風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
西方人也許會感到羞恥，為什麽一定要去遙遠的東方尋找一位智者，他樸實無華、不虛偽，在我們這個庸俗時代到來之前六百年，在當時整個北方都不懂文字，希臘人才剛剛開始以智慧脫穎而出，他教會人們如何幸福地生活？
這位智者就是孔子，作為立法者，他從不想欺騙人們。自他之後，全世界還有什麽比這更美好的行為準則呢？
“治國如治家；隻有以身作則，才能把家庭治理好。
“美德應該是農夫和君主的共同特質。
“盡心盡力預防犯罪，以減輕懲罰犯罪的麻煩。
“在賢王堯和徐的統治下，中國人是善良的；在賢王邕和楚的統治下，中國人是邪惡的。
“善待他人如同善待自己。
“愛所有的人；但要珍惜誠實的人。忘記傷害，永遠不要善良。
“我見過不善於學習的人，但我從未見過不善於美德的人。”
讓我們承認，沒有哪位立法者能宣稱對人類更有用的真理。
By what fatality, shameful maybe for the Western peoples, is it necessary to go to the far Orient to find a wise man who is simple, unostentatious, free from imposture, who taught men to live happily six hundred years before our vulgar era, at a time when the whole of the North was ignorant of the usage of letters, and when the Greeks were barely beginning to distinguish themselves by their wisdom?
This wise man is Confucius, who being legislator never[Pg 238] wanted to deceive men. What more beautiful rule of conduct has ever been given since him in the whole world?
"Rule a state as you rule a family; one can only govern one's family well by setting the example.
"Virtue should be common to both husbandman and monarch.
"Apply thyself to the trouble of preventing crimes in order to lessen the trouble of punishing them.
"Under the good kings Yao and Xu the Chinese were good; under the bad kings Kie and Chu they were wicked.
"Do to others as to thyself.
"Love all men; but cherish honest people. Forget injuries, and never kindnesses.
"I have seen men incapable of study; I have never seen them incapable of virtue."
Let us admit that there is no legislator who has proclaimed truths more useful to the human race.
在印刷術發明之前，書籍比寶石更稀有、更昂貴。在查理曼大帝之前，蠻族國家幾乎沒有書籍，從查理曼大帝到綽號“智者”的法國國王查理五世，從查理大帝到弗朗索瓦一世，書籍極其匱乏。
隻有阿拉伯人擁有從公元 8 世紀到 13 世紀的書籍。
當我們還不會讀寫時，中國就充滿了書籍。
從西庇阿時代到蠻族入侵，羅馬帝國大量雇用抄寫員。
希臘人在阿明塔斯、菲利普和亞曆山大時代大量從事抄寫工作；他們繼續從事這種手藝，尤其是在亞曆山大。
這種手藝有點不知感恩。商人總是給作者和抄寫員很低的報酬。抄寫員需要兩年的辛勤勞動才能將聖經很好地抄寫在牛皮紙上。用希臘語和拉丁語正確地抄寫奧利金、亞曆山大的克萊門特和所有其他被稱為“教父”的作者的作品需要多少時間和多少努力。
Before the admirable invention of printing, books were rarer and more expensive than precious stones. Almost no books among the barbarian nations until Charlemagne, and from him to the French king Charles V., surnamed "the wise"; and from this Charles right to François Ier, there is an extreme dearth.
The Arabs alone had books from the eighth century of our era to the thirteenth.
China was filled with them when we did not know how to read or write.
Copyists were much employed in the Roman Empire from the time of the Scipios up to the inundation of the barbarians.
The Greeks occupied themselves much in transcribing towards the time of Amyntas, Philip and Alexander; they continued this craft especially in Alexandria.
This craft is somewhat ungrateful. The merchants always paid the authors and the copyists very badly. It took two years of assiduous labour for a copyist to transcribe the Bible well on vellum. What time and what trouble for copying correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen, of Clement of Alexandria, and of all those other authors called "fathers."
伏爾泰的哲學詞典
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18569/18569-h/18569-h.htm
哲學家，熱愛智慧，也就是說熱愛真理。所有哲學家都具有這種雙重性格；古代沒有一位哲學家不給人類樹立美德的榜樣和道德真理的教訓。他們都曾設法欺騙人類關於自然哲學；但自然哲學對於生活指導來說是如此的微不足道，以至於哲學家們不需要它。學習自然法則的一部分需要幾個世紀的時間。一天的時間足以讓一個聰明人學會做人的職責。
哲學家並不熱情；他不把自己當作先知；他不說他受到了神的啟發。因此，我不會把古代的查拉圖斯特拉、赫爾墨斯、古代的奧菲斯或迦勒底、波斯、敘利亞、埃及和希臘等國所吹噓的任何立法者歸為哲學家。那些自稱是神的孩子的人是騙子的始祖；如果他們用謊言來教導真理，那他們就不配教導真理；他們不是哲學家；他們充其量隻是非常謹慎的騙子。
西方人也許會感到羞恥，為什麽一定要去遙遠的東方尋找一位智者，他樸實無華、不虛偽，在我們這個庸俗時代到來之前六百年，在當時整個北方都不懂文字，希臘人才剛剛開始以智慧脫穎而出，他教會人們如何幸福地生活？
這位智者就是孔子，作為立法者，他從不想欺騙人們。自他之後，全世界還有什麽比這更美好的行為準則呢？
“治國如治家；隻有以身作則，才能把家庭治理好。
“美德應該是農夫和君主的共同特質。
“盡心盡力預防犯罪，以減輕懲罰犯罪的麻煩。
“在賢王堯和徐的統治下，中國人是善良的；在賢王邕和楚的統治下，中國人是邪惡的。
“善待他人如同善待自己。
“愛所有的人；但要珍惜誠實的人。忘記傷害，永遠不要善良。
“我見過不善於學習的人，但我從未見過不善於美德的人。”
讓我們承認，沒有哪位立法者能宣稱對人類更有用的真理。
從那時起，許多希臘哲學家都教授了同樣純粹的道德哲學。如果他們把自己限製在空洞的自然哲學體係中，他們的名字今天隻會被嘲笑。如果他們仍然受到尊重，那是因為他們是正義的，並且他們教導人們如此。
讀過柏拉圖的某些段落，尤其是紮留庫斯法律的精彩開篇，人們就會在心中感受到對光榮和慷慨行為的熱愛。羅馬人有西塞羅，也許隻有他才能抵得上希臘所有的哲學家。在他之後出現了更值得尊敬的人，但人們幾乎無法效仿他們：被奴役的埃皮克泰德、王位上的安東尼和朱利安。
我們當中的哪一個公民會像朱利安、安東尼和馬庫斯·奧勒留一樣，放棄我們鬆弛而柔弱的生活中所有的美味？誰會像他們一樣睡在地上？誰會把自己的節儉強加給自己？誰會像他們一樣，赤腳、光著頭走在軍隊的最前麵，一會兒暴露在烈日下，一會兒暴露在白霜下？誰會像他們一樣控製他們的所有激情？我們中間有虔誠的人，但智者在哪裏？堅定、公正和寬容的靈魂在哪裏？
法國有過學者，除了蒙田，其他人都曾遭受迫害。我認為，我們本性惡毒到極點，就是想壓迫那些想要糾正它的哲學家。
我完全理解一個教派的狂熱分子屠殺另一個教派的狂熱分子，方濟各會憎恨多米尼加人，一個糟糕的藝術家會密謀毀掉一個超越他的人；但聰明的查倫應該受到失去生命的威脅，博學慷慨的拉穆斯應該被暗殺，笛卡爾應該被迫逃往荷蘭以躲避無知者的憤怒，伽桑狄應該被迫多次撤退到迪涅，遠離巴黎的誹謗；這些事是一個民族永遠的恥辱。
書籍
你們鄙視書籍，你們的一生都沉浸在虛榮的野心、對快樂或懶惰的追求中；但想想看，除了野蠻種族之外，整個已知的宇宙都隻受書籍的統治。整個非洲，直到埃塞俄比亞和尼日爾，都服從《古蘭經》，在《福音書》的統治下搖搖欲墜。中國受孔子的道德書統治；印度的大部分地區受《韋達經》的統治。波斯幾個世紀以來一直受《查拉圖斯特拉》之一的書統治。
如果你有一場訴訟，你的財產、你的榮譽、你的生命甚至取決於你從未讀過的書的解讀。
羅伯特魔鬼、艾蒙的四個兒子、奧夫勒先生的想象，也都是書；但書和人一樣；極少數人發揮著重要作用，其餘的人則混雜在人群中。
誰在文明國家領導人類？那些懂得如何讀書寫字的人。你既不認識希波克拉底，也不認識布爾哈夫，也不認識西德納姆；但你把你的身體交給了那些讀過他們的人。你把你的靈魂交給了那些拿錢讀聖經的人，盡管他們中沒有五十個人認真地把聖經讀完整本。
書籍統治著世界，以至於今天在西庇阿和卡托斯城裏發號施令的人希望他們的法律書籍隻屬於他們；這是他們的權杖；他們規定，未經明確許可，他們的臣民閱讀書籍是一種大不敬的罪行。在其他國家，未經特許證，禁止以書麵形式思考。
在有些國家，思想純粹被視為商業對象。在那裏，人類思維活動的價值僅為每張兩蘇。
在另一個國家，用書解釋自己的自由是最不可侵犯的特權之一。你可以隨意印刷任何你想印刷的東西，如果你過度濫用你的自然權利，就會被打上汙點或受到懲罰。
在印刷術發明之前，書籍比寶石更稀有、更昂貴。在查理曼大帝之前，蠻族國家幾乎沒有書籍，從查理曼大帝到綽號“智者”的法國國王查理五世，從查理大帝到弗朗索瓦一世，書籍極其匱乏。
隻有阿拉伯人擁有從公元 8 世紀到 13 世紀的書籍。
當我們還不會讀寫時，中國就充滿了書籍。
從西庇阿時代到蠻族入侵，羅馬帝國大量雇用抄寫員。
希臘人在阿明塔斯、菲利普和亞曆山大時代大量從事抄寫工作；他們繼續從事這種手藝，尤其是在亞曆山大。
這種手藝有點不知感恩。商人總是給作者和抄寫員很低的報酬。抄寫員需要兩年的辛勤勞動才能將聖經很好地抄寫在牛皮紙上。用希臘語和拉丁語正確地抄寫奧利金、亞曆山大的克萊門特和所有其他被稱為“教父”的作者的作品需要多少時間和多少努力。
荷馬的詩歌長期以來鮮為人知，以至於皮西斯特拉圖是第一個整理它們的人，他在雅典將它們抄錄下來，大約在我們使用的時代之前五百年。
[第 59 頁]今天，整個東方可能還沒有十幾本《韋達摩經》和《阿維斯塔經》。
1700 年，除了彌撒書和喝白蘭地的老人家裏的幾本《聖經》外，你在整個俄羅斯都找不到一本書。
今天人們抱怨書太多了：但讀者不應該抱怨；補救措施很簡單；沒有什麽能強迫他們讀書。作者也不再抱怨了。那些製造人群的人不應該哭喊他們被壓垮了。盡管書的數量巨大，但讀書的人卻很少！如果一個人讀得有收獲，他會看到普通人每天都在為可悲的愚蠢行為而犧牲自己。
盡管有不必要地增加生命力的法則，但書籍的增加是人們用書籍製造其他書籍；正是用幾卷已經印刷好的書，編造了一部新的法國或西班牙曆史，而沒有添加任何新內容。所有的字典都是用字典編出來的；幾乎所有的新地理書都是地理書的翻版。聖托馬斯的總結產生了兩千本厚厚的神學著作；同樣的一群小蟲子咬壞了母親，也咬壞了孩子。
Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18569/18569-h/18569-h.htm
Philosopher, lover of wisdom, that is to say, of truth. All philosophers have had this dual character; there is not one in antiquity who has not given mankind examples of virtue and lessons in moral truths. They have all contrived to be deceived about natural philosophy; but natural philosophy is so little necessary for the conduct of life, that the philosophers had no need of it. It has taken centuries to learn a part of nature's laws. One day was sufficient for a wise man to learn the duties of man.
The philosopher is not enthusiastic; he does not set himself up as a prophet; he does not say that he is inspired by the gods. Thus I shall not put in the rank of philosophers either the ancient Zarathustra, or Hermes, or the ancient Orpheus, or any of those legislators of whom the nations of Chaldea, Persia, Syria, Egypt and Greece boasted. Those who styled themselves children of the gods were the fathers of imposture; and if they used lies for the teaching of truths, they were unworthy of teaching them; they were not philosophers; they were at best very prudent liars.
By what fatality, shameful maybe for the Western peoples, is it necessary to go to the far Orient to find a wise man who is simple, unostentatious, free from imposture, who taught men to live happily six hundred years before our vulgar era, at a time when the whole of the North was ignorant of the usage of letters, and when the Greeks were barely beginning to distinguish themselves by their wisdom?
This wise man is Confucius, who being legislator never[Pg 238] wanted to deceive men. What more beautiful rule of conduct has ever been given since him in the whole world?
"Rule a state as you rule a family; one can only govern one's family well by setting the example.
"Virtue should be common to both husbandman and monarch.
"Apply thyself to the trouble of preventing crimes in order to lessen the trouble of punishing them.
"Under the good kings Yao and Xu the Chinese were good; under the bad kings Kie and Chu they were wicked.
"Do to others as to thyself.
"Love all men; but cherish honest people. Forget injuries, and never kindnesses.
"I have seen men incapable of study; I have never seen them incapable of virtue."
Let us admit that there is no legislator who has proclaimed truths more useful to the human race.
A host of Greek philosophers have since taught an equally pure moral philosophy. If they had limited themselves to their empty systems of natural philosophy, their names would be pronounced to-day in mockery only. If they are still respected, it is because they were just and that they taught men to be so.
One cannot read certain passages of Plato, and notably the admirable exordium of the laws of Zaleucus, without feeling in one's heart the love of honourable and generous actions. The Romans have their Cicero, who alone is worth perhaps all the philosophers of Greece. After him come men still more worthy of respect, but whom one almost despairs of imitating; Epictetus in bondage, the Antonines and the Julians on the throne.
Which is the citizen among us who would deprive himself, like Julian, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, of all the delicacies of our flabby and effeminate lives? who would sleep as they did on the ground? who would impose on himself their frugality? who, as they did, would march barefoot and bareheaded at the head of the armies, exposed now to the heat of the sun, now to the hoar-frost? who would command[Pg 239] all their passions as they did? There are pious men among us; but where are the wise men? where are the resolute, just and tolerant souls?
There have been philosophers of the study in France; and all, except Montaigne, have been persecuted. It is, I think, the last degree of the malignity of our nature, to wish to oppress these very philosophers who would correct it.
I quite understand that the fanatics of one sect slaughter the enthusiasts of another sect, that the Franciscans hate the Dominicans, and that a bad artist intrigues to ruin one who surpasses him; but that the wise Charron should have been threatened with the loss of his life, that the learned and generous Ramus should have been assassinated, that Descartes should have been forced to flee to Holland to escape the fury of the ignorant, that Gassendi should have been obliged to withdraw several times to Digne, far from the calumnies of Paris; these things are a nation's eternal shame.
Books
You despise them, books, you whose whole life is plunged in the vanities of ambition and in the search for pleasure or in idleness; but think that the whole of the known universe, with the exception of the savage races is governed by books alone. The whole of Africa right to Ethiopia and Nigritia obeys the book of the Alcoran, after having staggered under the book of the Gospel. China is ruled by the moral book of Confucius; a greater part of India by the book of the Veidam. Persia was governed for centuries by the books of one of the Zarathustras.
If you have a law-suit, your goods, your honour, your life even depends on the interpretation of a book which you never read.
Robert the Devil, the Four Sons of Aymon, the Imaginings of Mr. Oufle, are books also; but it is with books as with men; the very small number play a great part, the rest are mingled in the crowd.
Who leads the human race in civilized countries? those who know how to read and write. You do not know either Hippocrates, Boerhaave or Sydenham; but you put your body in the hands of those who have read them. You abandon your soul to those who are paid to read the Bible, although there are not fifty among them who have read it in its entirety with care.
To such an extent do books govern the world, that those who command to-day in the city of the Scipios and the Catos have desired that the books of their law should be only for them; it is their sceptre; they have made it a crime[Pg 58] of lèse-majesté for their subjects to look there without express permission. In other countries it has been forbidden to think in writing without letters patent.
There are nations among whom thought is regarded purely as an object of commerce. The operations of the human mind are valued there only at two sous the sheet.
In another country, the liberty of explaining oneself by books is one of the most inviolable prerogatives. Print all that you like under pain of boring or of being punished if you abuse too considerably your natural right.
Before the admirable invention of printing, books were rarer and more expensive than precious stones. Almost no books among the barbarian nations until Charlemagne, and from him to the French king Charles V., surnamed "the wise"; and from this Charles right to François Ier, there is an extreme dearth.
The Arabs alone had books from the eighth century of our era to the thirteenth.
China was filled with them when we did not know how to read or write.
Copyists were much employed in the Roman Empire from the time of the Scipios up to the inundation of the barbarians.
The Greeks occupied themselves much in transcribing towards the time of Amyntas, Philip and Alexander; they continued this craft especially in Alexandria.
This craft is somewhat ungrateful. The merchants always paid the authors and the copyists very badly. It took two years of assiduous labour for a copyist to transcribe the Bible well on vellum. What time and what trouble for copying correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen, of Clement of Alexandria, and of all those other authors called "fathers."
The poems of Homer were long so little known that Pisistratus was the first who put them in order, and who had them transcribed in Athens, about five hundred years before the era of which we are making use.
[Pg 59]To-day there are not perhaps a dozen copies of the Veidam and the Zend-Avesta in the whole of the East.
You would not have found a single book in the whole of Russia in 1700, with the exception of Missals and a few Bibles in the homes of aged men drunk on brandy.
To-day people complain of a surfeit: but it is not for readers to complain; the remedy is easy; nothing forces them to read. It is not any the more for authors to complain. Those who make the crowd must not cry that they are being crushed. Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! and if one read profitably, one would see the deplorable follies to which the common people offer themselves as prey every day.
What multiplies books, despite the law of not multiplying beings unnecessarily, is that with books one makes others; it is with several volumes already printed that a new history of France or Spain is fabricated, without adding anything new. All dictionaries are made with dictionaries; almost all new geography books are repetitions of geography books. The Summation of St. Thomas has produced two thousand fat volumes of theology; and the same family of little worms that have gnawed the mother, gnaw likewise the children.
