新概念英语（第四册，旧版）复习（原文及全文翻译）——Lesson 47 - Plato Today（现代柏拉图）
Lesson 47 - Plato Today
The modern Plato, like his ancient counterpart, has an unbounded contempt for politicians and statesmen and party leaders who are not university men. He finds politics a dirty game, and only enters them reluctantly because he knows that at the very least he and his friends are better than the present gang. Brought up in the traditions of the ruling classes, he has a natural pity for the common people whom he has learnt to know as servants, and observed from a distance at their work in the factory, at their play in the parks and holiday resorts. He has never mixed with them or spoken to them on equal terms, but has demanded and generally received a respect due to his position and superior intelligence. He knows that if they trust him, he can give them the happiness which they crave. A man of culture, he genuinely despises the self-made industrialist and news-paper-king: with a modest professional salary and a little private income of his own, he regards money-making as vulgar and avoids all ostentation. Industry and finance seem to him to be activities unworthy of gentlemen, although, alas, many are forced by exigencies of circumstance to take some part in them. intellectual, he gently laughs at the superstitions of most Christians, but attends church regularly because he sees the importance of organized religion for the maintenance of sound morality among the lower orders, and because he dislikes the scepticism and materialism of radical teachers. His genuine passions are for literature and the philosophy of science and he would gladly spend all his time in studying them. But the plight of the world compels his unwilling attention, and when he sees that human stupidity and greed are about to plunge .Europe into chaos and destroy the most glorious civilization which the world has known, he feels that it is high time for men of good sense and good will to intervene and to take politics out of the hands of the plutocrats of the Right and the woolly-minded idealists of the Left. Since he and his kind are the only representatives of decency combined with intelligence, they must step down into the arena and save the masses for themselves.
现代柏拉图正像古代那个柏拉图一样，对那些不是大学毕业的政客、政治家和党派领导人轻蔑到无以复加的程度。他觉得政治是肮脏的把戏，所以只是不得以才参与政治，因为他知道最起码他和自己的朋友比这伙人要强。他在统治阶级的传统教育中长大，对平民有着天然的同情心，渐渐学会把他们当作人看，并且远远地在一旁看着他们在工厂里做工，在公园里或者假日游乐场里嬉戏。他从未和他们打成一片，或者平等地与他们交谈，但是他要求受到并且一般而言已经受到了对他的地位和优越的智慧应有的尊重。他认识到如果他们信赖他，他能够把他们热切渴望的幸福赐予他们。作为一个有文化的人，他确实蔑视那些白手起家的实业家和新闻界巨头：尽管自己的职业薪水有限，尽管自己的私人收入微薄，他仍然把赚钱视为鄙俗的，并且避免一切炫耀。在他看来，实业和金融是不值得绅士从事的活动，呀，虽然许多人由于境况所逼又不得不在某种程度上参与这种活动。作为一个知识分子，他温良地嘲笑大多数基督徒的迷信，不过他却按时出席礼拜，因为一来他知道有组织的宗教活动具有维护下层阶级的健全党德的重要性，二来因为他不喜欢激进教员的怀疑主义和唯物主义。他的真正热忱在于文学和科学的哲理，他会欣然把自己全部的时间花在研究这些学问上。但是世上的困境迫使他关注自己所不情愿关切的事务。当他看到人间的愚蠢和贪婪即将使欧洲陷入一片混乱，并且将摧毁人类所经历的最辉煌的文明的时候，他觉得这该是那些头脑清醒和心地善良的人们出面干预的时候了，该是从右派财阀和头脑朦胧的左派理想家的手中把政治夺过来的恰当时候了。既然他和像他那样的人是正派兼聪慧的唯一化身，所以他们必须委屈尊驾步入政界，亲自拯救芸芸众生了。
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