關鍵的美德 The "Cardinal Virtues"

Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis

1943

Bill Lin 譯

 Book III. Christian Behavior

2. The "Cardinal Virtues"

上一篇《道德三部曲》原是在一個電台短播的講稿。假如你被限制到只能講十分鐘，遷就於簡短，幾乎每樣東西都得被刪減。我把道德分成三個部分 (加上我的護航船隊航行的照片) 的一個主要原因，因為那似乎是能顧及全貌的最短的捷徑。

在這裡，我要介紹另一個方式，它對主題的區分是以往作者們的寫法，這種說法因為太長了以至於無法用在我的演講裡，不過，它是一個很好的說法。

根據這個長說法，總共有七個“美德”。其中四個叫做“關鍵的”美德，剩下的三個叫做“神學的”美德。那些“關鍵的”是所有文明人都認得的；“神學的”，按規矩講，只有基督徒才曉得。我要把神學的擺在後來處理；現在我要說明這四個關鍵的美德。(“關鍵的”這個字不同於羅馬教會的樞機主教。它來自一個拉丁字“門的樞紐”。這些稱為“關鍵的”美德，因為他們就像我們所說是“樞紐的，重要的”)他們是—合理、節制、公義、和堅忍不拔。

合理就是實用的常理，花點精神去想想你正在幹什麼，會有什麼後果。在這些日子裡，大多數人不會去想“合理”居然是一種美德。

事實上，因為耶穌基督說過，我們必須像個小孩才能進入祂的國，所以很多基督徒就有這個想法：只要你是“好的”，愚蠢也無所謂。不過，那是一個誤解。首先，大多數的小孩對於要做他們真正有興趣的事情，表現得很“合理”，而且很明智的想通它們。其次，正如使徒保羅指明的：耶穌基督從未認為我們在心智上要保持像小孩；相反的，祂告訴我們不只要“天真無邪像鴿子”還得“靈巧像蛇”。

祂要我們有一個孩子的心，但是還得有成人的腦袋。祂要我們像好孩子般的單純，一心一意，有熱情，和受教；但是祂還要我們在做事時，要用上每一分的智力，必須警醒，要在第一級的備戰狀態。事實上，當你在捐錢的時候，並非表示你不需要試著去辨認那個慈善團體是不是騙人的。事實上，當你正在想神自己的本身時(例如在禱告時)，不能夠以為你那像五歲小孩的乳臭未乾的想法是可以被接受的。當然，神不會少愛你一分，或少用你一點，假如你生來就沒有一個很好的腦筋。祂可以容納遲鈍的人，但是祂要求每個人善用自己的那一份感覺。格言：“甜蜜的女孩，乖乖的，誰有機巧任她去。”是不恰當的，應該是：“甜蜜的女孩，乖乖的，勿忘了你擁有的機巧。”神所不喜歡的懶鬼裡，莫甚於那些不喜歡用腦子的。

假如你想要成為基督徒，我先告訴你，你正要做的事情，可是需要你全部身心的投入。但是很幸運的，結果卻完全是另一回事。一個真心誠意要做基督徒的人，會很快的發現他的心智變得更敏銳；要當個基督徒並不需要特殊教育的理由之一，是因為基督教的信仰本身就是一種教導。這就是為什麼像 Bunyan 班揚這樣不識字的白丁信徒，能夠寫出震驚世人的一本書。

很不幸的，節制是那些已經被改變意義的字眼中的一員。它現在通常被認為是滴酒不沾的意思。但是早先，當這第二個關鍵的美德被命名為“節制Temperance”的時候，並不是那種意思。節制並不特別侷限於飲酒，而是針對所有的歡樂；而且也沒有戒除的意味，祇是要適量而已。把基督徒想成都是禁酒主義者是錯誤的，回教而非基督教，才是禁酒的宗教。

當然，或許是某一位基督徒的特殊職責，或許是任何一位基督徒，在某一段特殊時刻禁喝烈酒，或許因為喝不過癮他就不喝，或許因為他要省錢濟窮，或許因為他週遭的人喜歡喝醉，他必須以身作則，不給壞榜樣。不管如何，他只是為了一個良善的理由，而不去做；他並不譴責這些行為，他也喜歡見到別人的享樂。

有某種惡人的特徵之一，就是在他沒看到所有其他的人放棄某樣東西之前，他絕不放棄那樣東西。那不是基督徒的行事風格。

一個基督徒可以為了特殊的理由，放棄了各色各樣的事情—婚姻、肉、啤酒或電影，這都無所謂；但是一旦他開始說那些東西本身是不好的，或是對其他不放棄這些東西的人看不起，嗤之以鼻，他是已經走上歧途了。

現代人將節制Temperance這個字，限制於喝酒的問題上是一個極大的亂搞，它促使人們忘了你會在一大堆其他的事物上毫無節制。一個男人將他的高爾夫球或摩托車變成他的生活中心，或是一個女人，將她所有的心思擺到穿著、橋牌、或她的狗上面，也像某人每晚濫醉如泥一樣的沒有節制。當然，在外表上是不太容易看得出來：牌棍或球迷不會讓你倒在路當中。但是神不會因為外表而弄錯的。

公義是比那些發生在人類法庭的事情有更多的含意。它是現在所有我們所謂“公正”的每一件事的古老字眼；它包括誠實，取捨，真確，守信，和生活的各個層面。

堅忍包含了兩種不同的勇氣—面對危險的那一種，還有對於痛苦中的“堅持”。“膽識Guts”是現代英文中最接近的字。當然，你將會注意到，你無法長時間的實踐任一個其他的美德而不把這個堅忍扯進來。

關於這些美德，還有一點要注意的。若有人作出一個獨特的正直或中肯的行為，和一位正直的翩翩君子之間是有差別的。有人不是網球高手，但偶而也會打出一個好球。一個所謂的網球高手，他的眼神，肌肉和反應都已經被訓練到毫無疑問的可以打出無以數計的好球。他們有某種的氣質或品質，甚至於他不打球的時候都可以被感受出來；正如一位數學家的心念，當他不在研算時，他的心思一直都有某種特有的習慣和觀感。同樣的，一個人堅忍不拔的持續作出正直的行為，最後會得出某種性格的品質。現在我們所謂的“美德”，就是這種品質，而非那些特出的行為。

為了下面的理由，這一個區分是很重要的。假如我們只注意到那些特出的表現，我們或許會助長下面三個錯誤的想法：

(1)我們或許會以為，只要你做了對的事情，你的動機，或是怎麼做的，都無關緊要——不管你是出於主動的，或是被動的，繃著臉的，或高高興興的，是出於害怕或是公眾壓力，或出於事情的本身。

但事實是：為了不對的理由而做出對的行為，無法對塑造一個所謂 “美德”的內在品質或特性有所助益，而這個品質或特性才是真正的要點。(假如不好的網球選手把球打得很用力，並非他認為需要用力，而是在發脾氣，或許運氣好使他贏了那一局；但不會使他成為一個真正的好手)。

(2)我們或許會以為神只是要人們遵行一套法則；然而祂真正要的是一群有特殊品質的人。

(3)我們或許會以為這些“美德”只是為了今生的需要—在另一個世界裡我們就不用公義，因為沒有可以爭執的，也不用勇敢，因為不再有危險。現在看來，說到在下個世界裡，可能不再有場合施展公義和勇敢的行為是十分的正確，但會有種種的場合，是因為只有在這裡施展如此行為的結果，使得我們能夠變成那一種人。

重點並不在於神會拒絕讓你進到祂的永恆世界，假如你不具備某些人格上的特質；重點是，假如人們的內心，不具備那些品質最起碼的開端，以致於無法讓永恆的條件去為他們建造一個“天堂” —也就是，神要給我們的那種快樂而且深邃，強大不動搖的幸福。

The previous section was originally composed to be given as a short talk on the air.

If you are allowed to talk for only ten minutes, pretty well everything else has to be sacrificed to brevity. One of my chief reasons for dividing morality up into three parts (with my picture of the ships sailing in convoy) was that this seemed the shortest way of covering the ground. Here I want to give some idea of another way in which the subject has been divided by old writers, which was too long to use in my talk, but which is a very good one.

According to this longer scheme there are seven "virtues." Four of them are called "Cardinal" virtues, and the remaining three are called "Theological" virtues. The "Cardinal" ones are those which all civilized people recognize; the "Theological" are those which, as a rule, only Christians know about. I shall deal with the Theological ones later on； at present I am talking about the four Cardinal virtues. (The word "cardinal" has nothing to do with "Cardinals" in the Roman Church. It comes from a Latin word meaning "the hinge of a door." These were called "cardinal" virtues because they are, as we should say, "pivotal.") They are PRUDENCE, TEMPERANCE, JUSTICE, and FORTITUDE.

Prudence means practical common sense, taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it. Nowadays most people hardly think of Prudence as one of the "virtues." In fact, because Christ said we could only get into His world by being like children, many Christians have the idea that, provided you are "good," it does not matter being a fool. But that is a misunderstanding. In the first place, most children show plenty of "prudence" about doing the things they are really interested in, and think them out quite sensibly. In the second place, as St, Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence; on the contrary, He told us to be not only "as harmless as doves," but also "as wise as serpents." He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim. The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not. The fact that what you are thinking about is God Himself (for example, when you are praying) does not mean that you can be content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old. It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have. The proper motto is not "Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever," but "Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can." God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But, fortunately, it works the other way round. Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world.

Temperance is, unfortunately, one of those words that has changed its meaning. It now usually means teetotalism. But in the days when the second Cardinal virtue was christened "Temperance," it meant nothing of the sort. Temperance referred not specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining, but going the right length and no further. It is a mistake to think that Christians ought all to be teetotalers; Mohammedanism, not Christianity, is the teetotal religion. Of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or of any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink, either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he wants to give the money to the poor, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point is that he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something which he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying. One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons—marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.

One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as "intemperate" as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals.

Justice means much more than the sort of thing that goes on in law courts. It is the old name for everything we should now call "fairness"; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life. And Fortitude includes both kinds of courage—the kind that faces danger as well as the kind that "sticks it" under pain. "Guts" is perhaps the nearest modern English. You will notice, of course, that you cannot practice any of the other virtues very long without bringing this one into play.

There is one further point about the virtues that ought to be noticed. There is a difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and being a just or temperate man. Someone who is not a good tennis player may now and then make a good shot. What you mean by a good player is the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on. They have a certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing, just as a mathematician's mind has a certain habit and outlook which is there even when he is not doing mathematics. In the same way a man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of "virtue."

This distinction is important for the following reason. If we thought only of the particular actions we might encourage three wrong ideas.

(1) We might think that, provided you did the right thing, it did not matter how or why you did it—whether you did it willingly or unwillingly, sulkily or cheerfully, through fear of public opinion or for its own sake. But the truth is that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a "virtue," and it is this quality or character that really matters. (If the bad tennis player hits very hard, not because he sees that a very hard stroke is required, but because he has lost his temper, his stroke might possibly, by luck, help him to win that particular game; but it will not be helping him to become a reliable player.)

(2) We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.

(3) We might think that the "virtues" were necessary only for this present life—that in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger. Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here. The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a "Heaven" for them—that is, could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakable kind of happiness God intends for us.