无根据的信念

无根据的信念

21 .But we do not, as a rule, continue all our liveschanging our sentiments and opinions with every change of fashion. Sooner or later our minds become fixed. Many a man holds his opinions today—because they happened to be in fashion ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago.

但一般来说，我们一生中并不会随着每个潮流的改变而改变自己的感情和信念。

我们的思想或早或晚会固定下来。

许多人今天持有的观念其实是10年20年30年40甚至50年前碰巧流行的思潮。

22 Once an opinion is accepted, whatever be the cause of its acceptance, it has a strong tendency to persist. Every time we think along a particular thought-pattern, makes it easier for us to think the same way again. It is quite legitimate to speak of “habits” of thought. The “brain path” becomes so well worn; the pattern of brain-centres becomes so well connected up by continual use, that the nerve current finds a route of practically no resistance, and so it always takes almost exactly the same course.

无论当初接受某个观念是因何原因，我们一旦接受了，这一观念就往往会顽强的留在我们的脑中。

我们每次都按某一特定的思维方式思考。而按统一方式思考要容易得多。

所以我们完全可以用思维习惯这个说法。

大脑思路已经被用久了，用熟了。

他的神经中枢因频繁使用都已经得到很好的链接，是神经流找到了几乎毫无阻挡的路径，因而他总是选取几乎一样的路线。

23 We all know the person who has a string of stock anecdotes. We all know too the person who has certain stock arguments and opinions which he expresses, almost in the same words, whenever he receives the “cue.” We all know men and women whose minds work like gramophones. Put them on to the “record” about the good old days; or about prohibition; or about the wicked capitalist; or about the lazy and improvident workers; or about the country going to the dogs; or about the modern girl; or some long, tedious anecdote about what I said to him, and what he said to me, and I said … and he said … and then I told him straight …! All we have to do is to start

him off-and nothing on earth can stop him-until the “record” has run out!

我们都知道有的人的脑子里储存着一连串的趣闻。

我们还知道有的人脑子里有陈旧的数据和观点，而且表述时用词几乎都一样。

我们都知道有些人的脑子和留声机一样，只要你一放上上那些老唱片，比如美好的过去，禁酒时期，万恶的资本家，懒惰又不会精打细算的工人，国家越来越糟糕，城市女性，

又臭又长的陈年琐事，关于我对他讲了什么，他有对我讲了什么，后来我又怎么说，他又怎么说，最后我直截了当跟他说...这样的人只要我们给他开个头，他就会一直说下去，没有办法停下，直到唱片放完。

24 The same thing is true of opinions and beliefs of all kinds. After they have been held a certain length of time, they become, as it were, so stamped in by continual use that it is almost impossible now to change them. While we are young, we are continually taking in new ideas, altering our thought-patterns, “making up our minds” afresh. As we grow older, we become less and less able to accept any new idea which will not fit in with our existing thought-pattern. Thus we become, in James?s term, Old Fogeys. Sometimes our thought-patterns set while we are still quite young. In a few rare cases they remain open or alterable even into old age. An Old Fogey may have become such at seventeen—or seventy. “I am almost afraid to say so (says James), but I believe that in the majority of human beings Old Fogeyism begins at about the age of twenty-five”

其他类型的无根据观念也同出一辙，人们持有这些观念一定时间后，它们被反复使用就好像在头脑中扎了根，再也无法改变。

年轻时，我们不断吸收新思想，修正自己的思维方式，重新拿定主意。

进入老年之后，我们就逐渐接受不了与现有思维方式不协调的新思想。

有时，我们的思维方式甚至在年轻时就已固定。

这样我们就变成了詹姆斯所说的老顽固。

当然，有人知道老年思想仍开放，并不断调整自己的思维方式，但这只是个别情况。

一个人即可能在17岁也可能在70岁成为老顽固，我不想这样直说，但对大多数人来说，在25岁就成为老顽固了。

25Yet when full allowance has been made for all these non-rational factors in the determination of opinion, there remains—not in all minds, not in most minds, but in some—a desire to discover the facts: to think things out in a clear and rational way; to get at the truth at all costs, whatever it may turn out to be! For such minds this is written.

尽管在确定思维的过程中有上述种种非理性因素需要我们考虑在内，但仍有人 不是所有人，也不是多数人，但是少数人，脑子里渴望了解事实，理性地考虑事情方方面面，不惜任何代价地去寻求真相，而不管真相是什么，本文就为有这种头脑的人所写。