悲劇的誕生The Birth Of Tragedy 第94期:臨死的蘇格拉底的形象

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:

當然，他這種獨到的見解，若不是睥睨羣儕，實是過份坦率。不僅如此，它還有一種發人深省的設想。這種設想最先表現在蘇格拉底身上，

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.

那是一種不可動搖的信仰：認爲思維憑藉因果律的引線，便可能達到存在之深不可測的淵源，而且思維不但能認識存在，甚且能變革存在。

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.

這種崇高的形而上學的設想以直覺授給科學，而且屢屢引導科學達到它的極限，到了這極限，科學就定必突變成藝術：其實這就是隻能憑藉這種手段才達到的目的。

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.

如果我們現在在這一思想的光輝下來看蘇格拉底，我們便覺得，他是第一個不僅憑這種科學直覺之指導而生，而且尤有甚者，爲之而死的人；

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;

所以臨死的蘇格拉底的形象，一個借知識與理論超脫死亡恐怖的人物，乃是科學門前的一個標識，它提醒每個人科學的使命，也就是說，科學使生存顯得有意義因而是合理的。

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，當然，如果理論有所不遞，那就畢竟還須使用神話。我剛纔甚至指出：這是必然的結果，是科學的終極目的。