An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?"
Written by Immanuel Kant
Narrated by Michael Scott
Produced
Konigsberg in Prussia, 30th September, 1784
Enlightenment is man's relea from his lf-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make u of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cau lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to u it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to u your own reason!" - that is the motto of enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to t themlves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble mylf. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.
放学后英文That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind (and by the entire fair x) - quite apart from its being arduous is en to by tho guardians who have so kindly assumed superintendence over them.
After the guardians have first made their domestic cattle dumb and have made sure that the placid creatures will not dare take a single step without the harness of the cart to which they are tethered, the guardians then show them the danger which threatens if they try to go alone. Actually, however, this danger is not so great, for by falling a few times they would finally learn to walk alone. But an example of this failure makes them timid and ordinarily frightens them away from all further trials.
求人原谅说For any single individual to work himlf out of the life under tutelage which has become almost his nature is very difficult. He has come to be fond of his state, and he is for the prent really incapable of making u of his reason, for no one has ever let him try it out. Statutes and formulas, tho mechanical tools of the rational employment or rather mimployment of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting tutelage. Whoever throws them off makes only an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch becau he is not accustomed to that kind of free motion. Therefore, there are few who have succeeded by
their own exerci of mind both in freeing themlves from incompetence and in achieving a steady pace.
But that the public should enlighten itlf is more possible; indeed, if only freedom is granted enlightenment is almost sure to follow. For there will always be some independent thinkers, even among the established guardians of the great mass, who, after throwing off the yoke of tutelage from their own shoulders, will disminate the spirit of the rational appreciation of both their own worth and every man's vocation for thinking for himlf.
But be it noted that the public, which has first been brought under this yoke by their guardians, forces the guardians themlves to remain bound when it is incited to do so by some of the guardians who are themlves capable
of some enlightenment - so harmful is it to implant prejudices, for they later take vengeance on their cultivators or on their descendants. Thus the public can only slowly attain enlightenment. Perhaps a fall of personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be accomplished by revolution, but never a true reform in ways of thinking. Farther, new prejudices will rve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking mass.
For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public u of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, "Do not argue!" The Officer says: "Do not argue but drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue but pay!" The cleric: "Do not argue but believe!" Only one prince in the world says, "Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!" Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.
Which restriction is an obstacle to enlightenment, and which is not an obstacle but a promoter of it? I answer: The public u of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private u of reason, on the other hand, may often be very narrowly restricted without particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public u of one's reason I understand the u which a person makes of it as a scholar before the reading public.
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日记英语怎么说Private u I call that which one may make of it in a particular civil post or office which is entrusted to him. Many affairs which are conducted in the interest of the community require a certain mechanism through which some members of the community must passively conduct themlves with an artificial unanimity, so that the government may direct them to public ends, or at least prevent them from destroying tho ends. Here argument is certainly not allowed - one must obey. But so far as a part 分析人物形象
of the mechanism regards himlf at the same time as a member of the whole community or of a society of world citizens, and thus in the role of a scholar who address the public (in the proper n of the word) through his writings, he certainly can argue without hurting the affairs for which he is in part responsible as a passive member. Thus it would be ruinous for an officer in rvice to debate about the suitability or utility of a command given to him by his superior; he must obey. But the right to make remarks on errors in the military rvice and to lay them before the public for judgment cannot equitably be refud him as a scholar. The citizen cannot refu to pay the taxes impod on him; indeed, an impudent complaint at tho levied on him can be punished as a scandal (as it could occasion general refractoriness). But the same person nevertheless does not act contrary to his duty as a citizen, when, as a scholar, he publicly express his thoughts on the inappropriateness or even the injustices of the levies, Similarly a clergyman is obligated to make his rmon to胸口闷是怎么回事
his pupils in catechism and his congregation conform to the symbol of the church which he rves, for he has been accepted on this condition.福州鱼丸
But as a scholar he has complete freedom, even the calling, to communicate to the public all his carefully tested and well meaning thoughts on that which is erroneous in the symbol and to make su
ggestions for the better organization of the religious body and church. In doing this there is nothing that could be laid as a burden on his conscience. For what he teaches as a conquence of his office as a reprentative of the church, this he considers something about which he has not freedom to teach according to his own lights; it is something which he is appointed to propound at the dictation of and in the name of another. He will say, "Our church teaches this or that; tho are the proofs which it adduces." He thus extracts all practical us for his congregation from statutes to which he himlf would not subscribe with full conviction but to the enunciation of which he can very well pledge himlf becau it is not impossible that truth lies hidden in them, and, in any ca, there is at least nothing in them contradictory to inner religion. For if he believed he had found such in them, he could not conscientiously discharge the duties of his office; he would have to give it up. The u, therefore, which an appointed teacher makes of his reason before his congregation is merely private, becau this congregation is only a domestic one (even if it be a large gathering); with respect to it, as a priest, he is not free, nor can he be free, becau he carries out the orders of another. But as a scholar, who writings speak
to his public, the world, the clergyman in the public u
of his reason enjoys an unlimited freedom to u his own reason to speak in his own person.
That the guardian of the people (in spiritual things) should themlves be incompetent is an absurdity which amounts to the eternalization of absurdities.
But would not a society of clergymen, perhaps a church conference or a venerable classis (as they call themlves among the Dutch), be justified in obligating itlf by oath to a certain unchangeable symbol in order to enjoy an unceasing guardianship over each of its numbers and thereby over the people as a whole, and even to make it eternal? I answer that this is altogether impossible. Such contract, made to shut off all further enlightenment from the human race, is absolutely null and void even if confirmed by the supreme power, by parliaments, and by the most ceremonious of peace treaties. An age cannot bind itlf and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge, purify
itlf of errors, and progress in general enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, the proper destination of which lies precily in this progress and the descendants would be fully justified in rejecting tho decrees as having been made in an unwarranted and malicious manner.
The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have impod such a law on itlf. Now such religious compact might be possible for a short and definitely
limited time, as it were, in expectation of a better. One might let every citizen, and especially the clergyman, in the role of scholar, make his comments freely and publicly, i.e. through writing, on the erroneous aspects of the prent institution.
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