人性有很多弱点，比如懒惰、自私、八怪、贪吃、情绪化、不理性、欺软怕硬等，但这些不是我们的错，而是人类遗传下来的动物性使然。我们需要意识到并接受人性存在弱点的现实，并保持同情，能改则改，能以恰当的方式充分利用就更好了，毕竟战胜人生，克服弱点实在太难了。比如人是不喜欢听大道理的，不要执着于跟人讲道理，人性是喜欢听故事，我们要做的是把道理融入故事里，人就能听进去了，单纯地解释大道理往往适得其反。Charles Darwin and The Descent of Man查尔斯·达尔文和《人类的由来》It’s completely understandable that we are often maddened by what might be called ‘normal’ humanity. The way in which emotion so regularly triumphs over careful reasoning; the power of group loyalty, even when the group doesn’t seem to deserve much devotion; the vast mechanisms of status-seeking that drive so much excess consumption; widespread selfishness and indifference to the greater needs of distant others. And we can find ourselves – in the privacy of our heads, or in the occasional late-night outburst – railing against the fools and idiots who (so unfortunately) seem to occupy so many of the prominent places of power, wealth and influence in our world. 我们常常为所谓“正常”的人性感到气恼，这是完全能理解的。总是情绪用事，而非细心理性；对群体忠诚，哪怕所属群体未必值得如此投入；种种机制引人追求社会地位，并导致太多过度消耗；普遍自私，对远方同类更重要的需求漠不关心。我们会发现-在脑海的隐秘之处，或是偶尔深夜情绪爆发的时候-自己在痛斥那些身居高位的蠢货和白痴，偏偏（不幸地）让他们占据了许多世间财富和权势汇聚的位置。In such moods, the 19th-century naturalist Charles Darwin has much to say to us. He was born in England in 1809 into a well-to-do and intellectually distinguished family. He was much influenced by visiting, in his twenties, the Galapagos Islands where he could see firsthand species remarkably different from those that existed elsewhere. In later life, he was a quiet, rather withdrawn man (he became the world’s leading expert on barnacles). He achieved worldwide fame for his great work On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, but Darwin felt that people had not quite understood the implications of his ideas and in 1871, when he was in his sixties, he brought out a title called The Descent of Man. 在这样的情绪下，19世纪的博物学家查尔斯·达尔文有许多话要对我们说。1809年，达尔文出生在英国一个富裕的高知家庭。他二十多岁时到达加拉帕戈斯群岛，在那儿亲眼见到了许多和外界截然不同的物种，这段经历对他影响很深。晚年的达尔文是个安静且颇为内向的人（他成为了世界一流的藤壶专家）。达尔文因其著作《论基于自然选择的物种起源》享誉世界，但他觉得众人并未充分理解其理论的含义，于是在1871年，他六十多岁的时候，将书命名为《人类的由来》。Darwin liked to say that he had thought of calling his book The Ascent of Man – but that that would suggest some idea of progress, a concept he did not believe in. Rather, what Darwin wanted to do was to show that, despite the obvious technical advances of past centuries, modern people are still fundamentally at exactly the same moral level, or even perhaps a slightly worse level, than their remote ancestors. 达尔文曾表示，他本想给书取名为《人类的攀升》，但这会传达某种变好的暗示，与他的看法相悖。达尔文更想体现的，是现代人类即便在历经过去几个世纪的技术进步后，与远古祖先相比，道德水平根本上讲依然毫无提升，甚至还略为不如。Darwin’s big point is that the basic psychological characteristics of human beings evolved to aid survival in the very remote past. At the simplest level, we are (generally) attracted to sweet things because, in the very extended period of early human development, that meant eating wild berries which are great for our health. It’s only been in very recent times that this inbuilt desire has turned against us and given us a craving for manufactured sugar, which, by Darwin’s time, had become a major industrial commodity. 达尔文想强调的是，人类的基本心理特征是在遥远的过去进化出来辅助生存的。最简单地说，我们（普遍）受到甜食吸引，是因为在人类早期发展的很长一段时间里，甜代表吃到了野生浆果，对身体健康好处多多。直到最近的年代，对甜食天生的欲望才开始带来坏处，让我们对在达尔文时代就已经成为主要工业产品的批量制造的糖产生嗜好。We also evolved to be highly conscious of our own position within our immediate group, since so much of our early survival – in the past – depended on that; so, today, being ‘liked’ feels as if it is a life-or-death issue precisely because, in the past, it precisely was that; it indicated when you would be served when the spoils of the hunt were being distributed. 进化也使我们高度关注自己在群体中的地位，这是因为人类早期的生存——过去的时候——仰赖于此；所以，到了今天，受到别人 “喜欢”对人来说仿佛是件生死攸关的大事，毕竟以前就是如此；你在群体中的地位意味着在分发打猎成果时你是先得还是后得。Practically everything – back then – depended on having a mate and reproducing. And so our minds are massively preoccupied by questions of reproduction, even though today, this is not actually central to our own individual survival or even happiness. And, obviously, emotional behaviour is much earlier and much more deeply rooted than elaborate reasoning, which is a very recent and still terribly fragile development in human culture.人类历史的早期，几乎一切都仰赖于拥有配偶及繁衍后代。以至于时至今日，我们的大脑依旧充斥着繁衍的烦恼，但繁衍并不是人类个体生存甚至幸福的真正核心。显然，相比于耗尽心力去理性，情绪性的行为出现的更早，更根深蒂固，理性在人类文化中，出现得很晚，发展依旧脆弱不堪。We can put on clothes and drive in cars, but we’re still carrying – Charles Darwin insists – our primate heritage and that, though disappointing, is not really our fault; it is simply a fact we need to get used to.我们会穿衣及开车，但达尔文坚持认为，我们人类依旧遗传着灵长类动物（猴子）的本性，即使让人失望，但真不是我们的错，只是我们需要习惯这一事实。Charles Darwin teaches us in his great work The Descent of Man to feel compassion for the very large primitive part of who we all are and will always be。达尔文用他的巨作《人类的由来》教导我们，对我们人类当下及未来遗传的原始人性，始终保持同情。