Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason. Both fear and reason are essential to human survival, but the relationship between them is unbalanced. Reason may sometimes dissipate fear, but fear frequently shuts down reason. As Edmund Burke wrote in England twenty years before the American Revolution, "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

恐惧是理智最大的敌人，两者都是人类生存中不可缺少的主要部分，然而，他们之间所处的地位是极不相称的，也许有时候理智可以战胜恐惧，然而，更多时候是理智被恐惧所主宰。正如埃德蒙德·伯克在美国革命二十年前就在英国写道：“没有一种激情能够像恐惧一样全然地制约着人类其他行动和推理的进行”。

Our Founders had a healthy respect for the threat fear poses to reason. They knew that, under the right circumstances, fear can trigger the temptation to surrender freedom to a demagogue promising strength and security in return. They worried that when fear displaces reason, the result is often irrational hatred and division. As Justice Louis D. Brandeis later wrote: "Men feared witches and burnt women." Understanding this unequal relationship between fear and reason was crucial to the design of American self-government.

我们的开国元勋们都相当重视恐惧对理智的威胁。他们知道，在有些环境下，如当煽动政治家许诺给国民以保护和安全时，这时的国民有可能在恐惧的诱惑之下放弃了自己的自由以作为交换条件。所以开国者们所担心的是，当恐惧取代理智时结果常常是公众失去理性的互相仇恨和分裂。正如大法官路易斯·德莫比茨·布兰德斯后来所说的那样：“因为男人害怕女巫，所以烧死女人”。所以说深刻理解恐惧和理智之间的这种不平衡关系对于美国自治的设计是至关重要的。

Our Founders rejected direct democracy because of concerns that fear might overwhelm reflective thought. But they counted heavily on the ability of a "well-informed citizenry" to reason together in ways that would minimize the destructive impact of illusory, exaggerated, or excessive fears. "When a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power," wrote Thomas Paine in his legendary pamphlet Common Sense, specifically warning that the Founders should not take the risk of waiting until some fear seized the public imagination, in which event their reasoning processes would be hampered.

我们的开国元勋们之所以拒绝了普选制，是因为他们发现，恐惧有时候可以完全使公众丧失独立思想的能力。所以他们看好由那些知识渊博，消息灵通的单个公民所组成的“集体理智”，这样的话可以最小地降低错觉，言过其实以及过度恐惧所带来的负面影响。正如托马斯·佩因在他著名的小册子《常识》中所说的那样，“当每个人都能够认真地对各种社会事物各抒己见，这样完全可以确信，通过这种冷静的深思熟虑的方式构建的宪法是无限的明智和安全的，事实上我们有这样的权利”，他还特别特别提醒，开国者们在公众的想象力没有被恐惧所影响以至于发生推理过程的中断前，这样就不会承担恐惧所到导致的风险和损失。

Nations succeed or fail and define their essential character by the way they challenge the unknown and cope with fear. And much depends on the quality of their leadership. If leaders exploit public fears to herd people in directions they might not otherwise choose, then fear itself can quickly become a self-perpetuating and freewheeling force that drains national will and weakens national character, diverting attention from real threats deserving of healthy and appropriate fear and sowing confusion about the essential choices that every nation must constantly make about its future.

国家成败及其主要特征决定于其对未知的挑战和对恐惧的处理，以及国家的管理水平。如果有些“领导”从大局上去误导公众的恐惧，而事实上他们也许有其他的选择，于是这种恐惧立刻变成一种自生不息而随心所欲的力量，进而消磨国家意志，削弱国家特征。每一个国家都必修为其未来在有可能导致实在威胁的如应有的社会秩序，适当的恐惧以及可能制造混乱等这些主要的选项中来不断地作出明智的决断。

Leadership means inspiring us to manage through our fears. Demagoguery means exploiting our fears for political gain. There is a crucial difference.

统治意味着鼓励我们设法去控制我们的恐惧；而革命意味着激发我们的恐惧去追求我们所需要的政治利益。

Fear and anxiety have always been a part of life and always will be. Fear is ubiquitous and universal in every human society. It is a normal part of the human condition. And it has always been an enemy of reason. The Roman philosopher and rhetoric teacher Lactantius wrote, "Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be." We have always defined progress by our success in managing through our fears. Christopher Columbus, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Susan B. Anthony, and Neil Armstrong all found success by challenging the unknown and overcoming fear with courage and a sense of proportion that helped them overcome legitimate fears without being distracted by distorted and illusory fears.

恐惧与焦虑已经成为我们生活中的一部分，而且将永远如此。它始终贯穿于人类的历史长河，是人类生存的必要部分。它是理智的敌人。正如罗马哲学家兼修辞学家的拉克坦修斯曾经所说的，“恐惧之所至，智慧恒避之”。我们总是一直通过是否能够克服自己的恐惧来衡量成功与否，克里斯多佛·哥伦布，梅瑞维瑟·路易斯，威廉·克拉克，苏珊·B·安东尼以及尼尔·阿姆斯特朗等人之所以能够取得成功，靠的就是对未知的挑战，征服畏惧的勇气以及对两者的正确处理，他们目标没有被扭曲的，错觉的恐惧所干扰。

The Founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hanged as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk. Yet in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the freedoms that became the Bill of Rights. Are members of Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army marched on the Capitol?

我国的开国元勋们面临着严峻的威胁。如果他们的努力一旦失败，将会被当作叛国者而处以绞刑。那时国家处于生死存亡关头，尽管险象丛生，他们仍然坚持建立了自由的国度，接着就有了后来的《权利和自由法案》。试问今日的国会议员们，相比于你们的前任面临英军进犯国会大厦，你们的危险算德了什么？

Are the dangers we now face so much greater than those that led Franklin Delano Roosevelt to famously remind us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march -- when our fathers fought and won a world war on two fronts simultaneously?

难道我们今天面临的危险会超过当年富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福？当危机来临时， 他极好地提醒我们：世界上最大的敌人是自己？难道今天的美国面临的危险会超过当年先辈们所面对的法西斯对全世界的进攻--那时先辈们在两条战线同时作战并且最终赢得了战争？