：she was always sending bonnes bouches to her friends，and trying to communicate to them her science and taste in the affairs of the table．Madame de Longueville，who had not the luxurious tendencies of her friend，writes–‘Je vous demande au nom de Dieu，que vous ne me prépariez aucun ragoût．Surtout ne me donnez point de festin．Au nom de Dieu，qu'il n'y ait rien que ce qu'on peut manger，car vous savez que c'est inutile pour moi；de plus j'en ai scrupule．’But other friends had more appreciation of her niceties．Voiture thanks her for her melons，and assures her that they are better than those of yesterday；Madame de Choisy hopes that her ridicule of Jansenism will not provoke Madame de Sablé to refuse her the receipt for salad；and La Rochefoucauld writes：‘You cannot do me a greater charity than to permit the bearer of this letter to enter into the mysteries of your marmalade and your genuine preserves，and I humbly entreat you to do everything you can in his favour．If I could hope for two dishes of those preserves，which I did not deserve to eat before，I should be indebted to you all my life．’For our own part，being as far as possible from fraternizing with those spiritual people who convert a deficiency into a principle，and pique themselves on an obtuse palate as a point of superiority，we are not inclined to number Madame de Sablé's friandise amongst her defects．M．Cousin，too，is apologetic on this point．He says：

It was only the excess of a delicacy which can be readily understood，and a sort of fidelity to the character of précieuse．As the précieuse did nothing according to common usage，she could not dine like another．We have cited a passage from Madame de Motteville，where Madame de Sablé is represented in her first youth at the Hôtel de Rambouillet，maintaining that woman is born to be an ornament to the world，and to receive the adoration of men．The woman worthy of the name，ought always to appear above material wants，and retain，even in the most vulgar details of life，something distinguished and purified．Eating is a very necessary operation，but one which is not agreeable to the eye．Madame de Sablé insisted on its being conducted with a peculiar cleanliness．According to her，it was not every woman who could with impunity be at table in the presence of a lover；the first distortion of the face，she said，would be enough to spoil all．Gross meals，made for the body merely，ought to be abandoned to bourgeoises，and the refined woman should appear to take a little nourishment merely to sustain her，and even to divert her，as one takes refreshments and ices．Wealth did not suffice for this；a particular talent was required．Madame de Sablé was a mistress in this art．She had transported the aristocratic spirit and the genre précieux，good breeding and good taste，even into cookery．Her dinners，without any opulence，were celebrated and sought after．

It is quite in accordance with all this，that Madame de Sablé should delight in fine scents，and we find that she did；for being threatened，in her Port-Royal days，when she was at an advanced age，with the loss of smell，and writing for sympathy and information to Mère Agnès，who had lost that sense early in life，she receives this admonition from the stern saint：‘You would gain by this loss，my very dear sister，if you made use of it as a satisfaction to God，for having had too much pleasure in delicious scents．’Scarron describes her as

La non pareille Bois-Dauphine，

Entre dames perle très fine，

and the superlative delicacy implied by this epithet seems to have belonged equally to her personal habits，her affections，and her intellect．

Madame de Sablé's life，for anything we know，flowed on evenly enough until 1640，when the death of her husband threw upon her the care of an embarrassed fortune．She found a friend in René de Longueil，Seigneur de Maisons，of whom we are content to know no more than that he helped Madame de Sablé to arrange her affairs，though only by means of alienating from her family the estate of Sablé，that his house was her refuge during the blockade of Paris，in 1649，and that she was not unmindful of her obligations to him，when，subsequently，her credit could be serviceable to him at court．In the midst of these pecuniary troubles came a more terrible trial–the loss of her favourite son，the brave and handsome Guy de Laval，who，after a brilliant career in the campaigns of Condé，was killed at the siege of Dunkirk，in 1646，when scarcely four-and-twenty．The fine qualities of this young man had endeared him to the whole army，and especially to Condé，had won him the hand of the Chancellor Séguire's daughter，and had thus opened to him the prospect of the highest honours．His loss seems to have been the most real sorrow of Madame de Sablé's life．Soon after followed the commotions of the Fronde，which put a stop to social intercourse，and threw the closest friends into opposite ranks．According to Lenet，who relies on the authority of Gourville，Madame de Sablé was under strong obligations to the court，being in the receipt of a pension of 2,000 crowns；at all events，she adhered throughout to the Queen and Mazarin，but being as far as possible from a fierce partisan，and given both by disposition and judgement to hear both sides of a question，she acted as a conciliator，and retained her friends of both parties．The Countess de Maure，whose husband was the most obstinate of frondeurs，remained throughout her most cherished friend，and she kept up a constant correspondence with the lovely and intrepid heroine of the Fronde，Madame de Longueville．Her activity was directed to the extinction of animosities，by bringing about marriages between the Montagues and Capulets of the Fronde–between the Prince de Condé，or his brother，and the niece of Mazarin，or between the three nieces of Mazarin and the sons of three noblemen who were distinguished leaders of the Fronde．Though her projects were not realized，her conciliatory position enabled her to preserve all her friendships intact，and when the political tempest was over，she could assemble around her in her residence，in the Place Royale，the same society as before．Madame de Sablé was now approaching her twelfth lustrum，and though the charms of her mind and character made her more sought after than most younger women，it is not surprising that，sharing as she did in the religious ideas of her time，the concerns of‘salvation’seemed to become pressing．A religious retirement，which did not exclude the reception of literary friends，or the care for personal comforts，made the most becoming frame for age and diminished fortune．Jansenism was then to ordinary Catholicism what Puseyism is to ordinary Church of Englandism in these days–it was a recherché form of piety unshared by the vulgar；and one sees at once that it must have special attractions for the précieuse．Madame de Sablé，then，probably about 1655 or 1656，determined to retire to Port-Royal，not because she was already devout，but because she hoped to become so；as，however，she wished to retain the pleasure of intercourse with friends who were still worldly，she built for herself a set of apartments at once distinct from the monastery and attached to it．Here，with a comfortable establishment，consisting of her secretary，Dr Valant，Mademoiselle de Chalais，formerly her dame de compagnie，and now become her friend；an excellent cook；a few other servants，and for a considerable time a carriage and coachman；with her best friends within a moderate distance，she could，as M．Cousin says，be out of the noise of the world without altogether forsaking it，preserve her dearest friendships，and have before her eyes edifying examples–‘vaquer enfin à son aise aux soins de son salut et à ceux de sa santé’．

We have hitherto looked only at one phase of Madame de Sablé's character and influence–that of the précieuse．But she was much more than this：she was the valuable，trusted friend of noble women and distinguished men；she was the animating spirit of a society whence issued a new form of French literature：she was the woman of large capacity and large heart，whom Pascal sought to please，to whom Arnauld submitted the Discourse prefixed to his Logic，and to whom La Rochefoucauld writes：‘Vous savez que je ne crois que vous êtes sûr de certains chapitres，et surtout sur les replis du cœur．’The papers preserved by her secretary，Valant，show that she maintained an extensive correspondence with persons of various rank and character；that her pen was untiring in the interest of others；that men made her the depositary of their thoughts，women of their sorrows；that her friends were as impatient，when she secluded herself，as if they had been rival lovers and she a youthful beauty．It is into her ear that Madame de Longueville pours her troubles and difficulties，and that Madame de la Fayette communicates her little alarms，lest young Count de St Paul should have detected her intimacy with La Rochefoucauld．[2]The few of Madame de Sablé's letters which survive show that she excelled in that epistolary style which was the speciality of the Hôtel de Rambouillet；one to Madame de Montausier，in favour of M．Périer，the brother-in-law of Pascal，is a happy mixture of good taste and good sense；but amongst them all we prefer quoting one to the Duchesse de la Trimouille．It is light and pretty，and made out of almost nothing，like soap-bubbles．

Je crois qu'il n'y a que moi qui face si bien tout le contraire de ce que je veux faire，car il est vrai qu'il n'y a personne que j'honore plus que vous et j'ai si bien fait qu'il est quasi impossible que vous le puissiez croire．Ce n'estoit pas assez pour vous persuader que je suis indigne de vos bonnes grâces et de votre souvenir que d'avoir manqué fort longtemps à vous écrire；il falloit encore retarder quinze jours à me donner l'honneur de répondre à votre lettre．En vérité，madame，cela me fait parôitre si coupable，que vers tout autre que vous j'aimerois mieux l'etre en effet que d'entreprendre une chose si difficile qu'est celle de me justifier．Mais je me sens si innocente dans mon âme，et j'ai tant d'estime，de respect et d'affection pour vous，qu'il me semble que vous devez le connôitre à cent lieues de distance d'ici，encore que je ne vous dise pas un mot．C'est ce que me donne le courage de vous écrire à cette heure，mais non pas ce qui m'en a empêché si longtemps．J'ai commencé à faillir par force，ayant eu beaucoup de maux，et depuis je l'ai fait par honte，et je vous avoue que si je n'avois à cette heure la confiance que vous m'avez donnée en me rassurant，et celle que je tire de mes propres sentiments pour vous，je n'oserois jamais entreprendre de vous faire souvenir de moi；mais je m'assure que vous oublierez tout，sur la protestation que je vous fais de ne me laisser plus endurceir en mes fautes et de demeurer inviolablement，madame，votre，etc．

Was not the woman，who could unite the ease and grace indicated by this letter，with an intellect that men thought worth consulting on matters of reasoning and philosophy，with warm affections，untiring activity for others，no ambition as an authoress，and an insight into confitures and ragoûts，a rare combination？No wonder that her salon at Port-Royal was the favourite resort of such women as Madame de la Fayette，Madame de Montausier，Madame de Longueville，and Madame de Haute-fort；and of such men as Pascal，La Rochefoucauld，Nicole，and Domat．The collections of Valant contain papers which show what were the habitual subjects of conversation in this salon．Theology，of course，was a chief topic；but physics and metaphysics had their turn，and still more frequently morals，taken in their widest sense．There were Conferences on Calvinism，of which an abstract is preserved．When Rohault invented his glass tubes to serve for the barometrical experiments，in which Pascal had roused a strong interest，the Marquis de Sourdis entertained the society with a paper，entitled Why Water Mounts in a Glass Tube．Cartesianism was an exciting topic here，as well as everywhere else in France；it had its partisans and opponents；and papers were read，containing Thoughts on the Opinions of M．Descartes．These lofty matters were varied by discussions on love and friendship，on the drama，and on most of the things in heaven and earth which the philosophy of that day dreamt of．Morals–generalizations on human affections，sentiments，and conduct–seem to have been the favourite theme；and the aim was to reduce these generalizations to their briefest form of expression，to give them the epigrammatic turn which made them portable in the memory．This was the specialty of Madame de Sablé's circle，and was，probably，due to her own tendency．As the Hôtel de Rambouillet was the nursery of graceful letter-writing，and the Luxembourg of‘portraits’and‘characters’，so Madame de Sablé's salon fostered that taste for the sententious style，to which we owe，probably，some of the best Pensées of Pascal，and，certainly，the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld．Madame de Sablé herself wrote maxims，which were circulated among her friends；and，after her death，were published by the Abbé d'Ailly．They have the excellent sense and nobility of feeling which we should expect in everything of hers；but they have no stamp of genius or individual character：they are，to the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld，what the vase moulded in dull，heavy clay，is to the vase which the action of fire has made light，brittle，and transparent．She also wrote a treatise on Education，which is much praised by La Rochefoucauld and M．d'Andilly；but which seems no longer to be found：probably it was not much more elaborate than her so-called‘Treatise on Friendship’，which is but a short string of maxims．Madame de Sablé's forte was evidently not to write herself，but to stimulate others to write；to show that sympathy and appreciation which are as genial and encouraging as the morning sunbeams．She seconded a man's wit with understanding–one of the best offices which womanly intellect has rendered to the advancement of culture；and the absence of originality made her all the more receptive towards the originality of others．

The manuscripts of Pascal show that many of the Pensées，which are commonly supposed to be raw materials for a great work on religion，were remodelled again and again，in order to bring them to the highest degree of terseness and finish，which would hardly have been the case if they had only been part of a quarry for a greater production．Thoughts which are merely collected as materials，as stones out of which a building is to be erected，are not cut into facets，and polished like amethysts or emeralds．Since Pascal was from the first in the habit of visiting Madame de Sablé at Port-Royal，with his sister，Madame Périer （who was one of Madame de Sablé's dearest friends），we may well suppose that he would throw some of his jewels among the large and small coin of maxims，which were a sort of subscription-money there．Many of them have an epigrammatic piquancy，which was just the thing to charm a circle of vivacious and intelligent women；they seem to come from a La Rochefoucauld，who has been dipped over again in philosophy and wit，and received a new layer．But whether or not Madame de Sablé's influence served to enrich the Pensées of Pascal，it is clear that but for her influence the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld would never have existed．Just as in some circles the effort is，who shall make the best puns （horribile dictu！），or the best charades，in the salon of Port-Royal the amusement was to fabricate maxims．La Rochefoucauld said，‘L'envie de faire des maximes se gagne comme le rhume．’So far from claiming for himself the initiation of this form of writing，he accuses Jacques Esprit，another habitué of Madame de Sablé's salon，of having excited in him the taste for maxims，in order to trouble his repose．The said Esprit was an academician，and had been a frequenter of the Hôtel de Rambouillet．He had already published Maximes en vers，and he subsequently produced a book called La Fausseté des vertus humaines，which seems to consist of Rochefoucauldism become flat with an infusion of sour Calvinism．Nevertheless，La Rochefoucauld seems to have prized him，to have appealed to his judgement，and to have concocted maxims with him，which he afterwards begs him to submit to Madame de Sablé．He sends a little batch of maxims to her himself，and asks for an equivalent in the shape of good eatables：‘Voilà tout ce que j'ai de maximes；mais comme je ne donne rien pour rien，je vous demande un potage aux carottes，un ragoût de mouton，’etc．The taste and the talent enhanced each other；until，at last，La Rochefoucauld began to be conscious of his preeminence in the circle of maxim-mongers，and thought of a wider audience．Thus grew up the famous Maximes，about which little need be said．Every one is now convinced，or professes to be convinced，that，as to form，they are perfect，and that as to matter，they are at once undeniably true and miserably false；true as applied to that condition of human nature in which the selfish instincts are still dominant，false if taken as a representation of all the elements and possibilities of human nature．We think La Rochefoucauld himself wavered as to their universality，and that this wavering is indicated in the qualified form of some of the maxims；it occasionally struck him that the shadow of virtue must have a substance，but he had never grasped that substance–it had never been present to his consciousness．

It is curious to see La Rochefoucauld's nervous anxiety about presenting himself before the public as an author；far from rushing into print，he stole into it，and felt his way by asking private opinions．Through Madame de Sablé he sent manuscript copies to various persons of taste and talent，both men and women，and many of the written opinions which she received in reply are still in existence．The women generally find the maxims distasteful，but the men write approvingly．These men，however，are for the most part ecclesiastics who decry human nature that they may exalt divine grace．The coincidence between Augustinianism or Calvinism，with its doctrine of human corruption，and the hard cynicism of the maxims，presents itself in quite a piquant form in some of the laudatory opinions of La Rochefoucauld．One writer says：–‘On ne pourroit faire une instruction plus propre à un catéchumène pour convertir à Dieu son esprit et sa volonté...Quand il n'y auroit que cet escrit au monde et l'Evangile je voudrois être chrétien．L'un m'apprendroit à connoistre mes misères，et l'autre à implorer mon libérateur．’Madame de Maintenon sends word to La Rochefoucauld，after the publication of his work，that the Book of Job and the Maximes are her only reading！

That Madame de Sablé herself had a tolerably just idea of La Rochefoucauld's character，as well as of his maxims，may be gathered not only from the fact that her own maxims are as full of the confidence in human goodness which La Rochefoucauld wants，as they are empty of the style which he possesses，but also from a letter in which she replies to the criticisms of Madame de Schomberg．‘The author，’she says，‘derived the maxim on indolence from his own disposition，for never was there so great an indolence as his，and I think that his heart，inert as it is，owes this defect as much to his idleness as his will．It has never permitted him to do the last action for others；and I think that，amidst all his great desires and great hopes，he is sometimes indolent even on his own behalf．’Still she must have felt a hearty interest in the Maximes，as in some degree her foster-child，and she must also have had considerable affection for the author，who was lovable enough to those who observed the rule of Helvetius，and expected nothing from him．She not only assisted him，as we have seen，in getting criticisms，and carrying out the improvements suggested by them，but when the book was actually published，she prepared a notice of it for the only journal then existing–the Journal des savants．This notice was originally a brief statement of the nature of the work，and the opinions which had been formed for and against it，with a moderate eulogy，in conclusion，on its good sense，wit，and insight into human nature．But when she submitted it to La Rochefoucauld he objected to the paragraph which stated the adverse opinion，and requested her to alter it．She，however，was either unable or unwilling to modify her notice，and returned it with the following note：–

Je vous envoie ce que j'ai pu tirer de ma teste pour mettre dans le Journal des savants．J'y ai mis cet endroit qui vous est le plus sensible，afin que cela vous fasse surmonter la mauvaise honte qui vousfit mettre la préface sans y rien retrancher，et je n'ai pas craint de le mettre，parce que je suis assurée que vous ne le ferez pas imprimer，quand même le reste vous plairoit．Je vous assure aussi que je vous serai plus obligée，si vous en usez comme d'une chose qui servit à vous pour le corriger ou pour le jeter au feu．Nous autres grands auteurs，nous sommes trop riches pour craindre de rien perdre de nos productions．Mandez-moi ce qu'il vous semble de ce dictum．

La Rochefoucauld availed himself of this permission，and‘edited’the notice，touching up the style，and leaving out the blame．In this revised form it appeared in the Journal des savants．In some points，we see，the youth of journalism was not without promise of its future．

While Madame de Sablé was thus playing the literary confidante to La Rochefoucauld，and was the soul of a society whose chief interest was the belles lettres，she was equally active in graver matters．She was in constant intercourse or correspondence with the devout women of Port-Royal，and of the neighbouring convent of the Carmelites，many of whom had once been the ornaments of the court；and there is a proof that she was conscious of being highly valued by them in the fact that when the Princess Marie-Madeline，of the Carmelites，was dangerously ill，not being able or not daring to visit her，she sent her youthful portrait to be hung up in the sick-room，and received from the same Mère Agnés whose grave admonition we have quoted above，a charming note，describing the pleasure which the picture had given in the infirmary of‘Notre bonne Mère’．She was interesting herself deeply in the translation of the New Testament，which was the work of Sacy，Arnauld，Nicole，Le Maître，and the Duc de Luynes conjointly，Sacy having the principal share．We have mentioned that Arnauld asked her opinion on the Discourse prefixed to his Logic，and we may conclude from this that he had found her judgement valuable in many other cases．Moreover，the persecution of the Port-Royalists had commenced，and she was uniting with Madame de Longueville in aiding and protecting her pious friends．Moderate in her Jansenism，as in everything else，she held that the famous formulary denouncing the Augustinian doctrine，and declaring it to have been originated by Jansenius，should be signed without reserve，and，as usual，she had faith in conciliatory measures；but her moderation was no excuse for inaction．She was at one time herself threatened with the necessity of abandoning her residence at Port-Royal，and had thought of retiring to a religious house at Auteuil，a village near Paris．She did，in fact，pass some summers there，and she sometimes took refuge with her brother，the Commandeur de Souvré，with Madame de Montausier，or Madame de Longueville．The last was much bolder in her partisanship than her friend，and her superior wealth and position enabled her to give the Port-Royalists more efficient aid．Arnauld and Nicole resided five years in her house；it was under her protection that the translation of the New Testament was carried on and completed，and it was chiefly through her efforts that，in 1669，the persecution was brought to an end．Madame de Sablé co-operated with all her talent and interest in the same direction；but here，as elsewhere，her influence was chiefly valuable in what she stimulated others to do，rather than in what she did herself．It was by her that Madame de Longueville was first won to the cause of Port-Royal；and we find this ardent brave woman constantly seeking the advice and sympathy of her more timid and self-indulgent，but sincere and judicious friend．

In 1669，when Madame de Sablé had at length rest from these anxieties，she was at the good old age of seventy，but she lived nine years longer–years，we may suppose，chiefly dedicated to her spiritual concerns．This gradual，calm decay allayed the fear of death which had tormented her more vigorous days；and she died with tranquillity and trust．It is a beautiful trait of these last moments，that she desired not to be buried with her family，or even at Port-Royal，among her saintly and noble companions，but in the cemetery of her parish，like one of the people，without pomp or ceremony．

It is worth while to notice，that with Madame de Sablé，as with some other remarkable French women，the part of her life which is richest in interest and results，is that which is looked forward to by most of her sex with melancholy as the period of decline．When between fifty and sixty，she had philosophers，wits，beauties，and saints clustering around her；and one naturally cares to know what was the elixir which gave her this enduring and general attraction．We think it was，in a great degree，that well-balanced development of mental powers which gave her a comprehension of varied intellectual processes，and a tolerance for varied forms of character，which is still rarer in women than in men．Here was one point of distinction between her and Madame de Longueville；and an amusing passage，which Sainte-Beuve has disinterred from the writings of the Abbé St Pierre，so well serves to indicate，by contrast，what we regard as the great charm of Madame de Sablé's mind，that we shall not be wandering from our subject in quoting it．

I one day asked M．Nicole what was the character of Madame de Longueville's intellect；he told me it was very subtle and delicate in the penetration of character，but very small，very feeble；and that her comprehension was extremely narrow in matters of science and reasoning，and on all speculations that did not concern matters of sentiment．For example，he added，I one day said to her that I could wager and demonstrate that there were in Paris，at least two inhabitants who had the same number of hairs，although I could not point out who these two men were．She told me，I could never be sure of it until I had counted the hairs of these two men．Here is my demonstration，I said：–I take it for granted that the head which is most amply supplied with hairs has not more than 200,000 and the head which is least so has but one hair．Now，if you suppose that 200,000 heads have each a different number of hairs，it necessarily follows that they have each one of the numbers of hairs which form the series from 1 to 200,000；for if it were supposed that there were two among these 200,000 who had the same number of hairs，I should have gained my wager．Supposing，then，that these 200,000 inhabitants have all a different number of hairs，if I add a single inhabitant who has hairs，and who has not more than 200,000，it necessarily follows that this number of hairs，whatever it may be，will be contained in the series from 1 to 200,000，and consequently will be equal to the number of hairs on one of the previous 200,000 inhabitants．Now as，instead of one inhabitant more than 200,000，there are nearly 800,000 inhabitants in Paris，you see clearly that there must be many heads which have an equal number of hairs，though I have not counted them．Still Madame de Longueville could never comprehend that this equality of hairs could be demonstrated，and always maintained that the only way of proving it was to count them．

Surely，the most ardent admirer of feminine shallowness must have felt some irritation when he found himself arrested by this dead wall of stupidity，and have turned with relief to the larger intelligence of Madame de Sablé，who was not the less graceful，delicate，and feminine，because she could follow a train of reasoning，or interest herself in a question of science．In this combination consisted her pre-eminent charm：she was not a genius，not a heroine，but a woman whom men could more than love–whom they could make their friend，confidante，and counsellor；the sharer，not of their joys and sorrows only，but of their ideas and aims．

Such was Madame de Sablé，whose name is，perhaps，new to some of our readers，so far does it lie from the surface of literature and history．We have seen，too，that she was only one amongst a crowd–one in a firmament of feminine stars which，when once the biographical telescope is turned upon them，appear scarcely less remarkable and interesting．Now，if the reader recollects what was the position and average intellectual character of women in the high society of England during the reigns of James I and the two Charleses–the period through which Madame de Sablé's career extends–we think he will admit our position as to the early superiority of womanly development in France：and this fact，with its causes，has not merely an historical interest，it has an important bearing on the culture of women in the present day．Women become superior in France by being admitted to a common fund of ideas，to common objects of interest with men；and this must ever be the essential condition at once of true womanly culture and of true social well-being．We have no faith in feminine conversazioni，where ladies are eloquent on Apollo and Mars；though we sympathize with the yearning activity of faculties which，deprived of their proper material，waste themselves in weaving fabrics out of cobwebs．Let the whole field of reality be laid open to woman as well as to man，and then that which is peculiar in her mental modification，instead of being，as it is now，a source of discord and repulsion between the sexes，will be found to be a necessary complement to the truth and beauty of life．Then we shall have that marriage of minds which alone can blend all the hues of thought and feeling in one lovely rainbow of promise for the harvest of human happiness．

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[1] Queen Christina，when Madame Dacier （then Mademoiselle Le Fèvre）sent her a copy of her edition of Callimachus，wrote in reply；–‘Mais vous，de qui on m'assure que vous êtes une belle et agreeable fille，n'avez vous pas honte de'être si savante？’[The sentence translates as‘But you，a handsome and pleasing maid，as I am told，are you not ashamed of being so learned？’]

[2] The letter to which we allude has this charming little touch；–‘Je hais comme la mort que les gens de son age puissent croire que j'ai des galanteries．Il semble qu'on leur parait cent ans des qu'on est plus vieille qu'eux，et ils sont tout propre à s'étonner qu'il y ait encore question des gens．’[This translates as‘I hate like death the idea that people of his own age might believe me to have liaisons．To all appearances one is deemed to be a hundred years old the moment one is older than they–and they are all too prone to wonder at there still being men [‘gens' may be translated in various ways] about one．’（Editors）．]

Geraldine Jewsbury's Constance Herbert

Next in interest to Westward Ho！ at least among the English novels of the quarter，is Constance Herbert．Miss Jewsbury has created precedents for herself which make critics exacting towards her．We measure her work by her own standard，and find it deficient；when if measured by the standard of ordinary feminine novelists，it would perhaps seem excellent．We meet with some beauties in it which，coming from the author of the Half Sisters，we take as a matter of course，but we miss other beauties which she has taught us to expect；we feel that she is not equal to herself；and it is a tribute to her well-attested powers if we dwell on what has disappointed us，rather than on what has gratified us．An easy，agreeable style of narrative，some noble sentiments expressed in the quiet，unexaggerated way that indicates their source to be a deep spring of conviction and experience，not a mere rain-torrent of hearsay enthusiasm，with here and there a trait of character or conduct painted with the truthfulness of close observation，are merits enough to raise a book far above the common run of circulating library fiction；but they are not enough to make a good novel，or one worthy of Miss Jewsbury's reputation．Constance Herbert is a Tendenz-roman；the characters and incidents are selected with a view to the enforcement of a principle．The general principle meant to be enforced is the unhesitating，uncompromising sacrifice of inclination to duty，and the special case to which this principle is applied in the novel，is the abstinence from marriage where there is an inheritance of insanity．So far，we have no difference of opinion with Miss Jewsbury．But the mode in which she enforces the principle，both theoretically in the Envoi and illustratively in the story of her novel，implies，we think，a false view of life，and virtually nullifies the very magnanimity she inculcates．‘If，’she says in the Envoi，‘we have succeeded in articulating any principle in this book，it is to entreat our readers to have boldness to act up to the sternest requirements that duty claims as right．Although it may at the time seem to slay them，it will in the end prove life．Nothing they renounce for the sake of a higher principle，will prove to have been worth the keeping．’The italics are ours，and we use them to indicate what we think false in Miss Jewsbury's moral．This moral is illustrated in the novel by the story of three ladies，who，after renouncing their lovers，or being renounced by them，have the satisfaction of feeling in the end that these lovers were extremely‘good-for-nothing’，and that they （the ladies）have had an excellent riddance．In all this we can see neither the true doctrine of renunciation，nor a true representation of the realities of life；and we are sorry that a writer of Miss Jewsbury's insight and sincerity should have produced three volumes for the sake of teaching such copy-book morality．It is not the fact that what duty calls on us to renounce，will invariably prove‘not worth the keeping’；and if it were the fact，renunciation would cease to be moral heroism，and would be simply a calculation of prudence．Let us take the special case which Miss Jewsbury has chosen as her illustration．It might equally happen that a woman in the position of Constance Herbert，who renounces marriage because she will not entail on others the family heritage of insanity，had fixed her affections，not on an egotistic，shallow worldling like Philip Marchmont，but on a man who was fitted to make the happiness of a woman's life，and whose subsequent career would only impress on her more and more deeply the extent of the sacrifice she had made in refusing him．And it is this very perception that the thing we renounce is precious，is something never to be compensated to us，which constitutes the beauty and heroism of renunciation．The only motive that renders such a resolution as Constance Herbert's noble，is that keen sympathy with human misery which makes a woman prefer to suffer for the term of her own life，rather than run the risk of causing misery to an indefinite number of other human beings；and a mind influenced by such a motive will find no support in the very questionable satisfaction of discovering that objects once cherished were in fact worthless．The notion that duty looks stern，but all the while has her hand full of sugar-plums，with which she will reward us by and by，is the favourite cant of optimists，who try to make out that this tangled wilderness of life has a plan as easy to trace as that of a Dutch garden；but it really undermines all true moral development by perpetually substituting something extrinsic as a motive to action，instead of the immediate impulse of love or justice，which alone makes an action truly moral．This is a grave question to enter on à propos of a novel；but Miss Jewsbury is so emphatic in the enunciation of her moral，that she forces us to consider her book rather in the light of a homily than of a fiction–to criticize her doctrine rather than her story．On another point，too，we must remonstrate with her a little，chiefly because we value her influence，and should like to see it always in what seems to us the right scale．With the exception of Mr Harrop，who is simply a cipher awaiting a wife to give him any value，there is not a man in her book who is not either weak，perfidious，or rascally，while almost all the women are models of magnanimity and devotedness．The lions，i．e．，the ladies，have got the brush in their hands with a vengeance now，and are retaliating for the calumnies of men from Adam downwards．Perhaps it is but fair to allow them a little exaggeration．Still we must meekly suggest that we cannot accept an ex parte statement，even from that paragon Aunt Margaret，as altogether decisive．Aunt Margaret tells us that in the bloom of youth and beauty，with virtues and accomplishments to correspond，she alienated her husband by pure devotion to him．‘No man，’she says，‘can bear entire devotion．’This reminds us of a certain toper，who after drinking a series of glasses of brandy-and-water one night，complained the next morning that the water did not agree with him．We are inclined to think that it is less frequently devotion which alienates men，than something infused in the devotion–a certain amount of silliness，or temper，or exigeance，for example，which，though given in small doses，will，if per-severed in，have a strongly alterative effect．Men，in fact，are in rather a difficult position：in one ear a Miss Grace Lee，or some such strong-minded woman，thunders that they demand to be worshipped，and abhor a woman who has any self-dependence；on the other，a melancholy Viola complains that they never appreciate devotion，that they care only for a woman who treats them with indifference．A discouraging view of the case for both sexes！Seriously，we care too much for the attainment of a better understanding as to woman's true position，not to be sorry when a writer like Miss Jewsbury only adds her voice to swell the confusion on this subject．

Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft

The dearth of new books just now gives us time to recur to less recent ones which we have hitherto noticed but slightly；and among these we choose the late edition of Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century，because we think it has been unduly thrust into the background by less comprehensive and candid productions on the same subject．Notwithstanding certain defects of taste and a sort of vague spiritualism and grandiloquence which belong to all but the very best American writers，the book is a valuable one：it has the enthusiasm of a noble and sympathetic nature，with the moderation and breadth and large allowance of a vigorous and cultivated understanding．There is no exaggeration of woman's moral excellence or intellectual capabilities；no injudicious insistence on her fitness for this or that function hitherto engrossed by men；but a calm plea for the removal of unjust laws and artificial restrictions，so that the possibilities of her nature may have room for full development，a wisely stated demand to disencumber her of the

Parasitic forms

That seem to keep her up，but drag her down–

And leave her field to burgeon and to bloom

From all within her，make herself her own

To give or keep，to live and learn and be

All that not harms distinctive womanhood．

It is interesting to compare this essay of Margaret Fuller's，published in its earliest form in 1843，with a work on the position of woman，written between sixty and seventy years ago–we mean Mary Wollstonecraft's Rights of Woman．The latter work was not continued beyond the first volume；but so far as this carries the subject，the comparison，at least in relation to strong sense and loftiness of moral tone，is not at all disadvantageous to the woman of the last century．There is in some quarters a vague prejudice against the Rights of Woman as in some way or other a reprehensible book，but readers who go to it with this impression will be surprised to find it eminently serious，severely moral，and withal rather heavy–the true reason，perhaps，that no edition has been published since 1796，and that it is now rather scarce．There are several points of resemblance，as well as of striking difference，between the two books．A strong understanding is present in both；but Margaret Fuller's mind was like some regions of her own American continent，where you are constantly stepping from the sunny‘clearings’into the mysterious twilight of the tangled forest–she often passes in one breath from forcible reasoning to dreamy vagueness；moreover，her unusually varied culture gives her great command of illustration．Mary Wollstonecraft，on the other hand，is nothing if not rational；she has no erudition，and her grave pages are lit up by no ray of fancy．In both writers we discern，under the brave bearing of a strong and truthful nature，the beating of a loving woman's heart，which teaches them not to undervalue the smallest offices of domestic care or kindliness．But Margaret Fuller，with all her passionate sensibility，is more of the literary woman，who would not have been satisfied without intellectual production；Mary Wollstonecraft，we imagine，wrote not at all for writing's sake，but from the pressure of other motives．So far as the difference of date allows，there is a striking coincidence in their trains of thought；indeed，every important idea in the Rights of Woman，except the combination of home education with a common day-school for boys and girls，reappears in Margaret Fuller's essay．

One point on which they both write forcibly is the fact that，while men have a horror of such faculty or culture in the other sex as tends to place it on a level with their own，they are really in a state of subjection to ignorant and feeble-minded women．Margaret Fuller says：–

Wherever man is sufficiently raised above extreme poverty or brutal stupidity，to care for the comforts of the fireside，or the bloom and ornament of life，woman has always power enough，if she choose to exert it，and is usually disposed to do so，in proportion to her ignorance and childish vanity．Unacquainted with the importance of life and its purposes，trained to a selfish coquetry and love of petty power，she does not look beyond the pleasure of making herself felt at the moment，and governments are shaken and commerce broken up to gratify the pique of a female favourite．The English shopkeeper's wife does not vote，but it is for her interest that the politician canvasses by the coarsest flattery．

Again：–

All wives，bad or good，loved or unloved，inevitably influence their husbands from the power their position not merely gives，but necessitates of colouring evidence and infusing feelings in hours when the–patient，shall I call him？–is off his guard．

Hear now what Mary Wollstonecraft says on the same subject：–

Women have been allowed to remain in ignorance and slavish dependence many，very many years，and still we hear of nothing but their fondness of pleasure and sway，their preference of rakes and soldiers，their childish attachment to toys，and the vanity that makes them value accomplishments more than virtues．History brings forward a fearful catalogue of the crimes which their cunning has produced，when the weak slaves have had sufficient address to overreach their masters...When，therefore，I call women slaves，I mean in a political and civil sense；for indirectly they obtain too much power，and are debased by their exertions to obtain illicit sway...The libertinism，and even the virtues of superior men，will always give women of some description great power over them；and these weak women，under the influence of childish passions and selfish vanity，will throw a false light over the objects which the very men view with their eyes who ought to enlighten their judgement．Men of fancy，and those sanguine characters who mostly hold the helm of human affairs in general，relax in the society of women；and surely I need not cite to the most superficial reader of history the numerous examples of vice and oppression which the private intrigues of female favourites have produced；not to dwell on the mischief that naturally arises from the blundering interposition of well-meaning folly．For in the transactions of business it is much better to have to deal with a knave than a fool，because a knave adheres to some plan，and any plan of reason may be seen through sooner than a sudden flight of folly．The power which vile and foolish women have had over wise men who possessed sensibility is notorious．

There is a notion commonly entertained among men that an instructed woman，capable of having opinions，is likely to prove an impracticable yoke-fellow，always pulling one way when her husband wants to go the other，oracular in tone，and prone to give curtain lectures on metaphysics．But surely，so far as obstinacy is concerned，your unreasoning animal is the most unmanageable of creatures，where you are not allowed to settle the question by a cudgel，a whip and bridle，or even a string to the leg．For our own parts，we see no consistent or commodious medium between the old plan of corporal discipline and that thorough education of women which will make them rational beings in the highest sense of the word．Wherever weakness is not harshly controlled it must govern，as you may see when a strong man holds a little child by the hand，how he is pulled hither and thither，and wearied in his walk by his submission to the whims and feeble movements of his companion．A really cultured woman，like a really cultured man，will be ready to yield in trifles．So far as we see，there is no indissoluble connexion between infirmity of logic and infirmity of will，and a woman quite innocent of an opinion in philosophy，is as likely as not to have an indomitable opinion about the kitchen．As to airs of superiority，no woman ever had them in consequence of true culture，but only because her culture was shallow or unreal，only as a result of what Mrs Malaprop well calls‘the ineffectual qualities in a woman’–mere acquisitions carried about，and not knowledge thoroughly assimilated so as to enter into the growth of the character．

To return to Margaret Fuller，some of the best things she says are on the folly of absolute definitions of woman's nature and absolute demarcations of woman's mission．‘Nature，’she says，‘seems to delight in varying the arrangements，as if to show that she will be fettered by no rule；and we must admit the same varieties that she admits．’Again：‘If nature is never bound down，nor the voice of inspiration stifled，that is enough．We are pleased that women should write and speak，if they feel need of it，from having something to tell；but silence for ages would be no misfortune，if that silence be from divine command，and not from man's tradition．’And here is a passage，the beginning of which has been often quoted：–

If you ask me what offices they （women）may fill，I reply–any．I do not care what case you put；let them be sea-captains if you will．I do not doubt there are women well fitted for such an office，and，if so，I should be as glad as to welcome the Maid of Saragossa，or the Maid of Missolonghi，or the Suliote heroine，or Emily Plater．I think women need，especially at this juncture，a much greater range of occupation than they have，to rouse their latent powers...In families that I know，some little girls like to saw wood，others to use carpenter's tools．Where these tastes are indulged，cheerfulness and good-humour are promoted．Where they are forbidden，because‘such things are not proper for girls’，they grow sullen and mischievous．Fourier had observed these wants of women，as no one can fail to do who watches the desires of little girls，or knows the ennui that haunts grown women，except where they make to themselves a serene little world by art of some kind．He，therefore，in proposing a great variety of employments，in manufactures or the care of plants and animals，allows for one third of women as likely to have a taste for masculine pursuits，one third of men for feminine...I have no doubt，however，that a large proportion of women would give themselves to the same employments as now，because there are circumstances that must lead them．Mothers will delight to make the nest soft and warm．Nature would take care of that；no need to clip the wings of any bird that wants to soar and sing，or finds in itself the strength of pinion for a migratory flight unusual to its kind．The difference would be that all need not be constrained to employments for which some are unfit．

A propos of the same subject，we find Mary Wollstonecraft offering a suggestion which the women of the United States have already begun to carry out．She says：–

Women，in particular，all want to be ladies．Which is simply to have nothing to do，but listlessly to go they scarcely care where，for they cannot tell what．But what have women to do in society？I may be asked，but to loiter with easy grace；surely you would not condemn them all to suckle fools and chronicle small beer．No．Women might certainly study the art of healing，and be physicians as well as nurses...Business of various kinds they might likewise pursue，if they were educated in a more orderly manner...Women would not then marry for a support，as men accept of places under government，and neglect the implied duties．

Men pay a heavy price for their reluctance to encourage self-help and independent resources in women．The precious meridian years of many a man of genius have to be spent in the toil of routine，that an‘establishment’may be kept up for a woman who can understand none of his secret yearnings，who is fit for nothing but to sit in her drawing-room like a doll-Madonna in her shrine．No matter．Anything is more endurable than to change our established formulæ about women，or to run the risk of looking up to our wives instead of looking down on them．Sit divus，dummodo non sit vivus（let him be a god，provided he be not living），said the Roman magnates of Romulus；and so men say of women，let them be idols，useless absorbents of precious things，provided we are not obliged to admit them to be strictly fellow-beings，to be treated，one and all，with justice and sober reverence．

On one side we hear that woman's position can never be improved until women themselves are better；and，on the other，that women can never become better until their position is improved–until the laws are made more just，and a wider field opened to feminine activity．But we constantly hear the same difficulty stated about the human race in general．There is a perpetual action and reaction between individuals and institutions；we must try and mend both by little and little–the only way in which human things can be mended．Unfortunately，many over-zealous champions of women assert their actual equality with men–nay，even their moral superiority to men–as a ground for their release from oppressive laws and restrictions．They lose strength immensely by this false position．If it were true，then there would be a case in which slavery and ignorance nourished virtue，and so far we should have an argument for the continuance of bondage．But we want freedom and culture for woman，because subjection and ignorance have debased her，and with her，Man；for–

If she be small，slight-natured，miserable，

How shall men grow？

Both Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft have too much sagacity to fall into this sentimental exaggeration．Their ardent hopes of what women may become do not prevent them from seeing and painting women as they are．On the relative moral excellence of men and women Mary Wollstonecraft speaks with the most decision：–

Women are supposed to possess more sensibility，and even humanity，than men，and their strong attachments and instantaneous emotions of compassion are given as proofs；but the clinging affection of ignorance has seldom anything noble in it，and may mostly be resolved into selfishness，as well as the affection of children and brutes．I have known many weak women whose sensibility was entirely engrossed by their husbands；and as for their humanity，it was very faint indeed，or rather it was only a transient emotion of compassion．Humanity does not consist‘in a squeamish ear’，says an eminent orator．‘It belongs to the mind as well as to the nerves．’But this kind of exclusive affection，though it degrades the individual，should not be brought forward as a proof of the inferiority of the sex，because it is the natural consequence of confined views；for even women of superior sense，having their attention turned to little employments and private plans，rarely rise to heroism，unless when spurred on by love！and love，as an heroic passion，like genius，appears but once in an age．I therefore agree with the moralist who asserts‘that women have seldom so much generosity as men’；and that their narrow affections，to which justice and humanity are often sacrificed，render the sex apparently inferior，especially as they are commonly inspired by men；but I contend that the heart would expand as the understanding gained strength，if women were not depressed from their cradles．

We had marked several other passages of Margaret Fuller's for extract，but as we do not aim at an exhaustive treatment of our subject，and are only touching a few of its points，we have，perhaps，already claimed as much of the reader's attention as he will be willing to give to such desultory material．

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred，Charles Reade's It is Never Too Late to Mend and Frederika Bremer's Hertha

At length we have Mrs Stowe's new novel，and for the last three weeks there have been men，women，and children reading it with rapt attention–laughing and sobbing over it–lingering with delight over its exquisite landscapes，its scenes of humour，and tenderness，and rude heroism–and glowing with indignation at its terrible representation of chartered barbarities．Such a book is an uncontrollable power，and critics who follow it with their objections and reservations–who complain that Mrs Stowe's plot is defective，that she has repeated her-self，that her book is too long and too full of hymns and religious dialogue，and that it creates an unfair bias–are something like men pursuing a prairie fire with desultory watering-cans．In the meantime，Dred will be devoured by the million，who carry no critical talisman against the enchantments of genius．We confess ourselves to be among the million，and quite unfit to rank with the sage minority of Fadladeens．We have been too much moved by Dred to determine with precision how far it is inferior to Uncle Tom，too much impressed by what Mrs Stowe has done to be quite sure that we can tell her what she ought to have done．Our admiration of the book is quite distinct from any opinions or hesitations we may have as to the terribly difficult problems of Slavery and Abolition–problems which belong to quite other than‘polite literature’．Even admitting Mrs Stowe to be mistaken in her views，and partial or exaggerated in her representations，Dred remains not the less a novel inspired by a rare genius–rare both in intensity and in range of power．

Looking at the matter simply from an artistic point of view，we see no reason to regret that Mrs Stowe should keep to her original ground of Negro and planter life，any more than that Scott should have introduced Highland life into Rob Roy and The Fair Maid of Perth，when he had already written Waverley．Mrs Stowe has invented the Negro novel，and it is a novel not only fresh in its scenery and its manners，but possessing that conflict of races which Augustin Thierry has pointed out as the great source of romantic interest–witness Ivanhoe．Inventions in literature are not as plentiful as inventions in the paletot and waterproof department，and it is rather amusing that we reviewers，who have，for the most part，to read nothing but imitations of imitations，should put on airs of tolerance towards Mrs Stowe because she has written a second Negro novel，and make excuses for her on the ground that she perhaps would not succeed in any other kind of fiction．Probably she would not；for her genius seems to be of a very special character：her Sunny Memories were as feeble as her novels are powerful．But whatever else she may write，or may not write，Uncle Tom and Dred will assure her a place in that highest rank of novelists who can give us a national life in all its phases–popular and aristocratic，humorous and tragic，political and religious．

But Mrs Stowe's novels have not only that grand element–conflict of races；they have another element equally grand，which she also shares with Scott，and in which she has，in some respects，surpassed him．This is the exhibition of a people to whom what we may call Hebraic Christianity is still a reality，still an animating belief，and by whom the theocratic conceptions of the Old Testament are literally applied to their daily life．Where has Scott done anything finer than the character of Balfour of Burley，the battles of Drumelog and Bothwell Brigg，and the trial of Ephraim MacBriar？And the character of Dred，the death scenes in the Swamp，and the Camp Meeting of Presbyterians and Methodists，will bear comparison–if we except the fighting–with the best parts of Old Mortality．The strength of Mrs Stowe's own religious feeling is a great artistic advantage to her here；she never makes you feel that she is coldly calculating an effect，but you see that she is all a-glow for the moment with the wild enthusiasm，the unreasoning faith，and the steady martyr-spirit of Dred，of Tiff，or of Father Dickson．But with this，she has the keen sense of humour which preserves her from extravagance and monotony；and though she paints her religious Negroes en beau，they are always specifically Negroes–she never loses hold of her characters，and lets dramatic dialogue merge into vague oratory．Indeed，here is her strongest point：her dramatic instinct is always awake；and whether it is the grotesque Old Tiff or the aërial Nina，the bluff sophist Father Bonim or the gentlemanly sophist Frank Russell，her characters are always like themselves；a quality which is all the more remarkable in novels animated by a vehement polemical purpose．

The objection which is patent to every one who looks at Mrs Stowe's novels in an argumentative light，is also，we think，one of their artistic defects；namely，the absence of any proportionate exhibition of the Negro character in its less amiable phases．Judging from her pictures，one would conclude that the Negro race was vastly superior to the mass of whites，even in other than slave countries–a state of the case which would singularly defeat Mrs Stowe's sarcasms on the cant of those who call slavery a‘Christianizing Institution’．If the Negroes are really so very good，slavery has answered as moral discipline．But apart from the argumentative suicide involved in this one-sidedness，Mrs Stowe loses by it the most terribly tragic element in the relation of the two races–the Nemesis lurking in the vices of the oppressed．She alludes to demoralization among the slaves，but she does not depict it；and yet why should she shrink from this，since she does not shrink from giving us a full-length portrait of a Legree or a Tom Gordon？

It would be idle to tell anything about the story of a work which is，or soon will be，in all our readers' hands；we only render our tribute to it as a great novel，leaving to others the task of weighing it in the political balance．

Close upon Dred we have read Mr Charles Reade's novel–It is Never Too Late to Mend；also a remarkable fiction，and one that sets vibrating very deep chords in our nature，yet presenting a singular contrast with Dred，both in manner and in the essential qualities it indicates in the writer．Mr Reade's novel opens with some of the true pathos to be found in English country life：the honest young farmer，George Fielding，unable to struggle against‘bad times’and an exhausted farm，is driven to Australia to seek the fortune that will enable him to marry Susan Merton，the woman he loves．It then carries us，with a certain Robinson，a clever thief，who has been rusticating as George Fielding's lodger，to the gaol，and makes us shudder at the horrors of the separate and silent system，administered by an ignorant and brutal gaoler，while we follow with keen interest the struggle of the heroic chaplain against this stupid iniquity–thus bringing home the tragedy of Birmingham gaol to people whose sympathies are more easily roused by fiction than by bare fact．Then it takes us to Australia，and traces George Fielding's fortunes and misfortunes–first through the vicissitudes of the Australian‘sheep-run’，and then through the fierce drama of gold-digging–bringing him home at last with £4,000 in his pocket，in time to prevent his Susan from marrying his worst enemy．

In all the three‘acts’of this novel，so to speak，there are fine situations，fine touches of feeling，and much forcible writing；especially while the scene is in the gaol，the best companion who drops in you will probably regard as a bore，and will become earnest in inviting to remain only when you perceive he is determined to go．Again，honest George Fielding's struggles，renewed at the antipodes，and lightened by the friendship of Carlo the dog–of the reformed thief，Robinson–and of the delightful‘Jacky’，the Australian native–are a thread of interest which you pursue with eagerness to the dénouement．‘Jacky’is a thoroughly fresh character，entirely unlike any other savage frotté de civilisation，and drawn with exquisite yet sober humour．In the English scenes every one who has seen anything of life amongst our farmers will recognize many truthful，well-observed touches：the little‘tiff’between the brothers George and William Fielding，old Merton's way of thinking，and many traits of manner in the heroine，Susan Merton．In short，It is Never Too Late to Mend is one of the exceptional novels to be read not merely by the idle and the half-educated，but by the busy and the thoroughly informed．

Nevertheless，Mr Reade's novel does not rise above the level of cleverness：we feel throughout the presence of remarkable talent，which makes effective use of materials，but nowhere of the genius which absorbs material，and reproduces it as a living whole，in which you do not admire the ingenuity of the workman，but the vital energy of the producer．Doubtless there is a great deal of nonsense talked about genius and inspiration，as if genius did not and must not labour；but，after all，there remains the difference between the writer who thoroughly possesses you by his creation，and the writer who only awakens your curiosity and makes you recognize his ability；and this difference may as well be called‘genius’as anything else．Perhaps a truer statement of the difference is，that the one writer is himself thoroughly possessed by his creation–he lives in his characters；while the other remains outside them，and dresses them up．Here lies the fundamental contrast between Mrs Stowe's novel and Mr Reade's．Mrs Stowe seems for the moment to glow with all the passion，to quiver with all the fun，and to be inspired with all the trust that belongs to her different characters；she attains her finest dramatic effects by means of her energetic sympathy，and not by conscious artifice．Mr Reade，on the contrary，seems always self-conscious，always elaborating a character，after a certain type，and carrying his elaboration a little too far–always working up to situations，and over-doing them．The habit of writing for the stage misleads him into seeking after those exaggerated contrasts and effects which are accepted as a sort of rapid symbolism by a theatrical audience，but are utterly out of place in a fiction，where the time and means for attaining a result are less limited，and an impression of character or purpose may be given more nearly as it is in real life–by a sum of less concentrated particulars．In Mr Reade's dialogue we are constantly imagining that we see a theatrical gentleman，well‘made up’，delivering a repartee in an emphatic voice，with his eye fixed on the pit．To mention one brief example：–Hawes，the gaoler，tells Fry，the turnkey，after Mr Eden's morning sermon on theft，that he approves of preaching at people．The same day there is an afternoon sermon on cruelty；where-upon Hawes remarks again to Fry，‘I'll teach him to preach at people from the pulpit．’‘Well，’answers Fry，‘that is what I say，Sir：but you said you liked him to preach at folk？’‘So I do，’replied Hawes，angrily，‘but not at me，ye fool！’This would produce a roar on the stage，and would seem a real bit of human nature；but in a novel one has time to be sceptical as to this extreme naïveté which allows a man to make palpable epigrams on himself．

In everything，Mr Reade seems to distrust the effect of moderation and simplicity．His picture of gaol life errs by excess，and he wearies our emotion by taxing it too repeatedly；the admirable inspiration which led him to find his hero and heroine among Berkshire homesteads，is counteracted by such puerile and incongruous efforts at the romantic and diabolical，as the introduction of the Jew，Isaac Levi，who is a mosaic character in more senses than one，and the far-seeing Machiavelianism of the top-booted Mr Meadows；and even when he is speaking in his own person，he lashes himself into fury at human wrongs，and calls on God and man to witness his indignation，apparently confounding the importance of the effect with the importance of the cause．But the most amazing foible in a writer of so much power as Mr Reade，is his reliance on the magic of typography．We had imagined that the notion of establishing a relation between magnitude of ideas and magnitude of type was confined to the literature of placards，but we find Mr Reade endeavouring to impress us with the Titanic character of modern events by suddenly bursting into capitals at the mention of‘THIS GIGANTIC AGE！’It seems ungrateful in us to notice these minor blemishes in a work which has given us so much pleasure，and roused in us so much healthy feeling as It is Never Too Late to Mend；but it is our very admiration of Mr Reade's talent which makes these blemishes vexatious to us，and which induces us to appeal against their introduction in the many other books we hope to have from his pen．

The appearance of a new novel by Miss Bremer，revives the impressions of ten years ago，when all the novel-reading world was discussing the merits of The Neighbours，The President's Daughters，The H—Family，and the rest of the‘Swedish novels’，which about that time were creating a strong current in the literary and book-selling world．The discussion soon died out；and perhaps there is hardly another instance of fictions so eagerly read in England which have left so little trace in English literature as Miss Bremer's．No one quotes them，no one alludes to them：and grave people who have entered on their fourth decade，remember their enthusiasm for the Swedish novels among those intellectual‘wild oats’to which their mature wisdom can afford to give a pitying smile．And yet，how is this？For Miss Bremer had not only the advantage of describing manners which were fresh to the English public；she also brought to the description unusual gifts–lively imagination，poetic feeling，wealth of language，a quick eye for details，and considerable humour，of that easy，domestic kind which throws a pleasant light on every-day things．The perusal of Hertha has confirmed in our minds the answer we should have previously given to our own question．One reason，we think，why Miss Bremer's novels have not kept a high position among us is，that her luxuriant faculties are all over-run by a rank growth of sentimentality，which，like some faint-smelling creeper on the boughs of an American forest，oppresses us with the sense that the air is unhealthy．Nothing can be more curious than the combination in her novels of the vapourishly affected and unreal with the most solid Dutch sort of realism．In one page we have copious sausage sandwiches and beer posset，and on another rhapsodies or wildly improbable incidents that seem rather to belong to sylphs and salamanders，than to a race of creatures who are nourished by the very excellent provisions just mentioned．Another reason why Miss Bremer's novels are not likely to take rank among the permanent creations of art，is the too confident tone of the religious philosophy which runs through them．When a novelist is quite sure that she has a theory which suffices to illustrate all the difficulties of our earthly existence，her novels are too likely to illustrate little else than her own theory．

These two characteristics of sentimentality and dogmatic confidence are very strongly marked in Hertha，while it has less of the attention to detail，less of the humorous realism，which was the ballast of Miss Bremer's earlier novels．It has been written not simply from an artistic impulse，but with the object of advocating the liberation of women from those legal and educational restrictions which limit her opportunities of a position and a sphere of usefulness to the chance of matrimony；and we think there are few well-judging persons who will not admire the generous energy with which Miss Bremer，having long ago won fame and independence for herself，devotes the activity of her latter years to the cause of women who are less capable of mastering circumstance．Many wise and noble things she says in Hertha，but we cannot help regretting that she has not presented her views on a difficult and practical question in the‘light of common day’，rather than in the pink haze of visions and romance．The story is very briefly this：–

Hertha，who has lost her mother in childhood，is，at the age of seven-and-twenty，becoming more and more embittered by her inactive bondage to a narrow-minded，avaricious father，who demands obedience to the pettiest exactions．Her elder sister，Alma，is slowly dying in consequence of the same tyranny，which has prevented her from marrying the man she loves．We meet our heroine，with her gloomy and bitter expression of face，first of all，at the rehearsal of a fancy ball，which is to take place in a few days in the good town of Kungsköping；and after being introduced to the various dramatis personæ–among the rest，to a young man named Yngve Nordin，who interests Hertha by his agreement in her opinions about women，we accompany her to her cheerless home，where she is roughly chid by her father，the rigid old Director，for being later than the regulation-hour of eight；and where，by the bedside of her sister Alma，she pours out all the bitterness of her soul，all her hatred and smothered rebellion towards her father for his injustice towards them．She and Alma have inherited a share in their mother's fortune，but according to the Swedish law they are still minors，and unable to claim their property．This very night，however，afire breaks out，and lays waste a large district of the town．The Director's house is consumed，and he himself is only saved by the heroic exertions of Hertha，who rushes to his room，and carries his meagre，feeble body through the flames．This act of piety，and the death of Alma，who，in her last moments，extracts from her father a promise to give Hertha independence，win some ungracious concessions from the crabbed Director towards his daughter．He still withholds her property and a declaration of her majority；but she has power in the household，and greater freedom of action out of doors．A Ladies' Society has been organized for relieving the sufferers from the fire，and Hertha is one of those whose department is the care of the sick and wounded．The patient who falls to her share is no other than Yngve Nordin，who has been severely hurt in his benevolent efforts on the fatal night，and is now lodged in the house of the good pastor，who is at the head of the Society．Here is an excellent opportunity for discovering that Yngve is just the friend she needs to soothe and invigorate her mind，by his sympathy and riper experience；and the feeling which is at first called friendship，is at last confessed to be love．After certain jealousies and suspicions，which are satisfactorily cleared up，Yngve asks the Director for Hertha's hand，but is only accepted prospectively，on condition of his attaining an assured position．Yngve goes abroad，and for seven years Hertha submits to the procrastination of her marriage，rather than rebel against her father in his last years．It is only when Yngve is hopelessly ill that she sacrifices her scruples and marries him．In the mean time she has made her seven years of separation rich in active usefulness，by founding and superintending two schools–one in which girls are instructed in the ordinary elements of education，forming a sort of nursery-garden for the other，in which voluntary pupils are to be led to a higher order of thought and purpose by Hertha's readings，conversation，and personal influence．Her schools are successful；but after Yngve's death she begins to sink under her long trial，and follows him rapidly to the grave．

This bare outline of the story can only suggest and not fully explain the grounds of our objection to Hertha．Our objection is，that it surrounds questions，which can only be satisfactorily solved by the application of very definite ideas to specific facts，with a cloudy kind of eloquence and flighty romance．Take，for example，the question whether it will not be well for women to study and practise medicine．It can only tend to retard the admission that women may pursue such a career with success，for a distinguished authoress to imply that they may be suitably prepared for effective activity by lectures on such a very nebulous thesis as this–‘The consciousness of thought ought to be a living observation and will’，or to associate the attendance of women by the sick-bed，not with the hard drudgery of real practice，but with the vicissitudes of a love-story．Women have not to prove that they can be emotional，and rhapsodic，and spiritualistic；every one believes that already．They have to prove that they are capable of accurate thought，severe study，and continuous self-command．But we say all this with reluctance，and should prefer noticing the many just and pathetic observations that Miss Bremer puts into the mouth of her heroine．We can only mention，and have not space to quote，a passage where Hertha complains of the ignorance in which women are left of Natural Science．‘In my youth，’she concludes，‘I used to look at the rocks，the trees，the grass，and all objects of nature，with unspeakable longing，wishing to know something about their kinds，their life，and their purpose．But the want of knowledge，the want of opportunity to acquire it，has caused nature to be to me a sealed book，and still to this moment it is to me a tantalizing，enticing，and ever-retreating wave，rather than a life-giving fountain which I can enjoy，and enjoying，thank the Creator．’

Translations and Translators

A clergyman （of the Charles Honeyman species）once told us that he never set about preparing his sermons till Saturday evening，for he‘trusted to Providence’．A similar kind of trust，we suppose，must be prevalent among translators，for many of them are evidently relying on some power which

Can teach all people to translate，

Though out of languages in which

They understand no part of speech–

a Nachklang，or resonance，perhaps，of the famous legend about those early translators，the Seventy who turned the Old Testament into Greek，which legend tells how Ptolemy shut them up in separate cells to do their work，and how，when they came to compare their renderings，there was perfect agreement！We are convinced，however，that the translators of the Septuagint had some understanding of their business to begin with，or this supernatural aid would not have been given，for in the matter of translation，at least，we have observed，that‘God helps them who help themselves．’A view of the case，which we commend to all young ladies and some middle-aged gentlemen，who consider a very imperfect acquaintance with their own language，and an anticipatory acquaintance with the foreign language，quite a sufficient equipment for the office of translator．

It is perfectly true that，though geniuses have often undertaken translation，translation does not often demand genius．The power required in the translation varies with the power exhibited in the original work：very modest qualifications will suffice to enable a person to translate a book of ordinary travels，or a slight novel，while a work of reasoning or science can be adequately rendered only by means of what is at present exceptional faculty and exceptional knowledge．Among books of this latter kind，Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is perhaps the very hardest nut–the peachstone–for a translator to crack so as to lay open the entire uninjured kernel of meaning，and we are glad at last to believe that a translator of adequate power has been employed upon it．For so far as we have examined the version placed at the head of our article，it appears to us very different indeed from the many renderings of German metaphysical works，in which the translator，having ventured into deep waters without learning to swim，clings to the dictionary，and commends himself to Providence．Mr Meiklejohn's translation–so far，we must again observe，as we have examined it–indicates a real mastery of his author，and，for the first time，makes Kant's Critik der reinen Vernunft accessible to English readers．

It may seem odd that we should associate with this mighty book–this terrible ninety-gun ship–such a little painted pleasure-boat as Miss （or Mrs）Burt's miscellaneous collection of translations from German lyric poets．But we are concerning ourselves here simply with translation–not at all with Kant's philosophy or with German lyrics considered in themselves，and these two volumes happen to be the specimens of translation most recently presented to our notice．With regard to prose，we may very generally use Goldsmith's critical recipe，and say that the translation would have been better if the translator had taken more pains；but of poetical attempts we are often sure that no amount of pains would produce a satisfactory result．And so it is with Miss Burt's Specimens of the German Poets．She appears to have the knowledge and the industry which many translators want，but she has not the poetic power which makes poetical translations endurable to those acquainted with the originals．Amongst others，however，who have no such acquaintance，Miss Burt's translations seem to have been in some demand，since they have reached a second edition．She has been bold enough to attempt a version of Goethe's exquisite Zueignung （Dedication），and here is a specimen of her rendering．Goethe sings with divine feeling and music–

Für andre wächst in mir das edle Gut，

Ich kann und will das Pfund nicht mehr vergraben，

Warum sucht'ich den Weg so sehnsuchtsvoll，

Wenn ich ihn nicht den Brüdern zeigen soll？

Miss Burt follows him much as a Jew's harp would follow a piano–

Entombed no longer shall my talent be，

That treasure I amass，shall others share？

To find the road–oh，why such zeal display，

If I guide not my brethren on their way？

A version like this bears about the same relation to the original as the portraits in an illustrated newspaper bear to the living face of the distinguished gentlemen they misrepresent；and considering how often we hear opinions delivered on foreign poets by people who only know those poets at second hand，it becomes the reviewer's duty to insist again and again on the inadequacy of poetic translations．

The Germans render our poetry better than we render theirs，for their language，as slow and unwieldy as their own post-horses in prose，becomes in poetry graceful and strong and flexible as an Arabian war-horse．Besides，translation among them is more often undertaken by men of genius．We remember，for example，some translations of Burns，by Freiligrath，which would have arrested us by their beauty if we had seen the poems for the first time，in this language．It is true the Germans think a little too highly of their translations，and especially are under the illusion，encouraged by some silly English people，that Shakspeare according to Schlegel is better than Shakspeare himself–not simply better to a German as being easier for him to understand，but absolutely better as poetry．A very close and admirable rendering Schlegel's assuredly is，and it is a high pleasure to track it in its faithful adherence to the original，just as it is to examine a fine engraving of a favourite picture．Sometimes the German is as good as the English–the same music played on another but as good an instrument．But more frequently the German is a feeble echo，and here and there it breaks down in a supremely fine passage．An instance of this kind occurs in the famous speech of Lorenzo to Jessica．Shakspeare says–

Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony．

This Schlegel renders–

Sanfte Still und Nacht

Sie werden Tasten süsser Harmonie．

That is to say，‘Soft stillness and the night are the fingerboard of sweet harmony．’A still worse blunder is made by Tieck （whose translation is the rival of Schlegel's）in the monologue of Macbeth．In the lines–

That but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all here–

But here upon this bank and shoal of time，

I'd jump the life to come–

Tieck renders，‘Upon this bank and shoal of time’，‘Auf dieser Schülerbank der Gegenwart’，that is，‘On this school-bench of the present！’These are cases of gross inaccuracy arising from an imperfect understanding of the original．Here is an instance of feebleness．Coriolanus says–

And like an eagle in the dovecote，I

Flutter'd the Volscians in Corioli．

For the admirably descriptive word‘fluttered’，Schlegel gives schlug，which simply means‘slew’．Weak renderings of this kind are abundant．

Such examples of translators' fallibility in men like Schlegel and Tieck might well make less accomplished persons more backward in undertaking the translation of great poems，and by showing the difficulty of the translator's task，might make it an object of ambition to real ability．Though a good translator is infinitely below the man who produces good original works，he is infinitely above the man who produces feeble original works．We had meant to say something of the moral qualities especially demanded in the translator–the patience，the rigidfidelity，and the sense of responsibility in interpreting another man's mind．But we have gossiped on this subject long enough．

图书在版编目（CIP）数据

时尚和死亡的对话：英汉对照/（意）莱奥帕尔迪著；史红丽译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列•伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-4344-4

Ⅰ．①时…　Ⅱ．①莱…②史…　Ⅲ．①哲学—文集　Ⅳ．①B-53

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2015）第270647号

（著作权合同登记：图字01-2015-7257号）

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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First published as Operette Morali/Essays and Dialogues

by the University of California Press, 1982

Published in Penguin Books 2010

Copyright © The Regents of the University of California, 1982

This selection published by arrangement with the University of California Press, 2010

All rights reserved

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版　　次／2016年1月第一版

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“企鹅”及相关标识是企鹅图书有限公司已经注册或尚未注册的商标。

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯•潘恩《常识》或约翰•罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利•梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯•潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯•达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当•斯密或阿图尔•叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔•普鲁斯特承认受约翰•罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔•德•蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙•温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great non-fiction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books, first written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential, but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

海格立斯和阿特拉斯的对话

时尚和死亡的对话

地球和月亮的对话

普罗米修斯的赌注

自然和冰岛人的对话

弗瑞德里克•鲁谢和木乃伊们的对话

克里斯托弗•哥伦布和佩德罗•古铁雷斯的对话

雀之礼赞

伟大的野公鸡之歌

哥白尼的任务

年历小贩和一名路人的对话

Contents

Dialogue Between Hercules and Atlas

Dialogue Between Fashion and Death

Dialogue Between the Earth and the Moon

The Wager of Prometheus

Dialogue Between Nature and an Icelander

Dialogue Between Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies

Dialogue Between Christopher Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez

In Praise of Birds

Song of the Great Wild Rooster

The Copernicus

Dialogue Between an Almanac Peddler and a Passer-by

返回总目录

译者导读

贾科莫•莱奥帕尔迪（Giacomo Leopardi，1798—1837）是意大利著名的悲观主义诗人和哲学家，被誉为“继彼得拉克之后最伟大的抒情诗人”。他在短暂的一生创作了很多诗歌和散文。其中，诗歌《致意大利》《但丁纪念碑》《致席尔维娅》《无限》等均为传世之作。散文有《道德小品集》《杂记》等。这些散文往往借用具有象征意义的历史人物或虚构人物，来阐发哲学观点。《时尚与死亡的对话》是其中杰出的代表作之一。

《时尚与死亡的对话》实为一部有关哲学思考的对话录。莱奥帕尔迪采用了十一则对话的方式，就人类的永恒话题如死亡、人性、幸福、自然等方面，进行了哲学剖析和冥想。根据记载，莱奥帕尔迪自小体弱多病，因此，他对痛苦的感知似乎要比普通人更为强烈，也更为持久。来自疾病的折磨如影随形，使他无处遁形，也无从解脱。死神似乎随时都会前来叩击门环。他总是一次又一次如此近距离地接触死亡这个终极的归宿，但又极为侥幸地多次逃脱。在反反复复的较量中，宿敌竟然演变为最熟悉的人之一。

书中直接涉及死亡对话一共有两则。第一则对话发生于时尚与死亡之间。莱奥帕尔迪用谈笑的口吻，辛辣而又深刻地揭示了时尚之于人类健康的损害，而人类仍不顾生命安危、乐此不疲地追求时尚的矛盾行为，反映了人类思维中的非理性和盲目性的这一可悲可叹的致命弱点。在另一则死亡对话中，他想象木乃伊们暂时复活，以便向他们请教濒死时的体验。他从人在生理上对疼痛的正常感知入手，通过抽丝剥茧般的层层推理，分析并还原了濒死体验的真正可能性。同时，也嘲讽了人们一贯以来对死亡的极度恐惧和不实夸大。在莱奥帕尔迪看来，死亡的消耗远远低于生命的消耗。

另一则颇有一番见地的话题是有关幸福的探讨，莱奥帕尔迪将悲观主义精神发挥到极致。他认为纵使走遍天涯海角，人类也不可能找到真正的幸福。一个人无论做到怎样的无害，远离尘嚣，与世无争，幸福仍然遥不可及。自然赐予我们一切，却单单忘记了给予我们幸福感。人类具有欢笑的能力，却并不真正拥有快乐。反而，那些小鸟总是欢快地鸣叫，人类中只有儿童才能展现出如小鸟般的那种快乐情绪。回想生命中所经历的时段，似乎只有在清晨和青春时期才能够感受到片刻幸福，痛苦总是纷至沓来，让人无力挣扎，生命瞬间枯竭和凋零。

莱奥帕尔迪还用极为冷静、近乎残忍的方式揭示了人性中的恶。人类不仅相互倾轧，更有甚者，互相戕害，例如，父亲会杀死妻儿并烹饪其肉而食之，在原始社会中如此，在文明社会中亦是如此。父亲开枪自杀前先将自己的幼子杀死。这些都是在别的动物或物种中不曾发生过的恶劣行径。以上种种迹象表明，人类远非传统上认为那样，是最优秀的物种。莱奥帕尔迪对此传统观念深感怀疑并流露出极度不屑。人类可以是智力最高的物种，但绝对不是最高贵的物种。

本书余篇还探讨了有关自然的思考。即便是人类赖以生存的地球本身，也不过是茫茫宇宙中最微不足道的一员，是供神祇消遣的玩具，也是时时刻刻都会被外力摧毁的存在。因此，无论是地球还是其他生命体，都是永恒的时间长河中的区区一粒尘埃。

贯彻全书始末的是写实性的理性分析和严密的逻辑论证，笔锋犀利且不乏幽默，既有伤口撕裂时带来的痛楚，也有心智得以启迪时的一片明朗。总之，这是一本不得不读的好书。

海格立斯和阿特拉斯的对话

海格立斯　阿特拉斯（Atlas）前辈，朱庇特（Jove）派我前来向您问候。他说万一您厌倦了肩上的重担，就让我接替您几个小时，如同我上回所做的那样。不过因这期间时隔数载，现今竟忘得干净。如是，您姑且稍事休息一下。

阿特拉斯　谢谢你，我的小海格立斯（Hercules），尤其感谢朱庇特陛下。好在地球已经变得很轻了，我甚至感到身上用来遮挡雨雪的斗篷愈发沉重。倘若不是朱庇特命令我站在这里一动不动，以便使我背上的那个小球球保持平衡，我早就把它挟在腋下，或装在口袋里，或让它悬挂在我的一根胡须上了。如此，我就可以去料理自己的事情了。

海格立斯　地球怎么会变轻呢？我倒是注意到它确实有所变化，其状如同面包卷，已不再似从前那般圆浑饱满。回想昔日，为了和阿耳戈（Argonauts）一道出海寻觅金羊毛，我还曾研修过宇宙学呢。纵使如此，我还是纳罕地球怎么会较之前轻了呢？

阿特拉斯　我也不甚明白个中原因。但是，倘若你把它放在手中掂量一二，就会知晓它有多轻！

海格立斯　上苍！若非亲自感受，确实令人难以置信。我到底是发现了什么新状况？记得最后一次扛负它时，它在我的背上有力地跳动，宛如动物们跳动的心脏，并且发出阵阵如马蜂巢般的经久不息的嗡嗡声。可眼下，地球就像断了弹簧的手表般嘀嗒着，没有一丝声响。

阿特拉斯　对此我也无法做出解释。据我所知，在很早之前，地球就失去任何活动和声音的迹象了。故而，依我拙见，我严重怀疑它已经死了。每日里，我都在担心会闻到它尸体上散发出的恶臭。于是，我思量着如何将它安葬，葬在何处，以及在它的坟头刻什么样的碑文。然而，后来，我看到地球并没有朽败掉，我又由此判断它已经从最初的动物状态变成某种植物了，正如达芙妮（Daphne）化作桂树，以及其他许多同类情况一样。这就是它不呼吸也不活动的原因吧。时至此刻，我都在担心它会随时在我的肩膀上生根发芽。

海格立斯　我倒还是宁愿相信它是睡着了。这种睡眠就如同埃庇米尼得斯（Epimenides）的睡眠一样，一觉就长达半个多世纪之久；也可能是像赫尔摩底谟（Hermotimus）式的睡眠。有传言说，他的灵魂常常随意游离于身体之外且多年不回归本原。他的灵魂在幸福地游历完各国之后，才会回家——直至他的朋友们焚毁了他的身体，这种荒唐才算结束。后来，当他的灵魂远游归来准备回家时，却发现它的家已经被烧掉了。试想他的灵魂若想安顿下来，就必须租用一具身体或借居在旅店之内。当然，为了保证地球不会永久长眠，或者保证它不会被某个误认为地球已死的朋友或好心人烧毁，我建议我们应当尽力唤醒地球。

阿特拉斯　很好。可怎么做呢？

海格立斯　我本来打算让它好好吃我一顿棍子，可又担心会把它彻底拍成煎饼。也许我应该把它像鸡蛋一样敲碎，毕竟它的壳掂上去分量很轻，因此也应该很薄才对。不过，我不敢确定的是，如果让一个习惯赤手空拳与狮子搏斗的人现在去跟跳蚤打架，他会不会因为这一击的失重而晕厥。看来最好的办法是，我扔掉球棒，你脱掉斗篷，接下来，我们就用这个小小的地球一起玩球。有些抱歉，我没有带来和墨丘利（Mercury）玩球时用的长手套和球拍，我和他总在朱庇特的房子里或后院里玩耍。不过，我们有拳头就足够了。

阿特拉斯　好主意！可万一被你父亲撞见，他也想加入我们的游戏并且把他的一个火球扔给我们，把我们绊倒——天知道何时何地会发生——让我们就像法厄同（Phaethon）一般一头栽进波河（the Po），那可怎么办？

海格立斯　不错。假如像法厄同一样，我只是一个诗人的儿子而不是他的儿子；假如没有这样的出生，我就不能如此妄为——诗人可以用里拉琴的琴声吸引城里挤满人群——而我则可以用球棒的砰砰声将天上和地上所有的人驱走。只轻轻一脚，我就可以把他的火球踢到天庭（the Empyrean）的最后一块天花板上。你不必担心。即便我突发奇想，想摘下五六颗星星来玩榛子游戏，或者用一颗彗星来练习打靶并抓住它的尾巴当秋千荡，甚至是拿太阳本身来玩掷铁饼游戏，我父亲也会假装视而不见的。再者，我们玩这个游戏的初衷是造福于世界，自然有别于法厄同之流。他不过是为了在时间侍女们面前显示他的敏捷。侍女们在他登上车子后曾一度约束了他的步伐。他还妄图在安德洛墨达公主（Andromeda）和卡利斯托（Callisto）以及其他众多美丽群星面前赢得优秀御者的声誉。我们听说他在路过时，曾向她们撒下了不少光芒花束和光亮蜜饯球。事实上，他是为了在众神的舞会上显摆自己。如你所知，那天恰巧是个节日。因此，你大可安心，我父亲是不会发怒的。无论如何，我答应你我会赔偿你的损失。现在，我们开始吧。请你脱掉斗篷发球吧。

阿特拉斯　不管是否喜欢，我最好还是依你之言。你又强壮又有武器，而我呢，又老又没武器。不过，我们要小心别把它摔坏了。别再让它生出肿块、瘀青、裂缝，就像西西里岛从意大利、非洲从西班牙断裂出去那样，或者掀掉一小块——可能是个省也可能是个王国——由此极易触发战争。

海格立斯　别担心。

阿特拉斯　轮到你发球了。你难道不觉得它有些瘪，因为它已经变形了？

海格立斯　来吧，使点劲儿；你的球都没发到我这儿。

阿特拉斯　不是发球的事儿。是风，这里的风总是从西南方向刮来，球被风带偏了——球太轻了。

海格立斯　又是老一套，总是随风追逐。

阿特拉斯　说实话，给它充点气也不是个坏主意。因为在击球时，它就像个没弹性的瓜。

海格立斯　又一个新缺点。在古时，它像一只山羊般能弹能跳。

阿特拉斯　快跑！快！快！我说，别让它掉了。该死的，怎么让它掉了？

海格立斯　你发给我的球太糟了，太低了。纵使我以折断脖子的速度奔跑也是接不住的。噢，可怜的家伙，你怎么样啦？是受伤了吗？我听不到一丝人类的呼吸声，看不到任何人在活动，他们仍然在沉睡吧。

阿特拉斯　还是把它还给我吧，看在冥河的份上，这样我就能重新把它放回到肩上了。你捡起你的球棒，赶紧回天庭吧。请为此代我向朱庇特道歉，尽管这都是你的错。

海格立斯　我马上照办。记得数百年前，有位名为贺拉斯（Horace）的诗人曾应邀到我父亲府上做客。他是由奥古斯都（Augustus）推荐来做宫廷诗人的。之前，考虑到罗马人的实力，朱庇特就让奥古斯都入了仙籍。这位诗人不停地吟诵他的诗词。其中有一首诗里，他写到即使世界坍塌，一个正义的人也不会动摇。我想现在世上所有的人都是正义的，你看，尽管世界坍塌了，却没有一个人动一动。

阿特拉斯　有谁会怀疑人的公正性？请不要浪费时间了。赶紧回你父亲那里为我洗刷罪名。我在担心随时随地都可能有霹雳打过来，把我从阿特拉斯变为埃特纳（Etna）火山了。

时尚和死亡的对话

时尚　死亡夫人，死亡夫人。

死亡　请你依序等待，届时无需召唤我也会来的。

时尚　死亡夫人。

死亡　见鬼。我会在你意料之外时找上门的。

时尚　仿佛我不是永生似的。

死亡　永生？

“自永生时代起，已经过去一千多年了。”

时尚　哦，连我们的死亡夫人也口吐彼特拉克（Petrarch）的诗句，似是一位十六世纪或说是十九世纪的意大利诗人。

死亡　我钟爱彼特拉克的诗文，因为诗里能找到我的胜利且几乎处处提及我的存在。不过，现在别来妨碍我。

时尚　好啦。以你对七宗罪的爱的名义，请先停一下，看看我。

死亡　我正在看着。

时尚　你难道看不出我是谁吗？

死亡　你应该晓得我的视力有些差。况且，我没法带眼镜儿，因为英国人没能造出一副合适我的眼镜儿。当然，即使他们造得出来，我也不知道怎么个戴法儿。

时尚　我是时尚呀，你的姊妹。

死亡　我的姊妹？

时尚　是啊。你不记得我们都是衰老（Caducity）的女儿了吗？

死亡　我怎么可能记得？我是记忆的最大敌人。

时尚　可我记得格外清楚。我记得你我二人一道不断摧毁并改变下面尘世间的所有，尽管你我使用的方式不尽相同。

死亡　如果你不是在喃喃自语，或者是和你嗓子眼里的人说话，就请大声一点并注意你的措辞。如果你继续用你细若游丝的嗓音嘀嘀咕咕的话，我可没法听见。因为你早该知道，我的听力不比视力好。

时尚　但是，这么做有失礼仪——在法国，人们可不是为了听见而说话的——既然我们是姐妹，也就不顾及这些繁文缛节了，我就如你所愿。我想说的是我们两个的本质和习惯就是去不断革新世界的。只不过从伊始，你就指望人与鲜血；而我则一般专注于胡子、头发、服饰、家具、建筑之类。诚然，我从未曾——今后也不会克制自己——不去玩那些和你一样的把戏，例如：穿耳洞、唇孔、鼻孔，我会在上面挂满能将其撕裂的小饰物；用火辣辣的烙印烧焦男人们的皮肤，我让他们做这些是出于美的缘故；用绷带或什么束带把婴儿的头部弄变形，让全国上下把拥有相同的头型变为一种习俗，我在美国和亚洲就是这么干的；穿紧憋的鞋子把人们弄瘸；或穿紧身胸衣导致其呼吸困难、眼睛外凸；以及其他上百种类似的法子。事实上，一般来说，我会劝导并迫使所有的文人雅士每天忍耐数千种艰难和数千种不适和伴随而来的常规性的疼痛和折磨，我甚至让一些人为了爱我的缘故而光荣死去。我不会告诉你为了追从我，有多少人患了头疼、感冒、各种炎症，以及一天一次、三天一次或四天一次的发烧；他们顺从我的意志，用羊毛护肩、布片遮胸，由此在寒风里冻得哆嗦或者在炎热里窒息。他们愿意按照我的意志去做任何事情，不管会对他们造成多大伤害。

死亡　这么说来，我相信你确实是我的姊妹。如你所愿，我会比相信死亡更加相信这个事实——你甚至不用拿出教区出生证来证明。但是，如果我这么一直不动的话，我可能会晕倒。以此，你若愿意和我并肩而奔，请不要抱怨我跑得太快；我们在奔跑的同时，还可以聊聊你的业务。抑或，考虑到我们的血缘关系，我承诺在我死后会把一切留给你。你可以带着我最美好的祝福待在你想待的地方。

时尚　假如我们一起参加帕里奥赛马，还不知道谁会跑赢呢。虽然你跑得快，可我却可以飞驰；你一旦在某个地方驻足就会晕倒，而我只不过是变得衰弱。所以让我们再次开始奔跑吧。就像你说的，我们可以边跑边谈公务。

死亡　那我们继续。既然你也是我母亲生的孩子，你要帮我做一些杂事才好。

时尚　在过去，我做的这类杂事要比你想象的多得多。首先，尽管我屡屡消除和歪曲其他的习俗，但在任何一个地方，我从未曾允许过死亡习俗的停止。正因如此，你才可以看到在各地，从世界之初到如今，死亡一直在进行。

死亡　真是奇迹啊——你没有去尝试你力所不能及的事情。

时尚　什么叫力所不能及？你是什么意思？很明显，你似乎并不了解时尚的力量。

死亡　够了，够了！一旦有不死的习俗来临，我们总会有大把的时间讨论这一点。不过现在，我希望你能像个好姊妹一样帮帮我，协助我比之前更迅速更轻松地完成与不死习俗截然相反的目标。

时尚　我已经告诉过你我的部分作为，它们对你都是有极大助益的。不过，这些相较我现在要告诉你的事情就只是些琐屑了。以往，为了帮助你，我一步步地让人们忽视和放弃那些有益于身体的活动和运动，同时，我又引进了无数让人们趋之若鹜的各种损害身体和缩短寿命的法子。此外，我在这个世界里建立了这般的秩序和习俗：即生命本身，无论是肉体还是灵魂，都生不如死，以至于这个世纪可以被名副其实地冠以死亡世纪之称谓。在古代，你所拥有的财产不过是些水渠和山洞，别无他物——你在黑暗中播种骨头与尘埃，那是不会结果的种子——而如今，你拥有阳光下的土地，以及那些用双脚移动和行走的人们。可以这么说，甚至不需要收割就完全属于你——实际上，他们从出生的那一刻起就属于你。况且，如果说在过去，你总是被人们憎恨和责骂的话，那么现在，归功于我的所作所为，情况已经大为改观；任何有点智商的人都视你为珍宝并对你称颂有佳；爱你胜过生命，爱你到常常呼唤你，并把你看作生命中最大的希望。最后，我看到很多人吹嘘他们将会永生，就是说，他们不会完全死去，因为他们生命的很大一部分不会落入你手。我知道这种说法荒谬之极。倘若那些人或任何人能活在人们的记忆中的话，他们的生命就会成为一个笑话。而且他们享受盛名的程度不会比在坟墓里遭受阴冷潮湿的程度更甚——总之，鉴于这种永生存在对你的刺痛，因为它似乎损害了你的荣誉和名声——我已经废除了这种追求永生以及将其赐予值得拥有它的人的习俗了。因此，现在如果一个人死了，你可以确信他身上的每一个部分都死掉了。他最好赶紧整须整尾地去地下，就像一条一口被吞下头和身子的鱼。以上这些事情既非少见也非微不足道。是我为了你的缘故而做——因为我一心想帮你在地球上开疆辟土，一如之前所发生的那般。为此，我准备日后的每一天都继续这么做甚至更多。这个，就是我到处寻找你的缘由。我认为我们最好从现在开始就待在一起。这样的话，我们就可以好好商量事情，做出最好的决定，并将其实施。

死亡　你太正确了。就依你之言。

地球和月亮的对话

地球　亲爱的月亮，我知道您能言辞能作对答，因为您是人类，我常常听到诗人们如是说。另外，我的孩子们也提及，您实际上就像他们一样有嘴巴、鼻子、眼睛，这些都是他们亲眼所见。要知道在他们的这个年龄，视力自然是极好的。至于我，毫无疑问您该知道我同样也是人类。尤其是年轻时，我生有诸多子嗣。所以，假如您听到我讲话，请不要惊讶。好吧，我甜美的月亮，尽管连我也记不清多少个世纪与您为邻，可时至今日，我从未曾与您有所交流。大抵因为我总在忙于活计，一直无暇闲聊。而今，我的事情已无关紧要。实际上，我可以说任它们顺其自然发展。我不知道生活何以为续，无聊之极。所以，我打算今后时常找您聊聊，顺带关注下你的事情——若是我没有给您添太多麻烦的话。

月亮　这点请勿担心。我倒是希望命运带给我的麻烦如同您带给我的那样少。你若是想和我说说话，就敬请畅所欲言。恐怕您也知道我不善言辞，但是，我乐意倾听，也很乐意答您所问，如果能对您有所帮助的话。

地球　您听到那美妙的音乐了吗？就是天体移动时发出的乐声？

月亮　说实话，我什么也没有听见。

地球　我也没听到任何声音。除却呼啸的风声从极地刮向赤道又从赤道刮回极地——它听着似乎一点也不像音乐。然而，毕达哥拉斯（Pythagoras）说天球之间会产生一种音乐，非常美妙也非常神奇。而且您本身就是其中的一分子，因为您算是这个宇宙里拉琴的第八根琴弦。我听不到大约是因为我的耳朵已经被那个音乐声震聋了。

月亮　那我的耳朵也一定被震聋了。因为如我所言，我没听到，更不知道自己是根琴弦。

地球　那么，我们还是换个话题吧。请您告诉我，月球上真的有人居住吗？如此众多的现代及古代哲学家，从俄耳甫斯（Orpheus）到拉朗德（De La Lande）都对此深信不疑。尽管我像个大蜗牛般地尽量伸长自己的触角，人们将这些触角称之为山脉和峰顶，并且按照人们的提示去努力望向你。可是，我却始终没在您那里看到一个居民——然而，我听说过有一个叫大卫•法布里奇乌斯（David Fabrius）的人，他的视力甚至赛过林叩斯（Linceus）本人，他曾一度发现有人在太阳上晾晒衣物。

月亮　至于您的触角，我倒是不清楚。事实是我这里的确有居民。

地球　您那里的人是什么肤色？

月亮　什么人？

地球　就是那些居住在您上面的人呀。您刚才不是说过您那里住有居民吗？

月亮　是啊，那又如何？

地球　那么，您的居民们不可能全是动物。

月亮　他们既不是动物也不是人类，我不确定他们究竟是何种生物——或是其中哪一个。实际上，对于被您唤作人类的生物，我竟是一无所知呢。

地球　但是，您那里住的是哪种人呢？

月亮　有很多，类型各异。您对他们不了解就如同我不了解你们地球上的人类一样。

地球　在我看来很是奇怪。若不是听到您本人这么说，我无论如何也不敢相信啊。您难道没有曾经被您的居民征服过吗？

月亮　据我所知从来没有过。怎么征服？为什么征服？

地球　因为野心，或因为嫉妒别人的财产而通过政治手段或者诉诸武力占为己有。

月亮　我不知道您所谓的武力、野心、政治是什么。简言之，我不知道您在说些什么。

地球　那么，即使您不懂什么是武器，那一定知道什么是战争吧。因为前不久，我们一位科学家借助天文望远镜——就是一种能够帮助您看得很远的工具——发现在月球上有个巨大工事，其周边筑有各种堡垒。这些迹象说明您那里的人至少知道围攻和互战。

月亮　请您原谅，地球夫人，我本是您的奴仆和臣下，但是请您允许我逾越我的身份来答复您的问题。但是实话实说，假如您理所当然地认为世界每一个地区的每一样东西都和您那里的一模一样，您带给我的印象是您过于自负；似乎大自然在做任何事时都在复制您一样。我曾说过我有居民，您竟然由此断言我的居民一定是人类。我告诉您不是这样。尽管您承认他们是不同的生物这一事实，可是您却假设他们具有和您那里的人一样的品质且生活在同一环境下。您还提到某位科学家的望远镜及其他。但是，假如这架望远镜在其他情况下看得并不比这次更清楚，我只能认为它的视力应该和您孩子们的视力相差无几。您的孩子们看到我有眼睛、嘴和鼻子——可这些连我自己都不知道呢。

地球　如此说来，所谓您的行省里有宽敞的马路以及耕种的田地都不是真的了？——这些从地球上的德国地区通过望远镜就可以看到。

月亮　如果我被耕种过，我怎么对此一无所知；至于马路，我更是从未见过。

地球　我亲爱的月亮，您知道我有些愚钝和迟缓，所以才易于被人蒙骗。但是我要告诉您的是，即便您那里的人从未想过征服您，您也并不安全。一直以来，地球上的很多人苦心琢磨怎么征服您。他们还为此做了大量的计划和准备工作。但是，尽管他们爬到最高点，踮起脚尖，伸长胳膊还是够不到您。况且，多年来我发现人类仔细地研究您的每一部分，测绘您的地理图形，测量您山脉的高度，甚至还为之起了名字。我觉得出于对您的感情和考虑，我该告诉您这些，以便您能应付紧急情况。现在，请允许我问您几个问题。当狗冲着您吠叫时您会感觉多烦躁？您对于那些指着水井里您的倒影的人有什么看法？您是男性还是女性？在古代人们不太确信。阿卡狄亚人（Arcadians）是否早于您来到这个世界？您那里的女人们——我不知应该如何称呼她们——都是卵生的？她们是否曾在这遗落过一枚卵子？还有，您是否如现代科学家认为的那样像念经珠般在中心穿孔？您是否像英国人说的那样是由绿奶酪做成的？在某天，或某个晚上，穆罕默德（Mohammed）把您像西瓜似的切成两半，您的大半个身体滑进他了的袖筒里？坐在光塔的顶端您感觉多幸福？您对拜兰节（Bairam）的宴席怎么看？

月亮　请继续。您这么滔滔不绝侃侃而谈，我都不需要回答您也无需打破我一贯的沉默。您若是找不到别的话题只喜欢在这些废话上浪费时间的话，与其找我这样不能理解您的人，不如找别人为您另造一个星球，依照您的喜好和居住方式而建，并围着您旋转。除了人、狗以及其他类似的事情，您不会谈论别的。而对此我又知之甚少。我仅仅知道我们的太阳是围绕人们所说的大太阳旋转的。

地球　的确如此。与您交谈时，我越是想尽量避免提及自己的事情，就越是失败。不过从现在起，我会倍加小心。请告诉我，您是不是那个享受吸引地球上的潮汐涨落的人？

月亮　也许吧。即便我有这么做，或者对您做了其他什么事，我压根没有注意过。就像您不大会注意到您对我的影响，您对我的影响要远远大于我对您的影响，毕竟您的体积更大也更强壮些。

地球　实际上，就我所知我唯一能影响到您的事情就是，每隔一阵子我会遮蔽太阳照向您的光芒。我自身也会吸收您的光芒。我还知道在您的夜间时段，我的光线会将您照得很明亮，这个我会不时地看到。不过，我好像忘掉了一些至关重要的事情。我想知道，是否真的如同阿里奥斯托（Ariosto）写的那样，人丢失的每样东西——例如：青春、美貌、健康，以及用在求学、追名逐利，用在依照良好的行为规范教养孩子长大成人，用在建立和推广有用机构等事物中所消耗的的体力和金钱——这一切都流向并聚集在您那上面，以至人类的一切都可以在您那里找到，只有愚蠢不在此列，因为愚蠢从未离开过人类。如果上述所言为真，我设想您一定被占满了，没有剩余空间。尤其是考虑到人类在近代丢失了许多东西（例如爱国主义、美德、宽容、诚实），不是像以往似的只丢了部分或几个，而是整个的全部丢失了。当然，如果这些东西不在您处，我也不知其所踪。故而，我想同您签份协议。您现在开始把这些东西退还给我，日后一有机会，您仍旧坚持这么做下去。毕竟，我想丢掉这些您也会很开心，尤其是常识，据我所知总是占据极大的空间。我会设法每年都让人类支付给您一大笔钱的。

月亮　啊，您又谈及人类了。尽管正如您所说，愚蠢从未离开过您的领地，您寻找人类的智慧，却妄图把我的智慧夺走。我不知道它们在哪儿，也许它们正在消失，也许它们藏在世界的某个角落；我只知道在我这儿找不到它们，您刚才提到的其他东西也都不在这里。

地球　至少您可以告诉我您上边的人们是否知晓恶习、犯罪、灾难、痛苦、衰老，简言之，就是各种邪恶？您明白这些词的意思吗？

月亮　哦，当然。我当然明白。我不仅知道它们的意思更知道它们所谓何指。我完全明白这些，因为我这里充满了这些东西——而不是您刚刚提到的那些东西。

地球　在您那里的人们中什么更普遍，美德还是邪恶？

月亮　截止目前，是邪恶。

地球　什么更多些，善还恶？

月亮　无需比较，是恶。

地球　那么，一般来说，您的居民们是幸福的还是不幸福的？

月亮　非常不幸福。我甚至都不愿和他们中最幸福的人交换位置。

地球　和我这边情况相同。以至于我很惊讶您我在这一点上如此相似，当然您在其他地方又如此不同。

月亮　再有，我与您形状相似，运动模式相似，同样接受太阳的照射。没有什么值得大惊小怪的，因为邪恶是这个宇宙里所有星球所共有的，至少在这个太阳系中如此——正如我刚才提及的圆球形状以及其他条件一样。假如您提高嗓门大声说话，就会被天王星（Uranus）和土星（Saturn）听到，或者被我们世界中的其他星球听到。您问他们那里有无幸福的存在，或者善和恶哪个更多些，他们每个都会像我一样回答您。之所以这么说，是因为我已经问过金星（Venus）和水星（Mercury）同样的问题，因为通常我总觉得比起您来，我离他们更近些。就同样的问题我还问过路过的流星，他们的答案和我一模一样。我认为太阳自己也好，每颗星星也好，都会给出同一个答案。

地球　尽管如此，我仍怀抱希望。尤其是现今，人类许诺于我在未来会有莫大的幸福。

月亮　您可以恣意希望下去。我确信您可以永久地希望下去。

地球　您知道发生什么啦？那些人和动物们开始活动且发出声响了。我跟您谈话那一面是夜晚，正如您所见，不，您根本看不到；所以他们还在睡觉，不过，我们谈话时发出的巨大响动已经把他们惊醒。

月亮　可是，您看我这上边，依然是白天呢。

地球　我不想吓坏我的人们或者惊扰他们的美梦，睡眠是他们最大的福分了。好吧，我们下次再谈吧。那么，再见。日安。

月亮　再见；晚安。

普罗米修斯的赌注

在朱庇特治下833275年，缪斯学院下令印刷一些海报并在哈勃纳菲勒斯城（Hypernephenlus）城内及城郊的各个公共场所内张贴。海报上面力邀众神，不论大神还是小神，以及该城的其他居民中，任何一位近期或之前有过有价值的发明的人士参加展示比赛。赛事要求参赛者以本人、模型或描述方式在由该学院指定的评委面前展示。与此同时，该学院遗憾地表示鉴于学院的一贯清贫，他们无法随心所欲地慷慨，但是他们承诺，作为奖品，那个被评为最漂亮也是最有用的发明其发明者将会获得一顶桂冠。并被授予特权日夜佩戴它，无论是在公共场合还是私人场合，无论是在城内还是城外。同时，还允许他头戴桂冠的样子被绘制成画、被塑像、被雕刻、被塑形，以及以任何材料和任何方式进行展示。

很多神祇都参与其中，但也仅仅是把它看作一种消遣。对于哈勃纳菲勒斯城的居民来说，如同和其他城镇的居民一样，这个比赛属于可有可无——至少他们没有兴趣赢得那顶桂冠，它的价值甚至比不过一顶纯棉的睡帽。至于说到荣誉，假如人类自己——他们现在都是哲学家了——都鄙夷它，可想而知在诸神心中它会是什么地位，更别提神要远远比人聪明［事实上，据毕达哥拉斯（Pythagoras）和柏拉图（Plato）所言，神才是真正的聪明］。因此，这一赛事成为独一无二的特例，在此之前的同类赛事中闻所未闻，即在奖项评审时，没有任何徇私徇情之扰，没有私下的承诺和阴谋。最后，统共有三位获奖者：酒的发明者巴克斯（Bacchus）；护肤油类的发明者米涅瓦（Minerva），其发明于众神每日的沐浴无比重要；节能铜锅的发明者伏尔甘（Vulcan），该锅能够省火省时地烹饪任何食物。如此一来，奖品不得不分成三份，结果是每人能获得一小截桂树枝。但是这三位都拒绝领取该奖品，不论是部分奖品还是全部奖品。伏尔甘说他的大部分时间都花在锻冶炉前工作和流汗，头上戴着这个东西将会成为一个大麻烦——更别说将会置他于险地，一旦碰巧有火星喷溅到干树枝上，就有可能着火，从而将他烧伤或灼伤。米纳瓦说既然她的头上需要戴一顶一次能遮盖住一百个城池军队的帽子，如荷马（Homer）描述的那样，那么在她的头上增加任何重量都是不明智之举。巴克斯说他不想换帽子，他不愿意把头上的葡萄藤叶桂冠换成桂树桂冠，当然如果允许的话，他还是乐意把桂树枝挂在他的酒馆前面做招牌。然而，缪斯们最终拒绝了他的要求，因此奖品仍然留在他们的宝库里。

其他竞争者们一点也不嫉妒这三位胜出却又拒绝领奖的仙家，也没有人抱怨评委或质疑他们的裁定。只有一个人例外：普罗米修斯。他参加了比赛，他的作品是他在造人时用泥捏的第一个人，并附上了对其功能及品德的介绍，人类种族始于普罗米修斯之手。对于最终结果普罗米修斯大为光火。虽然其他所有人，不管是赢家还是输家都觉得这个比赛不过是个游戏而已。针对普罗米修斯的这种愤愤不平背后的原因大家做了一番调查，原来他最想要的不是这份荣誉而是获胜者能够享有的特权。有些人猜测他可能想用这顶帽子来保护头部不受暴风雨的肆虐，就像台比留（Tiberius）一样，传言说他一听到雷声就立刻带上桂冠，因为他相信桂冠不易受雷电侵袭。可是，哈勃纳菲勒斯城里既没有雷也没有闪电；还有些人，更是言之凿凿，他们说普罗米修斯的年龄慢慢大了，已经开始脱发了——对这么一个不幸，他和很多人一样对其深恶痛疾——再加上他又未曾读过辛奈西斯（Synesius）所著的秃顶颂，或者更可能的是，他并没有被其言论说服。于是，他宁愿把他的秃顶像尤里乌斯•凯撒那样藏在王冠底下。

还是回到我们的故事中来。有一天，普罗米修斯正和莫摩斯（Momus）交谈，他悲切地抱怨道，酒、油和锅被赋予比人类更多的优先权。他宣称人类才是神族给予世界的最好作品。他感觉到莫摩斯没有被他说服，尽管他提出了很多悖论进行论证。于是，普罗米修斯建议他二人一同飞往地球，并随意降落在五大洲中的第一个有人烟的地方；不过，首先他们先相互下了赌注——普罗米修斯打赌在所有这五个洲里，或在其中的大部分地区，他们都能找到正面证据，以证明人类确实是宇宙中最完美的生物。莫摩斯表示同意。就赌金数额达成一致后，他们立即起身下界。他们首先奔向新世界。既是出于其名字的原因，也是出于还没有任何仙家到过该地区的考虑，因此他们对此地区特别好奇。他们的第一站停在波波牙国（Popaián）北部地区，距考卡河（Cauca）不远。此处有种种人类居住的迹象——乡间有耕种的痕迹，无数小路纵横交错，其中多数路段已被堵死；树木被砍倒横在地面上；尤其是那些看上去像坟墓的地方，周遭到处扔着人骨头。尽管如此，两位神仙还是没能看到一个活人的影子或听到人的声音，且不论他们如何努力地竖起耳朵睁大眼睛。他们继续前行，飞一阵儿，走一阵儿。又往前走了数英里，翻过山岭跨过河流，每到一处都能找到相同的迹象和孤寂。“这些地方为何如此荒凉？”莫摩斯向普罗米修斯发问，“明明是有人居住过的样子。”普罗米修斯辩称也许是受到潮汐、地震、飓风或大雨影响。据他所知这些在热带地区是常见的。确实，就在此时，他们听到附近森林里随着风刮过，树枝上的雨不停地被拂落到地上的声音。但是，莫摩斯还是无法理解此地怎么会受到潮汐的影响——大海明明离得很远，远到根本看不见嘛。更让他费解的是，如果地震、飓风、大雨毁灭了该国度里所有的人，那么，那些随处可见的美洲虎、猴子、狐狸、食蚁兽、老鹰、鹦鹉及其他数百种飞行爬行的动物又是怎样得以逃生的呢？最终，他们降临在一个巨大的山谷里。在那儿，他们发现了似乎是一小堆房子，准确地说是类似小木屋的东西，上面覆盖着棕榈树叶子——每幢房子四周都围着木头栅栏。在其中的一处房子前面聚集着很多人，有些人站着，有些人坐着，他们正围在一个悬挂在篝火上面的瓦罐四周。两位仙家幻化作人形，走近人群。普罗米修斯极有礼貌地向在场的每个人问好。然后，他转向一位貌似酋长的人并询问他们在做什么。

野　人　我们在吃东西，你不是看见了嘛。

普罗米修斯　在吃什么好东西呢？

野　人　吃这块肉。

普罗米修斯　是家畜肉还是野味？

野　人　家养的；实际上，是我儿子的肉。

普罗米修斯　你是把公牛当儿子吗？就和帕西法厄（Pasiphae）似的？

野　人　不是公牛，是人。是和其他人一模一样的人。

普罗米修斯　此话当真？你在吃自己的骨肉？

野　人　不是我自己的骨肉，但确实是我儿子的骨和肉。我照顾他、养育他、把他带到这个世界来的唯一目的就是为此。

普罗米修斯　仅仅是为了吃掉他吗？

野　人　这有什么奇怪吗？再有，他妈妈也是一样的。既然她已经不可能再生孩子了，我打算最近吃掉她。

莫 摩 斯　这就好比你吃完鸡蛋再吃掉母鸡一个道理。

野　人　我的其他女人们也一样……她们一旦没有生孩子的用处了……我就打算吃了她们。还有你看到的在这里的奴隶们……要不是隔一阵我就能吃几个他们生的孩子们，我干嘛要养活他们？不过，要是他们老了，也会被我吃掉，一次一个——倘若我能活那么久的话。

普罗米修斯　告诉我，这些奴隶——他们是属于你的部落还是别的部落的？

野　人　别的部落。

普罗米修斯　是离这儿很远的一个部落吗？

野　人　非常远。远到在他们与我们的房子之间甚至隔着一条小溪。

接着，他指向一处矮山头又补充道：“就在那边，是他们以前一直居住的地方，但已经被我们的人毁掉了。”此时此刻，普罗米修斯觉察到许多野人们正向他频抛媚眼，那种爱慕的眼神就如同一只猫看见老鼠似的。故而，以防被同类吃掉，他快速飞起。莫摩斯也一样。他们俩起飞时都有些慌张，以至于他们离开时带起的尘土弄脏了野人们的食物。那些尘土一如当年哈耳皮埃（Harpies）出于妒忌撒在特洛伊人（Trojans）餐桌上的尘土一样。不过，野人们已经很饿了，况且也不像埃涅阿斯（Aeneas）的伙伴们那般挑剔，因此，他们仍继续大快朵颐。

普罗米修斯对新世界颇感失望。于是，他立即赶往最古老的世界，也就是亚洲。几乎是在瞬间，他们二人就从新印度飞到了旧印度并降落在阿格拉城（Agra）附近的一处田间地头。那边聚集了大批浩浩荡荡的人群。他们都围拢在一条堆满柴火的沟渠边上——在沟渠的一头他们看到一些男人手持点燃的火把，准备着随时点燃火堆；在沟渠的另一头，有一个平台，上面有一个年轻女子衣着极为华美，浑身佩戴着各色原始饰物，正在载歌载舞，脸上似乎露出极为开心的模样。看到这一幕，普罗米修斯想象着一个新卢克丽斯（Lucretus）或者一个新弗吉尼亚（Virginia）诞生了。她是一位类似埃瑞克修斯（Erechthetia）的女儿们式的人物，又和伊芙琴尼亚（Iphigenia）、科德拉斯（Codrus）、孟子（Menecius）、柯歇斯（Curtius），德西厄斯（Decius）相类似，她遵循神谕，为了祖国而甘愿牺牲自己。不久之后，他却听说她只是在给亡夫殉葬。于是，他忖度她跟阿尔刻提斯（Alcestis）没什么两样，都愿意用自己的生命换取丈夫的性命。然而，他进而了解到她让自己活活烧死的原因不过是为了遵循当地的寡妇的风俗，而她一直恨自己的丈夫，并且当时她喝醉了。那个死去的丈夫，不是要复活，而是将在同一把火里被烧掉。普罗米修斯马上不再理会这场景而是转身向欧洲出发。在路上，他和莫摩斯有如下对话：

莫 摩 斯　你可曾想过，当年你历经重重险阻盗取天庭的火种送给人类，而有些人却用它把同类放进锅里蒸煮食用？还有些人情愿把自己烧死？

普罗米修斯　当然没有。但是，亲爱的莫摩斯，请别忘记，我们目前见到的都是些野人。人类的本性不是由野人而是由文明人来衡量的。现在我们就在去找他们的路上。我坚信在他们中间我们不仅将会看到听到值得称颂的事情，也会让你充满惊讶。

莫 摩 斯　假设人类是世上最完美的生物，我不明白为什么他们需要被文明教化才能不去自焚或食用自己的子嗣。其他动物都是野生的，然而它们从未刻意烧死自己。当然凤凰除外，不过这种生物从未有人目睹过。吞食自己同类的动物也极为罕见，更别说食用自己的子嗣的动物了——只有在极特殊情况下才会有个别例外，但也断断不会是为了食用而繁衍子嗣的。请你注意，在地球的五个洲中，到目前为止只有最小的那个，况且也不是整个这个洲，再加上其他地区的极少区域里，才被赋予你所宣称的那种高度文明。我不认为你自己会坚持这种文明已经几近完美，巴黎人也好，费城人也好，已经取得人类种族可能取得的那种完美程度。现在，人类需要工作和努力多久才能达到一个并不算完美的文明程度？大概从人类诞生的第一天算起直至今日这么多年的时间了吧。况且，几乎所有有利于或者是获取文明所必备的方法，并非源于刻意的构想而是源于机缘凑巧。也就是说，人类文明更像意外的结果而绝非自然发展的产物；假如这些偶然不存在，人类依旧还是野人，尽管他们刚好和文明人同龄。因此，我断定，如果野人们在诸多方面都逊色于其他动物的话；如果文明，作为野蛮的对立面，时至今日仍只是极少数人的特权的话；再者，如果这极少数人在耗费了数个世纪之后，依赖偶然事件而非其他渠道才达到目前的文明状态的话；最后，如果目前的文明状态仍然远远不够完美的话——那么，我认为假如你用下面的简短方式表达，你对人类的判断也许会更准确些，即，承认人类确实如你所想的那样优于其他物种，不是在完美方面而是在不完美方面——尽管人类在说话或评判时，总是不停混淆这两个概念。他们最擅长从自己设定的前提，或从自以为正确的真理中推导结论。可以确定的是，其他物种从初始起就很完美，每一类都能遵循自己的本性。虽然与其他物种相较，尚不清楚野人为什么会是最糟糕的物种。令我费解的是，既然人类的本质是如此的残缺，正如人类看上去那样，却又为何被认为是比其他物种更为文明的物种？再补充一点，人类文明不仅难以获得，也许也没有完成的可能性，况且也没有稳定到不会被分化，实际上，在已然获得高度文明的各色人类中，文明曾经无数次坍塌。简言之，我持下列观点，假如是你的兄弟厄庇墨透斯（Epimetheus）展示给评委们他创造第一只毛驴或第一只青蛙所用的模型，他很可能赢得你无法赢得的奖项。但是，如果你断定人类的完美是如同普罗提诺（Plotinus）贡献于世界的那种完美，普罗提诺声称其贡献绝对优质而完美，那么，我愿意配合你的说法。所谓完美，是要求这个世界，在所有事物中，也包含所有可能的邪恶。因为，实际上在现今世界里我们发现邪恶几乎无处不在。在这层意义上，我可能赞同莱布尼兹（Leibniz）的观点，当今世界已经是可能的最好的世界了。

毫无疑问，普罗米修斯已经有了现成的答案——简洁、明了并且合乎逻辑——以应付前述论点。但同样可以确定的是，他并没有说出来。因为就在那时，他们发现已经飞到伦敦上空了。他们降落下来，看到某处私人住宅门前聚集了一大批人群。他们加入到人群中进入屋内。屋里，他们看到一个人面朝天躺在床上，手握着枪，已经死去了，胸部留有伤口。在他身边躺着两个小孩，也已经死去。几个仆人站在屋子里，正在接受治安官们的盘问，书记员一边做着笔录。

普罗米修斯　这些可怜的人是谁？

仆　人　是我的主人和他的孩子们。

普罗米修斯　谁杀了他们？

仆　人　我的主人，三个都杀了。

普罗米修斯　你的意思是，他杀了自己和自己的孩子们？

仆　人　对的。

普罗米修斯　难以置信。他一定遇到了极可怕的事情。

仆　人　据我所知应该没有。

普罗米修斯　但是，也许因为他太穷，受人鄙视，或者失恋了，或者仕途不如意。

仆　人　恰恰相反。他非常富有，我想所有人都尊重他。对于爱情他是毫不在意的。况且，他很受朝廷欢迎。

普罗米修斯　那他怎么如此绝望？

仆　人　因为对生活的厌倦，正如他自己写的那样。

普罗米修斯　那些治安官们——他们在干吗？

仆　人　他们在盘问我的主人是否精神失常。要是他没疯，他的资产将归皇室所有。的确这种可能无法避免。

普罗米修斯　但是请告诉我，他没有亲人和朋友可以托付这两个孩子了吗？为什么一定要杀死他们俩个？

仆　人　是的，当然有的。有一个和他关系特别好的朋友，他把他的狗托付给他了。

莫摩斯正准备向普罗米修斯祝贺文明的良好作用，以及它带给人类生命的福音。他还打算提醒他除了人类以外，没有任何其他动物会因为绝望而杀死自己以及自己的孩子们。但是普罗米修斯已经先他一步，付给他赌金了。他已经没有兴趣再去世界的其他两个区域看看了。

自然和冰岛人的对话

一位冰岛人，曾经游历了大半个世界并访问了很多国家。有一次，他在非洲内陆地区游荡时，穿过赤道进入到一片未曾被人探索过的地域。在那里，他经历了一番与瓦斯科•达•伽马（Vasco da Gama）类似的奇遇。当他绕过好望角区域以及好望角本身时，把守奥斯（Austral）海域的好望角，化作一个巨人走至他面前，劝阻他不要进入海图上未载明的水域。冰岛人看到远处有一个巨大的半身像。起初，他以为是石头雕像，类似于他多年前在复活节岛上见过的那些巨型石像。但是，走近之后，他发现原来是一个巨大的女人的身体。她端坐在地上，上身挺直，她的背部和手臂靠着身后的大山。她不是什么石像，而是一个大活人——她的脸既美丽又令人生畏，她的眼睛和头发像渡鸦一样漆黑。她默默地凝视了他一会儿，最终开口：

自　然　你是谁？到这片地域来干什么？你的同类们目前还尚未涉足这里。

冰岛人　我是个可怜的冰岛人。我一直在逃离自然。基本上我的一生都在逃开她，我已经逃离过地球上的一百多个地区，现在我在设法逃离这个地方的自然。

自　然　小松鼠也是这么逃离响尾蛇的，直到它最终落入蛇口。我就是你要逃离的自然。

冰岛人　自然？

自　然　正是我。

冰岛人　真是万分遗憾啊。我深感再没有什么比这更大的灾难降临到我身上了。

自　然　你应该很清楚在这些地区特别容易找到我的。在这儿，你也知道我的能量要远远大于在别处。但是，究竟是什么促使你躲避我呢？

冰岛人　我来告诉你。自儿时起，在经历一些事情之后，我意识到并确信人生的虚浮以及人类的冥顽不化。为了不会快乐的快乐，为了没有用处的物资，他们彼此间争斗不休；他们忍耐并施予彼此无尽的焦虑和无尽的烦恼，这些都会带来真正的骚扰和伤害。由此，他们越是追求幸福，幸福就会离他们越远。因为受到这些观点的影响，我抛开所有的抱负，下定决心过一种默默无闻的宁静生活，不去打扰别人，不去费心钻研，也不与世人你争我夺。同时，我也不曾期待幸福——这是个与我们种族绝缘的东西——我只为自己设定了一个目标，就是脱离痛苦。这样的决定，并不意味着我打算放弃工作和体力劳动，况且你也知道，在劳作与痛苦之间，平静生活与懒散生活之间还是有区别的。我刚刚把我的决心付诸实践，便从中体会到以下的想法真是大错特错。比如，与人生活在一起，假如你认为你不伤害别人，别人就不会伤害你；再比如，如果你能自觉地隐退并满足于最少的物质，这样你就被允许留有一小点地方并且你的这一小点不会被夺走。但是，我还是很轻松地把自己从同类的敌意中解放出来了，比如我远离人类社会，闭门不出——这一切在我的家乡很容易办到。就这样毫无乐趣地生活了一段时间之后，我依然不能毫无痛苦地活着。因为漫长的冬天异常寒冷，而夏天又是出奇地炎热，两者属于典型的当地气候，这样的天气一直在折磨着我。还有炉火，因为我不得不大部分时间待在火边，我的皮肤被烤干，眼睛被烟火熏坏。因此，不论在室内还是室外我都无法感到丝毫舒适。更遑论那种获得我全身心渴望的宁静生活的可能。因为陆地上以及海上经常爆发可怕的风暴，海克拉火山的威胁和隆隆声，对火灾的恐惧，火灾在我们居住的木制房子里司空见惯。所有这些始终在困扰着我。在这个一成不变的生活里，摆脱了所有的欲望、希望和几乎所有的烦恼，只留有平静安宁，上述那些不舒适就显得比平时更为尖锐，更让人难以忍受。因为在平时，我们的脑子总是被社会交际生活以及来自他人的敌意占得满满的。因此，我发现我越是像过去那样退隐，越是尽力把自己缩起来，以避免妨碍或伤害到世上的其他生物，我就越容易被那些事情所烦恼和折磨。于是，我开始尝试不同的地理位置和气候，企图寻找地球上是否有那么一块地方，在那里，我不冒犯别人，别人也不会冒犯我。在那里，没有快乐，但也不会有痛苦。尤其是想到下面这一点，我就更加坚定了自己的决心:也许你注定人类只能适应一种气候（正如你对其他动植物的规定那样），或只能适应某个特定区域，在该范围之外人类就无法兴盛，也无法舒适而毫无痛苦地活着；一旦他们不屑一顾或突破你所规定的适合人类居住的规则，那么由此招致的艰难和痛苦只能归罪于他们自己，而并非你的责任。我几乎找遍了整个世界，足迹踏遍了每个国家，但是我的初衷未改，即不带给任何人麻烦，并过宁静生活。可是，我曾在热带被热浪灼伤；在极地被寒冷冻僵；在温带饱受不稳定的气候的折磨；每到一处我都会被自然灾难所扰。我看到在很多地方，几乎没有一天没有暴雨，也就是说你每天都要袭击或悉心准备一场战争给那些从未伤害过你的居民们。在其他地区，宁静的天空下却总是伴随频繁的地震、频频发作的剧烈火山喷发，以及整个区域地表下的沸腾和颤抖。在狂风与飓风肆虐的地区，通常季节里不再有其他的天气灾难。有时，我会感觉到房顶向我的头顶压下来，因为上面有太多积雪；有时，因为倾盆暴雨，地面会裂开并在脚下下沉；有时，我不得不拼命地从河边逃离，那些河水在我身后紧紧追赶如同要找我算账一般。很多我从来没有一丝一毫地冒犯过的野兽却想一口吃掉我；很多毒蛇想毒死我；很多地方有不少飞虫把我吸得只剩骨头。我更不愿意提及的是那些天天发生的、无数一直在威胁着人类的危险。这些危险多到一位古代哲学家认为不仅没有克服恐惧的办法，相反的，实际上每件事都是令人恐惧的。不仅如此，我也没有被免于病痛的侵扰，尽管从过去到现在，我在肉体享乐上不仅一贯节制，甚至是克己的。我不得不惊叹，一想到你注入我们体内如此强烈却又无法满足的对快乐的渴望，没有这种快乐，或剥夺这种自然的渴求，我们的生命便不再完美。然而，你又规定沉溺于这种快乐，是在所有有关人类的事情里最为有害身心健康的，对每个人都具有毁灭性质，是寿命延续的大敌。纵然，一直以来我基本完全杜绝了所有的享乐，可是我仍然被诸多的各式病症所折磨。一些疾病差点让我丧命；一些几乎让我失去肢体；一些永久性地让我的生活比过去悲惨。所有这些都长达数天乃至数月，以一千种匮乏和一千种痛苦煎熬着我的身心。尽管在生病时，我们每一个人都体验到未曾经历的痛苦和比平日里更多的不幸福（似乎生活本身还不够痛苦），而你却没有因此而补偿人类。比如让他有一段时日精力充沛、有更胜于平时的健康，带给他质量和数量上的双重快乐。在某些国家里，常年冰雪覆盖，我的眼睛几乎变瞎了，就像拉普兰德（Lapland）国的居民常常有的状况。太阳与空气，二者于我们的生存息息相关，所以无从回避，但它们也在时时折磨着我们——我们四周空气里含有的湿度、气候的严峻、天气的各种突变，太阳的热度、光线自身，以至于人类只要暴露于其下就必定会感觉不舒服或受伤。确实，我记不得自己生命中哪一天是不用遭受痛苦的，而同时那些快乐的日子屈指可数。我意识到我们命中注定痛苦之多与快乐之少是等同的。获得任何一种平静生活的可能性与争斗的生活中没有磨难的可能性一样微乎其微。这样，我被迫得出结论，你才是人类、其他动物以及你所创造的生物的最鲜明的敌人。时而，你让我们落入陷阱；时而，你威胁我们；时而，你袭击我们；时而，你又螫伤我们；时而，你击打我们；时而，你撕碎我们。永远地，你总在冒犯我们、迫害我们。不论是出于习惯或受规则约束，可以说，你是你自己家庭、子女、亲骨肉的刽子手。故而，我不抱任何希望。我知道人类最终会停止迫害那些一心要躲开和逃避他们的人，而你则永远不会对我们停手，直到把我们击垮为止。如今，我已经几近步入痛苦而毫无希望的老年时期了。年迈是真正而明确的邪恶，实际上也是最具压迫性的邪恶和痛苦的集合。它不是偶然而来，而是你的法则赋予所有有生命的生物的邪恶。从孩童时代我们就知晓它的存在。从二十五岁生日之后，迹象越来越明显，那种令人无比悲伤的不幸的腐化的过程。如是，人类生命的三分之一是用来成长的，仅仅有短短的瞬间是成熟和完美期，其余的就是衰老以及随之而来的各种不适。

自　然　你是否碰巧想过这世界难道只是为你而造的吗？好吧，让我来告诉你，除了极个别情况之外，在我的工作、法则和操作中，我的目的在过去乃至现在都不是为了人类的幸福或不幸福。不论我在何时以何种方式伤害了你，我都未曾注意到，当然除却极少数例外情形。正如在一般情况下，我并不知晓我是取悦了你们还是帮助了你们。我并没有如你所想的那样，曾经做过这些，或者现在做这些去取悦你、帮助你。最后，即便我不经意间毁灭了你们整个种族，我也从未留意过。

冰岛人　让我们来假设一下，如果有人主动且强烈地邀请我拜访他的别墅。为了使他高兴，我接受了邀请。然而，在应邀前往贵宅之后，我被安置在一间年久失修的破败小室里，潮湿、恶臭、走风漏雨、还时刻会有把我砸扁的可能。主人不仅没有花费心思招待我，让我过得舒适；相反，他甚至没有提供维持我生存的足够供给。他还允许他的孩子以及其他家庭成员对我进行辱骂、嘲笑、威胁乃至殴打。假如我向他抱怨这样的待遇，他会回答：“难道你觉得我的别墅是为你造的吗？我养活我的孩子和佣人就是为了帮助你吗？除了招待你，为你花钱，我还有很多事情需要考虑呢。”对此我的回答是：“你看，我的朋友，你的别墅的确不是为我而建，你有权决定是否邀请我来此做客。但是，既然你主动邀请我住在这里，难道你不觉得你应该做些安排，至少从你那方面来说，让我不受折磨和危险，安心住在这里？”这些就是我现在要说的话。我知道你创造这个世界并非为了让它服务于人类。我更愿意相信你的初衷是为了折磨人类。现在，我来问你，我是否恳求你让我来到这个世界？还是我使用暴力手段或未经你允许闯入这个世界的？事实上，是你自己一厢情愿、亲手安排我来到这里，并且既没有征得我的同意，也不让我有反抗或反对它的选择。在此情形下，难道，即便你没有义务让我在你的国度里感到快乐与满足，你不应该至少保证我不会备受折磨并且生活在这里不会有害于我吗？我所说的不仅仅是我自己，更是关乎整个人类种族，其他动物乃至其他所有生物。

自　然　很显然，你没有考虑到在这个宇宙里生命是生产与毁灭的永恒循环——两者紧紧相连，相互作用，才有世界现实状况。一旦任何一方停止作用，世界将不复存在。因此，若是任何事物没有痛苦便是有害于这个世界的。

冰岛人　这恰恰是那些哲学家们说的。但是，既然被毁灭的要受难，毁灭者也没有体验到快乐，况且他本身也即将被毁灭，请告诉我哲学家不能回答的：有谁能在这个世界最悲惨的生活里找到一丝快乐和任何优点？它的存在依仗受难与死亡，而这两者恰恰又是生命的组成部分？

我们得到消息说在他们进行这样或类似讨论的时候，碰巧有两头狮子出现了，它们是如此疲惫和饥饿，以至于它们只有刚刚好的力气吃掉这个冰岛人。于是它们就吃了，并有了足够的能量再多活一天。但是，有人不相信这个版本的故事。他们坚持说在冰岛人说话时，突然狂风骤起，风把他掀翻在地，接着又把他卷起扔进一个巨大的沙子坟墓里，在那下面，他的身体被完美地脱水并变成了一具漂亮的干尸。后来，他被旅行者发现了，并被带回来陈列在欧洲某城的一个博物馆里。

弗瑞德里克•鲁谢和木乃伊们的对话

木乃伊们在弗瑞德里克•鲁谢的书房合唱

每一个创造物

孤零零地在这世上，走向永恒，

我们最原始的本性

在你，死亡中，得到安息；

不是快乐，而是不再遭受

世世代代的痛苦。

沉沉夜幕

在我们混乱的头脑中

遮蔽了我们坟墓中的思索；

感觉到希望、渴望、枯萎的灵魂

它的力量渐渐远去；

由此，不再遭受痛苦，不再感觉恐惧

那些漫长的空虚岁月

逝去时不再无聊。

我们活着；如同

一个受到惊吓的鬼魂的混乱记忆

如同大汗淋漓的梦魇

在婴儿的灵魂里游荡，

因此，记忆仍在我们中间徘徊

生前的记忆：摆脱恐惧的

是我们的记忆。我们曾经是谁？

生命曾经的意义何在？

如今，生命之于我们的头脑

仍然是巨大的谜团

对于生者的头脑，也是如此

无名的死亡迫近。活着时

要逃离死亡，而现在

要逃离生命之火

我们的原始本元

不快乐但是很安全

因为幸福

既没有被命运赋予凡人也没有赋予死者。

鲁　谢　（站在书房外面，从门缝里窥探书房）怎么回事？谁教这些死人唱歌？他们的歌声就像公鸡在半夜打鸣似的。我被惊出了一身冷汗，几乎吓死。我没有期待它们活过来，我只是为它们做了防腐处理。好吧，不管我有多少理论，我还是从头到脚哆嗦个不停。那个让我把这些人带回家的混蛋真该死。我都不知道该怎么办。如果我继续把他们锁在里面，他们也许会破门而出，他们也许会从锁眼里冒出来，在我熟睡时抓住我。可若是大声呼救说我害怕这些死人，似乎也不太体面。好吧，鼓起勇气，让我先吓唬一下他们。

（进入书房）嗯，孩子们，在玩什么游戏呢？难道不记得你们已经死了吗？你们在这里吵闹什么？是不是因为沙皇的拜访你们就有些得意忘形？还是你们以为不需要像过去一样接受法律约束？我想你们仅仅是在开玩笑，对不对？假如你们活过来了，我得向你们祝贺；不过，我没那么富有，可以像保存死人一样养活你们。因此，你们必须离开。假如有关吸血鬼的传言是真的，你们就是吸血鬼。那么你们必须得找点别人的血喝喝。因为我可不打算让你们喝我的血，不管之前我可以多么慷慨地往你们的血管里注入人工血。简言之，如果你们还能像先前一样保持安静和沉默，我们就能和平共处。在我的家里你们可以自便。否则，我就插上门把你们都杀掉。

木乃伊　请别生气。我向您保证我们还会像从前一样了无声息，您完全没有必要杀死我们。

鲁　谢　那么，这个唱歌是怎么回事？

木乃伊　不久前，就在午夜时分，古人们曾多次提及的大数学年第一次结束了。这也是第一次死者能开口讲话的时候。不单单是我们，所有公墓里的、坟墓里的、甚至是埋在海底、埋在积雪和沙子下面、或者暴露在空气中的死者，不论其身处何地，在这个午夜时分，所有的死者就像我们一样，唱那首你刚刚听到的歌。

鲁　谢　那么他们将会唱多久或说多久啊？

木乃伊　至于唱歌，他们已经唱完了。至于说话，他们每个人被允许说一刻钟。之后，他们就回归沉默直到下一个同样年份的来临。

鲁　谢　如果这是真的，我觉得你们不会再吵醒我睡觉了。你们随心所欲地说吧，我会好奇地站在一边，很高兴听你们交谈而不去打扰。

木乃伊　我们只能靠回答活人的问题说话。唱歌结束后，那些不需要回答活人问题的就保持安静。

鲁　谢　真是太遗憾了。本来我觉得如果你们能讲话，听你们之间谈什么会非常有趣。

木乃伊　即便我们能行，你也什么都听不到。因为我们彼此间没有可交流的。

鲁　谢　我可以想出一千个问题问你。不过，既然时间紧迫，没有选择余地，就请你言简意赅地告诉我在死亡的瞬间，你的身体和思想都经历了什么样的感觉？

木乃伊　我没注意到死亡的瞬间。

其他木乃伊　我们也没有。

鲁　谢　你们怎么可能没有注意到呢？

木乃伊　就像你不会注意到你入睡的瞬间一样，不管你为之多么注意。

鲁　谢　可是，入睡是一个自然的过程。

木乃伊　难道你不觉得死亡也是一个自然的过程吗？你任意找一个不会死的人、动物或植物给我看看？

鲁　谢　要是你没有意识到你已经死了，我一点也不惊讶你会继续唱歌和说话。

丝毫未察觉到这个打击，他继续前行

依然在挣扎，尽管已经死去。

一位意大利诗人如是写道。我想关于死亡的问题，你们这些已经死去的人会比活人更有发言权。但是，还是回到我们的主题上来，在死亡的瞬间，你们没有感到疼痛吗？

木乃伊　如果感觉死亡的那个人根本没有意识到，又怎么有疼痛呢？

鲁　谢　不管怎样，所有人都认为死亡的感觉是极度痛苦的。

木乃伊　仿佛死亡是一种强烈的感觉而不是恰恰相反。

鲁　谢　可是，就灵魂的本质来讲，无论是倾向于伊壁鸠鲁（Epicurean）观点的人，还是持有传统观点的人，他们所有人，或者其中绝大部分人都同意我的说法，认为死亡就其本质上来说，是一种无可比拟的极度的痛。

木乃伊　好吧，请您谨代表我们向他们俩提一个问题：假如人类没有能力意识到他们的主要器官，或多或少地因为睡眠、昏睡、晕厥或其他原因而暂停运作，他又如何能意识到那些功能完全停止工作的那一瞬间，不是暂时地而是永久性地停止？再者，一种活着的感觉怎么能存在于死亡之中呢？实际上，就死亡本身的特质来说怎么可能是一种活着的感觉呢？当知觉不仅变得虚弱而稀少，而且被削弱到最低程度以至于知觉停止或被取消，你认为此时人还会有那么强烈的感觉吗？事实上，难道你认为这种感知的消亡本身会是一种强烈的感觉吗？你可以观察到，当死亡来临时，即便是那些迟早会死于剧烈且痛苦疾病的病人，在他们断气前，也会趋于平静安宁。于是乎，我们看到在减少到很少量时，他们所剩无几的生命不足以感觉疼痛。因而，疼痛比生命更早结束。请你代表我们把这一点告诉那些认为生命快终结时会因疼痛而死的人。

鲁　谢　对于伊壁鸠鲁的支持者来说这些原因已经足够。但是，对于其他人来说却不尽然。他们根据灵魂的实质来判断。在过去我做过很多这方面的研究，将来也会继续做更多，尤其是听到死者说话和唱歌之后。他们相信死亡是一种灵魂从身体的剥离，所以，他们不明白的是，既然二者结合在一起，可以说二者如此粘合为一体最终共同组成一个完整的人，那么，在二者分开时，怎么会不遭受暴力以及难言的苦楚呢？

木乃伊　请你告诉我，灵魂是恰巧附着在身体的神经上，还是黏在肌肉上或是粘膜上了？所以灵魂离开时，必须把它撕开？抑或，它原本是身体的一部分，必须通过暴力才能将其扯开或断开？你难道不知道灵魂离开身体，仅仅因为它不被允许待在那里了？那里已经没有它的位置了，而不是因为有一种力量把它拽开或连根拔起？再请你告诉我，当灵魂进入身体时，它是否感到被粘在，或被紧紧系在，或如你所说粘合在身体上？那么，当它离开那具身体时，灵魂又怎能感到被分开，换言之，经历一种被暴力撕开的感觉？请相信灵魂进入和离开身体都是同样安静、容易和温柔的。

鲁　谢　那么，如果死亡不是痛苦又会是什么？

木乃伊　是快乐而非其他。你要知道垂死好比入睡，不是瞬间发生而是循序渐进的。诚然，死亡的原因及类别不同，其过程自然或多或少，或大或小，不一而论。在最后时刻，死亡带来的既不是快乐也不是痛苦，至少不会比睡眠有更多的感觉。在死亡的前一刻，它不再产生疼痛，因为疼痛是生的感觉。那一刻，也就是死亡开始之初，人的感官是濒死的，就像最大程度上被弱化一样。它有可能是快乐的缘由，因为快乐并不是生的感受。事实上，人类很多快乐源于某种倦怠，因此即便是接近死亡，人的感觉依然感受到快乐，因为倦怠本身常常就是快乐，尤其是它解除你的痛苦。因为你很清楚，所有痛苦和不舒适的停止本身就是快乐。故而，由死亡产生的倦怠应该受到欢迎，因为它让人摆脱更大的折磨。就个人而言，在行将就木的时间里，我并没有关注自己是怎么感觉的，因为医生命令我不要消耗脑力。不过我依然记得我所经历的那种感觉，与人入睡时由倦怠产生的快乐类似。

其他木乃伊　我们也似乎记得这些。

鲁　谢　就依你们所言。不过，以前几乎所有曾和我讨论这个话题的人都持有完全不同的观点。不过呢，据我所知，他们毕竟没有亲身经历。现在请告诉我，在死亡时，在感受到快乐的同时，你想到你快要死了吗？这种快乐只是死亡的礼遇，或者你在想着别的什么事？

木乃伊　只要我还没死掉，我从未想过我不能避开这个危险。至少在我依然有思考能力的最后时间里，我一直期望我依然能再多活一到二个小时。我想很多人死的时候也这样想的。

其他木乃伊　我们也经历了同样的事情。

鲁　谢　的确。西塞罗曾说过没有人虚弱到他认为不能至少再多活一年。但是你怎么注意到灵魂最终离开身体了？请告诉我，你怎么知道你已经死了？他们不回答了。孩子们，能听到我说话吗？一刻钟应该已经到了。让我来摸一下他们的脉搏。他们又死掉了。他们没有机会再吓到我了。我还是回去睡觉吧。

克里斯托弗•哥伦布和佩德罗•古铁雷斯的对话

哥 伦 布　多美的夜晚，我的朋友。

古铁雷斯　确实美丽。不过，若是从陆地上看会更加美丽。

哥 伦 布　是的。这么说你也厌倦航行了啊。

古铁雷斯　不单单是航行。这次出海要远远比我预期的漫长，感觉有些吃不消了。虽说如此，请别以为我会像别人一样埋怨你。相反，无论此次航行你做什么决定，我都会一如既往地支持你。既然谈到了这个话题，我希望你能开诚布公、清晰无误地告诉我，你是否一如最初时那般坚定？你仍旧认为我们真的可以在世界的这边找到陆地和人类？抑或，这许多年里经历过无数次徒劳往返之后，你也开始产生怀疑？

哥 伦 布　坦白地讲，就像朋友之间吐露心迹那样，我承认我现在感觉有点不太确定。尤其本次航海中，多种迹象曾给我带来巨大的希望，但又最终化为失望——比如：在离开哥麦那岛（Gomera）起航后的几天里，有飞鸟从西方掠过我们的头顶。我一度认为这是附近有陆地的征兆。还有，日复一日，我逐渐发现，实际情况和我在出海前的设想与预测完全不同。原先设想的航海中可能遇到的各种事情均未发生。于是，我开始思考，是否那些预测误导了我——尽管它们看上去几乎无懈可击——也有可能，这其中最大的假设，即我们能在海洋的另一端找到陆地，也可能最终落空。诚然，该假设确实持之有故，言之有理。倘若一旦被推翻，那么，似乎除了依靠我们亲眼所见与亲耳所听到的东西，我们再不能相信人类的任何判断了。但另一方面，我还意识到，常常或大多数时候，理论往往与现实相悖。我质问自己，你如何能断定地球的每一部分都如出一辙呢？仅仅因为东半球是一半陆地一半水域，所以西半球也必须如此吗？你怎么肯定它就不可能是一片汪洋呢？或者排除全是陆地，以及陆地和海洋结合的可能性，也有可能是其他元素构成的？假使它和另一半一模一样都有陆地有海洋，也有可能它那里根本就没有人烟？甚至根本无法居住？假定它像我们的半球一样住满了居民，你又如何能确定那里的居民是和我们一样有理智的生物呢？即便这些存在，你也不能确定他们是人还是其他有智力的动物？即便是人类，也有可能和我们熟悉的人类并不一样。比如说，他们体型硕大，更加强壮、灵活，并拥有更高的与生俱来的智商和智慧，抑或拥有更为发达的文明以及人文与科学？我在反复问自己这些。毕竟，自然完全具备此项能力，她的成果如此不同，如此众多，以至于我们无法确定，在我们世界毫不知晓的远方，自然做过什么，又正在做什么，我们也应该质疑用后者为前者辩论是否是个严重的错误？设想未知世界中可能存在的事物——也许是部分也许是全部——是不为我们熟知且令人惊叹的，这并不会有悖于真理的概率。此刻，我们亲眼看到在这片水域，指南针偏离北极星且似乎指向西方——这是海员们以前从未见过的情形。不管我思索了多久，都无法得出满意的答案。尽管如此，我的言下之意不是说我们要相信古代人关于未知世界和未知水域的种种奇迹的传说。例如，汉诺（Hanno）寓言描述某些国家的夜晚充满了火焰，还有流入大海的烈焰之河。其实在本次航海中，我们的船员体会到，对遭遇的可怕奇观和令人忐忑的新事物的恐惧是多么苍白无力——当看到大片大片遮挡航线的、看上去像草地的海草时，他们曾自以为已经到达了可行驶海域的尽头。不过，为了回答你的问题，我的意思是我的假设只是基于最具可能性的推断。不仅我的判断如此，且如你所知，我还就此问题请教了诸多来自西班牙、意大利，还有葡萄牙的著名地理学家、天文学家、航海家，他们一致认为如此。当然，也有碰巧是错误的可能。因为，我反复说过，许多基于最好推理所推导出的结论并不能经得起实践的检验。尤其是涉及我们并不清楚的事情时，这种状况尤为常见。

古铁雷斯　那么，实际上，你是为了一个完全是猜测性的假设，拿自己以及同伴的生命做赌注？

哥 伦 布　确实如此。我不否认这点。但是，暂且不考虑这样的事实。如果每天都有人为了很小的缘由或毫无价值可言的事情去冒险——甚至都未经过思量——设想以下情况：假如你我以及我们的同伴不是身在大海中央的船只上，周遭一片未知的荒凉，置身于能想象的到的危险与不安定之地的话，那么我们会过什么样的生活？我们怎样打发时日？也许会更快乐？或者是相反，也许我们正陷于某种焦虑或困苦——或者感觉了无生趣？假如即便没有不安和危险又如何？如果只是安逸和快乐也就罢了。但如果是被烦恼痛苦缠绕，我倒觉得还不如做其他选择呢。不用我提醒，一旦我们的航行圆满结束，我们将获得多少荣耀和利益，而我们的希望也将得以实现。即便我们没有从中获益，在我看来仍然是极为有益的。它至少保证我们不再感觉无聊之极，让我们珍惜生命，让很多我们平时习以为常的事情变得珍贵。古人写道——你也许曾经读过或听过——那些失恋的人儿，从圣毛拉（Santa Maura）崖［过去曾被称作卢克迪亚（Leucadian）岩］纵身跳入大海，若侥幸不死，就会因阿波罗（Apollo）的恩惠而不再受情爱所困。我不知道我们是否应该相信他们是因此而被治愈了，但是我很清楚地知道从这样的危险中逃脱之后，他们会暂时珍视以前觉得可憎的生命，即便未受到阿波罗的恩惠。或者，无论如何他们一定会比以前更加珍爱生命。根据我的判断，每次出海航行就好似卢克迪亚岩的一跳，它会产生大致相同的影响，且更持久。从这个层面上来讲，海上航行更优越些。一般人认为海员和士兵由于时常处于危险之中，所以他们往往不如普通人那般珍惜生命。但是我却认为，正是因为这个原因很少有人会比海员和士兵更爱惜自己的性命。正因为拥有才使得我们身在福中不知福。很多稀松平常的事情对于海员来说却异常珍贵，因为他们失去了这一切。有谁会把能够站在一小块陆地上当作一种福音？除了海员，尤其是我们的海员们，因为无法预料这次航行的结果，没有人会把发现一小块陆地当作最大的心愿。这个心愿在我们早晨醒来时就占据我们的头脑，到晚上入睡时仍萦绕在心头。如果我们碰巧看到远处山脉的一角、一片森林或类似的事物，我们都无法掩饰自己的喜悦。能够双脚踏上陆地，仅仅一想到我们又可以站在坚实的土地上，能够随意行走，都会让我们幸福上好几天。

古铁雷斯　你所言极是。假如你的猜想性假设如同你的实践所依靠的判断一样正确的话，毫无疑问，总有一天，我们会品尝到这种幸福的滋味。

哥 伦 布　尽管我也不敢保证它的确如此，但就我看来，我希望我们很快能享受到它。这几天，如你所知，测深线已经碰触到海底，它带上海面的信息于我是个好兆头。临近傍晚时，围绕在太阳周围的云层颜色和形状都与过去有些不同。还有空气，你也能感觉到似乎比过去和煦温暖。风也不再猛烈地、横冲直撞地刮个不停。相反，风向飘忽不定，似乎被什么东西阻隔了。还有，海面上飘来的芦苇很明显是不久前被割断的，上面还带着新鲜的红色果实。接下来，一群群的飞鸟……它们曾经误导过我，但是现在出现如此众多的迹象，并且日益愈增，我感觉我们可以相信这一次，尤其是很多鸟类看上去并不像海鸟。总之，我已经尽力克制自己，但是这些迹象确实让我有巨大的美好期许。

古铁雷斯　这次上帝让它变成现实吧。

雀之礼赞

在春天里的一个早晨，阿弥里斯（Amelius），一位独处的哲人，坐在他乡下房子的阴凉处，正捧着书阅读。他被四处里鸟儿的鸣叫声吸引，于是，开始慢慢倾听和思考，放下了手中的书。最后，他提笔即席写下了下面的文字。

鸟儿生来就是这世上最快乐的生灵。之所以这么说，不是因为每当你听到看到鸟儿时，鸟儿所带来的快乐，而是因为鸟儿们本身就比其他动物更容易感受到快乐和欢悦。其他动物一般神色肃穆沉重，甚至很多看上去郁郁寡欢。它们极少会流露出快乐的表情。即便偶尔为之，也难以察觉、转瞬即逝。在多数高兴和享乐的时候，它们都不会显露出兴奋以及丝毫快乐的迹象。即使它们在享受着绿色田野，享受着广阔而美丽的景色，享受着明媚的阳光以及清澈甜美的空气，它们也毫不形之于色——只有野兔例外。据说在月光明亮的夜晚，尤其是月圆之夜，野兔们一起蹦跳玩耍，因这明亮而欢喜，色诺芬（Xenophone）如是写道。通常情况下，鸟儿们的动作和神情里总是表达出极大的欢悦。它们的存在之所以带给我们欢悦，是源于它们自身的体态和行为，是源于它们与生俱来的那种展示快乐和欢悦的特殊能力和性情——是一副看上去既不空洞也不具欺骗性的模样。它们会为经历过的每一次快乐和满足而歌唱。越是快乐和满足，越是唱得努力而投入。鉴于多数时间里它们都在歌唱，我们断定在正常情况下它们是快乐的、是享受生活的。当然，也有人观察到鸟儿们在恋爱时期要比平时唱的更动听、更持久、也更频繁。但不能因此说除了恋爱，鸟儿们就没有其他驱使它们唱歌的快乐和满足的动因。我们能够清楚地观察到，鸟儿们在明媚且风平浪静的天气里远远比在阴暗且多变的天气里唱得更多。当暴风雨袭来时，它们保持沉默，如同任何受到惊吓时的反应那般。暴风雨结束后，它们会飞入空中唱歌，与同伴嬉戏。同样地，我们还观察到，每个清晨，它们总是醒来就歌唱。部分原因是新的一天所带来的欢快，部分原因是与别的动物一样，一晚的休息之后精力充沛所致。同理，鸟儿们嗜好青翠的草木、葱茏的峡谷、清澈透明的溪水和美丽的风景。有个现象非常有趣，凡是我们人类觉得美丽和谐的事物，鸟儿们也有相同的感受——从捕猎丛及类似地点里安置的捕鸟网、粘鸟胶到吸引鸟类的诱饵就可以确定这一点。乡间那些鸟儿们经常光顾、歌唱的地方，也可以展示这一点。与之相比，也许除去那些被人类驯服且与人类生活很久的动物，再没有其他动物，即便有也是极少数，能和人类共享这种地理上适宜和美丽的概念。无须惊奇，因为鸟类只有在自然中才能找到快乐。而现在的这些，许多被我们称之为自然的地方，实际上是人工的。诸如：耕种的田地，经过修剪整理的树木和其他植物，被河岸死死禁锢，只能流向固定方向的河流，以及其他许多事物都不具备在自然状态下的样子与特征。从而，每一处世代相传的、居住着文明人类的乡间——且不说人类密集而居的城镇，大体都是人工的，因而在很大程度上有别于自然应有的状态。关于这个问题，有人认为我们区域的鸟鸣声要远比原始野人时期的好听，声音更柔和，调奏更协调。于是乎他们得出结论，即便像鸟儿们那般自由自在无拘无束的动物，也会因为常常光顾人类的居住场所而习得了些许文明。

暂且不论他们是否说了真话，就自然能同时赋予鸟类歌唱与飞翔的先决条件就很神奇了。有些人的工作就是依靠声音取悦其同类。一般来说他们要站在高处，如是，声音才会传得更远，才会有更多的人听到。因而，空气，作为传递声音的元素，应该驻有有乐感会唱歌的生物。我们的确从鸟儿的鸣叫中——依我之见，我们人类并不强于其他动物——获得了极大的安慰与快乐。我想这种快乐的感受，不是源于鸟儿们甜美的声音，不管其鸣叫多么婉转动听、千变万化、此唱彼和、相互呼应，而是源于歌曲中通常会自然而然地含有的欢快，尤其是存在于鸟类的鸣叫中的那种欢快。正可谓，好似鸟类感到愉悦和舒适时发出的一种笑声。

如是，在某些方面，鸟儿和人类共享欢笑的能力——这是其他动物所不具备的特权。实则，有人认为既然人被定义为聪慧善思的动物，也可将人充分地描绘为会笑的动物，因为他们认为笑是一个并不比理智更逊色的人类标记。这一点确实令人咋舌。虽然人类本是所有生灵中最受折磨、最痛苦的生物，却独独拥有笑的能力，而别的生物却不具备此项能力。另外值得称奇的是我们使用这项特权的方式。比如：有些人遭遇严重的事故，有些人悲恸欲绝，有些人觉得生活了无生趣，他们坚信自己没有任何优点，也无力享受一点快乐，感到万念俱灰——然而，我们发现他们会笑。其实，人们越是知道世事的浮华，越是理解生命终归是不幸福的，其期望值就会越低，也就越发不能适应对快乐的享受。越是如此，人类反而越是易于发笑。然而，笑的普遍本质以及它的内在原则和模式，以及其在头脑中所占据的部分，是很难被定义和限定的——除非承认笑是某种暂时疯狂的表现，是某种胡言乱语、神志不清的行为。因为人类从来不会感到满足，也不曾在任何事物中找到真正的快乐，所以人类并不具备一个合理的、正当的发笑的原因。研究人类如何或在何种条件下首次使用这个特权一定会很有趣。因为毫无疑问，在原始时代，人类和其他动物一样，通常十分严肃，甚至看上去郁郁寡欢。对此，我的观点是，这个世界里的笑出现于哭之后——这个问题是毫无争议的——不过，在第一次发现和体验笑之前一定有一段漫长的时光。在此期间，母亲不会冲着婴儿微笑，婴儿也不会回应母亲一个微笑——如维吉尔（Virgil）所言。因为时至今日，至少在有人类文明的地区，人出生后不久就会笑，多半是因为他周围的人在笑的缘故。我倾向于认为人类首次发笑的原因和时机可能是源于醉酒——这一点是人类种族的遗传特征。醉酒早在人类取得任何文明进步之前就已经产生了。实际上，我们知道很难找到一种原始人类没有酒，没有其他把自己灌醉的方式方法，没有无节制喝酒的习惯。切勿惊讶，因为人类远远比其他动物不快乐，因此人类比其他任何动物都热衷于在思想麻木中找到快乐，转而在忘掉自我中，或者说在生活的某个中断里找到快乐。是故，通过停止或者削减自身对痛苦的认识和感知，他们从中获得极大裨益。谈到笑这个问题，我们观察到，人类虽然在其他时段里多数神情严肃而悲伤，但在醉酒之后，却会频频发笑——不停地说话、唱歌、有悖于他们平日的习性。这些问题我会放在我即将撰写的笑的历史中去详加讨论。在完成笑的起源之后，我打算再写笑的经历、变迁和直至如今的命运——在现代，笑拥有过去所无法比拟的尊重和影响力，并在文明国度之中占据一席之地。笑所扮演的功能，在某种意义上取代了美德、正义、荣誉以及其他以往所扮演的角色，从多个方面限制，甚至是吓退人类的不良企图。现在，就鸟儿们的歌唱做一番归纳。我认为我们通常会因为看到或得知别人的快乐而感同身受——妒忌的情况除外——自然很明智地设定鸟儿的歌唱是一种欢悦与笑声的表达，因此人人喜爱；但是人类的歌唱和笑声，则要考虑到其他人的感受，应该不干扰他人。自然很聪明地确保地面上和空中挤满了能够发出响亮和严肃声响的动物，似乎是在咏唱宇宙之生命的赞歌，激励其他动物随之欢欣鼓舞，由此而营造出不间断，却是虚假的一派众生和乐的景致。

鸟儿们之所以比别的动物更快乐或更能够展示快乐不是没有深层原因的。正如我最初所示，自然确实使鸟类更加适合享受快乐和幸福。首先，鸟儿们不会遭受无聊之扰。每一刻钟它们都在变换位置，从一个区域换到另一个区域，不管其间的距离多远。从最低点飞到空中的最高点，也不过是在瞬间内就能轻松自如地完成的事情。在其生命历程中，它们看到并体验到的事情数量众多且类型各异。它们时时刻刻在锻炼身体，并有充足的户外运动。所有其他动物在吃饱喝足之后，总是安静而懒散地躺着。没有任何一种动物，除去鱼类和一些飞虫，会单单因为愉悦而撒欢奔跑。同理，原始人——只要每日能喂饱自己就不会多走一步，他所需做的工作通常简短且简单。除了暴风雨来临，或者被野兽追逐或其他类似状况之外——原始人大多喜欢安逸和无动于衷。他整日无声无息地、无所事事地呆坐在破旧的小茅草屋里打发时间，要么待在户外、石缝里、悬崖上或岩石的洞穴里。与之相反，鸟儿们很少长时间地停留在一个地方。它们不停地飞来飞去不是因为需要什么，而是为了快乐而飞翔。有时，它们从自己居住的海边飞上几百英里，在傍晚时分又飞回原地。即便是在一个地方做短暂停留，你也不会看见它们安静地坐着。它们总是左转右转，一会儿踱步，一会儿弯腰，一会儿伸伸脖子，一会儿摇一摇，活泼敏捷地振翅，动作迅疾无以言状。总之，鸟儿从破壳而出的那一刻直至死亡，除去中间的睡眠时间，它不会停息一分钟。以上观察的结果是，很明显，从本质上来讲，其他动物包括人类的正常状态是休息，而鸟类则是运动。

与上述品质及外在条件相呼应的是内在条件，即：头脑条件——这点促使它们比别的动物更加适合感受幸福。它们的听力极为敏锐，它们的视力是我们难以想象的发达和完美。具备了这些能力，它们便可以整天享受层出不穷、千变万化的景象：从高高的云霄里，它们能一眼看到大片开阔的区域，并同时能用眼睛清晰地区分出不同地方。这一点也是人类难以理解的。从此现象中，我们推测它们一定拥有强大的力量、活力和无限的想象力。鸟儿们的这种想象力不属于那种深沉、热烈、疾风暴雨，如但丁（Dante）和塔索（Tasso）那般的想象力——后者如同一个致命的礼物，是最糟糕的永恒痛苦与焦虑的根源——鸟儿们拥有的是一种丰富的、变化的、轻盈的、不稳定的、如孩童般的想象力，是愉快和快乐思想的取之不竭的源泉，是自然赋予生物的最慷慨的、最伟大的、最有用处的礼物。正因如此，鸟儿们拥有无限的之于精神愉悦息息相关的能力，并同时缺少有毒害的、痛苦的东西。由于它们的外在生活异常丰富，带动其内在生活也非常丰富，由此产生的优势和快乐非常类似于孩童的那般——绝非是成人一般会有的拙劣和痛苦。因为鸟儿们的活泼和外在的好动性明显展露出与儿童类似的一面，故而我们可以合理假设它们与儿童的内心也很相似。假如孩童般的幸福可以出现在其他年龄段里，而其他年龄段里的疾病不会比儿童时期的疾病更严重，也许人类就有理由慢慢忍受生命的种种了。

依我之见，从某些方面看，鸟类本质的完美性超越其他动物。譬如，当我们考虑到鸟类在视力以及听力方面都远远超越其他动物，根据生物的自然法则，这两项属于主要感官。于是，可以得出这样的结论：鸟类的本性比其他生物的本性更完美。此外，正如我们所见，其他动物自然而然地倾向于休息，而鸟类则倾向于运动——运动要比休息更富有活力。生命实际上是由运动构成的，而鸟类比别的动物具有更多的户外活动——另外，如果视力和听力优于其他动物，这两项也是鸟类们最突出的能力，是否当作生物最典型的特征？因为这两项能力本身就很鲜明且动性强，并且其带给动物的习惯以及内外在效果都很显著。最后，考虑到上述一些情况，结论是鸟类比其他动物拥有更多的外在和内在生命。现在，假如生命的完美多于不完美——至少在生物里如此——假如生命越有活力就是完美的话，那么，结论就是鸟儿的本性更完美。在这一点上，我们不要忘了鸟儿同样能忍耐极度的寒冷和炎热，穿梭在两者之间甚至不用太多时间过渡一下。事实上，我们常常看到，几乎是在瞬间，他们已然从地面冲向凌霄，几乎相当于是在极寒的地区，并且它们能在很短的时间里穿越多种气候。

最后，阿克那里翁（Anacreon）曾许愿他愿意变成一面镜子，这样他的爱人就可以天天看他；他愿意变成一件裙子，这样就可以穿在她身上；他愿意变成油膏擦拭她的身体；他愿意变成水供她沐浴；他愿意变成胸带，这样她就可以把他紧紧抱在胸前；他愿意变成一串项链挂在她脖子上；他愿意变成鞋子，至少她会用脚挤压他——同样地，我也希望可以有一会儿变成一只飞鸟，这样我就可以体验到它们生命中的满足与快乐。

伟大的野公鸡之歌

某些希伯来学者和作家们声称在天与地之间，或者确切地说是一半在空中，一半在地面，生活着一只野公鸡。它脚踏地面，喙与鸡冠顶着天空。你可以在那些作家的作品里读到对它这些特征的描述，此外，这个体形庞大的公鸡还具备思考的能力。否则，诚然，便无异于鹦鹉，说着不知被谁教会的人类的语言。实则，有一首歌名为“Scir detarnegòl bara letzafra”，即：伟大的野公鸡之晨歌，其原版为希伯来文。这首歌的用语混合了秘术家用语、塔古姆用语、犹太教法学博士语言、犹太教神秘哲学语言以及犹太法典语言，它被写在了一块旧羊皮纸上。我尽力理解并翻译成下列我们所使用的文字。在此期间，我为之付出了艰辛的劳动并同时请教了若干犹太教祭司、犹太教神秘哲学者、神学家、法理学家以及犹太哲学家。目前我尚不确定的是，这只公鸡是时不时地吟唱这首歌还是在每日清晨吟唱？抑或仅唱过一次？有谁经常听到这首歌或曾经听到过这歌声？歌词语言是否属于公鸡语言？这首歌是否是从另一种语言翻译过来的？就目前的版本，我已经穷尽一切可能使之忠实于原文，我认为最好使用散文体而不是诗体，尽管事实上它是一首诗。其行文中有不连贯之处，偶尔也会有浮夸语体，但这些不该由我负责，因为译本首先是忠于原文的。在此处，需要符合东方语言的习惯，尤其是要符合他们的诗人标准。

起来吧，凡人，苏醒！新的一天又开始了。真理回归世界，虚假的影像离去。起来，重拾生活之重担，从虚假之国回归真理世界。

在这一刻，每个人都在头脑里回顾并审视他生命中的全部想法，回想他的计划、努力、需要处理的事情，并自行想象一下在新的一天里可能会遇到的快乐与痛苦。每个人都会在此时更加强烈地渴望找到快乐的期望和愉悦的思想。当然没什么人真的实现了上述愿望。因为苏醒对于每个人来说是不幸的。可怜的人儿刚刚醒来，马上就落入各自不幸福的手中。最甜蜜的事情是睡眠，由快乐与希望相结合带来的睡眠——这种状态会全须全尾地一直持续到天明，之后，它们就会消失不见。

如果凡人的睡眠是永恒的，是与生命等同的话；如果在启明星照耀下，所有活物在地球各处以最无声的方式憔悴着，没有任何活动痕迹：草地上没有牛儿在哞哞地叫，森林里没有野兽在咆哮，天空中没有鸟儿在歌唱，乡间没有蝴蝶在低语、蜜蜂在嗡嗡叫；没有任何声音，没有任何活动的迹象，除了水涨起、风刮起和暴风雨袭来；那么，这个宇宙也就真的毫无用处了。那时是否比会比现在痛苦更多，幸福更少？我问你，哦，太阳，白日的主宰和我们清醒时的保护者，到目前为止你所历经的多少个世纪里，在升起又落下之间，你是否曾见到过一个生物曾经幸福地生活过？截至目前你所见到的凡人无数的成就里，你是否认为至少有一个人实现了他的目标：满足感，即他从他的成功中获得了持久或暂时的满足？你现在是否看见，或者说你曾看见这四海之内可有幸福的存在？幸福到底居住在哪块田野，哪片森林，哪座山峰，哪条峡谷，是在有人居住的地方还是在不毛之地？还是它藏在你的光芒所能照射到并赋予温暖的众多星球中的某个上面？也许，幸福躲在你的视线之外，藏在幽深的洞穴里，也许在地心或海底深处？什么样的活物有幸知道幸福是什么？哪种植物，或其他任何被你赋予生命的生物体，有哪些被赐予幸福？有哪些被剥夺了幸福？又有哪些植物或动物知晓幸福？还有你自己，就像一个不知疲倦的巨人，从不睡觉和休息，日夜急速行进在你的既定行程上，你是幸福的还是不幸福的？

凡人快醒来！你还在受生的束缚。迟早会有一天，无论是外界力量，还是内在力量，都无法把你从沉睡中唤醒。彼时，你将永远地、尽情地安息。你尚未被允许死去。仅仅是间或，你被允许暂时诈死一小会儿。因为若非时不时暂停一会儿，生命就难以为续。倘若过度渴求这种本来就短暂易逝的浅眠，其本身就是致命的，将会招致永久长眠。生活就是如此，为了能够忍受生活的种种，我们必须时不时地放下它，获得一点喘息的机会，用死亡的滋味或几乎是少许死亡让我们重新振作起来。

事物最本质的一面似乎是以死亡为真正且唯一的目的。一切存在源于虚无，因为不存在就不会有死亡。可以确定的是存在的最终目的不是幸福，因为没有什么是幸福的。诚然，活着的生物每做一项工作都是以此为目的的，但是没有一项能带给他们幸福。在他们整个的生命历程里，他们奋斗、克己、遭受痛苦，无一不是在苦苦追索自然制定的这个唯一的目标：死亡。

正常情况下，一天里的清晨是生物们最容易忍受的时段。在苏醒的一刻里，很少有人头脑里充斥着快乐愉悦的思想。但是很快，几乎人人会产生和形成某些快乐的思想。因为在那个时段里，人的头脑总是极易高兴的，即便没有任何特定或特殊的原因，它会比一天内其他时段都更适于忍受生活的不幸。因此，当一个人入睡时充满了绝望，在第二天醒来时他又重新找到了希望，即便这种希望来得毫无缘由。很多不幸和个人困扰、很多恐惧和悲痛的根源会在此时显得要比头天晚上渺小许多。甚至，前一天的煎熬会在今天被嘲笑，会被斥之为幻想和空想的结果。夜晚被比作老年，而早晨被比作青年，总是从容而自信；夜晚则是悲伤的、沮丧的、充满了各种不幸的先兆。但是正如人的青春那般短暂，凡人每天所体验的早晨时光也是极为短促且转瞬即逝，很快白天也会变得年迈不堪。

尽管是生命中的最好部分，我们的盛年依旧是痛苦的。实际上，哪怕仅仅是这丁点幸运也会在短时间内消失殆尽，以致人们很快发现诸多逐渐衰老的迹象。他还未曾体验到生命的完美，还未曾感受到和知晓生命的力量，就已经开始减弱。但凡世间的生灵，他们的绝大部分生命是在慢慢枯萎中度过。自然在其所有的创造里都毫不掩饰地指向了死亡：这正是为什么衰老如此显著、如此清晰、如此长久、如此普遍的原因。宇宙的每一部分都在不知疲倦地奔向死亡，速度迅猛且毫不迟疑。似乎只有宇宙本身不受衰败和凋萎的侵蚀。因为假如在秋天和冬天里，它的生命变得虚弱和衰老；那么，到春天时就一定又青春焕发。当然，就如凡人每天清晨都会感觉年轻一些，尽管实际上每天都在变老，直至吐出最后一口气。宇宙也一样，每年年初重新变得年轻，尽管它其实在不断衰老。总有一天宇宙和自然本身也将不复存在。就好似曾经无比伟大的人类王国和帝国，以及该时代的不朽成就，虽然辉煌一时，但终究会被遗忘。这整个世界也如是这般，所有生命体经历无数变迁和灾难之后，最终不会留下一丝痕迹。取而代之的将是无边的沉寂和深邃的静谧。如此一来，宇宙生命所带来的惊人的、令人不安的秘密，会在它被宣布和了解之前就已经消失得无影无踪了。

哥白尼的任务

第一幕

第一时辰和太阳

第一时辰　早上好，阁下。

太　阳　早上好，或者该说，晚上好。

第一时辰　马车为您备好了。

太　阳　好的。

第一时辰　启明星已经升起一段时间了。

太　阳　她想来就来，想走就走。

第一时辰　您这是什么意思呢，阁下？

太　阳　我的意思是你别来烦我。

第一时辰　可是，阁下，夜晚已经持续了很久，不能再拖延下去了。倘若再行耽搁，阁下，就会有奇怪的事情发生。

太　阳　无论发生什么，我都不打算动一下。

第一时辰　哦，阁下，这是怎么啦？您感觉不舒服吗？

太　阳　不，没有，我没有感觉不舒服。我就是不想动。你呢，去忙自己的事吧。

第一时辰　要是您不配合的话，我怎么忙呢？我是白日的第一个时辰，要是阁下您不能发发慈悲像往常一样出来的话，这一天会变成什么样子？

太　阳　如果不能属于白天，那你还是归属夜晚吧——要不就让夜晚时辰加一次班，你和你的白日小伙伴们就可以休息了。因为，你知道吗？我已经厌倦了每天不停地旋转只为照亮那些生活在一小撮泥土上的小生物们——他们才那么一丁点儿，我这么好的视力几乎都看不到呢。今晚，我决定不再因为这点小事麻烦了。假如人类需要光线的话，他们可以生火照明或找些其他途径解决。

第一时辰　但是，阁下，您让那些可怜的人儿们怎么找呢？若是他们的灯笼和那么多蜡烛整日点燃着，可是非常昂贵的花销啊。假如他们已经找到某种非常便宜的气体，可以用来烧火、照明街道、点亮房间、商店、阁楼和其他地方的话，那么我会觉得事情还不算太糟糕。但是，实际情况是，距人们发现这种气体之前还有差不多三百年的时间呢。在此期间，他们会耗尽燃油、蜡烛、树脂和动物脂。最后，他们就没有什么可供燃烧的东西了。

太　阳　他们可以去抓些萤火虫和发光虫用来照明。

第一时辰　那他们怎样御寒呢？若是没有阁下您的襄助，森林中的所有树木都不足以保证他们取暖。他们还会被饿死，因为地球不再结果子了。在短短几年内，那些可怜的动物种族将会消失。接下来的一段时间里，他们在地球上的一片黑暗中四处摸索着，找寻可以吃的食物和取暖之用。最终，没有任何可以吞咽的食物，最后一星火焰熄灭，那时他们所有人就会在黑暗中死去，就像冻僵的岩水晶一样。

太　阳　我为什么要管这些？我，难道说，是人类种族的奶妈吗？还是负责给他们准备及烹饪食物的厨子？我为什么要关心那些几百万英里之外的我根本看不到的小东西们，就因为没有我的光芒他们看不见，也不能取暖吗？那么，如果说，我必须成为供他们取暖的加热器或火炉的话，合理的状况是他们一家人想取暖就应该自己到火炉边来，而不是火炉围着他们的房子旋转。所以，如果地球需要我的光芒，就请她自己围着我转或者想些办法得到它。就我个人而言，我不需要地球的任何东西，也不需要去照看她。

第一时辰　阁下您的意思是说，假如我理解无误的话，现在地球应该做您以前一直在做的事情？

太　阳　是的，现在，从现在开始到永远。

第一时辰　阁下您说的无疑很有道理。况且，您可以随意而为。不过，还是请您考虑一下，如果您建立新的世界秩序的话，会有多少美丽的事物因此而毁于一旦？白天再也没有美丽的金色战车，也没有那些美丽的战马，它们通常会在大海里沐浴。更别提及其他的细枝末节了。就连我们这些时辰们也不会在天上拥有一席之地了，我们会从天庭侍女变成陆地女子。根据我的预测，除非我们变成青烟才得以重返天庭。即便如此，问题是如何说服地球开始转动呢？想必会很难，因为她尚不习惯这么做。她会觉得这么不停地跑下去、这么浪费力气很奇怪，以前她可从未曾离开她的位置半步。假如阁下您好像都冒出了偷懒的念头，我听说地球并没有比过去勤快一丁点儿啊。

太　阳　在这种情况下，需求会激励她，会逼迫她不得不去跑去跳。但是，最快速也是最确定的方法就是找到一位诗人或自然哲学家，去劝说地球移动。万一劝说失败，也可以强行迫使她移动。从长远来看，这种事情主要由诗人们和自然哲学家们负责。实际上，他们几乎能胜任任何事情。过去，那些诗人们（那时，我年轻尚且听话），他们用美丽的颂歌诱导我——我这么又肥又大的一个人——心甘情愿地去做那项围着一小堆儿沙子拼命疯跑的极度愚蠢的工作，并把它当作一种运动或一种高尚的锻炼。可是，现在我的年纪大些了，我开始转向信仰哲学。做每件事时，我要看它是否有用而不是漂不漂亮。诗人们的伤感情怀，不是让我作呕，就是让我忍俊不禁地大笑。在做每件事前，我总要三思而后行。我发现劳神劳力的生活并不比舒适悠闲的生活更可取——因为这样的生活并不会产生值得你费神费力的成果（在这个世界上，成果一文不值）——我下定决心把劳累和不舒适留给别人。至于我，就安静地留在家里无所事事。我的观念之所以发生了转变，除了部分出于年龄的原因，还如我之前所说的是由于哲学家们而改变的——这些人目前已经开始得势，并且有如日中天的趋势。所以，假如我希望地球能够移动并取代我奔跑的话，诗人在某一方面会比自然哲学家、甚至科学家更能胜任。诗人们，通过讲一两个故事，就能让人们相信世界上的事情真的有价值、很重要，是美丽和愉快的。他们创造出一千种愉快的希望，借此劝诱人们努力和拼命工作。反之，哲学家则会起到劝阻作用。但是，既然哲学家已经占据上风，我担心现在地球也会像我一样不会任诗人摆布。假如没有人听诗人的话，他自然就束手无策了。因此，我认为最好还是请自然哲学家或科学家来帮忙。尽管哲学家们通常不适合也不愿意劝说他人工作，不过在这个极端情况下，他们也许会尽力做些意料之外的努力——除非地球决定与其如此大费周章还不如直接毁灭合适——在那种情况下，我也不能说她做错了。够了，让我们静观其变吧。现在，去做这个：到地球上去，或者派你的一个姊妹，或任何一个你觉得合适的人跑一趟。如果她发现任何一位自然哲学家，站在屋外新鲜的空气里，正在研究天空和星体——因为我们可以很合理地推断她一定会找到这么一位，因为夜已经太长了——不要耽搁，把他带上来，扛在肩上，火速带来见我。我会说服他去做该做的事情。你明白了吗？

第一时辰　是。阁下。我马上照办。

第二幕

（站在阳台上，用一个小纸筒观察东方的天空——

因为彼时还没有发明天文望远镜）

哥白尼真是难以置信。莫不是所有的钟表都坏了？否则太阳早在一小时之前就应该升起来了。可是东方仍看不到一丝光亮，尽管天空如镜面般清澈透明。所有的星星在闪烁着，似乎仍在夜里。现在，赶紧去查阅《天文学大成》和萨克罗博斯科（Sacrobosco）的相关书籍，问问他们是否能就此现象解释一番。我常听人说朱庇特会在夜间和底比斯王的妻子幽会。我还记得我最近读过的一本由一位西班牙人撰写的现代书。书里提及秘鲁人说在古时候，他们的国家曾经有一个特别漫长的夜晚，实际上，是一个永远不会结束的夜。最后，太阳从一个叫作的的喀喀（Titicaca）湖里出来了。此前，我一直以为这是一派胡言。像所有有理性的人一样，我确信它的确如此。现在，我意识到科学和理智根本一文不值嘛。我决定相信那些传言以及类似的东西很有可能完全是真实的。实际上，我正准备去我能找到的所有湖泊，还有沼泽看一看，看我是否能碰巧把太阳捞上来。但是，我听到这震耳欲聋的声响是什么——似乎是一只巨鸟拍打翅膀的声音？

第三幕

最后时辰和哥白尼

最后时辰　哥白尼，我是最后时辰。

哥 白 尼　最后时辰？好吧，我也无能为力。假如，如果可能的话，请留给我足够的时间写遗嘱以及安排身后的事宜——在我死之前。

最后时辰　你是什么意思，“死”吗？我不是生命的最后时辰。

哥 白 尼　那你是谁？是每日祈祷时间的最后时辰吗？

最后时辰　我敢确定较其他时段你更喜欢最后时辰——当你在唱诗班里时。

哥 白 尼　不过，你怎么知道我是一位咏礼司铎？你怎么认识我的？你刚才在呼唤我的名字。

最后时辰　我刚刚从前面的街上打听到你的信息。总之，我是白天的最后时辰。

哥 白 尼　啊，我明白了。第一个时辰病了，所以我们看不到白天。

最后时辰　请允许我说下去。白天再也不会来了——不仅是今天，还有明天，永远不会再来了，倘若您不打算做些什么的话。

哥 白 尼　真有意思！似乎我的工作就是造白天似的！

最后时辰　我会告诉您怎么做。但是首先您必须立即跟我去我的主人太阳的府邸。路上我会详细解释。我们到达后，太阳阁下将会亲自跟您解释一下。

哥 白 尼　好吧。但如果我没理解错的话，这趟旅行会很漫长。我怎么才能带够充足的食物，以保证我在到达前的几年内不会被饿死？况且，我不认为太阳阁下的土地会生产什么能供吃一餐的东西。

最后时辰　别担心这些。您不会在太阳府邸待太久。这趟旅行也仅仅是瞬间的事——因为，恐怕您还不知道，我是个精灵。

哥 白 尼　可我只是个凡胎肉体。

最后时辰　好吧。您完全不需要担心这些事情，您又不是一位玄学哲学家。来吧，坐在我肩上，看我的。

哥 白 尼　好的。出发……不知道事情最后会是什么样。

第四幕

哥白尼和太阳

哥白尼　您好，最明亮先生。

太　阳　请你见谅，哥白尼，我没法请你坐下，因为我们没有椅子。我们的谈话很快就会结束。从我的仆人那里，你一定听说你此行所为何事了。我个人认为——以及我从侍女们那里了解到的你的能力——我想你完全能胜任这项工作。

哥白尼　先生，我觉得这份工作困难重重。

太　阳　困难不会吓跑你这类人的。事实上，人们常说困难只会增加勇敢者的勇气。那么，有什么困难呢？

哥白尼　首先，不论自然哲学和科学的力量有多么强大，我不能确定它们可以强大到足够说服地球去运转而不是舒舒服服地坐着，或是说服地球去工作和劳累而不是悠闲地待着。尤其考虑到我们这个时代并不是一个英雄主义时代。

太　阳　那么，如果不能说服她的话，就强迫她。

哥白尼　我很乐意一试，我的光明先生。假如我是海格立斯（Hercules）或者是罗兰（Roland），而不是一个从沃尔姆斯（Worms）来的小小咏礼司铎的话。

太　阳　这俩者又有什么关系？听说你们中有一位古算术家过去曾说，只要他能站在世界之外，毫无疑问他就能移动天空和地球？现在，你不需要移动天空，你现在站在地球之外，因此，如果你不比那位先贤更笨的话，你就能移动地球，不用管她乐不乐意。

哥白尼　我亲爱的先生，我可以这么做。但是我需要一个撬棍。这支撬棍会很长，长到不仅是我，就连您自己，不论您有多么富有，都没有能力支付所消耗的材料及人工的费用。另一个更严重的困难是下列问题：事实上，这个问题更像是一团乱麻。截至目前为止，地球一直占据宇宙第一的位置，也就是，中心位置。您也知道，她一直是一动不动地坐着，除了环视一下宇宙的其他星球，基本无事可做。其他或大或小，或明亮或暗淡的星球，从她头顶、身边或脚下转过，每个都行色匆匆，如此紧张，如此激烈，以至于我们即便想上一想都会觉得头晕目眩。如此，一切似乎都是为她服务的。宇宙看上去好像一个皇庭，地球似乎端坐在宝座上，其他星球围在她周围，像朝臣、护卫、仆人，各自忙着自己的活计。正因如此，地球一直认为自己是宇宙的女王。实际上，假如情况仍同过去一样的话，我们不能说她的想法是毫无道理的。事实上，我不能否认她的这一想法是建立在良好的基础之上的。那么，我再告诉您人类又会有什么反应。我们认为，并将永远认为，我们自己才是地球所有生灵中第一个同时也是最重要的生物。我们每一个人，即便衣衫褴褛，即便只啃着一小块干面包，无一不觉得自己如国王般重要。这个国王不是君士坦丁堡的君主，德国的君主，或半个地球的君主——例如过去的罗马皇帝——而是整个宇宙的君主，太阳的君主，所有行星的君主，也是所有看得见的、看不见的恒星们的君主。他还是万物之源，是所有恒星、行星，还有阁下您及一切的最终渊源。但是现在，假如我们要求地球放弃现在的中心位置，让她奔跑、转动，不停地忙碌，去做那些到目前为止只有其他星球才做的事情；最后，她会变为其他星球中的一员——这就意味着逼迫地球陛下以及人类的皇帝陛下们禅位，并放弃王国——他们只剩下司空常见的破衣烂衫和凄楚悲凉。

太　阳　你到底在说什么呀？我亲爱的尼古拉（Nicholas）神父？也许你是害怕这个行为会招致叛国罪？

哥白尼　不是这样的，最明亮先生；要是我没有记错的话，没有任何一部法典、法律精要、公法丛书、帝国法、民法、自然法中曾提及过此类叛国罪。但是，我的意思是说我们的这项任务不像乍看上去那样，是简单的物质层面的事情。它的后果不单单显示在物理层面上。因为它将会颠覆尊卑秩序阶梯上的所有阶层以及事物的现存秩序。它将会扭转生物们的目标，由此将会引起玄学中前所未有的巨大变革，并波及其他任何涉及思辨方面知识的领域。因此，如果人类有能力并且愿意进行理性思考的话，他们会发现自己和之前的自己完全不同，并且和他们之前自己对自我的认识也完全不一样。

太　阳　孩子，这些事都不会吓倒我。因为我既尊重玄学也尊重物理学，同样也尊重化学——或者如果你愿意还有通灵术。人类应该对他们现有的样子感到满足。假使他们不喜欢现在的样子，那就让他们继续进行他们颠三倒四的推理，继续反驳事实性证据，毕竟在这些方面他们都得心应手。如是，他们还会继续把自己假想成想象中的样子——男爵、公爵、皇帝或其他什么他们喜欢的样子。这些会带给他们安慰。他们的评判不会对我有丝毫影响。

哥白尼　好的。我们先不谈人类和地球。但是，请考虑一下，我的最明亮先生，我们试想一下其他星球会怎样。当他们看到地球变成他们中的一员，做着和他们同样的事，他们不会愿意再这么光秃秃和灰扑扑的，像以前一样荒凉和凄惨——凭什么地球可以有这么多装饰？他们也同样想拥有河流、海洋、山脉、植被以及动物和居民。因为他们看不到自己为什么要低于地球的级别？宇宙也将会发生一个巨大变革：每一处都会有无数新家庭像雨后春笋般冒出来。

太　阳　那你就让他们冒出来呗。让他们自由发展。我的光和热已经足够他们所有人使用——不会增加多余的费用。宇宙有足够的储备供他们吃饭、穿衣、居住，并慷慨地善待他们而不会因此而负债。

哥白尼　但是，最明亮先生，请再仔细考虑一下。您将会看到另外一个混乱局面。那些星星们，当他们看到你坐着，不是坐在板凳上而是坐在御座上，四周围绕着这么美丽的朝廷和众多的行星——他们，也同样地，不会满足于要求坐下休息，还会要求上位。为了统治需要，必须有臣民。因此，他们会要求像您一样——每人都有自己的行星。这些新的行星也同样需要像地球一样被装饰和被居住。此处，我不再向您提及可怜的人类了——与当前世界相比他们已经无足轻重。无以计数的世界蜂拥而出，连银河里最小的星星都拥有了行星，未来将会变成什么？即便我们只考虑您的得失，让我来说到目前为止，您的位置至少是第二位的，仅次于地球——没有人能和您匹敌，因为其他星星绝没有胆量和您相提并论。但是，在这个新宇宙世界里，您有很多同级，因为它们也有自己的世界。请慎之又慎，以确保您所做的这种改变不会损伤你的尊严。

太　阳　你难道不记得你们的凯撒大帝曾说过，在他穿越阿尔卑斯（Alps）山脉时，他碰巧路过一些可怜的野人的茅草屋——他说他宁愿做那个茅草屋的第一人也不愿做罗马的第二人？同理，我宁愿做我的世界里的第一人，也不愿意做宇宙的第二名。但是，我改变现状的初衷不是野心，而仅仅是对安宁的热爱。更确切地说，是对懒散的热爱。所以，我不在乎有没有同级，也不在乎是在第一位还是最后一位。我和西塞罗（Cicero）不同，我感兴趣的是悠闲而不是尊严。

哥白尼　最明亮先生，只要我力所能及，我会尽全力助您实现您的悠闲。不过，恐怕即便我帮您实现这个愿望，它也不会持久。首先，我几乎可以肯定用不了多少年，您就得被迫和水井里的滑轮一样，或像石磨一样转个不休——尽管您没有移动位置。进而，我怀疑最终，也就是迟早，您会发现您不得不再次奔跑。我不是说绕着地球跑。不过，您又不会在乎这些？也许您的自转就是您再次奔跑的原因。好了，即使如此，不管困难如何、如何筹措，如果您还是坚持先前的决定，我将会鼎力相助。如若本次方案最终无果，您要相信我确实能力欠佳——而别说我并不是个果敢的人。

太　阳　好的，我的哥白尼，请试一下。

哥白尼　只剩下一个困难了。

太　阳　告诉我，是什么？

哥白尼　我不想因为这件事，而把自己像凤凰那样活活烧死。如果真的发生了，我感觉我肯定不可能像那只鸟似的从灰烬中重生。所以，从现在起我不会再出现在阁下您面前了。

太　阳　听着，哥白尼，你知道在你们的哲学家和科学家还未出生的时候——我的意思是说——当诗人占据主导位置的时候——我曾经是个预言家。现在请你让我最后一次预测未来，根据我古代的记忆，我希望你能相信我。从而，我会告诉你之后发生了什么。即使那些支持你的人被烧焦了或遭遇类似情况，但是你自己，如我能看到的，不会因此而受苦。假如你想更安全一些的话，遵循这个建议：请你把这本你撰写的书献给教皇。这样，我保证你甚至不会失去你的祭司位置。

年历小贩和一名路人的对话

小贩　年历，新年历。新日历，您需要年历吗，先生？

路人　新年年历？

小贩　是的，先生。

路人　你觉得这个新年会很快乐吗？

小贩　当然，先生，肯定的。

路人　跟去年一样？

小贩　比去年好，好很多呢。

路人　会和前年一样吗？

小贩　比前年好，先生，好很多呢。

路人　但是，新年会像哪一年呢？你不希望新年像以往的某一年一样吗？

小贩　不，先生，我不想。

路人　你是多少年前开始卖年历的？

小贩　肯定是二十年前了，先生。

路人　你希望今年的新年像过去二十年中的哪一个？

小贩　我？我不知道。

路人　你难道不记得某个感觉特别幸福的新年吗？

小贩　说真的，我不知道，先生。

路人　但是生活是美丽的，不是吗？

小贩　这个大家都知道的。

路人　你难道不想把这二十年重新再过一遍吗？从你出生那天开始，过去所有的年月？

小贩　嗯，我亲爱的先生，我祈求上帝可以让我这样。

路人　但是，假如是让你过和以前一模一样的生活怎么样——经历它所有的痛苦和欢乐？

小贩　我可不希望这样。

路人　那么，你希望重新过什么样的生活呢？是我这样的生活？或者是一个王子的生活？还是别的什么人的生活？你是否想过，无论是我、王子，还是其他人，都会给出和你一样的回答？假如能够重新把以前的生活再过一遍，没有人会乐意这么做？

小贩　我也这么想的。

路人　你不愿意再回去，除非换另一种生活？

小贩　对，先生，我真的不愿意。

路人　不过，你希望过哪种生活呢？

小贩　任何一种，上帝给我哪种都可以，只要没有附加条件就行。

路人　随便哪一种。事先也不知道，就像我们不知道新年会是什么样似的？

小贩　完全正确。

路人　如果我能够重新生活，我也会这么选择。每个人大抵都会如此吧？但是这意味着截至今年年底，命运对每个人都未加以善待啊。很明显，每个人都认为分给自己的不幸多于，或大于幸运——如果要把以前的生活再过一遍，重新经历它所有的好与恶，没有人愿意重生。美丽的人生不是我们已知的人生，而是未知的人生，它不是过去的人生，而是将来的人生。这个新年，命运将会善待你、我和所有人，幸福的人生即将开始。不是吗？

小贩　希望如此吧。

路人　那好，让我看一下你最漂亮的年历。

小贩　给您，先生，一共三十分。

路人　这是三十分。

小贩　谢谢您，先生，再见。年历，新年历，新日历。

Dialogue Between Hercules and Atlas

HERCULES. Father Atlas, Jove sends me and wants me to bring you his greetings, and in case you are tired of that burden, he wants me to take it on my shoulders for a few hours, as I did I don't remember how many centuries ago, so that you can catch your breath and rest a little.

ATLAS. I thank you, my little Hercules; I also feel much obliged to His Majesty Jove. But the world has become so light that this cloak I wear to protect myself from the snow is much heavier. And if it weren't that Jove forces me to stand still here, balancing this little ball on my back, I'd put it under my arm or in my pocket, or I'd let it dangle from a hair of my beard, and then I'd go about my business.

HERCULES. How has it gotten so light? I can see that it has changed shape and that it has become like a bread roll, and it's no longer round as it was when I studied cosmography for that enormous voyage with the Argonauts, but still, I don't understand why it should weigh less than it used to.

ATLAS. I don't know the reason either. But you can verify its lightness yourself if you take it in your hand for a moment and feel its weight.

HERCULES. By Hercules, if I hadn't felt it myself, I could never have believed it. But what kind of novelty is this that I discover? The last time I carried it, it throbbed strongly on my back, like the heart of an animal, and it made a continuous buzzing roar that sounded like a hornet's nest. But now, it ticks like a watch with a broken spring; and it doesn't make the slightest buzz of any kind.

ATLAS. I can't explain this either except that a long time ago the world stopped giving signs of any motion and noise; and, personally, I had a very strong suspicion that it was dead, and from day to day I expected to be infected with its stench. So I was trying to figure out how and where I could bury it and the kind of inscription I should put over its grave. But when I saw that it didn't rot, I concluded that from the animal that it was at first it had turned into a plant, like Daphne and many others, and that this was the reason it didn't stir or breathe. And even now I am afraid that it will soon put down roots and plant them into my shoulders.

HERCULES. I rather believe that it is asleep and that this sleep is of the same kind as that of Epimenides, which lasted more than half a century; or that of Hermotimus, whose soul, they say, used to leave his body whenever it wanted to and remain absent for many years, happily wandering about various countries and then coming back – until his friends, to put an end to such pranks, burned the body. And so when the spirit returned to get back into its home, it found it destroyed, and if it wanted a lodging, it had either to rent another one or to go to an inn. But to make sure that the world will not sleep forever and that some friend or benefactor won't set it on ffire, thinking that it is dead, I say that we should try to wake it up.

ATLAS. Good. But how?

HERCULES. I'd let it have a good whack of my club; but I am afraid I'd thoroughly flatten it into a pancake; or perhaps I'd crack it like an egg since its shell feels so light that it must have become quite thin. And I'm not so sure that men, who used to fight lions with their bare hands, and now fight fleas, wouldn't all faint away from the blow. The best thing is for me to get rid of my club and for you to take off your cloak and then for us to play ball with this tiny globe. I'm sorry I haven't brought the gauntlets or rackets Mercury and I use when we play in Jove's house or his back yard, but our fists should be enough.

ATLAS. Good idea! And what if your father, seeing us play, feels like joining us in the game and throws one of his fireballs and makes us tumble – who knows where – just like Phaethon into the Po?

HERCULES. True, if, like Phaethon, I were a poet's son and not his and if I weren't such that – while poets peopled the cities by the sounds of their lyres – I could unpeople heaven and earth by the sound of my club. And with a kick I would send his fireball flying all the way to the last ceiling of the Empyrean. But you can be sure that even if I got it into my head to unnail five or six stars for a game of cobnuts or to do target shooting with a comet and use it as a sling by holding it by the tail or even to use the sun itself in discus throwing, my father would pretend not to see. Then, in this game our intention is to do good to the world, and it is not like that of Phaethon, who wanted to show off his agility to the hours, who held his stepping block when he climbed into the cart and who also wanted to gain the reputation of being a good charioteer with Andromeda and Callisto and with the other fair constellations, to whom, as we are told, he flung in passing bouquets of rays and candied little balls of light. In fact, he wanted to make a show of himself before the gods during their promenade that day, which, as you know, was a holiday. So don't worry about my father's being angry; in any case, I promise that I will pay you the damages. Now let's get going. Take off your cloak and throw the ball.

ATLAS. Like it or not, I'd better do as you say; you're strong and armed, and I'm old and without weapons. At least be careful not to let it fall so that it doesn't get any more bumps and doesn't get bruised or cracked, as when Sicily broke off from Italy and Africa from Spain; or a splinter may tear off – like a province or a kingdom – and there may be a war as a result.

HERCULES. Don't worry.

ATLAS. Your turn to serve. Don't you see that it's limping because it's out of shape?

HERCULES. Come on. Hit it harder; your serves don't reach me.

ATLAS. It's not the hitting; the wind comes from the southwest, as is usual here, and the ball is carried by the wind – it's so light.

HERCULES. It's the same old story; always chasing after the wind.

ATLAS. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to inflate it, for it doesn't bounce off the ffist any more than a melon does.

HERCULES. This is a new flaw, for in ancient times it bounced and jumped like a mountain goat.

ATLAS. Run! Quick! Quick! I say. Don't let it fall; damn the moment you came here!

HERCULES. You served it to me so badly and so low that I couldn't have caught it even if I'd broken my neck running. Oh, poor thing, how are you? Did you hurt yourself? I can't hear anyone breathing; I can't see a soul stirring; they're all still asleep.

ATLAS. Let me have it, by all the horns of the Styx, so that I may settle it again on my shoulders. And you pick up your club, and go back to heaven as fast as you can, and apologize for me to Jove for this accident, which was all your fault.

HERCULES. I'll do so. For many centuries a certain poet by the name of Horace has been a guest in my father's house, where he was admitted as court poet upon the recommendation of Augustus, who had been deified by Jove out of consideration for the power of the Romans. This poet keeps singing certain songs of his; in one of them he says that a just man remains unmoved even if the world falls. I must think that now all men are just, for the world has fallen and no one has moved.

ATLAS. Who ever doubted the justice of men? But stop wasting time; run and hurry to clear me with your father; for I am afraid that at any moment a thunder-bolt will turn me from Atlas into Etna.

Dialogue Between Fashion and Death

FASHION. Madam Death, Madam Death.

DEATH. Wait for your time, and I'll come without your calling me.

FASHION. Madam Death.

DEATH. Go to hell. I'll come when you don't want me.

FASHION. As if I weren't immortal.

DEATH. Immortal?

‘More than a thousand years have passed’since the time of the immortals.

FASHION. Oh, our Madam spews Petrarch too, just like a sixteenth- or nineteenth-century Italian poet.

DEATH. I love Petrarch's poetry because there I find my Triumph and because it mentions me almost everywhere. But now get out of my way.

FASHION. Come, in the name of your love for the seven deadly sins, stop a moment and look at me.

DEATH. I'm looking.

FASHION. Don't you recognize me?

DEATH. You should know that I don't see very well and that I can't wear glasses because the English don't make any that fit me, and even if they did, I wouldn't know how to keep them on.

FASHION. I'm Fashion, your sister.

DEATH. My sister?

FASHION. Yes. Don't you remember that we are both Caducity's daughters?

DEATH. What can I remember, I who am memory's greatest enemy?

FASHION. But I remember well; and I know that you and I together keep undoing and changing things down here on earth although you go about it one way and I another.

DEATH. If you are not talking to yourself or to someone who is inside your throat, raise your voice and chisel your words better; if you keep mumbling between your teeth with that spider-web voice of yours, I'll never hear you, for if you don't know it already, my hearing is no better than my eyesight.

FASHION. Even if it isn't good manners – and in France people don't speak in order to be heard – and since we are sisters and don't have to stand on ceremony, I'll speak as you want. I'm saying that it is our nature and our custom to keep renovating the world. But right from the start you threw yourself on people and on blood, whereas I'm generally satisfied with beards, hair, clothes, furnishings, buildings, and the like. It is quite true, however, that I haven't refrained – nor am I refraining now – from playing many games comparable with yours, such as, for instance, piercing ears, lips, or noses with holes and causing them to be torn by the trinkets I hang in those holes; charring the flesh of men with red-hot brands, as I make them do for beauty's sake; misshaping the heads of babies with bandages and other trappings, making it a custom for all the men of a country to have their heads in the same shape, as I have done in America and in Asia; crippling people with tight shoes; cutting off their breath and making their eyes pop out because of their tight corsets; and a hundred other such things. As a matter of fact and generally speaking, I persuade and force all genteel men to endure daily a thousand hardships and a thousand discomforts and often pain and torment and I even get some of them to die gloriously for love of me. I won't tell you about the headaches, the colds, the inflamations of all kinds, the quotidian, tertian, or quartan fevers that men catch to obey me, agreeing to shiver in the cold or to stifle in the heat according to my wishes, by protecting their shoulders with wool and their chests with cloth, and by doing everything my way, no matter how much it hurts them.

DEATH. Then I believe that indeed you are my sister and, if you want me to, I'll hold it more certain than death itself – without your having to prove it with a parish birth certificate. But if I keep this still, I'll faint. So, if you feel like running next to me, be sure you don't croak, for I go fast; and as we run, you can tell me about your business. Or else, in view of our family ties, I promise you that upon my death I'll leave you everything I have, and you can stay where you are with my best wishes.

FASHION. If we were to run the Palio together, I don't know which one of us would win the race, for whereas you can run, I can go faster than a gallop; and whereas you faint by standing still in one place, I waste away. So let's start running again, and, as you say, as we run, we'll talk about our affairs.

DEATH. Let's get on with it. And since you were born from my mother's womb, it would be good if you would help me in some way with my chores.

FASHION. I have done that in the past more often than you think. First of all, though I continuously cancel and distort all the other customs, I've never in any place allowed the practice of dying to stop; and because of this, you can see it going on everywhere from the very beginning of the world until today.

DEATH. Some miracle – that you didn't do what you couldn't.

FASHION. What do you mean I couldn't? Obviously you don't seem to know the power of fashion.

DEATH. All right, all right! We'll have plenty of time to talk about that when the custom of not dying has come. But for the moment I would like you, as a good sister, to help me obtain the opposite goal more easily and more speedily than I have done so far.

FASHION. I have already told you about some of my doings that are of great assistance to you. But they are trifles in comparison with what I am going to tell you now. A little at a time, but mostly during these past years, to help you out, I have caused the neglect and the elimination of the exertion and those exercises which favor physical well-being, and I have introduced innumerable others that weaken the body in a thousand ways and shorten life and have caused them to be valued highly. In addition to this, I have put in the world such orders and such customs that life itself, both of the body and of the soul, is more dead than alive, so much so that this century can truly be called the century of death. And while in ancient times you had no other property except ditches and caves – where you sowed bones and dust in the darkness, which are seeds that bear no fruit – now you have land in the sun; and the people who move and walk about with their own feet are, so to speak, entirely yours even without harvesting them – as a matter of fact from the very moment they are born. Furthermore, if in the past you were generally hated and reviled, nowadays, because of my doings, things have come to such a point that whoever has any intelligence values and praises you, preferring you to life, and loves you so much as to call you constantly and to look to you as their greatest hope. Finally, I saw many boasting that they would become immortal, that is to say, they would not die completely because a good part of them would not fall into your hands. Although I knew that this was nonsense and that if those or any other people lived in the memory of mankind, their life would become a joke and they wouldn't enjoy their fame any more than they would suffer from the humidity of their tombs – in any case, seeing that this business of immortality stung you, because it seemed to injure your honor and your reputation – I have done away with this custom of seeking immortality and also of bestowing it on anyone who might deserve it. So now if someone dies, you can rest assured that there isn't a particle of him that isn't dead, and he'd better go right underground in his entirety, just like a fish who's swallowed up head and bones in a mouthful. These things are neither few nor slight, and I have done them for your sake – as I wanted to advance your domain on earth, as has happened. For this purpose I am ready to do the same, and more, each day; and for this reason I looked for you. And I think it desirable that from now on we should always stay together, for in this manner we'll be able to talk things over and reach the best decisions, as well as carry them out.

DEATH. You are quite right. Let's do as you say.

Dialogue Between the Earth and the Moon

EARTH. My dear Moon, I know that you can speak and answer questions because you are a person, as I have often heard from the poets. Also, our children say that you, in fact, have a mouth, nose, and eyes, just like their own, and this they can see with their very eyes, which, at their age, must naturally be extremely sharp. As for me, I have no doubt that you know that I am no less a person, so much so that when I was younger, I had many children, so you will not be surprised if you hear me speak. Well then, my sweet Moon, although I have been your neighbor for so many more centuries than I can remember, I never said a word to you until now, for I was so busy with my chores that I did not have any time left for a chat. But now my affairs are of very little consequence; as a matter of fact, I can state that they take care of themselves. I don't know what to do, and I'm bored to death. So I plan to talk to you often in the future and to take an interest in your affairs – if I don't trouble you too much.

MOON. Don't worry about that. I wish Fortune would give me as little trouble as I am certain you will give me. If you feel like talking to me, talk as much as you want, for although I am a friend of silence, as I think you know, I shall listen to you and shall be happy to answer your questions if that can be of help to you.

EARTH. Do you hear this delightful music, which the heavenly bodies make with their movements?

MOON. To tell you the truth, I don't hear anything.

EARTH. I don't hear anything either, except the roar of the wind rushing from my poles to the equator and from the equator to my poles – and it doesn't seem anything like music. Yet Pythagoras says that the celestial spheres make a certain music, so sweet that it is indeed wondrous and that you yourself have a part in it, for you are the eighth string of this universal lyre, which I don't hear because I am deafened by that very music.

MOON. Then I must surely be deafened too, for, as I said, I don't hear it; and I didn't know I was a string.

EARTH. Then let's change the subject. Tell me, are you really inhabited, as so many philosophers, ancient and modern, from Orpheus to De La Lande, state and swear? Though, like a big snail, I try to stretch these horns of mine, which men call mountains and peaks and with whose tips I keep staring at you, I have never been able to discover a single inhabitant on you – and yet I hear that one David Fabricius, whose eyesight was keener than that of Linceus himself, once discovered a number of them as they were hanging their laundry in the sun.

MOON. As to your horns, I don't know anything. The fact is that I'm inhabited.

EARTH. What color are those men of yours?

MOON. What men?

EARTH. Those who inhabit you. Didn't you say you are inhabited?

MOON. Yes. And so?

EARTH. And so, your inhabitants cannot all be animals.

MOON. Neither animals nor men, though I don't know what kind of creatures they are – either of them. As a matter of fact, I haven't been able to understand an iota of what you have been saying about men, as I think you call them.

EARTH. But what kind of people are yours?

MOON. Very many and different kinds; you don't know them just as I don't know yours.

EARTH. That is very strange to me, so much so that if I hadn't heard it from you yourself, I could not believe it for anything in the world. Have you ever been conquered by any of your inhabitants?

MOON. Not that I know of. And how? And why?

EARTH. Through ambition, through greed for other people's possessions, by means of politics, by force of arms.

MOON. I do not know what you mean by arms, ambition, politics; in short, I don't know what you are talking about.

EARTH. But if you don't know about arms, you certainly know about war, for not long ago, one of our scientists with the help of a telescope – which is an instrument made to see very far – discovered a great fortress up there with regular and straight bastions, which is a sign that your people are at least acquainted with sieges and mural combats.

MOON. Excuse me, Madame Earth, if I answer you a little more freely than becomes one of your subjects or servants, as I am. But really, you strike me as rather vain if you think that all things in every part of the world are like your own; as if Nature were only intent on reproducing you in everything she did. I say that I am inhabited, and from this you conclude that my inhabitants must be men. I inform you that they are not; and although you accept the fact that they are different creatures, you assume that they have the same qualities and live under the same conditions as your people; and you bring up the telescope of some scientist or other. But if this telescope doesn't see more clearly in other cases than in this one, I must believe that its eyesight is as good as your children's, who discover in me eyes, mouth, nose – which I don't know anything about.

EARTH. Then it isn't true that in your provinces there are broad-paved roads and that you are cultivated – as can be clearly seen from the German regions with a telescope.

MOON. If I am cultivated, I don't know anything about it. And as to my roads, I do not see them.

EARTH. My dear Moon, you must know that I am somewhat dense and slow, and no wonder men fool me so easily. But I can tell you that even if your own people have never tried to conquer you, nonetheless, you weren't always free from danger; for at various times many people down here got it into their heads to conquer you themselves, and for that purpose they made plans and preparations. But even though they climbed to the highest points and raised themselves on their tiptoes and stretched out their arms, they could not reach you. Moreover, I have seen for many years men minutely scrutinize every part of you, drawing maps of your regions, and measuring the height of your mountains, which we even know by name. I thought I should tell you these things out of my affection and consideration for you so that you'd be prepared for any emergency. Now, let me ask you a couple of questions. How annoyed are you by the dogs barking at you? What do you think of those who point you out in wells? Are you male or female? In ancient times people were not quite sure. Is it true that the Arcadians came into the world before you? That your women – or whatever I should call them – are oviparous, and that one of their eggs fell down here some time ago? And that you are pierced in the middle like rosary beads, as a modern scientist believes? That you are made of green cheese, as the English say? That one day, or perhaps one night, Mohammed cut you in half, just like a watermelon, and that a large chunk of your body slipped into his sleeve? How happy are you to sit on the tops of minarets? How do you feel about the feast of Bairam?

MOON. Go right ahead. When you go on like this, I don't need to answer you and break my usual silence. If you like to spend your time with such nonsense and cannot find anything else to talk about, instead of turning to me who cannot understand you, you'd do better to get men to build you another planet, made and inhabited the way you like, to whirl around you. You can't talk of anything else but men, dogs, and other such things, about which I know no more than about that gigantic sun, around which they say our own sun revolves.

EARTH. Truly, as I talk to you, the more I resolve to avoid speaking about my own things, the less I succeed. But from now on, I'll try to be more careful. Tell me, are you the one who enjoys making the water of my seas rise and then enjoys letting it fall?

MOON. Maybe. But supposing I do to you this or anything else, I don't notice it at all, as in the same way you probably don't notice your influence up here, which must be much greater than mine on you, as you are greater in size and strength.

EARTH. Actually, the only thing I know about the influence I have on you is that every once in a while I take away the light of the sun from you, and I take away your own light from myself. I also know that during your nights I shine very brightly on you, as I myself can see at times. But I was forgetting something that is more important than anything else. I would like to know if really, as Ariosto writes, everything that man loses – such as youth, beauty, health, the labors and the expenses invested in learning and in gaining fame, in bringing up children according to the norms of good behavior, in founding or promoting useful institutions – everything goes and collects up there so that all human things can be found in you, except folly, which never leaves mankind. If this is true, I suppose you must be so full that you have no room to spare, especially if we consider that in recent times men have lost a great many things (such as patriotism, virtue, magnanimity, integrity), not only in part and not only a few of them, as happened in the past, but all together and completely. And certainly, if those things are not up there, I don't know in what other place they could be found. Therefore, I would like to make a pact with you. You'll start returning all these things to me now, and then you'll keep doing so as the opportunity arises. After all, I think that you yourself would be glad to be rid of them, especially common sense, which, as I understand, takes a tremendous amount of space. I would see to it that every year men would pay you a substantial sum of money.

MOON. And there you speak of men again. Although, as you state, folly does not leave your regions, you seek men's wits while you try to take my own away from me. I don't know where they are, if they are disappearing or if they remain in any part of the world; all I know is that they cannot be found here, just as one cannot find any of the other things you have been asking about.

EARTH. At least you can tell me if up there people are acquainted with vice, crime, calamity, pain, old age, in short, evils. Do you understand these words?

MOON. Oh yes. I surely understand them. And not only the words but the things they mean; I know them perfectly well, for I am filled with them – rather than with the other things you mentioned.

EARTH. What are more prevalent among your people, virtues or vices?

MOON. Vices, by far.

EARTH. What is more abundant, good or evil?

MOON. Evil, without comparison.

EARTH. And, in general, your inhabitants are happy or unhappy?

MOON. So unhappy that I wouldn't change places with the most fortunate of them.

EARTH. It's the same here. So much so that it is a great surprise how similar you are to me in this, whereas you are so different in everything else.

MOON. I am also similar to you in form, and in movement, and in receiving light from the sun, and this is no less surprising than the rest because evil is something common to all the planets of the universe or at least of this solar system – just as much as roundness and the other conditions I have mentioned. If you could raise your voice so high that it could be heard by Uranus or Saturn, or by any other planet of our world, and if you could ask them whether unhappiness exists on them and whether good or evil prevails among them, each would answer in the same way I have. I say this because I have already asked Venus and Mercury about the same things, for now and then I find myself closer to them than you. I have also asked some of the comets that have passed by me. All have answered in the same way as I have. And I believe that the sun himself, and every star, would give the same answer.

EARTH. In spite of all this, I am still hopeful, especially nowadays, when men are promising me great future happiness.

MOON. Hope as much as you like; I assure you that you can hope forever.

EARTH. Do you know what's going on? These men and these animals are beginning to stir and make noise. On the side from which I'm talking to you, it is night, as you can see, or rather, as you can't see; and so they were all asleep, and at the commotion that we are making while we talk, they are waking up with great fear.

MOON. But up here, as you can see, it is daytime.

EARTH. I don't want to frighten my people or to shatter their sleep, which is the greatest blessing they have. So we'll talk again some other time. Goodbye, then; and good day.

MOON. Goodbye; and good night.

The Wager of Prometheus

In the year eight hundred thirty-three thousand two hundred and seventy-five of the reign of Jove, the College of the Muses ordered that certain posters be printed and affixed in the public places of the city and suburbs of Hypernephelus, by which all the gods, great and small, as well as the other inhabitants of the city, who recently or in former times might have made some valuable discovery, were invited to present it, either in person or in the form of a model or a description, to the judges appointed by said College. At the same time, regretting that because of their well-known poverty they could not be as generous as they would have liked, they promised, as a prize to the competitor whose invention would be judged the most beautiful and the most useful, a laurel crown with the privilege of wearing it day and night, in public and in private, within and without the city, along with the right to be painted, sculpted, engraved, molded, that is, represented in any manner and material, with such a laurel crown on the head.

Many of the gods competed for this prize, just as a pastime, something no less necessary to the inhabitants of Hypernephelus than to those of other cities – not that they had any desire for that crown, which was not worth a cotton nightcap; and as for glory, if men themselves, now that they have become philosophers, despise it, we can imagine in what kind of esteem it is held by the gods, who are so much wiser than men (as a matter of fact, according to Pythagoras and Plato, they are the only ones to be really wise). Therefore – and it was a unique ex ample, until then unheard of for similar cases of awards offered to the most deserving – this prize was adjudged without the intrusion of solicitations or favors, of secret promises or intrigues. Three competitors won: Bacchus for the discovery of wine; Minerva for the discovery of oil, which is so necessary to the gods for daily anointing after their baths; and Vulcan for having invented an economical copper pot, by which any food can be cooked quickly and with little fire. So the prize had to be divided into three parts, with the result that each one got a small laurel branch; and all three of them refused it, either in part or in whole. Vulcan declared that as most of his time was spent working and sweating before the fire of his forge, that thing on his forehead would be a great nuisance – not to mention that it would expose him to the danger of being burned or scorched if a spark should by chance fall upon those dry leaves and set them on fire. Minerva said that since she had to hold on her head a helmet large enough to cover at once the armies of a hundred cities, as Homer writes, it was not advisable for her to increase that weight in any way. Bacchus said that he didn't want to change his hat and his crown of vine leaves for a laurel crown, although he would happily accept it if he were allowed to use it as a sign in front of his tavern. But the Muses refused to grant it to him for this purpose so that it remained in their treasury.

The other competitors did not envy the three deities who had won and had rejected the prize, nor did they complain about the judges or blame their decision, except one, Prometheus, who had entered the competition by sending in the clay model which he had used in forming the first men, adding to it a description of the qualities and functions of the human race, which he had invented. No little astonishment was caused by Prometheus's dissatisfaction in this matter, which all the others, winners and losers alike, had taken as no more than a game. But as the reason for such dissatisfaction was investigated, it was learned that he strongly desired not the honor itself but the privilege he would have enjoyed had he been the winner. Some think that he wanted to avail himself of the laurel to protect his head against the storms, as we are told of Tiberius, who, whenever he heard thunder, put on his crown, for he believed that laurel was not susceptible to lightning. But in the city of Hypernephelus there is neither thunder nor lightning. Others, more plausibly, state that Prometheus, who was getting on in years, was beginning to lose his hair – a misfortune which he, like many others, did not like at all – and since he had not read Synesius's work in praise of baldness or, as is more likely, since he had not been convinced by it, he wanted to conceal the bareness of his head under the diadem, just as Julius Caesar did.

But to go back to our story. One day, as he was talking to Momus, Prometheus bitterly complained that wine, oil, and pots had been given preference over the human race, which he pronounced the best work the immortals had brought to the world. And since he thought that Momus was not convinced, for he advanced all kinds of arguments to the contrary, Prometheus suggested that both of them fly down to earth together and in each of its five parts stop at random in the first place they discovered to be inhabited by men; but first they made this mutual wager – with Prometheus betting that in all of the five places, or in the majority of them, they would find positive proof that man is the most perfect creature in the universe. This was acceptable to Momus, and having agreed on the amount of the wager, they immediately began their descent toward the earth. They first directed themselves to the New World, for owing to its very name and owing to the fact that no one of the immortals had ever been there, it especially excited their curiosity. They made their first stop in the northern area of the country of Popaián, not far from the river Cauca, in a place where there appeared many signs of human habitation – traces of cultivation in the countryside, numerous trails, al -though often interrupted and mostly obstructed, trees felled and stretched out on the ground, and particularly what looked like graves, with some human bones here and there. But for all that, the two celestial creatures could neither hear a man's voice nor see a live man's shadow no matter how much they sharpened their ears or their eyes. They went on, partly walking, partly flying, for many miles, passing over mountains and rivers, and everywhere they found the same signs and the same solitude.‘How is it these places are so deserted,’said Momus to Prometheus,‘when they clearly show that they were inhabited?’Prometheus mentioned tidal waves, earthquakes, hurricanes, heavy rains, which he knew to be common in tropical regions; and, indeed, at that very time they heard in all the nearby forests rain constantly falling from the tree branches as they were shaken by the wind. But Momus could not possibly understand how that area could be subject to tidal waves – the sea being so far away that it could nowhere be seen; and he could understand still less how it had happened that earthquakes, hurricanes, and heavy rains had destroyed all the men of that country while they had spared jaguars, monkeys, foxes, anteaters, eagles, parrots, and a hundred other kinds of animals of the earth and of the air, which were visible in the area. Finally, as they descended into an immense valley, they discovered, as it were, a small heap of houses, or rather of wooden huts, covered with palm leaves – each one surrounded by a wooden fence. In front of one of them there were many people, some standing, some sitting around an earthen pot suspended over a large fire. The two celestial beings, having taken human form, approached the group. Prometheus courteously greeted everybody and then turned to the one who appeared to be the chief and asked him what they were doing.

SAVAGE. We're eating, as you can see.

PROMETHEUS. Do you have something good to eat?

SAVAGE. Only this meat.

PROMETHEUS. Is it meat from a domestic or from a wild animal?

SAVAGE. Domestic; as a matter of fact, from my own son.

PROMETHEUS. Did you have a steer for a son, like Pasiphae?

SAVAGE. Not a steer but a man, such as all other people have.

PROMETHEUS. Do you really mean it? Do you eat your own flesh?

SAVAGE. Not my own but certainly his, for it was only for this purpose that I brought him into the world, and I cared for him and nurtured him.

PROMETHEUS. Just for the purpose of eating him?

SAVAGE. What's so strange? And his mother too! Since she is not likely to bear any more children, I'm planning to eat her soon.

MOMUS. Just as you eat the hen after having eaten the eggs.

SAVAGE. And so the other women I have ... as they become useless for childbearing ... I'll eat them too. And these slaves you see here ... do you think I'd keep them alive if every once in a while I didn't get some of their children to eat? But as they get old, I'll eat them too, one at a time – if I live long enough.

PROMETHEUS. Tell me, those slaves – do they belong to your own people or to another?

SAVAGE. To another.

PROMETHEUS. To one very far from here?

SAVAGE. Very far, so much so that between their houses and ours there was a little stream.

Then he pointed at a low hill and added:‘There, that's where they used to live, but our people destroyed them.’At this point Prometheus noticed that many of the savages were ogling him with the kind of loving look that a cat gives a mouse. Thus, so as not to be eaten by his own creatures, he quickly took off in flight; and so did Momus with him. Both of them were so scared that as they departed, they contaminated the barbarians' food with the same kind of dirt that the Harpies out of envy showered on the tables of the Trojans. But the savages, more hungry and less squeamish than Aeneas's companions, continued their meal.

Prometheus, quite disappointed with the New World, immediately directed his course toward the oldest world, that is to say, toward Asia; and having covered in not much more than an instant the distance between the new and the ancient Indies, both of them made their descent near Agra, in a field overflowing with a vast multitude of people gathered on the edge of a trench crammed with wood – on whose brim you could see on one side some men with lighted torches, ready to set the wood afire, and on the other, on a platform, a young woman wearing extremely sumptuous clothes and all kinds of barbaric ornaments, who was dancing and shouting and showing signs of the most extravagant joyfulness. As he saw this, Prometheus imagined a new Lucretia or a new Virginia, or an emulator of Erechtheus's daughters, of Iphigenia, of Codrus, of Menecius, of Curtius, and of Decius, who, following the command of some oracle, would voluntarily offer herself up in sacrifice for her country. When he later learned that the woman was sacrificing herself because of her husband's death, he thought that she, not unlike Alcestis, wanted to buy back her husband's life at the price of her own. But having further ascertained that she was preparing herself to be burned alive only because this was the custom among the widows of her group, that she had always hated her husband, that she was drunk, and that the dead man, rather than coming back to life, was to be burned in that very same fire, Prometheus immediately turned his back on that spectacle and headed for Europe. On the way, he held this conversation with his companion.

MOMUS. Would you ever have thought, when with enormous risk you stole fire from heaven to give it to men, that some of them would use it to cook one another in pots and some others to burn themselves voluntarily to death?

PROMETHEUS. Certainly not. But don't forget, dear Momus, that those we have seen so far are barbarians and that the nature of men should not be judged from barbarians but from civilized people toward whom we are now traveling. I'm firmly convinced that among them we'll see and hear things that not only will seem worthy of praise but will also fill you with astonishment.

MOMUS. If men are the most perfect species in the universe, I don't see why they need to be civilized in order not to burn themselves to death or not to eat their own children. The other animals are all barbarians, and yet they don't deliberately burn themselves, except the phoenix, who has never been seen by anyone; those who eat any of their own kind are extremely rare, and still rarer are those who feed on their own offspring – and then only because of some strange accident and not because they've brought them into the world for this purpose. Note also that of the five parts of the world, only one, by far the smallest and not even all of it, plus some minimal areas of another part, are endowed with that civilization that you acclaim. And I don't think that you yourself will maintain that this civilization is so complete that nowadays the men of Paris or of Philadelphia have reached all the perfection of which their species is capable. Now, how long did those people have to work and suffer to reach a state of civilization which is not yet perfect? As many years as those that can be counted from the origin of man to our day. And almost all the inventions that were either most necessary or most conducive to the attainment of a civilized state have had their origins not in design but in chance so that human civilization is more the work of accident than of natural development; and where those accidents have not occurred, the people are still barbarians, although they are just as old as the civilized ones. Therefore, I conclude, if barbarians show themselves in many ways inferior to any other animal; if civilization, which is the opposite of barbarism, is even today the prerogative of a small part of the human race; and if, additionally, this small part has been able to reach the present civilized condition only after innumerable centuries, and mostly by accident rather than by any other cause; and finally, if this condition is far from being perfect – I wonder if you would consider that your judgment of the human race might be more correct if you shortened it in this manner, that is to say, by stating that the human race is indeed supreme among all the others, as you think, but supreme in imperfection rather than in perfection – although men, in speaking and in judging, continually mistake one for the other, for they draw their conclusions from premises which they have themselves devised and which they hold to be tangible truths. It is certain that the other species of creatures have been totally perfect from the very beginning, each according to its own nature. And even if it weren't clear that a savage, considered in relation to the other animals, is the worst of all, I fail to understand why being extremely imperfect in one's own nature, as man appears to be, should be valued as a greater condition of perfection than that of all other creatures. We should add that human civilization, which is so difficult to attain, and perhaps impossible to bring to completion, is not so stable that it cannot disintegrate, as has, in fact, happened many times and among various people who had acquired a good measure of it. In short, I am of the opinion that if your brother Epimetheus had brought before the judges the model he must have used when he formed the first donkey or the first frog, he would have perhaps won the prize you couldn't get. However, I'll be happy to concede that man is a most perfect creature if you decide to say that his perfection is like the one Plotinus attributed to the world, which, said Plotinus, is excellent and perfect in absolute; but to be perfect, the world must contain, among other things, all possible evils as well; for, in fact, we can find in it as much evil as it can possibly hold. And in this sense, I would probably also concede to Leibniz that the present world is the best of all possible worlds.

There is no doubt that Prometheus had a ready answer – clear, precise, and logical – to all these arguments; but it is equally certain that he did not produce it; for at that very moment they found themselves over the city of London. They descended and saw a great multitude of people gathering by the door of a private house. They joined the crowd and entered the house; there they found a man lying on his back in a bed with a pistol in his hand; he was dead, a wound in his chest; and next to him lay two small children, also dead. Several members of the house staff were also in the room, as well as some magistrates, who were questioning them, while a clerk wrote down their answers.

PROMETHEUS. Who are these wretched people?

A SERVANT. My master and his children.

PROMETHEUS. Who killed them?

SERVANT. My master, all three of them.

PROMETHEUS. You mean to say, his children and himself?

SERVANT. Yes!

PROMETHEUS. Incredible! Something really terrible must have happened to him.

SERVANT. Not to my knowledge.

PROMETHEUS. But perhaps he was poor, despised by everyone, disappointed in love, or in disfavor with the Court.

SERVANT. On the contrary! He was very rich, and I think everyone held him in high esteem; to love he was indifferent, and he was very much in favor with the Court.

PROMETHEUS. Then, how did he get so desperate?

SERVANT. Because of the tedium of life, as he has declared in writing.

PROMETHEUS. And these magistrates – what are they doing?

SERVANT. They are inquiring whether my master had lost his mind or not; for if he hadn't, his property goes to the Crown; and indeed there is no way to avoid that.

PROMETHEUS. But tell me, had he no friend or relative to whom he could entrust these small children instead of killing them?

SERVANT. Yes, he did, and, among others, one to whom he was especially close and to whom he has entrusted his dog.

Momus was about to congratulate Prometheus on the good effects of civilization and on the happiness which it seemed to bring to men's lives; he also wanted to remind him that no other animal, except man, kills himself voluntarily or takes the lives of his own children out of sheer desperation. But Prometheus was ahead of him and, without caring about seeing the two remaining parts of the world, paid him the wager.

Dialogue Between Nature and an Icelander

An Icelander, who had traveled most of the world and had visited many different countries, was once wandering in the interior of Africa when he crossed the equator into a region never before explored by man. There he met with an adventure similar to the one encountered by Vasco da Gama, when he doubled the Cape of Good Hope and the Cape itself, which stands guard over the Austral seas, came toward him in the form of a giant to dissuade him from entering those uncharted waters. The Icelander saw an enormous bust far away in the distance. At first he imagined it to be made of stone, like those colossal figures he had seen on Easter Island many years before. But as he drew nearer, he discovered that it was the huge body of a woman, seated on the ground, her bust erect and her back and her elbow resting against a mountain. And she was not a statue, but alive – her face at once beautiful and awesome, her eyes and her hair raven black. She looked at him fixedly for some time, without speaking. Finally she said:

NATURE. Who are you? What are you looking for in these regions, where so far your species has been unknown?

ICELANDER. I'm a poor Icelander and am fleeing Nature. I have fled her nearly all my life in a hundred areas of the earth, and now I'm fleeing her in this area.

NATURE. So flees the squirrel from the rattlesnake until he finally falls into its jaws. I am she from whom you're fleeing.

ICELANDER. Nature?

NATURE. No one else.

ICELANDER. I regret it to the depths of my soul, for I firmly believe that no greater misfortune could happen to me.

NATURE. You should have known that I would be found especially around these parts, where, as you know, my power is more evident than elsewhere. But what prompted you to run away from me?

ICELANDER. Let me tell you that since my early youth and after a little experience, I became aware and convinced of the vanity of life and of the stupidity of men, who fight one another continually for pleasures that don't please and for goods that don't help; they endure and inflict on one another innumerable worries and innumerable troubles, which actually harass and injure; and thus the more they seek happiness, the farther away they get from it. As a result of these perceptions, I abandoned all other desires and resolved to lead an obscure and quiet life, without bothering anyone, without trying to advance myself in any way, without competing with anyone for any good in the world. And without hoping for any kind of pleasure – which is something that's denied our species – I did not set for myself any other goal than to stay away from suffering. With this I don't mean to say that I intended to abstain from work and physical labor, for, as you well know, there is a difference between labor and discomfort and between a quiet and an idle life. As soon as I began to carry out this resolution, I learned by experience how vain it is to think that if you live among men and you don't hurt anyone, you may also avoid being hurt by others; and that if you spontaneously withdraw and are satisifed with the minimum, you may be allowed a little place somewhere, and this minimum may not be taken away from you. But I easily freed myself from the hostility of men by removing myself from their society and by retiring into solitude – which in my native island can be accomplished without difficulty. After doing this and living almost without any trace of pleasure, I still could not exist without suffering because the intense cold of the long winters and the extreme heat of the summers, which are typical of that region, tormented me continually; and the fire, next to which I was forced to spend much of my time, dried up my flesh and tortured my eyes with smoke so that neither inside my house nor in the open air could I save myself from perpetual discomfort. Nor could I lead that quiet life to which I especially turned all my aspirations, for the frightening storms on land and sea, the rumblings and the threats of Mount Hekla, the fear of fires, which are extremely frequent in wooden houses such as ours, never ceased to disturb me. In a constantly uniform life, divested of all desires and hopes and of almost all worry but that of being in peace and quiet, such discomforts as these assume no little weight and are far more serious than they usually appear to be when most of the mind is occupied by thoughts of social and civil life and by the adversities produced by men. Thus, when I found that the more I withdrew and almost contracted myself, as it were, within myself so as not to disturb or harm anything in the world, the less could I avoid being troubled and tormented by other things, I began to change regions and climates to see if there was any part of the earth where, offending no one, I might escape being offended and where, not enjoying pleasure, I might escape suffering. I was further moved to this resolution by the thought that perhaps you had destined the human race to only one climate of the earth (as you had done with each of the other species of animals and plants) and to certain specific areas outside of which men could neither prosper nor live without difficulty and misery; so that if they should scoff at and exceed the limits that your laws had prescribed for human dwellings, such difficulty and misery were to be blamed on them, and not on you. I have searched almost the entire world and have explored almost every country, always keeping my resolution of causing other creatures the least possible trouble and of seeking only a quiet life. But I was burned by heat in the tropics, stiffened by cold near the poles, afflicted by the instability of the weather in the temperate zones, plagued everywhere by the convulsions of the elements. I have seen many places where not a day passes without a storm, which is like saying that every day you attack and give deliberate battle to those inhabitants who have never done you any harm. In other regions the usual serenity of the sky is balanced by the frequency of earthquakes, by the multitude and the fury of volcanoes, by the subterranean boiling and rumbling of the entire country. Winds and furious tornadoes prevail in the regions and the seasons that are free from the other furies of the weather. There were times when I felt the roof cave in over my head because of the great weight of the snow; other times, because of the torrential rain, the earth itself cracked and gave away under my feet. At times I had to flee as fast as I could from rivers that pursued me as if I had done them some wrong. Many wild beasts I had never provoked with the slightest offense tried to devour me; many snakes tried to poison me; in various places flying insects almost consumed me to the bone. I won't speak of the infinite number of daily dangers, which are always threatening man, so much so that an ancient philosopher could not find any cure for fear other than the fact that everything is to be feared. Nor was I spared by illnesses although I was, and still am, not only temperate but self-denying in the pleasures of the flesh. I greatly marvel when I consider that you have instilled in us such a strong and insatiable craving for pleasure that without this pleasure and deprived of what it naturally desires, our life is most imperfect; and yet you have ordered that the indulgence in this pleasure shall be, of all things human, the most harmful to the strength and the health of the body, the most calamitous to everyone, and the most contrary to the duration of life itself. Nevertheless, although I have almost always and completely abstained from all pleasures, I could not avoid suffering many and diverse illnesses, some of which brought me to the brink of death; others threatened me with the loss of a limb or with perpetually leading a more miserable life than in the past; and all of them oppressed my body and mind for days and months with a thousand privations and a thousand sufferings. Although in times of illness each of us experiences new and unfamiliar pains and greater unhappiness than normal (as if human life were not sufficiently miserable as it is), you certainly have not compensated man for this by giving him periods of exuberant and unusually good health, which could bring him some extraordinary pleasure both in quality and in quantity. In countries that are generally covered with snow, I was nearly blinded, as regularly happens to the people of Lapland. The sun and the air, which are vital and necessary to our life and therefore, inescapable, continuously abuse us – the air with its humidity, its rigor, and its other whims, the sun with its heat and with light itself, so much so that man can never be exposed to either one of them without some degree of discomfort or harm. Indeed, I can't remember spending one single day of my life without suffering, whereas I cannot even count those days that I have passed without the shadow of a pleasure. I realize that suffering is as much our inevitable fate as is lack of pleasure and that it is as impossible to lead a quiet life of any kind as it is to lead a restless one without misery; thus, I am bound to conclude that you are a manifest enemy of men, and of the other animals, and of all your own creatures. Now you ensnare us, now you threaten us, now you attack us, now you sting us, now you strike us, now you rend us, and always you offend or persecute us. Either by habit or by rule, you are the slaughterer of your own family and of your own children and, as it were, of your own flesh and blood. Therefore, I have no more hope. I have understood that men finally stop persecuting those who flee or hide from them with the firm resolution of fleeing and hiding, but you never stop harrowing us until you finally crush us. And I am already close to the bitter and gloomy time of old age, a true and manifest evil, in fact an accumulation of the most oppressive evils and miseries, an evil which is not accidental but destined by your laws to all kinds of living creatures, foreknown by each of us from childhood, and continuously apparent in us from our twenty-fifth birthday on, with a sad and unfortunate process of unmerited decay. So that one-third of man's life is assigned to growth, only a few instants to maturity and perfection, and the rest to decline, with all the resulting discomforts.

NATURE. Did you think by any chance that the world was made for you alone? Now let me tell you that in my works, laws, and operations, except for very few of them, my purpose was not, and is not, the happiness or unhappiness of men. When I harm you in any way and with whatever means, I don't notice it, except very rarely; just as I ordinarily don't know whether I please or help you; nor have I done those things, nor do I do those actions, as you believe, to please or to help you. Finally, even if I happened to wipe out your entire species, I wouldn't notice it.

ICELANDER. Let us suppose that someone of his own initiative invited me and strongly urged me to visit his villa, that to please him I accepted, and that once there, I was to be lodged in a dilapidated and ruined cell, humid, fetid, and exposed to the wind and the rain, where I was in constant danger of being crushed. And that not only did he not take the trouble to entertain me with some recreation or provide me with some comfort, but he barely furnished me with enough to keep alive, and he also let me be reviled, scorned, threatened, and beaten by his children and by the rest of his family. And if I complained to him of such treatment, he answered:‘Do you think that I built this villa for you or that I keep these children and these servants of mine just to assist you? I have many things to think about other than entertaining you and spending money for your support.’To this I would reply:‘See, my friend, as you did not build this villa for me, so it was your privilege not to invite me here. But since you asked me of your own initiative to come and stay here, don't you think you should arrange it so that, as far as possible on your part, I should be able to live here without suffering and without danger?’This is what I am saying now. I know very well that you did not create the world for the service of men; I could more easily believe that you created it for the express purpose of torturing them. Now I ask you, did I ever beg you to put me in this universe? Did I intrude into it violently and against your will? Indeed, you yourself have placed me here with your own hands and of your own will and without my knowledge and in such a way that I could neither resist nor oppose it. Then is it not your duty, if not to keep me happy and satisfied in this kingdom of yours, at least to see to it that I am not tormented and tortured and that living in it is not harmful to me? And what I am saying about myself, I am also saying about the entire human race, about the other animals, and about all living creatures.

NATURE. Evidently, you have not considered that in this universe life is a perpetual cycle of production and destruction – both functions being so closely bound together that one is continuously working toward the other, thus bringing about the conservation of the world, which, if either one of them were to cease, would likewise dissolve. Therefore, were anything free from suffering, it would be harmful to the world.

ICELANDER. That is just what all philosophers say. But since what is destroyed suffers and what destroys does not experience pleasure and is itself soon also destroyed, tell me what no philosopher can: who finds any pleasure or who finds any advantage in this most miserable life of the universe, which is preserved by means of the suffering and the death of the very things that compose it?

We are told that while they were engaged in these and similar discussions, there happened to appear two lions who were so worn out and starved that they barely had enough strength to eat up the Icelander, which they did and thus managed to get enough nourishment to survive for the rest of that day. But there are some who deny this story and maintain that while the Icelander was speaking, an extremely fierce wind arose, threw him down to the ground, and raised over him a majestic mausoleum of sand, under which, perfectly desiccated and turned into a beautiful mummy, he was later discovered by some travelers and placed in the museum of a European city.

Dialogue Between Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies

Chorus of Mummies in Frederick Ruysch's Study

Alone in the world, eternal, toward whom does move

Every created thing,

In you, Death, finds rest

Our naked nature;

Not joyous, but secure

From ancient suffering. Profound

Night in our confused mind

Obscures our grave thought;

Towards hope, desire, the shriveled spirit

Feels its strength wane;

Thus from affliction and from fear is freed

And the empty slow years

Unbored whiles away.

We lived; and as the confused memory

Of a frightening ghost

And of a sweating dream

Wanders in the souls of infants,

So in us remembrance lingers

Of our lives: but far from fear

Is our remembering. What were we?

What was the bitter point called life?

Stupendous mystery is today

Life to our minds, and such

As to the minds of the living

Unknown death appears. As when living

From death it fled, now flees

From vital flame

Our naked nature

Not joyous but secure;

For to be happy

Is denied to mortals and denied the dead by Fate.

RUYSCH. (Outside his study, looking through the chinks of the door) What's going on? Who taught music to these dead? They sing like roosters in the middle of the night. I'm in a cold sweat and am almost more dead than they are. I didn't expect them to come back to life simply because I preserved them from decomposition. Well, for all my philosophy I'm shaking from head to foot. Damn that devil who made me bring these people into my house. I don't know what to do. If I keep them locked up here, they might break the door down, or they might get out through the keyhole and come and get me in my bed. To call for help because I'm afraid of dead people doesn't look good. All right, a little courage, and let me try to scare them instead.

(Entering) Eh, children, what kind of game is this? Don't you remember that you are dead? What's this racket you are making? Have you gotten cocky because of the Czar's visit, and do you think you're no longer subject to the same laws as in the past? I suppose you meant all this in jest, and no more. If you've come back to life, I congratulate you; but I'm not rich enough to support the living the same way I support the dead; therefore, you'll have to go. If what they say about vampires is true, and you are vampires, you'll have to look for some other blood to drink; for I'm not going to let you suck mine, no matter how generous I've been with the artificial blood I've put into your veins. In short, if you want to keep quiet and silent, as you have so far, we'll remain on good terms, and in my house you won't go without anything you need; otherwise, I'm going to get the door bar and kill you all.

MUMMY. Don't be upset; I promise you that we'll all stay as dead as before, without your having to kill us.

RUYSCH. Then what's this idea of singing?

MUMMY. A short time ago, at exactly midnight, for the first time that great mathematical year has ended of which the ancients write so much; and this is also the first time the dead speak. And not only us but in every cemetery, in every tomb, down at the bottom of the sea, under snow or sand, in the open air, or in whatever place they are, at midnight, all the dead sang, like ourselves, that little song you heard.

RUYSCH. And how long will they go on singing or talking?

MUMMY. As for singing, they have already finished. For talking, they'll be allowed a quarter of an hour. Then they'll return to silence until that same year is again completed.

RUYSCH. If that's true, I don't think you'll break my sleep again. Talk together freely. I'll stand aside and gladly listen to you out of curiosity without disturbing you.

MUMMY. We can only talk by answering some living person. After the song is finished, those who don't have to answer the living remain quiet.

RUYSCH. I'm really sorry, for I think it would be great fun to hear what you'd say among yourselves if you could talk together.

MUMMY. Even if we could, you wouldn't hear anything; for we wouldn't have anything to say to one another.

RUYSCH. I can think of a thousand questions to put to you. But since time is short and leaves no choice, let me know in brief what kind of sensations of body and mind you experienced at the point of death.

MUMMY. I didn't notice the actual point of death.

THE OTHER MUMMIES. We didn't either.

RUYSCH. How come you didn't notice it?

MUMMY. Just as you never notice the moment you begin to sleep, no matter how much attention you pay.

RUYSCH. But to fall asleep is natural.

MUMMY. And don't you think that dying is natural? Show me a man, or an animal, or a plant that doesn't die.

RUYSCH. I'm no longer surprised that you go on singing and talking if you didn't notice when you died.

Unwitting of the blow, he went ahead,

Combatting still, and yet already dead,

writes an Italian poet. I thought that on this question of death, those like you would know something more than the living. But going back to our subject, at the point of death didn't you feel any pain?

MUMMY. What kind of pain can it be if one who feels it doesn't notice it?

RUYSCH. At any rate, all are convinced that the sensation of death is extremely painful.

MUMMY. As if death were a sensation and not the opposite.

RUYSCH. Yet in regard to the nature of the soul, both those who incline to the opinion of the Epicureans and those who hold the common belief, all, or most of them, agree with what I am saying, that is, in believing that death is by its very nature and beyond all comparison an extremely acute pain.

MUMMY. Well, just ask both of them on our behalf: if man has no power to notice the point when his vital operations, to a greater or lesser extent, remain only interrupted by sleep, lethargy, syncope, or by whatever cause, how will he notice the point when those same operations cease altogether, and not for a short space of time but forever? And moreover, how can it be that a living sensation exists in death? As a matter of fact, how can it be that death itself is by its very nature a living sensation? When the power of feeling is not only weak and scanty but reduced to such a minimum that it fails and is abolished, do you think that a person is capable of a strong sensation? In fact, do you believe this very extinction of the power of feeling to be in itself a very great sensation? You can observe that as death approaches, even those who die of acute and painful diseases sooner or later, before they expire, become calm and rest so that we can perceive how, being reduced to a small quantity, their life is no longer sufficient for pain, and as a result pain ceases sooner than life itself. This you may tell on our behalf to whoever thinks he'll die of pain at the point of death.

RUYSCH. Those reasons might be enough for the Epicureans. But not for those who judge otherwise of the substance of the soul, as I have done in the past and will do much more in the future, having heard the dead speak and sing. For believing that death consists in a separation of the soul from the body, they will not understand how these two things, conjoined and, as it were, conglutinated together in such a way that they both form only one person, can be separated without very great violence and unspeakable suffering.

MUMMY. Tell me, is the spirit by any chance attached to the body by some nerve or by some muscle or membrane, which must necessarily be torn when the spirit goes? Or is it by any chance part of the body, from which it must be violently snatched or severed? Don't you see that the soul leaves the body only because it is not allowed to remain and has no place there any longer and not because of any force that tears it and uproots it? Tell me also, when the soul enters the body, does it by any chance feel stuck and vigorously fastened or, as you say, conglutinated to it? Why then, when it leaves that body should the soul feel itself being detached or, in other words, experience a most violent sensation? Rest assured that the entry and the exit of the soul are equally quiet, easy, and soft.

RUYSCH. Then what's death if it's not pain?

MUMMY. Pleasure rather than anything else. You should know that dying, like falling asleep, does not take place in an instant but by degrees. True, these degrees are more or less and greater or smaller according to the variety of the causes and to the kinds of death. In the last moment death brings neither pain nor pleasure, no more than does sleep. In the preceding moments it cannot produce pain because pain is something alive, and, at that time, that is, after the beginning of death, man's senses are moribund, which is like saying weakened in the extreme. It may well be a cause of pleasure, for pleasure is not always something alive; in fact, most human pleasures consist in some sort of languor, so that man's senses are capable of pleasure even when they are near extinction since very often languor itself is pleasure, especially when it frees you from suffering; for, as you well know, the cessation of any pain or discomfort is in itself pleasure. So, the languor of death ought to be the more welcome as it frees man from greater suffering. Personally, although in the hour of death I didn't pay much attention to what I was feeling because the doctors had ordered me not to tire my brain, I nevertheless remember that the sensation I experienced was not much unlike the pleasure produced in men by the languor they feel while they are falling asleep.

THE OTHER MUMMIES. We also seem to remember that.

RUYSCH. Be it as you say, although all those with whom I have had the chance of discussing this matter had an altogether different opinion; but then, so far as I can remember, they didn't bring up their own personal experience. Now tell me, at the time of death, while you felt that pleasure, did you think you were dying and that that pleasure was a courtesy of death, or did you imagine something else?

MUMMY. So long as I wasn't dead, I never thought I wouldn't escape that danger; and at least up to the last moment that I had the power to think, I kept hoping that I would still have an hour or two of life, as I think happens to many when they die.

THE OTHER MUMMIES. The same thing happened to us.

RUYSCH. Indeed, Cicero says that no one is so decrepit that he doesn't expect to live at least another year. But how did you notice at last that the spirit had left the body? Tell me, how did you know that you were dead? They don't answer. Children, don't you hear me? The quarter of an hour must be over. Let me feel their pulse. They're dead again all right; there is no danger of their scaring me another time. So let's go back to bed.

Dialogue Between Christopher Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez

COLUMBUS. A beautiful night, my friend.

GUTIERREZ. Beautiful indeed; but I think it would be more beautiful seen from land.

COLUMBUS. Good. So you're tired of sailing too.

GUTIERREZ. Not just of sailing; but this sailing is turning out to go on much longer than I thought, and it's beginning to get to me. Even so, you shouldn't think that I'm complaining about you, as the others do. Rather, you can be sure that whatever you may decide in regard to this voyage, I'll always be on your side, as in the past, as much as I can. But since we're on the subject, I would like you to tell me clearly, in all honesty, if you still feel as sure as in the beginning that you will find land and people in this part of the world, or if, after so much time and experience to the contrary, you are beginning to have doubts.

COLUMBUS. Frankly and in confidence, as friend to friend, I confess that I'm beginning to feel a little unsure, especially because during this voyage, many of the signs which had given me great hope have proved empty – like the birds that flew overhead from the West, a few days after we left Gomera, and which I thought an indication of land nearby. Also, day after day, I have seen that the facts have not borne out the assumptions and predictions I had made before setting out to sea as to the various things that I believed would occur in the course of the voyage. So I'm beginning to think that, as these predictions have misled me – although they seemed almost infallible – it may also be that the main assumption, that we would find land on the other side of the ocean, will prove empty too. It is true that this assumption is so well founded that, if it is false, it would seem that we could not trust any human judgment except when it is based entirely on things we can actually see and touch. But, on the other hand, I realize that often, in fact most of the time, reality is at odds with theory. And I also ask myself, how can you know that each part of the world is so much like the others that, simply because the Eastern Hemisphere is occupied partly by land and partly by water, it must also follow that the Western Hemisphere is divided up between the two elements? How can you know that it is not totally occupied by one immense sea? Or that instead of land, or even land and water, it could not contain some other element? And if it is made of land and sea like the other, wouldn't it be possible that it is uninhabited? Or even uninhabitable? But suppose it is no less inhabited than ours; how can you be sure that there are rational creatures, as in ours? And even if there are, how can you be sure they are men and not some other kind of intelligent animals? And if they are men, that they are not quite different from those you know? Let's say, much bigger in body, much stronger, with much greater agility, naturally endowed with much greater intelligence and wit; also much better civilized and far more advanced in both art and science? This is what I keep asking myself. And after all, Nature is imbued with such power, and her effects are so varied and numerous that not only can we not judge with certainty what she has done and is doing in faraway places totally unknown to our world, but we may also wonder if it is not a grave mistake to argue the former on the basis of the latter. And it would not be against the probability of truth to imagine that the things of the unknown world – either all together or in part – are alien and wondrous to us. Here we see with our own eyes that in these waters the compass needle deflects from the North Star quite a bit toward the West – a novel phenomenon unheard of to seamen before now; and no matter how long I ponder, I cannot find a reason that satisfies me. For all this, however, I do not mean to imply that we should lend an ear to the fables of the ancients about the wonders of the unknown world and of this ocean, as, for instance, Hanno's fable about the countries filled with flames at night and about the rivers of fire flowing headlong into the sea. Indeed, we see how empty so far have been all the fears of dreadful prodigies and terrifying novelties felt by our men during this voyage – as when they saw that great mass of seaweed that seemed to turn the water into a meadow, somewhat obstructing our path, and they thought they had reached the ultimate limits of the navigable sea. But in answer to your question, I only mean to suggest that my assumption is based on the most probable arguments, not only in my judgment but in the judgment of many distinguished geographers, astronomers, and navigators, whom I have consulted, as you know, in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Yet it might happen to be incorrect, for, as I repeat, many conclusions drawn from the best reasoning do not stand the test of experience, and this occurs more than ever when they concern things which are quite obscure to us.

GUTIERREZ. Then, in effect, you have staked your life, and the lives of your companions, on an issue that has no more basis than a purely speculative assumption.

COLUMBUS. That's true. I can't deny it. But leaving aside the fact that every day men risk their lives for much smaller causes and for matters of very little value – and even without giving it any thought – consider this: if you and I and our companions were not on these ships in the middle of this sea, in this unknown solitude, in as uncertain and dangerous a condition as we can imagine, what other kind of life would we be living? What would we be doing? How would we be spending these days? More happily, perhaps? Or, rather, wouldn't we be in some anxiety or hardship – or filled with boredom? What is a condition free from uncertainty and danger? If content and happy, it is to be preferred to any other; if tedious and miserable, I don't see what other kind of condition would be less desirable. I won't remind you of the glory and the benefits we will reap, should the outcome equal our hopes. Even if we don't gain any other advantage from this voyage, it still seems most profitable to me insofar as for some time it keeps us free from boredom, makes life dear to us, makes many things valuable to us which we might have otherwise held in low esteem. The ancients write – as you have probably read or heard – that unhappy lovers, hurling themselves into the sea from the Rock of Santa Maura (which was then called the Leucadian Rock) and surviving, were freed from the amorous passion by the grace of Apollo. I don't know whether we should believe that they were thus cured, but I know well that after escaping such a danger, they must have briefly held dear the very life they previously hated, even without Apollo's favor; or, in any case, they must have held it dearer and more valuable than before. In my judgment, every sea voyage is almost like a leap from the Leucadian Rock, and it produces effects which, although the same, are more lasting. In this sense, a sea voyage is far superior. It is commonly believed that being constantly in danger of death, seamen and soldiers value their own life much less than other people. But for the same reason I believe that very few people love and value their life as much as seamen and soldiers. How many blessings we ignore only because we have them! How many things that cannot even be called blessings seem very dear and very precious to seamen only because they are deprived of them! Who ever counted among human blessings having a little land to stand on? No one except seamen and, above all, ourselves, who, because of the great uncertainty about the outcome of this voyage, have no greater desire than the sight of a bit of land. This is the first thought that comes to us when we awaken, with this thought we fall asleep, and if from afar we happen to discover the tip of a mountain or a forest or a similar thing, we will not be able to contain our joy; and having set foot on land, only the thought of finding ourselves again on solid ground and of being able to go here and there walking as we please will make us feel full of bliss for several days.

GUTIERREZ. All this is quite correct, so much so that if your speculative assumption proves as true as your justification for having followed it, we shall no doubt enjoy this bliss – one day or another.

COLUMBUS. Personally, although I no longer dare promise it to myself with certainty, I hope, nevertheless, that we will soon enjoy it. For several days, as you know, the sounding line has been touching bottom; and the nature of what it brings to the surface seems a good sign to me. Toward evening, the clouds around the sun appear different in form and in color from those of the past days. The air, as you can feel, has become a little milder and warmer than in the past. The wind has no longer been blowing so full, and straight, and steady, but rather uncertain and variable as if it were interrupted by some obstacle. Add to this that reed floating in the sea which has apparently been recently cut and that little branch with its fresh red berries. And then the flocks of birds ... they have misled me before, but there are so many of them now and so large and they grow so much in number from day to day that I feel we can somewhat rely on them, especially because there are among them some birds which do not seem to be shaped like marine birds. In short, as much as I try to restrain myself, all these signs together give me great and good expectations.

GUTIERREZ. This time God grant that it come true.

In Praise of Birds

One spring morning, Amelius, the solitary philosopher, was sitting with his books in the shade of his country house, reading. Struck by the singing of birds all around, he gradually began to listen and think, and he stopped reading. Finally, he took up his pen, and then and there he wrote what follows.

Birds are by nature the most joyous creatures in the world. I do not mean this in the sense that they always bring you joy whenever you see or hear them but that they themselves feel joy and gaiety more than any other animals. The other animals normally look serious and grave, and many of them even appear melancholy; they seldom give signs of joy, and when they do, these are slight and brief; during most of their enjoyment and pleasures they do not show exhilaration or any indication of gaiety. Even if they derive pleasure from the green fields, from the open and beautiful vistas, from the brilliant sunshine, from the crystalline and sweet air, they do not give any outward sign of it – except for the hares, about which it is said that at night when the moon shines, and especially when it is a full moon, they hop and play together, rejoicing in that brightness, as Xenophon writes. Mostly, birds show themselves extremely joyous in their movements and in their looks; and their virtue of bringing us gaiety by their presence comes only from the fact that their forms and their actions are always such that by nature they display a special ability and a special disposition for pleasure and joy – an appearance not to be deemed empty and deceptive. With every pleasure and satisfaction they experience, they sing; and the greater the pleasure or the satisfaction, the greater the vigor and the effort they put into their singing. And since they sing a great deal of the time, we must conclude that normally they are cheerful and enjoy life. And although it has been observed that when they are in love they sing better and more often and at greater lengths than at other times, it must not be believed that they are not moved to singing by other pleasures and other satisfactions than those of love. For we can clearly see that on a calm and serene day they sing more than on a dark and turbulent one; and during a storm they keep silent as they do any other time they are assailed by fear; and after a storm, they come out into the air singing and playing with one another. Similarly, we can see that they are used to singing in the morning when they wake, being moved partly by the gaiety they derive from the new day and partly by the pleasure, common to all animals, of feeling restored and refreshed by sleep. Likewise, they highly enjoy cheerful verdures, fertile vales, pure and transparent waters, beautiful landscapes. It is quite interesting that what appears agreeable and beautiful to us appears the same to them – as may be ascertained by the lures with which they are drawn into nets or birdlime in the hunting thickets and the like. It may also be ascertained from the nature of those places in the countryside that are most frequented by birds and where their singing is continuous and fervid. On the other hand, either none or very few of the other animals, except perhaps those that are domesticated and are used to living with men, share with us this notion of the amenity and the beauty of places. This should not be surprising, for they find pleasure only in what is natural. Now, in these things, a very large part of what we call natural is not so but is, in fact, rather artificial; thus cultivated fields, trees, and other plants trained and disposed in a certain order, rivers confined within precise boundaries and directed toward a definite course, and similar things have neither the condition nor the appearance they would have naturally. So that the aspect of every country in habited by generations of civilized men – even if we do not consider the cities and other places where men congregate to live together – is something artificial and very difierent from what it would be in nature. Some people say, and it would bear on this subject, that the voice of birds is softer and sweeter and their singing more modulated in our areas than where men are wild and primitive; and they conclude that birds, even being free, pick up a little of the civilization of those men whose quarters they frequent.

Whether these people speak the truth or not, it certainly was a remarkable provision of nature to assign to the same species of animals both song and flight; so that those whose job it was to amuse the other living beings with their voices should normally be in high places, from which the sound could spread about through a greater space and reach a larger number of listeners, so that the air, which is the element destined for sound, should be peopled with vocal and musical creatures. We truly draw great consolation and pleasure – and we men no more, in my opinion, than the other animals – from listening to the singing of birds. And I think that this comes mainly not from the sweetness of the sounds, no matter how great they are, nor from their variety, nor from their mutual resonance, but from that gaiety which is naturally contained in song in general and in the song of birds in particular. Which is, so to speak, a sort of laughter, uttered by the birds when they feel well and comfortable.

Thus, in some way, it might be said that birds share with man the privilege of laughter – a privilege the other animals do not have. In fact, some people thought that since man is defined as an intellectual and reasoning animal, he could no less adequately be defined as a laughing animal, for they believed that laughter is no less characteristic of man than reason. And this is indeed something to marvel at: that man, who is the most afflicted and the most miserable of all creatures, should possess the faculty of laughter, which is alien to every other animal. And also something to marvel at is the use we make of this faculty, for we see many in extremely severe accidents, others in the depths of sadness, and still others who scarcely retain any love for life at all, totally convinced as they are of the vanity of every human good, almost incapable of any joy, and deprived of all hope – and yet we see them laugh. As a matter of fact, the more they know the vanity of those goods and the unhappiness of life, and the less they can hope and the less they are suited for the enjoyment of pleasure, the more men are inclined to laughter. Yet the nature of laughter in general and its inner principles and modes, as regards that part of it which consists in the mind, can scarcely be defined and explained – except by saying that laughter is a form of temporary madness, raving, and delirium. For men, never being satisfied and never finding real pleasure in anything, cannot have a reasonable and just cause for laughter. It would also be interesting to investigate how and on what most probable occasion men first used and recognized this power of theirs. For there is no doubt that in a primitive condition, they generally appear serious, as do the other animals; and they even look melancholy. Thus, I am of the opinion that not only did laughter appear in the world after tears – as to which there cannot be any controversy – but that it took a good space of time before it was first experimented with and seen. And during that time neither did the mother smile at her child, nor did the child recognize her with a smile – as Virgil says. For if nowadays, and at least where people have become civilized, men begin to laugh shortly after they are born, they do so mainly as a result of example because they see others laugh. I would think that the first occasion and the first cause for men to laugh was drunkenness – which is also inherently characteristic of the human race. This originated long before men attained any kind of civilization; in fact, we know that there can scarcely be found any people so primitive who have not provided themselves with some beverage or some other means to inebriate themselves and who are not in the habit of doing so immoderately. This should not be surprising, for as men are unhappy beyond all other animals, so more than all others do they find pleasure in every painless alienation of the mind, in forgetting about themselves, in an interruption, so to speak, of life. And so, by suspending, or in some way decreasing, the sense and knowledge of their own ills, they receive no small benefit. And as to laughter, we can observe that, although they are of serious and sad appearance at other times, primitive people laugh profusely when drunk – talking abundantly and singing, contrary to their habits. But I will discuss these matters more extensively in a history of laughter, which I have in mind to write. After investigating its birth, I will proceed by narrating its exploits, its vicissitudes, and its fortunes, up to the present time – when it is given more dignity and power than ever before by holding a place in civilized nations, by performing a function through which in some way it assumes the roles previously played by virtue, justice, honor, and the like, and in many ways by restraining and frightening men from evil actions. Now, to conclude on the singing of birds, I will say that since we generally draw consolation and gaiety from the joy we see or know in others – if we do not envy them – Nature very laudably decided that the singing of birds, which is an expression of gaiety and a kind of laughter, should be public whereas the singing and the laughter of man, with respect to the rest of the world, are private; and she wisely saw to it that the earth and air should swarm with animals that continuously give out resonant and solemn sounds, as though to applaud universal life and incite other living creatures to gaiety, thereby bearing uninterrupted, though false, witness to the happiness of all things.

And that birds are and show themselves to be more joyous than the other animals is not without a profound reason. For as I implied at the beginning, Nature really made them better suited for pleasure and happiness. First of all, they do not seem to be subject to boredom. They change place every moment; they pass from one region to another, however remote, and from the lowest to the highest realms of the air, in a brief space of time and with prodigious ease; in the course of their lives they see and experience things that are infinite in number and most diverse in form; they continuously exercise their bodies; they greatly abound in open-air activities. All the other animals, when they have provided for their needs, like to sit quietly and leisurely; not one of them, with the possible exception of fish and also some flying insects, goes running about for sheer amusement. Similarly, primitive man – who hardly takes a step except to keep providing for his daily needs which demand but little and short work, or except when a storm, or some wild beast or another similar event drives him – likes mainly leisure and apathy; he consumes almost his entire day sitting indolently and silently inside his little shapeless hut, in the open air, or in the clefts and caverns of cliffs and rocks. Birds, on the contrary, remain in the same place for a very short while; they continuously come and go without any need whatsoever; they fly around for pleasure; and sometimes they enjoy flying hundreds of miles from the area where they usually stay, and then they return there the evening of the same day. Even during the short time they stay in one place, you will never see them sit still; they keep turning here and there, strolling about, bending, stretching their necks, shaking, fluttering with liveliness, agility, and an indescribable swiftness of movement. In short, from when a bird is unlocked from the egg until it dies, save for the intervals of sleep, it is never at rest for a moment. As a result of these observations, it seems apparent that by nature the normal state of the other animals, including men, is rest; of birds, movement.

To these qualities and external conditions correspond the internal ones, that is to say, those of the mind – which make them better suited for happiness than other animals. Their sense of hearing is extremely sharp, and their eyesight is so efficient and perfect that our minds can hardly imagine it; because of these powers they enjoy all day long immense and most diversified spectacles, and from high up they discover at once so great an expanse of land and distinctly perceive so many regions with their eyes as man can hardly comprehend at the same time; from which we must infer that they must possess very great strength and vivacity and very great power of imagination. Not of that kind of profound, fervid, and tempestuous imagination as Dante and Tasso possessed – which is a most fatal gift and the origin of most grievous and perpetual anxiety and anguish – but of the kind that is rich, varied, light, unstable, and childlike, which is the most abundant source of pleasant and joyful thoughts, sweet illusions, manifold pleasures and consolations; it is also the greatest and the most fruitful gift Nature can generously bestow on living souls. Thus, birds possess in great abundance what in this faculty is good and conducive to mental happiness without what is noxious and painful. And since they abound in external life, they are equally rich in the internal but in such a way that this abundance brings them advantages and pleasures, as with children – not disadvantages and misery, as generally with men. For as in their liveliness and outward mobility birds manifestly resemble children, so we may reasonably assume that they resemble them in their inner qualities as well. And were the blessings of childhood common to the other ages and the ills of these no greater than those of childhood itself, perhaps man would have cause to bear life patiently.

In my opinion, if considered in certain ways, the nature of birds surpasses in perfection the nature of the other animals. For example, if we consider that birds by far excel all the others in eyesight and in the faculty of hearing, which, according to the natural order concerning living creatures, are the principal senses, it then follows that the nature of birds is more perfect than the other natures of living creatures. Additionally, if, as we have seen, other animals are naturally inclined to rest and birds to movement – and movement is more alive than rest, life consisting actually in movement, while birds abound in external movement more than any other animal – and moreover, if eyesight and hearing, in which they excel all the others and which predominate among their powers, are the two senses most characteristic of the living, for they also are more vivid and mobile both in themselves as in the habits and other effects that they produce inwardly and outwardly in the animal; and, finally, if we consider the other things already mentioned, the conclusion follows that birds have more external and internal life than the other animals. Now, if life is more perfect than its opposite, at least in living creatures, and if, therefore, a greater abundance of life is greater perfection, also here it follows that the nature of birds is more perfect. At this point we cannot forget that birds are equally suited to withstand the extremes of cold and heat, even without any interval of time between one and the other. In fact, we often see that in little more than an instant, from the ground they soar through the air to very great altitudes, which is like saying to extremely cold areas, and in a short time many of them fly across a variety of climates.

Finally, as Anacreon wished he could be changed into a mirror to be continuously looked at by his beloved, or into a skirt to cover her, or into an ointment to anoint her, or into water to wash her, or into a breast band so that she would press him to her bosom, or into a pearl which she would wear around her neck, or into a shoe that at least she might press him with her foot – similarly, I would like to be changed for a while into a bird so that I could experience the contentment and the joy of their life.

Song of the Great Wild Rooster

Some Hebrew scholars and writers assert that between the sky and the earth, or rather half in one and half in the other, there lives a certain wild rooster, whose feet rest on the earth and whose crest and beak touch the sky. In addition to such peculiarities of his as can be read in those authors, this giant rooster has the use of reason; or, indeed, like a parrot, it has been taught by I know not whom to utter words in the manner of men. In fact, a song entitled Scir detarnegòl bara letzafra, that is to say, Morning Song of the Great Wild Rooster, written in Hebrew script and in a language mixed with Chaldean, Targumic, Rabbinic, Cabalistic, and Talmudic, was found in an ancient parchment. I have managed to understand it and to translate it into our vernacular as follows, not without great labor or without consulting various rabbis, cabalists, theologians, jurists, and Jewish philosophers. I have not been able to ascertain as yet whether this song is repeated by the rooster from time to time or every morning; whether it was sung only once; who hears it or who has heard it; whether its language is actually the language of the rooster or whether the song itself was translated from another tongue. As to the present rendering, I have sought in every way I could to make it as faithful as possible, and I have thought it best to use prose rather than verse, notwithstanding the fact that it was poetry. Its somewhat disconnected and perhaps occasionally turgid style should not be held against me, for it conforms to that of the original text, which in this respect corresponds to the norms of Oriental languages and especially of their poets.

Up, mortals, awake! The day is born again; truth returns to earth, and empty images depart. Arise; take up again the burden of life; return from the false to the real world!

This is the time when everyone collects and reviews in his mind all the thoughts of his present life, recalls to memory his plans, efforts, and affairs, represents to himself the pleasures and the afflictions that might come to him during the new day. And each one during this time wishes more than ever to find in his mind joyous expectations and pleasant thoughts. But very few are granted this wish. For to awake is unfortunate for everyone. No sooner are the wretched awakened than they fall back into the hands of their unhappiness. Sweetest of all things is that sleep which was brought about by a combination of joy and hope – which are both preserved whole and safe until the coming of day, but then they both fail or dwindle.

If the sleep of mortals were perpetual and one and the same with life; if under the day star all living creatures languished in the most profound quiet all over the earth and there appeared no activity whatever: no lowing of oxen in the meadows, no roar of wild beasts in the forests, no singing of birds in the air, no murmur of butter-flies nor buzzing of bees throughout the countryside, no voice, no movement arose in any place but that of waters, winds, and storms; then the universe would indeed be useless; but would there perhaps be in it a lesser quantity of happiness or a larger amount of misery than there is now? I ask you, O Sun, author of the day and guardian of our waking hours, in the course of the centuries that you have so far measured and consumed rising and setting, did you once see a single one of the living beings happy? Of the innumerable works of the mortals which you have seen until now, do you think that even one achieved its aim: the satisfaction, continuous or temporary, of the creature that had produced it? Rather, do you see now, or did you ever see, happiness within the confines of the world? In what field does it dwell, in what forest, on what mountain, in what valley, in what region inhabited or deserted, in what planet of the many your flames light up and warm? Maybe it hides from your sight or resides in the depths of the caverns or in the bosom of the earth or at the bottom of the sea? What living thing, what plant or anything else you give life to, what creature endowed with, or deprived of, vegetative or animal life partakes of it? And you yourself, who, like an indefatigable giant, night and day, without either sleep or respite, swiftly run the immeasurable path that is prescribed to you, are you happy or unhappy?

Mortals awake! You are not yet free from life. The time will come when no external force, no internal movement, will shake you from the quiet of sleep, in which you will then forever insatiably rest. Death is not granted to you as yet; only occasionally are you allowed a semblance of it for a short space of time. For life could not be sustained if it were not frequently interrupted. Too long a want of this brief and ephemeral sleep is in itself deadly and a cause of eternal sleep. Such a thing is life that in order to bear it, we must lay it down, now and again, to catch our breath and to refresh ourselves with a taste and almost a particle of death.

The very essence of things seems to have death as its real and only purpose. All that exists springs from nothingness, because what does not exist cannot die. It is certain that the ultimate purpose of existence is not happiness, for nothing is happy. It is true that living creatures aim at this end with every one of their works; but they do not attain it through any one of them; and during their entire lives they keep striving, straining themselves, and suffering without agonizing and without toiling toward anything but the achievement of this sole purpose of nature, which is death.

The first hours of the day are normally the most endurable for the living. Few people find their minds occupied by pleasant and joyous thoughts when they awake; but almost everyone produces and forms some rather quickly; for at that hour the human mind, although without any specific and particular reason, is above all inclined to cheerfulness and more disposed than at any other time to tolerate the ills of life. Therefore, if someone was filled with despair when caught by sleep, he again finds hope in his mind when he awakens, even if there is no reason for it. Many misfortunes and personal troubles, many causes for fear and for distress appear at that time much smaller than the night before. Also, often the anguish of the past day is scorned and almost laughed at as the result of illusions and of empty imagining. The evening is comparable to old age, while the beginning of the morning is like youth, which is generally at ease and confident; and the evening is sad, discouraged, and inclined to ominous expectations. But just as actual youth in life, so the one mortals experience every day is extremely brief and ephemeral; and very soon the day too grows older.

Although it is the best part of life, the flower of our years is yet a rather miserable thing. In fact, even this paltry blessing fails in such a short time that when man notices by many signs that it is declining, he has scarcely experienced the perfection of his being, or has hardly been able to feel and know his own powers when they already begin to diminish. Mortal creatures of all kinds spend the greatest part of life withering away. So much is nature intent upon pointing to death in all her works: for no other reason does old age prevail so manifestly and for so long a time in life and in the world. Every part of the universe hastens indefatigably toward death with marvellous determination and swiftness. Only the universe itself appears immune to decaying and to languishing; for if in the fall and in the winter it shows itself almost infirm and old, nevertheless, it always grows young again in the new season. But just as mortals in the first part of the day reacquire some portion of their youth and yet grow older every day and finally expire, so the universe may appear to grow young again at the beginning of every year, although it nevertheless continuously grows older. The time will come when this universe and nature herself will be no more. And just as of very great human kingdoms and empires and of their marvelous exploits, which were so very famous in other ages, there remains no sign of fame whatsoever; so too of the entire world, and of the infinite vicissitudes and calamities of all created things, no single trace will remain; but a naked silence and a most profound quiet will fill the immensity of space. Thus, this stupendous and frightening mystery of universal existence, before it can be declared or understood, will vanish and be lost.

The Copernicus

Scene One

THE FIRST HOUR AND THE SUN

FIRST HOUR. Good morning, Your Excellency.

SUN. Yes, rather, good night.

FIRST HOUR. The horses are ready.

SUN. Good.

FIRST HOUR. The morning star has been out for some time.

SUN. Let her come and go as she likes.

FIRST HOUR. What do you mean by that, Your Excellency?

SUN. I mean that I want you to leave me alone.

FIRST HOUR. But, Your Excellency, the night has already lasted so long that it can't last any longer. If we wait any more, Your Excellency, something really strange might happen.

SUN. Whatever happens, I'm not going to move.

FIRST HOUR. Oh, Your Excellency, what's that? Don't you feel well?

SUN. No, no, I'm not feeling anything. I just don't want to move. And you, you mind your own business.

FIRST HOUR. How can I, if you don't come? I'm the first hour of the day; and how can the day be, if Your Excellency isn't kind enough to come out as usual?

SUN. If not to the day, you'll belong to the night – or the Hours of the night will work a double shift, and you and your day companions will do nothing. Because, do you know what? I'm tired of this continuous going around to give light to a few little animals that live on a handful of mud – so small that I, who have quite good eyesight, can't even see it. Tonight I have decided that I don't want to take any more trouble for this; and if men want to see some light, they should keep their fires burning or find some other way.

FIRST HOUR. But, Your Excellency, what way do you want them to find, those poor little creatures? And to have to keep their lamps burning or to keep so many candles lit the whole space of the day will be excessively costly. If they had already found that kind of air to be used for burning, for lighting streets, rooms, shops, cellars, and everything else, at a very low cost, then I would say that it wouldn't be so bad. But the fact is that three hundred years, more or less, still have to pass before men find this kind of remedy. Mean-while, they'll run out of oil, and of wax, and of pitch, and of tallow; and they'll have nothing more to burn.

SUN. They can go and catch fireflies and glowworms.

FIRST HOUR. And what will they do against the cold? For without Your Excellency's assistance, the firewood of all the forests won't be enough to keep them warm. They'll also starve to death, for the earth will no longer bear fruit. And so in the course of a few years, even the breed of those poor animals will be lost. And when they'll have gone groping here and there about the earth for a while, looking for something to eat and to keep warm, finally, after there is nothing left to swallow and when the last spark of fire is no more, they'll all die in the dark, frozen like pieces of rock crystal.

SUN. Why should I care? Am I, by any chance, the wet nurse of the human race, or the chef who must prepare and cook their food? And why should I care if a few invisible little creatures, millions of miles away, can't see and can't stand the cold without my light? And then, if I must also serve, so to speak, as a heater or a fireplace for this human family, it's only reasonable that if the family wants to warm themselves, they should come to the fireplace, and not that the fireplace should go running around the house. So, if the earth needs my presence, let her go moving around herself and do everything possible to get it; for, personally, I don't need anything from the earth that I should go and look out for her.

FIRST HOUR. Your Excellency means to say, if I understand well, that now the earth should do what you have been doing in the past.

SUN. Yes, now, and forever from now on.

FIRST HOUR. Your Excellency is certainly right there, in addition to the fact that you can do whatever you like. Nevertheless, please consider how many beautiful things will necessarily go to rack and ruin if you establish this new order of things. The day will no longer have its beautiful gilded chariot, with its beautiful horses, that used to bathe in the sea; and without dwelling on other details, we poor Hours will no longer have a place in the sky, and from celestial maidens we'll become terrestrial, unless, as I expect, we dissolve into smoke. But be this as it may, the problem will be to convince the earth to go around, which must be quite difficult, for she is not used to it; and it must also seem strange to her to have to run forever and exert herself so much, after never having moved an inch from that place of hers. And if Your Excellency is seemingly beginning to lend an ear to laziness, I've heard that the earth is in no way more inclined to physical exertion now than she was in the past.

SUN. In this case, need will goad her and make her jump and run as much as necessary. But here the fastest and surest way is to find a poet or a natural philosopher who would convince the earth to move or, in case he couldn't convince her, who would force her to. For in the long run, most of this business is in the hands of poets and of natural philosophers; as a matter of fact, they can do nearly anything. The poets are those who in the past (when I was younger and listened to them), with those beautiful songs of theirs, led me – big and fat as I am – to do of my own free will, as a sport or an honorable exercise, that extremely stupid job of running desperately around a small grain of sand. But now that I'm older and have turned to philosophy, in everything I look for what's useful and not for what's beautiful; and the sentiments of poets, when they don't make me sick, make me laugh. Before doing something, I want to have good and substantial reasons; and since I find no reason whatsoever for considering an active life preferable to a leisurely and pleasant one – for an active life could not give you any fruit worth the trouble or even the thought (in the world there is no fruit worth a penny) – I've resolved to leave the exertions and the discomforts to others and, as far as I'm concerned, live at home in peace and without doing anything. Besides being partly the effect of age, this change, as I told you, was caused by philosophers – people who these days have begun to gain power, and keep gaining it more and more. Therefore, if I want the earth to move and to run around in my place, in one respect a poet would be more suitable than a natural philosopher or a scientist, for poets, with one story or another, make people believe that the things of the world are really valuable and important and that they are very pleasant and beautiful, and they create a thousand cheerful hopes, and thus they persuade people to exert themselves and work hard, whereas philosophers dissuade them. However, since philosophers have begun to get the upper hand, I'm afraid that nowadays a poet would not be listened to by the earth any more than by me; or if he were listened to, he wouldn't have any effect. Therefore, I think it's better if we enlist the services of a natural philosopher or a scientist, for although philosophers are normally little suited, and still less inclined, to persuade others to work, it might nevertheless happen that in this extreme case they would manage to do something totally unusual – unless the earth decides that it is more advantageous to go to perdition rather than to trouble herself so much – in which case I wouldn't say that she is wrong. Enough, we'll see what happens. Now, do this: go down to the earth, or send one of your sisters, anyone you want; and if she finds one of those natural philosophers outside his house in the fresh air, studying the sky and the stars – for it is reasonable to expect that she will find some because of the extraordinary length of this night – without more ado, she should lift him up, throw him on her back, and bring him all the way up here to me; and I'll persuade him to do what's necessary. Do you understand?

FIRST HOUR. Yes, Your Excellency. I'll do just that.

Scene Two

(Standing on his terrace, watching the eastern sky through a small paper tube – because the telescope had not been invented yet)

COPERNICUS. Incredible. Either the clocks are all wrong, or the sun should have already risen more than an hour ago; and yet here we can't even see the faintest glimmer in the east, although the sky is as clear and limpid as a mirror. All the stars are shining as if it were midnight. Now go and check Almagest and Sacrobosco, and ask them to explain the reason for this. I have often heard about the night Jupiter spent with Amphitryon's wife; I also remember having recently read in a modern book by a Spaniard that the Peruvians say that once in ancient times there was in their country an extremely long night, as a matter of fact an interminable one, and that finally the sun came out of a lake they call Titicaca. But until now I thought that this was sheer nonsense; and just like all reasonable men I was sure that it was so. Now that I realize that reason and science aren't worth an iota, I have decided to believe that those, and similar things, may be perfectly true. In fact, I'm about to go to all the lakes and all the swamps I can find, to see if I can, by any chance, fish out the sun. But what's this roar that I hear – like the sound of the wings of a great bird?

Scene Three

THE LAST HOUR AND COPERNICUS

LAST HOUR. Copernicus, I'm the Last Hour.

COPERNICUS. The last hour? Well, I can't do anything about it. Only, if possible, give me enough time to write my last will and put my affairs in order – before I die.

LAST HOUR. What do you mean,‘die’? I'm not the last hour of life.

COPERNICUS. Who are you then? The last canonical hour of the breviary?

LAST HOUR. I certainly believe that you like that one better than the others – when you are in the choir.

COPERNICUS. But how do you know that I'm a canon priest? And how do you know me? You just called me by my name.

LAST HOUR. I got information about you from some people down below in the street. In short, I'm the last hour of the day.

COPERNICUS. Ah, I understand. The First Hour is ill; that's why we don't see the day yet.

LAST HOUR. Allow me to go on. The day won't come any more – not today, not tomorrow, not ever, if you don't do something about it.

COPERNICUS. That's a good one! As if it were my job to make the day!

LAST HOUR. I'll tell you how. But first you must come with me immediately to the house of the Sun, my master. You'll learn more along the way, and His Excellency will tell you part of it himself when we get there.

COPERNICUS. All right. But if I'm not mistaken, the trip must be a rather long one. And how can I carry enough supplies so that I won't starve to death some years before I get there? Besides, I don't think His Excellency's lands produce enough for a single lunch.

LAST HOUR. Forget about these fears. You won't have to stay in the house of the Sun for long; and the trip will take but a moment – for in case you don't know, I'm a spirit.

COPERNICUS. But I'm a body.

LAST HOUR. Well, there's no need for you to worry about these things; you're not a metaphysical philosopher. Come here, get on my shoulders, and leave the rest to me.

COPERNICUS. Well, here we go ... Let's see how this thing is going to end.

Scene Four

COPERNICUS AND THE SUN

COPERNICUS. Most illustrious sir.

SUN. Forgive me, Copernicus, if I don't ask you to sit down; but we don't use chairs. We'll be done in a moment. You've already heard from my servant what this problem is all about. Personally – and from what the girl tells me about your ability – I think you are perfectly suited for the job we have in mind.

COPERNICUS. Sir, I see many difficulties in this job.

SUN. Difficulties should not frighten a man of your kind. As a matter of fact, people say that they increase the courage of the courageous. But then, what are these difficulties?

COPERNICUS. First of all, no matter how great is the power of natural philosophy or science, I'm not sure it's so great as to convince the earth to begin to run rather than sit comfortably, and to work and exert herself rather than remain idle, especially in our times, which are not heroic at all.

SUN. So, if you can't convince her, force her.

COPERNICUS. Gladly, my illustrious sir, if I were a Hercules or even a Roland, and not a canon priest from Worms.

SUN. What has that got to do with it? Aren't we told that one of your ancient mathematicians used to say that if he could stand somewhere outside the world, no doubt he could move heaven and earth? Now, you don't have to move heaven; and here you are in a place outside the earth. Therefore, if you're no less clever than that ancient one, you should be able to move her – whether she likes it or not.

COPERNICUS. My dear sir, I could do that, but I would need a lever, which should be so long that not only I, but you yourself, illustrious sir, however rich you may be, wouldn't have enough to cover the cost of the necessary materials and of the labor. Another, and graver, difficulty is the following: as a matter of fact, it's like a knot of difficulties. Up to now the earth has held first place in the universe, that is to say, the center; and, as you know, she has been sitting motionless without anything else to do but look around at all the other globes of the universe, the largest as well as the smallest, the shiny as well as the dark, which have kept rolling above and below and by her sides with such a hurry, such a concern, such a vehemence that we are stunned if we just think about it. And, thus, everything proved to be at her services, and the universe looked like a court where the earth sat as if on a throne, and the other globes all around her, like courtiers, guards, and lackeys, tending to one job or another. As a result, the earth has always believed herself to be the empress of the universe; and, actually, while conditions remained as they were in the past, we can't say that hers was an unreasonable idea; as a matter of fact, I wouldn't deny that such an idea of hers rested on good foundations. And then what shall I tell you about men? We consider, and shall always consider, ourselves the first and the supremely important among all earthly creatures. Each one of us, even if dressed in rags and with no more than a piece of hard bread to gnaw on, thinks of himself as an emperor; and not just of Constantinople or of Germany or of half the earth – as the Roman emperors were – but as an emperor of the universe, an emperor of the sun, of the planets, of all the stars, visible and invisible, and the ultimate cause of the stars, of the planets, of your illustrious Excellency, and of all things. But now if we want the earth to abandon that central place, if we make her run, revolve, bustle about continuously, do exactly the same job as has so far been done by the other globes, and, finally, become one of the planets – this will mean that her earthly majesty, and their human majesties, will have to clear the throne and abandon the empire – being left with their rags and their miseries, which aren't few.

SUN. What are you driving at with this talk, my dear Father Nicholas? Are you perhaps afraid that such an action would be high treason?

COPERNICUS. No, most illustrious sir; for neither the codes, nor the Digest, nor the books of public law, nor those of imperial law, nor of civil law, nor of natural law, mention this kind of treason, as far as I can remember. But I mean to say that this business of ours is not going to be simply material, as it appears at first sight, and that its effects are not going to be restricted to physics, for it will upset all the steps on the ladder of the dignity of things and the order of beings; it will switch the purposes of creatures; and therefore it will cause an extremely great revolution in metaphysics as well as in fact, in every thing that touches the speculative side of knowledge. And as a result, if men can or want to reason well, they'll discover that they are something completely different from what they have been until now or from what they have imagined themselves to be.

SUN. Son, those things don't frighten me at all; for I respect metaphysics as much as physics, and as much as chemistry – or necromancy, if you like. And men will have to be satisfied with being what they are, and if they don't like that, let them go on with their upside-down reasoning and with their arguing against the evidence of facts, as they will be able to do very easily. Thus, they'll continue to believe they are whatever they think – either barons, or dukes, or emperors, or anything else they like. This will comfort them, and those judgments of theirs won't annoy me in the slightest.

COPERNICUS. All right, let's forget about men and about earth. But consider, my most illustrious sir, what we may expect to happen with the other planets. When they see that the earth has become one of them and does everything they do, they will no longer want to be so naked and unadorned, so deserted and sad as they have always been – with the earth alone having so many ornaments. They too will want their rivers, their seas, their mountains, their plants, and, among other things, their animals and their inhabitants; for they won't see any reason for being inferior to the earth in anything. And there will be another immense revolution in the universe: an endless number of new families will in a moment be seen springing up everywhere like mushrooms.

SUN. And you can let them spring up. And let them be as many as they can; for my light and my heat will be enough for all of them – and at no extra cost; and the universe will have enough to feed, clothe, lodge, and treat them generously without getting into debt.

COPERNICUS. But most illustrious sir, consider a little further, and you'll see yet another messy situation. The stars, too, when they see that you have sat down, not on a stool but on a throne, and that you are surrounded by such a beautiful court and such a population of planets – they, too, will want not only to sit down themselves and take a rest, but they'll want to reign as well; and in order to reign, one must have subjects; therefore, they'll want their own planets just as you have – each one his own. And these new planets will also have to be adorned and inhabited, like the earth. And at this point I won't tell you any more about the poor human race – which has already become almost nothing in relation to this present world. What will it become when so many thousands of other worlds burst forth so that the minutest star in the Milky Way won't be without one of her own? But even if we consider only your own interest, let me say that until now you have been, if not first, certainly second in the universe – let's say, next to the earth – and have had no equal, for the stars haven't had the audacity to compare themselves with you. But in this new state of the universe you'll have as many equals as there are stars with their worlds. So be careful that this change you want to make doesn't prejudice your own dignity.

SUN. Don't you remember what your Caesar said when, crossing the Alps, he happened to pass near the hamlet of some poor barbarians? – that he would rather be first in that little hamlet than second in Rome. Similarly, I should prefer to be first in this world of ours rather than second in the universe. But it isn't ambition that moves me to change the present state of things; it's only the love of peace or, to be more exact, laziness. And so, I don't much care about having or not having equals or about being in first or in last place; for unlike Cicero I'm more interested in leisure than in dignity.

COPERNICUS. Most illustrious sir, as far as I'm concerned, I'll do everything possible to get this leisure for you. But I'm afraid that even if I manage to succeed in my intent, it won't last very long. First, I'm almost sure that before many years have passed, you'll be forced to go whirling around like the pulley of a well or like a millstone – though without changing places. Then I suspect that finally, sooner or later, you'll find it necessary to begin to run again; I don't say around the earth; but what do you care about this? And perhaps that same revolving of yours will serve as a reason for your running. Enough, be it as it may; in spite of all difficulties and other considerations, if you insist in your resolution, I'll see if I can help you, so that if this doesn't work out, you'll believe that I could not – and not say that I'm a man without much courage.

SUN. All right, my Copernicus, try.

COPERNICUS. There is only one more difficulty.

SUN. Tell me, what's that?

COPERNICUS. I wouldn't like to be burned alive like the phoenix because of this. For if this happens, I'm sure that I wouldn't rise again from my ashes like that bird; and so, from then on I wouldn't see Your Excellency's face any more.

SUN. Listen, Copernicus, you know that at the time when you philosophers and scientists had scarcely been born – I mean to say, when poetry held the field – I was a prophet. Now I want you to let me predict the future for the last time, and in memory of my ancient power I want you to believe me. So then, I tell you that perhaps after you, those who approve what you have done may get somewhat charred or something like that; but you yourself, as far as I can see, won't suffer at all because of this. And if you want to be even safer, follow this advice: dedicate the book you write on the subject to the pope. This way, I promise you that you won't even lose your canonry.

Dialogue Between an Almanac Peddler and a Passer-by

PEDDLER. Almanacs, new almanacs; new calendars. Do you need any almanacs, Sir?

PASSER-BY. Almanacs for the new year?

PEDDLER. Yes, Sir.

PASSER-BY. Do you think the new year is going to be a happy one?

PEDDLER. Yes, Sir, absolutely.

PASSER-BY. Like last year?

PEDDLER. More, much more.

PASSER-BY. Like the year before?

PEDDLER. More, Sir, more.

PASSER-BY. But like what other? Wouldn't you want the new year to be like one of these past years?

PEDDLER. No, Sir, I wouldn't.

PASSER-BY. How many new years ago did you start selling almanacs?

PEDDLER. Sir, it must be twenty years.

PASSER-BY. Which one of those twenty years would you want the next one to be like?

PEDDLER. Me? I wouldn't know.

PASSER-BY. Don't you remember any year in particular that you thought was happy?

PEDDLER. Actually, I don't, Sir.

PASSER-BY. But life is beautiful, isn't it?

PEDDLER. Everybody knows that.

PASSER-BY. Wouldn't you like to live those twenty years over again, and all your past years, beginning with the day you were born?

PEDDLER. Eh, my dear Sir, I wish to God I could.

PASSER-BY. But if you had to live exactly the same life all over again – with all its pleasures and all its pains?

PEDDLER. I wouldn't like that.

PASSER-BY. But what kind of life would you like to live over again? The life I've had, or a prince's, or who else's? Don't you think that I, the prince, or anyone else, would answer just like you, that having to live the same life over again, no one would want to go back to it?

PEDDLER. I think so.

PASSER-BY. You wouldn't go back either, unless you could in some other way?

PEDDLER. No. Sir; I really wouldn't.

PASSER-BY. But what kind of life would you like then?

PEDDLER. Any kind, just as God would send it to me, with no other conditions.

PASSER-BY. Any life at random, without knowing anything about it in advance, just as we don't know anything about the new year?

PEDDLER. Precisely.

PASSER-BY. That's what I would like too if I were to live all over again; and that's what everyone would like. But this means that, up until the end of this year, Fortune has treated everyone badly. And it's clear that every one thinks that he was allotted more, and greater, evil than good – if to live the same life all over again, with all its good and all its evil, no one would want to be born anew. The life that's beautiful is not the life we know, but the life we don't know; not the past life, but the future. With the new year, Fortune will start treating you and me and all the others well, and the happy life will begin. Isn't it true?

PEDDLER. Let's hope so.

PASSER-BY. Then show me your most beautiful almanac.

PEDDLER. Here it is, Sir. This one is thirty cents.

PASSER-BY. Here's thirty cents.

PEDDLER. Thank you, Sir. Goodbye. Almanacs, new almanacs; new calendars.

企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想

论权力

（英汉双语）

［英］莎士比亚　著

朱生豪　方　平　等译

中国出版集团

中译出版社

图书在版编目（CIP）数据

论权力：英汉对照／（英）莎士比亚著；朱生豪，方平译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-4345-1

Ⅰ．①论…　Ⅱ．①莎…②朱…③方…　Ⅲ．①莎士比亚，W．（1564～1616）—戏剧文学—文学研究—英、汉　Ⅳ．①I561.073

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2015）第267702号

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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This selection first published in Penguin Books 2009

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版　　次／2016年1月第一版

印　　次／2016年1月第一次

ISBN 978-7-5001-4345-1

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“企鹅”及相关标识是企鹅图书有限公司已经注册或尚未注册的商标。

未经允许，不得擅用。

中译出版社与企鹅图书有限公司联合出版

《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great nonfiction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books, first written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential, but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

导读

政府权力

家庭权力

战争和暴力中的权力

恋人间的权力

Contents

Power in government

Power in the family

Power in war and violence

Power of love, between men and women

返回总目录

导读

威廉·莎士比亚，这个从文艺复兴时期施施然走来的英国人，创造了文学世界的一个奇观：他的译本遍布全球，研究他的论著浩如烟海，他同时得到文学巨匠和普通读者的一致倾慕，他的作品完美地诠释了“经典”和“畅销”，他是普世的，是属于千秋万代的。大仲马曾经说：“除了上帝，莎士比亚创造的最多。”木心则更进一步，直言：“威廉，你是仅次于上帝的人。”

这样的评论，本来不可轻信，可是面对莎翁的一部部传世精品，我们只能哑口无言，只好看一遍，再看一遍，一任由他牵引，听他对世相人心、权力欲望，抽筋刮骨似的鞭辟，还有，感受一个文学家对天下一切的可悲可怜难以自禁的同情。莎士比亚不仅有一双天赋的慧眼，一份天纵的才情，写善恶两极时，痛快淋漓，直见性命，更有一颗金心，句句诚恳，对人事自有一份体谅。

对一部《哈姆雷特》的论述，也许已经可以撑起一座图书馆。但是莎士比亚之所以是莎士比亚，当还有另外一层伟大——在这本中英文都只有百十页的小书《论权力》里，没有曲折的情节，摘选莎作中有关权力的诸片段，处处易懂，但也处处都是警句——想必能做到随意抽取片言片语，都闪烁着金句光芒的，莎翁之作，仅次于《圣经》。

对于高高在上的君王，莎翁有刻骨铭心的嘲讽，但淳朴、实在，他嘲笑他们煊赫的排场和所得的奉承，在《李尔王》里对虚荣国王不留情面；他也体恤，借着亨利五世之口直言：“随着‘伟大’而来的，是多么难堪的地位啊……做了国王，多少民间所享受的人生乐趣他就得放弃”；同时，他还清醒，国王“除了地位、名衔、外表引起人们的敬畏与惶惑外——你还有什么呢”……不是李尔王执迷不悟，也不是亨利五世勤恳清明，而是莎士比亚，实在透彻。

透彻的莎翁自然也不会放过对庶人的针刺。他在《奥赛罗》里写出两种奴才相：有一辈是天生的奴才，奴颜卑膝，为了粮草出卖一生；另有一种，则表面鞠躬如也，骨子里实利成癖。这样的感喟，并非出自知识，它来自一个敏感的文豪敏感的处世经验。这样的奴才代代都不稀缺，所以说，莎翁的写作超越了时代，因为他退得开，所以他看得透。人间百态，人性深层，写到这样悠游裕如的地步，他因此永恒。

而莎士比亚的金心，在这本书中最动人的体现，首推最后“恋人间的权力”部分的选段。当鲍西亚对着巴萨尼奥倾诉肺腑，慨言为妻的忠诚时，当罗密欧说“朱丽叶所在的地方就是天堂”，为爱陨殉时，我们有幸，读到了这世上最美的情书。后来人再写年少的爱恋，难以超越了。莎士比亚，他是世间所有懂爱之人的知音。

莎翁没有上过大学，可他的语言之优美、词汇之丰饶，令人感佩，这或许恰巧印证了那句“虎豹出自山野”吧。在无数的莎翁著作中译本中，朱生豪先生的译笔尤健，既雅且达，颇现原著精髓。作为读者，我们只有以阅读来贡献敬仰。

假若没有《哈姆雷特》和《罗密欧与朱丽叶》，文学世界将少了怎样两颗明珠？假若没有莎翁，世界文学史有没有塌下一角的感觉？实在不敢想象。因此只好打开书，再读一遍莎翁的金句，感叹他那颗金子般的心。

政府权力

哈姆莱特　第三幕　第三场

罗森格兰兹　每一个庶民都知道怎样远祸全身，一个身负天下重寄的人，尤其应该时刻不懈地防备危害的袭击。君主的薨逝不仅是个人的死亡，它像一个旋涡一样，凡是在它近旁的东西，都要被它卷去同归于尽；又像一个矗立在最高山峰上的巨轮，它的轮辐上连附着无数的小物件，当巨轮轰然崩裂的时候，那些小物件也跟着它一齐粉碎。国王的一声叹息，总是随着全国的呻吟。

（朱生豪　译）

理查二世　第三幕　第二场

理查王　不必问他在什么地方。谁也不准讲那些安慰的话儿，让我们谈谈坟墓、蛆虫和墓碑吧；让我们以泥土为纸，用我们淋雨的眼睛在大地的胸膛上写下我们的悲哀；让我们找几个遗产管理人，商议我们的遗嘱——可是这也不必，因为我们除了把一具尸骸还给大地以外，还有什么可以遗留给后人的？我们的土地、我们的生命，一切都是波林勃洛克的，只有死亡和掩埋我们骨骼的一黄土，才可以算是属于我们自己的。为了上帝的缘故，让我们坐在地上，讲些关于国王们的死亡的悲惨的故事；有些是被人废黜的，有些是在战场上阵亡的，有些是被他们所废黜的鬼魂们缠绕着的，有些是被他们的妻子所毒毙的，有些是在睡梦中被杀的，全都不得善终；因为在那围绕着一个凡世的国王头上的这顶空洞的王冠之内，正是死神驻节的宫廷，这妖魔高坐在里边，揶揄他的尊严，讪笑他的荣华，给他一段短短的呼吸的时间，让他在舞台上露一露脸，使他君临万民，受尽众人的敬畏，一眨眼就可以致人于死命，把妄自尊大的思想灌注他的心头，仿佛这包藏着我们生命的血肉的皮囊，是一堵不可摧毁的铜墙铁壁一样；当他这样志得意满的时候，却不知道他的末日已经临近眼前，一枚小小的针就可以刺破他的壁垒，于是再会吧，国王！戴上你们的帽子；不要把严肃的敬礼施在一个凡人的身上；丢开传统的礼貌，仪式的虚文，因为你们一向都把我认错了；像你们一样，我也靠着面包生活，我也有欲望，我也懂得悲哀，我也需要朋友；既然如此，你们怎么能对我说我是一个国王呢？

（朱生豪　译）

雅典的泰门　第四幕　第三场

艾帕曼特斯　要是你披上这身寒酸的衣服，目的只是要惩罚你自己的骄傲，那么很好；可是你是出于勉强的，倘然你不再是一个乞丐，你就会再去做一个廷臣。自愿的贫困胜如不定的浮华；穷奢极欲的人要是贪得无厌，比最贫困而知足的人更要不幸得多了。你既然这样困苦，应该但求速死。

泰门　我不会听了一个比我更倒霉的人的话而去寻死。你是一个奴隶，命运的温柔的手臂从来不曾拥抱过你。要是你从呱呱堕地的时候就跟我们一样，可以随心所欲地享受这浮世的欢娱，你一定已经沉溺在无边的放荡里，把你的青春消磨在左拥右抱之中，除了一味追求眼前的淫乐以外，再也不会知道那些冷冰冰的人伦道德。可是我，整个的世界曾经是我的糖果的作坊；人们的嘴、舌头、眼睛和心都争先恐后地等候着我的使唤，虽然我没有这许多工作可以给他们做；无数的人像叶子依附橡树一般依附着我，可是经不起冬风的一吹，他们便落下枝头，剩下我赤裸裸的枯干，去忍受风雨的摧残：像我这样享福过来的人，一旦挨受这种逆运，那才是一件难堪的重荷；你却是从开始时候就尝到人世的痛苦的，经验已经把你磨炼得十分坚强了。你为什么厌恶人类呢？他们从来没有向你献过媚；你曾经有些什么东西给人家呢？倘然你要咒骂，你就得咒骂你的父亲，那个穷酸的叫化，他因为一时起兴，和一个女乞婆养下了你这世袭的穷光蛋来。滚开！快去！倘然你不是生下来就是世间最下贱的人，你就是个奸佞的小人。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利五世　第一幕　第二场

坎特伯雷　所以上天把人体当作一个政体，赋予了性质各各不同的机能；不同的机能使一个个欲求不断地见之于行动；而每一个行动，就像系附着同一种目标或者是同一种对象，也必然带来了整体的服从。蜜蜂就是这样发挥它们的效能；这种昆虫，凭着自己天性中的规律把秩序的法则教给了万民之邦。它们有一个王，有各司其职的官员；有些像地方官，在国内惩戒过失；也有些像闯码头、走外洋去办货的商人；还有些像兵丁，用尾刺做武器，在那夏季的丝绒似的花蕊中间大肆劫掠，然后欢欣鼓舞，把战利品往回搬运——运到大王升座的宝帐中；那日理万机的蜂王，可正在视察那哼着歌儿的泥水匠把金黄的屋顶给盖上。一般安份的老百姓又正在把蜂蜜酿造；可怜那脚夫们，肩上扛着重担，硬是要把小门挨进；只听见“哼！”冷冷的一声——原来那瞪着眼儿的法官把那无所事事、呵欠连连的雄蜂发付给了脸色铁青的刽子手。我的结论是：许许多多的事情只要环绕着一个共同的目的，不妨分头进行；就像从各个不同的角度发出的箭，射向一个目标；东西南北的道路都通向一个城镇；千百条淡水的河流汇聚在一片咸海里；许多线条结合在日晷的中心点——就像这样，千头万绪的事业一旦动手，共同完成一个使命，什么都顺利进行，不会有一些儿差错。所以，到法兰西去吧，我的君主！把你那“快乐的英格兰”一分为四，这四分之一就归你带到法兰西去大显威风，叫高卢族人人发抖。而我们，以三倍的力量在国内防守，要是再不能扎紧藩篱，不许野狗钻进来，那么合该我们倒楣，叫恶狗扑身，丧尽了咱们民族的勇敢与政治上机警的英名。

（方　平　译）

科利奥兰纳斯　第二幕　第二场

吏乙　老实说一句，有许多大人物尽管口头上拚命讨好平民，心里却一点不喜欢他们；也有许多人喜欢了一个人，却不知道为什么要喜欢他，他们既然会莫名其妙地爱他，也就会莫名其妙地恨他。所以科利奥兰纳斯对于他们的爱憎漠不关心，正可以表示他真正了解他们的性格；他也由他们去看得一清二楚，满不在意。

吏甲　要是他对于他们的爱憎漠不关心，那么他既不会有心讨好他们，也不会故意冒犯他们；可是他对他们寻衅的心理，却比他们对他仇恨的心理更强，凡是可以表明他是他们的敌人的事实，他总是不加讳饰地表现出来。像这样有意装出敌视人民的态度，比起他所唾弃的那种取媚人民以求得他们欢心的手段来，同样是不足为法的。

吏乙　他替国家立下了极大的功劳；他的跻登高位，绝不像那些毫无寸尺之功、单凭着向人民曲意逢迎的手段滥邀爵禄的人们那样容易；他的荣誉彪炳在他们的眼前，他的功业铭刻在他们的心底，他们要是不作一声，否认这一切，那就是忘恩负义；要是颠倒是非，混淆黑白，那就是恶意中伤。

吏甲　别讲他了；他是一个可尊敬的人。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利五世　第四幕　第二场

亨利王　要国王负责！那不妨把我们的生命、灵魂，把我们的债务、我们的操心的妻子、我们的孩子以及我们的罪恶，全都放在国王头上吧！他得一古脑儿担当下来。随着“伟大”而来的，是多么难堪的地位啊；听凭每个傻瓜来议论他——他们想到、感觉到的，只是个人的苦楚！做了国王，多少民间所享受的人生乐趣他就得放弃！而人君所享有的，有什么是平民百姓所享受不到的——只除了排场，只除了那众人前的排场？你又算是什么呢——你偶像似的排场？你比崇拜者忍受着更大的忧患，又是什么神明？你收到多少租金，又带来了多少进账？啊，排场，让我看一看你的价值是多少吧！你凭什么法宝叫人这样崇拜？除了地位、名衔、外表引起人们的敬畏与惶恐外——你还有些什么呢？你叫人惶恐，为什么反而不及那班诚惶诚恐的人来得快乐呢？你天天喝下肚去的，除了有毒的谄媚代替了纯洁的尊敬外，还有什么呢？啊，伟大的“伟大”呀，且等你病倒了，吩咐你那套排场来给你治病吧！你可认为那沸烫的发烧，会因为一大堆一味奉承的字眼而退去吗？凭着那打躬作揖，病痛就会霍然而愈吗？当你命令乞丐向你双膝跪下的时候，你能同时命令他把康健献给你吗？不，你妄自尊大的幻梦啊，你这样善于戏弄帝王的安眠。我这一个国王早已看破了你。我明白，无论帝王加冕的圣油、权杖和那金球，也无论那剑、那御杖、那皇冠、那金线织成和珍珠镶嵌的王袍、那加在帝号前头的长长一连串荣衔；无论他高倨的王位，或者是那煊赫尊荣，像声势浩大的潮浪泛滥了整个陆岸——不，不管这一切辉煌无比的排场，也不能让你睡在君王的床上，就像一个卑贱的奴隶那样睡得香甜。一个奴隶，塞饱了肚子，空着脑子，爬上床去——干了一天辛苦活儿，就再不看见那阴森森的、从地狱里产生的黑夜。他倒像是伺候太阳神的一个小厮，从日出到日落，只是在阳光里挥汗，到了晚上，就在乐园里睡个通宵；第二天天一亮，又一骨碌起身，赶着替太阳神把骏马套上了车；年年月月，他就干着这营生，直到进入了坟墓。像这样，一个奴隶，欠缺的就只是煊赫的排场，要不然，他日出而作，日入而息，远远地胜过了做一个皇帝。他浑浑噩噩、安安稳稳地过着太平日子，全没想到做人君的为了维护这太平世界，对着孤灯，操着怎样一片心；他宵旰勤劳，到头来却是那村夫最受用。

（方　平　译）

一报还一报　第一幕　第一场

公爵　关于政治方面的种种机宜，我不必多向你絮说，因为我知道你在这方面的经验阅历，胜过我所能给你的任何指示；对于地方上人民的习性，以及布政施教的宪章、信赏必罚的律法，你也都了如指掌，比得上任何博学练达之士，所以我尽可信任你的才能，让你自己去适宜应付。我给你这一道诏书，愿你依此而行。（以诏书授爱斯卡勒斯）来人，去唤安哲鲁过来。（一侍从下）你看：他这人能不能代理我的责任？因为我在再三考虑之下，已经决定当我出巡的时候，叫他摄理政务；他可以充分享受众人的畏惧爱敬，全权处置一切的事情。你以为怎样？

爱斯卡勒斯　在维也纳地方，要是有人值得受这样隆重的眷宠恩荣，那就是安哲鲁大人了。

公爵　他来了。

〔安哲鲁上。〕

安哲鲁　听见殿下的召唤，小臣特来恭听谕令。

公爵　安哲鲁，在你的生命中有一种与众不同的地方，使人家一眼便知道你的全部的为人。你自己和你所有的一切，倘不拿出来贡献于人世，仅仅一个人独善其身，那实在是一种浪费。上天生下我们，是要把我们当作火炬，不是照亮自己，而是普照世界；因为我们的德行倘不能推及他人，那就等于没有一样。一个人有了才华智慧，必须使它产生有益的结果；造物是一个工于算计的女神，她所给与世人的每一分才智，都要受赐的人知恩感激，加倍报答。可是我虽然这样对你说，也许我倒是更应该受你教益的；所以请你收下这道诏书吧，安哲鲁；（以诏书授安哲鲁）当我不在的时候，你就是我的全权代表，你的片言一念，可以决定维也纳人民的生死，年高的爱斯卡勒斯虽然先受到我的嘱托，他却是你的辅佐。

（朱生豪　译）

理查二世　第五幕　第五场

理查王　我正在研究怎样可以把我所栖身的这座牢狱和整个的世界两相比较；可是因为这世上充满了人类，这儿除了我一身之外，没有其他的生物，所以它们是比较不起来的；虽然这样说，我还要仔细思考一下。我要证明我的头脑是我的心灵的妻子，我的心灵是我的思想的父亲；它们两个产下了一代生生不息的思想，这些思想充斥在这小小的世界之上，正像世上的人们一般互相倾轧，因为没有一个思想是满足的。比较好的那些思想，例如关于宗教方面的思想，却和怀疑互相间杂，往往援用经文的本身攻击经文；譬如说，“来吧，小孩子们；”可是接着又这么说，“到天国去是像骆驼穿过针孔一般艰难的。”野心勃勃的思想总在计划不可能的奇迹；凭着这些脆弱无力的指爪，怎样从这冷酷的世界的坚硬的肋骨，我的凹凸不平的囚墙上，抓破一条出路；可是因为它们没有这样的能力，所以只能在它们自己的盛气之中死去。安分自足的思想却用这样的话安慰自己：它们并不是命运的最初的奴隶，不会是它的最后的奴隶；正像愚蠢的乞丐套上了枷，自以为许多人都在他以前套过枷，在他以后，也还有别的人要站在他现在所站的地方，用这样的思想掩饰他们的羞辱一样。凭着这一种念头，它们获得了精神上的宽裕，假借过去的人们同样的遭际来背负它们不幸的灾祸。这样我一个人扮演着许多不同的角色，没有一个能够满足他自己的命运：有时我是国王；叛逆的奸谋使我希望我是一个乞丐，于是我就变成了乞丐；可是压人的穷困劝诱我还不如做一个国王，于是我又变成了国王；一会儿忽然想到我的王位已经被波林勃洛克所推翻，那时候我就立刻化为乌有；可是无论我是什么人，无论是我还是别人，只要是一个人，在他没有彻底化为乌有以前，是什么也不能使他感到满足的。

（朱生豪　译）

雅典的泰门　第一幕　第一场

诗人　您瞧这一大群蝇营蚁附的宾客。在我的拙作中间，我勾划出了一个受尽世俗爱宠的人；可是我并不单单着力作个人的描写，我让我的恣肆的笔锋在无数的模型之间活动，不带一丝恶意，只是像凌空的鹰隼一样，一往直前，不留下一丝痕迹。

画师　您的意思我有点不大懂得。

诗人　我可以解释给您听。您瞧各种不同地位不同性情的人，无论是轻浮油滑的，或是严肃庄重的，都愿意为泰门大爷效劳服役；他的巨大的财产，再加上他的善良和蔼的天性，征服了各种不同的人，使他们乐于向他输诚致敬；从那些脸上反映出主人的喜怒的谄媚者起，直到憎恨自己的艾帕曼特斯，一个个在他的面前屈膝，只要泰门点点头，就可以使他们满载而归。

画师　我曾经看见他跟艾帕曼特斯在一起谈话。

诗人　先生，我假定命运的女神端坐在一座巍峨而幽美的山上；在那山麓下面，有无数智愚贤不肖的人在那儿劳心劳力，追求世间的名利，他们的眼睛都一致注视着这位主宰一切的女神；我把其中一个人代表泰门，命运女神用她象牙一样洁白的手招引他到她的身边；他是她眼前的恩宠，他的敌人也一齐变成了他的奴仆。

画师　果然是很巧妙的设想。我想这一个宝座，这一位命运女神和这一座山，在这山下的许多人中间只有一个人得到女神的招手，这个人正弓着身子向峻峭的山崖爬去，攀登到幸福的顶端，很可以表现出我们这儿的情形。

诗人　不，先生，听我说下去。那些在不久以前还是和他同样地位的人，也有一些本来胜过他的人，现在都跟在他后面亦步亦趋；他的接待室里挤满了关心他的起居的人，他的耳朵中充满了一片有如向神圣祷告那样的低语；连他的马镫也被奉为神圣，他们从他那里呼吸到自由的空气。

画师　好，那便怎么样呢？

诗人　当命运突然改变了心肠，把她的宠儿一脚踢下山坡的时候，那些攀龙附凤之徒，本来跟在他后面匍匐膝行的，这时候便会冷眼看他跌落，没有一个人做他患难中的同伴。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世上篇　第一幕　第二场

福斯塔夫　呃，我说，乖乖好孩子，等你做了国王以后，不要让我们这些夜间的绅士们被人称为掠夺白昼的佳丽的窃贼；让我们成为狄安娜的猎户，月亮的嬖宠；让人家说，我们都是很有节制的人，因为正像海水一般，我们受着我们高贵纯洁的女王月亮的节制，我们是在她的许可之下偷窃的。

亲王　你说得好，一点不错，因为我们这些月亮的信徒们既然像海水一般受着月亮的节制，我们的命运也像海水一般起伏无定。举个例说，星期一晚上出了死力抢下来的一袋金钱，星期二早上便会把它胡乱花去；凭着一声吆喝“放下”把它抓到手里，喊了几回“酒来”就花得一文不剩。有时潦倒不堪，可是也许有一天时来运转，两脚腾空，高升绞架。

（朱生豪　译）

理查二世　第三幕　第四场

园丁　去，你把那边垂下来的杏子扎起来，它们像顽劣的子女一般，使它们的老父因为不胜重负而弯腰屈背；那些弯曲的树枝你要把它们支撑住了。你去做一个刽子手，斩下那些长得太快的小枝的头，它们在咱们的共和国里太显得高傲了，咱们国里一切都应该平等的。你们去做各人的事，我要去割下那些有害的莠草，它们本身没有一点用处，却会吸收土壤中的肥料，阻碍鲜花的生长。

仆甲　我们何必在这小小的围墙之内保持着法纪、秩序和有条不紊的布置，夸耀我们雏型的治绩；你看我们那座以大海为围墙的花园，我们整个的国土，不是莠草蔓生，她的最美的鲜花全都窒息而死，她的果树无人修剪，她的篱笆东倒西歪，她的花池凌乱无序，她的佳卉异草，被虫儿蛀得枝叶凋残吗？

园丁　不要胡说。那容忍着这样一个凌乱无序的春天的人，自己已经遭到落叶飘零的命运；那些托庇于他的广布的枝叶之下，名为拥护他，实则在吮吸他的精液的莠草，全都被波林勃洛克连根拔起了；我的意思是说威尔特郡伯爵和布希、格林那些人们。

仆甲　什么！他们死了吗？

园丁　他们都死了；波林勃洛克已经捉住那个浪荡的国王。啊！可惜他不曾像我们治理这座花园一般治理他的国土！我们每年按着时季，总要略微割破我们果树的外皮，因为恐怕它们过于肥茂，反而结不出果子；要是他能够用同样的手段，对付那些威权日盛的人们，他们就可以自知戒饬，他也可以尝到他们忠心的果实。对于多余的旁枝，我们总是毫不吝惜地把它们剪去，让那结果的干枝繁荣滋长；要是他也能够采取这样的办法，他就可以保全他的王冠，不至于在嬉戏游乐之中把它轻轻断送了。

（朱生豪　译）

李尔王　第三幕　第一场

高纳里尔　父亲，我们家里难道没有两倍这么多的仆人可以侍候您？依我说，不但用不着二十五个人，就是十个五个也是多余的。

里根　依我看来，一个也不需要。

李尔　啊！不要跟我说什么需要不需要；最卑贱的乞丐，也有他的不值钱的身外之物；人生除了天然的需要以外，要是没有其他的享受，那和畜类的生活有什么分别。你是一位夫人；你穿着这样华丽的衣服，如果你的目的只是为了保持温暖，那就根本不合你的需要，因为这种盛装艳饰并不能使你温暖。可是，讲到真的需要，那么天啊，给我忍耐吧，我需要忍耐！神啊，你们看见我在这儿，一个可怜的老头子，被忧伤和老迈折磨得好苦！假如是你们鼓动这两个女儿的心，使她们忤逆她们的父亲，那么请你们不要尽是愚弄我，叫我默然忍受吧；让我的心里激起了刚强的怒火，别让妇人所恃为武器的泪点玷污我的男子汉的面颊！不，你们这两个不孝的妖妇，我要向你们复仇，我要做出一些使全世界惊怖的事情来，虽然我现在还不知道我要怎么做。你们以为我将要哭泣；不，我不愿哭泣，我虽然有充分的哭泣的理由，可是我宁愿让这颗心碎成万片，也不愿流下一滴泪来。啊，傻瓜！我要发疯了！

（朱生豪　译）

十四行诗　九四

谁有力量损害人而不这样干，

谁不做人以为他们爱做的事，

谁使人动情，自己却石头一般，

冰冷、无动于衷，对诱惑能抗拒——

谁就恰当地承受上天的恩宠，

善于贮藏和保管造化的财富；

他们才是自己美貌的主人翁，

而别人只是自己姿色的家奴。

夏天的花把夏天熏得多芳馥，

虽然对自己它只自开又自落，

但是那花若染上卑劣的病毒，

最贱的野草也比它高贵得多：

极香的东西一腐烂就成极臭，

烂百合花比野草更臭得难受。

（梁宗岱　译）

裘力思·凯撒　第一幕　第二场

凯歇斯　嘿，老兄，他像一个巨人似的跨越这狭隘的世界；我们这些渺小的凡人一个个在他粗大的两腿下行走，四处张望着，替自己寻找不光荣的坟墓。人们有时可以支配他们自己的命运；要是我们受制于人，亲爱的勃鲁托斯，那错处并不在我们的命运，而在我们自己。勃鲁托斯和凯撒；“凯撒”那个名字又有什么了不得？为什么人们只是提起它而不提起勃鲁托斯？把那两个名字写在一起，您的名字并不比他的难看，放在嘴上念起来，它也一样顺口；称起重量来，它们是一样的重；要是用它们呼神召鬼，“勃鲁托斯”也可以同样感动幽灵，正像“凯撒”一样。凭着一切天神的名字，我们这位凯撒究竟吃些什么美食，才会长得这样伟大？可耻的时代！罗马啊，你的高贵的血统已经中断了！自从洪水以后，什么时代你不曾产生比一个更多的著名人物？直到现在为止，什么时候人们谈起罗马，能够说，她的广大的城墙之内，只是一个人的世界？要是罗马给一个人独占了去，那么它真的变成无人之境了。啊！你我都曾听见我们的父老说过，从前罗马有一个勃鲁托斯，不愿让他的国家被一个君主所统治，正像他不愿让它被永劫的恶魔统治一样。

（朱生豪　译）

科利奥兰纳斯　第二幕　第三场

勃鲁托斯　你们难道不会凭着你们所受的教训，对他说当他还没有掌握权力、不过是政府里一个地位卑微的仆人的时候，他就是你们的敌人，老是反对着你们的自由和你们在这共和国里所享有的特权吗？你们难道不会对他说，现在他登上了秉持国家大权的地位，要是他仍旧怀着恶意，继续做平民的死敌，那么你们现在所表示的同意，不将要成为你们自己的咒诅吗？你们应当对他说，他的伟大的功业，既然可以使他享有他所要求的地位而无愧色，但愿他的仁厚的天性，也能够想到你们现在所给他的同情的赞助，而把他对你们的敌意变成友谊，永远做你们慈爱的执政。

西西涅斯　你们照这样对他说了以后，就可以触动他的心性，试探他的真正的意向；也许他会给你们善意的允诺，那么将来倘有需要的时候，你们就可以责令他履行旧约；也许那会激怒他的暴戾的天性，因为他是不能容忍任何拘束的，这样引动了他的恼怒，你们就可以借着他的恶劣的脾气做理由，拒绝他当执政。

勃鲁托斯　你们看他在需要你们好感的时候，会用这样公然侮蔑的态度向你们请求，难道你们没有想到当他有权力压迫你们的时候，他这种侮蔑的态度不会变成公然的伤害吗？怎么，你们胸膛里难道都是没有心的吗？或者你们的舌头会反抗理智的判断吗？

西西涅斯　你们以前不是曾经拒绝过向你们请求的人吗？现在他并没有请求你们，不过把你们讥笑了一顿，你们却会毫不迟疑地给他同意吗？

市民丙　他还没有经过正式的确认，我们还可以拒绝他。

市民乙　我们一定要拒绝他；我可以号召五百个人反对他就任。

市民甲　好，就是一千个人也不难，还可以叫他们各人拉些朋友来充数。

勃鲁托斯　你们立刻就去，告诉你们那些朋友，说他们已经选了一个执政，他将会剥夺他们的自由，限制他们发言的权利，把他们当作狗一样看待，虽然为了要它们吠叫而豢养，可是往往因为它们吠叫而把它们痛打。

（朱生豪　译）

奥瑟罗　第一幕　第一场

伊阿古　我所以跟随他，不过是要利用他达到我自己的目的。我们不能每个人都是主人，每个主人也不是都该让仆人忠心地追随他。你可以看到，有一辈天生的奴才，他们卑躬屈节，拼命讨主人的好，甘心受主人的鞭策，像一头驴子似的，为了一些粮草而出卖他们的一生，等到年纪老了，主人就把他们撵走；这种老实的奴才是应该抽一顿鞭子的。还有一种人，表面上尽管装出一副鞠躬如也的样子，骨子里却是为他们自己打算；看上去好像替主人做事，实际却靠着主人发展自己的势力，等捞足了油水，就可以知道他所尊敬的其实是他本人；像这种人还有几分头脑；我承认我自己就属于这一类。因为，老兄，正像你是罗德利哥而不是别人一样，我要是做了那摩尔人，我就不会是伊阿古。同样地没有错，虽说我跟随他，其实还是跟随我自己。上天是我的公证人，我这样对他赔着小心，既不是为了忠心，也不是为了义务，只是为了自己的利益，才装出这一副假脸。要是我表面上的恭而敬之的行为会泄露我内心的活动，那么不久我就要掬出我的心来，让乌鸦们乱啄了。世人所知道的我，并不是实在的我。

（朱生豪　译）

理查三世　第三幕　第七场

勃金汉　那就请听我冒昧陈辞吧，您不该再三推辞，放弃至尊的宝座，那是您祖代相传的威权所在，是您福运降临，也是您世袭而来的名分，您奕奕皇室的世代光荣，岂能由您让给一支腐朽的系族；您在高枕无忧之中悠思遐想，而这块皇土正等待着大力扶持，为国家前途计，我们特来敦促您醒悟过来；如今纲常不振，面目全非，皇朝正统，凭添枯枝残叶，无以生根，势必陷落深渊，从此湮没无闻。为了拯救这种颓运，我们衷心请求殿下亲自负起国家重任，掌握王权；不再为人作嫁，做一个护政者、家宰、代理人，或当一个卑贱的经手员；您应该维护血统，继承王业，本是您生来的权利，是您的领土，应归您自有。为此之故，我和市民们一起，还有您的虔诚热情的朋友们，都急切地催促着我来向殿下发出这正义呼声，求您垂听下情。

葛罗斯特　以我的地位或您的处境看来，我不知道该默然离去此地，还是该严斥您一番。如果我不予作答，您或许认为我是个守口如瓶的野心家，是我眼见您一厢情愿地把那辉煌的重担套上我的肩头，而我却默然承受下来了；如果我见您一片至诚，向我求告，我反而横加叱责，这岂不是我又杜绝了友辈的言路。因此，我该既不默然而去，也不严辞驳斥，却把我的心头思念向您作明确的答复。您的热诚值得我衷心感激；但是对我要求过分，我自愧无能，怕难孚众望。首先，即使一切障碍都能扫除，我面前这条登基的道路已经铺平，创业时机已经成熟，只等我继承正统，可是我志气还不够高昂，我德行菲薄，瑕疵多端，缺陷重大，我宁愿闭门思过，以免卷入洪流，好比一叶扁舟，岂敢驶进大海，一旦涌上浪巅，欲罢不能，那就只好在彩光烟雾之中窒息而死了。好在今天还不需要我，感谢上帝；如果讲到需要，我正该多下工夫，自助助人；王室系族留下了王室子嗣，经过日换星移，自可成长起来，来日坐镇朝廷，你我都会臣服而乐事新君。您所要委我的重任，我加在他身上，是天命所归，也是他权分所在；上帝不容我强夺他的王权！

勃金汉　我的大人，这确实说明您心地磊落；无奈从多方考虑，您所顾念的都是些不可捉摸的细节。您说爱德华是您大哥的儿子，我们也如此说，却不出自他的妻；早先他和露西夫人订过婚约，至今还有您在世的母亲可以作证，后来又由中间人去法国，向法王的姨妹波娜求婚结盟。此后两人都遭冷落，于是一个多儿的寡母，色衰福浅，竟然乞怜求诉，她虽青春已逝，年已半老，君王却贪淫无度，眉目传情，好比鹰鸟高飞半空，忽而窜落，以致伤风败俗，寡妇重婚；因此一场漠视法纪的结合传下了这个小爱德华，为了保持体面，称为太子。我本可深入揭露，但是为未亡人留些余地，我且话到口边暂留三分。所以，我的好大人，愿您亲自接过我们所呈献的至尊权位；即使不为我们和全国的幸福着想，也该把这祖传的尊贵血统继承下去，匡时拯世，恢复真正的纲纪。

市长　接受吧，好大人；您的市民在请求您了。

勃金汉　伟大的主君，莫拒绝这诚心的献礼。

凯茨比　呵！让他们欢庆吧，允许他们的合理请求吧！

葛罗斯特　唉！你们何必硬要把重担堆在我身上呢？我不配治理国家，不应称君王；务必请你们不要误会，我不能，也不愿，听从你们的要求。

勃金汉　如果您拒绝所请，一心为了爱护您的侄儿，不忍将他废黜；诚如我们在您日常与亲朋过往，处世接物之中，知道您一向心地温厚，待人体贴入微，无奈此刻我们已顾不得您接受与否，反正不能由您侄儿在我国称为君王；我们只好拥立他人继承王位，那样，您的王室势必声名扫地，倾覆无闻：现在我们谨作此决定，并向您告辞。市民们，走吧，我们不再请求了。

〔勃金汉与市民们下。〕

凯茨比　叫他们回来，好主君；接受他们的请求。您如果再不应允，全国都要遭殃了。

葛罗斯特　你们真要逼我负起这样烦心的重任吗？叫他们回来；我何尝是铁石心肠，虽然违拗我的心性，我岂能辜负盛情，顽固到底。（凯茨比下。）

〔勃金汉及众人重上。〕

葛罗斯特　勃金汉贤弟，各位父老，你们既不顾我是否愿意，坚持要把命运的重担压上我肩头，勉强我负起重任，从此我就不得不任劳负重，忍受下去；但是万一在你们迫使我登位之后，假若有人暗中攻讦，或破口辱骂，那么此事既由你们促成，一切诟污糟蹋都应与我无关；上帝知道，你们也可能见到，这是一件多么违反我心愿的事。

市长　上帝祝福您，殿下！我们看见了真情，我们要让大家知道。

葛罗斯特　你们宣扬出去必须根据事实。

勃金汉　现在我向您称君道贺：理查王万岁，英国的尊君万岁！

全体　阿们。

（方　重　译）

特洛伊罗斯与克瑞西达　第一幕　第三场

俄底修斯　特洛亚至今兀立不动，没有给我们攻下，赫克托的宝剑仍旧在它主人的手里，这都是因为我们漠视了军令的森严所致。看这一带大军驻屯的阵地，散布着多少虚有其表的营寨，谁都怀着各不相下的私心。大将就像是一个蜂房里的蜂王，要是采蜜的工蜂大家各自为政，不把采得的粮食归献蜂王，那么还有什么蜜可以酿得出来呢？尊卑的等级可以不分，那么最微贱的人，也可以和最有才能的人分庭抗礼了。诸天的星辰，在运行的时候，谁都恪守着自身的等级和地位，遵循着各自的不变的轨道，依照着一定的范围、季候和方式，履行它们经常的职责；所以灿烂的太阳才能高拱出天，洞察寰宇，纠正星辰的过失，揭恶扬善，发挥它的无上威权。可是众星如果出了常轨，陷入了混乱的状态，那么多少的灾祸、变异、叛乱、海啸、地震、风暴、惊骇、恐怖，将要震撼、摧裂、破坏、毁灭这宇宙间的和谐！纪律是达到一切雄图的阶梯，要是纪律发生动摇，啊！那时候事业的前途也就变成黯淡了。要是没有纪律，社会上的秩序怎么得以稳定？学校中的班次怎么得以整齐？城市中的和平怎么得以保持？各地间的贸易怎么得以畅通？法律上所规定的与生俱来的特权，以及尊长、君王、统治者、胜利者所享有的特殊权利，怎么得以确立不坠？只要把纪律的琴弦拆去，听吧！多少刺耳的噪音就会发出来；一切都是互相抵触；江河里的水会泛滥得高过堤岸，淹没整个的世界；强壮的要欺凌老弱，不孝的儿子要打死他的父亲；威力将代替公理，没有是非之分，也没有正义存在。那时候权力便是一切，而凭仗着权力，便可以逞着自己的意志，放纵无厌的贪欲；欲望，这一头贪心不足的饿狼，得到了意志和权力的两重辅佐，势必至于把全世界供它的馋吻，然后把自己也吃下去。伟大的阿伽门农，这一种混乱的状态，只有在纪律被人扼杀以后才会发生。就是因为漠视了纪律，有意前进的才反而会向后退却。主帅被他属下的将领所轻视，那将领又被他的属下所轻视，这样上行下效，谁都瞧不起他的长官，结果就引起了猜嫉争竞的心理，损害了整个军队的元气。特洛亚所以至今兀立不动，不是靠着它自己的力量，乃是靠着我们的这一种弱点；换句话说，它的生命是全赖我们的弱点替它支持下来的。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世下篇　第三幕　第一场

亨利王　我的几千个最贫贱的人民正在这时候酣然熟睡！睡眠啊！柔和的睡眠啊！大自然的温情的保姆，我怎样惊吓了你，你才不愿再替我闭上我的眼皮，把我的感觉沉浸在忘河之中？为什么，睡眠，你宁愿栖身在烟熏的茅屋里，在不舒适的草荐上伸展你的肢体，让嗡嗡作声的蚊虫催着你入梦，却不愿偃息在香雾氤氲的王侯的深宫之中，在华贵的宝帐之下，让最甜美的乐声把你陶醉？啊，你冥漠的神灵！为什么你在污秽的床上和下贱的愚民同寝，却让国王的卧榻变成一个表盒子或是告变的警钟？在巍峨高耸惊心眩目的桅杆上，你不是会使年轻的水手闭住他的眼睛吗？当天风海浪做他的摇篮，那巨大的浪头被风卷上高高的云端，发出震耳欲聋的喧声，即使死神也会被它从睡梦中惊醒的时候。啊，偏心的睡眠！你能够在那样惊险的时候，把你的安息给与一个风吹浪打的水手，可是在最宁静安谧的晚间，最温暖舒适的环境之中，你却不让一个国王享受你的厚惠吗？那么，幸福的卑贱者啊，安睡吧！戴王冠的头是不能安于他的枕席的。

（朱生豪　译）

家庭权力

威尼斯商人　第三幕　第二场

鲍西娅　巴萨尼奥公子，您瞧我站在这儿，不过是这样的一个人。虽然为了我自己的缘故，我不愿妄想自己比现在的我更好一点；可是为了您的缘故，我希望我能够六十倍胜过我的本身，再加上一千倍的美丽，一万倍的富有；我但愿我有无比的贤德、美貌、财产和亲友，好让我在您的心目中占据一个很高的位置。可是我这一身却是一无所有，我只是一个不学无术、没有教养、缺少见识的女子；幸亏她的年纪还不是顶大，来得及发愤学习；她的天资也不是顶笨，可以加以教导；尤其大幸的，她有一颗柔顺的心灵，愿意把它奉献给您，听从您的指导，把您当作她的主人、她的统治者和她的君王。我自己以及我所有的一切，现在都变成您的所有了；刚才我还拥有着这一座华丽的大厦，我的仆人都听从着我的指挥，我是支配我自己的女王，可是就在现在，这屋子、这些仆人和这一个我，都是属于您的了，我的夫君。凭着这一个指环，我把这一切完全呈献给您；要是您让这指环离开您的身边，或者把它丢了，或者把它送给别人，那就预示着您的爱情的毁灭，我可以因此责怪您的。

（朱生豪　译）

李尔王　第一幕　第一场

李尔　现在我要向你们说明我的心事。把那地图给我。告诉你们吧，我已经把我的国土划成三部；我因为自己年纪老了，决心摆脱一切世务的牵萦，把责任交卸给年轻力壮之人，让自己松一松肩，好安安心心地等死。康华尔贤婿，还有同样是我心爱的奥本尼贤婿，为了预防他日的争执，我想还是趁现在把我的几个女儿的嫁奁当众分配清楚。法兰西和勃艮第两位君主正在竞争我的小女儿的爱情，他们为了求婚而住在我们宫廷里，也已经有好多时候了，现在他们就可以得到答复。孩子们，在我还没有把我的政权、领土和国事的重任全部放弃以前，告诉我，你们中间哪一个人最爱我？我要看看谁最有孝心，最有贤德，我就给她最大的恩惠。高纳里尔，我的大女儿，你先说。

高纳里尔　父亲，我对您的爱，不是言语所能表达的；我爱您胜过自己的眼睛、整个的空间和广大的自由；超越一切可以估价的贵重稀有的事物；不亚于赋有淑德、健康、美貌和荣誉的生命；不曾有一个儿女这样爱过他的父亲，也不曾有一个父亲这样被他的儿女所爱；这一种爱可以使唇舌无能为力，辩才失去效用；我爱您是不可以数量计算的。

考狄利娅　（旁白）考狄利娅应该怎么好呢？默默地爱着吧。

李尔　在这些疆界以内，从这一条界线起，直到这一条界线为止，所有一切浓密的森林、膏腴的平原、富庶的河流、广大的牧场，都要奉你为它们的女主人；这一块土地永远为你和奥本尼的子孙所保有。我的二女儿，最亲爱的里根，康华尔的夫人，你怎么说？

里根　我跟姊姊具有同样的品质，您凭着她就可以判断我。在我的真心之中，我觉得她刚才所说的话，正是我爱您的实际的情形，可是她还不能充分说明我的心理：我厌弃一切凡是敏锐的知觉所能感受到的快乐，只有爱您才是我的无上的幸福。

考狄利娅　（旁白）那么，考狄利娅，你只好自安于贫穷了！可是我并不贫穷，因为我深信我的爱心比我的口才更富有。

李尔　这一块从我们这美好的王国中划分出来的三分之一的沃壤，是你和你的子孙永远世袭的产业，和高纳里尔所得到的一份同样广大、同样富庶，也同样佳美。现在，我的宝贝，虽然是最后的一个，却并非最不在我的心头；法兰西的葡萄和勃艮第的乳酪都在竞争你的青春之爱；你有些什么话，可以换到一份比你的两个姊姊更富庶的土地？说吧。

考狄利娅　父亲，我没有话说。

李尔　没有？

考狄利娅　没有。

李尔　没有只能换到没有；重新说过。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世下篇　第二幕　第三场

潘西夫人　啊！可是为了上帝的缘故，不要去参加这种战争吧。公公，您曾经毁弃过对您自己更有切身关系的诺言；您的亲生的潘西，我那心爱的哈利，曾经好多次引颈北望，盼他的父亲带着援兵到来，可是他终于望了个空。那时候是谁劝您不要出兵的？两重的荣誉已经丧失了，您自己的荣誉和您儿子的荣誉。讲到您自己的荣誉，愿上帝扫清它的雾障吧！他的荣誉却是和他不可分的，正像太阳永远高悬在苍苍的天宇之上一样；全英国的骑士都在他的光辉鼓舞之下，表现了他们英雄的身手。他的确是高贵的青年们的一面立身的明镜；谁不曾学会他的步行的姿态，等于白生了两条腿；说话急速不清本来是他天生的缺点，现在却成为勇士们应有的语调，那些能够用低声而迂缓的调子讲话的人，都宁愿放弃他们自己的特长，模拟他这一种缺点；这样无论在语音上，在步态上，在饮食娱乐上，在性情气质上，在治军作战上，他的一言一动，都是他人效法的规范。然而他，啊，天神一般的他！啊，人类中的奇男子！这盖世无双的他，却得不到您的援助；你竟忍心让他在不利的形势中，面对着狰狞可怖的战神；让他孤军苦战，除了霍茨波的英名之外，再也没有可以抵御敌人的武力；您是这样离弃了他！千万不要，啊！千万不要再给他的亡魂这样的侮辱，把您对于别人的信誉看得比您对于他的信誉更重；让他们去吧。那司礼大臣和那大主教的实力是很强大的；要是我那亲爱的哈利有他们一半的军力，今天也许我可以攀住霍茨波的颈项，听他谈起蒙穆斯的死了。

诺森伯兰　嗳哟，贤媳！你用这样悲痛的申诉重新揭发我的往日的过失，使我的心都寸寸碎裂了。

（朱生豪　译）

理查三世　第四幕　第四场

玛格莱特王后　我曾称你为我的幸运墙上所加的浮雕：称你为可怜的阴影，一个画中王后；你无非把我过去的声势来模仿；为一场大悲剧做了一些动听的剧情说明；哪怕你一时趾高气扬，终究要堕入尘埃；你枉做了一对伶俐的孩子的母亲；过去的一切都成了梦境、泡影、一块高贵的招牌、一面炫耀的旗帜，突兀招展着供人射击；一国之后做了笑柄，在舞台上不过串演着一个配角。如今你丈夫何在？你兄弟何在？你孩子何在？人生乐趣又何在？谁还来跪求你，高呼着“神佑吾后”？一向对你卑躬屈节的大臣们哪儿去了？追随你的大队人马又哪儿去了？前后对照就看清了你的处境：快乐的妻子成为最不幸的寡妇；幸福的母亲却在因为身为母亲而悲伤；坐听人诉的人反向人哭诉；国后变为愁眉蹙额的贱婢；从前轻慢我而今遭我轻慢；从前人人怕你，如今单怕一人；一向发号施令，如今无人听命。可见天道循环，赏罚分明，你只落得在时间的鹰爪下做个牺牲者；你倘若只顾怀念过去，同时又无法摆脱目前的处境，你的苦难将更难忍受。你既僭占了我的名位，岂能不分摊其中的苦楚？如今你的傲骨分挑着我的重担；我这里正好抽出我劳顿的肩头，把这全副担子都卸给你。再会吧，约克的夫人，厄运的王后；英国的这些忧伤，将在法国供我作笑料。

（方　重　译）

仲夏夜之梦　第一幕　第一场

伊吉斯　我怀着满心的气恼，来控诉我的孩子，我的女儿赫米娅。走上前来，狄米特律斯。殿下，这个人，是我答应把我女儿嫁给他的。走上前来，拉山德。殿下，这个人引诱坏了我的孩子。你，你，拉山德，你写诗句给我的孩子，和她交换着爱情的纪念物；你在月夜到她的窗前用做作的声调歌唱着假作多情的诗篇；你用头发编成的腕环、戒指、虚华的饰物、琐碎的玩具、花束、糖果——这些可以强烈地骗诱一个稚嫩的少女之心的“信使”来偷得她的痴情；你用诡计盗取了她的心，煽惑她使她对我的顺从变成倔强的顽抗。殿下，假如她现在当着您的面仍旧不肯嫁给狄米特律斯，我就要要求雅典自古相传的权利，因为她是我的女儿，我可以随意处置她；按照我们的法律，逢到这样的情况，她要是不嫁给这位绅士，便应当立时处死。

忒修斯　你有什么话说，赫米娅？当心一点吧，美貌的姑娘！你的父亲对于你应当是一尊神明；你的美貌是他给与的，你就像在他手中捏成的一块蜡像，他可以保全你，也可以毁灭你。狄米特律斯是一个很好的绅士呢。

赫米娅　拉山德也很好啊。

忒修斯　他本人当然很好；但是要做你的丈夫，如果不能得到你父亲的同意，那么比起来他就要差一筹了。

赫米娅　我真希望我的父亲和我有同样的看法。

忒修斯　实在还是你应该依从你父亲的看法才对。

赫米娅　请殿下宽恕我！我不知道是什么一种力量使我如此大胆，也不知道在这里披诉我的心思将会怎样影响到我的美名，但是我要敬问殿下，要是我拒绝嫁给狄米特律斯，就会有什么最恶的命运临到我的头上？

忒修斯　不是受死刑，便是永远和男人隔绝。因此，美丽的赫米娅，仔细问一问你自己的心愿吧！考虑一下你的青春，好好地估量一下你血脉中的搏动；倘然不肯服从你父亲的选择，想想看能不能披上尼姑的道服，终生幽闭在阴沉的庵院中，向着凄凉寂寞的明月唱着暗淡的圣歌，做一个孤寂的修道女了此一生？她们能这样抑制热情，到老保持处女的贞洁，自然应当格外受到上天的眷宠；但是结婚的女子有如被采下炼制过的玫瑰，香气留存不散，比之孤独地自开自谢，奄然朽腐的花儿，在尘俗的眼光看来，总是要幸福得多了。

赫米娅　就让我这样自开自谢吧，殿下，我不愿意把我的贞操奉献给我心里并不敬服的人。

（朱生豪　译）

冬天的故事　第一幕　第二场

赫米温妮　假如您需要我们，我们就在园里；我们就在那边等着您好吗？

里昂提斯　随你们便吧，只要你们不飞到天上去，总可以找得到的。（旁白）我现在在垂钓，虽然你们没有看见我放下钓线去。好吧，好吧！瞧她那么把嘴向他送过去！简直像个妻子对她正式的丈夫那样无所顾忌！（波力克希尼斯，赫米温妮及侍从等下）已经去了！一顶绿头巾已经稳稳地戴上了！去玩去吧，孩子，玩去吧。你妈在玩着，我也在玩着；可是我扮的是这么一个丢脸的角色，准要给人喝倒彩嘘下了坟墓去的，轻蔑和讥笑便是我的葬钟。去玩去吧，孩子，玩去吧。要是我不曾弄错，那么乌龟这东西确是从来便有的；即使在现在，当我说这话的时候，一定就有许多人抱着他的妻子，却不知道她在他不在的时候早已给别人揩过油；他自己池子里的鱼，已经给他笑脸的邻居捞了去。我道不孤，聊堪自慰。假如有了不贞的妻子的男人全都怨起命来，世界上十分之一的人类都要上吊死了。补救的办法是一点没有的。正像有一个荒淫的星球，照临人世，到处惹是招非。你想，东南西北，无论哪处都抵挡不过肚子底下的作怪；魔鬼简直可以带了箱笼行李堂而皇之地进出呢。我们中间有千万个人都害着这毛病，但自己却不觉得。

（朱生豪　译）

暴风雨　第一幕　第二场

米兰达　亲爱的父亲，假如你曾经用你的法术使狂暴的海水兴起这场风浪，请你使它们平息了吧！天空似乎要倒下发臭的沥青来，但海水腾涌到天的脸上，把火焰浇熄了。唉！我瞧着那些受难的人们，我也和他们同样受难：这样一只壮丽的船，里面一定载着好些尊贵的人，一下子便撞得粉碎！啊，那呼号的声音一直打进我的心坎。可怜的人们，他们死了！要是我是一个有权力的神，我一定要叫海沉进地中，不让它把这只好船和它所载着的人们一起这样吞没了。

普洛斯彼罗　安静些，不要惊骇！告诉你那仁慈的心，一点灾祸都不会发生。

米兰达　唉，不幸的日子！

普洛斯彼罗　不要紧的。凡我所做的事，无非是为你打算，我的宝贝！我的女儿！你不知道你是什么人，也不知道我从什么地方来；你也不会想到我是一个比普洛斯彼罗——一所十分寒伧的洞窟的主人，你的微贱的父亲——更出色的人物。

（朱生豪　译）

终成眷属　第二幕　第三场

国王　你看不起她，不过因为她地位低微，那我可以把她抬高起来。要是把人们的血液倾注在一起，那颜色、重量和热度都难以区别，偏偏在人间的关系上，会划分这样清楚的鸿沟，真是一件怪事。她倘然是一个道德上完善的女子，你不喜欢她，只因为她是一个穷医生的女儿，那么你重视虚名甚于美德，这就错了。穷巷陋室，有德之士居之，可以使蓬荜增辉，世禄之家，不务修善，虽有盛名，亦将隳败。善恶的区别，在于行为的本身，不在于地位的有无。她有天赋的青春、智慧和美貌，这一切的本身即是光荣；最可耻的，却是那些席父祖的余荫、不知绍述先志、一味妄自尊大的人。最好的光荣应该来自我们自己的行动，而不是倚恃家门。虚名是一个下贱的奴隶，在每一座墓碑上说着谎话，倒是在默默无言的一荒土之下，往往埋葬着忠臣义士的骸骨。有什么话好说呢？只要你能因为这女子的本身而爱她，我可以给她其余的一切；她的贤淑美貌是她自己的嫁奁，光荣和财富是我给她的赏赐。

勃特拉姆　我不能爱她，也不想爱她。

国王　你要是抗不奉命，一定要自讨没趣的。

海丽娜　陛下圣体复原，已经使我欣慰万分；其余的事情，不必谈了。

国王　这与我的信用有关，为使它不受损害，我必须运用我的权力。来，骄横傲慢的孩子，握着她的手，你才不配接受这一件卓越的赐与呢。你的愚妄狂悖，不但辜负了她的好处，也已经丧失了我的欢心。你以为她和你处在天平的不平衡的两端，却不知道我站在她的一面，便可以把两方的轻重倒转过来；你也没有想到你的升沉荣辱，完全操在我的手中。为了你自己的好处，赶快抑制你的轻蔑，服从我的旨意；我有命令你的权力，你有服从我的天职；否则你将永远得不到我的眷顾，让年轻的愚昧把你拖下了终身蹭蹬的深渊，我的愤恨和憎恶将要用王法的名义降临到你的头上，没有一点怜悯宽恕。快回答我吧。

勃特拉姆　求陛下恕罪，我愿意捐弃个人的爱憎，服从陛下的指示。当我一想起多少恩荣富贵，都可以随着陛下的一言而予夺，我就觉得适才我所认为最卑贱的她，已经受到陛下的宠眷，而和出身贵族的女子同样高贵了。

（朱生豪　译）

一报还一报　第二幕　第四场

安哲鲁　谁会相信你呢，依莎贝拉？我的洁白无瑕的名声，我的持躬的严正，我的振振有词的驳斥，我的柄持国政的地位，都可以压倒你的控诉，使你自取其辱，人家会把你的话当作挟嫌诽谤，我现在一不做二不休，不再控制我的情欲，你必须满足我的饥渴，放弃礼法的拘束，解脱一切的忸怩，这些对你要请求的事情是有害无利的；把你的肉体呈献给我，来救你弟弟的性命，否则他不但不能活命，而且因为你的无情冷酷，我要叫他遍尝各种痛苦而死去。明天给我答复，否则我要听任感情的支配，叫他知道些厉害。你尽管向人怎样说我，我的虚伪会压倒你的真实。（下。）

依莎贝拉　我将向谁诉说呢？把这种事情告诉别人，谁会相信我？凭着一条可怕的舌头，可以操纵人的生死，把法律供自己的驱使，是非善恶，都由他任意判断！我要去看我的弟弟，他虽然因为一时情欲的冲动而堕落，可是他是一个爱惜荣誉的人，即使他有二十颗头颅，他也宁愿让它们在二十个断头台上被人砍落，而不愿让他姊姊的身体遭受如此的污辱。依莎贝拉，你必须活着做一个清白的人，让你的弟弟死去吧，贞操是比兄弟更为重要的。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世下篇　第四幕　第五场

亲王　我再也想不到还会听见您说话。

亨利王　你因为存着那样的愿望，哈利，所以才会发生那样的思想；我耽搁得太长久，害你等得厌倦了。难道你是那样贪爱着我的空位，所以在时机还没有成熟以前，就要攫取我的尊荣吗？啊，傻孩子！你所追求的尊荣，是会把你压倒的。略微再等一会儿；因为我的尊严就像一片乌云，只有一丝微风把它托住，一下子就会降落下来；我的白昼已经昏暗了。你所偷去的东西，再过几小时就可以名正言顺地归你所有；可是你却在我临死的时候，充分证实了我对你的想法。你的平生行事，都可以表明你没有一点爱父之心，现在我离死不远了，你还要向我证实你的不孝。你把一千柄利刃藏在你的思想之中，把它们在你那石块一般的心上磨得雪亮锋快，要来谋刺我的只剩半小时的生命。嘿！难道你不能容忍我再活半小时吗？那么你就去亲手掘下我的坟墓吧；叫那快乐的钟声响起来，报知你加冕的喜讯，而不是我死亡的噩耗。让那应该洒在我的灵榇上的所有的眼泪，都变成涂抹你的头顶的圣油；让我和被遗忘的泥土混合在一起，把那给你生命的人丢给蛆虫吧。贬斥我的官吏，废止我的法令，因为一个无法无天的新时代已经到来了。哈利五世已经加冕为王！起来吧，浮华的淫乐！没落吧，君主的威严！你们一切深谋远虑的老臣，都给我滚开！现在要让四方各处游手好闲之徒聚集在英国的宫廷里了！邻邦啊，把你们的莠民败类淘汰出来吧；你们有没有什么酗酒谩骂、通宵作乐、杀人越货、无所不为的流氓恶棍？放心吧，他不会再来烦扰你们了；英国将要给他不次的光荣，使他官居要职，爵登显秩，手握大权，因为第五代的哈利将要松开奢淫这条野犬的羁勒，让它向每一个无辜的人张牙舞爪了。啊，我的疮痍未复的可怜的王国！我用尽心力，还不能戡定你的祸乱；在朝纲败坏、法纪荡然的时候，你又将怎样呢？啊！你将要重新变成一片荒野，豺狼将要归返它们的故居。

亲王　啊！恕我，陛下；倘不是因为我的眼泪使我哽咽得说不出话来，我决不会默然倾听您这番沉痛的严训而不加分辩的。这儿是您的王冠；但愿永生的上帝保佑您长久享有它！要是我对它怀着私心，并不只是因为它是您的尊荣的标记而珍重它，让我跪在地上，永远站不起来。上帝为我作证，当我进来的时候，看见陛下的嘴里没有一丝气息，我是怎样的感到寒心！要是我的悲哀是虚伪的，啊！让我就在我现在这一种荒唐的行为中死去，再没有机会给世人看看我将要怎样洗心革面，做一个堂堂的人物。我因为进来探望您，看见您仿佛死了的样子，我自己，主上，也几乎因悲痛而死去，当时我就用这样的话责骂这顶王冠，就像它是有知觉的一般，我说：“追随着您的烦恼已经把我的父亲杀害了；所以你这最好的黄金却是最坏的黄金：别的黄金虽然在质地上不如你，却可以炼成祛病延年的药水，比你贵重得多了；可是你这最纯粹的，最受人尊敬重视的，却把你的主人吞噬下去。”我一面这样责骂它，陛下，一面就把它试戴在我的头上，认为它是当着我的面前杀死我的父亲的仇敌，我作为忠诚的继承者应该要和它算账。可是假如它使我的血液中感染着欢乐，或是使我的精神上充满着骄傲，假如我的悖逆虚荣的心灵对它抱着丝毫爱悦的情绪，愿上帝永远不让它加在我头上，使我像一个最微贱的奴隶一般向着它颤栗下跪！

亨利王　啊，我儿！上帝让你把它拿了去，好叫你用这样贤明的辩解，格外博取你父亲的欢心。过来，哈利，坐在我的床边，听我这垂死之人的最后的遗命。上帝知道，我儿，我是用怎样诡诈的手段取得这一顶王冠；我自己也十分明白，它戴在我的头上，给了我多大的烦恼；可是你将要更安静更确定地占有它，不像我这样遭人嫉视，因为一切篡窃攘夺的污点，都将随着我一起埋葬。它在人们的心目之中，不过是我用暴力攫取的尊荣；那些帮助我得到它的人都在指斥我的罪状，他们的怨望每天都在酿成斗争和流血，破坏这粉饰的和平。你也看见我曾经冒着怎样的危险，应付这些大胆的威胁，我做了这么多年的国王，不过在反复串演着这一场争杀的武戏。现在我一死之后，情形就可以改变过来了，因为在我是用非法手段获得的，在你却是合法继承的权利。可是你的地位虽然可以比我稳定一些，然而人心未服，余憾尚新，你的基础还没有十分巩固。那些拥护我的人们，也就是你所必须认为朋友的，他们的锐牙利刺还不过新近拔去；他们用奸险的手段把我扶上高位，我不能不对他们怀着疑虑，怕他们会用同样的手段把我推翻；为了避免这一种危机，我才多方剪除他们的势力，并且正在准备把许多人带领到圣地作战，免得他们在国内闲居无事，又要发生觊觎王座的图谋。所以，我的哈利，你的政策应该是多多利用对外的战争，使那些心性轻浮的人们有了向外活动的机会，不至于在国内为非作乱，旧日的不快的回忆也可以因此而消失。我还有许多话要对你说，可是我的肺力不济，再也说不下去了。上帝啊！恕宥我用不正当的手段取得这一顶王冠；愿你能够平平安安享有它！

亲王　陛下，您好容易挣来这一顶王冠，好容易把它保持下来，现在您把它给了我，我当然对它有合法的所有权；我一定要用超乎一切的努力，不让它从我的手里失去。

（朱生豪　译）

战争和暴力中的权力

裘力思·凯撒　第二幕　第一场

勃鲁托斯　只有叫他死这一个办法；我自己对他并没有私怨，只是为了大众的利益。他将要戴上王冠；那会不会改变他的性格是一个问题；蝮蛇是在光天化日之下出现的，所以步行的人必须刻刻提防。让他戴上王冠？——不！那等于我们把一个毒刺给了他，使他可以随意加害于人。把不忍之心和威权分开，那威权就会被人误用；讲到凯撒这个人，说一句公平话，我还不曾知道他什么时候曾经一味感情用事，不受理智的支配。可是微贱往往是初期野心的阶梯，凭借着它一步步爬上了高处；当他一旦登上了最高的一级之后，他便不再回顾那梯子，他的眼光仰望着云霄，瞧不起他从前所恃为凭借的低下的阶段。凯撒何尝不会这样？所以，为了怕他有这一天，必须早一点防备。既然我们反对他的理由，不是因为他现在有什么可以指责的地方，所以就得这样说：照他现在的地位要是再扩大些权力，一定会引起这样这样的后患；我们应当把他当作一颗蛇蛋，与其让他孵出以后害人，不如趁他还在壳里的时候就把他杀死。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利五世　第四幕　第一场

亨利王　皇上就跟我一样，也是一个人罢了。一朵紫罗兰花儿他闻起来，跟我闻起来还不是一样；他头上和我头上合顶着一方天；他也不过用眼睛来看、耳朵来听啊。把一切荣衔丢开，还他一个赤裸裸的本相，那么他只是一个人罢了；虽说他的心思寄托在比我们高出一层的事物上，可是好比一头在云霄里飞翔的老鹰，他有时也不免降落下来，栖息在枝头和地面上。所以，当他有理由害怕的时候，他就像我们一样，感到了害怕；不用问，那心头的滋味也跟我们的感觉差不多。可是照理说，谁也不能叫他感到一丝恐惧，否则的话，他一流露出来，可不要瓦解军队的士气。

培茨　尽管他外表装得怎样勇敢，今夜又这样冷，可是我相信，他心里希望自己宁可浸在泰晤士河里，哪怕河水齐到了脖子；我也但愿他在那儿，而我呢，就在他身边——只要能离开此地，我们还有什么好计较的？

亨利王　不跟你们说瞎话——我愿意代替国王捧着良心说句话——我认为他不会希望不在眼前这个地方，跑到任何别的地方去。

培茨　那么我但愿他独个儿守在这块地方吧。这样，他当然免不了要献出一笔赎金来，许许多多可怜虫因此也就保全了生命啦。

亨利王　我敢说，你对他不至于一点儿敬爱都没有，竟希望就只他一个人守在这儿；你这么说，无非是试探别人的口气罢了。照我看，我无论死在什么地方，也没有像跟国王死在一块儿那样叫我称心了，因为他是师出有名的，他的战争是正义的。

威廉斯　这就不是我们所能了解的了。

培茨　啊，或者说，这就不是我们所该追究的了；因为说到了解不了解，只要我们知道自己是国王的臣民，那就够了。即使他是站在理亏的一边，我们这些人是服从我们的国王，那么也就消除了我们的罪名。

威廉斯　可是，如果这不是师出有名，那么国王头上的这笔账可有得他算了。打一场仗，有多多少少的腿、多多少少的胳膊、多多少少的头要给砍下来；将来有一天，它们又结合在一起了，就会一齐高声呼号：“我们死在这样一个地方！”有的在咒天骂地，有的在喊叫军医，有的在哭他抛下了苦命的妻，有的高嚷他欠了人家的债还没还，也有的一声声叫他甩手不管的孩子——我只怕死在战场上的人很少有死得像个样儿的！人家既然要流你的血，还能跟你讲什么慈悲？我说，如果这班人不得好死，那么把他们领到死路上去的国王就是罪孽深重了。苦的是小百姓，他们要是违抗了君命，那就是违反了做百姓的名份。

亨利王　照这样说来，假如有个儿子，父亲派他出洋去做生意，他结果却带着一身罪孽葬身在海里了，那么照你的一套看法，这份罪孽就应当归在把他派出去的父亲的头上。或者是，有一个奴仆，受了主人的嘱咐，运送一笔钱，却在半路上遭了打劫，还没来得及忏悔，就给强盗杀死了，你也许要把那个主人叫做害这个仆人堕入地狱的主使者。不过，这不是那么一回事。国王手下的兵士他们一个个怎样结局、收场，国王用不着负责。做父亲的对于儿子，做主人的对于奴仆，也是这样；因为，他们派给他们任务的时候，并没有把死派给他们。再说，国王出兵，就算他是完全理直气壮的，一旦到了在战场上见个高低，他也无从叫所有的兵士都免除了罪孽。很难说，有些兵士曾经蓄意谋杀过人——有些兵士拿虚伪的山盟海誓骗取了姑娘的贞操——有一些，曾经犯过抢劫的案子、破坏了安宁和秩序，正好拿战争做避难所。现在，这班人逃脱了法网，躲过了罪有应得的惩罚——虽然人们是给他瞒过了，他却插翅难逃过上帝的手心！战争是他的一张拘票，战争是他的报应；这班人过去触犯了王法，现在就在国王的战争中领受惩罚。他们为了怕死就投了军；他们以为这样就得救了，不料反而遭了殃。那么要是他不得好死，入了地狱，国王负什么责任？正像他们从前犯下不敬上帝的罪不能由他负责一样。为着这罪恶，他们现在得了报应！每个臣民都有为国效忠的本份，可是每个臣民的灵魂却是属于他自己掌管的。

（方　平　译）

哈姆莱特　第四幕　第四场

哈姆莱特　我所见到、听到的一切，都好像在对我谴责，鞭策我赶快进行我的蹉跎未就的复仇大愿！一个人要是把生活的幸福和目的，只看作吃吃睡睡，他还算是个什么东西？简直不过是一头畜生！上帝造下我们来，使我们能够这样高谈阔论，瞻前顾后，当然要我们利用他所赋予我们的这一种能力和灵明的理智，不让它们白白废掉。现在我明明有理由、有决心、有力量、有方法，可以动手干我所要干的事，可是我还是在大言不惭地说：“这件事需要做。”可是始终不曾在行动上表现出来；我不知道这是因为像鹿豕一般的健忘呢，还是因为三分懦怯一分智慧的过于审慎的顾虑。像大地一样显明的榜样都在鼓励我；瞧这一支勇猛的大军，领队的是一个娇养的少年王子，勃勃的雄心振起了他的精神，使他蔑视不可知的结果，为了区区弹丸大小的一块不毛之地，拼着血肉之躯，去向命运、死亡和危险挑战。真正的伟大不是轻举妄动，而是在荣誉遭遇危险的时候，即使为了一根稻秆之微，也要慷慨力争。可是我的父亲给人惨杀，我的母亲给人污辱，我的理智和感情都被这种不共戴天的大仇所激动，我却因循隐忍，一切听其自然，看着这二万个人为了博取一个空虚的名声，视死如归地走下他们的坟墓里去，目的只是争夺一方还不够给他们作战场或者埋骨之所的土地，相形之下，我将何地自容呢？啊！从这一刻起，让我摒除一切的疑虑妄念，把流血的思想充满在我的脑际！

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世下篇　第一幕　第三场

巴道夫　要是我们把这次战争的运命完全寄托在希望上，那希望对于我们却是无益而有害的，正像我们在早春时候所见的初生的蓓蕾一般，希望不能保证它们开花结实，无情的寒霜却早已摧残了它们的生机。当我们准备建筑房屋的时候，我们第一要测量地基，然后设计图样；打好图样以后，我们还要估计建筑的费用，要是那费用超过我们的财力，就必须把图样重新改绘，设法减省一些人工，或是根本放弃这一项建筑计划。现在我们所进行的这件伟大的工作，简直是推翻一个旧的王国，重新建立一个新的王国，所以我们尤其应该熟察环境，详定方针，确立一个稳固的基础，询问测量师，明了我们自身的力量，是不是能够从事这样的工作，对抗敌人的压迫；否则要是我们徒然在纸上谈兵，把战士的名单代替了实际上阵的战士，那就像一个人打了一幅他的力量所不能建筑的房屋的图样，造了一半就中途停工，丢下那未完成的屋架子，让它去受凄风苦雨的吹淋。

（朱生豪　译）

麦克白　第一幕　第七场

麦克白　要是干了以后就完了，那么还是快一点干；要是凭着暗杀的手段，可以攫取美满的结果，又可以排除了一切后患；要是这一刀砍下去，就可以完成一切、终结一切、解决一切——在这人世上，仅仅在这人世上，在时间这大海的浅滩上；那么来生我也就顾不到了。可是在这种事情上，我们往往逃不过现世的裁判；我们树立下血的榜样，教会别人杀人，结果反而自己被人所杀；把毒药投入酒杯里的人，结果也会自己饮鸩而死，这就是一丝不爽的报应。他到这儿来本有两重的信任：第一，我是他的亲戚，又是他的臣子，按照名分绝对不能干这样的事；第二，我是他的主人，应当保障他身体的安全，怎么可以自己持刀行刺？而且，这个邓肯秉性仁慈，处理国政，从来没有过失，要是把他杀死了，他的生前的美德，将要像天使一般发出喇叭一样清澈的声音，向世人昭告我的弑君重罪；“怜悯”像一个赤身裸体在狂风中飘游的婴儿，又像一个御气而行的天婴，将要把这可憎的行为揭露在每一个人的眼中，使眼泪淹没叹息。没有一种力量可以鞭策我实现自己的意图，可是我的跃跃欲试的野心，却不顾一切地驱着我去冒颠踬的危险。

（朱生豪　译）

理查三世　第五幕　第五场

里士满　那就该是披甲发令的时间了。亲爱的同胞们，时间已经十分紧迫，我无法和你们尽情多谈了；可是大家只消记住这一点，上帝和正义都在同我们一起作战；圣洁的圣徒们和冤死的人们都在为我们祈祷，他们站在我们面前像一座高耸的堡垒；除了理查之外，他手下的人没有一个不宁愿我们战胜，惟恐他得到胜利。要知道他们所跟从的这个人是个什么样的人呢？弟兄们，他确实是一个杀人如麻的暴君；他在人血中成长，靠流血起家；利用他原有的地位以扩展势力，屠宰他自己的谋士，过河拆桥；一颗卑劣的假宝石，空凭英国的王座来衬托出光芒，其实是装错了地位，满不相称；他始终与上帝为敌。你们既和上帝的敌人交战，做上帝的战士必得天道庇佑；如果你们挥着汗除恶歼暴，功成名遂之后，自可高枕无忧；如果你们为国家战胜公敌，国家自然会把肥甘犒赏你们；如果你们为保护妻孥的安全而战，你们的妻孥就会来迎接胜利者回家园；如果你们把儿女救出了虎口，你们的子孙就可在你们的晚年承欢报恩。所以，为上帝之名和这一切权益，举旗前进，凭自愿拔刀杀敌去吧。至于我，为了这英勇的一役要激战一场，甚至不惜寒土埋冷骨；但是我若幸而获胜，这胜利的果实要和你们每一个士卒共享。击鼓吹号吧，奋勇欢呼起来；上帝与圣乔治在此！里士满与胜利！

（方　重　译）

亨利六世中篇　第一幕　第一场

约克　安佐和缅因白白送给了法国人，巴黎已经丧失了，这些地区丢了以后，诺曼第省就处于极不安全的地位。萨福克签订了和约条款，贵族们都已同意，亨利也愿意用两个公爵的采邑换取一个公爵的标致女儿。为了这些事，我也怪不得他们；在他们看来，这些都算得什么？他们送掉的原是你的东西，而不是他们自己的东西。海盗们把抢来的财富尽情挥霍，收买朋友，赏赐娼妓，直到花费干净，也毫不吝惜。而那不幸的物主却只能咳声叹气，搓手摇头，战兢兢地站在一旁，眼看着自己的东西被人分配完毕，全都带走，自己只能忍饥挨饿，对自己的财产连碰都不敢碰一下。我约克正是处于这样的地位：我自己的土地被人家换掉了、出卖了，我只能坐在一旁，忍气吞声。在我看来，英格兰、法兰西、爱尔兰，这些国土都是我心头之肉，都是我生命的寄托。而他们竟然把安佐和缅因送给了法国人！这真是一件令人泄气的消息，那法兰西，如同英格兰的肥沃土地一样，原是我想要弄到手的。总有一天我约克要把自己的东西收归己有。为了这个目的，我不妨站到萨立斯伯雷父子这一边来，在外表上对骄横的亨弗雷公爵表现一下拥戴的态度。等到时机一到，我就提出对王冠的要求，那才是我所追求的最高目标。可是，约克呵，你得耐心一点，要等待时机成熟。当别人入睡的时候，你得保持清醒，留心伺察，把国家的内幕刺探清楚。亨利替英国花了许多钱买来一位王后，他正陶醉在新媳妇的爱河之中，等他和亨弗雷同其他的贵族们一旦发生破裂，那时节，我就要高举乳白色的玫瑰，使那空气里充满它的芬芳，我要树起绣有约克家族徽记的旗帜，对兰开斯特家族进行搏斗。我要使用武力，迫使他交出王冠，这些年来，在他的书呆子般的统治之下，英格兰的威望是一天天低落了。

（章　益　译）

暴风雨　第三幕　第三场

爱丽儿　你们是三个有罪的人；操纵着下界一切的天命使得那贪馋的怒海重又把你们吐了出来，把你们抛在这没有人居住的岛上，你们是不配居住在人类中间的。你们已经发狂了。（阿隆佐、西巴斯辛等拔剑）即使像你们这样勇敢的人，也没有法子免除一死。你们这辈愚人！我和我的同伴们都是运命的使者；你们的用风、火熔炼的刀剑不能损害我们身上的一根羽毛，正像把它们砍向呼啸的风、刺向分而复合的水波一样，只显得可笑。我的伙伴们也是刀枪不入的。而且即使它们能够把我们伤害，现在你们也已经没有力量把臂膀举起来了。好生记住吧，我来就是告诉你们这句话，你们三个人是在米兰把善良的普洛斯彼罗篡逐的恶人，你们把他和他的无辜的婴孩放逐在海上，如今你们也受到同样的报应了。为着这件恶事，上天虽然并不把惩罚立刻加在你们身上，却并没有轻轻放过，已经使海洋陆地，以及一切有生之伦，都来和你们作对了。你，阿隆佐，已经丧失了你的儿子；我再向你宣告；活地狱的无穷的痛苦——一切死状合在一起也没有那么惨，将要一步步临到你生命的途程中；除非痛悔前非，以后洗心革面，做一个清白的人，否则在这荒岛上面，天谴已经迫在眼前了！

〔爱丽儿在雷鸣中隐去。柔和的乐声复起；精灵们重上，跳舞且作揶揄状，把空桌抬下。〕

普洛斯彼罗　你把这怪鸟扮演得很好，我的爱丽儿，这一桌酒席你也席卷得妙，我叫你说的话你一句也没有漏去；就是那些小精灵们也都是生龙活虎，各自非常出力。我的神通已经显出力量，我这些仇人们已经惊惶得不能动弹；他们都已经在我的权力之下了。

（朱生豪　译）

科利奥兰纳斯　第一幕　第一场

市民甲　我们都是苦百姓，贵族才是好市民。那些有权有势的人吃饱了，装不下的东西就可以救济我们。他们只要把吃剩下来的东西趁着新鲜的时候赏给我们，我们就会以为他们是出于人道之心来救济我们；可是在他们看来，我们都是不值得救济的。我们的痛苦饥寒，我们的枯瘦憔悴，就像是列载着他们的富裕的一张清单；他们享福就是靠了我们受苦。让我们举起我们的武器来复仇，趁我们还没有瘦得只剩几根骨头。天神知道我说这样的话，只是迫于没有面包吃的饥饿，不是因为渴于复仇。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世上篇　第一幕　第三场

霍茨波　啊，那就难怪他那位做了国王的叔父恨不得要让摩提默在荒凉的山谷之间饿死了。可是你们把王冠加在这个健忘的人的头上，为了他的缘故，蒙上教唆行弑的万恶的罪名，难道你们就这样甘心做一个篡位者的卑鄙的帮凶，一个弑君的刽子手，受尽无穷的咒诅吗？啊！恕我这样不知忌讳，直言指出你们在这狡诈的国王手下充任了何等的角色。难道你们愿意让当世的舆论和未来的历史提起这一件可羞的事实，说是像你们这样两个有地位有势力的人，却会做出那样不义之事——上帝恕宥你们的罪恶！——把理查，那芬芳可爱的蔷薇拔了下来，却扶植起波林勃洛克，这一棵刺人的荆棘？难道你们愿意让它们提起这一件更可羞的事实，说是你们为了那个人蒙受这样的耻辱，结果却被他所愚弄、摈斥和抛弃？不，现在你们还来得及赎回你们被放逐的荣誉，恢复世人对你们的好感；报复这骄傲的国王所加于你们的侮蔑吧，他每天每晚都在考虑着怎样酬答你们的辛劳，他是不会吝惜用流血的手段把你们处死的。所以，我说——

华斯特　静下来，侄儿！别多说了。

（朱生豪　译）

理查三世　第四幕　第三场

提瑞尔　一桩血腥的暴行已经完成；真是这片国土之上还未见过的一件罪大恶极的惨案。我曾唆使戴登和福列司特一起去硬着心肠下这毒手，可是他俩虽然是嗜血暴徒，听了那番临死前的悲诉，也竟顽石点头，像孩提一般流下热泪来。“看哪，”戴登说，“这幼嫩的孩子们躺在那儿；”“就这样，”福列司特说，“他俩这样相互抱住，白蜡似的纯洁臂膀缠得好紧；那嘴唇就像枝头的四瓣红玫瑰，娇滴滴地在夏季的馥郁中亲吻。枕边放着一本祈祷书；我险些儿，”福列司特说道，“心头软下来；然而那魔鬼呵，”——这个恶汉停住了；这时戴登又续道：“我们把开天辟地以来所未有的美品，天公的精心杰作，竟一手给闷死了。”他俩就这样受到良心的责备；话也说不出来；那时我们分了手，我便来向血腥的国王复命：他来了。

〔理查王上。〕

提瑞尔　祝您万福，我的主君！

理查王　好提瑞尔，你的消息是叫我高兴的吗？

提瑞尔　如果我完成了您交下的使命就能叫您高兴的话，那就请您高兴吧，因为这件事已经办成了。

理查王　你看见他们确已死了？

提瑞尔　看见了，我的主君。

理查王　埋葬了吗，好提瑞尔？

提瑞尔　伦敦塔中的牧师把他们埋了；至于埋在哪儿，怎样埋的，我却不知道。

理查王　晚饭后到我这里来，提瑞尔，我要你告诉我他们死时的经过，同时不妨先想一想我该如何酬谢你，怎样满足你的欲望。再见，等你来。

提瑞尔　我敬向您告辞。

理查王　克莱伦斯的儿子我已经关禁起来；他的女儿我已把她嫁给了穷人；爱德华的两个儿子睡进了亚伯拉罕的怀抱里，我妻安辞别了人世。现在我知道布列塔尼的里士满觊觎着我的侄女小伊利莎伯，想借这一结合，妄图争得王冠，我就去找她，再当个快乐幸福的求婚郎。

（方　重　译）

雅典的泰门　第五幕　第四场

艾西巴第斯　吹起喇叭来，让这个懦怯的、淫秽的城市知道我们的大军已经来到。

〔吹谈判信号。元老等登城。〕

艾西巴第斯　在今天以前，由你们胡作非为，肆行不义，把你们的私心当作公道；在今天以前，我自己以及一切睡在你们权力的阴影下面的人，谁都是叉手徬徨，有冤莫诉。现在忍无可忍的时间已经到了，蹲伏惯了的脊骨，在重重的压迫之下，喊出“受不住了”的呼声；现在无告的冤苦将要坐在你们宽大的安乐椅上喘息，短气的骄横将要狼狈奔逃了。

元老甲　尊贵的少年将军，你当初因为些微的误会一怒而去的时候，虽然你还是无拳无勇，我们无须恐惧你的报复，可是我们仍旧召你回来，好意抚慰你，用逾量的恩宠洗刷我们负心的罪戾。

元老乙　就是对于改换了形貌的泰门，我们也曾用谦恭的使节和优渥的允诺恳求他眷念我们的城市。我们并不全是冷酷无情的人，也不该不分皂白地同受战争的屠戮。

元老甲　我们这一座城墙，并不是建立于得罪你的那些人之手；这些巍峨的高塔、标柱和学校，更不应该为了私人的错误而同归毁灭。

元老乙　当初驱迫你出亡的那些人，因为自愧缺少应付非常的才能，中心惭疚，都已忧郁逝世了。尊贵的将军，带领你的大军，高扬你的旗帜，开进我们的城中吧；要是你不顾上天好生之德，你的复仇的欲望必须得到满足，那么请你在十人中杀死一人，让那不幸接触你的锋刃的作为牺牲吧。

（朱生豪　译）

理查二世　第三幕　第三场

波林勃洛克　（向诺森伯兰伯爵）贵爵，请你到那座古堡的顽强的墙壁之前，用铜角把谈判的信号吹进它的残废的耳中，为我这样传言：亨利·波林勃洛克屈下他的双膝，敬吻理查王的御手，向他最尊贵的本人致献臣服的诚意和不贰的忠心；就在他的足前，我准备放下我的武器，遣散我的军队，只要他能答应撤销我的放逐的判决，归还我的应得的土地。不然的话，我要利用我的军力的优势，让那从被屠杀的英国人的伤口中流下的血雨浇溉夏天的泥土；可是我的谦卑的忠顺将会证明用这种腥红的雨点浸染理查王的美好的青绿的田野，决不是波林勃洛克的本意。去，这样对他说；我们就在这儿平坦的草原上整队前进。让我们进军的时候不要敲起惊人的鼓声，这样可以让他们从那城堡的摇摇欲倾的雉堞之上，看看我们雄壮的军容。我想理查王跟我上阵的时候，将要像水火的交攻一样骇人，那彼此接触时的雷鸣巨响，可以把天空震破。让他做火，我愿意做柔顺的水；雷霆之威是属于他的，我只向地上浇洒我的雨露。

（朱生豪　译）

科利奥兰纳斯　第四幕　第五场

科利奥兰纳斯　我的名字是卡厄斯·马歇斯，我曾经把极大的伤害和灾祸加在你和一切伏尔斯人的身上；我的姓氏科利奥兰纳斯就是最好的证明。辛苦的战役、重大的危险、替我这负恩的国家所流过的血，结果只是换到了这一个空洞的姓氏，为你对我所怀的怨恨留下一个创巨痛深的记忆。只有这名字剩留着；残酷猜嫉的人民，得到了我们那些懦怯的贵族的默许，已经一致遗弃了我，抹煞了我一切的功绩，让那些奴才们把我轰出了罗马。这一种不幸的遭遇，使我今天来到你的家里；不要误会我，以为我想来向你求恩乞命，因为要是我怕死的话，我就应该远远地躲开你；我只是因为出于气愤，渴想报复那些放逐我的人，所以才到这儿来站在你的面前。要是你也有一颗复仇的心，想要替你自己和你的国家洗雪耻辱，现在就是你的机会到了，你正可以利用我的不幸，达到你自己的目的，因为我将要用地狱中一切饿鬼的怨毒，来向我的腐败的祖国作战。可是你要是没有这样的胆量，也不想追求远大的前程，那么一句话，我也已经厌倦人世，愿意伸直我的颈项，听任你的宰割，让你一泄这许多年来郁积在心头的怨恨；你要是不杀我，你就是个傻瓜，因为我一向是你的死敌，曾经从你祖国的胸前溅下了无数吨的血；要是让我活在世上，对于你永远是一个耻辱，除非你能够跟我合作。

（朱生豪　译）

亨利四世下篇　第四幕　第一场

威斯摩兰　那么，大主教，我要把您作为我的发言的主要的对象。要是叛乱不脱它的本色，不过是一群乌合之众的暴动，在少数嗜杀好乱的少年领导之下，获得那些无赖贱民的拥护；要是它果然以这一种适合于它的本性的面目出现，那么您，可尊敬的神父，以及这几位尊贵的勋爵，决不会厕身于他们的行列，用你们的荣誉替卑劣残暴的叛徒丑类张目。您，大主教，您的职位是借着国内的和平而确立的，您的鬚髯曾经为和平所吹拂，您的学问文章都是受着和平的甄陶，您的白袍象征着纯洁、圣灵与和平的精神，为什么您现在停止您的优美的和平的宣讲，高呼着粗暴喧嚣的战争的口号，把经典换了甲胄，把墨水换了鲜血，把短笔换了长枪，把神圣的辩舌化成了战场上的号角？

约克　为什么我要采取这样的行动？这是您对我所发的疑问。我的简单的答案是这样的：我们都是害着重病的人；过度的宴乐和荒淫已经使我们遍身像火烧一般发热，我们必须因此而流血；我们的前王理查就是因为染上这一种疾病而不治身亡的。可是，我的最尊贵的威斯摩兰伯爵，我并不以一个医生自任，虽然我现在置身在这些战士们的中间，我并不愿做一个和平的敌人；我的意思不过是暂时借可怖的战争为手段，强迫被无度的纵乐所糜烂的身心得到一些合理的节制，对那开始扼止我们生命活力的障碍作一番彻底的扫除。再听我说得明白一些：我曾经仔细衡量过我们的武力所能造成的损害和我们自己所身受的损害，发现我们的怨愤比我们的过失更重。我们看见时势的潮流奔赴着哪一个方向，在环境的强力的挟持之下，我们不得不适应大势，离开我们平静安谧的本位。我们已经把我们的不满列为条款；在适当的时间，我们将要把它们公开宣布。这些条款在很久以前，我们曾想呈递给国王，但多方祈求仍不能邀蒙接受。当我们受到侮辱损害，准备申诉我们的怨苦的时候，我们总不能得到面谒国王的机会，而那些阻止我们看见他的人，也正就是给我们最大的侮辱与损害的人。新近过去的危机——它的用血写成的记忆还留着鲜明的印象，——以及当前每一分钟所呈现的险象，使我们穿起了这些不合身的武装；我们不是要破坏和平，而是要确立一个名实相符的真正和平。

（朱生豪　译）

恋人间的权力

特洛伊罗斯与克瑞西达　第三幕　第二场

特洛伊罗斯　那么我的克瑞西达为什么这样不容易征服呢？

克瑞西达　似乎不容易征服，可是，殿下，当您第一眼看着我的时候，我早就给您征服了——恕我不再说下去，要是我招认得太多，您会看轻我的。我现在爱着您；可是直到现在为止，我还能够控制我自己的感情；不，说老实话，我说了谎了；我的思想就像一群顽劣的孩子，倔强得不受他们母亲的管束。瞧，我们真是些傻瓜！为什么就要唠唠叨叨说这些话呢？要是我们不能替自己保守秘密，谁还会对我们忠实呢？可是我虽然这样爱您，却没有向您求爱；然而说老实话，我却希望我自己是个男子，或者我们女子也像男子一样有先启口的权利。亲爱的，快叫我止住我的舌头吧；因为我这样得意忘形，一定会说出使我后悔的话来。瞧，瞧！您这么狡猾地一声不响，已经使我从我的脆弱当中流露出我的内心来了。封住我的嘴吧。

特洛伊罗斯　好，虽然甜蜜的音乐从您嘴里发出。

〔他吻了她。〕

（朱生豪　译）

十四行诗　一五〇

哦，从什么威力你取得这力量，

连缺陷也能把我的心灵支配？

教我诬蔑我可靠的目光撒谎，

并矢口否认太阳使白天明媚？

何来这化臭腐为神奇的本领，

使你的种种丑恶不堪的表现

都具有一种灵活强劲的保证，

使它们，对于我，超越一切至善？

谁教你有办法使我更加爱你，

当我听到和见到你种种可憎？

哦，尽管我钟爱着人家所嫌弃，

你总不该嫌弃我，同人家一条心：

既然你越不可爱，越使得我爱，

你就该觉得我更值得你喜爱。

（梁宗岱　译）

维罗那二绅士　第三幕　第一场

凡伦丁　与其活着受煎熬，何不一死了事？死不过是把自己放逐出自己的躯壳以外；西尔维娅已经和我合成一体，离开她就是离开我自己，这不是和死同样的刑罚吗？看不见西尔维娅，世上还有什么光明？没有西尔维娅在一起，世上还有什么乐趣？我只好闭上眼睛假想她在旁边，用这样美好的幻影寻求片刻的陶醉。除非夜间有西尔维娅陪着我，夜莺的歌唱只是不入耳的噪音；除非白天有西尔维娅在我的面前，否则我的生命将是一个不见天日的长夜。她是我生命的精华，我要是不能在她的煦护拂庇之下滋养我的生机，就要干枯憔悴而死。即使能逃过他这可怕的判决，我也仍然不能逃避死亡；因为我留在这儿，结果不过一死，可是离开了这儿，就是离开了生命所寄托的一切。

（朱生豪　译）

无事生非　第三幕　第一场

希罗　爱神在上，我也知道像他这样的人品是值得享受世间一切至美至好的事物的；可是造物造下的女人的心，没有一颗比得上像贝特丽丝那样骄傲冷酷的；轻蔑和讥嘲在她的眼睛里闪耀着，把她所看见的一切贬得一文不值，她因为自恃才情，所以什么都不放在她的眼里。她不会恋爱，也从来不想到有恋爱这件事；她是太自命不凡了。

欧苏拉　不错，我也是这样想；所以还是不要让她知道他对她的爱情，免得反而遭到她的讥笑。

希罗　是呀，你说得很对。无论怎样聪明、高贵、年轻、漂亮的男子，她总要把他批评得体无完肤：要是他面孔长得白净，她就发誓说这位先生应当做她的妹妹；要是他皮肤黑了点儿，她就说上帝在打一个小花脸的图样的时候，不小心涂上了一大块墨渍；要是他是个高个儿，他就是柄歪头的长枪；要是他是个矮子，他就是块刻坏了的玛瑙坠子；要是他多讲了几句话，他就是个随风转的风标；要是他一声不响，他就是块没有知觉的木头。她这样指摘着每一个人的短处，至于他的纯朴的德性和才能，她却绝口不给它们应得的赞赏。

欧苏拉　真的，这种吹毛求疵可不敢恭维。

希罗　是呀，像贝特丽丝这样古怪得不近人情，真叫人不敢恭维。可是谁敢去对她这样说呢？要是我对她说了，她会把我讥笑得无地自容，用她的俏皮话儿把我揶揄死呢！所以还是让培尼狄克像一堆盖在灰里的火一样，在叹息中熄灭了他的生命的残焰吧；与其受人讥笑而死——这就像痒得要死那样难熬——还是不声不响地闷死了好。

（朱生豪　译）

驯悍记　第四幕　第一场

彼特鲁乔　我已经开始巧妙地把她驾驭起来，希望能够得到美满的成功。我这只悍鹰现在非常饥饿，在她没有俯首听命以前，不能让她吃饱，不然她就不肯再练习打猎了。我还有一个治服这鸷鸟的办法，使她能呼之则来，挥之则去；那就是总叫她睁着眼，不得休息，拿她当一只乱扑翅膀的倔强鹞子一样对待。今天她没有吃过肉，明天我也不给她吃；昨夜她不曾睡觉，今夜我也不让她睡觉，我要故意嫌被褥铺得不好，把枕头、枕垫、被单、线毯向满房乱丢，还说都是为了爱惜她才这样做；总之她将要整夜不能合眼，倘然她昏昏思睡，我就骂人吵闹，吵得她睡不着。这是用体贴为名惩治妻子的法子，我就这样克制她的狂暴倔强的脾气；要是有谁知道还有比这更好的驯悍妙法，那么我倒要请教请教。

（朱生豪　译）

鲁克丽丝受辱记　第281—301行

正好比稀稀禾苗，被萋萋恶草掩蔽，

审慎的顾虑几乎被猖狂的欲念窒息。

他竖起耳朵倾听，偷偷举步前移，

满怀无耻的希冀，满腹无聊的猜疑；

希冀、猜疑仿佛是恶人的两名仆役，

让他们相忤的主张交错于他的脑际，

使他一会儿想收兵，一会儿又想进袭。

潜思中，他恍惚瞥见她天仙一般的形象，

还恍惚瞥见柯拉廷，也与她同在那厢；

向她望着的那只眼，搅得他心神迷惘；

向她望着的那只眼，却较为虔敬忠良，

不肯屈从于这种背信弃义的意向，

发出纯真的呼吁，求心灵作出主张；

但心灵既经腐蚀，竟投向恶的一方。

这就大大怂恿了他那卑劣的情思：

见心灵洋洋自得，它们也踌躇满志，

涨满了他的淫欲，像分秒填满了小时；

自吹互捧过了头，它们越来越骄恣，

竟与它们的统帅——心灵毫无二致。

听任奸邪的欲念如此癫狂地指使，

罗马王子直驱鲁克丽丝的卧室。

（杨德豫　译）

仲夏夜之梦　第五幕　第一场

忒修斯　情人们和疯子们都富于纷乱的思想和成形的幻觉，他们所理会到的永远不是冷静的理智所能充分了解。疯子、情人和诗人，都是幻想的产儿：疯子眼中所见的鬼，多过于广大的地狱所能容纳；情人，同样是那么疯狂，能从埃及人的黑脸上看见海伦的美貌；诗人的眼睛在神奇的狂放的一转中，便能从天上看到地下，从地下看到天上。想像会把不知名的事物用一种形式呈现出来，诗人的笔再使它们具有如实的形象，空虚的无物也会有了居处和名字。强烈的想像往往具有这种本领，只要一领略到一些快乐，就会相信那种快乐的背后有一个赐予的人；夜间一转到恐惧的念头，一株灌木一下子便会变成一头熊。

（朱生豪　译）

罗密欧与朱丽叶　第三幕　第三场

罗密欧　这是酷刑，不是恩典。朱丽叶所在的地方就是天堂；这儿的每一只猫、每一只狗、每一只小小的老鼠，都生活在天堂里，都可以瞻仰到她的容颜，可是罗密欧却看不见她。污秽的苍蝇都可以接触亲爱的朱丽叶的皎洁的玉手，从她的嘴唇上偷取天堂中的幸福，那两片嘴唇是这样的纯洁贞淑，永远含着娇羞，好像觉得它们自身的相吻也是一种罪恶；苍蝇可以这样做，我却必须远走高飞，它们是自由人，我却是一个放逐的流徒。你还说放逐不是死吗？难道你没有配好的毒药、锋锐的刀子或者无论什么致命的利器，而必须用“放逐”两个字把我杀害吗？放逐！啊，神父！只有沉沦在地狱里的鬼魂才会用到这两个字，伴着凄厉的呼号；你是一个教士，一个替人忏罪的神父，又是我的朋友，怎么忍心用“放逐”这两个字来寸磔我呢？

（梁宗岱　译）

终成眷属　第一幕　第一场

海丽娜　唉！要是真的只是这样倒好了。我不是想我的父亲；我这些滔滔的眼泪，虽然好像是一片孺慕的哀忱，却不是为他而流。他的容貌怎样，我也早就忘记了，在我的想像之中，除了勃特拉姆以外没有别人的影子。我现在一切都完了！要是勃特拉姆离我而去，我还有什么生趣？我正像爱上了一颗灿烂的明星，痴心地希望着有一天能够和它结合，他是这样高不可攀；我不能踰越我的名分和他亲近，只好在他的耀目的光华下，沾取他的几分余辉，安慰安慰我的饥渴。我的爱情的野心使我备受痛苦，希望和狮子匹配的驯鹿，必须为爱而死。每时每刻看见他，是愉快也是苦痛；我默坐在他的旁边，在心版上深深地刻划着他的秀曲的眉毛，他的敏锐的眼睛，他的迷人的鬈发，他那可爱的脸庞上的每一根线条，每一处微细的特点，都会清清楚楚地摄在我的心里。可是现在他去了，我的爱慕的私衷，只好以眷怀旧日的陈迹为满足。

（朱生豪　译）

十四行诗　五七

既然是你奴隶，我有什么可做，

除了时时刻刻伺候你的心愿？

我毫无宝贵的时间可消磨，

也无事可做，直到你有所驱遣。

我不敢骂那绵绵无尽的时刻，

当我为你，主人，把时辰来看守；

也不敢埋怨别离是多么残酷，

在你已经把你的仆人辞退后；

也不敢用妒忌的念头去探索

你究竟在哪里，或者为什么忙碌，

只是，像个可怜的奴隶，呆想着

你所在的地方，人们会多幸福。

爱这呆子是那么无救药的呆

凭你为所欲为，他都不觉得坏。

（梁宗岱　译）

爱的徒劳　第一幕　第二场

亚马多　我爱上了那被她穿在她的卑贱的鞋子里的更卑贱的脚所践踏的最卑贱的地面。要是我恋爱了，我将要破坏誓约，那就是说了一句虚伪的谎。虚伪的谎怎么可以换到真实的爱呢？爱情是一个魔鬼，是一个独一无二的罪恶的天使。可是参孙也曾被它引诱，他是个力气很大的人；所罗门也曾被它迷惑，他是个聪明无比的人。赫剌克勒斯的巨棍也敌不住丘匹德的箭镞，所以一个西班牙人的宝剑怎么能够对抗得了呢？不消一两个回合，我的剑法就要完全散乱了。什么直刺，什么横劈，在他看来都是不值一笑。他的耻辱是被人称为孩子；他的光荣却是征服成人。别了，勇气！锈了吧，宝剑！静下来，战鼓！因为你们的主人在恋爱了；是的，他在恋爱了。即景生情的诗神啊，帮助我！因为我相信我要写起十四行诗来了。想吧，智慧；写吧，笔！我有足够的诗情，可以写满几大卷的对开大本呢。

（朱生豪　译）

罗密欧与朱丽叶　第一幕　第一场

罗密欧　啊，吵吵闹闹的相爱，亲亲热热的怨恨！啊，无中生有的一切！啊，沉重的轻浮，严肃的狂妄，整齐的混乱，铅铸的羽毛，光明的烟雾，寒冷的火焰，憔悴的健康，永远觉醒的睡眠，否定的存在！我感觉到的爱情正是这么一种东西，可是我并不喜爱这一种爱情。你不会笑我吗？

班伏里奥　不，兄弟，我倒是有点儿想哭。

罗密欧　好人，为什么呢？

班伏里奥　因为瞧着你善良的心受到这样的痛苦。

罗密欧　唉！这就是爱情的错误，我自己已经有太多的忧愁重压在我的心头，你对我表示的同情，徒然使我在太多的忧愁之上再加上一重忧愁。爱情是叹息吹起的一阵烟；恋人的眼中有它净化了的火星；恋人的眼泪是它激起的波涛。它又是最智慧的疯狂，哽喉的苦味，吃不到嘴的蜜糖。

（朱生豪　译）

安东尼与克莉奥佩特拉　第四幕　第十六场

克莉奥佩特拉　什么都没有了，我只是一个平凡的女人，平凡的感情支配着我，正像支配着一个挤牛奶、做贱工的婢女一样。我应该向不仁的神明怒掷我的御杖，告诉他们当他们没有偷去我们的珍宝的时候，我们这世界是可以和他们的天国互相媲美的。如今一切都只是空虚无聊；忍着像傻瓜，不忍着又像疯狗。那么在死神还不敢侵犯我们以前，就奔进了幽秘的死窟，是不是罪恶呢？怎么啦，我的姑娘们？唉，唉！高兴点儿吧！嗳哟，怎么啦，查米恩！我的好孩子们！啊，姑娘们，姑娘们，瞧！我们的灯熄了，它暗下去了，各位好朋友，提起勇气来；——我们要埋葬他，一切依照最庄严、最高贵的罗马的仪式，让死神乐于带我们同去。来，走吧；容纳着那样一颗伟大的灵魂的躯壳现在已经冰冷了；啊，姑娘们，姑娘们！我们没有朋友，只有视死如归的决心。

（朱生豪　译）

十四行诗　二六

我爱情的至尊，你的美德已经

使我这藩属加强对你的拥戴，

我现在寄给你这诗当作使臣，

去向你述职，并非要向你炫才。

职责那么重，我又才拙少俊语，

难免要显得赤裸裸和她相见，

但望你的妙思，不嫌它太粗鄙，

在你灵魂里把它的赤裸裸遮掩；

因而不管什么星照引我前程，

都对我露出一副和悦的笑容，

把华服加给我这寒伧的爱情，

使我配得上你那缱绻的恩宠。

那时我才敢对你夸耀我的爱，

否则怕你考验我，总要躲起来。

（梁宗岱　译）

驯悍记　第五幕　第二场

彼特鲁乔　凯瑟琳，你去告诉这些倔强的女人，做妻子的应该向她们的夫主尽些什么本分。

寡妇　好了，好了，别开玩笑了；我们不要听这些个。

彼特鲁乔　说吧，先讲给她听。

寡妇　用不着她讲。

彼特鲁乔　我偏要她讲；先讲给她听。

凯瑟丽娜　嗳呀！展开你那颦蹙的眉头，收起你那轻蔑的瞥视，不要让它伤害你的主人，你的君王，你的支配者。它会使你的美貌减色，就像严霜噬噬着草原，它会使你的名誉受损，就像旋风摧残着蓓蕾；它绝对没有可取之处，也丝毫引不起别人的好感。一个使性的女人，就像一池受到激动的泉水，混浊可憎，失去一切的美丽，无论怎样喉干吻渴的人，也不愿把它啜饮一口。你的丈夫就是你的主人、你的生命、你的所有者、你的头脑、你的君王；他照顾着你，扶养着你，在海洋里陆地上辛苦操作，夜里冒着风波，白天忍受寒冷，你却穿得暖暖的住在家里，享受着安全与舒适。他希望你贡献给他的，只是你的爱情，你的温柔的辞色，你的真心的服从；你欠他的好处这么多，他所要求于你的酬报却是这么微薄！一个女人对待她的丈夫，应当像臣子对待君王一样忠心恭顺；倘使她倔强使性，乖张暴戾，不服从他正当的愿望，那么她岂不是一个大逆不道、忘恩负义的叛徒？应当长跪乞和的时候，她却向他挑战；应当尽心竭力服侍他、敬爱他、顺从他的时候，她却企图篡夺主权，发号施令：这一种愚蠢的行为，真是女人的耻辱。我们的身体为什么这样柔软无力，耐不了苦，熬不起忧患？那不是因为我们的性情必须和我们的外表互相一致，同样的温柔吗？听我的话吧，你们这些倔强而无力的可怜虫！我的心从前也跟你们一样高傲，也许我有比你们更多的理由，不甘心向人俯首认输，可是现在我知道我们的枪矛只是些稻草，我们的力量是软弱的，我们的软弱是无比的，我们所有的只是一个空虚的外表。所以你们还是挫抑你们无益的傲气，跪下来向你们的丈夫请求怜爱吧。为了表示我的顺从，只要我的丈夫吩咐我，我就可以向他下跪，让他因此而心中快慰。

（朱生豪　译）

特洛伊罗斯与克瑞西达　第二幕　第二场

特洛伊罗斯　假如我今天娶了一个妻子，我的选择是取决于我的意志，我的意志是受我的耳目所左右；假如我在选定以后，我的意志重新不满于我的选择，那么我怎么可以避免既成的事实呢？一方面逃避责任，一方面又要不损害自己的荣誉，这样的事是不可能的。我们把绸缎污毁了以后，就不能再拿它向商家退换；我们也不因为已经吃饱，就把剩余的食物倒在肮脏的阴沟里。当初大家都赞成帕里斯去向希腊人报复；你们的一致同意鼓励了他的远行，善于捣乱的海浪和天风，也协力帮助他一帆风顺地到了他的目的地；为了希腊人俘掳了我们一个年老的姑母，他夺回了一个希腊的王妃作为交换，她的青春和娇艳掩盖了朝暾的美丽。我们为什么留住她不放？因为希腊人没有放还我们的姑母；她是值得我们保留的吗？啊，她是一颗明珠，它的高贵的价值，曾经掀动过千百个国王迢迢渡海而来，大家都要做一个觅宝的商人。你们不能不承认帕里斯的前去并不是失策，因为你们大家都喊着“去！去！”你们也不能不承认他带回了光荣的战利品，因为你们大家都拍手欢呼，说她的价值是不可估计的；那么你们现在为什么要诋毁从你们自己的智慧中产生的果实，把你们曾经估计为价值超过海洋和陆地的宝物重新贬斥得一文不值呢？啊！赃物已经偷了来了，我们却不敢把它保留下来，这才是最卑劣的偷窃！这样的盗贼是不配偷窃这样的宝物的。

（朱生豪　译）

安东尼与克莉奥佩特拉　第一幕　第一场

菲罗　嘿，咱们主帅这样迷恋，真太不成话啦。从前他指挥大军的时候，他的英勇的眼睛像全身盔甲的战神一样发出棱棱的威光，现在却如醉如痴地尽是盯在一张黄褐色的脸上。他的大将的雄心曾经在激烈的鏖战里涨断了胸前的扣带，现在却失掉一切常态，甘愿做一具风扇，搧凉一个吉卜赛女人的欲焰。瞧！他们来了。

〔喇叭奏花腔。安东尼及克莉奥佩特拉率侍从上；太监掌扇随侍。〕

菲罗　留心看着，你就可以知道他本来是这世界上三大柱石之一，现在已经变成一个娼妇的弄人了，瞧吧。

克莉奥佩特拉　（向安东尼）要是那真的是爱，告诉我多么深。

安东尼　可以量深浅的爱是贫乏的。

（朱生豪　译）

奥瑟罗　第一幕　第三场

罗德利哥　我该怎么办？我承认这样痴心是一件丢脸的事，可是我没有力量把它补救过来呀。

伊阿古　力量！废话！我们变成这样那样，全在于我们自己。我们的身体就像一座园圃，我们的意志是这园圃里的园丁；不论我们插荨麻、种莴苣、栽下牛膝草、拔起百里香，或者单独培植一种草木，或者把全园种得万卉纷披，让它荒废不治也好，把它辛勤耕垦也好，那权力都在于我们的意志。要是在我们的生命之中，理智和情欲不能保持平衡，我们血肉的邪心就会引导我们到一个荒唐的结局；可是我们有的是理智，可以冲淡我们汹涌的热情，肉体的刺激和奔放的淫欲；我认为你所称为“爱情”的，也不过是那样一种东西。

（朱生豪　译）

十四行诗　一三一

尽管你不算美，你的暴虐并不

亚于那些因美而骄横的女人；

因为你知道我的心那么糊涂，

把你当作世上的至美和至珍。

不过，说实话，见过你的人都说，

你的脸缺少使爱呻吟的魅力：

尽管我心中发誓反对这说法，

我可还没有公开否认的勇气。

当然我发的誓一点也不欺人；

数不完的呻吟，一想起你的脸，

马上联翩而来，可以为我作证：

对于我，你的黑胜于一切秀妍。

你一点也不黑，除了你的人品，

可能为了这原故，诽谤才流行。

（梁宗岱　译）

William Shakespeare

On Power

PENGUIN BOOKS — GREAT IDEAS

Power in government

Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3

ROSENCRANTZ:

The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armour of the mind

To keep itself from noyance, but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests

The lives of many. The cease of majesty

Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel

Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone

Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

Richard II, Act III, Scene 2

KING RICHARD:

Of comfort no man speak.

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

Let's choose executors and talk of wills,

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own but death,

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been deposed, some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,

All murdered. For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life

Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus,

Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall; and farewell, king.

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while.

I live with bread, like you; feel want,

Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus,

How can you say to me I am a king?

Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene 3

APEMANTUS:

If thou didst put this sour cold habit on

To castigate thy pride, 'twere well, but thou

Dost it enforcedly. Thou'dst courtier be again

Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery

Outlives incertain pomp, is crowned before.

The one is filling still, never complete,

The other at high wish. Best state, contentless,

Hath a distracted and most wretched being,

Worse than the worst, content.

Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.

TIMON:

Not by his breath that is more miserable.

Thou art a slave whom fortune's tender arm

With favour never clasped, but bred a dog.

Hadst thou like us from our first swathe proceeded

The sweet degrees that this brief world affords

To such as may the passive drudges of it

Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself

In general riot, melted down thy youth

In different beds of lust, and never learned

The icy precepts of respect, but followed

The sugared game before thee. But myself,

Who had the world as my confectionary,

The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men

At duty, more than I could frame employment,

That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves

Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush

Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare

For every storm that blows. I to bare this,

That never knew but better, is some burden.

Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time

Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men?

They never flattered thee. What hast thou given?

If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,

Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff

To some she-beggar and compounded thee

Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone.

If thou hadst not been born the worst of men

Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.

Henry V, Act I, Scene 2

CANTERBURY:

True. Therefore doth heaven divide

The state of man in divers functions,

Setting endeavour in continual motion;

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience. For so work the honey-bees,

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king, and officers of sorts,

Where some like magistrates correct at home;

Others like merchants venture trade abroad;

Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,

Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,

Which pillage they with merry march bring home

To the tent royal of their emperor,

Who busied in his majesty surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold,

The civil citizens lading up the honey,

The poor mechanic porters crowding in

Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,

The sad-eyed justice with his surly hum

Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer:

That many things, having full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously.

As many arrows, loosed several ways,

Fly to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,

As many lines close in the dial's centre,

So may a thousand actions once afoot

End in one purpose, and be all well borne

Without defect. Therefore to France my liege.

Divide your happy England into four,

Whereof take you one quarter into France,

And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.

If we with thrice such powers left at home

Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,

Let us be worried, and our nation lose

The name of hardiness and policy.

Coriolanus, Act II, Scene 2

SECOND OFFICER: There hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them; and there be many that they have loved they know not wherefore, so that if they love they know not why; they hate upon no better a ground. Therefore for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see it.

FIRST OFFICER: If he did not care whether he had their love or no he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm, but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

SECOND OFFICER: He hath deserved worthily of his country, and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further deed to have them at all into their estimation and report. But he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess so much were a kind of in-grateful injury. To report otherwise were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

FIRST OFFICER: No more of him. He's a worthy man.

Henry V, Act IV, Scene 2

KING HARRY:

Upon the King:

‘Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our care-full wives,

Our children, and our sins, lay on the King.’

We must bear all. O hard condition,

Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath of every fool,

Whose sense no more can feel

But his own wringing. What infinite heartsease

Must kings neglect that private men enjoy?

And what have kings that privates have not too,

Save ceremony, save general ceremony?

And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?

What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more

Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?

What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?

O ceremony, show me but thy worth.

What is thy soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,

Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,

Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

But poisoned flattery? O be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.

Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out

With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?

Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream

That play'st so subtly with a king's repose.

I am a king that find thee, and I know

'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,

The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,

The farced title running fore the king,

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp

That beats upon the high shore of this world.

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,

Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave

Who with a body filled and vacant mind

Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread;

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,

But like a lackey from the rise to set

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night

Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn

Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,

And follows so the ever-running year

With profitable labour to his grave.

And but for ceremony such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep

Had the forehand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country's peace,

Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots

What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 1

DUKE:

Of government the properties to unfold

Would seem in me t'affect speech and discourse,

Since I am put to know that your own science

Exceeds in that the lists of all advice

My strength can give you. Then no more remains

But this: to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,

And let them work. The nature of our people,

Our city's institutions and the terms

For common justice, you're as pregnant in

As art and practice hath enriched any

That we remember.

He gives Escalus papers.

There is our commission,

From which we would not have you warp.

(To a lord)

Call hither,

I say bid come before us Angelo.

(To Escalus)

What figure of us think you he will bear?

For you must know we have with special soul

Elected him our absence to supply,

Lent him our terror, dressed him with our love,

And given his deputation all the organs

Of our own power. What think you of it?

ESCALUS:

If any in Vienna be of worth

To undergo such ample grace and honour

It is Lord Angelo.

Enter Angelo

DUKE:

Look where he comes.

ANGELO:

Always obedient to your grace's will,

I come to know your pleasure.

DUKE:

Angelo,

There is a kind of character in thy life

That to th'observer doth thy history

Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched

But to fine issues, nor nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines

Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech

To one that can my part in him advertise.

Hold therefore, Angelo.

In our remove be thou at full ourself:

Mortality and mercy in Vienna

Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,

Though first in question, is thy secondary.

Take thy commission.

Richard II, Act V, Scene 5

KING RICHARD:

I have been studying how I may compare

This prison where I live unto the world,

And for because the world is populous,

And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father, and these two beget

A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

And these same thoughts people this little world

In humours like the people of this world.

For no thought is contented. The better sort,

As thoughts of things divine, are intermixed

With scruples, and do set the faith itself

Against the faith, as thus:‘Come, little ones’,

And then again,

‘It is as hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.’

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

Unlikely wonders: how these vain, weak nails

May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;

And for they cannot, die in their own pride.

Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,

Nor shall not be the last, like seely beggars,

Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame

That many have, and others must, set there;

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortunes on the back

Of such as have before endured the like.

Thus play I in one person many people,

And none contented. Sometimes am I king,

Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,

And so I am. Then crushing penury

Persuades me I was better when a king.

Then am I kinged again, and by and by

Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,

And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,

Nor I, nor any man that but man is,

With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased

With being nothing.

Timon of Athens, Act I, Scene 1

POET:

You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have in this rough work shaped out a man

Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

With amplest entertainment. My free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself

In a wide sea of tax. No levelled malice

Infects one comma in the course I hold,

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,

Leaving no tract behind.

PAINTER:

How shall I understand you?

POET:

I will unbolt to you.

You see how all conditions, how all minds,

As well of glib and slipp'ry creatures as

Of grave and austere quality, tender down

Their service to Lord Timon. His large fortune,

Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,

Subdues and properties to his love and tendance

All sorts of hearts. Yea, from the glass-faced flatterer

To Apemantus, that few things loves better

Than to abhor himself; even he drops down

The knee before him, and returns in peace,

Most rich in Timon's nod.

PAINTER:

I saw them speak together.

POET:

Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill

Feigned Fortune to be throned. The base o'th'mount

Is ranked with all deserts, all kind of natures

That labour on the bosom of this sphere

To propagate their states. Amongst them all

Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fixed

One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,

Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her,

Whose present grace to present slaves and servants

Translates his rivals.

PAINTER:

'Tis conceived to scope.

This throne, this Fortune, and this hill methinks,

With one man beckoned from the rest below,

Bowing his head against the steepy mount

To climb his happiness, would be well expressed

In our condition.

POET:

Nay sir, but hear me on.

All those which were his fellows but of late,

Some better than his value, on the moment

Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,

Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,

Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him

Drink the free air.

PAINTER:

Ay, marry, what of these?

POET:

When Fortune in her shift and change of mood

Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,

Which laboured after him to the mountain's top

Even on their knees and hands, let him fall down,

Not one accompanying his declining foot.

Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene 2

SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE: Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be‘Diana's foresters’,‘gentlemen of the shade’,‘minions of the moon’, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

PRINCE HARRY: Thou sayst well, and it holds well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed as the sea is by the moon. As for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning, got with swearing‘lay by!’and spent with crying‘bring in!’, now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

Richard II, Act III, Scene 4

GARDENER (to First Man):

Go, bind thou up young dangling apricots

Which, like unruly children, make their sire

Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.

Give some supportance to the bending twigs.

(To Second Man) Go thou, and, like an executioner,

Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays

That look too lofty in our commonwealth.

All must be even in our government.

You thus employed, I will go root away

The noisome weeds which without profit suck

The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

FIRST MAN:

Why should we, in the compass of a pale,

Keep law and form and due proportion,

Showing as in a model our firm estate,

When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,

Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,

Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,

Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs

Swarming with caterpillars?

GARDENER:

Hold thy peace.

He that hath suffered this disordered spring

Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.

The weeds which his broad spreading leaves did shelter,

That seemed in eating him to hold him up,

Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke —

I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

SECOND MAN:

What, are they dead?

GARDENER:

They are; and Bolingbroke

Hath seized the wasteful King. O, what pity is it

That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land

As we this garden! We at time of year

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,

Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,

With too much riches it confound itself.

Had he done so to great and growing men,

They might have lived to bear, and he to taste,

Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches

We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.

Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,

Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.

King Lear, Act III, Scene 1

GONERIL:

Hear me, my lord.

What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,

To follow in a house where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

REGAN:

What need one?

LEAR:

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs.

Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady.

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou, gorgeous, wear'st,

Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need,

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age, wretched in both.

If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger

And let not women's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall — I will do such things —

What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep.

No I'll not weep. I have full cause of weeping,

Storm and tempest.

But this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or ere I'll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad!

Sonnet 94

They that have power to hurt and will do none,

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who moving others are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;

They rightly do inherit heaven's graces

And husband nature's riches from expense;

They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Others but stewards of their excellence.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

Though to itself it only live and die,

But if that flower with base infection meet

The basest weed outbraves his dignity.

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds:

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2

CASSIUS:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Men at sometime were masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that‘Caesar’?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together: yours is as fair a name.

Sound them: it doth become the mouth as well.

Weigh them: it is as heavy. Conjure with 'em:

‘Brutus’will start a spirit as soon as‘Caesar’.

Now in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed.

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods.

When went there by an age since the great flood,

But it was famed with more than with one man?

When could they say till now, that talked of Rome,

That her wide walls encompassed but one man?

Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough

When there is in it but one only man.

O you and I have heard our fathers say

There was a Brutus once that would have brooked

Th'eternal devil to keep his state in Rome

As easily as a king.

Coriolanus, Act II, Scene 3

BRUTUS (to the citizens):

Could you not have told him

As you were lessoned? When he had no power

But was a petty servant to the state

He was your enemy, ever spake against

Your liberties and the charters that you bear

I'th'body of the weal; and now arriving

A place of potency and sway o'th' state,

If he should still malignantly remain

Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might

Be curses to yourselves. You should have said

That as his worthy deeds did claim no less

Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature

Would think upon you for your voices and

Translate his malice towards you into love,

Standing your friendly lord.

SICINIUS (to the citizens):

Thus to have said

As you were foreadvised had touched his spirit

And tried his inclination, from him plucked

Either is gracious promise, which you might,

As cause had called you up, have held him to,

Or else it would have galled his surly nature,

Which easily endures not article

Tying him to aught. So putting him to rage,

You should have ta'en th'advantage of his choler

And passed him unelected.

BRUTUS (to the citizens):

Did you perceive

He did solicit you in free contempt

When he did need your loves, and do you think

That his contempt shall not be bruising to you

When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies

No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry

Against the rectorship of judgement?

SICINIUS (to the citizens):

Have you

Ere now denied the asker, and now again,

Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow

Your sued-for tongues?

THIRD CITIZEN:

He's not confirmed, we may deny him yet.

SECOND CITIZEN:

And will deny him.

I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.

FIRST CITIZEN:

I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece 'em.

BRUTUS:

Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends

They have chose a consul that will from them take

Their liberties, make them of no more voice

Than dogs that are as often beat for barking

As therefor kept to do so.

Othello, Act I, Scene 1

IAGO:

I follow him to serve my turn upon him.

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters

Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave

That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,

Wears out his time much like his master's ass,

For naught but provender, and when he's old, cashiered.

Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are

Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,

Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,

And throwing but shows of service on their lords

Do well thrive by 'em, and when they have lined their coats

Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,

And such a one do I profess myself; for, sir,

It is as sure that you are Roderigo,

Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.

In following him I follow but myself.

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,

But seeming so for my peculiar end.

For when my outward action doth demonstrate

The native act and figure of my heart

In compliment extern, 'tis not long after

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.

Richard III, Act III, Scene 7

BUCKINGHAM:

Know then, it is your fault that you resign

The supreme seat, the throne majestical,

The sceptred office of your ancestors,

Your state of fortune and your due of birth,

The lineal glory of your royal house,

To the corruption of a blemished stock,

Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts —

Which here we waken to our country's good —

The noble isle doth want her proper limbs.

Her face defaced with scars of infamy,

Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants

And almost shouldered in the swallowing gulf

Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion,

Which to recure we heartily solicit

Your gracious self to take on you the charge

And kingly government of this your land,

Not as Protector, steward, substitute,

Or lowly factor for another's gain,

But as successively, from blood to blood,

Your right of birth, your empery, your own.

For this, consorted with the citizens,

Your very worshipful and loving friends,

And by their vehement instigation,

In this just cause come I to move your grace.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER:

I cannot tell if to depart in silence

Or bitterly to speak in your reproof

Best fitteth my degree or your condition.

Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert,

Unmeritable, shuns your high request.

First, if all obstacles were cut away

And that my path were even to the crown,

As the ripe revenue and due of birth,

Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,

So mighty and so many my defects,

That I would rather hide me from my greatness —

Being a barque to brook no mighty sea —

Than in my greatness covet to be hid,

And in the vapour of my glory smothered.

But, God be thanked, there is no need of me,

And much I need to help you, were there need.

The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,

Which, mellowed by the stealing hours of time,

Will well become the seat of majesty

And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.

On him I lay that you would lay on me,

The right and fortune of his happy stars,

Which God defend that I should wring from him.

BUCKINGHAM:

My lord, this argues conscience in your grace,

But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,

All circumstances well considered.

You say that Edward is your brother's son,

So say we too, but not by Edward's wife,

For first was he contract to Lady Lucy,

Your mother lives a witness to his vow,

And afterward, by substitute, betrothed

To Bona, sister to the King of France.

These both put off, a poor petitioner,

A care-crazed mother to a many sons,

A beauty-waning and distressed widow

Even in the afternoon of her best days,

Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,

Seduced the pitch and height of his degree

To base declension and loathed bigamy.

By her in his unlawful bed he got

This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.

More bitterly could I expostulate,

Save that for reverence to some alive

I give a sparing limit to my tongue.

Then, good my lord, take to your royal self

This proffered benefit of dignity,

If not to bless us and the land withal,

Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry

From the corruption of abusing times

Unto a lineal, true-derived course.

MAYOR (to Richard):

Do, good my lord. Your citizens entreat you.

BUCKINGHAM (to Richard):

Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffered love.

CATESBY (to Richard):

O make them joyful. Grant their lawful suit.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER:

Alas, why would you heap this care on me?

I am unfit for state and majesty.

I do beseech you, take it not amiss,

I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.

BUCKINGHAM:

If you refuse it, as, in love and zeal,

Loath to depose the child, your brother's son,

As well we know your tenderness of heart

And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,

Which we have noted in you to your kindred,

And equally indeed to all estates,

Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,

Your brother's son shall never reign our king;

But we will plant some other in the throne,

To the disgrace and downfall of your house.

And in this resolution here we leave you.

Come, citizens. 'Swounds, I'll entreat no more.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER:

O do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.

Exeunt Buckingham and some others.

CATESBY:

Call him again, sweet prince. Accept their suit.

(ANOTHER):

If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER:

Will you enforce me to a world of cares?

Call them again.

Exit one or more.

I am not made of stone,

But penetrable to your kind entreats,

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

Enter Buckingham and the rest.

Cousin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men,

Since you will buckle fortune on my back,

To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,

I must have patience to endure the load.

But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach

Attend the sequel of your imposition,

Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me

From all the impure blots and stains thereof.

For God doth know, and you may partly see,

How far I am from the desire of this.

MAYOR:

God bless your grace! We see it and will say it.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER:

In saying so you shall but say the truth.

BUCKINGHAM:

Then I salute you with this royal title:

Long live kind Richard, England's worthy king!

(ALL BUT RICHARD):

Amen.

Troilus and Cressida, Act I, Scene 3

ULYSSES:

Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down

And the great Hector's sword had lacked a master

But for these instances:

The specialty of rule hath been neglected,

And look how many Grecian tents do stand

Hollow upon this plain: so many hollow factions.

When that the general is not like the hive

To whom the foragers shall all repair,

What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,

Th'unworthiest shows as fairly in the masque

[...]

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

Observe degree, priority, and place,

Infixture, course, proportion, season, form,

Office and custom, in all line of order.

And therefore is the glorious planet Sol,

In noble eminence enthroned and sphered

Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye

Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil

And posts like the commandment of a king,

Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets

In evil mixture to disorder wander,

What plagues and what portents, what mutiny?

What raging of the sea, shaking of earth?

Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixture. O when degree is shaked,

Which is the ladder to all high designs,

The enterprise is sick. How could communities,

Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,

Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,

The primogenity and due of birth,

Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

But by degree stand in authentic place?

Take but degree away, untune that string,

And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets

In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters

Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores

And make a sop of all this solid globe;

Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead.

Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,

Between whose endless jar justice resides,

Should lose their names, and so should justice too,

Then everything includes itself in power:

Power into will, will into appetite,

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce an universal prey,

And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,

This chaos, when degree is suffocate,

Follows the choking;

And this neglection of degree it is,

That by a pace goes backward in a purpose

It hath to climb. The general's disdained

By him one step below; he, by the next;

That next, by him beneath. So every step,

Exampled by the first pace that is sick

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever

Of pale and bloodless emulation.

And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,

Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length:

Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength.

Henry IV, Part II, Act III, Scene 1

KING HENRY:

How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep? O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state

And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why li'st thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch

A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them

With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Power in the family

The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2

PORTIA:

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,

Such as I am. Though for myself alone

I would not be ambitious in my wish

To wish myself much better, yet for you

I would be trebled twenty times myself,

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,

That only to stand high in your account

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,

Exceed account. But the full sum of me

Is sum of something which, to term in gross

Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised,

Happy in this, she is not yet so old

But she may learn; happier than this,

She is not bred so dull but she can learn;

Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit

Commits itself to yours to be directed

As from her lord, her governor, her king.

Myself and what is mine to you and yours

Is now converted. But now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,

This house, these servants, and this same myself

Are yours, my lord's. I give them with this ring,

Which when you part from, lose, or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

King Lear, Act I, Scene 1

LEAR:

Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.

Give me the map there. Know that we have divided

In three our kingdom, and 'tis our fast intent

To shake all cares and business from our age,

Conferring them on younger strengths while we

Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,

And you, our no less loving son of Albany,

We have this hour a constant will to publish

Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife

May be prevented now. The princes France and Burgundy —

Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love —

Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,

And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters,

Since now we will divest us both of rule,

Interest of territory, cares of state,

Which of you shall we say doth love us most,

That we our largest bounty may extend

Where nature doth with merit challenge? Goneril,

Our eldest born, speak first.

GONERIL:

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter,

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour,

As much as child e'er loved or father found,

A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

CORDELIA (aside):

What shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent.

LEAR (to Goneril):

Of all these bounds even from this line to this,

With shadowy forests and with champaigns riched,

With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,

We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issues

Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter?

Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?

REGAN:

I am made of that self mettle as my sister,

And prize me at her worth. In my true heart

I find she names my very deed of love;

Only she comes too short, that I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys,

Which the most precious square of sense possesses,

And find I am alone felicitate

In your dear highness' love.

CORDELIA (aside):

Then, poor Cordelia,

And yet not so, since I am sure my love's

More ponderous than my tongue.

LEAR (to Regan):

To thee and thine hereditary ever

Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,

No less in space, validity, and pleasure

Than that conferred on Goneril. (to Cordelia) Now our joy,

Although our last and least, to whose young love

The vines of France and milk of Burgundy

Strive to be interessed: what can you say to draw

A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

CORDELIA:

Nothing, my lord.

LEAR:

Nothing?

CORDELIA:

Nothing.

LEAR:

Nothing will come of nothing.

Henry IV, Part II, Act II, Scene 3

LADY PERCY:

O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!

The time was, father, that you broke your word

When you were more endeared to it than now,

When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,

Threw many a northward look to see his father

Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.

Who then persuaded you to stay at home?

There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.

For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!

For his, it stuck upon him as the sun

In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light

Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass

Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.

He had no legs that practised not his gait;

And speaking thick, which nature made him blemish,

Became the accents of the valiant.

For those that could speak low and tardily

Would turn their own perfection to abuse

To seem like him. So that in speech, in gait,

In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashioned others. And him, O wondrous him!

O miracle of men! Him did you leave,

Second to none, unseconded by you,

To look upon the hideous god of war

In disadvantage, to abide a field

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name

Did seem defensible; so you left him.

Never, O never do his ghost the wrong

To hold your honour more precise and nice

With others than with him. Let them alone.

The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.

Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,

Today might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,

Have talked of Monmouth's grave.

NORTHUMBERLAND:

Beshrew your heart,

Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me

With new lamenting ancient oversights.

Richard III, Act IV, Scene 4

QUEEN MARGARET:

I called thee then‘vain flourish of my fortune’,

I called thee then, poor shadow,‘painted queen’,

The presentation of but what I was,

The flattering index of a direful pageant,

One heaved a-high to be hurled down below,

A mother only mocked with two fair babes,

A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag

To be the aim of every dangerous shot,

A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,

A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.

Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?

Where are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?

Who sues, and kneels, and says‘God save the Queen’?

Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?

Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?

Decline all this and see what now thou art:

For happy wife, a most distressed widow;

For joyful mother, one that wails the name;

For queen, a very caitiff, crowned with care;

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;

For she that scorned at me, now scorned of me;

For she being feared of all, now fearing one;

For she commanding all, obeyed of none.

Thus hath the course of justice whirled about

And left thee but a very prey to time,

Having no more but thought of what thou wert

To torture thee the more, being what thou art.

Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not

Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?

Now thy proud neck bears half my burdened yoke,

From which, even here, I slip my weary head,

And leave the burden of it all on thee.

Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene 1

EGEUS:

Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

Stand forth Demetrius. My noble lord,

This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,

This hath bewitched the bosom of my child.

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes

And interchanged love tokens with my child.

Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung

With feigning voice verses of feigning love,

And stol'n the impression of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats; messengers

Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth.

With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart,

Turned her obedience which is due to me

To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,

Be it so she will not here before your grace

Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:

As she is mine, I may dispose of her,

Which shall be either to this gentleman

Or to her death, according to our law

Immediately provided in that case.

THESEUS:

What say you Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.

To you your father should be as a god,

One that composed your beauties, yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax,

By him imprinted, and within his power

To leave the figure or disfigure it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIA:

So is Lysander.

THESEUS:

In himself he is,

But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,

The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIA:

I would my father looked but with my eyes.

THESEUS:

Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

HERMIA:

I do entreat your grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold,

Nor how it may concern my modesty

In such a presence here to plead my thoughts,

But I beseech your grace that I may know

The worst that may befall me in this case

If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THESEUS:

Either to die the death, or to abjure

For ever the society of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires.

Know of your youth, examine well your blood,

Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,

You can endure the livery of a nun,

For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,

To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice blessed they that master so their blood

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

But earthlier happy is the rose distilled

Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

HERMIA:

So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

The Winter's Tale, Act I, Scene 2

HERMIONE:

If you would seek us,

We are yours i'th' garden. Shall's attend you there?

LEONTES:

To your own bents dispose you. You'll be found,

Be you beneath the sky. I am angling now,

Though you perceive me not how I give line.

Go to, go to!

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,

And arms her with the boldness of a wife

To her allowing husband!

Exeunt Polixenes and Hermione.

Gone already.

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a forked one!

Go play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I

Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue

Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour

Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play. There have been,

Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now,

And many a man there is, even at this present,

Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th'arm,

That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence,

And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by

Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there's comfort in't,

Whiles other men have gates, and those gates opened,

As mine, against their will. Should all despair

That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind

Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none.

It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful. Think it:

From east, west, north, and south, be it concluded,

No barricado for a belly. Know't,

It will let in and out the enemy

With bag and baggage. Many thousand on's

Have the disease and feel't not.

The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2

MIRANDA:

If by your art, my dearest father, you have

Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,

Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,

Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,

Dashed all to pieces! O, the cry did knock

Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.

Had I been any god if power I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or ere

It should the good ship so have swallowed and

The fraughting souls within her.

PROSPERO:

Be collected.

No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart

There's no harm done.

MIRANDA:

O woe the day!

PROSPERO:

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who

Art ignorant of what thou art, naught knowing

Of whence I am, nor that I am more better

Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell

And thy no greater father.

All's Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 3

KING:

'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which

I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,

Of colour, weight, and heat, poured all together,

Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off

In differences so mighty. If she be

All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik'st —

‘A poor physician's daughter’— thou dislik'st

Of virtue for the name. But do not so.

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

The place is dignified by th' doer's deed.

Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,

It is a dropsied honour. Good alone

Is good without a name, vileness is so:

The property by what it is should go,

Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair.

In these to nature she's immediate heir,

And these breed honour. That is honour's scorn,

Which challenges itself as honour's born,

And is not like the sire. Honours thrive

When rather from our acts we them derive

Than our foregoers. The mere word's a slave,

Debauched on every tomb, on every grave

A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb

Where dust and dammed oblivion is the tomb

Of honoured bones indeed. What should be said?

If thou canst like this creature as a maid

I can create the rest. Virtue and she

Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

BERTRAM:

I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't.

KING:

Thou wrong'st thyself. If thou shouldst strive to choose —

HELEN:

That you are well restored, my lord, I'm glad.

Let the rest go.

KING:

Mine honour's at the stake, which to defeat

I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,

Proud, scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,

That dost in vile misprision shackle up

My love and her desert; that canst not dream,

We, poising us in her defective scale,

Shall weigh to the beam; that wilt not know

It is in us to plant thine honour where

We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt,

Obey our will, which travails in thy good;

Believe not thy disdain, but presently

Do thine own fortunes that obedient right

Which both thy duty owes and our power claims,

Or I will throw thee from my care for ever

Into the staggers and the careless lapse

Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate

Loosing upon thee in the name of justice

Without all terms of pity. Speak. Thine answer.

BERTRAM:

Pardon, my gracious lord, for I submit

My fancy to your eyes. When I consider

What great creation and what dole of honour

Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late

Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now

The praised of the King, who, so ennobled,

Is as 'twere born so.

Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 4

ANGELO:

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoiled name, th'austereness of my life,

My vouch against you, and my place i'th' state,

Will so your accusation overweigh

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny. I have begun,

And now I give my sensual race the rein.

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite.

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will,

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To ling'ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,

Or by the affection that now guides me most,

I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.

Exit.

ISABELLA:

To whom should I complain? Did I tell this

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths

That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue

Either of condemnation or aproof,

Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,

Hooking both right and wrong to th'appetite,

To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.

Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour

That had he twenty heads to tender down

On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorred pollution.

Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die.

More than our brother is our chastity.

Henry IV, Part II, Act IV, Scene 5

PRINCE HARRY:

I never thought to hear you speak again.

KING HENRY:

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

I stay too long by thee. I weary thee.

Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair

That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours

Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth,

Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee!

Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity

Is held from falling with so weak a wind

That it will quickly drop. My day is dim.

Thou hast stol'n that which after some few hours

Were thine without offence, and at my death

Thou hast sealed up my expectation.

Thy life did manifest thou loved'st me not,

And thou wilt have me die assured of it.

Thou hidst a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

Whom thou hast whetted on thy stony heart

To stab at half an hour of my life.

What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?

Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,

And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear

That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse

Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head.

Only compound me with forgotten dust.

Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.

Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;

For now a time is come to mock at form.

Harry the Fifth is crowned. Up, vanity!

Down, royal state! All you sage counsellors, hence!

And to the English court assemble now

From every region apes of idleness!

Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum!

Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,

Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit

The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?

Be happy, he will trouble you no more.

England shall double gild his treble guilt;

England shall give him office, honour, might;

For the fifth Harry from curbed licence plucks

The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog

Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.

O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!

When that my care could not withhold thy riots,

What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants.

PRINCE HARRY:

O pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,

The moist impediments unto my speech,

I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke

Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard

The course of it so far. There is your crown.

(He returns the crown and kneels.)

And He that wears the crown immortally

Long guard it yours! If I affect it more

Than as your honour and as your renown,

Let me no more from this obedience rise,

Which is my most true and inward duteous spirit

Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending.

God witness with me, when I here came in

And found no course of breath within your majesty,

How cold it struck my heart. If I do feign,

O, let me in my present wildness die,

And never live to show th'incredulous world

The noble change that I have purposed.

Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,

And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,

I spake unto this crown as having sense

And thus upbraided it:‘The care on thee depending

Hath fed upon the body of my father,

Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.

Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,

Preserving life in medicine potable,

But thou, most fine, most honoured, most renowned,

Hast eat thy bearer up.’Thus, my royal liege,

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try with it, as with an enemy

That had before my face murdered my father,

The quarrel of a true inheritor.

But if it did infect my blood with joy

Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,

If any rebel or vain spirit of mine

Did with the least affection of a welcome

Give entertainment to the might of it,

Let God for ever keep it from my head,

And make me as the poorest vassal is,

That doth with awe and terror kneel to it.

KING HENRY:

O my son,

God put it in thy mind to take it hence,

That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,

Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!

Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed,

And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

That ever I shall breathe.

Prince Harry sits by the bed.

God knows, my son,

By what bypaths and indirect crook'd ways

I met this crown; and I myself know well

How troublesome it sat upon my head.

To thee it shall descend with better quiet,

Better opinion, better confirmation;

For all the soil of the achievement goes

With me into the earth. It seemed in me

But as an honour snatched with boist'rous hand,

And I had many living to upbraid

My gain of it by their assistances,

Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed

Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears

Thou seest with peril I have answered;

For all my reign hath been but as a scene

Acting that argument. And now my death

Changes the mood, for what in me was purchased

Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort,

So thou the garland wear'st successively.

Yet though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,

Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green,

And all thy friends — which thou must make thy friends —

Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out,

By whose fell working I was first advanced,

And by whose power I well might lodge a fear

To be again displaced; which to avoid

I cut them off, and had a purpose now

To lead out many to the Holy Land,

Lest rest and lying still might make them look

Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels, that action hence borne out

May waste the memory of the former days.

More would I, but my lungs are wasted so

That strength of speech is utterly denied me.

How came I by the crown, O god forgive,

And grant it may with thee in true peace live!

PRINCE HARRY:

My gracious liege,

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it to me,

Then plain and right must my possession be,

Which I with more than with a common pain

'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

Power in war and violence

Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 1

BRUTUS:

It must be by his death. And for my part

I know no personal cause to spurn at him

But for the general. He would be crowned.

How that might change his nature, there's the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder

And that craves wary walking. Crown him: that!

And then I grant we put a sting in him

That at his will he may do danger with.

Th'abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

Remorse from power. And to speak truth of Caesar,

I have not known when his affections swayed

More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

But when he once attains the upmost round,

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.

Then lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel

Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities;

And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,

Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous

And kill him in the shell.

Henry V, Act IV, Scene 1

HARRY: I think the King is but a man, as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me. All his senses have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man, and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are. Yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.

BATES: He may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck. And so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HARRY: By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King. I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.

BATES: Then I would he were here alone. So should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

KING HARRY: I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds. Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS: That's more than we know.

BATES: Ay, or more than we should seek after. For we know enough if we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS: But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day and cry all,‘We died at such a place’— some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it — who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

KING HARRY: So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father, that sent him. Or if a servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant, for they purpose not their deaths when they propose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrament of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle. War is his vengeance. So that here men are punished for before breach of the King's laws, in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away, and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the King's, but every subject's soul is his own.

Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 4

HAMLET:

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th'event —

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward — I do not know

Why yet I live to say,‘This thing's to do’,

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me,

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake. How stand I, then,

That have a father killed, a mother stained,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep while, to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain. O from this time forth

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!

Henry IV, Part II, Act I, Scene 3

LORD BARDOLPH:

Yes, if this present quality of war,

Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot,

Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see th'appearing buds, which to prove fruit

Hope gives not so much warrant as despair

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;

And when we see the figure of the house,

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices, or at least desist

To build at all? Much more in this great work —

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up — should we survey

The plot of situation and the model,

Consent upon a sure foundation,

Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else

We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men,

Like one that draws the model of an house

Beyond his power to build it, who, half-through,

Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

Macbeth, Act I, Scene 7

MACBETH:

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly. If th'assassination

Could trammel up the consequence and catch

With his surcease success, that but this blow

Might be the be-all and end-all, here;

But here upon this bank and shoal of time,

We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgement here, that we but teach

Bloody instructions which, being taught, return

To plague th'inventor. This even-handed justice

Commends th'ingredience of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips. He's here in double trust:

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against

The deep damnation of his taking-off,

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself

And falls on th'other.

Richard III, Act V, Scene 5

HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND:

Why then, 'tis time to arm, and give direction.

Much that I could say, loving countrymen,

The leisure and enforcement of the time

Forbids to dwell on. Yet remember this:

God and our good cause fight upon our side.

The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,

Like high-reared bulwarks, stand before our forces.

Richard except, those whom we fight against

Had rather have us win than him they follow.

For what is he they follow? Truly friends,

A bloody tyrant and a homicide;

One raised in blood, and one in blood established;

One that made means to come by what he hath,

And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;

A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil

Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;

One that hath ever been God's enemy.

Then, if you fight against God's enemy,

God will, in justice, ward you as his soldiers.

If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,

You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain.

If you do fight against your country's foes,

Your country's fat shall pay your pains the hire.

If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,

Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors.

If you do free your children from the sword,

Your children's children quites it in your age.

Then, in the name of God and all these rights,

Advance your standards! Draw your willing swords!

For me the ransom of this bold attempt

Shall be my cold corpse on the earth's cold face;

But if I thrive, to gain of my attempt,

The least of you shall share his part thereof.

Sound drums and trumpets, bold and cheerfully!

God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!

Henry VI, Part II, Act I, Scene 1

YORK:

Anjou and Maine are given to the French,

Paris is lost, the state of Normandy

Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.

Suffolk concluded on the articles,

The peers agreed, and Henry was well pleased

To change two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.

I cannot blame them all — what is't to them?

'Tis thine they give away and not their own!

Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,

And purchase friends, and give to courtesans,

Still revelling like lords till all be gone,

Whileas the seely owner of the goods

Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands,

And shakes his head, and, trembling, stands aloof,

While all is shared and all is borne away,

Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.

So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue

While his own lands are bargained for and sold.

Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland

Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood

As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt

Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.

Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!

Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,

Even as I have of fertile England's soil.

A day will come when York shall claim his own

And therefore I will take the Neville's parts,

And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,

And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown.

Then, York, be still a while till time do serve.

Watch thou, and wake when others be asleep,

To pry into the secrets of the state —

Till Henry, surfeit in the joys of love

With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,

And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars.

Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,

With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed,

And in my standard bear the arms of York

To grapple with the house of Lancaster;

And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown

Whose bookish rule hath pulled fair England down.

The Tempest, Act III, Scene 3

ARIEL:

You are three men of sin, whom destiny,

That hath to instrument this lower world

And what is in't, the never surfeited sea,

Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island

Where man doth not inhabit, you 'mongst men

Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad,

And even with suchlike valour men hang and drown

Their proper selves.

Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio draw.

You fools! I and my fellows

Are ministers of fate. The elements

Of whom your swords are tempered may as well

Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at stabs

Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish

One dowl that's in my plume. My fellow ministers

Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,

Your swords are now too massy for your strengths

And will not be uplifted.

Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio stand amazed.

But remember,

For that's my business to you, that you three

From Milan did supplant good Prospero —

Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it,

Him and his innocent child — for which foul deed,

The powers, delaying not forgetting, have

Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,

Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,

They have bereft, and do pronounce by me

Ling'ring perdition — worse than any death

Can be at once — shall step by step attend

You and your ways, whose wraths to guard you from,

Which here in this most desolate isle else falls

Upon your heads, is nothing but heart's sorrow

And a clear life ensuing.

He ascends and vanishes in thunder. Then, to soft music, enter the spirits again and dance with mocks and mows, and they depart, carrying out the table.

PROSPERO:

Bravely the figure of this harpy has thou

Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had devouring.

Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated

In what thou hadst to say. So with good life

And observation strange my meaner ministers

Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,

And these mine enemies are all knit up

In their distractions. They now are in my power.

Coriolanus, Act I, Scene 1

FIRST CITIZEN: We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome we might guess they relieved us humanely, but they think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance. Our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become rakes, for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene 3

HOTSPUR:

Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King

That wished him on the barren mountains starve.

But shall it be that you that set the crown

Upon the head of this forgetful man,

And for his sake wear the detested blot

Of murderous subornation, shall it be

That you a world of curses undergo,

Being the agents or base second means,

The cords, the ladder, or the hangman, rather?

O pardon me that I descend so low

To show the line and the predicament

Wherein you range under this subtle King!

Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,

Or fill up chronicles in time to come,

That men of your nobility and power

Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,

As both of you, God pardon it, have done:

To put down Richard, that sweet, lovely rose,

And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?

And shall it in more shame be further spoken

That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off

By him for whom these shames ye underwent?

No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem

Your banished honours and restore yourselves

Into the good thoughts of the world again,

Revenge for the jeering and disdained contempt

Of this proud King, who studies day and night

To answer all the debt he owes to you

Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.

Therefore I say —

WORCESTER:

Peace cousin, say no more.

Richard III, Act IV, Scene 3

TYRELL:

The tyrannous and bloody act is done —

The most arch deed of piteous massacre

That ever yet this land was guilty of.

Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn

To do this piece of ruthless butchery,

Albeit they were fleshed villains, bloody dogs,

Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,

Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.

‘O thus’, quoth Dighton,‘lay the gentle babes’;

‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest,‘girdling one another

Within their alabaster innocent arms.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

And in their summer beauty kissed each other.

A book of prayers on their pillow lay,

Which once’, quoth Forrest,‘almost changed my mind.

But O, the devil’— there the villain stopped,

When Dighton thus told on,‘We smothered

The most replenished sweet work of nature,

That from the prime creation e'er she framed.’

Hence both are gone, with conscience and remorse.

They could not speak, and so I left them both,

To bear this tidings to the bloody king.

Enter King Richard.

And here he comes. All health my sovereign lord.

KING RICHARD:

Kind Tyrell, am I happy in thy news?

TYRELL:

If to have done the thing you gave in charge

Beget your happiness, be happy then,

For it is done.

KING RICHARD:

But didst thou see them dead?

TYRELL:

I did my lord.

KING RICHARD:

And buried, gentle Tyrell?

TYRELL:

The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them,

But where, to say the truth, I do not know.

KING RICHARD:

Come to me, Tyrell, soon, at after-supper,

When thou shalt tell the process of their death.

Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,

And be inheritor of thy desire.

Farewell till then.

TYRELL:

I humbly take my leave.

KING RICHARD:

The son of Clarence have I pent up close.

His daughter meanly have I matched in marriage,

The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,

And Anne, my wife, hath bid this world goodnight.

Now for I know the Breton Richmond aims

At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,

And by that knot looks proudly o'er the crown,

To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.

Timon of Athens, Act V, Scene 5

ALCIBIADES:

Sound to this coward and lascivious town

Our terrible approach.

A parley sounds. The senators appear upon the walls.

Till now you have gone on and filled the time

With all licentious measure, making your wills

The scope of justice. Till now myself and such

As slept within the shadow of your power

Have wandered with our traversed arms and breathed

Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,

When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,

Cries of itself‘No more’. Now breathless wrong

Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease

And pursy insolence shall break his wind

With fear and horrid flight.

FIRST SENATOR:

Noble and young,

When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,

Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,

We sent to thee to give thy rages balm,

To wipe out our ingratitude with loves

Above their quantity.

SECOND SENATOR:

So did we woo

Transformed Timon to our city's love

By humble message and by promised means.

We were not all unkind, nor all deserve

The common stroke of war.

FIRST SENATOR:

These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands from whom

You have received your grief, nor are they such

That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools should fall

For private faults in them.

SECOND SENATOR:

Nor are they living

Who were the motives that you first went out.

Shame that they wanted cunning, in excess,

Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,

Into our city with thy banners spread.

By decimation and a tithed death,

If thy revenges hunger for that food

Which nature loathes, take thou the destined tenth,

And by the hazard of the spotted die

Let die the spotted.

Richard II, Act III, Scene 3

BOLINGBROKE (to Northumberland):

Noble lord,

Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,

Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley

Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver:

Henry Bolingbroke

Upon his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand

And sends allegiance and true faith of heart

To his most royal person, hither come

Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,

Provided that my banishment repealed

And lands restored again be freely granted.

If not, I'll use the advantage of my power,

And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood

Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen,

The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke

It is such crimson tempest should bedrench

The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,

My stooping duty tenderly shall show.

Go, signify as much, while here we march

Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.

Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,

That from this castle's tottered battlements

Our fair appointments may be well perused.

Methinks King Richard and myself should meet

With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water when their thund'ring shock

At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.

Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water.

The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain

My waters: on the earth, and not on him.

Coriolanus, Act IV, Scene 5

CORIOLANUS:

My name is Caius Martius, who hath done

To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,

Great hurt and mischief. Thereto witness may

My surname Coriolanus. The painful service,

The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood

Shed for my thankless country, are requited

But with that surname — a good memory

And witness of the malice and displeasure

Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains.

The cruelty and envy of the people,

Permitted by our dastard nobles, who

Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest,

And suffered me by th'voice of slaves to be

Whooped out of Rome. Now this extremity

Hath brought me to thy hearth. Not out of hope —

Mistake me not — to save my life, for if

I had feared death, of all the men i'th'world

I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite

To be full quit of those my banishers

Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast

A heart of wreak in thee that wilt revenge

Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims

Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight,

And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it

That my revengeful services may prove

As benefits to thee; for I will fight

Against my cankered country with the spleen

Of all the under-fiends. But if so be

Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes

Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am

Longer to live most weary and present

My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice,

Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,

Since I have ever followed thee with hate,

Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,

And cannot live but to thy shame unless

It be to do thee service.

Henry IV, Part II, Act IV, Scene 1

WESTMORLAND:

Then, my lord,

Unto your grace do I in chief address

The substance of my speech. If that rebellion

Came like itself, in base and abject routs,

Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,

And countenanced by boys and beggary,

I say, if damned commotion so appeared

In his true native and most proper shape,

You, reverend father, and these noble lords

Had not been here to dress the ugly form

Of base and bloody insurrection

With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,

Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath tutored,

Whose white investments figure innocence,

The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,

Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself

Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace

Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war,

Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine

To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:

Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.

Briefly, to this end: we are all diseased,

And with our surfeiting and wanton hours

Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,

And we must bleed for it; of which disease

Our late King Richard, being infected, died.

But my most noble lord of Westmorland,

I take not on me here as a physician,

Nor do I as an enemy to peace

Troop in the throngs of military men,

But rather show a while like fearful war

To diet rank minds, sick of happiness,

And purge th'obstructions which begin to stop

Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

I have in equal balance justly weighed

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,

And find our griefs heavier than our offences.

We see which way the stream of life doth run,

And are enforced from our most quiet shore

By the rough torrent of occasion;

And have the summary of all our griefs,

When time shall serve, to show in articles,

Which long ere this we offered to the King,

And might by no suit gain our audience.

When we are wronged and would unfold our griefs

We are denied access unto his person,

Even by those men that most have done us wrong.

The dangers of the days but newly gone,

Whose memory is written on the earth

With yet appearing blood, and the examples

Of every minute's instance, present now,

Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,

Not to break peace, or any branch of it,

But to establish here a peace indeed,

Concurring both in name and quality.

Power of love, between men and women

Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 2

TROILUS:

Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

CRESSIDA:

Hard to seem won, but I was won, my lord,

With the first glance that ever — pardon me,

If I confess much you will play the tyrant.

I love you now, but till now not so much

But I might master it. In faith, I lie.

My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown

Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!

Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us,

When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

But though I loved you well I wooed you not.

And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,

Or that we women had men's privilege

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,

For in this rapture I shall surely speak

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,

Cunning in dumbness, in my weakness draws

My soul of counsel from me. Stop my mouth.

TROILUS:

And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

He kisses her.

Sonnet 150

O from what power hast thou this powerful might

With insufficiency my heart to sway,

To make me give the lie to my true sight

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill

That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

O though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.

If thy unworthiness raised love in me,

More worthy I to be beloved of thee.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, Scene 1

VALENTINE:

And why not death, rather than living torment?

To die is to be banished from myself,

And Silvia is my self. Banished from her

Is self from self, a deadly banishment.

What light is light if Silvia be not seen?

What joy is joy if Silvia be not by?

Unless it be to think that she is by,

And feed upon the shadow of perfection.

Except I be by Silvia in the night

There is no music in the nightingale.

Unless I look on Silvia in the day

There is no day for me to look upon.

She is my essence, and I leave to be

If I be not by her fair influence

Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive.

I fly not death to fly his deadly doom,

Tarry I here I but attend on death,

But fly I hence, I fly away from life.

Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, Scene 1

HERO:

O god of love! I know he doth deserve

As much as may be yielded to a man.

But nature never framed a woman's heart

Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,

Misprising what they look on, and her wit

Values itself so highly that to her

All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,

Nor take no shape nor project of affection,

She is so self-endeared.

URSULA:

Sure, I think so.

And therefore certainly it were not good

She knew his love, lest she'll make sport at it.

HERO:

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,

How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,

But she would spell him backward. If fair-faced,

She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;

If black, why nature, drawing of an antic,

Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;

If low, an agate very vilely cut;

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;

If silent, why, a block moved with none.

So turns she every man the wrong side out,

And never gives to truth and virtue that

Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

URSULA:

Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

HERO:

No, not to be so odd and from all fashions

As Beatrice is cannot be commendable.

But who dare tell her so? If I should speak

She would mock me into air. O, she would laugh me

Out of myself, press me to death with wit.

Therefore let Benedick, like covered fire,

Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.

It were a better death than die with mocks,

Which is as bad as die with tickling.

The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Scene 1

PETRUCCIO:

Thus have I politicly begun my reign,

And 'tis my hope to end successfully.

My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,

And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,

For then she never looks upon her lure.

Another way I have to man my haggard,

To make her come and know her keeper's call;

That is, to watch her as we watch these kites

That bate and beat and will not be obedient.

She ate no meat today, nor none shall eat.

Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.

As with the meat, some undeserved fault

I'll find about the making of the bed,

And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,

This way the coverlet, another way the sheets,

Ay, and amid this hurly I intend

That all is done in reverent care of her,

And in conclusion she shall watch all night,

And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl

And with the clamour keep her still awake.

This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,

And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.

He that knows better how to tame a shrew,

Now let him speak. 'Tis charity to show.

‘The Rape of Lucrece’, lines 281—301

As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear

Is almost choked by unresisted lust.

Away he steals with open list'ning ear,

Full of foul hope and full of fond mistrust,

Both which as servitors to the unjust

So cross him with their opposite persuasion

That now he vows a league, and now invasion.

Within his thought her heavenly image sits,

And in the selfsame seat sits Collatine.

That eye which looks on her confounds his wits,

That eye which him beholds, as more divine,

Unto a view so false will not incline,

But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,

Which once corrupted, takes the worser part,

And therein heartens up his servile powers

Who, flattered by their leader's jocund show,

Stuff up his lust as minutes fill up hours,

And as their captain, so their pride doth grow,

Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.

By reprobate desire thus madly led

The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V, Scene 1

THESEUS:

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown; the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination

That if it would but apprehend some joy

It comprehends some bringer of that joy.

Or in the night, imagining some fear;

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 3

ROMEO:

'Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here,

Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

Live here in heaven and may look on her,

But Romeo may not. More validity,

More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize

On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,

And steal immortal blessing from her lips,

Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.

But Romeo may not; he is banished.

Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.

They are free men, but I am banished.

And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?

Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,

No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,

But‘banished’to kill me.‘Banished’?

O friar, the damned use that word in hell.

Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,

Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,

A sin-absolver and my friend professed,

To mangle me with that word‘banished’?

All's Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene 1

HELEN:

O were that all! I think not on my father,

And these great tears grace his remembrance more

Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

I have forgot him. My imagination

Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.

I am undone. There is no living, none,

If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one

That I should love a bright particular star

And think to wed it, he is so above me.

In his bright radiance and collateral light

Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

Th'ambition in my love thus plagues itself.

The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,

To see him every hour, to sit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart's table — heart too capable

Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.

But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy

Must sanctify his relics.

Sonnet 57

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do, till you require;

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But like a sad slave stay and think of naught

Save, where you are, how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love that in your will,

Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, Scene 2

ARMADO: I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength. Yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn: the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not. His disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum; for your manager is in love, yea, he loveth. Assist me some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise wit, write, pen, for I am for whole volumes, in folio.

Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 1

ROMEO:

Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,

O anything of nothing first create,

O heavy lightness, serious vanity,

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIO:

No coz, I rather weep.

ROMEO:

Good heart, at what?

BENVOLIO:

At thy good heart's oppression.

ROMEO:

Why, such is love's transgression.

Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed

With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown

Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes,

Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears.

What is it else? A madness most discreet,

A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV, Scene 13

CLEOPATRA:

No more but e'en a woman, and commanded

By such poor passion as the maid that milks

And does the meanest chores. It were for me

To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods,

To tell them that this world did equal theirs

Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught.

Patience is sottish, and impatience does

Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin

To rush into the secret house of death

Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?

What, what, good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian?

My noble girls! Ah, women, women! Look,

Our lamp is spent; it's out. Good sires take heart.

We'll bury him and then what's brave, what's noble.

Let's do it after the high Roman fashion

And make death proud to take us. Come away.

This case of that huge spirit now is cold.

Ah, women, women! Come. We have no friend

But resolution, and the briefest end.

Sonnet 26

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written embassage

To witness duty, not to show my wit;

Duty so great which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tattered loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect.

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, Scene 2

PETRUCCIO:

Katherine, I charge thee tell these headstrong women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOW:

Come, come, you're mocking. We will have no telling.

PETRUCCIO:

Come on, I say, and first begin with her.

WIDOW:

She shall not.

PETRUCCIO:

I say she shall, and first begin with her.

KATHERINE:

Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning, unkind brow,

And dart not scornful glances from those eyes

To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.

It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,

Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,

And in no sense is meet or amiable.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,

Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,

And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labour both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, and the day in cold,

While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, fair looks, and true obedience,

Too little payment for so great a debt.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

Even such a woman oweth to her husband;

And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul, contending rebel,

And graceless traitor to her loving lord?

I am ashamed that women are so simple

To offer war where they should kneel for peace,

Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway

When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.

Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,

Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,

But that our soft conditions and our hearts

Should well agree with our external parts?

Come, come, your froward and unable worms,

My mind hath been as big as one of yours,

My heart as great, my reason haply more,

To bandy word for word and frown for frown;

But now I see our lances are but straws,

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,

That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.

Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,

And place your hands below your husband's foot,

In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 2

TROILUS:

I take today a wife, and my election

Is led on in the conduct of my will,

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,

Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores

Of will and judgement. How may I avoid

Although my will distaste what it elected

The wife I chose? There can be no evasion

To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.

We turn not back the silks upon the merchant

When we have spoiled them, nor the remainder viands

We do not throw in unrespective sewer

Because we now are full. It was thought meet

Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;

Your breath of full consent bellied his sails,

The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce

And did him service. He touched the ports desired

And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive

He brought a Grecian Queen, whose youth and freshness

Wrinkles Apollo's and makes stale the morning.

Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.

Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl

Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships

And turned crowned kings to merchants.

If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went,

As you must needs, for you all cried,‘Go, go!’

If you'll confess he brought home noble prize,

As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands

And cried,‘Inestimable!’Why do you now

The issue of your proper wisdoms rate

And do a deed that never fortune did:

Beggar the estimation which you prized

Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,

That we have stol'n what we fear to keep!

But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n,

That in their country did them that disgrace

We fear to warrant in our native place.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, Scene 1

PHILO:

Nay, but this dotage of our General's

O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes

That o'er the files and musters of the war

Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn

The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,

And is become the bellows and the fan

To cool a gipsy's lust.

Flourish. Enter Antony, Cleopatra, her ladies, the train, with eunuchs fanning her.

Look where they come.

Take but good note and you shall see in him

The triple pillar of the world transformed

Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.

CLEOPATRA (to Antony): If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

ANTONY:

There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

Othello, Act I, Scene 3

RODERIGO: What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

IAGO: Virtue? A fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners, so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and incorrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the beam of our lives had not one scale of reason to peise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.

Sonnet 131

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel,

For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart

Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,

Thy face hath not the power to make love groan.

To say they err I dare not be so bold,

Although I swear it to myself alone;

And to be sure that is not false I swear

A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,

One on another's neck do witness bear

Thy black is fairest in my judgement's place.

In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

And thence this slander as I think proceeds.

图书在版编目（CIP）数据

会饮篇：英汉对照/（古希腊）柏拉图著；孙平华，储春艳译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-4346-8

Ⅰ．①会…　Ⅱ．①柏…　②孙…　③储…　Ⅲ．①柏拉图（前427～前347）—美学思想—英、汉　Ⅳ．①B502.232　②B83-095.45

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2015）第267708号

（著作权合同登记：图字01-2015-7258号）

Penguin Books Ltd，Registered Offices：80 Strand，London WC2R 0RL，England

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This revised translation of The Republic first published in Penguin Classics 1987

This translation of The Symposium first published in Penguin Classics 1999

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The Symposium translation copyright © Christopher Gill，1999

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related，even smaller series in Germany．The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students．The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development．

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great non-fiction classics．For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction，extensive notes，a bibliography and so on．While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful，I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which，for example，Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense．

This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand，some important context might be missing．For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence．The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important．The sense of anger in Thomas Paine，of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin，of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives，sometimes for centuries，in many different countries．Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics，economics，intellectual lives，social planning，religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books，fi rst written down long ago．

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve．In different parts of the world different writers would be included．In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others．In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere．We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential，but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas．Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin，Michel de Montaigne to Seneca．But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series！ But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves．We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books．

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

会饮篇

洞穴寓言（选自《理想国》）

Contents

The Symposium

The Allegory of the Cave

返回总目录

译者导读

柏拉图（Plato，前427年—前347年），古希腊伟大的哲学家，也是全部西方哲学乃至整个西方文化最伟大的哲学家和思想家之一。柏拉图和他的老师苏格拉底以及他的学生亚里士多德被并称为古希腊三大哲学家。柏拉图是西方客观唯心主义的创始人，他的哲学体系博大精深，一生作品很多，写下了许多哲学对话录，并且后来在雅典创办了著名的书院。

《会饮篇》（或译作《飨宴篇》《宴话篇》）是柏拉图早期的一篇对话式作品，它描述了在一次宴会上，一群雅典男性对爱的本质的讨论。该作品以演讲和对话的形式写成，既有讽刺式的，也有认真的谈话。他们对话的大前提是（而且有些讲者更清楚说明），最高贵的爱是男人之间的爱。爱是对美的企盼，美貌、智慧和美德都被讨论。他们反对古希腊风俗中男人对少年的爱，说男人不应该在这些尚未了解基本美德，也未定型的少年身上下功夫，而更应该去爱一个男子并长相厮守，并强调两人间若只有美德与知识的交流最为崇高。柏拉图提出肉体的爱不如精神上对智慧和美德的爱，这就是著名的“柏拉图式的爱情”，这样的爱就是至善。在《会饮篇》里，柏拉图还描述了认识“美”的过程：从认识美的形体到美的道理、美的制度等等，逐级上升，经过飞跃最后认识到美本身，即“美的相”。柏拉图又进一步描述了这种“相”的基本特征：它是永恒的，不生不灭的，绝对的，单一的等等。

此书还收录了柏拉图著名的“洞穴寓言”，选自《理想国》。在《理想国》中，苏格拉底一开始提到了哲学家必须具备的各种素质，然后着重强调这些素质必须建立在学问的基础之上，最终则是建立在为善的学问基础之上。对苏格拉底来说它是善的本质。一些人认为善即快乐，或者认为善即学问。柏拉图简明扼要地驳斥了此类观点，却拒绝直接给出自己的看法，而是借用“洞穴寓言”来阐述他的观点，这是他首次详细解释唯心主义。

柏拉图还提到了太阳的比喻和分割线的比喻，柏拉图解释说，分割线比喻是太阳比喻的续篇，旨在进一步说明太阳比喻所涉及的现实中两种层次之间的关系。但它是从一个特定的角度来讲述的，即我们用来理解这两种层次或领域的心智状态。因此，这个线的目的主要也不是用来给事物分类。与可知领域相关的两种心智状态，都是与同种类型的东西（本质）打交道，尽管每种心智状态的处理方式各不相同；虽然在物质世界里，物质的东西与其自身的影子有区别，但这种差异主要用于阐明需要了解的东西当中存在的“真实”或真实性的程度——如果我们的学问仅局限于它的影子或影像，那么，我们对自身学问的东西了解就太有限了。就这个问题而言，就是仅仅局限于肤浅的外表了。

会饮篇

阿波罗多洛斯：实际上，我已经准备好回答你的问题了。前几天我碰巧要从我位于法勒鲁姆的家去城里，一个我认识的人从后面看见了我，大老远地叫我。他喊道（扯着嗓门用开玩笑的口吻）：

“嘿，从法勒鲁姆来的人！你！ 阿波罗多洛斯，能等我一下吗？”

我停了下来，等着他。

他说：“阿波罗多洛斯，我刚才一直在找你，想让你告诉我在阿伽松家举行的聚会上发生的故事。苏格拉底、亚西比德等人都参加了那次晚宴。他们在关于爱的发言中都说了什么？有个人从菲利普的儿子菲尼克斯那里了解了一些，我听他说了；但他说你也知道那次晚宴。他讲述的内容不够确切。请告诉我你知道的东西吧。苏格拉底是你的朋友，要复述他说的话，没有人比你更有权利了。不过，开始讲之前，”他补充说，“先告诉我：你当时在场吗？”

“你得到的肯定不是精准的复述，”我回答道，“你以为这次聚会是最近发生的，连我也参加了。”

“是的，我确实这样认为，”他说。

“你怎会这样认为呢，格老孔？阿伽松已经有很多年不在雅典住了，而我开始和苏格拉底交往，把追随他的一言一行当作我的职业，还不到三年时间，你难道不知道这些吗？那之前我经常漫无目的地闲逛。我自认为在做一些重要的事，但其实我当时处于最可悲的境地——就像你现在这样！——认为哲学是我最不应该做的事。”

“别取笑我，”他说，“告诉我这次聚会是什么时候举办的吧。”

“那时你和我都还是小孩子，”我说，“阿伽松的第一部悲剧得了奖。他和他的伙伴们举行了祭祀盛宴，庆祝他们的成功，聚会就发生在次日。”

“所以确实是很久以前的事了，”他说，“是谁告诉你这件事的，是苏格拉底自己吗？”

“当然不是了！”我说，“和告诉菲尼克斯的是同一个人，是居达塞奈乌姆一个叫阿里斯托得摩斯的矮个子，他总是光着脚走来走去。他当时参加了那次聚会，我想他是苏格拉底当时最狂热的崇拜者之一，不过，我后来就他告诉我的一些要点问了苏格拉底，他证实了阿里斯托得摩斯的说法。”

“来吧，”他说，“你把这些再给我讲一遍吧。在去城邦的路上，我们正好可以边走边说。”

于是我们一起走的时候就谈了这些，所以正如我一开始说的，我已经准备好了。如果需要给你讲一遍，我也会那样做。实际上，每当我讨论哲学或听他人讨论哲学时，我都会得到极大的愉悦，更不用说从中受益了。但至于其他类的讨论，尤其是像你们这样的富商的谈话，我感到索然无味，为你和你的朋友感到可惜，因为你们自认为在做一些重要的事，其实不然。可能你觉得我是个失败者，不中用 ，我却认为你是自以为是。我不仅认为你是个失败者，而且我知道你就是。

朋友：你总是这样，阿波罗多洛斯。你总是贬低自己，贬低其他人。你似乎相信除了苏格拉底，其余所有的人都处于悲惨境地，首当其冲的就是你自己。我不知道你是怎么得到“软蛋”这个绰号的。你在说话时，总是现在这个样子，残酷地攻击你自己和所有人——只有苏格拉底除外。

阿波罗多洛斯：我亲爱的朋友，很明显，如果我对自己和你持有这种看法，我是不是在胡说八道？

朋友：阿波罗多洛斯，我们现在实在不值得为此争论。请按照我的请求，告诉我谈话的进展如何。

阿波罗多洛斯：好吧，差不多是这样的——但如果我从头开始讲的话会更好点儿，就像阿里斯托得摩斯做的那样。

他说他在路上遇到了苏格拉底，苏格拉底刚洗过澡 ，还穿上了鞋——他几乎从不这样做。他问苏格拉底穿戴这么整齐是要去哪里。

苏格拉底答道：“去和阿伽松一起参加晚宴。昨天我没去他的得奖庆典，避开了人群；但我答应今天参加他的晚宴。因此我才打扮一番，这样我去美貌的人的家时也能看起来精神点儿。你呢？”他问道，“虽然你没受邀请，但是愿意和我参加晚宴吗？”

“你怎么说我就怎么做。”阿里斯托得摩斯答道。

“那么你就和我一起走吧，”苏格拉底说，“这样我们就可以证实谚语是错的，将它倒过来说，‘每逢好人开宴，好人不请自来。’其实，荷马也借用过这条谚语，但他把它曲解了，并且几乎是用蔑视的态度对待它的。他笔下的阿伽门农是位异常优秀的战将，而墨涅拉俄斯是个‘软弱无能的枪兵’。但当阿伽门农祭祀并举办盛宴时，墨涅拉俄斯这个卑微的人不请自来地参加了优等人的盛宴，这样看来，就是让不太好的人赴好人的宴会了。”

阿里斯托得摩斯回答道：“但是恐怕我也符合荷马描述的情况，而不像你说的那个意思，苏格拉底，我是个卑微的人，不请自来地参加聪明者的盛宴。如果你要带我一起去，想想你该用什么借口；我不会承认我是不请自来的，我只能说是你邀请了我。”

“‘我们两个路上搭伴儿来的’，”他说，“这样说就行了。那么快走吧。”

阿里斯托得摩斯说，这段交谈之后，他们就出发了。但苏格拉底陷入了自己的沉思，他们一起走的时候总是落在后面。阿里斯托得摩斯也停下来时，苏格拉底就让他继续走。到达阿伽松家时，阿里斯托得摩斯发现门是开着的，并且遇到了一件很荒谬可笑的事情。家中的一位仆人看到了他，把他带进屋里，其他人都已落座，正准备用餐。阿伽松一看到他，就说，“阿里斯托得摩斯！你来得正好，和我们一起用餐吧。你要是为了别的事情而来，就先放一边。我昨天找你，要邀请你，但没找到你。苏格拉底呢——你为什么没带他一块儿来？”

他转身的时候（阿里斯托得摩斯说的），发现苏格拉底根本没跟在后面。他解释说是苏格拉底带他来的，他是受苏格拉底的邀请来参加晚宴的。

“很高兴你来了，”阿伽松说，“但是苏格拉底去哪儿了呢？”

“刚才他还在我后面。我不知道现在他在哪儿。”

“仆人，去看看，”阿伽松说，“把苏格拉底带到这儿来。阿里斯托得摩斯，请你挨着厄律克西马库坐。”

一个仆人帮阿里斯托得摩斯洗了手和脚，这样他就可以坐下了。另一个仆人过来说：“苏格拉底已经到这儿了；他退回到了邻居家的走廊里，一直站在那里，不肯进来，我请他进来也不行。”

“真奇怪，”阿伽松说，“你再去请他进来，别让他独自一人待着。”

“别，”阿里斯托得摩斯说，“随他去吧。这是他的习惯。有时他离开人群，走到哪儿，就站在那里不动了。我敢肯定他一会儿就过来。别打扰他，让他一个人待着吧。”

“好吧，如果你这样认为，那我们就这样做，”阿伽松说，“现在，仆人，给我们上菜吧。你们想上什么食物就上什么食物，没人监督你们——我从未这样做过。这一次，你们就把我及其他人当作你们晚宴的客人，要好好伺候，争取赢得我们的赞扬。”

接着他们就开始用餐了，但苏格拉底还没进来。阿伽松不停地说应该派人去叫苏格拉底，但阿里斯托得摩斯不让他这么做。实际上，苏格拉底不一会儿就来了（他没有像往常那样迟到很长时间），其他人用餐才刚用到了一半。阿伽松正好独自一人坐在末席，就说：“苏格拉底，过来坐在我旁边吧，这样靠近你，我就可以分享你在走廊中获得的智慧了。显然你已经找到了你要寻找的东西并且拥有它了；不然你不会来的。”

苏格拉底坐了下来，说：“阿伽松，如果智慧这种东西能像水一样，在双方彼此接触的时候从丰盈者流到匮乏者那里，通过一根毛线从满杯子流到空杯子中，该有多好啊。如果智慧真像这样，我把与你共坐当作莫大的荣耀。我希望用你丰富的美好智慧把自己填满。我的智慧无疑是肤浅的——更确切地说，是真是假说不清，就像梦一样——但你的智慧光辉灿烂，有巨大的发展潜力。在你还年轻的时候，你的智慧就大放异彩；前几天三万多在场的希腊同胞都见证了你的智慧。”

“你在嘲笑我，”阿伽松说，“稍后我们再争论智慧问题，让狄奥尼索斯做我们的评判员。不过现在你先把注意力放在用餐上吧。”

之后，阿里斯托得摩斯说，苏格拉底坐了下来，与其他人一起用餐。然后他们向神祭酒、唱颂神歌，进行了其他例行的礼仪，然后开始饮酒。鲍桑尼亚带了头，说了类似下面的话：“先生们，最愉快的饮酒方式是什么？我可以告诉你们，我由于昨天饮酒，今天的身体状况非常糟糕，需要多休息 。我觉得你们中许多人也是这样，因为你们昨天也在场——所以想想我们应该怎样饮酒才最合适吧。”

阿里斯托芬说：“鲍桑尼亚，你说得对，我们得想办法喝得从容一些。我昨天也属于酩酊大醉之列。”

此后，阿库门努的儿子厄律克西马库说：“我赞同你的说法。但还有个人的意见我需要问问，看看他还能喝吗，那个人就是阿伽松。”

“我也绝对没有耐力再喝了，”他说。

“那我们就交了好运了——我是说，对于阿里斯托得摩斯、费德鲁斯及其他人来说——你们这些酒量最大的已经放弃了。我们永远抵不过你们。当然，我没有算苏格拉底：他可以喝也可以不喝，所以我们不管怎么做对他来说都行。既然大家没人热衷于大量饮酒，所以如果我说说醉酒是怎么回事，大概没人会觉得厌烦吧。从我的医疗经验来看，醉酒显然对人体有害。所以如果我可以随心所欲的话，我不愿意喝过头，我也不建议任何人喝过头，尤其是你还没从昨晚的宿醉中醒过来，头还昏昏沉沉时。”

这时费德鲁斯说话了：“我通常都听从你的建议，尤其是涉及医药方面的。如果其余的人都还理智的话，也该相信。”

听到这话，他们都同意不要把当前的场合弄成豪饮的局面，而是愿意喝多少就喝多少。

“好，”厄律克西马库说，“既然大家都同意愿意喝多少就喝多少，没有任何强迫与勉强，那我下一个提议是把刚进来的吹笛女打发走，让她们自吹自乐吧，或者如果她们愿意的话，吹给屋子里的女人听，我们今晚就以交谈来度过。要是你们同意的话，我想提议一个讨论的话题。”

大家都同意，让他提议。厄律克西马库说：“我以引用欧里庇得斯的《墨拉尼佩》开头：我将要讲的‘不是我自己的故事’，而是费德鲁斯的。他总是这样抱怨：‘厄律克西马库，诗人为其他的神谱写赞美诗和颂歌，但没人谱写过一首爱神的颂词，尽管他是位非常古老又非常重要的神，这岂不是很糟糕？你看看最优秀的智者（例如，杰出的普罗迪库斯），他们为赫拉克勒斯还有其他的神写颂词。可能这也不足为奇；但有一次我发现一位聪明的作者写的书，由于盐的效用，他在其中对其大力赞美——你也能发现诸多类似的颂词。人们如此重视这类东西，但至今却无人有勇气歌颂爱神应得的赞歌，这岂不是很荒唐。他是位如此伟大的神，却被忽略到如此地步！’我认为费德鲁斯在这一点上说得很对。我想让他高兴，为这件事做出自己的贡献；同时现在似乎是在座各位赞美爱神的好时机。如果你们同意，我们不需要做其他事了，就进行讨论。我提议每人尽其所能做最出色的发言，赞美爱神，然后坐在他右边的人继续。费德鲁斯应该起头，因为他不仅坐在首席，而且是这个话题的发起人。”

“没人会反对你，厄律克西马库，”苏格拉底说，“我当然也不能拒绝，因为爱这个主题是我唯一可以声称懂得的。阿伽松和鲍桑尼亚不会；阿里斯托芬也不会，他的整个事业都集中在狄奥尼索斯和阿佛洛狄特上；在座的其他任何人也不会。当然，这种安排对于我们坐在末席的人不公平。但如果先说的人说了所要求说的，并且说得很好，那我们也就满足了。费德鲁斯起头，做他对爱神的颂词，祝你好运！”

其余人都同意，让费德鲁斯按苏格拉底说的做。当然，阿里斯托得摩斯没有记住所有发言者说的话，我也没记住他说的所有的话。不过我会告诉你那些他记得最清楚、我认为最重要的人的发言。

如我所说的，阿里斯托得摩斯告诉我是费德鲁斯先说，他是这样说的：爱神被人类及诸神认为是一位伟大且了不起的神，这表现在很多方面，尤其是他的出身方面。

“爱神受人们尊敬，”费德鲁斯说，“是因为他是最古老的一位神，古老就是一种荣誉，可以由这个事实来论证：爱神没有父母，散文或诗歌里也从未提到过他的父母。但与此相反，赫西奥德说首先存在的是一片混沌，‘然后是宽阔的大地，为一切事物提供了永久、安全的根基，然后就是爱。’阿里斯托得摩斯同意赫西奥德的说法，说混沌之后两样东西出现了，即大地和爱。关于他的出身，巴门尼德说‘她创造的第一位神即是爱神’。所以爱神的古老历史已广为人们接受。

“由于其古老历史，他是我们最大福祉的源泉。我会宣称，对于青年来说，没有什么比拥有一位钟爱自己的爱人更幸福了；对爱人来说，没有什么比一位好情郎更幸福了。不管是亲情、社会地位、财富，还是其他任何东西，在向那些想要过上好生活的人灌输毕生指导方面的东西时，没有一个比爱更有效。这原则是什么呢？这是一种厌恶丑陋、爱慕美好的意识在起作用。没有这些，没有任何人或任何城邦能获得伟大或高尚的事物。

“以一个处于热恋中的人为例，他被发现做了不光彩的事，或经历了某些可耻的事情，因为他受人凌辱而懦弱不敢反抗。我认为这种情况下，被他的情郎看见会比被他的父亲、朋友或其他任何人看见给他带来更多的痛苦。若是情郎的话，我们也会看到同样的情景：若他被发现处于某种可耻的情形中，他会在他的爱人面前感觉最无地自容。如果有机制能创建由爱人和情郎组成的城邦或军队，那就没有比这更好的社会组织形式了：他们会阻止一切不光彩的事，为彼此眼中的荣誉而竞争。即使一小部分这样的人并肩作战，也几乎可以打败整个人类。爱人在从战线退缩或丢弃自己的武器时，最不能容忍被他的情郎看到；相反，他宁愿死千百回。至于抛弃自己的情郎或没能在危险中帮助他——没人会如此懦弱，不能从爱中激发出勇气，与天生就很勇敢的人相匹敌。当荷马说一位神‘把力量吹进’一些英雄体内时，这是爱情对爱人才会产生的效果。

“而且，只有爱人才会愿意为对方而死；这对女人和男人都适用。希腊人能从珀利阿斯的女儿阿尔刻提斯身上找到这一事实的充分证据，她是唯一一个愿意替她丈夫去死的人，尽管他的父亲和母亲都还活着。她将爱付诸行动，展示出了超出父母的深切关爱，使他们看起来像自己儿子的陌生人一样，只是名义上的亲属罢了。诸神以及人类都把这看作是高尚的行为。尽管许多人表现出许多高尚的行为，尽管神只授予少数人将生命从冥界再还阳一次的特权，但他们将她从冥界放了出来，因为钦佩她的行为。这显示了即使神也多么珍视爱情激发出的承诺和勇气。

“但是他们把奥阿格罗斯之子奥尔甫斯两手空空地从冥界打发了出来；他们只给他看了他想要拥有的妻子的幻影，而没有给他这个女人本身。他们认为他很软弱（他只是个音乐家），因为他没有勇气像阿尔刻提斯那样为自己的爱人去死，而是在还活着的时候找到了进入冥界的方法。他们为此惩罚他，让他死在女人的手中。

“相反，他们钦佩忒提斯的儿子阿喀琉斯，把他送到极乐岛。他从母亲那里知道，如果他杀死赫克托耳，他自己也会死，但是如果他不杀死他，他就可以回家并长命百岁。他有勇气代表他的爱人做出选择并行动，替他报仇：他不仅为他而死，并且要和他一起死去，因为帕特洛克罗斯已经死了。这种行为赢得了诸神的特别敬佩和特殊赞誉，因为这显示了他多么珍视自己的爱人。当埃斯库罗斯在说阿喀琉斯是帕特洛克罗斯的爱人时，是在胡说八道：如荷马告诉我们的，他比帕特洛克罗斯更英俊（实际上，他是所有英雄中最英俊的），他还没有胡须，而且比帕特洛克罗斯年轻得多。尽管神给予爱情激发出的勇气特殊赞誉，但当一位情郎向自己的爱人展示出深切关爱时，与爱人对情郎这样做时相比，他们展示出更大的惊异和赞赏，也给予更慷慨的回应。爱人比情郎更像神，因为他受到了神灵的激发。这就是为什么他们给阿喀琉斯比阿尔刻提斯更高的荣誉，并把他送到极乐岛。

“这就是我为什么说爱神是最古老的神，最受人尊敬，在激发人们获得勇气和幸福方面最有效，不管是对生还是死来说都一样。”

按照阿里斯托得摩斯说的，费德鲁斯的发言大致是这样。费德鲁斯之后，有一些其他人的发言，阿里斯托得摩斯记不清了；所以他就略过了他们，接着说鲍桑尼亚的发言。鲍桑尼亚说：“费德鲁斯，我们仅仅被告知去赞美爱神，我认为我们没有做出明确规定。如果爱是单一的，那就没问题，但实际上它不是；由于它不是，那最好提前规定我们应该赞美哪种爱。我尽力把情况摆正，先说说我们应该赞美哪种爱，然后再给予诸神他应得的赞美。

“我们都知道阿佛洛狄特与爱神不可分开。如果只有一个阿佛洛狄特，那就只有一种爱；但由于有两类阿佛洛狄特，也就必须有两种爱。肯定有两类阿佛洛狄特吗？其中一个较年长，是乌拉诺斯的女儿，尽管她没有母亲：我们称她为乌拉诺斯或神圣的阿佛洛狄特。较年轻的一个是宙斯和狄俄涅的女儿：我们称她为凡间的阿佛洛狄特。因此结果就是，每一种爱，根据他是谁的伴侣，应该有与女神一样的名字，也称之为神圣的爱或凡间的爱。当然，所有的神都应该受到赞美，但我们必须尽力区分开这两个神的职能。

“每一种活动本身没有对错之分。就拿我们现在的活动为例：我们可以饮酒、唱歌或讨论。这些就其本身而言没有一种是对的；活动的性质取决于完成它的方式。如果做得适当，它就是对的；如果做得不当，它就是错的。所以并不是每一种爱和爱神都是对的，都值得赞美，只有那种激励我们以正确的方式去爱的才如此。

“凡间的爱是名副其实的‘凡俗’，效果方面没什么区别；这是下等人感受到的那种爱。这类人既受女人的吸引，也受少男的吸引，吸引他们的是肉体而不是灵魂。他们受到智力最低下的伴侣的吸引，因为他们的唯一目的是得到他们所想要的，而不关心这样做是否恰当。所以爱对他们的影响就是他们不加区别地行动：不管他们的行为是好是坏，对他们来说都一样。其原因就是，他们的爱源自更年轻的女神，由于她的出身，她本性上一部分是女的，一部分是男的。

“另一种爱源自神圣的女神，她体内没有一点儿女性的特质，完全是男性的；所以这种爱的对象是少男。这位女神也较年长，所以会避免滥用暴力。这就是为什么受这种爱激发的人倾向于男性，对本性更精力充沛和智慧的事物心怀喜爱。在受少男吸引的那一类人中，你们也可以区别那些纯粹受神圣的爱激励的人。他们只有在开始完成智力发育的时候才会受少男吸引，这通常会发生在他们开始长胡须的时候。我认为那些在这个时候开始恋爱的人做好了共度一生、终生相守的准备。他们不会利用少男的年幼无知哄骗他，引诱他，然后碰到另外合适的对象便喜新厌旧。

“甚至应该有针对与宠爱少男相关的法律，阻止他们将巨大的精力花费在结果不明的事情上。就少男而言，他们无论在心灵或身体上最终是好还是坏谁也无法预知。善良的人们为自己制定这条规则，并愿意这样做。应该强迫凡俗的爱的追随者采用同样的规则，就像我们尽自己最大努力强行阻止他们爱恋自由民妇女一样。这种凡俗的爱情使人们对爱情有了不好的印象，也给爱带来了不良声誉，以至于一些人竟然说满足爱人的要求是错的。人们这样说，是因为他们考虑的是这类人的卑鄙放荡的行为；当然，如果行为是以有条理的方式进行且符合通常的规范，就不会招致批评指责。

“其他城邦管理恋爱的规范都用了明确的语言进行规定，很容易被人领会。但在斯巴达这里却很复杂。在厄利斯和比奥夏，以及人们不擅长演讲的地方，有明确的规定，认为满足爱人的需求是对的，不管老少，没人会说那是错的。毫无疑问，这是因为他们不愿费尽心思通过劝说赢得少男，别忘了他们本来都是不够格的演说家。但在爱奥尼亚的许多地方以及波斯帝国的其他地方，规定恋爱是错的。在波斯，由于其残暴的政府，人们谴责他们，还谴责智力和体育活动。毫无疑问，在他们的政府中，人们不适合有伟大的思想或建立深厚的友谊和私人关系，这些都是通过这些活动、尤其是爱情促成的。在雅典，暴君通过自己的经验发现了这一点：亚里斯托杰顿的爱及哈尔摩狄奥斯互相爱慕的力量使他们的统治走向了终点。所以在有这样的基本规则（即满足爱人的需求是错误的）的地方，就可以将其归结为制定这条规则的人自身的缺陷：政府对权力的贪求和人民的懦弱。而在一些地方，认为这是完全正确的，那是因为规则的制定者头脑迟钝。

“在雅典，我们的规范比那些地方强得多；但正如我刚才说的，这些规范不太容易理解。据说公开地去爱比秘密地爱更好，尤其是你爱的是具有社会地位和良好品行的少男时，即使他们不是特别英俊。而且爱人从众人那里得到巨大的鼓舞，暗示他做的不是可耻的事；获取你想要的少男的心被认为是高尚的行为，而未能获取则被认为是可耻的。当爱人尽力抓获少男的心时，规范允许他因做非凡的事而赢得赞美。如果他胆敢在做这些事时有任何其他目的和意图，他将会受到强烈的谴责。

“比如说，一个人想从别人那里得到钱，或政治职务或其他某种势力，他就去做像爱人对待自己喜爱的少男那样的事情。想象一下，他会像个哀求者一样双膝跪地，乞求他想要的东西，发誓，整夜都待在人家的门阶上，准备好遭受任何仆人都不会做的奴性行为。他的朋友和仇敌都会阻止他这样做；他的敌人会批评他为了得到想要的东西而使自己蒙受耻辱，而他的朋友会责备他，并为他感到羞耻。但当爱人这样做时，规范就会纵容他并允许他逃避批评，意味着他的意图反而会得到赞扬。最值得注意的是，人们普遍认为神会宽恕的未能遵从誓言的唯一的人即是爱人。他们说，爱人的誓言根本不是誓言。所以，根据我们的规范，神以及人给予了爱人各种纵容。从这个观点来看，你会认为在这个城邦，成为爱人并热切地回应爱人是非常值得赞扬的事。

“另一方面，当少男吸引爱人时，他们的父亲会让仆人管束他们，明确规定不让少男与爱人交谈。少男的朋友和同龄人如果看到这样的事发生时就会谩骂他们，长辈也不去阻止这种谩骂，或责备他们这样说话。你们看到这种情况时，就会想，相比之下，在我们这个城邦里，恋爱会被认为是很丢人的事。

“我认为情况是这样的。这种事并不十分单纯；如我之前说的，恋爱本身没有对错之分，行为恰当时它即是对，行为不当时它即是错。以不当的方式满足坏人的需求即是错的，以恰当的方式满足好人的需求即是对的。在这一点上，卑鄙的对象即是上面提到的凡俗的爱人，他们爱肉体而不是灵魂。他所爱的东西不是恒定不变的，所以他的爱也不会始终如一：一旦肉体的花蕊（这正是吸引他的东西）凋谢，‘他就远走高飞，消失不见了’，毁掉他以前所有的誓言。但那些热爱良好品行的人终其一生都是恒定不变的，因为他们所爱的东西也是始终如一的。

“我们考验的目的是要充分地、以恰当的方式检验爱人，确保少男满足一种，而远离另一种。这就是为什么我们同时鼓励爱人去追逐少男，又鼓励少男躲避爱人。这是一种比赛，来检验爱人属于哪一类，少男属于哪一类。这就解释了为什么快速俘获内心被认为是错误的：就是为了确保时间起到干预作用，这被认为是检验多数事物的好方法。这也解释了为什么被爱人的金钱或政治权力俘获被认为是错误的。这种情况下，少男要么由于受虐待而害怕地屈从，要么可耻地享受金钱或政治成就的利益。这些东西没有一样被认为是稳定或永恒的，除了这样一个事实，即没有真正的感情能建立在这样的基础之上。

“根据我们的规则，只剩下一种方法，少男以这种方法满足他的爱人是正确的。我之前说过，爱人愿意忍受各种奴役且不算献媚也不受谴责。同样，根据我们的规则，只有一种自愿的奴役不受谴责：那种目的是要产生美德的奴役。我们的观点是，如果某个人愿意屈身为他人效劳，相信那个人会帮助他提升智慧或其他方面的美德，那么这种自愿的奴役并无不对，也不丢脸。

“这两条规则必须合二为一（一条规定对少男的爱，一条规定对智慧及其他美德的爱），才能创造出少男满足他的爱人无过错的条件。当爱人和情郎集合起来，每一方都遵守相应的规则时，这些条件就实现了：爱人完全可以为满足了自己需求的情郎做任何事，情郎也完全可以为使自己变得智慧和高尚的人做任何事。而且一般来说爱人必须能够增进情郎的理解力和品德，情郎必须想要获得教育和智慧。当所有这些条件都满足时，然后，而且只有这时，情郎满足爱人的需求才是对的，而不是相反的情况。

“这种情况下，被欺骗也没什么错；但是，除此之外，爱就是错的，不管你是否被欺骗。假设一个少男认为他的爱人很富有，由于贪恋钱财就满足了他；如若结果证明这位爱人很贫穷，少男没得到任何钱，那他做的仍是错的。这类少男显示了他品性中的一些东西：他愿意为了挣钱为任何人效劳，而那是不对的。在同样的基础上，假设一位少男认为他的爱人是个好人，就满足了他，希望通过和他的爱人的交往使自己变得更好。如果结果证明这位爱人是个坏人，缺乏美德，这样被欺骗也没有耻辱。这类少男也显示了他品性中的一些东西：他为了获得美德、使自己变得更好，愿意为他人做任何事，没有什么动机比这更值得赞扬了。所以为了获得美德而满足爱人是完全正确的。这是属于神圣女神的神圣之爱，对城邦和个人来说都是巨大价值的来源，因为它迫使爱人和情郎重视自己的品德。其他形式的爱都来源于另一位一般的爱神。

“费德鲁斯，这就是我对爱的理解，”他说，“这是我在没准备的情况下能说的最好的了。”

当鲍桑尼亚停下来时（我是从专家那里学的这种拐弯抹角的说话技巧），阿里斯托得摩斯说，轮到阿里斯托芬发言了。但是，巧合的是，他由于吃得过多或其他原因正在打嗝，无法说话。他对厄律克西马库（这位医生正坐在他下一位）说：“正巧，你要么帮助我止住嗝，要么替我说，直到我不打嗝为止。”厄律克西马库回答道：“两件事我都做。我来取代你的位置，等轮到我的时候你再讲。我发言时，你屏住呼吸，可能就可以止住嗝；如果没止住，你就用水漱漱口。如果还是打嗝，你就用个东西戳一下鼻孔，让自己打个喷嚏。这样一两次，不管多么顽固的嗝儿，都可以止得住了。”

“尽快开始你的发言吧，”阿里斯托芬说，“我照你说的办。”

厄律克西马库说：“我是这样认为的：鲍桑尼亚的发言，开头很好，但没有贯彻下去，结尾处不是很相称，所以我尽力完成他的论证。我认为他对爱情有两重性，做了很妥当的区分。但是爱不仅可以通过人们对英俊的人的情绪反应来表达，而且还有许多种其他类型的反应：既可以追溯到动物的生殖，也可以追溯到植物的生长。我可以说，存在于神圣的或世俗的各种活动中的爱的威力适用于一切类型的存在物。我确信，我是从医学、从我自己的专业领域认识到爱神的威力有多么伟大、多么美妙，他的力量延伸到人类和神圣生命的各个方面。

“我将从医学开始，使这种专长占据第一位。身体的性质中天生就显示出了这两种爱。人们通常认为身体的健康和疾病是不同的状态，彼此互不相同。当事物不同时，它们渴望和爱的对象也不同。因此，在身体健康和患有疾病的情况下爱是不同的。鲍桑尼亚刚才说，满足好人是对的，而满足放纵的人是错的。身体也一样。对于每个身体，满足好的部分是对的，且你应该这样做（行医就是这个意思）；但满足不好的、有病的部分就是错的，若你打算成为医术高明的人，就应该剥夺那部分的满足。

“实质上，医学就是关于填满和排空身体之爱的各种形式的知识。医生最重要的是能区分出这些过程中正确的和错误的爱。好的医生能引起改变，这样身体就能获得一种爱而不是另一种；当一种爱不在那里而应该在那里时，他知道如何来灌输这种爱，并排除在那里的另一种爱。他应该能够取出身体中最对抗的元素，在它们之间建立友谊和爱。最对抗的元素是对立的，如冷与热，苦与甜，干与湿，等等。找到在这些元素之间灌输爱与和谐的方法的人是我们的祖先阿斯克勒庇俄斯（这是一些诗人告诉我们的，有些就在这里，我相信他们），他就是这样创建医学的。

“如我所说的，医学完全由这位神掌管，他也掌管体育和农业；任何人思考片刻都会清楚，这一点也适用于音乐。这可能是赫拉克利特心里所想的，虽然他没有很好地表达出来。关于团结，他说，‘通过背离，它与自身达成一致。……就像弓或琴的和谐’。若说和谐与自身背离，或它的构成要素仍然分离的时候它就存在，是很荒谬的。但可能他心里想的是，音乐的技艺是通过用一致性替换高音和低音之间的分歧，从而创造和谐。高音和低音仍分离的时候，它们之间当然不会存在和谐。和谐就是协调，协调是一种一致性；但是当分离的东西仍分离时就不能从中创建一致性，只有当分离的东西一致时才能创造和谐。同样，韵律是通过用一致性替换快拍和慢拍之间的分离创造出来的。正如医学在一个区域内创造一致性，音乐通过向涉及的元素中灌输爱和协调，在另一个区域内创造它；转过来，音乐就是与和谐和韵律有关的爱的各种形式的知识。

“在和谐和韵律的结构中，考虑其自身，不难发现爱的作用；所以爱的双重性在这里没有呈现出来。但是当用韵律与和谐对人产生影响时，不管是创作音乐（他们称之为‘作曲’），还是恰当运用曲调和诗歌（称为‘教育’），困难就出现了，需要好的音乐大师了。这里同样的原则仍然有效：你应该满足并促进秩序井然的人们的爱，或者那些尚未秩序井然但能用这种方式获得改善的人的爱。这种爱是美好的、神圣的，是神圣的缪斯之爱。但一般的爱是缪斯圣歌女神之爱；当是这种爱时，我们必须慎重，确保爱的接受者享受它提供的欢愉，而不会变得放纵。同样，在我的专业领域，工作的一个关键部分是正确处理通过烹饪艺术满足的欲望，确保人们享受这种欢愉，而不生病。所以在音乐、医学及其他所有领域中，既有人类的也有神的，我们必须尽其所能地留意这两种爱，因为这两种爱都存在。

“季节的特性也是由这两种爱决定的。当我之前提到的那些元素（热与冷、干与湿）受到秩序井然的爱的影响时，它们就会彼此协调一致，风调雨顺。它们的到来就会为人类及其他动植物带来丰收和健康，不会造成危害。但是当无节制的、暴力的爱主导季节时，它们就会造成巨大的破坏。这些情况常常会造成牲畜和植物得瘟疫及其他反常疾病。霜、冰雹和疫病是互相激烈竞争和混乱的结果，是这种爱的影响。所以我们所说的天文学是关于爱的作用的知识，因为这些影响星辰和一年中四季的运行。

“而且，各种祭祀和占卜的所有活动（这些是神与人类互相交流的方式）都在于维持一种爱，而消除另一种。当人们未满足、尊重或把活动中的首要位置让给秩序井然的爱时，而且对另一种爱做了这些，那么就常常会出现对自己父母（活着或去世的）或神的不尊敬。预言有一个职责，就是留意那些错误的爱，并将其消除。它还有一个职责，就是通过理解人类生命中爱的运作如何影响正确的行为和虔诚之心，在神和人类之间产生友谊。

“所以当把这一切集合在一起时，爱作为整体拥有巨大（更确切地说是所有的）力量。但是拥有最大力量的爱是那种本性表现在良好的行为中、以自制和正义为标志、在人类和神的层级上的爱，它是我们所有幸福的源泉。它使我们能够与彼此及神交往并成为朋友。

“可能我对爱神的颂词遗漏了许多东西，如果是这样，我并不是故意的。如果我遗漏了任何东西，阿里斯托芬，该你来填补缺口了。或者，如果你想到了其他对神的颂词，就继续说吧，你已经不打嗝了。”

现在轮到阿里斯托芬了（阿里斯托得摩斯说的），他说：“是的，已经不打嗝了，但是直到我用打喷嚏的方法后才停下来。这让我怀疑是否是我身体中‘秩序井然’的部分想要那种噪音和引起打喷嚏的挠痒。无论如何，我一打喷嚏嗝就立即被止住了。”

“亲爱的阿里斯托芬，”厄律克西马库说，“当心你正在做的事。你一开口就开玩笑，这让我不得不提防着你的玩笑，不然你的发言就可以不被打扰了。”

“你说得对，厄律克西马库，”阿里斯托芬说，“我收回刚才说的话。但如果你留意我的发言的话，别以为我不敢说一些有趣的事（那是我的缪斯女神的特权和典型特征），我是害怕说了荒唐的话。”

厄律克西马库说：“你认为你可以射我一箭然后就逃跑啊！好吧，当心了；你必须对你说的话负责。不过即使如此，如果我下了决心，我也会放你一马的。”

“事实上，厄律克西马库，”阿里斯托芬说，“我确实打算采用一种与你和鲍桑尼亚发言中不同的方式。我认为人们完全没有认识到爱神的力量；如果他们领会了这一点，他们会为他建造最大的寺庙和祭坛，做最大规模的祭祀。事实上，人们没有为他做其中任何一项，虽然他是最值得这样做的。他比其他任何神都更爱人类；他是他们的助手，是疾病的医治者，那些疾病的治愈构成了人类最大的幸福。我会试着把他的力量解释给你们听，你们再把这些传授给其他人。

“首先，你们必须要了解人类的本性以及它发生了什么变化。很久以前，我们的本性与现在的不同，而且有很大的差异。首先，人类有三种性别，而不是现在的男性和女性两种。还有第三种，它结合了这两种；现在它的名字保存了下来，不过这种性别已经消失了。‘阴阳人’是一种独特的性别，也是一个名字，它结合了男性和女性的特征；现在除了名字什么也没留下，现在它的名字是对人的侮辱。

“其次，最初的人外形是个圆形的整体，背部和两侧形成了一个圆。每个人有四只手、四条腿，圆形的脖子上有两张一样的脸。一个头上有两张脸，朝向相反的方向，有四只耳朵，两个生殖器，其余的你们可以从我刚才说的话中想象出来。他们可以笔直地来回走动，像我们现在一样，可以随心所欲地朝任何一个方向走。当他们要动身快跑时，就用八肢支撑着自己的身体，快速地旋转着移动，就像翻筋斗一样，他们在旋转时，腿伸直着翻筋斗。

“之所以有这三种性别以及他们如描述的那样，是因为男性最初是由太阳生的，女性是由大地生的，而阴阳人是由月亮生的，因为月亮是太阳和大地的结合体。他们是圆的，所以他们也以圆形的方式移动，因为他们与自己的父母相像。他们在力量和活力方面很糟糕；他们有雄心壮志，向神发起进攻。荷马讲的关于厄菲阿尔忒斯和俄图斯的故事，说他们如何尝试着爬上天国攻击诸神，实际上指的就是他们。宙斯和其他神讨论如何对付他们，但没有得出结论。诸神不知道如何能杀死他们，不能像以前对待巨人那样用雷电把人类全部消灭；如果他们那样做的话，诸神从他们那里得到的荣誉和祭品将会消失。但也不能让他们再这样蛮横无理下去。在经过深思之后，宙斯有了个主意：‘我有个计划，通过这个计划人类还可以继续存在，但非常虚弱，不能再有这样的野蛮行径了。我现在把他们每个人一分为二；他们将变得虚弱，也对我们更有用，因为他们人数增多了。他们将用两条腿直立着走路。如果我们觉得他们仍然蛮横，不肯安静下来，我就再把他们分成两半，这样他们就只能用一条腿跳着走路了。’

“说完之后，宙斯把人劈成了两半，就像人们把苹果切成两半或把煮熟的蛋切开一样。他在切每个人的时候，告诉阿波罗把他们的脸和与之相连的半面脖颈扭向伤口那面，这样人类就能看到自己的伤口，变得懂规矩点儿；宙斯也让他治愈其他伤口。阿波罗扭转了脸；他把周身的皮肤拉向现在称为腹部的方向（就像用拉链把手提袋拉紧一样），然后在腹部的中央留了一个口，我们称之为肚脐。他也磨平了许多其他褶皱，把胸部弄成鞋匠磨平皮革的褶皱时使用的工具的形状。但他留了一些肚脐附近的褶皱，提醒人类很久以前发生在他们身上的事。

“由于他们被分成两半了，每个人都想念自己的另一半，希望能与另一半在一起。他们用胳膊搂着彼此，交织在一起，想要形成一个单独的个体。所以他们死于饥饿和凝滞不动，因为他们不想离开彼此。当其中一半死去，另一半被剩下时，剩下的那一半就寻找另一个，与另一个交织在一起。有时他遇到的那一个是女人的一半（这一半我们现在称为‘女人’），有时是剖开的男人的一半。不管怎样，他们继续以这种方式死去。

“宙斯怜悯他们，想出了另一个办法：他把他们的生殖器移到前面来；那之前，他们的生殖器在身体的后面，不是与彼此交配进行有性繁殖，而是在地上繁殖，就像蝉一样。所以宙斯把生殖器移到前面，这样通过男女交配进行繁殖。这样做的目的在于，如果男人遇到女人，进行交配，就会繁殖后代，人类就可以延续。并且，如果两个男人在一起，他们至少能得到性交的满足感，然后平息情欲、放松、继续工作，考虑生活中的其他事情。

“从远古时代人类对彼此内在的渴望就是这样开始的。它吸引我们本性的两部分恢复到一起，尽力合二为一，治愈人类从前剖开的伤口。我们每个人都是人类要匹配的一半，因为我们像比目鱼一样被分成两半，被一分为二，我们每个人都在寻找匹配自己的另一半。从阴阳人（那时称为雌雄同体）被切开的男人为女人所吸引，许多奸夫属于这一群体。同样，为男人所吸引、成为淫妇的女人也属于这一群体。那些被从女性切开的女人对男人一点儿也不感兴趣，而更多地受到女人的吸引，女同性恋属于这个群体。

“那些被从男性切开的人喜爱男性。当他们还是少男时，由于他们是男性的一部分，他们受到男人的吸引，喜欢与男人一起睡、被他们拥抱。这些是他们那一代中最好的人，不管是少男还是青年，因为他们天生是最勇敢的。有些人说他们无耻，但并不是这样。他们这样做并不是由于无耻，而是因为他们大胆、勇敢、有阳刚之气，并赞赏其他人的这种品质。下面就是明显证据：这样的男人长大后，是唯一能成为政治家的人。当他们成人后，会受到少男的性吸引；他们没有要结婚娶妻生子的本能愿望，尽管按照规范他们会被迫做这些。他们自己对不结婚而和爱人相守共度人生很满足。总之，这样的人成为少男的爱人，少男热爱自己的男性爱人，总是喜欢他们共同的本性。

“当少男的爱人或其他类人遇到自己的另一半时，他就会欣喜若狂，显示出喜爱、关怀和爱慕。两人一刻也不想离开彼此。这些人终生都在一起度过，但仍说不出想从彼此那里得到什么。我的意思是，没有人会认为他们想要的仅是性交，这正是他们在彼此的陪伴中找到如此多的乐趣并对它如此重视的原因。显然他们每个人心中都有一些无法表达的愿望；他像圣人一样，部分领会了自己所想要的，并隐晦地对别人进行暗示。想象一下，当他们躺在一起时，赫菲斯托斯拿着工具在旁边看着他们，并问：‘人类，你想从对方身上得到什么？’如果他们不知道，想象他会接着问：‘这是你们想要的吗，完完整整地在一起，无论白天黑夜都不分离？如果这是你们想要的，我就把你们融合在一起，这样你们两个就变成一个人了。然后你们两人只要活着，就可以共享生命，因为你们是一个人；当你们死亡时，你们作为一个人而不是两个人，共享冥界中的死亡。但是先想想这是不是你们渴望的，实现这种状态是否能满足你们。’我们都知道，听到这种提议的人没一个会拒绝，显然没人会想要其他东西了。每个人都会想，他现在听到的正是他一直以来渴望的东西：与所爱的人在一起，融为一体，合二为一而不是两个人。其原因就是这是我们最初的自然状态，我们过去是完整的个体：‘爱’是渴望并追求完整之名。

“在这之前，如我说的，我们是一体的；但是现在，由于自己的罪恶，我们被宙斯分开了，就像阿卡迪亚人被斯巴达人分开了一样。还有这种危险，即如果我们对神灵不守规矩，我们会被进一步分开，像墓碑上浮雕中的人一样走动，被从鼻子锯成两半，像半个骰子一样。所以每个人都应该鼓励他人对神灵显出全部应有的尊敬，这样我们就可以避免一种惩罚，实现另一种结果，把爱神作为我们的领袖和将领。没人应该违背爱神，站在错误的神的一边即是违背爱神。如果我们是神的朋友并把他拉到我们这一边，我们应该做现在几乎无人做的事——找到真正属于我们的爱人并与之亲近。

“我不想让厄律克西马库认为我的发言仅是个喜剧，针对的是鲍桑尼亚和阿伽松。很可能他们属于这种类型，都是男性本质的另一半。但我所说的也适用于所有的男人和女人：只有当爱得出结论，每个人找到自己的爱人并恢复最初的本性，我们人类才能获得幸福。如果这是理想状态，当前环境下最接近它的必定是最好的：即找一个与你自己的品性最适合的爱人。如果我们想赞美对这件事负责的神，我们当然应该赞美爱神。在当前情况下，他为我们做了能做的最好的，指引我们走向天生与我们接近的事物。他也为我们提供了未来最大的希望：即如果我们尊敬神，他将把我们恢复为最初的本性，使我们愈合，从而给我们最好的幸福。

“好了，厄律克西马库，这就是我关于爱的发言，和你的迥然不同。就像我刚才说的，别把我的发言当作玩笑。咱们继续，看看剩下的发言者有什么要说的——更确切地说是两个，因为只剩下阿伽松和苏格拉底了。”

“我会按你说的做的，”厄律克西马库说，“不管怎样，我非常欣赏你的颂辞。如果我事先不知道苏格拉底和阿伽松是爱情这个题目的专家的话，我会担心他们可能没什么可说的了，因为我们已经有这么多种发言了。不过，照目前的情况，对于他们两位，我还是很有信心的。”

苏格拉底说：“那是因为你们成功参与了我们的竞争。如果你处在我的位置上，更确切地说是处在阿伽松也做了精彩发言之后我所在的位置，你将会诚惶诚恐，处在和我一样的窘境之中。”

“你在设法给我施咒语，苏格拉底，”阿伽松说，“让我觉得观众对我的发言有很高期望，从而让我紧张。”

“阿伽松，如果我那样做的话，那就未免太健忘了吧，”苏格拉底说，“你站在舞台上，领着演员们高视阔步地登台，面对众多的观众展示自己的作品时没有一点儿慌张，我看到了你那时展示出来的勇气和自信。所以我认为你不会在我们这个小团体面前紧张。”

“但是，苏格拉底，”阿伽松说，“我希望你不要认为我对剧场如此着迷，以至于没有意识到少数几个有智慧的人比一群无知的人更使人担心。”

“阿伽松，”苏格拉底说，“如果我认为你在任何方面都天真无邪，那我就是大错特错了。我很清楚，如果你发现了一些你认为聪明的人，你给予他们的注意力会比给予一般群众的多。但恐怕我们不属于那一类；毕竟我们也在那里，是那群人的一部分。但如果你找到了其他一些聪明的人，若你觉得在他们面前做了一些错事，你可能会感到羞愧——你是不是这个意思？”

“是的。”阿伽松答道。

“但如果你在一般群众面前做了错事就不会感到羞愧吗？”

这时候费德鲁斯插话了：“亲爱的阿伽松，如果你回答苏格拉底的问题，只要他有讨论的伙伴，尤其是有魅力的人，他不会在乎我们当前的活动是否会有进展。我喜欢听苏格拉底的讨论，但我必须负责对爱神的颂辞，从你们每个人的发言中提取一些内容作为你们的贡献。因此你们两人做完对神的颂辞后，再继续进行辩论吧。”

“你说得对，费德鲁斯，”阿伽松说：“我没有理由不发言。至于和苏格拉底的辩论，以后会有足够多的机会。

“我首先想说一下我认为应该怎么说，然后再开始讲。我认为之前的所有发言者都不是赞美神灵，而是称颂人类从神那里得到幸福。没人谈论给予我们这些东西的神灵自身的本性。不管话题是什么，做颂辞只有一种正确的方式，就是定义颂扬的主题的性质及这个主题产生的效果。所以，就爱神来说，正确的做法是先赞美他的性质，然后赞美他的天赋。

“我敢说，虽然所有的神灵都是幸福的，但爱神（如果这样说合适且不冒犯任何人的话）是最幸福的，因为他是最英俊、最优秀的。他最英俊，是因为：首先，费德鲁斯，他是最年轻的神。他自己匆忙地从老年（它比应该的更快地发生在我们身上）逃离，也为这一点提供了证据。爱天生讨厌老年，并与之保持距离。他总是与年轻人结交，是他们中的一分子；古语说得对，物以类聚。虽然我赞同费德鲁斯说的许多话，但我不赞同爱神比克罗诺斯和伊阿珀托斯年长。我敢说，他是诸神中最年轻的，且会永葆青春。根据赫西奥德和巴门尼德说的，古代诸神对彼此做的事（他们说的是真的）是由于必要性而非爱。如果爱神在他们当中，诸神就不会阉割或囚禁彼此，或进行许多其他暴行；就像现在及爱神开始管理诸神时一样，他们之间会有友谊与和平。

“他既年轻，又娇嫩；但需要有荷马那样素养的诗人才能说出他有多娇嫩。荷马把妄想神说成是一位女神，她也很娇嫩；至少她的脚很娇嫩，如他说的：

但对大地来说，她的脚很娇嫩；

她从不靠近人类，而是行走在他们的头上。

荷马说她不在坚硬的东西上行走，而是走在柔软的东西上，我认为这是她的娇嫩性的明显证据。爱神的娇嫩也可运用同样的证据。他不在大地或头骨（它一点儿也不软）上行走，而是行走并居住在最柔软的东西之中。他在神和人类的品性和头脑中安家；但并不是所有的头脑，而是当行走在坚韧的性格上时，当发现具有柔和性格的人时，他就定居下来。由于他不断地与最柔软的事物中最柔和的成员接触，不只用他的脚，而是全身心地接触，他必定极其娇嫩。

“所以他很年轻、很娇嫩，形体上也是流动的。否则，如果他很粗暴的话，他就不能完全遮盖人们的心灵，或穿梭于其中时不被发觉。他形体良好、流畅的充分证据在于他的优雅，人们普遍认为这是爱的独特特征（粗俗与爱总是互为仇敌）。他面容姣好可通过他总是在花丛中打发时间这个事实显示。爱神不栖身在没有花朵或花朵凋谢的身体、心灵或事物上；但当他发现有花朵盛开和芳香的地方，他就停留下来。

“关于爱神的美貌已经说够多了（虽然还有许多可说）；我接下来必须说的话题是爱神的美德。最重要的一点是，爱神在与神或人交往时，不做不公正的事，他自己也没遭受不公正的事。当爱神身上发生神秘事时，从来不是靠武力进行的（因为爱从来不是被迫的）。当爱神做事时，他也从不使用武力，因为每个人都赞成爱的所有命令；任何双方同意的事，就是‘城邦的主宰即法律’规定为正义的事。

“和正义一样，爱神也是非常节制的。人们普遍认为，节制掌管着欢愉和欲望，没有什么欢愉能比得上爱。如果欢愉较弱的话，必定是受爱掌控，他必是它们的主人；如果爱掌控着欢愉和欲望，他必定异常节制。

“至于勇敢，‘即使阿瑞斯也敌不过’爱神。不是阿瑞斯俘获了爱，而是爱俘获了阿瑞斯（据说是阿佛洛狄特的爱），俘获者掌控着被俘获者。掌控着其他人中最勇敢者的人必定是所有人中最勇敢的。

“我已经说了爱神的公正、节制和勇气；还需要说的是他的智慧。我必须尽可能充分地阐述这一点。首先——像厄律克西马库敬重自己的专业领域一样，我也对自己的领域表示敬重——爱神是如此熟练的诗人，他使其他人也成为了诗人。任何人受到爱的触动时，都会变成诗人，‘即使以前与缪斯是陌生人的人也这样’。我们可以把这作为证据，认为爱神是各种艺术作品的优秀创作者，因为你不可能给予他人你没有的东西，或教导他人你自己不知道的东西。当然，关于生物的创造，谁会否认是由于爱，一切生物才存在并被创造出来呢？关于在艺术或工艺方面的专门技术，我们不是都知道那些受爱神教导的人最后都声名显赫，而那些没被他触动的人都默默无闻吗？阿波罗跟随着自己的欲望和爱为他指引的路，才发现了箭术、医药和预言，这使得阿波罗成为爱神的学生。同样，他使缪斯成为他在音乐方面的学生，赫菲斯托斯成为他在冶炼方面的学生，雅典娜成为他在编织方面的学生，宙斯成为他在掌管神和人类方面的学生。所以只有当爱神出生后，诸神的活动才变得有条理——爱美，当然，因为爱不可能指向丑陋。在那之前，如我开始说的，神在必要的统治之下做了许多坏事。但一旦爱神降生，所有的好事都由于爱美而发生在神和人身上。

“所以，费德鲁斯，在我看来，爱神自身是极美、极优秀的，并且创立了各种美好善良的东西。我心情很激动，想用韵文来表述，我认为爱促成了

人类的和平，大海的风平浪静，

狂风的平息，痛苦的寂然长眠。

爱排除了我们的隔阂，用亲密填满我们，使我们聚在一起像现在这样分享感受，节日、合唱和祭祀时他来担当我们的领导者。他温和，排除了野蛮。他对友好慷慨大方，对敌意心胸狭窄。他亲切、和善；受到智者的关注、神的钦佩；拒绝他的人渴望他，欣赏他的人珍惜他；他是豪华、典雅、精美、优雅、欲望、渴望的父亲；他关心好人，无视坏人；在困难、恐惧、渴望和演说中，他是最好的舵手、水兵、伙伴和拯救者。对所有的神和人类来说，他是最优美、最好的领导者；每个人都应该跟着他唱优美的赞美诗，分享他唱的歌，吸引每一位神灵和人类的心灵。

“费德鲁斯，这就是我的发言，”他说，“是我对爱神的献辞；在我能掌控的范围内，结合了诙谐和一定程度的严肃性。”

阿里斯托得摩斯说，阿伽松发完言后，在场的每个人都发出了钦佩的呐喊声，因为这个年轻人的发言某种程度上很好地映射在了他自己及爱神身上。苏格拉底看着阿里斯托得摩斯说：“阿库门努的儿子，你还认为我之前的忧虑是庸人自扰吗？我刚才说阿伽松会做精彩发言，我将难以为继，不是很有预见性吗？”

“有一点，”厄律克西马库说，“你很有预见性，就是你说阿伽松将做精彩发言；但我认为你不会无言以对的。”

“我的好朋友，”苏格拉底说，“跟在如此优美华丽的发言后面，我或其他任何人怎么不会无言以对呢？其余部分还不让人吃惊；但到最后时，谁会不被他优美的语言和措辞打动呢？我知道，我的发言远远达不到这种精妙，我非常惭愧，差点儿从这儿逃跑（我若是有其他地方可去，就逃跑了）。他的发言让我想起了高尔吉斯，所以我的体验和荷马描述的一模一样。我还担心阿伽松在发言结束时，会拿雄辩的演说家高尔吉斯的头脑指向我的发言，使我哑口无言。然后我意识到，我若同意加入你们一起颂扬爱神、宣称拥有爱情方面的专长，我就是在愚弄自己；实际上我对颂扬某物都包含什么内容一无所知。我非常天真，竟以为你们会讲讲颂扬这个主题的真相；我认为这应该是基础，然后从中选择最出色的特点，以能呈现主题的最佳方式对其进行阐述。我自豪的是我认为能做精彩发言，因为我知道如何就一个主题进行颂扬的真相。

“但事实上，似乎这不是赞美事物的正确方式。相反，你应该宣称你的主题有最伟大、最出色的品质，不管它是否真的有；如果你说的不是真的，也没什么关系。现在提议做的似乎是我们每个人应该装出赞美爱神的样子，并不是说我们真的应该这样做。你们其余人找到任何可说的事物，把它归因于爱，说他像这样，对那件事负责，使他看起来尽可能地出色、优秀，必定就是这个原因。你们显然是对无知者这样做（当然不是对理解这个主题的人这样做）；你们的颂扬当然很优美，令人印象很深刻。

“但是我并不知道进行颂扬的正确方式，我是由于无知才同意在轮到我时进行发言的。但那是‘舌头’承诺的，而不是‘心’；所以忘了我的承诺吧。我不会进行那种颂扬的——我不能那样做。然而，若你们愿意的话，我准备告诉你们真相，不过是以我自己的方式，不与你们的发言进行竞争，这可能会让我自己看起来有点儿荒谬。所以，费德鲁斯，告诉我是否有进行那种发言的必要，那样的发言会讲出爱的真相，但使用的是发言时正好出现在我头脑中的词和句子。”

费德鲁斯及其他人让他以自己认为最好的方式进行发言。

“费德鲁斯，”苏格拉底说，“你能也允许我问阿伽松几个小问题，这样我可以根据与他达成的共识进行发言吗？”

“我同意，”费德鲁斯说，“随便问吧。”

然后，阿里斯托得摩斯说，苏格拉底开始了他的发言。

“亲爱的阿伽松，我认为你的发言有个很好的开头，你说我们应该先说出爱的品性，然后说他产生的效果。我认为以那样的方式开头值得赞扬。那么，既然你在其他方面出色地阐述了爱的性质，也请告诉我这一点。爱的性质是对某物的爱，还是没有对象的爱？我并不是问爱是否是某个特定父母的孩子；如果在这个意义上我问爱是对母亲的爱还是对父亲的爱，会很荒谬。但是假设我问的问题是，一位父亲是否是某人的父亲。如果你想给出正确答案，你当然会说父亲是儿子或女儿的父亲，是吗？”

“当然。”阿伽松说。

“母亲也是一样的吗？”

他也同意这一点。

“那么”，苏格拉底说，“再回答一些，你就会更好地理解我头脑中所想的。假设我问：兄弟，在他是兄弟的情况下，是否是某人的兄弟？”

他说是的。

“也就是说，是兄弟或姐妹的兄弟？”

他同意。

“现在告诉我关于爱的情形，”他说，“爱是对某物的爱，还是没有对象的爱？”

“毫无疑问是对某物的爱！”

“现在，”苏格拉底说，“记住爱是什么。但是告诉我：爱是否渴望他所爱的对象？”

“渴望。”他说。

“当他渴望并爱时，他是否拥有他渴望和爱的对象？”

“没有——至少可能没有。”他说。

“考虑一下，”苏格拉底说，“渴望针对的是你需要的东西，当然不只是可能的，而是必须是这样的，如果你不需要某物，你不会渴望它。我觉得它肯定是必须的；你觉得呢？”

“我也这样认为。”阿伽松说。

“好的。现在，高个子的人想要高个子，或强壮的人想要强壮吗？”

“根据我们已经同意的说法，那是不可能的。”

“是的，因为没人需要他已经拥有的品质。”

“是的。”

“假设某个强壮的人想要强壮，”苏格拉底说，“行动迅速的人想要迅速，健康的人想要健康。你可能会想，在这样及所有像这样类似的情况下，那些拥有这些品质的人也渴望他们已经拥有的东西。我这样说是想阻止我们产生错误的想法。如果你考虑一下，阿伽松，这些人必定任何时候都拥有这些品质，不管他们是否想要，因此这不可能是他们渴望的。所以如果某个人说，‘我很健康，我想要健康’，或‘我很富有，我想要富有’，或‘我渴望我已经拥有的东西’，我们应该跟他说：‘朋友，你已经拥有财富或健康或力量了，你想要的是在未来拥有它们，因为目前不管你是否想要它们，你已经拥有它们了。当你说你渴望已经拥有的东西时，问问自己你的意思是否是你想要现在拥有的东西在将来仍然拥有。’他必须同意这一点，是不是？”

阿伽松说是的。

苏格拉底说：“这些情况下某人做的事是爱他缺少的、不拥有的东西，也就是将来继续拥有他现在拥有的东西。”

“当然。”他说。

“所以渴望的这个及所有其他情况是对缺少的、实际上不拥有的东西的渴望。渴望和爱针对的是你不拥有的、缺少的、需要的东西。”

“当然。”他说。

“那么好吧，”苏格拉底说，“咱们总结一下刚才达成一致的事。首先，爱是对某物的爱；其次，某物是他当前需要的东西。”

“是的。”他说。

“现在，记住这一点，回想一下你刚才在发言中说的爱是什么。如果你愿意的话，我来提醒你。我认为你是这样说的，神的事是通过对美好事物的爱组织的，因为不可能爱丑陋的事物。这是不是你说的？”

“是的，我是这样说的。”阿伽松说。

“朋友，你说的话似乎有理，”苏格拉底说，“如果你说得对，那么爱岂不是必须爱美、而不爱丑陋吗？”

他同意。

“我们不是同意他爱他需要和不拥有的事物吗？”

“是的。”他说。

“由此断定爱需要美且不拥有美吧？”

“肯定是这样。”他说。

“好吧，你会说需要美且完全没有美的事物是美的吗？”

“不会。”

“如果是这样，你仍然假定爱是美的吗？”

阿伽松说：“苏格拉底，我似乎不知道刚才自己在说些什么。”

“哎呀，你刚才做的仍是很精彩的发言，阿伽松，”他说，“不过请再回答一个小问题：你认为好的事物也是美的吗？”

“我这样认为。”

“那么如果爱需要美的东西，好的东西是美的，则他需要好的东西吧？”

“我无法反驳你，苏格拉底，”他说，“咱们接受事物就像你说的那样吧。”

“你无法反驳的是真理，亲爱的朋友阿伽松，”苏格拉底说，“反驳苏格拉底一点儿也不难。”

“现在我让你喘口气。我尝试向你复述我曾听到的关于爱的故事，那是曼提尼亚一个叫狄奥提玛的女人告诉我的。她对这及许多其他事物都很了解。有一次，她告诉雅典人供奉哪些祭祀，从而把瘟疫推迟了十年。她也是教导我爱的方式的人。我将汇报她所说的话，把它作为我和阿伽松得出的结论的基础，不过是尽我一己之力罢了。

“阿伽松，如你所说的，人们应该首先说明爱是谁及他有什么样的品性，然后再说明他的效力。我认为最简单的是汇报我曾经和狄奥提玛进行的一次讨论的内容，在讨论时她对我提出了一些问题。我对她说的几乎和阿伽松刚才跟我说的完全一样：爱神是位伟大的神，他自身也是美的。她反驳我的论据跟我用于反驳阿伽松的也一样，根据我的推理，证明爱既不美也不好。

“我说，‘你是什么意思，狄奥提玛？那么爱是丑陋的、坏的了？’

“她说，‘这话多么亵渎神明啊！你认为任何不美的事物必然是丑陋的吗？’

“‘我当然这样认为。’

“‘不智慧的事物必是无知的吗？你难道没有意识到某种介于智慧和无知之间的事物吗？’

“‘那是什么？’

“‘就是有正确的见解，但不能说明有这些见解的理由。难道你没意识到这不是认知吗？因为只有能给出理由才具有知识；但它也不是无知，因为无知不会知道真理。当然，正确的观点具有这种情形，介于理解和无知之间。’

“‘你说得对。’我说。

“‘那么不要以为不美的事物必是丑的，不好的事物必是坏的。同样，你自己也同意爱既不好也不美时，不要认为他因而必是丑陋且坏的，而应该是介于这两者之间。’

“‘但是，’我说，‘每个人都赞成爱是位伟大的神。’

“‘你的意思是不知道的每个人，’她说，‘还是包括那些知道的？’

“‘当然是每个人。’

“她笑着说，‘但是苏格拉底，如果人们否认爱是神的话，怎么赞同他是位伟大的神呢？’

“‘这些人是谁？’我说。

“‘你是一个，’她说，‘我是另一个。’

“听到此后，我询问，‘你怎能这样说呢？’

“‘很简单，’她说，‘告诉我，你认为所有的神都是幸福、美丽的吗？或者你敢提议任何神不美、不幸福吗？’

“‘以宙斯的名义，我不会。’我说。

“‘你认为那些拥有好和美的事物的人是幸福的吗？’

“‘当然。’

“‘但是你刚才赞同爱是因为需要好和美的事物，他才渴求那些他需要的东西。’

“‘是的，我同意那一点。’

“‘因此如果他需要美和好的事物他怎能是神呢？’

“‘似乎不可能。’

“‘那么，你是否看出你认为爱不是神？’

“‘但爱会是什么呢？’我说，‘凡人？’

“‘远非如此。’

“‘那是什么呢？’

“‘就像之前讨论的那些例子一样，’她说，‘他介于凡人和神仙之间。’

“‘狄奥提玛，那使他成为什么？’

“‘他是伟大的精灵，苏格拉底。归为精灵的一切事物都介于神和人之间。’

“‘他们有什么职能啊？’我问道。

“‘他们解释并传递人至神及神至人的消息。他们传达人类的祈祷和祭祀，并传达神的命令和礼品，作为对祭祀的回报。他们作为这两者的媒介，填补了他们之间的空缺，使宇宙形成了一个相互连接的整体。他们是所有占卜活动的媒介，在祭祀、仪式、符咒、预言和巫术方面具有祭司的专长。神不与人直接接触；他们完全通过精灵这个媒介与人交流和沟通（不管是清醒还是熟睡状态）。具有这些方面智慧的人是受精灵感召的人，而具有其他领域专长和技艺的人只是技工。有许多不同种类的精灵，其中一个便是爱。’

“‘谁是他的父母？’我问道。

“‘这说来话长，’她答道，‘不过无论如何我会告诉你的。阿佛洛狄特出生后，其他神来吃宴席，其中包括创造神的儿子资源神。当他们吃完晚宴后，贫乏神来乞讨，像其他人在宴席上做的那样，她也站在门口。资源神喝多了仙酒（这是在葡萄酒发现前神喝的酒），走到宙斯的花园，醉着睡着了。贫乏神想了一个计划，就是通过怀有资源神的孩子来减轻自己的资源匮乏；她与他睡在了一起，怀上了爱神。所以爱神之所以成为阿佛洛狄特的追随者和随从，是因为他是在她出生那天怀上的；他也天生热爱美，因为阿佛洛狄特很美。

“‘由于他是资源神和贫乏神的儿子，爱神的处境就像这样。首先，他总是贫乏；一点儿也不娇嫩和漂亮，如人们通常认为的那样，他很强硬，有坚硬的皮肤，没有鞋子，没有家。他总是露宿在地上，没有床，躺在露天的门廊下和路边；他和他母亲的本性一样，总是生活在贫乏的状态中。另一方面，他与他父亲相像，谋划得到美和好的东西。他很勇敢、冲动、热情；是位令人敬畏的猎人，总是耍花招；他渴望知识，并有足够的智谋得到它；毕生热爱智慧；擅长使用音乐、药物和诡辩。

“‘究其本性而言，他既不是神仙也不是凡人。他成功的时候，好几次在光棍节突然闯入生活，然后死去，然后（像他父亲一样）复活。他获得的资源不断地枯竭，所以爱神既不是完全没有资源，但也不富有。他也处于智慧和无知之间。情况是这样的。没有一位神热爱智慧，或有变得智慧的欲望——因为他们已经很智慧了；任何已经智慧的人也不会热爱智慧。无知者也不热爱智慧，或有变得智慧的欲望。无知者的问题恰恰在于，虽然不好、不聪明，但他认为自己很令人满意。如果某人认为自己不需要某物，就不可能渴望自己认为不需要的东西。’

“‘狄奥提玛，如果智慧者和无知者都不热爱智慧，’我问，‘那么谁热爱智慧？’

“‘即使一个孩子，’她说，‘到现在也会意识到是那些介于这两者之间的，爱神是其中之一。智慧是最美的事物之一，而爱神爱美。所以爱神必定热爱智慧；作为智慧的热爱者，他介于智慧和无知之间。究其原因还是因为他的出身：他父亲智慧、资源丰富，而他母亲两者皆无。所以这就是爱这个精灵的本性，亲爱的苏格拉底。但你对爱持有原来的观点一点儿也不奇怪。从你所说的判断，我觉得你把爱看作爱的对象，而不是施爱者：那是你把爱想象得非常美的原因。但实际上，美丽、优雅、完美和幸福是值得被爱的对象的特征，而施爱者的本性与之迥异，我已经说过了。’

“‘好吧，狄奥提玛，’我说，‘我确信你的观点是对的。但爱若是这样，他对人类有什么用处呢？’

“‘那是接下来要讲的，苏格拉底，’她说，‘我会尽力告诉你。目前为止我们讲了爱的本性和出生；而且，根据你的想法，爱是对美的事物的爱。不过，假设某个人问我们，“为什么爱是对美的事物的爱？”或者，更清晰地说，“对美的事物的热爱者有一个渴望——他渴望的是什么？”’

“‘渴望它们成为自己的。’我说。

“‘但是这个回答引出了另一个问题，’她说，‘当美的事物成为他自己的后他将得到什么？’

“‘我没有想好那个问题的答案。’

“‘但是，’她说，‘假设某人改变了问题，用“好”这个字代替“美”，并问：“那么，苏格拉底，好的事物的热爱者有一个渴望——他渴望的是什么？”’

“‘渴望它们成为自己的。’我说。

“‘当好的事物成为他自己的后他将得到什么？’

“‘这我就容易回答了，’我说，‘他会幸福。’

“‘所以拥有好的事物使幸福的人感觉幸福；你不必问进一步的问题，“为什么某人想要幸福？”这个回答似乎标志着询问的终结。’

“‘是的。’我说。

“‘你认为这个愿望和这种形式的爱对所有人来说都是共同的，每个人都想要好的事物永远成为自己的吗，或者你有什么想法？’

“‘就像你说的那样，’我说，‘它是每个人共同的愿望。’

“‘那样的话，苏格拉底，’她说，‘如果每个人总是爱相同的事物，我们为什么不说每个人都是爱人呢；我们为什么称某些人为爱人，而某些不是呢？’

“‘这也是我感到疑惑的事。’我说。

“‘没什么可疑惑的，’她说，‘我们现在正在做的是挑选出一种爱，把属于整个种类的名字（“爱”）应用到它身上，而我们对其他种的爱使用的是不同的名字。’

“‘你能再给我举个例子吗？’我问道。

“‘好的，这就是一个。你知道创作形成了一个大体的种类。当任何以前不存在的事物形成时，其中的原因总是创作。所以所有技艺的产品都是创作品，制作它们的艺人都是创作者？’

“‘是的。’我说。

“‘但你知道他们没被称为创作者，而是有不同的名字。在创作的整个种类中，我们选出与音乐和韵文有关的一部分，用整个种类的名字称呼它。只有这才被称为创作，那些拥有这种技能的人才被称为创作者。’

“‘是的。’我说。

“‘爱也是这样。本质上，在所有情况下，对好的事物或幸福的各种类型的渴望就是构成“强大、热烈的爱”的事物。但这可以通过多种途径实现，那些通过其他途径这样做的人，如通过挣钱或竞技或哲学等，不被称为“钟情的人”或“爱人”。只有那些将热情指向术语规定属于整个种类的特定类型的人，才被称为爱、钟情的人和爱人。’

“‘我想是这样。’我说。

“‘已经提出了这样的观念，’她说，‘即爱人是那些寻找自己另一半的人。但，朋友，我的观点是，除非结果是好的，否则爱指向的既不是他们的另一半，也不是他们的整体。毕竟，如果人们认为自身的脚或手患病，他们甚至准备好将那些部分切断。我认为并不是我们每个人都眷恋自己的特性，除非你把好的说成是“他自己的”、“属于他的”，坏的说成是“不属于他的”。要点就是人们爱的唯一对象是好的事物——你难道不同意吗？’

“‘以宙斯之名，我同意！’我说。

“‘那么，’她说，‘我们能简单地说人们热爱好的事物吗？’

“‘能。’我说。

“‘但是，’她说，‘我们不应该补充说他们爱的对象即是他们应该拥有好的事物吗？’

“‘是的，我们应该补充那一点。’

“‘不只那一点，’她说，‘还有他们应该永远拥有好的事物。’

“‘我们也必须补充那一点。’

“‘那么总而言之，’她说，‘爱即是对永远拥有好的事物的渴望。’

“‘你说的绝对正确。’我说。

“‘考虑到爱总是有这个整体目标，’她说，‘我们也应该问问这个问题。如果人们在追求这个目标中显示出的热情和强烈程度被称为爱，那么他们必须用什么方式及什么类型的行动追求它呢？爱真正有什么职能：你能告诉我吗？’

“‘如果我能，狄奥提玛，’我说，‘我就不会对你的智慧感到吃惊了，不会不断以学生的身份来找你，向你学习这些东西了。’

“‘那么我会告诉你，’她说，‘爱的职能是既在身体也在灵魂中产生美。’

“‘需要先知才能阐明你说的话，’我说，‘我理解不了。’

“‘好吧，’她说，‘我会更清楚地解释这一点的。所有的人在身体和灵魂方面都会生育，当我们到了一定年龄，自然会渴望生育。我们不能生育丑的东西，只能生育美的东西。是的，男人和女人之间的性交是一种生育。这个过程中有种神圣的东西；这就是平凡的生物在怀孕和生产中获得永生的方式。在不和谐状况下这是不能发生的。丑陋与神圣不和谐，而美与它适合。所以美作为命运或爱勒提亚，是掌管生育的女神。怀孕的生物接近美的事物时，就变得温和、快乐、放松，并生育幼儿，就是这个原因。但当它接近丑的事物时，就皱眉、在痛苦中缩紧身体；它躲避、变得干瘪，不繁殖；它把婴儿隐藏在身体内部，感觉不适。这就是那些怀孕和肚子已经隆起的人对美如此兴奋的原因：美的承载者身份使他们能解除生育的痛苦。你瞧，苏格拉底，’她说，‘爱的对象不如你所想的那样是美。’

“‘那是什么呢？’

“‘是美之中的繁殖和诞生。’

“‘很可能是这样。’我说。

“‘当然是这样，’她说，‘为什么繁殖是爱的对象？因为繁殖是凡人能永远活着并不朽的最近途径。如果我们之前赞同的事正确的话，即爱的对象是一直拥有好的事物，则结果就是我们除了渴望好的事物，还渴望不朽。它是从爱的对象也必须不朽这个论点推断出的。’

“狄奥提玛在与我的交谈中告诉了我关于爱的方式的所有这些内容。一天她问道，‘苏格拉底，你认为这种爱和渴望的原因是什么？你难道没注意到各种动物（有翼的鸟以及有脚的动物）在感受到繁殖的欲望时陷入了多么可怕的状态。它们受到爱的刺激，首先想要与彼此交配，然后哺育幼儿。即使最弱的动物也愿意为了自己的幼崽与最强的动物搏斗，不惜牺牲性命；它们准备好遭受饥饿的折磨，以便为幼崽提供食物，并为它们做其他任何事。你可能会想，人类这样做是因为他们理解其中的原因；但是，就动物而言，是什么引起了这种对爱的兴奋——你能告诉我吗？’

“我再一次说不知道。

“她说，‘如果你不理解这一点，你认为你会成为爱的方式方面的专家吗？’

“我说，‘但是，狄奥提玛，正如我之前说的，那正是我来向你学习的原因，因为我意识到我需要老师。所以请告诉我这及其他与爱的方式有关的一切的原因吧。’

“‘好吧，’她说，‘如果你相信爱的自然对象是我们经常赞同的东西，你就不应该对此感到意外。关于人类的论点也适用于动物；为了永生并不朽，平凡的生物会尽最大的努力。它只有通过繁殖才能实现这一点：它总是留下下一代，新的一代取代老的一代。这一点甚至也适用于每个生物存活且一直未变的时期——例如，人们说某个人从幼年到老年都是同一个人。虽然他被称为同一个人，但他身体的成分从来不是一样的，而是一些方面在不断地更新，其他方面，如毛发、皮肤、骨骼、血液和全身等，在不断地衰退。这不仅适用于身体，也适用于心灵：属性、人格特征、信念、欲望、欢愉、痛苦、恐惧——这些没有一个在我们之中是保持不变的，而是一些在浮现，一些在消失。更显著的是我们的知识也在改变这个事实，一些知识在形成，而其他的在消失，所以在知识方面我们不是同一个人；的确，每一条目的知识都经历了同样的过程。之所以学习，就是因为知识在不断地消失。遗忘是知识的消失，而学习将新的信息放回到我们的记忆中，取代消失的部分，所以知识一直存在，看起来似乎是一样的。

“‘这就是凡俗的事物保持存在的方式，不是像神圣的事物似的通过保持完全一样实现，而是因为变老、消逝的事物留下了同类的另外的新事物。苏格拉底，这就是凡俗的事物能在生理上及所有其他方面不朽的方式；但不朽的事物是通过与之不同的方式实现这些的。所以如果各种事物天生地珍视自己的后代，你也不应感到吃惊。各种事物展示出热情是为了实现不朽，而这正是爱的本质。’

“但实际上，我听到她的话后非常吃惊，就问她，‘嗯，狄奥提玛，你很有智慧，但事物真的如你所说的那样吗？’

“她像位十足的智者一样，说，‘你可以确信这一点。如果你看看人们热爱荣誉的方式，就会明白起作用的也是这同一个原则。在考虑人们因热爱出名及“永远保存不朽的名声”而受的巨大影响后，如果没能明白我所说的这点，你就应该对自己的愚笨感到惊讶。他们爱这胜过爱子孙，更愿意为这冒各种风险，倾家荡产，遭受任何折磨，并愿为荣誉而死。”她说，‘阿尔刻提斯愿为阿德墨托斯而死，或者阿喀琉斯愿意与帕特洛克罗斯一起死去，或者你们雅典的英雄科德洛斯愿意牺牲自己来保卫儿子们的王国，如果他们没有想到对自己勇气（我们至今仍然对其表示尊敬）的记忆将会永存的话，你认为他们会这样做吗？他们当然不会，’她说，‘我认为是这种永恒的美德和光荣的名声促使每个人这样做，而且他们越优秀越会这样；他们热爱的是不朽的名声。

“‘身体具有生育能力的男人，’她说，‘会更多地受到女人的吸引；他们通过生育后代来表达自己的爱，尽力获得不朽、怀念及永远的幸福。心灵具有生育能力的男人，’她说，‘有些人心灵的生育能力比身体的更旺盛，他们生育适合头脑记住并诞生的东西。所以什么适合呢？智慧及其他种的美德：这些是由所有的诗人及具有创新精神的手艺人诞生的。许多最重要、最出色的智慧，’她说，‘是与城市和家庭的组织相关联的，这被称为节制和公正。再拿年轻时心灵中就孕育这些美德的人为例。当他还没有伴侣且成年后，他就感受到生产和繁殖的欲望。我认为，他也四处走动，寻找美，以在其中繁殖；他永远不会在丑陋中繁殖。由于他怀孕了，他会受到美的身体而不是丑的身体的吸引；如果他也足够幸运，找到了美、高尚且有天赋的心灵，他会受到这种结合的强烈吸引。对于这样的人，他会立即发现自己有谈论美德、好的男人应该是什么样子及应该怎么做的素材，并尽力教导他。

“‘我认为，当某个人与这种美接触并形成关系后，他才生产、繁殖长久以来孕育的孩子。不管他们是否陪伴彼此，都会想着对方的美，并且与对方一起抚养繁殖的孩子。这样的人与彼此的伙伴关系更亲近，友谊更牢不可破，胜过父母的情分，因为他们这种伙伴关系诞生的孩子更美、更永久。每个人都更愿意拥有这样的孩子，而不是凡俗的孩子。人们羡慕荷马、赫西奥德及其他优秀的诗人，就是因为他们留下了这种孩子，这些孩子自身的不朽，也为他们带来了不朽的名声和怀念。或者，’她说，‘拿莱克格斯留下的孩子为例，它们为斯巴达（你可能会说整个希腊）带来了安全。梭伦也由于创立的法律而为你们雅典人所敬仰；还有其他人，他们在希腊和其他国家的其他地方，展示出了许多卓越的成就，形成了各种美德。已经有许多教派成立，来仰慕生出那种孩子的这些人，但这种情况从未发生在生出凡俗孩子的人身上。

“‘甚至你，苏格拉底，可能也接受过我目前为止描述的爱的仪式。但这些仪式如果进行得得体的话，其目的应是抵达未解之谜的最终愿景；我不确定你是否能领会这一点。但我会告诉你这些的，’她说，‘我会尽全力讲的；你尽可能地领会吧。

“‘某个人处理这件事的正确方式，’她说，‘应该是在年轻的时候开始接近美的身体。最初，如果他的向导正确指引他的话，他应该只爱一个身体，并在那种关系中产生美的交谈。接下来，他应该意识到任何一个身体的美都与另一个的密切相关，如果他要追求形式美，而不把所有身体的美看作是完全相同的，则非常愚蠢。一旦他明白这一点，就会热爱所有美的身体，并仅对一个身体释放自己的激情，轻视这种激情并把它视为微不足道的。之后，他应该把心灵的美看得比身体的美更有价值，这样，如果某人有美好的心灵，即使形貌不美，他也会对他感到满足，会爱他、关心他，与他进行那些能帮助年轻人变得更好的交谈。结果，他会被迫观察实践和法则中的美，明白每种美都与其他美密切相关，这样他就会把身体的美看作是微不足道的事物。实践之后，向导必须为他们指引知识的形式，这样他也会明白它们的美。现在他从总体上看待美，而不是仅看个别的例子，就不会像奴隶般的爱慕身体之美、任何特定的人的美，或具体的实践的美。取代这种卑贱、心胸狭窄的奴役的是，他将转向美的汪洋大海，凝视着它，通过对知识无尽的爱，产生许多华美、宏伟的对话和思想。最后，当他以这种方式变得成熟、强大后，他会突然看到一种特殊的知识，这种知识的对象是我接下来要讲的那种美。

“‘现在，’她说，‘尽你最大的努力集中精神。任何人在受到关于爱的方式这么多教导、以正确的次序和方式看待美的事物后，现在将会抵达爱的方式的终极目标。他会在美的性质中突然看到一些极其美的事物；而这，苏格拉底，正是以前所有努力的最终目标。首先，这种美一直存在，不生不灭；不增不减。其次，它不是一方面美而另一方面丑，或某个时间美而另个时间不美，或与这有关美而与那有关就丑；也不会因为它对一些人来说美而对其他人来说丑就这里美而那里丑。美也不会以脸或手或身体的任何部分的形式出现在他面前；或者以具体的某条知识的形式出现；或者在别的东西中出现在其他地方，例如在生物、大地、天堂或其他东西中。它会以自身的形式单独出现，形式上总是单一的；所有其他美的事物也有这些特性，但方式不同，当其他事物出现或消失时，它不以任何形式增加或减少，也不会做出任何改变。

“‘当某个人通过这些阶段成长，以正确的方式热爱少男，并开始看到那种美的时候，他就接近目标了。这是接近爱的方式或由其他人指引的正确方法：总是从这些美的事物开始，本着抵达那种美的目的成长。像使用楼梯的人一样，他应该从一个身体到两个身体，从两个身体到所有美的身体，从美的身体到美的实践，从实践到美的学习形式。从各种学习形式中，他应该在那种除了美本身别无他物的学习形式处告终，这样他就能完成学习美的真正本质的过程。

“‘在那种生命形式中，亲爱的苏格拉底，’这位曼提尼亚的局外人说，‘如果人的生活值得过的话，就在于凝视美本身。如果你曾注意到，它似乎与金钱、衣服、美少男和青年处于完全不同的层次上。现在你看到这些的时候会如痴如醉，和其他许多人一样，愿意看着自己的情郎并与其永远在一起，如果可能的话，愿意不吃不喝，除了凝视着他们、与他们在一起之外其他什么也不做。因此，’她说，‘如果某个人能看到美本身，看到绝对、纯粹的美，而不是与人的血肉之躯、颜色和大量凡俗的废物杂乱在一起，如果他能看到以独立形式存在的神圣的美本身，我们应该想象它是什么样子呢？你是否会认为，’她说，‘如果某个人以自身正确的部位朝那个方向看，并凝视那个对象、与它做伴，他的生命会是无意义的？你难道没有意识到，’她说，‘只有在那种生命中，当某个人以能看到的部位查看美时，他才能不仅孕育出美德的影像（因为这不是他接触的影像），而且孕育出真正的美德（因为他接触的是真正的美）。那些孕育出真正的美德并对其进行培育的人才有机会受到神的热爱，并变得不朽——如果有人能不朽的话。’

“好吧，费德鲁斯及在座各位，这就是狄奥提玛所说的，我很信服她的话。因为我对其信服，所以我尽力说服他人，若要达到这样，你不可能轻易地为人性找到一位比爱神更好的伙伴。我宣称每个人都应该尊敬爱神，就是以此为基础的，我自己也尊敬爱的方式，并极其小心地实践着它们。这就是我劝说他人这样做的原因，在当前及其他每个场合，我尽自己所能赞美爱神的力量和勇气。这就是我的发言，费德鲁斯。如果你愿意，你可以把它看作是对爱神的颂词，或者你可以给它任何你想给它的名字。”

阿里斯托得摩斯说，苏格拉底的发言完毕后，其他人都在祝贺他，而阿里斯托芬尝试着表达自己的观点，因为苏格拉底在某个阶段提到了他的发言。突然，传来一阵敲击前门的响亮的噪音，听起来像是一些纵酒狂欢者，他们也听到了吹笛女的声音。

“仆人们，去看看是谁，”阿伽松说，“若是我的朋友，就请他们进来；若不是，就告诉他们宴会结束了，我们正要上床睡觉。”

不一会儿，他们听到了庭院中亚西比德的声音；他醉得一塌糊涂，大声嚷嚷着，问阿伽松在哪里，让仆人带自己去见他。他被带了进来，由吹笛女和其他人搀扶着。他站在门口，戴着常春藤和紫罗兰编织而成的厚重花环，头上缠着许多丝带，说：

“晚上好，先生们。你们愿意让喝醉的人（非常醉的人）加入你们的宴会吗？还是我们应该为阿伽松戴上花环（这正是我们来的原因），然后就走呢？我昨天没能来参加你们的庆典，”他说，“但现在我头上戴着丝带来了，这样我可以直接把丝带从我头上取下来，戴到（我想宣布）最智慧、最美的人头上。我想你们会因为我喝醉了嘲笑我的。但即使你们嘲笑我，我也非常清楚我讲的是实话。不过请立马告诉我，我是否可以进来。我能和你们一起喝酒吗？”

大家大声叫着，告诉他进来，坐在长椅上，阿伽松也邀请他进来。所以他由朋友搀着进来了。他解开丝带，打算系到阿伽松头上，丝带滑落到了他的眼睛上。所以他没有注意到苏格拉底，而是坐在阿伽松旁边，在他和苏格拉底之间，苏格拉底看到他后就挪开了。他坐下后，拥抱了阿伽松，并把花环系到他头上。

阿伽松说：“仆人，把他的鞋脱掉，这样他可以坐下来，我们三人坐得舒服一些。”

“好的，”亚西比德说，“但和我们一起喝酒的第三位是谁？”他说话的时候，转了一下身，看到了苏格拉底。他看到他后，跳了起来说，“哦，赫拉克勒斯大神啊，这是怎么回事？这是苏格拉底吗？你又坐在这儿等着我，这样你可以玩老把戏，在我最不希望看到你的地方突然冒出来。你为什么来这里？你为什么选择坐在这里？我看出来了，你没有选择坐在阿里斯托芬或其他愿意愚弄自己的人旁边，而是务必坐在屋子中最有魅力的人旁边。”

苏格拉底说：“阿伽松，请保护着我。我对这个人的爱变得多么令人讨厌啊！自从我开始爱他，我就不能看或和有魅力的单身人士说话，否则他就变得非常妒忌、愤怒，变得发疯一样，对我大喊大叫，几乎要痛打我一顿。所以现在一定要保证他不对我做任何事，让我们和平相处；或者如果他开始变得暴力，请保护我。他对自己爱人的癫狂依恋让我很害怕。”

“我和你之间不可能有和平，”亚西比德说。“我下次再跟你算这次的账。但是现在，阿伽松，”他说，“还给我一些丝带，我把它们系到他这个神奇的头上。否则，他会批评我把丝带系到你头上而不是他头上，尽管他总是赶走口头抗辩的来者（两天前你还这样做过）。”

他说着的时候，取下了一些丝带，系到了苏格拉底头上，又坐了下来。他坐下后，说：“先生们，我看你们都很清醒。这可不行；你们得喝酒。这是我们事先同意过的。我们选个司仪，负责大家的饮酒，直到大家都喝醉，我推选——我自己！阿伽松，你若有大高脚杯，拿一个过来。哦，不必了；小子，把那个凉酒器给我，”他看到了那个能盛四品脱多酒的器具。他把它倒满，自己喝了下去，然后让仆人为苏格拉底满上。他边这样做边说：“先生们，并不是我的花招会对苏格拉底产生任何影响。不管你让他喝多少，他也不会醉。”

仆人为苏格拉底斟满，在他喝的时候，厄律克西马库说：“亚西比德，这是什么行为？我们在轮流喝酒的时候不打算聊聊天或唱唱歌，而是好像口渴似的只喝酒吗？”

亚西比德说：“你好啊，厄律克西马库，最杰出——且最温和——的父亲生出的最杰出的儿子。”

“你也好啊，”厄律克西马库说：“但我们应该怎么做呢？”

“你让我们怎么做我们就怎么做。我们应该听从你，因为‘一个医生抵得过许多人’；所以告诉我们你想做的事吧。”

“那么请听我说，”厄律克西马库说，“你来之前，我们决定尽自己所能从左到右轮流做最好的发言，赞美爱神。我们其余人都已经发过言了。虽然你酒喝得很好，但你还没发言，所以你应该发个言。你说过之后，就可以命令苏格拉底做任何你想要他做的事，他也可以对他右边的人这样做，以此类推。”

“好主意，厄律克西马库，”亚西比德说，“但我觉得让一个喝醉的人和清醒的人做的发言相竞争不公平。而且，亲爱的朋友，我希望你不要相信苏格拉底刚才说的任何话。你难道没意识到真理和他说的正好相反吗？如果他在附近的时候我赞美其他人，不管是神还是人，他都会痛打我一顿。”

“多么亵渎神明啊！”苏格拉底说。

“以海神波塞冬的名义起誓！”亚西比德说，“不要在这一点上反驳我。你在附近的时候我决不会赞美其他人的。”

“那好吧，如果你愿意的话，就那样做吧，”厄律克西马库说，“做一个对苏格拉底的颂辞。”

“你是什么意思？”亚西比德说，“你认为我应该那样做吗，厄律克西马库？我应该在你们大家面前攻击他、惩罚他吗？”

“等一下，”苏格拉底说，“你计划的是什么——做一个嘲笑我的颂词，还是其他什么？”

“我会讲实话——你让我那样做吗？”

“不过我当然会让你讲实话；实际上，我命令你那样做。”

“那我就开始了，”亚西比德说，“不过我先说明一下。如果我说了任何不真实的事，要是你愿意的话就打断我，指出我说的是假的。我不想说任何假的事情。不过如果我记事情的顺序不对，不要感到惊讶。对于处于像我这样情形中的人来说，要流畅、有序地列举出你的特性的各个方面，可真不容易。

“先生们，我试着通过比喻来赞美苏格拉底。可能他会认为这是在嘲笑他；但比喻是用来说明真相的，而不是用来嘲笑的。我要说的是，他就像你们看到的坐在雕刻家作坊中的西勒诺斯的那些雕像。那些人物拿着牧羊人的管乐器或长笛；打开它们后，你们会发现里面有神的雕像。我还认为他像森林之神玛尔叙阿斯。苏格拉底，你自己也不能否认你外表上像他们；不过接下来你将听到你在其他方面与他们如何相像。

“你很无礼、口出恶言，不是吗？如果你不承认这一点，我来提供证据。你不是会吹长笛吗？实际上，你比玛尔叙阿斯吹得好多了。他凭借嘴的力量使用乐器蛊惑人们，今天吹奏他的长笛乐曲的人也都是如此。（我把奥林匹斯的曲调真正看作是玛尔叙阿斯的，因为玛尔叙阿斯是奥林匹斯的老师。）不管这些曲调是由专业演奏者还是可怜的吹笛女演奏，由于其神圣的起源，它们是唯一能用符咒迷惑人们的曲调，显示出哪些人准备好了接受神的启示。你和玛尔叙阿斯的唯一区别在于你不用乐器、仅用语言就能产生同样的效果。当我们听到其他人演讲时，即使他是位优秀的演说家，也几乎对我们产生不了什么影响。但每当有人听到你说话或听到他人（即使他是个蹩脚的说话者）复述你的话，不管是谁（女人、男人或少男）都会如痴如醉、像施了符咒一样。

“若不是你们认为我喝醉了，先生们，我愿意发誓，他的话对我产生影响是真话——现在这些话仍对我产生影响。每当听他说话，我的狂热比科律班忒斯的还有过之而无不及。当他说话时，我的心脏扑通扑通地跳动，眼泪奔流而出，我看到许多其他人也受到同样的影响。我听过伯里克利及其他优秀演说家的演说，我认为他们说得很好。但他们从未对我产生过这种影响；他们没有扰乱我的整体人格，让我对自己生命的奴役性质感到不满。但坐在这里的这位玛尔叙阿斯经常对我产生这种影响，让我认为自己的生活不值得过。你不能说这不是真的，苏格拉底。即使现在我也清楚地知道，如果我放任自己听他说话，我会无法抵制，再次经历相同的体验。他让我承认，尽管由于种种巨大缺陷，我忽视自己，却反而卷入到雅典的政治活动中。所以我强迫自己捂着耳朵走开，就像人们逃离妖妇一样，防止自己在变老之前坐在他旁边。

“只有在他的陪伴下我才会有这种体验，你们可能会认为我不会有这种体验——与某人在一起感到羞耻；我只有在他的陪伴下才感到羞耻。我清楚地知道，我不能反对他，应该做他让我做的事；但离开他后，我就会因人们的赞赏而忘乎所以。所以我表现得像个逃亡的奴隶一样，从他那里逃脱；每当看到他，我都由于他让我赞同的话而感到羞愧。我经常觉得看到他从人间消失我会高兴；但如果这真的发生，我知道我会更不安。我就是不知道怎样与这个人打交道。

“这就是这位森林之神吹笛时对我及其他许多人产生的影响。让我来告诉你们，这个比喻在某些方面也非常恰当，看看他有多么令人惊讶的力量。你们应该认识到你们中没有一个人真正懂他。但既然已经开了头，我会说明他是什么样子的。你们看到苏格拉底受美貌少男吸引，总是兴奋地与他们一起消磨时间。他也完全愚昧，一无所知。他给人这种印象，不是很像西勒诺斯吗？正是这样。这种行为仅是他的外壳，就像西勒诺斯的雕像的外壳一样。但如果你们能把他打开往里看，我亲爱的酒友，你们无法想象他有多么节制！你们应该知道，他根本不在乎某人是否漂亮（他对此怀有难以置信的蔑视）或富有，或拥有普通人视为的其他优势。他把所有这些看得毫无价值，也把我们看得一文不值。（请相信我！）他整个一生都在伪装，在玩弄人。

“当苏格拉底表情严肃、内心被打开的时候，我不知道你们中是否有人看到过他身体内部的雕像。不过我看到过一次，它们看起来如此神圣、珍贵，如此美丽、让人惊讶，以至于（简而言之）我不得不做苏格拉底让我做的任何事。我认为他对我的相貌感兴趣是认真的，这对我来说是天赐之物、是难得的好运，因为，如果我让他满足，我就能听到他所知道的一切。你们瞧，我为自己的美貌感到骄傲。这之前，我从未在没有随从的情况下和他单独相处；但一有了这个想法，我就把随从打发走，独自一人和他在一起。是的，我必须告诉你们整个真相；所以仔细听着，如果我说了任何不正确的话，苏格拉底，你必须反驳我。

“好吧，先生们，我们就在那里，只有我们两人。我认为他会立即与我进行爱人与情郎独处时进行的那种对话，心里很高兴。但根本没发生那种事。他与我进行与平常一样的交流，一天过完后就走了。我邀请他来到健身房，与他一起锻炼，我以为可以以那种方式取得些进展。所以我们进行锻炼，旁边没有一人，还摔了很多次跤——怎么跟你们说呢？我还是一无所获。

“由于通过这些方式一无所获，我决定对这个人展开直接攻击，既然已经开始了就不放弃。我觉得我应该了解实际情况如何。我邀请他一起就餐，就好像我是爱人他是情郎一样。他没有立即接受我的邀请，不过最后还是同意来了。第一次就完餐后他就想走，那一次我有点儿害羞，就让他走了。不过我又进行了一次这个计划，就完餐后，我一直和他谈话到深夜。然后他想走的时候，我找了个借口，说太晚了，让他留了下来。所以他在我旁边的沙发上躺下睡觉，那是他就餐的地方，房间里除了我们两个就没其他人了。

“到目前为止，任何人听我说都无所谓了。不过从现在开始，有些事你们一般不会听到我说，正如俗语所说，‘仆人离开时酒后吐真言’，仆人不离开时也会吐真言！而且，我认为既然开始了对苏格拉底的颂扬，那么让他的自豪行为湮没无闻将是我的失误。此外，我的经历就像人被蛇咬了一样。有人说拥有这种经历的人只愿意向那些同样被咬过的人述说其中情形，因为只有他们才能懂，且如果那种痛苦驱使你做和说一些令人震惊的事，他们也会体谅。但我是被更痛苦的东西咬的，其中的每一口都极端痛苦（咬的是心或灵魂），或随便你们怎么称呼它。我受到的是哲学言论的撞击和撕咬，当它抓住一个年轻、天才的灵魂时，会比蛇更猛烈地攀附，使其做和说各种各样的事。而且我能看到在座的各位，像费德鲁斯、阿伽松、厄律克西马库、鲍桑尼亚、阿里斯托得摩斯和阿里斯托芬（我无需提及苏格拉底自己）以及其余各位。你们都有哲学的疯狂和醉酒般的狂热，所以你们都会听到我要说的话。你们得体谅我那时做的事和现在说的话。但是你们，仆人及所有其他下人，都堵上你们的耳朵！

“所以，先生们，灯灭之后，仆人离开了房间，我决定不应该再拐弯抹角，而是坦率地告诉他我心里所想的。我推了他一下，说，‘苏格拉底，你睡着了吗？’

“‘还没有。’他说。

“‘你知道我在想什么吗？’

“‘想什么啊？’他说。

“‘我认为，’我说，‘只有你才配得上做我的爱人，但你似乎很害羞，不愿跟我提及。我告诉你我的感受吧。我认为如果你对我或我的朋友有需求，我不满足你这方面或其他任何方面的需求会很愚蠢。对我来说，没有什么比成为优秀的人更重要了，我认为要实现这个目的，没有人能比你给予我更有力的帮助。如果我未能满足像你这样的人的需求，考虑到明理的人会怎样看待我，与普通、愚蠢的人怎样看待我相比，我会更羞愧。’

“他听了我说的，以他自己典型的极度讽刺语气对我说了这些：‘亲爱的亚西比德，如果你说的关于我的话是真的，且我确实有能力让你成为更好的人的话，你似乎绝不是傻瓜。你肯定从我身上看到了无与伦比的、与你自己的美貌相比优越许多的美。如果你看到了这一点，尝试着与我达成协议，我们用一种美交换另一种美，那么你是打算从我身上大赚一笔。你在试图以外表换取真正的美，所以实际上是在进行“以铜换金”的交易。但仔细看看，我的好朋友，你认为我对你有价值，请确保你没弄错。视力衰退的时候，灵魂才开始变得敏锐，你离那一点还远着呢。’

“听到这些之后，我说，‘依我看，情况就是这样，我的计划正如我所说的。现在由你来决定怎样对你我来说是最好的。’

“‘好吧，’他说，‘至少这一点你说得对。将来我们要考虑做对我们最好的事，既包括这方面的也包括其他事情的。’

“他对我作如此回复后，我认为由于我对他放了箭，他被射中了。我站起来，没给他再多说任何话的机会，把他包裹进我厚厚的户外斗篷里（当时是冬天），躺在他的短斗篷下。然后我用双臂搂着这个像上帝一样、令人惊讶的人，整夜都和他一起躺在那里。你不能说这是谎话，苏格拉底。在我做完这些之后，他彻底击败了我的美貌（并轻视、嘲笑、侮辱了我的美貌），尽管我很看重这些相貌，陪审团诸位先生们。我这样称呼你们，是因为你们成为了苏格拉底的傲慢事件中的陪审团！我以上帝及女神的名义向你们发誓，第二天早上起来时，我跟苏格拉底睡觉，与跟我父亲或兄长睡觉相比，没有什么差别。

“那之后，你们认为我有什么样的心情？虽然我觉得自己受辱了，但我钦佩他的品行、自制能力和勇气。他是位明智且意志坚强的人，我从未期望能找到这样的人。所以，尽管我不能生他的气或不能没他的陪伴，但我不知道怎样赢取他的心。我很清楚，他完全不为金钱所动，就像埃阿斯不会为武器所伤一样；我视为唯一能赢取他的方法也被证实无效。我感到困惑；我来回踱步，完全沉湎于这个人，比其他人都更甚。

“这些事情发生之后，我们一起参与了雅典抵御波提狄亚的战役，一起领受了那里的混乱。首先要指出的是他比我更能忍受战争的严苛——实际上，他比其他所有人都更能忍受。我们被切断粮食供应之后，就像出征时有时会发生的那样，没有人比他更能忍受饥饿。但另一方面，我们能大吃一顿时，他又是最能享受盛宴的。例如，他虽然不愿意喝酒，但被迫喝时，他能把我们都打败。最令人吃惊的是没人曾看到苏格拉底喝醉过。我觉得你们很快就会看到这一点的证据了。

“而且当提到忍受冬天的严寒时（那里的冬天酷寒难耐），他的忍耐力也是非凡的。有一次，霜冻很厉害，没有人出去，或者就是出去，也会把自己裹得严严实实的，靴子上另外系上毡或羊皮。但苏格拉底在这种天气下还是穿着以前穿的户外斗篷出去，他光着脚走在冰上比别人穿着靴子走得还稳健。士兵们怀疑地看着他，认为他轻视他们。

“这件事就说到这里；但战场上‘这位刚毅的人接下来所做和忍受的事’值得一听。一天早上，他开始考虑一个问题，就站在那里思考，没取得进展就不放弃，而是一直站在那里思索。中午时，人们注意到了他，惊愕地对彼此说苏格拉底从破晓就开始站在那里思考事情了。最后，到傍晚时，吃过晚饭后，一些爱奥尼亚人把铺盖拿到外面（当时是夏天），部分是为了睡觉凉快点儿，部分是为了密切注视苏格拉底，看他夜晚是否也会一直站在那里。他一直站在那里，直到第二天黎明太阳出来时；然后他向太阳祈祷，就离开了。

“如果你们想知道他在战斗中是什么样子——现在正是我向他还债的机会。在将军授予我英勇奖章之后的战斗中，是苏格拉底（没有其他人）救了我。我受伤后，他没有离开我，所以他不仅救了我的盔甲和武器，还救了我的生命。实际上那个时候我让将军把英勇奖章授予你，苏格拉底。这一点上你不能批评我，或说我撒谎。但将军受到我社会地位的影响，想把奖章授予我时，你自己比将军更热心地认为我应该得到奖章。

“先生们，还有一件事。当军队从代里恩混乱地撤退时，苏格拉底是值得一看的景观。我当时在骑兵服役，而他是甲兵。人们那时已经四散了，他和拉凯斯一起撤退。巧合的是，我就在附近，我看到他们时，就立即鼓励他们，告诉他们我不会留下他们不管的。在那里，我比在波提狄亚能更好地观察苏格拉底（因为我在马背上，不那么担心自己的安全），首先让我心里一震的是他比拉凯斯镇静得多。接下来，我注意到他在那里散步，就像在雅典一样（阿里斯托芬，引用你的话就是）‘大摇大摆，环顾四周’。他冷静地环顾着朋友和敌人，即使在远处的人也知道，如果有人袭击这个人，他会顽强反抗的。就这样，他和他的同伴安全撤退了。通常，战斗中人们不会袭击显出这种神情的人；他们更愿意追赶仓皇逃离的人。

“还有其他许多卓越的事，可以用来赞美苏格拉底。其中的一些显著特点可能也可在其他人身上找到。但最令人吃惊的一点是他完全不像其他任何人，不管是过去的还是现在的。如果你想说阿喀琉斯是什么样子，你可以拿他与布拉西达斯或其他人相比，伯里克利的话，你可以拿他与涅斯托耳或安忒诺耳相比（还有其他的人），你可以以同样方式作其他比较。但这个人非常奇特，他谈话的方式也很奇特，无论你多么努力地找，永远也不会找到现在或过去与他相近的人。实际上，你们能做的最好的就是像我做的那样，当我比较他及他的谈话方式时，不是与人类相比，而是与西伦尼和森林之神对比。

“这是我开始时忘记说的：他的论述也非常像那些你们打开的西伦尼。如果你准备听苏格拉底的论述，起初似乎非常荒谬。这是他使用的词和语句的缘故，它们就像无礼的森林之神粗糙的皮肤一样。他谈论驮货的驴子、铁匠、鞋匠、皮匠，似乎总是用相同的话得出相同的论点；所以不习惯他的人或无知的人会觉得他的论述很荒谬。但如果你能打开它们，看看内部，就会发觉只有那些论述才有道理。你也会发觉它们是最神圣的，包含最多的美德影像。它们涉及大部分（更确切地说是所有）的主题，如果你想成为优秀的人，必须细阅所有这些主题。

“先生们，这就是我赞美苏格拉底的话。我也掺杂了一些对他的责备，告诉你们他是怎么侮辱我的。我并不是唯一一个受到他这样对待的人；还有格老孔的儿子查米德斯、狄奥克莱斯的儿子欧西德莫斯及许多其他人。他欺骗他们，让他们认为他是自己的爱人，结果他却是被爱的人，而不是施爱的人。我警告你，阿伽松，不要被他骗了，而要从我们的遭遇中吸取教训，要谨慎一些，如谚语所说，不要成为傻瓜，只从自己遭受的痛苦中学习。”

亚西比德的坦率发言带来了许多乐趣，因为他似乎还在爱着苏格拉底。苏格拉底说：“我认为你非常清醒，亚西比德。否则你不能够隐藏你整个发言的动机，巧妙地用这种方式掩盖着它。你在最后泄露了出来，好像是你的事后想法——好像你整个演讲的目的不是为了离间我和阿伽松一样。你这样做是因为你认为我应该只爱你一人，而不是其他人，阿伽松应该只被你爱，而不被其他人爱。但你没有侥幸成功；我们看出了你的这场森林之神和西勒诺斯把戏的目的。但是，亲爱的阿伽松，不要让他得逞；一定不要让任何人离间我和你。”

然后阿伽松说：“你知道，苏格拉底，我认为你一定是对的。他坐在我和你中间，把我们分开，是别有用心。但他不会得逞的。我过去，坐在你旁边。”

“请过来吧，”苏格拉底说，“坐在这一边。”

“哦，宙斯啊！”亚西比德说，“我真是受够了这个人！他认为他总得胜过我。但如果没有别的办法（你这个令人惊讶的人）就让阿伽松坐在我们俩之间吧。”

“那是不可能的事，”苏格拉底说，“你已经赞美过了我，现在该我赞美我右边的人了。如果阿伽松坐在我们之间，他不是也得赞美我，而不是受我赞美吗？看在上帝的份上，不要阻止这个年轻人受到我的赞美；我有赞颂他一番的强烈愿望。”

“好哇，”阿伽松说，“亚西比德，现在我决不会再待在这里了。我必须换位置，让苏格拉底赞美我。”

“又是这样，”亚西比德说，“总是老样子。苏格拉底在时，别人休想接近有魅力的人。现在，看他多么机智地找到一个貌似有理的借口，说明为什么这个人应该坐在他旁边。”

所以阿伽松站起来，去坐到苏格拉底旁边。突然，一大群饮酒狂欢者来到了前门。由于某个人刚出去了，他们发现门是开着的；所以他们直接闯了进来，加入了他们，坐在沙发上。到处都是嘈杂声，所有的顺序都被打破了；每个人都被迫喝了大量的酒。阿里斯托得摩斯说厄律克西马库、费德鲁斯及其他一些人离开了，而他睡了很长时间，因为那时候夜很长。将近黎明时他醒了过来，那时公鸡已经开始打鸣了。他一醒来，就看到其他人要么正睡着，要么已经离开了，只有阿伽松、阿里斯托芬和苏格拉底还醒着，正用一个大碗喝酒，碗从左到右传递着。苏格拉底正与他们说话。阿里斯托得摩斯说大部分争辩他已记不得了，因为他错过了开头，中间又睡着了。但他说，要点是苏格拉底迫使他们同意同一个人应该既能写喜剧又能写悲剧，擅长写悲剧的人一定也擅长写喜剧。虽然他们昏昏欲睡，没跟上他的思路，但他让他们同意这一点；阿里斯托芬先睡着了，天已经破晓时阿伽松也睡着了。

他们睡着之后，苏格拉底站起来，离开了。阿里斯托得摩斯像往常一样跟着他。苏格拉底去了学园（吕格恩），洗了脸，像平时一样在那里度过了一天，直到傍晚才回家休息。

洞穴寓言（选自《理想国》）

一、苏格拉底一开始提到了哲学家必须具备的各种素质，然后着重强调这些素质必须建立在学问的基础之上，最终则是建立在为善的学问基础之上。对苏格拉底来说它是善的本质，正如此段文字所阐明的那样。一些人认为善即快乐，或者认为善即学问。苏格拉底简明扼要地驳斥了此类观点，却拒绝直接给出自己的看法，而是借用一个比喻来描述他的观点。

“好了，我们总算完成了这部分任务——真是不容易啊；下面继续讨论下一个问题，研究如何通过学习和不懈的追求，造就出这个社会制度的捍卫者。他们要学习什么东西？从什么年龄起就要开始学习？”

“对，这就是我们下一个要讨论的问题。”

“我耍了一点小聪明，”我说，“我把娶妻、生子、确立统治者这些难题都放到了后面去讨论。不过，到头来我并没占到一点便宜，最终还是要论及的。我心中构想的那个真实社会必定会触怒一些人，而且也难以实现。这一点我十分清楚，不过我还是要把它描绘出来。妇女和儿童问题我已经谈过了，现在得重新讨论统治者的问题。你记得我们曾经说过：他们必须要热爱自己的国家，必须经历快乐和痛苦的双重考验，以确保他们在面对痛苦、恐惧和各种兴衰荣辱时，仍然能够矢志不渝；没能通过测试的人，必须予以淘汰；经受住了考验而且毫发无损的人，就好比真金一样不怕火炼，理应被拥立为统治者，生要享有荣光，死要加以褒奖。我们大概就是这么说的。不过，由于担心过早卷入我们今日的议题，当时我们神不知鬼不觉巧妙地回避了这个问题。”

“是的，我记得这件事。”他说。

“你知道，我在说出这番不太成熟的观点之前，也是犹豫再三的，”我回答道，“不过，现在我可以斗胆直言：从最完美的意义上讲，我们的守护者只能是哲学家。”

“好吧，就照你说的。”

“想一想这样的人总共能有几个。我们前面曾经说过，这些人必须具备某种品格，而这种品格又包含了多个方面的品质。通常一个人不会坐拥全部品质，多数情况下仅具有某些品质。”

“此话怎讲？”

“一方面具备好学、强记、头脑机灵、敏锐等各方面的素质，而且积极进取、视野广博，但另一方面却常常不愿意过按部就班、安静稳定的生活；敏锐的性格让其性情变得扑朔迷离、变幻莫测，毫无稳定可言。”

“说得对。”

“而且，你可以信赖的始终如一的稳重之人，尽管在战争面前毫不畏惧，但同样也不会为说教所动。他们这种难以撼动的性格最终确实会令他们变得麻木不仁。当需要他们奉献才智的时候，他们会打着哈欠，昏然入睡。”

“确实是这样的。”

“但是我们需要的是完全兼备两种品格的人，让他们接受最高等的教育，并赋予他们地位和权力。”

“没错。”

“这样的人才可谓凤毛麟角。”

“是很少见。”

“我们不仅应当在前面描述的苦与乐的环境中考验他们，还应当在以往曾经忽略的系列智力学习中考查他们，以检验其是否具有追求最高层次学问的毅力，是否会像其他人畏惧体能测试一样回避退缩。”

“很公道的测试。不过，”他问，“最高层次学问指的是什么？”

“你一定记得，”我回答道，“先前我们在区分过头脑三要素之后，又讨论了正义、自我控制、勇气和智慧问题。”

“如果连这我都不记得，”他说，“我就不配再听别的东西了。”

“那你还记得我们在谈论这些话题之前说过什么吗？”

“说过什么？”

“我们说过，只有绕过一个很大的弯路，才有可能获得真正清晰的认识，不过我们可以根据前面的讨论给出一些暗示。你说那已经够好的了。正因为你的那句话，后面的描述在我看来便不是十分精确了。对你来说是否足够精确，只有你自己知道。”

“我认为你提出的衡量标准不错。我想其他人也是这么认为的。”

“我亲爱的阿得曼托斯，在这类问题上，任何失真的东西都不能作为衡量标准，”我答道，“你不能用本身不完善的东西去衡量任何东西——尽管人们有时会满足于此，而不愿做进一步深究。”

“是的，通常是因为他们太懒惰了。”

“国家和法律的守护者最要不得这种品行。”

“说得不错。”

“那么，他就必须走那条较长的路，”我说，“他必须像锻炼身体一样刻苦地进行智力训练；否则，就像我们刚才说的那样，最终他永远都达不到那个本应属于他的做学问的最高境界。”

“最高境界？”他问道，“可是有比我们讨论的正义和其他品质更高层次的东西吗？”

“有。”我说，“我们不应该仅满足于拥有这些品质的一个草图，而不去充实每个细节。如果我们在小事情上都能全身心投入，力求尽可能高的精确度和清晰度，而在最重要的事情上反而不需要最高的精确度了，这不是十分荒谬吗？”

“是十分荒谬，”他表示同意，“但别指望蒙混过关，你还得回答最高层次的学问是什么这个问题。”

“我不指望蒙混过关，”我答道，“你问吧。其实你已经听过很多遍了。要么你是真的不明白，要么你就是一直存心给我难堪——我觉得是后一种情况，因为你肯定经常听过我说，学问的最高层次是关于善的本质的学问，正义一类事物的实用性和价值从中得以体现。你非常清楚这就是我要说的。另外，我还要补充一点，我们这方面的学问还很不够。如果我们对此一无所知，那么，其他方面的学问纵使再完美，对我们来说也是毫无裨益的。这就好比是说，如果你无法从你拥有的东西中得到任何好处，那么，即使拥有它也没什么用处。换句话说，如果东西不好的话，你认为拥有它还有任何意义吗？如果拥有所有其他形式的学问，但唯独没有善的学问，也就是说，缺乏有关什么是好的、什么是有价值的这方面的知识，这样的话，还有什么意义吗？”

“肯定没有任何意义。”

“当然，你也清楚，大多数普通人都认为快乐就是善，而阅历丰富的人则认为学问才是善。”

“是这样的。”

“但是，那些持后一种观点的人却无法向我们解释清楚他们所指的是哪种学问。如果他们被逼问急了，最后就会说他们指的是善的学问。”

“这是很荒谬的。”

“他们先是批评我们不懂善，但回头与我们交谈时，却又把我们当成懂善的；因为他们说这就是‘善的学问’，就好像他们在说‘善’字的时候，我们都能理解他们的意思。如果是这样的话，他们就无法回避自身的荒谬。”

“完全正确。”

“那些把善定义为快乐的人呢？他们面临的困惑会少一些吗？是不是他们也不得不承认存在恶的快乐？”

“他们当然得承认。”

“结果他们会发现自己承认同一事物是既有善的一面，又有恶的一面，对吗？”

“对。”

“所以说这个议题明显极具争议。”

“的确是这样。”

“再者，当涉及到正义或价值观方面的问题时，不论是占有，还是行动，抑或是荣誉，很多人宁肯注重外在的东西，也不在意实实在在的东西；可是，没有人仅满足于拥有看起来好的东西，他们要的是实实在在好的东西。在这个问题上外在的东西没有任何用处。这些现象是不是也很明显呢？”

“绝对明显。”

“那么，善是全部劳动付出的结果，是每个人心中的目标，并且它预言了自身的存在，尽管人们发现很难把握它究竟是什么；由于没有像处理其他事物那样的把握，所以善缺少其他事物所具有的价值。我们将要把一切事物都托付给这些最优秀的公民。如果他们对如此重要的问题一窍不通，我们能答应吗？”

“绝对不答应。”

“不管怎样，如果一个人不知道何处有善的话，那么，让他来保卫正义和价值观，也就没有多大的用处。我猜只有在他搞明白何处有善之后，才能充分理解这些。”

“你猜得有道理。”

“所以说，只有将我们的社会置于拥有这门学问的守护者监管之下，社会才能得到妥善管理。”

“必须这样，”他说，“可是你呢，苏格拉底？你认为善是学问呢，还是快乐呢？还是其他的什么东西？”

“你这个人哪！”我惊叫了一声，“我很久之前就看出来了，你对别人的意见总是感到不满意！”

“可是，苏格拉底，给了你这么长时间谈论这个话题，”他抗议道，“你却只给我们讲别人的意见，而不是你自己的意见。我认为你不应该这样。”

“的确不应该。不过，如果一个人谈论自己不懂的事情时却给人一种好像他什么都懂的感觉。你认为这样就对吗？”

“他没有权利像个万事通似的高谈阔论。但他应该精心准备，把自己的想法说出来。”

“嗯，”我说，“难道你没注意，如果没有知识的支撑，观点总是很可悲的一件事吗？最理想的情况就是瞎蒙却蒙对了——虽然自己不甚理解，但却恰好持一种正确的意见，就好比一位盲人走对了路一样。不是有这样的人吗？”

“是有这样的人。”

“那么，如果你能够从其他人那里得到异常清晰的描述的话，那你还会想从我这里得到一幅简陋不堪、难以理解、支离破碎的画面吗？”

“现在你就行行好吧，都快到终点了，千万不要放弃啊，苏格拉底。”格老孔乞求说，“如果你能像解释正义、自我控制等概念一样来解释什么才是善，我们就会心满意足的。”

“那样的话，我也会心满意足的，我亲爱的伙计。”我回答道，“不过，我担心这超出了我的能力所限。我要是这样做的话，只会让我自己出丑，惹来他人耻笑。所以，请允许我们暂时把善的本质是什么的问题先放在一边，在今天所讨论的范围里恐怕是找不出一个令我满意的答案的。不过，如果你喜欢的话，我会谈一件事。它在我看来就好似是善的孩子，与善长得非常像——你愿不愿意听？”

“给我们讲讲这个孩子的事吧。孩子家长的那笔账就先记在你的账上，留着以后再讲。”他说。

“我希望欠你们的债能够连本带息地还给你们，而不仅仅是支付贷款利息。”我回答道，“不过，现在你们只能把善的孩子的故事当作利息收下。当心我不留神把到期利息金额写错了，那样的话你们就上当了。”

“我们会加倍小心的，”他说，“接着往下讲吧。”

二、太阳的比喻［……］

“我必须首先征得你们的同意，并提醒大家我们在前面的讨论中曾经说过的事情，实际上还有在许多其他场合讲过的事情。”

他问：“都是些什么？”

我回答说：“我们说过，有很多特定的东西都非常美，还有很多东西非常善，诸如此类，而且在描述过程中我们还对它们进行了区分。”

“是的，我们是说过。”

“接着我们针对我们认为数量很多的那些特定的东西，又谈到了美本身和善本身等问题。然后，我们通过对比，推断出每样事物都是独一无二的种类，并称之为每样事物‘真正是什么’。”

“是这样的。”

“我们说过这些特定的东西是视觉意义而不是智能意义上的东西，而其种类则是智能意义上而不是视觉意义上的东西。”

“当然。”

“我们看到的一切是用身体的哪个部分看到的呢？”

“视觉。”

“我们用听觉来听，用其他感官来感知与之相应的事物。”

“当然了。”

“不知道你注意到了没有，”我问，“我们的感官设计者在赋予我们视力，让我们能够看见东西的时候是多么的慷慨？”

“没有注意到。”

“那么我们就再来看一遍。听觉和声音是否需要借助他们自身之外的另外一种形式的东西，才能让耳朵听得到，让声音听得见（即第三种要素），没有它的话，既没法听，也听不见？”

“不需要。”

“其他大部分感官，也可能是全部感官，也都是如此。你知道有什么感官需要这种东西吗？”

“不，我不知道。”

“但不知道你是否注意到了视觉及可见的东西的确需要这种东西？”

“怎么会呢？”

“假设眼睛具有视力，眼睛的主人也准备用视力去看东西，再假设物体具有颜色，可你知道，要是不专门地、自然地借助用于这个第三种要素的话，他什么东西也看不到，颜色也依然不可见。”

“那是什么东西？”他问。

“一种叫作光的东西。”我答道。

“对。”

“也就是说，如果光算是一种宝物的话，那么，视觉与物体的可见性就是用这样一条比任何东西都宝贵的纽带连接在一起。”

“光当然算是宝物。”

“那么，在众多天体当中你认为是哪个天体成就了这一切？又是哪个天体发出的光能够让我们的眼睛完美地看到东西，东西也能够为我们所见呢？”

“我的看法跟你和其他人是一样的，当然是太阳。”

“那么视力与这种神圣的光源有怎样的关联呢？”

“怎样的关联？”

“太阳不等同于视力，也不等同于视力所依赖的东西，也就是我们所说的眼睛。”

“它们是不同的东西。”

“但在所有的感觉器官当中，眼睛是最像太阳的。”

“是很像。”

“所以，眼睛的视觉能力，是太阳所赋予的一种能力。”

“是的。”

“而且，虽然太阳本身不是视力，但它却是视力产生的原因，并且能够为视力所见。”

“是这样的。”

“其实，那就是善的孩子。”我说，“善所生的孩子与善长得极为相像。在思想世界里，善与智能和可理解的事物之间存在的关联，同样也存在于有形世界里视力和可见物体之间。”

“你能再详细解释一下吗？”他问。

“你知道，当我们把目光转向阳光照射不到的物体时，借助于月光或星光，物体的颜色会看起来灰暗一片，眼睛好像失明了一样，仿佛视力原本就是模糊的。”

“是的。”

“但是，当我们把目光转向阳光照射的物体时，就会看得很清楚。这时眼睛明显是有视觉的。”

“肯定是这样的。”

“让我们借这个比喻来描绘一下心灵。当心灵之眼凝视着被真理和现实照亮的事物时，是完全能够认识和理解这些事物的。显然，心灵具有智能；但是，当心灵之眼盯住充满变数和衰败景色的黄昏世界时，心灵只能形成飘忽不定的意见，视野会变得模糊起来，明显缺少智能。”

“真的是这么回事。”

“那么说，赋予学问以真理，赋予认知者心灵以认知能力，这便是善的本质。它是学问和真理的动因，自身是为人所知的，但又不是学问和真理本身，而是一种更加辉煌的东西。你如果是这么想的，就对了。就好比说，把光和视觉看作与太阳类似的东西是正确的，但把它们看作太阳本身则是错误的。同样道理，把学问和真理看作与善类似的东西是可以的，但把它们看作是善本身则是大错特错，善是更高层次上的东西。”

“如果善是学问和真理的源泉，而且比之更加灿烂辉煌，你可真是把它奉若神明了。我想你不会指的是快乐吧？”他问。

“你这个想法真可怕。”我答道，“我们继续我们的比喻。”

“往下讲吧。”

“太阳不仅让我们看到世间万物，而且推动万物出生、成长和获取营养的进程，但其并非这个过程本身。这个观点我想你也同意。”

“同意。”

“因此，可以说善不仅促成学问知识为人所理解，而且促成对它们自身和现实的理解；不过，善本身不是指现实，而是超越了现实，并较之更加高贵、更加权威。”

“真是奇迹般的超然。”格老孔略带戏谑地说。

“这可不能怪我，”我抗议道，“是你让我心里怎么想的就怎么说的。”

“是我让的。请继续往下说。不管怎么说，如果你那个太阳的比喻还没讲完的话，还请你把它讲完。”

“离讲完还早着呢。”

“那就接着讲，不要遗漏任何东西。”

“恐怕必须略去很多内容。”我说，“不过，我会尽力把我目前所知道的一切都讲出来。”

“好的，请吧。”

分割线

柏拉图解释说，分割线比喻是太阳比喻的续篇，旨在进一步说明太阳比喻所涉及的现实中两种层次之间的关系。但它是从一个特定的角度来讲述的，即我们用来理解这两种层次或领域的心智状态。因此，这个线的目的主要也不是用来给事物分类。与可知领域相关的两种心智状态，都是与同种类型的东西（本质）打交道，尽管每种心智状态的处理方式各不相同；虽然在物质世界里，物质的东西与其自身的影子有区别，但这种差异主要用于阐明需要了解的东西当中存在的“真实”或真实性的程度——如果我们的学问仅局限于它的影子或影像，那么，我们对自身学问的东西了解就太有限了。就这个问题而言，就是仅仅局限于肤浅的外表了［……］

“那么，”我继续说道，“你必须假设存在我前面提到的这两种能力。一种能力比可知层次或领域内的所有东西都至高无上，另一种能力则凌驾于可见领域内一切东西之上——我不会说是在物质宇宙当中，否则你会认为我是在玩文字游戏。不管怎么说，你头脑面对的是两个层次上的东西，一个是可见的东西，一个是可知的东西。对吗？”

“对。”

“那好，假设有一条线，你把它分成了长短不等的两份。然后，你再按照相同的比例，把它们分成两部分，分别代表可见层次和可理解层次。你会在可见的层次上看到一个以模糊与清晰相对照的形式展现的、由影像构成的二次分段。如果你听得懂我说的话，我这里的‘影像’首先指的是阴影，然后指水面和其他光滑细致的表面反射的影子。”

“我听得懂。”

“其他二次分段代表着这些影像对应的原始实物本身——我们身边的各种动物、植物和人造物品。”

“说得很好。”

“你是不是准备说这些分段的区别在于：一个是真实的，一个是不真实的，而且，影像与原物之间的关系，就如同意见领域和学问领域之间的关系呢？”

“我肯定会这么说。”

“下面再考虑一下如何划分这条线上的可知部分。”

“如何划分呢？”

“在其中一个二次分段上，心智这次把可见领域中的原始实物作为影像，一切探究只能在假设的基础之上进行，从中得到的不是基本原理，而是结论性的东西；在另外一个二次分段上，它从假设上升到了不包含假设的基本原理，而且没有用到在另一个二次分段中用到的影像，而只是用类型自身或通过类型自身进行探究。”

“我听不大懂。”

“我再试着解释一下。不过，我刚刚谈到的东西会对你有点帮助。我想你也知道，那些学习几何、算术一类课程的学生，一开始会假设有奇数和偶数、几何图形、三种角以及与课程相应的其他东西；他们把这些东西都当成已知的，把它们作为最基本的假设。由于这些东西属于尽人皆知的东西，因此，完全没有必要对其自身进行任何的解释。他们以此为起点，通过一系列连贯的步骤，得出了他们想要得到的结论。”

“对，这个我肯定懂。”

“你还知道他们使用可见的图形进行研究。但是，他们心里想的实际上不是这些图形，而是这些图形所代表的原始事物；他们所研究的并不是他们所绘制出的正方形、对角线或是其他什么图形本身。他们所绘制或仿真的图形，在水中投下了自身的影子，并反射出去——他们只把这些当作影像而已，而他们研究的真实物体只有理性的眼睛方能看到。

“非常正确。”

“我把此类东西称为可知的东西。我还说过，心智在研究它的过程中迫不得已使用了假设，但由于无法摆脱和超越假设，也就无法上升到基本原理的层面；不过，同样是这些东西，由于它们在较低的层面上留有影像和影子，用它们的示意图与其进行对比，会因其更加清晰而受到重视，也就更有价值。”

“我明白了，”他说，“你说的是几何学和相近学科发生的事。”

“那么，当我提到这条线上可知部分的另外一个二次分段时，你就会明白我的意思是指辩论过程本身通过辩证法的力量所理解的东西；它不是把假设当作原理，而是当作真正意义上的假设，也就是说，把它作为出发点和上升到更高层次的跳板，那里没有假设，只有万物的基本原理；而一旦掌握了基本原理，通过遵循其后面的推论，回过头来又可以得出结论。整个过程没有涉及到可感知的世界里的任何东西，而只是从一种本质到另一种本质，最后归结为本质。”

“我明白你的意思了，但没有全懂，”他说，“你所描述的东西貌似说来话长。但是，你想区分辩证法所研究的真实与可知的部分，因为这部分比所谓的‘学科’所研究的东西清晰程度更高一些。尽管这些学科在研究他们自身的题材时也要使用推理，而不是感官知觉，但他们把假设当成了基本原理。由于他们在研究过程中从假设出发，无法到达基本原理的层次，所以，你认为他们在这个问题上面没有展现出理智。尽管借助于基本原理，它是可知的。我认为，你把几何学家一类人的思维习惯称为推理，而不是理智，意思是说，推理是介于意见和理智之间的一种东西。”

“你理解得非常好。”我说，“可以这么认为，与四段分隔线对应的是四种心智状态；位于最顶层的是理智，第二层的是推理，第三层的是信念，最下面的一层是幻觉。你可以按比例排一下，假设它们的清晰程度与题材所具有的真实程度相对应。”

“我懂了，”他答道，“我同意你的建议，把它们排列一下。”

洞穴的比喻

那个分割线比喻当中所蕴含的真理，可以用更形象化的方法展现，尤其是它可以告诉我们更多有关分隔线比喻当中称之为信仰和幻觉的两种心智状态方面的事。我们看到了心智从幻觉升华到了纯哲学，也看到了伴随其成长所经历的艰难困苦。哲学家在到达视野的最高点后，应返回到山洞中，为他的同伴服务。他极不情愿这样做，但这却成了他的主要资本［……］

“接下来，我想让你描述一下我们人类的启蒙状态或者愚昧状态。把一个地下密室想象成类似洞穴的东西，长长的密室入口面对阳光，入口的宽度与洞穴一样宽。住在这个地下密室里的人，从小就被囚禁于此。他们的腿和脖子被锁链绑得很紧，头也无法转动，只能直视前方。在他们的身后、上方，有一团火正在熊熊燃烧。在囚徒与火之间，有一条走道相通。通道的前面竖起了一面幕墙，就像在木偶表演（皮影戏）中操纵者与观众之间放置的那种幕布。”

“明白。”

“继续想象有一群人携带各式装备在幕墙后面行走，并在它的上方投射出了影子，包括用木头、石头和其他各种材料制作的人和动物。也可以想象得到，这些人中有的在谈话，还有的沉默不语。”

“真是怪异的画面，怪异的囚徒。”

“这都是依据真实生活描绘出来的啊，”我回答道，“你说说看，这些可怜的囚徒除了可以看见火光在他们对面的洞壁上投射的影子之外，你认为他们还可以看到自己或他们的同伴吗？”

“如果一辈子都不允许他们转头，他们又怎么可能看到其他东西呢？”

“他们能看到通道上被搬运的那些东西吗？”

“当然不能。”

“那么，假使他们能够互相交谈，难道他们不会断定他们所看到的影子都是真实的事物吗？”

“他们难免会这样认为。”

“假使囚室里他们正对着的那面墙能够反射回声，如果一个人路过时发出了声音，难道你不认为他们会断定这个声音就是他们面前的影子所发出的吗？”

“他们只能这样想。”

“所以，他们完全相信，这里提到的物体的影子就是全部的事实真相。”

“是的，他们难免这样认为。”

“那么，设想一下，如果有一天解除了他们的禁锢，治愈了他们的错觉，那将会是一番怎样的景象？假设将其中一个人松了绑，然后强迫他站立起来，转过头，目视火堆，并向火堆走去；这些动作会令他痛苦不堪，眼前的一切会让他眼花缭乱，难以看清原先他只能看见其影子的物体。如果有人告诉他，他以前看到的东西都是空洞的、虚假的，他现在看到的东西才更接近于真实，观看的方法也更正确，这是因为他面对的是更真实的东西。如果在此基础上，再指着从他面前经过的每样东西，强迫他说出这些东西都是什么。如果是这样的话，你觉得他会怎么回答呢？难道你不认为他会不知所措，并且认为他以前见过的东西比现在指给他看的东西更真实吗？”

“是的，他会认为以前的更真实。”

“如果强迫他对着火光看的话，会伤害到他的眼睛。他会转身回到他能够看得清的事物中去，他认为这些东西比指给他看的东西要清晰得多。”

“是的。”

“如果把他强行拉上那条陡峭崎岖的上坡道，直至把他拖出洞外，见到洞外的阳光，”我继续说着，“这个过程会令他非常痛苦，他也会非常抵触。当他来到阳光下，耀眼的阳光会刺得他的眼睛无法睁开，人们说的真实物体他一样东西也看不清。”

“一开始肯定看不清。”他表示同意。

“因为在他可以看清洞外世界里的东西之前，肯定需要时间慢慢地去适应外面的光线。首先，他会发现最容易做的事就是看影子，然后是看人和其他物体在水中的倒影，最后再去观看物体本身。此后，他会发现在夜晚时分观察天体和天空会容易一些，还会发现在夜里观看月光和星光，要比在白天看太阳和太阳光容易得多。”

“当然了。”

“他最终能够做到直视太阳本身，而不必通过太阳在水或其他介质中的倒影来观看，而是直接盯住太阳看。”

“必须最后做这事。”

“不久，他就会得出一个结论：正是太阳才带来了四季变化和昼夜更替。太阳主宰着可见世界里的一切，并且从某种意义上讲，太阳也是他和他的囚徒同伴过去看到的一切的起因。”

“很明显他会得出这个结论的。”

“当他想起他在洞穴里的那个最初的家，想起曾经被当作智慧的那些东西，想起他的那些囚徒同伴，难道你不认为他会为自己的幸运感到庆幸，并为他的同伴感到难过吗？”

“非常有可能。”

“囚徒当中有可能也存在某种荣誉感，那些把闪过的影子出现的先后顺序记得最牢的囚徒，还有那些预言影子未来出现次序最准确的囚徒，会因其敏锐的眼力而受到大家的赞扬。那个获释的囚徒还会热衷于这种表扬、羡慕这种能力或荣誉吗？他可能宁愿‘在失去主人的房子里当一名农奴’，实际上你让他在世界上做其他什么都行，他也不愿意再和囚徒们持相同的看法，过相同的生活。难道他不会如荷马所说的这样吗？”

“会的，”他回答说，“他宁愿做什么都行，但就是不愿意像他们一样生活。”

“那么，当他有朝一日回到洞穴，”我问，“坐回到他原来的位子上时，你觉得会发生什么事情？难道他的眼睛就不会因为阳光突然消失而完全被黑暗所笼罩，于是就什么都看不见了吗？”

“肯定会这样的。”

“假使在他视力没有恢复、眼睛也没有习惯黑暗之前（这个过程需要一段时间）让他和其他囚徒展开区分影子的比赛——他还有可能会自欺欺人，愚弄自己吗？囚徒们会说，他的外面世界之旅把他自己的视力都给毁了。上到上面去的想法根本一点都不值去试。假使有人试图释放他们，并带他们到上面去。如果他们抓住他，一定会杀了他。”

“他们肯定会杀了他。”

“我亲爱的格老孔，”我接着说，“现在，必须把这个比喻与前面所讲的东西贯穿在一起讲。视力所揭示的世界好比囚室，囚室里面的火光好比太阳的力量。如果你把去到上面的世界以及在那里看到的一切与心灵上升到可知领域联系在一起，你就不会理解错误。不管怎样，这就是我的解释，也是你急于想听的东西；不过，真相终究如何只有上帝才知道。但在我看来，在可知世界里最后感知到的、物有所值的东西，也是必须克服困难才能感知的东西，就是善的本质；一旦看清善的本质，就可以推断出它是一切万物中正义和价值的根源，在可见世界里发出光芒，是光的源头，而在可知世界本身，则是主宰真理和智慧的根源。无论是在公共生活当中，还是在私人生活当中，若要行事理智，就必须能看得到善的本质。”

“你的话当中我能理解的，”他说，“我都赞同。”

“那么你也许也会同意我的这个看法：那些达到此境界的人不愿意参与人间凡事，他们的心灵也希望被留在上面的那个可知世界中。如果真是这样的话，其实不足为怪。如果我们的那个比喻恰当的话，这种事情是会发生的。”

“是的，可以料到。”

“这种人从神圣的沉思当中返回到凡间，接踵而来的烦恼会令其苦不堪言。如果他此时仍看不见东西，还没有习惯周围的黑暗环境，就强行让他在法庭或其他什么地方，对正义的影子，或者对作为和构成影子的影像进行审判，对从未见过正义本身的人们所持有的、有关正义的观念进行辩论。如果是那样的话，你也不会认为很奇怪的。”

“这没有什么可奇怪的。”

“但凡有点理解力的人，”我说，“都会记得有两种方式可能会让人的眼睛失去视力，从亮处到暗处，或者从暗处到亮处。他们认为同样的情况也适用于心智。所以，当他看到一个受到困扰的、无法判明事理的心智时，他不会不加思索地大声嘲笑它，而是会先问一下自己，它是否来自于一个更清晰的世界，因不习惯这里的黑暗而受到困扰，或者它是否刚刚从先前的无知状态逃脱出来，被来自更清晰的世界发出的强烈光芒刺得眼花缭乱。生命的第一种状况有理由祝贺，生命的第二种状况则有理由同情。如果你想讥笑的话，就讥笑从上面的阳光世界下降到黑暗世界的心灵吧，这样就不会显得那么荒谬。”

“你讲得非常合乎情理。”

“如果这是事实的话，”我继续说，“那么，我们必须摒弃职业教育家的教育观念，他们宣称能够把知识灌输到原先没有知识的大脑中——就好像是说他们可以把视力赋予到失去视觉的眼睛里一样。”

“他们肯实这样说过。”他说。

“不过，我们的讨论表明了以下事实：对知识的接受能力是与生俱来的，而用于学习的器官像眼睛一样，是无法从暗处转向亮处的，除非整个身体能够转动；同样道理，必须让心智作为一个整体，从变革的世界中脱身出来，直至心智之眼可以承受直视现实，直视现实中最耀眼的东西，即我们称之为善的东西。难道不是这样的吗？”

“是这样。”

“那么，心智本身的这种转向，也可以作为一门专业技能，用来尽可能简单高效地完成这种转换。我们关心的不是植入视力，而是确保原本拥有视力的人既没有转错方向，也没有看错。”

“可能是这么一回事。”

“所以，剩下的我们通常称之为心灵美德的东西，也许与身体的优点十分相似，因为这些优点其实都不是与生俱来的，而是通过后天的训练和实践获得的；不过，学问看起来肯定拥有更加神圣的性质，一种从来不会丧失能力的东西。不过，其效果可能是有用的和有益的，也可能是无用的和有害的，视其调转的方向而定。你难道没有注意到，那种通常被称为坏人，但却很聪明的人，其目光有多敏锐？他们心胸狭窄，但在事关他们自身利益的事情上却目光敏锐，极为犀利；不是说他们的视力有多么微弱，而是说他们被用于邪恶的目的，所以，他们的视力越敏锐，就越邪恶。”

“这倒是真的。”

“但是，”我说，“假设从他们很小的时候，就把这种品性与这个多变的世界本该有的重负隔离开来，强加到他们身上的是各种感官享乐，如贪食。这些东西扭曲了他们的灵魂，使之变得低级趣味；再假设他们的这种品性得到了释放，转向了真理，那么同样这些人的同样器官，会对真理有同样敏锐的视力，就像现如今他们对所面对的事物具有的那种敏锐视力一样。”

“非常有可能。”

“没有受过教育、不懂真理的人，是永远管理不好这个社会的，那些终生单纯追求学术的人，同样也是永远管理不好这个社会的。难道不是这样的吗？实际上从我们讲过的东西里必然会得出这个结论。没有受过教育的人，其在公共场合和私下场合的所有行为，都没有一个专一的人生目标来指导；而知识分子则不愿采取任何实际行动，一心只想逃离这个世界，到某种人间天堂中生活。”

“同意。”

“那么作为立法者，我们的职责就是迫使最优秀的人才学到我们称之为最高级知识的东西，使他们上升到我们前面描述过的那种善的境界。当他们实现了这个目标，并且有了足够的洞察力时，要防止他们做出如今尚被允许的那些行为。”

“你这是什么意思？”

“我的意思是说他们会滞留在上面的世界里，拒绝再次回到下面洞穴里那些囚徒的身边，无论大事小事，都拒绝分担他们的劳动，拒绝分享他们的奖赏。”

“不过，”他抗议道，“这确实不公平。我们在强迫他们过一种比原先更差的生活。”

“我们立法的目的，”我再次提醒他说，“不是社会中某个特定阶层，而是整个社会享有的特殊福利；通过劝说或强制手段，让全体公民团结起来，一同分享每一个个体对社会提供的利益；培养这种态度的目的在于，不要让人们各自为战，而是让每个人都成为整个链上的一环。”

“你说得对；我把这茬忘了。”他说。

“那么，格老孔，”我接着说，“你也看到了，我们不应该不公平地对待我们的哲学家。可是，当我们要求他们对别人进行某种照顾和承担某种责任时，其实我们提的这些要求是相当公平的。我们应当告诉他们，出生在其他国家的哲学家是有理由拒绝参加辛苦的政治工作的，因为这些哲学家是完全自发产生的，或是在无意当中产生的。只有那些完全靠自己成长起来的事物，才会有这种感觉。它们不欠任何人的情，也不需要报答养育之恩。‘但是，’我们会说，‘我们为了你自己，也为了整个社会，而把你培养成了领导者和蜂巢里的蜂王；你受到了比其他人更好和更完整的教育，更有资格把哲学和政治实践相结合。因此，你们必须轮流下到洞穴里，和你的同伴一起生活，并养成在黑暗中观察的习惯；一旦你的习惯养成了，你的观察能力就会比他们好上一千倍。你能够区分不同的阴影，知道它们是什么东西的阴影，因为你已经看过了美好、公正和至善东西的真相。所以说我们的国家和你们的国家，对他们的影子战斗及被他们视为无比荣耀的政治权力争夺战，保持着真正的清醒，而不是像当今大多数社会那样仅仅生活在梦想之中。事实完全不同：由最不热心掌权的人治理的国家，其政府必定是最好的和最平和的政府，而由渴望权力的人统治的国家，其政府必定是最差的政府。’”

“我非常同意。”

“那么，我们的学生在听到了我们这番话以后，会不会表示异议，并拒绝分担他们在政府中的重任呢？尽管他们大部分时间其实都是在上面纯洁的世界中度过的。”

“他们不会拒绝，因为我们是向正义的人提出正义的要求。不过，当然了，他们会把治理国家当成无法回避的义务，这一点与现在的统治者不同。”

“是的，当然。”我表示同意，“事实上，你必须为未来的统治者找到一种他们喜欢的、比治理国家更好的生活方式，只有这样，国家才可能治理良好；只有到那个时候，政府才是由真正富有的人来统治。他们的富有不是用金子堆砌出来的，而是至善和理性的生活所带来的真正幸福。如果你找的都是些生活贫困、连个人需求都无法满足的人处理公共事务，这些人希望从政治生涯中捞取好处，来弥补自身的不富足，他们永远都不可能治理好国家。他们开始争权夺利，随之而来的内部冲突和国内冲突会毁掉他们自己和整个社会的。”

“你说得真对。”

“真正的哲学生活方式会蔑视政治权力地位。除此之外，还有其他什么生活方式吗？”

“没有其他方式。”

“不过，我们希望得到权力的人只能是那些不喜欢权力的人，否则，就会出现权力相争。”

“那是肯定的。”

“他们最懂治国方略，有着其他形式的满足，生活也过得比政客们更充实。除了这些人之外，你还能强迫谁去担当国家守护者的职责呢？”

“没有别的什么人了。”

The Symposium

APOLLODORUS：In fact，I'm well prepared to answer your question. As it happens，the other day I was going to the city from my home in Phalerum，and someone I know spotted me from behind and called me from a distance. He said（with playful urgency）：

‘Hey，the man from Phalerum！You！Apollodorus，won't you wait？’

I stopped and waited．

He said，‘Apollodorus，I've just been looking for you to get the full story of the party at Agathon's，when Socrates，Alcibiades and the rest were there for dinner：what did they say in their speeches on love？I had a report from someone who got it from Philip's son，Phoenix；but he said you knew about it too．He wasn't able to give an exact report．Please give me your account．Socrates is your friend，and no one has a better right to report his conversations than you．But before you do，’ he added，‘tell me this：were you at this party yourself or not？’

‘It certainly wasn't an exact report you were given，’ I replied，‘if you think this party was recent enough for me to be there．’

‘Yes，I did think that，’ he said．

‘How could you think that，Glaucon？Don't you know that it's many years since Agathon stopped living in Athens，but it's not yet three years since I started to spend my time with Socrates and made it my job to find out what he says and does every day？Before then，I used to run around aimlessly. I thought I was doing something important，but really I was in the most pathetic state – just like you now！– thinking that philosophy was the last thing I should be doing．’

‘Don't make fun of me，’ he said；‘just tell me when this party took place．’

‘When you and I were still children，’ I said，‘and Agathon won the prize with his first tragedy．It was the day after he and his chorus held a sacrificial feast to celebrate their victory．’

‘So it really was a long time ago，’ he said．‘Who gave you your report；was it Socrates himself？’

‘Certainly not！’ I said．‘It was the same person who told Phoenix，someone called Aristodemus from Cydathenaeum，a little man who always went around barefoot．He was at the party because he was，I think，one of the people most in love with Socrates at that time．But，of course，I checked with Socrates afterwards some of the points he told me，and he confirmed Aristodemus’ account．’

‘Come on，’ he said，‘why don't you repeat this to me now？After all，walking on the road to the city gives us a good chance to talk and listen as we go along．’

So as we walked along this is what we talked about，and that's why，as I said at the start，I'm well prepared．If I need to go through it for you as well，that's what I must do．In fact，whenever I discuss philosophy or listen to others doing so，I enjoy it enormously，quite apart from thinking it's doing me good．But when I hear other kinds of discussion，especially the talk of rich businessmen like you，I get bored and feel sorry for you and your friends，because you think you're doing something important，when you're not．Perhaps you regard me as a failure，and I think you're right．But I don't think you're a failure，I know you are．

COMPANION：You're always the same，Apollodorus．You're always running down yourself and other people．You seem to believe that simply everyone is in a sad state except Socrates，beginning with yourself．How you ever got the nickname of ‘the softy’，I don't know．In your conversation，you're always just the same as you are now，savage in your attacks on yourself and everyone – except Socrates．

APOLLODORUS：Well，my dear friend，it's quite obvious，is it，that if I take this view about myself and you，I'm raving mad？

COMPANION：It's not worth quarrelling about this now，Apollodorus．Please，just do what I asked you，and tell me how the speeches went．

APOLLODORUS：All right，they went something like this – but it would be better if I try to tell the story from the beginning，just as Aristodemus did．

He said that he met Socrates，who'd just had a bath and put on sandals – things he hardly ever did．He asked Socrates where he was going looking so smart．

Socrates replied，‘To dinner with Agathon．Yesterday I stayed away from his victory celebrations，avoiding the crowd；but I promised to join him today．That's why I've smartened myself up，so that I can look good when I go to the home of a good-looking man．But what about you？’ he asked．‘How would you feel about coming to dinner without an invitation？’

‘I'll do whatever you say，’ Aristodemus replied．

‘Come with me，then，’ Socrates said，‘so we can prove the proverb wrong，and make it say：“Good men go uninvited to good men's banquets”．Homer，after all，doesn't just prove the proverb wrong but comes close to treating it with contempt．His Agamemnon is an exceptionally good fighter，while Menelaus is a “soft spearman”．But when Agamemnon sacrifices and holds a feast，he makes Menelaus，the inferior man，go uninvited to the banquet of a better man．’

Aristodemus replied to this，‘But I'm afraid that I will also match Homer's description rather than yours，Socrates，and be the inferior man who goes uninvited to the banquet of a clever one．If you take me along，think about what excuse you'll give；I won't admit I've come uninvited，I'll say you've invited me．’

‘“The two of us going together on our way” ’，he said，‘will work out what to say．Come on，then．’

After this conversation，Aristodemus said，they went off．But Socrates fell into his own private thoughts and kept dropping behind as they went along．When Aristodemus stopped too，Socrates told him to go ahead．When Aristodemus reached Agathon's house，he found the door open，and was caught in a ridiculous situation．One of the household slaves met him right away and took him to the room where the others were lying on their couches；and he found them just about to have dinner．As soon as Agathon saw him，he said，‘Aristodemus！You've come at just the right time to have dinner with us．If you've come for any other reason，put it off．I looked for you yesterday to invite you，but couldn't find you．But what about Socrates – why haven't you brought him along？’

When he turned round（Aristodemus said），he saw Socrates wasn't following after all．He explained that Socrates had brought him along，and that he was coming to dinner at Socrates’ invitation．

‘I'm very glad you are，’ Agathon said．‘But where is he？’

‘He was behind me just now．I can't think where he must be．’

‘Go and look，slave，’ Agathon said，‘and bring Socrates here．And you，Aristodemus，share Eryximachus’ couch．’

A slave washed Aristodemus’ hands and feet，so he could lie down．One of the other slaves came and said，‘Socrates is here；he's retreated into your neighbour's porch and is standing there，and won't come in，although I've asked him to．’

‘That's odd，’ Agathon said．‘Go on asking him in and don't leave him alone．’

‘No，’ Aristodemus said；‘leave him．This is one of his habits．Sometimes he goes off and stands still wherever he happens to be．He'll come soon，I'm sure．Don't bother him，leave him alone．’

‘Well，if you think so，that's what we must do，’ Agathon said．‘Now，slaves，serve dinner to the rest of us．You generally serve whatever you like，when nobody is supervising you – and I've never done that．On this occasion，treat me as your guest for dinner as well as the others，and look after us in a way that will win our compliments．’

So they started having dinner，but Socrates still didn't come in．Agathon kept on saying they should send for Socrates，but Aristodemus wouldn't let him．In fact，Socrates came quite soon（he hadn't taken too long doing what he usually did），when they were about half-way through dinner．Then Agathon，who happened to be lying on his own on the bottom couch，said，‘Come and lie down beside me，Socrates，so that，by contact with you，I can share the piece of wisdom that came to you in the porch．It's clear you found what you were looking for and have it now；otherwise you wouldn't have stopped．’

Socrates sat down and said，‘How splendid it would be，Agathon，if wisdom was the sort of thing that could flow from the fuller to the emptier of us when we touch each other，like water，which flows through a piece of wool from a fuller cup to an emptier one．If wisdom is really like that，I regard it as a great privilege to share your couch．I expect to be filled up from your rich supply of fine wisdom．My wisdom is surely inferior – or rather，questionable in its significance，like a dream – but yours is brilliant and has great potential for growth．Look at the way it has blazed out so fiercely while you're still young；it was on display the other day，with more than thirty thousand Greeks there to see it．’

‘You're treating me with contempt，’ Agathon said．‘We'll argue for our rival claims to wisdom a bit later，and Dionysus will be our judge．But turn your attention to dinner fi rst．’

After this，Aristodemus said，Socrates lay down and had dinner with the rest．They then poured libations，sang a hymn，and performed all the other customary rituals，and turned to drinking．Pausanias took the initiative，saying something like this：‘Well，gentlemen，what's the most undemanding way to do our drinking？I can tell you that I'm in a really bad state from yesterday's drinking and need a rest．I think that's true of many of you，as you were there yesterday – so think about how to do our drinking in the most undemanding way．’

Aristophanes said，‘You're right，Pausanias，in saying we should cut down the demands we make on ourselves in our drinking．I'm one of those who were thoroughly sodden yesterday．’

After this，Eryximachus，the son of Acumenus，said，‘I agree with you．But there's still one more person I need to hear from，to find out what stamina he has for drinking，and that's Agathon．’

‘I've got absolutely no stamina either，’he said．

‘It's a stroke of luck for us – I mean，for Aristodemus，Phaedrus and the rest – that you who've got the strongest heads for drinking have given up．We're never up to it．Of course，I don't count Socrates：he can drink or not drink，so it'll suit him whatever we do．Well，since nobody here seems keen on drinking a lot，perhaps you won't find it so tiresome if I state the real facts about getting drunk．It has become clear from my medical experience that drunkenness is harmful for human beings．So if I had my way I wouldn't want to go too far in drinking and I wouldn't advise anyone else to do so，especially when you've still got a hangover from the night before．’

Phaedrus of Myrrhinus spoke up at this point：‘I usually follow your advice，especially where medicine is concerned．The rest of us here will do so too，if they're sensible．’

At this，they all agreed not to make the present occasion a real drinking-session，but just to drink as much as was pleasant．

‘Well then，'said Eryximachus，‘now that it's agreed that each of us should drink as much as he wants，without any kind of compulsion，my next proposal is that we should send away the flute-girl who's just come in，and let her play for herself，or for the women in their part of the house，if she prefers，and that we should spend the evening in conversation．Also，if you're willing，I'd like to propose a topic for discussion．’

They all agreed and told him to make his proposal．Eryximachus said，‘I want to begin by quoting the Melanippe of Euripides：“Not mine the story” that I'm going to tell，but that of Phaedrus here．He often makes this complaint：“Isn't it terrible，Eryximachus，” he says，“that the poets have composed hymns and paeans to other gods，but none of them has ever composed a eulogy of Love，though he is such an ancient and important god．If you look at our best sophists（for instance，the excellent Prodicus），they write eulogies in prose to Heracles and the rest．Perhaps that's not so very surprising；but I once found a book by a clever writer in which salt gets amazing praise for its beneficial properties，and you can find encomia to many other such things．It's terrible that people have given serious attention to subjects like that，but nobody to this day has yet had the courage to sing the praises of Love as he deserves．Such a great god and so neglected！” I think Phaedrus is quite right on this point．I'd like to please him by making a contribution to this project；also this seems a good occasion for those of us here to celebrate the god．If you agree，we won't need anything to occupy us but discussion．I propose that each of us should make the finest speech he can in praise of Love，and then pass the topic on to the one on his right．Phaedrus should start，because he is in the top position，and is also the originator of the topic．’

‘Nobody will vote against you，Eryximachus，’Socrates said．‘I certainly couldn't refuse，since the subject of love is the only one I claim to understand．Nor could Agathon and Pausanias；nor could Aristophanes，whose whole occupation is centred on Dionysus and Aphrodite；nor could anyone else I see here．Of course，this arrangement isn't fair on those of us whose positions come last．But if the first comers say all that is required and do it well，that will satisfy us．Good luck to Phaedrus as he starts off and makes his eulogy of Love！’

All the rest agreed with this and told Phaedrus to do as Socrates said．Of course，Aristodemus didn't remember all that each speaker said and I don't remember all he said．But I'll tell you the speeches of the people he remembered best and that I thought most important．

As I say，Aristodemus told me that Phaedrus spoke first，starting along these lines：saying that Love was regarded by humans and gods as a great and awesome god for many reasons，especially his origin．

‘The god’，he said，‘is held in honour because he is one of the most ancient，as is proved by this fact：Love has no parents and none are ascribed to him by prose writers or poets．Hesiod says that first Chaos came into existence，

and then

Broad-breasted Earth，a secure seat for everything for ever，And Love．

Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod，saying that after Chaos two things came into existence，Earth and Love．On his origin，Parmenides says that “the very first god she devised was Love”．So Love's great antiquity is widely accepted．

‘Because of his antiquity，he is the source of our greatest benefits．I would claim that there is no greater benefit for a young man than a good lover and none greater for a lover than a good boyfriend．Neither family bonds nor public status nor wealth nor anything else is as effective as love in implanting something which gives lifelong guidance to those who are to lead good lives．What is this？A sense of shame at acting disgracefully and pride in acting well．Without these no individual or city can achieve anything great or fine．

‘Take the case of a man in love who is caught acting disgracefully or undergoing something disgraceful because he fails to defend himself out of cowardice．I think it would cause him more pain to be seen in this situation by his boyfriend than by his father，his friends or anyone else．We see the same thing in the case of the boyfriend：he feels most ashamed in front of his lovers when he is caught in some disgraceful situation．If there was any mechanism for producing a city or army consisting of lovers and boyfriends，there could be no better form of social organization than this：they would hold back from anything disgraceful and compete for honour in each other's eyes．If even small numbers of such men fought side by side，they could defeat virtually the whole human race．The last person a lover could bear to be seen by，when leaving his place in the battle-line or abandoning his weapons，is his boyfriend；instead，he'd prefer to die many times．As for abandoning his boyfriend or failing to help him in danger – no one is such a coward that he could not be inspired into courage by love and made the equal of someone who's naturally very brave．When Homer speaks about a god “breathing might” into some of his heroes，this is just the effect that love has on lovers．

‘Besides，it's only lovers who are willing to die for someone else；and this is true of women as well as men．The Greeks have adequate proof of this fact in Pelias'daughter Alcestis，who was the only one willing to die for her husband，though his father and mother were still living．Acting out of love，she showed so much more affectionate concern than they did that she made them look like strangers to their son，and relatives only in name．The gods，as well as human beings，saw this as a very fine act．Although many people have performed many fine acts，and although the gods have granted to only a handful of these the privilege of releasing their life again from Hades，they released her life，in admiration at her act．This shows how much even the gods value the commitment and courage that come from love．

‘But they sent Orpheus，the son of Oeagrus，empty handed from Hades；they showed him only a phantom of the wife he'd come to fetch and didn't give him the woman herself．They thought he was soft（he was only a musician）because he didn't have the courage to die for his love like Alcestis，but found a way of entering Hades while still alive．They punished him for this，and made him die at the hands of women．

‘By contrast，they honoured Achilles，the son of Thetis，and sent him off to the islands of the blessed．He learnt from his mother that if he killed Hector he would then die himself，but that if he didn't he would go home and die in his old age．He had the courage to choose to act on behalf of his lover by avenging him：he not only died for him but also died as well as him，since Patroclus was already dead．This won special admiration and exceptional honours from the gods，because it showed how much he valued his lover．Aeschylus talks nonsense when he says that Achilles was Patroclus’lover：he was more beautiful than Patroclus（indeed，he was the most beautiful of all the heroes），and was still beardless，as well as much younger than Patroclus，as Homer tells us．Although the gods certainly give special honour to the courage that comes from love，they show still greater amazement and admiration，and respond more generously，when a boyfriend shows affectionate concern towards his lover than when a lover does towards his boyfriend．A lover is more god-like than a boyfriend because he is divinely inspired．That's why they gave higher honour to Achilles than Alcestis，and sent him to the islands of the blessed．

‘That's why I say Love is the most ancient of the gods，the most honoured，and the most effective in enabling human beings to acquire courage and happiness，both in life and death．’

Phaedrus'speech went rather like that，according to Aristodemus．After Phaedrus，there were some others which Aristodemus couldn't remember very well；so he missed them out and went on to report Pausanias'speech．Pausanias said，‘I don't think our project has been specified properly，Phaedrus，in that we've been told simply to praise Love．If Love were a single thing，this would be fine，but in fact it isn't；and since it isn't，it's better to define in advance which type we should praise．I'll try and put things right by stating first which Love we should praise，then giving the god the praise he deserves．

‘We all know that Aphrodite is inseparable from Love．If there was a single Aphrodite，there would be a single Love；but since there are two kinds of Aphrodite，there must also be two Loves．And surely there are two kinds of Aphrodite？One of these is older and is the daughter of Uranus，though she has no mother：we call her Uranian or Heavenly Aphrodite．The younger one is the daughter of Zeus and Dione：we call her Pandemic or Common Aphrodite．So it follows that each type of Love should have the same name as the goddess whose partner he is，and be called Heavenly or Common too．Of course，all gods should receive praise，but we must try and distinguish between the functions of these two gods．

‘Every activity in itself is neither right nor wrong．Take our present activity：we could be drinking or singing or discussing．None of these is right in itself；the character of the activity depends on the way it is done．If it is done rightly and properly，it is right；if it is not done properly，it is wrong．So not every type of loving and Love is right and deserves to be praised，but only the type that motivates us to love rightly．

‘Common Love is genuinely “common” and undiscriminating in its effects；this is the kind of love that inferior people feel．People like this are attracted to women as much as boys，and to bodies rather than minds．They are attracted to partners with the least possible intelligence，because their sole aim is to get what they want，and they don't care whether they do this rightly or not，So the effect of love on them is that they act without discrimination：it is all the same to them whether they behave well or not．The reason is that their love derives from the goddess who is much younger than the other，and who，because of her origin，is partly female and partly male in character．

‘The other love derives from the Heavenly goddess，who has nothing of the female in her but only maleness；so this love is directed at boys．This goddess is also older，and so avoids abusive violence．That's why those inspired with this love are drawn towards the male，feeling affection for what is naturally more vigorous and intelligent．You can also distinguish，within the general class of those attracted to boys，the ones who are motivated purely by the heavenly type of love．These are attracted to boys only when they start to have developed intelligence，and this happens around the time that they begin to grow a beard．I think that those who begin love-affairs at this point show their readiness to spend their whole lives together and to lead a fully shared life．They do not plan to trick the boy，catching him while he is still young and foolish，and then leaving with a laugh，running off to someone else．

‘There should even be a law against affairs with young boys，to prevent great effort being spent on something whose outcome is unclear．In the case of young boys，it is unclear whether they will end up good or bad in mind or body．Good men make this rule for themselves and are glad to do so．The followers of Common Love should be forced to adopt the same kind of rule，just as we forcibly prevent them，as far as we can，from having affairs with free-born women．These are the men who bring censure on love，so that some people go so far as to say that it is wrong to gratify a lover at all．People say this because they have in view the inappropriate and unjust behaviour of this type of men；surely，there is no action which would rightly be criticized if it were done in an orderly way and in line with the normal conventions．

‘The conventions governing love-affairs in other cities are easy to grasp since they have been defined in straight-forward terms．But here and in Sparta they are complex．In Elis and Boeotia，and wherever people are poor at speaking，the rule has been laid down straightforwardly that it is right to gratify lovers，and no one，young or old，would say that it is wrong．No doubt，this is to save them the trouble of trying to win over young men by persuasion，bearing in mind that they're incompetent speakers．But in much of Ionia and elsewhere in the Persian Empire the rule is that love-affairs are wrong．In Persia，it is because of their tyrannical government that they condemn them，as well as intellectual and athletic activities．No doubt，it doesn't suit their government that their subjects should have big ideas or develop strong friendships and personal bonds，which are promoted by all these activities，especially by love．In Athens the tyrants found this out by their own experience：it was Aristogiton's love and the strength of Harmodius'reciprocal affection that brought their dominance to an end．So where there is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers，this can be attributed to the defects of those who make this rule：the government's lust for rule and the subjects’cowardice．Where the rule is that it is straightforwardly right，this is because of the mental sluggishness of the rule-makers．

‘Here in Athens our conventions are much better than those；but，as I've said，they are not easy to understand．It is said to be better to love openly than secretly，especially if you love boys of social distinction and good character，even if they are not particularly good looking．Also the lover receives an extraordinary amount of encouragement from everyone，which suggests that he isn't doing anything disgraceful；it is regarded as a fine thing to catch the boy you want and disgraceful to fail．When the lover is trying to catch the boy，convention allows him to win praise for doing extraordinary things．If he dared to do these things with any other aim and objective，his reward would be massive disapproval．

‘Imagine that someone who wanted to get money from a person，or political office or some other position of influence，was prepared to behave as lovers do towards the boys they love．Imagine that he went down on his knees as a suppliant，begging for what he wanted，and swore oaths，and spent all night on someone's doorstep，and was prepared to undergo the kind of slavery that no slave would put up with．He would be held back from behaving like this by friends and enemies alike；his enemies would criticize him for humiliating himself to get what he wanted，while his friends would tell him to stop and be ashamed of what he'd done．But when a lover does all these things，he is indulged and allowed by convention to escape criticism，implying that his objective is wholly admirable．Most remarkable of all，it is widely supposed that the only person forgiven by the gods for failing to keep an oath is the lover．A lover's oath，they say，is no oath at all．So，according to our convention，gods as well as humans allow lovers every kind of indulgence．From this standpoint，you would think that in this city it is regarded as wholly admirable to be a lover and to respond affectionately to one's lovers．

‘On the other hand，when boys attract lovers，their fathers put attendants in charge of them，with specific instructions not to let the boys have conversations with their lovers．The boys’friends and peer group call them names if they see anything like this going on，and older people don't stop the name-calling or tell them off for saying these things．When you look at this，you would think，by contrast，that love-affairs were regarded as wholly wrong here．

‘The position，I think，is this．The matter is not straight-forward；and，as I said before，a love-affair in itself is neither right nor wrong but right when it is conducted rightly and wrong when conducted wrongly．It is wrong to gratify a bad man in a bad way，and right to gratify a good man in the right way．A bad man，in this connection，is the lover of the common type，who loves the body rather than the mind．He is not constant，because he loves something that is not constant：as soon as the bloom of the body fades，which is what attracted him，“he flies away and is gone”，bringing disgrace on all he said and promised．But the man who loves goodness of character is constant throughout his life，since he has become united with something constant．

‘The aim of our practice is to test lovers thoroughly and in the right way，to ensure that boys gratify one type but keep away from the other．That is why，at the same time，we encourage lovers to chase boys and encourage boys to run away from lovers．It's a kind of competition to test which type the lover belongs to and which type the boy belongs to．This explains why it's considered wrong to be caught quickly：this is to ensure that time intervenes，which is thought to be a good way of testing most things．It also explains why it is considered wrong to be caught by a lover's money or political power．In such cases，the boy is either frightened into submission by ill-treatment or enjoys the benefits of money or political success and fails to look down on this sort of thing．None of these things are thought to be stable or permanent，apart from the fact that no genuine affection can be based on them．

‘Only one way remains，according to our rules，in which it is right for a boy to gratify his lover．I said earlier that the lover's willingness to undergo every kind of slavery isn't humiliating or reprehensible．Similarly，according to our rules，there's only one remaining type of voluntary slavery that isn't reprehensible：the type which aims to produce virtue．Our view is that if someone is willing to put himself at someone else's service in the belief that the other person will help him improve in wisdom or some other aspect of virtue，this willing slavery isn't wrong or humiliating．

‘These two rules must be combined（the one governing the love of boys and the one governing the love of wisdom and other kinds of virtue），to create the conditions in which it is right for a boy to gratify his lover．These conditions are realized when lover and boyfriend come together，each observing the appropriate rule：that the lover is justified in any service he performs for the boyfriend who gratifies him，and that the boyfriend is justified in any favour he does for someone who is making him wise and good．Also the lover must be able to develop the boyfriend's understanding and virtue in general，and the boyfriend must want to acquire education and wisdom in general．When all these conditions are met，then and then alone it is right for a boyfriend to gratify his lover，but not otherwise．

‘In this case，there's nothing wrong with being deceived；but，in every other case，love is wrong，whether or not you are deceived．Suppose that a boy thinks his lover is rich and gratifies him in the hope of making money；if the lover turns out to be poor and the boy doesn't get any money，what he does is still wrong．This kind of boy has shown something about his character：that he would do any service for anyone to make money，and that is not right．On the same basis，suppose a boy thinks that his lover is a good man and gratifies him in the hope of becoming better through the lover's friendship．If the lover turns out to be a bad person，quite lacking in virtue，there's no disgrace in being deceived in this way．This kind of boy has also shown something about his character：that he's keen to do anything for anybody to gain virtue and become better，and there's no motive more admirable than this．So it's absolutely right to gratify a lover in the hope of gaining virtue．This is the heavenly love that belongs to the Heavenly goddess and is a source of great value to the city and to individuals，because it forces the lover to pay attention to his own virtue and the boyfriend to do the same．All other forms of love derive from the other Love，the Common one．

‘This is my contribution on Love，Phaedrus，’he said；‘it's as good as I can manage on the spur of the moment．’

When Pausanias came to a pause（I have learnt this kind of word-play from the experts），Aristodemus said，it was Aristophanes'turn to speak．But，as it happened，he was having an attack of hiccups，from overeating or some other cause，and couldn't speak．He said to Eryximachus（the doctor was lying on the couch below his），‘You're the right person either to put a stop to my hiccups or to speak instead of me until they're over．’Eryximachus replied，‘I'll do both．I'll take your place and you take mine when your hiccups are over．While I'm speaking，your hiccups might stop if you hold your breath for a long time；if they don't，gargle with some water．If they're really persistent，get something to tickle your nose with，and make yourself sneeze，If you do this once or twice，they'll stop，however persistent they are．’

‘Start your speech as soon as you can，'said Aristophanes，‘and I'll do this．’

Eryximachus said，‘This is what I think：Pausanias started his speech well but did not carry it through to a proper conclusion，so I should try to complete his line of argument．I think he drew a good distinction in saying there are two kinds of Love．But Love is not only expressed in the emotional responses of human beings to beautiful people，but in many other types of response as well：in the bodily responses of every kind of animal，in plants growing in the earth，in virtually everything that exists．I feel sure it's from medicine，my own area of expertise，that I've realized how great and wonderful a god Love is，and how his power extends to all aspects of human and divine life．

‘I'll begin with medicine，to give pride of place to this form of expertise．It's inherent in the nature of bodies that they manifest these two kinds of love．It's generally agreed that bodily health and disease are different states and dissimilar from each other．When things are dissimilar，the objects of their desire and love are dissimilar．Therefore，love is different in the case of a healthy and a diseased body．Pausanias just said that it's right to gratify good people but wrong to gratify self-indulgent ones．It's just the same with the body：in the case of each body，it is right to gratify the good parts and you should do this（and that's what it means to practise medicine）；but it's wrong to gratify the bad and diseased parts and you should deprive them of satisfaction if you're going to be an expert doctor．

‘Medicine，in essence，is knowledge of the forms of bodily love as regards filling and emptying．The person who is most of all a doctor can distinguish，within these processes，between right and wrong love．The good practitioner can bring about changes，so that the body acquires one type of love instead of the other；he knows how to implant one type of love，when it isn't there but should be，and to remove the other type of love that is there．He should be able to take the most antagonistic elements in the body and create friendship and love between them．The most antagonistic elements are opposites such as cold and hot，bitter and sweet，dry and wet，and so on．The one who discovered how to implant love and concord between these was our ancestor Asclepius（that's what we're told by poets like those here，and I believe them）and that's how he established the art of medicine．

‘Medicine，as I say，is wholly governed by this god，and so are athletics and agriculture；and it's clear to anyone who thinks about it for a moment that the same point applies to music．This is perhaps what Heraclitus has in mind，though he doesn't express it very well．He says about unity that “by diverging，it agrees with itself … like the harmony of a bow or a lyre”．It is quite absurd to say that a harmony diverges from itself or that it exists while its components are still divergent．But perhaps what he had in mind was that musical expertise creates harmony by replacing a previous divergence between high and low notes with agreement．Surely there can be no harmony between high and low while they are still divergent．Harmony is concord，and concord is a kind of agreement；but agreement cannot be created from divergent things while they are still divergent，and harmony cannot be created unless divergent things agree．Similarly，rhythm is created by replacing a previous divergence between fast and slow tempo with agreement．Just as medicine creates agreement in one area，music creates it in another，by implanting love and concord between the elements involved；music，in its turn，is knowledge of the forms of love in connection with harmony and rhythm．

‘In the structure of harmony and rhythm，considered in itself，it's not difficult to recognize the workings of love；and so the twofold character of love does not show itself here．But when it's a question of using rhythm and harmony to produce an effect on people，either by making up music（what they call “composition”）or by making proper use of the tunes and verses composed（which is called “education”），difficulties arise and a good practitioner is needed．Here the same principle again holds good：you should gratify and promote the love of well-ordered people，or people who are not yet well ordered but may in this way improve．This love is the good and heavenly one，the love of the Heavenly Muse．But the common love is that of the Muse Polymnia；when this type of love is applied，it must be with caution，to ensure that the recipient enjoys the pleasure it provides without being made self-indulgent．Similarly，in my area of expertise，a key part of the job lies in the correct handling of the desires met by the art of cookery，to ensure that people enjoy this pleasure without getting ill．So in music，medicine，and in every other sphere，both human and divine，as far as we can，we must pay careful attention to these two kinds of love，because both kinds are there．

‘The character of the seasons is also determined by these two kinds of love．When those elements I mentioned before（hot and cold，dry and wet）are influenced by the well-ordered Love，they are in harmony with each other and achieve a temperate mixture．Their arrival brings good harvests and health to humans and other animals and plants，and causes no damage．But when the lawless and violent Love dominates the seasons，they cause great destruction and damage．These conditions tend to produce epidemics and other abnormal diseases for beasts and plants．Frost，hail and blight are the result of the mutually aggressive competition and disorder that is the effect of this kind of love．So what we call astronomy is the knowledge of the workings of love，as these affect the movements of the stars and the seasons of the year．

‘Also，all types of sacrifice and the whole sphere of divination（these are the ways in which gods and humans communicate with each other）are wholly directed at maintaining one kind of love and curing the other．Every kind of impiety towards one's parents（living or dead）or the gods tends to occur when people fail to gratify，respect or give pride of place in every action to the well-ordered Love，but do so to the other one．Prophecy has been given the job of keeping an eye on those whose love is the wrong kind and curing this．It also has the job of producing friendship between gods and humans by understanding how the operations of love in human life affect right behaviour and piety．

‘So Love as a whole has great and mighty – or rather total – power，when you put all this together．But it is the Love whose nature is expressed in good actions，marked by self-control and justice，at the human and divine level that has the greatest power and is the source of all our happiness．It enables us to associate，and be friends，with each other and with the gods，our superiors．

‘It may be that my eulogy of Love has missed out a good deal，but if so this was not intentional．If I have left anything out，it's up to you，Aristophanes，to fill in the gaps．Or，if you have in mind a different kind of eulogy of the god，do carry on，now that your hiccups have stopped．’

Now that it was Aristophanes'turn（Aristodemus reported），he said：‘Yes，they've stopped all right，but not until I applied the sneeze-treatment to them．It makes me wonder whether it is the “well-ordered” part of my body that wants the kind of noises and tickles that make up a sneeze．At any rate，the hiccups stopped right away when I applied the sneeze．’

‘My dear Aristophanes，’Eryximachus said，‘be careful what you're doing．By joking before you start to speak，you're making me watch out for jokes in your speech too，when otherwise you could give your speech without interference．’

‘You're right，Eryximachus，’Aristophanes said，‘and I withdraw what I said．But，if you're watching out in my speech，don't think I'm afraid of saying something funny – that would be pure profit and typical of my Muse – but of saying something ludicrous．’

Eryximachus said，‘You think you can take a shot at me and run away！Well，take care；you'll have to answer for what you say．But even so，if I decide to，I'll let you off．’

‘Actually，Eryximachus，’Aristophanes said，‘I do intend to take a different approach from the one taken by you and Pausanias in your speeches．I think people have wholly failed to recognize the power of Love；if they'd grasped this，they'd have built the greatest temples and altars for him，and made the greatest sacrifices．In fact，none of this is done for him，though he deserves it most of all．He loves human beings more than any other god；he is their helper and the doctor of those sicknesses whose cure constitutes the greatest happiness for the human race．I shall try to explain his power to you，and you will teach this to others．

‘First of all，you must learn about human nature，and what has happened to it．Long ago，our nature was not the same as it is now but quite different．For one thing，there were three human genders，not just the present two，male and female．There was also a third one，a combination of these two；now its name survives，although the gender has vanished．Then “androgynous” was a distinct gender as well as a name，combining male and female；now nothing is left but the name，which is used as an insult．

‘For another thing，the shape of each human being was a rounded whole，with back and sides forming a circle．Each one had four hands and the same number of legs，and two identical faces on a circular neck．They had one head for both the faces，which were turned in opposite directions，four ears，two sets of genitals，and everything else was as you would imagine from what I've said so far．They moved around upright as we do now，in either direction，as they wanted．When they set off to run fast，they supported themselves on all their eight limbs，and moved quickly round and round，like tumblers who do cartwheels by keeping their legs straight as they go round and round．

‘The reason why there were these three genders，and why they were as described，is that the parent of the male gender was originally the sun，that of the female gender the earth，that of the combined gender the moon，because the moon is a combination of sun and earth．They were round，and so was the way they moved，because they took after their parents．They were terrible in their strength and vigour；they had great ambitions and made an attack on the gods．The story told by Homer about Ephialtes and Otus，how they tried to climb up to heaven to attack the gods，really refers to them．Zeus and the other gods discussed what to do to them and couldn't decide．The gods didn't see how they could kill them，wiping out the human race with thunderbolts as they'd done with the giants；if they did that，the honours and sacrifices the gods received from them would disappear．But they couldn't let them go on behaving outrageously．After much hard thought，Zeus had an idea：“I think I have a plan by which human beings could still exist but be too weak to carry on their wild behaviour．I shall now cut each of them into two；they will be weaker and also more useful to us because there will be more of them．They will walk around upright on two legs．If we think they're still acting outrageously，and they won't settle down，I'll cut them in half again so that they move around hopping on one leg．”

‘After saying this，Zeus cut humans into two，as people cut sorb-apples in half before they preserve them or as they cut hard-boiled eggs with hairs．As he cut each one，he told Apollo to turn the face and the half-neck attached to it towards the gash，so that humans would see their own wound and be more orderly；Zeus also told him to heal the other wounds．Apollo turned round the face；he pulled the skin from all around the body towards what's now called the stomach（like a purse being pulled tight with a drawstring），and finished it off by making one opening in the middle of the stomach，which we call the navel．He also smoothed off the other numerous wrinkles，and shaped the chest with the kind of tool used by shoemakers when they smooth the wrinkles of leather on the last．But he left a few on the stomach round the navel，to remind them of what had happened to them long ago．

‘Since their original nature had been cut in two，each one longed for its own other half and stayed with it．They threw their arms round each other，weaving themselves together，wanting to form a single living thing．So they died from hunger and from general inactivity，because they didn't want to do anything apart from each other．Whenever one of the halves died and one was left，the one that was left looked for another and wove itself together with that．Sometimes the one it met was half of a whole woman（the half we now call a “woman”），sometimes half a whole man．In any case，they kept on dying in this way．

‘Zeus took pity on them and came up with another plan：he moved their genitals round to the front；until then，they had genitals on the back of their bodies，and sexual reproduction occurred not with each other but on the earth，as in the case of cicadas．So Zeus moved the genitals round to the front and in this way made them reproduce in each other，by means of the male acting inside the female．The aim of this was that，if a man met with a woman and entwined himself with her，they would reproduce and the human race would be continued．Also，if two males came together，they would at least have the satisfaction of sexual intercourse，and then relax，turn to their work，and think about the other things in their life．

‘That's how，long ago，the innate desire of human beings for each other started．It draws the two halves of our original nature back together and tries to make one out of two and to heal the wound in human nature．Each of us is a matching half of a human being，because we've been cut in half like flatfish，making two out of one，and each of us is looking for his own matching half．Those men who are cut from the combined gender（the androgynous，as it was called then）are attracted to women，and many adulterers are from this group．Similarly，the women who are attracted to men and become adulteresses come from this group．Those women who are cut from the female gender are not at all interested in men，but are drawn much more towards women；female homosexuals come from this group．

‘Those who are cut from the male gender go for males．While they are boys，because they are slices of the male gender，they are attracted to men and enjoy sleeping with men and being embraced by them．These are the best of their generation，both as boys and young men，because they are naturally the bravest．Some people say that they are shameless，but that isn't true．It's not out of shamelessness that they do this but because they are bold，brave and masculine，and welcome the same qualities in others．Here is clear evidence of this：men like this are the only ones who，when grown up，end up as politicians．When they become men，they're sexually attracted by boys；they have no natural interest in getting married and having children，although they are forced to do this by convention．They are quite satisfied by spending their lives together and not getting married．In short，such people become lovers of boys and boys who love their male lovers，always welcoming their shared natural character．

‘When a lover of boys，or any other type of person，meets that very person who is his other half，he is overwhelmed，to an amazing extent，with affection，concern and love．The two don't want to spend any time apart from each other．These are people who live out whole lifetimes together，but still couldn't say what it is they want from each other．I mean，no one can think that it's just sexual intercourse they want，and that this is the reason why they find such joy in each other's company and attach such importance to this．It's clear that each of them has some wish in his mind that he can't articulate；instead，like an oracle，he half-grasps what he wants and obscurely hints at it．Imagine that Hephaestus with his tools stood over them while they were lying together and asked：“What is it，humans，that you want from each other？” If they didn't know，imagine that he asked next：“Is this what you desire，to be together so completely that you're never apart from each other night and day？If this is what you desire，I'm prepared to fuse and weld you together，so that the two of you become one．Then the two of you would live a shared life，as long as you live，since you are one person；and when you died，you would have a shared death in Hades，as one person instead of two．But see if this is what you long for，and if achieving this state satisfies you．” We know that no one who heard this offer would turn it down and it would become apparent that no one wanted anything else．Everyone would think that what he was hearing now was just what he'd longed for all this time：to come together and be fused with the one he loved and become one instead of two．The reason is that this is our original natural state and we used to be whole creatures：“love” is the name for the desire and pursuit of wholeness．

‘Before this，as I say，we were unified；but now，because of our crimes，we have been split up by Zeus just as the Arcadians have been by the Spartans．There's a danger that，if we aren't well ordered in our behaviour towards the gods，we'll be split up further，and go around like figures in bas-relief on gravestones，sawn in half down the nose，like half-dice．So everyone should encourage others to show all due reverence towards the gods，so that we can avoid one outcome and achieve the other，with Love as our leader and general．No one should work against Love，and to get on the wrong side of the gods is to work against Love．If we are friends of the god and have him on our side，we shall do what few people now do – find and become close to the loved ones that are really our own．

‘I don't want Eryximachus to think that my speech is just a comedy，directed at Pausanias and Agathon．It may well be that they are among this type and are both halves of the male nature．But what I'm saying applies to all men and all women too：our human race can only achieve happiness if love reaches its conclusion，and each of us finds his loved one and restores his original nature．If this is the ideal，under present circumstances what comes closest to it must be the best：that is to find a loved one who naturally fits your own character．If we want to praise the god who is responsible for this，we would rightly praise Love．In present circumstances，he does the best for us that can be done，leading us towards what is naturally close to us．He also holds out to us the greatest hopes for the future：that if we show reverence towards the gods，he will restore us to our original nature，healing us and so giving us perfect happiness．

‘Well，Eryximachus，this is my speech about love，a rather different one from yours．As I asked you，don't treat my speech as a comedy．Let's go on and hear what each of the remaining speakers has to say – or rather the two of them，as only Agathon and Socrates are left．’

‘I'll do as you say，’Eryximachus said，‘and in any case I much enjoyed your speech．If I didn't know that Socrates and Agathon were experts on the ways of love，I'd be very worried that they might run out of things to say，since we've already had such a wide variety of speeches．But，as things are，I'm quite confi dent．’

Socrates said，‘That's because you've taken part successfully in our competition．If you were in my position，or rather where I'll be when Agathon too has given a good speech，you'd be very frightened and in just as much of a quandary as I am．’

‘You're trying to put a spell on me，Socrates，’Agathon said，‘by making me nervous at the thought that the audience has high expectations of my giving a good speech．’

‘But I would have a short memory if I did that，Agathon，'said Socrates．‘I saw the courage and self-confidence you showed when you went out on to the platform with the actors，facing such a huge audience without any embarrassment，before presenting your own work．So I shouldn't expect you to become nervous in front of our small group．’

‘But Socrates，’Agathon said，‘I hope you don't think I'm so obsessed with the theatre that I don't realize that，for anyone with any sense，a small number of intelligent people are more alarming than a crowd of unintelligent ones．’

‘It would be quite wrong of me，Agathon，’Socrates said，‘to think you could be unsophisticated in any way．I'm well aware that if you found some people you thought were wise，you would pay more attention to them than to the crowd．But I'm afraid we don't fall into that category；after all，we were there and were part of that crowd．But if you found some other wise people，you might feel ashamed if you thought you were doing something wrong in front of them – is that what you mean？’

‘That's right，’Agathon replied．

‘But wouldn't you feel ashamed if you thought you were doing something wrong in front of the crowd？’

At this point Phaedrus interrupted and said，‘My dear Agathon，if you answer Socrates’questions，he won't care whether we get anywhere with our present project，as long as he's got a partner for discussion，especially someone attractive．I enjoy hearing Socrates engaging in discussion，but I must look after the eulogy of Love and extract from each one of you a speech as your contribution．So when the two of you have made your offering to the god，then you can have your discussion．’

‘You're right，Phaedrus，’Agathon said；‘there's no reason for me not to make my speech．Socrates will have plenty of opportunities for discussion another time．

‘I want first of all to say how I should speak，then give my speech．I think that all the previous speakers，instead of praising the god，have congratulated human beings on the good things that come to them from the god．Nobody has spoken about the nature of the god himself who has given us these things．There is only one right way of making a eulogy，whatever the topic，and that is to define the nature of the subject of the speech and the nature of that for which he is responsible．So，in the case of Love，the right thing is to praise his nature fi rst，and then his gifts．

‘I claim that，though all the gods are happy，Love – if it is proper to say this and does not cause offence – is the happiest，because he is the most beautiful and best．He is the most beautiful for this reason：first of all，Phaedrus，he is the youngest of gods．He himself provides good evidence for this point by fleeing head-long from old age，fast though that is（it comes to us sooner than it should）．Love naturally hates old age and keeps his distance from it．He always associates with the young and is one of them；the ancient saying is right，that like always stays close to like．Although I agree with many other things that Phaedrus said，I don't agree that Love is older than Cronus and Iapetus．I claim that he is the youngest of the gods and stays young forever．The things the gods did to each other in ancient times，which Hesiod and Parmenides report，happened（if their reports are true）because of Necessity and not Love．The gods would not have castrated or imprisoned each other or done those many other acts of violence if Love had been among them；there would have been friendship and peace between them，as there is now and has been since Love began to rule among the gods．

‘He is young，and sensitive as well as young；but it would take a poet of Homer's quality to bring out how sensitive the god is．Homer describes Delusion as a goddess，and also sensitive；at least her feet are sensitive，as he says：

But her feet are sensitive；to the ground

She never draws close，but walks on the heads of men．

I think Homer gives clear evidence of her sensitivity，in saying that she does not walk on what is hard，but what is soft．We can use the same evidence for Love's sensitivity．He does not walk on the ground，nor on skulls（which are not at all soft），but walks and lives in the softest of all things．He makes his home in the characters and minds of gods and humans；and not in all minds，one after another，but whenever he finds one with a tough character he moves on，and whenever he finds one with a soft character he settles down．Since he is in continual contact with the softest members of the softest type of thing，not just with his feet but with all of him，he must be extremely sensitive．

‘So he is very young and sensitive，and is fluid in shape as well．Otherwise，if he was tough，he couldn't envelop someone's mind completely or pass unnoticed at first entry into it and then out of it．Good evidence that he has a well-formed and fluid shape comes from his gracefulness，which is universally accepted as a special feature of Love（gracelessness and Love are always enemies to each other）．His beauty of complexion is shown by the fact that he spends his time among flowers．Love does not settle on a body or mind or anything that has no bloom or has lost its bloom；but when he finds somewhere full of bloom and fragrance，there he settles and stays．

‘Enough has been said（though still more remains）about the god's beauty；the next topic I must speak about is Love's virtue．The most important point is that Love does no injustice and has none done to him，when dealing with either gods or humans．When Love has anything done to him，it isn't by force（since Love is never forced）．When Love does anything，he doesn't use force，since everyone consents to all Love's orders；and whatever is agreed by mutual consent，that is what “laws，the sovereign of the city” defi ne as just．

‘As well as justice，Love has the biggest share of moderation．It is generally agreed that moderation is mastery of pleasures and desires，and that no pleasure is stronger than Love．If the pleasures are weaker，they must be mastered by Love and he must be their master；and if Love masters pleasures and desires，he must be exceptionally moderate．

‘As for courage，“not even Ares can stand up to” Love．It isn't Ares who captured Love but Love who captured Ares（Love of Aphrodite，as the story goes），and the capturer is master of the captured．Whoever masters the one who is bravest of the others must be the bravest of all．

‘I've spoken about the god's justice，moderation and courage；it remains to speak about his wisdom．As far as possible，I must try to treat this fully．First of all – to give honour to my expertise in the way that Eryximachus gave honour to his – the god is so skilled a poet that he makes others into poets．Everyone turns into a poet，“even though a stranger to the Muses before”，when he is touched by Love．We may take this as evidence that Love is a good composer in，broadly，every type of artistic production，because you can't give someone else what you don't have or teach someone what you don't know yourself．Certainly，as regards the production of living things，who will deny that it is by Love's skill that all living things come into being and are produced？As for expertise in art or craft，don't we know that whoever is taught by this god ends up being famous and conspicuous，while whoever is untouched by the god is obscure？It was by following where his desire and love led him that Apollo discovered the arts of archery，medicine and prophecy，and this makes Apollo a pupil of Love．In the same way，it makes the Muses pupils of his in music，Hephaestus in metalwork，Athena in weaving and Zeus in steering gods and humans．So the activities of the gods only became organized when Love was born among them – love of beauty，of course，as love cannot be directed at ugliness．Before then，as I said at the start，the gods did many terrible things，we are told，under the rule of Necessity．But once this god was born，all good things came to gods and humans through the love of beauty．

‘So it seems to me，Phaedrus，that Love is himself supreme in beauty and excellence and is responsible for similar qualities in others．I feel moved to express this in verse and say that he is the one who makes

Peace among humankind and windless calm at sea，

Rest for the winds，and sleep for those distressed．

Love drains us of estrangement and fills us with familiarity，causing us to come together in all shared gatherings like this，and acting as our leader in festival，chorus and sacrifice．He includes mildness and excludes wildness．He is generous of goodwill and ungenerous of ill-will．He is gracious and kindly；gazed on by the wise，admired by the gods；craved by those denied him，treasured by those enjoying him；father of luxury，elegance，delicacy，grace，desire，longing；careful for good people，careless of bad people；in trouble，in terror，in longing，in discourse，he is the best helmsman，marine，comrade，rescuer．For the whole company of gods and humans，most beautiful and best of leaders；every man should follow him singing beautiful hymns of praise，sharing the song he sings to charm the mind of every god and human．

‘There's my speech，Phaedrus，’he said，‘my dedication to the god；it combines entertainment with a degree of seriousness，as far as I can manage．’

After Agathon had finished his speech，Aristodemus said，there were shouts of admiration from everyone present，because the young man had spoken in a way that reflected well on himself and on the god．Socrates looked at Eryximachus and said，‘Well，son of Acumenus，do you still think my earlier anxiety was groundless？Wasn't I speaking prophetically when I said just now that Agathon would give an amazing speech and that I would be lost for words？’

‘On one point’，Eryximachus said，‘you were prophetic，in saying that Agathon would give a good speech；but I don't think you'll be lost for words．’

‘My good friend，'said Socrates，‘how can I fail to be lost for words，or anyone else，who has to follow such a beautiful and varied speech？The rest was not quite so amazing；but who could fail to be struck by the beauty of language and phrasing at the end？I saw that I couldn't even get close to this degree of beauty in my speech，and was so ashamed I nearly ran away（and would have done if I'd had anywhere to go）．The speech reminded me of Gorgias，and so I had just the same experience that Homer describes．I was afraid that Agathon would end his speech by directing the Gorgon-like head of the formidable orator Gorgias at my speech and turn me into speechless stone．Then I realized I'd made a fool of myself in agreeing to take my turn with you in eulogizing Love and in claiming expertise in the ways of love；in fact I knew nothing about what was involved in eulogizing something．I was so na．ve that I thought you should tell the truth about the subject of the eulogy；I thought this should be the basis from which to select the finest features and present them in a way that showed the subject at its best．I took pride in thinking that I would give a good speech because I knew the truth about how to give a eulogy of a subject．

‘But in fact，it seems，that isn't the right way of praising something．Instead，you should claim that your subject has the greatest and finest possible qualities，whether it really does or not；and if what you say isn't true，it doesn't matter very much．What was proposed，it seems，was that each of us should give the appearance of praising Love，not that we should actually do so．That must be why the rest of you find anything that can be said and ascribe it to Love，saying that he is like this and responsible for that，to make him look as fine and good as possible．You're obviously doing this for the ignorant（not，of course，for those who understand the subject）；and your eulogies have certainly been beautiful and impressive．

‘But I didn't know the right way of giving a eulogy，and it was out of ignorance that I agreed to give one in my turn．But “it was the tongue” that promised，“not the heart”；so let's forget about it．I'm not giving another eulogy of that kind – I couldn't do it．However，I am prepared to tell the truth，if you'd like that，though in my own way，not competing with your speeches，which would make me look ridiculous．So let me know，Phaedrus，whether there's any need for a speech like that，one which tells the truth about Love，but which uses whatever words and phrases happen to occur to me as I go along．’

Phaedrus and the others told him to give his speech in whatever style he thought best．

‘Phaedrus，’Socrates said，‘would you also allow me to ask Agathon a few little questions，so that I can make my speech on the basis of agreement with him？’

‘I give my consent，’Phaedrus said；‘ask away．’

After that，Aristodemus said，Socrates made this start to his speech．

‘My dear Agathon，I thought you made a good start to your speech，when you said that we should bring out Love's character before turning to the effects he produces．I think that's an admirable way to start．Well then，now that you've given a fine and magnificent exposition of the nature of Love in other respects，tell me this too．Is it Love's nature to be love of something or nothing？I'm not asking whether Love is the child of a particular mother or father；it would be absurd of me to ask whether Love is love of a mother or father in this sense．But suppose I'd asked the question，whether a father is father of someone or not．If you'd wanted to give the right answer，you'd surely have said that a father is father of a son or daughter，wouldn't you？’

‘Certainly，'said Agathon．

‘The same goes for a mother？’

He agreed to this too．

‘Well then，'said Socrates，‘answer a little further，and you'll have a better idea of what I've got in mind．Suppose I asked this：is a brother，in so far as he is a brother，brother of someone or not？’

He said that he was．

‘That is，a brother of a brother or sister？’

He agreed．

‘Now try to tell me about love’，he said．‘Is Love love of nothing or something？’

‘Of something，undoubtedly！’

‘For the moment，'said Socrates，‘keep to yourself and bear in mind what love is of．But tell me this much：does Love desire what it is love of or not？’

‘Yes，’he said．

‘When he desires and loves，does he have in his possession what he desires and loves or not？’

‘He doesn't – at least probably not，’he said．

‘Think about it，’Socrates said．‘Surely it's not just probable but necessary that desire is directed at something you need and that if you don't need something you don't desire it？I feel amazingly certain that it is necessary；what do you think？’

‘I think so too，'said Agathon．

‘That's right．Now would anyone who was tall want to be tall or anyone who was strong want to be strong？’

‘That's impossible，according to what we've agreed already．’

‘Yes，because no one is in need of qualities he already has．’

‘That's true．’

‘Suppose that someone who was strong wanted to be strong，'said Socrates，‘and someone who was fast wanted to be fast，and someone who was healthy wanted to be healthy．You might think that in these and all such cases people who are like that and who have those qualities also desire what they already have．I make this point to stop us getting the wrong idea．If you think about it，Agathon，these people must necessarily have each of the qualities they have at any one time，whether they want to or not；and so this can't be what they desire．So if someone says，“I'm healthy and want to be healthy”，or “I'm rich and want to be rich”，or “I desire the things that I've got”，we should say to him，“My friend，you already have wealth or health or strength．What you want is to have them in the future，since at the present you have them whether you want them or not．When you say that you desire what you've already got，ask yourself whether you mean that you want what you've got now to go on being there in the future．” He'd have to agree to that，wouldn't he？’

Agathon said that he would．

Socrates said，‘What someone is doing in these cases is loving something that isn't available to him and which he doesn't have，namely the continued presence in the future of the things he has now．’

‘Certainly，’he said．

‘So this and every other case of desire is desire for what isn't available and actually there．Desire and love are directed at what you don't have，what isn't there，and what you need．’

‘Certainly，’he said．

‘Come on then，'said Socrates；‘let's sum up what we've agreed．First，that Love is of something；second，that it is of something that he currently needs．’

‘Yes，’he said．

‘Now，bearing this in mind，recall what you said in your speech about what Love is of．If you like，I'll remind you．I think you said something like this，that the affairs of the gods were organized through love of beautiful things，since it's impossible to love ugly things．Isn't this more or less what you said？’

‘Yes，I did，’Agathon said．

‘What you say is plausible，my friend，’Socrates said．‘If this is right，then mustn't Love be love of beauty and not of ugliness？’

He agreed．

‘Didn't we agree that he loves what he needs and doesn't have？’

‘Yes，’he said．

‘It follows that Love needs beauty and doesn't have it？’

‘That must be the case，’he said．

‘Well，would you say that something that needs beauty and is wholly without beauty is beautiful？’

‘No．’

‘If this is so，do you still suppose that Love is beautiful？’

Agathon said，‘It looks，Socrates，as though I didn't know what I was talking about then．’

‘Ah well，it was still a beautiful speech，Agathon，’he said．‘But answer just one more small question：do you think that things that are good are also beautiful？’

‘I think so．’

‘Then if Love is in need of beautiful things，and good things are beautiful，he would be in need of good things？’

‘I can't argue against you，Socrates，’he said．‘Let's accept that things are as you say．’

‘It's the truth you can't argue against，my dear friend Agathon，’Socrates said．‘It's not at all difficult to argue against Socrates．

‘Now I'll let you go．I'll try to restate for you the account of Love that I once heard from a woman from Mantinea called Diotima．She was wise about this and many other things．On one occasion，she enabled the Athenians to delay the plague for ten years by telling them what sacrifices to make．She is also the one who taught me the ways of Love．I'll report what she said，using as a basis the conclusions I reached with Agathon，but doing it on my own，as far as I can．

‘As you stated，Agathon，one should first describe who Love is and what his character is and then describe his effects．I think the easiest thing is to report the content of a discussion I once had with Diotima，in which she put questions to me．I had said to her virtually the same things that Agathon said to me just now：that Love was a great god，and that he was himself beautiful．She used against me the same arguments that I used against him，proving that，according to my reasoning，Love was neither beautiful nor good．

‘I said，“What do you mean，Diotima？Is Love ugly and bad then？”

‘She said，“What blasphemy！Do you think that anything which isn't beautiful must necessarily be ugly？”

‘“I certainly do．”

‘“And must anything that isn't wise be ignorant？Haven't you realized that there's something between wisdom and ignorance？”

‘“What is it？”

‘“It's having right opinions without being able to give reasons for having them．Don't you realize that this isn't knowing，because you don't have knowledge unless you can give reasons；but it isn't ignorance either，because ignorance has no contact with the truth？Right opinion，of course，has this kind of status，falling between understanding and ignorance．”

‘“You're right，” I said．

‘“Then don't think that what isn't beautiful must be ugly，and that what isn't good must be bad．In the same way，when you yourself agree that Love is neither good nor beautiful，don't suppose that he must therefore be ugly and bad，but something in between these two．”

‘“But”，I said，“it's agreed by everyone that Love is a great god．”

‘“Do you mean everyone who doesn't know，” she asked，“or do you also include those who do？”

‘“Absolutely everyone．”

‘She laughed and said，“But Socrates，how could people agree that Love is a great god if they deny he's a god at all？”

‘“Who are these people？” I said．

‘“You're one，” she said，“and I'm another．”

‘At this I demanded，“How can you say this？”

‘“Easily，” she said．“Tell me，do you think that all gods are happy and beautiful？Or would you dare to suggest that any of the gods is not beautiful and happy？”

‘“By Zeus，I wouldn't，” I said．

‘“And you call happy those who are in possession of good and beautiful things？”

‘“Certainly．”

‘“But you've agreed that it's because Love is in need of good and beautiful things that he desires those very things that he needs．”

‘“Yes，I've agreed to that．”

‘“So how could he be a god if he is not in possession of beautiful and good things？”

‘“That's impossible，as it seems．”

‘“Do you see，then，” she said，“that you don't believe Love is a god？”

‘“But what could Love be？” I said．“A mortal？”

‘“Far from it．”

‘“What then？”

‘“Like those examples discussed earlier，” she said，“he's between mortal and immortal．”

‘“What does that make him，Diotima？”

‘“He is a great spirit，Socrates．Everything classed as a spirit falls between god and human．”

‘“What function do they have？” I asked．

‘“They interpret and carry messages from humans to gods and from gods to humans．They convey prayers and sacrifices from humans，and commands and gifts in return for sacrifices from gods．Being intermediate between the other two，they fill the gap between them，and enable the universe to form an interconnected whole．They serve．as the medium for all divination，for priestly expertise in sacrifice，ritual and spells，and for all prophecy and sorcery．Gods do not make direct contact with humans；they communicate and converse with humans（whether awake or asleep）entirely through the medium of spirits．Someone whose wisdom lies in these areas is a man of the spirit，while wisdom in other areas of expertise and craftmanship makes one merely a mechanic．There are many spirits，of very different types，and one of them is Love．”

‘“Who are his father and mother？” I asked．

‘“That's rather a long story，” she replied，“but I'll tell you anyway．Following the birth of Aphrodite，the other gods were having a feast，including Resource，the son of Invention．When they'd had dinner，Poverty came to beg，as people do at feasts，and so she was by the gate．Resource was drunk with nectar（this was before wine was discovered），went into the garden of Zeus，and fell into drunken sleep．Poverty formed the plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by Resource；she slept with him and became pregnant with Love．So the reason Love became a follower and attendant of Aphrodite is because he was conceived on the day of her birth；also he is naturally a lover of beauty and Aphrodite is beautiful．

‘“Because he is the son of Resource and Poverty，Love's situation is like this．First of all，he's always poor；far from being sensitive and beautiful，as is commonly supposed，he's tough，with hardened skin，without shoes or home．He always sleeps rough，on the ground，with no bed，lying in doorways and by roads in the open air；sharing his mother's nature，he always lives in a state of need．On the other hand，taking after his father，he schemes to get hold of beautiful and good things．He's brave，impetutous and intense；a formidable hunter，always weaving tricks；he desires knowledge and is resourceful in getting it；a lifelong lover of wisdom；clever at using magic，drugs and sophistry．

‘“By nature he is neither immortal nor mortal．Sometimes on a single day he shoots into life，when he's successful，and then dies，and then（taking after his father）comes back to life again．The resources he obtains keep on draining away，so that Love is neither wholly without resources nor rich．He is also in between wisdom and ignorance．The position is this．None of the gods loves wisdom or has the desire to become wise – because they already are；nor does anyone else who is already wise love wisdom．Nor do the ignorant love wisdom or have the desire to become wise．The problem with the ignorant person is precisely that，despite not being good or intelligent，he regards himself as satisfactory．If someone doesn't think he's in need of something，he can't desire what he doesn't think he needs．”

‘“Who are the lovers of wisdom，Diotima，” I asked，“if they are neither the wise nor the ignorant？”

‘“Even a child”，she said，“would realize by now that it is those who fall between these two，and that Love is one of them．Wisdom is one of the most beautiful things，and Love is love of beauty．So Love must necessarily be a lover of wisdom；and as a lover of wisdom he falls between wisdom and ignorance．Again the reason for this is his origin：his father is wise and resourceful while his mother has neither quality．So this is the nature of the spirit of Love，my dear Socrates．But it's not at all surprising that you took the view of Love you did．To judge from what you said，I think you saw Love as the object of love instead of the lover：that's why you imagined that Love is totally beautiful．But in fact beauty，elegance，perfection and blessedness are characteristic of the object that deserves to be loved，while the lover has a quite different character，which I have described．”

‘“Well，Diotima，” I said，“I'm sure you're right about this．But if Love is like that，what use is he to human beings？”

‘“That's the next thing，Socrates，” she said；“I'll try to teach you．So far we've dealt with Love's nature and birth；also，according to you，love is of beautiful things．But then，supposing someone asked us，‘Why is Love of beautiful things？’，or，to put it more clearly，‘The lover of beautiful things has a desire – what is it that he desires？’”

‘“That they become his own，” I said．

‘“But this answer raises another question，” she said．“What will he get when beautiful things become his own？”

‘I said that I didn't have a ready answer to that question．

‘“But suppose”，she said，“someone changed the question，using the word ‘good’instead of ‘beautiful’，and asked：‘Now then，Socrates，the lover of good things has a desire – what is it that he desires？’”

‘“That they become his own，” I said．

‘“And what will he get when good things become his own？”

‘“That's easier for me to answer，” I said；“he'll be happy．”

‘“So it's the ownership of good things that makes happy people happy；and you don't need to ask the further question，‘Why does someone want to be happy？’This answer seems to mark the end of the enquiry．”

‘“That's true，” I said．

‘“Do you think that this wish and this form of love are common to all human beings，and that everyone wants good things to be his own forever，or what is your view？”

‘“Just that，” I said；“it's common to everyone．”

‘“In that case，Socrates，” she said，“why don't we say that everyone is a lover，if everyone always loves the same things；why do we call some people lovers and not others？”

‘“That's something I've wondered about too，” I said．

‘“It's nothing to wonder about，” she said．“What we're doing is picking out one kind of love and applying to it the name（‘love’）that belongs to the whole class，while we use different names for other kinds of love．”

‘“Can you give me another example？” I asked．

‘“Yes，this one．You know that composition forms a general class．When anything comes into being which did not exist before，the cause of this is always composition．So the products of all the crafts are compositions and the craftsmen who make them are all composers？”

‘“That's right，” I said．

‘“But you know that they aren't called composers but have different names．Out of the whole class of composition we pick out one part，the one related to music and verse，and call that by the name of the class as a whole．It's only this that's called composition and those who have this subdivision of the skill are called composers．”

‘“That's right，” I said．

‘“The same goes for love．In essence，every type of desire for good things or happiness is what constitutes，in all cases，‘powerful and treacherous love’．But this can be approached by many routes，and those who do so by other means，such as making money or athletics or philosophy，aren't described as ‘loving’or ‘lovers’．It's only those whose enthusiasm is directed at one specific type who are described by the terminology that belongs to the whole class，that of love，loving and lovers．”

‘“I suppose that's right，” I said．

‘“The idea has been put forward”，she said，“that lovers are people who are looking for their own other halves．But my view is that love is directed neither at their half nor their whole unless，my friend，that turns out to be good．After all，people are even prepared to have their own feet or hands amputated if they think that those parts of themselves are diseased．I don't think that each of us is attached to his own characteristics，unless you're going to describe the good as ‘his own’and as ‘what belongs to him’，and the bad as ‘what does not belong to him’．The point is that the only object of people's love is the good – don't you agree？”

‘“By Zeus，I do！” I said．

‘“Well then，” she said，“can we quite simply say that people love the good？”

‘“Yes，” I said．

‘“But shouldn't we add，” she said，“that the object of their love is that they should have the good？”

‘“Yes，we should add that．”

‘“Not only that，” she said，“but that they should have the good forever．”

‘“We must add that too．”

‘“To sum up then，” she said，“love is the desire to have the good forever．”

‘“What you say is absolutely right，” I said．

‘“Given that love always has this overall goal，” she said，“we should also ask this．In what way and in what type of action must people pursue this goal，if the enthusiasm and intensity they show in this pursuit is to be called love？What function does love really have：can you tell me？”

‘“If I could，Diotima，” I said，“I wouldn't be so amazed at your wisdom，and wouldn't keep coming to you as your student to learn these very things．”

‘“Then I shall tell you，” she said．“Love's function is giving birth in beauty both in body and in mind．”

‘“One would need to be a prophet to interpret what you're saying，” I said．“I don't understand it．”

‘“Well，” she said，“I'll explain it more clearly．All human beings are pregnant in body and in mind，and when we reach a degree of adulthood we naturally desire to give birth．We cannot give birth in what is ugly，only in what is beautiful．Yes，sexual intercourse between men and women is a kind of birth．There is something divine in this process；this is how mortal creatures achieve immortality，in pregnancy and giving birth．This cannot occur in a condition of disharmony．The ugly is out of harmony with everything divine，while the beautiful fits in with it．So Beauty is the goddess who，as Fate or Eileithyia，presides over childbirth．That's why，when a pregnant creature comes close to something beautiful，it becomes gentle and joyfully relaxed，and gives birth and reproduces．But when it comes close to something ugly，it frowns and contracts in pain；it turns away and shrivels up and does not reproduce；it holds the foetus inside and is in discomfort．That's why those who are pregnant and already swollen get so excited about beauty：the bearer of beauty enables them to gain release from the pains of childbirth．You see，Socrates，” she said，“the object of love is not beauty，as you suppose．”

‘“What is it then？”

‘“Reproduction and birth in beauty．”

‘“That may well be so，” I said．

‘“It certainly is，” she said．“And why is reproduction the object of love？Because reproduction is the closest mortals can come to being permanently alive and immortal．If what we agreed earlier is right，that the object of love is to have the good always，it follows that we must desire immortality along with the good．It follows from this argument that the object of love must be immortality as well．”

‘Diotima taught me all this in her talks with me about the ways of love．One day she asked，“What do you think，Socrates，is the cause of this love and desire？Haven't you noticed what a terrible state animals of all kinds（footed beasts as well as winged birds）get into when they feel the desire to reproduce．They are all sick with the excitement of love，that makes them first want to have sex with each other and then to rear what they have brought into being．Even the weakest of animals are ready to fight with the strongest and die for the sake of their young；they are prepared to be racked with hunger themselves in order to provide food for their young，and to do anything else for them．Humans，you might think，do this because they understand the reason for it；but，in the case of animals，what causes this excitement of love – can you tell me？”

‘I said again that I didn't know．

‘She said，“Do you think you'll ever become an expert in the ways of love if you don't understand this？”

‘“But that's why I come to study with you，Diotima，as I said before，because I realize I need teachers．So tell me the reason for this，and for everything else connected with the ways of love．”

‘“Well then，” she said，“if you believe that the natural object of love is what we've often agreed，you shouldn't be surprised at this．The point made about humans applies also to animals；mortal nature does all it can to live forever and to be immortal．It can only do this by reproduction：it always leaves behind another，new generation to replace the old．This point applies even in the period in which each living creature is described as alive and as the same – for instance，someone is said to be the same person from childhood till old age．Although he is called the same person，he never has the same constituents，but is always being renewed in some respects and experiencing loss in others，for instance，his hair，skin，bone，blood and his whole body．This applies not only to the body but also to the mind：attributes，charactertraits，beliefs，desires，pleasures，pains，fears – none of these ever remain the same in each of us，but some are emerging while others are being lost．Still more remarkable is the fact that our knowledge changes too，some items emerging，while others are lost，so we are not the same person as regards our knowledge；indeed，each individual item of knowledge goes through the same process．What is called studying exists because knowledge goes from us．Forgetting is the departure of knowledge，while study puts back new information in our memory to replace what is lost，and so maintains knowledge so that it seems to be the same．

‘“This is the way that every mortal thing is maintained in existence，not by being completely the same，as divine things are，but because everything that grows old and goes away leaves behind another new thing of the same type．This is the way，Socrates，that mortal things have a share in immortality，physically and in all other ways；but immortal things do so in a different way．So you shouldn't be surprised if everything naturally values its own offspring．It's to achieve immortality that everything shows this enthusiasm，which is what love is．”

‘But in fact，when I heard her speech，I was surprised and said，“Well，Diotima，you're very wise，but are things really as you say？”

‘Like a perfect sophist，she said，“You can be sure about this．You can see the same principle at work if you look at the way people love honour．You'd be amazed at your own stupidity if you failed to see the point of what I've said，after considering how terribly they are affected by love of becoming famous ‘and storing up immortal fame for eternity’．They are readier even to risk every danger for this than for their children's sake，and to spend money，suffer any kind of ordeal，and die for honour．Do you think”，she said，“that Alcestis would have died for Admetus，or that Achilles would have added his death to that of Patroclus，or that your Athenian hero Codrus would have died to defend his sons’kingdom，if they had not thought that the memory of their courage（which we still hold in respect）would last forever？They certainly wouldn't，” she said．“I think it is undying virtue and glorious fame of this sort that motivates everyone in all they do，and the better they are，the more true this is；it's immortality they are in love with．

‘“Men who are pregnant in body，” she said，“are drawn more towards women；they express their love in trying to obtain for themselves immortality and remembrance and what they take to be happiness forever by producing children．Men who are pregnant in mind – there are some，” she said，“who are even more pregnant in their minds than in their bodies，and are pregnant with what it is suitable for a mind to bear and bring to birth．So what is suitable？Wisdom and other kinds of virtue：these are brought to birth by all the poets and by those craftsmen who are said to be innovative．Much the most important and finest type of wisdom”，she said，“is that connected with the organization of cities and households，which is called moderation and justice．Take also the case of someone who's been pregnant in mind with these virtues from a young age．When he's still without a partner and reaches adulthood，he feels the desire to give birth and reproduce．He too，I think，goes around looking for beauty in which to reproduce；he will never do so in ugliness．Because he's pregnant，he's attracted to beautiful bodies rather than ugly ones；and if he's also lucky enough to find a mind that is beautiful，noble and naturally gifted，he is strongly drawn to this combination．With someone like this，he immediately finds he has the resources to talk about virtue and about what a good man should be like and should do，and tries to educate him．

‘“It is，I think，when someone has made contact and formed a relationship with beauty of this sort that he gives birth to，and reproduces，the child with which he has long been pregnant．He thinks about the other's beauty，whether they are in each other's company or not，and together with him he shares in bringing up the child reproduced in this way．People like that have a much closer partnership with each other and a stronger bond of friendship than parents have，because the children of their partnership are more beautiful and more immortal．Everyone would prefer to have children like that rather than human ones．People look enviously at Homer and Hesiod and other good poets，because of the kind of children they have left behind them，which provide them with immortal fame and remembrance by being immortal themselves．Or take，” she said，“the children that Lycurgus left in Sparta to provide security to Sparta and，you might say，to Greece as a whole．Solon is also respected by you Athenians for the laws he fathered；and other men，in very different places，in Greece and other countries，have exhibited many fine achievements and generated virtue of every type．Many cults have been set up to honour these men as a result of children of that kind，but this has never happened as a result of human children．

‘“Even you，Socrates，could perhaps be initiated in the rites of love I've described so far．But the purpose of these rites，if they are performed correctly，is to reach the final vision of the mysteries；and I'm not sure you could manage this．But I'll tell you about them，” she said，“and make every effort in doing so；try to follow，as far as you can．

‘“The correct why”，she said，“for someone to approach this business is to begin when he's young by being drawn towards beautiful bodies．At first，if his guide leads him correctly，he should love just one body and in that relationship produce beautiful discourses．Next he should realize that the beauty of any one body is closely related to that of another，and that，if he is to pursue beauty of form，it's very foolish not to regard the beauty of all bodies as one and the same．Once he's seen this，he'll become a lover of all beautiful bodies，and will relax his intense passion for just one body，despising this passion and regarding it as petty．After this，he should regard the beauty of minds as more valuable than that of the body，so that，if someone has goodness of mind even if he has little of the bloom of beauty，he will be content with him，and will love and care for him，and give birth to the kinds of discourse that help young men to become better．As a result，he will be forced to observe the beauty in practices and laws and to see that every type of beauty is closely related to every other，so that he will regard beauty of body as something petty．After practices，the guide must lead him towards forms of knowledge，so that he sees their beauty too．Looking now at beauty in general and not just at individual instances，he will no longer be slavishly attached to the beauty of a boy，or of any particular person at all，or of a specific practice．Instead of this low and small-minded slavery，he will be turned towards the great sea of beauty and gazing on it he'll give birth，through a boundless love of knowledge，to many beautiful and magnificent discourses and ideas．At last，when he has been developed and strengthened in this way，he catches sight of one special type of knowledge，whose object is the kind of beauty I shall now describe．

‘“Now try”，she said，“to concentrate as hard as you can．Anyone who has been educated this far in the ways of love，viewing beautiful things in the right order and way，will now reach the goal of love's ways．He will suddenly catch sight of something amazingly beautiful in its nature；this，Socrates，is the ultimate objective of all the previous efforts．First，this beauty always is，and doesn't come into being or cease；it doesn't increase or diminish．Second，it's not beautiful in one respect but ugly in another，or beautiful at one time but not at another，or beautiful in relation to this but ugly in relation to that；nor beautiful here and ugly there because it is beautiful for some people but ugly for others．Nor will beauty appear to him in the form of a face or hands or any part of the body；or as a specific account or piece of knowledge；or as being anywhere in something else，for instance in a living creature or earth or heaven or anything else．It will appear as in itself and by itself，always single in form；all other beautiful things share its character，but do so in such a way that，when other things come to be or cease，it is not increased or decreased in any way nor does it undergo any change．

‘“When someone goes up by these stages，through loving boys in the correct way，and begins to catch sight of that beauty，he has come close to reaching the goal．This is the right method of approaching the ways of love or being led by someone else：beginning from these beautiful things always to go up with the aim of reaching that beauty．Like someone using a staircase，he should go from one to two and from two to all beautiful bodies，and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices，and from practices to beautiful forms of learning．From forms of learning，he should end up at that form of learning which is of nothing other than that beauty itself，so that he can complete the process of learning what beauty really is．

‘“In that form of life，my dear Socrates，” said the Mantinean stranger，“if in any，human life should be lived，gazing on beauty itself．If you ever saw that，it would seem to be on a different level from gold and clothes and beautiful boys and young men．At present you're so overwhelmed when you see these that you're ready，together with many others，to look at your boyfriends and be with them forever，if that was somehow possible，doing without food and drink and doing nothing but gazing at them and being with them．So what should we imagine it would be like”，she said，“if someone could see beauty itself，absolute，pure，unmixed，not cluttered up with human flesh and colours and a great mass of mortal rubbish，but if he could catch sight of divine beauty itself，in its single form？Do you think”，she said，“that would be a poor life for a human being，looking in that direction and gazing at that object with the right part of himself and sharing its company？Don't you realize，” she said，“that it's only in that kind of life，when someone sees beauty with the part that can see it，that he'll be able to give birth not just to images of virtue（since it's not images he's in touch with），but to true virtue（since it's true beauty he's in touch with）．It's someone who's given birth to true virtue and brought it up who has the chance of becoming loved by the gods，and immortal – if any human being can be immortal．”

‘Well，Phaedrus and the rest of you，this is what Diotima said，and I was convinced．Because I was convinced，I try to convince others that，to acquire this possession，you couldn't easily find a better partner for human nature than Love．That's the basis for my claiming that every man should hold Love in respect，and I myself respect the ways of love and practise them with exceptional care．That's why I urge others to do the same，and on this and every other occasion I do all I can to praise the power and courage of Love．So this is my speech，Phaedrus．If you like，you can think of it as a eulogy of Love or if you prefer，you can give it whatever name you like to give it．’

After Socrates'speech，Aristodemus said，while the others congratulated him，Aristophanes was trying to make a point，because Socrates had referred to his speech at some stage．Suddenly，there was a loud noise of knocking at the front door，which sounded like revellers，and they heard the voice of a flute-girl．

‘Slaves，go and see who it is，’Agathon said．‘If it's any of my friends，invite them in；if not，tell them the symposium's over and we're just now going to bed．’

Not long after，they heard the voice of Alcibiades in the courtyard；he was very drunk and was shouting loudly，asking where Agathon was and demanding to be brought to him．He was brought in，supported by the flute-girl and some of the other people in his group．He stood by the door，wearing a thick garland of ivy and violets，with masses of ribbons trailing over his head，and said：

‘Good evening，gentlemen．Will you let someone who's drunk – very drunk – join your symposium？Or should we just put a garland on Agathon，which is why we've come，and go away？I couldn't come to your celebration yesterday，’he said．‘But I've come now with the ribbons on my head，so that I can transfer them directly from my head to that of the man who is- I'd like to announce – the wisest and most beautiful．I suppose you'll laugh at me because I'm drunk．But even if you laugh at me，I know quite well I'm telling the truth．But tell me right away whether I can come in on these terms or not．Can I join you for a drink，or not？’

Everyone shouted out，telling him to come in and take a place on a couch，and Agathon invited him too．So he came in，supported by his friends．He was untying the ribbons to tie them on Agathon，and they fell over his eyes．So he didn't notice Socrates，but sat down next to Agathon，between him and Socrates，who moved over when he saw him．When he'd sat down，he embraced Agathon and tied the garland round his head．

Agathon said，‘Take off his sandals，slaves，so that he can lie down and be the third on this couch．’

‘Fine，'said Alcibiades；‘but who's this third person drinking with us？’As he said this，he turned round and saw Socrates．When he saw him，he jumped up and said，‘Oh Heracles，what's going on here？Is this Socrates？You've been lying here in wait for me again，so that you can play your usual trick of turning up suddenly wherever I least expect you．Why have you come here？And why did you choose this couch？I see you didn't pick Aristophanes or anyone else who's prepared to make a fool of himself，but you made sure you'd be lying beside the most attractive man in the room．’

Socrates said，‘Agathon，please protect me．What a nuisance my love for this man has become！Ever since I started loving him，I haven't been able to look at or talk to a single attractive man without his getting so jealous and resentful that he goes crazy and shouts at me and almost beats me up．So make sure that he doesn't do anything to me now and make peace between us；or if he starts to get violent，protect me from him．I'm quite terrifi ed by his mad attachment to his lovers．’

‘There can be no peace between me and you，’Alcibiades said．‘I'll get my own back on you for this another time．But for now，Agathon，’he said，‘give me back some of those ribbons，so that I can tie them on this amazing head of his．Otherwise，he'll criticize me for tying them on your head，not his，even though he always beats off all comers in verbal contest – and you've just done it once，two days ago．’

As he spoke，he took some of the ribbons，and tied them on Socrates，and lay down again．When he settled down，he said，‘Well，gentlemen，you look sober to me．This can't be allowed；you have to drink．This was what we agreed．For our master of ceremonies，to take charge of the drinking，until you're drunk enough，I elect – myself！Have a big goblet brought in，Agathon，if you've got one．Or rather，there's no need；bring me，boy，that wine-cooler，’he said，seeing one that held more than four pints．He had this filled up，and drank it down himself，and then he told the slave to fill it up for Socrates．As he did so，he said，‘Not that my trick will have any effect on Socrates，gentlemen．However much you tell him to drink，he drinks without ever getting more drunk．’

The slave filled it for Socrates and，while he was drinking it，Eryximachus said，‘What sort of behaviour is this，Alcibiades？Aren't we going to have any conversation or songs as we pass round the cup，but do nothing but drink as though we were thirsty？’

Alcibiades said，‘Hello，Eryximachus，best of sons of the best – and most temperate – of fathers．’

‘Hello to you too，’Eryximachus said；‘but what should we do？’

‘Whatever you tell us．We should obey you，because “a doctor is equal in worth to many other men”；so tell us to do whatever you want．’

‘Listen to me then，’Eryximachus said．‘Before you arrived，we'd decided to take turns，going round from left to right，making the finest speech each of us could，in praise of Love．All the rest of us have given our speeches．You haven't taken your turn at speaking，though you've done well at drinking，so it's right for you to make a speech．Once you've spoken，you can order Socrates to do whatever you want，and he can do the same to the person on his right and so on．’

‘That's a good idea，Eryximachus，’Alcibiades said．‘But I don't think it's fair to make someone who's drunk compete against speeches made by people when they were sober．Also，my dear friend，I hope you don't believe any of what Socrates just said．Don't you realize that the truth is quite the opposite of what he said？If I praise anyone else，whether god or human，while he's around，it's he who'll beat me up．’

‘What blasphemy！’Socrates said．

‘By Poseidon！’Alcibiades said，‘don't contradict me on this point．I'm never going to praise anyone else while you're around．’

‘Well then，do just that，if you want，’Eryximachus said．‘Give a eulogy of Socrates．’

‘What do you mean？'said Alcibiades．‘Do you think I should，Eryximachus？Should I attack him and punish him in front of you all？’

‘Hang on，'said Socrates．‘What are you planning – to give a eulogy that makes fun of me，or what？’

‘I'll tell the truth – will you let me do that？’

‘But of course I'll let you tell the truth；indeed，I order you to．’

‘Here I go then，’Alcibiades said．‘But this is what you can do．If I say anything that isn't true，interrupt，if you like，and point out that what I'm saying is false．I don't want to say anything that's false．But if I don't remember things in the right order，don't be surprised．It isn't easy for someone in my condition to list all the aspects of your peculiarity in a fluent and orderly sequence．

‘The way I'll try to praise Socrates，gentlemen，is through images．Perhaps he'll think this is to make fun of him；but the image will be designed to bring out the truth not to make fun．My claim is that he's just like those statues of Silenus you see sitting in sculptors'shops．The figures are produced holding shepherd's pipes or flutes；when they're opened up，you find they've got statues of the gods inside．I also claim he's like Marsyas the satyr．Not even you，Socrates，could deny that you resemble these in appearance；but you're going to hear next how you're like them in other ways too．

‘You're insulting and abusive，aren't you？If you don't admit this，I'll provide witnesses．And aren't you a flute-player？In fact，you're a much more amazing one than Marsyas．He used instruments to bewitch people with the power of his mouth，and so does anyone who plays his flute-music today．（I'm counting the tunes of Olympus as really Marsyas’，because Marsyas was Olympus'teacher．）Whether these tunes are played by an expert player or a poor flute-gift，they're the only ones which，because of their divine origin，can cast a spell over people and so show which ones are ready for the gods and initiation into the mysteries．The only difference between you and Marsyas is that you produce this same effect without the use of instruments，by words alone．Whenever we hear someone else making speeches，even if he's a very good orator，this has virtually no impact on any of us．But whenever anyone hears you speak or hears your words reported by someone else（even if he's a very poor speaker），whoever we are – woman，man or boy – we're overwhelmed and spellbound．

‘If it weren't for the fact that you'd think I was completely drunk，gentlemen，I'd take an oath on the truth of what I'm saying about the effect his words have had on me – an effect they still have now．Whenever I listen to him，my frenzy is greater than that of the Corybantes．My heart pounds and tears flood out when he speaks，and I see that many other people are affected in the same way．I've heard Pericles and other good orators，and I thought they spoke well．But they haven't produced this kind of effect on me；they haven't disturbed my whole personality and made me dissatisfied with the slavish quality of my life．But this Marsyas here has often had this effect on me，and made me think that the life I'm leading isn't worth living．You can't say this isn't true，Socrates．Even now I'm well aware that if I allowed myself to listen to him I couldn't resist but would have the same experience again．He makes me admit that，in spite of my great defects，I neglect myself and instead get involved in Athenian politics．So I force myself to block my ears and go away，like someone escaping from the Sirens，to prevent myself sitting there beside him till I grow old．

‘He's the only person in whose company I've had an experience you might think me incapable of – feeling shame with someone；I only feel shame in his company．I'm well aware that I can't argue against him and that I should do what he tells me；but when I leave him，I'm carried away by the people's admiration．So I act like a runaway slave and escape from him；and whenever I see him，I'm ashamed because of what he's made me agree to．Often I've felt I'd be glad to see him removed from the human race；but if this did happen，I know well I'd be much more upset．I just don't know how to deal with this person．

‘This is the effect this satyr has had on me and many other people with his flute-playing．Listen to other ways that he's like these creatures I'm comparing him with and what amazing power he has．You should realize that none of you really knows him．But I'll show what he's like，now that I've made a start．You see that Socrates is erotically attracted to beautiful boys，and is always hanging around them in a state of excitement．Also he's completely ignorant and knows nothing．In giving this impression，isn't he like Silenus？Very much so．This behaviour is just his outer covering，like that of the statues of Silenus．But if you could open him up and look inside，you can't imagine，my fellow-drinkers，how full of moderation he is！You should know that he doesn't care at all if someone is beautiful – he regards this with unbelievable contempt – or is rich or has any of the other advantages prized by ordinary people．He regards all these possessions as worthless and regards us as worth nothing too（believe me！）．He spends his whole life pretending and playing with people．

‘I don't know if any of you have seen the statues inside Socrates when he's serious and is opened up．But I saw them once，and they seemed to me so divine，golden，so utterly beautiful and amazing，that – to put it briefly – I had to do whatever Socrates told me to．I thought he was seriously interested in my looks and that this was a godsend and an amazing piece of good luck，because，if I gratified him，I'd be able to hear everything he knew．You see，I was incredibly proud of my good looks．Before this，I had never been alone with him without an attendant；but once I'd got this idea I sent the attendant away and was with him on my own．Yes，I must tell you the whole truth；so pay careful attention，and，if I say anything that's not right，Socrates，you must contradict me．

‘Well，there we were，gentlemen，the two of us on our own．I thought he would immediately have the kind of conversation with me that lovers have with their boyfriends when they're on their own，and I was pleased by that thought．But nothing like that happened at all．He had his usual kind of conversation with me and went away after spending the day with me．After that I invited him to come to the gymnasium with me and we exercised together；I thought I would get somewhere that way．So we exercised together and wrestled on many occasions with no one around – and what can I tell you？I got nowhere．

‘Since I was getting nowhere by these means，I decided to make a direct assault on the man，and not to give up now that I'd made a start．I felt I had to know how things stood．I invited him to dinner，just as though I were the lover and he the boy I had designs on．He wasn't quick to accept my invitation，but eventually agreed to come．The first time he came，he wanted to go after dinner，and on that occasion I was ashamed and let him go．But I continued my plan another time，and when we'd had dinner I kept the conversation going far into the night．Then，when he wanted to go，I made the excuse that it was too late to go，and made him stay．So he settled down to sleep on the couch next to mine，where he'd had dinner，and there was no one else sleeping in the room but us．

‘Up to this point，it would have been all right for anyone to hear what I've said．But from now on there are things you wouldn't have heard me say except that，as the saying goes，“there's truth in wine when the slaves have left”，and when they haven't！Also，I think it would be wrong of me to let Socrates’proud action pass into oblivion now that I've embarked on his eulogy．Besides，my experience is that of someone bitten by a snake．They say that someone who's had this experience is only prepared to say what it's like to those who've been bitten themselves，because they're the only ones who'll understand and make allowances if the pain drives you to do and say shocking things．I've been bitten by something more painful still，and in the place where a bite is most painful – the heart or mind，or whatever you should call it．I've been struck and bitten by the words of philosophy，which cling on more fiercely than a snake when they take hold of a young and talented mind，and make someone do and say all sorts of things．Also I can see here people like Phaedrus，Agathon，Eryximachus，Pausanias，Aristodemus and Aristophanes – I don't need to mention Socrates himself – and the rest of you．You've all shared the madness and Bacchic frenzy of philosophy，and so you will all hear what I have to say．You will all make allowances for what I did then and what I'm saying now．But you，house-slaves，and any other crude uninitiates，put big doors on your ears！

‘So，gentlemen，when the lamp was out and the slaves had left the room，I decided I shouldn't beat about the bush but tell him openly what I had in mind．I gave him a push and said，“Socrates，are you asleep？”

‘“Not at all，” he said．

‘“Do you know what I've been thinking？”

‘“What exactly？” he said．

‘“I think”，I said，“you're the only lover I've ever had who's good enough for me，but you seem to be too shy to talk about it to me．I'll tell you how I feel about this．I think I'd be very foolish not to gratify you in this or in anything else you need from my property or my friends．Nothing is more important to me than becoming as good a person as possible，and I don't think anyone can help me more effectively than you can in reaching this aim．I'd be far more ashamed of what sensible people would think if I failed to gratify someone like you than of what ordinary，foolish people would think if I did．”

‘He listened to what I said，and then he said this，in a highly ironic manner and one that was entirely typical of him：“My dear Alcibiades，it looks as though you're really no fool，if what you say about me is true and I somehow do have the capacity to make you a better person．You must be seeing in me a beauty beyond comparison and one that's far superior to your own good looks．If you've seen this and are trying to strike a deal with me in which we exchange one type of beauty for another，you're planning to make a good profit from me．You're trying to get true beauty in return for its appearance，and so to make an exchange that is really ‘gold for bronze’．But look more closely，my good friend，and make sure you're not making a mistake in thinking I'm of value to you．The mind's sight begins to see sharply when eyesight declines，and you're a long way from that point．”

‘When I heard this，I said，“As far as I'm concerned，this is the position，and my plans are exactly as I've said．It's now up to you to consider what you think is best for you and for me．”

‘“Well，” he said，“you're right about that at least．In the future we'll consider and do whatever seems best to us，both in this and in other things too．”

‘When he made this reply to what I'd said，now that I'd fired my shots，I thought he'd been wounded．I got up from my couch，and without letting him say anything more I wrapped him in my thick outdoor cloak（it was winter then）and lay down under his short cloak．Then I threw my arms round this really god-like and amazing man，and lay there with him all night long．And you can't say this is a lie，Socrates．After I'd done all this，he completely triumphed over my good looks – and despised，scorned and insulted them – although I placed a very high value on these looks，gentlemen of the jury．I'm calling you that because you've become the jury in the case of Socrates’arrogance！I swear to you by the gods，and by the goddesses，that when I got up next morning I had no more slept with Socrates than if I'd been sleeping with my father or elder brother．

‘After that，what state of mind do you think I was in？Although I felt I'd been humiliated，I admired his character，his self-control and courage．Here was someone with a degree of understanding and tough-mindedness I'd never expected to find．So，although I couldn't be angry with him or do without his company，I didn't know how to win him over．I knew well that he was more completely invulnerable to the power of money than Ajax was to weapons；and what I'd seen as the only means of catching him had proved a failure．I was baffled；and I went around more completely enslaved to this person than anyone else has ever been to anyone．

‘It was after these events had occurred that we served together in the Athenian campaign against Potidaea and shared the same mess there．The first thing to note is that he put up with the rigours of warfare better than me – better than everyone else，in fact．When we were cut off，and forced to do without food，as sometimes happens on campaign，no one came near him in putting up with this．But on the other hand when we had a feast，he was best able to enjoy it．For instance，though reluctant to drink，when he was forced to，he beat us all at it．The most amazing thing of all is that no one has ever seen Socrates drunk．I think you'll see proof of this shortly．

‘Also when it came to putting up with winter（the winters there are terrible），his endurance was remarkable．On one occasion there was such a bitter frost that no one went outside，or if they did，they wrapped themselves up with clothes in the most amazing way and tied on extra pieces of felt or sheepskin over their boots．But Socrates went out in this weather wearing the same outdoor cloak he'd usually worn before，and he made better progress over the ice in his bare feet than the rest of us did in boots．The soldiers regarded him with suspicion，thinking that he was looking down on them．

‘So much for that incident；but “what the stout-hearted man did and endured next” on campaign there is well worth hearing．One morning he started thinking about a problem and stood there considering it，and when he didn't make progress with it he didn't give up but kept standing there examining it．When it got to midday，people noticed him and said to each other in amazement that Socrates had been standing there thinking about something since dawn．In the end，when it was evening，some of the Ionians，after they'd had dinner，brought their bedding outside（it was summer then），partly to sleep in the cool，and partly to keep an eye on Socrates to see if he would go on standing there through the night too．He stood there till it was dawn and the sun came up；then he greeted the sun with a prayer and went away．

‘If you'd like to know what he was like in battle – here it's right for me to repay a debt to him．During the battle after which the generals awarded me the prize for bravery，it was Socrates，no one else，who rescued me．He wasn't prepared to leave me when I was wounded and so he saved my life as well as my armour and weapons．I actually told the generals to award the prize for bravery on that occasion to you，Socrates．This is a point on which you can't criticize me or say that I'm lying．But when the generals wanted to award the prize to me，influenced by my social status，you yourself were keener than the generals that I should receive it．

‘Here's another thing，gentlemen．Socrates was a sight worth seeing when the army made a disorderly retreat from Delium．It turned out that I was serving in the cavalry there while he was a hoplite．People had scattered by then in all directions，and he was retreating together with Laches．As it happened，I was near by，and when I saw them I encouraged them at once，and told them I wouldn't leave them behind．I was better able to watch Socrates there than at Potidaea（because I was on horseback I was less worried about my safety），and the first thing that struck me was how much more self-possessed he was than Laches．Next，I noticed that he was walking along there，just as he does here in Athens – to use your phrase，Aristophanes – “swaggering and looking from side to side”．He was calmly looking out both for friends and enemies，and it was obvious to everyone even from a long distance that if anyone tackled this man，he would put up a tough resistance．That was how he and his companion got safely away．Generally，people don't tackle those who show this kind of attitude in combat；they prefer to chase those who are in headlong flight．

‘There are many other remarkable things which you could say in praise of Socrates．Some of these distinctive features could perhaps also be attributed to other people too．But what is most amazing about him is that he is like no other human being，either of the past or the present．If you wanted to say what Achilles was like，you could compare him with Brasidas or others，and in Pericles’case you could compare him with Nestor or Antenor（and there are other possibilities），and you could draw other comparisons in the same way．But this person is so peculiar，and so is the way he talks，that however hard you look you'll never find anyone close to him either from the present or the past．The best you can do is what I did，in fact，when I compared him，and his way of talking，not with human beings but with Sileni and satyrs．

‘This is something I forgot to say at the beginning：his discussions are also very like those Sileni that you open up．If you're prepared to listen to Socrates'discussions，they seem absolutely ridiculous at first．This is because of the words and phrases he uses，which are like the rough skin of an insulting satyr．He talks about packasses，blacksmiths，shoemakers and tanners，and seems to be always using the same words to make the same points；and so anyone unused to him or unintelligent would find his arguments ridiculous．But if you can open them up and see inside，you'll find they're the only ones that make any sense．You'll also find they're the most divine and contain the most images of virtue．They range over most – or rather all – of the subjects that you must examine if you're going to become a good person．

‘This is what I have to say，gentlemen，in praise of Socrates．I've also mixed in some blame as well，and told you how he insulted me．I'm not the only one he's done this to；there's also Charmides the son of Glaucon，Euthydemus the son of Diocles and many others．He deceives them into thinking he's their lover and then turns out to be the loved one instead of the lover．I'm warning you，Agathon，not to be deceived by him，but to learn from what we've suffered and be cautious，and don't，as the proverb puts it，be the fool who only learns by his own suffering．’

This speech of Alcibiades created much amusement at his frankness，because he seemed to be still in love with Socrates．Socrates said，‘I think you're sober after all，Alcibiades．Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to conceal the motive of your entire speech by ingeniously disguising it in this way．You slipped it in at the end as though it was an afterthought – as though the point of the whole speech hadn't been to make trouble between myself and Agathon．You did this because you think that I should love you and no one else，and that Agathon should be loved by you and no one else．But you haven't got away with it；we've seen the purpose of this satyr-play – and Silenus-play – of yours．But，my dear Agathon，don't let him succeed in this；make sure that no one comes between me and you．’

Then Agathon said，‘You know，Socrates，I think you must be right．It's significant that he lay down in the middle，between me and you，to keep us apart．But he won't succeed in doing this．I'll come round and lie down beside you．’

‘Please do，'said Socrates；‘come here and lie down on the other side．’

‘Oh Zeus！'said Alcibiades，‘what I suffer from this person！He thinks he always has to get the better of me．But if nothing else – you amazing man – let Agathon lie down between us．’

‘But that's impossible，’Socrates said．‘You've praised me，and now it's my turn to praise the one on my right．If Agathon lies down between us，won't he too have to praise me，instead of being praised by me？For goodness'sake，don't stop the young man from being praised by me；I feel a strong desire to give his eulogy．’

‘Hurrah！'said Agathon．‘Alcibiades，there's no way I'm going to stay here now．I simply must change positions and be praised by Socrates．’

‘Here we go again，'said Alcibiades；‘it's always the same．When Socrates is around，no one else can get a look-in with the attractive men．Now，too，see how resourcefully he's found a plausible reason why this one should lie down beside him．’

So Agathon got up to go and lie down beside Socrates．Suddenly，a large group of revellers came to the front door．They found it open because someone was just going out；so they marched straight in to join them，and settled themselves down on the couches．There was noise everywhere，and all order was abandoned；everyone was forced to drink vast amounts of wine．Aristodemus said that Eryximachus and Phaedrus and some of the others went off then，while he fell asleep for a very long time，because the nights were long at that time of year．He woke up when it was nearly dawn and the cocks were already crowing．Once he'd woken up，he saw that the others were either asleep or had left，and that Agathon，Aristophanes and Socrates were the only ones still awake，drinking from a large bowl that they passed from left to right．Socrates was engaged in dialogue with them．Aristodemus said he couldn't remember most of the argument，because he'd missed the start and was half-asleep anyway．But the key point，he said，was that Socrates was pressing them to agree that the same man should be capable of writing both comedy and tragedy，and that anyone who is an expert in writing tragedy must also be an expert in writing comedy．He was getting them to agree this，though they were sleepy and not following very well；Aristophanes fell asleep first，and Agathon fell asleep when day was already breaking．

After getting them off to sleep，Socrates got up and went off．Aristodemus followed him as usual．Socrates went to the Lyceum，had a wash，spent the rest of the day as he did at other times，and only then in the evening went home to bed．

The Allegory of the Cave

1．Socrates begins with a reminder of the qualities of character which the philosopher must have，and goes on to emphasize that those qualities must be based on knowledge，ultimately on knowledge of the good，which for him means，as this passage makes clear，the form of the good．After dismissing briefly the views of those who believe the good is pleasure or knowledge，Socrates refuses to give a direct statement of his own view of it，and instead offers to describe it in a simile．

‘Well，then，that part of our job is done – and it's not been easy；we must now go on to the next，and ask about the studies and pursuits which will produce these saviours of our society．What are they to learn and at what age are they to learn it？’

‘Yes，that's our next question．’

‘I didn't really gain anything，’I said，‘by being clever and putting off the difficulties about the possession of women，the production of children and the establishment of Rulers till later．I knew that my true society would give offence and be difficult to realize；but I have had to describe it all the same．I've dealt with the business about women and children，and now I've got to start again on the Rulers．You will remember that we said they must love their country，and be tested both in pleasure and pain，to ensure that their loyalty remained unshaken by pain or fear or any other vicissitude；those who failed the test were to be rejected，but those who emerged unscathed，like gold tried in the fire，were to be established as rulers and given honours and rewards both in life and after death．This is roughly what we said，but we were afraid of stirring up the problems we are now facing，and our argument evaded the issue and tried to get by without being seen．’

‘Yes，I remember，’he said．

‘You know，I hesitated before to say the rash things I've said，’I replied；‘but now let me be brave and say that our Guardians，in the fullest sense，must be philosophers．’

‘So be it．’

‘Think how few of them there are likely to be．The elements in the character which we said they must have don't usually combine into a whole，but are normally found separately．’

‘What do you mean？’

‘Readiness to learn and remember，quickness and keenness of mind and the qualities that go with them，and enterprise and breadth of vision，aren't usually combined with readiness to live an orderly，quiet and steady life；their keenness makes such temperaments very unpredictable and quite devoid of steadiness．’

‘True．’

‘And again，steady，consistent characters on whom you can rely，and who are unmoved by fear in war，are equally unmoved by instruction．Their immobility amounts indeed to numbness and，faced with anything that demands intellectual effort，they yawn and sink into slumber．’

‘That's all quite true．’

‘But we demand a full and fair share of both sets of qualities from anyone who is to be given the highest form of education and any share of office or authority．’

‘And rightly．’

‘So the character we want will be a rare occurrence．’

‘It will．’

‘And we must not only test it in the pains and fears and pleasures we have already described，but also try it out in a series of intellectual studies which we omitted before，to see if it has the endurance to pursue the highest forms of knowledge，without flinching as others flinch in physical trials．’

‘A fair test；but what，’he asked，‘are these highest forms of knowledge？’

‘You remember，’I answered，‘that we distinguished three elements in the mind，and then went on to deal with justice，self-control，courage and wisdom．’

‘If I didn't remember that，’he said，‘I shouldn't have any claim to hear the rest of the argument．’

‘Then do you remember what we said just before we dealt with these subjects？’

‘What？’

‘We said that a really clear view of them could only be got by making a detour for the purpose，though we could give some indication on the basis of our earlier argument．You said that was good enough，and so our subsequent description fell short，in my view，of real precision；whether it was precise enough for you，is for you to say．’

‘I thought you gave us fair measure，and so，I think，did the others．’

‘My dear Adeimantus，in matters like this nothing is fair measure that falls short of the truth in any respect，’I replied．‘You can't use the imperfect as a measure of anything – though people are sometimes content with it，and don't want to look further．’

‘Yes，but it's usually because they're too lazy．’

‘A most undesirable quality in a Guardian of state and laws．’

‘A fair comment．’

‘Then he must take the longer way round，’I said，‘and must work as hard at his intellectual training as at his physical；otherwise，as we've just said，he will never finally reach the highest form of knowledge，which should be peculiarly his own．’

‘The highest？’he asked．‘But is there anything higher than justice and the other qualities we discussed？’

‘There is，’I said．‘And we ought not to be content with the sight of a mere sketch even of these qualities，or fail to complete the picture in detail．For it would be absurd，would it not，to devote all our energies to securing the greatest possible precision and clarity in matters of little consequence，and not to demand the highest precision in the most important things of all？’

‘Quite absurd，’he agreed．‘But you can hardly expect to escape cross-questioning about what you call the highest form of knowledge and its object．’

‘I don't expect to escape from you，’I returned；‘ask your questions．Though you've heard about it often enough，and either don't understand for the moment，or else are deliberately giving me trouble by your persistence – I suspect it's the latter，because you have certainly often been told that the highest form of knowledge is knowledge of the form of the good，from which things that are just and so on derive their usefulness and value．You know pretty well that that's what I have to say，and that I'm going to add that our knowledge of it is inadequate，and that if we are ignorant of it the rest of our knowledge，however perfect，can be of no benefit to us，just as it's no use possessing anything if you can't get any good out of it．Or do you think there's any point in possessing anything if it's no good？Is there any point in having all other forms of knowledge without that of the good，and so lacking knowledge about what is good and valuable？’

‘I certainly don't think there is．’

‘And you know of course that most ordinary people think that pleasure is the good，while the more sophisticated think it is knowledge．’

‘Yes．’

‘But those who hold this latter view can't tell us what knowledge they mean，but are compelled in the end to say they mean knowledge of the good．’

‘Which is quite absurd．’

‘An absurdity they can't avoid，if，after criticizing us for not knowing the good，they then turn round and talk to us as if we did know it；for they say it is “knowledge of the good” as if we understood what they meant when they utter the word “good”．’

‘That's perfectly true．’

‘Then what about those who define good as pleasure？Is their confusion any less？Aren't they compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures？’

‘Of course they are．’

‘And they thus find themselves admitting that the same things are both good and bad，don't they？’

‘Yes．’

‘So it's obvious that the subject is highly controversial．’

‘It is indeed．’

‘Well，then，isn't it obvious too that when it's a matter of justice or value many people prefer the appearance to the reality，whether it's a matter of possession and action or of reputation；but that no one is satisfied to have something that only appears to be good，but wants something that really is，and has no use here for appearances？’

‘Absolutely true．’

‘The good，then，is the end of all endeavour，the object on which every heart is set，whose existence it divines，though it finds it difficult to grasp just what it is；and because it can't handle it with the same assurance as other things it misses any value those other things have．Can we possibly agree that the best of our citizens，to whom we are going to entrust everything，should be in the dark about so important a subject？’

‘It's the last thing we can admit．’

‘At any rate a man will not be a very useful Guardian of what is right and valuable if he does not know in what their goodness consists；and I suspect that until he does no one can know them adequately．’

‘Your suspicions are well founded．’

‘So our society will be properly regulated only if it is in the charge of a Guardian who has this knowledge．’

‘That must be so，’he said．‘But what about you，Socrates？Do you think that the good is knowledge or pleasure？Or do you think it's something else？’

‘What a man！’I exclaimed．‘It's been obvious for some time that you wouldn't be satisfied with other people's opinions！’

‘But I don't think it's right，Socrates，’he protested，‘for you to be able to tell us other people's opinions but not your own，when you've given so much time to the subject．’

‘Yes，but do you think it's right for a man to talk as if he knows what he does not？’

‘He has no right to talk as if he knew；but he should be prepared to say what it is that he thinks．’

‘Well，’I said，‘haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing？At the best it is blind – isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road？’

‘Yes．’

‘Then do you want a poor，blind，halting display from me，when you can get splendidly clear accounts from other people？’

‘Now，for goodness'sake don't give up when you're just at the finish，Socrates，’begged Glaucon．‘We shall be quite satisfied if you give an account of the good similar to that you gave of justice and self-control and the rest．’

‘And so shall I too，my dear chap，’I replied，‘but I'm afraid it's beyond me，and if I try I shall only make a fool of myself and be laughed at．So please let us give up asking for the present what the good is in itself；I'm afraid that to reach what I think would be a satisfactory answer is beyond the range of our present inquiry．But I will tell you，if you like，about something which seems to me to be a child of the good，and to resemble it very closely – or would you rather I didn't？’

‘Tell us about the child and you can owe us your account of the parent，’he said．

‘It's a debt I wish I could pay back to you in full，instead of only paying interest on the loan，’I replied．‘But for the present you must accept my description of the child of the good as interest．But take care I don't inadvertently cheat you by forging my account of the interest due．’

‘We'll be as careful as we can，’he said．‘Go on．’

2．The Simile of the Sun［…］

‘I must first get your agreement to，and remind you of，something we have said earlier in our discussion，and indeed on many other occasions．’

‘What is it？’he asked．

I replied，‘We say that there are many particular things that are beautiful，and many that are good，and so on，and distinguish between them in our account．’

‘Yes，we do．’

‘And we go on to speak of beauty-in-itself，and goodness-in-itself，and so on for all the sets of particular things which we have regarded as many；and we proceed to posit by contrast a single form，which is unique，in each case，and call it “what really is” each thing．’

‘That is so．’

‘And we say that the particulars are objects of sight but not of intelligence，while the forms are the objects of intelligence but not of sight．’

‘Certainly．’

‘And with what part of ourselves do we see what we see？’

‘With our sight．’

‘And we hear with our hearing，and so on with the other senses and their objects．’

‘Of course．’

‘Then have you noticed，’I asked，‘how extremely lavish the designer of our senses was when he gave us the faculty of sight and made objects visible？’

‘I can't say I have．’

‘Then look．Do hearing and sound need something of another kind in addition to themselves to enable the ear to hear and the sound to be heard – some third element without which the one cannot hear or the other be heard？’

‘No．’

‘And the same is true of most，I might say all，the other senses．Or can you think of any that needs anything of the kind？’

‘No，I can't．’

‘But haven't you noticed that sight and the visible do need one？’

‘How？’

‘If the eyes have the power of sight，and its possessor tries to use this power，and if objects have colour，yet you know that he will see nothing and the colours will remain invisible unless a third element is present which is specifi cally and naturally adapted for the purpose．’

‘What is that？’he asked．

‘What you call light，’I answered．

‘True．’

‘Then the sense of sight and the visibility of objects are yoked by a yoke a long way more precious than any other – that is，if light is a precious thing．’

‘Which it most certainly is．’

‘Which，then，of the heavenly bodies do you regard as responsible for this？Whose light would you say it is that makes our eyes see and objects be seen most perfectly？’

‘I should say the same as you or anyone else；you mean the sun，of course．’

‘Then is sight related to its divine source as follows？’

‘How？’

‘The sun is not identical with sight，nor with what we call the eye in which sight resides．’

‘No．’

‘Yet of all sense-organs the eye is the most sunlike．’

‘Much the most．’

‘So the eye's power of sight is a kind of infusion dispensed to it by the sun．’

‘Yes．’

‘Then，moreover，though the sun is not itself sight，it is the cause of sight and is seen by the sight it causes．’

‘That is so．’

‘Well，that is what I called the child of the good，’I said．‘The good has begotten it in its own likeness，and it bears the same relation to sight and visible objects in the visible realm that the good bears to intelligence and intelligible objects in the intelligible realm．’

‘Will you explain that a bit further？’he asked．

‘You know that when we turn our eyes to objects whose colours are no longer illuminated by daylight，but only by moonlight or starlight，they see dimly and appear to be almost blind，as if they had no clear vision．’

‘Yes．’

‘But when we turn them on things on which the sun is shining，then they see clearly，and obviously have vision．’

‘Certainly．’

‘Apply the analogy to the mind．When the mind's eye is fixed on objects illuminated by truth and reality，it understands and knows them，and its possession of intelligence is evident；but when it is fixed on the twilight world of change and decay，it can only form opinions，its vision is confused and its opinions shifting，and it seems to lack intelligence．’

‘That is true．’

‘Then what gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the knower's mind the power of knowing is the form of the good．It is the cause of knowledge and truth，and you will be right to think of it as being itself known，and yet as being something other than，and even more splendid than，knowledge and truth，splendid as they are．And just as it was right to think of light and sight as being like the sun，but wrong to think of them as being the sun itself，so here again it is right to think of knowledge and truth as being like the good，but wrong to think of either of them as being the good，whose position must be ranked still higher．’

‘You are making it something of remarkable splendour if it is the source of knowledge and truth，and yet itself more splendid than they are．For I suppose you can't mean it to be pleasure？’he asked．

‘A monstrous suggestion，’I replied．‘Let us pursue our analogy further．’

‘Go on．’

‘The sun，I think you will agree，not only makes the things we see visible，but causes the processes of generation，growth and nourishment，without itself being such a process．’

‘True．’

‘The good therefore maybe said to be the source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge，but also of their being and reality；yet it is not itself that reality，but is beyond it，and superior to it in dignity and power．’

‘It really must be miraculously transcendent，'remarked Glaucon to the general amusement．

‘Now，don't blame me，’I protested；‘it was you who made me say what I thought about it．’

‘Yes，and please go on．At any rate finish off the analogy with the sun，if you haven't fi nished it．’

‘I've not nearly fi nished it．’

‘Then go on and don't leave anything out．’

‘I'm afraid I must leave a lot out，’I said．‘But I'll do my best to get in everything I can in present circumstances．’

‘Yes，please do．’

The Divided Line

The analogy of the Divided Line is，Plato makes clear，a sequel to the Sun simile，its purpose being to illustrate further the relation between the two orders of reality with which the Sun simile dealt．But it does so from a particular point of view，that of the states of mind in which we apprehend these two orders or realms．The purpose of the Line，therefore，is not，primarily，to give a classification of objects．Both of the two states of mind correlated with the intelligible realm deal with the same kind of object（the forms），though each deals with them in a different way；and though in the physical world there is a difference between physical things and their shadows，that difference is used primarily to illustrate degrees of ‘truth’or genuineness in what is apprehended – we know very little about a thing if our knowledge is confined to shadows or images of it or，for that matter，to its superficial appearance［…］

‘You must suppose，then，’I went on，‘that there are these two powers of which I have spoken，and that one of them is supreme over everything in the intelligible order or region，the other over everything in the visible region – I won't say in the physical universe or you will think I'm playing with words．At any rate you have before your mind these two orders of things，the visible and the intelligible？’

‘Yes，I have．’

‘Well，suppose you have a line divided into two unequal parts，and then divide the two parts again in the same ratio，to represent the visible and intelligible orders．This gives you，in terms of comparative clarity and obscurity，in the visible order one sub-section of images：by “images” I mean first shadows，then reflections in water and other close-grained，polished surfaces，and all that sort of thing，if you understand me．’

‘I understand．’

‘Let the other sub-section stand for the objects which are the originals of the images – the animals around us，and every kind of plant and manufactured object．’

‘Very good．’

‘Would you be prepared to admit that these sections differ in that one is genuine，one not，and that the relation of image to original is the same as that of the realm of opinion to that of knowledge？’

‘I most certainly would．’

‘Then consider next how the intelligible part of the line is to be divided．’

‘How？’

‘In one sub-section the mind uses the originals of the visible order in their turn as images，and has to base its inquiries on assumptions and proceed from them not to a first principle but to a conclusion：in the other it moves from assumption to a first principle which involves no assumption，without the images used in the other sub-section，but pursuing its inquiry solely by and through forms themselves．’

‘I don't quite understand．’

‘I will try again，and what I have just said will help you to understand．I think you know that students of geometry and calculation and the like begin by assuming there are odd and even numbers，geometrical figures and the three forms of angle，and other kindred items in their respective subjects；these they regard as known，having put them forward as basic assumptions which it is quite unnecessary to explain to themselves or anyone else on the grounds that they are obvious to everyone．Starting from them，they proceed through a series of consistent steps to the conclusion which they set out to fi nd．’

‘Yes，I certainly know that．’

‘You know too that they make use of and argue about visible figures，though they are not really thinking about them，but about the originals which they resemble；it is not about the square or diagonal which they have drawn that they are arguing，but about the square itself or diagonal itself，or whatever the figure may be．The actual figures they draw or model，which themselves cast their shadows and reflections in water – these they treat as images only，the real objects of their investigation being invisible except to the eye of reason．’

‘That is quite true．’

‘This type of thing I called intelligible，but said that the mind was forced to use assumptions in investigating it，and did not proceed to a first principle，being unable to depart from and rise above its assumptions；but it used as illustrations the very things which in turn have their images and shadows on the lower level，in comparison with which they are themselves respected and valued for their clarity．’

‘I understand，’he said．‘You are referring to what happens in geometry and kindred sciences．’

‘Then when I speak of the other sub-section of the intelligible part of the line you will understand that I mean that which the very process of argument grasps by the power of dialectic；it treats assumptions not as principles，but as assumptions in the true sense，that is，as starting points and steps in the ascent to something which involves no assumption and is the first principle of everything；when it has grasped that principle it can again descend，by keeping to the consequences that follow from it，to a conclusion．The whole procedure involves nothing in the sensible world，but moves solely through forms to forms，and finishes with forms．’

‘I understand，’he said；‘though not fully，because what you describe sounds like a long job．But you want to distinguish that part of the real and intelligible which is studied by the science of dialectic as having greater clarity than that studied by what are called “sciences”．These sciences treat their assumptions as first principles and，though compelled to use reason and not sense-perception in surveying their subject-matter，because they proceed in their investigations from assumptions and not to a first principle，they do not，you think，exercise intelligence on it，even though with the aid of a first principle it is intelligible．And I think that you call the habit of mind of geometers and the like reason but not intelligence，meaning by reason something midway between opinion and intelligence．’

‘You have understood me very well，’I said．‘So please take it that there are，corresponding to the four sections of the line，these four states of mind；to the top section intelligence，to the second reason，to the third belief，and to the last illusion．And you may arrange them in a scale，and assume that they have degrees of clarity corresponding to the degree of truth possessed by their subject-matter．’

‘I understand，’he replied，‘and agree with your proposed arrangement．’

The Simile of the Cave

This is a more graphic presentation of the truths presented in the analogy of the Line；in particular，it tells us more about the two states of mind called in the Line analogy Belief and Illusion．We are shown the ascent of the mind from illusion to pure philosophy，and the difficulties which accompany its progress．And the philosopher，when he has achieved the supreme vision，is required to return to the cave and serve his fellows，his very unwillingness to do so being his chief qualification［…］

‘I want you to go on to picture the enlightenment or ignorance of our human condition somewhat as follows．Imagine an underground chamber like a cave，with a long entrance open to the daylight and as wide as the cave．In this chamber are men who have been prisoners there since they were children，their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads．Some way off，behind and higher up，a fire is burning，and between the fire and the prisoners and above them runs a road，in front of which a curtain-wall has been built，like the screen at puppet shows between the operators and their audience，above which they show their puppets．’

‘I see．’

‘Imagine further that there are men carrying all sorts of gear along behind the curtain-wall，projecting above it and including figures of men and animals made of wood and stone and all sorts of other materials，and that some of these men，as you would expect，are talking and some not．’

‘An odd picture and an odd sort of prisoner．’

‘They are drawn from life，’I replied．‘For，tell me，do you think our prisoners could see anything of themselves or their fellows except the shadows thrown by the fi re on the wall of the cave opposite them？’

‘How could they see anything else if they were prevented from moving their heads all their lives？’

‘And would they see anything more of the objects carried along the road？’

‘Of course not．’

‘Then if they were able to talk to each other，would they not assume that the shadows they saw were the real things？’

‘Inevitably．’

‘And if the wall of their prison opposite them reflected sound，don't you think that they would suppose，whenever one of the passers-by on the road spoke，that the voice belonged to the shadow passing before them？’

‘They would be bound to think so．’

‘And so in every way they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were the whole truth．’

‘Yes，inevitably．’

‘Then think what would naturally happen to them if they were released from their bonds and cured of their delusions．Suppose one of them were let loose，and suddenly compelled to stand up and turn his head and look and walk towards the fire；all these actions would be painful and he would be too dazzled to see properly the objects of which he used to see the shadows．What do you think he would say if he was told that what he used to see was so much empty nonsense and that he was now nearer reality and seeing more correctly，because he was turned towards objects that were more real，and if on top of that he were compelled to say what each of the passing objects was when it was pointed out to him？Don't you think he would be at a loss，and think that what he used to see was far truer than the objects now being pointed out to him？’

‘Yes，far truer．’

‘And if he were made to look directly at the light of the fire，it would hurt his eyes and he would turn back and retreat to the things which he could see properly，which he would think really clearer than the things being shown him．’

‘Yes．’

‘And if，’I went on，‘he were forcibly dragged up the steep and rugged ascent and not let go till he had been dragged out into the sunlight，the process would be a painful one，to which he would much object，and when he emerged into the light his eyes would be so dazzled by the glare of it that he wouldn't be able to see a single one of the things he was now told were real．’

‘Certainly not at first，’he agreed．

‘Because，of course，he would need to grow accustomed to the light before he could see things in the upper world outside the cave．First he would find it easiest to look at shadows，next at the reflections of men and other objects in water，and later on at the objects themselves．After that he would find it easier to observe the heavenly bodies and the sky itself at night，and to look at the light of the moon and stars rather than at the sun and its light by day．’

‘Of course．’

‘The thing he would be able to do last would be to look directly at the sun itself，and gaze at it without using reflections in water or any other medium，but as it is in itself．’

‘That must come last．’

‘Later on he would come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces the changing seasons and years and controls everything in the visible world，and is in a sense responsible for everything that he and his fellow-prisoners used to see．’

‘That is the conclusion which he would obviously reach．’

‘And when he thought of his first home and what passed for wisdom there，and of his fellow-prisoners，don't you think he would congratulate himself on his good fortune and be sorry for them？’

‘Very much so．’

‘There was probably a certain amount of honour and glory to be won among the prisoners，and prizes for keensightedness for those best able to remember the order of sequence among the passing shadows and so be best able to divine their future appearances．Will our released prisoner hanker after these prizes or envy this power or honour？Won't he be more likely to feel，as Homer says，that he would far rather be “a serf in the house of some landless man”，or indeed anything else in the world，than hold the opinions and live the life that they do？’

‘Yes，’he replied，‘he would prefer anything to a life like theirs．’

‘Then what do you think would happen，’I asked，‘if he went back to sit in his old seat in the cave？Wouldn't his eyes be blinded by the darkness，because he had come in suddenly out of the sunlight？’

‘Certainly．’

‘And if he had to discriminate between the shadows，in competition with the other prisoners，while he was still blinded and before his eyes got used to the darkness – a process that would take some time – wouldn't he be likely to make a fool of himself？And they would say that his visit to the upper world had ruined his sight，and that the ascent was not worth even attempting．And if anyone tried to release them and lead them up，they would kill him if they could lay hands on him．’

‘They certainly would．’

‘Now，my dear Glaucon，’I went on，‘this simile must be connected throughout with what preceded it．The realm revealed by sight corresponds to the prison，and the light of the fire in the prison to the power of the sun．And you won't go wrong if you connect the ascent into the upper world and the sight of the objects there with the upward progress of the mind into the intelligible region．That at any rate is my interpretation，which is what you are anxious to hear；the truth of the matter is，after all，known only to god．But in my opinion，for what it is worth，the final thing to be perceived in the intelligible region，and perceived only with difficulty，is the form of the good；once seen，it is inferred to be responsible for whatever is right and valuable in anything，producing in the visible region light and the source of light，and being in the intelligible region itself the controlling source of truth and intelligence．And anyone who is going to act rationally either in public or private life must have sight of it．’

‘I agree，’he said，‘so far as I am able to understand you．’

‘Then you will perhaps also agree with me that it won't be surprising if those who get so far are unwilling to involve themselves in human affairs，and if their minds long to remain in the realm above．That's what we should expect if our simile holds good again．’

‘Yes，that's to be expected．’

‘Nor will you think it strange that anyone who descends from contemplation of the divine to human life and its ills should blunder and make a fool of himself，if，while still blinded and unaccustomed to the surrounding darkness，he's forcibly put on trial in the law-courts or elsewhere about the shadows of justice or the figures of which they are shadows，and made to dispute about the notions of them held by men who have never seen justice itself．’

‘There's nothing strange in that．’

‘But anyone with any sense，’I said，‘will remember that the eyes may be unsighted in two ways，by a transition either from light to darkness or from darkness to light，and will recognize that the same thing applies to the mind．So when he sees a mind confused and unable to see clearly he will not laugh without thinking，but will ask himself whether it has come from a clearer world and is confused by the unaccustomed darkness，or whether it is dazzled by the stronger light of the clearer world to which it has escaped from its previous ignorance．The first condition of life is a reason for congratulation，the second for sympathy，though if one wants to laugh at it one can do so with less absurdity than at the mind that has descended from the daylight of the upper world．’

‘You put it very reasonably．’

‘If this is true，’I continued，‘we must reject the conception of education professed by those who say that they can put into the mind knowledge that was not there before – rather as if they could put sight into blind eyes．’

‘It is a claim that is certainly made，’he said．

‘But our argument indicates that the capacity for knowledge is innate in each man's mind，and that the organ by which he learns is like an eye which cannot be turned from darkness to light unless the whole body is turned；in the same way the mind as a whole must be turned away from the world of change until its eye can bear to look straight at reality，and at the brightest of all realities which is what we call the good．Isn't that so？’

‘Yes．’

‘Then this turning around of the mind itself might be made a subject of professional skill，which would effect the conversion as easily and effectively as possible．It would not be concerned to implant sight，but to ensure that someone who had it already was not either turned in the wrong direction or looking the wrong way．’

‘That may well be so．’

‘The rest，therefore，of what are commonly called excellences of the mind perhaps resemble those of the body，in that they are not in fact innate，but are implanted by subsequent training and practice；but knowledge，it seems，must surely have a diviner quality，something which never loses its power，but whose effects are useful and salutary or again useless and harmful according to the direction in which it is turned．Have you never noticed how shrewd is the glance of the type of men commonly called bad but clever？They have small minds，but their sight is sharp and piercing enough in matters that concern them；it's not that their sight is weak，but that they are forced to serve evil，so that the keener their sight the more effective that evil is．’

‘That's true．’

‘But suppose，’I said，‘that such natures were cut loose，when they were still children，from all the dead weights natural to this world of change and fastened on them by sensual indulgences like gluttony，which twist their minds’vision to lower things，and suppose that when so freed they were turned towards the truth，then this same part of these same individuals would have as keen a vision of truth as it has of the objects on which it is at present turned．’

‘Very likely．’

‘And is it not also likely，and indeed a necessary consequence of what we have said，that society will never be properly governed either by the uneducated，who have no knowledge of the truth，or by those who are allowed to spend all their lives in purely intellectual pursuits？The uneducated have no single aim in life to which all their actions，public and private，are to be directed；the intellectuals will take no practical action of their own accord，fancying themselves to be out of this world in some kind of earthly paradise．’

‘True．’

‘Then our job as lawgivers is to compel the best minds to attain what we have called the highest form of knowledge，and to ascend to the vision of the good as we have described，and when they have achieved this and see well enough，prevent them behaving as they are now allowed to．’

‘What do you mean by that？’

‘Remaining in the upper world，and refusing to return again to the prisoners in the cave below and share their labours and rewards，whether trivial or serious．’

‘But surely，’he protested，‘that will not be fair．We shall be compelling them to live a poorer life than they might live．’

‘The object of our legislation，’I reminded him again，‘is not the special welfare of any particular class in our society，but of the society as a whole；and it uses persuasion or compulsion to unite all citizens and make them share together the benefits which each individually can confer on the community；and its purpose in fostering this attitude is not to leave everyone to please himself，but to make each man a link in the unity of the whole．’

‘You are right；I had forgotten，’he said．

‘You see，then，Glaucon，’I went on，‘we shan't be unfair to our philosophers，but shall be quite fair in what we say when we compel them to have some care and responsibility for others．We shall tell them that philosophers born in other states can reasonably refuse to take part in the hard work of politics；for society produces them quite involuntarily and unintentionally，and it is only just that anything that grows up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes to no one．“But，” we shall say，“we have bred you both for your own sake and that of the whole community to act as leaders and king-bees in a hive；you are better and more fully educated than the rest and better qualified to combine the practice of philosophy and politics．You must therefore each descend in turn and live with your fellows in the cave and get used to seeing in the dark；once you get used to it you will see a thousand times better than they do and will distinguish the various shadows，and know what they are shadows of，because you have seen the truth about things admirable and just and good．And so our state and yours will be really awake，and not merely dreaming like most societies today，with their shadow battles and their struggles for political power，which they treat as some great prize．The truth is quite different：the state whose prospective rulers come to their duties with least enthusiasm is bound to have the best and most tranquil government，and the state whose rulers are eager to rule the worst．” ’

‘I quite agree．’

‘Then will our pupils，when they hear what we say，dissent and refuse to take their share of the hard work of government，even though spending the greater part of their time together in the pure air above？’

‘They cannot refuse，for we are making a just demand of just men．But of course，unlike present rulers，they will approach the business of government as an unavoidable necessity．’

‘Yes，of course，’I agreed．‘The truth is that if you want a well-governed state to be possible，you must find for your future rulers some way of life they like better than government；for only then will you have government by the truly rich，those，that is，whose riches consist not of gold，but of the true happiness of a good and rational life．If you get，in public affairs，men whose life is impoverished and destitute of personal satisfactions，but who hope to snatch some compensation for their own inadequacy from a political career，there can never be good government．They start fighting for power，and the consequent internal and domestic conflicts ruin both them and society．’

‘True indeed．’

‘Is there any life except that of true philosophy which looks down on positions of political power？’

‘None whatever．’

‘But what we need is that the only men to get power should be men who do not love it，otherwise we shall have rivals’quarrels．’

‘That is certain．’

‘Who else，then，will you compel to undertake the responsibilities of Guardians of our state，if it is not to be those who know most about the principles of good government and who have other rewards and a better life than the politician's？’

‘There is no one else．’

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驳自由之敌：英汉对照/（古罗马）西塞罗著；孙平华，钱金美译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

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Ⅰ．①驳…　Ⅱ．①西…　②孙…　③钱…　Ⅲ．①古希腊罗马哲学—英、汉　Ⅳ．①B502.42

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Selected Works first published in Penguin Classics 1960

Selected Political Speeches first published in Penguin Classics 1969

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Translation copyright © Michael Grant/Michael Grant Publications Ltd，1960，1969

Taken from the Penguin Classics editions Selected Works and Selected Political Speeches，translated and edited by Michael Grant

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付印80种，尚有20种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过200万册，在全球很多人中间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太长时间以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑非常有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，重新营造更具亲和力的氛围，那也是一件有意思的事。当时，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺点：每个作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情况毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况及影响。不过，这样做的优点也很明显。最突出的优点是，作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在那么多国家影响了那么多人的生活，其影响不可估量，有的长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，难以想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代已很久远，但其中的话已彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地区不同，收录的作家也不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恨，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行决定这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您能在阅读这些杰作中得到乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related，even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great nonfiction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction，extensive notes，a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful，I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which，for example，Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand，some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine，of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin，of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives，sometimes for centuries，in many diff erent countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics，economics，intellectual lives，social planning，religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books，first written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously infiuential，but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin，Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to 昀 nd themselves together in the same series！But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

反腓力辞之一

驳自由之敌（反腓力辞之二）

Contents

The First Philippic against Mark Antony

An Attack on an Enemy of Freedom（The Second Philippic against Mark Antony）

返回总目录

译者导读

西塞罗（全名马库斯·图留斯·西塞罗［Marcus Tullius Cicero］，公元前106—前43年），古罗马时期著名的演说家、政治家、教育家，古典共和思想最优秀的代表。曾先后在著名的修辞学家、法学家和斯多噶派哲学家所办的学校接受教育。起初，西塞罗从事律师工作，由于非常善于雄辩，所代理的案件几乎没有失败过。接着便步入政界，凭借自己善辩的口才而活跃于政界，并步步高升。公元前75年担任西西里行省的财政官，公元前57年担任市政官，次年为大法官，公元前63年担任执政官，成为图留斯家族中的第一个执政官。西塞罗在政治上拥护共和制，反对独裁统治。公元前44年恺撒被刺身亡，他极力拥护恺撒的继承人屋大维，并且连续发表了14篇著名的演说来抨击安东尼。公元前43年，安东尼、屋大维和雷必达结成“后三头同盟”，安东尼派人杀死了西塞罗。

西塞罗在政治和法律方面的代表作有《论国家》《论法律》；在哲学方面的著作有《论至善和至恶》《论神性》；在教育方面的著作有《论演说家》《论雄辩家》。不过，西塞罗最著名的是他众多的演说辞，如：《为马尔塞鲁辩护》《为普兰西乌辩护》《为米洛辩护》《为斯考鲁斯辩护》以及本书中的两篇“反腓力辞”等。西塞罗的演说词汇丰富，句式考究，句中从属子句有一定的排列顺序，并且局部之间要求对称，句尾音调抑扬顿挫，以此来增强句子的说服力。除此之外，他在演说中采用对比、讽刺和夸张等修辞以激起听众的感情，并且善于利用直接向对手致辞、提问等方法，使其陷入被动之中。

西塞罗在恺撒死后，为批判安东尼连续发表的14篇演讲，统称为“反腓力辞”。“反腓力辞”是一个借用的名称。公元前4世纪雅典演说家德谟斯提尼曾发表一系列著名演说来反对马其顿国王腓力，这些演说辞被称为“反腓力辞”。本书中的这两篇演说辞是14篇“反腓力辞”中的前两篇。这两篇演说辞不仅反映了西塞罗的政治路线，比如：他极力拥护共和制，对刺杀恺撒的布鲁特斯大加赞扬；此外，西塞罗演说的技巧和特点在这两篇演说辞中都得到了淋漓尽致的体现，演说中运用了大量反问、对比、反讽以及夸张的修辞，例如，对自己和安东尼缺席元老院会议原由的对比、对安东尼演说技巧的反讽等。不管是对听众还是读者来讲，这两篇演说辞都有很大的冲击力和说服力，其威力丝毫不亚于军队，使其政敌安东尼在通往独裁之路上遇到众多困难，不过也为自己招来杀身之祸。由此可见西塞罗演说辞中技巧之高超、言辞之犀利、情感之深沉。即使在今天，西塞罗演说辞也以其独特的魅力为众人所推崇。

反腓力辞之一：驳马克·安东尼

众位元老院议员，我认为在这种情况下我有必要对当前政局中的一些情况做出评论。但在此之前，我要简单地解释一下我离开以及再次返回罗马的原因。

只要国家仍有望回到你们的掌控和权威之下，作为执政官和元老院议员，我决心坚守自己的岗位。因此，自从我们被召集到忒路斯神庙集会的那天起，我便从未离开，也从未将视线从公共事务上转移。在神庙中，我尽自己所能去为和平做准备。对于雅典人所创古老先例的成员们，我在演说中运用了当年希腊用来平息内乱的言辞提醒他们，并建议大家永远忘记所有的内部纷争。

马克·安东尼那天的演讲精彩绝伦，他的本意也是善良的。事实上，正是他和他的孩子们让我们伟大的同胞有了实现和平的可能。接下来的事情与开端的方向一致。他邀请政治首脑到自己的家中商讨国事，并向元老院提出优秀的建议。那个时候，除了众所周知的事情以外，并没有从盖厄斯·恺撒的记事本中发现其他事情。安东尼非常坦率地回答了所有问题。有流放者被召回吗？他说，有一个被召回了，除此之外再无其他人。有没有豁免税务？他回答，没有。他甚至希望我们接受杰出的赛维厄斯·苏佩修斯的提议：从三月中旬起，不再实施恺撒的任何法令或其施加的任何恩惠。不过，我想说说马克·安东尼那项特别的法令，其他众多优秀的法令就先略过。毫无疑问，在他的管理之下，篡夺君权的独裁政权被彻底废除了。他希望元老院能够通过自己提出的法令草案。在草案被选读之后，我们以极大的热情接受了他的提议，并投票对他表示高度的赞扬。我们的前途看起来一片光明，因为我们不仅摆脱了曾经奴役我们的暴政，也从对暴政的恐惧中解脱出来。虽然过去常有受法律认可的独裁者，但近来的独裁专政给人们留下了无法磨灭的记忆。然而马克·安东尼废除了整个独裁政府，向全国人民有力地证明了他希望这是一个自由的国家。

此外，几天后，在盗用马里厄斯这个名字逃亡的奴隶被处死并拖走后，元老院也从杀戮的危险中解放出来。所有这些行动都是安东尼和他的同僚一起完成的，后来的一些事则是多拉贝拉独自实施的，但我确信，要不是他的同僚不在，这些事也会由两个人共同完成。那时，一个最危险的问题正潜入这座城市并逐渐扩散。那些曾为恺撒组织和举办葬礼的人正在广场上为其建造墓碑。每天都有越来越多的无赖和像他们一样的奴隶聚集在一起，威胁和破坏着城里的住宅和神庙。但是当多拉贝拉摧毁那可憎的石碑后，这些放肆无礼的戴罪奴隶以及与他们为伍的那些可恶的、臭名昭著的自由民便步入了穷途末路。他的行动如此坚决果断，我对这一行动和后续行动之间的差别感到震惊。

6月1日是我们集会的固定日期，你们在这里就能发现所有的事情是如何改变的。任何事都不再通过元老院就直接实施，许多重要措施直接由人民议会通过，而其他措施居然不咨询议会的意见甚至违背其意愿。当选的执政官称他们根本不敢踏入元老院半步。同样地，尽管执政官在公共集会以及私下交谈中对那些解放者们赞赏有加，但解放者们却恰恰被那些他们曾经解放的城市所驱逐。除此之外，退役军人们要求拥有老兵的权利。元老院对此非常担心，因为那些人不仅想要保留已有的利益，并且在受到怂恿之后又觊觎新的权益。

我发现，听说这些事情的发生远比亲眼目睹其发生要让我好过一些。再者，我被赋予特殊使命而出游。正是这样，我离开了罗马并且打算在接下来的1月1日返回，因为这似乎是元老院有可能举行集会的最早日子。

元老院的议员们，这些就是我离开的原因。现在我要简单说明一下我回来的理由，我的返回无疑更加使人意外。我避开了布林迪西和去往希腊的一般路线——这是唯一的明智之法，并在6月1日抵达了锡拉库扎，因为我听说从那里进入希腊的通道畅通无阻。虽然我与这座城市有着最紧密的联系，但是我却不愿意在那里多耽搁一晚，尽管它也希望我留下来。因为我担心如果我多逗留的话，我对那里朋友的突然造访会引起某些怀疑。因此，我继续前行到达利吉姆的一个海角地区留科佩拉，在那里乘船前往希腊。

但是没走多远一阵南风就把我的船吹回登船之处。那时候已是深更半夜，我待在朋友的家里，与帕布利厄斯·华勒流斯在一起。第二天，正当我在那里等待，希望会有利于出行的海风时，一些利吉姆人来探望我，他们中有些人刚刚从罗马回来。我从他们那里第一次得知了马克·安东尼的演说。读完这篇演说之后我非常高兴，第一次开始考虑要返回罗马。不久之后就传来了布鲁特斯和卡修斯的宣言，在我看来这是公平的典范，或许因为我尊重他们更多的是因为他们是国家领导而不仅仅是我的朋友。但是，传达好消息的信使们往往喜欢添油加醋，以便使他们的好消息更受欢迎。因此，那些人还告诉我有一项协议即将缔结；8月1日将会召开元老院全体会议；安东尼会撤销他那些邪恶的顾问，并辞去他在高卢行省的职务，重新效忠于元老院。

听到这些消息，我是那么地渴望回国，任何船桨和大风都无法满足我急切的心情，并不是我觉得自己无法及时到达，而是迫不及待地想要向元老院表示祝贺。在尽快赶到韦利亚之后，我见到了布鲁特斯，但这次见面让我感到悲伤。因为对我来说，在布鲁特斯离开这个城市之际我却想要回去，我可以在那里安稳地生活而他却不能，这样的事实让我感到羞愧不已。然而，我发觉他并没有像我一样沮丧，因为他为自己崇高而伟大的行为感到骄傲，他也不对自己的命运进行抱怨，更多地是为你们的命运感到担忧。

正是在他那里，我第一次听说了卢修斯·皮索8月1日在元老院的演讲。布鲁特斯说那些本该支持皮索的人大都没有支持他，不过他认为皮索所做的努力无疑是非常崇高的。这是最权威的观点，也是我根据后来与我交谈过的人所做的正面评价得出的结论。因此，我急忙赶回去对他施以援手。但我并不是要去成就些什么，因为我从没有这样的期望，事实上也没有做成过什么。但如今，很多违背自然规律和命运常理的事情似乎随时都有可能发生。因此，为了以防那注定的厄运降临在我身上，我现在就表达出自己对祖国的感情，并以此为证表明我将永远致力于为国家谋取福利。

好了，众位议员，这些就是我离开又回到罗马的原因，相信我的解释能让你们满意。不过现在，我觉得有必要在谈论政事之前就安东尼昨天对我的不公平待遇表示抗议。我是他的朋友，而且由于他曾经帮助过我，我一直在维护我们的友谊。但我不明白他强拉硬拽着让我参加昨天的元老院会议时，为什么表现得那么不满。难道只有我一个人缺席吗？还是出席人数比以往都少？又或者是会上讨论的事情已经严重到有必要像过去那样连病人也要抬去参加商议？难道说汉尼拔已经兵临城下了？还是说我们正在讨论的是与皮拉斯的和平问题？而根据历史记载，在这种情况之下，年迈失明的阿皮乌斯是自己去元老院参加会议的。但是，这次会议的目的是讨论公开谢恩仪式的相关事宜，这样的事情从来都不缺乏参会议员，也无需安保措施来确保议员们的出席，因为他们热切地想要对接受这份荣誉的人表达自己的善意。同样地，当胜利成为讨论的话题时，情况也是如此。在这种情形下，执政官对议员们根据自己的意愿决定是否参加会议漠不关心。

我知道这种惯例，况且当时我旅行疲惫，身体欠佳。因此，出于友谊，我差人通知了安东尼。结果正如你们所听到的那样，他竟然说要带人来把我的房子拆掉。他这样显然是脾气恶劣、口无遮拦的表现。到底是什么样的过错竟需如此苛刻的惩罚？他竟然在议员们面前说要动用政府的力量去拆掉一栋房子，并且这个房子是在元老院的支持下利用公款建造的。从未有人对一名元老院的议员实施如此严厉的处罚。事实上，曾有过的惩罚也只有没收财产或罚款而已。此外，如果他知道我在会议上将要发表的意见，相信他绝不会坚持如此强硬的态度。

众位议员，你们可能没有料到我会支持你们昨天极不情愿通过的那项法令，因为它将谢恩仪式和祭奠死者的祭祀混淆在一起，在国家的宗教仪式中掺杂了亵渎神明的程序，因此变成了为纪念死者而颁布的谢恩法令。这个人是谁并不重要，就算是仅凭一己之力将国家从专制统治中拯救出来的著名之士——布鲁特斯本人，并且即使他的后代在近五百年里也传承了这一崇高的英雄主义，也没什么能使我将任何已故之人和不朽的神明相提并论，并为其举行公开的谢恩仪式，因为本应通过祭祀就可让其获得相应的荣耀。但是，如果这个国家发生了重大灾难，譬如战争、瘟疫或饥荒，那么罗马人民就会认为我的投票是正当的，因为虽然有些灾难已经发生了，而另一些也有可能即将降临。然而事实上，关于昨天的法令，我能做的也只有请求神明宽恕那些无论如何都不同意这一举措的罗马人民，同时也宽恕极不情愿通过这项法令的元老院。

接下来，我可以对我们国家政治上一些其他的弊端发表看法吗？我认为我有自由（并且始终应该有自由）捍卫我的观点，视死如归，永不改变。只要我能来到这个地方，就会不顾一切危险，畅所欲言。

元老院的议员们，我多么希望自己能参加8月1日的元老院会议啊！并不是说我参加这个会议有多大的用处，但至少也不会像当时那样——只有一个执政官在履行自己的职责，为国效力。最得罗马民心的执政官们竟然不支持卢修斯·皮索那着实优秀的提案，多么悲哀啊！难道罗马人民推选我们成为执政官就是为了这种悲哀的结果吗？难道我们享受着国家给予的高官厚禄却可以完全置国家的利益于不顾吗？没有任何一位前任执政官在言辞、甚至是神情上对卢修斯·皮索予以支持。

该死！你们一定要自愿为奴吗？我承认一定程度的奴性向来是无法避免的。我也承认，我的批判没必要不加区别地针对每一位执政官，因为我能分得清哪些人保持沉默可以被原谅，而哪些人有义务开口讲话。我很遗憾地告诉大家，后者已经遭到了罗马人民的怀疑，而这更多不是因为他们的恐惧——虽然恐惧本身是可耻的，而是因为不管出于什么原因——当然是出于各种原因，他们在其位却不谋其政。

因此，我首先要向皮索表达我最深的谢意。他没有因为为国家谋福利受到阻碍而气馁，而是想着自己有责任为国家做些什么。元老院的议员们，接下来我再谈谈我的另外一个观点。我觉得你们可能不太敢对我即将向你们提出的观点和做法予以支持，但我请你们继续仁慈地听下去，就像到现在为止你们一直在听的那样。

首先，我认为我们应当保留恺撒的法令。我这么说并不是因为我赞成这些法令。有谁会赞成呢？当然没有！我这样说是因为我认为和平安定非常重要。我希望马克·安东尼今天能够在场，但是他的顾问团最好别来！不过我想他有权身体不适，虽然他昨天不允许我身体不适。如果安东尼在这里，他会跟我说，确切地说，他会对你们这些元老院的议员说他采取了什么措施来捍卫恺撒的法令。而我想说的是：安东尼依仗自己的权威提出的那些恺撒草草记录在他杂乱的备忘录、随笔和记事本上的法令，甚至有些都不是恺撒本人撰写而是引用的法令我们就要通过，而那些恺撒刻在铜器上用以维护国家议会的法令和明确的法律却要完全被无视吗？我个人认为，没有什么可以成为恺撒法令中不可更改的成分，就像恺撒提案中被采纳成为法律的那些一样。但是，从另一方面来讲，如果他曾对某人做出承诺，但自己却没有能力兑现，那么这也得视为不可改变的事情吗？事实上，恺撒一生中做出的很多承诺都没有履行。人们在他死后发现，恺撒众多没有实现的诺言甚至超过了他有生之年所做的所有贡献。

但是，我绝不打算改变，甚至是触及这些承诺。相反地，我极力捍卫他那些优秀的法令。例如，我衷心希望那些在奥普斯神庙所筹集的钱还在那里。虽然这些钱沾满了鲜血，不过因为现在已经不能物归原主了，所以我们还可以好好利用这些钱。但是如果恺撒的法令对这些钱财做出相关规定，那只好忍受其被浪费掉。

毫无疑问，对于一个位高权重的官员来说，他所倡导的法令就会成为最重要的法律。比如，一提及盖厄斯·格拉古的法令，人们就会想起塞姆普罗尼阿斯法，一说起苏拉法令，人们就会想到高奈留法。或者想一下庞培第三次担任执政官——那时通过了什么法令？当然是庞培自己的法律了。如果让恺撒来谈谈他在罗马公民生活中的法令，他会回答说自己引进了许多一流的法律。但另一方面，他把自己的那些笔记要么当作是临时的、需要修改的，要么就根本不整理出来，就算是整理出来也不会将其当作自己的法令。不过，这一点正是我在某些情况下所认可和默认的。但是只要恺撒的那些法律涉及最重要的问题，我绝不容忍将其废除。

就拿这条法律来说，它规定前执法官在其执政行省出任总督的任期不得超过一年，而前任执政官任期则不超过两年。这条法律非常有用，意义重大，也正是罗马在其鼎盛之时所需要的东西。如果这项法律都被废除了，还何谈恺撒法令的保留？再者，那条有关第三种陪审员的法案否定了恺撒所有有关陪审员的司法法令。你既说要捍卫恺撒的法令，又为何要将他的法律废除？那些恺撒匆匆写在笔记本上帮助自己记忆的东西——不管它们多么不公平、无用——都必须被视为法令，而那些在百人会议上通过投票的提案却不包含在法令之中，这究竟是什么逻辑？

新的第三种审判员究竟是什么？“它是由百人队队长组成的”，安东尼说。朱利叶斯法案以及之前的庞培法案、奥勒留法案已经授予了他们担任陪审员的权利，难道不是吗？的确如此，但这不仅仅是针对百夫长，也包括骑士。所以，昔日那些极其勇敢并且威望极高的军队指挥官们，他们至今一直都可以担任陪审员一职。“但是，这些人都不是我所说的。”他接着说道，“我想让每一位曾经担任过百人指挥官的人都能成为一名陪审员。”不过，就算是将这个原则应用于每一位骑士——毕竟骑士相比百夫长更为尊贵一些——也毫无说服力。因为当你任命一个陪审员的时候，最好的依据就是他的财产和地位。“但是，我对这些限制一点兴趣都没有。事实上，我希望能从另一些人中任命陪审员，比如‘云雀军团’中的士兵。否则的话，那些拥护我们的人会觉得我们在欺骗他们。”安东尼说。但是对于你想纳入审判席的那些对象来说，这是怎样的一种侮辱啊（虽然他们自己没有意识到这点）！因为这条法律意味着第三种陪审员中有人不敢做出公正判决。哦，天哪！制定这条法律的人犯下了多么严重的一个错误啊！事实上，那些出身平凡的陪审员会努力使自己摆脱低微的地位，他们认为只有做出最严格的审判才能使自己从原本普通的陪审员晋升为更高一级的陪审员。

另外一条已经公布的法律规定：那些实施暴力或犯下叛国罪的人有权向议会申请上诉。我想问你，这究竟是一条法律，还是对其他法律的废除？不过，不管怎么样，当下还有谁在意这条法律的保留与否呢？事实上，现在根本没有一个人会因为触犯那些法律（暴乱罪或叛国罪）而受到审判。并且，我认为将来也不会有，因为很显然那些手持武器的罪犯根本不会被带上法庭。

但是，据我们所知，这项法案很受欢迎。如果你的想法真的很受欢迎，这的确是一件很美好的事情。但就我们的现状而言，罗马公民一致认为国家政治上的需要才是最重要的。因此，我很不理解为什么你对提出一项本质上不受大家欢迎，并且必定会败坏你声誉的法案如此热情。一个人因为对罗马人民犯下了暴乱罪和叛国罪被定罪后，随后却又让他可以再次犯下同样的罪行，还有比这样的法案更可耻的吗？但是，我们没有必要在这项法案上继续浪费口舌，因为很明显，它真正所担心的根本就不是能否上诉；它的目标，也就是你推出这项法案的目标是防止任何人受到法律的制裁。有谁见过一个原告会傻到将自己置身于被告花钱雇来为自己辩护的众敌之中，或者有谁见过一个法官会冒着被别人收买的一伙恶棍伤害的危险而判处一个人有罪。

不，这项法案的真正目的并不是赋予人们上诉的权利。相反地，这是对两个非常有益的法律和法庭的废除。换句话说，它能直接诱导年轻人发动暴乱、扰乱治安、危害社会。当审判暴乱罪和叛国罪的这两个法庭被废除后，我们根本不敢想象这会让那些激烈的护民官做出什么样的毁灭性举动。此外，这项法案也是对恺撒法律的废除，后者规定：禁止犯下了这两种罪行的罪犯在审讯期间进食。毫无疑问，如果这些罪犯可以申请上诉，那不就等于直接宣布废除恺撒的这些法令了吗？众位议员们，就我个人而言，我绝对不会支持恺撒的法令，但是为了国家的团结，我们应该好好地维持这些法令。因此，我不主张在这个时候废除恺撒的法律，这不仅包括他生前所提出的，也包括你们现在所看到的那些在他死后公布的。

诚然，是一位死者召回了那些流亡犯；也是一位死者授予了人民公民权，这不仅仅是针对个人，也面向整个民族和行省；同样地，也是一位死者通过无数的赦免取消了众多税收。虽然这些法案都是在恺撒一人的权威（无可否认，这权威举足轻重）之下保证实施并且出自他本人之手，可是即便如此，我还是愿意来捍卫这些法案。恺撒曾亲自当着我们的面宣读、公布并提出这些议案。他极力倡导这些有关行省和法庭的法律，因为他认为这与我们国家的利益息息相关。如果我们都同意这一点，那又怎么能同时要求废除这些法律呢？当法律被公布的时候（就像恺撒的那些一样），如果我们愿意，至少还有机会来抱怨一下。但是，对于那些只能根据传闻才知道已经被通过的法律，我们连抱怨的机会都没有。安东尼提出的那些法律没有任何事先的公示就得以通过，我们甚至连草案初稿都没见过。

的确，元老院的议员们，如果我们有好的保民官，那么我或者你们中的任何一个人根本没必要担心一些不好的法律会被采纳。事实上，我们的确拥有这样的保民官，他们随时准备否决那些不好的提议，履行他们的神圣职责来保卫国家。所以，我们也应该无所畏惧。安东尼问：“这个否决指什么？你们所说的神圣职责又是什么？”自然是否决权和那些对国家安全至关重要的职责。安东尼说：“我们觉得那些一点都不重要，那都是过时的、愚蠢的。我们应该在广场的讲坛设禁，封闭它的所有入口，并派军队在多处驻守。”

我猜想，以这种方式确定的结果将会成为法律。然后，你会命人在铜碑上刻上这些法律条文“根据法律，执政官有权向人民提出这个问题”。但是，这和我们从祖先那里继承的提出问题的权利一样吗？后面继续刻着“并且人民有权通过提案”。什么样的人民？那些被隔离在外的人民吗？凭借什么样的权利？是那些被武装暴力废除的权利吗？

这些评论都可以当成以后的指导，因为作为一个朋友就应该对那些可以避免的不幸事先提出警告。如果这些不幸一直没有发生，那么我的评论自会受到驳斥。但是，现在我所谈论是不久将正式公布的议案。你可以提出任何提案，没有人能够阻止你。但就我而言，我认为自己有责任指出那些可能存在的缺点，并要求你来废除它，也就是说，我会批判武装暴力并要求你来消灭它。

多拉贝拉，我提出这些建议完全是出于对国家的热爱，希望你们执政官不要对此感到生气。不过，我不认为你会生气，因为我知道你的脾气很好。但是，据说你的同僚——马克·安东尼生气了。因为他沉溺于当前的情境之中，认为自己很幸运（说的委婉一点吧！我觉得如果他能像他的祖父和舅舅那样担任执政官，那么他会更幸运）。我明白，当一个手持武器之人对你发起进攻，特别是他的武器可以使自己免于受罚之时，这确实让人感到很不快。但是，我要提出一个约定，虽然它看起来对我很公平，不过我相信安东尼不会反对。约定的内容是：如果我对他的私生活或道德品行做出了任何侮辱性的评论，我对他将我视为死敌没有任何异议。另一方面，如果我只是遵循自己处理政务之时的习惯，坦白地说出自己对一些国家事务的看法时，首先，我希望他不要因此迁怒于我；其次，如果他非要迁怒于我，我希望这种不满仅限于两个公民之间。正如他所声称的那样，如果有必要他一定会雇佣武装警卫来保护自己，但是千万不要让他们伤害那些正在对国家事务发表观点的人。还有比这更好的建议吗？不过，就像他的一些朋友对我所说的那样，任何违背了他意愿的言辞都会让他感到不快，即使对他没有任何侮辱。那么，我们对此也无可奈何，只能忍受我们朋友这样的性情了。但是，安东尼的这些亲信还告诉我：“作为恺撒的反对者，你不会得到像他的岳父庇索那么多的宽容。”同时他们也警告我，这个警告我永远不会忘记：“用生病作为缺席元老院会议的理由对我来说根本没用，除非是死亡这个更好的借口。”

多拉贝拉，我亲密的朋友。天知道，当我看到你坐在那里的时候，我根本无法对你们俩所犯的错误保持沉默。你们每个人都是心怀崇高理想的尊贵之士。我不会和那些极易受骗的人一样认为你所追求的是钱财，因为那向来都是拥有极高地位和声誉之人所藐视的东西。我更不相信你所追求的是通过暴力获得财富或者是不为罗马人民所容忍的权力。相反地，我深信你们所追求的是同胞的热爱和良好的声誉。这样的声誉是通过高尚的行为和为国家做出巨大贡献所赢得的，是被国家领导和普通民众所认可的。多拉贝拉，我想更加深入地讨论崇高行为回报这一主题，因为我看到近年来你对这个问题的理解与别人相比，并不是很深刻。

你还能想起此生中比那天更愉快的日子吗？在回家之前，你清理了广场的讲坛，驱散了那群亵渎神明的恶棍，惩罚了那些罪魁祸首，拯救这座城市于焚毁和屠杀的危难之中。所有人，不管他们是什么等级、什么家族都向你表示赞扬和祝贺。事实上，更有一些忠诚的公民以你的名义向我表示感谢和祝贺，因为他们相信你的行为受到了我的影响。多拉贝拉，请你回头想想！剧院里所有观众抛开以往对你的敌意，全都为你喝彩的时候，这是不是说明你那时的行为已经化解了他们以前对你的种种怨恨呢？

但是，在赢得如此美誉之后，你竟然冷漠地将其放置一边。多拉贝拉，这着实让我感到十分的悲痛！

至于你——马克·安东尼，虽然你现在不在这里，但我还是对你有一个请求。元老院在忒路斯神庙开会的那天应该是你最愉快的日子吧！虽然在随后的几个月里有很多人都（当然，这些人和我不同）认为你很愉快，不过再也没有什么比那天更能让你幸福吧！那天你发表的有关国家团结的演讲是多么精彩绝伦啊！当你抛开对另一位执政官的敌意，忘却你作为罗马的占卜官时所宣布的不利于他选举的征兆，也就是当你第一次接受他作为你的同僚时，你将自己襁褓中的儿子作为人质送到卡皮托利山，是你，让众多退伍军人不再为自己的处境担心。事实上，也是你，让整个国家从焦虑中解放出来。不管是元老院，还是罗马人民有谁不觉得那是最愉快的一天呢？那天所聚集的罗马人民比以往任何公共集会都要多。在那个时刻，我们似乎终于可以肯定那些最英勇的公民为我们带来了自由，他们的目标似乎也已实现，自由终会为大家带来和平。

在接下来的第一天、第二天、第三天以及随后的每一天，你一直在为国家做新的贡献，而其中最伟大的一项就是你对独裁者头衔的废除。你让恺撒这个名字成为恶贯满盈的代名词。在过去，根据曼利厄斯家族的规定，鉴于马库斯·曼利厄斯所犯的罪行，禁止任何曼利厄斯家族的人取名为马库斯。同样的道理，出于大家对这位独裁者的厌恶，你废除了独裁者这一头衔。

但是，在你为国家做出了这些杰出的贡献后，又发生了什么呢？你是不是对自己获得的这些好运、荣誉和声望感到后悔？为什么变化如此之快？我绝不相信金钱就是你堕落的缘由。别人想说什么就让他们说吧，我们可以选择不相信他们。况且，我从来没有发现你的品格有什么卑劣之处。的确，有时候一个人堕落是受到了周围人的影响，但我很清楚你意志坚强，不会受其影响。我只是遗憾，虽然你是无罪之身，但还是不免遭人怀疑。

但是比起这些莫须有的罪名，我更担心你可能会无视通往光荣的正确之路。你真的认为自己所拥有的权力高于其他任何人，别人都畏惧你而不是敬爱你，这就是荣誉吗？如果这是你的真实想法，那么在这个问题上你就大错特错了。因为真正的荣誉是别人对你爱国之情的赞赏，是别人对你的尊敬和热爱；相反地，让别人感到害怕和讨厌恰好是虚弱和危险的表现。这在那部戏里表现得淋漓尽致，戏中有人说“倘若他们害怕，那让他们憎恨也无妨”。正是这一想法使他走向了毁灭。马克·安东尼，如果你能时刻以你的祖父为榜样，结果将会大有不同。你曾多次听我详细地讲述他的事迹，你觉得他会通过武装力量来震慑人民从而使自己永垂不朽吗？当然不会！对他而言，自己的生命以及事业的飞黄腾达与其他人的自由同样重要，并且他让人更为敬重的一点是将别人的自由看得更为重要一些。现在我不想再谈论他那些辉煌的成就，我想说的是，虽然他的生命最终以悲剧收尾，被卢修斯·秦纳残忍地杀害，但是相比于残暴的秦纳，他的结局要更好一些。

不过，我觉得自己所说的话对你没有任何作用。如果连盖厄斯·恺撒的结局都不能对你有所启示，不能让你期待人民的热爱而不是恐惧，那么任何人的话都对你没有影响。那些羡慕恺撒的人都受到了极大的误导。因为，当一个人被残暴地杀害而凶手不仅没有受到惩罚反而获得了至高的荣誉时，那么任何人也就没有幸福可言了。所以我恳求你，不要再执迷不悟了。想想你的祖辈们，好好来治理我们的国家吧！让我们的同胞因为你的存在而感到愉快，因为没有人民的爱戴，幸福、声望和安全根本无从谈起。

罗马同胞已经对你们提出了很多警告，但我仍担心这不会引起你们足够的重视。想想无数市民们在观看角斗表演时的呐喊，想想那些广为流传的口号，想想庞培雕像前那些无尽的欢呼，想想反对你们的那两名保民官吧！这些都充分表明了罗马人民万众一心，众志成城。还有，想想那些阿波罗赛会上的掌声，或者我应该称之为全体罗马人民的证词和审判，这些难道都不能引起你的重视吗？虽然有的人因为武装暴力的阻止不能到场，但事实上他们到了，因为他们活在罗马人民的心中，这是多么光荣的一件事啊！不过，你真的以为那些掌声是献给戏剧家阿基厄斯的吗？是他那部悲剧在第一次表演后迟来了六十年的奖励吗？当然不是！人们的掌声和鼓励都是献给布鲁特斯的。虽然他不能出席这个展示着他名字的赛会，但是见证了那场华丽表演的罗马人民仍然在他不在场的情况下表达了对他深深的感谢，并且以热烈的掌声和不断欢呼来纪念这位不能与他们同在的解放者。

我自己一直都鄙视为那些沽名钓誉之人所响起的掌声。同样地，即使这些掌声来自全体人民，同时来自最高阶层、中间阶层和最低阶层；当那些过去常常随波逐流的政客忽然做出一反常态的事情之时，这时的掌声在我看来根本不是赞赏，而是一种裁定。

如果你觉得这无关紧要——虽然事实上很重要，那么你是不是也认为罗马人民迫切渴望奥鲁斯·希尔提厄斯恢复健康也是微不足道的？罗马人民如此敬爱他，他的朋友如此关心他，他的家人如此珍爱他，这是多么荣耀的事情啊！现今在他生病之际，历史上还有谁能像他一样让所有人为其担心，为之牵挂？从来没有人享受过这种待遇。难道你从没想过，那些深切地关心着自己心中执政官生命健康的人也会想到你吗？

元老院的议员们，我已经得到了我返回罗马想要的奖赏，因为我今天向你们所表达的观点保证了今后无论发生了什么，大家都会了解我的决心。并且，谢谢大家仔细、和善的聆听。在对我和你们都没有危险的情况下，如果我还可以进一步发表自己的看法，那么我将竭尽全力来利用这些机会。如果没有机会，我将尽自己最大的努力来为国家服务。此外，我认为我已经活得很久了，不管是从时间的流逝还是名誉的获得来说。如果我还可以活得更久一些，那么像之前一样，我不会为自己，相反地，会为了你们，为了罗马而活。

驳自由之敌（反腓力辞之二：驳马克·安东尼）

众位元老院议员，为什么我的命运会是这样？在过去的二十年里，每一个国家的敌人同时也都视我为敌。不用我说出他们的名字，你们都知道我说的是谁，不过他们所受到的惩罚比我所希望的还要严厉。

安东尼，你正在步那些人的后尘。但让我吃惊的是那些人的遭遇竟然没有使你心生怯意。当那些人将我和罗马同时视为敌人的时候，我并没有太过惊讶，因为他们没有将我单独列出作为他们的敌人。或者说，出于爱国的原因，我主动将他们每一个人视为敌人。但我从来没有伤害过你，即使是在言语上也没有。然而，在毫无根据的情况下，你却狠狠地羞辱了我。就算是喀提林本人也没有这么可恶，即使是帕布利厄斯·克劳狄厄斯也没有这么疯狂。很显然，你觉得只有与我断绝关系才可以结交那些声名狼藉的家伙。

你在采取这一行动时是不是非常蔑视我？然而就我现在的生活、名声和品格而言，我不认为其中有什么能被你所诟病。当然，安东尼也不相信自己能在元老院里成功地将我贬低，这是因为虽然元老院经常会赞扬那些为国家做出贡献的杰出人物，但事实上元老院真正赞美过的人只有一个。那人使元老院绝境逢生，而我恰好就是此人。也许，安东尼是想在演讲方面与我一争高低？但如果是这样的话，他是多么的慷慨啊！因为他为我提供了这样一个主题——既能为自己辩护，又可以将他批判，难道还能有比这更丰富、更具有吸引力的主题吗？当然不是！很明显事实是这样：只有与我为敌，他才有机会向那些和他一样的人证明自己是罗马的敌人。

在对安东尼的其他指控做出回应之前，我想在“是我破坏我们之间友谊”这个问题上谈谈自己的想法，因为我认为这是最严重的指责。他对我曾在诉讼中发表对他不利的讲话表示不满。但是，我当然得支持我熟悉的朋友，反驳那些和我没有关系的人。况且，我朋友诉讼对手的支持者只是贪图他的美色，并不是看重他的品行。由于那位支持者通过一些不齿的行为来操控投票，导致我的朋友没有得到公正的结果，所以我才不得不参与这场诉讼。但是，我知道你提起这件事的原因。你想提醒所有人你是前奴隶——昆塔斯·法迪厄斯的女婿，你的孩子是一个前奴隶的外孙，从而使你在底层社会左右逢源。

此外，你声称为了得到我的教诲常来我家拜访。如果你真的那么做了，你的名声和道德会比现在高很多，但是你没有。即使你自己想这么做，盖厄斯·斯克里波尼厄斯·库里奥也决不允许你这样做。接着，你又说为我着想，放弃担任占卜官候选人。这纯属胡扯八道，简直太厚颜无耻了。那时候，整个占卜团都希望我能担任占卜官一职，并且庞培和昆塔斯·霍腾西厄斯将我提名为候选人（只允许两个人来提名）。除非你发动革命，否则你根本不可能成为候选人。况且那个时候库里奥也不在意大利，你根本无法成为一名占卜官。就算你后来参加竞选，如果没有库里奥的帮助你连一个部落的选票都没有。事实上，他那些朋友还是疯狂地为你拉选票，最后竟因实施暴力而在法庭上被判罪。

虽然你不承认，但你确实帮了我。当然，我一直都承认你所说的那些事实。不过对我来说，承认自己蒙受你的恩情要比让那些不知原委的人把我当作一个忘恩负义的人要好得多。然而，你对我的帮助就是——你没有在布隆迪西杀我——不是吗？不过，我认为你根本就不敢杀我，因为我已经奉命要返回意大利。下达这道命令的正是那位征服者，而你恰好如自己所期望的那样成为了他的众匪之首，你敢违背他的命令吗？

不过，就算假设你可以杀我。众位元老院议员们，这就是那些帮匪之徒所谓的帮助。他们无权处决某人，因此便吹嘘放过他一马。如果这是一种真正的恩惠，那么那些在得到恺撒饶命之后却反过来将其杀掉的人就不该被视为伟大之人，但是你自己为什么要将他们视为崇高之士呢？事实上，虽然这种行为与恐怖犯罪仅一步之遥，但绝不能被当作是一种恩惠。当你对我施以此种“恩惠”的时候，我不会因为你没有杀我而感到喜悦，反而对你可以这样做却又能免于惩罚而感到悲伤。

不过，就让我们把这当成一种恩惠吧，就算是一个匪徒所能给予的最大恩惠。但是，你为什么将我称作忘恩负义之人？难道我对我们国家的衰落表示不满是错的吗？你把这当作忘恩负义的一种表现。我承认，我的抱怨里充满了悲伤与不幸。但是如果一个人和我一样位居于此，担任着元老院和罗马人民所授予的职位，都会有这样的反应。况且，我的言语向来都是有所节制、非常友好，决不会侮辱别人的。当然，我在对安东尼抱怨的时候也是有所节制，没有半点侮辱的意思。

安东尼，罗马现在剩下的这些东西最终都会因为你而消失，因为所有事情在你的家里都会标上价码，多么肮脏的一系列交易啊！你自己也承认那些出于你自己的利益而通过的法律甚至都没有正式提出过。作为一名占卜官，你却从没有占卜过；作为一名执政官，你却废除了其他官员的否决权。你竟然用武装护卫队来保卫自己。你嗜酒如命，好色成性，没有一天不是在这种最放荡的生活中度过的。

尽管如此，我还是努力克制自己，只对我们国家的事务进行谨慎的抱怨，从没有谈论过你的私事。一直以来，我都把我们之间的冲突当成我和马库斯·李锡尼·克拉苏之间的冲突一样（常常是事关国家大事的冲突），而不是与一名穷凶极恶的角斗士两人之间的战斗。

因此，今天我要让他理解在那种情况下我给予了他多大的一个恩惠。这个家伙公开宣读了一封信，并且说是我寄给他的。很显然，他根本不知道怎么为人处世，不了解别人怎么接人待物。即使是那些对绅士行为一无所知的人，有谁会因为跟自己朋友意见不合，就利用朋友曾寄给他的信并且公开宣读这些信件呢？这种行为会对人际关系造成严重的破坏，它意味着将那位不在场的朋友逐出交际圈。因为那些信里会有一些轻率、无礼的言辞，而这些如果公之于众就会显得没有品位，并且信中所提到的一些重要问题根本不适合广泛流传。安东尼的这种行为证明了他是一个野蛮无礼之人。

不过，我们来看看，他是多么愚不可及啊！请回答我下面的问题吧，伟大的辩手！（至少在西厄斯·穆斯特拉和纳米修斯·提罗看来，他是一名伟大的辩手。他们俩现在正手持长剑出现在元老院里。如果你能告诉我在他们俩被指控犯下了杀人罪后你是怎么使他们无罪释放的，我也会承认你是一名伟大的辩手。）不过，如果我否认自己曾寄过那封信给你，你有什么证据来证明是我寄给你的？难道用笔迹吗？的确，你对笔迹的了解十分有用。然而，你所做的一切都将是枉然，因为这封信是由一个秘书代写的。你的辩论老师是多么幸运的一个人啊！你交给了他一大笔学费（我稍后会提醒你），但是在他离开以后，你还是一个彻头彻尾的傻子！因为不会有任何演说者，事实上，根本不会有任何人用那些毫无根据的理由来指控对手，并且不能对其做出更进一步的辩解。但是，我并不否认那封信里面的内容正是我的原意。不过我在承认这一点的时候，我也确信你不是一个没有教养的人，而是一个十足的疯子。因为我的信里充满了谦卑与和善，甚至可以被当作行为举止的楷模，而你对其内容的指责竟是：我没有说你的坏话；我把你当作一位罗马公民、一位正派人士，而不是一个恶棍和罪犯来与你交流。

虽然在这种挑衅之下我也有权念出你的信，但我不想这么做。在那封信里你请求我准予你召回某些流放者，并且保证没有我的允许你绝不会让他们回来。我的确同意了你的请求，因为我根本不能阻止你那狂妄无礼的行为。事实上，即使是元老院的命令、全体人民的意见和所有法律对你来说都没有约束力。但是，恺撒实际上已经通过了一条法律，允许你信中所提到的人重返祖国，你为什么还要征求我的同意？毫无疑问，虽然这个问题已经通过立法解决了，但安东尼认为我应该以我的名誉对此作保，毕竟他不能赢得人民的信任。

众位元老院议员们：我有很多事例可以用来为自己辩护，并且谴责安东尼。但关于前者，我希望在我为自己辩护的时候你们能够宽容一点。第二个问题是对我自己提出的，我保证在驳斥安东尼的时候，自己所讲的事情会让你们印象深刻。同时，我也请求你们注意这一点：我的职业。事实上我一生都是一个演说者，我相信这已经向你们证明了我是一个有节制之人，并非一个极端主义者。所以，当我回答他对我的谴责的时候，请不要相信我会忘了自己是谁。我不会把他当作一名执政官，因为他并没有把我当作一名执政官，一名执政官级别的人。此外，不管是从他的生活作风、工作方法还是选举方式来说，他根本就不是一名真正的执政官。相反地，毫无疑问我曾是一名执政官。

你们可以从他对我担任执政官时的批判看出他想成为什么样的执政官。但是众位议员们，我的执政官职位表面上是我自己的，事实上它是你们的。因为，我所做的每一个决定，实行的每一项政策，采取的每一个行动都是根据元老院的商议、权威和法则来实施的。安东尼，当你在这些人面前诋毁我的行为的时候，你所展示的是一种多么奇怪的智慧啊！——很显然与你的辩论才能一样奇怪。难道你不知道我的那些行为是经过这些人共同的判定才得以实施的吗？除了你和帕布利厄斯·克劳狄斯厄斯外，没有人污蔑过我的执政。并且克劳狄厄斯的命运——那同样降落在库里奥身上的命运，也将会降落在你的头上，因为让他们死去的原因现在正在你的家里。(1)

虽然安东尼对我的执政表示不满。但是，首先就拿最近刚过世的帕布利厄斯·赛维留斯·瓦提·伊索里库斯来说，他是那个时期的执政官，并且很欣赏我的执政。除此之外，永远在人民心中占有举足轻重地位的昆塔斯·卢泰修斯·卡图鲁斯也对我表示赞许。不仅如此，卢修斯·李锡尼·卢库勒斯和他的兄弟马库斯、马库斯·李锡尼·克拉苏、昆塔斯·霍腾西厄斯、老盖厄斯·斯克里伯尼厄斯·库里奥、盖厄斯·卡尔普米厄斯·庇索、曼尼厄斯·阿奇利厄斯·格拉布里奥、曼尼厄斯·阿米里厄斯·雷必达、卢修斯·沃尔卡奇厄斯·图路斯、盖厄斯·马西厄斯·菲古卢斯，以及那时的两位执政官德修斯·朱尼厄斯·西拉努斯、卢修斯·李锡尼·穆瑞纳也对此持肯定态度。马库斯·波西厄斯·加图也和这些执政官的观点一样，对我赞赏有加。然而，他在临死之前所担心的众多事情中，尤其不看好你担任执政官。我的另外一个强有力的支持者就是庞培。他从叙利亚回来后，第一次和我见面便与我相拥并对我表示祝贺，他说正是由于我担任执政官才能让他再次看到罗马这个国家。但是，我为什么要提到这些人呢？整个元老院都曾以热烈的掌声来庆祝我担任执政官，没有一个人不感谢我，就像我是他们的再生父母一样。他们都认为是我拯救了他们的财产和生命、他们的孩子和他们的国家。

然而，由于我刚才提到的那些伟人都已经不在了，所以我们还是谈谈依然健在的那个时期的两位执政官。其中一位是卓越的政治家卢修斯·奥里利厄斯·科塔，他对你所批判的那些行为大加赞扬，并提议大家应该对我致以最深的感谢。这项提议也得到了我刚才所提到的那些执政官们的认可，事实上得到了整个元老院的认可。自这个城市建立以来，除了我以外还没有其他人获得这样的荣誉。第二位就是你的舅舅卢修斯·朱利叶斯·恺撒。那时，他批判自己姐姐的丈夫也就是你的继父，他的演说是那么的有力、庄严和坚定！你应该把他当作导师和顾问，你一生中做的所有决定都应该向他请教。但是，你没选他，却事事以你的继父为榜样。虽然我和卢修斯·恺撒没有亲戚关系，但在我担任执政官的时候我还是会向他请教政务。你虽是他姐姐的儿子，可你什么时候向他请教过政事呢？

到底谁才是安东尼的顾问呢？很显然，是那些我们不知道他们生日的人。安东尼没有出席今天的元老院会议，这是为什么呢？因为他正在自己家里举行生日晚会，为谁而设的呢？不用我说出名字，肯定不是某个福米奥，就是哪个格纳所或者是巴里奥(2)。这是一个多么让人厌恶的好色之徒啊！一个多么令人讨厌的骗子啊！安东尼，你从不向你的那位近亲、那位让人尊敬的元老院议员卢修斯·恺撒请教政务，反而听取那些穷困潦倒的寄生虫们的意见，这是怎么回事呢？

我明白了，你担任执政官便对大家有益，而我担任则有害。如果你敢在神庙做出这样的论断，那简直就是无耻下流到了极点。作为执政官，我曾经在这里与元老院议员共商国是。在元老院最荣耀的时候，它拥有至高无上的权力；而现在，这座神庙里到处都是你派来的那些手持武器的恶棍、流氓。而你竟然如此的厚颜无耻（事实上没有什么事情是你干不出来的）地说在我担任执政官的时候，通往卡皮托利圣山的路上到处都是武装的奴隶！你是不是想说，我以武力来威胁元老院通过我那些不正当的法令？多么愚蠢的家伙啊！如果你知道真相，那你怎么还敢在这样的会议上说出如此鲁莽的话来？又或者，你根本就不知道，因为你心里就从来没有好事。

当元老院在神庙举行会议的时候，每一个罗马骑士，每一个出身高贵的青年（除了你外），每一个清楚自己罗马公民身份的人（不管是哪个等级的）都聚集在通往神庙的路上。他们每一位都报上自己的名字，但是由于人数太多，没有足够的记录人员或签名簿来登记所有人的名字。

那个时候，由于同谋的揭露和那些被当作证词公之于众的亲笔信，那些邪恶的叛国者不得不承认他们曾企图摧毁这个国家。从信中可以看出他们打算残害罗马人民、掠夺意大利、发动反动革命战争。在这个关键的时刻，所有人都会响应号召保卫祖国，尤其是在那个时候元老院和罗马人民拥有这样一位领袖。如果现在也有一位像那样的领袖，那些反动者的下场也将是你的下场。

安东尼对我拒绝交出他继父的尸体来下葬表示极大的不满，但是即使是帕布利厄斯·克劳狄厄斯也没有因此指责我。毫无疑问，我是克劳狄厄斯的敌人。但我觉得很遗憾，你竟然比他错得更加离谱。你为什么要提醒我们你曾在继父家里成长？难道你担心我们会怀疑你本性难移？还是想以此为证说明你为什么会变得如此可恶？

事实上，你的演讲简直毫无逻辑可言，你所说的从头到尾不仅没有联系而且自相矛盾，你对自己的反驳比对我的还要多。你承认你的继父参与了那滔天大罪，但你又抱怨他因此受到惩罚。不过，这场辩论的结果就是对我予以表扬，而对整个元老院加以斥责。因为虽然是我逮捕了罪犯，但是惩罚他们的却是元老院。所以，我们这位“雄辩者”根本就不知道他正在表扬自己想要批判的对手，侮辱了在座的听众。

我不会把这称之为放肆无礼，那一直是他引以为豪的一种品质。不过安东尼并不想成为一个愚蠢之人，但是当武装人员将我们团团包围，并且手握长剑驻守在协和神庙的时候，他却谈起了卡皮托利山，真是愚不可及啊！苍天在上！就是在我担任执政官的时候，在这座协和神庙里做出了那些拯救我们国家、让我们能安全至今的决策。

接着，他又批判元老院，批判当时与元老院结盟的骑士阶层。当他的以提利亚士兵将正在开会的我们包围时，他谴责每一个阶层、每一位公民。你并不是因为肆无忌惮才说出了这些不知羞耻的论断，而是你根本不知道自己所说的话是自相矛盾的。说实话，你简直愚蠢到不能再愚蠢了，因为一个神志正常的人怎么会先手执武器摧毁自己的国家，而后又指责别人拿起武器来拯救国家呢？

曾经有一度你想让自己变得机智风趣，但是天知道，这根本与你不相适宜。你在这方面的失败尤其应该受到谴责，因为你本可以从那位专业的女戏子也就是你的妻子身上学到一些。你曾因我说过“让武器向托加袍投降”(3)而嘲笑我。但是，那个时候情况的确如此，难道不是吗？不过，因为你的武器取得了胜利，让我们来考虑一下到底哪个更好：是捍卫罗马自由之人战胜了那些匪盗之徒的武器更好，还是现在你用武器将自由摧毁更好？我的诗就是我的答案。不过我想说你既不懂我的诗，也不懂其他文学作品。相反地，我不但谨记着我对国家和人民的责任，也利用闲暇时间来进行各种文学创作。但是，我的作品都是为了让年轻人从中获益、为国家辉煌的前途所着想。不过，这是另外一个话题了。还是让我们回到那些更为重要的问题上吧！

你说，因为我的提议帕布利厄斯·克劳狄厄斯被泰特斯·安尼厄斯·米洛处死了。但是，如果当你手持长剑在万众瞩目之下将他追赶到广场上，他才被杀死，人们会怎么想？如果他没有藏在书店的楼梯底下反抗你，你或许已经将他杀死了。就算你没有告诉大家是我煽动你这么做的，我也会承认我支持你当时的做法。但是至于米洛，我根本就没有机会对他的行动予以支持，因为他在任何人猜到他要做什么之前就已经付诸实践了。你说是我煽动他的，那也就是说要是没有一个敦促者他就不能实施一项爱国行动。你说当这一行动完成之时，我为此庆祝。但是在全国都为此感到高兴的时候，为什么我要成为这唯一的哀悼者。当然，对克劳狄厄斯之死的调查并不是一个非常明智而谨慎的计划。因为，如果之前有关谋杀所设立的司法程序是有效的，那么设立新的法律来处理这个案件就没有任何意义。无论如何，谋杀已经发生了，也对其进行了调查。不过，即使是在这件事情备受大家关注的时候也没有人因此指控我，你竟然在事隔多年之后以此来指责我。

接着，你又对我做出轻率而又冗长的指控。你说是我让恺撒疏远庞培，因此导致了内战。你所犯的错误不仅是对事实的扭曲，更重要的是连时间都搞错了。的确，在杰出的马库斯·卡尔普米厄斯·彼布卢斯担任执政官期间，我曾不遗余力地想让庞培离开恺撒。但是恺撒更为成功一些，因为他让庞培和我疏远起来。当庞培全心全意加入恺撒阵营的时候，我又怎么能使他们分开呢？如果这时我还对此抱有希望，那就愚蠢至极了；如果我还试图说服庞培，那就太不合时宜了。不过，我的确曾两次劝导庞培来反对恺撒。如果你一定要指责我，这倒可以成为你的理由。第一，我建议他不要让恺撒在高卢续任五年；第二，我建议他不要承认在自己缺席时恺撒所获得的执政官候选人资格。如果这两次中有一次成功，那我们也就不必承受现在的苦难了。

但是相反地，庞培带着自己和罗马的所有军队投奔了恺撒。只是在这发生以后，他才开始理解我在很久之前所做的预言，但是为时已晚。同样是在这个时候，我意识到我们国家马上就要遭受一场浩劫。这也就是为什么从那时起我一直呼吁和平、和谐与和解。很多人都知道我说过：“庞培，要是你没有与恺撒结盟，或者，要是你没有与恺撒闹翻，那该多好啊！但是你坚定的个性决定了前者，你的英明决定了后者。”安东尼，这是我一直给庞培和我们国家提出的建议，如果这个建议被采纳了，那么我们的国家现在依然会繁荣昌盛。但是你却不会，因为你会被你无耻、肮脏的行为所毁灭。

不过，这些都已经是陈年往事了。现在，你又指控恺撒之死是我造成的。众位元老院议员们：我担心此时看上去似乎我犯下一桩可叹的过错：即在一项针对我的事件中，导致一位虚假的控诉人的诞生——无论我是否当得起，他都对我充满赞扬。有谁听过我也是这项光荣行动的参与者呢？再说，有哪位参与者隐瞒了自己的名字呢？如果真是我所说的隐瞒，那为什么大家会立即知道他们每个人的名字呢？相信我，就算有些人没有参与这件事也会吹嘘自己参与过，而不是说，有人参与了却想要掩盖这个事实。参与这件事的人很多，有的人默默无闻，有的人很年轻，他们都不是那种能保守别人身份秘密之人。所以，如果我真的参与了，但是却没有人知道我参与过，这究竟是为什么呢？

此外，就算我们认为这个行动的发起者需要别人的激励才能解放自己的祖国，难道是我鼓励那两位布鲁特斯的吗？他们两个人每天都会在自己家里看到卢修斯·朱尼厄斯·布鲁特斯的雕像，而另外一个还能看到盖恩斯·瑟维菲厄斯·阿哈拉的塑像。有这样的祖先，这些活着的布鲁特斯家族人根本不需要外人的建议，因为他们自己家里一直都有为他们提供意见之人。同样，盖厄斯·卡修斯·郎吉努斯也属于这样的家族，他不能容忍一个贵族甚至任何人拥有过高的权力。很显然，他的确需要我这样的顾问！但是，在他还没有现在这些杰出的顾问之前，卡修斯就认为如果恺撒将船泊在河岸的这一边而非另一边，他便打算在居努斯河口西里西亚执行这个任务。同样地，当恢复自由这一任务受到威胁之时，格奈乌斯·多米提乌斯难道需要我来鼓励他吗？他尊贵的父亲之死、他母舅之死以及他自己怎么被剥夺了公民权利这些痛苦的记忆难道不足以激励着他来完成这项光荣的任务吗？至于盖厄斯·却波尼乌斯，难道也是我说服他的吗？他与恺撒那么亲近，我甚至根本不敢冒险去建议他。不过正是由于他们之间的亲密关系使我们国家和人民更加感激他。因为对他来讲，罗马人民的自由比他个人的友谊更重要。他本可以和恺撒一起实行独裁统治，而他却选择推翻独裁统治。又或者，是我建议卢修斯·提留斯·基伯尔这么做的？当然不是，在他完成了这一任务之后，我对他肃然起敬，因为在这之前我没有信心认为他会参与这一行动。我之所以敬仰他更多的是因为他不顾自身的利益，全心全意只为罗马着想。然后是两位赛维留斯，我不知道该叫他们卡斯卡(4)还是阿哈拉？你认为他们需要我的建议吗？难道他们不是因为热爱自己的祖国吗？列举出剩下的所有人会花费太多的时间，因为人数众多。这不仅仅是他们个人的荣誉，也是整个罗马的荣誉。

但是，请看看，这个狡猾的人是怎么证明我是他们的同谋的。他说：“在恺撒被杀之后，布鲁特斯立即挥舞着他那沾满鲜血的匕首，并喊着西塞罗的名字向他祝贺国家恢复了自由。”但是，就凭他选择喊我的名字而不是其他人名字这一点就能断定我是同谋吗？这根本不是他喊我名字的原因，他所做的事情和我所做的事情非常相似，所以他喊我的名字以表明他以我为榜样。

安东尼，你多么愚蠢啊！你难道不理解这一点吗？如果想要杀掉恺撒（就如你所指责的那样）就是犯罪，那么如果因为他的死而感到高兴便也是犯罪了，因为一种行为的倡导者和在这件事被实施后对其表示赞同之人没有任何差别。不管是我希望完成这件事还是在它实施后表现出很愉快都是一样的。但是，除了那些拥护他为独裁统治者的人，所有人都希望他被杀死，所有人也都会因他被杀死而感到高兴，所以每个人都有罪。每个人都在恺撒被杀这件事上有一定的作用，虽然有些人计划不周、勇气不足、缺少机会，但是每个人都想要杀掉恺撒。

就让我们听一下他，更确切地说，听一下这个胆小鬼的胡言乱语吧！他说：“每当我提到布鲁特斯的名字时，心中都充满了对他的尊敬之情。在布鲁特斯手持沾满鲜血的匕首时，他大喊西塞罗的名字，由此可知西塞罗是他的同谋。”所以，就因为你怀疑我可能做了某些事就认定我是一个罪犯，况且那个手持血淋淋匕首的人是你提到的自己“非常尊敬”之人。你说的这些话已经够愚蠢了，但是你的行为和想法更加愚蠢。执政官啊！你一定要考虑清楚，因为你必须对布鲁特斯家族之人，对盖厄斯·卡修斯、格奈乌斯·多米提乌斯、盖厄斯·却波尼乌斯以及其他剩下之人的行为做出最终的评判。好好休息吧！别再醉话连篇了。或许，必须得用一个火炬才能让你从昏睡中清醒。难道你真的不清楚参与这件事的那些人究竟是谋杀犯，还是让恢复国家自由的解放者吗？

请集中精力，哪怕只有一小会儿！让你的头脑好好运转一下，就像你清醒着一样。我承认我是他们的朋友，但你更愿意将我称为他们的同谋。但是，我还是不想看到任何折中的解决方法。如果这些人没有解放罗马人民、拯救国家，那么，我会认为他们比刺客、比杀人犯还要可恶。如果我们认为弑杀国父要比弑杀自己的父亲更加穷凶极恶，那他们连弑父者都不如。

所以，聪明而又周到的人啊！如果他们是弑父者，你为什么在元老院会议和罗马人民的集会上对他们尊敬有加？为什么在马库斯·布鲁特斯离开城市十多天后，提议让他得到豁免(5)？为什么在阿波罗赛会上人们会对他赞不绝口？为什么这么多行省赋予布鲁特斯和盖厄斯荣耀，要为他们指派额外的财务官和使者？这些事情都是你做的，很显然你并没有将他们当作杀人犯。鉴于没有其他折中的可能，所以你无疑是将他们当作解放者来看待的。因此，这究竟是怎么回事？我并没有让你难堪，不是吗？我觉得你很擅长处理这种情况带给你的困境。不过，我最后的结论是：你并没有将布鲁特斯和其他相关人等当作罪犯，这也就是你在无意识地宣告他们应该得到最丰厚的奖赏。

因此，我必须重新组织我的演讲。我应该写信给这些人，告诉他们如果有任何人向他们问起你对我的指控是否属实，请他们不要否认这一点。因为如果我是他们的共谋，而他们又隐藏了这个事实，这恐怕会有损他们的声誉；但是，如果是他们想要邀请我，却遭到我的拒绝，这样也会使我的声誉大为受损。上天为证！除了罗马，世上还有哪个国家的人有过这样的壮举？再也没有比这更加光荣、更加伟大的行为了，他们会流芳百世！所以，如果你认为我是特洛伊木马，与这件事的主谋一起合谋，我没有任何异议。相反，不管你出于什么动机，我都要感谢你，因为事关这一伟大的行动，我认为你要强加给我的污点不是别的正是一种荣耀。

你吹嘘说你将这些人赶走并驱逐出去。但是，他们福泽无边。世上没有那么荒凉和野蛮的地方，人们定会欢迎他们的到来并为此感到愉快。世界上的人，不管他们的文明程度多低，都懂得这些人能够为他们带来幸福。他们的光荣事迹将被一代又一代的作家永远传颂。

我祈求你，把我也列入这些英雄的行列吧！但是，我担心有一件事你不会赞同。如果我是他们中的一员，我不仅让我们的国家摆脱了这一个独裁者，也摆脱了独裁统治。如果正如你所断定的那样，我是这部作品的作者，那么相信我，我绝不会满足于仅完成了这一项任务，我会完成整个剧本(6)。

如果想让恺撒死是一种罪，那么想想你自己的处境吧，安东尼！众所周知，你和盖厄斯·却波尼乌斯在那波制定了一个类似的计划，正是由于这个计划，却波尼乌斯才在恺撒被杀的时候让你置身事外。如此看来，我对你是友好的。我赞美你曾有过的善意，我感谢你没有将计划外泄，我原谅你没有参与实施。这项任务需要另外一个人来完成。

但是，如果有人用法官卢修斯·卡修斯·朗吉努斯的名言“那么谁会受益呢”来控告你，你就要小心一点，因为你可能会受到牵连。的确如此，之前你便注意到这会使那些不愿意成为奴隶的人受益。然而，这一行动对谁最有益呢？是你自己。你不仅摆脱了奴隶这一身份，甚至可以说成为了一个独裁统治者。你利用奥普斯神庙里的钱财还清了你的巨额债务；你篡改这些账本浪费了无数的钱财；你将恺撒家里无数的财产转移给自己。那些在你家里伪造的虚假票据和你所模仿的笔迹为你提供了多么大的一笔财富啊！你的家简直就是一个专门伪造文件的作坊，一个黑市，在那里进行与土地和城市有关的可耻交易，免除了大量的税务。

唯有恺撒之死才能将你从你债务人的毁灭之中解救出来。你看起来很紧张，是不是在暗自担心会受到牵连？不会的，我向你保证：你不必担心，没有人会相信你有这样的行为。我们国家有完成这一光荣任务的伟大之人。我并没有说你参与其中，只是说你对此感到高兴而已。

现在，我对你最严重的指控已经做出回答。接下来，我必须对其他指控也做出回应。你指责我曾出现在庞培的军营，指责我在那段时间的所做作为。的确，就像我之前所说的那样——如果那个时候大家接受了我的建议，现在的你就会是一个可怜之人，而我们大家都可以享受自由，我们国家也不会损失那么多的军队和指挥官。当我预见现在所要发生的事情之时，我和其他忠诚的公民一样感到十分悲伤，如果他们也有我那样的预见的话。众位元老院议员，我很悲伤，我为我们的共和国即将灭亡而感到悲伤，那可是你们众位议员以及我的顾问们曾竭力保护的共和国啊！在这种情况下，我还不至于因为无知而担心自己是否能继续存活下去。虽然我现在还活着，但是我的生活却充满了痛苦，失去生命对我来说也就意味着结束所有的麻烦。不过，我希望那些杰出之士能够继续活下去，他们是罗马的荣耀，是我们的执政官、执法官、优秀的元老院议员，是我们高贵之士的希望，是忠诚的罗马人民所组成的军队。对我来说，任何能够使我们人民团结的和平都比那些让他们自相残杀的战争要好得多。事实上，不管实现和平的环境有多么恶劣，如果这些人现在还活着，至少我们会觉得共和国仍与我们同在。

如果我的这一观点得到广泛的认可，如果我想要保住他们生命的那些人并没有在对他们的武装力量过分乐观的情况下与我为敌，一定会出现这样的结果：元老院不能容你，甚至整个罗马也不能容你。

你驳斥我，认为是我的演讲使庞培疏远了我，这简直太荒谬了！他对我的关心比其他任何人都多。庞培和我之间的交流，以及他对我的请教比世界上其他任何人都要频繁。对于两个在政务上观点如此不同的人来说，能成为这么亲密的朋友实非易事。我们两人都熟知彼此的想法和观点。我最关心的就是让我们的罗马同胞们活下去，只有这样我们随后才有机会来考虑他们的公民权利。相反地，庞培所关注的是他们当下的权利。但是不管怎样，我们之间的分歧在可容忍的范围之内。并且，因为我们双方都专注于自己的具体目标，所以分歧更是在可容忍的范围之内。

那些和庞培一起从法塞利亚撤退到帕福斯的人很了解这位杰出的人物对我的看法。当他提到我的名字时都是赞美的话语，并为我们没有在一起而感到十分遗憾。他自己也承认，他对未来抱有很高的希望，而我对未来拥有更准的预测。但是，你在承认我是庞培朋友的同时，又怎么能无耻地以他的名义指控我？别忘了，你甚至买下了他那些被充公的财物。

不过不管怎样，我们还是不要再讨论这场你在其中极为幸运的战争了。并且，我也不会回复你对我在军营时所讲的那些笑话的指控。那里生活的确不易，但是无论环境有多恶劣，人们——只要他们还是人——便会偶尔放松一下。安东尼不但批判我的悲伤，就连我讲的笑话也要批判！不过这也恰好证明了我在这两方面都很有节制。

你说没有人给我留下任何遗产(7)。我多么希望你的这个指控是对的啊！因为这意味着我的很多朋友和亲戚现在都还健在。但是，我想知道你怎么会有这个想法，事实上别人留给我的遗产加起来已经超过了两千万赛斯特斯(8)。我承认在这方面你一直都比我幸运，因为我所继承的东西都来自于我的朋友，他们认为留给我的这些财产可以抚慰我的悲伤，如果可以起到这种作用的话。但是，你竟然是卢修斯·鲁伯里厄斯·卡西纳斯的财产继承人，你跟他素未谋面，连他究竟是黑是白都不知道啊！他一定是非常喜欢你才会将你立为继承人吧。他甚至越过他朋友昆塔斯·富菲乌斯（一位非常值得尊敬的骑士）的儿子，直接将你立为他的财产继承人。鲁伯里厄斯一直对外宣称富菲乌斯的儿子将会是他的财产继承人，而他竟然没有出现在其遗嘱之中。相反地，你却成为他的财产继承人，可是他之前从来也没见过你，甚至没跟你说过一句话啊！如果方便的话，请你告诉我，你的另一位恩主卢修斯·忒赛留斯长什么样子，身高是多少，来自哪里，哪个部族？你会回答说“我什么都不知道，除了他所拥有的那些财产”。难道这一回答就足以让他剥夺自己兄弟的财产继承权而改立你为继承人吗？此外，还有很多人，他们几乎和安东尼没有任何关系，而安东尼却将他们真正的继承人加以驱逐，从他们手里攫取了大量的钱财，就像自己是他们的继承人一样。

让我觉得惊讶的还有另外一个原因，你连自己父亲的继承人都不是，就敢厚颜无耻地提到遗产继承这个问题。

愚蠢的家伙啊！难道这些就是你在另外一个人的别墅里一天又一天地练习辩论所找到的论证吗？不过，正如你最亲密的朋友所说的那样，你练习辩论只是为了清除宿醉而不是使你的思维更加机智。在那些酒徒朋友的支持下，你就像开玩笑一样为自己找了一位演说老师，并允许他以任何方式来反驳你。而他肯定也是一个十分搞笑的家伙，但是由于你和你的朋友是他反驳的对象，他也不能抱怨缺乏反驳你们的实例。

请看一下你和你祖父之间的区别吧！他在深思熟虑之后会提出与自己情况相关的论证，而你呢，只会说一些无关紧要的话语。就这样，你的辩论老师竟然还从你那里得到了丰厚的报酬。众位元老院议员们，请听听他给国家造成的损失吧！他给了这位辩论老师——赛克斯都·克劳狄厄斯1250英亩的土地，并且免除了税务。安东尼，你让罗马人民为你支付了这笔巨额学费，但是最后除了把自己学成一个傻瓜外，你还学到其他东西了吗？你这个毫无原则的家伙！难道这也是你在恺撒的记事本中找到的指令吗？不过关于列奥蒂尼这片土地和坎帕尼亚的那些土地，我稍后会提到。这些全是安东尼从罗马人民手中掠夺的，他将这些土地赠给那些品行低下之人，任由他们玷污。

对于他的指控我已经做出了充分的回答。现在，我必须来说一下我们这位道德家和改革家本人了。不过，我并不打算一次把所有故事都讲完。这样的话，如果我又回到某个争论之中就不必再重复自己说过的话了。由于他的罪行和错误简直罄竹难书，所以这对我来说没有任何困难。

安东尼，你想让我们从你童年时期的行为开始说起吗？我想是的，就让我们从头开始吧。你还记得你少年时期的破产吗？你肯定会说那是你父亲的错误。这的确是作为子女的自我辩护！你自年少时便鲁莽无知。当时洛斯基乌斯法案为破产者指定了特殊座位，不论其破产是因为运气不佳还是行为不端，但是你去剧院后却坐在了为骑士们预留的第十四排座位之中。接着，你穿上了成年男子的托袈，或者就你的所作所为而言，更确切地说应该是女人的托袈。起初，你只是一个普通的男妓，靠这个收取固定的费用，并且价格奇高。但是，没有多久库里奥出现了，他将你从这个行当中赎回。就像有人说的那样，让你拥有了妻子般的地位，使你俨然成为了一个拥有持久稳定婚姻的妇女。从来没有一个男子像你那样完全是因为主人库里奥的淫欲才被买来的。多少次，他的父亲将你扔出家门，甚至派人驻守在门外防止你进入。但是，在黑夜的帮助之下，淫欲的促使之下，钱财的驱使之下，你甚至会爬上房顶进去。

那个家庭根本不能容忍这样不耻的勾当。你知道吗？我对我现在所说的事情一清二楚。那个时候库里奥的父亲躺在床上老泪纵横，而他的儿子也泪眼婆娑地跪在我脚下，祈求我帮助你，并让我为他辩护，否则他就得给他父亲六百万赛斯特斯保证金。那个年轻人深爱着你，他发誓要离开这个国家，因为他不能忍受与你分离。那时，我为那个显赫的家庭解决了无数的问题或者说为所有问题画上了句号。我说服这位父亲来偿还儿子的债务，并用自己的一部分财产来让这个年轻人重获社会地位，因为他的头脑和性格都是极好的。但是，我也劝导他行使自己作为父亲的合法权威来阻止库里奥与你亲近，甚至阻止他与你见面。当你回想起我所做的这些事之后，只有一样东西能给你挑战和侮辱我的勇气，那就是你所拥有的强有力的武器，就是我们今天在元老院看到的那些。

不过关于安东尼那堕落、淫逸的生活我就说到这里，因为有的事情我觉得说出来真是有失体面。就演说的自由而言，安东尼比我更有优势，因为他所做的那些事情对一位值得尊敬的对手来说是不屑于提起的。所以，我现在简单地谈一下他在这之后的生活。我们会很自然地想到他在国家遭受内战之苦时的所作所为以及他现在的行为举止。众位议员们，你们和我一样都知道这些事情，甚至比我了解得更清楚。不过，我还是恳请你们继续仔细地听下去，因为在这种情况下仅仅了解这些事情是不够的，它们必须被重新提起，这样才能使我们对其有深切的感受。

但是由于时间有限，我就长话短说。安东尼现在向我示好，然而在帕布利厄斯·克劳狄厄斯担任保民官的时候，他与克劳狄厄斯是亲密的朋友，是克劳狄厄斯所有阴谋的煽动者。事实上，安东尼的一个阴谋就是在克劳狄厄斯家中计划的，他很清楚我说的是哪一个。接着，他不顾元老院的权威、不顾国家的利益、不顾上天的旨意去了亚历山大里亚。不过在伽比纽斯的领导之下，他的行为似乎没有任何不当之处。接下来，我们来想想安东尼返回的本质和情景吧。在他回家之前，他从埃及到了最远的高卢。回家？我说的是回家吗？那时，其他人还有家；但是你——安东尼——根本就没有家。家？除了塞米努，这世上根本没有你的容身之处。不过那个地方也是你和同伙所共有的，就像西萨波矿一样。

离开高卢后，你参加了财务官的竞选。我敢断定在那种情况下你在见我之前先去见拜见了你的父亲。因为在这之前我就已经收到恺撒的一封信，他在信中让我接受你所陈述的理由，所以我甚至不允许你对我表以谢意。在那之后，你对我尊敬有加，我也帮助你获得了财务官候选人的资格。也就是在那个时候，在罗马人民的赞成之下你想要杀掉帕布利厄斯·克劳狄厄斯。这完全是你自己的想法，和我一点关系都没有，你认为只有杀掉他才能补偿我因你而遭受的苦难。不过，现在你为什么又说米洛是在我的怂恿之下杀死了克劳狄厄斯？即使是在你自告奋勇要去做这件事的时候，我也并没有给你任何鼓励。我认为，如果你真的做了这件事，也不过是因为自己想要获得荣誉而已，并不是受我的影响。

就这样，你成为了财务官。但是在没有元老院法令的允许下，在没有抽签也没有任何法律认可的情况下，你立即投向了恺撒的怀抱。那里是身陷绝境之人唯一的避难所，你觉得只有那个地方才能使你摆脱贫穷和债务，才能免于因罪受罚。恺撒慷慨的赏赐和你的掠夺让你补偿了自己的损失——如果你所贪污的那些公款被你立即挥霍后也能称为一种补偿的话。接着，你又百般祈求想要成为保民官。也许，你想成为保民官的目的只是为了模仿你的情人吧！

元老院的议员们，请你们了解这一点。我想说的并不是安东尼那些令人作呕的不当行为给他自己造成的各种丑闻，而是他以邪恶和无礼的手段对我们所有人、我们的财富以及我们整个国家所造成的伤害。我们所有灾难的根源都与他的罪行相关。当卢修斯·科尼利厄斯·伦图卢斯和盖厄斯·克劳狄厄斯·马凯鲁斯在1月1日担任执政官后，罗马共和政府就岌岌可危。众位元老院议员都想要保住这个国家，如果恺撒头脑正常的话，你们甚至愿意满足他的愿望。但是，安东尼却在这时将自己的保民官职位卖给别人并臣服于另外一人。此外，他利用职务之便处处对你们进行阻挠。也就是说，安东尼已经放肆到将自己的脖子置于刀斧之下，而这刀斧已经处置过众多比他所犯之罪还要轻的人。那时，元老院还可以自行做主，现在那些受人尊敬但已经去世的议员们还是其中的一员。元老院为了惩罚你，根据古老的传统颁布了这项法令，这是针对那些罗马公敌所设立的。你竟然如此鲁莽，在众位元老院议员面前批判我。要知道元老院曾宣布，我是国家的拯救者，而你是国家的敌人。

虽然我现在并没有提起你在那时所犯的罪行，但这并不表示它们被忘记了。只要这世界上还有人在，只要罗马这个名字还在（它会永存于世，除非被你摧毁），那么你那致命的否决(9)就会永远存在于人们的记忆之中。在元老院的会议记录中，没有一点儿偏见和夸张。你一个年轻人投了否决票，使得整个元老院不能通过一项关乎国家安全的法令。并且，这样的事情你做了不止一次，做过很多次。此外，你拒绝与元老院进行任何谈判。在这种关键的时刻，你的这一举动并不亚于你想让整个国家陷入混乱和废墟之中。不管是国家首领的请求、长者的警告还是整个元老院都不能阻止你提出这项法令，因为你早已被别人贿赂和收买。

所以，在多次劝导无果后，大家别无他法，只能对你进行严厉的打击。只有极少数人受到过这种打击，并且无一生还。于是，元老院命令执政官以及其他权力机构拿起武器来反抗你，而你只能躲在恺撒背后。

恺撒企图发动革命。但是，是你——安东尼——让恺撒有了向自己祖国开战的借口。恺撒在做出他那疯狂的决定和行为时唯一的借口就是：元老院无视保民官的否决权，这是对保民官应有权利的否定，安东尼的权利受到了侵犯。虽然任何一个拿起武器反抗自己国家的人都没有正当的理由，事实上我也并不是想说这些理由非常虚伪、无足轻重。因为我想说的并不是恺撒，而是你——安东尼。是你为这个最可怕的战争提供了理由，这一点不容否认。

如果你已经知道我接下来要说什么，那么你就明白你的命运将非常悲哀；如果你不知道，那就更加悲哀了。现有的书面记录证明了这些事情的发生，而且这些事情会永远留在我们子孙后代的记忆之中。那里面记录着执政官们被驱逐出意大利；同他们一起被驱逐的还有庞培，而他一人的荣光就足以照亮我们整个国家；只要身体还能忍受，所有的前执政官都纷纷撤退，所有的执法官、前执法官、保民官，大部分元老院议员、大批年轻人，总而言之，所有的罗马人都被驱逐出自己的家园。

正如种子是大树和植物的根源一样，你就是那场最可怕战争的种子。元老院的议员们，你们正在为在战争中惨遭覆灭的三个部队而悲伤，是安东尼杀了他们啊！你们正在为罗马的那些伟人感到哀痛，是安东尼夺走了他们的生命啊！元老院权威被摧毁，是安东尼毁了它啊！从那时开始，我们所看到的每一个不幸（还有什么是我们没见过的呢？）都是他造成的，再无其他任何可能。就如同特洛伊人眼中的海伦一样，他给我们国家带来了战争、伤害和毁灭。

他在保民官剩下的任期中的表现和刚开始没什么区别。当罗马共和国还存在的时候，在元老院认为那些不可能犯下的罪行中，他一样都没有落下。并且，请注意他所犯下的罪中之罪，虽然他让许多不幸的人恢复了荣誉，却唯独将他的叔叔排除在外。如果他是一个严厉之人，为什么不对每一个人都严厉？如果他是一个仁慈之人，为什么对自己的亲人不仁慈？

在他恢复公民权利的那些人中，我只想说一下他那位被判定犯有赌博罪的同伴利慈尼乌斯·丹提库卢。我只能这样想：安东尼认为虽然他的同伴聚在赌桌旁，但肯定没有犯罪。不过，他真正的目的是免除自己的赌债，赦免丹提库卢罪行的这一法令只是托词而已。安东尼，现在你能向罗马人民说出你恢复他公民权利的正当理由吗？一般人可能会这样反驳：丹提库卢是在没有出庭的情况下被起诉定罪的；这个案件根本没有论据来证实；法律没有就掷骰子做出司法审判的规定；或者说这是屈打成招的结果；又或者，就像你叔叔案例中最后的反驳一样，法庭做出这样的判决是因为收受贿赂。但是，根本不是这样，这些都不是你的理由。你声称丹提库卢是一个好人，对国家有用。虽然这与案情没有任何关系，不过如果你说的这一点是事实，我也不会反对你，毕竟赌博并不是多么严重的罪行。但是，你所说的话没有一个字是真的。丹提库卢被定罪不仅仅是因为赌博，他竟敢在讲坛上肆意赌博，简直是罪大恶极。如果一个人为这样的恶棍恢复权利，那这也证明了他自己的品格大有问题。

接着，我们看一下安东尼在担任保民官期间的其他行为。恺撒去西班牙后，将意大利托付给安东尼，安东尼对其任意践踏。他的那些旅程和他所到达的那些城镇很值得我们进行深入探讨。不过，我意识到我现在所讲的问题大家都很清楚并且经常议论。我也知道我对自己现在所说的和将要说的事情的了解甚至没有当时任何一个在意大利的人清楚，因为我那时候并不在意大利。虽然我要说的肯定没有你们所知道的多，但是请允许我讲一些特定的细节。

世界上怎么会有人做出这样卑鄙无耻的事情？身为人民的保民官，他竟然坐着一辆女式马车出行。在他前面，侍从们头戴月桂花环一路前行。队伍中，有一个坐着露天式轿子的女戏子。城中那些高贵之士被迫前来迎接他，并向女戏子问好。他们并没有用她那闻名遐迩的戏名来称呼她，而是称其为伏鲁尼娅。在这之后是一辆四轮马车，车上全是那些拉皮条的，是安东尼那些令人讨厌的朋友。接下来是被他忽略的母亲，她和她那堕落儿子的情人待在一起，就像婆婆一样。可恶的女人，她的生育给大家带来了多大的灾难啊！就这样，安东尼在很多城镇，事实上是在整个意大利都留下了他那无耻的印记。

众位元老院议员们，对他的其他行为进行谴责确实是一件困难而艰巨的事情。他参加过战争，身上沾满了敌人的鲜血，不过那些敌人是与他势不两立的罗马人。如果犯罪也能交上好运的话，他就是那个幸运的人。但是，我并不想冒犯那些老兵——因为这些士兵的情况和安东尼完全不一样（他们只是追随自己的领导，而你却是主动追随别人），所以对于这场战争的性质我不会说什么，不会让你有任何机会来煽动他们反抗我。

作为一个征服者，你带着你的军团从帖撒利回到布隆迪西。但是，你竟然在布隆迪西没有杀掉我，多么仁慈啊！我承认，你本可以杀了我的。不过，那时你身边的人全都认为必须宽恕我。甚至你自己的军团也对我尊敬有加，因为他们记得是我拯救了他们的国家。爱国之情是多么伟大啊！不过，就让我们假设：如果你没从我这里掠夺的东西就可以当作你给我的礼物；那么你没有剥夺我的生命其实也是对我的一种恩惠了。但是，在听了你对我的所有侮辱之后，我几乎忘记了你对我的恩惠，但是我并没有忘记。此外，你知道我会以什么方式来还击你，所以你才会肆无忌惮地侮辱我。

到达布隆迪西对你而言就意味着你可以与你的女戏子尽情地拥抱、热吻。什么？这是谎话吗？不能否认，那些有损自己名誉的事情的确很痛苦，难道不是吗？不过，如果在那些城镇居民面前你没有感到羞耻，难道在自己的老兵面前你也不觉得羞耻吗？哪一个在布隆迪西的士兵没有见过她？哪一个士兵不知道她远道而来向你祝贺？哪一个士兵不为太晚发现自己追随的领导是一个卑劣之人而感到悲伤？

此外，这个女戏子又陪着你去了意大利。你派重兵把守你所经过的那些镇子，到处都是残忍、不幸的景象。在罗马，你自己也从那个可悲之人沦落成黄金、白银还有美酒的掠夺者。最重要的是，恺撒的朋友对你青睐有加，在恺撒不知情的情况下（他当时在亚历山大里亚）便任命你为骑兵统领。那个时候，你觉得自己有权和西庇亚住在一起，并且把那些用于国家比赛的赛马交给了另外一个戏子瑟古厄斯。安东尼那时并没有选择住在他现在费尽周折才得到的房子里，而是住在马库斯·庇索的房子里。我对他的那些法令，那些掠夺物，那些因继承或霸占而得的遗产都不予置评，是需求迫使他这么做的。除此之外，他毫无选择。因为他还没有从卢修斯·鲁伯里厄斯和卢修斯·忒塞留斯那里得到丰厚的遗产，也没有成为庞培和其他人的财产继承人。他不得不过着强盗般的生活，因为他一无所有，除非他抢到东西。

不过，他的这一类恶行就先说到这里。我们还是来看看他那些更加卑鄙无耻的丑行吧。在西庇亚的婚礼上，安东尼——你用尽你角斗士般的力气胡吃海喝，结果因为喝了太多的酒，第二天在大庭广众之下呕吐不止。那场景简直太恶心了，即使是听到也会让人觉得恶心。如果在一个私人宴会上你还像在那场婚礼上一样，到处都是你那硕大的酒杯，所有人都会认为这是十分可耻的。但是，在罗马人民的集会上，一个担任公职之人，一个骑兵统领却吐得到处都是，可本来对他而言就算是打嗝也是不得体的。他也承认这是他非常失礼的一个行为。现在我们来看看他那些比这更加可恶的罪行吧！

恺撒从亚历山大里亚返回，他认为自己是个幸运之人，但我认为一个给自己国家带来不幸的人根本不能被称作是一个幸运之人。他在朱庇特神庙前竖起了长矛，而庞培的财产——一想到这里我就悲痛不已，即使是眼泪流尽了，悲伤还是深深地印在心底——哎！庞培的财产被那些拍卖者无情地拍卖了。

整个共和国都为此忧伤。虽然奴隶制已被忘却，但是恐惧让人们觉得自己仍然是一个奴隶，即使是这样，罗马人民还是深深地为此哀悼。所有人都在等着看会不会有一些疯狂的无耻之徒胆敢悖逆上天和人类的意愿来参加这个罪恶的拍卖。虽然也有一些人聚在长矛周围，但也仅此而已。只有安东尼一个人胆敢参加拍卖，只有他！只有他一个无耻到犯下这样的罪行，而其他人不管有多无耻也都因为心有所怯而没有参加拍卖。不过，安东尼你是不是太愚蠢了，或者说疯狂更合适一些，你竟然没有意识到购买这些被没收的财物，并且是购买庞培的财物会使你不仅现在而且永远成为罗马人民咒骂的对象，成为诸神和所有人憎恨的对象。这个房子的主人曾凭借他的勇猛让其他国家对罗马更加敬畏，凭借他的公正让其他国家对罗马更加热爱，而你这个贪婪的人竟然无耻地立即占有了他的房子。

安东尼在突然得到这个伟大之人的财物后便沉溺于快乐之中，就像戏剧中那些一夜暴富的穷人一样。但是，正如一些诗人写的那样“不义之财，来去匆匆”。不过让人难以相信的是：他不是在几个月内而是几天之内就挥霍掉了庞培的大笔财产，这简直是一个“奇迹”。那栋房子里有大量的美酒，众多精美无比的银器，价值不菲的长袍，大气而又优雅的家具——庞培虽然生活并不奢侈，却正当地拥有不少财产。但是，所有的这些东西在几天之内便一件都不剩了。就算卡里狄斯她真的存在，也只是一个动物而已。我敢发誓，即使是大海也很难将这些分散在各处的大量财物以那样的速度吞没。

所有东西都没有上锁、没有封印也没有登记。房子里所有的东西都被当作礼物送给那些无赖之徒。那些男戏子和女戏子也得到了他们想要的一切。房子里到处都是赌徒和醉汉。一连好几天，房子里很多地方一直在肆无忌惮地喝酒狂欢。安东尼的好运也只是暂时的，输的钱渐渐多了起来。而那些曾经属于庞培的精美床单，现在竟然在奴隶们的阁楼里，在他们的床上！

希望你们不会对这一大笔财产以这样的速度被花掉而感到惊讶。像安东尼这样肆意挥霍，不只是一个人的遗产——即使是像庞培那样充裕的遗产，就算是整个城市和整个国家的遗产也能很快被花光。不仅如此，他还占有了房子和花园！安东尼，你简直是厚颜无耻到了极点！你怎么敢踏进那个房子，跨过那道最为神圣的门槛？你怎么敢让住在那里的门神看到你那张无耻的嘴脸？长久以来，人们都会在看到或经过这栋房子时流下悲伤的眼泪。你竟然敢住在这里，难道不觉得羞耻吗？

虽然你十分愚蠢，但我敢肯定，这里没有什么东西能给你带来快乐。当你在走廊里看到这些船只(10)的时候，你根本不可能把这栋房子当成自己的。这点毫无疑问！虽然你麻木不仁，但你还知道自己是谁，知道自己的朋友和财产，所以，我相信不管你是醒着还是睡了都不会感到安心。虽然你会因为喝酒而神志不清，但是当他在你梦里出现的时候，你一定会被惊醒；同样地，当你清醒的时候，他那反复出现的身影定会让你思绪更加混乱。

我为那座房子的墙壁和屋顶感到悲哀，因为在这之前，它们所见证的都是严格的礼节——美好、高尚的传统与美德。众位议员，正如你们所了解的那样，庞培不管是在国内还是国际事务的处理上都是值得称颂的，不管是在私人生活还是公共事务方面都享有很高的声誉。但是，如今他家里的每个餐厅都变了酒馆，每个卧室都成了妓院。不过，安东尼现在可能会对这些都予以否认。他现在已经变聪明了，这点不需要证明，因为他已经变得节俭了。按照十二铜牌法令，他让他的女戏子收拾好她的东西，并且让她归还了自己的钥匙，然后把她赶了出去。多好的一个公民啊！多么值得人尊敬啊！他和女戏子分手了，这是他一生中做的最光荣的一件事。

他经常使用“我，执政官安东尼”这个短语。其实这就相当于在说“我，纵欲的执政官”或者“我，罪恶的执政官”，因为这就是“安东尼”的意义。如果这个名字还有一点尊严，我想是因为你的祖父也许有时会称自己“执政官，安东尼”。但事实上，他从来没有这么做过。你的叔叔也是如此，他是我的同僚。难道只有你一个人叫安东尼吗？

不过，我想略过这些过错，因为它们与你在摧毁我们国家时所扮演的角色没有直接关系。我们还是来谈谈后者——内战吧！内战的起因、发生和后果都是你造成的。但是你在战争中却无足轻重，因为你胆小如鼠，或者更恰当点说你只专注于自己的淫欲。但是，你也曾品尝甚至痛饮罗马人民的鲜血。你曾在法塞利亚的前线杀死了尊贵的卢修斯·多米提乌和众多从战场中逃亡的人。即使是恺撒也很有可能会饶恕他们，因为他的确曾经饶恕过其他一些人。但是，你却将他们赶尽杀绝。

然而，在取得了这些重要和辉煌的成就后，战争还在持续。为什么你不追随恺撒到阿非利加继续征战？我们来看看恺撒从阿非利加回来后赐给你的职位和头衔吧！当他是统帅的时候，你是他的财务官;他是独裁者的时候，你是他的骑兵统领。事实上，这场战争是你发起的，恺撒的每一个暴行都是你怂恿的，在一场场连续的抢劫中，你也一直都是他的同伙。你自己认为恺撒在遗嘱中会将你当作养子(11) ，而他那个时候在做什么呢？他在采取措施对付你，你在拍卖中因为买房子、花园以及其他财物所欠的钱，恺撒都要求你如数返还。

你的回答在刚开始异常可恶，不过，我承认有些地方是公平合理的，我不想让人觉得我对你有偏见。“恺撒要钱是因为我吗？难道我不是因为他才要钱的？或者说没有我的帮助他能在这场战争中获胜吗？当然不是，没有我他不可能赢。是我！为他发动内战提供借口；是我！提出了那些邪恶的法令；是我！不但竭力反对罗马人民的执政官和将军，而且反对整个元老院和罗马人民，反对天上的诸神、祭坛和我们祖先的家园——实际上是反抗整个罗马。恺撒不是独自一人完成征服的，为什么共苦的人不能同甘呢？”的确很合理，但这个理由不能击中要害，因为恺撒是比较强的那一个。所以，为了平息你的不满，他派了士兵去见你和你的保证人。

接着，突然就出现了你那份惊人的财产清单。所有人都在嘲笑那份清单的长度，嘲笑那些各种不同的财物，因为那里面没有一个（除了密塞努的土地）可以称得上是他自己的。不过，这场拍卖本身的场景就十分惨淡。那里有庞培的一些长袍，有的上面甚至还有污点，一些磨损变形的银质杯盘，几个衣衫褴褛的奴隶。剩下的东西也寥寥无几。不过，如果没有任何东西留下来，我们的悲伤可能会少一些。

但是，卢修斯·鲁伯里厄斯·卡西纳斯的继承人以恺撒的一道法令来反对这场拍卖。安东尼这个挥霍者陷入了尴尬之中，无处可躲。就在这个特殊的时刻有消息传出：在恺撒家中逮捕了安东尼派去的一名手持匕首的杀手。恺撒以此为由在元老院公开指责你。但是因为你实在太穷了，他宽限你在几天之内还债，接着便去了西班牙。即使这样，你也没有和他一起出行。一个如此优秀的角斗士竟然这么早就退休了？一个人如果在支持自己这一方时（同样也意味着支持自己）都表现得如此恐惧，那么别人肯定不会对他有所畏惧了。

最终在过了一段时间后，安东尼的确去了西班牙。但正如他所想的那样，他没能安全抵达。那么，多拉贝拉是怎么到达那里的？安东尼，你要么就别使用这个借口，要是使用开了，就应该坚持到底。恺撒曾三次与自己的同胞为敌，分别是在帖撒利、阿非利加和西班牙。多拉贝拉参加了这些所有的战斗，并且在西班牙负伤。如果你想知道我的看法，我希望他没有参加这些战斗。虽然他最初的决定应该受到谴责，不过他至少应该因为自己的坚持而受到表扬。但是，你呢？那个时候，庞培的儿子们正在杀出一条回家之路，这无疑让所有效忠于恺撒的人都焦虑不堪。换句话说，庞培的儿子们正在竭力恢复他们家神的神龛，他们神圣的炉灶、家园以及他们家族的守护神，这些都是被你夺走的东西。当他们不得不使用武力来夺回属于自己的合法财产时谁最应该成为他们的主要目标呢？（虽然在这种不当的行为中根本没有公正可言）这个人就是——你！他们财产的占有者。所以这是你与他们之间的战争，难道不是吗？但是多拉贝拉却不得不因此在西班牙作战，而你却在那波，在主人的餐桌前呕吐。

接着你从那波返回。事实上，你是想知道我为什么突然中断旅行返回罗马。对此我已经向元老院做出解释。如果可以的话，我想在新年到来之前就为国效力。你问我是怎么回来的。首先，我是在白天到达的，而不是黑夜。其次，我是穿着我自己的靴子和托迦袍回来的，而不是穿着高卢便鞋和斗篷。不过，我看到你似乎对我怒目相视。但是如果你知道我为你的无耻而感到羞愧——相反地，你自己却没有——你就应该对我友好一点。在我的所见所闻之中，没有任何一个人所犯的所有罪行比这更加无耻。你——曾经的骑兵统领，而今为了竞选下一届执政官竟然穿着高卢便鞋和斗篷访遍了高卢的所有城镇，这简直和乞丐没什么两样。当我们是执政官候选人的时候，也会在这些城镇拉选票，不过那时候要得到任命靠的是选票而不是个人的施舍。

看看这个人有多轻浮！那天在三点钟的时候，他到达罗马，来到了达萨科萨卢拉。然后便躲在一个破旧的小酒馆里喝酒，一直喝到晚上。接着一辆双轮马车快速将他带到市里，他蒙着脸到了自己的家里。守门人问他：“你是谁？”他答道：“我是安东尼的信使。”随即被带到一个女人面前，并且交给她一封信。这个女人便是他回来的原因。看了信后，她哭了起来，因为这是一封情书，主要内容是他不再跟那个女戏子有瓜葛，只爱她一个人。当她哭得越来越厉害的时候，这个软心肠的家伙再也忍不住了。他揭开自己的头巾，双手抱住了她的脖子。多么无耻的家伙啊！就算是再无耻的词也不足以形容他。仅仅为了让自己突然出现在这女人面前，他便让整个城市在晚上陷入恐惧之中，让意大利陷入长久的烦恼之中。在她看到一个男妓这样的行为后，定会觉得惊喜万分。

在家里你可以声称是为了爱情，但是在其他地方你却有一些更加邪恶的意图：为了阻止鲁西乌斯·普兰库斯出售你的抵押品。一位保民官曾在一个公共集会上买下了你，但是你却回答说：“我来这里是为了我的私人财产。”所有的人都把这当作一个天大的笑话。(12)

不过，这些小事就说到这里，我们还是回到那些更重要的问题上吧！当恺撒从西班牙回来后，你不远千里去见他，并且速去速回，因为这样会让恺撒觉得虽然你不勇敢但至少精力充沛。不知怎么地，你再次和他重归于好。不过，恺撒就是那样的人，对于那些因为濒临破产而陷于绝望之中的无耻之徒，他都愿意与其成为亲密的朋友。你在这些方面表现得非常出色，所以他任命你为执政官，作为他的同僚。人们只能向多拉贝拉表示同情，恺撒一直鼓励多拉贝拉参加竞选，但是最后却欺骗了他。大家都知道你和恺撒在这个问题上背叛了多拉贝拉。恺撒让他成为执政官的候选人，并允诺让他赢得选举，却背弃之前的承诺将职位收为己有，而你也在其中推波助澜。

1月1日，我们大家被迫来到元老院。多拉贝拉对安东尼进行了批判，比我现在的更加全面和强烈。天啊！安东尼在愤怒之中都说了什么啊！恺撒在他东去之前便表明要任命多拉贝拉为执政官。不过，他们竟然否认言行一向如此的人是一个独裁者。但是，在恺撒这样说过之后，这位杰出的占卜官安东尼宣布，他作为一名祭司可以利用占卜征兆阻止或废除选举。并且，他宣称自己将会这么做。大家看看，他真是蠢得让人难以置信啊！安东尼，占卜官的职位让你有权实施这些行为。但是就算不是占卜官，仅仅作为执政官，你也有权那么做。事实上，执政官的权力难道不是更大吗？我们占卜官只被授予报告预兆的权利，而执政官和其他行政官员也有观察天象的权利。

很好，就算是因为你缺乏经验而搞砸了这件事吧。我们不能期待从一个永远糊里糊涂的人那里得到正确的判断。不过，请大家看看他有多无知。几个月之前，他曾在元老院宣布他要么利用占卜征兆阻止议会选举多拉贝拉，要么换种方式这么做。现在，除了那个已经正式开始观察天象的人，还有谁能够预言占卜中的不足？不过在选举中这样做是不合法的，如果有任何人事先观察了天象，那么他必须在选举开始之前进行报告而不是之后。安东尼既无知又无耻，他的行为所展现的无知已经达到了极点，就像他对一个占卜官职责的无知一样。所以，让我们回忆一下从他担任执政官的那天起，一直到3月15日所发生的事情。没有一个仆人能够如此谦虚，如此卑微。他自己什么事情都不会做，每件事都得求别人。你可以看到他将头缩回自己的轿子后面请求同僚(13)的帮助。

多拉贝拉选举的日子到了，最先投票的权利是由抽签决定的，安东尼对此没有任何异议。抽签结果出来后，安东尼保持沉默。于是，第一等级的人投票，公布投票结果；然后，第二等级的人投票——这一切很快就结束了，比我讲这个故事还要快。当前面这些程序结束后，再接着，就是我们这位杰出的占卜官——你们可能会认为他是盖厄斯·莱留斯本人——宣布：“会议推迟到另外一天。”多么荒谬啊！多么鲁莽啊！你没有看到，也没有领悟到，更没有听到任何预兆。你没有说你之前一直在观察天象，今天也没有。所以这个问题就在于这是你在很久之前也就是1月1日时所预言过的。换句话说，你肯定是在报告假的预兆。你利用宗教来约束罗马人民。作为占卜官你向占卜官报告假的预兆，作为执政官你向执政官报告假的预兆。希望那些可怕的恶果不要降临在罗马人民身上，只降临在你的身上。

这就是我要说的全部事情，否则再说下去就有可能看起来在否定多拉贝拉的行为，不过占卜团肯定在某个时间会得知此事。大家看看这个人有多么蛮横无理！只要你安东尼自己乐意，多拉贝拉的执政官选举就是不合法的。接着，你又改了主意，认为占卜征兆的程序在这次选举上根本没有任何问题！如果你所说的占卜官报告没有意义，那也就相当于承认，你在说延期的时候不是清醒的。但若这些话有某种意义，那么作为我的占卜官同僚，我想请问你这些话是什么意思。

不过，我绝对不会在这次演说中故意略去安东尼众多功绩中那极为优秀的一个行为。所以，我们来谈一下牧神节吧！众位元老院议员，大家请看。他无法隐藏内心的焦虑，你们看到他看起来有多烦恼了吗？他脸色惨白，汗流不止。不过没关系，只要他没有生病，他就会像在木诺西乌柱廊那里一样。他是怎么在牧神节为自己那可耻的行为辩护的？我很希望能听到这个辩护，顺便了解一下他在给自己辩论老师缴纳了那一大笔学费和列奥蒂尼的土地后，有什么样的成果。

你的同僚正身穿紫袍，头戴花环就坐于讲坛的金色椅子之上。你爬上讲坛，走向恺撒的椅子——虽然你就像卢佩库斯牧神一样，不过你也应该记得你是一名执政官——然后拿出一顶王冠。整个讲坛此时都发出一阵叹息。这个王冠是从哪里得来的？肯定不是你在地上捡到的吧！当然不是，这是你从自己家里带来的。这是一项有预谋的犯罪。然后，你将王冠戴在他的头上，人们为之悲叹。然而，他又将王冠拿下，人们为之鼓掌。

所以，罪人，你独自一人已经准备好在集会上倡导在罗马建立独裁统治，希望你的同僚能成为你的君主，并且要将罗马人民置于独裁统治的水深火热之中。你甚至像一个乞丐一样趴在他的脚下试图让他对你有所怜悯。你在祈求什么呢？成为他的奴隶吗？不过就你自己而言，这个祈求倒是很合适，因为从童年开始你便屈服于所有发生在你身上的事情。对你一个人来说，要转变为奴隶制很简单，不过，我们自己、全体罗马人民都没有授予你这样的权利。

你赤身裸体时所发表的那个演讲是多么雄辩机智啊！不过，还有什么行为能比这更加可耻，更应受到最严厉的惩罚？你是一个在恐惧中等待主人鞭打的奴隶吗？如果你还有一点感觉，那你现在肯定能感到鞭打，因为我对这些事情的解释定会让你血流不止。虽然这并不是我的本意，但我这样解释也许会贬低那些伟大的解放者。不过，你的恶行着实让人心痛，我必须说出我的观点。当看到那个拒绝王冠的人被杀，并且是在众人的一致希望下被杀后，让人惊讶的是那个献给他王冠的人却还存活于世。更让人吃惊的是，他竟然让人在牧神节的公共记录中写下：“在人民的命令之下，执政官安东尼授予永久的独裁者——恺撒王权。恺撒予以拒绝。”

因此，在你仇恨罗马，仇恨光明，整日和那些鸡鸣狗盗之徒喝酒之时，我并没有对你破坏国家和平感到意外。因为对你来说，没有什么地方是安全的。你能在那些拥有法律和法庭的的地方找到容身之处吗？不能，因为这些正是你竭尽全力想要通过暴政废除和替代的东西。这难道不是塔奎纽斯被驱逐，斯普利乌·卡修斯、斯普利乌·买利厄斯、马库斯·曼利厄斯被处死的原因吗？然而在几百年过去后，安东尼却犯下了在罗马拥立国王这一邪恶的罪行。

还是让我们回到占卜这个话题吧！恺撒打算在3月15日的元老院会议上处理这个问题。安东尼，我必须问你在当时想要说什么。我听说你那天去元老院主要是为了反驳我，因为我曾断言你的占卜预兆报告是虚假的——占卜预兆除非被宣布无效，否则就必须严格遵守。不过上天保佑才使得那天本来要进行的事情没有发生，而恺撒之死也打消了你关于预兆的念头。

但是，在我讨论这个话题之前，我必须谈一下其他事情。在那个光荣的日子里，你惊慌逃窜，偷偷躲在家里，因为良心的不安让你感到死亡在向你靠近。那些关心你生命安全的人照看着你，因为他们希望你行为理智。我对未来的预言一向准确无误，但却总被大家忽略。在卡皮托利山上，当我们那些尊贵的解放者希望我去劝说你为共和政府效力时，我便告诉他们，在你害怕的时候，你会允诺所有事情，但是当你不再害怕的时候，你就会恢复本性。因此，当其他一些前任执政官频繁出入于你的家里时，我依然坚持自己的观点。并且，那天以及之后的第二天我都没有见你。因为我相信忠诚的罗马公民不会和一个没有原则的敌人达成任何协议，也不会和他结成同盟。

两天后，我十分不情愿地来到忒路斯神庙，因为士兵们封锁了所有的通道。这天对你来说多么重要啊！虽然你突然间与我为敌，不过我还是为你感到遗憾，因为你随后的行为有愧于你良好的声誉。天知道，只要你能坚持你那天所表现出的态度，你也会成为一个英雄。并且，在那种情况下我们可以通过那位出身高贵的人质——马库斯·班巴里奥的孙子——得到所期盼的和平。

在恐惧的指导下，你行为举止良好，俨然是一位好公民。但是，恐惧缺乏持久性。相反地，一直伴随你的是狂妄嚣张，用不了多久你便会再一次走向罪恶，因为只有在你害怕的时候它才会消失。事实上，那时人们（除我以外）都对你赞扬有加，而你却无耻地主持了那位暴君的葬礼——如果那个仪式可以被称作葬礼的话。你在葬礼上宣读了庄重的悼辞，做出了悲怆的道德呼吁。你点燃火把，火化了恺撒的尸体，同样也是这把火烧毁了卢修斯·贝利努斯的房子。安东尼，你发动那些大多是奴隶的流氓破坏我们的家园，使得我们不得不亲自来对抗这些暴行。

不过，似乎是你清理了火葬堆的那些烟灰。随后，你在卡皮托利山上、在元老院面前提出了优秀的决议。我指的是那些宣布从3月15日起，不再张贴免税或者其他类似特权的公告。至于那些赦免，以及那些流放的人，你知道你自己说了什么。不过，在这之中最值得称赞的就是你为这个国家永远地废除了独裁者这个头衔。因为你感觉到人们近来对独裁者的恐惧，以及对其无比的仇视，所以决定将其永远废除。

至此，对于其他人来说，国家似乎稳稳地建立了起来，不过我并不这样想，因为我认为由你掌舵的船一定会出事故。难道我错了吗？一个人能长时间伪装自己吗？元老院的议员们，你们都亲自看到了接下来所发生的事情。卡皮托利山上到处都张贴着公告，出售免税权，不仅仅面向个人，而且面向整个国家；公民权不再授予个人而是授予整个行省。如果这些决议长期有效，我们的国家势必走向衰败。众位议员，你们已经失去了所有的行省，并且他在自己开设的市场内大幅度削减税收。他是在削弱整个罗马帝国啊！

奥浦斯神庙账本中所记载的那七亿塞特拉斯现在在哪里？虽然这笔钱财是不义之财，但是如果这些钱不能归还给它的主人，至少它还可以使我们免除财产税。不过，安东尼你能不能解释一下：为什么在3月15日的时候，你负债400万塞特拉斯，而在4月1日的时候便还清了所有债务？

此外，你很清楚自己的众多法令都是通过钱财收买别人才得到支持的。不过，那些张贴在卡皮托利山上的法令中的确有一条十分优秀。这与罗马人民的好朋友——戴奥塔鲁斯国王相关。尽管所有人都处于悲伤之中，但是在看到这条法令时都忍不住大笑。因为没有人像恺撒恨戴奥塔鲁斯那样恨过别人。他对戴奥塔鲁斯的恨就像他对元老院、罗马骑士、马西利亚人以及每一个他认为热爱罗马和罗马人民的人的恨一样。在恺撒的一生中，不管是当着戴奥塔鲁斯的面还是在他缺席的时候，他从没有公平、友好地对待戴奥塔鲁斯。但是，你却想让我们相信在恺撒死了之后，戴奥塔鲁斯得到了他的青睐。戴奥塔鲁斯作为主人招待恺撒，与他待在一起。但是恺撒召见他，让他上缴金钱，并安排一名希腊人在他的执政区任职。除此之外，恺撒还剥夺了元老院附赠给戴奥塔鲁斯的管辖之地——亚美尼亚。但是，你现在却想让我们相信恺撒活着时占有的东西在他死后却归还了出来。

请大家注意一下他是怎么表述的。很明显，他有时将这次归还描述成“公正”的，有时候是“并非不公正”。多么特殊的阐释啊！虽然我没有和戴奥塔鲁斯在一起，但我永远为他辩护。不过，我们为戴奥塔鲁斯做出的任何辩护在恺撒看来似乎都是不公正的。

安东尼那个女人的房间里曾进行过很多交易，现在也仍在继续。也正是在这个房间里，戴奥塔鲁斯派遣他的使者在谈判后签署了一千万赛斯特斯的付款保证书。这些使者都很善良，但是有点胆小、缺乏经验，也没有询问我和国王其他一些朋友的意见。关于这个付款保证书，我建议你仔细考虑一下该怎么处理。因为，当戴奥塔鲁斯听闻恺撒的死讯后，便主动出击，依靠自己的力量拿回了属于自己的东西，根本没有考虑恺撒有可能留下来的任何备忘录。戴奥塔鲁斯是明智的，因为他知道这样做永远是合法的，即：当偷取他人财产的暴君被杀死后，那些受害者有权拿回自己被侵占的财产。所以，没有一个律师，就算是现在代表你的专属律师也不会说你是戴奥塔鲁斯的债权人，因为在这份合约执行前他已经拿回了属于自己的东西。他并没有从你的手里买到那些东西，因为在你能把他自己的那些财产卖给他之前，他已经拿回了那些东西。他确实是个不简单的人物！不过另一方面，我们的确有点可鄙，因为我们对自己憎恨之人的一些行为予以支持。

对于那些无数的备忘录以及众多所谓的恺撒亲笔签名，我不发表任何看法。不过，我们可以看看制造这些东西的伪造犯，他们公开出售这些备忘录、签名，就像这些东西是角斗士表演简介一样。因此，安东尼现在居住的地方堆积了大量的金钱，这些钱只能用秤来称，因为根本数不过来。但是，贪婪也让他犯下了很多无知的过错。例如，他最近张贴了一个免除克里特最富有群体的税务的告示。这个告示宣布：“当马库斯·布鲁特斯执政期结束的时候”，克里特将不再是一个行省。不过，安东尼你的理智呢？难道就真的没有什么可以约束你吗？恺撒怎么可能会颁布一条这样的法令——“在布鲁特斯任期结束的时候”豁免克里特的税务？因为在恺撒活着的时候，布鲁特斯和克里特根本就没有这样的关系。不过，众位元老院议员，不要认为因为这个原因这条法令就不会被出售，事实上，它已经让你们失去了克里特行省。只要一件东西有人买，安东尼随时都准备将其出售。

安东尼，至于你提出那条召回流亡犯的法律，是不是也是恺撒颁布的呢？我并不是想迫害任何身处困境之人，只是有以下几点抱怨。首先，这批新召回的流亡犯对于那些被恺撒单独列出、认为他们应该被召回的人来说是一种侮辱。其次，我不明白为什么你不能对所有人一视同仁，因为剩下的人最多三四个而已。我不明白为什么你没有给予身处同样困境的人以同样的怜悯，为什么不能对你的叔叔以及其他一些人一视同仁？当你为别人制定法律的时候，为什么要将自己的叔叔排除在外。而另一方面，你却敦促他去竞选监察官之位！事实上，正是这一点激起了人们的嘲讽和抗议。不过，你既然这么支持他，为什么不亲自主持那场竞选呢？难道是因为有位保民官在那之前宣布将会有不祥之兆？当占卜涉及你自身利益的时候，征兆便没有任何作用；但是，当涉及到朋友的利益的时候，你就变得小心翼翼了。接着，当你的叔叔在竞选“七人委员会”候选人的时候，你再一次背离了他。不要告诉我们这是因为你受到一些可怕敌人的威胁，你不敢违背他们的意愿，担心自己会有生命危险。如果你还忠于自己的家族，你就应该像尊敬父亲一样尊敬他，但是，你却多次对他进行侮辱。

更无耻的是，在你找到新欢之后，你便将他的女儿，也就是你的堂妹安东尼娅赶出家门。在此之前你曾四处张望，但做出了另一种安排。对此你还不满意，甚至控告她犯下通奸之罪，然而世界上再也没有哪个女人比她更清白了。你简直已经丧心病狂到了极点，就算是这样你还不满意。在1月1日元老院全体会议上，当然你的叔叔也出席了那次会议，你竟然厚颜无耻地宣布就是因为多拉贝拉与你的堂妹，也就是你的妻子通奸，所以你才将他视为敌人。要说出你的哪一个行为是最可恶的确实很难。是你厚颜无耻地在元老院里做出这样指控？是你不择手段地反对多拉贝拉？还是你无礼地在她父亲面前说出这些话语？又或者是你残忍地用这些肮脏的言语来污蔑这位不幸的女人？

但是，还是让我们回到那些被当成是恺撒亲笔签署的法令上吧。安东尼，你怎么证明这些是恺撒的法令？元老院为了和平已经批准了恺撒的一些法令，当然是那些真的，而不是你所声称的那些。不过，这些法令是从哪里来的？又是依仗谁的权威提出来的？如果它们是伪造的，为什么会被批准？如果是真的，为什么要花钱来通过这些法令？元老院已经做出了这样的决定，自6月1日起，元老院议员将会在一个顾问委员会的帮助之下对恺撒的法令进行调查。什么委员会？你曾经召集过这个委员会的成员吗？你所等待的那个6月1日，无疑是你从退伍士兵殖民城邦返回的日子，因为你会带着军队再次返回。

在你4、5月的那次旅途中，你甚至想要在加普亚建立一个殖民城邦，多么辉煌的一件事情啊！但是，我们都知道你是怎么离开那里的，或者说你差点不能离开，不过，你还是口口声声地威胁加普亚。我希望你能把你所说的那些话付于实践，这样“差点”这个词就可以删掉了。你的确取得了很大的进步！不过我不想谈论你那些丰盛的晚宴和疯狂的酗酒，这不仅仅是你的损失，也是我们的损失。即使是之前为了将土地分发给士兵，免除坎帕尼亚的税务，我们也认为这对国家的利益造成了很大的冲击。但是，事实上你却将那里的土地分给了和你一起吃喝玩乐、一起赌博的朋友。元老院的议员们啊！他甚至将那些男男女女的戏子们都安置在加普亚。让人同样厌恶的是他对列奥蒂尼土地的处理。那里曾经土壤肥沃，作物收成良好，就像坎帕尼亚一样，为罗马做出了很大的贡献，是罗马必不可少的一个地方。但是，你竟然将1875英亩的土地送给了你的医生。有些人可能会问道：如果他真的将你的脑子医治好了，你会给他多大一块土地啊？此外，你又将1250英亩的土地送给了你的辩论老师。如果他真的让你成为一个演说家，那你究竟会给他多少土地啊？

不过，我们还是回到你的旅行，以及它对意大利所造成的影响这个话题上吧！你在恺撒曾经建立了殖民城邦的地方——卡西努姆，重新建立了一个由退伍士兵组成的殖民城邦。你写信给我，询问我对在加普亚建立殖民城邦的意见，不过我给你的答复和有关卡西努姆问题的答复一样。你问我在一个已经建立了殖民城邦的地方再建一个殖民城邦是不是合法，我回复说，在遵循占卜预兆、已经正式建立了一个殖民城邦的地方再建立一个新的殖民城邦是不合法的，不过我也指出可以让新的殖民者居住在旧殖民城邦。尽管如此，你对占卜的所有规定置若罔闻，就算几年之前刚刚在卡西努姆建立了一个殖民城邦，你还是在这里重新建立了一个。你甚至提高了你的标准，用犁头划出了界线。但是你的犁头几乎划过加普亚的城门，严重地侵犯了那个最繁荣的殖民城邦的领地。

刚违反了宗教规定，你便又迫不及待地违反其他规定，因为你又觊觎马库斯·特伦替厄斯·瓦罗在卡西努姆的财产。不过，马库斯·瓦罗是一个非常虔诚、十分高尚之人，你这样做究竟是出于法律还是道德的制裁？你的回答肯定和你当初掠夺卢修斯·鲁伯里厄斯的继承人、卢修斯·忒塞留斯的继承人，以及其他众多继承人财产的理由一样。那么，既然现在你是在拍卖上得到这些财产的，我们承认拍卖有这样的权利，不过我们认为书面说明也有一定的权利。比如，这些证据能够证明财产是恺撒的，而不是你的；又如，它们能够证明你是一个债务人，而不是免除你的债务。

至于瓦罗在卡西努姆的农场，谁说它已经被卖了？有人看见拍卖时的长矛、还是听到了拍卖者的叫喊？你说你派了一个人去亚历山大里亚从恺撒那里购买这片土地。你迫不及待，根本无法等到恺撒归来。不过，没有一个人听说过瓦罗有任何财产被充公，也没有任何人的福利能比瓦罗的更引起大家的关注。如果事实是恺撒写信命你将这些土地还回去，那么我们简直找不到合适的词来形容你这些暴行。只要你把我们能看见的那些士兵都调走一会儿，只要你那样做了，你很快就会明白无论恺撒拍卖的理由是什么，你自己的无耻之举完全在另外一个水平上。因为只要这些士兵一撤走，你就将发现自己会被扔到瓦罗家门外。不仅房子的主人会驱逐你，他的每一个朋友、邻居、访客和仆人也肯定会驱赶你。

你日复一日地在瓦罗的别墅里放纵自己。从早上7点开始，就一直饮酒、赌博、呕吐。这个房子如此不幸，拥有这样一个“邪恶的主人”。

但是，安东尼怎么能被称作是它的主人呢？我们还是叫他占有者吧。就这样，这个房子有了一个邪恶的占有者，马库斯·瓦罗选择这个地方不是为了放纵而是为了退隐、学习。这些墙壁曾经见证了那些机智的讨论、高贵的思想、杰出的著作，罗马人民的法律、我们祖先的历史、智慧的真理以及所有的知识。但是，当你成为这里的房客后——我不会把你称作房主，房子里充满了酒徒的喧嚣，小路上洒满了酒，就连墙壁上也有酒滴下来。在那里总能看见出身自由的青年与男妓厮混不止，家庭妇女与妓女纠缠不休。

人们从卡西努姆、阿奎努姆、英特拉纳前来向他致敬，但是他不允许任何人进门拜访。不过这样做也十分合适，因为像他这么堕落的人根本配不上这一职位的徽章。当他经过阿奎努姆前往罗马的时候，因为这里人口众多，所以有很多人前来欢迎他。但是，他坐在一个封闭的轿子里穿过街道，就像那里面抬着死人一样。毫无疑问，阿奎努姆这些人的行为确实很愚蠢，但是他们就住在安东尼经过的路边。而阿纳尼亚的那些人呢？相反地，他们住的离他经过的地方很远，但他们以为安东尼是执政官因此前来欢迎他。不过，让人难以置信的是他竟然对这些问候没有任何回应。虽然我不在现场，但是我可以保证所有的人当时都注意到了这一点。更让人难以置信的是，他身边有两个阿纳尼亚人——穆斯特拉和拉珂。前者照看他的剑，后者管理他的酒杯。

根本不用我来提醒，你们都知道他曾经威胁和侮辱昔狄西尼人和普特利人，而这都是因为他们选择了卡修斯家族和布鲁特斯家族来做自己的保护人。不过，他们的选择完全是出于积极的肯定、正确的判断、友好的感觉以及自己的情感，而不是因为武力和暴力的威胁。而你和米纽修斯·巴西鲁斯，以及其他像你们这样的人都是用这种方式来强迫别人选你们，否则没人会自愿选择你们来做他的保护人，即使是依附者，你们也不在选择之内。

与此同时，当你不在的时候，你的同僚(14)推翻了讲坛上那座让你一直尊敬有加的墓碑，这一天对他来说意义非凡。当你得知这件事后，竟然晕厥过去。当时和你在一起的人都知道这件事。我并不清楚随后发生的事情，但我认为是恐惧和武装暴力让你晕厥的。因为，你让你的同僚从天堂坠落，使他不像原来的自己，不过要是说你让他成为第二个你却言之过甚。

你重返罗马使整个城市陷入骚动之中。因为我们都记得卢修斯·科尼厄斯·秦纳的大权在握、苏拉的高压统治，而之后恺撒的独裁统治也仍然记忆犹新。那时候，也可能有刀剑，但是它们仍在剑鞘之中，并且数量也不多。然而你的队伍却是十分野蛮的，你的追随者都处于战争的命令之下，手握出鞘刀剑，肩扛轻便盾牌。不过，众位熟悉这些场景的元老院议员也都对此习以为常。

尽管我们尽自己最大的努力去参加原定在6月1日的元老院会议，却因突然受到威胁，不得不缺席会议。不过，安东尼对此欣喜若狂，因为他认为元老院根本没有存在的必要，也不希望我们任何人出席会议，随即便开始实施那些滔天罪行。他曾因为自己的个人利益而为恺撒的法令辩护，也曾为了颠覆这个国家的体制而废除恺撒的法律，尽管那些法律是好的。例如，他延长了行省官员的任期。虽然他应该保护恺撒的法令，但是事实上却将那些有关国家事务和私人事务的法律通通予以废除。现今，在国家事务中最为重要的就是法律，在私人事务中最为有效的则是遗嘱。然而，他却将两者都废除了。他在有或者没有通告的情况之下便将法律废除；而他所废除的遗嘱就算是最低等的公民也应该遵守。他从庞培的花园和西皮奥的别墅里将恺撒留给继承人——罗马人民——的那些雕像、绘画通通都搬走了。

不过，安东尼你如此怀念恺撒，你热爱这个已经死去的人，对吗？然而，他所获得的最大荣耀也就是神榻、塑像、山形墙和他的祭司而已。正是因为这些荣耀，就像朱庇特、玛尔斯、奎利努斯有自己的祭司一样，安东尼就是朱利叶斯的祭司。不过，安东尼你并没有就职，没有承担起一个祭司的责任，这是为什么呢？你尽可以选择一个时间，选一个人来安排你就职。我们是你的同僚，没人会拒绝你。不过，无论是恺撒这个独裁者的祭司，还是一个死者的祭司都同样令人厌恶。

现在，我得问你一个问题：你难道不知道今天是什么日子吗？你难道不知道昨天是罗马广场赛会的第四天吗？你亲自向人民集会提议：为了表示对恺撒的尊敬，应该将赛会延长一天。但是，为什么我们现在没有身着节日盛装？为什么要忽略你的法律授予恺撒的荣耀？很显然，你也打算做出让步，你认为这个神圣的日子应该被额外的感恩节日所玷污，而不是被神榻玷污。不过，你要么完全废除宗教仪式，要么就一成不变地保留下来。

你问我是不是喜欢这些神榻、山形墙和神圣的祭司，我一个都不喜欢。但是作为恺撒法令的维护者，你却没有理由来解释为什么你只维持了其中的一些而忽略了另一些，除非你打算承认你这样做是出于自己的利益而非恺撒的荣耀。请你回答这些问题，我很期待你的雄辩。我知道你的祖父是一个出色的雄辩家，不过，你肯定在演讲时拥有比他更多的自由，因为他从来不会将自己的想法完全赤裸裸地表达出来！但是，你这个头脑简单的家伙，竟然让我们都对你的想法一清二楚！对此你能让我作答吗？你敢开口吗？事实上，我怀疑在我这么长的演讲中，你是否有勇气来回答其中的任何一个指责。

不过，过去的就让它过去吧，我们来谈谈此时此刻我正在说话时你的那些行为吧！为自己辩护吧，如果你可以的话。请解释一下为什么元老院被这些士兵包围？为什么我的听众中有你那帮手握刀剑的匪徒？为什么要关上协和神庙的大门？为什么要让世上最野蛮的以提利亚人手持弓箭来到讲坛？安东尼说：“我这么做都是自我防卫。”不过，一千人的死亡难道要比一个人死亡更好吗？况且，那一个人要是没有武装护卫就不能在自己的团体中存活下去。但是，我可以告诉你武装护卫并不是真正的保护。你所需要的保护不是来自武器，而是出自同胞们对你的关爱和友善。因为罗马人民将会夺取你的武器并在你面前将其毁掉。我希望在那发生之前，我们仍然健在。不过，不管你怎么对我们，相信我，这些办法都不是长久之计。你的妻子并非吝啬之人，当然这句话并没有任何不敬的意思，不过她对罗马人民的第三次分期付款(15)已经拖了很久。

我们国家并不缺少管理政务之人。不管他们在哪里，他们都是保卫国家的中流砥柱，是我们罗马的中流砥柱。罗马虽然为自己复了仇，但是还没有完全恢复。不过，那些尊贵的青年们随时都准备好保卫我们的祖国。他们也许想要退隐一些时日，但是罗马最终会将他们召回。

和平之名美丽动人，和平本身幸福美好。但是和平与奴役这两者有很大的不同：和平是人们安享自由；而奴役是万恶之首，应当被废除，如果有必要，即使是以战争，甚至是以死亡为代价也在所不惜。虽然我们的解放者们已经退出了我们的视线，但是他们英勇的行为成了我们学习的榜样。他们的功绩前所未有。卢修斯·朱尼厄斯·布鲁特斯发动了反对塔奎因国王的战争，而那个时候王权在罗马是合法的；斯普利乌·卡修斯·维塞林厄斯、斯普利乌·买利厄斯、马库斯·曼利厄斯·卡庇托林努斯因为被怀疑谋夺王权而被处死。但是，这是人们第一次举起刀剑杀掉那个不仅仅觊觎王权，并且就像国王一样实行统治的人。他们的行为本身就极其高贵，并且为我们树立了榜样。很显然，即使是广阔无垠的天堂也无法容纳他们所取得的荣耀。况且，承认这是一次高贵的胜利本身就是非常丰厚的奖赏，但是我相信，没有人会反对他们已经赢得了更大的荣耀——永垂不朽！

安东尼，你应该记得你永远废除独裁的那一天！你回想一下，那个时候元老院和罗马人民是多么喜悦啊！可是将这与你和你的朋友们现在忙于的交易相比，你就会意识到收获和荣誉的不同。正如有些疾病或味觉上的迟钝会让人们无法品尝食物一样，同样的道理，荣耀对于放荡之人、守财奴和罪犯都没有吸引力。

不过，如果荣耀都不能激励你表现得体一点，那么恐惧是不是同样也不能让你停止那些令人讨厌的行为？我知道你不惧怕法庭。如果这是因为无辜，那么你应该被赞扬；但如果是因为你依靠武力，那你就会害怕另外一些人。难道你不知道因为武力而无视法律的人必定会畏惧另外一类人吗？如果你是因为自己有随从保护而不害怕罗马的勇士和忠诚的公民，那么相信我，你的拥护者不会长久地支持你。日夜担心自己的追随者会对自己不利，这还能被称为一种生活吗？并且就恩惠而言，恺撒曾经赐给那些杀死自己的人的恩惠比你赐给别人的更多。

不过，你和恺撒没有任何可比性。恺撒集天赋、手段、博闻强记、修养、执着、智慧和勤勉于一身。虽然他发动战争给我们国家带来了灾难，但他在战争中所取得的成就依然是伟大的。多年来他旨在谋取王位和王权，付出了无尽的努力、克服了无数的困难才实现了自己的目标。他利用娱乐演出、公共建设、分发食物和宴会来笼络那些无知的大众，他用丰厚的奖赏来保持朋友对自己的忠心，而对于自己的敌人，他会施以怜悯从而获得他们的支持。他恩威并施，让一个自由的国度变成了奴役之国。

安东尼，只有你的统治之欲可以和恺撒相比，在其他每个方面，你都无法与他相提并论。虽然恺撒给我们国家带来了伤害，但是至少也有一定好处。比如，罗马人民现在已经知道他们应该相信谁，应该将自己的命运托付给谁，而又该警惕谁。你没有想过这些事情吗？那些勇士已经明白杀死一个暴君是一个极为高尚的行为，将会得到丰厚的回报和无限的荣誉。你难道不懂这件事的重要性吗？在人们不能容忍恺撒的时候，他们还会容忍你吗？相信我吧，这次他们会迫不及待、争先恐后地来做这件事。缺乏耐心的他们甚至不会等到时机成熟便来实施这一行动。

最后，安东尼，请你想想自己的国家吧！想想生你养你的人，而不是现在和你一伙的那些人。你可以对我为所欲为，但我请求你不要再与国家为敌，不过，决定权都在你手里。至于我，我知道自己该怎么做。我年轻的时候在捍卫我们的国家，现在就算我老了，也不会抛弃她。我既然藐视喀提林的武士，自然也不会害怕你的。相反，如果我的死亡能换回我们国家的自由，能让长期遭受苦难的罗马人民得到最终的解脱，我很乐意献出自己的生命。大概在二十年之前，如果我在这座神庙里说过死亡不能提前降临到一个执政官头上，那么在我年老的时候再说这话便包含更多的道理。各位元老院议员们，在我获得了众多荣誉之后，在我做了这些事情以后，我甚至有点向往死亡。现在我只有两个愿望：第一，如果我的死亡能够让罗马人民获得自由，那将是不朽的诸神对我最大的恩赐；第二，所有人的命运都应该与他对国家的贡献相一致。

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(1) 富尔维亚（Fulvia），曾先后是帕布利厄斯·克劳狄厄斯、库里奥和安东尼的妻子。

(2) 福米奥和格纳所分别是特伦斯（前195—前159）所著的两部喜剧《福米奥》（Phorrnio）和《阉人》（Eunuch）中的食客。巴里奥是普劳图斯（前254—前184）所著的《撒谎者》（The Cheat）中的皮条客。

(3) 出自西塞罗备受争议之诗《在他执政之期》（On his Consulate），后面一句是“让荣誉归属于诚实之士”（let laurel yield to honest worth）。

(4) 帕布利厄斯·卡斯卡是第一个举起反抗恺撒大旗之人，他的弟弟是盖厄斯。

(5) 作为保民官不允许离开罗马十天以上。

(6) 即杀掉安东尼。

(7) 如果一个朋友的遗嘱里没有提到某人，这被视为对其的一种轻蔑。那些不能收取费用的律师特别希望能得到这种回报。

(8) 古罗马时候的货币。——译者注

(9) 公元前49年，1月2日，安东尼和另外一个保民官否决了元老院的一个提议，该提议认为除非恺撒在一个指定的时间之前交出他的军队领导权，否则将宣布他是一个公敌。八天后，恺撒越过卢比孔河。

(10) 公元前67年，庞培在与海盗作战时捕获的。

(11) 当安东尼知道在恺撒的公开遗嘱中将继承权留给屋大维，只任命安东尼为第二继承人后，很受打击。

(12) 这个笑话就是大家都知道安东尼一贫如洗，这在罗马人看来是一种耻辱。

(13) 恺撒。

(14) 多拉贝拉，现任执政官。

(15) 她的三次分期付款分别是她的三个丈夫（参见此处）。

The First Philippic against Mark Antony

Senators, before I offer the views on the political situation which the circumstances seem to me to demand, I will briefly indicate to you the reasons, first why I left Rome, and then why I turned back again.

As long as it still seemed possible to hope that you had resumed your control and authority over the government, I felt determined, as consul and Senator, to remain at my post. And so, from the day when we were summoned to meet in the Temple of Tellus, I made no journeys and never lifted my eyes from public affairs. In that temple I did all that was within my power to lay the foundations of peace. I reminded members of the ancient precedent created by the Athenians – making use in my oration of the Greek term which that state then employed to calm down civil strife – and I moved that every memory of our internal discords should be effaced in everlasting oblivion.

Mark Antony made a fine speech on that day, and his intentions were excellent. It was, indeed, he and his children who made it possible for peace to be established with the greatest of our fellow-citizens. What followed was in harmony with these beginnings. He held consultations on the national situation at his home, and invited the political leaders to attend. He offered admirable recommendations to the Senate. At that stage nothing was disinterred from Gaius Caesar's notebooks except matters that were generally known already. In his reply to every question Antony was completely direct. Were any exiles recalled? One, he said, and nobody else. Were any tax-exemptions granted? None, he replied. He even wanted us to accept the proposal of the illustrious Servius Sulpicius that no announcement should be posted of any decree or favour attributed to Caesar which had originated subsequently to the Ides of March. Of the many other excellent measures of Mark Antony I will say nothing, because I want to pass immediately to one particular admirable step that he took. The dictatorship, which had come to usurp virtually monarchical powers, was completely eliminated from the Roman constitution by his agency; we did not even debate the question. He brought us a draft of the decree he wanted the Senate to adopt, and when this was read out we accepted his proposal with the utmost enthusiasm, and passed a highly complimentary vote of thanks in his honour. The prospect ahead of us now seemed brilliant. For we had won liberation from the tyranny under which we had been labouring and, what is more, from all fears of similar tyranny in the future. Although there had often been legitimate dictators in the past, men could not forget the perpetual dictatorship of recent times, and by abolishing the entire office Mark Antony gave the state a mighty proof that he wanted our country to be free.

And then again, only a few days later, the Senate was delivered from the peril of a massacre when the runaway slave who had appropriated the name of Marius was executed and dragged away on a hook. All these deeds were performed jointly with his colleague; other things, later, were done by Dolabella alone, but I am sure that if his colleague had not been away these also would have been matters for collaboration. For during this period a most pernicious trouble was insinuating itself into the city and gaining strength day by day. The same men who had organized that travesty of a burial were now building a funeral monument in the Forum. Every day an increasing number of ruffians, together with their equally degraded slaves, menaced the dwellings and temples of the city with destruction. But these impudent criminal slaves, and their loathsome and infamous counterparts who were free, met their deserts from Dolabella when he pulled that accursed column down. So determined was his action that I am amazed by the contrast between that day and all the others which have followed.

For by the first of June, the date fixed for our meeting, you can see how everything had been transformed. Nothing was any longer done through the Senate, many significant measures were passed through the Assembly of the people – and others, what is more, without even consulting the Assembly, and against its wishes. The consuls elect declared they did not dare come into the Senate at all. The liberators of our country, too, were excluded from the very city which they had rescued from servitude – though the consuls simultaneously kept on praising them at public meetings and in private talk. Moreover, ex-soldiers claiming veteran rights, on whose behalf this Senate had shown great solicitude, were being egged on to cherish hopes of new plunder in addition to what they already possessed.

I came to the conclusion it was less disagreeable to hear of these things than to see them for myself; and, besides, I was entitled to go travelling on a special mission. This being so, I left Rome with the intention of being back by the first of the following January – which seemed the earliest likely date for a meeting of this body.

And so those, Senators, were the circumstances which prompted my departure. I will now indicate briefly the motives behind my return – which no doubt gives greater cause for surprise. After avoiding Brundisium and the usual route to Greece – as it was only sensible to do – I arrived on the first of August at Syracuse, since the crossing from there to Greece was well spoken of. But although I was associated with that city by the closest ties, I could not allow it to detain me for more than a single night, despite its desire to do so, because I was afraid that my sudden arrival among my friends there might arouse suspicion if I lingered. And so I proceeded with a fair wind to Leucopetra, which is a promontory in the district of Rhegium, and there I embarked to cross over to Greece.

But I had not gone very far when a southerly gale blew me back to my embarkation point. It was the middle of the night, and I stopped at the house of my friend and associate Publius Valerius. On the next day, while I was waiting there in the hope of a favourable wind, a number of citizens of Rhegium came to see me, including newcomers from Rome. They supplied my first news of Mark Antony's speech, which pleased me so much that after reading it I first began to consider the idea of returning to Rome. A little later the manifesto of Brutus and Cassius arrived, and it seemed to me – perhaps because I esteem them as national figures even more highly than as personal friends – a model of fair-mindedness. But bearers of good news have the habit of inventing additional points to give their message an even better welcome than it would otherwise receive, and so my informants added that an agreement was about to be reached, that there would be a well-attended meeting of the Senate on the first of August, and that Antony was going to drop his bad advisers, renounce his governorship of the Gallic provinces, and resume his allegiance to the authority of the Senate.

On hearing this I felt so enthusiastic to come back that no oars and no winds were speedy enough to satisfy my impatience – not that I imagined I would fail to return in time, but I was eager not to waste a moment in offering the government my congratulations. I made a quick passage to Velia, where I saw Brutus; though I found this a sorrowful meeting. I for my part was overcome by shame at the idea of returning to the city which Brutus had just left, and consenting to live there in security when he could not do the same. However, I did not find him as upset as I was myself. For he was exalted by the consciousness of his superb and magnificent deed. And he had no complaints to make about his own fate – but many about yours.

It was he who gave me my first information about Lucius Piso's speech in the Senate on August the first. Piso had received little support, Brutus said, from the people who ought to have backed him. And yet in Brutus’ opinion – which is the most authoritative view you could have – and according also to the complimentary comments of everyone I have spoken to since then, his effort was evidently a noble one. And so I hastened back to lend him my aid. My purpose was not so much to accomplish anything concrete, for such a thing I neither expected nor, in fact, achieved. But this is a time when many things contrary to the order of nature and even against the ordinary course of fate seem likely to happen at any moment, and, in case the doom that is common to all of us should come my way, I wanted to bequeath our country the sentiments I am now expressing, as a testimonial of my eternal devotion to its welfare.

Well, those, Senators, were the motives for my two successive courses of action, and I trust I have explained them to your satisfaction. And now, before I begin to speak about the political question, I feel obliged to enter a brief protest about the injustice Antony did me yesterday. I am his friend, and, because of a service he rendered me, I have always insisted on maintaining that this is so. Then why, I should like to know, did he show such unpleasantness in endeavouring to drag me to yesterday's Senate meeting? Was I the only absentee? Were the numbers of those present lower than on many previous occasions? Did the matter under discussion attain the degree of gravity which has some-times in the past meant that even sick men had to be carried to meetings? Are you telling me that Hannibal himself was at the gates? Or perhaps we were considering the question of peace with Pyrrhus – since that, tradition records, was the debate for which the great Appius, blind and old, had himself carried into the Senate. But no: the motion was about public thanks-givings, and that is a subject for which Senators are not usually in short supply. Securities need not be called for to guarantee their attendance, since this is ensured by their eagerness to show goodwill to the proposed recipients of the honour; and the same applies when a Triumph is being discussed. On such occasions the consuls can afford to be so indifferent that a Senator is virtually free to attend or not as he pleases.

I knew that this was the practice; and I was tired after my journey, and not very well. So for friendship's sake I sent a message to inform Antony. Whereupon he declared, in your hearing, that he would come to my house with a demolition squad. This was a remarkably ill-tempered and immoderate way to talk. Whatever sort of an offence did he suppose he was penalizing by this harsh declaration, in the presence of the Senators, of his intention to use state employees to demolish a residence that had been erected at state expense in accordance with a decision of the Senate? Never has compulsion been applied to a Senator by any sanction as severe as that. Indeed, the only known penalties are a security or a fine. Besides, had he known the opinion I should have expressed if I had in fact attended, I am sure he would have wanted to relax the rigour of his coercive attitude quite a bit!

For you cannot imagine, gentlemen, that the decree you yesterday passed so unwillingly would have had my support. For that decree involved the confusion of a thanksgiving with a sacrifice in honour of the dead, and the insertion of sacrilegious procedures into the state religion – for such was the effect of proclaiming a thanksgiving in honour of a man who was no longer alive. The question of his identity is neither here nor there. Even if he were that famous Brutus himself, the man who by his own hand liberated the country from the tyranny of royal rule, whose descendants have maintained the same tradition of active heroism for very nearly five hundred years, still nothing would induce me to equate a dead human being with the immortal gods by awarding him a public thanksgiving when he should instead have had honours rendered to him in his grave. No, the vote I should have cast would have been one capable of justification to the Roman people in case some outstanding catastrophe such as a war or a plague or a famine overtook the country. For some of these disasters have already actually come about; while the rest, I fear, are impending. But as it is, all I can do about yesterday's decree is entreat the gods to pardon the people of Rome, who in any case do not like the measure – and to pardon the Senate that only passed it with reluctance.

Well, as regards our other political ills, am I permitted to offer my observations? For I regard myself at liberty （and always shall） to fight in defence of my own position, and to think nothing of death; and that will always be my attitude. Only give me free access to this place, and I am prepared to express my thoughts whatever the risk.

Well, gentlemen, I wish after all it had been possible for me to attend on August the first! Not that it would have been any use, but then at least there would not have been, as there was, only one isolated consul whose behaviour lived up to his own high rank and his country's needs. How sad that the men who had received Rome's greatest favours failed to support Lucius Piso in his truly admirable motion! Was it for this meagre result that the people of Rome made us consuls? Were we supposed to enjoy the highest position that the state is able to confer, and yet remain entirely oblivious of the national interests? For not one single former consul supported Lucius Piso either by word of mouth or even by the expression on his face!

Curse it, do you have to be voluntary slaves? I grant you that a measure of servility may formerly have been unavoidable. And I am also prepared to concede that my criticism need not apply to every consular speaker indiscriminately. For I distinguish between certain people whose silence I excuse and others who I feel are under an obligation to speak out. The latter category, I regret to say, has incurred suspicion in the eyes of the Roman people. This is not so much because they are frightened, though such a thing would certainly be shameful, but because for whatever reasons – and these are various – they have fallen short of what their eminent status demands.

First of all, therefore, I want to express the warm gratitude I feel towards Piso, who was undeterred by the practical limitations of what he could achieve for his country, and thought only of what his duty demanded that he should attempt. And then, as to my next point, Senators, I realize you may not feel sufficiently intrepid to support the point of view and course of action which I am now going to urge upon you. Nevertheless, I ask you to continue to listen with the same goodwill that you have shown me up to this point.

To begin with, then, I hold that the acts of Caesar ought to be retained. I say this not because I approve of them: for who could do that? No, I say it because I attach supreme importance to peace and tranquillity. I wish Mark Antony were here today （though I should prefer his advisers to remain elsewhere!）. But I suppose he has the right to be unwell – even if yesterday he did not allow it to myself. If he were here, he would tell me, or rather he would tell you, Senators, what line he adopts as regards the justification of Caesar's acts. The point is this: are the acts we are being asked to ratify the ones that are jotted down in scrappy memoranda and handwritten scrawls and notebooks produced on the sole authority of Antony – or rather not even produced but merely quoted – whereas the acts that Caesar himself engraved on brass tablets, with the intention of preserving the national Assembly's directions and definitive laws, are to be totally disregarded? My own view is that nothing forms such an indissoluble part of Caesar's acts as the laws which were adopted on Caesar's proposal. But if, on the other hand, he once made some promise or other to some-body, does that also really have to be regarded as irrevocable, even though he was never able to give effect to it himself? It is true that in his lifetime he offered many promises which he did not, in fact, fulfil. But these promises of his which have been dug up after his death are so immensely numerous that they exceed the entire total of the favours he actually dispensed for services rendered, or as free gifts, during all the years of his life.

All the same, it is not by any means my intention to tamper with any of those items; I do not even propose to touch them. On the contrary, I am an enthusiastic defender of his excellent acts. For example, I sincerely wish that the funds he collected in the Temple of Ops were still there this day. Blood-stained that money certainly was, but since it cannot be restored to its owners we could make good use of it today. However, let us put up with its dissipation – if it is a fact that this is what his acts laid down.

But surely the most important of all the acts of a civil officer of state, conducting the government through the powers vested in his person, are the laws which were passed on his initiative. Look for the acts of Gaius Gracchus; you will find the Sempronian laws. Consider the acts of Sulla; the Cornelian laws are what you see. Or think of the third consulship of Pompeius – what acts did that produce? Surely his legislation again. If you asked Caesar himself to describe his acts at Rome and in civil life, he would answer that he had sponsored many first-rate laws. But his handwritten notes, on the other hand, he would either regard as provisional and liable to emendation, or he would omit to produce them at all, or even if he produced them he would not wish for their inclusion among his acts. However, that is a point on which I am prepared, in certain instances, to give way and turn a blind eye. But the most important aspect of the matter relates to his laws, and in so far as they are concerned I am by no means ready to tolerate the annulment of Caesar's acts.

Take, for example, that exceptionally salutary and valuable law, frequently longed for in the happy days of the Republic, which provides that former praetors should not govern provinces for longer than a year, and former consuls for not more than two. Suppress this law, and how can you still speak of preserving Caesar's acts? And then again this bill that has been published about a third panel of judges – surely it rescinds Caesar's entire legislation relating to those panels. If you are going to abolish Caesar's laws how on earth can you say you defend his acts? For it is totally illogical to suggest that everything he jotted down in a notebook to help his memory, however unjust and useless, must be regarded as part of his acts, whereas what he actually had passed by the people, voting in its Assembly of Centuries, is not going to be included among them at all.

But let us see what this new third panel is. It consists of centurions, Antony says. Well, they were authorized to serve as judges, were they not, by a Julian law, and before that by Pompeian and Aurelian laws. So they did serve: and not only in cases concerning a centurion but a Roman knight as well – and so it has come about that gentlemen of great valour and repute, former commanders of troops, have served as judges in the past and still do so to this day. ‘But those are not the men I am concerned with,’ he continues. ‘I want everyone who has ever commanded a unit of a hundred men to be a judge.’ Even if you applied this principle to everyone who had served as a knight, which is after all a more distinguished rank, the argument would still be totally unconvincing. For when you appoint a judge it is perfectly proper to be guided by considerations of property and rank. ‘But such qualifications do not interest me,’ answers Antony. ‘Indeed, I am proposing that judges should be taken from another category also: from private soldiers of the Legion of the Lark. For without such a measure our supporters are sure they will suffer victimization.’ But what an insult to these people whom （though nothing was further from their thoughts） you are proposing to mobilize as judges! For what your law implies is that the third panel is going to consist of members who will not dare to produce impartial verdicts. But, heavens, what a miscalculation on the part of the people who thought up the law! For what in fact will happen is that people of no standing who are now to be included among the judges will try to force themselves up out of their obscurity by producing the strictest possible decisions – calculating that these can get them promoted to grander panels instead of the undistinguished one to which, quite rightly, they had been allotted.

Another bill that has now been published rules that men convicted of violence and treason shall have the right to appeal to the Assembly. But, I ask you, is this a law at all – is it not rather a law to end all laws? And anyway, who cares nowadays whether this bill is persevered with or not? For there is not, in fact, one single person today awaiting trial under the laws concerned with those offences. And I do not suppose that there will be anyone in the future either – since acts perpetrated by people under arms will clearly never be brought into court!

But the measure, we are told, is a popular one. What a good thing it would be if you really had something popular in mind! For in our present circumstances, Roman citizens are unanimous in their estimate of the country's political needs. So I cannot understand your enthusiasm to propose a law which, far from being a source of popularity, is bound to earn you discredit. For it is in the highest degree discreditable that a man who has committed violence and treason against the Roman people, and suffered condemnation for those offences, should forthwith be allowed to relapse into precisely the same violent behaviour which was responsible for his conviction. However, it is a waste of time to go on arguing about the proposed law. For obviously its real concern is not with the question of appeal at all. Its object, and your object in bringing it forward, is to prevent any and every prosecution under the laws in question. For how could one ever find a prosecutor idiotic enough to secure a conviction and thus expose himself to hostile crowds on someone else's payroll, or a judge rash enough to pronounce a sentence which will get him dragged before a gang of bribed toughs?

No, the bill is not really designed to give a right of appeal. What it does instead is to hand over two particularly useful laws and courts to suppression. In other words it offers young men a clear invitation to become riotous, seditious, pernicious citizens. One hesitates to think of the ruinous excesses to which rabid tribunes will be encouraged to go when these two courts for violence and treason are no more. Besides, the measure will also have the effect of superseding the laws of Caesar which rule that men convicted of the two offences in question become outlaws banned from water and fire. Because, surely, to allow people condemned for these crimes to appeal is tantamount to declaring that these acts of Caesar are abolished. Although I personally was never in favour of his acts, gentlemen, I nevertheless maintained that for unity's sake they ought to be kept intact. That is why I maintain that nothing should be done at this juncture to annul the laws he sponsored in his lifetime – or even, for that matter, the ones you now see published and posted after his death.

It is true that exiles are recalled from banishment – by a man who is dead. A dead man, again, has conferred citizenship, not merely on individuals but on entire nations and provinces. A dead man has wiped out national revenues, by unlimited grants of ex-emption. And yet, even so, I assert my willingness to defend these measures, even when they are only guaranteed by a single individual's authority （a substantial authority, admittedly） and produced from his own house. But, if this is accepted, how on earth can we simultaneously urge the suppression of laws which Caesar himself read out in our presence and published and proposed, laws about provinces and about courts which he was well content to sponsor and considered indispensable to our national interests? When laws are publicly announced, as those were, at least we are afforded a chance to complain if we want to. But when we merely have to rely on hearsay to discover that a law has been passed at all, no such opportunity exists. And the laws produced by Antony were passed with-out any prior advertisement whatever: we were not even shown a preliminary draft.

There is no reason, it is true, Senators, why I myself, or any of you, need have the slightest fear of bad laws being adopted so long as good tribunes are available. And we do possess such tribunes, men ready to apply their veto, ready to use their sacred office in defence of the constitution. Obviously we ought, then, to lack the slightest grounds for apprehension. ‘But what is this veto,’ asks Antony, ‘what sacred office are you talking about?’ The answer is that the right of veto, and the office to which I refer, are institutions fundamental to the security of the state. ‘That does not impress us at all,’ Antony comments. ‘We regard it as old-fashioned and stupid. What we shall do is to barricade the Forum and close all its entrances; detachments of armed men will be posted at numerous points.’

And then, I suppose, what is transacted in that fashion will be law. And you will give orders to have bronze tablets engraved with the legal formula ‘the consuls by right of law put the question to the people’. But how can you call this the same right of putting the question which our forefathers handed down to us? The formula continues, ‘and the people by right of law passed the measure’. Which people? The ones who were shut out? And what right of law? The law which armed violence has obliterated out of existence?

These observations are intended as guidance for the future – since it is the duty of a friend to offer advance warning against things that can still be avoided. If these unfortunate occurrences never materialize, then my comments will automatically be refuted. The bills I am talking about are ones which are going to be published in due form, and there is nothing to stop you from proposing whatever you like. But as for myself, I consider it my duty to forecast possible flaws and ask you for their removal – to denounce, in other words, armed violence, and to demand its elimination!

When patriotic motives impel me, Dolabella, to offer such suggestions, I am justified in hoping that you consuls will not take it amiss. I do not imagine that you yourself will be angry, since I know what a good-tempered man you are. But people are commenting that your colleague Mark Antony, as he luxuriates in his present position which he regards as so fine （though I would hold him more fortunate, to put it mildly, if he modelled his consulship on those of his grandfathers and his maternal uncle）, has taken offence. Now it is far from agreeable, I can see, when a man who has something against you holds a weapon in his hand – especially now that swords can be used with such impunity. But I will propose a pact: it seems to me a fair arrangement and I do not believe Antony will turn it down. That is to say, if I utter one single insulting remark about his private life or his morals I shall not object to him treating me as a bitter enemy. But if, on the other hand, I merely adhere to the custom of my entire political career and pronounce my frank opinion about national issues, first of all I beg him not to be indignant with me, and next, if that plea fails, I at least urge that his indignation should only be that of one fellow-citizen against another. Let him by all means employ an armed guard if this is needed, as he claims, for self-defence; but do not let their weapons be used on people who are expressing their views on public affairs. Now, what could be a fairer request than that? However, if any and every speech which goes against his wishes causes him to take umbrage even though it may contain not a trace of an insult – and some of his friends have told me that this is what happens – then we shall just have to put up with our friend's disposition and leave it at that. But these same henchmen of Antony also advise me, ‘You as an opponent of Caesar will not be allowed the same indulgence as Piso, who was the father of his wife.’ And at the same time they give me a word of warning which I do not propose to neglect, and it is this: being ill has not served me as an excuse for absence from the Senate – but I shall have a better excuse if I am dead!

You are my intimate friend, Dolabella; and, when I see you sitting there, heaven knows I find it impossible to keep silent about the mistake that you are both making. Each of you is a nobleman with lofty aims, and I must part company with those who maintain, in their excessive credulity, that it is money you are after; for that is something which men of true greatness and renown have always despised. I refuse to believe that what you want is wealth acquired by violent means, or the sort of power that Romans would find intolerable. Yours, I am convinced, is the very different ambition of gaining the love of your fellow-citizens and winning a splendid reputation. Such a reputation means praise won by noble actions and by great services to one's country, and endorsed by the testimony of national leaders and the whole population. And I would be prepared to enlarge further, Dolabella, on this subject of the rewards won by splendid deeds, did I not see that in these recent times you yourself have shown that you appreciate this very matter even better than anyone else.

For you can surely remember no happier occasion in all your life than the day on which, before returning home, you cleaned up the Forum, dispersed that concourse of blasphemous scoundrels, punished the ringleaders for their loathsome designs, and rescued the city from incendiarism and the menace of massacre. All members of the community, whatever their rank or class or station, pressed forward to compliment and congratulate you. Indeed, loyal citizens were even thanking and congratulating me as your proxy; because they believed your deed had been instigated by myself. Cast your mind back, I urge you, Dolabella, to that unanimous demonstration in the theatre when the entire crowd of spectators, dismissing from their minds what they had held against you previously, revealed that your recent action on their behalf had made them put aside all recollection of their earlier grudges.

And so it distresses me deeply, Dolabella, that after winning such great respect you should now be prepared to cast this all aside with complete equanimity.

And as for you, Mark Antony, you are not with us now, but I have an appeal to address to you all the same. That one day, on which the Senate met in the temple of Tellus, must surely have happier memories for you than all the subsequent months in which so many people （greatly differing from me） have accounted you fortunate. For what a splendid speech you made about national unity! When you renounced your hostility towards your fellow-consul and forgot the unfavourable auspices which you yourself as an augur of Rome had declared to be an impediment to his election: when you accepted him for the first time as your colleague, and sent your infant son to the Capitol as a hostage, your words freed the ex-soldiers from all apprehensions about their position, and indeed delivered our entire nation from its anxieties. Never has there been more rejoicing than there was on that day, both in the Senate and among the whole people of Rome – which was gathered together in numbers such as had never been seen at any public meeting before. At that juncture it finally and definitely seemed true that the action of those most valiant citizens had brought us our liberty, because their wish had come true, and the outcome of liberation was peace.

And then again on the next day and the second and the third and those that followed, you daily continued to confer some fresh gift upon your country; and the greatest of all these benefits was your abolition of the title of dictator. For that was the time when you （of all people） branded the dead Caesar's memory with ineradicable infamy. In a bygone age the crime of a single Marcus Manlius caused the Manlian family to decree that no patrician Manlius should ever again bear the first name of Marcus. And now, by the same token, the detestation felt for a single dictator caused you to suppress the name of dictator altogether.

But then, after these outstanding services that you had contributed to the nation, whatever can have happened? Did you regret the good fortune and illustriousness and glory and renown you had won? I wonder how that sudden transformation came about. I cannot bring myself to suspect you were corrupted by financial considerations. Let people say what they like, one is not forced to believe them: and I have never found anything squalid or mean in your character. It is true that the people in a man's home some-times deprave him – but I know very well that you are a strong-minded person. I am only sorry that your freedom from guilt is not equalled by your freedom from suspicion.

But what frightens me more than such imputations is the possibility that you yourself may disregard the true path of glory, and instead consider it glorious to possess more power than all your fellow-citizens combined – preferring that they should fear you rather than like you. If that is what you think, your idea of where the road of glory lies is mistaken. For glory consists of being regarded with affection by one's country, winning praise and respect and love; whereas to be feared and disliked, on the other hand, is unpleasant and hateful and debilitating and precarious. This is clear enough from the play in which the man said, ‘Let them hate provided that they fear’. He found to his cost that such a policy was his ruin. It would have been so much better, Mark Antony, if you had kept the record of your grandfather before your eyes. You have heard me speak of him at length and on numerous occasions. Do you think he would have regarded his claim to immortality as being best served by terrorizing people with armed gangs? No, what life and good fortune meant to him was to be the equal of everybody else in freedom, but their superior in his honourable way of life. About his glorious successes I shall say nothing now; but I want to record my conviction that the last tragic day of his life was preferable to the tyranny of Lucius Cinna who brutally slew him.

However, I see no hope of influencing you by what I say. For if the end that befell Gaius Caesar does not persuade you that it is better to inspire affection than terror, no words that anyone could utter will have the slightest effect or success. People who say Caesar was enviable are profoundly misguided. For no one can be said to have a happy life when its violent termination brings his slayers not merely impunity but the height of glory. So change your ways, I entreat you. Remember your ancestors – and govern our country in such a way that your fellow-citizens will rejoice that you were born. For without that there is no such thing as happiness, or renown, or security.

Your fellow-Romans have furnished you both with ample warnings, and it worries me that they fail to impress you sufficiently. Think of the clamour raised by countless citizens at gladiatorial shows, think of all the versified popular slogans, think of those endless acclamations in front of the statue of Pompeius, think of the two tribunes who are against you! Surely these are sufficient indications that every Roman speaks with a single voice! And then again did you attach no importance to the applause at Apollo's Games? – or rather I should call it the testimony and judgement of the entire Roman people. What an honour for the men who were prevented by armed violence from being present in person – though they were present in the hearts and emotions of the people of Rome! Or did you really suppose that all that approval was meant for the playwright Accius – that his tragedy was winning a belated prize sixty years after its first performance? No, Brutus was the man for whom the cheering and the prize were intended. He could not himself attend the games that were displayed in his name, but the Romans who witnessed that sumptuous show paid their tribute to him in his absence, and sought to comfort the sadness which they felt because their liberator was not with them by incessant cheers and shouts of sympathy.

Personally I have always despised applause of this kind – when its recipients are the sort of men who will do anything to win popularity. All the same, when the cheering comes unanimously from the highest and middle and lowest classes of the community alike, and when the politicians who used to bow to the popular will are suddenly found going in the opposite direction, that seems to me to constitute not merely applause but a verdict!

Or if you regard that as a trivial matter – although it is actually most significant – do you also attach no importance to the proof you have seen of Rome's loving solicitude for the health of Aulus Hirtius? It was already a very notable fact that Roman people esteem him as they do, that unique affection is lavished on him by his friends, that his family hold him so exceptionally dear. But now, in his illness, is there anyone in the memory of mankind who has been the object of such profound anxiety among all good citizens, and of such universal alarm? Nobody has ever been favoured with such demonstrations before. And so does it not occur to you that the people who are so deeply concerned for the lives of those they hope will serve the state may start having thoughts about your own lives as well?

Senators, the rewards I hoped to gain from my return are now mine. For the views I have expressed to you today are a guarantee that, whatever may happen in the future, my determination shall be on record: Moreover, you have given me an attentive and sympathetic hearing. If, without peril to myself and you, I am allowed further opportunities to speak, I shall use them as often as I can. If not, I shall work to the best of my ability for the welfare not of my own self but of our country. Meanwhile, I can say that my life has now lasted long enough, by the measure of years and fame alike. If an additional span is now to be vouchsafed to me, I shall again not devote it to my own interests, but it will be placed, as before, at the disposal of yourselves and Rome.

An Attack on an Enemy of Freedom

（The Second Philippic against Mark Antony）

Members of the Senate: Why is this my fate? I am obliged to record that, for twenty years past, our country has never had an enemy who has not, simultaneously, made himself an enemy of mine as well. I need mention no names. You remember the men for yourselves. They have paid me graver penalties than I could have wished.

Antony, you are modelling your actions on theirs. So what happened to them ought to frighten you; I am amazed that it does not. When those others were against me as well as against Rome I was less surprised. For they did not seek me out as an enemy. No, it was I who, for patriotic reasons, took the initiative against every one of them. But you I have never injured, even in words. And yet, without provocation, you have assailed me with gross insults. Catiline himself could not have been so outrageous, nor Publius Clodius so hysterical. Evidently you felt that the way to make friends, in disreputable circles, was by breaking off relations with me.

Did you take this step in a spirit of contempt? I should not have thought that my life, and my reputation, and my qualities – such as they are – provide suitable material for Antony's contempt. Nor can he have believed, surely, that he could successfully disparage me before the Senate. Accustomed though it is to complimenting distinguished Romans for good service to the state, the Senate has praised only one man for actually rescuing it from annihilation: and that is myself. But perhaps Antony's ambition was to compete with me as a speaker? If so, how extremely generous of him to present me with such a subject – justification of myself, criticism of him: the richest and most promising theme imaginable! No, the truth is clearly this. He saw no chance of proving to people like himself that he was Rome's enemy, unless he became mine too.

Before I reply to his other accusations, I should like to say a few words in answer to one particular complaint, namely that it was I who broke our friend-ship. Because I regard this as a very serious charge. He has protested that I once spoke against him in a lawsuit. But surely I was obliged to support my close friend against someone with whom I had no connexion. Besides, the backer of my friend's opponent was only interested in him from a discreditable interest in his youthfulness, and not because the young man was really promising. Since his supporter had procured an unfair result through a scandalous exercise of the veto, I had no choice but to intervene. However, I think I know why you brought the matter up. You wanted to ingratiate yourself with the underworld, by reminding everybody that you are the son-in-law of an ex-slave, Quintus Fadius; in other words, a former slave is the grandfather of your children.

Yet you allege that you constantly visited my house, in order to receive my tuition. If you had, your reputation and your morals would have benefited. But you did not! Even if you had wanted to, Gains Scribonius Curio would never have let you. Then you claim that you retired from the election to the augurship in my favour. That is sheer effrontery: monstrous, shameless, and unbelievable. In those days, when the entire Board of Augurs was pressing me to become a member, and my nominators （only two being allowed） were Pompey and Quintus Hortensius, you were completely destitute. There was only one hope of safety which you could see, and that was revolution. At that juncture you stood no chance whatever of becoming an augur; for Curio was out of Italy. Later, when you came up for election, you could not have secured the votes of a single tribe without Curio. So energetic, indeed, was the canvassing of his friends on your behalf, that they were condemned in the courts for the use of violence!

You did me a favour, you object. Certainly; I have always admitted the instance that you quote. It seemed to me less undesirable to admit my obligation to you than to let ignorant people think me ungrateful. However, the favour was this, was it not? – that you did not kill me at Brundisium. But I do not see how you could have killed me. For I had been ordered to Italy by the conqueror himself – the very man whose chief gangster you were congratulating yourself on having become.

Nevertheless, let us imagine that you could have killed me. That, Senators, is what a favour from gangsters amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him! If that is a true favour, then those who killed Caesar, after he had spared them, would never have been regarded as so glorious – and they are men whom you yourself habitually describe as noble. But the mere abstention from a dreadful crime is surely no sort of favour. In the situation in which this ‘favour’ placed me, my dominant feelings ought not to have been pleasure because you did not kill me, but sorrow because you could have done so with impunity.

However, let us even assume that it was a favour; at any rate the best favour that a gangster could confer. Still, in what respect can you call me ungrateful? Were my protests against the downfall of our country wrong, because you might think they showed ingratitude? I admit that there was no lack of grief and misery in my complaints. But a man in my position, the position conferred on me by the Senate and people of Rome, could not help that. And my words were restrained and friendly, never insulting. Surely that is real moderation – to protest about Antony and yet refrain from abuse!

For what was left of Rome, Antony, owed its final annihilation to yourself. In your home everything had a price: and a truly sordid series of deals it was. Laws you passed, laws you caused to be put through in your interests, had never even been formally proposed. You admitted this yourself. You were an augur, yet you never took the auspices. You were a consul, yet you blocked the legal right of other officials to exercise the veto. Your armed escort was shocking. You are a drink-sodden, sex-ridden wreck. Never a day passes in that ill-reputed house of yours without orgies of the most repulsive kind.

In spite of all that, I restricted myself in my speech to solemn complaints concerning the state of our nation. I said nothing personal about the man. I might have been conducting a case against Marcus Licinius Crassus （as I often have, on grave issues） instead of against this utterly loathsome gladiator.

Today, therefore, I am going to ensure that he under-stands what a favour I, on that occasion, conferred upon himself. He read out a letter, this creature, which he said I had sent him. But he has absolutely no idea how to behave – how other people behave. Who, with the slightest knowledge of decent people's habits, could conceivably produce letters sent him by a friend, and read them in public, merely because some quarrel has arisen between him and the other? Such conduct strikes at the roots of human relations; it means that absent friends are excluded from communicating with each other. For men fill their letters with flippancies which appear tasteless if they are published – and with serious matters which are quite unsuitable for wide circulation. Antony's action proves he is totally uncivilized.

But just see how unbelievably stupid he is as well. Try to answer my next point, you marvel of eloquence! （At least that is what you seem to Seius Mustela and Numisius Tiro, who stand here in full view of the Senate at this very moment, sword in hand: and even I shall admit that you are an eloquent orator after you explain to me how, when they were charged with assassination, you could get them acquitted.） However, to resume – what if I denied that I had ever sent you that letter? You would be left without an answer: you could not find a shred of evidence to convict me. By the handwriting? It is true that you have found your knowledge of handwriting very lucrative. All the same, your efforts would be pointless, because the letter was written by a secretary. What a lucky man your teacher of oratory was! You paid him very handsomely （as I shall remind you later）, and yet when you left his hands you were still a complete fool. To charge one's opponent with something which, in the face of a blank denial, he cannot press home to the slightest effect is of no service whatever to any speaker; indeed to anyone with any sense at all. Nevertheless I do not deny authorship. And when I say that, I am also saying that you are not ill-behaved but a lunatic. For my whole letter was replete with dutiful kindness – it was a veritable model of how to behave. Your criticism concerning its contents merely amounts to this: that I do not express a bad opinion of you; and that I address you as a Roman citizen and a decent man, instead of as a bandit and a criminal.

Now I do not propose to produce your letter, though under this provocation I should be entitled to: the letter in which you begged me to consent to someone's return from exile, and promised that you would not bring him back unless I agreed. And I did agree. For it was not for me to stand in the way of your outrageous behaviour, seeing that this is uncontrollable even by the authority of this Senatorial Order, and universal public opinion, and the whole body of the law. But what was the point of making me such a plea, when Caesar had actually passed a law authorizing the return of the very man with whom your letter was concerned? No doubt Antony was eager that I should get the credit! – seeing that even he was not going to win any credit, since the matter had already been settled by legislation.

Senators: in self-defence, and in denunciation of Antony, I have no lack of material. But as regards the former of those themes, I have an appeal to make: while I speak in my own defence I urge you to be indulgent. The second matter I shall look after on my own account – I shall ensure that what I am going to say against Antony impresses itself upon your attention. At the same time I beg this of you. My whole career as a speaker, indeed my whole life, has, I believe, demonstrated to you that I am a moderate man and not an extremist. So do not suppose that I have forgotten myself when I reply to this man in the spirit in which he has challenged me. I am not going to treat him as a consul, for he did not treat me as a former consul, as a man of consular rank. Besides, he is no true consul at all. He does not live like one; he does not work like one; and he was never elected to be one. Whereas a former consul I unquestionably am.

You can see what sort of a consul he claims to be by the way in which he criticizes my tenure of that office. Yet my consulship, Senators, though it can be called mine, was in plain fact yours. For everything I decided, every policy I carried out, every action I took, derived from this Senatorial Order – from its deliberations, its authority, and its rulings. What a strange kind of wisdom you show, Antony – eloquence is evidently not your only quality – when you abuse me before the very men whose corporate judgement inspired those actions of mine! The only people who have ever abused my consulship are Publius Clodius and yourself. And his fate – the fate which also overtook Curio – will be yours: for what brought death to both of them is now in your home!(1)

So Antony disapproves of my consulship. But – to name first the most recently deceased of the ex-consuls of that time – Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus thought well of it. Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who will always carry weight among our countrymen, like-wise bestowed upon me his approval. So did Lucius Licinius Lucullus and his brother Marcus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, Quintus Hortensius, Gaius Scribonius Curio the elder, Gaius Calpurnius Piso, Manius Acilius Glabrio, Manius Aemilius Lepidus, Lucius Volcacius Tullus, Gaius Marcius Figulus, and the two consuls designate at the time, Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena. And Marcus Porcius Cato felt the same as those of consular rank: he too praised my activities as consul. Your consulship, on the other hand, was the worst of the many things which death spared Cato. Another very strong supporter of mine was Pompey. When we first met after his return from Syria, he embraced me, offered his congratulations, and declared that it was through my services that there was still a Rome for him to see. But why do I mention individuals? A very full house of the Senate so warmly applauded my consulship that there was not a man there who did not thank me as if I had been his father. Their possessions, their lives, their children's lives, their country – they owed all these, said every one of them, to me.

However, since Rome has lost all the great men whom I have mentioned, let us pass to the two ex-consuls of that time who are still with us. For those very actions which you denounce, that brilliant statesman Lucius Aurelius Cotta proposed that I should be accorded a most generous vote of thanks. And this proposal was adopted – by those very ex-consuls whose names I have just recorded, and indeed by the whole Senate. This was an honour which, ever since the city's foundation, had been awarded to no civilian before me. On that occasion your uncle Lucius Julius Caesar attacked his sister's husband, your stepfather; and he spoke with great eloquence, solemnity, and firmness. In all your activities throughout your whole life, your inspiration, your teacher, ought to have been Lucius Caesar. But instead of your uncle, the man on whom you preferred to model yourself was your step-father. When I was consul I consulted Lucius Caesar, though we were not related. You are his sister's son: but when did you ever consult him on state affairs?

Who, indeed, are Antony's advisers? Evidently people whose birthdays have not come to our attention. Antony is not attending the Senate today. Why? He is giving a birthday-party on his estate. For whom? I shall name no names. No doubt it is some comic Phormio or other, some Gnatho or Ballio.(2) What a disgusting, intolerable sensualist the man is, as well as a vicious, unsavoury crook! How is it possible, Antony, that you should consistently fail to consult that admi-rable leading Senator Lucius Caesar, who is your close relation, while instead you prefer to rely on the advice of this collection of down-and-out spongers?

I see; your consulship is beneficent, mine was destructive. Your impudence must be equal to your debauchery if you dare make that assertion in the very place where, as consul, I consulted the Senate, which once, in its glory, presided over the whole world: namely, in this temple of Concord, now crammed – by your agency – with delinquents bristling with weapons. And yet you had the effrontery, the unlimited effrontery, to claim that, when I was consul, the road up the Capitoline Hillwas packed with armed slaves! Do you really mean to suggest that I was applying violent pres-sure upon the Senate in order to force through those decrees of mine – in other words, that they were discreditable? You poor fool, to utter such impertinences before men of this calibre! – if the facts are known to you: or perhaps they are not, since all that is good is completely foreign to your mind.

When the Senate met in this temple, every single Roman knight, every young man of aristocratic birth – except yourself – every man （of whatever class） who was conscious of his Roman citizenship, gathered together on the road to the Capitol; each of them gave in his name. So many were they that no number of secretaries or writing tablets could have been enough for the registration of the entire multitude of them.

For that was the very moment when evil men were confessing that they had planned to assassinate their country. The revelations of their own accomplices had forced them to this admission. So had their own hand-writing, and the almost audible testimony of their own letters. To murder the citizens of Rome – that was the intention which emerged; to ravage Italy; revolution! At such a time, no one could fail to hear the call to defend the common cause – especially as the Senate and Roman people, in those days, possessed a leader. If they had his like as a leader now, the fate that descended upon those anarchists would be yours also.

Antony protests that I refused to give up his stepfather's body for burial. But even Publius Clodius never brought that charge. I was the enemy of Clodius – justifiably: but your faults, I regret to see, are blacker even than his. Why did it occur to you, I wonder, to remind us of your upbringing in your stepfather's home? I suppose you were afraid that we should be sceptical of nature's unaided effects; that we should need this evidence of upbringing before we could understand why you had turned out so criminally.

Really, your speech was demented, it was so full of inconsistencies. From beginning to end, you were not merely incoherent but glaringly self-contradictory: indeed you contradicted yourself more often than you contradicted me. You admitted that your stepfather was involved in that terrible crime, and yet you complained because he had been punished for what he did. But the effect of that argument was to praise my part in the matter, and to blame what was wholly the Senate's part. For whereas it was I who arrested the guilty men, it was the Senate which punished them. So our masterly speaker here does not realize he is praising the man he is trying to attack, and is abusing those who sit here listening to him!

I will not call this effrontery – which is in any case a quality he proudly claims. But Antony has no desire to be stupid, and he must be the most stupid man alive to talk of the Capitoline road at this moment – when armed men are actually standing here among our benches, are stationed with their swords in that same temple of Concord, heaven bear me witness, where my consulship saw decisions which saved our nation and brought us in safety to this day.

Go on, criticize the Senate, criticize the knights who were at that time its partners. Assail every class and every citizen with your accusations, provided you admit that at the present moment this meeting of ours here is picketed by your Ituraean police. Unscrupulous-ness is not what prompts these shameless statements of yours; you make them because you entirely fail to grasp how you are contradicting yourself. In fact, you must be an imbecile. How could a sane person first take up arms to destroy his country, and then protest because someone else had armed himself to save it?

At one point you tried to be witty. Heaven knows this did not suit you. And your failure is particularly blameworthy, since you could have acquired some wit from that professional actress known as your wife. ‘Let gown be mightier than sword’(3) were the words of mine that you mocked. Well, that was so in those days, was it not? But since then your swords have won. Let us consider which was the better: the time when gangsters’ weapons were overcome by men defending Roman freedom, or now, when your weapons have struck that freedom down. As far as my poem is concerned that is the only answer I have to give. I will merely add briefly that you understand neither this poem nor any other literature. I, on the other hand, though I have not neglected my duty to our country or to my friends, have nevertheless employed my leisure hours in literary productions of many kinds. All that I have written, the whole of my effort, has been intended for the benefit of young people and for the greater glory of Rome. However, that is another matter. Let us turn to questions of more importance.

It was upon my initiative, you said, that Publius Clodius was killed by Titus Annius Milo. But what would people have thought if he had been killed when, sword in hand, you chased him into the Forum, with the whole of Rome looking on? If he had not stopped you by hiding under the stairs of a bookshop and barricading them, you would have finished him off. Now I admit that I viewed your attempt with favour; yet even you do not claim that I prompted you. But as for Milo, I did not have an opportunity even to favour his attempt, since he had completed the job before anyone suspected what he was going to do. You say I prompted him. So presumably Milo was not the sort of man who could perform a patriotic action without a prompter! I celebrated the deed when it was done, you point out. But when the whole nation was rejoicing, why should I be the only mourner? Certainly, the inquiry into Clodius's death was not very judiciously designed. For when an established legal procedure for murder was available, the creation of a new law to deal with the case was pointless. Anyway, that is what was done, and the inquiry took its course. At the time, when the matter was under active consideration, no one brought this charge against me. It remained for you to perpetrate the fabrication after all these years!

Your next impudent accusation – made at considerable length – is that I was responsible for alienating Pompey from Caesar, and that by so doing I caused the Civil War. Your mistake in saying this is not wholly factual, but chronological; and this is a significant point. It is true that, during the consul-ship of the admirable Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, I made every possible attempt to separate Pompey from Caesar. But Caesar was more successful: for he alienated Pompey from me. And when Pompey had wholeheartedly joined Caesar, how could I endeavour to set them apart? I should have been foolish to hope for such a thing – and impertinent to attempt persuasion. Yet there were two occasions on which I advised Pompey against Caesar. Blame me for them, if you can. First, I advised him not to renew Caesar's five-year term in Gaul; secondly, I urged him not to allow Caesar's candidature for the consulship in absentia. If I had been successful on either occasion, our present miseries would never have befallen us.

But instead Pompey made a present to Caesar of all his own resources, and all the resources of Rome. Only then did he belatedly begin to understand what I had foreseen long before. But by that time I had also come to realize that a criminal attack on our country was imminent. That is why, from then onward, I never ceased to urge peace, harmony, and arrangement. Many people knew what I was saying: ‘If only, Pompey, you had either avoided joining Caesar or avoided breaking with him! Your strength of character demanded the former course, and your wisdom the latter!’ That, Antony, was the advice I consistently gave in regard to Pompey and the crisis of our Republic. If this advice had prevailed, the Republic would still be flourishing: but you would not be, for your scandalous, down-at-heels, infamous behaviour would have brought you down.

However, these are old stories. Your new story is this: I was responsible for the killing of Caesar. Now, Senators, I am afraid I may look guilty, at this point, of a deplorable offence: namely the production, in a case against myself, of a sham prosecutor – a man who will load me with compliments whether I am entitled to them or not. For among the company who did that most glorious of deeds, my name was never once heard. Yet not a name among them remained secret. Secret, do I say? Every one of them was instantly known far and wide! It was much more likely, believe me, that men should have boasted of complicity, though they had nothing to do with the deed, than that having been accomplices they should have desired to conceal the fact. There were quite a number of them; some obscure, some youthful – not the sort of people who would keep anyone's identity quiet. So, if I had been involved, how on earth could my participation have remained unknown?

Besides – if we really need to assume that the prime movers in that operation needed prompting to free their country! – was it for me to inspire the two Brutuses? Every day, in their own homes, each of them had the statue of Lucius Junius Brutus to gaze upon – and one of them had Gaius Servilius Ahala as well. These living Brutuses, with these ancestors, needed no outside advisers from other houses: they had advisers ready to hand within their own homes. Gaius Cassius Longinus, too, belongs to a clan incapable of tolerating not only autocracy but even excessive power in any single individual. Yet apparently he needed me as his instigator! On the contrary, even before his present distinguished associates were avail-able, Cassius had proposed to perform this same task in Cilicia at the mouth of the Cydnus, if only Caesar, after deciding to moor his ships on one bank of the river, had not moored them on the other instead. And then again, when the recovery of freedom was at stake, what need had Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus of me to inspire him? Inspiration enough for Domitius was the memory of how his noble father and his uncle had died – and how he himself had been deprived of his rights as a citizen. As for Gaius Trebonius, far from persuading him, I should not even have ventured to advise him – so close were his ties with Caesar. The existence of those ties increases the debt of gratitude which our country owes Trebonius: for one man's friendship seemed to him of less importance than the freedom of the Roman people – he could have shared autocracy, but he preferred to strike it down. Or was I Lucius Tillius Cimber's counsellor? No, my admiration for him after he had done the deed was a great deal stronger than my confidence, beforehand, that he would do it; I admired him all the more because he disregarded the personal favours he had received: he thought only of Rome. And then the two Serviliuses – whether to call them Cascas(4) or Ahalas I do not know. Do you suppose they needed my advice to urge them on? They had their love for their country. To enumerate all the rest would take too long; it reflects great credit on themselves, and great glory on Rome, that they were so many!

But remember, please, how this astute man demonstrated my complicity. ‘When Caesar had been killed,’ said he, ‘Brutus immediately brandished aloft his bloodstained dagger and called out Cicero's name, congratulating him on the recovery of national freedom.’ But this choice of myself, above all others – why must it indicate my foreknowledge? Consider instead whether the reason why Brutus called upon me was not this. The deed which he had done resembled the deeds which I had done myself: that is why he singled me out – to proclaim that he had modelled himself on me.

What a fool you are, Antony. Do you not under-stand this? If wanting Caesar to be killed （as you complain that I did） is a crime, then it is also criminal to have rejoiced when he was dead. For between the man who advises an action and the man who approves when it is done there is not the slightest difference. Whether I wished the deed to be performed or am glad after its performance, is wholly immaterial. Yet, with the exception of the men who wanted to make an autocratic monarch of him, all were willing for this to happen – or were glad when it had happened. So everyone is guilty! For every decent person, in so far as he had any say in the matter, killed Caesar! Plans, courage, opportunities were in some cases lacking; but the desire nobody lacked.

Just listen to the fatuity of this man – this sheep, rather. Here were his words: ‘Brutus, whose name I mention with all respect, called out Cicero's name while he was holding the bloodstained dagger: from which you must understand that Cicero was an accomplice.’ So, just because you suspect that I suspected something you call me a criminal, yet the man who brandished a dripping dagger is mentioned by you ‘with all respect’! Very well, use this imbecile language if you must; and your actions and opinions are even more brainless. In the end, Consul, you will have to make up your mind! You must pronounce your final judgement on the cause of the Brutuses, Cassius, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, Gaius Trebonius, and the rest. Sleep off your hangover – breathe it out. Perhaps a torch might be administered, to sting you out of your snoring over this far from unimportant matter. Will you never understand that you must decide which description to apply to the men who did that deed: are they murderers or are they the restorers of national freedom?

Concentrate, please – just for a little. Try to make your brain work for a moment as if you were sober. I confess I am their friend – you prefer to call me their associate. And yet even I refuse to see any compromise solution. If these men are not liberators of the Roman people and saviours of the state, then even I assert that they are worse than assassins, worse than murderers. Indeed, on the assumption that even the murder of one's own father is less horrible than to kill the father of one's country, even parricides are better than they are.

Well, then, you wise and thoughtful man, what do you say to this: if they are parricides, why, in the Senate and Assembly, do you refer to them with respect? You will also have to explain why you yourself proposed Marcus Brutus's exemption from the laws(5) when he remained outside the city for more than ten days; why, at the Games of Apollo, he received such a complimentary reception; and why he and Cassius were given provincial commands, and supernumerary quaestors and legates were assigned to them for the purpose. This was all your doing! So evidently you do not regard them as murderers. It follows – since no compromise is possible – that you must regard them as liberators. What is the matter? I am not embarrassing you, am I? For I doubt if you are quite competent to grasp the sort of dilemma in which this places you. Anyway, what my conclusion amounts to is this: by not regarding Brutus and the rest as criminals, you have automatically proclaimed that they deserve the most glorious rewards.

So I must redesign my speech. I shall write to these men and say that, if anyone asks whether your charge against me is true, they must offer no denials. For, if I was their accomplice and they conceal the fact, I am afraid this may discredit them; whereas if I was invited to join them and refused, this will reflect the gravest discredit on me. For heaven will bear witness that Rome – that any nation throughout the whole world – has never seen a greater act than theirs! There has never been an achievement more glorious – more greatly deserving of renown for all eternity. So if you pen me in a Trojan horse of complicity with the chief partners in that deed, I do not protest. Thank you, I say – whatever your motives. For where so outstanding an action is concerned, I account the unpopularity, which you hope to unload upon me, as nothing beside the glory.

You have driven these men away and expelled them, you boast. Yet they are blessed beyond measure. There is no place in the world too deserted and too barbarous to welcome them and delight in their presence. All people on earth, however uncivilized, are capable of understanding that life could offer no more outstanding happiness than a sight of these men. Writers will continue, for generation after generation throughout time everlasting, to immortalize the glory of their achievement.

Enrol me among such heroes, I beg of you! Though I am afraid that one thing may not be to your liking. If I had been among their number I should have freed our country not only from the autocrat but from the autocracy. For if, as you assert, I had been the author of the work, believe me, I should not have been satisfied to finish only one act: I should have completed the play!(6)

If it is a crime to have wanted Caesar to be put to death, consider your own situation, Antony. Everyone knows that at Narbo you formed a similar plan with Gaius Trebonius: it was because of this plot, while Caesar was being killed, that we saw Trebonius taking you aside. You see – my intentions to you are friendly. I am praising you for the good intention you once had! For not having reported the plot, I thank you; for not having carried it out, I excuse you. That task needed a man.

But suppose that someone prosecutes you; that he applies the test of the jurist Lucius Cassius Longinus: ‘who benefited thereby?’. Then you will have to take care, for you might be implicated. True, you used to observe, once upon a time, that such an act would benefit all who were unwilling to be slaves. Nevertheless, whom did its performance benefit most of all? Yourself! You, who, far from being a slave, are an autocratic ruler: you, who employed the treasure in the Temple of Ops to wipe off your gigantic debts, who after manipulating these same account-books squandered countless sums, who transferred enormous possessions from Caesar's house to your own. What an immensely profitable output of fake memoranda and forged handwritings your home produces! The place is a forger's workshop, a black market: whole properties and cities, mass exemptions from tribute and taxation are the wares of its truly scandalous trade.

Nothing short of Caesar's death could have rescued you from your debtor's ruin. You look rather worried. Are you secretly nervous that you may be implicated? No, I can set your fears at rest: no one will ever believe such a thing of you. You are not the man to perform a patriotic act. Our country has great men, and they did that noble deed. I do not say you took part. I only say you were glad.

Now I have answered your most serious accusations. Well, I must reply to the others. You have complained about my presence in Pompey's camp, and about my conduct throughout that period. True, at that time – and I have said this before – if my advice and authority had prevailed, you would be a poor man today, and we should be free; and our country would not have lost so many armies and commanders. For when I foresaw what has now happened, I confess that I mourned as sadly as all other good citizens, if they had possessed my foresight, would likewise have mourned. I grieved, Senators, I grieved that our Republic, which your and my counsels had once preserved, was moving towards rapid annihilation. In such circumstances I was not uneducated and ignorant enough to be overcome by fears whether I personally should survive. For my life, while it was still mine, was full of anguish; whereas its loss would mean an end of all troubles. But I wanted life to remain for the magnificent men who were Rome's glory – all those who have served as consul and praetor, the fine Senators, the flower and promise of our nobility, the armies of good Romans. So for me any peace that could unite our citizens seemed preferable to a war that tore them apart. And indeed, however hard the circumstances of peace, if those men were only living today, at least the Republic would still be with us.

If this view of mine had prevailed, and if the very men whose lives I sought to preserve had not, in their military over-optimism, set themselves against me, one of many results would certainly be this: you would never still be in the Senate. You would not even be at Rome!

You object that my speech alienated Pompey from me. That is absurd. He had more affection for me than for anyone. There was no one in the world whom he talked to and consulted more often. Indeed it was a splendid thing that two men with so widely differing views on government policy should remain such close friends. Each of us knew, equally well, the thoughts and opinions of the other. My first concern was to keep our fellow-Romans alive: by so doing, we could give ourselves time to think later on about their civic rights. Pompey, on the other hand, was preoccupied with their rights in the immediate present. Nevertheless, our disagreement was tolerable – the more so because we both concentrated on our own specific objectives.

But what Pompey, with his outstanding and almost superhuman gifts, thought about myself is well known to those who accompanied him on his retreat from Pharsalus to Paphos. He never mentioned my name except in complimentary terms and with an abundance of friendly regrets that we were not together. He also admitted that, whereas his had been the higher hopes, the more accurate prophet had been myself. But how can you have the effrontery to taunt me with Pompey, when you have to admit that I was his friend: whereas you, on the other hand, were the purchaser of his confiscated property!

However, let us say no more about that war – in which you fared only too well. Nor have I any answer to give you about the jokes which you say I made while I was in camp. Life was certainly anxious there. Yet however grim circumstances are, human beings, if they really are human, occasionally relax. Antony criticizes my gloom, and he criticizes my jokes! Which proves that I showed moderation in both.

No one left me any legacies,(7) you said. I only wish that the charge were justified, for then more of my friends and relations would be alive today. But I wonder how that idea came into your mind. For men have made me bequests amounting to more than twenty million sesterces. True, I admit that in this respect you have been more fortunate than I have. For all who have made me their heirs have been my friends. That has been their way of soothing my grief with some mitigating benefit – if it could be regarded as such. But you inherited from Lucius Rubrius Casinas: whom you had never seen! He must indeed have loved you dearly, seeing that you do not even know whether he was black or white. He passed over in your favour the sons of that very worthy knight, his friend Quintus Fufius. Rubrius had constantly announced, in public, that Fufius's son was to be his heir. And yet he did not even mention him in his will! Instead, you were the man he made his heir – you whom he had never seen or, at any rate, had never spoken to. And tell me this, please, if it is not too much trouble: what did your other benefactor Lucius Turselius look like? How tall was he, where did he come from, what was his tribe? ‘I know nothing,’ you will answer, ‘except what properties he owned.’ Was that sufficient cause for him to disinherit his brother and make you his heir? But there were many others too, equally remote from any connexion with him, from whom Antony grabbed huge sums of money, ejecting the true heirs, and behaving as if he himself were the inheritor.

And there is another reason too why I am surprised, particularly surprised, that you should have had the impudence even to mention matters of inheritance. For you did not come into your own father's property!

Fool! Were these the arguments you were trying to hunt out when you spent day after day in another man's country house, practising oratory? Though your oratorical practice, as your closest friends point out, is intended to work off your hangovers rather than to sharpen your brain, you have facetiously appointed a teacher of oratory – the appointment carried by the supporting votes of your fellow-drinkers – and you have allowed the man to speak against you in any way he likes. He is certainly an amusing enough fellow. But, since you and your friends are his targets, he cannot complain of any lack of material!

Note the contrast between yourself and your grand-father. He, with deliberation, produced arguments relevant to his case; you just pour out irrelevancies. And yet what a salary your teacher of rhetoric has drawn from you. Listen to this, Senators: take note of the wounds inflicted upon our nation. To this elocution trainer – Sextus Clodius – he handed over 1,250 acres of land, taxfree. You made the people of Rome defray this enormous charge, Antony, with no other result than to make you learn to be the idiot that you are. You unprincipled rogue! Was this one of the directions you found in Caesar's notebooks? However, about this estate at Leontini I will say something later; also about other properties in Campania – all of them lands which Antony has wrenched from Rome, and polluted by the utterly degraded characters of the men to whom he has given them.

I have said enough in answer to his charges. Now some attention must be given to our moralist and reformer himself. However, I do not propose to tell the whole story at once: so that if I have to return to the fray, I shall not need to repeat myself. In view of the extraordinary quantity of his crimes and vices, that presents no difficulty.

Would you like us to consider your behaviour from boyhood onwards, Antony? I think so. Let us begin then at the beginning. Your bankruptcy, in early adolescence – do you remember that? Your father's fault, you will say. Certainly; and what a truly filial self-defence! But it was typical of your impudence to go to the theatre and sit in one of the fourteen rows reserved for knights, when the Roscian Law assigned special seats for bankrupts – and meant this to apply whether it was bad luck or bad conduct had caused the bankruptcy. Then you graduated to man's clothing – or rather it was woman's as far as you were concerned. At first you were just a public prostitute, with a fixed price: quite a high one, too. But very soon Curio intervened and took you off the streets, promoting you, one might say, to wifely status, and making a sound, steady, married woman of you. No boy bought for sensual purposes was ever so completely in his master's power as you were in Curio's. On countless occasions his father threw you out of the house. He even stationed guards to keep you out! Nevertheless, helped by nocturnal darkness, urged on by sensuality, compelled by the promised fee – in, through the roof, you climbed.

The household found these repulsive goings on completely unendurable. I wonder if you realize that I have a very thorough knowledge of what I am speaking about. Cast your mind back to the time when Curio's father lay weeping in his bed. The son, likewise in tears, threw himself at my feet and begged me to help you – and to defend himself against a demand, which he expected from his own father, for six million sesterces. The young man loved you so passionately that he swore he would leave the country because he could not bear to be kept apart from you. In those days, within that renowned family, there were troubles without number which I helped to mitigate – or rather, brought to an end altogether. I persuaded the father to pay his son's debts. I persuaded him to sacrifice part of his property to restore the position of this young man, whose promise of brain and character was so brilliant. But I also persuaded him to use all his legal authority as a father to prevent Curio from associating with you or even meeting you. When you remembered all these interventions of mine, only one thing can have given you the nerve to provoke and abuse me in the way you have, and that is your reliance on the brute force of arms: the weapons which we see in the Senate today.

But about Antony's degradations and sex-crimes that is as far as I will go. For there are some things which it would be indecent for me to describe. As far as free speaking goes you have the advantage of me! – since you have done things which a respectable opponent cannot even mention. So instead I will now turn briefly to the remaining portion of this man's life. For our thoughts will naturally run on to what he did during the national miseries of the Civil War – and what he is doing today. You know those things, Senators, as well as I do, and indeed much better. Yet continue, I beg of you, to listen to them carefully. For in such cases knowledge about events is not enough. There is also need to be reminded of them: only thus will they be fully felt.

However, since I must allow myself time to reach the end of these happenings, I must cut short the middle part of the story. Well, Antony now recounts his kindnesses towards me. All the same, when Publius Clodius was tribune, the two men were intimate friends. Antony was the firebrand who started all Clodius's fires. Indeed, one of his projects – he knows very well which one I mean – was actually located in Clodius's home. Then Antony went to Alexandria: in defiance of the Senate, and of patriotism, and of the will of heaven. But he was under a man with whom he could do no wrong – Aulus Gabinius. Then consider the nature and circumstances of Antony's return. Before he came home, he went from Egypt to farthest Gaul. Home, did I say? At that time, other men still possessed homes: but you, Antony, had none at all. Home? You had no piece of ground of your own in the whole world, except at Misenum; and that you only shared with partners, as though it were a company affair like the Sisapo mines.

From Gaul you came to stand for the quaestorship. On that occasion, I dare you to claim that you went to your father before you came to me! I had already received a letter from Caesar asking me to accept your excuses; so I did not even allow you to thank me. After that, you treated me with respect, and I helped you in your candidature for the quaestorship. That was the time when, with the approval of Rome, you tried to kill Publius Clodius. Now, though this was entirely your own idea, and owed nothing to my initiative, nevertheless you proclaimed the conviction that only his murder could ever repay me for the injuries I had suffered from you. This makes me wonder why you say Titus Annius Milo killed Clodius on my instigation. For, when you spontaneously proposed to me that you should perform the same action, I had given you no encouragement. If you went through with the deed, I wanted you yourself, and not my influence upon you, to have the glory.

Well, you became quaestor; and instantly – without benefit of Senate's decree, drawing of lots, or legal sanction – you ran off to Caesar. For that seemed to you the only place on earth where destitution, debt, and crime could find shelter: the only refuge for ruined men. There, through Caesar's generosity and your own looting, you reimbursed your losses – if you can call it reimbursement when you immediately squander what you have embezzled! So then, beggared again, you hastened to apply for a tribuneship. Your aim in acquiring it, presumably, was to model yourself on your lover.

Now listen, I beg you, Senators, I do not mean to the personal and domestic scandals created by Antony's disgusting improprieties, but to the evil, godless way in which he has undermined us all, and our fortunes, and our whole country. At the root of all our disasters you will find his wickedness. When Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus became consuls on the first of January, the Republican government was tottering and on the verge of collapse. You, members of the Senate, wanted to support the government; you also desired to meet the wishes of Caesar himself, if he was in his right mind. Yet Antony had sold and subjected his tribuneship to another man, and he exploited the office for your obstruction. That is to say, to the axe which had struck down many men for lesser crimes he had the audacity to expose his own neck. In those days the Senate was still its own master; those honourable members who are now dead were still among its number. That Senate, Antony, employed for your censure the decree reserved, by ancestral custom, for Roman citizens who are the enemies of Rome. And yet, as audience for your criticisms of me, you have the impertinence to select the Senate – that very body which pronounced me to be its saviour, and you the enemy of the state!

Your criminal action at that time has not been mentioned lately; but what you did has not been forgotten. So long as there are human beings in the world, so long as the name of Rome remains upon the earth – and that means everlastingly, barring destructive action by yourself – that pestilential veto(8) of yours will be remembered. In the Senate's proceedings there had not been the slightest sign of bias or impetuosity. Yet you, a single young man, imposed your veto, and thus prevented the entire Senatorial Order from passing a measure on which the safety of our nation depended. And this you did not once, but repeatedly. Furthermore, you rejected all efforts to open negotiations with you about upholding the authority of this House. Yet the matter at stake was nothing less than your itch to plunge the whole country into anarchy and desolation. The pleas of the nation's leaders, the warnings of your elders, a crowded Senate, none of them sufficed to deter you from this measure you had been bribed and bought into proposing.

Next, therefore, after many attempts to dissuade you, there was no alternative; you had to be dealt the blow which few had received before – and which none had survived. So this Senatorial Order directed the consuls, and other powers and authorities, to take up arms against you. You only escaped those arms by sheltering behind Caesar's.

Caesar's intentions were wholly revolutionary. But the man who gave him his principal excuse for attacking his country was yourself. For that was the only pretext he claimed, the only reason he put forward for his maniacal decision and action: he quoted the Senate's disregard of a veto, its abolition of a tribune's entitlement, its encroachment on Antony's rights. I say nothing of the falsity and frivolity of these charges – though no man can possibly be justified in taking up arms against his own nation. But I am not speaking of Caesar. You, Antony, were the man who provided the pretext for this most catastrophic of wars: you cannot deny it.

If what I am now going to say is known to you already, then your fate is sad indeed: and sadder still if it is not. Now, there exist written records, to be recollected without possibility of oblivion by remotest posterity until the end of time, proving that these things happened. That the consuls were expelled from Italy; that they were accompanied by the man whose glory illuminated our nation – Pompey; that all former consuls whose health enabled them to share in that disastrous retreat, all praetors and expraetors, tribunes of the people, a great part of the Senate, the flower of our young manhood, in a word all the components of the entire Roman state, were uprooted and driven from their homes.

Just as seeds are the origins of trees and plants, so, with equal certainty, you were the seed of that most grievous war. Senators, you are mourning three armies of Roman soldiers slain in battle: Antony killed them. You are sorrowing for great men of Rome: Antony robbed you of them. The authority of your Order has been destroyed: Antony destroyed it. For every evil which we have seen since that time – and what evils have we not seen? – he is responsible. There can be no other conclusion. He has been our Helen of Troy! He has brought upon our country war, and pestilence, and annihilation.

The rest of his tribuneship resembled the beginning. Of all the misdeeds which the Senate, while the Republic was still with us, had rendered impossible there was not one which he left undone. And note the crimes within his crime. Though he rehabilitated many who were in trouble, there was no mention of his uncle among them. But if he was severe, why was he not severe to everyone? and if merciful, why not merciful to his own kinsmen?

Among those whose civil rights he restored I will only mention Licinius Lenticula, his fellow-dicer – a man convicted for gambling. I can only suppose Antony protested that his partner at the tables must not be a convict! But his real aim was to utilize the law cancelling Lenticula's sentence as a cloak for the cancellation of his own gaming debts. Now, Antony, what reasons justifying his reinstatement did you quote to the people of Rome? The normal sort of argument would run like this: that Lenticula had been absent when the prosecution was instituted against him; that the case went undefended, that the law provided no judicial procedure to deal with dicing, that armed violence had been used to procure his downfall, or as a final objection what was said in your uncle's case – that the court's decision had been influenced by bribery. But not at all. Those were not your excuses. What you urged was that Lenticula was a good man, useful to his country. Well, that was irrelevant. All the same, I should excuse you on that count if your plea were only true, for the mere fact of having been convicted is of no great importance. But there is not a word of truth in it. Lenticula has been condemned under the law which relates to dicing: he is the sort of person who would not hesitate to throw dice in the Forum itself – a thoroughly criminal type. The man who can restore the rights of such a ruffian reveals a great deal about his own character.

Then consider another aspect of Antony's tribune-ship. When Caesar, on his way to Spain, had given him Italy to trample upon, the journeys Antony made and the towns he visited are well worth looking into. I realize I am speaking of matters which are thoroughly well known and widely talked about. I am also aware that the events of which I am, and shall be, speaking are better known to anyone who was in Italy at that time than to myself who was absent. Nevertheless, although what I tell you will undoubtedly fall short of what you know already, allow me to recall certain particulars.

For never, anywhere in the world, have there been stories of such depraved and discreditable misconduct. He travelled about in a lady's carriage, did this tribune of the people. In front of him marched attendants crowned with laurel-wreaths. Among them, carried in an open litter, went an actress. The respectable citizens of the country towns, compelled to come and meet him, greeted her, not by her well-known stage name, but as Volumnia. Next followed a repulsive collection of his friends: a four-wheeler full of procurers. Only then came his neglected mother, following, like a mother-in-law, her debauched son's mistress. Poor woman! Her capacity for child-bearing has indeed been catastrophic. In such fashion a wide variety of country towns, indeed the whole of Italy, was branded by Antony with the marks of his degraded behaviour.

To censure his other actions, Senators, is difficult and delicate. He fought in the war. He wallowed in the blood of Romans who were in every way his opposites. He was fortunate, if there can ever be good fortune in criminality. But since we do not want to offend the old soldiers – though the soldiers’ case and yours, Antony, are wholly unlike （they followed their leader, you went to seek him out） – nevertheless I shall give you no opportunity to incite them against me. For concerning the character of the war I shall say nothing.

From Thessaly to Brundisium you returned as conqueror with your legions. At Brundisium you refrained from killing me. How very kind of you! For you could have killed me, I admit. Though the men who were with you at that time unanimously maintained I must be spared. For even your own legionaries revered me: so great is man's love for their country, which they remembered that I had saved. However, let us concede that you gave me as a present what you did not take away from me; you did not deprive me of my life, which I therefore retain as a gift from your-self. After hearing all your insults I nearly forgot my gratitude, though not quite. And there was something particularly impudent about your abuse, because you knew how I would be able to retaliate!

Arrival at Brundisium for you meant envelopment in the embraces of your little actress. Well, is that a lie? It is distressing, is it not, to be unable to deny something that is disreputable to admit. But if the townsmen caused you to feel no shame, did not your own veteran army? For every single soldier who was at Brundisium saw her. Every one of them knew she had come all those days’ journey to congratulate you: every man grieved to have found out so late in the day the worthlessness of the leader he had followed.

Again you toured Italy, with this actress by your side. In the communities through which you passed, amid scenes of brutality and misery, you planted your soldiers as settlers. At Rome you cut a deplorable figure as a robber of gold and silver – and of wine. As a climax, unknown to Caesar （who was at Alexandria）, Caesar's friends were kind enough to make Antony his Master of Horse. At that juncture he felt entitled to live with Hippias; and to hand over race-horses, intended for the national games, to another actor Sergius. At that time Antony had chosen to live, not in the house which he so discreditably retains now, but in Marcus Pupius Piso's home. His decrees, his looting, his legacies inherited and grabbed I will pass over in silence. Need compelled him: he did not know which way to turn. Those substantial inheritances from Lucius Rubrius Casinas and Lucius Turselius had not yet come to him; not yet had he become the unexpected ‘heir’ to Pompey, and many more. He had nothing except what he could plunder; he was obliged to live like a bandit.

But about these examples of the tougher sorts of rascality, I shall speak no more. Let us turn instead to meaner kinds of misbehaviour. With those jaws of yours, and those lungs, and that gladiatorial strength, you drank so much wine at Hippias's wedding, Antony, that on the next day you had to be sick in full view of the people of Rome. It was a disgusting sight; even to hear what happened is disgusting. If you had behaved like that at a private dinner party, among those outsize drinking cups of yours, everyone would have regarded it as disgraceful enough. But here, in the Assembly of the Roman People, was a man holding public office, a Master of the Horse – from whom even a belch would have been unseemly – flooding his own lap and the whole platform with the gobbets of wine-reeking food he had vomited up. He admits that this was one of his filthier actions: let us now return to his grander misdeeds.

Well, Caesar returned from Alexandria, a fortunate man – as he seemed to himself at least: though in my view no one who brings misfortune upon his country can be called fortunate. The spear was set up before the temple of Jupiter Stator; and Pompey's property – the very thought brings unhappiness! for even when the tears no longer flow the sorrow remains deeply fixed in my heart – Pompey's property, I say, was subjected to the pitiless voice of the auctioneer.

On that single occasion the nation forgot its slavery, and mourned. Men felt slaves, because fear gripped them all, yet, even so, the people of Rome lamented freely enough. Every man waited to see if there would be some depraved madman, repulsive to heaven and humanity, who would dare to take part in that criminal auction. Though some of the men round that spear would have stopped at nothing else, no one had audacity enough for this – no one except Antony alone! One person, only one, was shameless enough to perpetrate the act which all others, however great their effrontery, had shunned in horror. But, Antony, were you too totally witless – or is not insanity the appropriate word? – to realize this: that in your station of life to become a purchaser of confiscated property, and of Pompey's property at that, would earn you the curses and loathing of the Roman people, the detestation of all gods and all human beings, now and for evermore? And then, think of the arrogance with which this debauchee took instant possession of the estate! The estate of a man who through his valour had made Rome more greatly feared, and by his justice had made her more greatly loved, by all the other nations upon earth.

So, abruptly seizing that great man's property, Antony wallowed in its midst. In his mighty satisfaction he gloated, like the character in a play who was poor and has suddenly become rich. But as some poet wrote, ‘ill-gotten gains will soon be squandered’. And the unbelievable – almost miraculous – fact is that he squandered Pompey's substantial fortune, not in a few months, but in a few days! In that house there were large quantities of wine, heavy pieces of the finest silver-ware, costly robes, ample and elegant furniture – all the splendid and abundant property of a man who, though not luxurious, had none the less been nobly endowed with possessions. Of these, within a few days, nothing was left! Charybdis, if she ever existed, was but a single animal. I swear that such a number of objects so widely scattered in so great a variety of places could hardly have been swallowed up, at such a speed, by the Ocean itself.

Nothing was locked up, nothing sealed, nothing listed. Whole store-rooms were disposed of as gifts, to unmitigated scoundrels. Actors and actresses grabbed everything they wanted. The place was packed with gamblers, crammed with inebriates. For days on end, in many parts of the house, the orgies of drinking went on and on. Gaming losses piled up; Antony's good luck did not always hold. On view were the richly worked counterpanes which had belonged to Pompey – now they were in the garrets of slaves, and on their beds!

So let it not surprise you that these riches were consumed with such speed. A profligacy so boundless as Antony's could have rapidly devoured not just a single man's patrimony, even one so abundant as Pompey's, but whole cities and whole kingdoms. And then the mansion and the parks that he took over! Your impudence, Antony, was preposterous. How could you have the effrontery to enter that house, to pass its most sacred threshold, to let the household gods of such an abode see you flaunting your degraded features? This was a home which no one, for many days and months, could gaze upon or pass by without weeping. As you linger on within its rooms, are you not overcome with shame?

You are brainless, I know: yet surely, even so, none of the things that are there can bring you enjoyment. When you look at those beaks of ships(9) in the hall, you cannot possibly imagine that the house you are entering is your own! That would be out of the question. For all your lack of sense and sensibility, still you are aware of what you yourself are, you know your own people and possessions. So I do not believe that, waking or sleeping, you can ever feel easy in your mind. Drink-sodden and demented though you are, the appearance in your dreams of that great man must surely rouse you in terror; and when you are awake, too, his recurring image must unhinge your mind still further.

I pity the very walls and roof of that house. For never before had the place witnessed anything but strict propriety – fine, high-minded tradition and virtue. As you know very well, Senators, Pompey was as praise-worthy in his domestic as in his international dealings; as admirable in his home life as in public affairs he was renowned. Yet nowadays, in his home, every dining-room is a taproom, every bedroom a brothel. Antony may deny this nowadays. Be tactful; do not investigate! For he has become economical. He has told that actress of his to gather up her own property and hand back his keys, as the Twelve Tables ordain – and he has driven her out. What a reputable citizen! What solid respectability! Here is the most honourable action of his whole life; he has divorced his actress.

How he harps on the phrase: ‘I, the consul Antony.’ That amounts to saying, ‘I, the consul, debauchee’, or ‘I, the consul, criminal’. For that is the significance of ‘Antony’. If there were any dignity in the name, I presume that your grandfather, too, would sometimes have called himself ‘the consul, Antony’. But he never did. So would your uncle, who was my colleague. Or has there been no Antony but yourself?

However, I pass over these offences, for they had no direct connexion with the part you played in ruining our country. I return to the latter – to the Civil War, which owed its birth, its rise, and its performance to yourself. True, your role in the war was insignificant. That was because you were frightened, or rather preoccupied with your sexual interests. But you had tasted Roman blood; indeed you had drunk deeply of it. At Pharsalus you were in the front rank. It was you who killed that fine nobleman, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus – as well as many others, fugitives from the battle-field. Caesar would perhaps have spared them, as he spared others. But you, on the other hand, hunted them down for your slaughter.

However, after these grand and glorious achievements, the war was still by no means ended. So why did you not follow Caesar to Africa? And then, when Caesar had returned from Africa, let us note the position and rank which he assigned to you. As general he had made you quaestor, when he was dictator you had become his Master of the Horse. You had begun the war. Every atrocity had been instigated by yourself; in each successive robbery you had been his associate. We have it on your own authority that his will adopted you as his son.(10) Yet what did he now do? He took action against you – the sums you owed for the house, and for its parks and the other property you acquired in the auction, were all demanded back from you by Caesar.

Your initial reply was vigorous enough: and, I admit – for I do not want to seem prejudiced against you – reasonably fair and just. ‘So Caesar claims money from me? Could I not just as reasonably claim money from him – or did he win the war without my help? No: nor could he have. It was I who provided him with the pretext for the Civil War, I who proposed those subversive laws, who forcibly resisted not merely the Roman people's consuls and generals, but the entire Senate and Roman people and the gods and altars and homes of our fathers – indeed Rome itself. Caesar did not conquer for himself alone; why should those who shared the work not share the plunder too?’ Reasonable enough. But reason was beside the point, for Caesar was the stronger. So he silenced you, and you and your guarantors received a visit from his soldiers.

And then, suddenly, out came that spectacular list of yours. Everyone laughed at the size of the list – at the varied and extensive catalogue of possessions, none of which （except a part of the Misenum property） the seller could call his own. But the auction itself was a melancholy sight. Few of Pompey's robes were now to be seen, and even they were covered with stains; a certain amount of his silver plate appeared in battered condition; and there were some Seedy-looking slaves. So the remains were meagre enough. If nothing at all had survived, our grief would have been less.

However, the heirs of Lucius Rubrius Casinas prevented the auction, and they were backed by a decree from Caesar. Antony, the wild spender, was embarrassed – he had nowhere to turn. And that was the precise moment of the arrest in Caesar's house （so the report went） of an assassin, dagger in hand – sent by you, Antony: and Caesar charged you openly with this in the Senate. Next, however, after allowing you a few days for payment – since you were so poor – he departed for Spain. Even then you did not follow him. So early a retirement, for so good a gladiator? A man who showed such timidity in standing up for his party （and that means standing up for himself） need surely inspire no fear in others!

In the end, some time afterwards, Antony did leave for Spain. But he proved unable to reach that country safely, he maintains. Then how did Publius Cornelius Dolabella get there? Either you ought not to have backed the cause you did, Antony, or, having done so, you ought to have stood up for your side to the end. Three times Caesar fought against his fellow-citizens: in Thessaly, in Africa, and in Spain. Dolabella took part in all these campaigns; in the Spanish war he was wounded. If you want to know my view, I wish he had not been there. Yet however blameworthy his initial decision, at least he deserves praise for consistent adherence thereafter. But what about yourself? That was the time when Pompey's sons were fighting to make their way home – a matter, surely, which concerned all Caesar's partisans. In other words, Pompey's sons were struggling to recover the shrines of their household gods, their sacred hearth and home, and the guardian spirits of their family – all of which you had seized. When, in order to recover what was theirs by law, they were obliged to use force, who would most justly （though indeed among such grievous wrongs to speak of justice is impossible） – who, I say, would be their principal target? The answer is, yourself, the taker of their property. So it was your battle, was it not, that Dolabella had to fight in Spain: while you stayed at Narbo, vomiting over your hosts’ tables.

And your return from Narbo! Antony actually wanted to know why I returned from my journey so suddenly. Now I have recently explained to the Senate the reasons for my return. I wanted, if I could, to be of service to the state even before the New Year. You ask how I returned. First, I arrived by daylight, not after dark. Secondly, I came in my boots and toga, not in Gallic sandals and a cloak. I see your eyes fixed upon me: in anger, it appears. But you ought, instead, to harbour friendly feelings if only you knew how ashamed I am – unlike yourself – of the depths to which you have fallen. Of all the offences that I have seen or heard of as committed by any single person this is the most deplorable. You, who claimed to have been Master of the Horse, who were standing for one of next year's consulships – or rather begging for one of them as a personal favour – off you went, in your Gallic sandals and mantle, speeding through the towns of Cisalpine Gaul: the towns in which, when we were candidates for consulships, we used to seek votes – in the days when these appointments went by votes and not by personal favour.

Note the frivolity of the man. When, at about three o'clock, he approached Rome and came to Red Rocks, he dived into a wretched little wine-shop, and, hiding there, drank and drank until evening. Then a two-wheeler took him rapidly into the city and he arrived at his house with his head veiled. ‘Who are you?’ said the porter. ‘A messenger from Antony,’ he replied. He was immediately taken to the lady for whose sake he had come, and he handed her a letter. As she read the contents, she wept; for it was amorously written – and the gist was that he had given up the actress and transferred all his love to this other lady. And as her weeping increased, this soft-hearted fellow could bear the sight no longer, but uncovered his head and threw his arms round her neck. Depraved character! No other epithet is adequate for this creature who plunged the city into terror by night, plunged Italy into a series of nerve-racking days, merely in order to make his sudden appearance before this woman. What a surprise this must have been to her: to see such behaviour from a male prostitute.

At home, then, you could lay claim to a love affair. But elsewhere there was an even nastier affair for you: to prevent Lucius Munatius Plancus from selling up your sureties. A tribune brought you before a public meeting, and you replied: ‘I have come here on a matter concerning my private property.’ This was regarded by everyone as an excellent joke.(11)

However, that is enough about trivialities; let us turn to more significant matters. When Caesar came back from Spain, you travelled a long way to meet him. You went quickly, and you returned quickly: Caesar could therefore note that, if not brave, you were at least energetic. Somehow or other you got on friendly terms with him again. Caesar was like that. He was extremely ready to offer his intimate friendship to anyone whom he knew to be corrupt and unbalanced, penniless, and hopelessly in debt. In these respects your credentials were excellent. So he gave orders that you should be made consul – with himself, moreover, as your colleague. One can only feel sympathy with Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who had been urged to stand, brought forward, and then fobbed off. Everyone knows how deceitfully both of you treated Dolabella in this matter. Caesar induced him to be a candidate for the consulship, and then, after promising and virtually granting him election, blocked the proceedings and transferred the post to himself. And you supported this treachery.

The first of January arrived. We were made to attend the Senate. Dolabella attacked Antony – with much greater fullness and preparation than I do now. And heavens, the things that Antony himself said in his rage! Caesar indicated his intention, before his forthcoming departure for the east, of ordering that Dolabella should become consul in his own place. And yet they deny that the man who was always acting and speaking like that was a totalitarian monarch! Well, after Caesar had said that, this splendid augur Antony announced that his priesthood empowered him to employ the auspices in order to obstruct or invalidate the proceedings of the Assembly. And he declared that this is what he would do. But first note the man's unbelievable stupidity. For your priestly office of augur, Antony, was what you relied upon for entitlement to perform those actions. Yet, as consul alone, without the added possession of your augurship, your entitlement would still have been just as good. Indeed, was your consulship not actually a better qualification? For we augurs are only empowered to report omens, whereas the consuls and other state officials have the right actually to watch the heavens.

Very well, you bungled the matter through inexperience. We cannot expect good judgement from someone who is never sober. But just observe the man's impudence. Many months earlier he had declared in the Senate that he would either use the auspices to prevent the Assembly from meeting to elect Dolabella, or alternatively would act as he finally did. Now, who on earth can divine what flaws there are going to be in the auspices, except the man who has already formally set about watching the heavens? Which cannot legally be done during an election – and if anyone has been watching the heavens previously, he is obliged to make his report not after but before the election has begun. But Antony is as ignorant as he is shameless: the insolence his actions display is as unbounded as his ignorance of what an augur ought to do. And yet cast your minds back to his consulship, from that day onwards until the fifteenth of March. No servant was ever so humble and abject. He could do nothing himself; everything had to be begged for. You could see him poking his head into the back of his litter asking his colleague(12) for the favours Antony wanted to market.

So the day of Dolabella's election arrived. The right of the first vote is settled by lot; Antony said nothing. The result of this ballot was announced. He remained silent. The first class was called to vote, its vote announced; then the six centuries which voted next, then the second class – all this in a shorter time than it takes to tell the story. Then, when the proceedings were over, came our brilliant augur's announcement – you would say he was Gaius Laelius himself: ‘the meeting is adjourned until another day’. What monstrous impudence! You had neither seen, nor understood, nor heard, any omen whatever. You did not even claim to have watched the heavens; you do not today. So the flaw in question was the one which you had foreseen and foretold as long ago as the first of January! In other words, you undoubtedly falsified the auspices. You employed religion to constrain an Assembly of the Roman People. You announced unfavourable omens, augur to augur, consul to consul: and you did so fraudulently. May the calamitous consequences fall not upon Rome, but upon your own head.

That is all I shall say, in case I should seem to be invalidating the actions of Dolabella – which must, at some time, be referred to our Board of Augurs. But mark the man's audacious arrogance. As long as it is your pleasure, Antony, the election of Dolabella as consul was irregular. Then you change your mind: the procedure in regard to the auspices had nothing wrong with it after all! If an augur's report in the terms you employed has no meaning, then admit that when you demanded an adjournment you were drunk. If, on the other hand, the words have any meaning at all, then I request you, as my fellow-augur, to tell me what their meaning is.

But I must make sure that this survey of Antony's numerous exploits does not by accident omit one outstandingly brilliant action. So let us turn to the festival of the Lupercalia. Look, Senators! He cannot hide his anxiety. Do you see how upset he looks – pale, and sweating? Never mind, so long as he is not sick, as he was in the Minucian Colonnade. How does he defend his scandalous behaviour at the Lupercalia? I should like to hear – and thereby learn the results of that generous fee and those lands at Leontini, which he gave his teacher of oratory.

Upon the dais on a golden chair, wearing a purple robe and a wreath, was seated your colleague. You mounted the dais. You went up to Caesar's chair – Lupercus though you were, you should have remembered you were consul too – and you displayed a diadem. From all over the Forum there were groans. Where did the diadem come from? You had not just found one on the ground and picked it up. No, you had brought it from your own house! This was crime, deliberate and premeditated. Then you placed the diadem on his head: the people groaned. He took it off – and they applauded.

So, criminal, you were ready, alone among all that gathering, to propose that there should be a king and autocrat at Rome; to transform your fellow-consul into your lord and master; and to inflict upon the Roman people this ultimate test of its capacity to suffer and endure. You even tried to move him to pity – when you hurled yourself at his feet as a suppliant. What were you begging for? To become his slave? For your-self alone that would be a fitting plea, seeing that from boyhood onwards there was nothing which you had not allowed to be done to you. For your own person, adjustment to slavery was easy. But from ourselves, and from the people of Rome, you had no such mandate.

What glorious eloquence that was – when you made that speech with no clothes on! Offensive misbehaviour could go no further. Nothing could have been more thoroughly deserying of the severest possible punishment. Are you a slave, cowering in expectation of the lash? If you have any feelings at all, you must be feeling the lash now: and my account of these events must surely be drawing blood. Far be it from me to detract from the glory of our noble liberators. Yet such is my grief that I must speak out. Seeing that the man who rejected the diadem was killed, and was, by general consent, killed justly, it is appalling that the man who made him the offer should still be alive. In the public records, what is more, under the heading of the Lupercalia, he even caused the following entry to be made: ‘At the bidding of the people, Antony, consul, offered Caesar, perpetual dictator, the kingship: Caesar refused.’

So I feel no surprise when you disturb the peace, when you shun Rome and the very daylight itself, when you drink with thieving riffraft from early in one day until dawn of the next. For you, no refuge can be safe. Where could you possibly find a place in any community owning laws and lawcourts – since these are precisely what you have done your utmost to abolish and to replace by tyranny? Was this why Tarquin was expelled, why Spurius Cassius Vecellinus and Spurius Maelius and Marcus Manlius Capitolinus were slain: to allow Antony, centuries after they were dead, to commit the forbidden evil of setting up a king at Rome?

Let us return to the auspices, the subject on which Caesar intended to address the Senate on the fifteenth of March. Antony, I must ask you this: what would you then have said? You came here today （or so I heard） primed to rebut my assertion that the auspices – which unless declared invalid require scrupulous obedience – were employed by you in a fraudulent manner. However, that day's business was eliminated – by our national destiny. Did Caesar's death also eliminate your opinion concerning the auspices?

But now I have come to that time which I must discuss before the subject upon which I had embarked. On that glorious day, you fled panic-stricken – your criminal conscience certain of impending death. You slunk surreptitiously home. Men interested in your survival looked after you; for they hoped you would behave sanely. My prophecies of the future have always fallen upon deaf ears. Yet how completely right they have proved! On the Capitol, when our noble liberators desired me to go to you and urge you to uphold the Republican government, I told them this: that as long as you were still frightened you would promise anything, but as soon as your fears ceased you would be yourself again. When, therefore, the other former consuls were continually in and out of your house, I held to my opinion. And I did not see you on that day or the next. For I believed that good Romans could come to no understanding, could have no association, with a totally unprincipled enemy.

After two days had passed, I came to the Temple of Tellus – reluctantly enough even then, since armed men locked all its approaches. What a day that was for you, Antony! Even though you have abruptly turned against me, yet I am sorry for you – because you have subsequently done so little justice to your own good fame. If only you had been able to maintain the attitude you showed on that day, heaven knows, you would have been a hero! And the peace, which was pledged on that occasion by the cession of an aristocratic hostage – the young grandson of Marcus Fulvius Bambalio – would be ours.

Fear made you a good citizen. However, as an instructor of good behaviour, fear lacks permanency; and your unscrupulousness – which never leaves you unless you are afraid – soon perverted you into evil ways again. And indeed even at that time, when people （other than myself） had an excellent opinion of you, your manner of presiding over the tyrant's funeral – if funeral that ceremony can be called – was outrageous. For you were the man who pronounced that grandiose eulogy, that lachrymose appeal to morality. You lit the torches which charred the very body of Caesar, which burnt down the house of Lucius Bellienus. You, Antony, unleashed against our homes those ruffians, slaves most of them, whose ferocity we had to repel with our own hands.

And yet you seemed to have wiped off the soot. For upon the Capitol, in the days that followed, the resolutions that you proposed before the Senate were excel-lent. I mean those declaring that, from the fifteenth of March onwards, there should be no publication of any announcement conferring exemptions from taxes, or similar favours. As regards these exemptions, and the men in exile, you yourself remember what you said. But the finest thing of all was that you abolished from the constitution, for ever, the title of dictator. On account of men's recent fears of dictators you decided to abolish, once and for all, the whole institution: so tremendous was the hatred of this tyranny which had apparently taken hold of you.

So to other men the government seemed securely established – though to me things looked differently, for with you at the helm I expected all manner of shipwreck. Was I wrong? Could a man, for very long, remain unlike himself? Members of the Senate, what happened next you saw for yourselves. Announcements were posted up all over the Capitol: tax exemptions were put on sale, not merely to individuals but to whole peoples. Citizenship was granted not to single persons only but to entire provinces. If these decisions are going to stand, it means the downfall of our state. Senators, you have lost complete provinces. In his own domestic market, this man has slashed the revenues of Rome. He has slashed the Roman empire itself.

Those seven hundred million sesterces, recorded in the account-books of the Temple of Ops – where are they now? The origins of that treasure store were tragic enough. Nevertheless, if the money was not going to be returned to its rightful owners, it could be used to save us from property-tax. But how do you account for the fact, Antony, that whereas on the fifteenth of March you owed four million sesterces, you had ceased to owe this sum by the first of April?

Your people sold countless concessions: and you were well aware of them. Nevertheless, the decrees posted up on the Capitol did include one excellent measure. This concerned a very good friend of Rome, King Deiotarus. Yet all who saw the document could not help laughing, in spite of their grief. For no man has ever hated another so much as Caesar hated Deiotarus. He felt quite as much hatred for Deiotarus as he felt for this Senate, and the Roman knights, and the citizens of Massilia, and every other person in whom he discerned a love for the Roman nation and its people. In his lifetime Caesar never treated Deiotarus fairly or kindly, either to his face or in his absence. Yet we are invited to believe that, when Caesar was dead, Deiotarus gained his favours! When they were together, and Deiotarus was his host, Caesar had summoned him, demanded an account of his resources, planted a Greek agent in his principality, and deprived him of Armenia, which the Roman Senate had added to his kingdom. And now we are asked to believe that what the living Caesar had confiscated, the dead Caesar gave back.

And the way in which he is stated to have expressed himself! At one point, apparently, he described this restoration as ‘fair’; at another as ‘not unfair’. A peculiar way of putting the matter! I was not with Deiotarus, but I always supported him; whereas Caesar never once said that anything we asked for on his behalf seemed to him fair.

A bond for ten million sesterces was negotiated at Antony's house in the women's suite – where a lot of selling went on, and goes on still. The negotiators were the envoys of Deiotarus. They were good men, but timid and inexperienced. I and the king's other friends were not asked for our views. About this bond, I suggest that you should consider carefully what you are to do. For, when he heard of Caesar's death, the king himself – with no thought for any memorandum Caesar might have left – recovered what belonged to him of his own accord, by the strength of his own hand. Deiotarus was wise. He knew that this had always been the law: that when tyrants who had stolen things were killed, the men whose property they had stolen take them back. So no jurist, not even the man whose only client is yourself and who is now representing you, will say that there is a debt on that bond for what Deiotarus had recovered before the bond was executed. For he did not buy these possessions from you: before you could sell him his own property, he took it himself. He was a man! How contemptible, on the other hand, are we, who uphold the actions of someone whose memory we hate.

Of the countless memoranda, the innumerable alleged examples of Caesar's handwriting which have been brought forward, I shall say nothing. We can view their forgers, selling their efforts as openly as though these were programmes of gladiatorial shows. Today, as a result, the house where Antony lives is piled high with such enormous heaps of money that they have to be weighed out instead of counted. But this greed has its blind spots. For example one of the recently displayed notices exempts from taxation the wealthiest communities of Crete. This notice decrees that Crete shall cease to be a province ‘when the governorship of Marcus Junius Brutus comes to an end’. But where is your sanity, Antony? Are you fit to be at large? How could there possibly be a decree by Caesar exempting Crete ‘when the tenure of Brutus comes to an end’, seeing that in Caesar's lifetime Brutus had not yet even formed this connexion with Crete at all? However, do not suppose, Senators, that this consideration prevented the decree from being put on sale – indeed it has resulted in your losing your Cretan province! There was never a thing, provided a buyer was available, that Antony was not ready to sell.

And this law, Antony, which you posted up about recalling exiles – I suppose Caesar composed that too? Far be it from me to persecute anyone who is in trouble. My only complaints are these. First, that the men recalled from exile because Caesar had singled them out as especially deserving have been discredited by this new batch. Secondly, I cannot see why you do not treat everyone alike. Not more than three or four are now left unrecalled, and I do not understand why men whose plight is the same do not qualify for the same degree of your indulgence: I refer to your uncle and those whom you have treated like him. When you legislated about the others, you refused to include him. Yet at the same time you encouraged him to stand for election as censor! Indeed, you even encouraged his election campaign – thus arousing universal ridicule and protest. But, having done so, why did you refrain from holding his election? Was it because a tribune had announced an ill-omened flash of lightning? When you personally are involved, the auspices are immaterial. Your scruples are reserved for when your friends are concerned. And then, while your uncle was standing for membership of the Board of Seven, you deserted him again. Do not tell us that this was because of objections by some formidable member to whom you could not say no, for fear of your life! If you had any family loyalty, you ought to have respected Gaius Antonius like a father. Instead, you loaded him with insults.

What is more, you threw his daughter out of the house – Antonia your cousin. You had looked around and made an alternative arrangement. And not content with that, though no woman could have been more blameless, you even charged her with adultery! You could hardly have sunk further. Yet you were still not satisfied. On January the first, at a full meeting of the Senate at which your uncle was present, you had the audacity to declare that this was why you regarded Publius Cornelius Dolabella as an enemy: because you had learnt of his adultery with your wife and cousin. It would be difficult to say which was the most outrageous – your audacity in making such allegations before the Senate; your unscrupulousness in directing them against Dolabella; your indecency in speaking in such terms before her father; or your brutality in employing against that poor woman such filthy, godforsaken language.

But let us return to the documents supposed to be in Caesar's handwriting. How did you verify them, Antony? To preserve the peace, the Senate had confirmed Caesar's acts – the acts which were truly his, not those which Antony alleged were his. Now, where do all these memoranda spring from? On whose authority are they produced? If they are forgeries, why are they approved? If genuine, why does money have to be paid for them? The decision had been taken that, from the first of June onwards, you should examine Caesar's acts, with the assistance of an advisory board. What was this board, and which of its members did you ever convene? And as for your awaiting the first of June, no doubt that was the day when you returned from your tour of the exsoldiers’ settlements: for you brought an armed guard to surround you.

That trip of yours in April and May, when you have even tried to found a settlement at Capua, what a splendid affair it was! We all know how you escaped from that town – or rather very nearly did not escape. And you are still uttering threats against Capua. I wish you would try to put them into practice: then that ‘very nearly’ could be struck out. Your progress was truly magnificent. Of your elaborate banquets and frantic drinking I say nothing; all that only damaged yourself. But we were damaged too. Even when, at an earlier date, the Campanian territory had been exempted from taxation, we regarded this as a grave blow to our national interests – although, on that occasion, soldiers were its recipients. But when you distributed land there, the beneficiaries were your fellow-diners and fellow-gamblers. Members of the Senate, these latest settlers in Campania were nothing but actors and actresses. Equally objectionable was the settlement at Leontini; seeing that at one time the crops in that area, like those of Campania, were renowned for their fertile and abundant contribution to the Roman domains of which they formed an integral part. You gave your doctor 1,875 acres. Whatever vast sum, one may ask, would you have given him if he had cured your mind? Your oratorical trainer received 1,250: what on earth would the total have been if he had succeeded in making a speaker of you?

But let us return to your journey, and to its effects on Italy. You founded a settlement of ex-soldiers at Casilinum, where Caesar had founded one before. About Capua, you had written asking for my advice; but I should have sent the same reply about Casilinum. You inquired whether it was legal to plant a new settlement where there was one already. I replied that the establishment of a new settlement, where there existed an earlier one duly founded in accordance with the auspices, was not legitimate – though I also pointed out that new settlers could be added to the old foundation. In spite of this, you had the arrogance to upset all the provisions of the auspices and plant a settlement at Casilinum, even though another settlement had been established there only a few years previously. You raised your standard; you marked out the boundaries with a plough. Indeed, your ploughshare nearly grazed the very gate of Capua, and the territory of that most flourishing settlement suffered grievous encroachment at your hands.

Fresh from this violation of religious observance, you rushed elsewhere: for you had designs on the property of the devout and high-principled Marcus Terentius Varro at Casinum. But what was the legal or moral sanction for this project? The same, you will say, as had enabled you to displace from their estates the heirs of Lucius Rubrius Casinas and Lucius Turselius – and countless others too. Now, if you had occupied these properties as a result of an auction, we may allow auctions their proper rights. We may concede rights also to written instructions, provided that they were Caesar's and not yours – and provided that they recorded you as a debtor, instead of releasing you from your debts!

As for Varro's farm at Casinum, who claims that this was ever sold at all? Did anyone ever see the auctioneer's spear or hear his voice? You sent someone to Alexandria, you say, to buy the place from Caesar. It was too much to expect that you should await his return! But no one ever heard that any part of Varro's property had been confiscated; and yet there was no man whose welfare was of more general concern. Now, if the truth is that Caesar wrote ordering you to hand the estate back, no words are fit to describe the outrage that you perpetrated. Just call off, for a spell, those armed men whom we see all round us. Do that, and you will very soon learn this lesson: whatever the justification for Caesar's auctions, your own deplorable conduct is on quite another level – for, once the armed men are gone, you will find yourself thrown outside Varro's gates. And it will not be the owner alone who expels you. Not one of his friends, his neighbours, his visitors, or his agents will fail to take a hand.

Day after day, at Varro's mansion, you continued your disgusting orgies. From seven in the morning onwards, there was incessant drinking, gambling, and vomiting. What a tragic fate for that house; and ‘what an ill-matched master’!

Though how could Antony be described as its master? Let us call him occupant. Well then, he was an occupant who matched it ill. For Marcus Varro had chosen this place not for indulgence, but for retirement and study. Those walls had witnessed noble discussions, noble thoughts, noble writings; laws for the Roman people, the history of our ancestors, the principles of all wisdom and all learning. When you, on the other hand, became the lodger – for house-holder I will not call you – the house rang with the din of drunkards, the pavements swam with wine, the walls dripped with it. On view were young free-born Roman youths consorting with paid boys; Roman matrons with prostitutes.

From Casinum, from Aquinum, from Interamna, came men to greet Antony. But no one was allowed in. And that was entirely proper, for in his degradation the emblems of office were a complete anomaly. When he left for Rome and approached Aquinum, quite a large crowd came to meet him, since the town has a considerable population. But he was carried through the streets in a covered litter, like a dead man. The people of Aquinum had no doubt been foolish to come; yet they did live beside the road on which he was passing by. What about the men of Anagnia? They, on the other hand, lived away from his path. But they too came down to greet him, on the supposition that he was consul. The incredible fact is – though I as a neighbour can vouch that everyone noticed it at the time – he did not return a single greeting. This was especially remarkable since he had with him two men of Anagnia, Mustela to look after his swords and Laco in charge of his drinking cups.

There is no need to recall to you the threats and insults with which he assailed the population of Teanum Sidicinum and harassed the inhabitants of Puteoli. This was because they had adopted Cassius and the Brutuses as their patrons. Their choice had been dictated by enthusiastic approval, sound judgement, friendly feelings, and personal, affection – not by force and violence, which compelled others to choose you and Minucius Basilus, and others like you, whom no one could voluntartly choose as their patrons. Even as dependants you would be undesirable.

Meantime, while you were away, your colleague(13) had a great day when he overturned, in the Forum, the funeral monument which you had persistently treated with reverence. When you were told of this, you fainted: everyone who was with you agrees that this is so. What happened afterwards I do not know. I suppose terror and armed violence had the final word. For you pulled your colleague down from heaven; you made him quite unlike himself – to say you made him your own replica would be going too far.

And that return of yours to Rome! The whole city was in an uproar. Lucius Cornelius Cinna's excess of power, Sulla's domination we remembered; Caesar's autocratic monarchy was fresh in our memories. In those days there had been swords perhaps, but they had stayed in their sheaths, and there were not many of them. Your procession, on the other hand, was totally barbaric. Your followers were in battle order, with drawn swords, and whole litter-loads of shields. And yet, Senators, familiarity with such spectacles has inured us to the shock.

The decision had been taken that the Senate should meet on the first of June, and we did our best to attend. But we encountered intimidation and were abruptly forced to retire. Antony, however, feeling no need of a Senate, missed none of us; on the contrary, our departure pleased him. Without delay he embarked on his extraordinary exploits. He, who had defended Caesar's memoranda for his own personal profit, suppressed Caesar's laws – good laws, too – in order to upset the constitution. He lengthened the tenures of provincial governorships. Instead of protecting Caesar's acts, as he should have, he annulled them: those relating to national and private affairs alike. Now in the national sphere nothing has greater weight than a law; while in private affairs the most valid of all things is a will. Antony abolished both – laws, with or without notice; wills, although even the humblest citizens have always respected them. The statues, the pictures, which Caesar, along with his gardens, had bequeathed to the people of Rome as his heirs – now they all went to Pompey's gardens, or Scipio's mansion: removed by Antony.

And yet, Antony, you are so attentive to Caesar's memory; you love the dead man, do you not? Now, the greatest honours he ever received were the sacred couch, the image, the gable, the priest for his worship. Because of these honours, on the analogy of the priesthoods of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, Antony is the priest of the divine Julius. Yet you delay, Antony, to assume these duties: you have not been inducted. Why? Choose a day, choose someone to induct you. We are colleagues; no one will refuse. Loathsome man! – equally loathsome as priest of a tyrant, or priest of a dead human being!

And now I have to ask you a question: Do you not know what day this is? Yesterday, in case it escaped your notice, was the fourth day of the Roman Games in the Circus. Now you yourself moved in the Assembly a proposal that a fifth day also should be added to these Games in Caesar's honour. Why, then, are we not in our official robes? Why do we allow the honour which your law conferred on Caesar to be neglected? You were prepared to concede, apparently, that this holy day should be polluted by the addition of a thanks-giving, but not by a sacred couch ceremony. But you should either disregard religious observances altogether, or maintain them invariably.

You ask whether I like this couch, gable, priest of the divinity. I like none of them. But you, who defend the acts of Caesar, cannot possibly justify the maintenance of some of them and the neglect of others. Unless, that is, you are prepared to admit that your own profit, rather than Caesar's honour, is your guide. Come, answer these arguments! I look forward to your eloquence. I knew your grandfather; he was a very fine orator. And you certainly speak with even greater freedom than he did. For he never made a public speech naked! – whereas you, straightforward fellow that you are, have let us all have a look at your torso. Are you going to let me have a reply? Are you even going to venture to open your mouth? Indeed, I wonder whether in the whole of my long speech you will find anything at all which you can pluck up the courage to answer.

But let us leave the past. Your behaviour today, at the present day and moment at which I am speaking – defend that if you can! Explain why the Senate is surrounded by a ring of men with arms; why my listeners include gangsters of yours, sword in hand; why the doors of the temple of Concord are closed; why you bring into the Forum the world's most savage people, Ituraeans, with their bows and arrows. I do these things in self-defence, says Antony. But surely a thousand deaths are better than the inability to live in one's own community without an armed guard. A guard is no protection, I can tell you! The protection you need is not weapons, but the affection and good-will of your fellow-citizens. The people of Rome will seize your weapons and wrench them from you. I pray that we shall not perish before that is done! But however you behave towards ourselves, believe me, these are methods which cannot preserve you for long. Your wife – she is no miser, and this reference implies no disrespect – is already taking too long to pay the Roman people her third instalment.(14)

Our country does not lack men to place in charge of its affairs. Wherever they are, they are our national defence, indeed our very nation. Rome has avenged itself: but it has not yet recovered. However, that there are young noblemen ready to leap to its defence is beyond doubt. They may choose to retire for a spell, seeking quiet, but Rome will call them back.

The name of peace is beautiful – and peace itself is a blessing. Yet peace and slavery are very different things. Peace is freedom tranquilly enjoyed, slavery is the worst of all evils, to be repelled, if need be, at the cost of war and even of death. Even if those liberators of ours have withdrawn from our sight, they have left behind them the example of their deeds. They achieved what no one had ever achieved before. Lucius Junius Brutus made war against Tarquin, who was king at a time when kingship was lawful at Rome. Spurius Cassius Vecellinus, Spurius Maelius, and Marcus Manlius Capitolinus were killed because of the suspicion that they aimed at autocratic monarchy. But here, for the first time, are men raising their swords to kill one who was not merely aiming at monarchy, but actually reigning as monarch. Their action was super-humanly noble in itself, and it is set before us for our imitation: all the more conspicuously, because heaven itself is scarcely immense enough to hold the glory which this deed has made theirs. The consciousness of a noble achievement was reward enough; yet no one, I believe, should spurn that further reward which they have also won – immortality.

The day you ought to remember, Antony, is that day on which you abolished the dictatorship for ever. Let your memory dwell on the rejoicing of the Senate and people of Rome on that occasion. Contrast it with the haggling with which you and your friends busy your-selves now. Then you will realize that gain is a different thing from glory. Just as there are diseases, or dull-nesses of the senses, which prevent certain people from being able to taste food: so, by the same token, debauchees, misers, and criminals are unattracted by glory.

However, if the hope of being praised cannot entice you to behave decently, is fear equally incapable of scaring you out of your repulsive behaviour? I know the lawcourts cause you no alarm. If that is due to innocence, you are to be commended. But if the reason is your reliance upon force, do you not understand this: that the man whose imperviousness to judicial processes is due to such a cause has pressing reason to feel terrors of quite another kind? For if you are not afraid of brave men and good Romans – seeing that armed satellites keep them away from your person – believe me, your own supporters will not stand you for very much longer. To be afraid of danger from one's own people night and day is no sort of a life; and you can hardly have men who owe you more, in terms of benefactions, than some of Caesar's killers owed to him.

However, you and he are not in any way comparable! His character was an amalgamation of genius, method, memory, culture, thoroughness, intellect, and industry. His achievements in war, though disastrous for our country, were none the less mighty. After working for many years to become king and autocrat, he surmounted tremendous efforts and perils and achieved his purpose. By entertainments, public works, food-distributions, and banquets, he seduced the ignorant populace; his friends he bound to his allegiance by rewarding them, his enemies by what looked like mercy. By a mixture of intimidation and indulgence, he inculcated in a free community the habit of servitude.

Your ambition to reign, Antony, certainly deserves to be compared with Caesar's. But in not a single other respect are you entitled to the same comparison. For the many evils which Caesar inflicted upon our country have at least yielded certain benefits. To take a single example, the people of Rome have now discovered what degrees of confidence they can repose in this or that person. They have discovered who are fit to be entrusted with their fortunes, and who, on the other hand, need to be shunned. Do these facts never occur to you? Do you never understand the significance of this: that brave men have now learnt to appreciate the noble achievement, the wonderful benefaction, the glorious renown, of killing a tyrant? When men could not endure Caesar, will they endure you? Mark my words, this time there will be crowds competing to do the deed. They will not wait for a suitable opportunity – they will be too impatient.

Antony: some time, at long last, think of your country. Think of the people from whom you come – not the people with whom you associate. Let your relationship with myself be as you please: but your country I pray you to make your friend once again. However, your behaviour is a matter for yourself to decide. As for mine, I will declare how I shall conduct myself. When I was a young man I defended our state: in my old age I shall not abandon it. Having scorned the swords of Catiline, I shall not be intimidated by yours. On the contrary, I would gladly offer my own body, if my death could redeem the freedom of our nation – if it could cause the long-suffering people of Rome to find final relief from its labours. For if, nearly twenty years ago, I declared in this very temple that death could not come prematurely to a man who had been consul, how much greater will be my reason to say this again now that I am old. After the honours that I have been awarded, Senators, after the deeds that I have done, death actually seems to me desirable. Two things only I pray for. One, that in dying I may leave the Roman people free – the immortal gods could grant me no greater gift. My other prayer is this: that no man's fortunes may fail to correspond with his services to our country!

————————————————————

(1) Fulvia, successively the wife of Publius Clodius, Curio, and Antony.

(2) Phormio and Gnatho were parasites in the Phormio and Eunuch respectively, comedies by Terence （c．195-159 BC）. Ballio was the pimp in The Cheat by Plautus （c. 254-184 BC）.

(3) A quotation from Cicero's much maligned poem On his Consulate. The verse went on: ‘let laurel yield to honest worth.’

(4) Publius Servilius Casca, who struck the 昀 rst blow against Caesar, and his brother Gaius.

(5)  As city-praetor he was not allowed to be away from Rome for more than ten nights.

(6)  i. e. killed Antony too.

(7) It was regarded as a slight not to be mentioned in a friend's will. Lawyers, who were not allowed to accept fees, particularly expected this sort of reward.

(8)  On 2 January 49 bc, Antony and another tribune had vetoed a proposal in the Senate that unless Caesar disbanded his army before a named date he should be declared a public enemy. Caesar crossed the Rubicon eight days later.

(9)  Captured by Pompey in his campaign against the pirates in 67 BC.

(10)  It had been a blow for Antony when Caesar's published will reserved this distinction for Octavian, appointing Antony as one of the secondary heirs only.

(11)  The joke was that Antony was notoriously impoverished, a disgrace according to Roman ideas.

(12)  Caesar, his fellow-consul.

(13)  Dolabella, now consul.

(14)  Her three instalments were her three husbands （参见此处）.

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阴谋论：英汉对照/（意）马基雅维利著；孙平华，方丹丹译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-4348-2

Ⅰ．①阴…　Ⅱ．①马…　②孙…　③方…　Ⅲ．①政治哲学—研究—英、汉　Ⅳ．①D0

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004．In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20．A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related，even smaller series in Germany．The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students．The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development．

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great non-fiction classics．For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction，extensive notes，a bibliography and so on．While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful，I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which，for example，Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense．

This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand，some important context might be missing．For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence．The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important．The sense of anger in Thomas Paine，of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin，of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives，sometimes for centuries，in many different countries．Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics，economics，intellectual lives，social planning，religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books，first written down long ago．

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve．In different parts of the world different writers would be included．In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others．In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere．We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential，but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas．Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin，Michel de Montaigne to Seneca．But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series！ But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves．We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books．

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

阴谋论

军队、军纪和兵种

与战争相关的错误

罗马在和平时与战时同相邻国家和城市的关系

对战略、策略、新装备和纪律的各种评论

给征战中统帅们的建议

人民的利益是至高无上的法律

Contents

On conspiracies

The army，its discipline and component parts

Mistakes often made in connection with war

Rome's dealings with neighbouring states and cities in peace and war

Sundry remarks on strategy，tactics，new devices and discipline

Advice to generals in the field

Salus populi，suprema lex

返回总目录

译者导读

尼可罗·马基雅维利（Niccolò Machiavelli，1469—1527），意大利政治哲学家、音乐家、诗人和浪漫喜剧剧作家，意大利文艺复兴时期的重要人物。马基雅维利出生在一个没落的贵族家庭，家境贫寒，没有接受过多少正规教育，通过自学，使自己博古通今、多才多艺。他于1498年出任佛罗伦萨共和国第二国务厅的长官，兼任共和国执政委员会秘书，1505年担任国民军九人指挥委员会秘书。1511年教皇的军队攻陷佛罗伦萨，废黜执政官，马基雅维利丧失了一切职务。1527年，美第奇家族倒台，马基雅维利被逐，郁悒成疾，58 岁即去世。

《阴谋论》是马基雅维利关于阴谋论和军队、战争、战略等领域思想认识的一个合集，该合集用意大利语写成，1513年首次出版。马基雅维利曾于1498年进入十人执政团服务，随后奉命出国担任外交官员，期间积累的工作经验为其政治军事著作提供了丰富的经验基础。整个合集大量引用罗马时期的事例，来论述其政治军事领域的思想。

《阴谋论》合集共分七个部分。第一部分主要是其关于阴谋论的认识，通过对阴谋的成因、实施、失败因素以及防范措施的论述，旨在提醒统治者如何阻止阴谋。第二部分主要介绍了其关于军队、军纪和各兵种方面的认识，通过对比引证，强调了步兵在战争中的重要性，论述了炮兵如何在战争中发挥作用。第三部分主要驳斥了关于城堡利弊、利用城市内讧夺取城市等一些与战争有关的错误认识。第四部分引用罗马共和国在平时与战时和相邻国家城市关系的经验教训，旨在唤起统治者的注意。第五部分通过引用罗马共和国的战争事例，阐述其对战争、策略、新装备和纪律等方面的一些评论。第六部分主要在大战前的小规模战斗、如何取得军队信任、熟悉地形等方面，为征战中的统帅们提出一些建议。第七部分通过对于战争欺诈、誓死卫国、城下之盟的论述，印证其人民利益至高无上的思想。整个合集作于其著名论著《君主论》之后，是在美第奇家族重新掌权后马基雅维利失意之时所作，作为政治军事领域的重要图书，被列入企鹅口袋书“伟大的思想”系列。

阴谋论

引言

既然阴谋会导致对君主和个人同样危险的后果，那么我也就无法略去不谈其性质，毕竟有更多君主由于阴谋而非公开战争丧失了性命和政权，因为能对一个君主宣战的不过寥寥几个人，但是策划谋反的却可能是任何人。另一方面，在任何一项事业里，没有比个人参与阴谋更危险或者更轻率鲁莽的事情了，因为整个过程都充满困难和危险。因此，尽管人们已有许多阴谋尝试，但达到目的的却寥寥无几。为了使君主们了解如何防范此类危险，为了使个人三思而行并学会安于天命、臣服君主，我将对阴谋进行细致的探讨，不会遗漏任何与君王或个人相关的重要事项。事实上，克奈里乌斯·塔西佗曾经说过这样一句金玉良言：“人应尊重过去，更应着眼当下，即使内心渴求明主，也必须接受自己的君王——不论他们是怎样的人。”毋庸置疑，那些反其道而行之的人常常给他们自己和他们的国家带来灾难。

在开始讨论此话题之前，第一个需要思考的问题是：这些阴谋的产生是针对谁？事实证明，阴谋的产生要么是针对其祖国，要么是针对君主。此文中，我会对这两种类型的阴谋分别进行探讨，因为以将城池移送给围城的敌人手里为目的而制造的阴谋，或者因某种理由制造的与此相似的阴谋，其他地方已言之足矣。

成因

在此论述第一部分，我们先谈谈针对君主的阴谋。首先，我们对其众多成因提出疑问。但其实有一个成因比其他所有成因都更为重要，那就是君主所激起的普遍仇恨，因为当其激起了这种普遍仇恨之时，我们就能预料到，那些曾被他大大冒犯的人将会寻求报复。而当这些人发现君主已经激起了人们的普遍憎恶，他们的报复欲望就更强烈了。因此，君主应当避免招致此类个人恩怨，鉴于别处已经论及如何避免个人恩怨，此处不再赘述。之所以提及，是因为若君主真有意提防，那么仅仅对于个人施以惩罚将会招致较少的敌意。原因如下：首先，我们很少遇到这样的人，对某种不公正行为无比愤慨，从而身犯险境去实施报复；其次，如果他们确实想这么做且已具备必需的能力，那么他们也会因为君主受人民拥戴而行动受限。

伤害可能波及人的财产、生命或荣誉。杀戮的威胁要比杀戮本身更危险。的确，威胁要进行杀戮是极其危险的，然而杀戮却毫无危险，因为死人不可能思量着复仇，而那些幸存者却通常促使你做复仇的思虑。但是，那些已受到威胁并意识到不得不做些什么或者投身其中的人，对君主而言已构成真正的威胁，我们将引用实例说明。

除去那些由求生本能驱使的行动实例，对人的财产或者荣誉的伤害是最容易激怒人的，对此君主应当警惕，因为不论他如何掠夺一个人的财产，也无法确保那人丧失复仇的能力；不论他如何剥夺一个人的荣誉，也无法让那人打消报复的念头。在人们被剥夺的众多荣誉中，最重要的是女人的荣誉，其次是对男人人品的蔑视。正因如此，帕萨尼亚斯才揭竿而起反对马其顿国王菲利普；也正因如此，才有许多人拿起武器反对其君主。在我们的时代，如果卢西奥·柏兰提没有把他女儿嫁给西恩纳暴君潘多佛为妻，然后又把她带走，那么他就不会被迫密谋反对潘多佛了，这点我们会在适当时候详述。导致帕西对美第奇谋反的主要原因在于美第奇下令夺走了乔瓦尼·邦热美的继承权。

导致人们密谋反对君主的另外一个原因，也是非常有力的一个原因，就是他们收复已被君主攫为己有的国土的欲求。正因如此，布鲁特斯和卡修斯才转而反对恺撒，也正因如此，有那么多人密谋反对法拉里斯、狄奥尼修斯和其他国家权力的篡夺者。没有一个暴君可以超越此种意志，除非放弃其暴政。然而，没有暴君愿意放弃暴政，所以几乎所有暴君皆以悲剧收场。因此尤维纳尔的诗歌这样写道：“几乎没有君主可以毫发未伤地陨落于冥界，暴君也屡屡难逃悲惨下场。”

单人阴谋

如前所述，阴谋带来的危险是相当多的，并且持续不断，因为一个阴谋中会有多种危险突然出现，这些危险充斥于阴谋形成、实施的整个过程，以及阴谋产生的后果中。阴谋的形成可由单人而为，亦可由多人而为。若仅由单人而为，并不能理所当然地称之为阴谋。准确地说，它是某个个体要杀掉君主的坚定决心。在阴谋所蕴含的三种危险之中，单人之谋仅包含后两种危险。因为在行动之前是不可能有危险产生的，既然没有其他人知晓，也就不存在对君主实施该阴谋的危险。而是否有实施阴谋的决心取决于这个人的能力——无论他伟大或渺小，高贵或卑微，与君主关系密切或疏远。因为任何被准许在某个时间同君主交谈的人，以及任何有机会同君主交谈的人，其情绪皆有可能得以舒缓。我们已经屡次提到的帕萨尼亚斯，在马其顿国王菲利普与一帮武装人员前去庙宇的路上杀害了他，当时走在国王两边的分别是他的儿子和女婿。但是，帕萨尼亚斯是贵族，且与君主相识（但也有其他人）。一个贫穷可怜的西班牙人将匕首刺入了西班牙国王斐迪南的脖子，尽管伤口并不致命，但是它却表明了此种类型的人也可能具备做这种事的意图和机会。一个托钵僧或土耳其牧师，在巴雅泽用弯刀袭击了当时的土耳其君主。他并没有杀死他，但是他必然具有这样做的意图和机会。我认为，我们周围有很多想要做这种事的人，但仅仅心怀这种意图，既不需要受到惩罚，也不会产生任何的危险。但是真正去做的人却寥寥无几，且在这些人中，也只有非常少的人在其行动中幸存。因此，你会发现没有人甘于赴死。但让我们撇开这些单人阴谋，来谈谈多人阴谋。

弱者的阴谋

在我看来，历史上所有的阴谋要么是有名望之人所为，要么是君主近侍或亲信所为，其他人除非是十足的疯子，否则不可能阴谋陷害君主，毕竟无权之人以及无法接触君主之人没有成功实施阴谋的任何希望和机会。首先，无权之人笼络不到可以忠于他们的人，毕竟在有可能冒大风险的情况下，没有人会答应去为他们做事，因为阴谋一旦传达至两三人，告密者就会出现，他们的计划便会暴露。其次，即使他们足够幸运，没有告密者出现，他们在阴谋的实施中也一样会由于无法轻易接近君主而困难重重，而在得以行事之时根本无法逃离险境。既然有名望之人和能够轻易接近君主的人都得屈服于这些困难，更不要说其他人了，他们面临的困难将被无限放大。所以，只要他们的生命和财产并未受到威胁，只要他们不会丢掉脑袋，那么当其认识到自己的劣势，就会变得小心谨慎，即使对君主心怀不满，也只会私下咒骂发泄，等待着那些拥有更高地位声望之人可以替他们报仇雪恨。这样一来，一旦遇见这种人欲行谋害君主之事，人们应对其意图动机而非审慎态度加以赞赏。

强者的阴谋

阴谋者似乎一直都是有名望之人或者与君主关系密切之人，其中因赐予太多利益而导致的谋反与因施予太多惩罚所引发的谋反案例一样众多，例如卜兰尼斯密谋反对康茂德，普劳提阿努斯密谋反对西弗勒斯，塞扬努斯密谋反对泰比里厄斯。对于这些人而言，君主赐予的财富、荣誉和头衔已经很多，似乎什么都不缺，除了君主的头衔，他们对此不愿意忍受，因此密谋反对君主，而最终总会得到其忘恩负义之行应得的结果。

而近代发生的相似阴谋中，有一个却取得了成功，即雅各布·阿皮亚诺密谋反对比萨君主梅瑟·皮耶罗·干姆巴科尔提，因为雅各布正是由后者抚养长大，且名誉加身，而他却夺了后者的权。在我们的时代也有科波拉阴谋反对亚拉贡国王费迪南。因为对于已经拥有巨大财富的科波拉来说，唯一缺乏的就是一个王国，而他也因为决心得到它而丧命。然而，如果有名望之人谋反成功，则情况一定如此：阴谋必定是由有名的另一位君主所为。但是那种易于使人盲目的支配欲，又一次使他们在着手做事时失去理智。只要他们知道怎样谨慎实施恶行，那么就不可能不成功。

对君主们的忠告

因此，想要提防阴谋的君主，相对于那些已被其过多伤害的人，更应当害怕那些被其授予过多恩惠的人。因为前者缺乏机会，而后者却机会多多，尽管二者所欲相同；统治国家的欲望与复仇的欲望一样大，甚至更大。所以，君主授予其朋友的权力应当保持一个度，即在此权力和君主权力之间应当保持一个特定的间距，且在此间距之中还有别的东西可所欲求。否则，如果我们刚谈论的事情未发生在他们身上，那倒是一件怪事了。下面，言归正传。

告密引发的危险

前面已经提及，谋反者一定是有名望之人和容易接近君主之人，这里我们就谈谈他们的成功和事例，以及为什么有些人成功了而其他人却失败了。如前所述，阴谋的危险常常发生在三个阶段：开始之时，实施之时和结束之后。我们发现，阴谋很少成功，因为成功通过这三个阶段是不可能或者几乎不可能的。首先，我们来谈谈开始阶段的危险。鉴于在制订计划过程中要使阴谋不被发现需要敏锐的判断力和足够的运气，对此阶段危险的探讨显得更加重要。阴谋暴露有两种方式，要么走漏了消息，要么出自推断。信息泄露要么是合谋之人变节，要么是其不够谨慎所致。变节之事时有发生，因为你只能将阴谋传达给你认为会誓死效忠于你的人，或对君主不满的人。也许其中有一两个人是你可以信任的，但是如果你将计划透露给多人，那么要找到这样的人是不可能的，因为他们必须对你非常信任，他们对危险和惩罚的估计不会影响对你的信任。人常常错估别人对自己的情分，而除非你有前车之鉴，否则无法确定这份情谊。然而，这种前车之鉴的获得也要冒很大风险。甚至于即使在其他危险事件中，他们忠诚于你，你也不能保证他们会在种种危险远远超出之前的事件中保持同等忠诚。如果你判断一个人的忠诚度是依据他对君主的不满程度，那么你很容易犯错；因为你接受了这种不满，即是为他提供了获得满足的各种条件，这样一来，如果要他保持对你的忠诚，要么他确实苦大仇深，要么你对他的影响一定巨大。

所以，阴谋就屡遭暴露，在开始就被挫败。的确，若是一个传达给多人的阴谋很长时间内一直仍是秘密，那可真让人啧啧称奇，就像历史上庇索密谋反对尼罗，以及我们这个时代帕西密谋反对洛伦佐和朱利安诺·美第奇一样，当时五十多人对此保守秘密，直到采取行动的那一刻阴谋才暴露。

轻率导致的危险

由于轻率而使阴谋暴露的情况发生在密谋时不够谨慎而使佣人或者第三者听到之时，例如，布鲁特斯之子就因其与塔奎因报信者的阴谋谈话被佣人听到而被告发。或者，阴谋的暴露是因为你无意中将其告诉了女友或者男友或者别的轻佻之人，以蒂姆努斯为例，他和菲洛塔斯以及其他人一起谋反亚历山大大帝，曾向一个他很喜欢的名叫尼克马库斯的男孩谈到了他们的计划，不料那个男孩立刻就把此事告诉了他的哥哥赛巴利努斯，而赛巴利努斯又把这个阴谋告诉了国王亚历山大。

推断引发的暴露

由于推断而引起的阴谋暴露，庇索尼安阴谋反对尼罗即是一例。其中一个名叫斯伽维努斯的阴谋者在计划杀掉尼罗的前一天立下遗嘱，并命令他的自由民米里库斯把他那把老旧而锈迹斑斑的匕首磨光，释放所有的奴隶并分给他们钱财，准备好用于包扎伤口的绷带，从这些事情中米里库斯推断出了有阴谋存在并告诉了尼罗。于是，斯伽维努斯，连同前一天被看到跟他一起长时间秘密谈话的共谋者纳塔莱斯，一起被捕了。由于他们解释不一致，最后被迫说出真相，这样一来阴谋就暴露了，所有与之相关的人都遭遇了灭顶之灾。

防止暴露的困难

无论是由于恶意，还是由于不够谨慎，或者是言行失检，或者是轻率的谈话，所有这些情况下如果知道阴谋的人超过三个或者四个，那么要防止上述这些原因造成的阴谋暴露就是不可能的。因为一旦有一个以上的阴谋者被捕，那么要想阻止阴谋泄露就不可能，原因在于两个人不可能在他们给出解释的每一个细节上都能保持一致。如果只有一个人被捕而他恰好是一个果毅之人，那么他或许不会供出他的同谋者。但是，极为重要的是，其他同谋者也必须有不逊于被捕者的胆量坚守其立场不逃跑，因为无论是被捕之人还是在逃之人，均可能由于缺乏勇气而泄露阴谋。

的确存在这样一个稀少的案例，由泰特斯·李维提出，即反对锡拉库扎国王希罗尼穆斯的阴谋。在这场阴谋中，其中一个叫狄奥多士的同谋者被捕后，他仗义保护其他同谋者，栽赃给了国王的朋友；而他的同伴也非常信得过狄奥多士的为人，他们之中没有一个人离开锡拉库扎或者表现出一丝的害怕。

预防暴露的措施

以上这些都是在阴谋实施之前暴露所面临的危险；避免泄露的补救措施如下。首要的、最安全的，实话讲也是唯一的补救方法就是不给共谋者泄露对你不利信息的时间，且仅在你准备行动之时而非提前将你的计划告知他们。这样做，至少可以避开因谋划阴谋而招致的危险，其他人通常也可以逃离危险。事实上，他们都会成功，任何谨慎之人都会发现这样做事是可行的。后面我会引用两个实例，暂且讨论至此。

奈勒迈特斯，由于无法忍受伊庇鲁斯君主亚里士提摩斯的暴政，集结了家中众多亲戚和朋友，劝说他们一起解放祖国。有人提出需要时间考虑，先把家里的事情安排好。奈勒迈特斯让随从锁上家门，对这些人说道：“要么你们现在就跟我一起行动，要么我把你们统统作为囚犯交给亚里士提摩斯。”这些话让他们下了决心，他们发了誓并立即行动，成功地执行了奈勒迈特斯的命令。当通过诡计获得波斯王冠后，王国的一个领袖马吉中的一人和奥塔尼斯听说了此消息并发现了这个诡计，于是他就与其他六位领袖协商，告诉他们是时候推翻这个占星师的暴政了。当有人问何时行动时，六位领袖中一个名叫达赖厄斯的人站起来说道：“要么我们现在立刻行动解决此事，要么我去指控你们。”于是他们整齐划一地行动，在敌人未来及做任何准备之时成功实施了计划。与这两个实例相似的还有埃托利亚人为了杀掉斯巴达暴君纳比斯所采用的方法。他们命令同胞亚历科萨麦尼斯带领三十匹马和两百步兵假意援助纳比斯，并只将计划告知亚历科萨麦尼斯，命令其他人必须严格服从于他，违者处以流放之惩罚。因此，亚历科萨麦尼斯去到斯巴达，绝口不提其受委托的任务，直到准备好行动的那一刻。结果，他成功地杀掉了纳比斯。这些人通过采用这些手段，避免了策划阴谋阶段隐藏的危险，效仿他们做法的人也同样总是能避免危险。

阴谋的实用性

他们的行为人人可以效仿，这一点可以从前文提到的庇索案例中得以证明。庇索是尼罗非常信任的人，和尼罗关系密切，有很高的地位和声望。尼罗经常在自己的花园中和庇索一起用餐，这样一来庇索就可以结交到无论心态、勇气还是爱好都非常适合执行此阴谋的朋友，这对于有身份地位的人是非常容易的。当尼罗在花园里的时候，庇索可以用适当的言语指使这些人做一些他们没有时间拒绝的事，或者使本不可能成功的阴谋最后取得成功。因此，纵观诸多阴谋，没有几个不是按照这个方法成功的。但是，通常情况下人们很少关注世事，因而往往犯下重大错误，尤其是在那些超出常规的事情上，比如阴谋。

进一步的防范

不到迫不得已或时机成熟之时，阴谋绝不能泄露。如果必须要泄露，也只能泄露给一个人，并且是你知根知底或者与你动机相同的人。找一个这样的人要比找一群这样的人容易得多，因为知道的人越多意味着越危险。此外，在合谋者不多的情况下，如果你犯了错误，你还可能找到保护自己的机会。因为一位智者曾经说过，你可以把你所有的事情单独告诉一个人，因为别人无论肯定回答还是否定回答意义都差不多，除非他说服你将你的所作所为写下来。每个人都要特别提防写下任何东西，因为没有什么比自己的笔迹更容易证实自己的罪行。普劳提阿努斯决心杀掉君主西弗勒斯及其儿子安东尼纳斯，并把这个秘密告诉护民官撒图尔尼努斯。撒图尔尼努斯想去告发他，但又害怕控告普劳提阿努斯时别人相信他而不相信自己，于是他要求普劳提阿努斯提供书面凭证，以证明自己受普劳提阿努斯的委托和授权。被雄心壮志冲昏头脑的普劳提阿努斯真的写给了他，最终因被撒图尔尼努斯控告而获罪。如果没有这份书面材料和其他一些不利证据，普劳提阿努斯完全可以厚着脸皮死不承认以保全自己。可见，如果没有书面材料或其他证据，即便你被控告，照样有机会得以逃脱，因此对待提供书面材料之事要慎之又慎。

在针对尼罗的庇索尼安阴谋中，有一个名叫艾比开瑞斯的女人，曾是尼罗的情人。她认为让一个曾担任尼罗警卫的战船船长参与进来有助于阴谋的实施，因此她把阴谋告诉了这位船长，但是并未告知共谋者都是谁。后来，这个船长食言向尼罗控告她的时候，她严词否认了对她的控告，以至于尼罗无法定守而让她离开。因此，将阴谋告知另外一人存在两种危险。一种危险是他可能会主动指控你；另一种危险是他受到怀疑或者不利证据而被捕，在被宣判有罪或受到严刑拷问之时将你供出。在这两种情况下，危险都是可以补救的。因为在第一种情况下，你可以否认对你的指控，宣称对方因为恨你而捏造事实；在第二种情况下，你也可以否认指控，宣称对方是因为被暴力威逼而撒谎。

无预谋的暗杀

因此，最明智的做法是不把自己的情况告诉任何人，而只按照上述案例行动；或者如果你不得不告诉某一个人，也不要告诉再多的人，这样尽管危险可能会更大，但是也不会比你告诉更多人的危险大。当情势逼迫你必须要对君主下手，就像你看到君主准备要对你下手一样时，情况也是一样的，因为此时此刻你的需要迫切至根本没有时间考虑如何防范。这种必要性几乎总能导向理想的结果，为了证明这一点，举两个例子。

在君主康茂德的几个主要朋友和亲信里，里图斯和埃克莱克图斯掌管着禁卫军，而马西娅是他主要情妇之一。这些人有时候会因他的行为有失体统而责备他，所以康茂德决定将他们处死，并把这三人和他决定在第二天夜里处死的其他几个人列了一个名单。他把名单放在了枕头下。在他去洗漱的时候，他最喜爱的小儿子在他床上玩耍嬉闹，无意中看到那个名单，就拿在手里跑了出去，在外面遇到了马西娅，马西娅从他手里拿过名单，读完之后记录下内容，并立即派人去叫里图斯和埃克莱克图斯。他们三人都意识到了自己处境的危险，于是决定先发制人。所以，他们没有浪费任何不必要的时间，在第二天夜里杀掉了康茂德。

第二个例子是，君主安东尼纳斯·卡拉卡拉带兵到美索不达米亚时，有一个地方行政长官叫马克里努斯，比起他的战士身份，他倒更像是一个平民百姓。与所有那些不好的君主一样，安东尼纳斯总是害怕别人不按照他所认为应该得到的礼遇对待他自己。他给在罗马的一个名叫马特尼安纳斯的朋友写信，托他向占星家询问是否有人觊觎他的王位，并给他一些相应的建议。马特尼安纳斯回信说，马克里努斯就是那个觊觎王位之人，但是这封信却在送给安东尼纳斯之前落入了马克里努斯之手。就这样，马克里努斯意识到，要么在下一封来自罗马的信到达之前杀掉安东尼纳斯，要么就会被他杀掉，只能二选一。于是他命令手下一个名叫马尔提亚里斯的百夫长将安东尼纳斯暗杀，马尔提亚里斯最终成功完成了任务。马尔提亚里斯效忠于马克里努斯，而他的兄弟几天前刚刚被安东尼纳斯处死。

可以看到，当情势紧迫到没有时间可以耽搁的时候，结果就会与前面所说的伊庇鲁斯的奈勒迈特斯所用方法产生的结果相同。还可以看到，我在本文一开始所说的话仍然适用，即与实际造成的伤害相比，威胁对君主的伤害更大，更可能导致阴谋的产生。因此，君主必须防止这类威胁，要么他应该对那些人十分关怀，要么应该确保那些人不对他造成伤害，但是在任何情况下，他都绝不应该将那些人置于“不是你死就是我亡”的境地。

改变计划导致的危险

阴谋实施过程中发生的危险，要么是因为计划发生改变，要么是因为阴谋实施者缺乏勇气，要么是因为实施者粗心犯错，要么是因为未将目标全部消灭而没能完成任务。因此，在此我要指出，没有预先通知突然改变计划，放弃起初拟定的行动计划，是干扰计划实施的最大因素。如果计划的改变会滋生混乱，那么也是在军事行动和我们正谈及的事件之中。因为此类事件中，首先必须要做的是，让参与行动的人清晰地了解自己要做的事情；如果他们花了几天时间去设想一个详细的计划及其行动过程，而突然被告知行动有变，一切都会失调，整个计划就会被搞砸。所以，即使看到计划中存在不妥之处，执行原计划也比取消计划从而卷入诸多不便之中好得多。这个原则适用于没有时间制定新计划的情况，因为如果有时间的话，完全可以按其所愿进行计划安排。

帕西阴谋反对洛伦佐和朱利亚诺·美第奇的事为大家所熟知。根据拟定的计划，洛伦佐和朱利亚诺·美第奇会受邀与圣乔治教堂的红衣主教共进晚餐，在用餐时将其暗杀。计划还详细布置了哪些人负责暗杀、哪些人负责占领宫殿以及哪些人负责在城市周围散播讯息鼓动人们解放自己。当帕西、美第奇和红衣主教在佛罗伦萨天主教堂出席庄严肃穆的集会时，大家得知朱利亚诺那天不会去和他们共进晚餐，所以共谋者们聚集起来决定将原打算在美第奇家里完成的任务改在教堂完成。这个决定搅乱了整个计划，因为吉奥万巴提斯塔·蒙特塞克拒绝参与，他说他不会去教堂做这件事。因此，不得不寻找替补并重新分配任务，由于没有时间搞清楚行动的细节，他们在实施的时候就犯了许多致命错误，最终失败了。

由于优柔寡断造成的失败

负责完成阴谋任务的实施者优柔寡断，要么是因为尊重人性，要么是因为胆小怯懦。君主展现的威严和气场很容易动摇阴谋实施者的决心或者使他害怕。马里厄斯被民特纳人俘虏后，一个奴隶被派去杀他，但来到马里厄斯面前时，奴隶被他的强大气场所震摄，又想到他的名字代表的含义，顿时失去了杀他的勇气和力量。如果连一个被锁在监狱之中承受不幸的人都有如此魅力，那么未被俘虏且身穿君主长袍，威严无比地被壮丽浮华和朝臣包围时的他一定更有魅力。这样的排场足以威慑到你，他对你热情亲切的迎接可能会让你心软。有一伙人阴谋反对色雷斯国王西塔尔凯斯，他们于行动之日到达国王所在之地，但是竟然没有人敢向西塔尔凯斯动手，最后什么都没做就离开了，他们搞不清到底是什么原因阻止了行动，只好互相责怪。就这样，他们不止一次犯下同样的错误，最终导致阴谋暴露，他们也都因这一可能犯下但最终没有实施的罪行而受到了惩罚。菲拉拉的阿方索公爵有两个兄弟阴谋反对他，他们选择了一个给公爵当差的人作为中间人，这个人既是牧师又是合唱指挥。应两兄弟的要求，此人多次成功引公爵与他们会面，让他们可以趁势杀掉阿方索，但兄弟二人均不敢动手，阴谋暴露后，他们不得不遭受邪恶与缺乏谨慎而招致的惩罚。只有在被君主的强大气场所震慑及因其仁慈的举止而失掉戾气的情况下，这种疏忽大意的过错才会出现。

由于心绪不宁而造成的失败

阴谋实施过程中的诸多不顺利，是由于缺乏谨慎或缺乏勇气酿成的错误所致，因为这两种情况都可能发生，使得你心绪混乱，说错话、做错事。提图斯·李维向我们讲述的一个叫亚历科萨麦尼斯的埃托利亚人的事例，最能贴切描述人们这样崩溃混乱的情形。亚历科萨麦尼斯决心杀掉上文所述的斯巴达人纳比斯，行动时机到来之时，他告知手下任务，并且，依照李维的叙述，“努力使自己集中力量，因为思索这样一件大事令他的思绪混乱”。的确，一个人的意志再坚强，对死亡或持弄刀剑再熟悉，也不太可能不混乱。因此，应当选择有做这种事情经验的人，不要把事情委托给任何其他人，即使人们认为他再勇敢也不行。做大事的时机到来之时，如果行动者之前没有任何经验，那么没人敢肯定会发生什么。例如，心绪混乱可能导致武器从手中滑落，或者偶然泄露某些信息并导致同样的后果。康茂德的姐姐卢西拉与昆提阿努斯一起计划杀掉他，昆提阿努斯在圆形剧场入口处等待着康茂德，拿着亮晃晃的匕首来到康茂德面前，说道：“元老院送你的礼物！”这些话让他没来得及放下武器袭击康茂德就被捕了。之前提到过，梅瑟·安东尼奥·沃尔泰拉受命杀掉洛伦佐·美第奇，在扑向美第奇那一刻，他喊道：“啊，叛徒！”这一惊叫挽救了洛伦佐的性命，摧毁了那个阴谋。

旨在推翻多位君主的阴谋

由于上述原因，成功密谋推翻一位君主已经相当不易，而成功密谋推翻两位君主更是难上加难。换句话说，推翻两位君主的密谋几乎不可能成功，因为你几乎不可能在同一时间不同地点实施相似的行动，而在不同的时间实施两次又很难确保二者不相互影响。因此，如果说密谋推翻一位君主是没有把握、危险、鲁莽任务，那么密谋推翻两位君主的行为则完全是愚蠢、轻佻。如果不是出于对历史学家的尊重，我是绝不会认为赫罗狄安对普劳提阿努斯的记叙是可能的。依照他的说法，普劳提阿努斯委任同一个人——百夫长萨图尔尼努斯，去刺杀居住在不同地方的塞维鲁和安东尼努斯。这件事完全不合理，我相信它的唯一理由就是赫罗狄安的权威性。

几个雅典青年志士密谋推翻雅典暴君狄奥克莱斯和希庇亚斯，他们杀死了狄奥克莱斯，但希庇亚斯得以逃脱并为他报了仇。柏拉图的弟子，赫拉克勒亚的希翁和利奥尼兹赫密谋推翻暴君克利阿科斯和萨提洛斯，但他们只杀死了克利阿科斯，萨提洛斯得以存活并替他报了仇。我们前边多次提到的帕西，也仅仅成功杀死了朱利亚诺。因此，任何人都不应该参与密谋推翻多位统治者，因为这对他自己、对他的国家、对其他任何人都没有一点好处。相反，得以幸存的统治者会变本加厉地残暴，就像前文提到的佛罗伦萨、雅典、赫拉克勒亚后来的境况一样。的确，佩洛皮达斯解放他的祖国底比斯的密谋涉及了前文提到的重重困难，最后却得以成功；佩洛皮达斯推翻的君主不是两位而是十位，他不仅是个外人，难以接触到君主，而且他还是一个反叛者。尽管如此，他仍然能够进入底比斯，杀死统治者，解放祖国。但其实，他是因得到了君主参赞卡戎的帮助才得以轻松完成这项壮举的。任何人都不该模仿佩洛皮达斯的做法，因为这本身就是一个不可能的任务，最终能成功是个奇迹。所有提到这件事的作家也都一致认为这件事情是举世无双、空前绝后的事迹。

错误认知导致的失败

阴谋的实施可能被中途产生的错误认知或者不可预见的意外而摧毁。就在布鲁特斯和他的同伙准备刺杀恺撒的那个早晨，恺撒碰巧和共谋者之一的盖厄斯·庞庇利乌斯·雷那进行了一次长谈。其他同伙发现他们聊了那么久，于是就怀疑庞庇利乌斯向恺撒泄密，并且企图不等他进入元老院就将他当场杀死。实际上，他们确实会这样做，但他们的争论后来得到平息，在看到恺撒没有表露出任何异常的迹象后也消除了疑虑。谨慎的人会充分考虑到这种错误认知并给予充分的关注，但是关注越多越容易产生错觉。这是因为当一个人心里有鬼的时候，很容易认为别人都在谈论他，哪怕毫不相关的言论都可以扰乱他，使其认为肯定和他有关，这样就会导致其放弃密谋，或者过早行事，搅黄密谋。知情人越多，这样的情形越容易发生。

由不可预见的意外导致的失败

由于意外不可预见，我们唯一能做的就是举例说明该如何谨慎行事。前文提到过的西恩纳的卢西奥·柏兰提，因潘道夫带走了已经与他结婚的女儿而对他充满愤怒，于是决定选好时机杀掉潘道夫。潘道夫之前每天都去看望一位生病的亲戚，途中要路过卢西奥的房子。卢西奥发现后，安排同伙在他的家里，以备在潘道夫经过时将其杀害。这些同伙携带武器站在门口内侧，一个观察哨在窗口观察，一旦潘道夫经过门口，观察哨给出信号，门口的同伙就立马冲出去。潘道夫出现那天，信号发出后，他碰巧遇到一个老朋友停了下来，同行的另外几人继续往前走，看到发生了什么，听到武器的嘈杂声，发现了这场预谋。结果，潘道夫逃过一劫，卢西奥和他的同伙不得不逃离西恩纳。就这样，这次偶然的会面打乱了谋划中的事情，从而导致卢西奥计划的流产。由于这样的意外是偶发事件，因此也无法提前给出解决方法。我们能做的只能是尽量考虑所有可能发生的情况，并采取相应的举措。

阴谋实施后的危险

我们现在需要讨论阴谋成功实施后可能发生的危险。唯一的危险就是，幸免于难的人可能会为君主的死亡实施报复。例如，君主可能还有在世的兄弟、儿子或其他支持者，他们会继承王位。这些可能寻求报复的人之所以得以幸存，往往是由于你的疏忽或者上文提到的原因。因而，当乔瓦尼·安德烈和他的同伙杀死了米兰公爵后，米兰公爵幸存的一个儿子和两个弟弟及时赶到为他复仇。此情形之下共谋者们情有可原，因为对于这样的事情他们也无能为力；但是由于不谨慎或疏忽而导致留下活口，他们就没有任何借口了。弗利城堡的几个公民密谋杀害了他们的君主吉罗拉莫伯爵，俘虏了他的妻子和尚年幼的孩子。然而，在他们看来，只有获得城堡他们的性命才能保全，但掌控城堡的人拒绝交出城堡。于是，那位名叫凯瑟琳的伯爵夫人向密谋者承诺，如果他们放她回城堡，她就会安排把城堡交给他们。同时，他们把她的孩子作为人质。达成协议后，阴谋者们放她回到城堡，而她一进入城堡就斥责他们杀害了她的丈夫，并威胁会以各种形式报复。为了使阴谋者相信她不在意那些孩子，她把自己的性器官展示给阴谋者们，并告诉他们她还可以生更多的孩子。阴谋者们目瞪口呆，意识到他们错了，但为时已晚，最终为不谨慎的错误受到了永久流放的惩罚。

但是，如果阴谋者杀害的是受人民爱戴的君主，那么阴谋实施后的危险将是最无法避免和令人畏惧的。这样的情形下阴谋者们无法补救和挽回，因此他们不可能安全。恺撒大帝就是典型例证，因为罗马人民爱戴他，替他复仇，因此阴谋者们在被驱逐出罗马之后，均在不同时间不同地点相继被杀。

旨在反对国家的阴谋

与旨在反对君主的阴谋相比，旨在反对国家的阴谋给参与者带来的危险会更小，因为后者在筹划中的危险更少，在实施过程中也同样，实施完毕后则根本不存在危险了。策划阴谋的过程中危险不多，因为公民在谋划攫取权力时，可以不向任何人透露自己的想法和计划。如果计划未受干扰，那么任务就能完成；但是如果受到某部法律或者其他因素的限制，那么就必须放弃此次尝试，寻找其他合适时机。这个原则适用于在一定程度上腐败的共和国，因为在一个并不腐败的国家，根本找不到踏入邪途的起步之地，也根本没有公民会有这种想法。对于生活在封邑的公民，他们有各种方法和手段使自己受益，同时不冒任何风险或卷入麻烦；在共和国中也类似，因为相比君主，共和国采取行动会更慢、更让人信服，也因此更不谨慎；还因为共和国对有权势的公民更加尊重，因此这些人更敢于也更倾向于违反国家利益行事。大家都读过撒路斯提乌斯对于喀提林阴谋的叙述，知道喀提林在阴谋暴露后不仅仍在罗马，而且还加入了元老院，发表着对元老院和执政官的各种无礼申斥言论，由此可见这个城市对公民尊重的程度。如果雷恩图卢斯和其他人自己手中并未持有明明白白证明其阴谋的信件的话，那么在喀提林离开罗马并已经同军队取得联系之时，他们也不会被捕。

迦太基地位显赫的公民汉诺，希望建立一个暴力政权，他安排好要在女儿婚宴上毒死全体元老院成员并自立为王。听到此消息后，元老院仅做了一件事，便是通过了一项法律，限制婚礼和宴会的费用开销。人们对于地位显赫之人的尊重程度可见一斑。

另一方面，旨在反对国家的阴谋在实施过程中，也有可能遇到更多的困难和更大的危险，因为在针对如此多人的阴谋中，你几乎不可能拥有足够的兵力，而且也不是每个人都有任其指挥的军队，像恺撒、阿加托克利斯、克莱奥梅尼等人一样可以靠他们指挥的军队一举征服他们的国家。对于他们来说，此方法简单易行、安全可靠，但是对于没有军队可供指挥的人而言，要想成功实施计划，要么必须采用骗术和诡计，要么必须借助外国军队的力量。雅典人皮西斯特拉妥的故事就是使用骗术和诡计的好例子，他通过战胜麦加拉人而取得了人民的拥护。一天早上，他拖着受伤的身体出现在公众视野，声称是贵族们出于嫉妒袭击了他，并请求武装军队随行保护他本人。得到授权以后，他轻而易举地大权独揽，成为了雅典的独裁君主。在和其他流放者一起回到西恩纳之后，潘道夫·佩特鲁奇受命指挥露天广场的护卫队，这是一份常规性的差事，别人都不愿意接受。但是，这支武装军队却逐渐为他赢得了声望，不久后他就成了一名君主。除此之外，也有不少人采取过各种手段或方法，最终毫无危险地达到了目的。

一些人企图通过自己的军队或者借助外国军队以控制国家，他们能否取得成功，取决于命运对他们是否眷顾。前文提到的喀提林就丧命于自己的阴谋尝试中。上文提到的汉诺，先是使用毒药却失败了，后来拥有了几千武装支持者，但最终全军覆没，自己也因此丧命。底比斯的几个地位显赫的公民召集了一支斯巴达军队来援助他们，并在底比斯建立专制政权。仔细探究这些推翻国家的阴谋，我们会发现，当阴谋还在策划之中的时候，没有人或者只有寥寥几人受到镇压，但是阴谋付诸实施之时，所有人要么都成功了，要么都失败了。在取得成功之后，除了那些在根本上涉及君主统治权的阴谋，其他阴谋都不会引起任何后续的危险。这是因为，假如一个人变成了专制君主，他就会面临专制统治自然带来的各种危险，而为了避开这些危险，只能采取我们在上文讨论过的那些方法来进行补救。

毒药的使用

关于阴谋，我们要说的到此为止。我之所以重点讨论那些使用刀剑而非毒药的阴谋，是因为它们其实属于同一类型。的确，毒药的不确定性更大，因此它也更加危险，但由于不是每个人都有毒药这种东西，所以人们在使用时必须向那些有毒药的人请教，而请教这一举动对你本身就意味着危险。由于种种原因，一杯下毒的饮料可能并不致命。例如，要去杀康茂德的人发现康茂德将他们给的毒药扔掉之后，如果想要他死，则不得不去勒死他。

阻止阴谋所采取的策略

这样看来，最不利于君主的就是阴谋。若一场旨在推翻君主的阴谋已经形成，结果要么是君主被杀，要么是君主蒙受恶名：如果阴谋得逞，君主必死无疑；如果阴谋暴露，君主杀掉了共谋者，人们就会倾向于以为整件事是被君主冠以阴谋之名的工具，以掩盖他对被杀者的贪婪残忍。因此，我必须提醒那些知道有人策划谋反的君主或者共和国，要在采取惩罚性行动之前尽力挖掘精确的信息，并将阴谋者的实力和地位与自己认真对比，如果发现谋反者实力壮大，就要装作毫不知情，直到自己拥有足够兵力一举摧毁它。如若不然，只会招致灾祸。因此，他们应当尽力学会如何掩饰自己，以防共谋者发现自己已经暴露，从而不顾后果地立即采取行动。

罗马人给我们做了很好的例证。在其他地方已经提到过，两个军团的士兵被派去守卫加普亚，以防萨谟奈人的进攻，而军团的指挥者合谋要征服并统治加普亚。当这个消息传到罗马，一个名叫卢提鲁斯的执政官被委任彻查此事。为了不打草惊蛇，他将元老院批准的加普亚军团的住宿营地公之于众。密谋军队信以为真，认为有足够时间实施计划，于是并不急于行动。就这样，直到意识到执政官已将两个军团分离，共谋者们才起了疑心，采取行动并命令实施计划。没有比这更好的例子了，因为在这个事例中，我们可以看到，当人们认为有时间的时候其行动会十分迟缓，而当形势紧迫时其行动又会非常迅速。如果一位君主或共和国政权想让阴谋延迟起事，最好的做法就是巧妙地给共谋者提供在未来某天的时机，这样，当他们等待那天的来临，相信时间充裕之时，君主或共和国就可以趁机策划对阴谋者的惩罚。

没有这样做的人，只会加速自己的失败，雅典公爵和古格里尔莫·帕西就是例证。当公爵成为佛罗伦萨的独裁君主，并听说有人阴谋推翻他的时候，他把其中的一个共谋者抓了起来，但没有进一步调查此事，结果其他共谋者立刻揭竿而起，一举推翻了他的政权。1501年，当古格里尔莫担任瓦尔基亚纳行政官的时候，他发现了在阿雷佐有一个支持维海利的阴谋企图从佛罗伦萨人手中夺走城镇，于是立刻奔赴阿雷佐。他既没有考虑共谋者或者他自己的实力，也没有兵力准备就绪，就在主教即其儿子的建议之下抓获一位共谋者。不料，其他共谋者立刻拿起武器，一举从佛罗伦萨人的手中夺取了城镇，古格里尔莫也不再是行政官，而是变成了阶下囚。

但是，如果阴谋本身就脆弱不堪，上述二例就能也应该立刻受到镇压，以免夜长梦多。人们也不应采取下述两种策略——尽管二者的行事方向几乎完全相反。一种是上述的雅典公爵所用的，他为了证明自己相信佛罗伦萨人深深爱戴他，处死了一个向他告密的人。另一种是锡拉库扎人戴恩所用，为了揭露自己所怀疑之人的意图，允许他信任的卡利普斯假装正在酝酿一场阴谋。这两种策略无一例外导致了灾难：第一种阻挠了告密者，鼓励了阴谋者；第二种使杀死戴恩变得很容易，在这场阴谋中他自己其实就是实际的领导者，从他的经历来看，卡利普斯此时已经能够阴谋推翻戴恩——这一计划非常缜密，最终不仅让戴恩丢掉了政权，也丢掉了性命。

军队、军纪和兵种

军队军纪：当代与昔日之差

托夸图斯与德西乌斯领导下的拉丁人之战是罗马人与外族之间最重要的一战。种种迹象表明，如果拉丁人战败，其就会被罗马人统治，同样，如果罗马人战败，也会沦为拉丁人的臣民。泰特斯·李维认为，这两支军队在军纪、素质、战斗力和人数方面都势均力敌，唯一区别就在于：与拉丁军队将领相比，罗马军队统帅更工于战术。

在这场战争中，还有两件前所未有、闻所未闻的事引起了人们的注意，即为拢军心、正军规，一个执政官选择了自杀，另一个执政官则选择了杀子。在泰特斯·李维看来，这两支军队的共同之处是由于长期交战而形成的相同的语言、相同的军纪、相同的武器装备、相同的作战阵形，甚至相同的作战单位和军官称谓。因此，既然实力相当，一方则必然有某些非凡之处用于鼓舞士气提升战斗力。正如我们在他处提到过的，胜利取决于决心，因为只要战士胸中决心不灭，他们决不会退缩。正因如此，为了使罗马战士的决心比拉丁人更持久，既出于巧合，也出于执政官的素质，托夸图斯不得不杀子，德西乌斯不得不自杀。

泰特斯·李维在指出双方势均力敌时，详细描述了罗马人如何组织和调遣军队作战。所以，此处不再赘述，但有几个值得关注的事我却无法避而不谈，当今所有统帅对它们的忽视，导致了组织调遣军队作战中严重缺乏纪律性。从李维那里，我们知道罗马军队分为三个主要作战单位，托斯卡纳语称为“三列阵法”。第一列为枪兵，第二列为主力兵，第三列为后备兵；每一列都有自己的骑兵。在战场上列阵时，枪兵置于最前沿，其后面紧接的是第二列主力兵，在第三列相同的空间上，部署后备兵。每个作战单位的骑兵都被部署在三个方阵的左右两翼。骑兵部分，因其队形和位置，被称为“翼”，因为他们看起来像鸟的一双翅膀。罗马人的第一列由枪兵组成密集队形，以向前冲杀并抵御敌军的攻击。第二列的主力兵，最初不参加战斗，而是当第一列被敌人击败或压制时，对其进行支援；他们不是排成密集队形，而是排成疏松的阵形，这样如果第一列被敌人击败而被迫后退，第二列能够和第一列整合且不破坏阵形。第三列的后备兵阵形比第二列更疏松，旨在与败退下来的前两列（即枪兵和主力兵）整合在一起。阵形布置完毕后，他们就投入战斗。如果第一列被迫后退或被打败，他们能直接退入主力兵阵列的间隙中，重新组成一个完整的阵形，继续战斗。如果这两个阵列都被击败或被迫后撤，他们可以退到后备兵更疏松的阵线中，三个阵列又组成一个阵形重新作战。如果这样也被击溃了，就真的失败了，因为没有机会重整阵形。因此，当后备兵阵列参战时，说明军队已身处险境，于是谚语有曰“一切取决于后备兵”，抑或如托斯卡纳习语所曰“我们已经孤注一掷了”。

正如当今将领们已抛弃了所有其他传统，且对古代军队纪律漠不关心一样，他们也已摒弃军事纪律举足轻重的意义。当军队排列成能在战斗中三次组成的阵形时，要击败它，进攻三次已属走运，进攻者的勇气必须要足够打击它三次。只能承受一次攻击的军队，通常指基督徒军队，更容易战败，因为无组织性或缺乏勇气的军队均会与胜利无缘。我们的军队无法三次组成阵形，是因为其丢失了将一个阵列吸纳到另一个阵列中的传统。究其原因，当代战斗阵形中存在两个问题：其一，将阵列一字并排展开，使阵形很宽，但很薄弱，面对进攻时，会因缺乏纵深而不堪一击。其二，为了加强阵线，他们会按罗马方式组织阵形，然而却没有组织好第二阵列如何吸纳第一阵列，所以当第一阵列败退下来时，所有阵列都会乱作一团，不战自败。因为前面的阵列一旦溃退，就会与第二阵列发生冲突，如果第二阵列想要前进，就会受第一阵列的阻碍。因此，当第一阵列冲垮第二阵列，第二阵列又冲垮第三阵列之时，混乱丛生，整个军队往往会遭受灭顶之灾。

率领法国军队的富瓦亲王战死的那场拉文那战斗，如今看来，也是一场鏖战。西班牙和法国均按照上述方式组织军队阵形，并排列队，因此双方都只有宽度要远大于纵深的单一阵线。在像拉文那这样宽阔的平原交战时，他们总是采用这样的战术。因为他们认为如果军队排成两列，撤退时容易产生混乱，为了避免混乱发生，故将阵线排得很长，如上所述。但是一旦可作战空间狭小不堪，他们就只能忍受上述糟糕的安排，毫无办法。无论是实战，还是军事演习，他们均以此糟糕阵形御敌。

同样，正如法国国王查尔斯穿越意大利之后，因为城市反叛而爆发佛罗伦萨人和比萨人之战，最终前者被后者击败的地方一样，在比萨领地内的圣莱戈洛，灾难完全是由于盟友骑兵团导致的，他们在阵前被敌人打败后，溃退至佛罗伦萨步兵阵列，引发混乱，结果所有战士均闻风而逃。曾经的佛罗伦萨步兵队长——梅瑟·西里亚科·达尔·博尔格，经常在我面前说，除了盟友骑兵外，他从未被打败过。瑞士人被誉为现代战争的大师，他们与法国并肩作战时，首先考虑的就是将其军队部署于两翼，这样即使盟友骑兵被迫撤退，也不会与其冲撞在一起。虽然此战术容易理解且十分可行，但当代将领们仍无人以此改进当代军队阵形。虽然同样有三重军队编制，即前卫、主力和后卫，但其唯一用处仅在于方便安排士兵扎营。如上所述，此法阵列，众人皆在劫难逃。

鉴于许多人为了掩饰其无知，声称火炮的毁灭力已使得古代战例战术不再适用于当代，下面的章节我将会对火炮是否使得往昔岁月英勇不再这个问题再做探讨。

炮兵在军队中应处于何种地位，大众持有的观点是否合情合理

除以上所述外，我在想，当代被法国人称为“日子”而意大利人称为“武器的功绩”的正面战斗，罗马人在不同时期共进行了多少次，于是我立刻想起大众持有的观点：如果那个时代里有了火炮，罗马人就不可能征服外族行省，也不可能轻易地变外族为其附庸国，也绝不可能进行如此大胆的掠夺占领。他们认为，毁灭性武器的应用已经扼杀了人们像古时那样运用展现其优势的能力。第三个观点还认为，现今比过去更难实现议和，保持古代惯例是不可能的。事实上，不久以后，战争将会变成火炮之间的单纯较量。

探究此观点是否可靠，或者查究火炮究竟会增强还是削弱军队的实力，及其究竟会剥夺还是赋予优秀将军展现“才能”的机会，我认为均值得关注。所以从第一个观点入手，即如果那个时代有火炮，古罗马人将无法取得当时的战绩。

为此，我要指出，战争既有进攻也有防守。那么，我们不禁要问火炮对哪一方更有用或更危险。虽然火炮对双方都有一定作用，但显然其对防守者的杀伤力要远大于进攻者。因为防守者往往身处有城墙的城镇或有栅栏的营地中。如果是有城墙保护的城镇，像大多数城堡一样，空间可能非常狭小，但也或者比较大。若是空间狭小，防守者就必败无疑，因为城墙根本无法抵挡火炮的威力，最厚的城墙也只能多撑几天而已。由于城中的防守者没有足够空间退守或挖掘壕沟或修筑壁垒，因此其失败无法避免。即使有火炮的帮助，他们也无法抵抗敌人从城墙上打开缺口涌入城中，因为有一条公认的真理：火炮无法抵挡猛烈的大规模进攻。所以，在对抗阿尔卑斯山外的异族凶猛进攻时，火炮根本不起作用，但是对抵挡意大利人的进攻却非常有效，因为后者不会大规模进攻，只是以分队形式袭击，这种袭击方式只能称作骚扰战。以这种脆弱阵形向有火炮防守的城墙突破口进军，无疑是自寻死路，对付这样的进攻，火炮非常有用。但是当进攻者以密集持续的阵形涌向突破口，除非有壕沟或壁垒阻挡，否则他们就会到处渗透。火炮即使歼灭一些敌军，也依然无法抵挡更多人冲杀进来夺取胜利。

意大利许多城镇均被阿尔卑斯山附近的外族攻陷就是明证，尤以布雷西亚为典型。其反抗法国统治时，法国人仍以其国王的名义据守卫城。为了防止来自卫城的法国人袭击，威尼斯人在通往卫城的街道上构造了防御工事，并将大炮置于卫城前方、两侧及其他妥当之处。但是，富瓦亲王却对此嗤之以鼻。与之相反，他带领骑兵中队下马作战，冲破火炮的封锁，占领了城市。无人听说过火炮让他损失惨重。因此，如上所述，当小城市防守者自知其城墙低矮且没有可以躲避的壁垒和壕沟，而不得不依赖火炮时，他们会很快溃败。

若是防守一座有回旋空间的大城市，包围者的火炮仍然比防守者的更有用。首先，要使火炮对包围者造成伤害，必须将其抬至高于地面的位置，因为在水平面上，敌人挖掘的壕沟和构筑的壁垒能够为其提供防御，致使你根本无法对其造成破坏。即使将火炮抬升并拖到城墙的凹处，或者用别的方法提升到高处，你仍然会遇到两个问题。第一，使用相同尺寸和威力的火炮时，你不可能像包围者那么有效率，因为你不可能在狭小空间内操作大型武器。第二，即使成功将其安置，你也无法建筑安全可靠的壁垒来掩护火炮，它会被外面的攻击轻易摧毁，而在地面上，任何人都能有想要的空间和便利。因此，包围者有威力足够大的火炮时，防守者不可能在高处设置火炮，如果被赶至低处，如上所述，火炮则很难发挥作用。所以，防守城市不得不像古代军队那样依靠肉搏战，用小口径的火炮作为支援。虽然小型火炮有一定作用，但是其劣势抵消了其优势。由于重炮，城墙被摧毁，壕沟被填平，当守军进行肉搏战时，其处境会因此更为不利。所以，如上所述，这些战争机器对包围者比对防守者更有用。

至于第三个观点，如果为了避免正面作战而用栅栏保护军营，除非情况对你有利并能发挥你方优势，否则我认为在这种情况下，同样是为了避免交战，你不会比古时情况更好，况且有火炮的时代，你可能会更处于劣势。因为如果敌人进攻你，并且地理优势不明显，只要其处于比你更高的地方，这种情况就会发生，或者如果在他们到来之前，你还没有挖好壕沟做好防护，那么敌人会在你采取补救措施之前，将你赶出来，你就不得不放弃防御工事与敌人作战。西班牙人和拉文那交战时就是如此。他们在龙果河岸建立防御阵地，但是其土木工事不够高，而法国人占有略微地理优势。最终其防御工事被火炮摧毁，被迫参战。但是假设你选择的营地高于敌人领地，且土木工事良好坚固，那么鉴于你的地形优势和其他准备充足，敌人就不敢发动进攻。通常情况下，敌人据守易守难攻之地时，必须依靠古代战术，即四处搜索，占领和包围你的友邦城市，切断你的供给，以迫使你离开营地进行决战，如上所述，火炮发挥不了作用。因此，从罗马人发动战争的原因中，可以看到其几乎所有的战争都是进攻模式，而非防守模式，由此可见，上述内容仍然适用，即如果那个时代有火炮，它将成为罗马人的优势，并加速他们的胜利。

对于第二个观点，其认为火炮的使用使得人们不能再像古代那样英勇，我不否认。当军队以小分队进行战斗时，如果必须攀爬城墙或者不以整体队形而是以个人形式，一个接一个发起攻击，则现在的危险要比过去更大。军队统帅会比以前面临更多危险，这是事实，因为无论在哪里，他们都会受到火炮的威胁。即使在最后一支骑兵中队或非常勇敢的士兵们的保护下也无济于事。我们发现，这两种危险情况仍然极少造成重大损失。毕竟，人不可能攀登上防御严密的城墙，也不可能被小股部队攻击。如果想要占领一座城市，就必须像古时那样包围它。甚至在其被攻陷时，现在的危险也没有比过去更大，因为那个时代城里的守军不缺少发射弹丸的武器，即使不令人恐惧，仍然能有效杀伤敌人。至于军队统帅阵亡的例子，在意大利最近二十四年战争里阵亡的人数要比古代十年战争中阵亡的人数更少。除了几年之前在菲拉拉战死的卢多维科·黛拉·米兰多拉伯爵，和在切里尼奥拉战死的内穆尔公爵，没有其他人死于火炮的轰炸。富瓦亲王死于刀剑下，而不是被炮弹所杀。因此，如果作为个人无法展现英勇，原因一定不在火炮，而在于拙劣的战术和无能的（现代）军队，因为他们作为一个整体都缺乏勇气，个体就更不可能勇敢了。

第三个观点说，肉搏战不可能出现，战争将最终成为火炮之间的较量。这一观点完全错误，尤其对于希望军队在战斗中表现出古代素质的人们来说，更被视为绝对谬论。想要组建善战之师的人理应通过模拟战或实战，使士兵适应与敌人近距离战斗，刀锋相见。他们应该更多依靠步兵，而非骑兵，理由将在下文中详述。如果他们确实依靠步兵，并接照上述方式训练，那么火炮将变得一无是处。相对于躲避古代的战象或装有大镰刀的战车，或者其他罗马步兵遭遇的不熟悉的武器而言，当今步兵在交战中躲避炮弹更加容易。他们总能找出对付那些武器的对策，而找到对付火炮的方法则更容易，因为火炮造成伤亡的时间要比大象和镰刀战车更短。后者在战斗中会让你陷入混乱，而前者只是战斗开始前的小麻烦。步兵可以通过借助战场掩体或者在炮弹来袭时卧倒的方式轻松躲避这种小麻烦。但是，经验表明，这是没有必要的，尤其是遇到重炮需要防御时，因为调整重炮的射程很费劲。要么炮口太高，打不到你，要么太低，落在你的前面。

同样，当军队之间展开近战时，事实也清楚地表明，无论是重炮还是小炮都伤害不到你。如果敌人将火炮设在阵前，你可以缴获它；如果将它放在后面，它会在打到你之前打到他们自己人。如果在侧翼，火炮无法对你造成伤害，你反而可以冲过去夺取它，所以毋庸置疑，最终结果都是一样的。瑞士人的例子即是明证：1513年在诺瓦拉，瑞士人在没有火炮和骑兵的情况下，与法国军队交战，虽然法军在防御阵地上有火炮支援，但是瑞士人还是轻而易举地击败了他们。

除了上述原因外，还因为想要火炮发挥作用，就必须要将其置于城墙、壕沟或土木工事的保护下；缺少任何一种形式的保护，它都会被敌人夺取或不起作用，当人们必须在战场正面激战时，以上情况就会发生。除非像古代人使用抛射机那样，否则火炮无法在侧翼使用。这种发射装置被安置在主力部队外围，是为了使其在阵列之外发挥作用，当操作手被敌人骑兵或其他部队袭击时，他可以躲到正规军中。那些对火炮期望甚高的人并没有理解它的用处，因此仅仅寄希望于容易让其失望的武器上。土耳其人使用火炮战胜了古波斯王苏菲和苏丹，仅仅是由于火炮奇怪的轰鸣声惊吓骑兵的马匹而引发的混乱。

最后，我的结论是，只有在如古人所表现的勇气的支持下，火炮才能发挥作用，否则，它一样无法抵御无畏的军队。

罗马权威和古代军事实例表明步兵比骑兵更应该受到重视

许多原因和事例清楚地表明，在所有军事行动中，罗马人对步兵的重视程度要大于骑兵，并以此制定作战计划。例如，罗马人与拉丁人在里吉洛斯湖附近交战，为了支援开始动摇的罗马军队，一些骑兵被命令下马，徒步作战。这个方法的采用，使战斗得以延续，罗马人最终取得胜利。此例中，相对骑兵而言，罗马人明显对徒步作战的士兵更有信心。他们在其他诸多战斗中也使用了此战术，并发现在危机关头这是最好的补救措施。

即使是汉尼拔也不能反驳这一点，在坎尼战役中，他注意到罗马执政官让骑兵下马参加战斗，于是开玩笑说“Quam mallem vinctos mihi traderent equites”，意思是：“如果他们能把骑兵交由我指挥，我将不胜荣幸。”即使这话出自一位伟人，我们也还是更应该相信罗马共和国及其众多杰出将领的观点，而非汉尼拔一家之言。除了对权威的认同之外，我还可以列举其他合理的原因：步兵可以到达骑兵无法到达的地方；步兵可以被训练保持阵列，即便阵列被攻破，步兵也知道如何重新列阵，然而骑兵就很难保持阵列，当其阵列被打乱时，不可能重新组织。除此之外，马和人一样，有时胆小，有时勇敢，于是经常会发生这样的事情，即胆怯之人骑着英勇之马，以及英勇之人骑着胆怯之马，无论是哪一种组合，都会扰乱军队的秩序。

组织严密的步兵能轻松击败骑兵，但是骑兵却很难击溃步兵。这个观点不仅仅在古代和现代的诸多事例中得以证实，而且也得到了公民行为规范制定者的认同：在没有组建步兵之前，骑兵是战争中的主力军，后来有了步兵，人们随即确信其比骑兵更有用。但这并不是说骑兵对军队不重要，骑兵的作用是侦察敌情，袭击和掠夺乡村，追逐逃亡的敌人，以及与敌军的骑兵对抗。但是，步兵构成了军队的基础，军队的中坚力量应该是步兵，所以应该得到更多的重视。

使意大利陷于外国统治者奴役的意大利君主犯下的诸多罪行中危害最大的就是，不重视军队的规模，过分专注于骑兵。这种荒唐做法源自军官们的刚愎自用和统治者的无知。失去官方地位的意大利民兵在过去的二十五年里，逐渐沦为雇佣兵。这些民兵意识到，如果他们拥有统治者所没有的武装力量，他们就能获得应有的地位。由于他们没有财力维持一支大规模的步兵团，没有可利用的人力资源，而小规模军队不足以使他们声名鹊起，于是他们将目光转向骑兵。两三百人的雇佣骑兵队就能确保佣兵队长的名誉，而且这笔数目不大的金钱容易从国务大臣那里得到。因此，他们得遂所愿并取得了名誉，于是更加轻视步兵的作用，更多关注骑兵。这种做法的滥用导致即便在规模最大的军队中步兵也只占少数。此做法以及其他与之有关的诸多错误行为，让意大利的民兵组织变得软弱无能，从而使意大利沦为更容易被外族人欺凌的对象。

为了更明确地证实“应重视骑兵轻视步兵”这一观点的错误，另以罗马为例。罗马人在索拉城外扎营之时，从城中杀出一支骑兵袭击他们营地。罗马人组织骑兵进行反击。两军交锋时，意外出现了，第一回合交手中双方指挥官均阵亡。即便如此，战斗仍然继续，罗马士兵为了更容易战胜对手，从马上下来，使敌人骑兵也被迫下马徒步作战，凭这个战术罗马人取胜了。这个例子极好地说明了步兵比骑兵更有功效。在别的行动中，执政官让罗马骑兵下马的目的是协助处于被动、需要支援的步兵。但是在此处，他们下马不是为了帮助自己的步兵，也不是为了与敌人步兵交战，而是骑兵对骑兵的对决，因为罗马人意识到他们在马上无法战胜敌人，他们徒步战斗胜算会更大。所以，据此我推断，只有付出艰苦的努力，一支组织严密的步兵团才有可能被另外一支步兵团击败。

虽然帕提亚骑兵数目庞大，但罗马的克拉苏和马克·安东尼，依靠极少的骑兵和众多的步兵占领了帕提亚的领土很长时间。尽管克拉苏和他的军队被消灭了，但是马克·安东尼英勇作战，最终脱离险境。虽然罗马人遭受了不幸，但我们仍看出步兵比骑兵的价值更大，平原广阔，无险可依，河流稀少，远离大海，交通不便，但是帕提亚人自己也承认，马克·安东尼凭借他杰出的才智拯救了自己。虽然帕提亚拥有庞大的骑兵，却依旧不敢与他的军队决战。克拉苏被留在了战场上，仔细研究他当时的行为记录，人们发现他死于敌人的计谋而非武力。尽管克拉苏陷入被动，帕提亚人也没有趁机冒险进攻他。相反，他们总是在附近游击，拦截他的护卫，许下空头承诺，直到将他逼入绝境。

如果近期没有太多有说服力的事例证明步兵的“功效”要比骑兵更大的话，那么我将不得不花大力气以作证实，但事实证明这种担心完全多余。之前提到过九千瑞士士兵在诺瓦拉进攻一万骑兵和一万步兵，并打败了他们。因为一方面骑兵无法靠近他们，另一方面他们还不屑那些步兵，因为其大部分步兵是只会吹牛的加斯科涅人，组织混乱。后来有两万六千瑞士军队前往米兰，欲与法国国王弗朗西斯交战，后者有两万骑兵、四万步兵和一万门大炮。即使没有像诺瓦拉那样取得胜利，他们依然英勇战斗了两天，虽然被打败了，但仍然有半数的军队成功逃脱。马尔库斯·雷古鲁斯·阿蒂利乌斯不仅有勇气以步兵与敌人骑兵作战，他还与象兵作战。即使他没有获胜，也不是因为他的步兵缺乏勇气而使他不相信他们能战胜困难。再次强调，要想战胜纪律严明的步兵，必须要借助纪律更加严明的步兵，否则只有痛苦的绝望。

米兰公爵菲利普·维斯康蒂在位期间，伦巴第遭到一万六千瑞士人的进攻。于是公爵派遣卡尔米纽奥拉率领他的军队迎敌，共有一千骑兵和少数步兵。卡尔米纽奥拉不熟悉敌人的作战方式，用骑兵进攻敌军，以为能迅速击溃他们。但是瑞士人稳住了阵脚，他却损失惨重，于是撤退了。然而，作为勇士，他知道情况改变时如何抓住有利战机，所以当增援军队到达，实力增强时，他果断出击，命令骑兵下马，并将其置于步兵前面，于是这些骑兵无处可逃。由于卡尔米纽奥拉的骑兵下马作战，而且有厚重的盔甲保护，他们轻而易举地突破了瑞士人的阵列，而没有损伤，随着阵线的突破，最终战胜了瑞士人。结果仁慈的卡尔米纽奥拉选择宽恕他们，瑞士人得以保全性命。

我相信很多人都已意识到这两个兵种之间的特点差异，但是我们当今有些世人仍不接受这一点，无论是古代抑或现代的事例，或者正在发生的公认的错误，都不足以使现代统治者改变观点并意识到：一位君主或一个国家要想保持其军队的声誉，就必须恢复步兵的地位和信誉，信任他们，壮大他们，这样他们才能为统治者带来安全保障和显赫声望。但是，如果统治者就像忽视了上述的其他提醒一样忽视了这点，则不良后果将迅速降临，不仅不会为国家带来荣誉，反而会造成损害。

与战争相关的错误

建造城堡往往弊大于利

对于当代精明之士来说，罗马人似乎做了一件蠢事，即虽然希望取得拉丁姆和普里乌努姆民众的忠心支持，但也没有建造城堡去控制民众，迫使他们保持忠诚，尤其是在佛罗伦萨，这已是公认事实。于是，这些精明之士断言，比萨和其他城市均应该依靠城堡守卫。如果罗马人能力具备，他们也会毫无疑问地建造城堡，但是因其品德、判断力和权力与常人不同，所以他们没有这么做。只要罗马依然享受着自由，依然忠于其自身的制度和有效的体制，就决不会依靠城堡守卫罗马的城市与行省（原有的城堡除外）。鉴于此，透过古罗马人和当今统治者在此件事上看法不同，我认为，建造城堡是否有益及其对于建造者来说是利是弊，都值得思考。

须知城堡作为防御工事是用于抵御外敌或镇压臣民的。于前者，它不必要，于后者，其则有害。首先，我们要解释为什么于后者而言是有害的。我坚信，君王或共和国惧怕他的臣民，害怕他们会聚众叛乱。此恐惧根源于臣民对统治者的切肤之恨；此仇恨源自统治者的荒诞行为，而荒诞行为又来自于他们自以为能通过武力或愚蠢的统治方式控制民众的幻想。有城可据，是统治者们迷信武力的原因之一，因此，统治不当升级为仇恨也往往由坐拥城堡的君主或共和国所致。在此事例中，城堡的作用弊远大于利。正如前文所说，一开始，它会使你在对待臣民时更加鲁莽粗暴。然后，它无法满足你内心希望得到的安全感。在控制你的臣民时，除了下面两种情况之外，武力与暴力均无济于事：一是你拥有一支像罗马人一样能投入战斗的善战之师；二是你的臣民精疲力竭、一盘散沙、各自为战，无法联合起来反抗你。如果你使他们穷困潦倒，“虽然被盘剥殚尽，他们仍然能武装起来”，就算你解除了他们的武装，“他们的怒火将成为最锋利的武器”，如果你处决了他们的领袖，将暴动扼杀在萌芽中，其他领袖也会像九头蛇一样又重新出现。如果你建立了城堡，它们在和平时期有用，能为你虐待臣民的暴行壮胆，但是在战争时期，却会变得一无是处，因为它们将受到来自敌人和臣民的攻击，在这双重打击之下，没有城堡能幸免于难。而且，火炮的使用让城堡风光不再，根本无法对抗火炮的威力来守卫狭小的城堡，如上所述，没有人能够舒服地躲在高墙之后逃过一劫。

在这个问题上我意欲浓墨重彩。我的君主，你想用城堡牢牢掌控城中居民吗？作为一国之主或共和国，你想固守住你在战争中夺取的城市吗？我想告诉你，如果你成为君主，控制百姓最无用的办法就是修建城堡，理由我早已给出：它简单易行，无所顾忌，是严酷之法，只会使百姓希望你早日垮台，正因如此，他们的愤怒会让你失去城堡的庇护。因此，贤明的君主若希望永保圣明，同时不给子孙自甘堕落的理由，那么他永远也不会建造城堡，而是希望继任者能更多地倚重臣民的衷心拥护，而非高墙壁垒。

弗朗西斯科·斯福尔扎伯爵，虽然被誉英明之士，但却在成为米兰公爵之后建造了城堡，我坚信，他的做法极不明智，结果也证明这座城堡非但没有为其后人提供安全保护，反而招致祸害。他们自以为在城堡中就可以安全无虞，可以镇压市民臣民，肆无忌惮地对他们使用暴力；结果被人们极度憎恶，如此一来敌人可轻而易举地攻取他们的国家。城堡在战争时期，既不能提供保护，也不能为其所用，在和平时期又对他们产生损害；如果没有城堡，残酷对待公民亦非明智之举，他们本该早点意识到危险，本可不受其害。在此例中，与其拥有城堡和离心离德的臣民，不如没有城堡却能够和忠诚的臣民共同英勇抵抗法国的进攻。

无论如何，城堡都不会有助于你。守军的背叛，敌人猛烈的进攻，或饥饿围困都会让城堡失陷。在仅存一座城堡的情况下，如果你想利用它收复失地，则必须要有一支能反攻入侵者的军队。有了这样一支军队，即使没有城堡，你也能夺回领土。尤其当你没有因城堡而心生傲慢，没有欺凌友善的臣民，这将更容易做到。经验表明，当遇到灾祸时，米兰城堡无论对斯福尔扎家族，还是对法国人都毫无用处。它带来的灾难与毁灭，反而让其甚至无暇顾及这是否是维护其地位的最有效方法。

乌尔比诺公爵吉多贝多，即弗雷德里克之子，曾贵为军队统帅，却被凯撒·博尔吉亚（即教皇亚历山大六世之子）驱逐流放。后来，因偶然的原因，他又重返故土，将当地所有的城堡都夷为平地，因为在他看来城堡是祸害。他的臣民爱戴他，所以他不需要城堡；在敌人面前，他意识到自己无法保卫城堡，除非专门调派一支军队在战场上保护它们。所以他决心摆脱它们的束缚。

教皇尤利乌斯将本蒂沃利奥从博洛尼亚驱逐出境后，建造了一座城堡，随后他的总督残酷压迫居民，从而导致群众暴动，很快就失去了城堡。城堡非但没帮助他，反而害了他。如果当初不那么做，城堡本可以有益于他。

维特里之父尼科洛·达·卡斯特罗，当他从流亡地重新踏上国土时，立刻拆除了教皇西克斯特四世建造的两座城堡，因为他坚信，不是城堡而是人民对他的衷心爱戴为他守护了自己的国家。

但是，在所有事件中，最近也最值得注意的是不久前发生在热那亚的事件，它能从各个方面说明建造城堡的徒劳无用，以及拆除它们的种种好处。众所周知，1507年热那亚反抗法国国王路易十二，法国国王亲率所有军队重新征服了它，随后建立了当时所知的最坚固的城堡，由于地处海角山顶，因此称“热那亚之角”。因其地理位置险要及其他因素，该城堡易守难攻，可以控制港口和热那亚城的大片地区。1512年，情况有变，法国人被赶出意大利之后，尽管依然控制着城堡，但热那亚人还是起义了。奥塔维诺·弗雷哥索取得政权，使出浑身解数围困城堡达十六个月之久，最终城堡中的人在饥饿面前屈服。人们都希望而且许多人建议应将城堡作为紧急避难所保留下来，但是弗雷哥索是聪明之人，他拆除了城堡，因为他认识到将权力赋予统治者的不是城堡的威严，而是人民的意愿。所以，他没有依赖城堡，而是选择用美德和贤明来巩固地位，他做到了。过去想夺取热那亚政权，一千步兵足矣，但如今纵使它的敌人有上万之众，热那亚也岿然不动。从此，人们知道拆掉城堡不会对奥塔维诺产生威胁，建立城堡也不会有助于君主。一旦他能率领军队进入意大利，即便没有城堡，他也能收复热亚那；但假若他无法率军进入意大利，即使有城堡他也无法收复热亚那。由此可见，法国国王花费大笔金银修建城堡，却落得城破人亡、颜面尽失，反之，奥塔维诺征服城堡为他带来了无上荣耀，拆毁城堡又使他获益匪浅。

现在来谈一下共和国，他们在夺取的城镇中而非自己的国家里建立城堡。如果已列举的关于法国和热那亚的事例还不能说明问题，那么引用佛罗伦萨和比萨的事例应该足矣。佛罗伦萨人修建城堡以控制比萨城，却不知道比萨人对其统治充满了愤怒，渴望得到自由，将反抗作为重获自由的必经之途。佛罗伦萨人要想得到比萨，就要采用罗马人的方式，要么化敌为友，要么将其毁灭。查尔斯国王的到来，使得城堡的作用日益明显，比萨人向他投降了，既是因为对现有管理者的不信任，也是因为害怕招来更坏的统治者。但是如果一开始没有城堡，佛罗伦萨人不用城堡也能控制比萨，那么查尔斯国王也就无法因此从其手中夺取比萨，因为迄今他们所采用的方法或许能守住比萨，但利用城堡无疑是最具灾难性的方法。

由此可见，城堡不利于保卫自己的国家，也无法守住夺取的城镇。罗马人这一事例足以证明这一点。为了固守所得城镇，他们非但没有修建城墙，反而拆掉它们。若有人引用古代塔伦特姆和现代布雷西亚的例子驳斥我，我现对此做出回应。这两个地方在当地民众起义之后，都是因为城堡的协助得以收复。为了收复塔伦特姆，费边·马克西姆斯在其执政初期，就派遣了所有的军队，即使没有城堡，也足够收复之用。虽然费边利用了城堡，但即便没有城堡，他也能用其他方法取得同样的效果。也就是说，收复城市，只需要一支军队和一个像费边·马克西姆斯一样的指挥者足矣。从加普亚的例子来看，罗马人收复它是迟早的事，那里没有城堡，罗马人依靠的是军队的英勇。

现在谈谈布雷西亚。那场暴动中发生的事情绝对是极其罕见的。一个城市发动暴动，城堡仍在你的控制中，而且附近驻有你一支大军，这就是法国人当时的处境。国王的指挥官富瓦亲王，在博洛尼亚有一支军队，当他听到布雷西亚失守时，没有片刻犹豫，立即出兵平叛，三天内就抵达了布雷西亚，并凭借城堡的抵抗收复了失地。在这里，布雷西亚的城堡发挥了作用，但它依然需要富瓦亲王和行军三天后的法国军队来解救。因此布雷西亚的例子并不足以反驳与之相反的例子。在最近发生的战争中，许多城堡被反复争夺，拥有着和那些被反复争夺的不设防的国家相同的命运，不只是在伦巴第，也在罗马涅，在那不勒斯，在意大利的每个角落都是如此。

对于拥有强大军队的人民或国家来说，没有必要修建城堡抵御外敌；对于没有这样军队的国家来说，也没有此必要。无城可守的善战之师足以保卫国家，而有城可据的孱弱之师则无以御敌。这里有享誉青史的统治者的经验为证，以罗马人与斯巴达人为例。罗马人没有建造城堡，斯巴达人不仅没有这么做，甚至不允许修建城墙，他们选择依靠个人品德来抵御外敌，因此无需其他。当斯巴达人被雅典人问到雅典的城墙是否美观时，他们回答道：“非常好，专为女人们而建。”

对于拥有强大军队的统治者而言，在领土的海岸和边界上设立城堡，以阻挡敌人进攻使其有备而战，有时有用，但并非必要。但是，如果没有强大的军队，那么在其境内或边境上修建城堡，要么有害，要么无用。有害是因为他会很轻易地失去这些城堡，而且失守后会被敌人所用；如果城堡足够坚固，没有被敌人占领，那么也会被敌军丢在身后，毫无用武之地。因为强大的军队不会遭遇激烈抵抗，行进军不会理会城市和城堡，只会把它们甩在身后。古代史中弗朗西斯科·玛丽亚多次进攻乌尔比诺，但途中敌人的城市均秋毫无犯。

能召集强大军队的统治者，没有城堡也能成就大业，而没有强大军队的统治者最好不要修建城堡。最好的办法是，加固其所居住的城市，保证食物供给充足，妥善安置居民，这样才能抵挡敌人的进攻，直到达成协议或争取到外援解救。所有其他计谋在和平时期只会耗费财力，而在战时却毫无用处。如上所述，罗马人在其他管理制度方面同样明智而谨慎，正如他们决定用更善良、更明智的方法来获得拉丁人和普里奈特人的忠心那样。

利用内讧借机征服城市的策略不可取

罗马共和国时期，平民和贵族之间冲突不断，因此维恩特人和伊特鲁里亚人认为，只要他们联手利用这些矛盾就可以摧毁罗马政权。于是，他们组织军队，入侵罗马领土，元老院派遣盖厄斯·曼利厄斯和马库斯·费边去抵抗入侵。当罗马军队靠近维恩特人的军队时，后者不停地辱骂罗马人。他们的鲁莽与傲慢反倒让内讧的罗马人同仇敌忾，一致对外，战斗一开始，他们就被罗马人打得落花流水，大败而归。由此可见，依赖敌方内部的不和来制定策略多么愚蠢啊！历史在不断地重演，他们自以为唾手可得，却功败垂成。维恩特人自以为在罗马人不团结时，可以趁虚而入，结果入侵反而引火烧身，使罗马人重新团结起来。罗马共和国内部不和通常是因其正处太平盛世，而团结一致是因其恐惧和战争。如果维恩特人稍有头脑，发现罗马人内部不和时，就应该有意避免与之开战，而采用和平时期所用的计谋来智取。

首先，要取得内讧城市的信任。只要还没有开始互相攻击，他们就可继续在各派之间充当仲裁人的角色。已经武力冲突时，也不要急于支持较弱的一方，而应让其继续自相残杀，消耗彼此的实力。有效的策略不会给任何人留有余地去怀疑你是在谋划征服他们，成为他们的统治者。计谋进展顺利，你就能达到目的，取得你想要的结果。我曾在另一个论题中提及，佛罗伦萨共和国就是靠这种计谋征服了皮斯托亚城。皮斯托亚城正处在分裂中时，佛罗伦萨人时而支持这一方，时而又支持另一方，两面都不得罪，诱使他们上当，直到皮斯托亚城人厌倦其动乱的生活方式，最终自愿投入佛罗伦萨的怀抱。

西恩纳城从未因佛罗伦萨人的帮助而改变其政体，除非那种帮助微弱而少有，因为频繁而有力的帮助反而会使整个城市为保卫当权政府而团结起来。

还有一个有力的实例，即米兰公爵菲利普·维斯康蒂，曾利用佛罗伦萨人的内讧对他们发动过几次战争，但结果都以失败告终，因此他为这些无果的进攻而悲叹，说佛罗伦萨人的愚蠢让他花费了两百万金币，却一无所获。

如上所述，维恩特人和托斯卡纳人在这点上均犯了大错，因此刀兵相见之时，反而被罗马人击败。如果其他人也打算借助此法妄想征服敌人，那么也会犯同样的错误。

蔑视和侮辱对施行的人非但无益，反而会招致仇恨

避免使用威胁和侮辱性言语是人们审慎的标志，因为这两个方法都不能夺敌之勇，反而会使其保持警惕，其次会加深对你的仇恨，使其更加处心积虑地想消灭你。上个章节中讨论的维恩特人一例就是证明。除了战争所带来的伤亡之外，他们还用言语侮辱罗马人，每个理智的统帅都应该禁止他的士兵这样做。因为这种言语只会激怒敌人，他们会为此复仇，或者如上所述，这只会影响他的进攻：事实上它们会变成对抗你的武器。

亚洲有一个很有名的事例即是证明。波斯统帅科巴第斯对阿米达城长时间包围，逐渐心生厌倦，于是决定撤军。正当他拔营撤退时，城里的人为其胜利忘乎所以，登上城墙，极尽各种羞辱之能事，嘲笑和辱骂波斯人的胆小和怯懦。这一行为终于惹怒了科巴第斯，他深感愤怒，于是改变主意，又重新包围此城，并在几天后将其攻陷。

同样的事情也发生在维恩特人身上，如上所述，他们不仅对罗马人开战，而且还轻视敌人，走近罗马军营防御栅栏，不停地辱骂他们。这比战争本身更让罗马军队恼怒，本来一开始他们不情愿打仗，但是现在反而逼迫执政官要求参战，结果正如前文中提到的，维恩特人为其行为得到了应有的惩罚。优秀的军队统帅和明智的共和国统治者应该采取一切必要措施来阻止粗言秽语和嘲讽横行，无论是在城中，还是在军队中，无论是对自己人，还是对敌人。除非谨慎之人采取预防措施，否则，如果对敌人使用，会导致上述麻烦产生，如果对自己人使用，后果更糟。

被留在加普亚的罗马军团密谋反抗加普亚人时，（与这次阴谋有关的）兵变发生了，后来瓦列利乌斯·科尔维努斯将其镇压下去，并在集会中制定了对那些责难他人参与兵变之人应处以的最严厉刑罚规定。

提比略·格拉古，在对汉尼拔的战争中，曾受命指挥因兵员短缺而被罗马人武装起来的奴隶们，对那些胆敢侮辱奴隶的人，他特意制定了一条死刑的特殊规定。

可见，罗马人认为诽谤或责难他人的过失非常有害，如上所述，没有比这个更能激怒人心，或引起更大愤怒，无论嘲笑是真的，还是在开玩笑，“智者说过，当他们接近真相时，要将苦涩的滋味丢掉”。

明智的君主和共和国应满足于胜利，否则胜利将弃之而去

轻视敌人通常是因胜利或者对胜利虚假的希望而骄傲，这种虚假的希望不仅让人在言语中，也会让人在行动中犯错误。人一旦有了这种希望，就不再小心行事，从而常常与希望中可成之事失之交臂，更别提可改进的确定之事。这值得思考，因为人们经常会犯这样的错误，以推罗城为例，被胜利冲昏了头脑的人们，不仅拒绝了使者的条件，还杀了这位前来谈判的使者。因此，亚历山大震怒了，全力攻城，最终占领并毁灭了推罗城，城里居民不是被杀，就是沦为奴隶。

1512年，西班牙军队入侵佛罗伦萨，旨在重振美第奇并对该城征税。佛罗伦萨的内奸使他们相信，只要他们越过边境，就会以其名义揭竿而起。但是当西班牙军队进入阿尔诺河平原后，却发现没有内应，由于缺少粮食补给，于是提出议和。但佛罗伦萨人太过骄傲没有接受，由此导致了普拉托的陷落和国家的灭亡。

因此，当统治者遭受攻击，而敌军比其自己的军队强大许多时，此时最愚蠢的决定就是拒绝和谈，尤其如果和谈是由敌方提出，因为条件不会太苛刻，接受条款的人总会得到一些利益，所以从某种程度上说，他们也分享了胜利。举例说明，亚历山大接受他起初拒绝的条件时，如果推罗城的人们能满足于此，那么他们获得的胜利将不止一点，因为凭借自己的军队，他们使一个伟人被迫屈尊于其意愿。同样地，当西班牙军队对佛罗伦萨人的条件做出让步而没有提出自己的条件时，如果佛罗伦萨人能够满足于此，这也将是伟大的胜利。因为西班牙军队想要的是佛罗伦萨改变政体，不再亲近法国，以及征收贡品。对于这三件事，如果西班牙人能得到后两个，佛罗伦萨人则能保留第一个，即保留他们的政体，双方都能获得一定的荣誉和满足。只要性命无忧，佛罗伦萨人也不会对另两件事太过计较。可惜结果并非如此。如果他们能将此看成一个不错的、几成定局的更伟大的胜利，那么也不会沦落到将自己完全交付命运的安排，并且拿最后的本钱冒险，除非万不得已，否则，冒险绝非明智之举。

在意大利曾尊享荣耀十六年的汉尼拔，当因被迦太基人召回帮助他自己的国家而离开意大利时，他发现哈斯德鲁巴和西法克斯已经被击溃，努米底亚王国灭亡了，迦太基人被困在自己的城市里，只有他和他的军队能为他们带来希望。当他意识到祖国已经危如累卵，于是就决定，在尝试过所有的补救措施之前，绝不去冒险，追求和平并非耻辱，因为他确信，如果他的国家还有一线希望，那就是和平，而不是战争。当和平没有出路时，既然自觉仍可能取得胜利，即使必然战败，他也没有拒绝战斗。但如果他的失败不可避免，他至少可以光荣地失败。虽然汉尼拔具备将领的大智大勇，也拥有一支强劲的军队，但考虑到战败后，人民将沦为奴隶，他便更倾向于和平，而非战争。因此，那些并不具备他的才智和经验的人，在决定开始战争前，是否应该三思呢？但是，人会犯错误，因为他们的希望太无边无际；他们会被摧毁，因为他们只依赖这样的希望而不考虑其他因素。

罗马在和平时与战时同相邻国家和城市的关系

共和国或君主如果不为公众或个人伸张正义、惩奸罚恶将是危险的

什么会使人产生愤怒，这可以从罗马人的经历中找到答案。罗马人派遣三个法比依家族的人出使高卢，当时高卢人正准备进攻托斯卡纳，尤其是克鲁修姆城。克鲁修姆人请求罗马帮助抵抗高卢人。因此罗马人向高卢派遣三个法比依家族的人作为使节，并以罗马共和国的名义声明，一定会阻止高卢对托斯卡纳的战争。当使节到达目的地时，他们发现高卢人和托斯卡纳人正准备交战，于是超过职责范围直接介入了冲突，帮助托斯卡纳人。如此一来事情发生了改变，高卢人发现后，他们将对托斯卡纳人的怒火转移到罗马人的身上。高卢人向罗马元老院提出抗议，要求将上述使节移交给他们发落，以弥补给他们造成的损失。但是这些使节不仅没有被移交给高卢人，也没有受到任何惩罚，反而被选为享有领事权的护民官。结果，高卢人看到本应受到惩处的人反而受到重用，就认为这是对他们的侮辱和蔑视，于是义愤填膺进军罗马并占领了除卡庇托山外的所有地区。罗马人因藐视正义而给自己带来了灾难，因为他们的使节违反了“万国公法”，本应该受到惩罚，而不是加官进爵。

这不禁让人思考，重视这些冒犯对每个共和国和君主来讲多么重要，不仅仅是对所有民众的冒犯，还有关系到个人的冒犯。毕竟，如果一个人受到公众或个人的严重伤害，却没有得到应有的公正对待，那么假如他生活在共和国中，他会为自己复仇，即使会导致共和国毁灭；假如处于君主统治下，且生性勇敢不屈，即使会惹火烧身，他也会费尽心机地报仇雪恨，不达目的誓不罢休。

为了验证这点，没有比马其顿国王菲利普（亚历山大的父亲）更好的例子了。菲利普国王的一个名叫阿塔罗斯的随从被一位名叫鲍桑尼亚的年轻贵族迷住了，几次三番向他表达爱意，但是却发现对方对其并无好感。眼看着无法得其所欲，他于是决定设计阴谋迫使鲍桑尼亚就范。因此，阿塔罗斯大摆酒宴，邀请鲍桑尼亚和其他贵族男爵参加，在其酒足饭饱之际，他抓住了鲍桑尼亚，把他绑了起来。然后他不光使用暴力满足自己的淫欲，而且为了羞辱鲍桑尼亚，他还让其他人也用同样下流不堪的方式虐待他。对此奇耻大辱，鲍桑尼亚向菲利普国王反复申诉，国王却让他稍安勿躁，耐心等候。后来国王不但没有为他复仇，反而任命阿塔罗斯为希腊省总督。看到他的仇敌不仅没有受到惩罚还被重用，于是鲍桑尼亚将作恶者阿塔罗斯和没有为其主持公正的菲利普国王均视为其怒火的宣泄对象。因此在一天早晨菲利普国王女儿嫁入伊庇鲁斯王国的亚历山大家族的庄严婚礼上，正当菲利普国王站在两个亚历山大族人和其儿子与女婿之间，要走向圣殿参加仪式时，鲍桑尼亚杀死了他。这件事与罗马人的遭遇相似，统治者均应引以为戒，决不应该轻视任何人，理所当然地以为如果往伤口上洒盐，受伤之人不会复仇，因为其会卷入危险和毁灭之中。

命运不想让人类阻碍她的计划，于是她蒙蔽了他们的头脑

仔细思考世事，我们会发现许多事情的发生和众多不幸的降临并非天意，毫无防备。因此，显而易见，此段论述在罗马事例中仍然适用，正如美德、宗教、规范的行为方面，同样的事情会经常发生在缺乏以上方面的城市和行省。泰特斯·李维用一个众所周知的事件详细而有力地说明了天意控制人事的道理。他说，为了让罗马人认识到他的力量，天意首先使法比依家族的人在出使高卢时表现不公正，借助其错误行为激怒了高卢人，使高卢对罗马宣战。然后又宣布罗马人无力抵抗高卢的进攻。首先，罗马人在邪恶笼罩的时期里唯一的希望卡美卢斯被流放到了阿尔代亚。然后，当高卢人逼近罗马时，他们没有像以前抵抗沃尔西人和附近其他敌人的多次入侵那样，任命一个独裁官。这也使他们变得虚弱，无法迅速集结部队，部队也根本没有时间武装起来并及时赶到离罗马十英里的阿里亚河岸与高卢人对阵。此时，护民官丢失了其惯有的勤勉来安营扎寨，既没有提前侦察地形，也没有修建壕沟和栅栏保护军营，更没有采取其他人为或天助的防御措施。备战时，指挥混乱，军队和指挥官也没有表现出罗马应有的军纪。战斗中没有人员伤亡，因为罗马军队一触即溃，大部分人逃到维伊，其余的人退守罗马，他们没有回家而是直接躲进卡庇托山。由于罗马元老院对罗马的防御一窍不通，他们甚至忘记关上城门。一些罗马元老逃走了，其他元老则和剩下的罗马人退据卡庇托山，他们在防守卡庇托山时恢复了一些军纪，把不能战斗的人留在城外，为应对长期围困收集他们能找到的所有粮食。不能战斗的人，像老人、妇女和儿童大部分逃到附近乡下，余下的人只能留在罗马听天由命。没有人知道前人是如何应对的，也没有人知道接下来要怎么做，因为没有人认为他们还是与祖先一样的罗马人。

对上述种种混乱的描述，泰特斯·李维总结如下：“当命运不想让人们反抗她的力量时，就蒙蔽人们的头脑至此地步。”

李维的结论是正确无疑的。人的一生既会遭遇坎坷，也会享受富贵，因此应宠辱不惊。人们发现其已经被天意给予种种美好的前景所驱使，要么走向毁灭，要么成就辉煌。据此，他们被给予或被剥夺成为美德之人的机会。命运的安排尽善尽美。当她想让一个人成为伟大事业的领导者之时，她会选择一个品行兼备、能抓住她所给予的时机的人。同样地，当她想让一个人制造灾难时，她会优先考虑可以帮助她达到目的的人。如果有任何人敢横加拦阻，她会杀死他或者剥夺他行善的所有能力。

从李维的论据中可清楚地看出，为了使罗马更加伟大，指引它铸就日后的辉煌，天意认为它必须先要经受磨难（在下本书的开篇会有详细的描述），但她并没有完全毁灭罗马。因为她只是将卡美卢斯流放，并没有害死他；虽然罗马被占领了，但卡庇托山没有沦陷；她这样安排是为了让罗马得不到有效的帮助。她致使罗马被占领，军队主力在阿里亚河畔被击溃，退守到维伊城，从而使罗马城无兵可守。在这些事情的设计之中，她同时也为罗马的再生准备了出路，即在维伊城还有罗马军队，而且卡美卢斯还在阿尔代亚，罗马在战无不胜、声名显赫的统帅的带领下，还可以发动积极攻势收复失地。

为了证实上述观点，我可能还可以列举出更多的现代事例，但并无此必要，此处给出的例子已经足矣。再次强调历史的真相，总体来说证明了人可以接受其命运，但不能反对它；我们可以自己安排它，但不可以破坏它。人应永不放弃，因为希望总是会有的，虽然不知道结局，也不知道通向希望的道路有多么曲折和凶险，但是因为有希望，无论命运会带来什么，无论要承受怎样的艰难困苦，我们都不应该绝望。

真正强大的共和国和君主不会靠金钱收买盟友，而是依靠美德和军队的威望

罗马人被围困在卡庇托山，虽然希望得到来自维伊和卡美卢斯的援救，但由于饥荒，他们不得不向高卢人求和，同意缴纳大笔黄金。当卡美卢斯率领军队抵达时，他们正在按照约定给黄金称重。因此，历史学家说，命运注定“罗马人不应该用金钱换取性命”。

此事不但引人注意，而且深刻说明了此共和国的行为特征。罗马从未购买城镇或者换取和平，因为其一直都是靠军队的威名取得二者。其他共和国却不曾做过类似事情。强国权力的象征之一就是它与其邻国的条约关系。当其处于支配地位，为了获得友谊，它的邻国想成为其附庸国，这是国家强大的明显标志；但是如果邻国虽然实力不济，却仍然能得到进贡，这是国家弱小的明显标志。

纵览罗马历史，你会看到马西利亚人、埃杜维、罗得斯岛人、锡拉库扎的希罗国王、欧迈尼斯国王和马西尼萨国王，都曾与罗马帝国为邻，愿意花费金钱向罗马进贡，以获取罗马的友谊，而只要求得到她的保护作为回报。在弱国，你会发现情况正好相反。首先，佛罗伦萨声名显赫的辉煌时代已经过去，罗马涅的领主都能从它那里收取钱财。同时，它也会给佩鲁贾人、卡斯泰拉尼人以及所有其他邻国赠款。如果佛罗伦萨国力强盛、兵强马壮，那么情况将正好相反，即为了得到它的保护，许多国家会向它进贡钱财，以得到它的友谊，而并非出卖它自己。

不止是佛罗伦萨人曾自贬身价，威尼斯人和法国国王也有过同样遭遇。后者的国家虽强盛，却习惯于给瑞士人和英国国王进贡。这样可以剥夺民众的武装，而且还因为，法国国王和上述提到的其他国家宁可享受现有剥削其人民的优势，不居安思危，也不愿意装腔作势地去保护其人民以使国家长治久安。像这样的荒唐统治，虽然可以暂时换取安宁，但是日久必然会引发危机、灾难和无法弥补的损失。佛罗伦萨人、威尼斯人和法国人花钱避战、自取其辱的事情不计其数，罗马人有且只有一次。佛罗伦萨人和威尼斯人曾买下许多城镇，但后来遭遇动乱时，他们却无法用刀剑来守住用黄金换来的城镇。罗马人只要依然享受自由，就会保持其优良传统。但是当其处于罗马皇帝统治之下时，皇帝逐渐荒唐堕落，远离光明，坠入黑暗，他们也开始向帕提亚人，有时向德国和其他邻国进贡，于是这个伟大帝国开始走向衰亡。

这种种不利情况的产生，是因为你剥夺了民众的武装。更糟糕的是，敌人的攻击力越强大，你会发现自己越虚弱。因为上述的统治者对居住在其统治范围内的臣民施行暴政，但是为了让其能阻敌于国门外，却对那些处于边境的民众施以仁慈。为了更好地防止敌人入侵，他资助邻近的领主和民众，为的是维持自己国家的统治，确保边境太平。但是一旦敌人越境侵犯，则无计可施。这样的国家没有意识到，其统治方式完全违背了正常规律。因为身体最需要加强的是心脏和重要器官，而不是四肢。如果没有四肢，人还可以继续存活，但是如果前者受了伤，人就会死去。这样国家就好比一个拥有全副武装的手脚而无任何心脏保护的身体。

佛罗伦萨因这种秩序的缺乏而遭受的恶果显而易见，也是可预见的。敌军越过边境，逼近它的心脏时，它会发现自己黔驴技穷。同理，几年以前威尼斯人也证明了这一点，如果他们的城市不是有护城河环绕，那么就没有希望了。在法国很少发生这种事，因为法国是一个大国，很少有比它更强大的敌人。尽管如此，1513年英国人入侵法国，整个国家陷入恐慌之中，国王和其他人都认为一次失败就会断送国王和国家。罗马人在这种情况下就与法国人不同，敌军越是接近罗马，他们发现罗马城的抵抗就会变得越坚决。汉尼拔入侵意大利，他发现尽管罗马三次惨败，损失了那么多将军和士兵，但它不仅依然能够抵抗敌人，而且最终赢得了战争。这都归功于“心脏”得到了最好的防护，而不是四肢。因为在这个国家中，主要人口是罗马人，也就是拉丁人，意大利的其他地方和殖民地也有相似的背景。因此，罗马拥有源源不断的兵员可以补充，延续战争。汉尼拔在坎尼取胜后派回信使，从迦太基亲罗马派首领汉诺对信使提出的问题中，就可以看出以上事实。在信使们赞颂汉尼拔的丰功伟绩后，汉诺问他们罗马人是否答应和谈，拉丁人和殖民地的城镇是否已经反叛罗马，这两个问题的答案都是否定的，因此汉诺说道：“这场战争仍然如开始一样远没有结束。”

可见，现今的共和国与古代共和国的作风迥异。正因如此，每天有多少成就铸成，就有多少失败降临。在缺乏美德之人的身上，命运展现了它的力量。因命运变迁，各个共和国和政府也随之而变，而且会一直持续下去，直到某个人带着古人的宠爱降临，他可以控制万物，如同太阳运行，命运之神不必时时展示她之所能。

相信流亡者是危险的事情

相信那些被驱逐出自己国家的流亡者是非常危险的事，鉴于这是每一个当权者都不得不解决的问题，因此这个观点在别的专题中可能并非错误。为了支持这一观点，举一个泰特斯·李维在其史书中曾引用过的典型例子，尽管这不在他的研究范围。亚历山大大帝进军亚洲时，他的一个亲戚——实际上是他叔叔——伊庇鲁斯王国亚历山大，受到卢卡尼亚流亡者的邀请，让其带领军队进入意大利，使其相信通过他们的斡旋，他能得到整个王国。带着他们的承诺和由此而生的希望，他进入意大利，结果被他们害死了，因为同城的公民答应，如果能杀死他，他们就可以回到自己的祖国。因此，我们应该反思那些被自己国家流放的人许下的协议和承诺的不可靠性，要弄清这种人是否言而有信，一定要牢牢记住：一旦他们有机会无需你的帮助就可以回归故土，他们将不顾对你许下的任何承诺，抛弃你投靠别人。相比空洞的承诺和希望，回家的渴望更强烈，以至于他们认为那是错误，并且狡诈地夸大：所以在他们所信与所说之间，他们相信他们使你有了这样的希望，如果你依赖它，你会一无所获或者自取灭亡。

亚历山大和雅典的地米斯托克利的例子足以明证。地米斯托克利被宣布为叛国者后，在亚洲大流士寻求庇护，他向大流士郑重承诺，如果大流士有决心，他会协助进攻希腊。但是后来他没有履行承诺，无论是因为出于愧疚还是害怕惩罚，地米斯托克利最终饮鸩自尽。由此可见，如果像地米斯托克利这样杰出的人物都会犯下如此错误，那么那些德行逊于他的人则更可能犯错，更可能被自己的欲望和冲动左右。因此，统治者应该对流亡者承诺的事情保持谨慎，因为他得到的往往是巨大的屈辱或伤害。

因为利用偷袭或城里居民提供的情报来夺取城镇，极少能够成功，所以我觉得探讨这个与下个章节无关，罗马人照样有很多攻城之法。

罗马人各种攻城之法

罗马人热衷于战争，所以他们总是在任何场合利用任何事情牟利，比如说花钱，以及任何能有所帮助的事情。这就是为什么他们不愿意围困城市，他们认为此战术代价太高，而且过于死板，围城的劣势更多地会抵消胜利带来的优势。因此他们认为最好是采用其他战术而不是围困。在罗马人长年的征战史上，极少有围困城市的事例。

为了得到一座城市，罗马人要么攻城，要么逼其投降。他们进攻时既会凭其强大军队而强攻，也会使用计谋。强攻时，他们会使用两个战术，一是在不破坏城墙的情况下，从所有方向同时进攻，称之为“给城市加冠”，因为所有军队都参与包围并与敌交战。运用这个战术，他们取得了多次胜利，甚至有的大城市在被第一次攻击时就在所难免，例如西皮奥夺取了西班牙的新迦太基城。其次，当攻击失败后，他们就开始用攻城锥或其他围城器具破坏城墙，或者挖掘直通城里的地道，例如维伊城就是这样被攻取的。再者，为了化解守军的高度优势，他们会建造木质塔楼，或在城墙外修筑土山，以便和守军处在同一高度。

为了抵抗上述进攻，城里的守军在面对罗马人第一个战术即全面进攻时，会很快暴露在危险面前，而且没有有效的对策。因为各处都需要守军防守，他们没有足够的预备队和援军，即使人手充足，也不是所有人都能英勇作战，一旦一处攻破，则全线溃败。这种情况时常发生，所以这个战术非常有效。但是，当第一轮进攻失利后，他们不会保持很久，因为这对军队来说很危险，它涉及太多战场，作为整体抵抗是可以的，但对于守军却无力突围。军队失去控制且疲惫不堪；但是如果能出其不意，他们只会尝试一次这种战术。如果在城墙上有突破口，可以暂时借助壁垒进行反击。对付地道，他们可以使用现有的武器或其他工具进行反地道战，如装满羽毛的大桶，点燃之后，把它们投入地道中，烟雾和恶臭会阻止敌人进入地道。如果受到塔楼攻击，他们可以尝试用火攻摧毁它。对付土山，他们可以在城墙的低处开个洞，此处是土山倚靠城墙的地方，然后将外面的泥土吸到城里来，因为泥土从外面堆起，却从内部被掏空，所以土山就垒不起来。

这些攻城战术都不能持久，所以他们要么安营扎寨，要么改变取胜策略，西皮奥在非洲就是这么做的。当他进攻尤蒂卡受挫后，在外面扎营寻机与迦太基军队交战，消灭他们。或者他们可以依靠围困战术，正如他们采用围困战术攻取了维伊、加普亚、迦太基、耶路撒冷和其他城市一样。

借助内应密谋夺城的例子是帕拉奥波利，罗马人在内应的接应下占领了它。罗马人和其他人时常尝试这种战术，但是很少成功。原因就是，即使最小的失误也会导致满盘皆输，这种失误很容易发生。一开始在阴谋计划时就有可能暴露，因为有人会去告发，所以很容易被发现。有时也是因为困难重重。除非你能找到借口，否则并不允许和他们交谈，但此种情况下你就必须要与敌人接触。即便计划顺利进行，没有被发觉，开始实施时还会遇到一大堆问题。如果你比约定时间提前或者推迟都会扰乱计划。再者，如果有任何意外的响声，像卡庇托山的白鹅那样，或者如果正常的过程被打断，即使是最小的错误或失误，进攻也会注定失败。除此之外，黑暗的夜晚会给执行危险任务的人增加恐惧，实际上大多数参与者不熟悉所要去往的地方。他们会迷茫、怯懦，轻微的意外也会使他们心惊胆战，任何错觉都足以使他们掉头逃跑。

在这样隐秘的夜间冒险中，比起西西尼亚人，阿拉托斯则更幸运，没有人被发现，然而，即使他很大胆，在白天公开进行，也会同样感到紧张。我们可以归因于他所具有的某种神秘品行，而不是使他们比其他人更幸运的带有夜间冒险特征的任何事物。虽然经常计划用此战术，但是极少能成功奏效。

城市的投降有可能是自愿的，也有可能是被迫的。如果是自愿的，一方面是因为某些外部情况使城市居民想得到他国的保护，如加普亚希望得到罗马的庇护。另一方面是渴望拥有仁慈的统治者，这种愿望是来自英明君主领导下的好政府，此君主会考虑那些自愿接受他统治的人民，如罗得斯岛人、马西利亚人和其他投降罗马的人。如果是被迫投降，可能是因为上述长期围困，也可能是因为想摆脱由于袭击、劫夺和其他难忍之事而生的苦难。

上述所有方法中，罗马人使用最多的是最后一种。在四百五十多年里，他们通过战场上的胜利和袭击使邻国筋疲力尽，通过条约能获得比他们对手更大的荣誉。这是他们最倚重的方法，虽然他们试过所有方法，但发现其他方法危险且无用。因为围城耗费时间，代价高昂，攻城则无把握且风险高，计谋也不可靠。他们也意识到，如果敌军被击溃，他们一天之内就可以占领敌国，然而，如果他们包围一座顽抗的城市，可能需要几年才能取得。

罗马人给予军队统帅自主权

如果一个人能够重视罗马民众和元老们采用的全部程序模式，他就能通过熟读李维的史书而有所斩获，最引人关注的一点是，他们会赋予执政官、独裁官和军队统帅在战场上的权力。这是非常高的权力，因为罗马元老只为自己保留了开战和确认和平条约的权力。其他所有权力都留给了执政官。举例来说，当民众和元老决定对拉丁人发动战争，他们将其余事情都留给执政官自行决定，可以决定如何战斗，以及选择进攻的城市。

很多例子都证实了这一点，尤其以远征托斯卡纳人一例为典型。执政官费边在苏特流姆附近击败了他们，接着计划带领军队穿过直通托斯卡纳的奇米尼森林。尽管战争在一片新的未探索过的危险地区进行，但是对于其计划，他没有与元老院商议，甚至没有告知他们。正好与之相反，元老院可以接受的行动就是进一步确认。听说了费边取得的胜利，元老院很想知道他下一步是否要穿过奇米尼森林进军托斯卡纳，他们认为最好不要冒险，于是派了两名使者去阻止费边进军。但是当使者到达时，费边已经到达托斯卡纳，并大获全胜，于是，使者干脆抛弃使命，将胜利的消息带回罗马，宣扬他赢得的荣誉。

凡是认真思考这种方式的人都会发现，善于使用它是非常明智的。如果元老院要求执政官一步步按照他们的指示指挥战争，那么他就会变得谨小慎微，反应迟缓。元老院认为胜利的荣耀不能全部归功于执政官，他们也要分享，因为战争原本是在他们指挥下进行的。而且，元老院本可以对一些不需要立即处理的事情提出建议，虽然元老们都是在军事方面经验丰富的人，但他们远在千里之外，并不熟悉战场的种种重要细节，因此无法给出正确的建议，会犯下许多错误。正因如此，他们更希望执政官自行决定，他们认为他会因热爱荣誉而尽力约束和节制自己的行为。

说到这点，我想唤起读者的注意，因为我注意到现今的共和国，像威尼斯和佛罗伦萨共和国，表现有所不同。如果他们的统帅、执政官或地方长官要安排战术，他们了解它并给出建议——这套程序与其他值得称赞的相同程序一样，让我们走上如今的道路。

对战略、策略、新装备和纪律的各种评论

如果敌人不惜一切代价决意与之交战，统帅则无法避战

“独裁官盖乌斯·苏尔比基乌斯与高卢人作战，在其作战时机和不利状况继续恶化时，不会孤注一掷与敌人决战。”对于所有人或大多数人都可能犯的错误，经常警告他们应对错误不是一件坏事。因此，我们现今处理重大事件的方法比不上古人的水平。在这个时候再次指出这点并不多余。如果说有什么已经违背了古代传统的话，那么一定是在军事方面，古人们看重的东西现在都消失了。这种不幸是由于共和国和君主已经将这些事情委托给其他人执行。为了避免危险，他们置身军事行动之外，虽然有时君主也会亲自带兵出征，但我不会因此认为他能做出值得称颂的事。实际上，他们参与军事行动，只是为了炫耀而非可敬的原因。这是事实，他们会偶尔检阅一下军队，保留统帅的头衔，他们犯错误的次数要比共和国少一些，尤其是意大利的那些共和国，他们严重依赖他人，自己则对战争一无所知，然而他们希望自己在军队眼中仍贵为君主，于是参与制定决策，结果犯下了数不清的错误。

虽然在别的地方讨论过一些错误，但我依旧无法对一些大错保持沉默。当这些懒散的君主或无能的共和国派遣他们的将军征战时，他们认为任命他去做的最明智的事情，不是在战场上与敌人交战，而是恰恰相反，防守敌人进攻高于一切。他们认为这么做是在效仿费边·马克西姆斯，即避免交战从而拯救罗马。但他们忽略了这样一个事实：这样的委任多半是荒谬或危险的。应谨记于心的一点是，如果敌军不惜一切代价决意与之交战，留在战场上的将军将无法避免战斗。因此，这样的委任相当于：“迫不得已时方可参战，否则不可主动进攻。”如果一个将军想留在战场又不想交战，那么唯一的保险办法就是，与敌军保持至少五十英里的距离，然后派出精锐的侦察员，如果敌人向你进军，你可以有时间远离他们。另一个方法就是躲在城里。但两个方法都极其危险。第一个方法会让你的国家受制于敌，英勇的君主宁可在战场上决一死战，也不愿意以他的臣民为代价拖延战争。第二个方法注定会失败，如果事情果真这样，把军队带进城里，你可能会被包围，而且用不了多久你就会被饥饿折磨而开城投降。因避战而采用这两个办法都极其不利。只要费边·马克西姆斯的军队依然英勇无畏使敌人不敢到你的阵前挑战，那么他采纳的坚守险要的计划就会一直有效。所以说费边没有避战，他只是更想利用他的优势进行交战。如果汉尼拔想与他交战，他本可以一整天等待他。但汉尼拔不敢在这样条件下和他交战。可以说汉尼拔和费边一样避战；但如果任何一方决意不惜代价决战，另一方将不得不采用三个方法之一，即前面已经说过的两个方法，还有逃跑。

以上所述千真万确，有很多例子可以清楚地证明，尤其是罗马人和马其顿的菲利普（珀修斯之父）之间的战争。当菲利普被罗马人攻击时，他决定不与之交战，如同费边·马克西姆斯一开始在意大利那样避免交战一样。他和他的军队驻扎在山顶上，建立防御工事，原以为罗马人不敢来找他交战。但是罗马人来了，和他交战，还把他从山上赶走了。他无力抵抗，和他大部分的军队一起逃跑了。恶劣难行的地形阻止了罗马人的追击，使他免遭彻底被歼。菲利普仍然不愿意与罗马人交战，他在罗马的附近扎营，不得不离开。他从失败经验中学会了如何避战，在山顶上扎营是不够的，也不能把自己关在城里。于是决定采用余下的方法，让自己与罗马的营地保持很远的距离。因此，当罗马人进驻这个省，他就转移到另一个省，如此这样捉迷藏，只要罗马人退走，他就回去。但最后他终于意识到靠拖延战争，他的处境会越来越糟，双方都让他的百姓遭受很多痛苦。他决定在战争中一决高下。于是在适当的时候，他与罗马人展开了正面决战。

在费边军队身处的情况下避免交战是有利的，对盖乌斯·苏尔比基乌斯也是如此，即当你有一支善战之师，敌人不敢应战，无法把你赶出防御工事时，或者当敌人在你的国家立足未稳，无法保证后勤补给供应时，这个方法有用，李维给出的理由是：“只要时机和不利状况每天都会使敌人的处境变得越坏，那么他就不愿意孤注一掷与敌人决战。”但是在其他情况下，避战会带来耻辱和危险，因为如果你逃跑了，正如菲利普那样，其结果会和被击溃一样糟糕，而且更可耻，以至于有损你的美德。尽管他成功逃脱了，但是那些无有利地形帮助的人可能就没有他那么幸运了。

无人否认汉尼拔是一位战争奇才。当他在非洲与西皮奥较量时，如果他能看出拖延战争的任何好处，他一定会这么做。或者，身为一名拥有一支常胜之师的高明统帅，他本可以效仿费边在意大利的做法。但是，他既然没有这么做，一定有更强有力的理由。他的军队已经集结完毕，他知道自己军费匮乏，缺少盟友，不能进行持久战，作为统帅，如果在他的军队被迫解散之前不与敌人进行决战，那么他一定是疯了。如果他继续等待，肯定会失败；但如果进攻，他可能会成功。

还有一点值得思考，如果一个人注定要失败，又试图赢得荣誉，那么与敌人战斗至最后一兵一卒将比其他让你蒙羞的方法更能让你得到敌人的尊敬。汉尼拔一定是被困境限制了手脚。另一方面，如果汉尼拔当时推迟交战，而西皮奥没有勇气进军攻击他坚固的工事，那么西皮奥本可以不会为此蒙受损失，因为他已经打败了西法克斯，并占领了非洲大部分城市，如同在意大利一样处境无忧。与汉尼拔的战争不是他当初对抗费边时的情景了，同样与高卢人的战争也不是他当初对抗苏尔比基乌斯时的情景了。

带领军队进攻别的国家而又想避免交战是不可能的。如果想进军敌国，敌军出现时，交战是不可避免的。如果在一座城市前列阵，也必须交战。我们这个时代就发生过这样的事情，当勃艮第公爵查尔斯在瑞士城镇穆尔滕前安营扎寨时，被瑞士人击溃了。同样，当法国军队包围诺瓦拉时，也被瑞士人击败了。

当被迫对抗多个敌人时，即使比敌人弱小，假如能抵挡住敌人的首次进攻，你实际上已经胜利了

罗马城民众的护民官的权力非常大，这很有必要，否则，他们就不可能监控贵族的野心。正如前述，在此情况下，贵族原本会很快腐蚀共和国。然而，我在别处提到过，因为体制内特有的弊病，导致了新的灾难，所以共和国必须颁布新的法令对抗他们。因此，护民官因权力在握而变得越来越傲慢，威胁了贵族和整个罗马。如果阿庇乌斯·克劳狄未提出制衡护民官权力的措施，那么由此产生的危险会对罗马的自由造成不利影响。这包括从他们中间甄别出哪些人怯懦、容易腐化，哪些人能投身于公众利益，以及当他们的建议与元老院的建议相左时，哪些人易被诱导以致反抗其他人的意志。这个措施在很大程度上限制了护民官过大的权力，有益于罗马。

这让我们不禁思考下面情况是如何发生的，众多力量联合起来对抗单一力量，虽然通过联合使其力量比对方高出许多，然而单一力量却被期望得更多，虽然力量比联合力量弱小，即使它很强大，单一力量还有许多联合力量所没有的众多优势，因此，其只要稍稍努力，较弱一方就可以瓦解联合力量，使原本强大的联盟变弱。我不再引证古代史中的例子，因为例子太多，但是我会用引用一些发生在我们时代的现代事例。

1483年，所有的意大利行省组成了反威尼斯联盟。威尼斯人失去了所有领土，他们的军队在战场也落败了，于是靠贿赂诱使取得米兰统治权的卢多维科爵士与其成功达成了协议，按照协议威尼斯人不仅收回了他们失去的土地，而且还获得菲拉拉国的一块领地。因此，虽然他们战败了，但是当和平来临时，他们却比之前更富有。

几年前，整个欧洲组成了反法同盟，但是在战争结束之前，西班牙退出了同盟，出于自身利益的考虑与法国人讲和，结果导致其他同盟国在很短的时间内也纷纷与法国达成和解。

由此结论显而易见。如果许多国家对一个国家宣战，那么这个国家摆脱此局面最好的方法是：它必须抵抗住第一轮的进攻，然后拖延时间，等待时机的来临。如果做不到这一点，许多危险将随之而生，威尼斯就遭遇了这种情况。如果可以拖住法国军队，有时间争取到反威尼斯联盟中的某个国家的支持，它就可能避免灾难的发生。但是威尼斯的军队不够强大到可以拖住敌军，没有时间劝说任何国家脱离联盟，因此失败了。我们注意到，罗马教皇在收复失地后，成为了它的同盟国，随后西班牙也与其结盟。如果这两位君主有能力，他们本来很愿意帮助它拯救伦巴第，因为这样可以阻止法国在意大利称霸。因此，威尼斯人原本可以通过放弃部分领土，而保住其他部分。如果在战争爆发之前能实现的话，这将会是一个明智的选择，这样他们就不会被赶出来。但是在战争开始后，这样做反而会受到谴责，而且很可能没有作用。然而，在开战前，几乎没有威尼斯人预见到这种危险，更别说应对措施，也没有人给他们提出建议。

由此，我们的结论是，罗马元老院找到了从护民官的野心中挽救国家的方法，即设置多个护民官。所以，如果有很多人辅佐的君主非常英明地采取适当的措施化解联盟，那么他就能控制国家。

谨慎的统帅应该让他自己的军队绝对相信作战的必要性，但应避免迫使敌人也这么做

以上论述已经表明，生存欲望在人类生活中发挥了非常大的作用，它可以引领人们取得光荣的业绩。正如德高望重的哲学家在他们作品中写到的那样，如果没被生存欲望驱使，那么人最高贵的工具，即双手和舌头，就不可能完美地完成工作，或者将他们的工作带到前所未有的高度。因此，古代军队统帅意识到了生存欲望的作用，即当受到生存欲望的驱使，士兵就能在战斗中变得坚定不移，作战勇敢，因此他们会将其部队置于绝境中，另一方面，不让敌人有破釜沉舟的可能。为达此目的，他们经常会向敌军打开他们原本关闭的道路，而对自己的士兵封闭原本开放的道路。要想让一个城市能顽强抵抗，或者让军队在战争中勇敢作战，那么他首先应该做的就是，将这种生存欲望灌输到参战士兵的头脑中。

结果就是，谨慎的统帅在攻打和包围一城市时，应该考虑促使城中居民抵抗的生存欲望程度，从而估计出攻城的难度。如果发现促使他们守城的生存欲望非常大，他就应该知道围困将很困难，反之，将很容易。这就是为什么平定反叛的城市比首次攻取它时要困难的多。起初，他们不会担心因为抵抗而受到敌人的惩罚，于是轻易地投降了，但是后来他们害怕由于再次抵抗而受到惩罚，于是征服他们就会变得困难。这种固执源于邻国之间天然的仇恨。出于野心与嫉妒促使国家之间互相征伐，尤其是共和国之间，托斯卡纳就是例子，这种敌对和竞争使得征服对方变得艰难，而且艰难程度会越来越大。仔细思考一下佛罗伦萨城的邻国有哪些，威尼斯城的邻国有哪些，就不难理解，佛罗伦萨在战争中本不应该花费比威尼斯多，所得到的却比它少，因为威尼斯周边的城镇没有比佛罗伦萨周边城镇的抵抗更顽强。这是因为威尼斯人更习惯于在君主而不是自由城邦的统治下，而习惯于服从的城市通常不介意更换统治者，恰好相反，他们愿意这么做。因此，虽然威尼斯的邻国比佛罗伦萨的邻国更加强大，但由于这些城镇的抵抗并不顽强，所以威尼斯能比佛罗伦萨更快地征服他们，而后者的周围都是自由城邦。

我们回到这个论述的主题。当一位将军攻击一座城市时，他应该尽其所能使守军放弃生存欲望，以及他们顽抗的意志，如果他们害怕惩罚，则通过承诺赦免他们，如果他们害怕失去自由，则跟他们解释他们大多数人的公共利益不会受到侵犯，只是剥夺少数野心家的利益。这样做有助于攻取城市。虽然这些花言巧语很容易被人看穿，尤其是谨慎之人，但平民依然时常上当。因为他们渴望和平早日来临，于是对慷慨承诺掩盖下的陷阱视而不见。许多城市就是因此沦为奴役之地的。佛罗伦萨就是最近的例子。这发生在克拉苏和他的军队身上，虽然他意识到帕提亚的承诺是空洞的，但敌人的和平建议却使他的军队失去了抵抗的必要信念，他无法维持军队的志气，迷失了方向。如果重新审视自己的人生，我们就能看清这一点。

由于少数人的野心，撒姆尼人违反他们的条约，袭击和掠夺罗马同盟国的领土。后来他们派遣使节到罗马请求和平，提出愿意归还他们掠夺的东西，并交出导致战乱和抢掠的罪魁祸首，但他们的请求被罗马人拒绝了。当他们两手空空地回到撒姆尼后，撒姆尼军队的统帅克劳迪厄斯·庞提乌斯，在他著名的演说之一中指出：虽然他们这方希望和平，但是罗马人无论如何都想发动战争，生存欲望驱使他们必须参战，他说道：“如果生存欲望迫使人们参战，则战争是正当的，如果人们的希望寄于武力，则拿起武器就是他们的职责。”他将军队胜利的希望建立在此生存欲望上。

还有一个罗马事例中更值得注意的例子，即盖乌斯·曼利厄斯领导他的军队对抗维伊人，当一部分维伊人的军队突破他们的防御栅栏后，他急忙带领一队人马抵抗他们，为了不让维伊人逃掉，他在军营中的每个出口都设置了守卫。因此，当维伊人发现他们无路可逃时，反而勇猛异常，竟然杀死了曼利厄斯，如果不是一位护民官头脑清醒放他们出去，他们也许会将其他罗马人也杀死。因此，只要生存欲望仍在约束维伊人战斗，他们就会勇不可挡，但是，当他们看见有路可逃时，反而只会想着逃跑，而不是战斗。

当沃尔西人和埃魁人的军队越过罗马边境时，罗马派遣执政官抵抗他们。维提乌斯·麦西乌斯指挥的沃尔西军队在战斗中，发现被罗马人的防御栅栏包围了。他知道要么战死，要么拼死作战求得生机，于是对他的士兵说：“跟我一起上，在战场上没有城墙和壁垒，只有刀剑对刀剑，虽然我们勇气相当，但生存欲望是我们最后的武器，也是最好的武器，你拥有这种优势。”因此，李维称生存欲望是“最后和最好的武器”。

全罗马最谨慎的统帅卡美卢斯，当他率领军队进入维伊城后，为了巩固取得的胜利，让敌人失去抵抗的最后一丝生存欲望，在维伊人能听见的情况下，大声发布命令：任何人只要放下武器，就不会受到伤害。结果就是维伊人扔掉了武器，整个城市几乎兵不血刃就屈服了。这个方法后来被很多将领效仿。

哪一方最值得相信，强将弱兵，还是弱将强兵？

科里奥兰纳斯被罗马驱逐出境后，投靠了沃尔西人，在那里集结了一支军队，借此向他的罗马同胞复仇。他开始向罗马进军，但是最终撤退了，原因是他对他母亲的爱，而非对罗马军队的爱。在对这件事情的评论中，李维说道：我们可以从中知道，罗马共和国更多是通过她将领的美德，而不是士兵的美德而成长。虽然沃尔西人以往总是失败，但这次他们本可以获胜，但由于科里奥兰纳斯是他们的统帅，才没有取胜。虽然李维提出这个观点，但在他的历史著作中有许多文章表明，没有统帅指挥的士兵们也曾表现出证明他们品行的非凡行为，在执政官死后，他们甚至比他战死前更加纪律严明，更加意志坚决。这样的事情发生在西班牙由西皮奥家族领导的罗马军队身上，尽管这两个统帅均战死了，但罗马士兵的品行不仅保护了自己，而且打败了敌人，为罗马共和国挽救了西班牙。考虑上述许多例子中只凭士兵的品行就赢得了战争，还有许多其他例子中是将军的品行发挥了同样的作用，所以我们可以说，将军与士兵需要彼此。

在这一点上，我们应该首先考虑哪一个更让人害怕：弱将强兵，还是强将弱兵。如果我们相信恺撒的观点，则双方同等重要。恺撒前往西班牙与阿夫拉涅乌斯和彼得利乌斯作战时，虽然对手有一流的军队，但是他没有表现出一丝恐惧，他说道，他是在和一支无将之师作战，意此表明统帅的无能。另外，当他前往塞萨利与庞培交手时，他说道：“我将遇到一位无兵之将。”

更进一步探讨此问题：究竟是常胜将军铸造了常胜之师，还是常胜之师成就了常胜将军。我倾向于这个观点：众人之力皆为一人之志，则易；而一人之力皆为众人之志，则难。当卢库勒斯被派遣与米特里达梯交战时，完全没有任何战争经验，然而他带领的军队很精锐而且有杰出的军官，很快他就成长为优秀的统帅。同样，罗马人因为人力短缺，武装了许多奴隶，并把他们交由森普罗尼乌斯·格拉古斯训练，在很短的时间里，他就把他们培养成了一支优秀的军队。曾在别处提到过的佩洛皮达斯和伊巴密浓达，当他们把底比斯从斯巴达人的奴役中解放出来后，在短期内将底比斯农夫打造成了优秀的战士，他们不仅能够对抗斯巴达的民兵，而且还打败了他们。

这场争论是势均力敌的，因为一方是好的，就可以使另一方变得和它一样好。一支优秀的军队，如果缺少一个英明的统帅就会变得躁动而危险，亚历山大死后的马其顿军以及内战中的老兵就是这样。因此，我们应该对有时间训练士兵并将他们全副武装的杰出统帅更有信心，而不是一个狂躁之徒被临时选为乱军的头头。更多的荣誉与赞美应该给予那些既能打败敌人，又能将军队在迎敌前训练成虎狼之师的将军们，因为他们展示出了双重的美德，即使将这种美德给与众人，使其成为严厉的纪律严明者，他们也远不能像那些将军那样受到尊敬和赞颂。

由于战争中新发明的出现或不熟悉的叫喊而产生的作用

许多事件都表明，在冲突和战争中因第一次被人看见或听到的事物而发生前所未有的事件非常重要，以罗马人与沃尔西人的战争为例。当奎因久斯发现他军队的一个侧翼在后撤，于是大声喝叱他们坚守阵线，因为另一个侧翼正在获胜，通过这些激励的话语，他让自己的士兵重新获得勇气，同时也让敌人惊恐万分，于是他获胜了。对于纪律严明的军队，这些话语会有很大作用，对于混乱不堪和军纪涣散的军队仍会有更大作用，可以说是，一语重于泰山。

举一个发生在我们时代的不同寻常的例子。几年前，佩鲁贾城因奥迪和巴利奥尼两支势力而分裂。后者当权之后，前者被流放了。但是在朋友的帮助下，巴利奥尼召集了一支军队，集结在靠近佩鲁贾的一座城镇里。在城内追随者的协助下，夜晚他们神不知鬼不觉地潜入城中，然后向广场的方向前进。因为城中的每个街头都设置了铁链阻挡道路，所以在奥迪军队的前列有一个人手持铁狼牙棒负责砸开固定铁链的锁，以便让骑兵通过。当呼喊声“拿起武器！”响起时，正在砸锁的人被后面的人群推挤得无法举起胳膊抡棒，于是，他大喊了一声“退后！”，这句话被后面的人一级级传下去，结果变成了“撤退！”。于是后面的人开始逃跑，一个接一个，其他人也随着自己人产生的混乱而溃逃。因此，奥迪人的计划就这么泡汤了，就因为一句不起眼的话。

严明的纪律不仅能使军队在战斗中保持有序的队列，而且也会防止一些小意外扰乱军心。仅以此原因，就说明平民大众在战争中毫无用处，因为任何谣言、喊声、骚动都会影响他们的情绪，使他们落荒而逃。因此训导是有必要的，高明的统帅应该委派专人听从其口头命令，并将命令传递给其他人。他应该使他的军队不去理会别人，军官们不得擅离职守。疏忽这些要点会导致无法控制的混乱。

至于疑兵之计，每位统帅都应该在战斗中，尝试使用这种方法鼓舞士气，同时挫伤敌人的锐气，尤其是在侥幸获胜的战斗中非常有效。以罗马独裁官盖乌斯·苏尔比基乌斯为例。在他与高卢人作战时，他把武器分发给所有脚夫和随从们，让他们骑上骡子和其他乘骑，让他们伪装成一支骑兵部队，然后让他们手持旌旗隐蔽在山后。在战斗白热化的时候，命令他们收到信号后，出现在战场上，让敌人看到。如此疑兵之法，让高卢人惊恐万分，于是溃败了。有两件事是一位优秀统帅应该做的：第一，他应该知道是否应该采用新奇的战法惊吓敌人；第二，他应该保持警惕，观察敌人是否会用同样的花招来对付他，从而察觉出并化解它。

印度国王就是这么做的，但当塞米勒米斯注意到印度国王有很多大象后，为了威吓住他，让他看到她也有很多大象，于是将水牛和母牛的兽皮披在骆驼的背上伪装出许多假大象。但她的计谋让印度国王发现了，她的计划不仅无用，而且变成了她的劣势。同样，当独裁官玛莫库斯与费德奈人交战时，为了惊吓罗马人，在战斗最激烈的时候，他们命令许多军队将火把绑在长枪上从费德奈城出来，自以为借此就可以分散罗马人的注意力，结果自乱阵脚。

但须注意，这种计谋如果实大于虚，则可以用于占优势的一方，因为如果他们足够勇猛，弱点就不会很快被发现。但是如果虚大于实，则最好不要采用，或者如果采用了，要尽量多伪装一会儿，别让骗局很快被揭穿，就像盖乌斯·苏尔比基乌斯的“骡兵”做的那样。如果疑兵之术有内部弱点，只要走到近前就会被看穿，那将对你是百害而无益，就像塞米勒米斯的大象和费德奈人的火把一样。虽然一开始他让罗马军队变得有点不安，然而，独裁官赶过来，喝住他的士兵，告诉他们不要像胆小鬼一样被一点点小烟吓跑，应该转身冲过去，他高呼道：“既然你们无法用仁慈使他们安静，那么就用火焰摧毁费德奈。”这种方法被证明对费德奈人没有用处，他们是战斗的失败者。

军队的统帅应该只有一位，而非多位，令出多门是祸事

当费德奈人反叛并屠杀了罗马人派到费德奈的移民后，罗马人为了报仇雪耻任命了四位有领事权的护民官，其中一人留下保卫罗马，另外三个人被派遣去与费德奈人和维伊人交战。由于指挥权分散，护民官之间相互对立，虽然没有造成严重后果，但他们回到罗马时名誉扫地。幸亏罗马军队英勇善战，才没有因他们的无能而引发灾难。因此，当罗马人意识到问题根源后，就任命了一位独裁官，负责将三位护民官引发的混乱恢复正常。这表明，多人指挥同一支军队或者负责防御同一座城市毫无用处。泰特斯·李维对这件事是再明白不过，他写道：“三位有领事权的护民官向我们展示了在战争中令出多门是多么的徒劳无用，每个人都倾向于自己的意见，认为别人的都是错误的，于是他们给了敌人可乘之机。”

虽然这个例子足够说明号令不统一在战争中会引起混乱，我想再举两个例子，一个来自现代，另一个来自古代，能更好地支持这个观点。

1500年，在法国国王路易十二重新征服了米兰之后，他派出军队进军比萨城，想从佛罗伦萨人手中夺回它。军队由吉奥凡巴蒂斯塔·里多尔菲和卢卡·蒂·安东尼奥·第格利·阿尔卑兹同时指挥。因为吉奥凡巴蒂斯塔威望很高，而且经验丰富，卢卡将一切事务均交由他管理。虽然没有显露出，但卢卡通过沉默、疏忽和批评的方式表现出反对吉奥凡巴蒂斯塔的野心，结果他既没有为围城作战出力，也没有献计献策，表现得像自己并不存在。后来，因为某件事情的发生让吉奥凡巴蒂斯塔不得不返回佛罗伦萨。当卢卡一人独掌大权之后，事情发生了变化，他通过勇气、勤奋和明断表现出了他的价值，只要他的同僚还在军营，所有这些特质都不会被展示出来。

为了证实泰特斯·李维的话，引用另一个例子：罗马派遣一支军队讨伐在奎因久斯和他同僚阿格里帕指挥下的埃魁人。阿格里帕想从奎因久斯手中取得对战争的绝对控制权，他说道：“只有当最高指挥权在一人之手时，军队事务管理才会最明智。”

这和我们现在的共和国和君主的做法正好相反，为了加强管理，他们为一个地方加派了多名行政长官和多名军队指挥官，导致了难以形容的混乱。在我们的时代里，如果人们想找到灾难降临到意大利和法国军队上的原因，那么这是最有效的通途。总而言之，可以确信，将征战之事委托给一位才智平庸的人，要好过交给两位拥有同等权力的杰出之人。

给征战中统帅们的建议

为什么法国人曾被而且如今依旧被称为开战如虎，后继如鼠

高卢人在战斗激情的鼓舞下，时常在阿尼奥河岸上向罗马人提出挑战，这引发了他们与提图斯·曼利厄斯的战争。高卢人的斗志也使我想起泰特斯·李维曾数次说到他们，即在战斗刚开始的时候比男人更加勇敢，但是随着战斗的持续，他们会变得比女人还不如。至于为什么会这样，许多人认为这是本性使然，这正确无疑。但不能由此推断出曾使他们一开始勇敢战斗的本性，不能被规则控制以至于他们无法将勇猛坚持到底。

为了证明这一点，我们先了解一下军队的三种类型。第一种，既有斗志又有秩序。秩序能提升斗志和品德，这在罗马军队中得以体现。在他们的整个历史中，罗马军队总是秩序井然，军纪的使用由来已久。在纪律严明的军队中，没有人不按照军规行事。因此，罗马军队征服了全世界，他们是其他军队的榜样——没有人好吃懒做或嫖娼，而且没有执政官的命令，不会有人擅自执行军事或民事行动。不遵守纪律的军队不是真正的军队，即使他们做了不起的事，也是由于激情和冲动，而不是因为英勇。遵守纪律的品德能在恰当的时间以恰当的方式使用激情，军队不会因此遭遇困难或损失。严明的军纪能激发勇气和斗志，从而增加胜利的希望，只要军纪尚存，则胜利尤在。

与上述类型正好相反，第二种类型是只有激情而无纪律的军队，高卢人就是这样，他们在战斗中纪律涣散。如果第一次进攻受挫，他们就会动摇不定，因为激情不能维持长久，当他们的激情冷却下来，他们就无所依靠。罗马人，正好相反，因为他们纪律严明，所以他们不在乎危险，不会丧失胜利的信心，他们能保持坚定和顽强，自始至终用同样的勇气和品德进行战斗。当战斗意志被激发起来，他们就会勇往直前。

第三种类型的军队就是既无天生的斗志也无纪律进行补充的军队，就是我们时代的意大利军队，非常无能，除非遇到一支因意外而逃跑的军队，否则决不可能获胜。没有必要引述更多例子，因为他们每时每刻都在证明着自己多么的软弱无能，毫无勇气可言。因此，泰特斯·李维的话简明扼要地阐述了优秀的军人和无能的军人是如何产生的，我引用帕披里乌斯·克塞在指责费边时所做的演讲：“没人会尊重人或众神，他们不会遵守统帅的法令或指示，他们会在和平或敌对的领土上到处游荡劫掠；他们会忘记自己的誓言，未经许可就脱离军队，而且他们很愿意这么做；他们会让旗帜无人守卫，不会再听从命令集结或解散；他们会为争夺领地而不停争斗，不管这个地方是否适宜，也不管统帅的命令；他们不会保留军团或军阶；就像一群强盗，盲目而狂躁，而不是守纪和尽职的军人。”在这段话中，我们能立刻看出我们时代的军人是否盲目而狂躁，或者是否守纪和尽职，他们远没达到军人的标准，而且远不及罗马人那样有斗志有纪律，或者仅仅像高卢人那样有战斗的激情。

大战前的小规模战斗是否有必要，如果统帅不这样做，怎么才能了解新的敌军

我们在上文提到过，在世事中，还有这种困境：当人们想将事情办得达到完美程度时，会发现灾祸总会与福祉同行，祸易变成福，这两者共存似乎是可能的。这是世之常情。正因如此，福祉总是难以得到，除非命运的眷顾为你消除天然的麻烦。我不得不说，这是曼利厄斯与高卢人的战争，对此泰特斯·李维说道：“这场战斗将决定整个战争的结局，高卢人的军队在恐惧中丢弃了他们的营地，最先逃进提泊坦，然后流窜到坎帕尼亚。”一方面，无论如何，优秀的统帅都应避免因偶然事件而损害军队的行为，因为他的军队不是雇佣兵，因此孤注一掷的冒险是极其鲁莽的，正如上文在谈论守卫关口时所述。

另一方面，当英明的统帅发觉他将与享誉盛名的不熟悉的敌军交战时，在决战之前，他们应让军队通过小规模的接触战来探得敌人的实力，从而了解敌人，继而找出应对之法，这可以消除因谣言和敌人声望而生的恐惧。对统帅而言，这么做至关重要。在此过程中，生存欲望会约束你去采用它，因为你不想看到自己置身危难之中，如果要和敌人交战，首先要让你的军队与敌人有所接触，从而使他们内心摆脱由敌人的声望而生的恐惧。

瓦列利乌斯·科尔维努斯受命指挥罗马军队对付撒姆尼人，但迄今罗马人没有与撒姆尼人交战的经验，对他们的作战能力也不了解。因此，泰特斯·李维说到瓦列利乌斯让罗马士兵与撒姆尼人进行小规模接触战，“于是他们可能就不再害怕未知的战争与敌人”。巨大的危险依然存在，如果你的士兵在接触战中被打败了，反而会增加他们的恐惧与胆怯，造成与你希望相反的局面，即你将使他们感到害怕，与你原本想让他们感到安全的初衷相反。于是这就是祸福之间紧密相连的事情之一，它们之间是如此密切，以至于很容易让你弄巧成拙。

有鉴于此，杰出的统帅应该采取一切预防措施，以防止消磨军队志气的危险事情发生。首战失利就是能打击士气的事情。因此对于接触战，应该慎重行事，除非有很大的优势，确信会获胜，否则就不应出战。也不应该试图据守关隘，因为那里无法使其军队施展开。也不应该防守城市，除非其损失将不可避免地使其灭亡。再者，如果决心守城，他应该安排他的军队与驻军协防以反击进攻，这样他所有的军队在应对围攻时就能发挥作用。否则，他就应放弃防守城市。放弃可能守不住的城市，保全军队，他不会在战争中失去声誉或取胜的希望。但是当你没有守住你原本打算防守的城市，而且人人皆知你在进行防守，那么损失将很严重而且可能是灾难性的。因此事实上，你会像高卢人那样，由于暂时的胜利而失去战争。

珀修斯的父亲即马其顿王国的菲利普，在他那个时代，是声誉显赫的战士，当他受到罗马人攻击时，主动放弃了他认为无法守住的大片国土，并采取坚壁清野的策略，作为谨慎之人，他认为如果他没有守住他原本打算防守的地方，他将失去声望，这远比故意让那些好像他不在乎的地方落入敌手要更加可怕。当坎尼的失利使罗马人行为变得更加残暴时，他们拒绝帮助他们的追随者和臣民，吩咐他们要尽力自我防御。这个做法要比帮助盟友防守却最终让他们失望要好得多，因为如果那样做，他们会同时失去盟友和自己的军队，但如果不那样做，失去的只是盟友。

话题重新回到小规模接触战，我坚持认为，如果一位统帅因为他对敌人一无所知而必须倚靠接触战，那么他应该在他处于绝对优势不会有任何闪失的时候行动。他应该像马里厄斯在与辛布里人作战时那样。辛布里人是一个凶猛的部落，他们前来掠夺意大利，因为他们凶暴残忍、人多势大，而且已经打败了一支罗马军队，所以马里厄斯在进军时非常害怕。他由此判断，在与敌人交战之前，他必须消除由于畏敌而在军队中蔓延的恐慌情绪，作为慎重的统帅，他不止一次将他的军队驻扎在辛布里人必经的关口附近，旨在让他的军队能躲在防御工事的后面，亲眼看到并熟悉敌军的模样，所以当他们看到敌军如此杂乱无序、辎重拖累、武器落后，甚至还有人赤手空拳时，他们打消了疑虑，重新燃起斗志。马里厄斯非常明智地使用了这个方法，其他人也应该积极效仿，不再招致上述危险，也不要像高卢人表现得那样，“他们由于一些偶然事件而害怕，最先逃进提泊坦，然后流窜到坎帕尼亚”。

既然在这段论述中提到过瓦列利乌斯·科尔维努斯，那么我将在下个章节中使用他关于统帅该如何表现的演说。

统帅怎样才能获得军队的信任

如上所述，瓦列利乌斯·科尔维努斯带兵与撒姆尼人交战。由于罗马人不熟悉他们的作战方式，为了安定军心、了解敌人，他让军队与敌人进行一些接触战，仅仅这么做是不够的，于是他决定对士兵们做战前演说，极有说服力地指出他们应该多么藐视敌人，他的演说唤起了士兵们及他自己的勇气。从李维记录的这个演说中，我们了解到统帅应如何表现以获得军队的拥戴。他说道：“仔细看看指挥和支持你们奋战的统帅！扪心自问一下，这个你们将要听命于他的人是否只是一个言过其实、光鲜但没有任何军事才能的演说家，他是否知道如何使用武器，冲锋在前，在战斗最激烈时上阵杀敌！我要你们，我勇敢的兄弟们，跟随我的脚步，而不是我的言语，不要只关注我的命令，而是视我为榜样，因为凭着我执政官的右手已经获得了无数的最高赞誉。”可以从演说中得知，他是否认真思索过，如果他想占据统帅的地位，他将如何去做；如果反其道行之，则无论是因运气或野心而取得的地位，都会在某个适当的时候毁掉他的名誉，而不是成就它。因为不是头衔成就了人的伟大，而是人成就了伟大的头衔。

我们须再次注意以上所述，当伟大的统帅在面对不熟悉的敌人时，他是否使用了非凡的方法来鼓舞久经沙场的军队，当他指挥一支新组建的从未见过敌人的军队时，他是否会殚精竭虑地训练他们。如果一支经验丰富的军队都会害怕不熟悉的敌人，那么从未上过战场的新军则情况更糟。然而事实上，这些困难通常会被优秀的统帅以他的谨慎行事化解，上文曾提及的罗马人格拉古和底比斯人伊巴密浓达都是这么做的，他们指挥没有经验的新军打败了经验丰富的老兵。

他们采取的方法就是先用数月时间训练军队，并通过模拟战使他们逐渐习惯服从命令，在对新军有足够信心的时候，再带领他们参加实战。因此，在不缺乏人力时，受过训练、掌握了作战技能的平民就能组成一支优秀的军队。所以说，拥有丰富人力的君主却缺乏善战的士兵，不是由于他的人民懦弱，而仅仅是由于他自己的懒惰与愚蠢。

统帅应该熟悉地形

在统帅必备的才能中，熟知地形和地利是其中之一。如果没有这方面综合详细的知识，那么他就无法有效指挥战斗。正如科学需要实践一样，如果渴望得到完美，就需要经常练习。这种练习和详细的知识通过狩猎获得的比其他锻炼更多。因此，古代作家告诉我们，在他们的时代，统治世界的英雄们都是在森林和追逐中成长起来。追逐不仅能为他们提供必不可少的知识，而且教会了他们在战争中的其他必需技能。因此，色诺芬在他的《居鲁士传记》这样说道，当他准备进攻亚美尼亚王国时，委派任务后，他提醒领受任务的下属，这些任务就像他们以前经常随他进行的狩猎活动一样。他说，那些他派往山区埋伏的人应该像在山脊设陷阱的猎人，而那些前往扫荡平原的人应该像捕猎的人，先将野兽从它的巢穴中赶出来，然后追逐它，直至把它赶到罗网中。

上文所述是为了表明，色诺芬认为狩猎活动与战争极为相似，所以，伟人们将狩猎视为高贵和必要的运动。没有比狩猎更简便的方法来获得地理知识，因为追逐猎物的过程为猎手提供了解地形的绝佳机会。同时它使猎手熟悉了当地的环境，轻松掌握了未知地区的细节。所有国家和地区的地理特征都具有一致性，于是在一个地区掌握的地理知识可以被借鉴到另一地区，但是没有任何经验的人很难掌握另一地区的地形，除非他在那里生活了很长时间，否则不可能了解当地环境。例如，实践过的人一眼就能看出平原的面积，山脉的高度，河谷的走向等等，因为他已经能学以致用了。

泰特斯·李维在普布利乌斯·德西乌斯的例子中阐明了这一观点。在撒姆尼人的战争中，普布利乌斯·德西乌斯是护民官，负责指挥执政官科尼利厄斯的军队，当执政官打算率领罗马军队进入一条可能会被撒姆尼人切断退路的山谷时，德西乌斯看出其中的巨大危险，于是对执政官说：“奥留斯·科尼利厄斯，你看到敌人上面的那座山峰了吗？如果我们能迅速占领它，它的险要位置可以保证我们的安全，撒姆尼人愚蠢地忽视了它。”在告诉大家德西乌斯的话之前，泰特斯·李维说：“普布利乌斯·德西乌斯，一个受过军事训练的护民官，观察到树木繁茂的山谷中有一座能威胁到敌人的山峰，虽然它不利于大部队进攻，但是轻装的小股部队却可以登上。”因此，执政官命令他带领三千名士兵占领了它，从而挽救了罗马军队。然后，当夜幕降临时，他思考如何能安全撤退，保全自己和他的部队，李维是这么记录的：“跟我来，让灯火继续亮着，我们去侦察一下敌人设置岗哨的地方，看看是否有办法逃出去。”他穿了件短小的军队斗篷，以免让敌人看到他是一位军官。

这件事证明了对于统帅而言了解地形的内在本质非常有用和必要，假如德西乌斯不是明智之人，没有这种本事，他就不可能看出占领那座山对罗马人有利，也不可能从远处看出如何占领此山，也不能在山顶被敌人四面包围时，发现一条在敌人严密防守下的出路，返回执政官的军队。从中我们可以推断出，德西乌斯一定有这样惊人的才能，才会使罗马军队占领山头转危为安，才会使他在敌人的重重包围中发现安全突围的生路。

人民的利益是至高无上的法律

在战争中使用欺诈不是可耻的事情

虽然使用欺诈是可憎的行为，但在战争中却值得称赞和夸耀。一个人使用欺诈战胜敌人，与他使用武力打败敌人一样值得赞许。我们可以从传记作家对伟人的评价中看出，他们赞扬汉尼拔和其他著名人物的这种行为。这样的例子举不胜举，在此不再赘述，但我想强调，关于失信或毁约的欺诈是不光彩的，虽然如上所述它会偶尔为你赢得国家或王国，但是不会为你带来荣誉。我所说的欺诈，是用于对付与你没有信用可言的敌人，即与战争有关的欺诈。例如，汉尼拔在佩鲁贾湖边假装逃跑，引诱罗马执政官和军队进入圈套，以及借助被点燃牛角的牛群逃出费边·马克西姆斯的包围。

庞提乌斯就善于使用欺诈，作为撒姆尼人的统帅，他在考地乌姆叉口使罗马军队落入圈套。他将自己的军队靠山埋伏好后，派出几个士兵化装成牧羊人，带着一群羊穿过平原。他们被罗马人抓住后被问到撒姆尼军队的位置，于是把庞提乌斯事先准备好的话告诉了罗马人，即撒姆尼军队已经动身去包围诺切拉。罗马执政官听信了他们的假情报，当罗马军队抵达那里时，他们马上被撒姆尼人包围在考地乌姆的悬崖峭壁之间。如果庞提乌斯能听从他父亲的建议，要么放罗马人一条生路，要么把他们赶尽杀绝，那么他用欺诈战术取得这场胜利就应该给他带来诸多荣誉，但是他采用了折中办法，即“既没有化敌为友，也没有彻底消灭敌人”，折中办法总是不利于国家事务，我在别的论述中已经提出过。

无论将面对耻辱还是荣誉，我们都应该保卫自己的国家，无论用什么手段都是正当的

如上文所说，罗马执政官和军队被撒姆尼人包围了。撒姆尼人极大地羞辱了罗马人，把他们的武器和装备都收缴了，强迫他们从牛轭下经过返回罗马。罗马执政官们惊恐万分，整个军队也陷入绝望中。罗马副将卢修斯·图鲁斯说道，为了拯救国家不应该拒绝任何可行的方法，罗马的存亡系于这支军队的存亡，应该想方设法地挽救它，无论用什么手段保卫国家都是正当的，无论带来的是耻辱还是光荣。因为如果这支军队保住了，罗马还有机会一雪前耻，但是如果没有成功，即便光荣地战死沙场，罗马及其自由也将随之湮没。所以，图鲁斯的建议最终被采纳了。

这个忠告值得关注，应该被每个为国家献策的公民遵守。当国家的安危依赖于所采用的决定时，就不应理会正义与非正义，善良或残酷，值得赞扬或有辱名誉。相反，任何其他顾虑都应置之不理，全心全意地执行能挽救国民生命与保全国家自由的措施。

这是法国人采纳的方法——他们所言与所行都是如此——为了捍卫他们的国王或他们王国的权力，没有人会发出不和谐的声音，“这样做会为国王带来耻辱”。他们说，国王没有做出可耻的决定，无论是福还是祸，无论他赢得还是葬送了整个王国。

城下之盟不应该被遵守

当执政官带着被剥夺武器且遭受撒姆尼人极尽羞辱虐待的军队回到罗马时，第一位在元老院发言的人说道，不应该遵守在考地乌姆达成的和平协议。他是罗马执政官斯普利乌斯·普斯图米尔斯。他认为，罗马人民不能受它束缚，只有他和其他承诺和平的人才受此约束。因此，如果人民想免除责任，他们应该将他和所有做出承诺的人当作犯人送给撒姆尼人。他坚决的要求最终使元老院让步了，于是他和其他人被当作囚犯交给了撒姆尼人，以此抗议和平无效。命运似乎垂青于普斯图米尔斯，撒姆尼人没有关押他，在他回到罗马后，在罗马人眼中他靠投降赢得的荣誉，竟然比在撒姆尼人眼中庞提乌斯靠胜利获得的还要多。

有两件事应该引起我们关注。一件事是，荣誉可以通过两个行为中任意一个获得，即在正常情况下靠胜利取得，以及如果你能证明失败与你无关或者借助义举在失败中将功补过。另一件事是，你没有兑现被迫做出的承诺并不可耻。实际上，当武力威胁消除时，影响共和国的城下之盟总是自动瓦解。这样的例子在历史中随处可见，而且人人皆知，即使在现代也会发生。不仅仅是当武力威胁消除时君主不再遵守被胁迫的承诺，我们发现当最初做出承诺的原因不再适用时，其他承诺也会失效。无论这是否值得称颂，无论君主应该不应该如此行事，《君主论》中已经详细地探讨过。因此在这里，无需再做说明。

On conspiracies

Introductory

Since conspiracies are of such dangerous consequence alike to princes and to private persons，I cannot well omit to discuss their nature，for it is plain that many more princes have lost their lives and their states in this way than by open war，because it is given to but few to make open war on a prince，whereas anyone can conspire against him．There is，on the other hand，no enterprise in which private persons can engage more dangerous or more rash than is this，for it is both difficult and extremely dangerous in all its stages．Whence it comes about that，though many conspiracies have been attempted，very few have attained the desired end．Hence，in order that princes may learn how to guard against these dangers，and that private persons may think twice before undertaking them and may learn，instead，to be content with life under the regime which fate has placed over them，I shall speak of conspiracies at length，omitting nothing of importance that is relevant either to a prince or to a private person．There is，in fact，a golden saying voiced by Cornelius Tacitus，who says that men have to respect the past but to submit to the present，and，while they should be desirous of having good princes，should put up with them of whatever sort they may turn out to be．And unquestionably those who act otherwise usually bring disaster both upon themselves and upon their country．

In starting to deal with this topic the first thing to be considered is against whom conspiracies are formed．It will be found that they are formed either against one's fatherland or against a prince．I propose here to discuss both these types，for of conspiracies formed with a view to handing over a town to the enemy besieging it or conspiracies which for one reason or another resemble this，enough has been said elsewhere．

Causes

We shall deal in the first part of this discourse with conspiracies against a prince，and shall inquire first as to their causes，which are many．There is，however，one which is much more important than all the rest．This consists in the universal hatred a prince may evoke，for when a prince has aroused such universal hatred it is to be expected that there will be certain persons to whom he has given greater offence and that they will seek vengeance．This desire will be intensified by the universal ill will which they notice has been aroused against him．A prince，therefore，should avoid incurring these personal reproaches，and since what he has to do in order to avoid them has been discussed elsewhere I shall refrain from discussing it here：I mention it because，if he does guard against this，the mere giving of offence to individuals will evoke less hostility．The reason is，first，that one rarely comes across men so indignant at an unjust act as to endanger themselves to such an extent by seeking vengeance；and secondly，that，should they actually be inclined to do this and have the requisite power，they are restrained by the universal goodwill which they see that the prince enjoys．

Injuries may affect either a man's property，his life or his honour．The threat of bloodshed is more dangerous than is the shedding of blood．To threaten to shed blood is，in fact，extremely dangerous：whereas to shed it is attended with no danger at all，for a dead man cannot contemplate vengeance，and those that remain alive usually leave you to do the contemplating．But a man who has been threatened and sees that he must of necessity either do something or be for it，has been turned into a real menace for the prince，as we shall cite cases presently to show．

Prescinding from the case in which action is imposed by necessity，injuries affecting a man's property or honour are the two things which give men greater offence than anything else，and against them the prince should be on his guard，for he can never so despoil anyone but that there will remain to him a knife with which to wreak vengeance．Nor can he deprive a man of his honour to such an extent that his mind will cease to be set on vengeance．And of the honours of which men may be deprived，that which imports most is a woman's honour，and，after that，contempt for a man's person．It was this that caused Pausanias to take up arms against Philip of Macedon；and this that has caused many others to take up arms against many other princes．In our day Lucio Belanti would not have been moved to conspire against Pandolfo，the tyrant of Siena，if he had not given him his daughter to wife and then taken her away again，as we shall relate in due course．The chief cause which led the Pazzi to conspire against the Medici was the inheritance of Giovanni Bonromei of which they had been deprived by the Medici's orders．

Another cause，and this a very powerful one，that makes men conspire against a prince，is the desire to liberate their fatherland of which a prince has seized possession．It was this that caused Brutus and Cassius to turn against Caesar；this that led to many other conspiracies，against Phalaris，Dionysius and against other usurpers of their country's rights．Nor can any tyrant prevail over this spirit，except by discarding his tyranny．And since one does not find tyrants doing this，one finds few who have not come to a miserable end．Hence the verse of Juvenal：

To Pluto's realm few kings unscathed descend，

Nor tyrants oft escape a sticky end．

Oneman conspiracies

The dangers involved in conspiracies，as I have said above，are considerable，and go on all the time，for in a conspiracy dangers crop up alike in forming the plot，in carrying it out，and as a result of its having been carried out．Plots may be formed by one conspirator，or by several．If by one person only，it cannot rightly be called a conspiracy．Rather it is a firm resolve on the part of some individual to kill the prince．Of the three dangers conspiracies entail，a oneman conspiracy lacks the first．For no danger can arise before the time for action comes，since no one else being privy to the secret，there is no danger of the plot being carried to the ears of the prince．To make a resolve of this kind lies within the competence of anybody whatsoever，be he great，small，noble or insignificant，intimate or not intimate with the prince．For anyone is allowed at some time or other to speak to the prince，and anyone who gets the chance of speaking to him，gets a chance to relieve his feelings．Pausanias，of whom we have already spoken several times，killed Philip of Macedon as he was on his way to the temple with a lot of armed men about him and his son on one side and his soninlaw on the other．The former，however，was a nobleman and an acquaintance of the prince．［But there are others．］A poor，miserable Spaniard stuck a dagger in the neck of Ferdinand，king of Spain，and，though the wound was not fatal，it shows us that a man of this type may have both the intention and the opportunity of doing such a thing．A dervish，or Turkish priest，struck at Bajazet，the father of the present Turk，with a scimitar．He did not kill him，but he certainly had the intention and the opportunity of so doing．One finds plenty of people，I think，who would like to do such things，for the intention is attended neither with penalty nor danger of any kind．Yet there are but few who actually do such things，and of those who do，there are very few，if any，who do not themselves get killed in the very act．Hence one does not find men keen on going to certain death．But let us leave these oneman plots and turn to conspiracies involving several people．

Conspiracies formed by the weak

I maintain that one finds in history that all conspiracies have been made by men of standing or else by men in immediate attendance on a prince，for other people，unless they be sheer lunatics，cannot form a conspiracy；since men without power and those who are not in touch with a prince are devoid alike of any hope and of any opportunity of carrying out a conspiracy successfully．For，first of all，men without power cannot get hold of anyone who will keep faith with them，since no one can consent to do what they want under any of those prospects which induce men to take great risks，so that，once the plot has been communicated to two or three people，an informer will turn up and they are ruined．Moreover，should they actually be lucky enough to avoid informers，the carrying out of the plot will involve them in such difficulties，owing to the lack of easy access to the prince，that it will be impossible for them to escape disaster in carrying out their scheme．For，if men of standing and those who have easy access succumb to these difficulties，which will be dealt with presently，it is to be expected that in the case of these others such difficulties will be magnified without end．Consequently，since when their lives and property are not at stake，men do not entirely lose their heads，they become cautious when they recognize their weakness，and when they get sick of a prince confine themselves to cursing him，and wait for those of higher standing than they have，to avenge them．So that，should one in fact come across somebody of this kind who has attempted such a thing，one should praise his intention but not his prudence．

Conspiracies formed by the strong

It would seem，then，that conspirators have all been men of standing or intimates of the prince，and，of these，those who have been moved to conspire by too many benefits are as numerous as those moved to conspire by too many injuries，as was the case with Perennis versus Commodus，Plautianus versus Severus，and Sejanus versus Tiberius．For to all these men their emperors had granted such wealth and so many honours and titles that there seemed to be nothing wanting to complete their power，save the imperial title；so，since with the lack of this they were unwilling to put up，they were moved to conspire against their prince，and their conspiracy in each case was attended with the results which their ingratitude merited．

Of similar conspiracies which have occurred in more recent times there is，however，one that met with success，that of Jacopo di Appiano against Messer Piero Gambacorti，prince of Pisa；for this Jacopo had been brought up by，reared by，and owed his reputation to，the very person whom later on he deprived of his power．There is also in our own times the conspiracy of Coppola against king Ferdinand of Aragon；the said Coppola having attained a greatness such that the only thing that seemed to him to be lacking was a kingdom，and since he made up his mind to acquire this，he lost his life．And yet，if any conspiracies against a prince，made by men of standing，ought to have succeeded it should surely have been this，since it was made by another king，so to speak，who had every convenience requisite to satisfying his desire．But that lust for domination，which blinds men，blinds them yet again in the way they set about the business：for，if they knew but how to do their evil deeds with prudence，it would be impossible for them not to succeed．

A warning to princes

A prince，therefore，who wants to guard against conspiracies，should fear those on whom he has conferred excessive favours more than those to whom he has done excessive injury．For the latter lack opportunity，whereas the former abound in it，and the desire is the same in both cases；for the desire to rule is as great as，or greater than，is the desire for vengeance．Consequently princes should confer on their friends an authority of such magnitude that between it and that of the prince there remains a certain interval，and between the two a something else to be desired．Otherwise it will be a strange thing if that does not happen to them which happened to the princes we have been talking about．But to return to the lines of our discourse．

The danger due to informers

Having said that conspirators must be men of standing and have easy access to the prince，I must now discuss the success of these，their undertaking，and inquire as to why some have succeeded and others have failed．As I have remarked above，in conspiracies there are three stages at which danger may be found to occur：at the start，while carrying them out，and afterwards．One finds that few conspiracies prove successful because it is impossible，or almost impossible，to pass through all three stages successfully．Let us begin by discussing the dangers incurred at the outset．These are the more important，I maintain，since there is need of great discretion and one must have considerable luck if，in making one's plans，the plot is not to be discovered．Plots are discovered either from information received or by conjecture．Leakage of information is due either to lack of loyalty or to lack of discretion among those to whom you communicate the plot．Lack of loyalty may easily occur，because you can only communicate your plan to those in whom you have such confidence that you think they will risk death for your sake，or else to men who are discontented with the prince．Now there may be one or two persons whom you can trust，but it is impossible to find such men if you reveal your plans to many people，for the goodwill they bear you must indeed be great if the danger and the fear of punishment is not to outweigh it in their estimation．Men，too，quite frequently make mistakes about the affection another man has for them，nor can you be sure of it unless of it you have previously had experience，and to acquire experience in such a matter is a very risky business．Even should you have had experience of some other dangerous affair in which they have been loyal to you，you cannot infer from their loyalty in this case that they will be equally loyal in another which far exceeds it in dangers of all kinds．While if you judge of a person's loyalty by the degree of disaffection he has for the prince，here，too，you may easily be mistaken；for by the very fact of your having opened your mind to such a malcontent，you provide him with material with which to obtain contentment，so that，if he is to keep faith with you，either his hatred must be great or your influence over him must be very great indeed．

It thus comes about that conspiracies are frequently revealed and are crushed at the very start．Indeed，it is looked on as a marvel if a plot which has been communicated to many people，remains secret for any length of time，as was the case with that formed by Piso against Nero，and in our day with that formed by the Pazzi against Lorenzo and Juliano de’ Medici，to which there were privy more than fifty persons and yet it was not discovered till it came to the point of execution．

The danger due to indiscretion

As to discovery due to lack of discretion，this comes about when a conspiracy is spoken of without due caution and a servant or some third person gets to hear of it，as happened to the sons of Brutus who were overheard discussing their plans with Tarquin's messengers by a servant who informed against them．Or it may be due to your having lightly communicated it to a lady friend or to a boy friend or to some other frivolous person，as did Dymnus，who with Philotas and others conspired against Alexander the Great，and talked of the conspiracy to Nicomachus，a boy of whom he was fond，who at once told his brother，Cebalinus，about it，and Cebalinus told it to the king．

Discovery due to conjecture

As to discovery due to conjecture，we have an example of this in the Pisonian conspiracy formed against Nero，in which Scaevinus，one of the conspirators，made his will on the day before he had to kill Nero，ordered Milichus，his freedman，to have his old and rusty dagger sharpened up，freed all his slaves and gave them money，and had bandages got ready for binding up the wounded；from which facts Milichus conjectured that there was a plot and told Nero．Scaevinus was arrested，together with Natales，another conspirator，who had been seen talking together for a long time and in secret the day before；and，as their explanations did not agree，they were forced to tell the truth；so that the conspiracy was discovered，with disastrous results for all concerned in it．

The difficulty or preventing discovery

Against discovery due to such causes it is impossible so to guard as to prevent the plot being revealed，whether owing to malice，to indiscretion or to frivolous conversation，in all cases in which the number of those who are cognizant of it exceeds three or four．For，should more than one of the conspirators be arrested，it is impossible to prevent its coming out，because two cannot possibly agree as to every detail in the explanations they give．If only one man is arrested and he be a man of resolution，he may have sufficient strength of mind to be silent about his fellow conspirators．It is essential，however，that the other conspirators have no less courage than he has in standing their ground and not running away，for the conspiracy will be revealed by either party in which courage is lacking，whether by the man who has been arrested or those who are still at large．

There is，indeed，a rare case given by Titus Livy，namely，the conspiracy formed against Hieronymus，king of Syracuse，in which，when Theodotus，one of the conspirators，was arrested，he showed great virtue in concealing all the other conspirators，and accused the king's own friends；and the other conspirators，on their part，had such confidence in Theodotus's virtue，that not one of them left Syracuse or showed any other sign of fear．

Precautions against discovery

These，then，are the dangers to which a conspiracy is exposed in the course of its formation before the time comes for it to be carried out；and，if they are to be avoided，these are the remedies．The first，the safest and，to tell the truth，the only one，is not to allow the conspirators time to give information against you，and to tell them of your plan only when you are ready to act，and not before．Those who have so acted，at any rate escape the dangers involved in contriving the plot，and more often than not，the others also．All of them，in fact，have been successful，and any prudent man should find it possible to conduct things in this fashion．I shall cite two cases，and leave it at that．

Nelematus，being unable to stand the tyranny of Aristotimus，tyrant of Epirus，collected in his house many of his relations and friends，and exhorted them to set their country free．Some of them asked for time to consider the matter and to put their affairs in order．Whereupon Nelematus told his servants to lock the doors of the house，and to those whom he had called together said：‘Either you swear to go and do the deed now，or I shall hand you all over as prisoners to Aristotimus．’ These words got them going；they took the oath，and，having set out without delay，they successfully carried out Nelematus's instructions．When one of the Magi by subterfuge got possession of the Persian throne，and Otanes，one of the leading men in the kingdom，heard of it and discovered the fraud，he conferred with six other leading men in the state，and told them that it was for them to rid the kingdom of the tyranny of this Magus．When one of them asked for time，Darius，one of the six who had been called together by Otanes，got up and said：‘Either we go at once and put this business through，or I shall go and lay information against the lot of you．’ So with one accord they got up，and succeeded in carrying out their plan before anyone had time to repent．Similar to these two cases also was the method the Aetolians adopted in order to kill Nabis，the Spartan tyrant；for they commissioned their fellowcitizen，Alexamenes，to go with thirty horse and two hundred foot ostensibly to the assistance of Nabis，communicated the secret only to Alexamenes，and told the rest to obey him on each and every point under pain of banishment．So Alexamenes went to Sparta and never mentioned the commission entrusted to him till he was ready to carry it out；with the result that he succeeded in killing Nabis．These folk，then，by adopting these methods，have avoided the dangers which attend the planning of a conspiracy；and those who follow their example will always avoid them．

Their practicability

That anyone can do as they did，I propose now to prove by citing the case of Piso，of whom mention has already been made．Piso was a man of very high standing and great repute，and was intimate with Nero，who had considerable confidence in him．Nero used frequently to dine with him in his gardens．Piso，therefore，could have made friends with men who in mentality，courage and inclination were of the right kind to carry out such a scheme，for to a man of standing this is quite an easy matter；and while Nero was in his gardens，he could have told them of the business and with suitable words got them to do what there would have been no time for them to refuse and what could not but have succeeded．Hence if we inquire into conspiracies in general，but few will be found that could not have been carried out in the same way．Ordinarily，however，men pay but little attention to the affairs of the world and so make frequently the gravest blunders，especially in matters which lie outside the ordinary run of things，as this does．

Further precautions

A plot，then，should never be divulged unless one is driven to it and it is ripe for execution，and if you，perforce，have to divulge it，it should be told to but one other person，and this a man of whom you have had very considerable experience，or else one who is actuated by the same motives as you are．To find such a man is far easier than to find several，and for this very reason is less dangerous．Moreover，should you，in fact，make a mistake，you have here a chance of protecting yourself，which is not the case where many conspirators are involved．For I have heard a wise man say that you can talk about anything to one person alone，since，unless you allow yourself to be persuaded to commit yourself in writing，one man's ‘yes’ will be worth just as much as the other man's ‘no’．And against writing anything down everybody should be on his guard as against a rock，for nothing is more likely to convict you than is your own handwriting．Plautianus，having made up his mind to kill the emperor，Severus，and his son，Antoninus，entrusted the secret to Saturninus，the tribune，who wanted to inform against him instead of doing what he wished，but was afraid that，when he brought the charge，more credence might be given to Plautianus than to himself．So he asked for something in writing that might serve as evidence of the commission entrusted to him．Blinded by ambition，Plautianus gave it him，with the result that the tribune brought the accusation and he was convicted．Yet without this commitment in writing and certain other evidence against him，Plautianus would have got the better of him，so brazen was he in denying the charge．There is then some chance of getting off when a charge is brought by but one person provided you cannot be convicted by a written document or other evidence telling against you，which one should take care not to provide．

In the Pisonian conspiracy there was a woman called Epicharis，who had formerly been Nero's mistress．Since she thought it would help to get a captain of some triremes which served as Nero's guard to join the conspirators，she told him of the plot，but not who the conspirators were．Subsequently，when the captain broke his word and charged her with it to Nero，Epicharis denied the charge with such vehemence that Nero could not make up his mind and let her off．There are，then，in communicating a plot to a single other person two dangers：the first is that he may accuse you of his own accord；and the second is that he may get arrested on suspicion or because there is some evidence against him，and accuse you when convicted and constrained by torture to do so．In both these cases the danger is not irremediable；for in the first case you can deny the charge and allege that he made it because he hated you；and in the second you can deny it，alleging that under force he has been compelled to tell a lie．

Unpremeditated assassination

The wisest thing，therefore，is not to tell anybody what you are about，but to act in accordance with the examples given above；or，if you have to tell somebody，not to tell more than one，in which case，though the danger will be somewhat greater，it will not be so great as if you had told it to many．The case is somewhat the same when necessity constrains you to do that to a prince which you see that the prince is about to do to you，for your need is then so great that it does not give you time to think of precautions．A necessity of this kind almost always leads to the end desired；and，to prove it，I propose to give just two examples．

Among the chief friends and intimates which the em peror，Commodus，had，were Laetus and Eclectus，who were in charge of his praetorian troops，and for one of his principal concubines or lady friends he had Marcia；and because they sometimes reproached him for sullying alike his person and his imperial position by his behaviour，he decided to put them to death，and made out a list on which he wrote the names of Marcia，Laetus and Eclectus，and several others whom he proposed on the following night to put to death．This list he put under the pillow of his bed．Having gone to wash himself，a favourite little boy of his was romping about the room and on the bed when he came across the list，and，having gone outside with it in his hand，met Marcia，who took it from him，and，having read it and noted its contents，sent at once for Laetus and Eclectus．All three of them，realizing the danger in which they stood，decided to forestall it；so，without wasting any unnecessary time，they killed Commodus the following night．

Again，the emperor Antoninus Caracalla，when with his army in Mesopotamia，had as his prefect Macrinus，who was more of a civilian than a soldier；and，as is usually the case with princes who are not good，he was for ever afraid that others should not act towards him as he thought he deserved．So Antoninus wrote to Maternianus，a friend of his in Rome，to request him to inquire of the astrologers whether anybody was aspiring to become emperor，and to advise him accordingly．Maternianus，therefore，wrote him that Macrinus was the man who had this idea in mind，but the letter fell into the hands of Macrinus before it got to the emperor，and，in consequence，Macrinus saw that it was necessary either to kill him before a further letter came from Rome，or to be killed；so he instructed Martialis，a centurion who was devoted to him and whose brother Antoninus had killed a few days before，to assassinate the emperor，a commission which he carried out successfully．

Hence we see that when necessity becomes so urgent that it leaves no time for delay，it produces much the same effect as does the method adopted by Nelematus of Epirus，which I have described above．We see，too，that what I have said almost at the beginning of this discourse also holds good，namely，that threats do more harm to princes and are more likely to result in conspiracies than the actual infliction of injuries．Against threats，therefore，a prince should be on his guard；for either he should make a fuss of men or should make sure they will do him no harm，but in no case should he put them in such a position that the only courses which appear open to them are either to get killed or to kill somebody else．

Dangers arising from a change of plan

As to the dangers which occur during the carrying out of a plot，these are due either to a change of plan，or to lack of courage on the part of the person who is to carry it out，or to the operative's making some mistake owing to carelessness，or to failure to complete the job in that there remain alive some of those who were to have been killed．I would here point out，therefore，that nothing so perturbs and interferes with anything undertaken by men as does their having suddenly and without due notice to change their plan and to give up that laid down at the start．And，if such a change of plan anywhere gives rise to disorder，it is in military operations and in affairs such as those of which we are speaking；because in a business of this kind what it is essential to do first and foremost is to get clearly into the heads of those concerned the part which each of them has to play，and，if men have for several days been picturing to themselves a certain course of action and a certain plan，and this is suddenly changed，it is impossible but that it should throw everything out of gear and spoil the whole scheme．So that it is much better to carry out the original plan，even if one sees in it certain inconveniences，than it is to cancel it and thereby to involve oneself in a host of inconveniences．This applies to cases in which there is no time to draw up a new plan，for，if there is time，a man can arrange matters as he pleases．

The conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici is familiar to all．According to the plan that had been given out，they were to be invited to dinner with the Cardinal of St George，and at the dinner were to be assassinated．Those who were to kill them，those who were to seize the palace and those who were to run about the city calling on the people to free themselves，had all been detailed．It happened that，when the Pazzi，the Medici and the Cardinal were attending a solemn function in the cathedral church of Florence，it became known that Giuliano was not going to dine with them that day；so the conspirators got together and decided that what they had been going to do in the house of the Medici should be done in the church．This upset the whole plan，for Giovambatista da Montesecco declined to take part in the murder，since he was not going to do it in church，he said．So they had to find new operatives and to redistribute the parts assigned，and，since there was no time for them to get clear as to their parts，they made such blunders in carrying it out that they were overcome．

Failure due to irresolution

Irresolution on the part of operatives in doing their job，is due either to human respect or to personal cowardice．Such is the majesty and the respect inspired by the presence of a prince that it may easily damp the resolution of an operative or terrify him．When Marius was taken prisoner by the Minturnians a slave was sent to kill him，but，so overawed was he by the presence of such a man and by the recollection of what his name stood for，that he lost courage and hadn't the strength to kill him．If，then，such power appertains to a man who is chained up in prison and overwhelmed with misfortune，how much greater must be that of a prince who is not thus encumbered，but is there in his majesty，wearing his robes and decorations，surrounded by pomp and by his courtiers．Such pomp as this may well affright you，or again the graciousness of his welcome may soften you．Certain persons were conspiring against Sitalces，king of Thrace，had settled the day on which the deed was to be done，and had got to the place assigned at which the prince then was；yet none of them ventured to attack him，so that at length they went away without trying to do anything and without quite knowing what had prevented them，each laying the blame on the other．They made the same mistake more than once，so that in the end the conspiracy was discovered and they were punished for a crime which they could have committed but were reluctant to commit．Two of his brothers conspired against Alfonso，Duke of Ferrara，and used as an intermediary Giannes，a priest and a cantor in the duke's employ．Several times at their request he got the duke to meet them，so that it lay in their power to kill him；in spite of which not one of them dared to do it，so that，the plot being discovered，they suffered the penalty of their wickedness and their want of prudence．Such negligence could not have been due to anything except their being frightened by the presence of the prince or humbled by some gracious act of his．

Failure due to perturbation of mind

Inconveniences in the carrying out of a conspiracy are due to mistakes caused either by lack of prudence or by lack of courage，for both these two things may befall you and cause you such confusion of mind that you say and do what you oughtn't to say or do．That men do get thus overwhelmed and confused cannot be better illustrated than by what Titus Livy tells us of Alexamenes，the Aetolian，who had made up his mind to kill Nabis the Spartan，of whom we have already spoken．When the time came to do it，he explained to his men what it was they had to do，and，says Livy，‘pulled himself together，for his mind had become confused by thinking of so great a matter’．It is，indeed，impossible，that any man，even though he be strongminded，familiar with death and accustomed to using the sword，should not become confused．Hence men should be chosen who have had experience in doing such deeds，and one should entrust them to no one else，brave as he may be thought to be．For when it comes to doing big things of which a man has had no previous experience，no one can say for certain what will happen．This confusion，for instance，might be such as to cause you to let the weapon fall from your hand，or to let slip some word which would have precisely the same effect．Lucilla，the sister of Commodus，arranged with Quintianus to kill him．Quintianus lay in wait for Commodus at the entrance to the amphitheatre，and，going up to him with a naked dagger，greeted him with the words：‘The senate sends you this！’，words which led to his being arrested before he had lowered his arm to strike．Messer Antonio de Volterra was deputed，as we have already said，to kill Lorenzo de’ Medici．On coming up to him he said：‘Ah，traitor！’，an exclamation which saved Lorenzo's life and ruined the conspiracy．

Conspiracies directed against more than one prince

It is not easy to do the thing perfectly when a conspiracy is directed against one ruler，for the reasons alleged，and still less is it easy to do it perfectly when a conspiracy is directed against two．On the contrary，it is so difficult that it is almost impossible for the conspiracy to succeed．For it is almost impossible to do similar actions in different places at one and the same time，and you cannot perform them at different times if you do not want one to spoil the other．Hence，if to conspire against one prince is a doubtful，dangerous and imprudent undertaking，to conspire against two is altogether foolish and frivolous．Were it not for my respect for the historian I should never have thought that what Herodian says of Plautianus were possible，namely，that he should have commissioned the same person，Saturninus the centurion，to kill both Severus and Antoninus who dwelt in different places，for the thing is so utterly unreasonable that nothing short of his authority would make me believe it．

Certain Athenian youths conspired against Diocles and Hippias，tyrants ruling in Athens．They killed Diocles，but Hippias escaped and avenged him．Chion and Leonides of Heraclea，disciples of Plato，conspired against the tyrants，Clearchus and Satyrus．They killed Clearchus，but Satyrus remained alive to avenge him．The Pazzi，whom we have mentioned more than once，only succeeded in killing Giuliano．Hence no one should engage in conspiracies against more than one ruler since he will do not good either to himself or to his country or to anybody at all．On the contrary，those who survive，will become more insupportable and more bitter，as Florence，Athens and Heraclea，to which I have already alluded，found out．True，the conspiracy which Pelopidas formed for the liberation of Thebes，his fatherland，involved all these difficulties，and yet was successful；for Pelopidas conspired not only against two tyrants，but against ten，and not only was he an outsider to whom access to the tyrants presented a difficulty，but he was a rebel．None the less，he was able to get into Thebes，to kill the tyrants and to liberate his country．Actually，however，it was with the assistance of Charon，counsellor to the tyrants，that he did all this，for it was through him that he gained easy access to do the deed．Nor should anyone nevertheless emulate his example；for it was an impossible undertaking and a marvellous thing that it succeeded．It was also，as all writers are agreed who have mentioned it，a rare and almost unparalleled thing．

Failure due to false impressions

The carrying out of a plot may be ruined by a false impression or by an unforeseen accident which occurs in the course of it．On the very morning on which Brutus and the other conspirators had decided to kill Caesar，it happened that he held a long conversation with Gaius Pompilius Lenas，who was one of the conspirators，and when the others saw him talking for so long，they wondered whether the said Pompilius was not telling Caesar of the conspiracy，and were on the point of killing him there and then，without waiting for him to come into the senate．They would，indeed，have done this，had the argument not come to an end and had they not then been reassured when they saw Caesar gave no sign of unusual emotion．False impressions of this kind should be taken into account and due attention be paid to them，if one would be prudent；the more so in that it is easy to get such false impressions．For，when a man has a bad conscience，he readily believes that people are talking about him，and a remark which is irrelevant may disturb your equanimity and make you think that it has bearing on your business，and this causes you either to give the conspiracy away by running off，or to muddle it by acting before the proper time．And the more there are who are in the know，the more likely is this to happen．

Failure due to unforeseen accidents

As to accidents，since they cannot be foreseen，the only thing one can do is to give examples showing how cautious men ought to be in regard to them．Lucio Belanti of Siena，of whom mention has already been made，was so indignant with Pandolfo，who had taken away the daughter he had previously given him in marriage，that he decided to kill him，and chose the occasion as follows．Pandolfo used to go daily to visit a sick relative，and，in doing so，passed by Lucio's house．Lucio，having noticed this，arranged for his conspirators to be ready in his house to kill Pandolfo as he was going by．He placed them inside the doorway with their arms，and stationed one of them at the window ready to give the signal when Pandolfo was to pass by the doorway，whereupon they were at once to issue forth．It so happened that，when Pandolfo came along and the signal had been given，Pandolfo met a friend who stopped him，and some of those who were with him went on ahead，saw what was happening，heard the clatter of arms and so discovered the trap；with the result that Pandolfo escaped and Lucio and his accomplices had to fly from Siena．Thus this accidental meeting interfered with the business in hand and caused Lucio's scheme to end in disaster．Since accidents，such as these，are of rare occurrence，it is impossible to prescribe any remedy．What one must do is to consider everything that is likely to happen，and to provide accordingly．

Dangers subsequent to a conspiracy

It remains now for us to discuss the dangers that may occur after a conspiracy has been successfully carried out．There is but one．It is that someone may be left alive who will avenge the death of the prince．There may，for instance，remain brothers or sons or other supporters to whom the principality was expected to come．Survival of those who may wreak vengeance may be due either to your negligence or to the causes mentioned above．Thus，when Giovanni Andrea da Lampognano and his accomplices had killed the Duke of Milan，there remained one of his sons and two of his brothers，who in due course came to avenge his death．In cases such as these the conspirators have an excuse，for there is nothing they can do about it；but when it is owing to lack of prudence or to their negligence that someone is left alive，they have in that case no excuse．Some conspirators who were citizens of Forli，killed Count Girolamo，their Lord，and took prisoner his wife and his children，who were little ones．It seemed to them，however，that their lives would scarce be safe unless they could get hold of the citadel，which its governor declined to hand over．So Mistress Catherine，as the countess was called，promised the conspirators that，if they would let her go to the citadel，she would arrange for it to be handed over to them．Meanwhile they were to keep her children as hostages．On this understanding the conspirators let her go to the citadel，from the walls of which，when she got inside，she reproached them with killing her husband and threatened them with vengeance in every shape and form．And to convince them that she did not mind about her children she exposed her sexual parts to them and said she was still capable of bearing more．The conspirators，dumbfounded，realized their mistake too late，and paid the penalty for their lack of prudence by suffering perpetual banishment．

But of all the dangers that may ensue after a successful conspiracy there is none more inevitable or more to be dreaded than when the people are well disposed to the prince you have killed；for in such a case，since there is no remedy to which the conspirators can have recourse，there is no chance of their ever obtaining security．Caesar is a case in point，for he was avenged by the people of Rome who were friendlily disposed towards him；and of the conspirators，after they had been driven out of Rome，one and all were killed at various times and in various places．

Conspiracies against one's country

Conspiracies against one's country are less dangerous to those who take part in them than are conspiracies against princes，since fewer dangers occur in the planning of them than in the latter case；in carrying them out they are the same；and afterwards there are none．There are not many dangers in planning the conspiracy because a citizen can scheme to obtain power without revealing his mind or his plan to anybody else，and，if his schemes are not interfered with，success will attend his undertaking；while if they should be interfered with by some law or other，he must bide his time and look for some other opening．This applies to a republic which is to some extent corrupt，for，since in one that is not corrupt no starting on evil courses there finds a place，no citizen is likely to harbour such thoughts．There are，then，all manner of ways and means of which citizens who aspire to a principality can avail themselves without running any risk of getting into trouble，alike because a republic is slower to take action than is a prince，is less suspicious，and for this reason less cautious，and because it has more respect for citizens of standing，and，in consequence，the latter are more daring and more inclined to act contrary to its interests．Everybody has read Sallust's account of the conspiracy of Catiline，and is aware that Catiline not only remained in Rome after the conspiracy was discovered，but attended the senate，where he made opprobrious remarks about the senate and about the consuls，so great was the respect which this city had for its citizens．Nor，when he had left Rome and was already in touch with the armies，would Lentulus and others have been arrested if they had not had in their possession letters in their own hand which plainly showed their complicity．

Again，when Hanno，one of the leading citizens in Carthage，who hoped to set up a tyranny，had arranged to poison the whole senate at the marriagefeast of one of his daughters，and afterwards to make himself prince，all the senate did，when it got to hear of the business，was to pass a law restricting the amount to be spent on banquets and marriages，so great was the respect they had for a man in his position．

On the other hand，it may well be that in carrying out a conspiracy against one's country there is more difficulty and the dangers are greater，for in a conspiracy aimed at so many people your own forces will scarce suffice；and not everybody has an army at his disposal，as had Caesar，Agathocles，Cleomenes and suchlike，who have at one stroke subjugated their country by means of the forces they commanded．For to such folk the way is easy enough and safe enough；but others who have not such forces at their disposal，must give effect to their designs either by means of deceit and artifice or with the help of foreign troops．The use of deceit and artifice is illustrated in the case of Pisistratus，the Athenian，who by his victory over the Megarians gained favour with the people．One morning he appeared in public，wounded，said that the nobility out of envy had attacked him，and asked that he might go about with an armed force for the protection of his person．This being authorized，he had no difficulty in arrogating to himself such great power that he became tyrant of Athens．Pandolfo Petrucci，on his return to Siena with other exiles，was given command of the guard in the Piazza，a routine business which others had refused；yet this armed force in course of time acquired for him such repute that he became before long a prince．Many others have adopted other devices and other methods and in course of time and without danger have achieved their aim．

Those who have conspired to get control of their country by means of their own forces or with foreign armies have met with varied success according as fortune has favoured them or not．Catiline，whom we mentioned above，perished in the attempt．Hanno，of whom also we made mention，having failed to succeed by using poison，armed several thousands of his partisans，and both he and they were slain．Some of the principal citizens of Thebes called in a Spartan army to help them，and set up a tyranny in that city．If，then，we inquire into all the conspiracies men have made against their country，it will be found that none of them，or but few，have been suppressed while the plot was being contrived，but that all of them have either succeeded or been ruined when it came to carrying them out．Nor，when successful，do they entail any subsequent dangers other than those which pertain to a principality by its very nature．For，given that a man has become a tyrant，he is faced with the dangers which tyranny naturally and normally involves，and to avert them has no remedies other than those that we have already discussed．

The use of poison

This is all that needs to be said about conspiracies，and if I have taken account of those in which the sword and not poison has been used，it is because they are all of one and the same pattern．It is true that the use of poison is more dangerous owing to its being more uncertain，for not everybody has the commodity，so that those who have it must needs be consulted and the necessity of consulting others means danger to yourself．Again，for a variety of reasons，a poisoned drink may not prove fatal，as those discovered who were to kill Commodus，for，on his throwing up the poison they had given him，they were forced to strangle him if they wanted him to die．

Tactics to be used in suppressing a conspiracy

There is nothing，then，more inimical to princes than a conspiracy．For，when a conspiracy is formed against them，either they get killed or they incur infamy；since，if it succeeds，they die，and if it is discovered and they kill the conspirators，the conspiracy is apt to be regarded as a device on the part of the prince whereby to cloak his avarice and his cruelty visàvis the lives and property of those he has put to death．I must not，therefore，neglect to warn that prince or that republic who knows that a conspiracy has been planned，to endeavour to discover its precise character before they take punitive action，and to compare carefully the strength and standing of the conspirators with their own；and，should they find it large and powerful，to take no notice of it until they have at their disposal enough forces to crush it．To act otherwise is but to court disaster．Hence they should practise dissimulation as best they can，lest the conspirators，finding themselves discovered，be driven of necessity to take immediate action regardless of the result．

The Romans afford us an example of this．Two legions of soldiers were left to guard Capua against the Samnites，as we have pointed out elsewhere．Those who were in command of these legions conspired together to reduce the Capuans to subjection．When this came to be known in Rome，Rutilus，a new consul，was commissioned to look into the matter．To keep the conspirators quiet，he made public the senate confirmation of the Capuan legions’ lodging quarters．The troops believed this，and，since there seemed to them to be plenty of time to carry out their plan，they made no attempt to hurry things．So matters stood until they came to realize that the consul had separated one legion from the other，which caused them to grow suspicious，to come out into the open and to give orders for their scheme to be put into execution．Nor can there be a better example than this from whichever point of view we look at it，for we see how slow men are to act when they think they have time，and how quick to act when the need becomes urgent．Nor yet can a prince or a republic that wants to postpone the discovery of a conspiracy in its own interests do better than artfully to provide the conspirators with an opportunity at some future date，so that，while they await it in the belief that there is no hurry，that prince or that republic may have time to arrange for their punishment．

Those who have acted otherwise have but hastened their own downfall，as the Duke of Athens did，and Guglielmo de’ Pazzi．When the duke became tyrant of Florence and heard that a conspiracy had been formed against him，he had one of the conspirators arrested but did not inquire further into the matter，with the result that the rest at once flew to arms and deprived him of the government．When Guglielmo was commissioner in the Val di Chiana in 1501 and learned that a conspiracy in favour of the Virelli had been formed in Arezzo whereby the Florentines were to be deprived of that town，he went at once to that city，and without considering either the strength of the conspirators or his own and without having any forces in readiness，on the advice of the bishop，his son，he had one of the conspirators arrested．After the arrest，the remaining conspirators at once took up arms，took the town from the Florentines and Guglielmo became a prisoner instead of a commissioner．

But when conspiracies are weak they both can，and ought，to be suppressed without further ado．Nor should either of the two following expedients be adopted，though one is almost the exact opposite of the other．One was used by the aforesaid Duke of Athens，who to show that he believed the Florentines to be well disposed towards him，put to death a man who had told him of a conspiracy．The other was adopted by Dion，the Syracusan，who，to discover the intentions of someone of whom he was suspicious，allowed Callippus，whom he trusted，to pretend to be forming a conspiracy．Both these expedients led to disaster，for the first discouraged informers and encouraged wouldbe conspirators，and the second made it an easy matter to compass Dion's death by means of the very conspiracy of which he was the real head，as he learned by experience，for Callippus was now able without further ado to plot against Dion，and he plotted so well that he deprived him both of his state and of his life．

The army，its discipline and component parts

How far the Discipline of Troops in our Day falls short of that maintained in Days gone by

The most important battle ever fought by the Romans in any war with another nation was the battle they fought with the Latin peoples in the consulate of Torquatus and Decius．For everything shows that，just as the Latins by losing became a subject people，so the Romans would have become a subject people，had they not won．This is the view held by Titus Livy，for in all respects the two armies were alike in discipline，virtue，truculence and in numbers；the only difference was that the commanders of the Roman army had more virtuosity than those of the Latin army．

One notes，too，how in the conduct of this battle there occurred two unprecedented incidents of which there have been but few examples since；namely，to strengthen the resolution of the soldiers and to make them obey orders，of the two consuls one killed himself and the other killed his son．The parity which Titus Livy says held between the two armies was due to their having for a long time waged war together，and consisted in their having the same language，the same discipline，and the same kind of arms，for in drawing up troops for battle they used the same formation，and both units and officers bore the same names．It was essential，therefore，since both in strength and in virtù they were equal，that something extraordinary should take place whereby to strengthen the ardour and truculence of the one rather than the other，for，as we have remarked on other occasions，it is on determination that victory depends，since，so long as it lasts in the breasts of those who are fighting，an army will never turn tail．And in order that it might last longer in the breasts of the Romans than with the Latins it came about，owing partly to chance and partly to the virtue of the consuls，that Torquatus had to kill his son and Decius to kill himself．

When pointing out this parity in strength Titus Livy describes in detail how the Romans drew up their armies and how they disposed them for battle．He has done this at considerable length，so I shall not repeat it all，but shall discuss the points which I deem worthy of note，points which are ignored by all presentday commanders，with the result that there is a grave lack of proper order alike in drawing up armies and in battle．From Livy we gather that in the Roman army there were three main divisions for which the Tuscan term three ‘ranks’ may be used．They called the first Hastati，the second Principes，the third Triarii．Each had its own cavalry attached．In drawing them up for battle，they put the Hastati in front；in the second place，immediately behind the Hastati，they put the Principes；in the third，all covering precisely the same space，they placed the Triarii．The cavalry pertaining to each of these divisions they put on the right and on the left of the three formations．These mounted troops，on account of their formation and their position，were called alae，because they looked like two wings attached to the body．They drew up the first rank，consisting of the Hastati who were in front，in close formation，so that they might thrust forward and hold up the enemy．The second rank，consisting of Principes，since they were not to be engaged at the outset，but were to come to the aid of the first should they be beaten or hard pressed，they did not draw up in such close formation，but kept their lines thinner so that this rank could receive the first rank，without disturbing its formation，should the latter be overcome by the enemy and have to fall back．The third rank consisting of Triarii，were drawn up in yet thinner lines than the second，so as to receive the two first ranks，comprising Principes and Hastati，should need arise．When their ranks had thus been drawn up in this formation，they went into battle；and，should the Hastati be forced back or defeated，they fell straight back upon the thinner ranks of the Principes，and the two ranks，thus united to form one compact body，resumed the fight．Should these ranks be beaten and forced to retreat，they retired upon the thinner ranks of the Triarii，and all three ranks，together forming one body，renewed the fight．But should they be overcome，the day was lost，since they had no further chance to reform．Wherefore，since every time this last rank of Triarii became engaged，it meant danger to the army，there arose the proverb：‘It all depends on the Triarii’，or，as we say in the Tuscan idiom：‘We have played the last stake’．

As generals in our days have abandoned all other traditions and pay no attention to any point in ancient military discipline，so they have abandoned it in regard to this point，which is of no small importance．For where an army is so drawn up as to be able to reform three times during a battle，to lose the day luck must go against it three times and the valour of those attacking it must be sufficient to beat it three times over．But an army that can withstand but one attack，as is the case with all Christian armies，may easily lose，for，if it become in any way disorganized or its valour be but indifferent，its chance of victory goes．The inability of our armies thrice to reform is due to their having dropped the custom of receiving one rank into the other．This in turn is due to there being in presentday battleformations one of two defects：either they station their ranks one alongside the other，and make their formations broad in extent but thin in the line of attack，which makes them weaker owing to their lack of depth；or when，to make them stronger，they actually draw up the ranks in Roman fashion，then，since no arrangement is made for the first to be received by the second，when the first is routed，all get mixed up together and defeat themselves．For if the rank in front gets the worst of it，it collides with the second；and，if the second wants to advance，it is impeded by the first．Hence when the first falls back on the second，and the second on the third，so much confusion arises that the whole army is frequently ruined should the least misadventure befall．

At the battle of Ravenna，in which Monsieur de Foix who commanded the armies of France was killed – a wellfought battle as things go today – both the Spanish and the French armies were drawn up in one of the ways just described，i．e．each of the two armies advanced with all its troops drawn up shoulder to shoulder so that both presented but a single front which was much greater in extent than it was in depth．This is always their procedure when they are operating on a large plain such as they had at Ravenna；for，realizing the disorder a retreat causes when troops are arranged in files，they avoid this，when they can，by making their front broad，as has been said．But should the available space be narrow they put up with the aforesaid bad arrangement without providing any remedy．And in the same bad formation they ride through the enemy's country，whether to loot it or to perform any other military manoeuvre．

Again，at San．Regolo in the territory of Pisa，as also at other places in which the Florentines were routed by the Pisans during the war which took place between the Florentines and that city owing to its having rebelled after Charles，king of France，passed through Italy，the disaster was entirely due to the allied cavalry which，being in front and having been repulsed by the enemy，fell back on the Florentine infantry and broke it up，so that the rest of the troops all turned tail．Messer Ciriaco dal Borgo，once a captain of Florentine infantry，has also often stated in my presence that he had never been routed except by the cavalry of his allies．The Swiss，who are masters of modern warfare，when fighting on the French side，make it their first care to station themselves on the flanks，so that，should the allied cavalry be driven back，it will not clash with them．Yet，though such things are both easy to understand and very easy to carry out，none the less there has not appeared as yet any of our contemporary generals who has adopted the ancient formations and emended the modern ones．And though they may again have the threefold army formation，called respectively the vanguard，the main body and the rearguard，it serves no purpose other than that of disposing men in billets．Moreover，when they make use of it，as was said above，it rarely happens that the selfsame fortune does not befall all these bodies．

Since many，to cover their ignorance，assert that the destructive power of artillery does not in these days permit the use of many ancient practices，I propose to discuss this question in the following chapter，and to inquire whether artillery renders it impossible to display the valour of days gone by．

In what Esteem Artillery should be held by Armies at the Present Time，and whether the Opinion universally held in its Regard is Sound

When in addition to what I have just written，I consider how many open battles which in our time the French call ‘days’ and the Italians call ‘feats of arms’，were fought by the Romans at different times，there comes to my mind the common opinion so many hold，an opinion which would have it that，had there been artillery in those days，it would not have been possible for the Romans to have conquered provinces and to have made peoples become their tributaries so easily as they did；nor would they have been able in any way to make such bold acquisitions．They allege，too，that the use of these destructive weapons prevents men from employing and displaying their virtue as they used to do of old．And as a third point they add that it is more difficult than it was then to come to an engagement，and that it is impossible to keep to the ancient usages．In fact，war before long will be reduced to the question of artillery．

I do not think it beside the point to discuss whether this view is sound，or to inquire whether artillery has increased or has lessened the strength of armies，and whether it has deprived good generals of，or has provided them with，an opportunity for acting ‘virtuously’．So let me begin by dealing with the first of these claims，namely，that Roman armies of old would not have made the acquisitions they did make，if in those days there had been artillery．

In reply to this I would point out that wars are either offensive or defensive．Hence we must first ask to which of these two kinds of warfare artillery is the more useful or the more dangerous．Though there is something to be said for either view，yet I am convinced that artillery is incomparably more harmful to defenders than to those who attack．The reason why I say this is that the defenders are either in a walled town or are encamped behind a stockade．If they are within a walled town，either it is small，as are most fortresses，or it is large．In the first case，it is all up with the defenders，for the force of artillery is such that no wall can stand it，not even the thickest，for more than a few days．Hence if those within have not a goodly space into which to retire and dig trenches and build ramparts they are doomed．Nor can they withstand the attack of an enemy determined to force his way through a gap in the walls，even if they have artillery to help them，for it is an accepted maxim that against a heavy massed attack artillery is powerless．For this reason the defending of towns against the fury of ultramontane attacks has not been successful but against the assaults of Italians they have been highly successful，for the latter do not attack en masse but in detachments，a form of attack for which much the best name is skirmishing．To advance thus coolly in such weak formation towards a breach in the walls where there is artillery，is to advance to certain death，and against such attacks artillery is of service．But when the attackers form a dense mass and come on one after the other to a breach in the walls，they get through anywhere unless held up by trenches and ramparts．Artillery will not hold them，for，though some get killed，there will not be so many killed as to prevent a victory．

That this is so is shown by the many towns stormed by the ultramontanes in Italy，and especially by that of Brescia．For when this town rebelled against the French who still held the citadel on behalf of the king of France，in order to prevent raids being made on the town from the citadel，the Venetians fortified the whole of the street leading down from the citadel to the city with artillery，placing it both in front and on the flanks and in any other convenient place．But of this Monsieur de Foix made no account．On the contrary，with a squadron of his cavalry，who dismounted，he got right through the artillery and took the city；nor do we hear that the artillery caused him any appreciable loss．So that the defenders of a small town，as we have said，when they find their walls laid low and have no space into which to retire behind ramparts and in trenches，but have to rely on their artillery，are speedily undone．

If you are defending a large town where you have all you need for a withdrawal，artillery is still of far greater use to those who are outside than to those who are within．First，because，if artillery is to do any damage to those who are outside，you must needs raise it above the level of the ground，for，if on the level，every little trench the enemy digs and every rampart he puts up will afford him security，and you can do him no harm．So much so that，having raised your artillery and dragged it into some recess in the walls or having in some other way elevated it above the ground，you will then meet with two difficulties．First，you cannot bring into action artillery of the same size and power as those outside can avail themselves of，since in a small space it is impossible to manipulate large pieces．Secondly，should you succeed in getting it there，you will not be able to construct reliable and safe ramparts whereby to protect the said artillery，which can be done quite easily outside，on terra firma，where there are all the conveniences and as much space as anyone can want．Hence it is impossible for the defenders of a town to have their artillery in high positions when those who are outside have enough artillery and that of a powerful kind；and if they are driven to place it in a low position，it is in large part useless，as has been said．Consequently，the defence of a city has to be carried on by handtohand fighting，as was done of old，supported by artillery of very light calibre．Wherefore，though some slight benefit may accrue from this light artillery，it brings with it a disadvantage which counterbalances the advantage due to artillery，because，owing to the heavy artillery，the walls of towns are demolished and lie flat，buried，as it were，in ditches，so that，when it comes to handtohand fighting，the defenders have a worse time of it than they had before，since their walls have been battered down or their trenches filled up．These engines of war，therefore，as was said above，are of more use to the besiegers of towns than they are to the besieged．

As to the third point，if your camp has been placed behind a stockade so as to avoid open battle unless it suit your convenience and is to your advantage，I claim that in this case you are ordinarily no better off in regard to preventing an engagement than was the case in the old days，and that there are times when，on account of artillery，you may be at a greater disadvantage．For，should the enemy come upon you and have a slight advantage in position，as may easily happen should he find himself on higher ground than yours；or should you on his arriving not yet have made your trenches and dug yourself well in；straightway，and without your being able to do anything about it，he will dislodge you and you will have to quit your fortified position and join battle．This happened to the Spaniards at the battle of Ravenna．They had fortified themselves on the banks of the Ronco，but the earthworks they had thrown up were not sufficiently high and the French had a slight advantage in position，so that they were compelled by artillery to quit their fortifications and join battle．But suppose，as should usually be the case，that the site you have chosen for the camp is above that occupied by the enemy and that its earthworks are good and strong，so that，owing to your position and the other preparations you have made，the enemy does not dare to attack，it will be found that in such a case recourse will be had to the methods that were used in ancient times when someone had his army in a position in which it could not be attacked，namely，to scouring the country，taking or laying siege to towns that are friendly to you，and cutting off your supplies，so that you will be forced under such conditions to leave your camp and come out into the open，where artillery，as I shall presently point out，cannot do much．In view，therefore，of the reasons for which the Romans made war，and seeing that almost all their wars were of the offensive and not of the defensive type，it would seem that what we have said above holds good，namely，that it would have been to their advantage and would have speeded up their conquests，had there been artillery in those days．

As to the second charge，which alleges that men cannot display their valour as they used to do of old，on account of artillery，I admit it is true that，where men in small detachments have to expose themselves，there is greater danger now than then，should they have to scale the walls of a town or to make an assault of this kind not with a compact body of troops but individually，first one appearing and then another．It is also true that the officers and generals of an army are more exposed to the danger of death now than then，since anywhere they may come under artillery fire．Nor does it help them to be in the last squadron or to be supported by very brave men．One finds，none the less，that rarely does either of these two dangers occasion any outoftheway loss．For the walls of wellfortified towns cannot be scaled，nor are attacks on them made with weak troops．If a town is to be taken，it has to be besieged，just as it was of old．Nor，even when it is taken by assault are the dangers much greater now than they were then，for the defenders of towns even in those days did not lack equipment for launching projectiles，which，if not so terrifying，were no less effective in the matter of killing men．As to the death of officers and army commanders，in the last twentyfour years during which there have been wars in Italy，there have been fewer cases than there were during ten years of war in olden times．For，except for Count Ludovico della Mirandola，who was killed at Ferrara when the Venetians attacked that state a few years ago，and for the Duke of Nemours，who was killed abroad at Cerignuola，artillery has not killed anybody；for Monsieur de Foix was killed with a sword，not by a cannonball．Hence if men do not，as individuals，display their valour，it is not due to artillery，but to bad methods and to the weakness of ［modern］ armies，for since they lack valour as a whole，they cannot display it in the part．

To their third allegation which is that it is impossible to bring about a handtohand fight and that war will eventually become a matter of artillery，I reply that this statement is altogether false，and will always be looked on as false by those who want their armies to display in their operations the virtue of ancient times．For it behoves him who wants to form a good army，to accustom his men by means of sham fights or real fights to engage the enemy at close quarters，sword in hand．Hence he should rely more on infantry than on cavalry，for reasons which will presently be given．And，if he does rely on infantry，trained as we have said，artillery becomes quite useless，since it is easier for infantry when engaging the enemy to avoid cannonballs than it was of old for them to avoid an attack by elephants or by chariots armed with scythes，or other unfamiliar weapons such as the Roman infantry had to encounter．Against such devices they always found a remedy；and against artillery would the more easily have found a remedy in that the time during which it may harm you is shorter than that during which elephants and scythed chariots could do you harm．For the latter throw you into disorder during a battle，whereas the former is a nuisance only before the fight begins；and this nuisance infantry easily avoid either by availing themselves of such cover as the site offers or by lying flat on the ground when a volley comes．Experience，however，has shown that this is unnecessary，especially as a defence against heavy artillery；for with heavy artillery the range cannot be so nicely adjusted．Hence either the fire is too high，and does not get you，or it is too low and falls short of you．

Again，when armies come to handtohand conflict，it is as clear as the day that neither heavy nor light artillery can hurt you．For if the enemy place it in front，you capture it；and，if he puts it behind，it hits his own folk before it hits you；while on the flanks it cannot do you so much damage but that you can go and get it，so that in the end it all comes to much the same thing．Nor is there much question about this．For it is clear from the case of the Swiss，who at Novara in 1513 were without either artillery or cavalry，yet went for the French army，which was supported by artillery in a fortified position，and found no difficulty on this account in breaking it up．

The reason for this，besides what I said above，is that，if artillery is to function，it must be protected either by walls or trenches or earthworks，and，if either form of protection is lacking，it either gets taken or becomes useless，just as happens when men have to defend it in pitched battles and open engagements．Nor can it be used on the flanks except in the way the ancients used projectile launching devices．Such instruments were then placed outside the main body，in order that they might function outside the ranks，and，should those who used them be overcome at any time by cavalry or other forces，they took refuge behind the regular troops．Those who expect anything more from artillery do not understand it properly and place their trust in what can easily let them down．And if by using artillery the Turk gained a victory over Sophy and the Sultan，it was solely in virtue of the panic caused among their cavalry by its unfamiliar noise．

On coming，then，to the end of this discourse，my conclusion is that artillery is useful to an army provided it be backed by valour such as was displayed of old；but，without this，it is of not the least use against a valorous army．

That Infantry should be more highly esteemed than Cavalry is shown by the Authority of the Romans and by the Example of Ancient Military Practice

It is possible to give many reasons and to cite many cases showing clearly how much greater esteem the Romans had for footsoldiers than for cavalry in all military operations，and how upon this basis they drew up all plans for their forces．Numerous instances illustrate this；among others the battle fought with the Latins near Lake Regillus，where，when the Roman army began to give way，to support them some troops on horseback were ordered to dismount and fight on foot，by which means the battle was renewed and a victory gained．From which it is obvious that the Romans had more confidence in their men when on foot than when mounted．They used this expedient in many other battles，and always found it the best remedy in dangerous situations．

Nor can this be countered by the opinion expressed by Hannibal when during the battle of Cannae he noticed that the consuls had made their cavalry dismount，and joked about it，saying：‘Quam mallem vinctos mihi traderent equites，’ i．e．‘I should have liked it better had they handed the horsemen over to me bound．’ Though this opinion is voiced by a firstclass man，yet，if it be a question of authority，one should put more credence in a Roman republic and in the many firstclass generals who were in it than in Hannibal alone．Furthermore，apart from an appeal to authority，sound reasons can be adduced；for a footsoldier can get to many places to which a mounted man cannot go；infantry can be taught to keep their ranks，and，when broken，know how to reform them，whereas it is difficult for cavalry to keep their ranks，and impossible for them to re-form when their ranks are disorganized．Besides which，one finds that horses，like men，sometimes have little spirit and sometimes a great deal，and quite often it happens that a spirited horse is ridden by a timid man and a timid horse by a man of spirit；and of whichever kind the disparity be，the result is subversive of utility and order．

Infantry，when well drawn up，can easily break cavalry，but with difficulty are routed by them．This view is corroborated not only by many instances，both ancient and modern，but also by authors who prescribe rules for the conduct of civic affairs and in them show that wars were first fought with cavalry，since there were then no rules for drawing up infantry；but when these were made，it was at once recognized that infantry are more useful than cavalry．But it does not follow from this that cavalry is not essential to an army alike for the purpose of scouting，of raiding and pillaging the country，of pursuing the enemy when in flight，and again as a partial counterpoise to the cavalry of the adversary：but it is infantry that should constitute the basis and sinews of an army and that should be held in the higher esteem．

Among the sins committed by Italian princes who have made Italy the slave of the foreigner，there is none more grave than that of having held this arm of small account and of having devoted all their attention to mounted troops．This mismanagement is due to the perversity of captains and to the ignorance of those who hold office．For the Italian militia having lost all official status during the last twentyfive years had become like soldiers of fortune．It occurred to the militia that their reputation would be made if they had the armed forces while the rulers had none．Since，then，they could not maintain a large number of infantry continually in their pay and they had no subjects of whom they could avail themselves，and since a small number would not make their reputation，they turned to cavalry；for with two or three hundred cavalry in his pay，the reputation of a condottiere was safe，and the pay was not such as to prevent him getting it from ministers of state．So the more easily to attain their end and to keep up their reputation they made light of all the esteem and repute in which infantry was held，and applied it instead to their own cavalry：an abuse which has grown to such an extent that even of the largest armies the infantry constitute but a fraction．It is this practice，conjoined with numerous other abuses associated with it，that has made the Italian militia so weak that Italy has become an easy prey，downtrodden by all the ultramontanes．

To show yet more clearly what a mistake it is to prefer cavalry to infantry，I shall take another example from Rome．The Romans were encamped before Sora．From the town there came forth a troop of cavalry to attack their camp．The Roman master of horse advanced to meet them with his cavalry．When they met，luck would have it that at their first encounter the officers commanding both bodies of troops were killed．Though without their leaders，the fight none the less went on，and that they might the more easily get the better of their foes，the Romans dismounted，and forced the enemy's cavalry in order to defend themselves，to do the same；by which means the Romans gained the victory．Than this example none shows better how much more virtue there is in infantry than in cavalry；for in other actions the consuls made the Roman cavalry dismount that they might help the infantry who were hard pressed and were in need of support；but in this case they dismounted，not to help the infantry，nor yet to engage the enemy's footsoldiers，but because，while fighting as cavalry against cavalry，it occurred to them that，since as cavalry they could not prevail，they might win more easily by dismounting．Whence I infer that it is only with the greatest difficulty that infantry when properly drawn up，can be overcome except by other infantry．

Crassus and Mark Antony，two Romans，overran the domains of the Parthians for many days with very few cavalry but plenty of infantry，though against them they had vast numbers of Parthian cavalry．Crassus with part of the army got killed，but Mark Antony fought valiantly and escaped．None the less，in the misfortunes the Romans suffered，we see how much more value infantry were than cavalry，for the country was vast，mountains scarce，streams very scarce，the sea far away，and no conveniences at hand；yet Mark Antony，as the Parthians themselves admitted，saved himself by his outstanding virtue；nor did the Parthian cavalry，numerous as it was，ever dare to try conclusions with his army．And，if Crassus was left behind，he who studies closely the record of his doings，will see that it was by deceit rather than by force that he was undone，for，in spite of all his troubles，the Parthians never ventured to attack him．On the contrary，they always went roaming about，intercepting his convoys，making promises which they did not keep，till they had reduced him to dire extremity．

I should have been at more pains，I think，to prove that the ‘virtue’ of infantry is more potent than that of cavalry if there had not been so many recent examples which provide abundant evidence of this．There were the nine thousand Swiss we have already mentioned，who at Novara proceeded to attack ten thousand cavalry and as many infantry，and beat them；for the cavalry could not get at them，and they thought little of the infantry，since it consisted for the most part of Gascons and was badly organized．Then there were the twentysix thousand Swiss who went as far as Milan to look for Francis，king of France，who had with him twenty thousand cavalry，forty thousand infantry，and a hundred pieces of artillery；and if they did not win the day as they had done at Novara，they fought valiantly for two days，and，though routed，got away with half their forces．Marcus Regulus Atilius had the courage to oppose not only cavalry，but elephants，with infantry；and，if his project did not succeed，it was not because his infantry were so lacking in virtue，that he had not sufficient confidence in them to believe that they would overcome the difficulty．I repeat，then，that to get the better of welldisciplined infantry it is necessary to bring against them better disciplined infantry；otherwise the case is plainly hopeless．

In the days of Philip Visconti，Duke of Milan，there descended on Lombardy about sixteen thousand Swiss．Whereupon the Duke，whose forces were then commanded by Carmignuola，sent him with about a thousand cavalry and a few infantry to meet them．Carmignuola，unacquainted with their way of fighting，attacked them with his cavalry，assuming that he would be able to break them at once．But they stood firm，and，having lost many of his men，he retired．Being，however，a very brave man，who knew how to take fresh chances when circumstances changed，as soon as reinforcements came along to make up his strength，he went to meet them，told all his menatarms to dismount，and，putting them at the head of his infantry，set out to attack the Swiss．For whom there was no escape，because Carmignuola's menatarms having dismounted and being well protected by armour，they could easily pierce the ranks of the Swiss without suffering any harm，and，having got through，could easily overcome them．The result was that of all the Swiss there remained alive only those whom the humanity of Carmignuola chose to spare．

I believe many are aware of the difference in virtue that exists between these two kinds of troops，but so unhappy are these our times that neither ancient nor modern examples nor its being admittedly a mistake is sufficient to make modern rulers revise their point of view and realize that，if a province or a state is to keep up its military reputation，it is essential to resuscitate these services，to have them at hand，to restore their credit，to put fresh life into them，so that they may bring to the ruler both life and reputation．But，as rulers have departed from these ways，so they have departed from others mentioned above，and in consequence acquisitions do harm to a state instead of contributing to its greatness，as will presently be pointed out．

Mistakes often made in connection with war

Fortresses in General are much more Harmful than Useful

To the wiseacres of our times it may perhaps seem a foolish thing that when the Romans wanted to ensure the loyalty of the people of Latium and the city of Privernum it did not occur to them to build any sort of fortress to curb them and keep them loyal，especially as in Florence it is an accepted principle，so our wiseacres say，that Pisa and other such cities should be held by means of fortresses．Had the Romans been of their calibre，it would undoubtedly have occurred to them to build fortresses，but since their virtue，judgement，and power was of different order they did not do so．So long as Rome enjoyed freedom and was loyal to her institutions and to her efficient constitution she never held either cities or provinces by means of fortresses save where they were already built．In view，then，of the way the Romans acted in this matter and of the way rulers act today，it seems to me worth while considering whether it is good to build fortresses and whether they are harmful or useful to those who build them．

It must be borne in mind，then，that fortresses are constructed as a defence either against enemies or against subjects．In the first case they are unnecessary，and in the second case harmful．Let us begin by explaining why in the second case they are harmful．I maintain that when a prince or a republic is afraid of its subjects and fears they may rebel，the root cause of this fear must lie in the hatred which such subjects have for their rulers：a hatred which is due to their misbehaviour；and a misbehaviour which is due to their fancying they can hold them by force，or to their foolish way of governing them．And one of the things that makes rulers believe in force is the fact that they have fortresses to fall back on．For when mismanagement gives rise to hatred it is mainly due to a prince or a republic having fortresses；and，when this is the case，fortresses are far more harmful than useful．For，in the first place，they make you more foolhardy and violent in dealing with your subjects，as has been said．Next，they do not afford you internally that security you fancy they do．For no force and no violence is of the least use in controlling your people except under one of two conditions：either you have a good army which you can put in the field，as the Romans had；or your people are so exhausted，spent，disorganized and divided，that they cannot unite to do you hurt．For if you reduce them to poverty，‘though despoiled，they still have arms’，and，if you disarm them，‘their fury will provide them with arms’．If you kill their leaders and suppress all other signs of insurrection，like the heads of the Hydra other leaders will arise．If you erect fortresses，they are useful in time of peace because they give you more courage in illtreating your subjects，but in time of war they are quite useless，for they will be attacked both by your enemies and by your subjects，and against both it is impossible for them to stand．And if there ever was a time when they were useless，it is now on account of artillery，for against its fire it is impossible to defend such small places where there are no embankments behind which men can retire，as we have shown above．

In discussing this question I am going to particularize．Do you，my prince，with your fortresses want to keep a firm hand on the people in your city？ Do you，be you a prince or a republic，want to tighten your grip on a city you have taken during a war？ I tell you，if you be a prince，that as a means of controlling your citizens，nothing can be more futile than a fortress for the reasons I have given：it makes you quicker to use，and less careful in using，harsh measures，and by such measures you make them long for your downfall，and they become so furious that，for this very reason，your fortress will afford you no protection．So obvious is this，that a wise and good prince never constructs fortresses if he wants to remain good and to avoid providing his sons with a reason for wanting to become bad，for he would have them rely not on fortresses，but on their subjects’ goodwill．

And if Count Francesco Sforza，having become Duke of Milan，was reputed a wise man，and yet built a fortress in Milan，I maintain that in this he was not wise，and the result has proved that this fortress did harm to his heirs instead of affording them security．For with a fortress they thought they were safe and could oppress their citizens and subjects，so lost no opportunity of doing them violence；with the result that they came to be detested beyond all measure，and lost their state to the first enemy who attacked them．Nor was this fortress any protection or of any service to them in time of war，while in time of peace it did them much harm，since，if they had not had it，yet had been so unwise as to treat their citizens harshly，they would have realized their danger sooner and would have withdrawn from it．In which case they would have been able to put up a more spirited resistance to the French attack with loyal subjects but without a fortress than with a fortress and disloyal subjects．

In no way，then，do fortresses help you，for you will lose them either through the treachery of their keepers，or by some violent attack，or，by their being starved out．While，if you do want them to help you，and to enable you to recover a state you have lost，in which there remains to you only a fortress，you must have an army with which to attack those who have driven you out，and when you have such an army，you will recover your state anyhow，even if there be no fortress there；and this the more easily when your men are friendly and have not been badly treated owing to the arrogance a fortress instils．Experience then shows that this Milanese fortress was not the least use either to the Sforzas or to the French when with either of them things went wrong．On the contrary，to both it brought disaster and ruin in that it prevented them from considering whether there might not be a more honest way of maintaining their position．

Guidobaldo，Duke of Urbino，the son of Frederick，who was highly esteemed in his day as an army commander，was expelled from his state by Caesar Borgia，the son of Pope Alexander VI．When later，owing to an accident，he got back，he had all the fortresses in that district razed to the ground since he thought them mischievous．For with respect to his people who were fond of him，he did not need fortresses and，so far as his enemies were concerned，he realized he could not protect the fortresses，since he would require to have an army in the field to defend them．So he resolved to get rid of them．

Pope Julius，when he had expelled the Bentivogli from Bologna，erected a fortress in that city，and afterwards caused its inhabitants to be cruelly oppressed by one of his governors so that they rebelled；and straightaway he lost the fortress，which thus did not help him，but harmed him in as much as，had he acted otherwise，it would have helped him．

Niccolò da Castello，father of the Vitelli，on returning to his country from which he had been exiled，at once pulled down two fortresses which had been built there by Pope Sixtus IV，for he held that it was not the fortress，but the affection of his people which would preserve his state for him．

But of all such cases the most recent and the most noteworthy in every way as illustrating the futility of building fortresses and the utility of demolishing them，is what happened at Genoa not long ago．Everybody knows that in 1507 Genoa rebelled against Louis XII，King of France，who came in person with all his forces to reconquer it，and that，on recovering it，he constructed a fortress stronger than any at present known，since，situated on the point of a hill which juts into the sea，called by the Genoese Codefà，it was，owing to its position and to a number of other circumstances，impregnable，and commanded the port and a large part of the city of Genoa．It none the less came about that in 1512，when the French were driven from Italy，Genoa rebelled，despite the fortress；Ottaviano Fregoso seized the government；and，after a siege of sixteen months in which he used all possible devices，he starved the fortress out．Everyone then expected，and many advised，that it should be kept as a refuge in case of emergency，but Fregoso，like a prudent man，destroyed it，for he recognized that it is not fortresses but the wills of men that keep rulers in power．Thus，instead of relying on a fortress，he relied on virtue and sound sense，and so held his position and holds it still．And，whereas to change the government of Genoa，a thousand infantry used to suffice，its adversaries have since attacked it with ten thousand and have done it no harm．Hence one sees that dismantling a fortress did not hurt Ottaviano，and erecting one did not help the king．For so long as he could come with an army into Italy，he could recover Genoa without having a fortress there；but，when he could not come into Italy with an army，he could not hold Genoa，though he had the fortress．Thus，constructing the fortress was expensive to the king，and losing it shameful；whereas to Ottaviano the reconquering of the fortress brought glory and the demolishing of it advantage．

We come now to republics which erect fortresses not in their native land but in towns which they have acquired．If the instances already given，of France and of Genoa，do not suffice to show the fallacy involved，it should be enough if I cite those of Florence and Pisa．The Florentines erected fortresses to hold the city of Pisa，not considering that，since the Pisans had always been hostile to Florentine power，had enjoyed freedom and regarded rebellion as a means to freedom，it was necessary，if they were to retain Pisa，to adopt the Roman method，i．e．either to make it an ally or to destroy it．For the virtue of the fortresses became evident on the arrival of King Charles，to whom they surrendered owing either to the bad faith of their custodians or for fear of worse to come．Whereas if there had been no fortresses，the Florentines would not have based on them their power to hold Pisa；nor would the king have been able by means of them to deprive the Florentines of that city；for the means they had taken thus far might perchance have enabled them to keep it，and unquestionably would not have proved more disastrous than the fortresses．

I conclude，therefore，that for the purpose of holding one's own country fortresses are hurtful，and that for the purpose of holding acquired towns they are futile．The authority of the Romans is enough for me here，for round the towns they wanted to hold by force they did not build walls but pulled them down．And，if against this my view anyone should cite in ancient times the case of Tarentum，and in modern times Brescia，both of which places were regained，thanks to fortresses，after their subjects had revolted，I answer thus．To recover Tarentum Fabius Maximus，at the beginning of his year of office，was sent with a whole army，which would have sufficed for its recovery even if there had been no fortress there；and though Fabius made use of it，if it had not been there he would have adopted other means which would have produced the same effect．What use there is in a fortress I do not know，if，to recover a town，one needs a consular army and a Fabius Maximus to command it．Moreover，that the Romans would have recovered it in any case，is seen from the example of Capua，where there was no fortress，but which the Romans retook by the valour of the army．

But let us turn to Brescia．I maintain that what happened in that rebellion is a rare occurrence．Rarely when a town rebels does it happen that the fortress remains in your hands and that you have a large army in the neighbourhood，as the French then had．For Monsieur de Foix，the king's commander，had an army at Bologna，and when he heard that Brescia was lost，he went without delay to deal with the revolt，in three days reached Brescia，and with assistance from the fortress recovered the town．Here again，then，for the fortress at Brescia to be of any use，it needed a Monsieur de Foix and a French army to relieve it after three days march．The case of Brescia，therefore，is not enough to refute examples of the opposite kind；for in wars recently waged，numbers of fortresses have been taken and retaken with the same fortune that has attended the taking and retaking of open country，not only in Lombardy，but in the Romagna，in the kingdom of Naples，and in every part of Italy．

As to building fortresses for defence against external foes，I maintain that they are unnecessary where peoples or kingdoms have good armies and that to those who have no such armies they are useless；for good armies without fortresses suffice for defence，and fortresses without good armies are no defence．This is borne out by the experience of men of high repute as rulers and in other matters，for instance，the Romans and the Spartans；for if the Romans did not build fortresses，the Spartans not only abstained from doing this，but did not permit their cities to have walls，because they chose to rely for defence on the virtue of the individual，and wanted no other．Hence，when a Spartan was asked by an Athenian whether the walls of Athens did not look fine，he answered：‘Quite！ provided it be ladies who live there．’

The ruler，then，who has good armies，may sometimes find it useful，though not essential，to have fortresses on the coast and on the frontiers of his domains to hold off the attack of an enemy till he gets properly going．But，if he has not a good army，to have fortresses within his state or on its frontiers is either harmful or useless：harmful because he so easily loses them and，when lost，they make war on him；or，if they should chance to be so strong that the enemy cannot capture them，they get left behind by the hostile army and so come to be useless．For，when good armies do not meet with very strong opposition，on entering a country they pay no attention to cities and fortresses，which they may leave behind them．We see this in ancient history just as we have seen it done by Francesco Maria，who in quite recent times，when on his way to attack Urbino，left behind him ten of the enemy's cities，without bothering about them．

The ruler，then，who can muster a good army，can do without fortresses，and the ruler who has not a good army had better not build them．The best thing he can do is to fortify the city where he dwells，to keep it provisioned and its inhabitants well disposed，so as to hold off an enemy's attack till he can either come to terms or get outside help to relieve him．All other plans are expensive in time of peace and useless in time of war．In view，then，of all I have said，it will be seen that，as the Romans were wise in their other institutions，so，too，were they prudent when they decided in the case of the Latins and the Privernates to dispense with fortresses and took more virtuous and wiser means of securing their loyalty．

To attack a Divided City in the Hope that its Divisions will facilitate the Conquest of it is Bad Policy

There was so much discord between the plebs and the nobility in the Roman republic that the Veientes，in conjunction with the Etruscans，thought this disunion would enable them to destroy the power of Rome．Having，therefore，formed an army and invaded Roman territory，the senate sent Gaius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to engage them．When the army they were leading drew near to the army of the Veientes，the latter kept on attacking and vilifying the Roman name with insults and abuse．And so great was their rashness and insolence that the Romans became united instead of disunited，and，when it came to a fight，broke and defeated the enemy．Thus one sees，as we have said above，how mistaken men are when in coming to decisions they rely on discord，and how often，when they think they have a sure thing they lose．The Veientes thought that if they attacked the Romans，when disunited，they would overcome them；but their attack caused the Romans to unite and brought about their own ruin．For discord in a republic is usually due to idleness and peace，and unity to fear and to war．Had the Veientes been wise，then，the more disunited they found the Romans to be，the more studiously should they have refrained from going to war with them，and have striven to get the better of them by the artifices men use in time of peace．

The way to set about this is to win the confidence of the city which is disunited；and，so long as they do not come to blows，to act as arbitrator between the parties，and，when they do come to blows，to give tardy support to the weaker party，both with a view to keeping them at it and wearing them out；and，again，because stronger measures would leave no room for any to doubt that you were out to subjugate them and make yourself their ruler．When this scheme is well carried out，it will happen，as always，that the end you have in view will be attained．The city of Pistoia，as I have said in another discourse and apropos of another topic，was acquired by the republic of Florence by just such an artifice；for it was divided and the Florentines supported now one，now the other party and，without making themselves obnoxious to either，led them on until they got sick of their turbulent way of living and in the end came to throw themselves voluntarily into the arms of Florence．

The city of Siena has never changed its form of government with the help of the Florentines except when their help was weak and infrequent；for，when it was frequent and strong，its effect was to make that city united in defence of the government in power．

I wish to add to the abovementioned examples a further example．Filippo Visconti，Duke of Milan，several times made war on the Florentines，relying on their disunion，and in all cases came out the loser，so that when he was bewailing these attacks，he used to say that the follies of the Florentines had involved him in an expenditure of two millions in gold to no purpose．

It remained，then，that the Veientes and the Tuscans were mistaken on this point，as was said above，so that in the end there came a battle when the Romans conquered them．And in like manner will others find themselves mistaken，should they imagine that by such means and in such circumstances they can bring a people into subjection．

Scorn and abuse arouse Hatred against those who indulge in them without bringing them any Advantage

I hold it to be a sign of great prudence in men to refrain alike from threats and from the use of insulting language，for neither of these things deprives the enemy of his power，but the first puts him more on his guard，while the other intensifies his hatred of you and makes him more industrious in devising means to harm you．This is seen in the case of the Veientes，whom we were discussing in the previous chapter．Besides the injury done by the war，they abused the Romans by word of mouth，a thing which every sensible general should prevent his soldiers from doing，for such language does but exasperate the enemy and move him to vengeance，nor，as has been said，does it in any way interfere with his attack：so that in fact they are weapons which turn against you．

Of this a notable instance occurred in Asia．When Cobades，the Persian commander，had been besieging Amida for a considerable time，he grew weary of the tiresome business and decided to withdraw．While he was striking camp the townsmen，exhilarated by their victory，all climbed on the walls and used every sort of abuse，calumniating and accusing and upbraiding the enemy for his cowardice and poltroonery．This so annoyed Cobades that he changed his mind，and，indignant at the injustice，returned to the siege and in a few days had taken and sacked the city．

The same thing happened to the Veientes，who，as I have said，were not content to make war on the Romans，but also spoke of them contemptuously，going up to the stockade surrounding their camp and shouting abuse at them．This annoyed the troops much more than the fighting did；so that，whereas they had at first fought unwillingly，they now pressed the consuls to join battle，with the result that the Veientes，like those mentioned above，were punished for their contumacy as they deserved．Good army commanders and good republican rulers should take all appropriate measures to prevent the use of abusive language and taunts，whether in the city or in their army，and whether used one towards another or towards the enemy．For，if used towards the enemy，there ensue the aforesaid inconveniences，and still worse inconveniences if used one towards the other，unless precautions be taken，as they always have been by prudent men．

When the Roman legions，left in Capua，conspired against the Capuans，as will be narrated in due course，and in connection with this conspiracy a mutiny arose，subsequently quelled by Valerius Corvinus，among other points in the convention he drew up，it prescribed the severest penalties on those who should reproach any of the troops for having taken part in the mutiny．

Tiberius Gracchus，who，during the war with Hannibal，had been put in command of a certain number of slaves，whom，owing to the shortage of men，the Romans had armed，made a special point of the capital punishment he prescribed for anyone who should reproach any slave with his servitude．

We see，then，how harmful the Romans thought it to calumniate others or to reproach them for a shameful deed，as has been said，for than this there is nothing that inflames the mind more，or arouses greater indignation，whether the taunt be true or be said in jest，‘For smart sayings，when they border on the truth，leave a bitter taste behind them．’

Prudent Princes and Republics should be content with Victory，for，when they are not content with it，they usually lose

Speaking to the disparagement of an enemy is usually due to the arrogance aroused in you by victory or by the false hope of victory．False hopes of this kind not only cause men to make mistakes in what they say，but also in what they do．For，when such hopes enter men's breasts，they cause them to dispense with caution，and often to miss the chance of obtaining a sure thing in the hope，but by no means the certainty，of improving on it．This matter is worth considering，since very often men make mistakes in regard to it，detrimental to their Tyre，elated with success，not only refused to accept his terms，but killed the envoy who came to arrange matters．Whereupon Alexander，becoming indignant，put such life into the siege that he took and demolished the city，and either killed or made slaves of its inhabitants．

In 1512 a Spanish army invaded the dominions of Florence with a view to restoring the Medici and levying a tax on the city，acting on behalf of fifth columnists who had led them to expect that，once they had crossed the border，they would take up arms in their favour．On entering the plain ［of the Arno］ they found none of them，and，as they were short of provisions，they made overtures of peace．The people of Florence were too proud to accept them．Hence the loss of Prato，and the ruin of that state．

Rulers of states，when attacked，therefore，cannot make a greater mistake than to refuse to come to terms when the forces attacking them are a good deal stronger than their own，especially if the overtures are made by the enemy：for the terms will never be so hard but that in them some benefit will accrue to those who accept them，so that in a way they will share in the victory．The people of Tyre，for instance，should have been content that Alexander had accepted the conditions which he had at first refused，and the victory thus gained would have been considerable，since with their armed forces they had compelled a great man to condescend to their wishes．It should，in like manner，have sufficed the people of Florence that the Spanish army had yielded to any of their demands instead of fulfilling all their own，for this，too，would have been a considerable victory．For what the Spanish army wanted was to change the form of government in Florence，to put an end to its attachment to France，and to levy tribute．If of these three things the Spaniards had gained the last two，and the people of Florence had gained the first，that is the retention of their form of government，each would have acquired a certain honour and a certain satisfaction；nor would the people have been likely to trouble much about the other two things，so long as their lives were safe．Nay，even had they seen there was a good，and almost certain，chance of a greater victory，they should not have placed themselves wholly at the discretion of fortune and ventured their last stake，which it is never wise to risk unless driven to it．

When Hannibal，who had enjoyed great glory in Italy for sixteen years，left it on being recalled by the Carthaginians to help his own country，he found Hasdrubal and Syphax routed，the kingdom of Numidia lost，and the Carthaginians cooped up within their own walls，destitute of hope except what he and his army should bring．Realizing that his country was reduced to its last stake，he was determined not to risk that till he had tried all other remedies，and so was not ashamed to sue for peace，since he was convinced that，if there was any hope at all for his country，it lay in this and not in war．When peace was refused，he did not decline to fight though bound to lose，since he felt that he could still win，but if he had to lose，he could at least lose gloriously．If，then，Hannibal，who was so full of virtuosity，and had his army still intact，preferred peace to war when he saw that，by losing，his country would be enslaved，what should a man do who has neither the efficiency nor the experience of Hannibal？ Yet there are men who make this mistake，in that to their hopes they set no bound，and are ruined because they rely on such hopes and take no account of other things．

Rome's dealings with neighbouring states and cities in peace and war

How Dangerous it is for a Republic or a Prince not to avenge an Injury done either to the Public or to a Private Person

What is likely to make men indignant with others may easily be learnt from what happened to the Romans when they sent the three Fabii as ambassadors to the Gauls，who were about to attack Tuscany and，in particular，Clusium．The people of Clusium had appealed to Rome for help against the Gauls．Hence the Romans sent the three Fabii as ambassadors to the Gauls to insist in the name of the Roman republic on their abstaining from a war with the Tuscans．When they arrived at their destination the ambassadors，who were better at acting than speaking，found the Gauls and the Tuscans about to join battle，whereupon they were the foremost to enter the fray．It thus came about that when the Gauls became aware of this，their annoyance with the Tuscans was turned against the Romans．And their indignation was intensified when the Gauls，having complained to the Roman senate through their ambassadors of this unfairness and demanded that the aforesaid Fabii be handed over to them to compensate for the harm they had done，they were not only not handed over or punished in some other way，but an election was held in which they were made tribunes with consular power．Consequently when the Gauls saw those being honoured who ought to have been punished，they took it as an affront and an indignity offered to themselves，and，inflamed with indignation and anger，marched on Rome and took it，except for the Capitol．A disaster which the Romans brought on themselves through their disregard of justice，for since their ambassadors had offended against the ‘Law of Nations’，they should have been punished，instead of being honoured．

This leads one to consider how important it is for every republic and every prince to take account of such offences，not only when an injury is done to a whole people，but also when it affects an individual．For if an individual is grievously offended either by the public or by a private person，and does not receive due satisfaction，he will，if he lives in a republic，seek to avenge himself，even if it lead to the ruin of that republic；and，if he lives under a prince and has a spark of manliness，will never rest content till he has in some way or other wreaked vengeance on him even though he sees that，in doing so，he will bring disaster on himself．

In verification of this there is no finer or more relevant instance than that of Philip，king of Macedon，the father of Alexander，in whose court there was a handsome and noble young man，Pausanias．With him Attalus，one of the chief men in Philip's entourage，was enamoured，and had on several occasions sought to get him to assent，but found that he had no liking for such things；so，seeing that he could not get what he wanted otherwise，he decided to set a trap for him and to use force．He gave，therefore，a great banquet，which Pausanias and other noble barons attended，and，when they had had their fill of food and wine，he had him seized and bound；then he not only used force in order to gratify his lust，but，to his greater shame，got others to treat him in the same disgusting way．Of this affront Pausanias complained several times to Philip，who，having kept him for a time in expectation of vengeance，not only did not avenge him，but made Attalus governor of a Grecian province．Pausanias，therefore，seeing his enemy honoured instead of being punished，gave full vent to his indignation not only against the perpetrator of the deed，but against Philip who had not avenged it．So，one morning，the day of the solemn wedding of Philip's daughter，who was being married to Alexander of Epirus，he killed Philip as he was going to the temple for the celebration standing between the two Alexanders，his son and his soninlaw．Of this incident，which is akin to that which happened to the Romans，all who rule should take note，so that they may never esteem any man so lightly as to think that，if injury be added to injury，the injured person will not consider how to vindicate himself，even though it involve him in all manner of dangers and entail his own downfall．

Fortune blinds Men's Minds when she does not wish them to obstruct her Designs

If one ponders well the course of human affairs，it will be seen that many events happen and many misfortunes come about，against which the heavens have not been willing that any provision at all should be made．Since this statement holds good in the case of Rome，which was conspicuous alike for virtue，religion and orderly conduct，it is no wonder that the same thing happens yet more often in cities and provinces which are lacking in these respects．There is a wellknown passage in which Titus Livy shows at length and with great force the power that heaven exercises over human affairs．He says that，with a view to making the Romans recognize its power，heaven first caused the Fabii to act wrongly when sent as ambassadors to the Gauls，and by means of what they did excited the Gauls to make war on Rome；then ordained that in Rome nothing worthy of the Roman people should be done to meet their attack；for first it brought about that Camillus，who was the only hope they had in those evil days，should be sent as an exile to Ardea；then that，when the Gauls were marching on Rome，they did not appoint a dictator，as they had done many times to meet the attack of the Volsci and other enemies in the neighbourhood．It also caused them to be weak and to take no particular care in calling up troops，who were so slow in taking up arms that they scarce had time to confront the Gauls on the banks of the Allia，which was but ten miles from Rome．There the tribunes set up their camp without their accustomed diligence，since they did not inspect the site beforehand，nor surround it with trenches and stockades，nor take any other precautions，either human or divine；while in preparing for battle they made their ranks thin and weak，and neither troops nor officers behaved as Roman discipline required．No blood was shed during the battle because at the first onslaught the Romans ran away，the greater number going to Veii，and the rest retiring on Rome，where they sought refuge in the Capitol without first going home；whereupon the senate took so little thought for Rome's defence that，for one thing，they omitted to close the gates；and some of its members fled，while others went with the rest into the Capitol．Granted，in their defence of the Capitol they used some sort of discipline，for they did not pack all the useless people inside，and they got in all the corn they could，so as to be able to stand the siege；while of the useless crowd of old men，women and children，most fled to the country round about，and the rest stayed in Rome at the mercy of the Gauls．So that no one who had read of what was done so often in years gone by and were to read what was now being done，would think they were one and the same people．

Having described all the disorders mentioned above，Titus Livy concludes with the remark：‘To such an extent does fortune blind the minds of men when she does not want them to oppose the force she is using．’

Nor can anything be more true than the conclusion Livy draws．Hence men who in this life normally either suffer great adversity or enjoy great prosperity，deserve neither praise nor blame；for one usually finds that they have been driven either to ruin or to greatness by the prospect of some great advantage which the heavens have held out，whereby they have been given the chance，or have been deprived of the chance，of being able to act virtuously．Fortune arranges this quite nicely．For，when it wants a man to take the lead in doing great things，it chooses a man of high spirits and great virtue who will seize the occasion it offers him．And in like manner，when it wants a man to bring about a great disaster，it gives precedence to men who will help to promote it；and，if anyone gets in the way，it either kills him off or deprives him of all power of doing good．

It plainly appears from Livy's evidence that，in order to make Rome greater and to lead it on to its future greatness，fortune decided it was necessary first to chastise it in a way that will be described at length in the beginning of the next book，but did not want to ruin it altogether．Hence we see that it made an exile of Camillus，but did not cause him to die；that it caused Rome to be taken，but not the Capitol；that it arranged matters so that nothing useful was thought of to help Rome，nor anything overlooked that could help in the defence of the Capitol．It brought it about that，since Rome was to be taken，the greater part of the troops which were routed at Allia，should go on to Veii，thus leaving the city without any men to defend it．But in arranging things thus，it also prepared the way for Rome's recovery；for since there was a Roman army at Veii，and Camillus was at Ardea，it became possible to make a more vigorous attempt to deliver the fatherland under a general whose career was free from the stain of defeat and whose reputation was untarnished．

In confirmation of this one might adduce further examples from modern times，but I do not think this necessary，so pass them over，since that I have given should be enough to satisfy anybody．I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune，but cannot oppose it；that they may weave its warp，but cannot break it．Yet they should never give up，because there is always hope，though they know not the end and move towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored；and since there is hope，they should not despair，no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves．

Really Powerful Republics and Princes do not purchase Alliances with Money，but obtain them by means of the Virtue and the Reputation of their Forces

The Romans were being besieged in the Capitol，and，though they expected help from Veii and from Camillus，were in such bad case owing to famine that they came to terms with the Gauls and agreed to pay them so much gold．They were weighing out the gold agreed upon when Camillus arrived with his army；whereupon fortune，says the historian，decided that ‘the Romans should not by purchase save their lives’．

This kind of thing is not only noticeable in this case but characterizes the behaviour of this republic throughout．We never find the Romans purchasing towns，or paying in order to obtain peace．They always acquired both by virtue of their arms．Nor do I think that this has ever happened in the case of any other republic．Among other indications of the power of a strong state one looks to the terms on which it lives with its neighbours．When it is so governed that，to obtain its friendship，its neighbours become its tributaries，it is a sure sign that the state is powerful；but when the said neighbours，though inferior in strength，extract payment from it，it is a sure sign of its weakness．

As one runs through Roman history，one sees how the Massilians，the Aedui，the Rhodians，Hiero of Syracuse，king Eumenes and king Masinissa，who were neighbours with estates bordering on the empire of Rome，were ready to incur expense and pay tribute in order to obtain the friendship of Rome，and in return ask only for her protection．In weak states one finds just the opposite．To begin with，in our own state，Florence，in times past when its reputation stood at its highest，there was no lord in the Romagna who did not receive payment from it．It also made grants to the Perugians，the Castellani and all its other neighbours．Had this city been armed and strong，everything would have been just the contrary，for to secure its protection many states would have paid money to it，and would have sought to purchase its friendship，not to sell their own．

Nor are the Florentines the only people who have thus demeaned themselves since the Venetians and the King of France do the same thing；for the latter，great as his kingdom is，habitually pays tribute to the Swiss and to the King of England．This all comes from depriving the people of arms，and from the fact that this king and the other states mentioned have chosen rather to enjoy the present advantage of being able to despoil their people and of being able to avoid an imaginary rather than a real danger，instead of so acting as to secure their people's goodwill and to make their state happy for ever．A malpractice such as this，though it may bring a little temporary quiet，in time becomes the cause of crises，disaster and irremediable ruin．It would take too long to relate how often the Florentines，the Venetians，and this kingdom，have bought off wars and submitted to an ignominy which the Romans submitted to but once．It would take too long to recount how many towns the Florentines and the Venetians have purchased in which one afterwards saw disorder，and how they failed to protect with steel what gold had purchased．The Romans kept up their standards so long as they remained free；but when they fell under the yoke of the emperors，and the emperors began to behave badly and to prefer the shadow to the sun，they，too，began to make grants sometimes to the Parthians，sometimes to Germany，sometimes to other neighbouring peoples；which was the first step towards that great empire's downfall．

Such are the inconveniences，then，that arise from depriving your people of arms．And there is a worse trouble，too，for the greater the force of the enemy's attack，the weaker do you find yourself；for he who lives in the aforesaid way treats ill the subjects who reside within his domain，but treats well those who live on its confines in order to have people well disposed to keep the enemy off．It thus comes about that，in order the better to keep the enemy off，he subsidizes the lords and peoples who are his nextdoor neighbours，with the result that the states which he has thus kept going，offer a modicum of resistance on the frontiers，but，when the enemy has crossed them，no further remedy is available．Such states do not see that their way of proceeding is incompatible with any kind of good order．For it is the heart and the vital parts of the body that have to be strengthened，not its extremities，since without them the body can survive，but，if the former be injured，it dies；yet such states keep unarmed the heart，but arm the hands and the feet．

What this lack of order has done for Florence is clear，and may be seen any day；for when an army crosses its frontiers and gets near its heart，it finds itself without further remedy．Of it the Venetians also gave proof a few years ago，and，if their city had not been girt about by water，it would have been the end of it．In France this experience is not found so frequently，for it is so large a kingdom that it has but few enemies superior to it．None the less，when the English attacked this kingdom in 1513，the whole realm was in trepidation，and the king and everybody else thought that a single defeat would spell ruin to the king and to the state．Very different was it in the case of the Romans，for the nearer the enemy approached to Rome the greater he found the city's power of resistance to be．When Hannibal invaded Italy，one sees how，after three defeats and the death of so many generals and soldiers，it was still able，not merely to withstand the enemy，but to win the war．All this comes from having fortified well the heart，but of the extremities made less account．For of basic importance in this state were the people of Rome，the people known as Latins，the other parts of Italy associated with it，and its colonies．Thence came the vast number of soldiers which enabled it to fight and to hold the whole world．That this is so may be seen from the question asked by Hanno，the Carthaginian，of the messengers who came from Hannibal after the rout at Cannae．Having made much of Hannibal's exploits，they were asked by Hanno whether the Roman people had sent to ask for peace，and whether among the Latins and in its colonies any town had revolted against the Romans．To both questions the answer was in the negative，whereupon Hanno remarked：‘This war，then，is still in as full swing as it was at the start．’

We see from this discourse and from what I have said in other places，how great is the difference between the procedure of presentday republics and that of ancient republics．We see，too，how，because of this，astonishing acquisitions are made and astonishing losses occur daily．For where men have but little virtue，fortune makes a great display of its power；and，since fortune changes，republics and governments frequently change；and will go on changing till someone comes along，so imbued with the love of antiquity that he regulates things in such fashion that fortune does not every time the sun turns round get a chance of showing what it can do．

How Dangerous it is to put Confidence in Refugees

It may not be amiss among other topics to show how dangerous it is to trust those who have been driven from their country，since this is a matter with which everyone who holds office has to deal．In support it is possible to adduce a noteworthy case which Titus Livy cites in his histories，though it lies outside his main topic．When Alexander the Great crossed with his army into Asia，Alexander of Epirus，a relative – in fact his uncle – went with some troops to Italy，having been invited by some Lucanian refugees who had led him to expect that through their mediation he would gain the whole of that country．Relying on their word and on the hopes they aroused，he came to Italy and was put to death by them；for their fellowcitizens had promised that，if they would kill him，they might return to their own country．One should reflect，therefore，on the unreliability of agreements and promises made by men who find themselves shut out from their country，because in determining what such men's word is worth it must be borne in mind that，once they get a chance of returning to their country without your help，they will desert you and turn to others in spite of any promises they may have made you．While in regard to the vain promises and hopes，so intense is their desire to get back home that they naturally believe much that is false and artfully add much more：so that between what they believe and what they say they believe they fill you with a hope which is such that，if you rely on it，either you incur expense in vain or take up what will ruin you．

I propose to let this example of Alexander suffice，conjoined with that of Themistocles the Athenian，who，having been proclaimed a rebel，sought refuge with Darius in Asia；to whom he promised so much if he would but attack Greece that Darius resolved to do so．When later he was unable to fulfil these promises whether out of shame or for fear of punishment，Themistocles poisoned himself．Wherefore，if so eminent a man as Themistocles made this mistake，how much more likely are those to err who are less virtuous and let themselves be swayed by their desires and their passions．A ruler，therefore，should be slow to take up an enterprise because of what some exile has told him，for more often than not all he will get out of it is shame or most grievous harm．

And because the taking of towns by stealth and owing to information supplied by their inhabitants rarely succeeds，it does not seem to me irrelevant to discuss this in the next chapter，as also in how many ways the Romans acquired them．

On the Various Methods used by the Romans in taking Towns

Since the Romans were all keen on war，they always and on all occasions took advantage of anything，alike in the matter of expense and of any other matter，that promised to help．It was for this reason that they took care not to besiege the towns they took，for they thought this method so costly and so clumsy that its disadvantages would much more than counterbalance the advantages likely to accrue from the conquest．Hence they deemed it better and more useful to subjugate towns by any other means rather than lay siege to them，so that in all their wars and in all the years they took，there are very few instances of their having used sieges．

In order to get hold of a city，therefore，the Romans either took it by assault or got it to surrender．Their assaults were either carried out openly in strength and with violence，or by force conjoined with fraud．When storming a town openly they used two methods．Either they attacked it on all sides without first demolishing the walls，which is called ‘putting a crown round the city’ since the whole army surrounds it and engages it at all points；and in this way they often succeeded in taking a city，even a very large one，at the first assault，as Scipio took New Carthage in Spain．Or，when an attack failed，they set about breaking down the walls with rams and other siege implements，or made a sap by which they obtained entrance to the city，as was done when Veii was taken；or to get on a level with those defending the walls，they constructed wooden towers，or raised earthworks against the walls from without，so as to be at the same height as the defenders．

Against such assaults the city's defenders in the first case，where the attack came from all sides，were more quickly exposed to danger and had more dubious remedies．For，since many defenders were needed everywhere，either those they had were not enough to provide them all with reserves and reliefs；or，if they could，not all were equally courageous in resisting，and，if a section shirked the battle，all was lost．Hence it often happened，as I have said，that this method proved successful．But when the first assault was not successful，they did not keep it going long，because this was too dangerous for the army；for，since it covered so much ground，it could as a whole resist but feebly a sortie made by those within．The troops，too，got out of hand and grew weary；but for just once，when it was unexpected，they would try this method．When a breach was made in the walls，it was countered by means of ramparts as at the present time．And to counteract a sap，they made a countersap through which they got at the enemy either with their weapons or by other devices；of which one consisted of barrels filled with feathers to which they applied a light，and，when burning，put them in the sap so that the smoke and the stench might prevent the enemy getting through．While，if attacked from towers，they tried to destroy them by fire；and，if from earthworks，they made a hole in the lower part of the wall on which the earthwork was leaning，and drew in the earth which those outside had put there，so that，since the earth was being piled up outside and being taken away from the inside，the earthwork did not grow．

Such methods of storming a town could not be kept up for long，so they had either to raise their camp or to devise other methods of winning the war，as Scipio did when he got to Africa；for when he attacked Utica，but did not succeed in taking it，he raised his camp and sought to engage the Carthaginian armies and break them．Or they would have recourse to a siege，as they did at Veii，Capua，Carthage，Jerusalem and other towns which they took by means of sieges．

The acquiring of towns by furtive violence is illustrated in the case of Palaeopolis，which the Romans took by arrangement with fifth columnists inside．This form of attack has often been tried by the Romans and by other peoples，but has seldom succeeded．The reason is that at the smallest setback the plan breaks down，and such setbacks easily happen．For in the first place the conspiracy may be discovered before it comes to a head，and in discovering it there is not much difficulty，owing sometimes to the treachery of those who have been told of it，sometimes to practical difficulties．For you must get in touch with the enemy，with whom it is not permitted to speak unless you can find some excuse．And，should the plot not be discovered while arrangements are being made，a host of difficulties occur when the time comes for action．For if you arrive before the time appointed，or get there late，anything may upset the plot．So，too，if there occurs some unexpected noise，such as the geese made at the Capitol，or if the normal course of events is interrupted．Given the least blunder or the smallest mistake，the attack is bound to fail．In addition to which there is the darkness of the night to add to the fear of those engaged in such dangerous tasks；and the fact that most of the men who are taken on such expeditions，having had no experience of the country or of the place to which they are being led，may get muddled and fainthearted，or upset by some tiny and accidental mishap；and any false impression is enough to make them turn tail．

Anyone more lucky in such stealthy nocturnal ventures than Aratus the Sicyonian is not to be found，yet，bold as he was in these，he was equally nervous about ventures in daylight and in the open．This we may put down to some occult virtue with which he was endowed，rather than to anything in the nature of nocturnal expeditions which makes them more fortunate than others．Though such means are frequently planned，therefore，but few arrive at fruition，and very few succeed．

When towns are acquired by surrender，the surrender may either be voluntary or compulsory．When voluntary，it is due either to some external circumstance which compels a town to seek protection under another's wing，as Capua sought Rome's；or to the desire to be well ruled，a desire evoked by the good government exercised by the prince in question over those who of their own accord have placed themselves in his hands，as was the case with the Rhodians，the Massilians and other such cities which surrendered to the Roman people．When the surrender is compulsory，it is either brought about by a long siege，as we have said above；or it is due to the continued vexation produced by raids，depredations and other annoyances，to escape which a city surrenders．

Of all the methods mentioned above，the Romans used the last more than any．For more than four hundred and fifty years they sought to tire out their neighbours by defeats in the field and by raids，and by means of treaties managed to acquire greater repute than their rivals did，as we have pointed out elsewhere．It was on this method that they always relied most，though they tried them all，but found the others fraught with danger or of no use．For sieges are long and costly，assaults of doubtful issue and risky；and conspiracies are unreliable．They also realized that，if the enemy's army was routed，they acquired a kingdom in a day；whereas，if they besieged an obstinate city，it might take years to get it．

The Romans gave to Army Commanders Discretionary Powers

If one is to profit from the perusal of Livy's history one ought，I think，to take account of all the modes of procedure used by the people and senate of Rome and among other points worthy of notice there is the authority we find them giving to their consuls，dictators and other army commanders when in the field．It was of a very high order，for the senate reserved to itself only the power to initiate fresh wars and to confirm peace treaties．All else was left to the discretion and power of the consul．For，when the people and senate had decided to go to war，against the Latins，for instance，they left everything else to the discretion of the consul，who could either give battle or not give it，and attack this or that town as he thought fit．

This is confirmed by numerous examples，but especially by what occurred in an expedition against the Tuscans．The consul，Fabius，had defeated those who were near Sutrium，and was planning next to lead his army through the Ciminian forest en route for Tuscany．About this，not only did he not consult the senate，but he did not even inform them，though the war was to be carried on in a new，unexplored and dangerous country．Further confirmation is afforded by the action the senate here took，which was of the opposite kind；for，when they heard of the victory which Fabius had gained and wondered whether his next step would be to pass through the said forest into Tuscany，they thought it best not to run the risk this war would entail，and so sent two legates to Fabius to stop him from going on to Tuscany．But，when they arrived，he had already got there and had won a victory，so that，instead of preventing a war，the legates came home bringing news of a conquest and of glory won．

Whoever considers carefully this technique will see that it was very wise to make use of it．For，if the senate had required a consul in conducting a war to proceed step by step according as they directed，it would have made him less circumspect and slower to act，for it would have seemed to him that the glory of victory would not be wholly his，but that the senate would share in it，since it would have been carried out under its directions．Furthermore，the senate would have had to advise on matters of which it had no immediate cognizance；for，though the senators were all men of considerable experience in military matters，yet，as they were not on the spot，they would not be acquainted with the multitudinous details which it is essential to know before one can give sound advice，and so would have made numerous mistakes．This being so，they preferred that the consul should decide what to do，and that the glory should be wholly his，for they thought his actions would be so restrained and regulated by his love of glory that he would do his utmost．

To this I have the more willingly called attention，because I notice that the republics of today，such as the Venetian and the Florentine republics，act differently，for if their generals，administrators or commissioners，have to set up a piece of artillery，they want to know of it and to advise about it – a procedure as praiseworthy as are others of that ilk，which together have brought us to our present pass．

Sundry remarks on strategy，tactics，new devices and discipline

That a General cannot avoid an Engagement if the Enemy is determined to force him to it at All Costs

‘Gaius Sulpicius，the dictator，when waging war with the Gauls，was unwilling to try his fortune in an engagement with an enemy whose position time and an awkward situation was steadily making worse．’ When there occurs an error which all men，or most men，are liable to make，it is not a bad thing，I think，to warn them often against it．Since，therefore，as I have frequently pointed out，the way in which important matters are dealt with today does not come up to the standard of the ancients，it does not seem to me superfluous at this juncture to point it out once again．For，if there be any way in which there has been a departure from ancient customs，it is especially so in military matters，in which none of the things the ancients esteemed so highly are now done．This inconvenience is due to republics and princes having entrusted such matters to other people．To avoid danger they themselves keep clear of military operations and，though one does sometimes find a king in these days sallying forth in person，I do not on this account think that it leads him to do much else that is worthy of commendation．For when they actually do engage in military operations，they do it for the sake of display and not for any praiseworthy reason．True，in that they occasionally review their troops and reserve to themselves the title of commander，they make mistakes of less moment than do republics，especially Italian republics，which rely on others and understand nothing which has to do with war，and yet in their desire to look like a prince in the eyes of the army，make decisions，and，in doing so，commit innumerable blunders．

And although some of these blunders I have discussed elsewhere，I cannot here be silent about one which is very important．When these idle princes or effeminate republics are sending one of their generals on an expedition，it seems to them that the wisest thing they can commission him to do，is on no account to engage in open battle，but，on the contrary，above all else to be on his guard against an engagement；for they think that in so doing they are emulating the prudence of Fabius Maximus who，by putting off an engagement，saved the Roman state from destruction；wherein they overlook the fact that，more often than not，such a commission is nonsensical or dangerous．The point one has to bear in mind here is that a general who proposes to remain in the field cannot avoid battle if the enemy is determined to force one on him at all costs．Hence what such a commission amounts to is just this：‘Join battle at the enemy's behest，not at your own’．For，if one wants to remain in the field and not join battle，the only safe thing to do is to put at least fifty miles between oneself and the enemy，and then to have good scouts so that，should he come your way，you may have time to get farther off．Another alternative in this case is to shut yourself up in a city．But both courses are extremely harmful．For the first leaves your country at the mercy of the enemy，and a valiant prince would sooner try his fortune in battle than prolong a war at such cost to his subjects．While the second alternative is manifestly that of a lost cause，for what it comes to is that，when you have got your army into a city，you may be besieged，and before long to be reduced by the pangs of hunger to surrender．Hence to avoid battle in either of these two ways is extremely hurtful．The plan adopted by Fabius Maximus of occupying strong positions is good so long as you have so valiant an army that the enemy does not dare come and seek you out in your position of vantage．Nor can it be said that Fabius avoided battle，but rather that he preferred to fight when he had the advantage．For，if Hannibal had gone to seek him out，he would have awaited him and made a day of it．But Hannibal did not dare to fight with him on these terms．So that it was as much Hannibal who avoided battle as Fabius；but，if either had determined at all costs to fight，the other would have had to adopt one of three courses，i．e．either to adopt one of the two courses mentioned above，or else to run away．

That what I am saying is true can be clearly seen from a host of cases，and especially in the war the Romans had with Philip of Macedon，the father of Perseus．For，when Philip was attacked by the Romans，he decided not to join battle，and，to avoid it，did at first what Fabius Maximus did in Italy：posted himself with his army on top of a mountain where he erected fortifications，thinking that the Romans would not dare to go and seek him out．But they did go，and，having fought with him，drove him from the mountain，and he，being powerless to resist，fled with the greater part of his forces．What saved him from being utterly undone was the impossible country，which prevented the Romans from following him up．Philip，therefore，still desirous of avoiding battle and being encamped in the neighbourhood of the Romans，had to get away；and，having learned by experience that，to avoid battle，it is not enough to take up a position on top of a mountain，and being averse to shutting himself up in towns，decided to take the remaining course and to put many miles between himself and the Roman camp．Hence，when the Romans were in one province，he moved to another，and，in like manner，whenever the Romans moved out，he moved in．But when at length he came to see that by prolonging the war in this way his situation was getting worse，and that，now by him，now by the enemy，his subjects were being harassed，he decided to try his fortune in battle．He thus came to an engagement with the Romans，as was proper．

It is useful then not to fight under the conditions in which Fabius’ army found itself，or again in those in which Gaius Sulpicius found himself，i．e．when you have so good an army that the enemy does not dare to come and oust you from your fortified position；or when the enemy is in your country，but without having the footing there that would guarantee provisions．In this case the course adopted is useful for the reasons Livy gives when he says：‘he was unwilling to try his fortune in an engagement with the enemy so long as time and his adverse situation were daily making the enemy's position worse’．But under all other conditions battle cannot be avoided without incurring dishonour and danger，for if you run away，as Philip did，it is as bad as being routed，and is the more shameful in that you afford less proof of your virtue．And if he thus succeeded in getting away，another who is not helped by the country may not be so successful as he was．

That Hannibal was a past master in warfare no one will deny．Hence，when he was up against Scipio in Africa，if he had seen any advantage in prolonging the war he would have done so；and peradventure，being a good general and having a good army，he might have done as Fabius did in Italy．But，as he did not do it，it must be supposed that strong grounds impelled him to act thus．For a commander who has an army massed together and sees that for lack of funds or of allies he cannot keep it long in the field，is quite mad if he does not put his fortune to the test before his army has to be disbanded；because，if he waits，he is surely lost；but if he tries，he may succeed．

Another point of importance to be considered here is that one ought，if one is going to lose，to try to acquire glory，and there is more glory in being overcome by force than there is when it is through some other inconvenience that you come to lose．Hannibal must have been constrained by these necessities．On the other hand，should Hannibal have put off giving battle and Scipio had not enough courage to go and attack him in his strong positions，Scipio would have been none the worse for this，since he had already beaten Syphax and acquired so many towns in Africa that his position there was as safe and as comfortable as if he were in Italy．This was not the case with Hannibal when he was up against Fabius，nor with the Gauls when they were up against Sulpicius．

Still less，again，is it possible for him to avoid battle who with his army is attacking a foreign country，for if he wants to get into the enemy's country，it behoves him when the enemy shows fight，to give battle，and if he takes up his position before a town，he is so much the more obliged to give battle．This happened in our times in the case of Charles，Duke of Burgundy，who，when encamped before Morat，a Swiss town，was attacked and routed by the Swiss；and in the case of the French army which was besieging Novara and was in like manner routed by the Swiss．

That he who has to deal with several Foes，even though he be Weaker than they are，can actually Win，provided he can sustain their First Attack

The power of the tribunes of the plebs in the city of Rome was considerable，which was necessary since otherwise they could not have checked the ambition of the nobility，as we have frequently pointed out；and the nobility would in that case have corrupted the republic long before they did．Nevertheless，because inherent in everything is its own peculiar malady，as has been said elsewhere，and this gives rise to fresh misfortunes，it is necessary to provide against them by fresh enactments．Hence，when the tribunes grew arrogant in the use of their authority and became a menace alike to the nobility and to the whole of Rome，there would have arisen an inconvenience harmful to Roman liberty if Appius Claudius had not shown how the ambition of the tribunes might be counteracted．This consisted in looking among them for someone who was either timorous or corruptible or devoted to the common good，and who could thus be induced to oppose the will of the rest when they were proposing to do something contrary to the will of the senate．This remedy acted in no small measure as a restraint on the excessive authority of the tribunes and was often of service to Rome．

This leads me on to consider how it sometimes happens that，when many powers are united against a single power，though in combination they are much more powerful than it is，yet more is always to be expected from the single power，though less strong，than from the many even though very strong，for apart from the many advantages which a single power has over the many – and they are countless – there is always this：it will be able by using a little industry to break up the many，and to make what was a strong body，weak．I shall not adduce examples from ancient history，for they would be many，but shall content myself with modern examples which have happened in our own times．

In 1483 all Italy formed a confederation against the Venetians，who，since they had lost everything and their army could no longer hold its own in the field，suborned Signor Ludovico who was ruling in Milan and by means of this managed to obtain terms by which they not only recovered their lost lands，but obtained part of the state of Ferrara．Thus，though they were losing the war，when peace came，they were better off than before．

A few years ago the whole world formed a confederation against France，yet，before the war came to an end，Spain had fallen out with the confederation and made peace on its own account，with the result that the remaining confederates shortly afterwards also had to come to terms with France．

The conclusion to be drawn from this is obvious．If the many make war on the one，the one will come out of it best provided her virtue be such that she can sustain the first attack and await her opportunity by procrastinating．For，should she not be able to do this，a host of dangers may ensue，as happened to Venice in 08 when，could she have temporized with the French army and have found time to win over one of the states confederated against her，she might have avoided disaster．But since in arms she was not sufficiently strong to be able to temporize with the enemy，and so had not time to persuade any power to leave the confederation，she was undone．Yet one finds that the Pope，once he had recovered his lost territory，became her ally，and so did Spain；and either of these two princes would have been very glad to help her to save Lombardy so as to prevent the French becoming too powerful in Italy，had they been able to do so．Hence the Venetians，by giving up part of their territories，might have saved the rest；and this would have been a very wise course had it been done in time before the war broke out so that they should not appear to have been driven to it．But after the war had begun it would have been reprehensible，and probably of but little use．Yet，before war broke out，few Venetian citizens saw the danger，and still fewer the remedy；and there was no one to advise them．But to come back to where we started．The conclusion I draw from this discourse is that，just as the Roman senate found means to save their country from the ambition of the tribunes because there were many tribunes，so any prince who is assailed by many，has a remedy to hand，if he be wise enough to take appropriate steps to break up the confederation．

That a Prudent General should make it absolutely necessary for his own Troops to Fight，but should avoid forcing the Enemy to do so

We have in other discourses shown how useful a part necessity plays in human affairs，and to what glorious deeds it may lead men．As some moral philosophers in their writings have remarked，neither of the two most noble instruments to which man's nobility is due，his hands and his tongue，would have attained such perfection in their work or have carried man's works to the height which one can see they have reached，if they had not been driven to it by necessity．Since，therefore，army commanders of old were aware of the virtue that lies in necessity，and how steadfast，when necessity drives，the minds of soldiers can become in their resolve to fight，they used every endeavour to put their troops under such constraint and，on the other hand，employed any device that would free the enemy from such constraint．To this end they often left open to the enemy a route they might have closed，and closed a route to their own soldiers which they might have left open．If，then，anyone wants a city to be obstinately defended or an army in the field to fight obstinately，he should，first and foremost，seek to instil this necessity into the minds of those who have to do the fighting．

It follows that a prudent general who has to go and lay siege to a city should base his estimate of how easy or how difficult it is going to be to take it on the knowledge and consideration of the extent to which necessity will constrain the inhabitants to defend it；and，if he find the necessity constraining them to defend it，considerable，should account the siege difficult，but，if otherwise，should account it easy．It is for this reason that towns which have rebelled are more difficult to acquire than they are to acquire in the first instance；for in the first instance they have no cause to expect punishment for having given offence，and so surrender easily；but，since they are aware，when in revolt，of having given offence，and in consequence fear punishment，they become difficult to take．Again，obstinacy of this kind is also aroused by the natural hatred which neighbouring princes and neighbouring republics have for one another；which，in turn，is occasioned by the ambition which moves states to dominate one another，and by their jealousy，especially if they are republics，as was the case in Tuscany，and this rivalry and competition have made it difficult，and will continue to make it difficult，for one to seize the other．If，therefore，one considers carefully what neighbours the city of Florence has and what neighbours the city of Venice has，it is not so extraordinary as many make out that Florence should have spent more on wars and have acquired less than Venice，since it is all due to the towns in the neighbourhood of Venice not being so obstinate in defending themselves as are those in the neighbourhood of Florence．This comes about because the cities abutting on Venetian territory are accustomed to live under a prince，and are not free cities；and cities accustomed to subjection are usually not so particular about changing masters：on the contrary，they are often glad to do so．Hence，though Venice's neighbours are more powerful than those of Florence，yet，on account of its having found the towns less obstinate，Venice has been able to subdue them more quickly than has Florence，which is surrounded entirely by free cities．

But to return to the main topic of this discourse．When a general is attacking a town he should endeavour with all diligence to relieve its defenders of the necessity we have been discussing，and so of their obstinacy；by promising them pardon if they are afraid of punishment，and，if they fear for their liberty，by explaining that no attack is being made on the common good，but only on a few ambitious citizens．This has often facilitated the attack on，and the taking of，towns．And，though such false colours are easily seen through，especially by men of prudence，the populace is none the less often deceived；for，in its eagerness for a speedy peace it shuts its eyes to any trap which may underlie generous promises．Innumerable cities have by this means been reduced to servile states．It was so with Florence，for instance，quite recently；and it happened to Crassus and his army；for，though he realized the emptiness of Parthian promises，made merely to deprive his troops of the need to defend themselves，this did not enable him to sustain their steadfastness，blinded as they were，by the offers of peace which the enemy had made：a point one sees clearly if one reads his life．

In this connection I might mention that when the Samnites，in contravention of their treaty and owing to the ambition of the few，raided and pillaged the lands of Rome's allies；and then sent ambassadors to Rome to sue for peace，offering to restore what they had taken and to hand over those responsible for the disturbances and for the booty taken，their offer was turned down by the Romans．On their returning to Samnium without hope of an agreement，Claudius Pontius，then in command of the Samnite army，in one of his remarkable speeches，pointed out that the Romans had anyhow wanted war，and that，though on their part they were anxious for peace，necessity constrained them to go to war．He then used these words：‘War is justified，if necessity forces one to it，and to arm is a duty，if in arms lies one's hope’ and upon this necessity he based the hope of victory for his troops．

That I may not have to return later to this topic，it will be best for me to mention the more noteworthy instances in Rome's case．There was that of Gaius Manlius who led his army against the Veientes，and，when a section of the Veientine army broke through his stockades，hurried with a detachment to defend them and，to prevent the Veientes escaping，put a guard on all the exits from the camp．Hence，finding themselves shut in，the Veientes began to fight so furiously that they killed Manlius，and would have got the better of all the rest of the Romans if one of the tribunes had not had the sense to let them out．Thus we see that，so long as necessity constrained the Veientes to fight，they fought with great ferocity，but，when they saw the way was open，thought more of getting away than of fighting．

The armies of the Volsci and the Aequi had crossed the Roman frontiers．Against them the consuls were sent．In the course of the battle the Volscian army，commanded by Vettius Messius，found itself at one moment shut up between its stockades which the Romans had taken，and the other Roman army．Seeing that he must needs die or use his sword to fight for his life，Vettius Messius said to his soldiers：‘Follow me．There is neither wall nor rampart in the way，but just armed forces to oppose armed forces．In valour we are equal，but in necessity which is the last weapon and the best of all，you have the advantage．’ Thus Livy calls necessity ‘the last and best of all weapons’．

Camillus，the most prudent of all Rome's generals，having already got into the city of Veii with his army，in order to facilitate the taking of it and to deprive the enemy of a last necessity to defend it，gave orders within the hearing of the Veientes to the effect that no one should touch those who were without arms．The result was that they threw down their arms and the city was taken almost without bloodshed．This device was afterwards adopted by many generals．

Which is it best to trust，a Good General with a Weak Army or a Good Army with a Weak General？

Coriolanus，being banished from Rome，went to the Volsci，where，having got together an army wherewith to avenge himself on his fellow citizens，he set out for Rome，but turned back rather out of devotion to his mother than to the Roman forces．Commenting on this incident，Livy remarks that from it we may learn that the Roman republic grew more through the virtue of her generals than through that of her soldiers for，in view of the fact that the Volsci had thus far always been beaten，they could have won on this occasion only because Coriolanus was their general．But，though Livy advances this opinion，many passages in his history show that soldiers without a general have given remarkable proof of their virtue，and that they have been better disciplined and more determined after the death of their consuls than before they got killed．It happened thus with the army the Romans had in Spain under the Scipios，for，when both these generals had been killed，its virtue was such that not only did it successfully defend itself，but it beat the enemy and thus saved this province for the republic．Hence all things considered，there are many cases in which the virtue of the soldiers alone has won the day，and many others in which the virtue of generals has had the same effect，so that one can say that each has need of the other．

In this connection it will be well to consider first which is more to be feared：a good army badly generalled，or a good general who has poor troops．If we follow here the opinion of Caesar，neither one nor the other is worth much．For when he went to Spain against Afranius and Petreius，who had a firstclass army，he showed how little esteem he had for them by remarking that ‘he was going to fight an army without a general’，thereby indicating the weakness of the generals．On the other hand，when he went to Thessaly to fight Pompey，he said：‘I am going to meet a general without an army’．

We can now turn to the further question：whether it is easier for a good general to make a good army，or for a good army to make a good general．I submit that on this point there can be no dispute；for it is easier for many，if good，to select or make a good man of someone，than it is for one good man to do it for many．Lucullus，when he was sent against Mithridates，was wholly without experience of warfare；yet the army，which was good and had excellent officers，soon made him a good general．Again，the Romans，who were short of men，armed a number of slaves，and handed them over to Sempronius Gracchus to train，and in a short time he made of them a good army．Pelopidas and Epaminondas，as I have remarked elsewhere，when they had delivered Thebes，their fatherland，from servitude to the Spartans，in a short time made such excellent soldiers of the Theban peasants that they could not only stand up against the Spartan militia but beat it．

The arguments are evenly balanced，because，if one is good，it can make the other like it．A good army，none the less，if it lacks a good head is apt to become mutinous and dangerous，as happened with the Macedonian army after the death of Alexander，and with the veterans in the civil war．Hence I am of opinion that more confidence should be placed in a good general who has time to train his men and a chance to arm them，than in a mutinous army with a turbulent fellow it has chosen as its head．Twice the glory and praise is due，then，to those generals who have not only had an enemy to beat，but，before coming to grips with him，have had to drill their troops and make a good army of them；for in this they display a twofold virtue，which is so rare that if it were given to many to be such strict disciplinarians，they would be much less esteemed and lauded than they are．

What Effects are produced by the Appearance of New Inventions in the course of a Battle and by the hearing of Unfamiliar Cries

Of what importance in strife and battle may be an unprecedented incident due to something seen or heard for the first time can be shown by numerous incidents and especially by that which occurred during the battle the Romans fought with the Volsci，when Quintius，seeing that one wing of his army was giving way，began to call to it in a loud voice to stand firm since the other wing was winning；for by these words he put courage into his own men and alarmed the enemy，and so won the day．And if on a welldisciplined army such remarks have a great effect，on a disorderly and illdisciplined army they have a still greater effect，for the whole is swayed，as it were，by a wind．

Let me give you a remarkable instance which occurred in our own times．A few years ago，the city of Perugia was divided between two factions，the Oddi and the Baglioni．The latter were in power，the former having been banished．But，with the help of their friends，they got together an army and assembled it in one of their towns close to Perugia．Then，with the connivance of their partisans they got one night into the city and were on their way to take the piazza without having been discovered．Since at every street corner in the city chains had been placed to block the way，the troops of the Oddi put at their head a man with an iron mace to break the locks fastening the chains so that the cavalry could get through．It remained for him to break only that which barred the way into the piazza when the cry ‘To arms！’ was raised，and on the fellow who was doing the breaking the crowd pressed so hard that he could not raise his arm to strike，so，in order to manage it，he called out ‘Get back there！’，words which，as they passed from rank to rank，became ‘Get back！’．Whereupon those in the rear began to run away，and one after another，the rest followed suit with such frenzy that their own men were thrown into confusion．So that the plans of the Oddi came to nought owing to this insignificant incident．

This leads me to observe that good discipline is needed in an army not merely to enable it to fight in orderly fashion，but also that you may not be perturbed should some tiny misadventure befall．For this reason alone the masses are useless in war，since any rumour，any cry，any commotion may change their mood and make them run away．Hence it is essential to discipline that a good general should depute men to take note of his verbal instructions and to pass them on to others；that he should accustom his troops to pay no heed to anyone else，and his officers not to depart from what they have been commissioned by him to say；for we find that failure to observe these points carefully has often led to the greatest confusion．In regard to strange sights，every general should try to present something of the sort while his army is in action so as to give courage to his own men and to dispel that of the enemy；for among the events which are incidental to victory this is especially effective．In illustration of this the case of Gaius Sulpicius，the Roman dictator，may be adduced，who，when engaged in battle with the Gauls，armed all his baggagemen and a low lot of campfollowers，put them on mules and other mounts so that with their arms and standards they looked like a troop of horse，and stationed them with flags flying behind a hill，with orders that，at a given signal when the fighting grew hotter，they should appear and show themselves to the enemy．This being done，as arranged，it so terrified the Gauls that they lost the day．There are two things，then，that a good general should do：first，he should see whether by employing some such novel device he can scare the enemy；and，secondly，he should be on the lookout so that，should the same trick be played on him by the enemy，he may discover it and nullify its effect．

It was thus that the King of India acted when Semiramis，noticing that the king had a good number of elephants，in the hope of intimidating him and showing him that she，too，had plenty of them，constructed a number of them out of the hides of buffaloes and cows and put them on camels which she sent ahead；but，the trick having been discovered by the king，her plan not only proved useless but turned out to her disadvantage．So，too，when the dictator Mamercus was at war with the Fidenates，to frighten the Roman army they ordered that in the heat of battle a number of troops should sally forth from Fidenae with torches on their lances in the hope that，distracted by the novelty of the thing，the Romans would break their ranks．

It should be noted here that，when such devices involve more truth than fiction，they can in that case be used on men with advantage，for if they have sufficient boldness，their weakness cannot be discovered so quickly．But when they involve more fiction than truth it is well either not to use them at all，or，if employed，to hold the performance some way off so that the fraud cannot be so quickly detected，as Gaius Sulpicius did with his muleteers．For if fraught with internal weakness，and they be near，they will soon be seen through，and will do you harm instead of good；as the elephants did to Semiramis and the torches to the Fidenates；for，though at the start they upset the army a little，yet，when the dictator came along and began to shout at the men，telling them not to be such cowards as to run away from the smoke like bees but to turn back and go for them，crying：‘Use the flames to destroy Fidenae since you have failed to pacify them with kindness’，the device proved of no avail to the Fidenates，who were left the losers of the battle．

That at the Head of an Army there should be One，not Several，Commanders，and that to have a Plurality is a Nuisance

When the Fidenates rebelled and put to the sword the colony the Romans had sent to Fidenae，to right the insult the Romans appointed four tribunes with consular power，of whom one was left to guard Rome，and the other three were sent against the Fidenates and the Veientes．Owing to the divided command and to the tribunes being at loggerheads one with the other，they returned discredited，though there had been no disaster．For the discredit they were responsible，but that there had been no disaster was due to the valour of the troops．Hence when the Romans saw what was wrong，they had recourse to the appointment of a dictator so that one man should be responsible for putting right the disorder that three had caused．This shows us the futility of having several persons in command of the same army or in charge of the defence of the same town．Nor can the case be put more clearly than it is by Titus Livy when he writes：‘The three tribunes with consular power afforded an illustration of how futile it is for many to share the imperium in a war，for each inclined to follow his own counsel，and since the others thought otherwise，they gave the enemy their chance．’

And though this example is sufficient to show the disorders that a plurality of commanders causes in a war，I propose to give two more，one modern and the other ancient，the better to establish this point．

In 1500，after the King of France，Louis XII，had retaken Milan，he sent his troops to Pisa to recover it for the Florentines．The commissaries，Giovambatista Ridolfi and Luca di Antonio degli Albizi，were in command．Since Giovambatista was a man with a reputation and had seen more service，Luca left the management of everything to him，but though he did not display his own ambition by opposing him，he displayed it by his silence，by his negligence and by criticizing everything，with the result that he helped the siege operations neither by action nor advice，but behaved like a man of no account．Later on，however，when something occurred which necessitated Giovambatista's returning to Florence，one finds everything quite different；for，when Luca was left in sole charge，he showed his worth alike by his courage，his industry and his sound sense，all of which characteristics had failed to show themselves so long as he had a colleague．

In confirmation of this remark of Titus Livy's I would cite another example：the expedition which the Romans sent against the Aequi under Quintius and his colleague，Agrippa．Agrippa，who wanted the whole conduct of the war to be undertaken by Quintius，says：‘In the administration of affairs of moment it is highly advisable that the supreme command should be in the hands of one man’．

This is just the opposite of what our republics and princes do today，for to improve the administration they now send to a place more than one commissioner and more than one head，and this leads to indescribable confusion．Indeed，were one to seek the causes of the disasters that have befallen Italian and French armies in our own times，it would be found that this is the most potent．In conclusion，then，one may be quite certain that it is better to entrust an expedition to one man of average prudence than to give to two men of outstanding ability the same authority．

Advice to generals in the field

Reasons why the French have been，and still are，looked upon in the Beginning of a Battle as more than Men，and afterwards as less than Women

The ardour of the Gaul who challenged any Roman on the banks of the river Anio to single combat，which led to a fight between him and Titus Manlius，reminds me of what Titus Livy several times says of the Gauls，namely，that in the beginning of a battle they are more than men，but in the fighting that follows they turn out worse than women．As to how this comes about，many think that nature has made them so，which is no doubt true，but it does not follow from this that the nature which makes them ardent at the start could not be so regulated by rules as to keep them ardent right up to the end．

In proof of this let me point out that armies are of three types．In the first there is both ardour and order．Now order promotes both ardour and virtù as it did in the case of the Romans；for，during the whole course of their history one finds that there was good order in their armies，which military discipline of long standing had introduced．In a welldisciplined army，no one should perform any action except in accordance with regulations．Hence in the Roman army – which，since it conquered the world，should be taken as a model by all other armies – we find that no one ate or slept or went wenching or performed any other action，military or domestic，without instructions from the consul．Armies which act otherwise are not true armies；and if they do anything of note they do it through ardour and impetuosity，not through valour．But when disciplined virtù uses its ardour in the right way and at the right time，no difficulties dismay an army or cause it to lose courage．For good discipline stimulates courage and ardour，in that it strengthens the hope of victory，which is never wanting so long as discipline remains．

The opposite of all this happens in those armies in which there is ardour but no discipline，as was the case with the Gauls，who in their fighting were wholly lacking in method；for if their first attack did not succeed，they faltered，since the ardour on which they relied was not sustained by disciplined valour，and there was nothing else on which they could rely when their ardour cooled．The Romans，on the other hand，made light of dangers since their discipline was good；and，since they did not despair of victory，they remained firm and dogged，and fought with the same courage and the same virtù at the end as at the start；nay，when stimulated by a fight，they always grew more ardent．

The third type of army is one in which there exists neither a natural ardour，nor yet discipline to supplement it；as is the case with Italian armies in our day，which are quite useless and never win unless they come across an army which happens for some reason to run away．There is no need to cite further instances，since every day they afford evidence of how utterly lacking they are in valour．So that，however，what Titus Livy says may make it plain to all how good soldiery should be made and how worthless soldiery are made，I propose to cite the speech which Papirius Cursor made when he wanted to reprove Fabius，his master of horse．What he said was：‘No one would have respect either for men or for the gods；they would obey neither the edicts of generals nor the auspices；soldiers without provisions，would wander about here and there alike in peaceful and in hostile territory；forgetful of their oath，they would discharge themselves from the army without authority and when it pleased them；they would leave the colours almost unguarded，and neither assemble nor dismiss at the word of command；they would fight by day or night whether the place were suitable or unsuitable，and with or without orders from the general；they would keep neither to their regiments nor to their ranks；but，like a band of robbers，were a blind and tumultuous，rather than a disciplined and dutiful，soldiery．’ And in this passage applied，it will at once be seen whether the soldiery of our day is blind and tumultuous or disciplined and dutiful，and how far it falls short of what we commonly call soldiery，and how far removed it is from being either ardent and disciplined，like the Romans，or just simply ardent，like the Gauls．

Whether Skirmishes are Necessary before a Battle，and how，if one decides to do without them，the Presence of Fresh Enemy Troops is to be discovered

It would appear that in human affairs，as we have remarked in other discourses，there is，in addition to others，this difficulty：that，when one wants to bring things to the pitch of perfection，one always finds that，bound up with what is good，there is some evil which is so easily brought about in doing good that it would seem to be impossible to have the one without the other．This is the case in everything that man does．And it is because of it that the good is with difficulty attained unless you are so aided by fortune that fortune itself eliminates this normal and natural inconvenience．What moves me to say this is the fight Manlius had with the Gauls，of which Titus Livy says：‘This conflict was of great moment to the outcome of the whole war，for the army of the Gauls in trepidation deserted their camp and moved first into Tiburtine territory，and then into Campania’；for I hold，on the one hand，that a good general ought to avoid at all costs doing anything which，though in itself of small moment，can produce a bad effect on his army；because to engage in a battle in which all one's forces are not employed and thereby to risk one's whole fortune，is extremely rash，as I said above when I was talking about guarding passes．

On the other hand，I hold that when wise generals find they are up against a new enemy who has acquired a reputation，it is essential that，before engaging in a pitched battle，they let their troops find out by means of skirmishes what he is worth；so that，having acquired some knowledge of him and of how to deal with him，it may dispel the fears to which rumour and his standing had given rise．For a general to do this is of the utmost importance；for there is in this course a quasinecessity that constrains you to adopt it，since you can scarce fail to see that you are plainly exposing yourself to disaster if you engage the enemy without having first provided your troops with some little experiment whereby to rid them of that fear which the enemy's reputation had aroused in their minds．

Valerius Corvinus was in command of the armies which the Romans had dispatched to deal with the Samnites，new enemies，of whose fighting capacities the Romans had thus far had no experience in actual combat one with the other．Hence Titus Livy says that Valerius caused the Romans to engage in some skirmishes with the Samnites ‘so that they might be afraid neither of the new war nor of the new enemy’．None the less，there is a very great danger that，if your soldiers get the worst of the skirmishing it will increase their fear and their cowardice，and so will produce the opposite effect to that you had in mind；i．e．you will have alarmed them，whereas you wanted to make them feel safe．So that this is just one of those things in which evil is so closely associated with good，and so bound up are they one with the other，that it may easily happen that he who thinks he will get one，gets the other．

In regard，then，to this，I maintain that a good general should take every precaution to prevent the occurrence of any untoward event likely to diminish the courage of his army．But to begin by losing is just the thing that is likely to diminish its courage．Hence he should act cautiously in regard to skirmishes，and should not permit them unless he has a great advantage and he feels sure he will be victorious．Nor should he attempt to guard passes where he cannot bring the whole of his army into operation．Nor yet should he defend towns unless their loss will inevitably entail his ruin．And，if he does defend them，he should arrange for his army to cooperate with the garrison in repelling an attack，so that in dealing with the siege all his forces may be brought into play；otherwise he should leave the town undefended．For in losing what may be abandoned，provided his army is still intact，he will not in such a case lose either his reputation in the war or the hope of winning it；but when you lose what you have planned to defend and everybody knows that you were defending it，the loss is serious and may be disastrous；in fact，you may，like the Gauls，on account of something of small moment have lost the war．

Philip of Macedon，the father of Perseus，a soldier of high standing in his day，when attacked by the Romans，abandoned and laid waste a large part of his country which he judged it impossible to defend，for，being a prudent man，he thought it more disastrous to lose his reputation by failing to defend what he had set out to defend，than to let it fall into the hands of the enemy as if it were a thing he did not mind losing．When after the defeat at Cannae the affairs of the Romans were in a bad way，they declined to help many of their dependents and subjects，bidding them defend themselves as best they could．Such courses are much better than taking up the defence of allies and then letting them down，for in that case one loses both one's allies and one's forces；but in the other the allies alone are lost．

But to return to skirmishing，I maintain that if a general is absolutely compelled to have recourse to skirmishes because his enemy is a new one，he should only undertake them when he has so considerable an advantage that there will be no danger of his losing thereby．He should，otherwise – and it is the better course – do as Marius did when he went to fight the Cimbri，a fierce tribe which had come to prey upon Italy and which he was approaching with considerable trepidation owing to their ferocity and their numbers，and because they had already defeated a Roman army．Judging it necessary before engaging in battle to do something which would dispel the panic into which fear of the enemy had thrown his army，like a prudent general，he more than once stationed his army in a position near to which the army of the Cimbri must pass，with the intention that from behind the fortifications of their camp，his troops should look at and accustom their eyes to the enemy's appearance，so that when they saw what a disorderly crowd they were，encumbered with baggage，their arms useless and some without arms，they might be reassured and become eager for the fight．This course so wisely adopted by Marius，others should diligently imitate，so as not to incur the dangers I have described above，and not to have to act as the Gauls did，‘who，in trepidation on account of an event of small moment，moved first into Tiburtine territory and then into Campania’．

Since we have in this discourse mentioned Valerius Corvinus，I propose in the next chapter to use his speech to show how a general should behave．

What ought to be done by a General so that his Army may have Confidence in him

Valerius Corvinus，as we have said above，had gone with the army to fight the Samnites，enemies new to the Roman people；so，to give his troops assurance and some acquaintance with the foe，he caused them to make a few skirmishes，and，since this was not enough，he decided to address them before the battle，and to point out as forcefully as he could how little esteem they should have for such a foe，appealing in his speech alike to the valour of his soldiers and to his own．From the speech which Livy makes him deliver，one may learn how a general should act if his army is to have confidence in him．What he says is this：‘Look at the man under whose leadership and auspices you are going to fight！ Ask yourselves whether the person to whom you are about to listen is but a brilliant orator，valiant in words，but inexperienced in military matters，or whether he knows how to handle weapons，to advance before the colours，and to plunge right into the thick of the fight！ I want you，my good men，to go by my actions，not my words，and to look to me not merely for orders，but for an example，for with this my right hand I have as a consul thrice won the highest praise．’ Anyone may learn from a speech such as this，if he ponder it well，how to act if he wants to occupy the rank of a general；and he who acts otherwise will find that his rank，whether it be by luck or by ambition that he has attained it，in due course will destroy，instead of making，his reputation；for it is not titles that make men illustrious，but men who make titles illustrious．

One ought again in what was said at the outset of this discourse to observe that if great generals have used extraordinary means to strengthen the courage of a veteran army when confronted with an enemy with which it is unfamiliar，much greater industry will have to be used when in command of a new army which has never been in sight of the enemy．For if an enemy with which an old army is unfamiliar fills it with terror，so much the more must this be the case when a new army faces any enemy at all．Actually，however，one finds that all these difficulties are usually overcome by good generals with consummate prudence，as they were overcome by Gracchus the Roman，and by Epaminondas the Theban，of whom we have spoken on other occasions，for with new armies they defeated veteran armies with plenty of experience．

The methods they adopted were to exercise the troops for several months and to accustom them to obey orders by means of sham fights，after which they had so much confidence in them that they took them to a real fight．No military man，therefore，should be diffident as to his ability to form a good army，when there is no lack of men；so that the prince who has an abundance of men，but lacks soldiers，should bewail not the cowardice of his men，but merely his own laziness and folly．

That a General ought to be acquainted with the Lie of the Land

Among other things essential to the commander of an army is a knowledge of terrains and of countries，for，unless he has this knowledge，alike general and detailed，no army commander can perform any operation well．Wherefore，just as all sciences demand practice if we desire to attain perfection in them，so this is one that calls for a good deal of practice．And this practice and this detailed knowledge are acquired more by hunting，than by any other exercises．Hence ancient writers tell us that the heroes who ruled the world in their day were brought up in the forests and on the chase．For the chase not only provides one with the requisite knowledge，but teaches one a host of other things that are essential in warfare．Thus，Xenophon in his Life of Cyrus tells us how，when he was about to attack the king of Armenia，in appointing tasks he reminded those about him that it would be just like one of those hunting expeditions on which they had often accompanied him；and to those whom he sent to form an ambush in the mountains he said that they would be like men going to lay snares on the ridges；and to those who had to scour the countryside that they would be like men who went to rouse a wild beast from its lair so as，after hunting it，to drive it into the nets．

This I mention to show that Xenophon supports the view that a hunting expedition is very like a war，and that，consequently，great men look on this sport as honourable and necessary．Nor yet can a knowledge of the country be acquired in a more convenient way than by hunting，for the chase gives those who engage in it an exact knowledge of the lie of the land in which the sport takes place．It also enables one who has familiarized himself with one district，to grasp with ease the details of any new region．For all countries and all their parts have about them a certain uniformity，so that from the knowledge of one it is easy to pass to the knowledge of another；whereas he who has not acquired a good experience of any one can with difficulty acquire a knowledge of another，and cannot acquire it at all unless he is there for a long time．A person who has had practice，for instance，will see at a glance how far this plain extends，to what height that mountain rises，where this valley goes，and everything else of this kind，for of it all he has already acquired a sound knowledge．

That this is so Titus Livy shows us in the case of Publius Decius．When he was a tribune in charge of troops belonging to the army which the consul，Cornelius，commanded in the Samnite war，and the consul had led the Roman army into a valley where it could have been shut in by the Samnites，Decius saw the great danger to which it was exposed，and said to the consul：‘Do you see，Aulus Cornelius，that peak above the enemy？ It is in that height that lies our hope of safety if we take it quickly，the Samnites having stupidly neglected it．’ Also，before telling us what Decius said，Titus Livy says：‘Publius Decius，a military tribune，observed a hill which rose above a wooded ravine and threatened the enemy's position，difficult of access to an army in marching order，but not difficult to light troops．’ Whereupon he was sent there by the consul with three thousand soldiers and so saved the Roman army．Then，when night came on，and he was thinking of departing so as to save both himself and his troops，Livy makes him use these words：‘Come with me while the light holds，and let us reconnoitre the places in which the enemy has placed guards to see whether there is any way out’．All of which he carried out clad in a small military cloak，lest the enemy should notice an officer wandering about．

This evidence all goes to show how useful and necessary it is for a general to know the nature of the country；for，if Decius had not been a prudent man and acquired such knowledge，he would not have been able to see how useful it was to the Roman army to take that hill，nor would he have been able to tell from a distance whether the hill was accessible or not；nor yet，when he had been sent to the top of it and wanted to get back to the consul，would he，with the enemy on all sides，have been able to spot from a distance the way to go and the places which the enemy was guarding．One is bound then to infer that Decius had such expert knowledge，and that it was this that enabled him to save the Roman army by taking the hill，and afterwards when he was surrounded there，to discover a route whereby both he and the troops that were with him could reach safety．

Salus populi，suprema lex

That it is a Glorious Thing to use Fraud in the Conduct of a War

Although to use fraud in any action is detestable，yet in the conduct of a war it is praise worthy and glorious．And a man who uses fraud to overcome his enemy is praised，just as much as is he who overcomes his enemy by force．This is seen in the judgement pronounced on great men by biographers，who praise Hannibal and others well known for this kind of behaviour．Of this one comes across so many examples that I shall not cite any，I will say but this，I do not mean that a fraud which involves breaking your word or the contracts you have made is glorious；for，although on occasion it may win for you a state or a kingdom，as has been said in an earlier discourse，it will never bring you glory．I am speaking of fraud used in dealing with an enemy who has not kept faith with you，i．e．of the fraud which is involved in the conduct of a war；such as that which Hannibal used when at the Perugian lake he pretended flight in order to entrap the consul and the Roman army，and when，to escape from the hands of Fabius Maximus he lit up the horns of a herd of cattle．

To this class of fraud belongs that which was practised by Pontius，the general of the Samnites，that he might entrap the Roman army in the Caudine Forks．Having placed his army up against the mountains，he sent some of his soldiers，dressed as shepherds，with a flock of sheep across the plain．They were captured by the Romans，who asked where the Samnite army was．All agreed in saying what Pontius had told them to say，i．e．that it had gone to lay siege to Nocera．The credence given by the consuls to this report led to their being caught between the Caudine cliffs，where，when they got there，they were at once hemmed in by the Samnites．This victory，which Pontius gained by fraud，would have redounded greatly to his credit had he followed his father's advice，which was that he should either let the Romans go scotfree or should slaughter them all，and that he should not take the middle course which ‘neither makes you friends，nor removes your enemies’；and this middle course has always been harmful in affairs of state，as I have already pointed out in another discourse．

That one's Country should be defended whether it entail Ignominy or Glory，and that it is Good to defend it in any Way Whatsoever

The consul and the Roman army were surrounded by the Samnites，as has just been said．The Samnites had imposed on the Romans ignominious conditions．They were to pass under the yoke and to be sent back to Rome without their arms and equipment．At this the consuls，being astonished and the whole army being in despair，Lucius Lentulus，the Roman legate，told them that it did not seem to him that they should reject any alternative in order to save their country；for，since the survival of Rome depended on the survival of this very army，it should be saved in any way that offered；and that it is good to defend one's country in whatever way it be done，whether it entail ignominy or glory；for，if this army was saved，Rome might in time wipe out the ignominy；but that，if it were not saved and even if it should die gloriously，Rome and its freedom would be lost．So Lentulus's advice was followed．

This counsel merits the attention of，and ought to be observed by，every citizen who has to give advice to his country．For when the safety of one's country wholly depends on the decision to be taken，no attention should be paid either to justice or injustice，to kindness or cruelty，or to its being praiseworthy or ignominious．On the contrary，every other consideration being set aside，that alternative should be wholeheartedly adopted which will save the life and preserve the freedom of one's country．

This is the course the French adopt – both in what they say and what they do – in order to defend the majesty of their king or the power of their kingdom；for no voice is heard with greater impatience than one that should say：‘Such an alternative it would be ignominious for the king to adopt．’ No decision the king makes can be shameful，they say，whether it leads to good or to adverse fortune，for，whether he wins or loses is entirely his business，they claim．

That Promises extracted by Force ought not to be kept

When with an army that had been stripped of its arms and had suffered such ignominious treatment，the consuls returned to Rome，the first person to speak in the senate said that the peace made at Caudium ought not to be observed．This was the consul，Spurius Postumius．He said that the Roman people were not bound by it，but that he and the others who had promised peace were bound by it．Hence，if the people wanted to be free from any obligation，they should send him and all those who had made the promise back to the Samnites as prisoners．He defended this view with such tenacity that the senate yielded，sent him and the others as prisoners to Samnium，and protested to the Samnites that the peace was invalid．Fortune favoured Postumius in this case，for the Samnites did not keep him，and on his return to Rome he gained more glory in the eyes of the Romans by having surrendered than Pontius gained in the eyes of the Samnites by his victory．

Two things should here be noted．One is that glory can be gained by either kind of action，for it is acquired by victory in the ordinary course，and in defeat it is acquired if you can either show that the defeat was not your fault，or can at once perform some virtuous action which cancels it out．The other is that it is not shameful to fail to keep a promise which you have been forced to make．Forced promises affecting the public will，in fact，always be broken when the force in question is removed，and this without shame to those who break them．Everywhere in history one comes across examples of this of one kind or another，and everyone is aware that it happens also at the present day．And not only are forced promises not observed by princes when the force in question is no longer operative；but we also find that all other promises are broken when the reasons which caused such promises to be made no longer hold good．Whether this is praiseworthy or not，and whether a prince should or should not behave in this way，we have discussed at length in our treatise on The Prince．Here，therefore，nothing will be said about it．

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对“什么是启蒙”的回答：英汉对照/（德）康德著；肖树乔译．—北京：中译出版社，2015．11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

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Ⅰ．①对…　Ⅱ．①康…②肖…　Ⅲ．①康德 — I．—1724～1804—哲学思想—启蒙主义—研究—汉、英　Ⅳ．①B516.31

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This selection first published in Penguin Books 2009

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world - particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great nonfiction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling - to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published - where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages - there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear - most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca - few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer - our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books, first written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas - these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential, but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas - indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series - for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

对“什么是启蒙”的回答

永久和平：一个哲学素描

附录

回答“人类是否在持续地改进”问题的新尝试

关于人类历史开端的猜想

Contents

1. An Answer to the Question:‘What is Enlightenment?’

2. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch

Appendix

3. A Renewed Attempt to Answer the Question:‘Is the Human Race Continually Improving?’

4. Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History

返回总目录

译者导读

伊曼努尔·康德（Immanuel Kant, 1724—1804），德国思想家、哲学家、天文学家、星云说的创立者之一，德国古典哲学的创始人。其学说深刻地影响了此后的哲学，开启了德国唯心主义和康德主义的诸多流派，被认为是对现代欧洲最具影响力的思想家之一，也是启蒙运动最后一位主要哲学家。康德一生著述颇丰，其中核心的著作合称“三大批判”，即《纯粹理性批判》《实践理性批判》和《判断力批判》，这三本哲学著作的问世是康德批判哲学体系诞生的真正标志。

康德一生的研究涉猎广泛，对自然科学、美学、神学、巫术等都有研究，但有一个问题是一直贯穿其中的，那就是哲学研究应该如何进行：是从理性的观点出发，从普遍真理中推导出有关事物的真理，还是从经验出发通过观察得出普遍的结论。

康德的研究以1770年为界可分为前期和后期两个阶段，前期主要研究自然科学，而后期则主要研究哲学。前期的主要研究成果有1755年发表的《自然通史和天体论》，提出了太阳系起源的星云假说。后期的研究成果就是前面提到的“三大批评”。

本书收集的是他后期的四篇作品，即《对“什么是启蒙”的回答》（1784年）、《论永久和平：一个哲学素描》（1795年）、《回答“人类是否在持续地改进”问题的新尝试》（1797年）、《关于人类历史开端的猜想》（1786年）。

在《对“什么是启蒙”的回答》中，康德对“什么是启蒙”进行了探讨。他认为，启蒙是人类从其自我导致的不成熟状态中觉醒。为什么即使大自然早就把人类从远距离指导的桎梏中解放出来了，仍然有大量的人保持着不成熟的状态，他得出的结论是：懒惰和怯懦。这种不成熟的状态成为了一种惯性。康德指出，要使公众得到启蒙，最为需要的是自由，是在一切事物中公开地运用自己的理性的自由。理性的运用又分为个人运用和公开利用。理性的个人运用是一个人在其被委任的职位或工作中对自己理性的使用。理性的公开利用是臣民们公开运用他们的理性，将他们更好地起草法律的想法公之于众。康德认为，只有自己已经启蒙并且拥有一支能够保障公共安全的军队的统治者才会允许公众理性地思考，而按照人的尊严来对待人，允许他们进行理性的思考对于政府是有益的。

《论永久和平：一个哲学素描》应该是康德为人类贡献的最后一篇有深远影响的论著，其中提出的世界公民、世界联邦、不干涉内政的主权国家的原则至今仍有现实意义。论文分两部分阐述了康德关于国际社会保持和平的法哲学理论。第一部分是关于各个国家之间的永久和平的预备条款，用六项条文鼓励缔结和平条约，并以和平条约为依据逐步使常备军无用武之地，从而达到废除常备军的目的。第二部分是国家间永久和平的正式条款，提出建立共和制的市民宪法和以联邦主义为基础的国际法。康德期望以共和制国家的联合以实现国际社会的永久和平。他提出的国际永久和平的思想至今仍深刻地影响着现代国际法和外交准则。

在《回答“人类是否在持续地改进”问题的新尝试》中，康德探讨了“人类文明史是如何发展的”这个问题。他认为，人类进步的历史必须以某种经验为起点。人类的进步是某个事件发挥作用产生的必然结果。而这个事件是指被自然权利所规定的宪法的演进，即一个共和制的宪法。人们所渴望的国家的实际形式可能是共和制，或者它可能只是在治理模式上是共和制的。

康德预言人类会实现这一目标。而要做到世界不断地改进就要进行大众的启蒙，公开地教给人民对自己国家的义务和权利。一旦一个共和制的宪法被制定出来，它就最有权威阻止战争，当权者会越来越少地使用暴力，而越来越多地遵从法律。这最终会延伸到不同民族之间的外部关系上，直至一个世界公民社会的建立。当人类不断前进时，人的善行会更多，这就是人类能获得的好处。

在《关于人类历史开端的猜想》中，康德阐述了对历史、人性及人类社会的看法，这可以看作是康德历史哲学的重要部分。在这篇论文中，康德猜想了人类自由的最初发展史并给出了一个优美的诠释。人类起初只有动物性的本能，他必须靠本能的指引，听从上帝的命令。第一步是理性的促动，把饮食知识扩大到本能的限度之外。第二步是理性很快让人感到它的存在，并且寻求超越本能的界限扩大食物的知识，这标志着理性驾驭了冲动的意识。第三步反映在对未来的预测上，这是人类优势的决定性因素。因为具有了这种预见性，人类能够为长远的目标做好准备。但是由于这同样的能力，当人类预见到不确定性时，会产生最无穷无尽的担心和焦虑。第四步，人类意识到人才是大自然的真正目的，地球上没有谁能与其抗衡，因此可以把动物看成手段和工具，但是人人平等，人不能像对待动物一样对待其他的人，而应当把他们看作能平分大自然礼物的人。在对人性考察的基础上，康德看到了恶的手段背后隐蔽的善的目的。

康德的作品以晦涩难懂而著称，译者在翻译的过程中参考了其他译者的翻译文本，力求做到语言上清楚明白，希望能以此来减少读者的阅读困难，若有疏漏之处，敬请批评指正。

对“什么是启蒙”的回答

启蒙，是指人类从自我导致的不成熟状态中觉醒。这种不成熟状态是指在缺乏指导下无力运用自我理性的状态。造成它的原因并非人们缺乏理性，而是在无人指导之下缺乏决心和勇气来运用理性。因此，启蒙的口号是“勇于智慧”，即有勇气运用自己的理性！

即使大自然早已把人类从远距离指导的桎梏中解放，懒惰和怯懦使很多人依然快乐地保持着不成熟状态；同样的原因，一些人很容易自命为另一些人的守护者。保持不成熟状态是如此方便：如果有一本书代替我理解，一个精神导师指导我的良知，一个医生评判我的饮食等等，我就不需要做任何努力。只要金钱能够解决的，我就不需要思想；其他人很快就能替我做这些累人的工作。那些好心接过指导工作的守护者不久就发现，太多的人，不分性别，认为迈向成熟不仅困难重重而且相当危险。这些守护者起初为这些驯化了的动物所着迷，小心翼翼地防止其越雷池一步。他们下一个策略就是展示危险，使其不敢尝试在没有帮助的情况下行走；危险实际上并不那么大，因为他们一定会在摔过几次跟头之后最终学会走路。但是，这样的例子具有恐吓性，通常会吓得他们不敢再尝试。

然而，让每一个个体找到脱离不成熟状态的路十分困难，不成熟状态已经成为他们的第二特征。他们甚至变得喜欢这种状态，随着时间的推移，真得再没有能力运用自己的理性，因为他从未被允许做出这种尝试。规章和程式，这些合理使用或者说是误用他天资的机械工具，就是对他永久性不成熟状态的禁锢。倘若有人扔掉这些枷锁，他依然会不确定是否能够跃过甚至是最窄的壕沟，因为他不习惯这种自由运动。因此，只有少数人能够通过头脑训练成功地脱离这种不成熟状态，继续大胆前行。

相比之下，公众有更多的机会进行自我启蒙。倘若公众被赋予了自由，他们的自我启蒙的确几乎是不可避免的，因为总会有少数人独立思考，他们甚至存在于被指定为大众的守护者中间。这些守护者一旦扔掉不成熟状态的枷锁，就会传播尊重个人价值、尊重人人需有独立思考之责任的理念。这样做引人瞩目的一点是，如果之前被守护者锢入枷锁中的公众被唤醒，或许最终会迫使守护者自己留在枷锁中。宣传偏见是非常有害的，因为偏见最终会报复到最初宣扬它的人的身上。因此，公众只能慢慢获得启蒙。一场革命或许能够结束独裁暴政与强权压迫，但是它从不会带来真正的思想革命；取而代之的是新的偏见，如同它们所取代的旧观念一样，成为掌控缺乏思想自由的大众的枷锁。

对于这种启蒙而言，它所需要的只是自由，而这种自由是所有自由形式中最没有恶意的，即在所有事情上公开运用理性的自由。但是我听到各方在说，不要争辩！军官说，不要争辩，列队行进；税务官说，不要争辩，交税；神职人员说，不要争辩，相信！（世界上只有一个统治者说，想怎么争辩就怎么争辩，想争辩什么就争辩什么，但是，服从！）。这些都意味着对自由无处不在的限制。但是哪种限制阻碍启蒙，哪种限制不但不阻碍反而促进启蒙？我的回答是：人的理性的公开运用必须总是自由的，这本身就能带来人类的启蒙。理性的个人运用或许常常受到严格的限制，但并不会过度地阻碍启蒙的进步。我所谓的理性的公开运用，是指像一位学者向读者大众阐述观点那样对自己理性的运用。而理性的个人运用，我把它定义为，一个人在其被委任的职位或工作中对自己理性的运用。

在一些关乎公众全体利益的事务中，我们需要一定的机制，在此机制下，一些成员必须完全服从调配，这样他们才能通过一份人为的共同协议，为政府雇用而服务于公共利益（或者至少不会损害公共利益）。在这种情况之下，争辩当然是不被允许的，顺从是必要的。但是，作为机器零部件的单个个人而言，他们认为自己也是公众甚或世界社会的一员，那么就像一位学者通过写作用真正意义上的文字向公众阐述观点一样，他或许的确能做到一边争辩，同时又不妨害自己所受雇从事的事务。然而，如果一个从上司那里领命的军官在执行时公开质疑这一命令的适当性或者有用性，后果是非常有害的。他必须完全地服从命令。但是，我们无法禁止他像学者一样对军事事务中的错误进行观察，也不能禁止他将自己的观察公之于众以供评判。公民不能拒绝缴纳税赋。一个被通知纳税的人，对于这些税赋自以为是的批评，会被当作导致抗命的暴行而受到处罚。然而，一个公民，作为一个博学的个体，公开地阐述这类税赋措施的不恰当甚至是不公平，并没有违反其公民责任。同理，一个受雇于教堂的神职人员有责任根据其所服务教堂的相关教义指导他的受众。但是作为一个学者，他完全有自由也有责任经过深思熟虑，出于善意地将这些教义的谬误之处公之于众，同时为更好地组织宗教和教会的相关事宜提供建议。这一过程中并没有对良心的拷问。作为一个教会的积极服务者，他在履行职责时所教授，并由他呈现出的，就是他职务的一个结果，是他被雇来用一种指定的方式和以其他人的名义而宣讲的。他会说，我们的教会教这个和那个，这些就是教会所引用的论据。然后，他尽量从自己都无法完全信服的戒律中找寻出更多的实际价值。而这些戒律事实上也包含着真理，因此他能够加以阐释。无论如何，在这些教义中没有与宗教本质相悖的内容。如果神职人员认为在这些教义中存在违背宗教本质的内容，他就不会心安理得地履行其职责，就会辞职。然而，这种理性的运用纯粹是私人性质的，因为教区无论多大都不过是私人聚会。这样看来，作为牧师也不会是自由的，因为他是在履行外界赋予的使命。与此相反，如果作为一个用作品感染公众（例如，整个世界）的学者，一位公开运用理性的神职人员应当享受无限的自由，能够自由表达，否则就等同于说人们精神世界的守护者本身不成熟，而这种说法是荒唐的，并且永远是荒唐的。

神职人员团体，例如一个教会法院或者是教务评议会，是否应当宣誓对不可改变的信条负有忠实义务，以确保全天候地为其信徒进而为其他人提供监护？我的回答是，这不可能。这种旨在永远阻止人类的启蒙而订立的契约，即使它由最高权力机构、神圣罗马帝国国会或最庄严的和平条约所认可，也完全没有法律效力。一个时代不能通过誓约将下一个时代放在这样一个位置上，使其无法拓展和修正知识，特别是在像启蒙这样重要的问题上寻求进步。这是违反人性的犯罪，因为人性的原始目标正是在此方面取得进步。后代人因此完全有权利将这些协议看作是毫无权威并且是犯罪而摒弃它们。检验一项具体措施能否成为法律，我们只需看一个民族是否将这项法律施加于自身；在没有更好的解决方法之前，这也可作为在某个特定的短暂时期内引进一项制度的方法。这也意味着每个公民，特别是神职人员，会被给予像学者一样在其著述中公开评论现行制度不足的自由。与此同时，这项新制度会继续存在，直到公众对于这些事物的看法有所进步，一致同意通过一项议案提交给国王。这是为了保护那些有更深刻认识的会众改变其宗教信仰，但并不会阻碍那些希望维持原状的会众。终其一生皈依一个没有人可以公开质疑的宗教是绝对不可取的，因为，这会抹杀人们进步的一个阶段，因此对后代是毫无益处，甚至是有害的。一个人自己或许在有限的一段时间内，在应当知道的事物上延迟启蒙；但是完全放弃这种启蒙，不管是为其个人还是为其后代，都意味着侵犯和践踏人类神圣的权利。但是人们不愿意强加于自身的东西，更不会被统治者所强加，因为统治者取得立法权力正是靠汇集人们集体意愿于他一身。只要他看到所有的真实存在或者是想象中的进步无碍于社会秩序，就会允许臣民做任何他们认为必要的完成自我救赎的事情，这与他无关。他的责任是制止任何人阻碍别人完成自我救赎。倘若他把臣民用写作阐述宗教观点的举动纳入政府的监控之中，那的确有损其王权。而如果他的强权基于其自以为是的意见，他会受到谴责。而如果他利用至高无上的权力支持少数独裁者对臣民进行精神统治，他就更是民众谴责的众矢之的。

如果现在问，我们当前是否生活在一个已经启蒙的时代，答案是：不，但我们的确生活在一个启蒙时代。当前，要全体人类能够无需外部指导也可以自信熟练地运用自身对宗教事务的理解，我们还有很长的路要走。但是，确有清晰的迹象表明，这条道路正被开辟出来，使人们可以沿着这个方向自由前行；普遍启蒙的障碍也正逐渐减少，使人类可以摆脱自身的蒙昧幼稚。从这个角度而言，我们的时代是启蒙时代，是腓特烈的时代。

如果一个君主认为，他在宗教事务中的职责不是命令其臣民，而是给予他们充分的自由，或者他自己甚至不接受“宽容”这一略嫌自负的头衔，那么这个君主自身就启蒙了；他值得受到现代以及后代人的赞扬，因为他（从政府的角度）率先将人类从蒙昧中解放，让所有人自由地运用理性解决所有事情。在他的统治之下，宗教显贵们尽管有政府职务，也会尽力像学者一样自由而公开地发表自己的判断和观点，接受世界的评判，即使这些观点有时偏离了宗教的教义；那些不受官职限制的人更是如此。这种自由的精神也会传播到国外，传播到那些与外部阻力斗争的国家，而阻力则来自于政府对自身功能的曲解。对于此类政府，现在有一个出色的实例，能够证明自由可以丝毫不妨碍公共和谐与联邦的统一。只要没有人为设置的条件蓄意使人们停留在野蛮状态，人们自己就会逐渐走出野蛮。

我将宗教事务描述为启蒙的焦点——启蒙即指人类摆脱自身的蒙昧。这首先是因为我们的统治者对于做艺术和科学方面的监护人不感兴趣，第二点是因为宗教蒙昧是最有害和不光彩的。但是，对于在艺术和科学方面崇尚自由的君主而言，他会进一步地延伸其主张，因为他认识到，如果允许臣民们公开运用自己的理性，将关于立法的更好观点公之于众，那么，即便这会引发他们对现有法律的正面批评，也不会产生任何危险，哪怕是君主的法律也安全无虞。面前就有一个绝好的例子：我们现今尊敬的这位君主没有别人能比得上。

但是，只有一位自身启蒙、不怕鬼魂，手中又拥有一支纪律严明且数量众多的军队以保障公共安全的统治者，才会说出共和国政府不敢说的话：你们可以就任何事情随意争论，但要服从！从中我们可以看到人类事务的一个奇怪而出乎意料的模式（如果在更广的范围上看，我们总能发现这一现象，即近乎所有事情都是矛盾的）。高度的公民自由看似对一个民族的思想自由颇有裨益，但它也为后者筑起了不可逾越的障碍。相反，较低程度的公民自由给思想自由足够的空间，使其可以充分扩展。因此，一旦大自然精心培育的胚芽，即人类自由思考的趋势和天职在这一硬壳中生长，它就会作用于人们的心智，促使人们自由行动的能力逐渐增强。最终，它甚至会影响政府的原则；政府会发现，它们尊重人们便会从中受益，人们不是一台机器。

柯尼斯堡-普鲁士[1]

1784年9月30日

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[1] 我今天（9月30日）在比兴的9月13日《每周消息》（Wöchentliche Nachrichten）上读到关于这个月《柏林月评》（Berlinische Monatsschrift）的一个通告。通告提到雅科布·路德维希·费利克斯·门德尔松·巴托尔迪（德国犹太裔作曲家——译者注）对我已经回答的同一个问题的回答。我还没有看到这本杂志，否则的话我会犹豫是否发表上述看法。我只想让他们发现两个个体的想法会碰巧一致。

永久和平：一个哲学素描

“永久和平”

一位荷兰旅店的店主曾经把具有讽刺意味的碑文连同一张坟墓的图片放在旅馆留言板上；我们不必费心询问这是否涉及广义上的男人，还是特指国家元首（国家元首们从不厌倦战争），或者仅是指那些幸福地梦想着永久和平的哲学家。本篇文章的作者事先做个保留。实践政治家倾向于不可一世地把政治理论家仅仅看作是研究人员而轻视他们。实践政治家认为，政治理论家抽象的主张不会危及国家安全，因为国家必须建立在实践原则的基础之上，因此，允许释放其所有的不满似乎是安全的。老于世故的政治家对此不必理会。因此，接下来的就是，如果实践政治家不前后矛盾的话，在与理论家争辩的时候，他们就不应当宣布理论家随意、公开表述过的观点对国家具有什么危险。根据这个保留条款，本文作者自认为将受到正确和恰当的保护，不会被恶意曲解。

第一部分　包含国家间永久和平的先决条款

1．“如果对未来战争存有秘密的保留条件，则和平结论的得出是无效的。”

如果情况是这样的话，这仅仅是个停战期，是敌对的延续，不是和平。和平意味着所有敌对的结束，将形容词“永久”加在和平之前已经有些冗长。和平条约的缔结消除了未来战争的所有存在理由，尽管这些理由对签约双方仍尚未可知，也不管他们是如何敏锐地、精心地从旧文件中拼凑出了这些理由。对于未来过去的托辞是否能再次生效，各方都可能对此持有精神上的保留。这种保留不会被特别地提出，因为双方都对继续打仗感到筋疲力尽，尽管他们心存恶念，希望抓住第一个机会达到目的。但是如果我们考虑这些保留意见本身，它们不过是耶稣式的狡辩。它们不配一位统治者的尊严，正如按照这种推理逻辑，它们不配一位国务大臣的尊严一样。

但是，如果依据政治权宜之计的“启蒙”动向，我们相信一个国家真正的光荣在于采取一切办法不断增强实力，不过，上述的判断看上去确实既迂腐又充满了学究气。

2．“凡现存的独立国家，不论大小，他国皆不得通过继承、交换、买卖或赠送的方式获得。”

一个国家，不像其脚下的土地那样是一种财产。它是一个由人组成的社会。只有它能对自己下命令或者进行自我处置。正像一棵树，它有自己的根，把它如同嫩芽一样移植到另一个国家去是中止其道德人格的存在，而把它当作了商品。这与原始契约的初衷背道而驰。没有了原始契约这一初衷，保障一个民族的权利是不可想象的。[1]每一个人都知道这样获得国家权利带给欧洲的危险（因为这种实践在其他大陆是不为人知的）。人们认为国家之间可以彼此联姻。这提供了一种新的产业，即权力能够通过家庭结盟而增强，不需要耗费精力，与此同时土地财产也得以扩展。同理，当一国军队受雇于另一国去打击属于一方的敌人时，臣民们因此就会被当作或错误地当作可随意支配的物体加以使用。

3．“常设军队将逐渐全部被废除。”

常设军队一直是为战争而准备的。它们不断用战争威胁着其他国家的安全。它们通过武装毫无限制的士兵的数量刺激国家之间相互赶超。由于军队自身就是侵略战争的根源，维持常设军队的费用最终使和平演变成了战争，而战争解决了军费开支的负担。再有，雇凶杀人或者被杀似乎是把这些人当成某些人（国家）手中的武器，这不能与人内在人格中的权利原则相提并论。如果公民们不时接受自愿的军事训练是为保护自己和家园免遭外部的侵犯，这就是另外一回事了。但是如果是增加财富而不是增加士兵人数也是一样，这也会被其他国家看作是军事威胁，会促使其采取防御性的攻击，因为一个国家有三种力量——军事力量、联盟力量、财富力量——第三者可能是战争最可靠的工具。如果发现另一国所拥有的财富并不匮乏的话，战争就会频繁发生。

4．“任何国家债务合约都不得与该国外部事务相关联。”

为国家经济寻求帮助，不论是内援还是外援都是没有什么可疑的（例如，改善公路状况、重新安置移民、储存粮食已备饥荒时用等等）。但是，如果一种借贷制度被列强用作征服别国的工具，那它体现的是财力最危险的形式。因为当这些债务现在不被追讨时，它们却在无限制地增长（因为不是所有的债主会同时要求还债）。由商业民族在本世纪发明的这个精巧体系所提供的军事经费可以超过所有其他国家可提供的总和。通过这一借贷制度可以为工业和贸易提供商业上的刺激，从而使经济崩溃推迟相当一段时间，但是债务国最终会被税收赤字压垮。这种战争的延缓，加上当权者的好战倾向（这似乎是与人性不可分离的特性），外债就是永久和平道路上的障碍。因此，外债必须在和平协定的先决条款中被禁止，否则国家的破产就在所难免，由此产生的损失可能殃及其他无辜的国家，给其造成伤害；其他国家因此有充分的理由联合起来一致对付这样一个国家。

5．“任何国家不得强行干涉他国的宪法和政府。”

什么能使这种干涉合情合理呢？当然不是一个国家在另一个国家的事务中引发的造谣和冒犯行为；这应当是对他国的一种警示，是一个民族由于目无法纪而招来恶魔的例证。一个自由的人给另一个人树立的坏榜样与他对后者的伤害是不同的。如果一个国家由于内部的纷争想分成两部分，每一部分自成一国，声称拥有原来的那个国家，那情况就不一样了。如果一个外部的国家想要给予其中的一个国家帮助，在这种情况下不能认定为是对这个国家宪法的干涉，因为其正属于无政府状态。只要这种内部矛盾没有解决，外部势力的干涉就是对一个独立民族权利的干涉，因为这个民族的人民在与其自身的疾病作斗争。这种干涉是一种积极的冒犯，会给所有其他国家的自治带来不安全感。

6．“与另一个国家交战的国家不允许有下列仇视行为，因为这些行为会在未来的和平时期导致彼此缺乏信任。这些行为包括在敌对国家进行暗杀或者投毒，违反协议，煽动叛国等。”

这些都是不光彩的行径。即使在战争时期，对敌对方的态度也必须存在某种信任，否则和平协议就不可能达成，敌对就会演变成毁灭性的战争。毕竟，战争仅仅是，在没有公正的法庭用司法权威评判的情况下，一个国家用武力争取权利的令人惋惜的权宜之计。在这些案例中，双方都不能被称作是非正义的敌人，因为那样做就已经假设了一个法官的裁决。冲突的结局，如同所谓“上帝的审判”的案例，可以决定谁是对的一方。国家间的惩罚性战争是难以想象的，因为它们之间没有优劣之分。接下来是，毁灭性的战争使交战双方及其权利同时受损，永久的和平只存在于巨大的人类坟墓里。此类战争及其导致战争的种种因素必须坚决禁止。但是上面所列的那些手段会引发这样的战争，因为这些糟糕透顶的技艺，除了特别令人厌恶之外，一旦被拿来运用就不仅仅局限于战争本身。例如，战争会使用间谍，这只会利用别人的不诚实为自己谋利（这种做法永远不会完全消失）。这种做法会延续至和平时期，因此完全损害到和平的宗旨。

所有上面列出的条款，如果客观地或者联系当权者的意图审视，属于禁止性法律。有些法律是最严格的，不管情况如何变化，它们都是有效的，要求立即禁止有关行为（第1、5、6条）。其他的条款（第2、3、4条），尽管它们也是公平条款，却允许根据所适用情形保有一定的自由度。后者不一定立即执行，只要它们的最终目的没有受到忽视（例如，根据第2项条款恢复某些国家的自由）。但是，这些条款的延期执行并非遥遥无期，而仅仅作为一种手段，用以避免生硬地执行，从而导致无法达到设立此条款目的的结果。第2条的情况是，禁止只与获得的方式有关，与国家的政治状况无关。尽管这个现状不被合法政府支持，但是在每个国家的公共意见中，在公认的推定取得的时代，这被认为是合法的。[2]

第二部分　包含国家间永久和平的正式条款

共同生活的人们之间的和平状态与自然状态是不同的。自然状态即是一种战争状态。因为即使没有主动的敌意行为，也不断存在危险的爆发。因此和平状态必须是正式建立的，因为敌对状态的延缓本身无法保障和平。除非一个邻居在另一个邻居的要求下为其做出保证（这只能在一个法制国家实现），否则后者都会视前者为敌人。[3]

永久和平的第一个正式条款：每个国家的市民宪法应当是共和政体。

一部共和制的宪法建立在三条原则基础之上。第一，社会成员中所有的成员都享有自由。第二，每个人都依靠一个共同的法律体系。第三，每个公民都享有司法平等。[4]宪法是惟一一个缘自原始契约思想的法律文件。一个民族所有的正当立法必须建立在其基础之上。因此，就权利而言，共和制本身就是每一种市民宪法的原始基础，剩下所要问的问题是，它是否是通向永久和平的惟一宪法。

共和制宪法不仅自身起源纯粹（因为它来源于纯粹的权利概念），而且它还提供了获得所渴望结果的前景，例如，一个永久的和平。理由如下：是否宣战需要征得公民的同意，很自然，公民们会非常犹豫是否投赞成票，因为宣战意味着他们要承担战争的所有悲惨后果。例如，他们要亲自参战，要从他们自己的资源中抽出战争的费用，痛苦地修复灾难的创伤，承担负债的压力，而负债的压力由于新战争的不断威胁而永远无法减轻。然而，在宪法之下的臣民并非公民的情况下，即在非共和政体之下，战争是世界上最简单的事。由于一国之君不是一个公民，而是国家的拥有者，战争不会让他做出任何的牺牲：他的宴会、狩猎、享乐消遣的宫殿、节日的狂欢都一如既往。他因此会决定宣战。他之所以这样做并没有合理的理由，只是一种消遣。他会毫无顾虑地将辩护的事情交给外交使团——他们一直是为此目的作准备的——以为了国家繁荣而战作为开战的理由。

共和制的宪法常常和民主制的宪法相混淆，下面的解释可以避免这种错误。国家的各种形式既可以依据行使最高权力人的不同而定，也可以依据其统治者统治的方式而定。有三种可能的形式，依据是统治权是在个人、少数人组成的团体，还是在所有组成公民社会的人们手中（例如，独裁政体、贵族统治、民主政体，即王子政权、贵族政权、人民政权）。第二种分类取决于政府的形式，（例如，普通大众成为人民的普遍意愿）与国家如何依据宪法（例如，由于普遍意愿变成了法案，因此人群成为了民族）以什么样的方式行使其全部权力。在这种情况下，政府的形式或者是共和政体或者是专制政体。共和主义是一种政治体制，即执行权力（政府）与司法权力分离。独裁主义在这样的一个国家横行，其法律的制定和执行由同一个权力完成。它只有在统治者把人民意愿当成自己意愿时才会反映人民的意愿。在这三种政体中，民主政体也可能是一种暴政，因为它设立了一种执行权力，通过这个执行权力，所有公民针对一个人做决定，并且不经过这个人的同意，因此，决定是由大家做出的，又不是由大家做出的。这意味着普遍的意愿自相矛盾，也与自由相矛盾。

任何没有代议制的政府都是非正常现象，因为一个人，同一个人不能同时是立法者和其自我意愿的执行者，如同逻辑推理中一般命题不能同时是次要命题一样。即使其他两种政治宪法（例如，独裁政体和贵族政体）因其给独裁政府留有足够的空间而总是存在缺陷，它们还会与这样的政府联系在一起，因为这个政府秉承代议制精神。因此，弗里德里克二世说，他仅仅是国家最高级别的仆人，[5]而在一个民主宪法之下，这种态度不可能存在，因为民主政体中的每一个人都想成为一个统治者。我们因此可以说一个国家统治者的数量越少其代表权力越大，宪法也更体现其共和的本质，并通过逐渐改革最终实现这一本质还是有希望的。由于这个原因，实现这个惟一完美的合法宪法，在一个贵族政体里比在一个君主政体中更加困难。在一个民主政体中，通过暴力革命有可能得以实现。但是人们比关心宪法的形式更加关心政府的模式，[6]尽管更要看宪法在多大程度上符合政府的意图。但是如果政府的模式要与权利的概念相一致，它必须建立在代议制的基础上。这种代议制能够使一个民主国家成为可能，不管采用何种形式的宪法，没有这种民主代表制度，暴政和暴力就会出现。所谓古希腊和古罗马时期的共和制没有采用这种民主代表制度，因此它们也毫无例外地以暴政而告终，尽管在一个人的统治之下，这种体制相对来说依然可以忍受。

永久和平的第二个正式条款：各国的权利应当建立在自由国家联盟的基础上。

我们可以用评判独立于任何外部的法律约束、生活在一种自然状态下的个人的方式评判自己归属于民族国家的哪些民族，因为仅仅依据他们是邻居这一事实，他们就彼此构成威胁。每个国家为了自身的安全能够也应当要求其他国家与自己一道进入一种宪法体制，这种宪法体制类似于市民宪法，从而使每个人的权利得以维护；这就意味着建立一个各民族的联盟。但是，这种联盟与一个国际性的国家不同。一个国际性国家的想法是自相矛盾的，因为每个国家都包含一个上级（法律制定者）和一个下级（遵守法律的人们）的关系，而几个民族组成一个国家就是建立一个民族。这与我们最初的设想相矛盾，因为我们是从民族相互之间的关系出发考虑各民族权利的，它们隶属于不同的国家，而不是联合成为一个整体。

我们带着极大的蔑视看待没有法律约束的自由与残暴的生活方式。他们宁愿陷于无休止的争斗中也不愿意遵从法律的约束，因为他们喜欢愚蠢的自由，而不喜欢理性的自由。我们认为这是人性的野蛮、粗俗和残暴。我们因此期盼每一个文明的民族自我组成国家，尽快摒弃如此可耻的状态。但是与此期望背道而驰的是，每个国家都认为其君主不需遵从任何外部法律的约束，其统治者的光荣就在于命令数以千计的人为了一个事业而赴汤蹈火，而这个事业与他们毫无关系，统治者自己却不需冒任何风险。[7]欧洲野蛮民族与美国民族的主要区别就在于，当一些美国的部落被他们的敌人完全吃掉时，欧洲人知道如何更好地利用这些战败者而不是简单地吃掉他们：他们宁愿利用战败者来增加被统治者的数量，并用增加武器的办法去扩大战争的范围。

尽管在法律统治下的公民社会中，对于人性的剥夺被深深地掩盖了，但在不同民族间不受约束的相互关系中还是赤裸裸地展现了出来。因此，人们不禁要问，权利一词是不是还没有完全从军事政治中被驱除，是不是还没有哪个国家胆敢公开宣称要消灭权利一词。尽管他们富有哲理和外交性的条款没有也不会有极微小的法律效力，胡果·格劳修斯、塞缪尔·普芬多夫、瓦特尔和其他人（他们是可怜的安慰者）的言论仍在军事侵略中被引用，因为这样的国家不受一个共同的外部约束所制约。因此，也没有先例表明，一个国家因为听从了上面提及的尊贵的人的言论而停止其军事行动。这种每个国家对权利概念的敬畏表明，人类拥有伟大的道德能力，能够战胜自身的邪恶（因为他不能否认邪恶的存在），并且希望其他人也能够这样做；否则权利一词就永远不会被企图彼此宣战的国家所使用，除非是在嘲弄的意义上，正如某位高卢王子所宣称的：“自然界赋予强壮者驯服弱者的特权。”由于没有外部的特别法庭审判其主张，那么各国寻求自身权利的办法只能是战争。但是军事胜利不能保证权利，一个和平协议可以终结当前的战争，却不能终结普遍的战争状态，而发动一场新的战争的理由总是能够找到的。的确，这样的一种事态也不能说完全不公平，因为它允许每个当事方在决定自己事情时充当法官。自然权利允许我们说生活在无法无天状态下的人应当摒弃这种状态，而各民族的权利却不允许我们对国家说同样的话。因为作为国家，它们已经有了一个合法的内部宪法，因此，它们超越了其他民族的权利概念并将根据自身对于权利概念的理解将自己纳入一个更加广泛的合法体制中。另一方面，作为司法道德的最高权威，理智绝对谴责战争，并把建立和平作为当即的使命。但是，如果没有一个国家间的协议，是不能宣布并确保和平的。因此，一种特定的团体，我们可以称之为“和平联盟”的组织便应运而生了。它与和平协议不同，后者结束了一场战争，而前者是寻求结束所有的战争。这一联盟并不力求获得像国家那样的权力，而仅仅是维护和确保每个国家的自由以及其他结盟国家的自由。这并不意味着它们服从于公法以及执行它们的强制性权力，就像自然状态中的人们一样。这种联邦主义的想法逐渐延伸至所有的国家，达到永久的和平，是可行并且具有现实意义的。因为如果一个强大的、受到启蒙的民族在机缘下形成共和国，这将为其他国家形成联盟提供一个活动中心。其他国家会加入第一个国家的行列，并在尊重各国权利的共识下保障了各国的自由。通过一系列这类联盟的形成，达成共识的国家数量会越来越多。

一个民族这样说是可以理解的。它说，“我们之间将没有战争。我们将组成一个国家，自己指定最高的立法、执行和司法的权利机构，用和平方式解决我们之间的矛盾。”但是，如果这个国家说，“我自己和其他国家之间将没有战争，尽管我不承认任何最高的立法权力能够确保我的权利，而它的权利我也应当予以保障。”除非我能依靠一些公民社会联合体的替代品，例如，一个自由的联邦，否则我便不能对我的权利的保障有信心。如果说国际权利的概念想具有某种意义的话，理性必须能够与这种联盟相随相伴。

国际权利的概念如果理解为战争的权利，那么这一概念就变得毫无意义了。因为这就等于认可了这样的现实，即决定什么是合法的存在，并非通过普遍有效的外部法律而是通过以武力作支撑的片面行为准则。这也可以理解为，持有这种观点的人相互诋毁是完全公平的，因此只能在巨大的坟墓中找寻永久的和平，坟墓中埋葬着所有对暴力的恐惧和那些对暴力负责的人们。只有一种理性的办法能使国家与其他国家在没有法律的、纯粹的战争状态中共存。如同一个一个的人，他们必须放弃野蛮和没有法律约束的自由，将自己纳入公法的管辖之内，从而形成一个国际性的国家，该国家持续增大直至容纳地球上所有的民族。但是，因为根据目前国际性权利的概念，这不是国家的意愿，建立一个世界性共和国的积极想法无法得到实现。如果所有都不失去的话，也最好可以找到一个替代品，即建立一个逐渐扩张的联邦来防止战争。后者可以检查目前人们蔑视法律对抗自己同胞的倾向，尽管一直存在战争再一次爆发的危险。（正如维吉尔的诗句所言：“邪恶的狂怒张开血盆大口，疯狂地肆虐着。”）[8]

永久和平的第三个正式条款：世界性权利应当限制在全球友好的前提下。

正如以下条款所示，我们在这里不是关注慈善，而是关注权利。在这一语境下，友好意味着当一个陌生人在到达他国领土时不会受到恶意的对待。他的确可以不被收留，倘若这样做不会导致其死亡，但是只要他在碰巧进入的那个地方表现平和，他就不应当受到恶意的对待。这个陌生人不能要求受到客人般的款待，因为那样需要一个特别友好的协议，根据这个协议，他可能会在一定时间内成为当地家庭的一员。他或许仅仅能够要求有度假权，因为所有人有权共同拥有地球表面，所以所有人都有权在属于其他人的地域出现。由于地球是一个球体，人们无法划定一个不定的区域，必须尽可能地忍受别人的陪伴。没有人在占有地球某个特定部分时享有更大的权利。人类群体被地球表面不可居住部分的海洋和沙漠所分隔，即使是这样，船舶和骆驼（沙漠之舟）使得他们能够穿越这些无主地而靠近他们的同伴，利用人类共享地球表面的权利作为社会交往的一种形式。沿海居民在连接海洋的水域掠夺船只，奴役被俘海员的不友好行为，以及沙漠居民认为靠近游牧部落就可以掠夺他们的做法都是违反自然权利的。但是这种友好的自然权利，例如，陌生人的权利，不会延伸到超越条件使得他们企图与当地居民建立关系的地步。这样，彼此有距离的各大洲也能够进入共同的和平关系，可能最终受到公法的规范，从而将人类逐渐向一个世界性公民体制靠拢。

如果我们比较大陆上文明国度的不友好行为，特别是商业国家的不友好行为，它们展现出的对外国和外国人的不公平行为似乎耸人听闻（对于占领外国和控制外国人情况是一样的）。美洲、黑人国家、香料群岛、好望角等等在被发现时被看作是无主地，因为土著居民被忽视了。在东印度（印度斯坦），外国军队仅仅以建立贸易站点为借口侵入。这导致了当地人受到压迫，印度各邦陷入战争、饥荒、叛乱、背叛，以及一系列与人类相连的罪恶行径。

中国[9]和日本在经历了这些客人的骚扰后智慧地对他们进行了限制。中国允许他们停靠在其领土周围，却禁止其进入；而日本只允许荷兰这一个欧洲民族靠岸，但是却像对待囚徒一样将荷兰人与当地人分隔开。最为糟糕的是（或者从道德的角度评判是最好的），商业国家并没有因为其暴力行为而获益，因为他们所有的贸易公司都处在崩溃的边缘。糖料群岛（the Sugar Islands），一个最残酷最绞尽脑汁实行奴隶制的地方，根本不盈利。这些岛屿只是服务于为战船培养船员的非直接目的，因此只帮助欧洲进行战争。所有这些都是强权的杰作，他们不停地拿虔诚做文章。他们希望被看作是被选中的信奉者，与此同时却享受着不公平的战果。

地球上的各民族不同程度地进入了一个全球性的社会。它已经发展到这种程度，即发生在世界某地的人权侵犯行为会在世界各地感受到。世界公民权利的想法因此并非太不切合实际也太过勉强，它是对未形成条文的政治和国际权利的一个必要补充，将其发展成为一个人类的世界性权利。只有在这种条件下，我们才能自我恭维一下说，我们正在继续向着永久的和平进发。

附加条款一：关于保障永久和平

自然这个伟大的艺术家是永久和平的保障者。自然的运作过程可视性地展现了其在人类中创造和谐的设想，甚至是有悖于人类的意愿并通过他们之间不和谐的方式达到。这种规划，倘若我们认为其运行法则不为人所知，则被冠以“命运”之称。如果我们在世界的发展中审视其富有目的性的设计，它展现出一个主宰更高事业的内在智慧，给人类完成客观目标指明道路，并且确定了世界的进化；我们称之为神意。[10]我们实际上观察不到自然的这种诡计，我们甚至不能推断其存在。但是，在各种事物的关系和目的之间，我们能够并且必须运用它，以便将自然的诡计与人类的诡计做类比。神意与结果的关系以及与结果的一致只能被设想成是一种想法，由理性直接告诉我们。然而，这一想法的确是难以触摸的理论，它具有有效性并且在实践中有非常真实的基础，正如永久和平的概念，我们有责任运用上面提到的自然的机制去推动它。在只关心理论而不是宗教的语境下，我们也应当注意并且谈及自然，这更是人类理性的局限而不是神意的问题，因为理性必须在可能的经验的边界内处理因果关系。谦逊禁止我们谈论神意，因为这就意味着戴上伊卡洛斯的翅膀，假定要靠近其神妙莫测的奥秘。

在我们更确切地界定这一保障之前，我们必须首先检查一下自然将演员们放置在其伟大壮观的场面的情景，因为正是这种情景要求有和平的保障。下一步我们可以探求这种保障是以何种形式提供的。

大自然的安排是这样的：首先，她关心人类能够在他们所定居的地方生存。第二，她通过战争的方式将人类驱逐到四面八方，甚至让人类居住在最恶劣的地区。第三，她用同样的方法迫使人类或多或少地建立司法关系。苔藓在北冰洋最寒冷的荒野中依然能够生长，这本身就是一个奇迹；驯鹿能从积雪中将苔藓挖出，让其成为食物，并使自己成为奥斯提亚克斯人或者萨莫耶德斯人的牲畜。同理，盐碱沙漠中有骆驼，它们仿佛是为在沙漠中行走而生，这样它们也会被利用。当我们认识到如下事实时，自然被设计的证据会更清晰地展现：北冰洋的海岸不仅住着毛皮动物，而且有海豹、海象、鲸鱼，它们的肉和脂肪为当地人提供了食物和能量。自然界（如下的）关照（行为）引发更多的敬仰。自然界将漂流木带到没有树的地方，谁也不知道这些漂流木来自哪里。当地人如果没有这些材料，他们就无法造船和造武器，或者是住在其所住的地方。他们不停地狩猎因而彼此之间能够和平相处。但是，可能正是战争把他们驱赶到了这些地区。在征服地球的过程中，所有动物中人类首先驯服的战争工具就是马。在国家建立之后较为奢侈的时期大象才被驯服。播种叫作谷物的某种草也是一样；这些谷物的原始特性并不为我们所知。培养和种植各种各样的水果也是一样（在欧洲，大概只有两个品种即沙果树和野生梨）。只有在国家形成、土地固定，人们摒弃了猎人、[11]渔民、牧羊人没有法律规范的自由生活并完成向农业生活方式的过渡后，这种艺术才能产生。接着，盐和铁被发现了——它们是各民族间贸易的最初物品。这样国家间首次彼此进入和平的关系，甚至与最远的同伴达成相互理解、互利和平的关系。

大自然看到人们能够居住在地球上的各个地方；大自然的意愿是他们应当住在各个地方，甚至有悖于他们自己的意愿。这个义务并非基于责任的概念，或者是基于道德法则要求他们完成的。相反，自然选择战争作为达到这一目的的手段。

我们可以观察到民族通过其语言的一致性展现其后代的一体性。北冰洋上的萨莫耶德斯人和相距二百英里的阿尔泰山里说同一种语言的另一群人就属于这种情况。另一群蒙古族裔骑马征战，把其中的一个部落驱赶到了最荒蛮的北极地区，这显然不是这群人的意愿。[12]同样的，欧洲最北部地区的芬兰人（在那里他们被称为拉普人）现在与匈牙利人分割遥远，这两群人在语言上是相互联系的，他们被哥特人和萨马特人从中分开了。除了战争还能有谁会这么做。大自然在地球上散播人群的方法能让爱斯基摩人占据最北部，因为他们和其他美洲族群不同，有可能是古代欧洲探险者的后裔。佩沙拉人被用同样的方式驱赶到南方的火地岛。然而，战争本身不需要特别的动机，因为人性中好战的基因仿佛与生俱来。好战甚至被看作是高贵的，使人们受到荣誉感的激励，且并无自私的动机。因此，好战的勇气，连同美洲人的野蛮及其中世纪欧洲伙伴的野蛮，被看作拥有伟大的、直接的价值，不仅仅是在战争时期，也在即将产生战争的时期。因此战争常常是因为要展现这一品质而开始的，于是战争本身被赋予了一种内在的尊严，甚至哲学家们把战争看作是对人产生尊贵影响的事，完全忘却了希腊谚语所说“战争是坏的，因为它在毁灭魔鬼的同时制造出更多的魔鬼”。大自然为了达到其目的对动物种类中的人类亦如法炮制。

我们现在来谈谈关于永久和平的前景的核心问题。大自然对于人们认定的自己的责任做了什么？例如，大自然是如何帮助推动其道德目标的？大自然如何能够保证，依据自由法则人应当做的（但还没有做）实际上会由自然的力量做到又无损于人的自由？这个问题提出了公权利三个领域的问题，即政治、国际和世界公民的权利。如果我说自然愿意让这个或者那个发生，这并不意味着自然赋予我们责任去做这样的事，因为责任只能在具有可行性的理由时才能赋予，并且在没有任何外部限制的情况下实行。相反，自然不管我们是否愿意都会这么做，“命运引领着愿意的人，但是也拽着不愿意的人”。

即使人们不被内部的分歧所驱使而服从公法的强制力，战争也会从外部制造出同样的效果。因为根据上面所描述的自然的安排，每个民族都会发现自己要面对邻近一个民族的挑战，因此被迫形成一个国家以对付另一个民族的武装力量。如今共和制宪法是惟一一个完全公正地保护人权的宪法。但它也最难建立，且更难维护，因此许多人认为这样的宪法只能在天使的国度里成为可能，因为人类有追逐私利的倾向，因而没有能力遵循一个极其自然的宪法。但是，事实上，自然会帮助理智的、普遍的人类意愿，人类的意愿那么令人羡慕，在实践中又是那么无能为力。意愿只会让人们为国家创建一个好的机构，他们有能力做这件事。人们这样安排这个机构使得他们自我探寻的精力相互抵消，每个国家中和或者抵消其他国家的破坏力量。就理智而言，结果是一样的，仿佛人类的自私倾向不存在，因此，人，即使自己缺乏道德也会被迫成为一个好的公民。建立国家的问题甚至能被一个由魔鬼组成的民族所解决（只要他们拥有知性）。可以表述如下:“为了建立一个由理智者组成的组织，这些理智者为了生存需要普遍适用的法律，但是每个个体倾向于把自己排除在这些法律的约束之外，宪法必须如此设计，即即使公民的私人看法彼此相左，但是这些不同的观点能够相互抑制致使公民的公共行为一致，仿佛他们并没有过这些邪恶的观点。”这样的问题必须是可以解决的。因为这个任务不包括人类道德水平的提高，它仅仅意味着寻找出如何将自然的机理运用于人类，让他们彼此仇视的情绪迫使他们遵守强制的法律，并因此创造一个和平的条件，使得法律能够得到执行。我们甚至可以看到这个原则在现存的国家间起作用（尽管这还并不完美）。因为在它们的外部关系中，它们已经接近了权利的想法，尽管这样做的理由不是其内部的道德观点。同理，我们不能期望它们的道德态度产生一个完善的政治宪法。相反，正是通过后者，人们才能够期望获得一个好的道德文化。因此，自私的倾向在其外部关系中自然地相互排斥的自然机理可以被理智所利用以达到其目的，即权利统治。内部和外部的和平因此得到深化与确保，只要这种和平就在国家权力可控的范围内。我们或许因此说自然决定让权利最终占上风。人类忽略的事情最终会自动发生，尽管多少有些不便。正如鲍特维克所指出的那样，“如果芦苇弯得太狠就会断裂；索要太多将一无所获”。

国际权利的观点假定许多独立的相邻国家独自存在。国家的事务基本上是战争，除非有一个联盟防止敌对行为的爆发。但是依据理智性的想法，这个国家依旧期待是一个不同国家的联合体。它统治着其他的国家，创造出一个统一的王朝。随着政府力量的加强，法律逐渐地失去其影响力。一个没有灵魂的暴政，在粉碎了善的萌芽之后最终陷入无政府状态。因此，每个国家（或者其统治者）都渴望，尽可能占领整个世界以获取持久的和平。但是自然的愿望恰好相反。自然用两种办法，即语言和宗教的不同，来分离国家并阻止它们合并。[13]这些当然可能制造双方的敌意，为战争提供条件；但是，随着文化的发展，人类逐渐地转向原则上的一致，他们有了相互的理解及和平。与吞噬了所有人的能量和埋葬了自由的暴政不同，这种和平是由力量的均衡与最激烈的较量所缔造和保障的。

因此，大自然智慧地将国家分开，尽管每个国家的愿望，依据国际权利的论点，是采用武力或是计谋将其他国家统一在其麾下。另一方面，大自然也通过国家之间的共同利益将它们联合起来。商业精神迟早会支配并抓住每个民族，而这不能与战争共存。在所有可以利用的国家权力（或者手段）中，财政权力是最可以依靠的。因此，国家发现它们不得不推动高尚的和平事业，尽管不是出于道德的动机。当世界上有战争爆发的威胁时，国家会试图通过调停避免它，仿佛它们已经为了这个目的而进入永久的同盟一样。依据事物的自然规律，大的军事联盟很难形成，也更难取得成功。

这样，大自然通过人类癖好的实际机制确保永久和平。当通过努力获得永久和平的可能性不足以使我们预测未来时，大自然赋予我们责任去找到达到这一目的，而这并非一个空洞的幻想。

补充条款二：论永久和平的秘密条款

在处理关于公权利的事务时，有一个秘密条款（客观地看或者是从其内容上看）是矛盾的。主观上说，例如，对于记述这一条款的人而言，一个条款可能正好包含一个秘密要素，因为这个人会认为公开地宣称自己为条款的创立者有损个人尊严。

这类条款的惟一条目包含在下列句子中：“哲学家们关于公共和平条件的论述，应当被那些武装起来准备战争的国家引为忠告。”

在与其他国家关系的原则问题上向臣民们（哲学家）寻求指导，这对于一个国家的司法机关似乎有些耻辱，因为我们必须自然地将最高级别的智慧归功于司法机关；但是，我们仍然强烈建议这样做。国家因此悄悄寻求哲学家们的帮助，并使之成为一个秘密。换句话说，这将允许他们公开而自由地评说关于战争和维和的准则。如果没有人禁止他们的讨论，他们的确会主动这么做。国家间没有特别、正式地安排让他们同意这样做，因为这样的协议已经包含在人类作为道德的立法者所承担的义务中。然而，这并不意味着国家必须承认哲学家的原则优于法学家的声明（法学家代表的是国家的权力），只是哲学家应当有解释其思想的机会。将权利的天平和公平之剑作为其象征的法学家常常使用后者，不仅仅是为了免除外来影响对前者的作用，而且也会在天平的一只托盘不下沉时把剑扔在它上面（被征服的人惨了）。除非法学家同时也是哲学家，就道德层面而言，他有强烈的愿望这么做，因为他的工作仅仅是执行现有法律，而不是探寻这些法律是否需要改进。法学家的表现仿佛他的这一低级学科实际上是高级学科一样，原因很简单，因为这里面伴随着权力（其他的两个学科也是如此）。但是哲学在众多学科组成的权力层中占据非常低的位置。因此，我们被告知，哲学是神学的女仆，与其他学科的关系也相似，诸如此类的话。但是这个女仆是在她仁慈的主人前面高擎火炬还是在其身后托着裙裾还远不清楚。

人们并不期待国王会哲学化或者哲学家将成为国王，这也不是他们想要的，因为拥有权力毫无疑问地会破坏理智的自由评判。国王们或者是主权国家的人民（例如，那些用主张人人平等的法律进行自治的人们）不应当迫使哲学家们消失或者是保持沉默，而是应当允许他们公开发表见解。让阳光照亮他们，这一点至关重要。哲学家一族天生就是不会形成恶意的团伙或俱乐部，他们不会有传播叛乱舆论的嫌疑。

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[1] 一个可继承的王国并不是一个可以被另一个国家继承的国家。只有统治这个国家的权力可以遗赠给另一个人。在这种情况下，国家需要一个统治者，但是这样的一个统治者（例如，一个已经有另一个王国的人）并不拥有这个国家。

[2] 迄今为止，人们仍在怀疑除了禁止性法律和劝诫性法律之外是否还有许可性法律。因为所有法律都包含一个客观的、实践中可行的因素作为某种行动的理由，而一个许可只靠实际的偶发事件。因此，一个许可性法律是强制某事，但这件事无法强迫人去做，如果这种法律的对象与许可的对象一致，那么矛盾就出现了。但是，上面第二条提到的许可性法律，最初的禁止仅适用于未来要求权利的模式（例如，继承），而禁止的例外情况（例如，法律的许可性部分）适用于国家的政治财产。依据以自然权利为基础的许可性法律，当前的国家可以被许可保持平稳即使自然状态已经被公民社会所取代。即使当前的财产是不合法的，他们也是诚实的。一旦推定的财产被认定为推定的，则此财产是被禁止的，不仅在自然状态中而且在公民社会中也是如此（如果财物的状态是推定的）。如果是在公民社会中，继续占有是不被允许的，假定的占有物一旦被发现是非法占有，则必须立刻停止占有，因为这是一种侵权行为。

我这里的意图仅仅只是简要地向自然权利的鼓吹者指出许可性法律的概念。这个概念在理性的系统性分工中自动地展现了自己。它特别值得一提，因为它时常被用在国内法和成文法中，有一个不同就是法律中禁止的部分独立地存在，许可性部分作为限制性条件不包括法律条文本身，而是在附加的条款中以囊括个案。这样的法律通常表述为这个或那个是被禁止的，除非是在个案1、2、3以至无穷。许可性条款仅仅偶然地加在法律中，并不依据任何确定的原则，而是通过对某个个案的回顾附加到法律上。否则，限制性条款只得包括在禁止性法律中，它由此可能成为许可性条款。因此，那个由智慧而思路清晰的绅士温狄史格里兹伯爵提出的精巧但尚未解决的竞赛问题很快被放弃真是一种遗憾，因为它可能解决我们现在讨论的司法困境。找到一个像数学公式一样的世界性模式的可能性是对立法的一致性的真正考验。没有它，所谓的确切的法律必然仅仅是一个善良的愿望。否则，我们只能有一般的法（例如，在一般情况下有效的法），但是却没有普遍的法（即普遍有效的法律），而普遍的法这一概念是一部法律要求具有的。

[3] 一般的假定是一个人不能对另一个人采取敌对性行为，除非他已经被他人伤害。如果双方都生活在一个合法的公民状态时，这是完全正确的。一个人已经进入了这样一种状态，就给另一个人提供了保障，因为双方都服从同一个权威。但是，人（或者一个民族）在一个纯粹自然的状态中让我感觉不到这种安全。他和我共存的这种状态伤害了我。他或许没有主动地（事实上）伤害我，但是，他处于无法律约束的状态伤害了我，因为他对我是一种永久的威胁。我能够要求他或者与我一起进入一个共同的法治状态，或者离开我。下面所列条款依据的假设是所有相互影响的人必须遵循某种市民宪法。但是任何宪法，就生活在其下的人们而言，将归属于下面三种类型：

（1）依据一国内个人的公民权利的宪法；

（2）依据国家间相互关系的国际权利的宪法；

（3）依据世界性公民权利的宪法，个体和国家在一个相互影响的关系中共存，他们或许被看作是一个世界性国家的公民。这个分类，谈及永久和平的想法，并非随心所欲，而是必然的。即使一方能够影响另一方，而他自己却保持一种自然状态，这就会有战争危险。这正是上述条款所要禁止的。

[4] 正当的（例如，外部的）自由，不能像通常所想的那样，定义为一个想做什么就做什么的授权令，除非它意味着对他人做不公平的事。授权令意味着什么？它意味着以某种方式行事的可能性，只要这种举动不会对别人造成不公平。因此，授权令的定义可以表述如下：自由是行动的可能性，其行动不会给他人造成不公平。也就是说，我们不做对别人不公平的事（不管我们实际上会做什么）。然而，这个定义是一个空洞的赘述。事实上，我的外部的、正当的自由应当被定义为一个授权令，除非我自己同意，否则我不遵守任何外部的法律。同样，一个国家内的外部的、正当的平等是公民之间没有人能够将他人置于法律责任之下而自己同时不被置于相同的法律责任之下（我们不需要界定司法依赖的原则，因为它总是隐含在一个政治性宪法的概念之中）。这些与生俱来、不可分割的权利的有效性，人类必然的属性，被一个原则所确认和强化，即人可能与更高层次的生物产生法律关系（如果他相信有后者的话）。因为他或许认为自己是先验世界的一个公民，同样的原则也适用于这个世界。至于我的自由，我甚至不承担神法规定给我的任何义务（我只能靠理性识别它们），除非我自己能够对它们表示我的同意，因为我能形成神法的观念也是基于自己理性的自由法则。至于我能想象到的、与最高贵的生物相联系的平等的原则，除上帝之外，如果我和这一高等生物都在我们自己的岗位上履行我们的职责，为什么是我有责任遵守法律而他享受命令的特权？这是没有道理的。但是，这一平等的原则（不像自由的原则）不能运用到我与上帝的关系中，因为上帝是惟一的生物，对他来说，责任的概念在其身上不再有效。

但是，关于作为主体所有公民的平等权利，我们或许要问一个世袭的贵族是否有资格享用。对这个问题的回答完全取决于哪一个更被看重，是国家授予的高级地位还是本人所取得的成就。现在很显然的是，如果等级是生而就被授予的，那么是否成就（在某人岗位上的技能和贡献）会与等级相伴而来则是非常不确定的。这相当于赋予一个得到偏爱的人领导地位而不管他是否在其岗位上取得成绩，在原始契约中，这不会被公众意愿所接受，毕竟这是所有权利背后的原则，因为一个贵族并不一定是一个高尚的人。至于一个掌权的贵族，例如，因为成绩所获得的地方高级治安官品级，品级对这个人而言不是附属的财产，而是这个人所占有的位置，这并不违反平等的原则。当一个人放弃了他的职位之后，他同时也辞去了他的品级而重新成为人民中的一员。

[5] 许多人批评高调地授予统治者称号是奢侈的奉承，但是这对我来说是没有道理的事。因为让这片土地的统治者变得高傲倒不如让他们的心灵怀有谦卑。如果他是一个有知性的人（我们必须这样假定），他将会反思他接管了一个对人类而言太过巨大的办公室。这个办公室掌管着上帝在这个地球上最为神圣的机构即人的权利。他将始终活在惊恐中，害怕以什么方式伤害了上帝最为有价值的个人财产。

[6] 马莱·迪·旁在他华丽而空洞的写作中吹嘘说，他根据多年的经验最终被大主教的名言所征服：“让蠢蛋们就政府的形式争论不休吧，管理最好的政府就是最好的。”如果这意味着管理最好的政府就是管理得最好的政府，那么他就打开了一个坚果（正如斯威福特所做的那样）而得到了一个虫子的奖赏。如果这意味着管理最好的政府也是最好类型的政府（例如，最好的宪法），那就完全错了。好的政府并不能说明是好的类型的政府。的确，谁能比泰特斯・提图斯或者马可·奥勒留统治得要好，然而，一个将王位传给了多米提安，另一个传给了康茂德；这在有一部完善宪法的国家中是不会发生的，因为他们不适合统治者这个职位的事实早为人所知，他们的继任者也足够强大，能够把不称职者排除在继承的行列之外。

[7] 一个保加利亚的王子对友善地提出用决斗解决纠纷的希腊皇帝说：“一个有钳子的铁匠不会用双手把滚烫的铁从炭火中取出。”

[8] 当战争结束，当和平降临，一个民族在感恩节之后指定一天为赎罪日也不为过。上天会以国家的名义饶恕人类，饶恕他们不断犯下的大罪，因为国家就是不在国际关系中遵从一个有法律的体制。每个国家以独立而引以为豪，愿意采用野蛮的战争手段，尽管战争不能产生出国家所渴望的权利结果。在战争中每次胜利的感恩节，每次对万军之主（用以色列人的方式）哼唱的赞歌，都很明显地与人类之父的道德概念恰恰相反。因为除了展示国家在追求他们共同权利的方式上的冷漠之外，他们实际上还为毁灭数不清的人及其幸福的行为而高兴。

[9] 如果我们希望给这个伟大的帝国起个名字，以它称呼自己的方式给它命名（例如，China，而非Sina或者任何其他的类似形式），我们只需借鉴一下吉奥尔基写的《藏语字母表》的第651页到654页。根据彼得堡的费舍教授所说，它实际上没有一个自己的固定名字。最为常见的一个名字是金，意思是金子（藏族人称它为Ser）。这就解释了为什么皇帝被称作黄金之王（世界上最辉煌之地）。这个字显然在中国发Chin的音，但是被意大利传教士读为Kin，是因为意大利人不会发喉音。同样也应当看到，罗马人称之为Ser的国家实际上就是中国。丝绸就是从中国途经大西藏到达欧洲的（或许穿过小西藏、布哈拉和波斯）。这引发了关于这个古老而特别的国家的众多猜测，将它与印度相比较，猜测它与西藏地区和日本的关系。但是相邻国家称之为Sina或者Tschina却没有什么道理。

或许古老但迄今为止奇怪的位于欧洲和西藏的群落可以解释为海西基记录的圣职者的呐喊。根据吉奥尔基的《藏语字母表》，Concioa一字的意思是上帝。这个字看上去像Konx，希腊人或许轻易地发音为pax。但是Om被拉·克洛泽翻译为“保佑”，如果说涉及神性的话就是有福之人的意思。当弗朗西斯科问西藏喇嘛他们如何看待上帝时，他总是得到这样的答案：“上帝是所有那些神圣的人的群体。”因此，神秘的Konx Ompax或许是“神圣上帝的智慧”的意思，即说服全世界的超人类。我们最初的考虑应当帮助解释这个神秘的名字如何从西藏传到希腊。同样，这种影响可能是这样，即欧洲最早经西藏地区与中国发生了联系，或许比与印度交往更早。

[10] 人是自然界的一部分。在自然界的机制中，其生存依靠某种基本的形式。我们只有将它归结为一个世界性的创造者事先决定了这一切，（大自然的）这种形式对我们来说才变得容易理解。我们把这种已定的影响称作上天的旨意，进一步定义为原始天意，因为它从远古时期延续。因为它根据有目的的宇宙法则延续自然的使命，我们称之为统治的天意。如果天意实现了某种目的，而人不能预示到其存在只能由结果猜测，这被称作指导性天意。最后，如果单个事件被看作是天意使然，我们便不再说是天意，而是一种特殊的施与。但是，如果有人宣称他能认识到这一点，那就是一种愚蠢的狂妄自大，因为这就意味着一个奇迹的诞生，即使发生的事件没有被特别地描述为奇迹性的话。因为不管它如何神奇或卑微，从一个单个事件中得出结论说，事件由一个特别的原则所左右，或者说事件本身是一个结果，不仅仅是另一个我们所全然不知的自然、机械的结果所导致，这是荒唐而自负的。同样，根据世界上的物体将天意分类，将它分为普遍的和特指的，就像文字记载中所提到的天意照看着各种各样的生物种类，但是也留下机会照顾个体，这样也是错误和自相矛盾的。说天意普遍存在的意思是没有哪一个个体应当被排除在外。然而，这种分类方式或许意味着表示天意由不同的方式实现。这也许是普遍性的（例如，每年出现的死亡和由于季节变化而产生的自然的复苏），或者是特殊性的（例如，海洋流将树木运送到北极海岸，而这种树在当地无法生长，从而给当地居民提供了生存资料）。后一种情况，我们能够解释某种现象的自然机制（例如，河床被森林覆盖，于是树可能掉入河里，被诸如墨西哥湾流的水流带走）。另一方面，我们必须不能忽视目的论（认为事物的发生和发展都是为了达到一定目的——译者注），它显示掌管自然的一个智慧的机构的前瞻性。但是，这个天佑和天意的概念，在当前的学术界，是过剩的。第一，试图给迥然不同的事物戴上挽具（如同给神化传说中的狮身鹰首兽戴上给马戴的挽具一样）是自相矛盾的，指出一个生物其本身是世界发展的完全动因就必须在世界性事件发生期间提供他自己的先决天意。例如，说医生作为上帝的助理治愈病人就是荒唐的。如果我们上升到那个最高的原始原因，上帝是医生及其所有药物的制造者，效果必须完全归因于他。这个原因理论上说我们理解不了。换句话说，它也可以完全上升到医生，只要我们把遭质疑的事件当作自然的规律对待，当作在地球上发生的事物的系列事件来解释。第二，如果我们采取这样的态度，我们就被剥夺了所有一定的原则，而我们通过这些原则评判效果。但是神的赞同概念是完全可以接受的，的确在道德和实践上是必要的，这是指玄奥的精神世界。例如，我们可以说我们不应当停止朝着善的方向努力，因为我们相信上帝会弥补我们所缺乏的正直，甚至是以我们所不能理解的方式，只要我们的态度足够诚恳。然而，没有人会用这样的论点去解释一个好的、被当作一个世俗事件的举动，因为这会假定玄奥的理论知识，我们如此宣称是很荒唐的。

[11] 在所有的生活方式中，猎人的生活方式是与一个文明宪法最格格不入的。对于一个家庭来说，不得不分离地生活很快就会彼此成为陌生人，最终在广阔的森林中分散开来，彼此敌意地对待，因为每个人都需要一大片区域以获得衣食。对诺亚提出的禁止食血的命令（《创世纪》第9章第2-6节）看上去不为别的，而是专为禁止猎人的生活方式而设立。这一定包括吃生肉，假如禁止吃生肉，食血就不可能了。这种禁忌常常被强调，后来被犹太基督教徒强加在新入教的异教徒身上，但是有着不同的意图（第15、20、21、25条）。

[12] 下面的问题或许会被提出。如果大自然的意图是让这些寒冷的海岸无人居住，如果大自然不再给他们提供漂浮的树木，这种情况的确可能发生，那么会对当地居民产生怎样的影响？因为我们可以相信随着当地文化的进步，温带地区的居民会更好地利用生长在河岸两边的树木，不让这些树木倒入水中并漂流到大海里。我应当回答说：那些住在鄂毕河、叶尼塞河、勒拿河等沿岸的人会以贸易的方式提供，用树木换取动物产品。北冰洋岸边出产丰富的动物产品。他们只会在大自然迫使他们彼此和平地一起生活的时候才会这么做。

[13] 宗教差别——一个古怪的表达！仿佛我们要谈论不同的道德观。当然有不同的历史信条，虽然这些与宗教本身没有关系，只是与深化宗教途径的办法相关，因此属于历史研究的范畴。或许有多种不同的宗教书，但是，只能有一个宗教对所有人在所有的时间内有效。因此，不同的信条只可能是宗教的工具。这些是偶发的，可能随着时间和地点的变化而变化。

附录

一、关于永久和平，道德与政治的不一致

道德，作为我们行为应当遵守的、具有约束力的、法律的集合，从客观的角度来说，基本上属于实践的范畴。如果我们曾经知晓责任这一概念的影响力，那么说我们不能遵守道德法则就是荒唐的。因为如果是这样的话，责任的概念就会自动地失去道德（没有人被迫做他没有能力做的事）。因此，作为权利应用分支的政治和作为权利理论分支的道德之间不会有矛盾（例如，在理论与实践之间）。这样的矛盾只会在道德被用作权宜之计时才会发生，例如，某人选取最有用的手段牟取一己之私利，这无异于否认道德的存在。

如果政治说，“你要像蛇一样狡猾”，道德就会加上“像鸽子一样无害”。如果这两条不能同时存在，那么政治与道德之间确实存在着不一致。但是如果两者将要统一，假设它们是相对的就是荒唐的，这个矛盾如何解决甚至不能成为精神上的操练。“诚实是最好的政策”的格言包含着一个与现实常常相反的理论，这是事实。然而，另一个理论命题“诚实胜过任何政策”超越了所有的反对意见，它的确是任何政策不可分割的条件。道德的上帝不会向暴力的监护人朱庇特投降，因为朱庇特也要听从命运的安排。简而言之，理智还没有获得充分的启蒙，不能发现那一系列已经确定的因素，这些因素会允许它准确地预测人类活动可喜或可悲的结局。它只会希望结果与愿望相符。但是，理智总是清晰地告诉我们，如何做才能行走在责任的轨道上，正如智慧规则所要求的那样，给我们指明达到最终目标的道路。

但是，对其而言道德是纯理论的实干家冷漠拒绝我们的善意的愿望，即使他承认我们能做我们应当做的事。他将其论点建立在如此断言之上，即从人性的角度我们能够事先断言，人类永远不会做必要的事以便达到永久和平的目标。所有遵循自由原则，生活在一个符合法律的框架内（全体意志的个别统一）的个体，对于达到这个目的还不够，这是千真万确的。在这个如此困难的问题解决之前，所有人必须一起渴望达到这个目标，只有这样公民社会才能作为一个整体存在。由于在一个共同的愿望出现之前，一个特别的统一的事业必须能够统一所有个体的不同愿望，因为没有一个个体能够创造这样一个事业，实践中惟一的一种执行意愿的办法、一个开创国家权利的途径就是武力。在武力的一致权威之下，公权利最终得到保障。

我们事先当然期望实际的经验与原始的理论观点将会存在不小的偏差。因为我们不能假设立法者的道德观点是这样的，即无序的民众在统一成为一个民族后，立法者会让他们依据自己的公共意愿创造一个符合法律的体制。

或许可以这样说，一旦一个人自己手上掌握了权力，他就不会让人们给他立法。同样道理，一个自治的、不受外部法律约束的国家也不会让自身依赖于其他国家的评判；甚至于整个大洲，如果感觉自身比另一个大洲优越，它就会毫不犹豫地扩展自己的地盘，不管另一个国家是否挡了自己的路，它也要统治那个国家。这样，理论为政治的、国际的或者世界公民权利所设计的所有计划演变成了空洞和不切实际的想法。但是，基于人性原则的实践可以希望为其政治机会主义体系找到一个坚实的基础。

当然，如果既没有自由又没有基于自由的道德法则，只有当一切发生了或者能够发生的事简单遵循自然的机械的工作机制，政治才是利用自然治理人的艺术。这构成了实践的智慧的整体。那么，权利的概念仅仅是一个空洞的想法。但是，如果我们认为非常有必要将权利的概念与政治结合，或者甚至使权利成为政治的限制条件，那就必须承认这两者相互兼容。我也的确可以想象一个讲道德的政治家，例如，某人将政治权宜之计的原则运用完美使其与道德共存；但是我难以想象一个政治的道德家，例如，一个人运用其道德规则去适应作为政治家的优势。

道德的政治家会遵循这样的原则：如果在国家关系中或是在政治体制中犯了不可避免的错误，国家元首有义务尽可能迅速地改正错误。应当确认这些政治制度是为确保自然权利——它在实践理性的观念中是树立在我们面前的一个模型——而建立的，甚至于必须牺牲自我的利益。与所有政治权宜之计背道而驰的原则是：在没有一个更好的体制取而代之的情况下破坏现有政治或世界公民的联盟。在这种情况下，这一原则与道德一致。尽管要求立刻用暴力的手段修订宪法中的错误是荒谬的，但是要求当权者警醒并向正确方向改进依然是必要的，这是为宪法能够不断地接近权利法律所规定的最佳状态。即使一个国家现有宪法规定的是一个专制的统治政权，它也可以用共和的方式自治。这个国家将逐渐地到达一个阶段，人民会受到法律权威思想的影响，如同国家有着武力作为支撑一样，人民将能够创造一种基于权利的司法体系。然而，如果一个更合法的体制是通过不合法的方式获得的，例如，由于以前糟糕的体制导致了暴力革命而建立起来的，即使采用暴力或者叛变破坏旧宪法的每个人在革命过程中应当得到处罚，也不允许带领人民回复原来的状态。但是，关于国家间的外部关系，即使国家是专制的体制（因此在与外敌的关系中处于强势），只要这个国家随时有可能被其他国家吞并，则该国家不得被要求废弃其体制，因此，在必须有政治改进计划的同时，也要允许等待一个更好的时机执行这个计划。[14]

可能出现这样的情况：专制的道德学家，例如那些在实践中犯了错误，屡屡有悖于政治的深谋远虑，采纳或者推荐不成熟的措施，经验必然会将他们逐渐带出与自然对立的状态，使他们采纳更好的办法。但是，道德化的政治家试图掩盖有悖于权利的政治原则，以人性没有能力获得理性所认定的一个理念为借口。他们因此使进步成为不可能，使对权利的侵犯永久化。

这些老于世故的政治家没有采纳他们所吹嘘的正确的实践，而是固守着令人厌恶的把戏，因为他们仅仅是为了剥削人民（倘若可能的话就剥削整个世界），通过用这种方式影响当权者以确保其一己之私利。他们就像进军政治的律师一样（例如，对这些人而言，法律是一份职业，不是立法的事情）。他们的职责不是探讨立法本身，而是遵循当前法律的指引，他们总是认为现有的法律构成最好，因为它遵循一个合适的机械的秩序。但是，这种技能或许给他们一种幻觉：他们也能够根据权利的概念（先验而非经验的）判断任何政治体制的原则。他们或许吹嘘说他们了解人们（因为他们不得不与许多人相处，这也是所期望的），尽管他们不了解人及其潜能，因为这要求站在更高的人类学制高点上。

他们继续依据理性所规定的政治法和国际法行事，用诸如此类的概念武装头脑。但是他们只能在欺骗的状态下走这一步，因为他们会遵循一贯的程序，用机械的方式运用在专制统治下形成的法律，与自由的原则相一致。这一自由的原则自身就可以使公正建立的政治体制成为可能。这位实践者相信他能实地解决这个问题，忽略理性的观念，从迄今为止仍然幸存的那些体制（很大程度上是不合法的）的结构中获得经验。尽管没有公开，但是他为着这个目的遵循了一些准则，这些准则可以粗略地表述为如下的诡辩术。

1．先做然后解释这样做的理由。抓住任何国家自身享有或者是对邻国人民享有的侵犯权利的有利机会。正当的理由可以更容易、更简洁地提出。这比事先想出说服的理由，然后等待出现反驳的理由来得更现成，而使用暴力的事实可以更轻而易举地掩盖过去。这在第一个案例中尤其显得正确。国家的最高权力机构也是立法机构，必须无可争议地服从。这样鲁莽行事本身呈现出的是内在的信念，即这种行为是正确与公正的。成功之神就是最好的支持者。

2．倘若你是暴君，否认这一点。例如，如果你犯了罪，为了带领你的人民走向绝望进而奋起抗争，否认你有罪，坚持这是国民的不妥协造成的。或者如果你掌控了对相邻民族的控制权，就说人性应当对此负责，因为如果他不期望其他人付诸暴力，他或许会确信这些人将预料到这一切并去征服他。

3．离间和统治。如果在选择你作为其统治者的人群中有一些特权者，确保离间他们，并且让他们与人民产生对立。如果你用虚假的承诺给他们以更大的自由，一切将依靠你的绝对意愿。如果你为了同外国打交道，在它们中间制造纷争是一个接一个征服它们行之有效的方法，而这表面看起来是为弱者提供帮助。

必须承认，没有人会被这些政治准则所蒙蔽，因为它们人所共知。人们不会为这些准则而感到羞耻，仿佛它们的不公平都太过显而易见。因为执掌大权者从不为公众如何评价他们而感到尴尬，只会在意对彼此的评价。关于上面列举的那些原则，即使它们为公众所知，掌权者也不会感到羞耻。只有当他们失败时才会感到羞耻，因为他们都认同这些准则的道德地位。他们拥有政治荣誉。如果他们采用想要采用的办法扩充权力，[15]他们总能依靠这些准则。人们如何在国家好战的本性中创造和平，从所有这些不道德、机会主义的信条的迂回曲折中，至少这些是清楚的：人们很少能像在私人领域那样在公共领域逃避权利的概念，他们也不敢公开地将政治仅仅依托在机会主义的机理中，从而全然拒绝遵守公权利的概念（这一点在国际权利中特别著名）。相反，他们给这些概念所有的荣耀，尽管他们或许也找出一百条理由和诡计在实践中逃避它们，并假装承认惟有残酷的暴力和诡计能够获得政权，而政权是所有权利的来源，也是凝聚权力的纽带。

为了结束这种诡辩术（它掩盖了事实上的不公平），也为了让那些制造假象却又发号施令的人承认，是他们在宣传权势而不是权利（他们用的是发号施令者的口气），发现永久和平产生的最终原则是好的，由此能使人们对自我或者是对别人看法的幻影破灭。应当表明，所有挡在永久和平之路上的魔鬼源自这样的事实，即政治道德家的出发点正是道德政治家的中止点。他（政治道德家）因此视目的第一，原则第二（即原则服从于目的，例如，如同把马车放在马之前），因此，挫败了他自己想使政治和道德协调一致的目的。

为确保实践哲学自身的一致性，首先有必要解决一个问题，即在实践理性的问题上，我们是否应当从它的物质原则出发，例如，作为一个意志对象的目的，或者还是应当从它的形式原则，即人们在外部关系上的自由出发。后一种原则表述为“用这样的方式行动，就是你能够希望你的信条成为一个宇宙法则（不管最终的结果是什么）”。

后一项原则必须毫无疑问地占据领先地位。作为权利的一项原则，它有绝对的必要性。只有当允许目的实现的经验主义的条件假定存在时，前者是有必要的。如果这个目的也同永久和平的目标一样是一项义务的话，那它自身应当从引导外在行为的准则之形式上的原则中产生。现在前者（例如，物质）的原则是政治道德家的原则，它把政治的、国际的、世界公民的权利问题仅仅当作技术任务处理。但是后者的（例如，正式）原则却是讲道德的政治家的原则，是一个道德任务。道德任务与技术问题在带来永久和平方面完全不同。永久和平不仅仅作为一件物质上的善事受到期盼，而且也是一个人必须出自承认自身职责的一种事态。

对于第一个（政治权宜之计的问题）问题的解答，需要更多自然的知识，以便人们运用其运行机制实现想要达到的目的。然而，以其对永久和平的影响而言，无论涉及公权利三部分中的哪一部分，所有这些并不确定。在长时间内很好地维持人民的顺从和成功是靠严格的纪律约束，还是靠满足他们的虚荣心；是给每一个体或者是几位领袖以最大权力，还是通过设立贵族办公室或者是受人欢迎的内部政府，历史提供了各种各样效果相反的例子。共和制是惟一的例外，它只能是一位讲道德的政治家的目标。基于大臣们草拟的法律的一项国际权利的情形就更具有不确定性，因为这项权利实际上仅仅是空洞的文字，因为它是依靠含有秘密保留条款的条约，而这些秘密条款是可以被违背的。另一方面，第二个问题，即政治智慧的问题，仿佛自动地解决了一样。显而易见，它战胜了所有的诡计，直达目标，只要我们牢记，它不可能通过暴力的、鲁莽的方式实现，必须在有利机会到来之时稳步地实现。

我们或许因此可以提出如下的建议：首先寻求纯粹实践理性的王国及其正当性，你的目标（永久和平的保佑）将会添加给你们。对道德而言，至于公权利的原则（以推论著称的政治符号）有一个特别的特点，即越少将行为绑定想要达到的目的（不管是物理还是道德的优势），它就越多地与目标相协调一致。其中的缘由正是公众的愿望，在一个人群或者由各色人等组成的共同关系中，决定人群中什么是对的。但是，这个所有人意愿的组合，倘若用一种持续的方式付诸实践，它也能成为导致目的结果的动因，并对权利概念产生影响。例如，一个民族应当以自由、平等作为权利的唯一核心，这是道德政治的一个原则。这个原则不是基于权宜之计而是出于义务。另一方面，政治的道德家们不值得聆听，不管他们如何争论进入社会的一群人的自然技巧或者声称这一技巧会使上面的原则无效，从而阻碍其实施，或者试图用古代和现代的糟糕体制证明他们的观点（例如，没有代表制度的民主政体）。这样的理论特别具有破坏性，因为他们可能自身制造出他们所预测的那个魔鬼。由于把人类与其他有生命的机体归为一类，他们仅仅需要清醒地认识到，他们不是自由生物，就能成为他们眼中所有地球生物中最可怜的那一类。

“即使世界上所有的流氓都必须死亡也要让正义当政”的名言听上去有些夸张，但它是真实的。这是一项明智的权利原则，它堵塞了狡诈或者暴力的邪恶之路。但是，不能把这误解为，例如，这是一种允许人们以最严苛的态度运用自己权利（这与伦理义务相冲突）的许诺，而应当把它看作是当权者不能拒绝的职责，或者是出于对他人的怜悯或厌恶而剥夺的权利。这就要求国家应当有一部依据权利原则制定的宪法。它统一其他邻国甚至是更遥远的国度，就其分歧达成一个合法的解决方案，从而形成类似一个统一宇宙国家的实体。这一主张只是意味着无论结果如何，政治信条不能被因信奉这些信条而逐渐增长的利益或幸福的前景所影响，例如，每个国家把政治智慧看作最高经验原则。它们应当仅仅被正确职责的纯粹概念所影响，例如，被一种基于纯粹的理性演绎原则而产生的职责所影响。如果这世界上鲜有坏人，世界的末日也不会到来。道德上的魔鬼天生就有自我毁灭和自相矛盾的遗传特性（特别是在有类似头脑的人们的关系中），因此善的道德准则有出路，尽管这种进步是缓慢的。

因此，从客观或者是理论的角度而言，道德与政治之间没有冲突。从主观的角度说（例如，关于自私的性情，由于其不是建立在理性的格言上，因此它不能被称作实践），这个冲突将会也应当保持活跃，因为它扮演着美德磨刀石的角色。依据“你不能对麻烦投降，要更加大胆地挑战它”的原则，美德的真正勇气在于必须面对我们自身的邪恶并战胜它的诡计，而不在于坚定地对抗魔鬼并且作出牺牲。这个原则太过危险、太过背信弃义，因为它易于利用人性的弱点为侵犯正义的行为作辩解。

政治的道德家或许确实可以说，统治者和人民之间，或者一个民族和另一个民族之间，即使因为暴力或者狡诈陷入冲突状态也不会彼此不公平地对待，尽管他们完全不公平地拒绝尊重权利的概念，而权利概念是惟一能够建立永久和平的。如果一方侵犯了另一方的利益，而这另一方恰好在无法无天地针对他，那么确实发生在他们身上、使双方耗尽力量的事就是完全公正的。他们的民族将得以生存并继续不间断地延续这一过程，一直到最遥远的未来，于是，后代人可以把他们当作警示的榜样，以此为戒。这样安排世界事务的天意成为理所当然。人类的道德准则从来就不会泯灭。依据这个原则运用权利想法的理性，随着文化的不断进步而不断增强，与此同时，侵权的负罪感随之增加。如果我们假设人类从来不会或者具备更好的条件，地球创造出如此一个道德败坏的种类这样一个事实，是任何神义论都无法解释的。但是，这样一种判断对我们来说还是太得意了。我们理论上不能把智慧的构想归于我们无法理解的最高权利的特性。

如果我们不假设权利的纯粹原则具有客观现实的话，例如，这些原则不能够应用于实践，我们会不自觉地得出这样的结论。不管经验上的政治或如何唱反调，一国的人民，连同相关的国家必须相应地照此行事。因此，一个真正的政治体制如果不首先对道德表示敬意就会寸步难行。政治本身是一门颇具难度的艺术，因为没有其他艺术要求与道德结合。一旦道德与政治产生冲突，道德就会解开政治无法解开的结。

人的权利必须被看作是神圣的，不管统治者可能会作出怎样巨大的牺牲。这里没有折衷的办法。开发混合的办法，诸如介于权利和实用之间、附条件的权利毫无用处。所有政治家在权利面前必须屈膝跪倒，尽管政治或许希望到达一个持久辉煌的阶段作为回报，无论这一过程多么缓慢。

二、依据公权利的先验概念论政治与道德的一致性

如果按照法理学家通常定义的公权利考虑，我从其物质方面摘录要点（如同一个国家内人们之间各种各样的经验关系或者是国家间彼此的关系），我得到的是公共性的正式属性。由于每次要求权利都潜在地拥有这种属性，没有这种属性就不会有正义（这种正义会被设想为是众所周知的），也不会有权利，因为权利只会来自正义。

权利的每次诉求都必须具有这一公共品质。由于能够轻易评判权利诉求是否以某种特殊的情况呈现，例如，是否能与相关行为人的原则相结合，它提供给我们一个现成、可见的现象，能够在理性中发现推论。如果它不能与行为人的原则协调一致，我们立刻看出这一诉求的错误（例如，不正当性），像是纯粹理性的一个实验。

我们在政治和国际权利的概念中提取了所有经验主义的成分之后（包括人性中导致高压政治的罪恶一面），我们可以列举如下公权利的“先验规则”的主张：影响他人权利的所有行为都是错误的，假如其准则不能与公开的准则相一致。

这一原则不仅仅应当被看作是伦理上的（例如，属于美德理论），而且应当被看作是法理上的（例如，影响到人权）。一个我没有挫败感就不能公开宣布的准则，一个要成功就要不惜一切代价保密的准则，一个我一旦公开宣布就会不可避免地引起抵触的准则，只会引发这种必然、普遍的对我的反对，因为它本身是非正义的，因此对每个人都构成威胁。除此之外，这纯粹是一个消极的测试，例如，它只是测试什么是不正确的一种手段。如同任何功利一样，它不证自明，此外，它也非常容易运用，这一点在下面关于公权利的例子中可以看到。

1．在一个国家的内部权利中，或许有一个许多人认为难以回答的问题，尽管运用公开性的先验原理能轻而易举地解决这个问题。表述如下，“一个民族用反叛来推翻所谓暴君的强权统治是不是一个正确的方法？”人民的权利被侵犯了，毫无疑问，如果暴君被罢黜的话，他就没有受到不公正的待遇。然而，如果臣民用这种方式寻求他们的权利，那就是大错特错了。如果他们在后来的冲突中被击败，继而不得不忍受最残酷的惩罚，那么他们就不能有一丝一毫对于不公正的抱怨。

如果我们试图用权利原则的教条推论解决这个问题，对于这种做法赞成和反对意见的争论能有很多种说法。但是权利问题公开性的先验原则能够绕开这种冗长的讨论。依据这一原则，在缔结公民契约之前，人们会问是否胆敢在特定场合下将反叛的意图公之于众。显而易见，如果针对一国的首脑最终使用暴力，这成为建立一个政治实体的条件的话，人民应当宣布有权统治其统治者。但是，如果是这样的话，统治者就不会是统治者了；或者作为建立国家的先决条件，双方都被授予权力，那么，国家自身的存在就成为不可能，这也是人民的愿望。如果反叛依据的准则众所周知，它会战胜自身的目的，不会成功。这一准则因此不得不保密。从这个事实看，反叛的非正义性因此显现。

但是，对于一国之主而言隐藏其意图是没有必要的。他或许会公开说将惩罚任何反叛行为，把元凶处死，尽管人们相信这一国之主自己才是第一个违反基本法的人。如果他意识到自己掌控着不可抗拒的最高权力（任何市民宪法都必须以此为前提，因为一名统治者如果没有足够的权力，无法保护他的每一个子民，令他们不受伤害，那么这位统治者也无权对人民发号施令），他不必担心如果其准则人人皆知，自己就无法达到目的。如果人民反叛成功，一国之主便成为臣民；但是如果他开始一轮新的反叛以夺回王位，那其行为是不正当的，他也不必害怕承担其在位时应承担的责任。

2．我们现在谈谈国际权利。我们只有在假设一些法律条件存在的基础上谈及国际权利，例如，赋予一个人某项权利是因为外部环境许可。作为公权利的一种形式，就定义而言，它预示着一种普遍的愿望，这种愿望公开地分给每一个个体，这是他应有的权利。这个法理状态一定来自某种契约，与一个国家如何起源不同，一个必须不能依据强制性的法律，但是在很大程度上呈现一种永久的、自由的联合状态，如同上面所提及不同国家的联盟。如果没有某种法定条件，积极地将各种各样物理上或者道德上的人联系在一起，权利惟一可能的形式是私密的。这里又一次牵扯到了政治与道德的冲突（后者以权利理论的形式出现）。在相关准则中，公开性的标准又一次得以轻松适用，条件是合约的单一目的是在缔约国之间及其有关他国之间维护和平，决不考虑军事占领。我们因此面对政治和道德的自相矛盾，以及与其相应的解决办法。

（a）如果这些国家中的一个国家向另一个国家承诺了什么，不管是提供协助、割让部分国土、提供救助或者是其他类似行为，当其自身利益处于危险之中时，是否可以不承担信守承诺的责任？它应当被看作是双面人：一方面，作为一国之君主，他不对国土内任何人负责；另一方面，仅仅作为最高政治官员，他又对国家负责。这样得出的结论是国家（或者是其统治者）可以免于承担责任。但是，如果一个国家的统治者想要让人知道这是他的行为准则，其他人会自然远离他，或者是团结其他国家以对抗他的主张。这证明，这样的政治体系，尽管极其狡诈，如果在公开的基础上运作会打败其自身的目的，因此上述的准则一定是错误的。

（b）如果一个邻国成长到一定规模而引起其他国家的不安，人们能假定说，因为它能够压迫其他国家了，所以它就会希望压迫其他国家吗？尽管还没有冒犯的行为发生，这是否给予了弱势一方积蓄准备进攻它的力量的权利？如果一个国家公诸天下，称其遵循这一准则，它一定只会更快地招致魔鬼的到来。因为强权者能够先于弱者行动，弱者或许可以联合，而这种联合，对于知道如何运用分而治之策略的国家而言，只是不堪一击的苇草。因此，这种政治利己的准则，倘若公之于众，就不会实现自己的目的，这就证明这个准则是不正义的。

（c）如果一个小国，就其地理位置而言，地处一个大国的领土之内，而这个大国需要这片领土为己所用，那么，这个大国吞并这个小国就是合理的吗？很容易看到，大国无论如何不能让人知道它遵循这样的准则。因为，一来那些小国会适时联合，二来其他大国会对此举争论不休，使这个计划一经公开就不可实行。这是不正义的表现。事实上，这是非常严重的不正义，因为，对象的弱小并不意味着对它采取的不正义行为就不严重。

3．至于世界公民的权利问题，我这里就悄悄略过了，因为与国际权利的准则相比，它的准则容易形成，也容易评定。国际权利的准则或许与公共性不匹配，我们因此能够得出一个好的判断：（就权利的理论而言）政治和道德并不一致。我们也应当有必要知道与国际权利相一致的准则是什么。我们不能简单地做出结论说所有公开的准则就是正义的，因为有决定权的人没有必要隐藏其准则。任何国际权利实现的前提是一个法制国家的存在，因为没有国家的存在就没有公权利。在国家之外存在的权利，例如，处于原始状态的权利，则仅仅是私权利。现在我们从以上论述已经看到，为减少战争而建立的国家联盟是惟一合法的安排，是能够与自由相一致的。政治与道德只有在一个联盟中才能相一致，因此，建立一个联盟是有必要的，并且应当给予优先地位，这点已经由权利原则说明了。所有政治精明的正确的基础就是以尽可能全面的形式建立这样一个联盟。因为没有这个目标，所有的推论都是不智慧且蒙着面纱的所谓的正义。这种虚伪的政治有其诡辩术，堪与虚伪狡诈的学者们相媲美。它包括思想上的保留，因此公共契约的形成是这样的：人们可以根据自己的需要诠释这些契约（例如，在事实的现状和权利的现状之间作出区别）。这也包括盖然论，例如，它试图把罪恶的企图栽赃给他国，或者是用他国获得统治地位的可能性作为破坏其他和平国家的合法理由。最后，它还有哲学之罪的原则，即如果一个大得多的国家在这个过程中获得了所谓的世界普遍利益的话，那么，霸占一个小国就可以被看作是一件可以原谅的小事。[16]

所有这些都与政治的复杂性及其与道德的关系相关，政治总是利用道德的分支以期达到目的。但是博爱和尊重人权这两个方面是义务。博爱仅仅是一个有条件的义务，而尊重人权则是无条件、绝对势在必行的。任何一个人，如果他希望体验正义行为的甜蜜感觉，就必须首先完全确信他没有侵犯人权。政治能轻易地向道德妥协，因为两者都要求人们放弃他们的权利而屈从统治者。但是当轮到讲道德时（例如，权利理论），道德要求政治应当积极地顺从它，而政治发现不被任何合约所限制更可取，从而倾向于不承认权利理论有任何实际价值，并且将所有责任减化为仅仅是善意的行为。这种政治体系的神秘花招能够轻易地被打败，如果哲学将其准则公之于众，它会允许哲学家公开他们自己的准则吗？

我现在呈现另一个先验的、积极的公权利原则。它可以表述如下：“所有要求公开的准则，如果想要实现自己的目的，就既能够与政治也能够与权利协调一致。”

如果他们只能通过公开才能达到目的，那么他们必须遵循公众的目标，即幸福。政治的特殊任务是与公众的目标相和谐。但是，倘若这个目标的实现仅仅是通过公开（例如，分解对所采纳的准则的不信任）就能达到，那么遭到质疑的准则也必须同公权利谐调一致，因为只有在这个权利范围内才能满足每个人的需要。然而，我必须等待另一个场合对这一原则进行进一步解释和讨论。我们已经看到，如果一个人抽掉与幸福相联系的所有条件，例如，法律的实质，而单单看到普遍的有法律状态的形式，那么这是一个先验的公式。

如果在现实中实现公权利是一项义务（通过一个不确定的渐进过程），如果也有坚实的基础希望我们将会成功，那么，永久和平终将取代迄今为止被错误地称作和平条约的想法将不再只是空想。相反，随着解决的办法被逐渐找到，这个任务也在不断地向完成迈进，因为我们可以希望达到同样程度的进步所需要的时间会越来越短。

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[14] 这些是理性的许可法。它允许一个公权利的国家持续存在，即使它受到了不公正的影响，直到导致一场彻底革命的一切条件成熟，或者是为一场和平方式的革命做好了准备。任何合法的体制，即使它仅仅是在小范围内属于合法的，也比什么都没有要好一些。不成熟的改革的命运即为无政府状态。因此，政治上的深谋远虑，正如目前情况所表明的，就是将进行适合公权利理想的改革作为一项任务。但是，当革命是被自然本身所引发的时候，就不能将革命当作进行更大压迫的理由，而应当将其看作是自然的召唤，召唤建立一个基于自由原则之上的合法体制，因为这样一个彻底的改革才是惟一能够持续下去的。

[15] 人们或许会怀疑是否植根于人性中的与生俱来的邪恶影响了共同生活在一个国度的人们，因为一个人或许会引证他们尚未发展的文化（例如，他们的野蛮性）作为其想法的不合法因素的成因。但是，在国家间的外部关系中，这种邪恶是相当不加掩饰、无可辩驳地明显存在的。在每一个国家中，这种邪恶被体现在国内法中的高压政治所掩盖，因为公民间彼此动武的倾向被更加强大的力量——政府所抵消。这不仅仅使整体蒙上了一层道德的遮羞布，而且也终结了无法无天倾向的爆发。它使得人们的道德能力发展为一种对权利的即时尊重变得容易了很多；因为每一个人都相信他能够保持权利概念的神圣并且忠诚地遵守它，但愿他能确定所有其他的人会做同样的事，并且政府又部分地能为他做出保障。这就向道德准则迈了一大步，向一个义务的概念得到承认的国家迈了一大步，不管能否有可能的收获作为回报。但是，由于每个个人，尽管自认为很好，却假设其他人不忠诚，人们因此彼此评价，结果是他们自己都没有多少价值，尽管为什么是这样的讨论没有意义，我们不能责怪人类作为一个自由生物的天性。对于权利概念的尊重，以及人类绝对没有能力拒绝权利概念的现实给以下理论一个最庄严的认可，即每个人都明白他自己必须遵循权利原则，不管其他人会如何表现。

[16] 人们能在加尔费1788年的专著《关于道德与政治的结合》一书中找到类似准则的例证。这位值得尊敬的学者承认，从一开始他就无法针对这个问题给出一个令人满意的答案。但是宽恕如此的程序，同时承认一个人不能完全回答针对他们提出的反对意见的做法似乎对那些注定要滥用它的人是一个很大的让步，这种做法对任何人来说都是不可取的。

回答“人类是否在持续地改进”问题的新尝试

1　我们在寻求什么样的知识？

我们所寻求的是人类历史的一部分。然而，它不是一部过去的历史，而是一部未来的历史，即一部预见性的历史。但是，如果它不是可知的自然法则（如同可预知的自然法则，如日食和月食一样），只能通过超自然的发现才能获得。它必须是可占卜或先知的历史。[1]除此之外，我们这里不考虑人类的自然史（我们应当问，是否有新的种族会在未来的时间里出现），而是人类的文明史。我们不是研究具体的人类的概念，而是整个的人类，以种族分布，以尘世的社团相聚。所有这些都表明，我们在问人类作为一个整体是否正不断地进步。

2　我们如何能获得这样的知识？

我们能够通过描述这些事件获得对于事物预示性、历史性的描述。这些事件的推论预示它们实际上会发生。但是怎么才能先验地有一个历史推论呢？答案是如果先知本身导致和产生了他所预示的事件，这是可能的。

犹太先知预测他们的国家迟早会面临衰退和完全的解体。他们是自身命运的建造者。作为人民的领袖，他们将如此繁重的负担载入宪法，以至于他们的国家就其自身权利而言变得不适合生存，特别是在与其邻国的关系中。因此，祭祀的哀歌自然没有人听，因为这些雷同的牧师固执地坚持他们自己在宪法中创造的信条，以便他们自己能够万无一失地、确定地预知结果。

我们的政治家的表现完全一样。随着他们影响力的扩大，他们在其教区越来越成功。人们必须接受他们的现状。他们告诉我们，事实并不像世界上消息闭塞的学究或者是好性情的幻想家想象的那样。但是，他们应当被解读为我们用不公平的胁迫、用政府所擅长的奸诈的诡计使他们变成了现在的样子。他们不妥协并且倾向于造反，如果约束稍稍松弛一些的话，就会有令人遗憾的结果发生。这样，聪明的预言家的使命就完成了。

各种各样的占卜也不时地预示着宗教的完全衰退、反基督者的立刻出现，他们做着最精确地测算到的事情为的是创造自己所描述的事态。因为他们并不关心教区的道德准则，而道德准则是能够直接引发进步的。取而代之的是，他们把历史信仰作为中心任务，假设这些会间接地产生同样的结果。尽管他们或许引致机械的遵从，但是他们不能制造道德观念的一致。因此，这些牧师们开始抱怨他们自己制造的对宗教的漠视。这是他们不需要预言的特殊天赋就能够预料到的。

3　我们希望了解的未来概念的划分

我们的预言可能有三种形式：与其他的生物种类相联系，在其当前的道德水准上（即如同不停地围绕一个固定点旋转），人类或者是不断地倒退和衰退，或者是不断地进步和改进，或者处于一种永久的静止状态。

第一种情况可以定为道德恐怖主义。第二种情况是快乐说（如果人类进步的目标已经远观可见的话，这种情况可以定为千年至福说）。

第三种情况可以被称作阿布德里主义。因为后一种情况，由于普遍的静止在道德事物中是不可能的，在无休止的流动中并不能产生更多的效果，如果其主体在一个地方保持静止不动的话。

a．人类历史的恐怖主义概念

人类退化的过程不可能无限期地继续，因为人类在达到一定的节点后会就会灭亡。结果是当滔天罪行不断地积累又积累，由此产生的恶持续增加时，我们说，“不能变得更糟了”。这时候，似乎审判的日子就到了。虔诚的狂热者已经梦想着一切的重生。当前一个世界被一把火烧掉之时，一个崭新的世界就此诞生。

b．人类历史的快乐概念

我们或许很容易同意这样的观点，善和恶的总量能够保持不变，在任何一个个体中也不会增加亦不会减少。一个人善的品质如何增加？这只能通过其自身的作用，在他能够这样做之前，他首先需要储存更多的善才行。毕竟，没有任何效应能超出其生效因素的制约。人的善必须因此保持在一定水平之下，与其相混合的恶的水平相协调，以便人类不能超越一个限度而做进一步的改进。因此，快乐说，怀揣着快乐的希望，看上去不堪一击。它的人类不断进步和改进的想法对于人类可预见的历史似乎没有什么用处。

c．人类阿布德里主义的假设作为未来历史的定义

这一观点可能有众多的拥护者。沿着“善”的道路快速前行却又不能坚持走下去，相反，他们会修订进步的计划，不惜一切代价避免被一个单一的目标所束缚（甚至仅仅出于渴望变化）。建设为的是破坏。担负起从山下滚石上山的任务，仅仅是为了让石头再滚下来。这就是我们种族的因勤奋导致的愚蠢行为。综上所述，人类自然特征中恶与善的融合是彼此中和的过程，结果是单调乏味的（或者是静止，如同下面要谈到的）。这种前进和后退的空洞运动，伴随着罪与善的不断交替，意味着我们地球上的成员们的互动应当仅仅被看作是一场闹剧。以理性的眼光看，这并不能带给人类更高的价值，其他动物种类的互动代价更小，并且是无意识的。

4　进步的问题不能直接由经验解决

尽管人们发现，人类作为一个整体在一个不确定的长时间内前进和进步，就我们种族的身体特点而言，没有人能够保证其衰退的时代在特殊时刻没有开始。与此相反，如果它加速地衰退，那么我们就没有理由放弃希望，希望我们正要达到一个转折点，凭借我们种族的道德特点，我们的事情将向好的方向转变。我们与自由行动的生物打交道，他们能够事先预测应该做什么，但是不能预测他们实际上将会做什么，谁有能力做，如果事情变坏了，他们通过自身的行动经历了罪恶，他们认为这些罪恶是改进的强大动力。正如埃贝·阔亚所说，“可怜的人类！你们中间没有什么是永恒的，只有反复无常”。

或许因为我们已经选择了错误的观点来思考人类事物的过程，后者对我们来说如此的荒唐。从地球上看，星球有时候向前运动，有时候向后运动，有时保持静止不动。但是从太阳上看，从理性的角度考虑，它们如同哥白尼猜想所说持续地沿着惯常的轨道运行。然而，有些并不缺乏智慧的思想家喜欢坚持自己对事物的解释，坚持他们最初的观点，甚至甘愿冒着将自身陷入地谷圆和周转圆的荒唐境地。然而，这是我们的不幸，我们在试图预测自由运动时不能采取一种极端的观点。在所有人类智慧之上是上帝的旨意，其效力甚至扩展到使人类的行动获得自由。尽管人们或许能看到后者，却不能准确地预测未来（在神的眼中这一差别不存在），因为在其预测任何事情之前，在需要获得被自然法则掌控的一个关联时，在处理未来的自由行动时，必须在没有暗示和指导的情况下进行。

如果有可能给人类有限的、天生的、不变的善，我们当然能够预测人类的普遍进步，因为这包含着人类自己能控制的事。但是，如果人类的自然属性中就有不明比例的善与恶，便没有人能够知道自身的行动会带来什么后果。

5　人类的预言史必须始于某种经验

在人类事务中，必然存在着一些经验或者其他的东西。一个实际发生的事件或许显示人类具有自我改善的素质和力量（因为其行动应当有自由）。但是，只有当帮助这一事件产生的情形出现时，这一事件才能被预测为一个现存原因的结果。总的来说，这些情形一定在某一时间会出现（如同计算游戏机会的可能性），这是可以预料的，但是不可能确定此事是否在我的人生中出现，我是否会经历此事，因此就不能够证实原始的判断。

我们因此必须寻找一个事件，它能显示这样一个原因的存在。这个原因在人类中漫不经心地活跃着，也不管何时会发生作用。它或许会使我们得出这样的结论；作为其活动的一个不可避免的结果，人类正在作出改进。这个推论能扩展到以前的历史，以便展示人类一直是在进步；用这种方式，被选作一个事例的这一事件本身不会被看作是过去进步的原因，只会被看作是历史的印记。它或许用来证实人类这一整体存在的趋势，不是一系列的个体（因为这样会导致没完没了的列举和计算），而是散布在地球上的国家和种族群体。

6　发生在我们时代的能证实人类道德倾向的事件

讨论的事件不包括任何这些人类的重大行为或过错。这些行为或过错以前很大，在他们的眼中微不足道；甚或是以前很小但在他们的眼中变得很重大。这些事件导致古老的、显赫一时的国家像中了魔咒一般消失了，而其他的国家则从地球深处崛起取代了它们的地位。不，与这些毫无关系。我们这里考虑的仅仅是在重大政治事件发生时旁观者在公众场合的态度。因为他们公开地对事件参与者的一方表示无私的同情，甚至冒着他们的偏心会给自身带来很大不利的风险。他们的反应表明人类作为一个整体分享着一些共同特征，它同时表明，（因为它的无私性）人类拥有其道德特征，或者至少是在制造道德特征。这不仅仅允许我们期盼人类的进步，其本身就是一种进步，其影响力对当前也是很大的。

我们看到的发生在我们这个时代的由智慧的人民所组成的民族正发起的革命，它可能成功，也可能失败。革命可能充满了悲惨和残暴以至于一个思维正常的人不敢付出如此代价做同样的尝试，即使他期望做第二次的尝试时会获得成功。

但是我认为，这种革命在所有没有赶上它的观众心中燃起渴望，引起没有参加者的同情，尽管表达这种同情的口号充满着危险。因此，除了人类的道德性情之外，不可能有其他什么能够引起这种同情心了。

这里起作用的道德原因由两个因素构成。首先，每个人都有权给自己建立一个自己认为合适的公民体制，不受其他力量的影响。其次，人们能够拥有的、惟一本质上正确的、道德上良好的体制的出现是为了避免侵略战争（例如，惟一可能的宪法是共和制宪法，至少就其概念而言）。[2]服从于这些条款并由此杜绝战争这一造成灾难和道德腐化的源头，就不仅是一个目标，而且也是一项义务了。倘若这一目的得到承认，人类，由于其脆弱性，就有了一个被动的保障。它将逐渐地改进，或者至少它不会在进步的过程中受到干扰。

所有这些，连同人们拥抱美德的激情与热情，（尽管不能为激情鼓掌，因为所有如此的激情是该受到指责的），给下面的主张以历史性的支持。这一主张具有人类学的意义。真正的热情总是单纯指向理想，特别是指向纯道德（例如，权利的概念），它不会掺杂着自私的利益。金钱上的奖赏不能激励革命志士的激情和灵魂的强大，而权利的概念本身就可以激励他们，甚至旧的军事贵族的荣誉概念在革命军面前也不值一提。他们[3]属于人民，将全部热情倾注在人民的权利上，并自视为人民的保护者。因此，身处局外的旁观者对他们的兴奋报以同情，但没有丝毫的意图积极参与他们的事务。

7　人类的预言史

在这些原则中，一定存在着某种道德的东西，理性认为它不仅纯粹而且（因为其伟大而划时代的影响）人类的灵魂将之视为一种责任。再有，它视人类为一个完完全全的男人的联盟（不是个体，而是人类作为一个整体），因为他们为普遍、无私的同情必将获得成功而欢欣鼓舞，并不遗余力地促使其成功。

然而，正谈及的这个事不是革命的现象，而是（正如埃尔哈特所说）被自然权利所规定的宪法的演变。这样的一部宪法不能通过激烈的斗争获得，因为内外战争将会毁灭迄今为止一切的法定秩序；但是，它会引领我们为了一个不好战的宪法而奋斗，例如，一个共和宪法。人们所渴望的国家的实际形式可能是共和制，或者它可能只是在治理模式上是共和制的。而国家可能被一个单一的统治者（君主）依法统治，依据一个民族根据普遍的权利原则制定的法律执政。

即使没有预言家的头脑，我现在也坚持认为自己能够通过我们这个时代的方方面面和种种迹象预测人类将会达到这个目的，它将一步步地进步而不会退步。发生在人类历史上的这种现象是不会被忘记的，因为它显示了人性中一种改进的天赋和力量。这种改进是没有哪一个政治家能够通过研究过去的事件想出来的。只有天性和自由，结合权利的原则才能够使我们预测这些。但是事件发生的确切时间必须是不确定的，要看机会。

但是，即使我们所描述事件的预想目的不能在目前情况下实现，或者一个民族的革命或宪法性改革最终失败了，或者如果宪法性改革持续了一段时间，一切将回复其原来的状态（正如政治家现在所预言的那样），我们自身的哲学预言将不会失去其力量。因为发生的事件太重大了，与人类的利益又紧密相连，其广泛影响遍及世界的各个国家，当适宜条件允许的情况下，各个民族都会尝试做同样的事情。由于它是人类一个如此重大的关切，所设想的宪法必定在某个时刻最终达到稳定的程度，不断重复的经验将会植入每个人的心田。

因此，人类总是在进步并将继续以同样方式发展这一命题，这不仅仅是一个为了实际目的而推出的美好说法。无论不信服者说些什么，它都能在最严格的理论论证中站得住脚。如果一个人不仅考虑可能发生在一个特定国家的事件，而且考虑该事件给地球上可能逐渐参与其中的所有民族带来的影响，那么，一幅远景图就向着无边的未来展开了。当然，这不会是真的。如果自然改变的第一个时代在人类出现之前（根据卡姆帕与布鲁门巴赫所说的）淹没了动物和植物王国的话，那么，随之而来的第二个时代给予人类同样的待遇，以便其他生物可能占领这个舞台，诸如此类。对于全能的自然或者不如说与其难以理解的最高原因相比，人是微不足道的。但是，如果人类的统治者视人为微不足道，并且这样对待他，要么像对待牲畜一样对待他，或者是将其用作达到自己目的的工具，或者是为他设下圈套让他在争斗中厮杀，残害他的同胞，这就不仅仅是一件小事，而是对创造天地的终极目的背叛。

8　针对世界不断进步的准则公开性方面的困难

普遍的启蒙是对于公众就其所属国家的权利和义务的公开指导。由于这只涉及自然权利，以及能够从公众意识中产生的权利，权利的倡导者和诠释者不是国家指定的官员，而是权利教师，例如，哲学家。后者（权利教师），鉴于他们给予自己的充分自由，是国家的绊脚石。其惟一的愿望是统治，他们因此被授予了启蒙者的称号，被看作是对国家的威胁。然而，他们并不用熟稔的口吻对人民（人民对他们及其作品并不太注意），但是用尊敬的口吻对国家，请求国家把人民的合理需求放在心上。如果一个民族希望诉说自己的疾苦，这样做的惟一办法就是公开性。因此，在关于自然权利的诉求问题上，哪怕仅仅涉及它最低限度的要求，禁止公开将阻碍一个民族的进步。

被某个民族的合法措施所隐瞒的另一件事（这是足够明显的）是宪法的真正属性。对大不列颠的人民说他们生活在绝对君主制下是对其尊严的一种冒犯。据说，其宪法通过两院限制君王的意愿。两院代表的是人民的利益。然而，每个人都清楚地知道君王对这些代表的影响如此之大、如此之万无一失，以至于前面提到的两院根本不做决定，除了殿下所希望和通过大臣们推荐的决定除外。后者不时地推出决定，知道并且确实确认其决定涉及矛盾问题（例如奴隶买卖的废除），仅仅为了证明议会的虚假自由。但是，这种方法暗藏着不鼓励人民寻求真正的、正确的宪法的效果，因为他们以为已经从发生在面前的事例中发现了宪法。因此，一个虚假形式的公开性用君主制是受到法律限制[4]的假象欺骗人们，与此同时那些用贿赂赢得的代表秘密地将他们置于一个君主的统治之下。

所有形式的国家都是基于宪法思想建立的。宪法的思想与人的自然权利相一致，因此，那些遵守法律的人也应当与立法者步调一致。如果我们从纯粹理性的角度思考共同体，它可能被称作是不切合实际的理想。这个不切合实际的理想是想象的、空洞的、虚构的事物，是所有市民宪法的外在现象，是停止所有战争的一种手段。建立在此种思想之上并用自由的法律治理的公民社会是实践的一个范例。它只会通过一个费力的过程，并且经过无数次的战争和冲突才会实现。宪法，一旦作为一个整体获得通过，是最有权威阻止战争的，也是所有美好事物的摧毁者。因此，缔造这样一部宪法是我们的责任。与此同时，创立宪法将是一个相当长的过程。君王有责任采取共和的方式治理国家，尽管他们或许会采取独裁统治。换句话说，他们应当依据自由法律的精神对待人民，一个成熟理智的民族会给自己开这样的处方，尽管这些法律在表面上并未征得人民的同意。

9　人类从不断的改进中得到什么益处？

随着人类的前行，其积蓄的好处利益并不是不断增长的道德能量。其态度的合法性将产生不断增长的基于责任的行动，不管这些行动背后的动机是什么。换言之，益处将源自人们更多、更成功的善行，例如，从人们道德特性的外在现象看。因为我们只有依赖经验数据（我们的经验），而我们的推测依据的是经验数据。也就是说，我们推测的依据是行动的物质上的起因，而不是包含什么应该发生的责任概念的道德动机。道德动机能够由纯粹的推断性思维的过程所决定。

当权者会越来越少地使用暴力，而越来越多地遵从法律。毫无疑问，一个共同体内部在司法行动中会有更多的仁慈，更少的争吵，更多的对信守承诺的信任等等，部分原因是对荣誉的热爱，部分原因是对一个人长处的深刻认识。这最终会延伸到不同人之间的外部关系上，直至一个世界公民社会的建立。然而，这样的进步并不意味着人类道德能力有丝毫的增加，因为这会要求一种新的创造或者超自然的影响。我们不应该对人类不断改进的过程期望太高。我们应当鄙视那些把人民希望进步的愿望看成是头脑过热的政治家。[5]

10　对于进步遵从的顺序，我们期待的是什么？

答案是：不是通常的从下而上，而是从上而下的顺序。

期待在知识和道德文化中教育年轻人，并佐之以宗教教义，先通过家庭指导，然后是由低级到高级的一系列的学校教育，最终不仅把他们变成了合格公民，而且使他们成长为能够不断持续行善的人，这样的计划极少能获得期望的成功。一方面，人们相信教育孩子的费用不应当由他们出，而应当由国家担负。另一方面，国家（正如比兴哀叹的）又没有钱支付给合格的老师，使他们满怀激情地履行职责，因为国家需要把全部的钱用于战争。除此之外，上面所述教育的整个体制将会崩溃，除非它是依据深思熟虑的计划和国家最高权力的意图所设计，然后不断维持统一的行动。这就意味着国家也要不时改革自己，寻求改革而不是革命，这样才能不断地进步。但是那些掌管教育者也是人，他们自己也应接受过良好的教育。从人性的脆弱和能够强化其效果的角度看，我们能够期望人类对于进步的希望只有在一个更高智慧的积极条件下才能够实现（我们是看不见的，这叫天佑）。在人类能够完成的一切事务的范围内，或者说可以期待的任何事情，只能通过他们被动的智慧达到目的。在后一种情况下，他们发现他们被迫确保战争的发生，这是道德的最大障碍，进步的始终不变的敌人，首先渐渐变得更加慈善，然后更加不频繁，最后作为侵略的模式而完全消失。他们将进入基于权利基本原则的宪法时代，其特征即为不需要伪装其力量而又有能力不断进步和改进。

结论

一个医生天天都安慰病人，希望他们尽快康复，告诉这个病人的脉搏好多了，那个病人的粪便或者是分泌物有了很大改善等等。这个医生的一个朋友有一天来访，医生的第一个问题是“你怎么样？我的朋友！你的病怎么样了？”他的朋友回答：“你觉着呢，单单是康复就整得我半死了！”

如果政治上的灾难使得他开始对人类的福利和进步失望，我不会指责他。但是，我对休谟提到的药物抱有信心，因为它应当能够加速病人的痊愈。他说：“当我现在看到卷入战争的各个民族时，就仿佛目睹了两个醉汉在一家瓷器店相互攻击。因为不仅仅是他们彼此造成的伤害需要很长时间康复，他们还必须赔偿造成的所有损失（弗里吉亚人学习智慧太晚了）。”但是当前战争的痛楚将迫使政治预言家们承认，人类必须很快转向更好的方向，而这个转机已经在眼前。

————————————————————

[1] 那些，从女巫到吉卜赛人，既没有知识又不诚实的预言人被称作假先知。

[2] 然而，这并不意味着一个有着君主宪法的民族因此能要求推翻它，或者是有一个秘密的愿望这样做。在欧洲占据一片延伸的领土的民族或许会感觉到君主制是惟一的一种体制能够在强大的邻国中保持自身的存在。如果臣民们抱怨，不是因为他们的内部政府，而是因为他们的政府对待外国公民的表现（例如，如果该国不鼓励国外的共和主义），这并不能证明人民对他们自己的体制不满意，而是他们非常地依赖这个体制，因为随着越来越多的民族成为共和国，该国逐渐变得更安全。然而，致力于扩大自身重要性的造谣的献媚者们试图把这些无害的政治谣言说成是革新主义、雅各宾主义和阴谋，对构成国家的危胁。但是，这种指控是没有丝毫道理的，特别是对一个远离革命中心一百英里的地方国家就更没有道理了。

[3] 对于主张人的权利如此有热情，为什么没有统治者胆敢公开表明他不承认任何人民反对他的权利？或者说人民只把幸福寄托在政府的善行上，而任何臣民标榜自己有权利反对政府都是谎谬的、甚至会遭受惩罚，因为他们表明对于政府的抵抗是可以得到允许的。原因是任何公开的声明都会唤起民众对于统治者的反抗，即使他们像驯服的绵羊，喂得好，保护得好，并且由一个善良而善解人意的主人领着，不必因为缺乏福利而抱怨。赋予了自由的生物不会仅仅满足于享受存在的舒适，这一点别人也会很好地提供（这里是由政府提供）。这完全依赖于控制这种舒适的原则。但是，福利没有任何统治原则，提供者和接受者也没有这样的原则，因为每个个体对此的定义不同。事实上，它依赖于这个愿望的物质方面，完全是经验性的，因此不可能成为一个宇宙法则。赋予了自由的一个生物，意识到其较之非理性动物所拥有的有利条件，能够并且必须遵循其意愿中正规的原则，要求他的人民不能缺乏政府。在政府中，人民是共同的立法者。换句话说，人要遵循的权利必须排在他们的康乐之上，因为人权是一项神圣的制度，超过所有功利主义的价值。不管政府如何乐善好施，它都不能背离人权。然而，这些权利总是一个理念。这个理念实现的条件是所采用的方法与道德相一致。这个限制条件必须不被人们所践踏，即通过革命实现他们的权利，这在任何时候都是不公平的。使一个民族遵守其体制的最好办法是自主地统治，同时用共和的形式管理，例如，用共和主义的精神统治，并以此类推。

[4] 一项其特性无法直接预测的事业可以通过伴随它的效果来发现。什么是纯粹的君主？他是说战争将要爆发战争就会爆发的那个人。与此相反，什么样的君主是受限制的？他必须先询问人民是否应该有战争，如果人民说不应该有战争，那就不会有战争。在战争条件下，所有的国家权利都必须由国家元首处理。

现在，大不列颠的君主在没有征得人民同意的情况下发动了无数的战争。这个国王因此是一个不折不扣的君主，尽管根据宪法他不应当这么做。但是，他总是会忽视宪法，因为他总是确信只要控制着国家不同的力量，人民的代表们就会与他保持一致，因为他有权力嘉奖所有的权贵。这个腐朽的制度要想继续维持就自然不能曝光；它因此笼罩着一层神秘的面纱。

[5] 人们都一致认为应当设计符合理智要求的政治体制（特别是在权利的问题上）。但是把它们严肃地提出是鲁莽的行为，而煽动人民抛弃现有的体制是要受到惩罚的。

柏拉图的《亚特兰蒂斯》、莫尔的《乌托邦》、哈林顿的《大洋国》、阿莱的《塞维亚姆比亚》相继问世，但是他们从没有在实践中检验过（克伦威尔试图建立专制共和国的失败尝试是个例外）。这些政治创造跟创造世界是一样的。没有人亲眼看到，也不可能有人亲眼看到，否则他就成为自身的创造者了。无论时光如何变化，在我们脑海中的这种政治产品某一天会变得完美仅仅是一个愉快的梦想。但是，我们会不断地接近这样的一种状态，只要它能与道德法取得一致，这就不仅仅是想象，这也是一国之君（不是公民）的责任。

关于人类历史开端的猜想

为了填补历史纪录的空白，在进行历史纪录的过程中，在各种各样的切入点引入猜想当然是允许的。因为这些空白之前和之后有什么，例如，较为遥远的原因和相对的后果，能够使我们有合理的自信发现其过程中的原因，因此，进行使人理解的干涉。但是，仅仅依靠猜想完成一个历史性的描述比为一部小说草拟出一个计划也强不了多少。的确，这样一种历史记述不能被看作是猜想的历史，仅仅只能被看作是虚构的作品。然而，在涉及那段历史的起点时，自以为是地介绍人类行动的历史也是允许的，因为如果开始是一个自然的产品，它或许可以用猜想的方法获得发现。换言之，这可以不通过创造，而可以从经验中推断，假设历史之初所经历的与现在所经历的相差无几，也没有什么可冒失的。人性中关于自由的最初的发展历史与其后来的发展历史确有不同，因此，必须只依据历史纪录。

然而，猜想不应当提出不恰当的要求，要求我们对其表示赞同。正相反，他们不应当将猜想看作严肃的活动示人，而应当仅仅作为一种练习。这种以理性作支撑的想象或许是一种健康的脑力活动。结果是，这些猜想不能与那些历史描述相提并论。历史描述是对同一事件的记录，这些经过事物检验的记录与出自自然哲学的东西大相径庭。由于这个原因，又由于我要踏上的旅程仅仅是一场愉快之旅，我或许会希望获得一个神圣的文件作为我的地图，同时预测这个插上了想象翅膀的旅程。尽管没有理智的经验的指引，我也将准确地遵循与神圣的历史记录相同的轨迹。读者将把这个文件放在面前，可能会每一步都参照它，看看哲学家在概念的帮助下遵循的路径是否与《圣经》故事所描述的一致。

如果我们不沉湎于漫无边际的猜想，我们必须从人类理智难以推断出的自然原因入手，即人类的存在入手。这些人类也必须完完全全是成熟的，因为他们没有母亲的养育。他们必须是一对夫妻，这样他们才能够繁衍后代。除此之外，必须是只有一对夫妻，以免这些人是陌生人但彼此接近时发生战争，以免大自然被指责已经遭遇失败，因为它允许来自祖先的后代采取最适当的方法促进社会性，这是人类使命的最终目的。毫无疑问，出自同一个家庭的所有人类的共同后代才是达到这一目的的最好办法。然后，我把这对夫妻放在一个免受野生动物袭击，而大自然提供了一切生存的条件的地方，比如，一个气候温和的花园中。还有，我想象他们并没有处在最原始的状态，而是处在有技巧地使用其自身力量的相当的进化阶段。如果我试图填补这个有相当长时间的鸿沟的话，读者或许会发现太多的推测、太少的可能性。第一人类可以站立和行走。他可以说话，[1]的确能说话，例如，在有条理的概念的帮助下说话，最终思考。这些都是他必须为自己着想要获得的技能（如果技能是特有的，也是能继承的，这与经验不一样）。我假设他已经拥有了这些技能，因为我希望仅仅从道德的角度考虑人类行为的发展。这有必要假设他们已经拥有了这些技能。

最初，新来者必须完全依靠本能的指引，即所有动物都听从上帝的命令：允许其享用某些东西，例如食物，但是同时禁止他使用其他的东西（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，2-3）。然而，这也没有必要假定某种特别的本能已经失去。它可能只是嗅觉和味觉器官，还有存在于后者和消化器官之间的某种通感。换句话说，是一种时至今日仍明显存在的能力，即事先能够意识到一种食物是否适合食用的能力。我们甚至不用假定这种感知在第一对夫妻身上比现在的人更敏锐，因为众所周知，只运用感知的人的感知能力与那些还进行思考的人差别巨大，后者对自身的感知较少注意。

只要缺乏经验的人遵循自然的召唤，他就是幸福的。但是，理性很快会让人感到它的存在，并且寻求超越本能的界限扩大食物的知识。它通过比较平时饮食和不同于本能的、在属性上却相似的官能，例如视觉感受（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，6），做到了这一点。即使本能没有建议做这些，这个实验也有成功的可能，只要本能没有与之背道而驰。但是，正是理性的特性使得理性在想象力的帮助下能够产生欲望，这欲望不仅缺乏相应的自然的推动力，而且与后者不一致。这种欲望，被认为是淫荡，渐渐地造成一整套多余的、甚至是不自然的淫荡倾向。最初想摒弃这种自然冲动的倾向或许很微弱。但是第一次实验的结果是具有重大意义的，人类开始意识到其理性的存在，这种天赋可以超越所有动物所受的限制。这对人类的生活方式起着决定性的作用。这或许只是一种果子，因为它与他之前品尝到的那些果子看上去相似，这鼓励着他去尝试。或许还有一个动物的例子，尽管某种食物对人类有相反或是有害的影响，这种食物对这种动物有着天然的对抗。然而，这给了理性最初的诱导，让它与自然的命令相对抗（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，1），尽管这遭到自然的反对，但是自由地选择做尝试，又因为尝试是第一次，或许并不能获得期望的结果。不管伤害多么微小，它已足够让人们的眼界大开（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，7）。他发现了自身选择生活道路的一种能力，不必像其他动物一样被某种生存方式所束缚。但是，实现这种优势的短暂快感瞬间被他应当如何运用新发现的能力所引起的焦虑和恐惧所替代，因为他不知道这隐藏的财富或者其长远的影响是什么。跟以前一样，他站在了一个悬崖的边缘。本能指引他得到所渴望得到的每个物体，现在众多的物体展现在面前，他还不知道如何在它们中间做出选择。现在既然他已经尝到了自由的滋味，再让他回到本能支配的状态已经不可能了。

大自然给予每个个体的本能除了对食物的本能以外还有性的本能。大自然通过性的本能确保每种生物的生存。一旦理性觉醒，它在这一领域的影响也会被感受到。男人们很快发现性的驱动力对动物来说仅仅是阶段性的，而对他们来说不仅可以延长，甚至可以由于想象力的作用而变得更为兴奋。尽管想象力的对象离感觉越远，它发挥的作用就越小，但是它更加频繁地起作用，从而避免纯粹的动物欲望得到满足之后所产生的厌倦感。无花果树叶与其说是发展的第一个阶段的佐证，不如说是更加强大的理性的产物。因为将物体撤离感官以制造一种更加紧密和长久的趋势本身已经显示了对于冲动的某种理性的控制，这不像在理性第一阶段那样仅仅是一种能力，多多少少地听从冲动的摆布。拒绝是一种办法。它是理想主义的助推器：它展现了从纯粹的动物欲望发展成爱情的过程，也展现了从单纯是惬意的感觉到对美的欣赏（最初只限于对人本身的美的欣赏，后来也包括欣赏大自然的美）。进一步来说，人类作为一个有道德的生物发展的第一个动力是他的彬彬有礼，他通过礼仪赢得其他人的尊重（例如，藏起一切可能引起蔑视的举动），也作为所有社交的适宜的基础。像这样一个小小的开端，对于开启思想的新方向具有划时代意义的效果，这比随后的、一系列的文化发展更为重要。

理性在介入人基本的、立即感受到的需求之后，它所采取的第三个步骤是反映在对未来的预测上。这一能力不仅仅是享受现在的生活，而且是看到未来——常常是不久的将来。这是人类优势最具决定性的证据。因为具有了这种预见性，人类能够为长远的目标做好准备。但是由于这同样的能力，当它预见到不确定性时，会产生最无穷无尽的担心和焦虑。这一点所有其他动物都不必承受（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，13-19）。那些需要供养自己、妻子、和未来的孩子的男人们预料到了他们工作的负担。女人们预料到了大自然给她们的性别添加上的辛苦（生养孩子），还有更有权势的丈夫们要其承受的困苦。男女两性都理解并预料到了，在辛劳工作一生的尽头，在这幅图画的背景中，所有动物都需要面临却并不被关注的命运，即死亡。他们仿佛谴责自己，把用理智给自己带来的所有病痛看作是一种罪过。或许他们惟一的安慰和保证是在后代身上延续。他们后代的命运或许好于他们，或许作为一个家庭的成员，能够消除父母们的痛苦（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，16-20）。

理智走的第四步也是最后一步，是把人类提升到了高于动物世界的境地，即理性意识到人是大自然真正的目的，地球上没有谁能够在这一点上与其抗衡。当他第一次对着羊群说“你身上的羊毛是大自然给你的，但不是给你用的，而是给我的”，然后他剥下羊皮穿在自己身上（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，21）。他意识到凭借人性他比所有的动物都享有优先权。他现在不再把这些动物看成是同胞了，而把它们看作是他达到目的的手段和工具。这一动向表明，对如下区别的认识，即人不能像对待动物一样对待其他的人，而应当把他们看作能够平分大自然礼物的人。这就做了一个铺垫，为理性在对待同胞时强加在人类意愿中的种种限制做个铺垫。这种铺垫对建立一个社会更重要，比爱情和天生的倾向更重要。

因此，人类与所有理性的生物享有平等的地位，不管他们处于什么等级，因为他可以宣称自己就是目的，也让别人接受他，不被其他生物用作达到其目的的工具。这不能仅仅被看作是满足种种倾向的一个手段，是人与更高级生物无条件平等的基础。因为即使更高级生物在天赋上无可比拟地比他优越，他们也没有权利随心所欲地利用他。结果是，这个理智的第四步就是人类从自然的子宫中释放出来。这种地位上的改变毫无疑问地带给他荣耀，与此同时也带来了危险。因为这种改变把他从无害的、安全的童年的保护花园中赶出来扔到了广阔的世界上。这个花园不需要他做什么而给他提供了一切，而在这个世界上则有那么多的忧虑、劳作和未知的魔鬼在静候着他。在未来，生活的艰辛将唤起他对伊甸园的向往，在那里他可以在安静和永久和平的环境中做梦或者虚度光阴。但是，焦躁不安的理性无法抗拒地驱使他发展天生的能力，它站在他和想象中天赐的福祉中间，不让他回到粗野的简单的状态中去（《创世纪》，Ⅲ，24）。理性要求他耐心听命于他所厌恶的劳作，完成他所鄙视的琐事，甚至忘记对死亡的恐惧进而喜欢所有那些琐事，并害怕失去它们。

注解

从对人类最早的历史记述中可以得出如下的结论：人类从伊甸园——这个人类理性的第一个家园——中出现是人类从粗鲁、纯粹的动物状态过渡到人类的状态，从本能主导的状态到理性主导的状态，一言以蔽之，从自然庇护的状态到自由的状态。当我们考虑人类的目的地时，他通过这样的变化使有所失还是有所得不再是一个问题，而是相当简单地通向完美的进步过程。不管他的第一次尝试有多少缺点，即使他们被允许作一系列进一步的尝试，当这一事业代表的是整个种群由坏到好的进程，而就个体而言，情况却不是这样。在理性觉醒之前，没有禁忌和戒条，因此，触犯禁忌也是不可能的。但是，当理性不顾其自身的弱小开始起作用，不遗余力地与兽性发生激烈冲突之时，罪恶可能因而产生。更为糟糕的是，随着理性的增长，灾难出现了；这些灾难与幼稚天真的状态完全不同。因此，从道德的角度说，这个国家的第一步是一种衰退。从自然的角度来说，这种衰退是一种惩罚，因为它导致了迄今为止许多不为人知的罪恶的出现。然而，自然的历史始于善，因为这是上帝的作品；但是，自由的历史始于恶，因为这是人类的作品。对于只看个人自由的行使的个体而言，这样的转变代表的是失去。对于关注种群结果的大自然，它代表的是获得。因此，个体有理由为自己忍受的所有苦难和所犯的所有罪行而责怪自己。但是与此同时，作为人类种群的一个成员，他有理由敬佩并且赞扬这个总体安排的智慧与目的性。这样才有可能相互和解，并且有理由使常常遭到误解、显然自相矛盾的让–雅克–卢梭的主张相互协调。在其论文《关于科学的影响》和《关于人的不平等》中，他相当正确地展示了在文化和人类种族之间存在着不可避免的矛盾。人类每个个体是要完成各自使命的。在他的《爱弥儿》《社会契约论》和其他作品中，卢梭试图逐一地解决更加困难的问题，例如，文化应当采取什么样的动因才能确保人的能力适当地发展，才能确保与他们的目标保持一致，以便这个道德的目标不再与他作为自然种类的特性相矛盾。因为文化或许还没有真正地开始，更不要说完善了。它的发展与人作为人类和公民真正的教化原则相一致，上述矛盾是压迫人类生活的所有罪恶的来源，是使人类蒙羞的一切罪恶的来源。[2]与此同时，那些被指责为恶行的原因的冲动本身是善的，是在发挥自然赋予的能力。但是，因为这些能力是适应于自然状态的，它们随着文化的发展受到了削弱，它们自身又削弱了文化，直到艺术达到完美，又一次成为自然为止，而这是人类道德命运的最高目标。

历史的终结

下面的一个阶段，人类开始从休闲和平时代转向到劳作不和谐时代，这成为社会整合的前奏。这里我们必须制造另一个飞跃，突然地让人类拥有家禽和庄稼，让他们能够为了繁衍而播种（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，2）。事实上，从野蛮的狩猎生活到田园生活，从挖树根摘野果到第二阶段的农耕状态，这个过程也可能是逐渐发生的。正是在这时，矛盾不可避免地出现在了那些一直和平共处的人们中间，结果是这些生活方式不一样的人们分开并分布到了全世界。田园生活不仅悠闲而且在人烟稀少的国度里，动物们也不缺乏草料。农业或者说种庄稼需要相当的劳作，而且因恶劣天气的影响而没有保障。农业也要求定居，拥有土地，要有足够的力量保护土地。然而，牧民们厌恶这样的财产权，因为这限制了他们放牧的自由。由于农业的这些特点，农民或许嫉妒牧民，认为牧民受到上帝的宠爱（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，4）。但是，事实上牧民给农民造成了诸多不便，只要牧民在邻里活动，吃草的动物也不会放过农民的庄稼。牧民很容易地赶着他的动物逃走，从而避免为造成的损失支付任何赔偿，因为他什么也没有留下，他能轻易地在另一个地方找到他所需要的。因此，农民毫无疑问地不得不采用武力避免受到侵犯，而他的对手并不认为侵入是非法的。由于如此的侵入不能完全得到杜绝，毫无疑问，他最终被迫尽可能地远离那些过着放牧生活的人们，除非他希望失去长时间辛勤努力的成果（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，16）。这种农民与牧民的分离标志着第三阶段的开始。

当人们依靠耕种土地谋生时（特别是种植树木），他们需要永久的住处，而保护这些财产免于被侵占需要一大群人相互帮助。因此，采取这种生活方式的人就不能分散居住，而是聚集在一起建立村庄里（这被不太确切地称为城镇），以便保护他们的财产免遭野蛮的狩猎者或者游牧部落的破坏。生活模式的变化使得交换成为第一需要（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，20）。这使得文化和艺术起源不仅仅是一种消磨时光的手段，而且是一种职业（《创世纪》，21f）。但是首先这也意味着需要采取步骤建立一个市民宪法以及公开地监管公平。最初，这些事情毫无疑问仅仅关注大的暴力行为。而惩罚这种行为的权利现在不再像野蛮时代那样留给个人解决，而是指定给了一个能够服务并团结大众的合法政府，例如，这样的一个政府，其本身不受暴力的统治（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，23f）。从这些最初的原始的开端开始，所有人类的天资现在渐渐地发展了，其中最为有益的是社会性和公众安全。人类能够繁衍，像蜂巢里的蜜蜂一样繁殖，从中心向各个方向输送经过文明教化的殖民者。这个时期还见证了人类不平等的开始；人类的不平等是种种罪恶之源，也是种种善行之源。此后不平等继续加深。

只要信奉上帝为主人的诺曼底的牧民继续成群地围着受一个人类主人或者公民权力的统治（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，4）[3]的城市居民和农民打转，并且宣称自己是所有土地拥有者的敌人，不友好地对待后者，同时也被后者憎恨，那么，这两者之间就会不停地陷入战争，或者至少是存在战争的危险。但是，作为敌对状态的一个结果，两国至少享受着内部自由这一无价财产（因为，即便是在现在，战争的危险也是惟一防止独裁统治的办法，因为一个国家必须有财富才会强大，没有自由就不能进行财富产生活动。一个穷国会用大量的努力来保持公共财富以补偿财富的缺乏，除非这个国家意识到这种努力只能够由人们自由创造，否则也是不可能的）。然而，随着时间的推移，城市居民的奢侈不断增长，特别是城市妇女充满诱惑力的艺术超过了原野上粗野的通奸，对于牧民一定是一个强大的诱惑，使他们与城市妇女建立关系，并使他们加入到城镇生活的悲惨中（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，2）。这两个以前敌对人群的最终融合结束了战争的危险，但是，也终结了自由。一方面，这导致了强大的暴政的毁灭，因为文化对于那些毫无灵魂的奢侈和最为卑鄙的奴隶制只是刚刚开始，并且掺杂着不文明国家的不道德行为。另一方面，人类也偏离了大自然为其设定好的事业，即不断培养自己向善的能力。人类的目标是统治地球而不是过着沉溺于粗鲁和奴役的生活，因此，这种状态根本与人类不匹配（《创世纪》，Ⅳ，17）。

结束语

善于思考的人们会感到不适，这种不适甚至可能导致道德沦丧。对于那些不思考的人来说，他们对这种不适全然不知。这种不适是因为考虑不周引起的，即对天意的不满，而作为一个整体世界的进程是由天意主宰的。当他们思考着如此严重压制人类的罪恶时，他们感受到了一种毫无希望改进的情绪。然而，最为重要的是我们应当对天意感到满足，尽管天意给我们在地球上铺就的道路是艰辛的。我们应当对天意感到满足，一方面为了让我们即使身处困难之中仍然具有勇气，一方面为了不让我们去责怪这些罪恶，从而也不让我们看到对罪恶应负的责任，因而失去提高自己以补救罪恶的机会。

我们不得不承认，压迫文明民族的最大罪恶是战争，不是过去或者现在的实际战争，而是不断增长的对未来战争的准备。国家的所有资源，所有应当用于进一步增进文化发展的成果都被用于为这一目的服务。自由在很多地区受难，国家本应当对于其每个成员进行母亲般的照料，却被粗暴的苛政所取代（尽管这种苛政是以害怕外部的危险为理由）。但是如果对战争的实时恐惧不能迫使一国之君表现出对人性的尊重的话，那么我们会达到现在的文明程度吗？会形成为了增进人们的福利而出现一个共同体内不同的社会阶层之间密切合作的局面吗？我们是不是仍遭遇同样的人们，遭遇即使有很严格的法律仍依然存在的那种程度的自由吗？我们只需要看看中国就明了了。中国的地理位置偶尔将其暴露在难以预料的侵入中，却不会让其受到一个强大的敌人所攻击。我们看到，由于这个原因，中国被剥夺了哪怕是一点点的自由的痕迹。只要人类文明仍然保持在现阶段，战争就是使其发展的一个不可避免的手段。只有当文明达到其完全发展阶段——只有上帝知道这个阶段何时到来——永久的和平才能够实现并且惠及我们。与此相联，我们当然也只有为那些我们如此痛恨的罪恶而责怪自己。《圣经》相当公正地承认，如果在各民族间的文化还未融合之际，将各国融合为一个社会，使其能从外部危险中彻底解放，那么这样做只会阻碍文明的进一步发展，使社会衰退到不可补救的腐败中。

人类对大自然规律的另一个不满是生命的短暂。的确，任何一个人，如果不停地希望生命或许比它实际的长度要长，那他一定不欣赏生命的价值，因为延长生命仅仅是增加了由无休止的挣扎所组成的一部戏剧的长度。然而，我们或许应该原谅那些恐惧死亡而又不热爱生命的天真的看法，那些连每天对生存感到某种程度的满意都困难的人，却又总是对重复这一痛苦经历的日子过不够的人。但是如果我们停下来想一想寻求如何度过如此短暂一生的办法所受到的所有关照，还有强加在仅仅持续很短的一段时间的享乐之上的所有不公平，那么我们因此有理由得出结论说八百年或者更长的生命时长对我们没有好处。父亲们生活在害怕儿子的恐惧中；弟兄们生活在害怕弟兄的恐惧中；朋友们生活在害怕朋友们的恐惧中。如此长寿的一个种族可能达到这样的境地，它的命运不会好，倒不如让一场全球性的水灾将他们冲离地球（《创世纪》Ⅵ，12f）。

第三个愿望是回忆诗歌中高度赞扬的那一个黄金时代（这个愿望实际上是一个空洞的渴望，因为这个目标不会实现）。在那样的时代里，我们假定从所有想象的需求中解脱，我们满足于大自然提供的必需品，人与人之间有着完全的平等和永久的和平。一句话，有一种纯粹的无忧无虑的生活享受，在懒散的梦境和孩童般的天真玩耍中挥霍时间。这种渴望使得罗宾逊·克鲁索的奇遇和南海各岛之行如此的富有魅力。但是，广义上说，它们是种表象，即善于思索的人们在愉悦中寻求价值时所感受到的文明生活的疲惫，还有一旦理智提醒他们应当通过行动给生命以意义的时候，则他们会退回到慵懒状态。这种渴望回归简单和无知的过去的愿望，其空虚和无聊已经在前面对于人类原始状态的描述中得到展现。我们看到人类不可能一直保持这种状态，因为这种状态不会使他满足。一旦离开这种状态，他就不会回去。结果是他必须继续将他现在的条件和困难归因于自己和自己的选择。

对于人类历史的描述对人有益，倘若这历史中有下面的内容，这也将指导和改进他的行为：这历史必须告诉他不要为压迫他的罪恶而责怪上苍，并且他没有权利把自己的错误归咎于前辈；例如，指责前辈把犯同样错误传递给了后代，因为没有什么武断的行动是可以遗传的。这部历史应当展示给他的是，他有理由感谢其先辈，并且对错误地运用理智而犯下的罪恶负责，因为他完全有能力意识到在同等条件下他会有同样的表现，并且他第一次运用理智会犯错误（即使大自然建议他不要那样做）。一旦关于道德罪恶的这一点得到正确理解，客观存在的罪恶就很难破坏成就与错误相互权衡的这一平衡。

因此，在哲学的帮助下，从描述人类最早历史的尝试中可以得出如下结论：我们应当对上帝和其对人类事务的整体安排感到满意。这个事业并不是始于善，然后走向恶，而是逐渐地由坏发展到更好。大自然感召每一个人尽其所能对这一进步的历程作出贡献。

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[1] 交流的冲动一定是孤独的人类向他们之外的其他动物宣告其存在的原始动力，特别是那些能发出可以模仿的声音的人们，这些声音后来成了名字。与这种冲动类似的效果现在还能在孩子们和智力低下的成年人身上看到。他们敲打、喊叫、唱歌、吹口哨，制造其他噪音（甚至常常是吵闹的宗教活动）打断人们的思考。他们这样做，除了在这大千世界宣告他们的存在，我看不出这些人还有其他的什么动机会这样做。

[2] 下面的内容可能成为这一矛盾仅有的几个例子被引用。一方面是人对于道德目标的激情，另一方面是他本性中不变的对于法律的遵从和对于残酷环境的适应。

大自然有一个固定的时间表。就他们的要求和制造同类的能力而言，人类达到成熟大约是在16岁或者是17岁。这个年龄，在大自然界，是一个年轻人成为成人的年龄。这时他有能力照看自己，生育后代，照顾他的妻子和孩子。他需求的简单化使得这一切变得容易。但是，在一个文明的国家，为了实现这些功能，在技术和有利的外部环境方面他需要多种支持。在公民社会的语境下，相应的阶段因此要延长至少平均十年。然而，大自然没有更改进入青春期的年龄以适应社会的进步，而是固执地遵守其为了人类作为一个动物物种的生存而规定的法则。结果是，社会习俗对于自然的影响，或者是自然对社会习俗的影响明显存有偏见。在自然状态中达到一定年龄就已经成熟的人，在文明状态下却养活不了自己，更不要说抚养妻子和儿女，尽管按照自然的要求他有生育后代的冲动与能力。大自然当然没有赋予生物以本能和能力，为的是它能够压制他们。如此的能力不是为文明状态而设计，而是为人类作为一个动物品种的生存而设计。文明的状态因此与后者产生了矛盾，这个矛盾只有文明的最终级目标——一个完善的公民体制才能够解决。与此同时，在自然状态和完美状态之间充满了邪恶及其邪恶所带来的后果，例如，以各种各样的形式呈现的人类悲剧。

另一个例子或许能够确认这样的事实，即大自然为了两个截然不同的目的赋予我们两种不同的能力：人作为一个动物物种以及人作为一个道德物种。例子就是希波克拉底所说的“生命短暂，艺术永恒”。当一个拥有才智的人通过长期实践和知识积累获得了必要的成熟的判断力的时候，艺术和科学就能够得到进一步的发展。只要这个人能够生存并在整个一代人的时间里保持他年轻的脑力，他发展艺术和科学的能量要比整整一代学者的能量大。如今，很明显大自然固定了人生的长度，意在终结而不是推动科学的进步。正当最幸运的思想家处于伟大发现的边缘时，暮年已至，他失去了洞察力，必须让下一代（下一代重新从ABC开始，不得不再次重走已经走过的整个路程）在文化的进步中走下一步。因此，人类实现使命的旅程显示出不断受到干扰，随时有倒退回原始野蛮状态的危险。希腊哲学家有这样的抱怨，“当我们开始认识到我们应当如何活时，我们却不得不面对死亡，这真是一个遗憾”。

第三个例子，我们可以引用人的不平等的例子——不是命运赋予人的自然天赋或者善行的不平等，而是从世界人权的角度出发，关于这一点，卢梭的抱怨是极具真实性的。然而，这种不平等与文明不可分割，只要文明毫无规划地发展（在相当长的一段时间内，情况就是这样）。但是，这种不平等当然不是大自然强加给人的，因为大自然给予他自由和理智。理智裁定这种自由受到其自身外部的、世界的法律的限制，这就是民权。人意图通过自己的努力上升到超越其自然能力的野蛮状态，但是，即使是超越野蛮也要小心不触犯它们。他期待在经过了许多次成功尝试之后获得这个技能。与此同时，人类由于自身缺乏经验而吃尽苦头，在罪恶的压迫下痛苦地呻吟。

[3] 阿拉伯的贝都因人依然自认为是部落的创始人——前酋长的孩子们。但是，酋长毫无疑问不是他们的主人。他不能将自己的意愿强加在其臣民的身上。在一个游牧民族中，没有人拥有他带不走的固定资产，因此任何一个对自己部落不满意的家庭都能轻而易举地离开这个部落而加入其他的部落。

An Answer to the Question:‘What is Enlightenment?’

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of under-standing, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! [Dare to be wise!] Have courage to use your own understanding!

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance（naturaliter maiorennes [Those who have come of age by virtue of nature]）, nevertheless gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons, it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me. The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision will soon see to it that by far the largest part of mankind（including the entire fair sex）should consider the step forward to maturity not only as difficult but also as highly dangerous. Having first infatuated their domesticated animals, and carefully pre-vented the docile creatures from daring to take a single step without the leading-strings to which they are tied, they next show them the danger which threatens them if they try to walk unaided. Now this danger is not in fact so very great, for they would certainly learn to walk eventually after a few falls. But an example of this kind is intimidating, and usually frightens them off from further attempts.

Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown fond of it and is really incapable for the time being of using his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use（or rather misuse） of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of his permanent immaturity. And if anyone did throw them off, he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind. Thus only a few, by cultivating their own minds, have succeeded in freeing themselves from immaturity and in continuing boldly on their way.

There is more chance of an entire public enlightening itself. This is indeed almost inevitable, if only the public concerned is left in freedom. For there will always be a few who think for themselves, even among those appointed as guardians of the common mass. Such guardians, once they have themselves thrown off the yoke of immaturity, will disseminate the spirit of rational respect for personal value and for the duty of all men to think for themselves. The remarkable thing about this is that if the public, which was previously put under this yoke by the guardians, is suitably stirred up by some of the latter who are incapable of enlightenment, it may subsequently compel the guardians themselves to remain under the yoke. For it is very harmful to propagate prejudices, because they finally avenge themselves on the very people who first encouraged them（or whose predecessors did so）. Thus a public can only achieve enlightenment slowly. A revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism and to rapacious or powerseeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking. Instead, new prejudices, like the ones they replaced, will serve as a leash to control the great unthinking mass.

For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all - freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. But I hear on all sides the cry: Don't argue! The officer says: Don't argue, get on parade! The tax-official: Don't argue, pay! The clergyman: Don't argue, believe!（Only one ruler in the world says: Argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey!） All this means restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which sort of restriction prevents enlightenment, and which, instead of hindering it, can actually promote it? I reply: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted, however, without undue hindrance to the progress of enlightenment. But by the public use of one's own reason I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the entire reading public. What I term the private use of reason is that which a person may make of it in a particular civil post or office with which he is entrusted.

Now in some affairs which affect the interests of the commonwealth, we require a certain mechanism whereby some members of the commonwealth must behave purely passively, so that they may, by an artificial common agreement, be employed by the government for public ends（or at least deterred from vitiating them）. It is, of course, impermissible to argue in such cases; obedience is imperative. But in so far as this or that individual who acts as part of the machine also considers himself as a member of a complete commonwealth or even of cosmopolitan society, and thence as a man of learning who may through his writings address a public in the truest sense of the word, he may indeed argue without harming the affairs in which he is employed for some of the time in a passive capacity. Thus it would be very harmful if an officer receiving an order from his superiors were to quibble openly, while on duty, about the appropriateness or usefulness of the order in question. He must simply obey. But he cannot reasonably be banned from making observations as a man of learning on the errors in the military service, and from submitting these to his public for judgement. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed upon him; presumptuous criticisms of such taxes, where someone is called upon to pay them, may be punished as an outrage which could lead to general insubordination. Nonetheless, the same citizen does not contravene his civil obligations if, as a learned individual, he publicly voices his thoughts on the impropriety or even injustice of such fiscal measures. In the same way, a clergyman is bound to instruct his pupils and his congregation in accordance with the doctrines of the church he serves, for he was employed by it on that condition. But as a scholar, he is completely free as well as obliged to impart to the public all his carefully considered, well-intentioned thoughts on the mistaken aspects of those doctrines, and to offer suggestions for a better arrangement of religious and ecclesiastical affairs. And there is nothing in this which need trouble the conscience. For what he teaches in pursuit of his duties as an active servant of the church is presented by him as something which he is not empowered to teach at his own discretion, but which he is employed to expound in a prescribed manner and in someone else's name. He will say: Our church teaches this or that, and these are the arguments it uses. He then extracts as much practical value as possible for his congregation from precepts to which he would not himself subscribe with full conviction, but which he can nevertheless undertake to expound, since it is not in fact wholly impossible that they may contain truth. At all events, nothing opposed to the essence of religion is present in such doctrines. For if the clergyman thought he could find anything of this sort in them, he would not be able to carry out his official duties in good conscience, and would have to resign. Thus the use which someone employed as a teacher makes of his reason in the presence of his congregation is purely private, since a congregation, however large it is, is never any more than a domestic gathering. In view of this, he is not and cannot be free as a priest, since he is acting on a commission imposed from out-side. Conversely, as a scholar addressing the real public（i.e. the world at large） through his writings, the clergy-man making public use of his reason enjoys unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak in his own person. For to maintain that the guardians of the people in spiritual matters should themselves be immature, is an absurdity which amounts to making absurdities permanent.

But should not a society of clergymen, for example an ecclesiastical synod or a venerable presbytery（as the Dutch call it）, be entitled to commit itself by oath to a certain unalterable set of doctrines, in order to secure for all time a constant guardianship over each of its members, and through them over the people? I reply that this is quite impossible. A contract of this kind, concluded with a view to preventing all further enlightenment of mankind for ever, is absolutely null and void, even if it is ratified by the supreme power, by Imperial Diets and the most solemn peace treaties. One age cannot enter into an alliance on oath to put the next age in a position where it would be impossible for it to extend and correct its knowledge, particularly on such important matters, or to make any progress whatsoever in enlightenment. This would be a crime against human nature, whose original destiny lies precisely in such progress. Later generations are thus perfectly entitled to dismiss these agreements as unauthorized and criminal. To test whether any particular measure can be agreed upon as a law for a people, we need only ask whether a people could well impose such a law upon itself. This might well be possible for a specified short period as a means of introducing a certain order, pending, as it were, a better solution. This would also mean that each citizen, particularly the clergyman, would be given a free hand as a scholar to comment publicly, i.e. in his writings, on the inadequacies of current institutions. Meanwhile, the newly established order would continue to exist, until public insight into the nature of such matters had progressed and proved itself to the point where, by general consent（if not unanimously）, a proposal could be submitted to the crown. This would seek to protect the congregations who had, for instance, agreed to alter their religious establishment in accordance with their own notions of what higher insight is, but it would not try to obstruct those who wanted to let things remain as before. But it is absolutely impermissible to agree, even for a single lifetime, to a permanent religious constitution which no one might publicly question. For this would virtually nullify a phase in man's upward progress, thus making it fruitless and even detrimental to subsequent generations. A man may for his own person, and even then only for a limited period, postpone enlightening himself in matters he ought to know about. But to renounce such enlightenment completely, whether for his own person or even more so for later generations, means violating and trampling underfoot the sacred rights of mankind. But something which a people may not even impose upon itself can still less be imposed on it by a monarch; for his legislative authority depends precisely upon his uniting the collective will of the people in his own. So long as he sees to it that all true or imagined improvements are compatible with the civil order, he can otherwise leave his subjects to do whatever they find necessary for their salvation, which is none of his business. But it is his business to stop anyone forcibly hindering others from working as best they can to define and promote their salvation. It indeed detracts from his majesty if he interferes in these affairs by subjecting the writings in which his subjects attempt to clarify their religious ideas to governmental supervision. This applies if he does so acting upon his own exalted opinions – in which case he exposes himself to the reproach: Caesar non est supra Grammaticos [Caesar is not above the Grammarians] – but much more so if he demeans his high authority so far as to support the spiritual despotism of a few tyrants within his state against the rest of his subjects.

If it is now asked whether we at present live in an enlightened age, the answer is: No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment. As things are at present, we still have a long way to go before men as a whole can be in a position（or can even be put into a position） of using their own understanding confidently and well in religious matters, without outside guidance. But we do have distinct indications that the way is now being cleared for them to work freely in this direction, and that the obstacles to universal enlightenment, to man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity, are gradually becoming fewer. In this respect our age is the age of enlightenment, the century of Frederick.

A prince who does not regard it as beneath him to say that he considers it his duty, in religious matters, not to prescribe anything to his people, but to allow them complete freedom, a prince who thus even declines to accept the presumptuous title of tolerant, is himself enlightened. He deserves to be praised by a grateful present and posterity as the man who first liberated mankind from immaturity（as far as government is concerned）, and who left all men free to use their own reason in all matters of conscience. Under his rule, ecclesiastical dignitaries, notwithstanding their official duties, may in their capacity as scholars freely and publicly submit to the judgement of the world their verdicts and opinions, even if these deviate here and there from orthodox doctrine. This applies even more to all others who are not restricted by any official duties. This spirit of freedom is also spreading abroad, even where it has to struggle with outward obstacles imposed by governments which misunderstand their own function. For such governments can now witness a shining example of how freedom may exist without in the least jeopardizing public concord and the unity of the commonwealth. Men will of their own accord gradually work their way out of barbarism so long as artificial measures are not deliberately adopted to keep them in it.

I have portrayed matters of religion as the focal point of enlightenment, i.e. of man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. This is firstly because our rulers have no interest in assuming the role of guardians over their subjects so far as the arts and sciences are concerned, and secondly, because religious immaturity is the most pernicious and dishonourable variety of all. But the attitude of mind of a head of state who favours freedom in the arts and sciences extends even further, for he realizes that there is no danger even to his legislation if he allows his subjects to make public use of their own reason and to put before the public their thoughts on better ways of drawing up laws, even if this entails forthright criticism of the current legislation. We have before us a brilliant example of this kind, in which no monarch has yet surpassed the one to whom we now pay tribute.

But only a ruler who is himself enlightened and has no fear of phantoms, yet who likewise has at hand a well-disciplined and numerous army to guarantee public security, may say what no republic would dare to say: Argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey! This reveals to us a strange and unexpected pattern in human affairs（such as we shall always find if we consider them in the widest sense, in which nearly every-thing is paradoxical）. A high degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's intellectual freedom, yet it also sets up insuperable barriers to it. Conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom gives intellectual freedom enough room to expand to its fullest extent. Thus once the germ on which nature has lavished most care – man's inclination and vocation to think freely – has developed within this hard shell, it gradually reacts upon the mentality of the people, who thus gradually become increasingly able to act freely. Eventually, it even influences the principles of governments, which find that they can themselves profit by treating man, who is more than a machine, in a manner appropriate to his dignity.[1]

Königsberg in Prussia, 30th September, 1784.

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[1] I read today on the 30th September in Büsching's Wöchentliche Nachrichten of 13th September a notice concerning this month's Berlinische Monatsschrift. The notice mentions Mendelssohn's answer to the same question as that which I have answered. I have not yet seen this journal, otherwise I should have held back the above reflections. I let them stand only as a means of finding out by comparison how far the thoughts of two individuals may coincide by chance.

Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch

‘The Perpetual Peace’

A Dutch innkeeper once put this satirical inscription on his signboard, along with the picture of a graveyard. We shall not trouble to ask whether it applies to men in general, or particularly to heads of state（who can never have enough of war）, or only to the philosophers who blissfully dream of perpetual peace. The author of the present essay does, however, make one reservation in advance. The practical politician tends to look down with great complacency upon the political theorist as a mere academic. The theorist's abstract ideas, the practitioner believes, cannot endanger the state, since the state must be founded upon principles of experience; it thus seems safe to let him fire off his whole broadside, and the worldly-wise statesman need not turn a hair. It thus follows that if the practical politician is to be consistent, he must not claim, in the event of a dispute with the theorist, to scent any danger to the state in the opinions which the theorist has randomly uttered in public. By this saving clause, the author of this essay will consider himself expressly safeguarded, in correct and proper style, against all malicious interpretation.

FIRST SECTION

Which Contains the Preliminary Articles of a Perpetual Peace Between States

1.‘No conclusion of peace shall be considered valid as such if it was made with a secret reservation of the material for a future war.’

For if this were the case, it would be a mere truce, a suspension of hostilities, not a peace. Peace means an end to all hostilities, and to attach the adjective ‘perpetual’ to it is already suspiciously close to pleonasm. A conclusion of peace nullifies all existing reasons for a future war, even if these are not yet known to the contracting parties, and no matter how acutely and carefully they may later be pieced together out of old documents. It is possible that either party may make a mental reservation with a view to reviving its old pretensions in the future. Such reservations will not be mentioned explicitly, since both parties may simply be too exhausted to continue the war, although they may nonetheless possess sufficient ill will to seize the first favourable opportunity of attaining their end. But if we consider such reservations in themselves, they soon appear as Jesuitical casuistry; they are beneath the dignity of a ruler, just as it is beneath the dignity of a minister of state to comply with any reasoning of this kind.

But if, in accordance with ‘enlightened’ notions of political expediency, we believe that the true glory of a state consists in the constant increase of its power by any means whatsoever, the above judgement will certainly appear academic and pedantic.

2.‘No independently existing state, whether it be large or small, may be acquired by another state by inheritance, exchange, purchase or gift.’

For a state, unlike the ground on which it is based, is not a possession（patrimonium）. It is a society of men, which no one other than itself can command or dispose of. Like a tree, it has its own roots, and to graft it on to another state as if it were a shoot is to terminate its existence as a moral personality and make it into a commodity. This contradicts the idea of the original contract, without which the rights of a people are unthinkable.[1] Everyone knows what danger the supposed right of acquiring states in this way, even in our own times, has brought upon Europe（for this practice is unknown in other continents）. It has been thought that states can marry one another, and this has provided a new kind of industry by which power can be increased through family alliances, without expenditure of energy, while landed property can be extended at the same time. It is the same thing when the troops of one state are hired to another to fight an enemy who is not common to both; for the subjects are thereby used and misused as objects to be manipulated at will.

3.‘Standing armies（miles perpetuus） will gradually be abolished altogether.’

For they constantly threaten other states with war by the very fact that they are always prepared for it. They spur on the states to outdo one another in arming unlimited numbers of soldiers, and since the resultant costs eventually make peace more oppressive than a short war, the armies are themselves the cause of wars of aggression which set out to end burdensome military expenditure. Furthermore, the hiring of men to kill or to be killed seems to mean using them as mere machines and instruments in the hands of someone else（the state）, which cannot easily be reconciled with the rights of man in one's own person. It is quite a different matter if the citizens undertake voluntary military training from time to time in order to secure themselves and their fatherland against attacks from outside. But it would be just the same if wealth rather than soldiers were accumulated, for it would be seen by other states as a military threat; it might compel them to mount preventive attacks, for of the three powers within a state – the power of the army, the power of alliance and the power of money – the third is probably the most reliable instrument of war. It would lead more often to wars if it were not so difficult to discover the amount of wealth which another state possesses.

4.‘No national debt shall be contracted in connection with the external affairs of the state.’

There is no cause for suspicion if help for the national economy is sought inside or outside the state（e.g. for improvements to roads, new settlements, storage of foodstuffs for years of famine, etc.）. But a credit system, if used by the powers as an instrument of aggression against one another, shows the power of money in its most dangerous form. For while the debts thereby incurred are always secure against present demands（because not all the creditors will demand payment at the same time）, these debts go on growing indefinitely. This ingenious system, invented by a commercial people in the present century, provides a military fund which may exceed the resources of all the other states put together. It can only be exhausted by an eventual tax-deficit, which may be postponed for a considerable time by the commercial stimulus which industry and trade receive through the credit system. This ease in making war, coupled with the warlike inclination of those in power（which seems to be an integral feature of human nature）, is thus a great obstacle in the way of perpetual peace. Foreign debts must therefore be prohibited by a preliminary article of such a peace, otherwise national bankruptcy, inevitable in the long run, would necessarily involve various other states in the resultant loss without their having deserved it, thus inflicting upon them a public injury. Other states are therefore justified in allying themselves against such a state and its pretensions.

5. ‘No state shall forcibly interfere in the constitution and government of another state.’

For what could justify such interference? Surely not any sense of scandal or offence which a state arouses in the subjects of another state. It should rather serve as a warning to others, as an example of the great evils which a people has incurred by its lawlessness. And a bad example which one free person gives to another（as a scandalum acceptum） is not the same as an injury to the latter. But it would be a different matter if a state, through internal discord, were to split into two parts, each of which set itself up as a separate state and claimed authority over the whole. For it could not be reckoned as interference in another state's constitution if an external state were to lend support to one of them, because their condition is one of anarchy. But as long as this internal conflict is not yet decided, the interference of external powers would be a violation of the rights of an independent people which is merely struggling with its internal ills. Such interference would be an active offence and would make the autonomy of all other states insecure.

6.‘No state at war with another shall permit such acts of hostility as would make mutual confidence impossible during a future time of peace. Such acts would include the employment of assassins（percussores） or poisoners（venefici）, breach of agreements, the instigation of treason（perduellio）within the enemy state, etc.’

These are dishonourable stratagems. For it must still remain possible, even in wartime, to have some sort of trust in the attitude of the enemy, otherwise peace could not be concluded and the hostilities would turn into a war of extermination（bellum internecinum）. After all, war is only a regrettable expedient for asserting one's rights by force within a state of nature, where no court of justice is available to judge with legal authority. In such cases, neither party can be declared an unjust enemy, for this would already presuppose a judge's decision; only the outcome of the conflict, as in the case of a so-called ‘judgement of God’, can decide who is in the right. A war of punishment（bellum punitivum） between states is inconceivable, since there can be no relationship of superior to inferior among them. It thus follows that a war of extermination, in which both parties and right itself might all be simultaneously annihilated, would allow perpetual peace only on the vast graveyard of the human race. A war of this kind and the employment of all means which might bring it about must thus be absolutely prohibited. But the means listed above would inevitably lead to such a war, because these diabolical arts, besides being intrinsically despicable, would not long be confined to war alone if they were brought into use. This applies, for example, to the employment of spies（uti exploratoribus）, for it exploits only the dishonesty of others（which can never be completely eliminated）. Such practices will be carried over into peacetime and will thus completely vitiate its purpose.

All of the articles listed above, when regarded objectively or in relation to the intentions of those in power, are prohibitive laws（leges prohibitivae）. Yet some of them are of the strictest sort（leges strictae）, being valid irrespective of differing circumstances, and they require that the abuses they prohibit should be abolished immediately（Nos. 1, 5 and 6）. Others（Nos. 2, 3 and 4）, although they are not exceptions to the rule of justice, allow some subjective latitude according to the circumstances in which they are applied（leges latae）. The latter need not necessarily be executed at once, so long as their ultimate purpose（e.g. the restoration of freedom to certain states in accordance with the second article） is not lost sight of. But their execution may not be put off to a non-existent date（ad calendas graecas, as Augustus used to promise）, for any delay is permitted only as a means of avoiding a premature implementation which might frustrate the whole purpose of the article. For in the case of the second article, the prohibition relates only to the mode of acquisition, which is to be forbidden hereforth, but not to the present state of political possessions. For although this present state is not backed up by the requisite legal authority, it was considered lawful in the public opinion of every state at the time of the putative acquisition.[2]

SECOND SECTION

Which Contains the Definitive Articles of a Perpetual Peace Between States

A state of peace among men living together is not the same as the state of nature, which is rather a state of war. For even if it does not involve active hostilities, it involves a constant threat of their breaking out. Thus the state of peace must be formally instituted, for a suspension of hostilities is not in itself a guarantee of peace. And unless one neighbour gives a guarantee to the other at his request（which can happen only in a lawful state）, the latter may treat him as an enemy.[3]

First Definitive Article of a Perpetual Peace: The Civil Constitution of Every State shall be Republican

A republican constitution is founded upon three principles: firstly, the principle of freedom for all members of a society（as men）; secondly, the principle of the dependence of everyone upon a single common legislation（as subjects）; and thirdly, the principle of legal equality for everyone（as citizens）.[4] It is the only constitution which can be derived from the idea of an original contract, upon which all rightful legislation of a people must be founded. Thus as far as right is concerned, republicanism is in itself the original basis of every kind of civil constitution, and it only remains to ask whether it is the only constitution which can lead to a perpetual peace.

The republican constitution is not only pure in its origin（since it springs from the pure concept of right）; it also offers a prospect of attaining the desired result, i.e. a perpetual peace, and the reason for this is as follows. – If, as is inevitably the case under this constitution, the consent of the citizens is required to decide whether or not war is to be declared, it is very natural that they will have great hesitation in embarking on so dangerous an enterprise. For this would mean calling down on themselves all the miseries of war, such as doing the fighting themselves, supplying the costs of the war from their own resources, painfully making good the ensuing devastation, and, as the crowning evil, having to take upon themselves a burden of debt which will embitter peace itself and which can never be paid off on account of the constant threat of new wars. But under a constitution where the subject is not a citizen, and which is therefore not republican, it is the simplest thing in the world to go to war. For the head of state is not a fellow citizen, but the owner of the state, and a war will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure palaces and court festivals are concerned. He can thus decide on war, without any significant reason, as a kind of amusement, and unconcernedly leave it to the diplomatic corps（who are always ready for such purposes） to justify the war for the sake of propriety.

The following remarks are necessary to prevent the republican constitution from being confused with the democratic one, as commonly happens. The various forms of state（civitas）may be classified either according to the different persons who exercise supreme authority, or according to the way in which the nation is governed by its ruler, whoever he may be. The first classification goes by the form of sovereignty（forma imperii）, and only three such forms are possible, depending on whether the ruling power is in the hands of an individual, of several persons in association, or of all those who together constitute civil society（i.e. autocracy, aristocracy and democracy – the power of a prince, the power of a nobility, and the power of the people）. The second classification depends on the form of government（forma regiminis）, and relates to the way in which the state, setting out from its constitution（i.e. an act of the general will whereby the mass becomes a people）, makes use of its plenary power. The form of government, in this case, will be either republican or despotic. Republicanism is that political principle whereby the executive power（the government） is separated from the legislative power. Despotism prevails in a state if the laws are made and arbitrarily executed by one and the same power, and it reflects the will of the people only in so far as the ruler treats the will of the people as his own private will. Of the three forms of sovereignty, democracy, in the truest sense of the word, is necessarily a despotism, because it establishes an executive power through which all the citizens may make decisions about（and indeed against） the single individual without his consent, so that decisions are made by all the people and yet not by all the people; and this means that the general will is in contradiction with itself, and thus also with freedom.

For any form of government which is not representative is essentially an anomaly, because one and the same person cannot at the same time be both the legislator and the executor of his own will, just as the general proposition in logical reasoning cannot at the same time be a secondary proposition subsuming the particular within the general. And even if the other two political constitutions（i.e. autocracy and aristocracy） are always defective in as much as they leave room for a despotic form of government, it is at least possible that they will be associated with a form of government which accords with the spirit of a representative system. Thus Frederick Ⅱ at least said that he was merely the highest servant of the state,[5] while a democratic constitution makes this attitude impossible, because everyone under it wants to be a ruler. We can therefore say that the smaller the number of ruling persons in a state and the greater their powers of representation, the more the constitution will approximate to its republican potentiality, which it may hope to realize eventually by gradual reforms. For this reason, it is more difficult in an aristocracy than in a monarchy to reach this one and only perfectly lawful kind of constitution, while it is possible in a democracy only by means of violent revolution. But the people are immensely more concerned with the mode of government[6] than with the form of the constitution, although a great deal also depends on the degree to which the constitution fits the purpose of the government. But if the mode of government is to accord with the concept of right, it must be based on the representative system. This system alone makes possible a republican state, and without it, despotism and violence will result, no matter what kind of constitution is in force. None of the so-called ‘republics’ of antiquity employed such a system, and they thus inevitably ended in despotism, although this is still relatively bearable under the rule of a single individual.

Second Definitive Article of a Perpetual Peace: The Right of Nations shall be based on a Federation of Free States

Peoples who have grouped themselves into nation states may be judged in the same way as individual men living in a state of nature, independent of external laws; for they are a standing offence to one another by the very fact that they are neighbours. Each nation, for the sake of its own security, can and ought to demand of the others that they should enter along with it into a constitution, similar to the civil one, within which the rights of each could be secured. This would mean establishing a federation of peoples. But a federation of this sort would not be the same thing as an international state. For the idea of an international state is contradictory, since every state involves a relationship between a superior（the legislator） and an inferior（the people obeying the laws）, whereas a number of nations forming one state would constitute a single nation. And this contradicts our initial assumption, as we are here considering the right of nations in relation to one another in so far as they are a group of separate states which are not to be welded together as a unit.

We look with profound contempt upon the way in which savages cling to their lawless freedom. They would rather engage in incessant strife than submit to a legal constraint which they might impose upon themselves, for they prefer the freedom of folly to the freedom of reason. We regard this as barbarism, coarseness, and brutish debasement of humanity. We might thus expect that civilized peoples, each united within itself as a state, would hasten to abandon so degrading a condition as soon as possible. But instead of doing so, each state sees its own majesty（for it would be absurd to speak of the majesty of a people） precisely in not having to submit to any external legal constraint, and the glory of its ruler consists in his power to order thousands of people to immolate themselves for a cause which does not truly concern them, while he need not himself incur any danger whatsoever.[7] And the main difference between the savage nations of Europe and those of America is that while some American tribes have been entirely eaten up by their enemies, the Europeans know how to make better use of those they have defeated than merely by making a meal of them. They would rather use them to increase the number of their own subjects, thereby augmenting their stock of instruments for conducting even more extensive wars.

Although it is largely concealed by governmental constraints in law-governed civil society, the depravity of human nature is displayed without disguise in the unrestricted relations which obtain between the various nations. It is therefore to be wondered at that the word right has not been completely banished from military politics as superfluous pedantry, and that no state has been bold enough to declare itself publicly in favour of doing so. For Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel and the rest（sorry comforters as they are） are still dutifully quoted in justification of military aggression, although their philosophically or diplomatically formulated codes do not and cannot have the slightest legal force, since states as such are not subject to a common external constraint. Yet there is no instance of a state ever having been moved to desist from its purpose by arguments supported by the testimonies of such notable men. This homage which every state pays（in words at least） to the concept of right proves that man possesses a greater moral capacity, still dormant at present, to overcome eventually the evil principle within him（for he cannot deny that it exists）, and to hope that others will do likewise. Otherwise the word right would never be used by states which intend to make war on one another, unless in a derisory sense, as when a certain Gallic prince declared:‘Nature has given to the strong the prerogative of making the weak obey them.’ The way in which states seek their rights can only be by war, since there is no external tribunal to put their claims to trial. But rights cannot be decided by military victory, and a peace treaty may put an end to the current war, but not to that general warlike condition within which pretexts can always be found for a new war. And indeed, such a state of affairs cannot be pronounced completely unjust, since it allows each party to act as judge in its own cause. Yet while natural right allows us to say of men living in a lawless condition that they ought to abandon it, the right of nations does not allow us to say the same of states. For as states, they already have a lawful internal constitution, and have thus outgrown the coercive right of others to subject them to a wider legal constitution in accordance with their conception of right. On the other hand, reason, as the highest legislative moral power, absolutely condemns war as a test of rights and sets up peace as an immediate duty. But peace can neither be inaugurated nor secured without a general agreement between the nations; thus a particular kind of league, which we might call a pacific federation（foedus pacificum）, is required. It would differ from a peace treaty（pactum pacis） in that the latter terminates one war, whereas the former would seek to end all wars for good. This federation does not aim to acquire any power like that of a state, but merely to preserve and secure the freedom of each state in itself, along with that of the other confederated states, although this does not mean that they need to submit to public laws and to a coercive power which enforces them, as do men in a state of nature. It can be shown that this idea of federalism, extending gradually to encompass all states and thus leading to perpetual peace, is practicable and has objective reality. For if by good fortune one powerful and enlightened nation can form a republic（which is by its nature inclined to seek perpetual peace）, this will provide a focal point for federal association among other states. These will join up with the first one, thus securing the freedom of each state in accordance with the idea of international right, and the whole will gradually spread further and further by a series of alliances of this kind.

It would be understandable for a people to say:‘There shall be no war among us; for we will form ourselves into a state, appointing for ourselves a supreme legislative, executive and juridical power to resolve our conflicts by peaceful means.’ But if this state says:‘There shall be no war between myself and other states, although I do not recognize any supreme legislative power which could secure my rights and whose rights I should in turn secure’, it is impossible to understand what justification I can have for placing any confidence in my rights, unless I can rely on some substitute for the union of civil society, i.e. on a free federation. If the concept of international right is to retain any meaning at all, reason must necessarily couple it with a federation of this kind.

The concept of international right becomes meaningless if interpreted as a right to go to war. For this would make it a right to determine what is lawful not by means of universally valid external laws, but by means of one-sided maxims backed up by physical force. It could be taken to mean that it is perfectly just for men who adopt this attitude to destroy one another, and thus to find perpetual peace in the vast grave where all the horrors of violence and those responsible for them would be buried. There is only one rational way in which states coexisting with other states can emerge from the lawless condition of pure warfare. Just like individual men, they must renounce their savage and lawless freedom, adapt themselves to public coercive laws, and thus form an international state（civitas gentium）, which would necessarily continue to grow until it embraced all the peoples of the earth. But since this is not the will of the nations, according to their present conception of international right（so that they reject in hypothesi what is true in thesi）, the positive idea of a world republic cannot be realized. If all is not to be lost, this can at best find a negative substitute in the shape of an enduring and gradually expanding federation likely to prevent war. The latter may check the current of man's inclination to defy the law and antagonize his fellows, although there will always be a risk of it bursting forth anew. Furor impius intus – fremit horridus ore cruento（Virgil） [‘Wicked Frenzy rages savagely with blood-stained mouth’].[8]

Third Definitive Article of a Perpetual Peace: Cosmopolitan Right shall be limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality

As in the foregoing articles, we are here concerned not with philanthropy, but with right. In this context, hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostility when he arrives on someone else's territory. He can indeed be turned away, if this can be done without causing his death, but he must not be treated with hostility, so long as he behaves in a peaceable manner in the place he happens to be in. The stranger cannot claim the right of a guest to be entertained, for this would require a special friendly agreement whereby he might become a member of the native household for a certain time. He may only claim a right of resort, for all men are entitled to present themselves in the society of others by virtue of their right to communal possession of the earth's surface. Since the earth is a globe, they cannot disperse over an infinite area, but must necessarily tolerate one another's company. And no one originally has any greater right than anyone else to occupy any particular portion of the earth. The community of man is divided by uninhabitable parts of the earth's surface such as oceans and deserts, but even then, the ship or the camel（the ship of the desert） make it possible for them to approach their fellows over these ownerless tracts, and to utilize as a means of social intercourse that right to the earth's surface which the human race shares in common. The inhospitable behaviour of coastal dwellers（as on the Barbary coast） in plundering ships on the adjoining seas or enslaving stranded seafarers, or that of inhabitants of the desert（as with the Arab Bedouins）, who regard their proximity to nomadic tribes as a justification for plundering them, is contrary to natural right. But this natural right of hospitality, i.e. the right of strangers, does not extend beyond those conditions which make it possible for them to attempt to enter into relations with the native inhabitants. In this way, continents distant from each other can enter into peaceful mutual relations which may eventually be regulated by public laws, thus bringing the human race nearer and nearer to a cosmopolitan constitution.

If we compare with this ultimate end the inhospitable conduct of the civilized states of our continent, especially the commercial states, the injustice which they display in visiting foreign countries and peoples（which in their case is the same as conquering them） seems appallingly great. America, the negro countries, the Spice Islands, the Cape, etc. were looked upon at the time of their discovery as ownerless territories; for the native inhabitants were counted as nothing. In East India（Hindustan）, foreign troops were brought in under the pretext of merely setting up trading posts. This led to oppression of the natives, incitement of the various Indian states to widespread wars, famine, insurrection, treachery and the whole litany of evils which can afflict the human race.

China[9] and Japan（Nippon）, having had experience of such guests, have wisely placed restrictions on them. China permits contact with her territories, but not entrance into them, while Japan only allows contact with a single European people, the Dutch, although they are still segregated from the native community like prisoners. The worst（or, from the point of view of moral judgements, the best） thing about all this is that the commercial states do not even benefit by their violence, for all their trading companies are on the point of collapse. The Sugar Islands, that stronghold of the cruellest and most calculated slavery, do not yield any real profit; they serve only the indirect（and not entirely laudable） purpose of training sailors for warships, thereby aiding the prosecution of wars in Europe. And all this is the work of powers who make endless ado about their piety, and who wish to be considered as chosen believers while they live on the fruits of iniquity.

The peoples of the earth have thus entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. The idea of a cosmopolitan right is therefore not fantastic and overstrained; it is a necessary complement to the unwritten code of political and international right, transforming it into a universal right of humanity. Only under this condition can we flatter ourselves that we are continually advancing towards a perpetual peace.

First Supplement: On the Guarantee of a Perpetual Peace

Perpetual peace is guaranteed by no less an authority than the great artist Nature herself（natura daedala rerum [Nature the contriver of things]）. The mechanical process of nature visibly exhibits the purposive plan of producing concord among men, even against their will and indeed by means of their very discord. This design, if we regard it as a compelling cause whose laws of operation are unknown to us, is called fate. But if we consider its purposive function within the world's development, whereby it appears as the underlying wisdom of a higher cause, showing the way towards the objective goal of the human race and predetermining the world's evolution, we call it providence.[10] We cannot actually observe such an agency in the artifices of nature, nor can we even infer its existence from them. But as with all relations between the form of things and their ultimate purposes, we can and must supply it mentally in order to conceive of its possibility by analogy with human artifices. Its relationship to and conformity with the end which reason directly prescribes to us（i.e. the end of morality） can only be conceived of as an idea. Yet while this idea is indeed far-fetched in theory, it does possess dogmatic validity and has a very real foundation in practice, as with the concept of perpetual peace, which makes it our duty to promote it by using the natural mechanism described above. But in contexts such as this, where we are concerned purely with theory and not with religion, we should also note that it is more in keeping with the limitations of human reason to speak of nature and not of providence, for reason, in dealing with cause and effect relationships, must keep within the bounds of possible experience. Modesty forbids us to speak of providence as something we can recognize, for this would mean donning the wings of Icarus and presuming to approach the mystery of its inscrutable intentions.

But before we define this guarantee more precisely, we must first examine the situation in which nature has placed the actors in her great spectacle, for it is this situation which ultimately demands the guarantee of peace. We may next inquire in what manner the guarantee is provided.

Nature's provisional arrangement is as follows. Firstly, she has taken care that human beings are able to live in all the areas where they are settled. Secondly, she has driven them in all directions by means of war, so that they inhabit even the most inhospitable regions. And thirdly, she has compelled them by the same means to enter into more or less legal relationships. It is in itself wonderful that moss can still grow in the cold wastes around the Arctic Ocean; the reindeer can scrape it out from beneath the snow, and can thus itself serve as nourishment or as a draft animal for the Ostiaks or Samoyeds. Similarly, the sandy salt deserts contain the camel, which seems as if it had been created for travelling over them in order that they might not be left unutilized. But evidence of design in nature emerges even more clearly when we realize that the shores of the Arctic Ocean are inhabited not only by fur-bearing animals, but also by seals, walruses and whales, whose flesh provides food and whose fat provides warmth for the native inhabitants. Nature's care arouses most admiration, however, by carrying driftwood to these treeless regions, without anyone knowing exactly where it comes from. For if they did not have this material, the natives would not be able to construct either boats or weapons, or dwellings in which to live. And they have enough to do making war on the animals to be able to live in peace among themselves. But it was probably nothing but war which drove them into these regions. And the first instrument of war among all the animals which man learned to domesticate in the course of peopling the earth was the horse. For the elephant belongs to that later age of luxury which began after states had been established. The same applies to the art of cultivating certain kinds of grasses known as cereals, whose original nature is now unknown to us, and to the production and refinement of various fruits by transplanting and grafting（in Europe, perhaps only two species were involved, the crab-apple and the wild pear）. Such arts could arise only within established states in which landed property was secure, after men had made the transition to an agricultural way of life, abandoning the lawless freedom they had enjoyed in their previous existence as hunters,[11] fishers and shepherds. Salt and iron were next discovered, and were perhaps the first articles of trade between nations to be in demand everywhere. In this way, nations first entered into peaceful relations with one another, and thus achieved mutual understanding, community of interests and peaceful relations, even with the most distant of their fellows.

In seeing to it that men could live everywhere on earth, nature has at the same time despotically willed that they should live everywhere, even against their own inclinations. And this obligation does not rest upon any concept of duty which might bind them to fulfil it in accordance with a moral law; on the contrary, nature has chosen war as a means of attaining this end.

We can observe nations which reveal the unity of their descent by the unity of their language. This is the case with the Samoyeds on the Arctic Ocean and another people with a similar language living two hundred miles away in the Altai Mountains; another people of Mongol extraction, given to horsemanship and hence to warlike pursuits, has pushed its way between them, thus driving the one part of the tribe far away from the other into the most inhospitable Arctic regions, where it would certainly not have gone by its own inclinations.[12] In the same way, the Finns in the northernmost region of Europe（where they are known as Lapps） are now far separated from the Hungarians, to whom they are linguistically related, by Gothic and Sarmatian peoples who have pushed their way in between them. And what else but war, nature's means of peopling the whole earth, can have driven the Eskimos so far North – for they are quite distinct from all other American races, and are perhaps descended from European adventurers of ancient times; the Pesherae have been driven South into Tierra del Fuego in the same manner. War itself, however, does not require any particular kind of motivation, for it seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honour, without selfish motives. Thus warlike courage, with the American savages as with their European counterparts in medieval times, is held to be of great and immediate value–and not just in times of war（as might be expected）, but also in order that there may be war. Thus wars are often started merely to display this quality, so that war itself is invested with an inherent dignity; for even philosophers have eulogized it as a kind of ennobling influence on man, forgetting the Greek saying that ‘war is bad in that it produces more evil people than it destroys’. So much, then, for what nature does to further her own end with respect to the human race as an animal species.

We now come to the essential question regarding the prospect of perpetual peace. What does nature do in relation to the end which man's own reason prescribes to him as a duty, i.e. how does nature help to promote his moral purpose? And how does nature guarantee that what man ought to do by the laws of his freedom（but does not do） will in fact be done through nature's compulsion, without prejudice to the free agency of man? This question arises, moreover, in all three areas of public right–in political, international and cosmopolitan right. For if I say that nature wills that this or that should happen, this does not mean that nature imposes on us a duty to do it, for duties can only be imposed by practical reason, acting without any external constraint. On the contrary, nature does it herself, whether we are willing or not: fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt [‘the fates lead him who is willing, but drag him who is unwilling’].

1. Even if people were not compelled by internal dissent to submit to the coercion of public laws, war would produce the same effect from outside. For in accordance with the natural arrangement described above, each people would find itself confronted by another neighbouring people pressing in upon it, thus forcing it to form itself internally into a state in order to encounter the other as an armed power. Now the republican constitution is the only one which does complete justice to the rights of man. But it is also the most difficult to establish, and even more so to preserve, so that many maintain that it would only be possible within a state of angels, since men, with their self-seeking inclinations, would be incapable of adhering to a constitution of so sublime a nature. But in fact, nature comes to the aid of the universal and rational human will, so admirable in itself but so impotent in practice, and makes use of precisely those self-seeking inclinations in order to do so. It only remains for men to create a good organization for the state, a task which is well within their capability, and to arrange it in such a way that their self-seeking energies are opposed to one another, each thereby neutralizing or eliminating the destructive effects of the rest. And as far as reason is concerned, the result is the same as if man's selfish tendencies were non-existent, so that man, even if he is not morally good in himself, is nevertheless compelled to be a good citizen. As hard as it may sound, the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils（so long as they possess understanding）. It may be stated as follows:‘In order to organize a group of rational beings who together require universal laws for their survival, but of whom each separate individual is secretly inclined to exempt himself from them, the constitution must be so designed that, although the citizens are opposed to one another in their private attitudes, these opposing views may inhibit one another in such a way that the public conduct of the citizens will be the same as if they did not have such evil attitudes.’ A problem of this kind must be soluble. For such a task does not involve the moral improvement of man; it only means finding out how the mechanism of nature can be applied to men in such a manner that the antagonism of their hostile attitudes will make them compel one another to submit to coercive laws, thereby producing a condition of peace within which the laws can be enforced. We can even see this principle at work among the actually existing（although as yet very imperfectly organized） states. For in their external relations, they have already approached what the idea of right prescribes, although the reason for this is certainly not their internal moral attitudes. In the same way, we cannot expect their moral attitudes to produce a good political constitution; on the contrary, it is only through the latter that the people can be expected to attain a good level of moral culture. Thus that mechanism of nature by which selfish inclinations are naturally opposed to one another in their external relations can be used by reason to facilitate the attainment of its own end, the reign of established right. Internal and external peace are thereby furthered and assured, so far as it lies within the power of the state itself to do so. We may therefore say that nature irresistibly wills that right should eventually gain the upper hand. What men have neglected to do will ultimately happen of its own accord, albeit with much inconvenience. As Bouterwek puts it:‘If the reed is bent too far, it breaks; and he who wants too much gets nothing.’

2. The idea of international right presupposes the separate existence of many independent adjoining states. And such a state of affairs is essentially a state of war, unless there is a federal union to prevent hostilities breaking out. But in the light of the idea of reason, this state is still to be preferred to an amalgamation of the separate nations under a single power which has overruled the rest and created a universal monarchy. For the laws progressively lose their impact as the government increases its range, and a soulless despotism, after crush-ing the germs of goodness, will finally lapse into anarchy. It is nonetheless the desire of every state（or its ruler） to achieve lasting peace by thus dominating the whole world, if at all possible. But nature wills it otherwise, and uses two means to separate the nations and prevent them from intermingling–linguistic and religious[13] differences. These may certainly occasion mutual hatred and provide pretexts for wars, but as culture grows and men gradually move towards greater agreement over their principles, they lead to mutual understanding and peace. And unlike that universal despotism which saps all man's energies and ends in the graveyard of freedom, this peace is created and guaranteed by an equilibrium of forces and a most vigorous rivalry.

3. Thus nature wisely separates the nations, although the will of each individual state, even basing its arguments on international right, would gladly unite them under its own sway by force or by cunning. On the other hand, nature also unites nations which the concept of cosmopolitan right would not have protected from violence and war, and does so by means of their mutual self-interest. For the spirit of commerce sooner or later takes hold of every people, and it cannot exist side by side with war. And of all the powers（or means） at the disposal of the power of the state, financial power can probably be relied on most. Thus states find themselves compelled to promote the noble cause of peace, though not exactly from motives of morality. And wherever in the world there is a threat of war breaking out, they will try to prevent it by mediation, just as if they had entered into a permanent league for this purpose; for by the very nature of things, large military alliances can only rarely be formed, and will even more rarely be successful.

In this way, nature guarantees perpetual peace by the actual mechanism of human inclinations. And while the likelihood of its being attained is not sufficient to enable us to prophesy the future theoretically, it is enough for practical purposes. It makes it our duty to work our way towards this goal, which is more than an empty chimera.

Second Supplement: Secret Article of a Perpetual Peace

In transactions involving public right, a secret article（regarded objectively or in terms of its content） is a contradiction. But in subjective terms, i.e. in relation to the sort of person who dictates it, an article may well contain a secret element, for the person concerned may consider it prejudicial to his own dignity to name himself publicly as its originator.

The only article of this kind is embodied in the following sentence: ‘The maxims of the philosophers on the conditions under which public peace is possible shall be consulted by states which are armed for war.’

Although it may seem humiliating for the legislative authority of a state, to which we must naturally attribute the highest degree of wisdom, to seek instruction from subjects（the philosophers） regarding the principles on which it should act in its relations with other states, it is nevertheless extremely advisable that it should do so. The state will therefore invite their help silently, making a secret of it. In other words, it will allow them to speak freely and publicly on the universal maxims of warfare and peace-making, and they will indeed do so of their own accord if no one forbids their discussions. And no special formal arrangement among the states is necessary to enable them to agree on this issue, for the agreement already lies in the obligations imposed by universal human reason in its capacity as a moral legislator. This does not, however, imply that the state must give the principles of the philosopher precedence over the pronouncements of the jurist（who represents the power of the state）, but only that the philosopher should be given a hearing. The jurist, who has taken as his symbol the scales of right and the sword of justice, usually uses the latter not merely to keep any extraneous influences away from the former, but will throw the sword into one of the scales if it refuses to sink（vae victis!）. Unless the jurist is at the same time a philosopher, at any rate in moral matters, he is under the greatest temptation to do this, for his business is merely to apply existing laws, and not to inquire whether they are in need of improvement. He acts as if this truly low rank of his faculty were in fact one of the higher ones, for the simple reason that it is accompanied by power（as is also the case with two of the other faculties）. But the philosophical faculty occupies a very low position in face of the combined power of the others. Thus we are told, for instance, that philosophy is the handmaid of theology, and something similar in relation to the others. But it is far from clear whether this handmaid bears the torch before her gracious lady, or carries the train behind.

It is not to be expected that kings will philosophize or that philosophers will become kings; nor is it to be desired, however, since the possession of power inevitably corrupts the free judgement of reason. Kings or sovereign peoples（i.e. those governing themselves by egalitarian laws） should not, however, force the class of philosophers to disappear or to remain silent, but should allow them to speak publicly. This is essential to both in order that light may be thrown on their affairs. And since the class of philosophers is by nature incapable of forming seditious factions or clubs, they cannot incur suspicion of disseminating propaganda.

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[1] A hereditary kingdom is not a state which can be inherited by another state. Only the right to rule over it may be bequeathed to another physical person. In this case, the state acquires a ruler, but the ruler as such（i.e. as one who already has another kingdom） does not acquire the state.

[2] It has hitherto been doubted, not without justification, whether there can be permissive laws（leges permissivae） in addition to preceptive laws（leges praeceptivae） and prohibitive laws （leges prohibitivae）. For all laws embody an element of objective practical necessity as a reason for certain actions, whereas a permission depends only upon practical contingencies. Thus a permissive law would be a compulsion to do something which one cannot be compelled to do, and if the object of the law were the same as that of the permission, a contradiction would result. But in the permissive law contained in the second article above, the initial prohibition applies only to the mode of acquiring a right in the future（e.g. by inheritance）, whereas the exemption from this prohibition（i.e. the permissive part of the law） applies to the state of political possessions in the present. For in accordance with a permissive law of natural right, this present state can be allowed to remain even although the state of nature has been abandoned for that of civil society. And even if these present possessions are unlawful, they are nevertheless honest（possessio putativa）. A putative possession is prohibited, however, as soon as it has been recognized as such, both in the state of nature and after the subsequent transition to civil society（if the mode of acquisition is the same）. And continued possession could not be permitted if the supposed acquisition had been made in the state of civil society, for it would then have to end immediately, as an offence against right, as soon as its unlawfulness had been discovered.

My intention here was merely to point out briefly to exponents of natural right the concept of a permissive law, which automatically presents itself within the systematic divisions of reason. It is especially noteworthy since it is frequently used in civil or statutory law, with the one difference that the prohibitive part of the law exists independently, and the permissive part is not included within the law itself as a limiting condition（as it ought to be）, but added to cover exceptional cases. Such laws usually state that this or that is prohibited, except in cases 1, 2 or 3, and so on ad infinitum, for permissive clauses are only added to the law fortuitously, by a random review of particular cases, and not in accordance with any definite principle. Otherwise, the limiting conditions would have had to be included in the actual formula of the prohibitive law, whereby it would have become a permissive law in itself. It is therefore to be regretted that the ingenious but unsolved competition question submitted by that wise and clear-sighted gentleman, Count Windischgrätz, was so soon abandoned, for it might have solved the legal difficulty we are at present discussing. For the possibility of finding a universal formula like those of mathematics is the only true test of consistent legislation, and without it, the so-called ius certum must remain no more than a pious hope. Otherwise, we shall only have general laws（i.e. laws valid in general）, but no universal laws（i.e. laws which are generally valid） such as the concept of a law seems to demand.

[3] It is usually assumed that one cannot take hostile action against anyone unless one has already been actively injured by them. This is perfectly correct if both parties are living in a legal civil state. For the fact that the one has entered such a state gives the required guarantee to the other, since both are subject to the same authority. But man（or an individual people） in a mere state of nature robs me of any such security and injures me by virtue of this very state in which he coexists with me. He may not have injured me actively（facto）, but he does injure me by the very lawlessness of his state（statu iniusto）, for he is a permanent threat to me, and I can require him either to enter into a common lawful state along with me or to move away from my vicinity. Thus the postulate on which all the following articles are based is that all men who can at all influence one another must adhere to some kind of civil constitution. But any legal constitution, as far as the persons who live under it are concerned, will conform to one of the three following types:

（1） a constitution based on the civil right of individuals within a nation（ius civitatis）.

（2） a constitution based on the international right of states in their relationships with one another（ius gentium）.

（3） a constitution based on cosmopolitan right, in so far as individuals and states, coexisting in an external relationship of mutual influences, may be regarded as citizens of a universal state of mankind（ius cosmopoliticum）. This classification, with respect to the idea of a perpetual peace, is not arbitrary, but necessary. For if even one of the parties were able to influence the others physically and yet itself remained in a state of nature, there would be a risk of war, which it is precisely the aim of the above articles to prevent.

[4] Rightful（i.e. external） freedom cannot, as is usually thought, be defined as a warrant to do whatever one wishes unless it means doing injustice to others. For what is meant by a warrant? It means a possibility of acting in a certain way so long as this action does not do any injustice to others. Thus the definition would run as follows: freedom is the possibility of acting in ways which do no injustice to others. That is, we do no injustice to others（no matter what we may actually do） if we do no injustice to others. Thus the definition is an empty tautology. In fact, my external and rightful freedom should be defined as a warrant to obey no external laws except those to which I have been able to give my own consent. Similarly, external and rightful equality within a state is that relationship among the citizens whereby no one can put anyone else under a legal obligation without submitting simultaneously to a law which requires that he can himself be put under the same kind of obligation by the other person.（And we do not need to define the principle of legal dependence, since it is always implied in the concept of a political constitution.） The validity of these innate and inalienable rights, the necessary property of mankind, is confirmed and enhanced by the principle that man may have lawful relations even with higher beings（if he believes in the latter）. For he may consider himself as a citizen of a transcendental world, to which the same principles apply. And as regards my freedom, I am not under any obligation even to divine laws（which I can recognize by reason alone）, except in so far as I have been able to give my own consent to them; for I can form a conception of the divine will only in terms of the law of freedom of my own reason. As for the principle of equality in relation to the most exalted being I can conceive of, apart from God（e.g. a power such as Aeon）, there is no reason, if I and this higher being are both doing our duty in our own stations, why it should be my duty to obey while he should enjoy the right to command. But the reason why this principle of equality（unlike that of freedom） does not apply to a relationship towards God, is that God is the only being for whom the concept of duty ceases to be valid.

But as for the right of equality of all citizens as subjects, we may ask whether a hereditary aristocracy is admissible. The answer to this question will depend entirely on whether more importance is attached to the superior rank granted by the state to one subject over another than is attached to merit, or vice versa. Now it is obvious that if rank is conferred according to birth, it will be quite uncertain whether merit（skill and devotion within one's office） will accompany it; it will be tantamount to conferring a position of command upon a favoured individual without any merit on his part, and this could never be approved by the general will of the people in an original contract, which is, after all, the principle behind all rights. For it does not necessarily follow that a nobleman is also a noble man. And as for a nobility of office, i.e. the rank of a higher magistracy which can be attained by merit, the rank does not attach as a possession to the person, but to the post occupied by the person, and this does not violate the principle of equality. For when a person lays down his office, he simultaneously resigns his rank and again becomes one of the people.

[5] Many have criticized the high-sounding appellations which are often bestowed on a ruler（e.g.‘the divine anointed’, or‘the executor and representative of the divine will on earth’） as gross and extravagant flatteries, but it seems to me without reason. Far from making the ruler of the land arrogant, they ought rather to fill his soul with humility. For if he is a man of understanding（which we must certainly assume）, he will reflect that he has taken over an office which is too great for a human being, namely that of administering God's most sacred institution on earth, the rights of man; he will always live in fear of having in any way injured God's most valued possession.

[6] Mallet du Pan, in his flamboyant but hollow and empty style, boasts of having at last, after many years of experience, become convinced of the truth of Pope's famous saying:‘For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered is best.’If this means that the best administered government is the best administered, he has cracked a nut（as Swift puts it） and been rewarded with a worm. But if it means that the best administered government is also the best kind of government（i.e. the best constitution）, it is completely false, for examples of good governments prove nothing whatsoever about kinds of government. Who, indeed, governed better than a Titus or a Marcus Aurelius, and yet the one left a Domitian as his successor, and the other a Commodus. And this could not have happened under a good constitution, since their unsuitability for the post of ruler was known early enough, and the power of their predecessors was great enough to have excluded them from the succession.

[7] Thus a Bulgarian prince, replying to the Greek Emperor who had kindly offered to settle his dispute with him by a duel, declared:‘A smith who possesses tongs will not lift the glowing iron out of the coals with his own hands.’

[8] At the end of a war, when peace is concluded, it would not be inappropriate for a people to appoint a day of atonement after the festival of thanksgiving. Heaven would be invoked in the name of the state to forgive the human race for the great sin of which it continues to be guilty, since it will not accommodate itself to a lawful constitution in international relations. Proud of its independence, each state prefers to employ the barbarous expedient of war, although war cannot produce the desired decision on the rights of particular states. The thanksgivings for individual victories during a war, the hymns which are sung（in the style of the Israelites） to the Lord of Hosts, contrast no less markedly with the moral conception of a father of mankind. For besides displaying indifference to the way in which nations pursue their mutual rights（deplorable though it is）, they actually rejoice at having annihilated numerous human beings or their happiness.

[9] If we wish to give this great empire the name by which it calls itself（i.e. China, not Sina or any similar form）, we need only consult Georgi's Alphabetum Tibetanum, pp. 651–654, note b in particular. According to Professor Fischer of Petersburg, it actually has no fixed name which it might apply to itself; the commonest one is still the word Kin, which means gold（the Tibetans, however, call this Ser）, which explains why the emperor is called King of Gold（i.e. of the fairest land in the world）. The word is apparently pronounced Chin in the land itself, but expressed as Kin by the Italian missionaries, who cannot pronounce the correct guttural sound. It can also be seen that what the Romans called the land of the people of Ser was in fact China, and silk was brought from there to Europe via Greater Tibet（probably crossing Lesser Tibet, Bukhara and Persia）. This led to numerous speculations on the antiquity of this extraordinary state as compared with that of Hindustan, and on its relations with Tibet as well as with Japan. But the name Sina or Tschina, which neighbouring countries allegedly use of it, leads nowhere.

Perhaps the ancient but hitherto obscure community between Europe and Tibet can be explained from what Hesychius has recorded of the hierophant's cryΚονζ'Ομπαζ（Konx Ompax） in the Eleusinian Mysteries（cf. Journey of the Younger Anacharsis, Part Ⅴ, p. 447 et seq.）. For according to Georgi's Alphabetum Tibetanum, the word Concioa means god, and it markedly resembles Konx, while Pahcio（ibid. p. 520）, which the Greeks might easily have pronounced pax, means promulgator legis, the divinity which pervades the whole of nature（also called Cencresi, p. 177）. But Om, which La Croze translates as benedictus（blessed）, can scarcely mean anything other than beatific if applied to the deity（p. 507）. When P. Francisco Orazio asked the Tibetan lamas how they conceived of god （Concioa）, he always received the answer:‘God is the community of all the holy ones’（i.e. the community of blessed souls, at last reunited in the deity by being reborn as lamas after numerous migrations through all kinds of bodies, and thereby transformed into beings worthy of adoration – p.223）. Thus the mysterious name Konx Ompax might designate that holy（Konx）, heavenly（Om） and wise（Pax） supreme being who pervades the whole world, i.e. nature personified. As used in the Greek mysteries, it may well have signified monotheism to the epopts, as distinct from the polytheism of the uninitiated mass, although it savoured of atheism to P. Orazio（loc. cit.）. Our earlier considerations should help to explain how this mysterious name reached the Greeks from Tibet; conversely, this influence makes it appear probable that Europe at an early date had contact with China by way of Tibet, perhaps even earlier than with India.

[10] In the mechanism of nature, of which man（as a sensory being） is a part, there is evident a fundamental form on which its very existence depends. This form becomes intelligible to us only if we attribute it to the design of a universal creator who has determined it in advance. We call this predetermining influence divine providence, and further define it as original providence in so far as it is active from the earliest times onwards（providentia conditrix; semel iussit, semper parent [As soon as he has given the command, they obey without fail] – Augustine）. In as much as it sustains the course of nature in accordance with purposive universal laws, we call it ruling providence（providentia gubernatrix）. If it realizes particular ends which man could not have foreseen and whose existence can only be guessed at from the results, it is termed guiding providence（providentia directrix）. And finally, if individual events are regarded as divinely intended, we no longer speak of providence but of a special dispensation（directio extraordinaria）. But it is foolish presumption for man to claim that he can recognize this as such, since it implies that a miracle has taken place, even if the events are not specifically described as miraculous. For however pious and humble it may sound, it is absurd and self-conceited for anyone to conclude from a single event that the efficient cause is governed by a special principle, or that the event in question is an end in itself and not just the natural and mechanical consequence of another end which is completely unknown to us. Similarly, it is false and self-contradictory to classify providence in terms of worldly objects（materialiter）, dividing it up into general and particular, as occurs in the doctrine that providence takes care to preserve the various species of creatures, but leaves chance to look after the individuals; for the whole point of saying that providence applies in general is that no single object should be excepted from it. This classification, however, was probably meant to indicate that the intentions of providence are carried out in different ways（formaliter）. These might be ordinary（e.g. the annual death and revival of nature with the changes of seasons） or extraordinary（e.g. the transporting of wood by Ocean currents to Arctic coasts where it cannot grow, thus providing for the native inhabitants, who could not live without it）. In the latter case, while we can well explain the physico-mechanical cause of the phenomena in question（e.g. by the fact that the riverbanks in temperate lands are covered in forests, so that the trees may fall into the rivers and be carried further a field by currents like the Gulf Stream）, we must not on the other hand overlook teleology, which indicates the foresight of a wise agency governing nature. But the conception, current in the academic world, of a divine participation or collaboration（concursus） in effects experienced in the world of the senses, is superfluous. For firstly, it is self-contradictory to try to harness disparates together（gryphes iungere equis [to harness griffins with horses]）, and to imply that a being who is himself the complete cause of the world's developments has to supplement his own predetermining providence during the course of world events（so that it must originally have been inadequate）; for example, it is absurd to say that after God, the doctor acted as an assistant in curing the patient – causa solitaria non invat [a single cause does not suffice]. God is the creator of the doctor and of all his medicaments, so that the effect must be ascribed entirely to him if we are to ascend to that supreme original cause which is theoretically beyond our comprehension. Alternatively, it can be ascribed entirely to the doctor, in so far as we treat the event in question as belonging to the order of nature and as capable of explanation within the causal series of earthly occurrences. And secondly, if we adopt such attitudes, we are deprived of all definite principles by which we might judge effects. But the concept of a divine concursus is completely acceptable and indeed necessary in the moral and practical sense, which refers exclusively to the transcendental world. For example, we may say that we should never cease to strive towards goodness, for we believe that God, even by means which we cannot comprehend, will make up for our own lack of righteousness so long as our attitude is sincere. It is, however, self-evident that no one should use such arguments to explain a good deed, regarded as a secular event, for this would presuppose theoretical knowledge of the transcendental, which it is absurd for us to claim.

[11] Of all ways of life, that of the hunter is undoubtedly most at odds with a civilized constitution. For families, having to live in separation, soon become strangers to each other, and subsequently, being scattered about in wide forests, they treat each other with hostility, since each requires a large area to provide itself with food and clothing. The command addressed to Noah forbidding the eating of blood（Genesis 9, 4–6） seems to have been originally nothing else but a prohibition of the hunter's way of life. For this must often involve eating uncooked meat, and if the latter is forbidden, the first is automatically ruled out too. This prohibition, often reiterated, was a condition later imposed by the Jewish Christians upon the newly accepted Christians of heathen origin, albeit with a different intention（Acts 15, 20 and 21, 25）.

[12] The following question might be raised. If nature intended that these frozen shores should not remain uninhabited, what will happen to their inhabitants if nature, as indeed may well happen, ceases to provide them with driftwood? For we may well believe that the natives of temperate zones, as their culture progresses, will make better use of the wood which grows on the banks of their rivers, and will not allow it to fall into them and be swept out to sea. I should reply that those who live on the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena etc. will supply them with it commercially, bartering it for the animal products in which the Arctic coasts are so plentiful – but only after nature has compelled them to live in peace with one another.

[13] Religious differences – an odd expression! As if we were to speak of different moralities. There may certainly be different historical confessions, although these have nothing to do with religion itself but only with changes in the means used to further religion, and are thus the province of historical research. And there may be just as many different religious books（the Zend-Avesta, the Vedas, the Koran, etc.）. But there can only be one religion which is valid for all men and at all times. Thus the different confessions can scarcely be more than the vehicles of religion; these are fortuitous, and may vary with differences in time or place.

Appendix

I

On the Disagreement between Morals and Politics in Relation to Perpetual Peace

Morality, as a collection of absolutely binding laws by which our actions ought to be governed, belongs essentially, in an objective sense, to the practical sphere. And if we have once acknowledged the authority of this concept of duty, it is patently absurd to say that we cannot act as the moral laws require. For if this were the case, the concept of duty would automatically be dropped from morals（ultra posse nemo obligatur [no one is obliged to do anything he is incapable of doing]）. Hence there can be no conflict between politics, as an applied branch of right, and morality, as a theoretical branch of right（i.e. between theory and practice）; for such a conflict could occur only if morality were taken to mean a general doctrine of expediency, i.e. a theory of the maxims by which one might select the most useful means of furthering one's own advantage – and this would be tantamount to denying that morality exists.

If politics were to say: ‘Be ye therefore wise as serpents’, morality might add, by way of qualification: ‘and harmless as doves’. If these two precepts cannot exist together within a single commandment, then there is indeed a disagreement between politics and morality. But if the two are to be united, it is absurd to suppose that they are in opposition, and the question of how such a conflict could be resolved cannot even be posed as a mental exercise. It is true, alas, that the saying ‘Honesty is the best policy’ embodies a theory which is frequently contradicted by practice. Yet the equally theoretical proposition ‘Honesty is better than any policy’ infinitely transcends all objections, and it is indeed an indispensable condition of any policy whatsoever. The god of morality does not yield to Jupiter, the custodian of violence, for even Jupiter is still subject to fate. In short, reason is not sufficiently enlightened to discover the whole series of predetermining causes which would allow it to predict accurately the happy or unhappy consequences of human activities as dictated by the mechanism of nature; it can only hope that the result will meet with its wishes. But reason at all times shows us clearly enough what we have to do in order to remain on the paths of duty, as the rules of wisdom require, and thus shows us the way towards our ultimate goal.

But the man of practice, to whom morality is pure theory, coldly repudiates our well-intentioned hopes, even if he does concede that we can do what we ought to do. He bases his argument on the claim that we can tell in advance from human nature that man will never want to do what is necessary in order to attain the goal of eternal peace. It is perfectly true that the will of all individual men to live in accordance with principles of freedom within a lawful constitution（i.e. the distributive unity of the will of all） is not sufficient for this purpose. Before so difficult a problem can be solved, all men together（i.e. the collective unity of the combined will） must desire to attain this goal; only then can civil society exist as a single whole. Since an additional unifying cause must therefore overrule the differences in the particular wishes of all individuals before a common will can arise, and since no single individual can create it, the only conceivable way of executing the original idea in practice, and hence of inaugurating a state of right, is by force. On its coercive authority, public right will subsequently be based.

We can certainly expect in advance that there will be considerable deviations in actual experience from the original theoretical idea. For we cannot assume that the moral attitude of the legislator will be such that, after the disorderly mass has been united into a people, he will leave them to create a lawful constitution by their own common will.

It might thus be said that, once a person has the power in his own hands, he will not let the people prescribe laws for him. Similarly, a state which is self-governing and free from all external laws will not let itself become dependent on the judgement of other states in seeking to uphold its rights against them. And even a whole continent, if it feels itself in a superior position to another one, will not hesitate to plunder it or actually to extend its rule over it, irrespective of whether the other is in its way or not. In this way, all the plans which theory lays for political, international or cosmopolitan right dissolve into empty and impracticable ideals; but a practice which is based on empirical principles of human nature, and which does not consider it beneath its dignity to shape its maxims according to the way of the world, can alone hope to find a solid foundation for its system of political opportunism.

If, of course, there is neither freedom nor any moral law based on freedom, but only a state in which everything that happens or can happen simply obeys the mechanical workings of nature, politics would mean the art of utilizing nature for the government of men, and this would constitute the whole of practical wisdom; the concept of right would then be only an empty idea. But if we consider it absolutely necessary to couple the concept of right with politics, or even to make it a limiting condition of politics, it must be conceded that the two are compatible. And I can indeed imagine a moral politician, i.e. someone who conceives of the principles of political expediency in such a way that they can co-exist with morality, but I cannot imagine a political moralist, i.e. one who fashions his morality to suit his own advantage as a statesman.

The moral politician will make it a principle that, if any faults which could not have been prevented are discovered in the political constitution or in the relations between states, it is a duty, especially for heads of state, to see to it that they are corrected as soon as possible; it should be ensured that these political institutions are made to conform to natural right, which stands before us as a model in the idea of practical reason, and this should be done even if selfish interests have to be sacrificed. It would be contrary to all political expediency, which in this case agrees with morality, to destroy any of the existing bonds of political or cosmopolitan union before a better constitution has been prepared to take their place. And while it would be absurd to demand that their faults be repaired at once and by violent measures, it can still be required of the individual in power that he should be intimately aware of the maxim that changes for the better are necessary, in order that the constitution may constantly approach the optimum end prescribed by laws of right. A state may well govern itself in a republican way, even if its existing constitution provides for a despotic ruling power; and it will gradually come to the stage where the people can be influenced by the mere idea of the law's authority, just as if it were backed up by physical force, so that they will be able to create for themselves a legislation ultimately founded on right. If, however, a more lawful constitution were attained by unlawful means, i.e. by a violent revolution resulting from a previous bad constitution, it would then no longer be permissible to lead the people back to the original one, even although everyone who had interfered with the old constitution by violence or conspiracy would rightly have been subject to the penalties of rebellion during the revolution itself. But as for the external relationship between states, no state can be required to relinquish its constitution, even if the latter is despotic（and hence stronger in relation to external enemies）, so long as this state is in danger of being engulfed at any moment by other states; hence while plans must be made for political improvement, it must be permissible to delay their execution until a better opportunity arises.[14]

It may well be the case that despotic moralists, i.e. those who err in practice, frequently act contrary to political prudence by adopting or recommending premature measures, yet experience must gradually bring them out of their opposition to nature and make them adopt better ways. But moralizing politicians, for what they are worth, try to cover up political principles which are contrary to right, under the pretext that human nature is incapable of attaining the good which reason prescribes as an idea. They thereby make progress impossible, and eternalize the violation of right.

Instead of applying the correct practice they boast of, these worldly-wise politicians resort to despicable tricks, for they are only out to exploit the people（and if possible the whole world） by influencing the current ruling power in such a way as to ensure their own private advantage. They are just like lawyers（i.e. those for whom law is a profession, not a matter of legislation） who have found their way into politics. For since it is not their business to argue over legislation itself, but to fulfil the present instructions of the law of the land, they will always regard the existing legal constitution（or, if this is altered by a higher authority, the subsequent one） as the best, because everything in it will follow a proper mechanical order. But this skill in being all things to all men may give them the illusion that they can also pass judgement, in accordance with concepts of right（i.e. a priori, not empirically）, on the principles of any political constitution whatsoever. And they may boast that they know men（which is certainly to be expected, since they have to do with so many of them）, although they do not know man and his potentialities, for this requires a higher anthropological vantage-point.

Armed with concepts such as these, they proceed to take up political and international law as prescribed by reason. But they cannot take this step except in a spirit of chicanery, for they will follow their usual procedure of applying despotically formulated coercive laws in a mechanical manner, even in a sphere where the concepts of reason only allow for lawful coercion, in keeping with the principles of freedom, which alone make possible a rightfully established political constitution. The supposed practitioner believes he can solve this problem empirically, ignoring the idea of reason and drawing on experience of how the（largely unlawful） constitutions which have hitherto survived best were organized. And the maxims which he employs for this purpose, although he does not make them public, can roughly be expressed in the following sophistries:

1. Fac et excusa [Act first and justify your actions later]. Seize any favourable opportunity of arbitrarily expropriating a right which the state enjoys over its own or over a neighbouring people; the justification can be presented far more easily and elegantly and the use of violence can be glossed over far more readily after the fact than if one were to think out convincing reasons in advance and then wait for counter-arguments to be offered. This is particularly true of the first case, where the highest power in the state is also the legislative authority which must be obeyed without argument. Such audacity itself gives a certain appearance of inner conviction that the deed is right and just, and the god of success（bonus eventus） will then be the best of advocates.

2. Si fecisti, nega [If you are the perpetrator, deny it]. If you have committed a crime, for instance, in order to lead your people to desperation and thence to rebellion, deny that the guilt is yours. Maintain instead that it arose from the intransigence of the subjects; or if you have seized control of a neighbouring people, say that the very nature of man is responsible, for if he does not anticipate others in resorting to violence, he may count on it that they will anticipate and overpower him.

3. Divide et impera [Divide and rule]. That is, if there are certain privileged persons among the people who have chosen you for their ruler merely as primus inter pares [the chief among his peers], make sure to disunite them among themselves and set them at odds with the people. And if you back up the people with false promises of greater freedom, everything will be dependent on your absolute will. Or if you are dealing with foreign states, to stir up discord among them is a fairly certain method of subjugating them one by one while merely appearing to lend support to the weaker.

No one, it must be confessed, will be taken in by these political maxims, for they are all generally known. And it is not the case that men are ashamed of them, as if their injustice were all too obviously visible. For great powers are never embarrassed about how the common mass might judge them, but only about one another's opinions. And as for the principles listed above, the powers will feel no shame if they become publicly known, but only if they fail to succeed, for they are all agreed on the moral status of the maxims. They are left with political honour, on which they can always rely if they enlarge their power by whatever means they care to use.[15] From all these twists and turns of an immoral and opportunistic doctrine of how to create peace among men out of the warlike state of nature, this much at least is clear: men can as little escape the concept of right in their private relations as in their public ones, and they will not openly dare to base their politics on opportunistic machinations alone and thus to refuse altogether to obey any concept of public right（which is particularly remarkable in the case of international right）. Instead, they pay such concepts all the honour they deserve, even although they may also devise a hundred excuses and subterfuges to get out of observing them in practice and to pretend that brute force and cunning can possess that authority which is the source and unifying bond of all right.

In order to end this sophistry（if not the actual injustice which it covers over） and to make the false representatives of those who wield power on earth confess that they are advocating might instead of right（adopting as they do the tone of persons entitled to give orders）, it will be well to discover the ultimate principle from which the end of perpetual peace is derived, and thus to destroy the illusions with which men deceive themselves and others. It must likewise be demonstrated that all the evil which stands in the way of perpetual peace results from the fact that the political moralist starts out from the very point at which the moral politician rightly stops; he thus makes his principles subordinate to his end（i.e. puts the cart before the horse）, thereby defeating his own purpose of reconciling politics with morality.

To ensure that practical philosophy is at one with itself, it is first necessary to resolve the question of whether, in problems of practical reason, we should begin with its material principle, i.e. its end, as an object of the will, or with its formal principle, i.e. the principle which rests on man's freedom in his external relations and which states:‘Act in such a way that you can wish your maxim to become a universal law（irrespective of what the end in view may be）.’

The latter principle must undoubtedly take precedence. For as a principle of right, it has absolute necessity, whereas the former is necessary only if the empirical conditions which permit the proposed end to be realized can be assumed to exist. And if this end were also a duty, as with the end of perpetual peace, it would itself have to be deduced from the formal principle of the maxims governing external action. Now the former（i.e. material） principle is that of the political moralist, and it treats the problems of political, international and cosmopolitan right as mere technical tasks; but the latter（i.e. formal） principle is that of the moral politician, for whom it is a moral task, totally different in its execution from technical problems, to bring about perpetual peace, which is desirable not just as a physical good, but also as a state of affairs which must arise out of recognizing one's duty.

For the solution of the first problem（that of political expediency）, much knowledge of nature is required, so that one can use its mechanism to promote the intended end. Nevertheless, all this is uncertain so far as its repercussions on perpetual peace are concerned, no matter which of the three departments of public right one considers. For it is uncertain whether the obedience and prosperity of the people can be better maintained over a long period by strict discipline or by appeals to their vanity, by conferring supreme power upon a single individual or upon several united leaders, or perhaps merely by means of an aristocracy of office or by popular internal government. History offers examples of the opposite effect being produced by all forms of government, with the single exception of genuine republicanism, which, however, could be the object only of a moral politician. And it is even more uncertain in the case of an international right supposedly based on statutes worked out by ministers, for it is in fact a mere word with nothing behind it, since it depends upon treaties which contain in the very act of their conclusion the secret reservation that they may be violated. On the other hand, the solution of the second problem, that of political wisdom, presents itself as it were automatically; it is obvious to everyone, it defeats all artifices, and leads straight to its goal, so long as we prudently remember that it cannot be realized by violent and precipitate means, but must be steadily approached as favourable opportunities present themselves.

We may therefore offer the following advice:‘Seek ye first the kingdom of pure practical reason and its righteousness, and your object（the blessing of perpetual peace） will be added unto you.’ For morality, with regard to its principles of public right（hence in relation to a political code which can be known a priori）, has the peculiar feature that the less it makes its conduct depend upon the end it envisages（whether this be a physical or moral advantage）, the more it will in general harmonize with this end. And the reason for this is that it is precisely the general will as it is given a priori, within a single people or in the mutual relationships of various peoples, which alone determines what is right among men. But this union of the will of all, if only it is put into practice in a consistent way, can also, within the mechanism of nature, be the cause which leads to the intended result and gives effect to the concept of right. For example, it is a principle of moral politics that a people should combine to form a state in accordance with freedom and equality as its sole concepts of right, and this principle is based not on expediency, but on duty. Political moralists, on the other hand, do not deserve a hearing, however much they argue about the natural mechanism of a mass of people who enter into society, or claim that this mechanism would invalidate the above principles and frustrate their fulfilment, or try to prove their assertions by citing examples of badly organized constitutions of ancient and modern times（e.g. of democracies without a system of representation）. Such theories are particularly damaging, because they may themselves produce the very evil they predict. For they put man into the same class as other living machines, which only need to realize consciously that they are not free beings for them to become in their own eyes the most wretched of all earthly creatures.

The proverbial saying fiat iustitia, pereat mundus（i.e. let justice reign, even if all the rogues in the world must perish） may sound somewhat inflated, but it is nonetheless true. It is a sound principle of right, which blocks up all the devious paths followed by cunning or violence. But it must not be misunderstood, or taken, for example, as a permit to apply one's own rights with the utmost rigour（which would conflict with ethical duty）, but should be seen as an obligation of those in power not to deny or detract from the rights of anyone out of disfavour or sympathy for others. And this requires above all that the state should have an internal constitution organized in accordance with pure principles of right, and also that it unite with other neighbouring or even distant states to arrive at a lawful settlement of their differences by forming something analogous to a universal state. This proposition simply means that whatever the physical consequences may be, the political maxims adopted must not be influenced by the prospect of any benefit or happiness which might accrue to the state if it followed them, i.e. by the end which each state takes as the object of its will（as the highest empirical principle of political wisdom）; they should be influenced only by the pure concept of rightful duty, i.e. by an obligation whose principle is given a priori by pure reason. The world will certainly not come to an end if there are fewer bad men. Moral evil has by nature the inherent quality of being self-destructive and self-contradictory in its aims（especially in relations between persons of a like mind）, so that it makes way for the moral principle of goodness, even if such progress is slow.

Thus in objective or theoretical terms, there is no conflict whatsoever between morality and politics. In a subjective sense, however（i.e. in relation to the selfish disposition of man, which, since it is not based on maxims of reason, cannot however be called practice）, this conflict will and ought to remain active, since it serves as a whetstone of virtue. The true courage of virtue, according to the principle tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito [‘You for your part must not give way to troubles, but confront them the more boldly’], does not so much consist, in the present case, in resolutely standing up to the evils and sacrifices which must be encountered, as in facing the evil principle within ourselves and overcoming its wiles. For this principle is far more dangerous, since it is deceitful, treacherous, and liable to exploit the weakness of human nature in order to justify any violation of justice.

The political moralist may indeed say that the ruler and people, or one people and another people, do no injustice to each other if they enter into mutual conflict through violence or cunning, although they act completely unjustly in refusing to respect the concept of right, which would alone be capable of establishing perpetual peace. For if one party violates his duty towards another who is just as lawlessly disposed towards him, that which actually happens to them in wearing each other out is perfectly just, and enough of their kind will always survive to keep this process going without interruption into the most distant future, so that later generations may take them as a warning example. Providence is justified in disposing the course of world events in this way; for the moral principle in man is never extinguished, and reason, which is pragmatically capable of applying the ideas of right according to this principle, constantly increases with the continuous progress of culture, while the guilt attending violations of right increases proportionately. If we suppose that mankind never can or will be in a better condition, it seems impossible to justify by any kind of theodicy the mere fact that such a race of corrupt beings could have been created on earth at all. But this kind of judgement is far too exalted for us; we cannot theoretically attribute our conception of wisdom to the supreme power whose nature is beyond our understanding.

Such are the desperate conclusions to which we are inevitably driven if we do not assume that the pure principles of right have an objective reality, i.e. that they can be applied in practice. And whatever empirical politics may say to the contrary, the people within the state, as well as the states in their relations with one another, must act accordingly. A true system of politics cannot therefore take a single step without first paying tribute to morality. And although politics in itself is a difficult art, no art is required to combine it with morality. For as soon as the two come into conflict, morality can cut through the knot which politics cannot untie.

The rights of man must be held sacred, however great a sacrifice the ruling power may have to make. There can be no half measures here; it is no use devising hybrid solutions such as a pragmatically conditioned right half-way between right and utility. For all politics must bend the knee before right, although politics may hope in return to arrive, however slowly, at a stage of lasting brilliance.

II

On the Agreement Between Politics and Morality According to the Transcendental Concept of Public Right

If, in considering public right as the jurists usually conceive of it, I abstract from all its material aspects（as determined by the various empirically given relationships of men within a state, or of states with one another）, I am left with the formal attribute of publicness. For every claim upon right potentially possesses this attribute, and without it, there can be no justice（which can only be conceived of as publicly knowable） and therefore no right, since right can only come from justice.

Every claim upon right must have this public quality, and since it is very easy to judge whether or not it is present in a particular instance, i.e. whether or not it can be combined with the principles of the agent concerned, it provides us with a readily applicable criterion which can be discovered a priori within reason itself. If it cannot be reconciled with the agent's principles, it enables us to recognize at once the falseness（i.e. unrightfulness） of the claim（praetensio iuris） in question, as if by an experiment of pure reason.

After we have abstracted in this way from all the empirical elements contained within the concept of political and international right（including that evil aspect of human nature which makes coercion necessary）, we may specify the following proposition as the transcendental formula of public right:‘All actions affecting the rights of other human beings are wrong if their maxim is not compatible with their being made public.’

This principle should be regarded not only as ethical（i.e. pertaining to the theory of virtue） but also as juridical（i.e. affecting the rights of man）.For a maxim which I may not declare openly without thereby frustrating my own intention, or which must at all costs be kept secret if it is to succeed, or which I cannot publicly acknowledge without thereby inevitably arousing the resistance of everyone to my plans, can only have stirred up this necessary and general（hence a priori foreseeable）opposition against me because it is itself unjust and thus constitutes a threat to everyone. Besides, this is a purely negative test, i.e. it serves only as a means of detecting what is not right in relation to others. Like any axiom, it is valid without demonstration, and besides, it is easy to apply, as can be seen from the following examples of public right.

1. In the internal right of a state（ius civitatis）, a question may arise which many people consider difficult to answer, although it can be resolved quite easily by means of the transcendental principle of publicness. It runs as follows:‘Is rebellion a rightful means for a people to use in order to overthrow the oppressive power of a so-called tyrant（non titulo, sed exercitio talis）?’ The rights of the people have been violated, and there can be no doubt that the tyrant would not be receiving unjust treatment if he were dethroned. Nevertheless, it is in the highest degree wrong if the subjects pursue their rights in this way, and they cannot in the least complain of injustice if they are defeated in the ensuing conflict and subsequently have to endure the most severe penalties.

Much can be said in arguments both for and against such a course of action if we try to settle the matter by dogmatic deduction of the principles of right. But the transcendental principle of publicness in questions of right can get round such long-winded discussion. According to this principle, the people, before establishing the civil contract, asks itself whether it dares to make public the maxim of its intention to rebel on certain occasions. It is easily seen that if one were to make it a condition of founding a political constitution that force might in certain eventualities be used against the head of state, the people would have to claim rightful authority over its ruler. But if this were so, the ruler would not be the head of state; or if both parties were given authority as a prior condition of establishing the state, the existence of the state itself, which it was the people's intention to establish, would become impossible. The injustice of rebellion is thus apparent from the fact that if the maxim upon which it would act were publicly acknowledged, it would defeat its own purpose. This maxim would therefore have to be kept secret.

But it would not be necessary for the head of state to conceal his intentions. He may say quite openly that he will punish any rebellion by putting the ringleaders to death, even if they believed that he was himself the first to infringe the fundamental law. For if he is aware that he possesses irresistible supreme power（and this must be assumed in any civil constitution, for a ruler who does not have sufficient power to protect each individual among the people against the others cannot have the right to give the people orders either）, he does not have to worry that his own aims might be frustrated if his maxim became generally known. And it is perfectly consistent with this argument that if the people were to rebel successfully, the head of state would revert to the position of a subject; but he would not be justified in starting a new rebellion to restore his former position, nor should he have to fear being called to account for his previous administration.

2. We now come to international right.– We can speak of international right only on the assumption that some kind of lawful condition exists, i.e. that external circum-stances are such that a man can genuinely be accorded his rights. For as a form of public right, it implies by definition that there is a general will which publicly assigns to each individual that which is his due. And this status iuridicus must be derived from some sort of contract, which, unlike that from which a state originates, must not be based on coercive laws, but may at most be a state of permanent and free association like the above-mentioned federation of different states. For without some kind of lawful condition which actively links together the various physical or moral persons（as is the case in the state of nature）, the only possible form of right is a private one. This again involves a conflict between politics and morality（the latter in the shape of a theory of right）. The criterion of publicness in the relevant maxims can, however, once again be easily applied, but only on condition that the contract binds the states for the single purpose of preserving peace amongst themselves and in relation to other states, and on no account with a view to military conquest. We can thus envisage the following instances of an antinomy between politics and morality, along with the appropriate solution in each case.

（a）‘If one of these states has promised something to another, whether it be assistance, cession of certain territories, subsidies, or the like, it may be asked whether this state, on occasions when its own welfare is at stake, may free itself from the obligation to keep its word, maintaining that it ought to be regarded as a dual person–on the one hand, as a sovereign who is not responsible to anyone within the state, and on the other, merely as the highest political official who is responsible to the state; and the conclusion to be drawn from this is that the state（or its ruler） can be exempted in the latter capacity from obligations it incurred in the first.’ But if the ruler of a state were to let it be known that this was his maxim, everyone else would naturally flee from him, or unite with others in order to resist his pretensions; which proves that such a system of politics, for all its cunning, would defeat its own purpose if it operated on a public footing, so that the above maxim must be wrong.

（b）‘If a neighbouring power which has grown to a formidable size（potentia tremenda） gives cause for anxiety, can one assume that it will wish to oppress other states because is is able to do so, and does this give the less powerful party a right to mount a concerted attack upon it, even if no offence has been offered?’ If a state were to let it be known that it affirmed this maxim, it would merely bring about more surely and more quickly the very evil it feared. For the greater power would anticipate the lesser ones, and the possibility that they might unite would be but a feeble reed against one who knew how to use the tactics of divide et impera. Thus this maxim of political expediency; if acknowledged publicly, necessarily defeats its own purpose and is consequently unjust.

（c）‘If a smaller state, by its geographical situation, constitutes a gap in the territory of a larger state, and this larger state requires the intrusive territory for its own preservation, is not the larger state justified in subjugating the smaller one and in annexing its territory?’ One can easily see that the larger state must on no account let it be known that it has adopted such a maxim. For the smaller states would either unite in good time, or other powerful states would quarrel over the proposed prey, so that the plan would be rendered impracticable if it were made public. This is a sign that it is unjust, and it would in fact be an injustice of very great magnitude; for the fact that the object of an injustice is small does not mean that the injustice done to it may not be very great.

3. As for cosmopolitan right, I pass over it here in silence, for its maxims are easy to formulate and assess on account of its analogy with international right.

In the principle that the maxims of international right may be incompatible with publicity, we thus have a good indication that politics and morality（in the sense of a theory of right） are not in agreement. But it is also necessary that we should know what the condition is under which its maxims will agree with international right. For we cannot simply conclude by a reverse process that all maxims which can be made public are therefore also just, because the person who has decisive supremacy has no need to conceal his maxims. The condition which must be fulfilled before any kind of international right is possible is that a lawful state must already be in existence. For without this, there can be no public right, and any right which can be conceived of outside it, i.e. in a state of nature, will be merely a private right. Now we have already seen above that a federative association of states whose sole intention is to eliminate war is the only lawful arrangement which can be reconciled with their freedom. Thus politics and morality can only be in agreement within a federal union, which is therefore necessary and given a priori through the principles of right. And the rightful basis of all political prudence is the founding of such a union in the most comprehensive form possible; for without this aim, all its reasonings are unwisdom and veiled injustice. This kind of false politics has its own casuistry to match that of the best Jesuit scholars. For it includes the reservatio mentalis whereby public contracts are formulated in terms which one can interpret to one's own advantage as required（for example, the distinction between the status quo of fact and the status quo of right）; it also includes the probabilismus, i.e. it tries to think out evil intentions which it might attribute to others, or uses the likelihood of their gaining predominance as a legal justification for undermining other peaceful states; and finally, it has the principle of the philosophical sin（peccatum philosophicum, peccatillum, or bagatelle）, whereby it can be regarded as a readily pardonable trifle to seize a small state if a much larger state gains in the process, to the supposed advantage of the world in general.[16]

All this is occasioned by the duplicity of politics in relation to morality, for it makes use of whatever branch of morality suits its purposes. But both aspects, philanthropy and respect for the rights of man, are obligatory. And while the former is only a conditional duty, the latter is an unconditional and absolutely imperative one; anyone must first be completely sure that he has not infringed it if he wishes to enjoy the sweet sense of having acted justly. Politics can easily be reconciled with morality in the former sense（i.e. as ethics）, for both demand that men should give up their rights to their rulers. But when it comes to morality in its second sense（i.e. as the theory of right）, which requires that politics should actively defer to it, politics finds it advisable not to enter into any contract at all, preferring to deny that the theory of right has any reality and to reduce all duties to mere acts of goodwill. This subterfuge of a secretive system of politics could, however, easily be defeated if philosophy were to make its maxims public, would it but dare to allow the philosopher to publicize his own maxims.

With this in mind, I now put forward another transcendental and affirmative principle of public right. It might be formulated as follows:‘All maxims which require publicity if they are not to fail in their purpose can be reconciled both with right and with politics.’

For if they can only attain their end by being publicized, they must conform to the universal aim of the public（which is happiness）, and it is the particular task of politics to remain in harmony with the aim of the public through making it satisfied with its condition. But if this end is to be attained only through publicity（i.e. by dispelling all distrust of the maxims employed）, the maxims in question must also be in harmony with public right; for only within this right is it possible to unite the ends of everyone. I must, however, postpone the further elaboration and discussion of this principle until another occasion, although it can already be seen that it is a transcendental formula if one removes all the empirical conditions relating to happiness, i.e. the substance of the law, and looks exclusively to the form of universal lawfulness.

If it is a duty to bring about in reality a state of public right（albeit by an infinite process of gradual approximation）, and if there are also good grounds for hoping that we shall succeed, then it is not just an empty idea that perpetual peace will eventually replace what have hitherto been wrongly called peace treaties（which are actually only truces）. On the contrary, it is a task which, as solutions are gradually found, constantly draws nearer fulfilment, for we may hope that the periods within which equal amounts of progress are made will become progressively shorter.

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[14] These are permissive laws of reason, which allow a state of public right to continue, even if it is affected by injustice, until all is ripe for a complete revolution or has been prepared for it by peaceful means. For any legal constitution, even if it is only in small measure lawful, is better than none at all, and the fate of a premature reform would be anarchy. Thus political prudence, with things as they are at present, will make it a duty to carry out reforms appropriate to the ideal of public right. But where revolutions are brought about by nature alone, it will not use them as a good excuse for even greater oppression, but will treat them as a call of nature to create a lawful constitution based on the principles of freedom, for a thorough reform of this kind is the only one which will last.

[15] It might be doubted whether any inherent wickedness rooted in human nature influences men who live together within a single state, for one might instead（with some plausibility） adduce the deficiencies of their as yet underdeveloped culture（i.e. their barbarism） as the cause of the unlawful elements in their thinking. But in the external relationships between states, this wickedness is quite undisguisedly and irrefutably apparent. Within each individual state, it is concealed by the coercion embodied in the civil laws, for the citizens' inclination to do violence to one another is counteracted by a more powerful force – that of the government. This not only gives the whole a veneer of morality（causae non causae）, but by putting an end to outbreaks of lawless proclivities, it genuinely makes it much easier for the moral capacities of men to develop into an immediate respect for right. For each individual believes of himself that he would by all means maintain the sanctity of the concept of right and obey it faithfully, if only he could be certain that all the others would do likewise, and the government in part guarantees this for him; thus a great step is taken towards morality（although this is still not the same as a moral step）, towards a state where the concept of duty is recognized for its own sake, irrespective of any possible gain in return. But since each individual, despite his good opinion of himself, assumes bad faith in everyone else, men thereby pass judgement on one another to the effect that they are all in point of fact of little worth – although it is a moot point why this should be so, since we cannot blame it on the nature of man as a free being. Since, however, that respect for the concept of right which man is absolutely incapable of renouncing gives the most solemn sanction to the theory that man is also capable of conforming to this concept, everyone can see that he must himself act in accordance with it, no matter how others may behave.

[16] One can find examples of such maxims in Garve's treatise Über die Verbindung der Moral mit der Politik（On Combining Morality with Politics）, 1788. This estimable scholar admits from the very outset that he is unable to offer a satisfactory answer to this question. But to condone such procedures while admitting that one cannot fully answer the objections which can be raised against them seems to constitute a greater concession to those who are most inclined to misuse it than it is advisable for anyone to make.

A Renewed Attempt to Answer the Question:‘Is the Human Race Continually Improving?’

1

What Sort of Knowledge are we Looking For?

What we are seeking to know is a portion of human history. It is not a history of the past, however, but a history of future times, i.e. a predictive history. But if it is not discoverable from known laws of nature（as with eclipses of the sun and moon, which can be foretold by natural means） and can only be learnt through additional insight into the future supplied by supernatural revelation, it must be termed prognosticative or prophetic.[1] Besides, we are here concerned not with the natural history of mankind（as we should be if we asked, for example, whether new races of man might emerge in future times）, but with the history of civilization. And we are not dealing with any specific conception of mankind（singulorum）, but with the whole of humanity（universorum）, united in earthly society and distributed in national groups. All this is implied if we ask whether the human race（as a whole） is continually improving.

2

How can we Attain Such Knowledge?

We can obtain a prophetic historical narrative of things to come by depicting those events whose a priori possibility suggests that they will in fact happen. But how is it possible to have history a priori? The answer is that it is possible if the prophet himself occasions and produces the events he predicts.

It was all very well for the Jewish prophets to foretell that the state to which they belonged would sooner or later suffer not only decline, but also complete dissolution; for they were themselves the architects of their fate. As leaders of the people, they had loaded their constitution with so many ecclesiastical（and thence also civil） burdens that their state became completely unfit to exist in its own right, particularly in its relations with neighbouring nations. Thus the jeremiads of the priests naturally went unheeded, because these same priests stubbornly stuck to their belief in the untenable constitution they had themselves created, so that they were themselves able to foresee the consequences with infallible certainty.

Our politicians, so far as their influence extends, behave in exactly the same way, and they are just as successful in their prophecies. One must take men as they are, they tell us, and not as the world's uninformed pedants or good-natured dreamers fancy that they ought to be. But ‘as they are’ ought to read ‘as we have made them by unjust coercion, by treacherous designs which the government is in a good position to carry out’. For that is why they are intransigent and inclined to rebellion, and why regrettable consequences ensue if discipline is relaxed in the slightest. In this way, the prophecy of the supposedly clever statesmen is fulfilled.

Various divines also at times prophesy the complete decline of religion and the imminent appearance of the Antichrist, all the while doing the very things that are best calculated to create the state of affairs they describe. For they are not taking care to impress on the hearts of their congregation moral principles which would directly lead to an improvement. Instead, they see observances and historical beliefs as the essential duties, supposing that these will indirectly produce the same results; but although they may lead to mechanical conformity（as within a civil constitution）, they cannot produce conformity in moral attitudes. Nevertheless, these divines complain at the irreligion which they have themselves created, and which they could accordingly have foretold without any special gift of prophecy.

3

Subdivisions Within the Concept of what we Wish to Know of the Future

There are three possible forms which our prophecy might take. The human race is either continually regressing and deteriorating, continually progressing and improving, or at a permanent standstill, in relation to other created beings, at its present level of moral attainment（which is the same as continually revolving in a circle around a fixed point）.

The first statement might be designated moral terrorism, the second eudaemonism（which, if the goal of human progress were already visible from afar, might also be termed chiliasm）, while the third could be called abderitism. For in the latter case, since a genuine standstill is impossible in moral affairs, rises and falls of equal magnitude constantly alternate, in endless fluctuation, and produce no more effect than if the subject of them had remained stationary in one place.

a

The terroristic conception of human history

A process of deterioration in the human race cannot go on indefinitely, for mankind would wear itself out after a certain point had been reached. Consequently, when enormities go on piling up and up and the evils they produce continue to increase, we say:‘It can't get much worse now.’ It seems that the day of judgement is at hand, and the pious zealot already dreams of the rebirth of everything and of a world created anew after the present world has been destroyed by fire.

b

The eudaemonistic conception of human history

We may readily agree that the sum total of good and evil of which our nature is capable always remains unchanged, and can neither be augmented nor reduced within any one individual. And how could the quantity of good of which a person is capable possibly be increased? For it would have to be done by his own free agency as a subject, and before he could do it, he would in turn require a greater store of goodness than he already possessed in the first place. After all, no effects can exceed the capacity of their effective cause; and the quantity of goodness in man must therefore remain below a certain level in proportion to the amount of evil with which it is intermixed, so that man cannot work his way beyond a given limit and go on improving further. Thus eudaemonism, with its sanguine hopes, appears to be untenable. Its ideas of constant human progress and improvement would seem of little use to a prophetic history of mankind.

c

The hypothesis of abderitism in the human race as a definition of its future history

This point of view probably has the majority of subscribers on its side. To start off swiftly along the way of goodness without persevering on it, and instead, to reverse the plan of progress in order at all costs to avoid being tied to a single aim（even if only from a desire for variety）; to construct in order to demolish; to take upon ourselves the hopeless task of rolling the stone of Sisyphus uphill, only to let it roll back down again: such is the industrious folly which characterizes our race. In view of all this, it does not so much seem that the principle of evil within the natural character of mankind is amalgamated or fused with that of goodness, but rather that the one is neutralized by the other, with inactivity as the result（or a standstill, as in the case under discussion）. This empty activity of backward and forward motion, with good and evil continually alternating, would mean that all the interplay of members of our species on earth ought merely to be regarded as a farce. And in the eyes of reason, this cannot give any higher a value to mankind than to the other animal species, whose interaction takes place at less cost and without any conscious understanding.

4

The Problem of Progress Cannot be Solved Directly from Experience

Even if it were found that the human race as a whole had been moving forward and progressing for an indefinitely long time, no one could guarantee that its era of decline was not beginning at that very moment, by virtue of the physical character of our race. And conversely, if it is regressing and deteriorating at an accelerating pace, there are no grounds for giving up hope that we are just about to reach the turning point（punctum flexus contrarii） at which our affairs will take a turn for the better, by virtue of the moral character of our race. For we are dealing with freely acting beings to whom one can dictate in advance what they ought to do, but of whom one cannot predict what they actually will do, and who are capable, if things go really badly and they experience evils incurred through their own actions, of regarding these evils as a greater incentive to do better than they did in the past. But as the Abbé Coyer says:‘Poor mortals! Nothing is constant among you but inconstancy.’

Perhaps it is because we have chosen the wrong point of view from which to contemplate the course of human affairs that the latter seems so absurd to us. The planets, as seen from the earth, sometimes move backward, sometimes forward, and at other times remain motionless. But seen from the sun – the point of view of reason – they continually follow their regular paths as in the Copernican hypothesis. Yet some thinkers, otherwise not deficient in wisdom, prefer to stick firmly to their own interpretation of phenomena and to the point of view they originally adopted, even at the price of involving themselves to an absurd degree in Tychonic cycles and epicycles. It is our misfortune, however, that we are unable to adopt an absolute point of view when trying to predict free actions. For this, exalted above all human wisdom, would be the point of view of providence, which extends even to free human actions. And although man may see the latter, he cannot foresee them with certainty（a distinction which does not exist in the eyes of the divinity）; for while he needs to perceive a connection governed by natural laws before he can foresee anything, he must do without such hints or guidance when dealing with free actions in the future.

If it were possible to credit human beings with even a limited will of innate and unvarying goodness, we could certainly predict a general improvement of mankind, for this would involve events which man could himself control. But if man's natural endowments consist of a mixture of evil and goodness in unknown proportions, no one can tell what effects he should expect from his own actions.

5

A Prophetic History of the Human Race Must Nevertheless Start from Some Sort of Experience

In human affairs, there must be some experience or other which, as an event which has actually occurred, might suggest that man has the quality or power of being the cause and（since his actions are supposed to be those of a being endowed with freedom） the author of his own improvement. But an event can be predicted as the effect of a given cause only when the circumstances which help to shape it actually arise. And while it can well be predicted in general that these circumstances must arise at some time or another（as in calculating probabilities in games of chance）, it is impossible to determine whether this will happen during my lifetime, and whether I shall myself experience it and thus be able to confirm the original prediction.

We must therefore search for an event which would indicate that such a cause exists and that it is causally active within the human race, irrespective of the time at which it might actually operate; and it would have to be a cause which allowed us to conclude, as an inevitable consequence of its operation, that mankind is improving. This inference could then be extended to cover the history of former times so as to show that mankind has always been progressing, yet in such a way that the event originally chosen as an example would not in itself be regarded as the cause of progress in the past, but only as a rough indication or historical sign（signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognostikon）. It might then serve to prove the existence of a tendency within the human race as a whole, considered not as a series of individuals（for this would result in interminable enumerations and calculations） but as a body distributed over the earth in states and national groups.

6

An Occurrence in our Own Times Which Proves This Moral Tendency of the Human Race

The occurrence in question does not involve any of those momentous deeds or misdeeds of men which make small in their eyes what was formerly great or make great what was formerly small, and which cause ancient and illustrious states to vanish as if by magic, and others to arise in their place as if from the bowels of the earth. No, it has nothing to do with all this. We are here concerned only with the attitude of the onlookers as it reveals itself in public while the drama of great political changes is taking place: for they openly express universal yet disinterested sympathy for one set of protagonists against their adversaries, even at the risk that their partiality could be of great disadvantage to themselves. Their reaction（because of its universality） proves that mankind as a whole shares a certain character in common, and it also proves（because of its disinterestedness） that man has a moral character, or at least the makings of one. And this does not merely allow us to hope for human improvement; it is already a form of improvement in itself, in so far as its influence is strong enough for the present.

The revolution which we have seen taking place in our own times in a nation of gifted people may succeed, or it may fail. It may be so filled with misery and atrocities that no right-thinking man would ever decide to make the same experiment again at such a price, even if he could hope to carry it out successfully at the second attempt. But I maintain that this revolution has aroused in the hearts and desires of all spectators who are not themselves caught up in it a sympathy which borders almost on enthusiasm, although the very utterance of this sympathy was fraught with danger. It cannot therefore have been caused by anything other than a moral disposition within the human race.

The moral cause which is at work here is composed of two elements. Firstly, there is the right of every people to give itself a civil constitution of the kind that it sees fit, without interference from other powers. And secondly, once it is accepted that the only intrinsically rightful and morally good constitution which a people can have is by its very nature disposed to avoid wars of aggression（i.e. that the only possible constitution is a republican one, at least in its conception）,[2] there is the aim, which is also a duty, of submitting to those conditions by which war, the source of all evils and moral corruption, can be prevented. If this aim is recognized, the human race, for all its frailty, has a negative guarantee that it will progressively improve or at least that it will not be disturbed in its progress.

All this, along with the passion or enthusiasm with which men embrace the cause of goodness（although the former cannot be entirely applauded, since all passion as such is blameworthy）, gives historical support for the following assertion, which is of considerable anthropological significance: true enthusiasm is always directed exclusively towards the ideal, particularly towards that which is purely moral（such as the concept of right）, and it cannot be coupled with selfish interests. No pecuniary rewards could inspire the opponents of the revolutionaries with that zeal and greatness of soul which the concept of right could alone produce in them, and even the old military aristocracy's concept of honour（which is analogous to enthusiasm） vanished before the arms of those who had fixed their gaze on the rights of the people to which they belonged,[3] and who regarded themselves as its protectors. And then the external public of onlookers sympathized with their exaltation, without the slightest intention of actively participating in their affairs.

7

The Prophetic History of Mankind

In these principles, there must be something moral which reason recognizes not only as pure, but also（because of its great and epoch-making influence） as something to which the human soul manifestly acknowledges a duty. Moreover, it concerns the human race as a complete association of men（non singulorum, sed universorum [‘Not of individuals, but of mankind as a whole’]）, for they rejoice with universal and disinterested sympathy at its anticipated success and at all attempts to make it succeed.

The occurrence in question is not, however, a phenomenon of revolution, but（as Erhard puts it） of the evolution of a constitution governed by natural right. Such a constitution cannot itself be achieved by furious struggles – for civil and foreign wars will destroy whatever statutory order has hitherto prevailed – but it does lead us to strive for a constitution which would be incapable of bellicosity, i.e. a republican one. The actual form of the desired state might be republican, or alternatively, it might only be republican in its mode of government, in that the state would be administered by a single ruler（the monarch） acting by analogy with the laws which a people would give itself in conformity with universal principles of right.

Even without the mind of a seer, I now maintain that I can predict from the aspects and signs of our times that the human race will achieve this end, and that it will henceforth progressively improve without any more total reversals. For a phenomenon of this kind which has taken place in human history can never be forgotten, since it has revealed in human nature an aptitude and power for improvement of a kind which no politician could have thought up by examining the course of events in the past. Only nature and freedom, combined within mankind in accordance with principles of right, have enabled us to forecast it; but the precise time at which it will occur must remain indefinite and dependent upon chance.

But even if the intended object behind the occurrence we have described were not to be achieved for the present, or if a people's revolution or constitutional reform were ultimately to fail, or if, after the latter had lasted for a certain time, everything were to be brought back onto its original course（as politicians now claim to prophesy）, our own philosophical prediction still loses none of its force. For the occurrence in question is too momentous, too intimately interwoven with the interests of humanity and too widespread in its influence upon all parts of the world for nations not to be reminded of it when favourable circumstances present themselves, and to rise up and make renewed attempts of the same kind as before. After all, since it is such an important concern of the human race, the intended constitution must at some time or another finally reach that degree of stability which the lessons of repeated experience will not fail to instil into the hearts of everyone.

Thus the proposition that the human race has always been progressively improving and will continue to develop in the same way is not just a well-meant saying to be recommended for practical purposes. Whatever unbelievers may say, it is tenable within the most strictly theoretical context. And if one considers not only the events which may happen within a particular nation, but also their repercussions upon all the nations of the earth which might gradually begin to participate in them, a view opens up into the unbounded future. This would not be true, of course, if the first epoch of natural convulsions, which（according to Camper and Blumenbach） engulfed the animal and vegetable kingdoms before the era of man, were to be followed by a second in which the human race were given the same treatment so that other creatures might take the stage instead, etc. For man in turn is a mere trifle in relation to the omnipotence of nature, or rather to its inaccessible highest cause. But if the rulers of man's own species regard him as such and treat him accordingly, either by burdening him like a beast and using him as a mere instrument of their ends, or by setting him up to fight in their disputes and slaughter his fellows, it is not just a trifle but a reversal of the ultimate purpose of creation.

8

The Difficulty of Maxims Directed Towards the World's Progressive Improvement as Regards Their Publicity

Popular enlightenment is the public instruction of the people upon their duties and rights towards the state to which they belong. Since this concerns only natural rights and rights which can be derived from ordinary common sense, their obvious exponents and interpreters among the people will not be officials appointed by the state, but free teachers of right, i.e. the philosophers. The latter, on account of the very freedom which they allow themselves, are a stumbling-block to the state, whose only wish is to rule; they are accordingly given the appellation of‘enlighteners’, and decried as a menace to the state. And yet they do not address themselves in familiar tones to the people（who themselves take little or no notice of them and their writings）, but in respectful tones to the state, which is thereby implored to take the rightful needs of the people to heart. And if a whole people wishes to present its grievance（gravamen）, the only way in which this can be done is by publicity. A ban on publicity will therefore hinder a nation's progress, even with regard to the least of its claims, the claim for natural rights.

Another thing which is concealed（transparently enough） by legal measures from a certain people is the true nature of its constitution. It would be an affront to the majesty of the people of Great Britain to say that they lived under an absolute monarchy. Instead, it is said that their constitution is one which limits the will of the monarch through the two houses of parliament, acting as representatives of the people. Yet everyone knows very well that the influence of the monarch upon these represenatives is so great and so infallible that the afore-said houses make no decisions except those which His Majesty wishes and recommends through his minister. Now and again, the latter will certainly recommend decisions wherein he knows and indeed ensures that he will meet with contradiction（as with the abolition of the slave trade）, simply in order to furnish ostensible proof of parliamentary freedom. But this sort of approach has the insidious effect of discouraging people from looking for the true and rightfully established constitution, for they imagine they have discovered it in an instance which is already before them. Thus a mendacious form of publicity deceives the people with the illusion that the monarchy is limited[4] by a law which emanates from them, while their representatives, won over by bribery, secretly subject them to an absolute monarch.

All forms of state are based on the idea of a constitution which is compatible with the natural rights of man, so that those who obey the law should also act as a unified body of legislators. And if we accordingly think of the commonwealth in terms of concepts of pure reason, it may be called a Platonic ideal（respublica noumenon）, which is not an empty figment of the imagination, but the eternal norm for all civil constitutions whatsoever, and a means of ending all wars. A civil society organized in conformity with it and governed by laws of freedom is an example representing it in the world of experience（respublica phaenomenon）, and it can only be achieved by a laborious process, after innumerable wars and conflicts. But its constitution, once it has been attained as a whole, is the best qualified of all to keep out war, the destroyer of everything good. Thus it is our duty to enter into a constitution of this kind; and in the meantime, since it will be a considerable time before this takes place, it is the duty of monarchs to govern in a republican（not a democratic） manner, even although they may rule autocratically. In other words, they should treat the people in accordance with principles akin in spirit to the laws of freedom which a people of mature rational powers would prescribe for itself, even if the people is not literally asked for its consent.

9

What Profit will the Human Race Derive from Progressive Improvement?

The profit which will accrue to the human race as it works its way forward will not be an ever increasing quantity of morality in its attitudes. Instead, the legality of its attitudes will produce an increasing number of actions governed by duty, whatever the particular motive behind these actions may be. In other words, the profit will result from man's good deeds as they grow ever more numerous and successful, i.e. from the external phenomena of man's moral nature. For we have only empirical data（our experiences） on which to base this prediction – that is, we base it on the physical cause of our actions in so far as they actually take place as phenomena, not on the moral cause which contains the concept of duty as applied to what ought to happen, and which can be determined by processes of pure a priori thinking.

Violence will gradually become less on the part of those in power, and obedience towards the laws will increase. There will no doubt be more charity, less quarrels in legal actions, more reliability in keeping one's word, and so on in the commonwealth, partly from a love of honour, and partly from a lively awareness of where one's own advantage lies; and this will ultimately extend to the external relations between the various peoples, until a cosmopolitan society is created. Such developments do not mean, however, that the basic moral capacity of mankind will increase in the slightest, for this would require a kind of new creation or supernatural influence. For we must not expect too much of human beings in their progressive improvements, or else we shall merit the scorn of those politicians who would gladly treat man's hopes of progress as the fantasies of an overheated mind.[5]

10

What Sequence can Progress be Expected to Follow?

The answer is: not the usual sequence from the bottom upwards, but from the top downwards.

To expect that the education of young people in intellectual and moral culture, reinforced by the doctrines of religion, firstly through domestic instruction and then through a series of schools from the lowest to the highest grade, will eventually not only make them good citizens, but will also bring them up to practise a kind of goodness which can continually progress and maintain itself, is a plan which is scarcely likely to achieve the desired success. For on the one hand, the people believe that the expense of educating their children should be met not by them but by the state; and on the other, the state itself（as Büsching laments） has no money left over to pay qualified teachers who will carry out their duties with enthusiasm, since it needs it all for war. But apart from this, the whole mechanism of education as described above will be completely disjointed unless it is designed on the considered plan and intention of the highest authority in the state, then set in motion and constantly maintained in uniform operation thereafter. And this will mean that the state too will reform itself from time to time, pursuing evolution instead of revolution, and will thus make continuous progress. But those responsible for the desired education are also human beings who will therefore have to have had a suitable education themselves. And in view of the frailty of human nature and the fortuitous circumstances which can intensify its effects, we can expect man's hopes of progress to be fulfilled only under the positive condition of a higher wisdom（which, if it is invisible to us, is known as providence）; and in so far as human beings can themselves accomplish anything or anything can be expected of them, it can only be through their negative wisdom in furthering their own ends. In the latter event, they will find themselves compelled to ensure that war, the greatest obstacle to morality and the invariable enemy of progress, first becomes gradually more humane, then more infrequent, and finally disappears completely as a mode of aggression. They will thereby enter into a constitution based on genuine principles of right, which is by its very nature capable of constant progress and improvement without forfeiting its strength.

Conclusion

A doctor who used to console his patients from day to day with hopes of imminent recovery, telling one that his pulse was better, and others that their faeces or perspiration heralded an improvement, etc., received a visit from one of his friends. ‘How are you, my friend, and how is your illness?’ was the first question. ‘How do you think,’ was the reply. ‘I am dying of sheer recovery!’

I do not blame anyone if political evils make him begin to despair of the welfare and progress of mankind. But I have confidence in the heroic medicine to which Hume refers, for it ought to produce a speedy cure. ‘When I now see the nations engaged in war’, he says, ‘it is as if I witnessed two drunken wretches bludgeoning each other in a china-shop. For it is not just that the injuries they inflict on each other will be long in healing; they will also have to pay for all the damage they have caused.’ Sero sapiunt Phryges [‘The Phrygians learn wisdom too late’]. But the after-pains of the present war will force the political prophet to admit that the human race must soon take a turn for the better, and this turn is now already in sight.

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[1] Those, from pythonesses to gypsies, who dabble in prophecy with neither knowledge nor honesty, are known as false prophets.

[2] This does not mean, however, that a people which has a monarchic constitution can thereby claim the right to alter it, or even nurse a secret desire to do so. For a people which occupies extended territories in Europe may feel that monarchy is the only kind of constitution which can enable it to preserve its own existence between powerful neighbours. And if the subjects should complain, not because of their internal government but because of their government's behaviour towards the citizens of foreign states（for example, if it were to discourage republicanism abroad）, this does not prove that the people are dissatisfied with their own constitution, but rather that they are profoundly attached to it; for it becomes progressively more secure from danger as more of the other nations become republics. Nevertheless, slanderous sycophants, bent on increasing their own importance, have tried to portray this innocuous political gossip as innovationism, Jacobinism and conspiracy, constituting a menace to the state. But there was never the slightest reason for such allegations, particularly in a country more than a hundred miles removed from the scene of the revolution.

[3] It may be said of such enthusiasm for asserting the rights of man: postquam ad arma Vulcania ventum est, – mortalis mucro glacies ceu futilis ictu dissiluit [Now that he was faced by Vulcan's arms, his mortal blade was shattered by the blow like brittle ice]. – Why has no ruler ever dared to say openly that he does not recognize any rights of the people against himself ? Or that the people owe their happiness only to the beneficence of a government which confers it upon them, and that any pretensions on the part of the subject that he has rights against the government are absurd or even punishable, since they imply that resistance to authority is permissible? The reason is that any such public declaration would rouse up all the subjects against the ruler, even although they had been like docile sheep, well fed, powerfully protected and led by a kind and understanding master, and had no lack of welfare to complain of. For beings endowed with freedom cannot be content merely to enjoy the comforts of existence, which may well be provided by others（in this case, by the government）; it all depends on the principle which governs the provision of such comforts. But welfare does not have any ruling principle, either for the recipient or for the one who provides it, for each individual will define it differently. It depends, in fact, upon the will's material aspect, which is empirical and thus incapable of becoming a universal rule. A being endowed with freedom, aware of the advantage he possesses over non-rational animals, can and must therefore follow the formal principle of his will and demand for the people to which he belongs nothing short of a government in which the people are co-legislators. In other words, the rights of men who are expected to obey must necessarily come before all considerations of their actual wellbeing, for they are a sacred institution, exalted above all utilitarian values; and no matter how benevolent a government is, it may not tamper with them. These rights, however, always remain an idea which can be fulfilled only on condition that the means employed to do so are compatible with morality. This limiting condition must not be overstepped by the people, who may not therefore pursue their rights by revolution, which is at all times unjust. The best way of making a nation content with its constitution is to rule autocratically and at the same time to govern in a republican manner, i.e. to govern in the spirit of republicanism and by analogy with it.

[4] A cause whose nature is not directly perceptible can be discovered through the effect which invariably accompanies it. What is an absolute monarch? He is one at whose command war at once begins when he says it shall do so. And conversely, what is a limited monarch? He is one who must first ask the people whether or not there is to be a war, and if the people say that there shall be no war, then there will be none. For war is a condition in which all the powers of the state must be at the head of state's disposal.

Now the monarch of Great Britain has waged numerous wars without asking the people's consent. This king is therefore an absolute monarch, although he should not be so according to the constitution. But he can always bypass the latter, since he can always be assured, by controlling the various powers of the state, that the people's representatives will agree with him; for he has the authority to award all offices and dignities. This corrupt system, however, must naturally be given no publicity if it is to succeed. It therefore remains under a very transparent veil of secrecy.

[5] It is certainly agreeable to think up political constitutions which meet the requirements of reason（particularly in matters of right）. But it is foolhardy to put them forward seriously, and punishable to incite the people to do away with the existing constitution.

Plato's Atlantis, More's Utopia, Harrington's Oceana and Allais' Severambia have successively made their appearance, but they have never（with the exception of Cromwell's abortive attempt to establish a despotic republic） been tried out in practice. It is the same with these political creations as with the creation of the world: no one was present at it, nor could anyone have been present, or else he would have been his own creator. It is a pleasant dream to hope that a political product of the sort we here have in mind will one day be brought to perfection, at however remote a date. But it is not merely conceivable that we can continually approach such a state; so long as it can be reconciled with the moral law, it is also the duty of the head of state（not of the citizens） to do so.

Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History

To introduce conjectures at various points in the course of a historical account in order to fill gaps in the record is surely permissible; for what comes before and after these gaps – i.e. the remote cause and the effect respectively – can enable us to discover the intermediate causes with reasonable certainty, thereby rendering the intervening process intelligible. But to base a historical account solely on conjectures would seem little better than drawing up a plan for a novel. Indeed, such an account could not be described as a conjectural history at all, but merely as a work of fiction. – Nevertheless, what it may be presumptuous to introduce in the course of a history of human actions may well be permissible with reference to the first beginning of that history, for if the beginning is a product of nature, it may be discoverable by conjectural means. In other words, it does not have to be invented but can be deduced from experience, assuming that what was experienced at the beginning of history was no better or worse than what is experienced now – an assumption which accords with the analogy of nature and which has nothing presumptuous about it. Thus, a history of the first development of freedom from its origins as a predisposition in human nature is something quite different from a history of its subsequent course, which must be based exclusively on historical records.

Nevertheless, conjectures should not make undue claims on our assent. On the contrary, they should not present themselves as a serious activity but merely as an exercise in which the imagination, supported by reason, may be allowed to indulge as a healthy mental recreation. Consequently, they cannot stand comparison with a historical account which is put forward and accepted as a genuine record of the same event, a record which is tested by criteria quite different from those derived merely from the philosophy of nature. For this very reason, and because the journey on which I am about to venture is no more than a pleasure trip, I may perhaps hope to be granted permission to employ a sacred document as my map, and at the same time to speculate that the journey which I shall make on the wings of imagination – although not without the guidance of experience as mediated by reason – will follow precisely the same course as that which the sacred text records as history. The reader will have the document in question before him（Genesis, Chapters Ⅱ–Ⅵ）, and may consult it at every step to see whether the route which philosophy follows with the help of concepts accords with that which the Bible story describes.

If we are not to indulge in wild conjectures, we must begin with something which human reason cannot deduce from prior natural causes – that is, with the existence of human beings. These human beings must also be fully developed, for they have no mother to support them, and they must be a pair in order that they may reproduce their kind. Besides, there must be only one couple if war is not to break out at once – as would happen if the people in question were close to one another yet strangers – and if nature is not to be accused of having failed, by permitting descent from different ancestors, to take the most appropriate measures to promote sociability as the principal end of human destiny; for the common descent of all human beings from a single family unit was undoubtedly the best means of attaining this end. I then place this couple in a setting secure from the attacks of wild beasts and amply pro-vided by nature with every means of sustenance – a garden, so to speak, in a climate of constant mildness. What is more, I imagine them not in their wholly primitive natural state, but only after they have made significant advances in the skilful use of their powers. For the reader might well find too many conjectures and too few probabilities if I were to try to fill this gap, which presumably occupied a considerable interval of time. The first human being could therefore stand and walk; he could speak（cf. Genesis Ⅱ. 20）[1] and indeed talk – i.e. speak with the help of coherent concepts（Ⅱ. 23） – and consequently think. These are all skills which he had to acquire for himself（for if they were innate, they would also be inherited, which does not tally with experience）; I assume, however, that he is already in possession of them, for I wish merely to consider the development of human behaviour from the ethical point of view, and this necessarily presupposes that the skills in question are already present.

Initially, the newcomer must have been guided solely by instinct, that voice of God which all animals obey. It permitted him to use some things as food and forbade him to use others（Ⅲ. 2–3）. – It is unnecessary, however, to assume for this purpose a particular instinct which has now been lost. It could simply have been the sense of smell and its affinity with the organ of taste, along with that sympathy which is known to exist between the latter and the digestive organs – in other words an ability, which is still in evidence today, to sense in advance whether a given food is suitable for consumption or not. We need not even assume that this sense was more acute in the first couple than it is now; for it is common knowledge that the perceptive powers of those who employ only their senses differ greatly from those of people who are also engaged in thought, and who accordingly pay less attention to their sensations.

So long as inexperienced man obeyed this call of nature, his lot was a happy one. But reason soon made its presence felt and sought to extend his knowledge of foodstuffs beyond the bounds of instinct; it did so by comparing his usual diet with anything which a sense other than that to which his instinct was tied – for example, the sense of sight – represented as similar in character（Ⅲ. 6）. Even if instinct did not recommend it, this experiment had a chance of succeeding so long as instinct did not contradict it. But it is a peculiarity of reason that it is able, with the help of the imagination, to invent desires which not only lack any corresponding natural impulse, but which are even at variance with the latter. Such desires, which are known primarily as lasciviousness, gradually engender a whole host of superfluous or even unnatural inclinations to which the term luxuriousness applies. The initial incentive to abandon natural impulses may have been quite trivial. But the outcome of that first experiment whereby man became conscious of his reason as a faculty which can extend beyond the limits to which all animals are confined was of great importance, and it influenced his way of life decisively. Thus, it may have been only a fruit which, because it looked similar to other agreeable fruits which he had previously tasted, encouraged him to make the experiment. There may also have been the example of an animal to which such food was naturally congenial, although it had an opposite and harmful effect on human beings, whose natural instinct was consequently opposed to it. Nevertheless, this was enough to give reason the initial inducement to quibble with the voice of nature（Ⅲ. 11）, and despite the latter's objections, to make the first experiment in free choice–an experiment which, since it was the first, probably did not turn out as expected. No matter how trivial the harm it did may have been, it was nevertheless enough to open man's eyes（Ⅲ. 7）. He discovered in himself an ability to choose his own way of life without being tied to any single one like the other animals. But the momentary gratification which this realization of his superiority may have afforded him was inevitably followed at once by anxiety and fear as to how he should employ his newly discovered ability, given that he did not yet know the hidden properties or remote effects of anything. He stood, as it were, on the edge of an abyss. For whereas instinct had hitherto directed him towards individual objects of his desire, an infinite range of objects now opened up, and he did not yet know how to choose between them. Yet now that he had tasted this state of freedom, it was impossible for him to return to a state of servitude under the rule of instinct.

Next to the instinct for food by which nature preserves each individual, the sexual instinct, by which nature ensures the survival of each species, is the most prominent. Once reason had awakened, it was not slow to make its influence felt in this area either. Man soon discovered that the sexual stimulus, which in the case of animals is based merely on a transient and largely periodic urge, could in his case be prolonged and even increased by means of the imagination. For although the imagination performs its function with greater moderation the further its object is withdrawn from the senses, it also functions more constantly and uniformly, thereby avoiding that satiety which follows the satisfaction of a purely animal desire. The fig-leaf was accordingly the product of a much stronger assertion of reason than had been evident in the first phase of its development. For to render an inclination more intense and lasting by withdrawing its object from the senses already displays a consciousness of some rational control over the impulses, and not just an ability, as in the first stage of rationality, to obey the impulses to a greater or lesser extent. Refusal was the device which invested purely sensuous stimuli with an ideal quality, and which gradually showed the way from purely animal desire to love, and so also from a feeling for the merely agreeable to a taste for beauty（initially only in human form, but subsequently also in nature）. Furthermore, the first incentive for man's development as a moral being came from his sense of decency, his inclination to inspire respect in others by good manners（i.e. by concealing all that might invite contempt） as the proper foundation of all true sociability. – A small beginning such as this, which nevertheless has epoch-making effects in imparting a wholly new direction to thought, is more important than the whole endless series of subsequent cultural developments.

The third step which reason took after its intervention in man's basic and immediately felt needs was to reflect in anticipation of the future. This ability not just to enjoy the present moment of life but also to visualize what is yet to come, often in the distant future, is the most decisive proof of man's advantage, in that he is able to prepare for remote objectives in keeping with his destiny. But this same ability is also the most inexhaustible source of cares and worries which an uncertain future evokes, and from which all animals are exempt（Ⅲ. 13–19）. The man who had to provide for himself, his wife, and his future children foresaw the increasing laboriousness of his work; the woman foresaw the hardships to which nature had subjected her sex, as well as those which the more powerful man would inflict upon her. Both foresaw with apprehension, at the end of a life of toil and as yet in the background of the picture, the fate which must befall all animals but which causes them no concern, namely death; and they seemed to reproach themselves for, and regard as a crime, that use of reason which had brought all these ills upon them. Perhaps the only comfort and reassurance they had was the prospect of living through their offspring, whose lot might be better than theirs or who might even, as members of one family, alleviate their parents' troubles（Ⅲ. 16–20）.

The fourth and last step which reason took, thereby raising man completely above animal society, was his（albeit obscure） realization that he is the true end of nature, and that nothing which lives on earth can compete with him in this respect. When he first said to the sheep‘the fleece which you wear was given to you by nature not for your own use, but for mine’ and took it from the sheep to wear it himself（Ⅲ. 21）, he became aware of a prerogative which, by his nature, he enjoyed over all the animals; and he now no longer regarded them as fellow creatures, but as means and instruments to be used at will for the attainment of whatever ends he pleased. This notion implies（if only obscurely） an awareness of the following distinction: man should not address other human beings in the same way as animals, but should regard them as having an equal share in the gifts of nature. This was a distant preparation for those restrictions which reason would in future impose on man's will in relation to his fellows, a preparation which is much more essential for the establishment of society than is inclination or love.

Thus, man had attained a position of equality with all rational beings, whatever their rank（Ⅲ. 22）, because he could claim to be an end in himself, to be accepted as such by all others, and not to be used by anyone else simply as a means to other ends. This, rather than reason considered merely as an instrument for the satisfaction of various inclinations, is the basis of man's unconditional equality even with higher beings; for even if the latter are incomparably superior to him in natural gifts, they do not have a right to use him as they please. Consequently, this fourth step of reason is also associated with man's release from the womb of nature, a change of status which undoubtedly does him honour, but is at the same time fraught with danger; for it expelled him from the harmless and secure condition of a protected childhood – from a garden, as it were, which provided for him without any effort on his part（Ⅲ. 23） – and thrust him out into the world at large, where so many cares, labours, and unknown evils awaited him. In the future, the hardships of life would often arouse in him the wish for a paradise created by his imagination, a paradise where he could dream or idle away his existence in quiet inactivity and everlasting peace. But restless reason, irresistibly driving him on to develop his innate capacities, stands between him and that imagined seat of bliss, and does not allow him to return to the state of rude simplicity from which it had originally extracted him（Ⅲ. 24）. It urges him to submit patiently to the labours he detests, to pursue the trivialities he despises, and to forget even his terror of death in favour of all those trifles whose loss he fears even more.

Note

From this account of the earliest history of man, the following conclusion can be drawn. Man's emergence from that paradise which reason represents to him as the first abode of his species was nothing other than his transition from a rude and purely animal existence to a state of humanity, from the leading-strings of instinct to the guidance of reason – in a word, from the guardianship of nature to the state of freedom. Whether he gained or lost through this change is no longer a question when we consider the destiny of his species, which consists quite simply in progress towards perfection, however flawed his first attempts to attain this end – even if they are followed by a long series of further attempts – may prove to be. – But while this course represents a progression from worse to better for the species as a whole, this is not so in the case of the individual. Before reason awoke, there were no commandments or prohibitions, so that violations of these were also impossible. But when reason began to function and, in all its weakness, came into conflict with animality in all its strength, evils necessarily ensued; and even worse, as reason grew more cultivated, vices emerged which were quite foreign to the state of ignorance and hence of innocence. From the moral point of view, therefore, the first step beyond this state was a fall; and from the physical point of view, this fall was a punishment, for it led to a host of hitherto unknown evils. Thus, the history of nature begins with goodness, for it is the work of God; but the history of freedom begins with evil, for it is the work of man. For the individual, who looks only to himself in the exercise of his freedom, a change of this kind represented a loss; for nature, whose end in relation to man concerns the species, it represented a gain. The individual therefore has cause to blame himself for all the ills which he endures and for all the evil which he perpetrates; but at the same time, as the member of a whole（of a species）, he has cause to admire and praise the wisdom and purposiveness of the overall arrangement. – In this way, it is possible to reconcile with each other and with reason the often misunderstood and apparently contradictory pronouncements of the celebrated J. J. Rousseau. In his esays On the Influence of the Sciences and On the Inequality of Man, he shows quite correctly that there is an inevitable conflict between culture and the nature of the human race as a physical species each of whose individual members is meant to fulfil his destiny completely. But in his Émile, his Social Contract, and other writings, he attempts in turn to solve the more difficult problem of what course culture should take in order to ensure the proper development, in keeping with their destiny, of man's capacities as a moral species, so that this [moral] destiny will no longer conflict with his character as a natural species. Since culture has perhaps not yet really begun – let alone completed – its development in accordance with the true principles of man's education as a human being and citizen, the above conflict is the source of all the genuine evils which oppress human life, and of all the vices which dishonour it.[2] At the same time, the very impulses which are blamed as the causes of vice are good in themselves, fulfilling their function as abilities implanted by nature. But since these abilities are adapted to the state of nature, they are undermined by the advance of culture and themselves undermine the latter in turn, until art, when it reaches perfection, once more becomes nature – and this is the ultimate goal of man's moral destiny.

The End of History

The following period began with man's transition from the age of leisure and peace to the age of labour and discord as the prelude to social union. Here, we must make another major leap and suddenly put him in possession of domestic animals and of crops which he can propagate himself for his own consumption by sowing and planting（Ⅳ. 2）. In fact, the transition from the savage life of the hunter to the former [pastoral] state, and from sporadic digging for roots or gathering of fruit to the second [agricultural] state, may have taken place very gradually. It was at this point that strife inevitably arose between those who had hitherto lived together in peace, with the result that those whose ways of life were different became separated and dispersed throughout the world. Pastoral life is not only leisurely, but also the most reliable means of support, for there is no lack of fodder for animals in a largely uninhabited country. Agriculture or the planting of crops, on the other hand, is extremely laborious, subject to the vagaries of climate, and consequently insecure; it also requires permanent settlements, ownership of land, and sufficient strength to defend the latter. The herdsman, however, abhors such property because it limits his freedom of pasture. As far as agriculture is concerned, the farmer may have seemed to envy the herdsman as someone more favoured by heaven（Ⅳ. 4）; but in fact, the herdsman caused him great inconvenience so long as he remained in the neighbourhood, for grazing animals do not spare the farmer's crops. It is also easy for the herdsman to move further afield with his animals, thus avoiding the need to make any restitution for the damage he has done, for he leaves nothing behind which he could not just as easily find elsewhere. Thus, the farmer no doubt had to use force to prevent these incursions, which were not considered unlawful by his adversary; and since the cause of such incursions could never be entirely eliminated, he was no doubt eventually compelled to distance himself as far as possible from those who lived a pastoral existence, unless he wished to lose the fruits of his long and diligent efforts（Ⅳ. 16）. This separation marks the beginning of the third epoch.

Where people depend for their livelihood on the cultivation of the soil（and on the planting of trees in particular）, they require permanent accommodation; and the defence of such property against all encroachment requires a large number of people who are prepared to assist one another. Hence those who adopted this way of life could no longer live in scattered family units, but had to stick together and set up village communities（incorrectly described as towns） in order to protect their property against savage hunters or tribes of pastoral nomads. The first essentials of life which a changed mode of living makes necessary（Ⅳ. 20） could now be acquired by mutual exchange. This inevitably gave rise to culture and the beginnings of art, both as a pastime and as an occupation（Ⅳ. 21f）; but first and foremost, it also meant that certain steps were taken to establish a civil constitution and the public administration of justice. Initially, the latter was no doubt concerned only with major acts of violence, the avenging of which was now no longer left to individuals as in the savage state, but assigned to a lawful authority which served to unite the whole – i.e. to a kind of government which was not itself subject to the rule of force（Ⅳ. 23f.）. – From these first crude beginnings, all human aptitudes could now gradually develop, the most beneficial of these being sociability and civil security. The human race could multiply and, like a beehive, send out colonists in all directions from the centre – colonists who were already civilized. This epoch also saw the beginning of human inequality, that abundant source of so much evil but also of everything good; this inequality continued to increase thereafter.

So long as the nations of nomadic herdsmen, who recognize only God as their master, continued to swarm around the town-dwellers and farmers, who are governed by a human master or civil authority（Ⅵ. 4）,[3] and, as declared enemies of all land ownership, treated the latter with hostility and were hated by them in turn, the two sides were continually at war, or at least at constant risk of war. But as a consequence, both nations could at least enjoy the priceless asset of internal freedom.（For even now, the risk of war is the only thing which keeps despotism in check, because a state must now have wealth before it can be powerful, and there can be no wealth-producing activity without freedom. In a poor nation, this lack of wealth must be compensated for by widespread efforts to preserve the commonwealth, and this is again impossible unless the nation feels that such efforts can be freely made.） – In the course of time, however, the growing luxury of the town-dwellers, and in particular the seductive arts in which the women of the towns surpassed the unkempt wenches of the wilderness, must have been a powerful temptation to the herdsmen to enter into relations with them and to let themselves be drawn into the glittering misery of the towns（Ⅵ. 2）. The consequent amalgamation of two formerly hostile populations put an end to the danger of war, but it also put an end to freedom. This led on the one hand to a despotism of powerful tyrants, and – since culture had only just begun – to soulless extravagance and the most abject slavery, combined with all the vices of the uncivilized state. On the other hand, the human race was irresistibly deflected from the course marked out for it by nature, namely the progressive cultivation of its capacities for goodness. It thus became unworthy of its very existence as a species whose destiny was to rule over the earth rather than to live in brutish indulgence and grovelling servitude（Ⅵ. 17）.

Concluding Note

Thinking people are subject to a malaise which may even turn into moral corruption, a malaise of which the unthinking are ignorant – namely discontent with that providence by which the course of the world as a whole is governed. They feel this sentiment when they contemplate the evils which so greatly oppress the human race, with no hope（as it seems） of any improvement. Yet it is of the utmost importance that we should be content with providence, even if the path it has laid out for us on earth is an arduous one. We should be content with it partly in order that we may take courage even in the midst of hardships, and partly in order that we should not blame all such evils on fate and fail to notice that we may ourselves be entirely responsible for them, thereby losing the chance to remedy them by improving ourselves.

We have to admit that the greatest evils which oppress civilized nations are the result of war – not so much of actual wars in the past or present as of the unremitting, indeed ever-increasing preparation for war in the future. All the resources of the state, and all the fruits of its culture which might be used to enhance that culture even further, are devoted to this purpose. Freedom suffers greatly in numerous areas, and the state's maternal care for its individual members is replaced by demands of implacable harshness（even if this harshness is justified by fear of external threats）. But if the constant fear of war did not compel even heads of state to show this respect for humanity, would we still encounter the same culture, or that close association of social classes within the commonwealth which promotes the well-being of all? Would we still encounter the same population, or even that degree of freedom which is still present in spite of highly restrictive laws? We need only look at China, whose position may expose it to occasional unforeseen incursions but not to attack by a powerful enemy, and we shall find that, for this very reason, it has been stripped of every vestige of freedom. – So long as human culture remains at its present stage, war is therefore an indispensable means of advancing it further; and only when culture has reached its full development – and only God knows when that will be – will perpetual peace become possible and of benefit to us. In this connection, therefore, we surely have only ourselves to blame for the evils which we so bitterly lament; and the Holy Scripture is quite justified in regarding the amalgamation of nations into one society, and their complete liberation from external danger at a time when their culture had scarcely emerged, as an obstacle to all further cultural progress and a descent into irremediable corruption.

The second source of man's dissatisfaction with the order of nature is the shortness of life. It is true that anyone who continues to wish that life might last longer than it actually does must have little appreciation of its value, for to prolong it would merely add to the length of a drama made up of endless struggles with adversity. Nevertheless, we may excuse those of childish judgement who fear death but have no love of life, and who find it hard to complete each day of their existence with some degree of contentment, yet can never have days enough in which to repeat this painful experience. But if we stop to think of all the care that afflicts us in our search for ways of passing a life as short as this, and of all the injustice that is done in the hope of a future enjoyment which will last for so short a time, it is reasonable to conclude that a life-expectancy of 800 years or more would not be to our advantage. Fathers would live in mortal fear of their sons, brothers of brothers, and friends of friends, and the vices of a human race of such longevity would necessarily reach such a pitch that it would deserve no better a fate than to be wiped from the face of the earth by a universal flood（Ⅵ. 12f.）.

The third wish（which is in fact an empty yearning, for it knows that its object can never be attained） is a reflection of that golden age which poets have praised so highly. In it, we are supposedly relieved of all those imaginary needs with which luxury encumbers us, we are content with the bare necessities of nature, and there is complete equality and perpetual peace among men – in a word, there is pure enjoyment of a carefree life, frittered away in idle dreams or childish play. It is yearnings such as these which make tales of Robinson Crusoe and voyages to the South Sea islands so attractive; but in a wider sense, they are symptoms of that weariness of civilized life which thinking people feel when they seek its value in pleasure alone, and when they resort to idleness as an antidote as soon as reason reminds them that they ought to give value to their life through their actions. The vacuity of this wish for a return to the past age of simplicity and innocence is adequately demonstrated by the foregoing account of man's original state. For as we have seen, man cannot remain in this state because it does not satisfy him, and he is even less inclined to go back to it once he has left it. Consequently, he must continue to ascribe his present condition and all its hardships to himself and his own choice.

An account of human history will be of benefit to man and will serve to instruct and improve him if it contains the following lessons. It must show him that he should not blame providence for the evils which oppress him, and that he is not entitled to ascribe his own misdemeanours to an original crime committed by his earliest ancestors, by alleging, for example, that a disposition to commit similar offences has been passed down to their descendants; for there can be nothing inherited about arbitrary actions. It should show him instead that he has every justification for acknowledging the action of his first ancestors as his own, and that he should hold himself wholly responsible for all the evils which spring from the misuse of his reason; for he is quite capable of realizing that, in the same circumstances, he would have behaved in exactly the same way, in that his first act in using reason would have been to misuse it（even if nature advised him otherwise）. Once this point concerning moral evils has been correctly understood, the strictly physical evils will scarcely tip the balance in our favour when merits and faults are weighed against each other.

The conclusion to be drawn from this attempt to describe the earliest history of mankind with the help of philosophy is therefore as follows. We should be content with providence and with the course of human affairs as a whole, which does not begin with good and then proceed to evil, but develops gradually from the worse to the better; and each individual is for his own part called upon by nature itself to contribute towards this progress to the best of his ability.

————————————————————

[1] The urge to communicate must have been the original motive for human beings who were still alone to announce their existence to living creatures outside themselves, especially to those which emit sounds which can be imitated and which can subsequently serve as a name. A similar effect of this urge can still be seen in children and thoughtless people who disturb the thinking section of the community by banging, shouting, whistling, singing and other noisy pastimes（and often even by noisy religious devotions）. For I can see no motive for such behaviour other than a desire on the part of those concerned to proclaim their existence to the world at large.

[2] The following may be cited as only a few examples of this conflict between man's aspiration towards his moral destiny on the one hand, and his unchanging obedience to laws inherent in his nature and appropriate to a crude and animal condition on the other.

Nature has fixed the time at which human beings reach maturity – in terms of their urge and ability to reproduce their kind – at the age of approximately sixteen or seventeen. This is the age at which, in the raw state of nature, a youth literally becomes a man; for he then has the capacity to look after himself, to reproduce his kind, and to look after his children as well as his wife. The simplicity of his needs makes this an easy task. But in a civilized state, he requires numerous means of support, in terms both of skill and of favourable external circumstances, in order to perform these functions. In the context of civil society, the corresponding stage is therefore postponed – at least on average – by a further ten years. Nevertheless, nature has not altered the age of puberty to match the progressive refinement of society, but sticks stubbornly to the law which it has imposed on the survival of the human race as an animal species. As a result, the effect of social customs on the end of nature – and vice versa – is inevitably prejudicial. For in the state of nature, a human being is already a man at an age when civilized man（who nevertheless still retains his character as natural man） is merely a youth, or even only a child; for we may well describe as a child someone who, in the civil state, is unable because of his age to support even himself, let alone others of his kind, despite having the urge and capacity to produce offspring as called upon by nature. For nature has certainly not endowed living creatures with instincts and capacities in order that they should resist and suppress them. Such abilities were consequently not designed for a state of civilization, but merely for the survival of the human race as an animal species; and the civilized state thus inevitably comes into conflict with the latter, a conflict which only a perfect civil constitution – the ultimate goal of culture – can resolve. Meanwhile, the intervening period [between the state of nature and the state of perfection] is filled as a rule with vices and their consequences, i.e. with human misery in its various forms.

A further example may confirm the truth of the proposition that nature has endowed us with two distinct abilities for two distinct purposes, namely that of man as an animal species and that of man as a moral species. The example in question is the saying of Hippocrates ‘ars longa, vita brevis’. The arts and sciences could be advanced much further by one individual with the appropriate talents, once he had attained the necessary maturity of judgement through long practice and the acquisition of knowledge, than by whole generations of scholars in succession, provided that this individual could live and retain his youthful mental capacities for the total lifetimes of the generations in question. Now it is evident that nature has fixed the length of human life with a view to ends other than that of the advancement of the sciences. For just when the most fortunate of thinkers is on the verge of the greatest discoveries which his skill and experience entitle him to expect, old age intervenes; he loses his acuteness and must leave it to the next generation（which starts once more from the ABC and must again traverse the entire distance which had already been covered） to take a further step in the progress of culture. Thus, the course which the human race follows on the way to fulfilling its destiny appears subject to incessant interruptions, with a constant risk of reverting to the original barbarism; and the Greek philosopher had some justification when he complained that it is a pity that we have to die just when we have begun to realize how we ought to have lived.

As a third example, we may cite the inequality of men – not their inequality in terms of natural gifts or goods bestowed on them by fortune, but it terms of universal human rights, about which Rousseau complains with a great deal of truth. Yet this inequality is inseparable from culture, so long as the latter proceeds, as it were, without a plan（and this is inevitably the case for a considerable period of time）. But it was surely not imposed on man by nature, for nature gave him both freedom and reason, and reason decreed that this freedom is subject to no other limits than those of its own universal and external legality, which is known as civil right. Man was meant to rise, by his own efforts, above the barbarism of his natural abilities, but to take care not to contravene them even as he rises above them. He can expect to attain this skill only at a late stage and after many unsuccessful attempts; and in the meantime, the human race groans under the evils which it inflicts on itself as a result of its own inexperience.

[3] The Bedouins of Arabia still describe themselves as children of a former sheikh, the founder of their tribe（such as Beni Haled and others）. But the sheikh is by no means their master, and he cannot force his will upon them as he chooses. For in a nation of herdsmen, no one has fixed property which he cannot take with him, so that any family which is discontented with its tribe can easily leave it and join forces with another.

目录

译者导读

一 序言

二 论思想与讨论自由

三 论个性自由——人类幸福的因素之一

四 论社会对个人的管制权限

五 论自由原则之应用

I Introductory

II Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion

III Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-being

IV Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual

V Applications

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论自由：英汉对照/（英）密尔著；牛云平译.—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin’s Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world—particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great non-fction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling—to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or John Ruskin’s On Art and Life was frst published—where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages—there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book’s reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear—most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Tomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca—few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer—our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books, frst written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas—these ideas are great because they have been so enormously infuential, but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas—indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series—for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to fnd themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

译者导读

约翰·斯图亚特·密尔（1806—1873年）是英国哲学家、政治经济学家、政府文官，最富影响的19世纪思想家之一。他的父亲，英国历史学家、经济学家、功利主义哲学家詹姆斯·密尔按照约翰·洛克的认识理论，从密尔童年时期就对他进行了严格的教养。密尔是个早慧的天才。据其自传，他三岁开始学习古希腊语；八岁时已经熟读了大量古希腊和古罗马典籍，学习了代数、物理学和天文学等自然科学知识；12岁时即通晓经院和亚里士多德的逻辑学；13岁时接触到政治经济学，与父亲共同研究了经济学家亚当·斯密和大卫·李嘉图的经济学，协助父亲创建了古典经济学中的生产要素论。密尔在成长过程中，与李嘉图、功利主义哲学家杰里米·边沁、法国政治经济学家让·巴蒂斯特·萨伊、法国空想社会主义者圣西门、法国社会学家奥古斯特·孔德等当世英杰过从甚密，在思想的频繁交流中获益良多。作为不信奉英国国教的新教徒，密尔没有资格进入牛津大学与剑桥大学读书，于是随父亲到东印度公司任职，并在非宗教高校伦敦大学学院接受了教育。在大学期间，他受到了英国法学家约翰·奥斯丁的思想影响。1851年，他与哈莉特·泰勒结束二十一年的恋爱长跑，步入了婚姻殿堂。聪慧无双的泰勒对密尔影响很大，她包括妇女权利在内的许多思想都在密尔的著作中得以体现。

密尔著述颇丰，覆盖哲学、政治、经济等多个领域，重要著作有《逻辑体系》（1843年）、《政治经济学原理》（1848年）、《论自由》（1859年）、《论代议制政府》（1861年）、《功利主义》（1861年）、《女性的服从》（1869年）等。其中，《论自由》是其哲学代表作。

《论自由》讨论了个人在宗教信仰、思想、言论、个性等方面的自由，研究了社会对个人可行使权力的性质和界限，明确提出了“多数人的暴政”这一振聋发聩的名言，和“人类无论作为个人或集体，只有出于自卫这惟一目的时，才能干预任何人或人群的行动自由”这一鲜明论点。全文篇幅不长，但思想深刻、视域辽阔，引人入胜；且旁征博引、前后相贯、逻辑严谨、条理清楚、论说明晰。例如，他信手征引了苏格拉底、耶稣、奥勒留大帝、路德等宗教改革家，洪堡、卢梭、斯坦利勋爵、摩门教等古今人物与教派的事迹，列举了食物禁忌、禁酒令、婚姻契约、妇女权益、社会和政府干涉等现实问题，涉及英、法、德、美、俄、中、印度等多个欧洲、美洲、亚洲国家，使本文既具历史的深刻，又具有现实之锋芒。密尔剖析问题时，十分注重多方辩证，使全文读来底气丰沛而思路细密，兼备学者的严谨学风、文学家的生动文采与演说家的敏捷辩才。因此，该书问世以来，影响广播，深受历代读者推崇，跻身经典名著之列。

自清末严复《群己权界论》问世以来，《论自由》已有多种汉译本。按照恩师辜正坤先生“筛选积淀重译论”的内在要求，笔者本应尽数搜罗更逐一研读，多方借鉴而去粗取精，以图继承创新、递进提高，创造出最佳近似原作的译作。惜因多种缘故，未能充分实现。近些年来，在不同译论视角的解构风潮下，百多年前的严复译文数遭诟病。然而，严复翻译此书距密尔原著出版隔不过四十年，称得上去古未远，其中西学养亦未必输于今人后学，故此，其译文中虽不免杂有清末的时代噪音，但对密尔之论点与文风的把握，是足以信赖的。笔者在翻译过程中，每遇疑词难句，除多方查阅当世资料之外，亦将拙见考校于严复译文，以求义理精审，兼向先贤筚路蓝缕之功致敬。

此外，笔者曾将书中部分章节的汉译作为课程作业，在河北大学2012级和2013级翻译硕士专业学位研究生“人文社科文献翻译”课堂上进行研讨推究。研究生们各具千秋的理解和译文也对笔者有所启发，在此一并致以谢忱。

最后，密尔原著中个别地方用词过简，或句法过于繁复，逻辑关系缴绕，笔者虽尽力剖解、前后引衬，仍恐译文中有表意不清甚或理解谬误之处。叩请方家不吝赐教。

谨将此书献给我挚爱的、悲痛追忆中的她——我的贤妻益友。是她启发并与我共同创作了我作品中的所有精彩华章。她崇高的真理心与正义感给予我最强劲的激励，她的嘉许是对我最宝贵的奖赏。本书同我多年写出的所有其他作品一样，是我们二人的共同心血。但是，书稿中只有很少部分极其幸运地经她亲手润正，某些最重要的部分本准备请她细加审阅，而今已永无可能了。无数伟大的思想与高贵的情感已随她而长眠地下，倘若我能向世人传述其中的半数，必将令他们受益良多；她的睿智旷世无匹，失去了她的激励与帮助，我的所思所作何足同等裨益世人？！

“这些书页上展现的每句论述都辐辏于一条伟大的主导原则：让人类任意地多样化发展，这一点绝对至关重要。”

——威廉·冯·洪堡

《政府的权限与责任》

一　序言

本文所论并非所谓的“意志自由”——那个不幸与误称为“哲学必然性”的学说相对立的学说，而是“公民或社会自由”，即：社会以何种性质、在何种限度内对个人实施权力才算正当。关于这一问题，尚无人概述及或浮泛而论，但其隐性存在却深深影响着当前的种种现实论争，并将很可能迅速成为未来的关键问题。这一问题绝非新生事物，在某种意义上，人类几乎自诞生之初就被它分裂为不同群体。然而，人类中相对文明的群体如今已进入了新的发展阶段，在新阶段、新形势下，公民自由问题浮现而出，需要人类提出更具实质性的新对策。

自由与威权的斗争是我们熟悉的某些历史阶段的最显著特征，在古希腊、古罗马和英国历史上尤其如此。不过，古代的斗争是臣民或臣民中某些阶层与政府之间的斗争。自由意味着受到保护，免遭政治统治者的暴政之害。统治者们（古希腊某些平民政府中的统治者除外）被认为与其治下的民众必然相互对立。他们或是居于统治地位的个人，或是一个部族或阶级；其威权或由继承而得，或借征服获取。他们的权柄绝非民众可任意予夺，只要有可防范其强权镇压的法子，民众便不会冒险或许也并不愿去争夺他们的尊位。统治者的权力被视为不可或缺但也极其危险之物，是一种既可用以对抗外敌亦可毫不犹豫地对抗臣民的武器。若要防止鹫群中的弱小成员惨遭众秃鹫捕杀，则需委派一只最为强悍的秃鹫做首领，以制伏其他秃鹫。然而，秃鹫王之嗜好劫掠鹫群，绝不亚于那些劲量略小的凶鹫，所以必须永远警惕其尖喙与利爪。故此，那时爱国志士的目标就是为统治者设定权限，防止其对民众滥施权力；这种设限行为就是他们意谓的自由。设限方式有两种：第一，获得统治者对某些名为政治自由或政治权利的承认。统治者若侵犯这些自由或权利就是渎职，他若果真悍然侵犯，那么民众进行某种抵制甚或全民造反就属合理合法。第二，建立宪法作为制约手段。总体而言，这一方式发生较晚。据此，统治者若想采取某些较为重要的行动，必须先征得民众或被认为代表着民众利益的某个组织的同意。大多数欧洲国家的统治者都或多或少地被迫服从于第一种设限方式，但并未服从第二种方式。使第二种方式奏效，或者在其已部分奏效的情况下使其完全奏效，就成为各国自由爱好者的主要目标。只要人类满足于靠一个敌人对抗另一个敌人，满足于接受某个主人的统治——前提是他多少可以有效地保证不对他们实施暴政，他们便别无祈望。

但是，在人类事务的发展进程中，出现了这样一刻：人们意识到，由与自己利益对立的他者充当统治者，并非天然法则。他们感到，更好的办法是，应该让国家的各种官员充当他们的租户或代表，他们可以随意解约，遣散这些官员。似乎惟有如此，才能绝对确保政府权力不被滥用，他们的利益才不会受损。渐渐地，不论何处，只要存在平民政党，这种靠选举产生临时统治者就会提出新的需求，这在很大程度上取代了以前限定统治者权力的做法，成为该政党的主要奋斗目标；他们力图使统治者产生于被统治者的周期性选举。发展到后来，一些人开始感到，以前太看重限定权力本身这件事了。当统治者利益与民众利益对立时，限定其权力（似乎）只是一种权宜之计。现在所需要的是，让统治者认同民众，让统治者的利益和意志与全体国民的利益和意志合一。国家不必防范自己的意志，不必担忧其会对自己实行暴政。让统治者完全向全体国民负责，国民可以随时罢免他们，因为国民可自主决定权力的用途，所以可放心将权力托付给他们。统治者的权力正是全体国民自身的权力，这种权力高度集中，便于行使。这种想法或感觉，曾普遍出现于上一代欧洲自由主义者之中，并在今天的欧陆自由主义者中仍占主流地位。那些同意给政府——他们认为非法的政府除外——设立权限的人，在欧陆的政治思想家中显得卓尔不群。我国的形势也一度鼓舞了与这些自由主义者想法类似的论调，倘若后来情势未改，这种论调如今可能已甚嚣尘上。

然而，与人生经历一样，在政治和哲学学说中，失败可能会掩藏各种缺陷与弱点，而成功则会暴露它们。当平民政体仅存于梦想或远古历史的传闻之中时，人们无需限定自己对自己行使的权力，这种观念似乎不争自明。法国大革命之类的暂时性社会骚乱也全然没有动摇这一观念。在此观念中，那些最糟糕的骚乱乃是少数篡夺者造成的；它与大众机构的常规运作方式毫无关系，而是反对国王独裁和贵族专制的突发事件。但是，后来一个民主共和国占据了巨幅的国土，且竟然跻身世界强国之列；这一重大事实使人们开始关注和评论选举制、责任制政体。此时，世人方才意识到，“自治”、“人民对自我行使的权力”等词语并未表达事情的实相。行使权力的“人民”与作为权力行使对象的人民并不总是同一群体；所谓“自治”并非每个人自我管治，而是一切别人对他进行管治。而且，“人民的意志”实际上意味着人民当中人数最多或最活跃的群体——即多数派，或那些成功将自己打造为多数派的人——的意志。于是，人民可能会有压迫自己当中部分群体的意愿。这种情况同其他形式的权力滥用一样，都需严加防范。因此，即便掌权者要定期对全民——即其中的最强大派——负责，限定政府对个人的权力仍然至关紧要。上述主张不仅受到思想家们的支持，也获得了欧洲社会中重要阶层的青睐——因为民主政体会损害其实际利益或假定利益，顺利成为了主流观点。现在，各种政治理论已普遍将“多数人的暴政”列为社会需警惕的罪恶之一。

如同其他暴政一样，多数人的暴政主要是通过公权机构的行为实施的，从其诞生至今，令人恐惧不已。但富有思想的人们意识到，倘若社会这一集体本身即是凌驾于其每一单个成员之上的暴君，那么其暴虐手段之丰富，将绝不限于它通过其官吏所实施的那些行为。社会有能力也确实执行着它自己的种种命令：如果发出的命令并非正确的，或者竟对无权插手的事情滥发号令，那么它就是在实行比许多其他政治压迫更可怕的社会暴政。这是因为，它虽然通常不以极刑威慑单个成员，却能更深刻地渗透到个人生活的方方面面，束缚住个体的灵魂，令其无可逃遁。因此，保护人们免遭官员的暴政并不足够，还需保护他们免遭主流意见和大众感觉的暴政，免遭社会的暴政：社会倾向于用民事处罚之外的手段，将自己的主张和做法当作行为规范强加于那些持异议者身上；它倾向于束缚任何与己相左个性的发展、尽可能防止这种个性的形成，并迫使所有的性格特点以社会自身为模型进行自我塑造。所以，集体意见对个人独立性的合法干预是有界限的。发现这一界限，并保护它免遭侵越，同保护人们免遭政治独裁之害一样，对维护人类事务的健康状态而言不可或缺。

然而，一般说来，虽然上述主张通常不太可能遭到反对，但把这一界限设在哪里——如何在个人自主与社会管控之间进行恰当调整，却几乎是个毫无头绪的全新问题。所有人们珍视的生存价值，都有赖于对他人行动的切实约束。因此，必须要强制实行某些行为规范；其手段首先是法律，在许多法律不适用的事项上则要借助舆论。这些行为规范应该是什么呢？这一点就成为人类事务中的重大问题。而倘若我们排除少数最显著的例子，就会发现，它乃是人类最难以解决的问题之一。没有哪个时代、哪个国家对其解决方案与其他时代、其他国家雷同；一个时代、一个国家对它的判定会令另一个时代、另一个国家大为震惊。然而，任何时代、任何国家的人们全浑然不觉其解决之难，似乎人类历来对其看法并无二致。在他们心目中，自己所建立的规程是不言而喻更自证自明的。这种几乎普遍存在的错觉便是一个例证，足以证明习俗之神奇影响。习俗不仅是谚语所说的第二天性，还屡屡被错当成了第一天性。在防止人类对彼此强加的种种行为准则产生疑虑方面，习俗的效果格外彻底。那是因为，人们普遍认为，在这一问题上，无论人与人之间，还是个人，都不需讲什么理由。人们已习惯于相信，也因为受那些向往哲学家风范的人鼓动而相信，在这类问题上，他们的感觉比推理更重要，所以推理毫无用处。指导他们形成人类行为规则的实用原则就是每个人心中的感觉：所有人都必须像他或他赞成的人所希望的那样行动。事实上，谁都不肯向自己承认，他的判断标准只是个人偏好；一个毫无理据的、衡量某个行为的主张，只能算是个人偏好；就算他亮明了理由，倘若这些理由仅仅是唤起其他人感觉中的类似偏好，那也仍然只是许多人的个人偏好罢了。不过，对普通人而言，他获得别人支持的个人偏好不仅仅是一个完美无瑕的理由，而且是他用以判断自己所有的道义观、趣味观或得体观的惟一依据，甚至也是理解自己宗教信条的总指南，尽管他的道德观、趣味观或得体观都并未明确写入其宗教信条当中。相应地，人们对什么值得赞美、什么值得谴责的看法，是受到一切五花八门动机影响的。那些动机繁多，会潜移默化地影响人们对他人行为的期望；而他们关于任何其他事物的愿望，同样受到数不胜数的诱因的影响。这些动机有时是他们的理智，有时又是某些偏见或迷信，经常是对社群的喜爱之情，也经常是对社群的厌恶之情——羡慕或嫉妒、傲慢或轻蔑，但最通常是他们自己的各种欲求或畏惧——即他们那合法或非法的一己私利。无论哪国，只要存在某个占据支配地位的阶级，该国的道德观就会源于此阶级的阶级利益以及阶级优越感。斯巴达人与其奴隶之间、种植园主与黑奴之间、王侯与臣民之间、贵族与平民之间、男人与女人之间的道德准则，多半就是阶级利益和阶级优越感的产物。由此产生的种种是非观念又作用于该权势阶级内部成员的道德观，影响着他们彼此的关系。反观之，无论哪国，只要存在一个丧失了支配地位或其支配地位已不得人心的权势阶级，该国盛行的道德观念便往往带有对优越感不耐烦甚至厌恶的痕迹。对于已被法律或舆论强加的各种将行和缓行的行为规范，还有一大决定性原则：人类会想象其俗世主人或天上神灵之好恶，并屈己以从。人类这种奴性虽然本质上是自利的，但并不虚伪；它产生的是十足真诚的憎恶之情，驱使人们烧死了巫师和异教徒。许多恶劣因素都会影响道德观念的走势，社会那些普遍且显著的利益无疑是其中之一，而且是一大因素。然而，与其说这些社会利益本身是道德观念的产生原因，不如说它们是道德观念派生的喜恶之情所造就的结果。原本与社会利益无关的人类喜恶之情，在道德观念的建立过程中赫然突显，威力惊人。

这样，社会之好恶，或其中某强势群体之好恶，乃是实际决定道德规范的主要事物。全体成员都要遵循那些规则，否则便会遭到法律或舆论的惩罚。总体而言，那些思想和情感超前于社会的人原则上都会对此情形听之任之，但在某些枝节问题上可能与之发生抵牾。他们忙于探寻社会应对哪些事物产生好恶，而不是质疑社会之好恶应否成为个人必须遵守的法律。他们更乐意努力改变人类对他们持有异见的具体事项的看法，而不愿与其他异端分子一起，共同致力于捍卫自由。只在一件事上，他们不再单打独斗，而是依理占据了制高点且坚守始终；这件事就是宗教信仰。做此事有很多益处，尤其是它极为醒目地表明，所谓道德感是多么不可靠：一个顽固者心中“神学家之间的憎恨”是道德感表现最直白的事例之一。第一批打破自诩为“普世教会”组织之枷锁的人，通常与该教会一样，不愿容忍异己的宗教主张。而一旦冲突结束，哪一方都没有获得完胜，每个教派都会被弱化，各教派都会把期望值降低到能够维持既有的地盘就行；少数派发现没有机会变成多数派，只得恳求那些他们无法改变其信仰的人，允许他们持有不同宗教主张。这样，几乎仅仅在宗教信仰的战场上，才存在个人有权利反对社会原则的理据，才能公开驳斥社会有权管辖异见分子的说法。那些给世界带来了宗教自由的伟大作者大都坚称：良心自由是一项不可废除的权利，并彻底否定了“个人有义务向他者解释自己宗教信仰”的观点。然而，人类天生对自己真正关心的一切不容异议；除了个别宗教观念淡漠的地方，人们因厌烦神学争论而赞成宗教自由之外，宗教自由在任何国度都没有真正实现过。几乎所有宗教信仰者心中，对信仰自由义务的承认都是暗自有所保留的；即便在那些最宽容的国家，情况也是如此。有人会做到容忍教政问题上的异见，但不会容忍教义问题上的异见；有人能宽容任何人，却不能宽容天主教徒或惟一神论者；有人则能宽容任何人，却不能宽容天启教信徒；有些人的宽容度稍大，但不能容忍对任何神灵和来世的信仰。无论何处，只要大多数人的宗教情感仍然真诚而热烈，要求全员遵从宗教的呼声就高涨不退。

相比其他欧洲国家，英国政治历史情形特殊，所以其法律的枷锁较轻，而舆论的枷锁较重。英国人对立法或执法当局明目张胆干预私人行为的事情十分戒备。他们这样做并非出于维护个人独立的公正考虑，而是出于将政府视为公众利益对立面的思维习惯。大部分英国人都尚未感觉到政府的权力就是他们自己的权力，或政府的主张就是他们自己的主张。他们若果真感觉如此，个人自由就很可能像遭到舆论侵犯那样，面临政府侵犯的威胁。然而，直至今日，他们仍有一股强烈的情感，可以随时唤起：抵制法律在它以前未曾管辖过的事情上对个人进行管制的任何企图；可他们在这种情感升腾时，却毫不分辨所涉事项是否属于法律管制的范畴。因此，此种情感虽然总体而言十分有益，但很可能在具体事例的处理上对错参半。事实上，并不存在一种公认的原则可常规衡量种种政府干预是否正当；人们的判断依据就是其个人好恶罢了。有些人不管发现有善事需实行，抑或有恶事需矫正，都很乐意鼓动政府采取行动；而其他人则宁愿承受几乎所有的社会弊病，却不肯增加一项允许政府管控的新事物，使人类受益。在任一具体事例中，人们是属于前一群体或后一群体，要看他们大体怀有哪种感觉；倘若那件事被提议由政府作为，就要看他们对此事的兴趣度如何，或者看他们是否相信政府会按他们的意愿作为。判断他们属于哪一类群体，不要看他们对政府适合做什么是否持有始终如一的意见。在我看来，缺乏公认衡量原则或规则的后果是，这一派与那一派同样常常出错，他们错误调用和错误谴责政府干预的频率大体相当。

本文旨在宣明一条十分简单的原则，以完全监管社会强迫以及控制个人的方式，无论是法律刑罚的肉体暴力或公共舆论的精神威压。该原则就是，人类无论作为个人或集体，只有出于自卫这惟一目的时，才能干预任何人或人群的行动自由。违反其意志，对一位文明社会的成员正当行使权力的惟一目的是：防止伤害他人。个人的物质或精神利益不足以作为对其行使权力的正当借口。“那样做是为了他好”、“那样做会使他更幸福”、“在别人看来那样做很明智甚或非常正确”，这些都不是强迫接受或忍受管制的正当理由。我们可以提出许多充足的理由抗议、与之理论、说服或恳求，但没有充足理由逼迫或告知，他如若不然必将自吞恶果。要证明这一做法的正当性，必须估算出，要阻止其从事的那一行为会对他人产生何种恶果。任何人需要对社会负责的那些行为都必须是关联他人的；对那些只与个人有关的行为，他都拥有绝对的自主权。个人是自己身体和精神的君主。

也许，我无需指出，这一原则仅仅适用于心智成熟的人。本书所论无关儿童或未及法定成年期的青少年。那些尚需他人照顾的人，应当受到保护，以免他们受到自身造成或外来的伤害。同理，本文所论也并不包括落后的社会，因为处于该社会状态的种族可能被认为尚未成熟。在社会自然演进的早期阶段，存在种种巨大而几乎无法克服的困难；富于进取精神的统治者为了达成某个目标，可以使用任何便宜的手段，否则他就可能无法成功。对待未开化民族时，只要是为了他们自身的进步，只要所用手段确实能产生预期的效果，实施专制统治就是合法的。在人类尚未达到通过自由平等的讨论而进步的阶段时，自由原则是不适用的。处于这一阶段的人群只能绝对服从于某个阿克巴大帝[1]或查理大帝[2]，倘若他们有幸遇到这样的人物。而一旦人类有能力通过接受劝说而实现进步（本文所论及的诸国早已达到这一阶段），威压就不容许了，无论直接的方式还是迫使其服从的痛苦和刑罚等手段。即便使用，目的也只是为了保护他人的安全。

应该说，我并未引用绝对正确这一无关功用的概念以支撑我的论点。我认为，对一切伦理问题而言，功用都是最重要的理论诉求；然而，它必须是最大意义上的功用，其基础必须是人作为一种不断进步生物的长远利益。我主张，以人的长远利益作为个人自发行为必须服从于外部管控的条件，其适用范围仅限于个人行为关系到他人利益的情况。如果某人做出伤害到他人的事情，就需要用法律制裁他；如果不能确定可否用法律惩罚，就用大众谴责惩罚他。有许多为别人利益而应采取的积极行为，强迫其实施这些行为乃是正当的。例如，出庭作证、参加集体安全保卫战或其他捍卫社会利益的联合行动，因为自身的利益也受到了保护。其还要实施某些个人慈善行为，例如挽救他人的生命、见义勇为，以及诸多任何显然属于人类天职范畴的事情。在这类事上，若袖手旁观，就应受到社会的正当谴责。个人的行动可能危害社会，不作为也可能如此。不管哪种情况，他都应当为此造成的伤害负责。比起前者，后一种情况需要社会在对他施加强力时必须更为慎重。任何人都要为自己的恶行负责，这是铁律；相对而言，让他为未能阻止恶行负责，则是例外。然而，有许多事实清楚、后果严重的事件足以证明，所谓的例外实为正当要求。在所有个体与他人关联的事情中，他对那些利益攸关者都负有法律责任，并按需充当社会的保护人。不让个人承担责任的理由经常很充足，但这些理由必须源于对所涉事项的特殊考量：原因或者是，倘若他并非受制于社会的全权控制，而是由其自行决定，那么在整件事上他极有可能做得更好；或者是，控制可能会导致另外的、比要防范之恶更严重的恶果。如果这类原因使个人免于承担责任，那么当事人本身的良心应当走上审判席，保护那些无人保护的人们的利益；他尤其要严格地审判自我，因为该事项的特殊情况不容许他接受其他人的审判。

但是，有一个行为领域，社会即便与之利益关联，也只是一种间接的关联，而个人却与之有着千丝万缕的利益关系。这个领域包括生活和行为中所有仅仅影响到个人的活动；倘若这些活动也对他人有所影响的话，则前提必须是他们自由、自愿、理智地同意并参与了这些活动。我所谓“仅仅影响到个人”的意思是，那些活动直接、最先作用于他。因为那作用于他的一切，可能通过他而作用于别人。以此为据反对我的异议将在后文加以讨论，此处不赘。这就是人类自由的恰当范围。首先，它涵盖意识这一内心领域，要求最广泛意义上的良心自由、思想和情感自由，以及在所有话题上绝对的观念及意见自由，不论是现实性话题或思辨性话题；不论是科学话题、道德话题，或神学话题。言论和公开发表意见的自由似乎应受另外原则的支配，因为它关涉到他者的个人行为。但出于同样的原因，与思想自由几乎同等重要，实际上与后者无法分割。第二，本原则要求趣味和爱好自由、按照个人性格特征设计自己生活的自由，以及虽可能遇到下述情况也要随意行动的自由：只要我们的行为对我们的同类无害，我们的行为就不能受到他们的妨害；即便他们可能以为我们的行为很愚蠢、很荒诞，甚至完全错误。第三，从这项个人自由导出：不同个人在上述行为范围内进行联合的自由，即为任何不损及他者的目的进行结社的自由。其前提是：结社的成员必须已达法定成年年龄，且没有受到逼迫或欺骗。

不全面尊重上述自由的社会，不论其政府形式如何，都是不自由的；上述自由未能完全地、绝对地存在的社会，其自由是不完整的。名副其实的自由且仅指我们以自己的方式追求自己福祉的自由，只要我们不试图剥夺别人的这一自由或阻止别人努力获得这一自由。每个人都是自己身体、心理和精神健康的正当守护者。比起迫使所有人为看似利他的目的而生存，容忍彼此为看似利己的目的而生存，会使人类获益更多。

本书此论并非新说，而且在一些人看来，或许有种老生常谈的腔调。但是，由于现有观念和社会实践的大势所趋，没有哪种学说的针对性比此论更为直接。社会竭尽全力，企图（按照它自己的标准）迫使人们像服从其关于优秀社会的观念那样，服从关于优秀个人的主张。古代共和制国家认为，自己有资格用公权力管控公民的所有个人行为，理由是：对每个公民的身体和精神规训都与国家利益深切相关。古代哲学家们赞同这一观念。那些强敌环伺的小共和国或许向来奉行此种理念，因为它们长期以来深恐外患内忧导致国覆家灭，而不敢稍有精神懈怠和自制简疏。它们哪里等得及自由的长远善果？当代世界，由于政治社群规模更大，最主要是由于精神威权与世俗威权的分离（对人们道德良心的管理和对其世俗事务的管理由此分属不同权力部门负责），法律无法再大肆干涉个人生活的各种细节。然而，对于个人异于主流意见的自我关注主张，社会机器一向都悍然发动精神压制的引擎，频次甚至超过对其于社会事务之另类主张的压制。宗教是塑造道德感诸因素中最有力者，但支配宗教的力量，几乎始终是试图全方位管制人类行为的某个僧侣统治集团的勃勃野心，或是清教精神。一些站在与往昔宗教全然对立角度上的现代宗教改革者，所提出的人类精神主宰权要求，毫不逊于任何宗教派别。孔德先生[3]即是一个显例。如其《实证政治体系》中揭示的社会组织所示，他完全超越了古代哲学家当中最刻板铁律信奉者的一切政治理念，打算（主要通过道德手段而非法律手段）建立起社会对个人的专制统治。

除个别思想家提出的特殊原则，世人也越来越倾向于借助舆论甚或立法手段，大肆扩张社会凌驾于个人的权力。尽管世上一切变化的大势所趋乃是强化社会、削减个人的权力，但这种权力侵蚀不像其他恶行那样会自然而然地趋于消失，却会越来越变本加厉。不论是统治者或一般公民，人类都倾向于将自己的主张和偏好当作一种行为准则强加给他人。这种倾向受到人性中某些最善和最恶情感的大力鼓舞，除了让他们手无寸权之外，简直无法抑制。然而，权力并非日渐减少而是日渐增长；在当前的世界环境下，若不能建起一道强大的道德信念屏障阻止其祸害，我们就只能看着它长大增殖。

为论证展开之便，我们不会立即开始讨论主论点，而要首先探讨一个分论点，因为本章阐明的该分论点的指导原则，即便并非全部，也已在一定程度上受到了当下舆论的认可。该分论点就是：思想自由。它与言论和创作自由同根而生、不可分割。虽然在所有公开承认宗教信仰自由和结社自由的国家，上述自由都是其政治道德中的可观组成成分，但这些自由的哲学和现实基础，大众或许并不熟悉，甚或许多意见领袖也未如想象中的那般通晓。一旦人们正确理解了这些哲学和现实基础，就会发现：其适用范围远远超过本文主题的某一方面；对本分论点的透彻考察乃是解析其他分论点的最佳路径。因此，我希望，那些熟知下文所论内容的读者能够有所谅解，对于这个三百年来的热点论题，我斗胆再论一番。

[1]阿克巴大帝（Akbar，1543—1605年）：印度莫卧儿王朝最伟大的皇帝（1556—1605年在位），也是印度历史上的伟大帝王之一。他征服了北印度地区，建立了幅员辽阔的帝国，并推行灵活务实的内政外交政策，包括宗教宽容政策。——译者注

[2]查理大帝（Charlemagne，742—814年）：也称作查里曼、查里大帝、卡尔大帝，法兰克王国加洛林王朝国王（768—814年在位），800年由教皇利奥三世加冕于罗马，成为神圣罗马帝国第一任皇帝（一说962年加冕的德意志国王、萨克森王朝的奥托一世是神圣罗马帝国第一任皇帝）。他于中世纪早期统一了西欧大部分地区，为现代的法、德两国奠定了基础，享有“欧洲之父”的美誉。他在帝国的经济、行政、军事、文教、宗教等方面都建树卓越。——译者注

[3]奥古斯特·孔德（Auguste Comte, 1798—1857年）：法国哲学家，社会学、实证主义的创始人，著有《实证哲学教程》、《实证主义概论》、《实证政治体系》等，被后人尊为“社会学之父”。——译者注

二　论思想与讨论自由

人们希望，为反对腐败或暴虐的政府而必须捍卫“出版自由”的时代已一去不返了。我们猜想，放任与民众利益相左的立法或执法机关规定他们该持有什么主张、限定他们应当听到什么学说或论点等做法，如今不需继续证伪了。更何况，此前的作家早已反复并成功地证明过这一问题了，不需我在此再加以特别强调。虽然英国关于出版业的法律至今都像都铎王朝时期一样奴态十足，但它几乎不会被付诸实践，镇压议政者；除非是出现了暂时性恐慌事件，对叛乱的畏惧令大臣和法官们风仪扫地[1]。而且，一般而言，在宪政国家，无论政府是否完全向民众负责，都不必忧虑它会经常试图控制言论，除非代表公意，表达的是民众对某种言论的不宽容。因此，我们可以设想，政府与民众完全一致，若非公众赞同，就不会企图施行高压政治；但我拒绝相信，民众有权自行或通过其政府实施此等高压政治。高压政治本身是非法的。最佳政府同最糟政府一样，都无权要求这一权力。高压威权若依照公意施行，会与违逆公意而施行一样产生危害，甚至比后者为害更深。如果除一人之外的全人类都持同一观点，惟有一人持相反观点，人类也无权让此人噤声，正如此人即便掌权，也无权令全人类缄口。倘若某种观点为个人私有，仅对他本人有意义；若禁止他享有该观点，则只会造成对其个人的伤害；所以，这种伤害是仅伤及数人还是伤及多人，区别莫大。然而，钳制言论会造成特别的恶果：人类遭到了剥夺；而且遭到剥夺的不仅是这一代，更包括后代子孙；赞同该言论的人遭到了剥夺，那些反对者则被剥夺更多。如果该观点是正确的，反对者就被剥夺了改误从正的机会；如果该观点是错误的，那么他们被剥夺的几乎是一大利益——他们正确的反对意见与错误观点相冲突，会产生更加清晰、更加鲜活的真理感。

有必要分别考察这两个假设，二者各有其确切的理据支撑。我们绝不会确信，自己竭力要钳噤的观点是错误的；即便我们很有信心，钳噤观点也仍属恶行。

首先，权力部门试图禁止的观点可能是正确的。那些试图禁止它的人当然会否认其正确性，但他们不一定不犯错。他们无权替全人类就该问题做出决定，无权排除所有别人的判断。因为他们确信该观点荒谬不经而拒绝给它发表的机会，意味着他们认为自己确定无疑之事就是绝对确定无疑之事。一切对言论的钳塞都意味着钳塞者认定自己判断无谬。要谴责钳制言论，或许可以此寻常理由为据，不可因其寻常就轻忽不用。

遗憾的是，对人类的良好判断力而言，他们可能出错这一事实在其实际判断中并未受到重视，虽然他们在理论上一直是承认可谬性会影响其实际判断的。这是因为，尽管每个人都知道自己可能犯错，但没有人觉得需要防范自己的可谬性，或需要承认这种推测：任何他们极为确信的观点，可能都是他们自认会犯的错误之一。专制君主或其他惯于接受千依百顺的人士，通常在近乎一切事上都对自己的看法绝对自信。地位较高、境遇良好的人们在听到因自己观点惹发的争议时，倘若自己错了，有时能够接受别人的纠正；他们仅完全相信自己那些与周围人等一致的观点，或那些与他们惯于遵从的人一致的观点。因为一个对独立判断缺乏自信的人，通常会完全信任并依赖广泛的“全世界”的无谬性。而对每一个体而言，所谓“全世界”指的就是他所接触到的那个圈子——他所属的政党、学派、教派、社会阶层。比较而言，他可以被视为几乎是个思想自由、胸怀宽广的人；对他而言，“世界”就是其国家或所处时代之类的综合体。他可能意识得到，其他时代、其他国家、其他学派、其他教派、其他阶级和其他政党历来都有——甚至现在仍然持有与自己完全相反的主张。但他对“全世界”之集体权威的信任毫不因此而产生动摇。他向自己的世界传递的责任是：站在“正确的”立场上，反对其他人的异见世界。他从不考虑，决定这世界中哪个才是他信赖所寄之世界的，只不过是偶然性罢了；使他成为一个生活在伦敦的英国国教徒的同一组原因，也可能使他成为一个生活在北京的佛教徒或儒教徒。况且，时代同个人一样易错，这是一个无论证据多少均可被证明的道理。每一时代都曾持有被后来时代断定为不仅错误而且荒诞的主张。毫无疑问，许多现在广泛认可的观点将会被未来的时代所拒斥，正如曾经广泛流传的观点都已被现在所拒斥。

未来拒斥本文论点的论证形式可能是这样的：在公权机构根据自己的判断和职责所做的一切事情当中，禁止错误传播就是其最重要的自我无谬性假定。判断力之所以被给予人类，就是为了能让他们做出判断。难道因为人类可能判断失误，就不许其再进行判断了吗？他们禁止自认为有害的事物，并非是在主张免除错误，而是在履行他们义不容辞的责任——尽管他们是在严谨尽责、确信无疑后再采取行动，仍然会出错。倘若因为我们的观念可能有错就不按照观念行动，那么我们就得忽视所有利益，荒废一切职责。适用于一切行为的反对理由，对任何特定行为来说都是无效的反对理由。政府也好，个人也好，都有责任尽量形成最符合事实的见解；并且，形成见解的方式要谨慎周密；如不能确信自己的见解正确，就决不把它们强加于人。然而，（这些分析者可能会说）一旦确信自己的见解正确，却又不依之行动，而任由那些他们真心实意感到危害人类今世或来世福祉的信条四散流传，更恣肆蔓延，这并不是严谨尽责，而是畏缩不前。他们之所以这样做，是因为在开明时代之前，人们也陵压过今人相信为正确的见解。人们可能会说，我们要谨防犯下同样的错误。可是，很多政府和国家在其他事情上——谁都不能否认，在这些事务中运用威权完全恰当——都犯过错误，例如：征收苛捐杂税、发动不义战争。难道我们因此要免除一切税收，且不论敌人如何挑衅也不能开战吗？人类同政府一样，在采取行动时都必须不遗余力。世上不存在绝对确定性这样东西，但存在充分保障人类生活目的这件事。我们可以假定，也必须假定：我们的见解是真实可信的，可用以指引自己的行为。我们在禁止坏人传播我们认为虚妄险恶的意见颠覆社会时，也并没有超出上述假定。

我的回答是：不，超出了很多。虽然有机会驳斥某一观点，但尚未驳倒它，所以假设它真实无误；这与出于不允许驳倒它的目的而假定它真实无误，二者之间有着天壤之别。拥有反驳和证伪我们见解的完全自由，是证明我们下述行为合理性的前提条件：为采取行动之便，我们可以假定自己见解是正确的。除此而外，一个有着人类身体机能的生物，决无其他条件来保证其见解的正确无误。

我们在考察观念的历史或人类生活的寻常行为时，会将二者都能达到现在这般优良程度的原因归结为什么呢？当然不是人类理解力这一天生能力。这样说是因为，在所有并不自明的问题上，一百人中总会有九十九人完全没有判断能力，只有一人能够做出判断；而那第一百人的才能也仅仅是相对的。那样说的原因还包括，过去每一代人中的翘楚都曾提出过许多如今已知是谬论的见解，也都做过或赞许过无数如今无人再认为是合理的事情。那么，总体上看，为何理性的主张和理性的行为会成为人类中的主流呢？假如这一主流果真存在——此主流必然存在，否则人类会一直都处于且现在也仍然处于近乎绝境之中——则要归功于人类心智的一大特性。人无论作为一种智力发达的生物，还是作为一种有道德观念的生物，其身上一切可敬的事物都源于人脑的这一特性：可以改正错误。人可以通过讨论和经验修正自己的错误。不是光靠经验就行，必须还要有讨论，以表明经验是如何得到解释的。错误的观念和实践逐渐为事实和理据所取代，而事实和理据必须被带到人类心智面前，才能对它产生影响。倘若没有评议来阐明种种事实的含义，就没有什么事实能够讲述自己的含义。故此，人类判断力的全部力量和价值都取决于人脑的这一特征。当判断力出错时，它可以进行纠正；惟有纠正手段始终与之俱存时，才能够信赖判断力。若某人的判断力确实值得信赖，别人对他的信心如何形成呢？就是因为他能虚心接纳别人对他见解和行为的批评；因为他惯于倾听一切反对意见，从公正的意见中获益，并向自己且在必要时向他人澄清谬误所在；因为他感到，人能够逐渐全面了解某事物的惟一方法是，倾听主张各异的人们议论此事物时的种种见解，研究心灵特征各异者考虑此事物的所有方式。智者无不以此方式获得智慧，人类智力的本质也决定人只能借此手段变得睿智。惯于通过比较其他人的见解纠正和完成自己的见解，这种稳定的习惯——但在将自己的见解付诸实践时决不疑虑和犹豫——是人应信赖它的惟一坚实基础。这是因为，他知道了所有可能的——至少是明显的——反对意见，采取了与所有反对者对立的态度；也就是说，他深知自己没有规避异议和困难，而是主动探研了它们，所以没有拒斥从任何可能的角度对该问题做出的任何解析。因此，他有权认为，自己的判断优于未曾经历这一思维过程的任何人或任何群体的判断。

人类中那些拥有至高智慧的人最有权信赖自己的判断。要求混杂着少数智者和许多愚人的、被称为公众的群体，服从于这些智慧至高之人提出的、确保其判断可靠的必要条件，并非过分之事。就连天主教会这一诸教派中之最狭隘者，在封圣[2]仪式上都允许一个“魔鬼代言人”出席，并耐心倾听他的论辩。显然，连最圣洁者要想获得身后的殊荣，都必先使世人周知和权衡魔鬼对他的反证。如果当初不许质疑牛顿的自然哲学，那么人类就不会像今天这样完全信服其真理性。那些我们最可信赖的信念，只有一道可靠保障：永远向全世界开放，允请世人证明其无理据性。倘若那些信念不接受挑战，或接受但赢得了挑战，我们仍决不能全盘肯定它们，尽管我们已经尽了人类理智现状允许的最大努力，没有忽略任何让真理有机会到达我们的机会。倘若挑战的清单保持开放，我们就能希望：若真有更优的真理，一旦人类心智有了接受能力，就可以发现它。同时，我们也可以相信，当前的时代已经获得了通往真理的可能路径。这就是人作为一个可谬生物能够获得的全部确定性，这也是获得它的惟一方法。

奇怪的是，人们承认允许自由议论的理由是合理的，但反对将这些理由“推向极端”。他们没有发现，那些理由如果不适用于某种极端情形，就无益于任何情形。奇怪的是，在下述问题上，他们认为自己并没有假定自我无谬：他们赞同对一切可疑的事情都应自由讨论，但感到应该禁止质疑某个特定原则或学说，理由是该原则或学说确凿无疑——也就是说，因为他们确定它确凿无疑。设有某主张，倘若某人有权否认，他便必然会否认其确定性；然而事实上他却无权否认，那么我们称该主张为确凿无疑，便是在假定自己和我们的赞同者都是深谙确定性问题的法官，而且是偏听偏信的法官。

当前时代被称为“信仰沦丧、怀疑猖狂、人心绝望”的时代，人们确切感到的并非自己的见解正确无误，而是如果失掉见解就将不知所措；保护某种主张免遭受公开指责的理由，不是这一主张如何千真万确，而是它对社会有多么重要。据称，某些信仰极端重要，甚至对人类福祉不可或缺，政府必须像保护其他社会利益那样支持它们。据说，这既是刚性需求，又是政府直接责任所在；因此，比无谬性较弱的要求可以保证甚至强制政府根据其自己的、且受到人类公意认可的意见采取行动。经常有人主张，更经常有人感到，只有坏人才打算破坏这些有益的信仰，因此限制坏人、禁止他们胡作非为没有什么不对。这种思维模式使限制讨论是否正当的论题，从一个探讨诸学说真理性的问题变成了衡量它们有用性的问题；由此，该种思维模式得意洋洋地逃脱了责任，充当起了永无过失的意见裁判官。然而，那些如此自鸣得意的人并未察觉，他们的无谬性假定只不过从一个角度转移到了另一个角度。一种意见的有用性本身就是个观点问题，像该意见自身一样可以商榷、讨论，并且需要深入讨论。正如需要一位永无过失的意见裁判官来判断某种观点是否错误，我们也需要这样的法官来判断它是否有害，除非该受到指控的观点有充足的机会进行自我辩护。一方面禁止被控告的异端分子宣称其观点是真理，另一方面却又允许其宣称其观点的功用或无害性，这种做法匪夷所思。一个观点的真理性就是它的部分功用。如果我们想知道某种主张是否值得相信，有可能排除掉它是否正确的考量吗？在至善之人而非坏人看来，与真理相左的任何信条都不是真正有用的东西。这些至善之人会否认某个据说有用但他们却相信是错误的观点；如果因此而控告他们有罪，你能阻止他们力陈上述抗辩吗？那些拥护公认为正确意见的人，绝对会最充分地利用这一抗辩。你会看到，他们根本不去关注观点的功用性问题，似乎这一问题完全可与观点的正确性问题分离开来。相反，你会发现，在他们眼中最重要的是，他们的主张才是惟一“真理”，所以人们必须都要掌握或相信它。如果如此关键的理由只能被参与争论的一方运用，而不能被另一方所运用，在观点的有用性问题上就不会有公平的讨论。事实上，如果法律或公共情感不允许争论某种主张正确与否，它们也就不会容忍别人否认该主张的功用。它们至多能够承认：该主张的绝对必然性没有那么高，或者拒斥该主张的定然是犯罪。

有时人们在自己的判断中已经给某些见解定了罪而拒绝聆听它们的抗辩，为更充分地证明这种危害，我们最好选取某个具体案件进行专门讨论。我首先选取那些对我最为不利的案例。人们认为，在这些案例中，从真理性和功用性两方面反对言论自由的理据最为有力。假设受到指控的观念是对上帝和来世的信仰，或者任何被普遍接受的道德信条，在此战场上开战，会令一个不守规则的对手占尽上风。他肯定会说（许多无意不守规则的人也会在心里说道）：你认为这些信条并非百分百地会受到法律的保护吗？你肯定对上帝的信仰必然是假定了自我无谬性的那些说法之一吗？我必须有权答复道：我之所以称某个学说（无论它内容如何）包含了自我无谬假定，并非由于我感到肯定，而是由于它要在那个问题上替别人做出判断，却不许人家听到反方的发言。这种自命不凡如果也出现在我最重要的信念当中，我也照样会加以谴斥和贬责。不论是谁，不论他多么坚信某种言论不仅虚伪而且为害甚广，不仅为害甚广而且（引用一下我谴责的那些说法）伤风败俗、亵渎神灵；如果他在自行判断时——虽然他得到了本国民众或同时代人公开判断的支持——拒绝倾听别人为该言论所做的辩解，他就是假定了自我无谬。其自我无谬假定决不因别人称该言论有伤风化或亵渎神灵，就受讨厌度较低或危险性较小；事实上，在所有其他案例中，造成毁灭性后果的恰恰就是这种情况。恰恰就是在这类情况下，一代人会犯下种种可怕的错误，令后代人深感惊骇、厌恨不已。我们发现，正是在这些情况当中，出现了下列重大历史实例：法律的爪牙被用来铲除最优秀的人士和最高尚的主张；它们针对贤才俊杰取得了可耻的胜利，但一些高尚主张却流传下来，（颇富嘲讽意味地）被用来为那些针对它们或其公认反对者的同类迫害行为辩护。

人类总需要被反复提醒，曾有一个叫作苏格拉底的人，他与当时的司法部门以及舆论发生了重大冲突。他所处的时代和国家伟人济济，作为其中最富美德的一员，他的事迹被最了解他与他那个时代的人士流传至今。虽然我们都知道，他是后世所有美德教师的领袖和典范，是柏拉图和审慎的功利主义者亚里士多德——最崇高的灵感之源。后两位“智士之师”，是伦理学和所有其他学科的两大源泉。苏格拉底是迄今为止所有杰出思想家的公认导师，他的美名历经两千多年依然在增长，在分量上几乎超越了令他的家乡辉煌夺目的所有其他人名的总和。但他却在一场法庭判决之后，被他的本国同胞以亵渎神灵、伤风败德的罪名处以死刑。所谓亵渎神灵，就是否认本国公认的众神——实际上，原告指控他（参见《申辩篇》）根本不信神灵；所谓伤风败德，就是用他的学说和教导“腐化青年”。我们如今有充分理由相信，法庭在这些指控下判定他有罪，宣判将这个在当时或许最应得到人类酬报的人作为罪犯处以死刑。

苏格拉底的案子暂且谈到这里，接下来看另外这宗司法不公案例。讲过苏格拉底的罪名之后再谈这桩案例，决不会显得虎头蛇尾。这就是一千八百多年前发生在各各他[3]的事。有一个人，他的高贵品德深深铭刻在那些见证了他生命和与之交谈的人们的记忆当中，因此十八个世纪以来，他被敬为万能的上帝在人间的化身。可是，他却被羞辱地处死了。罪名是什么？是亵渎神明！那些加罪于他的人们不仅误解了他们的恩人，而且把他误解为完全相反的人，把他当作不敬神明的怪人对待。如今，他们本身反而因此行径被视为亵渎者。今天的人类看待这两件——特别是后一件——人间悲剧时的感情，使他们对那些可恶的原告做出了极为偏颇的判断。表面看来，那些原告并非坏人——并不比一般人坏；相反，他们完全甚至更多地充满了当时人所具有的宗教、道德和爱国之情。他们在各个时代里——也包括我们这个时代——都能够清白无辜、受人尊敬地度过一生。听到那番话之后，大祭司撕裂了自己的衣服；按照当地的观念，他撕裂衣服的行为构成了最为恶劣的罪行[4]。而他感到的惊恐和愤慨很可能十分真切，同如今大多数虔诚而可敬的人在表达他们的宗教和道德情感时一样真切；而今天绝大多数因大祭司的行为而战栗的人，倘若生在那个时代，还恰恰是个犹太人，会做出同他一样的举动。受到诱导的正统基督徒可能会认为，那些投石打死第一批殉道者的人肯定是与自己不同的坏人。然而，他们应当记得，圣保罗[5]就是那些迫害者中的一员。

我们再增加一个例子。如果错误的明显程度能用犯错者的智慧与美德衡量，那么这个例子就是最突出的。倘有任何人，既大权在握，又有理由认为自己是同时代人中最优秀、最开明的人，那么他就是马可·奥勒留大帝[6]。他虽贵为整个文明世界的专制君主，但毕生公正、白璧无瑕；而且出人意料的是，在他渊深的斯多亚学养之下，竟有一副极其温柔的心肠。后人所谓的他的缺点，实在是他过于宽容罢了。他的著作是古代思想界最高超的伦理学作品，与基督最具典型性的教义即便有所区别，也是微乎其微、察觉不到。此人除了在严格的名分上不是基督徒之外，比起史上所有名义上是基督徒的当政君王，是更优秀的基督徒。而他却迫害了基督徒。奥勒留代表了当时人类成就的巅峰，他的智慧无涯无际，他的伦理著作体现了他堪为基督徒典范的无上品行。但身负重任、恪尽职守的他却没有看出，基督教并不会为恶，而将为善于世界。现存社会境况之弊陋，他是十分清楚的。尽管如此，他发现，或自认为发现，维系社会并阻止其恶化的是对世人公认诸神的信仰与敬畏。作为人间的统治者，他以防止社会碎散为己任，而没有意识到，在既有的社会纽带失落之后，其可以用其他纽带把社会重组为一体。新的宗教公开表示要消除这些旧纽带，他如果不接受它，就必须镇压它。由于那时的基督教神学在他看来并不正确，也不具有神圣来源；这个关于一个被钉死在十字架上的神的奇怪历史在他看来并不可信，故而，他根本无法预见，以一个他完全不能相信的基础为理论依据创建起的组织，竟能在历尽挫折之后成为重整社会的力量。这位最优雅、最和蔼的哲学家和统治者，在庄严的责任感鼓舞下，颁布了迫害基督徒的谕旨。我感到，这是整个历史上最可悲的事件之一。我难过地想，如果基督教得到了马可·奥勒留的支持而不是康斯坦丁大帝[7]的支持，成为罗马帝国的国教，那么基督教的世界版图将是多么不同！不过，马可·奥勒留确实收到并且批准了臣下要求惩处宣传基督教学说的奏请，就像如今有人竭力主张惩罚反基督教的学说，否认这一点对他同样不公，而且有悖史实。就像基督徒坚信无神论是错的，会导致社会崩溃，马可·奥勒留坚信基督教也是如此。而他是当代被认为最有可能欣赏基督教教义的人。任何赞成传播言论可以治罪并应受到惩罚的人，若不认为自己比马可·奥勒留更睿智、更优秀，更精通当世的学问，智力更加高超，更真诚地追求真理或发现真理后更专注地献身真理，那么，他就应该戒除认为自己和大众均无谬的假定。伟大的安东尼努斯就因这一假定，造成了惨痛的后果。

没有任何论据可以证明，马可·安东尼努斯用惩罚来制止渎神言论的做法无法辩护。宗教信仰自由的反对者们很清楚这一点，所以在受到逼问时就会像约翰逊博士[8]那样说：基督徒的迫害者们是站在正义一边的；迫害是一种严峻的考验，真理应该经受并且总能成功经受这种考验；法律处罚必将对真理无能为力，且有时也会对恶意的错误产生良效。这是为宗教迫害张目的一种论点，非比寻常且十分醒目。

有种说法断言，迫害真理是正当的，因为迫害无害于真理。对这种说法，我们不能指责它是在故意反对新真理的推广，但我们不能认同它对待那些全人类恩人的宽宏大量。发现和昭显深刻影响着世界而世人却蒙昧未觉的事物，证明世人误解了它某种极其重大的世俗或精神价值，这是人能为同类做出的重要服务；在早期基督徒和宗教改革家之中，就有一些同约翰逊博士想法一致的人，相信这是人能够馈赠给人类的最宝贵礼物。据上述说法，那些卓越的施恩者得到的回报竟然是殉难、竟然是把他们当作最可耻的罪犯，这并不是人类应该披麻蒙灰[9]进行忏悔的可悲错误和不幸，而是事物的正常和正当状态。从上述说法看来，提倡崭新真理的人应该像洛克里斯人[10]法律中规定并实施的那样，充当新法律的提案人：他脖子上套着缰绳，公众大会听到他陈述的理由后，如果当场不采纳他的提案，就会立刻拉紧缰绳。有些人既然乐意为这种对待恩人的方式辩护，怎能指望他们看重所受到的恩泽呢？我相信，持有上述看法的主要限于这种人：他们认为新的真理或许曾经很受欢迎，但如今我们拥有的真理已经够多了。

然而，事实上，有许多美好的谎言人人都说，直到变成了陈词滥调，但任何经验都会驳倒它们；所谓真理总会战胜迫害的断言就是其中之一。历史上充满了真理被迫害而亡的实例。它若不是被永久镇压下去，便可能被禁锢许多世纪，不见天日。这里只谈一谈宗教主张吧：在路德[11]之前，宗教改革爆发了至少二十次，但全被镇压下去了。布雷西亚的阿诺德[12]被镇压了；多尔齐诺[13]被镇压了；萨沃纳罗拉[14]被镇压了；阿尔比教派[15]被镇压下去了；韦尔多派[16]被镇压下去了；罗拉德派[17]被镇压下去了；胡斯派[18]被镇压下去了。即便到了后路德时代，迫害不管在哪里发生，都取得了胜利。在西班牙、意大利、佛兰德斯[19]、奥地利帝国，新教都被根除；倘若玛丽女王[20]活着，或伊丽莎白女王[21]死掉，英国的新教也很可能下场相同。迫害者总是会取得成功，除非异端分子团体过于强大，无法实施有效的迫害。有判断力的人们谁都不会怀疑，罗马帝国的基督教本有可能被铲除。它之所以能够传播开来并成为主宰，是因为对它的迫害只是偶尔、短暂、间断性的，它可以几乎不受干扰地流传很长时段。号称“真理仅仅因其是真理，比之错误，具有天然力量，能战胜地牢和火刑柱”，是毫无根据的矫揉作态。人类对真理的热情往往不如对错误的热情高，充足的法律甚至社会惩罚通常会成功阻止对真理或错误的宣传。真理具有的实际优势是：如果某种言论是正确的，那么即便扑灭它一次、两次，或许多次，但随着时代的变迁，总会有人重新发现它；直至它的某次重现适逢其时，种种有利条件可助它逃脱迫害、发展壮大，任何手段都再也奈何它不得。

有人会说，我们可不像先辈那样杀戮预言家，我们不处死提出新主张的人；相反，我们甚至给他们建墓立碑。没错，我们不再处死异端分子，现代人对刑罚——哪怕是对最令人厌恶的言论的刑罚——的容许总量，并未达到灭绝它们的程度。但是，我们不能得意地认为，我们已经清白无瑕，甚至不会实行法律迫害了。法律中仍旧存有对言论的惩罚，至少是对言论表达的惩罚。即便此时此刻，对言论的法律惩罚仍屡见不鲜，令人毫不怀疑某一天这些法律会张牙舞爪，完全复活。1857年夏，康沃尔郡的夏季巡回法庭上，一个据说在生活行为方面无懈可击的人[22]，被判二十一个月监禁，罪名是他说并且在某扇大门上写了一些对基督教不恭的话。此事发生前后不到一个月，在中央刑事法庭上，两个人在两个不同场合[23]分别被拒绝了陪审员资格，其中一人还遭到了法官和某个法律顾问的下流辱骂。究其原委，是因这二人诚实地宣布他们没有神学信仰。第三桩事是：一个外国人[24]在控告盗贼时，因同样诚实地宣布自己没有神学信仰，而被法官拒绝伸张正义。法官拒绝的依据是如下法律原理：凡是不公开宣称自己信仰神（任何神都可以）和来世的人，都不许在法庭做证。这实际是说，这样的人是逃犯，不受法庭的保护；如果案件发生现场只有他们自己或与他们观念相同的人，那么不仅抢劫或袭击他们是无罪的，而且若证明犯罪事实的证据就是他们的证词，则抢劫或袭击任何别人也是无罪的。法官拒绝上述几人的基础假定是：一个不信来世的人的誓言毫无价值。此基础假定显示，那些赞成者对历史有多么无知（因为史实证明，各个时代中的许多不信教者都以诚实和气节著称）。任何人，只要稍懂得在以德行和成就驰誉世界的名人中，很多人都是众所周知——至少其亲友熟知——的不信教者，都不会坚持上述基础假定。此外，那条规则于己不利，砍掉的是自己的基础：它借口无神论者必定都是说谎者，接纳所有愿意说谎的无神论者的证词，而排斥那些宁肯公开认可众所厌恶的信条、勇敢面对众人毁谤也不肯说谎的人。在自己宣布的目标上如此自证荒谬的规则，只能作为仇恨的标记和迫害的遗迹予以保留。它也是一种迫害，其特点在于经受它的前提条件就是要被清楚地证明不应经受它。该规则及其背后原理所侮辱的不仅是不信教者，而且包括信教者。这是因为，如果不信来世的人必须要说谎，那么要防止相信来世的人说谎——倘若能够防止他们的话——就只能靠他们对于地狱的恐惧之情了。我们不想伤害发明和拥护这条规则的人，说他们的基督教美德观念源于其自己的思想意识。

这些事实上是迫害的破衣残片。人们可能认为，与其说它们是迫害欲望的流露，不如说是英国人心智衰弱的表现。这使他们荒谬地乐于宣布某条恶劣原则，尽管他们不再恶劣到希望将其付诸实施。然而，不幸的是，民众的心态并非恒定，谁能保证，恶劣的法律迫害在停止了一个时代之后不会死灰复燃？当前时代，常常扰动日常生活平静表象的，不仅有竭力推广新善行的行为，还有企图复活旧恶行的行为。在狭隘而无知者看来，当前鼓吹宗教复兴总是等同于偏见复活。无论何地，只要民众情感中对异端邪说一直潜藏着强烈的排斥感——这种排斥感始终存在于该国的中产阶级当中——那么不费吹灰之力，就能刺激他们付诸行动，积极迫害那些他们向来认为是合适目标的人[25]。正是这一点——即人们对那些与他们所看重信仰无关的人所持有的见解和情感——使我国成为一个思想不自由的地方。很久以来，法律处罚的主要危害在于，它强化了被处罚者的社会污名。真正发挥作用的是社会污名，它强大到使英国人表白自己持有社会禁止观点的次数，远远低于其他国家国民公开宣称有招致司法惩处之险的观点的次数。从这一角度看，除了那些财产状况足以令其不必在乎他人善意的人，对所有人来说，舆论就如同法律一样奏效。他们不仅可能被剥夺谋生之计，而且可能被关进监狱。那些生计无虞，无求于权贵、群体或公众的人，无惧于公开发表任何言论，惟有可能遭人心下或口头诋毁而已；他们要面对这等诋毁，应当不需拿出多大英雄气概，也不需诉诸感性论证。然而，我们如今尽管不再像惯常的那样，作恶于与我们意见不同的人，但可能通过把他们当作异己，而作恶于自己。苏格拉底被处死了，但其哲思却如丽日腾空，光被智慧之宇。基督徒被抛给了狮群，但基督教会却成长为一棵枝繁叶茂的伟岸大树，高高遮蔽了那些虽然早发但生机不旺的植株，用浓荫压制着它们。我们纯粹社会性的不容异己未杀一人、未除一说，但诱使人们掩饰自己的主张或避免采取任何积极行动传播这些主张。对我们而言，异端邪说在每个年代或时代都没有明显地盛行过或退却过；它们并未迸发万丈光焰，而是在那些勤奋善思的提出者的小圈子里闷闷燃烧，从未用真正或虚假的光明照亮人类的种种事务。令一些人满意的事态也因而得以保持高涨，这是因为，任何人都没有遭受罚款或囚禁等不快经历：所有流行的观点表面上都未受干扰；持异见者们虽深受思想之痛的折磨，但其理智的运用并未被绝对禁止。纯粹社会性的不容异己是一项便利的计划，能让理性世界太平无事，让其中的一切照旧运转。然而，这种智力绥靖的代价是牺牲了人类精神中的全部道义勇气。它造就了这种形势：大部分最为活跃、最富于探索的英才们发现，明智的做法是，要把支撑他们信念的种种普遍原理和基础依据藏在心中，在对公众谈话时，要尽量让他们的结论适合于他们内心早已否定的那些前提。这种形势根本无法培育出坦荡无畏的人物，无法培育出在思想界光彩夺目的逻辑清楚、始终一贯的智士。在此事态下能够发现的，或者是一味服从陈词滥调的人，或者是顺应时势地找寻真理的人。他们关于所有大问题的言论都并非他们内心早已确信的东西，而是曲意说给听众听的东西。有些人另辟蹊径，把自己的思想和志趣收缩到那些可以不冒原则风险而进行谈论的事物——即那些琐碎的实际问题上。倘若人类的心智得以加强或拓展，这些小问题本会自行解决；而如今要想有效解决它们，须等到人们抛弃那本可加强或拓展人类心智的东西——对诸种最高主题自由而勇敢的探索——之后。

在一些人眼中，持异见者缄口并不是坏事。这些人首先应该考虑的是，离经叛道者缄默的后果是，再也不能公平透彻地讨论异端邪说了；那些无法参与这种讨论的人虽然不能传布其言论，但并没有消失。然而，禁止异端分子探究任何结论新奇的事物，并不会造成他们的智力急剧衰退；相反，受到重创的是异端分子之外的众人。对异端邪说的畏惧束缚了他们的智力发展、挟持了他们的理性。如果许多富有才智而性格懦弱的人都不敢按照大胆、激烈、独立的思路行动，生怕自己会落入可能被认为毫无信仰、道德败坏的困境，那么谁能估算出这世界的损失有多大？我们可能间或发现，这群人中有人责任心极强、判断力细致入微；他一生都在饰匿他无法压抑的聪明才智，消耗所有谋略以驭使跃动的良心与理智来服从正统观念，但或许至死都未能成功。不论是谁，若认识不到，思想家的第一职责是追随由衷的理智到达任何可能的结论，就不会成为伟大的思想家。设有一人进行了充分研究和准备，独立思考后得出了错误的结论；其他人则不肯经受思考的苦痛，而只是相信正确的主张。比起后者，真理可从前者的错误中获益更多。思想自由并不仅仅是或主要是造就伟大思想家的前提条件；恰恰相反，要让普通人能够达到他们能力可及的思想高度，思想自由同样需要，甚至必不可少。在思想束缚的整体氛围中曾经出现、未来可能仍会出现伟大的个体思想家。但在那种氛围中从未出现、未来也不会出现心智活跃的民众。若有某国民众一时出现了心智活跃的迹象，则是由于该国对异端思想的威迫暂时有所缓和。只要某地存在一种默而不宣的惯例，不容争论原则问题，不许讨论那些能够吸引全人类关注的最重大问题，我们就无望发现那种高超等级的智力活动；令某些历史时段卓越非凡的正是此类心智活动。如果社会争论规避那些足以点燃民众热情的重大主题，那么他们的思维就永远不会从最低状态激起，不会产生甚至能使心智最平庸的人们成为可敬思想者的冲力。对此，我们可以举出下列例子：其一是宗教改革运动刚刚结束那段时期内欧洲所处的状态；其二是18世纪后半期的思辨运动，虽然它仅限于欧陆文化水平较高的阶层；其三是歌德和费希特时期德国短期的知识界骚动。这三个时期虽然在具体主张上大不相同，但它们却具有一个共同点：在三个时期内，威权桎梏均被打破。每一时期，旧的思想专制都被摆脱，但新的思想威权尚未确立。这三个时期爆发的冲力使欧洲成为目前的欧洲。人类心智或社会体制中所出现的每一项改进都可以清晰地追溯到三者其中之一。一段时间以来，很多现象表明，这三大冲力几乎都已消耗殆尽；若不再次主张思想自由，我们将无望开创新局面。

接下来，我们看看争论的第二个分歧点。让我们搁置“所有公认正确的意见都可能错误”的假定，假设这些意见都是正确的，考查一下，在未曾自由公开讨论它们的正确性之前，人们最可能以何种态度对待它们，以及这态度有何意义。一个拥有强烈主张的人，不管他多么不情愿承认其主张可能是错误的，都应当在进行下述考虑后有所动摇：无论自己的主张多么正确，若不经常对它加以充分、大胆的讨论，那么它就要被看作是僵死的教条，而并非鲜活的真理。

有一类人（幸运的是他们的数量不像从前那样多了）认为，如果有人毫不怀疑地赞同他们认为的真理，这就够了。而事实上，此人根本不知道这些看法的依据是什么，也不会有理有据地驳斥最浮浅的反对意见、捍卫他们的看法。这类人倘若能够从权威那里得到某个信条，就想当然地认为，允许别人质疑该信条只会有害无益。在他们影响可及之处，他们会把那个公认为正确的意见宣传到让人几乎无法明智、慎重地加以拒斥的地步，但完全有人可能会轻率、无知地拒斥它。这是因为，彻底断除别人的讨论几乎是不可能之事；未经切实研讨的信条遭遇哪怕最不像样的争论，马上就会坍塌。然而，放弃这一可能性——而假定正确的观点留在头脑当中，但它的存在形式是偏见，是一种独立于争论且经受得住争论的信仰——这不是一个理性对待真理的合适方式。这并不是懂得真理；被如此对待的真理尤其是一种邪说——它只是很偶然地依附在了那些阐明某个真理的语词上面罢了。

若说人类的理智和判断力需要培养——这一点新教徒至少不会否认——那么，除了那些必须有所主张的切身之事外，人在什么事情上运用这些能力更为恰当呢？如果理解力的培养主要在于一件事，那肯定就是要懂得自己意见的基本依据。有些问题上，最要紧的是人们必须有确实的信念；不论他们信念的具体内容如何，都应该能够至少自我辩护，能够驳斥普通的反对意见。但是，有人可能会说：“要教给他们自己意见的依据。一些意见没有被反驳，并不意味着一定是人云亦云。几何学的学习者不单是把那些定理记住就够了，他们还要理解并学习其证明过程。要说因为他们从未听到任何人否定或试图证伪那些几何真理，所以他们就对其基础知识一无所知，这是多么荒谬啊！”毋庸置疑，对数学类科目而言，这种教法是够用的，因为对数学问题上的错误一面实在无话可说。数学真理证明的特殊之处在于，所有论据都只指向一个方面；无人反驳数学真理，也无人答复这种反驳。而在人们意见有可能相左的问题上，真理取决于要在相互矛盾的两套理据中达成的某种平衡。甚至在自然哲学[26]当中，对于同一事实，总会存在其他可能的解释。例如，日心说之外有地心说，氧气说之外有燃素说[27]。此外，还要证明另一种说法为何是不正确的；只有做过证明并让我们了解了论证过程，我们才能理解自己意见的依据所在。可是，当我们转向伦理、宗教、政治、社会关系、生命职责等无限复杂的问题时，会发现，对于每个引起争议的观点，四分之三的论据都是为了排除那些对对手观点的有利。古代第二伟大的演说家写道，他研究对方理据的细致入微程度总是不亚于甚至高于对自己理据的研究程度。任何人，无论研究任何问题，要想得到真理都必须认真效仿西塞罗使用的成功庭辩术。那种只懂得自己那番道理的人，对此茫无所知。他的论点也许很好，也许尚无人能够驳倒；但若他同样无法驳倒论敌的论点，也不充分了解论敌的论点，他就失去了从两种主张中进行选择的立足点。对他来说，理智的做法就是暂不判断；若非如此，他或者被权威所导引，或者像一般世人那样，接受他最偏好的那派论点。从自己的指导者那里获知论敌的论点，听从导师对这些论点的陈述以及导师对它们的驳斥，这是不够的。这样对待论敌的论点并不公平，未能让它们与自己的思想真正交锋。他必须能够亲耳聆听那些论敌陈述自己的论点，看他们如何真诚地且竭尽全力地为自己的论点辩护；他必须了解这些论点极其合理和令人信服的方面，必须体会到获得对某问题的正确观点所遭遇和克服的困难有多么巨大，否则他就永远不会真正获得真理之中直面并克服困难的那部分内容。教养良好的人群中百分之九十九的人都处于这种情形，那些可以流利地证明自己论点的人甚至也如此。他们的结论也许是正确的，但也可能是错误的，尽管他们知识渊博。这是因为，他们从未积极站到敌手的思想立场上，考虑这些人会说什么；结果是，他们并不真正懂得自己所信奉的学说。他们不懂该学说中解释和证明其余部分的那些内容，不懂有诸多因素可以表明：表面上两个相互冲突的事实是可以调谐一致的，或者在两个看起来都很有力的理据当中应该如何取舍。真理之中决定着真正博通之士之判断的关键内容，他们全然无知；真正懂得其中精粹的，只有那些公正无私地仔细倾听了双方论点、努力将双方论据放在最明亮的光源下加以审视的人。这种训练是真正理解道德与人类诸问题的绝对基础，即使所有重要真理都不存在反对者，也必须假想他们存在，并供给他们最机变的魔鬼代言人所能召唤出的最强有力的理据。

为了削弱真理之中这些关键内容的力量，反对自由讨论的人可能会说：没必要让全人类都了解和理解哲学家与神学家为反对或赞成其主张能够讲说的一切；不需要让普通人能够揭发机敏的对手的一切错话和谬论；如果总是有人能够回答那些质疑，能毫无遗漏地反驳任何可能会误导无知者的东西，这就够了；头脑简单的人被反复灌输了真理、并学会了那些真理的明显根据之后，可以把其余事务托付给权威；而且，他们知道自己既无知识又无才具，解决不了任何可能出现的难题，所以可放心地相信，已经出现的一切难题或许都已被那些为此受过专门训练的人解决了，或者可以交给他们去解决。

这种看法不无道理，一些人用以支持它的极端主张也颇有几分道理：只要对真理的理解程度足够证明自己对它的信仰，他们就心满意足了。即便如此，我对言论自由的主张也丝毫不受影响。这是因为，就连上述看法都承认：人类应该理性地相信，所有反对意见都得到了圆满的驳斥；如果并未提出需要答复的异议，又怎样能得到驳斥呢？或曰，如果反对者没有机会表明这种驳斥并非圆满，我们如何知道它就是圆满的呢？如果公众做不到，那么至少负责解答这些诘难的哲学家和神学家必须要熟悉它们最令人困惑的诘问形式；要做到这一点，就必须允许它们的自由表达，并给予它们所需的最有利的表达环境。天主教会对此尴尬问题有独到的处理方式。它清楚地区分了哪些人可以靠说服接受其教义，哪些人必须毫不质疑地接受其教义。实际上，这两类人都丝毫不能选择接受什么；但教士们，至少是那些可完全信任的教士，却可以为了反驳之需而明悉论敌的观点，并可以因而阅读异端邪书。普通的信众若非得到特许，根本无从获知分毫。这种戒训认可了了解对手论据对教士的益处，而相应地运用手段阻止了其他世人从中受益；由此，那些入选教士比大众得到了更多的思想教养——尽管不是更多的思想自由。天主教会借此获得了达成其目的所需的思想优势，虽然缺乏自由的教养从未造就博大、自由的心灵，但能够造就可服务于某个案件初审诉讼的机灵讼师。不过，在那些信奉新教的国家，天主教会这一办法却遭到否决。原因是新教徒认为——至少在理论上如此——选择哪种宗教是每个人自己的事，不能抛给导师去决定。另外，在当前世态下，被教养者所读的著作完全有可能流传到未被教养者那里。要让人类的导师们透彻认知一切应当了解的事物，就必须允准人们拥有关于任何事物的写作自由和出版自由。

然而，如果公认为正确的意见确实正确，而缺乏讨论自由的危害仅限于使民众不懂那些意见的基本依据，那么有识之士可能会认为：缺乏讨论自由在道德上决无害处，也不会影响那些公认意见对人类品行的塑造作用。但事实是，缺乏讨论自由令人忘掉的不仅是某观点的理据，而且经常是该观点的含义本身。那些表达该观点的词语不再有意义，或只能让人想到它们本要表达的意义的片段。它们失去了生动的构思和鲜活的信念，只剩下几个死记硬背下来的陈词滥句；或曰，若有遗留，也只是意义的皮壳罢了，精华早已丧失殆尽。人类历史上被这一事实占据和充满的巨大章节永远值得认真研究、深入思考。

几乎所有道德学说和宗教信条的发展历程都证明了这一点。那些学说和信条，对创始人及其亲传弟子而言，意义丰满、生气勃勃。只要它处于与其他学说或信条一决雌雄的斗争状态，其意义就能够毫厘不爽地传播下去，甚或令人感到更加真切。后来，它或者流行昌盛，成为舆论；或者停滞不前，据有已取得的地盘，但不再继续扩张。只要明显出现了这两种结局之一，围绕它展开的争论就会衰退，并渐至消失。信条取代了争议，要么成为既定的观念，要么成为一个思想流派；信仰者们信仰它通常是出于继承而非采信；此时抛弃某派学说而改宗他说的事情十分罕见，完全在信仰者思考之外。信仰者们不再像学说创立之初那样随时准备反抗世人、护卫自己，或说服世人相信自己；相反，他们静默下来，并在能够阻止反对其信条的言论时，既不着意倾听，又不起而自辩，打乱反对者（倘若确实存在这些反对者）的阵脚。这通常便是该学说生命力衰落的开始。我们常常听到各种信条的导师们都在痛惜：信仰者们口头上都承认该信条为真理，但要保持其在他们心中的真切感受，使其能够克服种种情绪扰攘、真正约束他们的行为，这实在太难了。在该信条仍旧为生存而战时，我们是听不到这种怨言的。那时，最柔弱的战士都感觉得到他们在为什么而战、己方信条与其他信条的区别是什么。在每个信条的这一阶段，都能发现：不仅仅是少数人了解该信条根本原则的一切思想表现形式，权衡和思考过这些根本原则的一切重要意义，体验过心灵中漾满对该学说的信念时整个人所产生的那种剧变。可是，一旦当它变成了一种因袭性的信条，要信徒被动而非主动接受——一旦他们的心灵不再如当初那般被迫体验到它的至烈冲力，感受它对自身信念所提出问题的解答——就会出现一种演变趋势：他们会忘记全部信念，只记得那些套话；或迟钝懒散地赞成它的信念，似乎是不必进行有意了解就毫不质疑地接受了它，或是在用个人经验检验它；最后它几乎完全停止了与他们内心世界的联系。然后就会出现下列情形：该信条可谓是存在于心灵之外，给心灵包上了硬壳，使我们天性中更高部分无法受到其他影响；该信条展现自身力量的方式不是考验任何新鲜、蓬勃的主张，看它是否可以接受，而是无所事事地据守在心灵之外，使它空空如也。在当今世界，这种情况屡见不鲜，各宗各派几乎大都如此。

天然适合在人心中打下最深烙印的学说，可以在多大程度上作为绝对信仰永驻人心，并丝毫不为人的想象力、情感或判断力所察觉？大多数信徒对基督教学说的信仰方式就是典型例证。这里我所谓的基督教即所有教会和宗派都视之为基督教者——即《新约》中的准则和戒律。在自称为基督徒的人心目中，它们十分神圣，是必守的律法。然而，一千个基督徒中没有一个人会用那些律法指引检验自己的行为，这样说并不为过。他实际参照的行为标准乃是本国、本阶级或本教派的习俗。这样，他一方面拥有一整套道德准则，相信它们是由绝对可靠的贤哲赐予他的行为规范；另一方面拥有一套日常判断标准和常规做法，与前面那套道德准则中的某些准则在一定程度上相同，但又与一些准则很不相同，而与另外某些准则完全相反——总体而言，这些日常判断标准和常规做法就是在基督教信条与世俗生活的利益及启发之间达成的一种妥协。他顺从前者，而真正忠实于后者。所有基督徒都相信，有福的是那些穷苦而卑微的人，是那些遭到世人凌辱的人。他们还相信：骆驼通过针眼要比富人进入天国更容易；自己不应评判别人，以免被别人评判；决不应发誓诅咒；像爱自己那样爱邻人；若有人抢走他们的斗篷，就连外套一起奉送给他；不要为明天忧虑；如果想让自己纯洁无瑕，就要出售身外一切财物，并把所获钱款施与穷人。基督徒们自称相信这些训诫时，并非虚情假意；他们确实相信这些，正如人们相信他们历来听到的被人一味赞美而从不加以研讨的事物。但在理解规制其行为的现实信仰时，基督徒们对上述教条的相信程度刚好限于平日照办的水平。全套的教条是用来攻击对手的武器，所以不难理解：信徒们是把它们当作解释自己种种所谓美德行为的理据，用以向人出示（如有可能的话）的。但若有人提醒他们，教义中的准则还要求完成他们甚至从未想到过的无数事物，他们非但不会心怀感激，反会把他归入那类假装优于别人的不受欢迎者之列。基督之教对普通信徒来说毫无作用——在他们心目中根本不是权威。他们只是习惯性地尊重这些教条的声响，但丝毫不解那些语词所指向的深意，遑论敞开心灵接纳这些言教，遵其为行为法式。无论何时，只要涉及教条的践行，他们便转向甲先生或乙先生求教，询问应该在多大程度上听从基督的教诲。

而我们可以确信，早期基督徒的情形与此不同，完全是天壤之别。倘若早期的信徒与当今一样，基督教根本不可能从声名狼藉的希伯来人的一支无名教派，发展成为全罗马帝国的国教。当基督徒的敌人说：“看看这些基督徒是如何爱护彼此吧。”（如今谁都不会这样说了）他们确实比今天的基督徒更加深切地解悟了其学说的意义。究其主因，很可能是现在基督教的疆域没有继续拓展，在十八个世纪之后，仍然近乎局限于欧洲人及其后裔。当今那些严格意义上的笃信者真诚地坚信基督教条，比一般人赋予它们更多的意义。可即便是他们，也通常出现这种情况：他们思想中较为活跃的那些内容，正是加尔文[28]、诺克斯[29]，或与他们自身性格相投的类似人物宣扬的学说。基督的言教与加尔文们的学说被动地共存于他们的头脑之中，对他们毫无作用，只有在倾听基督话语时的温和而乏味之感。为何某教派的标志性主张比所有公认教派的通用性主张更富有生机？为何宗教导师们要为保持教义鲜活付出更多辛劳？毋庸置疑，原因是多方面的，而其中一条必定是：那些特定学说受到了更多挑战，必须更经常地针对公开反对者的诘难，为它们进行辩护。一旦敌人从战场消失，导师及其学徒便在各自哨位上酣然入眠。

一般而言，这种情况发生在所有因袭的学说身上，不论是道德学说、宗教学说，还是审慎学说、认识生活的学说。所有的语言和作品中都充满了对生活的普遍观察，不仅说明生活是什么，而且说明人应如何处世。人人都知道这些观察到的东西，人人都会说出或默从地倾听别人说出它们是什么，都把它们作为自明之理加以接受。但大多数人通常是在经历过痛苦之后才看清其真容，才首次真正懂得其含义。有多少次，一个人是从某意外不幸或挫折带来的苦痛中，想起他终生熟悉的某句格言或俗谚，意识到他若在此前懂得了其真义，就不至于遭遇如此困苦。这并非缺乏言论自由所致，而是另有原因：许多真理的全部含义只能依靠个人体验来深刻揭示。但是，如果此人早先倾听了行家里手的往复辩论，本会对那些真理理解得更加透彻，他所理解的内容也会更为精细地镌刻在他的脑海之中。人类喜好停止思考已成定局的事物，他们犯下的错误中，有一半都起因于这种危险的癖好。当代有位作者就很犀利地讲过“一种既定言论的沉睡”。

什么？！（有人可能会问）难道异见纷呈竟是获取真正知识的绝对必要条件？难道必须要求一部分人坚持错误，以便让大家了解真相？难道某种观点一旦被广泛接受，就不再正确、失去了活力——难道透彻理解和体验某种主张的前提是保留对它的某种质疑？一旦人类一致认可了某种真理，它就要在他们中间灭亡吗？迄今为止，智力提升的最高目标和最佳结果，被认为是让人类越来越多地团结起来，认可所有的重要真理；难道一旦达到目标，更高的智力水平就要终结？难道胜利的取得会毁灭胜利的战果？

对这些问题，我的回答决不是肯定的。随着人类的进步，不再受到争论或质疑的学说的数量肯定会持续上升。已达无异议程度的真理的数量和价值，几乎可以用来衡量人类福祉的多少。围绕一个又一个问题展开的严肃论战停止，是统一意见的必经情形。正确观点的统一十分有益，而错误观点的统一则危害甚大。然而，虽然观点差异的范围逐渐缩小在两种意义上都是必然的——既必不可免，又必不可少——但我们并不因而被迫断定，其结果必为善事。论战是聪敏、鲜活地理解真理的重要助力，因为在论战中必须要向论敌进行解释，或尽管不足以胜过他，但也必须要驳斥他，为己而辩。故此，停止论战带来的缺憾决非微不足道，而是严重削弱了其举世公认的益处。在任何论战已结束的地方，我承认我想看到人类的导师正竭力提供某种替代方法：他们发明某种方法，让学徒充分感受到正反双方围绕某论题的辩难，如同是一个极高明的反对者为了说服他改宗，而把这些难题强加于他。

可人类导师们不但没有为此目的而寻求新方法，而且丧失了他们以前拥有的手段。苏格拉底辩证法就属于上文所说的新发明，它在柏拉图的《对话录》中得到了充分展现。从本质上讲，苏格拉底辩证法就是对哲学和生命等重大问题的否定式讨论。它技巧圆熟，目的是说服世人承认：他们仅仅是人云亦云地沿用了公认为正确观点的陈词滥调，实际上对所谈问题一无所知——他们并不清晰懂得自己公开信奉的观点；他们只有意识到自己的无知之后，才可能被引入正途，在透彻理解对各种观点的含义及其理据的基础上，获得稳妥的信念。中世纪经院争辩的宗旨与此颇有几分类似。争辩的意图是确保学生理解自己的观点和（必然与之有关的）对立观点，并能加强自己的论据、驳倒对方的论据。这些中世纪的经院争辩实际上有一致命缺陷：学生们所诉诸的前提都出自权威，而非出自理智，因此作为思维训练，这种争辩在各方面都劣于强大的苏格拉底辩证法，后者塑造了“苏格拉底的弟子们”的杰出才智。现代心智虽通常不愿承认，但它实际从上述两种方法中获益良多；当前的教育方式中也没有任何超越二者之处。一个只从老师和书本受教的人，即便能逃脱那不断袭来的满足于死记硬背的诱惑，也是不会热切地渴望听到正反两种意见的。相应地，很少有人能够做到通晓正反双方的论点和论据；即便是思想家中间，这样的人才也十分罕见。这样，任何人对自己主张的辩护中，最薄弱的部分正是他打算用以驳斥对手的内容。当前流行的是贬斥反面逻辑——仅指出理论上的缺点或实践中的错误却没有建立确凿真理的逻辑。若作为最终的结果，这种消极评论确实毫无可观，但若作为获取实实在在、名副其实的知识或信念的手段，它的价值绝对不容小觑。若不重新系统训练人们掌握反面逻辑，就不会出现伟大的思想家；人类心智中除了数学和物理学两个领域之外，就不会出现普遍而均匀的高智力水平。在任何其他问题上，无论何人，倘若未被迫或主动经历这种反面逻辑思维过程，未按要求主动与其对手进行过公开辩论，那么他的主张就不配得到“知识”之名。因此，如果辩论缺席，就必须冒着困难创造辩论；而如果它自发出现，人们却放弃参加，这将是多么荒谬至极！若我们关注自己信念是否真确或鲜活，无论何人，若辩驳了某种公认为正确的意见，或将在法律或舆论允准时进行辩驳，让我们为此感谢他，敞开心灵倾听他的话，并欢呼庆祝吧，因为竟然有人替我们做了这件事，否则我们就得花大力气自己动手。

有许多重要原因会使观点分歧十分有益，这种现象会持续到人类心智进步的新阶段，虽然目前看来那一阶段无限遥远。有一个重要原因非常值得一提。我们迄今只考虑过两种可能性：公认正确的意见有可能是错的，而其他某个意见则可能是对的；其次，在公认正确意见确实正确的情况下，为了让人清晰地理解和深刻感受其真理性，必须要让它与错误的对立意见发生冲突。然而，在这两种可能性之外，有一种十分普遍的情况：两种相互矛盾的主张并非一对一错，而是全都正确；公认为标准的学说仅仅体现了真理的一部分内容，需要与之对立的学说来补充并完整该真理的其余部分。许多关于抽象问题的公认见解常常是正确的，但很少是或根本不是完整的真理。它们是真理的一部分：有时是较大的部分，有时是较小的部分，但夸大、歪曲并且脱离了那些应当与它们共存或限定它们的真理。另一方面，所谓的异端邪说通常都是一些如此遭受压制或忽视的真理。它们冲破了束缚它们的镣铐，或者希求与公认主张中包含的真理相调和，或者以论敌身份直接挑战公认主张，树立起自己的权威，同样惟我独尊地自命为完整真理。后一种情形历来最为常见。这是因为，片面性始终是支配人心的规则，多面性才是例外。由此，在观念演进过程中，真理某部分得以确立的同时，其另一部分通常就会衰亡。真理的进步本应是增加新的真理，而实际却一般都只是用一种片断的真理替代另一种片断的真理。这所谓的进步，实则意味着真理的新片段比它所替代的旧片段更为时代亟需、更能满足时代需求罢了。一时公推的观点都有此种片面性，即便其理据真实可靠。所以，无论何种观点，只要其中多少体现着公认主张所缺的部分真理，那么就应该珍视它，不管其中掺杂了多少错误和混乱之处。倘若那些迫使我们注意到否则我们会忽视的真理的人，忽视了我们所看到的那些真理，头脑清醒的人类事务的法官，谁都不会对此怒火填膺。相反，他会认为：既然公认真理都是片面的，那么最为可取的做法是，允许非公认的真理也拥有自己的片面主张者。这通常都是最具活力的观点，也最有可能迫使这些主张者们勉强注意到，他们拥有的也是智慧的片断，而不是他们自诩的完全真理。

于是，在18世纪，几乎所有受过教育的人及其所有的追随者都迷失在对所谓文明、现代科学、文学和哲学的赞羡之中。同时，他们大大高估了今人与古人间的差别，深信今人远胜古人。其中，卢梭悖论一出，如同炸弹引爆，多么惊世骇俗！它们粉碎了片面观点的铁板一块，迫使其要素采用更优的形式，吸收外部因素，进行了重组。这并不意味着，当时的种种观念总体上比卢梭悖论[30]距真理更遥远；相反，它们更接近真理，比卢梭的主张包含了更多的绝对真理、更少的谬误。然而，在卢梭学说中存在着那些公认正确的意见恰恰缺少大量真理，它们随舆论之流漂游而下，舆论大潮退后，它们便沉积下来。简朴生活的优越价值、人为的社会枷锁和虚伪造成的萎靡消沉的恶劣后果，乃是从卢梭至今萦绕在文化阶层心目中的思想。卢梭的这些主张终将产生应有的效果，尽管眼下还需像过去一样坚持它们，而且需要用行动坚持，因为在此问题上，言辞的力量几乎已经耗尽。

关于政治，也有一种老生常谈的观点：一个按部就班的稳健政党和一个锐意进取的改革政党对于维系政治生活的健康状态均必不可少；直到其中之一扩大了其思想境界，成为既按部就班又锐意进取的政党，懂得何者宜留、何者应废，并能付诸实践。两党的两种思维方式之实效均源于对方之不足，但二者都能保持理性与明智在很大程度上正是由双方的对抗所致。两党分别支持什么？民主制还是贵族制？财产私有还是财富均分？合作还是竞争？豪奢还是节俭？集体性还是个体性？自由还是规训？以及所有其他实际生活中的常规对立问题。若不能就这些问题同等自由地表达己方主张，并用同等才智与精神推行和保障其主张，两党便均无机会取得应得的权力。平衡被打破，一党定会上升，另一党则会下降。在生活的重大现实事务中，真理实为一个调和与融合对立面的问题，而谁都无法心胸开阔、公正无私到根据较为正确的方法而做出转变，所以只能诉诸战争这一粗暴解决手段，让战士们在敌对双方的旗帜下展开搏斗。在前面所列举的任何重大未决问题上，若有一党的主张优于另一方，不仅得到了宽容，而且受到了鼓励和支持，那么它正是由特定时间、特定地方的少数派提出的主张。该主张当时代表的是被忽视的利益、实得少于应得的那部分人类福祉。我知道，我国对前述绝大部分重大问题的观点分歧都是十分宽容的。人们援引多个公认的实例来证明如下事实的普遍性：在人类心智的现状下，只有通过观念的多样化，真理的所有方面才有机会进行公平竞争。在某问题上，举世之见显著一致，而若有些人奉持异见，即便世人一方正确，亦不妨碍异见者的辩解当中有值得一听之处；若他们缄口不言，真理将有所缺损。

有人可能会反对道：“但有些公认的准则，特别是关于那些最高等、最重要问题的准则，远非片面真理。例如，基督教道德规范就是关于道德的全部真理；若有人传授另外的道德准则，他就全错了。”在所有事例中，基督教道德问题确实是最重要的一个，最适合用来检验普遍准则问题。可是，在宣称什么是或不是基督教道德之前，最好先界定基督教道德的含义是什么。如果它指的是《新约》中的道德规范，那么我怀疑，任何从此书中得到其基督教道德知识的人，是否真的认定这本书里宣示或规划的一套完整的道德学说。《福音书》[31]中总是提及一种既存道德准则，并将自己的规诫局限于一些具体事项上，以表明该道德准则需要纠正，或者需被更广泛、更高级的道德准则所替换。不仅如此，《福音书》的表达方式极其笼统，常常不能按其字面意思理解，其文句与其说体现着法律的精确，不如说充满了诗歌或雄辩的动人特质。若不从《旧约》中寻章摘句勉为补充，就根本不可能从《新约》中提取出一整套道德准则来；也就是说，那套准则必须要借助一个非常复杂的体制方能成立，但该体制在许多方面都十分野蛮，因为它本来就是蛮族之物。圣保罗公然背弃了这种犹太教的教义演释常式，补全了他主人[32]的思想体系。他同样展现了某种既存的道德规范——即希腊人和罗马人的道德观，他对基督徒的劝教在很大程度上是调和基督训诫与希腊、罗马道德观的系列产物——他甚至明确认可了奴隶制。所谓的基督教道德规范其实应该称为神学道德规范；它并非基督或使徒们的言教或身教，而是起源颇近，是1到5世纪的天主教会逐渐建构起来的。尽管近代人和新教徒都没有绝对采纳这套规范，但也都没有对其施行大幅修改。这一点颇出人意表。实际上，他们主要满足于剥除中世纪各教派附加上去的主张——每个教派都按本宗的特质和旨趣，向这一道德体系添加新的主张。我毫不否认，人类从基督教道德规范及其早期导师那里受益极大。但我也毫不讳言，此规范的许多方面都是不完备的、片面的。当初若不是它所反对的那些主张和看法促成了欧洲生活与特征的形成，那么现代的人类事务很可能比现实情况糟糕。（所谓的）基督教道德观有着反动思想的一切特征：在很大程度上，它是对异教信仰的反对；其目标是否定性而非肯定性的，是消极而非积极的，是清白而非崇高，是为免除罪恶的节欲而非对善的孜孜追求——其诫律中（总是这样说）“你不可”的诫律远远超过了“你当”。对声色之欲的恐惧令它把苦行当成了偶像，苦行又逐步退化为对律法的墨守。它用上天堂的希望和下地狱的威胁，作为上帝对信徒生活是否有德的对应赏罚，这与古人那最优秀的道德准则如隔天壤。践行基督教道德观使人类道德从根本上带有自私性：它割断了个人责任感与其人类同伴利益的关联，虽然其在利己动机的驱动下也时而会顾及后者。基督教道德观根本就是一种宣扬被动服从的主张，它极力要求一切在位的当权者服从于它。实际上，那些当权者命令我们从事宗教禁止的行为时，虽然我们不会积极听从，但也不会反对，更不会反抗，无论他们对我们做了多少坏事。有些最优秀的信仰异教的民族，在其道德观中，个人对国家的义务占有的比例太大，大到侵犯了个人的合法自由权利。而在纯粹的基督教道德中，从未提及或承认那么大份额的个人职责。只有在《古兰经》[33]而非《新约》中，我们才能读到这条准则：“统治者不顾其领土上有更适合的人选，而任命某人担当某职位，就是对真主犯罪、对国家犯罪。”现代道德观中个人对公众的责任感本源自希腊和罗马文化，而非基督教教义，这一点多么鲜为人知！即便在事关个人生活的道德规范中，大度、高尚、个人尊严，乃至幽默感等，均源于我们教育中的纯粹人文教育，而非宗教教育；而且，这些价值观念决不会滋生于那种公然把服从作为惟一珍赏之物的道德标准。这一点同样无人知晓！

我同任何人一样，不会以任何可以想象的方式，妄称这些必然是基督教道德观固有的瑕疵；也不会妄言，它所缺少的、完整的道德主张应具备的许多要素，与基督教道德观水火不容。我更不是要影射基督本人的教义和规诫。我相信：基督之言教完整无缺；我能领会其言教的一切意旨；基督之言语与综合性道德准则的要求毫不抵触；伦理学中的一切精华均可自然而然地融于基督语句之中，而前人试图从中归纳出某套实用行为规范之类时，无不伤辞害理。然而，与此并不矛盾的是，可以相信：基督之言语所包含或打算包含的，仅是部分真理；最高道德准则的许多基本要素，属于基督教创始者语录中所未包含或并未打算包含的事物之列，是被基督教会根据基督语录建立的道德规范体系整个丢弃的东西。鉴于此，我认为，有人以为基督试图在其教义中认可和推行了一整套道德准则，但只提供了部分条款，所以执意要从中找出这套准则，这是一大错误。我也相信，这种狭隘的观点正在演变成一场严重的现实罪恶，大大损害了诸多好心人殚思竭虑推进的道德培养与教育的价值。有些世俗标准（我找不到更好的名词命名它们）与基督教道德观至今共生并存、补其不足，获得了后者的部分精髓，也灌输给了后者它们的部分精髓。我非常担心，抛弃这些世俗标准，而仅以宗教标准为基础塑造人们的思想与看法，将会——甚至目前已经在——导致一种低劣、卑贱、奴性的品性。它无论如何都会顺从于它所谓的至高意志，根本无法上升或感应到至善思想。在从基督教这个单一源头演化而来的道德规范之外，有许多其他道德规范；我相信，必须让它们与基督教道德规范共存，才能造就人类道德的重生。当人类心智未臻完美时，为了真理的利益要求人类观点的多样化；基督教体系并不在此规则之外。不再忽视基督教中未包含的道德真理，并不意味着人们必须忽视那些它确实含有的真理。这种偏见或疏忽，不论何时出现，都是祸患。但我们无法希望完全避免这种祸患，而必须将其当作为获得无量之善所付出的代价。若真理之一部分惟我独尊地自诩为真理之整体，此类行径必须且应当遭到抗议；若抗议者因一时冲动而反应过激，其片面性固然同那些自诩者一样可悲，但必须得到容忍。如果基督教徒想教导无神论者公正对待基督教，那么他们自己就应当公正对待无神论。所有对文学史略知一二的人都知道，许多含有最崇高、最宝贵道德寓意作品的作者之中，不仅有对基督教信仰一无所知的人，而且有熟知且摈弃了基督教信仰的人。

我并不是在谎称，无边无限地自由阐明一切可能的观点，就会终止宗教或哲学宗派主义的种种弊病。才智有限的人对他们所虔信的每种真理都言之断然、谆谆劝勉，甚至奉循厉行，似乎世上别无真理，或者必不存在能够限定或描述它的真理。我承认，所有主张都有拉帮结派的倾向，哪怕最自由的讨论都治愈不了这一痼疾；自由讨论甚至会因而加深、加重此种倾向。其结果是，人们本应看到实际却没有看到的真理，只因是他们视作论敌之人的主张，就遭到愈加粗暴的断然拒斥。这种意见冲突只会对更为平静、更为公正的旁观者产生有益影响，而不会对狂热的党人产生良好作用。真理不同部分之间的剧烈冲突固然有害，但真正可怕的灾祸却是一派对另一派的无声镇压。人们被迫听取双方意见时，总有获取真理的希望；可一旦他们只能倾听一方的意见，错误就会固化为偏见，真理就会终止发挥它作为真理的作用，而被不断夸大而变成了谬误。在人类各种心智属性中，最珍稀的是公正评判能力。有此能力者才可睿智地评判某个问题的两大方面；若他只偏听一方之辞，就只能知悉该问题的局部真理。真理整体之显现，必需该问题的所有方面和包含着该真理之任何片断的所有言论，都能得到合适的辩护人选，且能够被他们妥当地公开论述，以便世人闻知。

我们已经根据四个明确理由认清，有意见自由和意见表达自由对人类心理安康（此乃其他一切福祉的基础）而言必不可少。此处再简要回顾一下这四大理由。

第一，如果某观点被迫沉默，那么该观点有可能是正确的。对此我们能够肯定。否认这一点就是假定自我绝对正确。

第二，尽管被迫沉默的观点可能是错的，但它有可能包含着部分真理——实际也通常如此。在任何问题上，一般或流行的看法极少或从不是整体真理，所以只有通过对立观点间的碰撞，真理的其余部分才有可能得以彰显。

第三，即便公认为正确的看法不仅正确，而且是整体真理，也必须让它确实地受到热烈而认真的辩难；否则大部分人都不能理解或感受到它的合理依据，对它的相信也只是偏见罢了。

第四，不仅如此，而且该看法本身的含义有可能消失或衰弱，并丧失对人类品德和行为的至要影响力：它变成了纯粹的礼仪性誓词，永无效用，却妨碍着人类的思想境界，使理智或个人经验无法发展出任何真实、诚挚的信念。

在结束对意见自由的讨论之前，还应关注一下这些人：他们宣称，只要言论方式温和有节，不超出合理讨论的范畴，就应当许可一切言论自由。很多理由都可以证明，根本无法确定所谓合理讨论的边界何在。因为如果检验某种言论算是对持论者的冒犯，我想现实经验已经证明：只要诘难者的意见真实可靠、说服力强，就会惹恼持论者；任何力促持论者并让他们感到理屈词穷的人，只要表现出坚定的看法，就会被他们当作偏激无度的敌手。这一点虽是现实考虑中的重要因素，却从属于更为重要的反对意见。毋庸置疑，表达某种意见——即便是正确的意见——的方式有可能非常令人反感，从而招致别人的激烈指责。然而，只有在诘难者证实持论者确实有误而自己也偶然露出破绽时，才能出现此类主要冒犯行为。其中最严重的冒犯行为是：在争辩时强词夺理；阻止别人提供事实或论据；谎报所涉事端的要素，或歪曲对方的观点。而做出这一切、甚至做到了最恶劣程度的人，在别人眼里都不是无知、无能之辈，而且在很多其他方面也不算无知、无能之人。所以，几乎不可能严正而充分地表明，他们歪曲对方观点的行为犯了道德上的罪过，法律更不可能擅自干预这种引起争议的不当行为。至于一般意义上偏激无度的讨论——即恶言谩骂、冷嘲热讽、人身攻击之类，倘使建议论争双方谁都不得使用，那么人们会更加支持对这些武器的谴责。然而，事实上人们仅仅希望禁止有人运用它们来抨击普遍的看法；若有人使用它们来攻击那些非主流观点，大众则不仅不会反对，而且很可能赞扬其诚实热情和正直义愤。一旦这些武器被用作对付论战中较为无助的那一方，无论其造成什么伤害，那伤害都是巨大的。无论何种观点以此方式获取了何种不义之利，其不义之利最后几乎全都成为普遍看法的新增筹码。一个论争者所能做出的最坏的此类冒犯行为，就是污蔑论敌是品行邪恶的道德败类。这种诽谤特别易于伤害那些持有新异观点的人，因为他们一般人数极少、不成气候，除了他们自己，谁都没兴趣看到他们获得公道对待。可是，就论争的性质看，那些抨击主流意见的人是无权使用诽谤武器的：他们无法在保证自身安全的情况下使用它；即便他们能够使用，也无甚效果，只反而会伤及自己。总之，那些与群言相左的观点持有者，只能极其谨慎地避免无谓的冒犯行为，靠精心设计的温和语言获得众人的倾听；丝毫不慎就会令他们一败涂地。与此相反，主流意见一方群情汹汹、毫无忌惮的任意辱骂，形成了实实在在的威慑，令人既不敢提出异见，也不敢聆听他人的异见。由此可见，为了真理和正义的利益，禁止主流意见一方使用侮辱性语言更为紧要。例如，如果必须进行选择，那么比起信教者，亟需阻止的乃是对不信教者的羞辱。不过，无论要制止哪一方，都显然不是法律和政府职责所在。在所有案件中，舆论都应当根据具体案情自主做出决定，谴责任何在辩护己方主张时表现虚伪奸猾、恶毒偏执或心胸狭隘的人，无论他站在论争的哪一边；但不因某人所属的阵营而断定他具有这些恶习，即便他站在了我们的对立面；赞誉任何能够平和地看问题、诚实地陈述其对手及其观点实状的人；无论他本人观点如何，都不会夸张生事、败坏对手的名声，也不会故意隐瞒任何于对手有利或他自认为对其有利的事物；这才是公开讨论的真正道德规范。尽管这一规范常遭破坏，但我仍高兴地想到：有许多争论者都在很大程度上遵循着它，还有更多人正在朝着它认真努力。

[1]我刚写完这些文字，就出现了1858年的政府控告出版物事件（指1858年后半年，法国政府控告并审讯查尔斯?蒙塔朗贝尔伯爵事件。事情的起因是蒙塔朗贝尔伯爵写了一篇名为《在英国议会辩论印度问题》的文章。法国政府认为，该文中的某些段落“富有煽动性地批判了现任政府”。——译者注），似乎是要故意高调反驳我似的。然而，那场对公共言论自由的轻率干涉并未促使我更改本文中的片言只语，也丝毫没有削弱我的信念。我坚信，除了恐慌时期之外，我国用痛苦和惩罚对付政治言论的时代已经结束。这是因为，首先，那些控告并未顽固坚持下去；第二，它们也并不是严格意义上的政治控告。1858年事件中被指控的罪行并非抨击某些机构，或抨击当政者们的行为或人身，而是传播一种被认为不道德的学说——诛杀暴君是合法的。倘若本章的探讨正当合理，那么作为道德信念，就应该存在最充分的表达和讨论任何学说的自由，无论别人认为该学说如何悖德。因此，诛杀暴君的学说是否悖德与本文无关，不宜在此加以考察。我将满足于声称，该问题始终是诸未决道德问题之一；满足于说明，若某罪犯通过凌驾于法律之上而使自己免于法律惩罚或管制，那么，在所有民族的心目中，在人类一些睿智的佼佼者心目中，某公民个人击毙该罪犯的行为历来都不是罪行，而是高尚的德行；满足于表明，此事不论对错，都不属于暗杀性质，而属内战性质。同样，我认为，在某具体案件中，可以惩罚煽动刺杀行为，但前提是随后出现了实际刺杀行动，并且该行动与煽动行为之间至少可以建立起可能性较大的联系。即便如此，也要由遭到攻击的政府本身，而不是某个外国政府，来进行自卫，依法惩处那些企图颠覆它的袭击行为。

[2]封圣（canonization）：指天主教会、东正教会和英国国教宣布某个已故教徒为圣徒的行为。——译者注

[3]各各他（Calvary）：据基督教《圣经》称，各各他是耶路撒冷城墙外一个形似骷髅的小山的名字，因此又译骷髅地；耶稣在此被钉死在十字架上。——译者注

[4]据《马太福音》第26章记载：耶稣被带到大祭司该亚法那里去当众受审。大祭司该亚法要求耶稣当着永生神起誓告诉人们，他是神子基督。耶稣承认这一点后，说：然而我告诉你们，后来你们要看见人子坐在那权能者的右边，驾着天上的云降临。听到此言，该亚法就撕开衣服，说耶稣说了亵渎神灵的话，诱请在场的人要求处死他。在普通犹太人当中，在听到噩耗或令人惊悚的事情时，常常要撕裂衣服，露出胸口，表示悲痛、惊恐或义愤。但是，根据《利未记》，祭司不许执行这一风俗。无论在任何情形之下，祭司都不可撕裂自己的衣服。头上倒过膏油、受过圣职、穿了金色圣衣的大祭司尤其要严守这一规定，不可蓬头散发、不许撕裂衣服，也不可挨近尸体等不洁之物，哪怕是他父母的尸体。这是因为，他的穿戴、态度、言语和精神，都要完全无瑕，象征上帝的圣洁、荣耀和完全。大祭司若敢撕裂衣服或穿着撕裂的衣服执行圣职，就是损毁上帝的象征，丧失了代表上帝的身份，必然要被判死刑。——译者注

[5]耶稣死后，作为异教徒的基督教徒曾惨遭迫害。本来笃信犹太教的圣保罗在基督教形成初期，激烈反对这种新宗教，并积极参加迫害活动，力图消灭它。但在去大马士革的一次旅途中，他受到耶稣显灵的感化，从此改变信仰，变成了基督教最有力的支持者和最早的传教者。他的传教足迹遍布一世纪时罗马帝国东部的古希腊、小亚细亚、叙利亚和巴勒斯坦等地区，说服了大量的非犹太人，并在欧洲和小亚细亚建立了多个教会团体。另外，传统上认为，《新约》二十七部书中，有十四部都是保罗所作。因此他对基督教思想的影响十分巨大。——译者注

[6]马可·奥勒留·安东尼努斯（Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 121—180年）是古罗马帝国安东尼王朝皇帝（161—180年在位）。他从小受到了良好的教育，温和宽厚、学识渊博、为政勤勉、公正开明，富有军事天才但又热爱和平，是西方历史上的著名贤君、斯多亚派哲学家，他用希腊文写成的《沉思录》为传世名作。奥勒留在位期间，迫害基督徒案件的数量和严重程度都有显著增加。——译者注

[7]康斯坦丁大帝（Constantine, 272—337年）是第一位信仰基督教的罗马皇帝。在他的政策鼓励下，基督教迅速发展壮长为主导欧洲的宗教。——译者注

[8]约翰逊博士即萨缪尔·约翰逊（Samuel Johnson, 1709—1784年），英国诗人、作家、道德家、编辑、词典编纂家，对英国文学贡献巨大。——译者注

[9]披麻蒙灰指身披麻衣或麻布，洒满灰烬，表示自己如同尘芥一般卑微。基督教《圣经》中多次记载人们披麻蒙灰、禁食祈祷，进行忏悔。——译者注

[10]洛克里斯人（Locrians）是生活在古希腊中部地区的一个希腊部族。洛克里斯人扎莱乌库斯设计出了第一部希腊成文法典，称为《洛克里斯法典》。——译者注

[11]路德指马丁·路德（1483—1546年），德国人，16世纪欧洲宗教改革倡导者，基督教新教路德宗创始人。——译者注

[12]布雷西亚的阿诺德（Arnold of Brescia，1090—1155年）是意大利伦巴第地区的基督教神职人员。他呼吁教会改革，放弃财产权，倡导苦修。他的影响巨大，几度遭教皇流放。1143年回到罗马后，他参加了罗马公社（1144—1193年），热情洋溢地站在民众一边，迅速成为公社的智力领袖，疾呼自由和民主权利。他与几任教皇的斗争互有胜负，但最终于1155年被抓，被教廷当作叛徒审判，处以绞刑后又遭焚尸。教廷憎恨他在民间和低层神职人员中的威望和美名，把他的骨灰抛进台伯河，以免他的墓地成为殉道圣地而受到敬仰。——译者注

[13]多尔齐诺（Fra Dolcino，1250—1307年）是意大利的激进基督教牧师，反对教阶制度和封建体制，提倡教会回归谦卑和贫穷的原始典范，提倡人类的完全解放，创建彻底平等、互助互尊的共产社会组织。他曾领导一群激进改革者对抗教会。十字军抓住他后处死了他。——译者注

[14]萨沃纳罗拉（Girolamo Savonarola，1452—1498年）意大利文艺复兴时期佛罗伦萨多明我会的修道士和牧师。他预言了佛罗伦萨的壮美革新、世俗艺术和文化的毁灭，批判教士阶级的腐化，呼吁基督教的重建，谴责专制统治以及富人对穷人的剥削。他获得了佛罗伦萨民众的敬重和梵蒂冈的仇恨。1498年，萨沃纳罗拉和另两位教友被囚禁，遭到折磨，被教会和市政当局处以绞刑和火刑。他们的骨灰被抛入了亚诺河。——译者注

[15]阿尔比教派（The Albigeois）：阿尔比是法国南部的一个城市，从主教座堂发展而来。12—13世纪，活跃于西欧的一个中世纪基督教派别卡特里派（又译清洁派）传入阿尔比城，因此又称阿尔比派。他们是二元论者，认为精神世界属于善神，包括肉体在内的物质世界属于恶神。善恶两神不断斗争。他们认为，地上的一切事物都是朽坏的、恶的，耶稣、圣灵都不是神，而是受造的事物；连教会和教界都与物质世界沆瀣一气，所以反对教阶制度、神职人员财产权和天主教圣礼。他们还反对杀生、婚姻、战争和死刑，主张完全素食、禁欲和脱离轮回。教会对这一派深恶痛绝，宣布他们为异端。1209年，教皇英诺森三世发起了一场阿尔比圣战，历时二十年，重创了阿尔比教派。1234年，宗教裁判所创立，对不肯悔改的阿尔比派信徒实施背负十字架朝圣、囚禁和火刑等种种惩罚手段。几十年的武力镇压、强迫改宗、典籍毁灭和组织破坏，使该教派式微，进入14世纪后，则逐渐消亡。——译者注

[16]韦尔多派（The Vaudois或The Waldensians）是1170年代晚期出现于里昂的一个教派。其创始人彼得·韦尔多本是里昂一个有学问的富商，在1160年前后经历的系列事件使他成为一个激进基督徒。他把自己的财产分给了家人和穷人，开始了使徒式的清贫余生。他专心传道和钻研《圣经》，为了让不懂拉丁语的普通人懂得基督教《圣经》，他资助把《福音书》等书籍翻译成当地人使用的普罗旺斯语。他吸引了大批的平民信徒，但他以平民信徒身份传道和破坏教会规矩翻译经书等行为很快招致了罗马天主教会的不满。1215年，教会宣布韦尔多派为异端，开始大肆迫害他们。1229年，十字军结束了讨伐阿尔比派的战争之后，开始攻击韦尔多教派。宗教裁判所也迅速加入进来，严惩他们。韦尔多派活动转入地下，许多信徒逃到了普罗旺斯地区和意大利。到了16世纪，他们加入了新教运动，开始公开活动，却屡遭屠杀和镇压。其中最惨烈的就是1545年的普罗旺斯地区梅兰多村大屠杀（The Massacre of Mérindol）。17世纪时几乎灭绝。——译者注

[17]罗拉德派（The Lollards）又称威克利夫派，是14世纪中期至16世纪英国宗教改革期间发生于英国的一个政治和宗教运动。创始人约翰·威克利夫是著名神学家，就读并随后任教于牛津大学，他学识渊博，影响极大，1369年起任英王的神父，后兼任教区长、皇家神学顾问等职。1376年，他反对教会和教皇的腐化，提倡回归《圣经》本身，主张各国教会应隶属于本国国王，而遭到教皇的谴责逮捕与坎特伯雷大主教的通缉。他1381年被逐出牛津大学。威克利夫及其在牛津大学的同事们形成了第一批罗拉德派，他们不顾坎特伯雷大主教的威迫继续扩张，把基督教《圣经》译成了英文。1399年，亨利四世继位，他伙同教廷一起禁止私人翻译或拥有《圣经》，称违反者将作为异端被施以火刑，开始了对罗拉德派的镇压。在严厉惩罚措施的压迫下，15世纪早期，罗拉德派被迫转入地下。14至15世纪，英国多次处死罗拉德派信徒。高压之下，罗拉德派渐趋式微，最终并入新教教派。——译者注

[18]胡斯派是14至15世纪之交出现在捷克的宗教改革运动。其先行者扬·胡斯（约1369—1415年）是捷克宗教改革者，继约翰·威克利夫之后的著名宗教改革理论家，对新教影响巨大。康斯坦茨宗教会议将胡斯诱骗到了康斯坦茨，宣判他为异端并处以火刑。捷克的胡斯派信徒视此为国耻，随后发动了胡斯战争（1419—约1434年），针对教廷进行宗教和政治斗争。1434年，战争结束，胡斯派同意服从波西米亚国王和教廷的权威。——译者注

[19]佛兰德斯（Flanders）是中世纪的一个西欧国家，位于今欧洲西北部地区，在北海沿岸，包括法国西北部部分地区、现比利时的东佛兰德省、西佛兰德省以及荷兰的西南部部分地区。——译者注

[20]玛丽女王指玛丽一世（Mary I，1516—1558年）是亨利八世和凯瑟琳王后的独生女，英格兰和爱尔兰女王（1553—1558年在位），都铎王朝第四任君主。她继承的是乃弟爱德华六世（Edward VI, 1537—1553年）的王位（1546—1553年在位）。九岁即位的爱德华六世是英国第一位新教徒国王，他在位期间对宗教事务十分感兴趣，确立了新教的地位，实施了一些宗教改革措施。他在1558年病逝时，指定信奉新教的珍·格雷为王位继承人。玛丽是爱德华六世的同父异母姐姐，信仰天主教。她用武力废黜了爱德华，自任女王。她在位的短短五年期间处死了许多新教徒，被对手称为“血腥玛丽”。——译者注

[21]伊丽莎白女王指伊丽莎白一世（Elizabeth I，1533—1603年），是亨利八世与其第二任妻子安妮王后的独生女，英格兰和爱尔兰女王（1558—1603年在位），都铎王朝第五任君主。伊丽莎白是爱德华六世的同父异母姐姐、玛丽一世的同父异母妹妹，信仰新教。玛丽一世在位时，因恐她支持新教徒反叛，把她囚禁了将近一年。伊丽莎白上任之初，就建立了一个英国新教教会，自任最高总管。该教会后来发展为英国国教会。她在位期间，实施温和的宗教自由政策，避免宗教迫害活动。——译者注

[22]指1857年7月31日，博德明巡回法庭，托马斯·普雷。当年12月，国王特赦了他。

[23]指1857年8月17日，乔治·雅各布·霍利约克；1857年7月，爱德华·特鲁拉夫。

[24]指1857年8月4日，万宝路大街治安法庭，格雷肯男爵。

[25]我们需要高度警惕，迫害者的狂热情绪中掺杂着我国民族性中的劣根性。这种劣根性在印度民族起义时（指1857年5月～1858年6月北部和中部印度反对英国殖民统治的民族起义。这次起义以东印度公司的印度士兵哗变开始，以英国胜利、印度再次成为其殖民地告终。——译者注）展露无遗。教堂讲坛上狂热分子或骗子的疯言乱语也许不值一顾，但福音派头头们的声明不容忽视。他们宣布：他们管理印度教教徒和伊斯兰教徒的规则是：任何不教授基督教《圣经》的学校都不能获得公款资助；与此相应的必然结果是，任何不是真正或伪装的基督徒的人都不能获得公职。据称，一位副国务大臣（威廉·纳·梅西）在1857年11月12日向其选民发表的演说中提到：“对他们信仰的宽容”（一亿英属国国民的信仰），“英国政府称之为宗教的那种迷信已经产生了妨碍英国声誉的效果，阻碍了基督教的健康发展……宗教宽容是我国宗教自由的伟大基石，但休让他们滥用了宽容这一珍贵的语词。照他看来，宗教宽容意味着所有人的完全自由，意味着基督徒的敬拜自由，因为他们敬拜的基础相同；意味着容忍基督徒的所有宗派和教派，因为他们相信的中介相同。”我希望诸位注意这一事实：一个被认为适合充任我国政府要职、在自由派内阁领导下工作的人，竟然发表这种言论，主张将所有不信仰基督神性的人排除在宗教宽容的围栏之外。听到这番蠢话之外，谁还能沉醉在错觉之中，相信宗教迫害已经一去不返了呢？

[26]自然哲学（natural philosophy）：自然科学特别是物理学的旧称。——译者注

[27]燃素说是17世纪后期至18世纪，化学家们针对燃烧和生锈等燃烧现象提出的解释。他们认为，可燃物中普遍存在着一种火一样的、被称为燃素的物质。燃烧就是可燃物中的燃素释放的过程。——译者注

[28]加尔文（John Calvin, 1509—1564年）：著名法国宗教改革家、神学家，基督教新教加尔文宗的创始人。——译者注

[29]诺克斯（John Knox, 1514—1572年）：苏格兰宗教改革家、神学家，苏格兰长老会的创始人。曾受教于加尔文。——译者注

[30]卢梭（Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712—1788年）：法国启蒙时代的思想家、作家，法国大革命的思想先驱。他是一个生活与思想充满悖论的人。例如：他是当时的杰出作家之一，却没受过正规教育，并娶了一个文盲女工；他专门论述过教育问题，却把自己的孩子们都送进了育婴堂；他讨厌革命，但被法国大革命的领袖们奉为偶像；他被认为是领导启蒙运动的哲学家，却称赞无知，反对艺术和科学。他的主要著作有《论人类不平等的起源和基础》、《社会契约论》、《爱弥儿》、《忏悔录》等。——译者注

[31]福音书（Gospel）：指《新约》中的《马太福音》、《马可福音》、《路加福音》和《约翰福音》四卷福音书。——译者注

[32]即耶稣。——译者注

[33]《古兰经》（Koran）：又译《可兰经》，伊斯兰教经典。——译者注

三　论个性自由——人类幸福的因素之一

上一章所述四大原因使人类势必能够自由形成各种意见，且能毫无保留地自由表达其意见。如果不准许意见自由和意见表达自由，或禁止它们使其无法继续得到主张，就会对人的心智、并通过心智对人的道德特质产生灾难性后果。接下来，我们将探讨的是，那四大原因是否要求人类按照其观点自由行动——即：只要他们自负责任、自担风险，就可将其观点付诸生活实践，而不应受到其同类物质或精神上的阻挠。毫无疑问，自负责任、自担风险这一附加条件必不可少。谁都不会妄言，行动应该同观点一样无拘无束。反过来看，一旦意见的表达环境本身构成了实实在在的刺激因素，表达意见就会变成煽动因素，引发骚乱行为，这时就连意见自由也不再安全。说“粮商就是饿死他人的人”，或者“私有制就是掠夺”，这类言论若仅仅是印在报刊上流传，应该可以不受干预；可这类言论若是在粮商门前，面对群情激奋的暴徒进行口头发表，或印成海报散发给那群暴徒，就应当依法惩处。不论何种行为，只要在没有正当理由的情况下伤害到他人，就应当——在更重大的情况下则绝对必须——受到反对观点的管控，并在必要时受到人类的积极干预。个人的自由必须受到这种限制，绝对不能为害他人。但若他足以自制，不会在与他人有关的事情上妨害他人，而在仅仅关乎自身的事情上根据自己的偏好和判断采取行动，那么前文中证明言论自由的所有理由也适用于他，使他应当能够不受干扰、自负代价地将自己的主张付诸实践。人类并非永远正确；人类发现的绝大多数真理都只是片面真理；不经最充分、最自由的比较，就把相互对立的论点协调统一，是不可取的；观点多元并存并非坏事，而是好事，除非将来人类比现在更睿智，能够认知真理的所有方面。这些原则不仅适用于人类的言论，也同样适用于其行为方式。当人类心智尚不完善时，应当允许不同观点的存在。同理，也应当允许不同生活试验的存在；应当在互不妨害的前提下给予各种个性特征的人以自由的活动空间；只要任何人认为某种生活方式适合自己，就应当允许他们通过实践证明各种生活方式的价值。简而言之，在那些绝少涉及他人的事物上，个人应当坚持自己的选择。无论何处，只要当地不以个人的个性特征，而以他人的传统或习惯为行为规范，就会缺乏人类福祉的一大要素——它也是个人发展和社会进步的核心要素。

坚持本条原则可能遭遇的最大困难，并非如何评价为达到某一公认目标而采用的种种手段，而是常人对该公认目标本身的漠不关心。人类个性的自由发展是其福祉的主导性要素之一，它不仅与名为“文明”、“教导”、“教育”、“文化”的一切事物同等重要，而且其自身就是它们必不可少的组成部分和前提条件。倘若人们懂得这些，自由就不会被低估，自由与社会约束之间的界限调整就不会产生特别的困难。而现存的祸患是，普通思维方式几乎认识不到，个人自发行为竟然有其内在价值，竟然值得众人尊重。绝大部分人都满意于人类生活的现状（因为造成这种现状的恰恰就是他们），而无法理解为什么这些生活方式难以适用于所有人；更重要的是，个人自发行为并不从属于大多数道德和社会改革者们的理想目标，而被他们充满戒备地看作棘手甚或反叛性的行为，会阻碍大众接受他们断定为最有益于人类的改革方案。在德国之外，几乎无人懂得威廉·冯·洪堡[1]学说的含义。这位卓越的天才学者和政治家在其专著中写道：“人类的目的就是使他的各种才能获得最高度、最和谐的发展，成为圆满、一贯的完人。这是理智的永恒规定对人类下达的命令，而不是含混、短暂的俗世欲望对人类的启示。”因此，“每个人都必须不懈地竭力达成的、特别是那些想影响同类的人必须永远关注的目标，就是个人能力与发展的独特性”。为达到此目标，有“自由和情况多元”两大要件；从这两大要件的结合中，将产生“个人的活力和千差万别”；后二者又结合于“独创性”之中。

然而，虽然冯·洪堡的学说令人们感到十分陌生，他赋予个性如此崇高的价值也让他们大吃一惊，但是有人肯定认为，这不过是个程度问题。没有人会认为，人们毫不越轨地完全相互照搬生活模式，才是行为美德。没有人会宣称，人们决不应在自己的生活方式，在涉及自己的行动上，打下任何自己观念或个性的烙印。另一方面，极其荒诞的做法是：诡称人们的生活方式必须完全新奇，仿佛在他们出生之前世人对一切都浑然无知一般，仿佛人类经验毫无作用，不能展现某种生存或行为方式为何优于其他生活或行为方式。无人否认，人们在年轻时应接受良好的教育和训练，懂得已经人类经验确证的成果，并从中获益。然而，只有当人的个性成熟之后，方有特权、有合适条件以其独特方式使用和诠释人类经验。他必须澄清，现存人类经验中哪个部分真正适用于所身处的境况及其个性特征。在某种程度上，他人的传统与惯例只能表明他们的经验教授了他们什么；此类推定性依据有资格要求他遵从。但是，首先，别人的经验也许范围太小，或者他们也许未能对前人经验做出正确的解释。其次，他们的诠释或许正确，但对他而言并不适用。惯例是为惯常的情境和惯常的性格准备的，他所处的情境或他的个性或许非比寻常。第三，即便那些惯例非常良好，也适用于他，但仅仅把惯例作为惯例遵从，他就不会培养或发展出任何体现人类独特天赋的特质。人类的洞察力、判断力、辨别力、心智活动，甚至道德偏好等各种才赋，只有在做出抉择时才可获得锻炼。那些凡事都按照惯例来办的人，并没有做出抉择。他们失去了练习辨别或期望何为最优事物的机会。人的心智与道德能力同肌肉的能力一样，都只能通过使用得以提升。一人若仅仅因为他人做某事就随之也做此事，就与仅仅因为他人相信某事物就跟着也相信此事物一样，根本无从锻炼其才赋。如果在此人的理性看来，某意见的依据并不确凿可靠，而他竟然采信了此意见，那么他的理智就无法增强，反而极可能减弱。如若使他采取某行动的诱因与其本身的感受和性格并不一致（该行动无关别人的情感或权利），那么采取此行动多半会导致他的感受和个性变得迟钝而麻木，而不是敏捷而活跃。

那类让世人或身边人代他们选择人生计划的人，除了类人猿般的模仿能力之外，根本不需要任何其他才赋。那类自择人生方案的人方能运用其所有才赋：必须运用观察力进行观看，运用推理和判断力进行预见，运用行动力收集数据以供决策，运用辨别力进行决断，并在做出决断后运用毅力和自制力将自己的慎重决策贯彻到底。如果根据自己的判断和感受决定实施的行为能够产生巨大作用，那么其上述才能必然得到相应的全面调动和充分训练。倘若没有这些能力，或也有可能被人引上某条正确路径远离危险。但那样一来，作为一个人的比较价值是什么？不仅懂得人们做了什么很重要，而且懂得做此事人们的行为特征也的确非常重要。在人类正确地消耗其生命以不断完善和美化的诸种功业之中，无上重要的必定是人本身。假定机器——人形的机械——能够建房造屋、种收粮食、攻城打仗、听讼断案，甚或创宗立派、祈祝颂祷，那么把目前居住在世上较为文明国度的男男女女——他们无疑只是自然能够且将要制造的饿殍标本罢了——替换为这些人形机器，也将是一大损失。人性不是一架可以按照模型制造、根据严格指令做工的机器，而是一棵树，有着使其成为一个生物的内在力量，并需要依循这股内力的走势全面成长和自由伸展。

有人可能会勉强承认：好吧，可以让人们训练自己的理解力；机灵地遵从惯例、甚或机灵地背离惯例的做法，要强于只是盲目、机械地坚持惯例。有人在一定程度上承认，我们确实应有属于自己的理解力；但他们并不乐意承认，我们也应同样有属于自己的欲望和冲动，或曰这些属于自己的、任何强度的冲动绝非危险和罗网。不过，欲望和冲动与信条和限制一样，都是完人的组分。强烈的冲动仅仅在得不到适当制衡时才是危险的：一组目标和意愿发展强大起来，而应当与之并存的目标和意愿却仍然微弱呆滞。人类之所以做出坏事，并非因其欲望太强，而是因其良心太弱。强烈的冲动和微弱的良心之间不存在天然关联。天然关联的是相反的情形。说某人的欲望和感受比别人更强烈、更杂多，仅仅说明他有更多的人性原料，所以也许比别人更坏，但肯定比别人更好。强烈的冲动只是活力的别名。活力或许会被用来做坏事，但比起怠惰冷漠的性格，活力蓬勃的性格往往能成就更多的好事。那些天性最容易冲动的人，也总是那些可能情操陶养得最高雅的人。一些炽盛的灵敏感受，既可造成劲猛剧烈的个人冲动，又可涵育生发出最激昂的热爱美德之情和最严格的自制力。社会得以履行自己的职责、保卫自身的利益，正是通过对这些灵敏感受的培育，而不是拒斥这造就英雄的原料，因为它不懂得该如何创造英雄。据说，如果一人的欲望和冲动都发自本心，是本人天性的表露，且展现了其后天教养对天性的发展和改良，那么此人就有个性。若一人的欲望和冲动并非发自本心，他就毫无个性，如同一台蒸汽机一样毫无个性。如果他的冲动不仅是自发的，而且很强烈，并受到强大意志的监管，那么他就有着精力充沛的性格特征。无论是谁，只要认为不该鼓励人类个性之欲望和冲动的自发流露，都必然会坚称：社会不需要那些强烈的性格特征——它并未因包括许多个性鲜明的人而有所改良；社会活力的总平均数那么高也没有什么好处。

在一些尚处于早期发展阶段的社会中，个人欲望和冲动的力量有可能——实际上也确实——远远超过社会能够用于规训和驾驭它们的力量。个性自发行动曾一度泛滥，令社会道德准则疲于应付。当时的困难是，如何让那些体魄强健或心理刚强的人服从于所有要求他们控制其冲动的社会规则。为克服这一困难，法律和道德规范就像对抗各国君主的历任教皇一样，坚称自己有权管辖人的整体，要管制人的全部生活，最终管制其个性——因为社会当时未能找到其他任何有效方法约束他的个性。可如今，社会已经完全战胜了人的个性，人性面临的危机不是个人的冲动和嗜好太多，而是太少了。事情发生了剧变。从前那些因其社会地位或个人天赋而势强力大者的激情，一贯喜欢反抗法律和习俗，所以要把它们牢牢锁住，让处在它们阴影笼罩下的人的安全能够有所保障。在我们这个时代，全社会从顶层到底层，人人都仿佛生活在审查制度那敌对、可怕的目光之下。不单在关乎他人的事物上，在仅仅关乎自己的事物上，个人或家庭都不会自问：我喜欢什么？什么会适合我的性格脾气？什么能让我最优秀、最高超的才赋得到公正对待并可以长足充分发展？他们自问的是：什么事物才适合我的社会地位？与我地位、财产状况相当的人通常要做什么？（更糟的是）比我地位高、家境好的人通常要做什么？我并不是说，他们抛弃了适合自己偏好的事物，而选择了惯常的事物；实际上，他们根本就没有想到自己会有什么偏好，只知道惯常的事物。这样，人的精神自动低头钻进了枷锁：就连在娱乐这件事上，人们首先想到的也是“随大流”。他们喜欢待在群体之中，仅仅在平凡的事情上运用选择权。在他们心目中，奇特趣味、古怪行为同犯罪一样，避之惟恐不及。他们决不遵循自己的天性，结果天性泯灭，无从遵循；他们作为人的才能凋零、枯死，无法再产生任何强烈的愿望或纯真的快乐，完全没有自发的主张或感受——更准确地说，是完全没有自己的主张。这难道就是——或曰不是——人类天性的理想状态吗？

是的，加尔文派教义如是说，这就是人类天性的理想状态。按照该派教义看，人类最大的罪行就是任性而为；人类能够实现的全部美德都蕴含在驯顺之中；你无可选择，因此你必须且惟有顺从：“任何职分之外的事都是罪。”人性根本上是堕落的，所以任何人若想得救，就必须先把他心中的人性彻底消灭。对信仰该教义的人而言，扑灭人的任何才赋、能力、敏感，均不是恶行，因为人除了把自己交给上帝的意志之外，不需要任何能力；如果他敢把任何才能另作他用，而非更有效地实践上述假定的意愿，那么对他而言，没有这些才能会更好。这就是加尔文派的主张。现在有许多并不自认为是加尔文信徒的人都在信仰它，只是形式较为温和罢了。他们对所谓上帝意志的解释禁欲色彩略淡，宣称上帝的意志允许人类满足自己的某些意愿；当然，满足这些意愿时，他们决不能用自己喜好的方式，而要使用温顺的方式；也就是说，其方式要由权威所规定，从而由具体事例的必要条件而定——无论是谁，都得用同一方式。

眼下就有一种强烈的趋势，用上述阴险形式，把人们引向这种狭隘的人生论及其所卵翼的那种局曲死板的人性特征。毫无疑问，许多人真诚地相信，如此钳梏、挤压而成的人才符合造物者设计的人类型范；就像许多人相信，树木被修剪成截头树或各种动物造型，而不是保持其天然形态，才会更漂亮。可是，宗教若果真相信人是某个至善存在者创造的产物，那么更前后一贯的信仰应该是：该存在者赋予了人类一切才能，为的是让他们能够接受教化、打开心胸，而不是让这些才能被铲除、被摧残；该存在者乐于看到他的创造物运用各种更为便捷的方法，实现他预置于他们心中的完美蓝图；乐于看到他们的理解力、行动力或欣赏力等诸种能力的节节提升。有一种与加尔文派理想完全不同的人类美德，它认为，人的天性之所以赋予人类，绝不是要人类戒除它。“不信神者的自以为是”同“基督徒的自我否定”一样，都是人类价值的组成元素。古希腊人有个理想是自我发展，柏拉图和基督教的自治理想中混合了这一古希腊观念，但并未取而代之。成为约翰·诺克斯[2]式的人物或许优于成为亚西比德[3]式的人物，但比起这二者，更优的选择是成为伯里克利式的人物。如果现在真有伯里克利式的人物，他身上也必然会有约翰·诺克斯的某些优秀品质。[4]

人类之所以能成为高贵、美丽的思考对象，并非因为他们把自己的个性磨蚀净尽，变得万夫一面，而是因为他们不断培养自己的个性，让它粲然展露。正如任何作品都会带有其制作者的特征，人生也同样藉此而变得丰富多彩、生机蓬勃，为高远的思想和高昂的情感提供丰富滋养，让人这种生物永远越来越值得归属，巩固那将每一个人与其种属紧密相联的纽带。随着其个性不断发展，每个人对自己而言都变得更为宝贵，因此也对他人而言变得更为宝贵；每个人因其存在而使生命更加充实。如果基本单元更加富有活力，那么它们所组成的整体将更加富有活力。为防人性中强悍者侵犯他人的权利，必须要有足够的弹压手段，故而禁制不可或缺。但是，甚至从人类发展的立场看，对此也有充分的补偿办法。个人天性中伤害他人的倾向被压制而得不到满足，他在该发展手段方面受到了损失，而获得了他人发展的重大代价补偿。即便对个人而言，正因约束了自己天性中的利己部分，才获得了其中利群部分的更大发展，这也是等价补偿。为了他人利益而强制个人遵守严格的正义法则，会使个人生发出多种以他人利益为目标的感觉和能力。而仅仅因为别人不悦就禁止他从事无碍他们利益的事情，不会使他发展出什么有价值的知觉和能力，只能逐渐形成一种能够对抗管束的人格力量。如果他顺从了这种管制，他的全部天性就会变得黯淡而麻木。为了让每一个体的天性合理发挥，最关键的做法是允许不同的人过不同的生活。一个时代在多大程度上行使了这一自由，对后人而言，它便相应地具有关注价值。只要允许人类的个性存在，那么即便是独裁统治也不会产生最糟糕的结果；反之，凡是毁碎了人类个性的，必然是独裁统治，无论其名义如何，无论它宣称自己执行的是上帝意志或人类的训令。

上文讨论过，人类的个性与发展同一不二，只有通过培养个性才能产生健康的人类。至此，我应该结束讨论了：人类事务的任何状况，除了使人类自身更加接近他们能够成为的最优秀人物之外，还有什么更值得赞扬呢？任何妨碍人类利益的事物，除了阻碍人类自身更加接近他们能够成为的最优秀人物之外，还有什么更值得批判呢？可毋庸置疑的是，这些因素并不足以说服那些最需要说服的人；我必须进一步证明，对那些不够健康的人而言，这些健康的人还是有用的——必须向那些不渴望自由、不肯接受自由的人指出，如果他们允许别人畅通无阻地运用自由，就可能得到显著的回报。

首先，我认为，那些不渴望自由、不肯接受自由的人有可能从这些健康人那里习得一些东西。谁都不会否认，独创性在人类事务中是一个宝贵因素。永远要有一些人发现新的真理，指出曾经的真理已经不再正确，并创造新的惯例，开创更为文明的行为、更高的人生趣味和人生意义。无论是谁，只要不相信这世界在一切方面、一切事上都已臻完美，便都不会反驳这一点。确实，不是每个人都能够带来这样的益处。与全人类相比，只有极少数人的尝试值得效仿，且如果被他人所效仿，极有可能会改进惯例。而这少数人是社会的栋梁，没有他们，人类生活将是死水一潭。正是这些栋梁之材不仅将前所未有的优秀事物带给了人类，而且为既有事物赋予了生机。倘若再也没有需要创造的新鲜事物，人类智力是否会变得多余？那些重复旧事物的人是否因此应该遗忘做这些事情的初衷，要像牲畜而不是像人类那样继续下去？所有的最佳观念和最好惯例都有一种退化为机械行为的强烈趋势。若非总有一批人前仆后继地运用其不断涌现的创造力，阻止它们蜕变为陈陈相因的腐套，这些呆板的观念和惯例就无法抗拒任何来自真正鲜活事物的最微小打击，人类文明就会消亡——拜占庭帝国就是个显例。没错，天才人物很可能总是极少数，可是为了拥有他们，必须保留能让天才得以成长的沃土。天才只能在自由的空气中自由地呼吸；天赋异禀的人，据该词本义来看，比其他人更为独特，因此比别人更难以把自己不受伤害和屈曲地装进任何社会模型之中——社会为其成员提供了少数模型，以免除他们各塑个性之烦劳。倘若他们因胆怯而同意被装进某个模型，从而导致他们个性当中受到压抑而无法伸展的一切特性永远蜷曲下去，社会将对他们的天才无益。倘若他们性格刚强，打破了桎梏，那未能迫使他们降格为平庸凡人的社会就会把他们当作“粗野放荡”、“古怪反常”等特征的靶子，指着他们发出严厉的警告。其情景颇像有人竟会抱怨尼亚加拉河[5]为什么不能像荷兰的运河那样，在两岸之间平缓流动。

因此，我坚持强调天赋才能的重要性，以及允许天赋才能在思想和实践中自由展开的重要性。我非常清楚，理论上谁都不会否认这一态度，但我也十分明白，实际上几乎所有人都对此无动于衷。如果天才能让人写出一首动人的诗，或画出一幅画，人们都会认为天才真是样好东西。然而，天才的真正意义是指在思想和行动上的独创性。虽然无人会说，天才这样东西不值得称赞，但几乎所有人都在心中认为，没有天才他们照样过得很好。不幸的是，这件事太稀松平常了，谁都不会大感诧异。独创性就是无独创性的头脑感觉不到其用处的那样东西。缺乏独创性的头脑无法看出，独创性能为它们做什么——它们怎能看得出来呢？倘若它们看得出这一点，所谓的独创性也就不是真正的独创性了。独创性能够为它们做的第一件事就是打开它们的眼睛。这件事一旦充分完成，那么无独创性的头脑自身就有机会变成独创性的了。同时，让它们想一想，它们谁都并未开创任何新事物，一切优秀事物都是独创性的成果；然后它们就应足够谦逊地相信，必定还有需要独创性完成的事物，并更清楚地知道，它们越需要独创性，就越不会感到优秀事物匮乏。

然而现实真相是，无论人们在口头或行动上多么尊敬真正或假定的卓越思想，全世界事物的总体发展趋势却是：平庸正在成为支配人类的力量。在古代历史上、在中世纪，个人本身就是一个统治者；如果他天赋卓著或社会地位极高，就是一个强大的统治者。在封建时代至今漫长的变迁过程中，他的权力渐渐减弱了。到了现在，个人消失在了人群之中。在政治上，“舆论统治了世界”几乎是不值一提的平凡论调；名副其实具有统治力的只有群众和主动成为群众偏好与直觉之喉舌的政府。对于私人生活中道德与社会事务以及公共生活中的种种事务，这一点都千真万确。以舆论为名大行己意的那些人，并不总是同一批公众：在美国，公众指的是全部白人；在英国，则主要指中产阶级。但无论如何，他们都是群众，也就是说，是集体的平庸。要论公众有何新颖之处，就是他们如今不再从教会或世俗政府的权贵显要、冒牌领袖那里或书本当中获取意见了。一些与他们非常相像的人在报纸上替他们做出了思考，告知他们应持什么意见，或者索性直接代表他们发表意见。我并不是在抱怨这一切。我并不是在主张：通常说来，有些事物更适合当前这种低劣的人类精神状态。可这并不会阻碍管辖平庸之才的政府成为平庸的政府。民众或无数贵族控制的政府，无论是其政治活动，还是其所养成的言论、品质和精神状态，都未曾或未能超越平庸。例外的情况是：管理国家的众人能够听从天赋极高、教养极高的某个人或某几个人，让他或他们的建议和影响指引自己（盛世的统治者历来如此）。一切高明或高贵事物的创生都始于或必然始于某些个人，且最初通常始自某一个人。一名普通人的荣誉和辉煌就在于：能够拥护这一倡议，能够在内心响应高明或高贵的事物，且目不转睛地被它们引至近前。我并非在此处支持“英雄崇拜”——此论调赞许天赋异禀的强者紧紧攫取统治世界的大权，让世界服从他而不是它自己的命令。这样的强者所能要求的惟一事物是：允许他向世人指明通往高明或高贵事物路径的自由。以强权迫使他人服从他的指引，不仅触犯了所有他人的自由和发展权利，而且会损害强者自身的利益。不过，完全由普通人组成的群众提出的种种看法，在世界各地都已成为或正在成为主导力量；此时此刻，制衡和矫正这种势头的手段，确实只有那些思想更为高超者越来越彰显的个性了。在这种极为特殊的情境下，不应阻止那些才具非凡的人，而应鼓励他们采取与众不同的行动。在其他时代，他们这么做并无益于事，除非他们的行动不仅与众不同，而且优越超胜。在这个时代，仅仅是特立独行、在惯俗面前挺直腰杆，就大有作用。这全然是因为，舆论已经暴虐到使反常行为成为耻辱；所以要战胜那一暴虐，人们必须言行古怪。在个性力量充足的时代和地方，反常言行总屡见不鲜；在一个社会中，反常言行的数量通常都与其中天才、精神活力和道义勇气的数量成正比。如今无人敢于特立独行，恰恰标志着本时代的主要危机在于何处。

我说过，要让不同寻常的事物享有最大可能的自由，以便及时展现其中的哪些事物适合转化为习俗，这一点十分重要。行动自主和忽视惯例有可能揭示更佳的行为方式、更值得大家采纳的习惯。这些行为不仅仅是为此受到鼓励而已；能够正当地要求以自己的方式过活的人，也不仅仅是那些确实思想优胜的人。要求所有人都必须按照某一种或某些种模型构建其生活方式，这是毫无理由的。若某人拥有基本够用的生活常识和经验，那么他为自己规划的生存方式就是最佳的；之所以这样说，不是因为其生存方式本身是最优的，而是因为那是他自己的生存方式。人类不同于羊群；即便是羊，也并非两两无别而彼此雷同。人若想得到合身的衣服或合脚的靴子，就必须或量身定做，或坐拥整个仓库的鞋服可供挑选。他更容易找到适合他的生活方式还是更容易得到合身的衣服？人与人的整体物质和精神结构更相像还是他们的脚形更相像？仅仅人与人趣味不同这一条，就足以阻止他们必须遵从同一种生活方式的要求。然而，不同人的精神发展也需要不同的条件；他们无法在同一套道德规范下健康生存，就像不同种类的植物无法在同样的物质、空气和气候条件中健康生存。同一组事物，对一人培养其高级天性大有助益，对另一人则是重重障碍。同一种生活模式，能充分调动一人之行动与享受官能，令其精神抖擞、康泰愉悦，而完全阻滞或扰乱了另一人的精神生活，令他心烦气躁、情绪低落。人类就是这样在快乐的源泉、对痛苦的感受以及不同物质和精神因素对其影响等方面都各各不同，如果不允许他们的生活模式相应地多种多样，他们就无法公平享有应得的幸福，也无法发展到其天性足以达到的心智、道德和审美高度。因此，为什么公众意见只能宽容那些迫使大批支持者顺从自己心意的生活趣味和生活模式呢？如今，没有一个地方（某些僧侣机构除外）完全不认可生活趣味的多样化。一个人可以不受指责地喜欢或不喜欢划船、抽烟、音乐、体育运动、下棋、打牌或学习。这是因为，喜欢任何这类事物的人和不喜欢它们的人数量都太大了，谁都无法压制对方。可是，因为做了“谁都不做的事情”或不做“大家都做的事情”而遭到指责的人，尤其是女人，却成为贬议诋谤的对象，仿佛他或她犯了某种极其严重的道德罪行。人们需要拥有某个头衔，或其他等级标志，或位高势重者的关照，才能享受到少许随心所欲的欢愉，而免遭毁谤、保持令名。我重复一下，他们只能享受少许；因为不论何人，若敢肆意随心所欲，就会招致比毁誉更严重的巨大危险——他们可能遭到某个疯癫调查委员会的调查，他们的财产可能被剥夺、分给亲属[6]。

目前舆论有一个发展趋势，尤其可能导致它不能容忍任何显著流露的个性。不仅人类智慧的总体平均数十分普通，而且其偏好的总体平均数也十分中庸：他们丝毫没有能使他们乐于做任何独特事情的强烈趣味或愿望，因此毫不理解那些具有这种强烈趣味或愿望的人，而会把这样的人归入野蛮人和他们通常蔑视的放荡者之列。现今，除了这一普遍现实之外，我们只好断定，一场旨在改进道德规范的强大运动已经出现；我们只好期待的结果已经彰显。近段时间以来，这场运动已经开始，可以感受到，道德规范确实已经日益严格，过分行为也日益减少；到处都洋溢着一种慈善精神，而其理想用武之地，非改进我国同胞之品行和审慎美德莫属。这些时代潮流致使大众比以往任何时候都更乐意规定一般行为准则，更竭力迫使全体社会成员都遵从公推的行为准则——不管是直截了当地明言或心照不宣地默认，该准则都是：不要强烈渴求任何事物。其理想中的人类性格就是毫无性格；人性中凡引人瞩目者、会令某人与常人性格概貌显著有别的部分都要压残折损，如同中国女士的裹脚一般。

像所有摒弃了一半优良之物的理想那样，目前得到嘉许的道德标准仅仅能够制造出剩余半边的低劣赝品。它的产物不是由健壮理性积极导引下的蓬勃活力，不是严正意志强大监控下的强烈感情，而是脆弱的感情和虚弱的活力，因此其意志或理智毫无力量，仅能在表面上服从道德规则。在我国，大量拥有生龙活虎性格的人都已走进了历史，活力之出口惟余经商一途。可以说，用在了这一方面的活力仍然很可观；其余点滴活力则都耗费在了某种嗜好上，虽然这嗜好也许有点用处，甚或是慈善性的，但它总是某一件具体事物，而且通常都是琐碎小事。今天英国的伟大是整体性的，但从个人角度看它很渺小；我们只是靠习惯性的联合显得似乎能够完成一切伟大的事业罢了，可我们那些道德和宗教慈善家却对此心满意足。不过，那些把英国变成了一个伟大国家的并不是这种人，而是另一类人；阻止英国衰落所需的仍然是那另一类人。

无论何处，习俗之专制都是阻止人类进步的顽固障碍，不停地对抗着那种渴求优于惯常事物之事物的性格特征。这种性格特征在不同形势下有不同的名称，或称自由精神，或称进步精神，或称改良精神。改良精神并非总是自由精神，因为它有可能强迫人们接受改良；而自由精神反对这种强迫人们改良的企图，它有可能局部、暂时地与改良运动的反对者联手。不过，改良之惟一可靠而恒久的源泉就是自由，因为凭藉自由才可能产生许多独立的改良运动中心，有多少个人就可能有多少这样的中心。可是，不论进步之天性表现为对自由的热爱还是对改良的热爱，其对立面却是习俗之主宰——进步至少包括摆脱后者的枷锁；二者之间的竞争也构成了人类历史上最引人瞩目的事件。准确说来，大部分世人都没有历史，因为习俗完全统治了他们。整个东方即是如此。在那里，无论何事，最终都要诉诸习俗；正义与权利意味着遵从习俗；除了某个只手遮天、忘乎所以的暴君之外，无人想对抗习俗的意见。其结果我们都看到了。那些东方民族肯定曾拥有创造力，他们并非在地球上甫一出现就人口众多、富有文化、精通各种生活技艺；他们在历史上为自己创造了那一切，成为了世上最伟大、最强大的民族。可现在的他们呢？竟然成为某些部落的臣民或附庸！当那些部落的祖先仍在丛林之中游荡时，他们祖先就已住上了宏伟壮丽的宫殿和华美夺目的庙宇。但习俗仅用自由和进步对他们分别进行了统治。一个民族似乎可以在一段时间的进步之后停滞不前——它停滞于何时呢？就在其成员失去个性的那一刻。倘若同样的变化降临到欧洲各民族头上，变化的形态将不会与东亚完全相同。习俗之专制统治对这些民族的威胁形式并非完全固化不动；它明令禁止特异性，但并不杜绝变化，前提是一切同时发生变化。我们抛弃了祖先那些固定的装束，每个人的穿戴都必须同别人一致，但时装可能一年一变或两变。因此我们非常注意，发生变化的目的只能是为了变化本身，而非为了美丽或便利；这是因为，同一个美丽或便利观念不会同时出现在全部世人的脑海里，也不会在另一时刻被他们同时抛去一边。但我们不仅善变而且不断进步：我们不断发明新的机械装置，并使用至更优的机械装置取代它们那时为止；我们渴望政治、教育甚至道德规范不断改进，尽管我们对道德规范改进的观念主要限于说服或强迫他人同我们一样优秀。我们所反对的并不是进步；恰恰相反，我们自鸣得意地认为我们是有史以来最具进取精神的民族。我们的斗争对象是个性：我们认为，倘若我们全部彼此相同，就是创造了奇迹；我们忘记了，通常说来，正是由于人们彼此差异，才会引起他们注意到自己这一类人的缺点和另一类人的优点，才有可能让他们将双方的优点结合，造就比二者更好的人物。中国就是一个值得引起我们警醒的反例。这个民族天分很高，在某些方面甚至富有智慧。这是因为他们在很早以前就极其幸运地获得了一套格外优良的习俗——这套习俗在一定程度上是一批中国古人的杰作，就连最博洽的欧洲人都必须在一定条件下赋予他们圣贤和哲人的名号。不仅如此，他们还通过其卓越无双的评注作品，明确且尽量多地把他们的最佳理念镌刻在了每个社会成员的思想之中，并确保那些最多吸纳了这些理念的人，会获得荣耀而权重的职位。毫无疑问，中国人通过上述做法已经发现了人类进步的机密，并必定会让自己稳稳居于世界变化的前列。可是，恰恰相反，他们一成不变了——就那样停滞了数千年之久；他们若想继续改进，就只能借助外来者。他们成功地踏入了绝境：全民族的人如出一辙，都用同一套准则和规程调控自己的思想和行为。这就是他们的成果。英国慈善家们也正在为此目标夙夜劳碌。舆论在欧洲的现代统治正是中国组织化教育和政治体制的翻版，只不过形式上无组织罢了。如果个性无法成功地坚持自我主张、抗拒舆论枷锁，一度拥有高贵祖先、自称信奉基督教的欧洲，将会逐渐变成另一个中国。

是什么至今都在保护欧洲免遭此种命运呢？是什么使欧洲各民族成为一个常改常新而非静止不变的人类大家庭呢？答案并非他们有什么更高级的杰出之处——这种杰出之处即便存在，也并非作为原因而存在，而只是作为结果而存在——而是他们有着异常多样的性格和文化。欧洲的个人之间、阶级之间、民族之间历来绝不相同；他们开创出了各种各样的道路，每条道路都通向某种宝贵之物。尽管在每段时期，在不同道路上行进的人们都互不容忍，每人都认为，如果所有别人被迫来追随自己的脚步该有多好，但他们彼此试图阻挠对方发展的行为几乎从来都仅仅成功一时，而且每人都最终坚持了下来，享受到了别人提供的好处。在我看来，欧洲之所以能够历久弥新、多面发展，全系此路径多元性所赐；但是，欧洲对这种益处的享有程度已经开始大幅锐减了，它正在坚定不移地向使万众一面的中国式理想推进。德·托克维尔[7]先生在他最后一本重要著作中评论说，当前的法国人彼此相像的程度甚至远超上一代法国人。这句话也可用来描述英国人，只是他们的趋同程度比法国人更大得多。我在前文引用过威廉·冯·洪堡的一段话，他在其中指出，人类发展有两大让人们彼此不同的必要条件：自由和环境多元。在我国，二者中的第二大条件正逐日减少；围绕着不同阶级和不同个体、塑造着他们各自性格特征的种种环境，正在逐日趋同。从前，不同阶层、不同社区、不同行业和职业的人，可以说是生活在不同的世界之中；如今，他们很大程度上是生活在同一个世界当中。与过去相比，他们如今读的是同样东西，听的是同样东西，见的是同样东西，去的是同样地方，希求同样的目标，恐惧同样的事物，享有同样的权利和自由，用同样的手段维护这些权利和自由。尽管他们的社会身份仍然相差悬殊，但比起那些已经消失的差别，这种身份差异根本不值一提。人们的同化仍在继续。当代的一切政治变迁都助长了这种同化态势，因为所有的政治变革都倾向于提高低贱者的地位、降低高贵者的地位。教育范围的每一扩展都助长了这种同化态势，因为教育将人们置于共同的影响之下，让他们都可获取作为公器的各种事实与观点。通联手段的不断改进助长了这种同化态势，因为这些手段使遥分两地的居民得以直接联系，使人们得以迅速从此地迁居他处。商业和工业增长助长了这种同化态势，因为它们把舒适环境的种种好处更广地传播开去，将人们渴求的一切目标——甚至包括那些最高贵的目标——变成了大众争夺的对象；于是渴望成功不再是某个特定阶级的特点，而成为各个阶级共有的特征。有一股力量甚至超越了这一切因素，使全人类普遍趋同：在我国和其他崇尚自由的国家，舆论已经完全确立了其对政府的支配地位。种种社会声望曾使那些名流闻人敢于漠视大众的意见，如今却渐渐变得平淡无奇；在发现民众确实有某种意志之后，务实的从政者们越来越彻底地从其脑海中抹除了违背民众意志的想法；特立独行再也无法获得任何社会支持——特立独行指的是社会中的任何独立力量，它反对大众的主导地位，乐于挺身而出保护与众不同的看法和意向。

上述所有因素共同导致了大量反个性势力的形成，使人难以预料个性如何才能坚守阵地、毫不退缩。如果不能唤醒民众中的智士感受个性的价值——发现允许差异存在会带来好处，即便这些差异不会产生更好的结果，即便在他们看来某些差异可能还要产生较坏的影响——个性会在维护自我时遭遇越来越大的困难。个性若要宣示其种种主张，目前正当其时，因为眼下尚不具备被彻底同化的诸多条件；只有在同化的初期阶段，个性才能成功抵制同化趋势的蚕食。“所有人都必须像我们一样”这种要求，一旦有所成功便会得寸进尺、越发威风。如果直等到人生已被剪伐到几乎仅余一种式样时才奋起抗击，那么对该式样的所有偏离都会被视为不敬、不义之举，甚至是骇人听闻、违反自然的恶行。一旦人类哪怕短暂地习惯了千篇一律，其心智就会迅速失明，再也无法想象出生活会怎样丰富多彩。

[1]威廉·冯·洪堡（Wilhelm von Humboldt，1767—1835年）：德国哲学家、教育改革家、外交官、语言学家。——译者注

[2]诺克斯能力卓越。他作为苏格兰教会的改革者，据说参与了1546年杀害苏格兰最后一任红衣主教大卫·比顿的谋杀案，干预了苏格兰王后、法国吉斯王族的玛丽的摄政，被流放至英格兰。流放期间，他参加了英格兰圣公会的工作，并步步高升，成为英王爱德华六世的王室牧师。1553年，爱德华六世去世，玛丽一世即英格兰王位后复辟罗马天主教，诺克斯被迫辞职，转赴日内瓦和法兰克福。最后，他回到苏格兰，与当地信仰新教的贵族一起领导了苏格兰的新教改革运动。——译者注

[3]亚西比德（Alcibiade，约450—404年），雅典政治家、演说家、军事家。他极富政治和军事天才，不循常规，为其所服务的政权屡建奇功；但同时，他性情不拘，所到之处也屡树强敌，导致自己无法久留。在伯罗奔尼撒战争（前430—404年）中，因本邦政敌作对，他从雅典逃到斯巴达，不久又迫于斯巴达的政敌势力，逃往波斯；虽然后被雅典的盟友召回，但其政敌几年后再次成功流放了他。——译者注

[4]伯里克利（Pericles，约495—429年），雅典政治家、演说家、军事家。他当政期间（约461—429年），把提洛同盟变成了一个雅典帝国，取得了对波斯战争的最终胜利。他鼓励文艺事业，使雅典成为当时希腊的世界文化和教育中心。伯里克利时代，雅典民主政治获得了较大发展，其中包括公民的言论自由。——译者注

[5]尼亚加拉河是位于北美洲五大湖区、加拿大和美国交界处的河流，全程水位落差很大，水力资源丰富。河上有著名的尼亚加拉瀑布。——译者注

[6]近几年来，根据某种卑劣而可怕的证据，能依法宣布任何人不适宜管理自己的事务；并且，如果某人的财产足以支付诉讼费用——诉讼费要从这笔财产中划出——就会在他死后宣布他对自己财产的处理方案无效。他日常生活的所有细枝末节都会被打探得清清楚楚；通过卑劣者中之最卑劣者的感受和描述来看，只要他的行为表现中有任何蛛丝马迹不像是十足平庸寻常之事，就会被作为他精神失常的证据提交到陪审团的面前，且经常胜诉。这是因为，与上述证人相比，那些陪审员几乎同样粗鄙无知；而办案的法官则与向来令我们震惊的英国律师一样，因对人性与人生极度无知，经常误导那些陪审员。这些审判深刻地说明了大众对人类自由所持的态度与看法。在一干法官和陪审员人等眼中，非但个性没有任何价值——他们非但不尊重任何个人在无干他人的事物上根据自己的判断和偏好采取行动的权利，而且甚至无法设想一个神志正常的人会希望拥有这种自由。从前，有人提议烧死无神论者时，宅心仁厚的人都常常会建议不要烧死他们，而要把他们关进疯人院；如今，如果我们目睹此类事情发生，亦应不足为怪；建议者们也甚为得意，因为他们没有实施宗教迫害，而用如此仁爱、高尚的方式对待这些不幸的人——同时，看到这些“不幸者”咎由自取，他们心中也无不暗自满意。

[7]德·托克维尔（Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville, 1805—1859年）：法国政治思想家、历史学家。早年热心参政，曾任议员、外交部长等职。著有《论美国的民主》（1835年、1840年）、《旧制度与大革命》（1856年）等。——译者注

四　论社会对个人的管制权限

那么，个人自主权的正当界限是什么？社会对个人的管制从何处开始？人类生活中哪些部分应属于个人自主？哪些部分应属于社会管制？

倘若个人自主和社会管制各与人类生活中的特定部分有着极为特别的关联，那么二者都会获得对应的应用领域。人类生活中主要涉及个人利益的部分应当归于个人自主范围，而主要涉及社会利益的部分则应属社会管制范围。

虽然社会的构建并非基于契约，尽管为演绎出种种社会责任而捏造某个契约并不能达成任何良好目标，但是无论何人，只要受到了社会的保护，就应为此益处回报社会；人生活在社会中这一客观事实也要求，所有人都责无旁贷，必定要为了他人利益而遵循某种行为方式。首先，这种行为不能损害彼此的利益，或曰某些利益；这些利益或由法律明文规定或由人们不言而喻地认定，都应算作人的权利。第二，这种行为包括：每人为保卫社会或其成员免受伤害和烦扰，要承担自己的那份劳务和牺牲（这一份额要根据某种公正的标准加以确定）。对此，若有些人力图抗拒不从，社会可以完全正当且不惜一切代价地强制他们行动。社会可以做的不仅如此而已。某人的行为可能会伤害他人，或没有预先充分虑及别人的福祉，但未达到侵犯他们既定权利的程度。于是，冒犯者虽不会受到法律惩罚，但有可能受到舆论的公正惩罚。只要某人之行为的任何部分对他人利益造成了有害影响，社会就有权管辖其行为；社会对此行为的干预是否会促进公共福祉，则是一个有待讨论的问题。但若某人之行为的影响仅限于其自身的利益，而与他人毫不相干，或不需影响到他人，除非他们乐意受到影响（所有相关人等都已达法定成年年龄，且对此行为具有常规了解），则上述问题根本就不成立。在所有此类情况下，个人应享有完全的法律和社会自由，能够实施其行为并承担相应后果。

若有人认为，我是在此主张人应自私而冷漠，谎称人类与彼此的生活行为无关，且在不涉及个人利益的时候不应关心彼此的善举与福祉，那么他就完全错解了本文的论点。我并未倡导人们少管闲事；恰恰相反，我要指出的是，现在亟需人们更加公正无私地大力增进他人的利益。但公正无私的善行可以另寻其他手段，而不是靠字面意义和比喻意义上的鞭笞与拷打，来说服人们增进他人的利益。我毫不轻视那些关注自我利益的美德，我认为它们在重要性上仅次于社会美德——倘若它们确实次要的话。教育界的职责是同等地培养这两种美德。可连教育都是靠强制和证明说服两种手段实施的；一旦教育阶段结束，便只能借助证明与说服这种手段，来向人们反复灌输关注自我利益的美德了。人类正是靠互相帮助才区分开了何者为好何者为坏，靠互相鼓励才实现了趋利避害。他们应当永远激励彼此更频繁地运用他们的高级才能，更频繁地把他们的感受和目标导向睿智高明、引人向上的事物与思想，远离愚蠢荒谬、低劣可耻的事物与思想。然而，没有哪个人或哪些人会理直气壮地告诉另一位成年人，说不会为了自己的利益而在决定献身的事物上全力以赴。他是最关注自己福祉的人。与其自身的关注程度相比，和他没有紧密个人关系的任何别人对他福祉的关注都是微不足道的；社会对他个人（他作用于别人的行为除外）的关注极其有限且毫不直接，而对于自己的感受与境遇，最平凡的男女都比任何别人有着无限深刻的认知。社会干预会推翻个人对那些仅仅关乎他自身事物的判断和意图，所以这种干预必须基于种种一般推测。社会的推测有可能完全错误；即便推测正确，也要尽最大可能避免被那些像局外人一般毫不了解内情的人滥用于分析各种个案。因此，在人类事务的这一方面，个性有其特定的作用场域。人类在相互作用的行为中，必须在绝大部分情形下遵循一般规则，以便人们知道他们只能期望什么。但在每个人的个人事务中，他有权任意发挥其独特自发性；其他人可能向他提供参考意见、帮助他做出判断，用规劝勉励他矢志不渝，甚至强迫他接受建议和规劝，但他自己才是最终的裁夺者。他不听建议与忠告而可能犯下的所有错误，其弊端之严重远低于允许别人强制他做认为对他有利的事。

我并不是说，别人对某人的看法和感觉决不应受到他关注自我利益的那些特征或缺点的影响；这种意见既不可能又不可取。如果在那些有助于某人达到自我利益的品格特征之中，某种特征十分显著，那么他就可以正当地受到人们的钦佩；因为他比别人更接近理想中的完美人性。如果他严重欠缺那些性格特征，那么人们就会对他产生与钦佩相反的某种情感。某人的表现可能在一定程度上很愚蠢和一定程度上可以称作趣味低下或堕落；尽管这些性格特征不是应该伤害他的正当理由，但会让他不可避免、毫不冤屈地成为一个惹人讨厌的对象，在某些极端情形下甚至会成为被人轻蔑的对象——人若不能对此种卑劣的性格特征产生厌恶之情，就不能对相反的性格特征产生恰如其分的钦慕之情。尽管他的愚蠢和堕落行为不会妨害任何他人，但会迫使我们把他视作傻瓜，或看成劣等动物。他会竭力避免使这种看法和态度成为现实，因此我们预先警告他这一后果或任何他会自作自受的其他不利后果，乃是在帮他的大忙。实际上，倘若我们不用当前寻常观念所允许的委婉方式，而能够更加直率地提供这种帮助；倘若一人能够诚实地告知另一个人他认为后者有过错，而不会被认为是粗野无礼、专横无耻，那么此事就会顺利圆满。我们还有权根据我们对某人的负面看法，以多种方式采取行动；这样做时，我们不会压制他的个性，而会发挥我们的个性。例如，我们坚决不会与他交好；我们有权避免与他交往（但不会张扬此事），因为我们有权选择最合自己心意的友朋。如果我们认为他的行事或谈话很可能会对他的交往对象产生恶劣影响，就有权——也有责任——劝告别人提防他。我们在可选择地帮助他人时，可以优先帮助别人而不是他，除非我们希望他有所改进而施之以援手。在这种种情况下，此人因仅直接影响他自身的种种缺点，而可能受到来自他人的严厉惩罚。但他如此受到惩罚的必要条件是，这些惩罚都是他的种种缺点自然而然导致的后果，而并非专门为了惩罚而故意强加给他的。倘若有人表现得很粗鲁、顽固、自负——不能以温和适度的方式生活，不能约束自己的有害嗜好，牺牲那些情感和智力上的乐趣去追求兽性的快感——那么，他就只能指望被别人鄙视和厌烦了。但对此他无权抱怨，除非他用极为优秀的社交关系赢得了他们的赞同，并进而获取了能够得到他们帮助的资格——这种资格不受他那些自作自受所犯过失的影响。

我所主张的是：一人只应经受的困扰，仅限于与别人对其否定性评判不可分割的那些烦难，因为他的那些行为和性格仅仅关乎他自己的利益，而丝毫影响不到别人的利益，虽然他们与他有所关联。可若他的行为伤害到了别人，则这类行为需要受到完全不同的处置。侵犯别人的权利；在他不需捍卫自身权利的情况下令别人蒙受损失或伤害；与别人的交易中说谎或欺诈；不公平不慷慨地利用自己的优势欺负别人；自私地不肯保护别人免遭伤害——凡此种种，均应正当地受到道德谴责；如果事情严重，则应正当地受到道德报复和惩罚。不仅这些行为，就连导致这些行为的性情，都完全是邪恶悖德的，均应受到指责甚至憎恨。性情残暴；包藏祸心和居心不良；所有强烈感情中最反社会、最可憎者——妒忌；虚饰和伪善；为鸡毛蒜皮而暴跳如雷和因睚眦小事而恨入骨髓；热衷于盛气凌人；过分地独占所有好处的欲望（古希腊人所谓的贪婪狂）；以贬低别人为乐的自满；认为自己和自己关注的事物最为重要，并以对自己有利的方式解决所有未决问题的利己主义——凡此种种都是道德罪恶，它们组成了一种恶劣、可憎的道德品质。它们不同于上述那些关注自我利益的缺点，因为后者不是准确意义上的道德败坏，无论发挥到何种程度，都算不上邪恶。那些关注自我利益的缺点或许可作为蠢行的证据，或者缺乏人格尊严和自尊心的证据，但当它们导致了未履行对他人义务的失职行为时，只能受到道德谴责，因为当事人理应首先自顾，而后顾他。所谓的对我们自身的责任并不具有社会强制性，除非形势使然，这些对自己的责任同时也成为对他人的责任。“对自己的责任”一词倘若不仅仅意味着审慎，还意味着自我尊重或自我发展；谁都没有义务向他的同类解释这些事项，因为其中没有一项需要他为了全人类的利益而向他们进行解释说明。

一人若不够审慎或缺乏人格尊严，有可能自作自受地引起别人的不敬；他若侵犯别人的权利，就会受到应得的责罚。这二者之间的区分不仅仅是名义上的。他是在我们认为自己有权管制他的事物上触怒了我们呢？还是在我们自知无权管制他的事物上触怒了我们呢？我们对待他的态度和行为因这种区分而差别巨大。倘若他冒犯了我们，我们就可以表明对他的厌恶；我们既可避开某种惹怒我们之物，也可避开惹恼我们之人；但我们不一定因此受到刺激，决心让他的生活麻烦起来。我们应该深思：他已经在承担或将要承担自己的错误带来的惩罚；如果他处置失当、毁掉了自己的生活，我们就不应因此希望对他造成进一步的打击；我们不但不希望惩罚他，相反，还应让他知道，怎样可以避免或消除他的行为会给自己带来的灾祸，从而尽力减轻他所受到的惩罚。对我们而言，他可能是个同情的对象，或讨厌的对象，但不会是恼怒或憎恨的对象；我们不应把他作为社会之仇敌看待。如果我们并不通过表现出对他的兴趣或关注而进行善意干预，那么我们富有正当理由的最严重做法是：对他置之不理。然而，倘若他违犯了那些为保护同类个体或集体所必需的规则，我们就要采取与此截然不同的措施。因为那样的话，他行为造成的恶果并不会落到他自己头上，而会降临到别人身上。社会作为其所有成员的保护者，必须对他进行反击，必须出于明确的惩罚目的而迫使他遭受痛苦，且必须保证这种痛苦足够强烈。在后一种情况下，他是站在我们法庭上的罪犯，我们接受召唤而来，不仅是为了审判他，而且是为了以某种形式执行我们的判决。而在前一种情况下，我们要起的作用不是强迫他忍受苦痛。例外的情形是，我们在自由地管理自己的事务时，不经意地产生了令他痛苦的结果；可是，我们也允许他运用同一种自由管理他自己的事务。

本文区分了个人生活中仅仅涉及自己的部分和涉及别人的部分。许多人都会拒绝承认这种区分。（他们可能会问）一名社会成员之行为的任何部分怎么可能令其他成员无动于衷呢？谁都不是完全与世隔绝的生物；一人若做了严重或长久地有害于他自身的事情，其危害不可能不传播——它至少能影响到他的至爱亲朋，且经常远远超出这一亲友范畴。他若毁坏了自己的财产，就是损害了那些直接或间接以之为生活来源的人的利益，并通常或多或少地减少了社会的财富总量。他若损坏了自己的机体或精神能力，就不仅给所有依靠他获得某种幸福的人带来了灾难，并且会令他本人再无资格为他的全体同类提供分内的服务，也许还会成为他们感情或善行上的负担。倘若这种行为频繁发生，就会超越任何已知罪行，最为严重地耗损社会的利益总量。最后，倘若一人的罪行或蠢行没有直接伤害到他人，可他仍然（人们可能会说）会用自身实例造成危害，因此必须迫使他管制自我，以免那些看到或听说他的行为的人会被其腐化或误入歧途。

（人们会补充说：）即便能够控制行为不端的后果，使它仅影响到邪恶或轻率的实施者自身，难道社会就该放弃那些明显无法控制自我的人，听任他们自流吗？如果世人公认应该保护儿童和未成年人免受自我伤害，那么社会不该为那些同样不能自我管控的成年人提供同样的保护吗？如果赌博、酗酒、放纵、懒惰、肮脏等等，与法律明令禁止的许多或大多数行为一样，危害着人类的幸福、严重阻碍着人类的进步，那么只要符合可行性要求，社会条件适宜，（人们可能会问）难道法律不该也竭力镇压它们吗？作为对法律在所难免之种种不足的补充，难道舆论不能至少组成一支强大的治安力量，对抗这些恶行，用社会处罚严厉惩治那些已知的作恶者吗？（人们可能会说）这些事情与限制个性问题无关，与阻止生活创新实验和尝试新事物问题无关。此处力求制止的只有一类事物：从世界初创至今已经过尝试并宣布为不安全的事物、经验已经证明对任何人的个性培养都无用或不适宜的事物。必须要在一定时段和一定量经验之后，才能认为某个道德或慎重真理已经确立；人们仅仅期望它能阻止一代又一代的人类，使他们不会在祖先殒命的同一处悬崖失足坠落。

我完全承认，一人对自己的损害有可能通过感情渠道和利益渠道严重影响到与其联系密切的人，并在较小程度上影响到全社会。一旦有人做出这种行为，而致使他违背了被清晰明确规定了的、他对某个或某些别人应尽的义务，此事就不再属于关注自我利益的事类范畴，而进入了社会道德层面，要严格服从道德谴责。例如，如果某人因放纵奢侈而无力还债，或虽已承担起养育家庭的道德责任，但因放纵奢侈而无法养活或教育儿女，他就当然应受斥责，且可能受到应有的惩罚。但这种惩罚针对的不是他的奢侈放纵，而是他对家庭或债主所负责任的违背。倘若那些本应交给家人或债主的财富，被他挪用进行最为慎重的投资活动，他仍然犯下了同样的道德罪行。乔治·巴恩威尔[1]害死自己的叔父，为的是给情妇弄到钱财，但若他为的是自己从商，则同样要被判处绞刑。再如，有种十分常见的案例是：某人因沉迷恶习给自己的家庭带来了不幸，他因自己的刻薄无情或忘恩负义受到了应有的谴责。但若他为了培养无害的习惯而令家人痛苦，则同样应该受到谴责，因为他们要与他终生相伴，或者因个人关系而有赖他提供慰藉。无论何人，只要他在未被某种更紧要的责任所迫，或没有正当理由允准他自行优选某事物的情况下，未按照一般规则尊重别人的正当利益与合理情感，就必须为其冷漠承担责任，接受道德谴责。所以，谴责针对的既不是漠视他人利益与情感的原因，也不是仅仅殃及自身的那些过失——虽然那些过失可能与他的冷漠有着非常细微的因果关系。同样，一旦某人仅仅出于关注自我利益这一角度而有所行动，从而使自己无法履行某项义不容辞、服务公众的具体责任，他就犯有侵犯社会罪。谁都不会仅仅因为醉酒而受到惩罚，但士兵或警察若在值班时喝醉，就应当受到惩罚。总之，不论何时，只要确已出现或必将出现损害个人或公众利益的事物，事件就不再属于自由的范畴，而要置于道德规范或法律的视野中进行考量。

若某人的行为既没有违背对公众应尽的任何特定义务，也没有明显地伤害到除自己之外的特定别人，但他却令社会受到了纯粹偶然性的——或可称作结构性的——伤害，那么对于这种伤害所导致的不幸，为了人类自由这一更重大的利益，社会是能够容忍的。若成年人因未能正常地照顾好自己而受到惩罚，我宁愿那惩罚是为了他们自身的利益，而不希望惩罚的实施者借口说，那是为了防止他们损害到自己为社会创造利益的能力。因为社会不会妄称自己有权苛求那些利益。但我不能同意就此争论下去，似乎社会毫无办法将其成员的素质提升到行为符合理性的平常标准，只能坐等他们做出荒谬之事，然后依法或依道德准则惩办他们。在他们生命的整个早期阶段，社会对他们拥有绝对权力：在他们的整个儿童时期和未成年时期内，社会都可以进行试验，看看能否培养出他们理性处世的能力。现存这代人深知该怎样培育未来一代，也掌控着全部现实情况；但他们确实无法令未来一代变得十足睿智、绝对优秀，因为他们自身就很遗憾地缺乏美德和智慧。在很多事例中，他们虽已竭尽全力，但结果总是未能大获成功。然而，他们完全能够让成长中的这代人在整体上同他们那代人一样良好，且比他们更好一些。如果社会放任相当多的成员在长大后仍然天真幼稚，不能理性地考虑长远动机并据以采取行动，那么它就必须为此后果而责备自己。社会全副武装，不仅拥有教育的一切权势，而且占据着支配地位，某个公认为正确的观点总是借此地位扬威施暴，统治着那些最不适于独立判断事物的头脑；社会还有种种天然惩罚手段作为后援，这些惩罚会无可阻挡地降临到那些令其熟人感到厌恶或蔑视的人的头上。所以不要让社会谎称，它除了所有这些之外，仍然需要更多权力发号施令，强制个人在纯粹私人的事务上也要服从它的意志。根据所有正义原则和行动原理，纯粹私人事务的决定权应当属于那些即将承受后果的人。有些手段能使人类行为转好，有些则令人类行为变坏；没有哪种方法比采取后者更会败坏前者的名誉、阻挠前者的成功了。在社会试图迫使其变得审慎或节制的那些人之中，倘若任何人有着朝气蓬勃、独立自主的性格特质，他们就必然会奋起反抗那套社会枷锁。这些人谁都不会认为别人有权管制他的个人事务，正如他们必将阻止他破坏他们的个人事务。悍然违抗这种篡窃威权、炫耀性地公然抗命与它对着干，此类行为很容易被视为有气概、有胆魄的标志；查理二世[2]时代，人们就曾明目张胆地抗拒清教徒那狂热、偏狭的清规戒律。有人说，必须要保护社会，剔除那些伤风败俗、自我放纵的有害事例。对此，我的回答是：没错，有害的事例确实可能产生致命的影响，特别是做坏事伤害了别人却不受任何惩罚的那种事例。但我们现在所谈的事例是：某行为虽然无损于别人，但可能严重地伤害到行为者本人。我发现，那些坚信这一点的人都认为这个事例总体来讲绝对是利多弊少；除此而外，他们别无他想。因为在他们看来，该事例若展示了上述胡作非为现象，便会同时展示其痛苦或可耻的后果；若该不端行为应受严厉指责，那么其全部或大部分结果必然也应受到大力批判。

但是，在所有反对公众干涉纯粹私人事务的理据中，最强大的莫过于：倘若公众确实进行干涉的话，那么其干涉方式、干涉地点都很可能是错误的。在社会道德、对他人应尽的责任义务等问题上，公众的主张——即居于主导地位的大多数人的主张——虽然常常是错误的，但很可能在更多时候是正确的；因为在这些问题上，他们需要进行的判断仅仅关乎自己的利益，关乎若允许执行某种行为模式，它将会通过什么方式影响到他们。但是，同一批大多数人在关注自身利益之行为的种种问题上，作为法律强加给自身的那种意见，对错几率很可能是各占一半。原因是，在此类情况下，“公认为正确的意见”至多意味着某些人替他们提出了何者为对何者为错的意见；而经常发生的实际情况是，所谓“公认为正确的意见”甚至连这一点都做不到——公众完全漠视他们所指斥的行为者的愿望或利益，只会考虑他们自己的嗜好。许多人因为厌恶某种行为就认为这种行为伤害到他们，而愤恨地说它迫害了他们的情感。例如，某个宗教偏执狂在别人指责他忽视了他们的宗教感情时反驳说，他们顽固地坚持他们那恶劣的宗教礼拜或教义，就是忽视他的感受。但是，一人对自己意见的感受，和另一人因他有此感受而受到冒犯的感受，二者之间毫无平等可言；就像小偷偷窃钱包的欲望和钱包主人要保住钱包的欲望之间毫无平等可言。一人之趣味与他的意见或钱包一样，都是属于他私人专有的事物。任何人都可以轻易想象出一批完美的公众，他们允许个人在一切归属未明的事物上不受干扰地尽情自由选择，而仅仅要求他们规避那些普遍经验已经证明为不恰当的行为模式。然而，有谁在哪里见到过一批界定了其审查权限的公众呢？公众何时自寻烦恼地探索过普遍经验？他们在干涉个人行为时，除了想到这厮竟敢罪恶滔天地采取与己不同的行动、怀有与己不同的情感，什么其他想法都没有。每十个道德家和理论作家之中，有九人都会近乎不加掩饰地把这种评判标准作为宗教命令和哲学规定，展示在人类眼前。这些人教导说，事物之所以正确是因为它们正确，是因为我们感到它们正确。他们告诉我们，要在我们的头脑和心灵深处寻找约束我们自己和所有他人的行为法则。不幸的公众倘若对道德家和理论作家们的态度还算一致，且要对全世界负责，那么除了践行这些教导、自主决定善恶问题之外，还能做什么呢？！

上述弊端不仅仅存在于理论之中。有人或许会希望我举出某些实例，以表明当代英国的公众错误地给自己的偏好赋予了道德律条性质。本文论题并非现存道德情感的差错；那个话题十分重大，无法在本文中以例证方式附带论及。然而，我仍需举出几个例子，以证实我所宣称的原则有着多么重大的实践意义，表明我并非在竭力筑起一道屏障，防范假想中的罪恶。而且，通过很多实例不难证明：将可称作“道德治安”事项的边界扩张，扩张到侵犯了最无可置疑地确属个人合法自由的范围，这种行为乃是所有人类习性中最具普遍性者之一。

首先，思考一下人们憎恶的某些事物。与其他一些持有不同宗教主张、奉行不同教规特别是不同饮食禁忌的人的理由相比，他们憎恶那些事物的理由根本好不到哪儿去。权且举一个极其平凡的例子吧：在基督徒的教条或宗教活动中，没有什么比食用猪肉更令穆罕默德的信徒们愤恨不已、恶意相向的了。基督徒和欧洲人对任何事物的憎恶程度，都比不上伊斯兰教徒对食用猪肉这种充饥方法那毫不掩饰的憎恶。第一，食用猪肉是对他们宗教信仰的冒犯。但这一事实绝不足以解释他们那憎恶之情的程度或性质；因为伊斯兰教同样禁止饮酒，所有教徒都认为喝酒是错误的，但并不令人作呕。相反，他们对那种“污秽动物”肉的嫌恶有种很奇异的特点，像是一种本能的反感。“污秽”观念一旦完全沉潜入教徒的情感之中，似乎总能激起哪怕个人生活习惯最为邋遢龌龊的教徒的厌恶之情。印度教教徒对于宗教性污浊的厌恶感十分强烈，这种情感就是一个显著的例子。假设现有一批人，其中大多数是伊斯兰教徒；假设这批大多数人会坚决强调，本国境内不允许食用猪肉——这一点对伊斯兰教国家而言毫不新奇[3]。在舆论的道德威权下，禁止食用猪肉会不会在该国成为合法行为？倘若答案是不会，为什么？在这批公众看来，食用猪肉的行为可是令人极其恶心的。他们还真诚地相信，神憎恨且禁止人们食用猪肉。可是，不能指斥这种禁止是宗教迫害——虽然禁止的原因可能是宗教性的，但既然没有哪个人的宗教要求他必须食用猪肉，所以此种禁止行为并不算是宗教迫害。在谴责这种禁忌时，惟一站得住脚的理由是：对于个人趣味和种种关注自我的纯个人性事务，众人无权妄加干涉。

让我们回到我国附近来吧。大部分西班牙人都认为，用罗马天主教之外的方式礼拜那位至高无上者是极端无礼的公然不敬；所以在西班牙国土上，其他公开敬拜方式都是违法的。在整个南欧的人们看来，一个已婚牧师不仅是没有宗教信仰，而且是放荡、下流、粗俗、令人作呕的。新教徒怎么看待这些十足真诚的情感呢？怎么看待迫使这些情感服务于反对非天主教徒斗争的企图呢？然而，如果人类在那些丝毫无关他人利益的事物上，能够正当地互相干涉彼此的自由，那么能够根据什么前后一贯的原则来排除这类事例呢？若人们希望镇压他们认为神人共愤的某种丑行，谁能够指责他们呢？任何被认为是个人败德行为的产物都会遭到禁止；在证明此种禁令合理的诸事例中，最有力者莫过于那些把它们视为渎神行径、需要镇压的人编造出的东西。我们若采纳迫害者的逻辑，就会乐意宣称：我们是正确的，所以就可以迫害别人；他们是错误的，所以坚决不能迫害我们。如果我们并不赞同这种逻辑，就必须提防自己认可某条己所不欲的原则——若有人把它施加在我们身上，我们会感到极其冤屈和愤恨。

有人可能会不讲理地反驳上述实例，说它们全是些不可能出现在我们身边的意外事件：在我国，舆论根本不可能强制人们不食用某些肉类，不可能干涉人们的礼拜方式，不可能干涉人们按照自己的信条或偏好结婚或不结婚。但是，下一个例子确确实实地展现了自由是如何受到干涉的，而我们却丝毫没有逃脱它带来的一切危险。无论何处，例如在新英格兰[4]，在英国的共和国时期[5]，只要清教徒权力足够大，便会竭尽全力并相当成功地取缔一切大众的和近乎一切私人的娱乐活动，尤其是音乐、舞蹈、公共娱乐或其他以消遣为目的的群体集会、戏剧。如今，仍有大批英国人从自己的道德和宗教观念出发，认为这些消遣活动有害无益。他们中的绝大部分都是中产阶级，主导着王国当前的社会和政治态势，故此，持有这些看法的人会在某个时刻控制议会中的大多数，这绝对是可能做到之事。社会中的其余人等若获准进行娱乐活动，他们是否乐意享受那些加尔文派和卫理公会派[6]更为严厉的宗教和道德感监管下的娱乐呢？难道他们不会非常专横地要求这些虔诚而冒昧的社会成员少管闲事？无论哪国政府、哪国公众，但凡敢妄称谁都不能享受任何它们认定为错误的娱乐，就应该受到此种质问。然而，一旦其标榜的原则得到认可，谁都无法合理地违抗大多数人或本国其他某些主导势力的意见，无法不遵照执行。倘若某种与其观念相类的宗教信仰要成功收复失地——众所周知，许多被认为已经衰落的宗派经常力挽狂澜而重获新生——所有人都必须做好准备，遵奉“基督教共和国”这一观念；新英格兰早期殖民者就认定，存在一个这样的共和国。

想象一下另一个偶然事件，它或许比上一个更有可能变成现实。大家公认，当代世界上有一股很强劲的势头：不管是否有配套的民主政治制度，都要建立一个民主社会。有人断言：在迄今实现该趋势最彻底的那个国家——它拥有最民主的社会和政府——美国，大多数人的感受相当有效地扮演着禁奢法的角色，因为他们一旦发现，存在着任何自己根本无望可及的浮华或奢华生活方式，就会十分恼火；于是，在美国许多地方，收入极丰的人实在难以不受公众责难地找到任何豪奢的消费方式。尽管这种陈述现存事实的说法不无夸张，但它所描述的事态不仅仅是民主意见可以想象并能够想出的画面，而且是它与“公众有权禁止个人的财产消费方式”这一观念共同作用下非常有可能造就的结果。我们只需进一步推测一下，社会党主张广泛传播开来之后，在大多数人眼里，拥有超出了某个菲薄总额数量的财产，或不事体力劳动而获得收入，就会成为伤风败俗的无耻行径。一些与此相仿的意见已经在手工业者阶级中广为流行，沉重地压在了那些听从该阶级特有舆论的人的心头。也就是说，这些意见只会令该阶级自身的成员烦恼不已。众所周知，构成许多工业部门劳动力主体的那些无技能工人，毫无疑问地主张：拙劣工人应当获得与优秀工人相同的工钱；任何人都不应当靠优良技艺或勤奋劳动、以计件工作或其他方式，挣得比那些没有优良技艺、不肯勤奋劳动的人更多的工钱。他们利用一批道德警察——它们有时会变成现实中的警察——恐吓熟练工人和雇主，使前者不敢靠提供更有用的服务获取更高的报酬，使后者不敢为这种更有用的服务支付更高的报酬。倘若公众能拥有任何管辖别人个人事务的权力，我就看不出这些群体有什么过失，也看不出专司管辖任何个人的那批公众声称自己有权管制其个人行为这种说法有何不当——普通大众就是这样坚称他们有权管制普通人群。

但是，不必深思那些假设的事例了。此时此刻，我们的现实生活中就发生着公然侵夺私人生活自由的事件。还有一些事件性质更为严重，且有可能大肆横行；另有论调鼓吹说，公众应该获得无限权力，不仅有权依法禁止任何他们认为错误的事物，而且为了对付这些错误事物，还要有权禁止任何数量的他们承认为无辜的事物。

在防止放纵行为的名义下，某个英国殖民地的人们和几乎半数的美国人，被法律禁止以医学用途之外的任何方式使用任何种类的发酵饮料。因为正如禁酒令的意图所在，禁止售卖发酵饮料事实上就是禁止使用它们。因为根本无法实际执行，所以美国当初通过该法令的几个州已经废除了禁酒法，包括那个因禁酒法得以命名的州[7]。虽然如此，许多自称为慈善家的人已经开始尝试并相当热情投入地煽动人们也在英国设立一条类似的法令。为此目的，他们创建了一个团体，或曰“同盟”——这是它的自称。在英国，只有极个别公众人物坚信，政界人士的主张应当基于某些原则。在这极个别公众人物中，有一人与上述禁酒团体的干事有通信往来。通信内容公开后，该团体一下变得声名狼藉。有些人懂得，斯坦利勋爵[8]在某些公开场合露面时表现出的品性特征，在那些身处政治生活的人中间显得非常罕见，这很不妙。所以他们计划，让斯坦利勋爵借这次通信强化人们已经对他寄予的厚望。那位“同盟”的喉舌曾声称，“若有人歪曲任何原则，来证明顽冥不化和迫害行为的合理性”，他将“强烈谴责认可该原则的行为”。他现在则承诺，要指出那横亘在此类原则与该禁酒团体所遵循原则之间的“不可逾越的宽阔障碍”。他说：“在我看来，一切与思想、意见、良知有关的事项都在法律范围之外；一切与社会行为、习惯、关系有关的事项都在法律范围之内。这是因为，惟一能够支配后者的，乃是国家自身合法拥有的自由决定权，而个人则未被赋予这种自由决定权。”他根本没有提及第三类事物，它们与他所说的两类事项都不相同。这第三类事物即：不是社会性而纯属个人性的那些行为和习惯。饮用发酵酒精饮料的行为无疑就属于这一种类。然而，售卖发酵酒精饮料是贸易，而贸易是社会行为。可人们所抗议的侵犯行为侵犯的并非卖家的自由，而是买家兼消费者的自由；因为政府不仅完全可以禁止人饮酒，还完全可以故意让他弄不到酒。但是，那位干事却说：“无论何时，当我的社会权利被另一位公民的社会行为所侵犯，我作为一位公民，就有权通过立法来维权。”现在我们来看看他是如何解释这些“社会权利”的吧。“如果说有什么事侵犯了我的社会权利，那无疑就是非法买卖酒类。它不断地制造和引发社会骚乱，从而破坏了我最基本的安全权。它靠制造不幸获利，可我却得交税替那不幸买单，从而侵犯了我的平等权。它在我的道路四周布满了危险，削弱和腐化了社会，使我难以行使我可从社会中获得他人帮助和交往的权利，从而妨碍了我自由发展自身道德和心智的权利”。这就是他的“社会权利”观。在他之前，很可能没有哪种语言如此显著明确地表达过类似论调。这种见解简直是在表白：所有个人都拥有这一绝对的社会权利；所有他人都应在所有方面规行矩步；无论何人，只要在某方面某个最微渺的细节上有丝毫闪失，便是侵犯了我的社会权利，因而使我有资格要求立法机关为我申冤雪辱。这条骇人听闻的原则比任何干涉自由的行为都危险得多。对于任何侵犯自由的行为，它都能够证明其正当性。它不承认人类享受任何自由权，也许惟一的例外是，它只承认人们可以秘密持有意见但永远不能公之于众的自由。这是因为，我认为有害的某种意见一旦越过了某人的唇齿，便侵犯了该“同盟”赋予我的全部“社会权利”。该团体的学说认为，每个人的道德、心智乃至身体是否完善，都与全人类利益攸关；只是这项利益的具体内容需要由每个利益相关者按照其自己的标准加以确定。

另一个非法干涉个人正当自由的例子是守安息日法。它不仅是可能发生的事情，而且是早已取得显著成效的事情。只要生活急务容许，每周都有一天停止日常劳作，进行休息；这种宗教禁忌对犹太人之外的人来说，虽然完全没有义务履行，但实际是一项十分有益的习俗。要遵守这一习俗，就需要工人阶级普遍赞同其成效；因此，只要某些劳动者可强迫他人接受其必要性，那么该守安息日法便可暂停某一天的大范围工业作业，从而保证所有人都同该习俗的奉行者一样奉行它。这一辨析依据的理由是：每位个人对该惯例的奉行都直接关乎其他人的利益。但上述辨析并不适用于那些个人自选的职业，因为在这类职业中，个人可能感到利用闲暇工作并无不妥。此外，它也毫不适于用作对法律管制娱乐的理由。确实，有些人的日常工作就是为他人提供娱乐；但许多人的快乐——甚至有用的休闲活动——需要少数人的劳动付出，前提是后者自由选择了这一工作，也可以自由放弃它。工人们完全正确地认为：如果大家都在周日工作，那么七天的工作只能得到六天的工资；但只要各行各业都休息一天，为了别人享受娱乐而必须工作的那一小批人，便会获得相应的工资增长；而且倘若他们也想休闲而不想挣钱，就不必始终从事这些服务工作。若要寻找进一步的解决方案，可以考虑：根据习俗，为这些特定人群在一周当中另选一天，设立为休息日。这样，管制周日娱乐所能找到的惟一理由必然是：从宗教角度看，周日娱乐是错误的。这一立法动机永远不会受到强烈反对。“获罪于神，神其治之。”尚需证明的是：若其任何负责人受到了上天的委任，要报复某一假定的触怒了全能者的罪行——虽然这罪行对人类而言毫不为错。有观念认为，个人有责任使另一人信教。这种观念正是一切宗教迫害暴行的依据；若获得允许，它还会全面证明此类罪行的正当性。人们多次试图阻止火车在周日运行，抵制各种博物馆开放，等等。他们在诸如此类的行为中爆发出的激动情绪并没有古代宗教迫害者的那种残暴，但其中透露出的心态则是根本一致的，即：既然迫害者的宗教规定不准做此事，那就决不容忍别人做其宗教允许的事。这种决心也是一种信念：上帝不仅憎恶邪教徒的行为，而且如若我们放任邪教徒自行其是，还会认定我们有罪。

这些例子表明：人类自由普遍地受到了忽视。除此之外，我忍不住再举一例：我国报刊上骤现的露骨的迫害性语言。不论何时，只要这些报刊感到必须评论摩门教[9]那奇特的现象时，都会使用这种语言。号称从上帝那里获得新启示而创立的摩门教，明显是个破绽百出的骗局，就连其创始人那非凡品质与赫赫威望也无法证明其合理性。但是，在这个报纸林立、铁路通达、电讯便捷的时代，它竟有数十万上百万的信徒，还竟然组建了一个公司！对此匪夷所思、富有教益的事实，可说的实在太多。但我们此处所关注的是，该教像其他较好的宗教一样，也有殉道者；其先知兼创建者因宣传其教义，被一伙暴徒杀害；该教的其他拥护者同样丧命于非法暴力之下；摩门教派作为一个整体，被暴力驱逐出他们最初成长的地区；虽然他们如今已被赶入沙漠中的某个荒山野谷，还有许多英国人公然声称：公正（但又并不方便）的做法是，派遣一支远征军去打击他们，用武力迫使他们遵从其他人的意见。摩门教有一条教义，最令世人忍无可忍，它冲破了宗教宽容的常规限制、激起了强烈的憎恶之情，即准许多妻制。伊斯兰教徒、印度教徒和中国人都允许一夫多妻制，可一旦说英语、声称是某种形式基督徒的人也实施这种制度，似乎就会激起不可遏制的汹汹恨意。我对这一摩门教制度谴责之强烈程度是无人可比的。我之所以如此，是由于在其他原因之外，还有一条主因：这一制度根本不是对自由原则的支持，而是对自由原则的直接违犯——一夫多妻制完全钉牢了束缚着一半摩门教教徒的枷锁，解脱了另一半摩门教教徒对她们应尽的互利义务。此外，我必须要提醒的是，从摩门教有关女教徒方面讲，这种关系同任何其他形态的一夫多妻制情况一样，在很大程度上是自愿的，尽管她们可能被认为是此制度的受害者。我必须要提醒：不论这一事实看起来多么不可思议，都能够在全世界的普通观念和习俗中找到原因。这些观念和风俗教导妇女，使她们认为婚姻是必不可少之物，使她们知道，宁可同许多其他妇女嫁给同一个丈夫，也不能没有丈夫。摩门教并没有要求其他地区和国家认可这种婚姻，也没有要求各地各国让出任何数量的居民，准许他们不再遵守本国法律，而改从摩门教的主张。但是，这些异教徒屈从了教外民众的敌意，做了太多的让步而提出了太少的正当要求。他们离开了那些反对摩门教义的地区，在地球上一个偏远的角落获得了立足之地，作为当地第一批居民，把那里开垦成为适宜人类居住的家园。他们从未侵凌过其他民族，也允许那些对他们做法不满的人完全自由地离去。当他们做了这一切之后，我们很难看出，除了专制主义之外，我们还能根据什么原则，阻止他们在自认为合适的制度下生活在那里。最近有位在某些方面相当优秀的作家提议说（我引用他本人的话）：对这个实行多妻制的组织，应该用教化运动而非征伐运动，以终结其在他看来是令文明倒退的堕落行径。我赞同他对一夫多妻制的这种看法；但我感到，任一社群都无权强迫另一社群走上文明之路。只要那种恶劣制度的受害者们并未祈求其他社群对她们进行救助，我就不能容许与她们毫无关联的人介入，要求终结所有利益直接相关者好像都很满意的某一事态，理由是：在成千上万英里以外、与之丝毫无干的人们看来，此事是一宗丑行。这些局外人如果乐意，完全可以派遣传教团来宣讲该丑行的诸种罪恶，也可以借助任何正当手段（钳噤摩门教传教士不算）来对抗与摩门教类似的教义在这些外部人群中的传播。当世界上充斥的只有野蛮时，如果文明战胜了野蛮，那么在野蛮早已被完全制服之后，文明人还声称因惟恐野蛮会卷土重来，进而征服文明而忧心忡忡，实在太不像话。一种这么容易屈服于其手下败将的文明，必然早已堕落到这种程度，无论是它所指派的牧师和导师，或任何他人，都没有能力或愿意费心来捍卫它了。倘若果真如此，那么这种文明越早收到要求它认输的通知，效果就越好。它只能从朽坏走向更坏，直到（像西罗马帝国那样）被活力蓬勃的蛮族摧毁与重建。

[1]乔治·巴恩威尔（George Barnwell）是17世纪一首英国民谣中的主人公。该民谣说的是发生于英格兰什普罗郡的一场谋杀案。乔治·巴恩威尔与妓女萨拉·米尔伍德私通，并在后者的唆使下，为谋取钱财杀死了自己的叔父。事发后，二犯被处以绞刑。1731年，这个故事被英国作家乔治·利洛（George Lillo）写成悲剧《伦敦商人》（The London Merchant, or the History of George Barnwell），搬上了舞台，受到观众普遍欢迎。——译者注

[2]查理二世（Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1630—1685年，在位1660—1685年）：英国内战中被处死的英王查理一世的儿子，内战中曾与清教徒代表、后成为护国公的克伦威尔作战，败逃欧陆，在法国、荷兰等国流亡，1660年复辟。他机警灵变，在政治上与议会达成了妥协，并实施宗教宽容政策。他因个人生活放荡，被称为“快活王”。——译者注

[3]孟买的帕西人就是一个很奇特的例子。这个勤劳刻苦、勇于进取的民族的祖先是波斯拜火教教徒。在历代哈里发大军的驱赶下，那些拜火教徒逃离了自己的祖国，来到了印度西部。当地的印度教君主们对他们实行宽容政策，但条件是他们不能食用牛肉。后来，印度西部各地被攻陷，成为伊斯兰教征服者的领地，帕西人又得到了这些伊斯兰教统治者的宗教宽容，但条件是他们不能食用猪肉。这种原本是对威权的顺从变成了帕西人的第二天性，他们至今都忌食牛肉和猪肉。这一双重禁忌虽然并非他们的宗教规定，但已经在历史过程中演变为他们民族的习俗。在东方，习俗就是一种宗教。

[4]新英格兰（New England）指美国东北部的一个地区，由今天的康涅狄格州、缅因州、马萨诸塞州、新罕布什尔州、罗德岛州和佛蒙特州六个州组成。1620年，著名的五月花号将一批躲避查理一世宗教迫害的独立派新教徒带到了这里；此后，清教徒陆续到达，并在这一带繁衍。这一地区的殖民者以自耕农为主，他们自给自足的生活方式同清教工作伦理非常契合。另外，据信，他们还发扬了《五月花号公约》精神，创建了根深蒂固的民主传统。——译者注

[5]英国的共和国（the Commonwealth）时期指1649—1660年间的英格兰、苏格兰和爱尔兰共和国。第二次英国内战以奥利弗·克伦威尔等人领导的议会军的胜利和国王查理一世领导的保皇派的失败告终，1649年1月，查理一世被处决；5月，英国宣布为共和国。在内战前和内战过程中，克伦威尔因其坚定的清教信仰和赫赫战功而威望日隆。1653年，他从议会手中谋取了全部权力，自任“英格兰、苏格兰和爱尔兰共和国”的护国公，直至1659年逝世。此间他虽拒绝了国王之名，但握有国王之实，故这几年又称为护国公执政时期。克伦威尔实施了一系列卓有成效的内政建设与外交策略，许多政策带有明显的清教特色。他的儿子李查·克伦威尔继任护国公，但威望和能力均不胜任。在多股国内外势力反复较量之后，1660年，在欧洲流亡的查理二世回到伦敦，复辟王位，英国共和国时期结束。清教盛期也随之结束。——译者注

[6]卫理公会派（the Methodists）：18世纪英国圣公会牧师、神学家约翰·卫斯理（John Wesley，1703—1791年）创建的一支新教派别，又译循道宗、循道公会、卫斯理宗等。与加尔文派的绝对预定论神学观点不同，该派相信自由意志，承认传统的三位一体神性论，宣称忠于《圣经》教义，所有人都有可能得救、受到神的保护。该派强调帮助穷人和平民，注重通过社会服务建立与他人的友善联系，并培养人的完善品格。——译者注

[7]指缅因州。最初由新英格兰清教徒发起的禁酒运动虽屡有争议，但不断发展，于19世纪中期取得了不少成果。其标志之一是，缅因州于1851年通过了《禁酒法》（Maine Law），禁止生产和售卖含酒精饮料。该法令受到了许多工人和移民的抵制，最显著者为1855年波特兰市的骚乱事件。1856年该法令被废止。但《禁酒法》得到了国际认可。受其影响，英国于1853年成立了禁酒组织“联合王国同盟”（United Kingdom Alliance），并把曼彻斯特市的一条街改名为“缅因街”，以纪念该法令。——译者注

[8]此斯坦利勋爵即爱德华·亨利·斯坦利（Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, 1826—1893年），英国政治世家、保守党中坚力量斯坦利家族的成员，第十五任德比伯爵。斯坦利家族是英国历史上最富有的大地主之一。其父爱德华·乔治·杰奥弗里·史密斯-斯坦利曾三度出任英国首相。1866—1868年和1874—1878年斯坦利本人曾两度出任英国外交大臣之职。但在政治上，他更同情自由党而不是保守党。——译者注

[9]摩门教（Mormonism）是美国人约瑟夫·史密斯（Joseph Smith，1805—1844年）创建的宗教派别。生于纽约州一个商人兼农夫家庭的史密斯适逢美国号称第二次大觉醒的宗教兴盛时期。他参加了教堂的学习班、读了《圣经》。根据他的回忆，他多次在祈祷中受到了神启。1823—1827年，他自称一位天使指引他挖掘到了一本美洲原住民写在金片上的经书，又赋予他语言神力进行翻译。该书于1829年完成翻译，1830年出版，是为《摩门经》。该经书自叙是美洲原住民的一部编年史，把他们描述为信仰宗教的犹太人，并且在基督降生之前几百上千年前就已经信仰他了。摩门教主史密斯一方面是个宗教狂，另一方面熟悉多种骗术。他教导、欺骗、引诱、谋害过别人，也被别人暴打、追捧、驱逐、支持、背叛、崇拜、通缉、审讯、监禁、批判过。例如：在1837年，他与其他几位教派领袖创建了一个名为柯特兰安全社（Kirtland Safety Society）的股份公司，作为准银行运营。然而不到一个月，这个公司就垮掉了。1838年，爆发了摩门教战争。1839年前后，他派使团去欧洲传教，吸引了无数人入教，其中包括大批工厂工人。1843—1844年，他还竞选过美国总统。1844年，他被控犯有叛国罪收监，随后被一伙蒙面人枪杀在监狱中。在他的“神谕”指引下，摩门教在发展壮大的同时，也不断遭到周围民众的憎恶和围攻而被迫转移，在纽约州、宾夕法尼亚州、俄亥俄州、密苏里州、伊利诺伊州等地流动。史密斯死后，该教派在与教外民众不断冲突的压力下，继续转移，在内布拉斯加州短暂停留后，把总部确定在了后来成为犹他州、内华达州和部分怀俄明州、科罗拉多州的西部荒漠和山区一带。摩门教历史上几度更名，1851年起采用的正式名称是耶稣基督后期圣徒教会（The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints）。与传统的新教不同，他们相信圣父、圣子、圣灵并非三位一体，而是三个独立的实体，但三者在思想、行动和目标上是一体的，因此通常把此集合体叫作“一神”或“神性”。该派认为，全人类作为神的子孙，都能得到提升，继承神的一切，会像耶稣那样得道成神。该教派奉行一夫多妻制，因此而屡次遭到外界激烈批判；迫于压力，1890年时任教主宣布废止该制度。——译者注

五　论自由原则之应用

这些书页中所坚称的两大原则共同构成了本文的学说整体。我必须让世人更加广泛地承认，它们乃是深入讨论细节的根本依据，而后才可尝试将其前后一致地应用于政府和道德的所有部门，并期望它们的优势充分展现。我将对细节问题所做的观察评论，为的是举例说明这两大原则，不是要将其贯彻到底，直至产生结果。我下文将提出的内容，与其说是这两大准则的用途，毋宁说是其应用样本；这些样本可能会更清楚地展现二者的意义和局限，并在那些难以看出哪条准则适用的案例中，帮助我们在二者之间做出抉择。

这两大准则是：第一，只要个人的活动与他人无关而仅关乎本人，那么他就不必为之向社会负责。如果别人觉得，为了他们自身的利益，必须对他进行忠告、教诲、劝说、躲避，那么这些忠告等等，都不过是社会使用的手段罢了，以便理由充分地表达自己对他行为的厌恶或谴责。第二，个人要对自己有损于他人利益的行为负责，并且可能受到社会制裁或法律制裁——如果社会感到必需其中之一来保护自我。

首先，虽然损害到或可能会损害他人利益就会招致社会的正当干涉，但绝不能因此断定社会干涉永远是正当合理的。在许多情况下，个人在追求某一合法目标时，必然且因而合理地会给他人带来痛苦或损失，或者致使他人有望获得的正当利益功败垂成。这种个人利益间的冲突往往源自恶劣的社会制度，只要这种制度仍然存在，此种冲突就不可避免；其中的某些冲突在任何制度下都是不可避免的。不论何人，只要在同行过多的职业或竞争激烈的考试中取得成功，只要在他与别人为获得同一个目标的竞争中胜出，就是从别人的失败、徒然努力和失望中获利。可是，无人否认，人们不应被这种结果所震慑，而应继续追求其目标；这样做更利于提升人类的总体利益。换言之，社会并未赋予那些失望的竞争者有任何法律或道义权利，使他们能够免于这种苦痛。只有当他们的对手为取得成功而使用违背人类总体利益的禁用手段——即造假或诈骗、暴力——时，社会才会感到有责任进行干预。

同样，贸易也是一种社会行为。任何向公众出售任何类型商品的人，都是在从事影响他人利益和社会总体利益的工作。因此，他的行为在原则上属于社会的管辖范畴。于是，过去，在一切被认为价值重大的问题上，定价和控制生产过程都被认为是政府的职责所在。但如今人们已经认识到——虽然是经过漫长的努力才产生了这种认识：要有效促成价廉物美商品的供应，就要给予生产者和销售者完全的自由；惟一的审查手段是，让购买者享有同样的自由，他们可到别处购买别的商品。这就是所谓的自由贸易理论。该理论的依据与本文主张的个人自由原则有所不同，但二者同样坚实可靠。对贸易的限制或对为贸易而进行的生产的限制，都是实实在在的限制。任何限制都是罪恶。但此处所论的限制，仅仅影响人类行为中社会应当限制的部分；之所以称这些限制是错误的，只是因为它们并未真正产生社会期望的结果。个人自由原则与自由贸易理论无关，也与关于该理论之应用界限的绝大部分问题无关。那些问题很多，例如：为防止掺假欺诈，可允许多大程度的公共管控；为保护从事危险职业的雇工，应该在多大程度上强制雇主采取卫生预防措施或条件。在其他条件不变的情况下，让人们自行其便总是优于管制他们；仅当此时，上述那类自由贸易理论之应用界限问题才涉及对自由因素的考虑。虽说如此，但为了达到上述目的而合法地管制他们，从原则上讲也是完全可行的。另一方面，一些与干涉贸易相关的问题，在本质上也是事关自由的问题。例如，前文已提到的《禁酒法》问题、禁止向中国输入鸦片问题、限制有毒物质销售问题，等等。简而言之，所有以使人无法或难以获得某种特定商品为目的的社会干涉案例，都属于这类问题。这些干涉行为之所以应该反对，不是因为它们侵犯了生产者或销售者的自由，而是因为它们侵犯了购买者的自由。

其中的一例，就是关于有毒物质销售，这引发了一个新的问题：可称为“公共管制职责”的恰当界限在哪里？或曰，为了预防犯罪或意外事故，可在多大程度上合法地侵犯个人自由？政府无可争议的职责之一，就是不仅要在犯罪行为发生后查明案情、惩罚罪犯，而且要采取预防措施，防患于未然。可是，政府对犯罪的防范职能远比其惩罚职能更容易被滥用，而损害个人自由；因为在个人合法的行为自由当中，没有哪个部分不会被描述为——而且被清清楚楚地描述为——增强了这种或那种犯罪的便利条件。然而，倘若某个政府部门，甚至某个个人，发现有人显然在准备实施犯罪，他们不一定要袖手旁观地等到犯罪行为发生之后再采取行动，而可以积极干预，及时阻止。如果购买或使用有毒物质的惟一目的是进行谋杀犯罪，那么正当的做法是严禁制造和销售毒物。然而，人们购买这些毒药的目的可能不但清白无辜而且颇有益处，而限制条款则不可能在一个案例中被强制实施，到了另一案例中就销声匿迹。同理，预防意外事件也是公权机关的一项正当职能。倘若某个公职人员或另外的人发现，有人打算要经过一座已经查明的危桥，但已来不及向他发出危险警告了，他们可以抓住他把他拉回来；这根本算不上对他个人自由的干涉，因为自由意味着做自己想做的事情，而他并不想掉进河里。不过，有时，某件事并不必然会产生危害，而只是有产生危害的风险，除当事者本人之外，谁都无法判断他究竟在多大程度上愿意承受可能的风险；在这种情况下，我认为，（除非他是个未成年人，或神志不清，或处于某种亢奋或沉迷状态而不能充分调用其反应能力）别人就应当只是提醒他有潜在的危险，而不应强迫他远离危险。将上述需考虑因素应用于销售有毒物质这类问题，同样能使我们判定，在所有可能的管控模式中，哪些有理，哪些无理。例如，用某个能充分表现其毒性的词命名那种毒物，这样的预防措施不会侵犯个人自由，可以强制推行；购买者不会不希望知道，他拥有的这件东西是有毒之物。但若无论如何都要求购买者出具开业医师证书，会令他总要付出高价才能获得——有时甚至无法获得——该物品。我发现，只有一个方法值得考虑，它既能为犯罪设置重重困难，又不会侵犯那些为其他目的而需要此毒物者的自由。套用边沁[1]那贴切的术语来讲，这个方法就是：提供“预先约定的证据”。众所周知，这一预备措施的常见应用就是契约。在签署契约时，通常且正确的做法是：法律会要求订约双方履行一些正式手续作为契约实施的条件，例如签名、证人的证词等等，以便日后出现纠纷时，能有证据证明该契约已经真正订立，证明在这种情况下什么都无法令它丧失法律效力。其效果就是，设置巨大障碍，防止出现假契约或者在已知将破坏其合法性的情形下签订的契约。在销售可被用作犯罪手段的物品时，可以采取与此同样性质的预防措施。例如，可要求销售者在一个登记簿上注明该笔交易的准确时间、购买者的姓名与地址、商品的精确类型和数量；他还要询问该商品的购买用途，并记录买方的回答。若购买者没有携带医学处方，就需要有第三方在场，确保购买者清楚全部实情，以防日后他有将该物品用于犯罪目的的借口。通常而言，这些管制措施不会实质性地妨碍购买者获得该商品，但会严重阻碍他不被人察觉地违法使用它。

社会防卫自己免遭犯罪这一天然权利，表露了本文所述个人行为自由准则的明显界限：对于纯粹关注自我利益的错误行为，为了预防或惩罚目的而胡乱干涉并不恰当。例如，在普通情况下，法律干预手段并不适用于酗酒。但倘若某人有前科，曾在酒精作用下对他人犯有暴行，就应针对他个人设置某种特殊法律限制。例如，以后若再发现他醉酒，就要进行处罚；若他再次在醉酒状态下犯罪，那么对其罪行的惩罚将更加严厉。我认为，这种处罚是完全合法的。一个一旦醉酒就会危害他人的人，若把自己灌醉，就是在对他人犯罪。同样，对于游手好闲行为，不能暴力地进行法律惩处，除非这种行为来自某个受到公众救济的人，或是构成了违背契约的行为。但是，如果无论是出于懒散或其他本可避免的原因，某人未能履行他对别人的法定责任——例如，抚养亲生儿女——那么在别无他法的情况下，用强制劳动迫使他履行此责任，就不是暴举。

同理，许多行为只会直接伤害到施为者本人，所以不应当被法律所禁止；但是若他们公开实施这种行为，就是粗暴无礼，因而属于冒犯他人的行为范畴了，要依法禁止。此外，许多行为本身无可指摘，也不应受到指摘，但人们同样强烈地反对传扬这类行为；有伤风化罪指的就是此类行为，但它们与本文主题并无直接关联，我就不必详加论述了。

另有一个亟待解决的问题与本文所主张的两大原则一脉相承。在一些事例中，个人行为虽可谓有过失，但对个人自由原则的遵守却会使社会无法阻止或惩罚这类行为，因为其直接恶果完全降临到了施为者的头上。施为者能够自由从事的事情，其他人应该同样自由地劝告或怂恿他吗？这个问题难以回答。一人请求另一人采取某一行动，严格地讲，这样的事例并非关注自我利益的行为。对任何人进行劝告或诱导是一种社会行为，因此，同能够影响他人的一般活动一样，应该可以受到社会的管控。但是稍加反思，就可以意识到上述第一印象的错误之处：即便此事并不严格符合个人自由的界定，可个人自由原则所依据的理由也完全可以用作它的理由。如果人们在任何仅仅关乎自己的事情上，都必须能够以其自认为最好的方式、后果自负地采取行动，那么他们就必须能够同等自由地彼此咨询，探讨什么做法适合前述目的，也能够同等自由地交换意见、提出和接受建议。凡是获准做的事情，都必须获准接受建议。仅当建议者因其建议而获得某种个人利益时，仅当他为了生计或钱财受益，以促成社会或国家认为是罪恶的事为职业时，才会变得疑点重重。实际上，那时会出现一种新的复杂化因素，即：存在某一类人，他们的利益与被认为是公共福利的事物相对立，他们的生活方式恰恰基于对公共福利的违背。应该对这件事进行干涉吗？还是不该？例如，必须容忍通奸现象，也必须容忍赌博现象；但是人能够自由地成为皮条客，或拥有赌场吗？这个例子同许多事例一样，恰恰处于两大原则之间的分界线上，乍看之下，无法判断将它归属哪一原则更为恰当。同意干涉和不同意干涉的双方都振振有词。建议采取容忍态度的一方可能会说：从事任何职业借以谋生或从中获利这件事，不可能蓄养出其他生存方式会容许的罪犯；这种谋生行为或者被始终允许，或者始终禁止；倘若我们至今捍卫的原则真实有效，那么社会作为社会就无权判断任何仅仅关乎个人的事物为错；此种谋生行为不可能无法劝阻，正如一人应拥有说服的自由，另一人应拥有劝阻的自由。反对容忍的一方可能会主张：尽管公众或国家无法保证能够权威地断定，仅仅影响个人利益的某行为是好还是坏，而需要对其实施压制或惩罚，但它们完全有理由假定，若视之为坏事，那么该行为的好坏至少还是个可以商榷的问题。在这样假定之后，公众或国家在竭力消除利益相关的诱惑者或有所偏向的怂恿者之影响时，就不会举措失误。某行为被断定为好或坏直接关系到那些怂恿者的个人利益，他们所赞同的判断，国家却相信是错误的；他们公然宣扬该行为的好处或坏处，完全是为了个人利益。有人可能会极力建议，可以这样安排事务：人们必须自作主张，聪明或愚蠢地做出自主选择，尽量避免有些人诡计多端地为了个人利益和目的而怂恿他们选择某种做法；这么一来，就能够确保万无一失，人们的利益就不会受损。这样（有人可能会说），虽然针对非法游戏的法规完全站不住脚，虽然所有人都应自由地在自家或别人家，或他们自费建起、仅对成员或访客开放的聚会场所赌博，但是不应准许公共赌场的存在。确实，禁令从未奏效，不论赋予了警方多大的暴力执法权，赌场都总能改头换面而长期存在；但它们也许被迫在某种程度的机密或神秘状态下运营，除了那些找寻它们的赌客之外，谁都对它们一无所知；除此之外，社会不应再对它们有其他企图。这些说法相当有力，我不敢贸然断定它们是否足以证明下述道义反常现象的合理性：惩罚从犯而允准（且必然允准）主犯逍遥法外；受到罚款或监禁的是皮条客而非通奸者，是赌场老板而非赌客。根据类似理由，平常的买卖行为受到的干涉应当更少。近乎所有被买卖的商品都会被滥用，卖家为了多赚钱，会鼓励买家过度使用那些商品。但是，这并不能作为依据，来论证《禁酒法》之类的社会干涉行为是多么卓越。因为烈性饮料的经销商群体虽然很乐于人们酗酒，但必然会被要求保证这些烈性酒得到合理使用。然而，这些经销商若怂恿人们放纵，便是真正犯下了恶行，因此，国家可正当地迫使他们接受管制、要求他们提交保证金；若非出于这一正当理由，国家的上述做法就是干涉了他们的合法自由。

接下来的问题是，虽然情况容许，但国家是否应当间接阻止它认为会违背施为者最佳利益的行为呢？例如，国家是否应采取措施，让导致人们喝醉的手段变得更加昂贵？或通过限制销售点的数量，使人们难以获得这些商品？与大部分其他现实问题一样，在这件事上，要进行多重区分。仅仅为了让人们更难以获得这些兴奋性饮料而对它们课税，这种措施与完全禁止只是在程度上有别而已，而且仅当它正当时它才会是正当的。对那些囊中羞涩、望价兴叹的人而言，每次提价都是一次禁令；而对那些钱包鼓胀、出得起价的人而言，提价是对他们满足自己某种特殊偏好的一种惩罚。在他们履行过自己对国家和对个人的法定与道德义务后，他们选择什么样的消遣方式、怎样花光收入的消费方式，都是他们的私事，必须由他们自主判断。乍看之下，这些意见似乎是在谴责那种为收税而把酒类作为特别课税对象的做法。但我们必须牢记：为财政目的而征税是绝对必要的；在绝大多数国家，这类税收之中相当大的部分必须是间接征收的；因此，国家不得不对人们使用某消费品的行为进行罚款。对某些人而言，这种罚款过于昂贵、承受不起。因此，国家在征税时有责任考虑，消费者最好不买哪些商品；更不容置疑的是，它有责任优先选择那些用量一旦超出某个适度数值，就肯定会产生危害的商品。于是，对酒类征收的税率高达能够带来最大数额财政收入的程度（假设国家需要酒税带来的全部税收），这不仅可以容许，而且应当赞许。

可否让销售这些商品变成一个或大或小的专属特权？这个问题必须根据限制手段所要服务的目的，来给出不同的回答。所有公共聚集地点都需要治安力量控制秩序，这类地方异常需要治安管理，是因为针对社会的罪行特别容易在那里产生。所以，恰当的做法就是：限制酒类商品的销售权，只能卖给那些已知或已有人保证的行为得体的人（至少是当场饮用）；还要明文规定商家开门关门的具体营业时间，以便公众监督之需；如果某酒馆老板的纵容或无能导致此处反复发生违反治安事件，或如果该酒馆成为犯罪分子谋划和准备犯罪行为的集合地点，就要撤销其酒类销售许可证书。我想象不出，此外还有什么其他在原则上无可非议的限制手段。举例来说，为了增加人们获得酒类的难度、减少他们受到诱惑的机会这一明确目标，限制销售啤酒和烈性酒酒馆的数量，这种做法不仅会给全社会制造麻烦，而且仅适用于某种特定的社会状态。说它会制造麻烦是因为有些人会滥用这一点；在那种特定的社会状态下，劳动阶级被公然当作儿童或野蛮人加以对待，并被置于束缚式的教育之下，好把他们打造得适合在未来获准进入自由的特权。但是，任何自由国家在表面上都绝非照此原则来管理其劳动阶级；真正看重自由的人没有谁会支持劳动阶级受到这般统治，除非社会和国家已经竭尽各种努力，教给他们自由、把他们作为自由人来管理，但最终证明他们只能像儿童那样接受管控。这种对其他可能性的赤裸陈述表明，认为上述努力无论如何都已做出，这是多么荒谬的假定！我们就此讨论一下这个荒谬假定。正因为我国的体制与习俗是一团矛盾百出的乱麻，所以原本属于专制政府或所谓父权制政府体制下的事物找到机会溜进了我们的日常生活，而我国体制与习俗中的普遍自由使我们无法对其进行必要的适度管控，无法以道德教育形式对其实施任何卓有成效的限制措施。

前文已然指出，个人在仅仅关乎自身利益事物上的自由意味着，任何数量的个人群体能够通过相互协定，自由地管理与他们自己共同相关——与他们这一群体之外的别人无关——的事情。只要事情涉及的所有人的意志始终不变，这一相互协定、自我管理问题就不难解决。但众人的意志可能会改变，所以他们经常相互签订契约；一旦他们签订了契约，那么按照一般规则，他们就应遵守约定。不过，很可能在每个国家的法律中，这种一般规则都有某些例外情况：法律不仅要求签约双方信守那些侵犯了第三方权益的契约，而且还会以某契约也会伤害双方当事人的自身利益为充分理由，解除他们的约定关系。例如，在英国和其他大多数文明国家，若某份契约规定一人将自己或允许他人将他卖作奴隶，那么这就是一份无效契约，不会受到法律或舆论的强制执行。为什么如此限制自愿卖掉自己一生命运的权力呢？其原因不言而喻，在此极端情况下清清楚楚地展现在了人们面前：人们之所以不干涉某人的自愿行为，若非为了别人的利益，就是为了尊重个人自由。他的自主选择证明：他所选择的事物对他来说是理想之物，或至少是可以忍受之物；允许他采用自己的方法追求该事物，总体而言，就是最充分地保障了他的利益。然而，将自身卖作奴隶时，就是放弃了他的个人自由；此举之后，他完全放弃了对个人自由的任何使用权。这样一来，他就在自己的案例中违背了自己的本意，而他的本意恰恰就是证明允许他卖掉自己是正当做法的理据。他失去了自由，此后就处于一种他若自愿停留其中就会如愿以偿的状态，而这种状态是无法再做出自主自利的假定的。个人自由原则不可能规定，他可以自由地决定自己要失去自由。为同意他放弃自己的自由，而批准给他的并不是自由。上述原因的巨大力量在此特异个案中得到了十分醒目的展现。显而易见，这些原因有着更为广阔的应用范围。但种种生活必然性处处都给它们设下了界限，并不断对我们提出要求：不是要求我们必须真的放弃个人自由，而是要求我们同意那卡在了我们个人自由两端的限界。可是，前述准则之一要求，个人在仅仅涉及他们自己的所有活动中都拥有无限的自由；这条原则规定意味着：那些被仅涉及当事双方、无干第三方的事物协定密切联系在一起的人，应当能够互相解除对方的契约义务。甚至可以说，如果没有这种自发的解除义务行为，或许根本就没有契约或约定，但与钱财或钱财价值有关的契约除外。对于与钱财有关的契约，人们敢说，根本就不应当有任何撤销的自由。威廉·冯·洪堡男爵在我前文曾引用过的那篇文章中说道：他确信，关于人际关系或个人服务的协定，超出一定时限之后，应当不再具有法律约束力；这类协定中最重要的就是婚姻；婚姻的特殊之处是，若夫妻双方不能琴瑟和谐，那么双方都会十分沮丧；因此，解除婚姻的要求只有一条——夫妻之任一方宣布其离婚意愿即可。婚姻这个话题过于重要，也过于复杂，本文无法附带论及，所以我只是出于例证之需，在此略提几句。洪堡男爵的宏论若非极其简洁概括，使他在此论题上满足于不谈前提就直接阐明结论，那么他肯定已经意识到，这个问题不可能根据他所宣称的那类简单理由而获得解决。倘若某人的明确承诺或成功行为促使另一人相信，他会继续按某一方式行动——使对方建立起对他的期望和估计，并根据这一预测冒险制定了其人生计划的任何部分——他就向对方担负起了一系列新的道德义务。对于那些新的道德义务，他虽然可以拒绝，但是却无法忽视。同理，如果订约双方的关系产生了影响到他人的结果，如果双方关系使第三方处于某种特殊位置，或者像上述婚姻案例中那样，甚至导致产生了第三方，那么订约双方便都对这些处于第三方状态的人负有新的义务。要履行这些新义务，或总之要采取什么履行方式，都必然受到当初订约双方的关系仍然存续或已经中断这一状态的剧烈影响。这并不意味着，且我也不承认，这些新义务甚至包括，要求订约双方为了被动卷入的第三方的福祉，不惜一切代价地履行契约。但这些新增义务是整个问题中无法回避的因素。即便像冯·洪堡所称，它们对订约双方解除契约的合法自由毫无影响（我也同意，它们不应当造成很大影响），但必然会对其道义自由造成重大影响。人在决定采取某个可能影响到他人重大利益的步骤之前，必须要通盘考虑全部情况；倘若他不能正确地重视他人的重大利益，就已经在道义上犯了错误，而应负相应责任。这些观点浅显明白，我在此论述它们，是为了更清晰地说明个人自由这一普遍原则，而并非因为它们对婚姻问题不可或缺。可实际情况与此恰恰相反，在通常对婚姻问题的讨论中，似乎孩子的利益便是全部，而父母的利益无关紧要。

我已注意到，由于缺乏任何公认的一般原则，在本应授予自由的场合反倒经常拒不准许自由；在本应拒绝自由的场合反倒经常授予自由。在当今欧洲世界的很多事实中，自由之情十分强烈。其中一例在我看来，是完全错误地寄托了这种沸腾的自由之情。在仅关乎个人的事物上，人应当能够自由地依愿行事；但当代表别人时，就不应借口别人的事务就是他本人的事务而随心所欲。国家一方面尊重每个人在私人事务中的个人自由，另一方面也必须警惕地保持对他运用自由的管控，以防其利用个人自由获得凌驾于他人之上的权力，并对他们为所欲为。但是，在家庭关系上，国家的这项责任几乎被彻底漠视了。家庭直接影响着人类的福祉，它的重要性超过其他一切影响因素之和。本文不需详述丈夫对妻子近乎暴君式的专横权力；为彻底消除这种罪恶，惟一要做的是让妻子拥有与所有他人同样的权利、获得与法律给予所有他人的同样方式的保护。因为，在这个问题上，既定不公习俗的拥护者们根本不肯采纳我们对自由的辩解，而是作为强权的捍卫者公然站了出来。正是在涉及孩子们的案件中，各种被滥用的自由观念构成了阻止国家履行其职责的真正障碍。人们几乎会认为：一个男人的儿女应该是他的一部分——这不是比喻，而是实实在在的看法——所以，他对他们拥有绝对的、独享的支配权；法律只能在最低限度上实施对这种父权的干涉。这种见解实在是太谨慎了，几乎比所有干涉他自身行为自由的意见都更加慎重——在大多数人心目中，权力比自由重要得多。例如，想想教育这件事吧。国家应该要求和强制所有生而为其公民的人接受达到某种程度的教育，这难道不是自明之理吗？然而，有谁毫不畏惧地认识到并坚决提出了这一真理呢？事实上，没有谁会否认，父母（或者，按照法律和习俗的观点，父亲）在把一个人带到这个世界中来之后，其最神圣的责任之一就是给予他某种教育，使他能够在生活中为别人和自己扮演好他的角色。然而，尽管人们一致公认这是为父者的责任，但我国几乎谁都不忍听到某个父亲被迫履行该责任的传闻。没有人要求他为了让孩子接受教育而费尽心力或做出牺牲；恰恰相反，教育是免费提供的，他只需选择接受与否！人们尚未认识到的是：若既无能力为孩子的肉体存活和成长提供食物，又无能力为孩子的心智存在和发展提供教导和训练，在这种黯淡的前景下生育孩子，就是对那个不幸的孩子和对社会的道德犯罪；倘若那个做父亲的没有履行其责任，国家就应在尽量由该父亲承担全部费用的情况下，确保这一责任得到履行。

一旦人们接受了国家强制实施普及教育的职责，那么国家该教授什么内容、以什么方式教授等纷争便会终止；而如今的争执已把教育问题变成了一个诸党众派较量的战场，致使那本应花在教育上的时间与精力，都浪费在了围绕教育发生的争吵上面。倘若国家肯下定决心，要求所有儿童都受到良好教育，那么它就可能省掉了提供教育的麻烦。国家可允许父母在他们满意的地方、以他们满意的方式让孩子获得教育；国家自己则满足于帮助贫困儿童缴纳学费，支付那些无其他收入来源孩子们的全部学杂费用。那些合理反对国家教育的主张，并没有请求国家强制推行教育，而是请求它主动承担指导教育的责任，二者完全不同。我同任何人一样，坚决反对“应把全部或任意大部分的教育民众权交到国家手里”的意见。前文就保持个人特征、观点多元和行为方式多样之重要性所讲的一切，实则也包括教育多样化那难以言传的同等的重要性。普及性国家教育完全是一种把民众塑造成如出一辙的人为手段。用来塑造他们的铸模是政府中的主导势力——无论它是某个君主、某个神职人员集团、某个贵族阶层，还是当代人中的大多数——感到满意的形态，所以这个铸模越有效、越成功，那主导势力就越高兴。这样，政府中的主导势力就会确立对心灵的专制统治，继而自然而然地建立起对肉体的专制统治。国家创建并控制的教育倘若果真存在，也只能作为一种试验，与许多相互竞争的试验共存，为了起到范例和激励作用而坚持进行，以便使其他教育试验达到某种优秀标准。事实上，除非全社会普遍处于某种落后状态，不能或不愿为自己提供任何适当的教育机构，否则，政府就不能承担该任务；确实，直到那时，政府作为两大祸患之中的较轻者，才能主动承担起创办中小学校和大学的责任，就像该国在尚未产生适合承担重大工业业务的私营企业形态时，政府才能主动接过创办和经营股份公司的任务。但一般而言，如果该国存在数量足够的合格人才，能够在政府主持下提供教育，那么他们就会有能力、有意愿，在义务教育法为其提供工资保障、国家帮助贫困生支付所有开销的条件下，提供同样优质的义务制教育。

强制实施义务制教育法律的手段非统考莫属。所有儿童都要在很小时参加这些统考。可以规定每名儿童必须在几岁参加考试，以查明他（或她）是否识字。如果考试结果表明某个儿童不识字，那么其父亲就要被处以适量的罚款，必要时让他以工代罚，以便为该儿童接受学校教育付费。统考每年都要举办一次，考试科目逐步增多，考查范围逐步扩大，以便儿童普遍学习和记住某种最低限度的一般知识——实际上即必须掌握的知识。在那一最低限度之外，所有科目还应有各科的自愿考试，凡是能达到某种水平标准的考生，都可以获得一个合格证书。为防止国家通过这些安排不正当地影响舆论，应当把通过某项考试所需的知识范围（即语言及其用法之类工具性知识之外的知识）完全限定为事实类和实证科学类知识，即便那些等级较高的考试也是如此。对宗教、政治和其他有争议话题的考查内容不应是判断各种观点的正误，而应是事实本身，例如，某作者、某学派或某教派根据某理由提出了某论点。在这种制度下，关于所有存在争议的事实，年轻一代面临的窘境就不会比如今这代更糟。他们将与现在一样，被培养成为牧师或持异议者；国家仅需确保他们是有教养的牧师，或有教养的持异议者。如果他们的父母决定让他们学习宗教，那么他们就可以在教授其他知识的同一所学校里，不受任何妨碍地学习宗教。国家若试图影响其公民对有争议问题的结论，就是犯罪；但它可以非常正当地帮助查清和证明，某人具备任一值得关注问题的相关必要知识，能够得出自己的结论。学习哲学的学生不论更赞同洛克[2]还是更赞同康德[3]，或哪位都不赞成，若他有能力通过考查二人学说的考试，就是优秀的学生。若考查一个无神论者学生关于基督教的征兆问题，而不要求他宣称相信那些迹象，则通达事理的人都不会反对此项考试。但我认为，在较高知识分支领域的考试应该是完全自愿的。倘若允许政府阻止任何人从事许多职业，甚至允许它能以不够资格为借口，拒绝任何人从事教师职业，就是把一种极为危险的权力交给了政府。我同威廉·冯·洪堡一样认为：所有参加考试并通过了测验的人，都应该获得学位或其他公开表明持有者具备了科学或职业技能的证书；但是，除了舆论可能对其证明价值的推崇之外，这些文凭不应给予其持有者任何超过竞争对手的优势。

定位不当的自由概念使人们既认识不到父母对孩子应负的道德义务，也无法强制他们负起对孩子的法律责任，这种情况不仅仅出现于教育问题当中。无论何处，只要一直存在着前一问题最为顽固的基础，它也就经常会成为后一问题坚不可摧的根据。导致一个人生存于世这一事情本身，乃是人类生活当中责任最为重大的行为之一。担负起这一责任——把一个或祸端或福分的生命赋予某个生物——乃是对那个生物犯罪，除非那个被赋予生命的生物即将拥有至少是很普通的获得良好生存条件的机会。在一个人口已经过剩或者即将过剩的国家，生育儿女的数量若超过某个很小的数值，且其生存竞争导致了工资减少的后果，那么超额生育便是对那些靠工资过活的劳动者犯下了严重罪行。许多欧陆国家的法律规定，若当事人不能证明他们有能力养活一个家庭，那么他们就不能结婚。这些法规并没有超出国家的合法权力范畴，不论它们是否得当（这个问题主要取决于当地的具体情况和人们的感受），都没有令人厌恶地触犯个人自由。这些法规是国家为禁止某种恶行而采取的干预措施，因为该行为会伤害他人，应当受到谴责，并背负社会耻辱，即便人们认为并不适合对其追加法律惩罚方法。可是，当前人们对自由的看法虽然很容易屈从于外界对私人事务中个人自由的真实侵犯，却会成功抵制试图约束个人之偏好的限制手段——倘若此人沉迷嗜好的后果是一代或几代儿孙在悲惨、堕落的生活中饱受煎熬，并影响到与他过从甚密的亲友的生活，令他们蒙受多种灾祸。人类对自由充满了多么奇怪的敬意！他们对自由又是多么奇怪地缺乏尊重！当我们把这两种现象相比时，可伴以这样的想象：某人拥有伤害他人的绝对必要权利，却丝毫无权在不给他人造成痛苦的情况下取悦自己。

我把一大类关于政府干涉之限度的问题留待最后讨论，是因为它们虽然与本文论题密切相关，但在严格意义上，却不属于本文范畴。在这类问题中，反对政府干涉的理由与自由原则无关；问题的核心不是限制人们的行动，而是要帮助他们；问题的内容是政府是否应当主动或被动地为他们的利益做某事，而不是让他们自己或自发组织起来去完成某事。

许多政府干涉行为尚未达到侵犯个人自由的程度。这时，对其干涉行为的反对意见可以分为三类。

第一类，个人很可能会比政府更好地完成目标事项的情况。一般而言，无人能够比那些本身非常感兴趣的人更胜任某个行业的事务，或更善于判断该怎样或由谁来执行该事务。这一原理表明，立法机关或政府官员曾普遍干预产业界常规作业进程，那是错误的做法。但问题的这一方面已经被政治经济学家们非常充分地阐述清楚了，并且与本文探讨的自由原则没有特殊关联。

第二类反对意见与本文主题关联度更大一些。在许多情况下，虽然人们做某件特定事情的能力平均而言并不如政府官员强，但值得让他们去尝试，而不交由政府完成。这是一种他们教育自己心智的方法，藉此方法，他们能够加强其实践才能、锻炼其判断力、通晓摆在其面前的问题。这就是参加陪审团审案（非政治性案件）、自由的公共地方机构和市政机构、民间志愿社团经营的工业企业和慈善事业的可取之处。这些都不是自由问题，而仅在趋势上与自由有着间接关系；但它们都是发展问题。本文受主题所限，不便对这些属于国民教育范畴的事情详加讨论。实际上，这些事情是对公民的专门培训，是对自由民众的政治教育中的实践部分。这些手段能使他们跳出个人与家庭私利的狭小圈子，逐渐领悟到共同利益的意义和共同事业的经营——使他们习惯于根据公共性或半公共性的动机采取行动，并用使其团结一心而非分崩离析的目标指引他们的行为。若不形成这些习惯和力量，自由宪法将既无法得以实施，也无从得到保护。有些国家的政治自由过于经常地转瞬即逝，就是典型的例子。其原因就在于，这些国家的政治自由并不是以各种局部自由为充分基础建立起来的。正如前文所述，发展的个性化和行为方式的多样化会产生众多益处。这些益处充分表明：由各地管理其完全地方性的事务，由自愿提供资金的人联合管理各大工业企业，都是极为可取的做法。各国的政府工作都大同小异。而若让个人和民间志愿社团参与进来，就会出现形形色色的试验，获得无限多样的经验。国家所能做的有用之事，就是让自己成为一个中心仓库兼敏捷的循环器和扩散器，储存、流通和扩散从大量试验中获得的经验。国家的任务不是仅仅容忍自己的试验，而是帮助每个试验者从其他人的试验中获益。

第三类，也是反对者限制政府干涉的最令人信服的理由，就是多余地增加它自身的权力。这是政府的重大罪行。除了政府的现有功能之外，继续为其增加的每项功能，都会大幅扩散政府对人们种种希望和恐惧的影响，并越来越多地把公众中的积极分子和野心家变成政府的攀附者，或某个志在组阁的政党的攀附者。如果各公路、各铁路、各银行、各保险公司、各大股份公司、各大学、各慈善机构都成为政府的分支；此外，如果各地市政当局、各地方董事会接受了下放给他们的责权利，成为中央行政机关的部门；如果所有这些不同单位的员工都由政府任命和发薪，指望政府给予他们每次升职机会；那么，即便有着完整的出版自由，即便立法机构由平民组成，也不都能使英国或任何其他国家获得真正的自由，而非名义上的自由。行政机构的构造越高效、越科学——它为自身获取能力最强的专业人才和领袖人物所做的安排越巧妙——它所产生的罪恶就越严重。在英国，最近有人提议，政府文职部门的所有人员都应当通过竞争性考试选拔，以便为那些岗位获得才智最超群、教养最良好的可得人才。对此提议，人们或口头或书面地表达了大量的赞成意见和反对意见。反对者们强调最多的论据之一是，终生充当国家公务员的工作，并不能提供获取足够高薪水、居足够高职位的光明前景，所以难以吸引顶尖人才；顶级人才总是能够在那些专业性很强的职业或公司及其他公共机构中找到更具吸引力的毕生事业。如果这条证据被提议者们用来回答针对其提议的诘难，谁都不会感到奇怪；可令人称奇的是，这条证据竟然来自反对者一边。有条被竭力主张的反对意见是：这套选拔考试体制的安全阀是什么？确实，倘若一个国家的全部高素质人才都能够被吸引到政府公务员队伍中，那么旨在产生此种结果的提议很可能会令人焦虑不安。社会事业需要有条不紊、同心协力的团队，或视野开阔、考虑周全的人才，倘若这项事业的方方面面都掌握在政府手里，倘若所有的政府岗位都让最有才干的人占据，那么本国所有的开明教养和熟练天才都会集中在无数的官僚身上。社会的其他成员只能从他们那里寻求一切：群众向他们寻求执行各种任务的指示和命令；有才干有志向的人向他们寻求个人晋升的机会。获准进入这个官僚体制，并在成为其中一员后青云直上，就成为人们雄心壮志中的惟一目标。在这种体制下，不仅外部民众因缺乏实践经验而无法恰切地批判或制止整个官僚机构的运转模式，而且即便专制机构的意外事件或平民机构的正常工作偶尔把一个或一群具有改革意向的统治者推上了权力之巅，也不会产生任何违反官僚集团利益的改革。这就是俄罗斯帝国的悲惨境况，那些拥有充分条件的观察者就是这样描述它的。沙皇自己根本无法对抗整个官僚集团；他能够把他们中的任何人流放到西伯利亚，却不能抛开他们或违背他们的意愿，独自统治国家。对于他的任何命令，他们都心照不宣地默然否决——他们只需毫不作为、不加执行就够了。在文明程度更高、造反精神更强的国家，民众已经习惯了等待国家为他们做好一切，或至少是：国家若不请求他们做某事，甚至虽然请求过但没有告诉他们如何做，他们就不会为自己做此事。这些国家的民众自然而然地相信，国家应该对所有发生在他们身上的坏事负责；倘若那些坏事令他们忍无可忍，他们就会起而反抗政府，造成可谓革命的事件。于是，统治者之外的某个人，不论有否得到全国民众认可的合法权威，就会跃上统治者的宝座，向官僚集团发号施令，一切又像从前那样运转起来。官僚集团依然如故，外来者谁都无法取而代之。

在一个惯于自己办理所有事务的民族中，会发现一派迥异景象。在法国，大多数民众都服过兵役，其中许多人至少获得过军士军衔；所以每次民众起义中都会有一群干将带头，当场制定出某项不错的行动计划。正如法国人在军事上富有才干，美国人在所有种类的国家事务上都极富才干。倘若美国人没有政府，任何美国人团体都能当场组成一个政府，机智灵活、条理井然、坚决果断地继续进行面前那项或其他的公共事务。他们是所有自由民族应该学习的榜样，能够这样做的民族定然是自由的民族；自由的民众绝不容许自己受到任何人或任何组织的奴役，因为他们足以掌握和驾驭中枢行政机构。哪个官僚集团都无法希望让这样的民众执行或忍受他们不喜欢的任何事情。但是，不论哪个国家，只要凡事都得通过官僚机构实行，那么对官僚集团不利的任何事情都根本无法实行。这类国家的宪法是一种组织，它把全体国民的经验和实践能力组织起来，交给一个训练有素的团体，让他们来控制其他民众。那个组织自身越完备，越能成功地从全社会所有阶层中为自己吸引和训练最有才干的人员，它就越彻底地奴役着全体国民——包括官僚集团的所有成员。这是因为，统治者是自己组织和纪律的奴隶，正如被统治者是统治者的奴隶。中国的政府高官同其最低贱的农民一样，都是专制制度的工具和产物。单个的耶稣会士是修会中极度卑微的奴隶，虽然修会自身因其所有成员的集体力量和名望而存在[4]。

而且，我们不能忘记，将全国之主要干才集中于管理团体，早晚会毁灭该团体自身的精神动力和先进性质。这个被聚集在一起的群体——他们操纵着一个系统，而那个系统像所有系统一样，必须在很大程度上按固定的规则运行——这个官员团体一直处于这些诱惑之下：沉沦到懒散的常规日程之中消磨时光；或者，如果他们时而丢开那种拉磨马儿转不完的磨坊路，能有某个领导者突发奇想，带领团队不经思考地率直行动。对这两种乍看相反、实则紧密相联的倾向，惟一的制约手段，同时也是能够保持团队自身能力处于很高水平的惟一激励因素，就是向来自本团体之外、与其能力旗鼓相当的警示与批判负责。因此，必须要存在某种独立于政府的手段，以塑造这一能力，为之提供机会和经验，使之对各种重大的实践性事务做出正确判断。倘若我们能永远拥有一个老练、高效的官吏团体——它首先是一个有能力主动进步、有意愿采纳改良措施的团体，如果我们不希望我们的官僚机构堕落为一个迂腐的学究统治集团，就必须禁止这个群体垄断所有能够塑造和培养治理人类所需的各种才能的职业。

社会在其公认领袖人物的指挥下，凝心聚力，全力铲除阻挠社会福祉的障碍。威胁着人类自由和进步的种种可怕罪恶到底从何而起？或曰，它们从何时开始超过了社会运用其力量时伴生的益处呢？怎样确定这一时刻，怎样既尽可能多地获得权力和智力集中的种种好处，又防止过多的社会活动转入政府渠道，乃是管理艺术中最困难、最复杂的问题之一。在很大程度上，这是个细节问题，在处理这个问题时，有很多不同的因素必须要加以考虑，而且无法制定绝对的规则。但我相信，包含着安全的实践原则、需要牢记的理想目标、用来检验为克服困难而做出的所有部署的标准，都可以在下列语句中得到表达：为实现高效率而最大限度地分权，但要尽最大可能地集中情报并从中心传播出去。因此，在内政方面，需要像新英格兰各州那样，在各地选出的不同政府官员之间进行极为精细的分工，让他们负责所有不适合由直接利益相关者管理的事务；但除此之外，在各个地方事务部门中还要设立一个监管中心，构成政府整体中的一个分支。这个监管机构会如同聚焦一般把各种情报和经验汇集到一起：有的来自各地的公共事务部门，有的来自与外国做法相似的一切，有的来自政治学的一般原则。该中枢机构应该有权了解所发生的一切事情，其特殊职责应该是令一个地区获得的消息能为其他地区所知晓。居高临下的地位和全方位的观察视角使此中枢监管机构摆脱了地方性的琐碎偏见和狭隘视野，所以其建议应该自然而然地权威可靠。但我觉得，它作为一个常设机构，只能强制地方官员服从那些为指引他们而制定的法律，这就是它实际权力应到达的极限。对于普遍性法规之外的事物，应该允许那些官员自主裁量，对他们的选民负责；他们若违反法规，就应受到法律的制裁——那些法规本身应该由立法机构制定。中枢监管部门只负责监管这些法规的执行情况；倘若它们未能得以正确实施，该部门就要根据案件性质，诉请特别法庭秉公执法，或诉请选民们罢免那些歪曲法律精神、滥权执法的官吏。这就是英国成立济贫法事务局，从而对全国收取贫民救济税的行政官吏实行中央监管的总体构想。在那个特殊案件中，无论该事务局越界使用了什么权力，都是正当、必要的；因为它必须要彻底消除弊政之根深蒂固的种种陋习——很多不仅深刻影响着各个地区，而且影响着全英国的事务都深受其荼毒。在道德上，哪个地方都没有权利用错误的管理方式在本地筑起一个贫穷的温床，并不可避免地让贫穷蔓延到其他地方，损害整个劳工群体的道德与身体状态。济贫法事务局拥有行政强制权和从属立法权（但这些权力因受到了舆论对此问题的看法态势影响，几乎没有使用过），虽然用在某桩引发全国高度关注的案件中完全正当合理，但若用在对纯属地方利益的监管中，则是完全失当。然而，一个为所有地区提供情报和指示的中央机构，对所有行政部门而言都同样是宝贵的。那类不会妨碍个人的努力与发展，而会帮助和激励其努力与发展的活动，政府不能举办太多。一旦政府不是唤起个人和团体的自发活动与自身力量，而是代之以它自己的活动；一旦它不用影响、规劝手段或在必要时用谴责手段使他们劳作，而是让他们戴着枷锁劳作，或命令他们退到一边，替他们完成工作；这时危害就会出现。长远看，国家的价值就是其所有成员个人价值的总和。一个国家若将拓展和提升国民心智的利益置于次要位置，却把行政技能或体现在繁琐事务中的类似实践技能这类细枝末节放在首位；一个国家若为使国民变成自己手中更温驯的工具——即便出于对他们有利的目的——而阻遏他们成长；那么它将会发觉：这群卑微弱小的国民令它无法真正成就任何伟大的事业；而它牺牲一切建造得尽善尽美的政府机制，到头来毫无益处；因为那个机制完全没有生命力——为了让它运转得更加平稳，国家已经根除了这一关键要素。

[1]边沁（Jeremy Bentham, 1748—1832年）：英国哲学家、法理学家、经济学家、社会改革家，现代功利主义哲学创始人。他的政治思想激进，积极影响了社会福利制度的发展。除了著名的“最大幸福原则”论之外，他提倡个人和经济自由、政教分离、言论自由、男女权利平等、动物权利等主张，呼吁废除奴隶制、死刑、体罚等制度。著有《政府片论》（1776年）、《道德与立法原则导论》（1780年，1789年）等。他影响了詹姆斯·穆勒及其子约翰·斯图亚特·穆勒、罗伯特·欧文、米歇尔·福柯等一大批人。——译者注

[2]洛克（John Locke, 1632—1704年）：英国哲学家，欧洲启蒙时代最伟大的思想家之一，被称作“古典自由主义之父”。他的思想尤其对认识论和政治哲学贡献巨大，伏尔泰、卢梭、苏格兰启蒙思想家群体、美国革命者们等都深受他的影响。主要作品：《论宗教宽容》（1689年）、《政府论》（1689年）、《人类理解论》（1690年）等。——译者注

[3]康德（Immanuel Kant, 1724—1804年）：德国哲学家，近代西方哲学的核心人物，对形而上学、认识论、伦理学、政治学、美学均有巨大而深远的影响。主要作品：《纯粹理性批判》（1781年）、《实践理性批判》（1788年）、《判断力批判》（1790年）等。——译者注

[4]耶稣会（the Society of Jesus）是天主教中的一个男修会，由原西班牙贵族骑士、后成为隐士和神父的伊格内修斯·罗耀拉（Ignatius of Loyola，1491—1556年）于1534年与另外六人共同创建，1540年被教皇保罗三世正式批准。因为罗耀拉的军事背景，耶稣会仿照军队建制，实行高度的中央集权，有着严密的组织和纪律；其成员要“希望成为天主（上帝）的战士”，要绝对服从上级，要特别努力地捍卫天主教信仰的传播，时刻准备在世界各地接受天主和总会长的命令，包括忍受各种极端境况。罗耀拉1541年就任耶稣会第一任总会长（Superior General，字面义：“高级将军”）。耶稣会会员称为耶稣会士（Jesuit），属于托钵僧，他们誓守贫穷、贞洁、顺从的生活，还特别立誓，绝对服从教皇的差遣。作为16世纪宗教改革运动中发展起来的组织，耶稣会吸取了改革派的成功经验，注重传教和神学研究，并为此目的，在世界各地开办学校、大学和神学院等机构，一度是天主教会中最具文化修养的群体。——译者注

To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings – the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward – I dedicate this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it, than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom.

‘The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.’

Wilhelm von Humboldt,

Sphere and Duties of Government

I

Introductory

The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the Government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest, who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks, by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and, to attain this, or when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations beyond this point.

A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which it still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to what a government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentiment might by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if the circumstances which for a time encouraged it, had continued unaltered.

But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons, success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no need to limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed at some distant period of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those of the French Revolution, the worst of which were the work of an usurping few, and which, in any case, belonged, not to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a sudden and convulsive outbreak against monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's surface, and made itself felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of nations; and elective and responsible government became subject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It was now perceived that such phrases as 'self-government', and 'the power of the people over themselves', do not express the true state of the case. The 'people' who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the 'self-government' spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This view of things, recommending itself equally to the intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important classes in European society to whose real or supposed interests democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and in political speculations 'the tyranny of the majority' is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant - society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it - its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms, the practical question, where to place the limit - how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control - is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind impose on one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one on which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own preference, thus supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notions of morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his religious creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that. Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blameable, are affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason - at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom their antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves - their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most part the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members of the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or where its ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance, which have been enforced by law or opinion, has been the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility, though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and heretics. Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious interests of society have of course had a share, and a large one, in the direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a matter of reason, and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and antipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which had little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great force.

The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling, have left this condition of things unassailed in principle, however they may have come into conflict with it in some of its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. They preferred endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which the higher ground has been taken on principle and maintained with consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that of religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not least so as forming a most striking instance of the fallibility of what is called the moral sense: for the odium theologicum, in a sincere bigot, is one of the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who first broke the yoke of what called itself the Universal Church, were in general as little willing to permit difference of religious opinion as that church itself. But when the heat of the conflict was over, without giving a complete victory to any party, and each church or sect was reduced to limit its hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they could not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this battle field, almost solely, that the rights of the individual against society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle, and the claim of society to exercise authority over dissentients, openly controverted. The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is admitted with tacit reserves. One person will bear with dissent in matters of church government, but not of dogma; another can tolerate everybody, short of a Papist or an Unitarian; another, every one who believes in revealed religion; a few extend their charity a little further, but stop at the belief in a God and in a future state. Wherever the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.

In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history, though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter, than in most other countries of Europe; and there is considerable jealousy of direct interference, by the legislative or the executive power, with private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the independence of the individual, as from the still subsisting habit of looking on the government as representing an opposite interest to the public. The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the government their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the government, as it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there is a considerable amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any attempt of the law to control individuals in things in which they have not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by it; and this with very little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within the legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the feeling, highly salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite as often misplaced as well grounded in the particular instances of its application. There is, in fact, no recognized principle by which the propriety or impropriety of government interference is customarily tested. People decide according to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount of social evil, rather than add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental control. And men range themselves on one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the government should do, or according to the belief they entertain that the government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere, as to what things are fit to be done by a government. And it seems to me that in consequence of this absence of rule or principle, one side is at present as often wrong as the other; the interference of government is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly condemned.

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.

It is proper to state that I forgo any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I contend, authorize the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, only in respect to those actions of each, which concern the interest of other people. If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellowcreature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself should step into the vacant judgment seat, and protect those interests of others which have no external protection; judging himself all the more rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made accountable to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.

But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.

No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its citizens; a mode of thinking which may have been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies, in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and self-command might so easily be fatal, that they could not afford to wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world, the greater size of political communities, and above all, the separation between spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of men's consciences in other hands than those which controlled their worldly affairs), prevented so great an interference by law in the details of private life; but the engines of moral repression have been wielded more strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in self-regarding, than even in social matters; religion, the most powerful of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling, having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers who have placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions of the past, have been noway behind either churches or sects in their assertion of the right of spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social system, as unfolded in his Système de Politique Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.

Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.

It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at once entering upon the general thesis, we confine ourselves in the first instance to a single branch of it, on which the principle here stated is, if not fully, yet to a certain point, recognized by the current opinions. This one branch is the Liberty of Thought: from which it is impossible to separate the cognate liberty of speaking and of writing. Although these liberties, to some considerable amount, form part of the political morality of all countries which profess religious toleration and free institutions, the grounds, both philosophical and practical, on which they rest, are perhaps not so familiar to the general mind, nor so thoroughly appreciated by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might have been expected. Those grounds, when rightly understood, are of much wider application than to only one division of the subject, and a thorough consideration of this part of the question will be found the best introduction to the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am about to say will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on a subject which for now three centuries has been so often discussed, I venture on one discussion more.

II

Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion

The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the 'liberty of the press' as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their propriety;[1] and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be apprehended, that the government, whether completely responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible.

They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common.

Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgment, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. Absolute princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects. People more happily situated, who sometimes hear their opinions disputed, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they are wrong, place the same un bounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on the infallibility of 'the world' in general. And the world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his party, his sect, his church, his class of society: the man may be called, by comparison, almost liberal and large-minded to whom it means anything so comprehensive as his own country or his own age. Nor is his faith in this collective authority at all shaken by his being aware that other ages, countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have thought, and even now think, the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own world the responsibility of being in the right against the dissentient worlds of other people; and it never troubles him that mere accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. Yet it is as evident in itself, as any amount of argument can make it, that ages are no more infallible than individuals; every age having held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.

The objection likely to be made to this argument, would probably take some such form as the following. There is no greater assumption of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error, than in any other thing which is done by public authority on its own judgment and responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all? To prohibit what they think pernicious, is not claiming exemption from error, but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them, although fallible, of acting on their conscientious conviction. If we were never to act on our opinions, because those opinions may be wrong, we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties unperformed. An objection which applies to all conduct, can be no valid objection to any conduct in particular. It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to form the truest opinions they can; to form them carefully, and never impose them upon others unless they are quite sure of being right. But when they are sure (such reasoners may say), it is not conscientiousness but cowardice to shrink from acting on their opinions, and allow doctrines which they honestly think dangerous to the welfare of mankind, either in this life or in another, to be scattered abroad without restraint, because other people, in less enlightened times, have persecuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take care, it may be said, not to make the same mistake: but governments and nations have made mistakes in other things, which are not denied to be fit subjects for the exercise of authority: they have laid on bad taxes, made unjust wars. Ought we therefore to lay on no taxes, and, under whatever provocation, make no wars? Men, and governments, must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. We may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own conduct: and it is assuming no more when we forbid bad men to pervert society by the propagation of opinions which we regard as false and pernicious.

I answer, that it is assuming very much more. There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.

When we consider either the history of opinion, or the ordinary conduct of human life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one and the other are no worse than they are? Not certainly to the inherent force of the human understanding; for, on any matter not self-evident, there are ninety-nine persons totally incapable of judging of it, for one who is capable; and the capacity of the hundredth person is only comparative; for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things which no one will now justify. Why is it, then, that there is on the whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational conduct? If there really is this preponderance - which there must be unless human affairs are, and have always been, in an almost desperate state - it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognizant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers - knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter - he has a right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.

It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant their relying on it, should be submitted to by that miscellaneous collection of a few wise and many foolish individuals, called the public. The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a 'devil's advocate'. The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance of its truth as they now do. The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching us: if the lists are kept open, we may hope that if there be a better truth, it will be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it; and in the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to truth, as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty attainable by a fallible being, and this the sole way of attaining it.

Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.

In the present age - which has been described as 'destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism' - in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them - the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty, something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise. This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. But those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the opinion condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will not do to say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions, never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find them handling the question of utility as if it could be completely abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all, because their doctrine is the 'truth', that the knowledge or the belief of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive guilt of rejecting it.

In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a hearing to opinions because we, in our own judgment, have condemned them, it will be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete case; and I choose, by preference, the cases which are least favourable to me - in which the argument against freedom of opinion, both on the score of truth and on that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief in a God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality. To fight the battle on such ground, gives a great advantage to an unfair antagonist; since he will be sure to say (and many who have no desire to be unfair will say it internally), Are these the doctrines which you do not deem sufficiently certain to be taken under the protection of law? Is the belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which, you hold to be assuming infallibility? But I must be permitted to observe, that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the less, if put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However positive any one's persuasion may be, not only of the falsity but of the pernicious consequences - not only of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of an opinion; yet if, in pursuance of that private judgment, though backed by the public judgment of his country or his cotemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal. These are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes, which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity. It is among such that we find the instances memorable in history, when the arm of the law has been employed to root out the best men and the noblest doctrines; with deplorable success as to the men, though some of the doctrines have survived to be (as if in mockery) invoked, in defence of similar conduct towards those who dissent from them, or from their received interpretation.

Mankind can hardly be too often reminded, that there was once a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public opinion of his time, there took place a memorable collision. Born in an age and country abounding in individual greatness, this man has been handed down to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous man in it; while we know him as the head and prototype of all subsequent teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty inspiration of Plato and the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, 'i maëstri di color che sanno', the two headsprings of ethical as of all other philosophy. This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have since lived - whose fame, still growing after more than two thousand years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which make his native city illustrious - was put to death by his countrymen, after a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying the gods recognized by the State; indeed his accuser asserted (see the Apologia) that he believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in being, by his doctrines and instructions, a 'corrupter of youth'. Of these charges the tribunal, there is every ground for believing, honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all then born had deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal.

To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial iniquity, the mention of which, after the condemnation of Socrates, would not be an anti-climax: the event which took place on Calvary rather more than eighteen hundred years ago. The man who left on the memory of those who witnessed his life and conversation, such an impression of his moral grandeur, that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to him as the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what? As a blasphemer. Men did not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook him for the exact contrary of what he was, and treated him as that prodigy of impiety, which they themselves are now held to be, for their treatment of him. The feelings with which mankind now regard these lamentable transactions, especially the later of the two, render them extremely unjust in their judgment of the unhappy actors. These were, to all appearance, not bad men - not worse than men commonly are, but rather the contrary; men who possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a full measure, the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of their time and people: the very kind of men who, in all times, our own included, have every chance of passing through life blameless and respected. The high-priest who rent his garments when the words were pronounced, which, according to all the ideas of his country, constituted the blackest guilt, was in all probability quite as sincere in his horror and indignation, as the generality of respectable and pious men now are in the religious and moral sentiments they profess; and most of those who now shudder at his conduct, if they had lived in his time, and been born Jews, would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox Christians who are tempted to think that those who stoned to death the first martyrs must have been worse men than they themselves are, ought to remember that one of those persecutors was Saint Paul.

Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue of him who falls into it. If ever any one, possessed of power, had grounds for thinking himself the best and most enlightened among his cotemporaries, it was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole civilized world, he preserved through life not only the most unblemished justice, but what was less to be expected from his Stoical breeding, the tenderest heart. The few failings which are attributed to him, were all on the side of indulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical product of the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they differ at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ. This man, a better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of the word, than almost any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have since reigned, persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of all the previous attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good and not an evil to the world, with his duties to which he was so deeply penetrated. Existing society he knew to be in a deplorable state. But such as it was, he saw, or thought he saw, that it was held together, and prevented from being worse, by belief and reverence of the received divinities. As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his duty not to suffer society to fall in pieces; and saw not how, if its existing ties were removed, any others could be formed which could again knit it together. The new religion openly aimed at dissolving these ties: unless, therefore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to be his duty to put it down. Inasmuch then as the theology of Christianity did not appear to him true or of divine origin; inasmuch as this strange history of a crucified God was not credible to him, and a system which purported to rest entirely upon a foundation to him so wholly unbelievable, could not be foreseen by him to be that renovating agency which, after all abatements, it has in fact proved to be; the gentlest and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under a solemn sense of duty, authorized the persecution of Christianity. To my mind this is one of the most tragical facts in all history. It is a bitter thought, how different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. But it would be equally unjust to him and false to truth, to deny, that no one plea which can be urged for punishing anti-Christian teaching, was wanting to Marcus Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the propagation of Christianity. No Christian more firmly believes that Atheism is false, and tends to the dissolution of society, than Marcus Aurelius believed the same things of Christianity; he who, of all men then living, might have been thought the most capable of appreciating it. Unless any one who approves of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus Aurelius - more deeply versed in the wisdom of his time, more elevated in his intellect above it - more earnest in his search for truth, or more single-minded in his devotion to it when found; - let him abstain from that assumption of the joint infallibility of himself and the multitude, which the great Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result.

Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment for restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument which will not justify Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of religious freedom, when hard pressed, occasionally accept this consequence, and say, with Dr Johnson, that the persecutors of Christianity were in the right; that persecution is an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always passes successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, powerless against truth, though sometimes beneficially effective against mischievous errors. This is a form of the argument for religious intolerance, sufficiently remarkable not to be passed without notice.

A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be persecuted because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm, cannot be charged with being intentionally hostile to the reception of new truths; but we cannot commend the generosity of its dealing with the persons to whom mankind are indebted for them. To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow-creatures, and in certain cases, as in those of the early Christians and of the Reformers, those who think with Dr Johnson believe it to have been the most precious gift which could be bestowed on mankind. That the authors of such splendid benefits should be requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt with as the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error and misfortune, for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes, but the normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a new truth, according to this doctrine, should stand, as stood, in the legislation of the Locrians, the proposer of a new law, with a halter round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did not, on hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition. People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, cannot be supposed to set much value on the benefit; and I believe this view of the subject is mostly confined to the sort of persons who think that new truths may have been desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.

But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To speak only of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out at least twenty times before Luther, and was put down. Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra Dolcino was put down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois were put down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards were put down. The Hussites were put down. Even after the era of Luther, wherever persecution was persisted in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy, Flanders, the Austrian empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and, most likely, would have been so in England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen Elizabeth died. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated in the Roman Empire. It spread, and became predominant, because the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism. It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.

It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers of new opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets, we even build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put heretics to death; and the amount of penal infliction which modern feeling would probably tolerate, even against the most obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to extirpate them. But let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain even of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at least for its expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is not, even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible that they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, at the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate man,[2] said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of life, was sentenced to twenty-one months' imprisonment, for uttering, and writing on a gate, some offensive words concerning Christianity. Within a month of the same time, at the Old Bailey, two persons, on two separate occasions,[3] were rejected as jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted by the judge and by one of the counsel, because they honestly declared that they had no theological belief; and a third, a foreigner,[4] for the same reason, was denied justice against a thief. This refusal of redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person can be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does not profess belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions, be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who does not believe in a future state; a proposition which betokens much ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honour); and would be maintained by no one who had the smallest conception how many of the persons in greatest repute with the world, both for virtues and for attainments, are well known, at least to their intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood. A rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its professed purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of hatred, a relic of persecution; a persecution, too, having the peculiarity, that the qualification for undergoing it, is the being clearly proved not to deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies, are hardly less insulting to believers than to infidels. For if he who does not believe in a future state, necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the injury of supposing, that the conception which they have formed of Christian virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.

These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and may be thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to persecute, as an example of that very frequent infirmity of English minds, which makes them take a preposterous pleasure in the assertion of a bad principle, when they are no longer bad enough to desire to carry it really into practice. But unhappily there is no security in the state of the public mind, that the suspension of worse forms of legal persecution, which has lasted for about the space of a generation, will continue. In this age the quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to resuscitate past evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted of at the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and where there is the strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of persecution.[5] For it is this - it is the opinions men entertain, and the feelings they cherish, respecting those who disown the beliefs they deem important, which makes this country not a place of mental freedom. For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that they strengthen the social stigma. It is that stigma which is really effective, and so effective is it, that the profession of opinions which are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than is, in many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people, opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those whose bread is already secured, and who desire no favours from men in power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing to fear from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill-thought of and ill-spoken of, and this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to enable them to bear. There is no room for any appeal ad misericordiam in behalf of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil on those who think differently from us, as it was formerly our custom to do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the Christian church grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the general principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.

Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil, should consider in the first place, that in consequence of it there is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or im moral? Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been, and may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere, an intellectually active people. When any people has made a temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings. Of such we have had an example in the condition of Europe during the times immediately following the Reformation; another, though limited to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the speculative movement of the latter half of the eighteenth century; and a third, of still briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These periods differed widely in the particular opinions which they developed; but were alike in this, that during all three the yoke of authority was broken. In each, an old mental despotism had been thrown off, and no new one had yet taken its place. The impulse given at these three periods has made Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken place either in the human mind or in institutions, may be traced distinctly to one or other of them. Appearances have for some time indicated that all three impulses are well nigh spent; and we can expect no fresh start, until we again assert our mental freedom.

Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing the supposition that any of the received opinions may be false, let us assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the manner in which they are likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and openly canvassed. However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.

There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly) who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion, and could not make a tenable defence of it against the most superficial objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed taught from authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however, this possibility - assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against, argument - this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.

If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cultivated, a thing which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can these faculties be more appropriately exercised by any one, than on the things which concern him so much that it is considered necessary for him to hold opinions on them? If the cultivation of the understanding consists in one thing more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of one's own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against at least the common objections. But, some one may say, 'Let them be taught the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow that opinions must be merely parroted because they are never heard controverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply commit the theorems to memory, but understand and learn likewise the demonstrations; and it would be absurd to say that they remain ignorant of the grounds of geometrical truths, because they never hear any one deny, and attempt to disprove them.' Undoubtedly: and such teaching suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always studied his adversary's case with as great, if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred. All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides the judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it ever really known, but to those who have attended equally and impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in the strongest light. So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's advocate can conjure up.

To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither knowledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised, may repose in the assurance that all those which have been raised have been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.

Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed for it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at least the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in their most puzzling form; and this cannot be accomplished unless they are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they admit of. The Catholic Church has its own way of dealing with this embarrassing problem. It makes a broad separation between those who can be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and may, therefore, read heretical books; the laity, not unless by special permission, hard to be obtained. This discipline recognizes a knowledge of the enemy's case as beneficial to the teachers, but finds means, consistent with this, of denying it to the rest of the world: thus giving to the élite more mental culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to the mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental superiority which its purposes require; for though culture without freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a clever nisi prius advocate of a cause. But in countries professing Protestantism, this resource is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory, that the responsibility for the choice of a religion must be borne by each for himself, and cannot be thrown off upon teachers. Besides, in the present state of the world, it is practically impossible that writings which are read by the instructed can be kept from the uninstructed. If the teachers of mankind are to be cognizant of all that they ought to know, everything must be free to be written and published without restraint.

If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free discussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined to leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it might be thought that this, if an intellectual, is no moral evil, and does not affect the worth of the opinions, regarded in their influence on the character. The fact, however, is, that not only the grounds of the opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the meaning of the opinion itself. The words which convey it, cease to suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of those they were originally employed to communicate. Instead of a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain only a few phrases retained by rote; or, if any part, the shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer essence being lost. The great chapter in human history which this fact occupies and fills, cannot be too earnestly studied and meditated on.

It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines and religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality to those who originate them, and to the direct disciples of the originators. Their meaning continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps brought out into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendancy over other creeds. At last it either prevails, and becomes the general opinion, or its progress stops; it keeps possession of the ground it has gained, but ceases to spread further. When either of these results has become apparent, controversy on the subject flags, and gradually dies away.

The doctrine has taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of the admitted sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold it have generally inherited, not adopted it; and conversion from one of these doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at first, constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the world, or to bring the world over to them, they have subsided into acquiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it, to arguments against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if there be such) with arguments in its favour. From this time may usually be dated the decline in the living power of the doctrine. We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognize, so that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still fighting for its existence: even the weaker combatants then know and feel what they are fighting for, and the difference between it and other doctrines; and in that period of every creed's existence, not a few persons may be found, who have realized its fundamental principles in all the forms of thought, have weighed and considered them in all their important bearings, and have experienced the full effect on the character, which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has come to be an hereditary creed, and to be received passively, not actively - when the mind is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed with the necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being. Then are seen the cases, so frequent in this age of the world as almost to form the majority, in which the creed remains as it were outside the mind, incrusting and petrifying it against all other influences addressed to the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power by not suffering any fresh and living conviction to get in, but itself doing nothing for the mind or heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them vacant.

To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without being ever realized in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding, is exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers hold the doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is accounted such by all churches and sects - the maxims and precepts contained in the New Testament. These are considered sacred, and accepted as laws, by all professing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say that not one Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it, is the custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. He has thus, on the one hand, a collection of ethical maxims, which he believes to have been vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his government; and on the other, a set of everyday judgments and practices, which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so great a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, and are, on the whole, a compromise between the Christian creed and the interests and suggestions of worldly life. To the first of these standards he gives his homage; to the other his real allegiance. All Christians believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are ill-used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; that they should judge not, lest they be judged; that they should swear not at all; that they should love their neighbour as themselves; that if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they should take no thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect, they should sell all that they have and give it to the poor. They are not insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do believe them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded and never discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regulates conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it is usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are serviceable to pelt adversaries with; and it is understood that they are to be put forward (when possible) as the reasons for whatever people do that they think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the maxims require an infinity of things which they never even think of doing, would gain nothing but to be classed among those very unpopular characters who affect to be better than other people. The doctrines have no hold on ordinary believers - are not a power in their minds. They have an habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads from the words to the things signified, and forces the mind to take them in, and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr A and B to direct them how far to go in obeying Christ.

Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but far otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been thus, Christianity never would have expanded from an obscure sect of the despised Hebrews into the religion of the Roman empire. When their enemies said, 'See how these Christians love one another' (a remark not likely to be made by anybody now), they assuredly had a much livelier feeling of the meaning of their creed than they have ever had since. And to this cause, probably, it is chiefly owing that Christianity now makes so little progress in extending its domain, and after eighteen centuries, is still nearly confined to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with the strictly religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines, and attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than people in general, it commonly happens that the part which is thus comparatively active in their minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox, or some such person much nearer in character to themselves. The sayings of Christ co-exist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland. There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of a sect retain more of their vitality than those common to all recognized sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their meaning alive; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar doctrines are more questioned, and have to be oftener defended against open gainsayers. Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is no enemy in the field.

The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional doctrines - those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as of morals or religion. All languages and literatures are full of general observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct oneself in it; observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or hears with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which most people first truly learn the meaning, when experience, generally of a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his life, the meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed reasons for this, other than the absence of discussion: there are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized, until personal experience has brought it home. But much more of the meaning even of these would have been understood, and what was understood would have been far more deeply impressed on the mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued pro and con by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A cotemporary author has well spoken of 'the deep slumber of a decided opinion'.

But what! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity an indispensable condition of true knowledge? Is it necessary that some part of mankind should persist in error, to enable any to realize the truth? Does a belief cease to be real and vital as soon as it is generally received - and is a proposition never thoroughly understood and felt unless some doubt of it remains? As soon as mankind have unanimously accepted a truth, does the truth perish within them? The highest aim and best result of improved intelligence, it has hitherto been thought, is to unite mankind more and more in the acknowledgement of all important truths: and does the intelligence only last as long as it has not achieved its object? Do the fruits of conquest perish by the very completeness of the victory?

I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number of doctrines which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the increase: and the well-being of mankind may almost be measured by the number and gravity of the truths which have reached the point of being uncontested. The cessation, on one question after another, of serious controversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolidation of opinion; a consolidation as salutary in the case of true opinions, as it is dangerous and noxious when the opinions are erroneous. But though this gradual narrowing of the bounds of diversity of opinion is necessary in both senses of the term, being at once inevitable and indispensable, we are not therefore obliged to conclude that all its consequences must be beneficial. The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents, though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefit of its universal recognition. Where this advantage can no longer be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind endeavouring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance for making the difficulties of the question as present to the learner's consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient champion, eager for his conversion.

But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so magnificently exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this description. They were essentially a negative discussion of the great questions of philosophy and life, directed with consummate skill to the purpose of convincing any one who had merely adopted the commonplaces of received opinion, that he did not understand the subject - that he as yet attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed; in order that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputations of the middle ages had a somewhat similar object. They were intended to make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary correlation) the opinion opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of the one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed to were taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a discipline to the mind, they were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which formed the intellects of the 'Socratici viri': but the modern mind owes far more to both than it is generally willing to admit, and the present modes of education contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies the place either of the one or of the other. A person who derives all his instruction from teachers or books, even if he escape the besetting temptation of contenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion to hear both sides; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplishment, even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the weakest part of what everybody says in defence of his opinion, is what he intends as a reply to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logic - that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical departments of speculation. On any other subject no one's opinions deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either had forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active controversy with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, it is so indispensable, but so difficult, to create, how worse than absurd it is to forgo, when spontaneously offering itself! If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves.

It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes which make diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do so until mankind shall have entered a stage of intellectual advancement which at present seems at an incalculable distance. We have hitherto considered only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and the other false, share the truth between them; and the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part. Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth. They are a part of the truth; sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller part, but exaggerated, distorted, and disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied and limited. Heretical opinions, on the other hand, are generally some of these suppressed and neglected truths, bursting the bonds which kept them down, and either seeking reconciliation with the truth contained in the common opinion, or fronting it as enemies, and setting themselves up, with similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth. The latter case is hitherto the most frequent, as, in the human mind, one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another rises. Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes, one partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement consisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it displaces. Such being the partial character of prevailing opinions, even when resting on a true foundation, every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended. No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to be indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which we see. Rather, he will think that so long as popular truth is one-sided, it is more desirable than otherwise that unpopular truth should have one-sided asserters too; such being usually the most energetic, and the most likely to compel reluctant attention to the fragment of wisdom which they proclaim as if it were the whole.

Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed, and all those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost in admiration of what is called civilization, and of the marvels of modern science, literature, and philosophy, and while greatly overrating the amount of unlikeness between the men of modern and those of ancient times, indulged the belief that the whole of the difference was in their own favour; with what a salutary shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode like bombshells in the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion, and forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with additional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were on the whole farther from the truth than Rousseau's were; on the contrary, they were nearer to it; they contained more of positive truth, and very much less of error. Nevertheless there lay in Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated down the stream of opinion along with it, a considerable amount of exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted; and these are the deposit which was left behind when the flood subsided. The superior worth of simplicity of life, the enervating and demoralizing effect of the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote; and they will in time produce their due effect, though at present needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their power.

In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the other shall have so en larged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity. Unless opinions favourable to de mocracy and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure to go up, and the other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners. On any of the great open questions just enumerated, if either of the two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of obtaining less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in this country, any intolerance of differences of opinion on most of these topics. They are adduced to show, by admitted and multiplied examples, the universality of the fact, that only through diversity of opinion is there, in the existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth. When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by their silence.

It may be objected, 'But some received principles, especially on the highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths. The Christian morality, for instance, is the whole truth on that subject, and if any one teaches a morality which varies from it, he is wholly in error.' As this is of all cases the most important in practice, none can be fitter to test the general maxim. But before pronouncing what Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to decide what is meant by Christian morality. If it means the morality of the New Testament, I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from the book itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a complete doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a pre-existing morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which that morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider and higher; expressing itself, moreover, in terms most general, often impossible to be interpreted literally, and possessing rather the impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of legislation. To extract from it a body of ethical doctrine, has never been possible without eking it out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people. St Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a pre-existing morality, namely that of the Greeks and Romans; and his advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation to that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery. What is called Christian, but should rather be termed theological, morality, was not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin, having been gradually built up by the Catholic church of the first five centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by moderns and Protestants, has been much less modified by them than might have been expected. For the most part, indeed, they have contented themselves with cutting off the additions which had been made to it in the middle ages, each sect supplying the place by fresh additions, adapted to its own character and tendencies. That mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and to its early teachers, I should be the last person to deny; but I do not scruple to say of it, that it is, in many important points, incomplete and one-sided, and that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it, had contributed to the formation of European life and character, human affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now are. Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou shalt'. In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established; who indeed are not to be actively obeyed when they command what religion forbids, but who are not to be resisted, far less rebelled against, for any amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the morality of the best Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place, infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely Christian ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we read the maxim - 'A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in his dominions another man better qualified for it, sins against God and against the State.' What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, highmindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience.

I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner in which it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a complete moral doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit of being reconciled with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all, that I can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; that they are irreconcilable with nothing which a comprehensive morality requires; that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them, with no greater violence to their language than has been done to it by all who have attempted to deduce from them any practical system of conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with this, to believe that they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doctrine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe, too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil, detracting greatly from the value of the moral training and instruction, which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and feelings on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those secular standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which heretofore co-existed with and supplemented the Christian ethics, receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there will result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of character, which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathizing in the conception of Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics than any which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources, must exist side by side with Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that the Christian system is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions. It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths not contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is altogether an evil; but it is one from which we cannot hope to be always exempt, and must be regarded as the price paid for an inestimable good. The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested against; and if a reactionary impulse should make the protestors unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.

I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world, or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to.

We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the ex pression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal, to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct. With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively de fenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interested in seeing justice done them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves; but not inferring these vices from the side which a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our own: and giving merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour. This is the real morality of public discussion: and if often violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who conscientiously strive towards it.

[1]These words had scarcely been written, when, as if to give them an emphatic contradiction, occurred the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. That ill-judged interference with the liberty of public discussion has not, however, induced me to alter a single word in the text, nor has it at all weakened my conviction that, moments of panic excepted, the era of pains and penalties for political discussion has, in our own country, passed away. For, in the first place, the prosecutions were not persisted in; and, in the second, they were never, properly speaking, political prosecutions. The offence charged was not that of criticizing institutions, or the acts or persons of rulers, but of circulating what was deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of Tyrannicide.

If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered. It would, therefore, be irrelevant and out of place to examine here, whether the doctrine of Tyrannicide deserves that title. I shall content myself with saying that the subject has been at all times one of the open questions of morals; that the act of a private citizen in striking down a criminal, who, by raising himself above the law, has placed himself beyond the reach of legal punishment or control, has been accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best and wisest of men, not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue; and that, right or wrong, it is not of the nature of assassination, but of civil war. As such, I hold that the instigation to it, in a specific case, may be a proper subject of punishment, but only if an overt act has followed, and at least a probable connexion can be established between the act and the instigation. Even then, it is not a foreign government, but the very government assailed, which alone, in the exercise of self-defence, can legitimately punish attacks directed against its own existence.

[2]Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes, 31 July 1857. In December following, he received a free pardon from the Crown.

[3]George Jacob Holyoake, 17 August 1857; Edward Truelove, July 1857.

[4]Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough-street Police Court, 4 August 1857.

[5]Ample warning may be drawn from the large infusion of the passions of a persecutor, which mingled with the general display of the worst parts of our national character on the occasion of the Sepoy insurrection. The ravings of fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may be unworthy of notice; but the heads of the Evangelical party have announced as their principle for the government of Hindoos and Mahomedans, that no schools be supported by public money in which the Bible is not taught, and by necessary consequence that no public employment be given to any but real or pretended Christians. An Under-Secretary of State [William N. Massey], in a speech delivered to his constituents on the 12th of November 1857, is reported to have said: 'Toleration of their faith' (the faith of a hundred millions of British subjects), 'the superstition which they called religion, by the British Government, had had the effect of retarding the ascendancy of the British name, and preventing the salutary growth of Christianity . . . Toleration was the great corner-stone of the religious liberties of this country; but do not let them abuse that precious word toleration. As he understood it, it meant the complete liberty to all, freedom of worship, among Christians, who worshipped upon the same foundation. It meant toleration of all sects and denominations of Christians who believed in the one mediation.' I desire to call attention to the fact, that a man who has been deemed fit to fill a high office in the government of this country, under a liberal Ministry, maintains the doctrine that all who do not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond the pale of toleration. Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge the illusion that religious persecution has passed away, never to return?

III

Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-being

Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve; and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through that to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded, or asserted in spite of prohibition; let us next examine whether the same reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their opinions - to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognizing all sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action, not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.

In maintaining this principle, the greatest difficulty to be encountered does not lie in the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end, but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate element with all that is designated by the terms civilization, instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty should be undervalued, and the adjustment of the boundaries between it and social control would present no extraordinary difficulty. But the evil is, that individual spontaneity is hardly recognized by the common modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any regard on its own account. The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think would be best for mankind. Few persons, out of Germany, even comprehend the meaning of the doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so eminent both as a savant and as a politician, made the text of a treatise - that 'the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole'; that, therefore, the object 'towards which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development'; that for this there are two requisites, 'freedom, and variety of situations'; and that from the union of these arise 'individual vigour and manifold diversity', which combine themselves in 'originality'.

Little, however, as people are accustomed to a doctrine like that of von Humboldt, and surprising as it may be to them to find so high a value attached to individuality, the question, one must nevertheless think, can only be one of degree. No one's idea of excellence in conduct is that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own judgment, or of their own individual character. On the other hand, it would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has taught them; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his deference: but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow; or they may not have interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him. Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters; and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly, though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develope in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened, by his adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others, are not concerned) it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery - by automatons in human form - it would be a considerable loss to exchange for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the more civilized parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develope itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but there is not the same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints: and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced; when one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while others, which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak. There is no natural connexion between strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connexion is the other way. To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger and more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one. Those who have most natural feeling, are always those whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful, are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests: not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows not how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that individuality of desires and impulses should not be encouraged to unfold itself, must maintain that society has no need of strong natures - is not the better for containing many persons who have much character - and that a high general average of energy is not desirable.

In some early states of society, these forces might be, and were, too much ahead of the power which society then possessed of disciplining and controlling them. There has been a time when the element of spontaneity and individuality was in excess, and the social principle had a hard struggle with it. The difficulty then was, to induce men of strong bodies or minds to pay obedience to any rules which required them to control their impulses. To overcome this difficulty, law and discipline, like the Popes struggling against the Emperors, asserted a power over the whole man, claiming to control all his life in order to control his character - which society had not found any other sufficient means of binding. But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences. Things are vastly changed, since the passions of those who were strong by station or by personal endowment were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws and ordinances, and required to be rigorously chained up to enable the persons within their reach to enjoy any particle of security. In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the individual or the family do not ask themselves - what do I prefer? or, what would suit my character and disposition? or, what would allow the best and highest in me to have fair play, and enable it to grow and thrive? They ask themselves, what is suitable to my position? what is usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own. Now is this, or is it not, the desirable condition of human nature?

It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. According to that, the one great offence of man is self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable, is comprised in obedience. You have no choice; thus you must do, and no otherwise: 'whatever is not a duty, is a sin.' Human nature being radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature is killed within him. To one holding this theory of life, crushing out any of the human faculties, capacities, and susceptibilities, is no evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the will of God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose but to do that supposed will more effectually, he is better without them. This is the theory of Calvinism; and it is held, in a mitigated form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will of God; asserting it to be his will that mankind should gratify some of their inclinations; of course not in the manner they themselves prefer, but in the way of obedience, that is, in a way prescribed to them by authority; and, therefore, by the necessary conditions of the case, the same for all.

In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched and hidebound type of human character which it patronizes. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely think that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker designed them to be; just as many have thought that trees are a much finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into figures of animals, than as nature made them. But if it be any part of religion to believe that man was made by a good Being, it is more consistent with that faith to believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to the ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of their capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment. There is a different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception of humanity as having its nature bestowed on it for other purposes than merely to be abnegated. 'Pagan self-assertion' is one of the elements of human worth, as well as 'Christian self-denial'. There is a Greek ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of self-government blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be without anything good which belonged to John Knox.

It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them. As much compression as is necessary to prevent the stronger specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights of others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample compensation even in the point of view of human development. The means of development which the individual loses by being prevented from gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly obtained at the expense of the development of other people. And even to himself there is a full equivalent in the better development of the social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of others, developes the feelings and capacities which have the good of others for their object. But to be restrained in things not affecting their good, by their mere displeasure, developes nothing valuable, except such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint. If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any fair play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons should be allowed to lead different lives. In proportion as this latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

Having said that Individuality is the same thing with development, and that it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings, I might here close the argument: for what more or better can be said of any condition of human affairs, than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than that it prevents this? Doubtless, however, these considerations will not suffice to convince those who most need convincing; and it is necessary further to show, that these developed human beings are of some use to the undeveloped - to point out to those who do not desire liberty, and would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some intelligible manner re warded for allowing other people to make use of it without hindrance.

In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might possibly learn something from them. It will not be denied by anybody, that originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life. This cannot well be gainsaid by anybody who does not believe that the world has already attained perfection in all its ways and practices. It is true that this benefit is not capable of being rendered by everybody alike: there are but few persons, in comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others, would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already existed. If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason why those who do the old things should forget why they are done, and do them like cattle, not like human beings? There is only too great a tendency in the best beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from anything really alive, and there would be no reason why civilization should not die out, as in the Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one of these moulds, and to let all that part of themselves which cannot expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, and break their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not succeeded in reducing them to commonplace, to point at with solemn warning as 'wild', 'erratic', and the like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara river for not flowing smoothly between its banks like a Dutch canal.

I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory, but knowing also that almost every one, in reality, is totally indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense, that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at. Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they? If they could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality. The first service which originality has to render them, is that of opening their eyes: which being once fully done, they would have a chance of being themselves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing was ever yet done which some one was not the first to do, and that all good things which exist are the fruits of originality, let them be modest enough to believe that there is something still left for it to accomplish, and assure themselves that they are more in need of originality, the less they are conscious of the want.

In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind. In ancient history, in the middle ages, and in a diminishing degree through the long transition from feudality to the present time, the individual was a power in himself; and if he had either great talents or a high social position, he was a considerable power. At present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations of private life as in public transactions. Those whose opinions go by the name of public opinion, are not always the same sort of public: in America they are the whole white population; in England, chiefly the middle class. But they are always a mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. And what is a still greater novelty, the mass do not now take their opinions from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible leaders, or from books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment, through the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do not assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the government of mediocrity from being mediocre government. No government by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted and instructed One or Few. The initiation of all wise or noble things, comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual. The honour and glory of the average man is that he is capable of following that initiative; that he can respond internally to wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes open. I am not countenancing the sort of 'hero-worship' which applauds the strong man of genius for forcibly seizing on the government of the world and making it do his bidding in spite of itself. All he can claim is, freedom to point out the way. The power of compelling others into it, is not only inconsistent with the freedom and development of all the rest, but corrupting to the strong man himself. It does seem, however, that when the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the mass. In other times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless they acted not only differently, but better. In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

I have said that it is important to give the freest scope possible to uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these are fit to be converted into customs. But independence of action, and disregard of custom, are not solely deserving of encouragement for the chance they afford that better modes of action, and customs more worthy of general adoption, may be struck out; nor is it only persons of decided mental superiority who have a just claim to carry on their lives in their own way. There is no reason that all human existence should be constructed on some one or some small number of patterns. If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical, atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another. The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another it is a distracting burthen, which suspends or crushes all internal life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should tolerance, as far as the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to tastes and modes of life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of their adherents? Nowhere (except in some monastic institutions) is diversity of taste entirely unrecognized; a person may, without blame, either like or dislike rowing, or smoking, or music, or athletic exercises, or chess, or cards, or study, because both those who like each of these things, and those who dislike them, are too numerous to be put down. But the man, and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing 'what nobody does', or of not doing 'what everybody does', is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency. Persons require to possess a title, or some other badge of rank, or of the consideration of people of rank, to be able to indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like without detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I repeat: for whoever allow themselves much of that indulgence, incur the risk of something worse than disparaging speeches - they are in peril of a commission de lunatico, and of having their property taken from them and given to their relations.[1]

There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion, peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate in intel-lect, but also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon. Now, in addition to this fact which is general, we have only to suppose that a strong movement has set in towards the improvement of morals, and it is evident what we have to expect. In these days such a movement has set in; much has actually been effected in the way of increased regularity of conduct, and discouragement of excesses; and there is a philanthropic spirit abroad, for the exercise of which there is no more inviting field than the moral and prudential improvement of our fellow-creatures. These tendencies of the times cause the public to be more disposed than at most former periods to prescribe general rules of conduct, and endeavour to make every one conform to the approved standard. And that standard, express or tacit, is to desire nothing strongly. Its ideal of character is to be without any marked character; to maim by compression, like a Chinese lady's foot, every part of human nature which stands out prominently, and tends to make the person markedly dissimilar in outline to commonplace humanity.

As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one-half of what is desirable, the present standard of approbation produces only an inferior imitation of the other half. Instead of great energies guided by vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength either of will or of reason. Already energetic characters on any large scale are becoming merely traditional. There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in this may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, but is always some one thing, and generally a thing of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary, which is called, according to circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or improvement. The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people; and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement; but the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals. The progressive principle, however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of improvement, is antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life; they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most powerful nations of the world. What are they now? The subjects or dependents of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. A people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality. If a similar change should befall the nations of Europe, it will not be in exactly the same shape: the despotism of custom with which these nations are threatened is not precisely stationariness. It proscribes singularity, but it does not preclude change, provided all change together. We have discarded the fixed costumes of our forefathers; every one must still dress like other people, but the fashion may change once or twice a year. We thus take care that when there is change it shall be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or convenience; for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at another moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we continually make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for improvement in politics, in education, even in morals, though in this last our idea of improvement chiefly consists in persuading or forcing other people to be as good as ourselves. It is not progress that we object to; on the contrary, we flatter ourselves that we are the most progressive people who ever lived. It is individuality that we war against: we should think we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type, and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the advantages of both, of producing something better than either. We have a warning example in China - a nation of much talent, and, in some respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power. Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become stationary - have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so industriously working at - in making a people all alike, all governing their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are the fruits. The modern régime of public opinion is, in an unorganized form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an organized; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.

What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot? What has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them, which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable; and although at every period those who travelled in different paths have been intolerant of one another, and each would have thought it an excellent thing if all the rest could have been compelled to travel his road, their attempts to thwart each other's development have rarely had any permanent success, and each has in time endured to receive the good which the others have offered. Europe is, in my judgment, wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and manysided development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation. The same remark might be made of Englishmen in a far greater degree. In a passage already quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out two things as necessary conditions of human development, because necessary to render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and variety of situations. The second of these two conditions is in this country every day diminishing. The circumstances which surround different classes and individuals, and shape their characters, are daily becoming more assimilated. Formerly, different ranks, different neighbourhoods, different trades and professions, lived in what might be called different worlds; at present, to a great degree in the same. Comparatively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their hopes and fears directed to the same objects, have the same rights and liberties, and the same means of asserting them. Great as are the differences of position which remain, they are nothing to those which have ceased. And the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political changes of the age promote it, since they all tend to raise the low and to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because education brings people under common influences, and gives them access to the general stock of facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means of communication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of changes of residence between one place and another. The increase of commerce and manufactures promotes it, by diffusing more widely the advantages of easy circumstances, and opening all objects of ambition, even the highest, to general competition, whereby the desire of rising becomes no longer the character of a particular class, but of all classes. A more powerful agency than even all these, in bringing about a general similarity among mankind, is the complete establishment, in this and other free countries, of the ascendancy of public opinion in the State. As the various social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them to disregard the opinion of the multitude, gradually become levelled; as the very idea of resisting the will of the public, when it is positively known that they have a will, disappears more and more from the minds of practical politicians; there ceases to be any social support for nonconformity - any substantive power in society, which, itself opposed to the ascendancy of numbers, is interested in taking under its protection opinions and tendencies at variance with those of the public.

The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences hostile to Individuality, that it is not easy to see how it can stand its ground. It will do so with increasing difficulty, unless the intelligent part of the public can be made to feel its value - to see that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the better, even though, as it may appear to them, some should be for the worse. If the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced assimilation. It is only in the earlier stages that any stand can be successfully made against the encroachment. The demand that all other people shall resemble ourselves, grows by what it feeds on. If resistance waits till life is reduced nearly to one uniform type, all deviations from that type will come to be considered impious, immoral, even monstrous and contrary to nature. Mankind speedily become unable to conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to see it.

[1]There is something both contemptible and frightful in the sort of evidence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially declared unfit for the management of his affairs; and after his death, his disposal of his property can be set aside, if there is enough of it to pay the expenses of litigation - which are charged on the property itself. All the minute details of his daily life are pried into, and whatever is found which, seen through the medium of the perceiving and describing faculties of the lowest of the low, bears an appearance unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the jury as evidence of insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little, if at all, less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with that extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which continually astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead them. These trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion among the vulgar with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any value on individuality - so far from respecting the right of each individual to act, in things indifferent, as seems good to his own judgment and inclinations, judges and juries cannot even conceive that a person in a state of sanity can desire such freedom. In former days, when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable people used to suggest putting them in a mad-house instead: it would be nothing surprising now-a-days were we to see this done, and the doers applauding themselves, because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had adopted so humane and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not without a silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts.

IV

Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual

What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself ? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?

Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society.

Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists first, in not injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights; and secondly, in each person's bearing his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation. These conditions society is justified in enforcing at all costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment. Nor is this all that society may do. The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others, or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the length of violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may then be justly punished by opinion, though not by law. As soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any such question when a person's conduct affects the interests of no persons besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like (all the persons concerned being of full age, and the ordinary amount of understanding). In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.

It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, there is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments to persuade people to their good, than whips and scourges, either of the literal or the metaphorical sort. I am the last person to undervalue the self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, if even second, to the social.

It is equally the business of education to cultivate both. But even education works by conviction and persuasion as well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the period of education is past, the self-regarding virtues should be inculcated. Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter. They should be for ever stimulating each other to increased exercise of their higher faculties, and increased direction of their feelings and aims towards wise instead of foolish, elevating instead of degrading, objects and contemplations. But neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. He is the person most interested in his own well-being: the interest which any other person, except in cases of strong personal attachment, can have in it, is trifling, compared with that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and altogether indirect: while, with respect to his own feelings and circumstances, the most ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else. The interference of society to overrule his judgment and purposes in what only regards himself, must be grounded on general presumptions; which may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be misapplied to individual cases, by persons no better acquainted with the circumstances of such cases than those are who look at them merely from without. In this department, therefore, of human affairs, Individuality has its proper field of action. In the conduct of human beings towards one another, it is necessary that general rules should for the most part be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect; but in each person's own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by others; but he himself is the final judge. All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.

I do not mean that the feelings with which a person is regarded by others, ought not to be in any way affected by his self-regarding qualities or deficiencies. This is neither possible nor desirable. If he is eminent in any of the qualities which conduce to his own good, he is, so far, a proper object of admiration. He is so much the nearer to the ideal perfection of human nature. If he is grossly deficient in those qualities, a sentiment the opposite of admiration will follow. There is a degree of folly, and a degree of what may be called (though the phrase is not unobjectionable) lowness or depravation of taste, which, though it cannot justify doing harm to the person who manifests it, renders him necessarily and properly a subject of distaste, or, in extreme cases, even of contempt: a person could not have the opposite qualities in due strength without entertaining these feelings. Though doing no wrong to any one, a person may so act as to compel us to judge him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a being of an inferior order: and since this judgment and feeling are a fact which he would prefer to avoid, it is doing him a service to warn him of it beforehand, as of any other disagreeable consequence to which he exposes himself. It would be well, indeed, if this good office were much more freely rendered than the common notions of politeness at present permit, and if one person could honestly point out to another that he thinks him in fault, without being considered unmannerly or presuming. We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. A person who shows rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit - who cannot live within moderate means - who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgences - who pursues animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect - must expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share of their favour-able sentiments; but of this he has no right to complain, unless he has merited their favour by special excellence in his social relations, and has thus established a title to their good offices, which is not affected by his demerits towards himself.

What I contend for is, that the inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others, are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not affect the interests of others in their relations with him. Acts injurious to others require a totally different treatment. Encroachment on their rights; infliction on them of any loss or damage not justified by his own rights; falsehood or duplicity in dealing with them; unfair or ungenerous use of advantages over them; even selfish abstinence from defending them against injury - these are fit objects of moral reprobation, and, in grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment. And not only these acts, but the dispositions which lead to them, are properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which may rise to abhorrence. Cruelty of disposition; malice and ill-nature; that most anti-social and odious of all passions, envy; dissimulation and insincerity; irascibility on insufficient cause, and resentment disproportioned to the provocation; the love of domineering over others; the desire to engross more than one's share of advantages (the πλεονεξια of the Greeks); the pride which derives gratification from the abasement of others; the egotism which thinks self and its concerns more important than everything else, and decides all doubtful questions in its own favour; - these are moral vices, and constitute a bad and odious moral character: unlike the self-regarding faults previously mentioned, which are not properly immoralities, and to whatever pitch they may be carried, do not constitute wickedness. They may be proofs of any amount of folly, or want of personal dignity and self-respect; but they are only a subject of moral reprobation when they involve a breach of duty to others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not socially obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than prudence, means self-respect or self-development; and for none of these is any one accountable to his fellow-creatures, because for none of them is it for the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them.

The distinction between the loss of consideration which a person may rightly incur by defect of prudence or of personal dignity, and the reprobation which is due to him for an offence against the rights of others, is not a merely nominal distinction. It makes a vast difference both in our feelings and in our conduct towards him, whether he displeases us in things in which we think we have a right to control him, or in things in which we know that we have not. If he displeases us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire to spoil it still further: instead of wishing to punish him, we shall rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment, by showing him how he may avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. He may be to us an object of pity, perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or resentment; we shall not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself, if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or concern for him. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the protection of his fellow-creatures, individually or collectively. The evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on himself, but on others; and society, as the protector of all its members, must retaliate on him; must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of punishment, and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In the one case, he is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own sentence: in the other case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in his.

The distinction here pointed out between the part of a person's life which concerns only himself, and that which concerns others, many persons will refuse to admit. How (it may be asked) can any part of the conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other members? No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself, without mischief reaching at least to his near connexions, and often far beyond them. If he injures his property, he does harm to those who directly or indirectly derived support from it, and usually diminishes, by a greater or less amount, the general resources of the community. If he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only brings evil upon all who depended on him for any portion of their happiness, but disqualifies himself for rendering the services which he owes to his fellow-creatures generally; perhaps becomes a bur-then on their affection or benevolence; and if such conduct were very frequent, hardly any offence that is committed would detract more from the general sum of good. Finally, if by his vices or follies a person does no direct harm to others, he is nevertheless (it may be said) injurious by his example; and ought to be compelled to control himself, for the sake of those whom the sight or knowledge of his conduct might corrupt or mislead.

And even (it will be added) if the consequences of misconduct could be confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual, ought society to abandon to their own guidance those who are manifestly unfit for it? If protection against themselves is confessedly due to children and persons under age, is not society equally bound to afford it to persons of mature years who are equally incapable of self-government? If gambling, or drunkenness, or incontinence, or idleness, or uncleanliness, are as injurious to happiness, and as great a hindrance to improvement, as many or most of the acts prohibited by law, why (it may be asked) should not law, so far as is consistent with practicability and social convenience, endeavour to repress these also? And as a supplement to the unavoidable imperfections of law, ought not opinion at least to organize a powerful police against these vices, and visit rigidly with social penalties those who are known to practise them? There is no question here (it may be said) about restricting individuality, or impeding the trial of new and original experiments in living. The only things it is sought to prevent are things which have been tried and condemned from the beginning of the world until now; things which experience has shown not to be useful or suitable to any person's individuality. There must be some length of time and amount of experience, after which a moral or prudential truth may be regarded as established: and it is merely desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the same precipice which has been fatal to their predecessors.

I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself may seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests, those nearly connected with him, and in a minor degree, society at large. When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons, the case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term. If, for example, a man, through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his debts, or, having undertaken the moral responsibility of a family, becomes from the same cause incapable of supporting or educating them, he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance. If the resources which ought to have been devoted to them, had been diverted from them for the most prudent investment, the moral culpability would have been the same. George Barnwell murdered his uncle to get money for his mistress, but if he had done it to set himself up in business, he would equally have been hanged. Again, in the frequent case of a man who causes grief to his family by addiction to bad habits, he deserves reproach for his unkindness or ingratitude; but so he may for cultivating habits not in themselves vicious, if they are painful to those with whom he passes his life, or who from personal ties are dependent on him for their comfort. Whoever fails in the consideration generally due to the interests and feelings of others, not being compelled by some more imperative duty, or justified by allowable self-preference, is a subject of moral disapprobation for that failure, but not for the cause of it, nor for the errors, merely personal to himself, which may have remotely led to it. In like manner, when a person disables himself, by conduct purely self-regarding, from the performance of some definite duty incumbent on him to the public, he is guilty of a social offence. No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of morality or law.

But with regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called, constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himself; the inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of the greater good of human freedom. If grown persons are to be punished for not taking proper care of themselves, I would rather it were for their own sake, than under pretence of preventing them from impairing their capacity of rendering to society benefits which society does not pretend it has a right to exact. But I cannot consent to argue the point as if society had no means of bringing its weaker members up to its ordinary standard of rational conduct, except waiting till they do something irrational, and then punishing them, legally or morally, for it. Society has had absolute power over them during all the early portion of their existence: it has had the whole period of childhood and nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of rational conduct in life. The existing generation is master both of the training and the entire circumstances of the generation to come; it cannot indeed make them perfectly wise and good, because it is itself so lamentably deficient in goodness and wisdom; and its best efforts are not always, in individual cases, its most successful ones; but it is perfectly well able to make the rising generation, as a whole, as good as, and a little better than, itself. If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences. Armed not only with all the powers of education, but with the ascendancy which the authority of a received opinion always exercises over the minds who are least fitted to judge for themselves; and aided by the natural penalties which cannot be prevented from falling on those who incur the distaste or the contempt of those who know them; let not society pretend that it needs, besides all this, the power to issue commands and enforce obedience in the personal concerns of individuals, in which, on all principles of justice and policy, the decision ought to rest with those who are to abide the consequences. Nor is there anything which tends more to discredit and frustrate the better means of influencing conduct, than a resort to the worse. If there be among those whom it is attempted to coerce into prudence or temperance, any of the material of which vigorous and independent characters are made, they will infallibly rebel against the yoke. No such person will ever feel that others have a right to control him in his concerns, such as they have to prevent him from injuring them in theirs; and it easily comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in the face of such usurped authority, and do with ostentation the exact opposite of what it enjoins; as in the fashion of grossness which succeeded, in the time of Charles II, to the fanatical moral intolerance of the Puritans. With respect to what is said of the necessity of protecting society from the bad example set to others by the vicious or the self-indulgent; it is true that bad example may have a pernicious effect, especially the example of doing wrong to others with impunity to the wrong-doer. But we are now speaking of conduct which, while it does no wrong to others, is supposed to do great harm to the agent himself: and I do not see how those who believe this, can think otherwise than that the example, on the whole, must be more salutary than hurtful, since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the painful or degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly censured, must be supposed to be in all or most cases attendant on it.

But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. On questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect themselves. But the opinion of a similar majority, imposed as a law on the minority, on questions of self-regarding conduct, is quite as likely to be wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at the best, some people's opinion of what is good or bad for other people; while very often it does not even mean that; the public, with the most perfect indifference, passing over the pleasure or convenience of those whose conduct they censure, and considering only their own preference. There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience? In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine-tenths of all moralists and speculative writers. These teach that things are right because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?

The evil here pointed out is not one which exists only in theory; and it may perhaps be expected that I should specify the instances in which the public of this age and country improperly invests its own preferences with the character of moral laws. I am not writing an essay on the aberrations of existing moral feeling. That is too weighty a subject to be discussed parenthetically, and by way of illustration. Yet examples are necessary, to show that the principle I maintain is of serious and practical moment, and that I am not endeavouring to erect a barrier against imaginary evils. And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.

As a first instance, consider the antipathies which men cherish on no better grounds than that persons whose religious opinions are different from theirs, do not practise their religious observances, especially their religious abstinences. To cite a rather trivial example, nothing in the creed or practice of Christians does more to envenom the hatred of Mahomedans against them, than the fact of their eating pork. There are few acts which Christians and Europeans regard with more unaffected disgust, than Mussulmans regard this particular mode of satisfying hunger. It is, in the first place, an offence against their religion; but this circumstance by no means explains either the degree or the kind of their repugnance; for wine also is forbidden by their religion, and to partake of it is by all Mussulmans accounted wrong, but not disgusting. Their aversion to the flesh of the 'unclean beast' is, on the contrary, of that peculiar character, resembling an instinctive antipathy, which the idea of uncleanness, when once it thoroughly sinks into the feelings, seems always to excite even in those whose personal habits are anything but scrupulously cleanly, and of which the sentiment of religious impurity, so intense in the Hindoos, is a remarkable example. Suppose now that in a people, of whom the majority were Mussulmans, that majority should insist upon not permitting pork to be eaten within the limits of the country. This would be nothing new in Mahomedan countries.[1] Would it be a legitimate exercise of the moral authority of public opinion? and if not, why not? The practice is really revolting to such a public. They also sincerely think that it is forbidden and abhorred by the Deity. Neither could the prohibition be censured as religious persecution. It might be religious in its origin, but it would not be persecution for religion, since nobody's religion makes it a duty to eat pork. The only tenable ground of condemnation would be, that with the personal tastes and self-regarding concerns of individuals the public has no business to interfere.

To come somewhat nearer home: the majority of Spaniards consider it a gross impiety, offensive in the highest degree to the Supreme Being, to worship him in any other manner than the Roman Catholic; and no other public worship is lawful on Spanish soil. The people of all Southern Europe look upon a married clergy as not only irreligious, but unchaste, indecent, gross, disgusting. What do Protestants think of these perfectly sincere feelings, and of the attempt to enforce them against non-Catholics? Yet, if mankind are justified in interfering with each other's liberty in things which do not concern the interests of others, on what principle is it possible consistently to exclude these cases? or who can blame people for desiring to suppress what they regard as a scandal in the sight of God and man? No stronger case can be shown for prohibiting anything which is regarded as a personal immorality, than is made out for suppressing these practices in the eyes of those who regard them as impieties; and unless we are willing to adopt the logic of persecutors, and to say that we may persecute others because we are right, and that they must not persecute us because they are wrong, we must beware of admitting a principle of which we should resent as a gross injustice the application to ourselves.

The preceding instances may be objected to, although unreasonably, as drawn from contingencies impossible among us: opinion, in this country, not being likely to enforce abstinence from meats, or to interfere with people for worshipping, and for either marrying or not marrying, according to their creed or inclination. The next example, however, shall be taken from an interference with liberty which we have by no means passed all danger of. Wherever the Puritans have been sufficiently powerful, as in New England, and in Great Britain at the time of the Commonwealth, they have endeavoured, with considerable success, to put down all public, and nearly all private, amusements: especially music, dancing, public games, or other assemblages for purposes of diversion, and the theatre. There are still in this country large bodies of persons by whose notions of morality and religion these recreations are condemned; and those persons belonging chiefly to the middle class, who are the ascendant power in the present social and political condition of the kingdom, it is by no means impossible that persons of these sentiments may at some time or other command a majority in Parliament. How will the remaining portion of the community like to have the amusements that shall be permitted to them regulated by the religious and moral sentiments of the stricter Calvinists and Methodists? Would they not, with considerable peremptoriness, desire these intrusively pious members of society to mind their own business? This is precisely what should be said to every government and every public, who have the pretension that no person shall enjoy any pleasure which they think wrong. But if the principle of the pretension be admitted, no one can reasonably object to its being acted on in the sense of the majority, or other preponderating power in the country; and all persons must be ready to conform to the idea of a Christian commonwealth, as understood by the early settlers in New England, if a religious profession similar to theirs should ever succeed in regaining its lost ground, as religions supposed to be declining have so often been known to do.

To imagine another contingency, perhaps more likely to be realized than the one last mentioned. There is confessedly a strong tendency in the modern world towards a democratic constitution of society, accompanied or not by popular political institutions. It is affirmed that in the country where this tendency is most completely realized - where both society and the government are most democratic - the United States - the feeling of the majority, to whom any appearance of a more showy or costly style of living than they can hope to rival is disagreeable, operates as a tolerably effectual sumptuary law, and that in many parts of the Union it is really difficult for a person possessing a very large income, to find any mode of spending it, which will not incur popular disapprobation. Though such statements as these are doubtless much exaggerated as a representation of existing facts, the state of things they describe is not only a conceivable and possible, but a probable result of democratic feeling, combined with the notion that the public has a right to a veto on the manner in which individuals shall spend their incomes. We have only further to suppose a considerable diffusion of Socialist opinions, and it may become infamous in the eyes of the majority to possess more property than some very small amount, or any income not earned by manual labour. Opinions similar in principle to these, already prevail widely among the artizan class, and weigh oppressively on those who are amenable to the opinion chiefly of that class, namely, its own members. It is known that the bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good, and that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or otherwise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can without it. And they employ a moral police, which occasionally becomes a physical one, to deter skilful workmen from receiving, and employers from giving, a larger remuneration for a more useful service. If the public have any jurisdiction over private concerns, I cannot see that these people are in fault, or that any individual's particular public can be blamed for asserting the same authority over his individual conduct, which the general public asserts over people in general.

But, without dwelling upon supposititious cases, there are, in our own day, gross usurpations upon the liberty of private life actually practised, and still greater ones threatened with some expectation of success, and opinions propounded which assert an unlimited right in the public not only to prohibit by law everything which it thinks wrong, but in order to get at what it thinks wrong, to prohibit any number of things which it admits to be innocent.

Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one English colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been interdicted by law from making any use whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical purposes: for prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended to be, prohibition of their use. And though the impracticability of executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the States which had adopted it, including the one from which it derives its name, an attempt has notwithstanding been commenced, and is prosecuted with considerable zeal by many of the professed philanthropists, to agitate for a similar law in this country. The association, or 'Alliance' as it terms itself, which has been formed for this purpose, has acquired some notoriety through the publicity given to a correspondence between its Secretary and one of the very few English public men who hold that a politician's opinions ought to be founded on principles. Lord Stanley's share in this correspondence is calculated to strengthen the hopes already built on him, by those who know how rare such qualities as are manifested in some of his public appearances, unhappily are among those who figure in political life. The organ of the Alliance, who would 'deeply deplore the recognition of any principle which could be wrested to justify bigotry and persecution', undertakes to point out the 'broad and impassable barrier' which divides such principles from those of the association. 'All matters relating to thought, opinion, conscience, appear to me', he says, 'to be without the sphere of legislation; all pertaining to social act, habit, relation, subject only to a discretionary power vested in the State itself, and not in the individual, to be within it.' No mention is made of a third class, different from either of these, viz. acts and habits which are not social, but individual; although it is to this class, surely, that the act of drinking fermented liquors belongs. Selling fermented liquors, however, is trading, and trading is a social act. But the infringement complained of is not on the liberty of the seller, but on that of the buyer and consumer; since the State might just as well forbid him to drink wine, as purposely make it impossible for him to obtain it. The Secretary, however, says, 'I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another.' And now for the definition of these 'social rights'. 'If anything invades my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys my primary right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery I am taxed to support. It impedes my right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path with dangers, and by weakening and demoralizing society, from which I have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse.' A theory of 'social rights', the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language: being nothing short of this - that it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them: for, the moment an opinion which I consider noxious passes any one's lips, it invades all the 'social rights' attributed to me by the Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each claimant according to his own standard.

Another important example of illegitimate interference with the rightful liberty of the individual, not simply threatened, but long since carried into triumphant effect, is Sabbatarian legislation. Without doubt, abstinence on one day in the week, so far as the exigencies of life permit, from the usual daily occupation, though in no respect religiously binding on any except Jews, is a highly beneficial custom. And inasmuch as this custom cannot be observed without a general consent to that effect among the industrious classes, therefore, in so far as some persons by working may impose the same necessity on others, it may be allowable and right that the law should guarantee to each the observance by others of the custom, by suspending the greater operations of industry on a particular day. But this justification, grounded on the direct interest which others have in each individual's observance of the practice, does not apply to the self-chosen occupations in which a person may think fit to employ his leisure; nor does it hold good, in the smallest degree, for legal restrictions on amusements. It is true that the amusement of some is the day's work of others; but the pleasure, not to say the useful recreation, of many, is worth the labour of a few, provided the occupation is freely chosen, and can be freely resigned. The operatives are perfectly right in thinking that if all worked on Sunday, seven days' work would have to be given for six days' wages: but so long as the great mass of employments are suspended, the small number who for the enjoyment of others must still work, obtain a proportional increase of earnings; and they are not obliged to follow those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument. If a further remedy is sought, it might be found in the establishment by custom of a holiday on some other day of the week for those particular classes of persons. The only ground, therefore, on which restrictions on Sunday amusements can be defended, must be that they are religiously wrong; a motive of legislation which never can be too earnestly protested against. 'Deorum injuriæ Diis curæ.' It remains to be proved that society or any of its officers holds a commission from on high to avenge any supposed offence to Omnipotence, which is not also a wrong to our fellow-creatures. The notion that it is one man's duty that another should be religious, was the foundation of all the religious persecutions ever perpetrated, and if admitted, would fully justify them. Though the feeling which breaks out in the repeated attempts to stop railway travelling on Sunday, in the resistance to the opening of Museums, and the like, has not the cruelty of the old persecutors, the state of mind indicated by it is fundamentally the same. It is a determination not to tolerate others in doing what is permitted by their religion, because it is not permitted by the persecutor's religion. It is a belief that God not only abominates the act of the misbeliever, but will not hold us guiltless if we leave him unmolested.

I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the little account commonly made of human liberty, the language of downright persecution which breaks out from the press of this country, whenever it feels called on to notice the remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism. Much might be said on the unexpected and instructive fact, that an alleged new revelation, and a religion founded on it, the product of palpable imposture, not even supported by the prestige of extraordinary qualities in its founder, is believed by hundreds of thousands, and has been made the foundation of a society, in the age of newspapers, railways, and the electric telegraph. What here concerns us is, that this religion, like other and better religions, has its martyrs; that its prophet and founder was, for his teaching, put to death by a mob; that others of its adherents lost their lives by the same lawless violence; that they were forcibly expelled, in a body, from the country in which they first grew up; while, now that they have been chased into a solitary recess in the midst of a desert, many in this country openly declare that it would be right (only that it is not convenient) to send an expedition against them, and compel them by force to conform to the opinions of other people. The article of the Mormonite doctrine which is the chief provocative to the antipathy which thus breaks through the ordinary restraints of religious tolerance, is its sanction of polygamy; which, though permitted to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, and Chinese, seems to excite unquenchable animosity when practised by persons who speak English, and profess to be a kind of Christians. No one has a deeper disapprobation than I have of this Mormon institution; both for other reasons, and because, far from being in any way countenanced by the principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, being a mere rivetting of the chains of one-half of the community, and an emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them. Still, it must be remembered that this relation is as much voluntary on the part of the women concerned in it, and who may be deemed the sufferers by it, as is the case with any other form of the marriage institution; and however surprising this fact may appear, it has its explanation in the common ideas and customs of the world, which teaching women to think marriage the one thing needful, make it intelligible that many a woman should prefer being one of several wives, to not being a wife at all. Other countries are not asked to recognize such unions, or release any portion of their inhabitants from their own laws on the score of Mormonite opinions. But when the dissentients have conceded to the hostile sentiments of others, far more than could justly be demanded; when they have left the countries to which their doctrines were unacceptable, and established themselves in a remote corner of the earth, which they have been the first to render habitable to human beings; it is difficult to see on what principles but those of tyranny they can be prevented from living there under what laws they please, provided they commit no aggression on other nations, and allow perfect freedom of departure to those who are dissatisfied with their ways. A recent writer, in some respects of considerable merit, proposes (to use his own words) not a crusade, but a civilizade, against this polygamous community, to put an end to what seems to him a retrograde step in civilization. It also appears so to me, but I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized. So long as the sufferers by the bad law do not invoke assistance from other communities, I cannot admit that persons entirely unconnected with them ought to step in and require that a condition of things with which all who are directly interested appear to be satisfied, should be put an end to because it is a scandal to persons some thousands of miles distant, who have no part or concern in it. Let them send missionaries, if they please, to preach against it; and let them, by any fair means (of which silencing the teachers is not one) oppose the progress of similar doctrines among their own people. If civilization has got the better of barbarism when barbarism had the world to itself, it is too much to profess to be afraid lest barbarism, after having been fairly got under, should revive and conquer civilization. A civilization that can thus succumb to its vanquished enemy, must first have become so degenerate, that neither its appointed priests and teachers, nor anybody else, has the capacity, or will take the trouble, to stand up for it. If this be so, the sooner such a civilization receives notice to quit, the better. It can only go on from bad to worse, until destroyed and regenerated (like the Western Empire) by energetic barbarians.

[1]The case of the Bombay Parsees is a curious instance in point. When this industrious and enterprising tribe, the descendants of the Persian fire-worshippers, flying from their native country before the Caliphs, arrived in Western India, they were admitted to toleration by the Hindoo sovereigns, on condition of not eating beef. When those regions afterwards fell under the dominion of Mahomedan conquerors, the Parsees obtained from them a continuance of indulgence, on condition of refraining from pork. What was at first obedience to authority became a second nature, and the Parsees to this day abstain both from beef and pork. Though not required by their religion, the double abstinence has had time to grow into a custom of their tribe; and custom, in the East, is a religion.

V

Applications

The principles asserted in these pages must be more generally admitted as the basis for discussion of details, before a consistent application of them to all the various departments of government and morals can be attempted with any prospect of advantage. The few observations I propose to make on questions of detail, are designed to illustrate the principles, rather than to follow them out to their consequences. I offer, not so much applications, as specimens of application; which may serve to bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the two maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this Essay, and to assist the judgment in holding the balance between them, in the cases where it appears doubtful which of them is applicable to the case.

The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection.

In the first place, it must by no means be supposed, because damage, or probability of damage, to the interests of others, can alone justify the interference of society, that therefore it always does justify such interference. In many cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate object, necessarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to others, or intercepts a good which they had a reasonable hope of obtaining. Such oppositions of interest between individuals often arise from bad social institutions, but are unavoidable while those institutions last; and some would be unavoidable under any institutions. Whoever succeeds in an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive examination; whoever is preferred to another in any contest for an object which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, from their wasted exertion and their disappointment. But it is, by common admission, better for the general interest of mankind, that persons should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort of consequences. In other words, society admits no right, either legal or moral, in the disappointed competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have been employed which it is contrary to the general interest to permit - namely, fraud or treachery, and force.

Again, trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes within the jurisdiction of society: accordingly, it was once held to be the duty of governments, in all cases which were considered of importance, to fix prices, and regulate the processes of manufacture. But it is now recognized, though not till after a long struggle, that both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are most effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly free, under the sole check of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying themselves elsewhere. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade, which rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay. Restrictions on trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints; and all restraint, quâ restraint, is an evil: but the restraints in question affect only that part of conduct which society is competent to restrain, and are wrong solely because they do not really produce the results which it is desired to produce by them. As the principle of individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade, so neither is it in most of the questions which arise respecting the limits of that doctrine; as for example, what amount of public control is admissible for the prevention of fraud by adulteration; how far sanitary precautions, or arrangements to protect workpeople employed in dangerous occupations, should be enforced on employers. Such questions involve considerations of liberty, only in so far as leaving people to themselves is always better, cœteris paribus, than controlling them: but that they may be legitimately controlled for these ends, is in principle undeniable. On the other hand, there are questions relating to interference with trade, which are essentially questions of liberty; such as the Maine Law, already touched upon; the prohibition of the importation of opium into China; the restriction of the sale of poisons; all cases, in short, where the object of the interference is to make it impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity. These interferences are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer.

One of these examples, that of the sale of poisons, opens a new question; the proper limits of what may be called the functions of police; how far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the prevention of crime, or of accident. It is one of the undisputed functions of government to take precautions against crime before it has been committed, as well as to detect and punish it afterwards. The preventive function of government, however, is far more liable to be abused, to the prejudice of liberty, than the punitory function; for there is hardly any part of the legitimate freedom of action of a human being which would not admit of being represented, and fairly too, as increasing the facilities for some form or other of delinquency. Nevertheless, if a public authority, or even a private person, sees any one evidently preparing to commit a crime, they are not bound to look on inactive until the crime is committed, but may interfere to prevent it. If poisons were never bought or used for any purpose except the commission of murder, it would be right to prohibit their manufacture and sale. They may, however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful purposes, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without operating in the other. Again, it is a proper office of public authority to guard against accidents. If either a public officer or any one else saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, when there is not a certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur the risk: in this case, therefore, (unless he is a child, or delirious, or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full use of the reflecting faculty) he ought, I conceive, to be only warned of the danger; not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it. Similar considerations, applied to such a question as the sale of poisons, may enable us to decide which among the possible modes of regulation are or are not contrary to principle. Such a precaution, for example, as that of labelling the drug with some word expressive of its dangerous character, may be enforced without violation of liberty: the buyer cannot wish not to know that the thing he possesses has poisonous qualities. But to require in all cases the certificate of a medical practitioner, would make it sometimes impossible, always expensive, to obtain the article for legitimate uses. The only mode apparent to me, in which difficulties may be thrown in the way of crime committed through this means, without any infringement, worth taking into account, upon the liberty of those who desire the poisonous substance for other purposes, consists in providing what, in the apt language of Bentham, is called 'preappointed evidence'. This provision is familiar to every one in the case of contracts. It is usual and right that the law, when a contract is entered into, should require as the condition of its enforcing performance, that certain formalities should be observed, such as signatures, attestation of witnesses, and the like, in order that in case of subsequent dispute, there may be evidence to prove that the contract was really entered into, and that there was nothing in the circumstances to render it legally invalid: the effect being, to throw great obstacles in the way of fictitious contracts, or contracts made in circumstances which, if known, would destroy their validity. Precautions of a similar nature might be enforced in the sale of articles adapted to be instruments of crime. The seller, for example, might be required to enter in a register the exact time of the transaction, the name and address of the buyer, the precise quality and quantity sold; to ask the purpose for which it was wanted, and record the answer he received. When there was no medical prescription, the presence of some third person might be required, to bring home the fact to the purchaser, in case there should afterwards be reason to believe that the article had been applied to criminal purposes. Such regulations would in general be no material impediment to obtaining the article, but a very considerable one to making an improper use of it without detection.

The right inherent in society, to ward off crimes against itself by antecedent precautions, suggests the obvious limitations to the maxim, that purely self-regarding misconduct cannot properly be meddled with in the way of prevention or punishment. Drunkenness, for example, in ordinary cases, is not a fit subject for legislative interference; but I should deem it perfectly legitimate that a person, who had once been convicted of any act of violence to others under the influence of drink, should be placed under a special legal restriction, personal to himself; that if he were afterwards found drunk, he should be liable to a penalty, and that if when in that state he committed another offence, the punishment to which he would be liable for that other offence should be increased in severity. The making himself drunk, in a person whom drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others. So, again, idleness, except in a person receiving support from the public, or except when it constitutes a breach of contract, cannot without tyranny be made a subject of legal punishment; but if, either from idleness or from any other avoidable cause, a man fails to perform his legal duties to others, as for instance to support his children, it is no tyranny to force him to fulfil that obligation, by compulsory labour, if no other means are available.

Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners, and coming thus within the category of offences against others, may rightfully be prohibited. Of this kind are offences against decency; on which it is unnecessary to dwell, the rather as they are only connected indirectly with our subject, the objection to publicity being equally strong in the case of many actions not in themselves condemnable, nor supposed to be so.

There is another question to which an answer must be found, consistent with the principles which have been laid down. In cases of personal conduct supposed to be blameable, but which respect for liberty precludes society from preventing or punishing, because the evil directly resulting falls wholly on the agent; what the agent is free to do, ought other persons to be equally free to counsel or instigate? This question is not free from difficulty. The case of a person who solicits another to do an act, is not strictly a case of self-regarding conduct. To give advice or offer inducements to any one, is a social act, and may, therefore, like actions in general which affect others, be supposed amenable to social control. But a little reflection corrects the first impression, by showing that if the case is not strictly within the definition of individual liberty, yet the reasons on which the principle of individual liberty is grounded, are applicable to it. If people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as seems best to themselves at their own peril, they must equally be free to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; to exchange opinions, and give and receive suggestions. Whatever it is permitted to do, it must be permitted to advise to do. The question is doubtful, only when the instigator derives a personal benefit from his advice; when he makes it his occupation, for subsistence or pecuniary gain, to promote what society and the State consider to be an evil. Then, indeed, a new element of complication is introduced; namely, the existence of classes of persons with an interest opposed to what is considered as the public weal, and whose mode of living is grounded on the counteraction of it. Ought this to be interfered with, or not? Fornication, for example, must be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a person be free to be a pimp, or to keep a gambling-house? The case is one of those which lie on the exact boundary line between two principles, and it is not at once apparent to which of the two it properly belongs. There are arguments on both sides. On the side of toleration it may be said, that the fact of following anything as an occupation, and living or profiting by the practice of it, cannot make that criminal which would otherwise be admissible; that the act should either be consistently permitted or consistently prohibited; that if the principles which we have hitherto defended are true, society has no business, as society, to decide anything to be wrong which concerns only the individual; that it cannot go beyond dissuasion, and that one person should be as free to persuade, as another to dissuade. In opposition to this it may be contended, that although the public, or the State, are not warranted in authoritatively deciding, for purposes of repression or punishment, that such or such conduct affecting only the interests of the individual is good or bad, they are fully justified in assuming, if they regard it as bad, that its being so or not is at least a disputable question: That, this being supposed, they cannot be acting wrongly in endeavouring to exclude the influence of solicitations which are not disinterested, of instigators who cannot possibly be impartial - who have a direct personal interest on one side, and that side the one which the State believes to be wrong, and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only. There can surely, it may be urged, be nothing lost, no sacrifice of good, by so ordering matters that persons shall make their election, either wisely or foolishly, on their own prompting, as free as possible from the arts of persons who stimulate their inclinations for interested purposes of their own. Thus (it may be said) though the statutes respecting unlawful games are utterly indefensible - though all persons should be free to gamble in their own or each other's houses, or in any place of meeting es tablished by their own subscriptions, and open only to the members and their visitors - yet public gambling-houses should not be permitted. It is true that the prohibition is never effectual, and that, whatever amount of tyrannical power may be given to the police, gambling-houses can always be maintained under other pretences; but they may be compelled to conduct their operations with a certain degree of secrecy and mystery, so that nobody knows anything about them but those who seek them; and more than this, society ought not to aim at. There is considerable force in these arguments. I will not venture to decide whether they are sufficient to justify the moral anomaly of punishing the accessary, when the principal is (and must be) allowed to go free; of fining or imprisoning the procurer, but not the fornicator, the gambling-house keeper, but not the gambler. Still less ought the common operations of buying and selling to be interfered with on analogous grounds. Almost every article which is bought and sold may be used in excess, and the sellers have a pecuniary interest in encouraging that excess; but no argument can be founded on this, in favour, for instance, of the Maine Law; because the class of dealers in strong drinks, though interested in their abuse, are indispensably required for the sake of their legitimate use. The interest, however, of these dealers in promoting intemperance is a real evil, and justifies the State in imposing restrictions and requiring guarantees which, but for that justification, would be infringements of legitimate liberty.

A further question is, whether the State, while it permits, should nevertheless indirectly discourage conduct which it deems contrary to the best interests of the agent; whether, for example, it should take measures to render the means of drunkenness more costly, or add to the difficulty of procuring them by limiting the number of the places of sale. On this as on most other practical questions, many distinctions require to be made. To tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making them more difficult to be obtained, is a measure differing only in degree from their entire prohibition; and would be justifiable only if that were justifiable. Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those whose means do not come up to the augmented price; and to those who do, it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a particular taste. Their choice of pleasures, and their mode of expending their income, after satisfying their legal and moral obligations to the State and to individuals, are their own concern, and must rest with their own judgment. These considerations may seem at first sight to condemn the selection of stimulants as special subjects of taxation for purposes of revenue. But it must be remembered that taxation for fiscal purposes is absolutely inevitable; that in most countries it is necessary that a considerable part of that taxation should be indirect; that the State, therefore, cannot help imposing penalties, which to some persons may be prohibitory, on the use of some articles of consumption. It is hence the duty of the State to consider, in the imposition of taxes, what commodities the consumers can best spare; and a fortiori, to select in preference those of which it deems the use, beyond a very moderate quantity, to be positively injurious. Taxation, therefore, of stimulants, up to the point which produces the largest amount of revenue (supposing that the State needs all the revenue which it yields) is not only admissible, but to be approved of.

The question of making the sale of these commodities a more or less exclusive privilege, must be answered differently, according to the purposes to which the restriction is intended to be subservient. All places of public resort require the restraint of a police, and places of this kind peculiarly, because offences against society are especially apt to originate there. It is, therefore, fit to confine the power of selling these commodities (at least for consumption on the spot) to persons of known or vouched-for respectability of conduct; to make such regulations respecting hours of opening and closing as may be requisite for public surveillance, and to withdraw the licence if breaches of the peace repeatedly take place through the connivance or incapacity of the keeper of the house, or if it becomes a rendezvous for concocting and preparing offences against the law. Any further restriction I do not conceive to be, in principle, justifiable. The limitation in number, for instance, of beer and spirit houses, for the express purpose of rendering them more difficult of access, and diminishing the occasions of temptation, not only exposes all to an inconvenience because there are some by whom the facility would be abused, but is suited only to a state of society in which the labouring classes are avowedly treated as children or savages, and placed under an education of restraint, to fit them for future admission to the privileges of freedom. This is not the principle on which the labouring classes are professedly governed in any free country; and no person who sets due value on freedom will give his adhesion to their being so governed, unless after all efforts have been exhausted to educate them for freedom and govern them as freemen, and it has been definitively proved that they can only be governed as children. The bare statement of the alternative shows the absurdity of supposing that such efforts have been made in any case which needs be considered here. It is only because the institutions of this country are a mass of inconsistencies, that things find admittance into our practice which belong to the system of despotic, or what is called paternal, government, while the general freedom of our institutions precludes the exercise of the amount of control necessary to render the restraint of any real efficacy as a moral education.

It was pointed out in an early part of this Essay, that the liberty of the individual, in things wherein the individual is alone concerned, implies a corresponding liberty in any number of individuals to regulate by mutual agreement such things as regard them jointly, and regard no persons but themselves. This question presents no difficulty, so long as the will of all the persons implicated remains unaltered; but since that will may change, it is often necessary, even in things in which they alone are concerned, that they should enter into engagements with one another; and when they do, it is fit, as a general rule, that those engagements should be kept. Yet, in the laws, probably, of every country, this general rule has some exceptions. Not only persons are not held to engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other civilized countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he forgoes any future use of it beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom. These reasons, the force of which is so conspicuous in this peculiar case, are evidently of far wider application; yet a limit is everywhere set to them by the necessities of life, which continually require, not indeed that we should resign our freedom, but that we should consent to this and the other limitation of it. The principle, however, which demands uncontrolled freedom of action in all that concerns only the agents themselves, requires that those who have become bound to one another, in things which concern no third party, should be able to release one another from the engagement: and even without such voluntary release, there are perhaps no contracts or engagements, except those that relate to money or money's worth, of which one can venture to say that there ought to be no liberty whatever of retractation. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in the excellent essay from which I have already quoted, states it as his conviction, that engagements which involve personal relations or services, should never be legally binding beyond a limited duration of time; and that the most important of these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that its objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both the parties are in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the declared will of either party to dissolve it. This subject is too important, and too complicated, to be discussed in a parenthesis, and I touch on it only so far as is necessary for purposes of illustration. If the conciseness and generality of Baron Humboldt's dissertation had not obliged him in this instance to content himself with enunciating his conclusion without discussing the premises, he would doubtless have recognized that the question cannot be decided on grounds so simple as those to which he confines himself. When a person, either by express promise or by conduct, has encouraged another to rely upon his continuing to act in a certain way - to build expectations and calculations, and stake any part of his plan of life upon that supposition - a new series of moral obligations arises on his part towards that person, which may possibly be overruled, but cannot be ignored. And again, if the relation between two contracting parties has been followed by consequences to others; if it has placed third parties in any peculiar position, or, as in the case of marriage, has even called third parties into existence, obligations arise on the part of both the contracting parties towards those third persons, the fulfilment of which, or at all events the mode of fulfilment, must be greatly affected by the continuance or disruption of the relation between the original parties to the contract. It does not follow, nor can I admit, that these obligations extend to requiring the fulfilment of the contract at all costs to the happiness of the reluctant party; but they are a necessary element in the question; and even if, as von Humboldt maintains, they ought to make no difference in the legal freedom of the parties to release themselves from the engagement (and I also hold that they ought not to make much difference), they necessarily make a great difference in the moral freedom. A person is bound to take all these circumstances into account, before resolving on a step which may affect such important interests of others; and if he does not allow proper weight to those interests, he is morally responsible for the wrong. I have made these obvious remarks for the better illustration of the general principle of liberty, and not because they are at all needed on the particular question, which, on the contrary, is usually discussed as if the interest of children was everything, and that of grown persons nothing.

I have already observed that, owing to the absence of any recognized general principles, liberty is often granted where it should be withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted; and one of the cases in which, in the modern European world, the sentiment of liberty is the strongest, is a case where, in my view, it is altogether misplaced. A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs. The State, while it respects the liberty of each in what specially regards himself, is bound to maintain a vigilant control over his exercise of any power which it allows him to possess over others. This obligation is almost entirely disregarded in the case of the family relations, a case, in its direct influence on human happiness, more important than all others taken together. The almost despotic power of husbands over wives needs not be enlarged upon here, because nothing more is needed for the complete removal of the evil, than that wives should have the same rights, and should receive the protection of law in the same manner, as all other persons; and because, on this subject, the defenders of established injustice do not avail themselves of the plea of liberty, but stand forth openly as the champions of power. It is in the case of children, that misapplied notions of liberty are a real obstacle to the fulfilment by the State of its duties. One would almost think that a man's children were supposed to be literally, and not metaphorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the smallest interference of law with his absolute and exclusive control over them; more jealous than of almost any interference with his own freedom of action: so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than power. Consider, for example, the case of education. Is it not almost a self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognize and assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed will deny that it is one of the most sacred duties of the parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the father), after summoning a human being into the world, to give to that being an education fitting him to perform his part well in life towards others and towards himself. But while this is unanimously declared to be the father's duty, scarcely anybody, in this country, will bear to hear of obliging him to perform it. Instead of his being required to make any exertion or sacrifice for securing education to the child, it is left to his choice to accept it or not when it is provided gratis! It still remains unrecognized, that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at the charge, as far as possible, of the parent.

Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach, and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and parties, causing the time and labour which should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about education. If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. The objections which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon itself to direct that education: which is a totally different thing. That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is in so backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any proper institutions of education, unless the government undertook the task: then, indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils, take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it may that of joint stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape fitted for undertaking great works of industry, does not exist in the country. But in general, if the country contains a sufficient number of persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to those unable to defray the expense.

The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other than public examinations, extending to all children, and beginning at an early age. An age might be fixed at which every child must be examined, to ascertain if he (or she) is able to read. If a child proves unable, the father, unless he has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be subjected to a moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his labour, and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in every year the examination should be renewed, with a gradually extending range of subjects, so as to make the universal acquisition, and what is more, retention, of a certain minimum of general knowledge, virtually compulsory. Beyond that minimum, there should be voluntary examinations on all subjects, at which all who come up to a certain standard of proficiency might claim a certificate. To prevent the State from exercising, through these arrangements, an improper influence over opinion, the knowledge required for passing an examination (beyond the merely instrumental parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use) should, even in the higher classes of examinations, be confined to facts and positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion, politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the truth or falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or churches. Under this system, the rising generation would be no worse off in regard to all disputed truths, than they are at present; they would be brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, the State merely taking care that they should be instructed churchmen, or instructed dissenters. There would be nothing to hinder them from being taught religion, if their parents chose, at the same schools where they were taught other things. All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil; but it may very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person possesses the knowledge, requisite to make his conclusions, on any given subject, worth attending to. A student of philosophy would be the better for being able to stand an examination both in Locke and in Kant, whichever of the two he takes up with, or even if with neither: and there is no reasonable objection to examining an atheist in the evidences of Christianity, provided he is not required to profess a belief in them. The examinations, however, in the higher branches of knowledge should, I conceive, be entirely voluntary. It would be giving too dangerous a power to governments, were they allowed to exclude any one from professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees, or other public certificates of scientific or professional acquirements, should be given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand the test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over competitors, other than the weight which may be attached to their testimony by public opinion.

It is not in the matter of education only, that misplaced notions of liberty prevent moral obligations on the part of parents from being recognized, and legal obligations from being imposed, where there are the strongest grounds for the former always, and in many cases for the latter also. The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being, is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To undertake this responsibility - to bestow a life which may be either a curse or a blessing - unless the being on whom it is to be bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that being. And in a country either over-peopled, or threatened with being so, to produce children, beyond a very small number, with the effect of reducing the reward of labour by their competition, is a serious offence against all who live by the remuneration of their labour. The laws which, in many countries on the Continent, forbid marriage unless the parties can show that they have the means of supporting a family, do not exceed the legitimate powers of the State: and whether such laws be expedient or not (a question mainly dependent on local circumstances and feelings), they are not objectionable as violations of liberty. Such laws are interferences of the State to prohibit a mischievous act - an act injurious to others, which ought to be a subject of reprobation, and social stigma, even when it is not deemed expedient to superadd legal punishment. Yet the current ideas of liberty, which bend so easily to real infringements of the freedom of the individual in things which concern only himself, would repel the attempt to put any restraint upon his inclinations when the consequence of their indulgence is a life or lives of wretchedness and depravity to the offspring, with manifold evils to those sufficiently within reach to be in any way affected by their actions. When we compare the strange respect of mankind for liberty, with their strange want of respect for it, we might imagine that a man had an indispensable right to do harm to others, and no right at all to please himself without giving pain to any one.

I have reserved for the last place a large class of questions respecting the limits of government interference, which, though closely connected with the subject of this Essay, do not, in strictness, belong to it. These are cases in which the reasons against interference do not turn upon the principle of liberty: the question is not about restraining the actions of individuals, but about helping them: it is asked whether the government should do, or cause to be done, something for their benefit, instead of leaving it to be done by themselves, individually, or in voluntary combination.

The objections to government interference, when it is not such as to involve infringement of liberty, may be of three kinds.

The first is, when the thing to be done is likely to be better done by individuals than by the government. Speaking generally, there is no one so fit to conduct any business, or to determine how or by whom it shall be conducted, as those who are personally interested in it. This principle condemns the interferences, once so common, of the legislature, or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes of industry. But this part of the subject has been sufficiently enlarged upon by political economists, and is not particularly related to the principles of this Essay.

The second objection is more nearly allied to our subject. In many cases, though individuals may not do the particular thing so well, on the average, as the officers of government, it is nevertheless desirable that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a means to their own mental education - a mode of strengthening their active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal. This is a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial (in cases not political); of free and popular local and municipal institutions; of the conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary associations. These are not questions of liberty, and are connected with that subject only by remote tendencies; but they are questions of development. It belongs to a different occasion from the present to dwell on these things as parts of national education; as being, in truth, the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the political education of a free people, taking them out of the narrow circle of personal and family selfishness, and accustoming them to the comprehension of joint interests, the management of joint concerns - habituating them to act from public or semi-public motives, and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of isolating them from one another. Without these habits and powers, a free constitution can neither be worked nor preserved; as is exemplified by the too-often transitory nature of political freedom in countries where it does not rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. The management of purely local business by the localities, and of the great enterprises of industry by the union of those who voluntarily supply the pecuniary means, is further recommended by all the advantages which have been set forth in this Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and diversity of modes of action. Government operations tend to be everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary associations, on the contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of experience. What the State can usefully do, is to make itself a central depository, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others; instead of tolerating no experiments but its own.

The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employés of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was constructed - the more skilful the arrangements for obtaining the best qualified hands and heads with which to work it. In England it has of late been proposed that all the members of the civil service of government should be selected by competitive examination, to obtain for those employments the most intelligent and instructed persons procurable; and much has been said and written for and against this proposal. One of the arguments most insisted on by its opponents, is that the occupation of a permanent official servant of the State does not hold out sufficient prospects of emolument and importance to attract the highest talents, which will always be able to find a more inviting career in the professions, or in the service of companies and other public bodies. One would not have been surprised if this argument had been used by the friends of the proposition, as an answer to its principal difficulty. Coming from the opponents it is strange enough. What is urged as an objection is the safety-valve of the proposed system. If indeed all the high talent of the country could be drawn into the service of the government, a proposal tending to bring about that result might well inspire uneasiness. If every part of the business of society which required organized concert, or large and comprehensive views, were in the hands of the government, and if government offices were universally filled by the ablest men, all the enlarged culture and practised intelligence in the country, except the purely speculative, would be concentrated in a numerous bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest of the community would look for all things: the multitude for direction and dictation in all they had to do; the able and aspiring for personal advancement. To be admitted into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and when admitted, to rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition. Under this régime, not only is the outside public ill-qualified, for want of practical experience, to criticize or check the mode of operation of the bureaucracy, but even if the accidents of despotic or the natural working of popular institutions occasionally raise to the summit a ruler or rulers of reforming inclinations, no reform can be effected which is contrary to the interest of the bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy condition of the Russian empire, as shown in the accounts of those who have had sufficient opportunity of observation. The Czar himself is powerless against the bureaucratic body; he can send any one of them to Siberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will. On every decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining from carrying it into effect. In countries of more advanced civilization and of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect everything to be done for them by the State, or at least to do nothing for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it, but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for all evil which befals them, and when the evil exceeds their amount of patience, they rise against the government and make what is called a revolution; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate authority from the nation, vaults into the seat, issues his orders to the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking their place.

A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people having been engaged in military service, many of whom have held at least the rank of non-commissioned officers, there are in every popular insurrection several persons competent to take the lead, and improvise some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in military affairs, the Americans are in every kind of civil business; let them be left without a government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one, and to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient amount of intelligence, order, and decision. This is what every free people ought to be: and a people capable of this is certain to be free; it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central administration. No bureaucracy can hope to make such a people as this do or undergo anything that they do not like. But where everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries is an organization of the experience and practical ability of the nation, into a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest; and the more perfect that organization is in itself, the more successful in drawing to itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the members of the bureaucracy included. For the governors are as much the slaves of their organization and discipline, as the governed are of the governors. A Chinese mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a despotism as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order, though the order itself exists for the collective power and importance of its members.

It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal, sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body itself. Banded together as they are - working a system which, like all systems, necessarily proceeds in a great measure by fixed rules - the official body are under the constant temptation of sinking into indolent routine, or, if they now and then desert that mill-horse round, of rushing into some half-examined crudity which has struck the fancy of some leading member of the corps: and the sole check to these closely allied, though seemingly opposite, tendencies, the only stimulus which can keep the ability of the body itself up to a high standard, is liability to the watchful criticism of equal ability outside the body. It is indispensable, therefore, that the means should exist, independently of the government, of forming such ability, and furnishing it with the opportunities and experience necessary for a correct judgment of great practical affairs. If we would possess permanently a skilful and efficient body of functionaries - above all, a body able to originate and willing to adopt improvements; if we would not have our bureaucracy degenerate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross all the occupations which form and cultivate the faculties required for the government of mankind.

To determine the point at which evils, so formidable to human freedom and advancement, begin, or rather at which they begin to predominate over the benefits attending the collective application of the force of society, under its recognized chiefs, for the removal of the obstacles which stand in the way of its well-being; to secure as much of the advantages of centralized power and intelligence, as can be had without turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general activity - is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the art of government. It is, in a great measure, a question of detail, in which many and various considerations must be kept in view, and no absolute rule can be laid down. But I believe that the practical principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the standard by which to test all arrangements intended for overcoming the difficulty, may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency; but the greatest possible centralization of information, and diffusion of it from the centre. Thus, in municipal administration, there would be, as in the New England States, a very minute division among separate officers, chosen by the localities, of all business which is not better left to the persons directly interested; but besides this, there would be, in each department of local affairs, a central superintendence, forming a branch of the general government. The organ of this superintendence would concentrate, as in a focus, the variety of information and experience derived from the conduct of that branch of public business in all the localities, from everything analogous which is done in foreign countries, and from the general principles of political science. This central organ should have a right to know all that is done, and its special duty should be that of making the knowledge acquired in one place available for others. Emancipated from the petty prejudices and narrow views of a locality by its elevated position and comprehensive sphere of observation, its advice would naturally carry much authority; but its actual power, as a permanent institution, should, I conceive, be limited to compelling the local officers to obey the laws laid down for their guidance. In all things not provided for by general rules, those officers should be left to their own judgment, under responsibility to their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should be responsible to law, and the rules themselves should be laid down by the legislature; the central administrative authority only watching over their execution, and if they were not properly carried into effect, appealing, according to the nature of the case, to the tribunals to enforce the law, or to the constituencies to dismiss the functionaries who had not executed it according to its spirit. Such, in its general conception, is the central superintendence which the Poor Law Board is intended to exercise over the administrators of the Poor Rate throughout the country. Whatever powers the Board exercises beyond this limit, were right and necessary in that peculiar case, for the cure of rooted habits of maladministration in matters deeply affecting not the localities merely, but the whole community; since no locality has a moral right to make itself by mismanagement a nest of pauperism, necessarily overflowing into other localities, and impairing the moral and physical condition of the whole labouring community. The powers of administrative coercion and subordinate legislation possessed by the Poor Law Board (but which, owing to the state of opinion on the subject, are very scantily exercised by them), though perfectly justifiable in a case of first-rate national interest, would be wholly out of place in the superintendence of interests purely local. But a central organ of information and instruction for all the localities, would be equally valuable in all departments of administration. A government cannot have too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins when, instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of informing, advising, and, upon occasion, denouncing, it makes them work in fetters, or bids them stand aside and does their work instead of them. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which practice gives, in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes - will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.

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奇迹和偶像崇拜：英汉对照／（法）伏尔泰著；孙平华，曾娟译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

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Ⅰ．①奇…　Ⅱ．①伏…②孙…③曾…　Ⅲ．①伏尔泰，F-M.A.（1694～1778）—哲学思想　Ⅳ．①B565.25

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Dictionnaire Philosophique first published 1764

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese

Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great non- fiction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books, first written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential, but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder

Publisher

Great Ideas

分册总目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

奇迹和偶像崇拜

Voltaire Miracles and Idolatry

返回总目录

企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想

奇迹和偶像崇拜

（英汉双语）

［法］伏尔泰　著

［英］西奥多·贝斯特曼　英译

孙平华　曾娟　汉译

中国出版集团

中译出版社

译者导读

伏尔泰（Voltaire，1694年11月21日—1778年5月30日），原名弗朗索瓦－马利·阿鲁埃（François- Marie Arouet），伏尔泰是其笔名，法国著名思想家、哲学家、文学家，启蒙运动公认的领袖和导师，被誉为“法兰西思想之父”。他一生著作颇丰，涉猎广泛，在哲学和文学上造诣颇深，代表作有《哲学词典》《查第格》和《老实人》。除此之外，他还写有诸多哲理散文，其散文短小精悍，论说以讽刺见长，常常抨击天主教教会的教条，以激发人类质疑的精神，促使人们做到不盲从、不迷信。伏尔泰崇尚自由和科学，以捍卫公民自由，特别是信仰自由和司法公正而闻名于世，他的著作和思想与托马斯·霍布斯及约翰·洛克一道，对美国革命和法国大革命发挥了深远的影响。

本书《奇迹和偶像崇拜》是伏尔泰的一部哲理散文选集，集合了28篇优秀的哲理短文。本书所讨论的话题各异，涉猎极广，但多是从宗教概念出发引申出作者独有的思考。书中文章或驳斥盛行宗教观念的错误之处、或考证宗教文献的出处与真伪、或探讨宗教仪式的历史演变与背后的真实含义、或分析人类之本性与所犯之罪恶、或讨论各个时代宗教会议的决议与成就、或探寻人类的宗教狂热与传播、或讨论平等的实现与不平等的来源、或阐述国家制度的发展与世界公民的特质、或鉴别宗教故事中神迹的真伪、或讨论伟大的存在之链是否真的存在、或批评人们对偶像崇拜的误判、或为历史上遭到诬陷之人正名、或品评君王、圣徒、圣地与殉道之事、或探寻上帝之神迹、或探究人类享乐之习性与非理性之偏见……

总之，伏尔泰哲理散文说理透彻、机智冷隽，字里行间饱含辛辣的讽刺，思想有诸多独到之处，他用戏谑的笔调讲述荒诞不经之事，以此阐明深刻的哲理，发人深省。伏尔泰作为一名自然神论者，提倡对不同的宗教信仰采取宽容的态度，文中时刻体现着他崇尚自由与科学，开放包容的特质。此书对于培养人们独立思考能力与质疑精神具有很强的启发效应，这是了解伏尔泰思想的佳作之一。

目　录

译者导读

天　使

动　物

反三位一体论者

启示录

无神论者和无神论

洗　礼

食人族

确信与确信度

性　格

宗教会议

狂　热

平　等

祖　国

洪　水

伟大的存在之链

地　狱

偶像，偶像崇拜者，偶像崇拜

约瑟夫

朱迪亚

享　乐

殉　道

奇　迹

彼　得

哲人朱利安——罗马君主

偏　见

荣　耀

自　爱

邪　恶

返回分册总目录

天　使

天使（angel）一词，在希腊语中是信使之意。波斯人有佩里斯[1]、希伯来人有马拉克姆（Malakim），希腊人则有代莫诺伊（Daimonoi）。知晓了这些人物，我们对天使就有了非常深入的认识。

然而，我们却发现一个非常有趣的事实，极具启发性，那就是人的思想在潜意识中，总想在神与人之间安排一些中间角色。于是，早在远古时期，就创造了魔鬼与魔仆。人间的帝王国君也通过信使发布诏令，当然上帝也指派了自己的使者，比如墨丘利（Mercury）和艾里斯（Iris），他们都是使者，都是上帝的信使。

而希伯来人，作为唯一接受过上帝亲自引导的人类子民，起初并未给神赐的天使们命名，而是在被囚禁于巴比伦之时，借用迦勒底人（Chaldeans）给的名字。米迦勒（Michael）和加百列（Gabriel）两位天使最先由但以理（Daniel）命名，彼时他还是一名被困于巴比伦的犹太人奴隶。而居住在尼尼微（Nineveh）的犹太人托比特（Tobit），在与儿子一同去向犹太人加倍尔（Gabael）收账的路途中结识了天使拉斐尔（Raphael）。

然而，贵为犹太人教规的《利未记》和《申命记》却丝毫未曾提及过天使的存在，遑论尊崇。更有甚者，撒都该人（Sadducees），即古代犹太人，根本就不相信天使。

可是，犹太人在他们的历史故事中又对天使之事讨论颇多。他们认为天使是有形的，背生双翼，与异教徒所伪称的墨丘利脚踝处生有双翼如出一辙。有时，天使们能将双翼隐匿于衣裳之内，他们能吃能喝，并能在营救罗德（Loth）之时，吸引索多玛（Sodom）人对其欲行淫辱之事，所以怎能说天使们没有肉身呢？

据迈蒙尼德（Maimonides）所言，古代犹太人传统上认为天使有十级天阶之分：1．纯粹圣洁的圣天使（chaios acodesh）；2．敏捷迅速的座天使（ofamin）；3．强壮有力的力天使（oralim）；4．神之火焰焰天使（chasmalim）；5．生命之火炽天使（seraphim）；6．上帝信使及副手玛拉基（malachim）；7．神之判官埃洛伊（eloim）；8．神之子（ben eloim）；9．神之像（cherubim）；10．神之肉身（ychim）。

《摩西五经》并未记载有关天使堕落的故事，最先声称此事的是先知以赛亚（Isaiah），他在呼吁巴比伦国王之时，说道：“称颂者到底怎么了？对于他的堕落，松柏之类的正直之人都拍手称快？从天堂坠落，你到底怎么样了？哦，赫勒（Hellel），晨之明星？”这里的赫勒译为拉丁文时变成了路西法（Lucifer），随后路西法这个名字，饱含寓意，给予了在天堂中参加过战斗的天使长。最终，这个本意为晨星与黎明的名字，成了魔鬼的代名词。

基督教的信仰是以天使的堕落为基础的。那些反叛的天使，被驱逐出久居的天界，驱赶至地球中心的地狱，最终变成了魔鬼。而化身为蛇的魔鬼引诱了夏娃，让人类受到诅咒。耶稣前来救赎人类，最终战胜了恶魔，但是恶魔现在仍然还在引诱我们。然而，这一圣传仅见于旁经《以诺书》，并且与公认的圣传也存在巨大差异。

圣·奥古斯丁（saint Augustine）在他的第109封信中，毫不犹豫地赋予了善、恶两类天使苗条敏捷的身形。教皇格列高利二世将天使等级浓缩至九个，而犹太人则认为有十个等级，分别是：炽天使（seraphim）、智天使（cherubim）、座天使（thrones）、主天使（dominations）、德天使（virtues）、力天使（powers）、天使长（archangels），以及给与其他八级天使名字的天使。

在犹太人的神殿中，有两位智天使，均是牛鹰二首六翼。现在我们在绘画中，将他们描绘成一个飞翔着、耳下生有一对微型翅膀的脑袋。而天使和天使长在绘画中的形象则是背生双翼的婴孩。至于座天使和主天使，还没有人考虑过去描绘他们的形象。

圣·托马斯（saint Tomas），在《诫命108》（Question108）中的第二章中说到，与炽天使一样，座天使和智天使都与上帝很亲近，因为他们都是上帝的座驾。斯科茨（Scotus）曾统计过天使的数量，总共约有10万名。东方、希腊和罗马古典神话中都存在善恶天使，这说明了每个人都有善恶天使之分，从生至死，一个助人，一个害人。但我们现在仍不清楚这些善恶天使是否能从一端不断转移到另一端，是否得到了救赎。关于这个问题，可以参见圣·托马斯的神学总论。

至于天使住在哪儿，是住在天空中，在虚空里，抑或是行星上，我们都不得而知。当然上帝也不希望我们知道。

[1]　佩里斯（Peris），波斯神话中一种美丽的仙女。下文中的Malakim, Daimonoi均是神之使者之意。——译者注

动　物

动物如同机器，是被剥夺了认知与感觉的死物，它们日复一日，重复着相同的动作，学习不了，进步不得，如此云云，而持有此等看法的人实在是太粗鄙无知了！

确实如此！一只鸟儿倚墙筑巢时造半圆巢，倚角筑巢时造四分之一圆巢，倚树筑巢时便造圆形巢，这只鸟儿做所有事不都是这样吗？一只你已经训练了三个月的猎狗，难道经过训练后，它还没有之前懂得更多吗？金丝雀能立即重复你所教的曲调吗？你不是要花很长时间教它吗？你没见过它犯错误，然后更正自己吗？

你判断我有感觉、有记忆、有思想，是因为我向你提过这些吗？不！我没有提过。你见我回到家中，神情忧虑，动作急切地要寻找报纸，我记得将报纸放在了抽屉里，于是我拉开抽屉，找到了报纸，随后开心地开始看报。你判断我有过忧虑、有过快乐，也判断我有记忆、有认知。

那就以同样的方式来看待一只找不见主人的狗。它在每条过道上来回寻觅，叫声悲戚，躁动不安，在楼梯间上上下下，逐个屋子寻找主人的踪影。最终，它在书房找到了亲爱的主人，通过轻声叫唤，上下跳跃，来回蹭抚来表现它万分欣喜的心情。

然而，野蛮人却抓住了这只远比人类更看重友谊的狗。他们将它固定在桌子上，活生生地解剖了它，向人展示它的肠膜系静脉。你会发现它具备所有你拥有的感觉器官。机械论者，回答我，自然让这动物具备所有的感觉器官，难道只是为了让它无法感知吗？它能无动于衷吗？不要假想自然会制造这种荒谬的矛盾。

可是，这一学派的领袖们却在探问动物的灵魂。我不懂这个问题：一棵树能借助纤维吸收在树体内循环的树液，也能发芽、长叶和结果，你会问我什么是树的灵魂吗？它已经获得了那些馈赠；动物有感觉，有记忆，还有些想法。那是谁给予了这些馈赠？是谁赋予了它们这样的能力？就是那能让土地上的草木生长，能让地球被太阳吸引之人。

亚里士多德说，“动物的灵魂是以实体形式存在着的”。持此相同看法的在后世相继有阿拉伯学派、天使学派和索邦神学，此后就后继无人了。

另外一些哲学家们则认为，“动物的灵魂是物质的”。其实相较其他人，此种观点也未取得多大进步。当被问到什么是物质性灵魂时，这些哲学家们也答不上来。于是，他们不得不承认物质性灵魂其实就只是个感觉问题而已。然而，究竟是什么给予了这种感觉呢？答案就是实质性灵魂，换言之，是一个实质性灵魂给予另一个实质性灵魂感觉。这种循环，他们不能打破。

让我们来听听其他动物们对动物的解读吧。他们声称灵魂是一个灵性的存在体，肉体死亡时，灵魂也随之消散，但是又有什么证据来证明这种灵魂的存在呢？你又是如何看待这种灵性的存在体的呢？这些存在体在现实生活中有感觉、有记忆、有想法、懂适应，却永不知道一个六岁的小孩懂得什么？你又是依据什么来想象这种不是肉体的存在体会随着肉体的死亡而消亡呢？最愚蠢的人莫过于那些声称灵魂既非肉体又非灵体的人。您看这有一个绝佳的理论！说到灵体，我们知道是非肉身的、但未可知的东西，仅此而已。于是，这些绅士们的理论逻辑就是这样的：动物的灵魂是个实体，但这个实体既非肉身，也非不是肉身的东西。

话说回来，引起如此多矛盾性错误的原因到底是什么呢？原因就在于人类那在弄清楚事物是否存在之前，先弄清楚这个事物究竟是什么的长久习惯。移动的榫舌、风箱的阀门，就被称作是风箱的灵魂。那什么是灵魂呢？在我看来，灵魂就是那阀门，当我鼓动风箱时，它下降、引入空气、扩张自己、再将空气挤压进入管道。

在这里，我们没有异于机器的灵魂。但究竟是什么鼓动了动物的“风箱”呢？我已经告诉了你，操控之人就是那操控天地星辰之人。那位说着“Deus est anima brutorum”（上帝是动物们的灵魂）的哲人无疑是正确的，可惜他本可以走得更远。

反三位一体论者

非基督徒的异教徒们虽然认同耶稣是救世主，是人神的中间人，但是他们却绝不认同基督徒们所普遍接受的一条教义，即：位格三位一体，三种位格同时存在于同一神圣本体中，第二位格（圣子）由第一位格（圣父）所生，第三位格（圣灵）由其他两位位格所出。异教徒们认为此条教义最有悖于逻辑。

这条难以理解的教义并未出现在《圣经》之中。

没有经文能赋予它权威，也没有文章能让它在不偏离《圣经》文本本意的情况下，获得更清晰、更自然、与真理和常识更一致的蕴意。

相信在同一神圣本体中存在几种不同的位格，那么圣父（耶和华）就不再是唯一的真神，圣子和圣灵也加入了真神的行列。而这种观念，是基督教犯下的最愚笨无知、最危险万分的错误，因为这根本就是在提倡多神论，做法与基督教的反对者们如出一辙。

声称只有唯一的真神，同时也声称唯一的真神拥有三种位格，并且每种位格都是真神。这两种说法本就相互矛盾。

一个本体和三种位格的区分在《圣经》中从未出现。

这明显是个错误，因为本体不可能少于位格，位格也不可能少于本体。

三位一体中的三种位格，或者说是三种不同的实体，或者说是神圣本体的外性，又或者说是那本就无差别的同一本体。

第一种情况，创造了三个神。

第二种情况，神由诸多外性组成，人信奉外性，并将外性变异成位格。

第三种情况，一个不可分割的主体被毫无用处、毫无根据地分割开来，在主体内部并未进行区分的东西被区分为三种。

如果说，这三种个性既不是神圣本体中的不同实体，也不是神圣本体中的外性，那么人们就很难说服自己这三种个性到底是什么。

当然，也不可相信最顽固、最坚定的三位一体论者，对于这三种位格，在不分割实体，从而不增多数量的情况下，是以何种方式存在于神体内的这个问题，会有何种见解。

连圣·奥古斯丁在此问题上历经了千次论证推理之后，仍觉错误和晦涩，他也不得不承认三位一体说不清、道不明。

后来，三位一体论者引述了这位神父的话（这做法实际上非常异常）：“当被问到这三者到底是什么时，人类的语言已不足以去表达，也没有特定术语去描述这三者。而说到存在三种位格，其实我们不是为了表达些什么，而是因为我们必须要说些什么，不能保持沉默。（Dictum est tres personae, non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ne taceretur.）”（《论三位一体》V.ix[De Trinitate]）

现代神学家对此问题也没有更好的阐述。

当被问到如何理解“位格”一词时，他们只是解释说，这是一种特定的、难以言说的划分方式，让人们在唯一的神圣本体中去区分圣父、圣子和圣灵。

对这些术语的解释，他们的回答难以让人满意。因为依他们所言，这些术语表明，三位一体中的三种位格存在着令人难以理解的关系。

据上所述，我们可以概括出，现代神学家与正统基督教信奉者之间的基本争论就在于此问题上，即上帝是否有三者之分（这三者我们毫无概念），以及这三者之间是否存在特定的联系（这种联系我们也丝毫不知）。

基于上述所言，现代神学家们做出结论，认为相信使徒们的权威，遵从他们的做法将会明智许多。使徒们从不讨论三位一体，在宗教活动里也从不使用《圣经》中未出现过的术语，比如三位一体、位格、本体、本质、本质的、身合、道成肉身、创世、圣灵的发出等等诸如此类的术语。这些术语毫无实际意义，不指代自然界中的任何真实存在的东西，只能在理解上引发错误、模糊、晦涩且不完善的想法。

“地上三者做见证，生命之液、水、血液，此三者为一体。天上三者做见证，圣父、圣言和圣灵，此三者为一体。”此段文字选自《约翰福音》中的使徒书信，《约翰福音》由福音传道者约翰撰写。大师卡尔梅（dom Calmet）在其论文中针对此段文字做过一些评述。他承认这两段文字从未出现在任何古《圣经》之中。他认为如果圣·约翰在一封书信中提到了三位一体，却在他自己撰写的福音书中只字不提，这做法未免太过奇怪。另外在福音书权威版中也找不到与此教条相关的任何痕迹，在《新约》外典中也是如此。所有这些原因，也许就能解释为什么反三位一体论者成功地让历届宗教会议没有正式确认三位一体论。但是，异教徒们对宗教会议常常不以为意，因此我们也不知道应当如何去说服他们。就让我们单纯地相信反三位一体，并希望他们也能如此。

启示录

殉道者贾斯廷（Justin Martyr）记录了公元170年的历史，他首次提到了《启示录》，并认为该书的作者是耶稣门徒、福音传道者圣·约翰。在与犹太人泰福（Trypho）的对话中，当他被问到是否相信耶路撒冷终有一天会复原如初时，贾斯廷给予了肯定回答，就像其他所有拥有正统思想的基督徒那样。他说道：“我们之中有位名叫约翰的人，是耶稣十二门徒之一，约翰预言说，耶路撒冷的信徒前后将延续一千年之久。”

统治一千年这个观念长久地扎根在基督徒的思想里，这段时期是绅士贵族们的最爱。埃及人的灵魂在千年之末可修复肉身。而在同样的时空里，维吉尔（Virgil）笔下的灵魂正在炼狱中接受审判。一千年后的新耶路撒冷将有十二道门，来纪念十二门徒，门的形状为正方形，长宽高均为12000视距尺（stadia）[1]，即500里格（league）[2]，也就是说门的高度也有500里格之高，住在顶层想必会极不舒适。然而，这就是《启示录》第二十一章中的预言。

坚信圣·约翰是《启示录》作者的人，贾斯廷是第一位。然而也有人反对他的说法，因为贾斯廷在与犹太人泰福的对话中还说过，根据门徒们的描述，耶稣基督在进入约旦之时，约旦河河水翻滚沸腾，漫天火焰。然而，并无门徒有此类记载。

贾斯廷还非常自信地引用了西比尔巫语。更有甚者，他还声称在埃及法洛斯岛灯塔（Pharos）处看到了疯人院遗迹，该院在希律王（Herod）时期曾关押了72位释道者。有人很不幸地见过这些疯人院，那人的证词似乎暗示着贾斯廷也曾被关押在那儿。

稍晚时期出现，并也坚信千禧年的圣·艾雷尼厄斯（saint Irenaeus）说过，他从一位老人那儿得知圣·约翰撰写了《启示录》一书。然而，圣·艾雷尼厄斯自己也饱受责难，因为他认为世上只有四册福音书，原因在于世界只有四部分、只有四种主要风向以及以西结（Ezekiel）只看到了四种动物。他将这种逻辑推理过程称之为论证。我们必须承认，艾雷尼厄斯所做的论证推理，与贾斯廷的所见所闻，同样精彩绝伦。

亚历山大的克莱门特（Clement of Alexandria）在他的《雷克塔》（Electa）中提到说，圣·约翰仅仅只撰写了一项启示录，但此项非常重要。德尔图良（Tertullian）是一名伟大而虔诚的教徒，坚信千禧年，他不仅断言圣·约翰预言了耶路撒冷的复兴，以及信徒将统治耶路撒冷一千年之久，还声称新的耶路撒冷已经开始形成。巴勒斯坦的所有基督教徒，甚至异教徒，在夜之末尾已经连续四十天看到了新的耶路撒冷，但不幸的是，这座城市白天一旦来临便消失无踪。

在圣·约翰福音书的前言中，以及奥利金（Origen）的《圣经讲道》（Homilies）里都引用了《启示录》中的神谕，但是他也引用了西比尔巫语。圣徒亚历山大的丹尼斯（saint Denis of Alexandria），他记录了截至三世纪中期的历史，在他的分章之一（此分章由尤西比乌斯［Eusebius］保存）中提到说，几乎所有的有识之士都认为《启示录》成书必有渊源。也提到说此书的作者并不是圣·约翰，而是一名叫作克林妥（Cerinthus）的人，此人借用了约翰这个伟大的名字，以便让他的思想得以传播。

于公元360年举行的老底嘉（Laodicea）宗教会议并未将《启示录》纳入正典书卷。奇怪的是老底嘉宗教会议作为宣扬《启示录》的目标场所，竟然拒绝了这本是它命中注定的财富。此外，参与该会议的以弗所（Ephesus）的主教们，竟然也拒绝承认《启示录》的作者就是安葬在以弗所的圣·约翰。

由此可见，圣·约翰就算身处坟墓，仍然极具影响力，能够不间断地将这世间捣鼓得上上下下。相信圣·约翰并未真正死亡的人，也认定《启示录》并非他所作。但是，千禧年的信奉者仍对此坚信不疑。苏尔比基乌斯·塞维鲁（Sulpicius Severus）在其《宗教史》第九卷中说到，那些不承认、不接受《启示录》的人是无情且不恭的。后经历诸多犹疑，历经教会万般责难，苏尔比基乌斯·塞维鲁的观点最终获胜。此事经过阐释，教会最终认定《启示录》由圣·约翰所作，无可争辩，此后再无上诉。

基督教各教派团体都结合自身情况，对《启示录》中的预言加以运用。英国人受此预言启发，发动了英国大革命，路德教派给德国造成了不小的麻烦，法国革命者推翻了查理九世的统治，以及凯瑟琳·德·梅迪茜（Catherine de Medicis）的摄政。这些都是秉持正义，行大道的行动。博胥埃（Bossuet）和牛顿都为《启示录》撰写了评论。然而，总体来说，博胥埃和牛顿之所以声名远播，更多的是因为激昂演说与伟大发现，而非他们对《启示录》所做的评论。

[1]　视距尺，长度单位，1视距尺约合607英尺或185米。——译者注

[2]　里格，长度单位，1里格约等于3英里。——译者注

无神论者和无神论

Ⅰ

在以前的时代，每一位拥有秘密技能的人都有被当成巫师的风险；每一种新生的教派都会被谴责说在秘密宗教仪式中屠杀孩童；每一位不屑于僵化教条的思想家都会饱受愚蠢之人的谴责，被狂热分子、无赖流氓指责为无神论者。

勇敢的阿那克萨哥拉（Anaxagoras）坚持认为双轮战车上的阿波罗并不是太阳神，他就被世人称作是无神论者，从而不得不开始逃亡。

亚里士多德也曾被一名教士谴责持有无神论，亚里士多德非但没能成功地惩罚这位谴责者，反而是自己隐退到了卡尔基斯（Chalcas）。然而，希腊历史上最可憎的事件就是苏格拉底之死。阿里斯托芬尼（Aristophanes）（评论家们多倾慕此人，因为他是希腊人，但评论家们似乎忘记了苏格拉底也是希腊人）是第一个让希腊人相信苏格拉底是无神论者的人。

而我们现在的社会，是不会容忍阿里斯托芬这种既不喜剧也不诗人的喜剧诗人颠倒黑白，将圣·劳伦特（Saint-Laurent）的光明正义塑造成滑稽丑剧的。在我看来，阿里斯托芬此人比普鲁塔克笔下所描绘的更加低贱不堪，卑鄙无耻。充满智慧的普鲁塔克这样评价这个骗子，“阿里斯托芬的语言泄露了他卑鄙的品行：他的语言完全是由最低下，最恶心的嘲弄言语组成，人们不会觉得有趣，有识之士与谦谦君子也会发现他人品不佳，他的傲慢，让人难以忍受，体面人着实厌恶他的恶毒。”

紧接着上场的就是滑稽剧中的小丑塔伯里（Tabarin）。顺便提一句，达希耶夫人（mme Dacier），苏格拉底的崇拜者，竟然也对塔伯里十分仰慕。塔伯里准备了毒药，毒药被那臭名昭著的法官使用，毒死了希腊史上道德最崇高的人。

雅典城里的制革工人、补鞋匠和裁缝们都为一个滑稽剧拍手喝彩，在这剧中，苏格拉底被人用篮子吊在半空中，公然宣告世上没有上帝，并吹嘘说他在教授哲学之时还偷了一件外套。整整一个民族，他们的政府允许的自由竟然如此伤风败俗，实在是应当好好享受发生在他们身上的报应，即先成为罗马人的奴隶，如今又受到土耳其人的奴役。

我们先忽略罗马共和国与我们的时代相距的这一整段时期。罗马人要比希腊人明智得多，他们从不因为哲学家的观点而去迫害他们，所以并不能认为罗马帝国的继承者是野蛮人。神圣罗马帝国皇帝腓德烈二世一与教皇闹掰，就被教皇谴责说是无神论者，指责他与他的总理大臣德·维内斯（de Vineis）共同撰写了《三个骗子》（Three Impostors）这本书。

当伟大的总理大臣洛比达（de L'Hospital）宣称要反对迫害时，他立刻被谴责信仰无神论。一个耶稣会士的身份不及阿里斯托芬尼，正如阿里斯托芬尼的身份比不上荷马一样。然而在宗教狂热者眼中，荷马这可怜人的名字也会变得荒谬无比。总之，在耶稣会士格拉斯（Garasse）眼中，他会发现到处都有无神论者，他谎称西奥多·德·贝茨（Théodore de Bèze）是个无神论者，也引导大众误解瓦尼尼（Vanini）。

瓦尼尼悲惨的结局并未像苏格拉底的死那样让我们满怀遗憾和愤慨，因为他只是一个毫无功绩的外邦空谈家。但是，瓦尼尼毕竟不是一个所谓的无神论者。恰好相反，他是一个贫穷的那不勒斯教士，职业的传道士和神学者，他探究事物的本质，宇宙的共性，他的内心里没有一丝无神论的思想。他对上帝的理解在神学上是最彻底、最正确的。在他看来：上帝是众生之父、无需任何人；是脱离时间限制的永恒存在，无处不在却又从不现身；上帝没有过去，没有未来，他超越、统治和拥有所有事物；他亘古不变，无穷无尽，却又永不分离，他的力量就是他的意愿等等。

柏拉图认为上帝创造万物，从最微小至最宏大，形成一个生命链，而这一生命链的顶端则系于上帝那永恒的王座之上。瓦尼尼深信此点，以复兴柏拉图的美好理想为己任，并深以为傲，还得到了阿威罗伊（Averroes）的支持。实际上，这种想法比真理更崇高，而这种想法离无神论如此之远，就如同生命之远离虚空。

瓦尼尼四处游历以寻找财富，却不断陷入争论。而这些争论很不幸地让他远离了财富。他树立死敌的数量等同于与之理论的学者和学究们的数量。瓦尼尼的不幸并无他因，只因他在争论中所表现出的狂热与野蛮招致了很多神学家的憎恶。他与一个叫弗兰科（Francon）或称弗兰科尼（Franconi）的人发生过争执，而这个弗兰科又是他敌人们的朋友，理所当然，弗兰科指责他是传播无神论的无神论者。

这位弗兰科（或弗兰科尼），凭借少数几名证人，在审判瓦尼尼期间，泯灭人性地坚持自己的说辞。交叉询问时，瓦尼尼被问及对上帝存在的看法，他回答说，就像教会那样，信仰唯一的、三位一体的上帝。捡起一根稻草，他说到：“这小小的东西就足以证明造物主的存在。”然后，他就植物的生长和运动发表了一番不错的演说，当他谈到上帝存在的必要性时，他说没有上帝，就没有植物的运动与生长。

当时，身处图卢兹的首席法官格拉蒙（Grammont）在其《法国的历史》一书中记载了这次演说。然而，格拉蒙却因为偏见，断言瓦尼尼的说辞不是源于内心的信念，而是出于恐惧或功利之心。

那首席法官格拉蒙这一武断而狠毒的判决是基于什么原因呢？显而易见，瓦尼尼的回答本可以让他免受无神论的指控。然而，到底发生了什么事？原来这个不幸的外国传教士还是个药物行家。他们在瓦尼尼的家中发现了一只活生生的大蟾蜍，这只蟾蜍就在一个盛满水的器皿里，因此他们指控瓦尼尼是巫师。他们还声称，这只蟾蜍就是瓦尼尼信奉的神，他书中的几段内容还被指控说含有不虔诚的意义。这种事做起来轻而易举，通常就是把否认当成回答，再恶意曲解一些有歧义的短语，让本是干净清白的词句变得污秽不堪。最终，这些刻意打压瓦尼尼的小集团成功地让法官做出判决，将这不幸之人处死。

显而易见，想要为瓦尼尼的死亡辩护，就需要谴责那些卑鄙之人所做的可怕之事。默森里（Mersenne）心胸狭窄，疯狂过度，竟诬陷瓦尼尼“和他的十二个旨在劝慰所有国家皈依无神论的使徒离开了那不勒斯”。真是愚笨呀！一个穷困潦倒的教士怎能有钱供养十二个人？他是怎么说服那十二个那不勒斯人，甘愿花费巨资，冒着生命危险，与他一同游历，去各地传播这令人憎恶且反动的教义呢？一个国王是否足够强大富有去供养十二个无神论传道士？默森里神父制造如此可恶的谬论，真是前无古人，但后有来者，报纸、历史词典都受到他的传染，这热爱喧嚣轰鸣的世界也毫无怀疑，坚信这极具传奇色彩的谬论。

贝耳（Bayle）在《多样的思想》（Pensées diverses）一书中也把瓦尼尼说成是一位无神论者。他用此例去证明“一个无神论者的社会是能够存在的”这样一个悖论。他信誓旦旦地保证说，瓦尼尼道德崇高，是自己哲学观点的殉道者。然而，贝耳在这两个方面都犯了错误。瓦尼尼曾模仿伊拉斯谟写过《对话》，在此文中，他自白说自己有位情妇，名叫伊莎贝拉。瓦尼尼就如自己所描述的那般行事大胆，但无论如何，他绝不是无神论者。

瓦尼尼死后一个世纪，学者拉·克劳兹（La Croze）和一位笔名为菲内特（Philète）的人试图为他正名。然而，人们对于一个忧伤的那不勒斯人的回忆，一个写作糟糕的人，实在无法提起兴趣，他们所写的辩护词，鲜有人问津。

比格拉斯更博学多才的耶稣会士阿杜恩（Hardouin）在《无神论探讨》（Athei detecti）一书中曾谴责笛卡尔、阿诺（Arnauld）、帕斯卡（Pascal）、尼科尔（Nicole）和梅尔布朗斯（Malebranche）信仰无神论，所幸的是这些人并未重蹈瓦尼尼悲惨命运的覆辙。

结合上文罗列出的事实，我们继续来讨论贝耳所关注的道德伦理问题，即“一个无神论者的社会能否存续”的问题。首先让我们来观察一下，人们在这个问题上发生争论时，自相矛盾的程度究竟有多大：贝耳观点最激烈的反对者，以及以最侮辱人的话语否定无神论者社会存在可能性的人，都毫无畏惧，坚持认为无神论是一种由中国主导的宗教。

毫无疑问，他们对中国政府的看法都是错误的。只要阅读一下这个广袤国度所颁布的诏书，他们就会发现这些诏书的内容都是布道，所宣扬的全是神灵、天子、因果报应。

与此同时，他们在“无神论者社会存在的可能性”这一问题上也没少犯错误，我不懂贝耳先生怎能忘记那样一个绝好的实例，本来完全可以支撑他的论点。

一个无神论者的社会为什么看似无法存在呢？原因有三：一是不受上帝约束而成长的人类应该无法适应群居生活；二是法律对于隐蔽性犯罪基本无用；三是人类需要一个报复心重的上帝去惩罚此世或来世逃脱了人间法律制裁的恶人。

摩西律法没有涉及来世，没有提到死后惩罚，也没有告诉第一代犹太人灵魂是永恒不朽的，这是事实，但是犹太人非但没有成为逃避神圣复仇的无神论者，反而成为了人类中最虔诚的信徒。他们不仅相信上帝是永恒存在着的，而且还认定上帝就出现在他们中间，无处不在，他们害怕上帝会惩罚自己，会降罪子女，会阻断家庭的幸福，甚至会为第四代子孙担心害怕，上帝的这种督查考验着实威力无穷。

然而，异教徒中一些宗派是不存在上帝督查考验的，比如怀疑论者质疑世间万物；柏拉图信奉者保留对所有事物的看法；享乐主义者坚信上帝不能干涉人间之事，在内心深处并不相信上帝的存在。他们认为灵魂不是实体，而是与肉体同生共死的虚幻意志，所以他们不受上帝的束缚，而受道德与荣誉的影响。罗马元老院中的元老和骑士们是真正的无神论者，因为对于从不害怕上帝、对上帝也毫无所求的人来说，上帝是不存在的。所以，恺撒和西塞罗时代的罗马元老院才是真正的无神论者大本营。

伟大演说家西塞罗在名为“为克鲁恩修斯”[1]的演说中，他对集会中的元老们说：“死亡能给他造成什么伤害？我们拒绝所有有关地狱的愚笨而不实的寓言。死亡能带走他什么东西呢？什么也带不走，只能带走疼痛的感觉。”

处死罪犯，死并不是对罪犯的惩罚；死亡并不代表什么；死亡只是我们苦难的结束；死亡是快乐而非痛苦的时刻。对于这些观点，恺撒难道有发表反对意见？西塞罗和整个元老院难道不接受这些看法吗？就算恺撒是卡塔琳娜（Catalina）的朋友，并且还想从西塞罗手下挽救自己朋友的性命。因此，这些举世闻名的世界征服者和立法者们对上帝都无敬畏之心，他们是彻头彻尾的无神论者。

随后，贝耳探究了偶像崇拜是否比信仰无神论更加危险。不信神明与对于神明浅薄无知，此二者两相比较，前者是否是更大的罪过？关于此点，贝耳与普鲁塔克的看法一致。普鲁塔克认为相较于拥有错误观点来说，还不如没有观点来得好。然而，依据普鲁塔克的看法，显而易见，希腊人敬畏谷物女神刻瑞斯、海神尼普顿和主神朱庇特要比无所畏惧要好太多。与此同时，维护誓言的神圣地位也是必须，我们所信赖的人应当是那些相信错误誓言会招致惩罚的人，而不是那些认为胡乱发誓也不会受到惩戒的人。毋庸置疑，在一个文明城市里，存在一种宗教，就算不太完善，但较于全无宗教来说，还是要有用很多。

所以说贝耳应当去探讨宗教狂热与无神论，这两者之间哪一种更危险。毫无疑问，相较于无神论来说，宗教狂热所带来的危险当然要强出千百倍。因为无神论并不嗜血，但宗教狂热却热衷于此；无神论并不赞成犯罪，但宗教狂热却热衷犯罪。跟随《高卢事物注疏》（Commentarium rerum Gallicarum）一书的作者，让我们一起来假设一下总理大臣洛比达是名无神论者。他颁布的法令可行亲民，推行的政策仁爱和睦，可是宗教狂热者们却杀害了圣·巴多罗买（saint Bartholomew）。霍布斯（Hobbes）也被视作无神论者，然而他生活平静而简单，可在他所处的时代，宗教狂热者们在英格兰、苏格兰和爱尔兰泛滥成灾，流血事件时有发生。斯宾诺莎不仅是名无神论者，同时还宣扬无神论。当然他并未参与对巴纳菲尔德（Barneveldt）的司法暗杀，也不是他将德·维特（de Witt）兄弟扯成碎片，折磨致死。

大部分无神论者都是性情莽撞、又受到误导的学者。他们逻辑推理不严密、不懂创世、不知恶魔起源，也不知道其他许多难解的事物，因为无法解释，所以就转向事物永恒性与必然性的假说。

雄心勃勃、骄奢淫逸的人几乎不会花时间去论证，去接纳一个不完备的理论。他们与其做其他事也不会去比较卢克莱修（Lucretius）[2]和苏格拉底之间的区别，这就是当下的行事之风。

而罗马元老院的情况却不是如此。元老院上下几乎全由理论和实践上皆是无神论者组成，也就是说，他们既不信天意，也不信来世。这个元老院是哲学家、酒色之徒和野心勃勃之人的大本营，他们都很危险，是他们毁了共和国。享乐主义在罗马帝国皇帝统治下大行其道。元老院中的无神论者在苏拉（Sulla）和恺撒时代曾经是煽动反叛的人，而在奥古斯都（Augustus）和提比略（Tiberius）时代又成了无神论者的奴隶。

我不想与一个信仰无神论的王子有任何瓜葛，他会认为将我塞进炮管会非常有用，我也确信我会被塞进去；如果我是一个君主，我不想有信奉无神论的朝臣，因为他们的兴趣就是要将我毒死，那样每天我都需要随身携带解毒剂。由此看来，帝王国君和各类民众都绝对有必要将神灵、上帝、统治者和因果报应的概念深深地植入脑海。

贝耳在《关于慧星的思考》（Pensées sur les comètes）一书中提到说存在信奉无神论的人。卡菲尔人、霍屯督人、图皮南布人，以及其他许多小型部族都没有上帝。也许是这样，但这也并不意味着他们否认上帝的存在。他们既不否认，也不认同上帝，因为他们从未听说。告诉他们上帝的存在，他们就会相信。告诉他们所有事情都是自然而然发生的，他们也会相信。称他们为无神论者或反笛卡尔主义者（anti- Cartesians）都是适当的，因为他们既不认同，也不反对笛卡尔。他们就是真正的孩童，既不是无神论者也不是有神论者，他们是白纸一张。

那我们从中可以得出什么结论呢？结论就是：无神论对统治阶级、对学者们来说都是莫大的邪恶，就算是对于生活简单的学者来说，也是如此，因为学者们可利用所学知识去影响统治者。然而，无神论的危害就算没有宗教狂热来的那么强烈，但对于品德来说，也是致命伤。总而言之，自从哲学家们认识到了没有种子就没有蔬菜，没有筹备就没有种子，同时依靠腐烂不可以生产粮食之后，现在比起过去而言，无神论者已经少了很多。

非哲学的数学家们拒绝接受终极因，但是真正的哲学家们是接受的。正如一位著名作家所言：传道士告诉孩子们上帝的存在，而牛顿向明智之人演示上帝的存在。

Ⅱ

灵魂里的暴君因为唯利是图，欺诈行骗招致我们的反感，这灵魂暴君还强迫一些虚弱的心灵去否定被恶魔侮辱着的上帝。如果此事的责任不在于无神论者，那谁才是责任人呢？榨取民脂民膏的吸血鬼迫使无力的民众去背叛国王的频率有多高呢？

依靠吸食我们血肉而壮大的人向我们大声吼道：“确信一头母驴会说话；相信一条鱼在吞食一个人三天之后会将其安全无损地抛回海边；全能的上帝命令一个犹太先知（即以西结）去吃粪便，命令另一个先知（即何西阿书）去购买两个妓女并与她们生下子嗣，不要对此抱有怀疑。这字字都是真理、纯洁之上帝所说的话语。要么相信显而易见令人厌恶的东西，要么相信数学上完全不可能之事。否则，仁慈的上帝将会用地狱中的烈火将你烧成灰烬。这不仅限于成千上万个世纪的时间，而是贯穿了永恒，不管你有无肉体。”

这些难以置信的愚蠢之事不仅引起个性软弱、鲁莽之人的反感，也招致心性坚定、明智之人的不耻。他们说：“我们的宗教领袖们将上帝描述成所有物种中最愚蠢、最野蛮的事物，所以上帝是不存在的。”但是他们应该说：“我们的宗教领袖们将他们自己的愚蠢与狂怒强加给上帝，所以上帝恰恰是他们所宣称那样的反面，上帝明智仁善，程度等同于所被宣称的疯狂邪恶的程度。”这就是有识之士的结论。但是这些倘若被一个宗教狂热分子听到，那他会将他们告发至执法官和教士处，然后这个执法官会将他们置于慢火中活活烧死，并坚信自己是在模仿神圣的上帝来惩治这些不敬之人。

[1]　《为克鲁恩修斯》（For Cluentius）是古罗马著名演说家西塞罗为克鲁恩修斯（Cluentius）辩护所发表的演说，公元前66年，克鲁恩修斯被其母亲控告毒杀继父。——译者注

[2]　卢克莱修（Lucretius，前99—前55），古罗马哲学家及诗人，具有唯物主义观点，反对神创论，著有哲学长诗《物性论》。——译者注

洗　礼

洗礼在希腊语中意为浸礼。通常以感官为导向的人类，很容易联想到在洗涤肉体的同时也是在净化灵魂。而此事，在很大程度上，都要归功于那些在埃及神殿穹顶下洗礼的发起人和首次进行实践的祭司。自远古时期以来，印度人就以恒河之水净化自身，至今这一仪式仍然十分盛行。后来这仪式传给了希伯来人，他们为所有皈依犹太教的外邦人举行洗礼，这仪式的重要性丝毫不逊色于割礼。除埃塞俄比亚外，所有的女人都不要求实行割礼，但需要举行洗礼。因为洗礼代表一种重生，人能被赋予全新的灵魂，正如埃及的传统那样。关于这点，参见伊皮法纽[1]，迈蒙尼德[2]和《革马拉》[3]。

约翰在约旦举行过洗礼，他甚至还为耶稣举行了洗礼。而耶稣，这个从未为别人举行过洗礼的人，却让这个古老仪式变得圣洁、神圣。其实，每条教义本身都无意义，只是上帝将他的祝福融入了他所选择的教义之中。很快，洗礼就成了基督教的首要宗教仪式和信徒的主要标志。耶路撒冷的首批15名大主教虽然都受过割礼，但是是否都行过洗礼却无法确定。

可是，这一神圣仪式在基督教的头一个世纪里遭到了滥用。死亡之时等待接受洗礼成了最稀松平常之事，其中的典型事例就是康斯坦丁大帝。以下是他对洗礼的看法：洗礼可以洗净世间任何东西，所以我可以杀尽妻儿亲人，之后只要受洗，照样可以进入天堂。实际上他也如此做了。但这是一个很极端的例子，其实接受神圣洗礼之前等死的习俗已经渐渐消亡了。

希腊人总将洗礼等同于浸礼。8世纪末期，拉丁人在将他们的宗教传入高卢和德国后发现，在气候严寒的国家实行浸礼会冻死孩童，于是用简单的淋水取代了浸礼。他们还因为此事经常受到希腊教会的谴责。

迦太基大主教圣·塞浦路斯（saint Cyprian）曾被问到那些全身只受过微量水洗的人是否真的受洗了。他在第76封信中回答道：有几个教会不相信这些轻微受洗过的人是基督徒，但是就他自己而言，他觉得他们是基督徒，只不过相较于那些根据习俗受过三次浸礼的人，毫无疑问得到的祝福要少得多。

就基督徒来说，一个人一旦受洗，那么他就被教会正式接纳为信徒了。在受洗之前，他就只是一个初学者。想要被教会接受，就需要有保证人、监护人，这些人会被授予一个类似于教父一样的名字，只有这样，教会才能确认这新的基督教徒能始终保持信仰，而不会沉溺于其他秘密宗教。这就是为什么在头几个世纪里，关于基督教的秘密宗教仪式，连同伊希斯[4]和依洛西斯[5]的秘密宗教仪式，基督徒都没有受到正确的指引。

亚历山大的区利罗[6]在他反对朱利安大帝的小册子中这样说道：“我会谈论洗礼，就算我的言语会传到非基督徒的耳中，我也不怕。”

早在二世纪时，他们就已经开始为儿童举行洗礼。基督徒们期望他们的孩子受到洗礼，这是人之常情，因为不受洗就会受到诅咒。最终将洗礼的举行时间定在孩子出生一周后，因为这时间也是犹太教为孩子举行割礼的时间。尽管人在死亡时接受洗礼盛行于三世纪，但是这一习俗至今仍是希腊教会的传统。

根据教会中最严格的教父的说法，婴儿出生后一周内死亡是受到了诅咒。但是在五世纪时，皮特·克索罗格斯[7]发明了地狱边境一说。地狱边境就是一种轻量级地狱，更确切地说，是地狱的边境部分，是地狱的郊区，是未受洗礼的儿童和在耶稣降生之前已去世的正直的人死后的栖身之所。从此以后，人们认为耶稣死后进入的是地狱的边境而非地狱。

降生在阿拉伯的沙漠之中的基督徒能否用沙子进行洗礼一事也引起过各方争论，最后的答案是不可以。又问玫瑰香水是否可以用来进行洗礼，答案是纯净水是必要的，但是浑浊水也可以使用。显而易见，所有的规则主要取决于首次创立该规则牧师的谨慎程度。

……

洗礼：补充

受到洗浴盆的启发而认为一壶水能洗净所有的罪恶，是个多么奇怪的观点呀！之所以所有的孩子都接受洗礼，是因为再没有比这更荒谬的观点能假定所有的孩子都是罪犯，假定他们都被拯救了，直到他们长大到懂事的年龄并能开始犯罪为止。所以尽可能快地屠戮他们以求让他们相信天堂。这个结论是如此地逻辑严密，以至于存在一个虔诚的教派，致力于毒杀所有刚受洗的婴儿。这些信徒的辩解是如此的理所当然，他们说：“对于这些纯洁无瑕的小东西，我们给予最大的善意，我们这是在防止他们变得邪恶，不让他们品尝生活的艰辛，我们是在赋予他们永生。”

[1]　伊皮法纽（Epiphanius，约310或320—403），萨拉米斯（Salamis）大主教，被东正教和基督教视为圣徒。著有《帕那里昂》（Panarion），详细反击了80种异端邪说。——译者注

[2]　迈蒙尼德（Maimonides，1135—1204），出生于西班牙，被认为是中世纪最伟大的犹太哲学家、犹太教法学家、科学家、神学家和医学家。——译者注

[3]　《革马拉》（Gemara），犹太教口传律法集《塔木德经》（Talmud）的后半部和释义部分，为《密西拿》的补编和说明。——译者注

[4]　伊希斯（Isis），埃及宗教里司生育和繁殖的女神。——译者注

[5]　依洛西斯（Eleusis），古希腊城市，依洛西斯秘密宗教仪式的发祥地。——译者注

[6]　亚历山大的区利罗（Cyril of Alexandria，376—444），又译区利罗一世，412—444年间于罗马帝国统治下的埃及亚历山大城任亚历山大宗主教。区利罗著作甚多，积极参与当时关于耶稣基督的神性和人性的争论。——译者注

[7]　皮特·克索罗格斯（Peter Chrysologos，约380—450），拉文那（Ravenna）大主教。——译者注

食人族

我讨论过爱。从讨论人类相亲相爱到讨论人类互相啃食，实现这个转换很是艰难。但是食人族又千真万确地存在着。在美洲已经发现过一些。然而在远古时代，偶尔会吃人血肉的，并不只有独眼巨人[1]，可能其他一些人也会如此。尤维纳利斯（Juvenal）就曾描述说古埃及人，一个如此明智博学，以其律法完善、人民虔诚、崇拜鳄鱼与洋葱而著称的民族，他们中的丹德拉人（Denderites）竟然也吃掉了一个落入他们之手的敌人。尤维纳利斯讲述的这个故事并非异端邪说，这宗罪恶几乎就在他眼皮底下发生，当时他就在埃及，离丹德拉（Dendera）不远。他在连接日记的文件夹里还引证了以前吃同胞血肉的加斯科涅人（Gascons）和桑加提人（Sagantines）。

1725年，四个野蛮人被人从密西西比带到枫丹白露，我有幸能有机会和他们对话。我问其中一个女人是否吃过人，她很无辜地回答说，她吃过。我震惊了。她解释说吃掉敌人的尸体好过敌人被野兽吞食，胜利者有这个特权。在对阵战或者野战中，我们杀死邻居，为乌鸦和蠕虫只留下最少量的食物。只要有惨状，就会有犯罪。当一个人被杀死了，死后尸体是被士兵吃掉还是被乌鸦或者狗吃掉，这又有什么关系呢？

我们尊敬死者甚于尊敬生者。两者都应当受到我们的尊敬。国家之所以文明在于我们不会将屈服的敌人置于烤肉叉上。因为一旦允许吃掉敌人，那很快我们也会吃掉自己的同胞，这对社会公德来说将会是一种双重的诅咒。但是文明国度并非总是文明的，因为所有人在很长时间里都曾是野蛮人。在这世界所经历的无数次革命中，人类种群的数量有时巨大，有时稀少。如今大象、狮子和老虎数量锐减的现象，也曾发生在人类身上。所以，当人类聚居在一个狭小区域，又无诸多技艺，他们就都是猎人，以杀死的猎物为食的习惯就很容易导致他们对待敌人就像对待他们的猎物野鹿和野猪一样。以人献祭是迷信，但以人为食是必需。

有两种罪，一种是为了向神表达敬意，将幼小的祭品用束带装饰好，然后在虔诚的集会中，将刀插入祭品心脏；另一种则是吃掉一个为了自卫而杀死的恶棍。这两种罪，哪一种更严重呢？

然而，男孩被当做祭品献祭的事例要比被当做食物吃掉的事例多得多。其中，犹太人就献祭。这种仪式被称为咒逐，这是真正意义上的献祭。《利未记》第27章明确要求不要放过那些已经致力于服侍上帝的生魂，但是没有规定说他们应该被吃掉，他们只是受到这种命运的威胁。我们也已经知道摩西对犹太人说，如果他们不观看这些仪式，那么不只是他们会有这种渴望，就连母亲也会吃掉自己的孩子。在以西结时代，犹太人一定有吃人的习惯，因为在第39章他向犹太人预言说，上帝不只会让他们敌人的战马成为他们的食物，甚至骑马者和其他的战士也会成为他们的食物。这千真万确。但是为什么犹太人实际上又没有成为食人族呢？这本应是唯一一件事能使这些上帝选民成为世上最令人厌恶的人。

在一些有关克伦威尔时期英格兰历史的书上，我曾经读到过一件奇闻轶事：都柏林有一个油脂蜡烛商贩售卖用英格兰人的油脂制作的、质量上乘的蜡烛。一段时间后，她的一个顾客向她抱怨说蜡烛质量没那么好了。她说“哎，这是因为这个月英格兰人缺货。”我想问谁才是罪人？是那些杀死英格兰人的刽子手？还是这个将他们的脂肪做成蜡烛的女人呢？

[1]　独眼巨人，希腊神话中的人物，身体强壮、固执、感情冲动。——译者注

确信与确信度

“你的朋友克里斯托弗多大年龄？”

“28岁。我俩打小就认识，我见过他的结婚证，知道他什么时候举行的洗礼。他28岁，这一点毫无疑问，我很确定。”

此人如此确信，其他20多人也证明了此事，然而我刚听完回答，就发现克里斯托弗出于某种不为人知的原因，利用一些小手段将实际举行洗礼的日期提前了。那些回答我问题的人到现在都还没意识到这个错误。他们犯了错，却不自知地坚持错误。

哥白尼出现之前，如果你问“今天太阳会升起吗？会降落吗？”那么所有人可能都会这样回答你：“当然，我们万分肯定。”他们都万分肯定，确信无疑，然而他们都错了。

曾经在很长的岁月里，符咒、占卜和神魔附身在世人眼中都是确信无疑的事情。那个时候，认同并对这些神奇之物确信无疑的人何其多也！如今，这种确信度在一定程度上有所变弱。

曾经有一名学习几何学的年轻人来拜访过我。他不理解三角形的定义。我就问他说：“一个三角形的三个角等于两个直角，你不觉得确定无疑吗？”他回答说，他对这个命题连一个清楚的认识都没有，根本谈不上确定无疑。于是，我向他演示了这道命题，然后他就对此确信无疑了，并且终生都会如此。

数学上的这种确定性不同于其他类别的确定性，它是亘古不变的，然而其他类别的确定性仅仅只是可能性，一旦加以验证，就会变成错误。

我存在、我思考、我感受苦痛！所有这类问题是否也与几何真理一样确定呢？答案是肯定的，为什么呢？原因在于此类真理都可以由同一条原则加以证明，此原则就是一个事物不可能同时存在又不存在。我不可能同时存在又不存在，感知又不感知。一个三角形不可能同时有又没有180度，而这180度恰好是两个直角的总和。

所以，对于我的存在和感知的物理确定性与数学上的确定性，尽管种类不同，但是他们具有同等的价值。

但这并不适用于那些基于表象或者由众口一词而得来的确定性。

“真的吗？”你告诉我“北京真是存在吗？我们没有从北京得来的纺织品吗？国度不同，见解不同的人，虽会对彼此口诛笔伐，但是对于北京的存在却都确信无疑。他们没有向你保证说这座城市是真实存在的吗？”我回答说，对于我而言，北京存在着只是一件很可能的事情，我不会赌上我的性命说这座城市是存在的，但是，在任何时候，我都会赌上我的性命说一个三角形的三个角等于两个直角。

《大百科辞典》中的有些内容真的非常可笑。比如，里面有篇文章写道：如果整个巴黎都说德·萨克斯元帅[1]复活了，那么人们就该对此确信无疑，正如人们都相信巴黎人所说的德·萨克斯元帅取得了丰特努瓦之战胜利一样。那我请您考虑一下，想想这个逻辑是多么的令人钦佩：当所有的巴黎人告诉我一些在原则上可能发生的事情时，我相信他们；所以当他们告诉我一些在原则上、在生理上不可能发生的事情时，我仍旧必须相信他们。

显而易见，这篇文章的作者就是想博人一笑。而另一名作者在文章末尾还陷入狂乱状态，写作自相矛盾，估计这也是想逗人一笑吧。而对于我这么一个试图从这本辞典中挑出问题的人来说，所谓的确信离我太远。

[1]　德·萨克斯，全名莫里斯·德·萨克斯（Maurice de Saxe，1696—1750），法国元帅。军事才能突出，曾领导法国战胜英荷联军取得丰特努瓦战役的胜利。——译者注

性　格

“性格”一词源于希腊语，是印记、雕刻之意。性格是大自然铭刻于我们人类体内之物。我们可以抹除性格吗？这是个高深的问题。如果我有一个鹰钩鼻，两只猫儿眼，那我可以将它们隐藏在面具之下。那对于自然赋予我的性格，我可以让它变得更好吗？一个生性狂暴、暴躁易怒的人，去法国国王弗朗索瓦一世面前抱怨说他受到了不公正待遇。但王子的面容、朝臣的敬意、以及他正身处的这个地方，都会给他留下深刻的印象：不知不觉中，他会垂下眼睑，放柔声音，来表现他的谦恭。人们会觉得他个性自然温顺，身处朝臣们中间时，甚至会有些惊慌失措。但是，如果弗朗索瓦一世精于观察面相，那么从他那低垂却隐藏火焰的眼睛里，从那紧绷的面部肌肉里，从那紧紧闭合的嘴唇上，国王就能很轻易地发现，此人并不像他所表现出来的那样谦卑恭顺。此人跟随国王一起去帕维亚，一起被俘，一道被关押在马德里的监狱里。此时，弗朗索瓦一世国王的形象在此人心中就起了变化，此人对他曾经顶礼膜拜的国王已经相当熟悉。有一天，当他为国王脱骑马靴时，手法不对，国王又想起自己的不幸，一下子就暴怒起来。于是乎，这人就把国王送给了魔鬼，将国王的靴子扔出了窗外。

西斯都五世本性急躁、顽固倔强、傲慢自大、鲁莽冲动、报复心重、嚣张骄纵。他在见习修士期间进行过苦修，他的本性看似有所柔化。然而，当他声名鹊起、大权加身之时，一名侍者侍奉不周，让他暴怒，他就用自己的拳头将这侍者击倒在地。西斯都五世在威尼斯任审问者一职时，行事傲慢无礼，在成为红衣主教之后，他想成为教皇的野心肆意膨胀。这种野心膨胀侵蚀了他的本性，他将自己的人性与性格隐匿于黑暗之中，他假装谦逊，身体虚弱，直到被选为教皇。一当选，他就恢复了所有强行压制着的本性。他是最傲慢自大、最暴怒专制的最高统治者。

Naturam expellas furca, tamen ipsa redibit.

（就算用干草叉将本性暂时驱逐，但它总会回归）

Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop.

宗教和道德只能束缚但不能摧毁本性。修道院里的嗜酒者，就算将喝酒量减至每餐只喝一杯苹果酒，不会再喝醉，但他永远还是爱酒。

年岁的增加会让性格有所弱化。但是一棵树结出的果子，有些尽管较次，总归是同一种类。树会起疙瘩、长苔藓，会被虫蛀，但是它总还是一颗橡树或者梨树。如果我们可以改变自己的性格，那么也许我们会给自己创造一种性格，我们会成为自然的主宰。我们可以给予自己什么东西呢？难道我们所拥有的还不够吗？尝试着在充满惰性的群众里连绵不断地发起活动、尝试着用冷漠去给滚烫冲动的灵魂降温、也尝试着激发那些无品位、无悟性的人群生出对音乐、对诗歌的热爱与品位。如果你能为生而眼盲的人带去光明，那么再没有什么能比这更加成功的了。我们可以去完善、调节或者隐藏自然赋予我们的东西，但是我们不能肆意为自己创造东西。

一个农民曾被告知说：“你这鱼塘里鱼太多了，它们无法茁壮成长；你农田里动物太多了，食草不够，它们会减重。”听从这劝告之后，梭鱼吃了这人一半的鲤鱼，狼群吃了一半的绵羊，剩下的就长肥了。农民会为这种管理方式而欢呼雀跃吗？这农民其实就是你自己，你自身的一种热情吞噬了其他热情，你还以为自己战胜了自己。有位九十高龄的老将军偶然遇见一些年轻的军官正与镇上的女人们调情，他怒气冲冲地说道：“绅士们，这就是我给你们树立的榜样吗？”难道我们自己不都与这位九十岁的老将军大同小异吗？

宗教会议

毫无疑问，所有的宗教会议阐述教义绝无谬误，因为会议的成员都是有智慧的人。在他们的集会中，感情用事、阴谋诡计、喜辩好战、仇恨嫉妒、偏见傲慢都不可能占主导地位。

但是为什么如此多的宗教会议又会彼此冲突呢？这是个会被问到的问题。这就要检验我们的信仰了，每一个会议就其本身而言都是正确的。

罗马天主教只相信梵蒂冈认可的宗教会议；希腊天主教则只信任君士坦丁堡认可的宗教会议。而新教徒对此两者都加以嘲弄。所以说每个人都想着自己应该被满足。

在这里，我只提及影响大的会议，规模小的略去不提。

第一个就是尼西亚（Nicaea）会议。该会议于公元325年召开，召开原因主要是康斯坦丁大帝吩咐奥蒂斯（Ozius）给迷惑的亚历山大教士写了一封重要的信，信中说道：“你是在为一些无关紧要的事情争论，这些细微之处在理性之人看来毫无价值。”这里提到的事主要就是：耶稣是上帝创造的，还是自存的。此事与道德无关，这点是核心。耶稣是受到时间限制还是凌驾于时间之上，这怎么说均是不妥。在历经众多解读之后，会议最终决定圣子与圣父同龄同质。这个解读虽然我们难以理解，然而正是由于这个缘故，圣子变得更加庄严崇高。但是，却有17名主教反对这项教令，据亚历山大所著的编年史记载（此编年史保存在牛津），还有2000名教士也持反对意见。然而，高级教士对贫穷困苦的底层教士的意见通常是不屑一顾的。尽管出现这种情况，第一次宗教会议对于三位一体还是不存在争议的。教条这样写道：“我们相信耶稣与圣父同质同体，是神之神，是光之光，是上帝所生而非创造。我们也相信圣灵。”在这里我们必须承认圣灵遭受了比较随意的对待。

尼西亚会议的附录中还记载到：由于分不清辨不明哪些是《旧约》和《新约》的真经，哪些是伪经，迷惑的神父们将所有经书混杂无序地置于祭坛之上，不被认可的经书就会掉到地上。如此优雅讲究的仪式竟然没有被继承流传下来，真是可惜呀！

第一次尼西亚会议成员由317位在阐述教义方面绝不会出错的主教们组成，此次会议之后，另一会议在里米尼[1]召开，与会成员多达400名主教，这还不包括塞琉西亚的一大队人马，将近200人。这600名主教，在历经四个月的争论之后，一致同意剥夺耶稣与圣父同质的特性。之后，除了索齐尼派教徒（Socinians），会议又恢复了耶稣与圣父同质的特性。所以说，怎样做都是可以的。

公元431年举行的以弗所会议也是最重要的会议之一。君士坦丁堡大主教、异教徒伟大的迫害者聂斯脱利（Nestorius）认为耶稣实际上就是上帝，但是耶稣的母亲绝对不是上帝的母亲，只是耶稣的母亲，因为这一看法他遭到了圣·赛瑞利（saint Cyril）的谴责。然而，之后在这同一会议上，聂斯脱利的支持者们废黜了圣·赛瑞利。这些事情使得圣灵的处境非常难堪。

亲爱的读者们，在这里请仔细注意，福音书对于同实体性这一词尚未发表任何意见，对于圣母玛利亚是否是上帝之母，以及那些引发主教们集会的争执点也未发表任何意见。

欧迪奇（Eutyches）是名修道士，他极力反对聂斯脱利，认为聂斯脱利所宣扬的“耶稣其实是两个人”是异端邪说，是可怕断言。为了更好地否定对手的观点，他还断言说耶稣只有一种本性。一位名为弗拉维亚（Flavian）的君士坦丁堡主教不同意他的观点，认为耶稣具有二重本性是绝对必需的。449年，无数的宗教会议在以弗所举行。这次会议的参会人数是以往人数的四分之一，与355年举行的小型锡尔塔（Cirta）会议以及一个在迦太基举行的会议规模相当。会上弗拉维亚饱受攻击、遍体鳞伤，然而耶稣还是被赋予了二重本性。但是，卡尔西登（Chalcedon）会议又将耶稣的本性减少到一种。

我跳过那些讨论细枝末节的会议，直达第六次君士坦丁堡大型宗教会议，会议旨在确认只拥有一种本性的耶稣，是否有过两种欲念。为了讨好上帝，你会意识到此点的重要性。

正如此前诸多会议都由国王们召集一样，此次会议由康斯坦丁二世（绰号“大胡子”）召集。罗马主教的使者们坐于左侧，君士坦丁堡和安提俄克（Antioch）的主教们则坐在右侧。我不知道罗马的谄媚者们是否视左方座位为上座，但是无论如何，耶稣在此事上就有两种欲念。

摩西律法禁止将耶稣图像化，因此，画家和雕塑家在犹太人中从不吃香。除了路加（Luke）画的圣母玛利亚，耶稣图像从未出现过。无论怎样，犹太人从不崇拜耶稣基督的图像。然而，基督徒们直到四世纪末都还在崇拜着耶稣的图像，他们对于这种精湛的美术技艺已经相当熟悉。这种错误的做法严重泛滥，以至于到了八世纪，康斯坦丁五世科普罗尼穆斯（Constantine Copronymus）召集了320名主教在君士坦丁堡举行宗教会议，强烈谴责图像崇拜，并为其打下了偶像崇拜的烙印。

还有那位后来挖了她儿子眼睛的伊琳娜女皇于787年召开了尼西亚第二次会议，该会议恢复了图像崇拜。如今要为此次会议正名，理由通常是：这种对图像的崇拜是二等崇拜的一种（对圣徒的尊崇），而非最高崇拜（专对上帝之崇拜）。

然而，到底是二等崇拜还是最高崇拜，794年，查理曼大帝在法兰克福召集了另一场会议，该会议指责第二次尼西亚会议，认为它是盲目的偶像崇拜。教皇哈德良四世派遣了两名使者参加此会议，但并不召集人。

第一次由教皇召集而举行的大型宗教会议是1139年举行的第一次拉特兰（Lateran）会议。约有1000名主教参加，然而，此次会议除了诅咒那些抱怨教会太富有的人之外，没有取得任何成果。

1179年，教皇亚历山大三世召集举行了另一场拉特兰会议，此次会议只讨论了教规问题，但是红衣主教的地位在此次会议上第一次超过了主教。

另一场重要的会议是1215年举行的拉特兰会议。此次会上，教皇英诺森三世将图卢兹伯爵逐出教会，剥夺了他所有的财产。在这次会议上，首次出现了与变质论相关的问题。

1245年，还是当时皇城的里昂举行了大型宗教会议，在此期间，教皇英诺森四世将皇帝腓特烈二世逐出教会，进而废黜，永世放逐。也就是在这次会议上，红衣主教们被授予红帽，用来提醒他们自己必须沐浴在皇帝支持者们的鲜血之中。此次会议摧毁了斯瓦比亚家族（house of Swabia），使得意大利和德国30年里都处于无政府状态。

1311年，在维也纳举行的大会上，圣殿骑士团被废除（the order of the Templars），骑士团的主要成员们，基于许多毫无事实根据的指控，饱受谴责与最严酷恐怖的刑讯逼供。

1414年，举行了康斯坦茨（Constance）大会，该大会废黜了教皇约翰二十三世，指控他罪行1000种。此会议还以顽固不化的罪名烧死了约翰·胡斯（John Huss）和布拉格的哲罗姆（Jerome of Prague）。因为在当时，相较于谋杀、强奸、买卖圣职和鸡奸，顽固不化是项更严重的犯罪。

1431年的巴塞尔（Basle）大会不被罗马教会承认，原因在于此次会议未经罗马教会同意就废黜了教皇尤金四世。

罗马人将1512年举行的第五次拉特兰宗教会议也视为一次大会，此次会议由教皇尤里乌斯二世（Julius II）召集，但遭到法国皇帝路易十二世的反对。然而，随着尤里乌斯二世这样一位战士式的教皇离世，此次会议也化为乌有。

最后就是特伦托（Trent）大会，此会议在教规问题上在法国并无权威。但是，它的教规却是无可挑剔的，因为根据弟兄[2]保罗·萨比（fra Paolo Sarpi）的说法，圣灵每周都会借助信使之身从罗马来到特伦托。但是弟兄保罗·萨比的说辞总有一丝异端邪说的感觉。

[1]　里米尼（Rimini），古称“阿里米努姆”。意大利北部城市。位于圣马力诺东北的马雷基亚河口，滨亚得里亚海。——译者注

[2]　弟兄：Fra，用于意大利教士姓名前的称号。——译者注

狂　热

狂热，这一希腊词语意为内脏的骚乱，内心的激动。希腊人创造这一词语，是否旨在描述一种感觉，那就是当人被深深感动时，神经受到震动，内脏膨胀紧绷，心脏强烈收缩，暴乱的情绪横冲直撞，从内脏直灌大脑？

或者说，创造狂热这一词语的目的，不是用来描述内脏的骚动，而是首先用来描述女祭司皮提亚（Pythia）在德尔斐（Delphi）的三脚祭坛上，借助特制的道具，来接受阿波罗神谕时的激动心情呢？

我们如何理解狂热？在我们的情绪之中又有何细微差别？赞赏、敏感、情绪、悲痛、震惊、酷爱、狂暴、疯癫、激怒、愤怒：这些都是一个悲惨的灵魂可能经历的情绪状态。

一位几何学家观看一场感人肺腑的悲剧：他只看到该局的结构精巧。他身旁的年轻人深受感动却未有任何发现。一位女子掩面而泣，另一年轻人深受感染，以至于决定自己也去书写一个悲剧，他很不幸地被狂热这种疾病传染了。

百人队长或军团将校将战争视为一种有利可图的贸易，他们踏入战场就如一个盖屋匠爬上屋顶一样。恺撒见到亚历山大大帝的雕像时还会哭泣。

奥维德（Ovid）觉得爱情有趣好笑，萨福（Sappho）则对爱情狂热不已，如果说真的是这种狂热侵蚀了萨福的生命，那么也是因为狂热在萨福这里早已变成了癫狂。

党派之分极大地助推了这种狂热之情，任何团体都有其忠实狂热的追随者。

狂热，说到底，就是误入歧途的虔诚之心。有那年轻的苦行僧，盯着鼻尖，反复祈祷，直到自己坚信倘若身负50磅重的枷锁，那么神会由衷地感激他。脑海中充斥着对梵天的无尽想象，他陷入沉睡，在睡梦中他也无可避免地看到了自己的身影。有时，在沉睡与清醒之间，他的眼睛还会闪烁着星光点点：他看到梵天闪闪发光，为此他陷入狂喜之境，而这种狂喜之疾再也无法治愈。

理智与狂热并存是世上最稀有之事。理智在于看事物总看到本质。醉酒之人视物出现重影之时，他已经丧失理智。而狂热恰恰就像是烈酒：它能使血管骚动、神经震颤、彻底地摧毁理智；它也能只引发些许震动，促使大脑稍稍活动。此时就是雄辩之能大爆发，绝妙诗歌横空出世之时，这种有理智指导的狂热使他们的技艺才能变得完美。在过去时代，当人们提到从未被其他艺术家们提及之物时，通常会认为这是受到了神的启发。

理智怎么能控制狂热呢？原因在于诗人首先会在画布上勾画出结构，此时理智主导了画笔。然而，当他继续着笔，赋予人物灵动与生气时，想象力迸发，狂热取得主导地位：这就是一匹赛马，在合理铺设的赛道上，猛力向前奔跑。

平　等

狗与狗之间，马与马之间，存在欠债关系吗？当然不存在，同类动物之间，从不依赖彼此。但是对于接受了神之光，拥有理智的人类来说，结果又是怎样的呢？结果是奴隶制盛行于世界各地。

世界理应如此运行，那就是：倘若人们发现这个世界舒适惬意、物质充足、气候适宜，那么显而易见，人奴役人的现象将不可能发生。就让这个世界遍布健康的果实、让维系生命的空气不再带给我们疾病和死亡、让人们不再拥有比鹿儿更多的贪念，那么成吉思汗和帖木儿，除了他们自己的子嗣，就不会再有其他的仆人，因为子嗣已经完全足够照顾他们养老了。

所有四足动物、鸟类和爬行类动物都享受着这种自然的状态，人类也应和它们一样快乐，这时控制奴役就会成为一种虚妄，一种所有人都不会接受的荒谬，原因就是既然不需要服侍，又为何要去渴求、要去占有仆人呢？

如果一些内心残暴，但力量充沛的个人想要征服较弱的邻居，那么也不会成功，因为，在他们这种压迫者采取行动之前，被压迫者就会结盟，一同抗争。

由此看来，若无欲望，人人都会平等。但是我们人类这个物种，拥有的低劣品性使得人与人之间形成隶属关系。不平等其实并不是真正的罪恶，依赖才是。世上有人被称为殿下，有人被称为圣座，这些称号无关紧要，但是要去服侍他们则是艰难万分。

一个富裕的大家族所耕种的土地土壤肥沃，两个临近的小家族土地贫瘠。很明显，这两个贫穷的家族要么服侍、要么杀死这个豪族。其中一个贫穷家族献出劳动，获取面包；另外一个发动攻击、惨遭毒打。前者成为仆人和劳工，后者则成为奴隶。

在我们这个不幸的世界里，人类居住的社会都被分成两个阶级，即统治者和被统治者。而这两个阶级又细分成一千个阶层，这一千个阶层也继续往下细分。

并不是所有的被压迫者都会感到不幸。他们大多数都出生在那样的环境里，不断地劳动能阻止他们对自己现状的关注。但是，一旦他们察觉，就会发生战争，比如像发生在罗马人民党与元老院之间的对抗，也如发生在德国、英格兰和法国的农民起义。所有的这些战争早晚都是以奴役弱者而结束，强大一方资金雄厚，而资金在很多情况下都是万能的。我只说在很多情况下，因为并不是说在每个国家都是如此。一些善用刀剑武器的国家通常能征服那些富裕但缺乏勇气的国家。

每个人生来都有强大的欲望，渴求征服、财富和享乐，对于闲适的渴望也十分强烈。于是，每个人都想将别人的钱财、妻子或女人据为己有，成为他们的主人，征服他们来满足自己善变的喜好、或者放置不管、又或者只做一些令人愉悦的事情。显而易见，好处如此多多，人与人之间实现平等着实不太可能，正如两位传道士或者两位神学教授之间不可能不嫉妒彼此一样。

除非大批无产却有用处的阶级存在，否则人类无以为继。因为一个富有的人当然不会放弃自己肥沃的土地，转而耕种你那贫瘠的土地。如果你需要一双鞋子，法官是无法帮你做一双的。于是，平等就成为最理所当然却也是最虚妄不实的东西。

但是，人类通常喜欢尽可能地在每件事上走极端，所以这种不平等也被夸大了。有些国家规定公民无权离开自己的国家，尽管他们降生在这国家纯粹是偶然。显而易见，这法律的意思就是：这个国家治理得很差，差到需要我们严禁个人逃脱，因为我们害怕人人都会逃走。那就做得好一点，让你所有的臣民都心甘情愿地留在家中，并吸引外来者的到来。

每个人都有相信自己的权利，在人的内心深处，人人生而平等。当然这并不是说要红衣主教的厨子命令其主人来准备饭菜，只是说厨子可以这样说：“我和主人都是人，我和他一样出生在泪水之中，他和我一样要遭受同样的苦难，历经同样的葬礼而消逝。我们都是动物，拥有同样的功能。如果土耳其人俘获了罗马人，那么我就会是红衣主教，我的主人就会是厨子，他会是我的仆人。”这些话公正合理，但是就算是伟大的土耳其征服了罗马，那这厨子照样得坚守自己的岗位，否则每个人类社会都会腐化堕落。

对于一个既不是红衣主教的厨子，也没有任何公职的人来说，如果他为人温和谦恭，却为那充满了施舍和蔑视味道的周遭环境而恼怒，明显地发现有些身居高位者，相较于自己而言，学识、智慧、道德品性都无法相比，也发现自己在他们的候客室里等待，疲乏不已，那他应该如何？当然应该离开。

祖　国

祖国就是几个家族的合成体。当我们没有利益冲突时，出于自爱，通常都会坚定地支持自己的家族，所以出于同样的自爱，我们都会支持自己的乡村和城镇，这些地方就被叫做祖国。祖国疆域越大，我们对它的爱就越淡，因为被分割的爱是被弱化了的爱，要我们温柔体贴地去爱一个过于庞大，成员甚至素不相识的家实在太难。

一个满怀雄心抱负，想要成为行政官、护民官、裁判官、执政官、独裁者的人叫嚣着他热爱自己的国家，但是实际上他只爱自己。人人都想护财保命，都想确保自己能安稳地睡在家中，权利不被他人霸占，不需挪地休息。于是，所有人都有着同样的愿望，最终私人利益演变成公共利益，当我们传达着自己的希望时，我们也在传达公众的利益。

世上国家治理之初，都以共和制度开始，因为这是符合人类本性的正常道路。少许几个家族首先聚集起来对付熊和狼，只拥有粮食的家族与只拥有木头的家族互补有无。

发现美洲大陆之时，我们也发现陆上的所有部落都实行共和体制，在这整片大陆上只有两个王国。1000个国家中只发现两个国家被征服。

古代时期也是如此。在伊特鲁利亚（Etruria）和罗马的小国国王之前，欧洲实行的都是共和制。这种制度，在如今的非洲仍在实行。的黎波里、突尼斯、阿尔及利亚和往北地区仍然居住着这样一群人，他们以世界开始之初的生活方式生活着，自由而平等，他们之间，没有主人和臣民之分，没有金钱也没有欲求。所养的羊羔哺育他们，羊羔的皮毛温暖他们，泥土和树木所建的小屋就是他们的避难所。他们臭气熏天，却从未察觉，相较于我们而言，他们的生存和死亡都来得更加平静。

在我们欧洲，没有君主的共和国有八个，分别是：威尼斯、荷兰、瑞士、热那亚、卢卡、拉古萨、日内瓦和圣马里诺。波兰、瑞典和英格兰可以视作是拥有国王的共和国，但是只有波兰才是真正的符合。

如今，国家实行君主制或者共和制，哪一个更好？这个问题已经被争论了4000年。拿这个问题去向富人征求解决方式，他们倾向于贵族制；去问民众，他们则倾向于民主制。只有国王们想要君主制，那么为什么几乎世界上所有的国家都被君主统治着呢？去问那些建议在猫脖子上悬挂铃铛的老鼠们吧。但是真正的原因是，我以前说过的，人无法管理自身。

据说，一个好的爱国者常常是其余人类的敌人。好公民老加图（the elder Cato）在元老院发表演说时，常说：“这是我的观点，让迦太基毁灭吧。”想做一个好的爱国者，就是希望自己的城市通过商贸变得富有，通过武器变得强大。显而易见，一个国家得必有另一个国家失，而征服一个国家也不可能一帆风顺。

所以这就是人类的情况，强壮自己的祖国必然以邻为沟壑。而世界公民就是那些不求自己国家强大或弱小，不在乎自身富有或贫穷的人。

洪　水

是否有段时间洪水吞没了整个地球呢？这从自然规律上来说绝无可能。

海洋逐步覆盖地球各个部分尚有可能，但是这个进程缓慢，将持续无数个世纪。艾格·莫尔特（Aigues-Mortes）、弗雷瑞斯（Fréjus）和拉文纳（Ravenna）都曾是良港，用了500年的时间海水才从这些地方撤退，留下了两块干燥的陆地。但照这样的速度，显而易见，海洋要绕过整个地球将需要250万年的时间。值得注意的是，这段时间与地轴向右运转并与赤道重合所花费的时间非常相近。此运转极有可能发生，人们对此已经猜测了50年，而要完成这一运转，需要超过230万年的时间。

在各个岩层以及因海水撤退而形成的几块陆地上发现的河床和贝壳层，都是无可争议的证据，证明海洋生物一点一滴地沉淀在那曾是海岸的陆地上。但是，与此同时，那淹没全球的洪水从自然科学上来说，完全是荒谬而虚妄的。重力定律、流体运动定律以及水量的不足都证明此事绝无可能。我无意质疑摩西五经中记载的世纪大洪水的真实性，相反，此洪水是一个奇迹，是一个人们必须相信的奇迹。正因为是一个奇迹，所以它并不受自然法则的约束。

在这洪水的故事里，所有的事物都是奇迹。40天连续降雨淹没了整个陆地，水平面比最高的山峰还要高出15腕尺，这是奇迹；天空中有大瀑布，有门，有出口是奇迹；所有动物能从世界各个角落集聚而来进入方舟是奇迹；诺亚能找到足够的食物喂养它们十个月之久是奇迹；所有动物能在方舟之中找到他们各自的房间是奇迹；它们中的大多数能存活下来是奇迹；它们离开方舟后能找到食物是奇迹；而勒·佩尔蒂埃（Le Pelletier）认为他已经清楚地解释了动物是如何适应方舟生活并喂养自己的，这也是一个奇迹，另一种类型的奇迹。

洪水的故事是我们所听到的所有故事里最具奇迹色彩的，若要去解释它，那会显得非常愚蠢。这故事是我们信念中所坚信的神秘事物之一，信念就是相信逻辑推理不相信的东西，这本身也是一个奇迹。

所以，大洪水的故事与巴别塔、巴兰的母驴、耶利哥（Jericho）在号角声中陨落、水变成鲜血、红海之路以及所有因上帝为帮助其选民而屈尊所产生的神迹一样，如出一辙。这些都是超越人类认知的深奥之事。

伟大的存在之链

一想到事物存在着层次，上有最至高无上的神，下有最轻简的原子，这一无限之阶梯，使世人难免惊讶万分。但是，若仔细观测，这一伟大的空想就会幻灭，正如所有的鬼怪都会在鸡鸣之时逃遁一样。

这一幻想首先无声地从无生命物质过渡到有细胞组织的物质、从纯植物到植虫、从植虫到动物、从动物到人类、再由人类到精神，而这些精神拥有轻巧的无形之体后，就成为了非物质的实体，最后，这些实体，经过上千个不同的等级排名，从美到完美最终上升到上帝本身。这一等级必须得到权贵之人的青睐，他们将此等级比作教皇、红衣主教、大主教、主教、教区长、教区牧师、一般神父、主祭、副主祭，然后是修道士，这一列队最终以托钵僧结束。

其实，上帝与最完美的物种之间的距离要远远大于圣父与神学院院长之间的距离。院长可以成为教皇，但是上帝所创造的最完美的灵魂却不可能成为上帝，因为上帝与他之间存在永恒的沟壑。

这一链条，这一声称植物与动物之间存在层次之分的链条也已经被摧毁。骨螺已经灭绝。犹太人被禁止吃狮鹫和伊克西翁（ixion）。但不管博加特（Bochart）会说什么，这两个物种已经从世界上消失。那链条到底在哪里呢？

尽管有些物种我们没有失去，但是，显而易见，它们是可以被摧毁消灭的。狮子和犀牛的数量正变得越来越稀少。

有些人种已经灭绝，这极有可能。但是我真心地希望他们存活下来了，就像白人、黑人和卡菲尔人一样，自然给予了他们能遮盖肚腹到大腿部分的腰裙；也像萨莫耶德人（Samoyedes）那样，他们的妻子拥有一个漂亮的黑色乳房。

猴子与人之间难道不存在明显的差异吗？想象一下这样一种动物：拥有两条腿，没有羽毛，拥有智慧，没有能力说话，没有人类外形，却能被我们驯服，能懂得回应人类的指示，服务人类，这样的想象不容易吧？而在这种新物种与人类之间，难道我们不能设想其他的物种吗？

神圣的柏拉图啊，你在天堂里放置了一系列超越人类的神圣实体。但是，就我们而言，我们只相信其中的很小一部分，因为信念使然。但是，你又有什么理由去相信他们呢？看来你并没有和苏格拉底的恶魔谈话，大好人老厄尔（old Er）特意复活来告诉你另一世界的秘密，看来对于这些神圣实体，他也没教授你任何东西。

所谓的存在之链在这物理世界中也没少被打断。

请问您，在行星们之间又存在怎样的层次之分呢？我们的地球大小是月球的40倍。当你跨越空间，从月球来到金星时，你会发现金星与地球一般大小。继续前进来到水星，水星以不同于金星圆形轨道的椭圆型轨道运转。它比地球小27倍，太阳则比地球大100万倍，地球是火星的5倍大小。火星运转周期为2年，它的邻居木星12年，土星30年，尽管这作为行星中最远的土星也不与木星一般大小。那这所谓的层次之分到底在哪里呢？

所以，你如何能期待存在这样一种链条，能将这浩瀚无垠的空间里的所有物种都联系在一起呢？如果有一种这样的链条，那毫无疑问也会是牛顿发现的：就是它能使世界上的所有行星能在这巨大的虚空之中相互吸引。

哦，柏拉图，享有如此多尊崇的柏拉图，恐怕你除了寓言之外，没有教会我们任何东西，除了诡辩，没有说出任何有价值的话语。

哦，柏拉图，你比你自己认为的还要作恶多端。我会被问到你是如何作恶的，但我不会回答。

地　狱

人只要生活在这个社会里，一定会注意到有些罪人逃脱了法律的惩处。他们能惩罚公开犯罪，但是对于秘密犯罪则有必要建立一个检查机制，而只有宗教才可担此重任。波斯人、迦勒底人、埃及人和希腊人创立了死后惩罚措施，而我们已知的所有古代人中只有犹太人赞同现世惩罚。基于几段晦涩难懂的文字，我们相信或者假装去相信地狱的存在是荒谬无比的，因为地狱虽然得到了犹太人古代律法、《利未记》和摩西十诫的认可，但是这些律法的作者却从未提及任何含有来世惩罚意味的字眼。人们就有权对摩西五经的汇编者这样说：“你是一个不负责任的人，既不诚实也不理性，实在担当不起你所霸占的立法者的名号。你明知地狱这样的教义对于人们来说是多么的沉重压抑，多么的急需迫切，你竟然却不言明？另外，尽管地狱这一教义已经被你周边的国家认可接受，但是你却任由这条教义被一些评论者们肆意猜测揣度。这些人来自于你死后的4000多年，他们会考究、歪曲你的话语，从中发现一些不是你本意的东西。或者你是个无知之人，完全没有意识到这一信念在埃及、迦勒底和波斯广为流传，或者你是明知这条教义，却听从了不良建议，未将其作为你们宗教的基础。”

犹太律法的立法者们至多这样回答：“我们承认自己非常无知：我们很晚才学会写字；我们的人民是未开化之人，正如所展现的那样，我们是一个在不适合人类居住的沙漠中游荡了半个世纪之久的野蛮部落；最终，通过史无前例的残酷而可恨的掠夺侵占了一个小国家。我们与文明国家毫无交往：你如何能指望我们这种最世俗的人去创造一个纯粹的精神体系呢？

我们只就生命意义上使用“精神”这一词语，意为灵魂。我们认为上帝、教长和天使都是有肉体的实质存在：灵魂和肉体之分，以及来世的概念都只能是长久冥思及微妙哲学的结果。霍屯督人（Hottentots）和黑人所居住的国家是我们国家的一百倍大，问问他们是否知道来世。上帝对作恶之人的惩罚会延续四代人，惩罚手段或是麻风病，或是暴毙，又或是剥夺他们有可能得到的一丁点财物。我们极力劝服人们相信这一点，此事我们已经做得足够。”

有人会这样回复这一辩解：“你创造了这样一个体系，它的荒谬之处不证自明，因为身体康健、家族繁荣的作恶者必定会对你嗤之以鼻。”

然后，犹太律法的辩护者会这样回答：“你错了，因为许多罪犯根本不讲道理，也因为每个人都有清晰思维。一个犯了罪的人，自己和儿子未遭受惩罚，却害怕孙子遭受牵连。另外，如果此人在今日尚无发臭的溃疡，那么在几年之内他也会感染，因为我们都容易患上这类疾病。每个家庭都有不幸之事，而这些不幸都来自于上帝之手，来自于那秘密犯罪的惩处复仇之手，而让人们相信这点，给人们灌输这样一种信念其实非常容易。”

回应这样的回答着实容易，可以如此说：“你的辩解毫无意义，因为正经体面之人失去健康和财富的事情每天都在发生，倘若没有一个家庭能逃脱代表上帝惩罚的不幸之事，那么你所有的家庭成员必然都曾是下贱卑鄙之流。”

犹太教教士可以做进一步的反驳。他会说人之本性会附带一些不幸之事，另外的不幸之事则是上帝特别赐予的。但是，人们会让这个反驳者意识到，认为而今只是自然作用的热病和冰雹是神圣的惩罚，这样的想法何其荒谬。

最终，犹太教中的法利赛派（the Pharisees）和艾赛尼派（the Essenes）信徒以自己的方式接受了地狱这一概念。这一教条已经从希腊人传播到了罗马人那里，最终被基督教徒接受。

一些教堂的神父并不相信永恒的惩罚，因为在他们看来，让一个偷了一只羊的可怜人永久地遭受火刑的惩罚是非常可笑的。维吉尔在《埃涅阿斯纪》（Aeneid）第六卷中吟到：

…Sedet aeternumque sedebit

Infelix Theseus.

（可怜的提修斯坐着，永久地坐着。）

他暗示说提修斯永久地坐在一把椅子上，而这一姿势对他来说就是折磨，但这种暗示徒然无效。其他人则认为，提修斯并未在地狱中就坐，而是身处极乐世界。

不久之前，一个心善而正派的新教徒牧师在布道中写道，终有一天，受诅咒之人能得到原谅，惩罚的力度要与所犯罪行相当，一时的错误不应当接受永恒的惩罚。他的同行牧师们对他这一放纵性言论不屑一顾。有个人对他说：“亲爱的朋友，我同你一样也不相信地狱是永恒的，但是，对于你的女仆、裁缝，甚至你的律师来说，相信地狱着实是件好事。”

偶像，偶像崇拜者，偶像崇拜

“偶像”（Idol）一词源自希腊语εδο，是形式之意；εïδωλον，形式的展现；λατεειν，侍候、敬畏和崇拜。“崇拜”（adore）一词是拉丁文，也拥有其他很多不同的意思，它意味着将一只手靠近嘴，满怀敬意地诉说、鞠躬、下跪、致敬，向神表达最真挚的崇拜。这些意思除了模糊还是模糊。

这里值得注意的是，《特雷乌词典》（Dictionnaire de Trévoux）在开篇就说到所有的异教徒都是偶像崇拜者，印度人仍然崇拜偶像。首先，在狄奥多西二世之前，没有人被称作异教徒，此词是用来称呼那些居住在意大利城中、固守自己古老宗教的人；其次，印度斯坦人信奉穆罕默德，而穆罕默德是偶像和偶像崇拜的坚决反对者；再次，很多印度人都信奉帕西人（Parsees）的古老宗教，所以不应当称他们为偶像崇拜者，如同不应当实行根本没有偶像的种姓制度一样。

探寻是否存在过崇拜偶像的政府

看来世上没有人想被称作偶像崇拜者，这词是一种挑衅，一种辱骂，就像gavaches（懦夫）和maranes（摩尔人）一样，前者西班牙人用来侮辱法国人，而后者法国人用来招呼西班牙人。“你是偶像崇拜者吗？”如果有人就此问题询问过罗马元老院、希腊最高法院和波斯王国法庭的人，那么他们几乎听不懂这个问题。没有人会回答说：“我们崇拜偶像。”“偶像崇拜者”和“偶像崇拜”这些词汇，在荷马、赫西奥德（Hesiod）、希罗多德（Herodotus），以及基督教徒作者们的作品中遍寻不到。也从来没有任何法令和教条命令人们去崇拜偶像，像服侍神一样去服侍他们，视他们为神。

当罗马和迦太基的领袖们缔结条约之时，他们召唤出了所有的神祇，说道：“诸神见证，我们誓保和平。”此时此刻，数量众多的诸神像并不在将军们的帐篷里，因为他们认为诸神在人类的行动中充当的是见证者和裁判官。毫无疑问，虚幻的影像是无法代替神的。

那对于神殿中虚假的神祇造像，他们持怎样的看法呢？若我说，就与我们看待自身崇拜对象的造像的态度是一样的。崇拜一块木头或大理石并无错误，错的是去崇拜这木头或大理石所代表的虚假之神。他们与我们之间的区别，并不在于他们有偶像而我们没有，而是在于他们的偶像表现了他们宗教中神奇的存在，希腊人他们有赫拉克勒斯（Hercules）像，而我们有圣·克里斯托弗（saint Christopher）像；他们有埃斯科拉庇俄斯（Aesculapius）与他的羊，我们则有圣·罗克（saint Roch）与他的狗；他们有雷电武装的朱庇特，我们则有帕多瓦的圣·安东尼（saint Anthony of Padua）以及卡帕斯特拉的圣·詹姆斯（saint James of Compostella）。

执政官普林尼（Pliny）在图拉真（Trajan）的颂词里，向不朽的神灵们祈祷之时，他并未面向具体的神像，因为这样的神像并非永恒不朽。

异教的最后时光和远古时期都不存在能够让我们断定存在偶像崇拜的事实。荷马只提及居住在奥林匹斯山的诸神。尽管帕拉斯雅典娜的神像从天堂坠落人间，但那只是帕拉斯提供保护的一个神圣保证，人们尊敬的还是雕像代表的雅典娜。

然而，罗马人和希腊人在神像前下跪，给它们戴上王冠、焚香献花、在公众场合游行展示，庆祝胜利。我们将这些风俗习惯神圣化，但我们并不是偶像崇拜者。

在干旱时期，禁食的女人手捧诸神的造像，头发蓬乱，赤脚而行，立刻迎来倾盆大雨。正如佩特罗尼乌斯（Petronius）所言，“马上下起雨来（et statim urceatim pluebat）”。难道我们没有神圣化这一仪式吗？相同的仪式，异教徒举行起来就是非法，而我们举行则是正当合法。还有多少个村庄，是不存在人们赤着脚、手捧着圣徒的圣骨匣，祈祷通过圣徒的说情而得到上天的眷顾这样的现象呢？倘若一个土耳其人或受过教育的中国人看到了这样的仪式，在不熟悉的情况下，他首先会责怪我们轻信于神的图像，携带着图像列队行进。但是只要说句话就能使之明了。

各个时期，由于罗马和希腊的偶像崇拜而产生的反对言论，其数量巨大无比，人们会对此惊讶不已。但是，如果人们发现罗马人和希腊人根本就不是偶像崇拜者，就会感到更加惊讶了。

相较于其他神庙而言，有些神庙地位较高。以弗所的狄安娜大神庙比一座村野狄安娜神庙享有更高的声誉。埃皮达鲁斯（Epidaurus）在埃斯科拉庇俄斯（Aesculapius）神庙中创造的神迹数量远比他位于其他地方的神庙多。奥林匹亚的朱庇特神像所吸引的供奉也多于帕弗拉戈尼亚（Paphlagonian）的朱庇特神像。然而，既然我们总是将正统宗教和虚假宗教的习俗加以比较，难道在好几个世纪的时间里，我们就没有向某些特定的祭坛献出更多的供奉？难道我们就没有将更多的供奉送往拉瑞多圣母院（Notre Dame of Loretto）而不是雪中圣母院（Notre Dame of the snows）？我们自己决定这些事是否应该被人抓住当成借口，从而用来指控我们进行偶像崇拜。

人们心中只有一个狄安娜，一个阿波罗和一个埃斯科拉庇俄斯，数量并不及他们所拥有的神庙数量多。仅就历史这一点来说，这就可以证明古代人并不相信神像就是神，人对神的崇拜也不能转移到神像，即偶像身上。因而，古代人根本就不是偶像崇拜者。

一个下等人，他醉心于迷信，缺乏理性思维，不懂如何去质疑、否认和相信事物；他来到神庙只是由于无所事事，或是觉得在神庙里能贵贱平等；他携带供品只是出于习惯；他也可以喋喋不休地谈论神迹，可是自己却从未做过相关调查；他是一个不比祭祀牺牲品高贵多少的下等人。我要再一次重复，这个下等人，他一看见伟大的狄安娜和雷神朱庇特，也会被那种宗教性的神圣恐怖给吓蒙，从而在不知不觉中崇拜了神像本身。这种情况有时也会发生在前来我们神庙祭拜的粗野农夫身上，然后他们就被教导说：不是木像和石像，而是蒙上帝赐福者在替人祷告，这些永生之人已获准进入天堂。

希腊人和罗马人通过崇拜和赞美增加了他们神的数量。希腊人崇拜征服者们，比如巴克斯（Bacchus）、赫拉克勒斯和珀尔修斯（Perseus），罗马人为他们的皇帝建造了祭坛。而我们的崇拜则是另一种形式，我们崇拜圣徒，而不是像他们那样崇拜半神和二类神，高位和征服都不是我们崇拜的对象。我们多半会为一些籍籍无名、没有位列仙班、仅仅只是正直善良有道德的人建立神庙。奉承和谄媚可以赢得古人的崇拜，但善良与正直才能赢得我们的尊敬。

西塞罗在他的哲学作品中经常表露这样的怀疑，他认为神的造像会被人误解，会与神本尊相互混淆。他的对话者们严词谴责当时的宗教，但是没有一个人能让西塞罗产生想法去控诉罗马人，控诉他们视大理石和黄铜为神。卢克莱修（Lucretius）申斥各种迷信之事，但他也没有因为这种愚蠢之事去责备任何人。所以，再一次证明，偶像崇拜这种观点当时是不存在的，完全没有这种概念，根本就没有偶像崇拜者。

贺拉斯（Horace）为普里阿波斯（Priapus）造了一尊像：“我曾是一颗无花果树的树干。一个木匠犹豫着是要把我当成神还是做成一把椅子，最终还是决定把我当成神，等等。”从这个笑话里我们能得出什么结论呢？普里阿波斯，作为下级神祇中的一员，饱受嘲弄。而这一笑话本身，就强有力地证明了普里阿波斯那竖立在果菜园中、用来吓退鸟类的形象并未得到人们的崇拜。

达西耶采用一种评论者的态度，说到“造像只依工匠之所愿”，说出这句话时，就表明达西耶成功地指出了巴录（Baruch）早已预测到了这一事件。然而关于所有造像之事，他能说的都已说尽。那是否可以认为，巴录对贺拉斯的讽刺诗也有自己的看法呢？

将大理石打磨成洗脸盆，和将其雕刻成亚历山大、朱庇特或者更受尊敬事物的雕像，其难度其实一样。雕刻至圣所里的智天使们所用的材料，同样可以用来制作生活器具，满足生活基本需要。难道王座和祭坛所享受到的崇高会因为工匠们可以将其制作成餐桌而降低吗？

由此，达西耶应该得出结论说罗马人是在取乐，而不是得出罗马人崇拜普里阿波斯像、巴录也预测到了此事这样的结论。翻阅所有提及神像的作者的作品，你会发现没有人谈论过偶像崇拜，恰恰相反，在马提雅尔（Martial）的作品中，你会发现：

Qui finxit sacros auro vel marmore vultus,

Non facit ille deos;...

（用金或大理石制作的神像并不能成为神。）

奥维德：

Colitur pro Jove forma Jovis.

（通过朱庇特像，朱庇特受崇拜。）

斯塔提乌斯（Statius）：

Nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo

Forma del; mentes habitare ac numina gaudet.

（造像和金属不能固上帝之形，

上帝选择活在我们的脑海与心间。）

卢坎（Lucan）：

Estne del sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aer?

（上帝的家，如果不是陆地，海洋，天空，

那会是什么呢？）

所有证明图像仅仅只是图像而已的段落，多得可以集结成册。

能让人产生神像体内有神存在的想法的只有那些内含神像显灵、发布神谕的例子。然而，盛行的观点肯定是认为神选择了特定的祭坛与影像，神偶尔居住在里面倾听人类的诉说并加以回复。

在荷马的作品，以及古希腊悲剧的颂词中，我们只发现向阿波罗祷告的祈祷文，阿波罗在群山中、在这座神庙里、在那个城市发布了神谕。古物中也发现很多遗迹表明祈祷者朝着造像祷告。

那些相信或假装相信巫术是科学并使用巫术的人声称他们懂得如何让神进入造像，这种神并非伟大的神，而是次等神，是魔仆。这就是墨丘利·特里斯梅季塔斯（Mercury Trismegistus）所谓的“创神”，就是圣·奥古斯丁在其《上帝之城》中所驳斥的东西。然而，既然需要巫师去激活，那么这本身也清楚地显示了造像之内并无真神存在。在我看来，巫术给予造像灵魂，让其开口说话，着实不太可能。

总之，神之像并非真神。猛掷惊雷的是朱庇特，而非其神像；翻卷大海的不是尼普顿之像；赋予我们光的也不是阿波罗之像。希腊人和罗马人是异教徒、是多神论者，但不是偶像崇拜者。

波斯人、赛伯伊人、埃及人、鞑靼人

和土耳其人是否是偶像崇拜者，

被称为偶像的仿像起源有多古老，

以及他们崇拜的历史

将崇拜太阳和星星的人描述为偶像崇拜者着实是个极大的错误。很久以来，这些国家既无仿像也无神庙。如果他们错了，那就错在他们应当崇拜星星的创造者，而非星星本身。无论如何，收集在《伤之伤》（Sadder）一书中，琐罗亚斯德（Zoroaster）或称泽达斯特（Zerdust）的教义颂扬一个赏善罚恶、至高无上的存在，这绝非偶像崇拜。中国政府没有过任何偶像，只保留了对天之主天帝的崇拜。鞑靼人中，成吉思汗不是偶像崇拜者，也没有任何仿像。充斥在希腊、小亚细亚、叙利亚、波斯、印度和非洲的穆斯林将基督教徒视作偶像崇拜者、异教徒，因为他们坚信基督教徒崇拜神像。他们还砸毁了好几座位于君士坦丁堡圣索菲亚大教堂（Santa Sophia）、圣徒教堂和其他一些已改建为清真寺教堂的造像。表面现象对他们的误导与对人类的误导如出一辙，基督教徒为曾是凡人的圣徒建造神庙，他们的形像享受着众人下跪朝拜的尊崇，神庙中实行的神迹，所有这些都让人们相信、都证明基督教徒实行绝对的偶像崇拜，这点毋庸置疑。然而事实并非如此，实际上，基督教徒只信奉一位神，崇拜蒙神赐福的人只是崇拜上帝赋予在他们身上的特质。同样反对教会、谴责偶像崇拜的反偶像崇拜者和新教徒也已给出了相同的答案。

由于人类对于偶像崇拜者这一名称几乎没有准确概念，更未曾用明确、毫不含糊的话语表达自己的看法，所以我们将此名称扣在异教徒，尤其是多神论者头上。我们为此还书写了大量的文献，来探究他们崇拜有可见形态的一神或多神的起源，与此相关的各种观点，说法不一，交杂转述。但是，浩如烟海的书籍与观点只印证了我们的无知。

谁发明了衣服鞋袜，我们不知道，但是我们想知道是谁首先创造了偶像。桑渠尼阿通（Sanchuniathon）所说的一段话很要紧吗？此人生活在特洛伊战争之前，他说是上帝依据自己的原则，用一口气在混沌天地之间创造了原始人类，同时让天空明亮；他说是风神考尔普（Colp）和他的妻子博乌（Bau）生下了伊恩（Eon），伊恩生下了吉诺斯（Genos），他们的后裔柯罗诺斯（Chronos）在脑袋前后都有两只眼睛，在他成神之后，就将埃及赐给了他的儿子萨伍特（Thaut），我们从中能得到什么启示呢？这可是古代最令人敬佩的不朽之作之一。

俄耳甫斯（Orpheus）生活时代早于桑渠尼阿通。大马士革乌斯（Damascius）帮我们留存了他的作品《诸神之谱》（Theogony），但是此书也未带给我们更多的启示。俄耳甫斯所呈现的世界取形于一只双头龙，一为牛首，一为狮头，中间有一张被他称为“上帝之面”的脸，肩部拥有镀金的翅膀。

然而，我们从这些光怪陆地的想法中可以得出两个伟大的真理：一是明显可见的图形和象形符号起源于最远古的时代；二是所有的古代哲学家们都认同第一性原则。

至于多神论，良好的判断力会让你知道，人类是一种体弱的动物，拥有理智却也能行愚蠢之事，屈从于每一次事故、疾病和死亡。这些人类已经体会到了自己的虚弱和依赖性。于是，他们很快地就认识到存在一些事物比人类来得更强大。从供给人类食物的土地里、从时常带给他们毁灭性打击的天空中、从耗尽的火焰、浸入的水中，人类都感觉到了一种力量。还有什么比无知人类想象有一个特殊的存在统治着这些元素来得更自然的呢？还有什么比崇拜那能使太阳和繁星在我们眼中闪耀的无形力量来得更自然的呢？人类一旦形成观念，认为这些力量更加崇高，那他们以有形之物来代表这些力量不就最自然不过了吗？否则他们究竟能做什么呢？比我们基督教更早并由上帝亲自赐福的犹太教里充斥了以下这样一些代表上帝的图像：上帝身处灌木丛中屈尊讲着人类语言；上帝在一座高山中现身；所有经上帝派遣而来的神之灵魂均以人形现身；甚至充斥在至圣所里的小天使们都拥有人类身体，外加翅膀和动物脑袋。这就使得普鲁塔克、塔西佗（Tacitus）、亚庇（Appian）以及如此之多的人错误地责备了犹太人，谴责他们崇拜一头驴的头颅。上帝禁止人类为他画像或制作雕塑，然而尽管如此，他还是调整自身，屈尊为人形，而人形柔弱，需要借助形象去实现沟通。

《以赛亚书》第六章中，以赛亚看见上帝端坐在王座之上，长袍的裙裾遍及神庙。据这位先知所书的第一章中所言，上帝伸出手，触摸到了耶利米（Jeremiah）的嘴。《以西结书》第三章，以西结看见一座蓝宝石的王座，上帝以人形之态端坐在王座之上。这些图像并未腐蚀犹太教的纯洁性，他们从来不使用图像、造像和偶像来代表世人眼中的上帝。

受过教育的中国人、帕西人和古代埃及人都没有偶像，然而伊西斯（Isis）和奥西里斯（Osiris）的图像很快出现，天地之神贝尔（Bel）的巨像也出现在了巴比伦。在印度群岛，梵天是一个怪物。尤其是希腊人，他们为神命名、制作雕像、建造神庙，数量巨大，但是他们总将至高无上的力量归因于宙斯（Zeus），即拉丁语中的朱庇特，人类之神，神中之主。罗马人效仿了希腊人的做法。这些人总将所有的神都置于天空之内，但却不知天空之意。

罗马人有十二主神，六男六女，将其命名为：朱庇特、尼普顿、阿波罗、伏尔甘、玛尔斯、墨丘利、朱诺、维斯塔、密涅瓦、刻瑞斯、维纳斯、狄安娜。布鲁托当时被忘记了，维斯塔替代了他的位置。

其次就是次级神，包括：当地神灵；英雄人物，比如巴克斯、赫拉克勒斯和埃斯科拉庇俄斯（Aesculapius）；地狱之神，布鲁托、普洛塞尔皮娜（Proserpine）；海之神，比如西蒂斯（Thetis）、安菲特律特（Amphitrite）、涅瑞伊得斯（Nereids）和格劳克斯（Glaucus）；护树女神德律阿得斯（Dryads）和水泽女神那伊阿得（Naiads）；还有园艺、畜牧之神。每一个行业、每一种活动、孩童、待嫁少女、已婚妇女和分娩女子都有神照管。他们还有放屁之神。最终，他们尊皇帝为神明。然而，实际上，无论是这些帝王、放屁之神、性爱享乐女神普特腾达（Pertunda）、男性生殖神普里阿普斯（Priapus），还是乳房女神鲁米莉亚（Rumilia）、厕所之神斯特库蒂乌斯（Stercutius），他们都不是天地之主。人间帝王有时还有庙宇，主管日常生活的次级神则没有；但是他们全部都有自己的形象和偶像。这些偶像们其实就是小型造像，男人用它们来装饰书房，老妇和孩子们用它们来娱乐消遣，并未享受到公众崇拜。每个个体的迷信思想都太过骄纵放任了。这样的小偶像如今还能在古代城市的废墟中找到。

尽管无人知晓人类何时开始制造偶像，但是我们知道他们必定始于最古老的时期。亚伯拉罕的父亲他拉（Terah）在迦勒底的乌尔（Ur）制作偶像；拉结（Rachel）从继父拉班（Laban）处偷走偶像。除此之外，无法再追溯更早的时期了。

然而，古人对这些仿像到底拥有怎样确切的看法呢？赋予了它们怎样的品德和力量？人们是相信诸神屈尊从天堂下来，隐匿于这些造像之中，还是相信诸神将一部分的神魂让渡给了造像，或是认为诸神并未让渡任何东西给造像？这些问题也曾是很多无用之作的探讨主题。显而易见，每个人都是依据自身的理性、盲从和狂热程度做出判断。很显然，神职人员会赋予造像尽可能多的神性，用来吸引更多的供奉。我们知道，哲人斥责这些为迷信、勇士们采取取笑态度、执法官对此表示容忍，而总是荒谬可笑的普通人则不知到底为何物。简而言之，这就是所有尚不知神的国家的历史。

从埃及人崇拜公牛，一些城市的人崇拜狗、猴子、猫和洋葱的事例中，人们可以得出一个相同的看法。那就是，这些事物起先都只是徽章符号，然后某一头牛成了神牛埃皮斯（Apis），某一只狗成了墓穴神安努毕斯（Anubis），从而受到人们的崇拜。人们仍旧吃牛排和洋葱，但是很难想象古埃及女人是如何看待神圣的洋葱和公牛。

偶像们经常开口说话。将自然女神西布莉（Cybele）的造像从阿塔罗斯（Attalus）国王宫殿移走之时，神像所说的优雅言辞，在罗马还成为庆祝该女神节日时的纪念。

Ipsa peri volui; ne sit mora, mitte volentem:

Dignus Roma locus quo deus omnis eat.

（我想被搬走，赶紧把我搬走，罗马值得成为每个神的家园。）

命运之神（Fortune）的造像也说过话、显过灵。西庇阿斯（Scipios）、西塞罗和恺撒大帝不信此事是真的，但是接受恩可比乌斯（Encolpius）用王冠换鹅的老妇人以及众神可能会相信。

偶像们也发布神谕，但是，是由教士们藏在中空的造像内，以神的名义开口说话。

众神林立，神谱众多，外加一些个体教派，神的数量巨大而繁杂，然而为何在所谓的偶像崇拜者之间从未发生过任何宗教战争呢？这种和平是邪恶和错误自身的优秀产物。因为每一个国家自己都承认几个次等神，那么理所当然周边邻里国家也应该有他们自己神。除了杀死神牛埃皮斯而饱受斥责的冈比西斯（Cambyses），我们在世俗世界的历史上，没有发现任何征服者去凌辱被征服者的神明。异教徒们没有信奉唯一真神的宗教，所以教士们只能去增加供奉和祭品的数量。

祭品最初只是水果。不久之后，教士们的桌子需要动物了，他们自己动手，宰杀动物，他们成了屠夫，冷血而残忍。最终，他们引进了人祭那恐怖的仪式，祭品最好是孩童和处女。中国人、帕西人和印度人都未曾实施过这种令人憎恶的仪式，但是据波尔菲里（Porphyry）所言，人祭在埃及希拉波利斯（Hieropolis）实行过。

在陶里斯（Tauris），外邦人会成为祭品。幸运的是，陶里斯的教士们并未实施很多。早期希腊人、塞浦路斯人、腓尼基人、提尔人和迦太基人都信奉这种可憎的迷信。罗马人自己也陷入了这种宗教犯罪中，据普鲁塔克报告，他们生祭了两名希腊人、两名高卢人，来为三名处女的情爱之事赎罪。与法兰克人国王西奥多贝特（Theodobert）同时代的普罗科匹厄斯（Procopius）告诉我们，法兰克人与这位国君进入意大利之时将人献祭。高卢人和日耳曼人经常实行这种恐怖的人祭。阅读历史时，想要不读到人类所制造的恐怖之事，这几乎是不可能的。

犹太人中，杰弗瑟（Jephtah）将其女儿献祭、扫罗（Saul）打算牺牲其儿子，这是事实。献身于上帝却被上帝诅咒之人，不能像动物回归那样回归教门，而是应当永久消逝，这也是事实。犹太教教士撒母耳（Samuel）用一把神圣的短柄小斧将国王亚甲（Agag）砍成碎片。亚甲是一名战俘，已得到扫罗的原谅，但是扫罗却因遵守国家律法、原谅这位国王得受到谴责。然而，上帝，作为人之主，乐意之时便可夺走他们的生命，如何乐意，以及借谁之手都依上帝之意。人类无法将自身放置于主人的生死之地上，也无法篡夺上帝的权利。

为了就这种恐怖奇观、这些虔诚却悖理逆天的行为去安慰人类，我们一定要知道，几乎在所有被称为偶像崇拜者的国度里，都存在神圣神学和普遍错误，存在秘密祭礼和公开仪式，也存在智者之宗教与粗鄙之宗教。在秘密宗教仪式中，新入教徒被教导说只有唯一的真神，对此人们只需瞟一眼赞美诗就可得知。此诗被认为是俄耳甫斯所作，在刻瑞斯厄琉希诺斯（Ceres Eleusinus）的秘密宗教仪式上吟唱，在欧亚两洲闻名遐迩：“凝视神圣本性，照亮你的灵魂，支配你的内心，走上正义之路。愿天地之神与你常伴。上帝，独特唯一，单独自存，所有生灵均起源于他，受他供养。他从未在凡人面前露面，但他无所不知。”

也看看以下这段摘自马道拉斯的马克西姆斯（Maximus of Madaurus）写给圣·奥古斯丁的信件中的一段话：“存在这样一位神，他至高无上、亘古不变、无穷无尽，他是所有生灵之父、却未创造过任何类似于自己的东西。也不在什么样的人粗鄙、愚蠢到去怀疑此点。”

上千文献可以证明智者哲人不仅痛恨偶像崇拜，也憎恶多神论。

埃皮克提图（Epictetus）是苦难忍受与耐性之典范，他是如此地伟大以至于就算是在极端恶劣的情况下，都只谈上帝，不论其他。以下是他的格言之一：“上帝创造了我，他就在我体内，处处与我相伴。难道我要用淫秽之思、不公之行与可耻的欲望将他玷污吗？我的责任就是去感谢他，赞美他，祝福他，只有死亡能让我停止。”埃皮克提图的所有思想都围绕这一原则，那么他是偶像崇拜者吗？

在罗马皇帝中的伟大程度不亚于埃皮克提图在奴隶制中地位的马可·奥里利乌斯（Marcus Aurelius）常说，无论众神是遵从公认语言、还是求助于介于上帝与人之间的中间存在，这两者都是真实的。然而，有多少处地方都未表露他只承认一位亘古不变、无穷无尽的神！他说：“我们的灵魂是神性溢出之物。我的孩子、肉体和智慧都来自于上帝。”

斯多葛学派和柏拉图学派都承认存在一种神圣自然理法。伊壁鸠鲁派对此表示反对。罗马教宗在秘密宗教仪式上也只提到一名真神。那哪里存在偶像崇拜者呢？我们所有的词汇贩子都宣称存在偶像崇拜，就像小狗听见大狗狂吠之时也会学样。

至于其他，《莫雷里词典》（Moréri's dictionary）声称，在狄奥多西（Theodosius）时代，偶像崇拜只在遥远的亚洲和非洲国家存在。此等说法是该词典所犯的重大错误之一。甚至在7世纪之时，意大利仍有许多异教徒。查理曼大帝时代，德意志北部地区，威悉河（Weser）以北也不信奉基督教。波兰以及所有北部地区，在查理曼大帝之后很长一段时间都被认为实行偶像崇拜。半个非洲、所有恒河彼岸王国、日本、中国普通民众，以及鞑靼人上百个部落都保持着自己的传统祭祀仪式。而欧洲只有少量的拉普兰人（Laplanders）、萨莫耶德人和鞑靼人保留了他们的祖传宗教。

总之，我要提醒一下，中世纪时代，我们将信奉穆罕穆德的国家称之为异教国。我们自己完全符合偶像崇拜者的条件，是一群对偶像充满畏惧的人。我们必须再一次承认，当土耳其人看见我们的祭坛挂满了图像、摆满了雕塑之时，他们将我们视为偶像崇拜者着实更加情有可原。

约瑟夫

《约瑟夫的故事》被视为新奇之作和文学著作，是古时期留给我们的最宝贵的遗产。《约瑟夫的故事》是所有东方作家作品中的典范之作，比荷马的《奥德赛》更感人，因为一个宽恕的英雄比一个雪耻复仇的英雄更能触动人心。

人们一贯认为阿拉伯人第一个写就了那些绝妙精巧，被译作多国文字的故事。然而，我却无法从中找到一个冒险故事能与约瑟夫的故事媲美。在约瑟夫的故事里，几乎所有的事物都不可思议，故事的结局动人心弦。故事里有一个16岁的少年，因遭到兄弟的嫉妒被卖给一个以实玛利（Ishmaelite）商队，随后他被带往埃及，卖给一个服侍国王的阉人做奴隶。此阉人有一个妻子，这一点也不奇怪。科斯拉瑞卡（Kislaraga）是一个彻头彻尾的阉人，他那东西被切得彻彻底底，然而他在如今的君士坦丁堡却有一群妻妾，他失了眼，丢了手，却没有丧失内心源自天性的权利。而另外一些只切掉了两个生殖器伴随物的阉人却仍旧频繁地使用生殖器官，其中一个阉人很有可能是波提乏（Potiphar），也就是约瑟夫的买主。

波提乏的妻子爱上了年轻的约瑟夫，而约瑟夫出于对主人，同时也是恩人的忠诚之心，而拒绝了这女人的求爱。约瑟夫的拒绝触怒了这女人，于是她控告约瑟夫，诬陷他试图引诱自己。这故事就相当于希波吕托斯（Hippolytus）与菲德拉（Phaedra）、柏勒罗丰（Bellerophon）与斯忒涅玻亚（Stheneboea），海布罗斯（Hebrus）与达玛斯帕（Damasippa）、坦尼斯（Tanis）与佩雷比（Peribea）、马提尔（Myrtil）与希波达弥亚（Hippodamia），以及珀琉斯（Peleus）与德梅内特（Demenette）之间的故事。

这么多故事里，我们很难分辨出谁才是鼻祖。然而，在古阿拉伯作家的作品里，约瑟夫与波提乏妻子之间的冒险故事还是具有浓厚的原创色彩的。这位作家想象着：波提乏在妻子和约瑟夫之间举棋不定，他并不认为那被妻子自己扯开的束腰外衣是证明约瑟夫实行侵犯行为的证据。当时这女人的房间里还有一个坐在摇篮里的孩子。约瑟夫说是她自己扯开了衣服，脱掉了束腰外衣，当时这孩子也在。波提乏询问了这孩子，这孩子在这年纪已经十分聪慧，他对波提乏说到：“看看这束腰外衣到底是从前面脱掉的还是从后面脱掉的，如果是前者，那么这就证明约瑟夫试图侵犯她，而她自卫反抗；如果是后者，那么这就证明你妻子正在追求约瑟夫。”多亏这孩子机智，波提乏认定他的奴隶是清白的。这就是这位古阿拉伯作者在《古兰经》中所详述的约瑟夫的冒险经历。这孩子智力非凡、判断明智，可作者并不考虑告诉我们这个孩子到底是谁的。如果这孩子是波提乏妻子的儿子，那么约瑟夫就不是这女人追求的第一个人了。

尽管如此，据《创世纪》记载，约瑟夫被投入监狱，与埃及国王的酒侍和面包师关在一起。这两个犯人晚上做梦了，约瑟夫为他们解梦，并预测说三天之内，酒侍会重新受宠，而面包师会被吊死，后来事情果真如此。

两年之后，埃及国王也做梦了。他的酒侍告诉他说，在监狱里有个年轻的犹太人，是世界上最懂得解梦的人。国王召来这位年轻人，他预测了七年丰收与七年饥荒。

稍微打断一下这故事的发展线索，让我们来看看古代解梦的奇妙之处。雅各（Jacob）曾在梦中见到那神秘的、通往上帝所在的阶梯。他在梦中学到了一种繁殖羊群的方法，这种方法唯有他能成功使用。他也在梦中得知终有一天他会统治他所有的兄弟。很久以前，亚比米勒（Abimelech）曾在梦中被警告说萨拉是亚伯拉罕的妻子。

回到约瑟夫的故事。约瑟夫一解读出法老的梦境，就立刻被任命为总理大臣。我们可能会怀疑，如今就算是在亚洲，是否能够找到这样一个国王，仅仅因为解梦，就将如此重要的政府职位授予他人。法老让约瑟夫娶了波提乏的一个女儿为妻。据说波提乏是赫利奥波利斯（Heliopolis）的大祭司，所以这个波提乏并不是约瑟夫的第一个阉人主人，如果是，那么除了大祭司这一称呼外，波提乏肯定还有其他称谓，他的妻子也生过不止一个孩子。

与此同时，正如约瑟夫所预测的那样，饥荒如期到来。而约瑟夫完全对得起国王的厚爱，他迫使人们将自己的土地卖与法老，整个国家的子民为了换取粮食均沦为奴隶。显而易见，这就是专制权力的开端。但是必须承认，从没有一个国王做交易能做得如此漂亮，然而人民却无法由衷地祝福这位总理大臣。

后来，饥荒席卷了整个大地，约瑟夫的父亲和兄弟们也需要粮食。在这里，完全没有必要描述约瑟夫是如何接受、原谅并带领他的兄弟们发家致富的。所有组成一部有趣史诗的素材在这故事中都能找到：引子、困苦、赞誉、变迁和奇迹。东方天才的标记在这里彰显得无比显著。

约瑟夫的父亲雅各回答法老的话语，一定给所有能读能写之人都留下了深刻的印象。“你的生命能持续多少日，多少年？”国王问到。“我的朝圣之行持续了130年，而在这短暂的朝圣之旅中我从未有过快乐的一天。”

朱迪亚

感谢上帝，我从未去过朱迪亚（Judea），以后也决不会去。从那里回来的各个国家的人我都见过，他们告诉我说耶路撒冷这地方可怕极了，周边都是山石林立，山体裸露，闻名遐迩的约旦河也只有45英尺宽，这国家唯一环境较好的省份就是耶利哥。简而言之，他们都认同圣哲罗姆的看法。圣哲罗姆长久以来都居住在耶稣降生之地伯利恒（Bethlehem），他将这块地方描述为被自然抛弃之地，这里夏天的时候甚至都没有饮用水，然而，这地方对于刚从沙漠穿越而来的犹太人而言还是一块宝地。可怜的人们离开荒沙之地朗德省（Landes），定居到蓝珀尔丹（Lampourdan）（大约在巴约纳［Bayonne］附近）的群山里，他们会赞美自己的新家。倘若他们曾经想要继续前进，来到朗格多克（Languedoc）的富饶地区，那么他们会震惊不已，认为这就是应许之地。

这恰恰就是犹太人的历史。耶利哥和耶路撒冷就是图卢兹和蒙彼利埃，西奈沙漠就是横在波尔多和巴约纳之间的国度。然而，如果引导犹太人的上帝想赐予他们肥沃的土地，如果这些不幸之事在埃及实际存在，那么上帝为什么不把犹太人留在那里？关于此问题，仅有的解答就是一些神学术语。据说朱迪亚就是应许之地。上帝对亚伯拉罕说：“自埃及河流起至幼发拉底河之间的土地，我都将赐予你们。”

哎！我的朋友，你从未见识过幼发拉底河和尼罗河那些肥沃的河岸，他们欺骗了你。尼罗河和幼发拉底河的主人们轮流充当你们的主人，你们几乎总是奴隶。承诺和实践完全是两回事，可怜的犹太人。你们曾有一个老拉比阅读着那预告你们奶与蜜之地的明智预言之时，大声呼喊说在你们得到的许诺中黄油多于面包。你们意识到了吗？现在如果大土耳其（Grand Turk）授予我耶路撒冷统治者的地位，我会对此不屑一顾。

看着这个令人嫌恶的国家，腓特烈二世曾公开说，摩西带领那些别人惟恐避之不及的同伴们来到这里真是糊涂，“为什么他不去那不勒斯呢？”腓特烈二世说道。再见了，我亲爱的犹太人。我很抱歉那应许之地竟然是荒原之地。

享　乐

人们在诗词和散文里慷慨陈词了两千年，一再反对享乐，却又沉迷其中。

最早期的罗马人，是毁坏、掠夺邻居收成，摧毁沃尔西人（Volscians）和萨谟奈人（Samnites）的贫困村庄，只求缓解己方困难的强盗，关于他们，还有什么未被提及呢？那就是他们曾是公正无私、善良正直之人！那时他们都还没能力去偷窃金银宝石，因为受他们洗劫的所有地方没有这些东西。他们的树林和沼泽既不产鹧鸪，也不生野鸡，他们的温和节制受到了赞扬！

他们一点点地掠夺干净，偷光了亚得里亚海远端至幼发拉底河之间的所有财富，同时也有了足够的意识要去享受这累积了七八百年之久的掠夺之物。于是，他们发展各式的艺术，体验各种享乐，甚至也让被征服者们品尝一番。当他们做这些事时，有人说这些罗马人不再明智，不再正直。

所有的这些雄辩之词就是为了证明：一个小偷决不能吃他自己偷来的食物，穿他自己盗来的衣服，也不能用抢来的戒指装饰自己。据说，小偷们如果想做一个正直的人，那么所有的这些财物都应弃入江河。这还不如说人们不应该偷窃。强盗们掠夺之时要谴责他们，但是当他们在享乐自己夺来之物时，就不要辱骂他们是疯子了。老实说，很多英国水手通过掠夺本地治里（Pondicherry）和哈瓦那（Havana）大发横财，后来回到伦敦，尽情享乐，以犒劳自己在亚洲、非洲的危险情况下所遭受的苦痛，这难道错了吗？

难道空谈家是想埋葬那些通过战争、农业、贸易和工业而累积起来的财富吗？他们举了斯巴达的实例。那他们为什么不引用圣马里诺共和国的例子呢？斯巴达对希腊到底做出了怎样的贡献？他们有德摩斯梯尼（Demosthenes）、索福克勒斯（Sophocles）、阿佩利斯（Apelles）和菲狄亚斯（Phidias）吗？享乐的雅典各行各业里都涌现出了伟大的人物。斯巴达却只有少数的几个船长，其数量甚至比其他的一些城邦还要少。但是，就让它这样吧！就让斯巴达这样的小共和国持续它的贫困吧。穷困潦倒和惬意享乐都会迎来死亡。加拿大的野蛮人，与拥有五万基尼收入的英格兰公民，一样都活着，一样都会变老。但是谁又会去拿易洛魁人（Iroquois）的国家与英格兰相比呢？

就让拉古沙共和城邦（republic of Ragusa）和楚格州（canton of Zug）制定禁止享乐的律法吧。他们做得对，的确有必要让穷人避免入不敷出。但是我又在某个地方读到了这样的一段话：

Sachez surtout que le luxe enrichit

Un grand état, s'il en perd un petit.

（享乐成就大国，毁灭小国）

如果你眼中的享乐是过度之意，那么其实每个人都知道，凡事过度都是有害无益，正如暴饮暴食要节制，慷慨挥霍要节约。我不知道我所居住的村庄是怎么回事，这里土地贫瘠、赋税沉重，所收获的小麦严禁出口。然而，所有农夫都能穿上上等布料制作的衣服鞋袜，衣食无忧。如果这农夫身穿白色亚麻华服、头顶卷曲且经过精心修饰的发式，那么这肯定就是极致的奢侈，非常地不合时宜。但是如果一个巴黎或伦敦的资本家打扮成农夫的模样进入剧院，那么这资本家就是最无礼，最荒谬的吝啬鬼。

Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines,

Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.

（所有的事情都有一个固定的衡量标准，

既不可逾越也不可不及）

剪刀肯定不是最伟大的古代遗产。发明剪刀之初，关于第一个使用它来修甲理发的人，还有什么是没被提到的呢？那时，毫无疑问，剪刀是代表名利与地位的工具，花花公子和浪荡子们高价购买，这是对造物主作品的糟蹋。我们的指尖末端是上帝让其生长的小角，剪短它们这是多大的罪过！这是对神的冒犯，这比发明衬衫、袜子更加恶劣。这下我们知道了那些从未穿过它们的老派议员，向那些已向这些致命奢侈品投降的年轻执法官叫嚷之时，是多么的愤怒。

殉　道

对于所有有关殉道者的谎言，我们只能捧腹大笑。这样的人包括提图斯（Titus）、图拉真和马可·奥里利乌斯，他们本是道德的典范，却被描述成残忍的野兽。洛克迪（Loc- Dieu）修道院院长弗勒里（Fleury）的神职生涯因为一些故事，一些凡是明白事理的女人都不会告诉小孩子的故事而蒙羞。

罗马人惩罚70人中的七位处女，要求每一位处女都必须让安卡拉城邦内所有的年轻男子享用一次，同样也是罗马人，他们会因为一点小小的情爱之事就判处处女死刑，这样的事情真的会再次重现吗？创作这一故事的人，是一个叫做狄奥多士（Theodotus）、信奉基督教的酒馆老板，他向上帝祈祷说与其让这七个处女丧失童贞，还不如处死她们。如果这样说，显然这会使酒馆老板们心情愉悦。上帝倾听了这一过分正经的酒店老板的祈祷，于是地方总督将这七名少女溺毙在湖中。这些少女一溺亡，就找到狄奥多士，抱怨他在她们身上使用诡计，但诚心恳求他帮忙，让她们的尸身免受湖中鱼虾吞食的命运。于是狄奥多士带上他酒馆中的三个酒徒，由神之火炬和神之骑士领路，一同前往那湖边，将这七人的尸身打捞上来，加以埋葬，最后狄奥多士自己却因此被绞死。

戴克里先（Diocletian）曾遇到一个叫圣·罗马，说话结巴的小男孩，他想烧死这孩子，因为这孩子是一个基督教徒。此时恰好有三个犹太人也在场，他们开始大笑，因为耶稣基督竟然允许一个皈依他的小男孩被人烧死。他们大声说道，他们的宗教要优于基督教，因为上帝将沙得拉（Shadrach）、米煞（Meshach）和亚伯尼歌（Abednego）投入了炙热的火炉。此时正包围着小罗马的火焰并未伤及他，而是立刻分散开来，将这三个犹太人烧死。皇帝戴克里先震惊了，说他不想与上帝有争执，但有一个不太认真负责的乡村法官判处这小结巴割舌的刑罚。皇帝的首席医生还亲自动手，堂而皇之地实施了这一手术。小罗马的舌头一被割掉，立刻就能流利地与人谈话，令在场的人无不感到钦佩。

这样的故事在殉教史中能找到成百上千个，他们想要让古罗马人显得可憎，却让自己变得荒谬。你想要实施完美、证据充分的暴行；想要真实性经过严格验证的大屠杀；想要看到血海真的横流；想要父亲、母亲、男人、女人和孩子们胸口受创，尸体成堆？热衷迫害的野兽们，只能去你们的编年史里寻找这些真相：你会在针对阿尔比派（Albigensians）的十字军战争中，会在梅兰多勒（Mérindol）和卡布里埃（Cabrières）大屠杀中，会在圣·巴多罗买（saint Bartholomew）的可怖一天中，也会在爱尔兰大屠杀和瓦勒度派（Waldenses）的山谷中找到的。是你这野蛮人将惨无人道的残暴行径归咎于最伟大的皇帝；是你让欧洲洪水泛滥，尸横遍野，要证明在顷刻之间可以到达成千上万个不同的地方，证明教皇可以兜售赎罪券！不要再诽谤中伤罗马人了，是他们让你制定了自己的律法，也是他们为不受你们先祖喜爱的人事向上帝祈求原谅。

你说，不是磨难造就了殉道者，而是原因。我承认你们的牺牲者不应该被冠以殉道者之名，殉道者意为见证者。但是，应该怎样称呼你们这些刽子手呢？法拉里斯（Phalaris）和布西里斯（Busiris），相较于你而言，是最绅士的名字。你那仍旧存在的宗教法庭难道不会让理性、人性和宗教战栗不已吗？伟大的上帝！如果这可憎的法庭归于尘土，那么你那有仇必报的凝视目光会不高兴吗？

奇　迹

奇迹（miracle），就其完全意义来说，是个极妙的事物。从这层意义上说，所有事物都是不可思议的。自然界的奇妙秩序、一亿个球体围绕一百万个太阳运转、光的运动，以及动物的生活都是永恒的奇迹。

通常，我们所说的奇迹，打破了这些神圣而永恒的定律。如果在月圆之时出现日食，如果一个死人手提脑袋，但还能双脚行走，那么我们把这些叫做奇迹。

几位自然哲学家认为，从这层意义上说，奇迹不可能存在，以下是他们的论证。

奇迹，是对神圣、不变且永恒的数学定律的违反。若依据此定义，那么奇迹，毫不含糊地说，就是一个矛盾体。一条定律不可能在保持不变的同时又被打破。然而，有人问他们，上帝可不可以让自己创造的定律暂时失效呢？他们底气十足地回答说毫无可能，拥有无限智慧的神不可能为了打破定律而去创造定律。他们说，上帝可以中断机器运转，但只是为了改进功能。如今，显而易见，这巨大无比的机器与上帝本身一样优秀。而他，作为上帝，能够创造这机器。如果发现物质的自然性导致缺陷出现，上帝就会从头再来，所以机器里的任何东西，上帝从不改变。

另外，上帝做事，事必有因，那是什么原因能让他去暂时损毁自己的作品呢？他们会被告知说那是为了人类的利益。他们则回复说，那就一定是为了全人类的利益，因为神性不为整个人类种族，而只为少数个人服务，这样的事情是不可想象的。但是无论怎样，人类种族其实也没有很多，这浩瀚无垠的空间内存在所有人类数量要远远小于一个小型蚁山中蚂蚁的数量。神，出于维护生存在这小泥堆上的三百或四百只蚂蚁的利益，选择去改变那维持整个宇宙运转的巨型引擎的永恒运转模式。现在设想一下这样的事情，难道不是愚蠢荒谬至极的吗？

然而，我们假设一下，上帝想偏爱某一小部分人：那么他需要对自己创造的永恒且无处不在的东西做出改变吗？他完全没有一丝必要去做这种改变，用这种反复无常去讨好他自己创造的生物。上帝的偏爱体现在那独特的戒律中，他为他们预测并安排所有事情，而这些人也都义无反顾地臣服于他的力量，受这种力量的影响深入骨髓。

那为什么上帝要行奇迹呢？是给少数一些人完成一个既定的计划吗？那么上帝会说：“通过创造宇宙，颁布神圣法令，制定永恒定律，我仍有一个计划没能完成。所以我将改变一些永恒不变的观念和定律，而去实施一些我不能借助它们来完成的事情。”这不是上帝力量的展示，而是软弱的告白，是他自身最不可思议的矛盾之处。所以，将奇迹归因于上帝其实是对上帝的侮辱（如果人类可以侮辱上帝的话），因为这等于对他说：“你是一个软弱无能，反复无常的存在。”因而，相信神迹，实在荒诞可笑，因为那是对神的羞辱。

这些窘迫的自然哲学家被告知说：“你们欢庆神的不变性，神之定律的永恒性，以及神之世界的规律性注定是徒劳无功的。我们这些小小的泥土堆已经见证了大量的奇迹发生，历史上神迹发生的频率并不亚于自然事件。大祭司安纽斯的女儿们，把她们拣选的所有东西都变成了大麦、葡萄酒和油；墨丘利的女儿艾萨丽达（Athalida）复活了好几次；埃斯科拉庇俄斯（Aesculapius）也让希波吕托斯（Hippolytus）复活了；赫拉克勒斯将阿尔刻提斯（Alcestis）从死亡线上拉回来；赫勒斯（Heres）在地狱中度过两星期后回到世界；罗穆卢斯（Romulus）和雷穆斯（Remus）的父母一个是神，一个是纯洁的处女；帕拉斯雅典娜的神像在特洛伊城从天堂落下；贝雷尼丝（Berenice）的毛发变成群星；鲍西丝（Baucis）和费莱蒙（Philemon）的破旧小屋变成了一座辉煌的神庙；俄耳甫斯的头颅死后还可宣读神谕；底比斯（Thebes）的城墙在希腊人的见证下，仅在一阵笛声中就拔地而起；埃斯科拉庇俄斯神殿中成功治愈的病人不计其数，我们还有记录，记载着埃斯科拉庇俄斯创造神迹时的见证人名单。

还有哪些人群没有行过难以置信的奇迹吗，特别是在很多人都不会读写的时代？请告诉我。

自由思想家，对于这些异议的回答，只有大声地嘲笑和不屑地耸肩。然而基督教哲学家则说：“我们相信自己神圣宗教里出现的奇迹，相信奇迹凭借的是信念而非理智，我们尽全力不去理会理智的声音，因为众所周知，信念说话时理智靠边站。发生在耶稣基督和他使徒们身上的神迹，我们坚定并且全心全意地相信，但是你必须允许我们对有些奇异之事保持一点点的怀疑态度。比如，有一个故事，其阐述者是一个享有伟大之名的普通人，他声称有一个小修道士非常善于行奇迹，以至于修道院院长最终禁止他运用自己这项才能。这小修道士遵照了指示。但是，当他看到一个可怜的砖瓦匠从房顶上跌落下来时，他在救人与神圣服从之间犹豫不决，于是他将这砖瓦匠停留在空中，他自己跑去问修道院院长该如何行事。这院长认定他未经允许就行奇迹，一开始就是罪过，但考虑到他中止实施并未再犯，就允许他将其完成。对于这样的故事，请允许我们持保留态度。我们同意自由思想家的看法，认为这个故事可信度不高。”

但是，他们会被问到，你怎敢否认圣·格瓦斯（saint Gervase）和圣·普罗泰西乌斯（saint Protasius）出现在圣·安布罗斯（saint Ambrose）的梦中，并告诉他哪里能找到他们的遗骸呢？怎敢否认圣·安布罗斯将他们挖掘出来，否认他们治好了一个盲人呢？当时，圣·奥古斯丁正在米兰，正是他报告了这一奇迹。“无数人充当了见证”（Immenso populo teste），他在《上帝之城》第22章写道。这是证据充分，可信度最高的奇迹之一。但是，自由思想家说他们一个字都不信，他们认为格瓦斯和普罗泰西乌斯并未出现在任何人面前，人类知不知道他们的尸骸到底在哪里一点都不重要，他们也不相信这个盲人，正如不相信维斯帕先（Vespasian）一样，认为这是个毫无用处的奇迹，但上帝从不做无用之事，也表明他们会坚定地坚持自己的原则。我对圣·格瓦斯和圣·普罗泰西乌斯的尊敬，不允许我与这些自由思想家持相同观点，我只是表述他们的怀疑。卢西安（Lucian）的很多文章都提起过他们，在其《异邦人之死》（Death of Peregrinus）中说到：“当一个玩杂耍的高手变成基督徒之时，他一定会找到自己的路。”但是，由于卢西安是一个世俗作家，那他对于我们而言，就无权威性可言。

这些自由思想家无法让自己相信发生在二世纪的奇迹。那么目击证人记载以下这些东西就是徒然无功的，士麦那（Smyrna）主教圣·波利卡（saint Polycarp）被判处火刑，扔进火焰时，他们听到一个来自天堂的声音大声喊道：“勇气，波利卡！坚强，像个男人一样。”柴堆上的火焰脱离了波利卡的身体，在头的上方形成了一道火幕，一只鸽子从火堆之间飞出。最终，他们不得不砍掉了波利卡的头颅。“这个奇迹有什么好？”怀疑者问道。“为什么火焰失去了它的特性，为什么不是刽子手的斧头着火？为什么殉道者能从滚烫的油锅中安然无恙地存活下来却死于剑刃之下？”他们回答说，这是神的旨意。但是自由思想家们还是偏向于自己亲眼所见后再相信。

那些依靠知识增强论据力度的人会告诉你说，教堂里的神父们自己都经常承认说，在他们的时代奇迹也久不曾出现。圣·克里索斯托（saint Chrysostom）明确地说：“神之所以将非凡的能力赋予平庸，是因为当时教会需要神迹；而现在他们之所以连非凡的人都不再赋予这种能力，则是因为教会已经没有需要。”随后，他还承认说，再没有人能使死人复活，甚至连救助伤病也已无可能。

虽然有格瓦斯和普罗泰西乌斯的神迹，圣·奥古斯丁在他的《上帝之城》也说道：“曾经出现过的奇迹为什么现在不出现了呢？”他给出了相同的原因：“‘Cur, inquiunt, nunc illa miracula quae praedicatis facta esse non fiunt? Possem quidem dicere necessaria prius fuisse quam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus.”（他们问：‘为什么那些你吹噓曾出现过的奇迹现在不出现了？’我会说，在这个世界还未相信之前，奇迹是有必要的，这样世界才会相信。）

除了以上的这个坦白之言，自由思想家们却不赞同圣·奥古斯丁提到的希波（Hippo）补鞋匠的故事。这鞋匠丢了衣服，随后到一个二十殉道者小型教堂做祈祷。回去后，他在一条鱼的体内发现了一枚金戒指，做鱼的厨师告诉补鞋匠：“这就是那二十个殉道者给你的礼物。”

对于这个故事，自由思想家们的回答是，这个故事与自然定律一点都不矛盾，一条鱼吞了一只金戒指丝毫不违背自然定律，厨师将这金戒指给补鞋匠也不是神迹。

倘若提醒一下这些自由思想家们，依据圣·哲罗姆在《隐士保罗的生活》（Life of the Hermit Paul）中所言，这位隐士与森林之神萨梯（satyrs）和农牧之神范恩（fauns）还有过几次对话，乌鸦每天都给他叼来半条面包作为饭食，圣·安东尼（saint Anthony）造访之日还叼来一整条面包，这前后持续了整整三十年。他们又会回答说，所有的这些事物并不会绝对地违反自然定律，萨梯和范恩也许存在过。这个故事尽管幼稚，但是无论如何，它与救世主和他的使徒们那样纯粹的奇迹是完全不同的。一些虔诚的基督徒已经不相信狄奥多勒（Theodoret）所讲的关于坐柱者圣·西蒙（saint Simon Stylites）的故事。很多在希腊被认为是可信的奇迹已经受到几个拉丁教会的质疑，同样地，一些拉丁的奇迹也引起了希腊教会的怀疑。紧接而来就是新教徒们，他们对两种教会的奇迹都不太相信。

一个在东印度群岛布道良久、知识渊博的耶稣会士抱怨说，他与同事们从来都不能行奇迹。泽维尔（Xavier）在他的几封信中悲叹道自己没有语言能力，他说身处日本人中间，除了是一尊哑巴雕像外，什么都不是。尽管如此，耶稣会士们也写到他使八个死人复活了，八个人着实很多，但是我们要考虑这八个人是他从距离此地5000格之远的地方复活成功的。从此以后，有人声称在法国废除耶稣会，相较于废除泽维尔和伊格内修斯（Ignatius）而言是个更大的神迹，这些人因为发表此言论而为人所知。

话虽如此，所有的基督徒仍相信耶稣基督和使徒们的神迹是千真万确的，但是我们也有权利运用我们的力量去质疑一些近当代发生的，还未经权威验证的奇迹。

因为一个真实完美的奇迹，人们会希望它能在巴黎科学院、伦敦皇家学会和医学院的见证下，能在卫兵军团派遣支队，防止拥挤人群的轻率行为妨碍神迹创造的支持下加以实践。

总有一天，自由思想家会被问到，如果发现太阳停止运动，换而言之，就是地球不再围绕太阳这一天体运转；如果所有死人都能复活；如果连绵的群山变为海洋，所有这些都是去证明一些重要的真理，比如万能的上帝恩宠。“那么我会说什么呢？”自由思想者问到。“我会成为摩尼教徒，我会说存在一条原理能将其他原理破坏。”

彼　得

彼得（Peter），在意大利语里，他的名字是皮埃罗（Piero）或皮埃特罗（Pietro），在西班牙语里，佩德罗（Pedro），拉丁语里，柏图斯（Petrus），希腊语里，彼特拉斯（Petros），而在希伯来语里，他则被称为刻法（Cepha）。

为什么彼得的继任者们在西方能有如此大的权力而在东方情况却并非如此？这就好像是在问为什么维尔茨堡（Wurzburg）和萨尔茨堡的主教们在混乱时期可以拥有王权而希腊的主教们却永远只有是臣民。时间，时机，某些人的野心以及另一些人的软弱总可以成就这个世界上所有已经发生或是将要发生的事情。

在这个混乱的时期，某种意见却得到了普遍的认同，这种意见统治着人们的思想；事实上并不是说这些人有着自己明确的意见，但是总有声音代替他们表达。

福音书中提到，上帝对彼得说“我将赐予你天国的钥匙”。而在11世纪，罗马主教的支持者们仍然认为赐予的东西越是宏大，也就越渺小，也认为天国包裹着大地；倘若彼得拥有天国之匙，那他也一定拥有开启大地之匙。如果说天国指的是所有的恒星和行星，那么根据托马修斯（Thomasius）的说法，显而易见，给西蒙·巴-乔那（Simon Bar-Jona）也就是彼得的钥匙是一把万能钥匙。如果天国指的是云层，大气，或是行星自转所需要的空间，那么根据默尔修斯（Meursius）的说法，也就没有锁匠可以为这样的门打造钥匙了。

过去，巴勒斯坦的钥匙是用带子绑在一块的一堆木钉。耶稣对巴-乔那说：“凡是你在人世间所受的束缚，到了天国也同样会绑住你”。而服务于教皇的神学家们，从这一条解读出，教皇们拥有让人民忠于他们自己国王的权利，也有解除这一关系的权力；与此同时，教皇按自己的意愿管理所有的王国。这是一个绝妙的结论。1302年，在法国的三级会议上，法国民众在给国王的请愿书上写道：“波尼法斯八世（Boniface VIII）认为上帝在天国所约束和囚禁的也是他自己所约束的东西。”德国的路德教教徒（我记得是叫墨兰顿［Melanchthon］）觉得自己很难理解耶稣对西蒙·巴-乔那或称刻法所说的：“你是彼得（皮埃尔），在这块磐石（皮埃尔有石头之意）之上，我将筑造我的教堂，召集我的信徒。”他不相信上帝会在文字上做文章，会开如此特别的玩笑；更不相信教皇的权力原来只是基于一个语言的双关。

有人认为彼得是罗马的主教，但在当时以及之后的很长一段时间里，都没有人能够证实他在位。而基督教团体在公元2世纪末才成形。

彼得可能去过罗马，更有可能的是他被头朝下钉死在十字架上，虽然这在实际上不可行，也没有证据证明这点。我们有一封由他署名的信件，当中提到了他在巴比伦：明智的圣殿学者认为巴比伦即罗马。因此如果他有一封来自罗马的署有名字和日期的信件，我们就能得出信件是在巴比伦写的结论。很久之前就有过这样的推论，世界也一如既往地运行着。

曾经有一个虔诚的人在罗马花了大笔金钱买了一份圣职。这被称为圣职买卖行为。当时有人问他，相不相信西蒙·彼得在罗马。他回答说“我不知道彼得，但是西蒙是在罗马的。”

对于彼得这个人，必须承认的一点是，保罗并不是唯一一个被他的行为所震惊的人。他和他继任者们常常在公开场合被人排斥。保罗严厉斥责他食用禁肉，比如猪肉，黑布丁，兔子，鳗鱼，伊克西翁和格里芬。彼得在为自己辩护时则说，他曾在约是正午之时见到天国之门打开，有四个人携一块大布从天而降，布上有好多鳗鱼、四足动物还有鸟类。有一个天使的声音大声喊道：“杀死它们，吃了吧！”渥拉斯顿（Wollaston）说，很明显，这个声音也对教皇们说：“杀死一切，侵吞人民的财产！”

卡索朋（Casaubon）不认同彼得对待好人亚拿尼亚（Ananias）和他的妻子萨菲拉（Sapphira）的方式。卡索朋问道，经过哪场战役之后可以让一个犹太人——罗马人的奴隶有权命令或是允许那些相信耶稣的信徒们变卖家产并把所得的收益摆在他的脚下。如果伦敦的某个再洗礼派（Anabaptist）让他的同胞们将自己的财产放在他脚下，难道他不会因为叛教而下狱，且毋庸置疑地因掠夺信徒财产而被送往泰伯恩（Tyburn）刑场？那么对亚拿尼亚处以死刑难道没有太过分吗？他只是私藏了他和他妻子变卖田产所得的一小部分，而对彼得谎称奉献了全部家产。他的妻子赶来时，亚拿尼亚才刚刚死去。彼得并没有仁慈地警告她，他的丈夫因私藏价银而死于中风，让她好好照顾自己，而是让她掉入了另一个陷阱。他问她，她的丈夫是不是将所得的所有价银交给了圣徒。这个可怜的女人说是，于是当场死去。这是多么地残酷！

科尼利厄斯（Coringius）问彼得为什么处死那些捐献财产给他的人，却不处死那些对耶稣不止一次处以鞭刑，最后导致耶稣受难的神学家们。哦，彼得！你处死了两个捐献财物给你的基督徒，却允许那些迫害你主的人活着！

科尼利厄斯明显不是宗教法庭的人，所有才会问这些大胆的问题。伊拉斯谟注意到一件奇怪的事情，这件事与彼得有关：基督教的领袖在开始履行他们作为使徒的职责时，都不认主。犹太人的第一个主教开始履行职责时，打造了一个金牛犊，且对之敬如神明。

如果是这样，那么彼得只是一个盘问穷人的穷人而已。他就像那些秩序的创造者，自己为贫困所扰，而他的后继者们则成为了有钱的贵族。

教皇作为彼得的继任者，不管是处于鼎盛时期还是没落时期，除去他们周边的教民，在这个世界上还是有五亿人需要遵守他的教规。

认同一个与自己相距三四百里格的主人；直到这个人开始考虑事情，你不能去想只能等着；只有等到这个外国人所指派的专员同意，你才敢对你的公民做出最后判决；不付给这个外国主人一大笔钱，你就不敢占用属于某个国王的土地或是葡萄园；如果你违反某个国家的法律，娶了自己的侄女，可以给这个外国主人一大笔钱使得这样的行为合法化；某天因为这个外国人要求纪念某个由他送入天堂的人，一个不认识的人，你就必须将田地里的农活放在一边——认同教皇，就必须认同这些，这是法国天主教堂所要求的。

而另外一些人则进一步提出他们的意见。比如，如今我们可以看到某个君主请求教皇准许他的皇家法庭判处某些僧侣叛逆的罪行，这样的请求并未得到准许，于是他也不能对这些僧侣进行判决。

众所周知，以前教皇的权力更大。他们的权力远远超过远古时期的神明，因为这些神明赋予了教皇管理各个帝国的权力，而教皇真的做到了这一点。

斯特毕勒斯（Sturbinus）说，那些质疑教皇的神圣性和权威性的人，如果是从这些方面来考虑，这是可以得到原谅的：

40个分裂教会亵渎了主教之位，而其中有27个教会让主教之位染满鲜血。

斯蒂芬七世（Stephen VII），一个神父之子，掘出了他的前任教皇福尔摩苏斯（Formosus）的尸体，并将之斩首。

塞尔吉乌斯三世（Sergius III），犯下谋杀罪，并让他的情妇马洛吉亚（Marozia）之子继承了教皇之位。

约翰十世，狄奥多拉（Theodora）的情人，被勒死在他的床上。

约翰十一世，也就是塞尔吉乌斯三世的儿子，就是一个浪荡子。

约翰十二世被杀死在情人的房子里。

本笃九世（Benedict IX）买下教皇之位之后又将其出售。

格列高利七世发起了历时500年的内战，这场战争由他的继任者延续。

最后，在这么多有野心的、残暴而又风流的教皇之中，还有一个亚历山大六世，他的名字与尼禄、卡利古拉（Caligula）并列。

据说，虽然历经了这么多的罪恶，教皇之位的神圣性依旧保持着。但若是这样的话，哈里发岂不是要做出更残忍的事情才可以更加神圣。这是德米尔斯（Dermius）的推论，但是耶稣会的信徒给了他答案。

哲人朱利安——罗马君主

对一个人做出公正评价有时需要很长一段时间。两三个要么唯利是图，要么狂热盲从的作者说到野蛮而阴柔的康斯坦丁时往往崇之为神，而谈到公正明智的朱利安（Julian）大帝时则称之为恶棍。而其他的作者们则复写了这样的言论，重复这同样的奉承和诽谤。这些几乎都变成了他们的信条。终于，公开评论的时代到来了，在1400年以后，文明开化的人们开始反思这些人之所以这样评论的原因。康斯坦丁被认为是一个野心勃勃，嘲笑上帝和人类的人。他傲慢无礼地假装上帝给了他指示而确保让他取得了胜利。他让整个家族浴血，而自己却懒惰地睡在床上；可他是一个基督徒，且被封为圣徒。

朱利安冷静、纯洁、无私、勇敢而仁慈；但他不是基督徒，且长期被视为可怕的怪物。

如今，在对比了事实、史料、朱利安以及他的对手的手稿之后，我们不得不承认，虽然他不喜欢基督教，但恨一个沾满自己家族鲜血的教派却是情有可原的；野蛮的君主康斯坦丁在位期间，朱利安被基督徒迫害、监禁、流放，面临着死亡的威胁。但他从未处决过基督徒，相反，他原谅了十个密谋杀害他的基督徒士兵。

我们读他的信，会由衷地佩服他。“基督徒们，”他说，“在我的前任君主在位时期遭受流放和监禁。他们称彼此为异教徒，最后屠杀彼此。我已召回那些被流放者，并释放了囚犯。我已将他们的财产判回给他们。我让他们过回安宁的生活。但这正是令加利利人（Galileans）愤怒之处，他们抱怨，因为他们不能再吞并彼此。”写得多好！多好的哲学家对迫害狂热者的宣言！

总之，每个对事实有了公正研究的人，都会承认朱利安拥有图拉真的所有品质，除了他对希腊人和罗马人的纵容；他有卡托（Cato）的所有优点，但没有他的固执和坏脾气；他有我们钦佩的尤利乌斯·恺撒的优秀品质，却没有他的罪恶；他和西庇阿（Scipio）一样纯洁。总之，他与马可·奥里利乌斯一样，是一个伟大的人。

现在，我们再也不会重复诬告者狄奥多勒对朱利安的诽谤，说朱利安在卡集（Carrhae）的一座神庙杀死了一个女人作为祭品以抚慰众神。我们不再反复提及，他在垂死时用手把血液洒向天堂的方向，对耶稣基督说：“你胜利了，基督徒！”仿佛他对波斯人的战争是他对战耶稣的一场战争；仿佛这个哲学家，死时无奈地认可了基督的存在。仿佛他相信基督就在空气中，而周围的空气即是天堂。这些教父们的不恰当言论如今已不被重复。

他们最后只能像安提俄克的无聊的市民们那样嘲笑他。他们指责他蓬乱的胡子和走路的方式。但拉贝特（La Bletterie）大人啊，你并未看到他走路的方式，但你读了他写的信件、制定的法律、写满他的美德的纪念碑。只要他的心胸坦荡，所做的事情彰显着他的美德，那么他的胡子肮脏，或是走得匆忙又何妨？

今天仍然值得研究的一个重要事实是，朱利安被指责想要通过重建耶路撒冷的圣殿篡改耶稣基督的预言。据说，有大火冒出了地面，阻止了重建工作。据说，这是一个神迹，而这个神迹并没有使朱利安改变信仰，也没有让重建工作的负责人阿里皮斯（Alypius），以及宫廷成员的信仰发生改变。而神父拉贝特对此事评论说：“他和他宫廷的哲学家们无疑是依赖于自然哲学知识，才能否定如此惊人的神迹。而自然一直是怀疑的避难所，但他与宗教的关系如此密切，应该至少被怀疑是共谋者。”

首先，福音书中说的犹太圣殿将不再重建这一点是不正确的。马太福音中关于不会有一块这座圣殿的石头留给土买人的希律王（Idumaean Herod）的预言确实写于自提图斯对耶路撒冷的破坏之后。但没有福音传道者说它从未重建。而在提图斯对破坏圣殿之后没有一块石头被留下来这一点也是不正确的。他保留了所有的地基、一整面城墙以及安东尼亚塔（Antonia tower）。

其次，在犹太人屠杀公牛和奶牛的地方建一座犹太圣殿、火药库或是一座清真寺，这对神而言又有什么关系？

第三，不知道出自某些被烧工人之口的所谓的大火，究竟是源自于被城墙包围的城市还是源自犹太圣殿。然而，我们很难理解为什么耶稣火烧朱利安大帝的工人，却放过那些很久以后在废墟上建立清真寺的哈里发·奥马尔（caliph Omar）的信徒，以及那些之后重修了清真寺的萨拉丁王（Saladin）的工人。难道耶稣真的那么偏爱穆斯林的清真寺？

第四，耶稣预言没有一块石头将留给耶路撒冷的另一座圣殿，并未禁止圣殿被重建。

第五，耶稣预言的好几件事情并没有被上帝允许。他预言了世界末日的到来，届时他将驾云降临，在最后存活的人面前，显示其权力与威严。然而世界末日并未到来，并且这样的状态明显还将持续一段时间。

第六，如果朱利安描述了这一神迹，我只能说他被虚假而荒谬的报告所欺骗，我宁愿相信他的敌人，也就是基督徒不遗余力地反对他的计划，他们杀死了工人，还使人们相信那些工人是在神迹中被杀害。但朱利安对于此事并未发表言论，因为他忙于对波斯人的战争。他推迟了建筑圣殿的时间，而在这项工程开始之前，他已离世。

第七，报告这一神迹的是阿米安·马赛林纳斯（Ammianus Marcellinus），一个异教徒。那么这件事被基督徒篡改就是很有可能的了，他们因为这点被人指责已不止一次。但在那个人们都谈论神迹与巫术的故事的时代，阿米安·马赛林纳斯所说的这个故事被某些人所轻信，这也是有可能的。因为从提图斯·李维斯（Titus Livius）直到那个时代所有的历史总会被打上神迹的烙印。

第八，根据当代作家们的说法，当时叙利亚发生大地震。大火燃及好几个地方，许多城镇被吞噬。因此并没有所谓的神迹。

第九，如果耶稣能行神迹，那他为什么不阻止让他自己献上祭品以及受割礼的圣殿重建呢？他为什么不行神迹让那些嘲笑基督教的国家信奉基督？或者让他的基督徒，从阿里乌斯（Arius）和亚他那修（Athanasius）到罗兰（Roland）和塞文山脉（Cévennes）的骑士，让这些手上沾满鲜血的食人者们更加温和且有人性？

从这些我得出的结论是，自然并不为基督教服务，正如拉贝特所言。但是拉贝特所说的却与老妇人的荒诞之见不谋而合，正如朱利安所说：麻烦事都在愚蠢的妇人身上（Quibus cum stolidis aniculis negotium erat）。

在为朱利安的某些美德正名之后，拉贝特在这段历史的结尾，将他的死亡写成“神之复仇”。如果是这样，那么所有英雄们的英年早逝，从亚历山大到古斯塔夫斯·阿道弗斯（Gustavus Adolphus），都是受到了神的惩罚。朱利安则是以最好的方式死去，他与敌人战斗取得多次胜利后战死沙场。朱庇特，他的继任者，统治时间比他更短，且政绩平平。我并未看到神的复仇，拉贝特在我看来不过是一个不诚实的大发豪言壮语之人。但谁敢讲真话呢？斯多葛派的利巴涅斯（Libanius）是其中一个。他用残杀帖撒罗尼迦人（Thessalonians）的狄奥多瑟斯（Theodosius）来赞扬勇敢仁慈的朱利安，而勒布（Le Beau）与拉贝特都不敢对忠诚的教民们赞扬他。

朱利安曾因性命受到威胁放弃基督教而遭人指责。这就相当于是责备一个人，在他被人所劫，被贼人用刀架在脖子上逼着参加他们的团伙时，逃离了这群强盗。康斯坦（Constant）皇帝比他那残忍的父亲康斯坦丁有过之无不及，他的双手沾满了朱利安家族的鲜血。他已经杀了这个伟人的兄弟。乌萨比（Eusabia）皇后为了让年轻的朱利安活下来，费尽周折。为了不被谋杀，这位不幸的王子削发为僧，保证并接受了所谓的四条法令。他模仿朱尼厄斯·布鲁图斯（Junius Brutus），装疯以骗过塔奎因（Tarquin），躲过他的愤怒。他生活毫无意义，直到他发现自己变成了高卢军队的长官，才真正地活着，并成为一个伟大的人。这就是理性的叛教者所谓的叛教，如果一定要给这个从未定义过的行为做出一个定义的话。

孟德斯鸠说：“悲哉，在敌营生存下来的王子总有一个坏声誉！”让我们想象一下，倘若朱利安战胜了波斯人，且在他漫长而宁静的晚年目睹了古老宗教的复兴，基督教的毁灭，法利赛人、撒都该人、利甲族人（Rechabites）、艾赛尼派（Essenians）、赛拉普特人（Therapeutes）教派的消失、对叙利亚女神的崇拜和其他无迹可追的大事，那么历史学家会给朱利安多少溢美之词啊！那么他的绰号绝不会是叛教者，而毫不夸张的会是重建者这一神圣称号。

看看这些不称职的罗马历史学家们，都臣服在康斯坦丁和狄奥多瑟斯的脚下，帮他们掩饰自己的罪过，多么的卑鄙！尼禄也没有做过比屠杀帖撒罗尼迦人更可怕的事。坎塔布连的狄奥多瑟斯（Cantabrian Teodosius）假装原谅帖撒罗尼迦人，而在六个月后，他邀请他们去了竞技场。竞技场有至少有15000人的容量，当时一定座无虚席。人们对于这种大场面向来富有激情。父母带着几乎不能走路的孩子们来到这里。等到人们都已入场，基督教的皇帝派基督教的士兵屠杀男女老少，一个都没有留下。然而这个可怕的人在历史剽窃者的笔下却得到了颂扬。他们说，他忏悔了。上帝啊，什么忏悔！他一个奥波尔（obol）都没给死者的家庭，也没有去做弥撒。必须承认不做弥撒的人承受着巨大的痛苦，因为那是你该感激涕零的，那是上帝给你让你赎回所有罪行的机会。

劳伦·爱恰尔（Laurent Echard）的继承者，一个声名狼藉的国王，将狄奥多瑟斯下令的这场屠杀形容为一件快活事。

同样不幸的是有人乱写罗马史，用夸夸其谈的文风，充满文法错误的文字告诉你狄奥多瑟斯在与他的对手尤金战斗之前，看到圣·约翰和圣·菲利普穿着白色的衣服，他们向他保证他会取得胜利。让这等作家去给约翰和菲利普唱赞美诗吧，不要让他们写历史。

读者，问问你的良知。你钦佩爱戴亨利四世，但如果他在阿尔克（Arques）这场以一敌多的战争中失败，他的胜利只是因为历史学家们将他描述为一个英雄，你不会知道这个人：他只会是长胡子的游击队员，一个旧病复发的异端分子，一个异教徒。梅晏公爵（duc de Mayenne）则会是上帝派来的代表，教皇虽然染痘也会册封圣·菲利普为圣徒，圣·约翰会多次在他面前出现。而你，耶稣会士达尼埃尔，你将如何改写这段平淡无味的历史以取悦梅晏公爵？写成公爵如何“推着国王向前”，如何“彻底击败”这个大胡子？还是教会如何取得“胜利”的历史？

Careat successibus opto

Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putaat.

（我恳求消灭那些以事情的结果论成败的人）

偏　见

偏见是非理性的观点。因此，在世界各地，孩子们被迫接受各种观点直至他们可以自己做出判断。

有些通用且必要的偏见本身便是美德。在任何一个国家，孩子们被教导承认有一位赏罚分明的神；敬爱他们的生身父母；视偷窃为罪行，视自私欺骗为恶习——直至他们可以认知何为善恶。

因此存在极善的偏见：当一个人能够理性思考时，其判断便会更正这些偏见使其成为美德。

感觉并非仅仅是偏见，而是更强大的东西。母亲爱她的儿子并非因为世俗要求她必须爱他：她幸福地爱着她的孩子更甚于自己。同理，你会去帮助一个即将掉入悬崖或被野兽吞噬的陌生孩子。

然而，你尊重一个衣着得体、举止庄重、言谈恰当的人却不属于上述情况。父母曾经告诉你需向此人鞠躬。甚至在了解此人是否值得尊重之前，你便尊重他。年龄和知识逐渐增长，你意识到这个人不过是一个毫无尊严、自私自利、阴险狡诈的小人。你鄙视你过往所尊敬的，此时偏见便服从于理性。由于偏见，你曾相信蛊惑你童年的寓言。寓言中讲到泰坦发起了诸神之战，维纳斯与阿多尼斯（Adonis）相恋。12岁的孩子信以为真，21岁的青年则把它们当作精妙的寓言。

让我们通过一些词汇审视不同类型的偏见，从而整理我们的思绪。或许我们会像约翰·劳体制[1]时代的人一样意识到原来他们一直以来指望的只是幻想中的财富。

感官偏见

我们的双眼常常欺骗我们，甚至是当我们看得很真切的时候——这难道不是一件奇特的事吗？但是反之，我们的双耳从不欺骗我们。如果你听力正常，听到有人说：“你真美，我爱你”时，显然你听到的不是：“我恨你，你真丑”。但是当你看到一面光滑的镜子时，你会发现你错了，其实镜面非常不平整。太阳的直径看起来比你的眼球宽两英尺，事实证明它比地球还要大几百万倍。

上帝似乎把真相注入你的耳朵而把谬误留给你的眼睛；但是研究光学你会发现，上帝并没有欺骗你，事物只能以现有的状态呈现给你。

物理偏见

日出月落，地球是静止的：物理世界里有许多自然偏见。因为煮熟后呈红色，所以小龙虾补血；因为鳗鱼机灵，所以会治愈瘫痪；因为从前在一次月缺时，一个病人的发烧加剧了，所以月球活动会影响疾病：数以千万计的类似观念只是古代愚者的错误，他们不假思索，妄加推断，以讹传讹。

历史偏见

很多历史故事未经证实便被轻信，这种轻信本身便是一种偏见。非比阿斯·皮科特（Fabius Pictor）告诉我们这样一个故事，在他之前的几个世纪，一个正要把水倒进水壶的艾尔巴城（Elba）处女被强暴了，然后她生下了罗穆卢斯和雷穆斯，被母狼抚养成人。罗马人相信了这个寓言。他们没有问那个时候拉丁姆（Latium）是否有处女，国王的女儿是否会带着她的水壶离开修道院，母狼是否会养育两个孩子而非把他们吃掉。偏见自成。

一个修道士写道，克劳维斯（Clovis）在托尔比亚克战役（battle of Tolbiac）中遭遇险境，此时他发誓，倘若能顺利渡过劫难，他将成为一名基督徒。然而，他在此时把自己托付于一个异教的神明是否合情合理呢？他生来就信仰的宗教不应该是最有力的么？在对抗土耳其人的战斗中，一个基督徒难道会向先知穆罕默德求救而非圣母玛利亚么？也有传言说，一只鸽子衔着圣油瓶给克劳维斯洗礼，举着旗帜的天使指引他的道路。偏见对诸如此类的轶闻都信以为真。熟知人类本性的人都知道，夺位者克劳维斯和夺位者罗隆（也叫罗尔）加入基督教只是想更好地控制基督徒，就像土耳其的夺位者加入伊斯兰教来更好地控制穆斯林一样。

宗教偏见

如果你的乳娘告诉你谷神星（Ceres）掌管粮食，或者毗瑟拏（Vishnu）和恰卡（Xaca）有时幻化成人形，或者萨摩诺克多姆（Sammonocodom）砍倒了一整座森林，或者欧丁神（Odin）在位于日德兰半岛的大厅等待着你，或者先知穆罕默德或其他什么人完成了去往天堂的旅程；如果你的导师之后给你灌输了一样的想法，那么你一生都会对此深信不疑。如果你的理性高于这些偏见，你那些智力高于妇女的邻居们便会高呼你信仰全无，并且对你施以恐吓。你的托钵僧害怕他的收入减少，一纸诉状把你告上法庭。法官想要操控愚者，相信他们更易管制，所以对你百般刁难。你会一直遭受窘境，直至你的街坊邻里、托钵僧人和下级法官开始意识到愚蠢毫无意义，迫害令人生厌。

[1]　约翰·劳（John Law），苏格兰裔金融家和投机家，18世纪早期法国财政总监。其主导的“金融创新”和“体制改革”被称为劳体制（Law's system）。——译者注

荣　耀

西塞罗在一封信中亲切地和他朋友谈到：“告诉我你想让我把高卢人交给谁。”在另一封信中，他又抱怨已厌倦了王子们写信感谢他把他们的行省提升为王国，而且补充道，他甚至不知道这些所谓的王国在哪。

事实也许是这样，备受古罗马人民的称赞和遵从、也曾受到不相识的国王感谢的西塞罗有获得荣耀和虚荣的冲动。

尽管这种感觉对于人类这种渺小的动物未必合适，然而我们也许可以原谅西塞罗、恺撒、西庇阿这样的伟大人物有这样的感受。但是，如果在半原始地方的遥远角落，一个人给自己置办了一件小办公室、印出一些平庸的诗句就深感自豪，这就足以贻笑大方了。

自　爱

一个流浪汉堂而皇之地在马德里附近要求救济品。一位路人问他：“在你还有能力工作的时候就这样做不觉得羞愧吗？”流浪汉答道：“先生，我向您要的是金钱，而不是您的建议。”然后转过身去，西班牙式的尊严保留无遗。这是一位自豪的乞丐；他的虚荣如此易碎。他出于不自爱而乞求施舍，却由于另一种自爱而无法忍受斥责。

一位传教士云游到印度，遇到一位枷锁缠身的苦行僧：他像猴子一样赤身裸体，趴在地上，正在为印度人所犯的罪行而鞭笞自己，而这些人也给了他一些法新（farthings）。一位围观者说道：“这是怎样的心神合一！”“心神合一！”苦行僧答道，“你们要知道我在现世鞭笞自己只是为了在另一个世界偿还你们的债，在那时你们将会变成马而我则会成为牧马人。”

那些说自爱是我们所有感觉和行为的基础的人，在印度、西班牙甚至在宜居的世界各地都是正确的：只是因为没人通过写作向世人证明人是有脸的，所以无需向世人证明人是有自爱的。自爱是我们谈话的工具，它像是使我们种族长存的一种工具：它是必要的，对我们来说无比珍贵，给予我们欢乐，同时也必须深藏。

邪　恶

人说人性本恶，人类是恶魔之子，是邪恶的。这说法着实极不妥当。原因在于，老朋友，你布道说整个世界的人类生来就是堕落的，这倒提醒了我，你就是这样的出身，所以你就像狐狸和鳄鱼那样不可信任。你跟我说：“绝对不是！我精神上得到了重生，我既不是异教徒，也不是无信仰者，你可以信任我。”然而，其余的那些你口中的异教徒或无信仰之人就只是一群野兽。想必每次你与路德教信徒或土耳其人谈话时，一定确信他们会抢劫或谋杀你，因为他们是恶魔之子，生而邪恶，你们得到了重生，他们则腐朽堕落。也许这样告诉人类会显得更加理性而优雅：人性本善，想想玷污人类的纯洁是多么的可怕。我们对待人类的态度本应与对待每个个体的态度相同。如果一个修道士过着丑陋而可耻的生活，那我们对他说：“你真的会让修道士的尊严蒙羞吗？”一位律师有幸成为一名皇家议员，那他就应该以身作则。为了鼓舞一名士兵，人们告诉他：“牢记你属于香槟军团。”我们应该告诉每个个体：“记住你做人的尊严。”

但是实际上，无论如何阐释，我们总会回到最初。追寻你的内心，这一各国普遍使用的说法到底是什么意思？如果你生来就是恶魔之子，本源就是罪人，体内的血液都是低贱的液体组成，那“追寻你的内心”的短语意思就会是：请教并追寻你那恶魔的本性，成为一个骗子、小偷、杀人犯，这都是你父亲的行事之风。

人性本不恶，只有患病才能让人变得邪恶。医生们一同出现并说到：“你生来就病了。”那毫无疑问，如果病人的病是与生俱来，天性使然的，那么不管这些医生们说什么、做什么，此病都无法治愈。同时，拥有这样想法的人本身也是得了病的。

将全世界的孩子聚集起来，在他们身上，你只会发现天真、柔弱和恐惧。倘若他们生来就是残忍邪恶并且作恶多端的，那么他们就应该展现出这样的苗头，就像幼蛇试图撕咬、稚虎显露利爪。但是人之本性并不比鸽子、兔子拥有更具攻击性的武器，不可在天性上就将人类摧毁。

所以人生来并不是邪恶的。那为什么有人会被人性本恶这场瘟疫感染呢？那是因为他们那些已被此病感染的领袖们将此病传染给其他的人类，就如同一个女人，感染了哥伦布从美洲带回的疾病，然后将这毒害从欧洲的一头传播至另一头。第一位野心勃勃的人败坏了整个地球。

你会说是这个始作俑者将所有人类固有的傲慢、掠夺、欺骗、残暴激发了出来。我承认，一般说来，人类的大多数都会有这样的特点，但是难道每个人都会患有令人厌恶的热病、都会有石头和砂砾，只是因为人人都能接触到他们吗？

整个民族都不是邪恶之人的例子也是存在的，比如费城人和印度人就从没杀过人；中国人、越南人、老挝人、暹罗人，甚至日本人都已经有超过100年没有战争了。震惊人类的残酷犯罪，近十年来，很难在罗马、威尼斯、巴黎、伦敦和阿姆斯特丹发现，尽管在这些城市里作为万恶源头的贪婪之心依旧横行无忌。

如果人性本恶，人生来就是恶魔的奴隶，一不开心，就会受到恶魔的蛊惑，用暴怒与残酷来为自己的痛苦复仇，那么每天早晨，我们就会看到妻子谋杀丈夫、孩子谋杀父亲，就像在黎明时分发现鼬鼠紧紧地勒住鸡，吸食它们的血液一样。

倘若地球上有十亿人口，这数量很大，那么就会有五亿的女人缝衣纺纱、喂养孩子、打扫住房，以及议论邻里琐事。我就没发现这些天真的人类做出了什么伤天害理之事。考虑到全球居住者的数量，那么至少有两亿的孩童，他们既不杀人也不劫掠，以及同等数目的老弱之人，他们也无力如此。至多只有一亿的青壮年，精力充沛，可以犯罪。而这一亿人中间，九千万人经常被繁重的劳动束缚，努力工作，让土地生产，供养衣食。这些人很难再有时间去作恶。

而这十亿人口中余下的人还包括：只图享乐的游手好闲、群居寄生之人，忙于事业的有才之人，以及至少在表面上追求纯净生活的执法官和与神职人员。所以剩下的真正邪恶之人，只是少数的一些政客以及几千个出卖自己为这些阴谋者服务的流氓。政客们不管是世俗的还是宗教性的，他们总是麻烦制造者。实际上，这样残暴的野兽，不可能同时存在一百万，这个数量还包括了拦路强盗。所以说，就算是在最动荡不安的年代，世界上也只有千分之一的人可以被称作是邪恶之人，况且他并不总是邪恶的。

因此，世界上的邪恶比所宣称的，所相信的要少得多。但是也还是太多了。可怕的不幸之事仍能看见，但是抱怨夸大邪恶的乐趣是如此之大，以至于最轻微的刮蹭也会被惊呼成血流成河。如果你被欺骗了，那所有人都是伪证者。一个遭遇过不公正待遇的忧郁之人会觉得世界上充满了该死之人，正如一个在观看歌剧后与女伴共饮的年轻酒色之徒无法想象世界上竟然还有不幸之事一样。

Voltaire

Miracles and Idolatry

TRANSLATED BY THEODORE BESTERMAN

PENGUIN BOOKS — GREAT IDEAS

Table of Contents

Angel

Animals

Anti-trinitarians

Apocalypse

Atheist, atheism

Baptism

Cannibals

Certain, certainty

Character

Councils

Enthusiasm

Equality

Fatherland

Flood

Great chain of being

Hell

Idol, idolator, idolatry

Joseph

Judea

Luxury

Martyr

Miracles

Peter

The philosopher Julian, Roman emperor

Prejudices

Pride

Self-love

Wicked

返回分册总目录

Angel

Angel, in Greek, messenger; we shall hardly know more of them when we learn that the Persians had Peris, the Hebrews Malakim, the Greeks their Daimonoi.

But what we shall perhaps find more instructive is the fact that one of mankind's first notions has always been to place intermediary beings between divinity and us. It is these demons, these genii that antiquity invented. Princes were seen to intimate their orders through messengers, therefore divinity also sends its couriers: Mercury, Iris were couriers, messengers.

The Hebrews, the only people guided by divinity itself, at first gave no names to the angels god finally deigned to send them. They borrowed the names given to them by the Chaldeans when the Jewish nation was captive in Babylonia, Michael and Gabriel were first named by Daniel, a slave of that people. The Jew Tobit, who lived at Nineveh, knew the angel Raphael, who travelled with his son to help him collect some money which the Jew Gabael owed him.

In the laws of the Jews, that is, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there is not the slightest reference to the existence of angels, let alone their worship. Moreover, the Sadducees did not believe in angels.

But they are talked about a great deal in the histories of the Jews. The angels were corporeal. They had wings on their backs, as the Gentiles pretended that Mercury had on his heels. Sometimes they hid their wings under their clothes. How could they have lacked bodies since they drank and ate, and the inhabitants of Sodom wanted to commit the sin of paederasty with the angels who visted Loth?

The ancient Jewish tradition, according to Maimonides, acknowledges ten degrees, ten orders of angels:1. The chaios acodesh, pure, saintly. 2. The ofamin, swift. 3. The oralim, the strong. 4. The chasmalim, the flames. 5. The seraphim, sparks. 6. The malachim, angels, messengers, deputies. 7. The eloim, the gods or judges. 8. The ben eloim, children of the gods. 9. cherubim, images, 10. ychim, the animated.

The story of the fall of the angels is not in the books of Moses; the first reported witness to it is that of the prophet Isaiah, who, apostrophizing the king of Babylon, exclaimed: 'What has become of the extorter of tribute? The pines and the cedars rejoice in his fall; how are you fallen from heaven, oh Hellel, star of the morning?' This Hellel has been translated by the Latin word Lucifer; then the name of Lucifer was given allegorically to the prince of the angels who battled in heaven; and finally this name, which means phosphorus and dawn, has become the name of the devil.

The Christian religion is based on the fall of the angels. Those who rebelled were thrown down from the spheres they inhabited into the hell at the centre of the earth, and became devils. A devil in the shape of a serpent tempted Eve, and damned mankind. Jesus came to redeem mankind and to triumph over the devil, who still tempts us. Nevertheless this fundamental tradition is found only in the apocryphal book of Enoch, and even there in a form quite different from the accepted tradition.

In his 109th letter saint Augustine does not hesitate to endow both good and evil angels with slender and agile bodies. Pope Gregory II reduced to nine choirs, nine hierarchies or orders, the ten choirs of angels recognized by the Jews: they are the seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, archangels and finally the angels who give that name to eight other hierarchies.

In their temple the Jews had two cherubim, each with two heads, one of an ox and the other of an eagle, with six wings. Today we paint them in the image of a flying head, with two little wings below the ears. We paint the angels and archangels in the image of youth, with two wings on their backs. As for the thrones and dominations, nobody has yet taken it into his head to paint them.

Saint Thomas, in the second article of question 108, says that the thrones are as close to god as the cherubim and seraphim because it is on them that god is seated. Scotus has counted a thousand million angels. The ancient mythology of the good and evil genii having passed from the east to Greece and to Rome we hallow this view in accepting that every man has a good and an evil angel, one of whom helps and the other harms him from his birth until his death; but we do not yet know whether these good and evil angels pass continuously from one post to another, or whether they are relieved by others. On this matter consult the Summa of saint Thomas.

It is not precisely known where the angels live, whether it is in the air, in the void, or the planets: god has not wished us to know it.

Animals

What a pitiful thing, what poor stuff it is to say that animals are machines deprived of knowledge and feeling, which always perform their operations in the same way, which learn nothing, which improve nothing, etc.!

What! this bird which makes its nest semi-circular when it is attached to a wall, which builds it in a quartercircle when it is in a corner, and makes it circular in a tree, this bird does everything in the same way? This gun dog you have trained for three months: does he not know more at the end of that time than he knew before your lessons? Does the canary immediately repeat the tune you are teaching him? Do you not spend much time in teaching him? Have you not seen that it makes mistakes and corrects itself?

Do you judge that I have feelings, memory, ideas because I speak to you? Well! I do not speak to you; you see me come home looking distressed, search anxiously for a paper, open the desk in which I remember having put it, find it, read it with joy. You judge that I have experienced the feeling of distress and that of pleasure, that I have memory and knowledge.

Judge in the same way this dog who has lost his master, who has searched for him with mournful cries in every path, who comes home agitated, restless, who runs up and down the stairs, who goes from room to room, who at last finds his beloved master in his study, and shows him his joy by the tenderness of his cries, by his leaps, by his caresses.

Barbarians seize this dog who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship. They nail him to a table and dissect him alive to show you the mesenteric veins. You discover in him all the same organs of feeling that you possess. Answer me, mechanist, has nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal in order that he should not feel? Does he have nerves to be impassive? Do not assume that nature presents this impertinent contradiction.

But the leaders of this school inquire about the souls of animals. I do not understand this question: A tree has the faculty of receiving in its fibres the sap that circulates in it, of putting forth the buds of its leaves and of its fruit; will you ask me what is the soul of this tree? It has received these endowments; the animal has received those of feeling, of memory, of a certain number of ideas. Who has created all these endowments? Who has given all these faculties? He who has made the grass of the fields to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.

'The souls of animals are substantial forms,' said Aristotle; and after Aristotle the Arab school, and after the Arab school the angelic school, and after the angelic school the Sorbonne, and after the Sorbonne nobody at all.

'The souls of animals are material,' exclaim other philosophers. Those have had no greater success than the others. They were asked in vain what is a material soul; they had to agree that it is feeling matter: but what has given it this feeling? It is a material soul, that is, matter has given feeling to matter; they cannot break this circle.

Listen to other animals reasoning about animals. They allege that the soul is a spiritual being which dies with the body: but what proof have you of such a soul? What conception have you of this spiritual being which in reality has feeling, memory and its part of ideas and arrangements, but which will never know what a child of six knows? On what ground do you imagine that this being, which is not body, dies with the body? The greatest donkeys are those who have alleged that this soul is neither body nor spirit. There's a fine system! By spirit we can only understand something unknown which is not body: hence the system of these gentlemen comes down to this, that the soul of an animal is a substance which is neither body nor something which is not body.

What can be the cause of so many contradictory errors? It is the habit men have always had of examining what a thing is before knowing whether it exists. The mobile tongue, the valve of a bellows, is called the soul of the bellows. What is this soul? It is a name I have given to this valve which descends, lets the air in, raises itself, and pushes it through a tube when I agitate the bellows.

Here we have no soul distinct from the machine. But what operates the animals' bellows? I have already told you; he who operates the stars. The philosopher who said, 'Deus est anima brutorum' [God is the soul of animals], was right; but he should have gone further.

Anti-trinitarians

There are heretics who might not be regarded as Christians. Nevertheless they recognize Jesus to be saviour and mediator; but they dare to maintain that nothing is more contrary to strict reason than what is taught among Christians about the trinity of persons in a single divine essence, the second of which was begotten by the first, and the third of which proceeds from the two others.

That this unintelligible doctrine is nowhere found in scripture.

That no passage can be produced that authorizes it and to which, without in any way departing from the spirit of the text, a clearer, more natural meaning cannot be given, one more consistent with common sense and the basic and immutable truths.

That to maintain, as do their adversaries, that there are several distinct persons in the divine essence, and that it is not the eternal who is the only true god, but that the son and the holy ghost must be added to them, is to introduce the crudest and most dangerous error into the church of Jesus Christ, since it manifestly encourages polytheism.

That it implies a contradiction to say that there is only one god and that nevertheless there are three persons, each of which is truly god.

That this distinction, one essence and three persons, was never in scripture.

That it is obviously false, since it is certain that there are no fewer essences than persons, nor persons than essences.

That the three persons of the trinity are either three different substances, or accidents of the divine essence, or that same essence without distinction.

That in the first case three gods are created.

That in the second case god is composed of accidents and one worships accidents and metamorphoses accidents into persons.

That in the third case an indivisible subject is uselessly and groundlessly divided, and what is not distinguished in itself is distinguished into three.

That if it is said that the three personalities are neither different substances in the divine essence, nor accidents of that essence, one would have to be at some pains to convince oneself that they are anything.

That it must not be believed that the most rigid and the most convinced trinitarians themselves have any dear idea of the manner in which the three hypostases subsist in god without dividing his substance and consequently without multiplying it.

That saint Augustine himself, after he had advanced a thousand reasonings as false as they are obscure on this subject, was obliged to admit that nothing intelligible could be said about it.

Then they quote this father's words, which are in fact very singular: 'When it is asked', says he, 'what are the three, human language is found inadequate, and there are no terms to express them: yet it is said that there are three persons, not in order to say something, but because we must speak and not remain silent. Dictum est tres personae, non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ne taceretur' (De Trinitate V. ix).

That the modern theologians have not elucidated this matter any better.

That when they are asked what they understand by this word person, they explain it only by saying that it is a certain incomprehensible distinction that causes one to distinguish in a numerically single nature a father, a son and a holy ghost.

That the explanation they give of the terms to beget and to proceed is not more satisfactory since it comes down to saying that these terms indicate certain incomprehensible relationships between the three persons of the trinity.

That from all this we can gather that the basic argument between them and the orthodox turns on the question whether there are in god three distinctions of which we have no notion and between which there are certain relationships of which we do not have any notion either.

From all this they conclude that it would be wiser to abide by the authority of the apostles, who never spoke of the trinity, and to banish from religion for ever all terms which are not in the scriptures, such as trinity, person, essence, hypostasis, hypostatic and personal union, incarnation, generation, procession, and so many more like them, which, being absolutely meaningless, since they have no real representative being in nature, can provoke only false, vague, obscure and incomplete ideas in the understanding.

Let us add to this article what dom Calmet says in his dissertation on this passage from the epistle of John the evangelist: 'There are three who bear witness on earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one. There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one.' Dom Calmet admits that these two passages are not in any ancient Bible; and it would indeed have been strange if saint John had spoken of the trinity in a letter, without saying a single word about it in his gospel. No trace of this dogma is to be found in the canonical gospels, nor in the apocryphal ones. All these reasons could excuse the anti-trinitarians had the councils not taken their decisions. But as heretics make light of councils, we are at a loss to know how to confound them. Let us simply believe and hope that they believe.

Apocalypse

Justin Martyr, who Wrote about the year 170 of our era, was the first who mentioned the Apocalypse [book of Revelation]; he attributed it to the apostle John the evangelist. In his dialogue with Trypho, this Jew asks Justin whether he does not believe that Jerusalem would be restored one day. Justin replies that like all rightthinking Christians he thinks it will. 'There was among us', he says, 'a certain personage named John, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus; he predicted that the faithful would pass a thousand years in Jerusalem.'

This reign of a thousand years was an opinion long held by Christians. It was a period much favoured among the gentiles. The souls of the Egyptians recovered their bodies at the end of a thousand years. In Virgil souls in purgatory were tried during the same space of time, et mille per annos [and for a thousand years]. The new Jerusalem of a thousand years was to have twelve doors in memory of the twelve apostles; its form was to be square; its length, width and height were to be 12,000 stadia, that is, 500 leagues, so that the houses were also to be 500 leagues high. It would have been rather disagreeable to live on the top floor; still, this is what the Apocalypse says in Chapter XXI.

Justin is the first who attributed the Apocalypse to saint John, but some people have challenged his testimony because in this same dialogue with the Jew Trypho he says that according to the narrative of the apostles when Jesus Christ went into the Jordan he made the waters of this river boil, and set them on fire, though this is not found in any of the apostles' writings.

The same saint Justin confidently cites the oracles of the sybils. What is more, he claims to have seen in the Egyptian Pharos the remains of the madhouses in which the seventy-two interpreters were confined in Herod's time. The testimony of a man who had the misfortune to see these madhouses seems to indicate that the author should have been locked up in them.

Saint Irenaeus, who came later, and who believed also in the millennium, says that he learned from an old man that saint John had written the Apocalypse. But saint Irenaeus has been reproached for having written that there must be only four gospels because there are only four parts of the world and four cardinal winds, and because Ezekiel saw only four animals. He calls this reasoning a demonstration. It must be admitted that Irenaeus certainly demonstrated as well as Justin saw.

In his Electa Clement of Alexandria mentions only an Apocalypse by saint Peter, to which great importance was attached. Tertullian, a great partisan of the millennium, not only asserts that saint John predicted this resurrection and this reign of a thousand years in the city of Jerusalem, but he also claims that this Jerusalem was already beginning to form in the air; all the Christians of Palestine, and even the pagans, had seen it for forty successive days at the end of the night; but unfortunately the city disappeared as soon as the day broke.

In this preface to the gospel of saint John and in his Homilies Origen cites the oracles of the Apocalypse; but he also cites the oracles of the sybils. Nevertheless saint Denis of Alexandria, who also wrote towards the middle of the third century, says in one of his fragments, conserved by Eusebius, that nearly all the doctors rejected the Apocalypse as a book devoid of reason; that this book had not been composed by saint John but by one Cerinthus, who borrowed a great name to give his dreams more weight.

The council of Laodicea, held in 360, did not include the Apocalypse among the canonical books. It was very singular that Laodicea, which was a church to which the Apocalypse was addressed, rejected a treasure destined for it, and that the bishop of Ephesus, who attended the council, also rejected this book by saint John, who was buried in Ephesus.

It was visible to all eyes that saint John still moved in his grave, and constantly made the earth rise and fall. Nevertheless the same people who were sure that saint John was not really dead were also sure that he had not written the Apocalypse. But those who believed in the millennium were unshakable in their opinion. Sulpicius Severus, in his Sacred history, book ix, calls insensate and impious those who did not accept the Apocalypse. Finally, after much hesitation, after opposition in council after council, the view of Sulpicius Severus prevailed. The matter having been elucidated, the church decided that the Apocalypse is incontestably by saint John: so there is no appeal.

Each Christian community has applied to itself the prophecies contained in this book; the English have found in it the revolutions of Great Britain; the Lutherans the troubles of Germany; the French protestants the reign of Charles IX and the regency of Catherine de Medicis. They are all equally right. Bossuet and Newton both wrote commentaries on the Apocalypse; but on the whole the eloquent declamations of the one and the sublime discoveries of the other have done them greater honour than their commentaries.

Atheist, atheism

I

In former times anybody who possessed a secret in one of the crafts ran the risk of being taken for a sorcerer; every new sect was accused of butchering children in its mysteries; and every philosopher who turned aside from the jargon of the schools was accused of atheism by fanatics and rascals, and condemned by fools.

Anaxagoras dared to maintain that the sun is not guided by Apollo riding in a quadriga: and he was called an atheist and obliged to flee.

Aristotle was accused by a priest of atheism; and, not succeeding in having his accuser punished, retired to Chalcas. But what is most odious in the history of Greece is the death of Socrates. Aristophanes (whom the commentators admire because he was a Greek, forgetting that Socrates also was a Greek) was the first who accustomed the Greeks to regard Socrates as an atheist.

This comic poet, who was neither comic nor a poet, would not have been allowed in our society to write farces for the fair of Saint-Laurent: he appears to me to be lower and more contemptible than Plutarch depicts him. This is what the wise Plutarch says of this humbug: 'The language of Aristophanes betrays his wretched character: it consists of the lowest and most disgusting quips; even the people do not find him amusing, and to men of judgement and honour he is insupportable; his arrogance is unbearable and decent people detest his malignity.'

This then is the Tabarin [buffoon] whom, by the way, mme Dacier, the admirer of Socrates, dared to admire: this is the man who from afar prepared the poison with which infamous judges put to death the most virtuous man in Greece.

The tanners, cobblers and dressmakers of Athens applauded a farce in which Socrates was shown hoisted in the air in a basket, announcing that there was no god, and boasting that he had stolen a coat while teaching philosophy. An entire people, whose bad government authorized such infamous liberties, well deserved what happened to it: to become slaves of the Romans and today of the Turks.

Let us pass over the whole period of time between the Roman republic and ourselves. The Romans, much wiser than the Greeks, never persecuted any philosopher for his opinions. This cannot be said of the barbarian peoples which succeeded the Roman empire. As soon as the emperor Frederick II quarrelled with the popes, he was accused of being an atheist and of being the author, with his chancellor de Vineis, of the book of the Three Impostors.

When our great chancellor de L'Hospital declared himself against the persecutions, he was at once accused of atheism, Homo doctus, sed verus atheos. A Jesuit, as inferior to Aristophanes as Aristophanes is inferior to Homer, a wretch whose name has become ridiculous even among the fanatics, in a word, the Jesuit Garasse, found atheists everywhere: this is what he called all those against whom he burst out. He called Théodore de Bèze an atheist. It was he who misled the public about Vanini.

Vanini's unhappy end does not move us with indignation and pity like that of Socrates because Vanini was only a foreign pedant without merit, but after all Vanini was not an atheist, as has been alleged; he was precisely the opposite. He was a poor Neapolitan priest, a preacher and theologian by trade, a merciless argufier about quidities and universals, et utrum chimera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones. But for the rest, there was not a drop of atheism in him. His notion of god was theologically most sound and correct. 'God is his principle and his end, father of the one and the other, and needing neither the one nor the other; eternal without being in time, present everywhere without being anywhere. No past or future exists for him, he is everywhere and beyond everything, governing everything, and having everything, immutable, infinite without parts; his power is his will', etc.

Vanini prided himself on reviving Plato's fine conception, embraced by Averroes, that god had created a chain of beings, from the smallest to the greatest, whose last link is attached to his eternal throne: an idea, in truth, more sublime than true, but which is as far removed from atheism as being is from nothingness.

He travelled to make his fortune and to engage in disputations; but unfortunately disputation is the road that leads away from fortune; one makes as many irreconcilable enemies as one finds learned men or pedants with whom to argue. The misfortune of Vanini had no other cause; his heat and rudeness in dispute earned him the hatred of some theologians; and having had a quarrel with one Francon or Franconi, this Francon, the friend of his enemies, of course accused him of being an atheist who taught atheism.

This Francon or Franconi, aided by a few witnesses, had the barbarity to maintain during the trial what he had asserted. When cross-examined about what he thought of the existence of god, Vanini answered that, like the church, he worshipped one god in three persons. Picking up a straw he said: 'This trifle is enough to prove that there is a creator.' Then he pronounced a very fine discourse on vegetation and motion, and on the necessity for a supreme being without whom there would be neither motion nor vegetation.

Grammont, the presiding judge, then at Toulouse, reports this discourse in his History of France, today quite forgotten; and this same Grammont, because of an incredible prejudice, alleges that Vanini said all this from 'vanity, or from fear, rather than from an inner conviction'.

On what can the président Grammont's rash and atrocious judgement be based? It is obvious that Vanini's answer should have secured his acquittal on the charge of atheism. But what happened? This unhappy foreign priest also dabbled in medicine. They found a big live toad which he kept at home in a vessel full of water, and of course he was accused of being a sorcerer. They alleged that this toad was the god he worshipped. An impious meaning was given to several passages in his books, which is very easy and very commonly done, by taking objections for replies, by interpreting malignantly some ambiguous phrases, by poisoning an innocent expression. The faction that oppressed him finally extoned from the judges the sentence that condemned the unhappy man to death.

To justify this death it was clearly necessary to accuse the wretched man of the most frightful things. The Minim and very minimal Mersenne pushed lunacy so far as to print that Vanini 'left Naples with twelve of his apostles to convert all the nations to atheism'. How pitiful! How could a poor priest have had twelve men in his pay? How could he have persuaded twelve Neapolitans to travel at great expense, at the peril of their lives, to spread everywhere this abominable and revolting doctrine? Would a king be powerful enough to pay twelve preachers of atheism? Nobody before father Mersenne had put forward so enormous an absurdity. But it has been repeated after him, the newspapers, the historical dictionaries have been infected with it; and the world, which loves sensations, has believed this legend without question.

Bayle himself, in his Pensées diverses, speaks of Vanini as an atheist; he used this example to support his paradox 'that a society of atheists can exist'. He assures us that Vanini was a very moral man and that he was the martyr of his philosophic views. He is equally mistaken on both these points. The priest Vanini tells us in the Dialogue he wrote in imitation of Erasmus that he had had a mistress called Isabella. He was as bold in his writings as in his conduct, but he was not an atheist.

A century after his death the learned La Croze and the writer who took the name of Philète sought to justify him; but as nobody takes any interest in the memory of an unhappy Neapolitan, a very bad author, hardly anybody reads these apologies.

In his Athei detecti, the Jesuit Hardouin, more learned than Garasse, accuses Descartes, Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Malebranche of atheism: fortunately they did not suffer Vanini's fate.

From all these facts I pass on to the ethical problem debated by Bayle, that is, whether a society of atheists could exist. Let us first observe on this point the enormous extent to which men contradict themselves when disputing: those who have argued with the greatest vehemence against Bayle's opinion, those who have denied with the greatest insults the possibility of a society of atheists, have since maintained with the same dauntlessness that atheism is the religion by which China is governed.

They are certainly mistaken about the Chinese government; all they had to do was to read the edicts of the emperors of this vast country, they would have seen that these edicts are sermons, which everywhere speak of a supreme being, ruler, avenger and remunerator.

But at the same time they are no less mistaken about the impossibility of a society of atheists; and I do not know how M. Bayle could have forgotten a striking example which could have made his cause victorious.

In what respect does a society of atheists seem impossible? It is because men who are unchecked are supposed to be incapable of living together; because the law is helpless against secret crimes; because a vengeful god is needed to punish in this world or the next the wicked who have avoided human justice.

It is true that the laws of Moses did not teach a future life, threatened no punishments after death, did not teach the first Jews the immortality of the soul; but the Jews, far from being atheists, far from seeking to avoid divine vengeance, were the most religious of all men. Not only did they believe in the existence of an eternal god, but they believed that he was always present in their midst; they were terrified of being punished in themselves, in their children, in their posterity to the fourth generation, and this check was very powerful.

But among the gentiles several sects had no such check: the sceptics doubted everything; the Academics suspended their judgement on everything; the Epicureans were convinced that the divinity could not meddle in human affairs, and at bottom acknowledged no divinity. They were certain that the soul is not a substance but a faculty that is born and perishes with the body; therefore they bore no yoke but that of morality and honour. The Roman senators and knights were true atheists, for the gods did not exist for men who neither feared them nor hoped for anything from them. Thus in Caesar's and Cicero's time the Roman senate was really an assembly of atheists.

In his harangue for Cluentius the great orator said to the assembled senate: 'What harm does death do him? We reject all the inept fables about hell. What then has death taken from him? Nothing but the feeling of pain.'

Caesar, Catalina's friend, wishing to save his friend's life from this same Cicero, did he not object that to put a criminal to death is not to punish him, that death is nothing, that it is only the end of our sufferings, that it is a happy moment rather than a disastrous one? Did not Cicero and the entire senate yield to this reasoning? The conquerors and legislators of the known world were thus clearly a society of men who had no fear of the gods, who were true atheists.

Bayle next inquires whether idolatry is more dangerous than atheism, whether it is a greater crime not to believe in the divinity than to have unworthy opinions about it. In this he shares the views of Plutarch: he believes that it is better to have no opinion than a bad one. But with all due deference to Plutarch it is obvious that it was infinitely better for the Greeks to fear Ceres, Neptune and Jupiter than to fear nothing at all. It is obvious that the sanctity of oaths is necessary, and that we must have confidence rather in those who think that a false oath will be punished, than in those who think that they can take a false oath with impunity. It is indubitable that it is infinitely more useful in a civilized city to have even a bad religion than none at all.

It would thus appear that Bayle should rather have inquired which is the more dangerous, fanaticism or atheism. Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more baneful, for atheism does not inspire bloody passions, but fanaticism does; atheism does not discountenance crime, but fanaticism causes crimes to be committed. Let us suppose, with the author of the Commentarium rerum Gallicarum, that the chancellor de L'Hospital was an atheist. He enacted only wise laws and counselled only moderation and concord: the fanatics com-mitted the massacres of saint Bartholomew. Hobbes was taken for an atheist. He led a calm and innocent life: the fanatics of his time deluged England, Scotland and Ireland with blood. Spinoza was not only an atheist, but he taught atheism: it was certainly not he who shared the judicial assassination of Barneveldt, it was not he who tore to pieces the two brothers de Witt and ate them on the grill.

For the most part atheists are bold and misguided scholars who reason badly and who, unable to understand the creation, the origin of evil, and other diffi-culties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of necessity.

The ambitious, the voluptuous, hardly have the time to reason, and to adopt a bad system; they have other things to do than to compare Lucretius with Socrates. This is the way things are nowadays.

It was not so in the Roman senate, which was almost entirely composed of men who were atheists in both theory and practice, that is, who believed neither in providence nor in the future life. This senate was an assembly of philosophers, voluptuaries and ambitious men, all very dangerous, and who destroyed the republic. Epicureanism persisted under the emperors: the senate's atheists had been sedition-mongers in the times of Sulla and Caesar; under Augustus and Tiberius they were atheist slaves.

I should want no dealings with an atheist prince who thought it useful to have me pounded in a mortar: I am quite sure that I would be pounded. If I were a sovereign I should want no dealings with atheist courtiers whose interest it was to have me poisoned: I should have to take antidotes at random every day. It is thus absolutely necessary for princes and peoples to have deeply engraved in their minds the notion of a supreme being, creator, ruler, remunerator and avenger.

There are atheist peoples, says Bayle in his Pensées sur les comètes. The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, the Topinamboos, and many other small nations have no god. That may be so, but it does not mean that they deny god. They neither deny nor affirm him: they have never heard of him. Tell them that there is one, and they will readily believe it. Tell them that everything happens in the nature of things, they also believe you. To allege that they are atheists is as relevant as to say that they are anti-Cartesians: they are neither for nor against Descartes. They are real children; a child is neither atheist nor theist, he is nothing.

What conclusion can we draw from all this? That atheism is a monstrous evil in those who govern; and also in learned men even if their lives are innocent, because from their studies they can affect those who hold office; and that, even if not as baleful as fanaticism, it is nearly always fatal to virtue. Above all, let me add that there are fewer atheists today than there have ever been, since philosophers have perceived that there is no vegetative being without germ, no germ without design, etc., and that grain is not produced by putrefaction.

Unphilosophical mathematicians have rejected final causes, but true philosophers accept them; and as a well-known author has said, a catechist announces god to children, and Newton demonstrates him to wise men.

Ⅱ

If there are atheists, who is to be blamed if not the mercenary tyrants of souls who, in revolting us against their swindles, compel some feeble spirits to deny the god whom these monsters dishonour? How often have the people's leeches driven prostrated citizens to revolt against the king?

Men fattened on our substance cry out to us: 'Be sure that a she-ass spoke; believe that a fish swallowed up a man and threw him on the shore three days later safe and sound; don't doubt that the god of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat shit (Ezekiel), and another prophet to buy two whores and to beget sons of whores on them (Hosea). These are the very words a god of truth and purity is made to pronounce. Believe a hundred things either obviously abominable or mathematically impossible: otherwise the god of mercy will burn you in the fires of hell, not only for millions of billions of centuries, but throughout all eternity, whether you have a body or whether you have no body.'

These inconceivable stupidities revolt feeble and reckless minds, as well as firm and wise minds. They say: 'Our masters depict god for us as the most senseless and the most barbarous of all kinds, therefore there is no god'; but they ought to say: 'Therefore our masters attribute to god their own absurdities and rages, therefore god is the opposite of what they proclaim, therefore god is as wise and as good as they allege him to be mad and wicked.' This is what wise men conclude. But if a fanatic hears them, he denounces them to a magistrate subservient to the priests; and this magistrate has them burnt on a slow fire, believing that he is avenging and imitating the divine majesty he violates.

Baptism

Baptism, Greek word meaning immersion. Men, who are always guided by their senses, easily imagined that what washes the body washes also the soul. There were great tanks for the priests and the initiates in the vaults under the Egyptian temples. From time immemorial the Indians have purified themselves in the water of the Ganges, and this ceremony is still in great vogue. It passed to the Hebrews: they baptized all the foreigners who embraced the Judaic law, and who would not submit to circumcision; above all the women, who were not made to undergo this operation except in Ethiopia, were baptized; it was a regeneration, which gave a new soul, as in Egypt. See, on this, Epiphanius, Maimonides and the Gemara.

John baptized in the Jordan, and he even baptized Jesus, who, however, never baptized anyone, but who deigned to hallow this ancient ceremony. Every symbol is meaningless in itself, and god attaches his grace to the symbol he is pleased to choose. Baptism soon became the chief rite and the seal of the Christian religion. Nevertheless the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised; it is not certain that they were baptized.

This sacrament was misused in the first centuries of Christianity; nothing was so common as to await the final agony in order to receive baptism. The example of the emperor Constantine is pretty good proof of that. This is how he reasoned: baptism purifies everything; I can therefore kill my wife, my son and all my relations; after which I shall have myself baptized and I shall go to heaven; and in fact that is just what he did. This was a dangerous example; little by little disappeared the custom of waiting for death before taking the plunge into the sacred bath.

The Greeks always conserved baptism by immersion. The Latins, having extended their religion into Gaul and Germany towards the end of the eighth century, and seeing that immersion could kill children in cold countries, substituted simple aspersion, for which they were often anathemized by the Greek church.

Saint Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was asked if those who had simply had their whole bodies sprinkled were really baptized. He answered in his seventy-sixth letter that 'several churches do not believe that these sprinkled people are Christians; that as for himself he thinks that they are Christians, but that they have infinite less grace than those who have been immersed three times according to custom'.

With the Christians a man was initiated as soon as he was immersed; before this was done he was merely a catechumen. To be initiated it was necessary to have guarantors, sureties, who were given a name corresponding to godfathers, so that the church could be sure that the new Christians would be faithful and would not divulge the mysteries. This is why in the first centuries the gentiles were usually as ill-instructed about the mysteries of the Christians as these were about the mysteries of Isis and Eleusis.

Cyril of Alexandria, in his tract against the emperor Julian, expresses himself thus: 'I would speak of baptism were I not afraid that my discourse might reach those who are not initiated.'

As early as the second century they began to baptize children; it was natural that the Christians should want their children to be provided with this sacrament, since they would have been damned without it. It was finally decided that it must be administered to them after a week because among the Jews this was the age at which they were circumcised. This is still the custom in the Greek church. Nevertheless in the third century the practice prevailed of being baptized only at death.

Those who died in the first week were damned, according to the strictest fathers of the church. But Peter Chrysologos, in the fifth century, invented limbo, a kind of mitigated hell, or, precisely, brink of hell, suburb of hell, where go little children who die without baptism, and where resided the patriarchs before the descent of Jesus Christ into hell; so that the view that Jesus Christ descended to limbo and not into hell has prevailed since then.

It has been debated whether a Christian born in the deserts of Arabia could be baptized with sand: the reply was he could not; whether it was permitted to baptize with rose water: and it was decided that pure water was necessary, but that muddy water could be used. It is obvious that all the regulations depended on the prudence of the first pastors who established them.

[…]

Baptism: An Addition

What a strange idea, inspired by the wash-pot, that a jug of water washes away all crimes! Now that all children are baptized because a no less absurd idea assumes them all to be criminals, they are all saved until they reach the age of reason and can become guilty. So butcher them as quickly as possible to assure them paradise. This conclusion is so logical that there existed a devout sect who went about poisoning or killing all newly baptized infants. These devotees reasoned perfectly. They said: 'We are doing these little innocents the greatest possible kindness; we are preventing them from being wicked and unhappy in this life, and we are giving them eternal life.'

Cannibals

I have spoken of love. It is hard to pass from people who embrace each other to people who eat each other. It is only too true that there have been cannibals. Some have been found in America. There may still be some, and the cyclops were not the only ones in antiquity who sometimes fed on human flesh. Juvenal reports that among the Egyptians, so wise a people, so famous for its laws, so pious a people, who worshipped crocodiles and onions, the Denderites ate one of their enemy who had fallen into their hands. He does not tell this story on hearsay: this crime was committed almost under his eyes; he was then in Egypt, not far from Dendera. In this connection he cites the Gascons and the Sagantines, who formerly fed on the flesh of their countrymen.

In 1725 four savages were brought from the Mississippi to Fontainebleau. I had the honour to converse with them. Among them was a lady of that country whom I asked whether she had eaten men. She replied very innocently that she had. I appeared a little scandalized. She excused herself by saying that it was better to eat one's dead enemy than to let him be devoured by beasts, and the victors deserved to have the preference. We kill our neighbours in pitched or unpitched battle, and for the meanest rewards prepare meals for the crows and the worms. There is the horror, there is the crime. When one has been killed what does it matter whether one is eaten by a soldier or by a crow or a dog?

We respect the dead more than the living. We ought to respect both. Nations called civilized are right not to put their vanquished enemies on the spit, for if we were permitted to eat our neighbours we would soon eat our fellow countrymen, which would be a mixed blessing for the social virtues. But the civilized nations have not always been civilized; all were for long savage; and in the infinite number of revolutions this globe has undergone, the human species has sometimes been numerous, sometimes very rare. What is happening today to elephants, lions, tigers, whose numbers have much decreased, once happened to mankind. In times when a region was little inhabited by men, they had few arts, they were hunters. The habit of feeding on what they had killed readily caused them to treat their enemies like their stags and their boars. It was superstition that caused human victims to be immolated, it was necessity that caused them to be eaten.

Which is the greater crime, piously to assemble to plunge a knife into the heart of a young girl adorned with fillets, in honour of the divinity, or to eat a villain who has been killed in self-defence?

Nevertheless we have many more examples of girls and boys who have been sacrificed than of girls and boys who have been eaten. The Jews immolated them. This was called the anathema. It was a real sacrifice, and it is commanded in the twenty-seventh chapter of Leviticus not to spare the living souls who had been devoted to god, but it is nowhere prescribed that they should be eaten, they are merely threatened with this fate. And Moses, as we have seen, said to the Jews that, if they did not observe these ceremonies, not only would they have the itch but mothers would eat their children. It is true that in Ezekiel's time the Jews must have been in the habit of eating human flesh, for in chapter xxxix he predicts to them that god would make them eat not only the horses of their enemies but also the horsemen and the other warriors. This is definite. And in fact why should the Jews not have been cannibals? It would have been the only thing the people of god lacked to be the most abominable on earth.

I have read in some anecdotes on the history of England in Cromwell's time that a tallow-chandler in Dublin sold excellent candles made of the fat of Englishmen. Some time after one of her customers complained that her candles were no longer so good. 'Alas,' she said, 'it's because we have been short of Englishmen this month.' I ask who were the guiltier, those who murdered Englishmen or this woman who made their grease into candles?

Certain, certainty

'How old is your friend Christopher?'

'Twenty-eight. I have seen his marriage contract and his baptismal certificate. I have known him since his childhood. He is twenty-eight; it is a certainty, I'm certain of it.'

Hardly had I heard the reply of this man, so sure of what he says, and of twenty others who confirmed the same thing, than I discovered that Christopher's baptismal certificate had been antedated by a strange trick for hidden reasons. Those to whom I spoke don't yet know about it. In the meanwhile they're still certain of something false.

If you had asked the entire world before the era of Copernicus: 'Did the sun rise today? did it set?' everybody would have answered you: 'We're absolutely certain of it.' They were certain, and they were mistaken.

Spells, divination, possession were for long the surest things in the world in the eyes of all peoples. What an innumerable crowd of people saw all these fine things and were certain of them! Today this certainty has somewhat diminished.

A young man who was beginning to study geometry called on me. He had not got beyond the definition of triangles. 'Aren't you certain,' I said, 'that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles?' He replied that not only was he not at all certain of it, but that he did not even have a clear idea of this proposition. I demonstrated it to him; he then became very certain of it, and will be so all his life.

That certitude is very different from the others: they were no more than probabilities, and these probabilities, once examined, became errors; but mathematical certitude is immutable and eternal.

I exist, I think, I feel pain. Is all this as certain as a geometric truth? Yes. Why? It is because these truths are proved by the same principle that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time. I cannot at the same time exist and not exist, feel and not feel. A triangle cannot at the same time have and not have 180 degrees, which is the sum of two right angles.

The physical certainty of my existence and of my feelings, and mathematical certainty thus have the same value, although they are of a different kind.

This does not apply to the certainty based on appearances or to the unanimous reports made by men.

'But really!' you tell me, 'aren't you certain that Peking exists? Haven't we got fabrics from Peking? People from different countries, of different opinions, who wrote violently against each other while all preached the truth in Peking, haven't they assured you of the existence of this city?' I answered that it seems to me extremely probable that there was then a city of Peking; but I would not wish to bet my life that this city exists, and I would bet my life at any time that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.

Something very droll has been published in the Dictionnaire encyclopédique. It is maintained there that if all Paris told one that marshal de Saxe had been resurrected, one should be as sure, as certain of it as one would be if told by all Paris that marshal de Saxe had won the battle of Fontenoy. Consider, I beg, how admirable is this reasoning: 'I believe all Paris when they tell me something possible in principle; therefore I must believe all Paris when they tell me something impossible in principle and physically.'

Apparently the author of this article wanted to have a good laugh, and the other author, who goes into raptures at the end of this article and writes against himself, also wanted to have a good laugh. As for me, who have undertaken this little Dictionary in order to put questions, I am far from being certain.

Character

From the Greek word impression, engraving. It is what nature has engraved in us. Can we efface it? Vast question. If I have a hooked nose and two cat's eyes I can hide them with a mask. Can I do better with the character nature has given me? A man born violent, choleric, presented himself before François I, king of France, to complain of an injustice. The prince's countenance, the respectful conduct of the courtiers, the very place in which he found himself, made a powerful impression on this man; he unconsciously lowered his eyes, his rough voice softened, he presented his request humbly. One would believe him to be naturally as gentle as are (at least at this moment) the courtiers in whose midst he is even disconcerted; but if François I is good at reading faces he will easily realize in his eyes, lowered but alight with hidden fire, in the taut muscles of his face, in his lips pressed against each other, that this man is not so gentle as he is obliged to appear. This man followed him to Pavia, was captured with him, and taken to prison in Madrid with him; the majesty of François I no longer made the same impression on him; he became familiar with the object of his respect. One day, while pulling off the king's riding boots, and pulling them badly, the king, soured by his misfortune, became angry: my man sent the king to the devil, and threw his boots out of the window.

Sixtus V was by nature petulant, obstinate, haughty, impetuous, vindictive, arrogant: his character appears to have been softened by the ordeal of his novitiate. As he began to enjoy some reputation in his order, he lost his temper with an attendant and felled him with his fist. When inquisitor in Venice he exercised his office with insolence. Become cardinal he was possessed della rabbia papale [by the furious ambition to become pope]. This rage subdued his nature; he buried his person and his character in obscurity; he shammed humility and ill-health; he was elected pope: in this instant was restored all the elasticity so long restrained by policy; he was the proudest and most despotic of sovereigns.

Naturam expellas furca, tamen ipsa redibit.

[Nature will always return even if you expel her with a pitchfork]

Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop.

Religion, morality put a curb on the power of nature; they cannot destroy it. The drunkard in a cloister, reduced to one glass of cider with each meal, will no longer get drunk, but he will always love wine.

Age weakens the character; it is a tree that produces nothing but a few degenerate fruits, but they are still of the same kind; it gets to be covered with knots and moss, it becomes worm-eaten, but it is still an oak or a pear tree. If we could change our character we would give ourselves one, we would be the masters of nature. Can we give ourselves something? Do we not receive everything? Try to arouse continuous activity in an indolent mass, to freeze with apathy the boiling soul of the impetuous, to inspire a taste for music and poetry into one who lacks taste and an ear: you will no more succeed than if you undertook to give sight to one born blind. We perfect, we mitigate, we hide what nature has placed in us; but we place nothing in ourselves.

A farmer was told: 'You have too many fish in this pond, they will not thrive; there are too many animals in your fields, there is not enough grass, they will lose weight.' After this exhortation it so happened that pike ate half my man's carp, and wolves half of his sheep; the rest fattened. Will he congratulate himself on his management? This countryman is you yourself; one of your passions devours the others and you think you have triumphed over yourself. Do we not really all resemble the old general of ninety who, coming across some young officers who were causing a disturbance with some women of the town, said in a temper: 'Gentlemen, is this the example I give you?'

Councils

All councils are undoubtedly infallible: for they are composed of men. It is impossible for passions, intrigues, the lust for dispute, hatred, jealousy, prejudice, ignorance ever to reign in these assemblies.

But why, it will be asked, have so many councils contradicted each other? It is to try our faith. Each was in the right in its turn.

Roman Catholics now believe only in councils approved by the Vatican; and the Greek Catholics believe only in those approved in Constantinople. Protestants deride them both. Thus everybody should be satisfied.

I shall refer here only to the great councils; the small ones are not worth the trouble.

The first one was that of Nicaea. It was assembled in325 of the common era, after Constantine had written and sent by the hand of Ozius this noble letter to the rather confused clergy of Alexandria: 'You are quarrelling about something very trivial. These subtleties are unworthy of sensible people.' The thing was to determine whether Jesus was created or uncreated. This has nothing to do with morality, which is the essential point. Whether Jesus was in time or before time, we must none the less be good. After many altercations it was finally decided that the son was as old as the father, and consubstantial with the father. This decision is hardly comprehensible, but it is all the more sublime on that account. Seventeen bishops protested against the decree, and an ancient chronicle of Alexandria, preserved at Oxford, says that 2,000 priests also protested; but prelates pay little attention to simple priests, who are usually poor. Be that as it may, there was no question whatever of the trinity in this first council. The formula reads: 'We believe Jesus consubstantial with the father, god of god, light of light, begotten and not made; we also believe in the holy ghost.' The holy ghost, it must be admitted, was treated pretty off-handedly.

It is reported in the supplement of the council of Nicaea that the fathers, being very perplexed to know which were the cryphal or apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments, put them all pell-mell on an altar, and the books to be rejected fell to the ground. It is a pity that this elegant procedure has not survived.

After the first council of Nicaea, composed of 317 infallible bishops, another was held at Rimini, and this time the number of infallibles was 400, not counting a big detachment of about zoo at Seleucia. These 600 bishops, after four months of quarrels, unanimously deprived Jesus of his consubstantiality. It has since been restored to him, except among the Socinians; so everything is fine.

One of the great councils was that of Ephesus in431. Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, great persecutor of heretics, was himself condemned as a heretic for maintaining that in truth Jesus was really god, but that his mother was not absolutely the mother of god, but the mother of Jesus. It was saint Cyril who had Nestorius condemned; but then the partisans of Nestorius had saint Cyril deposed in the same council: which much embarrassed the holy ghost.

Note very carefully here, dear reader, that the gospel has never said a word about the consubstantiality of the word, nor about the honour Mary had had to be the mother of god, nor about the other disputes which have caused infallible councils to be assembled.

Eutyches was a monk who had much abused Nestorius, whose heresy did not fall short of alleging that Jesus was two persons: which is appalling. The better to contradict his adversary the monk asserted that Jesus had only one nature. A certain Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, maintained against him that it was absolutely necessary for Jesus to have had two natures. A numerous council was assembled at Ephesus in 449. This one was conducted with the quarter-staff, like the little council of Cirta in 355, and a certain conference at Carthage. Flavian's nature became black and blue, and two natures were assigned to Jesus. At the council of Chalcedon, in 451, Jesus was reduced to one nature.

I pass over councils held on account of minute details, and come to the sixth general council, of Constantinople, assembled to determine precisely whether Jesus, having only one nature, had two wills. It will be realized how important this is in order to please god.

This council was called by Constantine the bearded, just as all the others had been by the preceding emperors. The legates of the bishop of Rome sat on the left, the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch on the right. I do not know whether the Roman toadies claim the left to be the place of honour. Be this as it may, Jesus obtained two wills from this affair.

The Mosaic law had prohibited images. Painters and sculptors had never done very well among the Jews. It does not appear that Jesus ever possessed any pictures, except perhaps that of Mary painted by Luke. At any rate,Jesus Christ nowhere enjoins the worship of images. Nevertheless Christians worshipped them towards the end of the fourth century, when they had familiarized themselves with the fine arts. This error went so far in the eighth century that Constantine Copronymus assembled in Constantinople a council of320 bishops, which anathemized the worship of images and branded it as idolatry.

The empress Irene, the same who later had her son's eyes torn out, assembled the second council of Nicaea in 787. In this the worship of images was restored. Nowadays it is sought to justify this council by saying that this worship was one of dulia [veneration of the saints] and not of latria [veneration of god].

However, be it latria or dulia, in 794 Charlemagne called another council, at Frankfurt, which stigmatized the second of Nicaea as idolatrous. Pope Adrian IV sent two legates to it but did not convoke it.

The first great council called by a pope was the first Lateran, in 1139. About a thousand bishops were there, but almost nothing was accomplished in it, except that those who said that the church was too rich were anathemized.

There was another Lateran council in 1179, held by pope Alexander III, in which the cardinals for the first time took precedence over the bishops. Only matters of discipline were discussed.

Another great council was the Lateran of 1215. In it pope Innocent III stripped the count of Toulouse of all his possessions, by virtue of excommunication. This was the first council in which there was any question of transubstantiation.

In 1245 took place the general council of Lyon, then an imperial city, during which pope Innocent IV excommunicated the emperor Frederick II, and in consequence deposed him, and forbade him fire and water. It was in this council that the cardinals were given red hats to remind them that they must bathe in the blood of the emperor's supporters. This council brought about the destruction of the house of Swabia, and led to thirty years of anarchy in Italy and Germany.

In the general council of 1311 at Vienne, in Dauphiné was abolished the order of the Templars, whose leading members had been condemned to the most horrible tortures on the most unsubstantiated accusations.

In 1414 was held the great council of Constance, which contented itself with deposing pope John XXIII, convicted of a thousand crimes, and in which John Huss and Jerome of Prague were burned for being obstinate, since obstinacy is a much greater crime than murder, rape, simony and sodomy.

The great council of Basle in 1431 was not recognized in Rome because it deposed pope Eugene IV, who did not consent to be deposed.

The Romans reckon the fifth Lateran council of1512 as a general council. It was called by pope Julius II against Louis XII, king of France, but this warrior-pope died, and the council went up in smoke.

Finally we have the great council of Trent, which does not have authority in France in matters of discipline. However, its dogma is unquestionable, since the holy ghost came every week from Rome to Trent in the courier's trunk, according to fra Paolo Sarpi; but fra Paolo Sarpi smelled a little of heresy.

Enthusiasm

This Greek word means disturbance of the entrails, internal agitation. Did the Greeks invent this word to express the shocks felt by the nerves, the dilation and tightening of the bowels, the violent contractions of the heart, the precipitate rush of the fiery spirits that mount from the entrails to the brain when one is deeply moved?

Or was the word enthusiasm, from disturbance of the entrails, first given to the contractions of that Pythia who, on the tripod at Delphi, received the spirit of Apollo through a part which seems made only to receive bodies?

What do we understand by enthusiasm? What nuances in our sentiments! Approval, sensibility, emotion, distress, shock, passion, frenzy, madness, fury, rage: these are all the states a wretched human soul can pass through.

A geometrician watches a touching tragedy: he sees only that it is well constructed. A young man by his side is moved and sees nothing. A woman weeps. Another young man is so carried away that, unhappily for him, he also decides to write a tragedy: he has caught the disease of enthusiasm.

The centurion or military tribune who looked on war simply as a trade in which a little fortune could be made, went calmly into battle like a thatcher climbing a roof. Caesar wept when he saw the statue of Alexander.

Ovid always spoke amusingly about love. Sappho expressed the enthusiasm of this passion; and if it is true that it cost her her life it is because in her case enthusiasm became madness.

The spirit of party marvellously encourages enthusiasm: no faction is without its fanatics.

Enthusiasm is above all the lot of misguided piety. The young fakir who sees the tip of his nose when praying gradually works himself up until he believes that if he loads himself with chains weighing fifty pounds the supreme being will be much obliged to him. He goes to sleep with his imagination filled with Brahma, and inevitably sees him in his dreams. Sometimes sparks even shine from his eyes in the state between sleep and waking: he sees Brahma glittering with light, he has ecstasies, and this disease often becomes incurable.

It is the rarest of things to unite reason with enthusiasm. Reason consists of always seeing things as they are. The drunkard is deprived of his reason when he sees things double. Enthusiasm is precisely like wine: it can excite so much tumult in the blood vessels, and such violent vibrations in the nerves, that the reason is entirely destroyed. It can cause only slight jolts, which merely produce a little more activity in the brain. This is what happens in great outbursts of eloquence, and above all in sublime poetry. Rational enthusiasm is the attribute of great poets. This rational enthusiasm is the perfection of their art. In other times it led to the belief that they were inspired by the gods, a thing that has never been said of the other artists.

How can reason govern enthusiasm? This is because a poet first sketches the structure of his canvas: the reason then holds the brush. But when he proceeds to animate his personages and to endow them with passions, then the imagination kindles, enthusiasm takes over: it is a race horse carried away headlong, but its course has been properly laid out.

Equality

What does a dog owe to a dog, and a horse to a horse? Nothing, no animal depends on his like; but man having received the ray of divinity called reason, what is the result? Slavery throughout almost the whole world.

Were this world what it seems that it should be, that is, if man found everywhere on it easy and assured subsistence and a climate appropriate to his nature, it is clear that it would have been impossible for one man to subjugate another. Let this globe be covered with wholesome fruit; let the air which must contribute to our life no longer give us illness and death; let man require no other lodging and no other bed than those of the deer and the stag: then the Genghis Khans and the Tamerlanes would have no other servants than their children, who would be upright enough to help them in their old age.

In this natural state enjoyed by all quadrupeds, birds and reptiles, man would be as happy as they, domination would then be a chimera, an absurdity which would occur to nobody: for why seek for servitors when you need no service?

If some individual with a tyrannical head and vigorous arm got the idea of subjugating a neighbour less strong than he, the thing would be impossible: the oppressed would be 100 leagues away before the oppressor could take action.

Thus all men would necessarily be equal if they were without needs. The poverty characteristic of our species subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality that is the real evil, but dependence. It matters very little that some man is called his highness, and another his holiness; but it is hard to serve one or the other.

A numerous family has cultivated good land. Two small neighbouring families have barren and obstinate fields. It is obvious enough that the two poor families must serve the opulent family or murder it. One of the two indigent families offers its labour to the rich to get bread; the other attacks it and is beaten. The former family originated servants and labourers, the defeated family slaves.

It is impossible on our wretched globe for men living in society not to be divided into two classes, one of oppressors, the other of the oppressed; and these subdivide into a thousand, and the thousand have further gradations.

All the oppressed are not absolutely unhappy. Most of them are born in that state, and continual work prevents them from feeling their condition too keenly; but when they feel it, then we have wars like that in Rome of the popular party against that of the senate, and those of the peasants in Germany, in England, in France. All these wars end sooner or later by the enslavement of the people because the powerful have the money, and in a state money is the master of everything: I say in a state, because it is not so in every nation. The nation making the best use of the sword will always subjugate that having more gold and less courage.

Every man is born with a powerful enough desire for domination, wealth and pleasure, and with much taste for idleness. Consequently every man would like to have other people's money and wives or women, to be their master, to subjugate them to all his caprices, and to do nothing, or at least to do only very agreeable things. Obviously, having such amiable dispositions, it is as impossible for men to be equal as it is impossible for two preachers or two professors of theology not to be jealous of one another.

Mankind cannot subsist at all unless there is an infinite number of useful men who possess nothing at all. For a prosperous man will certainly not leave his land to cultivate yours; and if you need a pair of shoes it is not a judge who will make them for you. Equality is thus at once the most natural and the most chimerical of things.

As men are extreme in everything whenever possible, this inequality has been exaggerated. In some countries it has been claimed that a citizen is not entitled to leave the country in which he is born by chance. The meaning of this law is obviously: This country is so bad and so badly governed that we forbid every individual to leave it, for fear that everybody leave it. Do better: make all your subjects wish to remain at home and strangers to come to you.

Every man has the right to believe himself, at the bottom of his heart, entirely equal to all other men. It does not follow from this that a cardinal's cook should order his master to prepare his dinner; but the cook can say: 'I'm a man like my master, like him I am born in tears; like me he will die with the same sufferings and the same ceremonies. Both of us perform the same animal functions. If the Turks capture Rome, and I am then a cardinal and my master a cook, I will take him into my service.' All this speech is reasonable and just; but until the Grand Turk captures Rome the cook must do his duty, or every human society is perverted.

As for a man who is neither a cardinal's cook nor endowed with any other public office; as for a private person of modest views, but who is annoyed because he is received everywhere with an air of patronage or disdain, who sees clearly that several monsignors have no more knowledge, no more intelligence, no more virtue than he, and who is sometimes wearied to find himself in their waiting rooms, what should he do? He should leave.

Fatherland

A fatherland is a composite of several families; and as we usually stand by our family out of self-love when we have no conflicting interest, so because of the same selflove we support our town or village, which we call our fatherland. The bigger the fatherland the less we love it, because divided love is weaker. It is impossible to love tenderly too numerous a family which we hardly know.

He who burns with ambition to become aedile, tribune, praetor, consul, dictator, cries out that he loves his country, and he loves only himself. Every man wants to be sure that he can sleep at home without another man arrogating to himself the power to make him sleep elsewhere. Every man wants to be sure of his fortune and his life. Thus, all having the same wishes, it turns out that private interest becomes the general interest: when we express our hopes for ourselves we are expressing them for the republic.

There cannot be a state on earth which was not first governed as a republic: it is the normal course of human nature. A few families first assembled against the bears and the wolves. The family which had grain exchanged it with that which had only wood.

When we discovered America we found all the tribes divided into republics. There were only two kingdoms in all this part of the world. Only two out of1,000 nations were found to be subjugated.

So it was in the ancient world. All was republican in Europe before the petty kings of Etruria and Rome. Republics are still seen today in Africa. Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, towards the north, still live as men are said to have lived in the first ages of the world, free, equal among themselves, without masters, without subjects, without money, and almost without needs. The flesh of their sheep feeds them, their skins clothe them, huts of wood and earth are their shelters. They stink worse than any other men, but do not know it. They live and die more calmly than we do.

Eight republics without monarchs remain in our Europe: Venice, Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Geneva and San Marino. Poland, Sweden, England can be regarded as republics under a king; but Poland is the only one that takes the name.

Is it better today for one's country to be a monarchical or a republican state? This question has been debated for 4,000 years. Apply for a solution to the rich, they all prefer an aristocracy. Question the people, they want democracy. Only kings prefer a monarchy. How then is it possible that nearly the whole world is governed by monarchs? Ask the rats who proposed to hang a bell round the cat's neck. But in truth the real reason is, as I have said, that men are very seldom worthy to govern themselves.

It is sad that, to be a good patriot, one is often the enemy of the rest of humanity. The elder Cato, that good citizen, when speaking in the senate, always said: 'Such are my views, and let Carthage be destroyed.' To be a good patriot is to want one's city to be enriched by commerce and powerful in arms. It is obvious that a country cannot gain unless another loses, and that it cannot vanquish without causing unhappiness.

So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbours. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.

Flood

Has there ever been a time when the globe was entirely flooded? This is physically impossible.

It may be that the sea covered all parts of the earth one after the other, but that could have happened only by slow stages in a prodigious multitude of centuries. In a period of 500 years the sea has withdrawn from Aigues-Mortes, from Fréjus, from Ravenna, which were great ports, and has left about two leagues of dry ground. At this rate it is evident that it would take the sea 2,500,000 years to move round our globe. What is very remarkable is that this period is very near that taken by the axis of the earth to right itself and coincide with the equator. This movement, which is very probable, has been suspected for fifty years, and can only be completed in a period of more than 2,300,000 years.

The beds, the layers of shells which have been discovered on all sides, at several leagues from the sea, are incontrovertible proof that it has deposited its maritime products little by little on land that once formed the ocean shore. But that water once covered the entire globe at the same time is a chimera absurd in natural science, demonstrated impossible by the laws of gravitation, by the laws of fluids, by the insufficient quantity of water. I do not claim to undermine in any way the great truth of the universal flood reported in the Pentateuch. On the contrary, it was a miracle, therefore it must be believed; it was a miracle, therefore it was not performed by physical laws.

Everything is miraculous in the story of the flood. It was a miracle that forty days of rain inundated the four quarters of the earth, and that the water should have risen fifteen cubits above all the highest mountains. It was a miracle that there were cataracts, doors, openings in the sky. It was a miracle that all the animals should have proceeded to the ark from every part of the world. It was a miracle that Noah found enough to feed them for ten months. It was a miracle that all the animals found room in the ark with their provisions. It was a miracle that most of them did not die in the ark. It was a miracle that they found food on leaving the ark. It was also a miracle, but of another kind, that a certain Le Pelletier thought that he had explained naturally how all the animals fitted into the ark and fed themselves.

Now the story of the flood being the most miraculous thing we have ever heard of, it would be senseless to explain it. It is one of the mysteries we believe by faith, and faith consists in believing what the reason does not believe, which is another miracle in itself.

Thus the story of the universal flood is like that of the tower of Babel, Balaam's she-ass, the fall of Jericho by the sound of trumpets, water changed into blood, the passage of the Red Sea, and all the prodigies god deigned to perform for the benefit of his people's elect. These are profundities beyond human comprehension.

Great chain of being

The gradation of beings which ascends from the lightest atom to the supreme being, this ladder of the infinite, strikes one with wonder. But when one looks at it attentively this great phantasm vanishes, as formerly all apparitions fled at the crowing of the cock.

At first the imagination is gratified by the imperceptible passage from brute matter to organized matter, from plants to zoophytes, from these zoophytes to animals, from these to man, from man to spirits, from these spirits, dressed in little aerial bodies, to immaterial substances, and finally a thousand different orders of these substances which ascend from beauty to perfection and finally to god himself. This hierarchy much pleases decent folk, who liken it to the pope and his cardinals followed by the archbishops and the bishops, after whom come rectors, vicars, simple priests, deacons, subdeacons; then appear the monks, and the march-past ends with the capuchins.

But there is a rather greater distance between god and his most perfect creatures than between the holy father and the dean of the sacred college. This dean can become pope, but the most perfect of the spirits created by the supreme being cannot become god: there is infinity between god and him.

Nor does this chain, this alleged gradation exist among the vegetables and the animals which have been destroyed. There are no longer any murex. The Jews were forbidden to eat the griffin and the ixion. These two species have disappeared from the world, whatever Bochart may say. Where then is the chain?

Even if we had not lost several species, it is obvious that they can be destroyed. The lions, the rhinoceros are getting quite rare.

It is very probable that there have been races of men which are no longer found. But I hope that they have all survived, like the whites, the blacks, the Kaffirs, to whom nature has given a skin apron hanging from the belly half way down the thigh, the Samoyedes, whose wives have one beautifully black breast, etc.

Is there not obviously a gap between monkey and man? Is it not easy to imagine an animal with two feet and no feathers, intelligent without having also the power of speech or our appearance, which we could tame, which would answer our signals and serve us? And between this new species and man, could we not imagine others?

Divine Plato, you place in heaven a succession of celestial substances beyond man. For our part, we believe in a few of these substances, because this is taught by our faith. But you, what reason have you for believing in them? It would seem that you have not spoken to Socrates's demon, and good old Er who resuscitated specially to reveal to you the secrets of the other world, taught you nothing about these substances.

The alleged chain is no less interrupted in the physical universe.

What gradation, if you please, between your planets? The moon is forty times smaller than our globe. When you have travelled from the moon through space you come to Venus: it is about as big as the earth. Thence you go to Mercury, which revolves in an ellipse very different from the circle traversed by Venus. It is twenty-seven times smaller than we are, the sun a million times bigger, Mars five times smaller. This last makes its revolution in two years, his neighbour Jupiter in twelve, Saturn in thirty, even though Saturn, the most distant of all, is not as big as Jupiter. Where is the alleged gradation?

And then how can you expect there to be a chain that links everything in the great empty spaces? If there is one it is certainly that which Newton discovered: this is what makes all the globes of the planetary world gravitate towards one another in this immense void.

O Plato, so much admired, I fear that you have told us nothing but fables, and that you have never uttered anything but sophisms!

O Plato! You have done much more evil than you think. I shall be asked how, but I shall not answer.

Hell

As soon as men lived in society they must have noticed that some guilty men eluded the severity of the laws. They punished public crimes. It was necessary to create a check on secret crimes: only religion could be this check. The Persians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Greeks invented punishments after life; and the Jews alone among all the ancient peoples known to us approved only temporal punishments. It is ridiculous to believe, or to pretend to believe, on the strength of a few very obscure passages, that hell was recognized by the ancient laws of the Jews, by their Leviticus, by their decalogue, when the author of these laws does not say a single word that could have the slightest bearing on punishments in the future life. One would be entitled to say to the compiler of the Pentateuch: 'You are an irresponsible man, without probity and reason, very unworthy of the name of legislator that you arrogate. What! you know a dogma so repressive, and so necessary to the people, as that of hell, and you do not explicitly proclaim it? And, though it is accepted by all the nations around you, you are content to allow this dogma to be guessed at by some commentators who are to come 4,000 years after you and will torture some of your words to find in them something you have not said. Either you are an ignoramus, who are not aware that this belief was universal in Egypt, in Chaldea, in Persia; or you are very ill-advised, knowing this dogma, not to have made it the basis of your religion.'

The authors of the Jewish laws might at best reply: 'We admit that we are exceedingly ignorant; that we learned to write very late; that our people was a savage and barbaric horde which, as we have shown, wandered for half a century in uninhabitable deserts; that it finally usurped a small country by the most odious rapine and the most detestable cruelties ever recorded in history. We had no intercourse with civilized nations: how can you expect us (the most earthly of men) to have invented a wholly spiritual system?

'We used the word meaning soul only in the sense of life. We knew our god and his ministers, his angels, only as corporeal beings: the distinction between soul and body, the notion of a life after death, can be the fruit only of long meditation and a very subtle philosophy. Ask the Hottentots and the Negroes, who inhabit a country a hundred times larger than ours, whether they know about a future life. We thought we had done enough in persuading our people that god punishes evil-doers to the fourth generation, whether by leprosy, sudden death, or the loss of what little property it was possible for them to possess.'

One would reply to this defence: 'You have invented a system the absurdity of which is self-evident; for the malefactor who was in good health and whose family prospered would necessarily laugh at you.'

The apologist of the Judaic law would then answer: 'You are mis-taken; for there were a hundred criminals who did not reason at all, for every one who thought clearly. The man who, having committed a crime, felt unpunished in himself and in his son, feared for his grandson. Besides, if he did not have some stinking ulcer today, he would get one in the course of a few years, for we were much subject to them. Every family has misfortunes, and it was easy for us to inoculate the belief that these misfortunes were sent by a divine hand, the avenger of secret offences.'

It would be easy to respond to this answer, and to say: 'Your excuse is worthless, for it happens every day that very decent folk lose their health and their goods; and if there is no family that has escaped misfortune, and if these misfortunes are god's punishments, all your families must have been families of rascals.'

The Jewish priest could retort further. He would say that there are misfortunes attached to human nature, and others sent expressly by god. But one would make this argufier see how ridiculous it is to think that fever and hail are now a divine punishment, and now a natural effect.

Finally the Pharisees and the Essenes, among the Jews, accepted a belief in a hell in their manner. This dogma had already passed from the Greeks to the Romans, and was adopted by the Christians.

Several church fathers did not believe in eternal punishment: it appeared to them absurd to burn a poor wretch throughout eternity because he had stolen a goat. Virgil can say in the sixth book of the Aeneid:

...Sedet aeternumque sedebit

Infelix Theseus.

[Wretched Theseus sits and shall for ever sit.]

He implies in vain that Theseus is seated forever on a chair, and that this position constitutes his torment. Others believed that Theseus is a hero who is not seated in hell, but that he is in the Elysian fields.

Not long ago a good and decent Protestant minister preached and wrote that the damned would one day be pardoned, that the suffering should be proportionate to the sin, and that the error of a moment cannot deserve infinite punishment. The priests, his colleagues, dismissed this indulgent judge. One said to him: 'My dear fellow, I don't believe any more than you do that hell is eternal; but it's a good thing for your maid, your tailor, and even your lawyer to believe it.'

Idol, idolator, idolatry

Idol comes from the Greek εδο, form; εδωλον representation of a form; λατϱεειν, to serve, revere, adore. This word adore is Latin, and has many different meanings: it signifies putting a hand to one's mouth when speaking with respect, bowing, kneeling, saluting, and finally, most generally, offering a supreme worship. Nothing but ambiguities.

It is useful to note here that the Dictionnaire de Trévoux begins its article by saying that all pagans were idolators, and that the Indians are still idolatrous peoples. First of all, no one was called a pagan before Theodosius the younger. This name was then given to the inhabitants of the Italian cities, pagorum incolae, pagani [rustics], who kept to their ancient religion. In the second place, Hindustan is Mohammedan, and the Mohammedans are the implacable enemies of images and idolatry. In the third place, many Indian peoples belong to the ancient religion of the Parsees and should not be called idolators, any more than certain castes which have no idols.

Inquiry Whether There Has Ever Been an Idolatrous Government

It would appear that no people on earth has taken this name of idolator. The word is an insult, a term of abuse, like that of gavaches [cowards], which the Spaniards once applied to the French, and that of maranes[Moors], which the French applied to the Spaniards. Had one asked the Roman senate, the Greek areopagus, the court of the kings of Persia: 'Are you idolators?' they would hardly have understood the question. None would have answered: 'We worship images, idols.' This word 'idolator', 'idolatry', is not found in Homer nor in Hesiod nor in Herodotus nor in any author of the religion of the gentiles. There has never been any edict, any law that ordered men to worship idols, to serve them as gods, to regard them as gods.

When the Roman and Carthaginian leaders made a treaty, they invoked all their gods. 'It is in their presence,' they said, 'that we swear peace.' Now the statues of all these gods, whose number was very great, were not in the generals' tents. They considered the gods to be present at men's actions as witnesses and judges. And it was certainly not the simulacrum that constituted the divinity.

What view did they then take of the statues of their false divinities in the temples? The same view, if I may say so, that we take of the images of the objects of our veneration. The error was not to worship a piece of wood or marble, but to worship a false divinity represented by this wood or marble. The difference between them and us is not that they had images and we have not: the difference is that their images showed fantastic beings in a religion: The Greeks had the statue of Hercules, and we have that of saint Christopher; they had Aesculapius and his goat, and we have saint Roch and his dog: they had Jupiter armed with thunder, and we saint Anthony of Padua and saint James of Compostella.

When the consul Pliny, in the opening of his panegyric of Trajan, addresses his prayers to the immortal gods, he does not address himself to images. These images were not immortal.

Neither the last days of paganism nor the most ancient offer a single fact enabling us to conclude that an idol was worshipped. Homer speaks only of the gods who inhabit high Olympus. The palladium, although fallen from heaven, was only a sacred pledge of Pallas's protection: it was she who was venerated in the palladium.

But the Romans and the Greeks kneeled down before statues, gave them crowns, incense, flowers, paraded them in triumph in public places. We have sanctified these customs, and we are no idolators.

In times of drought, women, having fasted, carried the statues of the gods. They walked barefoot, their hair dishevelled, and the rain at once came down in pailfuls, as Petronius says, et statim urceatim pluebat. Have we not consecrated this practice, illegal among the gentiles and undoubtedly legitimate with us? In how many villages are the reliquaries of the saints not carried barefoot to obtain the blessings of heaven through their intercession? If a Turk or an educated Chinese were to witness these ceremonies, he could, not knowing better, at first accuse us of putting our trust in the images we thus parade in procession: but a word would undeceive him.

One is surprised by the prodigious number of declamations poured out at all periods against the idolatry of the Romans and the Greeks; and then one is even more surprised when it is realized that they were not idolators.

Some temples were more privileged than others. The great Diana of Ephesus had a higher reputation than a village Diana. More miracles were performed in the temple of Aesculapius at Epidaurus than in some other of his temples. The statue of the Olympian Jupiter attracted more offerings than that of the Paphlagonian Jupiter. But, since here we must always contrast the custom of a true religion with those of a false religion, have we not had for several centuries more devotion at certain altars than at others? Do we not take more offerings to Notre Dame of Loretto than to Notre Dame of the snows? It is for us to determine whether this pretext should be seized on to accuse us of idolatry.

Only a single Diana, a single Apollo, a single Aesculapius had been conceived, not as many Apollos, Dianas and Aesculapiuses as they had temples and statues. It is thus proved, so far as a point of history can be, that the ancients did not believe that a statue was a divinity, that worship could be transferred to this statue, this idol. It follows that the ancients were not idolators.

A coarse and superstitious rabble which did not reason, which did not know how to doubt, to deny, to believe, which ran to the temples because it was idle and because there the humble were the equals of the great, which brought its offerings out of habit, which talked continually of miracles without having ever investigated one, and which hardly rose above the victims it brought, this rabble, I repeat, might well have been struck by religious dread at the sight of the great Diana and of Jupiter the thunderer, and have unknowingly worshipped the statue itself. This is what has sometimes happened to our rough peasants in our temples; and they are then instructed that it is the intercession of the blessed, the immortals received into heaven, they must seek, and not that of wooden and stone images.

The Greeks and Romans increased the number of their gods by apotheoses. The Greeks deified conquerors like Bacchus, Hercules, Perseus. Rome erected altars to its emperors. Our apotheoses are of a different kind: we have saints instead of their demi-gods, their secondary gods, but we respect neither rank nor conquests. We have raised temples to men who were simply virtuous, who for the most part would be unknown on earth were they not placed in heaven. The apotheoses of the ancients were procured by flattery, ours by respect for virtue.

In his philosophical works Cicero offers not the slightest suspicion that the statues of the gods could be misunderstood and confounded with the gods themselves. His interlocutors fulminated against the established religion, but not one of them took it into his head to accuse the Romans of regarding marble and brass as divinities. Lucretius does not reproach anyone with this foolishness, he also reproaches the superstitious with everything. Therefore, once again, this opinion did not exist, there was no notion of it, there were no idolators.

Horace makes a statue of Priapus say: 'I was once the trunk of a fig tree. A carpenter, doubtful whether to make me into a god or a bench, finally decided to make me a god, etc.' What should we conclude from this pleasantry? Priapus was one of those little subordinate divinities, given up to the mockers; and this pleasantry is itself the strongest evidence that the image of Priapus, which was erected in the kitchen garden to frighten the birds, was not highly revered.

Adopting the attitude of a commentator, Dacier did not fail to point out that Baruch had predicted this incident when he said: 'They will be only what the workman wishes'; but he might also have remarked that as much can be said of all statues. Is it to be supposed that Baruch had a vision about the satires of Horace?

A wash-basin can be just as easily drawn from a block of marble as an image of Alexander or of Jupiter or of something else more respectable. The material from which the cherubim of the holy of holies were formed could have served equally well for the basest functions. Is a throne or an altar less revered because the workman could have made it into a kitchen table?

Instead of concluding that the Romans worshipped the statue of Priapus, and that Baruch had predicted it, Dacier should therefore have concluded that the Romans made fun of it. Consult all the authors who refer to the statues of their gods. You will not find one who talks of idolatry. They say expressly the contrary. In Martial you find:

Qui finxit sacros auto vel marmore vultus,

Non facit ille deos;...

[He does not make gods who forms sacred images in gold or marble.]

In Ovid:

Colitur pro Jove forma Jovis.

[In the image of Jupiter, Jupiter is worshipped.]

In Statius:

Nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo

Forma dei; mentes habitare ac numina gaudet.

[God's form is not fixed by statues or metal, he chooses to live in our minds and hearts.]

In Lucan:

Estne dei sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aer?

[What is god's home if not earth and sea and air?]

One could make a volume of all the passages which testify that images were merely images.

Only those cases in which statues issued oracles might have given rise to the idea that these statues had something divine in them. But the prevailing opinion certainly was that the gods had chosen certain altars, certain simulacra, in which to dwell occasionally in order to give audience to humans, and to answer them.

In Homer and the choruses of the Greek tragedies we find only prayers to Apollo, who delivers his oracles on the mountains, in this temple, in that city. In all antiquity there is not the slightest trace of a prayer addressed to a statue.

Those who practised magic, who believed it to be a science or pretended to believe it, claimed to know how to make the gods descend into their statues - not the great gods, but the secondary ones, the genii. This is what Mercury Trismegistus called making gods, and what saint Augustine refuted in his City of God. But this in itself shows clearly that the simulacra had nothing divine in them, since it was necessary for a magician to animate them. And it seems to me that a magician very seldom had the skill to give a statue a soul, to make it speak.

In a word, the images of the gods were not gods. Jupiter, and not his image, hurled the thunder; it was not the statue of Neptune that raised the seas; nor that of Apollo which gave us light. The Greeks and the Romans were gentiles, polytheists, but not idolators.

Whether the Persians, the Sabaeans, the Egyptians, the Tartars, the Turks were Idolators, and How Ancient is the Origin of the Simulacra Called Idols.

History of Their Worship

It is a great mistake to describe as idolators peoples who worshipped the sun and the stars. For a long time these nations had neither simulacra nor temples. If they were in error it was in devoting to the stars what they should have devoted to the creator of the stars. In any case, the dogma of Zoroaster or Zerdust, collected in the Sadder, proclaims a supreme being, who avenged and rewarded, Which is very far from idolatry. The government of China has never had any idol; it has always preserved the simple worship of the master of heaven, King-tien. Among the Tartars Genghis Khan was not an idolator and had no simulacra. The Moslems who filled Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, India and Africa, called the Christians idolators, giaours, because they believed that the Christians worshipped images. They smashed several statues they found in Constantinople in Santa Sophia, in the church of the holy apostles, and in others which they converted into mosques. Appearances misled them as they always mislead mankind, and led them to believe that temples dedicated to saints who had once been men, images of these saints revered on bended knee, miracles performed in these temples, were invincible proof of the most complete idolatry. Nothing of the kind. Christians in fact worship only one god, and revere in the blessed only the quality of god itself operating in his saints. Iconoclasts and Protestants have levelled the same reproach of idolatry against the church, and have been given the same answer.

As men have very seldom had precise ideas, and have even more rarely expressed their ideas in precise and unequivocal words, we applied the name of idolators to the gentiles, and above all to polytheists. Huge volumes have been written, varied notions have been retailed about the origin of this worship of god or of several gods in visible form. This multitude of books and opinions proves only ignorance.

We do not know who invented clothes and footwear, and we want to know who first invented idols. What does a passage in Sanchuniathon matter? He lived before the Trojan war. What does he tell us when he says that chaos, spirit, that is breath, in love with its principles, derived the primal clay from it and made the air luminous, that the wind Colp and his wife Bau begot Eon, that Eon begot Genos, that Chronos, their descendant, had two eyes at the back of his head as well as in front, that he became god, and gave Egypt to his son Thaut? Such is one of the most respectable monuments of antiquity.

Orpheus, earlier than Sanchuniathon, teaches us no more in his Theogony, preserved for us by Damascius. He presents the principle of the world in the shape of a dragon with two heads, one a bull's, the other a lion's, with a face in the middle which he calls god-face, and gilded wings at the shoulders.

But two great truths can be drawn from these bizarre ideas: one, that visible images and hieroglyphs date from the greatest antiquity; the other, that all the ancient philosophers recognized a first principle.

As for polytheism, good sense will tell you that ever since there have been men, that is, weak animals, capable of reason and folly, subject to every accident, to illness and to death, these men have felt their weakness and their dependence. They have readily recognized that there is something more powerful than they. They have felt a power in the earth that supplies their nourishment, one in the air that often destroys them, one in the fire that consumes and in the water that submerges. What more natural than for ignorant men to imagine beings who preside over these elements? What more natural than to revere the invisible power that makes the sun and the stars shine in our eyes? And, as soon as man sought to form an idea of these powers superior to him, what even more natural than to represent them in a visible manner? Could they ever have done otherwise? The Jewish religion, which preceded ours, and which was given by god himself, was filled with these images by which god is represented. He deigned to speak human language in a bush; he appeared on a mountain; the celestial spirits he sent all came in human shape; finally, the sanctuary is filled with cherubim, which are human bodies with the wings and the heads of animals. This is what led Plutarch, Tacitus, Appian and so many more wrongly to reproach the Jews for worshipping the head of an ass. Although he forbade the painting or carving of any image, god thus deigned to adapt himself to human weakness, which required images to speak to the senses.

Isaiah, in chapter vi, sees the lord seated on a throne, the train of his robe filling the temple. The lord extended his hand and touched Jeremiah's mouth in this prophet's first chapter. Ezekiel, in chapter iii, saw a sapphire throne, and god appeared to him as a man seated on this throne. These images did not corrupt the purity of the Jewish religion, which never used pictures, statues, idols to represent god to the eyes of the people.

The educated Chinese, the Parsees, the ancient Egyptians had no idols, but images of Isis and Osiris soon appeared, soon Bel became a great colossus in Babylon. Brahma was a bizarre monster in the Indian archipelago. Above all the Greeks multiplied the names of the gods, the statues and the temples, but always attributing the supreme power to their Zeus, called Jupiter by the Latins, master of the gods and of men. The Romans imitated the Greeks. These peoples always placed all the gods in the sky, without knowing what they meant by sky.

The Romans had their twelve great gods, six male and six female, whom they named dii maiorum gentium: Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, Vulcan, Mars, Mercury, Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Venus, Diana. Pluto was then forgotten. Vesta took his place.

Then came the gods minorum gentium: the local deities, the heroes, like Bacchus, Hercules, Aesculapius; the infernal gods, Pluto, Proserpine; those of the sea, like Thetis, Amphitrite, the Nereids, Glaucus; then the Dryads, the Naiads; the gods of the garden, those of the shepherds. There was a god for every profession, for every activity, for children, for nubile girls, for married women, for women in childbed. They had the god Fart. Finally they deified the emperors. But in fact neither these emperors, nor the god Fart, nor the goddess Pertunda, nor Priapus, nor Rumilia the goddess of tits, nor Stercutius the god of the privy, were regarded as the masters of heaven and earth. The emperors sometimes had temples, the minor household gods had none; but all had their images, their idols. These were little figurines with which a man decorated his study. They were the amusements of old women and children, not authorized by any public worship. The superstition of every private person was indulged. These little idols are still found in the ruins of ancient cities.

Though nobody knows when men started to make idols, we know that they are of the highest antiquity. Terah, Abraham's father, made them at Ur in Chaldea. Rachel stole and carried off the idols of her father-in-law Laban. It is impossible to go further back than that.

But what precise notion did the ancient nations have of all these simulacra? What virtue, what power, was attributed to them? Was it believed that the gods descended from heaven to hide themselves in these statues, or that they communicated to them a part of the divine spirit, or that they communicated nothing at all to them? This too has been the subject of much useless writing. It is obvious that each man judged it according to the degree of his reason or his credulity or his fanaticism. It is evident that the priests attached as much divinity as they could to their statues in order to attract more offerings to themselves. We know that the philosophers condemned these superstitions, that the warriors made fun of them, that the magistrates tolerated them, and the people, always absurd, did not know what it was doing. This, in a few words, is the history of all the nations to whom god has not made himself known.

One can gather the same notion about the worship all Egypt gave to an ox, and that several cities gave to a dog, to a monkey, to a cat, to onions. It would seem that these were at first emblems. Then a certain ox Apis, a certain dog called Anubis, were worshipped. They still ate beef, and onions, but it is hard to know what the old women of Egypt thought of sacred onions and oxen.

The idols spoke quite often. The elegant words spoken by the statue of Cybele when it was removed from the palace of king Attalus were commemorated in Rome on the feast day of that goddess.

Ipsa peti volui; ne sit mora, mitte volentem:

Dignus Roma locus quo deus omnis eat.

I wanted to be carried off, take me quickly away;

Rome is worthy to be the home of every god.

The statue of Fortune had spoken. It is true that the Scipios, the Ciceros, the Caesars did not believe this, but the old woman to whom Encolpius gave a crown to buy geese and gods may well have believed it.

The idols also uttered oracles, and the priests, hidden in the hollow statues, spoke in the name of the divinity.

In the midst of so many gods and so many different theogonies and individual cults, why is it that there was never any war of religion among the peoples called idolators? This peace was a good born of an evil, of error itself. For each nation, recognizing several inferior gods, thought it right that neighbouring peoples should also have theirs. Except Cambyses, who is reproached for having killed the ox Apis, we do not find in profane history any conqueror who maltreated the gods of a vanquished people. The gentiles had not a single exclusive religion, and the priests thought only of multiplying the offerings and the sacrifices.

The first offerings were fruits. Soon after, animals were needed for the priests' table; they slaughtered them themselves; they became butchers, and cruel; finally they introduced the horrible practice of sacrificing human victims, and above all children and virgins. Neither the Chinese nor the Parsees nor the Indians were ever guilty of these abominations, but according to Porphyry men were immolated at Hieropolis, in Egypt.

In Tauris foreigners were sacrificed. Fortunately the priests of Tauris could not have much practice. The first Greeks, the Cypriots, the Phoenicians, the Tyrians, the Carthaginians had this abominable superstition. The Romans themselves fell into this religious crime, and Plutarch reports that they immolated two Greeks, and two Gauls to expiate the love affairs of three vestals. Procopius, contemporary of the king of the Franks Theodobert, tells us that the Franks immolated men when they entered Italy with this prince. The Gauls, the Germans commonly made these frightful sacrifices. It is hardly possible to read history without conceiving a horror of mankind.

It is true that, among the Jews, Jephtah sacrificed his daughter, and Saul was prepared to immolate his son. It is true that those who were dedicated to the lord by anathema could not be bought back as animals were bought back, and had to perish. Samuel, a Jewish priest, chopped into pieces with a sacred hatchet king Agag, a prisoner of war whom Saul had pardoned, and Saul was condemned for observing the law of nations with this king. But god, master of men, can take their lives when he pleases, how he pleases, and by the hand of whom he pleases; and it is not for men to put themselves in the place of the master of life and death, and to usurp the rights of the supreme being.

To console mankind for this horrible spectacle, these pious sacrileges, it is important to know that among nearly all the nations called idolators there was sacred theology and popular error, the secret cult and public ceremonies, the religion of the wise and that of the vulgar. Only one god was taught in the mysteries to the initiates. One has only to glance at the hymn, attributed to the ancient Orpheus, which was sung in the mysteries of Ceres Eleusinus, so famous in Europe and Asia: 'Contemplate divine nature, illuminate your spirit, govern your heart, walk in the path of justice. May the god of heaven and earth be always present to your eyes. He is unique, he exists in himself alone. All beings derive their existence from him. He sustains them all. He has never been seen by mortals, and he sees all things.'

Read also this passage from the philosopher Maximus of Madaurus in his Letter to Saint Augustine: 'What man is gross and stupid enough to doubt that there is a supreme, eternal, infinite god who has begotten nothing like himself, and who is the common father of all things.'

A thousand passages testify that wise men abhorred not only idolatry, but also polytheism.

Epictetus, this model of resignation and patience, this man who was so great in so low a condition, never speaks of anything but a single god. Here is one of his maxims: 'God has created me, god is within me, I bear him everywhere. Could I soil him by obscene thoughts, unjust actions, infamous desires? My duty is to thank god for all, to praise him for all, and to cease from blessing him only when I cease to live.' All the ideas of Epictetus turn on this principle. Is he an idolator?

Marcus Aurelius, perhaps as great on the throne of the Roman empire as Epictetus in slavery, often speaks, it is true, of the gods, whether to conform to accepted language, or to refer to beings intermediate between the supreme being and men. But in how many places does he not show that he recognizes only one eternal, infinite god! 'Our soul,' he says, 'is an emanation of the divinity. My children, my body, my wits come to me from god.'

The Stoics, the Platonists acknowledged a divine and universal nature. The Epicureans denied it. The pontiff spoke of only one god in the mysteries. Where then were the idolators? All our phrase-mongers proclaim idolatry as little dogs yap when they hear a big dog bark.

For the rest, it is one of the great mistakes of Moréri's dictionary to say that at the time of Theodosius idolators were left only in the distant countries of Asia and Africa. Even in the seventh century there were still many gentile peoples in Italy. North Germany, beyond the Weser, was not Christian in Charlemagne's time. Poland and all the north remained long after him in what is called idolatry. Half of Africa, all the kingdoms beyond the Ganges, Japan, the common people of China, a hundred hordes of Tartars preserved their ancient cult. In Europe only a few Laplanders, Samoyedes, Tartars have persevered in the religion of their ancestors.

I conclude by noting that in the times we name the middle ages, we called the country of the Mohammedans heathendom. We qualified as idolators, imageworshippers, a people who have a horror of images. We must admit once more that the Turks would be more pardonable to take us for idolators when they see our altars loaded with images and statues.

Joseph

The story of Joseph, considered merely as a curiosity and as literature, is one of the most precious monuments of antiquity to have come down to us. It appears to be the model for all oriental writers. It is more affecting than Homer's Odyssey, for a hero who pardons is more touching than one who avenges himself.

We regard the Arabs as the first authors of those ingenious fictions that have passed into all languages; but I see in them no adventure comparable to Joseph's. Nearly everything in it is marvellous, and the end brings a lump to the throat. Here we have a young man of sixteen whose brothers are jealous. They sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelite merchants, he is taken to Egypt, and bought by one of the king's eunuchs. This eunuch had a wife, which is not at all surprising. The Kislar-aga, a complete eunuch, who has had everything cut off, has a harem today in Constantinople. He was left his eyes and his hands, and nature has not lost its rights in his heart. The other eunuchs, who have had cut off only the two accompaniments of the organ of generation, still use that organ frequently, and Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, may very well have been one of those eunuchs.

The wife of Potiphar fell in love with the young Joseph, who, faithful to his master and benefactor, rejected the woman's attentions. This irritated her, and she accused Joseph of trying to seduce her. It is the story of Hippolytus and Phaedra, Bellerophon and Stheneboea, Hebrus and Damasippa, Tanis and Peribea, Myrtil and Hippodamia, Peleus and Demenette.

It is difficult to know which of all these stories is the original. But in the ancient Arabic authors the adventure of Joseph and Potiplsar's wife contains a very ingenious touch. The author imagines that Potiphar, undecided between his wife and Joseph, did not consider Joseph's tunic, which his wife had torn, to be proof of the young man's attack. There was a child in a cradle in the woman's room. Joseph said that she had torn and removed his tunic in the child's presence. Potiphar consulted the child, whose intelligence was very developed for its age. The child said to Potiphar: 'See whether the tunic is torn in front or behind: if in front this is evidence that Joseph tried to violate your wife, who defended herself; if behind it is evidence that your wife was running after him.' Thanks to this child's genius, Potiphar recognized the innocence of his slave. This is how the adventure is recounted in the Koran after the ancient Arabic author. He is not concerned to tell us to whom belonged the child who judged with so much intelligence. If it was the son of Potiphar's wife, Joseph was not the first she had pursued.

Be that as it may, according to Genesis Joseph was imprisoned, and found himself in company with the Egyptian king's cup-bearer and baker. These two prisoners of state dreamed during the night. Joseph explained their dreams, predicting that in three days the cup-bearer would be restored to favour, and the baker hung: which is what came to pass.

Two years later the king of Egypt also dreamed. His cup-bearer told him that there was a young Jew in prison who understood dreams better than anyone else in the world. The king sent for the young man, who predicted seven years of plenty and seven years of want.

Let us here briefly interrupt the thread of the story to consider how prodigiously ancient is the interpretation of dreams. Jacob had seen in a dream the mysterious ladder that led to god himself. He learned in a dream a way to multiply his flocks, a way that succeeded only for him. Joseph himself had learned in a dream that he would one day dominate his brothers. Long before, Abimelech had been warned in a dream that Sarah was the wife of Abraham.

Let us return to Joseph. As soon as he had explained Pharaoh's dream, he became prime minister on the spot. We may doubt whether a king could be found nowadays, even in Asia, who would bestow such an office for the explanation of a dream. Pharaoh made Joseph marry one of Potiphar's daughters. It is said that this Potiphar was the high priest of Heliopolis. So this was not his first master the eunuch, or if it was he, he was certainly entitled to be called something else in addition to high priest, and his wife had been a mother more than once.

In the meanwhile famine came as Joseph had predicted, and Joseph, to deserve the marked favour of his king, obliged everybody to sell their land to Pharaoh, and the entire nation enslaved itself to get grain. This was apparently the origin of despotic power. It must be admitted that never had a king made a better bargain, but the people can hardly have blessed the prime minister.

Finally Joseph's father and brothers also needed grain, for 'the famine was sore in all the earth'. It is hardly necessary to relate here how Joseph received his brothers, how he forgave and enriched them. All that constitutes an interesting epic poem is found in this story: exposition, crux, recognition, vicissitudes and marvels. Nothing bears more clearly the hallmark of oriental genius.

What old Jacob, father of Joseph, replied to Pharaoh, must strongly impress anyone who can read. 'How many are the days of the years of thy life?' asked the king. 'The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years, and I have not yet had one happy day in this short pilgrimage.'

Judea

I have not been to Judea, thank God, and will never go. I have met people of all nationalities who have come back from it. They have all told me that the site of Jerusalem is horrible, that all the surrounding country is stony, that the mountains are naked, that the famous river Jordan is only forty-five feet wide, that the only good province in this country is Jericho. In short, they all repeat saint Jerome, who lived for so long in Bethlehem, and who depicts this land as the scrap-heap of nature. He says that in the summer there is not even water to drink. Nevertheless this country must have appeared to the Jews a delightful spot in comparison with the deserts they had come from. Wretches who had left the Landes to live on the mountains of the Lampourdan[around Bayonne] would praise their new home, and if they hoped to penetrate into the good parts of the Languedoc these would strike them as the promised land.

This is precisely the history of the Jews. Jericho and Jerusalem are Toulouse and Montpellier, and the Sinai desert is the country between Bordeaux and Bayonne. But if the god who conducted the Jews wanted to give them good land, and if these unfortunates had in fact lived in Egypt, why did he not leave them there? The only answers given to this question are theological phrases. Judea, it is said, was the promised land. God said to Abraham: 'I will give you all this land from the river of Egypt unto the Euphrates.'

Alas! my friends, you have never seen these fertile banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. They fooled you. The masters of the Nile and the Euphrates were, each in his turn, your masters. You have nearly always been slaves. To promise and to perform are two things, my poor Jews. You had an old rabbi who, reading the wise prophecies that foretell for you a land of milk and honey, exclaimed that you had been promised more butter than bread. Do you realize that if the Grand Turk offered me today the lordship of Jerusalem I would spurn it?

On seeing this detestable country Frederick II said publicly that Moses was very ill-advised to lead his company of lepers to it: 'Why didn't he go to Naples?' said Frederick. Good-bye my dear Jews; I am sorry that the promised land should be waste land.

Luxury

For 2,000 years people have declaimed in verse and prose against luxury, and have always loved it.

What has not been said about the earliest Romans, these brigands who ravaged and pillaged the harvests of their neighbours, who destroyed the poor villages of the Volscians and the Samnites in order to aggrandize their own poor village? They were disinterested and virtuous men! They had not yet been able to steal either gold or silver or precious stones, because there was none in the places they sacked. Neither their woods nor their marshes produced partridges or pheasants, and their temperance is praised!

When little by little they had pillaged everything, stolen everything from the far end of the Adriatic to the Euphrates, and had had enough sense to enjoy the fruit of their rapines for seven or eight hundred years, when they cultivated all the arts, tasted every pleasure, and made even the vanquished taste them, then, it is said, they ceased to be wise and upright.

All these declamations come down to proving that a thief must never eat the dinner he has stolen nor wear the clothes he has purloined nor adorn himself with the ring he has taken. All this, it is said, should have been thrown into the river if the thieves wanted to live as honest men. Say rather that one should not steal. Condemn the brigands when they pillage, but do not call them lunatics when they enjoy what they have taken. Honestly, when a large number of English sailors enriched themselves on taking Pondicherry and Havana, were they wrong to enjoy themselves later in London in return for the pains they had taken at the extremities of Asia and Africa?

Do the windbags want the wealth amassed by the fortunes of war, agriculture, trade and industry to be buried? They instance Lacedaemon. Why do they not cite also the republic of San Marino? Of what benefit was Sparta to Greece? Did she ever have a Demosthenes, Sophocles, Apelles or Phidias? The luxury of Athens produced great men of every kind. Sparta had a few captains, and even those in smaller numbers than the other cities. But so be it! Let a little republic like Lacedaemon preserve its poverty. We attain death just as surely lacking everything as enjoying whatever makes life agreeable. The Canadian savage survives and reaches old age just like the English citizen who has an income of 50,000 guineas. But who will ever compare the country of the Iroquois with England?

Let the republic of Ragusa and the canton of Zug make sumptuary laws. They are right, it is necessary for the poor man not to spend beyond his means, but I have read somewhere:

Sachez surtout que le luxe enrichit

Un grand état, s'il en perd un petit.

[Know above all that luxury enriches a great state,

though it ruins a small one.]

If by luxury you mean excess, everybody knows that excess of every kind is pernicious, in abstinence as in gluttony, in economy as in liberality. I do not know how it has come about that in my villages, in which the land is barren, the taxes heavy, the prohibition against exporting the wheat we have sowed intolerable, there is nevertheless hardly a husbandman without clothes made of good cloth and who is not well shod and well fed. If this farmer cultivates the land in his fine clothes, white linen, curled and powdered hair, that would certainly be the greatest luxury, and the most impertinent. But if a bourgeois of Paris or London appeared in the theatre dressed like this peasant, that would be the crudest and most ridiculous niggardliness.

Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines, Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.

[There is a measure in all things, fixed limits which virtue must neither overstep nor fail to attain.]

Scissors are certainly not of the greatest antiquity. When they were invented what was not said against the first who pared their nails and cut part of the hair that fell over their noses? They were no doubt called dandies and prodigals, who bought at a high price a tool of vanity to spoil the work of the creator. What an enormous sin to shorten the horn that god causes to grow at the ends of our fingers! It was an insult to divinity. It was much worse when shirts and socks were invented. We know how furiously the old councillors, who had never worn them, cried out against the young magistrates who yielded to this fatal luxury.

Martyr

We can only guffaw at all the humbug we are told about martyrs. Such men as Titus, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, these models of virtue, are depicted as monsters of cruelty. Fleury, abbé of the Loc-Dieu, dishonoured his ecclesiastical history with stories a sensible woman would not tell to little children.

Can it be seriously repeated that the Romans condemned each of seven virgins of seventy to pass through the hands of all the young men of the city of Ancyra, the same Romans who punished vestals with death for the slightest love-affair? It was apparently to give pleasure to inn-keepers that the story was invented of a Christian inn-keeper called Theodotus, who prayed to god to kill these seven virgins rather than to expose them to the loss of the oldest virginities. God gave ear to the prudish inn-keeper, and the proconsul had the seven misses drowned in a lake. As soon as they were drowned they went to Theodotus to complain of the trick he had played on them, and begged him earnestly to prevent the fishes from eating them. Theodoms took with him three topers from his tavern, marched to the lake with them, preceded by a celestial torch and a celestial horseman, fished up the seven old ladies, buffed them, and finished by being hanged.

Diocletian met a little boy called saint Roman, who stuttered. He wanted to have him burnt because he was a Christian. Three Jews who happened to be there started to laugh because Jesus Christ allowed a little boy who belonged to him to be burnt. They exclaimed that their religion was superior to the Christian since god delivered Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace. The flames which enveloped the young Roman without hurting him at once divided and burned the three Jews. The emperor, very astonished, said that he wanted to have no quarrel with god, but a village judge, less scrupulous, condemned the little stutterer to have his tongue cut out. The emperor's chief physician had the decency to perform the operation himself. As soon as he had cut out the little Roman's tongue, the child started to chatter with a volubility that transported the whole assembly with admiration.

A hundred stories of this kind are to be found in the martyrologies. Thinking to make the ancient Romans odious they made themselves ridiculous. Do you want good, well-attested barbarities; good, well-authenticated massacres; rivers of blood that really ran; fathers, mothers, husbands, women, children at the breast really butchered and piled up on each other? Persecuting monsters, seek these truths only in your annals: you will find them in the crusades against the Albigensians, in the massacres of Mérindol and Cabrières, in the appalling day of saint Bartholomew, in the Irish massacres, in the valleys of the Waldenses. It well becomes you, barbarians that you are, to impute extravagant cruelties to the best of emperors, you who have inundated Europe with blood, and covered it with dying bodies, to prove that it is possible to be in a thousand places at once, and that the pope can sell indulgences! Stop slandering the Romans, who gave you your laws, and ask god's forgiveness for the abominations of your fathers.

It is not the suffering, you say, that makes the martyr; it is the cause. Well, I grant that your victims should not be given the name of martyr, which means witness. But what name shall we give your executioners? Phalaris and Busiris were the gentlest of men compared with you. Does not your inquisition, which still survives, make reason, nature, religion shudder? Good god! if this infernal tribunal were reduced to ashes, would your vengeful gaze be displeased?

Miracles

A miracle, in the full meaning of the word, is an admirable thing. In this sense everything is miraculous. The prodigious order of nature, the rotation of 100 million globes around a million suns, the activity of light, the life of animals are perpetual miracles.

By conventional usage we call miracle the violation of these divine and eternal laws. If there is an eclipse of the sun at full moon, if a dead man walks two leagues carrying his head in his arms, we call that a miracle.

Several natural philosophers maintain that in this sense there are no miracles; and here are their arguments.

A miracle is the violation of the divine, immutable, eternal laws of mathematics. By this very definition a miracle is a contradiction in terms. A law cannot be at once immutable and violated. But, they are asked, cannot god suspend a law established by himself? They have the hardihood to answer that it cannot, that it is impossible for a being infinitely wise to have made laws in order to violate them. He could disturb his machine, they say, only to make it function better. Now it is clear that this immense machine is as good as he; being god, he could make it: if he saw that there would be imperfection because of the nature of the material, he dealt with it from the beginning; therefore he will never change anything in it.

Besides, god cannot do anything without a reason; and what reason could lead him to disfigure his own work for a time? They will be told that it is for the benefit of mankind. They reply that it must then be for the benefit of all men, for it is impossible to conceive that the divine nature would work for a few individual men, and not for the entire human species. In any case, the human species is not up to much: it is much less than a small ant-hill in comparison with all the beings that fill immensity. Now is it not the most absurd of follies to imagine that the infinite being would invert the eternal play of the immense engines which move the entire universe for the sake of three or four hundred ants on this little heap of mud?

But let us suppose that god wanted to distinguish a small number of men by particular favours: would he have to change what he established for ever and for everywhere? He certainly has not the least need for such a change, for such inconstancy, to favour his creatures: his favours are in his very laws. He has foreseen everything, arranged everything for them: all obey irrevocably the power he has impressed for ever on nature.

Why should god perform a miracle? To accomplish a given plan for a few living beings? He would then be saying: 'I have been unable to accomplish a certain plan by the manufacture of the universe, by my divine decrees, my eternal laws. I am going to change my eternal ideas, my immutable laws to try to perform what I could not accomplish with them.' It would be a confession of his weakness, and not of his power. It would seem to be the most inconceivable contradiction in him. Hence it is really to insult him (if men can insult god) to dare to attribute miracles to him, it is to say to him: 'You are a weak and inconsistent being.' It is therefore absurd to believe in miracles, it is as it were to dishonour the divinity.

These philosophers are pressed, they are told: 'You exalt in vain the immutability of the supreme being, the eternity of his laws, the regularity of his infinite worlds. Our little mud heap has seen an abundance of miracles, history is as full of prodigies as of natural events. The daughters of the high priest Anius changed whatever they chose into wheat, wine or oil. Athalida, daughter of Mercury, resuscitated several times. Aesculapius resuscitated Hippolytus. Hercules dragged Alcestis back from death. Heres returned to the world after passing a fortnight in hell. The parents of Romulus and Remus were a god and a vestal virgin. The Palladium fell from heaven in the city of Troy. The hair of Berenice became a constellation. The hut of Baucis and Philemon was changed into a superb temple. The head of Orpheus rendered oracles after his death. The walls of Thebes were built by the sound of a flute alone, in the presence of the Greeks. The cures performed in the temple of Aesculapius were innummerable, and we still have monuments covered with the names of the eye-witnesses of the miracles of Aesculapius.'

Give me the name of one people among whom incredible prodigies were not performed, especially when few knew how to read and write.

Freethinkers answer these objections only by laughing and shrugging their shoulders. But Christian philosophers say: 'We believe in the miracles operated in our holy religion. We believe them by faith and not by reason, to which we take great care not to listen, for it is well known that the reason must not utter a single word when faith speaks. We have a firm and entire belief in the miracles of Jesus Christ and the apostles, but you must permit us to doubt a little about some others. Permit us, for instance, to suspend our judgement about the story told by a simple man to whom the name of great has been given. He asserts that a little monk was so much accustomed to perform miracles that the prior finally forbade him to exercise his talent. The little monk obeyed; but, having seen a poor tiler falling from the top of a roof, he hesitated between the wish to save his life and holy obedience. He simply ordered the tiler to remain in the air until further notice, and ran to tell his prior how things stood. The prior gave him absolution of the sin he had committed in beginning a miracle without permission, and allowed him to finish it, provided that he stopped there and did not do it again. We agree with freethinkers that this story must be distrusted a little.'

But how do you dare to deny, they will be asked, that saint Gervase and saint Protasius appeared in a dream to saint Ambrose, and told him where their relics were to be found? that saint Ambrose unearthed them, and that they cured a blind man? Saint Augustine was then in Milan. It is he who reports this miracle. Immenso populo teste, says he in the City of God, Chapter XXII. This is one of the best attested miracles. Freethinkers say that they do not believe a word of it, that Gervase and Protasius appeared to nobody, that it matters very little to mankind whether the whereabouts of the remnants of their carcasses be known or not, that they have no more faith in this blind man than in Vespasian's, that it is a useless miracle, that god does nothing useless; and they hold firmly to their principles. My respect for saint Gervase and saint Protasius does not permit me to share the opinion of these freethinkers. I merely report their incredulity. They make much of the passages in Lucian, in his Death of Peregrinus: 'When a deft juggler becomes a Christian he is bound to make his way.' But as Lucian is a profane author he should have no authority for us.

These freethinkers cannot bring themselves to believe the miracles operated in the second century. It is in vain that eye-witnesses write that saint Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, having been condemned to be burned and thrown into the flames, they heard a heavenly voice crying out: 'Courage, Polycarp! be strong, show yourself a man'; that the flames of the pyre then parted from the body and formed a tent of fire above his head, and a dove came out of the midst of the pyre. At last they had to cut off Polycarp's head. 'What was the good of this miracle?' ask the incredulous. 'Why did the flames lose their nature, and not the executioner's axe? Why is it that so many martyrs have emerged safe and sound from boiling oil, and could not resist the edge of the sword?' They answer that it is the will of god. But the freethinkers would have liked to see all this with their own eyes before believing it.

Those who fortify their arguments with knowledge will tell you that the fathers of the church themselves have often admitted that no more miracles were performed in their times. Saint Chrysostom says expressly: 'The extraordinary gifts of the spirit were given even to the unworthy because the church then needed miracles; but today they are no longer given even to the worthy, because the church no longer needs them.' Then he admits that there is no longer anyone who resuscitates the dead, or even who cures the sick.

Saint Augustine himself, despite the miracle of Gervase and Protasius, says in his City of God: 'Why are the miracles that used to be performed no longer performed today?' And he gives the same reason: 'Cur, inquiunt, nunc illa miracula quae praedicatis facta esse non fiunt? Possem quidem dicere necessaria prius fuisse quam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus'['Why', they ask, 'are the miracles that used to be done, as you boast, not now done? I could say that they were necessary before the world believed, so that the world should believe'].

It is objected to the freethinkers that saint Augustine, in spite of this admission, nevertheless mentions an old cobbler of Hippo who, having lost his clothes, went to pray in the chapel of the twenty martyrs. When he returned he found a fish in whose body was a gold ring, and the cook who prepared the fish said to the cobbler: 'This is what the twenty martyrs give you.'

To this the freethinkers answer that nothing in this story contradicts the laws of nature, that natural laws are not in the least offended by a fish who swallows a gold ring, and a cook who gives this ring to a cobbler, that this is no miracle.

If these freethinkers are reminded that according to saint Jerome, in his Life of the Hermit Paul, this hermit had several conversations with satyrs and fauns, that a raven brought him every day for thirty years half a loaf for his dinner, and a whole loaf on the day saint Anthony called on him, they could again reply that all this is not absolutely against nature, that satyrs and fauns may have existed, and that in any case since this story is puerile, it has nothing in common with the true miracles of the saviour and of his apostles. Several good Christians have objected to the story by Theodoret about saint Simon Stylites. Many miracles that pass for authentic in the Greek church have been called in question by several Latin ones, just as some Latin miracles have been doubted in the Greek church. Then came the Protestants, who have much ill-treated the miracles of both churches.

A learned Jesuit who preached a long time in the Indies complains that neither his colleagues nor he could ever perform a miracle. Xavier laments in several of his letters that he does not have the gift of tongues. He says that he is nothing but a dumb statue among the Japanese. Nevertheless the Jesuits have written that he resuscitated eight dead people: that's a lot, and we must also take into account that he resuscitated them5,000 leagues from here. Since then some people have been known to say that the abolition of the Jesuits in France is a much greater miracle than those of Xavier and Ignatius.

Be that as it may, all Christians agree that the miracles of Jesus Christ and the apostles are incontestably veridical, but that we are entitled to doubt with all our strength some miracles done in recent times and which have not been positively authenticated.

For a miracle to be well established one would wish it to be performed in the presence of the Académie des Sciences of Paris, or the Royal Society of London, and the faculty of medicine, supported by a detachment of the regiment of guards to control the crowd of people whose indiscretion might prevent the operation of the miracle.

One day a freethinker was asked what he would say if he saw the sun stop, that is, if the movement of the earth round this body stopped, if all the dead resuscitated, and if the mountains in unison fell into the ocean, the whole to prove some important truth, such as versatile grace. 'What I would say?' answered the freethinker. 'I would turn Manichean; I would say that there is one principle which undoes what the other has done.'

Peter

In Italian, Piero or Pietro; in Spanish, Pedro; in Latin, Petrus; in Greek, Petros; in Hebrew, Cepha.

Why have the successors of Peter had so much power in the west and none in the east? This is like asking why the bishops of Wurzburg and Salzburg assumed regalian rights in times of anarchy, while the Greek bishops have always remained subjects. Time, opportunity, the ambition of some and the weakness of others have done and will do everything in this world.

The common opinion was added to this anarchy, and opinion is the queen of men: not that in reality they have clearly defined opinions, but words take their place.

It is reported in the gospel that Jesus said to Peter: 'I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' The partisans of the bishop of Rome maintained about the eleventh century that he who gives the greater gives also the lesser, that the heavens envelop the earth, and that, Peter having the keys of the container, had also the keys of the content. If by the heavens be understood all the stars and all the planets, it is evident according to Thomasius, that the keys given to Simon Bar-Jona, called Peter, formed a master-key. If by the heavens be understood the clouds, the atmosphere, the ether, the space in which revolve the planets, there are no locksmiths, according to Meursius, who can make a key for such doors as those.

In Palestine keys were wooden pegs tied with a strap. Jesus said to Bar-Jona: 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.' The pope's theologians have concluded from this that the popes had received the right to bind people to the oath of fidelity made to their kings, and to unbind them from it, and to dispose as they please of all the kingdoms. It is a magnificent conclusion. In the estates general of France of 1302 the communes said in their petition to the king, that 'Boniface VIII is a b - who believed that god binds and imprisons in heaven what this Boniface binds on earth.' A famous Lutheran in Germany(I think it was Melanchthon) had great difficulty in swallowing that Jesus said to Simon Bar-Jona, Cepha or Cephas: 'Thou art Peter [Pierre], and upon this rock[pierre] I will build my assembly, my church.' He could not believe that god could have used such a play on words, so extraordinary a jest, and that the power of the pope should be based on a pun.

Peter was thought to have been bishop of Rome, but it is well known that at that time and for long after there was no individual see. Christian society only took shape at about the end of the second century.

It is possible that Peter made the journey to Rome; it is even possible that he was crucified head down, although that was not the practice; but there is no proof of all that. We have a letter under his name in which he says that he is in Babylon: judicious canonists have maintained that by Babylon we should understand Rome. Hence if he had dated the letter from Rome we could have concluded that it had been written in Babylon. Such inferences have long been drawn, and so has the world been regulated.

There was a saintly man who had been made to pay dearly for a benefice in Rome. This is called simony. He was asked whether he believed that Simon Peter had been in Rome. He answered: 'I don't know about Peter, but Simon certainly has.'

As for Peter personally, it must be admitted that Paul was not the only one who was shocked by his behaviour. He and his successors have often and openly been resisted. Paul bitterly reproached him for eating forbidden flesh, that is, pork, black pudding, hare, eel, ixion and griffin. Peter defended himself by saying that he had seen the heavens open about the sixth hour, and a great cloth descend from the four comers of the sky, filled with eels, quadrupeds and birds, and that the voice of an angel had cried out: 'Kill and eat.' This is apparently the same voice, says Wollaston, that has cried to so many pontiffs: 'Kill everything, and eat the substance of the people.'

Casaubon could not approve the way in which Peter treated the good Ananias and his wife Sapphira. By what right, asks Casaubon, did a Jew, slave of the Romans, order or allow all those who believed in Jesus to sell their inheritance and put the proceeds at his feet? If some Anabaptist in London made his brethren lay all their money at his feet, would he not be arrested as a traitorous seducer, a robber who would infallibly be sent to Tyburn? Was it not horrible to put Ananias to death because, without saying anything, he held back a few crowns for his necessities and those of his wife when he sold his property and gave the money to Peter? His wife arrived when Ananias had only just died. Peter, instead of warning her mercifully that he had just caused her husband to die of an apoplexy for keeping a few oboles, and telling her to take care of herself, made her fall into the trap. He asked whether her husband had given all his money to the saints. The good woman answered yes, and died on the spot. What harshness!

Coringius asks why Peter, who thus killed those who gave him alms, did not rather kill all the theologians who had caused the death of Jesus Christ, and had him scourged more than once. O Peter! you kill two Christians who gave you alms, and you allow to live those who crucified your god!

Coringius evidently was not living in any of the homes of the inquisition when he put these daring questions. Erasmus noticed a very peculiar thing in connection with Peter: it is that the head of the Christian religion began his apostolate by denying Jesus Christ, and that the first pontiff of the Jews had begun his ministry by making a golden calf, and worshipping it.

Be that as it may, Peter is depicted as a poor man who catechized the poor. He is like those founders of orders who lived in indigence, and whose successors have become great lords.

The pope, Peter's successor, now won, now lost; but apart from his immediate subjects, about 50 million men on earth remain to him, subject in various ways to his laws.

To acknowledge a master three or four hundred leagues away; to wait before you think until that man has seemed to think; dare to give a final verdict only through commissioners appointed by this foreigner in a law-suit between your own fellow citizens; not dare to take possession of the fields and vineyards secured from one's own king without paying considerable sums to this foreign master; violate the laws of one's country, which prohibit a man from marrying his niece, yet does so legitimately by giving his foreign master a still greater sum; not dare to cultivate one's field on whatever day this foreigner requires one to celebrate the memory of an unknown whom he has sent to heaven by his private authority: this is part of what it means to acknowledge a pope, these are the liberties of the Gallican church.

Some other peoples carry their submission further. In our own day we have seen a sovereign ask the pope's permission to have some monks accused of parricide tried by his royal tribunal, failing to obtain this permission, and not daring to judge them.

It is well known that formerly the rights of the popes went further. They were far above the gods of antiquity, for these gods were merely said to dispose of empires, and the popes really did dispose of them.

Sturbinus says that those who doubt the pope's divinity and infallibility can be forgiven when it is considered:

that forty schisms have profaned the seat of saint Peter, and that twenty-seven have steeped it in blood;

that Stephen VII, son of a priest, disinterred the body of his predecessor Formosus, and had the corpse's head cut off;

that Sergius III, convicted of murders, had a son, by Marozia, who inherited the papacy;

that John X, the lover of Theodora, was strangled in his bed;

that John XI, son of Sergius III, was known only as a debauchee;

that John XII wag murdered in his mistress's house;

that Benedict IX bought and resold the pontificate;

that Gregory VII was the initiator of 500 years of civil war sustained by his successors;

that finally, among so many ambitious, bloody and debauched popes, there was an Alexander VI, whose name is spoken with the same horror as that of Nero and Caligula.

It is said that it is evidence of the divine nature of the papacy that it has survived so many crimes; but then the caliphs would have been even more divine had they behaved even more atrociously. This is the reasoning of Dermius, but the Jesuits have answered him.

The philosopher Julian, Roman emperor

Justice is sometimes done very late. Two or three authors, either mercenaries or fanatics, talk about the barbarian and effeminate Constantine as of a god, and call the just, the wise, the great Julian a scoundrel. All the others, who copied the first, repeat the flattery and the calumny. These almost become an article of faith. Finally the time for sound criticism arrives, and, after1,400 years, enlightened men review the cause that ignorance had judged. Constantine is seen as a man, successful in his ambitions, who laughed at god and at mankind. He had the insolence to pretend that god sent him a heavenly sign which ensured his victory. He soaked himself in the blood of all his family, and went to sleep in sloth; but he was a Christian, and was canonized.

Julian was sober, chaste, disinterested, brave, merciful; but he was not a Christian, and was for long regarded as a monster.

Today, having compared the facts, the documents, Julian's writings and those of his enemies, we are compelled to recognize that although he did not like Christianity it was pardonable for him to hate a sect sullied by the blood of all his family; that having been persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, threatened with death by the Galileans in the reign of the barbarous Constantine, he never persecuted them, that on the contrary he pardoned ten Christian soldiers who had conspired against his life.

We read his letters, and we admire him. 'The Galileans,' he says, 'suffered exile and imprisonment under my predecessor. Those who called each other heretics turn and turn about, massacred each other. I have recalled those they exiled, and freed their prisoners. I have returned their property to the outlawed. I have compelled them to live in peace. But such is the restless rage of the Galileans that they complain because they can no longer devour one another.' What a letter! what a verdict pronounced by philosophy against persecuting fanaticism!

In short, everyone who has studied the facts impartially recognizes that Julian had all the qualities of Trajan, except the inclination for which the Greeks and the Romans have so long been forgiven; all the virtues of Cato, but not his obstinacy and his bad temper; all that we admire in Julius Caesar, and none of his vices; he was as chaste as Scipio. In a word, he was in all things the equal of Marcus Aurelius, the greatest of men.

Nowadays we no longer dare to repeat, after the calumniator Theodoret, that Julian immolated a woman in the temple of Carrhae to propitiate the gods. We no longer repeat that in dying he threw with his hand some drops of his blood towards heaven, saying to Jesus Christ: 'You have vanquished, Galilean!' as if he had fought against Jesus in warring against the Persians; as if this philosopher, who died with so much resignation, had acknowledged Jesus; as if he had believed that Jesus was in the air, and that the air was heaven! These inaptitudes of people who are called fathers of the church are no longer repeated nowadays.

They were finally reduced to ridiculing him, as did the frivolous citizens of Antioch. They reproached him his unkempt beard and the way he walked. But master La Bletterie, you have not seen him walk, and you have read his letters and his laws, monuments of his virtues. What does it matter whether his beard was dirty and his walk hurried, so long as his heart was magnanimous and all his steps tended towards virtue?

One important fact today remains to be examined. Julian is reproached with wanting to falsify Jesus Christ's prophecy by rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. It is said that fires came out of the ground which prevented the work. It is said that this was a miracle, and that this miracle converted neither Julian, nor Alypius, manager of the enterprise, nor any member of the court. Whereupon the abbé de la Bletterie says this: 'He and the philosophers of his court no doubt had recourse to their knowledge of natural philosophy to deprive the divinity of so striking a prodigy. Nature has always been the refuge of the incredulous, but she serves religion so aptly that they ought at least to suspect her of collusion.'

First, it is not true that the gospels say that the Jewish temple would never be rebuilt. It is true that the gospel of Matthew, obviously written after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, prophesies that not one stone would be left upon another of this temple of the Idumaean Herod. But no evangelist says that it will never be rebuilt. It is quite false that not one stone remained upon another after Titus had it pulled down. He preserved all the foundations, an entire wall, and the Antonia tower.

Secondly, what does it matter to the divinity whether there is a Jewish temple or a powder magazine or a mosque on the spot where the Jews slaughtered oxen and cows?

Thirdly, it is not known whether these alleged fires, which according to some burned the workmen, emanated from the walled enclosure of the city or from that of the temple. But it is difficult to understand why Jesus should have burned the emperor Julian's workmen when he did not burn those of the caliph Omar who, long after, built a mosque on the ruins of the temple, nor those of the great Saladin, who restored this same mosque. Did Jesus have so great a predilection for the mosques of the Moslems?

Fourthly, Jesus, having predicted that not one stone would remain on another in Jerusalem, did not forbid that it be rebuilt.

Fifthly, Jesus predicted several things the accomplishment of which has not been permitted by god. He predicted the end of the world and his advent in the clouds with great power and great majesty at the end of the generation then living. Nevertheless the world still lasts and apparently will last for some time.

Sixthly, if Julian had described this miracle I would have said that he had been deceived by a false and ridiculous report, I would believe that his enemies the Christians spared no effort to oppose his enterprise, that they killed the workmen and made people believe that those workmen had been killed by a miracle. But Julian does not say a word about it. He was busy then with the war against the Persians. He deferred for a time the building of the temple, and died before he could begin it.

Seventhly, this prodigy is reported by Ammianus Marcellinus, who was a pagan. It is very possible that it was interpolated by the Christians: they have been authentically accused of so many others.

But it is no less likely that at a time when people talked of nothing but prodigies and stories of witchcraft, Ammianus Marcellinus should have reported this fable on the word of some credulous mind. Since Titus Livius down to Thou inclusively all histories are tainted by prodigies.

Eighthly, contemporary writers report that at this time there was a great earthquake in Syria, that fire broke out in several places, and that several towns were swallowed up. Thus no miracle remains.

Ninthly, if Jesus worked miracles, would it be to prevent the rebuilding of a temple in which he himself had offered up sacrifices and had been circumcised? Would he not work miracles to Christianize so many nations which jeer at Christianity, or rather to make his Christians gentler and more humane, they who, from Arius and Athanasius to Roland and Cavalier in the Cévennes, have poured out torrents of blood and behaved like cannibals?

From this I conclude that nature is not in collusion with Christianity, as La Bletterie says, but that La Bletterie is in collusion with old wives' tales, as Julian says: Quibus cum stolidis aniculis negotium erat.

After doing justice to some of Julian's virtues La Bletterie nevertheless ends the history of this great man by saying that his death was a consequence of 'divine vengeance'. If that was so, all heroes who died young were punished by god, from Alexander to Gustavus Adolphus. Julian died the finest of deaths, pursuing his enemies after several victories. Jovian, who succeeded him, reigned a much shorter time than he, and reigned shamefully. I detect no divine vengeance, and I see no more in La Bletterie than a dishonest ranter. But where are the men who dare to speak the truth? The stoic Libanius was one of these rare men. He praised the brave and merciful Julian to Theodosius, the murderer of the Thessalonians, but master Le Beau and master La Bletterie are afraid to praise him to faithful parishioners.

Julian has been reproached because he gave up Christianity, as soon as he could do so without risking his life. This is to reproach a man, taken by thieves and enrolled in their gang with a knife to his throat, for escaping from these brigands. The emperor Constant, no less barbarous than his father Constantine, had soaked himself in the blood of Julian's entire family. He had just killed this great man's blood brother. The empress Eusabia had great difficulty in persuading Constant to allow the young Julian to live. In order not to be murdered this unfortunate prince had to accept a monk's tonsure to ensure and receive what are called the four minor orders. He imitated Junius Brutus, who pretended to be mad in order to outwit Tarquin's fury. He was senseless until the moment when, finding himself in Gaul at the head of an army, he became a man and a great man. This is what is called apostasy by the apostates of reason, if such a term can be applied to those who have never known it.

Montesquieu says: 'Woe to the reputation of any prince who is survived by an enemy faction.' Let us imagine that Julian had completed his victory over the Persians, and that, during a long and peaceful old age, he had seen his ancient religion restored, and Christianity annihilated with the sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, Rechabites, Essenians, Therapeutes, with the worship of the Syrian goddess, and so many more of which no trace remains - then what praises would all the historians have lavished on Julian! Instead of the epithet of apostate he would have been given that of restorer, and the title of divine would not have seemed exaggerated.

Look at the way all our unworthy compilers of Roman history are on their knees to Constantine and Theodosius, with what baseness they palliate their crimes! Nero certainly never did anything comparable to the massacre of the Thessalonians. The Cantabrian Theodosius pretended to pardon the Thessalonians, and six months later he invited them to games in the municipal circus. This circus had room for at least15,000 persons, and it is certain that it was full. The people's passion for spectacles is notorious. Fathers and mothers brought children who could hardly walk. As soon as the crowd had arrived, the Christian emperor sent Christian soldiers, who massacred old men, youngsters, women, girls, children, without sparing a single one. And this monster is exalted by all our compiling plagiarists because, they say, he did penance. Good god, what penance! He did not give an obol to the families of the dead. But he did not go to mass. It must be admitted that one suffers horribly when one does not go to mass, that god is infinitely grateful to you for it, that it redeems all crimes.

The infamous continuator of Laurent Echard calls the massacre ordered by Theodosius a vivacity.

The same wretches who scribble Roman history in a bombastic style full of solecisms, tell you that Theodosius, before engaging battle with his rival Eugene, saw saint John and saint Philip dressed in white, who promised him victory. Let such writers sing hymns to John and to Philip, but let them not write history.

Reader, examine your conscience. You admire, you love Henry IV. But if he had fallen at the battle of Arques, where his enemies were ten to one against him, and where he was victorious only because he was a hero in the fullest sense of the word, you would not know him: he would only be the Bearnese, a guerilla, a relapsed heretic, an apostate. The duc de Mayenne would be a man sent by god, the pope would have canonized saint Philip, riddled though he was by the pox, and saint John would have appeared to him more than once. And you, Daniel the Jesuit, how you would have flattered Mayenne in your poor and arid history! how he would have 'pushed after him', how he would always have 'beaten' the Beamese 'hollow'! how the church would have 'triumphed'!

Careat successibus opto

Ouisquis ab eventu facta notanda putaat.

[I beg that he come to naught who thinks that the deed should be judged by its result.]

Prejudices

A prejudice is an irrational opinion. Thus throughout the world all sorts of opinions are instilled into children before they are able to use judgement.

There are universal and necessary prejudices, which constitute virtue itself. In all countries children are taught to acknowledge a god who rewards and avenges; to respect and love their fathers and mothers; to regard theft as a crime, selfish lying as a vice, before they can imagine what is a vice and a virtue.

There are therefore very good prejudices: they are those ratified by the judgement when one is able to reason.

Feeling is not mere prejudice, it is something much stronger. A mother does not love her son because she has been told that she must love him: she happily cherishes him despite herself. It is not out of prejudice that you run to help an unknown child about to fall into a precipice or to be devoured by an animal.

But it is out of prejudice that you respect a man dressed in a certain way, who behaves solemnly and talks in the same way. Your parents told you that you should bow to this man. You respect him before you know whether he deserves your respect. You grow in age and knowledge. You perceive that this man is a charlatan eaten up with pride, selfishness and guile. You despise what you revered, and prejudice yields to judgement. Out of prejudice you believed the fables with which your childhood was deluded. You were told that the Titans made war on the gods and that Venus was in love with Adonis. When one is twelve one takes these fables for truths, at twenty-one regards them as ingenious allegories.

Let us examine in a few words the different kinds of prejudices, so as to put our affairs into order. We shall perhaps be like those who, at the time of Law's system, realized that they had been counting on imaginary wealth.

Prejudices of the Senses

Is it not an odd thing that our eyes always deceive us, even when we see very well, but that on the contrary our ears do not deceive us? If your ear is in good order and hears: 'You're beautiful, I love you', it is quite certain that you were not told: 'I hate you, you're ugly.' But you see a smooth mirror, and it has been proved that you are mistaken, that in fact it has a very uneven face. The sun has a diameter of about two feet to your eyes. It has been proved to be a million times bigger than the earth.

It seems that god has put the truth into your ears and error into your eyes; but study optics and you will see that god has not deceived you, and that in the present state of things it is impossible for objects to appear to you otherwise than they do.

Physical Prejudices

The sun rises, so does the moon, the earth is immobile: these are natural prejudices concerning the physical world. But that crayfish are good for the blood because they too are red when boiled; that eels cure paralysis because they quiver; that the moon influences illnesses because it was once observed that a patient's fever increased during the waning of the moon: these notions, and a thousand more, were the errors of ancient charlatans, who concluded without reasoning, and who, being deceived, deceived others.

Historical Prejudices

Most histories have been believed without investigation, and this credulity is a prejudice. Fabius Pictor tells us that several centuries before his time a vestal going to draw water in her pitcher, in the town of Elba, was raped, that she gave birth to Romulus and Remus, that they were suckled by a she-wolf, etc. The Roman people believed this fable. They did not inquire whether there had been vestals in Latium at that time, whether it was credible that the daughter of a king should leave her convent with her pitcher, whether it was probable that a she-wolf should suckle two children instead of eating them. The prejudice established itself.

A monk wrote that Clovis, being in great danger at the battle of Tolbiac, vowed to become a Christian if he got through it safely. But is it natural to address oneself to an alien god at such a time? Is it not then that the religion in which one was born acts most powerfully? What Christian, in a battle against the Turks, would not address himself to the holy virgin rather than to Mohammed? It is also said that a pigeon brought the holy ampulla in its beak for the anointment of Clovis, and that an angel brought the oriflamme to guide him. Prejudice believed all the anecdotes of this kind. Those who know human nature are well aware that the usurper Clovis and the usurper Rolon or Rol became Christians in order more easily to control the Christians, just as the Turkish usurpers became Moslems more easily to control the Moslems.

Religious Prejudices

If your nurse told you that Ceres presides over corn, or that Vishnu and Xaca have several times taken human form, or that Sammonocodom came to cut down a forest, or that Odin is waiting for you in his hall somewhere in Jutland, or that Mohammed or somebody else made a journey into heaven; if then your tutor drove into your brain what your nurse engraved there, you will keep hold of it for life. Should your judgement seek to rise above these prejudices, your neighbours, above all the women, scream impiety and frighten you. Your dervish, fearing to see his income diminish, accuses you to the cadi, and his cadi has you impaled if he can, because he wants to command fools, and believes that fools obey better than others. And that will last until your neighbours and the dervish and the cadi begin to understand that folly is worthless and that persecution is abominable.

Pride

In one of his letters Cicero says familiarly to his friend: 'Let me know to whom you would like me to give Gaul.' In another he complains that he is tired of the letters of various princes who thank him for having had their provinces elevated into kingdoms, and he adds that he does not even know where these kingdoms are.

It may be that Cicero, who of course had often been applauded and obeyed by the Roman people, a people that was sovereign, and who was thanked by kings he did not know, had some impulses of pride and vanity.

Although this feeling is not at all suitable for so puny an animal as man, we might nevertheless pardon it in a Cicero, a Caesar, a Scipio, but that at the far end of one of our semi-barbarous provinces a man who has bought a minor office and printed some mediocre verse, should take it into his head to be proud, that is enough to make us laugh loud and long.

Self-love

A vagabond grandly asked for alms near Madrid. A passer-by said to him: 'Aren't you ashamed to carry on this infamous trade when you can work?' 'Sir,' replied the beggar, 'I am asking for your money, not for advice'; then he turned his back, preserving all his Castilian dignity. This gentleman was a proud vagabond; it took little to wound his vanity. He asked for alms out of selflove, and could not bear to be reprimanded by another self-love.

A missionary travelling in India met a fakir loaded with chains, as naked as a monkey, lying on his stomach, and having himself whipped for the sins of his fellow countrymen the Indians, who gave him a few farthings. 'What self-renunciation!' said one of the spectators. 'Self-renunciation!' answered the fakir. 'Know that I have myself lashed in this world only to pay you back in the other, when you will be horses and I a horseman.'

Those who have said that self-love is the basis of all our feelings and of all our actions were therefore quite right in India, in Spain, and in all the habitable world: and just as no one writes to prove to men that they have faces, there is no need to prove to them that they have self-love. This self-love is the instrument of our conservation; it resembles the instrument that perpetuates the species: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and it must be hidden.

Wicked

We are told loudly that human nature is essentially perverse, that man is born the child of the devil, and wicked. Nothing is more ill-considered. For, old friend, you who preach that the whole world is born perverse, you warn me that you were born thus, that I must distrust you like a fox or a crocodile. 'Not at all!' you tell me, 'I'm regenerated, I'm neither heretical nor infidel, you can trust me.' But the rest of mankind, which is either heretical or what you call infidel, is nothing but an assembly of monsters; and every time you talk to a Lutheran or to a Turk you must feel sure that they will rob and murder you, for they are children of the devil, born wicked, one unregenerated, the other degenerated. It would be much more rational, much more elegant to say to men: You are all born good; consider how awful it would be to corrupt the purity of your being. We ought to have behaved to mankind as we behave to every individual man. If a monk leads a scandalous life, we say to him: 'Would you really dishonour the dignity of a monk?' A lawyer is reminded that he has the honour to be a royal councillor, and should give an example. In order to encourage a soldier he is told: 'Remember that you belong to the regiment of Champagne.' Every individual should be told: 'Remember your human dignity.'

And in fact, whatever is said about it, we always come back to that; for what is the meaning of the saying, so often used in all nations, search your heart? If you were born a child of the devil, if your origin were criminal, if your blood were composed of an infernal liquid, this phrase search your heart would mean: consult, follow your diabolic nature, be an impostor, a thief, a murderer, it is the law of your father.

Man is not born wicked; he becomes wicked, as he falls ill. Doctors come along and say: 'You were born ill.' It is quite certain that these doctors, whatever they say and do, will not cure him if his sickness is inherent in his nature; and these thinkers are very ill themselves.

Collect all the children of the universe, and you will see in them only innocence, gentleness and fear. If they were born wicked, evil-doing, cruel, they would show some sign of it, just as small serpents try to bite and little tigers to claw. But nature, not having given more offensive arms to men than to pigeons and rabbits, could not give them an instinct of destruction.

So man is not born evil. Then why are some of them infected by this plague of wickedness? It is because their leaders, being infected by the disease, communicate it to the rest of mankind, just as a woman attacked by the malady brought back from America by Columbus spread this poison from one end of Europe to the other. The first ambitious man corrupted the earth.

You are going to say that this first monster brought out the germ of pride, rapine, fraud, cruelty that is in all men. I admit, generally speaking, that most of our brothers can acquire these qualities; but does everybody have putrid fever, the stone and the gravel because everybody is exposed to them?

There are whole nations that are not wicked: the Philadelphians, the Banians, have never killed anyone; the Chinese, the peoples of Tongking, Laos, Siam, even Japan, have had no war for more than a hundred years. One of the great crimes that shock human nature is hardly seen once in ten years in the cities of Rome, Venice, Paris, London, Amsterdam, although in these cities cupidity, the mother of all crimes, is extreme.

If men were essentially wicked, if they were all born subject to a being as malevolent as he is unhappy, who inspired them with all his rage to avenge himself for his own suffering, we would see every morning husbands murdered by their wives, and fathers by their children, as we find at daybreak chickens strangled by a weasel who came to suck their blood.

If there are a billion men on earth, it is a lot. That would make about 500 million women who sew, spin, feed their little ones, clean their houses or huts, and gossip a little about their neighbours. I do not see what great harm these innocents do on earth. Out of this number of inhabitants of the globe, there are at least 200 million children, who certainly neither kill nor plunder, and about as many old or sick people who are not able to do so. At most there remain 100 million young people, robust and capable of crime. Of these 100 million, 90 million are regularly occupied in prodigious labour to force the earth to yield them food and clothing: these hardly have time to do wrong.

Among the ten million who remain are included the idle and the gregarious, who only want to enjoy themselves; men of talent, busy with their professions; magistrates, priests, obviously concerned to live pure lives, at least in appearance. So the only really wicked men who remain are a few politic individuals, whether secular or religious, who always want to create trouble, and a few thousand vagabonds who hire out their services to these intriguers. In fact, there are never a million of these ferocious beasts employed at one time; and in this number I include highwaymen. So there is at most on earth, in the stormiest times, one man in a thousand who can be called wicked, and even he is not so all the time.

There is thus infinitely less evil on the earth than is said and believed. No doubt there is still too much. Horrible misfortunes and crimes are seen, but the pleasure of complaining and exaggerating is so great that at the slightest scratch you exclaim that the earth overflows with blood. If you have been cheated all men are perjurers. A melancholic who has suffered an injustice sees the universe covered with the damned, just as a young voluptuary, supping with his lady after the opera, cannot imagine that unfortunates exist.

图书在版编目（CIP）数据

沉思录：英汉对照／（法）笛卡尔著；孙平华，赵金芳译．—北京：中译出版社，2015.11

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-4352-9

Ⅰ．①沉…　Ⅱ．①笛…②孙…③赵…　Ⅲ．①笛卡尔，R．（1596～1650）—哲学思想—汉、英　Ⅳ．①B565.21

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2015）第270789号

（著作权合同登记：图字01-2015-7262号）

Penguin Books Ltd，Registered Offices：80 Strand，London WC2R 0RL，England

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Taken from Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings

Published in Penguin Classics 1998

This selection published in Penguin Books 2010

Copyright © Desmond M．Clarke，1998，2000

All rights reserved

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版　　次／2016年1月第一版

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印　　次／2016年1月第一次

ISBN 978–7–5001–4352–9

定　　价：26.00元

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《伟大的思想》中文版序

企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国，已付梓八十种，尚有二十种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小，德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过二百万册，在全球众多读者间，尤其是学生当中，普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出，迈出了新的一步，令人欢欣鼓舞。

推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太久以来，确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作，因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑十分有用，但我想，如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境，营造更具亲和力的氛围，也许是一件有趣的事。这样，读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。

这样做有一定的缺陷：每位作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处，一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如，读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情形毫无头绪，也不了解该书的接受情况以及影响；不过，这样做的优点也显而易见。最突出的优点是：作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在许多国家影响着许多人的生活，其影响难以估量；长达几个世纪，读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华，或无法想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代久远，但其中的话语彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。

《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地域不同，收录的作家亦不同。在中国或美国，一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”，我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大，在于其影响之深远，而不意味着这些思想是“好”的，实际上一些书或可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响，例如，马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大，米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响，但其他作家彼此憎恶，如果发现他们被收入同一丛书，一定会气愤难平。不过，读者可自行判明这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望，您可以从阅读这些杰作中获得乐趣。

《伟大的思想》出版者

西蒙·温德尔

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004．In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20．A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related，even smaller series in Germany．The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world—particularly students．The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.

The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great nonfiction classics．For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction，extensive notes，a bibliography and so on．While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful，I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling—to recreate the atmosphere in which，for example，Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published—where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.

This method has its severe disadvantages—there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand，some important context might be missing．For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of thebook's reception or influence．The advantages however are very clear—most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important.The sense of anger inThomas Paine，of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin，of resignation in Seneca—few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives，sometimes for centuries，in many different countries．Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer—our politics，economics，intellectual lives，social planning，religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books，first written down long ago.

The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve．In different parts of the world different writers would be included．In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others．In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere．We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas—these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential，but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas—indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas．Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series—for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin，Michel de Montaigne to Seneca．But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series！But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves．We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.

Simon Winder Publisher

Great Ideas

目录

《伟大的思想》中文版序

Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas

译者导读

前言

六个沉思之总结

第一哲学沉思录

反驳和答辩

Contents

Preface to the Reader

Summary of the Following Six Meditations

Meditations

Objections and Replies

返回总目录

译者导读

勒内·笛卡尔（René Descartes，1596—1650），生于法国安德尔-卢瓦尔省的图赖讷拉海（现名为笛卡尔，因笛卡尔得名），是法国著名的哲学家、数学家、物理学家。他对现代数学的发展作出了重要的贡献，因将几何坐标体系公式化而被认为是解析几何之父。他还是西方现代哲学思想的奠基人，是近代唯物论的开拓者且提出了“普遍怀疑”的主张。他的哲学思想深深影响了之后的几代欧洲人，开拓了所谓“欧陆理性主义”哲学。

笛卡尔的著名作品之一是《沉思录》。笛卡尔把《方法导论》中所描述的哲学再加以发挥，撰写成《第一哲学沉思》（Meditationes des primapilosophia）。为了慎重起见，他将手稿的样本分寄给当时著名的神学家和哲学家，以征求他们的意见。该书的对象是学术界的人士，用拉丁文写成，全名为《形而上学沉思，证明天主实有及灵魂的不死不减》（Meditationes de prima philosophia in quibus Deiexistentia et animae humanoe immertalitas demonstrantur）。笛卡尔将学者的疑难和自己的答辩一并附在书中于1641年出版，被后人称为《沉思录》。该书是笛卡尔的成熟之作，成为研究他的哲学思想的主要资料。

《沉思录》分为两部分，第一部分是笛卡尔对怀疑、人类的精神、上帝的存在、真理和错误、物质性东西以及灵魂和肉体的区别等六个问题的沉思。

第二部分是笛卡尔自己收集起来的反驳和他对这些反驳的答辩，字里行间展示了笛卡尔哲学的有趣之处。他十分留心被普遍接受的大量错误的概念，决定要达到恢复真理的目的，就需从零开始做起。因此开始怀疑老师教给他的一切，包括所有最崇高的信仰，所有的常识观念，甚至外部世界的存在，连同自己的存在。

第一组反驳是由荷兰神学家卡特鲁斯提出的，他把自己的回答送给麦尔塞纳，希望他收集其他人的意见。结果，以麦尔塞纳为首的一批神学家向他提出了第二组反驳。第三组反驳是由英国哲学家霍布斯提出的。第四组反驳是杨森主义者阿尔诺提出的。第五组反驳是原子论者伽森狄提出的一长篇反驳，并且后来对笛卡尔的回答也作了反驳。第六组反驳是由麦尔塞纳集合起来的一批哲学家、几何学家和神学家们提出的。这些反驳之音和笛卡尔本人的答辩实际上是欧洲近代第一次公开的、直接的哲学论战。它们对于了解笛卡尔的哲学思想有着十分重要的意义。

前言

我在《谈引导理性和探求真理的方法》（以下简称《谈方法》）一书中曾简单探讨过有关上帝和人的头脑的问题。该书是于1637年用法文出版的。当时我无意深入探讨这两个问题，只是简单地介绍了一番，为的是从读者的反应中了解该如何展开进一步的探讨。我一向认为这两个问题非常重要，应该不止一次地去探讨；而在解释这两个问题上，我采取的方式又很新奇，不同于往常，因此我认为在这本法文书里详细探讨这两个问题，也没什么帮助，因为大家都能看懂，以免天赋不如我的人会以为他们应该效仿这一方法。

在《谈方法》里，我曾请凡是在我的书里看出什么值得反驳之处的人，费心把这些地方告诉我，但是，关于我书中谈到的问题，只有两点异议值得一提。我想在确切地解释这两点异议以前，简短地介绍下异议的内容。

第一个异议是：人类大脑反思自身，把自身看作思维之物，但不能由此推断大脑的本性或实质仅仅在于它是思维之物，“仅仅”这一词就把其他凡是有可能说得上也是属于灵魂的东西都排除掉了。我对这个异议的回答是：在那种情况下，我并不想按照问题的实质（因为那时我还没有谈到问题的实质），而仅仅是按照我自己的思路，把它们排除了。所以，我的意思是：我除了只知道我是一个在思维之物，或者说我是一个具有思维能力的东西之外，我那时还没发现有什么东西是属于我的本质的。不过接下来，我将指出我是怎么从我不知道别的什么东西属于我的本质这个事实，推断出事实上并没有什么别的东西是属于我的本质的。

第二个异议是：从我心里有一个比我完满的东西的观念这个事实不能得出结论说这个观念比我完满，更不能说这个观念所代表的东西存在。我的回答是：“观念”这个词在这里的意思是模棱两可的。它一方面可以被理解为实质性的，它本身是我的理智的一种活动，在这个意义上，不能说观念比我完满。或者，它可以被理解成意向性的，是观念所代表的事物，即使不能认定这个事物存在于我的理智之外，但就它的本质而言，它却可以比我完满。然而如何仅仅从我心里有比我完满的一个东西的观念这件事，就推断出这个事物的真实存在，接下来我将具体说明。

除了这两个异议以外，我还看到两篇长篇大论的文章。这两篇文章用无神论者的共同论点攻击我的结论，而不是攻击我所作的推理。由于这一类论据对于能正确理解我的观点的人不能产生什么影响，同时也由于很多人的判断违背常理，愚昧不堪，他们宁愿相信对事物先入为主的看法，不管这种看法有多么不正确、多么不合道理，也不愿相信后来才了解到的反驳，尽管反驳很准确而且真实可靠。在这里我不想对这些异议进行答辩，以免成为第一个解答这些异议的人。我想简要地说，所有由无神论者提出的反对上帝存在的东西，或者是因为错误地把人类的感情归因于上帝，或者就是自以为掌握了强大的能力和高妙的智慧，这样我们就能决定和了解上帝能做什么或者应该做什么了。因此，只要我们知道我们人类的头脑被认为是有限的，而上帝却被认为是无限的，不能被掌握的，他们的观点就不会给我们造成任何困难了。

现在，在理解了大家的意见之后，我再重新回到关于上帝和人的头脑的问题，同时也回到整个第一哲学的开端，但我既不希求普遍的认可，也不希求大量的读者。事实上，除非人们愿意并且能够和我一起进行严肃认真的沉思并且能够使思维脱离感官和偏见，我绝不劝人们读我的书，同时我也知道这样的读者为数不多。至于那些不屑于考虑我的论据的逻辑和内在联系并经常断章取义的人，他们读了我的书也不会从中获益。尽管他们也许会找到机会对很多地方吹毛求疵，但他们也不可能轻易就提出意义重大，值得回应的反驳观点来。

然而，我甚至不能保证使这些剩下的读者们在初次阅读我的书时，能在方方面面都满意，我也不会自大地认为我能够预见到读者们所面临的所有问题。因而，我将在《沉思录》里首先阐明，正是按照这种想法，我终于认识了一些显明的真理，以便试试看我是否也能通过同样的理由让别人相信这个真理。在此之后，我再对那些博学多才的人提出的异议进行答辩。《沉思录》在出版前就寄给他们作评论了。他们提出了那么多各种各样的异议，我敢说别的人很难再提出什么更重要、没有涉及到的反驳了。因此，我想重申，请读者们在费心看过所有那些异议和我对那些异议所作的答辩之后，再对《沉思录》这本书作出判断。

六个沉思之总结

第一个沉思指出，我们有理由怀疑一切，特别是物质性的东西，因为除了在科学里现有的那些根据之外，还找不出别的根据。虽然这种普遍怀疑的益处在初期阶段还不很明显，不过，它可以让我们摆脱各种各样的成见，给我们提供一条让灵魂脱离感官影响的捷径，并且最终让我们对后来发现的真实事物绝不可能再有什么怀疑，这对我们来说是非常重要的。

在第二个沉思里，只要对事物的存在有一点点怀疑，头脑就可以自由地假定它们都不存在，不过绝不能认为它自身在那段时间是不存在的。这也是很有益的，因为头脑用这个办法很容易把属于它自身的东西，也就是属于理智性的东西，与属于物质性的东西区分开来。

但是，既然有些读者可能会希望在这部分找到我对灵魂不灭的论证，我应该立刻警告他们，凡是我不能严格论证的东西，我是决不会写进书中的。所以，我不得不采用几何学家所使用的方法：先提出求证的命题的全部根据，然后再下结论。那么，在认识灵魂不灭之前，首要之务是形成关于灵魂的清晰的概念，这个概念要完全有别于有关物体的一切概念，这一点在《沉思录》中已经做到了。除此以外，还要求知道我们所清楚、分明领会的一切东西本来就是按照我们所领会的那样都是真实的。这在第四个沉思以前还没有能够论证。另外，物质性质还必须有一个清楚的概念，这个概念一部分见于第二个沉思里，一部分见于第五个和第六个沉思里。应该从这一切里得出一个结论：凡是被清楚、分明地领会为不同实体性的东西，就如领会头脑和身体那样，实际上都是互相有别的：我在第六个沉思中作出了这个结论。在这个沉思中还证实了一点：我们把一切身体都领会为是可分割的，相比而言，头脑只能被领会为是不可分割的。我们不能领会半个头脑的概念，而我们却能够领会哪怕是最小的身体。所以头脑和身体在性质上不仅不同，甚至在某种意义上是相反的。

不过我没有在这本书里更进一步谈这个问题，一方面因为这些阐述足以说明灵魂不会随着肉体的腐烂而灭亡，因此也足够给人们第二次生命的希望；同时也因为我们可以由之而推论出灵魂不灭首先取决于整个物理学界的解释。首先要知道的是，一切实体，也就是说，事物要想生存，必须被上帝创造，从本性来说，无一例外，它们是不可毁灭的，除非是创造它们的上帝终止存续，要把它们消灭掉，否则它们就永远存在。其次，我们要了解的是，从一般的意义来说，物体是一种实体，因此它也是永远不灭的；但是人的肉体，就其有别于其他物体这一点来说，它不过是由一些肢体和其他类似的一些多变的特点组合成的；而人的大脑不是像这样由多变的特点组合而成，它是一种单纯的实体，即使多变的特点发生变化，它也能领会不同的东西，希求不同的东西，感觉不同的东西，等等，因此，精神是不变的；而人的肉体，仅仅由于它的某些部分的形状改变，它就不再是同一肉体了。由此可见人的肉体可能确实很容易死灭，但是精神，从它的本性来说，是不灭的。

在第三个沉思里，我认为我相当详尽地解释了我的主要论点以证明上帝的存在。不过为了尽量地让读者的精神从感官摆脱出来，我不想用物质性的东西进行比较，因而也许还留有很多模糊不清的地方，对于这些模糊不清的地方，之后，我会在对反驳所作的答辩中将其澄清。比如在众多反驳中有这样一个反驳，在我们心里的一个至上完满的存在体的观念怎么会包含那么多的意图上的实在性，以致它必然应当来自一个至上完满的原因，这是相当难以理解的。在答辩里，我用了一个完美的机器作为类比来说明，这个机器的观念存在于某一个设计者的心里。这个观念的精巧必然有某个原因，那就是设计者的学识，或者从别人身上学的知识，因此同样道理，在我们心里上帝的观念的形成也是有一定原因的，而这个原因就是上帝自己。

在第四个沉思里，凡是我们领会得非常清楚、分明的东西，都被证明是真的；同时我也解释了错误的本质；为了证实以前的观点，也为了更好地理解以后的，以上两点是我们必须知晓的。（同时需要指出的是：我在这里讨论的不是罪恶，换言之，就是在追求善恶之间所犯的错误，我在这里仅仅论述在分辨真假时所产生的错误；我也不打算涉及宗教信仰，或是日常行为方面的东西，而是只涉及理论上的真理，这些真理只有借助于自然之光才能为我们所认识。）

除了解释一般意义上的物质性，第五个沉思运用了新论断来论证上帝的存在，这里可能也会产生一些困难，但是这些困难我将在对异议所作的答辩里去解决。最后，在某种意义上，几何学论证的正确性本身取决于对上帝的认识这一观点是正确的。

最后，在第六个沉思中，我把理性和想象加以区分；并解释了这种区分的标准；证实了人的灵魂确实有别于肉体，却又和肉体紧密结合，形成一个整体；评估了由感官产生的一些错误；提出了避免错误的办法；最后介绍了可能推理出物质存在的各种理由。我认为这些论据对于证明它们已经证明的东西没有什么用，也就是说，确实有一个世界，人有肉体以及诸如此类的事情，这些都是任何一个正常人从来没有怀疑过的。然而，通过思考这些论据，对于上帝和我们的灵魂的认识问题，它们显然就没有那么清晰和有说服力了。因而，我们在精神上对上帝和我们的灵魂的认识理由是最可靠、最明显的理由。我在这六个沉思中唯一的目的就是证明这一点。因此，我在这里不再回顾其他很多问题，关于那些问题，我在《沉思录》里也讨论过了。

第一哲学沉思录

论上帝的存在和人的灵魂与肉体之间的区别

第一个沉思

论可以怀疑的事物

几年前，我注意到，在幼年时期，我就把一大堆错误的事物当作真相了，并且根据这些错误的事物所建立起来的东西是多么不可靠。因此我曾一度认为，如果我想要在科学领域建立起某种坚定可靠、经久不变的东西，我就得把我历来信以为真的一切东西全部颠覆，再从最基本的东西上重新开始。可是这个任务对我来说好像太大了，我也一直等待我能够到达一个成熟的年纪，在那个再合适不过的年纪完成这个任务。因此，我已经等得太久，从现在起，如果再不把我的余生用来展开工程，光是考虑来考虑去的话，那我就该受到责备。所以现在，我恰当地将思绪从一切顾虑中解放出来，安排一段时间使自己免于干扰，我要独自在尽可能长的时间里认真地、自由地来对我的旧见解进行一次总的清算。

可是，为了达到这个目的，没有必要去证明我的旧见解都是错误的——这可能是我永远完不成的工作。不过，理性使我们相信对于那些不是完全确定无疑的东西，我们不应该轻易相信，就像不要相信那些显然是错误的东西一样，如果我找到可以怀疑我的观念的理由，那就足以使我把它们全盘否定。然而，不需要把它们拿来一个个地检查了，因为那将会是一件没完没了的工作。只要根基被破坏，在此基础上建立的东西就自然而然地随之而倒塌，所以我要首先质疑全部旧见解依靠的首要原则。

直到现在，凡是我当作最真实的东西，都是我从感官或通过感官得来的。不过，我有时觉得这些感官欺骗了我；为了小心谨慎起见，对于骗过我们的东西，哪怕就只有一次，也决不加以信任。

可是，虽然感官有时在细微的或遥远的东西上骗过我们，但是也许有很多别的东西，我们绝对不能怀疑，即使它们是来自感官；比如，我在这里，坐在炉火旁边，穿着室内长袍，两只手上拿着这张纸，以及诸如此类的事情。说真的，我怎么能否认这两只手和这个身体是属于我的呢，除非我认为自己和那些让坏脾气冲昏头脑的疯子有些相似？他们穷得叮当响，却以为自己是国王；他们一丝不挂，却以为自己身披黄袍；或者他们的脑袋是陶器做的、是空罐子，或者他们就是用玻璃做的。但是这些人是一群疯子，如果我也和他们做一样的事儿，我就和他们一样疯癫了。

很好。但是我不是一个习惯于晚上睡觉并在梦中做跟疯子一样的事的人，有时，甚至比疯子醒着时做出的事更荒唐。有多少次夜晚的平静使我相信熟悉的事物，比如，我夜里梦见我在这个地方，穿着衣服，在炉火旁边，虽然我是一丝不挂地躺在我的被窝里睡觉！但是，我现在确实用我瞪大的眼睛看到这张纸，我摇晃着的脑袋也并没有发昏，我故意小心地伸出这只手，感受这只手，睡梦中的人是不会感受到如此清晰的事物的。我在其他场合睡觉时也被类似的思想欺骗过。想到这里，我就明显地看到没有什么相当可靠的迹象使人能够分辨出清醒和睡梦来，这不禁使我大吃一惊，吃惊到几乎能够让我相信我现在是在睡觉。

那么让我们就假定我们是睡着了，假定所有这些情况，比如我睁开眼睛，摇晃脑袋，伸出手来等等，都是不真实的；让我们设想我们甚至没有这样的手以及整个身体。但是我们必须承认，出现在我们梦里的那些东西就像某些熟悉的影像，它们只有模仿某种真实的东西才能被描绘。因此，至少那些一般的东西，比如眼睛、脑袋、手，以及整个身体，并不是想象出来的东西，而是真的、存在的东西。即使当画家们努力想象出最奇特的人鱼和人羊，他们也不能给它们加上完全新奇的性质，他们不过是把不同动物的肢体掺和拼凑起来。就算他们偶然想出什么新奇的东西，新奇到我们连类似的东西都没有看见过，从而让他们的作品表现出一种虚构的和错误的东西来，然而，至少他们绘画所用的颜色总应该是真实的吧。同样道理，就算这些一般的东西，例如眼睛、脑袋、手，以及诸如此类的东西都是幻想出来的，可是总得承认，至少一些其他的东西是真实的，它们更简单、更一般，由于这些东西的掺杂，不多不少正像某些真实的颜色掺和起来一样，就形成了存在于我们思维中的东西的一切形象，不管这些东西是真实的，还是虚构的。一般的物理性质和它的广延，以及具有广延性东西的形状、量或大小和数目都属于这一类东西；还有这些东西所处的地点、所占的时间，以及诸如此类的东西。

因此，我们从以上所说的这些将作出这样的结论也许是不会错的：物理学、天文学、医学，以及研究各种复合事物的其他一切科学都是可疑的；而算术、几何学，以及类似的其他科学，由于他们所对待的都不过是一些非常简单、非常一般的东西，不大考虑这些东西是否存在于自然界中，因而反而都含有某种确定无疑的东西。因为，不管我醒着还是睡着，二和三加在一起总是得五，正方形总不会有四个以上的边；像这样明显的一些真理，是不会让人怀疑的。

虽然如此，很久以来我心里就有一种想法：有一个上帝，他是全能的，就是由他把我现在自己喜欢的这个样子创造出来的。虽然上帝绝对没有创造天、地，没有创造带有广延性的物体，没有创造形状、大小和地点，可是，我怎么知道他仍然让人感觉这些东西似乎将按照现在的样子存在着。还有，就像别人甚至在他们以为知道得最准确的事情上弄错一样，也可能是上帝有意让我每次在二加三上，或者在数一个正方形的边上，或者在判断什么更容易的东西（如果人们可以想出来比这更容易的东西的话）上弄错。但是，也许上帝不允许我被如此欺骗，因为他被人说成是至善的。尽管如此，如果说把我做成这样，让我总是弄错，这是和他的善良性相抵触的话，那么容许我有时弄错好像也是和他的善良相异的，但是我不能这样断言。

这里也许有人宁愿否认一个如此强大的上帝的存在而不去相信其他一切事物都是不确定的。不过我们目前还不要去反对他们，让我们假定上面所说的凡是关于一个上帝的话都是无稽之谈。假定我现在的境况要归于某种命运或宿命，或者归之于偶然，或者连续的事件抑或其他希望的方式。既然失误和弄错是一种不完满，那么肯定的是，他们给我的来源所指定的作者越是无能，我就越可能是不完满，以致我总是弄错。对于这样的一些论证，我无可答辩；但是最后我不得不承认，凡是我早先的信仰，没有一个是我现在不能怀疑的，这绝不是由于考虑不周或轻率，而是由于强有力的、经过深思熟虑的理由。因此，假如我想要找到确然可信的东西的话，我今后就不应该赞同这些信仰，就像对待那些明显错误的东西一样。

但是，仅仅知道这些还不够，我还必须把它们记住；因为这些旧的、平常的见解经常回到我的思维中来，它们跟我相处的长时期的亲密习惯给了它们权利，让它们不由我的意愿而占据了我的心，差不多成了支配我的信念的主人。只要我把它们按照它们的实际情况那样来加以考虑，即像我刚才指出的那样，它们在某种方式上是可疑的，然而却是十分可能的，因而人们有更多的理由去相信它们而不去否认它们，那么我就永远不能把承认和信任它们的习惯破除。就是因为这个缘故，我想，如果我反过来千方百计地来骗我自己，假装所有这些见解都是错误的，幻想出来的，直到在把我的这些成见反复加以衡量之后，使它们不致让我的主义偏向这一边或那一边，使我的判断今后不致为坏习惯所左右，不致舍弃可以导向认识真理的正路反而误入歧途，那我就做得更加慎重了。因为我知道这既不能产生危险，也不能造成错误，并且我不能夸大我的谨慎，因为现在的问题不在于行动，而仅仅在于认识。

因此，我要假定有某一个妖怪，而不是一个真正的上帝（他是真理的源泉），这个妖怪强大而狡猾，他用尽了力量来骗我。我要认为天、空气、地、颜色、形状、声音以及我们所看到的一切外界事物都不过是邪恶的精灵用来骗取我轻信的一些假象。我要把我自己看成是本来就没有手，没有眼睛，没有肉，没有血，什么感官都没有，但是，好像我对这些东西的信念都是错误的。我要坚决地保持这种想法；如果用这个办法我还认识不了什么真理，那么至少我将做我能做的。也就是说，我要小心从事，不去相信任何错误的东西，不让骗子强加给我任何东西，不管他多么强大，多么狡诈。可是，这个打算是非常艰苦吃力的，而且某一种惰性使我不知不觉地又回到我日常的生活方式中来。我就像一个囚犯，在睡梦中享受一种虚构的自由，而且随后开始怀疑他是真的睡了而害怕醒来时，他就和这些愉快的幻象串通起来。与此同时，我自己也不知不觉地重新掉进原先的信念中去，我害怕从这种迷迷糊糊的状态中清醒过来，害怕在这个休息的恬静之后随之而来的是辛勤工作，我生活的未来没有光明，反而在刚刚讨论过的无法摆脱这些难题的黑暗中。

第二个沉思

论人的精神的本性以及精神比物体更容易认识

昨天的沉思给我带来了如此严重的困难，以至于我今后再也不能把它们忘掉。可是我却看不出能用什么办法来解决它们；我就好像一下子掉进非常深的漩涡里似的，惊慌失措得既不能让脚在水底站稳，也不能游上来让自己浮在水面。虽然如此，我将努力沿着我昨天已经走上的道路继续前进，再次检验同一个策略，躲开我能够想象出有一点点可疑的什么东西，就好像我知道它是绝对错误的一样。我还要在这条路上一直走下去，直到我碰到什么可靠的东西，或者，至少直到我确实知道在世界上就没有什么可靠的东西时为止。为了移动地球，阿基米德要寻找一个固定的支点。同样的，如果我有幸找到一件确切无疑的小事物，那么我就可以心怀更大的希望了。

因此我假定凡是我看见的东西都是假的。我相信，虚假记忆所代表的东西从来都没有存在过。我认为我没有感官，物体、形状、广延、运动和地点都是不真实的。除了世界上根本就没有什么可靠的东西外，也许再也没有别的了。

可是我怎么知道除了我刚才断定为不可靠的那些东西外，没有我们不能丝毫怀疑的什么别的东西呢？难道就没有上帝，或者什么别的力量，把这些想法放在我心里吗？当我自己也许就能够产生这些想法时？我为什么要这样想？那么至少我，难道我不是什么东西吗？可是我已经否认了我有感官和身体。尽管如此，我犹豫了，因为从这方面会得出什么结论来呢？难道我就是非依靠身体和感官不可，没有它们就不能生存吗？可是我曾说服我自己相信世界上什么都没有，没有天，没有地，没有精神，也没有物体；难道连我也不存在吗？然而，我确实存在，如果我曾说服我自己相信什么东西。可是有一个我不知道是什么的非常强大、狡猾的骗子，他总是用尽一切伎俩来骗我。因此，如果他骗我，那么毫无疑问我是存在的；而且他想怎么骗我就怎么骗我，只要我想到我是一个什么东西，他就总不会使我成为什么都不是。所以，在对每件事很好地加以思考后，最后必须作出这样的结论，而且必须把它当成确定无疑的，即有我，我存在这个命题，每次当我说出它来，或者在心里想到它的时候，这个命题必然是真的。

可是我还不大清楚，这个确实存在的我到底是什么，所以今后我必须小心，不要冒冒失失地把别的什么东西当成我，同时也不要在我认为比我以前所有的一切认识都更可靠、更明显的这个认识上弄错了。就是为了这个缘故，所以在我有上述这些想法之前，先要重新考虑我从前认为我是什么；并且要把凡是可以被我刚才讲的那些理由所削弱的东西，全部从我的旧见解中铲除出去，让剩下来的东西恰好是完全确定和不可动摇的。

那么我以前认为我是什么呢？毫无疑问，我是一个人。可是人是什么呢？我想说是一个有理性的动物吗？当然不；因为在这以后，下面的问题就会随之产生：什么是动物，什么是有理性的？这样一来我就将要从仅仅一个问题上不知不觉地陷入两个更困难的问题中去了，而我没有太多的闲暇浪费在像这样的一些细节上。可是，无论什么时候我思考我是什么，我都会思考从前在我心里自然生发出来的那些思想，我过去常常首先想到的是我有脸、手、胳臂，以及肢体组合成的这么一架整套机器，就像从一具尸体上看到的那样，这架机器，我曾称之为身体。我还曾想到我吃饭、走路、感觉、思维，并且我把我所有这些行动都归到灵魂上去；但是我还没有细想这个灵魂到底是什么；或者说，我把它想成未知的东西，它是那么微妙，好像一阵风，一股火焰，或者一股气，这个东西钻进我身体可以看见的部分里。至于物体，我决不怀疑它；我曾以为我把它的性质认识得非常清楚了，并且如果我试着描述我是如何构思它的，我就会这样解释它：物体，我是指一切能为某种形状所限定的东西；它能限制在某个地方，能充满一个空间，在那里，其他任何物体都被排挤出去；它能由触觉、视觉、听觉、味觉，或者嗅觉而被感觉到；它能以若干方式被移动，不过不是靠它自己移动，而是被接触它的东西所推动。因为我认为靠自己移动，无论如何都不属于物体的本性，像本身有自动、感觉和思维等能力的这样一些优越性，事实上，看到像这样一些功能出现在某些物体之中，我倒是非常奇怪的。

可是，现在我假定有某一个极其强大，并且如果可以这样说的话，极其恶毒、狡诈的人，他用尽他的力量和机智来骗我，那么我到底是什么呢？我能够说我具有一点点我刚才归之于物质的本质的那些东西吗？我在这上面进一步细想，在心里把这些东西想来想去，我没有找到其中任何一个是我可以说存在于心里的。重复这个过程而且像以前一样不能取得成功让人感觉很累。就拿灵魂的那些属性来说吧，首先两个是吃饭和走路。既然我真是没有身体，我也就真是既不能走路，也不能吃饭；另外一个是感觉，可是没有身体就不能感觉，除非是我以为以前我在梦中感觉到了很多东西，可是醒来之后我认出实际上并没有感觉。另外是思维。对，就是思维，现在我觉得思维是唯一不能跟我分开的。有我，我存在这是靠得住的，可是，多长时间？我思维多长时间，就存在多长时间。因为假如我停止思维，也许很可能我就同时停止了存在。我现在对不是必然真实的东西一概不接受，因此，严格来说，我只是一个在思维的东西，也就是说，一个精神，一个灵魂，一个理智，或者一个理性，这些名称的意义是我以前不知道的。那么我是一个真实的东西，真正存在着。可是，是一个什么样的东西呢？我说过：是一个在思维的东西。

还是什么呢？我想象，我不是由肢体拼凑起来的被称之为人体的那种东西；我不是一种稀薄、渗透到所有这些肢体里的空气；我不是风，不是火，不是水汽或呼气，也不是我所能想象出来的任何东西，因为我假定过这些都是不存在的。即使这个假定站得住脚，我仍然是一个东西。可是，能不能是这样的：由于我不认识而假定不存在的那些东西，同我所认识的我并没有什么不同？我一点也不知道。关于这一点我现在不去讨论，我只能对我认识的那些东西作判断：我已经认识到我存在着，现在我追问，我已经认识的这个我究竟是谁？可是关于我自己的认识，严格来说既不取决于我还不知道其存在的那些东西，也不取决于任何一个用想象虚构出来的东西，这一点我是非常确定的。“虚构”这个词让我警醒我的错误。因为，如果我把我想象成一个什么东西，那么实际上我就是在虚构了，因为想象只是去深思一个物质性东西的形状或影像。然而，我已经确实知道了我存在着，同时也确实知道了所有那些影像，以及一般说来，凡是人们归之于物质本质的东西都很可能不过是梦罢了。其次，我意识到，如果我说我要发动想象力以便更清楚地认识我是谁，这和我说我现在是醒着，我看到某种实在和真实的东西，但是由于我看得还不够明白，我要故意睡着，好让我的梦给我把它更真实、更明显地提供出来一样，是同样不合道理的。这样一来，我认识到，凡是我能用想象的办法来理解的东西，都和我对自己的认识无关；认识到，要让精神把它的性质认识得十分清楚，那么就要让精神远离这些东西。

那么我究竟是什么呢？是一个在思维的东西。什么是一个在思维的东西呢？那就是说，一个在怀疑、在领会、在肯定、在否定、在愿意、在不愿意，也在想象、在感觉的东西。当然，如果所有这些东西都适用于我，那就不算少了。可是，为什么这些东西不属于我的本性呢？难道我不是几乎什么都怀疑，然而却了解某些东西，确认和肯定只有这些东西是真实的，否认一切别的东西，希望认识得更多一些，不愿意受骗，想象除自身之外的很多东西，并且注意到很多东西，好像这些东西来自感官。难道所有这一切就没有一件是和我一样，确实存在、同样真实的，尽管我总是睡觉，尽管使我存在的那个人用尽他所有的力量来骗我？这些东西里哪些是同我的思维有分别的，或者可以说是同我自己分得开的呢？因为事情本来是如此明显，是我在怀疑，在了解，在希望，没有什么比这更明显。事实上，我有能力去想象；因为即使可能出现这种情况（就像我以前曾经假定的那样），即我所想象的那些东西不是真的，可是这种想象的能力本身真实存在着，并且是我思维的一部分。因此，我就是那个在感觉事物，或者说，好像是通过感觉器官注意事物的东西；比如说，我已经看见了光，听到了声音，感到了热。这些现象是假的，因为我是在睡觉。可是，我确实似乎看见了，听见了，热了，这总是千真万确的吧；严格地说，这就是我心里叫作在感觉的东西，而在确切的意义上，这就是在思维。

从这里我就开始更清楚地认识了我是什么。可是，我似乎对于其影像是在我的思维中形成的、落于感官的那些有物质性的东西，比不落于想象的未知的自我认识得更清楚，虽然我认为可疑的、未知的、我以外的一些东西倒被我认识得比那些真实的、已知的、属于我自己本性的东西更明白、更容易，这实际上是一件非常奇怪的事情。不过我看出了这是怎么回事：我的精神喜欢漫游，还不能把自己限制在真理的界限之内。就让它这样吧，允许它再一次完全不受约束，这样一来，不久以后，当再一次对它强加限制时，我们就能够更容易地驾驭它了。

让我们考虑一下那些被普遍认为是我们了解得最清楚的东西，也就是我们摸到、看见的物体吧。我不是指一般意义上的物体——因为这种一般概念通常是比较模糊的，而是考虑一下一个特殊物体。以一块刚从蜂房里取出来的蜡为例：它还没有失去蜜的甜味，还保存着一点它从花里采来的香气；它的颜色、形状、大小，是明显的；它是硬的、凉的、容易摸的，如果你敲它一下，它就发出一点声音。总之，凡是能够使人清楚地认识一个物体的东西，在这里边都有。可是，正如我说的，有人把它拿到火旁边：剩下的味道发散了，香气消失了，它的颜色变了，它的形状和原来不一样了，它的体积增大了，它变成液体了，变热了，摸不得了。尽管敲它，它再也发不出声音了。在发生了这个变化之后，原来的蜡就不存在了吗？必须承认它还继续存在；而且对这一点，任何人不能否认，没有人会往其他方面想。

那么以前在这块蜡上认识得那么清楚的是什么呢？当然不可能是通过感官所感到的什么东西，因为凡是落于味觉、嗅觉、视觉、触觉、听觉的东西都改变了，不过本来的蜡还继续存在。也许是我现在所想的这个东西，也就是蜡本身，并不是蜜的甜味，不是这种花的香味，不是这种白的颜色，也不是这种形状，不是这种声音，而仅仅是一个刚才在那些形式之下表现而现在又在另外一些形式之下表现的物体。可是，确切说来，我想象的这个东西是什么呢？让我们集中注意力，把凡是不属于蜡的东西都去掉，看一看还剩些什么。当然剩下的只有延伸的、有伸缩性的、可以变动的东西。那么“有伸缩性的”“可以变动的”是指什么的？是不是我想象这块圆的蜡可以变成方的，可以从方的变成三角形的？不是这样。因为我理解它为可能接受无数像这样的改变，即使我不能用我的想象来一个个地认识无数的改变，因此这种理解不是来自于想象的能力。那么这个“广延”是什么意思呢？它不也是未知的吗？因为在蜡融化的时候它就开始增大，在蜡完全融化的时候它就变大了，而当热度再增加时它就变得更大了。如果我没有想到蜡能够在延伸中呈现更多的花样，多到出乎我的想象，我就不能正确地判断什么是蜡了。所以我必须承认我甚至连用想象都不能领会这块蜡是什么，只有我的理智才能够领会它。我说的是这块特别的蜡，至于一般的蜡，那就更明显了。那么只有精神才能领会的这个蜡是什么呢？它就是我看见的、摸到的、想象的那块蜡，就是我一开始认识的那块蜡。可是，要注意的是，感知，不是看，不是摸，也不是想象，从来不是，虽然它从前好像是这样，但是它仅仅是用精神去察看，这种察看可以是片面的、模糊的，像它以前那样，或者是清楚的、分明的，像它现在这样，这取决于我对组成它的那些东西注意的多少。

与此同时，我的精神是多么趋向于错误，我自己也觉得非常奇怪。因为即使我不言不语地在自己心里考虑这一切，我仍局限于这些语言上，几乎被普通言语所欺骗；因为如果人们把原来的蜡拿给我们，我们说我们看见蜡，而不是从颜色和形状上就判断这就是那块蜡。从这里，假如不是我从窗口看街上过路的人，并且说我看见了一些人，就如同说我看见蜡一样，那么我几乎就要断定说：人们认识蜡是用眼睛看，而不是光用精神去观察。可是我从窗口看见了什么呢？无非是一些帽子和大衣，而帽子和大衣遮盖下的可能是一些机器人。不过我判断这是一些真实的人，这样，单凭我心里的判断能力就了解了我以为是我眼睛看见的东西。

一个人要想对事物有更好的超出一般水平的认识，就应该把怀疑一般人说话的形式这件事当成可耻的事。让我们继续去考虑：我最初看到的，用外感官，或至少像他们说的那样，用常识，也就是说用想象力的办法来领会的蜡是什么，是否比我现在对它的领会更清楚、更完善呢？还是在经过认真调查它是什么及怎样认识它后，更好地认识它了呢？当然，连这个都怀疑起来，那是可笑的。因为在这初步的知觉里有什么是清楚、明显的，它包括什么不能明显落于最差的动物的感官里的东西吗？可是，当我把蜡从它的外表分离出来，就像把它的衣服脱下来那样，把它赤裸裸地考虑起来，当然，尽管我的判断里还可能存在某些错误，但，如果没有人的精神，我就不能正确理解蜡这个事物。

可是，关于这个精神，也就是说关于我自己，因为直到现在除了我是一个精神之外，我什么都不承认，我将要作何解释呢？我想说的是，关于好像那么清楚分明地领会了这块蜡的这个我，我将要说什么呢？我对我自己认识得难道不是更加真实、确切而且更加清楚、分明吗？因为，如果由于我看见蜡而断定蜡存在，那么由于我看见蜡因此有我存在这件事当然也就越发明显，因为，有可能我所看见的实际上并不是蜡；也有可能我连看东西的眼睛都没有；可是，当我看见或者当我想是看见（这是我不再加以区别的）的时候，这个在思维着的我倒不是个什么东西，这是不可能的。同样，如果由于我摸到了蜡而断定它存在，由此也可以推断我存在着；如果由我的想象或其他理由使我相信而断定它存在，我也总是得出同样的结论。我在这里所注意到的关于蜡的东西也适用于外在于我、在我以外的其他一切东西上。而且，如果说蜡在不仅经过视觉或触觉，同时也经过很多别的原因而被发现了之后，我对它的概念和认识好像是更加清楚、更加分明了，那么，我不是应该越发分明地认识我自己了吗？因为一切用以认识和领会蜡或别的物体的理由都更好地构建了我的精神的本性。但是，精神上也有许多别的东西，借助这些东西可以更分明地理解精神。别的东西如此之多，以至于不值得去考虑由身体到精神所散发的那些东西。

可是，我终于无助地回到了我原来想要回到的地方；现在我知道，我们只是通过精神，而不是通过感官或想象能力来领会物体，而且我们不是由于看见了它，或者摸到了它才认识它，而只是由于我们用思维领会它，那么显然我认识了对我来说没有什么比我的精神更容易认识的东西了。可是，因为几乎不可能这么快就破除一个旧见解；因此，我最好在这里暂时打住，以便经过这么长的沉思之后，把这一个新的认识深深地印到我的记忆里去。

第三个沉思

论上帝的存在

现在我要闭上眼睛，堵上耳朵，关闭我的一切感官，我甚至要把一切物质性的东西的影像都从思维里排除出去，但因为这么做是不可能的，所以或者至少我要把它们看作是无关紧要的，是假的和无意义的，这样一来，我就可以只和自己交流，更深入地理解我的内心世界。我要试着进一步了解、认识我自己。我是一个在思维的东西，这就是说，这个东西在怀疑、在肯定、在否定，知道的东西很少、不知道的很多，在愿意、在不愿意，也在想象、在感觉。就像我刚才说过的那样，即使我所感觉和想象的东西也许并不存在，我确实知道我称之为感觉和想象的这种思维方式，就其仅仅是思维方式来说，一定是存在和出现在我心里的。虽然只是寥寥数语，可是我认为已经把我真正知道的东西，或至少是直到现在觉得我知道了的东西，全部都说出来了。

现在我要更仔细地考虑一下在我心里是否也许还有我没有意识到的其他的东西。我确信我是一个思维着的东西，但是我不是因此也就知道了我需要具备什么，才能使我确实知道什么事情吗？在这个初步的认识里，只有我说的这个清楚、明了的认识。老实说，假如我用这种方法认识得如此清楚、分明的东西竟是假的，那么这个认识就不足以使我确实知道某些东西。从而，似乎我可以把“凡是我们领会得十分清楚、十分分明的东西都是真实的”这一条定为总则。

虽然如此，我以前认为非常清楚、分明而接受的东西，后来我又都认为是可疑的。那些东西是什么呢？是地、天、星辰，以及那些通过我的感官所感到的其他东西。可是，我在这些东西里边曾领会得清楚、明白的是什么呢？当然不是别的，正是那些东西在我心里的观念或思维。并且现在我还不否认这些观念是在我心里。可是还有另外一件事情是我知道的，我甚至认为我之所以清楚地感知它是因为我相信它，然而，事实上，我并没有看出它，即有些东西在我以外，这些观念就是从那里发生的，并且和那些东西一模一样。我就是在这件事情上弄错了，或者，假如说我判断正确，那也绝不是由于我的感知能力。

可是，当我考虑数学和几何学中某种十分简单、十分容易的东西，比如“三加二等于五”诸如此类的其他事情的时候，我不至少也是把它们领会得清清楚楚，确定它们是真的吗？当然，假如从那以后，我认为可以对这些东西产生怀疑的话，那一定不是由于别的理由，而只是因我心里产生这样一种想法，即也许是某位上帝，他给了我这样的本性，让我甚至在我觉得通过亲眼看得最清楚的一些东西上弄错。但是每当这个上帝至高无上的能力的想法出现在我脑海里时，我都不得不承认，如果他愿意，他就很容易使我甚至在我认为自己认识得非常清楚的东西上弄错。从另一个方面来说，每当我回到自以为已经认识得十分清楚的东西上时，我对这些东西又是深信不疑，使我自己不由自主地说：让我被任何能欺骗我的人欺骗吧，但是，只要我认为我是什么东西，我就不会什么都不是；或者既然现在我存在这件事是真的，那么我没有存在过这种事就不可能是真的；他也绝不能使三加二之和多于五或少于五，或者诸如此类的事情，我都看作是自相矛盾的。既然我没有任何理由相信上帝是骗子，事实上，我不知道上帝是否存在，那么仅仅依赖于这个见解之上的怀疑理由当然是非常轻率的，并且，我要说，是形而上学的。可是，为了尽快排除这个理由，我应该检查一下上帝是否存在；如果他存在，我也应检查一下他是否是骗子。只要这是未知的，我就看不出我能够把任何一件事情当作是可靠的。

现在，我必须在这里把我的全部思维分为几类，必须考虑哪些包含真理，哪些包含错误。有的思维就像事物的影像，“观念”这个词只适用于这类东西：比如我想起什么人、怪物、天空、天使，或者上帝本身。然而，另外一些思维有另外的形式，比如当我希望、我害怕、我肯定、我否定时，我总是把某种东西领会为我精神的主体，但是我把某些东西加到我的观念上，不仅仅是考虑中的东西的那些类似物。属于这一类思维的有些叫作意志或情感，另外一些叫作判断。

至于观念，如果只就其本身而不把它们牵涉到别的东西上去，严格说来，它们不能是假的；因为不管我想象一只山羊或一个怪物，在我想象上同样都是真实的。同样，也无需害怕在情感或意志里边会有虚假的东西；因为，即使我可以选择一些坏事情，或者甚至一些不存在的事情，但是不能因此就说我选择它们这件事就是假的。这样一来，就只需要判断了，而在判断这个阶段我应该小心谨慎以免弄错。在判断里可能出现的重要错误在于我认为我心里的观念判断和在我以外的一些东西一样或相似；因为，如果我把观念仅仅看成是我的思维的某些方式，并且不把它们牵涉到别的什么东西上去，这样我也不能弄错了。

在这些观念里，我认为有些观念是与生俱来的，有些是习得的，有些是由我自己捏造的。我这种能理解一个东西，一个真理，或一种思想的能力似乎是仅仅出自我的本性；但是，直到现在我认为，如果我现在听见了什么声音，看见了太阳，感觉到了热，这些感觉都是来自我以外的什么东西；最后，我觉得人鱼、马鹫以及诸如此类的其他一切怪物都是由我捏造出来的。可是也许我可以相信所有这些观念都是外来的，或者是天生的，或者它们都是由我捏造的；因为我还没有清楚地发现它们的真正来源。

我现在要问的主要问题是有关我认为来自于我以外的对象的观念，也就是说，有哪些理由使我相信这些观念和考虑中的东西是一样的。一方面我觉得这是自然告诉我的；而另一方面是我自己体会到这些观念是不以我的意志为转移的，因此，也不依赖我，因为它们时常违背我的意志出现。比如现在，不管我愿意也罢，不愿意也罢，我感觉到了热，而由于这个原因我认为热这种感觉或这种观念是由于一种不同于我的东西，即由于我旁边的火炉的热。除了判断这个外来东西不是把什么别的，而是把它的影像送出来印到我心里以外，我看不出有什么我认为更合理的了。

现在我必须看一看这些理由是否真的令人信服。当我说我觉得这是自然告诉我的，自然这一词所指的仅仅是某种即兴冲动使我相信这个事情，而不是某种自然理性使我认识这个事情是真的。这二者之间的区别很大，因为对于自然理性使我看到是一点都不用怀疑，就像从我怀疑这件事，就能够推论出我存在，以及类似的事情。因为没有另一种能力让我信任就像信任理性之光一样，并且能够告诉我结论是不真实的。对照而言，过去我经常认为，在善恶之间进行选择时，冲动使我走错方向，我不认为，在其他情况下，我应该更信任这种冲动。

然而，即使这些观念不以我的意志为转移，也不能证明它们必然是从别处来的。因为我刚才所说的那些冲动是在我心里，尽管它们不总是和我的意志一致，同样的，也许是我心里有什么其他能力我还没有充分意识到，并且这些能力是观念的来源，直到现在，对我来说好像当我睡觉的时候，这些观念也在我心里形成而不依靠于它们所表现的对象。

最后，即使它们是由我之外的东西引起的，也不能因此而说它们一定应该和那些我之外的对象一样。事实上，在很多事例上我经常看到它们之间有很大的不同。比如对于太阳，我觉得我心里有两种截然不同的观念：一种是来源于感官的，应该放在我前面所说的来自外面的那一类里；根据这个观念，我觉得它非常小。另外一个是从天文学的道理中，也就是说，从我与生俱来的某些概念里得出来的，或者是由我自己无论用什么方法制造出来的，根据这个观念，我觉得太阳比整个地球大很多倍。我对太阳所领会的这两个观念当然不能都和存在于我之外的太阳一样，理性使我相信直接来自它的外表的那个观念是和它最不一样的。

所有这些足以使我认识，我曾经相信有些在我之外的东西通过我的感官，或者用随便什么别的方法，把它们的观念或影像传送给我，这都不是可靠的判断，而仅仅是从一种盲目的冲动得出来的。

然而还有另外一种途径可以用来考虑一下，是否我心里的观点有一部分是在我之外的，比如，如果把这些观念看作只不过是思维的某些方式，那么我就认不出在它们之间有什么不同，都好像是以同样方式由我产生的。可是，如果把一种观念看作是代表一个东西，其他观念又是代表其他的东西，那么显然它们彼此之间是非常不同的。因为的确，对我来说，代表实体的那些观念，无疑比仅仅代表样式或非本质的那些观念更多一点什么东西，并且本身包含着更多刻意的实在性。再者，我由之而体会到一个至高无上的、永恒的、无限的、全知的、全能的、他自己以外的一切事物的普遍创造者的上帝的那个观念，无疑在他本身里包含比代表有限的实体的那些观念更多的客观实在性。

现在，从自然理性的角度出发可以明显地得出，在充分的总的原因里一定至少在它的结果里有更多的实在性：因为结果如果不从它的原因里，那么能从哪里取得它的实在性呢？这个原因如果本身没有实在性，怎么能够把它传给它的结果呢？由此可见，不仅无中不能生有，同样地，也不能生出比较完满的东西，换句话说，本身包含更多实在性的东西，也不能是由比较不完满的东西制成的。这个真理无论是在现实的或形式的那种实在性的结果里，或者是在具有客观实在性的观念里，都是清楚、明显的。例如：从来都没有存在过的石头，如果它不是由一个东西所产生，那个东西本身形式地或深入地具有进入石头的组织中的一切，那么石头现在就不能开始存在；同样地，热如果不是由在等级上、程度上，或者种类上至少是和它一样完满的一个东西产生，就不能在一个以前没有热的物体中产生。其他的东西也是这样。此外，热的观念或者石头的观念如果不是由于一个本身包含至少和我在热或者石头里所领会的同样多的实在性的什么原因把它放在我的心里，它也就不可能在我心里。虽然那个原因不能把它们现实的或形式的实在性的任何东西传授到我的观念里，但是不应该因此就想象那个原因不那么实在；因为观念的真实性是这样的，所以它的本性使它除了它从思维或精神所借过来的那种形式的实在性以外，自然不要求别的形式的实在性，而观念只是思维或精神的一个样态。一个观念之所以包含这样一个而不包含那样一个客观实在性，这无疑是来自什么原因，在这个原因里的形式实在性至少同这个观念所包含的客观实在性一样多。因为如果我们设想在观念里有它的原因里所没有的东西，那么这个东西就一定是从无中来的。然而一种东西，用它的观念而存在于理智之中的这种存在方式，不管它是多么不完满，总不能说它不存在，因而也不能说这个观念来源于虚无。

虽然我在我的观念里所考虑的实在性仅仅是客观的，我也不应该怀疑实在性会必然形式地存在于产生我的观念的原因里，也不应该认为这种实在性客观地存在于观念的原因里就够了；因为，正和这种存在方式是由于观念的本性而客观地属于观念一样，存在方式也由于观念的本性而形式地属于这些观念的原因，至少是属于观念的最原始、主要的原因。而且即使一个观念有可能产生另一个观念，可是这种现象也不可能是无穷无尽的，它最终必须达到一个第一观念，这个第一观念的原因就像一个样本或原型一样，在它里面包含着只存在于观念中的形式上的事实。这样，自然理性使我明显地看出，观念在我心里就像一些绘画或者图像一样，它们可能很容易减少衍生出它们的那些东西的完满性，却不能包含比自身更完满的东西。

越是深入地、仔细地考察所有这些事物，我就越是清楚、明白地看出它们是真的。不过最后我从这里得出什么结论来呢？这就是：如果我的某一个观念的客观实在性使我清楚地认识到它既不是形式地，也不是卓越地存在于我，从而我自己不可能是它的原因，那么结果必然是在世界上并不是只有我一个人，而是还有别的什么东西存在，它就是这个观念的原因；另外，如果这样的观念不存在于我，我就没有任何论据能够使我确实知道除了自己以外就没有任何别的东西存在；因为，我曾经仔细地寻找过，可是直到现在也没有找到任何别的论据。

在所有这些观念之中，除了代表我自己的那个观念在这里不可能有任何问题以外，还有一个代表上帝的观念，另外的一些代表物质性的、无生命的东西的观念，以及其他一些代表动物，最后，还有一些观念代表着和我一样的人。

至于代表其他的人，动物，或者天使的那些观念，我容易理解到它们是可以由我关于自己和物质性的东西，以及上帝所具有的其他一些观念混合而成的，尽管除了我以外，世界上根本就没有其他的人，没有动物，没有天使。

至于物质性的东西的观念，我并不认为在它们里边有什么大得不得了的东西使我觉得它们不是由我自己产生的。因为，如果我再仔细地考虑它们并且一个一个地检查它们，就像昨天考察蜡的观念那样，我注意到在那里只有很少的东西是我领会得清清楚楚的，比如大小或者长、宽、厚的广延；用这种广延的这几个词和界限形成的形状；不同形状形成的各个物体之间所保持的地位，以及这种地位的运动或变化；还可以加上实体、时间和数目。至于别的东西，像光、颜色、声音、气味、味道、热、冷，以及落于触觉的其他一些性质，它们在我的思维里边是那么模糊不清，我简直不知道它们到底是真的还是假的，也就是说，不知道我对于性质所领会的观念到底是不是什么实在东西的观念。

虽然我以前提出过，严格意义上的虚假或真正的虚假，只能出现在判断中，即当观念把什么都不是的东西表象为是什么东西的时候就会有物质上的虚假。比如，我对于冷的观念和热的观念很不清楚，也不太明白，以致按照它们的办法我不能分辨出到底是冷缺少热呢，还是热缺少冷，或者二者都是实在的性质，或者都不是；既然没有任何一个观念似乎不给我们展示什么东西，如果说冷实际上不过是缺少热，那么当作实在的、肯定的什么东西代表的观念就不应该不恰当地被叫作假的，其他类似的观念也一样；我当然没有必要把它们归之于别人而不归之于我自己。因为，如果它们确实是假的，就是说，它们并不代表的东西，那么自然的光明使我看出它们产生于无，也就是说它们之所以在我心里只是由于我的本性缺少什么东西，因为它并不是非常完满的。即使这些观念是真的，但它们所代表的实在性少到我甚至不能清楚地把它从虚无中分辨出来，那么我也看不出有什么理由使它们不能由我自己产生的。

至于我脑子里有关物质性的东西的一些清晰的观念，有些似乎是我能够从我自己的观念中得出来的，比如说，和我具有的实体的观念、时间的观念、数目的观念，以及诸如此类的其他东西的观念都是那样得来的。因为，我想到石头是一个实体，也就是说，一个本身有能力存在的东西，想到我是一个实体，虽然我领会得很清楚我是一个在思维着的而不能延展的东西，相反石头是一个可以延展而不能思维的东西，这样，在这两个概念之间有着明显的不同，可是，无论如何它们在表象实体这一点上似乎是一致的。同样，我想到我现在存在，并且除此之外我记得我从前也存在，我领会许多不同的思想，认识到这些思想的数目，在这时候我就在我心里得到时间和数目的观念，从此我就可以把这两种观念随心所欲地传给其他一切东西。至于物质性的东西的观念由之而形成的其他一些性质，即广延、形状、地位、变动等，它们固然不是形式地存在于我心里，因为我不过只是一个在思维的东西；然而，由于这仅仅是实体的某些样态，而且我自己也是一个实体，因此，它们似乎是能够真正地包含在我心里。

因而只剩下上帝的观念了，在这个观念里边，必须考虑一下是否有什么东西是能够来源于我自己的。用上帝这个名称，我是指一个无限的实体，它是不依存于别的东西的、至上明智的、无所不能的，依靠它我自己和其他一切存在之物（如果其他一切之物存在的话）得以被创造。这些观点我越认真考虑，就越不相信它们能够单独地来源于我。因此，从上面所说的一切中，必然得出上帝存在这一结论；虽然实体的观念在我心里就是由于我是一个实体，不过我是一个有限的东西，因而我不能有一个无限的实体的观念，除非这个观念来自于一个真正无限的实体。

我不应该想象我不是通过一个真正的观念，而仅仅是通过有限的东西的否定来领会无限的，就像我通过动和光明的否定来理解静和黑暗那样；因为相反，我明显地看到在无限的实体里边比在一个有限的实体里边具有更多的实在性，因此在我心里以某种方式首先有的是无限的概念而不是有限的概念，也就是说，首先有的是上帝的概念而不是我自己的概念。因为，假如在我心里我不是有一个比我的存在更完满的存在的观念，不是由于同那个存在体作了比较我才会看出我的本性的缺陷的话，我怎么可能认识到我怀疑和我希望，也就是说，我认识到我缺少什么东西，我不是完满无缺的呢？

不能说这个上帝的观念也许实质上是假的，因此可能是从无中得出它来的，就像我以前观察关于热和冷的观念以及诸如此类的其他东西的观念时所说的那样；相反，因为这个观念是非常清楚、非常明白的，它本身比任何别的观念都含有更多的客观实在性，所以自然没有一个观念比它更真实，能够更少被人怀疑为错的和假的了。我说，这个无上完满的、无限的存在体的观念是完全真实的。因为，虽然也许可以设想这样的一个存在体是不存在的，可是不能设想它的观念不给我表象任何实在的东西，就像我之前关于冷的讨论那样。这个观念也是非常清楚、非常明白的，因为凡是我的精神清楚明白地领会为实在和真实的，并且本身含有什么完满性的东西，都完全包含在这个观念里边了。虽然我不理解无限，或者虽然在上帝里边有我所不能理解的、也许用思维绝对不能达到的无数事物，这都无碍于上面所说的这个事实是真的；因为我的本性是有限的，不能理解无限，这是由于无限的本性的缘故；只要我很好地领会这个道理，把凡是我领会得清清楚楚的东西，其中我知道有什么完满性，也许还有无数的其他完满性是我不知道的，都断定为形式地或卓越地存在于上帝里边，使我对上帝所具有的观念在我心里的一切观念中是最真实、最清楚、最明白的就够了。

可是也许我自身是比我自己所理解的更伟大一些，也许我身上归之于上帝本性的完满性是以某种方式潜在于我心中，虽然它们还没有出现，还没有以行动表现出来。事实上，我已经认识到我的认识逐渐增长，我看不出有什么能够阻止它越来越向无限方面增长。还有，既然我的知识获得增长，我看不出有什么阻止我按照这个办法获得上帝本性的其他一切完满性。最后，我也看不出这些完满性的能力（如果我已经具有的话）不足以产生相应的观念。

但是，这都是不可能的。因为，首先，即使我的认识真是每天都取得一些进步，我的本性里真是有很多潜在的东西还没有实现，这与没有仅仅是潜在的东西的上帝的观念都不相关。甚至这一特征（逐渐增加）是对不完善的一个非常肯定的论述。而且，即使我的认识总是逐渐增加，但是我仍然认为它不可能达到无穷无尽，因为它永远不能达到一个不能再有所增加的那样高度的完满性。可是我把上帝看作是无限的，以至于在他所具有的至高无上的完满性上再也不能有所增加。最后，我清清楚楚地理解了这件事情：一个观念的客观的存在体不能由一个仅仅是潜在的存在而产生——这样的存在真正来说是没有的，它只能由一个形式的或现实的存在体产生。

对于愿意用理性思维仔细思考我上面所说的话的人，没有什么东西不是显而易见的；可是，当我把注意力稍一放松，我的精神的眼睛就被感性东西的影像遮蔽起来，我就不容易记得我对于比我的存在体更完满的一个存在体所具有的观念为什么应该必然地被一个实际上更完满的存在体放在我的心里。这就是为什么我现在放下别的，只考虑具有上帝的这个观念的我自己，如果在没有上帝的情况下，我能不能存在。

我想要问：我是何时从谁那里得到我的存在呢？也许从我自己，或者从我的父母，或者从不如上帝完满的事物中得到我自己的存在；因为不能想象有比上帝更完满，或者和上帝一样完满的东西。

但是，如果是我自己创造了我的存在，我一定就会无惧无求，我也一定不缺少任何东西；因为，凡是在我心里有什么观念的东西，我自己都会给我，这样一来我就是上帝了。我不应该想象我缺少的东西也许比我已经有的东西更难取得；相反，也就认为我，也就是说，一个在思维的东西或实体，是从无中生出来的，这无疑地要比我去认识那些我不知道的、只不过是这个实体的一些偶性的很多东西要难得多。而这样一来，毫无疑问，如果我自己给了我的比我刚才说的更多，即如果我自己创造了我的产生和存在，那么我至少不会缺少比较容易取得的东西，即至少不会缺少我领会上帝的观念中所含有的任何东西，因为那些东西里边没有一件是我觉得更难取得的；如果有一种更难取得的东西，它一定会向我表现出来（假定我自己是我所具有的其他一切东西的来源的话），因为我会体验到我的能力只是停留于此。

我可以假定我过去也许一直是像我现在这样存在，我不会否认这个推理的效力，这样一来我就会接着假定没有必要探究到底是什么创造了我的存在。因为我的全部生存时间可以分为无数部分，而每一部分都绝对不依靠其余部分，这样，从不久以前我曾经存在过这件事上并不能得出我现在一定存在这一结论来，假如不是在这个时候有什么原因重新产生我，创造我，也就是说保存我。事实上，这对于凡是要仔细考虑时间的性质的人都是非常清楚的：即一个实体，为了在它延续的一切时刻里被保存下来，需要同一的能力和同一的行动，这种行动是为了重新产生它和创造它所必要的，如果它还没有存在的话。因此，通过理性之光，我清楚地认识到，保存和创造只是从我们的思想方法上来看才显得不同，而从事实上来看两者并没有什么区别。

所以，我现在应该问我自己，我是否具有什么能力使现在存在的我将来还存在，因为，既然我无非是一个在思维的东西（或者至少既然一直到现在严格说来问题还只在于我自己的这一部分），如果我有这样的一种力量，我一定会毋庸置疑地意识到它。可是，我没有体会到任何这样的力量，因此我明显地认识到我依存于一个和我不同的什么存在体。

然而，也许我所依存的这个存在体并不是上帝，也许我是由我的父母，或者由不如上帝完满的什么其他原因产生的。不，不可能是这样。正如我以前已经说过的，显然在原因里一定至少和在它的结果里有一样多的实在性。因此，既然我是一个在思维的、心里怀有上帝的东西，不管最后归之于我的本性的原因是什么，必须承认它一定同样地是一个在思维的东西，本身具有我归之于上帝本性的一切完满性的观念。然后人们可以重新追问这个原因，它的存在是由于它本身呢，还是由于别的什么东西？如果是由于它本身，那么根据我以前说过的，其结果一定是上帝自己，因为它有了通过本身而存在的能力，那么它无疑地也一定有能力现实地具有它所领会的观念的一切完满性，也就是说，我所领会为是上帝里边的一切完满性。如果它的存在是由于它本身以外的什么原因，那么可以根据同样的道理重新再问：这第二个原因是由于它本身而存在的呢，还是由于别的什么东西而存在的？这样一步一步地，最终问到一个最后原因，这最后原因就是上帝。很明显，在这上面再无穷无尽地追问下去是没有用的，因为问题在这里不那么在于从前产生我的原因上，而在于现在保存我的原因上。

当然，也不能假定也许我的产生是由于很多原因共同的作用，我从这一个原因接受了我归之于上帝的那些完满性之一的观念，从另外一个原因接受了另外什么的观念，那样一来，所有这些完满性即使真的都存在于宇宙的什么地方，可是不能都结合在一起存在于一个唯一的地方，即上帝之中。相反的，上帝里边的一切东西的统一性，或单纯性，或不可分性，是我对上帝所领会的主要完满性之一；而上帝的一切完满性的各种统一和集合的观念一定不可能是由任何一个原因（由于这个原因，我同时也接受了其他一切完满性的观念）放在我心里的。因为，如果这个原因不让我同时知道它们是什么，它就不能让我把它们理解为连结在一起的、不可分的。

至于我的父母，关于他们，即使我过去所相信的都是真的，可是这并不等于是他们保存了我，也不等于他们把我做成是一个在思维的东西，因为他们不过是把某些部件放在这个物质里，而我在这个物质里发现了现在的我，也就是说，我的精神，我现在只把精神当作了我自己；所以关于他们，在这里是毫无问题的；可是必然得出这样的结论，即我存在和我心里有一个至上完满的存在体的观念，也就是说上帝也存在着这个事实，是非常明显的。

我只剩下去检查一下我是用什么方法获得了这个观念的。因为我不是通过感官把它接受过来的，而且它也从来不像可感知东西的观念那样，因为在可感知东西侵犯或者似乎侵犯我的外部器官。它也不是纯粹由我虚构出来的，因为很明显，我没有能力在上面加减任何东西。因此，可以说它和我自己的观念一样，是从我被创造那时起我与生俱来的。

如果上帝在创造我的时候把这个观念放在我心里，就如同工匠把标记刻印在他的作品上一样；这个标记也不必一定和这个作品有所不同。可是，只就上帝创造我这一点来说，非常可信的是，他是有些按照他的形象产生的我，对这个形象（里面包含有上帝的观念），我是用我领会我自己的那个功能去领会的，换句话说，当我对我自己进行反省的时候，我不仅认识到我是一个不完满、依存于别人的东西，这个东西不停地希望比我更好、更伟大的东西，而且我同时也认识到我所依存的那个别人，在他本身里边具有我所希求的、在我心里有其观念的一切伟大的东西，不是不确定地、仅仅潜在地，而是实际地、现实地、无限地具有这些东西，而这样一来，他就是上帝。我在这里用来证明上帝存在的论据，它的全部效果就在于我认识到，假如上帝真不存在，我的本性就不可能是这个样子，也就是说，我不可能在我心里有一个上帝的观念；我再说一遍，恰恰是这个上帝，我在我的心里有其观念，也就是说，他具有所有这些高尚的完满性，对于这些完满性我们心里尽管有什么轻微的观念，却不能全部理解。他不可能有任何缺点；凡是标志着什么不完满性的东西，他都没有。这就足以明显地说明他不能是骗子，因为理智的自然之光告诉我们，欺骗必然是由于什么缺点而来的。

不过，在我把这件事更仔细地进行检查并对人们能够从其中取得的其他真理进行考虑之前，我认为最好是停下来一些时间专去深思这个完满无缺的上帝，思考一下他的属性，至少尽我的可以说是为之神眩目夺的、精神的全部能力去深思、赞美、崇爱这个灿烂的光辉之无与伦比的美。因为，信仰告诉我们，来世的至高无上的幸福就在于对上帝的这种深思之中，这样，我们从现在起就体验出，像这样的一个沉思，尽管它在完满程度上差得太远，却使我们感受到我们在此世所能感受到的最大满足。

第四个沉思

论真理和错误

这几天我已经慢慢习惯于把我的精神从感官里独立出来，同时我也认识到对于物质性的东西的认识有很少是准确的，我们所认识的更多的东西是关于人的精神和关于上帝本身的，这样，我现在就毫无困难地把我的思维从考虑可感觉或可想象的东西上转到考虑完全脱离物质、纯粹精神的东西上去。关于人的精神，我对它有一个非常清晰的概念，既然它是一个在思维的东西，一个没有长、宽、厚的延展性，不着一点物质性的东西，我的这个观念当然比任何物质性的东西的观念都要清楚。而且当我考虑到我怀疑，也就是说我是一个不完全的、依存于别人的东西的时候，在我心里就十分清楚明白地出现了一个完全的、不依存于别人的存在体的观念，也就是上帝的观念。单从这个观念之存在于我心里，或者具有这个观念的我是存在的这件事来看，我可以清楚地得出上帝是存在的，而且我所存在的每时每刻都依赖于上帝的存在，这个结论是如此得清晰明了，所以我认为不能有什么能比这件事更明确、更可靠地为人们所认识的了。因此，我觉得我已经发现了一条道路，上帝里边包含着科学和智慧的全部宝藏，通过对真实的上帝的沉思，我们能够认识宇宙间的其他事物。

因为，首先，我认识到它绝对不能骗我，因为凡是欺骗都包含着某种不完满性；尽管能够欺骗他人好像标志着什么机智和能力，但是想要欺骗他人却无疑是恶意和愚蠢的证明。因此，上帝绝对不会包含欺骗。

其次，我认识到在我自己的心里有某一种判断力，这种能力和我所具有的其他一切东西一样，无疑是我从上帝那里获得的。而且，因为上帝不想骗我，所以他肯定没有给我那样的一种判断力，让我在正当使用它的时候总是弄错。

因此，假如不是从这里得出我永远不会弄错的结论的话，那么对这个真理就再没有可怀疑的地方了；因为，如果凡是我所有的东西都是来自上帝的，如果他没有给我能够犯错的能力，那么就应该说，我决不应该弄错。当我单单想到上帝，并且将思绪集中在上帝身上的时候，我在心里并没发现什么错或假的原因；可是后来当我回到我自己身上来的时候，我发现还是会犯无数错误的。而在仔细寻找产生这些错误的原因时，我注意到在我的思维中不仅出现一个实在的、肯定的上帝观念，或者说一个至上完满的存在体的观念，同时我的思维中也存在一个，姑且这样说吧，一个否定的虚无观念，也就是说与各种类型的完满性完全相反的观念；而我好像就是介乎上帝与这虚无之间，也就是说，我被放在至上存在体和非有存在体之间，就我是由一个至上存在体产生的而言，在我心里实在说来没有什么东西能够引导我犯错；但是，如果我是以某种方式由虚无或者非存在体构成的，也就是说，由于我自己并不是至上存在体，我处于一种无限缺陷的状态中，因此我会犯错误，这也没有什么可奇怪的了。这样一来，我认识到，错误就其作为错误而言，不取决于上帝，也不是真实的东西，而仅仅是一种缺陷，从而对于犯错误来说，我不需要有上帝专门为这个目的而给我什么能力，而是我之所以有时会犯错误，是由于上帝给予我分辨真和假的能力是有限的。

虽然如此，我对这个解释却不能完全满意；因为，错误并不是一种纯粹的否定，而是我缺少了我应该具备的某些知识。在当我考虑上帝的本质时，如果说他给了我某种不完满的，也就是说，缺少什么必不可少的完满性的功能的话，我认为这是不可能的；因为，工匠越是精巧熟练，从他的手里作出来的活计就越是完满无缺，这件事如果是真的，那么我们可以想象世间万物至高无上的创造者所产生的东西，有哪一种在其各个部分上不是完满、完全精巧的呢？当然，毫无疑问，上帝没有能把我创造得永远不能犯错；同时毫无疑问地上帝总是要呈现最好的东西。那么犯错相比起不犯错对我更有好处吗？

仔细考虑了一下之后，我首先想到的是，我理解不了为什么上帝做了某些事情，这我倒也不必为此而感到奇怪；同样的，我也没有任何理由因为我经历一些事情而不能理解上帝为什么以及怎样产生了它们，而怀疑上帝的存在。既然已经知道了我的本性是极其软弱、极其有限的，而相反的，上帝的本性是广大无垠、深不可测的，我再也用不着费事就看出他的潜能里有无穷无尽的东西，因为这些东西的原因超出了我精神的认识能力。单单是这个理由就足以让我相信：人们带有目的所追溯的所有原因都不能用于物理的或自然的东西上去；因为，去探求和打算发现上帝的那些深不可测的目的，我觉得那简直是狂妄至极的事。

另外我还想到，当人们探求上帝的作品是否完满时，不应该单独拿一个事物孤立起来看，而应该把所有的事物都合起来看。因为，如果单独地观察一个物体，总是觉得某些方面不够完满；可是，如果把它看成是这个宇宙整体的一部分，它在它的本性上就是非常完满的。而且，自从我决定对一切事物抱有怀疑的态度以来，我仅仅肯定地认识了我的存在和上帝的存在；可是，自从我认识到了上帝的无限潜能之后，我就不得不承认上帝也产生了其他很多东西，或者至少他能够产生那些东西，因而我承认我存在也是作为一切存在的东西的整体的一个部分。

在这以后，更进一步审视我自己，并且研究我所犯的那些错误（只有这些错误才证明我是不完满的）时，我发现这是由于两个原因造成的，即我心里的认识能力和选择能力，或者把这种选择能力称为我的自由意志，也就是说，是由于我的智力和我的意志的共同作用而造成的。因为单单运用理智，我对任何东西都既不加以肯定，也不加以否定，我仅仅是领会我所能领会的东西的观念，这些观念是我能够加以判断的。可是如果从这个角度来观察一件事物，严格来讲，在它里边绝找不到什么错误。而且，虽然在世界上也许有无穷无尽的我不了解、不认识的东西，而我应该说我不了解这些东西，我对于这些东西，头脑里没有任何概念，但不能从严格意义上说，我被剥夺了这些东西，因为，事实上我想不出什么理由能够证明上帝本来应该给我比他已经给我的那些认识功能更大、更广一些的认识功能；并且不管我把上帝想成是多么精巧熟练的工匠，我也不应该因此就认为他应该把他本来可以放到几个作品里的完满性全部放到每一个作品里。

与此同时，我也不能埋怨上帝没有给我一个相当广泛、相当完满的自由意志或意志，因为事实上我体验出这个自由意志或意志是非常大、非常广的，什么界限都限制不住它。我觉得在这里很值得注意的是，在我心里没有一个能比这个自由意志更大、更完满的了。因为，举例来说，如果我考虑在我心里的领会功能，我认为它是很狭小、很有限的，而同时，给我提供另外一个功能的观念，这个观念要广阔得多，甚至是无限的；仅仅从我能形成观念这一事实，我就毫无困难地认识到这个观念是与上帝的本性相契合的。如果我用同样方式检查记忆，或者想象，或者其他功能，这些功能就我自己而言都是受到限制而且是非常有限的，而这些能力之于上帝则是无限的。我体验到，在我之内只有意志是大到我领会不到会有什么别的东西比它更有能力，比它更广的了。这使我认识到，我带有上帝的形象和上帝的相似性的，主要是意志。因为尽管上帝的意志比我的意志大得无法比拟，不论是在知识和能力方面，或者是在意志的对象方面，因为认识和能力在意志里结合到一起使意志更有力量、更有实效，意志无限地扩展到更多的东西上。如果严格的意义上来考察它，那么我觉得它就不是更有能力。因为它仅仅在于我们对同一件事能做或不能做（也就是说，肯定它或否定它，追寻它或逃避它），或者不如说，它仅仅在于为了确认或否认、追寻或逃避理智向我们提供的东西，我们做得就好像并不感觉到有什么外在的力量驱使我们似的。因为，为了自由，我没有必要在两个截然不同的问题上非要选择一个；而是，我越是倾向于这一个（无论是由于我明显地认识地在那里有善和真，或者由于上帝是这样支配了我的思想内部），我选择的就越自由，并且采取了这一个；而且，上帝的恩宠和自然的知识当然不是减少我的自由，而是增加也加强了我的自由。因此，当我没有任何理由迫使我倾向于这一边而不倾向于那一边时，我所感觉到的这种无所谓的态度不过是最低程度的自由。这种无所谓的态度与其说是在意志里表现出一种完满性，不如说是在知识里表现出一种缺陷；因为，如果我总是清清楚楚地认识什么是真，什么是善，我就决不会费事去掂算我到底应该采取什么样的判断和什么样的选择了，这样我就会完全自由，决不会抱无所谓的态度。

从所有这些，我认识到，我错误的原因既不是意志的能力本身，它是我从上帝那里接受过来的，本质非常完满，涵盖了方方面面的东西，也不是理解的能力或领会的能力，因为，既然我用上帝给我的这个能力来领会，那么毫无疑问，凡是我所领会的，都是实事求是地去领会，我不可能由于这个缘故弄错。那么我的错误从哪里产生的呢？是从这里产生的，这就是因为意志比理智大得多、广得多，而我却没有把意志加以同样的限制，反而把它扩展到我所理解不到的东西上去，意志对这些东西既然是无所谓的，于是我就很容易陷于迷惘，并且把恶的当成善的，或者把假的当成真的来选取了。这就使我做出了错误的判断或选择。

举例来说，过去几天我仔细考察了这世界上是否存在什么东西，并且认识到仅仅由于我考察了这一问题，显然让我认识到我自己是存在的，于是我就不得不得出这样的结论，即我领会得如此清楚的事情是真的，不是由于什么外部的原因强迫我得出这样的结论，而仅仅是因为我的理智强大的倾向性，并且我越是觉得不那么无所谓，就越是自由地去相信。相反，目前我不仅知道我是一个在思维的存在，而且还注意到了物质性的本质，这使我怀疑我内在的思维本性，或者我的这个本性与这个物质性的本质的不同，怀疑这二者是否是一个东西。我现在假定我还不认识有任何理由使我相信后一种情况而不相信前一种情况。因此对于否认它或肯定它，或者甚至不去加以任何判断，我都保持着超然的态度。

而且这种超然之心不仅扩展到理智完全认识不到的东西上，而且一般也扩展到当我想要考虑到这些东西时却不能完全清楚地发现所有这些东西上去。因为如果仅仅是一些猜测就会使我更倾向于某个方向，但是这一认识不过是一些猜测，而不是可靠的、无可置疑的理由，这就足以给我机会去作出相反的判断。这几天我充分体验到，当我把我以前当作非常真实的一切事物都假定是假的，光是从这里我就看出了我们所以对这些事物采取某种怀疑态度的原因。

可是，如果我未能清晰、明确地判断什么是真实的，只要对其加以判断，我就不会作出错误的判断了。可是如果我决定去否定它或肯定它，那么我就不正确地使用我的自由意志了；如果我选择了不是真的东西，那么显然我是弄错了。即使我判断对了，这也不过是碰巧罢了，我仍然难免弄错，难免不正确地使用我的自由意志。因为，理性之光告诉我们，理智的认识永远必须先于意志的决定。自由选择意志的不当使用构成错误的形式，就出现在我自己产生的能力，而不是我从上帝那里接受过来的能力，也没有存在于那些依靠上帝来行使的能力。

我没有理由埋怨上帝没有给我一个更强的理解力，或者更强的理性之光。因为事实上理解不了这无穷无尽的事物，这对于有限理智体来说是自然而然的事情，是一个天生就是有限的本性。但是我有一切理由对上帝充满感激之情，而不应该认为上帝没能给予我什么，或者说上帝把本应该给我的东西从我这里拿走了，因为他从来没有欠过我什么，却对我如此慷慨。

我也没有理由埋怨他给了我一个比我理智范围更广大的意志力，因为意志力只在于一件事，就是它和它的主体就像是不可分似的，它的本性看来是这样的，什么都不能从它的身上拿走。而且，当然，它扩展得越广，我就越要感谢上帝给了我这个能力。

最后，我也不应该埋怨上帝助长我发挥自己意志的行为，或者说因为我自己作出了一些错误的判断而埋怨上帝。因为这些行为既然是取决于上帝的，所以就是完全真实的、绝对善良的；在某种意义上，我能够做成这些行为比我不能做成这些行为，在我的本性上有着更多的完满性。至于缺陷，也就是谎言和错误的本质，它不需要上帝方面的什么帮助，因为它不是一个东西，也不是一个存在体，而且假如把缺陷与上帝相互联系起来，把上帝看成缺陷出现的原因，那么它就不能叫作缺陷，而应该叫作否定。因为显而易见的是上帝给了赞同或者不赞同什么事的自由，却没有在我的理解力里面给我清晰、明了的洞察力，这也不是在上帝方面的一种不完满，而无疑地是在我的方面的不完满，是我没有使用好这个自由，因为是我在我领会得不清楚和糊里糊涂的一些事物上鲁莽地下了判断。可是，我看得出，上帝可以轻易地把我造就成不会犯错的人，尽管我一直是自由的，并且具备有限的认识。当我想要思考时，上帝给了我能够清楚感知并理解世间万物的能力，或者上帝可以只是简单给我灌输记忆，这样一来我对领会得不清楚、不明白的事物，永远不要下定什么判断，这样的一个决心深深地刻在我的记忆里，使我永远忘不了它。而且我看得出来，如果我把自己看成具备某些全体性（就好像世界上只有我自己似的），上帝会把我建造的比现在要完满得多。可是我不能因此就否认在某种意义上，宇宙的某几个部分难免出现错误比一切部分都出现错误，会有更大的完满性。而且上帝并没有想把我的角色放在最高贵、最完满的东西的行列里去，我也没有任何权利去埋怨。

加之，如果他没有给我由于我前面说过的第一个策略而不犯错误的能力，这种能力取决于我对于我所能够考虑的一切事物的一种清楚、明白的认识，他至少在我的能力里边留下了另一种策略，那就是下定决心在我没有把事情的真相弄清楚以前无论如何不去下判断。因为，虽然我认识到我的本性中的这种缺陷，即我不能把我的精力持续集中在一件事上，可是我仍然可以专心致志地做事并且时常反复地沉思，能够把它强烈地印到我的记忆中，使我每次在需要它的时候不能不想起它，并且由于这种办法能够养成不犯错误的习惯。

由于人的最大的、主要的完满性就在于此，我认为我从这个“沉思”里获益匪浅，因为我发现了虚假和错误的原因。而且当然，除了我所解释的那个原因以外不能还有其他原因了。因为每当我把我的意志限制在我的认识范围之内，让它除了理智给它清楚、明白地提供出来的那些事物之外，不对任何事物下判断，这样我就不会弄错；因为凡是我领会得清楚、明白的，都毫无疑问地是实在的、肯定的东西，从而它不能是从无中生出来的，而是由上帝创造出来的。关于上帝，我要说的是，他既然是至上完满的，就决不能是错误的原因；因此我在这里可以肯定的是：这样的理解或者像这样一个判断是真实的。此外，今天我不但知道了必须避免什么才能不犯错误，而且也知道了我必须做什么才能认识真理。因为，如果我把我的注意力充分地放在凡是我领会得完满的事物上，并把这些事物从其他我一知半解的事物中区分出来，我自然会认识真理。这就是我今后将要认真加以注意的。

第五个沉思

论物质性东西的本质；再论上帝的存在

关于上帝的属性以及我自己的本性，也就是说，我的精神的本性，我还剩下很多东西有待检查；不过我会另外再找机会去研究，因为（一旦在看出了必须去做什么或者必须不去做什么才能认识真理之后）目前我首要之务是把我自己从这几天所陷入的全部怀疑中解脱出来，甩掉那些怀疑，看看我对于物质性的东西是否有一个清晰的概念。

可是，在我检查我以外是否有这样的一些东西存在之前，（因为这些东西的观念是在我的思维之中的）我应该先考虑这些观念，看看哪些是清楚的，哪些是模糊的。

首先我清楚地想到哲学家通常称之为“连续量”的量，或者一种量的广延，或者说一个东西的长、宽、厚的广延。我可以在这种量里面举出许多不同的部分，在每一部分上加上各种大小、形状、位置和运动。最后我可以给每个运动规定出它延续的不同时间。当我这样一般地加以考虑的时候，我不仅清楚地认识了这些东西，而且在我稍微加以注意的时候，我就认识到有关数目、形状、运动以及诸如此类的无数特点，这些特点的真实性不但表现得非常明显，而且和我的本性竟然也十分契合，以致当我开始发现这些特点时，我似乎并没有知道什么新的东西，而是想起了我从前已经知道了的东西，也就是说，发现了一些早已在我心里的东西，尽管我以前没有想到它们。

我认为目前最重要的是，我觉得在我心里对某些东西有无数观念，虽然这些观念只是存在于我的脑海里，可是不能就认为它们全然不存在；而且，虽然我从某些程度上是凭借自己的意志想到或是没有想到他们，但是它们并不是我凭空捏造的，而是有它们真实、不变的本性的。举例来说，当我想到一个三角形时，即使在我的思维以外也许世界上根本没有什么地方存在这样的一个形状，可是毕竟这个形状具备一些特定的属性、本质或者外形，它是不变的、永恒的，不是我凭空捏造的，也决不取决于我的精神，显而易见的是，我们可以推断出三角形的各种特性，比如，它的三个角之和等于两个直角之和，最大的角对最大的边，以及诸如此类的东西，这些东西，尽管在我从前第一次想到一个三角形时我绝对没有想到过，那么现在我认识得非常清楚、非常明白，不管我愿不愿意，它们都是三角形的特征，这并不是我凭空捏造的。

如果说也许三角形的这个观念是通过我的感官来到我心里的，因为我时不时地看到过一些三角形的物体，可是这不过是我自己反驳自己罢了，因为我在心里可以想到不可计数的其他形状来，这些形状不会是让人们觉得我是通过感官来认识的，不过这并不妨碍我能够推证出它们的本性的各种特点，就像我可以推证出三角形的本性的各种特点。这些东西当然一定都是真的，因为我把它们领会得非常清楚，因而它们一定是存在着的事物而不是全然的虚无；因为，显而易见的是，凡是真实的东西都是客观存在的事物。并且我前面已经充分证明过，凡是我认识得清楚、分明的东西也都是真实的。虽然对这一点我没有加以证明，可是当我把它们领会得清楚、分明时，我的精神本质使得我不能不认为它们是真的。而且我记得，即使我全然把思绪集中在感官的对象上时，我仍然把我领会得清楚明了的有关形状、数目和其他属于算数和几何学，或者总体归为纯粹而抽象的数学的东西列入真理之中。

那么现在，如果仅仅由于我可以从我的思维中得出什么东西的观念就断言凡是我清楚、分明地认识到是属于这个东西的都实际属于这个东西，那么难道我不可以由此得出关于上帝存在的一个论据和一个论证性的证明吗？当然我在我的心里觉察一个上帝的观念——也就是说，一个至上完满的存在体的观念——这个和我的大脑中形成的有关形状和数量的观念是一样的。我清楚明了地认识到一个现实的、永恒的存在性是属于它的本性，这和我清楚明了地认识凡是我可以证明什么形状或什么数目是真正属于这个形状或这个数目的本性一样。从而，即使在前几个沉思里所断言的都不是真的，而在我心里，上帝的存在至少应该算是和我迄今所认为仅仅有关数目和形状的一切数学真理同样可靠。

然而，事实上乍看起来并不那么显而易见，好像有些诡辩的样子。因为，我已经习惯于把事物的存在和本质分开，我很容易相信上帝的存在是可以同他的本质分得开的，这样就能够把上帝领会为不是现实存在的。虽然如此，如果仔细想一想，我就明显地看出上帝的存在不能同他的本质分开，这和一个三角形的本质不能同它的三角之和等于两直角分开，或一座山的观念不能同一个谷的观念分开一样。因此，想到一个上帝（也就是说，想象一个至上完满的存在体）而它竟缺少存在性（也就是说，它竟缺少某种完满性），这和设想一座山而没有谷是同样不合适的。

可是，虽然事实上我能想象一个存在着的上帝，能设想一个有山谷的山，不过，既然仅仅由于我想到了一个带谷的山不能因此就说世界上有山，同样，虽然我领会带存在性的上帝也不能因此就说有一个上帝存在，因为我的思维并不给事物强加什么必然性；而且，尽管并没有什么带翅膀的马，而我却想出来一个带翅膀的马，同样，尽管并没有什么上帝存在，我也许能够给上帝加上存在性。

这个反驳的外表掩盖下的逻辑错误就在于此。因为，从我不能领会一个不带谷的山这一事实，不能得出世界上根本没有山，也没有山谷这个结论，而只能得出山和山谷无论存在与否，都不可分这个结论；同样地，仅仅由于我不能把上帝领会成不带存在性，因此存在性和上帝是不可分的，因此上帝是存在的。不是因为我把事物想成怎么样事物就怎么样，并且把什么必然性强加给事物；而是相反地，是因为事物本身的必然性，即上帝的存在性，决定我的思维去这样领会它。因为我可以随便想象一个马不带翅膀或者带翅膀，可是我并不能随便领会一个没有存在性的上帝（也就是说，我不能随便领会一个缺少一种至上完满性的至上完满的存在体）。

我承认了上帝具备种种完满性，我便就真的必然要承认上帝存在，因为存在性就是各种各样的完满性之一，而这一点是不应该反驳的。而且事实上，我的第一个假定并不是必然的，同样，去想凡是四边形都能内切于圆，也不是必然的；如果我有这样的想法的话，那么我就不得不承认菱形也能内切于圆，因为菱形也是四边形，而这显然是不正确的。即使每当我想到一个第一的、至上的存在体，我不是非想到上帝不可，并且从我内心深处提出（姑且这样说）它的观念时，我必然要加给它各种各样的完满性，虽然我不能把这些完满性都一一列举出来，也不能去一一考虑在这其中的每一个完满性。这种必然性是如此的清晰明了，足以使我（在我认识了存在性是一种完满性之后）得出结论说，这个第一的、至上的存在体是真正存在的。同样，我并不是非得想象一个什么三角形不可；不过，每当我要考虑仅仅由三个角组成的直线图形时，我就必须要把使三角之和不大于两直角这个结论的东西都加给它，即便也许当时我没有特别考虑到这一点。但是当我检查哪一些图形能够内切于圆时，我根本不用考虑这些包含所有的四边形；相反，我不能捏造事实，因为我只能接受那些我能够理解得清晰明了的东西。因此，在像上面这样的假定跟我与生俱来的真的观念之间有很大的差别，而这其中第一个并且主要的是上帝的观念。因为事实上我从很多方面都看出这个观念并不是凭空捏造的，这不是只属于我的思维的东西，而是一个真实、不变的本性的形象。首先，因为除了上帝以外我不能领会存在什么别的东西是必然属于他的本质的；其次，因为我不能理解会有两个或许多个跟他一样的上帝；而且既然肯定了现在有一个上帝存在，我看得清楚，他过去必然是完全永恒地存在过，将来也永恒地存在着；最后，我在上帝身上认识了其他许许多多的东西，而这些东西我既不能改变也不能削减。

但是，不管使用什么论据来证明，我也必须回到这一点上来：我只完全相信我能领会得清楚、分明的东西。而且在我能完全领会的东西当中，有一些是事实上每人都显然认识的，也有一些只有经过仔细考虑，经过更认真检查过的人才能发现；不过，这些东西一经被发现出来之后，大家都认为它们是靠得住的。举例来说，一切直角三角形，虽然起初很不容易看出用底边的平方等于其他两个边的平方之和，因为显然这个底边是和最大的角相对的，不过一旦认出了这一点之后，我们就相信二者同样都是真实的。至于上帝，如果我心里事先一点成见也没有，如果我的思维没有被不断出现的可感知的事物所干扰，那么我所认识的事物中我是最早、最容易认识上帝的了。因为，难道还有什么东西比我想有一个上帝，这么一个至上的、完满的存在体这件事，更清楚明了的吗？因为光是在它的观念里就包含着必然的或永恒的存在性。为了很好地领会这个真理，虽然我费了不少精力，可是现在我不但从这里确实相信了一切在我看来是最可靠的东西。而且，除此之外，我也看出其他一切事物的可靠性也都是以它为基础的；如果没有这种认识就永远不可能完满地知道其他事物。尽管我一旦非常清楚明了地理解了什么事物，我自然相信它是真的——这是我的本性使然，为了把这件事情弄清楚，我心里不能总是想到一个事物上去。当我不再去考虑促使我作出这样判断的理由时，我经常想起我之前所作出的早期判断。假如我不知道有一个上帝，就有可能出现别的理由使我很容易改变看法，这样一来，对不管什么事物我就永远不能有真实、可靠的知识，而只能有空泛的、靠不住的见解。举例来说，当我考虑三角形的性质时，作为几何学的内行，我显然知道三角形三角之和等于两直角，而且当我运用我的思维证明它的时候，我不可能不相信这一点；可是假如我不知道有一个上帝的存在，只要我的注意力稍微离开证明，虽然我记得我是清清楚楚地理解了它的三角之和等于两直角，我还是很可能会怀疑它的真实性的。因为我可以说服我自己：大自然使我生来就很容易能够在我以为理解得最明显、最可靠的东西上弄错，特别是那些我认为是真实、可靠的事物，后来又因为别的理由的出现使我把这些事物判断成是绝对错误的。

可是当我认识到有一个上帝之后，同时我也认识到一切事物都取决于他，而他并不是骗子，从而我断定凡是我领会得楚楚、分明的事物都是真的，虽然我不再去想我是根据什么理由把一切事物断定为真实的，只要我记得我是把它清楚、分明地理解了，就不能给我提出任何相反的理由使我再去怀疑它，这样我对这个事物就有了一种真实、可靠的知识。这个认识也可以推广到我记得以前曾经证明过的其他一切事物，比如推广到几何学的真理以及其他类似的东西上去。剩下的反驳我的观点是什么呢？是因为我的本性如此，使我老是弄错？可是我已经知道对于认识得清楚、了解了的事物中，我是不会弄错的。是因为我从前把很多东西认为是真实、可靠的，而以后我认识到它们是错的吗？可是这些东西没有一个是我认识得清楚、明白的，而且那时我还不知道使我确实认识真理的这条规律，我是由于一些理由相信了它们，而以后我看出那些理由还不如我当时想象得那么有说服力。还能再有什么可反驳我的吗？是因为也许我睡着了（就像我以前反驳过我自己的那样），或者是因为我现在的这些想法和我们想象是睡着了时做的梦一样不真实呢？可是，即使我睡着了，凡是明明白白出现在我心里的都是绝对真实的。

因此我非常清楚地认识到，一切知识的可靠性和真实性都取决于对于真实的上帝这个唯一的认识，因而在我认识上帝以前，我是不能完满知道其他任何事物的。而现在我既然认识了上帝，我就有办法取得关于无穷无尽的事物的完满知识，不仅取得关于上帝的那些东西的知识，同时也取得属于几何学家研究范围的物质性质的那些东西。

第六个沉思

论物质性东西的存在以及论人的灵魂和肉体之间的真正区别

我仍然需要考虑一下现在我剩下来的问题只有检查一下是否存在物质性的东西了。不错，既然人们把物质性的东西看成是数学论证的对象，既然我用这种方式把它们领会得十分清楚、分明，这就表明物质性的东西是存在的。因为毫无疑问，凡是我能够领会得清楚、分明的东西，上帝都有能力创造出来，而且我从来没有断定过他对于什么东西做不出来，除非是由于我不能很好地领会。再说，我的想象力是能够让我相信物质的东西存在的。因为当我仔细考虑什么是想象时，我看出它不过是认识功能对向它直接呈现的物体的某种运用，因而这个物体是存在的。

为了把这一点弄得非常明白，我首先看出想象和纯粹理解活动之间的区别。举例来说，当我想象一个三角形时，我不仅领会到这是一个由三条线相连为边组成的形状，而且与此同时，我也仿佛看见这三条线出现在面前，而这正是我所说的想象。如果我要想一个千边形，我当然知道这是一个由一千个边组成的形状，和我了解一个三角形是仅仅由三个边组成的形状同样容易，但是我却不能像我想一个三角形的三个边那样想一个千边形的一千个边，也不能用眼睛看到这一千个边出现在我面前。而且虽然当我想物质性的东西时，我总是倾向于使用我的想象，于是在我领会一个千边形时，我模模糊糊地表象出一个什么形状；不过这个形状显然并不是一个千边形，因为这个形状跟我想一个万边形或一个有非常多的边的形状时所表象出来的形状没有什么不同，而且决不能用它来发现千边形和别的多边形之间的差别。如果问题在于考虑一个五边形，我当然可以跟一个千边形一样，去理解它的形状，不需要使用想象力；可是我也可以使我的眼睛看到五个边的每一个，以及所组成的图形构成的面积，用这样的办法来想象这个形状。这样我就清清楚楚地认识到我需要特别集中精力来想象，而我不需要特别集中精力去理解；从特别集中精力中显然可以看出想象同纯粹理解活动之间是有差别的。

此外我认为想象力与理解力并不相同，并且对我的本性或对我的精神的本质，也并不是必不可少的；因为，即使我没有这种想象的能力，无疑我仍然会和现在的情况没有什么两样，从而可以断言，它并不取决于我的精神，而是取决于我精神之外的其他东西。而且我也很快地明白，如果说有什么物体存在，而我的精神和它连结得非常紧密，随时都可以调用这种能力，那么就可以用这种方式去想象物质性的东西了。因此，这种思维方式与纯粹的理解活动就不相同了：当理解事物时，精神活动总是回到观念的本身，探寻观念内的问题；而在想象时，它转向物体，并且在物体上考虑某种符合观念本身，或者通过感官来获得观念。我说，我很容易领会到，如果真有相应的物体，想象便是这样产生的，而且，由于我找不到什么别的办法来说明想象是怎么形成的，所以我便推想或许物体本来是存在的；可是，这只能说是“或许”。尽管我仔细检查，从我想象中的这种关于物体本性的清楚观念里，我仍然看不出能够得出任何结论，以证明这类物体存在的必然性。

可是，除了作为数学对象的物质性质以外，我经常想象许多其他的东西，比如颜色、声音、味道、疼痛以及诸如此类的东西，虽然这些事物对我来说不是很清晰。而且因为通过感官我就能更好地觉察这些东西，并且通过原有的记忆，这些东西就好像直接出现在我的想象之中了。因此，在探究这些东西的同时，我觉得也应该考虑一下什么是感官，看看从我称之为感觉的这种思维方式接受到我的心里来的这些观念里，是不是能得出什么可靠的证据来证明物质性东西的存在。

首先我要提醒自己，我以前通过感官得来的东西有哪些是真的，我是根据哪些理由才相信的；其次，我要检查一下，为什么从那以后，我对这些东西发生疑问的理由；最后我要考虑一下我现在认为它们应该是什么。

因此首先我感觉到我有一个头、两只手、两只脚，以及组成部分，这在我看来是我自己的一部分或者是我的全部。此外，我感觉到这个肉体存在于其他很多物体之间，它有能力感受到其他物体给它带来的不同种类的舒适和不舒适感觉。我通过某一种愉快或满足欲望的感觉而看出舒适，通过某一种痛苦的感觉而看出不舒适。在愉快和痛苦之外，我的肉体内部还能感觉到饥饿、口渴以及其他类似的饮食之欲，我也感觉到对于喜、哀、怒，以及其他类似情绪的某些物质性的倾向。在外部，除了物体的大小、形状和运动之外，我还在物体里看出软硬、干湿以及其他触摸起来的特性。此外，我在那里看出明暗、颜色、声音、气味和滋味，这样便使我把天、地、海以及总而言之其他一切物体都彼此分辨出来。

鉴于出现在我思维里的所有这些具有特性的观念，而且这些观念是我真正、直接感到的，于是我相信我感觉到了一些从我的思维中直接产生的东西，他们最初源自于这些观念，而这种说法也是合理的。因为这些想法事先没有经过我的同意就产生了，因此不管什么东西，如果它没有通过我的感官表现出来，尽管我很希望能够感受到它，我也感觉不到它；而当它表现在我的感觉器官之一的时候，我根本不可能不感觉到它。而且因为我通过感官得来的那些观念比起我沉思时所能虚构的任何观念，或者比起我认为印在我的记忆里的任何观念来都要生动得多，明显得多，甚至都以其特有的方式表现得清楚得多，看来它们不能是从我心里产生的，所以它们必然是由一些别的什么东西在我心里引起的。既然除了那些观念给我的认识以外，我对那些东西什么认识都没有，那么除非是那些和它们相似的东西，此外我就不能再想到其他的东西了。因为，我也知道我在运用理性之前总是先使用感性，并且我认识到我自己形成的那些观念不如我通过感官得来的观念那么明确，何况那些观念经常也是由我通过感官得来的观念而构成的，所以我便相信在我头脑中的观念都是通过感官得来的。

因此我相信，由于某种特殊权利，这个肉体比其他任何物体都更紧密地属于我，是有道理的。因为，事实上我决不能像分开其他物体一样同我的肉体分开。我可以感受到我的一切饮食之欲和我的一切情感，也能感受到外界对我的各种情感。最后，我也能感受到我身体中每一部分的愉快和痛苦，而对于在其他物体上产生的愉快和痛苦我却全然感受不到。可是，为什么某种莫名的痛苦之感会引起心里的悲伤，感官上愉快之感就引起思维上快乐？或者为什么这种胃的莫名紧张之感（我把它叫作饿）让我想要吃东西，喉咙发干让我想要喝水，以及其他类似的情况为什么会存在呢？这除了是自然这样告诉我的，我找不出别的道理来。因为在胃的紧张和想要吃东西之间，以及引起痛苦的东西的感觉和这个感觉引起悲伤思想之间，没有任何关系（至少，在我了解的范围内没有任何关系）。同样道理，有关我的感官对象所了解的其他东西，也是自然教会我的；在我考量其他的原因以证明这一点之前，我对此是坚信不疑的。

可是以后，许多经历逐渐破坏了我对感官的信任。因为我多次看到，有些塔我远看好像是圆的，而近看却是方的；耸立在塔顶上的巨大塑像从塔底下看却是小小的塑像。无数其他类似的情况使我相信，我根据外部感官所下的判断是有错误的。不仅如此，就连根据内部感官所下的判断也一样。因为，对于我来说，还有比痛苦更有切肤之感的东西么？可是从前有些把胳臂或腿截去了的人对我说有时他们还感觉到已经截去了的那部分疼，这使我有理由想到，虽然我感觉到我某一个肢体疼，我也不能肯定它疼。除了这些怀疑的理由以外，最近以来我还加上其他两个更为普遍的理由。第一点是，我醒着时从来没有相信我感觉过我在睡着时有时也以为能感觉的东西；而且，因为我不相信我在睡着时好像感觉的东西是从外部的世界得来的，所以我看不出对于我为什么应该更信任在我醒着时好像感觉的那些东西。第二个是，既然我还不认识，或者不如说我假装不认识我的存在的创造者，我看不出有什么能够阻止我就是这样被自然造成的，使我甚至在给我表现得最真实的那些东西上弄错。以上使我相信可感觉的东西的真实性的那些理由，我可以比较容易地回答这些问题。因为自然给了我很多在道理上使我弄不通的东西，我认为我不应该过于相信自然告诉我的事。而且，虽然我由感官得来的那些观念并不取决于我的意志，我却不认为因此就不应该断言那些观念是从不同于我的东西得出来的，因为也许在我这方面有什么功能是产生这些观念的原因，虽然一直到现在我还不认识它。

可是现在既然我开始更好地认识了我自己，开始更清楚地发现了我的来源的创造者，那么我认为我不应该糊里糊涂地接受感官好像告诉我的一切事物；不过我也不认为我应该把什么都统统拿来怀疑。

首先，因为我知道凡是我清楚、分明地领会的东西都能像我所领会的那样是上帝产生的，所以只要我能清楚、分明地领会一个东西，而不牵涉到别的东西，这样就足以确定这一个东西是跟那一个东西有分别或不同的，因为它们是可以分开放置的，至少由上帝的全能把它们分开放置；至于什么力量把它们分开，使我把它们断定为不同的东西，这倒没有关系。结果，就是因为这样，我确实认识到我存在，同时除了我是一个在思维着的东西之外，我又看不出有什么别的东西必然属于我的本质，所以我确实有把握断言我的本质就是由这个构成的，也就是说我是一个在思维的东西。而且，虽然也许（或者不如说的确像我将要说的那样）我有一个肉体，我和它非常紧密地结合在一起；不过，因为一方面我对我自己有一个清楚分明的观念，即我只是一个在思维的东西，这个东西不能伸展，而另一方面，我对于肉体有一个分明的观念，即它只是一个能伸展的东西却不能思维，所以肯定的是：这个我，也就是说我的灵魂，是完全、真正跟我的肉体有分别的，灵魂可以没有肉体而存在。

还有，我发现我自身还有几种不同的思维能力，即想象的功能和感觉的功能，没有它们，我虽然能清楚、分明地全部领会我，但是光能理解它们而没有我的存在，也就是说，没有一个它们所附之于其上的理智性实体，我就不能理解它们了。因为，在我们对这些功能所具有的概念里包含着某种理智作用。这样，我便理解到它们跟我不相同，物体的模式、风格和物体本身不一样。我也认识到一些其他功能，就像改换地方、采取各种姿势以及类似的其他功能，这些功能和之前提到的几个功能一样，如果没有它们可以依附的实体就不会被人领会，因此，没有这个实体它们就不能存在。可是，显而易见的是，如果这些功能真的存在，那么它们就必然依附于物质性的或有广延的实体之上，而不是依附于一个理智性的实体之上，因为这些功能的准确定义里面确实包含有某种延伸性质，但是却并没有包含理智。

此外，我有某种积极的感觉功能，也就是说，接受和认识可感知东西的观念的功能；可是，如果在我心里或者在别人心里没有一种积极的功能以形成和产生这些观念，那么我就不能使用这种积极的功能。既然我不过是一个在思维的东西，那么这种积极的功能不可能在我心里，而那些观念的存在并不以我的理解为先决条件，甚至经常和我的意愿相反；因此它一定是在不同于我的什么实体里，在那个实体里正式地包含着（如同我以前指出的那样）能动地存在于由这个功能所产生的观念里的全部实在性。这个实体要么是一个物体，也就是说一个形式地、实际地包含了凡是能动地并且通过表象在这些观念里的物质性的东西；要么是上帝本身，或者别的什么比物体更高贵的造物，在这个造物里卓越地包含着同样的东西。可是，既然上帝不是骗子，那么显然他不会自己直接地，也不会通过什么造物的媒介把这些东西的观念送给我。因为，上帝既然没有给我任何功能来认识这样的事情，相反的，这样便使我更加倾向于相信观念是物质性的东西发出的，或者来自物质性的东西，那么如果事实上这些观念不是来自或产生于物质性的东西而是来自于别的原因，我就看不出怎么能辩解它不是一个骗局。因此，必须承认有物质性的东西存在。虽然如此，它们也许并不完全像我们通过感官所感到的那样，因为感官的知觉在很多方面是非常模糊不清的；不过至少必须承认凡是我领会得清楚、分明的东西也都包含在这里面了，也就是说，一般说来，那些凡是我清楚地领会的东西也都包含在纯粹的数学之中了。

不过，至于其他东西，有些仅仅是个别的（比如太阳是不是这么大、这样的形状等等）或者被我们领会得不那么清楚、不那么分明的东西（就像光、声音、痛苦，以及诸如此类的东西），虽然它们是十分可疑、十分靠不住的，可是可以肯定的是上帝不是骗子，因而他没有允许在我的见解里能有任何错误，这样我就认为能够断言在我心里有确实可靠的办法认识它们，除非上帝又同时给我纠正错误的功能。首先，毫无疑问，凡是自然告诉我的东西都含有某种真实性。因为一般来说，自然，我指的不是别的，而是上帝本身，或者上帝在各造物里所建立的秩序和安排。至于我的本性，我不是指别的东西，而是指上帝所给我的一切东西的总和。

可是没有再比这个自然告诉我的更明白、更显著的了，那就是我有一个肉体，当我感觉痛苦的时候，它就不舒服；当我感觉饿或渴的时候，它就需要吃或喝，等等。因此我决不怀疑在这上面的真实性。

自然也用疼、饿、渴等等感觉告诉我，我不仅像一个舵手住在他的船上一样，存在于我的肉体里，而且除此而外，我和它非常紧密地连结在一起，融合、掺和得像一个整体一样地结合在一起。因为，假如不是这样，那么当我的肉体受了伤的时候，我（这个仅仅是一个在思维的我）就不会因此感觉到疼，而只会用理智去知觉这个伤，就如同一个舵手用视觉去察看是不是在他的船上有什么东西坏了一样；同样的，当我的肉体需要饮食的时候，我就会直截了当地认识了这件事，而不会产生那种模糊的饥渴感觉。因为事实上，所有这些饥、渴、疼等等感觉不过是某些模糊的思维方式，并且就像这样，它们是来自并且取决于精神和肉体的混合。

此外，自然告诉我，我的身体周围还存在着许多别的物体，在这些物体中我应该趋就一些而同时躲避另一些。而且当然，从我感觉的不同种类的颜色、气味、滋味、声音、冷热、软硬等，我确有把握地断言，在产生这些与之对应的不同感官知觉的物体里，彼此之间也是不一样的，即便他们的时间彼此不一样，他们之间也是彼此类似的。而且在不同的感官知觉之间，有些使我舒服，有些使我不舒服，所以我可以得出一个完全可靠的结论，即我的身体（或者就我是由肉体和灵魂组合成的而言，不如说整个的我自己）是能够感受到环境周围的有利的影响和不利的影响的。

可是除此之外，也有许多别的东西，这些东西好像是自然教会我的，但是实际上我并非从自然中领会了这些东西，而是从我的某种随意判断认识了这些东西，这种情况经常容易发生，这样会很轻易导致虚假的因素。举例来说，就如同这个地方没有什么能够触动我感官的东西，我认为一个特定的空间空无一物；又比如说，在一个热的物体里有跟我心里的热的观念相似的什么东西；在一个白的或黑的物体里有我所感觉到的同样的白或黑；在一个苦的或甜的物体里有我所感觉到的同样的味道或滋味，以及其他类似的东西。星体、塔以及其他一切距离远的物体都是像它们在离我们的眼睛很远的地方所表现的那样的形状和大小等等。

可是，为了在这方面把什么东西都领会得清清楚楚，当我说自然告诉我什么东西时，我应该准确地规定一下这个定义。因为我在这里对自然所采用的意义是狭义上的自然定义，比我把上帝给我的一切东西的总体称之为自然的意义狭小，因为那种包罗万象的总体包括了很多只属于精神的东西。我在这里说的自然，不是指那些东西。举例来说，通过自然之光我理解到事情一旦做出来了就不再返回去，以及其他许许多多类似的事情，在这里我就不再考察这一类东西了。

同时，也还有只属于物体的东西，那些东西在这里也不包括在自然的名称之下，比如物体具有重量的性质，以及诸如此类的很多东西，我也并不讨论这些东西。我在这里所讨论的东西也仅仅是指上帝所给的、作为精神和肉体的总和的那些东西。

这个自然确实告诉我躲避给我引起痛苦之感的东西，趋就给我引起愉快之感的东西；可是，除此之外，除非经过精神加以仔细、成熟的检查，我看不出它还告诉我，我们从这些不同的感官知觉里应该对于在我们之外的东西作出什么结论。因为，我认为认识这一类事物的真实性，这只是精神的作用，而不是通过精神与肉体的结合体。比如，星星给我眼睛的印象虽然并不比蜡烛的小小火焰给我的印象大，可是在我心里却绝没有一种实在的或自然的功能使我相信星星并不比蜡烛的火焰大，不过我自幼年起就是一直这样判断的，没有任何合理的根据。虽然在我挨近火的时候感觉到热，在我挨得太近的时候感觉到疼，却没有任何理由可以让我相信火里有什么跟热一样的东西和我所感受到的疼是一样的，我不过是有理由相信火里有什么东西，姑且不管这个东西是什么吧，它能给我带来热或者疼的感觉。同样，在有些空间里虽然我找不出什么能刺激和触动我的感官的东西，可是我不应该因此就断言这些空间里绝对没有物体。不过我看出，不管是在这方面或者在其他许多类似的事情方面，我经常是把自然的秩序给弄坏、弄乱了，这是因为，感官的这些感觉或知觉被放在我里边仅仅是为了警告我的精神什么东西对总和体（精神是这个总和体的一部分）是有好处或者坏处的，到这里为止，它们本来是相当清楚、相当分明的，可是我却把它们当成好像是非常可靠的、我可以由之而直接认识在我之外的规律一样来使用了，而关于物体的本质或本性，它们能告诉我的却都是非常不清楚的。

可是，我前面已经检查得足够充分了，尽管上帝是至善的，我有时在这一类的判断里仍会有错。在有关自然告诉我应该趋就或躲避的东西上以及在有关自然放在我里边的内部感觉上，到现在还出现困难，因为我有时看出错误，这样我就直接被我的自然所欺骗。举例来说，有人受到了食物美味的欺骗，吞下了藏在食物中的毒药。在上面的例子中，人受到自然的驱使，去追求任何味道可口的东西，并没有让人吃他所不知道的毒药。因而我只能由这件事得出这样的结论，即这个自然不能全能的、普遍认识所有的事物。这当然是没有什么奇怪的，因为人既然是一种有限的自然物，就只能有有限完满性的认识。

不过我们有时也在我们直接由自然得到的那些东西上弄错，就像有时病人希望吃喝可能对他们有害的东西一样。在上面的例子中，人们可能会得出这样的结论，引起他们弄错的是因为他们的本性已经紊乱了。可是这样却不能解决什么问题，因为一个病人也和健康的人一样，同样也是上帝的造化；这样一来，如果说那些生病的人被上帝赋予了具有欺骗性的本性，这是非常有争议的了。就像一个由轮子和摆装组成的钟表一样，当这个钟表做得不好，不能完全满足钟表工匠的希望来指示好时间时，也是同样准确地遵守自然的一切规律的；同样的，如果我把人的肉体看成是由骨骼、神经、筋肉、血管、血液和皮肤组成的一架机器一样，即使里边没有精神，也并不妨碍它以跟现在完全一样的方式来动作，这时它不是由意志指导，因而也不是由精神协助，而仅仅是由它的各个器官的安排来动作。因此我很容易认识到，既然这个身体，比如说，是水肿病患者，他自然就由于喉咙发干感到难受，喉咙发干习惯地给精神渴的感觉，因而趋向于引动他的神经和其他部分让他要求喝水，这样一来就增加他的病痛，害了他自己，这和他没病时由于喉咙发干而喝水以应身体的需要是同样自然的。虽然我看到一个钟表被造这个钟表的人指定了它的用途，我可以说，如果这个钟表走得不准，那是因为它违反了它的本性，这和我把人体这架机器看成是上帝做成的，使它在自身里有它应有的一切运动，虽然我有理由意识到，如果它的喉咙发干，没有按照它的本性的秩序办事，喝了有害于保持它健康的东西，是一样的。可是我认识到，用后一种方式去解释本性和用前一种方式解释本性很不相同。因为后一种方式不是一种单纯的称号问题，它完全取决于我的思维，是我的思维把一个病人和一座做坏了的钟表拿来跟我关于一个健康的人和一个做好了的钟表的观念相比较，而且它决不意味着任何存在于它所指的东西里的东西；相反，用另一种方式来解释本性，我是指某种真正存在于那些东西里的东西，从而它并不是没有真实性的。

可是，从一个水肿病患者的身体本质来看，当然这不过是一种外部的名称问题，这是因为它的本性坏了，因为人们说在不需要喝水的情况下，它的喉咙仍然发干，可是这个命名显然是人们随便添加上去的。虽然如此，可是从整个的总和来看，即从精神或灵魂和肉体的结合来看，这就并不是一个单纯的命名问题了，实际上纯碎是一个本性上的错误，当口渴时喝水对身体是非常有害的。这样一来，还有待于去检查的就是，像这样的人的本性既然是虚伪的、骗人的，善良的上帝为什么没有能够阻止这件事情。

我首先看出精神和肉体有很大差别，这个差别在于，就其性质来说，肉体永远是可分的，而精神完全是不可分的。因为事实上，当我考虑我的精神（也就是说，作为仅仅是一个在思维的东西的我自己）的时候，我在精神上不能分出各个部分来，我认识到我自己是一个单一、完整的东西。而且尽管整个精神似乎和整个肉体结合在一起，可是当一只脚或者一只胳臂或别的什么部分从我的肉体截去的时候，肯定从我的精神上并没有截去什么东西。愿望、感觉、领会等功能，其作为精神的一部分也没有被截去，因为只有这唯一的一个思维来从事于愿望、感觉、领会等活动。可是物质性的或者有广延的东西就完全相反；因为凡是物质性的、有广延的东西，都能通过我的思维被分成不同的部分。如果我还没有从别处知道，那么这一点就足以告诉我人的精神或灵魂是和肉体完全不同的。

第二点是，我还看出精神并不直接受到肉体各个部分的影响，它仅仅受到大脑或者甚至大脑的一个最小的部分之一，即行使他们称之为“共同感官”这种功能的那一部分的影响，每当那一部分以同样方式感受时，就使精神感觉到同一的东西，虽然这时候肉体的其他部分可以有不同的感受，这种情况已经被无数的经验所证明了，在这里就不必一一细说了。

此外我还看出，物体的性质是这样的，即它的任何一个部分不能被有隔开一定距离的部分推动，除非尽管这个离得较远的部分不动，它可以被其他别的东西所移动。举例来说，在一条完全抻开的绳子上有甲、乙、丙、丁四个部分，如果丁这段被拉动了，那么在另一端的甲也会跟着一块儿动起来，它动的方式与抻动中间的乙部分或者丙部分同时丁保持不动的方式一样。和这个情况相同的是，当我觉得脚上疼的时候，物理学告诉我，这个感觉是通过分布在脚上的神经传来的，这些神经就像绳子一样从脚上一直通到大脑里，当它们在脚上被抻动的时候，同时也抻动了大脑里边这些神经的起点和终点的那个地方，并且在那里刺激起来为了使精神感觉疼而制定的某一种运动，就好像疼是在脚上似的。可是因为这些神经要从脚上通到大脑里，就一定经过腿、臀部、腰部、背和颈，所以也有这样的可能，即虽然它们在脚上的末端并没有被抻动，而仅仅抻动它们经过腰或颈的某些部分，也会在大脑里刺激起一些和脚上受伤所接到的同样运动，然后精神也将必然觉得脚上疼，就好像脚上受了伤似的。我们的感官的其他各种知觉，情况也应该是这样的。

最后我看出，在影响着思维的大脑中产生的任何一个活动都只能引起某一个感觉，这样一来，能够想到的最佳的安排方式就是这个运动在它能够引起一切感觉之间，只能引起使精神感到最真正、对于维持人体的健康最通常有用的那个感觉。经验使我们认识到，自然所赋予我们的一切感觉就是像我刚才说的那样，因而在这些感觉里边表现出来的无非都是产生它们的上帝的能力和善心。这样，例如当脚上的神经比平时更强烈地动起来的时候，这些神经的运动经过脊椎一直到大脑，在大脑那里给精神一个信号使精神感觉到什么东西，比如在脚上的疼痛，精神就因此受到刺激，尽可能驱除疼的原因，把这个原因当成是对于脚非常危险、非常有害的东西。上帝可以把人的本性建立成这样的，即同样是这个运动，它在大脑里使精神感觉到其他不同的东西，举例来说，这个运动或许在大脑里，或许产生在脚上了，也许在脚和大脑之间别的什么地方，也许不管它是什么别的东西，不过所有这些都比不上它使精神感觉到那样好地有助于保存肉体的东西了。同样，当我们需要喝水的时候，它就在喉咙里发干，这就运动它的神经，用神经运动大脑里面的一些部分，这个运动使精神有渴的感觉，因为在这个机会上，没有别的比知道我们需要喝水来保存我们的健康更有用的东西了。其他情况也一样。

从以上这些就可以明显地看出，尽管有上帝的至善，由精神和肉体组合而成的人的本性，有的时候不可避免地显示出欺骗性。因为如果有什么原因不是在脚上，而是从脚一直到大脑抻起来的神经的某一个部分上，或者甚至在大脑里，刺激起来通常和脚不舒服时所刺激起来的是同样运动，那么人们将感觉到疼，就和疼是在脚上一模一样，感官就自然地要受骗了；因为既然在大脑里的一个同样运动只能在精神里引起一个同样的感觉，而这个感觉是脚受伤了的一个原因所刺激比在别处的原因所刺激的时候多得多，那么这个运动把脚疼而不是什么别的部分疼带给精神，这样说总算是更合理一些吧。而且喉咙发干不是像平常那样总是由于喝水对于身体的健康是必要的原因，而是有时由于什么完全相反的原因，就像患水肿病人所遭遇的那种情况，即使是这样，喉咙发干在这地方骗人也总比相反地当身体没有不舒服时骗人要好得多。其他情况也一样。

当然，这个考虑对我有很大好处，不仅体现在使我认识到我的本性可能犯的各种错误上，同时也体现在使我避免错误或者改正错误。因为在对身体是否合适这一方面，我的各个感官告诉我的多半是真实的而不是虚假的，并且我总是使用多种感官来检查一种事物。而且，除此之外，我还能运用记忆，我的记忆把当前的一些认识和过去的一些认识关联起来，我也能利用我的理智，我的理智已经发现了我的各种错误的一切原因，那么从今以后我就不必害怕我的感官最经常告诉我的那些东西是假的了。而且我应该把我这几天的一切怀疑都抛弃掉，把它们都当作是言过其实、荒谬绝伦的东西，特别是把有关我过去不能把清醒和梦境分别开来的那种非常普遍不肯定的态度抛弃掉，因为我现在从这上面看出一种非常显著的区别，这个区别在于我们的记忆决不能像它习惯于把我们醒着时所遇到的那些事情连接起来那样，把我们的各种梦互相连接起来，把它们跟我们生活的连续性连接起来。而且事实上，假如有人在我醒着时突然出现在我面前又突然不见了，就像我在睡着时所见到的情景那样，我看不出他是从什么地方来的，也看不出他到什么地方去了，那么我就把他看成是在我大脑里形成的一个怪影或者一个幽灵，和我睡着时在大脑里形成的那些怪影或者幽灵一样，而不会把他看成是一个真人，这也并不是没有道理的。可是，当我知觉到一些东西，我清清楚楚地认识到它们是从什么地方来的，它们在什么地方，它们出现在我面前的时间，并且我能把我对它们产生的感觉毫无间断地同我生活的其余部分连接起来，那么我就完全可以肯定我是在醒着的时候而不是梦中知觉到它们。而且，如果在唤起我所有的感官、我的记忆和我的理智去检查这些东西之后，这些东西之中的任何一个告诉我的都没有任何东西跟其余的那些所告诉我的不一致，那么我就决不应该怀疑这些东西的真实性。因为，从上帝不是骗子这件事得出来的必然结果是，我在这方面并没有受骗。然而，由于事情的必然性经常迫使我们在我们得抽出时间在把这些事情加以非常仔细地检查之前去决定，那么就必须承认人生是有可能经常在那些个别的事情上犯错误的；并且最后，必须承认我们的本性存在着缺陷和弱点。

反驳和答辩（节选）

第一组反驳

（a）请问：一个观念的存在是否需要原因？或者请你告诉我，观念，到底是什么东西。就其客观地存在于理智之中而言，观念本身是被思考的东西吗？但是，客观地存在理智之中又是什么意思？如果我理解的没错的话，这就是按照一个对象的方式完成理智的行为；实际上，这无非是对其命名的调整，并没有给这个观念本身增加什么实在的东西。因为，就像被看见一样，在我心里不过是看的动作向我延伸，同样，被思维或者被客观地放在理智之中，这本身就是把思维终止或者使它停下；这在事物本身上用不着什么运动和改变，甚至用不着事物存在。我要问了，一个现实并不存在，或者说仅仅是一个飘渺的名字的“存在”需要什么原因呢？

虽然如此，这个伟大的人物说：当一个观念包含一个特定的客观实际性而非其他时，它无疑地要有什么原因。恰恰相反，什么原因也没有！因为客观实在性是一个纯粹的称号，它在现实上并不存在。可是，一个原因所给予的影响是实在的、现实的；现实不存在的东西并不能有原因，从而既不能取决于也不能产生任何真正的原因，也决不要求原因。因此，我有一些观念，可是这些观念没有原因，也绝对说不上存在一个比我更大的，本身无限的原因了。

（b）虽然人们同意，一件自然而然就在那儿了的东西，就已经暗示着它的存在，可是这不等于说这种存在性在大自然里就现实地是什么东西，而仅仅是，“存在”这个概念无可分割地和这件“至上存在体”联系到了一起。你无法从此推断出上帝的存在是实实在在的一件东西，除非你假定上帝是存在了的“至上存在体”。那样一来，它将包含一切完满性，甚至也包括了“现实存在”的完满性。

对第一组反驳的答辩

（a）我原先在什么地方曾经提及过，就其客观地存在于理智之中而言，观念就是领会或想到的东西本身。对于这句话，他故意理解的和我所说的有所不同，以便给我机会再清楚地解释一下。他说：客观地在理智之中，这就是按照对象化的方式来确定理智的行为，这无非是对其命名，并没有给观念本身增加什么实在的东西等等。大家应该注意到，他的意思是这件事情本身是在理智之外；这也是为什么他说那无非是对其命名。但是我所说的观念从来就不是理智之外的，所以，客观地存在只意味着它是以对象习惯在那里存在着的方式而存在于理智之中的。就好像如果有人问我，太阳，存在于我的客观理智中，对它而言会发生什么？最好的回答便是，除了他被外部的东西命名之外，什么也没发生，即它以一个对象的方式完结了我的理智的活动。但是如果人们问我，太阳的观念是什么，那么这又是什么东西呢？而人们回答说这就是被思维的那个东西本身，就其是客观地在理智之中而言，没有人会把它理解为就是太阳本身，就其是这个外部的名称在理智之中而言。而“客观地在理智之中”也并不意味着以一个对象的方式完结的活动，而是意味着以这些东西经常在那里的方式而在理智之中，这样一来太阳的观念就是太阳本身存在于理智之中，不是形式地，就像它在天上那样，而是客观地，也就是说以对象经常存在的方式而在理智之中。不错，这种存在的方式比什么东西存在于理智之外的方式要不完满得多，可是这并不是一个纯粹的什么都不是，就像我从前说过的那样。

当这位学识渊博的神学家说上面的说法有歧义时，他好像是想要提醒我刚刚说过的话，以免我不小心忘记。他说，首先以观念的形式存在于理智之中的这样一个东西并不是一个实体，也就是说，不是存在于理智之外的什么东西。这话不错。然后他又说，这并不是虚构的东西，或者说一个由理论推论出来的存在体，而是被清楚领会的一个实在的东西；通过这几句话，他完全接受了我所提出的东西。不过他接着说：这个东西仅仅是被领会的，而在现实上并不存在（也就是说，它仅仅是一个观念，而不是在理智之外的什么东西），它可以被领会，但是它不能被什么原因所引起，也就是说，它存在于理智之外这一点，并不需要原因。这一点我承认，不过为了被领会，它当然需要原因，而这就是问题所在。

比如，如果有人在心里有一个什么非常精巧机器的观念，人们有理由问是什么让人产生了这种想法；如果有人说这个机器在理智之外根本不存在，它也不能被什么原因所引起或者被领会的，这种说法是不会令人满意的；因为人们在这里问的唯一问题就是这个东西之所以被领会的原因是什么。有人说理智本身就是它的原因，因为它是自己活动的原因，这样的回答似乎也不尽人意。因为人们对于这一点并不怀疑，而争论的焦点只是在机器里面的客观人工技术的原因。因为这个观念会有这样一个而不是那样一个客观人工技术，它无疑要有一个原因。而具体技术在这个观念方面是和在上帝的观念的客观实在性或完满性方面是一致的。人们可以给这个技术指定各种原因；可能是某个实在的、相似的机器，这个观念就是模仿这个机器做成的；或者是在那个具有这个观念的人的理智之中的、对于机械的丰富的知识，或者也许是那个人的一个巧妙创造，能够在没有背景认识的情况下发明这个机器。必须指出，任何技巧（仅仅是客观地在这种观念之中）都必然要，或形式或卓越地，存在于它的原因之中，不管这种原因是什么。同样，关于上帝的观念的客观实在性也应该以同样的方式被理解。但是假如上帝不是真实存在的话，那么这个全部的实在性或者完满性能够在什么地方呢？

这位才华超众的人已经看到了所有这些事情；这就是为什么他十分合理地问道：为什么是这个观念而不是那个观念含有这种客观实在性；对于这个问题他首先回答说：一切观念都和我说过的关于三角形的观念一样，即，即使也许世界上任何地方都没有三角形，可是这并不妨碍有三角形的某一种确定不移的性质，或形式，或本质；这种性质是不需要原因的。不过他意识到，他所判断的并不能令人满意；因为，即使三角形的性质是不变的、永恒的，这并不能停止人们追问它的观念为什么在我们心中。因此他接着说：不过如果你们硬要我说出一个道理，我将告诉你们这是因为我们理智的本身就是不完满的，等等。不过这一回答，好像就意味着，那些想在这里反对我的人拿不出令人信服的东西来回应。显而易见的是，我们精神的不完满性才是上帝的观念在我们心中的缘故，并不比这样一件事更有道理，即我们想象一个非常精巧的机器而不去想象一个不完满的机器是由于对机器的无知。刚好相反，如果有人有一个关于机器的观念，在这个观念里含有人们可能想象出来的全部技巧，那么人们就有理由以此推论出这个观念是从一个原因产生的，在这个原因里确实的，有全部可想象的技巧，虽然这种技巧仅仅是客观的而不是事实上存在于这个观念之中的。同样道理，既然我们在心里有上帝这样一个观念，在这个观念里含有人们所能领会到的全部完满性，那么人们就可以由此轻易地得出结论，说这个观念取决于并产生于某些原因，这个原因本身真正地含有全部此种完满性，即上帝实际存在的这种完满性。

（b）我的论据是：只要是我们能够清楚地、分明地领会，属于什么东西的常住不变的、真正的本性，或本质，或形式的事物，那么就可以真正地说，这是属于这个事物的；可是，在我们足够仔细地追问上帝是什么的时候，我们能够清楚、明白地意识到他的存在是属于他真正、常住不变的本性，所以我们能够真正地肯定他的存在；至少这个结论的得出是符合前提的。不过这个大前提现在不能否定，因为大家已经在这上面达成了共识，即：凡是我们清楚、分明地理解或领会的东西都是真实的。剩下的问题就只有小前提了，我承认这方面是有不少困难的。首先，因为我们是如此地习惯于在其他一切东西里把存在同本质加以区别，却不大注意存在性怎么属于上帝的本质而不属于其他东西的本质；其次，由于我们不习惯把那些属于什么的，真实的、常住不变的本质的东西同那些仅仅由于我们理智的幻想而归之于它的东西加以区别，那么，虽然我们相当清楚地看出存在性是属于上帝的本质，我们却不能由此而得出结论说上帝存在，因为我们不知道他的本质是否是常住不变的、真实的，或者他的本质是否仅仅是由我们的精神虚构的、捏造的。

不过，为了排除这个困难的第一部分，必须在可能的存在性和必然的存在性之间加以区别，并且指出可能的存在性是包含在我所清楚、分明地领会的一切东西的概念或观念里，而必然的存在性只是包含在上帝的观念里。只要是仔细地考虑在上帝的观念同其他一切观念之间的区别的人，会十分正确地看出以下的事实，即：虽然我们仅仅把其他东西领会为是存在的，但这并不意味着它们确实存在，而只说明它们有能力存在；因为我们领会到，现实的存在性与这些东西的其他特性间的关联不是必然的，而从我们清楚地领会现实的存在性是必然地、永远地和上帝其他属性连结在一起的，随之而来的必然是上帝存在。

为了排除困难的另外一个部分，必须注意不包含真实、常住不变的本性而只包含虚构、由理智组合成的那些观念，他们可以被理智本身，不仅用它的思维，而且用一种清楚、分明的活动，加以分割；这样一来，不能被理智这样分割的东西就无疑地不是由它组合成的。举例来说，当我想象一个带翅膀的马，或者一个现实存在的狮子，或者在一个正方形里画出的三角形时，我很容易领会到，我也可以完全相反地想出来一个没有翅膀的马，一个不存在的狮子，一个不带正方形的三角形，从而这些东西没有真实的、常住不变的本性。如果我想出来一个三角形，或一个正方形（我在这里不去说狮子和马，因为它们的本质还没有完全被认识），那么当然，凡是我认为属于三角形这个观念的东西，比如它的三角之和等于二直角，等等，我都将真实地肯定它是一个三角形，并且凡是我认为属于正方形这个观念的东西都是属于正方形的；因为，对于领会一个三角形，虽然我可以把思维限制到无论如何我只能领会三角之和等于二直角，我却不能用一种清楚、分明的活动，也就是说清楚理解我所说的，去从它身上否定这个东西。还有，如果我考虑一个画在正方形里边的三角形，不是为了把只属于三角形的东西归给正方形，或者把属于正方形的东西归给三角形，而是仅仅为了检查由二者的结合而产生的东西，那么由三角形和正方形组合起来的这个图形的本性就不会不如只是正方形或者只是三角形的本性真实、不变。这样一来我就可以一点不错地确认正方形并不比里边的三角形的两倍小，对于属于这个组合成的图形的本性的其他东西来说，道理是一样的。

可是，如果我考虑一个非常完满的物体的观念，这里包含着存在性，这是因为在事实上存在，同时也在理智中存在，比只是在理智中存在有更大的完满性，我就不能由此断言这个非常完满的物体存在，而只能说有存在的能力。因为我清楚地认识到这个观念是由我的理智本身作出来的，理智把一切物体性的完满性都结合在一起了；同样，存在性并不从包含在物体的本性中的其他完满性中得出来，相反，我们既可以肯定它们存在，也可以否定它们存在。由于在检查物体的观念时，我在物体里边看不出有任何力量足以使它自己产生自己或者自己保存自己，我就可以很肯定地断言必然的存在性（问题在这里只在于这种存在性），尽管它是多么完满，和它属于一个没有谷的山的本性，或者属于一个比二直角更大的三角形的本性是一样的不合适的。

如果现在我们问的，不是关于一个物体，而是关于一个不拘泥于任何形式的东西，它本身具有一切完满性，是否存在性应该被算在这些完满性里，我们应该在最开始的时候就怀疑这样的事情。由于我们有限的思维只习惯于把那些完满性分别考虑，也许无法瞬间注意到他们之间必然的紧密联系。可是，如果我们仔细地考查一下，即：存在性是否，以及什么样的存在性适合于“至上存在体”，我们就会清楚、分明地认识到如下事实。首先，可能的存在性至少对它是合适的，就像我们具有清晰观念的其他东西一样，甚至对那些由我们的精神幻想组合而成的东西都适合一样；现在如果我们认知到他强大的力量，我们无法想到它的存在性是可能的，除非，与此同时我们能够认知它是依靠自己力量存在的。我们就会由此断言它实实在在地存在，它曾经是完全永恒地存在。非常明显的，自然之光告诉我们，能够依靠自己力量存在的，就会永远存在；这样，我们将认识到必然的存在性是包含在一个“至上存在体”的观念里，不是由于理智的虚构，而是由于它属于这样一个存在体的真实、不变的本性而存在；我们也将很容易认识到，这个“至上存在体”不可能在他自身内不包含上帝观念里的其他一切完满性，因此，它们都是由于其本性，不是由于理智的任何虚构而连结在一起的，并且存在于上帝之中。

第二组反驳

（a）你认识到你是一个在思维着的东西，可是你不知道这个在思维着的东西是什么。你怎么知道这不是一个物体，由于它的各种不同的运动和接触而作出你称之为思维的这种行动呢？因为，虽然你认为你已经抛弃掉了一切种类的物体，但是你可能在这里犯了一个错误，即，你并没有把你自己抛弃掉，而你自己也很可能只是一个物体。你如何证明一个物体不能思维，或者某些物体性的运动不是思维的本身呢？为什么你认为已经抛弃掉的肉体的全部系统，或者这个系统的某几个部分，比如说大脑那些部分，不能有助于做成我们称之为思维的那些种类的运动呢？你说，我是一个在思维着的东西：可是你怎么知道你不也是一个物体性的运动或者一个被移动的物体呢？

（b）既然你还不确切地知道上帝的存在，而且你不能肯定你是那种确定的东西，或者说你对任何事物有任何清楚、明确的认知，除非你能预先明确、清楚地知晓上帝的存在，由此推演，你无法清楚地知道你是一个思考着的东西，按照你的说法，这种认识取决于对一个存在的上帝的清楚认识，而这种认识你还没有在你确定清楚地认识你是什么的那些地方证明过。

此外，一个无神论者清楚、分明地知道三角形三角之和等于二直角，但是他决不信上帝存在，并完全否认它的存在，他说，假如上帝存在，那就会有一个至上的存在体和一个至上的善，也就是说，一个无限；然而，在一切种类的完满性上，这种无限排除一切其他完满性，不仅排除一切种类的存在体和善，而且也排除一切种类的非存在体和恶。鉴于仍然有许多存在体和许多善，也仍然有许多非存在体和许多恶，我们认为你应该给以回应才好，使不信神的人再没有可反驳的，再没有什么可被用作他们不信神的借口。

（c）你如何知道，自己在清楚、分明认识的东西上从来没被蒙蔽，而且也不会被蒙蔽？多少次我们看到有人在他们认为比太阳还清楚的一些事物上受蒙蔽？由此可见，需要把清楚、分明的认识这条原则解释得非常清楚、分明，使但凡有理智之人不会在他们认为知道得清楚、分明的事物上受蒙蔽。

（d）当你对前一组反驳作出回应时，你得出的结论似乎不正确，结论如下：那些被我们清楚、分明地理解，属于什么事物常住不变的、真实的本性，可以被真正地理解为是属于这事物的；但当我们足够仔细地观察了上帝是什么之后，我们清楚、分明地理解他的存在是属于他真正、常住不变的本性。于是你可以得出如下结论：在我们足够仔细地观察了上帝是什么之后，我们能够确认这个真理，即上帝的存在是属于他的本性的。这并不等于说上帝事实上存在，而只能说他应该存在，如果他的本性是可能的或者不相矛盾的话。也就是说，上帝的本性或本质不能领会为没有存在性，鉴于这种本质存在，他就实际上存在。这和其他的某些论证不谋而合：如果在上帝的存在上没有矛盾，那么上帝存在就是肯定的；而在上帝之存在上没有矛盾。但问题在于小前提，即：上帝之存在没有矛盾，那些不同意的人中有些持怀疑态度，另外一些就干脆否认。

（e）从灵魂与肉体的区别上似乎不能得出灵魂是不可毁灭的或不死的这个结论来；若是灵魂的本性因肉体生命的长短而受到限制呢？若是上帝曾赋予自身力量和存在性使它同肉体一起完结呢？

对第二组反驳的答辩

（a）你们又问：我如何论证物体不能思维。如果我回答说我还没有谈到这个问题，就请你们谅解我，因为要到第六个沉思时我才会谈这个问题。我是用如下几句话谈的：我能够清楚、分明地领会一个东西而不牵涉到别的东西，就足以确定这一个东西和那一个东西有所不同，等等，后面不远的地方又谈到：

虽然我有一个肉体，我和它非常紧密地结合在一起，不过，一方面我对我自己有一个清楚、分明的观念，即我只是一个在思维的东西而没有延伸空间，而另一方面，我对于肉体有一个清楚、分明的观念，即它只是一个有延伸空间的东西而不能思维，所以肯定的是这个我，也就是我的精神或我的灵魂，即我之所以为我的那个东西，是完全、真正跟我的肉体有分别的，它可以没有肉体而存在。

在这上面很可以加上一句：凡是能够思维的就是精神，或者就叫作精神。由于身体和精神是实际上有分别的，那么任何身体都不是精神。所以任何物体都不能思维。

在这上面我看不出有什么是你们可以否认的；是因为你觉得我们清楚地领会一个东西而不牵涉到另外一个东西就不足以知道它们实际上是有分别的吗？要是那样的话，你应给提供一些能够分辨真正不同的标准，但我很肯定，你给不出来。你们又会说什么呢？如果两个东西能够不依托于对方而存在，他们就真的有分别了吗？可是我再问你们，你们怎么知道一个东西可以不依托另一个而存在？如果这是一个分别的标准，人们应该知道它。也许你们会说：感官使你们知道，因为你们看见两个东西彼此分离，不依附，或者你们摸到了它，等等。可是对感官的信任比对理智的信任更不可靠；同一个东西可能以不同的方式给我们的感官表现出各种不同的形式，或者在几个地方表现为几种样子，这样它就被当作是两个。最后，如果你们还记得我在第二个沉思的末尾说过的关于蜡的话，你们就会知道物体本身不能真正地被感官认识，而只能被理智认识；因此，感觉一个东西而不牵涉到另一个东西无非是一个东西的观念，即这个观念和另外一个东西的观念不是同一的。我们只能从这样一个事实来理解，一个东西在不受另一个东西的影响下可以被感知，而且只有一个东西在不牵涉到另一个东西也能被领会的情况下才能被认识。这样一来，关于“真正的区分”的标准就应该还原到我的标准上才是靠得住的。

（b）当我说我们不能确切地认识上帝，除非我们预先知道他的存在时，我声明，我谈论的只是那些不用考虑前提条件就能推导出结论的知识。但是逻辑学家还没有把原理的知识称作科学知识的习惯。但当我们发觉我们是在思维着的东西时，这是一个第一概念，这个概念并不是从任何三段论式推论出来的。即使有人说：我思维，所以我存在，他因思维而得出存在这个结论并不是根据三段论式，而是从一种不言自明的简单精神洞察出来的。从以下的事实看，事情是很明显的，如果他是从一种三段论式推论出来的，他必须预先认识这个大前提：思维的东西都存在。然而，他是从他不存在就不能思维这个事实体会到这一点的。由个别的认识推论出广泛通用的命题，这是我们精神的本性。

（c）我们一旦认为清楚地领会了一件事情，我们就自然地相信它。如果这种信念坚强到我们永远没有任何理由怀疑那些像这样相信的东西的程度的话，那么就没有任何东西要去进一步追寻了，我们已经有了我们希望的一切。如果也许有人硬说我们如此强烈相信其真实性的东西在上帝眼里或者在天使眼里是有偏差的，并且因此说他是完全错误的，这跟我们有什么关系呢？既然我们根本不相信，也没有丝毫有力的证据，我们为什么要在意这样一个绝对的错误？我们坚信一个信念，坚信到不可动摇的程度，那么这个信念就成了非常可靠的真理。

但人们可能会怀疑是否有人有像这样的可靠性，或者某种坚定不移的信念。

当然，人们不能对于模糊不清的东西有什么信念，即使是一点点的模糊不清也不行；因为不管是什么样的模糊不清都是使我们对这些东西产生怀疑的原因。对于由感觉得来的东西也不能有信念，因为我们经常发现感官会出现偏差，就像当一个水肿病人口渴或者有黄胆病的人看雪是黄色的，那个人看雪清楚、分明的程度不比我们差，而我们看雪却是白色的。因此，如果人们能够有信念，那仅仅是精神领会得清楚、明白的东西。

可是，在这些东西里边，有一些是那么清楚，同时又是那么简单，以致我们不可能认为它们不是真的。例如，当我思维时我存在；做了的事情无法回到没做的状态；以及诸如此类的东西。对于这些东西，我们显然是有十足把握的。因为如果我们不想那些东西，我们就不能怀疑它们；但如果我们不相信它们是真的，我们就决不会想到它们，就像我刚才说的那样。所以如果不同时相信它们是真的，我们就不能怀疑它们，也就是说，我们永远没办法怀疑它们。

我们时常遇到有些人在他们以为比看见太阳还清楚的一些事物上弄错，这也没有什么用处；因为，不管是我们或者任何人都没有看见过这样的事情发生在那些能够单独从他们理智知觉中得出全部清楚、分明性的人的身上，只看见过这样的事情发生在那些从感官或者从什么错误的偏见中得出全部清楚、分明性的人的身上。

想要假装认为这样的事情在上帝或者天使看来是错误的，也没什么用，因为我们知觉的明显性决不允许我们去相信如此假装的人。

还有一些其他东西，我们不能怀疑它们，因为我们的理智，根据我们已有的理解能力，对它们领会得十分清楚；但是，我们可能忘记那些原因，并且记住从这些原因推论出的结论，人们问道，对于这些结论，在我们记得它们是从一些非常明显的原则推论出来的时候，是否能够有一个坚定不移的信念；因为这个记忆必须设定，以便这些结论能够被称之为结论。我回答说，只有那些认识上帝到如此程度，以致他们知道由上帝给予的理解功能只能以真理作为对象的人，才能够对于这些结论有一个坚定不移的信念；不过其他人不能够有这样的信念。

（d）当批评我由一个三段论式构建的结论时，你们好像犯了一个错误。因为，为了得出你们所要的结论，大前提应该是这样的：凡是被我们清楚、分明地领会为属于某事物本性的东西，都能真正地被说成或者被肯定为是属于这个事物的本性。这样一来，这个大前提除了无用的、多余的重复以外，没有包含什么东西。可是我的论据的大前提是这样的：凡是被我们清楚、分明地领会为属于某事物本性的东西，都能真正地被说成或者被肯定为是属于这个东西的。这就是说，如果“是动物”属于人的本性，那么可以肯定人是动物；如果三角之和等于二直角属于直角三角形的本性，那么就可以肯定直角三角形三角之和等于二直角；如果存在属于上帝的本性，那么就可以肯定上帝存在，等等。小前提是这样的：而存在是属于上帝的本性的。从这里显然必须得出像我所说的那样的结论，即：所以我们可以真正地肯定说上帝存在，而不是像你们所想那样：所以我们可以真正地肯定说存在是属于上帝本性的。

这样，为了能够使用你们提出的特例，你们本来应该否认大前提，说我们清楚地理解什么是属于东西的本性，不能因此就被说成是或被肯定是属于这个东西，除非是它的本性是可能的，或者不矛盾的。不过，我请你们看一看这个特例的缺点。因为，要么是你们用可能这个词，像一般人所做的那样，指的是凡是与人类思想不相矛盾的东西，在这种意义上，上帝的本性，按照我所描写的方式来说，显然是可能的，因为在上帝的本性身上，除了我们清楚、分明地领会为应该属于他的东西以外，我并没有假定什么东西，这样我就没有假定什么与思想或人类概念相矛盾的东西；要么是你们假想出什么其他的可能性，从对象本身来说，这种可能性如果与前一种可能性相矛盾，就决不能被人类理智所认识，从而它就和否定人的认识中的其他一切东西一样，没有什么力量来迫使我们去否定上帝的本性或者上帝的存在。因为，如果把上帝的本性是可能的这件事加以否定，虽然从概念或从思想方面来说没有什么不可能，可是相反，凡是包含在上帝本性的这个概念里的东西都是如此地互相衔接，以致如果说其中有某一个不属于上帝的本性，这对我们来说似乎是矛盾的；因此，如果上帝的本性是可能的这件事可以去否定，那么同样道理，也可以去否定一个三角形三角之和等于二直角是可能的，或者现实在思维的人存在是可能的；尤有甚者，人们甚至可以否定凡是我们由感觉知觉到的一切东西都是真的。那样一来，人类的一切知识都将既无丝毫理由，又无任何根据而被完全推翻。

（e）至于你们补充说，从灵魂与肉体之间的区别不能得出灵魂不死这个结论来，因为虽然有区别，可是人们可以说上帝把灵魂做成这样一种性质，使它的延续时间和肉体的生命的延续时间同时完结，我承认我没有什么可答辩的，因为我没有那么大的胆量去企图用人类的推理力量来规定一个只取决于上帝的纯粹意志的东西。自然的认识告诉我们精神是与物体有别的，精神是一种实体；同时，人的肉体，就其与其他物体有别而言，不过是由某一种外形的肢体以及诸如此类的偶性组合而成；最后，肉体的死亡仅仅取决于形状的某种分解或改变。然而，我们没有任何论据也没有任何例证使我们相信，像精神这样一个实体的死亡或毁灭应该随着一个形状的改变这种如此轻微的原因所致，而形状的改变不过是一个样态，更何况这个样态又不是精神的样态，而是与精神实际上有别的肉体的样态。我们甚至没有任何论据或例证可以使我们相信有些实体是可以被毁灭的。这就足以得出结论说，人的精神或灵魂，按其能够被自然哲学所认识的程度来说，是不死的。

可是如果有人问道，是否也许上帝用他的绝对能力，规定了人的灵魂会因它与之联合的肉体的毁灭而同时停止存在？这只能由上帝自己来回答。既然他现在向我们启示这样的事不会发生，关于这件事我们不应该再有任何怀疑了。

证明方式是双重的：一个是由分析法或决定法做的，一个是由综合法或组合法做的。

分析法指出一条一件事物由之而被有条不紊地发现出来的真正道路，同时也指明结果如何取决于原因；这样，如果读者们愿意遵循这个方法并且仔细注视它所包含的一切东西，他们就会把这样证明了的东西理解得同样完满，就跟他们自己发现了它一样成为他们自己的东西。不过这种证明不足以使顽固的、不用心的读者信服；因为，如果一不经心漏掉了它所提出的一点点小事情，它的结论的必然性就不会出现；人们没有习惯大量检查那些本身足够明确的东西，虽然那是最应该注意的东西。

综合法则相反，它走的是一条完全不同的道路，好像从结果里检查原因一样（虽然它所包含的证明经常也是由原因检查结果），它固然清楚地证明在结论里所包含的东西，并且使用了一长串的定义、要求、公理、定理和问题，以便如果否认它的什么结论的话，它就指出这些结论是怎样包含在前提里边的，这样它就会使读者们（不管他们是多么顽固不化）不得不同意，不过它不像另外那种方法那样，使那些希望学习的人感到完全满足，因为事物是用什么方法发现的，它不告诉你。

几何学方式证明上帝的存在和人的精神与肉体之间的区别的依据

一、关于思维这一词，我是指凡是像这样存在于我们的心里，使我们对之有直接认识的东西。这样一来，凡是意志的活动、理智的活动、想象的活动和感官的活动都是思维。可是我加上“直接”这个词，这是为了把附加和取决于我们思维的东西排除在外。举例来说，出于意愿的运动虽然真正来说是以意志为其原则的，但是它本身并不是思维。

二、关于观念这一词，我是指我们的每个思维的这样一种形式，由于这种形式的直接知觉，我们对这些思维才有认识。因此，当我理解我所说的话时，除非肯定在我心里具有关于用我的言词所意味着的东西的观念，我用言词什么都表明不了。因此，仅仅是任意描绘出来的影像，我不把它们称之为观念；相反，这些影像，当它们是由肉体任意描绘出来的时候，也就是说，当它们是大脑的某些部分描绘出来的时候，我不把它们称之为观念，而只有当它们通知到大脑的这一个部分的精神本身的时候，我才把它们称为观念。

三、关于一个观念的客观实在性，我是指用观念表象的东西的实体性或存在性，就这个实体性是在观念里边而言。同样，人们可以说一个客观的完满性，或者一个客观的技巧等等。因为凡是我们领会为在观念的对象里边的东西都是客观地或者通过表象存在于观念本身里。

四、当这些东西在观念的对象里边就如同我们所领会那个样子时，这些东西就叫作形式地存在于观念的对象里；当这些东西在观念里边实际上不是像我们所领会的那个样子，而是如此的伟大以致它们能够用它们的优越性来弥补这个缺点时，它们就叫作卓越地存在于观念的对象里。

五、凡是被别的东西作为其主体而直接寓于其中的东西，或者我们所领会的（也就是说，在我们心中有其实在的观念的某种特性、性质或属性的）某种东西由之而存在的东西，就叫作实体。因为实体是这样的一种东西，在它里边形式地或卓越地存在着我们所知觉的，或者客观地在我们某一个观念里边的东西；除此而外，严格说来我们对实体没有其他概念，因为自然的光明告诉我们“无”不能有任何实在的属性。

六、思维直接寓于其中的实体，在这里就叫作精神。我所指的是精神不是灵魂，因为灵魂这个名称是有歧义的，人们可能会用它来指代物质性的东西。

七、作为广延以及以广延为前提的偶性（如形状、位置、地点的运动等等）的直接主体，叫作物体或肉体、身体。不过，如要知道叫作精神的实体是否同时就是叫作物体的实体，或者是否它们是两个不同的实体，这留待以后再去研究。

八、我们把理解为至上完满的、我们了解其中没有包含着任何缺点或对完满性有限制的东西的实体就叫作上帝。

九、当我们说某种属性包含，或者在其概念里在一个东西的本性时，我们可以说如果这个事物是真实的，那么它所包含的事物也是真实的。

十、当两种实体之间，不以另一个的存在为前提而存在的，这两种实体就是相互区别的。

第三组反驳

反驳

因为从我思维或从我有一个观念，可以推论出我是有思维的，因为我思维和我是在思维的，二者是一个意思。从我是在思维的，得出我存在；因为思维的东西并非什么都不是。不过，我们的著者在这里加上了“也就是说，一个精神，一个灵魂，一个理智，一个理性”，从这里我就产生出来一个疑问。因为我认为：说我是在思维的，因而我是一个思维，或者说，我是有理智的，因而我是一个理智，这样的推理是不正确的。因为我也可以用同样的推理说：我是在散步，因而我是一个散步。笛卡尔先生把有理智的东西和理智当作一回事了；或者至少他说在理解的东西和理智是一个东西。可是所有的哲学家都把主体跟它的功能和行为，也就是说，跟它的特性和本质分别开来。因为这跟东西本身的存在和它的本质不是一回事；因此一个在思维的东西可以是精神、理性或者理智的主体，从而是物体性的东西，可是他提出来的倒是与此相反的东西而没有加以证明。虽然如此，笛卡尔先生想要建立的结论，其根据好像就在于此。

在同一地方，他说道：“我认识到了我存在，现在我追问，我认识了我存在这个我究竟是谁。可是，非常可靠的是，关于我自己的这个概念和认识，严格来说不取决于我还不知道其存在的那些东西。”

他说得非常正确：对我存在这个命题的认识之取决于我思维这个命题是非常可靠的；可是对我思维这个命题的认识是从哪里来的呢？不错，这无非是来自：没有主体，我们就不能领会其任何行为，就像没有一个在思维的东西就不能领会思维，没有一个在知道的东西就不能领会知道，没有一个散步的东西就不能领会散步一样。

答辩

我曾经说的“也就是说，一个精神，一个灵魂，一个理智，一个理性……”，我用这几个名称不是指单独的功能，而是指能有思维功能的东西，就像人们习惯于用前头两个所指的，以及人们经常用后头两个所指的那样。这是我经常而且用非常明显的词句解释过的，我看不出有什么可疑的地方。

在散步和思维之间，没有什么关系；因为散步除了行动本身之外，从来不指别的，而思维有时指行动，有时指功能，有时指寓于这个功能之内的东西。

我并没有说理智和在理解的东西是一回事，也没有说，如果把理智当作一种功能，而仅仅是当理智被当作在理解的东西的时候，我才说它们是一回事。我坦率地承认，为了说明一个东西或一个实体，我要把凡是不属于它的东西都要从它身上剥掉起见，我尽可能使用了简单、抽象的词句；而相反，这位哲学家为了说明同一的实体，却使用了另外的一些非常具体、非常复杂的词句，比如主体、物质以及物体，以便尽可能地不把思维和物体（或身体）分别开来。

我并不害怕他所使用的方法，也就是说把几种东西连接在一起，比我所使用的方法（即用以尽可能地分辨每一个东西）更能有效地认识真理。但是不要再多说空话了，还是让我们看看问题的所在吧。

他说：“一个在思维的东西可以是物体性的，可是他提出来的倒是与此相反的东西，而没有加以证明。”这是不对的，我没有提出相反的东西，我也绝对没有把它当作根据，我不过是完全未置可否，一直把它留到第六个沉思才对它加以证明。

后来，他说得很好：“没有主体，我们就不能领会其任何行为，就仿佛没有一个在思维的东西，就不能进行思维一样，因为在思维的东西不是无。”不过他接着说，“从这里似乎应该得出这样一个结论，即一个在思维的东西是某种物体性的东西”，这就毫无道理，不合逻辑，甚至跟通常说话的方式相反了。因为一切行为的主体当然是指实体说的（或者，如果他愿意的话，是指物质，即抽象的物质）；不过不能因此就说它们是物体。

反驳

而且，当笛卡尔说上帝的观念和灵魂的观念是与生俱来的，我想知道那些正在熟睡而没有做梦的人是否在思考。如果他们没有，那么他们在那个时候则没有观念。因此，没有任何观念是与生俱来的，而任何与生俱来的都是当下存在的。

答辩

当我们说有些观念是与生俱来的，这并不意味着这种观念时时伴随着我们，依照那样的说法，没有任何观念是与生俱来的了。我们这里仅指我们自身有产生观点的能力。

第四组反驳

（a）假如有人知道半圆上的圆周角是直角，从而用这个角和圆的直径做成的三角形是直角三角形，可是，他怀疑并且还不确定，并且由于一些诡辩误导了他的思维，他会否认由直角三角形的斜边做成的正方形等于由两条直角边做成的两个正方形之和，按照笛卡尔先生的意见，他好像应该坚持他的错误见解。因为他会说，我清楚、分明地领会这个三角形是直角三角形，但是我怀疑由它的斜边做成的正方形等于由它的两条直角边做成的两个正方形之和：因此，由直角三角形的斜边做成的正方形等于由两个直角边做成的两个正方形之和是不属于这个三角的本质的。

以后，虽然我否认由它的斜边做成正方形等于由两个直角边做成的两个正方形之和，不过我确实知道它是直角的，而且这个三角形的一个角是直角这件事在我的心中一直是清清楚楚的，就是上帝自己都不能使它不是直角三角形。

从而，我所怀疑的，我甚至可以否认的，一直存在于我心中的这个观念并不属于它的本质。

此外，由于我知道凡是我清楚、分明地领会的东西，都能像我领会的那样由上帝产生，所以只要我能够清楚、分明地领会一个东西而用不着一个别的东西，就足以确定这一个东西和那一个东西有分别，因为上帝可以把它们分开。可是我清楚、分明地领会这个三角形是直角三角形，用不着我知道由它的斜边做成的正方形等于由它的两直角边做成的两个正方形之和；因此，有可能是由三角形的斜边做成的正方形不等于由它的两直角边做成的两个正方形之和，至少是上帝可以使它这样。

我看不出在这里能够回答什么，除非这个回答的人不是清楚、分明地领会直角三角形的性质。可是我怎么知道我认识我的精神的性质比他认识这个三角形的性质认识得更好呢？因为，他之确知半圆的圆周三角形有一个直角（这是直角三角形的概念），和我之确知我思维所以我存在是同样的。

所以，跟那个认为这个三角形的斜边上做成的正方形等于两直角边上做成的两个正方形之和并不是这个三角形（他所清楚、分明认识的直角三角形）的本质这件事上弄错的人完全一样，也许我也在我认为除了我是一个在思维着的东西以外，没有什么别的东西是属于我的本性（我清楚、分明地知道我是一个在思维着的东西）这件事上弄错，因为也许我是一个有广延的东西这件事也是属于我的本质的吧？

（b）我只剩下一个疑虑了，那就是，对于他所说的话，只有由于上帝存在，我们才肯定我们所清楚明白地领会的东西是真的，他怎么辩护才能免于陷入循环论证。因为，我们之所以肯定上帝存在，只因为我们对这件事领会得非常清楚、非常明白，因此，在我们肯定上帝存在之前，我们必须先肯定凡是我们领会得清楚、分明的东西都是真的。

有一件事情我之前想不起来了，现在把它提出来，那就是，就他是一个在思维的东西而言，不管什么东西，如果他对这个东西没有认识，就不能存在于他的内心。这个命题我认为是错误的，而笛卡尔先生认为是非常正确的。因为在他的内心，就其是一个在思维的东西而言这句话，在他的内心里面的“他”，就精神之有别于肉体而言，除了指他的精神，不指别的东西。但是，有谁看不出来，在精神里能够有很多东西，而精神本身对这些东西毫无认识？举例来说：一个在母亲肚子里的小孩子的精神当然有思维的能力或功能，可是他对它没有认识。类似这样的东西还有很多，我就不讲了。

对第四组反驳的答辩

（a）虽然如此，我们这位博学的朋友强调说：虽然我可以对我自己不用物体的概念而取得什么概念，可是不能由此得出结论说这个概念是完全的、全部的，从而我可以确知当我从我的本质排除物体时，我没有弄错。他用内接于半圆的三角形的例子来说明我们能够很清楚、分明地领会这是直角三角形，虽然我们不知道或者甚至否认在它的斜边上的正方形等于两个直角边上的正方形。虽然如此，我们不能由之而得出我们能够作出一个直角三角形而其斜边上的正方形不等于两个直角边上的正方形之和。

不过，就这个例子来说，它在许多方面跟所提出的东西不同；因为，第一，虽然也许对于一个三角形，我们可以把它理解为一个实体，这个实体的形状是三角的，可是有着斜边上的正方形等于两个直角边上的正方形之和这个特点肯定不是一个实体，从而这两个东西的任何一个都不能被理解为完全的东西。精神和肉体也是这样。甚至这个特点也不能称之为东西，按照我说过这足以使我能够领会一个东西（指一个完全的东西）而用不着领会另外一个东西等等的意思，下面的话是非常容易理解的：再说，我在里边找到一些功能，等等。因为，我并没有说这些功能是东西，不过我特别想在东西（也就是说实体）与这些东西的方式（也就是说这些实体的功能）之间作出分别。

第二，虽然我们用不着知觉到它的斜边上的正方形等于两个直角边上的正方形之和，就能够清楚、明白地领会内接于半圆的三角形是直角三角形，可是我们不能这样清楚地领会一个三角形的斜边上的正方形等于两个直角边上的正方形之和，而用不着同时领会这个三角形是直角的；不过我们用不着肉体就清楚、分明地领会精神，反过来也一样，我们用不着精神就清楚、分明地领会肉体。

第三，虽然内接于半圆的三角形的概念或观念可以不包含斜边上的正方形等于两个直角边上的正方形之和，可是这个概念或观念不能是这样的，即我们不能领会能够在斜边上的正方形和两个直角边上的正方形之间，没有一个比例关系是属于这个三角形的。从而，当我们不知道这个比例关系是什么的时候，除了我们清楚地领会的那个比例关系不属于它以外，我们不能否认任何一个别的比例关系。不过，在它们两个之间的相等的比例关系上来理解这一点，这是绝对办不到的。但是，在肉体的概念里边不包含任何属于精神的东西；反过来，在精神的概念里边也不包含任何属于肉体的东西。

因此，虽然我说过只要我用不着一个别的东西就能够清楚、分明领会一个东西就足够了，等等，不能因此就作出这个小前提：可是我清楚、分明地领会到这个三角形是直角三角形，虽然我怀疑或者否认它的斜边上的正方形等于两直角边上的正方形之和，等等。因为第一，在斜边上的正方形和两直角边上的正方形之间相等的比例关系并不是一个完全的东西；第二，这个相等的比例关系只有在一个直角三角形中我们才能清清楚楚地理解到。第三，如果我们否认在一个三角形的斜边上的正方形和它的两直角边上的正方形之间的比例关系，我们就不能清清楚楚地领会这个三角形。

（b）最后，我已经在我对第二组反驳的答辩中……清楚地指出，当我说我们确知我们非常清楚、非常明白地领会的东西之所以都是真的是因为上帝存在，而我们确知上帝存在是因为我们对上帝存在领会得非常清楚、非常分明。我这样说并没有陷入循环论证中，我是把我们事实上领会得非常清楚的东西同我们记得以前曾领会得非常清楚的东西区别开来。之所以这样是因为，首先我们确信上帝的存在，因为我们注意到那些证明上帝存在的理由；不过在这以后，还需要我们记得曾经把一个东西领会得清清楚楚以便确知它是真的，如果我们不知道上帝存在，不知道他不可能是骗子，这就不行。

关于是否任何东西都不能存在于我们的精神里（就精神只是一个在思维的东西而言），假如精神本身对那个东西没有实现认识的话，这个问题，我认为非常容易解决，因为当我们这样认为它的时候，我们看得很清楚，就精神只是一个在思维着的东西而言，除了思维或者完全取决于思维的东西之外，没有什么东西存在于它里边，否则就不属于精神；而在我们心中不可能有任何思维（在它存在于我们心中的同时）是我们对之没有一种现实认识的。因此我不怀疑精神渗入到一个小孩子的身体里就开始思维，从这时起他就知道他思维，虽然他以后不记得他思维什么，因为他所思维的东西没有刻印在他的记忆里。

不过需要注意的是，我们对于我们的精神的行为或活动有一种现实的认识而并不总是对于它的功能才有现实的认识，除非是潜在的。因此，当我们打算使用什么功能的时候，如果这个功能是在我们的精神里，我们立刻就得到关于它的现实认识。就是因为这个缘故，如果我们不能得到关于它的这种现实认识，我们就可以确定无疑地否认它在那里。

第五组反驳

（a）每当你说出或在心里想到“有我，我存在”这个命题时，它就必然是真的。不过我看不出你为什么需要费那么多的事，既然你已经确实知道你存在，既然你能够从你别的什么行动上得出同样的结论，既然自然的光明明显地告诉我们，凡是起作用的东西，都有，或都存在。

（b）你接着又说如果事物的一部分有可能出现错误会比所有的部分都一样不出现错误更完满，这就好比说，一个国家，如果一部分公民作恶多端反而比所有的公民都是遵纪守法的公民要完美。这样一来就可以得出，既然统治者希望他的臣民都是遵纪守法的公民，那么宇宙的创造者在创造世间万物的各个部分时会让他们免于犯错误，并且也应该这样做。尽管你可以说与容易犯错误的部分相比，那些不会犯错误的东西才显得更为完美，这是很偶然的事情。同样地，与邪恶之人相比善良之人的品格在某些程度上大放光彩，这也是偶然才大放光彩的。这样，要是有些公民作恶才能显示出另外一部分公民的良好品德，这显然是不合适的。如果为了显示部分不会犯错的更完满而把另一部分创造得容易出现错误，这显然是不应该的。

如果上帝是为你在这个世界中选择一个特定的角色，而这个角色既不是最完美的也不是最重要的，你说你没有权利去抱怨这件事。但是，这样的回答却不能帮助我们解答这个问题，也就是说，比起一个不完满的角色，上帝为什么不在各种完满的角色中为你挑选一个级别比较低的呢？如果一个统治者并没有委任所有的公民以高位，相反地却把一部分人安排在中层，一部分人安排在基层，这没有什么不对的。如果一个统治者不仅仅把一些人安排在最基层位置，还把一些人安排在违法作乱的位置上，那么这个统治者就会遭到人们的诟病了。

（c）然后，对于你对你自己的观念，在我主要关于第二个沉思上已经说过了，我没有更多的话说。因为，在那上面，大家看得很清楚，你绝不是对你自己有一个清楚、分明的概念；相反，似乎你对你自己根本没有概念。因为虽然你肯定知道你在思维，可是你并不知道在思维的你是什么东西，因而尽管你清清楚楚地知道了这一个活动，但主要的你还不知道，即你还不知道这个实体是什么，而思维只是这个实体的许多活动之一。从而我觉得我很可以用一个瞎子来比喻。瞎子感觉到热，听人说热是来自太阳的，因而会以为对于太阳有一个清楚明白的观念；这样，假如有人问他太阳是什么，他就会回答说这是一个发热的东西。

但是你将会说，我在这里并不是只说我是一个在思维的东西，我还说我是一个没有广延的东西。不过，先不要说这是一件你并没有证明的事，虽然这在我们之间还是问题；我请你告诉我，你由此对你自己就有一个清楚、分明的概念吗？你说你不是一个有广延的东西；当然我由此就知道了你不是什么，但不知道你是什么。为了对于某一个东西有一个清楚、分明的概念，也就是说，有一个真实、自然的概念，难道不是必须正面地认识那个东西本身是什么，也就是，姑且这样说，肯定地认识那个东西吗？光知道它不是什么就够了吗？谁要是仅仅知道布塞法勒不是一个苍蝇，他对于布塞法勒就算有一个清楚、分明的概念吗？

然而，为了不在这上面有什么更多的纠缠，我只请问你：你说你是一个没有广延的东西，那么你不是渗透到全身去吗？当然我不知道你要怎么回答，因为虽然在一开始我认为你仅仅是在大脑里，这不过是仅仅由于猜测，而不是真正相信这是你的意见。我的猜测是根据你不久以后所说的那句话。你说：灵魂并不直接接受肉体一切部分的感染，而仅仅接受大脑的感染，或者也许大脑最小的那些部分之中的一个部分的感染。不过这并不能使我完全肯定你究竟是在大脑里，还是在大脑的一部分里，因为你可以是散布在全身里而只能在一部分里感觉到，正好像我们平常所说的：灵魂散布在全身，然而它只能通过眼睛去看。

（d）关于你必须发送到全身来传达感觉和运动的那些精气，我认为也是那样，且不说不可能理解你怎么把运动印到那些精气上，假如你是在一个点里，假如你不是一个物体，或者假如你没有一个物体用来整个地接触和推动它们的话。因为，假如你说它们是自动的，而你只是指引它们的运动，你要记得你在某一个地方曾说过物体不能自动，因此我们可以推论你是它运动的原因。然后请你给我们解释，没有某种专注，没有从你这方面的某种驱动，这种指引怎么进行？没有能动和被动的相互关联，怎么能够对一个东西或其驱动有压力呢？既然自然的光明告诉我们只有物体才能触动和被触动，那么没有物体怎么能有这个触动呢？

对第五组反驳的答辩

（a）当你说我从我的任何一个行动中都本来可以毫无差异地得出同一的结论时，你完全弄错了，因为这些行动中没有一个是我完全清楚的，我是指这种抽象的可靠性，除了思维以外，在这里，问题只在于这种抽象的可靠性。因为，举例来说，我散步，所以我存在，这个结论是不正确的，除非我具有的、作为内部认识的是一个思维，只有关于思维，这个结论才是可靠的，关于身体的运动就不行，它有时是假的，就像在我们的梦中出现的那样，虽然那时我们好像是在散步，这样从我想我是在散步这件事我就可以推论出我的精神（是它有这种思想）的存在，而不能推论出我的身体（是它在散步）的存在。其他一切也都是这样。

（b）你在这里到处不恰当地把好犯错误当成正面的不完满性，而这不过是（主要是有关上帝的）对存在于造物之中的更大的完满性的否定。把一个国家的公民们拿来同宇宙的各部分作比较也套不上；因为一些公民们的不好，对于国家来说，是一件肯定的事；可是人是好犯错误的，也就是说，人并不具有一切种类的完满性，这跟宇宙是好的，不能同日而语。不过，拿下面这样两种人来作比较更好一些：有人希望人的身体满都是眼睛以便他表现得更美一些（由于对他来说没有比眼睛更美的部分），另一个人认为在世界上不应该有不犯错误的创造物，也就是说，不应该有完满无缺的创造物。

（c）你所说的关于太阳的观念，一个天生的瞎子是单独用他对于热的认识做成的，这是不难反驳的；因为这个瞎子对太阳虽然没有想一个明亮的、发光的东西那样的观念，可是他总还有一个发热的东西的清楚、明白的观念吧。你把我拿来同这个瞎子相比，这是毫无道理的。首先因为对一个在思维的东西的认识比对一个发热的东西的认识要延伸到远得多的范围，它甚至比我们对于任何别的东西所有的认识更广阔，就像我在别处已经指出过的那样；其次也因为没有人能证明这个瞎子对太阳所作成的观念并不包含人们对太阳所能认识的一切东西，只不过是那个有视觉器官的人除此而外还认识它的形状和它的光。可是对你来说，关于精神，你不但不比我认识得更多，而且你并没有看到我在那里所看到的全部东西。因此不如说是你，是你像一个瞎子，而从你那方面来说，我最多只能被称为近视眼或者目光短浅的人，和其他的人一样。

（d）即使思想与整个肉体融为一体，思想也无需随着肉体的伸展而伸展，因为思想不是肉体伸展的必须因素，而却是思想的必须因素。因此，即使思想能够移动肉体，却不是构成肉体的必须要素。

第六组反驳

（a）第六个问题来自判断的无所谓或者自由。按照你的学说，它远不是使自由意志更高贵，更完满，而是相反，你是把它的不完满放在无所谓里，因此，什么时候只要理智清楚、分明地认识必须相信的、必须做的，或必须不做的事物，意志就绝不是无所谓的。因为，难道你没有看见当上帝创造这个世界而不创造别的世界，或者当他什么世界都不创造时，你用这些原则完全破坏了上帝的自由，从上帝的自由上你去掉了无所谓吗？虽然这是由于信仰让我们相信上帝曾经在创造一个世界或者很多世界或者甚至连一个世界也不创造上，他是完全永恒地无所谓的。有谁能怀疑上帝对一切事情什么应该做，什么不应该做不是永远看得非常清楚？因此，不能说对事物的非常明白的认识和对这些事物的清楚的知觉，排除了自由意志的无所谓，这种无所谓，如果它对于人的自由不符合，对上帝的自由就绝不符合，因为事物的本质，就连数目的本质也一样，是不可分的、常住不变的；从而无所谓包含在上帝的自由意志的自由里并不比包含在人的自由意志的自由里少。

（b）第七个问题是面。你说一切感觉都发生在面上或者通过面而发生。因为我们看不出来为什么它不可以是被知觉到的物体的一部分，或者是空气的一部分，或者是水汽的一部分，甚至是这些东西任何的外表；我们还不很理解你怎么可以说没有实在的偶性（不管它们是属于什么物体或实体的）能够被上帝的全能从它们的主体分开并且没有主体而存在，而在祭台上的圣体中这样的事确确实实地存在。虽然如此，我们的博士们在看见是否在你向我们答应的那本《物理学》里你将充分证明所有这些东西之前，是没有理由感到烦恼的；不错，他们很难相信那本《物理学》能够把这些东西给我们提出得如此明白以致我们应该接受它们而抛弃掉古人教导我们的东西。

（c）你给第五组作的答辩引起第八个问题。真的，几何学的真理或者抽象的真理，就像你在那个地方所提到的那样，怎么能够是常住不变的、永恒的，而同时却是取决于上帝的呢？因为，它们是在什么种类的原因上取决于上帝的呢？他怎么能够把三角形的性质消灭掉？或者他怎么能使二乘四等于八从来就不是真的，或者一个三角形没有三个角？从而，这些真理或者只取决于理智，当理智在思维的时候；或者取决于事物本身的存在性；或者是独立的。因为，上帝能使这些本质或真理之中的任何一个从来就不存在，这似乎是不可能的。

（d）第九个问题是，你说不应该信任感官，理智的可靠性比感官的可靠性大得多，因此我们认为这个问题是非常重要的。因为，如果理智本身只有从安排得很合适的感官搬过来的可靠性而没有别的可靠性，这怎么能够做到呢？事实上，难道我们看不见，如果首先不是一个别的感官把它从错误中挽救出来，它就不能改正我们的任何一个感官的错误吗？举例来说，一根棍子插在水里，由于折光作用而表现为折断了，谁来改正这个错误？是理智吗？绝不是，而是触觉。其他的感官也一样。从而，如果一旦你的一切感官都安排得很合适，而且它们总是给我们报告同样的东西，你就把用感官的办法获得的、一个人所自然地做得到的最大的可靠性认为是可靠的吧；如果过于信任你的精神的推理，你肯定会经常弄错；因为时常发现我们的理智在它认为毫无可疑之处的一些东西上骗了我们。

（e）以上这些就是我们的主要问题。对这几个问题，也请你加上什么可靠的规则和一些肯定有效的标记，以便我们按照它们得以靠得住地认识到，在我们领会一件事物到这样的程度，即完全用不着别的东西，真的是一个东西完全与另外一个东西不同，以致它们能够分开存在，至少由于上帝的全能能够把它们分开，也就是说，一句话，请你告诉我们，我们怎么才能清楚、分明、真切地认识我们的理智所形成的这个区别不是建立在我们的精神之上，而是建立于事物本身。因为，当我想到上帝的广大无垠而不想到他的正义时，或者当我们想到他的存在性而不想到圣子或圣灵时，也就是说，离开三位一体的其他两位，我们就不能完整地领会这个存在性，或者上帝本身存在吗？而这个存在性是一个不信教的人可以有和你否认物体有精神或思维同样多的理由否认它的神圣性的。这和有人错误地得出结论说，圣子和圣灵在本质上是和圣父有分别的，或者他们可以和他分开一样，人们永远不会向你让步，认为思维，或者不如说人类精神，是实在与物体有分别的，尽管你清楚地领会这一个而用不着另一个，尽管你承认一个而否认另一个甚至你可以承认用你的精神的任何一个抽象作用能够这样做。但是，当然，如果你能充分地解答所有这些问题，你就可以肯定再没有什么东西能够使我们的神学家们不安了。

最后，既然你不认识肉体的能力和运动能够达到什么地方，因为你自己承认没有人能知道，除非是由于上帝的特别启示，上帝都是给一个主体里放进了或能放进什么，那么你从哪里能够知道上帝没有把这种能力和特性如思维、怀疑等等放进什么物体里呢？

对第六组反驳的答辩

（a）至于意志的自由，毫无疑问，上帝的自由和人的自由大不相同；因为如果说上帝的意志对已有的或者将要有的一切东西亘古以来就不是无所谓的，这是说不通的，因为我们想象不出有任何代表善或真的观念，什么应该相信的观念，或者什么应该做或者不应该做的观念在上帝的意志规定他自己这样做之前就存在于他的理智之中。而且我在这里并不是谈一种时间上的在先，而更重要的，我是说这样的一种观念不可能由于一种次序的在先或者性质的在先，或者像经院哲学中所说的那样，经过推理的道理在先，而在上帝的意志规定之先存在，以便善的观念迫使上帝不得不选择这一个而不选择另外一个。举例来说，上帝愿意把世界创造在时间里，并不是因为他看到世界被创造在时间里比创造在永恒里好，他愿意让一个三角形的三角之和等于二直角也并不是因为他认识到这只能是这样，等等。而是，相反，就是因为他愿意把世界创造在时间里，所以它比创造在永恒里好；同样，就是因为他愿意一个三角形的三角之和必然等于二直角，所以它现在就是这样，并且不可能不是这样；其他一切事情也都是如此。而且这并不妨碍人们说圣人们的功绩是他们得到永恒的天福的原因，因为圣人们的功绩并不是他们规定上帝愿意做什么的原因，它们不过是上帝永恒地愿意它们成为一个结果的原因。这样，在上帝那里的一种完全无所谓是他的全能的一个非常大的证明。然而在人这里可不是这样，由于人已经找到了上帝所建立和规定的善意和真理的性质，而且人的意志只能自然地趋向于好的东西，那么显然，人越是明显地认识好和真，就越能自由地接受好和真，只有在人不知道什么是更好的或者更真的，或者至少当他看得不够清楚，不能不怀疑的时候，他才抱无所谓的态度；这样一来，合适于人的自由的无所谓就跟合适于上帝的自由的无所谓完全不一样。而且说事物的本质是不可分的，这也毫无用处，因为首先，没有什么本质同样地既合适于上帝又合适于创造物；最后，无所谓并不属于人的自由的本质，因为，不仅仅是当我们对于善和真的无知使我们抱无所谓的态度时我们是自由的，而且主要也是当我们对一件事物的清楚、分明的认识推动和迫使我们去追求时我们是自由的。

（b）为了全面驳斥那些承认实在的偶性的人的意见，我认为我所提出的那些理由就够了，用不着再提别的理由。因为，首先，没有接触就没有感觉，除了物体的面没有什么能被感觉。然而，假如有实在的偶性，那么这些偶性一定是和这个仅仅作为一个样态的面不是一回事；因此，假如有实在的偶性，这些偶性也不能被我们感觉。但是，谁曾相信过它们之存在仅在于他认为它们被他感觉到？

其次，如果说实在的偶性是存在的，因为凡是实在的东西都能同任何别的主体分开存在，那是一件说不通的事，完全没有可能。能够分开存在的是实体，而不是偶性。光说实在的偶性不能由自然的力量而只能由上帝的全能同它们的主体分开，这是毫无用处的；因为由自然的力量做成和由上帝平常的能力做成完全是一回事，而上帝平常的能力和上帝特别的能力没有什么不同，这种能力，由于不在事物里面加上任何东西，因此不改变事物的性质，所以，如果凡是可以由自然的力量没有主体而存在是一个实体的话，那么凡是由于上帝的能力（无论它有多么特别）没有主体而存在的东西，也必须用实体这个名称来称呼。老实说，我承认一个实体可以是另外一个实体的偶性；不过在发生这样的事的时候，采取一个偶性的形式的并不是实体，而是样态或方式。举例来说，当一件衣服穿到一个人身上的时候，成为偶性的不是衣服，而是被穿。对于促使哲学家们建立一些实在的偶性的主要理由是，他们认为没有实在的偶性，我们就不能解释我们感官的知觉是怎么做成的，因此我答应在写《物理学》的时候细致地解释我们的每一个感官被它的对象所触动的方式。这并不是我想要在这上面或者在任何别的东西上面让人们相信我的话，而是因为我相信我在我的《折光学》里所解释的视觉能够用作对于其余感官的足够证明。

因为，如果好的理由或现象是先在于他事先安排的，那么他一定规定他去做更好的。但是，恰恰相反，因为他规定他自己去做出世界上的东西是因为这个理由，就像在《创世记》里所说的那样，它们是非常好的，也就是说，它们的好，其理由取决于他愿意把它们做成这样。而且用不着问这个好以及其他一切真理，无论是数学的或形而上学的，在什么种类的原因上取决于上帝；因为，原因的种类既然是由那些也许没想到因果关系这个理由的人建立的，因而当他们没有给它起什么名称时，就没有什么可奇怪的了。虽然如此，他们还是给它起了一个名称，因为他可以被叫作动力因；和君主的意志可以说成是法律的动力因一样，虽然法律本身并不是一个自然的存在体，而仅仅是（就像他们在经院里说的那样）一个精神上的存在体。问上帝怎么能一直使二乘四等于八，等等，也同样没有用，因为我承认我们无法知道；不过另一方面，我知道得很清楚，不取决于上帝，什么都不能存在，不管是哪一种存在体，以及把某些东西安排得使人们不可能知道它们可以是另外一个样子而不是现在这个样子，这对他来说是非常容易的，如果由于我们不知道并且我们看不出我们应该知道的什么别的东西，而怀疑我们知道得很清楚的一些东西，这是完全违反理性的。因此，不要以为永恒的真理取决于人的理智或者事物的存在，而是仅仅取决于上帝的意志；上帝，作为一个至上的立法者，永恒地安排了并且建立了这些真理。

（d）要明白感官的可靠性是什么，就要把感官分为三个阶段。在第一个阶段里应该考虑的只是外在对象直接在物体性的感官之内所引起的东西；这只能是这个官能的分子的运动以及由这个运动产生的形状和地位的改变。第二个阶段包含直接在精神上产生的一切东西，这是由于精神与物体性的官能结合所产生的，而物体性的官能是受它的对象所推动和感染的，就像疼痛、痒、饿、渴、颜色、声音、滋味、气味、热、冷以及其他类似的感觉，就像我们在第六个沉思里所说的那样，它们来自精神和肉体的结合，或者（姑且这样说）混合。最后，第三个阶段包含我们的全部判断，这些判断是我们从年轻时代起关于我们周围的事物在我们的感官里产生的印象或运动的机会上所习惯于作出的。

举例来说，当我们看见一根棍子时，不要想象是从棍子上飞到空中的一些飞舞的、人们普遍称为“有意种类”的细小的图像进到我的眼睛里；这不过是从这根棍子反射出来的光线刺激出来视神经里的什么运动，通过它达到了大脑，（就像我已经大量地在《折光学》里讲到的那样）我们和兽类共同的是大脑的这种运动，这种运动是感觉的第一阶段做成的。由第一阶段接着就进入第二个阶段，它只达到被这根棍子所反射的颜色和光的知觉。并且它是这样产生的：精神跟大脑连接得十分紧密，以致它甚至感觉到并且好像被在它里边的运动所触动似的；这就是必须归之于感官的全部东西，如果我们想要把感官准确地同理智分开的话。因为，虽然从我感到其印象的这种颜色的感觉上我判断在我之外的这根棍子是有颜色的，而从这个颜色的广延、从它的终止点以及从它的地位与我大脑的各部分的关系上，我决定有关这个棍子的大小、形状和距离的什么东西，尽管人们习惯于把它归之于感官，而在这方面我把它归之于感觉的第三个阶段，可是显然它是只取决于理智的；我甚至在《折光学》里指出：大小、距离和形状只有经过推理才能知觉，推理把它们彼此分开。但是在这里只有这一个不同，即对于出现在我们的感官的一切东西所作的新的、不是习惯作出的一些判断，我们把它们归之于理智，同时，对于我们从幼年起关于可感觉的东西，在这些东西在我们的感官上所产生的印象的机会上习惯于作出的那些判断，我们把它们归之于感官；其理由是：习惯使我们推理和把那些东西判断得非常仓促（或者不如说使我们记起我们以前作过的一些判断），我们区分不出这种方式的判断和我们感官的单纯的感知或知觉来。

由此，显然是，当我们说理智的可靠性比感官的可靠性大时，我们的话只意味着由于我们所做的一些新的观察，我们的年纪越大，我们作的判断就比自从我们幼年以来没有经过反复思考而作的判断可靠；这是丝毫不能怀疑的，因为，确实是，这里不是第一阶段的感觉，也不是第二阶段的感觉，因为在这两个阶段里不可能有错误，因此，当人们说，一根棍子插在水里，由于折光作用而表现为折断了时，这就跟人们说一个小孩子判断它是折断了以同样方式显现给我们；这也和按照自从我们幼年以来所习惯的成见一样，我们也这样判断。但是，我不能同意他们接下来的话，即：这个错误不是由理智来改正，而是由触觉来改正；因为，虽然触觉使我判断为一根棍子是直的，而且自从我们幼年以来就习惯于这样判断，因此这也可以叫作感觉，可是这并不足以改正视觉的错误，而是除此之外，需要有什么理由来告诉我们在这个地方相信我们在摸了它以后作的判断，而不相信视觉似乎给我带来的判断，这个理由不是我们自从幼年以来就有的，因而不能归之于感官，只能单独归之于理智。从而，就是在这个例子里，改正感官的错误的只有理智，没有可能提出任何一个例子来说明错误是来自相信精神的活动而不相信感官的知觉。

（e）实际上，我从来没有看见过，也没有了解过人的肉体能思维，而是看到并且了解到同一的人们，他们既有思维，同时也有肉体。而且我认识到这是由于思维的实体和物体性的实体组合到一起而造成的，因为，单独考虑思维的实体时，我一点都没有看到它能够属于物体，而在物体的本性里，当我单独考虑它时，我一点没有找到什么东西是能够属于思维的。但是，相反，把各种样态都拿来检查一下，不管是物体的还是精神的，我看不出有一个样态，它的概念不是完全依附于事物的概念本身，而这个概念就是事物的样态。同样，从我们经常看见两个东西结合在一起这件事，我们不能因此就推论说它们是一个东西；但是，从我们有时看见两个东西之一而没有另一个东西的时候，我们就很可以结论说两个东西是不同的。不要让上帝的能力阻止我们得出这个结论；因为，认为我们清楚、分明地领会为两个东西的一些东西是由一个在本质上同一的东西做成的而绝不是组成的，这和认为可以把一点分别都没有的东西分开，同样是说不通的。从而，如果说上帝把思维的功能放到某些物体里（就像他事实上把它放在人的肉体里那样），他什么时候愿意，什么时候就可以把它们分开，这样一来，思维实际上不能不是与这些物体有分别的。

Preface to the Reader

I have already briefly discussed questions about God and the human mind in the Discourse on the Method for Guiding One's Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences，published in French in 1637．I did not intend to discuss them in detail in that book，but simply to provide an introduction and to learn from readers' reactions how they should be presented subsequently．I thought that these questions were so important that they should be discussed more than once，and that the way in which I explain them is so novel and so different from what is usually done that it was unhelpful to teach it in greater detail in a book written in French and available to be read by everyone，lest minds even less gifted than mine might believe that they should follow the same path.

Although I asked in the Discourse that anyone who found anything objectionable in my writings should kindly bring it to my notice，only two objections worth mentioning were raised concerning these questions，to which I will now reply briefly before undertaking a more detailed explanation.

The first objection is：from the fact that the human mind reflecting on itself does not perceive itself as anything other than a thinking thing，it does not follow that its nature or essence consists merely in the fact that it is a thinking thing，where the word‘merely’excludeseverything else that might also be said to belong to the nature of the soul．I reply to this objection that，in that context，Ididnotwishtoexcludeotherthingswithrespect to the truth of the question（which I was not discussing at that stage）but merely with respect to my own perception．Thus what I meant was：I did not discover anything clearly that I knew belonged to my essence except that I was a thinking thing or a thing that possesses in itself a thinking faculty．I will show below how，from the fact that I do not know anything else that belongs to my essence，it follows that nothing else does in fact belong to it.

The other objection is：from the fact that I have within me an idea of something which is more perfect than me，it does not follow that the idea itself is more perfect than me and，much less，that the reality which the idea represents exists．I reply that the word‘idea’is equivocal here．It can be understood either materially，as an operation of the intellect and，in this sense，it cannot be said to be more perfect than me．Or it can be understood intentionally，as the thing represented by the idea and，even if this thing is not assumed to exist outside the mind，it may be more perfect than me with respect to its essence．But how，from the fact that I have an idea of something which is more perfect than me，it follows that this thing really exists，will be explained in detail below.

Apart from those two objections，I also saw two fairly long pieces that challenged my conclusions rather than my reasoning on these questions，by means of arguments borrowed from standard atheists'sources．Since such arguments cannot have any influence on those who understand my reasons，and since many people's judgements are so perverse and foolish that they are more convinced by the first views they hear，no matter how false and unreasonable they are，than by a true and sound refutation which they hear later，I do not wish to reply to these objections here lest I be the first to report them．I will say simply，in general terms，that all the things commonly invoked by atheists to challenge the existence of God always depend either on falsely attributing human affections to God，or on arrogating so much power and wisdom to our minds that we try to determine and comprehend what God can and should do．Therefore，as long as we remember that our minds should be considered finite but that God is in finite and incomprehensible，they will not pose any difficulty for us.

Now that I have finished examining the judgements of others，I return to the same questions of God and the human mind and to the beginnings of the whole of First Philosophy，but without waiting for popular approval or a wide readership．Indeed，I would not encourage anyone to read these pages unless they are willing and able to meditate with me seriously and to detach their minds from the senses and simultaneously from all prejudices，and I know that there are few such readers．As for those who do not bother to understand the order and interconnection of my arguments but try to snipe at individual sentences，as they usually do，they will derive little benefit from reading this book．They may find an opportunity to cavil in many places，but they will not easily raise any objection that is signi ficant or deserves a response.

However，I do not even promise to satisfy the remaining readers on all questions on their first reading，and Iam not so arrogant as to believe that I can anticipate everything with which readers may find some difficulty．For that reason I initially expound，in the Meditations，precisely those thoughts by which I think I have reached a certain and evident knowledge of the truth in order to test if I might be able to convince others by the very same reasons that convinced me．After that，I will reply to the objections of some eminently intelligent and learned people to whom these Meditations were sent for comments before they were printed．Their objections were so numerous and varied that I dare hope that no objection–at least no signi ficant objection–will easily occur to anyone else which they have not already raised．Therefore I repeat that readers should not pass judgement on the Meditations until they have taken the trouble to read through these objections and my replies.

Summary of the Following Six Meditations

The First Meditation introduces reasons why we can have doubts about everything，especially about material things，as long as we have no other foundations for the sciences apart from those that we have had to date．Although the usefulness of such an extensive doubt may not be apparent initially，it is extremely useful because it frees us from all prejudices，provides the easiest way to detach the mind from the senses and eventually makes us such that we cannot subject to further doubt the things that we later discover to be true.

In the Second Meditation the mind，by exercising its own freedom，assumes that nothing exists if its existence can be even slightly doubted，and realizes that it is impossible that it does not exist itself during that time．This is extremely bene ficial because it thereby distinguishes what belongs only to itself，that is to an intellectual nature，and what belongs to the body.

But since some readers may expect to find arguments about the immortality of the soul in this section，I should warn them immediately that I tried to write nothing that I was unable to demonstrate rigorously．Therefore I could not follow any method apart from that used by geometers，which is to write down first everything on which some proposition that is sought depends before deriving any conclusion from it．Now，the first and principalprerequisite for knowing the soul's immortality is that we form as clear a concept of the soul as possible，and one which is clearly distinct from every concept of body．That is what has been done in this Meditation．Furthermore，we also need to know that all those things which we clearly and distinctly understand are true in the way in which we have understood them．It was impossible to prove this before the Fourth Meditation．One also needs a clear concept of bodily nature，which is partly in the Second Meditation itself and partly in the Fifth and Sixth Meditations．From these one ought to conclude that all those things which are conceived clearly and distinctly as distinctsubstances–andmindandbodyaresoconceived–are truly substances that are really distinct from each other，and I came to that conclusion in the Sixth Meditation．That is also con firmed in the same place by the fact that we can understand body only as divisible whereas，in contrast，we can understand the mind only as indivisible．Nor can we conceive of half a mind，as we can of even the smallest body．Thus their natures are recognized as being not only distinct but even in some sense opposites.

However，I have not discussed this question any further in this book，both because these considerations are enough to show that the annihilation of the mind does not follow from the corruption of the body and thus to provide mortals with hope for an afterlife，and because the premises from which one can conclude that the mind really is immortal presuppose an explanation of the whole of physics．First one needs to know that all substances–that is，things which，in order to exist，have to be createdby God–are without exception incorruptible by their nature，and they can never cease to exist unless they are reduced to nothingness by the same God if he stops maintaining their existence．Then we need to acknowledge that even body，considered in general，is a substance and therefore can never perish either．But the human body，insofar as it is distinct from other bodies，is constituted merely by a certain combination of parts and other variable features of the same sort；the human mind，however，is not composed of variable features in this way，but is a pure substance and even if all its variable features change so that it understands different things，wills different things，senses different things，and so on，the mind itself does not thereby become a different mind．The human body，however，does become a different body by the mere fact that the shape of some of its parts is changed．It follows that the body may indeed perish very easily but that the mind is by its own nature immortal.

In the Third Meditation I think I have explained in sufficient detail my principal argument for proving the existence of God．However，since，in order to detach my readers' minds as much as possible from the senses，I did not wish to use any comparisons drawn from bodily things，many obscurities may have remained but I hope they will later be resolved completely in the Replies to Objections．One example，among others，is this：how does the idea of a supremely perfect being which is found in us contain so much intentional reality that it is impossible for it not to result from a supremely perfect cause？ This is illustrated，in the Replies，by analogy with a very perfect machine，the idea of which is in the mind of somedesigner．Just as the intentional arti fice of this idea must have some cause，namely the knowledge of the designer or of someone else from whom they got it，so likewise the idea of God that we have must have God himself as its cause.

In the Fourth Meditation，everything that we clearly and distinctly perceive is proved to be true，and I also explain at the same time what is the essence of falsehood．These must be known both in order to con firm earlier arguments and to understand what comes later．（Meantime one should note that there is no discussion there about sin，that is，a mistake made in pursuing good and evil，but merely of mistakes that occur in deciding truth and falsehood．Nor does it apply to anything related to religious belief or to human conduct，but only to theoretical truths，which are known by means of the natural light of reason.）

In the Fifth Meditation，apart from what is explained about bodily nature in general，there is a new argument to demonstrate God's existence．Here，too，there may be some difficulties，which are resolved later in the Replies to Objections．Finally，it is shown in what sense it is true that even the certainty of geometrical demonstrations depends on knowledge of God.

Lastly，in the Sixth Meditation，the intellect is distinguished from the imagination；the criteria for this distinction are explained；the mind is proved to be really distinct from the body，but it is shown to be so closely joined with it that together they form a single entity；all the errors that usually arise from the senses are reviewed；ways by which errors may be avoided are presented；and finally，all the reasons from which the existence of material things may be deduced are introduced．I do not think that these arguments are very useful on account of the fact that they prove what they establish–namely，that there really is a world，that human beings have bodies，and similar things–for no one of sound mind has ever seriously doubted these things．Rather，by considering these arguments，they are recognized as being less sound and clear than those by which we acquire knowledge of our own mind and of God．Thus the latter are the most certain and evident of all the arguments that can be known by human intelligence．My only objective in these Meditations was to prove that one thing．Therefore I will not review here the various other questions which also happen to be discussed as they arise in the Meditations.

Meditations on First Philosophy

in which God's existence and the distinction between the human soul and the body are demonstrated

First Meditation

Things which can be called into Doubt

Some years ago I noticed how many false things I had accepted as true in my childhood，and how doubtful were the things that I subsequently built on them and therefore that，once in a lifetime，everything should be completely overturned and I should begin again from the most basic foundations if I ever wished to establish anything firm and durable in the sciences．But that task seemed enormous，and I waited to reach such a mature age that no more appropriate age for learning would follow．Thus I waited so long that，from now on，I could be blamed if I wasted in further deliberation whatever time remains for me to begin the project．Therefore today I appropriately cleared my mind of all cares and arranged for myself some time free from interruption．I am alone and，at long last，I will devote myself seriously and freely to this general overturning of my beliefs.

To do this it is not necessary to show that they are allfalse–something I might never be able to accomplish！But since reason already convinces us that we should withhold assent just as carefully from whatever is not completely certain and indubitable as from what is clearly false，if I find some reason for doubt in each of my beliefs，that will be enough to reject all of them．However，they need not all be reviewed individually，for that would be an in finite task；as soon as foundations are undermined everything built on them collapses of its own accord，and therefore I will challenge directly all the first principles on which everything I formerly believed rests.

Everything that I accepted as being most true up to now I acquired from the senses or through the senses．However，I have occasionally found that they deceive me，and it is prudent never to trust those who have deceived us，even if only once.

But despite the fact that the senses occasionally deceive us about things that are very small or very far away，perhaps there are many other things about which one surely cannot have doubts，even if they are derived from the senses；for example，the fact that I am here，sitting by the fire，wearing a dressing gown，holding this page in my hand and other things like that．Indeed，how could I deny that these hands or that this body is mine，unless perhaps I think that I am like some of those mad people whose brains are so impaired by the strong vapour of black bile that they con fidently claim to be kings when they are paupers，that they are dressed up in purple when they are naked，that they have an earthenware head，or that they are a totally hollowedout shell or are made of glass．Butthose people are insane，and I would seem to be equally insane if I followed their example in any way.

Very well．But am I not a man who is used to sleeping at night and having all the same experiences while asleep or，sometimes，even more improbable experiences than insane people have while awake？ How often does the nocturnal quietness convince me of familiar things，for example，that I am here，dressed in my gown，sitting by the fire，when I am really undressed and asleep in my bed？ But at the moment I certainly see this sheet of paper with my eyes wide open，the head I shake is not asleep，I extend and feel this hand，carefully and knowingly；things which are as clear as this would not occur to someone who is asleep．As if I do not remember having been deluded by similar thoughts while asleep on other occasions！When I think about this more carefully，I see so clearly that I can never distinguish，by reliable signs，being awake from being asleep，that I am confused and this feeling of confusion almost con firms me in believing that I am asleep.

Let us assume therefore that we are asleep and that those things are not true–that I open my eyes，move my head，extend my hand–and that we do not even have such hands nor this whole body．But it must be admitted that the things we see while asleep are like certain familiar images，which can be painted only as copies of things which are real．Therefore at least these general things–eyes，head，hands，the whole body–exist as real things rather than as some kind of imaginary things．For clearly even painters，when they try to imagine the most unusual sirens or satyrs，cannot assign natures to them which arecompletely new；rather，they simply mix up the parts of different animals．Even if they happen to think up something so novel that nothing like it was ever seen before–so that it is therefore very clearly fictitious and false–nonetheless，at least the colours from which they paint it must surely be real．In a similar way even if these general things–the eyes，the head，the hands and so on–were imaginary，it must still be admitted that at least some other things are real，that they are even more simple and general and that it is from them，as if from true colours，that all those images of things in our thought，both true and false，are constructed．Physical nature in general and its extension seem to be of this kind；likewise，the shape of extended things；also quantity，or their size and number；similarly the place in which they exist，the time through which they last，and similar things.

Thus we might conclude reasonably from these considerations that physics，astronomy，medicine，and all other disciplines that involve an examination of composite things are indeed doubtful；but that arithmetic，geometry，and other such disciplines that discuss only very simple and general things，and are not concerned with whether or not they exist in nature，contain something that is certain and beyond doubt．For whether I am awake or asleep，two and three added together make five and a quadrilateral figure has no more than four sides．It seems impossible that one could ever suspect that such clear truths are false.

However，there is an ancient belief somehow fixed in my mind that God can do everything and that I was created by him with the kind of existence I enjoy．Buthow do I know that，although he created absolutely no earth，no sky，no extended things，no shape，no magnitude，no place，he still arranged that all these things would appear to exist，as they currently do？ Besides，just as other people are sometimes mistaken about things that they think they know perfectly，is it not possible that God may have caused me to be mistaken in a similar way when I add two and three together，or think about the number of sides in a quadrilateral figure，or something even simpler if that can be imagined？ But perhaps God did not allow me to be deceived like that，for he is said to be good in the highest degree；however，if it is inconsistent with God's goodness for him to create me in such a way that I am always mistaken，it would seem to be equally foreign to his goodness to allow me to be occasionally mistaken．But this last claim cannot be made.

There may be some people who would prefer to deny the existence of such a powerful God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain．But let us not contradict them and let us assume that everything said about God above is fictitious．Assume that I have arrived at my present condition by fate，by chance，by some uninterrupted series of events，or by any other means one wishes．Since to be deceived and mistaken seems to be some kind of imperfection，the less powerful the author they assign to my origin，the more likely it is that I was made in such a way that I am always mistaken．I have no reply to such arguments，but I am forced to concede eventually that there is nothing among my former beliefs that cannot be doubted and that this is so not as a result of levity or lack of reflection but for sound andconsidered reasons．Therefore，I should carefully withhold assent in future from those beliefs just as much as from others that are clearly false，if I wish to discover anything that is certain.

But it is not enough simply to know this；I must try to keep it in mind．For familiar beliefs return constantly and，almost in spite of me，they seize hold of my judgement as if it were bound to them by established custom and the law of familiarity．And I shall never overcome the habit of relaxing in them and believing them as long as I think they are as they are in fact，namely，in some way doubtful（as has been shown）and yet，despite that，very probable and such that it would be much more reasonable to believe them than to deny them．Therefore，I think I shall not act badly if，having turned my will around in exactly the opposite direction，I deceive myself and pretend for a while that these beliefs are completely false and imaginary until at length，as if I were balanced by an equal weight of prejudices on both sides，no bad habit would any longer turn my judgement from the correct perception of things．For I know that no danger or error will result from this in the mean time，and that I cannot exaggerate my cautiousness since I am concerned here not with doing things but merely with knowing them.

Therefore，I will suppose that，not God who is the source of truth but some evil mind，who is all powerful and cunning，has devoted all their energies to deceiving me．I will imagine that the sky，air，earth，colours，shapes，sounds and everything external to me are nothing more than the creatures of dreams by means of which an evil spirit entraps my credulity．I shall imagine myself as if Ihad no hands，no eyes，noflesh，no blood，no senses at all，but as if my beliefs in all these things were false．I will remain resolutely steady in this meditation and，in that way，if I cannot discover anything true，I will certainly do what is possible for me，namely，I will take great care not to assent to what is false，nor can that deceiver–no matter how powerful or cunning they may be–impose anything on me．But this is a tiring project and a kind of laziness brings me back to what is more habitual in my life．I am like a prisoner who happens to enjoy an imaginary freedom in his dreams and who subsequently begins to suspect that he is asleep and，afraid of being awakened，conspires silently with his agreeable illusions．Likewise，I spontaneously lapse into my earlier beliefs and am afraid of being awakened from them，in case my peaceful sleep is followed by a laborious awakening and I live in future，not in the light，but amid the inextricable darkness of the problems just discussed.

Second Meditation

The Nature of the Human Mind，and that it is better known than the Body

I was thrown into such serious difficulties in yesterday's Meditation that I can no longer forget them；however，I cannot see how they can be resolved either．In fact，I am so tossed about，as if I had fallen suddenly into a deep whirlpool，that I can neither put my foot on the bottom nor swim to the surface．However，I will work my wayup and test once more the same strategy on which I embarked yesterday，that is，setting aside everything which is subject to the least doubt as if I had found that it was completely false．I will follow this strategy until I discover something that is certain or，at least，until I discover that it is certain only that nothing is certain．Archimedes looked for only one firm and immovable point in order to move the whole earth；likewise，I could hope for great things if I found even the smallest thing that is certain and unmoved.

Thus I will assume that everything I see is false．I believe that，among the things that a deceptive memory represents，nothing ever existed；I have no senses at all；body，shape，extension，motion，and place are unreal．Perhaps that is all there is，that there is nothing certain.

How do I know that，apart from all the things I have just listed，there is not something else about which there is not even the least opportunity for doubting？ Is there not some God，or whatever I might call him，who puts these very thoughts into me？ Why should I think that，when I myself may perhaps be the author of those thoughts？ Is it not true then，at the very least，that I myself am something？ However，I have already denied that I have any senses or any body．I still cannot make any progress，for what follows from that？ Am I so tied to a body and senses that I am incapable of existing without them？ Nonetheless I convinced myself that there is nothing at all in the world，no sky，no earth，no minds，no bodies；is it not therefore also true that I do not exist？ However，I certainly did exist，if I convinced myself of something．There is some unidenti fied deceiver，however，all powerful and cunning，who is dedicated to deceiving me constantly．Therefore，it is indubitable that I also exist，if he deceives me．And let him deceive me as much as he wishes，he will still never bring it about that I am nothing as long as I think I am something．Thus，having weighed up everything adequately，it must finally be stated that this proposition‘I am，I exist’is necessarily true whenever it is stated by me or conceived in my mind.

However，I do not yet understand sufficiently who this‘I’is who now necessarily exists．I must be careful in future that I do not perhaps carelessly substitute something else in place of me，thereby being mistaken in the very knowledge that I claim is the most certain and evident of all．I shall therefore meditate once again about what I formerly believed I was before I began to think along these lines，and from that concept I will subtract anything that can be weakened，however slightly，by these arguments，and thus eventually there will remain precisely only that which is certain and unshakeable.

Up to the present，then，what did I think I was？ A human being，surely．But what is a human being？ Will I not say：a rational animal？ No，because then the following questions would arise：what is an animal？ and what is rational？ Thus I would lapse from one question into two more difficult questions，and I do not have so much free time that I wish to spend it on such subtleties．But I will look instead at what used to come into my mind spontaneously and naturally whenever，formerly，I wondered about what I was．What used to occur to me first was that I had a face，hands，arms and this whole machine of limbs，which is also observed in a corpse and which Iused to call a body．It also occurred to me that I was nourished，that I walked，sensed and thought；I referred these actions to the soul．Now，what this soul was，either I did not consider or else I imagined it was some unknown thing，which was subtle，like wind，fire or ether，and which was infused into the more observable parts of me．As regards the body，however，I had no doubts．I thought I knew its nature clearly and，if I ever tried to describe how I conceived it in my mind，I would have explained it as follows：by a body I understand anything that can be limited by some shape，can be circumscribed in a place，and can so fill a space that every other body is excluded from it．It can be perceived by touch，sight，hearing，taste or smell and can be moved in various ways–however，not by itself but by whatever else touches it．For I thought that it did not belong in any way to the nature of body to have a power to move itself，any more than it has the power of sensing or thinking．In fact，I was surprised to find such powers in certain bodies.

But what will I say now about myself，when I suppose there is some very powerful and，if I may say so，evil deceiver who is committed to deceiving me in everything possible？ May I claim to have even the least of all those things I just said belonged to the nature of the body？ I consider them，think about them，reflect on them，but nothing occurs to me；it is tiring to repeat the process with the same lack of success as before．What about the things，then，that I attributed to the soul？ To be nourished or to walk？ Since I no longer have a body，these are only fictions．To sense？ But even this cannot be done without a body and I seemed to sense many things whiledreaming that I later realized I had not sensed．To think？ That's it．It is thought．This alone cannot be detached from me．I am，I exist；that is certain．But for how long？ As long as I think，for it might possibly happen if I ceased completely to think that I would thereby cease to exist at all．I do not accept anything at present that is not necessarily true．I am，therefore，precisely only a thinking thing，that is，a mind，soul，intellect or reason–words the meaning of which was formerly unknown to me．But I am a genuine thing and I truly exist．But what kind of thing？ I just said：a thinking thing.

What else？ I shall imagine that I am not the collection of limbs that is called a human body，nor some subtle air that is infused into those limbs；I am not a wind； fire，vapour or breath，nor anything that I imagine，for I have supposed that those things do not exist．That supposition stands but，nonetheless，I am still something．Is it possible that these very things，which，I am supposing，do not exist because I have no knowledge of them，are not in fact distinct from the me that I knew？ I do not know，and I am not discussing that issue for the moment．I can make a judgement only about those things that I do know．I know that I exist，and I am asking who is this‘I’whom I know．I can be quite sure that knowledge of this‘I’，in that precise sense，does not depend on things that I did not know existed，nor therefore on any of those things that I construct in my imagination．This verb‘to construct’warns me about my mistake．For I would really be constructing if I imagined myself to be something，because imagining is only the contemplation of the shape or image of a physical thing．However，I already knowthat I exist and，at the same time，that it is possible that all those images and，in general，whatever pertains to the nature of bodies may be merely dreams．Having recognized that，it seems to be just as foolish to say，‘I imagine，in order to understand more clearly what I am，’as to say，‘I am now clearly awake and I see something true，but because I do not yet see it clearly enough I shall fall asleep so that my dreams will represent it to me more truly and clearly.’Thus I know that none of those things that I can understand with the help of my imagination is relevant to what I know of myself，and that the mind must be turned away carefully from those things so that it can perceive its own nature as distinctly as possible.

But what，then，am I？ A thinking thing．And what is that？ A thing which doubts，understands，affirms，denies，wills，does not will，and which also imagines and senses．That is obviously a fair number of things，if they all apply to me．Am I not the very one who was just doubting almost everything，who still，however，understands something，who affirms that this one thing is true，who denies the rest，who wishes to know more，who does not wish to be deceived，who imagines many things even despite myself and who notices many things as if they came from the senses？ Which of these is not as true as the fact that I exist，even if I am constantly asleep and even if whoever created me deludes me as much as they can？ Which of these is distinct from my thought？ Which of them can be said to be distinct from myself？ For the fact that it is I who doubt，who understand，who will，is so obvious that there is nothing which could make it more evident．In fact，I am also identical with the‘I’whoimagines because even if it happened，as I supposed，that none of the things I imagined were any longer true，the power of imagining itself truly exists and is part of my thought．Thus I am the same subject who senses，or who notices physical things as if through the senses；for example，I already see light，hear sound and feel heat．Those are false，because I am asleep．But I certainly seem to see，to hear and to get warm．This cannot be false．This is what is meant，strictly speaking，by me having a sensation and，understood precisely in this way，it is nothing other than thinking.

From these considerations I begin to know somewhat better what I am．However，it still seems to me–and I cannot prevent myself from thinking–that physical things，the images of which are formed in my thought and which the senses themselves explore，are much more distinctly known than the unknown me who is outside the scope of the imagination，although it really is surprising that I understand more distinctly things which I realize are doubtful，unknown and foreign to me than what is true，what is known and，ultimately，what is myself．But I see what the problem is．My mind likes to wander and is not yet willing to stay within the boundaries of the truth．Let it be and allow it once again to be completely unconstrained so that soon afterwards，when the constraints are reimposed，it will find it easier to be directed.

Consider those things that are commonly thought to be understood most distinctly，namely bodies which we touch and see–not bodies in general，because such general perceptions are usually inclined to be moreconfused–but a single body in particular．For example，let us take this wax．It has just been extracted from the honeycomb．It has not yet completely lost the taste of honey and it still retains some of the scent of theflowers from which it was collected．Its colour，shape and size are obvious．It is hard，cold，easy to touch and，if tapped with a finger，it emits a sound．Thus it has everything that seems to be required for a body to be known as distinctly as possible．But notice that，as I speak，it is moved close to the fire．It loses what remains of its taste，its smell is lost，the colour changes，it loses its shape，increases in size，becomesaliquid，becomeshotandcanbarelybetouched．Nor does it still emit a sound if tapped．But does the same wax not remain？ It must be agreed that it does；no one denies that，no one thinks otherwise.

What was it about it，then，which was understood so distinctly？ Certainly none of those things that I reached through the senses，for whatever fell within the scope of taste，smell，sight，touch or hearing has already changed．The wax remains．Was it perhaps what I now think，namely，that the wax itself was not really that sweetness of honey，nor the fragrance offlowers，nor that whiteness，shape or sound，but the body，which a short time ago presented itself to me with those modes and which now appears with different modes？ But what exactly is this thing that I imagine？ Let us pay attention and，having removed whatever does not belong to the wax，let us see what remains．It is nothing but something that is extended，flexible and changeable．But what do the words‘flexible’and‘changeable’mean？ Is it what I imagine，namely，that this wax can change shape from being roundto square or from square to triangular？ Not at all．For I understand that it is capable of innumerable similar changes，even though I cannot review whatever is innumerable in my imagination and therefore this understanding does not result from the faculty of imagining．What is meant by‘extended’？ Is it not the case that even its very extension is unknown？ For melting wax increases in volume，increases further when it boils and increases further again if the temperature rises further．Nor could I correctly judge what this wax is unless I thought it could assume many more variations in extension than I have ever grasped in my imagination．I have to concede，then，that I cannot in any way imagine what this wax is，but that I can perceive it only with my mind．I say this about a particular piece of wax；it is even clearer about wax in general．What，then，is this wax that can be perceived only by the mind？ It is the same wax that I see，touch，imagine，and finally the same wax that I thought was there from the beginning．But what should be noticed is that perceiving it is not a case of seeing，touching or imagining，nor was it ever such although it seemed that way earlier，but it is an inspection of the mind alone，which may be either imperfect and confused as it was earlier，or clear and distinct as it is now，depending on whether I pay more or less attention to what it is composed of.

Meanwhile，I am surprised at how much my mind is inclined to errors．For although I think about these things to myself，silently and without speaking，I am still restricted to these words and am almost deceived by ordinary language．For we say that we see the wax itself if it ispresent，not that we judge that it is there from its colour and shape．From this way of talking I might conclude immediately that the wax is therefore known by how the eye sees and not by an inspection of the mind alone，had I not looked out of the window at people passing on the street below and said，in the same customary way as in the case of the wax，that I saw the people themselves．But what do I see apart from hats and coats，under which it may be the case that there are automata hidden？ Nonetheless，I judge that they are people．In this case，however，what I thought I saw with my eyes I understand only by the faculty of judging，which is in my mind.

But whoever wishes to know things better than they are commonly known should be ashamed to find reasons for doubt in commonly used ways of talking．Let us continue，then，by considering whether I perceived what wax is more perfectly and clearly when I first looked at it and thought I knew it by means of the external senses or，at least，by the socalled common sense，that is，the faculty of imagining；or do I know it better now，having carefully investigated both what it is and how it is known？ It would surely be foolish to doubt this，for what was distinct in the first perception？ What did it include that was not apparently available to any animal whatsoever？ However，when I distinguish the wax from its external forms and consider it as if it were bare and without its clothes on，then，although there may still be a mistake in my judgement，I cannot perceive the wax correctly without a human mind.

What shall I say，however，about this mind itself，or about myself，for I do not yet admit that there is anythingin me apart from a mind？ What，I ask，am I，who seem to perceive this wax so distinctly？ Do I not know myself much more truly and certainly and also more clearly and distinctly？ For if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I see it，it would certainly follow much more clearly，from the fact that I see it，that I myself exist．For it may be the case that what I see is not really wax；it might even be true that I have no eyes，by which to see anything；but obviously it cannot be the case，while I see or while I seem to see（something that，so far，I have not distinguished from seeing），that I myself am nothing as long as I am thinking．Likewise，if，from the fact that I touch it，I judge that the wax exists，it follows again that I exist．If I judge the same from the fact that I imagine it or for any other reason，clearly the same conclusion follows．Now what I notice about the wax may be applied to everything else that exists outside me．Besides，if the perception of the wax was more distinctly seen after it became known to me not only by sight and touch but from many other causes，must I not grant that I now know myself much more distinctly，because all the reasons that could assist in perceiving the wax or any other body establish the nature of my mind better．But there are also so many other things in the mind itself，by which knowledge of the mind can be made more distinct，that it hardly seems worth considering those that emanate from the body to the mind.

Here at last I have returned unaided to where I wished to be．I know now that even bodies are not perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagining，but are perceived only by the mind，and that they are not perceived bybeing touched or seen but only by being understood，and therefore I know clearly that there is nothing that can be perceived by me more easily or more clearly than my own mind．However，since the habit of old views cannot be changed so quickly，it is appropriate that I rest here so that this new knowledge may be lodged more deeply in my memory by the length of my meditation.

Third Meditation

The Existence of God

I will now close my eyes，block my ears and shut down all my senses．I will erase from my thought all images of physical things or，since this is almost impossible，I will regard them as nothing，as false and empty，addressing only myself and looking more deeply into myself．I will try to make myself gradually better known and more familiar to myself．I am a thinking thing，that is，something which is doubting，affirming，denying，understanding a few things，not knowing many，willing，not willing，even imagining and sensing．As I already mentioned，even if the things that I sense or imagine happened not to exist，I am still certain that the modes of thinking that I call sensations and imaginings，insofar as they are simply certain modes of thinking，are in me．And in these few things I have listed everything that I know or，at least，what I have so far noticed that I know.

I will now look about more carefully to see if there happen to be other things in me which I have not yetexamined．I am certain that I am a thinking thing．Do I not therefore also know what is required in order for me to be certain of anything，namely，that there is nothing in this first thought other than a certain clear and distinct perception of what I claim？ Evidently that would not be enough to make me certain about something if it could ever happen that what I perceived clearly and distinctly in this way could be false．It seems，therefore，that I could establish as a general rule that everything that I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.

However，I have in the past accepted as completely clear and distinct many things that I later discovered were doubtful．What kinds of things were they？ The earth，sky，stars and all the other things that I used to perceive by means of the senses．But what was it that I used to perceive clearly about them？ It was that the very ideas or thoughts of those things were presented to my mind．Even now I still have no doubt that these ideas are in me．But there was something else that I used to claim，and I even thought that I perceived it clearly as a result of believing it whereas，in fact，I did not perceive it clearly：that was，that some things existed outside me from which those ideas originated and which they resembled in every way．But I was either mistaken in that or，at least，if I judged correctly，it did not result from my faculty of perceiving.

However，when I used to think of something very simple and easy in arithmetic or geometry–for example，that two and three together make five，or other things like that–did I not see at least those things sufficiently clearly to claim that they are true？ Indeed，I subsequentlydecided that I should doubt them simply because it occurred to me that some God may have endowed me with such a nature that I could be deceived even about things that seemed most evident．For whenever this preconceived belief about the supreme power of God occurs to me，I cannot avoid conceding that，at least if he wishes，it is easy for him to make me err even about things that I think I see most clearly with my mind's eye．On the other hand，whenever I turn to those things that I think I perceive very clearly，I am so completely convinced by them that I spontaneously say：let me be deceived by whoever can deceive me，but it will never happen that I am nothing as long as I think I am something，that it could ever be true that I never existed when it is already true that I am，or even perhaps that two and three added together are more or less than five，and similar things in which I recognize a manifest contradiction．Certainly，since I have no reason to think there is such a deceptive God and，in fact，I do not even know yet if any God exists，any reason for doubting which depends exclusively on that belief is a veryflimsy and，I would say，a metaphysical reason for doubting．In order to remove even this reason as soon as possible，I should examine whether God exists and，if he exists，whether it is possible that he is a deceiver．As long as this is unknown，I cannot see how I can ever be certain of anything else.

Now，order seems to require that I classify all my thoughts into certain kinds and that I find out in which kinds truth or falsehood are properly found．Some thoughts are like the images of things，and the term‘idea’applies in a strict sense to them alone：for example，whenI think of a person，a chimera，the sky，an angel or God．Other thoughts，however，also have additional forms；for example，when I will，fear，affirm，or deny，I always grasp something as the subject of my thoughts but I include in my thought something more than a resemblance of the thing in question．Some of these thoughts are called volitions or emotions，and others are called judgements.

When ideas are considered only in themselves，since I do not refer them to anything else they cannot，strictly speaking，be false；for whether I imagine a goat or a chimera，it is no less true that I imagine one thing rather than the other．Likewise，there is no danger of falsehood in volitions as such，or in emotions；for although I can choose what is evil or even what does not exist，it does not follow that it is not true that I choose them．That leaves only judgements and this is where I have to be careful not to be mistaken．The principal error，however，and the one most likely to occur here consists in the fact that I judge that the ideas，which are in me，resemble or correspond to things which are outside me．For if I consider the ideas merely as certain modes of my thought，and if I do not refer them to anything else，they can hardly provide me with any material for error.

Among these ideas，some seem to be innate，some acquired and some seem to have been fabricated by me．The fact that I understand what a thing is，what truth is and what thought is，seems to result from my own nature alone．However，up to now I have thought that，when I hear a noise，see the sun，or feel the fire，these result from certain things which are external to me．Finally，sirens，hippogriffs and the like are fabricated by me．Perhaps，however，I can think that they are all adventitious，or all innate，or all fabricated，for I have not yet seen clearly what is their true origin.

But the main question I wish to ask here is about ideas that I think originate from things which are external to me，namely：what reason would persuade me to believe that those ideas are similar to the things in question？ I do indeed seem to be taught this by nature；and I also experience the fact that these ideas do not depend on my will nor，therefore，on me，because they are often present against my will．For example，I now feel heat whether I want to or not，and therefore I think that the sensation or idea of heat comes to me from something that is distinct from me，namely，from the heat of the fire beside which I am sitting．The most natural thing for me to judge is that the external thing sends me its own likeness rather than something else.

I will now see whether these reasons are convincing enough．When I say here that I was taught this by nature I only mean that I am led to believe it by some spontaneous impulse and not that I have been shown that it is true by some natural light．There is a big difference between the two．For whatever is shown to me by the natural light of reason–for example，that from the fact that I doubt it follows that I exist，and similar things–cannot in any way be doubtful，because there cannot be another faculty which I trust as much as that light and which could teach me that the conclusion is not true．By contrast，I have often judged in the past that I was pushed in the wrong direction by natural impulses in situations of choosingwhat is good，and I cannot see that I should put more trust in the same natural impulses in other situations.

However，even if these ideas do not depend on my will，that does not prove that they originate from external things．For just as those impulses about which I just spoke seem to be distinct from my will even though they are within me，so likewise it is possible that there is some other faculty，of which I am not yet sufficiently aware and which is the origin of those ideas，in the same way as it always seemed to me up to now that，when I was dreaming，ideas were formed in me without any assistance from external things.

But finally，even if they originated from things that are distinct from me，it does not follow that they must resemble them．In fact，I seem to have found in many cases that there is often a great disparity between them．For example，I find I have two different ideas of the sun．One idea，which seems to have been acquired from the senses and is a paradigm example of an adventitious idea，makes the sun appear very small．The other idea，however，is derived from astronomical reasoning–that is，from certain notions which are either innate in me or are fabricated by me in some way–and it makes the sun appear to be several times greater than the earth．They cannot both be truly similar to the same sun that exists outside me，and reason convinces me that the one that seems to have originated more directly from the sun resembles it the least.

All these considerations are enough to show that，to date，I believed that there are some things outside me which send me their ideas or images through the senseorgans or by some other means，as a result of some blind impulse rather than as a result of a judgement that is certain.

But there is also another way to find out if，among the things of which I have ideas，some exist outside me．Insofar as those ideas are simply certain modes of thinking，I do not see any inequality between them and they all seem to originate in me in the same way．But insofar as one idea represents one thing and another represents something else，it is clear that they are very different from each other．For undoubtedly those that represent substances to me are something more and，so to speak，contain more intentional reality than those that represent only modes or nonessential features of substances．Again，the idea by which I understand a supreme God，who is eternal，in finite，allknowing，omnipotent and the creator of everything that is outside himself，clearly contains more intentional reality than those ideas that represent finite substances.

Now，it is evident by the natural light of reason that there must be at least as much reality in an efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause．For I ask：where could the effect get its reality from，apart from its cause？ And how could the cause give it that reality unless it also possessed it？ It follows from this that something cannot be made from nothing and，likewise，that something which is more perfect–in other words，that which contains more reality in itself–cannot be made from that which is less perfect．But this is no less evidently true in the case of effects，the reality of which is actual or formal，than in the case of ideas when only their intentionalreality is considered．Thus not only is it impossible，for example，that some stone which previously did not exist could now begin to exist unless it was produced by something which contained，either formally or eminently，all the reality which is produced in the stone；in the same way，heat cannot be produced in something that was not previously hot except by something that is at least of the same order of perfection as heat，and so on for other examples；but it is also true that there cannot be an idea of heat or of a stone in me unless it was put there by some cause in which there is at least as much reality as I conceive in heat or a stone．Although the cause in question does not transfer any of its actual or formal reality to my idea，it should not for that reason be considered as less real，for the reality of the idea is such that，in itself，it requires no more formal reality than what is borrowed from my thought，of which it is a mode．But when an idea contains one particular intentional reality rather than another，it must surely get this from some cause in which there is at least as much formal reality as is contained intentionally in the idea．For if we claimed that an idea contained something that was not in its cause，it would therefore get it from nothing．But however imperfect may be the mode of being by which a thing exists intentionally in the mind by means of an idea，clearly it is still not nothing and therefore it cannot come from nothing.

Nor should I suppose that，because I am considering only the intentional reality of my ideas，it is not necessary for that same reality to be contained formally in the causes of those ideas and that it is enough for it to befound there intentionally．For just as the intentional mode of being belongs to ideas because of their nature，so likewise the formal mode of being belongs naturally to the causes of ideas or，at least，to their principal and primary causes．And although it is possible for one idea to generate another，this does not lead to an in finite regress．Eventually one has to reach some first idea，the cause of which is like an archetype that contains all the formal reality which is found only intentionally in the idea．Thus it is evident to me by the natural light of reason that my ideas are like images of some kind that can easily fall short of the perfection of the things from which they are derived，but they cannot contain something that is greater or more perfect than themselves.

However，I recognize all these things as true more clearly and distinctly as I examine them further and in greater detail．What may I finally conclude from this？ It is that，if the intentional reality of any one of my ideas is so great that I am certain that I do not contain this reality in myself either formally or eminently and，therefore，that I myself cannot be its cause，it follows necessarily that I am not alone in the world and that something else also exists，which is the cause of that idea．However，if I find no such idea in myself，then clearly I have no argument that makes me certain of the existence of something distinct from myself because I have examined everything very carefully and，so far，I have not been able to find any other argument.

Now among my ideas–apart from the idea that represents me to myself and about which there can be no question at this point–there is one that represents God，there are some that represent physical and inanimate things，others that represent animals and，finally，there are ideas that represent other people similar to myself.

As regards the ideas that represent other people，animals or angels，I understand easily that they could be fabricated from ideas that I have of myself，of physical things and of God，even if there were no people，animals or angels in existence.

As regards ideas of physical things，there is nothing in them that is so great that it seems incapable of having been derived from myself．For if I look into them further and examine them one by one in the same way as I examined the idea of wax yesterday，I notice that there is very little about them that I perceive clearly and distinctly．There is magnitude，or extension in length，width and depth；there is shape，which results from the termination of magnitude；there is the position that differently shaped things adopt in relation to each other；and there is motion or change of position．To these may be added substance，duration and number．The rest，such as light and colours，sounds，odours，tastes，heat and cold，and other tactile qualities–I think about these only in a very confused and obscure way，with the result that I do not even know if they are true or false，that is，whether the ideas I have of them are or are not ideas of real things.

Although I mentioned a little earlier that falsehood understood in a strict sense，or formal falsehood，can occur only in judgements，there is still clearly some kind of material falsehood in ideas when they represent what is not a thing as if it were a thing．For example，the ideas I have of heat and cold are so lacking in clarity and distinctness that I cannot learn from them whether cold is merely a privation of heat or heat is a privation of cold，or whether both of them are real qualities or whether neither of them is．Since there can be no ideas that do not seem to be ideas of things，if it really is the case that cold is nothing but a privation of heat，then the idea that represents it as if it were a real and positive thing is rightly said to be false and the same applies to other similar ideas．Ideas of this kind are such that it is clearly unnecessary that I assign them some cause apart from myself．For if indeed they are false–that is，they do not represent things of any kind–I know by the natural light of reason that they originate from nothing，that is，that the only reason I have them is that there is something de ficient in my nature，because it is obviously imperfect．Even if they are true，they represent such an insubstantial reality to me that I can barely distinguish it from a nonreality and therefore I still do not see why they could not originate from me.

Insofar as some features of our ideas of physical things are clear and distinct，they seem to have been partly borrowed from the idea of myself–for example，from the ideas of substance，duration and number and，possibly，others of the same kind．For when I think that a stone is a substance，that is，the kind of thing that can exist on its own，and when I also think of myself as a substance then，even though I conceive of myself as thinking and not extended but think of the stone as not thinking and extended，and hence there is the greatest difference between the two concepts，they still seem to agree insofar as they are both substances．Likewise，when I perceivethat I exist at present and remember that I have existed for some time，and when I have different thoughts and understand how many of them there are，I acquire the ideas of duration and number，which I can subsequently transfer to anything else．All the other features of which the ideas of physical things are constructed，namely extension，shape，position and motion，are not formally contained in me since I am nothing but a thinking thing．However，they are merely modes of a substance，whereas I am a substance，and therefore it seems possible for them to be in me eminently.

Thus the idea of God is the only one left about which to ask the question：does it contain something that could not have originated from me？ By the word‘God’I understand some in finite substance，which is independent，supremely intelligent and supremely powerful，and by which both I，and everything else that exists（if anything else exists），were created．All these ideas are surely such that，the more carefully I examine them，the less likely it seems that they could have originated from myself alone．Therefore one should draw the conclusion from what has been said that God necessarily exists．And even though I have an idea of a substance from the very fact that I am a substance myself，it would not，however，be an idea of an in finite substance because I am finite，unless it originated from some substance that is genuinely in finite.

Nor should I think that I do not perceive the in finite by means of a true idea but merely by the negation of the finite，in the way in which I perceive rest and darkness by the negation of motion and light．On the contrary，Iunderstand clearly that there is more reality in an in finite substance than in a finite substance and therefore the perception of the in finite occurs in me in some way prior to that of the finite，that is，the perception of God is prior to the perception of myself．Indeed，how would I understand that I doubt，that I desire–that is，that I lack something and am not completely perfect–if I had no idea of some more perfect being by comparison with which I could recognize my own de ficiencies？

Nor can it be said that this idea of God may be materially false and may therefore come from nothing，as I have just observed about the ideas of heat and cold and others like that．On the contrary，since this idea has the highest clarity and distinction and contains more intentional reality than any other idea，there is no other idea which of itself is more true or in which there is less suspicion of falsehood．This idea of a supremely perfect and in finite being is，I claim，true to the highest degree because，although I could perhaps pretend that such a being does not exist，I cannot pretend that the idea of such a being represents nothing real to me，as I claimed earlier about the idea of cold．It is also clear and distinct to the highest degree because whatever I perceive clearly and distinctly as real and true，and as containing some perfection，is completely included in it．Nor does it matter that I do not comprehend the in finite or that there are innumerable other things in God that I do not comprehend and which may be completely outside the scope of my thought．It is the nature of the in finite not to be comprehended by me，who am finite．In order for the idea I have of God to be the most true，and the most clear and distinct of all myideas，it is enough if I understand it and if I judge that all those things that I perceive clearly and which involve some perfection–and perhaps even innumerable others of which I am ignorant–are in God formally or eminently.

But perhaps I am something greater than I myself understand，and all those perfections that I attribute to God are in me in some way potentially，even if they have not yet appeared and been transformed from potency to act．I already experience the fact that my knowledge increases slightly，and I see nothing to prevent it from thus increasing more and more to in finity．Nor do I see why，with my knowledge thus increased，I could not acquire with its assistance all the other perfections of God nor why，finally，the potentiality for those perfections，if I already have it，would not be enough to produce the corresponding ideas.

But none of this is possible．In the first place，if it were true that my knowledge increased gradually and if there are many things in me in potency which are not yet actualized，none of that is relevant to the idea of God in which there is absolutely nothing in potency．Even this feature–to increase gradually–is a most certain argument for imperfection．Besides，even if my knowledge always increased more and more，nevertheless I understand that it would never be actually in finite because it would never reach a point at which it could not become greater still．I think of God，however，as actually in finite，so that nothing can be added to his perfection．Finally，I perceive that the intentional being of an idea can be produced not by a merely potential being，which，strictlyspeaking，is nothing，but only by a formal or actual being.

There is evidently nothing in all this that is not evident to whoever examines it carefully by the natural light of reason．However，when I examine it less carefully and when the images of sensible things blind the eye of the mind，I do not easily remember why the idea of a being more perfect than myself originates necessarily from some being which is more perfect in reality；and therefore I would like to inquire further whether I myself，who have this idea，could exist if no such being existed.

From whom，then，would I derive my existence？ It would be from myself，or from my parents，or from some other beings which are less perfect than God，for nothing can be thought or imagined that is more perfect than，or even as perfect as，God.

But if I derived my existence from myself，there would be nothing that I would either doubt or wish for，nor would I lack absolutely anything．For I would have given myself every perfection of which I have some idea and thus I would be God himself．Nor should I think that those things which I lack are perhaps more difficult to acquire than those I already possess．On the contrary，it was evidently much more difficult for me–that is，for a thing or substance which thinks–to emerge from nothingness than to acquire knowledge of many things that are unknown to me and that are merely nonessential attributes of that substance．Certainly，if I derived the greater of those two from myself，I would not have denied myself at least those items of knowledge that are easier to acquire，nor even any of those that I perceive arecontained in the idea of God，for it does not seem more difficult to do any of that．And if there were some things that were more difficult to do，they would surely also seem to me to be more difficult，at least if I derived whatever else I have from myself，for I would experience the limits of my powers in that situation.

I do not escape the force of these arguments by assuming that I may have always existed as I do now，as if it would follow from that assumption that there is no need to look for the author of my existence．For a lifetime can be divided into innumerable parts that do not depend on each other in any way．The fact that I existed a short while ago does not imply that I must exist at present unless some other cause recreates me，as it were，in the present moment or，in other words，conserves me．It is clear to anyone who thinks about the nature of time that the same power and action is obviously required to conserve anything during the individual moments of its duration as would be required to create it for the first time，had it not already existed．Thus there is only a distinction of reason between conservation and creation，and this is one of the things that are evident by the natural light of reason.

Therefore，I should now ask myself：have I some power by which I can bring it about that I，who exist at present，will still exist a short time in the future？ Since I am only a thinking thing or，at least，I am discussing only those features of that part of me which is speci fically a thinking thing，if I had such a power I would undoubtedly be aware of it．But I do not experience any such power，and therefore I know very evidently that I depend on some being which is distinct from me.

However，perhaps that being is not God．Perhaps I was produced either by my parents or by some other causes that are less perfect than God．Hardly．As I have already said，it is clear that there must be at least as much reality in a cause as in its effect．Therefore，since I am a thinking thing and I have some idea of God，whatever cause is eventually assigned to me，it must be agreed that it is a thinking thing and that it includes an idea of all the perfections that I attribute to God．One can ask about that cause in turn：does it derive its existence from itself or from something else？ If it derives its existence from itself，it is obvious from what has already been said that it is itself God because，since it derives the power to exist from itself，it undoubtedly also has the power of possessing actually the perfections of which it has an idea，that is，all the perfections that I conceive of in God．If，however，it derives its existence from something else，then the question arises again in the same way about that，whether it derives its existence from itself or from something else，until finally one arrives at the ultimate cause，which is God．It is clear enough that there cannot be an in finite regress here，especially since I am not concerned at this stage with the cause that produced me in the past but much more with the cause that maintains me in existence at present.

Nor is it plausible that there may have been many partial causes which cooperated to produce me，and that I got the idea of one of the perfections that I attribute to God from one cause and，from another，the idea of a second perfection，so that all these perfections occur somewhere in the world although they are not all joinedtogether in the same being，which is God．On the contrary，the unity，simplicity，or the inseparability of all those attributes that are found in God is one of the principal perfections that I understand is present in him．And it is certain that the idea of the unity of all these perfections could not have been produced in me by some other cause unless I had the ideas of his other perfections from the same source；nor could it have made me understand them as joined together and inseparable，unless it also made me understand what those perfections were.

Finally，as regards parents，even if I assume that everything I ever believed about them is true，it would still not mean that they maintain me in existence；nor is there any way in which they have created me insofar as I am a thinking thing．They have only put certain dispositions in the matter in which I–that is，my mind，which is all I mean by‘I’at this point– find myself at present．Thus there can be no question about them in this context．Instead it must absolutely be concluded from the mere fact that I exist and that I have some idea of a most perfect being–that is，of God–that it is very clearly demonstrated that God also exists.

It only remains for me to examine how I received this idea from God．I did not derive it from the senses，nor did it ever arrive unexpectedly as the ideas of sensible things usually do when external objects impinge，or seem to impinge，on the sense organs．Nor was it fabricated by me，for it is clear that I can neither add to it nor subtract anything from it．Thus it follows that it is innate in me，just as the idea of myself is innate in me.

Evidently it is not surprising if God，in creating me，endowed me with this idea so that it would be，as it were，the artisan's trademark imprinted on his work．Nor is it necessary that the mark be distinct from the work itself．From the mere fact that God created me，however，it is very probable that I was made in some way in his image and likeness and that this likeness，in which the idea of God is contained，is perceived in me by means of the same faculty by which I perceive myself．In other words，when I turn my mind's eye towards myself I understand not only that I am an incomplete and dependent being and that I aspire inde finitely towards what is greater or better；I also understand，at the same time，that he on whom I depend is greater than all those things，not just inde finitely and potentially，but that he contains them all to an in finite degree in himself and is thus God．The whole force of this argument consists in the fact that I recognize that it is impossible for me to exist with the kind of nature I have，that is，having in myself the idea of God，if God did not truly exist．I mean the God of whom I have an idea，that is，who has all those perfections that I cannot comprehend but is such that I can reach him in some way through my thought and is clearly immune from all defects．It follows clearly enough that he cannot be a deceiver，since it is evident by the natural light of reason that every fraud and deception results from some defect.

But before I examine this last issue in greater detail and also inquire into other truths that can be derived from it，I should pause here for a brief while to contemplate God himself，to consider his attributes and to contemplate and adore the beauty of this immense lightinsofar as the eye of my darkened mind can tolerate it．Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty，likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation，even though it is much less perfect.

Fourth Meditation

Truth and Falsehood

In recent days I have become so used to leading my mind away from the senses and have noted carefully that so little is perceived reliably about physical things，and that much more is known about the human mind and even more again about God，that already I have no difficulty in turning my thoughts away from things that can be imagined to those that are purely intelligible and independent of all matter．Clearly I have a much more distinct idea of the human mind–insofar as it is a thinking thing，is not extended in length，breadth and depth，and includes in itself nothing that is physical–than of any physical thing．When I consider that I doubt or that I am an incomplete and dependent thing，a clear and distinct idea occurs to me of a complete and independent being，that is，of God．And from the fact alone that I have this idea or that I exist while having this idea，I conclude so clearly that God also exists and that each moment of my whole existence depends on him that I do not think that anythingcan be known by human intelligence more evidently or more clearly．I now seem to see a way by which knowledge of other things can be reached from this contemplation of the true God in whom are hidden all the treasures of the sciences and of wisdom.

First of all，I realize that it is impossible that God would ever deceive me．All deception or fraud involves some imperfection，and although being able to deceive seems to be some kind of evidence in favour of cleverness or power，it is undoubtedly true that the wish to deceive is evidence of malice or foolishness and therefore it cannot belong to God.

Next，I experience a certain faculty of judgement in myself，which，just like everything else that is in me，I received from God．Since God does not wish me to be mistaken he obviously did not give me a faculty such that，when I use it correctly，I could ever be mistaken.

There would be no further doubt about this，except that it seems to follow that I can never be mistaken；for if everything I possess comes from God and if he did not give me a faculty for making mistakes，it seems as if I could never be wrong about anything．And thus，as long as I think only about God and focus completely on him，I find no cause of error or falsehood in myself．But as soon as I turn back to myself，however，I find that I am subject to innumerable errors．When I look for a cause of these errors，I find that I have not only a real and positive idea of God or of a supremely perfect being but I also have，if I may so describe it，a certain negative idea of nothingness or of what is removed as far as possible from every perfection；and I am like some kind of intermediate beingbetween God and nothingness，or I am so constituted between the supreme being and nonbeing that，insofar as I was created by the supreme being，there is nothing in me by which I can be mistaken or led into error，but insofar as I also participate in some way in nothingness or in nonbeing–thatis，insofarasImyself amnotthesupreme being and I lack so many things–it is not surprising，then，if I make mistakes．Thus I certainly recognize that error as such is not something real that depends on God but is merely a defect；therefore，in order to be mistaken，I do not need some faculty that God gave me for that purpose but I happen to make mistakes by the mere fact that the faculty of judging truly，which I got from God，is not in finite.

However，that does not satisfy me completely．For error is not a pure negation；it is a privation or lack of some knowledge that somehow I should have．And when I consider the nature of God it does not seem possible that he gave me some faculty that is not perfect in its own right or that lacks some perfection that it should have．If it is true that artisans who are more skilled produce more perfect artifacts，what could have been made by the supreme creator of everything that would not be complete in every way？ There is also no doubt that God could have created me so that I am not mistaken，nor is there any doubt either that he always wills what is best．Therefore，is it better for me to be mistaken rather than not mistaken？

As I think more about this，it occurs to me first that I should not be surprised if I do not understand the reason for some things that are done by God，and that I shouldnot doubt his existence because I happen to experience some things and do not comprehend why or how he does them．Since I already know that my nature is very weak and limited and that the nature of God is immense，incomprehensible and in finite，I also know from this that there are innumerable things of which I do not know the causes．For this reason alone，I think there is no role in physics for that whole class of causes which are usually sought in purposes，because I think that I cannot investigate God's purposes without temerity.

It also occurs to me that when we inquire whether God's works are perfect，we should not consider some particular creature on its own but the whole universe of things．For although something may perhaps rightly seem to be very imperfect when it is considered in isolation，it is very perfect when considered as part of the world．Since I decided to doubt everything，I have so far come to know with certainty only that I myself exist and that God exists；however，once I have recognized the immense power of God，I cannot deny that there are many other things created by him or which，at least，could be created by him，so that I acquire the status of a part in the universe of things.

When I come to look at myself more closely and investigate what kinds of mistake I make（which in themselves indicate some kind of imperfection in me），I notice that they depend on two causes acting simultaneously，namely on the faculty of knowing，which I have，and on the faculty of choosing or on freedom of the will–in other words，on the intellect and will together．By using the intellect I merely perceive the ideas about which I canmake a judgement，and this can contain no error in the strict sense when it is considered precisely from this point of view．There may exist innumerable things of which I have no idea，but I should be described simply as lacking them in a negative sense rather than as being deprived of them in any strict sense，because I cannot think of any reason to show that God ought to have given me a superior faculty of knowing than the one he gave me．And no matter how skilled I think an artisan may be，I do not think for that reason that they have to put all the perfections into each individual item of work that they are capable of putting into others.

At the same time，I cannot complain that I did not receive from God a sufficiently extensive and perfect will or freedom of choice，for I clearly experience that it is not con fined by any limits．What I think is very noteworthy is that there is nothing else in me that is so perfect and so great that I cannot think of it as being even greater still or more perfect．If，for example，I consider my faculty of understanding，I recognize immediately that it is very limited and finite and，at the same time，I form the idea of another similar faculty which is much greater–in fact，the greatest possible，and in finite–and from the mere fact that I can form this idea I perceive that it belongs to the nature of God．Likewise，if I examine the faculty of remembering or imagining，or any other faculty，it is clear to me that I understand all of them as limited and restricted in my own case but as unlimited in God．I experience the will alone，or freedom of choice，as being so extensive in my own case that I conceive the idea of none greater，so that it is principally because of thisfaculty that I understand myself as being in some sense the image and likeness of God．For although the will is incomparably greater in God than in me–both because of the knowledge and power that accompany it and make it stronger and more efficacious，and because of its object，insofar as it extends to many more things than my will–when it is considered formally and in a strict sense，however，it does not seem to be greater．For the will consists in this alone，that we can either do or not do something（that is，affirm or deny something，seek or avoid it）；or rather，it consists in this alone that we bring ourselves to affirm or deny，to seek or avoid，whatever is proposed to us by our intellect in such a way that we feel that we are not determined by any external force．Nor is it true that，in order to be free，I must be capable of moving in either direction；on the contrary，the more I am inclined in one direction the more freely I choose it，either because I clearly recognize it as being true and good or because God so disposes my innermost thoughts．Surely neither divine grace nor natural knowledge ever diminishes freedom；instead，they increase and strengthen it．But the indifference I experience when I am not moved one way or another by any consideration is a lower degree of freedom，and it does not indicate a perfection in our freedom but merely some kind of defect or something lacking in our knowledge．For if I always saw clearly what is true and what is good，I would never deliberate about what judgement to make or what to choose and thus，although I would obviously be free，I could never be indifferent.

I see from these considerations that the cause of my errors is not the power of willing，which I receive fromGod，when considered on its own，because this power is as extensive as possible and is perfect in its kind．Nor is it the power of understanding because，whatever I understand，it is certain that I understand it correctly，for the ability to understand comes from God and it cannot contain the ability to be mistaken．Where do my errors originate，then？ They result from this alone：since the will extends further than the understanding，I do not restrain it within the limits of the understanding but apply it even to things that I do not understand．Given that it is indifferent to those things，it is easily deflected from what is true or good and in that way I make mistaken judgements or bad choices.

For example，when I considered in recent days whether anything in the world exists and when I noticed that，from the fact that I thought about it，it follows clearly that I exist，I still was unable not to judge that whatever I understood so clearly was true．This was not because I was coerced into that conclusion by some external force，but because a strong inclination of the will followed from a great light in the understanding and，as a result，I believed it much more spontaneously and freely insofar as I was less indifferent to it．Now，however，I not only know that I exist，insofar as I am some kind of thinking thing，but I also notice an idea of physical nature；this makes me doubt whether the thinking nature which is in me，or rather which I myself am，is distinct from this physical nature or whether both are identical，and I think that my understanding has not yet any reason to persuade me one way or another．For that reason I am certainly indifferent with respect to affirming or denyingeither alternative or，indeed，with respect to making no judgement on the question.

This indifference extends not only to things that are not known at all by the understanding but generally to anything that is not understood clearly enough at precisely the time at which the will deliberates about it．Even when probable conjectures lead me in one direction，the mere knowledge that they are only conjectures，and that they are not reasons which are certain and indubitable，is enough to push my assent in the opposite direction．I have experienced enough of this in recent days，when I supposed that all the things were false that I had previously believed to be absolutely true，simply because I realized that it was possible for me somehow to doubt them.

However，when I do not perceive what is true with sufficient clarity and distinction，as long as I refrain from making a judgement it is clear that I act correctly and that I am not mistaken．But if I affirm or deny in those circumstances，then I do not use my freedom of choice correctly．If I opt for the side that is false，I am evidently mistaken；if，however，I choose the opposite，I land on the truth by chance but I do not thereby avoid fault because it is evident by the natural light of reason that the perception of the understanding should always precede the determination of the will．It is this incorrect use of freedom of choice that constitutes the privation which is the essence of error；this privation，I say，is in the use of the will itself insofar as it originates in me，but not in the faculty that I received from God nor even in the use of that faculty insofar as it depends on God.

Nor have I any reason to complain that God has not provided me with a greater power of understanding or that he did not give me a greater natural light than he did，because it is natural for a finite understanding that there are many things which it does not understand and it is natural for a created understanding to be finite．Instead I ought to be grateful to him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me，rather than think that he failed to give me，or has taken away，those things that he never gave me.

Nor may I complain because he gave me a will that is wider in scope than my understanding．Since the will consists in a single thing that is，as it were，indivisible，it seems as if its nature is such that nothing could be taken away from it．And，clearly，the wider its scope，the more grateful I should be towards the donor.

Finally，I should not complain that God cooperates with me in making those acts of will，or those judgements，in which I am mistaken．Those actions are completely true and good insofar as they depend on God and，as far as I am concerned，it is a greater perfection to be able to perform those acts than not to be able to do so．But a privation，which alone is the essence of falsehood and fault，does not need God's cooperation because it is a nonentity；if it is referred to God as its cause，it should not be called a privation but merely a negation．It is clearly not an imperfection in God that he gave me the freedom to assent or not assent to certain things of which he did not put a clear and distinct perception in my understanding．But it is undoubtedly an imperfection in me that I do not use this freedom well and that I make judgements about things that I do not understand correctly．I see，however，that God could easily have arranged that I would be incapable of ever making a mistake，even though I remain free and have limited knowledge．He could have given my understanding a clear and distinct perception of everything that I would deliberate about，or else he could simply impress on my memory–so firmly that I could never forget it–that I should never make a judgement about anything that I had not understood clearly and distinctly．I readily recognize that，if I were some kind of totality [and if there were nothing else in the world apart from me]，I would be more perfect than I am at present，had God made me in that way．But I cannot for that reason deny that，in the whole universe of things，it is in some sense a greater perfection that some of its parts are immune from error while others are not，than if all its parts were exactly similar．I have no right to complain that God chose to give me a role in the world that is not the principal and most perfect of all.

Besides，even if I cannot avoid error by the first strategy，which relies on the clear perception of everything about which I have to deliberate，I can at least do so by the other strategy，which presupposes only that I remember to abstain from making a judgement when the truth about something is not clear．For although I experience in myself the weakness of not being able always to concentrate on one and the same item of knowledge，I can still arrange，by an attentive and frequently repeated meditation，to remember this rule as often as I need it and in that way I could acquire a certain habit of not making mistakes.

Since that is the greatest and principal human perfection，I do not consider that I accomplished little in today's meditation in which I investigated the cause of error and falsehood．If it is clear that there cannot be any other cause than the one I explained，then as long as I restrict the will in such a way that，in making judgements，it extends only to those things that the understanding shows it clearly and distinctly，it is evidently impossible for me to be mistaken because every clear and distinct perception is certainly something and，consequently，cannot come from nothing but necessarily has God for its author–God，I say，the supremely perfect being for whom it is repugnant to be a deceiver–and hence the perception is undoubtedly true．Today I have learned not only what I must avoid in order never to be mistaken，but I have also learned what must be done to reach the truth．I will certainly reach it if I consider only the things that I understand perfectly enough and if I separate them from all other things which I apprehend in a confused and obscure way．I shall do this diligently in future.

Fifth Meditation

The Essence of Material Things．Another Discussion of God's Existence

There are still many things to consider about the attributes of God and about my own nature or my mind．But I will consider them some other time perhaps，because nothing seems more urgent（once I have recognized whatshould be avoided and what should be done to reach the truth），than to try to emerge from the doubts into which I fell in recent days and to see if I can have any certainty about material things.

In fact，before inquiring whether any such things exist outside me，I should consider their ideas insofar as they are in my thought and see which ideas are distinct and which are confused.

I have a distinct image of quantity，which philosophers usually call continuous quantity，or of its extension or，preferably，of the extension of a quanti fied thing in length，breadth and depth．I also pick out various parts in it and assign to these parts various magnitudes，shapes，positions and local motions，and I assign various durations to the local motions．All these things，considered in this general way，are not the only things that are clearly perceived and known；by paying attention，I also perceive innumerable particular things about shapes，number，motion and so on，the truth of which is so open and so accommodated to my nature that，when I first discover it，I seem not so much to learn something new as to remember things I already knew or to notice for the first time things that were in my mind for a long time even though I had not previously turned my attention to them.

I think that what deserves most consideration at this stage is that I find I have innumerable ideas of certain things which，even if they do not exist anywhere outside me，still cannot be said to be nothing．Although I think about them to some extent by choice，they are not，however，invented by me and they have their own true andimmutable natures．For example，when I imagine a triangle，even if it were true that no such figure exists or has ever existed anywhere outside my thought，it still clearly has some determinate nature or essence or form，immutable and eternal，which was not constructed by me and does not depend on me．This is clear from the fact that various properties of the triangle can be demonstrated；for example，that its three angles are equal to two right angles，that the longest side is subtended by the biggest angle，and similar properties．Even if I never thought of them previously when I imagined a triangle，I now know them clearly independently of whether I wish to or not and therefore they were not invented by me.

If I were to say that the idea of a triangle may have reached me through the sense organs，because I occasionally saw bodies with triangular shapes，that is beside the point．For I can think of innumerable other shapes about which there can be no suggestion that I ever got to know them through the senses and，despite that，I can demonstrate various properties about them just as in the case of the triangle．All these properties are obviously true since they are known clearly by me，and therefore they are something and not simply nothing–for it is obvious that everything that is true is something，and I have already demonstrated above that everything that I know clearly is true．And even had I not demonstrated it，the nature of my mind is certainly such that I still would be incapable of not assenting to them，at least as long as I perceive them clearly．I also remember that，even earlier，when I was completely immersed in the objects of the senses，I always held that the most certain of all werethe truths of this type，namely，whatever I knew clearly about shapes or numbers and other truths that pertain to arithmetic or geometry or，in general，to pure and abstract mathematics.

Now if it follows，from the fact alone that I can produce an idea of something from my thought，that everything that I perceive clearly and distinctly as belonging to it does really belong to it，could I not also derive an argument to demonstrate God's existence？ Certainly I find in myself an idea of God–that is，of a supremely perfect being–just as much as I find an idea of any shape or number．I understand that it belongs to God's nature that he always exists，as clearly and distinctly as I understand that whatever I demonstrate about any shape or number belongs to the nature of that shape or number．Therefore，even if everything on which I meditated in recent days were not true，I should attribute to God's existence at least the same degree of certainty that I have attributed to mathematical truths until now.

However，it is clear that this is not completely perspicuous at first sight and it seems to be some kind of logical trick．Because I am used to distinguishing existence from essence in everything else，I easily believe that it is also possible to separate existence from the essence of God and，in that way，that one could think about God as not existing．But it is clear to whoever thinks about it more carefully that existence can no more be separated from God's essence than one can separate，from the essence of a triangle，that the three angles are equal to two right angles，or than one could separate the idea of a valley from the idea of a mountain．Thus to think of God（thatis，a supremely perfect being）as lacking existence（that is，lacking some perfection）is just as contradictory as to think of a mountain that lacks a valley.

However，even if I can think of God only as existing and of a mountain only with a valley，still the following must surely be true：just as it does not follow that there is any mountain in the world from the fact that I think of a mountain with a valley，likewise from the fact that I think of God as existing it does not seem to follow that God exists．My thought imposes no necessity on things and，since I can think of a horse with wings even though no horse has wings，perhaps I could likewise attribute existence to God even though no God exists.

There is a logical mistake concealed here．From the fact that I cannot think of a mountain without a valley it does not follow that a mountain and valley exist somewhere，but only that mountain and valley，whether they exist or not，cannot be separated from one another．Likewise，from the fact that I can think of God only as existing，it follows that existence is inseparable from God and therefore that he really does exist．It is not that my thought makes this happen or imposes any necessity on any thing；on the contrary，the necessity of the reality itself，namely of God's existence，makes me think this way．I am not free to think of God without existence（that is，of a supremely perfect being without the highest perfection）in the same way that I am free to imagine a horse either with or without wings.

Nor should it be objected at this point that I have to assume that God exists once I have supposed that he has all perfections，but that the first assumption was notnecessary，just as it is unnecessary for me to believe that all quadrilateral shapes can be inscribed in a circle；however，if I were to make the latter assumption，then I would have to concede that a rhombus can be inscribed in a circle–which is clearly false．Although it is not necessary that I ever get to thinking about God，whenever I choose to think about the first and highest being and，as it were，to draw out the idea of God from the treasury of my mind，I must necessarily attribute all perfections to him，even if I do not enumerate them all at the time or consider each one of them individually．This necessity is so clear that subsequently，when I realize that existence is a perfection，I must conclude correctly that the first and highest being exists．Likewise，it is not necessary that I ever imagine any triangle but，whenever I decide to think about a rectilinear figure which has only three angles，it is necessary that I attribute to it those properties from which it is correctly deduced that its three angles are not greater than two right angles–even if I do not advert to this at the time．But when I consider which figures are inscribed in a circle，it is not at all necessary to think that they include all quadrilaterals．In fact，I cannot even imagine that，as long as I wish to admit only what I understand clearly and distinctly．Therefore there is a big difference between false propositions like that and the true ideas that are innate in me，among which the idea of God is the primary and principal one．For I clearly understand in many ways that the idea of God is not something fictitious which depends on my thought，but that it is the image of a true and immutable nature．Firstly，for example，because there is nothing else that I can think of，apart from God alone，to the essence of which existence belongs．Secondly，because I cannot understand two or more similar Gods and I assume that one such God exists，I see clearly that it is necessary both that he existed from all eternity and will remain for eternity．Finally，I perceive many other things in God which are such that I cannot change them or take anything away from them.

But whatever argument I eventually use to prove something，I am always brought back to this：the only things that clearly convince me are those that I perceive clearly and distinctly．And even if，among the things that I perceive in this way，some are obvious to everyone while others are discovered only by those who look at them more closely and examine them more carefully，once they are discovered，however，the latter are considered no less certain than the former．For example，even if the fact that the square on the hypotenuse of a rightangled triangle is equal to the squares on the other two sides is not as apparent as the fact that the hypotenuse subtends the largest angle，once it is seen clearly it is not believed any less．In the case of God，however，I would surely know him prior to and more easily than anything else if I were not submergedinprejudicesandif theimagesof sensiblethings did not besiege my thought from every direction；for what is more clear than this，that the supreme being exists or that God–to whose essence alone existence belongs–exists？ Besides，although I had to pay careful attention to perceive this，I am now not only as certain of this as of anything else that seems very certain to me，but I also notice that the certainty of other things depends on this in such a way that，without it，nothing can ever be known perfectly.

Although my nature is such that，as long as I perceive something very clearly and distinctly，I am unable not to believe that it is true，my nature is also such that I cannot fix my mind's eye always on the same thing in order to perceive it clearly，and the memory of an earlier judgement often returns when I am no longer considering the reasons why I made that judgement．Thus other reasons could occur to me，if I were ignorant of God，which would easily make me change my mind and in that way I would never have true and certain knowledge about anything but merely unstable and changeable opinions．Thus，for example，when I think about the nature of a triangle，it seems most evident to me，as someone imbued with the principles of geometry，that its three angles are equal to two right angles，and I am unable not to believe that it is true as long as I think about its demonstration．But as soon as I have turned my mind's eye away，even though I still remember that I perceived it as clearly as possible，it easily happens that I doubt its truth–at least，if I am ignorant of God．For I can convince myself that I was so created by nature that I am sometimes mistaken about things that I think I perceive as clearly as possible，especially when I remember that I have often accepted many things as true and certain that I subsequently judged were false when new considerations were introduced.

But once I perceived that God exists and have also understood，at the same time，that everything else depends on him and that he is not a deceiver，I concluded that all those things that I clearly and distinctly perceive are necessarily true．And even if I no longer consider thereasons on account of which I made that judgement about its truth，no contrary reason can be found–as long as I remember having perceived it clearly and distinctly–that would make me doubt it．Instead，I have a true and certain knowledge of it．Nor does this apply to this one thing alone，but to all the other things that I remember having demonstrated at some time，for example，in geometry and so on．What counterarguments remain now？ That I was made in such a way that I am often mistaken？ But I already know that I cannot be mistaken in those things that I understand clearly．Perhaps I formerly accepted many things as true and certain that I subsequently discovered were false？ But I did not perceive any of those things clearly and distinctly and，ignorant of this rule of truth，I may have believed them for other reasons that I later found were less reliable．What should be said，then？ That I may be dreaming（as I objected to myself a while ago），or that all the things that I am thinking about now are no more true than what occurs to me when I am asleep？ But even that does not change anything because surely，if I am dreaming，on condition that something is evident to my understanding it is entirely true.

Thus I see clearly that the certainty and truth of all knowledge depends only on the knowledge of the true God in such a way that，before I knew him，I was incapable of knowing anything else perfectly．But now countless things can be known and be certain for me，both about God and other intellectual things，and also about as much of physical nature as falls within the scope of pure mathematics.

Sixth Meditation

The Existence of Material Things，and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body

I still have to consider whether material things exist．Indeed，I already know that they are at least capable of existing insofar as they are the object of pure mathematics，because I perceive them clearly and distinctly．For there is no doubt that God is capable of producing everything that I am capable of perceiving in this way，and I never thought that there was anything he was incapable of producing unless it was incapable of being perceived distinctly by me．Besides，it seems to follow that they do exist，from the faculty of imagining that I am conscious of using when I turn to such material things．The reason is that，if one considers very carefully what the imagination is，it seems to be nothing but a certain application of the cognitive faculty to a body that is intimately present to that faculty and that therefore exists.

To clarify that，I will first consider the difference between imagination and pure understanding．When I imagine a triangle，for example，I do not merely understand that it is a figure bounded by three lines but，at the same time，I also see those three lines with my mind's eye as if they were present，and that is what I call imagining．However，if I wish to think about a chiliagon，I understand equally well that it is a figure that consists of one thousand sides，just as I understand that a triangle is a figure that consists of three sides；but I cannot imagine athousand sides in the same way，that is，I cannot see them as if they were present．Even if I represent to myself some very confused figure on that occasion，because of my habit of always imagining something whenever I think of a physical thing，it is clear nevertheless that it is not a chiliagon，because it is not in any way different from what I would also represent to myself if I were to think about a myriagon or any other figure with many sides，and it is useless for knowing the properties by which a chiliagon differs from other polygons．However，if we were discussing a pentagon，I could understand its shape too，just like that of a chiliagon，without the aid of the imagination．But by applying my mind's eye simultaneously to its five sides and to the area they enclose，I am also able to imagine it．I notice clearly in this example that，in order to imagine，I need a characteristic effort of the mind that I do not use in order to understand．This new effort of the mind shows clearly the difference between the imagination and pure understanding.

I also think that the power of imagining which I have，insofar as it differs from the power of understanding，is not required for my essence，that is，for the essence of my mind because，even if I did not have it，I would undoubtedly remain who I am now．It seems to follow that the imagination depends on something that is distinct from me．I understand easily that，if some body existed to which my mind were so united that it could apply itself to it at will as if it were inspecting it，it would be possible to imagine things through that physical body．Thus this way of thinking differs from pure understanding only in the sense that the mind，when it understands，turns back on itself in some way and reflects on one of the ideas that are inside itself；however，when it imagines，it turns towards a body and sees something in it that resembles the idea that had been understood by itself or perceived by sensation．I can easily understand，I say，that the imagination can take place in that way if such a body exists．Since no other equally satisfactory way of explaining it occurs to me，I hypothesize that such a body probably exists．However，it exists only probably and，despite my careful examination，I still do not see how，from the distinct idea of a physical nature which I find in my imagination，I can derive an argument that concludes necessarily that some body exists.

However，I am used to imagining，besides the physical nature which is the object of pure mathematics，many other things，such as colours，sounds，tastes，pain and the like，although none of them distinctly．Since I perceive them better by sensation–from which they seem to come to the imagination with the aid of memory–if I wish to discuss them properly，I have to discuss sensation too and see if，from those things which are perceived in the type of thinking that I call sensation，I can derive an argument for the existence of physical things that is certain.

I shall first remind myself at this point of those things which，having been perceived by sensation，I formerly thought were true，and of the reasons why I thought they were true．I shall then review the reasons why I subsequently raised doubts about them．And finally，I shall consider what I should believe about them now.

First of all，I sensed that I had a head，hands，feet andthe other members which compose the body that I considered as a part of myself or，perhaps，as myself in its entirety．I sensed that this body was surrounded by many other bodies by which it could be affected in various bene ficial or harmful ways，and I judged the bene ficial things by a certain sensation of pleasure and the harmful things by a sensation of pain．Besides pain and pleasure，I also sensed in myself hunger，thirst and other such appetites，and certain bodily inclinations towards happiness，sadness，anger and other similar passions．Outside myself，apart from the extension of bodies，their shapes and motions，I also sensed in them hardness，heat and other tactile qualities．In addition，I had sensations of light，colours，sounds，odours and tastes，by the variety of which I distinguished from one another the sky，the earth，the seas and other bodies.

Given the ideas of all those qualities which were presented to my thought and which were the only things that，strictly speaking，I sensed immediately，it was evidently reasonable to believe that I sensed various things which were clearly distinct from my thought，namely the bodies from which those ideas originated．For I experienced that those ideas would come to me without any consent on my part，so that I was both unable to sense any object，even if I wished to，unless it was present to my sensory organs and I was incapable of not sensing it when it was present．Since the ideas perceived by sensation were much stronger and more vivid and，in their own way，more distinct than any of those that I formed myself，it seemed impossible–when meditating carefully and intentionally on those that I noticed were impressedon my memory–that they originated from myself．Therefore，the only remaining option was that they originated from other things．Because I had no knowledge of those things apart from the very ideas that I got from them，nothing else could have occurred to me except that the ideas resembled the things．And because I also recall that I began using my senses before my reason，and since I saw that the ideas that I formed were not as vivid as those that I perceived by sensation and that，in most cases，they were composed of parts of the latter，I easily convinced myself that I had absolutely nothing in my mind which did not originate in sensation.

It was also reasonable for me to judge that the body which，by some special right，I called my own belongs to me more than any other body．For I was unable ever to be separated from it，as I could be from other bodies；I sensed all my appetites and passions in it and for it；and finally，I was aware of pain and the titillation of pleasure in its parts，but not in other bodies that were situated outside me．Why does a certain sadness of the mind follow from some unknown sensation of pain，and a certain happiness from a sensation of pleasure？ Or why does the unknown tightening of the stomach that I call hunger advise me to eat food and a dryness of the throat advise me to take a drink，and so on for all the others？ I clearly had no explanation except that I was taught this by nature．There is obviously no other connection（at least，none that I can understand）between the stomach tightening and the decision to take food，or between the sensation of something that causes pain and the thought of sadness that results from it．All the other things that Ijudged about the objects of the senses seemed to be taught by nature．I was convinced of this before I weighed up any of the reasons that could prove it.

Later，however，many experiences undermined little by little all my faith in the senses．For in some cases towers that seemed round from a distance appeared，close up，to be square，and very high statues standing on top of the towers did not seem tall to an observer on the ground．In countless other similar things I discovered that the judgements of the external senses were mistaken．And not only the judgements of the external senses，but also those of the internal senses．For what can be closer to me than pain？ But I once heard，from those who had had a leg or arm amputated，that they still seemed to feel pain in the part of their body that was missing．Likewise，it did not seem certain in my own case that I had a pain in some limb even if I felt a pain in it．I recently added to these reasons for doubting two other much more general ones．The first was that I never believed I sensed anything while awake that I was not also able to think I sensed occasionally while I was asleep；and since I do not believe that the things I seem to sense while asleep come to me from external things，I did not see why I should give any more credence to things that I seem to sense while awake．The second reason was that，as long as I did not know or，at least，as long as I pretended not to know the author of my origin，I saw nothing to prevent me from being so constituted by nature that I was mistaken even about those things that seemed most true to me．As regards the reasons by which I was formerly convinced of the truth of sensible things，it was not difficult for me to reply tothem．It seemed as if nature pushed me towards many things from which reason dissuaded me，and therefore I did not think that I should put much faith in what nature taught me．And despite the fact that the perceptions of the senses do not depend on my will，I did not think that I should conclude，for that reason，that they derived from things that are distinct from me；there may perhaps be some faculty in me，even if it is unknown to me，by which they are produced.

However，now that I begin to know better both myself and the author of my origin，I do not think that all the things that I seem to acquire from the senses must be accepted with temerity；but at the same time，it is not necessary that all of them be called into doubt.

Firstly，I know that everything that I understand clearly and distinctly can be made by God in the same way that I understand them；therefore it is enough that I can understand one thing，clearly and distinctly，without another in order to be certain that one thing is distinct from the other，because it is possible for them to be separated，at least by God．It is irrelevant by what power the separation is realized in order for them to be considered distinct．Therefore from the fact alone that I know that I exist and that，at the same time，I notice absolutely nothing else that belongs to my nature apart from the single fact that I am a thinking thing，I correctly conclude that my essence consists in this alone，that I am a thinking thing．And although I may（rather，as I shall say soon：I certainly）have a body that is joined very closely to me，since I have on the one hand a clear and distinct idea of myself insofar as I am a thinking，nonextended thingand，on the other hand，I have a distinct idea of the body insofar as it is merely an extended，nonthinking thing，it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and that I can exist without it.

Besides，I find in myself faculties for thinking in certain special ways，such as faculties for imagining and sensing；I can understand my whole self clearly and distinctly without them but cannot，conversely，understand them without myself，that is，without the intellectual substance in which they inhere，for they include in their formal concept some kind of understanding．I conclude from this that they are distinguishable from me as modes are from a thing．I also acknowledge some other faculties，such as the ability to change place，to assume various shapes，and the like，which cannot be really understood，any more than the previous faculties，without some substance in which they inhere and without which they likewise cannot exist．But it is evident that if they do indeed exist，thenthesefacultiesmustbeinaphysicalorextended substance and not in an intellectual substance，because the clear and distinct concept of these faculties clearly includes some extension but no intellection.

There is also in me a certain passive faculty for sensing，or for receiving and knowing the ideas of sensible things，but I would not be able to use it in any way unless there also existed an active faculty，either in me or in something else，for producing or causing those ideas．Now it is clear that this cannot be located in me because it evidently presupposes no understanding，whereas those ideas are produced when I am not cooperating and even in spite of me．It follows，therefore，that thisfaculty must be in some substance which is distinct from me；and since it must contain as much reality，formally or eminently，as is found intentionally in the ideas produced by that faculty（as I mentioned above），this substance is either a body or a physical nature which formally contains everything that the ideas contain intentionally，or else it obviously must be God or some other creature more noble than a body which contains them eminently．But God is not a deceiver；it is perfectly obvious，therefore，that he does not send these ideas to me directly from himself．Nor does he send them indirectly by means of some creature which contains the intentional reality of the ideas，not formally but only eminently．He obviously gave me no faculty to recognize such an arrangement；on the contrary，he gave me a strong tendency to believe that these ideas are emitted by physical things，and therefore I cannot see how he can be understood as not being a deceiver if they originated from anything except physical things．Therefore，physical things exist．They may not all exist，however，in exactly the same way that I perceive them in sensation，since sensory perception is very obscure and confused in many cases．But at least they include all those things that I understand clearly and distinctly–in other words，all those things that，conceived in a general way，are included in the subject matter of pure mathematics.

As regards other things，which are either only particular things（for example，that the sun has a certain size or shape，etc.）or which are less clearly understood（for example，light，sound，pain and similar things），although they are very doubtful and uncertain，the very fact thatGod is not a deceiver and therefore that there can be no falsehood in my beliefs，unless I have another faculty provided by God to correct it，provides me with a secure hope of finding the truth even about those things．There is evidently no doubt that everything that I am taught by nature has some truth in it–for by‘nature’in this context，understood in a general way，I understand nothing but God himself or the coordinated system of created things that was established by God．Nor do I understand my own nature in particular as anything other than the complex of all those things that were given me by God.

However，there is nothing that my nature teaches me more persuasively than that I have a body that is being harmed when I feel pain，that needs food or drink when I suffer hunger or thirst，and so on．Therefore，I should not doubt that there is some truth in this.

Nature also teaches by means of the sensations of pain，hunger，thirst，etc.，that I am not present to my body only in the way that a pilot is present to a ship，but that I am very closely joined to it and almost merged with it to such an extent that，together with it，I compose a single entity．Otherwise，when my body is injured I（who am nothing but a thinking thing）would not feel pain as a result；instead I would perceive such an injury as a pilot perceives by sight if some part of the ship is damaged．Likewise，when my body needs food or drink，I would understand this more clearly and would not have confused sensations of hunger and thirst．For these sensations of thirst，hunger，pain，etc.，are undoubtedly mere confused ways of thinking that result from the union and，as it were，the thorough mixing together of mind and body.

Moreover，I am also taught by nature that various other bodies exist in the vicinity of my body，and that I should seek some of them and avoid others．Certainly，from the fact that I perceive very different colours，sounds，odours，tastes，heat，hardness and the like，I conclude correctly that there are some differences between the bodies from which those various sensory perceptions arise that correspond to them，even if they do not，perhaps，resemble them．Besides，from the fact that some of those perceptions are agreeable to me while others are disagreeable it is obviously certain that my body，or preferably，my entire self insofar as I am composed of a body and mind，can be affected by various bene ficial or harmful bodies in my environment.

But there are many other things such that，although I seemed to be taught them by nature，I learned them not really from nature but from a certain habit of judging carelessly，and it can easily happen therefore that they are false：for example，that every space is empty，if there is nothing obviously there that would affect my senses；that，for example，there is something in a warm body that resembles exactly the idea of heat that I have；that in something white or green there exists the same whiteness or greenness that I perceive，in something bitter or sweet the same taste，and so on for the others；that stars and towers and all other remote bodies have exactly the same size and shape that they present to my senses，and other similar things.

But in order not to perceive anything here that is not sufficiently distinct，I should de fine more carefully what exactly I understand when I say that I am taughtsomething by nature．For here I mean nature in a narrower sense than the complexity of everything that I was given by God，for this complexity includes many things that belong only to the mind；for example，I perceive that it is impossible for what was done to be undone，and all the other things that are known by the natural light of reason，and I am not concerned with them at this point.

There are also many things that belong only to the body，for example that it tends downwards and similar things，and I am not concerned with them either．I am concerned here only with those things that were given me by God insofar as I am composed of a mind and body.

Nature in this sense，therefore，teaches me toflee from things that cause a sensation of pain and to seek those that cause a sensation of pleasure，and so on．But it does not seem to teach us to draw any conclusion from these sensory perceptions，without a prior examination by the understanding of the things that are external to us，because it seems that we can learn the truth about them by using the mind alone and not by using the composite of mind and body．Thus although a star does not affect my eye any more than theflame of a small fire，nevertheless that does not provide any real or positive inclination to believe that it is not greater，despite the fact that I have unreasonably judged in this way from my youth．And although I feel heat when I approach the fire，and I also feel pain when I go too near it，there is really no reason to convince me that there is something in the fire that resembles that heat any more than there is something in it that resembles the pain；but there is reason to believeonly that there is something in it，whatever it turns out to be，which causes those sensations of heat and pain in us．And although there may be nothing in a given space that affects our senses，it does not follow that there is no body there．But I see in these and many other cases that I have got used to perverting the order of nature．For sensory perceptions，strictly speaking，were given by nature only to signify to the mind what is bene ficial or harmful for the composite of which it is a part and，to that extent，they are sufficiently clear and distinct；but I use them as if they were guaranteed rules for the immediate discovery of the essence of external bodies，whereas they provide only very obscure and confused perceptions of them.

However，I have already adequately examined above how，despite God's goodness，it can happen that my judgements are false．But a new difficulty arises at this point about the very things that nature presents as things to be sought or avoided，and even about the internal sensations in which I seem to have detected mistakes–for example，when someone is deluded by the agreeable taste of some food and swallows poison which is concealed in it．But in that case one is urged by nature only to seek whatever has the agreeable taste and not the poison about which nature is completely ignorant．One can draw no conclusion from this，except that this nature is not omniscient．That is not surprising because，since a human being is limited，it deserves only limited perfections.

Still，it is not unusual for us to be mistaken about things to which nature inclines us，for example，in the case of those who are ill and who desire food or drink that very soon afterwards is harmful for them．One couldsay perhaps，in this case，that they are mistaken because their nature is disordered．But this does not resolve the problem，because someone who is sick is one of God's creatures just as much as someone who is healthy；therefore it seems to be just as objectionable if those who are sick were given a deceptive nature by God．A clock made with wheels and weights observes all the laws of nature just as precisely when it is made poorly and fails to show the correct time as when it satis fies the artisan's intentions in every respect．Likewise，I think of a human body as somekindof machinemadefrombones，nerves，muscles，veins，blood and skin so that，even if there were no mind in it，it would still have all the motions which it has at present and which do not result from the control of the will and，therefore，from the mind．Consequently，I can easily acknowledge that it would be equally natural for it（if it suffered from dropsy，for example）to experience the same dryness of the throat that the sensation of thirst usually brings to the mind，and for its nerves and other parts of the body to be so affected that it would take a drink which would aggravate its sickness，as to be moved by a similar dryness of the throat to take a drink which is bene ficial for it when it is not affected by such a sickness．When I consider the anticipated use of the clock，however，I could say that it deviates from its nature when it does not show the correct time；likewise，considering the machine of the human body as being adapted to the motions that usually occur in it，I could think that it also deviates from its nature if its throat is dry when a drink is not conducive to its conservation．But I am sufficiently aware that this last way of understanding natureis very different from the other one．This latter understanding is simply a name，which results from my thought when I compare someone who is sick and a badly made clock with the idea of someone who is healthy and a clock that is well made，and it is completely extrinsic to the things to which it is applied．But by the former concept of nature I understand something which is really found in things and which，therefore，has some truth in it.

When the nature of a body suffering from dropsy is described as‘corrupted’，because it has a dry throat but does not need a drink，this is certainly a case of arbitrarily attaching a name to it．But when it is a question of the composite，or of a mind united with such a body，it is not simply a case of arbitrarily naming something；it is a genuine mistake of nature that it is thirsty when a drink is harmful to it．Therefore，we need to ask here how God's goodness fails to prevent nature，understood in the latter sense，from being deceitful.

First of all，I perceive that there is a big difference between the mind and the body insofar as the body，by its nature，is always divisible whereas the mind is evidently indivisible．When I reflect on the mind（or on myself insofar as I am simply a thinking thing），I certainly cannot distinguish any parts in myself；instead I understand myself to be a completely uni fied and integral thing．And even though the whole mind seems to be united with the whole body，if however a foot，an arm，or any other part of the body is cut off，I know that nothing is thereby taken away from the mind．Nor can the faculties of willing，sensing，understanding，etc.，be said to be parts of the mind，because it is one and the same mind thatwills，senses and understands．In contrast，I cannot think of any physical or extended body that I cannot divide easily in my thought；for that reason alone，I understand that it is divisible．That would be enough to teach me that the mind is completely different from the body if I did not already know it adequately from other considerations.

Secondly，I perceive that the mind is not affected immediately by all the parts of the body but only by the brain or，perhaps，only by one small part of the brain，namely the part in which the common sense is said to be．Whenever this part is in the same state，it presents the same thing to the mind even though the other parts of the body may be in different states．This is proved by many experiences that need not be reviewed here.

I also perceive that the nature of the body is such that no part of it can be moved by another part at a certain distance from it，unless it can also be moved in the same way by any of the parts in between，even when the more remote part does nothing．For example，in a cord A B C D，if one end of it D is pulled，the other end A will be moved in the same way as if one of the intermediate parts，B or C，had been pulled and the end D had remained unmoved．In a similar way，when I feel a pain in my foot，physics teaches me that that sensation occurs by means of the nerves that are spread through the foot and are stretched from the foot to the brain like cords；when they are pulled in the foot，they also pull the inner parts of the brain where they terminate，and they stimulate a certain motion there，which was established by nature to affect the mind with a feeling of what seems like a pain in the foot．Since these nerves have to pass through the leg，thethigh，the loins，the back and the neck to reach from the foot to the brain，it can happen that，even if that section of the nerves which is in the foot is not affected but only some other intermediate section，evidently the very same motion occurs in the brain as when the foot is hurt，from which it will necessarily follow that the mind feels the same pain．The same thing must occur in the case of other sensations.

Finally，I perceive that any of the motions that occur in the part of the brain that affects the mind immediately trigger only one particular sensation in it；therefore the best arrangement that could be imagined here would be for it to trigger the speci fic sensation which，among all the sensations that it could possibly trigger，is conducive most often and to the greatest extent to the conservation of human health．Experience shows，however，that all the sensations with which we are endowed by nature are of this kind；therefore nothing can be found in them that does not bear witness to the power and goodness of God．Thus，for example，when the nerves in the foot are moved violently and more than usual，their motion，passing through the spinal cord to the inner parts of the brain，gives a signal to the mind to sense something，namely a pain that seems to be in the foot，by which it is stimulated to remove its cause，insofar as that is possible，as something harmful to the foot．Human nature could have been so constituted by God that the very same motion in the brain would make the mind aware of something else–for example，the motion itself as it occurs in the brain，in the foot，or in any of the intermediate places between the foot and the brain，or of somethingcompletely different．But nothing else would have been as conducive to the conservation of the body．Likewise，when we need a drink，that gives rise to a certain dryness in the throat，which moves its nerves and，as a result，the interior of the brain．This motion affects the mind with a sensation of thirst，because there is nothing in this whole interaction that is more useful for us to know than that we need a drink for the conservation of our health，and likewise for other cases.

It is perfectly clear from these considerations that，despite the immense goodness of God，human nature，insofar as it is composed of a mind and body，cannot avoid being deceptive occasionally．For if some cause that is not in the foot，but in some other part of the body through which the nerves are stretched from the foot to the brain or even in the brain itself，causes the very same motion which is usually caused by a damaged foot，pain will be felt as if it were in the foot．Thus the sense is naturally deceived because，since the same motion in the brain must always trigger the same sensation in the mind and since it results much more frequently from some cause that harms the foot rather than from anything else，it is reasonable that it would always signal to the mind a pain in the foot rather than in any other part of the body．If it happens occasionally that dryness of the throat arises，not as it usually does because a drink is conducive to the health of the body but from some other contrary cause（as happens in the case of dropsy），it is much better that it would mislead in that case rather than always mislead when the body is healthy，and likewise for other examples.

This consideration is extremely helpful，not only for me to notice all the errors to which my nature is subject，but also to enable me to avoid them easily or to correct them．Clearly，I know that all the senses tell me much more frequently what is true rather than false about those things that pertain to the welfare of the body，and I can almost always use more than one of the senses to examine the same thing．I can also use my memory，which links present sensations with previous sensations，as well as my understanding，which has already looked into all the causes of error．Therefore，I should no longer fear that those things are false which my senses reveal to me on a daily basis．The hyperbolic doubts of recent days should be rejected as ridiculous，especially the extreme doubt that arose from my failure to distinguish between being asleep and being awake．I realize now that there is a very big difference between them，because dreams are never joined by memory with all the other activities of life，as happens with those that occur while we are awake．Evidently if，while I am awake，someone appeared to me suddenly and then immediately disappeared，as happens in dreams，in such a way that I did not see either where they came from or where they went to，I would reasonably judge that they were a ghost or an image depicted on my brain and not a genuine human being．But when things occur in such a way that I see distinctly where they come from，where and when they occur，and when the perception of them is linked with the rest of my life without any interruption，then I am perfectly certain that they occur to me while I am awake and not while asleep．Nor should I have even the slightest doubt about theirtruth if，having called upon all my senses，my memory and my understanding to examine them，I get no report from any of them which conflicts with the others．For from the fact that God is not a deceiver it follows that，in such cases，I am completely free from error．But the urgency of things to be done does not always allow us time for such a careful examination；it must be granted，therefore，that human life is often subject to mistakes about particular things，and the weakness of our nature must be acknowledged.

Objections and Replies（Selections）

First Objections

（a）What cause，I ask，does an idea require？ Or what is an idea？ Is it the thing itself which is thought about，insofar as it is in the intellect intentionally？ What does it mean to be in the intellect intentionally？ One time I learned that it means：to determine an intellectual act itself by means of an object．That is evidently nothing in the thing itself but involves naming it by reference to something outside it．Just as for something to be seen is nothing more than an act of seeing，which is located in me，so likewise being thought or being in the intellect intentionally is having a thought of the mind that remains in and terminates in itself．This can occur even if the thing in question is not changed or moved，and even if it does not exist．I am asking，then：what is the cause of something which does not actually exist and which is nothing but a mere name？

However，our great author says：‘When an idea contains one particular intentional reality rather than another，it must surely get this from some cause.’On the contrary，from no cause！For intentional reality is merely a name，and does not actually exist．A cause has a real and actual influence on something：but that which does not actually exist does not receive that influence，and therefore it neither receives nor needs the real influence of acause．Thus I have ideas，but not their cause–much less one that is greater than me and is in finite.

（b）Even if it is granted that a supremely perfect being，by its very nature，implies existence，it still does not follow that such an existence is something that is actually present in the nature of things，but only that the concept of existence is inseparably linked with the concept of a supreme being．You cannot deduce from this that the existence of God is something actual，unless you presuppose that God is a supreme being who actually exists．If that were true，it would actually include all perfections，including the perfection of real existence.

Replies

（a）What I wrote，however，was：an idea is the thing itself which is thought，insofar as it is in the intellect intentionally．He pretends to understand these words in a way that is obviously different from the way I understand them，in order to give me an opportunity of explaining them more clearly．He says：‘To be in the intellect intentionally is to determine an intellectual act itself by means of an object，which is nothing in the thing itself but involves naming it by reference to something outside it.’One should notice that he refers here to the thing itself as if it were located outside the intellect；that is why saying that it is in the intellect intentionally merely involves naming an object by reference to something outside it．But I was speaking about an idea that is never outside the intellect and，consequently，‘intentional being’means simply to bein the intellect in the way in which objects are usually there．Thus，for example，if anyone asks what happens to the sun as a result of being in my intellect intentionally，it is best to reply that nothing happens to it apart from its being named by reference to something outside itself，that is，that，as an object，it directs an operation of the intellect．But if someone asks about the idea of the sun，what is it？ and if the reply is that it is the thing thought about insofar as it is in the intellect intentionally，no one will understand that to be the sun itself insofar as it is named after something outside itself.‘To be in the intellect intentionally’will not mean，in that case，to direct the intellect's operations as an object，but to be in it in the way in which objects of the intellect usually are there，so that the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect–not，however，formally，asitdoesintheheavens，but intentionally，that is，in the way in which objects are usually in the intellect．This mode of existing is evidently much less perfect than that by which things exist outside the intellect but，clearly，it is not nothing as a result，as I have already written.

When the very learned theologian says that these words involve an equivocation，it seems as if he wants to warn me about something that I have just noted，lest I happen to forget it．He says，in the first place，that a thing existing in this way in the intellect by means of an idea is not an actual entity，that is，it is not something which is located outside the intellect．And that is true．Then he also says that it is‘not something fictitious，or a being of reason，but something real which is understood distinctly’．In these words he concedes everything that Iassumed．He adds，however，‘that it is only conceived and does not actually exist（that is，because it is only an idea，and not something located outside the intellect）；it can be conceived but cannot in any way be caused.’In other words，it does not require a cause in order to exist outside the intellect．I agree with that，but it obviously requires a cause in order to be conceived and that is the only issue at stake here.

For example，if someone had in their intellect the idea of some machine that had been thought with great arti fice，it would be appropriate to ask right away：what is the cause of this idea？ It would not be enough to say that the machine does not exist outside the intellect and，therefore，that it cannot be caused and can only be conceived．For the only question being asked is：what is the cause of its being conceived？ Nor would it be enough to answer that the intellect itself is its cause，namely as the cause of its own operation．There is no disagreement about that here；the only point in contention concerns the cause of the intentional arti fice which the idea contains because，in order for this idea of a machine to contain one intentional arti fice rather than another，it must derive it from some cause．The same issue arises with respect to the intentional arti fice of this idea and the intentional reality of the idea of God．There are various possible causes of the intentional arti fice of this machine．The cause may be some actual machine，similar to this one，which was previously seen，as a result of which the idea resembling it was formed；or it may be an extensive knowledge of mechanics that is present in the intellect；or it may be a great intellectual creativity by which theintellect can invent such an idea even without prior knowledge of mechanics．It should also be noted that all the arti fice，which is merely intentional in the idea，must necessarily be in its cause，whatever that turns out to be，either formally or eminently．The intentional reality which is in the idea of God should be understood in the same way．But where will this be，except in a really existing God？

But my acute reader sees all this and therefore concedes that it is legitimate to ask：why does this idea contain this particular intentional reality rather than some other？ And he replies to this question，firstly：‘What I wrote about the idea of a triangle applies in the same way to all ideas；that is，even if a triangle did not exist anywhere，it still has some determinate nature or essence，or an immutable and eternal form.’But，he says，‘that is not to postulate a cause.’However，he well realizes that this is unsatisfactory；for if the nature of a triangle is also immutable and eternal，we are still just as entitled to ask the question why we have the idea of a triangle．For that reason，he added：‘if you persist in demanding an explanation，it is located in the imperfection of our intellect，etc..’In answering in that way he seems to mean only that those who choose to disagree with me have no plausible answer to the question．For it is obviously no more probable that the imperfection of our intellect is the cause of our having an idea of God，than that a lack of expert knowledge of mechanics is the cause of our imagining some very complicated machine rather than some other machinewhichislessperfect.Onthecontrary，itisobvious that if someone has an idea of a machine that contains every conceivable arti fice，one can conclude much morereasonably that the idea derives from some cause in which every conceivable arti fice really existed，even if it exists only intentionally in the idea．For the same reason，since we have an idea of God that contains every conceivable perfection，one can conclude very evidently that the idea depends on some cause in which all that perfection is also found，namely，in God who really exists.

（b）My argument was as follows：whatever we understand clearly and distinctly as belonging to the true and immutable nature，essence，or form of something，can be truly predicated of it．But when we have examined with sufficient care what God is，we understand clearly and distinctly that it belongs to his true and immutable nature that he exists．Therefore，we can then truly predicate of him that he exists．The conclusion at least follows correctly，in this case，from the premises．Now the major premise cannot be denied either，since it was already agreed earlier that‘everything that we understand clearly and distinctly is true.’Only the minor premise remains，and I agree that there is a signi ficant difficulty in this．In the first place，we are so used to making a distinction in everything else between existence and essence that we do not realize adequately the extent to which existence belongs to the essence of God more than in the case of other things．Secondly，if we do not distinguish what belongs to the true and immutable essence of something from what can be predicated of it only by a figment of the intellect，then even if we realize adequately that existence belongs to the essence of God，we fail to draw the conclusion that God exists because we do not knowwhether his essence is immutable and true or merely one of our figments.

But in order to remove the first part of this difficulty，we need to distinguish between possible existence and necessary existence，and we should note that possible existence is contained in the concept or idea of everything that is clearly and distinctly understood．However，necessary existence is contained only in the idea of God．Whoever is careful in paying attention to this difference between the idea of God and all other ideas will undoubtedly realize that，although we understand all other things only as if they existed，it does not follow that they exist but simply that they are capable of existing．For we understand that it is not necessary for actual existence to be combined with their other properties．But from the fact that we understand actual existence to be combined necessarily and always with the other attributes of God，it certainly does follow that God exists.

To remove the second part of the difficulty，it should be noted that ideas that do not contain true and immutable natures–but are merely fictitious natures which are invented by the intellect–are capable of being divided by that same intellect，not only by abstraction but by a clear and distinct mental operation．Thus any idea that cannot be divided in this way by the intellect was certainly not composed by it in the first place．For example，when I think about a winged horse，an actually existing lion or a triangle drawn inside a square，I easily understand that I can also think，conversely，about a horse without wings，a nonexisting lion，or a triangle without a square，and so on，and therefore these ideas do not have true andimmutable natures．However，if I think about a triangle or a square（I will not use the examples of a lion or a horse，because their natures are not completely clear to us），then certainly I can assert truthfully of the triangle whatever I understand as being contained in the idea of a triangle–for example，that its three angles are equal to two right angles，etc．Likewise，I can claim that whatever I find contained in the idea of a square is true．And even though I am able to understand a triangle while abstracting from the fact that its three angles are equal to two right angles，I still cannot deny，by means of a clear and distinct operation，that it has that property–that is，if I understand correctly what I am saying．Besides，if I think about a triangle drawn inside a square and avoid attributing to the square what belongs only to the triangle，or tothetrianglewhatbelongstothesquare，andif Iexamine only those properties which result from the combination of the two figures，its nature would not be any less true and immutable than the nature of a triangle or a square considered separately．Thus it would be appropriate to claim that the square is not less than twice the area of the triangle drawn inside it，and other similar things，which belong to the nature of this composite figure.

However，if I thought that existence is contained in the idea of a supremely perfect body，because to exist both in reality and in the intellect is a greater perfection than to exist only in the intellect，I could not thereby conclude that such a supremely perfect body exists but only that it is capable of existing．For I am well able to recognize that such an idea was constructed by my own intellect，by combining together all physical perfections at thesame time，and that existence does not result from those other perfections；on the contrary，one can just as easily affirm or deny the existence of them．Indeed，while examining the idea of a body I perceive no power in it by which it can produce itself or conserve itself in existence；from this I conclude validly that necessary existence，about which alone there is a question here，no more belongs to the nature of a body，no matter how perfect it is，than it belongs to the nature of a mountain that it does not have a valley or to the nature of a triangle that it has angles which together are greater than two right angles.

However，if we now ask not about a body but about something else（whatever it happens to be）that possesses all possible perfections at the same time，whether existence should be included among them，we shall initially have doubts about it．Our mind，which is finite，is used to thinking about those perfections only separately and therefore it may not notice immediately how they are necessarily combined together．But if we examine carefully whether existence–and what kind of existence–belongs to a supremely perfect being，we shall be able to perceive the following clearly and distinctly．Firstly，that at least possible existence belongs to it just as it belongs to all other things of which we have distinct ideas，even to those which are invented by a figment of our intellect．Then if we acknowledge its immense power，we cannot think that its existence is possible unless，at the same time，we acknowledge that it can exist by its own power，and we shall conclude from this that it really exists and that it existed from eternity．For it is very well known by the natural light of reason that anything which is capableof existing by its own power always exists．We shall thus understand that necessary existence is contained in the idea of a supremely powerful being，not by a figment of our intellect，but because it belongs to the true and immutable nature of such a being that it exists．We shall also easily perceive that such a supremely powerful being is incapable of not having in itself all the other perfections that are contained in the idea of God and，therefore，without any figment of our intellect and by their own nature，they are combined together and they exist in God.

Second Objections

（a）So far，you acknowledge that you are a thinking thing but you do not know what this thinking thing is．What if it were a body，which，by its various movements and interactions，produces what we call thought？ Although you think you have excluded every kind of body，you may have been mistaken because you hardly excluded yourself and you may be a body．How do you demonstrate that a body cannotthinkorthatbodilymovementsarenotthatthought？ But the whole system of your body，which you think you have excluded，or some parts of it–for example，the brain–could cooperate to produce those movements that we call thought．I am a thinking thing，you say；but do you know that you are not a bodily movement or a body that is moved？

（b）Since you are not yet certain of the existence of God，and since you cannot say that you are certain of anything or that you know anything clearly and distinctly unless you first know certainly and clearly that God exists，it follows that you cannot yet know clearly and distinctly that you are a thinking thing since，according to you，such knowledge depends on a clear knowledge of God's existence，which you have not yet proved at the point where you conclude that you know clearly what you are.

Besides，an atheist knows clearly and distinctly that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles．However，they are so far from supposing God's existence that they openly deny it because，they argue，if God existed he would be the supreme being，the supreme good，that is，he would be in finite．But in every class，the in finite excludes every other perfection，that is，every entity and good and，even more，every nonentity and evil；since there are many things，beings，goods，nonbeings and evils，we think you should answer this objection properly so that the impious have nothing left to rely on.

（c）But how do you know you are certain that you are not deceived，and that you cannot be deceived，about things that you think you know clearly and distinctly？ How often have we found someone deceived about things that they believed they knew more clearly than the sun？ Thus this principle of clear and distinct knowledge ought to be so clearly and distinctly explained that no one of sound mind could ever be deceived about things that they believe they know clearly and distinctly.

（d）When you reply to the theologian，you seem to go astray in the conclusion，which you express as follows：‘Whatever we understand clearly and distinctly asbelonging to the true and immutable nature of something can be truly predicated of it．But when we have examined with enough care what God is，we understand clearly and distinctly that it belongs to his nature that he exists.’You should conclude：‘therefore when we have investigated carefully enough what God is，we can assert truthfully that it belongs to the nature of God that he exists.’It does not follow from this that God truly exists，but only that he must exist if his nature is possible or if it is not selfcontradictory．In other words，the nature or essence of God cannot be conceived without existence and therefore，given his essence，he truly exists．This is equivalent to the argument that others have expressed as follows：‘If it is consistent to claim that there is a God，then it is certain that he exists．But it is consistent to claim that he exists.’However，there is a question about the minor premise，which is：‘But it is consistent for him to exist.’Those who disagree claim either to doubt or to deny that.

（e）Besides，it does not seem to follow from the distinction of the mind from the body that the mind is incorruptible and immortal．What if its nature were limited by the duration of the life of the body，and if God granted it only enough strength and existence to coincide with the life of the body？

Replies

（a）You also ask：how do I demonstrate that a body cannot think？ But forgive me if I reply that this question doesnot arise at that stage，for the first occasion on which I dealt with it was in the Sixth Meditation，in the following words：‘it is enough that I can understand one thing，clearly and distinctly，without another in order to be certain that one thing is distinct from the other’and so on．And a little later：

Although I have a body that is joined very closely to me，since I have on the one hand a clear and distinct idea of myself insofar as I am a thinking，nonextended thing and，on the other hand，I have a distinct idea of the body insofar as it is merely an extended，nonthinking thing，it is certain that I（that is，a mind）am really distinct from my body and that I can exist without it.

It is easy to add to this：‘Anything that can think is a mind or is called a mind；but since mind and body are really distinct，no body is a mind．Therefore it is impossible for a body to think.’

I do not see what you can deny in this．Is it that it is not enough that we understand one thing clearly without another in order to recognize that they are really distinct？ In that case，you should provide some more certain criterion of a real distinction，for I am con fident that it is impossible to produce one．What will you say，then？ Are two things really distinct if each can exist without the other？ But I ask in reply：how do you know that one thing can exist without the other？ If this is to be a criterion for a distinction，it must be knowable．Perhaps you will say that this can be known by using the senses because you can see or touch one thing when the other is absent，andso on．But the testimony of the senses is less reliable than that of the intellect，and it can happen in various ways that one and the same thing appears in different forms or in several places in different ways and，as a result，it is taken for two things．Also，if you remember what was said about the wax towards the end of the Second Meditation，you will realize that even bodies are not，strictly speaking，perceived by the senses but only by the intellect，so that to sense one thing without another is nothing other than to have an idea of one thing and to understand that that idea is not identical with the idea of the other thing．This can be understood only from the fact that one thing is perceived without the other，and it cannot be understood clearly unless the idea of each thing is clear and distinct．Thus，if your criterion for a real distinction provides any certainty，it is reducible to mine.

（b）When I said that we are unable to have knowledge that is certain unless we first know that God exists，I explicitly claimed that I was speaking only about knowledge of those conclusions that we can remember when we no longer consider the premises from which we deduced them．But knowledge of principles is not usually called‘scienti fic knowledge’by logicians．However，when we advert to the fact that we are thinking things，that is a primary notion，which is not deduced from a syllogism．Even if someone says，‘I think，therefore I am or I exist，’they do not deduce existence from thinking by using a syllogism，but they recognize it by means of a simple mental insight as something that is selfevident．This isevident from the fact that，if they deduced it by using a syllogism，they would first have to have known the major premise，‘that everything which thinks is or exists’．But they learn that much more from the fact that they experience，in themselves，that it is impossible to think without existing．The nature of our mind is such that it generates general propositions from its knowledge of particulars.

（c）Once we think that something is perceived correctly by us，we are spontaneously convinced that it is true．If this conviction is so strong that we could never have any reason to doubt what we are convinced of in this way，then there is nothing further to inquire about；we have everything that we could reasonably hope for．Why should we be concerned if someone happens to pretend that the very thing，about the truth of which we are so firmly convinced，appears false to God or to an angel and therefore that it is false，absolutely speaking？ Why should we care about such an absolute falsehood，for we do not believe in it at all and have not the slightest evidence to support it？ We are assuming a conviction that is so firm that it cannot be changed in any way，and such a conviction is evidently the same thing as the most perfect certainty.

But there may be a doubt whether anyone has such a degree of certainty，or such a firm and unchangeable conviction.

It is clear that such certainty is not available in the case of things that we perceive（even to the slightest extent）obscurely and confusedly；for such obscurity，of whatever kind，is a sufficient reason to doubt them．Nor is itavailable in the case of things which，however clear，are perceived only by sense；for we have often noticed that mistakes can arise in sensations–for example，when a person with dropsy drinks，or when snow appears yellow to someone with dropsy and they do not see it less clearly and distinctly than we do when it looks white to us．It follows then that this degree of certainty，if it is achieved at all，is realized only in the case of those things that are perceived clearly by the mind.

Among the latter，however，some are so clear and simple that we can never think about them without believing that they are true；for example，that while I am thinking，I exist；that those things which have once been done cannot be undone；and similar things about which it is manifestly possible to have such certainty．For we cannot have any doubt about them unless we think about them，but we cannot think about the very same things without believing that they are true，which is what was supposed．Therefore，we cannot doubt them without at the same time believing that they are true；in other words，we can never doubt them.

Nor is this an objection，that we have often found that others‘were deceived about things that they believed they knew more clearly than the sun’．For we have never seen this happen，nor could anyone see it happen，to those who derived the clarity of their perception from the intellect alone；we saw it happen only to those who derived their certainty either from the senses or from some false prejudice.

Likewise it is no objection if someone pretends that those things appear false to God or an angel，because theevidence of our perception does not allow us to believe whoever pretends such things.

There are other things that are perceived very clearly by our intellect when we consider adequately the reasons on which our knowledge of them depends and are such that we are consequently unable to doubt them at the time．However，we are capable of forgetting those reasons and，meanwhile，remembering the conclusions drawn from them and the question arises whether we still have a firm and unchangeable conviction about those conclusions when we remember that they were derived from evident principles；for we have to assume such a recollection in order for them to be called conclusions．I reply that such certainty is available only to those who know God in such a way that they understand that it is impossible for him to have given them a faculty of understanding that would not lead towards the truth．But it is not possible for others to have the same certainty.

（d）You seem to make a mistake yourself when you criticize the conclusion of the syllogism that I constructed．In order to get the conclusion that you want，the major premise would have to be formulated as follows：‘Whatever we understand clearly as belonging to the nature of something can be affirmed truthfully to belong to its nature.’However，in this form it contains nothing more than a useless tautology．But my major premise was as follows：‘Whatever we understand clearly as belonging to the nature of something can be affirmed truthfully of that thing.’Thus if being an animal belongs to the nature of a human being，then a human being can be said to bean animal．If having three angles equal to two right angles belongs to the nature of a triangle，then it can be affirmed that a triangle has three angles equal to two right angles．If existing belongs to the nature of God，then it can be affirmed that God exists，and so on．The minor premise，however，was as follows：‘But it belongs to the nature of God that he exists.’From which it follows evidently，‘Therefore，it can be affirmed truthfully of God that he exists’，and not，as you wished，‘Therefore，we can truthfully affirm that it belongs to the nature of God that he exists.’

Thus，in order to use the quali fication that you introduce，you would have to deny the major premise and say：‘Whatever we understand clearly as belonging to the nature of something may not therefore be affirmed of that thing unless its nature is possible or is not inconsistent.’But I suggest that you notice how weak this quali fication is．Either you understand the term‘possible’，as everyone commonly does，to mean‘what is not inconsistent with human conceptions’and，in that sense of the term，it is evident that the nature of God as I have described it is possible；for I assumed that there was nothing in it that we did not perceive clearly and distinctly should belong to it，and thus it could not be inconsistent withourconceptions.Alternatively，youmaywellimagine that there is some other kind of possibility on the part of the object itself；if that is not consistent with the previous meaning，it cannot in any way be known by the human intellect and therefore it is just as capable of overthrowing everything else that is known to human beings as of contradicting the nature or existence of God．If wecan deny that the nature of God is possible even though we find no impossibility on the part of the concepts–on the contrary，all the things that are contained in the concept of that divine nature are so interconnected that to deny that any of them belongs to God seems confused；if that were so，we could deny by a similar argument that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles or that someone who is actually thinking exists．And it would be even more justi fiable to deny that anything we have learned through the senses is true．Thus all human knowledge would be removed but without any justi fication.

（e）I confess that I cannot refute your supplementary objection，that the immortality of the soul does not follow from the distinction of the soul from the body，because one could say that the soul was made by God in such a way that its duration is terminated at the same time as that of the body．Nor do I assume so much that I could try to determine by the power of human reason any of those things that depend on the free will of God．Our natural knowledge teaches that the mind is distinct from the body and that it is itself a substance；that the human body，insofar as it differs from other bodies，is composed only of the con figuration of its parts and other similar nonessential features；and finally，that the death of the body depends merely on some division or change of shape．We have no reason or precedent to convince us that the death or annihilation of a substance，such as the mind，must follow such a trivial cause as a change of shape，which is nothing more than a mode；indeed，it is not a mode of a mind but of a body，which is really distinct from the mind．Nor have we any reason or precedent to convince us that any substance can perish．That is enough to conclude that the mind，insofar as it can be known by natural philosophy，is immortal.

But if you were asking about the absolute power of God，whether he may have decreed that human souls would be limited to the same length of time within which the bodies to which he united them are destroyed，God alone can reply to that.

There are two kinds of demonstration，namely，by analysis and by synthesis.

Analysis shows the true way by which a thing was discovered methodically and，as it were，a priori，so that if the reader wishes to follow it and to pay enough attention to everything，they will understand the thing as perfectly and will make it their own as if they had discovered it themselves．It includes nothing，however，by which a less attentive or resistant reader would be compelled to believe，for if they fail to pay attention to even the slightest detail of what is involved，the necessity of the conclusion will escape them.

In contrast，synthesis operates in the opposite and，as it were，an a posteriori manner（although the proof itself is often more a priori in this than in the former method），and demonstrates the conclusion clearly and uses a long series of de finitions，postulates，axioms，theorems and problems，so that if any one of the consequences is denied，it shows immediately that it was contained in the antecedents and in this way it compels assent fromthe reader no matter how resistant or stubborn they may be．But it is not as satisfactory as analysis，nor does it satisfy the minds of those who are anxious to learn because it does not teach the way in which something was discovered.

Reasons which prove the existence of God，and the distinction of the soul from the body，arranged in a geometrical format

I．By the term‘thought’，I mean everything which is in us in such a way that we are immediately conscious of it．Thus all operations of the will，intellect，imagination，and the senses are thoughts．But I added the word‘immediately’to exclude whatever follows from thoughts；for example，although a voluntary motion has some thought as its principle，it is not itself a thought.

II．By the word‘idea’，I understand the form of any thought by the immediate perception of which I am conscious of the thought itself．Hence I cannot express anything in words and understand what I am saying without，by that very fact，being certain that I have an idea of whatever is meant by those words．Thus I do not apply the term‘ideas’only to the images which are depicted in the imagination；in fact，I do not call them ideas at all here，insofar as they are depicted in the bodily imagination，that is，in some part of the brain，but only insofar as they inform the mind itself when it turns towards that part of the brain.

III．By‘the intentional reality of an idea’，I understand the reality of a thing that is represented by an idea insofaras it is in the idea．In the same way one can talk about an intentional perfection，or an intentional arti fice，and so on．For anything that we perceive in the objects of our ideas is in the ideas themselves intentionally.

IV．Things are said to be formally in the objects of our ideas when they occur there in the same way that they are perceived；and they are said to exist eminently in the objects when they do not occur there in the same way，but in a way which is so great that it can provide a substitute for the way in which we perceive them.

V．Something is called a substance if it is a subject in which resides，or by which exists，everything that we perceive，that is，every property，quality or attribute of which we have a real idea．Nor do we have any idea of the substance itself in a strict sense，except that it is the thing in which whatever we perceive exists either formally or eminently，or whatever is present intentionally in one of our ideas，for it is known by the natural light of reason that no real attribute can belong to nothing.

VI．The substance in which thought inheres immediately is called‘mind’；I speak here of a mind rather than a soul，because the term‘soul’is equivocal and is often used in reference to a physical thing.

VII．The substance that is the immediate subject of local extension and of the nonessential features that presuppose extension–such as shape，position，local motion，etc.–is called a‘body’．But whether it is one and the same substance that is called mind and body，or whether they are two different substances，will be investigated later.

VIII．The substance that we understand as supremelyperfect，andinwhichweconceiveof nothingthatinvolves any defect or limitation of perfection，is called God.

IX．When we say that something is contained in the nature of something or in its concept，that is the same as saying that it is true of that thing or that we can affirm it of that thing.

X．Two substances are said to be really distinct when each of them can exist without the other.

Third Objections

Objection

Now from the fact that I think or that I have an image，when I am either awake or dreaming，it follows that I am a thinking being；for‘I think’and‘I am thinking’mean the same thing．From the fact that I am a thinking thing it follows that I exist，because that which thinks is not nothing．But when the text goes on to add，‘that is，a mind，soul，intellect or reason’，a doubt arises．It does not seem to be sound reasoning to say，I am thinking，therefore I am a thought；nor，I am understanding，therefore I am an understanding．For in the same way I could say，I am walking，therefore I am the act of walking．Thus Mr Descartes is taking the thing that understands as if it were identical with understanding，which is an act of the intellect，or at least he is identifying the thing that understands with the understanding，which is a faculty of the intellect．But all philosophers distinguish a subject from its faculties and acts，that is，from its properties and itsessences；an entity is one thing，its essence is something else．It is possible therefore that a thinking thing is the subject of the mind，of reasoning，or of understanding，and therefore is something physical．The opposite is assumed but not proved．But this inference is the basis of the conclusion which，it seems，Mr Descartes wishes to establish.

In the same place he says，I know that I exist，and asks what is this‘I’whom I know？ It is very certain that knowledge of this，understood in this precise way，does not depend on things that I do not yet know.

It is very certain that knowledge of this proposition，‘I exist’，depends on this one，‘I think’，as he correctly taught us．But what is the source of our knowledge of the proposition‘I think’？ Certainly not anything other than this，that we are incapable of thinking of any act whatsoever without its subject；for example，of dancing without a dancer，or knowing without a knower，of thinking without a thinker…

Reply

When I said，‘that is，a mind，soul，intellect or reason，etc.’，I did not understand those words as referring to mere faculties but to the things that were endowed with a faculty of thinking．This is what everyone understands by the first two terms and what is often understood by the second two．I explained this so explicitly，in so many places，that it seemed as if there was no room for doubt.

Nor is there any equivalence here between walkingand thinking．For walking is usually taken to be only the action itself，whereas thought is sometimes understood as an action，sometimes as a faculty and sometimes as the thing in which it is a faculty.

Besides，I do not claim that the understanding and the thing that understands are identical or indeed that the thing that understands is the same as the intellect，if the word‘intellect’is used to refer to the faculty，but only if it refers to the thing itself that understands．I admit that I used the most abstract words I could find in order to signify the thing or substance that I wanted to strip of everything that does not belong to it，in the same way as，in contrast with me，this philosopher uses the most concrete words possible，‘subject’，‘matter’and‘body’，to signify the thinking thing itself so that it is not separated from the body.

I am not afraid that his method of combining many things together may appear to many people to be more appropriate for discovering the truth than mine，in which I distinguish particular things as much as I can．But let us stop talking about words and concentrate on the reality.

‘It may be，’he says，‘that the thinking thing is something physical；the opposite is assumed，not proved.’But I did not assume the opposite nor did I use it in any way as a premise；instead I explicitly left it undecided until the Sixth Meditation，where it was proved.

He then says，correctly，that we cannot conceive of any act without its subject；for example，we cannot conceive of thought without a thinking thing because whatever thinks is not nothing．But then，without any reason and contrary to all logic and the standard use of language，he adds：it seems to follow from this that the thinking thing is physical．The subjects of all actions are indeed understood under the category of substance（or even，if he wishes，under the category of‘matter’，that is，metaphysical matter），but they are not therefore understood under the category of‘body’.

Objection

Besides，when Descartes says that the ideas of God and of our soul are innate in us，I want to know if the souls of those who are fast asleep and not dreaming are thinking．If they are not，then they have no ideas during that time．Therefore no idea is innate because whatever is innate is always present.

Reply

When we say that some idea is innate in us，we do not think that it is always present to us；in that sense no idea would be innate．We mean only that we have within us a power to produce the idea in question.

Fourth Objections

（a）If someone is certain that they know that the angle in a semicircle is a right angle and therefore that the triangle formed by this angle and the diameter of a semicircle is a rightangled triangle，they may，nonetheless，doubt or may not have grasped with certainty that the square onthe base of the triangle is equal to the squares on the sides，and they may even deny it because they are misled by some fallacy．If they use the same reasoning as that proposed by our illustrious author，it seems as if they are con firmed in their false conviction．For example，someone says：I clearly and distinctly perceive that this triangle is rightangled，but I still doubt whether the square on the base is equal to the squares on the sides．Therefore it is not essential to the triangle that the square on the base is equal to the squares on the sides.

Besides，even if I deny that the square on the base is equal to the squares on the sides，I am still certain that it is a rightangled triangle，and the knowledge that one of its angles is a right angle remains clear and distinct in my mind．Since that is the case，even God cannot bring it about that it is not rightangled.

Therefore anything that I can doubt，and that can even be removed while I retain the idea of the triangle，does not belong to its essence.

Moreover，since I know that everything that I understand clearly and distinctly can be made by God in the way in which I understand it，it is enough for me to be able to understand clearly and distinctly one thing without another to be certain that one is distinct from the other，because they could be separated by God．But I understand clearly and distinctly that this triangle is rightangled，without understanding that the square on the base is equal to the squares on the sides．Therefore it is at least possible for God to make a rightangled triangle in which the square of the base is not equal to the squares of the sides.

I do not see what can be said in reply to this，except that the speaker in question does not perceive the rightangled triangle clearly and distinctly．But how do I succeed in perceiving my own mind more clearly and distinctly than they perceive the nature of a triangle？ For they are just as certain that the triangle in the semicircle has one right angle，which is the de finition of a rightangled triangle，as I am certain，from the fact that I am thinking，that I exist.

However，they are mistaken in thinking that it does not belong to the nature of this triangle，which they know clearly and distinctly is rightangled，that the square on its base，etc．Likewise，why may I not be mistaken in thinking that nothing else belongs to my nature，which I know clearly and distinctly is a thinking thing，apart from the fact that I am a thinking thing？ It may perhaps belong to my nature that I am an extended thing.

（b）I have one more difficulty．How does he avoid committing the fallacy of a vicious circle when he says that we are certain that what is perceived clearly and distinctly is true only because God exists？ But we can be certain that God exists only because we perceive it clearly and distinctly．Therefore before we are certain that God exists we have to be certain that whatever we perceive clearly and distinctly is true.

There is something else that I forgot．It seems false to me–something that our illustrious author claims as certain–that there can be nothing in him insofar as he is a thinking thing of which he is not aware．However，he understandsthephrase‘himself，insofarasheisa thinkingthing’to mean only his mind insofar as it is distinct from his body．But is there anyone who does not see that there may be things in the mind of which the mind is not aware？ The mind of an infant in its mother's womb has the power of thinking；but it is not aware of it．There are innumerable similar examples，which I will not mention.

Replies

（a）However，our learned friend argues at this point：even though I am capable of having some knowledge of myself without any knowledge of the body，it does not follow that this knowledge is complete and adequate，so that I could be certain of not being mistaken when I exclude the body from my essence．He explains the argument by reference to a triangle inscribed in a semicircle．We can understand clearly and distinctly that it is a rightangled triangle even if we are unaware，or even if we deny，that the square on its base is equal to the squares on its sides but we cannot infer that it is possible to have a [rightangled] triangle in which the square on the base is not equal to the squares on the sides.

However，this example differs in many ways from what I proposed．First of all，although a triangle might be taken concretely to be a substance，the property of having the square on the base equal to the squares on the sides is certainly not a substance．Therefore neither of these may be understood as complete things in the same sense in which the mind and body are complete；nor can either of them be called a thing in the sense in which Isaid，‘It is enough that I can understand one thing（that is，a complete thing）without another …etc.，’and this is clear from the words which follow：‘besides，I find in myself faculties，etc.’I did not call these faculties things，but I distinguished them carefully from things or substances.

Secondly，although we can understand clearly and distinctly that a triangle in a semicircle is rightangled without realizing that the square on its base is equal to the squares on its sides，we cannot，however，understand clearly，in a similar way，a triangle in which the square on the base is equal to the squares on the sides without realizing，at the same time，that it is rightangled．In contrast，we are capable of perceiving clearly and distinctly the mind without the body and the body without the mind.

Thirdly，although it is possible to have a concept of a triangle inscribed in a semicircle in such a way that the equality between the square on the base and the squares on the sides is not included in the concept，it is not possible to have this concept in such a way that one does not understand that there is some relation between the square on the base and the squares on the sides in this triangle．Therefore，as long as one does not know what that relation is，one cannot deny anything about it except whatever we understand clearly as not belonging to the triangle．This could never include the relation of equality．However，there is nothing at all included in the concept of a body that belongs to the mind，and there is nothing in the concept of the mind that belongs to the body.

Thus，although I said that‘it is enough that I understand clearly and distinctly one thing without another，etc.，’it is not possible to continue as follows：‘But I clearly and distinctly understand this triangle，’and so on．The reason is，first of all，that the relation between the square on the base and the squares on the sides is not a complete thing．Secondly，the relation of equality is understood clearly only in a rightangled triangle．Thirdly，no one can understand the triangle distinctly if they deny the relation between the squares on the base and the sides.

（b）I did not use a vicious circle when I said that we are certain that what we perceive clearly and distinctly is true only because God exists，and that we are certain that God exists only because we perceive it clearly．I have explained this adequately in my reply to the Second Objections，…by distinguishing between what we actually perceive clearly and what we remember having perceived clearly some time earlier．For we are certain，initially，that God exists because we consider the reasons that prove it．Subsequently，however，it is enough that we remember that we perceived something clearly in order to be certain that it is true．That would not be enough unless we knew that God exists and that he does not deceive.

As regards the claim that there can be nothing within the mind insofar as it is a thinking thing of which it is not aware；that seems to be selfevident to me，because we cannot understand anything in the mind，understood in this way，which is not a thought or which does not depend on thought．Otherwise it would not belong to the mind insofar as it is a thinking thing，and we cannot have any thought in us of which we are not aware at the time wehave it．For this reason I do not doubt that the mind begins to think and，at the same time，to be aware of its thinking as soon as it is put into the body of an infant，even if subsequently it does not remember it because the impressions of those thoughts do not survive in its memory.

But it should be noted that，although we are always actually aware of the acts or operations of our mind，we are not always aware of our mental faculties or powers，except potentially．Thus，for example，when we are engaged in using some faculty，we are actually aware of the faculty immediately if the faculty in question is in the mind．It follows that，if we fail to become aware of it，we can deny that it is in our mind.

Fifth Objections

（a）You establish that this claim，‘I am，I exist，’is true whenever you assert it or think about it．But I do not see why you need so much complexity since you had other reasons for being certain，and it was true，that you exist．You could have concluded the same thing from any of your other actions，since we know by the natural light of reason that whatever acts must exist.

（b）When you say，later on，that the universe of things is in some way more perfect if some of its parts are liable to error than if they are all alike，that is the same as claiming that the perfection of a republic would be somehow greater if some of its citizens were evil than if they wereall good．It follows that，just as it seems obvious that a ruler should prefer if all the citizens were good，it likewise seems as if the author of the universe should have arranged that all its parts would be created immune to error and would be so．Although you can say that the perfection of those who are immune to error appears greater in comparison with those who are liable to error，that is true only by accident．Likewise，the virtue of good people，although it shines out in some way in comparison with those who are evil，shines out only by accident．Thus，just as it is not desirable that some citizens should be evil in order to show up those who are good，it seems，likewise，that it ought not to have been arranged that some parts of the universe would be subject to error so that those who are immune to error would appear better.

You say that you have no right to complain if God chose a certain role for you in the world which was not the most perfect or the primary one of all．But that does not resolve the doubt about why it was not enough for him to give you the lowest role among those which were perfect，rather than one which was imperfect．For although it does not seem wrong if a ruler does not appoint all citizens to the highest offices and，instead，has some in middlerank offices and others again in lower offices，a ruler would still be criticized if they not only assigned some citizens to the lowest offices but also assigned depraved functions to others.

（c）As regards your idea of yourself，there is nothing to add to what I have already said，especially about the SecondMeditation．For it becomes clear there that，far from having a clear and distinct idea of yourself，you seem to have none at all．The reason is this：although you recognize that you are thinking，you do not know what kind of thing you，who are thinking，are．Since this operation alone is known，the most important thing，namely the substance that operates，is still hidden from you．Hence the following comparison comes to mind：you could be said to resemble a blind person who，when they feel heat and are advised that it comes from the sun，think they have a clear and distinct idea of the sun in the sense that，if anyone asks what the sun is，they can reply：it is a thing that produces heat.

But you go on to add that，not only are you a thinking thing，but you are not an extended thing．However，I shall overlook the fact that this was said without proof when it was still in question and I shall ask，firstly：do you then have a clear and distinct idea of yourself？ You say you are not extended；you say what you are not，rather than what you are．In order to have a clear and distinct idea or，what amounts to the same thing，to have a true and genuine idea of something，is it not necessary to know the thing positively and，as I would say，affirmatively，and is it enough to know that it is not something else？ Thus，would it be a clear and distinct idea of Bucephalus if someone knew only that Bucephalus is not afly？

But rather than insist on this point，I prefer to ask：as a thing which is not extended，then，are you not spread thoughout the body？ I do not know what your answer might be because，even though I acknowledged from thebeginning that you were only in the brain，I discovered that by conjecture rather than by following your views directly．I based my conjecture on the following phrase，which is found later，where you say that you are not affected by all parts of the body but only by the brain or by one small part of it．It was not at all clear whether you were therefore only in one part of the brain or whether you were in the whole body but were affected only by one part of it，in the same way as we commonly say that the soul is spread throughout the body but，despite that，it sees only through the eye.

（d）I make the same claim about the animal spirits that you have to transmit in order to feel，to receive messages，or to move．Let us leave aside the fact that we cannot understand–if you yourself are at a particular point–how you are able to impress a motion on them unless you are a body or unless you have a body with which you could touch them and at the same time start them moving．For if you say that they move themselves and that you merely direct their motion，remember that you denied elsewhere that a body can move itself；one could therefore conclude that you are the cause of their motion．You would also have to explain to us how such direction works without some exertion and therefore some motion on your part．How can there be any pressure on something and on its motion，without mutual contact between the mover and what is moved？ How can we have contact without a body（something which is so clear by thenatural light of reason），since‘nothing can touch or be touched without a body.’

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（a）When you say that I could have concluded the same thing from any of my other actions apart from thinking，you depart a long way from the truth because the only action of which I am completely certain（with the metaphysical certainty that is at issue here）is my thinking．For example，I cannot argue：I walk，therefore I exist，except to the extent that being conscious of my walking is a thought．The inference is certain only when applied to thought but not when applied to the motion of the body，which is something nonexistent in dreams during which，nonetheless，it seems to me that I am walking．Thus from the fact that I think I am walking，I infer most properly the existence of the mind that thinks this thought but not the existence of the body that walks．The same applies to other actions.

（b）You assume here and elsewhere that the fact that we are subject to error is a positive imperfection when（especially with respect to God）it is merely the negation of a greater perfection in creatures．Nor is the analogy appropriate between the citizens of a republic and the parts of the universe．The evil of its citizens，when referred to a republic，is something positive；but the fact that human beings are subject to error or that they do not have every perfection is not something positive when referred to the good of the universe．It would be more appropriate to suggest an analogy between someone who wanted to have the whole human body covered with eyes so that itwould appear more beautiful（because it seems to them that the eye is the most beautiful part of the body），and someone who thinks that there should be no creatures in the universe who are subject to error，that is，who are not completely perfect.

（c）It is easy to refute what you say about the idea of the sun that a blind person gets from its heat alone．For the blind person can have a clear and distinct idea of the sun as something that heats，even if they do not have a similar idea of the sun as a thing that illuminates．Nor is the comparison valid between me and the blind person．In the first place，knowledge of a thing that thinks is much more extensive than knowledge of anything that heats and，in fact，it is much more extensive than what we know about anything else，as was shown in the appropriate place．Secondly，no one can argue that the idea of the sun that the blind person acquires does not contain everything that can be perceived about the sun except those who，endowed with sight，are also aware of its light and shape．But not only do you not know more about the mind than me–you do not even know what I know；in this context，therefore，you are more like the blind person and I，together with the whole human race，could at most be said to be oneeyed.

（d）Even if the mind were united to the whole body it would not necessarily follow that it is extended throughout the body，because it is not essential to it to be extended but only to think …Nor，therefore，is it necessary for it to be a body，even if it has the power to move a body.

Sixth Objections

（a）The sixth difficulty arises from the indifference attributed to judgement and liberty．You deny that indifference belongs to the perfection of the will and claim that it belongs only to its imperfection，so that there is no indifference whenever the mind perceives clearly what should be believed，or what should or should not be done．If this is accepted，do you not see that you destroy God's freedom by taking away the indifference of his freedom when he creates this particular world rather than some other world or none at all？ However，it is an article of faith that God was eternally indifferent about creating one particular world，or many worlds，or no world at all．At the same time，who would doubt that God always perceived what was to be done or not done with the clearest understanding？ Therefore，a very clear perception and understanding does not remove the indifference of the will.

（b）We do not understand why，as you claim，there are no real accidents in any body or substance that could exist by God's power without any subject and that，in fact，do exist in that way in the Eucharist．However，there is no reason for our professors to be upset until they see whether that is demonstrated in your physics，which we look forward to seeing．They are reluctant to believe that this question will be presented there so clearly that they will be both enabled and obliged to accept it，and to reject the traditional view.

（c）How is it possible for the truths of geometry and metaphysics，such as those you mention，to be immutable and eternal but not be independent of God？ What kind of causality is involved in their dependence on God？ Could he not then have arranged things so that the nature of a triangle did not exist？ And I would like to know：how could he have arranged eternally that it is not true that twice four is eight，or that a triangle does not have three angles？ Either these truths depend completely on an intellect while it is thinking them or on things that exist；or else they are independent，since God does not seem capable of having arranged that any of those essences or truths did not exist eternally.

（d）The ninth difficulty concerns us greatly，when you claim that we should distrust the operations of the senses，and that intellectual certainty is much greater than the certainty of sensation．What happens，however，if the intellect has no certainty unless it got it originally from welldisposed senses and if，indeed，it cannot correct the error of any sense unless some other sense first corrects that error？ A stick in water seems to be bent as a result of refraction，despite the fact that it is straight．What corrects that mistake？ Is it the intellect？ Not at all–it is the sense of touch．The same applies to other cases．Thus if you employ all the senses when they are appropriately disposed and if they always report the same thing，you will achieve the highest certainty of which human beings are capable；but this will often escape you if you put your trust in the operation of the mind，because it is often mistaken about things that it believed were completely indubitable.

（e）Could you also provide us with a reliable rule，and with criteria which are certain，that would make us certain when we understand one thing without another so completely that it is certain that one is so distinct from the other that it is capable of subsisting separately，at least by the power of God？ In other words，how can we know certainly，clearly and distinctly，that an intellectual distinction was not made by the intellect itself but that it derives from the things themselves？ For when we think about the immensity of God without thinking about his justice or when we think about his existence without thinking about the Son and the Holy Spirit，do we not perceive that existence，or that God exists，completely without the other persons of the Trinity？ Someone who has no faith could deny the existence of the Son or the Holy Spirit in the same way as you deny that mind or thought belong to the body．Just as it is invalid to conclude that the Son or Holy Spirit is essentially distinct from God or could exist apart from God so，likewise，no one will concede to you that human thought or the human mind is distinct from the body even though you conceive of one without the other or deny one of the other，even though you do not think that this results from any mental abstraction on your part…

Finally，as long as we do not know what bodies and their motions can do，and since you confess that no one can know everything that God was able to give and what he gave to a particular subject unless God himself reveals it to us，who could know that God has not placed in certain bodies a power and property of doubting，thinking，etc.？

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（a）As regards freedom of the will，the kind of freedom that God has is very different from ours．It is selfcontradictory to claim that God's will was not eternally indifferent with respect to everything that has happened or that will ever happen，because one cannot imagine any good or truth，anything to be believed or to be done or omitted，the idea of which was in the mind of God prior to his will determining that it should be such．Nor am I speaking here of temporal priority；it was not even prior in order or in nature，or in what is called‘reasoned reason’in such a way that the idea of good would impel God to choose one thing rather than another．For example，he did not choose to create the world in time because he saw that this would be better than creating it eternally；nor did he will that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two right angles because he knew that it was impossible to have it otherwise，and so on．On the contrary，it was because he decided to create the world in time that this is better than if it had been created eternally；and it was because he willed that the three angles of a triangle should be necessarily equal to two right angles that this is consequently true and that it is impossible for it to be otherwise．And so on for other examples …Thus the supreme indifference of God is the strongest evidence for his omnipotence．But in the case of human beings，since they find that the nature of every good and every truth has already been determined by God and that their wills cannot tend towards anything else，it is clear thatthey will embrace what is good or true more willingly and therefore more freely insofar as they perceive it clearly，and that they are never indifferent except when they do not know what is better or more true or when they do not see the distinction between them so clearly that they are unable to have any doubt．Thus the indifference that applies to human freedom is very different from that which applies to divine freedom．Nor is it relevant here that the essences of things are said to be indivisible because，firstly，no essence can apply univocally to God and to human beings．Secondly，indifference is not essential to human freedom，for we are not free only when ignorance of what is right makes us indifferent；we are much more free when a clear perception impels us to pursue something.

（b）In order to reject the reality of accidents it seems to me unnecessary to look for any reasons apart from those that I have already presented．Firstly，every sensation occurs through touch and therefore nothing can be sensed apart from the surface of bodies．But if there were real accidents，they would have to be something other than the surface of bodies（which is nothing but a mode）．Therefore，if there are any such accidents，they cannot be sensed.

Secondly，it is completely contradictory to claim that there are real accidents，because whatever is real can exist apart from any other subject and whatever is capable of existing separately in this way is a substance rather than an accident．Nor is it relevant that real accidents are said to be incapable of being separated from their subjects‘naturally’，and that this can happen only by God's power．For something to happen naturally is the same as happening by the ordinary power of God，and this does not differ in any way from his extraordinary power and does not add anything extra to things．Thus if everything that can exist naturally without a subject is a substance，it follows that anything that can exist without a subject even by the extraordinary power of God，however great it is，must also be called a substance．I acknowledge that one substance can be related to another substance in an accidental way；however，when this happens，it is not the substance itself which has the form of an accident but it is merely the manner in which it is related to the other substance．For example，when clothing is accidentally related to a human being，it is not the clothing itself，but being clothed，which is an accident．However，the main reason that motivated philosophers to postulate real accidents was that they thought that，without them，sensory perception could not be explained．For that reason I promised，in my physics，to provide a detailed exposition of each of the senses．Not that I wish anyone to believe me about any of these things；rather，given what I had already written in the Dioptrics，I thought that careful readers would easily be able to anticipate what I can offer about the other senses.

（c）It is evident to those who consider the immensity of God that there cannot be anything at all that does not depend on him，not only anything that subsists but even any order or law，or any reason for what is good or true．Otherwise，as indicated a little earlier，God would nothave been completely indifferent in creating what he created．For if there had been some essence of goodness prior to his creative command，that would have determined God to do what is best；instead，he determined himself with respect to what should be done at that time and it is for that reason，as it says in Genesis，that‘they are very good’．In other words，the reason why they are good depends on the fact that he chose to make them in that way．Nor is there any reason to inquire about what type of cause is involved in the way in which this goodness and other truths，both mathematical and metaphysical，depend on God．Given that the classi fication of causes was established by those who may not have considered this type of cause，it would hardly be surprising if they failed to give it a special name．Despite that，however，they did provide a name for it；it can be called an efficient cause in the same way in which a king can be the efficient cause of a law，even though the law is not something physical but is only what is called a moral entity．Nor is there any need to ask how God could have brought it about that，from eternity，twice four would not be equal to eight，and so on．I confess that we cannot understand that．But，since I do understand well that there cannot be any kind of entity that does not depend on God and that it is easy for God to arrange certain things so that we human beings cannot understand how they could be other than they are，it would be unreasonable for us to doubt something that we understand well simply because we do not understand something else that we know is beyond our comprehension．Therefore，it should not be thought that eternal truths depend on the human intellect or onother existing things；they depend on God alone who，as the supreme legislator，instituted them from eternity.

（d）In order to understand the certainty of sensation properly，one must distinguish three levels，as it were，of sensation．When the bodily organ is merely affected by external objects，that belongs to the first level；and this can be nothing more than the motion of particles of that sensory organ and the change in shape or position which results from that motion．The second level includes everything that follows immediately in the mind from the fact that it is united with this bodily organ；this includes perceptions of pain，pleasure，thirst，hunger，colours，sound，taste，smell，heat，cold and so on，which in the Sixth Meditation were said to arise from the union and，as it were，the merging of the mind with the body．The third level includes all the judgements that we have been accustomed to make about external things since our earliest years，on the occasion of motions in a bodily organ.

For example，when I see a stick one should not imagine that various‘intentional species’fly from the stick to my eye，but simply that rays of light are reflected from the stick and trigger certain motions in the optic nerve and，as a result，in the brain（as I explained at sufficient length in the Dioptrics）．The first level of sensation consists in this motionof thebrain，whichwehaveincommonwithbrute animals．The second level follows from this，and includes only the perception of the colour or light which is reflected from the stick；this arises from the fact that the mind is so closely joined with the brain that it is affected by motions that occur in the brain．Nothing more than this should beincluded in sensation if we wish to distinguish it carefully from the intellect．However，if I judge that the stick，which is located outside me，is coloured as a result of the sensation of colour by which I am affected；likewise，if from the extension of the colour，and from its boundary and its position in relation to parts of my brain，I reason about the size of the stick，its shape and its distance from me；even though this is commonly attributed to sensation and I have classi fied it under the third level of sensation，it is evident that it depends on the intellect alone．And I have demonstrated in the Dioptrics that size，distance and shape can be perceived only by reasoning from one of these properties to another．The only difference is that we attribute to the intellect the things that we now judge for the first time as a result of some new observation，whereas we refer to sensation the judgements that we have made since our earliest years，in exactly the same way as we still do，about things that affected our senses or whatever we have concluded from them by inference．The reason for this is that we reason and judge so quickly，as a result of habit or，rather，we remember judgements that we made earlier about similar things，that we fail to distinguish these operations from a simple sensory perception.

It is clear from this that when we say that‘intellectual certainty is much greater than the certainty of sensation’，that means simply that the judgements which we make in our maturity as a result of new observations are more certain than those we made uncritically in our earliest years；and that is undoubtedly true．It is obvious that the first or second levels of sensation are not at issue in this context，because there can be no falsehood in those.When it is said，then，that a stick appears bent in water as a result of refraction，that is the same as saying that it appears to us in such a way that an infant would judge that it is bent and that we ourselves would judge likewise if we followed the prejudices that we acquired from our earliest years．But if one adds here that this mistake is corrected not by the intellect but by the sense of touch，I cannot accept that．For even though we judge that the stick is straight by touching it，and thus by judging in the manner to which we have become accustomed since childhood and which is consequently called‘sensation’，that is not sufficient to correct the visual mistake．We also need some reason to decide to believe the judgement based on touch rather than the judgement based on sight and，since this reason was not present in our infancy，it is attributed to the intellect rather than to sensation．Thus even in this very example，it is only the intellect that corrects the mistake of sensation，nor can anyone identify any other case in which error arises from trusting our intellect rather than sensation.

（e）In fact，I have never seen or perceived human bodies thinking；all I have perceived is that the same human beings are endowed with both a body and with thought．I saw clearly that this is realized by the composition of a thinking thing with a bodily thing，as follows：by examining the thinking thing in isolation，I discover nothing in it that pertains to a body，in the same way that no thought is found in a body when considered on its own．On the contrary，by examining all the modes of body and mind I found no mode the concept of which does not dependon the concept of the thing of which it is a mode．From the fact that we often see two things joined together，it does not follow that they are one and the same thing；however，from the fact that we sometimes observe one of them without the other，it certainly does follow that they are distinct．The power of God should not prevent us from making this inference，for it is just as conceptually impossible for things that are perceived clearly as two distinct things to become one and the same，intrinsically and without any composition，as for things to become separated that are in no way distinct．Therefore，if God gave the power of thinking to certain bodies（and he surely did so in the case of human bodies），then he is able to separate that power from those bodies and thus it is still really distinct from them.