[精選文章]I, Pencil:My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read

我，鉛筆:講述給Leonard E. Read聽的我的家譜

By Leonard E. Read
作者：Leonard E. Read

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.

我是一支鉛筆——最普通的木桿鉛筆，只要是能讀會寫的男女老少都最再熟悉不過的鉛筆。

Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.

寫字是我的職責，也是我的業余愛好；那是我的全部工作所在。

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

你肯定有點奇怪，我干嘛要搞一個什么家譜。好吧，我來解釋一下，嗯，首先，因為我的故事很有趣。其次，我是一件神秘的東西——要比樹木、比日落、甚至比閃電要神秘多了。不過，很不幸，那些用我的人把我看得平淡無奇，就好象我完全是自己鉆出來的，一點背景都不需要。這種目空一切的心態把我歸入大路貨的檔次。這實在是一個令人傷痛的錯誤，而如果人們一直犯這種錯誤，難免會出亂子。因為，博學的G.K.Chesterton曾經說過：“我們會因為缺乏好奇而毀滅，而不會因為期望奇跡而毀滅。”

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

我，鉛筆，盡管看起來平平凡凡，但是也值得你探索和敬畏，我會證明給你看的。事實上，如果你能理解我的心——唉，這對不管什么人來說，恐怕都是過高的要求——如果你能認識到我所蘊涵的那些不可思議之處，你就會愿意努力維護人們正在不幸地喪失的自由。我可以教給你們一些深刻的教訓。而且我教給你的教訓，要比汽車、飛機或者是洗碗機還要深刻——這恰恰是因為，我看起來是這么地簡單。

Simple? Yet,not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.

簡單？在這個地球上，沒有一個人能了解我是如何被制造出來的。這聽起來實在有點荒唐，是不是？尤其是當我們得知，在美國，每年要生產15億支我，就更荒唐了。

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.

把我拿起來仔細端詳一下，你看到了什么？沒有多少東西——也就是些木頭，漆，印制的標簽，石墨，一丁點金屬，還有一塊橡皮。

Innumerable Antecedents

數不清的前身

Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.

你不能把你的家族追溯到很遙遠的時代，同樣，我也不大可能叫得出我的所有前身的名字，并對其作出解釋。不過，我想盡可能地列出來，讓你對我的背景的豐富性和復雜性好有個認識。

My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!

我的家譜得從一棵樹算起，一棵生長在加利福尼亞北部和俄勒岡州的挺拔的雪松。現在，你可以想象一下，鋸子、卡車、繩子，以及無數用于砍伐和把雪松圓木搬運到鐵道旁的各種設備。再想想制造工具和運輸工具的形形色色的人和數不勝數的技能：開采礦石，冶煉鋼鐵，再將其加工成鋸子，軸，發動機；要種植大麻，經過復雜的工序將其加工成粗壯的繩子；伐木場要有床鋪，有帳篷，要做飯，要消耗各種食物。哎呀，忘了說了，在伐木工喝的每杯咖啡背后，也有成千上萬的人的勞作！

The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents.

圓木被裝船運輸到加利福尼亞的圣萊安德羅。你能想象得出制造平板大卡車、鐵軌、火車頭的那些人，和那些修筑和安裝送我到那里的整個交通體系的人們嗎？這無數的人，也都是我的前身。

Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill’s power!

想想圣萊安德羅的木材加工廠。雪松圓木被切割成鉛筆那么長的薄板條，只有1/4英寸厚。要在烘干爐內將這些板條烘干，然而，涂上顏色，就像婦女們往臉上涂脂抹粉一個道理。人們喜歡我看起來漂漂亮亮的，不喜歡我煞白的模樣。板條上蠟，然后再烘干。制造顏料，烘干需要的熱量，照明，電力，傳動帶，電動機，一家工廠所需要的一切設備，等等，所有這一切需要多少技能?工廠里的清潔工也算我的前身嗎？不錯，還應該包括那些向太平洋天然氣與電力公司的電站大壩澆鑄水泥的人！因為，正是這些發電站向工廠供應了電力。

Don’t overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation.

不要忘了那些或早或晚在薄板條穿州越縣的運輸過程中——每車裝60噸——出了一份力的人們。

Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this “wood-clinched” sandwich.

現在，到了鉛筆制造廠——這樣的工廠在機械設備和廠房建筑上要投入400萬美元，這一切資本，都是我的生身父母們通過省吃儉用才積累下來的。一臺很復雜的機器在每根板條上開出八條細槽，之后，再由一臺機器在另外的板條上鋪設筆芯，用膠水粘住，然后，放到其他的板條上面——可以說，做成了一塊筆芯三明治。再由機器切割這“牢牢粘在一起的木頭”三明治，我跟七位兄弟就誕生了。

My “lead” itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots.

我的“鉛筆芯”本身——它其實根本就不含鉛——就相當復雜。石墨開采自錫蘭。想想那些礦工和制造他們所用的工具的人，以及那些制作用輪船運輸石墨的紙袋子的工人，還有那些裝船的人，還有那些造船的人。甚至，守護沿途燈塔的人也為我的誕生出了一把力——還有港口的領航員們。

The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.

石墨要與產自密西西比河床的粘土混合，在精煉過程中，還要用到氫氧化銨。然后，要添加增濕劑，比如經過磺酸鹽處理的油脂——這是用動物脂肪與硫磺酸進行化學反應制造出來的。經過一道又一道機器，這些混合物最后看起來是在源源不斷地擠出來——好象是從一臺香腸研磨機中擠出來似的——按尺寸切斷，晾干，再在華氏1850度的溫度下烘烤數個小時。為了提高其強度和順滑性，還要用一種滾熱的混合物處理鉛筆芯，其中包括固體石蠟、經過氫化處理的天然脂肪和產自墨西哥的大戟石蠟。

My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate!

我的雪松木桿上涂了六層漆。你知道油漆的全部成分嗎？誰能想到蓖麻子的種植者和蓖麻油的加工者也是我的前身的一個組成部分？他們確實都是。啊，僅僅是把油漆調制成一種美麗的黃顏色的工序，所涉及的各種各樣的人們的技巧，就數不勝數了。

Observe the labeling. That’s a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black?

再看看標簽。那是炭黑跟樹脂加熱混合而形成的一張薄膜，請問，你知道怎么制造樹脂嗎，你知道炭黑是什么東西嗎？

My bit of metal—the ferrule—is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain.

我身上的那點金屬——金屬箍——是黃銅的。想想那些開采鋅礦石和銅礦石的人們吧，還有那些運用自己的技能，把這些自然的賜予物制作成閃閃發光的薄薄的黃銅片的人們。金屬箍上的黑圈是黑鎳。黑鎳是什么東西，又有什么用途？為什么在我的金屬箍的中間部分沒有黑鎳，光這個問題，就得用上好多頁紙才能回答清楚。

Then there’s my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as “the plug,” the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called “factice” is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives “the plug” its color is cadmium sulfide.

然后就是我那至高無上的王冠，在該行業中被人很粗俗地稱之“塞子”，就是人們用來擦除用我犯下的錯誤的那個東西。起擦除作用的那種成分叫做“硫化油膠”。看起來像橡膠一樣的東西，是由荷蘭東印度群島出產的菜籽油跟氯化硫進行化學反應制造出來的。與一般人想象的相反，橡膠則僅僅起粘合的作用。在這兒，需要各種各樣的硫化劑和催化劑。浮石產自意大利，給“塞子”上色的顏料則是硫化鉻。

No One Knows

無人知曉

Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me?

現在，還有誰對我前面提到的這種說法不服：這個地球上沒有一個人完整地知道如何制造？

Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn’t a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field—paraffin being a by-product of petroleum.

事實上，有成百萬參與了我的誕生過程，他們中沒有誰能比別人知道得多一點。你現在會說，我也扯得太遠了，竟然把遙遠的巴西的咖啡豆采摘工和其它地方的糧食種植者，也跟我的制作過程扯到一起。這也未免太夸張了吧。不過，我仍堅持我的說法。在這成百萬人中，每個人，哪怕是鉛筆生產公司的總裁，所作出的貢獻也只是微不足道的一丁點實際知識（know-how）。從實際知識的角度看，遠在錫蘭的石墨開采工與俄勒岡的伐木工之間的唯一區別，僅在于實際知識的類型不同。不管是礦工還是伐木工，所作出的貢獻都不比工廠中的化工師或油田工人——石蠟是從石油中提煉出來的——更多。

Here is an astounding fact: Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items.

這真是令人驚異的事：油田工人或化工師家，或石墨、粘土開采工，或者是制造輪船、火車、卡車的人，或者是操縱機器生產金屬箍上的滾花的工人，或者是鉛筆制造公司的總裁，所有這些人，都不是由于本人需要我而干自己的那份工作的。很可能，他們每個人對我的需求都不如一年級小學生更殷切，事實上，在這無數的人中，有的人可能從來就沒有見過鉛筆，也根本不知道怎樣使用鉛筆。他們根本就沒有想到過我。他們的動機也許是這樣的：這成百萬人中的每個人都明白，他可以因此而用自己那微不足道的實際知識來換取自己需要或短缺的物品和服務。在這些需要中，可能包括我，也可能不包括我。

No Master Mind

無人主宰

There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.

還有一件事就更令人稱奇了：并沒有一個主宰者來發號施令，或強制性地指揮生產我的這無數的生產活動。一點都沒有存在這種人物的跡象。相反，我們發現，看不見的手在發揮作用。這就是我在前面提過的神秘的東西。

It has been said that “only God can make a tree.” Why do we agree with this? Isn’t it because we realize that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable!

據說，“只有上帝能造出一棵樹”。為什么我們同意這種說法，難道不是因為我們都明白，我們自己不可能造出一棵樹來？事實上，我們甚至是否真能把一棵樹說清楚？恐怕不能，我們只能描述一些表面現象。比如，我們可以說，某種特定的分子結構表現出來就是一棵樹。然而，在人類中是否真的存在一些人，有能力記錄，更不要說指揮使一棵樹獲得生命的分子的持續變化？這樣的壯舉，可實在是無法想象！

I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.

我，鉛筆，是種種奇跡的復雜的結合：樹，鋅，銅，石墨，等等等等。然而，在這些大自然所顯現的種種奇跡之外，還有一個更為非凡的奇跡：人的種種創造精神的聚合——成百上千萬微不足道的實際知識，自然地、自發地整合到一起，從而對人的需求和欲望作出反應，在這各過程中，竟然沒有任何人來主宰！只有上帝才能造樹，因此我也堅持，正是上帝，才造出了我。人是不可能指揮這成百上千萬的實際知識聚集到一起造出我來的，就像他不可能把分子聚合到一起造出一棵樹一樣。

The above is what I meant when writing, “If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing.” For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand—that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom:

a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.

這就是當我在前面寫下那句話時的用意所在：“如果你能認識到我所蘊涵的那些不可思議之處，你就會愿意努力維護人們正在不幸地喪失的自由”。因為，如果人們認識到，這些實際知識會自然地，是的，會自動地組織成為創造性的、有效率的形態，從而對人的需求和要求作出反應——也就是說，不存在政府或任何強制性控制——那么，人們就掌握了自由的最本質的要素：

對自由人的信心。如果沒有這種信心，也就不可能有自由。

Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn’t know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation’s mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental “master-minding.”

一旦政府擁有了對創造性活動的壟斷權，比如投遞郵件，那么，絕大多數人就會相信，郵件本來就不可能由可以自由行動的人來有效地投遞。原因如下：每個人都承認，他本人并不知道如何做跟投遞郵件有關部門的一切事情，他也承認，任何個人都做不到這一點。這些想法都是正確的。沒有任何個人擁有制造一支鉛筆的充分的實際知識，同樣，也不會有任何個人擁有在全國投遞郵件的足夠的實際知識。而今，由于對自由人缺乏信心——沒有意識到成百上千萬人的微不足道的實際知識會為了滿足這一需求而自然地、奇跡般地形成并彼此合作——人們就只能得出大錯特錯的結論：郵件只能由政府“掌管”來投遞。

Testimony Galore

證據多的是

If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men and women can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony galore; it’s all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person’s home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one’s range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard—halfway around the world—for less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street!

假如我，鉛筆，是唯一能夠對世界上的男男女女們在可以自由嘗試的情況下可以達到何種成就提供證據的東西，那么，某人些信心不足，還情有可原，但是，證據多的是，都近在眼前，唾手可得。與制造一輛汽車或者是一臺計算機、一輛聯合收割機等等成千上萬的東西相比，投遞郵件實在是最簡單不過的事。都是輸送，可是，由于讓人們自由地嘗試，因此，他們可以在不到一秒的時間內讓人的聲音傳送到世界任何地方；事件還在進行之中，他們就可以把圖象傳送進每戶人家中；他們可以在四個小時內把150名乘客從西雅圖送到巴爾的摩；他們把天然氣從得克薩斯州送進紐約某戶人家爐中，收費之低，令人難以置信，而且還不要任何補貼；他們把四磅石油從波斯灣運到美國東海岸——差不多是繞地球半圈——所花的錢，比政府把一盎司重的信件送到街對面收的費用都要少！

The lesson I have to teach is this:

我要都給大家的教訓是：

Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.

所有的創造性能量不受抑制。僅僅是組織社會與這一課和諧相處。讓社會的法律機構盡最大努力消除所有障礙。允許這些創造性的知識自由流動。相信自由的男人和女人會對看不見的手做出反應。這一信念將得到證實。我，鉛筆，雖然看起來很簡單，但我提供了我創造的奇跡作為證據，證明這是一個實際的信念，就像太陽、雨、雪松、大地一樣實際。

Leonard E. Read (1898-1983) founded FEE in 1946 and served as its president until his death.“I, Pencil,” his most famous essay, was first published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman.

作者Leonard E. Read(1898-1983)于1946年創立經濟教育基金會，并擔任主席至去世。“I, Pencil“是他最著名的文章，刊于經濟教育基金會（the Foundation for Economic Education）1958年12月出版的Freeman雜志上。

Although a few of the manufacturing details and place names have changed over the past forty years, the principles are unchanged.

盡管在過去的四十年里，一些制造工藝和地方已經發生了變化，但基本原則并沒有改變。

Original link：https://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl.html?chapter_num=2#book-reader

原文鏈接：https://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl.html?chapter_num=2#book-reader