新概念英语第四册63-01

Lesson60

the assurance of another life beyond the grave has come to seem to more and more people less certain, a feeling for the value of human life has become deeper and more widespread. This may seem a paradoxical claim to make at a time when mankind is so much preoccupied with weapons of destruction. Nevertheless, it is a claim that can be sustained and if compassion animates those who urge the abolition of the death penalty it is not a sentimental compassion for the mental agony inflicted upon a condemned man but a dread of destroying the miracle of life.

When in the eighteenth century offences against the law that today would no earn a month in prison were punished with the death penalty, the severity of the penal code had no serious effect on the prevalence of crime. When it made no difference to the fate of a highwayman whether he had killed his victim or merely robbed him of a few pieces of silver, there were no more murders then than there were when men like Sir Fraricis Burdett succeeded in lightening the excessive severity of the penal laws. In those days the sacredness of life on earth was not greatly regarded because a life in the world to come was taken for granted except by a comparatively small minotity of philosophers.

Nor was the long-drawn ordeal of the condemned cell inflicted either upon the condemned man or his gaolers once upon a time. Those who believe in capital punishment may have arguments for its retention, but surely no reasonable argument can be found for retention of the sickening mumbo-jumbo that accompanies it from the moment that the judge dons the black cap with what looks like a pen-wiper balanced on the top of his wig, to the reading of the burial service over the condemned man before he is dead. Moreover, it was more merciful to launch the condemned man into eternity twenty-four hours after he was sentenced than to keep him shivering on the brink of that dread gulf for nearly three weeks. Hanging is an atrociously archaic way of killing a human being and the self-satisfied modernity of the electric chair is just as atrocious. The administration of a strong sleeping draught to the condemned man every night from which one night he does hot awake, seems a more civilized alternative to our present barbarous procedure, if capital punishment through the influence of backward minds be retained.

COMPTON MACKENZIE On Moral Courage

参考译文

虽然真理和正义是表现道德上勇气的最强有力的推动力，但还有其他的。怜悯就是其中之一。姑且把它看成是主张废除死刑者所受的主要影响。正是因为看到怜悯的作用，才使主张死刑者指责主张废除死刑者感情脆弱，惋惜凶手胜过受害者。这本是废话，但一些受欢迎的报刊机构却以它成功地利用了读者的感情，致使许多议员候选人因害怕失去选票而不敢支持废除死刑，结果是出现了头脑糊涂的1957年的“凶杀法令”，规定凶杀抢劫为死罪而允准放毒人免处绞刑。这种不合逻辑的限制条件表明死刑对凶杀的威慑因素的论点是多么的不足信。投毒者总是制订适当的行动计划，因而会考虑到否值得冒自己掉脑袋的危险去致别人于死地；恶贼则通常受感情冲动的支配。死刑的唯一可争辩的托词是社会拥有以来世再生为指望而在此世予以报应的权利，得只是由于越来越多的人不再相信原先一直认为的似乎有什么来生，对人生价值的感情才变得更深和更为广泛。在人类如此着迷于毁灭性武器之际，讲这种话好像有些自相矛盾。不过，如果主张废除死刑者不是出于一种对死刑犯精神极度痛苦的感情上的怜悯，而是害怕毁掉生命奇迹的话，这种论点还是能够站住脚的。

在触犯今天的法律判不上一个月监禁的犯法者会被判处死刑的18世纪，死刑法的严厉对犯罪猖獗并未起多少威慑作用。那时不区分拦路强盗是杀死了受害者还是只抢去几枚银币，都一样判刑，后来Francis Bardett爵士这些人成功地减轻了过分的刑法量刑，可凶杀也不见得就增多了。在那些日子里，人们并不特别着重活在世上的神圣性，因为除少数哲学家外，来世再生被认为是理所当然的事情。

在从前，死刑犯或他的监狱看守都无需遭受长期的死囚监狱折磨。拥护死刑的人可能会为其保留而进行辩护，但肯定找不出任何理由保存与之相伴的那些令人厌恶的繁文缛节——从法官头顶上戴着像是用于平衡的一块擦笔布的假发套上的黑礼帽开始，一直到处死前为死刑犯念祈祷文为止等等。而且，判死刑后24小时就执行要比3周内让他一直在死亡边缘发抖更为仁慈。绞刑是一种结束生命的古代残暴办法，而自鸣得意的现代电椅也一样凶残。如果因受落后思想的影响而把死刑保留下来的话，让死刑犯每晚服一剂烈性安眠药直至有一夜不再醒来，似乎要比目前的一种野蛮传统做法更加文明。

New words and expressions 生词短语

impulse n. 推动力,冲动 短语:out of impulse =act on impulse 出于冲动

同义词:

impetus/momentum/ drive ; drive for something

compassion n. 同情 短语:compassion for sth. /sympathy for sth .同义词：sympathy (不及

compassion强烈)

tentatively adv. 尝 试 性 地. 常 用 于 文 学 短语: tentatively study on clone 刍 以 克 隆