J.S.ミルの文章を少しだけ訳してみる 05

前回に引き続き。

Much more might be said respecting classical instruction, and literary cultivation in general, as a part of liberal education. But it is time to speak of the uses of scientific instruction: or rather its indispensable necessity, for it is recommended by every consideration which pleads for any high order of intellectual education at all.

The most obvious part of the value of scientific instruction, the mere information that it gives, speaks for itself. We are born into a world which we have not made; a world whose phenomena take place according to fixed laws, of which we do not bring any knowledge into the world with us. In such a world—we are appointed to live, and in it all our work is to be done. Our whole working power depends on knowing the laws of the world in other words, the properties of the things which we have to work with, and to work among, and to work upon. We may and do rely, for the greater part of this knowledge, on the few who in each department make its acquisition their main business in life. But unless an elementary knowledge of scientific truths is diffused among the public, they never know what is certain and what is not, or who are entitled to speak with authority and who are not: and they either have no faith at all in the testimony of science, or are the ready dupes of charlatans and impostors. They alternate between ignorant distrust, and blind, often misplaced, confidence. Besides, who is then who would not wish to understand the meaning of the common physical facts that take place under his eye? Who would not wish to know why a pump raises water, why a lever moves heavy weights, why it is hot at the tropics and cold at the poles, why the moon is sometimes dark and sometimes bright, what is the cause of the tides? Do we not feel that he who is totally ignorant of these things, let him be ever so skilled in a special profession, is not an educated man but an ignoramus? It is surely no small part of education to put us in intelligent possession of the most important and most universally interesting facts of the universe, so that the world which surrounds us may not be a sealed book to us, uninteresting because unintelligible. This, however, is but the simplest and most obvious part of the utility of science, and the part which, if neglected in youth, may be the most easily made up for afterwards. It is more important to understand the value of scientific instruction as a training and disciplining process, to fit the intellect for the proper work of a human being. Facts are the materials of our knowledge, but the mind itself is the instrument: and it is easier to acquire facts, than to judge what they prove, and how, through the facts which we know, to get to those which we want to know.

ここはそんなに難しくなさそう。inで始まる副詞節が2つあり、we are appointed to live in such a worldのin以降が前に出てきていることに注目すれば、後半もすんなりと訳することができる。これも旧情報→新情報という意味ですでに出てきたin such a worldが文の頭に引っ張り出されている。後半の文はそれに合わせた形だろう。あるが訳も素直に「そのような世界で我々は生活するように定められ、またその中ですべての仕事は完了されることになっている。」

be toがあるが、これは「かぎようい」の中では義務（完了されなければならない）・予定（完了される予定だ）のどちらか判別しづらい。ここは「～することになっている」とするのが逃げも考えたうまい一手なんだと思う。ここはただよび基礎完成英語講座24を参考にしよう。

古典教育や一般的な文学教育に関しては、一般教養の一部としてまだまだ言うことがあるのかもしれません。しかしここからは科学教育の有用性、というよりはむしろ科学教育の欠くことのできない必要性について話していきます。というのも、とにかく少しでも高いレベルの知的教育を求める人々はみんなそれを推奨しているからです。
科学教育の価値として一番明確な部分というものは、科学教育によって得られる単なる情報それ自体が示しています。私たちは、自分たちが作っていない世界、つまり、現象が決まった法則によって行われる世界に生まれるのです。その法則について我々は何一つ知らないまま。そのような世界で我々は生活するように定められ、またその中ですべての仕事は完了されることになっているのです。