《旧制度与大革命·卷三·第一章·大革命爆发之际人心的激荡与无所归依》第2节
George Forster, one of the companions of Captain Cook, to whose expedition he had been attached with his father as a naturalist, writes to Jacobi in 1779: ‘Things cannot remain as they are: this is announced by every symptom in the world of science, in the world of theology, and in that of politics. Much as my heart has hitherto desired peace, not less do I desire to see the arrival of this crisis on which such mighty hopes are founded.’ ‘Europe,’ he writes again in 1782, ‘seems to me on the brink of a horrible revolution; in truth the mass is so corrupt that bleeding may well be necessary.’ ‘The present state of society,’ said Jacobi, ‘presents to me nothing but the aspect of a dead and stagnant sea: that is why I could desire an inundation, be it what it may, even of barbarians, to sweep away this reeking marsh and lay bare a fresh soil.’ ‘We are living in the midst of shattered institutions and forms’--a monstrous chaos which everywhere reflects an image of dismay and of death.’ These things were written in a pretty country house, by wealthy people, surrounded by their literary friends, who passed their time in endless philosophical discussions which affected, excited, and inflamed them till they shed torrents of daily tears--in imagination. It was not the princes, the ministers, the rulers, or those, in short, who, in different capacities, were directing the march of affairs, who perceived that some great change was at hand. The idea that government could become quite different from what government then was,--that all which had lasted so long might be destroyed and superseded by that which as yet only existed in the brain of a few men of letters--the thought that the existing order of things might be overthrown to establish a new order in the midst of disorder and ruin, would have appeared to them an absurd illusion and a fantastic dream. The gradual improvement of society seemed to them the limit of the possible. It is a common error of the people who are called wise and practical in ordinary times, to judge by certain rules the men whose very object is to change or to destroy those rules. When a time is come at which passion takes the guidance of affairs, the beliefs of men of experience are less worthy of consideration than the schemes which engage the imagination of dreamers.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这段文字中揭示了大革命前夕一种极具悖论色彩的精神状态：对旧世界的彻底绝望与对新事物的炽烈期盼，竟然主要不是来自承受压迫最重的底层民众，而是出自那些生活优渥、饱读诗书的上层阶级。他引用了乔治·福斯特与雅可比的通信作为例证。福斯特是随库克船长远航的博物学家，见过原始社会的素朴，反过来看欧洲却只看到腐败透顶，于是说出“流血也许是必要的”这样的话。雅可比…