《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十三章·十八世纪中叶文人何以成为首要政客》第10节
It is singular that the French have preserved the habits which they had derived from literature, whilst they have almost entirely lost their ancient love of literature itself. I have been frequently astonished in the course of my own public life, to see that men who had never read the works of the eighteenth century, or of any other, and who had a great contempt for authors, nevertheless so faithfully retain some of the principal defects which were displayed before their birth by the literary spirit of that day.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这里写下了一个刻薄的观察：某种思维方式一旦从文学中脱胎而出，就可以完全脱离对文学本身的尊重而独立存活。他所说的“习惯”并不是指法国人热爱阅读或崇尚作家，而是指十八世纪文人所养成的那种政治思考的风格——对抽象原则的偏好、对普遍体系的迷恋、对既存事实的轻蔑、对逻辑对称的追求，以及那种用堂皇的概括性词语替代具体事物名称的语言习性。这些东西原本是文人在书…