On Philosophy and the Intellect

1

The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable. It is to this that every explanation, through few or many intermediate stages, leads; as the plummet touches the bottom of the sea now at a greater depth, now at a less, but is bound to reach it somewhere sooner or later. The study of this inexplicable devolves upon metaphysics.

2

For intellect in the service of will, that is to say in practical use, there exist only individual things; for intellect engaged in art and science, that is to say active for its own sake, there exist only universals, entire kinds, species, classes, ideas of things. Even the sculptor, in depicting the individual, seeks to depict the idea, the species. The reason for this is that will aims directly only at individual things, which are its true objective, for only they possess empirical reality. Concepts, classes, kinds, on the other hand, can become its objective only very indirectly. That is why the ordinary man has no sense for general truths, and why the genius, on the contrary, overlooks and neglects what is individual: to the genius the enforced occupation with the individual as such which constitutes the stuff of practical life is a burdensome drudgery.

3

The two main requirements for philosophizing are: firstly, to have the courage not to keep any question back; and secondly, to attain a clear consciousness of anything that goes without saying so as to comprehend it as a problem. Finally, the mind must, if it is really to philosophize, also be truly disengaged: it must prosecute no particular goal or aim, and thus be free from the enticement of will, but devote itself undividedly to the instruction which the perceptible world and its own consciousness imparts to it.

4

The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. That is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small. The poet can thus be compared with one who presents flowers, the philosopher with one who presents their essence.

5

An odd and unworthy definition of philosophy, which however even Kant gives, is that it is a science composed only of concepts. For the entire property of a concept consists of nothing more than what has been begged and borrowed from perceptual knowledge, which is the true and inexhaustible source of all insight. So that a true philosophy cannot be spun out of mere abstract concepts, but has to be founded on observation and experience, inner and outer. Nor will anything worthwhile be achieved in philosophy by synthesizing experiments with concepts such as have been performed so often in the past but especially by the sophists of our own day — I mean by Fichte and Schelling and even more offensively by Hegel, and in the field of ethics by Schleiermacher. 【1】 Philosophy, just as much as art and poetry, must have its source in perceptual comprehension of the world: nor, however much the head needs to remain on top, ought it to be so cold-blooded a business that the whole man, heart and head, is not finally involved and affected through and through. Philosophy is not algebra: on the contrary, Vauvenargues 【2】 was right when he said: Les grandes pensées viennent du cœur. 【3】

6

Mere subtlety may qualify you as a sceptic but not as a philosopher. On the other hand, scepticism is in philosophy what the Opposition is in Parliament; it is just as beneficial, and indeed necessary. It rests everywhere on the fact that philosophy is not capable of producing the kind of evidence mathematics produces.

7

A dictate of reason is the name we give to certain propositions which we hold true without investigation and of which we think ourselves so firmly convinced we should be incapable of seriously testing them even if we wanted to, since we should then have to call them provisionally in doubt. We credit these propositions so completely because when we first began to speak and think we continually had them recited to us and they were thus implanted in us; so that the habit of thinking them is as old as the habit of thinking as such and we can no longer separate the two.

8

People never weary of reproaching metaphysics with the very small progress it has made compared with the very great progress of the physical sciences. But what other science has been hampered at all times by having an antagonist ex officio, a public prosecutor, a king's champion in full armour against it? Metaphysics will never put forth its full powers so long as it is expected to accommodate itself to dogma. The various religions have taken possession of the metaphysical tendency of mankind, partly by paralysing it through imprinting their dogmas upon it in the earliest years, partly by forbidding and proscribing all free and uninhibited expression of it; so that free investigation of man's most important and interesting concern, of his existence itself, has been in part indirectly hampered, in part made subjectively impossible by the paralysis referred to; and in this way his most sublime tendency has been put in chains.

9

The discovery of truth is prevented most effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, nor directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice, which as a pseudo a priori stands in the path of truth and is then like a contrary wind driving a ship away from land, so that sail and rudder labour in vain.

10

Every general truth is related to specific truths as gold is to silver, inasmuch as it can be converted into a considerable number of specific truths which follow from it in the same way as a gold coin can be converted into small change.

11

From one proposition nothing more can follow than what is already contained in it, i. e. than what it itself implies when its meaning is exhausted; but from two propositions, if they are joined together as premises of a syllogism, more can follow than is contained in either of them taken individually — just as a body formed by chemical combination exhibits qualities possessed by none of its constituents. That logical conclusions possess value derives from this fact.

12

What light is to the outer physical world intellect is to the inner world of consciousness. For intellect is related to will, and thus also to the organism, which is nothing other than will regarded objectively, in approximately the same way as light is to a combustible body and the oxygen in combination with which it ignites. And as light is the purer the less it is involved with the smoke of the burning body, so also is intellect the purer the more completely it is separated from the will which engendered it. In a bolder metaphor one could even say: Life is known to be a process of combustion; intellect is the light produced by this process.

13

The simplest unprejudiced self-observation, combined with the facts of anatomy, leads to the conclusion that intellect, like its objectivization the brain, is, together with its dependent sense-apparatus, nothing other than a very intense receptivity to influences from without and does not constitute our original and intrinsic being; thus that intellect is not that in us which in a plant is motive power or in a stone weight and chemical forces: it is will alone which appears in these forms. Intellect is that in us which in a plant is merely receptivity to external influences, to physical and chemical action and whatever else may help or hinder it to grow and thrive; but in us this receptivity has risen to such a pitch of intensity that by virtue of it the entire objective world, the world as idea, appears; and this, consequently, is how its objectivization originates. It will help to make all this more vivid if you imagine the world without any animal life on it. There will then be nothing on it capable of perceiving it, and therefore it will actually have no objective existence at all. Now imagine a number of plants shooting up out of the ground close beside one another. All kinds of things will begin to operate on them, such as air, wind, the pressure of one plant against another, moisture, cold, light, warmth, electricity, etc. Now imagine the receptivity of these plants to influences of this kind intensified more and more: it will finally become sensation, accompanied by the capacity to refer sensation to its cause, and at last perception: whereupon the world will be there, appearing in space, time and causal connexion — yet it will still be merely the result of external influences on the receptivity of the plants. This pictorial representation brings home very well the merely phenomenal existence of the external world and makes it comprehensible: for no one, surely, would care to assert that a state of affairs which consists of perceptions originating in nothing but relations between external influences and active receptivity represents the truly objective, inner and original constitution of all those natural forces assumed to be acting on the plants; that it represents, that is to say, the world of things in themselves. This picture can thus make it comprehensible to us why the realm of the human intellect should have such narrow boundaries, as Kant demonstrates it has in the Critique of Pure Reason.

14

That you should write down valuable ideas that occur to you as soon as possible goes without saying: we sometimes forget even what we have done, so how much more what we have thought. Thoughts, however, come not when we but when they want. On the other hand, it is better not to copy down what we have received finished and complete from without, what we have merely learned and what can in any case be discovered again in books: for to copy something down is to consign it to forgetfulness. You should deal sternly and despotically with your memory, so that it does not unlearn obedience; if, for example, you cannot call something to mind, a line of poetry or a word perhaps, you should not go and look it up in a book, but periodically plague your memory with it for weeks on end until your memory has done its duty. For the longer you have had to rack your brains for something the more firmly will it stay once you have got it.

15

The quality of our thoughts (their formal value) comes from within, their direction, and thus their matter, from without; so that what we are thinking at any given moment is the product of two fundamentally different factors. Consequently, the object of thought is to the mind only what the plectrum is to the lyre: which is why the same sight inspires such very different thoughts in differing heads.

16

How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do so. The rest live their lives away in this dream not very differently from the animals, from which they are in the end distinguished only by their ability to provide for a few years ahead. If they should ever feel any metaphysical need, it is taken care of from above and in advance by the various religions; and these, whatever they may be like, suffice.

17

One might almost believe that half our thinking takes place unconsciously. Usually we arrive at a conclusion without having clearly thought about the premises which lead to it. This is already evident from the fact that sometimes an occurrence whose consequences we can in no way foresee, still less clearly estimate its possible influence on our own affairs, will nonetheless exercise an unmistakable influence on our whole mood and will change it from cheerful to sad or from sad to cheerful: this can only be the result of unconscious rumination. It is even more obvious in the following: I have familiarized myself with the factual data of a theoretical or practical problem; I do not think about it again, yet often a few days later the answer to the problem will come into my mind entirely of its own accord; the operation which has produced it, however, remains as much a mystery to me as that of an adding-machine: what has occurred is, again, unconscious rumination. — One might almost venture the physiological hypothesis that conscious thinking takes place on the surface of the brain, unconscious thinking inside it.

18

Considering the monotony and consequent insipidity of life one would find it unendurably tedious after any considerable length of time, were it not for the continual advance of knowledge and insight and the acquisition of even better and clearer understanding of all things, which is partly the fruit of experience, partly the result of the changes we ourselves undergo through the different stages of life by which our point of view is to a certain extent being continually altered, whereby things reveal to us sides we did not yet know. In this way, despite the decline in our mental powers, dies diem docet 【4】 still holds indefatigably true and gives life an ever-renewed fascination, in that what is identical continually appears as something new and different.

19

It is quite natural that we should adopt a defensive and negative attitude towards every new opinion concerning something on which we have already an opinion of our own. For it forces its way as an enemy into the previously closed system of our own convictions, shatters the calm of mind we have attained through this system, demands renewed efforts of us and declares our former efforts to have been in vain. A truth which retrieves us from error is consequently to be compared with a physic, as much for its bitter and repellent taste as for the fact that it takes effect not at the moment it is imbibed but only some time afterwards.

Thus, if we see the individual obstinately clinging to his errors, with the mass of men it is even worse: once they have acquired an opinion, experience and instruction can labour for centuries against it and labour in vain. So that there exist certain universally popular and firmly accredited errors which countless numbers contentedly repeat every day: I have started a list of them which others might like to continue.



1. Suicide is a cowardly act.

2. He who mistrusts others is himself dishonest.

3. Worth and genius are unfeignedly modest.

4. The insane are exceedingly unhappy.

5. Philosophizing can be learned, but not philosophy. (The opposite is true.)

6. It is easier to write a good tragedy than a good comedy.

7. A little philosophy leads away from God, a lot of it leads back to him — repeated after Francis Bacon.

8. Knowledge is power. The devil it is! One man can have a great deal of knowledge without its giving him the least power, while another possesses supreme authority but next to no knowledge.



Most of these are repeated parrot fashion without much thought being given to them and merely because when people first heard them said they found them very wise-sounding.

20

Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extension: which is why in this respect one man can confidently take on ten thousand and a thousand fools do not make one wise man.

21

What the pathetic commonplace heads with which the world is crammed really lack are two closely related faculties: that of forming judgements and that of producing ideas of their own. But these are lacking to a degree which he who is not one of them cannot easily conceive, so that he cannot easily conceive the dolefulness of their existence. It is this deficiency, however, which explains on one hand the poverty of the scribbling which in all nations passes itself off to its contemporaries as their literature, and on the other the fate that overtakes true and genuine men who appear among such people. All genuine thought and art is to a certain extent an attempt to put big heads on small people: so it is no wonder the attempt does not always come off. For a writer to afford enjoyment always demands a certain harmony between his way of thinking and that of the reader; and the enjoyment will be the greater the more perfect this harmony is: so that a great mind will fully and completely enjoy only another great mind. It is for this same reason that bad or mediocre writers excite disgust and revulsion in thinking heads: and even conversation with most people has the same effect — one is conscious of the inadequacy and disharmony every step of the way.

22

The life of the plants consists in simple existence: so that their enjoyment of life is a purely and absolutely subjective, torpid contentment. With the animals there enters knowledge: but it is still entirely restricted to what serves their own motivation, and indeed their most immediate motivation. That is why they too find complete contentment in simple existence and why it suffices to fill their entire lives; so that they can pass many hours completely inactive without feeling discontented or impatient, although they are not thinking but merely looking. Only in the very cleverest animals such as dogs and apes does the need for activity, and with that boredom, make itself felt; which is why they enjoy playing, and why they amuse themselves by gazing at passers-by; in which respect they are in a class with those human window-gazers who stare at us everywhere but only when one notices they are students really arouse our indignation.

Only in man has knowledge — i. e. the consciousness of other things, in antithesis to mere self-consciousness — reached a high degree and, with the appearance of the reasoning faculty, risen to thought. As a consequence of this his life can, besides simple existence, be filled by knowledge as such, which is to a certain extent a second existence outside oneself in other beings and things. With man too, however, knowledge is mostly restricted to what serves his own motivation, although this now includes motivations less immediate which, when taken together, are called 'practical knowledge'. On the other hand, he usually has no more free, i. e. purposeless, knowledge than is engendered by curiosity and the need for diversion; yet this kind of knowledge does exist in every man, even if only to this extent. In the meantime, when motivation is quiescent, the life of man is to a large extent filled by simple existence, to which fact the tremendous amount of lounging about that goes on and the commonness of that kind of sociability which consists chiefly in mere togetherness, without any conversation, or at the most very scanty conversation, bear witness. Indeed, most people have — in their hearts even if not consciously — as the supreme guide and maxim of their conduct the resolve to get by with the least possible expenditure of thought, because to them thinking is hard and burdensome. Consequently, they think only as much as their trade or business makes absolutely necessary, and then again as much as is demanded by their various pastimes — which is what their conversation is just as much as their play; but both must be so ordered that they can be tackled with a minimum of thought.

Only where intellect exceeds the measure needed for living does knowledge become more or less an end in itself. It is consequently a quite abnormal event if in some man intellect deserts its natural vocation — that of serving the will by perceiving mere relations between things — in order to occupy itself purely objectively. But it is precisely this which is the origin of art, poetry and philosophy, which are therefore produced by an organ not originally intended for that purpose. For intellect is fundamentally a hard-working factory-hand whom his demanding master, the will, keeps busy from morn to night. But if this hard-driven serf should once happen to do some of his work voluntarily during his free time, on his own initiative and without any object but the work itself, simply for his own satisfaction and enjoyment — then this is a genuine work of art, indeed, if pushed to an extreme, a work of genius.

Such a purely objective employment of the intellect, as well as lying behind all artistic, poetical and philosophical achievement of the higher kind, also lies behind all purely scientific achievement in general, is already present in purely scientific study and learning, likewise in any free reflection (i. e. reflection not involved with personal interest) upon any subject whatever. It is the same thing, indeed, which inspires even mere conversation if its theme is a purely objective one, i. e. is not related in any way to the interest, and consequently the will of those taking part in it. Every such purely objective employment of the intellect compares with its subjective employment — i. e. employment in regard to personal interest, however indirectly — as dancing does with walking: for, like dancing, it is the purposeless expenditure of excess energy. On the other hand, the subjective employment of intellect is, of course, the natural one, since intellect arose merely in order to serve will. It is involved not merely in work and the personal drives, but also in all conversation concerning personal affairs and material matters in general; in eating, drinking and other pleasures; in everything pertaining to earning a livelihood; and in utilitarian concerns of every sort. Most men, to be sure, are incapable of any other employment of their intellect, because with them it is merely a tool in service of their will and is entirely consumed by this service, without any remainder. It is this that makes them so arid, so brutishly earnest and incapable of objective conversation; just as the shortness of the bonds joining intellect to will is visible in their face. The impression of narrow-mindedness which often emerges from it in such a depressing fashion is, in fact, only the outward sign of the narrow limitation of their total stock of knowledge to the affairs of their own will. One can see that here there is just as much intellect as a given will requires for its ends and no more: hence the vulgarity of their aspect; and hence also the fact that their intellect subsides into inactivity the moment their will ceases to drive it. They take an objective interest in nothing whatever. Their attention, not to speak of their mind, is engaged by nothing that does not bear some relation, or at least some possible relation, to their own person: otherwise their interest is not aroused. They are not noticeably stimulated even by wit or humour; they hate rather everything that demands the slightest thought. Coarse buffooneries at most excite them to laughter: apart from that they are earnest brutes — and all because they are capable of only subjective interest. It is precisely this which makes card-playing the most appropriate amusement for them — card-playing for money: because this does not remain in the sphere of mere knowledge, as stage plays, music, conversation, etc., do, but sets in motion the will itself, the primary element which exists everywhere. For the rest they are, from their first breath to their last, tradesmen, life's born drudges. All their pleasures are sensuous: they have no feeling for any other kind of pleasure. Talk to them about business, but not about anything else. To be sociable with them is to be degraded. On the other hand, conversation between two people who are capable of some sort of purely objective employment of their intellect is a free play of intellectual energy, though the matter be never so insubstantial and amount to no more than jesting. Such a conversation is in fact like two or more dancing together: while the other sort is like marching side-by-side or one behind the other merely in order to arrive somewhere.

Now this tendency towards a free and thus abnormal employment of the intellect, together with the capacity for it, attains in the genius the point at which knowledge becomes the main thing, the aim of the whole of life; his own existence, on the other hand, declines to a subsidiary thing, a mere means; so that the normal relationship is completely reversed. Consequently, the genius lives on the whole more in the rest of the world, by virtue of his knowledge and comprehension of it, than in his own person. The entirely abnormal enhancement of his cognitive powers robs him of the possibility of filling up his time with mere existence and its aims: his mind needs to be constantly and vigorously occupied. He thus lacks that composure in traversing the broad scenes of everyday life and that easy absorption in them which is granted to ordinary men. So that genius is for the ordinary practical living appropriate to normal mental powers an ill endowment and, like every abnormality, an impediment: for with this intensifying of the intellectual powers, intuitive comprehension of the outside world achieves so great a degree of objective clarity and furnishes so much more than is requisite for serving the will that such an abundance becomes a downright hindrance to this service, inasmuch as to contemplate given phenomena in themselves and for their own sake constantly detracts from the contemplation of their connexions with the individual will and with one another and consequently disturbs and obstructs any clear comprehension of these connexions. For the service of the will an entirely superficial contemplation of things suffices, a contemplation which furnishes no more than their bearing on whatever aims we may have and whatever may be associated with these aims, and consequently consists of nothing but relationships, with the greatest possible degree of blindness towards everything else: an objective and complete comprehension of the nature of things enfeebles knowledge of this sort and throws it into disorder.

23

The difference between the genius and the normal intelligence is, to be sure, only a quantitative one, in so far as it is only a difference of degree: one is nonetheless tempted to regard it as a qualitative one when one considers how normal men, despite their individual diversity, all think along certain common lines, so that they are frequently in unanimous agreement over judgements which are, in fact, false. This goes so far that they have certain basic views which are held in all ages and continually reiterated, while the great minds of every age have, openly or secretly, opposed these views.

24

A genius is a man in whose head the world as idea has attained a greater degree of clarity and is present more distinctly; and since the weightiest and profoundest insight is furnished not by painstaking observation of what is separate and individual but by the intensity with which the whole is comprehended, mankind can expect from him the profoundest sort of instruction. Genius can thus also be defined as an exceptionally clear consciousness of things and therefore also of their antithesis, one's own self. Mankind looks up to one who is thus gifted for disclosures about things and about its own nature.

25

If you want to earn the gratitude of your own age you must keep in step with it. But if you do that you will produce nothing great. If you have something great in view you must address yourself to posterity: only then, to be sure, you will probably remain unknown to your contemporaries; you will be like a man compelled to spend his life on a desert island and there toiling to erect a memorial so that future seafarers shall know he once existed.

26

Talent works for money and fame: the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. It isn't money, for genius seldom gets any. It isn't fame: fame is too uncertain and, more closely considered, of too little worth. Nor is it strictly for its own pleasure, for the great exertion involved almost outweighs the pleasure. It is rather an instinct of a unique sort by virtue of which the individual possessed of genius is impelled to express what he has seen and felt in enduring works without being conscious of any further motivation. It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish. More closely considered, it is as if in such an individual the will to live, as the spirit of the human species, had become conscious of having, by a rare accident, attained for a brief span of time to a greater clarity of intellect, and now endeavours to acquire at any rate the results, the products of this clear thought and vision for the whole species, which is indeed also the intrinsic being of this individual, so that their light may continue to illumine the darkness and stupor of the ordinary human consciousness. It is from this that there arises that instinct which impels genius to labour in solitude to complete its work without regard for reward, applause or sympathy, but neglectful rather even of its own well-being and thinking more of posterity than of the age it lives in, which could only lead it astray. To make its work, as a sacred trust and the true fruit of its existence, the property of mankind, laying it down for a posterity better able to appreciate it: this becomes for genius a goal more important than any other, a goal for which it wears the crown of thorns that shall one day blossom into a laurel-wreath. Its striving to complete and safeguard its work is just as resolute as that of the insect to safeguard its eggs and provide for the brood it will never live to see: it deposits its eggs where it knows they will one day find life and nourishment, and dies contented.

On Aesthetics

1

The intrinsic problem of the metaphysics of the beautiful can be stated very simply: how is it possible for us to take pleasure in an object when this object has no kind of connexion with our desires?

For we all feel that pleasure in a thing can really arise only from its relation to our will or, as we like to put it, our aims; so that pleasure divorced from a stimulation of the will seems to be a contradiction. Yet it is quite obvious that the beautiful as such excites pleasure in us without having any kind of connexion with our personal aims, that is to say with our will.

My solution to this problem has been that in the beautiful we always perceive the intrinsic and primary forms of animate and inanimate nature, that is to say Plato's Ideas thereof, and that this perception stipulates the existence of its essential correlative, the will-less subject of knowledge, i. e. a pure intelligence without aims or intentions. Through this, when an aesthetic perception occurs the will completely vanishes from consciousness. But will is the sole source of all our troubles and sufferings. This is the origin of the feeling of pleasure which accompanies the perception of the beautiful. It therefore rests on the abolition of all possibility of suffering. — If it should be objected that the possibility of pleasure would then also be abolished, one should remember that, as I have often demonstrated, happiness, gratification, is of a negative nature, namely the mere cessation of suffering, pain on the other hand positive. Thus, when all desire disappears from consciousness there still remains the condition of pleasure, i. e. the absence of all pain, and in this case the absence even of the possibility of pain, in that the individual is transformed from a willing subject into a purely knowing subject, yet continues to be conscious of himself and of his actions as a knowing subject. As we know, the world as will is the primary (ordine prior) and the world as idea the secondary world (ordine posterior). The former is the world of desire and consequently that of pain and thousandfold misery. The latter, however, is in itself intrinsically painless: in addition it contains a remarkable spectacle, altogether significant or at the very least entertaining. Enjoyment of this spectacle constitutes aesthetic pleasure.

2

If, however, the individual will sets its associated power of imagination free for a while, and for once releases it entirely from the service for which it was made and exists, so that it abandons the tending of the will or of the individual person which alone is its natural theme and thus its regular occupation, and yet does not cease to be energetically active or to extend to their fullest extent its powers of perceptivity, then it will forthwith become completely objective, i. e. it will become a faithful mirror of objects, or more precisely the medium of the objectivization of the will appearing in this or that object, the inmost nature of which will now come forth through it the more completely the longer perception lasts, until it has been entirely exhausted. It is only thus, with the pure subject, that there arises the pure object, i. e. the complete manifestation of the will appearing in the object perceived, which is precisely the (Platonic) Idea of it. The perception of this, however, demands that, when contemplating an object, I really abstract its position in space and time, and thus abstract its individuality. For it is this position, always determined by the law of causality, which places this object in any kind of relationship to me as an individual; so that only when this position is done away with will the object become an Idea and I therewith a pure subject of knowledge. This is why a painting, by fixing for ever the fleeting moment and thus extricating it from time, presents not the individual but the Idea, the enduring element in all change. But this postulated change in subject and object requires not only that the faculty of knowledge be released from its original servitude and given over entirely to itself, but also that it should remain active to the full extent of its capacity, notwithstanding that the natural spur to its activity, the instigation of the will, is now lacking. Here is where the difficulty and thus the rarity of the thing lies; because all our thought and endeavour, all our hearing and seeing, stand by nature directly or indirectly in the service of our countless personal aims, big and small, and consequently it is the will which spurs on the faculty of knowledge to the fulfilment of its functions, without which instigation it immediately weakens. Moreover, knowledge activated by this instigation completely suffices for practical life, even for the various branches of science, since they direct themselves to the relations between things and not to their intrinsic and inner being. Wherever it is a question of knowledge of cause and effect or of grounds and consequences of any kind, that is to say in all branches of natural science and mathematics, as also in history, or with inventions, etc., the knowledge sought must be an aim of the will, and the more vehemently it strives for it, the sooner it will be attained. Likewise in affairs of state, in war, in finance and business, in intrigues of every sort, and so on, the will must first of all, through the vehemence of its desire, compel the intellect to exert all its energies so as to track down all the reasons and consequences of the affair in question. Indeed, it is astonishing how far beyond the normal measure of its energies the spur of the will can drive a given intellect in such a case.

The situation is quite different with the perception of the objective, intrinsic being of things which constitutes their (Platonic) Idea and which must lie behind every achievement in the fine arts. For the will, which in the former case promoted the endeavour and was indeed indispensable to it, must here take no part whatever: for here only that serves which the intellect achieves quite alone and by its own means and presents as a voluntary gift. For only in the condition of pure knowledge, where will and its aims have been completely removed from man, but with them his individuality also, can that purely objective perception arise in which the (Platonic) Ideas of things will be comprehended. But such a perception must always precede the conception, i. e. the first, intuitive knowledge which afterwards constitutes the intrinsic material and kernel, as it were the soul of an authentic work of art or poem, or indeed of a genuine philosophy. The unpremeditated, unintentional, indeed in part unconscious and instinctive element which has always been remarked in works of genius owes its origin to precisely the fact that primal artistic knowledge is entirely separated from and independent of will, is will-less.

3

As for the objective aspect of this aesthetic perception, that is to say the (Platonic) Idea, it may be described as that which we would have before us if time, the formal and subjective condition of our knowledge, were drawn away, like the glass lens from a kaleidoscope. We see, e. g., the development of bud, flower and fruit and marvel at the driving force which never wearies of producing this series again and again. Our amazement would cease if we could know that with all this changing development we have before us only the one, unchangeable Idea of the plant, which however we are incapable of perceiving as a unity of bud, flower and fruit, but are compelled to apprehend under the form of time through which the Idea is displayed to our intellect in these successive states.

4

If you consider how poetry and the plastic arts always take an individual for their theme and present it with the most careful exactitude in all its uniqueness, down to the most insignificant characteristics; and if you then look at the sciences, which operate by means of concepts each of which represents countless individuals by once and for all defining and designating what is peculiar to them as a species; — if you consider this, the practice of art is likely to seem to you paltry, petty and indeed almost childish. The nature of art, however, is such that in art one single case stands for thousands, in that what art has in view with that careful and particular delineation of the individual is the revelation of the Idea of the genus to which it belongs; so that, e. g., an occurrence, a scene from human life depicted correctly and completely, that is to say with an exact delineation of the individuals involved in it, leads to a clear and profound knowledge of the Idea of humanity itself perceived from this or that aspect. For as the botanist plucks one single flower from the endless abundance of the plant world and then analyses it so as to demonstrate to us the nature of the plant in general, so the poet selects a single scene, indeed sometimes no more than a single mood or sensation, from the endless confusion of ceaselessly active human life, in order to show us what the life and nature of man is. This is why we see the greatest spirits — Shakespeare and Goethe, Raphael and Rembrandt — not disdaining to delineate single individuals, and not even notable ones, and to make them visible before us, and doing so with the greatest exactitude and the most earnest application, in their whole particularity down to the very smallest details. For the particular and individual can be grasped only when it is made visible — which is why I have defined poetry as the art of setting the imagination into action by means of words.

5

A work of plastic art does not show us, as actuality does, that which exists once and never again, namely the union of this particular material with this particular form which constitutes the concrete and individual; it shows us the form alone which, if it were presented completely and in all its aspects, would be the Idea itself. The picture therefore immediately leads us away from the individual to the pure form. The separation of form from material is already a big step towards the Idea: but every picture, whether a painting or a statue, constitutes such a separation. Now it is precisely because the aim of the aesthetic work of art is to bring us to a knowledge of the (Platonic) Idea that it is characterized by this separation, this dividing of the form from the material. It is intrinsic to the work of art to present the form alone, without the material, and to do so manifestly and obviously. This is really the reason waxwork figures make no aesthetic impression and are consequently not works of art (in the aesthetic sense), although when they are well made they produce a far greater illusion of reality than the best picture or statue can and if imitation of the actual were the aim of art would have to be accorded the first rank. For they seem to present not the pure form but with it the material as well, so that they bring about the illusion that the thing itself is standing there. The true work of art leads us from that which exists only once and never again, i. e. the individual, to that which exists perpetually and time and time again in innumerable manifestations, the pure form or Idea; but the waxwork figure appears to present the individual itself, that is to say that which exists only once and never again, but without that which lends value to such a fleeting existence, without life. That is why the waxwork evokes a feeling of horror: it produces the effect of a rigid corpse.

6

The reason the impressions we receive in youth are so significant, the reason why in the dawn of life everything appears to us in so ideal and transfigured a light, is that we then first become acquainted with the genus, which is still new to us, through the individual, so that every individual thing stands as a representative of its genus: we grasp therein the (Platonic) Idea of this genus, which is essentially what constitutes beauty.

7

The beauty and grace of the human figure united together are the will in its most clearly visible form at the highest stage of its objectivization, and this is why they are the supreme achievement of the plastic arts. On the other hand, every material thing is beautiful, consequently every animal is beautiful. If this is not evident to us in the case of certain animals it is because we are not in a position to regard them purely objectively and thus comprehend the Idea of them, but are prevented from doing so by some inescapable thought-association, usually the result of an obtrusive similarity, e. g. that of the ape to man, as a consequence of which instead of grasping the Idea of this animal we see only the caricature of a man. The similarity between the toad and mud and dirt seems to produce the same effect, although this is inadequate to explain the boundless repugnance, indeed terror and horror, which overcomes many people at the sight of this animal, as it does others in the case of the spider: this seems rather to originate in a much deeper, metaphysical and mysterious connexion.

8

Inorganic nature, provided it does not consist of water, produces a very melancholy, indeed oppressive impression upon us when it appears without anything organic. An instance is provided by the regions of bare rock without any vegetation in the long valley near Toulon through which runs the road to Marseille; but the deserts of Africa offer a much more grandiose and impressive example. The sadness of this impression produced upon us by the inorganic derives first and foremost from the fact that the inorganic mass is subject exclusively to the law of gravity, the direction of which consequently dictates everything. — On the other hand, we derive a high degree of immediate pleasure from the sight of vegetation, but this is naturally the greater the more abundant, manifold and extensive — that is to say left to itself — the vegetation is. The immediate reason for this lies in the fact that in vegetation the law of gravity seems to have been overcome, in that the plant world raises itself in precisely the opposite direction from the one dictated by this law and thus directly proclaims the phenomenon of life as a new and higher order of things. We ourselves are part of this order: it is that in nature which is related to us, the element of our existence. Our heart is uplifted in presence of it. What pleases us first and foremost at the sight of the plant world, therefore, is this vertical upward direction, and a group of trees gains vastly from having a couple of straight-rising pointed fir-trees in its midst. On the other hand, a felled tree no longer affects us; indeed, one that has grown up slanting already produces far less effect than an upright one; and it is the down-hanging branches of the weeping willow which have surrendered to gravity that have given this tree its name. — The melancholy effect of the inorganic nature of water is in large part abolished by its great mobility, which produces an impression of life, and by its constant play with light: it is, moreover, the primal condition of our life.

9

A man who tries to live on the generosity of the Muses, I mean on his poetic gifts, seems to me somewhat to resemble a girl who lives on her charms. Both profane for base profit what ought to be the free gift of their inmost being. Both are liable to become exhausted and both usually come to a shameful end. So do not degrade your Muse to a whore.

10

Music is the true universal language which is understood everywhere, so that it is ceaselessly spoken in all countries and throughout all the centuries with great zeal and earnestness, and a significant melody which says a great deal soon makes its way round the entire earth, while one poor in meaning which says nothing straightaway fades and dies: which proves that the content of a melody is very well understandable. Yet music speaks not of things but of pure weal and woe, which are the only realities for the will: that is why it speaks so much to the heart, while it has nothing to say directly to the head and it is a misuse of it to demand that it should do so, as happens in all pictorial music, which is consequently once and for all objectionable, even though Haydn and Beethoven strayed into composing it: Mozart and Rossini, so far as I know, never did. For expression of the passions is one thing, depiction of things another.

11

Grand opera is not really a product of the pure artistic sense, it is rather the somewhat barbaric conception of enhancing aesthetic enjoyment by piling up the means to it, by the simultaneous production of quite disparate impressions and by strengthening the effect through augmenting the masses and forces producing it; while music, as the mightiest of the arts, is capable by itself of completely engrossing the mind receptive to it; indeed, its highest products, if they are to be properly comprehended and enjoyed, demand the undivided and undistracted attention of the entire mind, so that it may surrender to them and immerse itself in them in order to understand their incredibly intimate language. Instead of which, the mind is invaded through the eye, while listening to a highly complex piece of operatic music, by the most colourful pageantry, the most fanciful pictures and the liveliest impressions of light and colour; and at the same time it is occupied with the plot of the action. Through all this it is distracted and confused and its attention is diverted, so that it is very little receptive to the sacred, mysterious, intimate language of music. All these accompaniments are thus diametrically opposed to the attainment of the musical aim.

Strictly speaking one could call opera an unmusical invention for the benefit of unmusical minds, in as much as music first has to be smuggled in through a medium foreign to it, for instance as the accompaniment to a long drawn out, insipid love story and its poetic pap: for a spirited compact poem full of matter is of no use as an opera text, because the composition cannot be equal to such a poem.

The mass and the symphony alone provide undisturbed, fully musical enjoyment, while in opera the music is miserably involved with the vapid drama and its mock poetry and must try to bear the foreign burden laid on it as best it can. The mocking contempt with which the great Rossini sometimes handles the text is, while not exactly praiseworthy, at any rate genuinely musical.

In general, however, grand opera, by more and more deadening our musical receptivity through its three-hours duration and at the same time putting our patience to the test through the snail's pace of what is usually a very trite action, is in itself intrinsically and essentially boring; which failing can be overcome only by the excessive excellence of an individual achievement: that is why in this genre only the masterpieces are enjoyable and everything mediocre is unendurable.

12

Drama in general, as the most perfect reflection of human existence, has three modes of comprehending it. At the first and most frequently encountered stage it remains at what is merely interesting: we are involved with the characters because they pursue their own designs, which are similar to our own; the action goes forward by means of intrigue, the nature of the characters, and chance; wit and humour season the whole. — At the second stage drama becomes sentimental: pity is aroused for the hero, and through him for ourselves; the action is characterized by pathos, yet at the end it comes back to peace and contentment. — At the highest and hardest stage the tragic is aimed at: grievous suffering, the misery of existence is brought before us, and the final outcome is here the vanity of all human striving. We are deeply affected and the sensation of the will's turning away from life is aroused in us, either directly or as a simultaneously sounding harmony.

13

The first step is the hardest — says the popular adage. But in dramaturgy the reverse is true: the last step is the hardest. Evidence of this is the countless dramas the first half of which promises well but which then become confused, halt, waver, especially in the notorious fourth act, and finally come to a forced or unsatisfying end, or to one everybody has long since foreseen; sometimes, as with Emilia Galotti, 【5】 the end is even revolting and sends the audience home in a thoroughly bad mood. This difficulty of the dénouement is the result partly of the fact that it is easier to confuse things than to straighten them out again, but partly too of the fact that at the beginning of the play we allow the dramatist carte blanche, while at the end we make certain definite demands of him. We demand that the outcome shall be a completely happy or a completely tragic one — but it is not easy to make human affairs take so definite a direction. We then demand that this outcome shall be achieved naturally, fairly and in an unforced way — and yet at the same time not have been foreseen by the audience.

A novel will be the higher and nobler the more inner and less outer life it depicts; and this relation will accompany every grade of novel as its characteristic sign, from Tristram Shandy down to the crudest and most action-packed romance. Tristram Shandy, to be sure, has as good as no action whatever; but how very little action there is in La Nouvelle Héloïse and Wilhelm Meister! 【6】 Even Don Quixote has relatively little, and what there is is very trivial, amounting to no more than a series of jokes. And these four novels are the crown of the genre. Consider, further, the marvellous novels of Jean Paul and see how much inner life is set in motion on the narrowest of external foundations. Even the novels of Walter Scott have a significant preponderance of inner over outer life, and the latter appears only with a view to setting the former in motion; while in bad novels the outer action is there for its own sake. The art lies in setting the inner life into the most violent motion with the smallest possible expenditure of outer life: for it is the inner life which is the real object of our interest. — The task of the novelist is not to narrate great events but to make small ones interesting.

On Books and Writing

1

Writers can be divided into meteors, planets and fixed stars. The first produce a momentary effect: you gaze up, cry: 'Look!' — and then they vanish for ever. The second, the moving stars, endure for much longer. By virtue of their proximity they often shine more brightly than the fixed stars, which the ignorant mistake them for. But they too must soon vacate their place, they shine moreover only with a borrowed light, and their sphere of influence is limited to their own fellow travellers (their contemporaries). The third alone are unchanging, stand firm in the firmament, shine by their own light and influence all ages equally, in that their aspect does not alter when our point of view alters since they have no parallax. Unlike the others, they do not belong to one system (nation) alone: they belong to the Universe. But it is precisely because they are so high that their light usually takes so many years to reach the eyes of dwellers on earth.

2

There are above all two kinds of writer: those who write for the sake of what they have to say and those who write for the sake of writing. The former have had ideas or experiences which seem to them worth communicating; the latter need money and that is why they write — for money. They think for the purpose of writing. You can recognize them by the fact that they spin out their ideas to the greatest possible extent, that their ideas are half-true, obscure, forced and vacillating, and that they usually prefer the twilight so as to appear what they are not, which is why their writings lack definiteness and clarity. You can soon see they are writing simply in order to cover paper: and as soon as you do see it you should throw the book down, for time is precious. — Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature. Only he who writes entirely for the sake of what he has to say writes anything worth writing. It is as if there were a curse on money: every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain. The greatest works of the greatest men all belong to a time when they had to write them for nothing or for very small payment: so that here too the Spanish proverb holds good: Honra y provecho no caben en un saco. 【7】

A multitude of bad writers lives exclusively on the stupid desire of the public to read nothing but what has just been printed: the journalists. Well named! In English the word means 'day-labourers'.

3

And then again, there can be said to be three kinds of author. Firstly, there are those who write without thinking. They write from memory, from reminiscence, or even directly from other people's books. This class is the most numerous. — Secondly, there are those who think while writing. They think in order to write. Very common. — Thirdly, there are those who have thought before they started writing. They write simply because they have thought. Rare.

Even among the small number of writers who actually think seriously before they start writing, there are extremely few who think about the subject itself: the rest merely think about books, about what others have said about the subject. They require, that is to say, the close and powerful stimulation of ideas produced by other people in order to think at all. These ideas are then their immediate theme, so that they remain constantly under their influence and consequently never attain to true originality. The above-mentioned minority, on the other hand, are stimulated to think by the subject itself, so that their thinking is directed immediately to this. Among them alone are to be discovered those writers who endure and become immortal.

Only he who takes what he writes directly out of his own head is worth reading.

4

A book can never be more than a reproduction of the thoughts of its author. The value of these thoughts lies either in the material, that is in what he has thought upon, or in the form, i. e. the way in which the material is treated, that is in what he has thought upon it.

The upon what is manifold, as are the advantages it bestows on books. All empirical material, that is everything historically or physically factual in itself and in the widest sense, belongs here. The characteristic quality lies in the object, so that the book can be an important one whoever its author may be.

In the case of the what, on the other hand, the characteristic quality lies in the subject. The topics treated can be such as are accessible and familiar to all men, but it is the form in which they are comprehended, the what of the thought, which here bestows value, and this lies in the subject. If, consequently, a book of this sort is admirable and unique, its author is so too; from which it follows that the merit of a writer who is worth reading is the greater the less it owes to his material, and even the more familiar and much-employed this material is. Thus, e. g., the three great Greek tragedians all employed the same material.

Thus when a book becomes famous you should firmly distinguish whether it is on account of its material or on account of its form.

The public is much more interested in the material than in the form. It displays this tendency in its most ridiculous shape in regard to poetic works, in that it painstakingly tracks down the real events or personal circumstances which occasioned the work, and these, indeed, become more interesting to it than the works themselves, so that it reads more about than by Goethe and studies the Faust legend more assiduously than Faust, And if Bürger once said: 'They will undertake learned research into who Lenore really was', 【8】 we have seen this literally come to pass in the case of Goethe. — This preference for the material as against the form is as if one should ignore the form and painting of a beautiful Etruscan vase in order to carry out a chemical analysis of the pigment and clay.

5

The actual life of a thought lasts only until it reaches the point of speech: there it petrifies and is henceforth dead but indestructible, like the petrified plants and animals of prehistory. As soon as our thinking has found words it ceases to be sincere or at bottom serious. When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us, just as the child severs itself from its mother when it enters into its own existence.

6

Literary periodicals ought to be the dam against the ever-rising flood of bad and unprofitable books produced by the unprincipled scribbling of our age. With the incorruptibility, judiciousness and severity of their judgements, they should scourge without mercy all patchwork put together by incompetents, all the page-filling through which empty heads seek to fill their empty pockets, which is to say nine-tenths of all books, and thus work against triviality and imposture as their duty dictates; instead of which, they promote these things: and their abject tolerance allies itself with author and publisher to rob the public of its time and its money. Their writers are as a rule professors or literati who, because of low salaries or poor payment, write from need of money: so, since they all have a common aim, their interests are in common, they keep together, mutually sustain one another and speak in favour of one another: this is the origin of all the laudatory reviews of bad books which constitute the content of literary periodicals. Their motto ought to be: Live and let live!

Anonymity, that shield for every kind of literary scoundrelism, must disappear. The pretext for its introduction into literary periodicals was that it protected honest critics from the wrath of authors and their patrons. But for every case of this kind there are a hundred cases where it serves merely to allow complete irresponsibility to reviewers who would be unable to defend what they write, or even to conceal the shame of those so venal and abject as to recommend books to the public in exchange for a tip from their publisher. It often merely serves to cloak the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance of the reviewer. It is unbelievable what impudence these fellows are capable of, and from what degree of literary knavery they will not shrink, once they know themselves secure in the shadow of anonymity.

Rousseau already said in the preface to La Nouvelle Héloïse: 'Tout honnête homme doit avouer les livres qu'il publie' — which means in English: 'Every honest man puts his name to what he writes', and universally affirmative propositions can be reversed per contrapositionem. 【9】 How much more this applies to polemical writings, which reviews usually are!

7

Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is less deceptive than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is to wear a mask, and however beautiful this may be its lifelessness soon makes it seem insipid and unendurable, so that the ugliest living face is preferable.

Stylistic affectation can be compared to pulling faces.

8

To arrive at a provisional assessment of a writer's worth it is not necessary to know what or upon what he has thought, because that would mean having to read everything he has written; it is sufficient in the first instance to know how he has thought. Now an exact impression of this how of his thinking, of its essential nature and prevailing quality, is provided by his style. For this reveals the formal nature of all a man's thoughts, which must always remain the same no matter what or upon what he thinks. It is, as it were, the paste from which he moulds all his figures, however various they may be. Just as Eulenspiegel, when asked how long it would take to reach the next town, gave his questioner the apparently senseless answer: 'Walk!' with a view to judging from his pace how far he would get in a certain time, so I read a couple of pages of an author and already know more or less how far I can profit from him.

The first rule, indeed by itself virtually a sufficient condition for good style, is to have something to say.

The dullness and tediousness of the writings of commonplace people might be a consequence of the fact that they are speaking only half-consciously, that is to say not really understanding the meaning of the words they use, since these are something they have learned and received finished and complete, so that what they put together is rather whole phrases (phrases banales) than individual words. This is the origin of the palpable lack of distinct ideas which characterize their writings, since they are without that which imposes distinctness on ideas, individual clear thinking: instead of this, we meet with an obscure indistinct welter of words, with current phrases, hackneyed expressions and fashionable locutions. Their nebulous productions consequently resemble printing with worn-out type.

With regard to the tediousness in writing touched on above, one should add the general observation that there are two kinds of tediousness: an objective and a subjective kind. The objective kind always derives from the deficiency in question, that is from the fact that the author has no clear ideas or information whatever to communicate. For he who has them goes about communicating them in a direct manner and consequently everywhere presents clear, distinct concepts, so that he is neither verbose, nor obscure, nor confused, and consequently he is not tedious. Even if his leading idea is false, it is in this event still clearly thought and well considered, that is to say at least formally correct, so that what he writes always retains some value. On the other hand, an objectively tedious work is, for the same reason, always worthless in every respect. — Subjective tediousness, on the contrary, is only relative: it originates in a lack of interest in the subject on the part of the reader; this, however, originates in the reader's limitations. The most admirable work, consequently, can be subjectively tedious, namely to this or that reader; as, conversely, the worst can be subjectively entertaining to this or that reader because the subject or the writer interests him.

An affected writer is like a man who dresses up so as not to be confused and confounded with the mob, a danger which a gentleman, however ill-clad, never runs. As a certain overdressing and tiré à quatre épingles 【10】 thus betrays the plebeian, so an affected style betrays the commonplace mind.

Nevertheless, it is a misguided endeavour to try to write exactly as you speak. Every style of writing should rather retain a certain vestige of affinity with the lapidary style, which is indeed the ancestor of them all. This endeavour is consequently as objectionable as its converse, that is to try to speak as you write, which is at once pedantic and hard to understand.

Obscurity and vagueness of expression is always and everywhere a very bad sign: for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it derives from vagueness of thought, which in turn comes from an original incongruity and inconsistency in the thought itself, and thus from its falsity. If a true thought arises in a head it will immediately strive after clarity and will soon achieve it: what is clearly thought, however, easily finds the expression appropriate to it. The thoughts a man is capable of always express themselves in clear, comprehensible and unambiguous words. Those who put together difficult, obscure, involved, ambiguous discourses do not really know what they want to say: they have no more than a vague consciousness of it which is only struggling towards a thought: often, however, they also want to conceal from themselves and others that they actually have nothing to say.

Truth is fairest naked, and the simpler its expression the profounder its influence. What declamation over the vanity of human existence, for example, can well make a greater impression than Job's: Homo, natus de muliere, brevi vivit tempore, repletus multis miseriis, qui, tanquam flos, egreditur et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra. 【11】 — It is for just this reason that the naive poetry of Goethe stands so incomparably higher than the rhetorical poetry of Schiller. And it is this that accounts for the powerful effect of many folk songs. Everything superfluous is prejudicial.

More than nine-tenths of all literate men and women certainly read nothing but newspapers, and consequently model their orthography, grammar and style almost exclusively on them and even, in their simplicity, regard the murdering of language which goes on in them as brevity of expression, elegant facility and ingenious innovation; indeed, young people of the unlearned professions in general regard the newspaper as an authority simply because it is something printed. For this reason, the state should, in all seriousness, take measures to ensure that the newspapers are altogether free of linguistic errors. A censor should be instituted who, instead of receiving a salary, should receive one louis d'or for every mangled or stylistically objectionable word, error of grammar or syntax, or misemployed preposition he discovers in them, and three louis d'or for every instance of sheer impudent mockery of all style and grammar, with double the sum for any repetition, the amounts to be defrayed by the perpetrators. Or is the German language perhaps anyone's game, a trifle not worthy of that protection of the law which even a dunghill enjoys? — Miserable philistines! — What in the world is to become of the German language if every scribbler and newspaper writer is granted discretionary power to do with it whatever his caprice and folly suggest?

9

An error of style which, with literature in decline and the ancient languages neglected, is becoming more and more common, but is really at home only in Germany, is its subjectivity. It consists in this, that the writer is satisfied so long as he himself understands what he means: the reader may be left to make of it what he can. Unconcerned with this difficulty, the writer proceeds as if he were engaged in a monologue: while what should really be taking place is a dialogue, and indeed one in which the speaker has to express himself the more clearly in that he cannot hear the listener's questions. It is for just this reason that a style should be not subjective, but objective. An objective style is one in which the words are so arranged that the reader is downright compelled to think exactly the same thing as the author has thought. But this will come about only if the author continually remembers that thoughts obey the law of gravity to this extent, that they travel much more easily from head down to paper than they do from paper up to head, so that for the latter journey they require all the assistance we can give them. If it is achieved, the words operate in a purely objective way, like a completed oil-painting; while the subjective style is hardly more effective than a series of blots on a wall: only he whose imagination has chanced to be aroused by them can see in them shapes and pictures — to others they are merely blots. The distinction in question applies to the whole mode of communication, but it can often be demonstrated in individual passages too: for example, I have just read in a new book: 'I have not written so as to increase the number of existing books.' This says the opposite of what the writer intended, and is moreover nonsense.

10

He who writes carelessly makes first and foremost the confession that he himself does not place any great value on his thoughts. For the enthusiasm which inspires the unflagging endurance necessary for discovering the clearest, most forceful and most attractive form of expressing our thoughts is begotten only by the conviction of their weightiness and truth — just as we employ silver or golden caskets only for sacred things or priceless works of art.

11

Few write as an architect builds, drawing up a plan beforehand and thinking it out down to the smallest details. Most write as they play dominoes: their sentences are linked together as dominoes are, one by one, in part deliberately, in part by chance.

12

The guiding principle in the art of composition should be that the human being can think clearly only one thought at a time, so that he should not be asked to think two, not to speak of more than two thoughts at the same time. — But this is what he is being asked to do when parentheses are inserted into sentences which have been broken up to accommodate them, a practice which causes unnecessary and wanton confusion. German writers are the worst offenders in this respect. That their language lends itself to it more readily than other living languages may account for the fact but does not make it commendable. The prose of no language reads so pleasantly and easily as does that of the French, and this is because it is as a rule free of this error. The French writer sets his thoughts down one after the other in the most logical and natural order possible and thus places them before his reader in succession, so that the reader can give his undivided attention to each of them. The German, on the other hand, weaves them together into an involved and twice involved and thrice involved period, because he insists on saying six things at once instead of presenting them one after the other.

The true national characteristic of the Germans is ponderousness: 【12】 it is evident in their gait, their activities, their language, their speech, their mode of narrating, their way of understanding and thinking, but especially in their style of writing, in the pleasure they take in long, ponderous, involved periods, where the memory has to bear the burden for a good five minutes, patient and unaided, until, at the end of the period, reason comes into action and the conundrum is solved. This is the kind of thing they enjoy, and if affectation and bombast can be introduced as well, the author revels in it: but Heaven help the reader.

It is obviously counter to all sound reason to clap one thought down straight over another, as if making a cross: but this is what happens when a writer interrupts what he has started to say in order to say something quite different in the middle of it, thus leaving a meaningless half-period in the custody of the reader until the other half comes along. It is like handing a guest an empty plate and leaving him to hope something will appear on it.

This form of construction reaches the height of tastelessness when the parentheses are not even dovetailed organically into the period but, by making a straight breach in it, simply wedged in. If it is an impertinence to interrupt others, it is no less of an impertinence to interrupt oneself, as happens in a form of construction which for some years now every inferior, careless, hasty scribbler with visions of payment before his eyes has employed six times on every page and enjoyed doing so. It consists — precept and example should, where possible, go together — in breaking off one phrase in order to stick another into it. They do it, however, not only from laziness, but also from stupidity, in that they take it for a pleasant légèreté 【13】 which enlivens the discourse. — In rare individual cases it may be excusable.

13

No literary quality — persuasiveness, for instance, or richness of imagery, a talent for metaphors, boldness, astringency, conciseness, gracefulness, facility of expression, wit, striking contrast, laconism, simplicity — can be acquired by reading writers who display it. But if we already possess any such quality as a natural tendency, that is potentia, 【14】 we can by reading summon it up in ourselves, become conscious of it, see what can be made of it, be fortified in our inclination, indeed in the courage to employ it, judge of its effectiveness, and thus learn how to use it correctly: and only then shall we also possess it actu. 【15】 This, then, is the only way in which reading can teach writing: it instructs us in the use we can make of our own natural gifts; thus it can instruct us only when we possess such gifts. If we do not possess them we can learn from reading nothing but cold dead mannerism, and become superficial imitators.

14

As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.

15

According to Herodotus, Xerxes wept at the sight of his enormous army to think that, of all these men, not one would be alive in a hundred years' time; so who cannot but weep at the sight of the thick fair catalogue to think that, of all these books, not one will be alive in ten years' time.

16

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. — A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.

17

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

18

In the history of the world half a century is a considerable period, because its material is always changing, inasmuch as something is always happening. In the history of literature, on the other hand, half a century is often no time at all, because nothing has happened: things are as they were fifty years before.

It is consistent with this state of things that we should see the scientific, literary and artistic Zeitgeist declared bankrupt about every thirty years: for during this period the errors contained in it have grown to such proportions as to crush it by the weight of their absurdity, while the opposing view has at the same time been strengthened by them. So now there is a sudden change: but what often succeeds is an error in the opposite direction. To exhibit the periodical recurrence of this state of things would be the true pragmatic material of literary history.

I wish someone would one day attempt a tragic history of literature, showing how the various nations which now take their highest pride in the great writers and artists they can show treated them while they were alive. In such a history, the author would bring visibly before us that endless struggle which the good and genuine of all ages and all lands has to endure against the always dominant bad and wrong-headed; depict the martyrdom of almost every genuine enlightener of mankind, almost every great master of every art; show us how, with a few exceptions, they lived tormented lives in poverty and wretchedness, without recognition, without sympathy, without disciples, while fame, honour and riches went to the unworthy; how, that is, their lot was that of Esau, who while out hunting and catching game for his father was robbed by Jacob of his father's blessing; but how, in spite of all, love of their cause sustained them, until the hard struggle of such an educator of the human race was at last consummated, the never-fading laurel-wreath beckoned and the hour struck in which for him too:



Der schwere Panzer wird zum Flügelkleide,

Kurz ist der Schmerz, unendlich ist die Freude. 【16】



注 释

【1】  Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762—1814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775—1854), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770—1831): German philosophers, the most influential of their age and the subject of constant attack by Schopenhauer. Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher (1768—1834), theologian: when Schopenhauer attacks 'Rationalism' in religion it is Schleiermacher he has in mind.

【2】  Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715—47), 'moralist' in the French sense.

【3】  Great thoughts spring from the heart.

【4】  'The day teaches the day' — there is something new every day.

【5】  Tragedy by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729—81), a leader of the Enlightenment in Germany and the principal German dramatist before the age of Goethe and Schiller.

【6】  La Nouvelle Héloïse is by Rousseau, Wilhelm Meister by Goethe.

【7】  Honour and money don't belong in the same purse.

【8】  Gottfried August Bürger (1747—94), poet. His ballad Lenore (1773) is one of the most famous of all German poems.

【9】  By contraposition

【10】  Dressing up to the nines.

【11】  Job 14, 1—2: Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

【12】  Schwerf lligkeit: heaviness, clumsiness, slowness, awkwardness, ponderousness.

【13】  Lightness of touch.

【14】  Potential

【15】  In fact.

【16】  The heavy armour becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.

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下文将要提到的想法可能还不够流行,尚不足以得到广泛的支持。长期以来人们对某件事情已经习以为常,因此让它看上去似乎并无不妥。出于对传统的维护,一些人对本文中提出的观点首先会表现得怒不可遏。然而,他们的愤怒很快便会平息。时间比理性更能够让人改变观念。

鉴于长期滥用权力通常引发人们对权力本身正当性的疑问(其他事情也是这样,如果不是受难者被激怒,开始刨根问底的话,人们可能永远不会考虑到这些事情),鉴于英国国王决定亲自出面履行“自身权利 ”支持(被他称为)“他们的 ”国会,鉴于这个国家善良的人们受到以上诸多因素的沉重压迫,他们毫无疑问有权质疑上述两项权力的正当性,并且同样地有权拒绝任何人篡夺权力。

在下文中,作者力求避免将个人化的东西掺杂其中。因此,文中不存在对任何个人的颂扬或者责难。智者和杰出人士都不需要借助一本小册子为自己锦上添花 ;至于那些愚钝或不友善之人也将止乎于礼,就让他们顺其自然吧,除非我们花费太多的功夫去转化他们。

美洲的事业在很大程度上是全人类的事业。已经和将要发生的很多事情的影响并不限于本地区,而是具有普遍性,关系到所有爱人类的人所坚守的原则,而在这一过程中,他们的爱事关重大。凭借火和剑将一个国家夷为荒原,公然挑战人类共同的与生俱来的权利,意欲消灭人类权利的捍卫者,这是每一个拥有情感与理智的人所共同关注的问题。不管是否会遭受政治责难,作者本人即是其中的一员。

又及:本书新版本的出版时间有所推迟,旨在收集对这一“独立学说”的反对意见。鉴于目前还没有人回应,现在只能认为没有人提出异议,因为向公众征集意见的时间早已经过去。

此书的作者是谁,公众完全不必知道,因为需要关注的是“独立学说本身 ,而不是作者本人。不过也许需要说明一点,作者不归属于任何党派,不受任何群体或个人的影响,只是尊崇理性和原则。



1776年2月14日于费城

关于政府的起源和构成的常识,包括对于英国政体的简要描述

一些作者将社会和政府混淆起来,对两者很少或者不做区分。然而,两者不仅是有区别的,而且起源亦有不同。社会源自我们的需求,而政府源于我们的罪恶。前者汇集我们的爱心,从正面 入手提升我们的幸福,而后者则约束我们的罪恶,从反面 入手提升我们的幸福。一个推动交流,另一个制造差别。前者是守护者,后者是惩罚者。

在任何状态下,社会都给人带来很多好处,而政府即使是在最佳状态下也不过是一种必要之恶,在最糟糕的状态下则令人难以忍受。在我们遭受苦难时,或者受到由政府导致的 同样的困苦时,虽然这种苦难即使是在没有政府 的国家也会遇到,但想到是我们自己制造了苦难,我们会更感痛苦。像衣服一样,政府的存在是失去纯真的标志;国王的宫殿是建立在天国凉亭的废墟之上的。因为如果良心的召唤是清晰和始终如一的,而且得以不容抗拒地被遵循,人类就不需要另设立法者;然而有时实际情况并非如此,人们发现必须要拿出部分财产来建立保护好自己其余财产的机制;就像在处理其他情形时一样,人类的理智在提醒自己,两害相权取其轻。既然 保障安全是设立政府的出发点和终结点,那么毫无疑问,最能保障我们安全,而且成本最小、能带来最大利益的政府是所有人都喜欢的,不论这一政府呈现何种形式

为了明确和正确地了解政府的构成和目的,让我们来假设这样一种场景:在地球上某个偏僻的角落居住着一小群人,他们与世隔绝,代表了在某个国家或这个世界上居住的第一批人。在这个天然的自由状态下,社会是他们首先想到的事情。有上千条理由促使他们这样做,包括:凭个人的力量难以满足所有需求;精神状态不能适应长期的孤独。这些理由很快迫使一个人寻求他人的帮助和慰藉,而其他人反过来也有相同的需求。如果有四五个人团结在一起,还是可以在旷野中生存下去的。而单个人则不然,他可能终身劳碌而无所得:他可以伐倒一棵大树,但却无法将它移走,而且即使能够将它移走,却不能把它竖立起来;饥饿会迫使他中断劳动,种种不同的需求会使他应接不暇。疾病乃至各种不幸都可能意味着死亡,因为虽然每一项都不足以致命,但是每一项都会让他丧失生活能力,让他陷于一种与其说是等死,不如说是等待被毁灭的状态。

因此,就像万有引力一样,需求很快推动新移民组成社会。社会成员之间的相互扶助取代了法律规定和政府管制,因为在大家彼此公正相待的情况下,法律规定和政府管制也就丧失了其存在的意义。然而,除天堂外,任何地方都可能孕育邪恶。在一步步战胜移民后最初遭遇的困难的过程中——正是这些困难把他们团结起来——邪恶也不可避免地侵蚀了他们。他们开始逐渐疏于自己的职守并放松对彼此的依赖。这样的懈怠意味着,他们需要建立某种形式的政府来弥补道德方面的缺陷。

在附近的一棵大树下,诞生了他们的“国会”。聚居区的所有居民都可以聚集在大树下讨论公共事务。几乎可以肯定的是,他们最初通过的法律只是拥有法规之名,惩罚措施也仅表现为大家的轻蔑。在最初的议会中,每个人都自然而然地拥有一个席位。

然而,随着聚居区的扩大,公共事务也随之增加。由于聚居区成员居住分散,每次会议都召集所有人参加就变得非常困难。此时的情况已不比当初,那时居民数量小,居住地临近,而且公共事务数量少而琐碎。这种情况让人们认识到,从全体成员中选择少数人来代表他们处理立法事务更为可行。大家认为,这些代表与选择他们的人关心同样的事务,而且处理这些事务的方式也与全体居民在场时无异。如果聚居区继续扩大,居民代表人数也需要增加,聚居区每个区域的利益都需要考虑到。人们发现,最好的做法是在整个聚居区中划分大小适宜的区域,每个区域委派适宜数量的代表。另外人们还意识到,为了确保当选代表 不会谋求与选民 不一致的利益,有必要让选举经常化。因为那样一来,当选代表 会在几个月后回归并且融入到全体选民 集体中;而且考虑到以权谋私的后果,他们对公众的忠诚度因此得以保障。由于在频繁的相互交流中,不同的区域间会产生相同的利益,他们会自然而然地相互支持。政府的力量以及被统治者的幸福 都源于这样的基础,而不是无实际意义的国王称谓。

政府就是这样出现和成长起来的。换言之,由于道德品质本身不足以统治世界,政府治理模式才得以诞生。此时,人们亦可以领会到政府存在的出发点和目的,即保障自由和安全。即使雪的强光刺激可能会使我们感到眼花目眩,即使声音可能会欺骗我们的耳朵,即使偏见会扭曲我们的意志,或者利益的诱惑会影响我们的理解力,但自然和理性会用简洁的声音告诉我们:这样做是对的。

我对政府形式的认识受自然界一个原则的启发,这是一个不能够推翻的原则,即一个事物越简单,就越不易出问题,而且即使出了问题也更容易被修复。基于这一原则,我想针对备受吹捧的英国政体谈谈自己的一些看法。目前的英国政体诞生于黑暗的奴隶制时代,就当时的环境而言,它的先进性是毫无疑问的。在世界处于专制统治下的时候,任何改变专制的行动都是伟大的。然而,显而易见的是,现在的英国政体并不完善,容易引发社会动荡,并且不能兑现自己的承诺。

尽管专制政府是违反人性的,但这种形式具有这样的优势,即他们是简单的。在人民遭受苦难时,他们知道这些苦难源自何处,知道如何去解决,而且不会迷惑于各种各样的原因和解决之道中。然而,英国的政体极其复杂,以至于在整个国家经受了多年的苦难后,还不能发现问题的症结所在。一些人说在这里,而另外一些人则说在那里,而且每个政治医生会推荐不同的药方。

我知道,要克服狭隘的以及存在已久的偏见是困难的,然而如果我们认真审视英国政体的组成部分,我们就会发现它包括了历史上两类专制政体的基本特征,并且融合了一些共和的新成分。

首先 是国王代表的君主专制遗存。

其次 是由贵族代表的贵族专制遗存。

最后 是下议院议员代表的新共和成分。英国的自由取决于这些人的品质。

前两者为世袭制,与人民没有关联。因此,从其本质 上看,他们对促进国家的自由毫无裨益。

认为英国政体是三种互相“制衡 ”的力量的“结合 ”是可笑的。要么这些词毫无意义,否则它们就是明显的自相矛盾。

认为下议院议员监督国王行为则以下面两大要素为先决条件:

首先 ,在没有人监督的情况下,国王是不可信任的。换句话说,对绝对权力的渴望是君主制的通病。

其次 ,被任命监督国王行为的下议院议员们要么比国王更聪明,要么比国王更值得信任。

然而,同一个政体赋予下议院议员监督国王的权力,允许他们控制对国王的物资供应,却又给予国王牵制下议院议员的权力,允许国王否决他们其他方面的法案;这又假定国王比那些本来应比他聪明的人更聪明。多么荒唐!

在君主政体的构成中,有些地方极其可笑。它首先剥夺了一个人获得信息的手段,然后又授权他在需要最明智决断的事情上发挥作用。生存环境让国王与外界隔绝,然而国王的职责要求他通晓天下大事。因此,由于这种人为的安排,这些不同方面互相排斥,互相损毁,证明整个君主政体是荒唐而无用的。

一些人这样来解释英国政体:他们说国王是一方面,人民是另一方面;上议院的贵族代表国王的利益,下议院议员代表人民的利益;但是这给人的印象是议会被分割成了对立的两派。所以虽然措辞很漂亮,但是仔细审视下,这些解释显得空洞而且含糊不清。这样的事情经常发生:即使是最漂亮的词句,如果用来描述要么是不存在,要么是难以理解、无法用语言表达的事情时,它们也不过是一些能发音的词汇而已。它们可能听上去很悦耳,但却不能传递出任何信息,因为在以上的解释中,有一个问题需要首先回答,即国王是如何得到人民不愿给予,而且需要一直牵制的权力的 ?聪明的民族是不会给予这样的权力的,而且任何权力,如果还需要有人牵制 ,也不可能是来自于上帝。然而这一政体做出的安排却认为存在这样的权力。

这是一种让人失望的安排。这样的政体要么没有能力,要么不想去满足人民的愿望,做整个安排无异于自杀。因为天平上较重的一头总是会使较轻的一头翘起,而一部机器的所有轮子是由一个来带动的,现在只需要了解在英国的政体中哪一个分量最重,就可以知道谁是统治者了。尽管其他势力,或者是其他势力中的一部分,会阻碍或者(正如俗语所说的那样)牵制运动的速度,然而如果他们没有能力让它停下来,他们的努力将是徒劳的。第一驱动力最终会如愿以偿,而且速度上的缺憾会通过时间得到补偿。

王权是英国政体中最显赫的部分,这一点已无需赘言。君主可以通过授予官职和津贴来实现自己所有的目的,这也是显而易见的。因此,虽然我们明智地关闭并且锁上了通向君主专制的一扇门,我们却同时愚蠢地让国王拥有打开这扇门的钥匙。

英国人对自己的国王、由贵族参加的上议院和由平民参加的下议院组成的政府有偏爱,这种偏爱更多是来自民族自豪感,而非理性。相比其他一些国家,人们在英国无疑更为安全,然而国王的意愿 就是法律 ,在英国和法国都是如此。区别在于,英国国王的意愿非他自己直接说出,而是通过令人敬畏的议会的决议传达给人民。查理一世的命运使得国王们变得更加含蓄,而不是更加公正。

因此,排除民族自豪感以及对模式和形式的偏爱,一个明显的事实是:完全是人民的品质,而非政府体制 决定了英国国王不像土耳其国王那样暴虐。

在这个时候,探讨英国政府构成中存在的错误 是十分有必要的。原因在于,如果我们继续让偏爱思维影响我们,我们便永远不可能对公平地对待别人;如果我们继续被顽固的偏见所桎梏,我们也不可能对自己公正。就像迷恋娼妓的男人不适合选择或者评价妻子一样,任何事先偏爱一个腐朽政体的思想也会让我们没有能力发现好的政体。

关于君主制和世袭制

鉴于人们生来是平等的,这种平等只能是在后来发生的事件被破坏的。贫富的不同是可以得到很好的解释的,而且在解释的时候不必使用压迫和贪婪这样刺耳、难听的字眼。压迫是一些人致富之后 出现的情况,而很少或者从来不是致富发家的手段 。尽管贪心会让人避免陷入穷困潦倒的境地,但总的来说它也会让人过于谨慎,难以致富。

然而,有另外一种更大的差别是无法用真正的自然或者宗教的原因来解释的,这就是国王臣民 的区别。男人和女人是自然界的产物,好和坏由上帝来区分。然而一类人生来地位就高于他人,而且就像新生物种一样声名显赫,这种现象是值得探究的。此外还需要了解的是,他们会给人类带来幸福还是苦难?

根据圣经记载,在世界诞生之初不存在国王,也没有战争,因为正是国王的骄傲把人类卷入战争。荷兰在过去一个世纪中都没有国王,然而它享受的和平却比欧洲任何君主制政府国家都要多。历史也证明了这一点,因为早期的族长们非常享受宁静的乡村生活,但这种快乐随着犹太王权的诞生而消失了。

国王统治最初是由异教徒创立的,而犹太人的后代抄袭了这一体制。这是魔鬼为推动偶像崇拜推出的最成功的发明。异教徒赋予他们去世的国王以神的光彩,而基督教世界则更进一步,给在世的国王也罩上神的光环。把神的威严赋予一个小人物,让它在辉煌灿烂中坠入尘埃,这是一件多么不恭敬的事情啊。

把一个人高高抬升于他人之上,这不符合自然界平等的原则,也不能指望从圣经中寻找根据。基甸和先知撒母耳说过,上帝很明确地表示不赞成王权政治。圣经中所有反对君主制的内容都被君主制政府巧妙地掩饰了,但是尚未建立政府的国家无疑需要对此予以关注。“把属于凯撒的交给他”,这是宫廷奉行的圣经教义,然而这不能成为君主制政府存在的依据,因为那时候犹太人还没有国王,仍在罗马人统治之下。

从摩西描述的创世纪开始,近三千年之后,犹太人才出于对国家的幻想要求设立国王。在此之前,他们的政府形式(除了在上帝介入时的几次特殊情况外)是一种共和制,管理权归士师和部族长老。他们没有国王,而且除了上帝,视任何人为王都被视为罪过。如果认真思考一下坐王位的人得到的偶像般的崇拜,人不必奇怪上帝也会嫉妒他们的荣光,因而不会赞成这样不恭敬地侵犯了上帝特权的政府形式。

在圣经中,君主制被列为犹太人的罪之一,而且犹太人也因此受到了惩罚。相关历史值得深思。

犹太人的后代受到米甸人的压迫,于是基甸带领一支小军队与他们战斗。因为神的介入,基甸的军队获胜了。欢欣鼓舞的犹太人把胜利归功于基甸领导有方,提议拥他为王。他们说:“你们来统治我们吧,你和你的儿子,以及你儿子的儿子”。这是最极致的诱惑,不仅是统治一个王国,而且是可以让后代继承王国。但是虔诚的基甸回答说:“我不会统治你们,我的儿子也不会统治你们。上帝会统治你们。”他的话再清楚不过了。基甸不是拒绝 这一荣耀,而是认为犹太人没有给与他这种荣耀的权力。基甸也没有言不由衷地向犹太人表示感谢,而是厌恶地以先知者的方式主动把他们交付给他们真正的主人——上帝。

大概在130年之后,他们又一次犯了同样的错误。犹太人对异教徒偶像崇拜的追求非常难以解释。情况是这样的,撒母耳的两个儿子受命管理一些俗界事务,有一天,人们发现他们两个行为不端,于是就吵吵嚷嚷地来到撒母耳面前,对撒母耳说:“你看你年龄大了,而你的儿子跟你走的路不一样,现在给我们一个国王来评判我们吧,就像其他国家一样。”现在我们只能说他们的动机是有害的,因为他们想和其他民族的人,也就是异教徒们一样,而他们真正的荣耀在于与他们不同 ,差别越大越好。听到犹太人说“给我们一个国王来评判我们吧”,撒母耳很不高兴。撒母耳向上帝祈祷,上帝对撒母耳说,倾听他们对你说的话吧,因为他们没有抛弃你,而是抛弃了我。我不再统治他们了 。从我带他们出埃及一直到今天他们的行为来看,他们已经抛弃了我,效忠其他的神。他们也效忠你。因此,倾听他们的声音吧,但是严肃地告诉他们你的反对意见,并且让他们了解国王是如何统治他们的。”这里所指的并非某个具体的国王,而是以色列人急于得到的尘世间国王的通常做法。尽管不同国王所处时代和做事方式不同,这种本质一直未变。“撒母耳把上帝的话告诉了希望得到一个国王的犹太人。他还告诉他们,管辖你们的王必这样行,他必派你们的儿子为他赶车、跟马,奔走在车前。”(这段描述符合当今役使他人的人的行径)“又派他们作千夫长,五十夫长,为他耕种田地,收割庄稼,打造军器和车上的器械。必取你们的女儿为他制造香膏,做饭烤饼。”(这段话描述了国王的奢侈消费以及对别人的压迫。)“也必取你们最好的田地和葡萄园、橄榄园,赐给他的臣仆。你们的粮食和葡萄,他必取十分之一给他的军官和臣仆。”(由此我们可以看到,贿赂、贪污、以其偏袒,是国王惯常的毛病)“又必取你们十分之一的仆人婢女、健壮的少年人和你们的驴,供他差役。你们的羊群,他必取十分之一,你们也必做他的仆人。那时你们必因所选的王哀求耶和华,耶和华却不应允你们。”这就是君主制度下人民的生活情况。虽然也曾出现过几位优秀的国王,但是单凭他们几个人的品行不足以让这个称号神圣化,也不能抹去君主制度初期的罪恶。人们对大卫的颂词中,忽略了他担任国王期间的表现 ,只是把他称为一个符合上帝心愿的人。“百姓竟不肯听撒母耳的话,说,不然。我们定要一个王治理我们,使我们像列国一样,有王治理我们,统领我们,为我们争战。”撒母耳继续规劝他们,但是没有效果。他向他们指出这样做是忘恩负义,但是这样说也没有用。看到他们执意要做这件愚蠢的事情,撒母耳喊道:“我求告耶和华,他必打雷降雨,(这是一种惩罚,因为当时正值麦收季节)使你们明白,你们求立王的事是在耶和华面前犯大罪了。于是撒母耳求告耶和华,耶和华就在这日打雷降雨,众民便甚惧怕耶和华和撒母耳。众民对撒母耳说,求你为仆人们祷告耶和华你的神,免得我们死亡,因为我们求立王的事正是罪上加罪了。”圣经这一部分的表述是直接了当的,不容许有含糊的解释。在这里,上帝对君主制政府表达了不满,这是准确无误的,除非是圣经记载有误。人们有充足的理由相信在教皇制度下的国家,国王和牧师都会耍手腕不让公众知道圣经的真实内容。任何形式的君主制都是政治上的教皇制。

在君主制度之外,我们又给自己增加了另外一项罪恶的制度,那就是世袭制。如果说引入第一项是我们对自己的自我贬损,那么被称为天然权利的第二项则是对后代子孙的侮辱与强迫。既然人最初都是平等的,没有人天生 拥有让自己的家庭永久凌驾于其他家庭之上的权力。即使他自己可能值得同时代的人尊重,然而他的子孙们也许远没有继承这些荣耀的资格。最可以证明王位世袭制度愚蠢的一个来自自然界的证据是,自然界不赞成这种制度,否则她不会屡次安排愚蠢的人继承王位 。这难道不是对世袭制度的讽刺吗?

其次,除了别人授予的头衔外,没有人在最初还拥有其他公众头衔。授予这些头衔的人没有权利放弃后代子孙的权利。虽然他们可以说,“我们选择你做我们的领头人”,但是却不能够说“你的孩子以及你孩子的孩子可以永久地统治我们”而不让人感觉到这对他们的子女明显不公。因为如果存在这样一个不明智、不公正并且违反常理的协议,在世袭制度下经过了一轮权利交接后,后代子孙会(有这种可能)被置于一个恶棍或者傻瓜领导的政府统治下。大多数明智的人都在私下鄙视世袭权,然而世袭制是一种邪恶的制度,它一旦确立就不容易被消除掉。很多人因为恐惧而屈服,一些人因为迷信而服从,而一些强势的人则与国王共同掠夺百姓。

我们一直在认为目前的国王们有光彩的出身,然而更有可能的是,如果我们可以揭开历史的面纱,追溯他们的发迹史,我们会发现开国国王不过是一帮无赖团伙中的一个领头人。他的野蛮举止和精明过人为他赢得了团体首领的位置。随着力量的壮大以及更多的掠夺,他让沉默的和没有防卫能力的人产生了敬畏,并且通过经常进贡来获取他的保护。然而,他的选民不想给予他的后代世袭权,因为长期被剥夺权利与他们声称要坚持的自由和不受约束的原则相悖。君主制度初期出现的世袭不是因为被赋予了这样的权利,而是属于偶发情况或者人们对贤王表达感激的一种做法。不过,关于当时情况的记录流传下来的非常少甚至没有了,而传说中的历史又有太多不真实的地方,因此在经过了几代人之后,很容易编造一些穆罕默德式的迷信故事来向平民灌输世袭权利的思想。有可能很多人担心领导者去世后,选择新领导人的过程会引发混乱(因为涉及恶棍们的选举是不会非常有秩序的),于是起初会支持世袭的主张。世袭的做法就这样出现了,起初的权宜做法到后来被声称是一种权利。

自英格兰被诺曼底人征服以来,这里出现过的贤明君主就非常少,更多的是邪恶的王,英格兰在他们的压迫下痛苦地呻吟。没有任何一个头脑清楚的人认为在征服者威廉之后的世袭权是十分光彩的。一个法国杂种率领一帮武装匪徒在英国登陆,并且没有征得当地人同意便自立为王,用通俗的话来说,这样的发迹有令人鄙视的流氓色彩,与神性没有关系。然而,我们不必要在揭露继承权的愚蠢方面花太多时间,如果有弱智的人希望这种权利存在,那么就让他们不分青红皂白地去崇拜驴子和狮子去吧,欢迎这样做。我既不会效仿他们的谦虚,也不会打扰他们的忠诚。

然而我很愿意问问,在他们看来第一个国王是如何产生的。这一问题只允许有三个答案,即要么是靠抽签,要么靠选举,要么就是靠篡权。如果第一个国王是抽签产生的,这就为下一任总统开了个先例,这样也就排除了世袭。扫罗是靠抽签当上国王的,因而他的继承人就不是世袭产生的,而且看起来也没有任何这样做的意图。如果任何一个国家的第一个国王都是由选举产生的,这同样也为下一任总统的产生办法树立了先例。声称早期选民不仅选举国王,而且选择国王家族的人永远统治他们因而剥夺了所有后代人的权利 ,这样的说法在圣经中和其他文献中都找不到,除非是在原罪教义中。原罪学说认为,所有人的自由意志力都随着亚当偷食禁果而丧失了。然而这一例子,而且只能举出这么一个例子,并不能给世袭制带来什么光彩。由于亚当的行为,所有人都有罪,而由于初期选民的行为,所有人都不得不服从。在一种情形中所有人都被撒旦控制,而在另一种情形中所有人都屈从于国王。在第一种情形中,我们失去了纯真;在第二种情形中,我们失去了权力。因为两种情形下我们都被剥夺了昔日的状态和基本公民权力,原罪和世袭制无可辩驳地属于相同情形。多么丢人的排列啊!不光彩的联系!然而,即使是最高明的辩论家也无法对此做出更好的解释。

至于篡权说法,没有人会大胆到去捍卫它。征服者威廉是个篡权者,这是无可否认的事实。明摆着的真相就是,英国君主制的历史经不住细究。

然而,世袭制影响人类的主要方面不是它的荒诞性,而在于它的危害性。假设它能够保证继承王位的是一批优秀、睿智的人,它当然可以得到神权的印记。然而,当它把大门向愚蠢邪恶 以及不合适 的人敞开时,它就具有了压迫的特点。那些认为自己生来就具有统治别人的权利,别人生来就应该服从他们的人,很快就会变得傲慢起来。因为从小就与别人不同,他们的思想很早就被妄自尊大毒害了。他们生活的圈子与外面的大世界有很多实质上的不同,这样他们就很少有机会了解整个世界的利益所在。在他们继承政权后,他们通常是整个国家里最无知、最无能的人。

世袭制度的另外一项危害是,王位有可能被任何年龄阶段的未成年人继承。在幼主即位后,在国王名义下施政的摄政团面临各种机会和诱惑让他们辜负老国王所托。同样,当国王因为年龄和疾病等原因而困顿濒于死亡时,国家会面临另外一种灾难。在这两种情况下,公众都有可能成为邪恶人物的受害者,因为这些人可以成功地利用国王老龄或年幼带来的判断不明而为所欲为。

支持世袭制度的一个最貌似有理的理由是,世袭制度会避免国家陷入内战。如果他说的是真的话,那么这项理由非常重要。然而,这却是人类听到的最赤裸裸的谎言。在整个英国的历史上找不到这样的情况存在。自诺曼征服之后,有30位成年国王和2位未成年国王统治过这个陷于茫然的王国。在这段时间,发生过至少8次内战和19次起义(包括革命)。因此,世袭制度不但不能带来和平,反而破坏和平,并进而破坏和平赖以存在的基础。

约克家族和兰卡斯特家族对王位和继承权的争夺,使英国陷入多年的血腥战斗之中。亨利和爱德华之间发生了12次大规模的战役,以及一些小规模战斗和围攻。亨利被爱德华俘获过两次,而爱德华也曾成为亨利的阶下囚。战争的命运和民心所向不可捉摸,一点个人事务都会引发争斗。亨利因为获胜从阶下囚一跃登上王位,而爱德华则从王宫逃亡国外。然而,就像瞬间的情绪变化不会持久一样,亨利也被赶下了王位,爱德华又被迎回王宫代替他。在此期间,议会总是站在强势的那一边。

这场争斗从亨利六世当政时候开始,一直到亨利七世时代两家联姻后才完全结束,耗时67年(1422-1489)。

总之,君主制和世袭制度(不只限于某个王国)让世界陷于硝烟战火之中。这是上帝表示反对的一种政府体制,因而会有血腥相伴。

如果我们研究一下国王的事务,我们会发现在一些国家国王无事可做。国王不仅于国家无补,而且国王自身的生活也毫无快乐可言。在百无聊赖地度过一生之后,他们退居幕后,让继任者继续这种无聊的生活。在君主专制国家,所有的经济、民事和军事事务由国王处理。犹太人的子民在要求设立一个国王的时候,他们强调的理由是“他可以评判我们,代表我们,并且领导我们去战斗”。但是在有些国家,他既不是法官也不是将军,就像在英国一样。人们会感到疑惑,他究竟 什么。

一个政府越是接近共和制度,留给国王做的事情就越少。为英国政府起一个合适的名字有点困难。威廉·梅雷迪思爵士称它为一个共和国,但是在目前状况下,这名不副实,因为国王的腐败势力控制着所有的位置,实际上已经侵吞了下议院的权利(政体中的共和部分),让它不能发挥作用。这样一来,英国政体中君主的地位已经与法国和西班牙相差不大。人们为名字而争吵,但是却不理解名字的含意。英国人引以为豪的是英国政体中的共和部分,而非君主制部分,即从他们中间自由选举出下议院。不难看出,当共和的作用不能发挥时,奴隶制时代就降临了。为何英国政体疾病缠身?难道不正是因为君主制已经毒害了共和制,国王迷惑了下议院?

在英国,国王要做的事情无外乎发动战争以及安排官职。通俗地说,就是让国家穷困和制造纷争。一个人每年领取八十万镑,而且还备受景仰,这确实是一件不错的差使。一个诚实的人比他们对社会的贡献更大,而且在上帝眼里,这样的人比过去所有加过冕的恶棍都更有价值。

对当前美国事务现状的思考

在下文中,我仅仅向大家提供简单的事实、通俗的讨论以及常识。对于读者,我只希望他能摒弃偏见与成见,依靠理智与情感自己做出决定,坚守 而不是背离 个人的真正品格,并且将自己的眼界尽量放远一些,此外并无其他要求。

关于英美之间的斗争,已有不少论述。各类人物出于不同的动机纷纷参与其中,并且提供了各式各样的解决方案。然而,这些辩论都徒劳无功,而论辩的时间已经结束。武力,作为最后的手段,将决定这一斗争的结果。这是英国国王做出的选择,而新大陆也接受了这一挑战。

据报道,已故的佩勒姆先生(尽管他是位能干的首相,但也犯了一些错误)曾在下院受到攻击,有人指责他在英美关系问题上采取的措施只是权宜之计。佩氏的回答是:“它们在我任内还不成问题。”如果在今天的斗争中,各殖民地也存在着如此致命和胆怯的想法,那么,我们这些所谓先人的名字将来会遭到子孙后代的唾弃。

这是地球上最值得去做的事情。这件事情不只关系到一个城市,一个国家,一个省,或者一个王国,而是关系到整个大陆——一个占地球可居住面积1/8的大陆。这不只是要一天内关心的事情,也不是只需要一年关心的事情,而是需要一个时代关心的事情。我们的后代事实上也卷入其中,或多或少地会受到现在正在进行的事情的影响,这种影响甚至会永远存在。现在是播种大陆联盟、信心和光荣的种子的时候了。现在最小的裂痕就像用针尖刻在幼年的橡树身上的名字一样,伤口会随着橡树的成长而变大,后代人可以清楚地读出这个名字。

当我们决定放弃争论转而拿起武器来解决这件事情的时候,一个新的政治时代开始了,一种新的思考方式诞生了。4月19日前(也就是对抗开始前)的所有计划和建议,已经变成了历史。也许它们当时比较合适,但是现在已经被替代,没有用处了。以前不管争辩双方对这一问题提出何种相左的意见,但在同一点上意见一致,那就是与英国联合。双方的唯一不同在于实现这一目的的手段,一方主张使用武力,而另外一方主张通过友谊。然而第一种手段已经失败,而第二种手段也已经失去了效力。

关于和解的好处已经说了很多,然而它像个美梦一样已经离我们而去。因此,现在需要考察和解的相反一面,并且了解在同英国联合或者依靠英国的形势下殖民地承受和将要一直承受的许多实际损伤。让我们遵循自然界和常识的原则审视这种关联和依赖,了解在离开英国的情况下我们要依靠什么,以及如果依靠英国我们又能得什么。

我听人说过,美洲的繁荣得益于以前与英国的联系。如果要保持这种繁荣,还需要保持这样的联系,在未来永远都是这样。没有比这更荒谬的论点了。按照这一思路,我们甚至可以说既然小孩子是靠喝牛奶长大的,他就永远不要吃肉了,或者说我们前二十年是怎么过的,后二十年还要怎么过。这种说法也违背事实。我要直言不讳地说,如果与欧洲势力断绝了联系,美洲会同样繁荣,甚至有可能更好。美洲藉以繁荣的贸易属于生活必需的活动,只要欧洲人要吃饭,它就永远有市场。

不过有人说,她保护过我们。她曾经让我们迷恋,这是事实;她曾经花自己的钱和我们的钱保卫过这个大陆,这也是我们认可的。然而,她也会出于同样目的保护土耳其,即为了贸易和统治。

可叹啊,我们已经被过去的偏见左右很久了,而且因为迷信牺牲了很多。我们夸耀大英帝国的保护,但是没有想过,它这样做的动机是出于保护自身利益 而非对我们的感情 。它没有为了我们的利益 去抵御我们的敌人 ,而是出于自身考虑 防御自己的敌人 ,并且防御那些不会因为任何其他原因 与我们有争执、然而却因我们与英国结在一起会永远成为我们的敌人的人。让不列颠放弃对这个大陆的主权要求吧,不然让这个大陆抛弃对不列颠的依赖。这样一来,在法国和西班牙与英国作战的时候,我们依然可以和法国和西班牙保持和平。上次汉诺威王朝的战争造成的苦难,应该提醒我们不要与英国建立联系。

据说近来议会中有人声称,如果不是因为有相同的宗主国,这些殖民地之间就没有任何联系,也就是说宾夕法尼亚和泽西以及其他地方因为英国的缘故成了姐妹殖民地。这是一种拐弯抹角证明关系的说法,但却也是最便捷、也是唯一正确的证明敌对关系(如果我们可以这样称呼它的话)说法。如果我们不是大不列颠的臣民 ,法国和西班牙过去不会,可能以后永远也不会成为我们美洲人的敌人。

然而一些人说,英国是宗主国。那么她的行为就更可耻。虎毒尚不食子,即使野蛮人也不会向自己的家人发难。因此,这种说法如果成立,这反而成为对英国的谴责。然而,实际上这种说法并不成立,或者只是部分成立。国王和他的寄生虫们狡猾地使用了宗主国或者母国的说法,试图卑鄙地利用人们轻信的弱点施加天主教的影响力。欧洲,而非英国,是美洲的宗主国。这个新世界已经成为欧洲各地受迫害的人权和宗教自由热爱者的避难所。他们逃亡到了这里,不是从母亲的怀抱,而是从恶魔的爪牙下逃到了这里。目前来说有一种对英国的说法是真实的,那就是把首批移民驱离家园的专制政府依然在迫害这些移民的后代。

在地球上这一广袤的地区,我们忘却了那个三百六十英里(英格兰的长度)的狭小地区,把友谊提升到更高层次。我们视每个来自欧洲的基督徒为兄弟,为这种宽广的胸怀而欢欣鼓舞。

人们欣喜地看到,随着对世界认识的增加,这里的人逐渐克服了地方成见。在英国任何一个分成教区的小镇出生的人,很自然地主要与同区教友交往(因为他们的利益常常是一致的),称他们为邻居 。如果他在几英里外遇到这样一个人,他会忘却同一条街道的狭隘想法,称他为同乡 。如果他走出所在的郡县,在另外的郡县遇到这一个人,他会忘记街道和市镇的狭小地域,称他为同胞 ,也就是来自同一个郡的人。如果在国外旅途中,在法国或者欧洲的其他地区遇到这样的人,他的地区观念会扩大到英国人 。同样道理,所有在美洲或者地球上任何其他地方相聚的欧洲人都是同胞 。在相对于整体考虑时,英国、荷兰、德国或者瑞典在更高的层次上处于同样的位置。街道、市镇以及郡等在较低层次上的区分也存在同样情况。这样的区分对于大陆人来说过于狭窄。英国人后裔在本省居民中的比例还不到三分之一。因此,我不同意只把英国视为宗主国或母国的说法,因为它是错误、自私、狭隘和不公平的。

那么如果承认我们都是英国人的后裔,那又有什么意义呢?什么都没有。英国既然成为我们现在公开的敌人,那它就失去了其他任何名分。说什么和解是我们的责任,这真是滑稽。王室且前家庭的第一任国王(征服者威廉)是法国人,而且英国贵族中有半数是法国人的后裔。因此,根据这一推理,英国应该是被法国统治。

关于英国和殖民地联合起来的力量已经谈论了很多,有人称双方联手可以挑战世界。然而,这只是一种假设,因为战争的命运不可捉摸。那些话本身也没有意义,因为这个大陆决不愿意调集所有的居民去支持在亚洲、非洲或者是欧洲的英军。

此外,同世界抗争对我们又有什么意义?我们的目的是商业,而且如果经营得当,商业会为我们赢得与整个欧洲的和平与友谊,因为拥有美洲这样一个自由港 符合整个欧洲的利益。她与他国的贸易将永远是一个保护伞,而且缺乏金银矿藏会让她免遭侵略。

我要求那些最热烈支持和解的人说明与英国保持联系可以收获的哪怕一项好处。我重复这项要求,因为照我看来我们得不到任何好处。我们的玉米在欧洲的任何市场都会得到合理价格,而且进口的货物不论来源地是那里,我们都必须要为之付钱。

但是,由于我们同英国联合而承受的损害和弊端却是数不胜数。我们对人类以及对自己的责任要求我们放弃这种联盟,因为任何对大不列颠的臣服或者依赖都可能把这个大陆直接卷入欧洲的战争和争端之中。此外,它还让我们与一些愿意与我们建立友谊的国家交恶,而我们对这些国家既没有愤怒也没有不满。因为欧洲是我们的通商市场,我们不应该只与它的某一部分建立联系。为自身的真正利益考虑,美洲应该避开欧洲的争端,而在依赖英国的情况下,她做不到这一点,而只能是英国政治天秤上的一个小小的砝码。

欧洲由于国家林立,难得有长久的和平。每当英国和其他国家发生战争,美洲的贸易就会经受灾难,原因就在于她和英国的联系 。下一次的战争也许不会像上一次一样,但是如果不是这样的话,那些鼓吹和解的人该希望与英国分开了,因为在战争中处于中立比依靠善于作战的人更能保证安全。一切正确的和自然的因素都要求脱离英国。被杀戮者流淌的血和自然界啜泣的声音在呼喊:“现在是脱离英国的时候了。甚至上帝在英国和美洲间安排的距离都是强有力的、天然的证据,表明让其中一个统治另外一个不是上帝的意图。同样,新大陆被发现的时间也进一步证明了这一点,还有人口居住的方式。发现美洲的时间在宗教改革之前,好像是上帝仁慈地打算为未来受迫害的人提供一个避难所,因为那时候他们的故土已经不再有友谊和安全。

大不列颠对这个大陆的统治迟早都要结束。一个认真思考的人如果朝前看,是不会感到快乐的,因为他痛苦而又确切地知道,他所称的“目前的政体”不过是临时性的。作为父母,我们也不会有快乐,因为我们知道目前的政权 不会延续很长时间,不能保障我们可能传给后代任何东西。用一种简单的论证方法来说,在我们即将令下一代背负债务的时候,我们应该做一些工作,否则我们对待他们的方式就太卑鄙可耻了。要正确了解我们的责任范围,我们应该对我们的孩子负责,把我们所负的职责往后推进几年。站在这样的高度,我们会看到被目前的一些恐惧和偏见所遮蔽的形势。

尽管我小心翼翼地避免冒犯别人,但是我倾向于认为,所有支持和解观点的人可以分为以下几类:与此利益相关的人,他们是不能够被信任的;看不清楚 事情本质的软弱的人;因为有偏见而不愿意 看到事情本质的人;某些把欧洲世界想象得过于美妙的普通人;最后一批人受错误的判断影响,他们给这个大陆带来的灾祸比其他三部分人都要多。

很多人有幸能够生活在远离苦难的地方,他们自己的 家门口没有目睹很多的罪恶,因此感受不到整个美洲面临的危险。但是让我们的想象力暂时把我们带到波士顿,那个苦难的发源地会让我们变得聪明,教导我们永远放弃这个我们不能相信的政权。那个不幸城市的居民几个月前还生活在安逸和富足之中,现在却只能留下来挨饿,或者是外出乞讨。如果他们继续留在这个城市里,他们要面临朋友们的炮火;如果他们离开这个城市,他们有可能遭遇士兵的掠夺。在他们目前的状况下,他们是没有救赎希望的囚犯,在有人发起攻击拯救他们时,他们会面临两支军队的枪林弹雨。

一些被动性格的人对英国人的冒犯似乎不以为然,依然在期待最好的结果。他们会发出这样的呼吁:“来吧,等这一切过去之后我们还可以做朋友。”但是让我们来审视一下人类的情感,用人类的天性检测一下和解的理论,然后告诉我,在一个政权将战火带到你的土地上之后,你是否还能够爱她,尊重她,并且忠实地为她服务?如果你不能,那么你就是在欺骗自己,而且你的犹豫不决会给后人带来毁灭。未来的英国,只是一个你既不能爱又不能尊重的国家,与她的关系会变得勉强和不自然,而且维持这种关系只能是权宜之计。不久之后这种关系会倒退,结局会比上一次更悲惨。然而如果你说,你仍然可以不计较这些冒犯,那么我来问你,你的房屋是否被烧毁过?他们是否当着你的面毁灭了你的财产?你的妻子和孩子是否失去了赖以休息的床铺和赖以生存的面包?你的家中是否有一位长辈或孩子遭到了他们的毒手,而你成了一个遭受严重打击的悲惨的幸存者?如果你不曾经受这一切,那么你就不可以评判这些人的遭遇。如果你经历过这些,还能够与刽子手握手言欢的话,那么你就不配拥有丈夫、父亲、朋友、以及爱人的身份,不论你在生活中的阶层或者称号是什么,你都有一颗懦夫的心,以及一个谄媚者的灵魂。

这不是在煽动或者夸大某些事情,而是在拷问自然赋予他们的情感。如果没有这些情感,我们就不能够称职地履行社会责任,或者享受社会责任带来的快乐。我并不打算通过展示这些恐怖的事情来呼唤复仇,但是希望它把我们从致命的、怯懦的沉睡中唤醒,这样我们就可以坚定地追寻某个明确的目标。只要美洲不让迟疑怯懦 吞噬自己,英国或者欧洲就都没有能力征服美洲。如果策略得当,今年这个冬季的价值相当于一个时代。如果失去或者忽略了这个机会,整个大陆都会陷入不幸;如果有人导致了这么一个宝贵的、重要的季节丧失,他就将成为一个千古罪人。

认为这个大陆还可以更长久地臣服于某个外来势力的想法是与理性相悖的,也是与普遍的原则以及历史上的各种先例相悖的,即使是英国中最乐观的人也不会这样想。即使把人类的智慧发挥到极致,除独立外,目前也不会有任何方案能够保证这个大陆得享哪怕一年的安全。和解已经成为,而且在过去也不过是一个虚幻的梦想。造化已经抛弃了这种联系,而人力无法弥补。正像米尔顿所说:“憎恨造成的创伤已经如此之深,再不会有真正的和解。”

每一种悄悄争取和平的做法已经失去效果。我们的祈祷遭到了蔑视。这只会让我们相信,没有任何东西比不断的请愿更能满足虚荣,或者证明国王顽固不化的事情了,而且那种做法最能助长欧洲国王们的专制。看一下丹麦和瑞典的情况吧。因此,既然只有斗争才能取得效果,让我们务必来推动最终的分离吧,不要让我们的后代因为已被侵犯的毫无意义的父子名分而毙命。

说他们以后永远不会再尝试这样做,这只是徒劳的幻想。我们在废除印花税法案时候这样想过,然而一两年后我们就清醒了。我们同样可以这样假设,曾经被打败的国家,永远不会再重新挑起事端。

至于管理事务,英国统治没有能够给这个大陆带来公正。这项事务不久会变得非常沉重、复杂,一个距离我们如此遥远而且对我们不了解的国家不可能轻易地完成这项任务。如果他们不能征服我们,他们就不能统治我们。如果一件事情和一项请愿需要跨跃3,000到4,000英里的距离,等上四到五个月才有答复,而且收到答复后还需要五到六个月的时间才能解释清楚,这样的安排在几年后就会被认为十分愚蠢和幼稚。在某个时间这样的安排曾比较合适,然而它也有寿终正寝的一天。

那些无法保卫自己的小岛适合成为王国统治的对象,而认为一个大陆需要在一个岛国永久统治之下的想法是荒唐的。自然界还从没有让一颗卫星大过它的行星,而英国和美洲的关系则颠倒了自然界的这一规则。显然,他们属于不同的体系:英国归欧洲,美洲独立存在。

我对脱离英国获得独立主张的拥护并非出于骄傲、党派思想或者憎恨。我清楚、明确并且认真地认为,这样做符合这个大陆的真实利益。其他的方案不过是做修补工作,不能够带来永久的幸福,那意味着把战争留给我们的孩子,并且在一个再付出多一点努力就可以为这个大陆争取到荣耀的时候退缩了。

鉴于英国还没有表示出任何妥协的倾向,我们可以肯定不会有值得这个大陆接受的条件,或者有任何方式足以弥补我们抛洒的鲜血和投入的财力。

我们争取的结果应该能够与我们的投入相称。撤掉诺斯或解散整个可恶的私党抵不上我们的巨大付出。仅短暂停止贸易所造成的不便就足以与废除招致怨声载道的法案相对应(如果这些法案真的被废除了的话)。然而如果整个大陆的居民都必须拿起武器,如果每一个男人都要成为士兵,单是与一个卑鄙的政府部门斗争就不值得了。太昂贵了,太昂贵了,我们为废除这些法案付出的太多了,如果这是我们斗争的全部目标的话。如果要做一个公正的评估,为了法律也像为了土地一样付出班克山的代价是天大的傻事。我一直认为美洲大陆的独立是迟早的事,从近期大陆迅速走向成熟的情形看,它的到来不会太远了。因此,在对抗开始后,再为一件事情争辩出个青红皂白已经不重要了,时间会最终解决这个问题,除非我们执意要这么做。否则,这就像在一件诉讼中浪费一处地产以约束房客的违法行为一样,而房客的租期马上就要到了。在1775年4月19日 【1】 之前,没有人像我一样更热切期盼和解,但是在我获知当天所发生事件的那一瞬间,我永远放弃了那个铁石心肠、永远态度阴沉的“英国法老王”。我鄙视那个卑鄙的人,那个假冒人民的父亲听到人民被屠杀竟然无动于衷、灵魂上沾染了人民的鲜血竟然还能够坦然入睡的人。

但是如果承认事情已经得到和解,又会出现什么情况呢?我的回答是,这个大陆遭到毁灭。原因有几个。

首先 ,统治权依然在国王手里,他可以否定美洲大陆的所有立法。他的所作所为已经证明,他是追求自由人士的死敌,并且如此喜欢拥有任意妄为的权力。难道他不是一个会对这些殖民地说“你们不能制订法律,除非我允许”这样话的人吗?难道美洲大陆上还有人如此无知,以至于不了解根据目前所谓的宪法,美洲大陆除非得到国王允许,否则不能制订法律吗?难道还有人这么愚笨,(根据过去发生的事情看)以至于看不出来国王决不会容忍美洲制订任何法律,除非那是适合他心愿的法律吗?不论是由于缺少立法权,或者是由于必须遵守英国为我们制订的法律,我们都是处于事实上的被奴役状态。在达成和解后(有人这样称呼),难道没有人担心英国国王会尽可能地迫使大陆一直处于卑微和屈辱状态吗?我们没有往前走,而是向后退了,或者是陷入了无休止的争论或可笑的请愿中。我们已经成长壮大到国王不能接受的程度,难道他不会从此以后设法削弱我们的力量吗?单就一点来说,一个嫉妒我们的繁荣的政权适合来统治我们吗?任何回答“ ”的人都是一个支持独立 的人,因为判断是否独立的标准不过就是我们是否可以自己制定法律,或者美洲大陆最大的敌人——国王是否曾经,或者能够,以及将来会告诉我们“不能够制订我不喜欢的法律”。

然而你会说,国王在英国同样拥有否决权,如果不经过他的同意,那里的人也不能够制定法律。从是非的观点来看,这样的制度非常荒唐。一个只有21岁的年轻人(这样的情况经常发生)竟然被允许对几百万比他年长、比他聪明的人说:我禁止你们提出的这项或者哪项法案成为法律。在这里我拒绝接受这样的回答。虽然我永远不会停止揭露这种制度的荒谬性,但在这里我只想说,英国是国王的居住国,而美洲不是,两者的情形不同。相对于在英国,国王否决权在美洲的危险性和危害程度要高出十倍。因为在英国 ,国王轻易不会否决旨在增强英国防务力量的法案,而在美国,他永远不会允许这样的法案获得通过。

在英国的政治体系里,美洲只是次要考虑的因素。英国只在涉及自身 利益的时候才会考虑美洲 的利益。因此,她的自身利益驱使她压制我们的 成长,如果这种成长不能促进它的利益,或者与她没有什么关系的话。考虑到以前发生的事情,我们在这种二手政府的统治下很快就会陷入一种很糟糕的境地!人不会单凭名称的改变就从敌人变为朋友。为了说明现在 达成和解是一种危险的主场,我断言,目前国王正在考虑废除那些法案,以恢复自己对这些海外领地的统治权,并且在今后很长一段时间里会通过耍手腕和计谋实现他不能够通过武力和暴力在短期内实现的目的。和解和毁灭是紧密联系在一起的。

其次 ,我们能够期望达到的最好的结果也只不过是一种权宜之计,或者是一种处于监管下的政府。在殖民地发展成熟后,她的存在就成了问题。在这样的临时性安排下,整体局面和情况在短期内都处于未定状态,而且前景也不乐观。有财产的移民家庭不会选择去一个政府形式悬于一线的国家,一个每天处在动荡边缘的国家。而现有的居民也会利用这段间隙,处理掉他们的财产,离开这个大陆。

最有力的论点是,只有独立,也就是建立一种大陆形式的政府,才能保障这个大陆的和平并确保她免受内战的影响。我现在惧怕与英国达成和解,因为几乎可以肯定的是,在这之后某些地方会发生反抗。如果出现这种局面。其后果比英国人所有的恶意加起来都要严重。

英国人的野蛮已经破坏了数千人的生活(还有数千人可能会遭受同样的命运)。相对于我们这些没有受到影响的人,那些人的感情是复杂的。他们现在 只剩下了自由,此前所拥有的一切都献给了为自由而战这一事业。因为已经没有什么东西可以失去,他们鄙视向英国臣服。此外,殖民地对待英国政府的态度就像一个即将结束青春期的年轻人一样,他们不会再在乎她。一个不能保持和平的政府根本算不上是政府,我们向她付钱,却得不到任何东西。那么英国能够做点什么呢?如果达成和解的第二天就发生内乱,英国的权力就只是停留在纸面上了。我听到有人说(我相信很多人说话之前没有经过思考)他们害怕独立,担心它会引发内战。我们未经过深思的想法很少是正确的,在这种情况下也是如此。与英国勉强维持关系要比独立可怕十倍。站在那些受害者的立场上,我不同意和解。如果我被赶出了自己的房屋和家园,财产被破坏,生存环境被摧毁,作为一个能够感受到伤害的人,我永远不会赞成和解,要么只能是被主张和解的人裹挟了。

美洲大陆的殖民地对大陆政府展现了良好的秩序和服从精神,足以让任何一个通情达理的人感到舒心和愉悦。除非是出于幼稚可笑的原因,没有人会担心殖民地之间会争夺领导权。

因为不存在差别,所以也就不存在谁领导谁的问题。因为完全平等,所以不会有任何诱惑。欧洲的共和国都能够(我们甚至可以说一直是)和平相处。荷兰和瑞士没有发生过任何战争,不论是外部战争还是内部战争。君主制政府的真实情况是,她永远不能长久地息事宁人。王位本身就是国内 怀有野心的人争夺的对象,而王室本身的傲慢在不断膨胀的过程中,会导致与国外列强发生冲突。在同样的情形下,一个建立在更加符合自然原则基础上的共和制政府会通过谈判解决问题。

如果对于独立有任何真正的担心,这是因为还没有制定相应的计划,人们看不到前面的出路。因此,作为这项事业的开端,我提出以下建议。同时,我还要很谦虚地说明,我提出的这些建议旨在抛砖引玉。如果个人凌乱的想法能够被汇集起来,它们常常可以为聪明、能干的人制定有用的计划提供参考。

让我们每年举行一次会议,每次选举一个主席。让代表权更为平等。让我们纯粹讨论内部事务,而且服从大陆会议的权威。

让我们把每个殖民地分成六个、八个或者十个大小合适的区域,每个区域向大陆会议送派数量合适的代表,这样每个殖民地至少选送30名代表。整个大陆会议的代表人数至少有390人。每次大陆会议的召开和主席的选举依照以下办法进行。代表们都到场后以抽签的办式从13个殖民地中选取一个殖民地,然后整个大陆会议的代表从那个 殖民地的代表中间选出1名会议主席(通过不记名投票的办式)。在下一届大陆会议上,通过抽签的办法从12个殖民地中选出一个殖民地,在上一届大陆会议中当选大会主席的那个殖民地不再参与选举。以此类推,直到所有13个殖民地都得到了自己的机会。为了避免把尚未成熟的做法上升为法律,超过大陆会议代表人数的3/5才算作多数。在这样一个权力分配如此均衡的政权下,如果有人要制造不和,等于是让自己与撒旦为伍。

但是,这件事情最初必须由谁做起,或者如何进行都是需要费思量的事情,而且看起来似乎由某种介于被统治者和统治者之间,也就是大陆会议和民众之间的团体来执行是最和谐一致的,那就让大陆会议按照以下方式并遵循下列宗旨召开吧。

大陆会议推出一个由26人组成的委员会,每一个殖民地选出二人。每个州议会下院或州的制宪会议产生二名委员;每州从全体人民中选举出五人代表全州并对全州负责,这些代表由州内各地尽可能多的有资格的选民在各州首府或市镇选出;或者,如果更方便,代表也可在其中两三处人口最多的地区产生。以这种方式召集的会议,在处理事务中将结合两大原则,即知识权力 。大陆会议、各州议会下院或制宪会议的成员们,在积累了处理国家事务的经验后,将成为干练而重要的议员,而整个会议既经人民授权,就具备了真正的法律的权威。

参加会议的议员们的任务是制订《大陆宪章》和《联合殖民地宪章》(与所谓的英国《大宪章》相对应),确定大陆会议、州议会下院议员的人员数量和选举方式以及召开会议的日期,并且确定它们的职责和管辖范围(要永远记住,我们的力量在于整个大陆的团结一致,而不是各自为战)。保障所有人的自由和财产;最为重要的是,保障根据个人意愿选择宗教信仰的自由,以及有必要在宪章中规定的其他事项。此后,解散上述会议,并依据上述宪章选举这个大陆的临时立法人员和地方长官:愿上帝保佑他们平安幸福。阿门。

如果此后有人被委任从事这项或者其他类似的事业,我想把智慧的政治学家德拉戈内蒂的一段话送给他们。“政治活动的要义在于,发现幸福和自由的源泉。那些能够找到让国家付出最小的代价、为个人提供最大幸福的政府形式的人,值得人们永世爱戴。”——德拉戈内蒂《论德行与回报》

但有人会说,美洲大陆的国王在哪里?我要告诉你,我的朋友,他统治着我们,但不会像英国国王那样给人类带来灾难。为了显示我们并不缺少尘世的荣耀,让我们选择一个庄重的日子来公布我们的宪章;把上帝的旨意融入我们神圣的法律之中;把王冠赋予我们的法律,这样世界就可以知道,我们也同意君主制度,但是在美洲大陆法律就是国王。在专制政府中,国王就是法律。在自由的国家里,应该 成为国王的是法律,而不是其他的东西。为了避免以后有人滥用法律,让我们在宣布仪式之后把王冠打碎,把它分散到拥有这项权利的人民大众之中。

拥有一个我们自己的政府是我们与生俱来的权利。当认真思考人类事务面临的危险时,人们会明白:在我们有能力时,以冷静和慎重的方式建立一个我们自己的政权体制是更为明智和安全的,而不是在这一件重要的事情上面等待时间和命运的恩赐。如果我们今天不这样做,以后就会有像马萨涅洛 【2】 那样的人揭竿而起,利用公众普遍的不满,召集一些亡命之徒和对现状不满的人,自立政府,然后像洪水一样把各种自由权利从美洲大陆赶出去。如果统治美洲的权利再次回到英国人的手中,岌岌可危的形势也会吸引绝望的冒险家铤而走险。如果发生这种情况,英国人能提供什么帮助?在她得知消息之前,那种可怕的事情可能已经发生了。我们遭受的痛苦会如同可怜的布立吞人在征服者压迫下经受的痛苦一样。现在那些反对独立的人,你们并不知道自己是在做什么;你们让政府的位置空着,从而向永久的专制打开大门。已有成千上万的人认识到,把那个野蛮和恐怖的势力赶出美洲大陆是一件光荣的事情,这个政权已经鼓动印第安人和黑人来毁灭我们。需要对这一残暴行为承担罪责的有他们,还有我们自己。

与理性禁止我们信任、情感让我们憎恨的人谈论友谊无疑是疯狂和愚蠢之举。我们和他们之间尚存的友谊在与日俱减,那么是否有理由希望,在这种关系结束后,相互的关爱会增加一些,或者当我们为更多或者重要十倍的事情争论的时候,我们反而更能够达成一致?

那些向我们谈论和谐与和解的人,你能够补偿我们失去的时间吗?你能够让妓女找回昔日的纯真么?如果你不能,那么你也不能够调解英国和美洲大陆的关系。最后一丝联系已经断开,英国人正在发表反对我们的演讲。有些伤害是天理无法原谅的,如果有人能够,那么她就失去了自己的本性。如果一个人不能够原谅强暴自己情人的人,那么美洲大陆也不能够原谅英国的杀人犯。上帝在我们心中植入了这些不能够消除的情感,目的就是为了让我们保持善良和智慧。它是我们心中上帝形象的守护神。它让我们有别于普通的动物。如果我们对情感无动于衷,那么社会契约将解体,正义将从地球上消失,或者仅仅是形同虚设。如果我们受到的伤害不能促使我们寻求正义,那么强盗和杀人犯将能够经常逃脱惩罚。

啊,你们那些热爱人类的人们!那些敢于反抗专制和暴君的人,请站出来吧!旧世界的每个角落都充斥着压迫。在整个地球上,自由被追捕。亚洲和非洲已经把她驱赶开,欧洲视她为陌生人,而英国已经警告让她离开。啊,接纳这个流亡者吧,并且及时为人类准备一个自由的庇护所。

关于当前美洲大陆的能力,以及一些其他的想法

我遇到的每一个人,不论是在英国还是在美洲,都向我表达过同样的想法,那就是英国和美洲大陆的分裂是迟早要发生的事情。在我们试图描述让美洲大陆独立的成熟时机的时候,我们并没有表现出足够明智的判断。

既然所有人都认可这个方案,而只是在时间方面有不同的意见,那么为了避免犯错,让我们对当前的事物进行一个综合的考察,并且如果可能的话,找出合适的 时间。这不是一件需要特别费力的事情,调查很快就可以结束,因为这个时间已经到来 。目前的总体形势,以及所有必要条件的到来都证明了这一点。

我们最大的优势在于我们团结一致,而非我们的数量,而且我们现在的数量足于对抗整个世界。美洲大陆目前拥有世界上数量最庞大的、训练有素的武装部队;而且美洲目前处于这样一个阶段,那就是单个殖民地不能独立存在,但是当他们联合起来的时候,他们可以所向无敌,而且对敌人的打击几乎是致命的。我们现在已经有足够的陆军,在海军方面,我们不能不清醒地认识到,那就是在她的统治下,英国不允许美洲大陆拥有自己的军队。因此,在那一方面,我们再过一百年,情形也是和现在一样的。但是问题在于,情况会更糟,因为这个国家的木材每天都在减少,而且最终剩下来的位置都比较偏远而且难以采伐。

如果美洲大陆上挤满了居民,那么她在目前状况下遭受的痛苦会更加难以忍受。我们拥有的海港城镇越多,我们需要保卫和可能失去的就会越多。目前的数字正适合我们的需求,没有人会无事可做。由于贸易的减少,有更多的人可以加入军队,而军队的需求又会促进新贸易活动的产生。

我们没有任何债务。我们在这方面欠下的任何债务都将是我们德行的光辉纪念。如果我们能给后代人留下一个形式确定的政府,一个我们自己的独立的政体,那么付出任何代价都是值得的。但如果只是为了废除一些恶毒的法案,以及战胜一个政府的部门,就花费数百万英镑,这样的花费是不值得的,对我们的后代也太残忍了,因为我们把大量的工作留给他们去做,并且给他们留下了很多的债务,而这些债务不能给他们带来任何好处。任何正直的人都不会有如此打算的,只有心胸狭隘的人和无所事事的政客才会有此想法。

如果我们的事业得以完成,那么我们可能要承担的债务是不值一提的。没有国家不应该有债务。国债是一个国家的债务,而且如果债务没有利息,这绝不是一件令人痛苦的事情。英国有超过140,000,000英磅的债务,每年支付的利息超过4,000,000英磅。正是由于有这样高的债款的支持,她能够拥有一支庞大的海军。美洲大陆没有债务,但是也没有海军。然而如果我们的债务达到英国的1/20,那么我们会拥有力量两倍于他们的海军。英国海军的价值目前不会超过3,500,000英磅。

本书第一版和第二版出版时没有包含以下的计算,这一版本中则将其包含在内,以证明上述对海军建设费用的估算是正确的。参看恩蒂克所著的《海军史》,绪论,第56页。

根据海军大臣波彻特先生的计算,建造各种等级舰船的造价,连同桅杆、帆桁、帆和索具等装备的费用,以及相当于水手和船匠八个月口粮的费用为:

由此,我们很容易算出整个英国海军的价值或成本,因为它在1757年达到鼎盛时拥有下列数量的舰船和火炮:

世界上没有哪个国家像美洲大陆一样地处如此优越的位置,具有如此良好的养护军舰的内部条件。柏油、木材、铁和绳索都是它的天然资源。我们不需要赴国外采购任何东西。通过向西班牙人和葡萄牙人出租军舰而获利的荷兰人,需要进口他们使用的大部分原料。我们应该把建造军舰当作一个商业项目,因为在这方面我们具有天然的优势。这是我们最有价值的投资。当海军建成后,它的价值会高于它的成本。这是国家政策的一个妙处所在,它把商业和国防结合在了一起。让我们来建造一支海军吧,如果我们不需要,还可以把它卖掉,这样我们就可以用现成的金银来替换我们的纸币。

关于舰队的人员配备问题,人们通常会陷入误区;我们不必要让四分之一的人当海员。那艘“攻坚号”武装民船以及“死神船长号”在上一次战争中经历了最激烈的战斗,但是船上的船员不到二十人,虽然编制人数在二百以上。几个干练的、善于交流的海员很快就可以教会许多陆上生活的人从事船上的普通工作。因此,在我们拥有充足的木材供应、渔场遭到封锁、海员和造船工人正陷于失业时开创海上事业可以说是千载难逢的良机。四十年前,我们曾在新英格兰建造过几艘装有七、八十尊火炮的战舰,为什么现在不再这样做呢?造船业是美洲最值得自豪的事业,在这一方面,她迟早会超越世界各国。东方的大帝国大多地处内陆,因此不可能挑战美洲的地位。非洲现在还处于蛮荒状态,而欧洲没有哪个国家拥有这样长的海岸线,以及这样丰富的国内原料供应。自然界在赐予某地一项好处的同时,往往会保留另外一项好处;然而她对美洲却很慷慨,让她占尽了两项优势。幅员辽阔的俄罗斯帝国几乎没有出海口,因此它广袤的森林,它的柏油、铁和绳索只能作为商品出售。

从安全方面考虑,难道我们不需要有一只舰队吗?我们不再是六十年前的贫民了;那时我们也许可以把财产随意放在街头,或者是田野,夜不闭户也能睡得很安稳。现在情况不同了,我们自卫的手段应该随着我们财产的增加而增强。十二个月前,一个普通的海盗很可能顺着特拉华短时间内到达费城,向当地居民任意勒索财物;其他地方也会有相同遭遇。不仅如此,一个大胆的家伙率领一艘装有十四或十六门火炮的双桅船,也许就能够洗劫整个大陆,抢走五十万镑。这些是值得我们注意的情况,它们告诉我们建立海防的必要性。

有些人也许会说,我们同英国讲和以后,她会保护我们的。难道我们会这样愚蠢,以至于认为她会为了保护我们而在我们的海港驻扎一支海军吗?常识告诉我们,一个试图征服我们的国家是所有国家中最不适合保卫我们的。征服可以假借友谊的名义进行;而在长期的英勇抵抗之后,我们可能最终会被欺骗,成为奴隶。而如果我们不允许她的军舰开进来,我想问,她又将如何来保护我们呢?一个远在三、四千英里之外的海军是不会有多大用处的,而且在紧急关头根本毫无用处。因此,如果我们以后必须自己保护自己,那为什么不为自己做些事情呢?为什么要把它交给别人呢?

英国军舰的数量多得吓人,但是其中只有不到十分之一适合作战,还有很多是不存在的。但这些战舰哪怕只有一块甲板存在就还会保留在名单上。在适合作战的战舰中,只有其中不到五分之一的可以在某个时候离开海港。东方、西印度群岛、地中海、非洲和英国统治的其他地区对海军的需求量很大。出于偏见和疏忽,我们对英国海军形成了一种错误的观念,认为我们自己会同时与整个英国海军作战;出于这种原因,我们认为自己必须拥有一支同样强大的海军。在这种想法不能立即实现的情况下,一些伪装的亲英分子趁机劝阻我们不要开展这项事业。没有什么比这更违背事实了。假设美洲拥有英国海军力量的二十分之一,那么她便足以战而胜之,因为我们没有,也没有宣称拥有任何海外领土,因此我们所有的武装力量都驻扎在自己的海岸线。长远来看,相对于跋涉三四千英里的距离来发动进攻、还需要航行同样的距离去获得人员和物质补给的敌人,我们在自己的海岸线上拥有二比一的优势。虽然英国可以利用它的舰队控制我们与欧洲的贸易,我们拥有同样强大的舰队来控制她与西印度群岛的贸易。西印度群岛临近美洲大陆,而且完全在美洲大陆的控制之下。

如果认为维持一支常备海军没有必要的话,我们可以找到一种方法在和平时代维持一支海军力量。假设我们向商人发放一些津贴,让他们建造并且使用50或60艘装有20门、30门、40门,或50门大炮的舰船(津贴额度此类舰船),加上一些常规执勤的警戒船,就可以维持一只像样的海军了。采用这种做法,我们避免了在和平时期让舰队停在港湾逐渐腐烂的弊端,在英国,人们对此诟病很多。将商业和防卫力量结合起来是一个很好的政策。当我们将商业和防御力量结合起来的时候,我们不再惧怕外来的敌人。

几乎任何一件防卫用物品在我们这里数量都很多。这里的大麻长得很茂盛,这样我们就不缺少绳索了。在这里生产的铁的质量比其他国家的都要好。我们的轻型武器可以和世界上任何地方的媲美。我们可以轻松地制造大炮。我们每天都在生产硝石和火药。我们掌握的知识每个小时都在增加。果敢是我们天生的品质,勇气永远与我们相伴。那么,我们现在还缺少什么?是什么让我们犹豫?除了毁灭,我们不能指望从英国人那里得到任何东西。如果她再次被允许统治美洲大陆,那么这个大陆就不再适合生存。猜忌会不断涌现,暴乱会经常发生,有谁会挺身而出平息这一切呢?谁会冒着生命危险让自己的同胞向外国势力屈服呢?宾夕法尼亚和康涅狄格之间关于一些未开垦地区疆界的争执表明英国政权是无足轻重的,并且这件事充分证明只有美洲大陆自己的政权才能管理好美洲大陆的事务。

目前的时间最为合适的另外一个理由是,我们的人数越少,那么未被占领的土地就越多。我们不但可以用这些土地来偿还当前的债务,而且还可以向政府提供源源不断的支持。世界上没有哪个国家拥有这样的优势。我们不要让国王把这些资源随意赐予他那些无用的寄生虫。

目前这个由殖民地组成的新生国家(有人这么称呼她)还没有遭到什么反对,这是一项有利于独立的理由。我们目前的人口数量合适,如果数量更多的话,我们可能就不会像现在这样的团结了。有一种情况值得注意,那就是一个国家人口越多,它的军队人数就越少。在军事人数上,古代人要远远超过现代人。理由很明显,因为人口增长带动了贸易,人们过多专注于贸易,无暇顾及其他事务。商业减弱了人们的精神,在爱国热情和军事防务方面都是如此。历史充分地告诉我们,一个国家最英勇的成就往往发生在她的青年时期。随着商业活动的增加,英国已经丧失了她的精神。伦敦这个城市虽然人口数量庞大,但却像懦夫一样对各种污辱逆来顺受。人们可失去的东西越多,就越不愿意冒险。富人经常成为恐惧的奴隶,像一条小狗一样装出一副战战兢兢的模样屈从于宫廷的势力。

对国家和个人来说,青年时期是培养良好习惯的黄金时机,如果要花费以后的半个世纪的时间在这个大陆建立一个统一的政府,即便不无可能,实施起来也会比较困难。随着贸易和人口的增加,利益分化日益加剧,混乱也将随之产生。殖民地之间会有冲突。由于羽翼已经丰满,各殖民地会蔑视彼此之间的帮助。那些骄傲但是愚蠢的人会为一点点成就而沾沾自喜,而有识之士则会懊悔没有及早组建联盟。因此,目前 是组建联盟的最恰当时机 。在幼年时期形成的亲密无间的关系,在共患难中形成的友谊,是最长久、最不容易改变的关系。我们现在的联合就具有这两种特点:我们都很年轻,但是都经历过苦难。我们团结一致,共同经历了困难的考验,并且开创了一个难忘的、值得后人骄傲的时代。

目前这个时期还是一个特殊的时期,这样的时期每个国家只能遇到一次,即组建自己政府的时期。大多数国家错过了这个机会,因此只能被迫接受征服者制定的法律,而不是自己制定法律。他们首先有了一个国王,然后才有了某种形式的政府;然而,应该先有宪章,然后再选出人来执行这些宪章,组建政府。让我们从其他国家的错误中吸取教训,抓住目前的机会,按照正确的顺序组建政府

威廉一世征服英国后,他用刀剑逼迫他们接受自己的法律。除非我们同意在美洲组建一个合法的、有权威的政府,否则我们也将面临被某个幸运的恶棍威逼着接受他指定的政府的危险。他可能会以同样的方式对待我们,到那时我们的自由何在?我们的财产何在?

在宗教方面,我认为保护所有真诚地宣布自己宗教信仰的人是政府不可推卸的责任。我不知道政府在这方面还可以做其他什么事情。让我们抛弃狭隘的思想,自私的原则(只有吝啬鬼才死抱着这些不愿意放弃),人们立刻就会摆脱在这一方面的各种恐惧。猜疑与心胸狭隘相伴,它会毒害所有幸福的社会。我个人完全真诚地相信,人类信仰不同的宗教是上帝的意图,它让我们拥有更广阔的展现基督教善意的天地。如果我们的思考方式都相同,那么我们的宗教倾向就缺少检验的依据。根据这个开放的原则,我认为人们信仰的各种宗教就像同一个家庭中的众多孩子一样,只是所称的教名不同罢了。

在第五十四页 【3】 ,我就如何制定好《大陆宪章》谈了一些零散的想法(因为我只想提些建议,而不是方案)。在这里,我想再次谈论一下这个话题,我想大陆宪章应该被视为一种约束我们的神圣义务,这是所有殖民地都要承担的义务。每个殖民地的权利都应得到支持,不论是在宗教、个人自由,或是财产方面。要经过激烈的讨价还价作出正确的决策,这样朋友的关系才能长远。

前面我还提到过建立广泛和平等的代表制度的必要性,没有什么政治事务比这更值得我们注意了。选民人数少和代表人数少是同样危险的,而如果不仅代表人数少,而且分布不平均,那么危险级别就更高了。为了证明这一说法,我想列举下面一个例子:当支持大陆联合的人们将请愿书提交宾夕法尼亚议会时,到会的只有二十八位议员;勃克斯县的全部八名议员一致投票反对,而切斯特县的七名议员也投了反对票,这就相当于整个这一地区就被两个县控制了,而这样的危险始终存在。在那次会议上,议会还违规延长会议时间,以不当的方式得到代表们的同意。这样的做法应让人们重新考虑委托权力的方式。有人给代表们制定了参政规则,但不论是从合理性还是操作性来看,这些规则连小学生的水平都达不到。而它们获得少数人 的同意后(即很少一部分 人在议会外讨论后),就被提交给议会,以整个殖民地的名义 获得通过。如果全体人民得知议会在制定一些必要的公共措施时怀有的恶意,他们会毫不犹豫地认为这些议员不值得信任。

在紧急情况下会形成很多权宜之计,如果继续存在下去就会变成压迫。权宜之计不等同于正确的做法。在美洲大陆面临灾难需要商议重大事情时,没有比从几个议会委派一些人来做这件事更直接、更合适,而且他们利用自己的智慧成功地让这个大陆免遭灭顶之灾。如果没有大陆会议,我们很有可能永远无法逃脱噩运,因此每一个期望良好秩序的人都必须认真考虑为这个机构选择人员的方式。我向人类研究专家提出一个问题,同一个机构集代表权和选举权 于一身,它拥有的权力是不是太大了?我们在为后代制订计划时应该记得,美德是不能遗传的。

我们经常从敌人那里了解到至理名言,而且他们的错误常常让我们觉醒。康沃尔先生(财政委员之一)以轻蔑的态度对待纽约议会的请愿书,他说那个议会只有二十六位议员,这个人数太少,没有充分的代表性。我们感谢他的非自愿的诚实。 【4】

总之,尽管看起来很奇怪,或者很多人不愿意这样考虑,这些都不重要。我可以给出许多强有力的、鲜明的理由来说明,没有比公开、明确地宣布独立这一方法更能顺利地解决当前的困境了。这些理由是:

第一 ,在两个国家交战时,其他没有陷入争端的国家习惯上会作为调停人介入,启动和谈。在美洲称自己为大不列颠臣民的情况下,没有国家(即使她具备合适的条件)能够提供调解。因此,在目前状况下,我们会永远争吵下去。

第二 ,如果我们寻求帮助的目的只是为了修补裂痕,并加强英国与与美洲的联系的话,我们就没有理由认为法国或西班牙会给我们任何帮助,因为她们这样做只会对自己不利。

第三 ,在我们声称自己是英国臣民的情况下,我们一定是被外国视为反叛者。臣民拿起武器反抗统治者,这样的事情在外国人看来会对她们的和平 构成威胁。我们可以立即解释这个看似矛盾的问题。不过,要把臣服与抵抗放在一起解释,这样的想法太过于复杂,一般人难以理解。

第四 ,如果我们发表一项声明,并且递交给外国宫廷,陈述我们遭受的苦难,以及我们尝试过但没有奏效的和平方法;并同时宣布,由于我们在残暴的英国宫廷下已经不能够幸福和安全地生活,我们已经被迫要与她断绝各种形式的联系;同时向外国宫廷保证我们对他们的和平态度,以及我们与他们开展贸易的愿望:这样的外交备忘录对美洲大陆的好处胜过用船装满向英国的请愿书。

目前,作为英国的臣民,其他国家既不愿接纳我们,也不愿倾听我们的声音。所有宫廷的惯例都对我们不利,而且会一直如此,除非我们通过独立获得与其他国家同等的地位。

这些程序起初可能会显得陌生和困难重重,就像我们以前经历过的一些阶段一样,但它们不久就会变得亲切和令人愉悦。此外,除非宣布独立,否则美洲大陆就像一个把不快的事情一直向后拖延的人,明明知道这件事情必须要做,但是不愿着手去做,希望事情已经过去,但是一直被必须要做这件事情的念头纠缠着。

附 言

自从这本小册子的第一版出版之后,或者应该说在它出版的那一天,这个城市就得悉了国王的讲话内容。如果说这本书的出版是由于先见之明,那么它出现的时间可真是恰到好处。一方的故意刁难说明了另一方坚持其主张的必要性。人们从报复行动中看到这一切。正是英王的演讲非但没有吓倒人,反而推动了勇敢的独立原则的产生。

遵循礼节,或者保持沉默,不论动机如何,那些对卑鄙和邪恶表现表现出任何支持倾向的行为都是有害的。如果我们认可这个说法,那么英国国王邪恶之极的演讲就理应受到议会和民众普遍的憎恶。然而,由于一个国家的内部安定很大程度上取决于对所谓国家事务的忠贞,对某些事情可以在沉默中轻蔑地一笑而过,而不必试图对我们和平和安全的守护神表示憎恨,因为这于事无补。也许主要出于这种审慎的考虑,英王的演讲在此前没有受到公众谴责。这一演讲,如果可以称其为一次演讲的话,不过是对事实、公共福祉和人类存在的肆无忌惮的诽谤,是冠冕堂皇地牺牲人类、满足暴君尊严的一种方式。类似对人类的大规模屠杀是国王们的特权,也是国王们带来的恶果。大自然 了解他们,他们也 了解大自然。尽管我们 制造出了国王,但是他们并不了解我们 ,还自命为神。这篇演讲有一点好处,那就是它不打算欺骗谁,而且也骗不了我们,即使我们自己愿意被欺骗。残暴和专制在这篇演讲中已经表现得太明显了。阅读这篇演讲,我们没有任何迷惑:即使是在阅读过程中,每一行字都让我们相信,即使是那些在树林里寻找猎物的赤身裸体、未经教化的印第安人,也不如英国国王残忍。

被谬称为《英国人民致美洲居民书》——一篇充满哀鸣的阴险作品的假定作者约翰·达尔林普尔,徒劳地认为这里的人民会被文章的气势和对国王的描述所吓倒,在文章中讲述了现今国王的真实性格(虽然他这样做是很不明智的)。“但是”,作者说,“如果你愿意称颂一个政府(指撤销《印花税法案》的罗金哈姆侯爵内阁),我们不会有什么抱怨,”“但是如果你忘记歌颂那位君王,那是十分不公正的,因为只有经过他的同意,其他人才被允许做任何事情 。”这是赤裸裸的保王主义!这是毫不掩饰的偶像崇拜。谁要是听到这样的说教无动于衷,而且还听信这样的说教,他就是一个失去了明辨是非能力的人——一个背离了人性常规的人,应被视为不但放弃了人类正常的尊严,而且让自己堕落到连畜生都不如的境地,像一条虫子一样在世界上令人鄙视地爬行。

不过,现在英王说什么或做什么都已不重要了,他已经完全恶毒地破坏了每一项道义的和人性的责任,践踏了天性和良知,并且一步步地以他与生俱来的傲慢和残忍为自己招来了普遍的仇恨。现在是美洲自力更生的时候了。她已经拥有一个年轻而庞大的家庭了,她更需要做的是照顾他们,而不是把财产用于支持一个让人类和基督徒蒙羞的政权。那些负责守望国家(不论哪一派别)德行的人,以及直接守护社会自由的人,如果你们要保护自己的祖国不被欧洲的腐败污染,那么你们的内心一定是渴望脱离英国。然而,把有关道德的部分留给个人去思考,我要继续主要就以下内容阐述我的想法。

首先,脱离英国符合美洲的利益。

其次,哪一种方案更为可行,是和解还是独立?顺便谈一些零星的看法。

关于第一点,如果我认为合适的话,我会举出这个大陆上一些最能干、最有经验的人的观点,他们在这个问题上的想法目前还不为公众所知。实际上,这是一个不言而喻的立场:没有国家在依附于他国,贸易有限,而且立法权力有限且受控制的情况下,能够在物质方面有大成就。美洲还从来没有了解富足为何物。虽然相对于其他国家,她的进步神速,但是如果她能把立法权力掌握在自己手里的话,她目前的成就与她的能力所能达到的程度比较还处于儿童时期。英国目前正傲慢地垂涎于即使她能够得到,也不能给她带来任何好处的东西;美洲大陆正在一件事关自身存亡的事情上犹豫不决。能给英国带来利益的是贸易,而不是对美洲的征服。在各国像法国和西班牙一样相互独立的情况下,这种状况将在很大程度上得以延续,因为在很多商品方面,没有国家能找到更好的市场。不过目前的主要话题,也是唯一值得争论的内容,是这个国家脱离英国或者其他任何国家获得独立。这像所有其他必然要被发现的真理一样,将日益显得清晰而有力。

首先,因为这是迟早要发生的事情。

其次,因为这件事拖得越久,就越难以完成。

我时常在公众场合以及私下与朋友在一起时,谈论那些讲话不加思考的人犯下的似是而非的错误。在我听过的许多说法中,下面的一种似乎最为普遍,也就是说,如果与英国的裂痕发生在四五十年后,而不是现在 ,那么美洲大陆更加具备摆脱对英国依赖的能力。针对这种说法,我的回答是,我们目前 的军事力量来自上一次战争,而过了四五十年后这一力量就完全消失了。到那个时候,美洲大陆将不再有将军,甚至是一个普通的军官依然在世。而我们以及我们的后来者将像古代印第安人一样对军事一无所知。如果认真研究的话,单是这一点就足以证明现在比任何其他时候都合适。论证的过程是这样的:在上次战争结束时,我们积累了作战经验,但是军队数量少;在四五十年后,我们在数量上没有问题了,但是却失去了经验;因此,合适的时间应该是位于两个极端之间的某个特定的时段,即我们依然拥有足够的经验,而数量也有了适当的增加:那个时间点就是现在。

希望读者原谅我偏离了主题,因为刚才谈论的内容不适合放在我起初的话题之下。现在我就要回到这个主题,谈论以下的主张,即:

如果我们与英国的关系能够得到修补,英国依旧是美洲的管理者和主权国(根据目前的状况,美洲正在完全放弃这个主张),我们将丧失偿还已有的或未来债款的能力。随着加拿大以每100英亩仅5英镑的价格不公正地扩展她的边界,一些省份的边远地区被秘密剥夺的土地价值相当于2500多万宾夕法尼亚货币。免役税以每英亩一便士计,每年价值达200万。

正是通过出售那些土地,债款才可以在不给任何人增加负担的情况下得到偿还,而且保留的免役税可以减轻,并且最终完全支持政府每年的运转费用。只要土地出售的收入是用来偿还债务的,债款需要偿还多长时间并不重要。要完成这项工作,大陆会议可以暂时担任美洲大陆的受托管理人。

我现在开始谈论第二项,即哪一种方案更可行,和解还是独立?顺便谈一些零星的想法。

那些从自然界寻找方向的人是不容易被驳倒的,从这一点出发,我总体 的回答是这样的:独立是唯一一条简单的路线,一条我们自己可以把握 的路线;而和解是一项极其令人迷惑而且复杂的事情要受到奸诈而多变的王室的干扰答案也是毫无悬念的

在任何一个认真思考的人来看,美国目前的状况都是令人震惊的。没有法律,没有政府,除了别人恩赐的权力外没有其他任何形式的权力。美洲目前由空前一致的情感联系在一起,然而这种情形会发生变化,而且每一个隐藏的敌人都在设法破坏这种团结。我们所处的环境是这样的:有立法机构但是不能制定法律,有智慧但是没有计划,有政体但是没有名号,并且非常令人奇怪的是,有完美的独立条件但是却希望继续依赖英国。我们目前的处境找不到任何先例,以前没有这样的情况,谁能知道未来将会如何?在目前体制松散的形势下,没有人的财产是安全的。大多数人的想法是随意性的,他们眼前没有固定的目标,追逐幻想或者听信流言。没有什么算是犯罪,不存在叛国这一事情。因此,每个人都认为自己可以随心所欲。如果他们知道根据国家的法律,那样做会让自己丧失性命,亲英分子就不敢那样进行挑衅性的集会了。有必要区别对待在战斗中俘获的英国士兵和所捉获的手执武器镇压同胞的美洲居民,前者是俘虏,而后者是叛徒。一个要剥夺他的自由,另一个要砍掉他的脑袋。

尽管我们不乏智慧,但是我们的行动有明显的弱点,助长了意见的分歧。“大陆的皮带”扣得太松。如果某件事情没有及时去做,做任何其他事情都会太迟的。我们会陷入一种既不能取得和解 ,也不能获得独立 的尴尬境地。国王和他不中用的追随者又玩起了在美洲大陆制造分裂的老把戏,而我们中间不乏忙着散播一些似是而非的谎言的“印刷匠”。几个月前刊登在纽约两家报纸上以及其他两家报纸上的那封狡诈和虚伪的来信,证明有些人既缺乏判断力,又不诚实。

躲在角落里谈论和解很容易,但是这些人是否认真考虑过这项工作有多么困难,如果大陆因而分裂的话那会多么危险。他们是否注意到在这方面需要考虑各种人,而不只是他们自己的处境。他们是否设身处地考虑了那些已经一无所有 的人的处境,还有那些为保卫自己的国家放弃了一切 的士兵们。如果他们糊涂的克制策略 适合他们自己的情况,没有考虑到其他人,那么最终结果会让他们相信,“他们是擅自做主”。

有些人说,让我们回到1763年的情况吧。我的回答是:英国现在没有能力满足这个要求,而且她也不会希望这样做。然而如果英国愿意这样做,而且满足了这个要求,我想问一个比较合理的问题:用什么方法让这样一个腐败、不讲信义的宫廷履行自己的义务呢?另外一个议会,不,甚至现在的议会,都会在以后借口说这种义务是强加的,或者说当初没有考虑充分,因而决定加以取消。如果出现这种情况,我们去向谁申诉?我们没有办法像其他国家一样诉诸法律;国王通过大炮对我们说话,战争而非正义之剑决定这件事情的结果。要回到1763年的状态,只是把法律放在同样的状态是不够的,还要让我们的境况与当年相同;我们被焚烧并且被破坏的城镇要能够得到修补或重建,我们的私人损失要得到补偿,公共债务(国防债务)要得到豁免。否则,即使我们能够生活在那个令人羡慕的时代,我们的处境也会比过去更糟糕。如果这样的要求在一年前能够被满足,英国或许能够赢得美洲大陆全身心的拥护。但是现在太迟了,机会已经逝去。

如果拿起武器只是为了推动废除一部财政法律,这似乎没有神圣的法律依据,而且,就如拿起武器来要求顺从一样不合情理。并且也是不合情理的。不必要通过这样的方式和手段来实现这样的目标。人的生命是宝贵的,不应该浪费在这样的琐事上。别人对我们实施以及威胁实施暴力;别人用武力毁坏我们的财产;别人通过武力侵占我们的家园,这些才是真正需要我们拿起武器反抗的事情。一旦需要进行这样的防卫,所有对英国的臣服关系就要中断,而美洲的独立则可以从向英国打响第一枪 算起。这条线是连贯一致的,既非出自任意妄为,也非出自野心。这是一连串的事件导致的结果,肇事者不是这些殖民地。

我想用一些及时的、善意的提示来结束我的谈话。我们应该意识到,以后有三种实现独立的可能途径,其中的一项将最终决定美洲的命运。这三种你怎么是:通过大陆会议通过的立法;通过军事斗争;或者通过暴民暴动。我们的士兵不一定总是由公民组成,而且并非大多数人永远是有理性的人。我之前说过,德行是不能遗传的,而且不是永远存在的。如果独立是通过第一种方式实现的,那么我们就有无数的机会和支持来成立地球上最高尚、最纯洁的政体。我们有能力重建世界。自诺亚方舟时代以来,类似于我们目前的处境还绝无仅有。新世界的诞生就在眼前,一群数量不亚于欧洲居民的人将在持续几个月的事件后获得他们的自由。这样的想法令人震惊,而且从这个角度看,少数懦夫或利益群体卑鄙的无端指责同这具有世界意义的事业相比显得多么微不足道、多么可笑啊。

如果我们忽视目前的有利时机,以后通过其他方式获得独立,我们必须自己承担后果,或者是怪罪那些思想狭隘和有偏见的人,那些习惯性地不加调查和思索就反对别人主张的人。关于独立,我们可以举出很多理由,然而这些理由无需明告知,人们只须内心细想即可明白。我们现在不应该讨论是否要独立,而是要以坚定、可靠和有尊严的方式抓紧去实现独立,对现在争取独立的努力尚未开始而深感不安。每一天都让我们更加认识到独立的必要性。所有人,甚至保王派人士(如果他们还在我们中间的话)都应该是最急于推动美洲独立的人,因为在起初任命了几个委员会后,他们就会免遭民众愤怒的攻击,而一个智慧的、完善的政府形式,是唯一可以让他们的生活平安继续的方式。因此,即使他们的德行不足以让他们成为辉格党人士,他们也应该足够谨慎地希望美洲独立。

总之,独立是把我们团结在一起的唯一纽带。此后,我们将找到我们的目标,可以正大光明地不再理会那个迷人但是残忍的敌人提出的各种方案,我们将以合适的身份与英国交往。我们有理由认为,相对于与“叛逆的臣民”谈和解,与美洲各州谈论和平条款,英国王室的自尊将更多地得以保全。正是我们的犹豫不决鼓励了她征服美洲的希望,而且我们的迟钝只能让战争时间延长。我们中断了与英国的贸易以弥补我们遭受的屈辱,但是这对我们并没有好处。现在 让我们尝试另一种做法吧,让我们通过独立 解决这些问题,然后主动提出开放贸易。英国土地上的商业群体和理性人士将继续和我们站在一起,因为和平 贸易胜过有战争 无贸易。如果英国不接受我们的提议,那么我们将去寻求其他国家的贸易。

关于这个话题我就谈到这里。鉴于目前还没有人站出来反驳我在前两版提出的主张,可以认为这从反面证明了这一主张是驳不倒的,或者是支持者甚多。因此,请不要再以怀疑或好奇的眼光相互对视,让我们向邻居真诚地伸出友谊之手,联手画一条界限,忘记和埋葬过去所有的分歧。让辉格党和保王党的名字消亡吧,让我们两耳所闻皆是“一个好公民”,“一个开明而果敢的朋友”,“一个对人类权利和对自由独立的美洲联邦的品德高尚的支持者”这样的称呼。



致被称为贵格会教徒的人民宗教协会的代表们或者他们中间许多最近参与出版贵格会教徒历代箴言和原则新编关于国王和政府以及在美洲各地发生的骚乱致广大民众的人士

本书的作者属于少数从未对宗教表示不敬,从不讥讽或无端指责任何教派的人。在宗教方面,所有人都要向上帝负责,而不是向某个人负责。因此,这封信视你们为一个政治团体,而不是宗教团体,因为你们涉足了沉思安静的教派教义禁止的活动。

鉴于你们在没有得到适当授权的情况下,自命为代表所有的贵格会教徒,为了与你们平等对话,本书的作者也自命为代表所有对你们的观点持相反意见的人。为了帮助你们看到自己看不到的自以为是的问题,作者也选择了一个独特的状况。实际上,他和你们都没有资格称自己有政治代表性

当人脱离正确轨道时,出现跌跌撞撞的情况也就不足为奇。从你们编写箴言的方法上可以明显看出,政治不是你们(作为一个宗教团体)擅长的领域。也许你们认为这本书已经改编得不错了,但是它不过是胡乱堆砌了一些善恶的例子,因此得出的结论是不自然、不公正的。

前两页(整本书也不过4页)我们认为做得不错,而且我们期待你们的表现同样彬彬有礼,因为不只是贵格会教徒才热爱和期盼和平,和平是所有人发自内心的期望 ,也是所有宗教派别的期望。在这片土地上,在人们为建立我们独立的政体而奋斗的过程中,我们的希望和目标高于所有其他人。我们的目标是永久的和平 。我们厌倦了与英国的争吵,我们认为除了最终独立无法真正结束这一切。我们的行动连贯一致,为了争取到永久的、不受干扰的和平,我们要暂时忍受目前的邪恶并且承担重任。我们正在努力,并且将继续不断努力,切断那种让我们流血的联系。如果这种名义继续存在,她将成为未来两国的祸根。

我们既不是为复仇而战,也不是为征服而战;既不是出于骄傲而战,也不是出于情绪而战。我们没有率领军舰和军队在世界各地耀武扬威,也没有到处抢夺。我们在自己的家园里被袭击,在自己的土地上遭遇针对自己的暴力犯罪。我们视敌人为拦路的劫匪,打家劫舍的强盗。在得不到民法保护的情况下,被迫用军事手段惩罚他们。在同样的情况下,我们使用了刀剑,而你们过去使用过绞索。我们对整个美洲大陆受摧残、受羞辱的人深感同情。可能你们还没有感受到我们的心情,但是请你们编写箴言时不要搞错了批评的对象,不要随意引用材料,不要把宗教等同于冷酷无情,也不要让固执己见的人 代表基督徒

不过,你们中间还是有人讲原则的。如果拿起武器是有罪的,那么首先挑起战争的人更加罪孽深重,因为故意进攻和被迫进行不可避免的防卫毕竟是不同的。因此,如果你们真心宣扬你们的宗教,而不是把它作为政治宣传工具的话,那么请用行动让我们相信。请向我们的敌人宣传你们的主张,因为他们也同样拿起了武器 。请用行动证明你们的诚意,在圣·詹姆斯发表这本书,把它送给在波士顿的部队首领,送给像海盗一样骚扰我们海疆的海军舰队司令,以及所有在你们宣称效忠的英国国王的命令下屠戮百姓的恶棍们。如果你们有巴克莱 【5】 那样诚实的灵魂,你们应该向你们的 国王宣扬忏悔。你们应该告诉他自己犯下的罪行,并且警告他避免永久毁灭的后果。你们不应该不公正地一味攻击那些受到伤害和羞辱的人,而应该像忠实的牧师一样,大声疾呼,一视同仁 。不要说你们受到了迫害,也不要说我们指责你们,你们是自食其果。我们向所有人作证,我们不是因为你们是贵格会教徒 才对你们表示不满,而是因为你们冒称 是贵格会教徒。

唉!从你们提供的部分箴言和你们的行为来看,好像所有的罪恶都与拿起武器 有关,而且只与民众拿起武器有关 。看起来好像你们混淆了派系与公平的界线,因为总的来看你们的行为缺少一致性。我们很难相信你们伪装的不安,因为你们的人声称鄙夷财富,然而同时却对金钱趋之若骛。

你们在箴言的第三页引用的格言,即“如果一个人的行为让上帝满意,那么他甚至也会让敌人与自己和平相处”,对你们来说选择得十分不合适。因为它相当于证明了,国王的行为(你们是如此愿意支持他)让上帝不满意,否则他统治下的王国应是和平的。

我现在来分析你们箴言的后半部分,而在此之前的不过是引子。

“自从我们受召唤传播耶稣基督的光辉以来,我们内心的想法和遵循的原则一直是这样的,即树立或者废除国王和政府是上帝的特权,原因只有他自己知道。我们不应该插手此事或者与之有任何牵连,不要越权行事,更不要说密谋推翻任何国王和政府,而是要为国王、国家的安全和所有人的安康祈祷:愿我们拥有和平和安静的生活,彼此友善、真诚相待。让我们服从上帝为我们安排的政府 。”如果这些真的 是你们的原则,那么为什么你们自己不遵守这些原则?为什么不把你们所称的上帝的工作留给上帝自己处理?正是这些原则要求你们耐心并且谦逊地等待所有公共事件的结果,就像接受神的旨意一样接受事件的结果。那么如果你们真正相信你们的政治箴言 ,什么是适合它的场合呢?出版这本书要么证明你们自己并不相信自己宣扬的主张,要么说明你们追随自己信仰的德行不够。

贵格会的宗旨倾向于让人变得安静和与世无争,顺从任何管理他们的 政府。如果树立或者废除国王和政府是上帝的特权,那么他一定不会受我们的影响。因此,这条原则本身让你们同意在国王身上发生的任何事情都是上帝的旨意,为此奥里佛·克伦威尔要向你们致谢。那么查尔斯也不是死于普通人之手;如果现在傲慢地模仿他的这个人同样死于非命,那么按此说法,这本箴言的作者们和出版商们应该表现得欢欣鼓舞。国王们不是被神迹带走的,政府变更也不是由常见的人力之外的任何其他方式实现的,而是像我们正在使用的方式一样。甚至我们的救世主预见到的驱逐犹太人的事件都是由武力完成的。因此,既然你们不愿意支持一方,那么你们也不应该干扰另外一方,而是应该静静地等待事情的结果。除非你们能通过神权来证明,上帝创造了这个 世界,并且把它安排在距离旧世界尽可能远的地方,一个在东边,一个在西边,但是却不愿让它脱离腐败、无约束的英国宫廷。除非你们能证明这一点,否则如何能根据你们的原则说明鼓动人们“坚定一致地憎恨 所有表达希望与英国中断联系、中断与英国正当和必要的附属关系,以及与国王任命的政权关系的著作措施 ”是一件正确的事情。这是多么有力的一记耳光啊!那些人刚刚还默默地、顺从地把任命、改变和废黜国王和政府的事务交到上帝手里,现在却要收回他们的原则,参与到这一事务中来。刚才提到的结论难道也是源自他们的主张吗?这里出现的相互矛盾实在太过明显,想不被发现都难;这样的情况太过荒唐,不感到好笑都难。制造出这种情况的,只能是那些受到某个绝望的政党狭隘、易怒的品性影响的人,因为你们不能被视为代表整个贵格会,而只是代表其中很小的一部分。

对你们箴言的分析到此为止(虽然你们如此对我,但我并不号召任何人憎恨这本书,而只是希望大家公正地阅读并评判它)。我还想补充几句话。“树立和废黜国王”肯定是指把一个并非国王的人推上王位,并驱赶在位的国王。这与我们现在做的事情有什么相干呢?我们既不想树立 ,也不想废黜 国王,而只是不想与他存在任何联系 。因此,不论怎么看,结论都是你们的判断有问题;综合各种因素,这样的文章还不如不发表来得好。

首先,它可能让各类宗教的形象受损,而且让宗教团体参与政治纠纷是社会的大忌。

其次,事实证明多数人不同意发表这篇政治箴言,不同意把自己描述成关心并且支持这件事情。

还有,它可能会破坏美洲大陆的和谐与友谊,这种和谐与友谊也得益于你们的慷慨捐助。保持这种和谐与友谊对我们来说至关重要。

说到这里,我要向你们说再见了,既没有生气,也没有怨恨。我诚挚地祝愿你们,不论是作为普通人还是基督徒,希望你们能够永远不受干扰地充分享受每一项民事和宗教权利,并帮助其他人获得这样的权利。但是你们不明智地把宗教和政治混在一起的先例,将会遭到每一位美洲居民的反对和批评

注释

【1】 莱克星顿大屠杀——潘恩

【2】 托马斯·阿涅洛,又名马萨涅洛,是那不勒斯的一名渔夫。他在公共市场上号召同胞反对当时统治那不勒斯的西班牙人的压迫,并鼓动他们起义,结果他在一天中间便成了国王。——潘恩

【3】 本版的第43页——英文第三版编辑注

【4】 那些希望充分了解广泛和平等的代表制度对一个国家的重要性的人,可以阅读波格所著的《政治研究》一书。——潘恩

【5】 “你们享受过繁荣,也经历过逆境。你们知道什么是为祖国所不耻的,知道什么是被统治,什么是统治和登上王位。身处 被压迫 的地位,你们有理由知道 压迫者 在上帝和人类眼里是多么 可恨 。如果在这些警告和声明后你们还不能真心顺服上帝,而是忘记了这个在你们困难时候眷顾你们的人,仍然纵情声色,爱慕虚荣,你们当然要遭受严厉的惩罚。——要避免陷阱,以及那些让你做坏事的诱惑,最有效也是最普遍的做法是接受上帝之光照耀心灵,它不会哄你们高兴,也不会让你们犯罪之后仍然心情坦然。——巴克莱《致查尔斯二世书》——潘恩

涉及土地的公平问题

英文版作者序言

下面这篇文章著于1795的冬季和1796年。因为起初我并不打算在战争进行期间或者和平到来之前发表,所以它在完成后就一直在我身边,没有修改或增添什么。

让我决定现在发表的动因是兰达夫的沃森主教所做的一次布道。我的一些读者可能会想到,这位主教曾写过一本名为《向圣经致歉》一书,回应我的《理性的时代》第二部分。我现在正好有一本这位主教写的书,因此我想就这本书谈一些看法。

在这本书的结尾,有一份他写过的作品的书单。其中就有那篇布道文,题目是“上帝在创造富人和穷人过程中展示的智慧和慈爱;附录中有关于目前英国和法国当前局势的思考”。

在这篇布道文中发现的错误促使我决定出版我的《涉及土地的公平问题》这本书。认为上帝制造了富人穷人 是错误的,上帝只是创造了男人女人 ,而且给予他们可以继承的土地……

牧师们应该考虑的是改善人类的普遍处境……而不是高傲地向一部分人表示支持。宗教的实用性体现在做善事上,而且服务上帝的唯一方式是努力让上帝的子民更幸福。与此无关的所有布道都是胡说八道,装模作样。



托马斯·潘恩

涉及土地的公平问题

立法改革的目的之一应该是保持文明生活的优势,同时修正其中的弊端。

那种被骄傲地(有可能是错误地)称为文明的东西是极大地促进了还是减少了人们的普遍幸福,这个问题十分值得探讨。一方面,旁观者看到的是华丽的外表;另一方面,他们看到的是令人震惊的凄惨生活。这两种状况都是由文明造成的。人类最富有和最悲惨的阶层在所谓的文明国家中并存。

要理解社会应该是什么样的状况,有必要了解一下人类在自然和原始状态下生活的情况,比如目前北美印第安人的状况。在那种状况下,看不到在欧洲所有城镇和街道上都可以见到的穷人凄惨生活的景象,也看不到因贫穷和物品缺乏而造成的景象。

因此,贫穷是那个所谓文明生活的产物。它不存在于自然状态。另一方面,自然状态不具备由农业、艺术、科学和制造业带来的优势。

印第安人的生活与欧洲穷人相比是持续的假日,而与欧洲富人相比又显得很悲惨。因此,文明或者所谓的文明,有着两方面的作用:它使得社会的一部分人比在自然状况下更富有,而使另外一部分人比在自然状况下更加悲惨。

从自然状态过渡到文明状态的可能性是一直存在的,但是从文明状态转变为自然状态是绝对不可能的。这是因为,在自然状态下人们靠打猎为生,相对于在文明状态下耕种土地的人,获取足够的食物所需要的土地面积是后者的十倍。

因此,当一个国家在耕作、艺术和科学的额外作用下变得人口稠密,就需要将此时的状态保持下去,因为如果不这样做,可能就没有足够的食物供应十分之一以上的居民。因此,现在需要做的就是修正社会从自然状况向文明状况的过渡中出现的弊端,并保留其优势。

从这一立场出发考虑问题,文明的首要原则应该是每一个在文明社会出生的人的处境都不应该比在文明开始前的状况更差。

但是实际情况是,在欧洲的每一个国家,数百万人的状况远比他们出生在文明开始前要差,也比当前出生在北美印第安地区要差。下面我将说明这种情况是如何发生的。

勿庸置疑,土地在自然、未开垦状态下过去是,而且未来也将一直是人类的共同财产 。在那样的状况下,每个人应该生来拥有财产。他应该是与其他人终身共享土地及其所有的自然产出、蔬菜和动物。

但是如前所述,自然状态下的土地与开垦后的土地相比只能够供养少数的居民。由于不可能将耕作带来的改进与土地本身分割开(这种改进是在土地上进行的),因此就产生了土地财产这一概念,以表达这种不可分割的关系。但是事实上,属于个人财产的只有改进带来的价值,而不包括土地本身。

因此,每个农耕土地的所有人需要为他所拥有的土地向社区交纳地租 (因为我不知道还有什么更好的词语来表达这一概念)。这些地租将汇集成为本方案中所提及的基金。

从事物的本质以及历史演变都可推断,土地财产这一概念是从农耕时代开始的,在此之前不存在。它不可能在人类的第一阶段,即狩猎阶段存在。它也不存在于人类的第二阶段,即畜牧阶段。从圣经中记载的可以相信的历史看,亚伯拉罕、艾萨克、雅各布和约伯都不曾拥有土地。

他们的财产都以牛羊群计数,并且随着他们从一个地方搬迁到另一个地方。在他们居住的气候干燥的阿拉伯地区,人们往往因为一口井的使用而起纷争,这也说明当时没有土地财产。把土地作为财产还没有得到认可。

起初是不会有土地财产这样的事物的。土地不是人创造的,尽管人们很自然地拥有在土地上生活的权力,却没有权利将其中的任何一部分永久地据为己有。土地的造物主也没有开设土地办公室,颁发第一批地契。那么土地财产这一概念是从何时开始的呢?如前面所回答的那样:当耕种开始时,土地财产这一概念就开始形成了。这些都源于无法将农耕带来的改进与土地本身分隔开,因为这些改进就是在土地上进行的。

改进的价值超过了天然土地的价值,以至于后者的价值被湮没其中。到后来,所有人共同拥有的权利被融合到个人的耕种权利之中。但是仍存在不同种类的权利,只要土地存在,将来依旧会如此。

对于某些事物,只有追根溯源才能正确理解它们,并由此发现对与错的界限,而且让每个人了解这个界限。我把本文命名为《涉及土地的公平问题》,以区分于《农耕法》。

在一个耕作带来土地价值改良的国家,最不公平的法令就是农耕法。因为尽管作为这块土地的居民,每个人都是原始土地的共有人,但这并不意味着他也是耕作后土地的共有人。在这一体制得到认可后,由农耕附加给土地的价值就变成了耕种者的财产,或者是他们的继承人或购买者的财产。这土地本来没有主人。尽管我主张并且热心于维护那些因土地财产制的实行而丧失土地继承权的人的权利,我同样要捍卫那些获得了应得土地的人权利。

农耕至少是人类发明带来的对自然界最伟大的改进之一。它使得开垦后的土地十倍于原来的价值。但是随之而产生的土地垄断造成了最大的罪恶。它使得每个国家一半以上的居民被剥夺了天然的拥有权,而且他们的损失没有获得相应的补偿。由此产生了前所未有的贫穷和悲惨的人群。

在为被剥夺继承权利的人们呼吁时,我所申辩的是保护他们的权利,而不是给予他们施舍。这属于那种起先被忽视,而后只能通过政府体制革命才能得以伸张的权利。让我们向这些革命致敬,因为它们所做的是维护正义;让我们宣扬这些原则,因为它们带给我们福祉。

在简单讲述了这件事情的意义后,下面我将提出我的方案,即:

建立一个国家基金,从中向每一个年满21岁的人支付15英镑,作为对他或她因土地财产体制的实行而丧失天然继承权的部分补偿。

此外,向在世的每个年满50岁的人每年支付10英镑直至他们死亡,同时向今后所有其他活到这个年龄的人提供同样的待遇。

基金形成的方式

我已经确立了一个原则,也就是土地在未开垦状态下一直是人类共有的财产 。在这种状态下,每个人都生来就有财产。与耕作和所谓的文明生活密不可分的土地财产体制剥夺并且吸纳了一部人的财产,却没有对他们的损失给与相应的赔偿。

然而,错并不在于现有的土地财产拥有者身上。不需要埋怨他们,除非他们采取了有违公正的犯罪手段。错误在于这个体制,它悄悄地潜入这个世界,随后又得到农耕法律之利剑的支持。但后世可修正这个错误,可以在不减少或打乱现有土地拥有者的财产的情况下,在基金建立的当年全面启动基金的运行,或者此后不久启动。我下面会说明运行的方式。

如前所述,建议向所有人(无论是贫穷还是富有)支付补偿金,以避免因待遇不同引发嫉妒和怨恨。这是正确的做法,因为补偿金是用来替代天然继承权的,而天然继承权是每个人都拥有的权利。这种权利不同于他所创造的财产或从创造财产的人手中继承来的财产。不愿意接受补偿金的人可以把它捐赠给公共基金。

如果可以想当然地认为,一个人如果出生在文明状态下,不应该比他出生在自然状态下的处境更差,而文明应该为这一目的做好准备,那么实现方式只能是从财产中提取相当于它所吸收的自然资产价值部分。

实现这一目的可以有很多种方法,但是看起来最好的方法是(不仅是因为这一方法实施起来不会影响现有的拥有者,不会干涉税款的征收或政府运作和革命需要的借款,而且还因为这一方法最简单、最有效,此外财产扣除的时机最合适)在财产因某个人的死亡而传给另一个人时实施。在这种情况下,馈赠者没有给与什么,接受者也没有支付什么。与他唯一有关的是对天然继承权的垄断(从来就不存在这样的垄断权)在他这儿开始终结。一个慷慨的人不会希望这一垄断继续,公正的人会很高兴看到这一垄断被废除。

我的健康状况让我无法对概率论作充分的研究,并在此基础上做出尽可能精确的计算。因此,我在这一方面提供的更多的是观察和思考的结果,而不是从获得的信息得出的结果。但是我相信这样的结果会与事实充分一致。首先将21岁作为成年期,国家的所有财产、不动产和个人财产,通常都是由这个年龄段以上的人拥有。作为计算的基准点,有必要知道人们在这个年龄以上平均还能活多少年。我把30年作为平均数,因为尽管许多人在21岁之后还会再活40、50或60年,其他人则会去世得早一些,在此期间每年都会有一些人去世。

假设我们知道平均时间为30年,那么在物质总量不变的情况下就可以知道一个国家所有的财产或资本或相等数量的财富经历一个循环的平均时间,也就是随着一些人的去世,财产的拥有人发生变化的时间。尽管在很多情况下,某个人拥有一些资本会长达40年、50年或60年,但是其他资本在满30年之前已经循环了两到三次。这样一来,平均时间还是30年。因为如果一个国家半数的资本在30年里循环两次,产生的基金数量就相当于所有的资本在30年里循环了一次。

如果我们把30年作为一个国家所有的资本,或者相等数量的资本,循环一次的平均时间,那么1/30的部分就是每年循环的数量,即因有人去世而转移给其他人的财产数量。在知晓了这一数字,并且确定了扣除的比例之后,就可以知道这一基金在按照上面提到的方式支付后每年的收入。

在查看这篇在英国被称作预算的英国首相皮特的讲话(1796年财政计划)时,我发现在开头部分有对英国国家资本的估算。因为我手头有这一估算数字,我就把它们作为我谈论相关问题的基础。在一个国家的可知资本和人口被计算出来之后,其他国家可以将这些数据作为参考,并依据自己的资本和人口数量作出相应决策。

我更倾向于借鉴皮特的估算,以说明根据他自己的计算方式,钱可以花在更有用的地方,而不是像他那样浪费在建立波旁王朝的疯狂举动上。波旁王朝的国王对英国国民来说算得了什么?还不如保证人们有面包吃呢。

皮特先生说英国的国家资产,包括不动产和个人财产,是13亿英镑,这是法国(包括比利时)国家资本的四分之一。各国上一次收获季节的情况证明,法国的土壤比英国的更为高产。法国的土地足可以供养2,400或2,500万居民,而英国的土地只能供养700万或750万人。

13亿资本的三十分之一是43,333,333英镑,这些就是每年这一国家去世的人传给新拥有者的那一部分资本。以四比一的比例计算,法国这一数字是每年1亿7千3百万英镑。从这一每年循环的43,333,333英镑中要减去其中所吸收的自然资产的价值。公平来讲,这一比例应该在十分之一。

有可能出现的一种情况是,每年循环的资产的一部分是传给直系儿女的,而其他则是传给旁系亲属的,这两种情况的比例大约是三比一。也就是说,大约3千万英镑会传给直系继承人,其他13,333,333英镑由远亲或者陌生人继承。

那么考虑到人们总是和社会联系在一起的,这种联系会因为下一代亲属关系的疏远而相应变得更为重要。因此,如果没有直系亲属,归社会的部分应该超过十分之一。

如果根据下一代亲属关系的远近不同,这一额外的部分为5%到10%或12%,以平衡可能减少的无人继承的财产,(这一部分应该给社会而不是给政府,这将另外增加10%以上),那么每年43,333,333英镑中会有如下数量进入基金:

30,000,000×10%=3,000,000

13,333,333×10%+13,333,333×10%

=2,666,666

总计:从43,333,333英镑中可以得到5,666,666英镑注入基金。

在计算出所提议的基金年度额度之后,我下一步要谈一谈与这个基金相配比的人口,并将它与基金的用途相比较。

人口(我是指英国的人口)不超过750万,在这种情况下50岁以上的人数大约是40万。然而每年接受所提议的10英镑的人数不会超过40万,尽管他们有权得到。我不认为年收入在200或300英镑的人会接受它。我们常常看到,富有的人即便是在60岁时也会突然变得一贫如洗。然而他们有提取所有欠款的权利。因此,需要从上面提及的每年5,666,666英镑中提取4百万给40万上了年纪的人,每人10英镑。

下面我来谈谈每年年满21岁的人员。如果所有人都是在年满21岁后才死亡,要让人口保持稳定,每年年满21岁的人数应该等于每年死亡的人数。但是不到21岁便死亡的人较多,因此每年年满21岁的人数还不到死亡人数的一半。

750万人口中每年死亡的总人数大约为22万。每年年满21岁的人数大约为10万。出于刚才提到的原因,尽管像前面提到的情况一样,他们有权获得这15英镑,但不是所有满足条件的人都会接受这笔钱。如果认为十分之一的人拒绝接受这15英镑,相应的数额就是这样的:

每个国家都有一些盲人和身体有残疾的人完全无法独立维持生计,但是因为大多数盲人都是50岁以上的人,他们将享受那个年龄阶段的待遇。剩余316,666英镑将发放给50岁以下的盲人和身体有残疾的人,每年每人10英镑。

在完成了所有必要的计算,并且介绍了本方案的细节之后,我想在结尾谈一些想法。

我所请求的不是施舍而是一种权力,不是慷慨赠与而是公正。文明目前的状况既令人厌恶,又不公正。它完全有悖于本来的面目,有必要对其进行一次变革。富裕和不幸的对比不断进入人们的视线,就像死人和活人的身体被锁链绑在一起一样。尽管我像其他人一样不爱财,但是我是财富的朋友,因为它们能够用来做善事。

我不关心人们要多么富有,只要他们不会因此而生活得很凄惨就行。如果生活中有那么多的凄惨情景,人们很难有心情来享受财富带来的愉悦。悲惨的生活情景以及它所引起的不快虽然可以暂时得到压制,却不可能令其彻底消失。相对于扣除财产的1/10,这样的场景对财富带来的幸福感影响更大。不愿意出钱消除贫困的人没有仁爱之心,对自己也是这样。

在每个国家都有许多由个人设立的条件良好的慈善机构。然而考虑到所有需要减轻的苦难,任何个人所能做的非常有限。他或许可以使自己的良知得到满足,却无法使他的内心得到满足。他或许可以倾其所有,但也只是杯水车薪。只有依照滑轮系统那样的原理将文明社会组织起来,整个苦难的重担才有可能被消除。

此处提出的方案涉及到全民。这一方案会立即使三类贫困人群,即盲人、有残疾的人以及上了年纪的穷人,得以解救并在我们的视线内消失。这一方案还会给新兴一代提供避免穷困的方法。它不会扰乱或干扰国家的任何安排。

为了说明情况确实将会如此,只需要观察一下这项方案将会达到的普遍效果,即每个人都仿佛自愿 地订立遗嘱并按以下建议的方式处理财产。

但是这一方案的原则是公正而不是慈善。在所有重大事务中,确立一个具普遍积极意义的原则比慈善更重要。至于公正,不应该由孤立的个人来选择是否要维护公正。如果要考虑维护公正,实施公正的主体应该是全民因循革命的原则自发产生的行动,行动应该以国家而不是个人的名义进行。

建立在这一原则基础之上的方案将使革命受益,因为公正的意识会产生极大的能量。这一方案还会使国家资源成倍地增加,因为财产像植物一样随着枝条的增加而增长。当一对年轻的夫妇开始闯世界的时候,他们是白手起家还是每个人手里有15英镑所造成的差异会非常大。有了这些帮助,他们可以买一头母牛以及耕种几亩地所需要的工具,从而走上成为有用之材的道路,而不是成为社会的负担(这会发生在生育孩子的速度过快而无力抚养的情况下)。如果能向开垦小块土地的人提供资助,国家的地产也会卖得更好。

所谓的文明社会的不公平的做法是,只在人们陷入贫苦的时候才提供帮助(这一做法既不能称作是慈善,也不能被认为是聪明之举)。即便是从省钱角度考虑,采取措施防止他们变贫穷不是更好吗?要这样做,最好的方法就是在人年满21岁时,让他们都能继承一些东西。

贫富两极分化说明,这个社会中有严重的弊端需要进行修正。在所有国家,大量穷人会将他们的贫困遗传给下一代,而且几乎不可能独立摆脱困境。此外应该指出的是,在所有所谓的文明国家里,这一群体的数量都在增加。每年变为贫困的人比脱贫的多。

尽管本方案的基石是公正和仁爱,利益不在考虑之中,但是如果能说明某项方案可以带来什么好处,这对于设立这项方案肯定是有好处的。任何提交公众考虑的方案能否取得成功最终都将取决于支持这一方案的人数,以及原则的公证性。

此处提议的方案将惠及所有人,而不会伤害任何人。它会加强共和国与个人间的利益联系。对于被土地财产化体制剥夺了天然继承权的很多人来说,这是一项国家正义行为。对于那些拥有中等财产的即将离世的人来说,这可以作为他们孩子的联合养老金,其收益大于投入到基金中的钱款。这将为财富积累提供一定程度的保障,这是欧洲摇摇欲坠的旧政府所不能给予的。

我认为在欧洲任何一个国家,不会有超过10%的家庭在一家之主去世时净留下500英镑。对所有家庭来说这项计划都是有利的。把财产中的50英镑投入到基金中,如果只有两个未成年的孩子,他们年满21岁时每人会收到15英镑(共计30英镑),而且还可以在50岁之后每年拿到10英镑。

基金从财富增长中获得自我支持。我知道在英国,尽管这类财产的拥有者最终会享受到对他们90%财产的保护权,但却会公开反对这一方案。姑且不去询问他们是如何得到那些财产的,先让他们回忆一下自己曾经是这场战争的支持者,皮特先生为了支持奥地利和波旁王朝专制政权反对法国争取自由的活动,每年向英国人民新征的税收比根据本计划每年需要支付的所有款项还要多。

在进行本方案的有关计算时,我把所谓的个人财产以及土地财产都计算在内。把土地财产纳入计算的原因前面已经做过解释,把个人财产纳入计算范围所依循的原则不同,但理由同样充分。如前所述,土地是我们共同的造物主免费赠予人类的礼物。个人财产是借助社会力量 获得的财产。如果没有社会的帮助,个人不可能获得私人财产,也无法开垦土地。

如果将个人从社会中分离出来,让他拥有一个小岛或一个大陆,结果是他不能获得个人财产,也不可能变得富有。在所有情形中,方法与结果不可分割地联系在一起,没有前者存在就不能获得后者。因此所有个人财产的积累,是不可能仅靠个人双手创造的,都是从社会生活中得到的,那么不论是从公正、感恩还是文明的角度讲,他都应将所积累的财富中的一部分归还给社会,因为他所有的财富皆来源于此。

我们是在一个总的原则下考虑问题,而这样做的效果应该是最好的。因为如果我们仔细考察有关情况,就会发现在许多情况下,个人财产的积累是建立在给创造财产的劳动者报酬太少的基础上的。这样造成的结果是,劳动者因为年老而死亡后,雇主却依然能坐享荣华富贵。

也许我们不可能精确地计算出劳动力价格与其创造的利润之间的比例。如果打算为不公正的待遇辩护,有人可以说即使给工人增加了日工资,他们也不会存钱养老,生活状况也不会因此变得更好。那么,就让社会作为财务主管帮助他管理存放在公共基金里的钱吧。如果因为某人可能不会理财,别人就可以拿走他的钱,这样的做法是没有道理的。

总体上看,欧洲文明依循的原则是不公正的,带来的效果也是令人不快的。正是由于意识到这一点,并且担心一旦在任何国家展开调查,这样的状况便无法继续,因此财产的拥有者才害怕一切与革命有关的思想。阻碍革命发展的是革命带来的风险,而不是革命的原则。有鉴于此,建立一个不但能够预防社会中一部分人陷入贫困,而且也保护另一部分人免遭劫掠的体制,不仅是保护财产的需要,也是公正和人道的需要。

在所有国家,以前对财富迷信般的敬畏和奴隶般的尊敬正在消失,财产的拥有者处于意外事件带来的振荡之中。当财富和华丽的表象不再让大众着迷,而是引起他们反感;当它们不再激发尊敬,反而被认作是对穷困的侮辱;当其铺张的外表让人怀疑财产来源的正当性,有关财产的问题就变得很关键了。只有在公正的体制下,财产拥有者才可能获得安全感。

为了解除危险,有必要消除人们对富人的反感,而这只能通过使财富惠及国家以及每一个人的福祉才能实现。当一个人的财富超过他人时,他对国家基金的贡献也应相应地增长,当人们能够明白基金的增长要依靠个人财富的增加时,当一个人获得的财富越多对大众带来的利益也越多时,反感才会消除,财产才会建立在符合国家利益和获得保护的永久基础之上。

我在法国没有与这项计划有关的财产。我的财产都在美国,不过也没有多少。但是一旦这样的基金在法国建立起来,我要向基金捐款100英镑。一旦在英国也建立起类似的基金,我也会捐赠同样数量的款项。

如果在政府体系领域进行革命,在文明状态方面也必然会发生变革。如果一个国家的革命带来的结果是从坏变好,或从好变坏,那么那个国家所谓的文明状况也必须与其相一致,这样革命才有效果。

专制政府是建立在悲惨的文明基础之上的,其主要特点是人类思想退化,大量的人生活凄惨。这样的政府视人为动物,并且认为发挥智力不是人类特有的才能,而在法律方面他们需要做的只能是遵守法律 【1】 统治者通过让贫困摧毁人们的精神的方法来维护他们的政权,而不担心绝望会激发人们的愤怒。

针对文明状态的革命会让法国革命变得更为完善。实行代表制度的政府是真正的政府,这一观念正在全世界迅速传播开来。这一体制的合理性显而易见,其公证性甚至连反对者也能感觉到。但是当产生于那种政府体制的文明体系被组织得如此有序,以至于在共和国出生的每一个男人或女人都会继承一些财富,帮助他们在这个世界立足,并且让他们能够明确看到可以摆脱困难的前景,而在其他国家,这种困难要伴人一生,这样的法国革命将会赢得世界各国的同情和支持。

道义的军队可以打入士兵的军队所不能攻占的地方,并能够在美满的管理所不能奏效的地方获胜。莱茵河、英吉利海峡以及海洋都不能阻止它前进的步伐。这支军队可以任意纵横世界各地,无往而不胜。

实施本方案,并且让它同步

促进公共利益的方法

Ⅰ.每个行政区应通过初级议会选举推出3个人作为该行政区的委员,这些人将根据依法颁布的有关实施本方案的章程关注并且记录发生在那一行政区的所有事情。

Ⅱ.法律要对如何确定过世人的财产做出规定。

Ⅲ.在核实完过世人员的财产数量后,达到法定年龄的该财产的主要继承人或共同继承人中年龄最大的,或在他们不到法定年龄的情况下由过世之人指定的代表向行政区委员们提交书面保证书,承诺在一年或更短的时间内(由交款人选择)分四次缴清上述款项的十分之一,每次交纳的数额相同。全部财产中的一半会被留作保证金,直到承诺的数量交纳完毕。

Ⅳ.保证书要在行政区委员办公室注册,保证书原件要保存在巴黎的国家银行。银行每个季度公布其拥有的保证书数量,并发布上一季度公告发布以来保证书中的哪些已经还清或部分还清。

Ⅴ.国家银行根据所拥有的保证书金额发行银行票据。这样发行的银行票据将用于向老年人支付养老金以及向年满21岁的人员支付补偿金。可以合理推断的是,假设人们不急需这些资金,他们可以暂时不从基金中提款,直到他们获得更高的提取资格。在这种情况下,建议在每个行政区设立一个荣誉簿,登记暂停行使提款权利,至少是在目前的战争期间暂不提款的人的名字。

Ⅵ.因为财产的继承人必须在四个季度,或者他们选择的更短的时间里,兑现他们的承诺,通常在第一季度结束时就会有现金到账,兑换需要收回的银行票据。

Ⅶ.进入流通领域的银行票据,因为有超过其价值四倍的最优质的有形财产作保障,而且不断有现金进入银行,因此可以保证随时兑换,在法兰西共和国各地都具有长期价值。可以用它们来支付税款,或作为等同于现金的借款,因为政府总能够在银行把它们兑换成现金。

Ⅷ.在本方案开始实行的第一年,有必要以现金的形式收取属于那十分之一的付款。一年之后,财产继承人既可以用以基金为基础发行的银行票据,也可以用现金付款。

如果付款是以现金形式实现的,现金将作为保证金存在银行,用以兑换相同数额的票据。如果是以在基金基础上发行的票据支付,要求提现的数量会与基金数额相同。如此一来,本方案就得以顺利实施了。

注释

【1】 引自霍斯利主教在英国议会上的讲话。——潘恩

Thomas Paine

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