Chapter 25 Emile (Volume Four) Section Five

So, how can we study people correctly?Study them with great interest, judge them with great impartiality, and conceive of human desires with a mind quite sensitive, and a mind quite cool enough not to be impervious to those desires. stimulation.If there is a time in life that is suitable for such research, it is the time I have chosen for Emile: too early, he is very strange to the world; They are the same.He has seen the power of human prejudice, but he has not yet been ruled by it; he has felt the influence of desire, but desire has not disturbed his heart.He is a man, he will care for his brother; he is just, he will judge his peers.If he judged them rightly, he would not want to be any of them; for all their sufferings were for the purpose which they conceived from their prejudices, which he had not. , so the purpose of that seems to him slim.As for him, everything he desires can be obtained with his ability.Why should he depend on others when he can satisfy his own needs without being swayed by other people's prejudices?He had two arms, health, temperance, few wants, and the means of satisfying them.He was brought up in absolute freedom, so he considered the greatest evil to be slavery.He sympathizes with the poor kings, whom he regards as the slaves of all that obey them; ; he sympathized with those outwardly triumphant drunks who spent their whole lives in drowsiness in order to make others look happy.He even sympathizes with enemies who have done him wrong, for he sees their pain in their bad deeds.He will say to himself: "This man wants to hurt me, so he attaches his fate to mine." One step further and we have achieved our goal.Selfishness is a useful instrument, but a dangerous one; it often wounds the hand that wields it, and seldom works for good but not for evil.Considering his position among men, and finding his position so fortunate, it is tempting to regard the achievements of your wisdom as those of his own, and to describe the effects of his happy situation as It is his own credit.He will say to himself: "I am very clever, and everyone else is a fool." When he sympathizes with others, he may show contempt for them; when he is congratulating himself, he may think of himself as great ; when he realizes that he is happier than them, he may think that he is more worthy of such happiness than they are.This is the most terrible error, because it is the most difficult to eradicate.If he perpetuates this idea, he will not be able to get much benefit from our various cares; if I had to choose, I don't know if I would rather be deluded by prejudice than pride confuse.

Great men never abuse their virtues; they see and realize that they are superior to others, but never become less humble because of it.The more they excel, the more they realize their deficiencies.They are not so much vain in their superiority as they are in their weaknesses; and while enjoying their own merits, they are never so foolish as to boast of gifts which they do not possess. .A good man may be proud of his virtue, because it is his; but what has a man of talent to be proud of?What was Racine's attitude when he felt inferior to Pradon?What was Boileau's attitude when he felt inferior to Cotin?

Our situation is completely different, we have always done it at a normal level.I assume that my students are neither geniuses nor dull-witted.I chose him among common people, to show what education can do to people.As for rare cases, it does not follow the routine.If, therefore, Emile, through my upbringing, chooses his present way of life, opinion, and understanding over those of others, he is right; but if he therefore If he thinks that he is better endowed and nobler than others, then he is wrong, and he is deceiving himself; he must be awakened, or he must be prevented from such fallacies, lest he will die too late. Can't change it.

A man who is not mad has no delusions that are incurable except his vanity; and if there is anything that can cure it at all, it is experience; we at least Can prevent it from continuing to develop when it spawns.So it is not necessary to give them any good reasoning in order to show young people that they are human beings just like everyone else, and have their weaknesses just like everyone else.You make him aware of it, or you keep him from knowing it.This, too, is an exceptional case in my own teaching; and in such cases, I prefer to let my pupil experience something unexpected, in order to prove to him that he is no better than we. Smarter.Like the encounter with the magician mentioned earlier, it can be repeated in various ways. I will let the flatterer take advantage of him; I'll let him go to his mischief; if the swindlers tell him to gamble, I'll let him fall on them, I'll let them flatter him, cheat him, rob him; I cheated out of all my money, and when I was having fun with him, I even thanked them in front of him for teaching him a good lesson.Only the traps set by lewd women I will be very careful to prevent him from falling into.The only course I took was to risk with him the dangers I had exposed him to, and to bear with him the shame I had exposed him to.I will bear all this in silence, without murmuring, without complaining, and never mentioning these things to him; and I am convinced that if I have been so cautious, he will see what I have suffered for him, The impression made on his mind was deeper than that of his own suffering.

I can't help here trying to expose the hypocrisy of teachers who, in their foolish attempt to show intelligence, restrain their pupils by pretending that they always treat them as children, and that, in their When students are asked to do something, they always pretend that if they do it, they must be better than the students.Instead of damaging the courage of the young in this way, every effort should be made to raise their confidence, to bring them up to your level, so that they may become your equal; level, you yourself should descend to their level without hesitation or shame.You must know that your decency is not in yourself, but in your pupils; to correct their faults, you must share their faults; to avenge their shame, you must bear their shame.Be like the brave Roman who, when he saw his army fleeing beyond repair, ran ahead of his soldiers, and led them into flight, crying, "They are not fleeing, but following their commander. "Is he dishonored by it?Not at all; he gained greater honor at the expense of honor.The strength of calling, and the beauty of morality, break down our foolish prejudices, and compel us to praise him.If I were slapped in the face while doing my duty for Emile, instead of revenge, I would spread the word about it, and I don't believe there is anyone in the world who is so bad that he doesn't respect me very much. .

A student should not think that the teacher's knowledge is as limited as his own, and that the teacher is also easy to fall into the trap of others.It is a good idea if a child, because he cannot observe and compare, regards all men as his own level, and trusts only those who put themselves on his level.But a young man of Emile's age and intelligence is not so foolish as to have such erroneous ideas, and if he had, he would be a bad young man.His trust in the teacher is another kind of trust, that is, trust in rational judgment, trust in profound knowledge, and trust in the strengths that he can understand and think are beneficial to him.From his long-term experience, he deeply believes that the person who taught him loves him very much, is a wise and knowledgeable person, and knows how to seek happiness for him.He should know that it is in his own interest to listen to this man.However, if the teacher is repeatedly deceived by others like the students, he has no right to force the students to respect him, and he has no right to teach the students.A student should not think that the teacher deliberately let him fall into other people's traps, and set up many traps for him seeing that he is simple-minded.What can be done to avoid both of these bad thoughts at the same time?The best course, and the most natural course, is to be as innocent and simple as he is, to tell him about the dangers he is about to encounter, to point out those dangers to him clearly, but never to exaggerate, never to be hasty. , never pretend to be mysterious, especially don't take your opinion as an order, so that he has to obey, and never speak in a dogmatic tone.What if, having done so, he persisted in his usual obstinacy, insisting on doing it?Say nothing then, and do as he pleases, and you do as he does, and do so cheerfully and frankly; hapiness.If the consequences are really too serious, you are always there to stop them; then the young man will see your foresight and good intentions, and how can he not admire your vision and appreciate your kindness!His various mistakes just become the reins in your hands, which can be used to restrain him when necessary.Here, one of the greatest arts that a teacher should master is: to give advice according to the situation, to be able to predict under what circumstances the young man may listen to him, and under what circumstances he may still be so stubborn, so that experience can teach him lessons everywhere. him, without exposing him to too much danger.

Show him his faults before he commits them; and never blame him after he has committed them, for this will only make him angry and make him rebel against you out of pride.It would be no good if it aroused his resentment when teaching him a lesson.I think the most inappropriate thing is to say to him: "I told you a long time ago." The best way to make him recall what you told him is to make it seem like you said On the contrary, when you see him feel ashamed for not listening to you, you should kindly cover his shame with nice words.He will be grateful to you when he sees that you forget yourself for his sake, and instead of embarrassing him, comfort him.If you blame him when he's sad, he'll hate you and swear he won't listen to you again, to show that he doesn't value your opinion as much as you do.

Your comfort to him is in itself a lesson to him, and if he does not have any doubts about your comfort, the more effective this education will be.I think that when you told him that many people have made the same mistake, he didn't expect you to say such a thing to him, so you corrected his mistake by superficially sympathizing with him. Come over; for it would be shameful for a man who thinks he is superior to others to console himself with the excuse that others have such examples, and he will see that the most he can henceforth say is that others are not superior to him. up. The time to make a mistake is the time to tell a fable.We can educate him without offending him by condemning the sinner by this strange form of fable; he sees himself the truth of the fable, and sees that what it says is true.A child who has never been fooled by a flatterer cannot understand the fable I have just explained; but a stupid child who has just been fooled by a sycophant can clearly see that the crow is indeed a fool .In this way, he will gain wisdom after experiencing an event, and he may soon forget the experience of an event, but through fables, it can be engraved in his heart.All the lessons in the fables can be obtained from the experience of others or from his own experience.Let him seek experience from history, not try it himself, if he has to go through some danger to gain experience.If nothing serious happens in the course of the attempt, let the young man take the risk, and we may make aphorisms in the form of parables of particular instances which he does not yet know.

However, I don't mean that you should explain what these aphorisms mean, much less that you should put them in a certain format.Most fables end with the emptiest and most misunderstood allegory, as if it were done in this way to make it clear to the reader because it cannot or should not be made clear!Why add this allegory at the end, so as to deprive readers of the fun of using their own brains to experience it?The art of education is getting students to enjoy what you are teaching.In order to interest him in what you teach, his mind should not be so acquiesced to what you say, that he should have nothing to do but listen to you.A teacher should of course have self-esteem, but he must also allow students to have opportunities to display their self-esteem. Let him be able to say: "I think about it, I understand, I see what it means, and I have learned it." Italian comedy The buffoon in the movie is very annoying, one of the reasons is that he insists on explaining to the audience a set of lines that everyone already understands.I don't like a teacher to be such a buffoon, and I don't like him to be a fable writer.The most important thing is to make your students understand what you are saying, but you should not finish everything. Those who finish everything will not be able to say anything well, because at the end, others will not listen. His.What is the meaning of those quatrains that La Fontaine added to the fable about the puffed-up frog?Is he afraid that others will not understand this fable?Does this great painter need to write the names of the things he painted?In this way, instead of making his fable widely applicable to general situations, he made it applicable only to special situations, confining it to the example he gave, and preventing everyone from applying it to others. example.I would like you to delete the epilogue from the fables of this incomparable author before you give them to a young man, for what he has expounded with so much effort in the epilogue he has said clearly. It's fun again.If your pupil cannot understand the fable without the aid of this explanation, I am sure he will not understand it even with it.

It should also be noted that the order of reading these fables should fully conform to the principles of teaching methods and fully conform to the progress of young people's intellectual and emotional development.Please think about it, wouldn’t it be unreasonable to read the book in a rigid order without taking into account the need and the situation at the time?Start with the cicada, then the crow, then the frog, then the two mules, and so on.I didn't like the parable of the two mules very much, because I remember seeing a kid learning about finances who was confused by the job he was going to have; the kid learned the fable and read He read it over and over again, and read it thousands of times, but he didn't see any reason against him pursuing that kind of career.Not only have I never seen children actually apply the fables they have learned, but I have never seen anyone take pains to teach them to use them.People say fables orally as a kind of moral education. In fact, the real purpose of mother and child is to invite a group of people to listen to him recite fables. Therefore, when they grow up and need to apply rather than recite, they will completely forgotten.Again, it is grown-ups who should learn from fables; and now the time has come for Emile to learn them.

As I did not want to finish everything, I pointed out from a distance which paths to take would lead away from the path of light, so that he could avoid them.I believe that your student will acquire knowledge of man and of himself at the cheapest price, by following the road I have indicated; The darling of fate is jealous of such luck that you can make him content with himself without thinking he is smarter than anyone else.By making him an audience, you are beginning to make him an actor.The work had to be done, because things were seen from the box as they appeared to be, and what was seen on the stage was what they were.You have to sit in a proper seat to have a panoramic view; you have to get closer to see it carefully.But in what name should a young man take part in the affairs of the world?What right had he to ask about those dark mysteries?At this age, he only knows how to play, he can only arrange his own life, that is to say, he is not yet able to deal with anything.Man is the cheapest of commodities, and of all our great property rights, the rights of the person are the least. When I see young people only learning purely theoretical things at the most active age, and throwing themselves into society and taking on tasks when they have no practical experience, I think this practice is as contrary to rationality as it is It's against nature.So, if it is said that only a very small number of people know how to deal with people, I don't think it is strange at all.Since it doesn't matter whether we can do things or not, why do we have such random ideas that we should learn so many useless things?They say they train us for the sake of society, but in fact, judging from the methods of educating us, it seems that each of us can only think alone in the study all our lives, or we can only talk about our dreams with irrelevant people all our lives. The problem.You think teaching your child how to live is by teaching him to do some gymnastics and say nonsense clichés.As for me, I teach my Emile how to live, I teach him to live by his own efforts, and besides, how to earn his bread.This is not enough.In order to live in the world, one must also know how to treat people and use the tools of domination; one must be able to estimate the effects and reactions of personal interests in a civilized society, and one must also correctly anticipate important events in such a way that one's career not to be deceived, or at least to enable oneself to choose good means to success.The law does not allow young people to manage their own affairs and property by themselves, but what is the use of such measures to protect young people if they have no experience at all when they reach the legal age?It is no good to ask them to wait till that age to make up their own minds, and it will make them at twenty-five the same as they were at fifteen, knowing nothing of practical matters.Doubtless, we want to prevent a young man from harming himself through ignorance or the blindness of lust, but he should be taught to be kind at all ages, under the guidance of a man of knowledge. to protect the poor who need our assistance. Nurses and mothers have taken pains to raise their children, so they love them very much; the practice of social morality has brought human love to people's hearts.It is by doing good things that people become good men, and I think this is most certain.Let your pupil do all good deeds which he can comprehend; let him regard the interests of the poor as his own; let him not only help them with money, but show concern for them; let him serve them, Let him protect them, sacrifice his personal interests and his time for them; let him see himself as their servant: he should hold such a noble office all his life.How many oppressed people have no place to appeal their grievances, but now he upholds justice for them, because he has developed a brave and resolute character from moral practice, so he can speak out for them unyieldingly, can For them break into the courts of the great and the rich, and, if need be, straight into the palace, and tell the king their tales for the wretched who are too poor and helpless, and dare not complain for fear of the reprisal of the wicked. sound. However, do we want to train Emile to be a ranger and a righteous man who fights against injustice?Will he interfere in public affairs, will he go about the palaces and yamen of princes and nobles as a wise man and guardian of the law, will he intercede with judges for others, and appear in court as a lawyer for others?I don't know all of this.Ridiculous names do not change the nature of things in the slightest.He will do everything that he thinks is useful and good.He did nothing superfluous, and he knew that nothing useful or profitable to him could be done for a man of his age.He knows that he has to do his duty to himself above all, and he knows that young people should not trust themselves too much, that they should behave cautiously, that they should show respect to the elders, that they should be cautious about talking nonsense, and that they should be restrained. Do boring things, but dare to do meaningful things, dare to speak the truth.Such was the case with those Romans who are immortal, whose whole youth, before taking charge, devoted themselves to the punishment of crime and the defense of the innocent, with the purpose of educating themselves in the conduct of justice and the protection of good customs. Emile didn't like to make noise or quarrel, not only did he not like people quarreling, but he also didn't like animals fighting with animals.He never pitted two dogs against each other, never called a dog to chase a cat.This peaceful spirit is one of the results of his education, which did not inculcate in him any selfishness or self-importance that would take pleasure in dominating others and making them suffer. .It is a natural emotion that he sees others suffer, and he suffers himself.The reason why a young man can bear and even enjoy seeing a sentient being suffer is because he thinks that by virtue of his intelligence and superior position he can avoid that suffering.Whoever can guarantee that he will not be infected by this kind of thinking will not fall into the disaster caused by this kind of thinking.So Emile loves peace very much.He takes pleasure in seeing happy faces, and when he manages to make others smile, he takes pleasure in it himself.I do not think that he, when he sees poor souls, is capable of saying to them indifferently empty words of sympathy, or a mere sigh for a pain which he can heal with his pity. of.His active philanthropy soon enabled him to acquire many knowledges which he could not acquire, or would have acquired much later, if his heart had been hardened.If he sees discord between his companions, he will try his best to resolve it; if he sees people sullen, he will inquire about their distress; if he sees two people hating each other, he will ask them about their hostility. If he sees a poor man groaning under the oppression of the powerful and the rich, he will find ways to relieve him of his torment; he cares for all unfortunate people, so he cannot but care about all means that can relieve their pain.What should we do to bring these tendencies to good effect in a manner appropriate to his age?We should guide his thinking and learning, use his enthusiasm to improve his thinking and learning ability. I will never tire of repeating this point: educate the youth by deeds, not words, they will not learn in books what they learn by experience.When they have nothing to say, force them to practice eloquence; when they have nothing to persuade others, force them to sit on the bench in the classroom and feel the power of bold sentences and the beauty of persuasive words , how absurd this is!All rhetoric, to a man who does not understand the usefulness of rhetoric, is mere artifice.What does it matter if a schoolboy knows how Hannibal embellished his words in order to strengthen his men's determination to cross the Alps?On the contrary, if you don't tell him those beautiful words, but teach him how to say it so that the headmaster will give him a day off, I guarantee that he will pay attention to your way of saying words. If I were to teach rhetoric to a young man who already has all sorts of desires, I would go on and on telling him things that would fuel his desires, and then I would work out with him what words should be used to persuade others. Satisfy his desires.But my Emile's circumstances are such that his eloquence is not of much use; for almost all his wants are bodily, so that he depends not so much on others as others depend on him. At the same time, because he has nothing to ask of them, even if he has something to persuade them, he will not be too anxious and impulsive.It can be seen that what he said should generally be unpretentious.He should speak plainly and often to the point, and the only requirement is that people can understand him.He seldom speaks very sharp words, because he has not learned how to generalize his thoughts; since he is rarely emotional, he seldom uses metaphors in his words. But this is not because he is very dull.Neither his age nor his temper or interests allowed him to be like this.His active and stable spirit was soaked in the enthusiasm of youth and refined by his blood, which brought a heat to his innocent heart, not only made his eyes shine with this heat, but also made his eyes shine. We also feel it in his words and see it in his actions.He already spoke in a circumflex tone, and at times he spoke violently.Noble sentiments excited his inspiration, made him full of strength, and his heart was noble.His heart is full of love for human beings, so the activities of his heart are also revealed in his language.His frank words are more attractive than other people's rhetoric, or to be more precise, he is the real man of words, because he can make the obedient body feel as if he only needs to speak out the feelings in his heart. will his feelings. The more I think about it, the more I think that there is no useful knowledge that cannot be imparted to us, as long as benevolence is thus put into action, and as long as we seek out the reasons for what we do well and what we do not do well. a young man's heart; and, besides the real knowledge acquired in school, it enables him to acquire a more important learning, which is the application of the knowledge he acquires to his life.He cares so much for his companions that it is impossible for him not to learn very quickly how to measure and discern their behaviour, their tastes and interests, more than those who care for no one and therefore do not care for anyone else. Those who do not are more able to evaluate correctly which things are beneficial or harmful to human happiness.People who only know how to think about their own affairs are too emotional to judge things rationally.This kind of people only know everything for themselves, and decide their actions completely according to their concept of good and evil. Therefore, their minds are full of many ridiculous prejudices, as long as they touch a little bit of their interests , They immediately felt that the sky had fallen. As long as we expand our self-love to love others, we can turn self-love into a virtue. This kind of virtue can find its root in any person's heart.The less our concerns are directly related to us, the less we are afraid to be deceived by our own interest; the more we make this interest common to others, the more just it is; therefore, love of human beings seems to us Come to love justice.Therefore, if Emile is to be made to love the truth, if he is to be able to know it, we must in every way make him think far from his own interests.The more interested he is in the happiness of others, the brighter and wiser his heart will be, and the less he will be mistaken about what is good and what is evil; but we must not allow him to rely solely on personal opinions or incorrect prejudices. resulting in blind preference.Why should he harm another in order to serve one?As long as he promotes the greatest happiness of all, what does it matter to him that everyone benefits from it?A wise man is concerned first with the good of all, and then with that of any individual; for every interest belongs to mankind as a whole, and not to any one of them. In order to prevent sympathy from degenerating into cowardice, it is necessary to sympathize with the whole human being in general.Thus, when we have sympathy, we can first sympathize with justice, because justice, of all virtues, is the most conducive to the common welfare of mankind.Reason and self-love make us sympathize with our human beings more than our neighbours; and to sympathize with the bad is to be cruel to other human beings. Furthermore, it must be remembered that we were able to employ these methods of making my pupil forget himself in this way precisely because they had an immediate relation to him, because they not only gave him an inner pleasure, And when I make him do good to others, I also educate him. I have already presented these methods, and I shall now speak of their effects.What a grand vision I saw slowly unfolding in his mind!What noble sentiments blocked the germs of petty desires from growing in his heart!As his inclinations were noble, as his experience taught him how to concentrate the desires of a great soul within a strictly possible sphere, how to make a man who is superior to others fail when he cannot raise them to his own level. To descend to their level, what clarity of judgment and what sound reason have thus developed in him!The principles of true justice, the models of true beauty, all the moral relations of man to man, all notions of order, all these were imprinted upon his mind; he knew the proper place of each. and what took it out of that place; he knew what worked for a man and what didn't.Although he has not experienced the troubles of the world, he has seen their illusions and their functions. Regardless of the reader's judgment, I will follow the path in which the force of things leads me.For a long time they thought I was wandering in the Land of Dreams, and I thought they were always in the Land of Prejudice.While thus resolutely rejecting the vulgarity of ordinary people, I still keep thinking of them in my mind: I analyze them, think deeply about them, not to accept them or to escape them, but to They are weighed on the scales of reason.Whenever I have been unable to part ways with the vulgarity of the common people, experience has taught me that the readers will not follow my example.I know that since they have to see it to believe that what I say is true, the young man I describe is regarded as a fantastic fiction, because they compare him with other young people. ，就觉得他跟那些青年是大不相同的；他们没有想到，他跟他们大不相同，那是当然的，因为，他跟他们所受的培养迥然两样，他跟他们熏染的感情也完全相反，他跟他们所受的教育也完全不同，所以，要是他长得象我想象的那个样子，那是没有什么奇怪的；反之，要是他长得同他们一样了，那才奇怪咧。他不是人培养出来的人，他是大自然培养出来的人。所以，他在他们看来当然是很稀奇的。 在开始写这本书的时候，我就决定我要论述的事情没有一样是除我以外其他的人不能论述的，因为我着手论述的起点，即人的诞生，是我们大家都同样可以从这一点开始论起的；但是，我们愈是论述下去，我们之间就愈来愈分歧，因为我主张培养天性，而你则要败坏天性。我的学生在六岁的时候，同你的学生没有什么分别，因为在那段期间你还来不及损坏他们本来的面目；可是现在，他们之间已经没有什么相似的地方了；他即将达到成人的年龄，到了这个年龄，如果我没有枉自辛苦一阵的话，他就要长得同你的学生绝对两样。他们所学到的知识，拿数量来说也许彼此是相等的，但就内容来说，就一点也不同了。你发现他具有高尚的情操，而你的学生连这种情操的苗头都没有，就感到惊异；可是，你曾否想到，当你的学生已经成为哲学家和神学家的时候，爱弥儿还不晓得什么叫哲学，还没有听人讲过上帝哩。 如果有人来向我说：“你所说的那种人是不存在的，青年人决不是那个样子，他们有这样或那样的欲望，他们要做这样或那样的事情。”这种说法，就正如有些人因为见到花园中的梨树都很矮小，便否认梨树可以长成大树。 我请求那些这样欢喜责难他人的批评家要想到，他们所说的这种情况，我也同他们一样地知道得很清楚，也许我对这种情况考虑的时间比他们还多，同时，由于我并不是非要他们接受我的看法不可，因此我有权利要求他们至少要超过一番之后才来挑我的错处。希望他们好好地研究一下人的身体，希望他们详细的观察一下人的心在这样或那样的环境中的最初的发展，以便了解一个人在他所受的教育的影响下，可以同另外一个人有多么大的区别；然后，把我施行的教育和在他身上产生的效果加以比较，才说出我的理论在哪些地方是错了。要是这样来批评的话，也许就可以把我批评得无话可说了。 我之所以说得这样肯定，而且我认为可以原谅我说得这样肯定的理由是：我不仅不刻板地抱着一套方式，而且还尽可能地不按理论而按我实际观察的情况去做。我所根据的，不是我的想象而是我所看到的事实。的确，我并没有局限于只从某一个城市的市区或其一种等级的人的生活中去取得我的经验；当我尽量把我在过去的生活中所见到的各种社会地位的人加以比较之后，就决定：凡是那些只是这个民族有而另一个民族没有，只是这种职业的人有而另一种职业的人没有的东西，都是人为的，应该加以抛弃；而需要研究的，只是那些对所有一切的人，对各种年龄的人，对任何社会地位和任何民族的人来说，都是无可争辩地人人共有的东西。 如果你从一个青年的童年时候起，就按照这个方法去教育他，而且在教育的过程中，如果他不受任何偏狭之见的影响，尽可能不为他人的权威和看法所左右，请你想一想，结果他是象我的学生呢还是象你的学生？为了弄清楚我是不是错了，我觉得，首先要回答我这个问题。 一个人并不是那样轻而易举地就开始动脑筋思想的，但他一经开始，他就再也不会停止动他的脑筋了。无论什么人，只要曾经运用过他的思想，他就会经常地有所思虑。人的智力只要用来考虑过一件事情，它从此就再也静止不下来了。有些人也许认为我在这方面做的工作太多或者太少，认为人的心窍生来不是那样轻易就能打开的，认为我使他获得了他未曾有过的便利条件之后，又使他过久地呆在他早就应该超越过去的思想范围内。 不过，你首先要想到的是，虽然是我想把他培养成一个自然的人，但不能因此就一定要使他成为一个野蛮人，一定要把他赶到森林中去。我的目的是：只要他处在社会生活的漩流中，不至于被种种欲念或人的偏见拖进漩涡里去就行了；只要他能够用他自己的眼睛去看，用他自己的心去想，而且，除了他自己的理智以外，不为任何其他的权威所控制就行了。在这种情况下，显然有许多使他动心的事物，有频频使他有所感受的情感，有种种满足其真正需要的手段，因而一定会使他获得他在其他的情况下不能获得或要很晚才能获得的观念。心灵的自然的发展是加速而不是延缓了。同一个人，在森林里也许是那样的愚昧无知，然而在城市里，只要作为一个普普通通的观众，他就会变得很有理智和十分的聪明。看见狂妄的事情而不参与，是使人头脑保持清醒的最好的良方；不过，一个人即使参与狂妄的事情，只要不受它的蒙骗，只要不犯那些行为乖谬的人所犯的过失，他也是可以从中受到教育的。 还要想到的是，由于我们的官能只能感受可以感知的事物，因此，我们是很难领会哲学的抽象概念和纯粹的精神的观念的。为了要领会这些东西，我们要么就摆脱我们所紧紧依附的身体，要么就一个事物又一个事物慢慢地循序渐进，要么赶快走，干脆就一个大步跳过去，然而要越过这样的距离，孩子们是办不到的，甚至对成年人来说，也需要为他们做一些特殊的阶梯才能跨越过去的。第一个抽象的观念就是其中的第一个阶梯；不过，我现在还不大明白你打算怎样去建造这种阶梯。 那拥抱万物、推动大地、创造一切生物的不可思议的上帝，是我们的眼睛看不见、我们的手摸不到的；他逃避我们的感官：创造的东西呈现在我们的眼前，而创造东西的人却隐藏起来。要能够认识到他的存在，是一件很不容易的事情；当我们终于认识到他的时候，当我们在心中自问：“他是谁？他在什么地方？”的时候，我们的心灵感到惊惶，感到迷茫，不知道怎样想法才好了。 洛克要我们从研究精神开始，然后再进而研究身体。这是迷信的方法，偏见的方法，错误的方法；这不是理智的方法，甚至不是井然有序的自然的方法；这无异乎是蒙着眼睛去学看东西。必须对身体经过长期的研究之后，才能对精神有一个真正的概念，才能推测它的存在。把次序倒过来，就只好承认唯物主义的说法了。