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Knowledge and Wisdom
Bertrand
Russell
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Most people
would agree that, although our age far surpasses
all previous ages in knowledge,
there
has been no correlative increase in wisdom. But
agreement ceases as soon as we attempt
to define `wisdom' and consider means
of promoting it. I want to ask first what wisdom
is, and
then what can be done to teach
it.
我们的时代在知识方面远
远超过过去所有时代，
在智慧方面却没有得到相应的增加，
这是
大多数人都会同意的看法。但一旦我试图定义
“智慧”并思考增
进它的方法，人们就会有不
同意见了。我想问的问题首先是何为智慧，其次是传授智慧的
方法。
There are, I
think, several factors that contribute to wisdom.
Of these I should put first a sense
of
proportion: the capacity to take account of all
the important factors in a problem and to attach
to each its due weight. This has become
more difficult than it used to be owing to the
extent and
complexity
of
the
specialized
knowledge
required
of
various
kinds
of
technicians.
Suppose,
for
example, that you are engaged in
research in scientific medicine. The work is
difficult and is likely
to absorb the
whole of your intellectual energy. You have not
time to consider the effect which
your
discoveries or inventions may have outside the
field of medicine. You succeed (let us say), as
modern
medicine
has
succeeded,
in
enormously
lowering
the
infant
death-
rate,
not
only
in
Europe and America, but also in Asia
and Africa. This has the entirely unintended
result of making
the food supply
inadequate and lowering the standard of life in
the most populous parts of the
world.
To take an even more spectacular example, which is
in everybody's mind at the present
time:
You
study
the
composistion
of
the
atom
from
a
disinterested
desire
for
knowledge,
and
incidentally place in
the hands of powerful lunatics the means of
destroying the human race. In
such ways
the pursuit of knowledge may become harmful unless
it is combined with wisdom; and
wisdom
in
the
sense
of
comprehensive
vision
is
not
necessarily
present
in
specialists
in
the
pursuit of knowledge.
我想，构成智慧有几种要素，
其中须置于首位的是比例感：
将问题的所有重要因素都考虑
进去并掂量每个因素应有的分量的能力。
鉴于各类技术员所需的专门知识
的范围和复杂程度，
这种能力变得比过去更难具备。
比如，假设
你从事医科，
这份工作本身很难做，可能会耗费
你的全部智能。
你没有时间去考虑你的发现或发明可能带来的医学领域以外的影响。
你成功
了
（我们假设）
，
正如现代医学所做到的：
婴儿死亡率不仅在欧美而且在亚非也大大降低了
。
但完全非你所愿的结果产生了：
在世界人口最为稠密的地区，
食物供应匮乏，
生活水平下降。
再举一
个甚至更为引人注目的例子，
当前人们都在关注此事：
你渴望探
求知识，
不带功利性
地去研究原子结构，
却意外地将摧毁人类的手段置于狂人手中。
因此，
知识如果不
与智慧同
在，
对知识的追求就能变得有危害性；
就全方位来看，
追求知识的专家们并不一定具备智慧。
Comprehensiveness alone, however, is
not enough to constitute wisdom. There must be,
also,
a certain awareness of the ends
of human life. This may be illustrated by the
study of history.
Many eminent
historians have done more harm than good because
they viewed facts through
the
distorting
medium
of
their
own
passions.
Hegel
had
a
philosophy
of
history which
did
not
suffer
from any lack of comprehensiveness, since it
started from the earliest times and continued
into an indefinite future. But the
chief lesson of history which he sought to
unculcate was that
from the year 400AD
down to his own time Germany had been the most
important nation and
the standard-
bearer of progress in the world. Perhaps one could
stretch the comprehensiveness
that
contitutes wisdom to include not only intellect
but also feeling. It is by no means uncommon
to find men whose knowledge is wide but
whose feelings are narrow. Such men lack what I
call
wisdom.
然而，仅有综合能力还不足以构成智慧，还必须加上对人生目的的某种意识。这一点可以
在历史研究中得到说明。
许多杰出的历史学家干的坏事多于好事，<
/p>
因为他们是通过自己的热
情这种扭曲性媒介观察事实的。
黑格尔的历史哲学始于亘古，
止于无穷未来，
也
不是不缺乏
综合观，
但他努力想要说明的历史教义主要是从公元
400
年到自己的年代，
德国一直都是
最
为重要的民族以及世界进步的标准榜样。
或许构成智慧的综合
概念可以延伸，
它不仅涵盖智
力而且还包括感情。知识面宽但感
觉迟钝的人不是不常见。这样的人缺少我认为的智慧。
It
is not only in public ways, but in private life
equally, that wisdom is needed. It is needed in
the
choice
of
ends
to
be
pursued
and
in
emancipation
from
personal
prejudice.
Even
an
end
which it would be noble to pursue if it
were attainable may be pursued unwisely if it is
inherently
impossible
of
achievement.
Many
men
in
past
ages
devoted
their
lives
to
a
search
for
the
philosopher's stone and
the elixir of life. No doubt, if they could have
found them, they would
have conferred
great benefits upon mankind, but as it was their
lives were wasted. To descend to
less
heroic matters,
consider
the
case
of
two
men,
Mr A
and
Mr B,
who
hate each
other
and,
through mutual hatred,
bring each other to destruction. Suppose you dgo
the Mr A and say, 'Why
do you hate Mr
B?' He will no doubt give you an appalling list of
Mr B's vices, partly true, partly
false. And now suppose you go to Mr B.
He will give you an exactly similar list of Mr A's
vices with
an equal admixture of truth
and falsehood. Suppose you now come back to Mr A
and say, 'You
will be surprised too
learn that Mr B says the same things about you as
you say about him', and
you go to Mr B
and make a similar speech. The first effect, no
doubt, will be to increase their
mutual
hatred, since each will be so horrified by the
other's injustice. But perhaps, if you have
sufficient
patience
and
sufficient
persuasiveness, you may
succeed
in
convincing each
that
the
other has only the
normal share of human wickedness, and that their
enmity is harmful to both.
If you can
do this, you will have instilled some fragment of
wisdom.
智慧不仅为公共生活所需，
也同样为
私人生活所需。
选择追求目标，以及从个人偏见中
解放出来，<
/p>
都需要智慧。
如果一个目标本身不可能被达到，既便如果它可以被
达到的话，追
求它的行为一定是高贵的，
对这个目标的追求也可
能不是明智的，
在过去，
许多人毕其一生
搜寻哲学家的点金石和长生不老药。
毫无疑问，
如果他们找到
了这些东西，
他们就为人类谋
取了巨大福祉，但事实上，他们浪
费了生命。退而说不那么伟大的事情，想想两个人，
A
先
生
B
先生，他们相互憎恨并通过相互憎恨而相
互摧毁。假设你到
A
先生那里说：
“你
为什么
不喜欢
B
先生？”他一定会向你
数落一大堆
B
先生的邪恶，部分真实、部分虚假。现在，
假设你到
B
先生那里，他会向你数落一大堆<
/p>
A
先生的邪恶，内容完全一样，真实和虚假的
混合程度也完全一样。假设你现在回到
A
先生那里说：
“你会很吃惊，要知道，
B
先生说你
的话跟你说
B
先生的话是一样的，
”
然后
,
你到
B
先生那里发表同样言论。毫无疑问，直接<
/p>
的结果就是他们的相互仇恨程度增加，
因为他们每人都为对方的偏
颇感到震惊，
但或许，
如
果你有足够的
耐心和足够的说服力，你会成功说服他们：对方只不过是有人类邪恶的通病，
他们的敌意
对双方都有损害。如果你能够这样做，你就向他人灌输了点滴的智慧。
I think the essence of wisdom is
emancipation, as fat as possible, from the tyranny
of the here
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