題孔子像於芝佛院 李贄

題孔子像於芝佛院　　李贄（1527—1602年）
 
　　人皆以孔子為大聖，吾亦以為大聖；皆以老、佛為異端，吾亦以為異端。人人非真知大聖與異端也，以所聞於父師之教者熟也；父師非真知大聖與異端也，以所聞於儒先_{（即先儒）}之教者熟也；儒先亦非真知大聖與異端也，以孔子有是言也。其曰：「聖則吾不能」_{（語本《孟子·公孫丑上》：昔者子貢問於孔子曰：夫子聖矣乎？孔子曰：聖則吾不能，我學不厭而教不倦也）}，是居謙也。其曰「攻乎異端」_{（《論語·為政》：「子曰：攻乎異端，斯害也已。」朱熹注引范祖禹曰：「攻，專治也……異端……如楊墨是也……為害甚矣！」又引程子曰：「佛氏之言，比之楊墨，尤為近理，所以其害為尤甚」。又焦循《補疏》引《韓詩外傳》云：『別殊類，使不相害，序異端，使不相悖。』《論語·子罕》亦云：「子曰：吾有知乎哉？無知也。有鄙夫問於我，空空如也，我叩其兩端而竭焉。」焦循解「攻」字為調和、克服、使貫通（兩端）義，或有過火處。然其引《韓詩》以證「異端」一詞並不必然得作純貶義解，則甚有力。故是句或可理解為「執於一端，其害大矣」）}，是必為老與佛也。
 
　　儒先億度而言之，父師沿襲而誦之，小子矇聾而聽之。萬口一詞，不可破也；千年一律，不自知也。不曰「徒誦其言」，而曰「已知其人」_{（語本《孟子·萬章下》：「以友天下之善士為未足，又尚論古之人。頌其詩，讀其書，不知其人，可乎？是以論其世也。是尚友也。」朱熹注：尚，上同。言進而上也。……論其世，論其當世行事之跡也。言既觀其言，則不可以不知其為人之實，是以又考其行也。夫能友天下之善士，其所友眾矣，猶以為未足，又進而取於古人。是能進其取友之道，而非止為一世之士矣）}；不曰「強不知以為知」，而曰「知之為知之」_{（《論語·為政》：知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也）}。至今日，雖有目_{（眼力，即明辨是非的能力）}，無所用矣。
 
　　余何人也，敢謂有目？亦從眾耳。既從而聖之，亦從眾而事之。是故吾從眾事孔子於芝佛之院_（一笑）。

另附Mark Twain, "Corn-pone Opinions" (1900)一文摘錄：

"Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to me because I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and delightful young black man - a slave - who daily preached sermons from the top of his master’s woodpile, with me for sole audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, and did it well, and with fine passion and energy. To me he was a wonder. I believed he was the greatest orator in the United States and would some day be heard from. But it did not happen; in the distribution of rewards he was overlooked. It is the way, in this world.
 
He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to saw a stick of wood; but the sawing was a pretense - he did it with his mouth; exactly imitating the sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way through the wood. But it served its purpose; it kept his master from coming out to see how the work was getting along. I listened to the sermons from the open window of a lumber room at the back of the house. One of his texts was this:
 
“You tell me whar a man gits(i.e. gets) his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ’pinions is.”
 
I can never forget it. It was deeply impressed upon me... The black philosopher’s idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities. He must restrict himself to corn-pone opinions - at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.
...
It was his idea that there is such a thing as a first-hand opinion; an original opinion; an opinion which is coldly reasoned out in a man’s head, by a searching analysis of the facts involved, with the heart unconsulted, and the jury room closed against outside influences. It may be that such an opinion has been born somewhere, at some time or other, but I suppose it got away before they could catch it and stuff it and put it in the museum.

I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion, or any other matter that is projected into the field of our notice and interest, is a most rare thing - if it has indeed ever existed.
 
A new thing in costume appears - the flaring hoopskirt, for example - and the passers-by are shocked, and the irreverent laugh. Six months later everybody is reconciled; the fashion has established itself; it is admired, now, and no one laughs. Public opinion resented it before, public opinion accepts it now, and is happy in it. Why? Was the resentment reasoned out? Was the acceptance reasoned out? No. The instinct that moves to conformity did the work. It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval. We all have to bow to that; there are no exceptions. Even the woman who refuses from first to last to wear the hoopskirt comes under that law and is its slave; she could not wear the skirt and have her own approval; and that she must have, she cannot help herself. But as a rule our self-approval has its source in but one place and not elsewhere - the approval of other people. A person of vast consequences can introduce any kind of novelty in dress and the general world will presently adopt it - moved to do it, in the first place, by the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority, and in the second place by the human instinct to train with the multitude and have its approval...

The hoopskirt runs its course and disappears. Nobody reasons about it. One woman abandons the fashion; her neighbor notices this and follows her lead; this influences the next woman; and so on and so on, and presently the skirt has vanished out of the world, no one knows how nor why; nor cares, for that matter. It will come again, by and by; and in due course will go again.
...
Our table manners, and company manners, and street manners change from time to time, but the changes are not reasoned out; we merely notice and conform. We are creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate. We cannot invent standards that will stick; what we mistake for standards are only fashions, and perishable. We may continue to admire them, but we drop the use of them. We notice this in literature. Shakespeare is a standard, and fifty years ago we used to write tragedies which we couldn’t tell from - from somebody else’s; but we don’t do it any more, now. Our prose standard, three quarters of a century ago, was ornate and diffuse; some authority or other changed it in the direction of compactness and simplicity, and conformity followed, without argument. The historical novel starts up suddenly, and sweeps the land. Everybody writes one, and the nation is glad. We had historical novels before; but nobody read them, and the rest of us conformed - without reasoning it out. We are conforming in the other way, now, because it is another case of everybody.

The outside influences are always pouring in upon us, and we are always obeying their orders and accepting their verdicts. The Smiths like the new play; the Joneses go to see it, and they copy the Smith verdict. Morals, religions, politics, get their following from surrounding influences and atmospheres, almost entirely; not from study, not from thinking. A man must and will have his own approval first of all, in each and every moment and circumstance of his life - even if he must repent of a self-approved act the moment after its commission, in order to get his self-approval again: but, speaking in general terms, a man’s self-approval in the large concerns of life has its source in the approval of the peoples about him, and not in a searching personal examination of the matter. Mohammedans are Mohammedans because they are born and reared among that sect, not because they have thought it out and can furnish sound reasons for being Mohammedans; we know why Catholics are Catholics; why Presbyterians are Presbyterians; why Baptists are Baptists; why Mormons are Mormons; why thieves are thieves; why monarchists are monarchists; why Republicans are Republicans and Democrats, Democrats. We know it is a matter of association and sympathy, not reasoning and examination; that hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics, or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, corn-pone stands for self-approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is conformity. Sometimes conformity has a sordid business interest - the bread-and-butter interest - but not in most cases, I think. I think that in the majority of cases it is unconscious and not calculated; that it is born of the human being’s natural yearning to stand well with his fellows and have their inspiring approval and praise - a yearning which is commonly so strong and so insistent that it cannot be effectually resisted, and must have its way.

A political emergency brings out the corn-pone opinion in fine force in its two chief varieties - the pocketbook variety, which has its origin in self-interest, and the bigger variety, the sentimental variety - the one which can’t bear to be outside the pale; can’t bear to be in disfavor; can’t endure the averted face and the cold shoulder; wants to stand well with his friends, wants to be smiled upon, wants to be welcome, wants to hear the precious words, “He’s on the right track!” Uttered, perhaps by an ass, but still an ass of high degree, an ass whose approval is gold and diamonds to a smaller ass, and confers glory and honor and happiness, and membership in the herd. For these gauds many a man will dump his life-long principles into the street, and his conscience along with them. We have seen it happen. In some millions of instances.
 
Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party’s approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals.
 
In our late canvass half of the nation passionately believed that in silver lay salvation, the other half as passionately believed that that way lay destruction. Do you believe that a tenth part of the people, on either side, had any rational excuse for having an opinion about the matter at all? I studied that mighty question to the bottom - came out empty. Half of our people passionately believe in high tariff, the other half believe otherwise. Does this mean study and examination, or only feeling? The latter, I think. I have deeply studied that question, too - and didn’t arrive. We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it the Voice of God."