第 1 节
作者:猜火车      更新:2021-02-19 20:29      字数:9316
  Lecture VIII
  THE DIVIDED SELF; AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION
  The last lecture was a painful one; dealing as it did with evil
  as a pervasive element of the world we live in。  At the close of
  it we were brought into full view of the contrast between the two
  ways of looking at life which are characteristic respectively of
  what we called the healthy…minded; who need to be born only once;
  and of the sick souls; who must be twice…born in order to be
  happy。  The result is two different conceptions of the universe
  of our experience。  In the religion of the once…born the world is
  a sort of rectilinear or one…storied affair; whose accounts are
  kept in one denomination; whose parts have just the values which
  naturally they appear to have; and of which a simple algebraic
  sum of pluses and minuses will give the total worth。  Happiness
  and religious peace consist in living on the plus side of the
  account。 In the religion of the twice…born; on the other hand;
  the world is a double…storied mystery。  Peace cannot be reached
  by the simple addition of pluses and elimination of minuses from
  life。  Natural good is not simply insufficient in amount and
  transient; there lurks a falsity in its very being。 Cancelled as
  it all is by death if not by earlier enemies; it gives no final
  balance; and can never be the thing intended for our lasting
  worship。 It keeps us from our real good; rather; and renunciation
  and despair of it are our first step in the direction of the
  truth。  There are two lives; the natural and the spiritual; and
  we must lose the one before we can participate in the other。
  In their extreme forms; of pure naturalism and pure salvationism;
  the two types are violently contrasted; though here as in most
  other current classifications; the radical extremes are somewhat
  ideal abstractions; and the concrete human beings whom we
  oftenest meet are intermediate varieties and mixtures。
  Practically; however; you all recognize the difference:  you
  understand; for example; the disdain of the methodist convert for
  the mere sky…blue healthy…minded moralist; and you likewise enter
  into the aversion of the latter to what seems to him the diseased
  subjectivism of the Methodist; dying to live; as he calls it; and
  making of paradox and the inversion of natural appearances the
  essence of God's truth。'86'
  '86' E。g。; 〃Our young people are diseased with the theological
  problems of original sin; origin of evil; predestination; and the
  like。 These never presented a practical difficulty to any
  mannever darkened across any man's road; who did not go out of
  his way to seek them。  These are the soul's mumps; and measles;
  and whooping…coughs; etc。  Emerson:  Spiritual Laws。
  The psychological basis of the twice…born character seems to be a
  certain discordancy or heterogeneity in the native temperament of
  the subject; an incompletely unified moral and intellectual
  constitution。
  〃Homo duplex; homo duplex!〃 writes Alphonse Daudet。 〃The first
  time that I perceived that I was two was at the death of my
  brother Henri; when my father cried out so dramatically; 'He is
  dead; he is dead!'  While my first self wept; my second self
  thought; 'How truly given was that cry; how fine it would be at
  the theatre。'  I was then fourteen years old。
  〃This horrible duality has often given me matter for reflection。
  Oh; this terrible second me; always seated whilst the other is on
  foot; acting; living; suffering; bestirring itself。  This second
  me that I have never been able to intoxicate; to make shed tears;
  or put to sleep。 And how it sees into things; and how it
  mocks!〃'87'
  '87' Notes sur la Vie; p。 1。
  Recent works on the psychology of character have had much to say
  upon this point。'88' Some persons are born with an inner
  constitution which is harmonious and well balanced from the
  outset。  Their impulses are consistent with one another; their
  will follows without trouble the guidance of their intellect;
  their passions are not excessive; and their lives are little
  haunted by regrets。  Others are oppositely constituted; and are
  so in degrees which may vary from something so slight as to
  result in a merely odd or whimsical inconsistency; to a
  discordancy of which the consequences may be inconvenient in the
  extreme。  Of the more innocent kinds of heterogeneity I find a
  good example in Mrs。 Annie Besant's autobiography。
  '88' See; for example; F。 Paulhan; in his book Les Caracteres;
  1894; who contrasts les Equilibres; les Unifies; with les
  Inquiets; les Contrariants; les Incoherents; les Emiettes; as so
  many diverse psychic types。
  〃I have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and strength;
  and have paid heavily for the weakness。  As a child I used to
  suffer tortures of shyness; and if my shoe…lace was untied would
  feel shamefacedly that every eye was fixed on the unlucky string;
  as a girl I would shrink away from strangers and think myself
  unwanted and unliked; so that I was full of eager gratitude to
  any one who noticed me kindly; as the young mistress of a house I
  was afraid of my servants; and would let careless work pass
  rather than bear the pain of reproving the ill…doer; when I have
  been lecturing and debating with no lack of spirit on the
  platform; I have preferred to go without what I wanted at the
  hotel rather than to ring and make the waiter fetch it。
  Combative on the platform in defense of any cause I cared for; I
  shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the house; and am a coward
  at heart in private while a good fighter in public。  How often
  have I passed unhappy quarters of an hour screwing up my courage
  to find fault with some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to
  reprove; and how often have I jeered myself for a fraud as the
  doughty platform combatant; when shrinking from blaming some lad
  or lass for doing their work badly。  An unkind look or word has
  availed to make me shrink into myself as a snail into its shell;
  while; on the platform; opposition makes me speak my best。〃'89'
  '89' Annie Besant:  an Autobiography; p。 82。
  This amount of inconsistency will only count as amiable weakness;
  but a stronger degree of heterogeneity may make havoc of the
  subject's life。  There are persons whose existence is little more
  than a series of zig…zags; as now one tendency and now another
  gets the upper hand。  Their spirit wars with their flesh; they
  wish for incompatibles; wayward impulses interrupt their most
  deliberate plans; and their lives are one long drama of
  repentance and of effort to repair misdemeanors and mistakes。
  Heterogeneous personality has been explained as the result of
  inheritancethe traits of character of incompatible and
  antagonistic ancestors are supposed to be preserved alongside of
  each other。'90' This explanation may pass for what it is
  worthit certainly needs corroboration。  But whatever the cause
  of heterogeneous personality may be; we find the extreme examples
  of it in the psychopathic temperament; of which I spoke in my
  first lecture。  All writers about that temperament make the inner
  heterogeneity prominent in their descriptions。  Frequently;
  indeed; it is only this trait that leads us to ascribe that
  temperament to a man at all。  A 〃degenere superieur〃 is simply a
  man of sensibility in many directions; who finds more difficulty
  than is common in keeping  his spiritual house in order and
  running his furrow straight; because his feelings and impulses
  are too keen and too discrepant mutually。  In the haunting and
  insistent ideas; in the irrational impulses; the morbid scruples;
  dreads; and inhibitions which beset the psychopathic temperament
  when it is thoroughly pronounced; we have exquisite examples of
  heterogeneous personality。  Bunyan had an obsession of the words;
  〃Sell Christ for this; sell him for that; sell him; sell him!〃
  which would run through his mind a hundred times together; until
  one day out of breath with retorting; 〃I will not; I will not;〃
  he impulsively said; 〃Let him go if he will;〃 and this loss of
  the battle kept him in despair for over a year。  The lives of the
  saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions; ascribed
  invariably to the direct agency of Satan。  The phenomenon
  connects itself with the life of the subconscious self;