The Power of Habit 論習(xí)慣(中文版)

1、.the power of habit 論習(xí)慣by william jameshabit a second nature! habit is ten times nature, the duke of wellington is said to have exclaimed; and the degree to which this is true no one can probably appreciate as well as one who is a veteran soldier himself. the daily drill and the years of discipline

2、end by fashioning a man completely over again, as to most of the possibilities of his conduct. “習(xí)慣是第二天性！習(xí)慣是十倍的天性！”威靈頓公爵曾這樣大聲疾呼；對于這句話的真實(shí)理解程度，可能沒有人能夠像一個(gè)退伍老兵理解那么深刻。每天的訓(xùn)練和常年累月的紀(jì)律，到頭來把一個(gè)人大部分行為的可能性完全再塑造了一遍。 there is a story, which is credible enough, though it may not be true, of a practical joker, who, s

3、eeing a discharged veteran carrying home his dinner, suddenly called out, attention! whereupon the man instantly brought his hands down, and lost his mutton and potatoes in the gutter. the drill had been thorough, and its effects had become embodied in the mans nervous structure.16 “一個(gè)惡作劇者，講過這樣一個(gè)故事，

4、盡管此故事可能不真實(shí)，但是頗具可信度?？吹揭粋€(gè)退伍老兵端著飯回家，他突然大喊了一聲“立正”因此，那個(gè)老兵立即放下雙手，搞得他的羊肉和土豆都掉在水溝里了。訓(xùn)練如此徹底，以至于使其效果具體化地體現(xiàn)在了老兵的神經(jīng)結(jié)構(gòu)之中?！?riderless cavalry-horses, at many a battle, have been seen to come together and go through their customary evolutions at the sound of the bugle-call. most trained domestic animals, dogs and

5、oxen, and omnibus- and car- p.121 horses, seem to be machines almost pure and simple, undoubtingly, unhesitatingly doing from minute to minute the duties they have been taught, and giving no sign that the possibility of an alternative ever suggests itself to their mind. men grown old in prison have

6、asked to be readmitted after being once set free. in a railroad accident to a travelling menagerie in the united states some time in 1884, a tiger, whose cage had broken open, is said to have emerged, but presently crept back again, as if too much bewildered by his new responsibilities, so that he w

7、as without difficulty secured. 人們常在很多戰(zhàn)斗中看到，無人騎的騎兵馬，一聽到軍號聲就會走到一起來，做出它們習(xí)慣性演練的動作。大多數(shù)受訓(xùn)過的家畜，狗和牛，公共馬車和小馬車的馬，它們看起來似乎都是幾近純粹和簡單的機(jī)器，每時(shí)每刻都在毫無懷疑，毫無猶豫地履行著教授給它們的責(zé)任，沒有任何跡象表明在它們的心中還曾出現(xiàn)過其它事情的可能性。一些在監(jiān)獄中變老的人，在釋放之后，曾要求重新入獄。據(jù)說，1884年發(fā)生在旅行動物園的一場事故之中，一個(gè)老虎籠子被撞開，老虎已經(jīng)出來了，但是沒過多久就爬回去了，這就好像是它感到對自己新的責(zé)任，茫然不知所措，于是人們毫不費(fèi)力就把它弄到了完全地帶。

8、 habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. it alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of l1 ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. it alone prevents the hardest and most repulsivel2 walks of lifel3 from b

9、eing deserted by those brought up to tread therein. it keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and nails the countryman to his log-cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the

10、 desert and the frozen zone. it dooms us all to fight out the battle ofl4 life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again. it keeps different social strata f

11、rom mixing. already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young commercial traveller, on the young doctor, on the young minister, on the young counsellor-at-law. you see the little lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the

12、 prejudices, the ways of the shop, in a word, from which the man can by-and-by l5 no more escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds. on the whole, it is best he should not escape. it is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set lik

13、e plaster, and will never soften again. 精品.因此，習(xí)慣是社會的巨大飛輪，是社會最珍貴、最保守的代理人。僅憑一己之力，就把我們束縛在社會的條條框框之內(nèi)，把富家孩子從飽含嫉妒之心的窮人的暴動之中拯救出來。僅憑一己之力，就阻擋了最艱難、最令人生厭的行當(dāng)，不至于被那些在那里成長起來的人拋棄。習(xí)慣讓漁夫和水手，整個(gè)冬天都固守海上；它讓礦工呆在黑暗中，讓鄉(xiāng)下人在漫漫雪天里，固守著自己的小木屋和他那孤寂的農(nóng)場；它使我們免受沙漠和嚴(yán)寒地帶土著居民的侵害。它注定讓我們所有的人為我們的教化或早期的選擇，展開一場生活之戰(zhàn)，并且充分利用與先前教化或選擇不同的追求，因?yàn)闆]有其它

14、的東西適合我們，而重頭再來又太晚了。它使各個(gè)不同的階層不至于混淆起來。你會發(fā)現(xiàn)，25歲之時(shí)，年輕的旅行推銷員、年輕的醫(yī)生、年輕的牧師、年輕的法律顧問，都已經(jīng)沾上了職業(yè)習(xí)氣。你會發(fā)現(xiàn)，你在性格、思想技巧、偏見、“購物“的方式上，看到小小的分歧，簡而言之，人們對于此無法馬上回避，正如他的外衣袖子不能突然一下子適應(yīng)新的折痕一般?？傃灾?，最好是他不該回避。在我們大多數(shù)人中，到了30歲的時(shí)候，性格就已如石膏般固定，永遠(yuǎn)再也不會軟化了，這真的是一件好事情。 if the period between twenty and thirty is the critical one in the formatio

15、n of intellectual and professional habits, p.122 the period below twenty is more important still for the fixing of personal habits, properly so called, such as vocalization and pronunciation, gesture, motion, and address. hardly ever is a language learned after twenty spoken without a foreign accent

16、; hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he even learn to dress like a gentleman-born. the merchan

17、ts offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest swelll6 , but he simply cannot buy the right things. an invisible law, as strong as gravitation, keeps him within his orbit, arrayedl7 this year as he was the last; and how his better-bred acquaintances contrive to get the things they wear wil

18、l be for him a mystery till his dying day. 如果說20到30歲之間，在形成人的智力和職業(yè)習(xí)慣，是一個(gè)時(shí)期的話，那么說，20歲之前的這段時(shí)期，對于一個(gè)人個(gè)性習(xí)慣（嚴(yán)格上講），就更為至關(guān)重要，這些個(gè)性習(xí)慣包括，語音、發(fā)聲、手勢、動作、談吐等。20歲之后學(xué)習(xí)語言，幾乎很少不帶外國口音 ；一個(gè)升到其上司的社會圈子內(nèi)的年輕人，幾乎很難忘記在他成長的歲月中，所形成的說話帶鼻音和其它言語缺陷。誠然，不管自己的口袋有多少錢，他也很難把自己打扮成一個(gè)士紳出身的模樣。商家向他和名副其實(shí)的“風(fēng)頭人物”一樣，熱心兜售商品，但他就是完全不能買對東西。一條看不見的法則，如引力般強(qiáng)

19、大，將他留在他的軌道，在這一年打扮得好像他是最差的；他那些受過更良好教養(yǎng)的人，則是想方設(shè)法得到他們所穿戴的東西，而這對于他而言，到死的那一天也將是個(gè)謎。 the great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. it is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. for this we must make auto

20、matic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. the more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism,

21、the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. there is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express