Simplicity is an uprightness of soul that has no reference to self; it is different from sincerity, and itis a still higher virtue. We see many people who are sincere, without being simple; they only wish to passfor what they are, and they are unwilling to appear what they are not; they are always thinking of themselves, measuring their words, and recalling their thoughts, and reviewing their actions, from the fear that they have done too much or too little. These persons are sincere, but they are simple; they are not at ease with others, and others are not at ease with them; they are not free, ingenuous, natural; we prefer people who are less correct, less perfect, and who are less artificial. This is the decision of man, and it isthe judgment of God, who would not have us so occupied with ourselves, and thus, as it were, always arranging our features in a mirror.
To be wholly occupied with others, never to look within, is the state of blindness of those who are entirely engrossed by what is present and addressed to their senses; this is the very reverse of simplicity. To be absorbed in self in whatever engages us, whether we are laboring for our fellow beings or for God-to bewise in our own eyes reserved, and full of ourselves, troubled at the least thing that disturbs our self-complacency, is the opposite extreme. This is false wisdom, which, with all its glory, is but little less absurd than that folly, which pursues only pleasure. The one is intoxicated with all it sees around it; theother with all that it imagines it has within; but it is delirium in both. To be absorbed in the contemplation of our own minds is really worse than to be engrossed by outward things, because it appears like wisdom and yet is not, we do not think of curing it, we pride ourselves upon it, we prove of it, it gives us an unnatural strength, it is a sort of frenzy, we are not conscious of it, we are dying, and we think ourselves in health.
Simplicity consists in a just medium, in which we are neither too much excited, nor too composed. The soulis not carried away by outward things, so that it cannot make all necessary reflections; neither does it make those continual references to self, that a jealous sense of its own excellence multiplies to infinity.That freedom of the soul, which looks straight onward in its path, losing no time to reason upon its steps, to study them, or to contemplate those that it has already taken, is true simplicity.
纯朴是灵魂中一种正直无私在素质；它与真诚不同，比真诚更高尚。许多人真心诚恳，却不纯朴。他们表里如一指望别人按他们的本来面目认识他们，不愿意遭人误解。他们总在想着自己，总在斟酌辞句、反省思量、审视行为；因为他们唯恐过头，又是怕不足。这些人真心诚恳，却不纯朴。他们不能和人自然相处，别人对他们也小心拘谨。他们不随便、不真诚、不自然。我们侄宁愿同不那么正确，不那么完美，但也不那么拘谨的人相处世人以上述准则取人，上帝也以此作判断。上帝不不愿我们用这样多的心思于自己，好象我们要时时对镜整理自己的容颜。
完全集中注意他人而不自省，是某些人的又是一种盲目状态；这些人全神贯注于眼前事物以及感官感受到的一切；这恰好是纯朴的反面。另一种人是，不管为同类还是为上帝效力，均全然忘我地投入--自以为聪明含蓄，心中充满自我，只要自满的情绪受到丝毫干扰便心烦意乱，是另一种极端。这是虚假的聪明；表面上堂而皇之，实际上与纯为追求享乐的愚蠢同样荒唐。上述两种人前者昏昏然陶醉于眼前看到的，后者陶醉于自认为内心已占有的一切。这两者都是虚妄的。一心中注意内心的冥思默想确比全神贯注于外界事物更有害，因为这样看来聪明，而实则不然，我们不以此为非，不想改正，反引以为荣。我们肯定这种行为，它给我们一种不自然的力量。这是一种疯狂状态，我们却不自觉。我们病入膏肓却还自以为身体强健。
纯朴存在于适度之中，我们在其中既不过分兴奋，又不过分平静。我们的灵魂不因过多注意外界事物而无法作必要的内省；我们也并不时刻考虑自己，使维护自己美德的戒备心理无限膨胀。我们的灵魂要是能够无羁无绊，直视眼前的道路，并不白白浪费时间于权衡研究脚下的步伐，或是回顾已经走过的道路，这才是真正的纯朴。
用户评论