口译：Isaiah Berlin-The Hedgehog and the Fox 汉译

There is a line amongthe fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: “The fox knows manythings, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. Scholars have differed about thecorrect interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than thatthe fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog’s one defense. But,taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they markone of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it maybe, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, onone side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less ormore coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think andfeel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all thatthey are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue manyends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only insome de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by nomoral or aesthetic principle; these last lead lives, perform acts, andentertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal, their thought isscattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of avast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves,without consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude themfrom, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete,at times fanatical, unitary inner vision. The first kind of intellectual andartistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; andwithout insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear ofcontradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category,Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky,Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus,Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzak, Joyce arefoxes.

Of course, like allover-simple classifications of this type, the dichotomy becomes, if pressed,artificial, scholastic, and ultimately absurd. But if it is not an aid toserious criticism, neither should it be rejected as being merely superficial orfrivolous; like all distinctions which embody any degree of truth, it offers apoint of view from which to look and compare, a starting-point for genuineinvestigation. Thus we have no doubt about the violence of the contrast betweenPushkin and Dostoevsky; and Dostoevsky’s celebrated speech about Pushkin has,for all its eloquence and depth of feeling, seldom been considered by anyperceptive reader to cast light on the genius of Pushkin, but rather on that ofDostoevsky himself, precisely because it perversely represents Pushkin-anarch-fox, the greatest in the nineteenth century-as a being similar toDostoevsky who is nothing if not a hedgehog; and thereby transforms, indeeddistorts, Pushkin into a dedicated prophet, a bearer of a single, universalmessage which was indeed the centre of Dostoevsky’s own universe, butexceedingly remote from the many varied provinces of Pushkin’s protean genius.Indeed, it would not be absurd to say that Russian literature is spanned bythese gigantic figures-at one pole Pushkin, at the other Dostoevsky; and thatthe characteristics of the other Russian writers can, by those who find ituseful or enjoyable to ask that kind of question, to some degree be determinedin relation to these great opposites. To ask of Gogol’, Turgenev, Chekhov, Blokhow they stand in relation to Pushkin and to Dostoevsky leads-or, at any rate,has lead-to fruitful and illuminating criticism. But when we come to Count LevNikolaevich Tolstoy, and ask this of him - ask whether he belongs to the firstcategory or the second, whether he is a monist or a pluralist, whether hisvision is of one or of many, whether he is of a single substance or compoundedof heterogeneous elements, there is no clear or immediate answer. The question doesnot, somehow, seem wholly appropriate; it seems to breed more darkness than itdispels. Yet it is not lack of information that makes us pause: Tolstoy hastold us more about himself and his views and attitudes than any other Russian,more, almost than any other European writer; nor can his art be called obscurein any normal sense; his universe has no dark corners, his stories are luminouswith the light of day; he has explained them and himself, and argued about themand the methods by which they are constructed, more articulately and withgreater force and sanity and articulately and with greater force and sanity andlucidity than any other writer. Is he a fox or a hedgehog? What are we to say?Why is the answer so curiously difficult to find? Does he resemble Shakespeareor Pushkin more than Dante or Dostoevsky? Or is he wholly unlike either, and isthe question therefore unanswerable because it is absurd? What is themysterious obstacle with which our inquiry seems faced?

I do not propose inthis essay to formulate a reply to this question, since this would involvenothing less than a critical examination of the art and thought of Tolstoy as awhole. I shall confine myself to suggesting that the difficulty may be, atleast in part, due to the fact that Tolstoy was himself not unaware of theproblem, and did his best to falsify the answer. The hypothesis I wish to offeris that Tolstoy was by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog; that hisgifts and achievement are one thing, and his beliefs, and consequently hisinterpretation of his own achievement, another; and that consequently hisideals have led him, and those whom his genius for persuasion has taken in,into a systematic misinterpretation of what he and others were doing or shouldbe doing.

刺猬和狐狸

古希腊诗人阿奇洛克斯留下的断章中有一句这样写道：“狐狸知道很多事，刺猬只知道一件重大的事。”学者们对如何正确理解这句晦涩的话，看法各异。这句话可能不过是说无论狐狸多么诡计多端，总能够被刺猬唯一的防卫方式所击败。但是，如果从比喻的层面上来理解，这句话所生发出的意义却能够体现作家与思想家之间，甚至有可能是普遍意义上的人与人之间所存在的最为根本的一点不同。的确存在着一条巨大的鸿沟，划分出了两类人。一类人将万事万物都整合到唯一的中心视角之上，统一到或多或少连贯而清晰的系统之中，他们据此来理解、思考及感受——他们的存在与言说只有通过这单一的放之四海而皆准的组织性原则才能产生意义；还有另外一类人，他们追求不同的目标，这些目标常常互不相关，甚至相互矛盾。如果一定存在某种关联的话，这关联遵循现实法则，源自某些心理或生理的原因，与道德或审美原则毫不相干。后面一类人所过的生活，表现出的行为以及所拥有的想法是离心式的而不是向心式的，他们的思想分散而流动不居，活跃于不同的层面，捕捉众多不同的经验和事物的精髓，接受它们的本真样态，拒绝有意或无意地将它们植入或者是抽离出任何一个恒久不变，涵纳一切，时而自相矛盾，残缺不全，间或狂人盲目的单一的内部视角。第一类人的智力和艺术方面的气质属于“刺猬型”，第二类人属于“狐狸型”；只要我们不强调分类的严格性，也不过分惧怕对立冲突，我们可以说，根据前面的分类，但丁属于第一类，莎士比亚属于第二类；柏拉图、卢克莱修、帕斯卡尔、黑格尔、托斯陀耶夫斯基、尼采、易卜生、普鲁斯特，他们程度虽然有差异，但都是刺猬；而希罗多德、亚里士多德、蒙田、伊拉斯谟、莫里哀、歌德、普希金、巴尔扎克、乔伊斯则是狐狸。

当然，像所有此类过分简单的分类一样，这种二分法，如果生搬硬套，会显得刻意做作、匠气十足，并且决定荒谬。然而，即使它无法成为严肃评论的补充，我们也不应该以付钱滑稽为由彻底摒弃它：正如能够体现某种真相的所有分类一样，它提供了一个能够进行观察和对比的视角，一个能够进行实实在在的探索的起点。我们据此可以明白无误地看清楚普希金和托斯陀耶夫斯基之间的强烈差异；托斯陀耶夫斯基那篇为人所称道的关于普希金的演讲的确华丽雄辩，感情至深，然而，机敏的读者很少会认为这演讲揭示的是普希金的天才，而不是托斯陀耶夫斯基本人。究其原因，文章恰恰将普希金——一只绝对的狐狸，19世纪最伟大的一只——错误地比成了地地道道的刺猬型的托斯陀耶夫斯基的同类；并由此将普希金转变成，确切地说是歪曲成了一位虔诚的先知，一位单一普世信息的承载者。这信息是托斯陀耶夫斯基自己世界的中心，与普希金多才多艺的天分所跨越的众多领域相去甚远。实际上，可以毫不过分地说，这些巨匠体现了俄国文学的跨度——一极是普希金，另一极是托斯陀耶夫斯基；其他俄国作家的特点是什么，对于那些认为这是个有用或有趣的问题的人来说，答案在一定程度上取决于作家与这一组显著的对立之间的关系。研究果戈里、屠格涅夫、契柯夫、布洛克，探究他们和普希金与托斯陀耶夫斯基之间的关系如何定位，能够，或者已经产生了丰硕的富有启发性的批评成果。但是当我们谈到列夫·尼古拉耶维奇·托尔斯泰伯爵，并问起类似的问题——他到底属于第一类还是第二类，他是个一元论者还是个多元论者，他的视角是唯一的还是多样的，他是单一物质组成的结晶还是不同异质元素的混合，我们则得不出明确或直接的答案。似乎连问题都显得不甚妥当；它没有赶走晦涩，而是引发了更多的晦涩。我们直接所有犹豫，并不是因为我们缺少信息。托尔斯泰告诉我们的比其他所有俄国作家，甚至几乎比其他所有欧洲作家都要多；他的艺术从一般意义上看，算不上模棱两可；他的世界里没有黑暗的角落，故事带着白日的光明澄澈；他解释故事，解释自己，对故事以及它们的创作方法所进行的论说比其他作家都更加清晰有力，冷静流畅。他到底是只狐狸还是刺猬？我们该怎么评价他？令人好奇的是为什么答案如此难找？他像莎士比亚或者普希金多一些吗，不像但丁或托斯陀耶夫斯基吗？又或者他彻底两者都不像？这个问题迟迟没有答案，是因为它本身就是一个荒谬的问题吗？我们这一询问所面临的神秘障碍到底是什么？

我无意在本文中为这个问题提供答案，因为它将牵涉到对托尔斯泰的艺术和思想进行整体性的批评研究。我为自己限定的任务是指出问题的困难之处可能在于，至少部分在于，托尔斯泰自己并非没有意识到这个问题，同时全心全意地篡改了答案。我想要提出的假设是，托尔斯泰本性是个狐狸，却相信他是刺猬；他的天分与成就是一回事，而他的理念以及他对自己成就的阐释却是另一回事；由此，他的理想引领他和那些被他的天才说服力所鼓动的人们，进行了一系列错误的阐释，来解释自己和他人正在做什么以及应该做什么。