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1、如何成为一个天才 作者:罗素 如果我的青年读者中有人想成为当代理论骨干,我希望他们能避免我年轻时因 为缺少好的建议而犯下的几个错误。当年，我要对一个问题形成观点时，一般 先要研究它，从不同的角度推敲，最终得出一个中肯的结论。现在我发现这种 办法是行不通的。一个天才无须研究，便无所不知，他的观点是武断的，他的 说服力建立在言辞修饰上，而不是建立在讲理上。有偏见是很有必要的，这样 有利于表现感情的强度，而感情的强度往往被视为有力。诉诸偏见和激情是很 有必要的，不过人们对这种叫法已经感到难堪，开始以某种新的不好说出的道 德为名来做同样的事。也许应该嘲弄那些需要证据达到结论的迂腐和书生气。 总而言之，
2、应该新瓶装旧酒。 成为天才的办法并不陌生，在我们的祖父时代已经被卡莱尔实践过了，在我们 的父辈时代被尼采实践过了，到了我们这一代也已经被劳伦斯实践过了。劳伦 斯的热爱者们认为劳伦斯道出了有关男女关系的所有的崭新的智慧，实际上他 不过是重新宣扬和野蛮人联系在一起的男性统治论。按照他的哲学，女性的存 在就是为劳累一天而归的伟大男性提供一块又软又滑的温柔乡。而现代社会对 女性的希冀却不仅限于此。他为了旧的和黑暗的东西擦洗这个世界，他热爱墨 西哥阿芝特克人式的残忍。正在学习的青年们自然能够快乐阅读并且四处实践 野蛮人那一套，只要文明社会的惯例允许。 成为天才最关键的一点还有掌握批评的艺术。你的批评一定
3、要使读者认为你在 批评他人而不是他自己，这样他就会为你那高贵的讽刺所折服，如果他看出你 在批评他本人，他就会认为你是一没有教养的偏激狂。卡莱尔说，英国有 2000 万人，大部分都是。每个人读到这里都会认为自己是一个例外，并因此喜 欢这个论断。你绝对不能批评某一特定的阶级，比如有具体收入，具体地域的 一类人，或是迷信某一具体信条的信徒。如果你这样做，有的读者就会反应过 来你是在骂他。你最好批评那些情感迟钝的人，那些需要慢慢剖析才能反应过 来的人，因为我们都知道有这样的人，因此我们要满怀同情观看你对时代病症 有力的诊断。 不要理会事实和理性，完全生活于由你自己的奇思妙想的激情所构建的世界中， 并全
4、心全意坚定信念狠抓落实，你将成为你时代中的一个圣人。What is a Genius?You might think you know genius when you see it, but as a new book shows, the very definition and idea has had a fluid history. From the divine to the profane, what we mean when we say that potent word.In 1917, a young psychologist at Stanford University di
5、d something strange: he tried to measure the IQs of dead people. Despite the challenge of testing the mental agility of deceased subjects, Lewis Terman claimed that reports of childhood activities, accomplishments, and pastimes could supply the essential data. Terman and his assistant relied on biog
6、raphical accounts of illustrious individuals to compute the scores. The smartest of the overwhelmingly male and European luminaries they ranked was John Stuart Mill, with an estimated IQ of 190. Leibniz (185) and Voltaire (170) also performed well, but others gave a lackluster showing. Beethoven onl
7、y reached a 135, and Newton registered a mere 130.Terman created the Stanford component of the widely used Stanford-Binet intelligence test. So it may seem surprising that he didnt consider his estimates of the IQs of dead geniuses as speculative as most now realize they are. In the IQ test he helpe
8、d develop for living subjects, he used subtler methods than the 19th-century scientists who “read” the bumps of the skull to discern signs of genius or assumed that people with larger skulls must be smarter. In the 19th-century a fascination with the skulls of artists led to the theft of some famous
9、 heads. Haydns and Goyas were removed and studied to search for signs of greatness. Though the investigators motives were ostensibly scientific, the impulse to venerate the physical relics of intellectual visionaries was in many ways a religious one. Geniuses became the saints of an increasingly sec
10、ular Europe. And as Termans attempts to measure the IQs of the dead suggest, he was still susceptible to the temptations of the pseudoscientific traditions that preceded his work.The often indissoluble blend of religious veneration and scientific scrutiny in our attitudes toward genius is a major th
11、eme of a new book by cultural historian Darrin McMahon. In Divine Fury: the History of Genius, he gives a fascinating account of the evolution of the idea of genius in Western culture from its divine origins in ancient Greece and Rome to the modern culture of celebrity.Plato first formulated the inf
12、luential model of artistic creation as divine inspiration. “God takes away the minds of these men,” he said of poets, and added that while composing they were in the “grip of something divine.” What later thinkers attributed to random distribution of genetic talent or favorable circumstances, the an
13、cient Greeks understood as the caprice of the gods. The inspired few were vulnerable to the prejudices of the masses. “Ordinary people will think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by a god,” Plato wrote. Socrates was a prime example. His divine sign or daimon advi
14、sed him throughout his life, and a jury of his peers condemned him to death. Aristotelian tradition sought to explain genius in physiological rather than religious terms, as the product of a particular combination of humors in the body. One work noted a link between genius and melancholy: perhaps a
15、single quality produced both anguish and extraordinary achievements.The sacred aurasuffusingthe notion of genius manifested itself in various ways. Newtonwas buried beside saints in Westminster Abbey, and physical relics of genius included everything from Galileos finger to Napoleons penis.The word
16、“genius” derives from a Latin verb meaning to father or beget and is related to our word “genitals.” This generative quality of the concept is clear in its earliest attested use in the third century BC by the comic playwright Plautus, whose characters speak of starving ones genius by denying it food and sex. The notion expanded to denote a personal spirit and protector by the time Horace and Ovid wrote in the first century BC. Genii protect individuals and places: springs, hills, citi
