第一百九十八章 第二卷 深渊之底
这里已无无私之心。恶魔隐约成形；人人只顾自己。眼中的"我"在嚎叫、搜寻、摸索、啃噬。社会的乌戈利诺就在这深渊之中。
在这坟墓中游荡的狂野幽灵——几近野兽，几近幻影——并不关心普遍进步；他们既不懂思想，也不懂言语；他们只想着满足个人欲望。他们几乎毫无意识，内心存有一种可怕的湮灭感。他们有两个母亲，却都是继母：无知与苦难。他们有一个向导：需求；以及满足欲望的各种形式：贪婪。他们野蛮地饕餮，也就是说，凶残——不是暴君式的凶残，而是猛虎式的凶残。从苦难中，这些幽灵堕入罪恶；这是宿命的关联，眩晕的创造，黑暗的逻辑。在社会第三底层爬行的，不再是受绝对压制的哀鸣；而是物质的抗议。人在这里化为恶龙。饥饿、干渴——这是起点；成为撒旦——这是终点。拉瑟奈尔便是从这个地窖中走出的。
我们在第四卷中刚刚看到了上层矿脉的一个隔间——那是伟大的政治、革命与哲学的挖掘场。正如我们方才所说，那里一切纯洁、高贵、庄严、诚实。在那里，人们确实可能被误导；但错误仍值得敬仰，因为它如此彻底地蕴含着英雄主义。那里的工作，从整体上看，有一个名字：进步。
此刻，我们必须审视其他深渊——那些可怖的深渊。在社会之下存在着，我们坚持这一点，并将一直存在，直到无知被驱散之日——那巨大的邪恶洞穴。
这个洞穴位于最底层，是一切之敌。它是毫无例外的仇恨。这个洞穴不承认哲学家；它的匕首从未削过笔尖。它的黑暗与墨水瓶的崇高黑暗毫无关联。在这窒息的穹顶下蜷缩的暗夜之指，从未翻动过书页，也未展开过报纸。巴贝夫在卡图什眼中是投机者，马拉在辛德汉内斯眼中是贵族。这个洞穴的目标是毁灭一切。
一切。包括它所憎恶的上层矿脉。它不仅以其可怖的蠕动破坏现存的社会秩序；它还破坏哲学，破坏人类思想，破坏文明，破坏革命，破坏进步。它的名字就是盗窃、卖淫、谋杀、暗杀。它是黑暗，它渴望混沌。它的穹顶由无知构成。
所有其他力量——那些位于它之上的力量——只有一个目标：消灭它。哲学与进步正是朝着这个方向努力，凭借它们所有的器官，同时通过改善现实与沉思绝对。摧毁无知的洞穴，你就摧毁了罪恶的巢穴。
让我们用几句话概括一下我们刚才所写的内容。唯一的社会危险就是黑暗。
人类是同一的。所有人都是由同一团黏土制成。在此世间，至少在命运方面，并无差异。前方是同样的阴影，当下是同样的血肉，身后是同样的尘土。但无知——这人类面团中的杂质——将其染黑。这不可治愈的黑暗占据人的内心，并在其中转化为恶魔。
There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined; each
one is for himself. The _I_ in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and
gnaws. The social Ugolino is in this gulf.
The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost
phantoms, are not occupied with universal progress; they are ignorant
both of the idea and of the word; they take no thought for anything but
the satisfaction of their individual desires. They are almost
unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible
obliteration. They have two mothers, both step-mothers, ignorance and
misery. They have a guide, necessity; and for all forms of
satisfaction, appetite. They are brutally voracious, that is to say,
ferocious, not after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion
of the tiger. From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal
affiliation, dizzy creation, logic of darkness. That which crawls in
the social third lower level is no longer complaint stifled by the
absolute; it is the protest of matter. Man there becomes a dragon. To
be hungry, to be thirsty—that is the point of departure; to be
Satan—that is the point reached. From that vault Lacenaire emerges.
We have just seen, in Book Fourth, one of the compartments of the upper
mine, of the great political, revolutionary, and philosophical
excavation. There, as we have just said, all is pure, noble, dignified,
honest. There, assuredly, one might be misled; but error is worthy of
veneration there, so thoroughly does it imply heroism. The work there
effected, taken as a whole has a name: Progress.
The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths,
hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this
point, and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be
dissipated, the great cavern of evil.
This cavern is below all, and is the foe of all. It is hatred, without
exception. This cavern knows no philosophers; its dagger has never cut
a pen. Its blackness has no connection with the sublime blackness of
the inkstand. Never have the fingers of night which contract beneath
this stifling ceiling, turned the leaves of a book nor unfolded a
newspaper. Babeuf is a speculator to Cartouche; Marat is an aristocrat
to Schinderhannes. This cavern has for its object the destruction of
everything.
Of everything. Including the upper superior mines, which it execrates.
It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social
order; it undermines philosophy, it undermines human thought, it
undermines civilization, it undermines revolution, it undermines
progress. Its name is simply theft, prostitution, murder,
assassination. It is darkness, and it desires chaos. Its vault is
formed of ignorance.
All the others, those above it, have but one object—to suppress it. It
is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their
organs simultaneously, by their amelioration of the real, as well as by
their contemplation of the absolute. Destroy the cavern Ignorance and
you destroy the lair Crime.
Let us condense, in a few words, a part of what we have just written.
The only social peril is darkness.
Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no
difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow in
front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But
ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable
blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there
converted into evil.
