散文《关于月亮的沉思》by阿道司_赫胥黎.doc

Meditation on the MoonAldous Leon a rd HuxleyMaterialism and mentalism ・ the philosophies of 'nothing but.1 How wearily familiar we have become with that *nothing but space, time, matter and motion： that 'nothing but sex： that 'nothing but economics'! And the no less intolerant 'nothing but spirit', 'nothing but consciousness： 'nothing but psychology1 ・ how boring and tiresome they also are! Nothing but1 is mean as well as stupid ・ It lacks gen erosity ・ Eno ugh of 'nothing but'・ It is time to say agai n, with primitive comm on sense (but for better reas ons), "not only, but also1.Outside my window the n ight is struggling to wake; in the moon light, the blin ded garde n dreams so vividly of its lost colours that the black roses are almost crims on, the trees stand expectantly on the verge of living greenness・ The white-washed parapet of the terrace is brilliant against the dark-blue sky・(Does the oasis lie there below, and, beyond the last of the palm trees, is that the desert?) The white walls of the house coldly reverberate the lunar radiance・(Shall I turn to look at the Dolomitesl rising naked out of the long slopes of snow?) The moon is full・ And not only full, but also beautiful. And not only beautiful, but also...Socrates was accused by his enemies of having affirmed, heretically, that the moon was a stone. He denied the accusation. All men, said he, know that the moon is a god, and he agreed with all men. As an answer to the materialistic philosophy of 'nothing but* his retort was sensible and eve n scie ntific. More sen sible and scie ntific, for instan ce, tha n the retort inven ted by D. H・ Lawrenee in that strange book, so true in its psychological substance, so preposterous, very often, in its pseudo-scientific, form, Fan tasia of the Uncon scious .The moon, writes Lawre nee 'certai nly isn't a snowy cold world, like a world of our own gone cold. Nonsense. It is a globe of dynamic substang like radium, or phosphorus, coagulated upon a vivid pole of energy.' The defect of this stateme nt is that it happe ns to be dem on strably untrue ・ The moon is quite certainly not made of radium or phosphorus. The moon is, materially, *a stone". Lawrenee was angry (and he did well to be angry) with the nothing-but philosophers who insist that the moon is only a stone. He knew that it was something more; he had the empirical certainty of its deep significanee and imports nee. But he tried to explain this empirically established fact of its sign 讦 icance in the wrong terms-in terms of matter and not of spirit・ To say that the moon is made of radium is nonsense. But to say, with Socrates, that it is made of god-stuff is strictly accurate. For there is nothing, of course, to prevent the moon from being both a stone and a god. The evidenee for its stonin ess and agai nst its radiumi ness may be found in any childre n's en cyclopaedia .It carries an absolute conviction. No less convincing, however; is the evidenee for the moon's divinity. It may be extracted from our own experiences, from the writings of the poets, and, in fragments, even from certain textbooks of physiology and medicine.But what is this 'divinity'? How shall we define a 'god'? Expressed in psychological terms (which are primary - there is no getting behind them), a god is someth!ng that gives us the peculiar kind of feeling which Professor Otto has called 'numino us' (from the Lati n nume n, a super natural being). Numinous feelings are the original god-stuff, from which the theory-making mind extracts the individualized gods of the pan the ons, the various attributes of the One. Once formulated; a theology evokes in its turn numinous feelings. Thus, men's terrors in face of the enigmatically dangerous universe led them to postulate the existenee of angry gods; and, later; thinking about angry gods made them feel terror; even when the universe was giving them, for the moment, no cause of alarm・ Emotion, rationalization, emotion ・ the process is circular and continuous・ Man's religious life works on the principle of a hot-water system.The moon is a stone; but it is a highly numinous stone. Or, to be more precise, it is a stone about which and because of which men and women have numinous feelings. Thus, there is a soft moon light that can give us the peace that passes un derstandi ng. There is a moon light that in spires a kind of awe. There is a cold and austere moon light that tells the soul of its lonelin ess and desperate isolation, its insign ifica nee or its unclea rm ess ・ There is an amorous moon light prompti ng to love ・ to love not only for an in dividual but sometimes eve n for the whole un iverse. But the moon shines on the body as well as, through the windows of the eyes, within the mind. It affects the soul directly; but it can affect it also by obscure and circuitous ways - through the blood. Half the human race lives in man讦est obedienee to the lunar rhythm; and there is evidenee to show that the physiological and there。