PHILOSOPHY IN ITS INFANCY 1

The earliest Western philosophers were Greeks: men who spoke dialects of the Greek language, who were familiar with the Greek poems of Homer and Hesiod, and who had been brought up to worship Greek Gods like Zeus, Apollo, and Aphrodite. They lived not on the mainland of Greece, but in outlying centres of Greek culture, on the southern coasts of Italy or on the western coast of what is now Turkey. They flourished in the sixth-century bc, the century which began with the deportation of the Jews to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar and ended with the foundation of the Roman Republic after the expulsion of the young city’s kings. 

最早的西方哲学家是希腊人：他们说希腊语的方言，熟悉荷马和赫西俄德的希腊诗歌，受到敬拜宙斯、阿波罗和阿佛洛狄忒等希腊神祗的教育。他们并不生活在希腊大陆，而是在希腊文化的边缘地区，即意大利南部的海岸或现在土耳其的西海岸。他们活跃于公元前六世纪，这个世纪以尼布甲尼撒王将犹太人流放到巴比伦开始，以罗马共和国在驱逐了年轻城市的君主后建立结束。

These early philosophers were also early scientists, and several of them were also religious leaders. In the beginning the distinction between science, religion, and philosophy was not as clear as it became in later centuries. In the sixth century, in Asia Minor and Greek Italy, there was an intellectual cauldron in which elements of all these future disciplines fermented together. Later, religious devotees, philosophical disciples, and scientific inheritors could all look back to these thinkers as their forefathers.

这些早期的哲学家也是早期的科学家，其中一些人还是宗教领袖。在最初，科学、宗教和哲学之间的区别并不像后来的世纪那样明显。在公元前六世纪，亚洲小亚细亚和希腊意大利有一个智力的大熔炉，其中所有这些未来的学科的元素都在一起发酵。后来，宗教信徒、哲学门徒和科学继承者都可以视这些思想家为他们的祖先。

Pythagoras, who was honoured in antiquity as the first to bring philosophy to the Greek world, illustrates in his own person the characteristics of this early period. Born in Samos, off the Turkish coast, he migrated to Croton on the toe of Italy. He has a claim to be the founder of geometry as a systematic study. 

被古代尊为第一个将哲学带入希腊世界的毕达哥拉斯，以他自己的人格展示了这个早期时期的特征。他出生在土耳其海岸外的萨摩斯岛，后来迁移到位于意大利的脚趾上的克罗托内。他有资格被称为几何学作为一门系统研究的创始人。

His name became familiar to many generations of European school children because he was credited with the first proof that the square on the long side of a right-angled triangle is equal in area to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. But he also founded a religious community with a set of ascetic and ceremonial rules, the best-known of which was a prohibition on the eating of beans. 

他的名字为许多代欧洲学童所熟知，因为他被认为是第一个证明直角三角形斜边上的正方形等于另外两边上正方形面积之和的人。但他也创立了一个宗教团体，有一套禁欲和仪式规则，其中最著名的是禁止吃豆子。

He taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls: human beings had souls which were separable from their bodies, and at death a person’s soul might migrate into another kind of animal. For this reason, he taught his disciples to abstain from meat; once, it is said, he stopped a man whipping a puppy, claiming to have recognized in its whimper the voice of a dear dead friend. He believed that the soul, having migrated into different kinds of animal in succession, was eventually reincarnated as a human being. He himself claimed to remember having been, some centuries earlier, a hero at the siege of Troy. 

他教导灵魂转世的教义：人类有可以与身体分离的灵魂，死后一个人的灵魂可能会迁移到另一种动物中。因此，他教导他的门徒戒肉；据说，有一次，他阻止了一个正在鞭打小狗的人，声称在它的呜咽声中听到了一位亲爱的死去的朋友的声音。他相信，灵魂在不同种类的动物中连续转世后，最终会再次转生成为人类。他自己声称记得，几个世纪前，他曾是特洛伊围城战的一位英雄。

The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was called in Greek ‘metempsychosis’. Faustus, in Christopher Marlowe’s play, having sold his soul to the devil, and about to be carried off to the Christian Hell, expresses the desperate wish that Pythagoras had got things right. 

Ah, Pythagoras’ metempsychosis, were that true 

This soul should fly from me, and I be chang’d 

Unto some brutish beast. 

Pythagoras’ disciples wrote biographies of him full of wonders, crediting him with second sight and the gift of bilocation, and making him a son of Apollo.

灵魂转世的教义在希腊语中被称为“metempsychosis（轮回）”。在克里斯托弗·马洛的戏剧中，浮士德出卖了自己的灵魂给魔鬼，即将被带到基督教的地狱，他表达了对“毕达哥拉斯说对了”的绝望。

啊，毕达哥拉斯的灵魂迁徙，如果是真的，

这个灵魂就应该从我身上飞走，我就变成了

一头野兽。 

毕达哥拉斯的门徒写了他的传记，充满了奇迹，赞扬他有第二视觉和分身术的天赋，并称他是阿波罗之子。

The Milesians 

米利都人

Pythagoras’ life is lost in legend. Rather more is known about a group of philosophers, roughly contemporary with him, who lived in the city of Miletus in Ionia, or Greek Asia. 

毕达哥拉斯的生平已经淹没在传说中。关于一群与他大致同时代的哲学家，人们知道得更多一些，他们生活在伊奥尼亚或希腊亚洲的米利都城市。

The first of these was Thales, who was old enough to have foretold an eclipse in 585. Like Pythagoras, he was a geometer, though he is credited with rather simpler theorems, such as the one that a circle is bisected by its diameter. 

其中第一个是泰勒斯，他的生平离我们很遥远，遥远到他预言了公元前585年的日食。像毕达哥拉斯一样，他是一个几何学家，不过他发现的是比较简单的定理，比如一个圆被它的直径平分。

Like Pythagoras, he mingled geometry with religion: when he discovered how to inscribe a right-angled triangle inside a circle, he sacrificed an ox to the gods. But his geometry had a practical side: he was able to measure the height of the pyramids by measuring their shadows. He was also interested in astronomy: he identified the constellation of the little bear, and pointed out its use in navigation.

像毕达哥拉斯一样，他把几何学和宗教混合在一起：当他发现了如何在一个圆内内切一个直角三角形时，他向众神祭牲了一头牛。但他的几何学有一个实用的方面：他能够通过测量金字塔的影子来测量金字塔的高度。他也对天文学感兴趣：他确定了小熊座星座，并指出了它在航海中的用途。

He was, we are told, the first Greek to fix the length of the year as 365 days, and he made estimates of the sizes of the sun and moon. 

他是，我们被告知，第一个将一年的长度确定为365天的希腊人，他还估算了太阳和月亮的大小。 

Thales was perhaps the first philosopher to ask questions about the structure and nature of the cosmos as a whole. He maintained that the earth rests on water, like a log floating in a stream. (Aristotle asked, later: what does the water rest on?) But earth and its inhabitants did not just rest on water: in some sense, so Thales believed, they were all made out of water. 

泰勒斯也许是第一个对整个宇宙的结构和本质提出问题的哲学家。他认为地球是靠水支撑的，就像一根木头漂浮在河流中。（亚里士多德后来问：水靠什么支撑呢？） 但是土地及其居民并不仅仅是靠水支撑的：在某种意义上，泰勒斯相信，他们都是由水构成的。

Even in antiquity, people could only conjecture the grounds for this belief: was it because all animals and plants need water, or because the seeds of everything are moist? 

即使在古代，人们也只能推测这种信念的依据：是因为所有的动物和植物都需要水，还是因为一切事物的种子都是湿润的？

Because of his theory about the cosmos Thales was called by later writers a physicist or philosopher of nature (‘ physis’ is the Greek word for ‘nature’). Though he was a physicist, Thales was not a materialist: he did not, that is to say, believe that nothing existed except physical matter. One of the two sayings which have come down from him verbatim is ‘everything is full of gods’. What he meant is perhaps indicated by his claim that the magnet, because it moves iron, has a soul. He did not believe in Pythagoras’ doctrine of transmigration, but he did maintain the immortality of the soul. 

由于他关于宇宙的理论，泰勒斯被后来的作家称为物理学家或自然哲学家（“physis”是希腊语中“自然”的词）。 尽管他是一位物理学家，泰勒斯并不是唯物主义者：他不认为除了物质之外没有别的东西存在。从他那里流传下来的两句话中的一句就是“万物皆有神灵”。他的意思也许可以从他声称磁铁因为能移动铁而有灵魂这一说法中看出。 他不相信毕达哥拉斯的转世说，但他确实坚持灵魂的不朽。

Thales was no mere theorist. He was a political and military adviser to King Croesus of Lydia, and helped him to ford a river by diverting a stream. Foreseeing an unusually good olive crop, he took a lease on all the oil-mills, and made a fortune. 

泰勒斯不仅仅是理论家。他是吕底亚国王克罗伊斯的政治和军事顾问，并帮助他通过改变河流的方向来渡河。 他预见到了一次异常丰收的橄榄作物，他租下了所有的榨油厂，并赚了一大笔钱。

None the less, he acquired a reputation for unworldly absent mindedness,as appears in a letter which an ancient fiction-writer feigned to have been written to Pythagoras from Miletus:Thales has met an unkind fate in his old age. He went out from the court of his house at night, as was his custom, with his maidservant to view the stars, and forgetting where he was, as he gazed, he got to the edge of a steep slope and fell over. In such wise have the Milesians lost their astronomer. Let us who were his pupils cherish his memory, and let it be cherished by our children and pupils. 

尽管如此，他还是获得了一种超脱世俗的名声，正如一位古代的虚构作家假装写给毕达哥拉斯的一封信中所显示的：泰勒斯在老年时遭遇了不幸的命运。他晚上从他的庭院出去，像往常一样，带着他的女仆去观星，他忘记了自己在哪里，凝视着，他走到了一个陡峭的斜坡的边缘并摔了下去。就这样，米利都人失去了他们的天文学家。让我们这些是他的学生的人怀念他的记忆，并让我们的孩子和学生也怀念他。

A more significant thinker was a younger contemporary and pupil of Thales called Anaximander, a savant who made the first map of the world and of the stars, and invented both a sundial and an all-weather clock. 

一个更有影响力的思想家是泰勒斯同时代的一个年轻人，叫做阿那克西曼德，他制作了第一张关于世界和星星地图，并发明了日晷和全天候时钟。

He taught that the earth was cylindrical in shape, like a section of a pillar. Around the world were gigantic tyres, full of fire; each tyre had a hole through which the fire could be seen, and the holes were the sun and moon and stars. The largest tyre was twenty-eight times as great as the earth, and the fire seen through its orifice was the sun. 

他教导说地球是圆柱形的，像柱子的一截。在世界周围是巨大的轮胎，充满了火；每个轮胎都有一个洞，通过这个洞可以看到火，这些洞就是太阳、月亮和星星。最大的轮胎是地球大小的二十八倍，通过它的孔看到的火就是太阳。

Blockages in the holes explained eclipses and the phases of the moon. The fire within these tyres was once a great ball of flame surrounding the infant earth, which had gradually burst into fragments which enrolled themselves in bark-like casings. Eventually the heavenly bodies would return to the original fire. 

孔中的阻塞解释了日食和月相。这些轮胎内部的火曾经是一个巨大的火球，包围着幼小的地球，它逐渐爆裂成碎片，并包裹在树皮状的外壳中。最终，天体将回归原始之火。

The things from which existing things come into being are also the things into which they are destroyed, in accordance with what must be. For they give justice and reparation to one another for their injustice in accordance with the arrangement of time.

为何存在，就为何灭亡，这是必然的。因为它们按照时间的安排，从不平衡恢复平衡。

Here physical cosmogony is mingled not so much with theology as with a grand cosmic ethic: the several elements, no less than men and gods, must keep within bounds everlastingly fixed by nature.

在这里，物理的宇宙起源论并不是与神学混合，而是与一种宏大的宇宙伦理相联系：各种元素，包括但不限于人和众神，必须永远保持在自然规定的界限之内。

Though fire played an important part in Anaximander’s cosmogony, it would be wrong to think that he regarded it as the ultimate constituent of the world, like Thales’ water. The basic element of everything, he maintained, could be neither water nor fire, nor anything similar, or else it would gradually take over the universe. 

尽管火在阿那克西曼德的宇宙起源论中扮演了重要的角色，但认为他把火视为世界的最终组成部分，就像泰勒斯的水一样，是错误的。他坚持认为，一切事物的基本元素既不能是水，也不能是火，也不能是类似的东西，否则它会逐渐占据整个宇宙。

It had to be something with no definite nature, which he called  ἄπειρον (‘infinite’ or ‘unlimited’). ‘ ἄπειρον is the first principle of things that exist: it is eternal and ageless, and it contains all the worlds.’ 

它必须是一种没有明确性质的东西，他称之为阿派朗(“无限”或“无定形”)。 “阿派朗是存在事物的第一原则：它是永恒和不朽的，它包含了所有的世界。”

Anaximander was an early proponent of evolution. 

阿那克西曼德是进化论的早期支持者。 

The human beings we know cannot always have existed, he argued. 

他认为，我们所认识的人类不可能一直存在。 

Other animals are able to look after themselves, soon after birth, while humans require a long period of nursing; if humans had originally been as they are now they could not have survived. 

其他动物出生后不久就能照顾自己，而人类需要很长时间的护理；如果人类一开始就是现在这样，他们就无法生存。

He maintained that in an earlier age there were fish-like animals within which human embryos grew to puberty before bursting forth into the world. 

他坚持认为，在更早的时代，有类似鱼的动物，人类胚胎在其中成熟，然后散布到全世界。

Because of this thesis, though he was not otherwise a vegetarian, he preached against the eating of fish. 

因为这个论点，虽然他不是素食主义者，但他反对吃鱼。 

The infinite of Anaximander was a concept too rarefied for some of his successors. 

阿那克西曼德的无限是一个太过精妙的概念，以至于他的一些后继者难以理解。 

His younger contemporary at Miletus, Anaximenes, while agreeing that the ultimate element could not be fire or water, claimed that it was air, from which everything else had come into being. 

在米利都的和他同时代年轻人阿那克西美尼 ，虽然同意最终的元素不可能是火或水，但声称它是气，其他一切都是由它产生的。 

In its stable state, air is invisible, but when it is moved and condensed it becomes first wind and then cloud and then water, and finally water condensed becomes mud and stone. 

稳定状态下的气是无形的，但当它被移动和凝结时，它先变成风，然后变成云，然后变成水，最后凝结的水变成泥土和石头。 

Rarefied air, presumably, became fire, completing the gamut of the elements. 

稀薄的气，大概，变成了火，完成了元素的全范围覆盖。 

In support of his theory, Anaximenes appealed to experience: ‘Men release both hot and cold from their mouths; for the breath is cooled when it is compressed and condensed by the lips, but when the mouth is relaxed and it is exhaled it becomes hot by reason of its rareness’. 

为了支持他的理论，阿那克西美尼诉诸经验：“人们从嘴里释放出热和冷；因为当呼吸被嘴唇压缩和凝结时，它就会变冷，但当嘴巴放松并呼出时，它因为稀薄而变热。

” Thus rarefaction and condensation can generate everything out of the underlying air.

因此稀薄和凝结可以从基本的空气中产生一切。 

This is naive, but it is naive science: it is not mythology, like the classical and biblical stories of the flood and of the rainbow. 

这是幼稚的，但这是幼稚的科学：它不是神话，像古典和圣经中关于洪水和彩虹的故事。 

Anaximenes was the first flat-earther: he thought that the heavenly bodies did not travel under the earth, as his predecessors had claimed, but rotated round our heads like a felt cap. 

阿那克西美尼是第一个认为地球是平的人：他认为天体不是像他的前辈所说的那样在地球下面运行，而是像一顶毡帽一样围着我们的头转。 

He was also a flat-mooner and a flat-sunner: ‘the sun and the moon and the other heavenly bodies, which are all fiery, ride the air because of their flatness’. 

他也是一个认为月亮和太阳是平的人：“太阳和月亮和其他天体，它们都是火焰，因为它们的平坦而在空气中运行。” 

Xenophanes

色诺芬尼

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes were a trio of hardy and ingenious speculators. 

泰勒斯、阿那克西曼德和阿那克西美尼是一组坚持和有创造力的推测者。 

Their interests mark them out as the forebears of modern scientists rather more than of modern philosophers. 

他们的兴趣使他们更像是现代科学家而不是现代哲学家的先驱。 

The matter is different when we come to Xenophanes of Colophon (near present-day Izmir), who lived into the fifth century. 

当我们来到色诺芬尼时，情况就不同了。他来自科洛丰（靠近今天的伊兹密尔），活到了公元前五世纪。 

His themes and methods are recognizably the same as those of philosophers through succeeding ages. 

他研究的主题和方法与后来各个时代的哲学家的相同，可以被辨认出来。 

In particular he was the first philosopher of religion, and some of the arguments he propounded are still taken seriously by his successors. 

特别是，他是第一个宗教哲学家，他提出的一些论点仍然被他的后继者认真对待。

Xenophanes detested the religion found in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, whose stories blasphemously attributed to the gods theft, trickery, adultery, and all kinds of behaviour that, among humans, would be shameful andblameworthy. 

色诺芬尼憎恨在荷马和赫西俄德的诗歌中发现的宗教，他们的故事亵渎地把偷窃、欺骗、通奸和各种在人类中会被认为可耻和应受谴责的行为归咎于神。 

A poet himself, he savaged Homeric theology in satirical verses, now lost. 

他自己也是一位诗人，他用讽刺的诗句猛烈地抨击了荷马式的神学，但现在已经失传了。

It was not that he claimed himself to possess a clear insight into the nature of the divine; on the contrary, he wrote, ‘the clear truth about the gods no man has ever seen nor any man will ever know’. 

并不是说他自称拥有对神的本质的清晰洞察；相反，他写道，“关于众神的明确真理，没有人曾经看见过，也没有人将来会知道。” 

But he did claim to know where these legends of the gods came from: human beings have a tendency to picture everybody and everything as like themselves. 

但他确实声称知道这些神话是从哪里来的：人类有一种倾向，把每个人和每件事都想象成像自己一样。 

Ethiopians, he said, make their gods dark and snub-nosed, while Thracians make them red-haired and blue-eyed.

他说，埃塞俄比亚人把他们的神造成黑皮肤和塌鼻子，而色雷斯人把他们造成红头发和蓝眼睛。 

The belief that gods have any kind of human form at all is childish anthropomorphism. ‘If cows and horses or lions had hands and could draw, then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, cows like cows, making their bodies similar in shape to their own.’ 

认为神有任何一种人类形式的信念都是幼稚的拟人化。“如果牛和马或狮子有手并且能画画，那么马就会画出像马一样的神的形象，牛像牛一样，使它们的身体与自己的形状相似。”

Though no one would ever have a clear vision of God, Xenophanes thought that as science progressed, mortals could learn more than had been originally revealed. 

虽然没有人会对神有一个清晰的视觉，但色诺芬尼认为，随着科学的进步，凡人可以学到比最初被揭示的更多。 

‘There is one god,’ he wrote, ‘greatest among gods and men, similar to mortals neither in shape nor in thought.’ 

他写道，“有一个神，在神和人之中最伟大，既不像凡人那样有形状，也不像凡人那样有思想。” 

God was neither limited nor infinite, but altogether non-spatial: that which is divine is a living thing which sees as a whole, thinks as a whole and hears as a whole. 

神既不受限制也不无限，而是完全非空间性的：神是一个活着的东西，应该作为整体去看、作为整体去思考、作为整体去聆听。

In a society which worshipped many gods, he was a resolute monotheist. 

在一个崇拜许多神的社会里，他是一个坚定的一神论者。 

There was only one God, he argued, because God is the most powerful of all things, and if there were more than one, then they would all have to share equal power. 

他认为，只有一个神，因为神是所有事物中最强大的，如果有不止一个，那么他们就都必须分享平等的力量。 

God cannot have an origin; because what comes into existence does so either from what is like or what is unlike, and both alternatives lead to absurdity in the case of God. 

神不能有起源；因为存在的东西要么来自相似的东西，要么来自不相似的东西，而在神的情况下，两种可能都导致荒谬。 

God is neither infinite nor finite, neither changeable nor changeless. But though God is in a manner unthinkable, he is not unthinking. On the contrary, ‘Remote and effortless, with his mind alone he governs all there is’. 

神既不是无限的也不是有限的，既不是可变的也不是不变的。但虽然神在某种意义上是不可思议的，他却不是无思想的。相反，“遥远而毫不费力，他只用他的心智就统治着一切。”

Xenophanes’ monotheism is remarkable not so much because of its originality as because of its philosophical nature. 

色诺芬尼的一神论之所以引人注目，不是因为它的创新性，而是因为它的哲学性质。 

The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah and the authors of the book of Isaiah had already proclaimed that there was only one true God. 

希伯来先知耶利米和以赛亚书的作者已经宣称只有一个真神。 

But while they took their stance on the basis of a divine oracle, Xenophanes offered to prove his point by rational argument. 

但他们是基于神圣的神谕来立场，色诺芬尼却提出用理性的论证来证明他的观点。

 In terms of a distinction not drawn until centuries later, Isaiah proclaimed a revealed religion, while Xenophanes was a natural theologian. 

用几个世纪后才划分出来的区别来说，以赛亚宣扬了一种启示性的宗教，而色诺芬尼则是一位自然神学家。

Xenophanes’ philosophy of nature is less exciting than his philosophy of religion. 

色诺芬尼的自然哲学比他的宗教哲学要乏味得多。 

His views are variations on themes proposed by his Milesian predecessors. 

他的观点是对他那些米利都前辈提出命题的变化。 

He took as his ultimate element not water, or air, but earth. The earth, he thought, reached down beneath us to infinity. 

他把地球而不是水或空气作为他的最终元素。他认为，地球在我们下面延伸到无限远处。 

The sun, he maintained, came into existence each day from a congregation of tiny sparks. But it was not the only sun; indeed there were infinitely many. 他坚持认为，太阳每天都是由一群微小的火花产生的。但它不是唯一的太阳；事实上有无数个太阳。 Xenophanes’ most original contribution to science was to draw attention to the existence of fossils: he pointed out that in Malta there were to be found impressed in rocks the shapes of all sea-creatures. From this he drew the conclusion that the world passed through a cycle of alternating terrestrial and marine phases. 西诺芬尼对科学最原创的贡献是引起人们对化石存在的注意：他指出，在马耳他可以发现岩石中印有所有海洋生物的形状。由此他得出结论，世界经历了一个陆地和海洋交替的循环。

Heraclitus 

赫拉克利特

The last, and the most famous, of these early Ionian philosophers was Heraclitus, who lived early in the fifth century in the great metropolis of Ephesus, where later St Paul was to preach, dwell, and be persecuted. 

这些早期的爱奥尼亚哲学家中最后一个也是最著名的是赫拉克利特，他生活在公元前五世纪初的伊弗所这个大都市，后来圣保罗在那里传道、居住和受迫害。 

The city, in Heraclitus’ day as in St Paul’s, was dominated by the great temple of the fertility goddess Artemis. 

这座城市，在赫拉克利特和圣保罗的时代，其总结都是由生育女神阿尔忒弥斯的巨大神庙占主导的。

Heraclitus denounced the worship of the temple: praying to statues was like whispering gossip to an empty house, and offering sacrifices to purify oneself from sin was like trying to wash off mud with mud. 

赫拉克利特谴责了神庙的崇拜：向雕像祈祷就像对着空屋子窃窃私语，用祭品来净化自己的罪恶就像用泥巴来洗掉泥巴。 

He visited the temple from time to time, but only to play dice with the children there – much better company than statesmen, he said, refusing to take any part in the city’s politics. 

他时不时地去神庙，但只是为了和那里的孩子们玩掷骰子——他说，这比政治家们好多了，他拒绝参与城市的政治。 

In Artemis’ temple, too, he deposited his three-book treatise on philosophy and politics, a work, now lost, of notorious difficulty, so puzzling that some thought it a text of physics, others a political tract. (‘What I understand of it is excellent,’ Socrates said later, ‘what I don’t understand may well be excellent also; but only a deep-sea diver could get to the bottom of it.’) 

在阿尔忒弥斯的神庙里，他也留下了他关于哲学和政治的三卷论文，一部现在已经失传的臭名昭著的难题，如此令人困惑，以至于有些人认为它是一本物理学的书，有些人认为它是一本政治论文。（“我所理解的部分是极好的，”苏格拉底后来说，“我不理解的部分也可能是极好的；但只有一个深海潜水员才能到达它的底部。”）

In this book Heraclitus spoke of a great Word or Logos which holds forever and in accordance with which all things come about. 

在这本书中，赫拉克利特谈到了一个伟大的词或逻各斯（Logos），它永远存在，并且按照它所有的事物都发生。 

He wrote in paradoxes, claiming that the universe is both divisible and indivisible, generated and ungenerated, mortal and immortal, Word and Eternity, Father and Son, God and Justice. 

他用悖论写道，声称宇宙既是可分割又是不可分割的，既是生成又是未生成的，既是可朽又是不朽的，既是道又是永恒的，既是父又是子，既是神又是正义。 

No wonder that everybody, as he complained, found his Logos quite incomprehensible. 

难怪他抱怨说，每个人都觉得他的逻辑非常难以理解。 

If Xenophanes, in his style of argument, resembled modern professional philosophers, Heraclitus was much more like the popular modern idea of the philosopher as guru. 

如果说色诺芬尼在他的论证风格上类似于现代的专业哲学家，那么赫拉克利特更像是现代流行的把哲学家当作古鲁(印度教或锡克教的宗教导师或领袖)的观念。

He had nothing but contempt for his philosophical predecessors. Much learning, he said, does not teach a man sense; otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras and Xenophanes. 

他对他的哲学前辈只有轻蔑。他说，为学日益并不能让人拥有智慧；赫西俄德、毕达哥拉斯和色诺芬尼就是最好的例子。 

Heraclitus did not argue, he pronounced: he was a master of pregnant dicta, profound in sound and obscure in sense. 

赫拉克利特不是争论，而是宣称：他是一个富有内涵的格言的大师，声音深沉，意义模糊。

His delphic style was perhaps an imitation of the oracle of Apollo, which, in his own words, ‘neither tells, nor conceals, but gestures’. 

他的德尔斐风格也许是对阿波罗神谕的模仿，用他自己的话说，“既不说，也不隐瞒，而是表态。” 

Among Heraclitus’ best-known sayings are these: 

赫拉克利特最著名的格言有这些： 

The way up and the way down is one and the same. 

上升和下降的道路是同一条。 

Hidden harmony is better than manifest harmony. 

隐秘的和谐比显明的和谐更好。 

War is the father of all and the king of all; it proves some people gods, and some people men; it makes some people slaves and some people free. 

战争是万物的父亲和君王；它证明了有些人是神，有些人是人；它使有些人沦为奴隶，有些人夺回自由。

 A dry soul is wisest and best. 

干燥的灵魂是最明智和最好的。

For souls it is death to become water. 

对于灵魂来说，变成水就是死期。 

A drunk is a man led by a boy. 

醉汉是一个被男孩牵着走的人。 

Gods are mortal, humans immortal, living their death, dying their life. 

神是可朽的，人是不朽的，以死的方式保持活着，以活的方式走向死亡。 

The soul is a spider and the body is its web. 

灵魂是一只蜘蛛，身体是它的网。

That last remark was explained by Heraclitus thus: just as a spider, in the middle of a web, notices as soon as a fly breaks one of its threads and rushes thither as if in grief, so a person’s soul, if some part of the body is hurt, hurries quickly there as if unable to bear the hurt. 

这最后一句话是这样被赫拉克利特解释的：就像一只蜘蛛，在网中间，一旦有一只苍蝇断了它的一根丝线，就立刻注意到并冲过去，好像在悲伤一样，所以一个人的灵魂，如果身体的某个部分受伤了，就会迅速地赶到那里，好像无法忍受伤痛一样。

But if the soul is a busy spider, it is also, according to Heraclitus, a spark of the substance of the fiery stars. 

但如果灵魂是一只忙碌的蜘蛛，按照赫拉克利特的说法，它也是火焰星辰物质的一个火花。

In Heraclitus’ cosmology fire has the role which water had in Thales and air had in Anaximenes. The world is an ever-burning fire: all things come from fire and go into fire; ‘all things are exchangeable for fire, as goods are for gold and gold for goods’. 

在赫拉克利特的宇宙论中，火有着泰勒斯哲学中水和阿那克西美尼哲学中气所扮演的角色。世界是一团永恒燃烧的火：所有事物都来自火并回归火；“所有事物都可以用火来交换，就像货物可以用金子和金子可以用货物来交换一样。”

There is a downward path, whereby fire turns to water and water to earth, and an upward path, whereby earth turns to water, water to air, and air to fire. The death of earth is to become water, and the death of water is to become air, and the death of air is to become fire. 

有一条向下的道路，通过它火变成水，水变成土，还有一条向上的道路，通过它土变成水，水变成气，气变成火。土的消亡是变成水，水的消亡是变成气，气的消亡是变成火。

There is a single world, the same for all, made neither by god nor man; it has always existed and always will exist, passing, in accordance with cycles laid down by fate, through a phase of kindling, which is war, and a phase of burning, which is peace. 

有一个单一的世界，对所有人都是一样的，既不是由神造的也不是由人造的；它一直存在并且永远会存在，按照命运规定的循环，经历着一阶段的点火，即战争，和一阶段的燃烧，即和平。

Heraclitus’ vision of the transmutation of the elements in an ever-burning fire has caught the imagination of poets down to the present age.

赫拉克利特对元素在永恒燃烧的火中转化的想象已经吸引了从古至今的诗人的想象力。 

T. S. Eliot, in Four Quartets, puts this gloss on Heraclitus’ statement that water was the death of earth. 

T. S. 埃略特，在《四重奏》中，对赫拉克利特说水是土的消亡这句话做了这样的注释。

There are flood and drouth 

Over the eyes and in the mouth, 

Dead water and dead sand 

Contending for the upper hand. 

The parched eviscerate soil 

Gapes at the vanity of toil, 

Laughs without mirth 

This is the death of earth. 

在眼睛之上，在嘴巴里

有洪水和干旱，

止水和死沙

在争斗着谁占上风。

坼裂的失去元气的泥土

张目结舌地望着徒然无益的劳动，

放声大笑而没有欢乐。

这是土的死亡（汤永宽译）

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem entitled ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire’, full of imagery drawn from Heraclitus.

杰拉德·曼利·霍普金斯写了一首诗，题为《自然是赫拉克利特式的火》，充满了从赫拉克利特那里借来的意象。

Million fueled, nature’s bonfire burns on. 

百万只被点燃，自然的篝火熊熊燃烧。

But quench her bonniest, dearest to her, her clearest-selved spark, Man, how fast his firedint, his mark on mind, is gone! 

却骤然熄灭她最迷人的，她最心爱的，她最清晰为自我的火花
人啊，他的火痕，他心灵上的印记，消逝的多么迅速！

Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark Drowned. O pity and indignation! Manshape, that shone Sheer off, disseveral, a star, death blots black out . . . 

两者都在一种不可探测中，一切都在一个巨大的黑暗中淹没。哦，怜悯而愤怒！人形的，那闪耀的远遁而去，割裂，一颗星，死亡抹出黑色

Hopkins seeks comfort from this in the promise of the final resurrection – a Christian doctrine, of course, but one which itself finds its anticipation in a passage of Heraclitus which speaks of humans rising up and becoming wakeful guardians of the living and the dead. ‘Fire’, he said, ‘will come and judge and convict all things.’ 

Hopkins从这一点中寻求安慰，即最终复活的承诺——当然，这是一个基督教教义，但它本身也在赫拉克利特的一段话中找到了预示，这段话说人类将会站起来，成为生者和死者的警醒的守护者。“火”，他说，“将会来审判和定罪所有的事物。” 

In the ancient world the aspect of Heraclitus’ teaching which most impressed philosophers was not so much the vision of the world as a bonfire, as the corollary that everything in the world was in a state of constant change and flux. Everything moves on, he said, and nothing remains; the world is like a flowing stream. 

在古代世界，赫拉克利特的教导中最令哲学家印象深刻的方面，不是把世界看作一簇篝火的视角，而是世界上的一切都处于不断变化和流动的状态这一推论。他说，一切都在前进，没有什么是永恒的；世界就像一条流动的河流。 

If we stand by the river bank, the water we see beneath us is not the same two moments together, and we cannot put our feet twice into the same water. So far, so good; but Heraclitus went on to say that we cannot even step twice into the same river. This seems false, whether taken literally or allegorically; but, as we shall see, the sentiment was highly influential in later Greek philosophy. 

如果我们站在河岸上，我们看到的水在两个时刻之间就不是同一样了，我们也不能把脚放进同一样的水里两次。到目前为止，这还说得通；但是赫拉克利特接着说，我们甚至不能两次踏进同一条河流（濯足前水，水非前水）。这似乎是错误的，无论是字面上还是寓意上；但是，正如我们将看到的，这种敏锐度在后来的希腊哲学中有着很大的影响力。

The School of Parmenides

巴门尼德学派

The philosophical scene is very different when we turn to Parmenides, who was born in the closing years of the sixth century. Though probably a pupil of Xenophanes, Parmenides spent most of his life not in Ionia but in Italy, in a town called Elea, seventy miles or so south of Naples. 

哲学的境遇在转向巴门尼德时有了很大的不同，他出生于公元前六世纪的末年。虽然可能是色诺芬尼的学生，但巴门尼德一生大部分时间不是在爱奥尼亚，而是在意大利的一个叫埃利亚的小镇，距离那不勒斯南部大约七十英里。

He is said to have drawn up an excellent set of laws for his city; but we know nothing of his politics or political philosophy. He is the first philosopher whose writing has come down to us in any quantity: he wrote a philosophical poem in clumsy verse, of which we possess about a hundred and twenty lines. 

据说他为他的城市制定了一套优秀的法律；但我们对他的政治或政治哲学一无所知。他是第一个我们能够得到相当数量著作的哲学家：他用笨拙的诗句写了一首哲学诗，我们拥有大约一百二十行。

In his writing he devoted himself not to cosmology, like the early Milesians, nor to theology, like Xenophanes, but to a new and universal study which embraced and transcended both: the discipline which later philosophers called ‘ontology’. Ontology gets its name from a Greek word which in the singular is ‘ on’ and in the plural ‘ onta’: it is this word – the present participle of the Greek verb ‘to be’ – which defines Parmenides’ subject matter. His remarkable poem can claim to be the founding charter of ontology.

在他的写作中，他不是像早期的米利都人那样致力于宇宙论，也不是像色诺芬尼那样致力于神学，而是致力于一种新的、普遍的研究，它包含并超越了这两者：后来的哲学家称之为“本体论”的学科。本体论这个名字来自一个希腊词，在单数形式是“ on”，在复数形式是“ onta”：就是这个词——希腊动词“to be”的现在分词——定义了巴门尼德的主题。他那非凡的诗可以被认为是本体论的创始宪章。

为了解释什么是本体论，以及巴门尼德的诗歌是关于什么的，有必要详细地讨论一些语法和翻译的问题。读者对这种学究式的耐心将会得到回报，因为从巴门尼德的时代到如今，本体论有了一个广阔而繁茂的发展，只有对巴门尼德的意思和他没有表达出来的意思有一个确定的把握，才能使人在几个世纪中通过本体论的迷雾丛林仍能够看清楚自己的道路。 

To explain what ontology is, and what Parmenides’ poem is about, it is necessary to go into detail about points of grammar and translation. The reader’s patience with this pedantry will be rewarded, for between Parmenides and the present-day, ontology was to have a vast and luxuriant growth, and only a sure grasp of what Parmenides meant, and what he failed to mean, enables one to see one’s way clear over the centuries through the ontological jungle.

巴门尼德的主题是“to on”，字面上翻译就是“the being”。在解释动词之前，我们需要先说一些关于冠词的问题。在英语中，我们有时候用一个形容词，加上定冠词，来指代一类人或事物；比如我们说“the rich”来指富有的人，“the poor”来指贫穷的人。这种习惯用法在希腊语中比英语更为常见：希腊人可以用“the hot”来指热的事物，“the cold”来指冷的事物。

Parmenides’ subject is ‘ to on’, which translated literally means ‘the being’. Before explaining the verb, we need to say something about the article. In English we sometimes use an adjective, preceded by the definite article, to refer to a class of people or things; as when we say ‘the rich’ to mean people who are rich, and ‘the poor’ to mean those who are poor. The corresponding idiom was much more frequent in Greek than in English: Greeks could use the expression ‘the hot’ to mean things that are hot, and ‘the cold’ to mean things that are cold. 

例如，阿那克西美尼说气是由热、冷、湿、动等因素使之可见的。在“the”后面我们也可以用一个分词：比如我们说一个收容垂死者的医院，或者一个为四岁以下儿童准备的游戏组。

Thus, for instance, Anaximenes said that air was made visible by the hot and the cold and the moist and the moving. Instead of an adjective after ‘the’ we may use a participle: as when we speak, for instance, of a hospice for the dying, or a playgroup for the rising fours.

同样，这种结构在希腊语中也是可能的，并且很常见；而且正是这种习惯用法出现在“the being”中。“The being”就是那个正在存在着的东西，就像“the dying”是那些正在死去的人一样。

Once again, the corresponding construction was possible, and frequent, in Greek; and it is this idiom which occurs in ‘the being’. ‘The being’ is that which is be-ing, in the same way as ‘the dying’ are those who are dying.

像“dying”这样的动词形式，在英语中有两种用法：它可以是一个分词，如“the dying should not be neglected”，或者可以是一个动名词，如“dying can be a long-drawn-out business”。 “Seeing is believing”相当于“To see is to believe”。

A verbal form like ‘dying’ has, in English, two uses: it may be a participle, as in ‘the dying should not be neglected’, or it may be a verbal noun, as in ‘dying can be a long-drawn-out business’. ‘Seeing is believing’ is equivalent to ‘To see is to believe’.

当哲学家写关于存在的论文时，他们通常使用这个词作为一个动名词：他们提供某物为何存在的解释。这不是，或者不主要是，巴门尼德所关注的：他关心的是存在，也就是说，关注任何正在 "存在"着的东西。

When philosophers write treatises about being, they are commonly using the word as a verbal noun: they are offering to explain what it is for something to be. That is not, or not mainly, what Parmenides is about: he is concerned with the being, that is to say, with whatever is, as it were, doing the be-ing. 

为了区分“存在”这个词作为动名词的意义和它的字面意义，在英语中，人们传统上用一个大写的“B”来凸显出巴门尼德的命题。我们将遵循这个惯例，其中“Being”意味着任何存在有关联的东西，“being”是动名词，相当于不定式“to be”。 

To distinguish this sense of ‘being’ from its use as a verbal noun, and to avoid the strangeness of the literal ‘the being’ in English, it has been traditional to dignify Parmenides’ topic with a capital ‘B’. We will follow this convention, whereby ‘Being’ means whatever is engaged in being, and ‘being’ is the verbal noun equivalent to the infinitive ‘to be’.

很好；但是如果这就是Being的意思，为了弄清楚巴门尼德在说什么，我们还必须知道being是什么，也就是说，某物为何而存在。

Very well; but if that is what Being is, in order to make out what Parmenides is talking about we must also know what being is, that is to say, what it is for something to be.

我们可以理解某物为什么是蓝色的，或者为什么是一只小狗：但是某物只是存在，没有别的意思，这又是什么意思呢？有一种可能性是这样的： 存在存在着，或者换句话说，成为存在就是去存在。 如果是这样， 那么存在就是一切存在的东西。

We can understand what it is for something to be blue, or to be a puppy: but what is it for something to just be, period? One possibility which suggests itself is this: being is existing, or, in other words, to be is to exist. If so, then Being is all that exists. 

In English ‘to be’ can certainly mean ‘to exist’. When Hamlet asks the question ‘to be or not to be?’ he is debating whether or not to put an end to his existence. In the Bible we read that Rachel wept for her children ‘and would not be comforted because they are not’. This usage in English is poetic and archaic, and it is not natural to say such things as ‘The Tower of London is, and the Crystal Palace is not’, when we mean that the former building is still in existence while the latter is no longer there. But the corresponding statement would be quite natural in ancient Greek; and this sense of ‘be’ is certainly involved in Parmenides’ talk of Being.

在英语中，“to be”可以肯定地表示“to exist”。当哈姆雷特问道 “to be or not to be?”（生存还是毁灭？）时，他在思考是否要结束自己的生命。 在《圣经》中，我们读到拉结为她的孩子们哭泣，“and would not be comforted because they are not”。这种英语用法是诗意的和古老的，并且 说出像‘The Tower of London is, and the Crystal Palace is not’这样的话并不自然，当我们的意思是前者的建筑仍然存在，而后者已经不在了。但是相应的陈述在古希腊语中会很自然；而且这种“be”的意义肯定涉及到 巴门尼德关于存在的论述。 

If this were all that was involved, then we could say simply that Being is all that exists, or if you like, all that there is, or again, everything that is in being. That is a broad enough topic, in all conscience. One could not reproach Parmenides, as Hamlet reproached Horatio, by saying: 

如果这就是所有的问题，那么我们可以简单地说，存在就是一切存在的东西，或者如果你愿意，存在就是所有的东西，或者再说，存在就是一切处于存在状态的东西。这是一个足够宽泛的话题，无可厚非。人们不会像哈姆雷特责备霍雷肖那样责备巴门尼德，说：

There are more things in heaven and earth 

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

天上地下 有比你的哲学所梦想的更多的东西。 

For whatever there is in heaven and earth will fall under the heading of Being. 

因为天上地下的任何东西都会属于存在的范畴。

Unfortunately for us, however, matters are more complicated than this. Existence is not all that Parmenides has in mind when he talks of Being. 

 不幸的是，对我们来说，事情比这更复杂。 存在者（Existence）并不是巴门尼德所说的存在的全部意思。

He is interested in the verb ‘to be’ not only as it occurs in sentences such as ‘Troy is no more’ but as it occurs in any kind of sentence whatever – whether ‘Penelope is a woman’ or ‘Achilles is a hero’ or ‘Menelaus is gold-haired’ or ‘Telemachus is six-feet high’. 

他对“是”这个动词感兴趣，不仅是因为它出现在诸如“特洛伊不复存在”这样的句子中，而且因为它出现在任何一种句子中——无论是“佩内洛珀是一个女人”还是“阿基里斯是一个英雄”或者“墨涅劳斯是金发的”或者“忒勒马科斯是六英尺高”。

So understood, Being is not just that which exists, but that of which any sentence containing ‘is’ is true. 

这样理解的话，存在不仅仅是存在的东西，而是任何一种含有“是”的句子所说的真理。

Equally, being is not just existing (being, period) but being anything whatever: being red or being blue, being hot or being cold, and so on ad nauseam. 

同样，存在不仅仅是existing (being, period)，而是任何一种存在：红色的存在或蓝色的存在，热的存在或冷的存在，等等无穷无尽。

Taken in this sense, Being is a much more difficult realm to comprehend. After this long preamble, we are in a position to look at some of the lines of Parmenides’ mysterious poem.

从这个意义上说，存在是一个更难以理解的领域。 在这个冗长的序言之后，我们可以看一看巴门尼德神秘诗歌中的一些句子。

What you can call and think must Being be For Being can, and nothing cannot, be.

你能称呼和思考的必须是存在，因为存在存在，而无不存在。

The first line stresses the vast extension of Being: if you can call Argos a dog, or if you can think of the moon, then Argos and the moon must be, must count as part of Being. But why does the second line tell us that nothing cannot be?

第一行强调了存在的广阔延伸：如果你能称呼阿尔戈斯为狗，或者，如果你能想到月亮，那么阿尔戈斯和月亮必然是，必然算作存在的一部分。但是为什么第二行告诉我们无不能够存在？

Well, anything that can be at all, must be something or other; it cannot be just nothing.

好吧，任何能够存在的东西，必须是某种东西或其他东西；它不能只是 无。

Parmenides introduces, to correspond with Being, the notion of Unbeing. Never shall this prevail, that Unbeing is; Rein in your mind from any thought like this.

巴门尼德引入了与存在相对应的无的概念。 “无 存在”是永远不会成立； 控制住你自己，不要有这样的思想。

If Being is that of which something or other, no matter what, is true, then Unbeing is that of which nothing at all is true. That, surely, is nonsense. Not only can it not exist, it cannot even be thought of.

如果存在是任何东西或其他东西，不管是什么，都是真实的，那么 无是成为任何东西都不是真实的。那，肯定是无意义的。它不仅不能存在，甚至不能被思考。

Unbeing you won’t grasp – it can’t be done – Nor utter; being thought and being are one.

无你不会把握——它不可能做到—— 也不会说出；思维和存在是一致的。

Given his definition of ‘being’ and ‘Unbeing’ Parmenides is surely right here. If I tell you that I am thinking of something, and you ask me what kind of thing I’m thinking of, you will be puzzled if I say that it isn’t any kind of thing. If you then ask me what it is like, and I say that it isn’t like anything at all, you will be quite baffled. ‘Can you then tell me anything at all about it?’ you may ask. If I say no, then you may justly conclude that I am not really thinking of anything or indeed thinking at all. In that sense, it is true that to be thought of and to be are one and the same.

根据他对“存在”和“无”的定义，巴门尼德在这里肯定是正确的。如果 我告诉你我在想某件事情，你问我我在想什么样的事情， 如果我说它不是任何一种事情，你会感到困惑。 然后如果你问我它是什么样子，我说它不像任何东西，你会 相当困惑。“那你能告诉我关于它的任何事情吗？”你可能会问。如果我 说不，那么你可以公正地得出结论，我并没有真正地想到任何事情或者 确实没有思考。从这个意义上说，思维和存在是一致的。 

We can agree with Parmenides thus far; but we may note that there is an important difference between saying

我们可以同意巴门尼德到目前为止；但我们可能注意到有一个 重要的区别在于说

Unbeing cannot be thought of

无不能被思考

and saying

和说

What does not exist cannot be thought of.

不存在的东西不能被思考。

The first sentence is, in the sense explained, true; the second is false. If it were true, we could prove that things exist simply by thinking of them; but whereas lions and unicorns can both be thought of, lions exist and unicorns don’t. 

第一句话是，在解释的意义上，是真的；第二句是假的。如果它是 真的，我们可以通过想象它们来证明事物的存在；但是虽然 狮子和独角兽都可以被想象，狮子存在而独角兽不。

Given the convolutions of his language, it is hard to be sure whether Parmenides thought that the two statements were equivalent. Some of his successors have accused him of that confusion; others have seemed to share it themselves.

考虑到 他语言的晦涩复杂，很难确定巴门尼德是否 认为这两个陈述是等价的。他的一些后继者有 指责他有这种混淆；其他人似乎也有同样的问题。

We have agreed with Parmenides in rejecting Unbeing. But it is harder to follow Parmenides in some of the conclusions he draws from the inconceivability of Unbeing and the universality of Being. This is how he proceeds.

我们已经同意巴门尼德拒绝无。但是更难以跟随 巴门尼德在他从 无 的不可思不可议和存在的普遍性中得出的一些结论。这是他的推理过程。

One road there is, signposted in this wise: 

有一条路，用这样的方式指示： 

Being was never born and never dies; 

存在没有起点，也没有终点； 

Foursquare, unmoved, no end it will allow 

四方，不动，不容许有终结

It never was, nor will be; all is now, 

它不是过去，也不是未来；一切都是现在，

One and continuous. How could it be born 

 一而且连续。它怎么能有起点

Or whence could it be grown? Unbeing? No – 

那么其从何而有？无中生有？不—— 

That mayn’t be said or thought; we cannot go 

So far ev’n to deny it is. 

那不可思不可议；我们不能太过分甚至否认它存在。

What need, 

Early or late, could Being from Unbeing seed?  

什么需要， 

早或晚，能让存在从无中生出？

Thus it must altogether be or not.

因此它必须完全存在或不存在。

Nor to Unbeing will belief allot 

An offspring other than itself . . .

‘Nothing can come from nothing’ is a principle which has been accepted by many thinkers far less intrepid than Parmenides. 

“无中生有”是一个原则，已经被许多比巴门尼德更不胆怯的思想家所接受。

But not many have drawn the conclusion that Being has no beginning and no end, and is not subject to temporal change. 

但是没有多少人得出了这样的结论：存在没有开始和结束，也不受时间的变化影响。

To see why Parmenides drew this conclusion, we have to assume that he thought that ‘being water’ or ‘being air’ was related to ‘being’ in the same way as ‘running fast’ and ‘running slowly’ is related to ‘running’. 

要明白巴门尼德为什么得出了这个结论，我们必须假设他认为“水的存在”或“空气的存在”与“存在”有着相同的关系，就像“跑得快”和“跑得慢”与“跑”有着相同的关系。

Someone who first runs fast and then runs slowly, all the time goes on running; similarly, for Parmenides, stuff which is first water and then is air goes on being. 

一个人先跑得快，然后跑得慢，他一直在跑；同样，对于巴门尼德来说，先是水然后是气的东西一直在存在。

When a kettle of water boils away, this may be, in Heraclitus’ words, the death of water and the birth of air; but, for Parmenides, it is not the death or birth of Being.

当一壶水煮干了，在赫拉克利特的话中，这可能是，水的消亡和气的诞生；但是，对于巴门尼德来说，这不是存在的消亡或诞生。

Whatever changes may take place, they are not changes from being to non-being; they are all changes within Being, not changes of Being.

无论发生什么样的变化，它们都不是从存在到不存在的变化；它们都是存在内部的变化，而不是存在本身的变化。

Being must be everlasting; because it could not have come from Unbeing, and it could never turn into Unbeing, because there is no such thing. If Being could 

– per impossibile – come from nothing, what could make it do so at one time rather than another? Indeed, what is it that differentiates past from present and future? If it is no kind of being, then time is unreal; if it is some kind of being, then it is all part of Being, and past, present and future are all one Being.

存在必须是永恒的；因为它不可能来自于非存在，也永远不会变成非存在，因为没有这样的东西。如果存在可以——不可能地——从无中产生，那么是什么让它在某一时刻而不是另一时刻这样做？的确，是什么区分了过去、现在和未来？如果它不是任何一种存在，那么时间就是虚幻的；如果它是某种存在，那么它就是存在的一部分，过去、现在和未来都是同一存在。

By similar arguments Parmenides seeks to show that Being is undivided and unlimited. What would divide Being from Being? Unbeing? In that case the division is unreal. Being? In that case there is no division, but continuous Being. 

通过类似的论证，巴门尼德试图证明存在是不可分割和无限的。是什么将存在与存在分开？非存在？在那种情况下，分割是不真实的。存在？在那种情况下，没有分割，只有连续的存在。

What could set limits to Being? Unbeing cannot do anything to anything; and if we imagine that Being is limited by Being, then Being has not yet reached its limits.

是什么给存在设定了限定？非存在不能对任何东西做任何事情；如果我们想象存在受到存在的限制，那么存在还没有达到它的极限。

To think a thing’s to think it is, no less. 

Apart from Being, whatever we may express, 

Thought does not reach. Naught is or will be 

Beyond Being’s bounds, since Destiny’s decree 

Fetters it whole and still. All things are names Which the credulity of mortals frames –

Birth and destruction, being all or none, 

Changes of place, and colours come and gone.

思考一件事就是认为它存在，绝非轻言。 

除了存在，无论我们表达什么， 

思想都无法达到。没有什么是或将是 

超越存在的界限，因为命运的命令 

将它整个束缚并静止。所有的事物都是名字，是凡人的轻信 

构造的——生与灭，全有或全无， 

位置的变化，和颜色的来去。

Parmenides’ poem is in two parts: the Way of Truth and the Way of Seeming. 

巴门尼德的诗歌分为两部分：真理之道和似是之道（意见之道）。 

The Way of Truth contains the doctrine of Being, which we have been examining; the Way of Seeming deals with the world of the senses, the world of change and colour, the world of empty names. 

真理之道包含了存在的信条，这是我们一直在 探讨的；似是之道涉及到感官的世界，变化和色彩的世界，空洞名字的世界。

We need not spend time on the Way of Seeming, since what Parmenides tells us about this is not very different from the cosmological speculations of the Ionian thinkers.

我们不需要花时间在 似是之道上，因为巴门尼德告诉我们的关于这个的东西和爱奥尼亚思想家的宇宙学推测没有太大区别。

It was his Way of Truth which set an agenda for many ages of subsequent philosophy.

正是他的真理之道为后来的许多时代的哲学设定了一种规范的进路。

The problem facing future philosophers was this. Common sense suggests that the world contains things which endure, such as rocky mountains, and things which constantly change, such as rushing streams. 

未来的哲学家面临的问题是这样的。常识告诉我们， 世界包含了一些持久的事物，比如岩石山，和一些 不断变化的事物，比如奔流的溪流。

On the one hand, Heraclitus had pronounced that at a fundamental level, even the most solid things were in perpetual flux; on the other hand, Parmenides had argued that even what is most apparently fleeting is, at a fundamental level, static and unchanging. 

一方面，赫拉克利特 宣称，在根本层面上，即使是最坚固的事物也处于 永恒的流动之中；另一方面，巴门尼德则认为，即使是最 明显短暂的事物，在根本层面上也是静止和不变的。

Can the doctrines of either Heraclitus or Parmenides be refuted? Is there any way in which they can be reconciled? For Plato, and his successors, this was a major task for philosophy to address.

赫拉克利特或巴门尼德的信条能否被反驳？有没有什么办法 可以使它们和谐起来？对于柏拉图和他的继承者们，这是哲学要解决的一个重大任务。