摘要：生活让我感到快乐，因为我对人、对人类的发展有无穷无尽的兴趣。这一兴趣使我不停地了解更多的人，而对人的深入了解则促使我相信人之初，性本善。

I enjoy life because I am endlessly interested inpeople and their growth. My interest leads me towiden my knowledge of people, and this in turncompels me to believe in the common goodness ofmankind. I believe that the normal human heart isborn good. That is, it’s born sensitive and feeling,eager to be approved and to approve, hungry forsimple happiness and the chance to live. It neitherwishes to be killed, nor to kill. If throughcircumstances, it is overcome by evil, it neverbecomes entirely evil. There remain in it elements ofgood, however recessive, which continue to hold the possibility ofrestoration.

生活让我感到快乐，因为我对人、对人类的发展有无穷无尽的兴趣。这一兴趣使我不停地了解更多的人，而对人的深入了解则促使我相信人之初，性本善。也就是说人生来就善解人意，有同情心，热望被人认同，也认同他人，渴望单纯的幸福和生存的机会。人不希望被人杀害也不希望去杀害被人。即使邪念因境而生，人也不会完全被邪念所左右。人总有其美好的一面，无论如何退化变质，总有弃恶从善的可能。

推开那一块的石头

I believe in human beings, but my faith is without sentimentality. I know that in environmentsof uncertainty, fear, and hunger, the human being is dwarfed and shaped without his beingaware of it, just as the plant struggling under a stone does not know its own condition. Onlywhen the stone is removed can it spring up freely into the light. But the power to spring up isinherent, and only death puts an end to it. I feel no need for any other faith than my faith inhuman beings.

我相信人类，但我的信念绝非是滥施情感。我知道，处于饥饿、恐惧、无法预测未来的环境中，人类没有意识到他们的发展遇到了很大的阻力，正如石头下的植物挣扎着生长却不知道自己被石头压住了一样。只有推开了石头，植物才能自由地、蓬勃地在阳光下生长。但是，蓬勃生长的力量是植物固有的，只有死亡才能夺去它们的这种力量。

Life Confucius of old, I am absorbed in the wonder of earth, and the life upon it, and I cannotthink of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life. If there is no other life, than this onehas been enough to make it worth being born, myself a human being. With so profound a faithin the human heart and its power to grow toward the light, I find here reason and causeenough for hope and confidence in the future of mankind. The common sense of people willsurely prove to them someday that mutual support and cooperation are only sensible for thesecurity and happiness of all. Such faith keeps me continually ready and purposeful with energyto do what one person can towards shaping the environment in which the human being cangrow with freedom. This environment, I believe, is based upon the necessity for security andfriendship.

如同古代的孔夫子一样，我深深地沉醉于奇妙的大地和美好的尘世生活之中，不可能再去畅想什么天堂和天使。此生我活得充实。如果没有来世，今世也足以值得我为它诞生，不枉为一世人。对人心之善及其向往光明之力的坚定信念使我对人类的未来充满希望和信心。人类的常识一定在未来的某一天向他们证明，互相支持与合作只会对全人类的安全和幸福有实际意义。这种信念使我精力充沛、尽我所能去营造人类能自由发展的环境且乐此不疲。营造这个环境，我相信，是以安全和友谊为必要前提的。

I take heart in a promising fact that the world contains food supplies sufficient for the entireearth population. Our knowledge of medical science is already sufficient to improve the healthof the whole human race. Our resources and education, if administered on a world scale, can liftthe intelligence of the race. All that remains is to discover how to administer upon a worldscale, the benefits which some of us already have. In other words, to return to my simile, thestone must be rolled away. This too can be done, as a sufficient number of human beingscome to have faith in themselves and in each other. Not all will have such faith at the samemoment, but there is a growing number who have the faith.

我对未来充满信心：世界的食物能供养人类;我们的医学知识足以改善人类的健康状况;我们的教育资源，若在世界范围内统一管理，能提高各种族的智力;我们只需去发现如何在世界范围内管理我们已经拥有的资源。换言之，用我刚提到的明喻来表示，石头必须推开。这也是能做到的。因为我们相当多的人已逐渐树立了对自己的信念，彼此也相互信任。虽然并不是所有的人在同一时刻具备这种信念，但具备这种信念的人数在不断增加。

Half a century ago, no one had thought of world food, world health, world education. Many arethinking today of these things. In the midst of possible world war, of wholesale destruction, Ifind my only question this: are there enough people now who believe? Is there time enough leftfor the wise to act? It is a contest between ignorance and death, or wisdom and life. My faithin humanity stands firm.

半个世纪以前，没有人关注世界的食品问题、健康问题和教育问题。今天就有许多人想到这些了。在可能发生的世界战争中，在大规模的毁灭过程中，我发现我唯一的疑问是：有足够多的人树立了信仰吗?有足够的时间让智者采取行动吗?这是无知与死亡之间或是智慧与生命之间的较量。我对人类的这种信念坚定不移。

倘若人类真能再活五百年

人，可以从生物、精神与文化等各个层面来定义，或是这些层面定义的结合。生物学上，人被分类为人科人属人种，是一种高级动物。精神层面上，人被描述为能够使用各种灵魂的概念，在宗教中这些灵魂被认为与神圣的力量或存在有关。文化人类学上，人被定义为能够使用语言、具有复杂的社会组织与科技发展的生物，尤其是能够建立团体与机构来达到互相支持与协助的目的。

人类对长生不老的痴迷 For ever and ever

Immortality

For ever and ever

人类对长生不老的痴迷

Four narratives and an actuary

四个说法和一个精算师

Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilisation. By Stephen Cave. Crown; 320 pages; $25. Biteback Publishing; ￡20. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

《长生不老：对永生的追求及其如何推动人类文明》作者：斯蒂芬。卡夫，皇冠出版社。

IMMORTALITY is an age-old obsession. Plenty of literature deals with the subject, from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamish to the poems of Homer and the writings of the Old Testament. The quest to live for ever has motivated medieval alchemists, modern techno-Utopians and mystics through the centuries。

长生不老是人类世世代代所痴迷的目标。从苏美尔的吉尔伽美什史诗到荷马史诗，再到旧约故事，数不清的文学作品触及到这个主题。从中世纪的炼金术士到现代的科幻乌托邦主义者和神秘主义者，千百年来人们孜孜不倦地追求着永生。

In his survey of the subject, Stephen Cave, a British philosopher, argues that man’s various tales of immortality can be boiled down into four basic “narratives”. The first is the simplest, in theory at least: do what the medieval alchemists never managed and discover an elixir to simply avoid dying. The second concerns resurrection, or coming back to life after dying, a belief found in all three of the Abrahamic religions. The idea of an immaterial soul that can persist through death dates back, in a formal form, at least to Plato, and forms Mr Cave’s third narrative. His fourth narrative deals with immortality through achievement, by becoming so famous that one’s name lives on through the ages。

英国哲学家史蒂芬。卡夫在对这个主题的研究中，把人们关于永生的观念概括为四个基本的“说法”。第一个，也是最简单的(至少在理论上)：找到中世纪炼金术士们从未找到的一种神药，从而避免死亡。第二个是再生，即在死后又恢复生命，这是所有三个亚伯拉罕系宗教(基督教、犹太教和伊斯兰教)所共有的信仰。第三个“说法”是关于非物质的灵魂不死的理念，这种理念的正式形态，至少可以追溯到柏拉图。第四个，是通过个人成就获得永生，即，一个人可以使自己变得非常有名，以至于人们将世代记住他的名字。

For the aspiring undying, Mr Cave unfortunately concludes that immortality is a mirage. But his demolition project is fascinating in its own right. The section on the soul is an able attack on the related doctrines of “vitalism”， the soul and mind-body dualism—the intuitive and still widely held body of ideas that hold that living creatures are animated by some sort of supernatural spark, and that an individual’s personality or consciousness can survive death. The chapters on resurrection will interest Christians, as Mr Cave examines how the literal recreation, by God, of dead people’s bodies remains the doctrine of most branches of Christianity. The idea of one’s soul, as opposed to one’s body, ending up in heaven or hell is a subsequent embellishment。

谈到那令人神往的永生，很不幸，卡夫先生的结论是，长生不老只是一种幻想。不过，他摧毁这种幻想的论证过程还是很精彩的。在关于灵魂的章节里，作者对与永生相关的“活力论”信条作了有力的抨击。活力论是一种灵魂(及心灵)与肉体的二元论，这种理念很直观，并且仍然被广为接受。它认为，生物是被某种超自然的力量所激活的，个人的特性和知觉在死后仍然存在。书中关于复活的章节肯定会使基督徒们感兴趣，卡夫先生在其中讨论了上帝使死人复活的故事，解释了为什么复活到现在仍然是大多数基督教派的信条。在接下来的章节中，卡夫涉及到人的灵魂上天堂或入地狱的话题。

If anything, readers might want more of Mr Cave’s crisp conversational prose. There could be more on living longer; Mr Cave barely has time to give even the briefest overview of the emerging science of life extension, which has allowed researchers to lengthen the lifespans of mice by a third or more in the lab。

卡夫先生的文体清新，像对话式的散文。但读者可能会觉得他应当涉及更多的话题。比如怎样能够更长寿。卡夫先生甚至没有对新兴的抗老医学做简单的介绍，抗老医学的研究者们已经可以在实验室里把老鼠的寿命延长三分之一甚至更多。

There are a few quibbles. Mr Cave’s repeated claim that the quest for immortality drives every human activity feels overdone. Others might dispute his definition of immortality itself. Mr Cave’s chief argument against the desirability of living for ever (even assuming it is possible) is the familiar one of boredom. As the uncountable billions of years tick away, the argument runs, even the most vivacious will come to realise that they have done everything there is to do, hundreds of times. With yet more billions of years looming ahead they will be struck down with a debilitating ennui。

对卡夫先生的书，我有几点吹毛求疵的意见。例如，他反复强调，对永生的追求是人类所有行为的推动力，这一点似乎言过其实了。另外，他对永生的定义本身可能也会引起争议。再者，卡夫先生不赞成追求永生(假定能够实现)的主要论点，仍然是常见的“永生会造成厌倦”的见解。这种见解认为：在活过了算不清的数百万年之后，即便是最生动活泼的人也终会意识到，世上所有能做的事都被做了几百次了;如果再活数百万年的话，只会越来越无聊了。

That argument only applies if these notional immortals are also invincible, and therefore impervious to accident. But that is an odd definition, and not one that crops up very often, especially in scientific research into ageing. The holy grail there is simply to arrest the ageing process. Indeed, Mr Cave quotes an actuary who has estimated that the average “medical immortal” would persist for around 6,000 years before dying in a plane accident or a car crash or the like. And besides, boredom seems to be a non-problem: after all, if an immortal does ever get truly bored of his vastly extended life, there would be nothing to prevent him from ending it。

然而，这种见解能够成立的前提是：这些假想的长生不老者同时也是刀枪不入者，因而不会被任何事故所损伤。但这种前提是难以成立的，特别是与研究老化的科学成果相悖。这种科学的目的仅仅是延缓老化。确实，卡夫先生引用了一位精算师的估算结果：即使在医学意义上能够长生不老的人，平均寿命大约也只有六千年，因为他们也终会由于飞机失事或汽车事故而死去。此外，厌倦看起来不是什么问题：假如一个长生不老的人实在由于活得太长而厌倦了，他随时可以结束自己的生命嘛。