当我们考虑何为——用教义问答的话来说——人的首要目的、何为生命真正的需求和手段时，会发现人们好像已经有意地选取了一种生活的寻常模式，并认定这种模式优于其他。他们真的认为已经别无他选。可是机敏健康的心灵记得太阳会如往常升起，抛下成见为时未晚。思想和行为哪怕再古老，也不能贸然轻信。今日人皆附和默认的真理可能明天就被证伪，好似人眼中即将为农田降下甘霖的云朵，不过是团轻烟飘散了。老一辈说做不到的事，你尝试后发现是可行的。旧人有旧传统，新人有新追求。老一辈们或许不曾了解添加燃料可以维持燃烧；年轻一代向锅炉底添一点干木头1，就能以鸟儿的速度环球旅行，诚如俗语所言：长江后浪推前浪。若论指引人生，年长并不优越于年少，甚至更逊于年少，因为时间流逝所带走的多于人从岁月中所得。我们几乎可以怀疑，即使最睿智的人也无法从生活中习得任何绝对有价值的东西。事实上，老一辈并没有什么可以给年轻人的重要建议，他们必须承认自己的经历太有限，他们的人生出于种种个人原因已然是可悲的失败；或许他们还残存一些与现实并不相符的信念，或许他们只是不再拥有少年锐气了。我在这个星球上生活了三十多年，尚未从前辈那里听到过一句有价值、哪怕只是真挚的建议。关于人生，他们什么也没教我，可能也无法教我。这就是生活，一项我极大程度上未曾尝试的实验；哪怕前人试过，我也要亲力亲为。倘若我收获了什么自认为有价值的经历，我确信我的导师未曾提及只言片语。
When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned any thing of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about.
Footnotes
-
锅炉底填一些干木头说的是当时的新发明：蒸汽机。用蒸汽机驱动的船可以环球旅行；蒸汽机装在车上，为了保持蒸汽机稳定运行，在车轮下铺上轨道，这就是最早的火车。 ↩