《道德情操论》第一卷 （第一篇5章）

 

 

《道德情操论》第一卷  论行为得体

The Theory of the Moral Sentiments

 

By Adam Smith  （1759）

 

 《道德情操论》

   
亚当·斯密  著   宋德利 译

 

第一卷  论行为得体

 

Section I   Of the Sense of Propriety

 

第一篇    论得体

 

Chap. I   Of Sympathy

 

第一章  论同情 

1． 

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.

    一个人的性格中，显然存在某些天性，无论他被认为私心有多重，这些天性也会激励他去关注别人的命运，并且将别人的快乐变为自己不可或缺的快乐。他因目睹别人快乐而快乐，舍此无他。同情或怜悯，就是这种天性，亦即这样一种情感：当我们或亲眼目睹，或浮想联翩地设想他人的痛苦时，我们就会感同身受。我们时常因他人之悲而悲，其实这种情况朗如白昼，无需例证；这种情感，与人性中其它所有的原始激情毫无二致，既不为德高望重者所专美，也不为慈悲为怀者所独善，诚然，他们对这种情感的体察可能极尽幽微。因此，即便是为非作歹、罪大恶极的暴徒，及至冥顽不化、违反社会公德的恶棍，也绝非毫无同情之心的冷血动物。 

2． 

As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to this any other way, than by representing to us what would be our own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to imagine that we are in it, excites some degree of the same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dullness of the conception.

我们对于他人的感受缺乏直接体验，只能设身处地加以想象，否则就无法感同身受。如果我们采取事不关己、高高挂起的态度，即使亲兄弟遭受严刑拷打，我们的官能也会麻木不仁，无法感知他的痛苦。可惜的是，无论过去，还是现在，官能的作用只囿于自身，因此无法使我们超脱自我。有鉴于此，我们只能凭借想象，才能对那位兄弟的感觉有点概念。想象力所能做的，也只是向我们呈现彼时彼地我们自己可能有何感受。这只是我们自己的而非那位兄弟的感觉所获得的印象，是我们想象力摹拟的结果。通过身临其境的想象，设想自己正在遭受同样的折磨，我们似乎已经融入他的体内，在某种程度上已变成和他一样的人，因而对他的感受有了一些概念，此等概念虽不算切肤之痛，却也庶几近之。当他的痛苦被如此这般地传递给我们时，当我们又这般如此地接纳他的痛苦时，当我们将他的痛苦变成我们自己的痛苦时，他的痛苦就终于开始影响我们了。于是乎，当我们想到他的感觉时，我们就会战栗发抖。亲身经受痛苦或失望，会激发极度的悲伤，想象经受痛苦或失望，在某种程度上也会激发相同的情感，而这种情感的鲜活度或呆滞度，都与想象形成的概念之鲜活度或呆滞度互成比例。 

3． 

That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation. Persons of delicate fibres and a weak constitution of body complain, that in looking on the sores and ulcers which are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the correspondent part of their own bodies. The horror which they conceive at the misery of those wretches affects that particular part in themselves more than any other; because that horror arises from conceiving what they themselves would suffer, if they really were the wretches whom they are looking upon, and if that particular part in themselves was actually affected in the same miserable manner. The very force of this conception is sufficient, in their feeble frames, to produce that itching or uneasy sensation complained of. Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest.

这就是我们同情他人痛苦的因由，亦即在想象中与遭受痛苦者换位，去设想他的感觉或受其感染，此中道理若非全然自明，也有许多显见的观察足资为证。当我们看到有人挥手，想朝另外一个人的腿或手臂打去的时候，或者已经打过去的时候，我们自己的腿和手臂就自然而然地往回缩；而一旦打到对方，我们则会在某种轻度上感觉打到自己身上，并像被打者那样感到疼痛。当观众凝视一位舞者置身松弛的绳索之上，扭动摇摆以求平衡时，他们也会身不由己地做出同样的动作;因为换作是他们自己站在绳索上，他们也不得不这样做。性格脆弱或体质羸弱者经常抱怨说，看到乞丐在大街上露出溃疡或脓疮时，他们自己身体的相应部位也会感到瘙痒或不适。他们对那些可怜人的痛苦加以想象所产生的恐怖，对他们自身那个部位产生的影响，要超过任何一位其他部位；因为那种恐怖起源于这样的想象：如果他们自己真的就是亲眼目睹的那些可怜人，如果他们自身那个部位确实遭受同样的痛苦，他们自己将可能经受何种折磨。这种基于想象形成的概念，其力甚巨，足以使他们脆弱的躯体产生为其所抱怨的那种瘙痒或不适感。即便身体极其强健的人，有时也会注意到：当他们看到别人红肿的眼睛时，经常敏感地感觉到自己的眼睛也会疼痛，而这种情况也于相同的原因；眼睛是个极其脆弱的器官，即便是体质最强者的眼睛，与体质最弱者身上的其他任何器官相比，也还是脆弱得多。

4．

Neither is it those circumstances only, which create pain or sorrow, that call forth our fellow-feeling. Whatever is the passion which arises from any object in the person principally concerned, an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator. Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and our fellow-feeling with their misery is not more real than that with their happiness. We enter into their gratitude towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in their difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment against those perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. In every passion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the emotions of the by-stander always correspond to what, by bringing the case home to himself, he imagines should be the sentiments of the sufferer.

      身体强健者所注意到的上述两种情况，都决然不是产生痛苦或忧伤，以及激发我们同情心所需的绝无仅有的条件。对于每一位关心他人痛痒的旁观者来说，当他设想自己所倾心关注者的处境时，都会为之动情，无论这种情源于被关注者身上的何种部位，也都是大同小异，趋于雷同。悲剧或浪漫剧中为我们所关注的英雄人物一旦获得释放，我们就会为之喜不自禁，这种喜，与他们的不幸在我们心中所激发的悲，同样真诚不二。不幸引发怜悯，幸福激发热情，二者相比，同样真切，不分伯仲。他们感谢自己那些逆境中不舍不弃的忠实朋友，他们也对那些伤害自己、背弃自己、欺骗自己的背信弃义的叛徒极其愤慨，而我们则亦步亦趋，有样学样，随他们而感恩戴德，因他们而恨之入骨。大凡最煽情的激情，都能使旁观者设身处地去设想一些自认为是受害者必有的情绪，进而做出回应。

5．

Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our fellow-feeling with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, though its meaning was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however, without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever.

       用“怜悯”和“体谅”这两个字眼来表示因他人哀伤所产生的同情，这是再贴切不过的了。“感同身受”这个字眼，其原意也许和上述两者毫无二致，然而现在，用它去饱含激情地抒发同情之心，这未尝不算得体之举。 

6．

Upon some occasions sympathy may seem to arise merely from the view of a certain emotion in another person. The passions, upon some occasions, may seem to be transfused from one man to another, instantaneously and antecedent to any knowledge of what excited them in the person principally concerned. Grief and joy, for example, strongly expressed in the look and gestures of any one, at once affect the spectator with some degree of a like painful or agreeable emotion. A smiling face is, to every body that sees it, a cheerful object; as a sorrowful countenance, on the other hand, is a melancholy one.

在某种情况下，之所以会产生怜悯之心，看似仅仅是因为目睹了他人身上流露出的某种情感。这种情感，在某些场合里，看似能从一个人那里传递给另一个人，而这种传递的奇妙之处就在于，这“另一个人”尚未知晓这种情感何以会在对方身上产生，情感传递就闪电般结束了。以悲伤和愉快为例，任何一个人都可以通过眼神和手势来表达这两种情感，而同时也会像痛苦或惬意的情感那样，立即感染旁观者。一张满面春风的阳光之脸，人见人爱，那是因为它令人心旷神怡；一张愁云密布的苦瓜之脸，人见人怕，那是因为它令人心塞肺闷。

7．

This, however, does not hold universally, or with regard to every passion. There are some passions of which the expressions excite no sort of sympathy, but before we are acquainted with what gave occasion to them, serve rather to disgust and provoke us against them. The furious behaviour of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us against himself than against his enemies. As we are unacquainted with his provocation, we cannot bring his case home to ourselves, nor conceive any thing like the passions which it excites. But we plainly see what is the situation of those with whom he is angry, and to what violence they may be exposed from so enraged an adversary. We readily, therefore, sympathize with their fear or resentment, and are immediately disposed to take part against the man from whom they appear to be in so much danger.

       诚然，这种情况既非放诸四海，皆准无疑，亦非千人一面，毫无例外。有一些感情，在旁观者弄清其产生的来龙去脉之前，表达者在人们心中所激发出来的并非同情，而是厌恶或怨怒。一个怒火中烧的人，其暴躁如雷的表现更像是要激怒我们和他本人作对，而不是与他的敌人作对。因为我们并不了解此人大发雷霆之怒的原因，所以我们既无法将他的情况与我们自己挂钩，也无法想象使此人大为光火的导火索。但是我们却清楚地看到被他发飚者的情况，以及他们可能会从这位凶悍的对头那里遭到何等的狂暴蹂躏。因此我们就自然而然地同情这些人由此产生的恐惧或怨恨，更有甚至，还会立即和他们一起，去反对那个看来要对他们形成严重危害的河东狮吼者。

 

8．

If the very appearances of grief and joy inspire us with some degree of the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the general idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom we observe them: and in these passions this is sufficient to have some little influence upon us. The effects of grief and joy terminate in the person who feels those emotions, of which the expressions do not, like those of resentment, suggest to us the idea of any other person for whom we are concerned, and whose interests are opposite to his. The general idea of good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for the person who has met with it, but the general idea of provocation excites no sympathy with the anger of the man who has received it. Nature, it seems, teaches us to be more averse to enter into this passion, and, till informed of its cause, to be disposed rather to take part against it.

       如果悲伤和快乐的情感流露，能在某种程度上激发我们产生类似的情感，那是因为这种流露能使我们对感情流露者或好或坏的命运产生一种总体概念：悲伤和快乐这些激情足能使我们产生些许共鸣。悲伤和快乐产生的效果最终只会显现在那个具有相同情感的人身上，但是如果另外有人在情致上与他相左，那么悲伤和欢乐的表达，就和怨怒的表达一样，无论此人如何表达这些情感，我们对他也依然会一无所知。至于命运，无论好坏，只要人们对它产生一个总体概念，它就能使命运的主人赢得外界关注。然而震怒则当别论，无论他给人以何种总体概念，也无法赢得他人的同情。天性似乎在劝诫我们，对于动辄河东狮吼这种激情，不要轻易介入，更有甚者，在知晓狮吼的原因之前，甚至还应该与他人一起，合力对其大加挞伐。

 

9．

Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of another, before we are informed of the cause of either, is always extremely imperfect. General lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation, along with some disposition to sympathize with him, than any actual sympathy that is very sensible. The first question which we ask is, What has befallen you? Till this be answered, though we are uneasy both from the vague idea of his misfortune, and still more from torturing ourselves with conjectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not very considerable.

       即便我们体谅他人的悲伤与快乐，但在弄清悲伤与快乐的原因之前，我们的这份体谅之心也总是极不完美的。一般的悲伤，它所表现的只不过是事主的极度痛苦，而它在别人身上所产生的效果，与其说是一种切合实际的同情，毋宁说仅仅激发别人产生渴望了解事主的好奇，以及催生一种同情事主的意向。我们要提出的第一个问题就是，你究竟怎么啦？在这一问题得以解答之前，我们的心情总是忐忑不安，这是因为我们对事主的不幸所产生的印象十分模糊，更有甚者，是因为我们需要对可能发生的情况加以揣测，而这将使我们大吃其苦，然而尽管如此，我们的同情之心，体谅之情，依然无关宏旨。

 

10．

Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality. We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour; because we cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.

      因此，同情之心的起源并非是目睹情感本身，而是目睹激发这种情感的环境。我们有时对别人产生同情之心，而这种同情之心，对方本人却似乎全然不知；这是因为这种同情之心并非来源于实际，而是由于我们只是设身处地加以想象，同情之心才油然而生。我们为别人的失礼或粗鲁感到羞愧难当，虽然对方对自己的行为并未感到不得体；这是因为如果我们的行为也是如此荒唐，我们就会情不自禁地感到如此这般地难为情。

11．

Of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality exposes mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have the least spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commiseration than any other. But the poor wretch, who is in it, laughs and sings perhaps, and is altogether insensible of his own misery. The anguish which humanity feels, therefore, at the sight of such an object, cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must arise altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel if he was reduced to the same unhappy situation, and, what perhaps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it with his present reason and judgment.

      面临灭顶之灾时，对于人性稍存者来说，丧失理智最为恐怖，他们带着他人难以企及的怜悯之心，见证人类终极的苦难。然而置身其中的那个可怜虫却开怀大笑，或放声高歌，对于自己的悲苦却麻木不仁，了然无知。因此，在目睹实情之际，出于人性所感知的痛苦，就丝毫没能反映出这位蒙受苦难者的真实情感。由此可知，旁观者的同情之心则完全是出自他自己一厢情愿的设想，即，如果他本人置身于同样悲苦的情况之下 - 这也许是不可能的 - ，而且能以现有的理智和判断水准加以思考，他该有何感觉。

 

12．

What are the pangs of a mother, when she hears the moanings of her infant that during the agony of disease cannot express what it feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms, for her own sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great. With regard to the future, it is perfectly secure, and in its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human breast, from which reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt to defend it, when it grows up to a man.

        一位母亲听到自己病魔缠身却有苦难言的宝宝在呻吟时，她该是多么地痛苦不堪。她按照自己的想法，把自己对宝宝独孤无助的猜想，把自己因设想宝宝病情之不可逆料的后果而产生的恐惧，与宝宝实际的独孤无助融为一体，正因为所有这些，她根据自己的悲情，才对痛苦和抑郁产生了最全面的印象。然而，宝宝感觉到的只是眼前一时的不适，没什么大不了的，以后完全能痊愈。儿时的无知与缺乏远见，乃是战胜恐惧与忧伤的万应灵药，至于人类内心的巨大悲痛则当别论，宝宝一旦长大成人，就会抛弃那种万应灵药，试图以理智和哲理去战胜恐惧与忧伤，但结果总是徒劳无功。

 

13．

We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid in the cold grave, a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated, in a little time, from the affections, and almost from the memory, of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feeling seems doubly due to them now, when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly, is affected by none of these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb the profound security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the imagination, that the foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us miserable while we are alive. And from thence arises one of the most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon the injustice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society.

 

        我们甚至同情死者，但却忽视在其所处环境中存在的真正重要的东西，等待他们的那种恐怖的前景即是一例，我们主要是被那些刺激感官的环境所感染，然而对他们的快乐却不能施加任何影响。被剥夺阳光；被摒除于人们的生活及谈资；被埋葬在冰冷的坟墓中，继而腐烂变质成为蛆虫果腹的猎物；在人世间不再为人所思念，旋即从至爱亲朋的慈爱，乃至记忆中被驱离。凡此种种，都被我们视之为至悲至惨，蔑以加矣。诚然，对那些惨遭如此恐怖的灭顶之灾者，我们清醒地认识到，同情之心仅限于此，除此之外，已是爱莫能助。他们处于被每个人都彻底遗忘的危险境地时，我们就会因同情而向他们大唱赞歌。我们已经对死者的苦难形成不无伤感的记忆，而现在我们则会通过向他们的记忆注入虚浮的荣耀，也为表达我们自己的痛苦，人为地、竭尽全力地确保这种痛彻心扉的记忆永不磨灭。然而我们的同情却无法使死者得以慰藉，这对他们既有的灾难来说不啻雪上加霜。我们所做的一切最终都将归于徒劳。想一想吧！为缓解亲朋因死者所产生的抑郁、愧疚、眷恋、悲伤，我们无论如何去做，也丝毫不能使死者获得慰藉，相反却只能加剧我们自己因死者的悲惨遭遇而感觉到的痛苦。然而千真万确，死者的快乐不会受到这些客观环境的影响，因客观环境而产生的主观意念也不会干扰他们安然无虞的长眠。死者要经历万劫不复的苦难，其实这种想法只是一种幻想，它的产生自然要归因于死者所处的环境，而且也完全是因为我们将死者经历的变化与我们本身对那种变化形成的意识紧紧相连，因为我们将自己置身于死者的处境，因为我们将自己鲜活的灵魂，附在死者了无生机的躯体上，如果我可以这样说的话，而后再去想象这种条件该为我们催生出怎样的情感。正是因为如此这般地浮想联翩，我们才一想到死就毛骨悚然，我们才在活着的时候，一想到死后无疑不会令我们产生任何痛苦的环境而痛苦不堪。也正是因为如此，人类性格中的一种最重要的天性应运而生，那就是怕死，亦即危害快乐的烈性毒药，然而它却是降服人类不公正之魔的神力克星，它虽伤及个体，但却捍卫和保护社会。

Chap. II

Of the Pleasure of mutual Sympathy

第二章  论互相同情的快乐

1．

    But whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may

be excited, nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men

a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are

we ever so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary.

Those who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain

refinements of self-love, think themselves at no loss to account,

according to their own principles, both for this pleasure and

this pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness, and of

the need which he has for the assistance of others, rejoices

whenever he observes that they adopt his own passions, because he

is then assured of that assistance; and grieves whenever he

observes the contrary, because he is then assured of their

opposition. But both the pleasure and the pain are always felt so

instantaneously, and often upon such frivolous occasions, that it

seems evident that neither of them can be derived from any such

self-interested consideration. A man is mortified when, after

having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and sees

that nobody laughs at his jests but himself. On the contrary, the

mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards

this correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the

greatest applause.

   无论产生同情的原因是什么，也无论同情是如何产生的，最令我们快乐的莫过于看到我们发自内心的情感在别人身上产生共鸣；打击我们最甚的莫过于看到与此相反的情形。有些人喜欢根据自爱之心的某些细腻的表现来推断我们全部的情感。这些人自认为根据自己的原则已经把这种快乐和痛苦的原因说得一清二楚。他们说，人都能意识到自己的软弱，也能意识到需要他人的帮助。看到别人受到自己激情的感染，他就心花怒放，因为他确信能获得别人的帮助；不过看到相反的情况，他就会郁闷悲伤。然而，无论是快乐，还是痛苦的感觉，都会转瞬即逝，而且这种情况经常是在一些无关痛痒的场合发生。于是似乎很明显，快乐与痛苦这两种情感都无法从这种自我感兴趣的考虑中产生。一个人竭尽全力想通过逗趣博得同伴一乐，但环顾四周，发现除他本人之外，再没有别人对他的笑话捧腹时，他就感到很难为情。而相反，同伴的欢乐和他高度合拍的时候，他就把这种情感的合拍看作是最牛的喝彩。

2．

    Neither does his pleasure seem to arise altogether from the

additional vivacity which his mirth may receive from sympathy

with theirs, nor his pain from the disappointment he meets with

when he misses this pleasure; though both the one and the other,

no doubt, do in some measure. When we have read a book or poem so

often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by

ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a

companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty; we enter into

the surprise and admiration which it naturally excites in him,

but which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we consider

all the ideas which it presents rather in the light in which they

appear to him, than in that in which they appear to ourselves,

and we are amused by sympathy with his amusement which thus

enlivens our own. On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did not

seem to been entertained with it, and we could no longer take

any pleasure in reading it to him. It is the same case here. The

mirth of the company, no doubt, enlivens our own mirth, and their

silence, no doubt, disappoints us. But though this may contribute

both to the pleasure which we derive from the one, and to the

pain which we feel from the other, it is by no means the sole

cause of either; and this correspondence of the sentiments of

others with our own appears to be a cause of pleasure, and the

want of it a cause of pain, which cannot be accounted for in this

manner. The sympathy, which my friends express with my joy,

might, indeed, give me pleasure by enlivening that joy: but that

which they express with my grief could give me none, if it served

only to enliven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and

alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by presenting another source of

satisfaction; and it alleviates grief by insinuating into the

heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that

time capable of receiving.

   欢乐与痛苦生成的轨迹大致如此，但仔细想来，他之所以欢乐，似乎并非全然因为从同伴那里博得一乐而感到喜悦倍增，他之所以痛苦，亦非因为未能博得同伴共鸣而感到失望。我们翻来覆去阅读一本书或一首诗，就不再能从独自阅读中发现乐趣，但如果读给同伴听，我们依然可以感到情趣盎然。对于同伴来讲，此书或此诗堪称新颖之至，乐趣充盈。于是我们就会发现对方惊喜莫名，赞不绝口，之所以如此，自然是此书或此诗使然。但是此时此刻，书也好，诗也罢，早已不能再在我们心中泛起任何激情的涟漪。由是观之，在考虑诗书所描述的所有思想时，我们的着眼点与其说集中于我们自己，毋宁说是集中于那位伙伴。我们因为自己对他的愉悦之情感同身受而开心不已。

相反，如果同伴看上去并不欣赏这本书或这首诗，我们就会很郁闷，于是就再也不能从对他阅读诗书中获得任何乐趣。这里的情况也相同。同伴的欢乐，毫无疑问，使我们倍加欢乐；同伴的沉默，疑问毫无，使我们失望倍加。不过，虽然这能使我们在一种情况下获得欢乐，而在另一种情况下产生痛苦，但这绝然不是二者产生的唯一原因；他人与我们的情感吻合，看来就是产生快乐的一个原因，而缺乏这种吻合，看来便是产生痛苦的一个原因，虽然如此，但这也不能完全用以解读快乐与痛苦产生的根源。如果朋友对我的快乐产生同情，而这种同情反过来又能使我的快乐加倍，那我就感到很开心；但是如果朋友对我的悲伤产生同情，而这种同情反过来却只能使我的悲伤加剧，我就不能感到开心。然而，同情既能增加快乐，也能缓解悲伤。它为产生满意的情绪提供另一个温床，因而增加快乐；它使彼时彼刻能够接受的愉悦情绪潜入心灵，从而缓解悲伤。

3．

    It is to be observed accordingly, that we are still more

anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our

agreeable passions, that we derive still more satisfaction from

their sympathy with the former than from that with the latter,

and that we are still more shocked by the want of it.

   因此可以说：我们更急于向朋友表达不快之情，而不是愉悦之情；我们从他们对前者，而不是对后者的同情中获得更多的满足；我们由于他们缺乏同情之心而受创更重。

4.

    How are the unfortunate relieved when they have found out a

person to whom they can communicate the cause of their sorrow?

Upon his sympathy they seem to disburthen themselves of a part of

their distress: he is not improperly said to share it with them.

He not only feels a sorrow of the same kind with that which they

feel, but as if he had derived a part of it to himself, what he

feels seems to alleviate the weight of what they feel. Yet by

relating their misfortunes they in some measure renew their

grief. They awaken in their memory the remembrance of those

circumstances which occasioned their affliction. Their tears

accordingly flow faster than before, and they are apt to abandon

themselves to all the weakness of sorrow. They take pleasure,

however, in all this, and, it is evident, are sensibly relieved

by it; because the sweetness of his sympathy more than

compensates the bitterness of that sorrow, which, in order to

excite this sympathy, they had thus enlivened and renewed. The

cruelest insult, on the contrary, which can be offered to the

unfortunate, is to appear to make light of their calamities. To

seem not to be affected with the joy of our companions is but

want of politeness; but not to wear a serious countenance when

they tell us their afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity.

   不幸者发现一个能与之倾诉悲伤原因的人，他们该是何等地如释重负啊！有他的同情，他们就似乎能减轻自己的悲痛：说此人能与他们分担痛苦未必欠妥。对于他们的悲伤，他不仅能够感受到，而且还觉得似乎已经部分地加以分担，他所能感受到的悲情，似乎能够减轻他们所感受的重负。然而，倾诉不幸在某种程度上反而会使悲伤死灰复燃。他们会重新忆及已往使自己备受煎熬的环境。他们因此会加快从前泪水的流速，从而极易浸沉于哪怕是极度微弱的悲伤之中。不过他们会从所有这些当中获得快乐，而且显然会因此感到明显的慰藉；因为获得同情所产生的美好感觉，会对悲伤所引起的痛苦加以补偿，至于这些悲伤，则是因为他们要去激发同情之心，而被重新赋予生机，进而卷土重来的。与之相反，不幸者大祸临头之际，却遭他人熟视无睹，置若罔闻，这似乎就是对他们极度残忍的戕害。面对同伴的快乐而心如古井，无动于衷，这似乎只是失礼而已；然而当他们倾诉衷肠，备述遭际时，我们却依然故我，毫不动容，这实在是货真价实的丧尽天良，毫无人性。

5.

    Love is an agreeable; resentment, a disagreeable passion; and

accordingly we are not half so anxious that our friends should

adopt our friendships, as that they should enter into our

resentments. We can forgive them though they seem to be little

affected with the favours which we may have received, but lose

all patience if they seem indifferent about the injuries which

may have been done to us: nor are we half so angry with them for

not entering into our gratitude, as for not sympathizing with our

resentment. They can easily avoid being friends to our friends,

but can hardly avoid being enemies to those with whom we are at

variance. We seldom resent their being at enmity with the first,

though upon that account we may sometimes affect to make an

awkward quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good

earnest if they live in friendship with the last. The agreeable

passions of love and joy can satisfy and support the heart

without any auxiliary pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions

of grief and resentment more strongly require the healing

consolation of sympathy.

   爱是一种愉悦的激情，恨是一种郁闷的激情。我们渴望朋友与自己共享友情，我们同样也渴望朋友与自己同仇敌忾。我们春风得意，他们漠然处之，我们会原谅他们；我们水深火热，他们若无其事，我们会忍无可忍。同样，我们感恩戴德，他们置之不理，我们会怒火中烧；我们恨之入骨，他们置若罔闻，我们会五内俱焚。对于他们来讲，避免成为我们朋友的朋友，简直易如反掌；但避免成为我们敌人的敌人，则几乎不可能。他们与朋友反目失和，我们很少抱怨，虽然有时我们也为此与他们小有口角。但如果他们与敌人和睦相处，我们就会与他们舌战到底，难解难分。爱与欢乐的激情，无须添加额外的乐趣，就能使人由衷地感到心满意足，受益匪浅。悲伤与怨恨引发的痛苦，亟需同情之心加以治愈。

6.

    As the person who is principally interested in any event is

pleased with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we,

too, seem to be pleased when we are able to sympathize with him,

and to be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to

congratulate the successful, but to condole with the afflicted;

and the pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in

all the passions of his heart we can entirely sympathize with,

seems to do more than compensate the painfulness of that sorrow

with which the view of his situation affects us. On the contrary,it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which, however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call

it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even

with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it

levity and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion

laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that

is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.

   对什么事都非常感兴趣的人，会因为我们的同情而感到高兴，会因为无人同情而感到伤心，因此当我们能够同情他的时候，我们自己似乎也十分高兴，而不能这样做的时候，我们也会感到伤心。我们不仅乐于祝贺因成功而春风得意者，也乐于安慰因落败而愁肠寸断者，与一个激情满怀而我们又完全能够同情的人谈话，就会感到快乐，而这种快乐似乎远不止于能够解除因目睹其情况而产生的悲伤与痛苦。相反，我们感到无法同情他时就总是郁闷不已。我们不会因为免除同情心导致的痛苦而高兴，只会因为发现自己不能分担他的不快而感到痛心。我们听到一个人因为自己的不幸而嚎啕大哭时，如果我们认为这种不幸一旦落到我们头上，并不会对我们产生如此巨大的作用，那我们就会因为他的悲伤而感到震惊；因为我们无法进入这个角色，因此就将这种行为称之为胆怯与懦弱。

另一方面，看到别人因为交了点小运就十分高兴，甚至心花怒放，我们就不屑一顾。我们甚至对他的快乐心生怨怒；因为我们对此无法苟同，便称之为轻浮与愚笨。对于一个本不值得为之长时间哈哈大笑的笑话，如果我们感觉自己根本不会为之发笑，然而同伴却笑得超过分寸， 我们甚至会怒火中烧。

Chap. III

Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety

of the affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance

with out own.

第三章  通过我们和他人感情是否和谐一致来判断表达方式是否得体

1．

    When the original passions of the person principally

concerned are in perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of

the spectator, they necessarily appear to this last just and

proper, and suitable to their objects; and, on the contrary,

when, upon bringing the case home to himself, he finds that they

do not coincide with what he feels, they necessarily appear to

him unjust and improper, and unsuitable to the causes which

excite them. To approve of the passions of another, therefore, as

suitable to their objects, is the same thing as to observe that

we entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of them as

such, is the same thing as to observe that we do not entirely

sympathize with them. The man who resents the injuries that have

been done to me, and observes that I resent them precisely as he

does, necessarily approves of my resentment. The man whose sympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my

sorrow. He who admires the same poem, or the same picture, and admires them exactly as I do, must surely allow the justness of my admiration. He who laughs at the same joke, and laughs along with me, cannot well deny the propriety of my laughter. On the contrary, the person who, upon these different occasions, either feels no such emotion as that which I feel, or feels none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid disapproving my sentiments on account of their dissonance with

his own. If my animosity goes beyond what the indignation of my

friend can correspond to; if my grief exceeds what his most

tender compassion can go along with; if my admiration is either

too high or too low to tally with his own; if I laugh loud and

heartily when he only smiles, or, on the contrary, only smile

when he laughs loud and heartily; in all these cases, as soon as

he comes from considering the object, to observe how I am

affected by it, according as there is more or less disproportion

between his sentiments and mine, I must incur a greater or less

degree of his disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own

sentiments are the standards and measures by which he judges of

mine.

   当事者激情四溢，旁观者其情可悯，二者完全吻合，旁观者就认为前者必定正确得体，主客一致；反之，后者如若恍然大悟，发现二者并非如所想的那样天衣无缝，他就会认为前者的原始激情就既不正确，也不得体，与激发后者情绪的原因风马牛不相及。认同他人的情感，因而认可它如实反映了客体，就如同说我们完全同情他们；如果不做上述的认同，那就如同说我们丝毫不同情他们。一个人如果对我所遭受的伤害表示不满，而且认为我也和他有同感，那么，一旦我真的表示不满，他就必然会赞同。一个人如果完全同情我的悲伤，他就不能不承认我悲得合情，伤得合理。如果对同一首诗或同一幅画，他和我都赞赏不已，毫无二致，那他就一定认可我赞赏的正确性。为相同的笑话大笑者，而且和我一同捧腹，他就无法否认我笑得十分得体。相反，如果这个人在这些不同场合里，既不能全部，也不能部分地和我有同感，他就不可避免地反对我因与他情感不和而怨艾十足。如果我的怨恨超过朋友相应产生的愤慨，如果我的悲伤超过朋友温情脉脉的怜悯之心，如果我对他的赞美过高或过低，以致无法与他自己的实际情况相吻合，如果我开怀大笑，而他仅仅是面带笑容，或者相反，他仅仅面带笑容，而我却开怀大笑，在凡此种种的情况之下，他对客观情况研究之后势必加以思考，并且根据他和我在情绪之间存在的或多或少的差异，观察我受客观情况感染的来龙去脉，一旦如此，我就必然遭受程度不一的责难：在所有的场合下，他自己的情感就是判断我的标准和尺度。

2．

    To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt those

opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the same

arguments which convince you convince me likewise, I necessarily

approve of your conviction; and if they do not, I necessarily

disapprove of it: neither can I possibly conceive that I should

do the one without the other. To approve or disapprove,

therefore, of the opinions of others is acknowledged, by every

body, to mean no more than to observe their agreement or

disagreement with our own. But this is equally the case with

regard to our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or

passions of others.

 

   赞同另外一个人的意见就是采纳那些意见，采纳也就是赞同。如果同样的论据使你确信无疑，也使我确信无疑，那我自然赞同你这样做；如果那个论据做不到这点，我自然不赞同它；我也不可能想象自己会做这个，撇那个，比如说光赞同，不采纳。因此，对别人的意见是赞同，还是反对，自然就每个人都承认的那样，其含义无非就是说，别人的意见和我们的是否一致。但是这与下述情况如出一辙，即，对待别人的情绪或激情我们是否认可。

3．

  There are, indeed, some cases in which we seem to approve

without any sympathy or correspondence of sentiments, and in

which, consequently, the sentiment of approbation would seem to

be different from the perception of this coincidence. A little

attention, however, will convince us that even in these cases our

approbation is ultimately founded upon a sympathy or

correspondence of this kind. I shall give an instance in things

of a very frivolous nature, because in them the judgments of

mankind are less apt to be perverted by wrong systems. We may

often approve of a jest, and think the laughter of the company

quite just and proper, though we ourselves do not laugh, because,

perhaps, we are in a grave humour, or happen to have our

attention engaged with other objects. We have learned, however,

from experience, what sort of pleasantry is upon most occasions

capable of making us laugh, and we observe that this is one of

that kind. We approve, therefore, of the laughter of the company,

and feel that it is natural and suitable to its object; because,

though in our present mood we cannot easily enter into it, we are

sensible that upon most occasions we should very heartily join in

it.

   千真万确，有时我们似乎仅有赞同，没有同情或情感的一致，因此在这些情况下情感的认可和感觉的一致之间就似乎存在差异。不过，稍加注意，我们就会确信，即使在这些场合里，我们的认可最终依然是建立在这种同情或情感一致的基础之上。我将从一些凡情琐事中提取一例，因为在这些并不起眼的事情中，人们的判断不易受到错误方法的误导。我们可能经常会对一则笑话持有赞同的态度，认为同伴的大笑正常得体，虽然我们自己并不发笑，因为我们也许是当时的情绪低落，或正好将注意力集中在其它事情上。然而我们从切身体验中已经明了，哪种笑话在绝大多数的场合下是能够令我们发笑的，我们说，上述笑话即是一例。虽然由于此时此刻的情绪，我们不易介入此事，但是在多数场合下，我们应该能够非常开心地介入其中，因此，我们对同伴的发笑就持赞同态度，感到他因那则笑话发笑，既自然又得体。

4.

    The same thing often happens with regard to all the other

passions. A stranger passes by us in the street with all the

marks of the deepest affliction; and we are immediately told that

he has just received the news of the death of his father. It is

impossible that, in this case, we should not approve of his

grief. Yet it may often happen, without any defect of humanity on

our part, that, so far from entering into the violence of his

sorrow, we should scarce conceive the first movements of concern

upon his account. Both he and his father, perhaps, are entirely

unknown to us, or we happen to be employed about other things,

and do not take time to picture out in our imagination the

different circumstances of distress which must occur to him. We

have learned, however, from experience, that such a misfortune

naturally excites such a degree of sorrow, and we know that if we

took time to consider his situation, fully and in all its parts,

we should, without doubt, most sincerely sympathize with him. It

is upon the consciousness of this conditional sympathy, that our

approbation of his sorrow is founded, even in those cases in

which that sympathy does not actually take place; and the general

rules derived from our preceding experience of what our

sentiments would commonly correspond with, correct upon this, as

upon many other occasions, the impropriety of our present

emotions.

   至于其它所有的情感，类似的情况也经常发生。一个神情痛苦的陌生人在大街上从我们身边经过，我们就立即做出判断，此人刚刚得知丧父的噩耗。在这种情况下，我们不可能不赞同他的悲伤。然而经常会发生这样的情况，就我们自己而言，并非缺乏仁爱之心，但无论如何也不能介入对方的巨大悲痛，我们居然很少会考虑在第一时间向对方表示关切。他和他的父亲也许都不认识我们，或者我们正好为它事所累，因此无暇想象另有一番悲情残状落在他的头上。然而，我们从切身体验中完全可以明白，这种不幸自然会激发如此之深的悲情，我们深知，如果肯花时间，充分全面地考虑他的情况，毫无疑问，我们应该对他表现出诚挚的同情之心。

5．

    The sentiment or affection of the heart from which any action

proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately

depend, may be considered under two different aspects, or in two

different relations; first, in relation to the cause which

excites it, or the motive which gives occasion to it; and

secondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or the effect

which it tends to produce.

   情感或心绪是行动的出发点，而最终行善抑或行恶，皆取决于此。对情感或心绪的研究可以从两个不同的方面，或两种不同的关系着手：其一，情感或心绪与其产生原因之间的关系，或与其产生动机之间的关系；其二，情感或心绪与其预期结局之间的关系，或与其势必产生的效果之间的关系。

6．

    In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or

disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or

object which excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety,

the decency or ungracefulness of the consequent action.

情感相对于产生它的原因或客观条件来说，是否适宜，是否谐调，这其中就包含着随后的行为是否得体，是儒雅抑或粗野。

7．

    In the beneficial or hurtful nature of the effects which the

affection aims at, or tends to produce, consists the merit or

demerit of the action, the qualities by which it is entitled to

reward, or is deserving of punishment.

   情感的预期效果，或势必产生的效果是有益还是有害，这其中就包含着行为的是非曲直，亦即决定应该受到褒奖，还是惩罚的诸般品质。

8．

    Philosophers have, of late years, considered chiefly the

tendency of affections, and have given little attention to the

relation which they stand in to the cause which excites them. In

common life, however, when we judge of any person's conduct, and

of the sentiments which directed it, we constantly consider them

under both these aspects. When we blame in another man the

excesses of love, of grief, of resentment, we not only consider

the ruinous effects which they tend to produce, but the little

occasion which was given for them. The merit of his favourite, we

say, is not so great, his misfortune is not so dreadful, his

provocation is not so extraordinary, as to justify so violent a

passion. We should have indulged, we say; perhaps, have approved

of the violence of his emotion, had the cause been in any respect

proportioned to it.

   近年来，哲学家们的研究主要集中于情感的倾向性，几乎没有留意情感及其成因之间的关系。然而，我们在日常生活中判断人们的行为以及行为所倾向的情感时，却在不断地从这两方面加以思考。当我们责备别人爱得过头，悲得过火，狠得过深时，我们所考虑的不仅包括其势必产生的破坏性后果，而且也包括其产生的微乎其微的诱因。或许，在证实他如此强烈的激情不无道理时，我们却发现，他所尊崇的人并非如此伟大，他本人的不幸并非如此恐怖，惹他发怒的事情并非如此严重。如果激情的成因在各方面都与激情谐调一致，也许我们早就应该放任他的激情，或许已经赞同他的激情也未可知 

9．

    When we judge in this manner of any affection, as

proportioned or disproportioned to the cause which excites it, it

is scarce possible that we should make use of any other rule or

canon but the correspondent affection in ourselves. If, upon

bringing the case home to our own breast, we find that the

sentiments which it gives occasion to, coincide and tally with

our own, we necessarily approve of them as proportioned and

suitable to their objects; if otherwise, we necessarily

disapprove of them, as extravagant and out of proportion.

   当我们以这种方式判断情感是否与产生的原因互相谐调时，除我们自己与之相应的情感之外，我们几乎不可能采用任何其它的尺度或标准。如果将这种情况与我们自己挂钩，我们就会发现它所激发的情感与我们自己的完全相符，而且因为与客观条件互相吻合，我们就必然加以赞同；否则我们就因为它们太过分和不协调而不会赞同。

10．

    Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of

the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight,

of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your

resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither

have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.

       一个人的各种官能都是判断他人相同官能的尺度。我以我的视觉判断你的视觉，以我的听觉判断你的听觉，以我的理智判断你的理智，以我的怨恨判断你的怨恨，以我的爱判断你的爱。我没有，也不可能有其它任何方法来对它们以判断。

 

Chap. IV

The same subject continued

第四章  续前章

1.

    We may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the

sentiments of another person by their correspondence or

disagreement with our own, upon two different occasions; either,

first, when the objects which excite them are considered without

any peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the person whose

sentiments we judge of; or, secondly, when they are considered as

peculiarly affecting one or other of us.

   我们判断另外一个人的情感是否得体，可以根据这些情感在如下两种情况下是否与我们自己的情感一致；第一，当激发情感的客体被认为与我们自己，或与我们需要对其情感做出判断的那个人之间毫无特殊关系时；第二，当这些客体被认为对我们中间的某人产生特殊影响时。

2.

    1. With regard to those objects which are considered without

any peculiar relation either to ourselves or to the person whose

sentiments we judge of; wherever his sentiments entirely

correspond with our own, we ascribe to him the qualities of taste

and good judgment. The beauty of a plain, the greatness of a

mountain, the ornaments of a building, the expression of a

picture, the composition of a discourse, the conduct of a third

person, the proportions of different quantities and numbers, the

various appearances which the great machine of the universe is

perpetually exhibiting, with the secret wheels and springs which

product them; all the general subjects of science and taste, are

what we and our companion regard as having no peculiar relation

to either of us. We both look at them from the same point of

view, and we have no occasion for sympathy, or for that imaginary

change of situations from which it arises, in order to produce,

with regard to these, the most perfect harmony of sentiments and

affections. If, notwithstanding, we are often differently

affected, it arises either from the different degrees of

attention, which our different habits of life allow us to give

easily to the several parts of those complex objects, or from the

different degrees of natural acuteness in the faculty of the mind

to which they are addressed.

   1．关于那些被认为与我们自己和我们所要判断其情感的人没有任何特殊关系的客体；当他的情感与我们的完全一致时，我们就认为他品味高雅，判断力强。平原的秀美，山峰的巍峨，建筑的装饰，图画的意境，演说的架构，第三者的行为，各种数量及数字的比例，宇宙的宏伟机器以其玄妙之轮及弹簧不断产生并展示的千姿百态，科学及审美研究方面所有一般性课题，这一切的一切，都被我们及同伴看作是与我们毫无特殊关系的。我们都以相同的观点观察它们，我们没有任何动因驱使自己为与客体在情感上完全一致就产生同情心，也没有任何动因驱使自己对激发同情心的环境变化加以想象。尽管如此，如果我们经常受到各种不同的影响，这是因为，我们不同的生活习性导致自己对一部分复杂客体的关注程度不同，或是因为，我们观察客体时自己感官的先天敏感度不同。

3.

    When the sentiments of our companion coincide with our own in

things of this kind, which are obvious and easy, and in which,

perhaps, we never found a single person who differed from us,

though we, no doubt, must approve of them, yet he seems to

deserve no praise or admiration on account of them. But when they

not only coincide with our own, but lead and direct our own; when

in forming them he appears to have attended to many things which

we had overlooked, and to have adjusted them to all the various

circumstances of their objects; we not only approve of them, but

wonder and are surprised at their uncommon and unexpected

acuteness and comprehensiveness, and he appears to deserve a very

high degree of admiration and applause. For approbation

heightened by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment

which is properly called admiration, and of which applause is the

natural expression. The decision of the man who judges that

exquisite beauty is preferable to the grossest deformity, or that

twice two are equal to four, must certainly be approved of by all

the world, but will not, surely, be much admired. It is the acute

and delicate discernment of the man of taste, who distinguishes

the minute, and scarce perceptible differences of beauty and

deformity; it is the comprehensive accuracy of the experienced

mathematician, who unravels, with ease, the most intricate and

perplexed proportions; it is the great leader in science and

taste, the man who directs and conducts our own sentiments, the

extent and superior justness of whose talents astonish us with

wonder and surprise, who excites our admiration, and seems to

deserve our applause: and upon this foundation is grounded the

greater part of the praise which is bestowed upon what are called

the intellectual virtues.

   当同伴的情感在一些显而易见的事情中和我们的情感一致的时候，虽然在这些事情中，其他所有的人都和我们一样，无疑都会赞同他的情感，但他本人却似乎并不能因为这些情感而获得我们的赞赏。然而，当他的情感不仅能和我们的情感相一致，而且还能引领和指导我们的情感时，当他在这些情感形成的过程中，似乎已经关注到许多我们曾经忽略的事情，并且根据客体的不同环境来调整自己的情感时，我们就不仅赞同这些情感，而且还为他们那些非凡的、出人意表的敏感度和理解力感到惊异，而此时此刻，他似乎就值得我们高度赞扬了。因为感到惊异而被加强的认可度，这时就会产生那些也许可以被称之为赞美的情感，而欢呼喝彩则是对这些情感的自然表达方式。经过判断做出要美人不要丑八怪决定的人，或者做出二乘二等于四决定的人，必然会受到世人的赞同，然而却并不一定大受赞美。只有具备鉴赏能力的人，才具有高度的敏锐性和缜密的洞察力，也才能明察秋毫，才能在识别美丑的问题时极少出现误差。是数学家所具备的综合精准度，才能轻而易举地解开盘根错节令人迷惑不解的比例难题；是科学和审美学领域的领军人物，引领和驾驭我们的情感，他们才华横溢，成绩斐然，令人惊诧不已，刮目相看；他们激发我们对其油然而生崇敬之情，他们看来很值得我们称赞喝彩：人们对德艺双馨者的赞美大多是建立在这个基础之上的。

4.

    The utility of those qualities, it may be thought, is what

first recommends them to us; and, no doubt, the consideration of

this, when we come to attend to it, gives them a new value.

Originally, however, we approve of another man's judgment, not as

something useful, but as right, as accurate, as agreeable to

truth and reality: and it is evident we attribute those qualities

to it for no other reason but because we find that it agrees with

our own. Taste, in the same manner, is originally approved of,

not as useful, but as just, as delicate, and as precisely suited

to its object. The idea of the utility of all qualities of this

kind, is plainly an after-thought, and not what first recommends

them to our approbation.

   可以这样认为，在谈及上述那些才能的时候，最先让我们想到的就是这些才能的实用性；毫无疑问，在我们注意到，并且考虑到这种实用性的时候，就赋予了这些才能一种新的价值。然而，我们起初赞同另一个人的判断时，并不是因为它像某种东西那样有用，而是因为它正确、精准、与真情实况相符：很显然，我们之所以将那些才能归因于正确的判断，只是因为发现他的判断与我们的一致。同样道理，鉴赏力起初受到赞许的时候，也同样不是因为它有用，而是因为它正确，精准，而且完全与其鉴赏的客体相称。对所有这些才能的实用性所形成的理念，显然只是一种事后产生的想法，而不是起初供我们加以认可的那些东西。

5．

    2. With regard to those objects, which affect in a particular

manner either ourselves or the person whose sentiments we judge

of, it is at once more difficult to preserve this harmony and

correspondence, and at the same time, vastly more important. My

companion does not naturally look upon the misfortune that has

befallen me, or the injury that has been done me, from the same

point of view in which I consider them. They affect me much more

nearly. We do not view them from the same station, as we do a

picture, or a poem, or a system of philosophy, and are,

therefore, apt to be very differently affected by them. But I can

much more easily overlook the want of this correspondence of

sentiments with regard to such indifferent objects as concern

neither me nor my companion, than with regard to what interests

me so much as the misfortune that has befallen me, or the injury

that has been done me. Though you despise that picture, or that

poem, or even that system of philosophy, which I admire, there is

little danger of our quarrelling upon that account. Neither of us

can reasonably be much interested about them. They ought all of

them to be matters of great indifference to us both; so that,

though our opinions may be opposite, our affections may still be

very nearly the same. But it is quite otherwise with regard to

those objects by which either you or I are particularly affected.

Though your judgments in matters of speculation, though your

sentiments in matters of taste, are quite opposite to mine, I can

easily overlook this opposition; and if I have any degree of

temper, I may still find some entertainment in your conversation,

even upon those very subjects. But if you have either no

fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that

bears any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you

have either no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or

none that bears any proportion to the resentment which transports

me, we can no longer converse upon these subjects. We become

intolerable to one another. I can neither support your company,

nor you mine. You are confounded at my violence and passion, and

I am enraged at your cold insensibility and want of feeling.

   关于这样一些客体，它们既能以特殊方式影响我们自己，也能影响那些情感有待于我们判断的人，保持这种和谐及一致绝非易事，但同时也极其重要。对于我遭遇的不幸，以及我受到的伤害，我的同伴自然不会和我以相同的观点来看待。这种不幸与伤害对我产生的影响还要大很多。但是我们不会站在鉴赏一幅画、一首诗、或一种哲学体系时的相同的立场来看待这些，因此它们就会以不同的方式来影响我们。有些客体对于我和同伴来说无关紧要，如果情感与这些客体达不到一致，我不会看得太重，不过有些客体却与我遭遇的不幸和受到的伤害息息相关，如果情感和这些客体达不到一致，我却很难采取轻视的态度。虽然你忽视我所赞赏的图画、诗歌、甚至哲学体系，但如果我们为此发生争执，这对我形成的危险微乎其微。我们双方都不会对此太感兴趣。所有这些对我们双方来说都无关宏旨；因此，虽然我们双方的意见相左，我们的感情却依然近乎相同。但是，如果涉及到那些对你和我都能产生特殊影响的客体，则当别论。虽然你经过沉思做出的判断，你因鉴赏而产生的情感都与我大相径庭，但我依然会轻易地包容这些截然相反的差异；而如果我有好的情绪，我还会发现你的谈话情趣盎然，即使谈到这些话题亦复如此。然而，如果你对我遭受的不幸，既无同情之心，也不分担我的悲痛；对我受到的伤害，既不义愤填膺，也不分担我因此产生的怨恨，我就会三缄其口，不再谈论这些话题。一旦如此，我们彼此之间就会冰火不能同器，进而鸡犬之声相闻，老死不相往来。我的情之激，行之烈，你却惑然不解，你如此麻木不仁，如此冷漠无情，实在令我五内俱焚，怒不可遏。

6．

    In all such cases, that there may be some correspondence of

sentiments between the spectator and the person principally

concerned, the spectator must, first of all, endeavour, as much

as he can, to put himself in the situation of the other, and to

bring home to himself every little circumstance of distress which

can possibly occur to the sufferer. He must adopt the whole case

of his companion with all its minutest incidents; and strive to

render as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situation

upon which his sympathy is founded.

   在所有这些情况之下，旁观者和当事者之间也可能存在某些情感的一致，不过旁观者首先必须竭尽全力，通过设身处地的想象，细致入微地深切感受到受难者可能遭遇的险恶环境。他对同伴的情况必须全盘接收；而且力求不折不扣地去想象其怜悯之心赖以存在的环境变化。

7．

    After all this, however, the emotions of the spectator will

still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt

by the sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never

conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion

which naturally animates the person principally concerned. That

imaginary change of situation, upon which their sympathy is

founded, is but momentary. The thought of their own safety, the

thought that they themselves are not really the sufferers,

continually intrudes itself upon them; and though it does not

hinder them from conceiving a passion somewhat analogous to what

is felt by the sufferer, hinders them from conceiving any thing

that approaches to the same degree of violence. The person

principally concerned is sensible of this, and at the same time

passionately desires a more complete sympathy. He longs for that

relief which nothing can afford him but the entire concord of the

affections of the spectators with his own. To see the emotions of

their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the

violent and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole

consolation. But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his

passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of

going along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say

so, the sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to

harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are about him.

What they feel, will, indeed, always be, in some respects,

different from what he feels, and compassion can never be exactly

the same with original sorrow; because the secret consciousness

that the change of situations, from which the sympathetic

sentiment arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in degree,

but, in some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite

different modification. These two sentiments, however, may, it is

evident, have such a correspondence with one another, as is

sufficient for the harmony of society. Though they will never be

unisons, they may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or

required.

   然而在所有这些之后，旁观者的情感将依然不会像受难者那样激烈。人类，虽然同情之心与生俱来，但对于他人所遭遇的不幸，却根本无法想象出当事者心中自然激发的情感究竟会激烈到何种程度。对怜悯之心赖以存在的环境变化所做出的想象，不过是瞬间即逝而已。对自身安全的考虑，对自己并非真是受难者的想法，依然继续充斥他们的头脑；不过这种情况既不妨碍他们对类似受难者所感受的一种激情加以想象，也不妨碍他们对任何势必具有相同激烈度的事情加以设想。当事者对此当然十分敏感，而且同时还期待着获得更充分的同情。他渴望得到宽慰，然而这种宽慰只能使他体验到旁观者和他本人在情感上已臻于全然的和谐一致，仅此而已。从各方面观察并发现他们内心的激情，在那些强烈的郁闷情绪中与他自己达成一致，一种绝无仅有的快慰便应运而生。不过，为达此目的，他只能依靠降低自己激情的档次，只有如此，旁观者才能与他并行不悖。他必须削减自己本能的锐气，如果能允许我这样说的话，才能降调行事，以便和那些与己相关者在情感上实现和谐一致。旁观者的感受，的确在某些方面，将永远有别于受难者的感受，同情之心根本无法与原始悲痛丝毫不差；因为对同情之心赖以生成的环境变化所产生的潜意识，仅仅是想象而已，与真实情况相比，这种潜意识不仅在程度上有所降低，而且在性质上也有某种程度的区别，也正是因为如此，它才会受到各种不同的限制，从而面目皆非。不过，这两种情感显然可能会达成一种足以促进社会和谐的谐调一致。虽然二者永远不可能一致，但是却可以和谐，而这，正是人们所缺乏或者所需要的。

8．

    In order to produce this concord, as nature teaches the

spectators to assume the circumstances of the person principally

concerned, so she teaches this last in some measure to assume

those of the spectators. As they are continually placing

themselves in his situation, and thence conceiving emotions

similar to what he feels; so he is as constantly placing himself

in theirs, and thence conceiving some degree of that coolness

about his own fortune, with which he is sensible that they will

view it. As they are constantly considering what they themselves

would feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is as

constantly led to imagine in what manner he would be affected if

he was only one of the spectators of his own situation. As their

sympathy makes them look at it, in some measure, with his eyes,

so his sympathy makes him look at it, in some measure, with

theirs, especially when in their presence and acting under their

observation: and as the reflected passion, which he thus

conceives, is much weaker than the original one, it necessarily

abates the violence of what he felt before he came into their

presence, before he began to recollect in what manner they would

be affected by it, and to view his situation in this candid and

impartial light.

   为了达到这种和谐，正如天性教导旁观者们要设想当事者的处境一样，她也教导当事者在某种程度上也要设想旁观者们的处境。因为旁观者们不断地将自己置身于当事者的处境，因此就想象出了与当事者相似的情感；所以当事者也不断地将自己置身于旁观者们的处境，因此也就在某种程度上设想出自己命运的萧条冷寂，而因为如此，他才敏感地意识到旁观者们也必将会考虑这一问题。因为他们正在不断地考虑，如果实际上他们就是受难者，他们自己将会有何感觉，与此相应，当事者也会不断地被引导着去想象，如果他自己就是自己环境中的一名旁观者，那该以何种方式受到影响。旁观者们出于同情心，或多或少地会以当事者的观点来看待这一问题，反之，由于当事者出于同情心，也或多或少地会以旁观者的观点来看待这一问题，尤其是当这位当事者的表现和举动处在旁观者的监督之下时，就更是如此：当事者通过假设产生的反射性激情，如果远远不如原始激情强烈，他就势必会削弱自己置身于旁观者监督之前形成的情感，削弱在开始回忆他们将以何种方式受到影响之前所产生的情感，削弱在开始以这种公正的，毫无偏见的观点观察环境之前产生的情感。

9．

    The mind, therefore, is rarely so disturbed, but that the

company of a friend will restore it to some degree of

tranquillity and sedateness. The breast is, in some measure,

calmed and composed the moment we come into his presence. We are

immediately put in mind of the light in which he will view our

situation, and we begin to view it ourselves in the same light;

for the effect of sympathy is instantaneous. We expect less

sympathy from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot

open to the former all those little circumstances which we can

unfold to the latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity

before him, and endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general

outlines of our situation which he is willing to consider. We

expect still less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we

assume, therefore, still more tranquillity before them, and

always endeavour to bring down our passion to that pitch, which

the particular company we are in may be expected to go along

with. Nor is this only an assumed appearance: for if we are at

all masters of ourselves, the presence of a mere acquaintance

will really compose us, still more than that of a friend; and

that of an assembly of strangers still more than that of an

acquaintance.

   思想于是就会出现少见的烦恼，但是有一位朋友陪伴却能或多或少地使之恢复平静与安宁。就在他进入我们的视野之际，情绪在某种程度上便会镇定自若。我们立即就会想到他将会观察我们的环境，而我们自己则开始以相同的观点来审视自己的环境；因为同情心的作用稍纵即逝。以一位普通相识者与一位朋友相比，在我们的心目中，从前者那里得到的同情要少于从后者那里得到的：我们不能把对朋友公开的所有那些小环境，原封不动地展示给普通相识者：因此我们会设想在朋友面前我们的心情会安静得多，从而将我们的思想都集中到自己那些他乐于思考的环境之要点上。我们从一群陌生人那里所能期待的同情心会更少，因此我们会设想在他们面前我们心情的宁静也会更少，于是坚持把我们的激情从只有在特殊陪伴中才能达到的高度降低下来。其实下述情况并非仅仅是一种假设：因为如果我们能控制自己的情绪，一个仅仅是普通相识者的人出现在我们面前时，就真的会比一位朋友更能令我们安心镇静；而以此类推，一位陌生人的出现则又比一位普通相识者的出现更能令我们安心镇静。

10．

    Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful

remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any

time, it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best

preservatives of that equal and happy temper, which is so

necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment. Men of retirement

and speculation, who are apt to sit brooding at home over either

grief or resentment, though they may often have more humanity,

more generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet seldom possess

that equality of temper which is so common among men of the

world.

   因此，无论什么时候，如果情绪不幸一落千丈，交往和谈话在恢复情绪平静方面则是最具威力的灵丹妙药，同样，保持均衡稳定的愉悦心情，在确保自我满足以及自娱自乐方面也是不可或缺的。退休和从事投机生意的人，极易坐在家里因为悲伤和怨恨而愁肠寸断，郁郁寡欢，虽然他们经常会有更多的仁慈之心，更强的慷慨之情，以及一份美妙的荣誉感，然而却很少具备在世人中间极为普通的那种崇高品质。

Chap. V

Of the amiable and respectable virtues

第五章 论和蔼可亲及令人尊敬的品德

1．

    Upon these two different efforts, upon that of the spectator

to enter into the sentiments of the person principally concerned,

and upon that of the person principally concerned, to bring down

his emotions to what the spectator can go along with, are founded

two different sets of virtues. The soft, the gentle, the amiable

virtues, the virtues of candid condescension and indulgent

humanity, are founded upon the one: the great, the awful and

respectable, the virtues of self-denial, of self-government, of

that command of the passions which subjects all the movements of

our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the propriety

of our own conduct require, take their origin from the other.

   旁观者努力体谅当事者的情感，当事者则努力将自己的情感降低到能与旁观者和谐一致的水平，就在这两种努力的基础之上，形成了两大系列风格迥异的品德。温顺礼貌、和蔼可亲、公正谦卑、宽厚仁慈，这些美德建立在一种努力的基础上；庄重严肃、自谦自律、精于自治、严于克己，这些美德则建立在另一种努力的基础之上。而其中所谓的严于克己，则是指克制自己的激情，使之被纳入我们自己的尊严荣誉以及行为规范所要求的限制之内。

2．

    How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart

seems to reecho all the sentiments of those with whom he

converses, who grieves for their calamities, who resents their

injuries, and who rejoices at their good fortune! When we bring

home to ourselves the situation of his companions, we enter into

their gratitude, and feel what consolation they must derive from

the tender sympathy of so affectionate a friend. And for a

contrary reason, how disagreeable does he appear to be, whose

hard and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether

insensible to the happiness or misery of others! We enter, in

this case too, into the pain which his presence must give to

every mortal with whom he converses, to those especially with

whom we are most apt to sympathize, the unfortunate and the

injured.

   试想这样的人该有多么和蔼可亲呀！无论他和谁谈话，其同情心似乎都要对他们所有的情感都做出回应，他不仅为他们遭遇的不幸感到悲伤，也为他们受到的伤害感到义愤，更对他们的时来运转感到高兴！当我们切身体会到他的怜悯之心时，我们就会和他们一样产生感激之情，也能感觉到他们从这样一位深情的朋友温馨的同情心中获得怎样的慰藉。反之，他又该是怎样的令人生厌！他那颗冷酷无情的铁石心肠只关心他自己，而对别人的快乐与痛苦毫不关心，麻木不仁。在这种情况之下，我们同样会体会到他的表现给每一个和他谈话的普通人，尤其是那些我们最易同情的不幸者和被伤害者所造成的痛苦。

3．

   On the other hand, what noble propriety and grace do we feel

in the conduct of those who, in their own case, exert that

recollection and self-command which constitute the dignity of

every passion, and which bring it down to what others can enter

into! We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without

any delicacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears and

importunate lamentations. But we reverence that reserved, that

silent and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only in the

swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks,

and in the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole

behaviour. It imposes the like silence upon us. We regard it with

respectful attention, and watch with anxious concern over our

whole behaviour, lest by any impropriety we should disturb that

concerted tranquillity, which it requires so great an effort to

support.

   另一方面，在这样一些人的行为中我们会感到他们该是多么地高尚，多么地有风度！他们自己尽力保持构成各种情感所不可或缺的平静心情和自我克制，并且使之达到他人能够体谅的程度。我们厌恶那种闹闹嚷嚷的悲伤，它使当事者毫无风度地呼唤我们以叹息和泪水，乃至的被迫而为的嚎啕痛哭来表达怜悯之心。然而我们尊敬那种有节制、沉默不语、体面的悲伤，这种悲伤只能在红肿的眼睛中发现，只能在抽搐的双唇和面颊上发现，只能在行为中那些隐隐约约，但却感人至深的冷漠中发现。它把类似的沉默灌注给我们。我们则以崇敬之心给予关注，进而焦虑地关注我们自己的行为，怕的是我们会因为自己举止的不得体而干扰相互和谐的宁静，这种宁静则需要以巨大的努力

加以维持。

4．

    The insolence and brutality of anger, in the same manner,

when we indulge its fury without check or restraint, is, of all

objects, the most detestable. But we admire that noble and

generous resentment which governs its pursuit of the greatest

injuries, not by the rage which they are apt to excite in the

breast of the sufferer, but by the indignation which they

naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator; which

allows no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more

equitable sentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought,

attempts any greater vengeance, nor desires to inflict any

greater punishment, than what every indifferent person would

rejoice to see executed.

   当我们毫无节制地大发雷霆之怒，因而表现得傲慢无礼，粗暴蛮横时，这种表现无论针对何种客体都是最令人厌恶的。然而，我们却赞赏那种高尚脱俗、宽宏大度的愤慨之情，这种愤慨能够控制自身可能造成的伤害，而且凭借的手段并非那种易于产生在受害者心中的勃然大怒，而是凭借在公允旁观者心中自然产生的义愤，这种愤慨的表达无需一言一词，一举一动，就能避免使之超乎与之相同的情感所能支配的程度；这种愤慨根本无意采取过于严厉的报复行动，所谓过于严厉，是指超出所有公允的人所乐于见到的程度。

5．

    And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for

ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our

benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human

nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of

sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and

propriety. As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the

great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature

to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to

the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.

   因此，正是那种顾及他人多余自己，既能自我克制，又能遍施仁慈的情操，才造就了最完美的人性；正是这种情操就能独自在人间营造愤慨与激情的和谐，而愤慨与激情也只有在这种和谐之中才显得恰如其分，魅力无穷。爱邻居就像爱我们自己，这是基督教的伟大法规，因此，爱我们自己就像爱我们的邻居，或者同样可以说，就像我们的邻居能够爱我们一样，这是有关人性的伟大格言。

6．

    As taste and good judgment, when they are considered as

qualities which deserve praise and admiration, are supposed to

imply a delicacy of sentiment and an acuteness of understanding

not commonly to be met with; so the virtues of sensibility and

self-command are not apprehended to consist in the ordinary, but

in the uncommon degrees of those qualities. The amiable virtue of

humanity requires, surely, a sensibility, much beyond what is

possessed by the rude vulgar of mankind. The great and exalted

virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly demands much more than that

degree of self-command, which the weakest of mortals is capable

of exerting. As in the common degree of the intellectual

qualities, there is no abilities; so in the common degree of the

moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence, something

uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is

vulgar and ordinary. The amiable virtues consist in that degree

of sensibility which surprises by its exquisite and unexpected

delicacy and tenderness. The awful and respectable, in that

degree of self-command which astonishes by its amazing

superiority over the most ungovernable passions of human nature.

   行为得体以及判断准确被认为是值得赞扬与钦佩的美德时，它们也许正体现一种难得一见的细腻的情感和精确的理解，正如这样，情感与自制的美德也不会被认为存在于一般品质中，而是存在于超乎寻常的品质中。人性中和蔼可亲的美德一定需要一种远远超乎凡夫俗子所具备的品质。宽宏大量这种崇高伟大的美德，所需要的情感自制无疑要超出意志薄弱者所具备的水平。正如仅有一般的智力，才智无从谈起，仅有一般的品德，美德也无从谈起。美德乃出类拔萃，并非一般的伟大与美好，远非庸俗粗鄙以及平淡无奇所能企及。和蔼可亲的美德赖以存在的情感，以其高雅脱俗、出人意表的细腻与温馨令世人惊叹。而令人敬畏、令人钦佩的美德所赖以存在的情感自制，绝对能控制人性中存在的那些最难以驾驭的激情，而这，正是其惊人魅力之所在。

7．

    There is, in this respect, a considerable difference between

virtue and mere propriety; between those qualities and actions

which deserve to be admired and celebrated, and those which

simply deserve to be approved of. Upon many occasions, to act

with the most perfect propriety, requires no more than that

common and ordinary degree of sensibility or self-command which

the most worthless of mankind are possest of, and sometimes even

that degree is not necessary. Thus, to give a very low instance,

to eat when we are hungry, is certainly, upon ordinary occasions,

perfectly right and proper, and cannot miss being approved of as

such by every body. Nothing, however, could be more absurd than

to say it was virtuous.

在这方面，在美德与仅仅得体之间，在那些值得钦佩与赞颂的品德及行动，与那些仅仅值得赞同的品德之间，都存在一种相当大的差异。在很多情况之下，即便行为极其得体，所需要的也不过就是最无足轻重的凡人都能具备的一般情感与自制，有时连这样的水准都无需具备。于是乎，不妨举一格最普通的例子，我们饿了就吃，这是理所当然之事，在一般情况下，完全正确，绝对适宜，不会受到任何人的反对。然而，如果说这就是美德，那可就再荒谬不过了。

8．

    On the contrary, there may frequently be a considerable

degree of virtue in those actions which fall short of the most

perfect propriety; because they may still approach nearer to

perfection than could well be expected upon occasions in which it

was so extremely difficult to attain it: and this is very often

the case upon those occasions which require the greatest

exertions of self-command. There are some situations which bear

so hard upon human nature, that the greatest degree of

self-government, which can belong to so imperfect a creature as

man, is not able to stifle, altogether, the voice of human

weakness, or reduce the violence of the passions to that pitch of

moderation, in which the impartial spectator can entirely enter

into them. Though in those cases, therefore, the behaviour of the

sufferer fall short of the most perfect propriety, it may still

deserve some applause, and even in a certain sense, may be

denominated virtuous. It may still manifest an effort of

generosity and magnanimity of which the greater part of men are

incapable; and though it fails of absolute perfection, it may be

a much nearer approximation towards perfection, than what, upon

such trying occasions, is commonly either to be found or to be

expected.

   恰恰相反，在那些并非完全得体的行为中，可能也经常会存在相当程度的美德；因为这些行为接近完美无缺的程度，依然会超过人们在另外一些情况下的期待，而在那些情况下，这些行为则绝难达到完美无缺：在那些需要极强自制力的情况下，这种情况并非少见。有一些情况对人性造成的影响巨大无比，以至于像我们人类这样并非十全十美的生灵所具备的极度自制力，都既不能完全压抑人类微弱的呼声，也不能恰如其分地将激情降低到只有为公允的旁观者所能体谅的程度。虽然在那些情况下，受苦者的行为会因此无法尽善尽美，但依然值得赞赏，而且在某种意义上来说，甚至可以被称之为美德。它依然可以表明为达到大多数人难以企及的宽宏大度而做出的努力；虽然无法达到至善至美，但与困境中所常见或可期待的程度相比，它依然可以算是最接近完美的。

9．

    In cases of this kind, when we are determining the degree of

blame or applause which seems due to any action, we very

frequently make use of two different standards. The first is the

idea of complete propriety and perfection, which, in those

difficult situations, no human conduct ever did, or ever can

come, up to; and in comparison with which the actions of all men

must for ever appear blameable and imperfect. The second is the

idea of that degree of proximity or distance from this complete

perfection, which the actions of the greater part of men commonly

arrive at. Whatever goes beyond this degree, how far soever it

may be removed from absolute perfection, seems to deserve

applause; and whatever falls short of it, to deserve blame.

在这种情况之下，当我们决定对某些行为采取何种程度的反对或赞同态度时，我们经常利用两种不同的标准。第一种就是绝对的得体和完善，这在那些困境中，从来没有人做到过，或者说根本就没有人那样去做；相比之下，所有人的行为看来都必然是可以指摘和有失完美的。第二种就是大多数人的行为对于尽善尽美所能达到的近似度或差距。无论是什么情况，只要高于这一普通程度，也不管它距离绝对完美的距离还有多远，它似乎依然可以得到赞许；如果做不到这一点，那当然就只能遭到指摘。

10．

    It is in the same manner that we judge of the productions of

all the arts which address themselves to the imagination. When a

critic examines the work of any of the great masters in poetry or

painting, he may sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection,

in his own mind, which neither that nor any other human work will

ever come up to; and as long as he compares it with this

standard, he can see nothing in it but faults and imperfections.

But when he comes to consider the rank which it ought to hold

among other works of the same kind, he necessarily compares it

with a very different standard, the common degree of excellence

which is usually attained in this particular art; and when he

judges of it by this new measure, it may often appear to deserve

the highest applause, upon account of its approaching much nearer

to perfection than the greater part of those works which can be

brought into competition with it.

 

      我们也以同样的方式来判断那些充满想象力的所有艺术产品。当一位评论家评审任何一位诗歌或绘画大师的作品时，他有时可能以自己一种完美无缺的思想做标准，而这一标准，无论是那位大师，还是任何其他人的作品都无法达到；只要他以这种标准来衡量，他就会发现，那件作品除了谬误和缺陷之外一无是处。然而，如果考虑到这件作品在其它同类作品中应有的等级时，他就自然会采用一种非常不同的标准，即，在这一特殊艺术品类中，这件作品通常会达到的一般的精彩度；而当他以这种新尺度来评判这件作品时，它就经常会显得应该受到极高的评价，因为此时此刻，这件作品接近完美的程度，要远远超过同类大部分作品在与其竞争中所能达到的水平。