《旧制度与大革命·卷一·第三章·何以这是一场政治革命却走了宗教革命的路》第2节
The general character of most religions is, that they deal with man by himself, without taking into consideration whatever the laws, the traditions, and the customs of each country may have added to his original nature. Their principal aim is to regulate the relations of man towards God, and the rights and duties of men towards each other, independently of the various forms of society. The rules of conduct which they inculcate apply less to the man of any particular country or period than to man as a son, a father, a servant, a master, or a neighbour. Being thus based on human nature itself, they are applicable to all men, and at all times, and in all places. It is owing to this cause that religious revolutions have so often spread over such vast spheres of action, and have seldom been confined, like political revolutions, to the territory of a single nation, or even of a single race. If we investigate this subject still more closely, we shall find that the more any religion has possessed the abstract and general character to which I refer, the wider has it spread, in spite of all differences of laws, of climate, and of races. The pagan religions of antiquity, which were all more or less bound up with the political constitution or the social condition of each nation, and which displayed even in their dogmas a certain national, and even municipal, character, seldom spread beyond their own territorial limits. They sometimes engendered intolerance and persecution, but proselytism was to them unknown. Accordingly there were no great religious revolutions in Western Europe previous to the introduction of Christianity, which easily broke through barriers that had been insurmountable to the pagan religions, and rapidly conquered a large portion of the human race. It is no disrespect to this holy religion to say, that it partly owed its triumph to the fact that it was more free than any other faith from everything peculiar to any one nation, form of government, social condition, period, or race. The French Revolution proceeded, as far as this world is concerned, in precisely the same manner that religious revolutions proceed with regard to the next; it looked upon the citizen in the abstract, irrespective of any particular society, just as most religions look upon man in general independently of time or country. It did not endeavour merely to define what were the especial rights of a French citizen, but what were the universal duties and rights of all men in political matters. It was by thus recurring to that which was least peculiar and, we might almost say, most natural in the principles of society and of government that the French Revolution was rendered intelligible to all men, and could be imitated in a hundred different places.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这里做的是一个比较逻辑学的核心推演。他问的不再是法国大革命在内容上是不是宗教的，而是它在传播方式和行动结构上为什么酷似一场宗教革命。要回答这个问题，他就得先定义宗教本身具备什么特征，再反过来看大革命是否也获得了同样的特征。他给出的关键词是抽象的普遍性。 他指出，多数宗教在对待人的时候，有意抛开各个国家法律、传统和习俗附加在人性之上的东西，直接从人…