評論
打印
I believe that both these feelings do equal harm: the feeling of marvel as much as the fear. Because they have this in common, that they both want to persuade the layman that there is nothing he can do for himself. Science is the new magic, they whisper; it is out ofyour hands; for good or ill, your salvation or your doom is the business of others.
我認為驚嘆與恐懼這兩種感覺會造成同樣的危害，因為它們有個共同之處，那就是，兩者都想使門外漢相信他自己是無能為力的。它們悄聲說：科學是新魔法，你無法控制它;你獲救也罷，遭殃也罷，好歹都由別人決定。
That is why I have attacked the magic before the fear: because the marvel lies below the fear. In the minds of most people today, the fear is plainly uppermost. They are afraid ofthe future; and if you ask them why, they conveniently blame the atomic bomb. But the atomic bomb is only the scapegoat for our fears. We are not afraid of the future because of a bomb. We are afraid of bombs because we have no faith in the future. We no longer havefaith in our ability, as individuals or as nations, to control our own future. That loss of confidence has not sprung overnight from the invention of a weapon. The atomic bomb has merely brought home to us, harshly, as a matter of life and death, what has long been growing: our failure to face, our refusal to face, as individuals and as nations, the place of science in our world.
這就是我在批評恐懼心理之前首先抨擊魔法一說的緣故：驚嘆是產生恐懼的根子。如今在多數人腦海里，恐懼顯然最為突出。他們害怕未來;如果你問他們為什么要怕，他們會隨口責怪原子彈。但原子彈不過是為我們的恐懼承擔責任的替罪羊。我們并不是因為炸彈而害怕未來，我們是因為對未來喪失信心而害怕炸彈。作為個人也好，作為民族也好，我們對自己駕馭未來的能力已不再抱有信心。這種信心不是由于發明了一樣武器而突然喪失的，原子彈作為關聯生死存亡的大事，只不過是無情地使我們徹底認識到一個由來已久的問題：作為個人，作為民族，我們都未能正視、或拒絕正視科學在世界上的地位。
There is the taproot of our fears. In our hearts, of course, we know that the future belongs to science; we do not deceive ourselves about that. But we do not want to have to think like scientists. We want to cling to the doctrines and prejudices which we imagine, quite wrongly, made the world snug seventy years ago. We do not care about the future; we just want that world to last our time. Because we do not feel equal to the new ideas; we have been told that science is mysterious and difficult. And so we let the exciting new knowledge slip from us, a little further every day, and our confidence with it; and then, face to face with the sense of our helplessness, we pretend that it is all a conspiracy among nuclear physicists.
我們之所以會產生恐懼，根源即在于此。當然，在內心深處我們知道未來屬于科學，對此我們并不欺騙自己。但是我們不愿意像科學家那樣去思考問題。我們想死抱住過去的教條與偏見不放，十分錯誤地認為，它們在七十年前曾使我們這個世界溫馨宜人。我們并不把未來放在心上，我們只要求在有生之年能生活在那樣一個世界，因為我們適應不了新思想，還聽人說科學這東西非常神秘，很難掌握。所以我們聽任振奮人心的新知識從我們身邊悄悄溜走，過一天溜得遠一點，信心也隨之離我們而去。到頭來，我們意識到自己無可奈何，便佯稱這一切全是核物理學家搞的陰謀。
