研究瓦尔登湖的超验主义论文综述

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination, -- whatWilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toiletcushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you couldkill time without injuring eternity.The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmeddesperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to consoleyourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair isconcealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is noplay in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperatethings.When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and whatare the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen thecommon mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there isno choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never toolate to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trustedwithout proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out tobe falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that wouldsprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and find thatyou can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enoughonce, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry woodunder a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people,as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it hasnot profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give theyoung, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserablefailures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may-330-be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less youngthan they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the firstsyllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, andprobably cannot tell me any thing, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extentuntried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which Ithink valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about.One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing tomake bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system withthe raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, withvegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased,which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by theirpredecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for.According to Evelyn, "the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees;and the Roman praetors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land togather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor."Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the ends ofthe fingers, neither shorter nor longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presumeto have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's capacitieshave never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so littlehas been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for whoshall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?"We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun whichripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this itwould have prevented some mistakes. This was not the-331-light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distantand different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one atthe same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shallsay what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to lookthrough each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour;ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! -- I know of no reading of another'sexperience so startling and informing as this would be.The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repentof any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behavedso well? You may say the wisest thing you can old man, -- you who have lived seventy years,not without honor of a kind, -- I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that.One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so muchcare of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weaknessas to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well nigh incurable form ofdisease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much isnot done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to liveby faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayersand commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live,reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; butthere are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle tocontemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, "To knowthat we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is trueknowledge." When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to hisunderstanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.