第 8 节
作者:着凉      更新:2021-02-27 01:59      字数:9322
  life; and for that reason it is that; if I were now compelled to choose;
  I should sooner; I think; consent to lose my sight; than my hearing and
  speech。  The Athenians; and also the Romans; kept this exercise in great
  honour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this
  day; to their great advantage; as is manifest by the comparison of our
  understandings with theirs。  The study of books is a languishing and
  feeble motion that heats not; whereas conversation teaches and exercises
  at once。  If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant; he
  presses upon my flanks; and pricks me right and left; his imaginations
  stir up mine; jealousy; glory; and contention; stimulate and raise me up
  to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether
  tedious in discourse。  But; as our mind fortifies itself by the
  communication of vigorous and regular understandings; 'tis not to be
  expressed how much it loses and degenerates by the continual commerce and
  familiarity we have with mean and weak spirits; there is no contagion
  that spreads like that; I know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth
  a yard。  I love to discourse and dispute; but it is with but few men; and
  for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great
  persons; and to make of a man's wit and words competitive parade is; in
  my opinion; very unbecoming a man of honour。
  Folly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it; to fret and vex
  at it; as I do; is another sort of disease little less troublesome than
  folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself。  I enter
  into conference; and dispute with great liberty and facility; forasmuch
  as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration; and
  wherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me; no belief
  offends me; though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous
  and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production
  of human wit。  We; who deprive our judgment of the right of determining;
  look indifferently upon the diverse opinions; and if we incline not our
  judgment to them; yet we easily give them the hearing: Where one scale is
  totally empty; I let the other waver under an old wife's dreams; and I
  think myself excusable; if I prefer the odd number; Thursday rather than
  Friday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth
  at table; if I had rather; on a journey; see a hare run by me than cross
  my way; and rather give my man my left foot than my right; when he comes
  to put on my stockings。  All such reveries as are in credit around us;
  deserve at least a hearing: for my part; they only with me import
  inanity; but they import that。  Moreover; vulgar and casual opinions are
  something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself
  to proceed so far; falls; peradventure; into the vice of obstinacy; to
  avoid that of superstition。
  The contradictions of judgments; then; neither offend nor alter; they
  only rouse and exercise; me。 We evade correction; whereas we ought to
  offer and present ourselves to it; especially when it appears in the form
  of conference; and not of authority。  At every opposition; we do not
  consider whether or no it be dust; but; right or wrong; how to disengage
  ourselves: instead of extending the arms; we thrust out our claws。  I
  could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend; so much as to tell
  me that I am a fool; and talk I know not of what。  I love stout
  expressions amongst gentle men; and to have them speak as they think; we
  must fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the
  ceremonious sound of words。 I love a strong and manly familiarity and
  conversation: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and
  vigour of its communication; like love in biting and scratching: it is
  not vigorous and generous enough; if it be not quarrelsome; if it be
  civilised and artificial; if it treads nicely and fears the shock:
  〃Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest。〃
  '〃Neither can a man dispute; but he must contradict。〃
  (Or:) 〃Nor can people dispute without reprehension。〃
  Cicero; De Finib。; i。 8。'
  When any one contradicts me; he raises my attention; not my anger: I
  advance towards him who controverts; who instructs me; the cause of truth
  ought to be the common cause both of the one and the other。  What will
  the angry man answer?  Passion has already confounded his judgment;
  agitation has usurped the place of reason。  It were not amiss that the
  decision of our disputes should pass by wager: that there might be a
  material mark of our losses; to the end we might the better remember
  them; and that my man might tell me: 〃Your ignorance and obstinacy cost
  you last year; at several times; a hundred crowns。〃  I hail and caress
  truth in what quarter soever I find it; and cheerfully surrender myself;
  and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and; provided
  it be not too imperiously; take a pleasure in being reproved; and
  accommodate myself to my accusers; very often more by reason of civility
  than amendment; loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition
  by my facility of submitting to it; and this even at my own expense。
  Nevertheless; it is hard to bring the men of my time to it: they have not
  the courage to correct; because they have not the courage to suffer
  themselves to be corrected; and speak always with dissimulation in the
  presence of one another: I take so great a pleasure in being judged and
  known; that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am
  so: my imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself; that 'tis
  all one to me if another do it; especially considering that I give his
  reprehension no greater authority than I choose; but I break with him;
  who carries himself so high; as I know of one who repents his advice;
  if not believed; and takes it for an affront if it be not immediately
  followed。  That Socrates always received smilingly the contradictions
  offered to his arguments; a man may say arose from his strength of
  reason; and that; the advantage being certain to fall on his side; he
  accepted them as a matter of new victory。  But we see; on the contrary;
  that nothing in argument renders our sentiment so delicate; as the
  opinion of pre…eminence; and disdain of the adversary; and that; in
  reason; 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions
  that correct him and set him right。  In earnest; I rather choose the
  company of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me; 'tis a dull and
  hurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of
  all we say。  Antisthenes commanded his children never to take it kindly
  or for a favour; when any man commended them。  I find I am much prouder
  of the victory I obtain over myself; when; in the very ardour of dispute;
  I make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason; than I am pleased
  with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness。  In fine; I
  receive and admit of all manner of attacks that are direct; how weak
  soever; but I am too impatient of those that are made out of form。  I
  care not what the subject is; the opinions are to me all one; and I am
  almost indifferent whether I get the better or the worse。  I can
  peaceably argue a whole day together; if the argument be carried on with
  method; I do not so much require force and subtlety as order; I mean the
  order which we every day observe in the wranglings of shepherds and shop…
  boys; but never amongst us: if they start from their subject; 'tis out of
  incivility; and so 'tis with us; but their tumult and impatience never
  put them out of their theme; their argument still continues its course;
  if they interrupt; and do not stay for one another; they at least
  understand one another。  Any one answers too well for me; if he answers
  what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered; I leave the
  thing itself; and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion;
  falling into wilful; malicious; and imperious way of disputation; of
  which I am afterwards ashamed。  'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a
  fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a
  master; but my conscience also。
  Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal
  crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up; being always governed
  and commanded by passion?  We first quarrel with their reasons; and then
  with the men。  We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so;
  every one contradicting and being contradicted; it falls out that the
  fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth。  Therefore it is
  that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill…bred
  people。  To what end do you go about to inquire of him; who knows nothing
  to the purpose?  A man does no injury to the subject; when he leaves it
  to seek how he may treat it; I do not mean by an artificial and
  scholastic way; but by a natural one; with a sound understanding。  What
  will it be in the end?  One flies to the east; the other to the west;
  they lose the principal; dispersing it in the crowd of inci