生命 Life

[英国]拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生/Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life will be imaged, but cannot be divided nor doubled. Any invasion of its unity would be chaos. The soul is not twin-born, but the only begotten, and though revealing itself as child in time, child in appearance, is of a fatal and universal power, admitting no co-life. Every day, every act betrays the ill-concealed deity. We believe in ourselves, as we do not believe in others. We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others, is experiment for us. It is an instance of our faith in ourselves, that men never speak of crime as lightly as they think, or, every man thinks a latitude safe for himself, which is nowise to be indulged to another.

The act looks very differently on the inside, and on the outside;in its quality, and its consequences. Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it;it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles:it is an act quite easy to be contemplated, but in its sequel, it turns out to be a horrible jangle and confounding all relations. Especially the crimes that spring from love, seem right and fair from the actor's point of view, but, when acted, are found destructive of society. No man at last believes that he can be lost, nor that the crime in him is as black as in the felon. Because the intellect qualifies in our own case the moral judgments. For there is no crime to the intellect. That is antinomian or hypernomian, and judges law as well as fact.

生命可以被想象，但是不能被割裂，也不能被复制。生命的整体一旦被破坏就会引起混乱。灵魂不是孪生儿，而是独生苗。虽然它最终以孩子的面目示人，却有着一种无敌的力量能决定命运，不会接受同一个生命。生命有着一种唯我独尊的神圣，这种神圣无须掩盖，每一天都显露在人们的举手投足之中。我们对自己深信不疑，同时去怀疑他人。我们可以让自己为所欲为，但同样的事，别人做，我们称之为罪孽，我们都有这样的尝试。我们充满自信的一个例子就是：人们从来不像他们想象的那样蔑视罪恶。换句话说，人人都为自己想好一个不受约束的自由，而这个自由是不能让别人来享用的。

行为从内在和外表，从性质和后果去看，各有不同。凶手行凶时所抱的意图绝不像诗人以及传奇作家所描述的那样伤天害理，通常人们也觉察不出他心神不宁或诚惶诚恐的蛛丝马迹。行凶一事并不难谋划，但去考虑后果的话，它却能愈演愈烈，发出一系列叮当作响的恐怖声，把一切的关联都破坏。尤其是爱情所激发的罪行，从施罪者的角度看，似乎一切都理所当然，但一旦发生毕竟贻害社会。然而，还是没有人会最终相信犯罪的人是迷失了自我，也没有人会认为那罪行如同重罪犯的所为那么恶不可赦。这是因为，就我们自身的情形而言，智力修正着道义判断，在智力的眼中，世上万事并无罪过。智力是反律法主义或超律法主义的，它判断着法律就像判断着事实一样。

词汇笔记

stray[strei]v.走失；离群；迷路

Young children should not be allowed to stray from their parents.

不要让儿童离开父母到处乱跑。

corporal['kɔ：pərəl]adj.肉体的

They oppose corporal punishment because they believe that violence breeds violence.

他们反对体罚，因为他们相信暴力衍生出暴力。

intermediate[,intə'mi:djət]adj.（两地、两物、两种状态等）之间的，中间的

The textbook is for intermediate students who want to write general English letters.

本书专为想学一般英文书信写作的中级学生设计。

grove[ɡrəuv]n.树丛；小树林

Gathering pecans in that grove was an autumn chore we always enjoyed.

秋天我们一直很喜欢的活动就是在小树丛里采集山核桃。

小试身手

我也像他一样因需求匮乏而痛苦，但不像他因需求丰裕而满足。

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但昨天还能使我愉悦的乐章，今天却令我厌烦，明天变得更令人厌倦。

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在快乐之前，他有一些有别于感觉的渴望，必须先得到满足。

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短语家族

“What,”said he,“makes the difference between man and all the rest of the animal creation?”

make difference：有所不同；造成差别

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I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted.

glut with：吃得太饱；喝得过多

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