懺悔錄A Confession Ch-5

by Leo Tolstoy

1882

Bill Lin 譯

5

「或許我輕忽了某些東西？或者誤解了某些東西？」我對自己說了好幾遍。「這種絕望的情況對人來說不會是出於自然的！」我在人類知識所有的部門裡尋求對這些問題的解釋。我經過漫長痛苦的尋求，不是出於沒事幹的好奇，或是有一搭沒一搭的，而是日以繼夜，痛苦又鍥而不捨的尋求——像是一個正在滅亡中的人尋求安全一樣——結果是什麼都沒找到。

我在整個的科學領域裡尋找，但是找不到我要的，最後我總算相信，所有像我一樣在知識裡尋求生命的意義，是找不到的。他們不僅找不到，而且明白的承認，那使我絕望的東西——亦即對生命的無意義感——是人們所能知曉的一個不容置疑的事情。

我找遍各地；感謝我的一輩子的學習，也感謝我和學者圈的關係，使我可以接觸到學術界每個領域裡的科學家和學者們，而且他們願意與我分享他們的學識，不只是在書本上，而且在對話裡，所以我有掌握到所有的在科學界對這個生命的問題的說法。

我長久以來一直不能相信，科學界除了它已經發現的以外，對於人生的問題不能提供其他的解答。我一直以為，當我看到科學宣告它的各種結論，和人生的實際問題扯不上關係的重要和嚴肅的氛圍時，應該是有某些東西我還沒理解。我自小畏懼科學，所以我以為我得到的種種答案和我的問題會牛頭不對馬嘴，並不是科學的錯，而是出於自己的無知，只是這對我來說是一個生死攸關的大事，而不是一個遊戲或娛樂，而且我不由自主的得到了這樣的信念，我的疑問是唯一真正的問題，構成所有知識的基礎，我和我的問題都沒錯，而是科學該被譴責，假如它是假裝在回答那些問題。

我的問題——那個在我50歲時，把我帶到了自殺的邊緣——是所有的問題裡最簡單的，存在於每一個人的靈魂裡，從愚蠢無知的孩童，到最有智慧的老者：這是一個活不下去的人的一個沒有答案的問題，就是我從經驗裡發現的問題。它是：「從我現在正在做的事，或是明天將要做的事，會產生什麼樣的結果？我的整個生命，最後會有什麼樣的結果？」

從另個角度看來，這個問題可以是：「為什麼我該活下去？為什麼我會期望任何東西，或該做任何事情？」還可以這樣表示：「我的生命有什麼樣的意義，不會被那正在等著我的，無可避免的死亡所摧毀？」

把這一個問題，用不同的方式表達，我在科學的領域裡去尋找一個解答。我發現，所有的人類的科學，在和問題的關係上分成了兩個半球，而在端點成了兩極：一個是負的，另一個是正的；但是不管哪一極都沒有人生的問題的答案。

有一邊的科學，看來是無法認識這問題，但清楚確切的回答它自己的獨立無關的問題：那是一串的實驗科學，而最邊遠的那端就是數學。另一串的科學認識這問題，卻無法回答它；那是一串的抽象科學，而最邊遠的那端就是形而上學。

在很年輕時，我曾經對抽象的科學很有興趣，但是後來，數學和自然科學吸引了我，一直到我有了自己的問題，一直到我裡面的問題已經自己成長，而且迫切的需要解決以前，我都自我滿足於科學所給我的虛假的答案。

然而在實驗的範疇裡，我告訴自己：「每樣東西自我的發展和區分，是往更複雜，更完全的方向進展，有法則在規範這個進展。你是整體的一部分。如果能盡量的去認識整體，而且知道這個進化律，你將會了解你在整體中的地位，也會了解你自己。」我要慚愧的承認，有一段時間我很滿足於那個說法。正是那時，我自己變得更複雜和更有進展。我的肌肉在成長強壯，我的記憶更豐富，我的思考和理解力更擴張，我正在成長和發展；因為感到在自我裡頭這樣的成長，我很自然的以為，這是宇宙的法則，在這裡面，我應該會找到我的生命的問題的解答。但是當我裡面的成長一旦停止了。我覺得我不但沒有進展，反而在衰退了，牙齒掉了，而且我看到了這個法則不僅無法解釋這些，甚至可能這個法則從未存在過，但是在我生命中的一段時間，我以為在我裡面找到了這個法則。我更嚴謹的來看待那個法則的定義，我終於看清了不可能有無限發展的法則；我想通了這個說法：「在無限的時空裡的每樣事物都在發展，和變得更完全更複雜，是兩樣事情。」這等於沒說一樣。所有的字眼都沒有意義，因為在無限裡，無所謂的複雜或簡單，也沒有進前或退後，沒有更好或更壞。

"But perhaps I have overlooked something, or misunderstood something?" said to myself several times. "It cannot be that this condition of despair is natural to man!" And I sought for an explanation of these problems in all the branches of knowledge acquired by men. I sought painfully and long, not from idle curiosity or listlessly, but painfully and persistently day and night - sought as a perishing man seeks for safety - and I found nothing.

I sought in all the sciences, but far from finding what I wanted, became convinced that all who like myself had sought in knowledge for the meaning of life had found nothing. And not only had they found nothing, but they had plainly acknowledged that the very thing which made me despair - namely the senselessness of life - is the one indubitable thing man can know.

I sought everywhere; and thanks to a life spent in learning, and thanks also to my relations with the scholarly world, I had access to scientists and scholars in all branches of knowledge, and they readily showed me all their knowledge, not only in books but also in conversation, so that I had at my disposal all that science has to say on this question of life.

I was long unable to believe that it gives no other reply to life's questions than that which it actually does give. It long seemed to me, when I saw the important and serious air with which science announces its conclusions which have nothing in common with the real questions of human life, that there was something I had not understood. I long was timid before science, and it seemed to me that the lack of conformity between the answers and my questions arose not by the fault of science but from my ignorance, but the matter was for me not a game or an amusement but one of life and death, and I was involuntarily brought to the conviction that my questions were the only legitimate ones, forming the basis of all knowledge, and that I with my questions was not to blame, but science if it pretends to reply to those questions.

My question - that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide - was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder: it was a question without an answer to which one cannot live, as I had found by experience. It was: "What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?"

Differently expressed, the question is: "Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?" It can also be expressed thus: "Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?"

To this one question, variously expressed, I sought an answer in science. And I found that in relation to that question all human knowledge is divided as it were into two opposite hemispheres at the ends of which are two poles: the one a negative and the other a positive; but that neither at the one nor the other pole is there an answer to life's questions.

The one series of sciences seems not to recognize the question, but replies clearly and exactly to its own independent questions: that is the series of experimental sciences, and at the extreme end of it stands mathematics. The other series of sciences recognizes the question, but does not answer it; that is the series of abstract sciences, and at the extreme end of it stands metaphysics.

From early youth I had been interested in the abstract sciences, but later the mathematical and natural sciences attracted me, and until I put my question definitely to myself, until that question had itself grown up within me urgently demanding a decision, I contented myself with those counterfeit answers which science gives.

Now in the experimental sphere I said to myself: "Everything develops and differentiates itself, moving towards complexity and perfection, and there are laws directing this movement. You are a part of the whole. Having learnt as far as possible the whole, and having learnt the law of evolution, you will understand also your place in the whole and will know yourself." Ashamed as I am to confess it, there was a time when I seemed satisfied with that. It was just the time when I was myself becoming more complex and was developing. My muscles were growing and strengthening, my memory was being enriched, my capacity to think and understand was increasing, I was growing and developing; and feeling this growth in myself it was natural for me to think that such was the universal law in which I should find the solution of the question of my life. But a time came when the growth within me ceased. I felt that I was not developing, but fading, my muscles were weakening, my teeth falling out, and I saw that the law not only did not explain anything to me, but that there never had been or could be such a law, and that I had taken for a law what I had found in myself at a certain period of my life. I regarded the definition of that law more strictly, and it became clear to me that there could be no law of endless development; it became clear that to say, "in infinite space and time everything develops, becomes more perfect and more complex, is differentiated", is to say nothing at all. These are all words with no meaning, for in the infinite there is neither complex nor simple, neither forward nor backward, nor better or worse.

Above all, my personal question, "What am I with my desires?" remained quite unanswered. And I understood that those sciences are very interesting and attractive, but that they are exact and clear in inverse proportion to their applicability to the question of life: the less their applicability to the question of life, the more exact and clear they are, while the more they try to reply to the question of life, the more obscure and unattractive they become. If one turns to the division of sciences which attempt to reply to the questions of life - to physiology, psychology, biology, sociology - one encounters an appalling poverty of thought, the greatest obscurity, a quite unjustifiable pretension to solve irrelevant question, and a continual contradiction of each authority by others and even by himself. If one turns to the branches of science which are not concerned with the solution of the questions of life, but which reply to their own special scientific questions, one is enraptured by the power of man's mind, but one knows in advance that they give no reply to life's questions. Those sciences simply ignore life's questions. They say: "To the question of what you are and why you live we have no reply, and are not occupied with that; but if you want to know the laws of light, of chemical combinations, the laws of development of organisms, if you want to know the laws of bodies and their form, and the relation of numbers and quantities, if you want to know the laws of your mind, to all that we have clear, exact and unquestionable replies."

首先，我個人的問題，「我和我的慾望到底算什麼？」還是沒有答案。我知道那些科學很有趣又好玩，但是他們的明確度是跟著人生問題的實用性成反比：對人生問題的實用性越少，他們就越明確，當他們越想去回答人生的問題，他們就越變得含糊而不具吸引力。假如一個人投入科學的領域，試圖回答人生的問題——從生理學，心理學，生物學，社會學——會遭遇到令人震驚的貧乏思考，巨大的模糊性，一個無理

In general the relation of the experimental sciences to life's question may be expressed thus: Question: "Why do I live?" Answer: "In infinite space, in infinite time, infinitely small particles change their forms in infinite complexity, and when you have understood the laws of those mutations of form you will understand why you live on the earth."

大體說來，實驗科學對人生的問題的敘述，可以如此表達：

問：「我為什麼活著？」

答：「在無限大的空間，無限大的時間裡，許多無限小的粒子，在無限大的複雜情況下，改變他們的形態；當你了解那些形態變動的原理以後，你就會了解你為什麼活在地球上。」

Then in the sphere of abstract science I said to myself: "All humanity lives and develops on the basis of spiritual principles and ideals which guide it. Those ideals are expressed in religions, in sciences, in arts, in forms of government. Those ideals become more and more elevated, and humanity advances to its highest welfare. I am part of humanity, and therefore my vocation is to forward the recognition and the realization of the ideals of humanity." And at the time of my weak-mindedness I was satisfied with that; but as soon as the question of life presented itself clearly to me, those theories immediately crumbled away. Not to speak of the unscrupulous obscurity with which those sciences announce conclusions formed on the study of a small part of mankind as general conclusions; not to speak of the mutual contradictions of different adherents of this view as to what are the ideals of humanity; the strangeness, not to say stupidity, of the theory consists in the fact that in order to reply to the question facing each man: "What am I?" or "Why do I live?" or "What must I do?" one has first to decide the question: "What is the life of the whole?" (which is to him unknown and of which he is acquainted with one tiny part in one minute period of time. To understand what he is, one man must first understand all this mysterious humanity, consisting of people such as himself who do not understand one another.

I have to confess that there was a time when I believed this. It was the time when I had my own favorite ideals justifying my own caprices, and I was trying to devise a theory which would allow one to consider my caprices as the law of humanity. But as soon as the question of life arose in my soul in full clearness that reply at once flew to dust. And I understood that as in the experimental sciences there are real sciences, and semi-sciences which try to give answers to questions beyond their competence, so in this sphere there is a whole series of most diffused sciences which try to reply to irrelevant questions. Semi-sciences of that kind, the juridical and the social-historical, endeavor to solve the questions of a man's life by pretending to decide each in its own way, the question of the life of all humanity.

我必須承認，有一段時間我是相信這個的。

But as in the sphere of man's experimental knowledge one who sincerely inquires how he is to live cannot be satisfied with the reply - "Study in endless space the mutations, infinite in time and in complexity, of innumerable atoms, and then you will understand your life" - so also a sincere man cannot be satisfied with the reply: "Study the whole life of humanity of which we cannot know either the beginning or the end, of which we do not even know a small part, and then you will understand your own life." And like the experimental semi-sciences, so these other semi-sciences are the more filled with obscurities, inexactitudes, stupidities, and contradictions, the further they diverge from the real problems. The problem of experimental science is the sequence of cause and effect in material phenomena. It is only necessary for experimental science to introduce the question of a final cause for it to become nonsensical. The problem of abstract science is the recognition of the primordial essence of life. It is only necessary to introduce the investigation of consequential phenomena (such as social and historical phenomena) and it also becomes nonsensical.

Experimental science only then gives positive knowledge and displays the greatness of the human mind when it does not introduce into its investigations the question of an ultimate cause. And, on the contrary, abstract science is only then science and displays the greatness of the human mind when it puts quite aside questions relating to the consequential causes of phenomena and regards man solely in relation to an ultimate cause. Such in this realm of science - forming the pole of the sphere - is metaphysics or philosophy. That science states the question clearly: "What am I, and what is the universe? And why do I exist, and why does the universe exist?" And since it has existed it has always replied in the same way. Whether the philosopher calls the essence of life existing within me, and in all that exists, by the name of "idea", or "substance", or "spirit", or "will", he says one and the same thing: that this essence exists and that I am of that same essence; but why it is he does not know, and does not say, if he is an exact thinker. I ask: "Why should this essence exist? What results from the fact that it is and will be?" ... And philosophy not merely does not reply, but is itself only asking that question. And if it is real philosophy all its labor lies merely in trying to put that question clearly. And if it keeps firmly to its task it cannot reply to the question otherwise than thus: "What am I, and what is the universe?" "All and nothing"; and to the question "Why?" by "I do not know".

實驗科學

So that however I may turn these replies of philosophy, I can never obtain anything like an answer - and not because, as in the clear experimental sphere, the reply does not relate to my question, but because here, though all the mental work is directed just to my question, there is no answer, but instead of an answer one gets the same question, only in a complex form.