本來想轉貼中文的，看看網絡上的翻譯不怎麼樣，俺就自己翻譯了，翻譯沒有版權，可隨意拿去轉帖）。
摘自 Betrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" (西方哲學史)。
假如佛陀和尼采當面對質，任何一方是否能提出一個對不抱偏見的人具有說服力的論證？我不是指政治性的辯論。我們想象一下他們就像在約伯書第一章那樣出現在全能的上帝面前，各自給上帝提供他們自己的對於這個世界祂應如何創建的意見。他們會說些什麼呢？
佛陀會以談論以下這些人來開始這場辯論：被驅逐的悲慘的麻風病人，拖着酸痛的四肢奔波勞累而仍然食不果腹的窮人，在戰場中因傷而慢慢死去的戰士，被殘忍的監護者隨意折磨的孤兒，甚或那些最成功的人士，仍然免不了對失敗和死亡的恐懼。因着所有這些苦難，他會說，我們必須尋求脫出苦難的途徑，而那途徑必須是通過慈悲大愛。
尼采，這個只有全能的神才能阻止他不中途插話的傢伙，一旦輪到他，他就會立馬大叫起來:“我的天啊，你這傢伙，應該學會變得剛強點兒。你怎麼會去為小人物的苦難而哭哭啼啼呢？甚至為大人物悲哀也不值得。小人物的苦難只是小小的苦難，大人物的苦難才是大大的。而這些大的苦難才不值得去同情，因為他們很高貴。你那主意----出離苦難，而且是以涅槃的方式而出離，純粹只有消極影響! 瞧我的！我的主意，才是正面的積極的。我崇拜亞西比德，弗雷德克二世和拿破崙。正是因為這些大人物，生命的苦難才有了意義。上帝，您作為偉大的具有創造力的藝術家，我向您請求，絕不要讓您的藝術創作力被這個因墮落恐懼而嘮嘮叨叨的精神病人所遏制”。
佛陀以他的全知而了解他涅盤之後的所有歷史，而且因為人類掌控了新科技而高興卻因他們如何應用它而倍覺悲哀。他平靜而溫和的答道：“尼采教授，您以為我的理想很消極，您錯了。是的，它有一種消極因素在裡面，就是無有苦難。但是它和你的理論一樣具有完全一致的積極性。雖然我並不特別仰慕亞西比德和拿破崙，但是我也有我的英雄：我的繼任者耶穌。因為他告訴世人要愛他們的敵人，愛那些發現了如何應用自然力量來以較少的勞力而保障食物供應的人，愛治癒疾病的醫務工作者，愛將片刻神聖的美呈現給世人的詩人和音樂家。慈悲，知識和享受美麗的事物並不是消極的。它們足以令曾經活過的大人物們生命充實。”
“根本沒差別”，尼采答道，“你的世界將是平淡乏味的。你應當去研究研究赫拉克利特。他的著作完整的保存在天國圖書館。你的愛只是一種慈悲，那是因為痛苦而啟迪出來的。你的實相，假如你夠誠實的話，是不愉快的，而且認識它的唯一途徑就是苦難。至於美麗，還有什麼比老虎更美麗呢？因為它無所畏懼而顯得威風凜凜。不，假如上帝依你的理念而創世，我怕我們都將要厭煩得去死了。”
“也許您會，”佛陀回答說，“因為您渴望痛苦，因為您對生活的愛只是一種虛假的愛。但是那些真正熱愛生活的人(在我的世界裡)將能感受到當今世界裡無人能感受到的快樂。”
從我的角度來說，我同意我想象中的佛陀。但是我不知道如何去像證明一個數學定理或者科學命題一樣來證明佛陀是對的。我不喜歡尼采，因為他執着於對痛苦的思考，因為他把自負升格為一種責任，因為他所崇拜的都是征服者，而這些征服者的榮光卻隱藏在他們驅人入死的小聰明里。但是我想對於尼采哲學的終極反駁不是訴諸事實，而是訴諸感情，正如反對任何不愉快的卻能夠內部自洽的倫理規則一樣。尼采蔑視慈悲博愛，而正是這種慈悲，我覺得是我所希翼的這個世界的原始力量。尼采的追隨者已經有過他們的時代了，但是我們或許希望它馬上就結束。
If Buddha and Nietzsche were confronted, could either produce any argument that ought to appeal to the impartial listener? I am not thinking of political arguments. We can imagine them appearing before the Almighty, as in the first chapter of the Book of Job, and offering advice as to the sort of world He would create. What could either say?
Buddha would open the argument by speaking of lepers, outcast and miserable; the poor, toiling with aching limbs and barely kept alive by scanty nourishment; the wounded in battle, dying in slow agony; the orphans, ill-treated by cruel guardians; and even the most successful haunted by the thought of failure and death. From all this load of sorrow, he would say, a way of salvation must be found, and salvation can only come through love.
Nietzsche, whom only Omnipotence could restrain from interrupting, would burst out when his turn came.
"Good heavens, man, you must learn to be of tougher fibre. Why go about sniveling because trivial people suffer? Or, for that matter, because great men suffer? Trivial people suffer trivially, great men suffer greatly, and great sufferings are not to be regretted, because they are noble. Your ideal is a purely negative one, absence of suffering, which can be completely secured by non-existence. I, on the other hand, have positive ideals: I admire Alcibiades, and the Emperor Frederick II, and Napoleon. For the sake of such men, any misery is worth while. I appeal to You, Lord, as the greatest of creative artists, do not let Your artistic impulses be curbed by the degenerate fear-ridden maunderings of this wretched psychopath."
Buddha, who in the courts of Heaven has learnt all history since his death, and has mastered science with delight in the knowledge and sorrow at the use to which men have put it, replies with calm urbanity:
"You are mistaken, Professor Nietzsche, in thinking my ideal a purely negative one. True, it includes a negative element, the absence of suffering; but it has in addition quiet as much that is positive as it to be found in your doctrine. Though I have no special admiration for Alcibiades and Napoleon, I, too, have my heroes: my successor Jesus, because he told men to love their enemies; the men who discovered how to master the forces of nature and secure food with less labour; the medical men who have shown how to diminish disease; the poets and artists and musicians who have caught glimpses of the Divine beatitude. Love and knowledge and delight in beauty are not negations; they are enough to fill the lives of the greatest men that have ever lived."
"All the same," Nietzsche replies, "your world would be insipid. You should study Heraclitus, whose works survive complete in the celestial library. Your love is compassion, which is elicited by pain; your truth, if you are honest, is unpleasant, and only to be known through suffering; and as to beauty, what is more beautiful than the tiger, who owes his splendour to his fierceness? No, if the Lord should decide for your world, I fear we would all die of boredom." "You might," Buddha replies, "because you love pain, and your love of life is a sham. But those who really love life would be happy as no one can be happy in the world as it is."
For my part, I agree with Buddha as I have imagined him. But I do not know how to prove that he is right by any argument such as can be used in a mathematical or a scientific question. I dislike him Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die. But I think the ultimate argument against his philosophy, as against any unpleasant but internally self-consistent ethic, lies not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to emotions. Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.
