讀點好英文:The World as I See It 我的世界觀

The World as I See It 我的世界觀

Albert Einstein

What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellowmen—in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labor of my fellowmen. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place.

To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of creation generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view. And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves—such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavor—property, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me contemptible.

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude—a feeling which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet without regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one's fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something in the way of geniality and light-heartedness; on the other hand, he is largely independent of the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to take his stand on such insecure foundations.

My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the one or two ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that one man should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the responsibility. But the led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their leader... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism—how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of tree art and tree science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.

我的世界觀

［美］阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦

人終究一死，我們所面臨的情形是多么不同尋常！每個人來到這個世界上，都是短暫的停留；至于來的原因，卻無人知曉。雖然偶爾自以為對此似有感悟，可是沒有深入探討。從日常生活方面來講，我們是為了同胞而活著——最重要的是這樣一些人，他們的微笑和幸福決定了我們所有的幸福；接下來是一些素未謀面的人，他們依靠同情的紐帶與我們的命運緊密相連。每天我無數次地告誡自己，他人的勞作，包括那些活著的人和已故的人，支持著我全部的精神生活和物質生活。因此，我一定要全心全意地付出，達到和他們相同的高度，來回報我已經獲得并且仍在汲取的恩惠。我十分向往簡樸的生活，并且時常心中有愧，因為覺得自己分享了我同胞們太多的勞動成果。我把階級不同看成與正義格格不入，而且最終被迫采取強制手段。我同樣認為，不管是在肉體上還是在精神上，任何人會因為過樸素的生活而受益匪淺。

我根本不相信哲學意義上的那種人類自由。每個人的行為不僅要受到外界強制的局限，而且要合乎內在的必要性。叔本華曾說，“人雖然可以為所欲為，但是不能隨心所欲。”從青年時代起，我就總是被這句名言激勵著。當自己或別人經歷生活中種種磨難時，我總能從這句話中尋得慰藉，從而獲得永不干枯的耐心源泉。擁有這種心情，不僅寬厚地減輕了那種使人容易感到心有余而力不足的責任感，也避免了我們太過認真地對待自己和別人；同樣有利于人們獲得一種人生觀，就是首先給予幽默感以應有地位。

從客觀的觀點方面，想要探究自身存在乃至一般創(chuàng)造物的意義或目的，我總是覺得不免不合常理。然而，每個人的理想不同，他們的努力和判斷方向也不同。從這一意義上看，我永遠不會把安逸和享樂當成人生目的本身——我認為這種倫理基礎更適合于一群豬玀。真、善、美點亮我的道路，并且不停地賦予我新的勇氣，我才能高興地面對生活的理想。沒有志同道合的友情，沒有全身心投入于客觀世界，追尋在藝術與科學研究領域無法企及的目標，那么我的生活將是空虛的。人們朝思暮想的一般對象——財富、表面的成功、奢侈——對我來說都是可鄙的。

我對社會正義感和社會責任感充滿熱情，可與此形成鮮明對照的是，我又明顯缺乏與別人和社會直接接觸的愿望。我一直是按照自己的心愿做事；我未曾全心全意地熱愛我的國家、我的家庭、我的朋友，甚至我的至親；在面對所有這些關系紐帶時，我一直保持著一種頑固的超然感以及避世的需要——這種感受隨著年齡的增長不斷加強。人們真真切切地覺得，人們的相互理解和共鳴是有界限的，雖然這沒什么可惜的。毫無疑問，這樣的人會因為親切和同情心失去一些東西，然而另一方面，他可以在很大程度上避免別人的意見、習慣和判斷的影響，并且能夠抵住誘惑，在這些不可靠的基礎之上建立其立場。

我的政治理想是實現民主制度。尊重每一個作為個體的人，擯棄偶像崇拜。盡管并非是我自己的過錯，也并非是我自己的功勞所獲，人們卻總是過分欽佩和尊敬我本人，這真的是一種命運的戲弄。理解一兩個我靠不懈地努力所探知到的理論，或許就是許多人充滿渴望卻又無法企及的原因。我很明白，任何復雜的事業(yè)要想取得成功，就需要有一個人能承擔起思考、指揮、全權負責的重任。但是一定不要強迫被領導者，他們一定要能夠選定自己的領導者……在我看來，人生精彩的表演中，真正的價值不是國家，而是有創(chuàng)造性的、富有感知能力的個人，是人格；人是唯一能創(chuàng)造出高尚和卓越的生靈，而剩下的蕓蕓眾生在思想和感覺上總是停滯不前。

這個話題讓我想起民眾本質中最壞的一種表現，即我痛恨不已的軍事制度。一個人伴著軍樂隊的曲調，在隊列中前行，而他卻能因此高興。這一行為就足以讓我輕視他。他能有一個大腦，就是天大的錯誤；對他來說一個脊椎骨柱已是足夠了。在文明社會中，我們應該盡快驅除這種罪惡的禍端。受命而為的英雄主義、泯滅人性的殘酷暴行、假借愛國主義之名的一切可惡的胡作非為——諸如此類都令我痛恨不已！在我看來，戰(zhàn)爭是可鄙、無恥的勾當，我寧愿粉身碎骨，也不愿參與這種令人厭惡的戰(zhàn)爭。即便如此，對于人類我還會給予很高的評價，我相信，如果商業(yè)利益和政治利益沒有通過學校和媒體系統(tǒng)，腐蝕各民族的正常理智，那么戰(zhàn)爭這一妖魔很早之前就不復存在了。

我們最美好的經歷莫過于對神秘的體驗。真正的藝術和真正的科學發(fā)源地的基本情感，便是對神秘的體驗。對這種情感渾然不知、沒好奇心、失去了驚詫感的人，和死人沒什么區(qū)別，他就像一根被掐滅的蠟燭。正是由于對奧秘的體驗——即便夾雜著恐懼——誕生了宗教。我們感到無法理解的事物就在我周圍，體會到最深奧的理性和最光彩奪目的美，我們只能用理性去感知這些最原始的形式——真正的宗教虔誠恰恰是這種認識和這種情感結合體，并且只有在這個意義上，我才是一個堅定的宗教支持者。我無法設想會有那樣一個上帝：它會犒勞、懲罰自己創(chuàng)造的生物，或者具有我們自己才能體會到的那種意志。一個人在失去生命后他還能繼續(xù)在另一世界里生活，這不在我的理解能力之內，我也沒有心思去理解，那些脆弱靈魂的恐懼或可笑的利己主義者，才會專門研究這些觀念。生命永駐的奧秘，現實世界結構中那不可思議的暗示，加上全心全意去探求以便理解自然界展現理性的一部分，無論多么不值一提，對我而言，已經非常滿足。

實戰(zhàn)提升

Practising & Exercise

導讀

阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦（Albert Einstein），美國物理學家、思想家及哲學家，現代物理學的開創(chuàng)者和奠基人。1999年12月26日，愛因斯坦被美國《時代周刊》評選為“世紀偉人”。2009年10月4日，諾貝爾基金會評選愛因斯坦為諾貝爾獎百余年歷史上最受尊崇的3位獲獎者之一。

本文出自愛因斯坦1934年同名著作《我的世界觀》。文中闡述了愛因斯坦的內心世界，描述了他的人生觀和世界觀、他對生活的理解和對科學的探索以及他對自由和民主的觀念。

核心單詞

welfare [?welf??] n. 福利；幸福

engrossing [in?ɡr?usi?] adj. 使人全神貫注的；引人入勝的

mitigate [?mitiɡeit] v. 使緩和；減輕

eternally [i?t??n?li] adv. 永恒地；不絕地

obstinate [??bstinit] adj. 頑固的，固執(zhí)的

sublime [s??blaim] adj. 崇高的，令人崇敬的

accessible [?k?ses?bl] adj. 可接近的；可進入的

inkling [?i?kli?] n. 暗示；跡象

翻譯

What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals!

It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of tree art and tree science.