培根隨筆論友誼 論逆境原文

論友誼（培根） “唯有聖人與野獸，才能在孤獨中，自得其樂。”——這句話表達的觀點，有對有錯。對社會的恨，對社會的排斥，這種傾向，不管出現在誰身上，都是獸性的表現，並沒有什麽神聖的成分。除非他離群索居，不是為了享受孤獨帶來的快樂，而是出於對更高級的交流的追求。在壹些異教徒身上，這樣的追求徒有虛名，比如加拿大人艾皮蒙埃德、羅馬人努摩、西西裏島人埃皮多科，以及他拿人阿婆羅諾。只有為數不多的古代隱士與及聖潔的神父，才讓我們看到這樣的追求的存在。人們很少能明白，孤獨為何物，孤獨存於何處。熙攘的人群中，沒有妳的同伴，那裏沒有愛：目光所觸，壹張張好像是從美術展覽館的圖像上復制下來的臉孔，冷若冰霜；耳朵所聞，那些高談闊論，跟鈸發出的叮咚聲沒什麽區別。拉丁語裏有句格言，也表達相似的意思：壹座城市，壹片荒野。這是因為，居住在大城市裏，可以做朋友的人散落在大街小巷，與妳比鄰而居的情況，少之又少。進壹步說，純粹而慘淡的孤獨，就是對真正朋友的渴求——沒有朋友，世界就是壹片荒野，空虛而寂寥。天性註定壹些人永遠與友誼無緣，這也是壹種孤獨；但這種孤獨，與野獸的孤獨相同，無關人性。 人有悲歡離合。友誼之重要在於，它能夠稀釋排解我們心頭郁結的情緒。因阻塞而引起的疾病，對我們身體的危害尤大，遠甚於思想上的閉塞。薩灑（藥名，音譯）清肝，鐵能通脾，硫磺的氣味通肺，卡脫露（藥名，音譯）明腦。唯有朋友，才能讓人敞開心扉，除此外別無他物。妳將與他壹起，帶著向善的心情，分擔悲傷、恐懼、懷疑，分享歡樂、希望、忠告。 原文： Of friendship IT HAD been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Canadian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas , magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.