一個(gè)久經(jīng)世故的成熟帝國(guó)為何無(wú)法現(xiàn)代化
——記傳統(tǒng)中國(guó)對(duì)現(xiàn)代化的抗拒
作者：格威迪恩·M·威廉姆斯（Gwydion M. Williams）



譯注：全文較長(zhǎng)，共分為九個(gè)章節(jié)——《1949年前的中國(guó)是什么樣子的？》、《三千五百年帝國(guó)史》、《有效的專制》、《創(chuàng)造的發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)》、《打破和重塑中國(guó)》、《墻挺好，鄰居挺壞》、《太平天國(guó)運(yùn)動(dòng)的替代選項(xiàng)》、《三只布谷鳥:失敗的現(xiàn)代化》、《附錄：印度河流域文明及其連續(xù)性》，有刪節(jié)。

What Was China before 1949?

一、1949年前的中國(guó)是什么樣子的？

China in 1949 chose to turn its back on the West and go its own way. It has continues to do despite an apparent opening-up under Deng. (Itself a continuation of a process begun by M, who made peace with the USA in the early 1970s.)

1949年，中國(guó)遠(yuǎn)離西方，選擇走自己的道路。對(duì)于大多數(shù)西方人而言，這個(gè)中國(guó)令人費(fèi)解乃至各種負(fù)面印象。但中國(guó)的實(shí)際歷史說(shuō)明了另一種情況：在轉(zhuǎn)向今天這條道路之前，中國(guó)已經(jīng)嘗試了大多數(shù)其他的可能性。

For most Westerners, the emergence of ‘Red China’ was an inexplicable; a baffling outbreak of evil and foolishness. But the actual history of China says something else. China had tried most of the other possibilities before turning to Com...ism.

傳統(tǒng)中國(guó)可以明智地稱為黃色中國(guó)——黃是帝王的顏色。大多數(shù)中國(guó)人把自己定義為“黃帝的孩子”，黃帝是一個(gè)傳說(shuō)中的人物，被認(rèn)為是他們文明的奠基人。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


Traditional China could sensibly be called Yellow China. Yellow was the Imperial colour. Most Chinese defined themselves as ‘Children of the Yellow Emperor’, a legendary figure regarded as the founder of their civilisation.[A] (It has nothing to do with the 19th century European concept of a ‘Yellow Race’, which included various other East Asian peoples with cultural origins quite independent of China. Genetic studies show that human diversity cannot be sensible split into a number of distinct races. Europeans seem to be a mix of African West Asian elements. The oldest population were hunters with blue eyes, black or brown hair, and dark skin.

這與19世紀(jì)歐洲的“黃種人”概念毫無(wú)關(guān)系，后者包括文化起源獨(dú)立于中國(guó)之外的其他各個(gè)東亞民族?；蜓芯勘砻鳎祟惖亩鄻有圆荒芎侠淼貏澐譃槿舾蓚€(gè)不同的種族。歐洲人似乎是非洲和西亞元素的混合體。最古老的人群是有著藍(lán)色眼睛、黑色或棕色頭發(fā)和黑色皮膚的獵人。

To begin at the beginning: the unchanging ‘yellow’ civilisation of Imperial China gets a bad press nowadays. It had plenty of faults, indeed. But Europe’s take-off in the 16th to 19th centuries would not have been possible without a slew of inventions that ‘Yellow China’ had made since the European high-points of Classical Greece and the Roman Empire. Europe’s era of domination was only possible because of paper, the printing press, gunpowder and the magnetic compass, all of which were developed in China:

緒言：始終如一的中華帝國(guó)文明如今受到了負(fù)面報(bào)道。它確實(shí)有很多缺點(diǎn)，但是如果沒有中國(guó)自古典希臘和羅馬帝國(guó)這一歐洲鼎盛時(shí)期以來(lái)所創(chuàng)造的一系列發(fā)明，歐洲在16至19世紀(jì)的騰飛是不可能的。歐洲的統(tǒng)治時(shí)代之所以成為可能，是因?yàn)榧垙?、印刷術(shù)、火藥和指南針，而這些都是在中國(guó)發(fā)明的:

The Chinese invented the compass and were the first to use it in navigation. During the Song-Yuan period, merchant ships from China, Persia, and Arabia were very active on the high seas… The Chinese art of printing became known to Japan during the eighth century. It was introduced to Korea during the tenth century and to Egypt during the twelfth century or perhaps a little earlier. Not until the thirteenth century did the Il-Khanate of Persia learn it and then introduced it to Africa and Europe. Towards the end of the fourteenth century block printing appeared for the first time in Europe. Movable type was invented in China during the eleventh century. It was introduced into Korea during the thirteenth century and to Europe at a later date.

“中國(guó)人發(fā)明了指南針，并首先將其用于航海。宋元時(shí)期，來(lái)自中國(guó)、波斯和阿拉伯的商船在公海上非常活躍……中國(guó)的印刷術(shù)在八世紀(jì)為日本所知。它在10世紀(jì)被引入朝鮮，在12世紀(jì)或更早的時(shí)候被引入埃及。直到13世紀(jì)，波斯的伊利汗國(guó)才學(xué)會(huì)它，然后把它介紹到非洲和歐洲。14世紀(jì)末，歐洲首次出現(xiàn)了木版印刷術(shù)。中國(guó)在11世紀(jì)發(fā)明了活字印刷術(shù)。它在13世紀(jì)傳入朝鮮，后來(lái)傳入歐洲。

The introduction of firearms to the West was closely related to the Mongols’ western campaign early in the thirteenth century… During their military campaigns in Central Asia and Persia, the Mongols used weapons made of gunpowder. Fighting with the Mongols, the Arabs learned the use of firearms. The Europeans learned the use of firearms in the same fashion.[C]

武器傳入西方與13世紀(jì)早期蒙古人的西進(jìn)運(yùn)動(dòng)密切相關(guān)，13世紀(jì)早期，蒙古人在中亞和波斯的軍事活動(dòng)中使用火藥制成的武器。在與蒙古人的戰(zhàn)斗中，阿拉伯人學(xué)會(huì)了使用火器。歐洲人以同樣的方式學(xué)會(huì)了使用火器。“

Classical China was a society that worked well in its own terms. Well into the 19th century, it was widely admired by foreign visitors. It had none of the self-destructive inner tensions of Europe. No one cared much what you believed or how you worshiped, so long as your beliefs did not make you a rebel against the political authorities. No one in China was expecting the End of the World, a great preoccupation for many of the Puritan pioneers of British industry. Before the 20th century, Chinese thinkers did not view their own past as sinful in the way Europe’s Puritans did. Nor did they see it as foolish, as the Enlightenment and the Radical Deists mostly did.

古代中國(guó)是一個(gè)以自己的方式運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)良好的社會(huì)。進(jìn)入19世紀(jì)后，它受到了外國(guó)游客的廣泛贊賞。它沒有歐洲那種自我毀滅的內(nèi)在緊張。在這里，沒有人關(guān)心你相信什么，或者你如何崇拜，只要你的信仰不讓你成為對(duì)政治權(quán)威的叛逆者。在中國(guó)，沒有人會(huì)想到世界末日，而這正是許多英國(guó)工業(yè)清教徒先驅(qū)者所關(guān)注的。在20世紀(jì)之前，中國(guó)的思想家并不像歐洲的清教徒那樣認(rèn)為他們的過去是罪惡的。他們也不像啟蒙運(yùn)動(dòng)和激進(jìn)自然神論者那樣認(rèn)為這是愚蠢的。

Classical China was also lucky enough never to have had philosophers like Plato and Aristotle – or else to have forgotten them if the existed. Socrates and his pupils were brilliant at successfully claiming knowledge that they did not have. Plato’s Earth-centred model of the solar system (outlined in The Republic) easily defeated rival Greek thinkers who had correctly deduced that at least some of the planets must go round the sun. Socrates’ pupils Critias and Alcibiades nearly ruined Athens between them: Critias created a brutal and unsuccessful oligarchy while Alcibiades defected to Athens’s rival Sparta after being sacked from leadership of a major military expedition. While Athens was still recovering from this, Plato’s well-intentioned but unrealistic advice to the rulers of Syracuse did immense damage to Greek-Sicily’s leading city. Messed up a growing city-state that might have unified the Greek world in a gentler and more productive manner than the later Macedonian conquest.

古代的中國(guó)也很幸運(yùn)，從未有過柏拉圖和亞里士多德這樣的哲學(xué)家——如果存在，也會(huì)遺忘他們。蘇格拉底和他的學(xué)生擅長(zhǎng)于成功地宣稱他們沒有的知識(shí)。柏拉圖的以地球?yàn)橹行牡奶?yáng)系模型(在《理想國(guó)》中概述)輕易地?fù)魯×似渌ＥD思想家，后者正確地推斷出至少有一些行星必須圍繞太陽(yáng)運(yùn)行。蘇格拉底的學(xué)生克里提亞斯和亞西比德幾乎毀了雅典:克里提亞斯創(chuàng)造了一個(gè)殘酷而不成功的寡頭政治，而亞西比德在被解雇后投奔了雅典的對(duì)手斯巴達(dá)。當(dāng)雅典還在從中恢復(fù)的時(shí)候，柏拉圖對(duì)錫拉庫(kù)扎統(tǒng)治者的善意但不切實(shí)際的建議給希臘西西里的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)城市造成了巨大的破壞。與后來(lái)的馬其頓征服相比，這個(gè)城邦本可以以更溫和、更富有成效的方式統(tǒng)一整個(gè)希臘。

Phillip of Macedon hired Aristotle to teach advanced knowledge to his son Alexander and to the generation of hereditary nobles who should have been his close supporters. But this group ripped Alexander’s realm to pieces after his death, murdering Alexander’s son and other legitimate claimants.

馬其頓的菲利普雇傭亞里士多德將先進(jìn)的知識(shí)傳授給他的兒子亞歷山大和本該是他親密支持者的世襲貴族。但在亞歷山大死后，這個(gè)組織將他的王國(guó)撕成了碎片，殺害了亞歷山大的兒子和其他合法的繼承者。

As a practical guide to good living in the face of the temptations of power, the Socratic school were worse than useless. They could talk eloquently about virtue, but smuggled in shoddy ideas amidst their complex webs of words. Their most remarkable achievement was to be thought wise despite the visible damage that they did.

在權(quán)力的誘惑面前，良好生活的實(shí)用指南這一蘇格拉底學(xué)派比一無(wú)是處還糟糕。他們可以滔滔不絕地談?wù)撁赖?，但在他們?fù)雜的語(yǔ)言網(wǎng)絡(luò)中，卻偷偷地夾雜著一些劣質(zhì)的思想。他們最顯著的成就是，盡管他們?cè)斐闪丝梢姷膿p害，但仍被認(rèn)為是明智的。

Chinese philosophy was another matter – the leading schools produced useful results. The standard picture is of a ruthless ‘School of Law’ reunifying the realm under the Qin First Emperor, followed by nice Confucians making a harmonious society. I suspect that this is much too simple a view: Chinese philosophy was sorted out into different ‘schools’ by scholars in the Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty began as successful rebels against the Qin dynasty, but then built a formidable new order of their own. Still, a unified realm that had been created with ruthlessness was only sustained because most people found it an excellent way of life. Without modern technology, you could not easily build an advanced culture that encouraged civilised life and that could also deal with rampaging nomadic warriors and other would-be conquerors.

中國(guó)的哲學(xué)則是另一回事——一流的學(xué)派產(chǎn)生了有用的結(jié)果。標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的畫面是嚴(yán)酷的“法家”統(tǒng)一了秦始皇統(tǒng)治下的國(guó)家，然后是善良的儒家創(chuàng)造了一個(gè)和諧的社會(huì)。我懷疑這種觀點(diǎn)過于簡(jiǎn)單:中國(guó)哲學(xué)在漢代就被學(xué)者們分成了不同的“學(xué)派”。漢朝在反抗秦朝的斗爭(zhēng)中取得了成功，但隨后也建立了自己強(qiáng)大的新秩序，一個(gè)以無(wú)情方式建立起來(lái)的統(tǒng)一王國(guó)之所以得以維持，單純是因?yàn)榇蠖鄶?shù)人認(rèn)為這是一種極好的生活方式。沒有現(xiàn)代技術(shù)，你不可能輕易建立一個(gè)鼓勵(lì)文明生活的先進(jìn)文化，也不可能對(duì)付狂暴的游牧勇士和其他潛在的征服者。

Confucianism was widely admired in 18th century Europe. Before the rise of modern industry, Confucianism was the only creed with strong political power that was not burdened by a mass of superstition. Many people who’ve looked at the lix think that the example of China was a big inspiration to the European Enlightenment. The decision by the Papacy to end the Jesuit mission to China was entirely sensible if you started from a viewpoint that traditional Catholicism was true and needed to be defended against subtle heresies. The Jesuits were making progress among educated Chinese with a disguised version of Catholicism, but there was a real question about who was converting who.[D] If Christians could view Chinese ancestor-worship as a harmless cultural oddity, then why not take exactly the same view of Transubstantiation, the Resurrection and other miraculous happenings?

儒家思想在18世紀(jì)的歐洲廣受推崇。在現(xiàn)代工業(yè)興起之前，儒家思想是唯一一個(gè)沒有被大量迷信所拖累的具有強(qiáng)大政治力量的信條。許多看過這一思想的人認(rèn)為中國(guó)的例子對(duì)歐洲啟蒙運(yùn)動(dòng)是一個(gè)很大的啟發(fā)。如果你從傳統(tǒng)天主教是正確的、需要抵御微妙的異端邪說(shuō)的觀點(diǎn)出發(fā)，那么教皇決定結(jié)束耶穌會(huì)在中國(guó)的傳教活動(dòng)是完全明智的。耶穌會(huì)在受過教育的中國(guó)人中取得了進(jìn)展，他們信奉的是一種變相的天主教，但真正的問題是誰(shuí)皈依了誰(shuí)。既然基督徒可以把中國(guó)祖先崇拜看作是一種無(wú)害的文化異類，那么為什么不能對(duì)其他變形、復(fù)活和奇跡般的事件采取完全一樣的看法呢?

But Confucianism was only rational up to a point. I don’t think it ever claimed that there was any underlying logic to its traditions. It successfully marginalised Buddhism – education remained Confucian, unlike most countries where Buddhism is widespread. The Buddhist monks had no control over most of those who got educated or what they were taught. I suppose Ti...an Buddhism also had its role, a creed with reputed mystical powers that was also safely far away from the centres of wealth and power, lands that were very nearly useless from a Confucian point of view.
(There’s also a theory that the central Chinese government intentionally spread Buddhism in both Ti... and Mongolia, as a way of pacifying what had been fierce tribesman. It is definite that it arrived in Ti... with a Chinese princess: Princess Wencheng who married the Ti...an king. Supporters of Ti... independence mostly ignore this awkward little detail, one of the best-recorded facts of Ti...an history, even though the lady is still celebrated by a major shrine in Lhasa.)

但儒家思想只是在一定程度上是理性的。我不認(rèn)為它聲稱它的傳統(tǒng)有任何潛在的邏輯。它成功地邊緣化了佛教——教育仍然是儒家的事，不像大多數(shù)佛教傳播的國(guó)家。佛教僧侶無(wú)法控制大多數(shù)受過教育的人或他們被教導(dǎo)的內(nèi)容?！?/b>

For government of the Chinese core, Confucianism rested mostly on customs that went back many thousands of years and were regarded as unchanging. These authentically went back at least twenty-five centuries, to the teachings of Confucius that any educated Chinese could read in the original ideograms. Confucius in turn regarded himself as re-stating a vastly older creed, going back another fifteen or twenty-five centuries. The truth of the matter is hard to settle, but the ‘oracle bones’ from 650 or more years before Confucius use recognisable ideograms and have some common sentiments.[E]

作為中國(guó)朝廷的核心，儒家思想主要基于幾千年前的習(xí)俗，被認(rèn)為是不變的。這些文字可以追溯到至少2500年以前的孔子學(xué)說(shuō)，任何受過教育的中國(guó)人都能讀懂原始的表意文字?？鬃觿t認(rèn)為自己是在重復(fù)一個(gè)更古老的信條，可以在孔子之前進(jìn)一步追溯1500-2500年之前。事情的真相很難確定，但孔子之前650年或更早的“甲骨文”使用了可識(shí)別的表意文字，并有一些共同的情感。

The Chinese tradition had been rule by a scholar-gentry chosen mostly by merit, serving a dynasty but standing in place of the hereditary nobles of most civilisations. Exams were used to some extent by the Han Dynasty, which existed at the same time as the Roman Empire. Exams became the norm under the Tang Dynasty, which shone brightly during Europe’s Dark Ages. The system meant that the rich or well-born couldn’t automatically claim a place among the scholar-gentry: they had to educate their children in Confucian virtues and these children also had to be clever. Very clever children from ordinary backgrounds might also get in and be fully accepted.

中國(guó)的傳統(tǒng)是由文人士紳統(tǒng)治，他們大多是根據(jù)自己的能力選擇的，為一個(gè)王朝服務(wù)，這取代了大多數(shù)文明的世襲貴族。考試在一定程度上被漢朝所采用，漢朝與羅馬帝國(guó)同時(shí)期存在。考試成為了歐洲黑暗時(shí)代同時(shí)期的唐朝的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。這種制度意味著富人或出身良好的人不能自動(dòng)在士紳中占有一席之地: 他們必須教育他們的孩子以儒家的美德，這些孩子也必須聰明。來(lái)自普通背景的非常聰明的孩子也可能被錄取，并被完全接納。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


This structure had huge conservative power. Crisis only threatened legal authority, rarely the social order. The permeation of governmental practice by the agreed ideals of Confucian society was rendered almost complete by the examination system. Moreover, though it was very hard for anyone not assured of some wealth to support himself during the long studies necessary for the examination – writing in the traditional literary forms itself took years to master – the principle of competition ensured that a continuing search for talent was not quite confined to the wealthier and established gentry families; China was a meritocracy in which learning always provided some social mobility. From time to time there were corruption and examples of the buying of places, but such signs of decline usually appear towards the end of a dynastic period. For the most part, the imperial officials showed remarkable independence of their background. They were not supposed to act on such assumptions of obligation to family and connexion as characterized the public servants drawn from the eighteenth-century English gentry. The civil servants were the emperor’s men; they were not allowed to own land in the province where they served, serve in their own provinces, or have relatives in the same branch of government. They were not the representatives of a class, but a sextion from it, an independently recruited elite, renewed and promoted by competition. They made the state a reality.

“這個(gè)結(jié)構(gòu)擁有龐大的保守力量。危機(jī)只威脅到法律權(quán)威，很少威脅到社會(huì)秩序。儒家社會(huì)的共識(shí)理念對(duì)朝廷實(shí)踐的滲透，在科舉制度下基本完成。此外，盡管對(duì)于沒有足夠財(cái)富的人來(lái)說(shuō)，為考試而進(jìn)行的長(zhǎng)期學(xué)習(xí)是非常困難的——傳統(tǒng)文學(xué)寫作本身就需要數(shù)年的時(shí)間才能掌握，但競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的原則確保了對(duì)人才的持續(xù)尋找并不完全局限于較富裕和有地位的貴族家庭；中國(guó)是一個(gè)任人唯賢的國(guó)家，學(xué)習(xí)總是能提供一定的社會(huì)流動(dòng)性。腐敗和購(gòu)買土地的例子時(shí)有發(fā)生，但這種衰落的跡象通常出現(xiàn)在王朝末期。在很大程度上，朝廷官員表現(xiàn)出了其背景的顯著獨(dú)立性。他們不應(yīng)該以這種對(duì)家庭和關(guān)系的義務(wù)為前提而行動(dòng)，而這種義務(wù)是十八世紀(jì)英國(guó)貴族公務(wù)員的特點(diǎn)。公務(wù)員是皇帝的仆人，他們不允許在自己工作的省份擁有土地，不允許在自己（出生）的省份工作，也不允許在同一朝廷部門有親屬。他們不是某個(gè)階級(jí)的代表，而是從中挑選出來(lái)的，一個(gè)獨(dú)立招募的精英，通過競(jìng)爭(zhēng)獲得輪替和晉升。他們使這個(gè)國(guó)家成為現(xiàn)實(shí)?！?/b>

Imperial China was thus not an aristocratic polity; political power did not pass by descent within a group of noble families, though noble birth was socially important. Only in the small closed circle of the court was hereditary access to office possible, and there it was a matter of prestige, titles and standing, rather than of power. To the imperial counsellors who had risen through the official hierarchy to its highest levels and had become more than officials, the only rivals of importance were the court eunuchs. These creatures were often trusted with great authority by the emperors because, by definition, they could not found families. They were thus the only political force escaping the restraints of the official world.

“因此，中華帝國(guó)不是一個(gè)貴族政體。盡管貴族的出身在社會(huì)上很重要，但政治權(quán)力并不是通過貴族的家族血統(tǒng)來(lái)傳遞的。只有在宮廷的小圈子里才有可能世襲獲得職位，這只涉及威望、頭銜和地位，而不涉及權(quán)力。對(duì)于那些從官階上升到最高層級(jí)的朝臣們來(lái)說(shuō)，唯一重要的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手是宮廷宦官。這些人通常被皇帝賦予極大的權(quán)威，因?yàn)楦鶕?jù)定義，它們無(wú)法擁有家族。因此，他們是唯一擺脫官方束縛的政治力量。

Clearly, in the Chinese state there was little sense of the European distinction between government and society. Official, scholar and gentleman were usually the same man, combining many roles which in Europe were increasingly to be divided between governmental specialists and the informal authorities of society. He combined them, too, within the frxwork of an ideology which was much more obviously central to society than any to be found elsewhere than perhaps in Islam. The preservation of Confucian values was not a light matter, nor satisfiable by lip-service. The bureaucracy maintained those values by exercising a moral supremacy somewhat like that long exercised by the clergy in the West – and in China there was no Church to rival the state. The ideas which inspired it were profoundly conservative; the predominant administrative task was seen to be the maintenance of the established order; the aim of Chinese government was to oversee, conserve and consolidate, and occasionally to innovate in practical matters by carrying out large public works. Its overriding goals were regularity and the maintenance of common standards in a huge and diverse empire, where many district magistrates were divided from the people in their charge even by language. In achieving its conservative aims, the bureaucracy was spectacularly successful and its ethos survived intact across all the crises of the dynasties.

顯然，在中國(guó)，政府和社會(huì)之間幾乎沒有歐洲式區(qū)別。官員、學(xué)者和紳士通常是同一個(gè)人，結(jié)合了許多角色，在歐洲，這些角色日益被劃分為政府專家和社會(huì)里的非正式權(quán)威。在意識(shí)形態(tài)的框架內(nèi)，也可以將它們結(jié)合起來(lái)，但這種意識(shí)形態(tài)本身對(duì)社會(huì)的重要性明顯超過了其他任何一方，也許伊斯蘭教除外。儒家價(jià)值觀的維護(hù)不是一件輕松的事情，也不能滿足于口頭上的服務(wù)。官僚機(jī)構(gòu)通過道德至上來(lái)維持這些價(jià)值觀，這種道德至上有點(diǎn)像西方長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)的神職人員。激發(fā)中國(guó)的這一思想是非常保守的，主要的行政任務(wù)被認(rèn)為是維持既定的秩序；中國(guó)朝廷的目的是監(jiān)督、保護(hù)和鞏固，偶爾也通過開展大型公共工程在實(shí)際問題上進(jìn)行創(chuàng)新。它最重要的目標(biāo)是在一個(gè)龐大而多樣的帝國(guó)中維持共同的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，許多地方長(zhǎng)官甚至以語(yǔ)言來(lái)區(qū)分他們所管理的人民。在實(shí)現(xiàn)其保守目標(biāo)的過程中，官僚機(jī)構(gòu)取得了驚人的成功，其精神在歷次朝代危機(jī)中都完好無(wú)損?！?/b>

Though traditional China was imperfect by modern standards, those standards did not exist at the time. Traditional China noticed the outside world but saw nothing it liked better than its own norms. It had few aspirations beyond more of the same. There were some surprising deficiencies, including a failure to notice the famous Oracle Bones, pieces of turtle-shell or bones inscribed with archaic Chinese writing. They were used as a medicine for a long time in traditional China: their real meaning was not noticed by Chinese scholars until 1899, when Western ideas had already changed everything. But traditional China had for long periods been content with what it had, which Western Europe never was after it turned Christian.

雖然以現(xiàn)代的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來(lái)看，傳統(tǒng)的中國(guó)是不完善的，但這些現(xiàn)代標(biāo)準(zhǔn)在當(dāng)時(shí)并不存在。傳統(tǒng)的中國(guó)注意到了外部世界，但沒有什么比自己的規(guī)范更喜歡的了。除了更多的同化之外，它幾乎沒有什么抱負(fù)。還有一些令人驚訝的不足之處，包括沒有注意到聞名于世的甲骨文(甲骨文是刻有古代漢字的甲骨或甲骨，中國(guó)近代才被發(fā)掘發(fā)現(xiàn))。在傳統(tǒng)中國(guó)，它們被用作藥物的時(shí)間很長(zhǎng):直到1899年，中國(guó)學(xué)者才注意到它們的真正含義，那時(shí)西方的思想已經(jīng)讓世界發(fā)生了翻天覆地的變化。但是傳統(tǒng)的中國(guó)很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間都滿足于它所擁有的東西，而西歐在變成基督徒后就從來(lái)沒有這樣過。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


By the 15th century, Islam had largely pushed Christianity out of Asia. Europe was given a strong incentive to try to bypass the Islamic world and re-establish contact with rich non-Islamic ‘Cathay’. That was Columbus’s aim when he found the New World, the achievement that vastly accelerated Europe’s world-wide seizure of seas and oceans. But the civilised Far East was unimpressed by Europe’s sea-nomads.

到了15世紀(jì)，伊斯蘭教在很大程度上把基督教趕出了亞洲。歐洲受到了強(qiáng)烈的刺激，試圖繞過伊斯蘭世界，與富有的非伊斯蘭“中國(guó)”重新建立聯(lián)系。這就是哥倫布發(fā)現(xiàn)新大陸時(shí)的目標(biāo)，這一成就極大地加速了歐洲在世界范圍內(nèi)占領(lǐng)海洋的進(jìn)程。但是文明的遠(yuǎn)東卻對(duì)歐洲的海上游牧民無(wú)動(dòng)于衷。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


When the Pope overturned a compromise reached by Jesuit missionaries that had accepted traditional Chinese reverence for their ancestors, a Chinese Emperor commented:

當(dāng)教皇推翻了耶穌會(huì)傳教士達(dá)成的接受中國(guó)人對(duì)祖先的傳統(tǒng)尊敬的妥協(xié)時(shí)，一位中國(guó)皇帝評(píng)論道:

Every country must have some spirits that it reveres. This is true of our dynasty, as for Mongols and Mohammedans… But in this Catholic faith, the Society of Peter quarrels with the Jesuits… and among the Jesuits the Portuguese want only their own nationals in their church while the French want only French in theirs. This violates the principles of religion. Such dissension cannot be inspired by the Lord of Heaven but by the Devil, who, I have heard Westerners say, leads men to do evil since he can’t do otherwise.[G]

“每個(gè)國(guó)家都必須有一些它所崇敬的精神。我們的王朝就是這樣，伊斯蘭教徒也是如此……但在天主教信仰中，彼得會(huì)與耶穌會(huì)發(fā)生爭(zhēng)執(zhí)……在耶穌會(huì)中，葡萄牙人只要求自己的國(guó)民進(jìn)入他們的教堂，而法國(guó)人只要求法國(guó)人進(jìn)入他們的教堂。這違反了宗教原則。這種紛爭(zhēng)不是由上帝引起的，而是由魔鬼引起的。我曾聽西方人說(shuō)過，魔鬼引導(dǎo)人們作惡，因?yàn)樗麤]有別的辦法?！?/b>
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


It was not only Puritans who found something of the ‘a(chǎn)nti-Christ’ in the Papacy. Almost every power that’s had dealings with the Popes has ended up appalled by the pride and greed of the Vatican machine, an imbalance that infects even men of great personal piety and modesty. Protestors included many Catholics loyal to the old Latin-Christian traditions, who were unable to accept innovations like Transubstantiation and Papal Infallibility.

不僅僅是清教徒發(fā)現(xiàn)教皇中有“反基督”的成分。幾乎所有與教皇打交道的權(quán)力機(jī)構(gòu)都被梵蒂岡機(jī)器的驕傲和貪婪所震驚，這種不平衡甚至影響了虔誠(chéng)和謙遜的人。抗議者包括許多忠于古老的拉丁-基督教傳統(tǒng)的天主教徒，他們無(wú)法接受像變形論和教皇絕對(duì)正確這樣的革新。

China was different. There were some brutal rulers across the centuries, but the brutality was usually for a clear end, the creation of a peaceful Empire. On the whole, peace and harmony was achieved.

中國(guó)是不同的。幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)，有一些殘暴的統(tǒng)治者，但這種殘暴通常有一個(gè)明確的結(jié)局，那就是建立一個(gè)和平的帝國(guó)，并總體上實(shí)現(xiàn)了和平與和諧。
（未完待續(xù)）