On Thinking for Oneself

A library may be very large; but if it is in disorder, it is not so useful as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way, a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered. For it is only when a man looks at his knowledge from all sides, and combines the things he knows by comparing truth with truth, that he obtains a complete hold over it and gets it into his power. A man cannot turn over anything in his mind unless he knows it; he should, therefore, learn something; but it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.

一座图书馆可以很大，但如果它杂乱无章，就不如一座虽小却整理得井井有条的图书馆有用。同样，一个人可以有大量的知识，但如果他没有亲自把它们想透、加以消化，它们的价值就远不如他彻底思考过的少得多的知识。因为只有当一个人从各个方面审视自己的知识，把真理与真理相比较，把他所知道的东西结合起来，他才能完全掌握它，使它为己所用。一个人不知道的东西，他无法在心里翻来覆去地琢磨；所以他应当学些东西；但只有当他把它琢磨透了，才可以说他知道了它。

Reading and learning are things that anyone can do of his own free will; but not so thinking. Thinking must be kindled, like a fire by a draught; it must be sustained by some interest in the matter in hand. This interest may be of purely objective kind, or merely subjective. The latter comes into play only in things that concern us personally. Objective interest is confined to heads that think by nature; to whom thinking is as natural as breathing; and they are very rare. This is why most men of learning show so little of it.

读书和学习是任何人都可以随意去做的事；思考却不然。思考必须被点燃，就像火要靠一阵风来引燃；它必须靠对眼前事情的某种兴趣来维持。这种兴趣可以是纯客观的，也可以只是主观的。后者只在与我们切身相关的事情上起作用。客观的兴趣只属于天生会思考的头脑，对他们来说，思考就像呼吸一样自然；而这样的人非常稀少。这就是为什么大多数有学问的人很少显出思考的样子。

It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind by thinking for oneself, as compared with reading. It carries on and intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that reading forces alien thoughts upon the mind—thoughts which are as foreign to the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is thus entirely under compulsion from without; it is driven to think this or that, though for the moment it may not have the slightest impulse or inclination to do so.

自己思考与阅读对心灵产生的效果差别之大，令人难以置信。它延续并加深了两种心灵之间原本的差异，正是这种差异使一个去思考、另一个去阅读。我的意思是，阅读把外来的思想强加给心灵，这些思想与心灵此刻的倾向和心境格格不入，就像印章与它在上面盖下印记的蜡格格不入一样。心灵于是完全受着外来的强迫；它被驱使着去想这个或那个，虽然此刻它也许丝毫没有这样想的冲动或意愿。

But when a man thinks for himself, he follows the impulse of his own mind, which is determined for him at the time, either by his environment or some particular recollection. The visible world of a man's surroundings does not, as reading does, impress a single definite thought upon his mind, but merely gives the matter and occasion which lead him to think what is appropriate to his nature and present temper. So it is, that much reading deprives the mind of all elasticity; it is like keeping a spring continually under pressure. The safest way of having no thoughts of one's own is to take up a book every moment one has nothing else to do. It is this practice which explains why erudition makes most men more stupid and silly than they are by nature, and prevents their writings obtaining any measure of success. They remain, in Pope's words:

而当一个人自己思考时，他遵循的是自己心灵的冲动，这冲动此时或由他的环境、或由某个特别的回忆所决定。一个人周围可见的世界，并不像阅读那样把一个单一、确定的思想印在他的心上，而只是提供材料和契机，引他去想那些与他的天性和当下心境相合的东西。所以，读得太多会使心灵失去一切弹性；就像一根弹簧一直被压着。要保证自己没有任何思想，最稳妥的办法，就是一有空闲就拿起一本书。正是这种习惯说明了，为什么博学使大多数人比他们天生的样子更愚蠢、更呆傻，并使他们的著作得不到任何成功。他们依然如蒲柏所说：

For ever reading, never to be read!

永远在读，永远不被人读！

Men of learning are those who have done their reading in the pages of a book. Thinkers and men of genius are those who have gone straight to the book of Nature; it is they who have enlightened the world and carried humanity further on its way. If a man's thoughts are to have truth and life in them, they must, after all, be his own fundamental thoughts; for these are the only ones that he can fully and wholly understand. To read another's thoughts is like taking the leavings of a meal to which we have not been invited, or putting on the clothes which some unknown visitor has laid aside. The thought we read is related to the thought which springs up in ourselves, as the fossil-impress of some prehistoric plant to a plant as it buds forth in spring-time.

有学问的人，是那些在书页里读过书的人。思想家和天才，是那些直接走向自然之书的人；正是他们启迪了世界，推动人类沿着它的道路向前。一个人的思想若要有真理和生命，归根结底必须是他自己的根本思想；因为只有这些，他才能完完全全地理解。读别人的思想，就像吃一顿我们没有受到邀请的宴席剩下的残羹，或者穿上某个不相识的客人脱下的衣服。我们读到的思想与我们自己心中生出的思想之间的关系，就像某种史前植物的化石印痕与一株在春天发芽的植物之间的关系。

Reading is nothing more than a substitute for thought of one's own. It means putting the mind into leading-strings. The multitude of books serves only to show how many false paths there are, and how widely astray a man may wander if he follows any of them. But he who is guided by his genius, he who thinks for himself, who thinks spontaneously and exactly, possesses the only compass by which he can steer aright. A man should read only when his own thoughts stagnate at their source, which will happen often enough even with the best of minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the purpose of scaring away one's own original thoughts is sin against the Holy Spirit. It is like running away from Nature to look at a museum of dried plants or gaze at a landscape in copperplate.

阅读不过是自己思考的代用品。它意味着给心灵套上学步带。众多的书籍只是表明，有多少条错误的路，一个人若跟着其中任何一条走，会迷失得多远。可是一个由自己的天赋引导、自己思考、自发而准确地思考的人，却握着唯一能让他走对方向的罗盘。一个人只应当在自己的思想源头枯竭停滞的时候才去读书，这种情形即使在最好的头脑那里也常常发生。反之，拿起一本书来赶走自己原本的思想，是对圣灵的冒犯。那就像从大自然跑开，去看一座干枯植物的标本馆，或者去凝视一幅铜版画上的风景。

A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom, after spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for himself and adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared himself the trouble. But even so, it is a hundred times more valuable if he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. For it is only when we gain our knowledge in this way that it enters as an integral part, a living member, into the whole system of our thought; that it stands in complete and firm relation with what we know; that it is understood with all that underlies it and follows from it; that it wears the color, the precise shade, the distinguishing mark, of our own way of thinking; that it comes exactly at the right time, just as we felt the necessity for it; that it stands fast and cannot be forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the interpretation, of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves so that we may really possess it:

一个人花了大量的时间和辛苦，自己反复思考，在思想上再加思想，也许发现了一部分真理或智慧；有时也可能发生这样的事：他本可以在一本书里现成地找到这一切，省去这番辛苦。但即使如此，他自己想出来的，也要宝贵一百倍。因为只有当我们以这种方式获得知识，它才会作为一个不可分割的部分、一个活的肢体，进入我们整个思想体系；它才会与我们所知道的东西处于完全而牢固的关系之中；它才会连同它的一切根据和一切推论一起被理解；它才会带着我们自己思维方式的颜色、精确的色调和独特的标记；它才会恰好在合适的时候到来，正当我们感到需要它的时候；它才会站得住，不会被忘记。这正是歌德那句忠告最完美的运用，不，最完美的阐释：我们要亲自去赢得我们的遗产，才能真正拥有它：

Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, / Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen.

你从祖先那里继承的东西，要去赢得它，才能真正拥有它。（Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, / Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen.）

The man who thinks for himself, forms his own opinions and learns the authorities for them only later on, when they serve but to strengthen his belief in them and in himself. But the book-philosopher starts from the authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their opinions, and so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an automaton made up of anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who thinks for himself creates a work like a living man as made by Nature. For the work comes into being as a man does; the thinking mind is impregnated from without, and it then forms and bears its child.

自己思考的人，先形成自己的意见，后来才去了解支持这些意见的权威，那时权威只会加强他对这些意见和对自己的信心。而书本哲学家却从权威出发。他读别人的书，收集他们的意见，于是给自己拼成一个整体，这个整体像一具用血肉以外的任何东西拼成的自动机。相反，自己思考的人所创造的作品，像大自然造出的一个活人。因为作品的诞生与人的诞生一样：思考的心灵从外面受孕，然后孕育并生下它的孩子。

Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning.

仅仅学来的真理，就像一只假肢、一颗假牙、一个蜡做的鼻子；顶多像一个用别人的肉做成的鼻子；它附在我们身上，只因为被装了上去。而通过我们自己思考得来的真理，就像天生的肢体；只有它才真正属于我们。这就是思想家与单纯的博学者之间的根本区别。自己思考的人在精神上的造诣，就像一幅精美的画，明暗正确，色调统一，颜色完全和谐；它是逼真的。而单纯的博学者在精神上的造诣，则像一块大调色板，满是各种颜色，顶多排列得有条有理，却没有和谐、没有联系、没有意义。

Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own. To think with one's own head is always to aim at developing a coherent whole—a system, even though it be not a strictly complete one; and nothing hinders this so much as too strong a current of others' thoughts, such as comes of continual reading. These thoughts, springing every one of them from different minds, belonging to different systems, and tinged with different colors, never of themselves flow together into an intellectual whole; they never form a unity of knowledge, or insight, or conviction; but, rather, fill the head with a Babylonian confusion of tongues. The mind that is over-loaded with alien thought is thus deprived of all clear insight, and so well-nigh disorganized. This is a state of things observable in many men of learning; and it makes them inferior in sound sense, correct judgment and practical tact, to many illiterate persons, who, after obtaining a little knowledge from without, by means of experience, intercourse with others, and a small amount of reading, have always subordinated it to, and embodied it with, their own thought.

阅读是用别人的头脑代替自己的头脑去思考。用自己的头脑思考，总是要发展出一个连贯的整体，一个体系，即使它并不严格完整；而最妨碍这一点的，莫过于一股太强的他人思想之流，就像不停的阅读所带来的那样。这些思想每一个都出自不同的心灵，属于不同的体系，带着不同的颜色，它们自己永远不会汇成一个精神的整体；它们永远不会形成知识、洞见或信念的统一，反倒在头脑里塞满一片巴别塔式的语言混乱。被外来思想塞得太满的心灵，因此失去了一切清晰的洞察，几乎陷于瓦解。这种情形在许多有学问的人身上都可以看到；它使他们在健全的理智、正确的判断和实际的分寸上，不如许多不识字的人；那些人从外面得到一点知识，靠的是经验、与人交往和少量阅读，却总是让这些知识服从于、融入于他们自己的思想。

The really scientific thinker does the same thing as these illiterate persons, but on a larger scale. Although he has need of much knowledge, and so must read a great deal, his mind is nevertheless strong enough to master it all, to assimilate and incorporate it with the system of his thoughts, and so to make it fit in with the organic unity of his insight, which, though vast, is always growing. And in the process, his own thought, like the bass in an organ, always dominates everything and is never drowned by other tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere antiquarian lore; where shreds of music, as it were, in every key, mingle confusedly, and no fundamental note is heard at all.

真正科学的思想家做的也是同样的事，只是规模更大。虽然他需要很多知识，因而必须大量阅读，他的心灵却足够强大，能够掌握这一切，加以吸收，并入他的思想体系，使之契合于他那虽然广大、却一直在生长的洞见的有机统一。在这个过程中，他自己的思想就像管风琴里的低音，始终主导着一切，从不被别的音调淹没；而在那些装满了纯粹古董学问的头脑里，就像有各种调子的音乐碎片乱糟糟地混在一起，根本听不到一个基音。

Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom from books, are like people who have obtained precise information about a country from the descriptions of many travellers. Such people can tell a great deal about it; but, after all, they have no connected, clear, and profound knowledge of its real condition. But those who have spent their lives in thinking, resemble the travellers themselves; they alone really know what they are talking about; they are acquainted with the actual state of affairs, and are quite at home in the subject.

那些一辈子读书、从书本里取得智慧的人，就像从许多旅行者的描述中获得某个国家精确资料的人。这样的人能讲出许多关于那个国家的事；但归根结底，他们对它的真实状况没有连贯、清晰而深刻的认识。而那些一辈子思考的人，就像旅行者本人；只有他们真正知道自己在说什么；他们熟悉事情的实际状况，对这个题目了如指掌。

The thinker stands in the same relation to the ordinary book-philosopher as an eye-witness does to the historian; he speaks from direct knowledge of his own. That is why all those who think for themselves come, at bottom, to much the same conclusion. The differences they present are due to their different points of view; and when these do not affect the matter, they all speak alike. They merely express the result of their own objective perception of things. There are many passages in my works which I have given to the public only after some hesitation, because of their paradoxical nature; and afterwards I have experienced a pleasant surprise in finding the same opinion recorded in the works of great men who lived long ago.

思想家与普通的书本哲学家之间的关系，就像一个目击者与一位历史学家之间的关系；他凭自己的直接认识说话。正因为如此，所有自己思考的人，归根结底都得出了差不多相同的结论。他们表现出的差异，来自他们不同的立足点；当这些立足点不影响问题本身时，他们说的都一样。他们只是表达了自己对事物的客观认识的结果。我的著作中有许多段落，因为它们的悖论性质，我是犹豫再三才公之于众的；后来我惊喜地发现，在很久以前的伟人著作里，记载着同样的见解。

The book-philosopher merely reports what one person has said and another meant, or the objections raised by a third, and so on. He compares different opinions, ponders, criticises, and tries to get at the truth of the matter; herein on a par with the critical historian. For instance, he will set out to inquire whether Leibnitz was not for some time a follower of Spinoza, and questions of a like nature. The curious student of such matters may find conspicuous examples of what I mean in Herbart's Analytical Elucidation of Morality and Natural Right, and in the same author's Letters on Freedom. Surprise may be felt that a man of the kind should put himself to so much trouble; for, on the face of it, if he would only examine the matter for himself, he would speedily attain his object by the exercise of a little thought. But there is a small difficulty in the way. It does not depend upon his own will. A man can always sit down and read, but not—think. It is with thoughts as with men; they cannot always be summoned at pleasure; we must wait for them to come. Thought about a subject must appear of itself, by a happy and harmonious combination of external stimulus with mental temper and attention; and it is just that which never seems to come to these people.

书本哲学家只是报道某人说了什么、另一个人是什么意思，或者第三个人提出了什么反对意见，如此等等。他比较不同的意见，加以掂量、批评，试图弄清事情的真相；在这一点上，他与考据派的历史学家不相上下。比如，他会着手探究莱布尼茨是不是有一段时间追随过斯宾诺莎，以及诸如此类的问题。对这类事情好奇的学者，可以在赫尔巴特的《道德与自然权利的分析阐明》和同一作者的《论自由书简》里找到我所说的显著例子。人们也许会奇怪，这样一个人竟会给自己找这么多麻烦；因为显然，只要他肯亲自去审察那件事，稍稍动一动脑筋，很快就能达到目的。但这里有一个小小的困难。这并不取决于他自己的意志。一个人随时可以坐下来读书，却不能随时坐下来思考。思想和人一样，不能随叫随到；我们必须等它们自己来。关于一个题目的思想，必须由外在的刺激与心境和注意力恰好和谐地结合，自己显现出来；而这恰恰是这些人似乎永远等不到的。

This truth may be illustrated by what happens in the case of matters affecting our own personal interest. When it is necessary to come to some resolution in a matter of that kind, we cannot well sit down at any given moment and think over the merits of the case and make up our mind; for, if we try to do so, we often find ourselves unable, at that particular moment, to keep our mind fixed upon the subject; it wanders off to other things. Aversion to the matter in question is sometimes to blame for this. In such a case we should not use force, but wait for the proper frame of mind to come of itself. It often comes unexpectedly and returns again and again; and the variety of temper in which we approach it at different moments puts the matter always in a fresh light. It is this long process which is understood by the term a ripe resolution. For the work of coming to a resolution must be distributed; and in the process much that is overlooked at one moment occurs to us at another; and the repugnance vanishes when we find, as we usually do, on a closer inspection, that things are not so bad as they seemed.

这个道理可以用涉及我们个人利益的事情来说明。当必须在这类事情上作出决定时，我们不能随便在哪个时刻坐下来，把事情的利弊想一遍，然后拿定主意；因为如果我们这样尝试，常常会发现自己在那个特定的时刻无法把心思集中在这件事上；它会游移到别的事情上去。对这件事的厌恶，有时是其中的原因。在这种情况下，我们不应当强迫自己，而应当等待合适的心境自己到来。它常常出乎意料地到来，并且一再回来；我们在不同的时刻以不同的心境去面对它，总能使事情显出新的面貌。“深思熟虑的决定”这个说法，指的正是这个漫长的过程。因为作出决定的工作必须分散进行；在这个过程中，一个时刻忽略了的许多东西，会在另一个时刻想到；而当我们像通常那样，经过更仔细的审视，发现事情并不像看上去那么糟糕时，厌恶也就消失了。

This rule applies to the life of the intellect as well as to matters of practice. A man must wait for the right moment. Not even the greatest mind is capable of thinking for itself at all times. Hence a great mind does well to spend its leisure in reading, which, as I have said, is a substitute for thought; it brings stuff to the mind by letting another person do the thinking; although that is always done in a manner not our own. Therefore, a man should not read too much, in order that his mind may not become accustomed to the substitute and thereby forget the reality; that it may not form the habit of walking in well-worn paths; nor by following an alien course of thought grow a stranger to its own. Least of all should a man quite withdraw his gaze from the real world for the mere sake of reading; as the impulse and the temper which prompt to thought of one's own come far oftener from the world of reality than from the world of books. The real life that a man sees before him is the natural subject of thought; and in its strength as the primary element of existence, it can more easily than anything else rouse and influence the thinking mind.

这条规则既适用于实际事务，也适用于精神生活。一个人必须等待合适的时刻。即使是最伟大的头脑，也不能随时都自己思考。所以，一个伟大的头脑最好把闲暇用来读书，正如我说过的，读书是思考的代用品；它让别人替我们思考，从而给心灵带来材料；尽管那总是以一种不属于我们的方式进行的。所以，一个人不应当读得太多，免得他的心灵习惯了代用品，从而忘记了真东西；免得它养成走老路的习惯；免得它跟着别人的思路走，变得对自己的思路陌生。最不应该的，是为了读书而把目光完全从现实世界移开；因为促使人自己思考的冲动和心境，来自现实世界的远比来自书本世界的要多。一个人眼前看到的真实生活，是思考的天然对象；它作为存在的首要元素，比任何别的东西都更容易唤起、影响思考的心灵。

After these considerations, it will not be matter for surprise that a man who thinks for himself can easily be distinguished from the book-philosopher by the very way in which he talks, by his marked earnestness, and the originality, directness, and personal conviction that stamp all his thoughts and expressions. The book-philosopher, on the other hand, lets it be seen that everything he has is second-hand; that his ideas are like the lumber and trash of an old furniture-shop, collected together from all quarters. Mentally, he is dull and pointless—a copy of a copy. His literary style is made up of conventional, nay, vulgar phrases, and terms that happen to be current; in this respect much like a small State where all the money that circulates is foreign, because it has no coinage of its own.

有了这些考虑，一个自己思考的人很容易从他说话的方式上与书本哲学家区分开来，也就不足为奇了：他那显著的认真，他所有思想和言辞上所盖的独创、直接和个人信念的印记。而书本哲学家则让人看出他的一切都是二手的；他的观念就像一家旧家具店里的破烂杂物，是从四面八方收集来的。在精神上，他迟钝而没有锋芒，是一个摹本的摹本。他的文风由陈套的、不，庸俗的词句和碰巧流行的术语构成；在这一点上很像一个小国，那里流通的钱全是外国货币，因为它没有自己铸造的钱。

Mere experience can as little as reading supply the place of thought. It stands to thinking in the same relation in which eating stands to digestion and assimilation. When experience boasts that to its discoveries alone is due the advancement of the human race, it is as though the mouth were to claim the whole credit of maintaining the body in health.

单纯的经验也和阅读一样，不能代替思考。它与思考的关系，就像吃与消化、吸收的关系。当经验夸口说人类的进步全归功于它的发现时，就好比嘴巴要独揽维持身体健康的全部功劳。

The works of all truly capable minds are distinguished by a character of decision and definiteness, which means that they are clear and free from obscurity. A truly capable mind always knows definitely and clearly what it is that it wants to express, whether its medium is prose, verse, or music. Other minds are not decisive and not definite; and by this they may be known for what they are.

一切真正有能力的心灵所作的作品，都有一种果断与明确的特征，也就是说，它们清楚，不含混。一个真正有能力的心灵，无论它借助的是散文、诗还是音乐，总是确定而清楚地知道它想要表达的是什么。别的心灵不果断、不明确；人们由此就可以认出它们是什么。

The characteristic sign of a mind of the highest order is that it always judges at first hand. Everything it advances is the result of thinking for itself; and this is everywhere evident by the way in which it gives its thoughts utterance. Such a mind is like a Prince. In the realm of intellect its authority is imperial, whereas the authority of minds of a lower order is delegated only; as may be seen in their style, which has no independent stamp of its own.

最高等级的心灵的标志，是它总是根据第一手的材料作判断。它提出的一切，都是它自己思考的结果；这在它表达思想的方式上处处都看得出来。这样的心灵就像一位君王。在精神的领域里，它的权威是至高无上的；而较低等级的心灵，它们的权威只是委托的；这从它们的文风就可以看出，那里没有自己独立的印记。

Every one who really thinks for himself is so far like a monarch. His position is undelegated and supreme. His judgments, like royal decrees, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He acknowledges authority as little as a monarch admits a command; he subscribes to nothing but what he has himself authorized. The multitude of common minds, laboring under all sorts of current opinions, authorities, prejudices, is like the people, which silently obeys the law and accepts orders from above.

每一个真正自己思考的人，在这一点上都像一位君主。他的地位不是受托的，而是至高的。他的判断，像王室的诏令，出自他自己的主权，直接从他自身发出。他像君主不接受命令一样不承认权威；他只认可他自己批准过的东西。而大批庸常的心灵，背负着各种流行的意见、权威和偏见，就像默默服从法律、接受上面命令的百姓。

Those who are so zealous and eager to settle debated questions by citing authorities, are really glad when they are able to put the understanding and the insight of others into the field in place of their own, which are wanting. Their number is legion. For, as Seneca says, there is no man but prefers belief to the exercise of judgment—unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare. In their controversies such people make a promiscuous use of the weapon of authority, and strike out at one another with it. If any one chances to become involved in such a contest, he will do well not to try reason and argument as a mode of defence; for against a weapon of that kind these people are like Siegfrieds, with a skin of horn, and dipped in the flood of incapacity for thinking and judging. They will meet his attack by bringing up their authorities as a way of abashing him—argumentum ad verecundiam, and then cry out that they have won the battle.

那些热衷于引用权威来解决争议问题的人，其实很高兴能把别人的理解与洞见派上战场，代替他们自己所缺乏的理解与洞见。他们的人数多如军团。因为正如塞涅卡所说，人人都宁愿相信，而不愿判断：unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare。在争论中，这样的人滥用权威这件武器，用它彼此攻击。如果有人碰巧卷入这样一场争论，他最好不要用理性和论证来自卫；因为面对这种武器，这些人就像齐格弗里德一样，皮肤坚硬如角，又在无力思考与判断的洪流里浸过。他们会搬出他们的权威来羞辱他，以应对他的进攻，这就是“诉诸敬畏的论证”（argumentum ad verecundiam），然后高喊他们打赢了。

In the real world, be it never so fair, favorable and pleasant, we always live subject to the law of gravity which we have to be constantly overcoming. But in the world of intellect we are disembodied spirits, held in bondage to no such law, and free from penury and distress. Thus it is that there exists no happiness on earth like that which, at the auspicious moment, a fine and fruitful mind finds in itself.

在现实世界里，不管它多么美好、多么顺遂、多么愉快，我们总是生活在重力定律之下，必须不断地克服它。而在精神的世界里，我们是没有肉体的灵魂，不受任何这样的定律束缚，没有贫困与苦恼。所以，世上没有任何幸福能比得上一个美好而丰饶的心灵在适当的时刻从自身中所找到的幸福。

The presence of a thought is like the presence of a woman we love. We fancy we shall never forget the thought nor become indifferent to the dear one. But out of sight, out of mind! The finest thought runs the risk of being irrevocably forgotten if we do not write it down, and the darling of being deserted if we do not marry her.

一个思想的出现，就像一位我们所爱的女子的出现。我们以为自己永远不会忘记那个思想，永远不会对那亲爱的人变得冷淡。可是眼不见，心不念！最好的思想，如果我们不把它写下来，就有被永远遗忘的危险；那位心上人，如果我们不娶她，也有被抛弃的危险。

There are plenty of thoughts which are valuable to the man who thinks them; but only few of them which have enough strength to produce repercussive or reflex action—I mean, to win the reader's sympathy after they have been put on paper.

有许多思想对想到它们的人是有价值的；但其中只有很少几个有足够的力量产生回响或反作用，我是说，在写到纸上之后，能赢得读者的共鸣。

But still it must not be forgotten that a true value attaches only to what a man has thought in the first instance for his own case. Thinkers may be classed according as they think chiefly for their own case or for that of others. The former are the genuine independent thinkers; they really think and are really independent; they are the true philosophers; they alone are in earnest. The pleasure and the happiness of their existence consists in thinking. The others are the sophists; they want to seem that which they are not, and seek their happiness in what they hope to get from the world. They are in earnest about nothing else. To which of these two classes a man belongs may be seen by his whole style and manner. Lichtenberg is an example for the former class; Herder, there can be no doubt, belongs to the second.

但仍然不可忘记，真正的价值只属于一个人首先为他自己的情形而想的东西。思想家可以按照他们主要是为自己的情形思考、还是为别人的情形思考来分类。前者是真正独立的思想家；他们真正在思考，真正独立；他们是真正的哲学家；只有他们是认真的。他们存在的乐趣与幸福就在于思考。另一种人是诡辩家；他们想显得是他们所不是的样子，在他们希望从世界那里得到的东西里寻求幸福。除此之外，他们对什么都不认真。一个人属于这两类中的哪一类，从他整个的风格和举止中就可以看出。利希滕贝格是前一类的例子；赫尔德，毫无疑问，属于后一类。

When one considers how vast and how close to us is the problem of existence—this equivocal, tortured, fleeting, dream-like existence of ours—so vast and so close that a man no sooner discovers it than it overshadows and obscures all other problems and aims; and when one sees how all men, with few and rare exceptions, have no clear consciousness of the problem, nay, seem to be quite unaware of its presence, but busy themselves with everything rather than with this, and live on, taking no thought but for the passing day and the hardly longer span of their own personal future, either expressly discarding the problem or else over-ready to come to terms with it by adopting some system of popular metaphysics and letting it satisfy them; when, I say, one takes all this to heart, one may come to the opinion that man may be said to be a thinking being only in a very remote sense, and henceforth feel no special surprise at any trait of human thoughtlessness or folly; but know, rather, that the normal man's intellectual range of vision does indeed extend beyond that of the brute, whose whole existence is, as it were, a continual present, with no consciousness of the past or the future, but not such an immeasurable distance as is generally supposed.

当一个人想到存在的问题是多么巨大、离我们多么近，我们这种模棱两可、饱受折磨、转瞬即逝、梦一般的存在；它如此巨大、如此切近，一个人一旦发现了它，它就会遮蔽、掩盖其他一切问题和目标；当一个人看到，除了极少数例外，所有人都没有清楚地意识到这个问题，不，甚至似乎全然没有察觉它的存在，而是忙于别的一切，唯独不管这个，只顾眼前的一天、只顾自己那几乎同样短暂的个人前程，或者明确地把这个问题丢在一边，或者过于轻易地与它妥协，采纳某种通俗的形而上学体系，以此来满足自己；当一个人把这一切放在心上，他就可能得出这样的看法：人只在非常遥远的意义上才可以被称为思考的存在，从此对人类任何轻率或愚蠢的表现都不再特别惊讶；而是明白，常人的精神视野确实超出了动物的视野，动物的整个存在可以说是一个持续的现在，意识不到过去或将来，但人与动物的距离，并不像通常以为的那样远不可测。