commercially-防尘套
On Human Nature and Politics
论人性和政治
Bertrand Russel
1. Undoubtedly the desire for food has
been, and still is, one of the main causes of
great political events. But
man differs
from other animals in one very important respect,
and that is that he has desires which are, so to
speak, infinite, which can never be
fully gratified, and which would keep him restless
even in Paradise. The
boa constrictor,
when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep,
and does not wake until he needs another
meal.
Human
beings,
for
the
most
part,
are
not
like
this.
When
the
Arabs,
who
had
been
used
to
living
sparingly on a few dates, acquired the
riches of the Eastern Roman Empire and dwelt in
palaces of almost
unbelievable luxury,
they did not, on that account, become inactive.
Hunger could no longer be a motive, for
Greek slaves supplied them with
exquisite viands at the slightest nod. But other
desires kept them active:
four in
particular, which we can label acquisitiveness,
rivalry, vanity and love of power.
无疑，要得到食物的强烈欲望一直是并仍然是导致巨大政治事
件的主要原因之一。但人与其它
动物有一个很重要的区别，那就是他有着可谓无尽头的欲
望，永远不可能完全得到满足，即使到了天
堂也会使他不得安宁。巨蟒饱吃一顿后就睡觉
，不到需要再吃一顿时不醒。人大多不是这样。当惯于
靠吃几个椰枣节俭为生的阿拉伯人
获得东罗马帝国的财富，居住在几乎令人难以置信的豪华宫殿中
时，他们并未因此就闲居
不动了。饥饿不可能再是一个动机了，因为只需稍一颔首，希腊奴隶便奉上
精美佳肴。但
是别的欲望使他们继续活动，主要有四种欲望，我们可称之为：占有欲，竞争欲，虚荣
心
，权力欲。
2. Acquisitiveness
-- the
wish to possess as
much as possible of
goods, or the title to goods
-- is a
motive which, I suppose, has its origin
in a combination of fear with the desire for
necessaries.
占有欲
——
占有尽可能多的财产或财产的所有权
——
这一动机想来根源在于恐惧和拥有生活必
需品的愿望的结
合。
3.
I
once
befriended
two
little
girls
from
Esthonia,
who
had
narrowly
escaped
death
from
starvation
in
a
famine. They
lived in
my family, and of course had
plenty to eat. But they spent all their leisure
visiting
neighbouring
farms
and
stealing
potatoes,
which
they
hoarded.
Rockefeller,
who
in
his
infancy
had
experienced
great
poverty,
spent
his
adult
life
in
a
similar
manner.
Similarly
the
Arab
chieftains
on
their
silken
Byzantine
divans
could
not
forget
the
desert,
and
hoarded
riches
far
beyond
any
possible
physical
need. But whatever the psychoanalysis
of acquisitiveness, no one can deny that it is one
of the great motives
-- especially
among the more powerful, for, as I said before, it
is one of the infinite motives. However much
you may acquire you will always wish to
acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always
elude you.
我曾经
帮助过两个爱沙尼亚来的小姑娘，她们在一场饥荒中九死一生幸免饿死。她们住在我家
中
，当然有足够的东西吃，但是她们却把闲暇时间用在到邻近的农场去偷土豆，然后贮藏起来。洛克
菲勒在童年时经受过极度的贫困，也以与此类似的方式度过他的成年岁月。同样，坐在拜占庭帝国柔
软光滑的长沙发上的阿拉伯酋长们也无法忘记沙漠，
贮藏起远远超过
肉体可能需要的财富。
但不论对
占有欲作怎样的精神分析，
没有人能够否认这是巨大的动机中的一个
——
特别是对较有权势的人更是
如此，因为如前所说，这是一个无尽头的动机，不论你获得
的有多么多，你永远还希望获得更多，完
全的满足是一个你永远无法实现的梦。
4. But acquisitiveness,
although it is the mainspring of the capitalist
system, is
by no means the most
powerful of the motives that survive
the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much stronger
motive. Over and
over again in
Muhammadan history, dynasties have come to grief
because the sons of a sultan by different
mothers
could
not
agree,
and
in
the
resulting
civil
war
universal
ruin
resulted.
The
same
sort
of
thing
happens in modern
Europe. When the British Government very unwisely
allowed the Kaiser to be present at
a
naval review at Spithead, the thought which arose
in his mind was not the one which we had intended.
What he thought was,
all our
subsequent troubles. The world would be a happier
place than it is
if acquisitiveness
were always
stronger than rivalry. But
in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face
impoverishment if they can thereby
secure complete ruin for their rivals.
Hence the present level of taxation.
虽然占有欲是资本主义制度的主要动力，
但它却远不是征服了饥饿以后诸动机中最强大的一个。
竞争欲是一个强大得多的动机
。
在伊斯兰教的历史上，
一次又一次由于苏丹的不同妻子所生之
子意见
相左，
·
王朝遭难，在因此而生
的内战中造成普遍的破坏。同样一类的事情也在现代欧洲发生，当英
国政府极不明智地允
许德皇出席在斯匹特海德举行的检阅时，
在德皇脑子里出现的想法并不是我们想
要他有的想法。他想的是：
“
我必须有一支与老
奶奶的一样优秀的海军。
”
我们此后的一切麻烦都来自
这个想法。如果占有欲总是强于竞争欲的话，世界将是一个比现在幸福的地方。事实上，许多人会
心
甘情愿地去面对穷困，只要这样做能招致对手的彻底毁灭。因此有了目前的税制。
5. Vanity is a motive of
immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with
children knows how they
are constantly
performing some antic and saying
desires of the human heart. It can take
innumerable forms, from buffoonery
to
the pursuit of posthumous
fame.
There
was
a
Renaissance
Italian
princeling
who
was
asked
by
the
priest
on
his
deathbed
if
he
had
anything
to repent of.
and
the
Pope
simultaneously.
I
took
them
to
the
top
of
my
tower
to
see
the
view,
and
I
neglected
the
opportunity to throw them both down,
which would have given me immortal
fame.
whether the priest gave him
absolution. One of the troubles about vanity is
that it grows with what it feeds
on.
The more you are talked about, the more you will
wish to be talked about. The condemned murderer
who
is allowed to see the account of
his trial in the Press is indignant if he finds a
newspaper which has reported
it
inadequately. And the more he finds about himself
in other newspapers, the more indignant he will be
with
those whose reports are meagre.
Politicians and literary men are in the same case.
And the more famous they
become,
the
more
difficult
the
presscutting
agency
finds
it
to
satisfy
them.
It
is
scarcely
possible
to
exaggerate
the
influence
of
vanity
throughout
the
range
of
human
life,
from
the
child
of
three
to
the
potentate
at
whose
frown
the
world
trembles.
Mankind
have
even
committed
the
impiety
of
attributing
similar desires
to the deity, whom they imagine avid for continual
praise.
虚荣心
是一个有着极大潜在力的动机。任何和孩子们打交道多的人都知道他们是怎样不断地做
个
什么怪动作然后说
“
看我
”
。
“
看我
”
是人类内心最基本的愿望之一，它可以有无数的表现形式，从插
科打诨到追求
死后的声名。
意大利文艺复兴时代有个小王公，
在临死时神父问
他有没有什么要忏悔的，
他说，
“
有，
有一件事。有一次皇上和教皇同时到我这里来访问，我把他们带到我的塔顶观赏景色，
我
没有利用能把他们二人推下去的机会，否则就会使我流芳百世了。
”
历史并未叙说神父是否赦免了
他。虚荣心的问题之一是，越是有鼓励它的东西虚荣心
就越强。人们越谈论你，你就越希望被人们谈
论。被判了刑的杀人犯得到允许阅读报纸对
他审判的报导，如果发现一家报纸对此报导不足，他会感
到十分气愤，他在其它报纸上读
到的有关自己的报导越多，便会对报导不够的报纸越气愤。政治家和
文人也属此列。他们
越有名气，剪报机构就感到越难满足他们。在人类的一生中虚荣心影响之大是怎
么夸张也
不会过分的，从三岁的稚子到蹙眉震天下的君主无一例外。人类甚至犯了大不敬之罪，往神
明身上加上了相同的欲望，料想神明也渴望得到永不止息的赞颂。
6. But great as is the influence of the
motives we have been considering, there is one
which outweighs
them all....Power, like
vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of
omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as
it is especially the v. ice of
energetic men, the casual efficacy of love of
power is out of all proportion to its
frequency. It is, indeed, by far the
strongest motive in the lives of important men.
Love of power is greatly
increased by
the experience of power, and this applies to petty
power as well as to that of poten- tates. In the
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
commercially-防尘套
-
上一篇：初中英语谚语
下一篇：summary-writing(原文及范文)