社会主义下人的灵魂（五）

Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road, and encumbering them. Indeed, so completely has man’s personality been absorbed by his possessions that the English law has always treated offences against a man’s property with far more severity than offences against his person, and property is still the test of complete citizenship. The industry necessary for the making money is also very demoralising. In a community like ours, where property confers immense distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes it his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on wearily and tediously accumulating it long after he has got far more than he wants, or can use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of. Man will kill himself by overwork in order to secure property, and really, considering the enormous advantages that property brings, one is hardly surprised. One’s regret is that society should be constructed on such a basis that man has been forced into a groove in which he cannot freely develop what is wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful in him – in which, in fact, he misses the true pleasure and joy of living. He is also, under existing conditions, very insecure. An enormously wealthy merchant may be – often is – at every moment of his life at the mercy of things that are not under his control. If the wind blows an extra point or so, or the weather suddenly changes, or some trivial thing happens, his ship may go down, his speculations may go wrong, and he finds himself a poor man, with his social position quite gone. Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.

私有财产粉碎了真正的个人主义，建立了虚假的个人主义。它剥夺了一部分人的独立性，使他们陷入饥荒。它让社会的另一部分人走上错误的道路，使他们无法成为一个独立的个体。事实上，一个人的品格和他的财富是如此的紧密相连，以至于英国法律在对待财产犯罪时，要比他的个人犯罪严重得多。所以说，财产仍然是检验一个公民是否合格的标准。对于挣钱来说，行业上的必要性也是非常令人沮丧的。在一个像我们这样的社会中，财富有着很大的区别。社会地位，荣誉，尊敬，头衔，或者是其他能令人兴奋的事物，都是财富。而人类，天生就有雄心壮志，天生就会以积攒财富为目标。但是后来，当他已经拥有了远超他期望的，用不完的，甚至他当初想都不敢想的财富时，他会厌倦，烦闷。人类会为了保护他的财产而夜以继日的工作，并在最终走向死亡。其实，认真的思索一下财富能带来的巨大优点，这一点并不能让人惊讶。对他来说，社会应该建立在这样一个基础上:每个人都被限制在陈规教条中，得不到任何美好的，令人惊喜的东西。事实上，他既没有真正的欢乐，也没有生活的乐趣。他生活在一个没有安全感的环境中。通常来讲，富翁总是被他所不能掌控的东西所摆布。一旦有什么风吹草动，或是发生了什么事情，他的小船就会沉没，他的思想就会走偏，然后他就会发现他变成了一个穷人，一个没有社会地位的穷人。如今，没有什么东西能够伤害一个人，也没有谁可以抢走他的东西，除了他自己。人类真正拥有的，是他的内在，而所有的外物都无足挂齿。

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

随着私人财产制度的废除，我们将拥有一个真实美丽而健康的个人主义。没有人会把他的生命浪费在积累财富或者是类似的象征物上。人们将学会生活，而生活是这个世界上最罕见的事物。大多数的人都仅仅是在生存而已。

It is a question whether we have ever seen the full expression of a personality, except on the imaginative plane of art. In action, we never have. Caesar, says Mommsen, was the complete and perfect man. But how tragically insecure was Caesar! Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority. Caesar was very perfect, but his perfection travelled by too dangerous a road. Marcus Aurelius was the perfect man, says Renan. Yes; the great emperor was a perfect man. But how intolerable were the endless claims upon him! He staggered under the burden of the empire. He was conscious how inadequate one man was to bear the weight of that Titan and too vast orb. What I mean by a perfect man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger. Most personalities have been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in friction. Byron’s personality, for instance, was terribly wasted in its battle with the stupidity, and hypocrisy, and Philistinism of the English. Such battles do not always intensify strength: they often exaggerate weakness. Byron was never able to give us what he might have given us. Shelley escaped better. Like Byron, he got out of England as soon as possible. But he was not so well known. If the English had had any idea of what a great poet he really was, they would have fallen on him with tooth and nail, and made his life as unbearable to him as they possibly could. But he was not a remarkable figure in society, and consequently he escaped, to a certain degree. Still, even in Shelley the note of rebellion is sometimes too strong. The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.

现在存在一个问题，即我们是否已经得悉了人性的全貌，而不是停留在想象的艺术的层面。事实上，我们从未得悉。凯撒大帝，据莫姆森所言，是个完美无缺的人。但是事实上，凯撒却是多么的不幸啊。无论在何处，只要有人施展权威，就会有人反抗权威。凯撒也许是完美的，但是他的完美却让他走上了危险的道路。勒南认为奥古斯都是完美的。是的，伟大的皇帝自然是完美的，但他却受到了无尽的，不堪忍受的指责。他蹒跚在帝国的重担之下，他知道，没有能够承受巨人的重量，也没有谁托得了天体。通过这样一个“完美”的人，我想指出的是，如果存在这样一个人，他从没受过伤，从不焦虑，从未陷入过危机，那么他才是真正完美的人。大部分人造反都是因为被逼无奈，而他们半数的精力却被浪费在了一些无谓的冲突中。比如说拜伦，他的天赋被浪费在了和英格兰的愚昧，虚伪，和庸俗的战斗中。这些战斗并不是总能给予我们力量，而是会夸大我们的弱点。拜伦并没有成功的向我们传达出他想传达的东西。雪莱就更是如此。和拜伦一样，他离开了英国，却不如拜伦有名。如果英国人真的认为雪莱是一个伟大的诗人的话，他们就会把牙齿和指甲落在他身上，尽可能的让他不堪忍受。在某种意义上，雪莱并不是这个社会中最引人注目的人物，因为他逃了。当然了，即便是雪莱这样的人，他叛逆的迹象有时也很明显。真正完美的人格不应该展现为叛逆，而应该是平和。