《我的知识之路》第一章童年时代和早期教育

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2020年08月09日

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CHAPTER I Childrenhood And Early Eaducation

第一章童年时代和早期教育

It seems proper that I should prefix to the following biographical sketch, some mention of the reasons which have made me think it desirable that I should leave behind me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine. I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate, can be interesting to the public as a narrative, or as being connected with myself. But I have thought that in an age in which education, and its improvement, are the subject of more, if not of profounder study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. It has also seemed to me that in an age of transition in opinions, there may be somewhat both of interest and of benefit in noting the successive phases of any mind which was always pressing forward, equally ready to learn and to unlearn either from its own thoughts or from those of others. But a motive which weighs more with me than either of these, is a desire to make acknowledgment of the debts which my intellectual and moral development owes to other persons; some of them of recognized eminence, others less known than they deserve to be, and the one to whom most of all is due, one whom the world had no opportunity of knowing. The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind, that for him these pages were not written.

在写自传正文之前，似乎应该说明一下，为什么我认为有必要为自己平凡的一生留本书作为纪念。我从来没有想象过自己讲叙的任何一部分，会作为一个故事或者因为与我有关而引起公众的兴趣。但是我想，在这个时代，教育和教育改良在英国历史上比以往任何时候受到的关注都要多(如果说不是更深刻的话)，为一种不同寻常、引人注意的教育经历留下一些记录也许是有益的;不管这种教育还产生了哪些影响，都证明了在早期能够教给小孩子的东西，比人们通常想象的多很多，而且可以教得很好;用通常所说的教诲方式教育孩子，他们的童年时代实际上是被浪费掉了。我还觉得，在观念转变的时代，如果有人勇于探索，对于自己及他人的思想既善于吸纳，也能有所扬弃，那么，把他思想的各个阶段记录下来，似乎不仅有益，而且也很有趣。但是对我而言，还有比这更重要的动机，就是希望向帮助过我智力和道德发展的人表示感谢。他们当中有的声名显赫;有的能力卓著，但还没有得到应有的声誉;还有我最需要感谢的一个人，也是外界根本没有机会了解的一个人。如果哪位读者对这些东西不感兴趣，却还要继续往下读的话，那就只能怪他自己了;我不奢望他沉迷于此书，只希望他能记得，这本自传并非为他而写。

I was born in London, on the 20th of May, 1806, and was the eldest son of James Mill, the author of The History of British India. My father, the son of a petty tradesman and (I believe) small farmer, at Northwater Bridge, in the county of Angus, was, when a boy, recommended by his abilities to the notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairn, one of the Barons of the Exchequer in Scotland, and was, in consequence, sent to the University of Edinburgh, at the expense of a fund established by Lady Jane Stuart (the wife of Sir John Stuart) and some other ladies for educating young men for the Scottish Church. He there went through the usual course of study, and was licensed as a Preacher, but never followed the profession; having satisfied himself that he could not believe the doctrines of that or any other Church. For a few years he was a private tutor in various families in Scotland, among others that of the Marquis of Tweeddale; but ended by taking up his residence in London, and devoting himself to authorship. Nor had he any other means of support until 1819, when he obtained an appointment in the India House.

我于1806年5月20日出生于伦敦，是家里的长子，我的父亲是詹姆斯·穆勒，《英属印度史》的作者。祖父是安格斯郡诺斯沃特桥的一名小商人，同时(我认为)也是小农场主。还在儿童时代，父亲就因天资聪慧，引起了苏格兰财政部的一位贵族——费特凯恩的约翰·斯图尔特爵士的注意，因此得到简·斯图尔特夫人(约翰·斯图尔特爵士的妻子)和其他几位夫人成立的基金资助而被送往爱丁堡大学深造，该基金设立的目的是为苏格兰教会培养年轻人。在那里，父亲接受了常规教育，获得了传教士证书，但是从未从事这项职业，因为他深知自己不能相信那个教派或其他任何教派的教义。有几年，他在苏格兰的各种家庭里做过家庭教师，其中包括特威代尔侯爵家，但是最终定居伦敦，致力于写作。1819年，他受聘于东印度公司，在这之前，除了写作，他没有任何其他收入来源。

In this period of my father's life there are two things which it is impossible not to be struck with: one of them unfortunately a very common circumstance, the other a most uncommon one. The first is, that in his position, with no resource but the precarious one of writing in periodicals, he married and had a large family; conduct than which nothing could be more opposed, both as a matter of good sense and of duty, to the opinions which, at least at a later period of life, he strenuously upheld. The other circumstance, is the extraordinary energy which was required to lead the life he led, with the disadvantages under which he labored from the first, and with those which he brought upon himself by his marriage. It would have been no small thing, had he done no more than to support himself and his family during so many years by writing, without ever being in debt, or in any pecuniary difficulty; holding, as he did, opinions, both in politics and in religion, which were more odious to all persons of influence, and to the common run of prosperous Englishmen in that generation than either before or since; and being not only a man whom nothing would have induced to write against his convictions, but one who invariably threw into everything he wrote, as much of his convictions as he thought the circumstances would in any way permit: being, it must also be said, one who never did anything negligently; never undertook any task, literary or other, on which he did not conscientiously bestow all the labour necessary for performing it adequately. But he, with these burdens on him, planned, commenced, and completed, the History of India; and this in the course of about ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual education.

父亲在人生的这段时间里，有两件事不能不让人称奇。不过很遗憾，其中一件其实很平常，另一件又极不寻常。一件是，他当时没有什么收入来源，只靠向期刊投稿这种不稳定的方式，还能够娶妻生子，组建了大家庭;这种行为无论从理智，还是从责任上来讲，与他的观点，至少与他后半生努力坚持的观点完全相反。另一件是，他这种生活方式需要异常充沛的精力，从一开始写作他就面临很多不利条件，结婚也给他带来了不利因素。这么多年，他靠写作，即便只养活了自己和家庭，能从不欠债，又从没陷入经济困难，也是件很不容易的事情。何况他还坚持他的政治和宗教观点，让当时所有权贵和普通英国富人都产生空前绝后的厌恶之情;而且，父亲这个人，不仅任何因素都不能让他写出与自己信念相悖的东西，而且总是在环境允许的情况下，尽可能地把自己的信念融入所有作品当中。可以说，他是一个做任何事情都从不敷衍的人，不管是文学还是其他的工作，他都倾注全力，以求做到尽善尽美。尽管身肩重负，他还是策划、启动并完成了《英属印度史》的编纂。这花了他十年时间，比其他作者(甚至是专职作家)编纂同等规模且需要相当的阅读量和研究量的史书所花的时间都短。还需要指出的是，在整个过程中，他几乎每天都要花不少时间教导孩子。就拿我来说，他所付出的精力、关爱和坚持不懈非比寻常，他按照他自己的构想，努力给孩子最高层次的智力教育�

A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up to the principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to the same rule in the instruction of his pupil. I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through Aesop's Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's Cyropædia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates' Ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theætetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English Lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin Lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years.

一个自己做事时恪守决不浪费时间这一原则的人，在教育学生时,很可能也会如此。我记不清自己开始学习希腊语的时间了，听人说是三岁。对这件事，我最早的记忆就是背诵父亲写在卡片上的普通希腊语单词表，后面附有英语意思。学语法是几年后的事情，我只学了名词和动词的曲折变化，但是学完单词之后，立刻就开始学习翻译了。我只能模糊地记得读过《伊索寓言》，这是我读的第一本希腊语书籍。第二本书是《远征记》，我对这本书的印象稍微深刻一点。直到八岁，我才开始学拉丁语。那时，在父亲的指导下，我阅读了很多希腊散文家的作品，其中，我记得自己读了希罗多德的全都作品，还有色诺芬的《居鲁士的教育》和《回忆苏格拉底》;读了第欧根尼.拉尔修写的一些哲学家生平;还读了卢奇安的一部分作品，以及伊索克拉底的《全希腊盛会献词》和《泛雅典娜节献词》的一部分。1813年，我还读了柏拉图对话录(按普通排列顺序)的前六卷，从《尤息弗罗》到《泰阿泰德》。我认为，《泰阿泰德》在此可以省略，因为我不可能看得懂。但是父亲在整个教学过程中，不仅要求我尽最大努力做力所能及之事，还极力要求我做力所不能及之事。我学希腊语的所有功课，都是在他写作时跟他在同一个房间的同一张桌子上完成的。从这件事或许可以看出来，他为了教导我是乐于承担责任的。那时，没有希腊语英语词典，而我还没开始学拉丁语，根本无法查阅希腊语拉丁语词典，所以每次碰到不认识的单词，就不得不向父亲讨教。父亲是个急脾气的人，但他甘愿忍受这种持续的干扰，而且还在这种干扰下写了好几卷《英属印度史》，还有那几年必须要写的所有其他文章。

The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson in this part of my childhood, was arithmetic: this also my father taught me: it was the task of the evenings, and I well remember its disagreeableness. But the lessons were only a part of the daily instruction I received. Much of it consisted in the books I read by myself, and my father's discourses to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of 1813 we were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic neighbourhood. My father's health required considerable and constant exercise, and he walked habitually before breakfast, generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied him, and with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild f lowers, is mingled that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read the day before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, and from these in the morning walks, I told the story to him; for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner a great number: Robertson's histories, Hume1, Gibbon; but my greatest delight, then and for long afterwards, was Watson's Philip the Second and Third. The heroic defence of the Knights of Malta against the Turks, and of the revolted provinces of the Netherlands against Spain, excited in me an intense and lasting interest. Next to Watson, my favorite historical reading was Hooke2's History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen at that time no regular history, except school abridgments and the last two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin's Ancient History, beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In English history, beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I remember reading Burnet's History of His Own Time, though I cared little for anything in it except the wars and battles; and the historical part of the Annual Register, from the beginning to about 1788, where the volumes my father borrowed for me from Mr. Bentham3 left off. I felt a lively interest in Frederic of Prussia4 during his difficulties, and in Paoli, the Corsican patriot; but when I came to the American War, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right by my father) on the wrong side, because it was called the English side. In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox5, and even Sewell's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers6. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales. Two books which I never wearied of reading were Anson's Voyage, so delightful to most young persons, and a Collection (Hawkesworth's, I believe) of Voyages round the World, in four volumes, beginning with Drake7 and ending with Cook8 and Bougainville. Of children's books, any more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift from a relation or acquaintance: among those I had, Robinson Crusoe was preeminent, and continued to delight me through all my boyhood. It was no part, however, of my father's system to exclude books of amusement, though he allowed them very sparingly. Of such books he possessed at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me; those which I remember are the Arabian Nights, Cazotte's Arabian Tales, Don Quixote, Miss Edgeworth's Popular Tales, and a book of some reputation in its day, Brooke's Fool of Quality.

在这段童年时光里，除了希腊语之外，唯一的一门课程就是算术，也是父亲教我的。算术是晚上的课程，我还清楚地记得学得多么不开心。但是上课只是我每天所受教育的一部分。另外大部分是我自己阅读，以及父亲对我的口头教导，后者大多是我们一起散步的时候进行的。1810年到1813年年底，我们住在纽因顿格林，当时，那里的环境基本和农村一样。父亲的身体状况需要坚持锻炼，所以他有早饭前散步的习惯，一般就在通往霍恩西的芊芊小路上。散步时，我总是陪着他，我对绿地和野花的最初记忆中夹杂着每天向父亲作头一天阅读内容的汇报。我记得汇报是我自愿做的功课，而非出于被迫。我一边读书，一边在纸片上记笔记，早上散步的时候，就按笔记上的内容给父亲讲故事，这是因为我读的大部分是历史书。以这种方式我读了很多书：罗伯逊的历史著作,休谟和吉本的作品。但是当时以及后来很长一段时间，我一直最喜欢读的是沃森的《腓力二世》和《腓力三世》。书中描述的马耳他骑士英勇抵抗土耳其人，荷兰反叛省份抵制西班牙，都激起了我强烈而持久的兴趣。仅次于沃森，我最喜欢的历史著作是胡克的《罗马史》。那时，我还没有读过系统的希腊历史，只读过学校课本上的节选，以及罗林编的《古代史》的翻译本中从马其顿国王腓力开始的最后两三卷。但是，兰霍恩翻译的普卢塔克的作品，我读得津津有味。在英国历史方面，休谟停笔以后的历史中，我记得读过柏内特的《当代史》，尽管我只喜欢里面的战争和战役部分。还读过《年度纪事》里从一开始到1788年的历史部分，这部分是父亲为我从边沁先生那里借来的书中所没有的。我对陷入困境的普鲁士的弗雷德里克，和科西嘉爱国者保利，产生了强烈的兴趣;但是关于美国独立战争，由于还是一个孩子，我站到了错误的立场上(直到被父亲纠正过来)，因为那被叫做英国立场。我和父亲经常一起讨论我阅读的书籍，他一有机会就给我讲解一些概念，如文明、政府、道德和智力培养，然后让我用自己的话复述给他听。他还让我读了很多我自己不感兴趣的书，然后向他口头复述。值得一提的是，这些书中有米勒的《英国政府历史观》，此书在当时备受赞誉，父亲也对其倍加推崇。莫斯海姆的《基督教教会史》，麦克里的《约翰.诺克斯传》，甚至还有休厄尔和拉提的《贵格会教徒史》。他喜欢让我看那些主角在艰难的环境下展现出能力和智慧、顽强战胜困难的书籍。在这些书当中，我还记得比弗的《非洲大事记》和柯林斯对新南威尔士第一批移民的描述。有两本书我百读不厌，一本是安森的《航海记》，大多数年轻人都喜欢读，另一本是《环球航海集》(我认为是霍克斯沃思编写的)，有四卷，从德雷克开始，到库克和布干维尔结束。我几乎没有玩具和儿童读物，只是偶尔有亲戚或熟人送给我这样的礼物，其中《鲁滨孙漂流记》是最好的，我整个童年时代都很喜欢。父亲并不是完全不让我读消遣的书籍，但也只是偶尔允许。这种书他当时几乎没有，但是给我借了好几本，我记得有《一千零一夜》、卡佐特的《阿拉伯故事集》、《唐吉诃德》和埃奇沃思女士的《通俗故事集》，以及当时有些名声的布鲁克的《上流社会的傻子》。

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my day's work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part which I greatly disliked; the more so, as I was held responsible for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for my own: I, however, derived from this discipline the great advantage, of learning more thoroughly and retaining more lastingly the things which I was set to teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may even at that age have been useful. In other respects, the experience of my boyhood is not favorable to the plan of teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well know that the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either. I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Caesar's Commentaries, but afterwards added to the superintendence of these lessons, much longer ones of my own.

八岁时，我和我的一个妹妹一起开始学习拉丁语，我一边学，一边教她，然后她再向父亲汇报课程。从那时起，其他兄弟姐妹都陆续加入，成了我的学生，白天大部分时间，我都在做这种预备教学。其实我很不喜欢做这件事情，尤其是我要对学生们的功课负责，几乎跟对待我自己的功课完全一样。但是，从这种锻练中我受益匪浅，对于教的内容，我能够学得更全面，记得更牢固。教学的时候向别人解释难点，这种训练可能即使在那么小的年龄也是很有用的。就其他方面讲，我童年时代的经历并不利于小孩子们互相教学的安排。我敢肯定，当时的教学效率非常低，我也很清楚，老师和学生之间的关系，对彼此来说也不是很好的道德约束。我就是这样学完了拉丁语语法，还有科尼利厄斯·内波斯的作品和恺撒的《回忆录》的一大部分，但是后来，除了督导这些课程之外，我自己还学习了更多的课程。

In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poets with the Iliad.9 After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both a priori and from my individual experience. Soon after this time I commenced Euclid10, and somewhat later, algebra, still under my father's tuition.

开始学习拉丁语的同一年，我第一次开始读希腊诗人的作品，先读了《伊利亚特》。在这上面有了一些进展之后，父亲把蒲柏的译作交到我手中。这本译作是我愿意读的第一本英语诗著作，而且成为多年来我一直特别喜欢的书之一。我想，我肯定从头到尾读过二三十遍。它是非常优秀的叙事和韵律的典范，我想，要不是我发现并非所有男孩子都特别喜欢它的话，我就不会觉得值得一提了，尽管从理论和我个人的经验来看，少年时代喜欢它看似非常自然。在这之后不久，仍然在父亲的指导下，我开始学习几何，又过了一阵子，开始学代数。

From my eighth to my twelfth year the Latin books which I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, and the first six books of the Aeneid; all Horace11, except the Epodes; the fables of Phaedrus; the first five books of Livy12 (to which from my love of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the first decade); all Sallust; a considerable part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; some plays of Terence13; two or three books of Lucretius; several of the Orations of Cicero14, and of his writings on oratory; also his letters to Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from the French the historical explanations in Mongault's notes. In Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey through; one or two plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by these I profited little; all Thucydides15; the Hellenics of Xenophon16; a great part of Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the Anthology; a little of Dionysius; several books of Polybius; and lastly, Aristotle's Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly scientific treatise on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and containing many of the best observations of the ancients on human nature and life, my father made me study with peculiar care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic tables. During the same years I learnt elementary geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential calculus, and other portions of the higher mathematics far from thoroughly: for my father, not having kept up this part of his early acquired knowledge, could not spare time to qualify himself for removing my difficulties, and left me to deal with them, with little other aid than that of books: while I was continually incurring his displeasure by my inability to solve difficult problems for which he did not see that I had not the necessary previous knowledge.

我记得，从八岁到十二岁，我读的拉丁语书籍有维吉尔的《牧歌》以及《埃涅伊特》的前六本，除了《抒情诗》之外贺拉斯的全部作品，费德鲁斯的寓言，李维《罗马史》的前五卷(由于喜欢这个主题，闲着的时候，我自愿读了前十卷的剩余部分)，萨卢斯特的全部作品，奥维德《变形记》的大部分，泰伦斯的一些剧本，卢克莱修的两三本书，西塞罗的好几本演说集和关于演讲术的著作，以及他给阿提库斯的信件。父亲不辞劳苦，为我把蒙戈尔特注解中的历史说明从法语翻译过来。我通读了希腊语的《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》，索福克勒斯、欧里庇得斯和阿里斯托芬的一两个剧本(但从中受益很少)，修昔底德的全部作品，色诺芬的《希腊史》，狄摩西尼、埃斯基涅斯和利西阿斯作品的一大部分，忒奥克里托斯、阿那克里翁的全部作品，《文选》的一部分，狄奥尼修斯的一小部分作品，波利比奥斯的好几本书，最后是亚里士多德的《修辞学》。《修辞学》是我读过的关于道德或心理学主题的第一本科学的专著，书中包括很多古代人对人性和人生最到位的观察。父亲让我仔细研读，还让我把里面的内容列成一览表。这几年，我还全面学习了初级几何和代数，而微分学和高等数学的其他部分则学得远远不够全面。因为父亲把早年掌握的这些知识全都忘了，没有时间再捡起来帮我解答难题，所以，除了书本之外，几乎没有什么可以帮助我的。而我经常由于无法解决很难的习题，总是招惹父亲不快，但他没有看到，其实我根本不具备解决这些问题必需的知识储备。

As to my private reading, I can only speak of what I remember. History continued to be my strongest predilection, and most of all ancient history. Mitford's Greece I read continually; my father had put me on my guard against the Tory prejudices of this writer, and his perversions of facts for the whitewashing of despots, and blackening of popular institutions. These points he discoursed on, exemplifying them from the Greek orators and historians, with such effect that in reading Mitford my sympathies were always on the contrary side to those of the author, and I could, to some extent, have argued the point against him: yet this did not diminish the ever new pleasure with which I read the book. Roman history, both in my old favorite, Hooke, and in Ferguson, continued to delight me. A book which, in spite of what is called the dryness of its style, I took great pleasure in, was the Ancient Universal History, through the incessant reading of which, I had my head full of historical details concerning the obscurest ancient people, while about modern history, except detached passages such as the Dutch War of Independence, I knew and cared comparatively little. A voluntary exercise, to which throughout my boyhood I was much addicted, was what I called writing histories. I successively composed a Roman History, picked out of Hooke; an abridgment of the Ancient Universal History; a History of Holland, from my favorite Watson and from an anonymous compilation; and in my eleventh and twelfth year I occupied myself with writing what I flattered myself was something serious. This was no less than a history of the Roman Government, compiled (with the assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which I wrote as much as would have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch of the Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an account of the struggles between the patricians and plebeians, which now engrossed all the interest in my mind which I had previously felt in the mere wars and conquests of the Romans. I discussed all the constitutional points as they arose: though quite ignorant of Niebuhr's researches, I, by such lights as my father had given me, vindicated the Agrarian Laws on the evidence of Livy, and upheld, to the best of my ability, the Roman Democratic party. A few years later, in my contempt of my childish efforts, I destroyed all these papers, not then anticipating that I could ever feel any curiosity about my first attempts at writing and reasoning. My father encouraged me in this useful amusement, though, as I think judiciously, he never asked to see what I wrote; so that I did not feel that in writing it I was accountable to any one, nor had the chilling sensation of being under a critical eye.

关于自己读的书，我只能说一说还记得的。我最偏爱的仍然是历史，尤其是古代史。我不厌其烦地读米特福德的《希腊史》。父亲提醒我警惕作者保守派的偏见，以及他为了美化暴君、诋毁民主制度而颠倒的事实。他用希腊演说家和历史学家的例子向我讲述这些观点，结果在读米特福德时，我和作者赞同的东西总是相反的，在某种程度上，我甚至能提出反对他的观点;但是，每次读这本书时所带来的新的愉悦，并没有因此而减少。我以前的最爱胡克和弗格森讲述的罗马历史继续给我带来快乐。有本书，尽管有人称它风格单调乏味，但我非常喜欢读，那就是《古代通史》。我不厌其烦地读，满脑子都是最不知名的古代人的详细资料，但是现代史，除了一些孤立的章节，如荷兰独立战争外，相对来说，我知道得很少，也不怎么关注。整个少年时代，我心甘情愿做的而且很上瘾的事情就是我所谓的“写历史”。我相继创作了一部《罗马史》(是从胡克的《罗马史》中摘选出来的)，《古代通史》的节略本，一部《荷兰史》(是从我最喜欢的沃森和一部匿名的汇编中选录出来的)。十一二岁的时候，我在专注地写一些自以为比较严肃的东西。这不亚于一部罗马政府的历史，编辑的资料源于李维和迪奥尼修斯(还得益于胡克)，我写了很多，都可以出八卷本的书了，一直写到颁行李西尼法的时代。实际上，它记述的是贵族与平民之间的斗争，当时它吸引了我的全部兴趣和关注，而这种关注过去仅集中在罗马征战中。我讨论了出现过的每一个体制上的观点。尽管我完全不知道尼布尔的研究成果，但是在父亲的指导下，按照李维提供的证据，我证明了农业法的正确性，而且尽自己所能地支持了罗马民主党。几年后，由于蔑视自己孩子气的努力，我把这些文章都毁掉了，那时根本没想到，以后还会对自己初次尝试写作和推理有任何好奇。但是，父亲鼓励我进行这种有用的娱乐活动，尽管他从来不要求看我写的东西，我觉得这很明智。这样一来，我就不会觉得写作要对谁负责，也没有被一双挑剔的眼睛盯着而害怕的感觉。

But though these exercises in history were never a compulsory lesson, there was another kind of composition which was so, namely, writing verses, and it was one of the most disagreeable of my tasks. Greek and Latin verses I did not write, nor learnt the prosody of those languages. My father, thinking this not worth the time it required, contented himself with making me read aloud to him, and correcting false quantities. I never composed at all in Greek, even in prose, and but little in Latin. Not that my father could be indifferent to the value of this practice, in giving a thorough knowledge of these languages, but because there really was not time for it. The verses I was required to write were English. When I first read Pope's Homer, I ambitiously attempted to compose something of the same kind, and achieved as much as one book of a continuation of the Iliad. There, probably, the spontaneous promptings of my poetical ambition would have stopped; but the exercise, begun from choice, was continued by command. Conformably to my father's usual practice of explaining to me, as far as possible, the reasons for what he required me to do, he gave me, for this, as I well remember, two reasons highly characteristic of him: One was, that some things could be expressed better and more forcibly in verse than in prose: this, he said, was a real advantage. The other was, that people in general attached more value to verse than it deserved, and the power of writing it, was, on this account, worth acquiring. He generally left me to choose my own subjects, which, as far as I remember, were mostly addresses to some mythological personage or allegorical abstraction; but he made me translate into English verse many of Horace's shorter poems: I also remember his giving me Thomson's "Winter" to read, and afterwards making me attempt (without book) to write something myself on the same subject. The verses I wrote were, of course the merest rubbish, nor did I ever attain any facility of versification, but the practice may have been useful in making it easier for me, at a later period, to acquire readiness of expression. I had read, up to this time, very little English poetry. Shakespeare my father had put into my hands, chiefly for the sake of the historical plays, from which, however, I went on to the others. My father never was a great admirer of Shakespeare, the English idolatry of whom he used to attack with some severity. He cared little for any English poetry except Milton (for whom he had the highest admiration), Goldsmith, Burns17, and Gray's "Bard," which he preferred to his Elegy: perhaps I may add Cowper18 and Beattie19. He had some value for Spenser20, and I remember his reading to me (unlike his usual practice of making me read to him), the first book of The Fairie Queene; but I took little pleasure in it. The poetry of the present century he saw scarcely any merit in, and I hardly became acquainted with any of it till I was grown up to manhood, except the metrical romances of Walter Scott, which I read at his recommendation and was intensely delighted with; as I always was with animated narrative. Dryden's Poems were among my father's books, and many of these he made me read, but I never cared for any of them except Alexander's Feast, which, as well as many of the songs in Walter Scott, I used to sing internally, to a music of my own: to some of the latter, indeed, I went so far as to compose airs, which I still remember. Cowper's short poems I read with some pleasure, but never got far into the longer ones; and nothing in the two volumes interested me like the prose account of his three hares. In my thirteenth year I met with Campbell's Poems, among which "Lochiel," "Hohenlinden," "The Exile of Erin," and some others, gave me sensations I had never before experienced from poetry. Here, too, I made nothing of the longer poems, except the striking opening of "Gertrude of Wyoming," which long kept its place in my feelings as the perfection of pathos.

尽管写历史的练习从来都不是必修课，但是，有一样写作是必须的，即写诗，这是我最不喜欢的功课之一。我没有写过希腊语和拉丁语的诗，也没学这两种语言的格律。父亲认为花太多时间做这个不值得，所以只让我给他读出来，订正我不对的地方。我从未用希腊语写作过，甚至连散文都没写过，只用拉丁语写过一点点。不是父亲不在乎写作对于全面掌握这些语言的重要性，而是根本没有时间这么做。他要求我写的是英语诗歌。第一次读蒲柏翻译的《荷马史诗》的时候，我雄心勃勃地要写一部类似的著作，而且写了《伊利亚特》的续集那么长的一本书。我自发的写诗抱负，很可能那时就中止了;但是，最初我自愿写诗的做法，后来因父亲的命令坚持了下去。父亲总是尽量给我解释他要求我做某件事的原因，我记得很清楚，这件事他同样也给出两条原因，都非常符合他的风格。一条是，有些事用诗来表达比用散文更清楚，更有力，他说这是个实实在在的长处。另一条是，人们大都给予诗歌比它本身更高的价值，因此，有必要获得写诗的能力。他一般都让我自己选择主题，我记得大多是给一些神话人物或者寓言抽象物致词，但是他让我把贺拉斯的很多短诗翻译成英语。我还记得他让我读汤姆逊的《冬天》，然后让我自己试着(不看书)就同一主题写些东西。当然，我写的诗纯粹是些废话，我也从来没有学会任何写诗的技巧，但是这种练习让我后来更容易获得表达能力。到这时，我读的英语诗歌仍然很少。父亲把莎士比亚的作品放到我手中，主要是让我读历史剧，然而我却继续读其他的剧本。父亲一直都不怎么崇拜莎士比亚，他甚至曾严厉地批判这位英国人的偶像。除了弥尔顿(他最崇拜的人)、哥尔德斯密斯和彭斯的诗歌以及格雷的《游吟诗人》(比起《墓园挽歌》，父亲更喜欢格雷的这首作品)，别的英国诗歌父亲都不喜欢，或许还喜欢柯珀和贝蒂。他对斯宾塞评价也不低，我记得他给我读(不像他一贯让我读给他听的做法)《仙后》的第一本，但是我不怎么喜欢。他觉得本世纪的诗歌几乎没什么价值，所以成年之前，我对当代诗歌几乎完全不熟悉，但是沃尔特.司各特的浪漫诗歌除外，那是在父亲的推荐下读的，我非常感兴趣，因为我一贯喜欢活泼的叙事。德莱顿的诗是我父亲喜欢读的，他让我读了很多，但是除了《亚历山大的盛宴》之外，我一首都不喜欢。我经常用自己的调子，在心里默唱这首诗和沃尔特.司各特的很多抒情诗，我甚至给司各特的一些抒情诗谱了曲子，到现在都还记得。柯珀的短诗我还比较喜欢读，但是从来没有去读长诗;而他的两卷书里的任何东西，都不如他用散文写的三只野兔让我感兴趣。十三岁时，我偶然读了坎贝尔的诗，其中《洛希尔》《霍恩林登》《埃琳的放逐》和其他一些诗给我的震撼，是以前读诗的时候从来没有体验过的。至此，我还是轻视长诗，《怀俄明的格特鲁德》除了令人震撼的开篇外，我长久以来一直觉得那是痛苦的极量。

During this part of my childhood, one of my greatest amusements was experimental science; in the theoretical, however, not the practical sense of the word; not trying experiments—a kind of discipline which I have often regretted not having had—nor even seeing, but merely reading about them. I never remember being so wrapt up in any book, as I was in Joyce's Scientific Dialogues; and I was rather recalcitrant to my father's criticisms of the bad reasoning respecting the first principles of physics, which abounds in the early part of that work. I devoured treatises on Chemistry, especially that of my father's early friend and schoolfellow, Dr. Thomson, for years before I attended a lecture or saw an experiment.

童年的这段时间，我最大的乐趣之一就是实验科学——是理论上而不是实际意义上的实验科学。我没做过试验性的实验，也经常遗憾没有这种实验经历，甚至没见过，只是读过。我从来不记得读任何书像读乔伊斯的《科学对话》那样专注。父亲批评这部书的前面部分对物理学基本定律的推理漏洞百出，我非常反对他的观点。在听到讲座或看到实验之前，有很多年，我贪婪地阅读化学论文，尤其是父亲早先的朋友兼校友汤姆森博士的论文。

From about the age of twelve, I entered into another and more advanced stage in my course of instruction; in which the main object was no longer the aids and appliances of thought, but the thoughts themselves. This commenced with Logic, in which I began at once with the Organon21, and read it to the Analytics inclusive, but profited little by the Posterior Analytics, which belong to a branch of speculation I was not yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with the Organon, my father made me read the whole or parts of several of the Latin treatises on the scholastic logic; giving each day to him, in our walks, a minute account of what I had read, and answering his numerous and searching questions. After this, I went in a similar manner, through the "Computatio sive Logica" of Hobbes, a work of a much higher order of thought than the books of the school logicians, and which he estimated very highly; in my own opinion beyond its merits, great as these are. It was his invariable practice, whatever studies he exacted from me, to make me as far as possible understand and feel the utility of them: and this he deemed peculiarly fitting in the case of the syllogistic logic, the usefulness of which had been impugned by so many writers of authority. I well remember how, and in what particular walk, in the neighbourhood of Bagshot Heath (where we were on a visit to his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one of the Mathematical Professors at Sandhurst) he first attempted by questions to make me think on the subject, and frame some conception of what constituted the utility of the syllogistic logic, and when I had failed in this, to make me understand it by explanations. The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus for my observations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my notice afterwards. My own consciousness and experience ultimately led me to appreciate quite as highly as he did, the value of an early practical familiarity with the school logic. I know of nothing, in my education, to which I think myself more indebted for whatever capacity of thinking I have attained. The first intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, was dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the fallacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained, was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was most perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also true that the school logic, and the mental habits acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory thought, before their own thinking faculties are much advanced; a power which, for want of some such discipline, many otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they have to answer opponents, only endeavour, by such arguments as they can command, to support the opposite conclusion, scarcely even attempting to confute the reasonings of their antagonists; and, therefore, at the utmost, leaving the question, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one.

大概从十二岁起，我接受的教育进入了另一个更高的阶段。主要的学习对象已经不再是思维辅助和应用方面，而是思维本身。从学习逻辑开始，在逻辑学里，我一上来就开始学《工具论》，一直读完包括分析学在内的所有内容，但我从后验分析里面收益甚少。后验分析属于推断的一个分支，我那时还不够成熟，无法理解。在读《工具论》的同时，父亲让我读了好几篇关于经院逻辑的拉丁语论文，有的全部都读，有的读一部分。每天我们一起散步的时候，他让我详细汇报读过的东西，并回答他许多敏锐的问题。这之后，我以相似的方式，通读了霍布斯的《计算法和逻辑学》，这本书比经院派逻辑学家的著作在思想层次上高了一大截，父亲对它推崇备至。在我看来，它确实很有价值，但父亲未免有些夸张。不管要求我学什么，父亲一贯的做法，是让我尽可能地理解并感觉到它们的效用。他觉得，这种做法在学习三段论法逻辑的时候尤其适用，而三段论法的作用受到了很多权威作家的责难。我清楚地记得，那次在巴格肖特赫斯附近散步的时候(我们那时去拜访父亲的老朋友华莱士先生，他当时是皇家陆军军官大学的数学教授)，父亲是怎样尝试用问题激发我对这个题目的思考，让我对三段论法逻辑学的效用构成形成一些概念，我无法理解时，他就解释给我听。当时，这些解释并没有让我弄清楚这个问题，但是也并非没用，它们成为我的观察和沉思赖以成形的核心。后来我通过自己所注意到的一些具体情况理解了父亲所做的概括性的论述。我自己的认识和体验，最终让我像他一样高度评价少时真正通晓经院派逻辑学的价值。我认为，在我接受的教育当中，我所获得的任何思考能力，最应该归功于它。我比较熟练的早期智力练习，是仔细剖析错误的论点，并找出谬误在什么地方。不管在这种练习中我获得了什么样的能力，都应归功于父亲，是他坚持训练我，让我做这样的智力练习。但是，不可否认经院派逻辑学以及学习它时养成的思维习惯，是这种训练的主要手段之一。我相信，在现代教育中，经院派逻辑如果运用适当的话，没有任何东西能像它一样塑造缜密的思想家，这些思想家会赋予文字和命题精确的意义，而且不受模糊、不精确或不明确术语的影响。被引以自豪的数学研究，其影响力根本不能与它相比，因为在数学步骤中，正确的推理过程不25我的知识之路会产生真正的难题。数学研究也特别适合哲学学生早期阶段的教育，因为它不以学生通过经验和思考形成自己有价值思想的缓慢过程为条件。他们有可能在自己的思维能力到达一个高级阶段之前，就能解开混乱、自相矛盾的思想中的难题。这种本领是很多本来可以很有能力的人，因缺乏这种训练而欠缺的。当他们必须反击对手时，只能试图用自己所能驾驭的论据来论证反面结论，而很少尝试去驳斥对手的推理。因此，只要解决问题取决于论证的话，最多只能双方不分胜负，悬而不决。

During this time, the Latin and Greek books which I continued to read with my father were chiefly such as were worth studying not for the language merely, but also for the thoughts. This included much of the orators, and especially Demosthenes22, some of whose principal orations I read several times over, and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full analysis of them. My father's comments on these orations when I read them to him were very instructive to me. He not only drew my attention to the insight they afforded into Athenian institutions, and the principles of legislation and government which they often illustrated, but pointed out the skill and art of the orator—how everything important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to receive it; how he made steal into their minds, gradually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a more direct manner would have roused their opposition. Most of these reflections were beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the time; but they left seed behind, which germinated in due season. At this time I also read the whole of Tacitus23, Juvenal24, and Quintilian25. The latter, owing to his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which many parts of his treatise are made up, is little read, and seldom sufficiently appreciated. His book is a kind of encyclopaedia of the thoughts of the ancients on the whole field of education and culture; and I have retained through life many valuable ideas which I can distinctly trace to my reading of him, even at that early age. It was at this period that I read, for the first time, some of the most important dialogues of Plato, in particular the Gorgias26, the Protagoras27, and the Republic. There is no author to whom my father thought himself more indebted for his own mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more frequently recommended to young students. I can bear similar testimony in regard to myself. The Socratic method28, of which the Platonic dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the intellectus sibi permissus, the understanding which has made up all its bundles of associations under the guidance of popular phraseology. The close, searching elenchus by which the man of vague generalities is constrained either to express his meaning to himself in definite terms, or to confess that he does not know what he is talking about; the perpetual testing of all general statements by particular instances; the siege in form which is laid to the meaning of large abstract terms, by fixing upon some still larger class-name which includes that and more, and dividing down to the thing sought—marking out its limits and definition by a series of accurately drawn distinctions between it and each of the cognate objects which are successively parted off from it—all this, as an education for precise thinking, is inestimable, and all this, even at that age, took such hold of me that it became part of my own mind. I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from the least intelligible of his works, and which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as anything more than poetic fancies, or philosophic conjectures.

这段时间，我继续和父亲一起读拉丁语和希腊语书籍，大都是不仅语言值得学习，思想也值得学习的书。这其中包括很多演说家尤其是狄摩西尼的著作，他的一些主要演说我从头到尾看了好几遍，并且以练习的方式，写了全面的分析。我把演说读给父亲听的时候，他的评价对我很有启发。他不仅使我注意到这些演讲中为雅典制度提供的真知灼见，以及它们经常举例说明的立法和政府的原则，还指出演说家的技巧和艺术——如何把对他有利的一切东西，在他把观众的思维带到最适合接受它们的状态时说出;如何逐渐通过暗示，悄悄地把思想植入观众的脑袋，而这些思想，如果以一种更直接方式表达的话，就会引起观众的反对。就这些想法中的大部分而言，我当时还没有能力完全理解;但是它们种下了种子，而且在适当的季节生根发芽。这时，我还读了塔西佗、尤维纳利斯和昆体良的全部著作。后者由于风格晦涩，而且很多论述由学究气的细节组成，因此很少有人读，难以得到足够的赏识。他的书相当于一部古人整个教育和文化思想的百科全书;我一生中持有的很多有价值的观点，都清楚地源自他的书，即使是那么年幼的时候读的。就在这时，我第一次读了柏拉图一些最重要的对话录，尤其是《高尔吉亚篇》《普罗泰哥拉篇》和《共和政体》。父亲认为柏拉图对自己精神文化的影响比任何作家都要大，他经常向年轻学生推荐的也是他。这一点在我身上也体现出来。以柏拉图式的对话为范例的苏格拉底问答法，是一种非常卓越的训练方法，用以纠正错误，在智力允许的情况下澄清悟性混乱。这种智力允许的情况是指在通俗的语法及措词的指导下，能够产生大量联想意义的理解。这种精确、透彻的问答法，让模糊笼统的人要么用明确的术语向自己解释意思，要么干脆承认不知道自己在说什么。永远用具体的例子检验所有一般性的陈述，对抽象、涵义广的术语进行形式上的限定，这需要确定某个更大的类别，这一类别包括许多术语，通过对相关事物进行一系列精确的区分，标出它的界限和定义，使这些术语细化到想要的程度——所有这一切，作为精确思考的训练，都是极宝贵的。所有这一切，即使在我那么小的年龄，也能抓住我的注意力，成为我思维的一部分。从那时起，我一直觉得，柏拉图主义者的头衔更应该属于那些从柏拉图研究模式中受益并努力践行它的人，而不是那些仅因为采用某些武断的结论而出名的人，这些结论大多是从柏拉图最难理解的著作中提取的，而从他的思想和作品特征来看，恐怕连他自己都不确定这些是诗歌式的幻想，还是哲学猜想。

In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I could now read these authors, as far as the language was concerned, with perfect ease, I was not required to construe them sentence by sentence, but to read them aloud to my father, answering questions when asked: but the particular attention which he paid to elocution (in which his own excellence was remarkable) made this reading aloud to him a most painful task. Of all things which he required me to do, there was none which I did so constantly ill, or in which he so perpetually lost his temper with me. He had thought much on the principles of the art of reading, especially the most neglected part of it, the inflexions of the voice, or modulation as writers on elocution call it (in contrast with articulation on the one side, and expression on the other), and had reduced it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis of a sentence. These rules he strongly impressed upon me, and took me severely to task for every violation of them: but I even then remarked (though I did not venture to make the remark to him) that though he reproached me when I read a sentence ill, and told me how I ought to have read it, he never, by reading it himself, showed me how it ought to be read. A defect running through his otherwise admirable modes of instruction, as it did through all his modes of thought, was that of trusting too much to the intelligibleness of the abstract, when not embodied in the concrete. It was at a much later period of my youth, when practising elocution by myself, or with companions of my own age, that I for the first time understood the object of his rules, and saw the psychological grounds of them. At that time I and others followed out the subject into its ramifications and could have composed a very useful treatise, grounded on my father's principles. He himself left those principles and rules unwritten. I regret that when my mind was full of the subject, from systematic practice, I did not put them, and our improvements of them, into a formal shape.

在读柏拉图和狄摩西尼时我已经没有语言上的困难了，所以在通读这些作者的作品时，父亲不让我逐句地解释，而是大声读出来，并回答他的问题。但是，由于他特别注意朗诵法(在这方面他非常优秀)，所以给他朗读是件很痛苦的事。在他要求我做的所有事情当中，只有这件事是我总也做不好，或者总让他对我发火的。对于朗读艺术的原则，他思考过很多，尤其是最常被人忽视的那部分，如音调变化，朗诵法的作者称它为韵律(一方面和发音形成对比，另一方面和措词形成对比)，并基于对句子的逻辑分析，将其归纳成准则。他让我牢牢记住这些准则，我每次违反，都会受到严厉的指责。但是，我甚至在那时就注意到(尽管我没有斗胆跟他谈及此事)，虽然我句子读得不好的时候他责备我，并告诉我应该怎么读，但是他从来没有通过自己朗读，来给我展示应该怎样朗读。他的教育方式以及他的整个思考方式一直有一个缺点，就是过于相信抽象事物在没有具体事例佐证时仍能够被理解，除了这一点，他的教育方式还是很值得钦佩的。在我青年末期，我自己或者在和同龄伙伴练习朗读与演讲时，我才第一次理解他的准则针对的对象和它们的心理学根据。那时，我和其他人一直探究这个主题，追本溯源，原本是能够在父亲的原则的基础之上创作一篇非常有用的论文的。但他自己没有把这些原则和准则写下来。我也很遗憾，由于系统地实践，当时我满脑子都是这个主题，但我没有把它们以及我们对它们的改进，以正式的形式写下来。

A book which contributed largely to my education, in the best sense of the term, was my father's History of India. It was published in the beginning of 1818. During the year previous, while it was passing through the press, I used to read the proof sheets to him; or rather, I read the manuscript to him while he corrected the proofs. The number of new ideas which I received from this remarkable book, and the impulse and stimulus as well as guidance given to my thoughts by its criticisms and disquisitions on society and civilization in the Hindoo part, on institutions and the acts of governments in the English part, made my early familiarity with it eminently useful to my subsequent progress. And though I can perceive deficiencies in it now as compared with a perfect standard, I still think it, if not the most, one of the most instructive histories ever written, and one of the books from which most benefit may be derived by a mind in the course of making up its opinions.

从教育的最佳意义上讲，对我的教育大有裨益的一本书是父亲的《英属印度史》，它出版于1818年年初。之前的一年，这本书正在接受出版社的审查，我经常给他读校样，或者我给他读手抄本，他改校样。从这本不寻常的书中，我得到了很多新观点，还有它对印度的社会和文明，对英国的制度和政府行为的批评及专题讨论，都给我的思想以刺激、促进和指引。早期通晓这本书，对我后来的进步产生了巨大作用。尽管和最好的标准读本相比，我现在能觉察到里面的不足，但是，我仍然认为，它即使不是人们写过的最具教育性的史书，也是其中之一，而且是个人观点形成过程中，可从中受益良多的一本书。

The Preface, among the most characteristic of my father's writings, as well as the richest in materials of thought, gives a picture which may be entirely depended on, of the sentiments and expectations with which he wrote the History. Saturated as the book is with the opinions and modes of judgment of a democratic radicalism then regarded as extreme; and treating with a severity, at that time most unusual, the English Constitution, the English law, and all parties and classes who possessed any considerable inf luence in the country; he may have expected reputation, but certainly not advancement in life, from its publication; nor could he have supposed that it would raise up anything but enemies for him in powerful quarters: least of all could he have expected favour from the East India Company, to whose commercial privileges he was unqualifiedly hostile, and on the acts of whose government he had made so many severe comments: though, in various parts of his book, he bore a testimony in their favour, which he felt to be their just due, namely, that no Government had on the whole given so much proof, to the extent of its lights, of good intention towards its subjects; and that if the acts of any other Government had the light of publicity as completely let in upon them, they would, in all probability, still less bear scrutiny.

前言最能体现父亲的著述风格，也包含最丰富的思想内涵，它忠实地反映了父亲创作《英属印度史》一书时的情绪和期待。这本书饱含当时被认为很偏激的民主激进主义的观点和判断模式;而且，对待英国宪法、英国法律和在英国拥有一定影响力的所有政党及阶级的态度非常严厉，这在当时是很罕见的。他可能期望借出版此书获得名誉，但是肯定没有指望靠它提升生活质量。除了在掌权派中增加敌人外，他也不会认为它还能带来什么。他最不奢望的是得到东印度公司的青睐，因为他绝对敌视该公司的商业特权，对它的政府行为也做了很多严厉的批评。尽管在书中不少地方，他也做了对他们有利的论述，他认为是他们应得的，即与其他政府相比，这个政府总体来说，竭尽所能给出了很多证据，证明对自己臣民的善意。如果其他任何政府的行为有觉悟完全公之于众的话，它们很可能更经受不起仔细的检查。

On learning, however, in the spring of 1819, about a year after the publication of the History, that the East India Directors desired to strengthen the part of their home establishment which was employed in carrying on the correspondence with India, my father declared himself a candidate for that employment, and, to the credit of the Directors, successfully. He was appointed one of the Assistants of the Examiner of India Correspondence; officers whose duty it was to prepare drafts of despatches to India, for consideration by the Directors, in the principal departments of administration. In this office, and in that of Examiner, which he subsequently attained, the influence which his talents, his reputation, and his decision of character gave him, with superiors who really desired the good government of India, enabled him to a great extent to throw into his drafts of despatches, and to carry through the ordeal of the Court of Directors and Board of Control, without having their force much weakened, his real opinions on Indian subjects. In his History he had set forth, for the first time, many of the true principles of Indian administration: and his despatches, following his History, did more than had ever been done before to promote the improvement of India, and teach Indian officials to understand their business. If a selection of them were published, they would, I am convinced, place his character as a practical statesman fully on a level with his eminence as a speculative writer.

然而，1819年春天，《英属印度史》出版后大概一年，得知东印度公司的董事们希望加强负责开展与印度通信联系的国内机构后，父亲宣布要竞聘这份工作。感谢那些董事们，父亲被录取了，他被任命为印度通信部的审查员助理。这类职员的职责是起草发往印度的公文，供主要行政部门的董事们参考。在这个职位上，以及在他后来获得的审查员职位上，父亲的才能、声誉和果断的性格赋予他的影响力，加上真正渴望好好管理印度的上级，使他在起草公文的时候，能够经常把自己对印度问题的观点融入其中(这一点没有削弱公文的效力)，并通过董事会和管理委员会的考验。在《英属印度史》中，他第一次阐明了印度行政管理的真正原则。他的公文，遵循《英属印度史》，对促进印度的进步起到了前所未有的作用，并教育印度官员了解自己的职责。如果选择一部分发表的话，我相信，它们会让人觉得父亲是一位勤于思考的卓越作家的同时，同样是一位务实的政治家。

This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in his attention to my education. It was in this same year, 1819, that he took me through a complete course of political economy. His loved and intimate friend, Ricardo28, had shortly before published the book which formed so great an epoch in political economy; a book which never would have been published or written, but for the entreaty and strong encouragement of my father; for Ricardo, the most modest of men, though firmly convinced of the truth of his doctrines, deemed himself so little capable of doing them justice in exposition and expression, that he shrank from the idea of publicity. The same friendly encouragement induced Ricardo, a year or two later, to become a member of the House of Commons; where, during the few remaining years of his life, unhappily cut short in the full vigour of his intellect, he rendered so much service to his and my father's opinions both in political economy and on other subjects.

尽管他的时间有了新用途，但是他一点也没有放松对我的教育的关注。同一年(1819年)，他让我完整地学习了政治经济学。他爱戴的密友李嘉图，刚刚出版了一本书，这本书在政治经济学史上开创了伟大的新纪元，但如果没有父亲的迫切要求和坚定鼓励的话，这本书根本就不会出版甚至成书。这是因为李嘉图非常谦虚，尽管坚信自己的学说非常正确，却认为自己没有能力去很好地阐述和表达，所以他不愿意公之于众。同样的友好鼓励，促使李嘉图一两年后成为下议院的议员。在那里，在他生命的最后几年里，他为自己和我父亲在政治经济学和其他问题上的观点贡献了很多，很不幸，他正当才华横溢之时离开了人世。

Though Ricardo's great work was already in print, no didactic treatise embodying its doctrines, in a manner fit for learners, had yet appeared. My father, therefore, commenced instructing me in the science by a sort of lectures, which he delivered to me in our walks. He expounded each day a portion of the subject, and I gave him next day a written account of it, which he made me rewrite over and over again until it was clear, precise, and tolerably complete. In this manner I went through the whole extent of the science; and the written outline of it which resulted from my daily compte rendu, served him afterwards as notes from which to write his Elements of Political Economy. After this I read Ricardo, giving an account daily of what I read, and discussing, in the best manner I could, the collateral points which offered themselves in our progress. On Money, as the most intricate part of the subject, he made me read in the same manner Ricardo's admirable pamphlets, written during what was called the Bullion controversy; to these succeeded Adam Smith; and in this reading it was one of my father's main objects to make me apply to Smith's more superficial view of political economy, the superior lights of Ricardo, and detect what was fallacious in Smith's arguments, or erroneous in any of his conclusions. Such a mode of instruction was excellently calculated to form a thinker; but it required to be worked by a thinker, as close and vigorous as my father. The path was a thorny one, even to him, and I am sure it was so to me, notwithstanding the strong interest I took in the subject. He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both. I thought for myself almost from the first, and occasionally thought differently from him, though for a long time only on minor points, and making his opinion the ultimate standard. At a later period I even occasionally convinced him, and altered his opinion on some points of detail: which I state to his honour, not my own. It at once exemplifies his perfect candour, and the real worth of his method of teaching.

尽管李嘉图的伟大作品已经出版，但是具有教诲性的，并以适合初学者方式写的有关其学说的论文，还没有出现。因此，父亲开始用授课的方式教我学习这门科学，在我们散步的时候讲给我听。他每天阐述这个主题的一部分，第二天，我交给他书面报告，他会让我一遍又一遍地重写，直到写得清晰易懂，严谨周密，并且相对比较完整。我以这种方式学完了这门学科的所有内容。我为了每天向他汇报而写的书面大纲，后来成了他写《政治经济学要义》的笔记。这之后，我读了李嘉图，每天报告读的内容，并尽我最大努力，讨论学习的过程中出现的问题。论金钱，是这个主题中最复杂的部分，他让我以同样的方式读李嘉图写于金价论战时期令人钦佩的小册子。这之后，我又读了亚当.斯密的大作，父亲让我读的主要目的之一，是让我把李嘉图的卓越观点应用于斯密较肤浅的政治经济学观点，找出斯密论据的谬误之处，或者结论中的任何错误。这种指导方式的目的在于培养思想家，是种非常好的指导方式。但是，必须由一个像父亲一样亲近、精力充沛的思想家来进行。这条路即使对父亲来说也是痛苦的，当然，对我来说更是如此，虽然我对这个主题很感兴趣。父亲经常由于我的失败而发火，而且不可理喻，因为在这些情况下我根本不可能成功;但总体来说，他的方法是正确的，也成功了。我认为，没有任何科学的教学方法，比父亲教我逻辑学和政治经济学的方法更全面，或更适合培养能力。他通过让我自己找出所有答案，努力调动活跃我的才能，甚至到了夸张的程度。他之前不给我解释，直到我感觉束手无策时才点拨一二;他不仅根据我当时的理解，给我这两大科目的准确知识，还让我成为逻辑学和政治经济学的思想家。我几乎从一开始就独立思考，偶尔和他的想法不一样，尽管在很长时间内，都是在小问题上不一样，最后还是以他的观点为最终标准。后来，我甚至偶尔把他给说服了，在某些小细节上，改变了他的观点。我把这归功于他，而不是我自己。这个例子直接说明了他的完全公正，以及他的教学法的真正价值。

At this point concluded what can properly be called my lessons: when I was about fourteen I left England for more than a year; and after my return, though my studies went on under my father's general direction, he was no longer my schoolmaster. I shall therefore pause here, and turn back to matters of a more general nature connected with the part of my life and education included in the preceding reminiscences.

这时，我严格意义上的功课学习结束了。大概十四岁的时候，我离开英国一年多。回来之后，尽管我的学习仍然在父亲的总体指导下进行，他已经不再是我的老师了。因此，我在这儿打住，回到前面的回忆中提到的，与我的生活和教育有关的一些泛泛的事情上去。

In the course of instruction which I have partially retraced, the point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of childhood an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of manhood. The result of the experiment shows the ease with which this may be done, and places in a strong light the wretched waste of so many precious years as are spent in acquiring the modicum of Latin and Greek commonly taught to schoolboys; a waste which has led so many educational reformers to entertain the ill-judged proposal of discarding those languages altogether from general education. If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory, or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.

在我部分回忆到的教育过程中，最明显的一点就是在童年时代，父亲努力给予我属于高等教育的知识，这种知识在成年之前很少能获得(如果真能获得的话)。这个实验的结果证明了这件事要办到其实很简单，也深刻揭露了学生们要花那么多年宝贵时间，学习一点点拉丁语和希腊语，纯属浪费时间。这种浪费让很多教育改革家有了把这些语言从普通教育中完全取消的轻率提议。如果我生来就理解速度极快，或者记忆力精确持久，又或者性格极其积极、充满活力的话，那么这个试验可能不具备决定意义。但是我在这些天分上，低于标准，而非高于标准。我能做到的，任何能力一般、体格健康的男孩或女孩肯定都做得到。如果说我取得了一些成绩的话，在诸多有利因素中，最应该归功于父亲给予我的早期训练，毫不夸张地说，与同龄人相比，我的优势在于我起步比他们早了四分之一个世纪。

There was one cardinal point in this training, of which I have already given some indication, and which, more than anything else, was the cause of whatever good it effected. Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own: and thus the sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no pains in their education, so often grow up mere parroters of what they have learnt, incapable of using their minds except in the furrows traced for them. Mine, however, was not an education of cram. My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself. As far as I can trust my remembrance, I acquitted myself very lamely in this department; my recollection of such matters is almost wholly of failures, hardly ever of success. It is true the failures were often in things in which success in so early a stage of my progress, was almost impossible. I remember at some time in my thirteenth year, on my happening to use the word idea, he asked me what an idea was; and expressed some displeasure at my ineffectual efforts to define the word: I recollect also his indignation at my using the common expression that something was true in theory but required correction in practice; and how, after making me vainly strive to define the word theory, he explained its meaning, and showed the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I had used; leaving me fully persuaded that in being unable to give a correct definition of Theory, and in speaking of it as something which might be at variance with practice, I had shown unparalleled ignorance. In this he seems, and perhaps was, very unreasonable; but I think, only in being angry at my failure. A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do never does all he can.

我已经提到过这种训练里面最重要的一点，训练中获得的任何益处都源自于它。大多数通过反复练习而获得知识的孩子或年轻人，他们的智能不但没有得到提高，反而被知识湮没了。他们的脑子里填满了单纯的事实，以及他人的观点和言辞，他们接受了这些东西，让它们取代了形成自己观点的能力。因此，一位杰出父亲的儿子，不遗余力地接受教育，经常长大后却只会鹦鹉学舌，除了回忆学过的东西外，他的大脑别无他用。然而，我的教育不是填鸭式的。父亲决不允许我所学的东西仅仅退化为记忆的练习。他不仅力求教学过程的每一步我都能理解，有可能的话，还让我的理解提前于教学。任何需要思考才能获得的东西，他从来都不会告诉我，除非我已经尽了最大努力还没有找出来。如果我没记错的话，在这方面我表现得很差。回想起来，这种事情我基本都是失败，很少成功。其实，失败经常发生在以我的初学程度几乎不可能成功的地方。我记得十三岁时，有一次我碰巧用到“观点”这个词，他问我什么是观点，我没能很好地下定义，他表示出不满。我还记得，我说了一句套话，说有些东西理论上正确，但是实践起来需要改进，他听了很气愤。在我试图定义“理论”徒劳无功后，他向我解释了它的意思，并指出我所用的通俗语言的谬误。这让我完全相信，不能给“理论”正确地下定义，还说它可能与实践不一致，我是多么的无知。他这么做，似乎很不讲理，或者说就是很不讲理。但是我想，这只是在我失败而惹他生气时才会发生。如果从来不要求学生做他做不到的事情，那么他也决不会去做所有自己能做到的事情。

One of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency, and which often fatally blights its promise, my father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme vigilance, out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attainments were anything unusual at my age. If I accidentally had my attention drawn to the fact that some other boy knew less than myself—which happened less often than might be imagined—I concluded, not that I knew much, but that he, for some reason or other, knew little, or that his knowledge was of a different kind from mine. My state of mind was not humility, but neither was it arrogance. I never thought of saying to myself, I am, or I can do, so and so. I neither estimated myself highly nor lowly: I did not estimate myself at all. If I thought anything about myself, it was that I was rather backward in my studies, since I always found myself so, in comparison with what my father expected from me. I assert this with confidence, though it was not the impression of various persons who saw me in my childhood. They, as I have since found, thought me greatly and disagreeably self-conceited; probably because I was disputatious, and did not scruple to give direct contradictions to things which I heard said. I suppose I acquired this bad habit from having been encouraged in an unusual degree to talk on matters beyond my age, and with grown persons, while I never had inculcated on me the usual respect for them. My father did not correct this ill-breeding and impertinence, probably from not being aware of it, for I was always too much in awe of him to be otherwise than extremely subdued and quiet in his presence. Yet with all this I had no notion of any superiority in myself; and well was it for me that I had not. I remember the very place in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of leaving my father's house for a long absence, he told me that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not. I have a distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated, was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which my father told me, I gave implicit credence, but which did not at all impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify myself upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever they might be, were any merit of mine: but, now when my attention was called to the subject, I felt that what my father had said respecting my peculiar advantages was exactly the truth and common sense of the matter, and it fixed my opinion and feeling from that time forward.

年少时即小有成绩的人，大都会有一个毛病，而这经常是致命的，会毁掉人的前途，父亲时刻不忘，谨防它的出现。这个毛病就是自满。他非常警惕，不让我听到赞美之词，或者被人引导，拿自己和别人做自得的比较。从他和我的交流当中，我只会觉得自己非常低微。他给我订立的比较标准，不是看别人做过什么，而是一个人能够做什么，以及应该做什么。他非常成功地使我免于受到那些他所担心的事情的影响。我根本没意识到我的成绩在那个年龄来说，有什么不寻常。如果我偶尔注意到别的男孩比我懂得少的话——这种情况比想象的要少——我的结论不是我懂得多，而是他，由于某种原因懂得少，或者他的知识类型与我的不同。我的心态不是谦逊，但也不是自大。我心里从来没有过“我怎么样”，或“我能怎么样”之类的想法。我没有高估，也没有低估自己：我根本就不估量自己。如果说我对自己有过什么想法的话，就是我在学习上太落后，因为和父亲对我的期望相比，我总是如此。我这么说非常肯定，可是在我童年时见过我的许多人，对我的印象并非如此。我后来发现，他们觉得我非常自大，令人不快;很可能是因为我爱争论，不管听到别人说什么，都直接反驳，从不迟疑。我想，我养成这个坏习惯，是因为经常被鼓励谈论超越我年龄的事情，并且是和成年人讨论，但我从未告诫自己对他们要有基本的尊重。父亲之所以没有纠正我这种没教养、无礼的行为，很可能是因为没有注意到，因为我总是特别害怕他，在他面前只会极其克制，安静。然而不管怎么说，我没有任何优越感，这对我来说也是有益的。十四岁时，在即将离开父亲的家很长一段时间的前夕，我记得就在海德公园的那个地方，父亲告诉我说，在开始认识新的人的时候，我应该知道自己学了很多东西，是和我一样大的年轻人通常不知道的。很多人会和我说起这件事，还会因此恭维我。关于这个话题，他还说了什么，我记得不很清楚了。但是，他总结说，不管我比别人多知道些什么，都不能归功于我自己，而要归功于我的运气好，有非常难得的优势，那就是有个能教导我，并且乐意花费必要的心思和时间的父亲。如果我比没有类似优势的人懂得多的话，并不值得赞美，比他们懂得少，才是最大的耻辱。我很清楚地记得，这是父亲第一次暗示我，说我比其他受过良好教育的年轻人懂得多，与他告诉我的其他事情一样，我对此毫不怀疑，但我并没有把它视为个人问题。我不会因为别人不知道我所知道的事情，就要赞美自己。我也从没有自夸，说自己的成就，不管是什么，有一点点归功于我自己。但是，现在我已经注意到这个问题了，我觉得父亲关于我的独特优势的说法，完全是事实，在这件事上也符合常理，它使我的看法和感觉从那时起始终如一。

It is evident that this, among many other of the purposes of my father's scheme of education, could not have been accomplished if he had not carefully kept me from having any great amount of intercourse with other boys. He was earnestly bent upon my escaping not only the ordinary corrupting influence which boys exercise over boys, but the contagion of vulgar modes of thought and feeling; and for this he was willing that I should pay the price of inferiority in the accomplishments which schoolboys in all countries chiefly cultivate. The deficiencies in my education were principally in the things which boys learn from being turned out to shift for themselves, and from being brought together in large numbers. From temperance and much walking, I grew up healthy and hardy, though not muscular; but I could do no feats of skill or physical strength, and knew none of the ordinary bodily exercises. It was not that play, or time for it, was refused me. Though no holidays were allowed, lest the habit of work should be broken, and a taste for idleness acquired, I had ample leisure in every day to amuse myself; but as I had no boy companions, and the animal need of physical activity was satisfied by walking, my amusements, which were mostly solitary, were in general, of a quiet, if not a bookish turn, and gave little stimulus to any other kind even of mental activity than that which was already called forth by my studies; I consequently remained long, and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my mind, as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was applied, or ought to have been applied, to the practical details which, as they are the chief interest of life to the majority of men, are also the things in which whatever mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself. I was constantly meriting reproof by inattention, inobservance, and general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he carried decision and energy of character in his whole manner and into every action of life: and this, as much as his talents, contributed to the strong impression which he always made upon those with whom he came into personal contact. But the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up unenergetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them. The education which my father gave me, was in itself much more fitted for training me to know than to do. Not that he was unaware of my deficiencies; both as a boy and as a youth I was incessantly smarting under his severe admonitions on the subject. There was anything but insensibility or tolerance on his part towards such shortcomings: but, while he saved me from the demoralizing effects of school life, he made no effort to provide me with any sufficient substitute for its practicalizing influences. Whatever qualities he himself, probably, had acquired without difficulty or special training, he seems to have supposed that I ought to acquire as easily. He had not, I think, bestowed the same amount of thought and attention on this, as on most other branches of education; and here, as well in some other points of my tuition, he seems to have expected effects without causes.

在父亲教育计划的众多目标中，如果不是他小心翼翼地阻止我和其他男孩子过多接触的话，这个目标很显然不会实现。父亲不仅小心地让我避开常见的、男孩子间互相施加的坏影响，还急切地决心要让我避开粗俗的思考方式和感情的恶劣影响。为此，他情愿让我付出代价，即所有国家的男学生都具备的主要能力上，我却比别人差。我所受的教育的缺点，主要是不具备男孩子们在接受自谋生路的训练过程中学到的技能和他们在群体活动中所学到的东西。我虽然不怎么强壮，但是通过戒酒和散步，得以健康成长。然而，我不会做任何技能或是体能的事情，也完全不了解常见的身体锻炼方法。我并不是拒绝玩耍，或者没有时间玩耍。尽管父亲不给我假期，以免打破学习的习惯，养成懒惰的习性，但我每天还是有充足的时间自娱自乐。不过，因为我没有男孩玩伴，并且身体活动的动物本能已由散步来满足，所以我的娱乐活动大多都是单独进行的，即使不是手不释卷的话，通常也是安静的，除了能够刺激我为了学习已经开动的大脑外，这种活动不会给我的任何其他活动，甚至是智力活动带来刺激。因此，很长时间以来，我都不擅长做任何需要灵活动作的事情，后来好了一点，但是可以说一直以来都不怎么擅长。我的大脑以及双手，用来做具体的事情时，或者应该用到它们时，经常很没有效率，而对于大多数人来说，这些事情是生活中的主要情趣，也是他们所拥有的心智能力得以展现的主要方式。我经常由于对日常生活中的事物疏忽，不留心观察，经常因漫不经心而被训斥。在这些细节上，父亲和我完全相反：他的感官和头脑总是十分警觉，他做出的与他性格相符的决定和他所具有的活力体现在他的行事风格和生活中的每个举动中。这差不多和他的才干一样，总是给那些和他交往过的人留下深刻印象。但是，充满活力的父母的孩子，往往长大后很懒散，因为他们依赖父母，而父母也为他们积极打算。父亲给我的教育，本质上更适合于训练我思考的能力而非动手的能力。他并非不知道我的缺点，在我童年和青少年时期，他严厉地警告我这些问题，让我很痛苦。他绝不是不在乎或者能容忍这样的缺点，但是，尽管他使我免受学校生活的不利影响，他并没有尽力为我提供足够的东西来替代学校的实践作用。很可能对那些他自己没有费力气，或没经过特殊训练就获得的素质，不管是什么样的，他似乎都认为我也应该同样轻易就能获得。我想，在这点上，他没有像教育的其他方面那样给予同等的思考和关注。他似乎只期待成果，而不考虑起因。

(1) 大卫·休谟(1711—1776)，苏格兰历史学家、哲学家。与约翰·洛克及乔治·贝克莱并称三大英国经验主义者。

(2) 罗伯特·胡克(1635—1703)，英国实验主义哲学家、物理学家，著名成果有“胡克定律(Hooke's Law)”。

(3) 杰瑞米·边沁(1748—1832)，英国哲学家、法学家，功利主义伦理学的早期代表人物，代表作是《道德及立法原理》。

(4) 普鲁士，位于北欧。

(5) 约翰·诺克斯(1505—1572)，苏格兰宗教改革家和史学家，创立苏格兰长老会。

(6)贵格会，又称公谊会或者教友派(ReligiousSocietyofFriends)。

(7) 弗朗西斯·德雷克爵士(1540—1596)，英国航海家，最初环绕地球航行的人。

(8) 詹姆斯·库克船长(1728—1779)，英国海军上校、航海家，太平洋和南极海洋的探险家。

(9)《伊利亚特》，古希腊描写特洛伊战争的英雄史诗，相传为荷马所作。

(10) 欧几里得，约公元前3世纪，古希腊数学家，著有《几何原本》13卷，一直流传至今。

(11) 贺拉斯(公元前65—前8)，古罗马诗人，从倾向共和转而拥护帝制，作品有《讽刺诗集》、《颂歌》等。

(12) 李维(公元前59—公元17)，古罗马历史学家。他所著的《罗马史》共有142卷。