《旧制度与大革命·卷一·第四章·全欧曾有相同制度又处处崩坏》第2节
In all three the government was carried on according to the same maxims, political assemblies were formed out of the same elements, and invested with the same powers. Society was divided in the same manner, and the same gradation of classes subsisted in each; in all three the position of the nobles, their privileges, their characteristics, and their disposition were identical; as men they were not distinguishable, but rather, properly speaking, the same men in every place. The municipal constitutions were alike; the rural districts were governed in the same manner. The condition of the peasantry differed but little; the land was owned, occupied, and tilled after the same fashion, and the cultivators were subjected to the same burthens. From the confines of Poland to the Irish Channel, the Lord’s estate, the manorial courts, the fiefs, the quit-rents, feudal service, feudal rights, and the corporations or trading guilds, were all alike. Sometimes the very names were the same; and what is still more remarkable, the same spirit breathes in all these analogous institutions. I think I may venture to affirm, that in the fourteenth century the social, political, administrative, judicial, economical, and literary institutions of Europe were more nearly akin to each other than they are at the present time, when civilisation appears to have opened all the channels of communication, and to have levelled every obstacle. It is no part of my scheme to relate how this ancient constitution of Europe gradually became wasted and decayed; it is sufficient to remark that in the eighteenth century it was everywhere falling into ruin. On the whole, its decline was less marked in the east than in the west of the continent; but on all sides old age and decrepitude were visible. The progress of this gradual decay of the institutions of the Middle Ages may be followed in the archives of the different nations. It is well known that each manor kept rolls called terriers, in which from century to century were recorded the limits of fiefs and the quit-rents, the dues, the services to be rendered, and the local customs. I have seen rolls of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries which are masterpieces of method, perspicuity, concision, and acuteness. The further we advance towards modern times the more obscure, ill-digested, defective, and confused do they become, in spite of the general progress of enlightenment. It seems as if political society became barbarous, while civil society advances towards civilisation.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里所做的工作，是一种横向比较的社会形态学。他并非在追溯单一制度谱系，而是在跨越法兰西、英格兰与德意志三地之后，得出一个令他本人也感到惊异的判断：中世纪欧洲的政治与社会结构，在其根本原则上具有惊人的一致性。请注意，这种一致性不是细枝末节的相似，而是政府运转的信条、政治议会的构成要素与授权方式、社会阶层的划分逻辑，乃至贵族的精神气质，都如同出自…