側看科大衛的治史態度 【鉄道行者】

朋友說，去聼講座，
竟然看見科大衛教授（David Faure）評論時候有點發火，
大家好不奇怪。

實際上科教授人品好、治學認真之餘亦非常好玩，
就算筆者這類完全無關係的、不入流的人上門求助，
也費時間指點一下，實在非常感謝。
那究竟爲什麽竟然會發火呢？

我們猜測大概是被評論的人犯了態度上的問題。

其實，做學問最壞的情況是：
以爲自己是不可一世的專家，
抱高傲自滿的態度，
不尊重對古人或者社會上的[一般人]，
以爲他們是傻的。
就這點最爲致命。

不要以爲是平凡的古人，
就以爲他們是傻的。

科公特別推薦的讀物
Carl L. Becker的
“The Heaveny City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers”
【十八世紀哲學家的天空之城】
有一段發人心醒的話:

There is thus a profound truth in Voltaire's witticism:"History is
only a pack of tricks we play on the dead."...... The kind of tricks we play is
therefore likely to depend on our attitude toward the present. If well enough satisfied with the present we are likely to pay our ancestors the doubtful compliment of approaching them with a studied and pedantic indifference; but when the times are out of joint we are disposed to blame them for it, or else we dress them up, as models suitable for us to imitate, in shining virtues which in fact they never possessed, which they would perhaps not have recognized as virtues at all.

筆者只是個攀車邊[扮]做做歷史資料收集的人，
（而且很懶惰）
就更加不敢忘記科公教誨與這段話的提醒。
科公遠處的一分鐘撒亞人Mode，
這邊不敢怠慢一年。
努力努力.......