《道德情操论·卷一·论行为的合宜性·三之一·同情悲伤何以强于同情快乐》第1节
OUR sympathy with sorrow, though not more real, has been more taken notice of than our sympathy with joy. The word sympathy, in its most proper and primitive signification, denotes our fellow-feeling with the sufferings, not that with the enjoyments, of others. A late ingenious and subtile philosopher thought it necessary to prove, by arguments, that we had a real sympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human nature. Nobody, I believe, ever thought it necessary to prove that compassion was such. First of all, our sympathy with sorrow is, in some sense, more universal than that with joy. Though sorrow is excessive, we may still have some fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does not, indeed, in this case, amount to that complete sympathy, to that perfect harmony and correspondence of sentiments, which constitutes approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the sufferer. We are sensible, on the contrary, of his weakness and of the extravagance of his passion, and yet often feel a very sensible concern upon his account. But if we do not entirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of another, we have no sort of regard or fellow feeling for it. The man who skips and dances about with that intemperate and senseless joy which we cannot accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and indignation. Pain besides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent sensation than pleasure, and our sympathy with pain, though it falls greatly short of what is naturally felt by the sufferer, is generally a more lively and distinct perception than our sympathy with pleasure, though this last often approaches more nearly, as I shall show immediately, to the natural vivacity of the original passion.
注释摘要
这段开场白里，斯密要处理的是一个明显的反直觉现象：为什么人们日常更注意对悲伤的同情，对快乐的同情反倒不怎么提？他并没有急着反驳这个日常印象，而是先承认它背后的根据，再逐步揭示它的限度。 他从词本身入手。sympathy这个词最严格最原本的意义，就是指跟别的人受苦受难时发生的那种共感，而不是跟快乐享受的共感。这不是他随便说说，而是反映十八世纪英语的实际用法。…