《旧制度与大革命·卷一·第二章·革命的根本目的并非如人所想》第1节
One of the first acts of the French Revolution was to attack the Church; and amongst all the passions born of the Revolution the first to be excited and the last to be allayed were the passions hostile to religion. Even when the enthusiasm for liberty had vanished, and tranquillity had been purchased at the price of servitude, the nation still revolted against religious authority. Napoleon, who had succeeded in subduing the liberal spirit of the French Revolution, made vain efforts to restrain its antichristian spirit; and even in our own time we have seen men who thought to atone for their servility towards the meanest agents of political power by insolence towards God, and who whilst they abandoned all that was most free, most noble, and most lofty in the doctrines of the Revolution, flattered themselves that they still remained true to its spirit by remaining irreligious. Nevertheless it is easy now to convince ourselves that the war waged against religions was but one incident of this great Revolution, a feature striking indeed but transient in its aspect, a passing result of the ideas, the passions, and special events which preceded and prepared it, and not an integral part of its genius. The philosophy of the eighteenth century has rightly been looked upon as one of the chief causes of the Revolution, and it is quite true that this philosophy was profoundly irreligious. But we must be careful to observe that it contains two distinct and separable parts. One of these relates to all the new or newly revived opinions concerning the condition of society, and the principles of civil and political laws, such, for instance, as the natural equality of mankind, and the abolition of all privileges of caste, of class, of profession, which is the consequence of that equality; the sovereignty of the people, the omnipotence of social power, the uniformity of laws. All these doctrines were not only causes of the French Revolution, they were its very substance: of all its effects they are the most fundamental, the most lasting, and the most true, as far as time is concerned.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段中处理的是一个极具迷惑性的历史表象：为什么法国大革命看起来首先是一场反宗教运动？他承认现象的真实性——攻击教会确是大革命最早的行动之一，反宗教的激情最先被点燃，最后才平息，甚至在自由的热情消亡、人们甘于政治屈从之后，那种对宗教权威的敌视依然存留。拿破仑压服了大革命的自由精神，却无法遏制其反基督教冲动。托克维尔进一步指出，在他自己所处的时代，…