人生哲理美文63:On Resignation 論放棄

　　Resignation is of two sorts, one rooted in despair,the other in unconquerable hope. The man who has suffered such fundamental defeat that he has given up hope of serious achievement may learn the resignation of despair, and if he does, he will abandon all serious activity. He may camouflage his despair by religious phrases, or by the doctrine thatcontemplation is the true end of man, but whatever disguise he may adopt to conceal hisinward defeat, he will remain essentially useless and fundamentally unhappy. The man whose resignation is based on unconquerable hope acts in quite a different way. Hope which is to be unconquerable must be large and impersonal. Whatever my personal activities, I may be defeated by death, or by certain kinds of diseases; I may be overcome by my enemies; I may find that I have embarked upon an unwise course which cannot lead to success. In a thousand ways the failure of purely personal hopes may be unavoidable, but if personal aims have been part of larger hopes for humanity, there is not the same utter defeat when failure comes.

　　論放棄

　　放棄有兩種，一種源于絕望，一種源于不可征服的希望。前者是不好的，后者是好的。一個人遭到重創(chuàng)，以致對重大的 成就不抱希望時，也許會走向絕望的放棄，果真如此,他將中止一切重要的活動;他也許會用宗教上的詞句，或者用沉思默想才是人類的真正的目標的說教來掩飾他的絕望。但是無論他 使用何種托辭來遮掩他內(nèi)心的失敗，他本質(zhì)上將是一個無用 的和不快樂的人。把放棄建立在不可征服的希望之上的人，行動則截然不同。不可征服的希望必定是很大的而且是非個人性質(zhì)的。無論我個人的活動如何，我都可能被死亡或某種疾病擊敗;我可 能被敵人打倒;我可能發(fā)現(xiàn)自己走上了一條不能成功的蠢路。在成千上萬的形式中，純屬個人希望的破滅也許不可避免,但若個人的目標已成為人類的大希望中的一部分，那么當失敗到 來時，就不至于被徹底擊倒了。