朗讀練習-The Importance of Living, Chapter 1 part 3

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III. THE SCAMP AS IDEAL
To me, spiritually a child of the East and the West, man’s dignity
consists in the following facts which distinguish man from animals.
First, that he has a playful curiosity and a natural genius for exploring
knowledge; second, that he has dreams and a lofty idealism (often
vague, or confused, or cocky, it is true, but nevertheless worthwhile);
third, and still more important, that he is able to correct his dreams
by a sense of humor, and thus restrain his idealism by a more robust
and healthy realism; and finally, that he does not react to
surroundings mechanically and uniformly as animals do, but
possesses the ability and the freedom to determine his own
reactions and to change surroundings at his will. This last is the
same as saying that human personality is the last thing to be
reduced to mechanical laws; somehow the human mind is forever
elusive, uncatchable and unpredictable, and manages to wriggle out,
of mechanistic laws or a materialistic dialectic that crazy
psychologists and unmarried economists are trying to impose upon
him. Man, therefore, is a curious, dreamy, humorous and wayward,
creature.
In short, my faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man
is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated
with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined
and regimented soldier. The scamp is probably the most glorious
type of human being, as the soldier is the lowest type, according to
this conception. It seems in my last book, My Country and My
People, the net impression of readers was that I was trying to glorify
the “old rogue.” It is my hope that the net impression of the present
one will be that I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond.
I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they
sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and
individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp
alone will save us from becoming lost as serially numbered units in
the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed
coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of
dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and
individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern
civilization depends entirely upon him.
Probably the Creator knew well that, when He created man upon
this earth, He was producing a scamp, a brilliant scamp, it is true, but
a scamp nonetheless. The scamp-like qualities of man are, after all,
his most hopeful qualities. This scamp that the Creator has produced
is undoubtedly a brilliant chap. He is still a very unruly and awkward
adolescent, thinking himself greater and wiser than he really is, still
full of mischief and naughtiness and love of a free-for-all.
Nevertheless, there is so much good in him that the Creator might
still be willing to pin on him His hopes, as a father sometimes pins
his hopes on a brilliant but somewhat erratic son of twenty. Would He
be willing some day to retire and turn over the management of this
universe to this erratic son of His? I wonder. . . .
Speaking as a Chinese, I do not think that any civilization can be
called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication,
and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking
and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress
from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, ‘and
become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life’s tragedy and then
life’s comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of
sadness comes the awakening and out of the awakening comes the
laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot,
The world, I believe, is far too serious, and being far too serious, it
has need of a wise and merry philosophy. The philosophy of the
Chinese art of living can certainly be called the “gay science,” if
anything can be called by that phrase used by Nietzsche. After all,
only a gay philosophy is profound philosophy; the serious
philosophies of the West haven’t even begun to understand what life
is. To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to
take life more lightly and gayly than the average business man does,
for no business man who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my
eyes a philosopher. This is not merely a casual thought, but is a
fundamental point of view with me. The world can be made a more
peaceful and more reasonable place to live in only when men have
imbued themselves in the light gayety of this spirit. The modern man
takes life far too seriously, and because he is too serious, the world
is full of troubles. We ought, therefore, to take time to examine the
origin of that attitude which will make possible a whole hearted
enjoyment of this life and a more reasonable, more peaceful and
less hot-headed temperament.
I am perhaps entitled to call this the philosophy of the Chinese
people rather than of any one school. It is a philosophy that is
greater than Confucius and greater than Laotse, for it transcends
these and other ancient philosophers; it draws from these fountain
springs of thought and harmonizes them into a whole, and from the
abstract outlines of their wisdom, it has created an art of living in the
flesh, visible, palpable and understandable by the common man.
Surveying Chinese literature, art and philosophy as a whole, it has
become quite clear to me that the philosophy of a wise
disenchantment and a hearty enjoyment of life is their common
message and teaching—the most constant, most characteristic and
most persistent refrain of Chinese thought.

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