Treating Others Liberally

It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others. I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others. We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, find it easy to condone them. For all I know we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and bad in ourselves together.

令人奇怪的是，和別人的過錯比起來，我們自己所犯過錯似乎并不是那樣的不可原諒。我猜想，其原因應該是我們完全清楚是什么導致了犯錯，因此能夠找到理由原諒自己，卻找不到理由原諒他人。我們沒有正視自己的不足之處，當我們陷入困境而被迫正視它們的時候，我們也會很容易就放自己一馬。就我所知，我們這樣做是正確的。這些缺點是我們自身的一部分，我們必須接受這樣的自己——一個并非十全十美的組合體。

But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves fro which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial instance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has never told not one, but a hundred?

但是當我們對他人作評價的時候，我們不是憑自己的真心來評判別人，而是以一種自我建立的形象為基礎來評判他人，這種自我形象完全去除了在世人眼中與自己的虛榮心或者名譽相沖突的事物。舉一個簡單的例子：當看出別人在說謊時，我們是多么地蔑視他啊！但是，誰敢說自己從未說過謊？有的人撒的謊還不少。
There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness, of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness. Some have more strength of character, or more opportunity, and so in one direction or another give their instincts freer play, but potentially they are the same. For my part, I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people, but I know that if I set down every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind, the world would consider me a monster of depravity. The knowledge that these reveries are common to all men should inspire one with tolerance to oneself as well as to others. It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, even the most eminent and respectable, with humor, and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously.

人和人之間沒什么大的不同。他們皆是組合體——偉大與渺小，善良與邪惡，高尚與卑劣。有的人個性較強，或者機遇較多，因而在這個或那個方面，他們能夠更自由地發揮自己的天資，但是人類的潛能卻都是一樣的。對我來說，我認為自己并不比大多數人好一些或者差一些，但是我知道，假如我貫徹執行了我生命中每一個行為和每一個掠過我腦海的想法的話，世人將會把我視為一個道德敗壞的怪物。這種認識——每個人都會有這樣的怪念頭——應當能夠對我們產生啟發：寬容自己，也要寬容他人。假如因此我們可以在評價他人時不太嚴苛——即使是世間最杰出和最令人尊敬的人，而且，假如我們也因此不對自己自視過高，那就挺好的。