悲剧的诞生The Birth Of Tragedy 第94期:临死的苏格拉底的形象

Beside this isolated insight, born of an excess of honesty if not of exuberance, there is, to be sure, a profound illusion that first saw the light of the world in the person of Socrates:

当然，他这种独到的见解，若不是睥睨群侪，实是过份坦率。不仅如此，它还有一种发人深省的设想。这种设想最先表现在苏格拉底身上，

the unshakable faith that thought, using the thread of logic, can penetrate the deepest abysses of being, and that thought is capable not only of knowing being but even of correcting it.

那是一种不可动摇的信仰：认为思维凭借因果律的引线，便可能达到存在之深不可测的渊源，而且思维不但能认识存在，甚且能变革存在。

This sublime metaphysical illusion accompanies science as an instinct and leads science again and again to its limits at which it must turn into art--which is really the aim of this mechanism.

这种崇高的形而上学的设想以直觉授给科学，而且屡屡引导科学达到它的极限，到了这极限，科学就定必突变成艺术：其实这就是只能凭借这种手段才达到的目的。

With the torch of this thought in our hands, let us now look at Socrates: he appears to us as the first who could not only live, guided by the instinct of science, but also--and this is far more--die that way.

如果我们现在在这一思想的光辉下来看苏格拉底，我们便觉得，他是第一个不仅凭这种科学直觉之指导而生，而且尤有甚者，为之而死的人；

Hence the image of the dying Socrates, as the human being whom knowledge and reasons have liberated from the fear of death, is the emblem that, above the entrance gate of science, reminds all of its mission--namely, to make existence appear comprehensible and thus justified;

所以临死的苏格拉底的形象，一个借知识与理论超脱死亡恐怖的人物，乃是科学门前的一个标识，它提醒每个人科学的使命，也就是说，科学使生存显得有意义因而是合理的。

and if reasons do not suffice, myth had to come to their aid in the end--myth which I have just called the necessary consequence, indeed the purpose, of science.

因此，当然，如果理论有所不递，那就毕竟还须使用神话。我刚才甚至指出：这是必然的结果，是科学的终极目的。