Love, Knowledge, and Pity
Bertrand Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, havegoverned my life: the longing for love, the search forknowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither andthither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish,reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it bring ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often havesacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relievesloneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of theworld into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union oflove I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poetshave imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this iswhat—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. Ihave to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power bywhich 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 pitybrought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine,victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the wholeworld of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long toalleviate the 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 wereoffered me.
爱,知识和同情
伯特兰·罗素
三种单纯又极其强烈的激情,支配了我的一生:对爱的渴望,对知识的寻求,对人类苦难和无法承受的同情。这些激情像强劲的风任意把我吹向四方,越过极度痛苦的深海,濒临绝望的边缘。
我寻求爱,首先是因为它带来欢乐——这么巨大的欢乐,我常常愿奉献出余下的生命,以换取几小时的这种乐趣。我寻求爱,其次是因为它消除了孤独——在这可怕的孤独中,一个颤抖的意识越过世界的边缘,窥伺到了冷酷而又深不可测的死亡深渊。我寻求爱,还因为通过爱的结合,我在一个神秘的缩影里,看到了圣者与诗人想象中预示的天国。这就是我寻求的而且,虽然它对人生似乎过于美好,但却已是——最终——我所找到的。
我以同样的激情去寻求知识。我要理解人们的心灵。我要知道为何星光闪烁。我试图领会使数的概念支配一切变动的毕达哥拉斯哲学的魅力。这些,我做的不多,只做了一点点。
爱与知识在可能得到的情况下使我上升到天国。但是同情总是把我拉回现实。痛苦的哀嚎之声回荡在我的心中。饥饿的儿童,受压迫者欺凌的人们,被儿女们看成可憎的重负的无依无靠的老人,以及充满了孤独,贫穷,苦难的整个世界,对人类应有的生活是一个嘲弄。我渴望减少邪恶。但是,我做不到,因而我也经受痛苦。
这就是我的一生。我发现值得这样生活。如果让我再生,我还要愉快地再一次这样生活。