Broadly-speaking, the unconfident believe that history is over; the confident trust that it's still in the process of being made – one day possibly by themselves.

廣泛地說，不自信的人，相信歷史已是過去式；自信的人，相信歷史還是現在進行式，或許有一天他們自己能創造歷史。

The way we enter the world carries with it an inherent bias towards an impression that change has finished, and history has been settled.

在這個世界中，我們生來夾帶偏見，像是改變已經停止，歷史已經落定。

Everything around us conspires to give off a sense that the status quo is entrenched.

周遭的一切都會讓我們有一種，現狀不會再改變的感覺。

We're surrounded by big people who follow traditions that have been in place for decades, perhaps centuries.

我們周遭總是有一些大人物，他們遵循著已經存在數十年甚至數百年的傳統。

The house we live in appears as immutable as an ancient temple.

我們居住的房子，似乎如同古代廟宇般永遠不會變。

The school we go to looks as though it has been performing the same rituals since the earth began.

我們去的學校，自從地球生成以來，彷彿永遠照著一樣的形式在走。

We're constantly told why things are the way they are and encouraged to accept that reality is not made according to our wishes.

我們總是在被教導，為什麼事物總是以某些方式存在，被誘導接受現實，並不是按照我們期待的發生。

We come to trust that human beings have fully mapped the range of the possible.

我們相信人類的存在已經到達最大可能性的邊緣。

If something hasn’t happened, it’s either because it can’t happen – or it shouldn’t.

如果有些事沒有發生，一定是因為它不會發生或它不能發生。

The result can be a deep wariness around imagining changing the world.

結果就是扼殺了能改變世界的想像。

There's no point starting a new business.

沒有理由開創一個新的事業。

(the market must be full already)

(因為市場一定已經滿了)

Pioneering a new approach to the arts.

不需要開創新的藝術手法。

(everything is already set in a fixed pattern)

(因為所有東西已經有固定形式了)

Or giving loyalty to a new idea.

也不需要坦承任何新的想法。

(it either exists or is mad).

(因為那不是已經存在不然就是太瘋狂)

When we study history in a certain way, however, the picture changes sharply.

但當我們改變讀歷史的角度，整個情況會全盤改變。

Once time is speeded up and we climb up a mountain of minutes, and survey centuries, change appears constant.

當時間被加快，我們幾分鐘就能爬一座山，調查跨越數個世紀，就會發現改變一直都存在。

New continents are discovered, alternative ways of governing nations are pioneered, ideas of how to dress and whom to worship are transformed.

發現新大陸，開創了許多不同管理國家的方法，如何穿衣和信奉誰一直都在改變著。

Once people wore strange cloaks and tilled the land with clumsy instruments.

曾經，人們穿著奇怪的斗篷，用著簡陋的工具耕田。

A long time ago, they chopped the king’s head off.

很久以前，他們砍下國王的頭。

Way back, people got around in fragile ships, ate the eyeballs of sheep, used chamber pots and didn’t know how to fix teeth.

更早以前，人們用破舊的船當作交通工具，吃著綿羊的眼球，用著便壺，不知道怎麼修理牙齒。

We come away from all this, knowing at least in theory, that things do change.

這些，至少在歷史中都有提到，都代表著歷史會改變。

But in practice – almost without noticing – we tend to distance ourselves and our own societies from a day-to-day belief that we belong to the same ongoing turbulent narrative and are, at present, its central actors.

但現實中，幾乎查無所覺，我們傾向將自身和所處社會遠離一般的認知，不認為自己屬於同樣吵鬧的敘述者，取而代之，現在，我們是主角。

History, we feel, is what used to happen; it can’t really be what is happening around us in the here and now.

歷史，我們認為，是以前發生的事，無法真的代表目前在我們周圍發生的事物。

Things have – in our vicinity at least – settled down.

事物，至少在我們周圍，已經塵埃落定。

To make us braver about the idea of changing things today, we might turn to some striking lines in T. S. Eliot’s cycle of poems– The Four Quartets.

讓我們擁有能改變事物的勇氣，能尋求一些T·S·艾略特的「四個四重奏」裡的一些字句。

So, while the light fails, on a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel, History is now and England.

所以，當一個冬天的下午，天色漸漸暗淡的時候，在一座僻靜的教堂裡，歷史就是現在和英格蘭。

Winter afternoons, around 4pm, have a habit of feeling particularly resolved and established, especially in quiet English country chapels, many of which date back to the middle ages.

冬季的午後，大約四點，有一點想要解決問題和建立起些什麼的心情，特別是在安寧的英式鄉村教堂，其中許多屬於中世紀時期。

The air in such chapels is still and musty.

教堂裡的空氣凝滯又帶有霉味。

The heavy stone floors have been slowly worn away by the feet of the faithful.

沉重的石階梯逐漸在信者的腳步中被侵蝕。

These are not places and times to think about changing the world.

此時此地，沒有所謂改變世界的想法。

Everything hints that we would be wiser to accept the way things are.

每一件事物都在告訴我們應該接受它們原有的樣子。

Walk back home across the fields, light a fire and settle down for quiet evening.

穿越廣場走回家，點盞燈，在寧靜的夜晚中歇息。

Hence the surprise of Eliot’s third line, his resonant: ‘History is now and England.’

令人驚訝之處，艾略特的第三行詩，他說到：「歷史就是此時此刻與英格蘭」。

In other words, everything that we associate with history –the impetuous daring of great people, the dramatic alterations in values, the revolutionary questioning of long-held beliefs, the upturning of the old order.

換句話說，任何我們與歷史連結的事物—偉人們的勇敢的膽量，價值觀中戲劇性的改變，變革式的質疑原有信念，舊秩序的顛覆。

All this is still going on.

這些都還在進行中。

even at this very moment, in outwardly peaceful, apparently unchanging places like the countryside near Shamley Green, in Surrey, where Eliot wrote his poem.

甚至此時此刻，表面上平靜，看似沒有改變的地方，像是靠近薩里的珊里葛林鄉村，艾略特寫下這首詩的地方。

We don’t see it only because we are standing far too close.

我們看不到，有可能是因為我們站得太近。

The world is being made and remade at every instant.

每一個瞬間，世界都在被創造或再造。

And therefore any one of us has a theoretical chance of being an agent in history, on a big or small scale.

因此，我們每一個人，理論上都有機會成為歷史的一部分，只是或大或小的概念。

It is open to our own times to build a new city every bit as beautiful as Venice, to change ideas as radically as the Renaissance, to start an intellectual movement as resounding as Buddhism.

我們的時代，可以開創一個新的城市，如同維納斯般美麗，實施如同在文藝復興時顛覆性的改變，執行一些如佛教般有智慧並有見地的行動。

The present has all the contingency of the past – and is every bit as malleable.

現在是過去所有偶發事件的結果，而且每一個部分都是可以再被發展的。

It shouldn't intimidate us.

我們不該被嚇阻。

How we love, travel, approach the arts, govern, educate ourselves, run businesses, age and die are all up for further development.

我們如何愛、旅行、藝術方式、統治、教育、商務、老化和死亡全部取決於後續的發展。

Current views may appear firm, but only because we exaggerate their fixity.

目前的觀念會逐漸穩定，但可能也只是因為我們太過著重於它的不變。

The majority of what exists is arbitrary, neither inevitable nor right, simply the result of muddle and happenstance.

大多數的武斷，既不是不可避免也不是完全正確，僅僅只是不夠清楚和偶然發生的事件。

We should be confident, even at sunset on winter afternoons, of our power to join the stream of history.

甚至在冬日傍晚的日落時，我們都應該要有自信，是有力量投入歷史洪流中。

And, however modestly, change its course.

然後，適時地，改變原有的循環。