《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5节
Why should we be more ashamed to weep than to laugh before company? We may often have as real occasion to do the one as to do the other; but we always feel that the spectators are more likely to go along with us in the agreeable, than in the painful emotion. It is {45} always miserable to complain, even when we are oppressed by the most dreadful calamities. But the triumph of victory is not always ungraceful. Prudence, indeed, would often advise us to bear our prosperity with more moderation; because prudence would teach us to avoid that envy which this very triumph is, more than any thing, apt to excite. How hearty are the acclamations of the mob, who never bear any envy to their superiors, at a triumph or a public entry? And how sedate and moderate is commonly their grief at an execution? Our sorrow at a funeral generally amounts to no more than an affected gravity; but our mirth at a christening or a marriage, is always from the heart, and without any affectation. Upon these, and all such joyous occasions, our satisfaction, though not so durable, is often as lively as that of the persons principally concerned. Whenever we cordially congratulate our friends, which, however, to the disgrace of human nature, we do but seldom, their joy literally becomes our joy: we are, for the moment, as happy as they are: our heart swells and overflows with real pleasure: joy and complacency sparkle from our eyes, and animate every feature of our countenance, and every gesture of our body. But on the contrary, when we condole with our friends in their afflictions, how little do we feel, in comparison of what they feel? We sit down by them, we look at them, and while they relate to us the circumstances of their misfortune, we listen to them with gravity and attention. But while their narration is every moment interrupted by those natural bursts of passion which often seem almost to choke them in the midst of it; how far are the languid emotions of our hearts from keeping time to the transports of theirs? We may be sensible, at the same time, that their passion is natural, and no greater than what we ourselves might feel upon the like occasion. We may even inwardly reproach ourselves with our own want of sensibility, and perhaps, on that account, work ourselves up into an artificial sympathy, which however, when it is raised, is always the slightest and most transitory imaginable; and generally, as soon as we have left the room, vanishes, and is gone for ever. Nature, it seems, when she loaded us with our own sorrows, thought they were enough, and therefore did not command us to take any further share in those of others, than what was necessary to prompt us to relieve them.
注释摘要
斯密在这里提出了一个很坦率的问题：为什么我们在人前掉眼泪，总比在人前放声大笑更觉得难为情。他给出的解释，建立在他此前一整节所铺设的论证上——我们对他人喜悦的同情，实际上比我们对他人悲伤的同情要强烈得多，也顺畅得多。这个判断和他本节开头所说的“同情悲伤更引人注意”看似矛盾，其实是在区分两个层面：显眼的未必是强烈的；被我们反复意识到、反复挣扎着去应对的那种同情…