 (本館へ)  (トップへ)  (初心者のページへ)
バートランド・ラッセルのポータルサイト |
(本館へ) (トップへ) (初心者のページへ)
バートランド・ラッセルのポータルサイト |
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illustrated by Charles W. Stewart. London; Bodley Head, 1954. 150 p. illus. 21 cm. |
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それから,存命中は雄弁でもって群衆を動かし支配するのに慣れていた雄弁家達の住む地獄があります。彼等の雄弁は(地獄においても)鈍ることなく,また(彼の演説に耳を傾ける)群衆も与えられますが,雄弁家の声に奇妙な風が起こり,いろんな音をまきちらすため,群衆が耳にするのは雄弁家の声そのものではなく,ただの鈍く重苦しい陳腐な文句にすぎません。 私は,哲学上の名声で,早々暗黒の王子（悪魔）の謁見を赦されました。私は,'der Geist der stets verneint',即ち,「'否定(not)'の霊」としての悪魔について読んだことがありました。けれど,悪魔の面前に出るや,私は,悪魔は否定的精神と同時に否定的肉体をもっているということを衝撃を受けつつ,理解しました。実際,悪魔の肉体は全く完全に真空状態であり,単に物質の粒子（かけら）だけでなく,光の粒子さえもないのです。彼の広がった空虚な空間は,これ以上ない不可思議性により,確保されているのです。即ち,ある粒子が悪魔の外面に接近するといつも,偶然他の粒子と衝突し,内部に入ることを阻止されるのです。内部は全然光が入らないので,全くの暗黒です。私達が「黒い」という語をいろんな物にルーズに使うように,多少黒いといったものでなく,純粋かつ完全にどこまでも黒いのです。その空虚なるものには形があり,その形は私達が悪魔に帰属させていた形なのです。つまり,角(つめ),ひづめ,尻尾等々。地獄のその他の部分は全て,'暗い炎'につつまれており,これを背景として,悪魔が恐ろしい威厳をもって立っているのです。彼は動かないわけではありません。反対に,悪魔を形成している空虚な空間は絶えず動いています。なにか彼の気に障ると,彼は怒った猫のように丸めた尻尾という恐ろしいもので,強く打ち付けます。時々彼は新しい王国を征服しに出かけます。出陣する前に彼は,輝く白い鎧で全身を包み,内部の無を完全に隠してしまいます。ただ目だけはむき出しで,彼の目からは,征服するものを探し求めながら,無の刺すような光線が放射されます。その光線が「〜でない(否定)」や,「禁止」や,また'無為の崇拝'を見つけると,必ず,悪魔（サタン）を受け入れる用意のある人間の最深部分に入り込みます。全ての否定は,悪魔から発散し,挫折感を捕獲して戻ってきます。捕獲された挫折感は,かれの一部となり,彼の巨体を膨張させ,ついには全ての空間を占拠しそうになります。その道徳が「〜してはいけない」という禁止からなっている全ての道学者（モラリスト）,「「やります」といっておきながら,勇気がなく,舌が乾かないうちに,「やめておこう」と言ってしまう」全ての憶病者達,臣民を恐怖の中で生活させるすべての暴君は,やがて悪魔の一部になります（松下注：青字のところは,シェークスピアの『マクベス』からの引用）。
ここでおべっか使いの代表が議論にわってはいってきました。`あなたはせっかち過ぎる`,と彼は言いました。'あなたは非存在が存在することを否定するのですか？' だが,あなたが存在を否定しようとするものは何ですか。もし非存在が無であるとするならば,それについての如何なる陳述も無意味となります。従って,非存在が存在しないというあなたの陳述も無意味ということです。あなたが文章の論理的分析に余りにも少ししか注意を払わなかったのではないかと思います。この事は,あなたが子供の時に教えられているべきことでした。あなたは全ての文には主語があり,もし主語が無だとしたら,文は無意味となることは,ご存じではありませんか。そういうわけで,あなたが高潔なる熱情をもって悪魔−非存在なるもの−が存在しないと宣言するなら,明らかに矛盾したことを言っています（自己矛盾していることになります。）。 これを聞き,集まっていた全ての形而上学者達は大笑しました。突発的な大笑いがおさまってから彼等は,'どうしてこの人がそのように矛盾したことを言うか,その理由を注意して聞こうじゃないか。'と言いました。'耳をすまして聞こうじゃないか,「〜でない(否定)」を使わない彼の立派な戒律について。彼は「〜でない(否)」なる語を使わない(NOT)のだ,本当に！' 私はいらいらしたが我慢しました。私はポケットの中に１冊の辞書をもっていました。私は否定を表す全ての語を消していきました。'私の発言は,この辞書に残っている語だけで行います。残っているこれらの語の助けがあれば,宇宙の全ての事を説明できるでしょう。記述は長くなるでしょうが,全て,悪魔以外の物についてでしょう。悪魔はこの冥府の王国で余りにも長い間支配してきました。彼の輝く鎧は本物で,恐怖を与えてきましたが,鎧の下には,言語の悪い習慣があるだけだったのです。「〜でない(否)」なる語を避けよ,そうすれば,彼(悪魔)の帝国は終わりです。' |
I had at one time a very bad fever of which I almost died. In my fever I had a long consistent delirium. I dreamt that I was in Hell, and that Hell is a place full of all those happenings that are improbable but not impossible. The effects of this are curious. Some of the damned, when they first arrive below, imagine that they will beguile the tedium of eternity by games of cards. But they find this impossible, because, whenever a pack is shuffled, it comes out in perfect order, beginning with the Ace of Spades and ending with the King of Hearts. There is a special department of Hell for students of probability. In this department there are many typewriters and many monkeys. Every time that a monkey walks on a typewriter, it types by chance one of Shakespeare's sonnets. There is another place of torment for physicists. In this there are kettles and fires, but when the kettles are put on the fires, the water in them freezes. There are also stuffy rooms. But experience has taught the physicists never to open a window because, when they do, all the air rushes out and leaves the room a vacuum. There is another region for gourmets. These men are allowed the most exquisite materials and the most skilful chefs. But when a beefsteak is served up to them, and they take a confident mouthful, they find that it tastes like a rotten egg; whereas, when they try to eat an egg, it tastes like a bad potato. There is a peculiarly painful chamber inhabited solely by philosophers who have refuted Hume. These philosophers, though in Hell, have not learned wisdom. They continue to be governed by their animal propensity towards induction. But every time that they have made an induction, the next instance falsifies it. This, however, happens only during the first hundred years of their damnation. After that, they learn to expect that an induction will be falsified, and therefore it is not falsified until another century of logical torment has altered their expectation. Throughout all eternity surprise continues, but each time at a higher logical level. Then there is the Inferno of the orators who have been accustomed while they lived to sway great multitudes by their eloquence. Their eloquence is undimmed and the multitudes are provided, but strange winds blow the sounds about so that the sounds heard by the multitudes, instead being of those uttered by the orators, are only dull and heavy platitudes. At the very centre of the infernal kingdom is Satan, to whose presence only the more distinguished among the damned are admitted. The improbabilities become greater and greater as Satan is approached, and He Himself is the most complete improbability imaginable. He is pure Nothing, total non-existence, and yet continually changing. I, because of my philosophical eminence, was early given audience with the Prince of Darkness. I had read of Satan as der Geist der stets verneint, the Spirit of Negation. But on entering the Presence I realized with a shock that Satan has a negative body as well as a negative mind. Satan's body is, in fact, a pure and complete vacuum, empty not only of particles of matter but also of particles of light. His prolonged emptiness is secured by a climax of improbability: whenever a particle approaches His outer surface, it happens by chance to collide with another particle which stops it from penetrating the empty region. The empty region, since no light ever penetrates it, is absolutely black - not more or less black, like the things to which we loosely ascribe this word, but utterly, completely and infinitely black. It has a shape, and the shape is that which we are accustomed to ascribe to Satan: horns, hooves, tail and all. All the rest of Hell is filled with murky flame, and against this background Satan stands out in awful majesty. He is not immobile. On the contrary, the emptiness of which He is constituted is in perpetual motion. When anything annoys Him, He swinges the horror of His folded tail like an angry cat. Sometimes He goes forth to conquer new realms. Before going forth, He clothes Himself in shining white armour, which completely conceals the nothingness within. Only His eyes remain unclothed, and from His eyes piercing rays of nothingness shoot forth seeking what they may conquer. Wherever they find negation, wherever they find prohibition, wherever they find a cult of not-doing, there they enter into the inmost substance of those who are prepared to receive Him. Every negation emanates from Him and returns with a harvest of captured frustrations. The captured frustrations become part of Him, and swell His bulk until He threatens to fill all space. Every moralist whose morality consists of 'don'ts,' every timid man who ''lets I dare not wait upon I would,''*1, every tyrant who compels his subjects to live in fear, becomes in time a part of Satan. He is surrounded by a chorus of sycophantic philosophers who have substituted pandiabolism for pantheism. These men maintain that existence is only apparent; non-existence is the only true reality. They hope in time to make the non-existence of appearance appear, for in that moment what we now take to be existence will be seen to be in truth only an outlying portion of the diabolic essence. Although these metaphysicians showed much subtlety, I could not agree with them. I had been accustomed while on earth to oppose tyrannous authority, and this habit remained with me in Hell. I began to argue with the metaphysical sycophants: 'What you say is absurd,' I expostulated. 'You proclaim that non-existence is the only reality. You pretend that this black hole which you worship exists. You are trying to persuade me that the non-existent exists. But this is a contradiction: and, however hot the flames of Hell may become, I will never so degrade my logical being as to accept a contradiction.' At this point the President of the sycophants took up the argument: 'You go too fast, my friend,' he said. 'You deny that the non-existent exists? But what is this to which you deny existence? If the non-existent is nothing, any statement about it is nonsense. And so is your statement that it does not exist. I am afraid you have paid too little attention to the logical analysis of sentences, which ought to have been taught you when you were a boy. Do you not know that every sentence has a subject, and that, if the subject were nothing, the sentence would be nonsense? So, when you proclaim, with virtuous heat, that Satan - Who is the non-existent- does not exist, you are plainly contradicting yourself.' 'You,' I replied, 'have no doubt been here for some time and continue to embrace somewhat antiquated doctrines. You prate of sentences having subjects, but all that sort of talk is out of date. When I say that Satan, Who is the non-existent, does not exist, I mention neither Satan nor the non-existent, but only the word 'Satan' and the word 'non-existent.' Your fallacies have revealed to me a great truth. The great truth is that the word 'not' is superfluous. Henceforth I will not use the word 'not.'' At this all the assembled metaphysicians burst into a shout of laughter. 'Hark how the fellow contradicts himself,' they said when the paroxysm of merriment had subsided. 'Hark at his great commandment which is to avoid negation. He will NOT use the word 'not,' forsooth !' Though I was nettled, I kept my temper. I had in my pocket a dictionary. I scratched out all the words expressing negation and said: 'My speech shall be composed entirely of the words that remain in this dictionary. By the help of these words that remain, I shall be able to describe everything in the universe. My descriptions will be many, but they will all be of things other than Satan. Satan has reigned too long in this infernal realm. His shining armour was real and inspired terror, but underneath the armour there was only a bad linguistic habit. Avoid the word 'not,' and His empire is at an end.' Satan, as the argument proceeded, lashed His tail with ever-in-creasing fury, and savage rays of darkness shot from His cavernous eyes. But at the last, when I denounced Him as a bad linguistic habit, there was a vast explosion, the air rushed in from all sides, and the horrid shape vanished. The murky air of Hell, which had been due to inspissated rays of nothingness, cleared as if by magic. What had seemed to be monkeys at the typewriters were suddenly seen to be literary critics. The kettles boiled, the cards were jumbled, a fresh breeze blew in at the windows, and the beefsteaks tasted like beefsteaks. With a sense of exquisite liberation, I awoke. I saw that there had been wisdom in my dream, however it might have worn the guise of delirium. From that moment the fever abated, but the delirium-as you may think it- has remained. *1 シェークスピアのマクベスからの引用 Was the hope drunk Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would ← ★ |
