达尔文PK林肯：谁更重要？

Who Was More Important Darwin or Lincoln 达尔文 PK 林肯 谁更重要 By Malcolm Jones 译 张曦 2009 年是林肯和达尔文诞生两百周年 大西洋两岸的英美两国分别展开了为期一年的 庆祝活动 除了同年同月同日生 林肯和达尔文还有哪些共同点 他们对世界的深远影响 是怎样的 作为杰出历史人物 两者 谁更重要 也许文中的论述可以让你一见分晓 How s this for a coincidence Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year on the same day Feb 12 1809 As historical facts go it amounts to little more than a footnote Still while it s just a coincidence it s a coincidence that s guaranteed to make you do a double take1 the first time you run across it Everybody knows Darwin and Lincoln were near mythic figures in the 19th century But who ever thinks of them in tandem 2 But instinctively we want to say that they belong together It s not just because they were both great men and not because they happen to be exact coevals 3 Rather it s because the scientist and the politician each touched off 4 a revolution that changed the world As soon as you do start comparing this odd couple you discover there is more to this birthday coincidence than the same astrological 5 chart Both lost their mothers in early childhood Both suffered from depression and both wrestled with religious doubt Each had a strained relationship with his father and each of them lost children to early death Both spent the better part of their 20s trying to settle on a career and neither man gave much evidence of his future greatness until well into middle age Darwin published The Origin of Species when he was 50 and Lincoln won the presidency a year later Both men were private and guarded 6 Most of Darwin s friendships were conducted through the mail and after his five year voyage on HMS 7 Beagle 8 as a young man he rarely left his home in the English countryside Lincoln though a much more public man carefully cultivated a bumpkin 9 persona that encouraged both friends and enemies to underestimate his considerable almost Machiavellian 10 skill as a politician Self Made Men Darwin the man who would almost singlehandedly redefine biological science started out as an amateur naturalist a beetle collector a rockhound 11 a 22 year old rich kid dilettante 12 His father had all but 13 ordered him not to go to sea worrying that it was nothing more than one of Charles s lengthening list of aimless exploits How could the father know that when the son came ashore after his five year voyage he would not only have shed his aimlessness but would have replaced it with a scientific sense of skepticism and curiosity so rigorous and abiding 14 that he would be a workaholic almost to the day he died But the crucial thing is that he did all this by himself Darwin may have been independently wealthy but in terms of his vocation he was a self made man Lincoln was self made in the more conventional sense a walking talking embodiment of the frontier myth made good 15 Like Darwin Lincoln was not a quick study Both men worked slowly to master a subject But both had restless hungry minds After about a year of schooling as a boy and that spread out in dribs and drabs 16 of three months here and four months there Lincoln taught himself He read Blackstone 17 on his own to become a lawyer He memorized swaths 18 of the Bible and Shakespeare At the age of 40 after he had already served a term in the U S House of Representatives he undertook Euclidean geometry 19 as a mental exercise Compulsive Scribbler Darwin seems to have been able to think only with a pen in his hand He was a compulsive note taker and list maker His first published work The Voyage of the Beagle is a tidied up version 20 of the log he kept on the five year trip around the world and he is unflaggingly 21 meticulous in his observations of the plant and animal life he saw or collected along the way To live for Darwin meant looking and examining and then writing down what he saw and then trying to make sense of it Reading The Origin of Species you feel as though he is addressing you as an equal He is never autocratic 22 never bullying Instead he is always willing to admit what he does not know or understand and when he poses a question he is never rhetorical He seems genuinely to want to know the answer The quality of Darwin s mind is in evidence everywhere in this book but so is his character generous open minded and always respectful of those who he knew would disagree with him Like Darwin Lincoln was a compulsive scribbler forever jotting 23 down phrases notes and ideas on scraps of paper then squirreling 24 the notes away in a coat pocket a desk drawer or sometimes his hat where they would collect until he found a use for them in a letter a speech or a document He was also a compulsive reviser He knew that words heard are not the same as words read The Gettysburg Address apparently gestated 25 in a somewhat similar fashion Lincoln said what he had to say in two minutes Brevity is only one of the several noteworthy aspects of what is surely one of the greatest speeches ever made In 272 words he defined the national principle so thoroughly that today no one would think of arguing otherwise Lincoln understood that language could heal and he knew when to use it Lincoln no less than Mark Twain forged what we think of today as the American style forthright rhythmic muscular beautiful but never pretty Revolutionaries Lincoln and Darwin were both revolutionaries in the sense that both men upended 26 realities that prevailed when they were born So considering the joint magnitude of their contributions and the coincidence of their conjoined birthdays it is hard not to wonder who was the greater man It s an apples and oranges or Superman vs Santa comparison But if you limit the question to influence it bears pondering all the more 27 if you turn the question around and ask what might have happened if one of these men had not been born Very quickly the balance tips 28 in Lincoln s favor Ideas about evolution surfaced throughout the first part of the 19th century and while none of them was as cogent 29 as Darwin s it was not as though he was the only man who had the idea Lincoln in contrast is sui generic 30 Take him out of the picture and there is no telling what might have happened to the country True his election to the presidency did provoke secession 31 and in turn the war itself but that war seems inevitable not a question of if but when Once in office he becomes the indispensable man Certainly we know what happened once he was assassinated Reconstruction 32 was administered punitively 33 and then abandoned leaving the issue of racial equality to dangle for another century But here again what Lincoln said and wrote matters as much as what he did He framed the conflict in language that united the North and inspires us still If anything with the passage of time he only looms larger more impressive and also more mysterious Lincoln forever remains just beyond our grasp though not for want of trying If Darwin was not so irreplaceable as Lincoln that should not gainsay 34 his accomplishment No one could have formulated his theory any more elegantly or anguished more over its implications Like Lincoln Darwin was brave He risked his health and his reputation to advance the idea that we are not over nature but a part of it Lincoln prosecuted a war and became its ultimate casualty to ensure that no man should have dominion over another Their identical birthdays afford us a superb opportunity to observe these men in the shared context of their time how each was shaped by his circumstances how each reacted to the beliefs that steered the world into which he was born and ultimately how each reshaped his corner of that world and left it irrevocably 35 changed Answer Lincoln 难道这是巧合 查尔斯 达尔文和亚伯拉罕 林肯同年同月同日生 1809 年 2 月 12 日 在历史事件中 这至多不过是个小小的注脚 微不足道 虽然这只是个巧合 但如果你是 第一次偶然得知 保证还是会不由一怔 谁都知道达尔文和林肯是 19 世纪近乎神话般的人 物 但是有谁想过将他们相提并论呢 不过出于直觉 我们认为他们是同类人 这不仅是 因为他们都是伟人 也不仅是因为他们恰巧是完全同时代的人 更确切地说 这是因为作 为科学家和政治家 他们分别掀起了一场革命 改变了世界 一旦你真的开始对两位与众不同的人物进行比较 就会发现这个生日的巧合比星象学 隐含的意义更多 两人都在幼年失去了母亲 都经历过情绪低落 都曾对宗教产生怀疑并 为此而挣扎过 他们和父亲的关系都很紧张 都曾有孩子夭折 在二十多岁的大好年华 两人都在努力确定适合自己的职业 而且谁都没有表现出成为伟人的迹象 直到中年他们 才大器晚成 达尔文在 50 岁时出版了 物种起源 次年林肯赢得了总统职位 两人都喜 欢独处 行事谨慎 达尔文的大部分朋友靠通信维持联系 在他年轻时乘坐英国皇家海军 舰艇 小猎犬 号进行了五年的航行后 他隐居英国乡间 几乎足不出户 林肯虽说是一位 公众人物 却谨慎地保持着乡巴佬的形象 使得无论是朋友还是对手 都低估了他作为一 个政治家所具有的杰出的 几乎是马基雅弗利式的才能 自我奋斗 达尔文几乎是凭一己之力重新定义了生物学 但他开始研究生涯时的身份只是一个博 物学爱好者 甲虫收集者和岩石迷 一个 22 岁的富家子弟 样样涉猎 样样不精 他的父 亲差点儿命令他不要出海 因为担心那只不过是他许许多多漫无目的的行为中的一个罢了 这位父亲怎么能够知道 五年后儿子航行归来 不仅摆脱了无目的的生活状态 而且代之 以包括怀疑主义和求知欲在内的科学意识 这种精确严密又经年不衰的科学意识使他几乎 成了工作狂 直到生命最后一刻 但是最为重要的是 他依靠自己完成了所有这些工作 达尔文也许家境富有 不需要援助 但是就他的职业来讲 他是一个自我奋斗的成功者 林肯是一个更为传统意义上的自我奋斗者 一个白手起家的开拓式传奇人物的活生生 的例子 林肯同达尔文一样 学习速度不快 两人为掌握一门学科要持久地学习 但是他 们都有永不停歇 渴求知识的头脑 林肯小时候大约上了一年学 这儿上几个月 那儿上 几个月 之后他都是自学 为了当一名律师 他独自研习了布莱克斯通的著作 他背诵了 圣经 和莎士比亚作品的很多段落 40 岁的时候 当时他已在美国众议院工作了一个任 期 为了训练大脑 他学习了欧几里德几何学 用笔思考 对于达尔文来说 似乎只有手中有枝笔 他才能思考 他总是禁不住地要记笔记 列 清单 他出版的第一本书 小猎犬号见闻录 其实就是他周游世界五年的航海日志 经整 理后出版 他对沿途看到或收集到的动植物做了坚持不懈的细致观察 对达尔文来说 活 着就意味着观察 研究 然后把他的所见所闻记录下来 努力辨明其中的意义 读 物种起源 的时候 你会感觉到他仿佛是在同一个与他同等身份地位的人谈话 他从不独断专行 也从不指手画脚 相反 他总是愿意承认自己不知道或不理解的事物 当他提出一个问题时 他总是直截了当 他似乎确实是想知道答案 达尔文的思想特点在 这本书中到处都有明显的体现 而同样贯穿其中的 还有他的性格特点 宽宏大量 思想 开阔 对于和他意见相左的人充满尊重 与达尔文一样 林肯也是一个强迫症涂鸦者 总是在纸片上草草记下一些词组 注释 和想法 然后把这些笔记揣到衣兜里 放到抽屉里 有时甚至塞在帽子里以便积攒 直到 将来某个时候 他会把这些纸条取出来 用在书信 演说或文件里 他也是一个强迫症式 的修改者 他知道 对于词语 听到的与看到的感觉并不相同 葛底斯堡演说 显然是以某种类似的方式进行构思的 林肯在两分钟内就说完了必 须说的话 精炼正是这篇历史上最伟大的演讲的显著特点之一 他用 272 个词就透彻地定 义了国家的原则 至今没有人提出异议 林肯知道语言可以医治伤痛 而且他善于利用适 当的时机 林肯和马克 吐温一样 铸就了我们今天所认为的美国风格 直截了当 节奏明 快 铿锵有力 文字优美而非流于浮华 时代先锋 林肯和达尔文都是革命家 在这个意义上 他们都彻底颠覆了他们出生的年代所盛行的 社会现实 因此 考虑到他们两人的巨大贡献 还有他们恰巧相同的生日 我们很难不去想 他们中哪个更伟大 这个问题类似于比较苹果与橘子 或超人与圣诞老人 但是如果把这 个问题限于影响力的范围 甚或把问题反过来问 如果其中一位没有出生过 世界可能会 怎样 这就确实需要思考一下了 天平会很快偏向林肯 19 世纪初期 进化论思想在各地 都曾浮出水面 虽然没有一个像达尔文的学说那样有说服力 但似乎达尔文并不是唯一拥 有进化论思想的人 相反 林肯则是独一无二的 如果将林肯从历史中抹去 谁也无法预料美国的命运 诚然 他的当选导致南方 11 个州相继脱离联邦 继而引发内战 但是这场战争似乎不可避 免 其爆发并非是 会否 的问题 而只是 何时 的问题 林肯甫一上任 就成为国家不可或 缺的人 我们当然也了解林肯被暗杀后发生的状况 基于惩罚目的 南部各州进行重建 却又半途而废 使得种族平等问题延宕百年 但这里要说明的是 林肯的演说和文稿同他 的行动一样意义显著 他用语言勾画出那场战争 把北军紧密地团结在一起 而且至今仍 然激励着我们 如果说有什么变化的话 那就是随着时间的流逝 他变得更加巍然耸立 更加令人肃然起敬 同时也更加神秘莫测 林肯永远超越出我们的理解力 虽然我们试图 理解的努力并不少 即使达尔文并不像林肯那样不可替代 却并不能因此否定他的成就 没有人能比他更 精炼地阐述他的理论 也没有人比他更痛苦于该理论所隐含的意义 达尔文同林肯一样勇 敢 他冒着牺牲健康和损坏名誉的风险提出自己的观点 人类并非凌驾于自然之上而只是 自然的一部分 林肯发起一场战争 来确保人人平等 无人拥有控制他人的权力 最终他 成了这场战争的殉难者 他们共同的生日给了我们一个极好的机会 得以在相同的时代背 景下观察他们 观察他们各自如何被环境塑造 如何应对操控他们所处世界的信念 最终 又如何重塑了各自所在的一方世界 并使其发生了不可逆转的变化 PK 的结果是 林肯胜 1 do a double take 大吃一惊 2 in tandem 一前一后 一个跟着一个 3 coeval k u i v l n 同时代的人 4 touch off 开始 引发 5 astrological str l d ik l adj 占星的 占星术的 6 guarded g did adj 谨慎的 有保留的 7 HMS abbr 英国 皇家海军舰艇 Her His Majesty s Ship 8