《道德情操论·卷一·论行为的合宜性·二·总论各种情感的合宜程度》第1节
INTRODUCTION.--The propriety of every passion excited by objects peculiarly related to ourselves, the pitch which the spectator can go along with, must lie, it is evident, in a certain mediocrity. If the passion is too high, or if it is too low, he cannot enter into it. Grief and resentment for private misfortunes and injuries may easily, for example, be too high, and in the greater part of mankind they are so. They may likewise, though this more rarely happens, be too low. We denominate the excess weakness and fury: and we call the defect stupidity, insensibility, and want of spirit. We can enter into neither of them, but are astonished and confounded to see them. This mediocrity, however, in which the point of propriety consists, is different in different passions. It is high in some, and low in others. There are some passions which it is indecent to express very strongly, even upon those occasions, in which it is acknowledged that we cannot avoid feeling them in the highest degree. And there are others of which the strongest expressions are upon many occasions extremely graceful, even though the passions themselves do not, perhaps, arise so necessarily. The first are those passions with which, for certain reasons, there is little or no sympathy: the second are those with which, for other reasons, there is the greatest. And if we consider all the different passions of human nature, we shall find that they are regarded as decent, or indecent, just in proportion as mankind are more or less disposed to sympathize with them.
注释摘要
这一段是斯密为接下来要讨论的各种具体情感，给出的一个总纲性的判断标准。他不是在凭空规定哪种情感该有多强，而是在追问一个观察得到的事实：当我们作为旁观者，看到另一个人被某个与自身密切相关的事物激起情感时，我们能与之同感到什么程度。这个所谓的中道，不是算术平均数，也不是某种道德教科书开出的处方，而是旁观者在设身处地的想象中，恰好能够跟得上的那个强度。过了，我们…