《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十五章·何以法国人先求改革后求自由》第6节
As nothing was as yet to be found about them which came up to this ideal, they sought it in the depths of Asia. I affirm, without exaggeration, that there is not one of these writers who has not, in some of his productions, passed an emphatic eulogy on China. That, at least, is always to be found in their books; and, as China was still very imperfectly known, there is no trash they have not written about that empire. That stupid and barbarous government, which a handful of Europeans can overpower when they please, appeared to them the most perfect model to be copied by all the nations of the earth. China was to them what England, and subsequently the United States, became for all Frenchmen. They expressed their emotion and enchantment at the aspect of a country, whose sovereign, absolute but unprejudiced, drives a furrow once a year with his own hands in honour of the useful arts; where all public employments are obtained by competitive examination, and which has a system of philosophy for its religion, and men of letters for its aristocracy. It is supposed that the destructive theories which are designated in our times by the name of socialism are of recent origin: this, again, is a mistake; these theories are contemporary with the first French school of economists. Whilst they were intent on employing the all-powerful government they had conceived in order to change the form of society, other writers grasped in imagination the same power to subvert its foundations. In the Code de la Nature, by Morelly, will be found, side by side with the doctrines of the economists on the omnipotence and unlimited rights of the State, several of the political theories which have most alarmed the French nation in these later times, and which are supposed to have been born before our eyes--community of goods, the right to labour, absolute equality of conditions, uniformity in all things, a mechanical regularity in all the movements of individuals, a tyranny to regulate every action of daily life, and the complete absorption of the personality of each member of the community into the whole social body.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里，把前文对重农学派思想逻辑的剖析推到了极致。他的推理线索很清楚：既然这些经济学家迷恋一种无限的、一元化的国家权力，却又在当时的欧洲找不到现成的样板，他们自然就把目光投向了遥远而朦胧的东方。他对中国的描绘带着毫不掩饰的轻蔑，但这股轻蔑背后不是随意嘲讽，而是要揭穿一个思想陷阱——当一群改革者以理性与公共效用之名，试图用最高的行政权去重塑整个社…