《道德情操论·卷一·论行为的合宜性·一之二·论相互同情的愉快》第4节
As the person who is principally interested in any event is pleased with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we, too, seem to be pleased when we are able to sympathize with him, and to be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to congratulate the successful, but to condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in all the passions of his heart we can entirely sympathize with, seems to do more than compensate the painfulness of that sorrow with which the view of his situation affects us. On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce {16} no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it levity and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.
注释摘要
斯密在这一节里做了一个方向上的翻转。此前他一直在说，那个身在某种处境中、心有所感的人，会因为旁观者与他同感而愉快，因为旁观者不同感而痛苦。现在他把箭头掉转过来：不但当事人如此，旁观者自己也是这样的。我们能够与他人的情感同步时，会感到愉快；做不到时，会感到不适。这不是什么道德义务使然，而是心理事实。 他用的观察材料都很具体。我们当然会跑去祝贺成功的人，也会跑…