罗素出生于英国,他2岁丧母,4岁丧父,由他的祖父把他抚养成人。他一生坎坷,命运多舛,但他始终坚强地生活。他一生追求知识、追求真理。罗素追求爱情,在他漫长的一生中,他爱过不止一个女性,经历过几次婚姻的变故,但他始终是真诚的。他说: 三种单纯然而极其强烈的激情支配着我的一生。那就是对于爱情的渴望,对于知识的追求,以及对于人类苦难痛彻肺腑的怜悯。这些激情犹如狂风,把我伸展到绝望边缘的深深的苦海上东抛西掷,使我的生活没有定向。 Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. 这就是他对自己人生观的一个概括。接下来就是他对追求爱情的表白: 我追求爱情,首先因为它叫我消魂。爱情使人消魂的魅力使我常常乐意为了几小时这样的快乐而牺牲生活中的其他一切。我追求爱情,又因为它减轻孤独感--那种一个颤抖的灵魂望着世界边缘之外冰冷而无生命的无底深渊时所感到的可怕的孤独。 我追求爱情,还因为爱的结合使我在一种神秘的缩影中提前看到了圣者和诗人曾经想像过的天堂。这就是我所追求的,尽管人的生活似乎还不配享有它,但它毕竟是我终于找到的东西。 I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness–that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what–at last–I have found. (按:罗素活了98岁,一生中结婚四次,中间还有过无数个情人。80岁时还和第三任妻子离婚,娶了伊迪丝·芬奇。每一任妻子一般都是在15年的共同生活后离婚的。是夫妻双方能温暖内心保持耐性的期限是15年,还是罗素清楚知道自己要的是什么?罗素从剑桥大学毕业后,同漂亮的美国姑娘皮尔索尔·史密斯结婚,她比罗素长5岁。这次婚姻从1894年持续到有过几次爱情经历,包括与艳丽的奥托莱恩·莫雷尔夫人、康斯坦斯·马勒森夫人以及有名的演员科利特·奥尼尔私通。1921年他同威尼弗雷德·布莱克结婚,1936年又同海伦·斯彭斯结婚。16年以后,他第四次结婚,妻子是伊迪丝·芬奇。由此可见,他在伦理和道德方面,是开放态度,认为过多的道德束缚是人类不幸的根源,道德不应限制人类本能的快乐,因此提倡试婚、离婚从简和节育等,认为未婚男女在双方都愿意的情况下发生性关系并非是不道德的行为,这种观点使他在美国遭到激烈抗议,最终还导致他失去了纽约城市大学的教授职务。) 然后他谈到了对知识的渴求: 我以同样的热情追求知识,我想理解人类的心灵,我想了解星辰为何灿烂,我还试图弄懂毕达哥拉斯学说的力量,是这种力量使我在无常之上高踞主宰地位。我在这方面略有成就,但不多。 With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. (按:这是罗素对其一生比较谦虚的说法,罗素可谓著作等身的大学者,早年与剑桥大学教授怀特海合作完成的《数学原理》成就了他在数理逻辑的地位,在此过程中,提出著名的“罗素悖论”,导致了“第三次数学危机”。哲学上罗素最大的贡献是和乔治摩·尔、弗雷格、维特根斯坦和怀特海一起创立了逻辑分析哲学,此外他还在认识论、形而上学、伦理学、政治哲学和哲学史方面做出过贡献。罗素一生著书71种,论文几千篇,在哲学、数学、政治、历史、宗教、社会学等方面,皆有极大的建树,享有“百科全书式思想家”之称。他被称为“20世纪最知名、最有影响力的哲学家”之一,还被无数人视为是“未来时代的先知”;他还是著名的数学家、逻辑学家,社会活动家,又被公认为“富有鼓动天才的辩论家”。在1950年他又获得了诺贝尔文学奖,被称为“百科全书式文学家” 。) 正是他自己享有了愉悦爱情和掌握了强大知识,他更能体悟世间弱势群体的痛苦。 爱情和知识只要存在,总是向上导往天堂。但是,怜悯又总是把我带回人间。痛苦的呼喊在我心中反响回荡,孩子们受饥荒煎熬,无辜者被压迫者折磨,孤弱无助的老人在自己的儿子眼中变成可恶的累赘,以及世上触目皆是的孤独、贫困和痈苦--这些都是对人类应该过的生活的嘲弄。我渴望能减少罪恶,可我做不到,于是我感到痛苦。 Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. (按:由于心中时刻不忘弱势群体,希望重建社会,他的思想倾向于民主社会主义而反对集权统治。他认为之所以造成人类不平等的根源主要是战争,所以罗素一生追求和平,反对战争,曾2次因反战而入狱。1961年,89岁高龄的罗素因参与核裁军的游行被拘禁7天。1967年他和萨特还成立了民间法庭——“罗素法庭”,揭露美国的战争罪行。) 这就是我的一生。我觉得这一生是值得活的,如果真有可能再给我一次机会,我将欣然再重活—次。 This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
前些天在 UofT 时,读了 Russell 的 Sceptical Essays ,是 Routledge Classics 版 2004 年印刷本。该文集的导言 On the value of Scepticism 中有我过去博文“ 既以为人己愈有 ” 引用过的一段话。我是第一次看到原文。抄录如下: … the people who do most completely what is in fact to their interest are those who deliberately, on moral grounds, do what they believe to be against their interest. Next to them come the people who try to think out rationally and consciously what is to their own interest, eliminating as far as possible the in fl uence of passion. Third come the people who have instinctive shrewdness. Last of all come the people whose malevolence overbalances their shrewdness, making them pursue the ruin of others in ways that lead to their own ruin. (pp. 10-11) 顺便一提,该文甚至该书的主旨都是在提倡罗素版本的怀疑主义,即: The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no su ffi cient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgement. (p. 2) 这种观点在学理上我很接受,不过在现实中比较难贯彻。因为现实中总是要做各种决定,虽然这确实是个非确定性的世界。
What I Have Lived For Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. 我为何而生 ——伯兰特·罗素自传前言 对 爱情 的渴望,对知识的追求,对人类苦难不可遏制的同情,是支配我一生的单纯而强烈的三种感情。这些感情如阵阵巨风,吹拂在我动荡不定的生涯中,有时甚至吹过深沉痛苦的海洋,直抵绝望的边缘。 我所以追求爱情,有三方面的原因。首先,爱情有时给我带来狂喜,这种狂喜竟如此有力,以致使我常常会为了体验几小时爱的喜悦,而宁愿牺牲生命中其他一 切。其次,爱情可以摆脱孤寂——身历那种可怕孤寂的人的战栗意识,有时会由世界的边缘,观察到冷酷无生命的无底深渊。最后,在爱的结合中,我看到了古今圣 贤以及诗人们所梦想的天堂的缩影,这正是我所追寻的人生境界。虽然它对一般的人类生活也许太美好了,但这正是我透过爱情所得到场最终发现。 我曾以同样的感情追求知识,我渴望去了解人类的。也渴望知道星星为什么会发光,同时我还想理解毕达哥拉斯的力量。 爱情与知识的可能领域,总是引领我到天堂的境界,可对人类苦难的同情经常把我带回现实世界。那些痛苦的呼唤经常在我内心深处引起回响。饥饿中的孩子,被 压迫被折磨者,给子女造成重担的孤苦无依的老人,以及全球性的孤独、贫穷和痛苦的存在,是对人类生活理想的无视和讽刺。我常常希望能尽自己的微薄之力去减 轻这不必要的痛苦,但我发现我完全失败了,因此我自己也感到很痛苦。 这就是我的一生,我发现人是值得活的。如果有谁再给我一次生活的机会,我将欣然接受这难得的赐予。
最初看余杰的《香草山》时,为扉页上罗素所谓的人性中的三种最纯然而强烈的激情所感动: 对爱情的渴望,对知识的追求,以及对人类苦难痛彻肺腑的怜悯。 无意中翻到原文,摘录如下,聊以作为本博开篇之作吧。 What I have lived for? Bertrand Russell Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. 三种单纯然而极其强烈的激情支配着我的一生。那就是对于爱情的渴望,对于知识的追求,以及对于人类苦难痛彻肺腑的怜悯。这些激情犹如狂风,把我伸展到绝望边缘的深深的苦海上东抛西掷,使我的生活没有定向。 I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. 我追求爱情,首先因为它叫我消魂。爱情使人消魂的魅力使我常常乐意为了几小时这样的快乐而牺牲生活中的其他一切。我追求爱情,又因为它减轻孤独感那种一个颤抖的灵魂望着世界边缘之外冰冷而无生命的无底深渊时所感到的可怕的孤独。我追求爱情,还因为爱的结合使我在一种神秘的缩影中提前看到了圣者和诗人曾经想像过的天堂。这就是我所追求的,尽管人的生活似乎还不配享有它,但它毕竟是我终于找到的东西。 With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. 我以同样的热情追求知识,我想理解人类的心灵,我想了解星辰为何灿烂,我还试图弄懂毕达哥拉斯学说的力量,是这种力量使我在无常之上高踞主宰地位。我在这方面略有成就,但不多。 Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. 爱情和知识只要存在,总是向上导往天堂。但是,怜悯又总是把我带回人间。痛苦的呼喊在我心中反响回荡,孩子们受饥荒煎熬,无辜者被压迫者折磨,孤弱无助的老人在自己的儿子眼中变成可恶的累赘,以及世上触目皆是的孤独、贫困和痈苦--这些都是对人类应该过的生活的嘲弄。我渴望能减少罪恶,可我做不到,于是我感到痛苦。 This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. 这就是我的一生。我觉得这一生是值得活的,如果真有可能再给我一次机会,我将欣然再重活次。