说明：

原文选自一本非常著名的书Fifty Self-help Classics（见图），主要选自这本书的第11页和12页，经过命题专家改写，有些变了模样。该书是一本励志类的读物，是一部书评，所以翻译起来并不轻松，甚至还有一些哲理性的语言，颇费思量。

以下为考试原文和译文，仅供参考；时间仓促，不对之处，敬请指出并谅解。

祝福各位考研的朋友。

北京新东方学校国内部 唐静

With its theme that “Mind is the master weaver,” creating our inner character and outer circumstances, the book As a Man Thinking by James Allen is an in-depth exploration of the central idea of self-help writing。

　　(46) Allen’s contribution was to take an assumption we all share--that because we are not robots we therefore control our thoughts-and reveal its erroneous nature. 我们每个人都认为：自己不是机器人，因此能够控制自己的思想；爱伦的贡献在于他研究了这一假说，并揭示其错误的本质。Because most of us believe that mind is separate from matter, we think that thoughts can be hidden and made powerless; this allows us to think one way and act another. However, Allen believed that the unconscious mind generates as much action as the conscious mind, and (47) while we may be able to sustain the illusion of control through the conscious mind alone, in reality we are continually faced with a question: “Why cannot I make myself do this or achieve that? ”

　　我们或许只通过意识就能维持这种控制的幻觉，但事实上，我们却总是面临一个问题：我们为什么不能让自己去做这件事情，实现那个目标呢？

Since desire and will are damaged by the presence of thoughts that do not accord with desire, Allen concluded : “ We do not attract what we want, but what we are。” Achievement happens because you as a person embody the external achievement; you don’t “ get” success but become it. There is no gap between mind and matter。

Part of the fame of Allen’s book is its contention that “Circumstances do not make a person, they reveal him。” (48) This seems a justification for neglect of those in need, and a rationalization of exploitation, of the superiority of those at the top and the inferiority of those at the bottom。

这种说法似乎为忽视需要帮助的人找到了借口，使剥削合理化，令上层人优越，底层人卑微。

　　This, however, would be a knee-jerk reaction to a subtle argument. Each set of circumstances, however bad, offers a unique opportunity for growth. If circumstances always determined the life and prospects of people, then humanity would never have progressed. In fat, (49)circumstances seem to be designed to bring out the best in us and if we feel that we have been “wronged” then we are unlikely to begin a conscious effort to escape from our situation. 环境似乎旨在激发我们的最大潜能，如果我们总感觉“上天不公”，那么不太可能会自觉地努力脱离现状。Nevertheless, as any biographer knows, a person’s early life and its conditions are often the greatest gift to an individual。

The sobering aspect of Allen’s book is that we have no one else to blame for our present condition except ourselves. (50) The upside is the possibilities contained in knowing that everything is up to us; where before we were experts in the array of limitations, now we become authorities of what is possible。

积极的一面是，既然万事都取决于我们，那么就有无限可能。以前，我们能够熟练应对种种局限；现在，我们把握着未来的可能。