《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9节
This difference gives occasion to many others that are not less essential. A polished people being accustomed to give way, in some measure, to the movements of nature, become frank, open, and sincere. Barbarians, on the contrary, being obliged to smother and conceal the appearance of every passion, necessarily acquire the habits of falsehood and dissimulation. It is observed by all those who have been conversant with savage nations, whether in Asia, Africa, or America, that they are equally impenetrable, and that, when they have a mind to conceal the truth, no examination is capable of drawing it from them. They cannot be trepanned by the most artful questions. The torture itself is incapable of making them confess any thing which they have no mind to tell. The passions of a savage too, though they never express themselves by an outward emotion, but lie concealed in the breast of the sufferer, are, notwithstanding, all mounted to the highest pitch of fury. Though he seldom shows any symptoms of anger, yet his vengeance, when he comes to give way to it, is always sanguinary and dreadful. The least affront drives him to despair. His countenance and discourse indeed, are still sober and composed, and express nothing {185} but the most perfect tranquillity of mind: but his actions are often the most furious and violent. Among the North Americans it is not uncommon for persons of the tenderest age and more fearful sex to drown themselves upon receiving only a slight reprimand from their mothers, and this too without expressing any passion, or saying any thing, except, you shall no longer have a daughter. In civilized nations the passions of men are not commonly so furious or so desperate. They are often clamorous and noisy, but are seldom very hurtful; and seem frequently to aim at no other satisfaction, but that of convincing the spectator, that they are in the right to be so much moved, and of procuring his sympathy and approbation. All these effects of custom and fashion, however, upon the moral sentiments of mankind, are inconsiderable, in comparison of those which they give occasion to in some other cases; and it is not concerning the general style of character and behaviour, that those principles produce the greatest perversion of judgment, but concerning the propriety or impropriety of particular usages.
注释摘要
斯密在此处推进了一个看似悖论却极有穿透力的观察：文明的、有教养的民族因为被允许在某种程度上顺应自然的冲动，反而变得坦率、开放、真诚；野蛮的民族因为被迫压抑和隐藏每一种激情的外在表现，反而必然养成了虚伪和掩饰的习惯。这个判断建立在他对同情机制的理解之上。在一个人们可以期待旁观者进入其处境、理解其情感的社会里，表达情感本身就是一种寻求同感的行为，表达者相信旁观…