It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others. I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others. We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, find it easy to condone them. For all I know we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and bad in ourselves together.
讓人奇怪的是,和別人的過錯比起來,我們自身的過錯往往不是那樣的可惡。我想,其原因應(yīng)該是我們知曉一切導(dǎo)致自己犯錯的情況,因此能夠設(shè)法諒解自己的錯誤,而別人的錯誤卻不能諒解。我們對自己的缺點不甚關(guān)注,即便是深陷困境而不得不正視它們的時候,我們也會很容易就寬恕自己。據(jù)我所知,我們這樣做是正確的。缺點是我們自身的一部分,我們必須接納自己的好和壞。
But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have fomp3ed of ourselves fro which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial instance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has never told not one, but a hundred?
但是當(dāng)我們評判別人的時候,情況就不同了。我們不是通過真實的自我來評判別人,而是用一種自我形象來評判,這種自我形象完全摒棄了在任何世人眼中會傷害到自己的虛榮或者體面的東西。舉一個小例子來說:當(dāng)覺察到別人說謊時,我們是多么地蔑視他啊!但是,誰能夠說自從未說過謊?可能還不止一百次呢。 |