《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十一章·旧制度下所享有的那种自由及其影响》第10节
The men of the eighteenth century knew little of that sort of passion for comfort which is the mother of servitude--a relaxing passion, though it be tenacious and unalterable, which mingles and intertwines itself with many private virtues, such as domestic affections, regularity of life, respect for religion, and even with the lukewarm, though assiduous, practice of public worship, which favours propriety but proscribes heroism, and excels in making decent livers but base citizens. The men of the eighteenth century were better and they were worse. The French of that age were addicted to joy and passionately fond of amusement; they were perhaps more lax in their habits, and more vehement in their passions and opinions than those of the present day, but they were strangers to the temperate and decorous sensualism that we see about us. In the upper classes men thought more of adorning life than of rendering it comfortable; they sought to be illustrious rather than to be rich. Even in the middle ranks the pursuit of comfort never absorbed every faculty of the mind; that pursuit was often abandoned for higher and more refined enjoyments; every man placed some object beyond the love of money before his eyes. ‘I know my countrymen,’ said a contemporary writer, in language which, though eccentric, is spirited, ‘apt to melt and dissipate the metals, they are not prone to pay them habitual reverence, and they will not be slow to turn again to their former idols, to valour, to glory, and, I will add, to magnanimity.’
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里做的是旧制度精神气质的对比解剖，他把两代人放在同一天平上，一边是十八世纪的法国人，一边是一八五六年第二帝国治下的法国人，天平的支点是一个听起来温和、实则锋利的概念：对舒适的激情。这种激情他称之为奴役之母，不是因为它直接教人跪下，而是因为它把人格中的反抗棱角慢慢泡软，把人的全部心力从公共事务引向私人安乐的算计。他特别指出，这种激情并不以恶德…