* コモ湖の風景(YouTube)第1章_近代教育理論の前提条件 - アーノルド博士,コモ湖にて(承前)(この主題に適切なものとして)別の一節がある。それはストレイチー氏の『ヴィクトリア朝の著名人たち』の中で既に部分的に引用されているものである。これは,非常に適切なものであるため,もう一度引用せずにはいられない。アーノルド博士は,休暇で家を離れ,コモ湖(注:Lago di Como 別名ラーリオ湖 Lario:イタリアのロンバルディアにあるイタリアで3番目に広い湖)の美しい景色を楽しんでいた。博士がどのような楽しみ方をしたかは,妻宛の手紙の中で,次のように記されている。自分をとりまく圧倒的に美しい景色をながめ,続いて(←そうして)道徳的な悪について考えることは,恐ろしいと言ってよいほどです。天国と地獄が--大きな深淵で分離されているのではなく--完全に境を接している感じです。それどころか,私たち一人ひとりのすぐ近くに天国と地獄があるという感じです。外界の美しさに対する私の喜びと同じ位,道徳的な罪悪感が私の中で強烈であらんことを!(=祈祷)というのも,おそらく,他の何よりも,深い道徳的な罪悪感のうちにこそ,神による救済の知識が住まう(宿る)と思われるからです。道徳的な善を賛美するだけでは十分ではありません。賛美しながらも,従わない(守らない)という場合もあります。しかし,もし私たちが本当に邪悪なものを忌み嫌うならば,(即ち)悪が住んでいる人びとではなく,人びとのうちに住んでいる(宿っている)悪を忌み嫌うならば(罪を憎んで人を憎まず),いや,より明らかにまたより確かに自分たちの心に住んでいる(宿っている)ことを理解している悪を忌み嫌うならば--これは,神とキリストを実感することであり,自分たちの霊を神の霊と共鳴させる(一致させる)ことです。ああ!,このことを理解し,口にすることはなんとたやすく,行ない感じることはなんと難しいことでしょう。これを充分行なえる人は果たしているでしょうか。自分自身の不十分さを感じ,本当に深く悲しむ人以外には存在しないでしょう。最愛の妻である貴女と,私たちの愛する子供たちに,今この時,また末永く,イエス・キリストを通して,神の祝福がありますように!
|
Right: A Photo of Lago di Como: From Google Satellite, c.2006. Chap. 1 Postulates of Modern Educational Theory(OE01-110)There is another passage, already quoted in part by Mr Strachey in Eminent Victorians, but so apt that I cannot forbear to quote it again. Dr Arnold was away on holiday, enjoying the beauties of the Lake of Como. The form his enjoyment took is recorded in a letter to his wife, as follows:'It is almost awful to look at the overwhelming beauty around me, and then think of moral evil; it seems as if heaven and hell, instead of being separated by a great gulf from one another, were absolutely on each other's confines, and indeed not far from every one of us. Might the sense of moral evili be as strong in me as my delight in external beauty, for in a deep sense of moral evil, more perhaps than in anything else, abides a saving knowledge of God! It is not so much to admire moral good; that we may do, and yet not be ourselves conformed to it; but if we really do abhor that which is evil, nor the persons in whom evil resides, but the evil which dwelleth in them, and much more manifestly and certainly to our own knowledge, in our own hearts - this is to have the feeling of God and of Christ, and to have our Spirit in sympathy with the Spirit of God. Alas! how easy to see this and say it - how hard to do it and to feel it! Who is sufficient for these things? No one, but he who feels and really laments his own insufficiency. God bless you, my dearest wife, and our beloved children, now and evermore, through Christ Jesus.'It is pathetic to see this naturally kindly gentleman lashing himself into a mood of sadism, in which he can flog little boys without compunction, and all under the impression that he is conforming to the religion of Love. It is pathetic when we consider the deluded individual; but it is tragic when we think of the generations of cruelty that he put into the worldt by creating an atmosphere of abhorrence of 'moral evil', which, it will be remembered, includes habitual idleness in children. I shudder when I think of the wars, the tortures, the oppressions, of which upright men have been guilty, under the impression that they were righteously castigating 'moral evil'. Mercifully, educators no longer regard little children as limbs of Satan. There is still too much of this view in dealings with adults, particularly in the punishment of crime; but in the nursery and the school it has almost disappeared. ' |
(掲載日:2006.10.04 更新日:)