《道德情操论·卷五·论习惯与风尚对道德情感的影响·二·论习惯与风尚对道德情感的影响》第3节
The objects with which men in the different professions and states of life are conversant, being very different, and habituating them to very different passions, naturally form in them very different characters and manners. We expect in each rank and profession, a degree of those manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to it. But as in each species of things, we are particularly pleased with the middle conformation, which, in every part and feature, agrees most exactly with the general standard which nature seems to have established for things of that kind; so in each rank, or, if I may say so, in each species of men, we are particularly pleased, if they have neither too much, nor too little of the character which usually accompanies their particular condition and situation. A man, we say, should look like his trade and profession; yet the pedantry of every profession is disagreeable. The different periods of life have, for the same reason, different manners assigned to them. We expect in old age, that gravity and sedateness which its infirmities, its long experience, and its worn-out sensibility seem to render both natural and respectable; and we lay our account to find in youth that sensibility, that gaiety and sprightly vivacity which experience teaches us to expect from the lively impressions that all interesting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpractised senses of that early period of life. Each of those two ages, however, may easily have too much of these peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting levity of youth, and the immovable insensibility of old age, are equally disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, are most agreeable when in their behaviour there is something of the manners of the old, and the old, when they retain something of the gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much of the manners of the other. The extreme coldness, and the dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. The levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in youth, will render old age contemptible.
注释摘要
斯密在这一段里处理的是习惯如何塑造我们对不同职业与人生阶段的行为期望。他的论证沿两个层次展开：先说明不同职业和生活状态使人养成的不同激情会自然形成不同的性格与举止；然后引入一种类似自然史的类比——就像在每一种自然物身上我们最喜欢那个恰好符合该类一般标准的中庸形态，在每一阶层或每一类人身上，我们也最喜欢那种不多不少恰好与其处境相称的性格表现。 这里的关键概念…