作品原文

王小波 《智慧与国学》

我有一位朋友在内蒙插过队，他告诉我说，草原上绝不能有驴。假如有了的话，所有的马群都要“炸”掉。原因是这样的，那个内地的、长耳朵的善良动物来到草原上，看到了马群，以为见到了表亲，快乐地奔了过去；而草原上的吗没见过这种东西，以为来了魔鬼，被吓得一哄而散。于是一方急于认表亲，一方急于躲鬼，都要跑到累死了才算。

近代以来，确有一头长耳朵怪物，奔过了中国的原野，搅乱了这里的马群，它就是源于西方的智慧。

让我们来看看驴子的古怪之处。当年欧几里德讲奴隶给他一块钱，还讽刺他道：这位先生要从学问里找好处啊！又过了很多年，法拉第发现了电磁感应，演示给别人看，有位贵妇人：说这有什么用？法拉底反问道：刚生出来的小孩子有什么？按中国人的标准，这个学生和贵妇有理，学以致用嘛，没有用处的学问哪能叫做学问。

有学者指出，中国传统的思维方式有重实用的倾向，他们认为，这一点并不坏。抱着这种态度，我们能欣赏一台电动机。这东西有“器物之用”，它对我们的生活有些贡献。我们还可以像个迂夫子那样细列出它有“抽水之用”、“通风之用”，等等。如何得到“之用”，还是个问题，于是我们就想到了发明电动机的那个人——他叫做西门子或者爱迪生。他的工作对我们可以使用电机有所贡献；换言之，他的工作对器物之用又有点用，可以叫做“器物之用之用”。像这样林林总总，可以揪出一大群：法拉底、麦克斯韦，等等，分别具有“之用之用之用”或更多的之用。像我这样的驴子之友看来，这样来想问题，岂止是有点笨，简直是脑子里有块榆木疙瘩。我认为在器物的背后是人的方法与技能，在方法与技能的背后是人对自然的了解，在人对自然了解的背后，是人类了解现在、过去与未来的万丈雄心。按老派人士的说法，它该叫做“之用之用之用之用”，是末节的末节。一个人假如这样看待人类最高尚的品行，何止是可耻，简直是可杀。

作品译文

Wisdom and the Traditional Chinese View of Knowledge

A friend of mine, who had been sent to Inner Mongolia to live among the Herdsmen for a number of years, told me that donkeys must never be allowed on the prairie, for if they were, all the herds of horses would "explode". The reason he gave was as follows: if the long-eared innocent animal from the interior came to the prairie and saw the horses, it would think it had met its cousins and would happily rush over. Whereas the horses on the prairie, who had never seen such a creature, would think a monster had come into their midst and would be so scared that they would disperse with a whinny. With one party anxious to establish its kinship and the other party anxious to evade a monster, the two parties would just go on running until they dropped dead from exhaustion.

In recent times there is indeed a long-eared monster that has galloped across China's open country and disturbed the herbs of horses here. It is none other than the wisdom which originated in the West.

Let's firs have a look at the eccentric character of this "donkey". Many years ago when Euclid was teaching geometry, a student asked him what profit this knowledge could bring him. Euclid told his slave to give the student a coin and said sarcastically, "This gentleman wants to find profit from knowledge!" Many years later Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction. As he was carrying out a demonstration, a rich lady asked, "What's the use of this?" Faraday replied with a question, "What is the use of a new-born baby?" By Chinese standards, Euclid's student and the rich lady were right, while Euclid and Faraday were wrong-the acquisition of knowledge is for the purpose of using it, isn't it? How can useless knowledge be called knowledge?

Some scholars have pointed out that the traditional Chinese way of thinking tends to emphasize the practical use of knowledge, and furthermore they think this is not a bad thing. If we hold this kind of attitude, we can quite appreciate an electric motor, for it is "useful as an appliance", contributing to the improvement of our daily life. Like a pedantic scholar, we can list in detail its various uses, such as "useful for pumping water" and "useful for ventilating the air". As to how we acquired such a useful thing, that was still a question. So we think of the person who invented the electric motor-Werner von Siemens or Thomas Edison, take your pick, whose work contributed to making it possible for us to use the electric motor. In other words, his work was of some use and, therefore, can be regarded as "useful for the use of an appliance". In a similar way, we can identify a large group of such people: Faraday, James Maxwell, etc., who has each done something which is "useful for something that is useful for something that is useful". For people like me who are friends of the donkey, this way of thinking is not merely a little stupid, it is simply the mindset of a blockhead. I think that behind the invention of an appliance are the methods and skills of man, behind which is man's understanding of Nature, behind which is man's at ambition to understand the past, the present and the future. According to traditionalists, this ambition should be regarded as being "something useful for something which is useful for something which is useful for something useful", for it is the least important of unimportant things. For a man to regard the most noble pursuit of human beings in this way is not only shameful, it should be a capital offence.