《道德情操论·卷三·论评判自己情感与行为的基础·五·论道德一般准则的影响与权威》第9节
'Does it suit the greatness of God,' says the eloquent and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with that passionate and exaggerating force of imagination, which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of decorum; 'does it suit the greatness of God, to leave the world which he has created in so universal a disorder? To see the wicked prevail almost always over the just; the innocent dethroned by the usurper; the father become the victim of the ambition of an unnatural son; the husband expiring under the stroke of a barbarous and faithless wife? From the height of his greatness ought God to behold those melancholy events as a fantastical amusement, without taking any share in them? Because he is great, should he be weak, or unjust, or barbarous? Because men are little, ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute without punishment or virtuous without reward? O God! if this is the character of your Supreme Being; if it is you whom we adore under such dreadful ideas; I can no longer acknowledge you for my father, for my protector, for the comforter of my sorrow, the support of my weakness, the rewarder of my fidelity. You would then be no more than an indolent and fantastical tyrant, who sacrifices mankind to his vanity, and who has brought them out of nothing only to make them serve for the sport of his leisure and of his caprice.' When the general rules which determine the merit and demerit of actions, come thus to be regarded as the laws of an all-powerful Being, who watches over our conduct and, who, in a life to come, will reward {150} the observance, and punish the breach of them; they necessarily acquire a new sacredness from this consideration. That our regard to the will of the Deity ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be doubted of by nobody who believes his existence. The very thought of disobedience appears to involve in it the most shocking impropriety. How vain, how absurd would it be for man, either to oppose or to neglect the commands that were laid upon him by Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power! How unnatural, how impiously ungrateful, not to reverence the precepts that were prescribed to him by the infinite goodness of his Creator, even though no punishment was to follow their violation. The sense of propriety too is here well supported by the strongest motives of self-interest. The idea that, however we may escape the observation of man, or be placed above the reach of human punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye, and exposed to the punishment of God, the great avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining the most headstrong passions, with those at least who, by constant reflection, have rendered it familiar to them.
注释摘要
斯密在这里引用了克莱蒙主教的一段激昂的演说词，并用“那种激情洋溢又夸饰的想象力，有时似乎超出了合宜的界限”来形容它。这个评语值得留意。他称这位主教为“雄辩而富于哲思”，但紧接着就对他修辞上的剧烈程度做了一个温和的保留。换言之，斯密并非不加保留地赞同这段话的情绪强度，但他认为这段话所表达的道德直觉是真实而普遍的。 这一段的论证意图很清楚。斯密要说明，我们对道…