261.英文正文（261）

whenoldspeakhadbeenonceandforallsuperseded，thelastlinkwiththepastwouldhavebeensevered。historyhadalreadybeenrewritten，butfragmentsoftheliteratureofthepastsurvivedhereandthere，imperfectlycensored，andsolongasoneretainedone’sknowledgeofoldspeakitwaspossibletoreadthem。inthefuturesuchfragments，eveniftheychancedtosurvive，wouldbeunintelligibleanduntranslatable。itwasimpossibletotranslateanypassageofoldspeakintonewspeakunlessiteitherreferredtosometechnicalprocessorsomeverysimpleeverydayaction，orwasalreadyorthodox（goodthinkfulwouldbethenewspeakexpression）intendency。inpracticethismeantthatnobookwrittenbeforeapproximately1960couldbetranslatedasawhole。pre-revolutionaryliteraturecouldonlybesubjectedtoideologicaltranslation—thatis，alterationinsenseaswellaslanguage。takeforexamplethewell-knownpassagefromthedeclarationofindependence：

weholdthesetruthstobeself-evident，thatallmenarecreatedequal，thattheyareendowedbytheircreatorwithcertaininalienablerights，thatamongthesearelife，liberty，andthepursuitofhappiness。thattosecuretheserights，governmentsareinstitutedamongmen，derivingtheirpowersfromtheconsentofthegoverned。thatwheneveranyformofgovernmentbecomesdestructiveofthoseends，itistherightofthepeopletoalteroraboli**，andtoinstitutenewgovernment。。。

itwouldhavebeenquiteimpossibletorenderthisintonewspeakwhilekeepingtothesenseoftheoriginal。thenearestonecouldcometodoingsowouldbetoswallowthewholepassageupinthesinglewordcrimethink。afulltranslationcouldonlybeanideologicaltranslation，wherebyjefferson’swordswouldbechangedintoapanegyriconabsolutegovernment。