和訳お願い致します。
In positing the evidence' of Choice as my objective (or ejective) criterion of Mind, I do not think it necessary to enter into any elaborate analysis of what constitutes this evidence. In a subsequent chapter I shall treat fully of what I call the physiology or objective aspect of choice ; and then it will be seen that from the gradual manner in which choice, or the mind element, arises, it is not practically possible to draw a definite line of demarcation between choosing and non-choosing agents. Therefore, at this stage of the enquiry I prefer to rest in the ordinary acceptation of the term, as implying a distinction which common sense has always drawn, and probably always will draw, between mental and non-mental agents. It cannot be correctly said that a river chooses the course of its flow, or that the earth chooses an ellipse wherein to revolve round the sun. And similarly, however complex the operations may be of an agent recog nized as non-mental — such, for instance, as those of a calcu lating machine — or however impossible it may be to predict the result of its actions, we never say that such operations or actions are due to choice ; we reserve this term for operations or actions, however simple and however easily the result may be foreseen, which are performed, either by agents who in virtue of the non-mechanical nature of these actions prove themselves to be mental, or by agents already recognized as mental — i.e., by agents who have already proved themselves to be mental by performing other actions of such a non- mechanical or unforeseeable nature as we feel assured can only be attributed to choice. And there can be no reasonable doubt that this common-sense distinction between choosing aud non-choosing agents is a valid one. Although it may be difficult or impossible, in particular cases, to decide to which of the two categories this or that being should be assigned, this difficulty does not affect the validity of the classification — any more, for instance, than the difficulty of deciding whether Limulus should be classified with the crabs or with the scorpions affects the validity of the classification which marks off the group Crustacea from the group Arachnida.
お礼
SPS700さん、ご回答ありがとうございました。 我々が最後に欲するのは？？？となっていましたが、我々が一番避けるのは、ですね。 つまずいていたところが”last”を引いてみてわかりました。 theがついて、もっとも（…）しそうにない，（…とは）とても思えない，（…するのに）もっとも不適当な，もっとも望ましくない。 「もっとも望ましくないのは、判断や行動が尊大さで曇っている人物に導かれることである」 なんだか、先の選挙戦の結果、今の日本の状況と重なって見えました。←余談です。すみません＾＾；。 助かりました。ありがとうございました！！