《美国学者》爱默生
爱默生—美国学者—中英译文
主席先生，先生们：在开始第二个文学年之际，我谨向你们致意。
我们过去的一周年是充满希望的，但也许是努力尚且不够的一年。
我们相聚不是为了如古西腊人那样，进行力量和技巧的较量，朗诵过往历史，悲剧或颂词，也不是为了像中世纪行吟诗人那样为爱情和诗歌而聚集，更不是如当代在英国和欧洲的都市里为科学的进步举行聚会。
目前为止，我们聚会的节日还仅仅是一个良好的象征，它象征着我们由于忙碌而无心于文字的人民中对文学之爱的延续。
就此而言，这个象征弥足珍贵，有如不能被损毁的人类本能。
也许这样的时代已经到来，我们的聚会就要也应该是另番模样。
在这样的时代里，这个大陆的沉睡的心智睁开惺松睡眼，它给这世界带来久已期盼的贡献，这贡献远胜于机械性的技巧的发明。
我们依赖于人的日子，我们心智向其他大陆智慧学习的学徒期，这一切就要结束了。
成百万簇拥着我们涌向生活的同胞，他们不可能永远的满足于食用异国智慧收获的陈粮。
全新的事件和行动正在发生，这一切需要被歌唱，它们也要歌唱自己。
有谁会怀疑，诗歌将会获得新生，并将引领一个新时代？就如天文学家所预言，在我们的天穹之顶的天琴大星将会成为恒艮千年的新北极星。
就是抱有这样的期望，我接受这个讲演题目－－不仅是在用词上，而是由于时代和我们组织的性质所决定的－－美国学者。
时光流转，我们又翻开它传记的新篇章。
让我们来探询，新的时代和事件，在它特质上和对它的期望里又添了什么光色。
有这样一个久远不可考的传说－－它有着我们意想不到的智慧。
起初，众神将一个人分为众人，使他可以更好的自助，如同要分出手指以便更好的使用手一样。
这古老的传说蕴涵着一个长新而高尚的信念。
这就是：有这么一个大写的人，你可以在某些个体的人或通过一种能力看到部分的他，但只有观照整个社会才能找到他的全部。
这个大写的人不是农夫，不是一个教授或着工程师，他是他们的总和。
这个人是传教士，他是学者，他是政治家，他是生产者也是战士。
这些功能在分工的社会形态里被一一分予不同的个体。
爱默生论美国学者[整理]
![爱默生论美国学者[整理]](https://img.taocdn.com/s3/m/4c1f7b10cd1755270722192e453610661ed95aa4.png)
爱默生论美国学者1837年8月31日，爱默生在美国大学生联谊会上以《论美国学者》为题发表演讲，抨击美国社会中灵魂从属于金钱的拜金主义和资本主义的劳动分工使人异化为物的现象，强调人的价值；他提出学者的任务是自由而勇敢地从表相中揭示真实，以鼓舞人、提高人和引导人；他号召发扬民族自尊心，反对一味追随外国学说。
这一演讲轰动一时，对美国民族文化的兴起产生了巨大影响，被誉为是美国“思想上的独立宣言”。
主席先生，先生们：在开始第二个文学年之际，我谨向你们致意。
我们过去的一周年是充满希望的，但也许是努力尚且不够的一年。
我们相聚不是为了如古希腊人那样，进行力量和技巧的较量，朗诵过往历史，悲剧或颂词，也不是为了像中世纪行吟诗人那样为爱情和诗歌而聚集，更不是如当代在英国和欧洲的都市里为科学的进步举行聚会。
目前为止，我们聚会的节日还仅仅是一个良好的象征，它象征着我们由于忙碌而无心于文字的人民中对文学之爱的延续。
就此而言，这个象征弥足珍贵，有如不能被损毁的人类本能。
也许这样的时代已经到来，我们的聚会就要也应该是另番模样。
在这样的时代里，这个大陆的沉睡的心智睁开惺松睡眼，它给这世界带来久已期盼的贡献，这贡献远胜于机械性的技巧的发明。
我们依赖于人的日子，我们心智向其他大陆智慧学习的学徒期，这一切就要结束了。
成百万簇拥着我们涌向生活的同胞，他们不可能永远的满足于食用异国智慧收获的陈粮。
全新的事件和行动正在发生，这一切需要被歌唱，它们也要歌唱自己。
有谁会怀疑，诗歌将会获得新生，并将引领一个新时代？就如天文学家所预言，在我们的天穹之顶的天琴大星将会成为恒亘千年的新北极星?就是抱有这样的期望，我接受这个讲演题目－－不仅是在用词上，而是由于时代和我们组织的性质所决定的－－美国学者。
时光流转，我们又翻开它传记的新篇章。
让我们来探询，新的时代和事件，在它特质上和对它的期望里又添了什么光色。
有这样一个久远不可考的传说－－它有着我们意想不到的智慧。
论美国学者【美国】爱默生(1803～1882)
庭生活的意义，都是当代的题材。这是一个跃进。生命的暖流已经流入手指
脚尖，身体四肢都已活跃起来，这难道不是一种新的活力迹象吗？我不奢求
伟大的、遥远的、浪漫的事物，不追求意大利或阿拉伯的成就，不追求希腊
的艺术或普罗旺斯的吟游诗歌；我拥抱平凡，我要探索人所共知的平凡低下
瑕顾及文学的民族，仍然对文学存着一点爱好。因此，这点爱好有极宝贵的
意义，显示我们对文学一种永不泯灭的本能。但是，也许应该有点变化，而
且必会发生变化的时刻到了；这大陆上沉睡的知识分子早应觉醒，睁开沉重
的铁眼皮，向世界提供一些比机械技术更美好的事物，满足世界期待已久的
愿望。我们在学术上依赖别人，长期学习别国的日子快结束了。我们周围的
千千万万人，正投身在火热的生活中，不能总吃外国文化的残羹剩饭。我们
也有许多事变与活动，要我们去歌唱，它们也要歌唱自己。谁能怀疑诗歌在
新时代里将复兴？它像正在天顶熠炀闪耀的天琴星座那样，据天文学家报
告，终有一天将成为光照千古的明星，吉兆，它们已经透过诗歌和艺术、哲学和科
的事物。你们尽可占有古代和未来的世界，让我洞察今天的生活吧。我们要
从哪里去真正了解意义呢？那就是从桶中饭菜、锅里牛奶、街头小调、马路
新闻、目光一闪、身材形体、走路姿态——把这些微末琐事的终极道理写出
来，把隐藏于其中最崇高的精神因素写出来吧，因为最崇高的东西往往隐藏
在自然界最偏远最微末的地方。让我看到每件日常琐事都直接联系着一条永
学、教会和政府闪现出来。
这些征兆之一就是所谓国家最低层的阶级已通过运动提升了地位，这运
动也同时令文学呈现出值得注意和良好的态势。人们着意发掘并谱写成诗
爱默生—美国学者—中英译文
主席先生，先生们：在开始第二个文学年之际，我谨向你们致意。
我们过去的一周年是充满希望的，但也许是努力尚且不够的一年。
我们相聚不是为了如古西腊人那样，进行力量和技巧的较量，朗诵过往历史，悲剧或颂词，也不是为了像中世纪行吟诗人那样为爱情和诗歌而聚集，更不是如当代在英国和欧洲的都市里为科学的进步举行聚会。
目前为止，我们聚会的节日还仅仅是一个良好的象征，它象征着我们由于忙碌而无心于文字的人民中对文学之爱的延续。
就此而言，这个象征弥足珍贵，有如不能被损毁的人类本能。
也许这样的时代已经到来，我们的聚会就要也应该是另番模样。
在这样的时代里，这个大陆的沉睡的心智睁开惺松睡眼，它给这世界带来久已期盼的贡献，这贡献远胜于机械性的技巧的发明。
我们依赖于人的日子，我们心智向其他大陆智慧学习的学徒期，这一切就要结束了。
成百万簇拥着我们涌向生活的同胞，他们不可能永远的满足于食用异国智慧收获的陈粮。
全新的事件和行动正在发生，这一切需要被歌唱，它们也要歌唱自己。
有谁会怀疑，诗歌将会获得新生，并将引领一个新时代？就如天文学家所预言，在我们的天穹之顶的天琴大星将会成为恒艮千年的新北极星。
就是抱有这样的期望，我接受这个讲演题目－－不仅是在用词上，而是由于时代和我们组织的性质所决定的－－美国学者。
时光流转，我们又翻开它传记的新篇章。
让我们来探询，新的时代和事件，在它特质上和对它的期望里又添了什么光色。
有这样一个久远不可考的传说－－它有着我们意想不到的智慧。
起初，众神将一个人分为众人，使他可以更好的自助，如同要分出手指以便更好的使用手一样。
这古老的传说蕴涵着一个长新而高尚的信念。
这就是：有这么一个大写的人，你可以在某些个体的人或通过一种能力看到部分的他，但只有观照整个社会才能找到他的全部。
这个大写的人不是农夫，不是一个教授或着工程师，他是他们的总和。
这个人是传教士，他是学者，他是政治家，他是生产者也是战士。
这些功能在分工的社会形态里被一一分予不同的个体。
The_American_Scholar
The American Scholar,国外论知识和做学问写的最好的文章Emerson:The American Scholar1837年8月31日，爱默生在美国大学生联谊会上以《论美国学者》为题发表演讲，抨击美国社会中灵魂从属于金钱的拜金主义和资本主义的劳动分工使人异化为物的现象，强调人的价值；他提出学者的任务是自由而勇敢地从表相中揭示真实，以鼓舞人、提高人和引导人；他号召发扬民族自尊心，反对一味追随外国学说。
这一演讲轰动一时，对美国民族文化的兴起产生了巨大影响，被誉为是美国“思想上的独立宣言”。
这是Bantom classic 的版本，也可以算国外论知识和做学问写的最好的文章-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Mr. President and Gentlemen,I greet you on the re-commencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours; nor for the advancement of science, like our contemporaries in the British and European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more. As such, it is precious as the sign of an indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come, when it ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids, and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close.The millions, that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt, that poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years?In this hope, I accept the topic which not only usage, but the nature of our association, seem to prescribe to this day,--the AMERICAN SCHOLAR. Year by year, we come up hither to read one more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what light new days and events have thrown on his character, and his hopes.It is one of those fables, which, out of an unknown antiquity, convey an unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social state, these functions are parceled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies, that the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers. But unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship.In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker,or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the theory of his office is contained. Him nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs; him the future invites.Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master? But the old oracle said, `All things have two handles: beware of the wrong one.' In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in reference to the main influences he receives.I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and, after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find,--so entire, so boundless. Far, too, as her splendors shine, system on system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without centre, without circumference,--in the mass and in the particle, nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind. Classification begins. To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem. It presently learns, that, since the dawn of history, there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remoteparts. The ambitious soul sits down before each refractory fact; one after another, reduces all strange constitutions, all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on for ever to animate the last fibre of organization, the outskirts of nature, by insight.Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is suggested, that he and it proceed from one root; one is leaf and one is flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that Root? Is not that the soul of his soul?--A thought too bold,--a dream too wild. Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures,--when he has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. He shall see, that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal, and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,--learn the amount of this influence more conveniently,--by considering their value alone.The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of theproduct be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this.Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation,--the actof thought,--is transferred to the record. The poet chanting, was felt to be a divine man: henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit: henceforward it is settled, the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly, the book becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry, if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees.Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius;not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they,--let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his;--cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair.On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized nowfor two hundred years.Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must,--when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining, --we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful."It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,--with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, twoor three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also hadwellnigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some preestablished harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see.I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know, that, as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed, who had almost no other information than by the printed page. I only would say, that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always true, that, as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakespeare, only that least part,--only the authentic utterances of the oracle;-- all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's and Shakespeare's.Of course, there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.III. There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian,--as unfit for any handiwork or public labor, as a penknife for an axe. The so-called 'practical men'sneer at speculative men, as if, because they speculate or see, they could do nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy,--who are always, more universally than any other class, the scholars of their day,--are addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men they do not hear, but only a mincing and diluted speech. They are often virtually disfranchised; and, indeed, there are advocates for their celibacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.The world,--this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products. A strange process too, this, by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours.The actions and events of our childhood and youth, are now matters of calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so with our recent actions,--with the business which we now have in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet circulate through it.We no more feel or know it, than we feel the feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a part of life,--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In some contemplative hour, it detaches itself from the life like a ripe fruit, to become a thought of the mind. Instantly, it is raised, transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption. Henceforth it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub state, it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and is an angel of wisdom.So is there no fact, no event, in our private history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean. Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend and relative profession and party, town and country, nation and world, must also soar and sing.Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger and pine; nor trust the revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards, who, getting their livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smoking Dutchmen, for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, moved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish their merchantable stock. If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town,--in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. That great principle of Undulation in nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath; in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of the sea; in day and night; in heat and cold; and as yet more deeply ingrained in every atom and every fluid, is known to us under the name of Polarity,--these "fits of easy transmission and reflection," as Newton called them, are the law of nature because they are the law of spirit.The mind now thinks; now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a weariness,--he has always the resource to live. Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof. Those 'far from fame,' who dwell and act with him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and designed display. Time shall teach him, that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is gained in strength. Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comesthe helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature,out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, and by action. It remainsto say somewhat of his duties. They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. Flamsteed and Herschel, in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars with the praise of all men, and, the results being splendid and useful, honor is sure. But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind, which as yet no man has thought of as such, --watching days and months, sometimes, for a few facts; correcting still his old records;--must relinquish display and immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation, he must betray often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept,--how often! poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially to educated society. For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one, who raises himself from private considerations, and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye.He is the world's heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of actions,--these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men and events of to-day,--this he shall hear and promulgate.These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. He and he only knows the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some great decorum, some fetish of a government, some ephemeral trade, or war, or man, is cried up by half mankind and cried down by the other half, as if all depended on thisparticular up or down. The odds are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide his own time,--happy enough, if he can satisfy himself alone, that this day he has seen something truly. Success treads on every right step. For the instinct is sure, that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns, that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts, is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording them, is found to have recorded that, which men in crowded cities find true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank confessions, --his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses,--until he finds that he is the complement of his hearers;--that they drink his words because he fulfill for them their own nature; the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he finds, this is the most acceptable, most public, and universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every man feels, This is my music; this is myself.In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be,--free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, "without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing, which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption, that, like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin,--see the whelping of this lion,--which lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth defy it, and pass on superior. The world is his, who can see through its pretension.。
[整理版]论美国学者全文
![[整理版]论美国学者全文](https://img.taocdn.com/s3/m/c44dfe08c4da50e2524de518964bcf84b9d52d63.png)
论美国学者爱默生1837年8月31日，爱默生在美国大学生联谊会上以《论美国学者》为题发表演讲，抨击美国社会中灵魂从属于金钱的拜金主义和资本主义的劳动分工使人异化为物的现象，强调人的价值；他提出学者的任务是自由而勇敢地从表相中揭示真实，以鼓舞人、提高人和引导人；他号召发扬民族自尊心，反对一味追随外国学说。
这一演讲轰动一时，对美国民族文化的兴起产生了巨大影响，被誉为是美国“思想上的独立宣言”。
主席先生，先生们：在开始第二个文学年之际，我谨向你们致意。
我们过去的一周年是充满希望的，但也许是努力尚且不够的一年。
我们相聚不是为了如古希腊人那样，进行力量和技巧的较量，朗诵过往历史，悲剧或颂词，也不是为了像中世纪行吟诗人那样为爱情和诗歌而聚集，更不是如当代在英国和欧洲的都市里为科学的进步举行聚会。
目前为止，我们聚会的节日还仅仅是一个良好的象征，它象征着我们由于忙碌而无心于文字的人民中对文学之爱的延续。
就此而言，这个象征弥足珍贵，有如不能被损毁的人类本能。
也许这样的时代已经到来，我们的聚会就要也应该是另番模样。
在这样的时代里，这个大陆的沉睡的心智睁开惺松睡眼，它给这世界带来久已期盼的贡献，这贡献远胜于机械性的技巧的发明。
我们依赖于人的日子，我们心智向其他大陆智慧学习的学徒期，这一切就要结束了。
成百万簇拥着我们涌向生活的同胞，他们不可能永远的满足于食用异国智慧收获的陈粮。
全新的事件和行动正在发生，这一切需要被歌唱，它们也要歌唱自己。
有谁会怀疑，诗歌将会获得新生，并将引领一个新时代？就如天文学家所预言，在我们的天穹之顶的天琴大星将会成为恒亘千年的新北极星?就是抱有这样的期望，我接受这个讲演题目－－不仅是在用词上，而是由于时代和我们组织的性质所决定的－－美国学者。
时光流转，我们又翻开它传记的新篇章。
让我们来探询，新的时代和事件，在它特质上和对它的期望里又添了什么光色。
有这样一个久远不可考的传说－－它有着我们意想不到的智慧。
The American Scholar
The American Scholar,国外论知识和做学问写的最好的文章Emerson:The American Scholar1837年8月31日，爱默生在美国大学生联谊会上以《论美国学者》为题发表演讲，抨击美国社会中灵魂从属于金钱的拜金主义和资本主义的劳动分工使人异化为物的现象，强调人的价值；他提出学者的任务是自由而勇敢地从表相中揭示真实，以鼓舞人、提高人和引导人；他号召发扬民族自尊心，反对一味追随外国学说。
这一演讲轰动一时，对美国民族文化的兴起产生了巨大影响，被誉为是美国“思想上的独立宣言”。
这是Bantom classic 的版本，也可以算国外论知识和做学问写的最好的文章-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Mr. President and Gentlemen,I greet you on the re-commencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; f or parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours; nor for the advancement of science, like our contemporaries in the Br itish and European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongs t a people too busy to give to letters any more. As such, it is precious as the sign of an indestructible instinct. Perhaps the t ime is already come, when it ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids, and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanic al skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close.The millions, that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actio ns arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt, that poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one day be the pole-star for a t housand years?In this hope, I accept the topic which not only usage, but the nature of our association, seem to prescribe to this day,--the AMERICAN SCHOLAR. Year by year, we come up hither to read one more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what light new days and events have thrown on his character, and his hopes.It is one of those fables, which, out of an unknown antiquity, convey an unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginnin g, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to a nswer its end.The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social st ate, these functions are parceled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other p erforms his. The fable implies, that the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers. But unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has b een so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and si nks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship.In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenera te state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the theory of his office is contained. Him nature solicits with all her placid, all her mon itory pictures; him the past instructs; him the future invites.Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master? But the old oracle said, `All things have two handles: beware of the wrong one.' In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in reference to the mai n influences he receives.I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and, af ter sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholdin g and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but al ways circular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can fin d,--so entire, so boundless. Far, too, as her splendors shine, system on system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without centre, without circumference,--in the mass and in the particle, nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind. Clas sification begins. To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, an d see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on t ying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohe re, and flower out from one stem. It presently learns, that, since the dawn of history, there has been a constant accumulatio n and classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter; an d science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each refractory fact; one after another, reduces all strange constitutions, all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on for ever to animate the last fibre of organization, the outskirts of nature, by insight.Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is suggested, that he and it proceed from one root; one is l eaf and one is flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that Root? Is not that the soul of his soul?--A t hought too bold,--a dream too wild. Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures,--when h e has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its giganti c hand, he shall look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. He shall see, that nature is the opp osite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal, and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its la ws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the mo dern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, o f art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,--learn the amount of this influence more conveniently,--by considering their value alone.The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proporti on to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completenes s of the distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable fr om his book, or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote posterity, as to contemp oraries, or rather to the second age. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this.Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation,--the act of thought,--is transferred to the record. The poet chanting, was felt to be a divine man: henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit: henceforward it is settled, the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly, t he book becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incur sions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry, if it is dispar aged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, beli eving it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, andBacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as rel ated to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the res torers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees.Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all me ans go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction cle an out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. T his every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and th ere a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they,--let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his h indhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; --cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative w ords; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own s ense of good and fair.On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years.Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instrum ents. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must,--when the sun is hid, and t he stars withdraw their shining, --we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh f ruitful."It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,--with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their v erses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hu ndred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said. But for the evi dence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some preestablished harm ony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see.I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know, that, as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind ca n be fed by any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed, who had almost no other information than by the printe d page. I only would say, that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the prove rb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creativ e reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read b ecomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always true, that, as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakespeare, only that leas t part,--only the authentic utterances of the oracle;-- all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's and Shakesp eare's.Of course, there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by labori ous reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, an d, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatusand pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sen tence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.III. There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian,--as unfit for any handiwork or p ublic labor, as a penknife for an axe. The so-called 'practical men' sneer at speculative men, as if, because they speculate or see, they could do nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy,--who are always, more universally than any other class, the scholars of their day,--are addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men they do not hear, but only a mincing and diluted speech. They are often virtually disfranchised; and, indeed, there are advocates for their celibacy. As f ar as this is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Wi thout it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much d o I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.The world,--this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts an d make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I pierc e its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by exp erience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products. A strange process too, this, by which experienc e is converted into thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours.The actions and events of our childhood and youth, are now matters of calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in theair. Not so with our recent actions,--with the business which we now have in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet circulate through it. We no more feel or know it, than we feel the feet, or the hand, or the brain of o ur body. The new deed is yet a part of life,--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In some contemplative ho ur, it detaches itself from the life like a ripe fruit, to become a thought of the mind. Instantly, it is raised, transfigured; the c orruptible has put on incorruption. Henceforth it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. Observe, t oo, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub state, it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, wit hout observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and is an angel of wisdom.So is there no fact, no event, in our private history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astoni sh us by soaring from our body into the empyrean. Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, a nd ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; frien d and relative profession and party, town and country, nation and world, must also soar and sing.Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger and pine; nor trust the revenue of some sin gle faculty, and exhaust one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards, who, getting their livelihood by carving shepherds, s hepherdesses, and smoking Dutchmen, for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and discovered that t hey had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, mo ved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish their merchantable stock. If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictio nary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town,--in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate an d embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to-da y. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. That great principle of Undul ation in nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath; in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of thesea; in day and night; in heat and cold; and as yet more deeply ingrained in every atom and every fluid, is known to us u nder the name of Polarity,--these "fits of easy transmission and reflection," as Newton called them, are the law of nature bec ause they are the law of spirit.The mind now thinks; now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fa ncy no longer paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a weariness,--he has always the resource to live. Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof. Those 'far from fame,' who dwell and act with him, will feel t he force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and designe d display. Time shall teach him, that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of hi s instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is gained in strength. Not out of those, on whom systems of e ducation have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselle d savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virt ue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we a re invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion t o the popular judgments and modes of action.I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, and by action. It remains to say somewhat of his d uties. They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of obs ervation. Flamsteed and Herschel, in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars with the praise of all men, and, the r esults being splendid and useful, honor is sure. But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind, which as yet no man has thought of as such, --watching days and months, sometimes, for a few facts; cor recting still his old records;--must relinquish display and immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation, he must betray often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he mus t stammer in his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept,--how often! poverty and solitude. F or the ease and pleasure of treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty and loss of time, whic h are the nettles and tangling vines in the way of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially to educated society. For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to find consol ation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one, who raises himself from private considerations, and brea thes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye.He is the world's heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communica ting heroic sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of history. Whatsoever oracles the human hear t, in all emergencies, in all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of actions,--these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men and events of to-day,--t his he shall hear and promulgate.These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. He and he only knows the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some great decorum, some fetish of a governm ent, some ephemeral trade, or war, or man, is cried up by half mankind and cried down by the other half, as if all depende d on this particular up or down. The odds are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar ha s lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorabl e of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide his own time,--happy enough, if he can satisfy h imself alone, that this day he has seen something truly. Success treads on every right step. For the instinct is sure, that pro mpts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns, that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has de scended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts, is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording them, is found to have recorded that, which men in crowded ci ties find true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank confessions, --his want of knowledge of the p。
论美国学者 全文
论美国学者爱默生1837年8月31日，爱默生在美国大学生联谊会上以《论美国学者》为题发表演讲，抨击美国社会中灵魂从属于金钱的拜金主义和资本主义的劳动分工使人异化为物的现象，强调人的价值；他提出学者的任务是自由而勇敢地从表相中揭示真实，以鼓舞人、提高人和引导人；他号召发扬民族自尊心，反对一味追随外国学说。
这一演讲轰动一时，对美国民族文化的兴起产生了巨大影响，被誉为是美国“思想上的独立宣言”。
主席先生，先生们：在开始第二个文学年之际，我谨向你们致意。
我们过去的一周年是充满希望的，但也许是努力尚且不够的一年。
我们相聚不是为了如古希腊人那样，进行力量和技巧的较量，朗诵过往历史，悲剧或颂词，也不是为了像中世纪行吟诗人那样为爱情和诗歌而聚集，更不是如当代在英国和欧洲的都市里为科学的进步举行聚会。
目前为止，我们聚会的节日还仅仅是一个良好的象征，它象征着我们由于忙碌而无心于文字的人民中对文学之爱的延续。
就此而言，这个象征弥足珍贵，有如不能被损毁的人类本能。
也许这样的时代已经到来，我们的聚会就要也应该是另番模样。
在这样的时代里，这个大陆的沉睡的心智睁开惺松睡眼，它给这世界带来久已期盼的贡献，这贡献远胜于机械性的技巧的发明。
我们依赖于人的日子，我们心智向其他大陆智慧学习的学徒期，这一切就要结束了。
成百万簇拥着我们涌向生活的同胞，他们不可能永远的满足于食用异国智慧收获的陈粮。
全新的事件和行动正在发生，这一切需要被歌唱，它们也要歌唱自己。
有谁会怀疑，诗歌将会获得新生，并将引领一个新时代？就如天文学家所预言，在我们的天穹之顶的天琴大星将会成为恒亘千年的新北极星?就是抱有这样的期望，我接受这个讲演题目－－不仅是在用词上，而是由于时代和我们组织的性质所决定的－－美国学者。
时光流转，我们又翻开它传记的新篇章。
让我们来探询，新的时代和事件，在它特质上和对它的期望里又添了什么光色。
有这样一个久远不可考的传说－－它有着我们意想不到的智慧。
- 1、下载文档前请自行甄别文档内容的完整性，平台不提供额外的编辑、内容补充、找答案等附加服务。
- 2、"仅部分预览"的文档,不可在线预览部分如存在完整性等问题,可反馈申请退款(可完整预览的文档不适用该条件!)。
- 3、如文档侵犯您的权益，请联系客服反馈,我们会尽快为您处理(人工客服工作时间：9:00-18:30)。
美国学者——l837年8月31日在剑桥镇对全美大学生荣誉协会发表的演说爱默生有个从远古时期流传下来的寓言，它含带着意想不到的智慧。
说是在创世阶段，众神把“人”分成了“人群”，以便人能更好地照料自己；这好比一只手分成五指之后，手的用处就会更大。
这条古老寓言中隐含着一个永远新颖而高尚的寓意。
这就是：所谓“人”只是部分地存在于所有的个人之中，或是通过其中的一种禀赋得以体现；你必须观察整个社会，才能获得对完整的人的印象。
所谓“人”并非只是指一个农夫，或一位教授，或一位工程师，而是他们全体的相加。
“人”是神父、学者、政治家、生产者、士兵。
在分裂的，或者说是社会的状况下，上述的职能被分派给每一个个人，而他们中的每一个都致力于完成共同工作中分派给他的定额；与此同时，人们又相互弥补着自己。
这个寓言暗示，个人若要把握他自己，就必须时常从自己的分工职能中脱离出来，去了解一下其他劳动者的感受。
然而不幸的是，这原初的统一体，这力量的源头，早已被众人所瓜分，并且被分割得细而又细，抛售无贻。
就好像是泼洒开的水滴，再也无法汇拢。
社会正是这样一种状态：其中每一个人都好比从躯体上锯下的一段，它们昂然行走，形同怪物——一截手指、一个头颈、一副肠胃、一只臂肘，但从来不是完整的人。
“人”于是演变成为某一样东西，或许多种东西，农夫很少感受到他职务的真正尊严，并为之欣喜，因为他不过是“人”分派到田里收集食物的一部分。
他只看见他的箩筐与大车，此外一无所视。
于是他降级为一个农夫，而不再是农场上的“人”。
商人极少认为他的生意具有理想的价值，他被本行业的技艺所支配，灵魂也沦为金钱的仆役。
牧师变成了仪式，律师变成了法典，机械师变成了机器，水手变成了船上的一根绳子。
在这种职能分配中，学者被指派去代表知识。
正常状态下，他是所谓“思想着的人”。
在糟糕的情况下，当他成为社会的牺牲品时，他就偏向于成为一个单纯的思想者，或者更糟一些，变为别人思想的鹦鹉学舌者。
以这种观点看待“思想着的人”，学者自身职能的道理就包含在其中了。
大自然以它一切平和或教训的图画劝导他，人类的历史教育他，未来则邀请他。
其实，每一个人岂不都是一个学生，天下万物不正是为了学生而存在的?而且，归根结底，真正的学者难道不正是掌握了自然奥秘的大师吗?然而，古谚语说得好，“万物皆有两端，当心错执一头”。
生活中，学者往往也像其他人一样犯错误，并且有时背离他专有的职能。
让我们看看他在学校里的情况，同时根据他所受到的主要影响来衡量他。
学者理应成为“思想的人”。
其责任可以归纳为“自信”。
学者的职责是去鼓舞、提高和指引众人，使他们看到表象之下的事实。
学者从事迟缓、无名而又没有报偿的观察工作。
天文学家弗莱姆斯蒂德和赫歇尔在他们镶玻璃的天文台里工作，一面编录星座，一面受到人们的赞扬。
他们的成果既是光彩有益的，又肯定能博得声誉。
然而，假使有个人在自己的观象台中记录人类心灵中模糊难测的星云(迄今尚无人想到这一点)，他日以继夜，成年累月，有时为了个别数据，而不放弃修改过去的记录——这种人就必须忍受公众的忽视，也不会有及时的名望。
在他长期的工作准备时期，他肯定会经常表现出对于流行艺术的无知和生疏，并招致那些能人的鄙视，将他冷落一番。
他必定有长时间的言语迟钝迹象，常常为了无用的东西而舍弃该做之事。
更糟糕的是，他必须接受贫穷与孤独——往往如此!他本可轻易而愉快地选择旧路，接受时尚、教育以及世人的宗教，可他宁可背起十字架，历经苦难去寻求自己的出路；当然，也为此谴责自己，经受软弱与忧郁的折磨，感到自己在虚耗光阴——这些都是自信自助者前进道路上必定要碰到的磨难。
他还会遭遇到一种仿佛是他自己同社会敌对的痛苦处境，尤其是与受教育阶层的不和。
什么东西才能抵消这一切的损失与受人轻视?仅在一点上他尚可得到慰藉：他正在发挥人性中最高尚的机能。
他是一个将自己从私心杂念中提高升华的人，他依靠民众生动的思想去呼吸，去生活。
他是这世界的眼睛。
他是这世界的心脏。
他要保存和传播英勇的情操、高尚的传记、优美的诗章与历史的结论，以此抵抗那种不断向着野蛮倒退的粗俗的繁荣。
人类的心灵在一切紧要或庄严时刻，无论它对这行动的世界发表何种评判意见——我们的学者都应该切记于心，并且予以传达。
无论理性在它权威的宝座上发布何种对于古今人事的判断，他都应该倾听和宣扬。
有了这样的职责，他就应当完全地拥有自信心，绝不迁就公众的喧嚣。
他，唯有他自己了解这个世界。
变动中的世界仅仅给人以表面的印象。
人类往往分成两个阵营，一半的人拥护某种隆重礼仪，或对政府的崇拜，或短暂的通商贸易，或是某场战争、某个人，而另一半人则对此加以反对和攻击——好像一切都取决于这种由拥护或反对形成的波动。
然而最有可能的是，这整个问题还抵不上学者在倾听争论时漏掉的一个小小念头重要。
听到一声气枪的呼响，他就应当相信自己听见的是气枪，不管世上那些老朽尊贵之士如何声称它是世界末日的霹雳。
他应当沉静稳重，超然于世事之上，坚守自己的信念，不断地认真观察，杜绝焦躁，不畏谗言，坐守时机——只要他使自己满意，感到今天确有所得，这便很幸福了。
每个正确的步骤都导向成功。
因为他有可靠的直觉，这促使他与同胞分享自己的思想。
随后他发现，当他深入了解自己心灵的隐秘时，他也在发掘所有心灵的秘密。
他认识到，一旦能够掌握自己思想的规律，他就能够掌握所有说着与他相同语言的人的思想，以及那些有种不同语言、但是可以翻译成为他的语言的人的想法。
诗人在极度孤独中回忆并记录他那些自发的念头。
可我们发现他的诗句对喧闹都市里的人群也同样是真实的。
演说家在开始时怀疑自己的坦告是否切合时宜，也担心他对听众的了解不够，——随后他看出他颇受听众的欢迎，他们如饥似渴地聆听他的言语，因为他替听众满足了共同的天性。
他越是深入涉及个人的隐秘念头，就越会惊奇地看到，它非常容易引起共鸣，具有普遍的真实意义，人们乐于倾听这些，他们的良知使他们感到：这是我的心声，这就是我自己。
自我信赖包含着所有的美德。
学者应当是自由的——自由并且勇敢。
甚至在给自由下定义时也表现出他的自由：“一无障碍，除非是他自身造成的束缚。
”他必须勇敢，因为学者的职能要求他把恐惧这东西置于脑后。
恐惧永远是由无知愚昧而来。
假如他在危险时保持镇静，仅仅是由于自以为能像妇孺一样受到保护，那便是可耻的。
如果他为了求得心灵平静，有意回避政治或令人烦恼的问题，像鸵鸟一样埋头花丛，苟且地进行科学实验或写诗作赋，那也如同一个胆小的孩子，靠吹口哨来鼓舞自己。
危险总是越躲越险，恐惧也是越怕越厉害。
此时他应该面对危险，像个男子汉。
他应当迎难而进，探查性质，检索来源，以便了解这头大狮子原有的幼小形象。
而这并非十分遥远的事实。
继而，他会发现自己完全了解了它的性质与程度，并以两手环抱，测量出它的尺码。
从此他便可以藐视它，从它身旁扬长而过。
一个人如果能看穿这世界的虚饰外表，他就能拥有世界。
你所耳闻目睹的种种蒙昧、陋习与蔓延不绝的错误，皆因人们的容忍，以及你的纵容。
一旦你把它看成是谎言，这就已经给了它致命的打击。
确实，我们都很胆小怯懦，而且缺乏信心。
有种聪明又刻薄的说法，它声称我们入世过迟，早已无事可做——世上的一切已经定型。
当初在上帝手中，这世界是柔软易塑的。
现在和将来它亦是如此，可以任由我们改造。
其实，愚昧与罪恶丝毫改变不了这个坚硬无比的世界，只是尽力逢迎适应它而已。
然而，人的内心圣洁的成分愈多，世界就愈容易为其所软化，并且让人在它身上打下烙印，或改变它的形状。
这并非由于此人伟大非凡，而是因为他是个能够改变别人的观念的人。
主宰世界的人是那些把自然和艺术统统染上自己思想色彩的人。
他们从容不迫，以其愉快而平静的处事态度令众人信服，并承认他们的作为是大家久已盼望、终于成功的好事，值得邀请所有民族共同分享。
伟人造就了伟业。
无论麦克唐纳坐在何处，人们总以他的位置作为首席。
李耐使得植物学成为最具吸引力的学科之一，并从农夫与采药女手中接过了这门技艺。
戴维之于化学，居维尔之于生物化石，也是如此。
一个人如果在某一天内怀抱伟大目标工作，那么这一天便是为他而设的。
众人的评价时有纷纭，但每遇到一位拥有真理的天才，大家便会众口一词、蜂拥而至，就像大西洋的波浪，层层相伴，追随着月亮的轨迹。
为什么要求大家信赖自己?其中的理由非常深邃，难以轻易地阐明。
在我陈述自己的意见时，也许没有引起各位听众的同感。
但我已表明这希望可能实现，原因就在于刚才我提到的“一切人都是一个人”的理论。
我相信人是被误解了，他损害了自己。
他几乎已失掉那种引导他恢复天赋权利的智慧之光。
如今的人变得无足轻重。
过去和现在，人都贱若虫豸蚁卵，他们被称作是“芸芸众生”或“放牧的羊群”。
一百年、一千年之中，只出现过一两个还算像样的人。
就是说，只有个把接近于完整的人。
其余的全都处在幼稚原始状态，从一个英雄或诗人身上便可看到他们所有的影子。
的确，他们情愿身居末位，显出自己的蒙昧稚气，以便让那个高大的人尽量伸展，臻于完善。
那些可怜的部落小民与普通党徒，为了酋长或党魁的荣耀而欢呼雀跃。
这正证明他们本身天性里的要求——多么悲壮而令人叹息的证明啊!贫贱的民众在政治上、社会上甘拜下风，却为自己宽宏的道德心理取得了某种补偿。
他们宁愿像苍蝇一样被大人物随手拂去，好让那伟人去发展人类共同的天性，而这种天性正是所有人殷切盼望加以发扬光大的。
他们在伟人的光辉里温暖自己，觉得这温暖来自他们本身。
他们从饱受践踏的身上卸下人的尊严，将它披到伟人的肩上。
为了能让那伟人的心脏获得新血并重新跳荡，为了让他的筋骨获得力量去继续征战，他们宁愿牺牲自己的生命。
伟人为我们活着，我们则活在他的生命里。
这样的民众自然要去寻求金钱或权势。
他们要权势，因为权势就是金钱，即所谓的“官职战利品”。
为什么不要?他们雄心勃勃，连睡梦里也梦见最高的权势。
唤醒他们，他们将会放弃这种伪善，奔向真实，并把政府留给那些文书与写字台。
这场革命只有通过文化观念的逐渐培养才能达到。
世上一切伟大光辉事业，都比不上人的教育。
这里在座的都是教育的可造之才。
与历史上所有的王国相比，一个人的私生活更像是个庄严的君主政体。
它对于敌人来说是可畏的，对于朋友却甜蜜安静。
因为按照正确的观点，一个人身上即包含了所有人的特殊性格。
每一个哲学家、诗人或演员都像是我的代理人，为我做了将来有一天我也能自己做的事。
那些一度极为我们珍视的书籍，如今已经被读得烂熟。
这就是说，我们这些读者都已采纳了作者观察事物的常人观点。
我们都变成了那位作者，并且超过他继续前进。
就这样一个接着一个，我们喝光了所有水槽里的水，逐渐长大成人，而我们却渴望能有更好、更丰盛的食品。
没有人能够永远地活着并喂养我们。
人类心灵也不能在一个自我封闭的人的心目中被供奉起来。
这心灵的轴心之火时而从埃特纳火山喷涌而出，照亮西西里海岬，时而它又在维苏威火山点燃火炬，映红了那不勒斯的尖塔与葡萄园。