(完整版)Thinkingasahobby

Thinking asa hobby
William Goldi ng 1. While I was still a boy, I came to a conclusion that there were three
grades of thinking, and that I myself could not think at all.
2. It was the headmaster of my grammar school who first brought the
subject of thi nking before me. He has some statuettes in his
study. They stood on a cupboard beh ind his desk, one was the lady weari ng nothing but a bath towel. She seemed froze n in a eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any farther; and since she has no arms, she was in an unfortun ate positi on to pull the towel aga in. Next to her crouched the statuettes of a leopard,
ready to spri ng dow n at the top drawer of a fili ng cab in et.
Beyond the leopard was a n aked, muscular gen tlema n, who sat looki ng down, with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee.
He seemed utterly miserable.
3. Sometime later, I lear ned about these statuettes. The headmaster
has placed them where they would face deli nquent children,
because they symbolized to him the whole of life. The
n aked lady was Venus. She was love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy being beautiful. The leopard was
n ature, and he was being n atural. The muscular gen tlema n was
not miserable. He was Rodi'thi nker, an image of pure thought. 4. I had better expla in that I was a freque nt visitor to the
headmaster'study, because of the latest thing I had done or left undone. As we now say, I was not in tegrated. I was, if any thi ng dis in tegrated. Whe never I found myself in a penal positi on
before the headmaster'desk I would sink my head, and writhe one shoe over the other.
5. The headmaster would look at me and say,
6. what are we going to do with you.”
7. Well, what were they going to do with me ? I would writhe my
shoe some more and stare dow n at the worn rug.
8. look up, boy! Can 'you look up?”
9. Then I would look up at the cupboard, where the n aked woma n
was froze n in her panic and the muscular gen tlema n
con templated the hin dquarters of the leopard in en dless gloom. I had nothing to say to the headmaster. His spectacles caught the light so that you could see nothing human behind them. There
was no possibility of com muni cati on.
10. “ D n 'you ever thi nk at all?”
11. N o I didn'think, wasn'thinking, couldn 'think either---1 was simple
12. “he n you'better learn---had n'you?”
wait ing in an guish for the in terview to stop.
12. “he n you'better learn---had n'you?”
13. On one occasi on the headmaster leaped his feet, reached up
and put Rodin 'masterpiece on the desk before me.
14. “hat 'what a man looks like whe n hesreally thinking”
15. Clearly there s somethi ng missi ng in me. Nature has en dowed
the rest of the human race with a six sense and left me out. But like some one born deaf, but bitterly determ ined to find out about soun d, I bega n to watch my teachers to find out about thought”
16. There was Mr. Houghton. He was always telling me to think.
With a modest satisfacti on, he would tell me that he has thought a bit himself. Then, why did he spent so much time on drinking? Or was there more sense in drinking tha n there appeared to be? But if not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous to health---and Mr. Hought on was ruin ed, there was no doubt about that---why was he always talk ing about the clea n life and virtues of fresh air?
17. Sometimes exalted by his own oratory, he would leap from the
desk and hustle us outside into a hideous wind.
18. now boys! Deep breaths! Feel it right dow n in side you---huge
droughts of God s good air!”
19. He would sta nd before us, put his hands on his waist and take a
treme ndous breath. You could hear the wi nd, trapped in his chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments. His body
would feel with shock, and his face go white at the unaccustomed visitati on. He would stagger back to his desk and collapse there, useless for the rest of the morning.
20. Mr. Hought on was give n to high min ded mono logues about
the good life, sexless and full of duty. Yet in the middle of these
monologues, if a girl passed the window, his neck will turn itself
and he would watch her out of sight. I n this in sta nee, he seemed to me ruled not by thought but by an inv isible and irresistible spri ng in his n eck.
21. His neck was an object of great interest to me. Normally, it
bulged a bit over his collar. But Mr. Hought on was fought in the First World War alon gside America ns and Fren ch, and had come to a settled detestation of both countries. If either happened to be prominent in curre nt affairs, no argume nt could make Mr. Hought on think well of it. He would bang hid desk. His n eck would bulge still further and go red. ” you can say what you like” he would
cry, ”but I ve thought about this---and I know what I
think! ”
22. Mr. Hought on thought with his neck.
23. There was my in troducti on to the n ature of what is com monly
called thought. Through him I discovered that thought is often full of uncon scious prejudice, ig norance and hypocrisy. It will lecture on dis in terested purity while it 'n eck is being remorselessly twisted
toward a skirt. Technically, it is about as proficient as most bus in essmen'golf, as hon est as most politicia nsintensions, or as cohere nt as most books that get writte n. It is what I came to call grade-three thinking, through more properly, it is feeli ng rather tha n
thought.
24. True, there is a kind of innocence of prejudices, but in those
days I viewed grade-three thi nking with con tempt and mockery. I delighted to confront a pious lady who hated Germa ns with the
propositi on that we should love our en emies. She taught me a
great truth in dealing with grade-three thinking; because of her I no Ion ger dismiss lightly a men tal process which for nine ten ths
populati on is the n earest they will ever get to thought. They have imme nse solidarity. We had better respect them, for we are
out nu mbered and surroun ded. A crowed of grade-three thi nkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not tha nk you for point out the con tradicti ons in their beliefs. Man enjoys agreeme nt as cows will gaze all the same way on the side of the hill.
25. Grade-two thi nki ng is the detecti on of con tradicti ons. Grade-
two thin kers do not stampede easily, though they ofte n fall into the other fault and lag behi nd. Grade-two thi nking is a withdrawal,
with eyes and ears ope n. It destroys without hav ing the power to
create. It set me watching the crowds cheering his majesty the king and ask ing myself what all the fuss was about, without giving me any positive to put in the place of that heady patriotism. But there were compe nsati ons. To hear people justify their habit of hunting foxes by claiming that the fox liked it. To hear our prime mini ster talk about the great ben efit we con ferred on In dia by jaili ng
people like Nehru and Gan dhi. To hear American politicians talk about peace and refuse to join the League of Nati ons. Y es, there were mome nt of delight.
26. But I was going toward adolesce nee and had to admit that Mr.
Houghton was not the only with an irresistible spring in his neck. I too have the compulsive hand of n ature and bega n to find that
pointing out contradiction could be costly as well as fun. There was Ruth, for example, a serious and attractive girl. I was an atheist at the time. And she was a Methodist. But alas, in stead of relyi ng on the Holy Spirit to convert me, Ruth was foolish eno ugh to open her pretty mouth in argument. She claimed that the Bible was literally in spired. I coun tered by say ing that the Catholics believed in the literal inspiration of Saint Jerome'Vulgate, and the two books are differe nt. Argume nt flagged.
27. At last, she remarked that there were an awful of Methodists,
and they could n'be wrong, could they---not all those milli ons?
That was too easy, said I restively (for the n earer you were to
Ruth, the ni cer she was to be n ear to) since there were more
Roma n Catholics tha n Methodists any way; and they couldntbe wrong, could they? Not all those hun dreds of milli ons? An awful flicker of doubt appeared in her eyes. I slide my arm around her waist and murmured that if we were counting heads, the Buddhists were the boys for my mon ey. She fled. The comb in ati on of my arm and those coun tless Buddhists was too much for her.
28. That ni ght her father visited my father and left, red cheeked and
in dig nan t, I was give n the third degree to find out what had
happe ned. I last Ruth and gained an un deserved reputati on as a pote ntial libert ine.
29. Grade-two thinking, though it filled life with fun and excitement,
did not make for content. To find out the deficiencies of our elder satisfies the young ego but does not make for
pers onal security. It took the swimmer some dista nee from the shore and left him there, out of his depth. A typical grade-two
thinker will say,” what is truth?” there is still a higher grade of
thought which says, ”what is truth? ” and sets out to find it.
30. But these grade-one thi nkers were few and far betwee n. They
did not visit my grammar school in the flesh though they were
there in books. I aspired to them, because I now saw my hobby as an unsatisfactory thing if I went no further. If you set out to climb a
mountain, however high you climb, you have failed if you cannot reach the top.
31. I therefore decided that I would be a grade-one thi nker. I was
irreverent at the best of times Political and Religious systems,
social customs, loyalties and traditi ons, they all came tumbli ng dow n like so many so many rotte n apples off a tree. I came up in the end with what must always rema in the justificatio n for grade-one thi nkin g. I devised a cohere nt system for liv in g. It was a
moral system, which was holly logical. Of course, as I readily
admitted conversion of the world to my way of thinking might be difficult, since my system did away with a number of trifles, such as big bus in ess, cen tralized gover nment, armies marriage-
32. It was Ruth all over aga in. I had some very good friend who
stood by me, and still do. But my acqua intan ces vani shed, tak ing the girls with them. Young people seemed oddly conten ted with the world as it was. A young navy officer got as red n ecked as Mr.
Houghton when proposed a world without any battleship in it.
33. Had the game gone too far? In those prewar days, I stood to
lose a great deal, for the sake of a hobby.
34. Now you are expect ing me to describe how I saw the folly of
my ways and came back to the warm n est, where prejudices are called loyalties, pointless actions are turned into customs by repetition, and we are content to say we think when all we do is feel.
35. But you would be wrong. I dropped my hobby and turned
professional.。