本来想转贴中文的，看看网络上的翻译不怎么样，俺就自己翻译了，翻译没有版权，可随意拿去转帖）。

摘自 Betrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" (西方哲学史)。

假如佛陀和尼采当面对质，任何一方是否能提出一个对不抱偏见的人具有说服力的论证？我不是指政治性的辩论。我们想象一下他们就像在约伯书第一章那样出现在全能的上帝面前，各自给上帝提供他们自己的对于这个世界祂应如何创建的意见。他们会说些什么呢？

佛陀会以谈论以下这些人来开始这场辩论：被驱逐的悲惨的麻风病人，拖着酸痛的四肢奔波劳累而仍然食不果腹的穷人，在战场中因伤而慢慢死去的战士，被残忍的监护者随意折磨的孤儿，甚或那些最成功的人士，仍然免不了对失败和死亡的恐惧。因着所有这些苦难，他会说，我们必须寻求脱出苦难的途径，而那途径必须是通过慈悲大爱。

尼采，这个只有全能的神才能阻止他不中途插话的家伙，一旦轮到他，他就会立马大叫起来:“我的天啊，你这家伙，应该学会变得刚强点儿。你怎么会去为小人物的苦难而哭哭啼啼呢？甚至为大人物悲哀也不值得。小人物的苦难只是小小的苦难，大人物的苦难才是大大的。而这些大的苦难才不值得去同情，因为他们很高贵。你那主意----出离苦难，而且是以涅槃的方式而出离，纯粹只有消极影响! 瞧我的！我的主意，才是正面的积极的。我崇拜亚西比德，弗雷德克二世和拿破仑。正是因为这些大人物，生命的苦难才有了意义。上帝，您作为伟大的具有创造力的艺术家，我向您请求，绝不要让您的艺术创作力被这个因堕落恐惧而唠唠叨叨的精神病人所遏制”。

佛陀以他的全知而了解他涅盘之后的所有历史，而且因为人类掌控了新科技而高兴却因他们如何应用它而倍觉悲哀。他平静而温和的答道：“尼采教授，您以为我的理想很消极，您错了。是的，它有一种消极因素在里面，就是无有苦难。但是它和你的理论一样具有完全一致的积极性。虽然我并不特别仰慕亚西比德和拿破仑，但是我也有我的英雄：我的继任者耶稣。因为他告诉世人要爱他们的敌人，爱那些发现了如何应用自然力量来以较少的劳力而保障食物供应的人，爱治愈疾病的医务工作者，爱将片刻神圣的美呈现给世人的诗人和音乐家。慈悲，知识和享受美丽的事物并不是消极的。它们足以令曾经活过的大人物们生命充实。”

“根本没差别”，尼采答道，“你的世界将是平淡乏味的。你应当去研究研究赫拉克利特。他的著作完整的保存在天国图书馆。你的爱只是一种慈悲，那是因为痛苦而启迪出来的。你的实相，假如你够诚实的话，是不愉快的，而且认识它的唯一途径就是苦难。至于美丽，还有什么比老虎更美丽呢？因为它无所畏惧而显得威风凛凛。不，假如上帝依你的理念而创世，我怕我们都将要厌烦得去死了。”

“也许您会，”佛陀回答说，“因为您渴望痛苦，因为您对生活的爱只是一种虚假的爱。但是那些真正热爱生活的人(在我的世界里)将能感受到当今世界里无人能感受到的快乐。”

从我的角度来说，我同意我想象中的佛陀。但是我不知道如何去像证明一个数学定理或者科学命题一样来证明佛陀是对的。我不喜欢尼采，因为他执着于对痛苦的思考，因为他把自负升格为一种责任，因为他所崇拜的都是征服者，而这些征服者的荣光却隐藏在他们驱人入死的小聪明里。但是我想对于尼采哲学的终极反驳不是诉诸事实，而是诉诸感情，正如反对任何不愉快的却能够内部自洽的伦理规则一样。尼采蔑视慈悲博爱，而正是这种慈悲，我觉得是我所希翼的这个世界的原始力量。尼采的追随者已经有过他们的时代了，但是我们或许希望它马上就结束。

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.