Most of the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history books are great conquerors and generals and soldiers, whereas the people who really helped civilization forward are often never mentioned at all. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, or manured a field; but we know all about the killers and destroyers. People think a great deal of them, so much so that on all the highest pillars in the great cities of the world you will find the figure of a conqueror or a general or a soldier. And I think most people believe that the greatest countries are those that have beaten in battle the greatest number of other countries and ruled over them as conquerors. It is just possible they are, but they are not the most civilized. Animals fight; so do savages; hence to be good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a savage is good, but it is not to be civilized.
历史书上最常见的最风光的人物大多为伟大的征服者、将军和士兵，而真正推动历史前进的人却常常只字未提。我们不知道是谁第一次治疗好了一条断腿，是谁把一个可以在海上航行的船送下水，是谁首次计算出了一年的长度，又是谁首次在田野中施肥。但是我们对那些杀人者和毁灭者的所有情况了如指掌。人们对他们倾慕不已，以至于在世界上大城市的高耸的台柱上你都可以看到一个征服者，一个将军或一个士兵。我想大多数人相信，世界上最伟大的国家是那些在战争中打败的国家最多并作为统治者主宰他们命运的国家。有可能确实如此，但是这些国家却不是最文明的。动物好争斗，野人也如此。因此，擅长于打斗也就是“擅”于动物或野人之所“长”。然而这不是走向文明之路。
Fighting means killing, and civilized peoples ought to be able to find some way of settling their disputes other than by seeing which side can kill off the greater number of the other side, and then saying that that side which has killed most has won. It means that might is right.
打斗意味着杀戮，文明的民族应当找到某种方法解决争议，而不是去观察哪一方杀掉了另一方更多的人，然后说杀死人最多的那一方是赢家。这一切意味着强权就是真理。
That is what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. Even our own age has fought the two greatest wars in history, in which millions of people were killed or mutilated.And while today it is true that people do not fight and kill each other in the streets, that is to say, we have got to the stage afkeeping the rules and behaving properly to each other in daily life while nations and countries have not learnt to do this yet, and still behave like savages.
人类迄今的历史总的来说就是这样的，即使在我们这个时代也发生了两次人类历史上最大规模的战争，数以百万计的人致死致残。今天我们不在大街上相互打斗相互屠杀，也就是说我们已经成长到了能够尊重规则并相互得体地相处，这一点确实没错。相形之下，各个国家却没能够学会做到这一点，他们的举动依然像野人。
暂无评论内容