奥尔德斯·赫胥黎（Aldous Huxley） 1928 年
“进步”这一观念，是现代的发明。它同时也是一种异端观念——这也解释了为什么我们那些恪守正统的祖先根本无法想象它。对于一位中世纪的正统教士而言，根本不可能存在所谓“进步”。人被创造出来时，就已经是完整而充分的人。不存在继续发展或成长的问题。人性是不变的，从一开始便始终如此。环境或许因地域、时代而有所不同，但这种变化不过是偶然现象。在不断变动的表面之下，人性在本质上始终如一。
进步论之所以成为可能，是因为基督教正统信仰逐渐衰落；而真正使它不可避免地出现的，则是工业时代人类物质资源的巨大扩张。在过去一个世纪里，世界人口增长了大约两倍半；但煤炭产量增长了一百一十倍，铁产量增长了八十倍，棉花产量增长了二十倍。商业贸易总额是上世纪初的四十倍。1830 年的船舶总吨位只有今天的六分之一，而我们拥有的铁路里程则是当时的三万六千倍。生活在这些惊人数字所代表的现象之中，人们若因此开始相信“进步”，似乎也情有可原。
本·琼森曾警告说：
人并不像树木那样， 体积长大，便会变得更好。
然而，尽管有本·琼森的警告，我们这些工业时代的人却恰恰一直如此一厢情愿地想象。因为我们使用的煤炭是祖先的一百一十倍，我们便相信自己在智力、道德和精神上也比他们好了一百一十倍。
顺便可以指出，近些年来这种规模惊人的物质扩张，极有可能注定只是一种暂时的、转瞬即逝的现象。我们之所以富有，是因为我们正在消耗自己的资本。煤炭、石油、硝石、磷酸盐——这些被我们如此肆无忌惮地使用的资源，一旦消耗便无法补充。等到储量耗尽，人类便只能在没有它们的情况下生活。我们的繁荣，是以我们的子孙后代为代价换来的。
“我们只能希望，人类能够免遭一场与此前上升同样陡峭的衰落。在这段上升过程中，我们大多数时候既没有意识到自己享有的特权，也没有意识到前方正在逼近的匮乏。从超然的角度来看，这种突然的衰退或许符合某种永恒的公平——此前的所得与此后的损失，冷冰冰地计算起来正好彼此抵消；然而，对亲历其中的人而言，它无疑会是一场极其惨烈的灾难。如果我们的后代真的遭遇这样的命运，那么对于他们所承受的苦难而言，我们这一代人曾经生活在丰裕与奢华之中，绝不会构成什么安慰。”
这种重新回到均衡状态的结果之一，几乎肯定会是人们对“进步”的信念减弱。热情洋溢的商人和广告从业者似乎以为，扩张可以永远以目前的速度持续下去。这个令人愉快的幻想还附带着一个推论：人类一代比一代聪明，也一代比一代更有德行。一旦事实无情地摧毁了前一个基本幻觉，后一个推论看起来也就不会那么理所当然了。
现在，我们应该把“进步”这一观念从它的物质成因与物质伴生现象中抽离出来，单独加以考察。物质扩张或许可以解释为什么“进步”这一观念会在精神层面兴起，却不能因此证明这一观念本身是正确的。人类活动的数量与质量之间，并不存在必然联系；财富与美德之间，同样不存在必然联系。我们必须把“进步”本身拿出来，根据它自身的依据来审视它。
相信进步的人，常常诉诸达尔文的进化论，为自己的信念寻找根据。如果这一假说确实成立，那么在最近的地质年代中，的确发生过真正的进步。然而，在人类社会组织为人类这个物种创造出的全新条件之下，这种进步是否注定还会继续，我们无法判断。过去那些推动进步的力量，在新的环境里或许反而会造成退化；我们无从猜测。我们也不能忘记另一种可能：进化也许是“定向进化”的——也就是说，它从一开始便偏向某个特定方向，注定要沿着某条特定道路发展。
进化——如果进化确实发生过的话——是极其缓慢的。自然选择需要数万年，甚至数十万年，才能使生物物种的特性产生显著变化。如果事实果真如此，那么可以肯定，在我们能够了解或推测其历史的这几千年间，人性不可能发生任何可以察觉的进化性变化。而且，除非科学家在此期间取得某种惊人的生物学发明，否则同样可以基本确定：在未来同样漫长的一段时间里，人类的身体与心智构造也不会发生物种层面的改变。
因此，就历史以及任何能够合理预测的未来而言，并不存在所谓物种层面的、可以遗传的“进步”。一个出生于公元二十世纪的人，在先天的智力与道德禀赋方面，并不比一个出生于公元前二十世纪的人更有优势。
艺术史为我们提供了最有力的证据，证明过去几千年来人性的基本禀赋始终相同。艺术与科学不同，因为每一个艺术家，无论出生在哪个时代，都必须从头开始，就好像在他之前从未存在过任何艺术家一样。他作品的风格会受到环境制约，但作品本身内在的卓越程度完全属于他个人。
科学家则能够在远大于艺术家的程度上利用前人的成果。没有优良的仪器和令人满意的技术，即使最伟大的科学天才也很难有所成就。科学的仪器与技术复杂而深奥，因此只能缓慢发展。艺术的技术则简单而明显；人类很早就已经能够充分发挥自己的能力。
结果非常耐人寻味。古埃及和巴比伦的艺术至少与我们的艺术同样优秀。我们甚至还可以追溯得更远，在阿尔塔米拉的旧石器时代洞穴中，找到那些描绘动物的壁画——从字面意义上说，它们从未被后来者超越。
所有现有证据似乎都表明：就人与生俱来的心智能力而言，今天的人与一百代、两百代以前的人之间，几乎没有任何高下之分。因此，如果真的存在“进步”，它必然来自环境的变化，而不是人内在本性的变化。
遗传学家告诉我们，后天获得的特征是不能遗传的——当然，某些相当罕见的特殊情况或许例外。一个只有一条腿、主张金银复本位制的人的孩子，出生时仍然会有正常数量的四肢，而且不会天生带着任何经济学偏见。
然而，人类与其他动物不同：人类发明了记录自身心智成果的方法。
据说，有些年老的狼对于陷阱和毒药能够积累近乎不可思议的知识。但这些知识会随着它们的死亡一起消失。它们不可能出版一本关于捕兽人习性的教科书，用来教育年轻的狼。
口头传统和文字，却使人类能够继承前人的部分成果——即使不是在出生时继承，至少也可以在出生后不久开始继承。许多当代中学生懂得的数学比毕达哥拉斯还多。这并不是因为他们比那位非凡的天才更加聪明，而是因为七十代数学家的发现已经被记录下来，可以供他们使用。
概括而言，在一切进步或多或少取决于知识积累的智识领域中，时间的流逝确实带来了进步。至于那些知识的重要性低于天赋的活动，则没有发生进步。
换句话说，科学与技术的进步是真实存在的，因为过去的成就能够被继承和利用。但是，艺术的进步是不可能的。因为一旦某种艺术的技巧已经发展成熟——而某些艺术的技巧早在有文字记载的历史开始之前就已经完善——此后的成功便完全取决于个人能力，而不是对过去成果的知识积累。
萧伯纳的戏剧与莎士比亚或埃斯库罗斯的戏剧当然不同；但绝不能说它们是后者的“进步”。事实上，很明显，它们甚至没有后者那么好。
适用于艺术的道理，也适用于其他精神活动，比如宗教。无论是基督徒、佛教徒还是穆斯林，虔诚者的理想都是效法各自宗教的创始者和圣徒。这些圣徒中的大多数生活在数百年前；这一事实本身已经足以证明，在宗教领域和艺术领域一样，真正重要的是个人的精神能力，而不是后天获得的知识。
在普通的日常道德领域，传统和教育显然能够发挥作用——至少在一定程度上如此。
孩子们会把自己成长过程中接受的道德准则视为理所当然。习惯使他们认为某些事情是必须做的、正确的，而另一些事情则是错误的，甚至错误到几乎无法想象。
传统道德规范的完善，确实可能使整个社会产生真正的道德进步。例如，在西欧和北美，对许多人而言，虐待动物如今已经是一件不可想象的事情。两百年前，当时流行的道德传统对这种残忍行为的谴责却远没有这么严厉。
然而，我们必须警惕，不要因为这样的例子便陷入一种法利赛人式的自我满足。
法律和伦理传统可以改善；但归根结底，真正必须在善与恶之间作出选择的，仍然是个人。就像艺术家一样，每个人面对每一个具体的道德问题时，都必须从头开始解决，仿佛在他之前从来没有任何具有道德意识的人存在过。
相信进步的人，往往过多地从社会和共同体的角度思考问题——他们想到法律、伦理体系、社会条件、经济，以及几乎一切事物，却唯独不去考虑那个拥有灵魂和自由选择权的个人。
一个满足于观察有关“整个人类”的抽象统计数字的人，很容易相信道德进步。一个关注个体灵魂的正统基督徒却不会如此。
因为用神学的语言来说，每一个人的灵魂都分有一份原罪。所有社会制度的重新安排，所能做到的，不过是让个人更容易避开某一种罪，同时更难避开另外一些罪。
例如，一个尚武社会逐渐和平化、商业化，自然会减少暴力和残忍，却也会增加贪婪与欺诈。
我们自以为比祖先更不嗜血，于是道貌岸然地自我庆贺；但我们忘记了，我们的贪婪与他们的愤怒一样，都是致命的罪。
同样，让过去贫穷的阶层富裕起来，或许能够减少嫉妒，也能削弱偷窃的诱惑；然而与此同时，它也容易增加骄傲和自满，并且为懒惰、饕餮和纵欲创造更多可能。
仔细观察便会发现，大多数所谓的“道德进步”，其实根本不是进步，而只是价值的重新估定，以及诱惑的重新分配。
每一个社会都有自己特有的恶习和美德。个人往往会放大自己所属共同体的美德，而淡化它的恶习。
例如在今天，我们憎恶暴力，却宽容贪婪、骄傲与饕餮。
而在骑士时代，人们崇尚勇气与宽宏，却不太重视我们这些商业社会所推崇的美德——耐心、谨慎与勤勉。愤怒以及由愤怒导致的暴力，在他们看来属于可以宽恕的过错；但他们憎恶贪婪，并且在理论上人人赞美禁欲与谦卑，而实际上也确实有不少人身体力行。
从十字军东征的时代到今天，人类在道德上究竟进步了多少？
依我看，非常少。
我们最多只能说，今天最常见的美德和最盛行的恶习，与七百年前已经不同了。
总结前面的论证，我们可以得出几个大体的结论。
物种在进化意义上的进步，在有文字记载的历史时期内从未达到可以察觉的程度。因此，无论从实际的历史记录还是未来预测来看，我们都可以把这种进步视为不存在。
另一种无法通过遗传获得、而是依靠传统传递的进步，则确实发生在科学与技术领域，因为每一个后来者都能够站在前人的肩膀上。
在道德领域，传统规范的不断完善，或许能够给整个社会带来某种程度的伦理进步。但是，我们所谓“道德进步”的绝大部分，其实只是一些完全没有朝着“变得更好”这一方向发展的变化。
艺术领域的进步非常有限。一旦艺术表现的技术趋于完善，所谓进步便完全停止。每一位艺术家都必须从头开始，他的成功只能依赖自己的个人天赋。
宗教领域的情况与此类似。
甚至在物质世界里，“进步”这一观念最终也是站不住脚的。
我们今天之所以如此富有，是因为我们正在消耗我们的“宇宙资本”。
一旦这笔资本耗尽，人类便会破产。
没有什么比这一点更加显而易见。
发布于：2020年12月
分类：散文
Aldous Huxley Progress 1928
The notion of progress is a modern invention. It is also — and this explains its unthinkableness by our orthodox ancestors — a heretical notion. For an orthodox medieval churchman there could be no such thing as progress. Man had been created complete and fully human. There was no question of his developing or growing up. Human nature was changeless and had remained so from the beginning. Circumstances might vary from place to place and from epoch to epoch; but this variation was the merest accident. Beneath the shifting surface, human nature remained substantially the same.
The doctrine of progress was made possible by the decay of Christian orthodoxy. What made it inevitable was the enormous expansion of man’s material resources during the age of industrialism. In the course of the last century, the population of the earth has increased about two and a half times. But the production of coal has increased a hundred and ten times, of iron eighty times, of cotton twenty times. The total commercial turnover is forty times what it was at the beginning of the last century. The nautical tonnage of 1830 was a sixth of ours and we have thirty-six thousand times as many miles of railways. Living in the midst of the extraordinary phenomena represented by these figures, men might be excused if they came to believe in progress.
It is not growing like a tree In bulk doth make men better be.
But in spite of Ben Jonson’s warning, this is precisely what we of the industrial age have fondly imagined. Because we use a hundred and ten times as much coal as our ancestors, we believe ourselves a hundred and ten times better, intellectually, morally, and spiritually.
We may remark in passing that the colossal material expansion of recent years is destined, in all probability, to be a temporary and transient phenomenon. We are rich because we are living on our capital. The coal, the oil, the niter, the phosphates which we are so recklessly using can never be replaced. When the supplies are exhausted, men will have to do without. Our prosperity had been achieved at the expense of our children. “We can only hope that our race may be spared a decline as precipitous as is the upward slope along which we have been carried, heedless, for the most part, both of our privileges and of the threatened privation ahead. While such a sudden decline might, from a detached standpoint, appear as in accord with the eternal equities, since previous gains would in cold terms balance the losses, yet it would be felt as a superlative catastrophe. Our descendants, if such as this should be their fate, will see poor compensation for their ills in the fact that we did live in abundance and luxury.” One of the results of this return to equilibrium conditions will certainly be a diminution of the belief in progress. Enthusiastic business men and advertising agents seem to imagine that expansion can go on indefinitely at the present rate. The corollary to this pleasing fancy is that men become steadily cleverer and more virtuous every generation. When facts have ruthlessly destroyed the primary illusion, its corollary will seen less obviously true.
It is time to consider the idea of progress apart from its material cause and accompaniment. Material expansion may explain the rise of the idea of progress on the spiritual plane; but it does no in itself justify that idea. There is no necessary relation between quantity and quality of human activity, or between wealth and virtue. The idea of progress must be considered by itself and on its own merits.
Believers in progress have appealed for a justification of their faith to the Darwinian theory of evolution. And certainly, if that hypothesis is well founded, there has been a genuine progress in recent geological time. Whether that progress is destined to be continued under the entirely novel conditions imposed on the human species by our social organization it is impossible to say. The forces which, in the past, made for progress may perhaps, in the new circumstances, make for deterioration; one cannot guess. Nor must we forget the possibility that evolution is orthogenetic — that is to say, biased from the start in one particular direction, predestined to take one particular course.
Evolution (if evolution indeed there has been) has been excessively slow. It has taken scores or even hundreds of thousands of years for natural selection to bring about significant changes in the specific qualities of living organisms. If this be the case, then it is certain that no perceptible evolutionary changes in human nature can possibly have taken place within the few thousands years of which we know or can conjecture the history. And unless the scientists produce some startling biological invention in the interval, it is almost equally certain that there will be no specific changes in man’s physical and mental make-up for an equally long period of future time. So far as history and the at all predictable future are concerned, there is no such thing as a specific and heritable progress. A man born in the twentieth century A.D. has no better chance of being congenitally intelligent and virtuous than one born in the twentieth century B.C. The history of art offers us the best evidence of the specific identity of human nature during the last few thousands years. Art differs from science inasmuch as every artists, whatever the date of his birth, has to begin from the beginning, as though no artist had ever existed before him. The style of his work will be conditioned by his environment; but its intrinsic excellence will be entirely his own. The man of science is able to utilize the work of his predecessors to a much greater extent than the artist. Without good instruments and a satisfactory technique, even the greatest scientific genius can achieve little. The instruments and technique of science, being complicated and of a very recondite nature, were only slowly evolved. The technique of the arts is simple and obvious; and men were very early in a position to give unfettered expression to their powers. The results are significant. The arts of ancient Egypt and Babylonia are at least as good as ours. One can go back much further and discover in the Paleolithic caves of Altamira paintings of animals which have literally never been surpassed. All the available evidence seems to show that, in respect to the mental capacities with which they are born, there is little or nothing to choose between the man of today and the man of a hundred or two hundred generations back. It follows therefore that if there has been progress, it must have been due to changes in environment rather than to changes in the intrinsic nature of man.
Geneticists assure us that (except, perhaps, in certain rather uncommon circumstances) acquired characteristics are not inherited. The children of one-legged bimetallists are born with the usual number of limbs and without any economic prejudices. But man, unlike the other animals, has invented methods of recording his mental acquisitions. There are old wolves which are said to have acquired an almost uncanny knowledge of traps and poisons. But their knowledge dies with them. They cannot publish text-books on the habits of trappers for the enlightenment of young wolves. Verbal tradition and writing enable human beings to inherit (if not at birth, at least shortly afterwards) some part of the accomplishments of their predecessors. Many contemporary school boys know more mathematics than Pythagoras not because they are more intelligent than that remarkable man of genius but because the discoveries of seventy generations of mathematicians have been recorded and are at their disposal. Generalizing, we may say that in all intellectual spheres where progress is, to a greater and or less extent, a function of knowledge, the lapse of time has brought progress. With regard to those activities in which knowledge is less important than natural ability, there has been no progress. In other words, progress in science and technology is a real fact, because past achievements can be inherited and exploited. But progress in the arts is impossible, because, once the technique of the art has been worked out (and the technique of some of the arts was perfected before the dawn of history), success depends entirely on personal ability, not on knowledge of previous achievements. Mr. Shaw’s plays are different from those of Shakespeare or of Aeschylus; but they are in no sense an advance on them. In fact, they are pretty obviously not so good. What applies to art applies to other spiritual activities. Religion, for example. It is the ambition of the pious, whether Christian, Buddhist, or Mohammedan, to imitate the founders and saints of their respective religions. The fact that most of these saints lived centuries ago is a sufficient proof that in religion as in art it is the individual spiritual faculty which counts, not the acquired knowledge.
In the sphere of ordinary everyday morals, tradition and education are obviously efficacious, up to a point. Children take for granted the code of morals with which they are brought up. Habit makes them regard the doing of certain things as necessary and right, the doing of other things as wrong and almost unthinkable. The refinement of the traditional code may lead to a genuine moral progress throughout a whole society. Thus, in Western Europe and North America, cruelty to animals is, for many people, unthinkable. Two hundred years ago such cruelty was not so strictly condemned by the current moral tradition.
Let us beware, however, of being led by such examples into a pharisaic self-satisfaction. Laws and ethical traditions may be improved; but it is, after all, the individual who has to choose between good and evil. Like the artist, he has to solve each particular problem from the beginning, as though there had never been any moral beings before himself. The believers in progress are apt to think too much in terms of society and the community — in terms of laws, ethical systems, social conditions, economics, of everything and anything except the individual with his soul and his liberty of choice. The satisfaction which looks at abstract figures about humanity at large finds it fairly easy to believe in moral progress. The orthodox Christian, who considers the individual soul, does not. For every individual soul has its share, in theological language, of original sin. All the social rearrangements do is to make it easier for the individual to avoid one kind of sin and harder to avoid other kinds. Thus the pacification and commercialization of a war-like society will naturally results in a reduction of the amount of violence and cruelty and an increase of covetousness and fraud. We congratulate ourselves sanctimoniously on being less bloodyminded than our fathers; but we forget that our avarice is as deadly a sin as their anger. Similarly, the enrichment of classes previously poor may lead to a decrease of envy and diminish the temptation to steal; but concurrently it tends to increase pride and self-satisfaction and to multiply the possibilities of sloth, gluttony, and lust. A close inspection reveals the fact that most so-called moral progress is really not a progress at all but merely a re-valuation of values and a re-distribution of temptations. Every society has its characteristic vices and virtues. The individual will tend to magnify the virtues and belittle the vices of his particular community. Thus, at present, we hate violence and condone covetousness, pride, and gluttony. In the ages of chivalry, men admired courage and magnanimity and set little store by our commercial virtues of patience, prudence, and industry. Anger and its violent manifestations were for them venial; but they hated avarice and they all theoretically admired, while not a few actually practiced, asceticism and humility. Have men morally progressed since the time of the Crusades? Very little, I should imagine. The most we can say is that the commonest virtues and the most prevalent vices are not the same as they are seven hundred years ago.
Summarizing our previous arguments, we may conclude with a few broad generalizations. Evolutionary progress of the species has not been perceptible within historical times and may, for all practical purposes of record of prophecy, be left out of account as non-existent. Uninheritable progress, due to tradition, has genuinely taken place in the realism of science and technology, where each worker stands on the shoulders of his predecessors. In the realm of morals, the refinement of traditional codes may lead to a certain ethical progress throughout a whole society. But the greater part of what is called moral progress consists merely in changes that are entirely without ameliorative direction. Progress in the arts is very limited and, as soon as the technique of artistic expression is perfected, ceases altogether to exist. Every artists starts from the beginning and depends for success on his personal talents alone. Something analogous is true of religion. Even in the material world the idea of progress is untenable. We are today very rich because we are living on our cosmic capital. When that capital is exhausted, mankind will be bankrupt. Nothing could be more obvious.
TopPosted: December 2020 Category: Essays