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Perhaps the finest way to develop a loving attitude towards other people is to recall, in the face of their difficulty, that we are, in the end, all children.
也许培养对他人的爱的态度最好的方法是，在面对他们的困难时，回忆起我们，说到底，都是孩子。
The claim is an odd one. Adults are clearly not children.
这种说法很奇怪。成年人显然不是孩子。
They have powers of reasoning that quite outstrip those of younger people, they have options and a sound grasp of right and wrong, they are capable of causing serious damage; they should know better.
他们的推理能力比年轻人强很多，他们有选择的余地，有很好的是非判断能力，他们有能力造成严重的破坏，他们应该知道得更清楚。
Children, on the other hand, are well-known for their powers to melt our hearts.
另一方面，孩子们以其融化我们心灵的力量而闻名。
Partly this has to do with their physical appearance: with their unusually large eyes, their full cheeks, their unthreatening statures, their tiny fat fleshy fingers.
这在一定程度上与他们的外表有关：非常大的眼睛，丰满的脸颊，不具威胁性的身材，小小的胖乎乎的手指。
But ultimately, the child attracts our tenderness because, when they act in ‘bad’ or tricky ways, it tends to be easy to work out why they have done so:
但归根结底，孩子吸引了我们的柔情，因为当他们的行为“糟糕”或狡猾时，往往很容易弄清楚他们为什么会这样做：
they hit their little sister because they were feeling left out;
他们打自己的小妹妹，因为他们觉得被忽视了；
they started to steal things from the other children because their parents were going through a divorce;
他们开始偷其他孩子的东西，因为他们的父母正在离婚；
they ran away from the party without saying goodbye because they were panicked by a sense of unworthiness.
他们没有道别就从聚会上跑掉了，因为他们感到自己没有价值。
Overall, when it comes to the psychology of children, we discover a surprising and hugely gentle truth:
总体而言，当谈到儿童的心理时，我们发现了一个令人惊讶且极其温和的事实：
that ‘badness’ and difficulty are, invariably, the result of some form of pain, discomfort, hurt or wound.
这种“坏”和困难总是由某种形式的疼痛、不适、伤害或创伤造成的。
The child does not start by being dreadful, they become so in response to injury, fear or sorrow.
孩子并不是从可怕开始的，他们是在受到伤害、恐惧或悲伤时才变得可怕的。
With adults on the other hand, confronted by nasty or terrible behaviour, our thoughts do not - for understandable reasons - generally turn to imagining why it might have occurred.
另一方面，对于成年人来说，面对肮脏或可怕的行为，出于可以理解的原因，我们的想法通常不会转向想象为什么会发生这种情况。
We’re satisfied with nimble and compressed reasons: because they’re an arsehole, because they’re crazy.
我们满足于灵活而简洁的理由：因为他们是个混蛋，因为他们疯了。
This will do for now.
暂时这样就行了。
And yet it is always open to us to wonder why someone acted as they did - and here we are liable to stumble on an always provocative and properly revolutionary idea:
然而，我们总是可以怀疑为什么有人会这样做-在这里，我们很容易无意中发现一个总是具有挑衅性的、适当的革命性的观点：
the reason why little children and big people do wrong is - despite the differences in age and size - exactly the same.
尽管年龄和体型不同，但小孩子和大人做错事的原因是完全相同的。
One category may be no bigger than a chair, the other can be gigantic and able to carry guns,
其中一种可能可能不比椅子大，另一种可能身材魁梧，能够携带枪支，
post lengthy screeds online or start and bankrupt companies, but in the end, the psychology of blunder, meanness and anger is always the same: evil is a consequence of injury.
在网上发表冗长的长篇大论，或者创办公司和使公司破产，但最终，犯错、卑鄙和愤怒的心理总是一样的:邪恶是伤害的结果。
The big person did not start off evil, their difficult sides were not hard wired from the start, they grew towards malice on account of some form of wound waiting to be discovered.
大人一开始并没有作恶，他们的难对付的一面也没有从一开始就固定下来，他们因为某种形式的伤口等着被发现而逐渐走向邪恶。
It is work of extraordinary patience and humanity - it is the work of love - to go in search of what these wounds might be.
这是一项具有非凡耐心和人性的工作，这是爱的工作，去寻找这些创伤可能是什么。
To search is morally frightening because we too easily imagine that it might require us to wind up thinking well of behaviour we know is abhorrent:
去寻找创伤在道德上是可怕的，因为我们太容易想象，它可能要求我们对我们知道是可恶的行为进行良好的思考:
it doesn’t at all, we can remain appalled while simultaneously tracing a path back to the true catalytic factors.
完全不是，我们可以在震惊的同时追溯真正的催化因素。
The work can also be practically frightening because we imagine that it might require us to leave someone at liberty to cause us or others yet more pain:
这项工作实际上也很可怕，因为我们想象，它可能要求我们放任某人给我们或其他人带来更多痛苦:
but again, we can keep the wrong doer safely behind very high bars, even as we sensitively explore the origins of their violations.
但同样，我们可以将做错事的人安全地关在很高的栅栏里，即使我们敏感地探索他们侵犯的根源。
Once the full stories of our trespassers become known, our perspective may swiftly rework itself.
一旦侵害者的全部故事为人所知，我们的观点可能很快就会改变。
The bully who pursued us online had once worked as a porter, then been fired some years back and fallen into depression and was facing the bankruptcy courts.
那个在网上追我们的恶霸曾经当过搬运工，几年前被解雇了，陷入了抑郁，面临着破产法院的审判。
The angry populist politician was remorselessly belittled by a powerful father.
这位愤怒的民粹主义政治家被一位有权势的父亲无情地轻视。
The sexually impulsive person used their addiction to calm themselves down from some unmasterable anxieties related to early emotional neglect.
性冲动的人利用他们的成瘾来使自己从一些与早期情感忽视相关的无法控制的焦虑中平静下来。
Our judgement on behaviour never has to change; our sense of why it occurred can be transformed.
我们对行为的判断永远不会改变；我们对为什么会发生这种行为的感觉是可以改变的。
The discipline of psychotherapy has been central in helping us to chart the sometimes unobvious or contrary connections between a symptom and its genesis.
心理治疗的学科一直是帮助我们绘制出症状与其起源之间有时不明显或相反的联系的中心。
Boastfulness may have its roots in fear; anger can mask terror; hatred can be a defence against love.
自吹自擂可能源于害怕；愤怒可以掩盖恐惧；仇恨可以成为对抗爱的防御工事。
The haughty air of the grown up can take hold as a way of compensating for invisibility.
成年人的傲慢态度可以作为一种补偿隐形的方式。
A satirical manner can be a shield against an exiled longing for sweetness.
讽刺的态度可以成为抵御流放的渴望甜蜜的盾牌。
The prison system in most countries tends to place people below the age of eighteen in separate young offenders’ institutions,
大多数国家的监狱系统倾向于将18岁以下的人单独关押在不同的少年犯机构中，
which treat inmates with a degree of kindness and hope - in order to delve into the psychology of transgression with a view to understanding and overcoming its causes.
这些机构以一定程度的仁慈和希望对待囚犯--以便深入研究违法心理，以期了解和克服其原因。
But after this age, for the most part, prisoners are locked up in bare cells and the key is - metaphorically - thrown away.
但在这个时代之后，大部分囚犯都被关在光秃秃的牢房里，钥匙-比喻地说-被扔掉了。
They should, after all, have known better.
毕竟，他们应该知道得更清楚。
And yet we are all, as it were, young offenders, however old we might actually be;
然而，我们都可以说是年轻的罪犯，不管我们实际上可能有多老；
in other words, we all need our crimes to be treated with a degree of sympathy and empathetic investigation.
换句话说，我们都需要以一定程度的同情和移情调查来对待我们的罪行。
It is an exquisite feat of mind to be able to imagine them as always still, at some level, infants in a cradle.
能想象他们在某种程度上总是静止的，就像摇篮里的婴儿，这是心灵的高超技艺。
