英语专业晨读美文-人物篇 10 Becoming a Freethinker

[00:03.79]Becoming a Freethinker and a Scientist

[00:06.12]When I was a fairly precocious 1 young man

[00:08.98]I became thoroughly 2 impressed with the futility 3 of the hopes

[00:12.19]and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life.

[00:15.48]Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase,

[00:19.60]which in those years was much more carefully covered up

[00:22.74]by hypocrisy 4 and glittering words than is the case today.

[00:26.32]By the mere 5 existence of his stomach

[00:28.84]everyone was condemned 6 to participate in that chase.

[00:32.35]The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation 7,

[00:35.89]but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.

[00:40.22]As the first way out there was religion,

[00:42.96]which is implanted into every child

[00:45.02]by way of the traditional education-machine.

[00:47.55]Thus I came through the child of entirely 8

[00:50.83]irreligious (Jewish) parents to a deep religiousness,

[00:54.78]which, however, reached an abrupt 9 end at the age of twelve.

[00:58.64]Through the reading of popular scientific books

[01:01.92]I soon reached the conviction that

[01:03.54]much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.

[01:06.35]The consequence was a positively 10 fanatic 11 orgy

[01:10.05]of freethinking coupled with the impression

[01:12.41]that youth is intentionally 12 being deceived

[01:14.73]by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.

[01:17.93]Mistrust of every kind of authority

[01:20.41]grew out of this experience,

[01:22.29]a skeptical 13 attitude toward the convictions

[01:24.53]that were alive in any specific social environment-

[01:27.85]an attitude that has never again left me, even though,

[01:31.51]later on, it has been tempered by a better insight

[01:34.72]into the causal connections.

[01:37.02]It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth,

[01:40.11]which was thus lost, was a first attempt to

[01:43.22] free myself from the chains of the “merely personal”,

[01:45.58]from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes,

[01:49.20]and primitive 14 feelings.

[01:51.35]Out yonder there was this huge world,

[01:53.44]which exists independently of us human beings

[01:55.80]and which stands before us like a great,

[01:58.57]eternal riddle 15, at least partially 16 accessible to

[02:01.56]our inspection 17 and thinking.

[02:03.77]The contemplation of this world beckoned 18 as a liberation,

[02:07.69]and I soon noticed that many a man

[02:10.26]whom I had learned to esteem 19 and to admire

[02:12.96]had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit.

[02:15.99]The mental grasp of this extra-personal world

[02:19.19]within the frame of our capabilities 20

[02:21.40]presented itself to my mind, half consciously,

[02:23.78]half unconsciously, as a supreme 21 goal.

[02:26.09]Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past,

[02:30.02]as well as the insights they had achieved,

[02:33.35]were the friends who could not be lost.

[02:35.70]The road to this paradise was not as comfortable

[02:38.68]and alluring 22 as the road to the religious paradise;

[02:41.17]but it has shown itself reliable,

[02:43.67]and I have never regretted having chosen it.