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  3. The Hidden World Around Us Harry A. Overstreet Ever since Socrates was

The Hidden World Around Us Harry A. Overstreet Ever since Socrates was

游客2023-12-28  6
问题    The Hidden World Around Us
   Harry A. Overstreet
   Ever since Socrates was introduced to my adolescent mind, he has been one chief master of my thinking. What he believed still seems to me to be indispensable for carrying on an intelligent and responsible life. He believed that he did not know. For myself, I have come to change his negative into a positive. I know that there is far more in this universe for me to know than I now know.
   I recently had a dramatic illustration of this. My wife and I, driving through Arizona, stopped at a "collector’s shop" in Tucson, where stones and minerals of many kinds were on display. In the course of the visit, we were taken into a small room where rocks were laid out on shelves. They were quite ordinary-looking rocks. Had I seen them on some hillside, I would not have given them a second thought. Then the man closed the door so that the room was in total darkness and turned on an ultraviolet lamp.
   Instantly the prosaic rocks leaped into a kind of glory. Brilliant colors of an indescribable beauty were there before our eyes.
   A very simple thing — and yet a very tremendous thing — had happened. A certain power had been snapped on; and a hidden world leaped into life.
   As I look at my universe and walk among my fellow humans, I have the deep belief that hidden realities are all around us. These hidden realities are there in the physical world; and they are there, also, in the human world. If I am foolish enough to think that I see all there is to be seen in front of my eyes, I simply miss the glory. I believe, then, that my chief job in life — and my astonishing privilege — is to snap on an extra power so that I can see what my naked eyes —or my naked mind — cannot now see. I believe that I have to do this particularly with my human fellows. My ordinary eyes tend to stop short at1 those opaque envelopes we call human bodies. But we have learned that by turning on a certain power we can penetrate to the inside of these envelopes.
   We call this extra power "imagination". At its highest, we call it "empathy" , the power to see through and to feel through to the inner life of other human beings. It is a kind of ultraviolet lamp of our psychic life. When we turn on this lamp of imaginative sensitivity, we make the prosaic human beings around us come excitingly alive.
   Zona Gale once set down as the first article of her creed: " I believe in expanding the areas of my awareness." I’d do the same. If I expand the areas of my awareness, I move understandingly into realities beyond me. When I move into them understandingly, I know what I can do and what I should do. If I don’t move in understandingly, if I stay in ignorance on the outside, then, in all likelihood, I will do mistaken things.
   The great principle of love depends upon this. He who loves another tries truly to understand the other. We can reverse this: he who tries truly to understand another is not likely to hate that other.
   Socrates gave no finished catalogue of the "truths" of the world. He gave, rather, the impulse to search. This is far better, I feel, than dogmatic certainty. When we are aware that there are glories of life still hidden from us, we walk humbly before the Great Unknown. But we do more than this: we try manfully to increase our powers of seeing and feeling so that we can turn what is still unknown into what is warmly and understandingly known... This, I believe, is our great human adventure.
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答案    我们周围隐秘的世界
   哈里-奥弗斯特里特
   自从我在青少年时期接触到苏格拉底的思想，他就一直是引导我思考的主要导师。至今我还认为，他的信仰可以保证人过一种明智的、负责任的生活。他认为自己无知。而我则逐渐将他的否定句变成了肯定句。我知道世界上需要我学习的知识大大超过了我获得的知识。
   最近一个生动的事例证实了我的观点。我和妻子驾车穿过亚利桑那州，在图森市的一家收藏店停了下来，那里陈列着各种各样的石头和矿石。在参观的过程中，我们被带进一个小房间，架子上摆放着石头。它们看上去就是普通的石头。如果我是在山边看到它们，我决不会多看它们一眼。然后店员关上门，房间里一片黑暗，接着，他打开了一盏紫外线灯。
   骤然间，平凡的石头焕发了光彩。难以形容的美丽色彩就在我们眼前闪耀。
   一件非常平凡的——然而又是非常奇妙的事情——发生了。某种力量突然出现了；一个隐秘的世界闯入了我们的生活。
   当我观察着我的那片天地，走在人群中，我深信隐秘的现实就在我们周围。这些隐秘的现实就在物质世界里；它们也在人类世界里。如果我愚蠢地以为我看到了所有在我眼前应该被我看见的东西，我就错过了辉煌。我还相信我一生最主要的工作——也是我惊人的优势——就是抓住一种非凡的力量使我能看到我的肉眼——或是知识贫乏的我——现在无法看到或理解的东西。我相信我尤其应该和他人一起这么做。我平凡的眼睛只去看人的躯体，但我们已经懂得只要依靠一种力量我们就能看到不透明的人体所包含的内在。
   我们把这种非凡的力量叫做“想象力”。想象力的巅峰，我们称之为“移情作用”，能够透过表面看到或感觉到其他人的内心世界。它是我们精神生活的一种紫外线灯。我们打开这盏想象力的灯，就能使周围平凡的人充满活力。
   佐纳-盖尔曾写下她的第一信条：“我相信拓展我的认知领域大有裨益。”我也要这样做。如果我拓展了认知领域，我就能领悟我所无法理解的现实。当我领悟了它们，我就知道了我能做什么以及应该做什么。如果我无法领悟，如果我只能无知地在它的门外徘徊，我就很可能会做错事。
   伟大的爱的原则就取决于这一点。爱人者真正努力去理解他人。我们也能反过来说：真正努力理解他人者不可能恨他人。
   苏格拉底并没有完全列出世界“真理”的目录，而是给了我们探索的动力。我觉得这远比教条式的说理要好。当我们认识到仍然有生命的奇迹隐藏在我们周围，我们就会在未知世界面前谦恭地行走。但我们要做的不仅仅如此：我们要勇敢地努力提高我们的观察力和感受力，只有这样，我们才能把未知的世界转化为我们能够热切地领悟的世界……我相信，这就是我们人类伟大的探险。
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