《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第二十章·革命自然从既有事实中产生》第2节
France being one of the states of Europe in which all political life had been for the longest time and most effectually extinguished, in which private persons had most lost the usage of business, the habit of reading the course of events, the experience of popular movements and almost the notion of the people, it may readily be imagined how all Frenchmen came at once to fall into a frightful Revolution without foreseeing it; those who were most threatened by that catastrophe leading the way, and undertaking to open and widen the path which led to it. As there were no longer any free institutions, or consequently any political classes, no living political bodies, no organised or disciplined parties, and as, in the absence of all these regular forces, the direction of public opinion, when public opinion came again into being, devolved exclusively on the French philosophers, it might be expected that the Revolution would be directed less with a view to a particular state of facts, than with reference to abstract principles and very general theories: it might be anticipated that instead of endeavouring separately to amend the laws which were bad, all laws would be attacked, and that an attempt would be made to substitute for the ancient constitution of France an entirely novel system of government, conceived by these writers. The Church being naturally connected with all the old institutions which were doomed to perish, it could not be doubted that the Revolution would shake the religion of the country when it overthrew the civil government; wherefore it was impossible to foretell to what pitch of extravagance these innovators might rush, delivered at once from all the restraints which religion, custom, and law impose on the imagination of mankind.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里给出的是一个层层剥开的因果推论：法国之所以会以那样的方式跌入一场自身毫无预见的革命，根源在于政治生活已经被窒息到了极致。他所说的政治生活被扑灭，指的不是没有行政机构，而是私人——即普通人不担任公职者——已经长久丧失了处理公共事务的经验，丧失了观察事态走向的习惯，丧失了参与民众运动的历练，甚至几乎丧失了对于“人民”这个概念本身的感知。这是一…