Lens vs. Mirror: Chinese Scientific Imagination in the 1900’s

下面这段研究文字，摘自我的一篇英文论文，里面说的“宝玉”是重新想起“补天”使命的贾宝玉，出现在1905年吴趼人《新石头记》里。他游历了上海十里洋场、义和团运动，和完美的乌托邦社会“文明境界”（Civilized Realm）。论文中谈及的另一个人物“老少年” （Old Youth）是类似《镜花缘》里多九公的博学长者，陪伴宝玉在未来中国——文明境界里考察。“老少年”也是吴趼人的笔名之一，不能说没有梁启超“少年中国”的影子。

论文中探讨的所谓“性质测验镜”（Human Nature Inspection Lens）， 是宝玉在“文明境界”里所见识的一种能透视被测人道德“性质”的先进技术。此“镜”被解说为来源于中国古代的灵感，并超越了西方技术的极限，还能以科学测验的方式证明中国人道德的优越。我觉得，在某种意义上，晚清的科幻小说做为一种历史特定的文学类型，就如同这样一面不可多得的“镜”，让我们借此来透视百年前的历史和意识形态。

Dun Wang（王敦）, “The Late Qing's Other Utopias: China's Science-Fictional Imagination, 1900-1910,” in Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies (Taipei, Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University) 34.2 Special Issue “Asia and the Other” (November 2008): 37-62.

…

Thus we have the “Human Nature Inspection Lens” as an example of the Civilized Realm’s “more advanced science.” This lens can detect a person’s “nature”—it can see whether he is “civilized” or “barbaric” by looking inside his body. Of course, the real scientific basis for this fantasy was Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen’s discovery and application of the X-ray in medical science in 1895,[1] but in Wu Jianren’s narrative the “lens” is a Chinese invention. The episode of the lens begins when Baoyu first enters the border area, where a “Human Nature Inspection Room”—annexed to the border hostel—is used by a doctor to “inspect” the visitor’s “nature.” While Baoyu and Old Youth are chatting in the hostel, the doctor finishes and reports that this new guest’s nature is “clear and bright” (晶瑩), which suggests that Baoyu is civilized enough to be admitted into the Civilized Realm.[2]

Baoyu then says, “I used to think that ‘human nature’ is an incorporeal thing. If you want to inspect ‘nature,’ it should be investigated through daily reflection. How can it be inspected by using a lens?” (Wu 168) Old Youth replies in a long scientific passage:

“After the inception of science, what thing can not be subject to experimental verification? Take air for example. If you inspect it carefully, you can find myriads of things contained in it. The half-barbaric and half-enlightened people usually call all these things by the appellation ‘air.’ How can this mindset be sufficient? If air is shapeless and cannot be experimentally verified, how come the European and American acousticians can identify sound waves? However, although the acousticians can detect sound waves, the sound wave diagrams they make are only illustrations. The science doctors in our land will let you see the things with your own eyes every time they inspect something. Take the inspection of human nature for instance. This is achieved through a lens which was made by a prestigious medical doctor. The chemically-made glass is processed through several treatments by special liquid compounds. When one inspects the human body through it, his vision will bypass the blood, the muscle, the bones, and the sinews. The inspector can only see the inspectee’s nature. If the inspectee’s nature is civilized, it looks clear and bright like ice and snow. If his nature is barbaric, it is as turbid as smoke. You can evaluate the degree of barbarity by examining the density of the smoke. If it is as pitch-black as ink, it will be impossible to improve that person’s nature.[3] (Wu 168)

This seemingly empirical, analytic science derives from the practice, in traditional Chinese fiction, of telling good persons from bad persons. Old Youth continues:

Most of the ancient novels are loaded with demons and spirits. When those books talk about good and evil, they say that there is a red aura several feet high on top of a good man’s head, and there is dark air surrounding a bad man’s head. It is also said that people have either an air of vigor or an air of decay, and these airs cannot be seen by ordinary eyes but only through supernatural means. But those authors of novels in the old days couldn’t become demons and spirits themselves, so how could they know? It was just their belief. But since there is a belief, it’s possible that it will be proven. As a result, that medical doctor in our country used all of his ability to invent this lens.[4] (Wu 169)

Old Youth’s reference to the apparently supernatural phenomena presented in traditional fiction in fact points to the ancient Confucian belief that people have a moral nature or quality that is spiritual, that is, beyond the reach of sense perception, and furthermore that this moral nature can somehow be seen or known by non-physical means. Therefore Confucius exclaimed: “Look to how it is. Observe from what it comes. Examine where it is that he feels at ease. How can he remain hidden? How can he remain hidden?”[5] This nature-inspection lens is an extension of the Confucian moral eye. The scientific discourse about its optical “mechanism” validates rather than dismisses “observation” of moral qualities that can be visualized as bright or turbid gases. The lens thus serves as the trope of a scientific investigation that transforms intuition into rational verification.

This “fathoming” power of this lens also has a variety of medical applications in the Civilized Realm’s hospitals, which themselves have many lens-equipped devices that look like cameras with tripods. The late Qing Chinese were familiar with photography in their cities, especially in the treaty port of Shanghai. Western photography had become a symbol of Western science since the 1840s through the activities of entrepreneurs, diplomats and missionaries. Following the lead of foreign photographic studios, Chinese photographic studios began to emerge.[6] The Chinese public’s interest in this novel science as well as art was reflected in various publications, for example the Shanghai Dianshizhai Pictorial (點石齋畫報).[7] Therefore, it was only natural that Wu Jianren would imagine the Civilized Realm’s Human Nature Inspection device as a kind of super-camera. It was for him also an imaginative extension of the newly-invented X-ray machine, which was after all an enhancement of the camera which let it see beneath the body’s surface and into the inner body. Of course, the actual (Western) X-ray could only see the physical (not the moral or spiritual) inner body, whereas Wu’s X-ray-like lens could see the inner essence. Indeed Wu’s Human Nature Inspection Lens was accompanied by a “Bone Inspection Lens” through which Baoyu could see the human body become a “snow-white skeleton,” and a “Marrow Inspection Lens” which could see through the bones themselves to the marrow inside, which is after all (figuratively or allegorically speaking) our true inner essence. Other lenses in the doctor’s Human Nature Inspection Room could detect blood circulation, tendons, and internal organs.

In his reading of Thomas Mann’s 1920’s novel Magic Mountain, Peter Brooks notes that “moment of great significance” (Brooks 263) when Hans Castorp visits the X-ray room for the first time. Castorp views Joachim’s body through a “lighted window” that displays the “empty skeleton,” and is amazed to see that Joachim’s “honor-loving heart” looks something like a “swimming jelly-fish.” Here Brooks wonders “if this is the first moment in literature that the heart is viewed in an X-ray” (Brooks 263). He aptly points out that at this point, Mann “uses the relatively new technology to rewrite an age-old trope of the heart as the seat of emotions and character” (Brooks 264). As the juxtaposition of “swimming jelly-fish” and “honor-loving” makes plain, this human heart is being viewed simultaneously as “a piece of anatomy” and “a moral concept.” Like Mann, Wu Jianren combines “physiology and poetry” to illuminate the unseen by analogically projecting from a pattern of symbols on the level of the visible. (Brooks, 264)In both cases the optics is also a poetics, one which is instrumental in allowing a particular culture to see what it intends to see.

In fact, optical objects have long been employed metaphorically in traditional Chinese fiction, and not only in the context of Confucianism. The most important figure is no doubt the mirror, which was associated with that self-reflective quality by which one might see the unseen truth, the truth that evades the naked eye. In the evolution of Neo-Confucianism, proper observation of one’s own moral nature as with a self-inspecting lens was fused with the Buddhist image of the ideal empty (void) mind that reflects the whole world like an empty mirror. In the Dream of the Red Chamber—the original Story of the Stone—there is a mysterious “Mirror for the Romantic” (風月寶鑒 Fengyue Baojian) with two sides in “the Hall of Emptiness in the Land of Illusion” (太虛幻境 Taixu Huanjing). Its front side or face makes clearly visible one’s erotic desires, while its back side or face presents a skull to serve (as in European Renaissance painting) as moral admonition.

In Chinese, the character “jing” (鏡) stands for both the mirror, an optical surface that reflects images into the human eye, and the lens, a transparent optical surface that mediates between the human eye and the object focused on by refracting the light reflected from the surface of the object. Since both things have the same name in Chinese, the more modern connotations of the lens—that scientific instrument and optical novelty newly-imported from the West—are still congruent with the classical symbolism of the mirror. Thus the conflated jing-trope unites these two senses of ancient Chinese mirror and modern Western lens; jing integrates China’s traditional past and (at the turn of the 20^th century starting-to-be-predicted) scientific future into a unified optical epistemology, applied by Old Youth to justify the traditional discourse, in Chinese fiction, of the “red aura” (紅光) or “dark air” (黑氣) on top of a good or bad man’s head.

That is, Old Youth’s pre-scientific (“supernatural”) imagining of the red aura and dark air which express a moral meaning can in a sense be validated by a creative scientific discourse; or, to take it the other way, the modern scientific discourse helps to validate a moral discourse that might otherwise seem purely metaphysical, supernatural or even magical. The utopian-philosophical, utopian-scientific and utopian-fantastic narrative gives a validity to the imaginative space of the ancient Chinese world, for it sees this world as being indispensable in and to the new (Western) scientific discourse. Conversely, the scientific discourse is assimilated as an organic component of the ancient ethical-metaphysical discourse about morality and human nature....

…

---

[1] In 1896, only one year after Röntgen’s discovery, Liang Qichao (梁啟超) had introduced the X-ray to the Chinese. In the same year Tan Sitong (譚嗣同) also described X-ray photos in his writing.

[2] Of course, one might see a danger in this sort of inner-self inspection by external “authorities,” a praxis which may seem an extension of the Foucauldian panopticon—and/or of the Althusserian “hailing” and “subjecting” ideological state apparatus—into the inner body or “inner subject.” Such a view would indeed reinforce a typically Western (to some degree distorted) perspective on Chinese society and culture. This view may be kept in mind throughout the following discussion, though the author’s point will be that a truly moral-spiritual view is also a true view on a level above that of merely scientific-material truth.

[3] “科學發明以來，何事何物不可測驗！即如空氣之中，細細測驗起來，中藏萬有。野蠻半開通之流，動輒以空氣二字，一總包括在內，如何使得？倘謂無形，不能測驗，何以歐美聲學家，尚能測出聲浪來？不過聲學雖然測出聲浪，但所繪聲浪圖，都是以意為之。敝境科學博士，每測驗一物，必設法使眼能看見。即以測驗性質而論， 系用一鏡經高等醫學博士，用化學制成玻璃，再用藥水幾番制煉，隔著此鏡窺測人身，則血肉筋骨一切不見，獨見其性質。性質是文明的，便晶瑩為冰雪；是野蠻的，便混濁如煙霧。視其煙霧之濃淡，以別其野蠻之深淺。其有濃黑如墨的，便是不能改良的了。” All the English translations of passages from this novel are my own.

[4] “古人小說多半是載神鬼之類，每每談及善惡，謂善人頂上有紅光數尺，惡人頂上有黑氣圍繞。又說人有旺氣，有衰氣，人不能見，惟鬼神可見。當日著書之人，又不曾親身做過鬼神，如何知道？不過是個理想而已。既有此理想，便能見諸實行。所以敝境醫學博士，瘁盡心力，製成此鏡。”

[5] Analects 2:10 (視其所以。觀其所由。察其所安。人焉廋哉。人焉廋哉。) My own translation. For the “Confucian moral eye,” also see note 18.

[6] See Hu and Ma.

[7] The Dianshizhai Pictorial depicted a scene of photo-taking in one of its pages in 1884. See Chen, The Pictorial Late Qing (圖像晚清).

历史图像：旧金山唐人街1900年前后/ San Francisco Chinatown around 1900

旧金山唐人街的今天。

在美国旧金山的历史上，没有哪一个移民群体曾经像中国人那样遭受了那么多的种族歧视和暴力。此图片取自1870年代的杂志 The Wasp。

一百多年以前的侨报《中西日报》。

1890年代旧金山唐人街的中医诊所。

东华医局成立照。它于1900年在唐人街的 828 Sacramento Street 成立，是当时华人唯一的医疗设施，由中华总会馆出头创办。

1890年代，中华总会馆的头面人物们。

被燎掉的大胡子（转载）

被燎掉的大胡子

张鸣（《读书》杂志，1999年6月）

同治五年（一八六六）一开春，已经被各地民教纠纷搅得焦头烂额的总理衙门，迎头就碰上了一件“爆炸性”的教案，法国公使气势汹汹地打上门来，提交抗议照会，说是就在直隶的宁晋县发生了一起恶性教案，法国传教士艾清照被该县双井村村民张洛待设计陷害，以火药轰伤，“几至殒命”，而宁晋县政府有意袒护凶手，竟然放纵不管，要求中国政府立即查明此事，严惩罪犯以及有关官员。

总理衙门自然知道洋人的震怒意味着什么，随即致函要求直隶总督官文务必查清此案，给洋人一个说法。由于总理衙门是由当时权势正盛的恭亲王奕訢领衔，直隶总督自然不敢含糊，他和按察使张树声立即派人查案，并亲自督办。事情很快就查清楚了，这场在法国公使眼里蕴涵着莫大阴谋的害命大案，原来竟是一场带有喜剧色彩的误会。

据此案的卷宗，事情的经过是这样的。同治四年（一八六五）八月间，直隶宁晋县双井村农民张洛待的十七岁的二儿子张书琴不知怎么就中了邪，成天价弄神弄鬼，一会儿说晚上有女鬼陪他睡觉，一会儿又说有仙人把女鬼赶走了，但要把女儿许给他，还弄出了两张画着不知什么东西的纸片，说是仙人给的信物。张家在双井算是个富户，不仅年年余钱剩米，还有能力开个家塾，请了先生在家教二儿子念书。张洛待自家虽然没有挣上一个半个功名，但却是本村乡绅刘洛明副榜老爷的女婿，在当地说不上是有钱有势，却也处处让人高看一眼。满心指望二儿子读书用功，挣个功名，也好光大门风，所以虽然早就给儿子定了亲，但为了让儿子安心攻读，所以放出话来说是要等到儿子满二十岁再行迎娶，可是眼下儿子神神鬼鬼地闹，老师散了学不说，把个家也搞得鸡犬不宁。于是，张老先生决定提前给儿子迎娶，“冲冲喜”也许就能把邪给冲走。

说也奇怪，一听说老爹要给自己娶亲，张书琴竟然安静了许多。而张洛待反而担心了起来，一面张罗着迎亲事宜，准备彩礼，安排花轿，还从本村开杂货铺的阎胖子手里买了几斤火药，等新娘子进门放铳好用，一面又害怕万一迎娶的当口儿子犯了毛病，把事给搅了。于是就跟人嘀咕，想要请个法师驱邪。也是合该有事，与张洛待交情不错的同村人李洛来一直把儿子送在张家家塾读书，张书琴中邪的事他也很关心，见张家想请法师，就出主意说他们外国神父很灵验，教民们从来不沾染邪崇，不如请神父来念经驱邪。 张洛待动了心，答应让李洛来去请。

然而，李洛来应承下来之后几天没有回音，说话间已经到了同治四年的十二月初五，这天晚上掌灯时分，法国神父艾清照突然由几个教民陪着来到了张家，仓促之间，张洛待有点措手不及，慌忙点起一支蜡烛将教士一行迎到了儿子读书的“学房”，却忘记了房间的桌子底下还放着放铳用的火药，为了让蜡烛亮一点，他习惯性地剪下了蜡花然后随手一扔，转身出去安排茶水，那知刚刚迈出门口，就听身后一声巨响，火起烟冒，外国神父和几个教民被燎得狼狈不堪，满脸烟火，一边拍打着身上的火苗，一边往出跑，嘴里还大声咒骂着。

第二天，被烧着了的教民一纸诉状，将张洛待告到了县衙，说他设计谋害外国传教士。宁晋县令汪显达像大多数心存“模棱”的地方官一样，碰上麻烦的案子就想给它模棱过去。他提来了原被两造，看验了艾清照等人的伤处，发现洋教士虽然胡子被燎掉了大半，脸 也有点灼伤，衣服被烧了若干洞，其实并不严重。当堂审问被告，张洛待一口咬定不知道火从何而来，汪县令居然也就不再追问， 要张洛待给被告赔偿烧坏的衣服和负担医疗费，然后宣布退堂。教民金池兰不服，大声抗议，汪县令喝令掌嘴，于是金教民就挨了若干个嘴巴。汪县令不知道，就是这几个嘴巴，居然断送了他的前程。

本来，洋教士虽然被燎掉了赖以跟中国人区别的标志之一的大胡子，但并没 有像那几个教民一样暴跳如雷，告官的主意也是教民出的，可是汪县令的模棱断案和打狗不看主人的掌嘴，却激起了他的“洋火”，一个小报告通过主教打到了法国公使那里，事情就这么闹大了。

为了给法国公使一个交代，由省里派下来的“委员”们不再敢模棱，提来了所有与此案沾边的人，经过一番刨根问底的审讯，大概还伴些雷霆手段，很快就弄清了案情，不仅张洛待招出了火药的由来，而且张洛待儿子张书琴也坦白说他的弄神弄鬼，其实是为了让父亲早一点给他娶亲故意装出来的把戏，连那两个鬼划符的纸片，也是按小说《玉匣记》里的东西照猫画虎搞出来的。显然，对于这个农家子弟来说，才子佳人的小说要比四书五经更有魅力些。

故事到这里，按理应该结束了，然而却拖出了一个有点悲惨的结局：张书琴被“杖一百，流二千里”发配回疆（即今天的新疆）“给大小伯克及力能管束之回子为奴”，张洛待“杖六十徒一年”。宁晋县县令汪显达也被“交部议处”，结果不问可知。

这个貌似平淡而且近乎乏味的教案，没有死人，没有人抢东西烧教堂，洋人也没有因此而开来炮舰卸下炮衣，却引起了我浓厚的兴趣，因为它有点像一只扎眼的“白乌鸦”，令许多研究这段中西冲突史的人们为难。

在中国的天主教洋教士竟然也热衷于驱魔祛邪，这多少让某些研究者感到意外。按一般的常理，驱魔祛邪这些功能应该是中国本土宗教才具有的。而西方来的洋教给人印象是不提倡至少不擅长此道的，怎么会突然间冒出来个洋教士为人祛邪呢？其实，在案发当时，连直隶总督官文都有些不解，在此案的案卷里可以发现在他先后两次提及“天主教向无符咒及作法驱魔等术”，显然，他是将此视为此案的疑点提出的。在我们有些研究者眼里，近代西方的基督教往往是与科学和先进联系在一起的，从利玛窦时代开始就是如此，我们念念不忘往往是利玛窦带来的欧几里德、世界地图和三棱镜。那么，此案中的洋教士艾清照的行为是不是可以用特例来解释呢？显然不是。不少由中国的天主教教会自己编的文献如《拳时北京教友致命》，记载了许多教士和教民搞的驱魔驱鬼活动，而且往往是由于中国本土的僧道和术士法术不灵的时候，西方教会的把戏才冒出来，而他们的成功，往往会拉动一批老百姓入教。教士艾清照所做的，只不过是重复了他的同事干过的事情。

无疑，驱魔祛邪属于巫术和半巫术的行为，天主教的确不精于此道，但是，任何宗教无论是其形态如何完备，总是难以完全清除巫术的痕迹，基督教也不例外。基督教的三大派系中，天主教和东正教在主观上就没有与过去的巫术痕迹划清界限，其现代气息本来就有限。而中国农民的宗教价值，从来都是有用才信的实利主义的，加入天主教的教民，其实也不例外，发展新教徒，更是需要凭借一些实际的“神效”来吸引和招徕。正因为如此，天主教才会频繁地进入传统的半巫术领域，而这个领域所辐射的功能，恰恰是中国农民对所有进入他们视线的宗教所期待的。不错，天主教不像佛教和道教，没有专门的驱魔仪式，但是他们可以用诸如念经和洒圣水这样简单的仪式来替代，他们这样做的时候，实际的考虑无疑是传教对象的需要。因为这种来自中国传统的强大需要， 往往是他们能否在中国农村站住脚的关键。从某种意义上说，这可以说是洋教不自觉地中国化的结果。双井村教民的推荐洋教士和富户张洛待接受推荐，归根结底都是他们在宗教问题上根深蒂固的工具价值在起作用。如果不出火药爆炸的意外，很可能双井村从此至少会添一户教民，事实上当洋教士艾清照和教民们明白了自己原来是在见鬼，其实错怪了张洛待之后，他们的确对这场官司有些后悔，案卷上记录的洋教土的“口供”虽然没有明白地表露出来，却也不乏悔意。

这个教案的案卷给我们透露的另一个消息，就是中国农民对于基督教在文化上的抵触并不像我们想像的那么大，即使是乡绅，也不是所有的地方都对基督教天然的反感。富有的农民张洛待可以与教民是好朋友，他们的儿子在一起读中国的圣贤书，准备将来的科举考试，而本村的绅士、张洛待的岳父副榜刘洛明对此事也不反对，甚至当女婿要请洋教士来驱邪时，他依然“没有理会”，当然更谈不上出面阻止。这里有两种可能，一是当地的乡绅不像南方那样有威信，不可能对乡村事务事事干预；一是天主教的进入，还没有构成对当地乡绅权威的实质性威胁。在我看来，更有可能是两者兼而有之，乡绅的权威应该还是有的，他们所具有政治与文化权威看来并没有受到很严重的挑战，此案的了结，官府还是借助了他们参与。信教的李洛来和不信教的张洛待，他们的儿子在一起读圣贤之书，日后可能还会一 起走乡绅们走过的科场之路，关键是两人都自觉不自觉地把天主教限定在传统认定的领域，事实上是将天主教看成了本土宗教更具灵验的替代。

但是，如果说在此案发生之前双井村一带的乡绅的权威和乡村固有秩序还能维持的话，那么从教民告官的那一时刻起，这种权威和秩序就开始被破坏了。按乡村社会的惯例，发生纠纷首先要经过亲族邻里乃至乡绅的调停，实在调停不了了，再进入法律解决的程序，调停不了那是乡绅的权威和能力的问题，而经不经过调停则是对乡绅权威和乡村秩序的尊重和承认的问题。教民在被火药烧了的第二天就把事情直接捅到了官府，不仅没有打算经过调停，甚至不给乡绅以及乡里宗亲过问的机会，不管是由于什么理由，都明白地蕴涵着对固有乡村秩序的挑战。也就是意味着，当教民们自以为遭到了迫害时，有别于原来的乡村秩序中心的另一个中心就浮出了水面。道理其实非常简单，当人们以为施与他们迫害的是与乡绅有紧密的关联的一方时，他们会自觉不自学地求助原来秩序中心以外的力量。一般来讲，农民只有在迫不得已的时候才会出此下策，而此案中的教民显然是过于轻率了。可以想像，在些案结束之后，张洛待一家很可能会由对天主教的亲和态度变成敌对，与他有关系的亲族和乡邻以及被教民们冷落的乡绅们，对待天主教的态度也会发生相应变化，有可能一个局部的民教对立的时代就会由此而到来了。

遍翻此案的卷宗，我突然意识到，对基督教在中国的存在最在乎和最有敌意的其实是清朝官方。基督教的开禁，是在西方列强的炮口下被人强按头的结果，这口恶气当然是官府方面的肚子里比较的多一点，是气总要出一点，逢着民教冲突有意无意往往向着民方。惟洋人之命是从的的情形一般是义和团闹过以后的事，而十九世纪六十年代，各地官府大凡遇到民教冲突案件，还是以偏向民方的居多，虽然事情闹到北京以后，在西方的武力的压力下，最终往往会以民方的败诉告终，但在案件的初始阶段却往往相反。在福建江西等地，居然还出现过由官府出面操纵的所谓教案。在双井村的案件中，县令汪显达居然连火是从何而来的 这种最基本的案由都不愿意追问，就糊里糊涂地结案。当然有张洛待打点（贿赂）的可能，但更可能的是县令出于保护本地乡绅富户的本能（别忘了，张洛待还有一个副榜的岳父）。更加令人不解的是，当案情大白，当事的教士和教民都无意再追究时，官府却对这件本属于平常的民事纠纷的案子痛下杀手，竟然把张家父子依“ 妄布邪言”和“汤火伤人”之罪，“加一等”处罚，判刑的判刑，流放的流放，而且这种加重处罚决非洋人的意思。（如果此事在平时，就是惊动了官府，顶天了也就是赔些钱算了，也就是说，即使按清朝的法律，这只能是个民事赔偿的“细事”，断然不会有人因此而被判罪。）而在同时期，同样惹出外交麻烦的教案，对民方较重的处罚都是在西方的直接压力下做出的。张家父子的遭遇，并不全是因为他们给官府找了麻烦，惹来了外交纠纷（惹起外交纷纷，其实主要责任应该汪县令来负），更重要的是由于张家对洋教中人的友好和信任的态度。清朝政府从来对于非正统的宗教怀着一种强烈的政治戒备，对民间非法宗教如此，对基督教在华各派更是如此。虽然在各个时期和各地政策有所不同，但在庚子以前，官方的遏制政策还是占主导地位的。正是由于遏制政策的屡屡受挫，才使得相当多官员对基督教积怨甚深，实际上只有官方的遏制政策与乡村的乡绅以及农民和教会教民的在文化和具体利益的冲突纠葛到了一起，两者交互作用，教案才会愈演愈烈，才会有义和团运动那种排外（主要是排教）的浪潮。也可以说，义和团运动的爆发，就是遏制心理的大宣泄。

过分强调晚清教案的文化冲突意义，在今天看来应该是有些问题。认为晚清基督教传播过程中纠纷不断，冲突连连，主要是由于文化上的阻碍，显然不好解释为什么在基本文化因素并没有根本改变的今天，基督教在中国农村却会以惊人速度扩张。中国农民包容性极强的宗教观念，往往会在实用的尺度面前遮蔽了文化的冲突，所以，晚清教案的发生不大可能多是文化冲突所致，无论如何，教案的政治因素还是第一位的，不过，这种政治因素并不是（至少主要不是）我们某些主流历史学家所力主的“反帝爱国主义”，而是清朝官方政策的直接和曲折的反映，至少，在庚子以前是如此。

洋教士的大胡子碰到了中国古老的发明火药，究竟为什么发出火来其实还真的需要琢磨琢磨才是。

丰子恺的画（十四）：阿咪

西塞罗的愤怒（转载）

西塞罗的愤怒——评王晓朝译西塞罗全集·修辞学卷

高峰枫

西塞罗（Marcus Tullius Cicero,106 BC - 43 BC）是古罗马一代文宗，其著作涉及面极广，既有打官司的讼词，也有哲学、政治学和宗教领域的著述，更不要说彼得拉克在1345年发现的那几百封书信了。 若对古罗马文史缺乏了解，对西塞罗雕琢、繁复的文风没有体会，那么翻译（translate）西塞罗很容易成为对他的“侵害”（transgress）。 买到汉译本《西塞罗全集》第一卷《修辞学卷》时，我便替译者捏一把汗，待看了译文之后，我早已被惊出好几身的冷汗了。

译者翻译所用底本，是“洛布古典丛书”（Loeb Classical Library）的英译本。他沿用英译本的做法，把Ad Herennium（译者翻作《论公共演讲的理论》）列为第一篇。译者在“内容提要”中说：“本书是否西塞罗本人的作品在西方学界一直存有争论，但主导性的意见仍视之为西塞罗的著作。”可是据我所知，“主导性的意见”刚好相反。据考证，Ad Herennium约作于公元前一世纪初期，是现存拉丁文献中最早的关于修辞学的系统论著。在中世纪以前，这部书的抄本大多将西塞罗题为作者。但是自十五世纪开始，人文主义学者瓦拉（Lorenzo Valla,1407-1457）便开始质疑西塞罗是否真的是此书作者，并且当时已有其他学者将此书排除在西塞罗作品之外。这样一代代研究考证下来，只要您随便翻阅几部研究古罗马修辞学的著作，从英国学者Atkins的《古代文学批评》第二卷（1934年），到加拿大学者Grube的《希腊罗马批评家》（1965年），再到意大利学者Conte的《拉丁文学史》（英译本1994年）和美国学者George Kennedy的《古典修辞学史新编》（1994年），没有一位将这部书归在西塞罗名下。译者也许无暇翻阅这些基本参考书，可是就在他依据的“洛布古典丛书”英译本中，英译者Caplan在英译者序里明明说过“虽然以西塞罗为作者的观点仍不时出现，但近来所有的编校者均以此说为谬”，“此书作者问题不时引起学者讨论，但从未获得最终解决，也从未让所有人满意。我以为，最明智的做法，是将此书归于一佚名作家笔下……”译者只要认真看过这篇英译者序的前三页， 我想他绝对不会说出“但主导性的意见仍视之为西塞罗的著作”这样不负责任的话来。

西方古典修辞学有很多基本术语。比如按照“演说”（oratory）的主题和功能，一般将“演说辞”分为三大类：第一类是“庭议”（deliberative），专门讨论军国大事，比如宣战、媾和、立法等等；第二类是“诉讼”（judicial或forensic），用于在法庭上控告他人，或者为当事人辩护。第三类是“赞咏 ”（epideictic），服务于讴歌君主和颂扬英烈。当西塞罗将这三个修辞学基本术语放在一起讨论时，译者尚能知其差别，勉强翻出大意。而一旦它们在文章中“落单”，译者一下子就双目迷离，辨认不出了。比如第150页，forensic单独出现了，身边没有deliberative和 epideictic“相伴”，译者忘记其义当为“诉讼”，三次将它译成“辩论性”。又如第170页，出现了一个deliberative style，这本来是议论国事所应使用的文体，而译者却译作“演讲术的精致文风”，估计是将deliberative往deliberate（深思熟虑） 的方向上理解去了。对修辞学基本术语不熟悉、不敏感，却勇于翻译古罗马修辞学巨擘的鸿文，正好比不懂悲剧和史诗的基本差别，就胆敢翻译亚里士多德的《诗学》一样。

古罗马文化根深叶茂，特富于宗教精神。不了解古罗马宗教的情况，就不容易看懂当时的书籍。西塞罗在《论开题》（De Inventione，我暂不谈这个题目译得是否准确）第一卷中说，若有人偷盗“祭器”（原文sacrum，英译sacred article），那么他到底是犯了盗窃罪呢，还是犯了渎神罪？他提到的“祭器”，本来是指用于宗教祭祀、具有神圣性的器物。可是，译者却别出心裁，把“ 祭器”译作“圣书”（149页）。真是神来之笔！这说明两个问题：第一，译者对古罗马宗教缺乏基本了解，请问古代罗马人是希伯来人那样的“圣书的民族” 吗？第二、译者对article一词的理解，似仍停留在中学阶段。在他的心中，这个词只可以表示“文章”，不能表示“物事”和“器物”。

这部九百余页的译作，只要你随便翻出一页来核对，便会发觉满目疮痍。任何译者偶有疏失，本来在所难免，但是满篇讹谬，而且都是最最基本的英文理解问题，这就让人大大怀疑译者的语言能力。我随便举些例子，大家可自行判断。

先说单词。拿《论开题》一篇来说，仅开篇的前十页（141－150页），至少就有六十多处误译和漏译。如果更较真一些，可以轻易突破一百大关。短短三页之内，一个简单寻常的英文单词agreeable居然出现三种译法。在第142页，译者将agreeable译作“已经同意的”，把同页下一段出现的 agreeableness译作“赞同”。而在第144页，又将agreeable译为“统一”，真不知和前面的译法如何“统一”。译者大概以为 agreeable是agree和able两词的简单相加。可是，只要随便翻翻字典，就会发现这个词的基本意思是“令人愉悦”、“宜人”，而西塞罗文章中这三处的拉丁原文（iucundissima, commoditas, iucunda）也都是“愉悦”或“合宜”的意思。至于把“分配”（assign）翻成“确定”，把“同意”（approve）误作improve而翻成 “改进”，不懂双重否定而把not inconsiderable译作“不太重要”（意思满拧了），也都可以在这十页之内发现。

如果我们越过遍体鳞伤的前十页，看看《论开题》其他部分的翻译，不仅可以找到很多漏译（英译本第97页整整十八行在汉译本第175页上面突然“人间蒸发”），同样可以轻而易举地发现译者对一些常见英文单词和词组的“独特解会”：rigorous（严格）如今有了“生动”的意思，in a position to do（有权作某事）已可表示“在事发现场”，“愤怒”（indignation）已然生出“尊严”，而“侮辱”（insult）已经造成“结果”（第 171页，196－197页）。按照译者对英语词汇学的这些最新贡献，我劝他能够接受更“生动”的学术训练，千万不要“结果”了读者的智力。

《论开题》的后面，是一篇小品《论最好的演说家》。这篇小品应该算是最容易翻译的，但对于译者来说，又成了他的一处滑铁卢（又有哪一页不是呢）。在不到九页的篇幅里，我找到四十余处错误。最让人长见识的，是“审判官”（referee，拉丁原文作iudex）被译者置换为“证人”。由证人来审案，这样的法律改革不仅时尚，而且大胆。考虑到译者在前面“屡译屡错”，只好满心希望他的英文水平在后面能够有所提高。可是，译者并未如我预期的那样“蛇头虎尾”，按照最保守的统计，他的出错率还稳中有升。前面说过，《论开题》前十页错六十余处，不足九页的《论最好的演说家》错四十余处，到了全书倒数第二篇《布鲁图》（Brutus，西塞罗晚期作品，评论在他之前诸大演说家，略同于一部古罗马修辞学简史），仅仅前二十页中（第658－677页），至少已有两百余处误译和漏译，创下每页接近十个错误的新高。我只举几个最有创意的例子：“闲适”（ease）两次被译成“停止”，“回忆”（recall）被译成“召唤 ”，“不无骄傲”（not without arrogance）变成“无知”（看来双重否定永远是这位译者的软肋），“哀叹”（deplore）变成“探索”，“贬低”（belittle）变成“ 缩小”。按照译者的“翻译逻辑”，既然belittle是“缩小”，那么belong想必就该是“拉长”了！这样的的英文水平，真值得我们“探索 ”（deplore）！

再说文法。在《布鲁图》里，布鲁图希望西塞罗谈谈对恺撒的看法，言语上不必有所顾忌。恺撒不仅是一代枭雄，而且他无碍的辩才足可与西塞罗比肩，他作为演说家的地位，举足轻重，不可能避而不谈，这是因为（以下是正确的译法）“你对于他才能的评骘，尽人皆知；而他对你的评价也不是什么秘密”（your judgment about his genius is perfectly well known, and his concerning you is not obscure）。这句英文除后半句有所省略之外，实在没有什么难懂之处，但就是这样简单至极的句子，到了译者笔下，却摇身一变，变成匪夷所思的一句谜语：“他确实像你所判断的那样是一个天才，十分完美，非常出名，你清楚地知道他关注什么”（第740页）。英文系本科新生都知道perfectly是副词，concerning是介词，这种“小儿科”的句子译者居然也不会译。唯一让我欢喜踊跃的，是agreeable一词在第672页终于译对了（“一位招人喜爱的演讲者”）！但是译者经过五百多页的长途跋涉，方才弄懂这个词的意思，用双重否定来说，代价不可谓不高！

译者自称“愿意耗费几年的时间译出西塞罗全部现存著作”。这样大的愿力和魄力着实令人钦佩，但他是否对自己的学术功底和语言能力有些估计过高了呢？译者此前已经拿他的译文惹恼过炼狱中的柏拉图和天堂里的圣奥古斯丁（他曾独力翻译过《柏拉图全集》和《上帝之城》），这次准备要拿西塞罗“牛刀小试”了。但我真怕西塞罗的亡魂听到这个消息后，会不安地从炼狱中升起，使出他修辞学作品中提到的挑动公众和陪审团“义愤”（indignatio）的十五种“激怒法”，把译者和出版社一起告上学问的法庭！


来源：东方早报2007年8月23号

一个犹太穷孩子的波士顿：1930年代初/ A Jewish Boy’s Boston: Early 1930’s

Theodore H. White, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure (New York: Warner Books, 1978), 37-39.

...

It was shameful—we, of a learned family, on home relief. With my father’s death, we were five left. And for five people the city of Boston gave eleven dollars a week. We survived on eleven dollars a week, for my grandmother, upstairs, had ceased demanding that we pay rent. But to get home relief, in those days, my mother had to take a streetcar (ten cents each way) downtown to the relief office. And there, after standing in line for hours, she would receive a five-dollar greenback and six ones. Each week she made the trip, each trip brought her home desolate. It was intolerable. My marks at school rose spectacularly in the last year of misery. If there was no father left, I had to make it on my own. If I wanted to go to college, I would have to do it by scholarship, and scholarship meant getting good marks. Given this need, my marks jumped from a sixty to a ninety average. My final College Board examinations brought marks then called “highest honors.” And immediately after graduation, there was an acceptance to Harvard. But the acceptance carried no scholarship money; no stipend, nothing but the right to enroll. And so the [start of page 38] certificate became a trophy to put away in a drawer. The problem was how to get off relief—and yet survive.

The struggle to survive spared no one. My sister, Gladys, a woman of extraordinary gifts, had to leave college after her first year to find a job as a library assistant. My two younger brothers—Robert, then nine, and Alvin, twelve—were conscripted to sell newspapers at the corners before going to school. That meant they had to be roused from bed before six each morning, and thrust out into the winter cold. And I woke at six each morning, for I had won from the local news wholesaler the right to run the streetcars on the tough ride from Franklin Park to Egleston Square, peddling papers.

On the streetcars I met the Irish as workingmen. Except for Mr. Snow—I always called him Mr. Snow—who was a motorman six days a week and taught a congregational Sunday school on the seventh day, the motormen were all Irish. Most were Galway men. They were proud of being men of Galway, and they told me why men of Galway were different from men of Cork, or Tipperary, or Dublin. It sounded very much like Jewish talk—why Pinsk Jews were different from Warsaw Jews, or Odessa Jews, or Lvov Jews. They were hard men, but once they accepted you they offered the camaraderie that makes Irish radicals die for each other. Of these men, the meanest was Motorman Conley. He was hard-faced, surly and profane. Even though I wore the nickel-plated medallion which officially entitled me to sell newspapers on the streetcars, he wanted me to “stay the hell off” his car. I had to brace him, and hopped his car one day to sell the papers; I rode three stops trying to explain to him that I had to make a living, too, for my mother and the kids, and I had the right, and I didn’t want to have a fight with him and on and on. Finally, he said, “O.K.” And then, after that, he not only gave me the key to the booth of the Franklin Park station, where there was an electric heater to warm the fingers and toes of the motormen on the early-morning run; but he also began to help me get more money from the boss. I was doing well selling papers, making between two and three dollars a day. But I could also hand in returns and get credit for the unsold papers against my account with the boss. Conley figured out for me that we could screw my boss and I could make an extra half buck a day if he picked up for me the discarded newspapers at Egleston Square, the turnaround of his trolley run. He would bring me back a batch of newspaper throwaways at ten or eleven in the morning; and if they were neatly enough cast off, I could refold them and slip them into my returns, thus making 1.3 cents on each late false return that I claimed from the [start of page 39] boss. I am sorry now that I cheated the boss by half a dollar a day, but he probably cranked it into his calculations of the net he took from the newsboys he “owned.” And since my case return to him was high, I was not challenged; he sent them back to the newspapers anyway. Conley and I became friends, in a surly way, as he helped me screw the bosses; we were both against the system.

Newspapering lasted for over a year. I would scream the headlines; and occasionally, when I saw an old Latin School friend taking the trolley in town to Boston University or Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I would scream the headlines in Latin. I could sell almost as many papers, if I put emotion into the call, by shrieking, “Quo usque, O Catilina, tandem abutere patientia nostra, quem ad finem nos eludet iste furor tuus…” as I could by shrieking anything else. But my old schoolmates of the Latin School ignored me. I was a dropout, they were college day students.

...

谁能告诉我，Theodore White 小时候卖报纸时喊的拉丁文是什么意思？