《道德情操论·卷一·论行为的合宜性·二之四·论友好的情感》第3节
Those amiable passions, even when they are acknowledged to be excessive, are never regarded with aversion. There is something agreeable even in the weakness of friendship and humanity. The too tender mother, the too indulgent father, the too generous and affectionate friend, may sometimes, perhaps, on account of the softness of their natures, be looked upon with a species of pity, in which, however, there is a mixture of love, but can never be regarded with hatred and aversion, nor even with contempt, unless by the most brutal and worthless of mankind. It is always with concern, with sympathy and kindness, that we blame them for the extravagance of their attachment. There is a helplessness in the character of extreme humanity which more than any thing interests our pity. There is nothing in itself which renders it either ungraceful or disagreeable. We only regret that it is unfit for the world, because the world is unworthy of it, and because it must expose the person who is endowed with it as a prey to the perfidy {39} and ingratitude of insinuating falsehood, and to a thousand pains and uneasinesses, which, of all men, he the least deserves to feel, and which generally too he is, of all men, the least capable of supporting. It is quite otherwise with hatred and resentment. Too violent a propensity to those detestable passions, renders a person the object of universal dread and abhorrence, who, like a wild beast, ought, we think, to be hunted out of all civil society.
注释摘要
这段论证在全书的结构里有一个清晰的推进逻辑。前面几节斯密花了大量篇幅说明，那些不友好的情感——愤怒、怨恨之类——之所以让人不舒服，是因为旁观者的同情被撕裂了：我们一边同情那个发怒的人，一边又同情那个被他针对的人，两股同情互相拉扯，结果就是别扭与反感。到了本节，他转而处理相反的一组情感，也就是慷慨、仁爱、善意、怜悯这些友好情感，而这段文字正是这个论证的收束点…