《我的知識之路》第一章童年時代和早期教育

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2020年08月09日

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CHAPTER I Childrenhood And Early Eaducation

第一章童年時代和早期教育

It seems proper that I should prefix to the following biographical sketch, some mention of the reasons which have made me think it desirable that I should leave behind me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine. I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate, can be interesting to the public as a narrative, or as being connected with myself. But I have thought that in an age in which education, and its improvement, are the subject of more, if not of profounder study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. It has also seemed to me that in an age of transition in opinions, there may be somewhat both of interest and of benefit in noting the successive phases of any mind which was always pressing forward, equally ready to learn and to unlearn either from its own thoughts or from those of others. But a motive which weighs more with me than either of these, is a desire to make acknowledgment of the debts which my intellectual and moral development owes to other persons; some of them of recognized eminence, others less known than they deserve to be, and the one to whom most of all is due, one whom the world had no opportunity of knowing. The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind, that for him these pages were not written.

在寫自傳正文之前，似乎應(yīng)該說明一下，為什么我認為有必要為自己平凡的一生留本書作為紀念。我從來沒有想象過自己講敘的任何一部分，會作為一個故事或者因為與我有關(guān)而引起公眾的興趣。但是我想，在這個時代，教育和教育改良在英國歷史上比以往任何時候受到的關(guān)注都要多(如果說不是更深刻的話)，為一種不同尋常、引人注意的教育經(jīng)歷留下一些記錄也許是有益的;不管這種教育還產(chǎn)生了哪些影響，都證明了在早期能夠教給小孩子的東西，比人們通常想象的多很多，而且可以教得很好;用通常所說的教誨方式教育孩子，他們的童年時代實際上是被浪費掉了。我還覺得，在觀念轉(zhuǎn)變的時代，如果有人勇于探索，對于自己及他人的思想既善于吸納，也能有所揚棄，那么，把他思想的各個階段記錄下來，似乎不僅有益，而且也很有趣。但是對我而言，還有比這更重要的動機，就是希望向幫助過我智力和道德發(fā)展的人表示感謝。他們當中有的聲名顯赫;有的能力卓著，但還沒有得到應(yīng)有的聲譽;還有我最需要感謝的一個人，也是外界根本沒有機會了解的一個人。如果哪位讀者對這些東西不感興趣，卻還要繼續(xù)往下讀的話，那就只能怪他自己了;我不奢望他沉迷于此書，只希望他能記得，這本自傳并非為他而寫。

I was born in London, on the 20th of May, 1806, and was the eldest son of James Mill, the author of The History of British India. My father, the son of a petty tradesman and (I believe) small farmer, at Northwater Bridge, in the county of Angus, was, when a boy, recommended by his abilities to the notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairn, one of the Barons of the Exchequer in Scotland, and was, in consequence, sent to the University of Edinburgh, at the expense of a fund established by Lady Jane Stuart (the wife of Sir John Stuart) and some other ladies for educating young men for the Scottish Church. He there went through the usual course of study, and was licensed as a Preacher, but never followed the profession; having satisfied himself that he could not believe the doctrines of that or any other Church. For a few years he was a private tutor in various families in Scotland, among others that of the Marquis of Tweeddale; but ended by taking up his residence in London, and devoting himself to authorship. Nor had he any other means of support until 1819, when he obtained an appointment in the India House.

我于1806年5月20日出生于倫敦，是家里的長子，我的父親是詹姆斯·穆勒，《英屬印度史》的作者。祖父是安格斯郡諾斯沃特橋的一名小商人，同時(我認為)也是小農(nóng)場主。還在兒童時代，父親就因天資聰慧，引起了蘇格蘭財政部的一位貴族——費特凱恩的約翰·斯圖爾特爵士的注意，因此得到簡·斯圖爾特夫人(約翰·斯圖爾特爵士的妻子)和其他幾位夫人成立的基金資助而被送往愛丁堡大學深造，該基金設(shè)立的目的是為蘇格蘭教會培養(yǎng)年輕人。在那里，父親接受了常規(guī)教育，獲得了傳教士證書，但是從未從事這項職業(yè)，因為他深知自己不能相信那個教派或其他任何教派的教義。有幾年，他在蘇格蘭的各種家庭里做過家庭教師，其中包括特威代爾侯爵家，但是最終定居倫敦，致力于寫作。1819年，他受聘于東印度公司，在這之前，除了寫作，他沒有任何其他收入來源。

In this period of my father's life there are two things which it is impossible not to be struck with: one of them unfortunately a very common circumstance, the other a most uncommon one. The first is, that in his position, with no resource but the precarious one of writing in periodicals, he married and had a large family; conduct than which nothing could be more opposed, both as a matter of good sense and of duty, to the opinions which, at least at a later period of life, he strenuously upheld. The other circumstance, is the extraordinary energy which was required to lead the life he led, with the disadvantages under which he labored from the first, and with those which he brought upon himself by his marriage. It would have been no small thing, had he done no more than to support himself and his family during so many years by writing, without ever being in debt, or in any pecuniary difficulty; holding, as he did, opinions, both in politics and in religion, which were more odious to all persons of influence, and to the common run of prosperous Englishmen in that generation than either before or since; and being not only a man whom nothing would have induced to write against his convictions, but one who invariably threw into everything he wrote, as much of his convictions as he thought the circumstances would in any way permit: being, it must also be said, one who never did anything negligently; never undertook any task, literary or other, on which he did not conscientiously bestow all the labour necessary for performing it adequately. But he, with these burdens on him, planned, commenced, and completed, the History of India; and this in the course of about ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual education.

父親在人生的這段時間里，有兩件事不能不讓人稱奇。不過很遺憾，其中一件其實很平常，另一件又極不尋常。一件是，他當時沒有什么收入來源，只靠向期刊投稿這種不穩(wěn)定的方式，還能夠娶妻生子，組建了大家庭;這種行為無論從理智，還是從責任上來講，與他的觀點，至少與他后半生努力堅持的觀點完全相反。另一件是，他這種生活方式需要異常充沛的精力，從一開始寫作他就面臨很多不利條件，結(jié)婚也給他帶來了不利因素。這么多年，他靠寫作，即便只養(yǎng)活了自己和家庭，能從不欠債，又從沒陷入經(jīng)濟困難，也是件很不容易的事情。何況他還堅持他的政治和宗教觀點，讓當時所有權(quán)貴和普通英國富人都產(chǎn)生空前絕后的厭惡之情;而且，父親這個人，不僅任何因素都不能讓他寫出與自己信念相悖的東西，而且總是在環(huán)境允許的情況下，盡可能地把自己的信念融入所有作品當中?？梢哉f，他是一個做任何事情都從不敷衍的人，不管是文學還是其他的工作，他都傾注全力，以求做到盡善盡美。盡管身肩重負，他還是策劃、啟動并完成了《英屬印度史》的編纂。這花了他十年時間，比其他作者(甚至是專職作家)編纂同等規(guī)模且需要相當?shù)拈喿x量和研究量的史書所花的時間都短。還需要指出的是，在整個過程中，他幾乎每天都要花不少時間教導(dǎo)孩子。就拿我來說，他所付出的精力、關(guān)愛和堅持不懈非比尋常，他按照他自己的構(gòu)想，努力給孩子最高層次的智力教育?

A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up to the principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to the same rule in the instruction of his pupil. I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through Aesop's Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's Cyropædia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates' Ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theætetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English Lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin Lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years.

一個自己做事時恪守決不浪費時間這一原則的人，在教育學生時,很可能也會如此。我記不清自己開始學習希臘語的時間了，聽人說是三歲。對這件事，我最早的記憶就是背誦父親寫在卡片上的普通希臘語單詞表，后面附有英語意思。學語法是幾年后的事情，我只學了名詞和動詞的曲折變化，但是學完單詞之后，立刻就開始學習翻譯了。我只能模糊地記得讀過《伊索寓言》，這是我讀的第一本希臘語書籍。第二本書是《遠征記》，我對這本書的印象稍微深刻一點。直到八歲，我才開始學拉丁語。那時，在父親的指導(dǎo)下，我閱讀了很多希臘散文家的作品，其中，我記得自己讀了希羅多德的全都作品，還有色諾芬的《居魯士的教育》和《回憶蘇格拉底》;讀了第歐根尼.拉爾修寫的一些哲學家生平;還讀了盧奇安的一部分作品，以及伊索克拉底的《全希臘盛會獻詞》和《泛雅典娜節(jié)獻詞》的一部分。1813年，我還讀了柏拉圖對話錄(按普通排列順序)的前六卷，從《尤息弗羅》到《泰阿泰德》。我認為，《泰阿泰德》在此可以省略，因為我不可能看得懂。但是父親在整個教學過程中，不僅要求我盡最大努力做力所能及之事，還極力要求我做力所不能及之事。我學希臘語的所有功課，都是在他寫作時跟他在同一個房間的同一張桌子上完成的。從這件事或許可以看出來，他為了教導(dǎo)我是樂于承擔責任的。那時，沒有希臘語英語詞典，而我還沒開始學拉丁語，根本無法查閱希臘語拉丁語詞典，所以每次碰到不認識的單詞，就不得不向父親討教。父親是個急脾氣的人，但他甘愿忍受這種持續(xù)的干擾，而且還在這種干擾下寫了好幾卷《英屬印度史》，還有那幾年必須要寫的所有其他文章。

The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson in this part of my childhood, was arithmetic: this also my father taught me: it was the task of the evenings, and I well remember its disagreeableness. But the lessons were only a part of the daily instruction I received. Much of it consisted in the books I read by myself, and my father's discourses to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of 1813 we were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic neighbourhood. My father's health required considerable and constant exercise, and he walked habitually before breakfast, generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied him, and with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild f lowers, is mingled that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read the day before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, and from these in the morning walks, I told the story to him; for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner a great number: Robertson's histories, Hume1, Gibbon; but my greatest delight, then and for long afterwards, was Watson's Philip the Second and Third. The heroic defence of the Knights of Malta against the Turks, and of the revolted provinces of the Netherlands against Spain, excited in me an intense and lasting interest. Next to Watson, my favorite historical reading was Hooke2's History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen at that time no regular history, except school abridgments and the last two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin's Ancient History, beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In English history, beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I remember reading Burnet's History of His Own Time, though I cared little for anything in it except the wars and battles; and the historical part of the Annual Register, from the beginning to about 1788, where the volumes my father borrowed for me from Mr. Bentham3 left off. I felt a lively interest in Frederic of Prussia4 during his difficulties, and in Paoli, the Corsican patriot; but when I came to the American War, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right by my father) on the wrong side, because it was called the English side. In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox5, and even Sewell's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers6. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales. Two books which I never wearied of reading were Anson's Voyage, so delightful to most young persons, and a Collection (Hawkesworth's, I believe) of Voyages round the World, in four volumes, beginning with Drake7 and ending with Cook8 and Bougainville. Of children's books, any more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift from a relation or acquaintance: among those I had, Robinson Crusoe was preeminent, and continued to delight me through all my boyhood. It was no part, however, of my father's system to exclude books of amusement, though he allowed them very sparingly. Of such books he possessed at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me; those which I remember are the Arabian Nights, Cazotte's Arabian Tales, Don Quixote, Miss Edgeworth's Popular Tales, and a book of some reputation in its day, Brooke's Fool of Quality.

在這段童年時光里，除了希臘語之外，唯一的一門課程就是算術(shù)，也是父親教我的。算術(shù)是晚上的課程，我還清楚地記得學得多么不開心。但是上課只是我每天所受教育的一部分。另外大部分是我自己閱讀，以及父親對我的口頭教導(dǎo)，后者大多是我們一起散步的時候進行的。1810年到1813年年底，我們住在紐因頓格林，當時，那里的環(huán)境基本和農(nóng)村一樣。父親的身體狀況需要堅持鍛煉，所以他有早飯前散步的習慣，一般就在通往霍恩西的芊芊小路上。散步時，我總是陪著他，我對綠地和野花的最初記憶中夾雜著每天向父親作頭一天閱讀內(nèi)容的匯報。我記得匯報是我自愿做的功課，而非出于被迫。我一邊讀書，一邊在紙片上記筆記，早上散步的時候，就按筆記上的內(nèi)容給父親講故事，這是因為我讀的大部分是歷史書。以這種方式我讀了很多書：羅伯遜的歷史著作,休謨和吉本的作品。但是當時以及后來很長一段時間，我一直最喜歡讀的是沃森的《腓力二世》和《腓力三世》。書中描述的馬耳他騎士英勇抵抗土耳其人，荷蘭反叛省份抵制西班牙，都激起了我強烈而持久的興趣。僅次于沃森，我最喜歡的歷史著作是胡克的《羅馬史》。那時，我還沒有讀過系統(tǒng)的希臘歷史，只讀過學校課本上的節(jié)選，以及羅林編的《古代史》的翻譯本中從馬其頓國王腓力開始的最后兩三卷。但是，蘭霍恩翻譯的普盧塔克的作品，我讀得津津有味。在英國歷史方面，休謨停筆以后的歷史中，我記得讀過柏內(nèi)特的《當代史》，盡管我只喜歡里面的戰(zhàn)爭和戰(zhàn)役部分。還讀過《年度紀事》里從一開始到1788年的歷史部分，這部分是父親為我從邊沁先生那里借來的書中所沒有的。我對陷入困境的普魯士的弗雷德里克，和科西嘉愛國者保利，產(chǎn)生了強烈的興趣;但是關(guān)于美國獨立戰(zhàn)爭，由于還是一個孩子，我站到了錯誤的立場上(直到被父親糾正過來)，因為那被叫做英國立場。我和父親經(jīng)常一起討論我閱讀的書籍，他一有機會就給我講解一些概念，如文明、政府、道德和智力培養(yǎng)，然后讓我用自己的話復(fù)述給他聽。他還讓我讀了很多我自己不感興趣的書，然后向他口頭復(fù)述。值得一提的是，這些書中有米勒的《英國政府歷史觀》，此書在當時備受贊譽，父親也對其倍加推崇。莫斯海姆的《基督教教會史》，麥克里的《約翰.諾克斯傳》，甚至還有休厄爾和拉提的《貴格會教徒史》。他喜歡讓我看那些主角在艱難的環(huán)境下展現(xiàn)出能力和智慧、頑強戰(zhàn)勝困難的書籍。在這些書當中，我還記得比弗的《非洲大事記》和柯林斯對新南威爾士第一批移民的描述。有兩本書我百讀不厭，一本是安森的《航海記》，大多數(shù)年輕人都喜歡讀，另一本是《環(huán)球航海集》(我認為是霍克斯沃思編寫的)，有四卷，從德雷克開始，到庫克和布干維爾結(jié)束。我?guī)缀鯖]有玩具和兒童讀物，只是偶爾有親戚或熟人送給我這樣的禮物，其中《魯濱孫漂流記》是最好的，我整個童年時代都很喜歡。父親并不是完全不讓我讀消遣的書籍，但也只是偶爾允許。這種書他當時幾乎沒有，但是給我借了好幾本，我記得有《一千零一夜》、卡佐特的《阿拉伯故事集》、《唐吉訶德》和埃奇沃思女士的《通俗故事集》，以及當時有些名聲的布魯克的《上流社會的傻子》。

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my day's work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part which I greatly disliked; the more so, as I was held responsible for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for my own: I, however, derived from this discipline the great advantage, of learning more thoroughly and retaining more lastingly the things which I was set to teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may even at that age have been useful. In other respects, the experience of my boyhood is not favorable to the plan of teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well know that the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either. I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Caesar's Commentaries, but afterwards added to the superintendence of these lessons, much longer ones of my own.

八歲時，我和我的一個妹妹一起開始學習拉丁語，我一邊學，一邊教她，然后她再向父親匯報課程。從那時起，其他兄弟姐妹都陸續(xù)加入，成了我的學生，白天大部分時間，我都在做這種預(yù)備教學。其實我很不喜歡做這件事情，尤其是我要對學生們的功課負責，幾乎跟對待我自己的功課完全一樣。但是，從這種鍛練中我受益匪淺，對于教的內(nèi)容，我能夠?qū)W得更全面，記得更牢固。教學的時候向別人解釋難點，這種訓練可能即使在那么小的年齡也是很有用的。就其他方面講，我童年時代的經(jīng)歷并不利于小孩子們互相教學的安排。我敢肯定，當時的教學效率非常低，我也很清楚，老師和學生之間的關(guān)系，對彼此來說也不是很好的道德約束。我就是這樣學完了拉丁語語法，還有科尼利厄斯·內(nèi)波斯的作品和愷撒的《回憶錄》的一大部分，但是后來，除了督導(dǎo)這些課程之外，我自己還學習了更多的課程。

In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poets with the Iliad.9 After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both a priori and from my individual experience. Soon after this time I commenced Euclid10, and somewhat later, algebra, still under my father's tuition.

開始學習拉丁語的同一年，我第一次開始讀希臘詩人的作品，先讀了《伊利亞特》。在這上面有了一些進展之后，父親把蒲柏的譯作交到我手中。這本譯作是我愿意讀的第一本英語詩著作，而且成為多年來我一直特別喜歡的書之一。我想，我肯定從頭到尾讀過二三十遍。它是非常優(yōu)秀的敘事和韻律的典范，我想，要不是我發(fā)現(xiàn)并非所有男孩子都特別喜歡它的話，我就不會覺得值得一提了，盡管從理論和我個人的經(jīng)驗來看，少年時代喜歡它看似非常自然。在這之后不久，仍然在父親的指導(dǎo)下，我開始學習幾何，又過了一陣子，開始學代數(shù)。

From my eighth to my twelfth year the Latin books which I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, and the first six books of the Aeneid; all Horace11, except the Epodes; the fables of Phaedrus; the first five books of Livy12 (to which from my love of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the first decade); all Sallust; a considerable part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; some plays of Terence13; two or three books of Lucretius; several of the Orations of Cicero14, and of his writings on oratory; also his letters to Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from the French the historical explanations in Mongault's notes. In Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey through; one or two plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by these I profited little; all Thucydides15; the Hellenics of Xenophon16; a great part of Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the Anthology; a little of Dionysius; several books of Polybius; and lastly, Aristotle's Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly scientific treatise on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and containing many of the best observations of the ancients on human nature and life, my father made me study with peculiar care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic tables. During the same years I learnt elementary geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential calculus, and other portions of the higher mathematics far from thoroughly: for my father, not having kept up this part of his early acquired knowledge, could not spare time to qualify himself for removing my difficulties, and left me to deal with them, with little other aid than that of books: while I was continually incurring his displeasure by my inability to solve difficult problems for which he did not see that I had not the necessary previous knowledge.

我記得，從八歲到十二歲，我讀的拉丁語書籍有維吉爾的《牧歌》以及《埃涅伊特》的前六本，除了《抒情詩》之外賀拉斯的全部作品，費德魯斯的寓言，李維《羅馬史》的前五卷(由于喜歡這個主題，閑著的時候，我自愿讀了前十卷的剩余部分)，薩盧斯特的全部作品，奧維德《變形記》的大部分，泰倫斯的一些劇本，盧克萊修的兩三本書，西塞羅的好幾本演說集和關(guān)于演講術(shù)的著作，以及他給阿提庫斯的信件。父親不辭勞苦，為我把蒙戈爾特注解中的歷史說明從法語翻譯過來。我通讀了希臘語的《伊利亞特》和《奧德賽》，索?？死账?、歐里庇得斯和阿里斯托芬的一兩個劇本(但從中受益很少)，修昔底德的全部作品，色諾芬的《希臘史》，狄摩西尼、埃斯基涅斯和利西阿斯作品的一大部分，忒奧克里托斯、阿那克里翁的全部作品，《文選》的一部分，狄奧尼修斯的一小部分作品，波利比奧斯的好幾本書，最后是亞里士多德的《修辭學》。《修辭學》是我讀過的關(guān)于道德或心理學主題的第一本科學的專著，書中包括很多古代人對人性和人生最到位的觀察。父親讓我仔細研讀，還讓我把里面的內(nèi)容列成一覽表。這幾年，我還全面學習了初級幾何和代數(shù)，而微分學和高等數(shù)學的其他部分則學得遠遠不夠全面。因為父親把早年掌握的這些知識全都忘了，沒有時間再撿起來幫我解答難題，所以，除了書本之外，幾乎沒有什么可以幫助我的。而我經(jīng)常由于無法解決很難的習題，總是招惹父親不快，但他沒有看到，其實我根本不具備解決這些問題必需的知識儲備。

As to my private reading, I can only speak of what I remember. History continued to be my strongest predilection, and most of all ancient history. Mitford's Greece I read continually; my father had put me on my guard against the Tory prejudices of this writer, and his perversions of facts for the whitewashing of despots, and blackening of popular institutions. These points he discoursed on, exemplifying them from the Greek orators and historians, with such effect that in reading Mitford my sympathies were always on the contrary side to those of the author, and I could, to some extent, have argued the point against him: yet this did not diminish the ever new pleasure with which I read the book. Roman history, both in my old favorite, Hooke, and in Ferguson, continued to delight me. A book which, in spite of what is called the dryness of its style, I took great pleasure in, was the Ancient Universal History, through the incessant reading of which, I had my head full of historical details concerning the obscurest ancient people, while about modern history, except detached passages such as the Dutch War of Independence, I knew and cared comparatively little. A voluntary exercise, to which throughout my boyhood I was much addicted, was what I called writing histories. I successively composed a Roman History, picked out of Hooke; an abridgment of the Ancient Universal History; a History of Holland, from my favorite Watson and from an anonymous compilation; and in my eleventh and twelfth year I occupied myself with writing what I flattered myself was something serious. This was no less than a history of the Roman Government, compiled (with the assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which I wrote as much as would have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch of the Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an account of the struggles between the patricians and plebeians, which now engrossed all the interest in my mind which I had previously felt in the mere wars and conquests of the Romans. I discussed all the constitutional points as they arose: though quite ignorant of Niebuhr's researches, I, by such lights as my father had given me, vindicated the Agrarian Laws on the evidence of Livy, and upheld, to the best of my ability, the Roman Democratic party. A few years later, in my contempt of my childish efforts, I destroyed all these papers, not then anticipating that I could ever feel any curiosity about my first attempts at writing and reasoning. My father encouraged me in this useful amusement, though, as I think judiciously, he never asked to see what I wrote; so that I did not feel that in writing it I was accountable to any one, nor had the chilling sensation of being under a critical eye.

關(guān)于自己讀的書，我只能說一說還記得的。我最偏愛的仍然是歷史，尤其是古代史。我不厭其煩地讀米特福德的《希臘史》。父親提醒我警惕作者保守派的偏見，以及他為了美化暴君、詆毀民主制度而顛倒的事實。他用希臘演說家和歷史學家的例子向我講述這些觀點，結(jié)果在讀米特福德時，我和作者贊同的東西總是相反的，在某種程度上，我甚至能提出反對他的觀點;但是，每次讀這本書時所帶來的新的愉悅，并沒有因此而減少。我以前的最愛胡克和弗格森講述的羅馬歷史繼續(xù)給我?guī)砜鞓?。有本書，盡管有人稱它風格單調(diào)乏味，但我非常喜歡讀，那就是《古代通史》。我不厭其煩地讀，滿腦子都是最不知名的古代人的詳細資料，但是現(xiàn)代史，除了一些孤立的章節(jié)，如荷蘭獨立戰(zhàn)爭外，相對來說，我知道得很少，也不怎么關(guān)注。整個少年時代，我心甘情愿做的而且很上癮的事情就是我所謂的“寫歷史”。我相繼創(chuàng)作了一部《羅馬史》(是從胡克的《羅馬史》中摘選出來的)，《古代通史》的節(jié)略本，一部《荷蘭史》(是從我最喜歡的沃森和一部匿名的匯編中選錄出來的)。十一二歲的時候，我在專注地寫一些自以為比較嚴肅的東西。這不亞于一部羅馬政府的歷史，編輯的資料源于李維和迪奧尼修斯(還得益于胡克)，我寫了很多，都可以出八卷本的書了，一直寫到頒行李西尼法的時代。實際上，它記述的是貴族與平民之間的斗爭，當時它吸引了我的全部興趣和關(guān)注，而這種關(guān)注過去僅集中在羅馬征戰(zhàn)中。我討論了出現(xiàn)過的每一個體制上的觀點。盡管我完全不知道尼布爾的研究成果，但是在父親的指導(dǎo)下，按照李維提供的證據(jù)，我證明了農(nóng)業(yè)法的正確性，而且盡自己所能地支持了羅馬民主黨。幾年后，由于蔑視自己孩子氣的努力，我把這些文章都毀掉了，那時根本沒想到，以后還會對自己初次嘗試寫作和推理有任何好奇。但是，父親鼓勵我進行這種有用的娛樂活動，盡管他從來不要求看我寫的東西，我覺得這很明智。這樣一來，我就不會覺得寫作要對誰負責，也沒有被一雙挑剔的眼睛盯著而害怕的感覺。

But though these exercises in history were never a compulsory lesson, there was another kind of composition which was so, namely, writing verses, and it was one of the most disagreeable of my tasks. Greek and Latin verses I did not write, nor learnt the prosody of those languages. My father, thinking this not worth the time it required, contented himself with making me read aloud to him, and correcting false quantities. I never composed at all in Greek, even in prose, and but little in Latin. Not that my father could be indifferent to the value of this practice, in giving a thorough knowledge of these languages, but because there really was not time for it. The verses I was required to write were English. When I first read Pope's Homer, I ambitiously attempted to compose something of the same kind, and achieved as much as one book of a continuation of the Iliad. There, probably, the spontaneous promptings of my poetical ambition would have stopped; but the exercise, begun from choice, was continued by command. Conformably to my father's usual practice of explaining to me, as far as possible, the reasons for what he required me to do, he gave me, for this, as I well remember, two reasons highly characteristic of him: One was, that some things could be expressed better and more forcibly in verse than in prose: this, he said, was a real advantage. The other was, that people in general attached more value to verse than it deserved, and the power of writing it, was, on this account, worth acquiring. He generally left me to choose my own subjects, which, as far as I remember, were mostly addresses to some mythological personage or allegorical abstraction; but he made me translate into English verse many of Horace's shorter poems: I also remember his giving me Thomson's "Winter" to read, and afterwards making me attempt (without book) to write something myself on the same subject. The verses I wrote were, of course the merest rubbish, nor did I ever attain any facility of versification, but the practice may have been useful in making it easier for me, at a later period, to acquire readiness of expression. I had read, up to this time, very little English poetry. Shakespeare my father had put into my hands, chiefly for the sake of the historical plays, from which, however, I went on to the others. My father never was a great admirer of Shakespeare, the English idolatry of whom he used to attack with some severity. He cared little for any English poetry except Milton (for whom he had the highest admiration), Goldsmith, Burns17, and Gray's "Bard," which he preferred to his Elegy: perhaps I may add Cowper18 and Beattie19. He had some value for Spenser20, and I remember his reading to me (unlike his usual practice of making me read to him), the first book of The Fairie Queene; but I took little pleasure in it. The poetry of the present century he saw scarcely any merit in, and I hardly became acquainted with any of it till I was grown up to manhood, except the metrical romances of Walter Scott, which I read at his recommendation and was intensely delighted with; as I always was with animated narrative. Dryden's Poems were among my father's books, and many of these he made me read, but I never cared for any of them except Alexander's Feast, which, as well as many of the songs in Walter Scott, I used to sing internally, to a music of my own: to some of the latter, indeed, I went so far as to compose airs, which I still remember. Cowper's short poems I read with some pleasure, but never got far into the longer ones; and nothing in the two volumes interested me like the prose account of his three hares. In my thirteenth year I met with Campbell's Poems, among which "Lochiel," "Hohenlinden," "The Exile of Erin," and some others, gave me sensations I had never before experienced from poetry. Here, too, I made nothing of the longer poems, except the striking opening of "Gertrude of Wyoming," which long kept its place in my feelings as the perfection of pathos.

盡管寫歷史的練習從來都不是必修課，但是，有一樣寫作是必須的，即寫詩，這是我最不喜歡的功課之一。我沒有寫過希臘語和拉丁語的詩，也沒學這兩種語言的格律。父親認為花太多時間做這個不值得，所以只讓我給他讀出來，訂正我不對的地方。我從未用希臘語寫作過，甚至連散文都沒寫過，只用拉丁語寫過一點點。不是父親不在乎寫作對于全面掌握這些語言的重要性，而是根本沒有時間這么做。他要求我寫的是英語詩歌。第一次讀蒲柏翻譯的《荷馬史詩》的時候，我雄心勃勃地要寫一部類似的著作，而且寫了《伊利亞特》的續(xù)集那么長的一本書。我自發(fā)的寫詩抱負，很可能那時就中止了;但是，最初我自愿寫詩的做法，后來因父親的命令堅持了下去。父親總是盡量給我解釋他要求我做某件事的原因，我記得很清楚，這件事他同樣也給出兩條原因，都非常符合他的風格。一條是，有些事用詩來表達比用散文更清楚，更有力，他說這是個實實在在的長處。另一條是，人們大都給予詩歌比它本身更高的價值，因此，有必要獲得寫詩的能力。他一般都讓我自己選擇主題，我記得大多是給一些神話人物或者寓言抽象物致詞，但是他讓我把賀拉斯的很多短詩翻譯成英語。我還記得他讓我讀湯姆遜的《冬天》，然后讓我自己試著(不看書)就同一主題寫些東西。當然，我寫的詩純粹是些廢話，我也從來沒有學會任何寫詩的技巧，但是這種練習讓我后來更容易獲得表達能力。到這時，我讀的英語詩歌仍然很少。父親把莎士比亞的作品放到我手中，主要是讓我讀歷史劇，然而我卻繼續(xù)讀其他的劇本。父親一直都不怎么崇拜莎士比亞，他甚至曾嚴厲地批判這位英國人的偶像。除了彌爾頓(他最崇拜的人)、哥爾德斯密斯和彭斯的詩歌以及格雷的《游吟詩人》(比起《墓園挽歌》，父親更喜歡格雷的這首作品)，別的英國詩歌父親都不喜歡，或許還喜歡柯珀和貝蒂。他對斯賓塞評價也不低，我記得他給我讀(不像他一貫讓我讀給他聽的做法)《仙后》的第一本，但是我不怎么喜歡。他覺得本世紀的詩歌幾乎沒什么價值，所以成年之前，我對當代詩歌幾乎完全不熟悉，但是沃爾特.司各特的浪漫詩歌除外，那是在父親的推薦下讀的，我非常感興趣，因為我一貫喜歡活潑的敘事。德萊頓的詩是我父親喜歡讀的，他讓我讀了很多，但是除了《亞歷山大的盛宴》之外，我一首都不喜歡。我經(jīng)常用自己的調(diào)子，在心里默唱這首詩和沃爾特.司各特的很多抒情詩，我甚至給司各特的一些抒情詩譜了曲子，到現(xiàn)在都還記得?？络甑亩淘娢疫€比較喜歡讀，但是從來沒有去讀長詩;而他的兩卷書里的任何東西，都不如他用散文寫的三只野兔讓我感興趣。十三歲時，我偶然讀了坎貝爾的詩，其中《洛希爾》《霍恩林登》《埃琳的放逐》和其他一些詩給我的震撼，是以前讀詩的時候從來沒有體驗過的。至此，我還是輕視長詩，《懷俄明的格特魯?shù)隆烦肆钊苏鸷车拈_篇外，我長久以來一直覺得那是痛苦的極量。

During this part of my childhood, one of my greatest amusements was experimental science; in the theoretical, however, not the practical sense of the word; not trying experiments—a kind of discipline which I have often regretted not having had—nor even seeing, but merely reading about them. I never remember being so wrapt up in any book, as I was in Joyce's Scientific Dialogues; and I was rather recalcitrant to my father's criticisms of the bad reasoning respecting the first principles of physics, which abounds in the early part of that work. I devoured treatises on Chemistry, especially that of my father's early friend and schoolfellow, Dr. Thomson, for years before I attended a lecture or saw an experiment.

童年的這段時間，我最大的樂趣之一就是實驗科學——是理論上而不是實際意義上的實驗科學。我沒做過試驗性的實驗，也經(jīng)常遺憾沒有這種實驗經(jīng)歷，甚至沒見過，只是讀過。我從來不記得讀任何書像讀喬伊斯的《科學對話》那樣專注。父親批評這部書的前面部分對物理學基本定律的推理漏洞百出，我非常反對他的觀點。在聽到講座或看到實驗之前，有很多年，我貪婪地閱讀化學論文，尤其是父親早先的朋友兼校友湯姆森博士的論文。

From about the age of twelve, I entered into another and more advanced stage in my course of instruction; in which the main object was no longer the aids and appliances of thought, but the thoughts themselves. This commenced with Logic, in which I began at once with the Organon21, and read it to the Analytics inclusive, but profited little by the Posterior Analytics, which belong to a branch of speculation I was not yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with the Organon, my father made me read the whole or parts of several of the Latin treatises on the scholastic logic; giving each day to him, in our walks, a minute account of what I had read, and answering his numerous and searching questions. After this, I went in a similar manner, through the "Computatio sive Logica" of Hobbes, a work of a much higher order of thought than the books of the school logicians, and which he estimated very highly; in my own opinion beyond its merits, great as these are. It was his invariable practice, whatever studies he exacted from me, to make me as far as possible understand and feel the utility of them: and this he deemed peculiarly fitting in the case of the syllogistic logic, the usefulness of which had been impugned by so many writers of authority. I well remember how, and in what particular walk, in the neighbourhood of Bagshot Heath (where we were on a visit to his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one of the Mathematical Professors at Sandhurst) he first attempted by questions to make me think on the subject, and frame some conception of what constituted the utility of the syllogistic logic, and when I had failed in this, to make me understand it by explanations. The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus for my observations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my notice afterwards. My own consciousness and experience ultimately led me to appreciate quite as highly as he did, the value of an early practical familiarity with the school logic. I know of nothing, in my education, to which I think myself more indebted for whatever capacity of thinking I have attained. The first intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, was dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the fallacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained, was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was most perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also true that the school logic, and the mental habits acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory thought, before their own thinking faculties are much advanced; a power which, for want of some such discipline, many otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they have to answer opponents, only endeavour, by such arguments as they can command, to support the opposite conclusion, scarcely even attempting to confute the reasonings of their antagonists; and, therefore, at the utmost, leaving the question, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one.

大概從十二歲起，我接受的教育進入了另一個更高的階段。主要的學習對象已經(jīng)不再是思維輔助和應(yīng)用方面，而是思維本身。從學習邏輯開始，在邏輯學里，我一上來就開始學《工具論》，一直讀完包括分析學在內(nèi)的所有內(nèi)容，但我從后驗分析里面收益甚少。后驗分析屬于推斷的一個分支，我那時還不夠成熟，無法理解。在讀《工具論》的同時，父親讓我讀了好幾篇關(guān)于經(jīng)院邏輯的拉丁語論文，有的全部都讀，有的讀一部分。每天我們一起散步的時候，他讓我詳細匯報讀過的東西，并回答他許多敏銳的問題。這之后，我以相似的方式，通讀了霍布斯的《計算法和邏輯學》，這本書比經(jīng)院派邏輯學家的著作在思想層次上高了一大截，父親對它推崇備至。在我看來，它確實很有價值，但父親未免有些夸張。不管要求我學什么，父親一貫的做法，是讓我盡可能地理解并感覺到它們的效用。他覺得，這種做法在學習三段論法邏輯的時候尤其適用，而三段論法的作用受到了很多權(quán)威作家的責難。我清楚地記得，那次在巴格肖特赫斯附近散步的時候(我們那時去拜訪父親的老朋友華萊士先生，他當時是皇家陸軍軍官大學的數(shù)學教授)，父親是怎樣嘗試用問題激發(fā)我對這個題目的思考，讓我對三段論法邏輯學的效用構(gòu)成形成一些概念，我無法理解時，他就解釋給我聽。當時，這些解釋并沒有讓我弄清楚這個問題，但是也并非沒用，它們成為我的觀察和沉思賴以成形的核心。后來我通過自己所注意到的一些具體情況理解了父親所做的概括性的論述。我自己的認識和體驗，最終讓我像他一樣高度評價少時真正通曉經(jīng)院派邏輯學的價值。我認為，在我接受的教育當中，我所獲得的任何思考能力，最應(yīng)該歸功于它。我比較熟練的早期智力練習，是仔細剖析錯誤的論點，并找出謬誤在什么地方。不管在這種練習中我獲得了什么樣的能力，都應(yīng)歸功于父親，是他堅持訓練我，讓我做這樣的智力練習。但是，不可否認經(jīng)院派邏輯學以及學習它時養(yǎng)成的思維習慣，是這種訓練的主要手段之一。我相信，在現(xiàn)代教育中，經(jīng)院派邏輯如果運用適當?shù)脑挘瑳]有任何東西能像它一樣塑造縝密的思想家，這些思想家會賦予文字和命題精確的意義，而且不受模糊、不精確或不明確術(shù)語的影響。被引以自豪的數(shù)學研究，其影響力根本不能與它相比，因為在數(shù)學步驟中，正確的推理過程不25我的知識之路會產(chǎn)生真正的難題。數(shù)學研究也特別適合哲學學生早期階段的教育，因為它不以學生通過經(jīng)驗和思考形成自己有價值思想的緩慢過程為條件。他們有可能在自己的思維能力到達一個高級階段之前，就能解開混亂、自相矛盾的思想中的難題。這種本領(lǐng)是很多本來可以很有能力的人，因缺乏這種訓練而欠缺的。當他們必須反擊對手時，只能試圖用自己所能駕馭的論據(jù)來論證反面結(jié)論，而很少嘗試去駁斥對手的推理。因此，只要解決問題取決于論證的話，最多只能雙方不分勝負，懸而不決。

During this time, the Latin and Greek books which I continued to read with my father were chiefly such as were worth studying not for the language merely, but also for the thoughts. This included much of the orators, and especially Demosthenes22, some of whose principal orations I read several times over, and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full analysis of them. My father's comments on these orations when I read them to him were very instructive to me. He not only drew my attention to the insight they afforded into Athenian institutions, and the principles of legislation and government which they often illustrated, but pointed out the skill and art of the orator—how everything important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to receive it; how he made steal into their minds, gradually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a more direct manner would have roused their opposition. Most of these reflections were beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the time; but they left seed behind, which germinated in due season. At this time I also read the whole of Tacitus23, Juvenal24, and Quintilian25. The latter, owing to his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which many parts of his treatise are made up, is little read, and seldom sufficiently appreciated. His book is a kind of encyclopaedia of the thoughts of the ancients on the whole field of education and culture; and I have retained through life many valuable ideas which I can distinctly trace to my reading of him, even at that early age. It was at this period that I read, for the first time, some of the most important dialogues of Plato, in particular the Gorgias26, the Protagoras27, and the Republic. There is no author to whom my father thought himself more indebted for his own mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more frequently recommended to young students. I can bear similar testimony in regard to myself. The Socratic method28, of which the Platonic dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the intellectus sibi permissus, the understanding which has made up all its bundles of associations under the guidance of popular phraseology. The close, searching elenchus by which the man of vague generalities is constrained either to express his meaning to himself in definite terms, or to confess that he does not know what he is talking about; the perpetual testing of all general statements by particular instances; the siege in form which is laid to the meaning of large abstract terms, by fixing upon some still larger class-name which includes that and more, and dividing down to the thing sought—marking out its limits and definition by a series of accurately drawn distinctions between it and each of the cognate objects which are successively parted off from it—all this, as an education for precise thinking, is inestimable, and all this, even at that age, took such hold of me that it became part of my own mind. I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from the least intelligible of his works, and which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as anything more than poetic fancies, or philosophic conjectures.

這段時間，我繼續(xù)和父親一起讀拉丁語和希臘語書籍，大都是不僅語言值得學習，思想也值得學習的書。這其中包括很多演說家尤其是狄摩西尼的著作，他的一些主要演說我從頭到尾看了好幾遍，并且以練習的方式，寫了全面的分析。我把演說讀給父親聽的時候，他的評價對我很有啟發(fā)。他不僅使我注意到這些演講中為雅典制度提供的真知灼見，以及它們經(jīng)常舉例說明的立法和政府的原則，還指出演說家的技巧和藝術(shù)——如何把對他有利的一切東西，在他把觀眾的思維帶到最適合接受它們的狀態(tài)時說出;如何逐漸通過暗示，悄悄地把思想植入觀眾的腦袋，而這些思想，如果以一種更直接方式表達的話，就會引起觀眾的反對。就這些想法中的大部分而言，我當時還沒有能力完全理解;但是它們種下了種子，而且在適當?shù)募竟?jié)生根發(fā)芽。這時，我還讀了塔西佗、尤維納利斯和昆體良的全部著作。后者由于風格晦澀，而且很多論述由學究氣的細節(jié)組成，因此很少有人讀，難以得到足夠的賞識。他的書相當于一部古人整個教育和文化思想的百科全書;我一生中持有的很多有價值的觀點，都清楚地源自他的書，即使是那么年幼的時候讀的。就在這時，我第一次讀了柏拉圖一些最重要的對話錄，尤其是《高爾吉亞篇》《普羅泰哥拉篇》和《共和政體》。父親認為柏拉圖對自己精神文化的影響比任何作家都要大，他經(jīng)常向年輕學生推薦的也是他。這一點在我身上也體現(xiàn)出來。以柏拉圖式的對話為范例的蘇格拉底問答法，是一種非常卓越的訓練方法，用以糾正錯誤，在智力允許的情況下澄清悟性混亂。這種智力允許的情況是指在通俗的語法及措詞的指導(dǎo)下，能夠產(chǎn)生大量聯(lián)想意義的理解。這種精確、透徹的問答法，讓模糊籠統(tǒng)的人要么用明確的術(shù)語向自己解釋意思，要么干脆承認不知道自己在說什么。永遠用具體的例子檢驗所有一般性的陳述，對抽象、涵義廣的術(shù)語進行形式上的限定，這需要確定某個更大的類別，這一類別包括許多術(shù)語，通過對相關(guān)事物進行一系列精確的區(qū)分，標出它的界限和定義，使這些術(shù)語細化到想要的程度——所有這一切，作為精確思考的訓練，都是極寶貴的。所有這一切，即使在我那么小的年齡，也能抓住我的注意力，成為我思維的一部分。從那時起，我一直覺得，柏拉圖主義者的頭銜更應(yīng)該屬于那些從柏拉圖研究模式中受益并努力踐行它的人，而不是那些僅因為采用某些武斷的結(jié)論而出名的人，這些結(jié)論大多是從柏拉圖最難理解的著作中提取的，而從他的思想和作品特征來看，恐怕連他自己都不確定這些是詩歌式的幻想，還是哲學猜想。

In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I could now read these authors, as far as the language was concerned, with perfect ease, I was not required to construe them sentence by sentence, but to read them aloud to my father, answering questions when asked: but the particular attention which he paid to elocution (in which his own excellence was remarkable) made this reading aloud to him a most painful task. Of all things which he required me to do, there was none which I did so constantly ill, or in which he so perpetually lost his temper with me. He had thought much on the principles of the art of reading, especially the most neglected part of it, the inflexions of the voice, or modulation as writers on elocution call it (in contrast with articulation on the one side, and expression on the other), and had reduced it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis of a sentence. These rules he strongly impressed upon me, and took me severely to task for every violation of them: but I even then remarked (though I did not venture to make the remark to him) that though he reproached me when I read a sentence ill, and told me how I ought to have read it, he never, by reading it himself, showed me how it ought to be read. A defect running through his otherwise admirable modes of instruction, as it did through all his modes of thought, was that of trusting too much to the intelligibleness of the abstract, when not embodied in the concrete. It was at a much later period of my youth, when practising elocution by myself, or with companions of my own age, that I for the first time understood the object of his rules, and saw the psychological grounds of them. At that time I and others followed out the subject into its ramifications and could have composed a very useful treatise, grounded on my father's principles. He himself left those principles and rules unwritten. I regret that when my mind was full of the subject, from systematic practice, I did not put them, and our improvements of them, into a formal shape.

在讀柏拉圖和狄摩西尼時我已經(jīng)沒有語言上的困難了，所以在通讀這些作者的作品時，父親不讓我逐句地解釋，而是大聲讀出來，并回答他的問題。但是，由于他特別注意朗誦法(在這方面他非常優(yōu)秀)，所以給他朗讀是件很痛苦的事。在他要求我做的所有事情當中，只有這件事是我總也做不好，或者總讓他對我發(fā)火的。對于朗讀藝術(shù)的原則，他思考過很多，尤其是最常被人忽視的那部分，如音調(diào)變化，朗誦法的作者稱它為韻律(一方面和發(fā)音形成對比，另一方面和措詞形成對比)，并基于對句子的邏輯分析，將其歸納成準則。他讓我牢牢記住這些準則，我每次違反，都會受到嚴厲的指責。但是，我甚至在那時就注意到(盡管我沒有斗膽跟他談及此事)，雖然我句子讀得不好的時候他責備我，并告訴我應(yīng)該怎么讀，但是他從來沒有通過自己朗讀，來給我展示應(yīng)該怎樣朗讀。他的教育方式以及他的整個思考方式一直有一個缺點，就是過于相信抽象事物在沒有具體事例佐證時仍能夠被理解，除了這一點，他的教育方式還是很值得欽佩的。在我青年末期，我自己或者在和同齡伙伴練習朗讀與演講時，我才第一次理解他的準則針對的對象和它們的心理學根據(jù)。那時，我和其他人一直探究這個主題，追本溯源，原本是能夠在父親的原則的基礎(chǔ)之上創(chuàng)作一篇非常有用的論文的。但他自己沒有把這些原則和準則寫下來。我也很遺憾，由于系統(tǒng)地實踐，當時我滿腦子都是這個主題，但我沒有把它們以及我們對它們的改進，以正式的形式寫下來。

A book which contributed largely to my education, in the best sense of the term, was my father's History of India. It was published in the beginning of 1818. During the year previous, while it was passing through the press, I used to read the proof sheets to him; or rather, I read the manuscript to him while he corrected the proofs. The number of new ideas which I received from this remarkable book, and the impulse and stimulus as well as guidance given to my thoughts by its criticisms and disquisitions on society and civilization in the Hindoo part, on institutions and the acts of governments in the English part, made my early familiarity with it eminently useful to my subsequent progress. And though I can perceive deficiencies in it now as compared with a perfect standard, I still think it, if not the most, one of the most instructive histories ever written, and one of the books from which most benefit may be derived by a mind in the course of making up its opinions.

從教育的最佳意義上講，對我的教育大有裨益的一本書是父親的《英屬印度史》，它出版于1818年年初。之前的一年，這本書正在接受出版社的審查，我經(jīng)常給他讀校樣，或者我給他讀手抄本，他改校樣。從這本不尋常的書中，我得到了很多新觀點，還有它對印度的社會和文明，對英國的制度和政府行為的批評及專題討論，都給我的思想以刺激、促進和指引。早期通曉這本書，對我后來的進步產(chǎn)生了巨大作用。盡管和最好的標準讀本相比，我現(xiàn)在能覺察到里面的不足，但是，我仍然認為，它即使不是人們寫過的最具教育性的史書，也是其中之一，而且是個人觀點形成過程中，可從中受益良多的一本書。

The Preface, among the most characteristic of my father's writings, as well as the richest in materials of thought, gives a picture which may be entirely depended on, of the sentiments and expectations with which he wrote the History. Saturated as the book is with the opinions and modes of judgment of a democratic radicalism then regarded as extreme; and treating with a severity, at that time most unusual, the English Constitution, the English law, and all parties and classes who possessed any considerable inf luence in the country; he may have expected reputation, but certainly not advancement in life, from its publication; nor could he have supposed that it would raise up anything but enemies for him in powerful quarters: least of all could he have expected favour from the East India Company, to whose commercial privileges he was unqualifiedly hostile, and on the acts of whose government he had made so many severe comments: though, in various parts of his book, he bore a testimony in their favour, which he felt to be their just due, namely, that no Government had on the whole given so much proof, to the extent of its lights, of good intention towards its subjects; and that if the acts of any other Government had the light of publicity as completely let in upon them, they would, in all probability, still less bear scrutiny.

前言最能體現(xiàn)父親的著述風格，也包含最豐富的思想內(nèi)涵，它忠實地反映了父親創(chuàng)作《英屬印度史》一書時的情緒和期待。這本書飽含當時被認為很偏激的民主激進主義的觀點和判斷模式;而且，對待英國憲法、英國法律和在英國擁有一定影響力的所有政黨及階級的態(tài)度非常嚴厲，這在當時是很罕見的。他可能期望借出版此書獲得名譽，但是肯定沒有指望靠它提升生活質(zhì)量。除了在掌權(quán)派中增加敵人外，他也不會認為它還能帶來什么。他最不奢望的是得到東印度公司的青睞，因為他絕對敵視該公司的商業(yè)特權(quán)，對它的政府行為也做了很多嚴厲的批評。盡管在書中不少地方，他也做了對他們有利的論述，他認為是他們應(yīng)得的，即與其他政府相比，這個政府總體來說，竭盡所能給出了很多證據(jù)，證明對自己臣民的善意。如果其他任何政府的行為有覺悟完全公之于眾的話，它們很可能更經(jīng)受不起仔細的檢查。

On learning, however, in the spring of 1819, about a year after the publication of the History, that the East India Directors desired to strengthen the part of their home establishment which was employed in carrying on the correspondence with India, my father declared himself a candidate for that employment, and, to the credit of the Directors, successfully. He was appointed one of the Assistants of the Examiner of India Correspondence; officers whose duty it was to prepare drafts of despatches to India, for consideration by the Directors, in the principal departments of administration. In this office, and in that of Examiner, which he subsequently attained, the influence which his talents, his reputation, and his decision of character gave him, with superiors who really desired the good government of India, enabled him to a great extent to throw into his drafts of despatches, and to carry through the ordeal of the Court of Directors and Board of Control, without having their force much weakened, his real opinions on Indian subjects. In his History he had set forth, for the first time, many of the true principles of Indian administration: and his despatches, following his History, did more than had ever been done before to promote the improvement of India, and teach Indian officials to understand their business. If a selection of them were published, they would, I am convinced, place his character as a practical statesman fully on a level with his eminence as a speculative writer.

然而，1819年春天，《英屬印度史》出版后大概一年，得知東印度公司的董事們希望加強負責開展與印度通信聯(lián)系的國內(nèi)機構(gòu)后，父親宣布要競聘這份工作。感謝那些董事們，父親被錄取了，他被任命為印度通信部的審查員助理。這類職員的職責是起草發(fā)往印度的公文，供主要行政部門的董事們參考。在這個職位上，以及在他后來獲得的審查員職位上，父親的才能、聲譽和果斷的性格賦予他的影響力，加上真正渴望好好管理印度的上級，使他在起草公文的時候，能夠經(jīng)常把自己對印度問題的觀點融入其中(這一點沒有削弱公文的效力)，并通過董事會和管理委員會的考驗。在《英屬印度史》中，他第一次闡明了印度行政管理的真正原則。他的公文，遵循《英屬印度史》，對促進印度的進步起到了前所未有的作用，并教育印度官員了解自己的職責。如果選擇一部分發(fā)表的話，我相信，它們會讓人覺得父親是一位勤于思考的卓越作家的同時，同樣是一位務(wù)實的政治家。

This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in his attention to my education. It was in this same year, 1819, that he took me through a complete course of political economy. His loved and intimate friend, Ricardo28, had shortly before published the book which formed so great an epoch in political economy; a book which never would have been published or written, but for the entreaty and strong encouragement of my father; for Ricardo, the most modest of men, though firmly convinced of the truth of his doctrines, deemed himself so little capable of doing them justice in exposition and expression, that he shrank from the idea of publicity. The same friendly encouragement induced Ricardo, a year or two later, to become a member of the House of Commons; where, during the few remaining years of his life, unhappily cut short in the full vigour of his intellect, he rendered so much service to his and my father's opinions both in political economy and on other subjects.

盡管他的時間有了新用途，但是他一點也沒有放松對我的教育的關(guān)注。同一年(1819年)，他讓我完整地學習了政治經(jīng)濟學。他愛戴的密友李嘉圖，剛剛出版了一本書，這本書在政治經(jīng)濟學史上開創(chuàng)了偉大的新紀元，但如果沒有父親的迫切要求和堅定鼓勵的話，這本書根本就不會出版甚至成書。這是因為李嘉圖非常謙虛，盡管堅信自己的學說非常正確，卻認為自己沒有能力去很好地闡述和表達，所以他不愿意公之于眾。同樣的友好鼓勵，促使李嘉圖一兩年后成為下議院的議員。在那里，在他生命的最后幾年里，他為自己和我父親在政治經(jīng)濟學和其他問題上的觀點貢獻了很多，很不幸，他正當才華橫溢之時離開了人世。

Though Ricardo's great work was already in print, no didactic treatise embodying its doctrines, in a manner fit for learners, had yet appeared. My father, therefore, commenced instructing me in the science by a sort of lectures, which he delivered to me in our walks. He expounded each day a portion of the subject, and I gave him next day a written account of it, which he made me rewrite over and over again until it was clear, precise, and tolerably complete. In this manner I went through the whole extent of the science; and the written outline of it which resulted from my daily compte rendu, served him afterwards as notes from which to write his Elements of Political Economy. After this I read Ricardo, giving an account daily of what I read, and discussing, in the best manner I could, the collateral points which offered themselves in our progress. On Money, as the most intricate part of the subject, he made me read in the same manner Ricardo's admirable pamphlets, written during what was called the Bullion controversy; to these succeeded Adam Smith; and in this reading it was one of my father's main objects to make me apply to Smith's more superficial view of political economy, the superior lights of Ricardo, and detect what was fallacious in Smith's arguments, or erroneous in any of his conclusions. Such a mode of instruction was excellently calculated to form a thinker; but it required to be worked by a thinker, as close and vigorous as my father. The path was a thorny one, even to him, and I am sure it was so to me, notwithstanding the strong interest I took in the subject. He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both. I thought for myself almost from the first, and occasionally thought differently from him, though for a long time only on minor points, and making his opinion the ultimate standard. At a later period I even occasionally convinced him, and altered his opinion on some points of detail: which I state to his honour, not my own. It at once exemplifies his perfect candour, and the real worth of his method of teaching.

盡管李嘉圖的偉大作品已經(jīng)出版，但是具有教誨性的，并以適合初學者方式寫的有關(guān)其學說的論文，還沒有出現(xiàn)。因此，父親開始用授課的方式教我學習這門科學，在我們散步的時候講給我聽。他每天闡述這個主題的一部分，第二天，我交給他書面報告，他會讓我一遍又一遍地重寫，直到寫得清晰易懂，嚴謹周密，并且相對比較完整。我以這種方式學完了這門學科的所有內(nèi)容。我為了每天向他匯報而寫的書面大綱，后來成了他寫《政治經(jīng)濟學要義》的筆記。這之后，我讀了李嘉圖，每天報告讀的內(nèi)容，并盡我最大努力，討論學習的過程中出現(xiàn)的問題。論金錢，是這個主題中最復(fù)雜的部分，他讓我以同樣的方式讀李嘉圖寫于金價論戰(zhàn)時期令人欽佩的小冊子。這之后，我又讀了亞當.斯密的大作，父親讓我讀的主要目的之一，是讓我把李嘉圖的卓越觀點應(yīng)用于斯密較膚淺的政治經(jīng)濟學觀點，找出斯密論據(jù)的謬誤之處，或者結(jié)論中的任何錯誤。這種指導(dǎo)方式的目的在于培養(yǎng)思想家，是種非常好的指導(dǎo)方式。但是，必須由一個像父親一樣親近、精力充沛的思想家來進行。這條路即使對父親來說也是痛苦的，當然，對我來說更是如此，雖然我對這個主題很感興趣。父親經(jīng)常由于我的失敗而發(fā)火，而且不可理喻，因為在這些情況下我根本不可能成功;但總體來說，他的方法是正確的，也成功了。我認為，沒有任何科學的教學方法，比父親教我邏輯學和政治經(jīng)濟學的方法更全面，或更適合培養(yǎng)能力。他通過讓我自己找出所有答案，努力調(diào)動活躍我的才能，甚至到了夸張的程度。他之前不給我解釋，直到我感覺束手無策時才點撥一二;他不僅根據(jù)我當時的理解，給我這兩大科目的準確知識，還讓我成為邏輯學和政治經(jīng)濟學的思想家。我?guī)缀鯊囊婚_始就獨立思考，偶爾和他的想法不一樣，盡管在很長時間內(nèi)，都是在小問題上不一樣，最后還是以他的觀點為最終標準。后來，我甚至偶爾把他給說服了，在某些小細節(jié)上，改變了他的觀點。我把這歸功于他，而不是我自己。這個例子直接說明了他的完全公正，以及他的教學法的真正價值。

At this point concluded what can properly be called my lessons: when I was about fourteen I left England for more than a year; and after my return, though my studies went on under my father's general direction, he was no longer my schoolmaster. I shall therefore pause here, and turn back to matters of a more general nature connected with the part of my life and education included in the preceding reminiscences.

這時，我嚴格意義上的功課學習結(jié)束了。大概十四歲的時候，我離開英國一年多?；貋碇?，盡管我的學習仍然在父親的總體指導(dǎo)下進行，他已經(jīng)不再是我的老師了。因此，我在這兒打住，回到前面的回憶中提到的，與我的生活和教育有關(guān)的一些泛泛的事情上去。

In the course of instruction which I have partially retraced, the point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of childhood an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of manhood. The result of the experiment shows the ease with which this may be done, and places in a strong light the wretched waste of so many precious years as are spent in acquiring the modicum of Latin and Greek commonly taught to schoolboys; a waste which has led so many educational reformers to entertain the ill-judged proposal of discarding those languages altogether from general education. If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory, or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.

在我部分回憶到的教育過程中，最明顯的一點就是在童年時代，父親努力給予我屬于高等教育的知識，這種知識在成年之前很少能獲得(如果真能獲得的話)。這個實驗的結(jié)果證明了這件事要辦到其實很簡單，也深刻揭露了學生們要花那么多年寶貴時間，學習一點點拉丁語和希臘語，純屬浪費時間。這種浪費讓很多教育改革家有了把這些語言從普通教育中完全取消的輕率提議。如果我生來就理解速度極快，或者記憶力精確持久，又或者性格極其積極、充滿活力的話，那么這個試驗可能不具備決定意義。但是我在這些天分上，低于標準，而非高于標準。我能做到的，任何能力一般、體格健康的男孩或女孩肯定都做得到。如果說我取得了一些成績的話，在諸多有利因素中，最應(yīng)該歸功于父親給予我的早期訓練，毫不夸張地說，與同齡人相比，我的優(yōu)勢在于我起步比他們早了四分之一個世紀。

There was one cardinal point in this training, of which I have already given some indication, and which, more than anything else, was the cause of whatever good it effected. Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own: and thus the sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no pains in their education, so often grow up mere parroters of what they have learnt, incapable of using their minds except in the furrows traced for them. Mine, however, was not an education of cram. My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself. As far as I can trust my remembrance, I acquitted myself very lamely in this department; my recollection of such matters is almost wholly of failures, hardly ever of success. It is true the failures were often in things in which success in so early a stage of my progress, was almost impossible. I remember at some time in my thirteenth year, on my happening to use the word idea, he asked me what an idea was; and expressed some displeasure at my ineffectual efforts to define the word: I recollect also his indignation at my using the common expression that something was true in theory but required correction in practice; and how, after making me vainly strive to define the word theory, he explained its meaning, and showed the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I had used; leaving me fully persuaded that in being unable to give a correct definition of Theory, and in speaking of it as something which might be at variance with practice, I had shown unparalleled ignorance. In this he seems, and perhaps was, very unreasonable; but I think, only in being angry at my failure. A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do never does all he can.

我已經(jīng)提到過這種訓練里面最重要的一點，訓練中獲得的任何益處都源自于它。大多數(shù)通過反復(fù)練習而獲得知識的孩子或年輕人，他們的智能不但沒有得到提高，反而被知識湮沒了。他們的腦子里填滿了單純的事實，以及他人的觀點和言辭，他們接受了這些東西，讓它們?nèi)〈诵纬勺约河^點的能力。因此，一位杰出父親的兒子，不遺余力地接受教育，經(jīng)常長大后卻只會鸚鵡學舌，除了回憶學過的東西外，他的大腦別無他用。然而，我的教育不是填鴨式的。父親決不允許我所學的東西僅僅退化為記憶的練習。他不僅力求教學過程的每一步我都能理解，有可能的話，還讓我的理解提前于教學。任何需要思考才能獲得的東西，他從來都不會告訴我，除非我已經(jīng)盡了最大努力還沒有找出來。如果我沒記錯的話，在這方面我表現(xiàn)得很差?；叵肫饋恚@種事情我基本都是失敗，很少成功。其實，失敗經(jīng)常發(fā)生在以我的初學程度幾乎不可能成功的地方。我記得十三歲時，有一次我碰巧用到“觀點”這個詞，他問我什么是觀點，我沒能很好地下定義，他表示出不滿。我還記得，我說了一句套話，說有些東西理論上正確，但是實踐起來需要改進，他聽了很氣憤。在我試圖定義“理論”徒勞無功后，他向我解釋了它的意思，并指出我所用的通俗語言的謬誤。這讓我完全相信，不能給“理論”正確地下定義，還說它可能與實踐不一致，我是多么的無知。他這么做，似乎很不講理，或者說就是很不講理。但是我想，這只是在我失敗而惹他生氣時才會發(fā)生。如果從來不要求學生做他做不到的事情，那么他也決不會去做所有自己能做到的事情。

One of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency, and which often fatally blights its promise, my father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme vigilance, out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attainments were anything unusual at my age. If I accidentally had my attention drawn to the fact that some other boy knew less than myself—which happened less often than might be imagined—I concluded, not that I knew much, but that he, for some reason or other, knew little, or that his knowledge was of a different kind from mine. My state of mind was not humility, but neither was it arrogance. I never thought of saying to myself, I am, or I can do, so and so. I neither estimated myself highly nor lowly: I did not estimate myself at all. If I thought anything about myself, it was that I was rather backward in my studies, since I always found myself so, in comparison with what my father expected from me. I assert this with confidence, though it was not the impression of various persons who saw me in my childhood. They, as I have since found, thought me greatly and disagreeably self-conceited; probably because I was disputatious, and did not scruple to give direct contradictions to things which I heard said. I suppose I acquired this bad habit from having been encouraged in an unusual degree to talk on matters beyond my age, and with grown persons, while I never had inculcated on me the usual respect for them. My father did not correct this ill-breeding and impertinence, probably from not being aware of it, for I was always too much in awe of him to be otherwise than extremely subdued and quiet in his presence. Yet with all this I had no notion of any superiority in myself; and well was it for me that I had not. I remember the very place in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of leaving my father's house for a long absence, he told me that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not. I have a distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated, was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which my father told me, I gave implicit credence, but which did not at all impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify myself upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever they might be, were any merit of mine: but, now when my attention was called to the subject, I felt that what my father had said respecting my peculiar advantages was exactly the truth and common sense of the matter, and it fixed my opinion and feeling from that time forward.

年少時即小有成績的人，大都會有一個毛病，而這經(jīng)常是致命的，會毀掉人的前途，父親時刻不忘，謹防它的出現(xiàn)。這個毛病就是自滿。他非常警惕，不讓我聽到贊美之詞，或者被人引導(dǎo)，拿自己和別人做自得的比較。從他和我的交流當中，我只會覺得自己非常低微。他給我訂立的比較標準，不是看別人做過什么，而是一個人能夠做什么，以及應(yīng)該做什么。他非常成功地使我免于受到那些他所擔心的事情的影響。我根本沒意識到我的成績在那個年齡來說，有什么不尋常。如果我偶爾注意到別的男孩比我懂得少的話——這種情況比想象的要少——我的結(jié)論不是我懂得多，而是他，由于某種原因懂得少，或者他的知識類型與我的不同。我的心態(tài)不是謙遜，但也不是自大。我心里從來沒有過“我怎么樣”，或“我能怎么樣”之類的想法。我沒有高估，也沒有低估自己：我根本就不估量自己。如果說我對自己有過什么想法的話，就是我在學習上太落后，因為和父親對我的期望相比，我總是如此。我這么說非?？隙?，可是在我童年時見過我的許多人，對我的印象并非如此。我后來發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們覺得我非常自大，令人不快;很可能是因為我愛爭論，不管聽到別人說什么，都直接反駁，從不遲疑。我想，我養(yǎng)成這個壞習慣，是因為經(jīng)常被鼓勵談?wù)摮轿夷挲g的事情，并且是和成年人討論，但我從未告誡自己對他們要有基本的尊重。父親之所以沒有糾正我這種沒教養(yǎng)、無禮的行為，很可能是因為沒有注意到，因為我總是特別害怕他，在他面前只會極其克制，安靜。然而不管怎么說，我沒有任何優(yōu)越感，這對我來說也是有益的。十四歲時，在即將離開父親的家很長一段時間的前夕，我記得就在海德公園的那個地方，父親告訴我說，在開始認識新的人的時候，我應(yīng)該知道自己學了很多東西，是和我一樣大的年輕人通常不知道的。很多人會和我說起這件事，還會因此恭維我。關(guān)于這個話題，他還說了什么，我記得不很清楚了。但是，他總結(jié)說，不管我比別人多知道些什么，都不能歸功于我自己，而要歸功于我的運氣好，有非常難得的優(yōu)勢，那就是有個能教導(dǎo)我，并且樂意花費必要的心思和時間的父親。如果我比沒有類似優(yōu)勢的人懂得多的話，并不值得贊美，比他們懂得少，才是最大的恥辱。我很清楚地記得，這是父親第一次暗示我，說我比其他受過良好教育的年輕人懂得多，與他告訴我的其他事情一樣，我對此毫不懷疑，但我并沒有把它視為個人問題。我不會因為別人不知道我所知道的事情，就要贊美自己。我也從沒有自夸，說自己的成就，不管是什么，有一點點歸功于我自己。但是，現(xiàn)在我已經(jīng)注意到這個問題了，我覺得父親關(guān)于我的獨特優(yōu)勢的說法，完全是事實，在這件事上也符合常理，它使我的看法和感覺從那時起始終如一。

It is evident that this, among many other of the purposes of my father's scheme of education, could not have been accomplished if he had not carefully kept me from having any great amount of intercourse with other boys. He was earnestly bent upon my escaping not only the ordinary corrupting influence which boys exercise over boys, but the contagion of vulgar modes of thought and feeling; and for this he was willing that I should pay the price of inferiority in the accomplishments which schoolboys in all countries chiefly cultivate. The deficiencies in my education were principally in the things which boys learn from being turned out to shift for themselves, and from being brought together in large numbers. From temperance and much walking, I grew up healthy and hardy, though not muscular; but I could do no feats of skill or physical strength, and knew none of the ordinary bodily exercises. It was not that play, or time for it, was refused me. Though no holidays were allowed, lest the habit of work should be broken, and a taste for idleness acquired, I had ample leisure in every day to amuse myself; but as I had no boy companions, and the animal need of physical activity was satisfied by walking, my amusements, which were mostly solitary, were in general, of a quiet, if not a bookish turn, and gave little stimulus to any other kind even of mental activity than that which was already called forth by my studies; I consequently remained long, and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my mind, as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was applied, or ought to have been applied, to the practical details which, as they are the chief interest of life to the majority of men, are also the things in which whatever mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself. I was constantly meriting reproof by inattention, inobservance, and general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he carried decision and energy of character in his whole manner and into every action of life: and this, as much as his talents, contributed to the strong impression which he always made upon those with whom he came into personal contact. But the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up unenergetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them. The education which my father gave me, was in itself much more fitted for training me to know than to do. Not that he was unaware of my deficiencies; both as a boy and as a youth I was incessantly smarting under his severe admonitions on the subject. There was anything but insensibility or tolerance on his part towards such shortcomings: but, while he saved me from the demoralizing effects of school life, he made no effort to provide me with any sufficient substitute for its practicalizing influences. Whatever qualities he himself, probably, had acquired without difficulty or special training, he seems to have supposed that I ought to acquire as easily. He had not, I think, bestowed the same amount of thought and attention on this, as on most other branches of education; and here, as well in some other points of my tuition, he seems to have expected effects without causes.

在父親教育計劃的眾多目標中，如果不是他小心翼翼地阻止我和其他男孩子過多接觸的話，這個目標很顯然不會實現(xiàn)。父親不僅小心地讓我避開常見的、男孩子間互相施加的壞影響，還急切地決心要讓我避開粗俗的思考方式和感情的惡劣影響。為此，他情愿讓我付出代價，即所有國家的男學生都具備的主要能力上，我卻比別人差。我所受的教育的缺點，主要是不具備男孩子們在接受自謀生路的訓練過程中學到的技能和他們在群體活動中所學到的東西。我雖然不怎么強壯，但是通過戒酒和散步，得以健康成長。然而，我不會做任何技能或是體能的事情，也完全不了解常見的身體鍛煉方法。我并不是拒絕玩耍，或者沒有時間玩耍。盡管父親不給我假期，以免打破學習的習慣，養(yǎng)成懶惰的習性，但我每天還是有充足的時間自娛自樂。不過，因為我沒有男孩玩伴，并且身體活動的動物本能已由散步來滿足，所以我的娛樂活動大多都是單獨進行的，即使不是手不釋卷的話，通常也是安靜的，除了能夠刺激我為了學習已經(jīng)開動的大腦外，這種活動不會給我的任何其他活動，甚至是智力活動帶來刺激。因此，很長時間以來，我都不擅長做任何需要靈活動作的事情，后來好了一點，但是可以說一直以來都不怎么擅長。我的大腦以及雙手，用來做具體的事情時，或者應(yīng)該用到它們時，經(jīng)常很沒有效率，而對于大多數(shù)人來說，這些事情是生活中的主要情趣，也是他們所擁有的心智能力得以展現(xiàn)的主要方式。我經(jīng)常由于對日常生活中的事物疏忽，不留心觀察，經(jīng)常因漫不經(jīng)心而被訓斥。在這些細節(jié)上，父親和我完全相反：他的感官和頭腦總是十分警覺，他做出的與他性格相符的決定和他所具有的活力體現(xiàn)在他的行事風格和生活中的每個舉動中。這差不多和他的才干一樣，總是給那些和他交往過的人留下深刻印象。但是，充滿活力的父母的孩子，往往長大后很懶散，因為他們依賴父母，而父母也為他們積極打算。父親給我的教育，本質(zhì)上更適合于訓練我思考的能力而非動手的能力。他并非不知道我的缺點，在我童年和青少年時期，他嚴厲地警告我這些問題，讓我很痛苦。他絕不是不在乎或者能容忍這樣的缺點，但是，盡管他使我免受學校生活的不利影響，他并沒有盡力為我提供足夠的東西來替代學校的實踐作用。很可能對那些他自己沒有費力氣，或沒經(jīng)過特殊訓練就獲得的素質(zhì)，不管是什么樣的，他似乎都認為我也應(yīng)該同樣輕易就能獲得。我想，在這點上，他沒有像教育的其他方面那樣給予同等的思考和關(guān)注。他似乎只期待成果，而不考慮起因。

(1) 大衛(wèi)·休謨(1711—1776)，蘇格蘭歷史學家、哲學家。與約翰·洛克及喬治·貝克萊并稱三大英國經(jīng)驗主義者。

(2) 羅伯特·胡克(1635—1703)，英國實驗主義哲學家、物理學家，著名成果有“胡克定律(Hooke's Law)”。

(3) 杰瑞米·邊沁(1748—1832)，英國哲學家、法學家，功利主義倫理學的早期代表人物，代表作是《道德及立法原理》。

(4) 普魯士，位于北歐。

(5) 約翰·諾克斯(1505—1572)，蘇格蘭宗教改革家和史學家，創(chuàng)立蘇格蘭長老會。

(6)貴格會，又稱公誼會或者教友派(ReligiousSocietyofFriends)。

(7) 弗朗西斯·德雷克爵士(1540—1596)，英國航海家，最初環(huán)繞地球航行的人。

(8) 詹姆斯·庫克船長(1728—1779)，英國海軍上校、航海家，太平洋和南極海洋的探險家。

(9)《伊利亞特》，古希臘描寫特洛伊戰(zhàn)爭的英雄史詩，相傳為荷馬所作。

(10) 歐幾里得，約公元前3世紀，古希臘數(shù)學家，著有《幾何原本》13卷，一直流傳至今。

(11) 賀拉斯(公元前65—前8)，古羅馬詩人，從傾向共和轉(zhuǎn)而擁護帝制，作品有《諷刺詩集》、《頌歌》等。

(12) 李維(公元前59—公元17)，古羅馬歷史學家。他所著的《羅馬史》共有142卷。