《道德情操论·卷六·论德性的品质·三·论自制》第12节
Our sensibility to the pleasures, to the amusements, and enjoyments of human life, may offend, in the same manner, either by its excess or by its defect. Of the two, however, the excess seems less disagreeable than the defect. Both to the spectator and to the person principally concerned, a strong propensity to joy is certainly more pleasing than a dull insensibility to the objects of amusement and diversion. We are charmed with the gaiety of youth, and even with the playfulness of childhood: but we soon grow weary of the flat and tasteless gravity which too frequently accompanies old age. When this propensity, indeed, is not restrained by the sense of propriety, when it is unsuitable to the time or to the place, to the age or to the situation of the person, when, to indulge it, he neglects either his interest or his duty; it is justly blamed as excessive, and as hurtful both to the individual and to the society. In the greater part of such cases, however, what is chiefly to be found fault with is, not so much the strength of the propensity to joy, as the weakness of the sense of propriety and duty. A young man who has no relish for the diversions and amusements that are natural and suitable to his age, who talks of nothing but his book or his business, is disliked as formal and pedantic; and we give him no credit {219} for his abstinence even from improper indulgences, to which he seems to have so little inclination.
注释摘要
在这段文字里，斯密讨论的是自制力管辖下的又一种激情：对生活乐趣、消遣与享乐的敏感。他继续沿用贯穿本节的分析框架——每一种激情都可能犯过度或不足的毛病，问题在于哪一种偏离更让人不快。对享乐的喜好这件事，斯密的判断很干脆：过度比缺陷要好一些。 他的理由建立在同情机制的运作上。一个强烈倾向于欢乐的人，旁观者比较容易进入他的心境；一个对娱乐消遣麻木迟钝的人，却很难…