《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6节
When in 1786 the secret papers of the Illuminati were seized in the hands of their principal chiefs, many anarchical documents were found among them, in which personal property was denounced as the source of all evil, and absolute equality of conditions was vaunted. In the archives of the same sect a list of adepts was found. It consisted entirely of the most distinguished names in Germany, princes, great nobles, and ministers: the founder of the sect was himself a professor of canon law. The King of Poland and Prince Frederick of Prussia were Rosicrucians. The new King of Prussia, who had just succeeded Frederick the Great on the throne, immediately sent for the leading Rosicrucians and intrusted to them important missions. ‘It is asserted,’ says Mounier in his books on these sects, ‘that several great personages of France and Germany, some of whom were Protestants, took the tonsure in order to be admitted into the sect of Strict Observance.’ Another thing well worthy of notice: it was a time when the sciences had discredited the marvellous, as they became more positive and more certain--when the inexplicable was easily taken for the false, and when in all things reason claimed to supersede authority, reality the imaginary, and free inquiry faith: nevertheless there was not one of the sects I have just mentioned but had some point of contact with the supernatural; all of them ended in some fantastic conclusion. Some of them were imbued with mystical conceptions: others fancied they had found out the secret to change some of the laws of nature. At that moment every species of enthusiasm might pass for science, every dreamer could find listeners, every impostor could find believers: nothing is more characteristic of the perplexed and agitated condition of men’s minds, running to and fro, like a benighted traveller who has lost his way, and who, instead of getting onward, doubles back upon his own footsteps. And it was not the common herd of the people who were at the head of these extravagances; men of letters, men of learning believed in alchemy, in the visible action of the demon, in the transmutation of metals, in the apparition of ghosts. Strange instance of belief in every form of absurdity, growing amidst the decay of religious convictions--of men putting faith in every invisible and supernatural influence, except in that of God!
注释摘要
托克维尔在这里展开了一组极具张力的悖论式观察。他并不是在考据秘密社团的组织史，而是在解剖大革命前欧洲精神构造中的深层矛盾。他举出1786年巴伐利亚查禁光明会的档案事件，意在揭示一个令人困惑的现象：那些在秘密文献中被宣扬的最激进观念——私有财产是一切罪恶之源、主张绝对的平等条件——竟然不是出自贫苦工匠或失地农民之手，而是出现在由君主、大贵族、大臣和教会法教授…