《道德情操论·卷一·论行为的合宜性·三之二·论野心的起源与等级的区别》第2节
When we consider the condition of the great, in those delusive colours in which the imagination is apt to paint it, it seems to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state which, in all our waking dreams and idle reveries, we had sketched out to ourselves as the final object of our desires. We feel, therefore, a peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it. We favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What pity, we think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a situation. We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to us, that death should at last put an end to such perfect enjoyment. It is cruel, we think, in Nature to compel them from their exalted stations to that humble, but hospitable home, which she has provided for all her children. Great king, live for ever! is the compliment which, after the manner of eastern adulation, we should readily make them, if experience did not teach us its absurdity. Every calamity that befals them, every injury that is done them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten times more compassion and resentment than he would have felt, had the same things happened to other men. It is the misfortune of kings only which afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble {50} in this respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are the chief which interest us upon the theatre; because, in spite of all that reason and experience can tell us to the contrary, the prejudices of the imagination attach to these two states a happiness superior to any other. To disturb, or to put an end to such perfect enjoyment, seems to be the most atrocious of all injuries. The traitor who conspires against the life of his monarch, is thought a greater monster than any other murderer. All the innocent blood that was shed in the civil wars provoked less indignation than the death of Charles I. A stranger to human nature, who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their inferiors, and the regret and indignation which they feel for the misfortunes and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine, that pain must be more agonizing, and the convulsions of death more terrible to persons of higher rank, than they are to those of meaner stations.
注释摘要
斯密在这一段进入了一个极易被误读的区域。他不是在赞美伟人，而是在解剖一种心理机制：想象力如何用虚幻的色彩描绘大人物的处境，使它看上去几乎成了完美幸福的抽象理念。这里的要害在于"抽象理念"——它不是从经验中归纳出来的，而是我们在白日梦和闲散幻想中自己描画出来的终极欲望对象。正因为这画面是我们自己画的，我们才会对它产生一种特殊的同情，偏袒他们的一切倾向，促成他…