誠實的說，我不知道我翻了什麼。
若我有機會遇到Chesterton，我真心想問他，到底書中哪些段落是認真的，哪些是諷刺，哪些是考試，為了篩選讀者，刷掉像我這類智力不足、語言能力不佳的人XD
第3段
And this gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready for an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret is so simple that every one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister and mysterious. Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice. Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride. It is mistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. Humility will always, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold; pride is that which refuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please it too much. In a word, the failure of this virtue actually lies in its success; it is too successful as an investment to be believed in as a virtue. Humility is not merely too good for this world; it is too practical for this world; I had almost said it is too worldly for this world.
而這奇特的謙遜自卑，這看輕自己卻又同時準備好承受永恆且不配得的勝利的態度，其秘方簡單到每個人都以為這必定充滿隱晦神秘的罪惡。謙卑是如此務實平凡的美德，甚至被視為是種罪惡。謙卑是何等易於達成，以致於被誤認為驕傲。由於謙卑通常與顯眼明亮到近乎虛榮的簡單熱情同時出現，因而又更容易被誤解。謙卑將永遠偏好穿戴朱紅、黃金之裝飾，相反的驕傲則拒絕過度妝點黃金與朱紅。簡言之，謙卑這美德的失敗正在於它的成功。作為一項過於成功的投資，讓人難以相信它是一種美德。謙卑不僅過於美好，乃至於這世界不配得；謙卑也過於實際，乃至於這世界無法施行；甚或我可說，謙卑實在太屬世，以致於不屬世。
第4段
The instance most quoted in our day is the thing called the humility of the man of science; and certainly it is a good instance as well as a modern one. Men find it extremely difficult to believe that a man who is obviously uprooting mountains and dividing seas, tearing down temples and stretching out hands to the stars, is really a quiet old gentleman who only asks to be allowed to indulge his harmless old hobby and follow his harmless old nose. When a man splits a grain of sand and the universe is turned upside down in consequence, it is difficult to realize that to the man who did it, the splitting of the grain is the great affair, and the capsizing of the cosmos quite a small one. It is hard to enter into the feelings of a man who regards a new heaven and a new earth in the light of a byproduct. But undoubtedly it was to this almost eerie innocence of the intellect that the great men of the great scientific period, which now appears to be closing, owed their enormous power and triumph. If they had brought the heavens down like a house of cards their plea was not even that they had done it on principle; their quite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident. Whenever there was in them the least touch of pride in what they had done, there was a good ground for attacking them; but so long as they were wholly humble, they were wholly victorious. There were possible answers to Huxley; there was no answer possible to Darwin. He was convincing because of his unconsciousness; one might almost say because of his dulness. This childlike and prosaic mind is beginning to wane in the world of science. Men of science are beginning to see themselves, as the fine phrase is, in the part; they are beginning to be proud of their humility. They are beginning to be aesthetic, like the rest of the world, beginning to spell truth with a capital T, beginning to talk of the creeds they imagine themselves to have destroyed, of the discoveries that their forbears made. Like the modern English, they are beginning to be soft about their own hardness. They are becoming conscious of their own strength—that is, they are growing weaker. But one purely modern man has emerged in the strictly modern decades who does carry into our world the clear personal simplicity of the old world of science. One man of genius we have who is an artist, but who was a man of science, and who seems to be marked above all things with this great scientific humility. I mean Mr. H. G. Wells. And in his case, as in the others above spoken of, there must be a great preliminary difficulty in convincing the ordinary person that such a virtue is predicable of such a man. Mr. Wells began his literary work with violent visions—visions of the last pangs of this planet; can it be that a man who begins with violent visions is humble? He went on to wilder and wilder stories about carving beasts into men and shooting angels like birds. Is the man who shoots angels and carves beasts into men humble? Since then he has done something bolder than either of these blasphemies; he has prophesied the political future of all men; prophesied it with aggressive authority and a ringing decision of detail. Is the prophet of the future of all men humble? It will indeed be difficult, in the present condition of current thought about such things as pride and humility, to answer the query of how a man can be humble who does such big things and such bold things. For the only answer is the answer which I gave at the beginning of this essay. It is the humble man who does the big things. It is the humble man who does the bold things. It is the humble man who has the sensational sights vouchsafed to him, and this for three obvious reasons: first, that he strains his eyes more than any other men to see them; second, that he is more overwhelmed and uplifted with them when they come; third, that he records them more exactly and sincerely and with less adulteration from his more commonplace and more conceited everyday self. Adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected—that is, most romantic. Adventures are to the shy: in this sense adventures are to the unadventurous.
當今世代最常被掛在口上的例子，是所謂的科學人的謙卑，而這毫無疑問是一個又恰當又現代的範例。大眾對於一個明顯能夠搬移山、分開海、拆毀聖殿、伸手觸及星辰的人，真的只是一個安靜、盼望能沉醉於自己無害的小嗜好、隨自己無礙之小心願的老人，感到十分難以置信。當宇宙隨著一個人分開沙粒而天旋地轉時，我們的確很難明白—原來對這人而言，顛覆宇宙不過輕如鴻毛，分開沙粒才是重如泰山。一個從新天新地誕生之副產品來評量新天地的人的想法，的確很難理解。但毫無疑問的，正是因這怪異的智慧，這偉大（但似乎即將終結）的科學時代裡的偉人們，才擁有巨大的能力與勝利。他們若像摧毀紙牌屋一樣，將天拆了，他們甚至不會辯解說這舉動是基於原則。他們會令人無言的解釋說，他們是不小心的，這是一個意外。一旦他們對自己的所作所為有絲毫的自傲自滿，他們的舉動就有可議之處；但只要他們全然謙遜自卑，他們就完全勝利、無可指責。面對赫胥黎，我們或許還能有所回應；但面對達爾文，我們完全無語。他那無比的說服力，來自於他的無自覺（失去意識），或甚至可說來自他的呆板無聊。這類孩子氣、缺乏想像力的心智正在科學界逐漸衰退 。科學人漸漸開始，如那巧妙詞句表達的，視自己為世界的一部分（譯註：不確定目前的翻譯，或者Chesterton在這裡的意涵是 “look the part”嗎？）；他們開始對自己的謙卑感到驕傲，開始像這世界其他人一樣看重美感，開始在文字中提到絕對真理，開始在言談中談論他們以為自己已經摧毀的信條，討論上個世代的發現。就跟現代英國人一樣，他們對自己的堅持開始軟化，開始對自己的力量產生自覺，也就是——變得軟弱。但在這全然現代的時代裡，有一個完全現代的現代人，將古老科學世界那清澈無污染的單純心智帶入我們的世界。這位天才，雖被我們視為藝術家，卻是道地的科學人，在他身上沒有什麼比這偉大的科學謙卑精神更具標誌性。我口中所說的這人就是H. G. 威爾斯先生。而在他身上，以及在上述所提及的那幾位先生身上，一般人一定極難以相信他們竟能擁有這種美德（謙虛）。威爾斯以狂暴式的意象開創他的文學生涯，這意象勾勒的是宇宙的最後災難。一個在文學作品中以如此狂亂爆炸性的場景為起頭的人，可能是一個謙遜的人嗎？他隨後創造出更為狂野、跨越邊界的作品，雕塑出如野獸般的人，又將天使如飛鳥般打入塵世。將天使謫貶入世、把人雕塑為野獸的人，可能是一個謙卑的人嗎？自此，他從事比上述這類褻瀆之舉更為大膽的事情，他針對全世界的人的政治未來發出預言，以侵略性的權威與不容質疑的精確細節提出預言。對世人的未來發聲的預言家謙卑嗎？在今日對於驕傲與謙卑為何的理解下，要回答一個可從事如此偉大與大膽之舉之人如何能是個謙遜之人，的確很困難。而唯一的答案，就是我在這段論述開頭時所給的答案。只有謙卑的人能做大事。只有謙卑的人能做大膽的事。只有謙卑的人才被賜予那驚人不凡的異象，而這是出於三個簡單的理由：首先，他比任何人都更加限制自己的眼睛不去看這些不凡景象；其次，當看到這些景象時，他比任何人都更感動、更受鼓舞；最後，他比任何人都更不受自己平凡自負的尋常自我干擾，因而能為精準與真誠地記錄下所見。冒險是給那些最不預期會冒險的人，也就是最浪漫的人。冒險是給那些害羞木訥的人：因而可說，冒險是給那些未踏上冒險旅程的人。
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