41 The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries. 1 ）伟大的本质在于人贡献的深度和长度，因此需时间的检验； 2 ）评价者的角度：后世人的评价更为客观，当代人可能夹杂一些主观因素； 3 ）就像经典的音乐和名著一样，时间能过滤掉许多，决定什么应该被抛弃，什么应当留下，因而人的伟大也需要时间来告知。 梵高 Van Gogh. ；哥白尼日心说 Copernicus, the Polish astronomer who 爱迪生 Thomas Edison, the famous American... 发明了留声机 电影 改善人的生活，因此更加被当世人认同 The statement suggests that whether a person should be considered great depends on who live after him rather than his contemporaries. As a general conclusion, this opinion, which reveals the essence of greatness, is quite persuasive and acceptable. To judge the greatness of individuals is not a simple or subjective thing, but a steady process which needs consistence, time and objective evaluation by other people. Although some people may be able to earn their fame during lifetime, the real greatness should always be justified with time. Primarily, it is an undoubtedly fact that the essence of greatness is determined by how long and how deep of the contribution made by individuals. For instance, once a specialist of mathematics proposes a formula that contradicts to all the knowledge before, no one, or few, would be in favor of him. Instead, complaints and criticisms would be like the flood towards him. However, by tens or hundreds of years, the strength of his initial finding may be realized and put into valuable use in solving some engineering problems. These examples are uncountable in the history of science, economy, politics and so on. When Albert Einstein's theory exploded to the world, only few scientists were able to comprehend it. With several years passed, his theory gradually became acknowledged by more people, and the theory then was, somehow unfortunately, used in creating nuclear weapons. Adam Smith, the great economist, wrote his famous book The Wealth of Nations hundreds of years ago, but his concepts still have significant influence on modern economy today. Thus the depth and length of the contribution are usually tested by the time, and so is the greatness. As to the persons who evaluate greatness, on another point, it is believed that those who live after would make evaluation in a more objective and rigorous way, while the contemporaries are more likely to be subjective. It is true anyway, because people always have self judgments, especially when they think about their contemporaries. If we want someone to give a description of a politician of his time, he may probably fix his own emotion to the politician while making judgment. As a classic negative example, the disastrous Cultural Revolution in 1960s in China should be strongly blamed without exception today, but at its time many people, especially some youths who had not developed their ability of judgment, fanatically support the false decision of the country's leader. Apparently we know that since evaluation needs objectiveness, we should better call for the people live after us to it. Time is like a filter. It makes choices and decisions that which one should be abandoned and which one can stay, and the process last perpetually. And that is why the Nobel price always belongs to the scientists and contributions at least tens of years before. Just as the classical music and the classic books that are selected by centuries by the human society, the greatness of individuals, in a similar form, needs time to reveal its truth to us. "The success will be waited to be discussed by the persons afterwards," an ancient Chinese philosopher indicated. (43.5 minutes) 519
标签: 当代
