Areopagitica

This is true liberty, when free-born men, / Having to advise the public, may speak free, / Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise; / Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace: / What can be juster in a state than this? — Euripid. Hicetid.

这才是真正的自由：生而自由的人，有话要向公众进言时，可以自由地说出来；能说而又愿说的人，值得高度称赞；既不能说也不愿说的人，尽可保持沉默：在一个国家里，还有什么比这更公正的呢？——欧里庇得斯《乞援人》

I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.

我并不否认，教会和国家最要紧的事情之一，是像监察人一样，警惕地监察书籍的品行；然后像对待罪犯一样，把它们禁闭、囚禁，施以最严厉的惩处。因为书籍并不是全然死的东西，它们蕴含着生命的潜能，像孕育它们的那个灵魂一样活跃；不，它们像小瓶一样，保存着孕育它们的那个活的心智最纯粹的效力与精华。我知道，它们像传说中的龙牙一样生气勃勃、繁衍有力，撒播到各处，也许会长出全副武装的人来。可是另一方面，若不小心，杀死一个人和毁掉一本好书，几乎没有分别。杀人者杀死的是一个有理性的生灵，是上帝的形象；而毁掉一本好书的人，杀死的是理性本身，可以说是刺中了上帝形象的眼睛。许多人活着只是大地的负担；而一本好书，是一位大师精神的宝贵血液，被精心保存、珍藏起来，为的是一种超越生命的生命。诚然，没有哪个时代能让一条生命复生，而那条生命也许并不是什么大损失；可是岁月的轮转，也很少能找回一条被弃绝的真理，而缺了它，整个国族都会因此受损。

We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre; whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than a life.

所以，我们必须谨慎，不要对公众人物活生生的劳作施加迫害，不要泼洒那保存、储藏在书中的、经过岁月陶冶的人的生命；因为我们看到，这样做可能犯下一种杀人罪，有时是一种殉道，若波及整版印本，就是一种屠杀；这种处决的结果，不止于杀死一条由元素构成的生命，而是击中了那天上的第五元素，理性的气息本身；它杀死的与其说是一条生命，不如说是一种不朽。

The punishing of wits enhances their authority, saith the Viscount St. Albans; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seek to tread it out. This Order, therefore, may prove a nursing-mother to sects, but I shall easily show how it will be a step-dame to Truth: and first by disenabling us to the maintenance of what is known already.

圣奥尔本斯子爵说过，惩罚有才智的人，反倒增加他们的威望；一部被禁的作品，会被看作一点真理的火星，飞溅到那些想把它踩灭的人脸上。所以，这道法令也许会成为各种教派的乳母；而我将不难证明，它会成为真理的后母：首先，它使我们无力维持已经知道的东西。

Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

惯于思考的人都很清楚：我们的信仰和知识，同我们的四肢和气色一样，要靠锻炼才能茁壮。圣经把真理比作一道奔流的泉水；如果泉水不能永远向前流淌，就会病成一池因循与传统的浑水。一个人在真理之中也可能成为异端；如果他相信某些事情，只因为他的牧师这样说，或者宗教会议这样决定，自己却不知道别的理由，那么即便他的信念是真的，他所持守的这个真理本身，也就成了他的异端。

Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian.

我们知道，在这个世界的田野里，善与恶几乎不可分离地一同生长；善的知识与恶的知识如此纠缠交织，又以那么多狡猾的相似难以辨认，就连强加给普绪喀、要她不停地挑拣分开的那些混杂的种子，也不比它们混得更紧。正是从尝过的那一只苹果的皮里，善恶的知识像两个紧紧相连的孪生子，一跃而入这个世界。也许这就是亚当所陷入的命运：知道善恶，也就是说，借着恶来认识善。既然人的处境如今就是这样，若没有对恶的认识，哪里还有选择的智慧、克制的节操？一个人能够认清并审视恶，连同它所有的诱饵与表面的欢乐，却仍然能戒绝，仍然能分辨，仍然能选取真正更好的东西，他才是真正征战中的基督徒。

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness. Which was the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas, describing true temperance under the person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain. Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.

我不能称赞一种逃避的、幽闭的德行，它没有经过操练，没有呼吸过，从不出击去面对它的对手，反倒从赛场上悄悄溜走，而那不朽的花冠，是要在尘土与炎热中奔跑才能赢得的。我们来到这世上的时候，带来的确实不是纯洁，而毋宁说是不洁；使我们纯洁的是考验，而考验来自相反的东西。所以，一种德行若在对恶的省察上还只是个雏儿，不知道恶向它的追随者许诺的极致是什么，就拒绝了它，那只是一种空白的德行，而不是纯洁的德行；它的洁白，不过是浮在表面的白。正因为如此，我们那位明智而严肃的诗人斯宾塞（我敢让人知道，我认为他是比司各脱或阿奎那更好的老师），在借居恩之名描写真正的节制时，让他和他的朝圣向导一同穿过财神的洞穴和尘世极乐之亭，好让他看见、知道，却仍然戒绝。既然认识和审视恶，在这世上对于造就人的德行如此必要，审查谬误对于确证真理如此必要，那么，还有什么办法比阅读各种论著、聆听各种道理，更安全、更少危险地去探查罪恶与虚妄的领域呢？这就是不加拣择地读书所能得到的好处。

If every action, which is good or evil in man at ripe years, were to be under pittance and prescription and compulsion, what were virtue but a name, what praise could be then due to well-doing, what gramercy to be sober, just, or continent? Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to transgress; foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?

如果一个成年人的每一个善行或恶行，都要受到配给、规定和强制，那么德行岂不只剩一个名字？行善还有什么值得称赞，清醒、公正、节制还有什么值得感谢？许多人抱怨神意，怪它容许亚当犯罪；愚蠢的舌头啊！上帝给了他理性，也就给了他选择的自由，因为理性就是选择；否则他就只是一个人造的亚当，就像木偶戏里的那个亚当。我们自己也不看重出于强迫的服从、爱或馈赠：所以上帝让他自由，在他面前放了一个诱惑之物，几乎总在他眼前；他的功绩就在于此，他应得的报偿、他的克制所应得的称赞，也在于此。上帝为什么要在我们里面造出激情，在我们周围造出欢乐，岂不正是因为这些东西调和得当，便是德行的原料？

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity, forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint.

真理确曾随着她神圣的主人来到世上，那是一个完美的形体，看上去无比荣耀；但当他升天之后，他的使徒们也相继长眠，立刻就兴起了一伙邪恶的骗子，就像故事里埃及的提丰和他的同谋对待善良的奥西里斯那样，他们抓住童贞的真理，把她美丽的形体砍成千万碎片，撒向四方的风中。从那时起，真理忧伤的朋友们，凡是敢于露面的，都效法伊西丝寻找奥西里斯残破遗体时的那份细心，四处奔走，一块一块地拾起，能找到多少就拾起多少。上下两院的诸位，我们至今还没有找全，在她的主人再来之前也永远找不全；那时他会把每一处关节、每一块肢体都聚拢起来，塑成一个不朽的、可爱而完美的形象。不要让这些出版许可的禁令站在每一个有机会的地方，阻止、搅扰那些仍在寻找、仍在为我们那位殉道圣者残破的身体料理丧仪的人。

We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament, where they may be seen evening or morning? The light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge.

我们夸耀自己的光明；但如果我们不明智地看待太阳本身，它就会把我们击入黑暗。谁能辨认那些常常隐没在日光中的行星，那些与太阳同升同落的最亮的星辰，直到它们的轨道作相反的运行，把它们带到天穹中一个在黄昏或清晨可以看见的位置？我们所得到的光，不是给我们永远盯着看的，而是要我们借着它，去发现更远处、我们的知识还没有到达的事物。

Behold now this vast city: a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks; had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already.

看这座广大的城市吧：一座避难之城，自由的宅邸，四围有他的护佑环绕；战争的作坊里醒着的铁砧与锤子，为保卫被围困的真理而锻造武装正义的甲片与器械，也不比这里的笔和头脑更多：人们坐在勤读的灯旁，沉思，探索，反复琢磨新的观念与思想，要把它们献给即将到来的改革，作为他们的敬意与忠诚；另一些人同样迅速地阅读，检验一切，服膺于理性与说服的力量。对一个如此易于教化、如此倾心于求知的民族，还能要求什么呢？这样一片温顺而丰饶的土壤，除了明智而忠实的劳作者，还缺什么，就能造就一个有知识的民族，一个由先知、贤人和杰出之士组成的民族？我们算着离收获还有五个多月；其实用不了五个星期；只要我们肯抬起眼睛，就会看见田野已经发白了。

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

哪里有强烈的求知欲，哪里就必然有许多争论、许多写作、许多意见；因为在好人身上，意见不过是正在形成中的知识。

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

我仿佛在心中看见一个高贵而强大的民族，像一个大力士睡醒之后那样站起身来，抖动她不可战胜的鬈发；我仿佛看见她像一只鹰，正在换羽、焕发她强健的青春，在正午最强的光芒下点亮她不被眩惑的双眼，在天上光辉的源泉处洗净、擦亮她久受损伤的视力；而一群胆怯的、成群结队的鸟，还有那些喜爱黄昏的鸟，一齐吵吵嚷嚷地扑腾，惊讶于她的用意，用它们嫉妒的聒噪预言这将是一个教派林立、分裂丛生的年头。

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

给我自由，让我按照良心去求知、去表达、去自由地论辩，这是高于一切的自由。

And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.

即使所有的教义之风都被放出来，在大地上吹拂，只要真理在场，我们用许可和禁止去怀疑她的力量，就是在伤害她。让她和虚假搏斗吧；谁曾见过真理在自由而公开的交锋中落败？驳倒虚假，才是最好、最可靠的压制。