It was at the period of my mental progress which I have now reached that I formed the friendship which has been the honour and chief blessing of my existence, as well as the source of a great part of all that I have attempted to do, or hope to effect hereafter, for human improvement. My first introduction to the lady who, after a friendship of twenty years, consented to become my wife, was in 1830, when I was in my twenty-fifth and she in her twenty-third year. With her husband's family it was the renewal of an old acquaintanceship. His grandfather lived in the next house to my father's in Newington Green, and I had sometimes when a boy been invited to play in the old gentleman's garden. He was a fine specimen of the old Scotch puritan; stern, severe, and powerful, but very kind to children, on whom such men make a lasting impression. Although it was years after my introduction to Mrs. Taylor before my acquaintance with her became at all intimate or confidential, I very soon felt her to be the most admirable person I had ever known. It is not to be supposed that she was, or that any one, at the age at which I first saw her, could be, all that she afterwards became. Least of all could this be true of her, with whom self-improvement, progress in the highest and in all senses, was a law of her nature; a necessity equally from the ardour with which she sought it, and from the spontaneous tendency of faculties which could not receive an impression or an experience without making it the source or the occasion of an accession of wisdom. Up to the time when I first saw her, her rich and powerful nature had chiefly unfolded itself according to the received type of feminine genius. To her outer circle she was a beauty and a wit, with an air of natural distinction, felt by all who approached her: to the inner, a woman of deep and strong feeling, of penetrating and intuitive intelligence, and of an eminently meditative and poetic nature. Married at an early age, to a most upright, brave, and honourable man, of liberal opinions and good education, but without the intellectual or artistic tastes which would have made him a companion for her, though a steady and affectionate friend, for whom she had true esteem and the strongest affection through life, and whom she most deeply lamented when dead; shut out by the social disabilities of women from any adequate exercise of her highest faculties in action on the world without; her life was one of inward meditation, varied by familiar intercourse with a small circle of friends, of whom one only (long since deceased) was a person of genius, or of capacities of feeling or intellect kindred with her own, but all had more or less of alliance with her in sentiments and opinions. Into this circle I had the good fortune to be admitted, and I soon perceived that she possessed in combination, the qualities which in all other persons whom I had known I had been only too happy to find singly. In her, complete emancipation from every kind of superstition (including that which attributes a pretended perfection to the order of nature and the universe), and an earnest protest against many things which are still part of the established constitution of society, resulted not from the hard intellect but from strength of noble and elevated feeling, and co-existed with a highly reverential nature. In general spiritual characteristics, as well as in temperament and organization, I have often compared her, as she was at this time, to Shelley: but in thought and intellect, Shelley, so far as his powers were developed in his short life, was but a child compared with what she ultimately became. Alike in the highest regions of speculation and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind was the same perfect instrument, piercing to the very heart and marrow of the matter; always seizing the essential idea or principle. The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times when such a carrière was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life. Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with the intensity of its own. The passion of justice might have been thought to be her strongest feeling, but for her boundless generosity, and a lovingness ever ready to pour itself forth upon any or all human beings who were capable of giving the smallest feeling in return. The rest of her moral characteristics were such as naturally accompany these qualities of mind and heart: the most genuine modesty combined with the loftiest pride; a simplicity and sincerity which were absolute, towards all who were fit to receive them; the utmost scorn of whatever was mean and cowardly, and a burning indignation at everything brutal or tyrannical, faithless or dishonorable in conduct and character, while making the broadest distinction between mala in se and mere mala prohibita—between acts giving evidence of intrinsic badness in feeling and character, and those which are only violations of conventions either good or bad, violations which whether in themselves right or wrong, are capable of being committed by persons in every other respect loveable or admirable.
在我思想進步達到目前這一水平的時期,我得到了一位女士的友誼,這是我一生的榮耀和最大的幸事,我為人類進步努力做的所有事情,或者希望今后實現(xiàn)的事情中,有一大部分也是源于這段友誼。我第一次被介紹給這位女士是在1830 年,那時我25 歲,她23 歲, 做了20 年的朋友后,她答應做我的妻子。這延續(xù)了我家和她丈夫家的老交情。她丈夫的祖父住在紐因頓格林,與我父親是鄰居,在我還是小孩子的時候,就曾被邀請到這位老紳士的花園里玩。他是一位典型的老派蘇格蘭清教徒:嚴厲,簡樸,有威嚴,但是對小孩子很親切,這種人會給孩子們留下長久的印象。盡管和泰勒夫人認識好幾年后我和她才成為很親密或者彼此信任的朋友,但是我很快就意識到她是我所認識的人中最值得敬佩的人。這不是說,我第一次見到那個年齡的她就具備后來她所達到的水平,這對任何人都不可能,尤其對她而言。對她來說,自我改進,取得最高的、所有可能的進步,是她天性的規(guī)律;追求進步的熱情和能力的自然傾向,必然使她把自己的每一個印象或每一次經(jīng)驗都變成增加智慧的源泉或機會。按照公認的女性天才的標準,在我第一次見她時,她那豐富而堅強的性格就已絕大部分展現(xiàn)了出來。從她的外表來看,她美麗,機智,與她接近的人都能感覺到她那天生與眾不同的氣質(zhì)。從內(nèi)心來說,她有深切、強烈的感情,有洞察力和直覺的才智,有突出的、愛思考的詩人般特質(zhì)。她很早就結婚了,丈夫正直,勇敢,可敬,觀點開明,受過良好的教育,但是不具有成為她的伴侶所需的智力或藝術品味——不過卻是位可靠、親愛的朋友,她一生都很尊敬他,對他有強烈的感情,當他去世時,她悲痛欲絕。由于社會對婦女的限制,她無法把強大的自我才能充分運用于外界活動中。她生活在內(nèi)心沉思中,只有在與一小圈子朋友進行親密交流時才有所變化。在這些朋友中,只有一位(早已過世了)是天才,或者說具有和她相似的感覺或智力才能,但是所有朋友也都或多或少與她具有相似的情操和見解。我有幸被這個圈子接納,很快便察覺到,她綜合具備我所認識人的所有品質(zhì),而這些品質(zhì),任何一樣都足以讓我欣喜若狂。她完全不相信迷信(包括把虛假的完美歸因于大自然和宇宙的秩序),熱切地反對那些仍然屬于社會既定構造的東西,這并不是源于高智商,而是源于尊貴、高尚的情感力量和非常可敬的天性。在一般的精神特性及性情和條理性上,我經(jīng)常把當時的她比作雪萊。但是,在雪萊短暫的人生中,他所發(fā)揮的思維能力和智力才能,和她最終所達到的水平相比,差距仍然非常大。不論在思索的最高領域還是在日常生活中不太重大的實際問題上,她的頭腦都是完美的工具,總是能刺入問題的心臟和脊髓,抓住本質(zhì)的概念或原則。與她豐富的感受力和智力一樣,她行動起來同樣精確迅速,加上她在感覺和想象力上具有的天賦,使她足以成為一個造詣極高的藝術家。而她熱烈、慈愛的靈魂和有說服力的口才,當然會使她成為一位偉大的演講家。如果元首地位對婦女開放的話,她對人性的深刻了解,實際生活中的洞察力和聰慧,也會使她成為人類杰出的統(tǒng)治者之一。她的智力天賦,只貢獻于我一生中曾見過的最高貴、最和諧的品德。她的無私不是后天培養(yǎng)出來的責任體系,而是完全認同他人感情的心地,并經(jīng)常在想象中把自己強烈的感情傾注在他們的感情之中,所以經(jīng)常為別人考慮得過多。她對任何人,或者所有哪怕只能夠付出一點點情感作為回報的人,都甘愿付出自己的無限慷慨和愛心,若不是如此的話,人們可能就會認為對正義的熱愛是她最強烈的感情。她的其他品質(zhì)特征,很自然地與這些思想和心靈特質(zhì)共存:最誠摯的謙遜與最高尚的自尊相結合,對所有值得的人都絕對的純樸和真誠,對任何卑鄙和懦弱的行為都極度地蔑視,對任何殘忍或?qū)V?、背信或可恥的行為和性格都表示極度的憤慨。同時,她把自然罪行和單純的不法行為非常明確地區(qū)分開來,即把顯示感情和品格中內(nèi)在惡劣的行為,同那些僅僅違背或好或壞習俗的行為區(qū)分開來,這種違背不管本身是對還是錯,都是那些在其他方面可愛或可敬的人可能會做出來的。
To be admitted into any degree of mental intercourse with a being of these qualities, could not but have a most beneficial influence on my development; though the effect was only gradual, and many years elapsed before her mental progress and mine went forward in the complete companionship they at last attained. The benefit I received was far greater than any which I could hope to give; though to her, who had at first reached her opinions by the moral intuition of a character of strong feeling, there was doubtless help as well as encouragement to be derived from one who had arrived at many of the same results by study and reasoning: and in the rapidity of her intellectual growth, her mental activity, which converted everything into knowledge, doubtless drew from me, as it did from other sources, many of its materials. What I owe, even intellectually, to her, is in its detail, almost infinite; of its general character, a few words will give some, though a very imperfect, idea.
能夠與一位具備這些品質(zhì)的人進行任何程度的思想交流,都會對我的成長產(chǎn)生非常有益的影響??墒沁@種影響是逐步產(chǎn)生的,而且直到多年以后,她的思想進步和我的思想進步才最終完全志趣相投。我得到的益處遠遠超過我希望能夠給予的。盡管對她來說,她的見解起先是通過情感強烈的性格中所具有的精神本能獲得的,但毫無疑問,她也能從一個通過研究和推理得出很多相同成果的人那里得到鼓勵和幫助。在她智力迅速發(fā)展的過程中,她的腦力活動把任何東西都轉(zhuǎn)化成了知識,毫無疑問,很多活動的材料她都是從我這里獲取的,當然也從其他來源獲取了很多。我要歸功于她的東西,從細節(jié)上來講,即便是智力上的,也幾乎數(shù)不勝數(shù)。關于她對我的影響的總體特征,寥寥數(shù)語能說明一些,可是非常不完全。
With those who, like all the best and wisest of mankind, are dissatisfied with human life as it is, and whose feelings are wholly identified with its radical amendment, there are two main regions of thought. One is the region of ultimate aims; the constituent elements of the highest realizable ideal of human life. The other is that of the immediately useful and practically attainable. In both these departments, I have acquired more from her teaching, than from all other sources taken together. And, to say truth, it is in these two extremes principally, that real certainty lies. My own strength lay wholly in the uncertain and slippery intermediate region, that of theory, or moral and political science: respecting the conclusions of which, in any of the forms in which I have received or originated them, whether as political economy, analytic psychology, logic, philosophy of history, or anything else, it is not the least of my intellectual obligations to her that I have derived from her a wise scepticism, which, while it has not hindered me from following out the honest exercise of my thinking faculties to whatever conclusions might result from it, has put me on my guard against holding or announcing these conclusions with a degree of confidence which the nature of such speculations does not warrant, and has kept my mind not only open to admit, but prompt to welcome and eager to seek, even on the questions on which I have most meditated, any prospect of clearer perceptions and better evidence. I have often received praise, which in my own right I only partially deserve, for the greater practicality which is supposed to be found in my writings, compared with those of most thinkers who have been equally addicted to large generalizations. The writings in which this quality has been observed, were not the work of one mind, but of the fusion of two, one of them as preeminently practical in its judgments and perceptions of things present, as it was high and bold in its anticipations for a remote futurity.
和所有最優(yōu)秀、最聰明的人一樣,那些不滿意人類生活的現(xiàn)狀,把全部感情傾注于激進變革的人,思想可分為兩個主要領域。一個是終極目標的領域,這些目標是人類生活可實現(xiàn)的最高理想的組成元素。另一個是直接有用,實踐可以達到的領域。在這兩個領域里,我從她的教導中獲得的,比從其他所有來源獲得的總和還要多。說實話,真正的確定性主要存在于這兩個極端里面。我自己的力量全都存在于那個不確定、不可靠的中間區(qū)域,即理論或精神和政治科學領域。關于中間區(qū)域的結論,不論我以何種形式接受或創(chuàng)造的結論,不管是政治經(jīng)濟學、分析心理學、邏輯學、歷史哲學,還是其他任何學科上的結論,在智力上都要大大歸功于從她那里學得的明智的懷疑主義態(tài)度。這種懷疑沒有阻止我繼續(xù)誠實地運用思考能力去尋求任何可能得出的結論,只是警告我不要帶著這種思考性質(zhì)所不能保證的信心來支持或宣布這些結論。還讓我的頭腦不僅隨時準備接納,而且急于歡迎并熱切地尋求任何更清楚的概念和更完善的證據(jù),即使在我考慮最多的問題上也是如此。與大部分同樣沉溺于大量概括的思想家相比,我經(jīng)常因為作品更具實用性而受到表揚,但是就我本人來說,這些表揚中只有一部分是我應得的。那些被認為具有實用性的作品,不是我一個人的成果,而是兩個人思想的融合,這其中一人對當前事務的判斷和理解非常合乎實際,對遙遠未來的預期也很大膽,很有高度。
At the present period, however, this influence was only one among many which were helping to shape the character of my future development: and even after it became, I may truly say, the presiding principle of my mental progress, it did not alter the path, but only made me move forward more boldly, and, at the same time, more cautiously, in the same course. The only actual revolution which has ever taken place in my modes of thinking, was already complete. My new tendencies had to be confirmed in some respects, moderated in others: but the only substantial changes of opinion that were yet to come, related to politics, and consisted, on one hand, in a greater approximation, so far as regards the ultimate prospects of humanity, to a qualified Socialism, and on the other, a shifting of my political ideal from pure democracy, as commonly understood by its partisans, to the modified form of it, which is set forth in my Considerations on Representative Government.
然而,在現(xiàn)階段,這種影響只是有助于塑造我未來發(fā)展特征的眾多因素之一。老實說,即使在它成為我思想進步的指導原則之后,它也沒有改變我進步的方向,只是讓我在同一方向上更勇敢,同時也更慎重地前進。我的思考方式上發(fā)生的唯一真正的巨變已經(jīng)完成了。我的新傾向在某些方面應該加強,在其他方面則要節(jié)制。但是,觀念上唯一實質(zhì)的變革尚未到來,那是和政治相關的,這種變化一方面在于人類的最終前途更加接近于有限制的社會主義,另一方面在于把我的政治理想從強硬支持者通常所理解的純粹的民主政治,轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)槲以凇墩摯h制政府》中闡明的改良后的民主政治。
This last change, which took place very gradually, dates its commencement from my reading, or rather study, of A. de Tocqueville1's Democracy in America, which fell into my hands immediately after its first appearance. In that remarkable work, the excellences of democracy were pointed out in a more conclusive, because a more specific manner than I had ever known them to be, even by the most enthusiastic democrats; while the specific dangers which beset democracy, considered as the government of the numerical majority, were brought into equally strong light, and subjected to a masterly analysis, not as reasons for resisting what the author considered as an inevitable result of human progress, but as indications of the weak points of popular government, the defences by which it needs to be guarded, and the correctives which must be added to it in order that while full play is given to its beneficial tendencies, those which are of a different nature may be neutralized or mitigated. I was now well prepared for speculations of this character, and from this time onward my own thoughts moved more and more in the same channel, though the consequent modifications in my practical political creed were spread over many years, as would be shown by comparing my first review of Democracy in America, written and published in 1835, with the one in 1840 (reprinted in the Dissertations), and this last, with the Considerations on Representative Government .
這最后一個變化發(fā)生得非常緩慢,最早要追溯到我閱讀或者說研究托克維爾先生的《論美國的民主》,該書剛一出版我就立刻拿到了手中。與我所知的任何熱情的民主主義者的闡述相比,這部非凡的著作提出民主政治優(yōu)越性的方式都更明確具體因而更具結論性;同時,因民主政治被視為大多數(shù)人的統(tǒng)治,就困擾它的具體危險,作者也進行了精辟的闡述和巧妙的分析,他并不是以此為理由反對那被作者認為是人類進步必然結果的民主政治,而是指出民主政治的弱點,同時指出捍衛(wèi)它的各種方法,和必須增加的補救措施,這樣可以充分發(fā)揮它的有益傾向,同時消除或減輕與它不同性質(zhì)的傾向。我現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)為進行這種思索做好了充分的準備,從這時起,我自己的思想也朝著這個方向不斷前進,盡管我此后對實際政治信條的改變持續(xù)了很多年,至于這一點,把我1835 年寫出來并發(fā)表的第一篇《論美國的民主》的書評,與1840 年(在《論述和討論》中再版)的那篇進行對比,再把最近的一篇與《論代議制政府》一對比,就可以看出來。
A collateral subject on which also I derived great benefit from the study of Tocqueville, was the fundamental question of centralization. The powerful philosophic analysis which he applied to American and to French experience, led him to attach the utmost importance to the performance of as much of the collective business of society, as can safely be so performed, by the people themselves, without any intervention of the executive government, either to supersede their agency, or to dictate the manner of its exercise. He viewed this practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the modern world, there is real danger—the absolute rule of the head of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but all slaves. There was, indeed, no immediate peril from this source on the British side of the channel, where nine-tenths of the internal business which elsewhere devolves on the government, was transacted by agencies independent of it; where centralization was, and is, the subject not only of rational disapprobation, but of unreasoning prejudice; where jealousy of government interference was a blind feeling preventing or resisting even the most beneficial exertion of legislative authority to correct the abuses of what pretends to be local self-government, but is, too often, selfish mismanagement of local interests, by a jobbing and borné local oligarchy. But the more certain the public were to go wrong on the side opposed to centralization, the greater danger was there lest philosophic reformers should fall into the contrary error, and overlook the mischiefs of which they had been spared the painful experience. I was myself, at this very time, actively engaged in defending important measures, such as the great Poor Law Reform of 1834, against an irrational clamour grounded on the anti-centralization prejudice: and had it not been for the lessons of Tocqueville, I do not know that I might not, like many reformers before me, have been hurried into the excess opposite to that, which, being the one prevalent in my own country, it was generally my business to combat. As it is, I have steered carefully between the two errors, and whether I have or have not drawn the line between them exactly in the right place, I have at least insisted with equal emphasis upon the evils on both sides, and have made the means of reconciling the advantages of both, a subject of serious study.
在一個附帶問題上,我也從研究托克維爾中得到了巨大的益處,這就是中央集權化的重要問題。他對美國和法國經(jīng)驗有力的哲學分析,讓他十分重視社會集體事務,它可由人民自己安全地管理,不需要政府的任何干涉,政府不要取代人民的作用,也不要指揮他們的執(zhí)行方式。他不僅把這種由公民個人參與的實際政治活動視為訓練人們社會感情和實際知識的最有效方式之一。這不僅對公民本身非常重要,也是善政不可或缺的,還把它視為對付民主政治中一些典型弱點的特殊抵抗手段,以及防止民主政治退化為專制政治的必要保護手段。而專制政治是現(xiàn)代社會唯一有真正危險的東西——政府首腦對一群相互孤立的個人進行絕對的統(tǒng)治,所有人看似平等,但其實都是奴隸。確實,對于海峽這邊的英國來說沒有這種直接的危險。在英國,幾乎全部國內(nèi)事務都由獨立于政府的機構辦理,而在別的國家卻都是移交給政府辦理的。在英國,中央集權化不僅受到理性的指責,而且受到不合理的歧視。在那兒,對政府干涉的警惕是一種盲目的感情,甚至阻止或抵制了立法機構最有利地發(fā)揮作用以糾正一些弊端,比如假公濟私和狹隘的地方寡頭政治假裝成地方自治,這經(jīng)常是對地方利益進行自私又不當?shù)墓芾淼谋锥?。但是,公眾越是堅定地站在反對中央集權那一邊,理論改革家陷入相反錯誤的危險就越大,而且越會忽視他們沒有經(jīng)歷過的痛苦的危害。我本人就在這時也積極地參與了捍衛(wèi)重要措施的活動,比如1834 年偉大的濟貧法改革,我就反對反中央集權化者們帶有偏見的無理喧鬧。如果沒有托克維爾的教導,我不敢肯定自己會不會像之前的很多改革家一樣,匆忙地過分反對在英國盛行的這種喧鬧。因為在過去,我通常會把反擊它當成是自己的任務。事實上,我小心地避開這兩種錯誤,不管我是否正好在合適的地方給它們劃清了界線,至少我堅持給雙方的弊端以同等的重視,而且認真地去研究協(xié)調(diào)雙方優(yōu)勢的手段。
In the meanwhile had taken place the election of the first Reformed Parliament, which included several of the most notable of my Radical friends and acquaintances—Grote, Roebuck2, Buller3, Sir William Molesworth4, John5 and Edward6 Romilly, and several more; besides Warburton, Strutt, and others, who were in parliament already. Those who thought themselves, and were called by their friends, the philosophic Radicals, had now, it seemed, a fair opportunity, in a more advantageous position than they had ever before occupied, for showing what was in them; and I, as well as my father, founded great hopes on them. These hopes were destined to be disappointed. The men were honest, and faithful to their opinions, as far as votes were concerned; often in spite of much discouragement. When measures were proposed, flagrantly at variance with their principles, such as the Irish Coercion Bill, or the Canada Coercion in 1837, they came forward manfully, and braved any amount of hostility and prejudice rather than desert the right. But on the whole they did very little to promote any opinions; they had little enterprise, little activity: they left the lead of the radical portion of the House to the old hands, to Hume and O'Connell7. A partial exception must be made in favour of one or two of the younger men; and in the case of Roebuck, it is his title to permanent remembrance, that in the very first year during which he sat in Parliament, he originated (or re-originated after the unsuccessful attempt of Mr. Brougham) the parliamentary movement for National Education; and that he was the first to commence, and for years carried on almost alone, the contest for the self-government of the Colonies. Nothing, on the whole equal to these two things, was done by any other individual, even of those from whom most was expected. And now, on a calm retrospect, I can perceive that the men were less in fault than we supposed, and that we had expected too much from them. They were in unfavourable circumstances. Their lot was cast in the ten years of inevitable reaction, when, the Reform excitement being over, and the few legislative improvements which the public really called for having been rapidly effected, power gravitated back in its natural direction, to those who were for keeping things as they were; when the public mind desired rest, and was less disposed than at any other period since the peace, to let itself be moved by attempts to work up the reform feeling into fresh activity in favour of new things. It would have required a great political leader, which no one is to be blamed for not being, to have effected really great things by parliamentary discussion when the nation was in this mood. My father and I had hoped that some competent leader might arise; some man of philosophic attainments and popular talents, who could have put heart into the many younger or less distinguished men that would have been ready to join him—could have made them available, to the extent of their talents, in bringing advanced ideas before the public—could have used the House of Commons as a rostra or a teacher's chair for instructing and impelling the public mind; and would either have forced the Whigs8 to receive their measures from him, or have taken the lead of the Reform party out of their hands. Such a leader there would have been, if my father had been in Parliament. For want of such a man, the instructed Radicals sank into a mere C?té Gauche of the Whig party. With a keen, and as I now think, an exaggerated sense of the possibilities which were open to the Radicals if they made even ordinary exertion for their opinions, I laboured from this time till 1839, both by personal influence with some of them, and by writings, to put ideas into their heads and purpose into their hearts, I did some good with Charles Buller, and some with Sir William Molesworth; both of whom did valuable service, but were unhappily cut off almost in the beginning of their usefulness. On the whole, however, my attempt was vain. To have had a chance of succeeding in it, required a different position from mine. It was a task only for one who, being himself in Parliament, could have mixed with the radical members in daily consultation, could himself have taken the initiative, and instead of urging others to lead, could have summoned them to follow.
同時,改革后的議會進行了第一次選舉,我的好幾位最著名的激進派朋友和熟人都入選了。包括格羅特、羅巴克、布勒、威廉. 莫爾斯沃思爵士、約翰. 羅米利和愛德華. 羅米利,還有其他幾個人。此外,還有沃伯頓、斯特拉特等早已進入議會的一些人。這些人自認為是哲學激進派,他們的朋友也這樣稱呼他們,他們現(xiàn)在獲得的地位比以前的都更有利,似乎有很好的機會展示自己的能力。我和父親對他們寄予厚望。然而,這些希望注定要破滅。在投票問題上,這些人很誠實,忠于自己的主張,經(jīng)常不在乎很多挫折。當議會提出的議案與他們的原則極其不一致時,比如《愛爾蘭鎮(zhèn)壓法案》或者1837 年的《加拿大鎮(zhèn)壓法案》,他們就勇敢地站了出來,挑戰(zhàn)所有的敵對和偏見,而不放棄正確的主張。但是總的來說,他們對發(fā)揚任何觀念都沒起到多大作用。他們沒什么進取心,也沒采取多少行動,還把下議院激進派的領導權交給老議員休謨和奧康奈爾。但必須看到有一兩個年輕人是例外,比如羅巴克,他就有資格被人們永遠記住,因為就在他進入議會的頭一年,他就發(fā)起了(或者說在布魯厄姆嘗試失敗后,重新發(fā)起了)議會全民教育運動。他還是第一個發(fā)起爭取殖民地自治運動的人,而且很多年來,幾乎一直靠自己的力量堅持了下去。任何其他個人所做的事情,加起來都不能和這兩件事相提并論,即使是人們寄予厚望的人?,F(xiàn)在平靜地回想起來,這些人的不足并不像我們想象的那么多,我們對他們期望其實太高了。他們所處的環(huán)境很不利,他們的命運被鎖定在那必然保守的十年,那時,改革熱情已逝,公眾真正要求的少數(shù)立法上的改良已匆匆實現(xiàn),權力正回歸到其自然的方向上,回到那些主張保持現(xiàn)狀的人手里。這時,公眾的心靈希望休息,比戰(zhàn)爭結束后的任何時期都更難以受到觸動,把改革的感情發(fā)展成支持新事物的努力是無法觸動它的。當國家處于這種狀態(tài)時,必須有一個偉大的政治領袖,通過議會討論來催生真正偉大的事情,但又不能責怪任何人不是這樣的一個人。我和父親曾希望出現(xiàn)一位能勝任的領袖,這個人既有哲學造詣,又有得人心的才干,能全心全意調(diào)動愿意和他一起行動的很多年輕人或者不是那么著名的人;他能夠讓這些人憑自己的才干,把先進的思想帶到大眾面前;能夠把國會下議院當作教導、推動公眾思想的講壇或講臺;能夠要么迫使輝格黨接受他的措施,要么從他們手中奪回改革黨的領導權。如果我父親在議會的話,就會有這樣一位領袖。由于缺少這樣一個人,受過教育的激進分子只能淪落為輝格黨的左派。我曾熱切地認為,激進分子哪怕能夠盡尋常之力去實踐他們的觀點,就會有很大的成功機會,我現(xiàn)在也覺得自己當時估計過高了;帶著這種想法,從那時起到1839年,我既通過對他們中的一些人進行私下的影響,又通過作品向他們灌輸我的想法和意圖。我這樣做給查爾斯·布勒和威廉·莫爾斯沃思爵士帶來了一些益處。他們兩人都做出了有價值的貢獻,但不幸都幾乎在剛開始發(fā)揮作用的時候就離開議會了。然而總的來說,我的努力是徒勞的。要在這方面獲得成功,需要一個和我身處不同位置的人。這項任務只有身處議會里的人才能完成,這樣的人有機會和議會里的激進分子進行日常磋商,能自己掌握主動,能號召別人追隨自己,而不是激勵別人去做領袖。
What I could do by writing, I did. During the year 1833 I continued working in the Examiner with Fonblanque9, who at that time was zealous in keeping up the fight for radicalism against the Whig ministry. During the session of 1834 I wrote comments on passing events, of the nature of newspaper articles (under the title of "Notes on the Newspapers"), in the Monthly Repository, a magazine conducted by Mr. Fox10, well known as a preacher and political orator, and subsequently as member of parliament for Oldham; with whom I had lately become acquainted, and for whose sake chiefly I wrote in his magazine. I contributed several other articles to this periodical, the most considerable of which (on the theory of Poetry) is reprinted in the Dissertations. Altogether, the writings (independently of those in newspapers) which I published from 1832 to 1834, amount to a large volume. This, however, includes abstracts of several of Plato's Dialogues, with introductory remarks, which, though not published until1834, had been written several years earlier; and which I afterwards, on various occasions, found to have been read, and their authorship known, by more people than were aware of anything else which I had written, up to that time. To complete the tale of my writings at this period, I may add that in 1833, at the request of Bulwer11, who was just then completing his England and the English (a work, at that time, greatly in advance of the public mind), I wrote for him a critical account of Bentham's philosophy, a small part of which he incorporated in his text, and printed the rest (with an honorable acknowledgment), as an appendix. In this, along with the favorable, a part also of the unfavourable side of my estimation of Bentham's doctrines, considered as a complete philosophy, was for the first time put into print.
凡能通過寫作來完成的事情,我都做了。1833 年間,我繼續(xù)和方布蘭克一起為《檢查報》工作,他那時很熱心于支持激進主義、反對輝格黨內(nèi)閣的斗爭。1834 年議會會議期間,我寫了一些報刊文章性質(zhì)的實事評論(題為《報紙評論》),發(fā)表在《每月叢刊》上,這是??怂瓜壬鷦?chuàng)辦的雜志,他是著名的宣傳家、政治演說家,后來成為代表奧爾德姆的議員。我和他不久前剛認識,我在他的雜志上寫文章,也主要是因為他的緣故。我給他的刊物寫了好幾篇別的文章,其中最重要的一篇(討論詩歌理論的)在《論述和討論》中再版。從1832 年到1834 年,我所有發(fā)表的作品(不包括報紙上的文章),加起來有一大本書那么厚。然而,這里面包括好幾篇柏拉圖《對話錄》的摘要,并帶有卷首語,這些摘要其實好幾年前就寫了,但是到1834 年才發(fā)表。后來,我在很多場合里發(fā)現(xiàn)有人讀過這些摘要,也知道我是它們的作者,但是他們當中很多人對我之前所寫的其他作品一無所知。為了完善對我這個階段作品的敘述,我可以補充上一件事:1833 年,布爾沃正在為他的《英國和英國人》收尾(當時這部著作遠遠超過了公眾的思想水平)。應他的邀請,我為他寫了一篇評論邊沁哲學的文章,他把其中一小部分融入自己的正文,把其余的部分(附有體面的致謝)作為附錄印了出來。在這篇文章里,除了我對邊沁學說贊許的評價外,還有不贊許的評價,這些評價被認為是一個完整的哲學體系,這是它們第一次得到發(fā)表。
But an opportunity soon offered by which, as it seemed, I might have it in my power to give more effectual aid, and, at the same time, stimulus, to the "philosophic Radical" party, than I had done hitherto. One of the projects occasionally talked of between my father and me, and some of the parliamentary and other Radicals who frequented his house, was the foundation of a periodical organ of philosophic radicalism, to take the place which the Westminster Review had been intended to fill: and the scheme had gone so far as to bring under discussion the pecuniary contributions which could be looked for, and the choice of an editor. Nothing, however, came of it for some time: but in the summer of 1834 Sir William Molesworth, himself a laborious student, and a precise and metaphysical thinker, capable of aiding the cause by his pen as well as by his purse, spontaneously proposed to establish a Review, provided I would consent to be the real, if I could not be the ostensible, editor. Such a proposal was not to be refused; and the Review was founded, at first under the title of the London Review, and afterwards under that of the London and Westminster, Molesworth having bought the Westminster from its proprietor, General Thompson, and merged the two into one. In the years between 1834 and 1840 the conduct of this Review occupied the greater part of my spare time. In the beginning, it did not, as a whole, by any means represent my opinions. I was under the necessity of conceding much to my inevitable associates. The Review was established to be the representative of the "philosophic Radicals", with most of whom I was now at issue on many essential points, and among whom I could not even claim to be the most important individual. My father's co-operation as a writer we all deemed indispensable, and he wrote largely in it until prevented by his last illness. The subjects of his articles, and the strength and decision with which his opinions were expressed in them, made the Review at first derive its tone and colouring from him much more than from any of the other writers. I could not exercise editorial control over his articles, and I was sometimes obliged to sacrifice to him portions of my own. The old Westminster Review doctrines, but little modified, thus formed the staple of the Review; but I hoped, by the side of these, to introduce other ideas and another tone, and to obtain for my own shade of opinion a fair representation, along with those of other members of the party. With this end chiefly in view, I made it one of the peculiarities of the work that every article should bear an initial, or some other signature, and be held to express the opinions solely of the individual writer; the editor being only responsible for its being worth publishing, and not in conflict with the objects for which the Review was set on foot. I had an opportunity of putting in practice my scheme of conciliation between the old and the new "philosophic radicalism," by the choice of a subject for my own first contribution. Professor Sedgwick12, a man of eminence in a particular walk of natural science, but who should not have trespassed into philosophy, had lately published his Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge, which had as its most prominent feature an intemperate assault on analytic psychology and utilitarian ethics, in the form of an attack on Locke and Paley13. This had excited great indignation in my father and others, which I thought it fully deserved. And here, I imagined, was an opportunity of at the same time repelling an unjust attack, and inserting into my defence of Hartleianism and Utilitarianism a number of the opinions which constituted my view of those subjects, as distinguished from that of my old associates. In this I partially succeeded, though my relation to my father would have made it painful to me in any case, and impossible in a Review for which he wrote, to speak out my whole mind on the subject at this time.
但是很快就出現(xiàn)了一個機會,使我似乎有能力通過它為“哲學激進派”提供比以往更有效的幫助和激勵。父親和我,還有一些經(jīng)常拜訪他的議會激進分子和其他激進派人士,偶爾討論過一個計劃,就是要創(chuàng)立一個哲學激進主義的期刊,取代意在填補這個位置的《威斯敏斯特評論》。計劃已經(jīng)進展到要討論從何處尋求資金投入和選擇編輯了。然而一段時期內(nèi),什么事情都沒落實。但是,1834 年夏天,威廉. 莫爾斯沃思爵士主動提議創(chuàng)辦一個評論性刊物,條件是如果我不能做名譽編輯的話,就要同意做真正的編輯,其實他自己就是個勤勉的學者,縝密的形而上學思想家,能夠用他的筆和金錢來支持這個事業(yè)。這樣的一個提議是無法拒絕的,于是評論雜志創(chuàng)立了,最初命名為《倫敦評論》,后來莫爾斯沃思把《威斯敏斯特評論》從它的所有人湯普森將軍那里買過來,將兩者合二為一,改名為《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》。1834 年到1840 年,管理《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》占用了我大部分的空閑時間。起初,從總體上說,它完全不代表我的觀點。我必須經(jīng)常對無法回避的同事讓步。這個評論雜志是為了代表“哲學激進分子”的觀點而創(chuàng)辦的,但是現(xiàn)在,我和他們中的大多數(shù)人在很多重大問題上都意見不和,我甚至不能聲稱自己是他們中最重要的一員。作為一名作家,我父親給予的合作,我們都相信是不可或缺的,他寫了很多文章,直到臨終前生病無法寫作了才停筆。他文章的主題,以及表達觀點時的力度和果斷,是評論雜志初期風格和色彩的主要來源,在這方面其他任何作家都是不能比的。我無法對他的文章進行編輯,有時還必須把自己文章的一部分編輯權讓給他。因此,舊的《威斯敏斯特評論》的宗旨,幾乎沒作修改就成了《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》的主題。但是我希望除了這些之外,還要引進其他的觀點和另一種風格,也為我自己的少許觀點和這個黨派的其他成員找到公平的展現(xiàn)機會。主要出于這個目的,我確保該刊物具有一個特色,就是每篇文章上都應該有作者姓名的第一個字母或其他簽名,以示文章只表達作者本人的觀點。編輯的職責只是確保它有刊登的價值,并且與《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》創(chuàng)立的宗旨不相沖突。在我第一次為它寫稿的時候,通過選擇文章的主題,我有機會將自己協(xié)調(diào)新舊“哲學激進主義”的計劃付諸實踐。塞奇威克教授在自然科學的一個特定領域很有名,但他不應該越界進入哲學領域,他最近發(fā)表了《論劍橋研究》一書,此書最突出的特征就是以攻擊洛克和佩利的形式,猛烈地攻擊分析心理學和功利主義倫理學。這激起了我父親和其他人的義憤,我覺得這完全是它應得的。我設想,這是個機會,既能擊退不公正的批評,同時又能把我對那些問題的許多看法插入到我對哈特利主義和功利主義的辯護之中去,而這些看法和我以前同事的是不同的。在這件事上,我取得了部分成功,然而由于我和父親之間的關系,如若我把這時對這個問題的所有看法都說出來,無論如何都會是件很痛苦的事情,而且在他為之撰稿的《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》中也根本不可能全說出來。
I am, however, inclined to think that my father was not so much opposed as he seemed, to the modes of thought in which I believed myself to differ from him; that he did injustice to his own opinions by the unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny. I have frequently observed that he made large allowance in practice for considerations which seemed to have no place in his theory. His Fragment on Mackintosh, which he wrote and published about this time, although I greatly admired some parts of it, I read as a whole with more pain than pleasure; yet on reading it again, long after, I found little in the opinions it contains, but what I think in the main just; and I can even sympathize in his disgust at the verbiage of Mackintosh, though his asperity towards it went not only beyond what was judicious, but beyond what was even fair. One thing which I thought, at the time, of good augury, was the very favorable reception he gave to Tocqueville's Democracy in America. It is true, he said and thought much more about what Tocqueville said in favour of democracy, than about what he said of its disadvantages. Still, his high appreciation of a book which was at any rate an example of a mode of treating the question of government almost the reverse of his—wholly inductive and analytical, instead of purely ratiocinative—gave me great encouragement. He also approved of an article which I published in the first number following the junction of the two reviews, the essay reprinted in the Dissertations under the title "Civilization"; into which I threw many of my new opinions, and criticized rather emphatically the mental and moral tendencies of the time, on grounds and in a manner which I certainly had not learnt from him.
然而,我更愿意認為父親并不像他表現(xiàn)的那樣,反對我持有不同于他的思考模式。他無意識地夸大了特別好辯的智力,使他沒能公正地對待自己的觀點。如果思考的時候眼前沒有對手,他就愿意為自己似乎否認的一大部分真理留出余地。我經(jīng)常發(fā)現(xiàn),他在實際中常常思考那些在他的理論里看起來無足輕重的東西。他的《略論麥金托什》,差不多是在這時寫了發(fā)表的,盡管我非常崇拜里面的某些部分,但是整本書讀起來痛苦大于快樂。很久以后重讀的時候,我從它所包含的觀點中無所收獲,但發(fā)現(xiàn)了我認為大體上公正的東西。我甚至和他一樣討厭麥金托什的《空話》,然而他對它的嚴厲指責不僅不夠明智,而且有失公允。我認為,當時有好兆頭的一件事情是他非常贊同地接受托克維爾的《論美國的民主》。確實如此,他說得更多,思考得更多的是托克維爾所說的民主的優(yōu)點,而不是他所說的民主的缺點。盡管這本書在論述政府問題的方式上無論如何都幾乎和他的方式完全相反——完全是歸納和分析,而不是純粹的推理,但他卻對它評價這么高,這給了我很大鼓勵。兩家評論雜志合并后,我在第一期上發(fā)表的一篇文章也得到了他的肯定,后來這篇文章在《討論與論述》中以《文明》為題重印。在這篇文章中,我添加了很多自己的新觀點,強有力地批評了當時的思想和道德傾向,批評的基礎和方式無疑不是從他那里學到的。
All speculation, however, on the possible future developments of my father's opinions, and on the probabilities of permanent co-operation between him and me in the promulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be cut short. During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: his symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and after lingering to the last stage of debility, he died on the 23rd of June 1836. Until the last few days of his life there was no apparent abatement of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor did the approach of death cause the smallest wavering (as in so strong and firm a mind it was impossible that it should) in his convictions on the subject of religion. His principal satisfaction, after he knew that his end was near, seemed to be the thought of what he had done to make the world better than he found it; and his chief regret in not living longer, that he had not had time to do more.
然而,父親的思想將來可能的發(fā)展,以及他和我在傳播思想上永久合作的可能性,注定要被中斷。1835 年整一年,他的健康每況愈下,很顯然是肺結核的癥狀,捱過生命中最虛弱的階段后,他于1836 年6 月23 日去世了。直到生命的最后幾天,他的思想活力也沒有明顯減弱。他對一生中感興趣的所有人和事的興趣沒有減少,死亡的臨近也沒有讓他對宗教問題的信念產(chǎn)生絲毫的動搖(如此堅定而有主見的頭腦是不可能動搖的)。在知道自己時日無多時,他主要的欣慰似乎是想到自己為把世界變得更美好而作出了努力。而他主要的遺憾是不能多活幾年,沒有時間做更多的事情。
His place is an eminent one in the literary, and even in the political history of his country; and it is far from honourable to the generation which has benefited by his worth, that he is so seldom mentioned, and, compared with men far his inferiors, so little remembered. This is probably to be ascribed mainly to two causes. In the first place, the thought of him merges too much in the deservedly superior fame of Bentham. Yet he was anything but Bentham's mere follower or disciple. Precisely because he was himself one of the most original thinkers of his time, he was one of the earliest to appreciate and adopt the most important mass of original thought which had been produced by the generation preceding him. His mind and Bentham's were essentially of different construction. He had not all Bentham's high qualities, but neither had Bentham all his. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to claim for him the praise of having accomplished for mankind such splendid services as Bentham's. He did not revolutionize, or rather create, one of the great departments of human thought. But, leaving out of the reckoning all that portion of his labours in which he benefited by what Bentham had done, and counting only what he achieved in a province in which Bentham had done nothing, that of analytic psychology, he will be known to posterity as one of the greatest names in that most important branch of speculation, on which all the moral and political sciences ultimately rest, and will mark one of the essential stages in its progress. The other reason, which has made his fame less than he deserved, is that notwithstanding the great number of his opinions which, partly through his own efforts, have now been generally adopted, there was, on the whole, a marked opposition between his spirit and that of the present time. As Brutus14 was called the last of the Romans, so was he the last of the eighteenth century: he continued its tone of thought and sentiment into the nineteenth (though not unmodified nor unimproved), partaking neither in the good nor in the bad influences of the reaction against the eighteenth century, which was the great characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth. The eighteenth century was a great age, an age of strong and brave men, and he was a fit companion for its strongest and bravest. By his writings and his personal influence he was a great centre of light to his generation. During his later years he was quite as much the head and leader of the intellectual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of the philosophes of France. It is only one of his minor merits, that he was the originator of all sound statesmanship in regard to the subject of his largest work, India. He wrote on no subject which he did not enrich with valuable thought, and excepting the Elements of Political Economy, a very useful book when first written, but which has now for some time finished its work, it will be long before any of his books will be wholly superseded, or will cease to be instructive reading to students of their subjects. In the power of influencing by mere force of mind and character, the convictions and purposes of others, and in the strenuous exertion of that power to promote freedom and progress, he left, as far as my knowledge extends, no equal among men, and but one among women.
在英國的文學史上,甚至在政治史上,他的地位都是很顯赫的。從他的價值觀中受益的一代人很少提到他,而且同那些遠不如他的人相比,他也很少被人記住,他們這樣做很不光彩。這大概主要有兩個原因。首先,他的思想太過融入于邊沁的思想中,而邊沁的名聲理所當然更大。然而,他絕不是邊沁純粹的追隨者或信徒。恰恰由于他本人就是那個時代最有創(chuàng)造性的思想家之一,是最早賞識并采納前輩們創(chuàng)造的大量最重要的獨創(chuàng)思想的人之一。他的思想和邊沁的思想在結構上根本不同。他不具備邊沁的所有優(yōu)秀素質(zhì),邊沁也沒有他的所有優(yōu)秀素質(zhì)。如果稱贊他和邊沁一樣為人類做出了杰出貢獻的話,確實是很可笑的。他沒有徹底改革,或者說沒有創(chuàng)造出人們思想的一個偉大領域。但是,如果先不考慮他工作中從邊沁那兒受益的那部分,只考慮他在邊沁沒有涉足的領域所取得的成績,即分析心理學,后代人就會知道,在思想的這個最重要分支里,亦即所有道德和政治科學最終都要依賴的方面,他是最偉大的人物之一,而且這也是該分支發(fā)展過程中一個最重要階段的標志。他的名聲不如應得的響亮,另一個原因就是,盡管他有很多觀點,而部分通過自己的努力現(xiàn)已大都被采納,但從總體上來說,他的精神和時代的精神明顯對立。正如布魯圖被稱為最后一個羅馬人一樣,他也是最后一個18世紀的人:他把18 世紀的思想和情感風格延續(xù)到了19世紀(盡管有所變化和改進),反對18 世紀是19 世紀上半葉的重要特征,這其中產(chǎn)生的或好或壞的影響,他都不理會。18 世紀是個偉大的時代,這個時代有很多堅強、勇敢的人,他適合與其中最堅強、最勇敢的人做朋友。通過他的著作和個人影響力,他成為那個時代偉大人物的核心。就像伏爾泰是法國哲學界的領袖一樣,在他晚年的時候,他完全算是英國知識界激進分子的首腦和領袖。鑒于他規(guī)模最大的著作《英屬印度史》的主題,他算得上是所有合理的治國策略的首創(chuàng)者,但這只是他較小的功績之一。他會用有價值的思想去豐富所寫的任何題材,除了《政治經(jīng)濟學原理》,這本書剛寫完的時候是非常有用的,但是現(xiàn)在它的使命已經(jīng)結束了。他的作品要很久以后才會被完全取代,對研究其主題的學生來說,也將在很長一段時間內(nèi)都是有啟發(fā)的讀本。他僅憑思想和品格的力量就能影響別人的信念和目標,他也努力發(fā)揮這種力量以促進自由和進步,就我所知,這在男性中無人能及,女性當中倒是有一個。
Though acutely sensible of my own inferiority in the qualities by which he acquired his personal ascendancy, I had now to try what it might be possible for me to accomplish without him; and the Review was the instrument on which I built my chief hopes of establishing a useful influence over the liberal and democratic section of the public mind. Deprived of my father's aid, I was also exempted from the restraints and reticence by which that aid had been purchased. I did not feel that there was any other radical writer or politician to whom I was bound to defer, further than consisted with my own opinions: and having the complete confidence of Molesworth, I resolved henceforth to give full scope to my own opinions and modes of thought, and to open the Review widely to all writers who were in sympathy with Progress as I understood it, even though I should lose by it the support of my former associates. Carlyle, consequently, became from this time a frequent writer in the Review; Sterling15, soon after, an occasional one; and though each individual article continued to be the expression of the private sentiments of its writer, the general tone conformed in some tolerable degree to my opinions. For the conduct of the Review, under, and in conjunction with me, I associated with myself a young Scotchman of the name of Robertson, who had some ability and information, much industry, and an active scheming head, full of devices for making the Review more saleable, and on whose capacities in that direction I founded a good deal of hope: insomuch, that when Molesworth, in the beginning of 1837, became tired of carrying on the Review at a loss, and desirous of getting rid of it (he had done his part honourably, and at no small pecuniary cost), I, very imprudently for my own pecuniary interest, and very much from reliance on Robertson's devices, determined to continue it at my own risk, until his plans should have had a fair trial. The devices were good, and I never had any reason to change my opinion of them. But I do not believe that any devices would have made a radical and democratic review defray its expenses, including a paid editor or sub-editor, and a liberal payment to writers. I myself and several frequent contributors gave our labour gratuitously, as we had done for Molesworth; but the paid contributors continued to be remunerated on the usual scale of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews; and this could not be done from the proceeds of the sale.
盡管我非常清楚,在他取得個人優(yōu)勢的那些方面,我遠不如他,但我現(xiàn)在必須嘗試,看看在沒有他的情況下,自己有可能取得什么成就。我希望對公眾思想中有關自由和民主的部分產(chǎn)生有益的影響,我把主要希望寄托在《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》這個工具上。沒有了父親的幫助,我也免除了獲得這些幫助所需要的約束和節(jié)制。我并不覺得一定要遵從其他任何激進派的作家或政治家,只需保持自己的觀點前后一致就可以了。因為得到了莫爾斯沃思的完全信任,我決心從此以后充分發(fā)揮自己的觀點和思考模式,把評論雜志向所有贊成我所理解之進步的作家敞開,即使可能會因此失去以前同事的支持。因此,卡萊爾從這時起經(jīng)常為《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》寫文章。不久之后,斯特林也偶爾寫一篇,盡管每一篇獨立的文章仍然是作者私人情感的表達,但是總體的基調(diào)在一定程度上能夠符合我的理念。為了管理這個評論雜志,我和一個名叫羅伯遜的蘇格蘭年輕人合作,他有一定的能力和見地,非常勤奮,頭腦活躍,善于計劃,有很多讓《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》更暢銷的辦法,我對他這方面的能力寄予厚望。因此在1837 年初,莫爾斯沃思疲于虧本經(jīng)營《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》并希望擺脫它的時候(他很光榮地盡了自己的職責,而且付出了很大的經(jīng)濟代價),我非常魯莽地決定自己負責繼續(xù)辦下去,這一方面是為了我自己的經(jīng)濟利益,也是因為非常信賴羅伯遜的方法,要讓他的計劃充分試驗一下。他的方法很好,我也從來沒有理由改變自己對這些方法的看法。但是,我相信任何方法都不能讓一個激進和民主主義的評論刊物有能力支付費用,包括主編和副主編的酬勞,以及給作者慷慨的稿酬。我和好幾個經(jīng)常性的撰稿人免費勞動,和莫爾斯沃思那時候一樣,但是對于要付稿酬的撰稿人,繼續(xù)按照《愛丁堡評論》和《季刊評論》的標準支付給他們報酬。而銷售收入根本支付不了這筆費用。
In the same year, 1837, and in the midst of these occupations, I resumed the Logic. I had not touched my pen on the subject for five years, having been stopped and brought to a halt on the threshold of Induction. I had gradually discovered that what was mainly wanting, to overcome the difficulties of that branch of the subject, was a comprehensive, and, at the same time, accurate view of the whole circle of physical science, which I feared it would take me a long course of study to acquire; since I knew not of any book, or other guide, that would spread out before me the generalities and processes of the sciences, and I apprehended that I should have no choice but to extract them for myself, as I best could, from the details. Happily for me, Dr. Whewell16, early in this year, published his History of the Inductive Sciences. I read it with eagerness, and found in it a considerable approximation to what I wanted. Much, if not most, of the philosophy of the work appeared open to objection; but the materials were there, for my own thoughts to work upon: and the author had given to those materials that first degree of elaboration, which so greatly facilitates and abridges the subsequent labour. I had now obtained what I had been waiting for. Under the impulse given me by the thoughts excited by Dr. Whewell, I read again Sir J. Herschel17's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy; and I was able to measure the progress my mind had made, by the great help I now found in this work—though I had read and even reviewed it several years before with little profit. I now set myself vigorously to work out the subject in thought and in writing. The time I bestowed on this had to be stolen from occupations more urgent. I had just two months to spare, at this period, in the intervals of writing for the Review. In these two months I completed the first draft of about a third, the most difficult third, of the book. What I had before written, I estimate at another third, so that only one-third remained. What I wrote at this time consisted of the remainder of the doctrine of Reasoning (the theory of Trains of Reasoning, and Demonstrative Science), and the greater part of the Book on Induction. When this was done, I had, as it seemed tome, untied all the really hard knots, and the completion of the book had become only a question of time. Having got thus far, I had to leave off in order to write two articles for the next number of the Review. When these were written, I returned to the subject, and now for the first time fell in with Comte's Cours de Philosophie Positive, or rather with the two volumes of it which were all that had at that time been published.
同一年,1837 年,在從事這些工作的同時,我重新開始寫《邏輯學體系》。我在剛開始寫歸納法的時候就停了下來,到此時已有五年沒碰這個題目了。我慢慢發(fā)現(xiàn),要克服邏輯學這個分支的困難,需要對整個自然科學領域進行全面和精確的了解,我擔心這要花很長時間的學習才能獲得。因為我不了解任何能夠在我面前展現(xiàn)這些科學的一般原則和過程的書籍或其他指南,而我還知道自己別無選擇,只能盡量從細節(jié)中吸取這些東西。幸運的是,休厄爾博士在這年年初出版了《歸納科學史》。我殷切地讀完了它,發(fā)現(xiàn)里面有很多東西跟我想要的很接近。這部著作里有很多(如果不是大多數(shù)的話)基本原理看起來值得商榷,但是有很多材料可以供我思考時使用。作者對那些材料進行了詳細闡述,這大大方便并縮減了我后來的工作。我現(xiàn)在得到了自己一直想要的東西。在休厄爾博士思想的促動下,我重讀了約翰. 赫歇耳爵士的《論自然哲學的研究》。在這本著作給我的巨大幫助下,我能夠衡量自己思想上產(chǎn)生的進步,雖然在幾年前,我讀它甚至溫習它的時候幾乎一無所獲?,F(xiàn)在,我滿腔熱情地思考這個主題,并把它寫出來。我必須從其他更緊急的事情中偷出時間來用在這上面。在這段時間里,我只能從為評論雜志寫文章的間隙里節(jié)省下兩個月的時間。就在這兩個月里,我完成了差不多初稿的三分之一,也是書中最難的三分之一。之前寫的,我估計也有三分之一,所以只剩下三分之一沒有完成。我這時所寫的,包括推理原理剩下的部分(即一系列的推理原理和論證科學)和歸納法這一卷的大半部分。這部分寫完之后,在我看來,我已經(jīng)解決了所有真正的困難,全書的完成只是個時間問題了。進展到這兒為止,我必須先停下來,為下一期的《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》寫兩篇文章。寫完文章后,我又繼續(xù)寫書,這時我第一次偶然讀到了孔德的《實證哲學教程》,或者更確切地說,讀到了兩卷,當時已經(jīng)出版的也只有這兩卷。
My theory of Induction was substantially completed before I knew of Comte's book; and it is perhaps well that I came to it by a different road from his, since the consequence has been that my treatise contains, what his certainly does not, a reduction of the inductive process to strict rules and to a scientific test, such as the Syllogism is for ratiocination. Comte is always precise and profound on the method of investigation, but he does not even attempt any exact definition of the conditions of proof: and his writings show that he never attained a just conception of them. This, however, was specifically the problem which, in treating of Induction, I had proposed to myself. Nevertheless, I gained much from Comte, with which to enrich my chapters in the subsequent rewriting: and his book was of essential service to me in some of the parts which still remained to be thought out. As his subsequent volumes successively made their appearance, I read them with avidity, but, when he reached the subject of Social Science, with varying feelings. The fourth volume disappointed me: it contained those of his opinions on social subjects with which I most disagree. But the fifth, containing the connected view of history, rekindled all my enthusiasm; which the sixth (or concluding) volume did not materially abate. In a merely logical point of view, the only leading conception for which I am indebted to him is that of the Inverse Deductive Method, as the one chiefly applicable to the complicated subjects of History and Statistics: a process differing from the more common form of the Deductive Method in this—that instead of arriving at its conclusions by general reasoning, and verifying them by specific experience (as is the natural order in the deductive branches of physical science), it obtains its generalizations by a collation of specific experience, and verifies them by ascertaining whether they are such as would follow from known general principles. This was an idea entirely new to me when I found it in Comte: and but for him I might not soon (if ever) have arrived at it.
在我知道有孔德的書之前,我的歸納法理論實際上已經(jīng)完成了。我獲得理論的方法很可能和他的不同,因為結果是我的論述中包含著他的論述里面沒有的東西,即把歸納過程簡化為精確的法則和科學的試驗,比如用三段論法進行推理??椎略谘芯糠椒ㄉ弦恢倍己芫_,造詣很深,但是他甚至從未嘗試為證據(jù)的條件下一個精確的定義:他的著作顯示,對于證據(jù)的條件,他從來都沒有獲得恰當?shù)睦斫狻H欢?,這正好是我處理歸納現(xiàn)象時向自己提出的問題。但我從孔德那里得到很多,充實了我后來改寫的一些章節(jié)。對我當時仍然想不透的地方,他的書給了我很大的幫助。隨著接下來的幾卷陸續(xù)出版,我急切地閱讀了它們,但是在讀到他所談的社會科學這個問題時,我的感覺變了。第四卷讓我很失望,因為里面所包含的他對社會問題的見解,是我非常不認同的。但是,第五卷所包含的連貫歷史觀,重新點燃了我所有的熱情。第六卷也沒有極大地減弱這種熱情。僅從邏輯的角度來看,我得益于他的唯一重要的概念是反演法,主要適用于歷史和統(tǒng)計學上的復雜問題:反演法的過程不同于普通演繹法,它不是通過一般推理得到結論,再用具體的事例檢驗結論(這是自然科學中演繹分支的自然順序),而是通過整理特定的經(jīng)驗來獲得結論,通過確定這些結論是否遵從已知的普遍原理來證實它們。在孔德的書中發(fā)現(xiàn)這個觀點時,它對我來說還是完全陌生的。如果不是他,我很可能不會很快地(或者永遠不會)領會它。
I had been long an ardent admirer of Comte's writings before I had any communication with himself; nor did I ever, to the last, see him in the body. But for some years we were frequent correspondents, until our correspondence became controversial, and our zeal cooled. I was the first to slacken correspondence; he was the first to drop it. I found, and he probably found likewise, that I could do no good to his mind, and that all the good he could do to mine, he did by his books. This would never have led to discontinuance of intercourse, if the differences between us had been on matters of simple doctrine. But they were chiefly on those points of opinion which blended in both of us with our strongest feelings, and determined the entire direction of our aspirations. I had fully agreed with him when he maintained that the mass of mankind, including even their rulers in all the practical departments of life, must, from the necessity of the case, accept most of their opinions on political and social matters, as they do on physical, from the authority of those who have bestowed more study on those subjects than they generally have it in their power to do. This lesson had been strongly impressed on me by the early work of Comte, to which I have adverted. And there was nothing in his great Treatise which I admired more than his remarkable exposition of the benefits which the nations of modern Europe have historically derived from the separation, during the Middle Ages, of temporal and spiritual power, and the distinct organization of the latter. I agreed with him that the moral and intellectual ascendancy, once exercised by priests, must in time pass into the hands of philosophers, and will naturally do so when they become sufficiently unanimous, and in other respects worthy to possess it. But when he exaggerated this line of thought into a practical system, in which philosophers were to be organized into a kind of corporate hierarchy, invested with almost the same spiritual supremacy (though without any secular power) once possessed by the Catholic church; when I found him relying on this spiritual authority as the only security for good government, the sole bulwark against practical oppression, and expecting that by it a system of despotism in the state and despotism in the family would be rendered innocuous and beneficial; it is not surprising, that while as logicians we were nearly at one, as sociologists we could travel together no further. M. Comte lived to carry out these doctrines to their extremes consequences, by planning, in his last work, the Système de Politique Positive,the completest system of spiritual and temporal despotism, which ever yet emanated from a human brain, unless possibly that of Ignatius Loyola18: a system by which the yoke of general opinion, wielded by an organized body of spiritual teachers and rulers, would be made supreme over every action, and as far as is in human possibility, every thought, of every member of the community, as well in the things which regard only himself, as in those which concern the interests of others. It is but just to say that this work is a considerable improvement, in many points of feeling, over Comte's previous writings on the same subjects: but as an accession to social philosophy, the only value it seems to me to possess consists in putting an end to the notion that no effectual moral authority can be maintained over society without the aid of religious belief; for Comte's work recognizes no religion except that of Humanity, yet it leaves an irresistible conviction that any moral beliefs concurred in by the community generally, may be brought to bear upon the whole conduct and lives of its individual members, with an energy and potency truly alarming to think of. The book stands a monumental warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what happens when once men lose sight in their speculations, of the value of Liberty and of Individuality.
在與孔德有任何交往之前,我早就已經(jīng)是他熱情的崇拜者了,直到最后我也從沒有親眼見過他。但是,有幾年我們經(jīng)常通信,一直到我們的通信中開始出現(xiàn)爭論,熱情冷卻為止。是我首先減少了與他的通信,而他首先終止了通信。我發(fā)現(xiàn),他可能也同樣發(fā)現(xiàn)了,我對他的思想沒什么幫助,而他給我?guī)淼乃袔椭?,全都在他的書里面了。如果我們之間的分歧僅存在于簡單的理論問題上的話,這也絕不會導致我們中止交流。但是,分歧主要存在于一些與我們雙方內(nèi)心最強烈的情感結合在一起的觀點上,而且這些觀點決定了我們目標的總體方向。他主張大多數(shù)人,包括他們生活中所有實踐領域的統(tǒng)治者,出于情形需要,在政治和社會問題上,都必須接受在這上面比他們做了更多研究的權威人士的大部分觀點,就像接受他們在自然科學上的見解一樣,對此我完全贊同。在我提到的孔德的早期著作中,這個見解給我留下了非常深刻的印象。在他那本偉大的專著里,我最崇拜的是他非凡地闡述了現(xiàn)代歐洲國家在歷史上從中世紀世俗權力和神權的分離中,以及神權的獨特構造中得到的益處。我也同意他所說的,即道德和智力優(yōu)勢曾經(jīng)一度由牧師操縱,但假以時日,一定會交到哲學家的手里,而且當哲學家的意見足夠一致,且在其他方面有資格擁有這種優(yōu)勢時,這件事就會自然發(fā)生。但是,他把這個思想路線夸大成一種實際的制度,在這種制度里,哲學家們被組織成一種有層級的集體,授予他們幾乎與過去的天主教會一樣的精神權威(盡管沒有任何世俗權力)。我發(fā)現(xiàn),他把這種精神權威當作善政的唯一保障,反對實際壓迫的唯一堡壘,還希望通過它使國家和家庭的專制制度變得無害反而有益。所以,作為邏輯學家,我們幾乎完全一致,但是作為社會學家,我們無法繼續(xù)一起前行,這也就沒什么可奇怪的了??椎孪壬簧铝τ谪瀼剡@些學說,在他的最后一部著作《實證政治學體系》里,他策劃了最完善的教權和俗權專制的制度,這種專制制度,可能除了伊格內(nèi)修斯. 羅耀拉外,別人根本不可能想出來。通過這種制度,可以讓由精神導師和統(tǒng)治者組成的團體,通過控制輿論來控制所有的社會行為,并在人類能力所及的范圍內(nèi)控制社會成員的每種想法,除了只與本人相關的事情,還有那些關乎別人利益的事情。但是公平地說,與孔德先前相同主題的作品相比,這部作品在情感方面的很多觀點上有很大的進步。但是,作為社會哲學的補充物,在我看來,它具有的唯一價值就在于結束了一種觀念,即認為任何有效的道德權威,都必須借助宗教信仰的支持才能在社會上得以維持??椎碌闹鞒巳诵?,沒有認可任何宗教,然而它讓人不得不相信:任何受到社會普遍贊成的道德信仰,都可以用來對它個體成員的所有行為和生活施加壓力,其力量和潛能確實讓人一想起來就很害怕。這本書對社會學和政治學思想家是個嚴重的警告,它使人了解到,人們在思考的時候,一旦忽略了自由和個性的價值,將會發(fā)生什么樣的后果。
To return to myself. the Review engrossed, for some time longer, nearly all the time I could devote to authorship, or to thinking with authorship in view. The articles from the London and Westminster Review which are reprinted in the Dissertations, are scarcely a fourth part of those I wrote. In the conduct of the Review I had two principal objects. One was to free philosophic radicalism from the reproach of sectarian Benthamism. I desired, while retaining the precision of expression, the definiteness of meaning, the contempt of declamatory phrases and vague generalities, which were so honorably characteristic both of Bentham and of my father, to give a wider basis and a more free and genial character to Radical speculations; to show that there was a Radical philosophy, better and more complete than Bentham's, while recognizing and incorporating all of Bentham's which is permanently valuable. In this first object I, to a certain extent, succeeded. The other thing I attempted, was to stir up the educated Radicals, in and out of Parliament, to exertion, and induce them to make themselves, what I thought by using the proper means, they might become—a powerful party capable of taking the government of the country, or at least of dictating the terms on which they should share it with the Whigs. This attempt was from the first chimerical: partly because the time was unpropitious, the Reform fervour being in its period of ebb, and the Tory influences powerfully rallying; but still more, because, as Austin so truly said, "the country did not contain the men." Among the Radicals in Parliament there were several qualified to be useful members of an enlightened Radical party, but none capable of forming and leading such a party. The exhortations I addressed to them found no response. One occasion did present itself when there seemed to be room for a bold and successful stroke for Radicalism. Lord Durham had left the Ministry, by reason, as was thought, of their not being sufficiently Liberal; he afterwards accepted from them the task of ascertaining and removing the causes of the Canadian rebellion; he had shown a disposition to surround himself at the outset with Radical advisers; one of his earliest measures, a good measure both in intention and in effect, having been disapproved and reversed by the Government at home, he had resigned his post, and placed himself openly in a position of quarrel with the Ministers. Here was a possible chief for a Radical party in the person of a man of importance, who was hated by the Tories, and had just been injured by the Whigs. Any one who had the most elementary notions of party tactics, must have attempted to make something of such an opportunity. Lord Durham was bitterly attacked from all sides, inveighed against by enemies, given up by timid friends; while those who would willingly have defended him did not know what to say. He appeared to be returning a defeated and discredited man. I had followed the Canadian events from the beginning; I had been one of the prompters of his prompters; his policy was almost exactly what mine would have been, and I was in a position to defend it. I wrote and published a manifesto in the Review, in which I took the very highest ground in his behalf, claiming for him not mere acquittal, but praise and honour. Instantly a number of other writers took up the tone: I believe there was a portion of truth in what Lord Durham, soon after, with polite exaggeration, said to me—that to this article might be ascribed the almost triumphal reception which he met with on his arrival in England. I believe it to have been the word in season, which, at a critical moment, does much to decide the result; the touch which determines whether a stone, set in motion at the top of an eminence, shall roll down on one side or on the other. All hopes connected with Lord Durham as a politician soon vanished; but with regard to Canadian, and generally to colonial policy, the cause was gained: Lord Durham's report, written by Charles Buller, partly under the inspiration of Wakefield, began a new era; its recommendations, extending to complete internal self-government, were in full operation in Canada within two or three years, and have been since extended to nearly all the other colonies, of European race, which have any claim to the character of important communities. And I may say that in successfully upholding the reputation of Lord Durham and his advisers at the most important moment, I contributed materially to this result.
還是說說我自己吧。很長一段時間以來,評論雜志幾乎讓我把所有的時間都傾注在了寫作上,或者以寫作為目的的思考上?!墩撌龊陀懻摗防锸珍浀摹秱惗睾屯姑羲固卦u論》上的文章還不到我在雜志上發(fā)表的全部文章的四分之一。在管理這份評論雜志的時候,我有兩個主要目標。一個是使哲學激進主義不再被指責為狹隘的功利主義。表達精確,意思明確,蔑視夸夸其談和含糊其辭,這些是邊沁和我父親都擁有的值得尊敬的特質(zhì)。我希望在保持這些特質(zhì)的同時,給激進主義的思索以更廣闊的基礎和更自由、更溫和的特征。我也希望在認可、吸收邊沁所有具有永恒價值的理論的同時,表明存在這樣一種激進主義的哲學,它比邊沁的更好,更完善。在一定程度上,我達到了第一個目標。我嘗試的另一件事情,是鼓動議會內(nèi)外受過良好教育的激進分子發(fā)揮作用,并促使他們把自己變成能夠治理國家的強大黨派(通過運用合適的方法,我想可能會做到),或者至少能夠制定條款規(guī)定他們和輝格黨共同治理國家。這個企圖從一開始就是不切實際的:一方面因為時機很不利,當時改革的熱情正處于衰退期,而托利黨的影響得到了強有力的恢復;但是,更主要的原因是,正如奧斯汀一針見血地指出的那樣,“這個國家沒有那種人”。議會里的激進分子當中,有好幾個有資格成為進步的激進黨里有用的成員,但是沒有一個人能夠組織并領導這樣一個黨派。我敦促他們,但他們毫無回應。確實曾經(jīng)有一次,激進主義似乎有機會能夠進行大膽而成功的一擊。德拉姆勛爵離開了內(nèi)閣,據(jù)說是因為是內(nèi)閣成員不夠開明。他后來接受了他們給的任務,去查清并消除導致加拿大叛亂的誘因,他表示希望開始任務時身邊就能有激進派的顧問。他最早采取的一個措施,在目的和效果上都很好,但卻被國內(nèi)政府否決,取消了,因此他辭了職,使自己公然處于和大臣們爭吵的境地。這樣一位受到托利黨仇視,又剛被輝格黨傷害的有影響力的人士,是有可能成為激進黨的領袖的。任何有最基本黨派策略觀念的人,都一定會嘗試利用這樣一個機會。德拉姆勛爵受到來自各方的猛烈攻擊,他被敵人謾罵,被膽小的朋友拋棄,而那些愿意為他辯護的人卻又不知道該說些什么。他回國的時候,看上去像個被打敗的名聲敗壞的人。我從一開始就關注加拿大事件,我是他的激勵者之一。我要是制定政策的話,應該與他的政策幾乎完全一樣,因此我能夠為這種政策辯護。我寫了一篇宣言,發(fā)表在《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》上,我以最堅定的立場堅持他,主張他不僅無罪,而且值得稱頌和尊敬。很快,許多別的作家也開始采納我的說法。不久之后,德拉姆勛爵跟我說,他回到英國的時候受到了幾乎凱旋般的接待,可能就是因為這篇文章,雖然這是帶有禮貌的夸張,但有一部分是實情。我認為,它只是表達得及時,所以在關鍵時刻能在很大程度上決定結果。就像輕輕一推從山頂滑落的石頭,就會決定它會滑向這邊還是那邊。所有寄托在作為政治家的德拉姆勛爵身上的希望很快破滅了。但是對于加拿大和總的殖民政策來說,我們的所作所為還是有所收獲的。部分由于韋克菲爾德的啟發(fā),查爾斯·布勒執(zhí)筆的德拉姆勛爵報告開啟了一個新時代。報告的建議擴展至完全的國內(nèi)自治,這個建議兩三年內(nèi)就在加拿大全面實行。而且,從那時起,擴展到幾乎所有其他的歐洲人殖民地,這些殖民地都具有重要社區(qū)的特征。我可以說,在最關鍵的時刻成功地維護德拉姆勛爵和他的顧問們的名聲,這一結果是我極力促成的。
One other case occurred during my conduct of the Review, which similarly illustrated the effect of taking a prompt initiative. I believe that the early success and reputation of Carlyle's French Revolution, were considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in the Review. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had time to pre-occupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves. Neither in this case nor in that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the impression, which I think was produced by what I wrote, to any particular merit of execution: indeed, in at least one of the cases (the article on Carlyle) I do not think the execution was good. And in both instances, I am persuaded that anybody, in a position to be read, who had expressed the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would have produced the same effect. But, after the complete failure of my hopes of putting a new life into Radical politics by means of the Review, I am glad to look back on these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do immediate service to things and persons that deserved it.
在我管理評論雜志的期間還發(fā)生了一件事,同樣說明了采取迅速行動的作用。我相信,卡萊爾的《法國大革命》能獲得早期的成功,并享有盛譽,在相當大程度上是我在評論雜志上寫的文章促成的。這本書藐視普通批評家的規(guī)則和評論方式,所以它剛一出版,我就趕在這些批評家用否定它吸引大眾之前,寫了一篇書評并發(fā)表了,夸它是個天才的作品,高于一切規(guī)則,本身就是規(guī)則。不管在這件事上,還是德拉姆勛爵那件事上,我都沒有把效果(我想是我寫的東西所帶來的)歸功于任何寫作手法上的特殊優(yōu)點。確實,至少在其中一件事情上(評論卡萊爾的文章),我認為自己的寫作手法并不好。在這兩個例子里,我都相信,任何擁有讀者的人,在同樣恰當?shù)臅r間表達了同樣的觀點,還對它的正當理由作了較好的陳述,都會產(chǎn)生相同的效果。但是,在我通過《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》為激進政策注入新活力的希望全部落空后,回憶起在這兩個成功的例子中,我曾誠摯地努力為值得幫助的人和事作出了即時的貢獻,我就會很高興。
After the last hope of the formation of a Radical party had disappeared, it was time for me to stop the heavy expenditure of time and money which the Review cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose as a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in print much of my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked manner from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary articles, but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the Dissertations) which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his philosophy. The substance of this criticism I still think perfectly just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish it at that time. I have often felt that Bentham's philosophy, as an instrument of progress, has been to some extent discredited before it had done its work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing more harm than service to improvement. Now, however, when a counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what is good in Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on this criticism of its defects, especially as I have myself balanced it by vindications of the fundamental principles of Bentham's philosophy, which are reprinted along with it in the same collection. In the essay on Coleridge I attempted to characterize the European reaction against the negative philosophy of the eighteenth century: and here, if the effect only of this one paper were to be considered, I might be thought to have erred by giving undue prominence to the favourable side, as I had done in the case of Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the impetus with which I had detached myself from what was untenable in the doctrines of Bentham and of the eighteenth century, may have carried me, though in appearance rather than in reality, too far on the contrary side. But as far as relates to the article on Coleridge, my defence is, that I was writing for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to dwell most on that in writers of a different school, from the knowledge of which, they might derive most improvement.
在建立一個激進黨派的最后希望落空后,是時候停止把大量時間和金錢花費在《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》上了。作為傳達我觀點的工具,它在某種程度上達到了我的個人目標。它讓我發(fā)表了很多我改變后的思考方式,使我和自己早期作品中較狹隘的邊沁主義劃清了界線。這一點是通過我寫的所有文章的總體風格表現(xiàn)出來的,包括各種純粹的文學作品,但主要是通過兩篇試圖從哲學角度評價邊沁和柯爾律治的文章表現(xiàn)出來的(收錄在《討論與論文》里)。在第一篇文章里,我在完全公正地評價邊沁優(yōu)點的同時,還按照自己的理解指出了他的哲學中的錯誤和不足。我現(xiàn)在仍然認為這個評論的主旨有著非常充分的根據(jù)。但是,有時我會懷疑在那個時候發(fā)表是否合適。我經(jīng)常覺得,邊沁的哲學作為進步的手段,在發(fā)揮作用之前就因在某種程度上被人懷疑而名聲被貶,對進步而言弊大于利。盡管現(xiàn)在看起來有承認邊沁主義優(yōu)點的趨勢,但我還是能更滿意地看待自己對它缺點的批評,尤其是我在批評它的同時,也證明了邊沁哲學基本原則的正確性,這些文章被收錄在同一個集子里。在評論柯爾律治的文章里,我嘗試刻畫歐洲反對18 世紀消極哲學運動的特征:在這兒,如果只考慮這一篇文章的效果,人們可能會認為我過于突出優(yōu)點,就像我過分突出了邊沁的缺點一樣。在這兩件事上,我把自己和邊沁的理論以及18 世紀的學說里站不住腳的觀點分開的動力,可能也讓我在相反的方向上走得太遠,雖然只是表面上如此,而不是在現(xiàn)實中。但是,對于評論柯爾律治的這篇文章,我是這樣為自己辯護的:我是為激進分子和自由主義者而寫,最大程度地仔細描述不同學派的作家是我的任務,從這些學派的知識中,激進分子和自由主義者們可能會獲得最大的進步。
The number of the Review which contained the paper on Coleridge, was the last which was published during my proprietorship. In the spring of 1840 I made over the Review to Mr. Hickson, who had been a frequent and very useful unpaid contributor under my management: only stipulating that the change should be marked by a resumption of the old name, that of Westminster Review. Under that name Mr. Hickson conducted it for ten years, on the plan of dividing among contributors only the net proceeds of the Review, giving his own labour as writer and editor gratuitously. Under the difficulty in obtaining writers, which arose from this low scale of payment, it is highly creditable to him that he was able to maintain, in some tolerable degree, the character of the Review as an organ of radicalism and progress. I did not cease altogether to write for the Review, but continued to send it occasional contributions, not, however, exclusively; for the greater circulation of the Edinburgh Review induced me from this time to offer articles to it also when I had anything to say for which it appeared to be a suitable vehicle. And the concluding volumes of Democracy in America having just then come out, I inaugurated myself as a contributor to the Edinburgh, by the article on that work, which heads the second volume of the Dissertations.
刊登評論柯爾律治那篇文章的那期《倫敦與威斯敏斯特評論》,是我負責的最后一期。1840 年春天,我把評論雜志轉(zhuǎn)讓給了希克森先生,在我主辦評論雜志的期間,他經(jīng)常無償為之撰稿,對我們的幫助很大。他只要求恢復原來的名字《威斯敏斯特評論》以顯示該變化。他用這個名稱辦了十年,給投稿人按純收入分配稿費,自己則免費為它寫稿,做編輯。因為報酬太低,難以爭取到作家投稿。在這種困境下,他能夠較好地保持《威斯敏斯特評論》作為激進主義和進步喉舌的特征,是很值得稱贊的。我并沒有完全停止為《威斯敏斯特評論》撰稿,只是偶爾間斷地投稿,但我不是專給它投稿,因為從這時起發(fā)行量更大的《愛丁堡評論》誘使我向它投稿,在我有見解要發(fā)表時,它看起來是個合適的媒介。《論美國的民主》的最后幾卷當時剛剛出版,我開始成為《愛丁堡評論》撰稿人時寫的第一篇稿子就是為那部著作寫的評論,這成了《討論與論述》第二卷的第一篇文章。
(1) 亞歷克西斯·德·托克維爾(1805—1859),19 世紀法國政治思想家、歷史學家。著作有《美國的民主》《舊制度與大革命》等。
(2) 約翰·羅巴克(1718 —179 4),英國成功的企業(yè)家, 擁有著名的卡倫鋼鐵廠。
(3) 查爾斯·布勒(1806—184 8),英國政治家、激進派改革家。
(4) 威廉·莫爾斯沃思(1810—1855),英國政治家、自由黨人、議會議員。曾任公共工程大臣(1853—1855)和殖民大臣(1855)。
(5) 約翰·羅米利(18 0 2—1874),英國大法官、政治家。其父是英國法律改革家塞繆爾·羅米利爵士(1757—1818)。
(6) 愛德華·羅米利(1838—1886),英國人, 其父是約翰· 羅米利。
(7) 丹尼爾·奧康奈爾( 17 75 —18 47),19 世紀前期愛爾蘭民族主義運動的主要代表。
(8) 輝格黨,英國歷史上的一個政黨,反對絕對王權,支持新教徒享有宗教自由,是自由黨的前身。與他們相對的是托利黨,后者是一批持傳統(tǒng)觀點的人,支持世襲王權,保留國王, 是保守黨的前身。
(9) 奧爾巴尼·威廉·方布蘭克( 1793 —1872),英國新聞記者。
(10) 威廉·約翰遜·??怂梗?786 —1864),英國著名的宣傳家、宗教和政治演說家。
(11) 愛德華·布爾沃-利頓 (1803—1873),英國下院議員、殖民大臣、小說家和劇作家,主要作品有歷史小說《龐貝城的末日》和劇本《黎塞留》。
(12) 亞當·塞奇威克(178 5 —1878),英國著名的地質(zhì)學家, 最早提出寒武紀和泥盆紀命名。
(13) 威廉·佩利( 1743 —18 0 5),英國神學家, 其經(jīng)典著作為《自然神學》。
(14) 馬庫斯·朱尼厄斯·布魯圖(公元前85— 前42),羅馬共和時期的第一任行政長官,早期曾參加過刺殺羅馬獨裁者愷撒的行動。他有著光明磊落的性格,在歷史上是一個維護民主、不徇私情、大公無私的執(zhí)政官形象。
(15) 約翰·斯特林(1806—184 4),英國作家。
(16) 威廉·休厄爾( 179 4 —186 6),英國著名的科學史家, 最有影響的著作是《歸納科學史》。
(17) 約翰·赫歇耳爵士(1792—1871),英國天文學家。其父是被譽為“恒星天文學之父”的弗雷德里克·威廉·赫歇耳爵士(1738—1822)。
(18) 伊格內(nèi)修斯·羅耀拉(1491—1556),西班牙人, 羅馬天主教耶穌會的創(chuàng)建者。