论遍及万物的善行

老石猴

转自老石猴（QQ日志）

2013-8-23 9:41

论遍及万物的善行

亚当·斯密

虽然我们有效的善良行为很少超出自己国家的社会范围，我们的好意却没有什么界限，茫茫世界上的一切生物都可能成为我们好意的对象。我们想象不出，有任何单纯而有知觉的生物，我们不衷心企盼他们的幸福，当我们设身处地地想象他们的不幸时，我们并不感到厌恶。而想到有害的（虽然也是有知觉的）生物，我们自然而然地产生憎恨；但在这种情况下，实际上是由于我们拥有普施万物的仁慈，我们才对它怀有恶意。这是我们对另外一些单纯而有知觉的生物因为它的恶意而遭受的不幸感到同情的结果。

　　有些人不完全相信，那个伟大、仁慈以及智慧的神的直接关怀和保护着世界上的所有的居民—无论最卑贱的还是最高贵的—这个神指导着人类本性的全部行为；而且，神本身具有无法改变的美德，他每时每刻都注意在行动中给人们带来尽可能大的幸福。所以无论这种遍及万物的善行如何高尚和慷慨，对这样的人来说只能是不可靠的幸福来源。而且，对这种遍及万物的善行来说，这样的人怀疑这个世界并没有一个主宰，必然是所有感想中最令人感伤的；因为以此推论，他会认为，充塞于人所未知的、广大无限的空间的，只是无穷的苦难和不幸，此外什么也没有。一切极端幸运的灿烂光辉，也不能驱散这种阴影，从而想象出来的事物必然会因上述十分可怕悲观的想法而黯然失色；一个有智慧和有美德的人的愉快情绪，不会因为任何折磨人的不幸所产生的忧伤而消除，他之所以拥有这种愉快的情绪，肯定是由于他习惯性地完全相信上述悲观看法的对立面的真实性。

　　有智慧有美德的人愿意在一切时候牺牲自己的私人利益来换取他那阶层或社会团体的公共利益。他也愿意在一切时候，牺牲自己所属阶层或社会团体的局部利益，以换取国家或君权更大的利益。然而，他得同样乐意为了全世界更大的利益，为了上帝主管和领导的一切有知觉和有理智的生物的更大利益，去牺牲上述一切次要的利益。如果习惯和虔诚的信念使他深切感到，这个仁慈和具有无上智慧的神，他所管理的范围并不包括对普天下的幸福来说是没有必要的局部的邪恶，那么，他就必须认为，他自己、他的朋友、他所属的社会团体或者他的国家可能经历的一切灾难，都是世界繁荣必需的，从而他们会比较甘心地承受这些灾难，而且如果他能够了解事物之间的一切联系和依赖关系，他自己应当由衷地和虔诚地愿意承受灾难。

　　如此高尚的顺从宇宙伟大主宰的意志，似乎没有超出人类天性所能接受的范围。优秀军人们热爱和信赖自己的将领，相比没有困难和艰险的地方，他们更乐意开赴毫无生还希望的作战地点。在向没有危险的地方行军的途中，他们心里的想法只是单调沉闷的、平常的责任感；在向没有生还希望的地方行军的途中，他们会认为，自己正在做的，是人类所能作出的最高尚的行为。他们知道，如果不是为了军队的安全和战争的胜利，他们的将军决不会命令他们开赴此处。为了一个很大的机体的幸福，他们心甘情愿地牺牲自己微不足道的血肉之躯。他们出发时深情地向自己的同伴道别，祝愿他们幸福和成功，他们不仅是俯首帖耳地从命，而常常发出满怀喜悦的欢呼，前往那个指定的作战地点，尽管在那里他们必死无疑，但是他们知道自己会获得辉煌和荣耀。宇宙的最大的管理者所得到的信任和爱戴，比任何一只军队的指挥者，都更为充分、更为强烈、更为狂热。一个有理智的人，无论是面对最重大的国家的灾祸还是个人的灾难，都应当这样考虑：他自己、他的朋友们和同胞们，不过是在宇宙的最大管理者的命令下，前往世上这个凄惨的场所；对整个世界的幸福来说，如果这不是必要的，那么宇宙最大的管理者就不会给他们下达这样的命令；他们的责任是，不仅要乖乖地听从这种指挥，而且要尽力怀着乐意和愉快的心情来接受它。一个优秀的军人时刻准备去做的事情，一个有理智的人确实应当也能够做到。

　　自古以来，人类极其崇敬地思索的全部对象，就是神的意念，它以仁慈和智慧设计制造出了宇宙这架庞大的机器，不断地为人类创造尽可能多的幸福。在这种思索面前，其他所有的想法必然显得平庸。我们相信，倾注心力进行这种崇高的思考的人，很少不受到我们极大的尊敬；并且虽然他把一生都只用来作这种思索，但是，我们对他的虔诚和敬意，常常比我们对国家最勤勉和最有益的官员的敬意还要深刻。针对这个问题所作的冥思，给马库斯·安东尼努斯的品质带来的赞美，或许比他公正、温和而仁慈的统治期间处理的一切事物所得到的赞美都更为广泛。

　　可是，管理宇宙这个巨大的机体，关心一切有知觉的生物的普遍幸福，是神的职责，而不是人的职责。人们对自己的幸福、对他的家庭、朋友和国家的幸福的关心，被限定在一个很小的范围之内，但是，这个范围与他个人微弱的能力和理解更加适合。忙于思考更为高尚的事情，决不能成为忽略较小事情的理由；而且一个人不能使自己受到这样一种指责，据说这就是阿维狄乌斯·卡修斯用来反对马库斯·安东尼努斯的说法：他忽略了罗马帝国的繁荣昌盛，而只是忙于哲学推理和思考整个世界的繁荣昌盛。尽管这个指责可能不公正，但是爱沉思的哲学家最高尚的思考，也几乎无法补偿对最琐屑的现实责任的忽略。

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Of Universal Benevolence

By Adam Smith

Though our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended to any wider society than that of our own country; our good-will is circumscribed by no boundary, but may embrace the immensity of the universe. We can not form the idea of any innocent and sensible being, whose happiness we should not desire, or to whose misery, when distinctly brought home to the imagination, we should not have some degree of aversion. The idea of a mischievous, though sensible, being, indeed, naturally provokes our hatred; but the ill-will which, in this case, we bear to it, is really the effect of our universal benevolence. It is the effect of the sympathy which we feel with the misery and resentment of those other innocent and sensible beings, whose happiness is disturbed by its malice.

This universal benevolence, how noble and generous so ever, can be the source of no solid happiness to any man who is not thoroughly convinced that all the inhabitants of the universe, the meanest as well as the greatest, are under the immediate care and protection of thatgreat, benevolent, and all-wise Being, who directs all the movements of nature;and who is determined, by his own unalterable perfections, to maintain in it, at all times, the greatest possible quantity of happiness. To this universal benevolence, on the country, the very suspicion of a fatherless world must be the most melancholy of all reflections; from the thought that all the unknown regions of infinite and incomprehensible space may be filled with nothing but endless misery and wretchedness. All the splendour of the highest prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an idea must necessarily over-shadow the imagination; nor, in a wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the habitual and thorough conviction of the contrary system.

The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular order or society. He is at all times willing, too, that the interest of this order or society should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state or sovereignty, of which it is only a subordinate part. He should, therefore, be equally willing that all those inferior interests should be sacrificed to greater interest of the universe, to the interest of that great society of all sensible and intelligent beings, of which God himself is the immediate administrator and director. If he is deeply impressed with the habitual and through conviction that this benevolent and all-wise Being can admit into the system of his government, no partial evil which is not necessary for the universal good, he must consider all them is fortunes which may befall himself, his friends, his society, or his country, as necessary for the prosperity of the universe, and therefore as what he ought, not only to submit to with resignation, but as what himself, if he had known all the connexions and dependencies of things, ought sincerely and devoutly to have wished for.

Nor does this magnanimous resignation to the will of the great Director of universe, seem in any respect beyond the reach of human nature. Good soldiers, who both love and trust their general, frequently march with more gaiety and alacrity to the forlorn station, from which they never expect to return, than they would to one where there was neither difficulty nor danger. In marching to the latter, they could feel no other sentiment than that of the dullness of ordinary duty: in marching to the former, they feel that they are making the noblest exertion which it is possible for man to make. They know that their general would not have ordered them upon this station, had it not been necessary for the safety of army, for the success of the war. They cheerfully sacrifice their own little systems to the prosperity of a greater system. They take an affectionate leave of their comrades, to whom they wish all happiness and success; and march out, not only with submissive obedience, but often with shouts of the most joyful exultation, to that fatal, but splendid and honourable station to which they are appointed.No conductor of an army can deserve more unlimited trust, more ardent andzealous affection, that the great Conductor of the universe. In the greatest public as well as private disasters, a wise man ought to consider that he himself, his friends and countrymen, have only been ordered upon the forlorn station of the universe; that had it not been necessary for the good of the whole, they would not have been so ordered; and that it is their duty, not only with humble resignation to submit to this allotment, but to endeavour to embrace it with alacrity and joy. A wise man should surely be capable of doing what a good soldier holds himself at all times in readiness to do.

The idea of that divine Being, whose benevolence and wisdom have, from all eternity, contrived and conducted the immense machine of the universe, so as at all times to produce the greatest possible quantity of happiness, is certainly of all the objects of human contemplation by far the most sublime. Every other thought necessarily appears mean in the comparison. The man whom we believe to be principally occupied in this sublime contemplation, seldom fails to be the object of our highest veneration; and though his life should be altogether contemplative, we often regard him with a sort of religious respect much superior to that with which we look upon the most active and useful servant of the common-wealth. The Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, which turn principally upon this subject, have contributed more, perhaps, to the general admiration of his character, than all the different transactions of his just, merciful, and beneficent reign.

The administration of the great system of the universe, however, the care of the universal happiness of all rationaland sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers and to the narrowness of his comprehension; the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, and his country: that he is occupied in contemplating the more sublime, can never be an excuse for his neglecting the more humble department; and he must not expose himself to the charge which Avidius Cassius is said to have brought, perhaps unjustly, against Marcus Antoninus; that while he employed himself in philosophical speculations, and contemplated the prosperity of the universe, he neglected that of the Roman empire. The most sublime speculation of the contemplative philosopher can scarce compensate the neglect of the smallest active duty.

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