I am such a humanist that saints without
sins don’t interest me. But we are charming in our irrationality, our inconsistencies,
our follies, our sprees and holiday gaieties, our prejudices, bigotry and
forgetfulness.
I prefer to have our mind charmingly unreasonable
as it is at present. I should hate to see a world in which we are all perfectly
rational beings. Do I distrust scientific progress? No, I distrust sainthood.
Am I anti-intellectualistic? Perhaps yes; perhaps no. I am merely in love with
life, and being in love with life, I distrust the intellect profoundly.
我頗願讓我們的靈心,像現在一樣地不合理下去,這是可愛的。我不願見到我們在這世界上都變成十份十美合理的人類。我不相信科學的進步嗎?不,我不信任聖者的境界。我反對知識嗎?或許是,或許不是,我只是愛好人生,因愛好人生,所以我極端不信任智能。
Imagine a world in which there are no
stories of murder in newspapers,… everyone proceeds to carry out with logical
precision a career that he mapped out for himself at the age of ten- good-by to
this happy human world! All the excitement and uncertainty of life would be
gone. There would be no literature because there would be no sin, no
misbehavior, no human weakness, no upsetting passion, no prejudices, no
irregularities and, worst of all, no surprises. It would be like a horse race
in which every one of the forty or fifty thousand spectators knew the winner.
Human fallibility is the very essence of the color of life, as the upsets are
the very color and interest of a steeplechase.
你可以幻想出一個完美的世界,在那裏報紙上沒有殺人的新聞,……大家都各照著他自己在十歲時所決定的計劃去實行,絲毫不苟──這麼一個幸福的人世還是省了吧!在這麼一個世界裏,人生的一切興奮和騷動全都消滅了。世界沒有文學了,因為那時已沒有罪惡,沒有錯誤的行為,沒有人類的弱點,沒有混亂的情慾,沒有不規則的舉動,最壞的是,沒有令人驚異的事物。那就等於四、五萬觀眾在看他們預先已知道那一隻馬得錦標的跑馬比賽一樣,毫無趣味。人類易生錯誤的本性是人生色彩的精粹所在,正如跳浜跑馬比賽上的出冷門一樣的有興趣。
The Importance of Living (1937) Lin Yutang
生活的藝術 (1937) 林語堂