評論
打印
Of course we do not cease, when we cease to be children, to adopt new beliefs on mere suggestion. We continue doing it, more or less unconsciously all our lives: hence, to take only the most striking examples, the enormous influence of newspapers and the effectiveness of skilful advertising. Much of what passes as such is not, strictly, thinking at all. It is the mere "parroting" of ideas picked up by chance and adopted as our own without question. Most people, most of the time, are mere parrots. But as we leave childhood, we tend to accept only such new ideas as fit in with the ideas we already hold; and all conflicting ideas seem to us "obviously" absurd.
當然，我們成年后繼續憑借“啟發”和“暗示”接受新觀點。我們在一生中或多或少無意識地這樣繼續著。這里只需要舉幾個最明顯的例子，如報刊的巨大影響力和巧妙的廣告效應。許多諸如此類的流傳的觀點在嚴格意義上來說根本不是思想。不過是鸚鵡學舌般的盲目重復偶然的獲得，不加質疑地變成自己的想法。多數人在大多時候僅僅是鸚鵡學舌而已。但是隨著我們告別兒童時代，我們更容易只接受那些與自己已有觀點相一致的新觀點；所有與其發生沖突的觀點在我們看來似乎“顯而易見”是荒謬的。
Propositions that are accepted simply because "everybody says so," must be classed under the same heading. The dogma may not be that of any particular individual: it may be a dogmatic statement which has been passed from one person to another, from generation to generation, perhaps for hundreds—perhaps for thousands—of years. It may be part of the traditional belief of the people or the race. In that case, it is part of our social inheritance from some period in the past. But we should fully face the fact that beliefs which are merely inherited from the past must have originated at a time when men knew much less than they know today. So the fact that a belief is "old" is no argument in its favor.
僅僅因為“每個人都這么說”而被接受的觀點也應歸入此類范疇。這種教條可能并非某個特定個人的觀點，而可能是一個人傳給另一個人，一代人傳給下一代人而形成的教條性的觀點，有可能已流傳了幾百年一甚至數千年了。這種教條可能是某個民族或種族的傳統觀念的一部分。在這種情況下，它是我們從過去某一歷史時期傳承下來的社會遺產的一部分。但是，我們應該充分認識到這樣一個事實，即僅僅從過去繼承下來的觀點必定源于某個時期，那時人們的認知水平遠不如今天。因此因為一個觀點很“古老”而接受它是靠不住的。
