散文《关于月亮的沉思》by阿道司·赫胥黎

Meditation on the Moon

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Materialism and mentalism - the philosophies of 'nothing but.' How wearily familiar we have become with that 'nothing but space, time, matter and motion', that 'nothing but sex', that 'nothing but economics'! And the no less intolerant 'nothing but spirit', 'nothing but consciousness', 'nothing but psychology' - how boring and tiresome they also are! 'Nothing but' is mean as well as stupid. It lacks generosity. Enough of 'nothing but'. It is time to say again, with primitive common sense (but for better reasons), 'not only, but also'.

Outside my window the night is struggling to wake; in the moonlight, the blinded garden dreams so vividly of its lost colours that the black roses are almost crimson, the trees stand expectantly on the verge of living greenness. The white-washed parapet of the terrace is brilliant against the dark-blue sky. (Does the oasis lie there below, and, beyond the last of the palm trees, is that the desert?) The white walls of the house coldly reverberate the lunar radiance. (Shall I turn to look at the Dolomites1 rising naked out of the long slopes of snow?) The moon is full. And not only full, but also beautiful. And not only beautiful, but also...

Socrates was accused by his enemies of having affirmed, heretically, that the moon was a stone. He denied the accusation. All men, said he, know that the moon is a god, and he agreed with all men. As an answer to the materialistic philosophy of 'nothing but' his retort was sensible and even scientific. More sensible and scientific, for instance, than the retort invented by D. H. Lawrence in that strange book, so true in its psychological substance, so preposterous, very often, in its pseudo-scientific, form, Fantasia of the Unconscious. 'The moon,' writes Lawrence 'certainly isn't a snowy cold world, like a world of our own gone cold. Nonsense. It is a globe of dynamic substance, like radium, or phosphorus, coagulated upon a vivid pole of energy.' The defect of this statement is that it happens to be demonstrably untrue. The moon is quite certainly not made of radium or phosphorus. The moon is, materially, 'a stone'. Lawrence was angry (and he did well to be angry) with the nothing-but philosophers who insist that the moon is only a stone. He knew that it was something more; he had the empirical certainty of its deep significance and importance. But he tried to explain this empirically established fact of its significance in the wrong terms-in terms of matter and not of spirit. To say that the moon is made of radium is nonsense. But to say, with Socrates, that it is made of god-stuff is strictly accurate. For there is nothing, of course, to prevent the moon from being both a stone and a god. The evidence for its stoniness and against its radiuminess may be found in any children's encyclopaedia. It carries an absolute conviction. No less convincing, however, is the evidence for the moon's divinity. It may be extracted from our own experiences, from the writings of the poets, and, in fragments, even from certain textbooks of physiology and medicine.

But what is this 'divinity'? How shall we define a 'god'? Expressed in psychological terms (which are primary - there is no getting behind them), a god is something that gives us the peculiar kind of feeling which Professor Otto has called 'numinous' (from the Latin numen, a supernatural being). Numinous feelings are the original god-stuff, from which the theory-making mind extracts the individualized gods of the pantheons, the various attributes of the One. Once formulated; a theology evokes in its turn numinous feelings. Thus, men's terrors in face of the enigmatically dangerous universe led them to postulate the existence of angry gods; and, later; thinking about angry gods made them feel terror, even when the universe was giving them, for the moment, no

cause of alarm. Emotion, rationalization, emotion - the process is circular and continuous. Man's religious life works on the principle of a hot-water system.

The moon is a stone; but it is a highly numinous stone. Or, to be more precise, it is a stone about which and because of which men and women have numinous feelings. Thus, there is a soft moonlight that can give us the peace that passes understanding. There is a moonlight that inspires a kind of awe. There is a cold and austere moonlight that tells the soul of its loneliness and desperate isolation, its insignificance or its uncleanness. There is an amorous moonlight prompting to love - to love not only for an individual but sometimes even for the whole universe. But the moon shines on the body as well as, through the windows of the eyes, within the mind. It affects the soul directly; but it can affect it also by obscure and circuitous ways - through the blood. Half the human race lives in manifest obedience to the lunar rhythm; and there is evidence to show that the physiological and therefore the spiritual life, not only of women, but of men too, mysteriously ebbs and flows with the changes of the moon. There are unreasoned joys, inexplicable miseries, laughers and remorses without a cause. Their sudden and fantastic alternations constitute the ordinary weather of our minds. These moods, of which the more gravely numinous may be hypostasized as gods, the lighter, if we will, as hobgoblins and fairies, are the children of the blood and humours. But the blood and humours obey, among many other masters, the changing moon. Touching the soul directly through the eyes and, indirectly, along the dark channels of the blood, the moon is doubly a divinity. Even dogs and wolves, to judge at least by their nocturnal howlings, seem to feel in some dim bestial fashion a kind of numinous emotion about the full moon. Artemis, the goddess of wild things, is identified in the later mythology with Selene.

Even if we think of the moon as only a stone, we shall find its very stoniness potentially a numen. A stone gone cold. An airless, waterless stone and the prophetic image of our own earth when, some few million years from now, the senescent sun shall have lost its present fostering power.... And so on. This passage could easily be prolonged-a Study in Purple. But I forbear. Let every reader lay on as much of the royal rhetorical colour as he finds to his taste. Anyhow, purple or no purple, there the stone is-stony. You cannot think about it for long without finding, yourself invaded by one or other of several essentially numinous sentiments. These sentiments belong to one or other of two contrasted and complementary groups. The name of the first family is Sentiments of Human Insignificance, of the second, Sentiments of Human Greatness. Meditating on that derelict stone afloat there in the abyss, you may feel most numinously a worm, abject and futile in the face of wholly incomprehensible immensities. 'The silence of those infinite spaces frightens me.”

You may feel as Pascal felt. Or, alternatively, you may feel as M. Paul Valery has said that he feels. 'The silence of those infinite spaces does not frighten me.' For the spectacle of that stony astronomical moon need not necessarily make you feel like a worm. It may, on the contrary, cause you to rejoice exultantly in your manhood. There floats the stone, the nearest and most familiar symbol of all the astronomical horrors; but the astronomers who discovered those horrors of space and time were men. The universe throws down a challenge to the human spirit; in spite of his insignificance and abjection, man has taken it up. The stone glares down at us out of the black boundlessness, a memento mori. But the fact that we know it for a memento mori justifies us in feeling a certain human pride. We have a right to our moods of sober exultation.

1.位于意大利阿尔卑斯山脉北部东段的群山。

关于月亮的沉思

唯物论和唯心论——"只有"的哲学。"只有空间、时间、物质与运动"、"只有性"、"只有经济学"，我们都熟悉得厌烦了! 以及更不能容忍的，"只有精神"、"只有意识"、"只有心理学"，它们也多么无聊与厌烦! "只有"哲学既吝啬又愚蠢，缺乏宽宏大量。我们厌烦了"只有"。现在是凭借原始常识(若没有更好的理由)重申"不仅有, 而且有"的时候了。

窗外的夜挣扎着醒来。月光下，黯淡的花园生动地梦着失去的色彩，黑玫瑰将近深红色，群树凝伫，接近鲜绿色。屋顶的白栏杆辉映着深蓝的天空。（绿洲就躺在那里吗？在最后一株棕榈树那边是沙漠吗？）白墙清冷地反射着月光（我将转身去看那长雪坡上升起的秃白云岩吗？）。好个月圆之夜！不仅圆，而且美。不仅美，而且……

苏格拉底的异教徒敌人断言月亮是块石头并谴责他。苏格拉底否认谴责，并说，大家知道月亮是个神，他也赞成。作为对"只有"唯物哲学的回击，他的反驳是明智的，甚至是科学的。例如，比D. H. 劳伦斯在那本奇特的书中提出的反驳更明智和更科学，在它的心理学主旨中如此正确，但在他的伪科学形式中往往如此荒谬，一部无意识的幻想曲。劳伦斯写道："月亮肯定不是冰雪覆盖的寒冷世界, 就像我们的世界变冷了一样。胡说！它是动态物质的球体，像镭, 或磷，凝结在一个能量的生动电极上。"这个陈述碰巧是不言而喻的错误。月亮当然不是由镭或磷做成的。月亮实质上是"一块石头"。劳伦斯对"只有"哲学家所坚持的"月亮只是块石头"感到生气(而他生气生得好）。他知道月亮不仅仅是块石头；他对它的深远意义和重要性拥有经验的确定性。但他试着用错误的术语来解释这种建立在经验基础上的事实的意义——用物质而非精神的术语。说月亮是镭做成的，纯属胡说。但苏格拉底说它是用神性材料做成的却严格地正确。当然，因为月亮空无一物，既不许说月亮是块石头，也不许说月亮是个神。支持其石质而反对其镭质的证据，可在任何儿童百科全书中找到，它传达一种绝对的信念。然而，更令人信服的是月亮神性的证据，我们可从自身经验中，从诗人的作品中，甚至从某本生理学和医学教科书的片段中提取证据。

但这种"神性"是什么? 我们将如何定义一个"神"? 用心理学术语表达（它们是主要的——其后没有任何利益)，一个神能给我们奇特的感觉，就是奥托教授所称的"numinous"（来自从拉丁文的"numen"，超自然的存在) 。超自然的感觉最初的神性材料, 构造理论的头脑从万神殿中个性化的神中提取"至尊"的不同属性。神学一旦形成，它反过来就会唤起超自然的感觉。因此，面对宇宙不可思议的危险时，人们的恐怖引导他们要求愤怒之神存在；随后，认为愤怒之神令他们感到恐怖，即使宇宙暂时没有给他们惊慌的理由。情绪，合理化，情绪——这过程循环不断。人类的宗教生活就是按照暖水系统的原理在工作。

月亮是块石头，但它是块神秘的石头，或更确切，正因为它，世间男女有了神秘之情。因此，柔和的月光传递彼此默契的宁静。神秘的月光激发我们敬畏之情。冷峻的月光诉说灵魂的寂寞与孤立，渺小或肮脏。多情的月光唤起我们的爱——不仅爱某个人，甚或爱宇宙众生。但月光照着肌肤，也透过眼窗照进心灵。月光可直接影响灵魂，也可朦胧迂回地影响灵魂——通过血液。一半人类的生活明显顺从月亮的韵律。有证据表明，不仅女人，还有男人，其生理活动以及精神生活，都会神秘地随月亮变化而潮起潮落。喜悦与痛苦，欢笑与懊悔，无因而起；它们突然而奇特的变换，构成我们心灵的寻常天气。这些情绪，可假设为众神的神秘作用，如果我们愿意，也可看作妖怪和仙女，其实是血液和体液作用的产物。但血液和体液，受很多因素影响，却听命于变化的月亮。月亮，直接透过眼睛或间接随血液的暗道触及灵魂，加倍地是个神。甚至狗和狼，至少通过他们夜晚的嚎叫来判断，在月圆之夜它们似乎也会沉浸在一种超自然的情感中。阿耳特弥斯，月神与狩猎女神，在稍后的神话中被认作塞勒涅，月之女神。

即使我们只把月亮看成块石头，也将现其石性中潜藏的内在精神。这块石头变冷了，没有空气，也没有水，它预示了几百万年后衰老的太阳失去孕育力量时的地球形象……这一段本可轻易延长——一项华丽的研究，但我克制住了，就让每位读者尽量涂抹鲜艳的华丽色彩来合其口味吧。无论修辞是否华丽，石头毕竟是石头。若长时冥想它，你会发现一种或几种神秘的情感向你袭来。这些情感属于两种对照互补的类型。第一类型，叫人类的渺小感；第二类型，叫人类的伟大感。冥想那块漂浮在深渊中的弃石，你会最神秘地感觉一只可怜虫，面对完全不可思议之浩瀚的可怜与微不足道。"那些无垠空间的沉寂令我恐惧。"

你可能像帕斯卡那样感觉，或者，不同地，你也可像M·保罗·瓦雷里已经说的那样感觉。"那些无垠空间的沉寂并不令我恐惧。" 至于天文学上的石头之月的景观，你不必感觉它渺小如虫。相反地，它可能使你欣喜于你的大丈夫气概。石头漂浮在那里，所有天文学的惊骇中最近的与最熟悉的符号；但发现那些时空惊骇的天文学家也是人。宇宙向人类的精神丢下挑战；不管自己渺小与卑鄙，人类接受了这个挑战。石头从黑暗的无垠俯瞰着我们，一个死的象征。但我们把它看作死亡象征的事实，证明了我们感觉到某种人类的骄傲。我们有权利享受清醒的、狂喜的心情。