Now the sort of aggregation7 to which men and women will refer themselves is determined11 partly by the strength and idiosyncrasy of the individual imagination, and partly by the reek12 of ideas that chances to be in the air at the time. Men and women may vary greatly both in their innate13 and their acquired disposition towards this sort of larger body or that, to which their social reference can be made. The “natural” social reference of a man is probably to some rather vaguely14 conceived tribe, as the “natural” social reference of a dog is to a pack. But just as the social reference of a dog may be educated until the reference to a pack is completely replaced by a reference to an owner, so on his higher plane of educability the social reference of the civilised man undergoes the most remarkable15 transformations16. But the power and scope of his imagination and the need he has of response sets limits to this process. A highly intellectualised mature mind may refer for its data very consistently to ideas of a higher being so remote and indefinable as God, so comprehensive as humanity, so far-reaching as the purpose in things. I write “may,” but I doubt if this exaltation of reference is ever permanently17 sustained. Comte, in his Positive Polity, exposes his soul with great freedom, and the curious may trace how, while he professes19 and quite honestly intends to refer himself always to his “Greater Being” Humanity, he narrows constantly to his projected “Western Republic” of civilised men, and quite frequently to the minute indefinite body of Positivist subscribers. And the history of the Christian20 Church, with its development of orders and cults21, sects22 and dissents23, the history of fashionable society with its cliques24 and sets and every political history with its cabals25 and inner cabinets, witness to the struggle that goes on in the minds of men to adjust themselves to a body larger indeed than themselves, but which still does not strain and escape their imaginative grasp.
The statesman, both for himself and others, must recognise this inadequacy26 of grasp, and the necessity for real and imaginary aggregations to sustain men in their practical service of the order of the world. He must be a sociologist27; he must study the whole science of aggregations in relation to that World State to which his reason and his maturest thought direct him. He must lend himself to the development of aggregatory ideas that favour the civilising process, and he must do his best to promote the disintegration28 of aggregations and the effacement29 of aggregatory ideas, that keep men narrow and unreasonably30 prejudiced one against another.
He will, of course, know that few men are even rudely consistent in such matters, that the same man in different moods and on different occasions, is capable of referring himself in perfect good faith, not only to different, but to contradictory31 larger beings, and that the more important thing about an aggregatory idea from the State maker’s point of view is not so much what it explicitly32 involves as what it implicitly33 repudiates34. The natural man does not feel he is aggregating35 at all, unless he aggregates36 against something. He refers himself to the tribe; he is loyal to the tribe, and quite inseparably he fears or dislikes those others outside the tribe. The tribe is always at least defensively hostile and usually actively37 hostile to humanity beyond the aggregation. The Anti-idea, it would seem, is inseparable from the aggregatory idea; it is a necessity of the human mind. When we think of the class A as desirable, we think of Not-A as undesirable38. The two things are as inevitably39 connected as the tendons of our hands, so that when we flatten40 down our little fingers on our palms, the fourth digit41, whether we want it or not, comes down halfway42. All real working gods, one may remark, all gods that are worshipped emotionally, are tribal43 gods, and every attempt to universalise the idea of God trails dualism and the devil after it as a moral necessity.
When we inquire, as well as the unformed condition of terrestrial sociology permits, into the aggregatory ideas that seem to satisfy men, we find a remarkable complex, a disorderly complex, in the minds of nearly all our civilised contemporaries. For example, all sorts of aggregatory ideas come and go across the chameleon44 surfaces of my botanist’s mind. He has a strong feeling for systematic45 botanists46 as against plant physiologists47, whom he regards as lewd48 and evil scoundrels in this relation, but he has a strong feeling for all botanists, and, indeed, all biologists, as against physicists49, and those who profess18 the exact sciences, all of whom he regards as dull, mechanical, ugly-minded scoundrels in this relation; but he has a strong feeling for all who profess what is called Science as against psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and literary men, whom he regards as wild, foolish, immoral50 scoundrels in this relation; but he has a strong feeling for all educated men as against the working man, whom he regards as a cheating, lying, loafing, drunken, thievish, dirty scoundrel in this relation; but so soon as the working man is comprehended together with those others, as Englishmen — which includes, in this case, I may remark, the Scottish and Welsh — he holds them superior to all other sorts of European, whom he regards, &c. . . .
Now one perceives in all these aggregatory ideas and rearrangements of the sympathies one of the chief vices51 of human thought, due to its obsession52 by classificatory suggestions. [Footnote: See Chapter the First, section 5, and the Appendix.] The necessity for marking our classes has brought with it a bias53 for false and excessive contrast, and we never invent a term but we are at once cramming54 it with implications beyond its legitimate content. There is no feat56 of irrelevance57 that people will not perform quite easily in this way; there is no class, however accidental, to which they will not at once ascribe deeply distinctive58 qualities. The seventh sons of seventh sons have remarkable powers of insight; people with a certain sort of ear commit crimes of violence; people with red hair have souls of fire; all democratic socialists59 are trustworthy persons; all people born in Ireland have vivid imaginations and all Englishmen are clods; all Hindoos are cowardly liars60; all curly-haired people are good-natured; all hunch-backs are energetic and wicked, and all Frenchmen eat frogs. Such stupid generalisations have been believed with the utmost readiness, and acted upon by great numbers of sane61, respectable people. And when the class is one’s own class, when it expresses one of the aggregations to which one refers one’s own activities, then the disposition to divide all qualities between this class and its converse62, and to cram55 one’s own class with every desirable distinction, becomes overwhelming.
It is part of the training of the philosopher to regard all such generalisations with suspicion; it is part of the training of the Utopist and statesman, and all good statesmen are Utopists, to mingle63 something very like animosity with that suspicion. For crude classifications and false generalisations are the curse of all organised human life.
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1 vacillation | |
n.动摇;忧柔寡断 | |
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2 isolation | |
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
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3 merge | |
v.(使)结合,(使)合并,(使)合为一体 | |
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4 tortuous | |
adj.弯弯曲曲的,蜿蜒的 | |
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5 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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6 aggregations | |
n.聚集( aggregation的名词复数 );集成;集结;聚集体 | |
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7 aggregation | |
n.聚合,组合;凝聚 | |
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8 incurable | |
adj.不能医治的,不能矫正的,无救的;n.不治的病人,无救的人 | |
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9 twine | |
v.搓,织,编饰;(使)缠绕 | |
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10 legitimate | |
adj.合法的,合理的,合乎逻辑的;v.使合法 | |
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11 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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12 reek | |
v.发出臭气;n.恶臭 | |
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13 innate | |
adj.天生的,固有的,天赋的 | |
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14 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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15 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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16 transformations | |
n.变化( transformation的名词复数 );转换;转换;变换 | |
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17 permanently | |
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地 | |
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18 profess | |
v.声称,冒称,以...为业,正式接受入教,表明信仰 | |
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19 professes | |
声称( profess的第三人称单数 ); 宣称; 公开表明; 信奉 | |
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20 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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21 cults | |
n.迷信( cult的名词复数 );狂热的崇拜;(有极端宗教信仰的)异教团体 | |
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22 sects | |
n.宗派,教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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23 dissents | |
意见的分歧( dissent的名词复数 ) | |
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24 cliques | |
n.小集团,小圈子,派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
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25 cabals | |
n.(政治)阴谋小集团,(尤指政治上的)阴谋( cabal的名词复数 ) | |
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26 inadequacy | |
n.无法胜任,信心不足 | |
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27 sociologist | |
n.研究社会学的人,社会学家 | |
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28 disintegration | |
n.分散,解体 | |
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29 effacement | |
n.抹消,抹杀 | |
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30 unreasonably | |
adv. 不合理地 | |
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31 contradictory | |
adj.反驳的,反对的,抗辩的;n.正反对,矛盾对立 | |
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32 explicitly | |
ad.明确地,显然地 | |
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33 implicitly | |
adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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34 repudiates | |
v.(正式地)否认( repudiate的第三人称单数 );拒绝接受;拒绝与…往来;拒不履行(法律义务) | |
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35 aggregating | |
总计达…( aggregate的现在分词 ); 聚集,集合; (使)聚集 | |
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36 aggregates | |
数( aggregate的名词复数 ); 总计; 骨料; 集料(可成混凝土或修路等用的) | |
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37 actively | |
adv.积极地,勤奋地 | |
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38 undesirable | |
adj.不受欢迎的,不良的,不合意的,讨厌的;n.不受欢迎的人,不良分子 | |
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39 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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40 flatten | |
v.把...弄平,使倒伏;使(漆等)失去光泽 | |
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41 digit | |
n.零到九的阿拉伯数字,手指,脚趾 | |
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42 halfway | |
adj.中途的,不彻底的,部分的;adv.半路地,在中途,在半途 | |
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43 tribal | |
adj.部族的,种族的 | |
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44 chameleon | |
n.变色龙,蜥蜴;善变之人 | |
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45 systematic | |
adj.有系统的,有计划的,有方法的 | |
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46 botanists | |
n.植物学家,研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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47 physiologists | |
n.生理学者( physiologist的名词复数 );生理学( physiology的名词复数 );生理机能 | |
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48 lewd | |
adj.淫荡的 | |
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49 physicists | |
物理学家( physicist的名词复数 ) | |
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50 immoral | |
adj.不道德的,淫荡的,荒淫的,有伤风化的 | |
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51 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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52 obsession | |
n.困扰,无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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53 bias | |
n.偏见,偏心,偏袒;vt.使有偏见 | |
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54 cramming | |
n.塞满,填鸭式的用功v.塞入( cram的现在分词 );填塞;塞满;(为考试而)死记硬背功课 | |
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55 cram | |
v.填塞,塞满,临时抱佛脚,为考试而学习 | |
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56 feat | |
n.功绩;武艺,技艺;adj.灵巧的,漂亮的,合适的 | |
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57 irrelevance | |
n.无关紧要;不相关;不相关的事物 | |
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58 distinctive | |
adj.特别的,有特色的,与众不同的 | |
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59 socialists | |
社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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60 liars | |
说谎者( liar的名词复数 ) | |
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61 sane | |
adj.心智健全的,神志清醒的,明智的,稳健的 | |
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62 converse | |
vi.谈话,谈天,闲聊;adv.相反的,相反 | |
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63 mingle | |
vt.使混合,使相混;vi.混合起来;相交往 | |
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