《道德情操论·卷四·论效用对赞同感的作用·一·论效用的外观赋予器物的美》第2节
When a person comes into his chamber, and finds the chairs all standing in the middle of the room, he is angry with his servant, and rather than see them continue in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble himself to set them all in their places with their backs to the wall. The whole propriety of this new situation arises from its superior conveniency in leaving the floor free and disengaged. To attain this conveniency he voluntarily puts himself to more trouble than all he could have suffered from the want of it; since nothing was more easy, than to have set himself down upon one of them, which is probably what he does when his labour is over. What he wanted, therefore, it seems, was not so much this conveniency, as that arrangement of things which promotes it. Yet it is this conveniency alone which may ultimately recommend that arrangement, and bestows upon it the whole of its propriety and beauty. A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two minutes in a day, is despised by one curious in watches. He sells it perhaps for a couple of guineas, and purchases another at fifty, which will not lose above a minute in a fortnight. The sole use of watches, however, is to tell us what o'clock it is, and to hinder us from breaking any engagement, or suffering any other inconveniency by our ignorance in that particular point. But the person so nice with regard to this machine, will not always be found either more scrupulously punctual than other men, or more anxiously concerned upon any other account, to know precisely what time of day it is. What interests him is not so much the attainment of this piece of knowledge, as the perfection of the machine which enables him to attain it. How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew's-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.
注释摘要
斯密在这一段里提出了一个前人未曾注意到的心理现象：人往往更看重器物或系统的精巧合宜，而不是它所促成的那个实际目的。这个观察是对休谟效用论的修正，也是全章的核心起点。 他先用椅子的例子铺开论证。一个人进屋，看见椅子全散放在房间中央，便对仆人发火，宁可自己动手把它们靠墙排好。这一番操劳，比他直接从乱椅子中拖一把坐下累得多。可他要的显然不是通行无阻的方便——因为…