CHAPTER IV Youthful Propagandism The Westminster Review

第四章 青年时代的宣传事业 《威斯敏斯特评论》

The occupation of so much of my time by office work did not relax my attention to my own pursuits, which were never carried on more vigorously. It was about this time that I began to write in newspapers. The first writings of mine which got into print were two letters published towards the end of 1822, in the Traveller evening newspaper. The Traveller (which afterwards grew into the Globe and Traveller by the purchase and incorporation of the Globe) was then the property of the well known political economist Colonel Torrens. Under the editorship of an able man, Mr. Walter Coulson (who, after being an amanuensis of Mr. Bentham, became a reporter, then an editor, next a barrister and conveyancer, and died Counsel to the Home Office), it had become one of the most important newspaper organs of Liberal politics. Col. Torrens himself wrote much of the political economy of his paper; and had at this time made an attack upon some opinion of Ricardo and my father, to which, at my father's instigation, I attempted an answer, and Coulson out of consideration for my father and goodwill to me, inserted it. There was a reply by Torrens, to which I again rejoined. I soon after attempted something considerably more ambitious. The prosecutions of Richard Carlile and his wife and sister for publications hostile to Christianity, were then exciting much attention, and nowhere more than among the people I frequented. Freedom of discussion even in politics, much more in religion, was at that time far from being, even in theory, the conceded point which it at least seems to be now; and the holders of obnoxious opinions had to be always ready to argue and re-argue for the liberty of expressing them. I wrote a series of five letters, under the signature of Wickliffe, going over the whole length and breadth of the question of free publication of all opinions on religion, and offered them to the Morning Chronicle. Three of them were published in January and February, 1823; the other two, containing things too outspoken for that journal, never appeared at all. But a paper which I wrote soon after on the same subject, à propos of a debate in the House of Commons, was inserted as a leading article; and during the whole of this year, 1823, a considerable number of my contributions were printed in the Chronicle and Traveller: sometimes notices of books, but oftener letters, commenting on some nonsense talked in Parliament, or some defect of the law, or misdoings of the magistracy or the courts of justice. In this last department the Chronicle was now rendering signal service. After the death of Mr. Perry, the editorship and management of the paper had devolved on Mr. John Black, long a reporter on its establishment; a man of most extensive reading and information, great honesty and simplicity of mind; a particular friend of my father, imbued with many of his and Bentham's ideas, which he reproduced in his articles, among other valuable thoughts, with great facility and skill. From this time the Chronicle ceased to be the merely Whig organ it was before, and during the next ten years became to a considerable extent a vehicle of the opinions of the Utilitarian Radicals. This was mainly by what Black himself wrote, with some assistance from Fonblanque, who first shewed his eminent qualities as a writer by articles and jeux d'esprit in the Chronicle. The defects of the law, and of the administration of justice, were the subject on which that paper rendered most service to improvement. Up to that time hardly a word had been said, except by Bentham and my father, against that most peccant part of English institutions and of their administration. It was the almost universal creed of Englishmen, that the law of England, the judicature of England, the unpaid magistracy of England, were models of excellence. I do not go beyond the mark in saying, that after Bentham, who supplied the principal materials, the greatest share of the merit of breaking down this wretched superstition belongs to Black, as editor of the Morning Chronicle. He kept up an incessant fire against it, exposing the absurdities and vices of the law and the courts of justice, paid and unpaid, until he forced some sense of them into people's minds. On many other questions he became the organ of opinions much in advance of any which had ever before found regular advocacy in the newspaper press. Black was a frequent visitor of my father, and Mr. Grote used to say that he always knew by the Monday morning's article, whether Black had been with my father on the Sunday. Black was one of the most influential of the many channels through which my father's conversation and personal influence made his opinions tell on the world; co-operating with the effect of his writings in making him a power in the country, such as it has rarely been the lot of an individual in a private station to be, through the mere force of intellect and character: and a power which was often acting the most efficiently where it was least seen and suspected. I have already noticed how much of what was done by Ricardo, Hume, and Grote, was the result, in part, of his prompting and persuasion. He was the good genius by the side of Brougham in most of what he did for the public, either on education, law reform, or any other subject. And his influence flowed in minor streams too numerous to be specified. This influence was now about to receive a great extension by the foundation of the Westminster Review.

办公室工作占据了我非常多的时间,但是我并没有放松自己的追求,我比以往任何时候都更精力旺盛地坚持着。大约从这个时候起,我开始为报纸撰稿。我发表的第一个作品,是1822年底在《旅行者》晚报上刊登的两封信。《旅行者》(后来收购合并了《环球》,成为《环球旅行者》)当时属于著名的政治经济学家托伦斯上校。凭借能干的编辑沃尔特.库尔森先生(他曾是边沁先生的抄写员,后来成了记者,然后做编辑,接着做承办转让事务的律师,去世时是英国内政部的法律顾问),该报成了自由主义政治最重要的机关报之一。托伦斯上校亲自为自己的报纸写了很多政治经济学的文章。这时,他写了一篇文章,攻击李嘉图和我父亲的一些观点,在父亲的鼓动下,我试着写了一篇回应文章,库尔森出于对父亲的考虑,以及对我的好意,把它插到了报纸里面。托伦斯写了一篇文章回应,我也再次反驳。之后不久,我尝试写更具挑战性的东西。理查德.卡莱尔和他的妻子以及姐姐,由于发表敌视基督教的文章而招致起诉,在当时引起了很大的关注,我经常拜访的人对此尤为关注。讨论的自由在当时,不用说宗教上的,即便是政治上的,也和目前至少看起来是被理论上认可接受的界点相距甚远。持有让人讨厌的观点的人为了能自由表达,总是得做好多次辩论的准备。我用威克利夫的笔名写了五封系列书信,全面阐述了自由发表一切宗教观点的问题,投给了《纪事晨报》。其中三封在1823年的1月和2月发表,另外两封,由于内容对这个杂志来说太直率,一直没有发表。但是不久后,我写了一篇同一主题的文章,是关于下议院一次辩论的话题,作为社论刊登了出来。1823年一整年中,我的很多投稿都发表在《纪事晨报》和《旅行者》上,有的是书评,但更多的是书信,评论议会里面说的一些胡话、法律的缺陷以及地方行政官员或法庭做的坏事。在揭露腐败方面,《纪事晨报》当时做得相当出色。佩里先生去世后,报纸的编辑和管理职务移交给了约翰.布莱克先生,从发刊以来他就是该报的记者。他博览群书,阅历广泛,诚恳而思想纯朴。他是我父亲一位很特别的朋友,很多观点受到父亲和边沁的影响,他在自己的文章里重现这些观点和其他有价值的思想,表达得非常流利,技巧娴熟。从这时起,《纪事晨报》不再像以前那样仅仅是辉格党的机关报。在接下来的十年里,它在很大程度上成为功利主义激进分子表达观点的工具。这主要在于布莱克的文章,得到了方布兰克的协助,后者在《纪事晨报》上面发表的文章和妙语初次展现了一个作家的杰出素质。法律和司法管理方面的缺陷,是这家报纸主要致力于改善的。在那以前,除了边沁和我父亲,几乎没有任何人批评过英国公共机构和它们管理中的最大弊端。英国人几乎普遍相信,英国法律、英国司法以及英国不取报酬的地方行政官员,都是优秀的典型。我这么说一点都不过分,除了提供主要资料的边沁,这种可鄙迷信的破除便最应归功于作为《纪事晨报》编辑的布莱克了。他不计报酬地不断向这种迷信开火,暴露法律和法庭的荒谬与缺陷,直至人们感觉到这些为止。在很多问题上,他都成为舆论的喉舌,所发表的意见经常比其他报纸提倡的早很多。布莱克先生经常拜访我父亲,格罗特先生常说,他总能从周一早上的文章中得知布莱克周日是否和我父亲在一起。布莱克是父亲通过交谈和个人影响使其见解为世人所知的众多渠道中最重要的一个。加之其作品的影响,他成了这个国家的一股力量,这对于平民身份的个人来说,仅仅通过智力和品格的力量是很难做到的。这股力量经常在最难以觉察和最不受怀疑的地方,最有效率地发挥作用。我已经注意到,李嘉图、休谟和格罗特所做的事情,一部分是他激励和说服的结果。他简直是布鲁厄姆身边为公众谋福利的天才,不管是从教育、法律改革,还是其他方面都可以看出来。他的影响就像难以数计的溪流。这种影响现在马上要大大扩展了,因为《威斯敏斯特评论》创刊了。

Contrary to what may have been supposed, my father was in no degree a party to setting up the Westminster Review. The need of a Radical organ to make head against the Edinburgh and Quarterly (then in the period of their greatest reputation and influence), had been a topic of conversation between him and Mr. Bentham many years earlier, and it had been a part of their cháteau en Espagne that my father should be the editor; but the idea had never assumed any practical shape. In 1823, however, Mr. Bentham determined to establish the Review at his own cost, and offered the editorship to my father, who declined it as incompatible with his India House appointment. It was then entrusted to Mr. (now Sir John) Bowring, at that time a merchant in the City. Mr. Bowring had been for two or three years previous an assiduous frequenter of Mr. Bentham, to whom he was recommended by many personal good qualities, by an ardent admiration for Bentham, a zealous adoption of many, though not all of his opinions, and, not least, by an extensive acquaintanceship and correspondence with Liberals of all countries, which seemed to qualify him for being a powerful agent in spreading Bentham's fame and doctrines through all quarters of the world. My father had seen little of Bowring, but knew enough of him to have formed a strong opinion, that he was a man of an entirely different type from what my father considered suitable for conducting a political and philosophical Review: and he augured so ill of the enterprise that he regretted it altogether, feeling persuaded not only that Mr. Bentham would lose his money, but that discredit would probably be brought upon Radical principles. He could not however desert Mr. Bentham, and he consented to write an article for the first number. As it had been a favorite portion of the scheme formerly talked of, that part of the work should be devoted to reviewing the other Reviews, this article of my father's was to be a general criticism of the Edinburgh Review from its commencement. Before writing it he made me read through all the volumes of the Review, or as much of each as seemed of any importance (which was not so arduous a task in 1823 as it would be now), and make notes for him of the articles which I thought he would wish to examine, either on account of their good or their bad qualities. This paper of my father's was the chief cause of the sensation which the Westminster Review produced at its first appearance, and is, both in conception and in execution, one of the most striking of all his writings. He began by an analysis of the tendencies of periodical literature in general; pointing out, that it cannot, like books, wait for success, but must succeed immediately, or not at all, and is hence almost certain to profess and inculcate the opinions already held by the public to which it addresses itself, instead of attempting to rectify or improve those opinions. He next, to characterize the position of the Edinburgh Review as a political organ, entered into a complete analysis, from the Radical point of view, of the British Constitution. He held up to notice its thoroughly aristocratic character: the nomination of a majority of the House of Commons by a few hundred families; the entire identification of the more independent portion, the county members, with the great landholders; the different classes whom this narrow oligarchy was induced, for convenience, to admit to a share of power; and finally, what he called its two props, the Church, and the legal profession. He pointed out the natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this composition, to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former and become the predominant section by the aid of public opinion, without any essential sacrifice of the aristocratical predominance. He described the course likely to be pursued, and the political ground occupied, by an aristocratic party in opposition, coquetting with popular principles for the sake of popular support. He shewed how this idea was realized in the conduct of the Whig party, and of the Edinburgh Review as its chief literary organ. He described, as their main characteristic, what he termed "seesaw;" writing alternately on both sides of every question which touched the power or interest of the governing classes; sometimes in different articles, sometimes in different parts of the same article: and illustrated his position by copious specimens. So formidable an attack on the Whig party and policy had never before been made; nor had so great a blow been ever struck, in this country, for Radicalism; nor was there, I believe, any living person capable of writing that article, except my father.

与大家可能会预想的相反,我父亲完全没有参与创立《威斯敏斯特评论》。很多年前,他和边沁先生就谈论过,予以《爱丁堡评论》和《季刊评论》迎头痛击需要一份激进主义的报纸(当时,这两份报纸正处于名声和影响最大的时候),父亲做编辑也在计划之中,但这个想法从未付诸实施。然而,1823年,边沁先生决定自己出资创立这个评论杂志,让我父亲做编辑,但父亲拒绝了,因为这与他在东印度公司的职位相冲突。于是评论杂志就委托给了鲍林先生(现在的约翰爵士),当时他是伦敦的一名商人。鲍林先生在这之前的两三年,经常拜访边沁先生,他有许多优秀品质,非常仰慕边沁,热情地采纳边沁的大部分观点,尽管不是全部,并与所有国家的自由主义者有着广泛的认识和联系。所有这些都使边沁对他十分欣赏,似乎也让他有资格成为一名有力的代理人,向世界各地传播边沁的名声和学说。父亲虽没怎么见过鲍林,但是对他的了解足以形成深刻的印象,他与父亲心目中适合管理政治和哲学评论杂志的人是完全不同的类型。并且,他认为这项事业前景坏到令他为整件事情惋惜,不仅觉得边沁先生肯定会损失金钱,而且还可能会损害激进主义原则的名誉。然而,他又不能置边沁先生于不顾,他答应给创刊号写一篇文章。作为之前讨论的方案里备受喜爱的一部分,这部分内容应该是用来回顾和评论其他评论报纸的。于是父亲的这篇文章就是对《爱丁堡评论》自创刊以来的一个总体批评。在写这篇文章之前,父亲让我读了每一期的《爱丁堡评论》,或者每一本里面看起来比较重要的文章(这项工作在1823年时不像现在这么艰巨),并让我把我认为他会愿意研究的文章,根据其好坏,给他作注释。父亲的文章是《威斯敏斯特评论》一面世即引起轰动的最主要原因,而且,不论在构思上还是在写作手法上,都是其佳作之一。他首先分析了期刊文学的总体趋势,指出它不能像书籍一样等待成功到来,而必须立刻成功,要么就永远无法成功,因此几乎可以肯定,期刊会针对其受众公开宣称并反复灌输他们已经持有的观点,而不是试图矫正或改进那些观点。接下来,为了刻画《爱丁堡评论》作为政治喉舌的立场,他用激进主义的观点对《英国宪法》进行了全面分析。他进一步指出宪法彻头彻尾的贵族政治特征:几百个家庭就决定了下议院大多数人的任命;把更加独立的一部分人——郡议员——完全等同于大土地所有者;为了方便,这个狭隘的寡头统治国家让不同阶层分享一部分权力;最后提到的是教会和律师业,他把它们称作宪法的两个靠山。他指出,这种结构的贵族团体的自然趋势是把自己分成两党,一党掌控政府,另一党竭力在公共舆论的帮助下,取代前者,占据支配地位,而贵族的统治不会有任何实质上的牺牲。他描绘了在野的贵族党可能会采取的做法,以及他们会持有的政治立场,即为了得到大众支持而卖弄流行的原则。他展示了这种理念是如何在辉格党及其文化喉舌《爱丁堡评论》的行为中体现的。父亲描述了他们的主要特征,即他所谓的“跷跷板”现象:轮流写双方每个触及统治阶级权力或利益的问题;有时在不同的文章里面写,有时在同一篇文章的不同地方写。父亲还举出了丰富的例子来表明他的立场。对辉格党和它的政策,以前从未有过这么有力的攻击。在这个国家,也从未有人为了激进主义做出如此强烈的一击。我相信,除了父亲外,也没有任何人能写出那样的文章。

In the meantime the nascent review had formed a junction with another project, of a purely literary periodical, to be edited by Mr. Henry Southern, afterwards a diplomatist, then a literary man by profession. The two editors agreed to unite their corps, and divide the editorship, Bowring taking the political, Southern the literary department. Southern's review was to have been published by Longman, and that firm, though part proprietors of the Edinburgh, were willing to be the publishers of the new journal. But when all the arrangements had been made, and the prospectuses sent out, the Longmans saw my father's attack on the Edinburgh, and drew back. My father was now appealed to for his interest with his own publisher, Baldwin, which was exerted with a successful result. And so, in April 1824, amidst anything but hope on my father's part, and that of most of those who afterwards aided in carrying on the Review, the first number made its appearance.

同时,初生的评论杂志和另一个项目——一个纯文学期刊——联合了起来,这个新期刊将由亨利.萨瑟恩先生任编辑,他后来成了外交家,当时专职搞文学创作。两个编辑同意把他们的队伍联合起来,进行分工,鲍林负责政治部分,萨瑟恩负责文学部分。萨瑟恩的评论杂志按计划要由朗文出版,这个公司尽管是《爱丁堡评论》的股东之一,但还是乐于做这个新期刊的发行人。但是,当所有安排都做好了,简介也已经发出去了的时候,朗文的人看到了我父亲对《爱丁堡评论》的攻击,退出了。这时父亲为了自己的利益向他的出版商鲍德温求助,结果成功了。于是在1824年4月,在父亲的满怀期待中,以及大多数后来协助经营这个评论杂志的人的期待中,创刊号问世了。

That number was an agreeable surprise to most of us. The average of the articles was of much better quality than had been expected. The literary and artistic department had rested chiefly on Mr. Bingham, a barrister (subsequently a police magistrate), who had been for some years a frequenter of Bentham, was a friend of both the Austins, and had adopted with great ardour Mr. Bentham's philosophical opinions. Partly from accident, there were in the first number as many as five articles by Bingham; and we were extremely pleased with them. I well remember the mixed feeling I myself had about the Review; the joy at finding, what we did not at all expect, that it was sufficiently good to be capable of being made a creditable organ of those who held the opinions it professed; and extreme vexation, since it was so good on the whole, at what we thought the blemishes of it. When, however, in addition to our generally favourable opinion of it, we learned that it had an extraordinarily large sale for a first number, and found that the appearance of a Radical Review, with pretensions equal to those of the established organs of parties, had excited much attention, there could be no room for hesitation, and we all became eager in doing everything we could to strengthen and improve it.

那一期对我们大多数人来说是个惊喜。文章的平均水平比预期要高很多。文学和艺术部分主要靠宾厄姆先生,他是个律师(后来是警备司法官),有几年是边沁的常客,是奥斯丁兄弟俩的朋友,以很大的热情采纳了边沁先生的哲学观点。部分出于巧合,第一期里面宾厄姆的文章竟然有五篇之多,我们非常喜欢这些文章。我清楚地记得自己对《威斯敏斯特评论》的复杂感情。我们意外地发现它足以成为那些秉持期刊公开宣扬的观点的人可信赖喉舌时的快乐。还有极度的苦恼,因为大体上来说,连以前我们认为会是瑕疵的地方,它都做得很好。然而,除了我们普遍赞成它之外,我们还得知期刊的销售数量对于首期来说非常之大,并且发现这一和其他具有一定基础的党派喉舌报刊意图相同的激进主义评论杂志的出现引起了很多关注。此时我们不再犹豫,都变得很热切,想竭尽全力去巩固它,改善它。

My father continued to write occasional articles. The Quarterly Review received its exposure, as a sequel to that of the Edinburgh. Of his other contributions, the most important were an attack on Southey's Book of the Church, in the fifth number, and a political article in the twelfth. Mr. Austin only contributed one paper, but one of great merit, an argument against primogeniture, in reply to an article then lately published in the Edinburgh Review by McCulloch. Grote also was a contributor only once; all the time he could spare being already taken up with his History of Greece. The article he wrote was on his own subject, and was a very complete exposure and castigation of Mitford. Bingham and Charles Austin continued to write for some time; Fonblanque was a frequent contributor from the third number. Of my particular associates, Ellis was a regular writer up to the ninth number; and about the time when he left off, others of the set began; Eyton Tooke, Graham, and Roebuck. I was myself the most frequent writer of all, having contributed, from the second number to the eighteenth, thirteen articles; reviews of books on history and political economy, or discussions on special political topics, as corn laws, game laws, law of libel. Occasional articles of merit came in from other acquaintances of my father's, and in time, of mine; and some of Mr. Bowring's writers turned out well. On the whole, however, the conduct of the Review was never satisfactory to any of the persons strongly interested in its principles, with whom I came in contact. Hardly ever did a number come out without containing several things extremely offensive to us, either in point of opinion, of taste, or by mere want of ability. The unfavorable judgments passed by my father, Grote, the two Austins, and others, were re-echoed with exaggeration by us younger people; and as our youthful zeal rendered us by no means backward in making complaints, we led the two editors a sad life. From my knowledge of what I then was, I have no doubt that we were at least as often wrong as right; and I am very certain that if the Review had been carried on according to our notions (I mean those of the juniors), it would have been no better, perhaps not even so good as it was. But it is worth noting as a fact in the history of Benthamism, that the periodical organ, by which it was best known, was from the first extremely unsatisfactory to those, whose opinions on all subjects it was supposed specially to represent.

父亲继续时不时地写文章。《季刊评论》紧随《爱丁堡评论》被曝光。在他的其他稿件中,最重要的是一篇抨击骚塞《宗教论》的文章,发表在第五期上;还有一篇政治文章,发表在第十二期上。奥斯丁先生只投了一篇论文,但是很有价值,论证反对长嗣继承权,回应麦卡洛克当时刚刚发表在《爱丁堡评论》上的一篇文章。格罗特也只发了一篇文章,他能匀出来的时间都用在《希腊史》上了。他的文章写的是他自己的主题,非常全面地揭露和谴责了米特福德。宾厄姆和查尔斯.奥斯丁的写作持续了一段时间;从第三期起,方布兰克开始经常投稿。而我的密友中,埃利斯经常供稿,一直到第九期。后来他不写了,其他人就接手了,有艾顿.图克、格雷厄姆和罗巴克。我自己是所有作者中最经常写的,从第二期到第十八期,投了十三篇文章;评论历史和政治经济学书籍,或者讨论特殊的政治话题,如《谷物法》《狩猎法》和《诽谤法》。偶尔有些很有价值的文章是父亲的其他熟人写的,这些人后来也成了我的熟人。鲍林先生的一些作家也表现得很好。然而,总体上来说,这个评论杂志的表现从来没有让那些我接触到的对它的原则特别感兴趣的人都满意过。几乎每一期出来的时候,上面都有让我们极其反感的东西,要么是观点、品味,要么就是纯粹的能力缺乏。我父亲、格罗特、奥斯丁兄弟俩,和其他人给出的负面评价,得到我们年轻人的附和和夸大;年轻人的热情决定了我们决不会在发牢骚上落后,结果害惨了两个编辑。以我对自己当时情况的了解,我坚信我们错的时候至少与对的时候一样多。我敢肯定,如果评论杂志按我们的想法经营下去的话(我指的是年轻人的想法),它不会更好,甚至可能不如原来的好。但是,在功利主义的历史中有个值得注意的事实,就是这个让功利主义非常知名的喉舌期刊从一开始,就让本意欲让其代言之人极度不满意。

Meanwhile, however, the Review made considerable noise in the world, and gave a recognised status, in the arena of opinion and discussion, to the Benthamic type of radicalism, out of all proportion to the number of its adherents, and to the personal merits and abilities, at that time, of most of those who could be reckoned among them. It was a time, as is known, of rapidly rising Liberalism. When the fears and animosities accompanying the war with France had been brought to an end, and people had once more a place in their thoughts for home politics, the tide began to set towards reform. The renewed oppression of the Continent by the old reigning families, the countenance apparently given by the English Government to the conspiracy against liberty called the Holy Alliance, and the enormous weight of the national debt and taxation occasioned by so long and costly a war, rendered the government and parliament very unpopular. Radicalism, under the leadership of the Burdett and Cobbett1, had assumed a character and importance which seriously alarmed the Administration: and their alarm had scarcely been temporarily assuaged by the celebrated Six Acts2, when the trial of Queen Caroline roused a still wider and deeper feeling of hatred. Though the outward signs of this hatred passed away with its exciting cause, there arose on all sides a spirit which had never shewn itself before, of opposition to abuses in detail. Mr. Hume's persevering scrutiny of the public expenditure, forcing the House of Commons to a division on every objectionable item in the estimates, had begun to tell with great force on public opinion, and had extorted many minor retrenchments from an unwilling Administration. Political economy had asserted itself with great vigour in public affairs, by the petition of the merchants of London for free trade, drawn up in 1820 by Mr. Tooke and presented by Mr. Alexander Baring3; and by the noble exertions of Ricardo during the few years of his parliamentary life. His writings, following up the impulse given by the Bullion controversy, and followed up in their turn by the expositions and comments of my father and McCulloch (whose writings in the Edinburgh Review during those years were most valuable), had drawn general attention to the subject, making at least partial converts in the Cabinet itself; and Huskisson, supported by Canning4, had commenced that gradual demolition of the protective system, which one of their colleagues virtually completed in 1846, though the last vestiges were only swept away by Mr. Gladstone5 in 1860. Mr. Peel, then Home Secretary, was entering cautiously into the untrodden and peculiarly Benthamic path of Law Reform. At this period, when Liberalism seemed to be becoming the tone of the time, when improvement of institutions was preached from the highest places, and a complete change of the constitution of Parliament was loudly demanded in the lowest, it is not strange that attention should have been roused by the regular appearance in controversy of what seemed a new school of writers, claiming to be the legislators and theorists of this new tendency. The air of strong conviction with which they wrote, when scarcely any one else seemed to have an equally strong faith in as definite a creed; the boldness with which they tilted against the very front of both the existing political parties; their uncompromising profession of opposition to many of the generally received opinions, and the suspicion they lay under of holding others still more heterodox than they professed; the talent and verve of at least my father's articles, and the appearance of a corps behind him sufficient to carry on a Review; and finally, the fact that the Review was bought and read, made the so-called Bentham school in philosophy and politics fill a greater place in the public mind than it had held before, or has ever again held since other equally earnest schools of thought have arisen in England. As I was in the head quarters of it, knew of what it was composed, and as one of the most active of its very small number, might say without undue assumption, quorum pars magna fui, it belongs to me more than to most others to give some account of it.

然而与此同时,《威斯敏斯特评论》在世界上发出了不小的声音,在舆论界给功利主义式的激进主义以公认的地位,这地位和它追随者的数量及当时大部分能被算在追随者之内的人的优点和能力是不相称的。众所周知,那是个自由主义迅速崛起的时代。由于与法国的战争而带来的恐惧和仇恨已经消散,人们开始再次审视国内政治,潮流开始倾向于改革。欧洲大陆重新受到旧的统治家族的压迫,英国政府对被称作神圣同盟的反自由主义阴谋集团的明确支持,加上长时间损失惨重的战争导致的巨大国债和税收负担,让政府和议会很不得人心。在柏代特和科贝特的领导下,激进主义获得的声誉和地位让政府很惊恐,他们的惊恐几乎没有因为著名的《六项法案》而暂时减轻,因为对卡罗琳王后的审判激起了人们更广泛、更深刻的仇恨之情。尽管这种仇恨的外部迹象随着它激动人心的运动一起消散了,但是到处都萌生了一种前所未有的反对滥用各种职权的精神。休谟先生不屈不挠地审查公共开支,迫使下议院划分财政收支概算的每一个引起异议的项目,他的行动已经对公众舆论产生了强有力的影响,迫使不情愿的政府缩减了很多不重要的开支。1820年,由图克先生草拟,亚历山大.巴林提呈的《伦敦商人贸易自由请愿119书》,和李嘉图在数年议会生涯中的不懈努力,使政治经济学在公共事务中大显身手。李嘉图受金价论战的推动而做的著述,加上随后我父亲和麦卡洛克相继的阐述和评论(那几年,他在《爱丁堡评论》上的作品很有价值),引起了人们对政治经济学的普遍关注,至少让内阁的一部分人相信了它。哈斯基逊在坎宁的支持下,开始逐渐摧毁保护体系。他们的一个同事实际上在1846年就完成了这件事情,尽管最后的残余要到1860年才被格莱斯顿先生扫清。皮尔先生,当时的内政大臣,谨慎地走上前无古人的功利主义法律改革道路。在这一时期,自由主义似乎将要成为时代的主旋律,最高层鼓吹要改进制度,最底层则强烈要求全面变革议会的章程。这时一批看似属于新兴学派的作家一般都会在争论中出现,他们要求成为这个新趋势的立法者和理论家,由此引起人们的关注也不足为奇。他们写作时带着坚定的信念,而好像很少有人对一个同样明确的信条有同样强烈的信心;他们用大胆的文字正面抨击现有的两个政党;他们毫不妥协地宣称反对很多为人们普遍接受的观点,并由于认为他人比他们宣称的更异端而饱受怀疑;还有至少从我父亲的文章中体现出来的才能和气魄,以及他身后足以支撑一家评论杂志的团体。最后,这家评论杂志拥有读者的事实——所有这一切,让哲学和政治领域的功利主义学派,在公众的心中占据了前所未有的重要位置,或者说在其他同样急切的思想学派在英国兴起后以来再次获得了重要的地位。由于我处在其核心位置,了解其构成,作为少数最活跃的分子之一极大地参与了它的事务,我这么说可能没什么不合适,即与其他大部分人相比,描述一下它的情况是我的分内之事。

This supposed school, then, had no other existence than what was constituted by the fact, that my father's writings and conversation drew round him a certain number of young men who had already imbibed, or who imbibed from him, a greater or smaller portion of his very decided political and philosophical opinions. The notion that Bentham was surrounded by a band of disciples who received their opinions from his lips, is a fable to which my father did justice in his "Fragment on Mackintosh," and which, to all who knew Mr. Bentham's habits of life and manner of conversation, is simply ridiculous. The influence which Bentham exercised was by his writings. Through them he has produced, and is producing, effects on the condition of mankind, wider and deeper, no doubt, than any which can be attributed to my father. He is a much greater name in history. But my father exercised a far greater personal ascendancy. He was sought for the vigour and instructiveness of his conversation, and did use it largely as an instrument for the diffusion of his opinions. I have never known any man who could do such ample justice to his best thoughts in colloquial discussion. His perfect command over his great mental resources, the terseness and expressiveness of his language and the moral earnestness as well as intellectual force of his delivery, made him one of the most striking of all argumentative conversers: and he was full of anecdote, a hearty laugher, and, when with people whom he liked, a most lively and amusing companion. It was not solely, or even chiefly, in diffusing his merely intellectual convictions that his power shewed itself: it was still more through the influence of a quality, of which I have only since learnt to appreciate the extreme rarity: that exalted public spirit and regard above all things to the good of the whole, which warmed into life and activity every germ of similar virtue that existed in the minds he came in contact with: the desire he made them feel for his approbation, the shame at his disapproval; the moral support which his conversation and his very existence gave to those who were aiming at the same objects, and the encouragement he afforded to the fainthearted or desponding among them, by the firm confidence which (though the reverse of sanguine as to the results to be expected in any one particular case) he always felt in the power of reason, the general progress of improvement, and the good which individuals could do by judicious effort.

这个所谓的学派,其实不过是父亲的作品和谈话使得一些年轻人围绕在他周围,这些年轻人有的已经吸收了,有的正从他那里或多或少地吸收他非常坚定的政治和哲学观点。有人认为边沁周围聚集了一帮信徒,这些人接受的观点都是他亲口教授的,这纯属无稽之谈。我父亲在他的《略论麦金托什》里作了澄清,而对所有了解边沁先生生活习惯和谈话方式的人来说,这种说法很可笑。边沁对人的影响是通过他的作品产生的。通过作品,他对人类的状态造成了影响,而且正在产生影响,这影响毫无疑问比我父亲所做的一切要深远得多。在历史上,他的名气远比我父亲的大。但是,我父亲发挥了更大的个人优势。人们是从他的谈话中寻求活力和指导的,他也确实经常把交谈当作传播自己观点的工具。我从来不认识任何人能像他一样在交谈中就能精僻阐述自己最精华的思想。他对自己高智商有着完美的掌控,语言简洁精练,富有表现力,讲话时内心诚恳,充满智慧,这使他成为最引人注目的善辩的谈话者之一。他会讲很多轶事,喜欢开怀大笑,与他喜欢的人在一起时,他是个非常活泼、有趣的同伴。他的力量不单是,甚至不主要是通过传播他的纯粹精神信念展现出来的:他的力量更常通过一种品质的影响力来展现,此后我才学会去欣赏它的绝妙之处。他那种高尚的公德心和将大众利益看得高于一切的胸怀,使得与他接触过的人心里类似美德的每一个萌芽都得到温暖,有了生命和活力;他让他们渴望得到他的嘉许,让他们觉得因被他反对而羞耻;他的谈话以及他的存在本身,就给了那些目标相同的人以精神支持,通过对理智的力量、总体的改良进展以及个人通过审慎的努力可以行善的坚定信心(尽管在个别特殊情况下,会出现与预期相反的、不乐观的结果),给他们当中怯懦或意志消沉的人以鼓励。

It was my father's opinions which gave the distinguishing character to the Benthamic or utilitarian propagandism of that time. They fell singly scattered from him in many directions, but they f lowed from him in a continued stream principally in three channels. One was through me, the only mind directly formed by his instructions, and through whom considerable influence was exercised over various young men, who became, in their turn, propagandists. A second was through some of the Cambridge cotemporaries of Charles Austin, who, either initiated by him or under the general mental impulse which he gave, had adopted many opinions allied to those of my father, and some of the more considerable of whom afterwards sought my father's acquaintance and frequented his house. Among these may be mentioned Strutt, afterwards Lord Belper, and the present Lord Romilly, with whose eminent father, Sir Samuel, my father had of old been on terms of friendship. The third channel was that of a younger generation of Cambridge undergraduates, cotemporary, not with Austin, but with Eyton Tooke, who were drawn to that estimable person by affinity of opinions, and introduced by him to my father: the most notable of these was Charles Buller. Various other persons individually received and transmitted a considerable amount of my father's influence: for example, Black (as before mentioned) and Fonblanque: most of these however we accounted only partial allies; Fonblanque, for instance, was always divergent from us on many important points. But indeed there was by no means complete unanimity among any portion of us, nor had any of us adopted implicitly all my father's opinions. For example, although his Essay on Government was regarded probably by all of us as a masterpiece of political wisdom, our adhesion by no means extended to the paragraph of it, in which he maintains that women may consistently with good government, be excluded from the suffrage, because their interest is the same with that of men. From this doctrine, I, and all those who formed my chosen associates, most positively dissented. It is due to my father to say that he denied having intended to affirm that women should be excluded, any more than men under the age of forty, concerning whom he maintained, in the very next paragraph, an exactly similar thesis. He was, as he truly said, not discussing whether the suffrage had better be restricted, but only (assuming that it is to be restricted) what is the utmost limit of restriction, which does not necessarily involve a sacrifice of the securities for good government. But I thought then, as I have always thought since, that the opinion which he acknowledged, no less than that which he disclaimed, is as great an error as any of those against which the Essay was directed; that the interest of women is included in that of men exactly as much and no more, as the interest of subjects is included in that of kings; and that every reason which exists for giving the suffrage to anybody, demands that it should not be withheld from women. This was also the general opinion of the younger proselytes; and it is pleasant to be able to say that Mr. Bentham, on this important point, was wholly on our side.

是父亲的见解让当时的边沁主义或功利主义的宣传有了不同于一般的特点。这些见解从他那里向不同方向零散地传播开来,这种源源不断的传播主要有三条渠道。一个是通过我,我的思想是唯一一个直接由他指导塑造而成的,他通过我对很多年轻人产生了重大影响,这些人继而成了宣传员。第二个是通过查尔斯.奥斯丁的剑桥同辈,他们或者是受到他的启蒙,或者受到他主要精神的推动,采纳了很多跟我父亲类似的观点,其中一些更重要的人后来寻求与父亲结识的机会,经常去拜访他。这些人中值得一提的是斯特拉特(后来成为贝尔珀勋爵),和现在的罗米利勋爵,我父亲和他德高望重的父亲塞缪尔爵士,早就是好朋友的关系。第三个渠道是剑桥更年轻一代的在校大学生,他们与奥斯丁不是同辈,和艾顿.图克是同辈。由于观点相近,他们被吸引到可敬的图克身边,然后由他引荐给我父亲。这些人中最突出的是查尔斯.布勒。其他人个别地接受、传播了不少父亲的影响,比如,布莱克(之前提到过)和方布兰克。然而,我们都认为这些人中的大多数都不是彻底的同盟,比如方布兰克总是在很多重要的地方与我们有分歧。但实际上,我们当中任何一部分人都决不会完全一致,也没有任何人毫无保留地接受父亲的所有观点。例如,尽管可能我们都认为他的《论政府》是部充满政治智慧的杰作,但是我们绝对并非赞同它的每个段落,在文章里他主张不给予妇女选举权,说这与善政并不矛盾,因为她们的利益和男人是相同的。对于这种说法,我和我所有的同仁们都断然反对。客观地说,父亲说过他否认自己有意断言妇女应该被排除在选举权之外,四十岁以下的男子其实也应被排除,对这部分人他在下一段里就提出了完全类似的论点。正如他所说的,他并非在讨论选举权是否最好受到限制,而仅仅(假设它受限制的话)在讨论:在不必牺牲善政保障措施的前提下,限制的最大限度。但是那时我认为,之后我也一直都这么认为,他承认的观点和他否认的观点以及论文要反对的任何观点一样,是个很大的错误。妇女的利益包含在男子的利益里面恰恰像臣民的利益包含在国王的利益里面一样,任何人人享有选举权的现有理由都要求妇女不应被剥夺选举权,这也是年轻皈依者们的一般观点。令人欣慰的是,边沁先生在这个重要问题上完全站在我们这一边。

But though none of us, probably, agreed in every respect with my father, his opinions, as I said before, were the principal element which gave its colour and character to the little group of young men who were the first propagators of what was afterwards called "Philosophic Radicalism." Their mode of thinking was not characterized by Benthamism in any sense which has relation to Bentham as a chief or guide, but rather by a combination of Bentham's point of view with that of the modern political economy, and with the Hartleian metaphysics. Malthus's population principle was quite as much a banner, and point of union among us, as any opinion specially belonging to Bentham. This great doctrine, originally brought forward as an argument against the indefinite improvability of human affairs, we took up with ardent zeal in the contrary sense, as indicating the sole means of realizing that improvability by securing full employment at high wages to the whole labouring population through a voluntary restriction of the increase of their numbers. The other leading characteristics of the creed, which we held in common with my father, may be stated as follows:

但是,尽管很可能我们之中没有一个人在所有方面都同意父亲的观点,但像我之前说过的那样,我们这个年轻人小团体的风格和特征主要是他的观点赋予的,这些年轻人就是后来被称为“哲学激进主义”的首批传播者。这种思考模式与以边沁为领袖或向导的功利主义从任何意义上来说都毫无关联,它实际上是边沁的观点和现代政治经济学以及哈特利的形而上学观点的综合。马尔萨斯的人口论几乎和专属边沁的任何观点一样,可以说是一面旗帜,也是我们的共同点之一。这个伟大的学说最初提出来是为了反对人类事务可以无限改良的说法,我们从一个相反的层面热忱地采纳了它,说明通过自愿控制人口数量的增长,确保让所有劳动人口领取高薪,完全就业,是实现这种改良的唯一方法。这个学说的另一个主要特点得到了我们和我父亲的一致支持,或许可以归纳如下:

In politics, an almost unbounded confidence in the efficacy of two things: representative government, and complete freedom of discussion. So complete was my father's reliance on the influence of reason over the minds of mankind, whenever it is allowed to reach them, that he felt as if all would be gained if the whole population were taught to read, if all sorts of opinions were allowed to be addressed to them by word and in writing, and if by means of the suffrage they could nominate a legislature to give effect to the opinions they adopted. He thought that when the legislature no longer represented a class interest, it would aim at the general interest, honestly and with adequate wisdom; since the people would be sufficiently under the guidance of educated intelligence, to make in general a good choice of persons to represent them, and having done so, to leave to those whom they had chosen a liberal discretion. Accordingly aristocratic rule, the government of the Few in any of its shapes, being in his eyes the only thing which stood between mankind and an administration of their affairs by the best wisdom to be found among them, was the object of his sternest disapprobation, and a democratic suffrage the principal article of his political creed, not on the ground of liberty, Rights of Man, or any of the phrases, more or less significant, by which, up to that time, democracy had usually been defended, but as the most essential of "securities for good government." In this, too, he held fast only to what he deemed essentials; he was comparatively indifferent to monarchical or republican forms—far more so than Bentham, to whom a king, in the character of "corrupter-general," appeared necessarily very noxious. Next to aristocracy, an established church, or corporation of priests, as being by position the great depravers of religion, and interested in opposing the progress of the human mind, was the object of his greatest detestation; though he disliked no clergyman personally who did not deserve it, and was on terms of sincere friendship with several. In ethics, his moral feelings were energetic and rigid on all points which he deemed important to human well being, while he was supremely indifferent in opinion (though his indifference did not shew itself in personal conduct) to all those doctrines of the common morality, which he thought had no foundation but in asceticism and priestcraft. He looked forward, for example, to a considerable increase of freedom in the relations between the sexes, though without pretending to define exactly what would be, or ought to be, the precise conditions of that freedom. This opinion was connected in him with no sensuality either of a theoretical or of a practical kind. He anticipated, on the contrary, as one of the beneficial effects of increased freedom, that the imagination would no longer dwell upon the physical relation and its adjuncts, and swell this into one of the principal objects of life; a perversion of the imagination and feelings, which he regarded as one of the deepest seated and most pervading evils in the human mind. In psychology, his fundamental doctrine was the formation of all human character by circumstances, through the universal Principle of Association, and the consequent unlimited possibility of improving the moral and intellectual condition of mankind by education. Of all his doctrines none was more important than this, or needs more to be insisted on: unfortunately there is none which is more contradictory to the prevailing tendencies of speculation, both in his time and since.

在政治上,人们几乎无限制地相信两件事情的功效:代表制的政府和完全的言论自由。父亲完全相信理智对人类思维的影响——只要能够影响到的话——他的信念是如此之深,以致于他觉得,如果能教全民读书,允许把所有观点以口头或书面形式呈现给他们,而他们能依靠选举权任命执行他们观点的立法机关的话,一切都能实现。他认为,当立法机关不再只代表某个阶级的利益之时,它就会真诚地、十分明智地为整体的利益服务。因为人们将在受过教育的才智的充分指导下,选择一般说来合适的人来代表他们,并在此后赋予选出来的人以自由的决断力。相应地,贵族的统治,即不管是什么形式的少数人的政府,在他眼里都是阻碍人类用他们当中最卓越的贤才来管理自己事务的唯一障碍,是他严厉指责的对象。民主的选举权是他政治信条的主要内容,不是把一直到那时候都用来支持民主政治的自由、人权或任何有着类似的意义更大或更小的话语作为理由,而是把民主的选举权当作最重要的“善政保障设施”。在这一点上,他还是只坚持他所认为的要点。相比之下,他比边沁还要不关心君主或共和政体的形式——在边沁眼里,国王扮演的是“腐败将军”,看起来肯定很可憎。除了贵族统治,英国国教或牧师组织也是他憎恶的对象,因为它们的地位决定了它们是让宗教堕落的重要因素,还乐于反对人类进步。尽管他私底下并不讨厌不应承担过错的牧师本人,甚至还和好几个结下了诚挚的友谊。在道德规范上,对于他认为的对人类福利比较重要的所有要点,他的道德情感都很积极坚定,然而他对普通道德观的所有教条一点也不关心(尽管他的漠不关心没有在行为中表现出来),他认为这些教条除了根植于禁欲主义和教士权术外,没有什么根据。比如,他期盼两性之间的自由度能有较大提高,但是没有装模作样地要去界定这种自由的具体情形是什么样子,或者应该是什么样子。这种观点在他那里,不管是理论上还是实践上都不是和纵欲联系在一起的。相反,他期望自由度提升后的益处之一,就是人们的想象不再仅仅关注肉体关系及其附加物,不再把它扩大为人生的主要目标之一。他认为,这种想象和情感的堕落是人类头脑中最根深蒂固、最普遍的罪恶。在心理学方面,他的主要信条是所有人类性格都是由环境决定的,通过普遍联系的原则,以及随之而来的、用教育提升人的道德水准和智力状况的无限可能性。这是他所有学说中最重要的,或者最需要坚持的。不幸的是它也是和当时及以后的主要思潮最相矛盾的。

These various opinions were seized on with youthful fanaticism by the little knot of young men of whom I was one: and we put into them a sectarian spirit, from which, in intention at least, my father was wholly free. What we (or rather a phantom substituted in the place of us) were sometimes, by a ridiculous exaggeration, called by others, namely a "school," some of us for a time really hoped and aspired to be. The French philosophes of the eighteenth century were the example we sought to imitate, and we hoped to accomplish no less results. No one of the set went to so great excesses in this boyish ambition as I did; which might be shown by many particulars, were it not a useless waste of space and time.

一小群狂热的年轻人抓住了这些不同的观点,我也是其中一员。我们还把宗派主义的倾向带进这些观点里面,我父亲则完全没有这种倾向,至少意图上没有。有时,由于荒唐的夸张,我们(还不如说是替代了我们的一个幽灵)被人称作一个“学派”,但这也是有一阵子我们当中的某些人确实期待和追求过的。18世纪的法国哲学家是我们努力模仿的榜样,我们希望取得和他们同样多的成就。我是这群人中怀着这个孩子气的野心走得最极端的。要不是怕浪费时间和空间的话,倒是可以用很多细节说明一下。

All this, however, is properly only the outside of our existence; or, at least, the intellectual part alone, and no more than one side of that. In attempting to penetrate inward, and give any indication of what we were as human beings, I must be understood as speaking only of myself, of whom alone I can speak from sufficient knowledge; and I do not believe that the picture would suit any of my companions without many and great modifications.

然而,严格来说所有这些都只是我们生活的表面,或仅仅是理性的方面,而且还只是理性方面的一个侧面。要试图看穿内部,说明我们是什么样的人的话,就必须知道我只是在说自己,因为我只能凭对自己足够的了解来进行说明。我相信,如果不对我的描述进行很多、很大的修改的话,它就不会适用于我的任何一位同伴。

I conceive that the description so often given of a Benthamite, as a mere reasoning machine, though extremely inapplicable to most of those who have been designated by that title, was during two or three years of my life not altogether untrue of me. It was perhaps as applicable to me as it can well be to any one just entering into life, to whom the common objects of desire must in general have at least the attraction of novelty. There is nothing very extraordinary in this fact: no youth of the age I then was, can be expected to be more than one thing, and this was the thing I happened to be. Ambition and desire of distinction, I had in abundance; and zeal for what I thought the good of mankind was my strongest sentiment, mixing with and colouring all others. But my zeal was as yet little else, at that period of my life, than zeal for speculative opinions. It had not its root in genuine benevolence, or sympathy with mankind; though these qualities held their due place in my ethical standard. Nor was it connected with any high enthusiasm for ideal nobleness. Yet of this feeling I was imaginatively very susceptible; but there was at that time an intermission of its natural aliment, poetical culture, while there was a superabundance of the discipline antagonistic to it, that of mere logic and analysis. Add to this that, as already mentioned, my father's teachings tended to the undervaluing of feeling. It was not that he was himself cold-hearted or insensible; I believe it was rather from the contrary quality; he thought that feeling could take care of itself; that there was sure to be enough of it if actions were properly cared about. Offended by the frequency with which, in ethical and philosophical controversy, feeling is made the ultimate reason and justification of conduct, instead of being itself called on for a justification, while, in practice, actions, the effect of which on human happiness is mischievous, are defended as being required by feeling, and the character of a person of feeling obtains a credit for desert, which he thought only due to actions, he had a real impatience of attributing praise to feeling, or of any but the most sparing reference to it, either in the estimation of persons or in the discussion of things. In addition to the influence which this characteristic in him, had on me and others, we found all the opinions to which we attached most importance, constantly attacked on the ground of feeling. Utility was denounced as cold calculation; political economy as hard-hearted; antipopulation doctrines as repulsive to the natural feelings of mankind. We retorted by the word "sentimentality," which, along with "declamation" and "vague generalities," served us as common terms of opprobrium. Although we were generally in the right, as against those who were opposed to us, the effect was that the cultivation of feeling (except the feelings of public and private duty), was not in much esteem among us, and had very little place in the thoughts of most of us, myself in particular. What we principally thought of, was to alter people's opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know what was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one another. While fully recognizing the superior excellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings. Although this last is prodigiously important as a means of improvement in the hands of those who are themselves impelled by nobler principles of action, I do not believe that any one of the survivors of the Benthamites or Utilitarians of that day, now relies mainly upon it for the general amendment of human conduct.

功利主义者经常被描述成纯粹的推理机器,我认为尽管这对于大多数被冠以这种头衔的人来说非常不合适,但是在我人生的两三年里我却确实如此。这种说法可能很适合我,就像它也适合任何开始生活的人一样,通常他们所渴望的事物总体来说一定由于新奇而具有吸引力。这一事实没有任何特别之处:对于任何跟我当时一样大的年轻人,只能指望他有一种样子,就是我当时碰巧具有的样子。我的野心很大,对名誉非常渴望;对我心目中人类福利的热心是我最强烈的感情,它和所有别的感情混合在一起,并影响了它们。但在那段时期,我基本上只热衷于思辨性的观点。这种热情并没有根植于真正的仁爱之心,或者根植于对人类的同情。但是,这些品质在我的道德标准里有它们应有的位置。它也没有与任何对完美高尚的高度热情联系在一起。然而,我在想象中很容易受这种情感的影响。但那时,它的天然养料——诗歌的陶冶——中断了,同时还有过多逆其道而行之的训练:纯粹的逻辑和分析训练。再加上我之前提到的,父亲的教学往往低估情感的价值。这不是说他本人冷酷无情或麻木不仁,我相信恰恰是由于相反的品质。他认为不需要单独考虑情感,如果关注好行动的话,情感就一定会充足。在道德和哲学论战中,情感经常被作为行为的最终理由和辩护,但是情感本身就需要有理由辩护。而现实中,对人类幸福产生危害的行为被说成是情感需要,一个有感情的人的品格却遭到唾弃,而父亲认为这本应归罪于行为,他确实没有耐心去赞赏情感,只是在评价别人或议论事情的时候偶尔提起过它。除了他的这种特点对我和他人的影响之外,我们还发现所有我们认为很重要的观点,都经常因为情感原因而受到攻击。效用被指责为冷冰冰的算计,政治经济学被认为无情,控制人口学说被认为是对人类自然情感的排斥。我们用“多愁善感”一词来反驳,它和“激辩”“含糊的概括”一起成了我们指责他人时常用的词语。尽管我们反对与自己意见相左的人的行为大体是正确的,但是结果是我们这些人也不怎么看重感情的陶冶(除了对公众和个人责任的情感之外),我们中的大多数人也几乎没有考虑过它,尤其是我自己。我们主要思考的是如何改变人们的想法,让他们相信有根据的东西,知道自己的真正利益是什么。我们想,他们一旦知道了自己的利益后,就会通过舆论工具促使彼此加以留意。尽管我们完全认可无私的仁爱和对正义的热爱是至上的美德,但是我们没指望人类通过直接按照这些情感去行动,从而获得新生,而是期望通过用经过教化的智力的影响,来教导他们摆脱自私的感情。在自身受到更崇高行为准则驱使的人那里,尽管最后一条仍是非常重要的改良手段,但是我不相信任何现在仍信仰边沁主义或者功利主义的人,现在还会主要依赖它作为改进人类行为的常规方法。

From this neglect both in theory and in practice of the cultivation of feeling, naturally resulted, among other things, an undervaluing of poetry, and of Imagination generally, as an element of human nature. It is, or was, part of the popular notion of Benthamites, that they are enemies of poetry: this was partly true of Bentham himself; he used to say that "all poetry is misrepresentation," but, in the sense in which he said it, the same might have been said of all impressive speech; of all representation or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a sum in arithmetic. An article of Bingham's in the first number of the Westminster Review, in which he offered as an explanation of something which he disliked in Moore6, that "Mr. Moore is a poet, and therefore is not a reasoner," did a good deal to attach the notion of hating poetry to the writers in the Review. But the truth was that many of us were great readers of poetry; Bingham himself had been a writer of it, while as regards me (and the same thing might be said of my father), the correct statement would be, not that I disliked poetry, but that I was theoretically indifferent to it. I disliked any sentiments in poetry which I should have disliked in prose; and that included a great deal. And I was wholly blind to its place in human culture, as a means of educating the feelings. But I was always personally very susceptible to some kinds of it. In the most sectarian period of my Benthamism, I happened to look into Pope7's Essay on Man, and though every opinion in it was contrary to mine, I well remember how powerfully it acted on my imagination. Perhaps at that time poetical composition of any higher type than eloquent discussion in verse, might not have produced a similar effect on me: at all events I seldom gave it an opportunity. This, however, was a mere passing state. Long before I had enlarged in any considerable degree, the basis of my intellectual creed, I had obtained in the natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of the most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for the lives and characters of heroic persons; especially the heroes of philosophy. The same inspiring effect which so many of the benefactors of mankind have left on record that they had experienced from Plutarch8's Lives, was produced on me by Plato's pictures of Socrates, and by some modern biographies, above all by Condorcet's Life of Turgot9; a book well calculated to rouse the best sort of enthusiasm, since it contains one of the wisest and noblest of lives, delineated by one of the wisest and noblest of men. The heroic virtue of these glorious representatives of the opinions with which I sympathized, deeply affected me, and I perpetually recurred to them as others do to a favorite poet, when needing to be carried up into the more elevated regions of feeling and thought. I may observe by the way that this book cured me of my sectarian follies. The two or three pages beginning "Il regardait toute secte comme nuisible," and explaining why Turgot always kept himself perfectly distinct from the Encyclopedists, sank deeply into my mind. I left off designating myself and others as Utilitarians, and by the pronoun "we" or any other collective designation, I ceased to afficher sectarianism. My real inward sectarianism I did not get rid of till later, and much more gradually.

这种理论上以及实践上对情感陶冶的忽视,必然导致的结果之一就是对诗歌和想象力的低估,只一般地把它们看作是人性的一个因素。功利主义者普遍认为,或者曾经认为,他们是诗歌的敌人。对于边沁本人,这确有几分正确。他经常说,“所有诗歌都是错误的表达”,但是,按照他所说的意思,这句话也同样可以用于所有感人的演说,以及所有比数学里的算术题更具演说特征的陈述和教导。《威斯敏斯特评论》第一期中有一篇宾厄姆的文章,他在里面解释了自己不喜欢穆尔的一些地方,说“穆尔先生是诗人,因此,不是推理家”,这在很大程度上给《威斯敏斯特评论》的作家冠上了讨厌诗歌的声名。但事实上,我们很多人都是诗歌的热心读者。宾汉姆本人也曾写过诗,至于我(也可以这么说我父亲),正确的说法是我并非不喜欢诗歌,而是在理论上对它漠不关心。在散文中我不喜欢的情感,在诗歌中我也不会喜欢,这种情感有很多。我完全无视它作为教化情感的方法在人类文化中的位置。但我自己总是很容易受到某些情感的感染。在我功利主义思想最狭隘的时期,我碰巧研读了蒲柏的长诗《原人篇》,尽管里面的每个观点都与我的相反,但是我清楚地记得它对我的想象力产生了多么强有力的影响。当时任何比用诗体写出来有说服力的讨论更高级的诗歌创作形式,可能都不会对我产生类似的影响。无论如何,我也几乎从来没给过它机会。然而,这种情形只不过是暂时的。早在我大规模扩大理性信条的基础之前,我就在精神进步的自然过程中,通过膜拜英雄人物的生活和品格——尤其是哲学英雄,而获得了最有价值的诗歌文化。对人类作出贡献的很多人,把他们从普卢塔克的《传记》中体验到的鼓舞人心的影响记录了下来。柏拉图对苏格拉底的描述,以及一些现代传记,尤其是孔多塞的《杜尔哥传》,对我产生了同样令人鼓舞的影响。《杜尔哥传》构思精巧,旨在激起最大的热情,因为它的作者是个非常贤明、高贵的人,他描绘的也是一个非常贤明、高贵的人的生平。这些和与我有共鸣的显赫代表人物的超人美德,深深地打动了我,当我需要把情感和思想提升到更崇高的领域时,我总是求助于他们,就像别人求助于最喜欢的诗人一样。我应该顺便说一下,这本书消除了我的宗派主义愚行。以“他认为所有宗派都是有害的”开头的两三页,这几页也解释了为什么杜尔哥总是把自己与百科全书编纂者截然分开,深深地印入了我的脑海。我不再标榜自己和其他人是功利主义者,不再让代词“我们”或其他任何集体称号带上宗派主义的色彩。我对内心深处真正的宗派主义则摆脱得更晚些,而且更加缓慢渐进。

About the end of 1824, or beginning of 1825, Mr. Bentham, having lately got back his papers on Evidence from M. Dumont (whose Traité des Preuves Judiciaires, grounded on them, was then first completed and published) resolved to have them printed in the original, and bethought himself of me as capable of preparing them for the press; in the same manner as his Book of Fallacies had been recently edited by Bingham. I gladly undertook this task, and it occupied nearly all my leisure for about a year, exclusive of the time afterwards spent in seeing the five large volumes through the press. Mr. Bentham had begun this treatise three times, at considerable intervals, each time in a different manner, and each time without reference to the preceding: two of the three times he had gone over nearly the whole subject. These three masses of manuscript it was my business to condense into a single treatise; adopting the one last written as the groundwork, and incorporating with it as much of the two others as it had not completely superseded. I had also to unroll such of Bentham's involved and parenthetical sentences, as seemed to overpass by their complexity the measure of what readers were likely to take the pains to understand. It was further Mr. Bentham's particular desire that I should, from myself, endeavour to supply any lacunӕ which he had left; and at his instance I read, for this purpose, the most authoritative treatises on the English Law of Evidence, and commented on a few of the objectionable points of the English rules, which had escaped Bentham's notice. I also replied to the objections which had been made to some of his doctrines, by reviewers of Dumont's book, and added a few supplementary remarks on some of the more abstract parts of the subject, such as the theory of improbability and impossibility. The controversial part of these editorial additions was written in a more assuming tone, than became one so young and inexperienced as I was: but indeed I had never contemplated coming forward in my own person; and as an anonymous editor of Bentham, I fell into the tone of my author, not thinking it unsuitable to him or to the subject, however it might be so to me. My name as editor was put to the book after it was printed, at Mr. Bentham's positive desire, which I in vain attempted to persuade him to forego.

大概在1824年年底,或者1825年年初,边沁先生刚从杜蒙先生那里拿回他的《论证据》论文(杜蒙先生以这些论文为基础写的《论司法证据》那时刚完成并发表),他决定按原稿发表,并想起来我能够做出版前的准备工作。他的《谬误集》最近也是由宾厄姆以同样的方式编辑的。我很高兴地接受了这项工作,它几乎占用了我一年中的所有空闲时间,还不包括后来在出版社安排五大卷书的付印所花的时间。边沁先生分三次写成这部专著,每次中间都有很长的间隔,每次风格都不同,而且每次都没有参考前面的内容,三次中有两次他都几乎涉及了整个主题。这三大本手稿要由我浓缩成一本专著,我把他最后写的那本当作蓝本,尽量把其他两本中没有被它完全更替的地方合并到其中去。我还必须拆分边沁的长难句和插入句,因为它们过于错综复杂,读者很可能没有耐心去想办法弄懂它们。边沁先生还进一步特别要求我从自身出发,尽力去填补他遗留下的任何不足。在他的要求下,我为此读了有关《英国证据法》最权威的论文,对边沁没注意到的、英国统治中值得反对的几个地方作了评论。我还回应了杜蒙著作的评论家对边沁某些学说的异议,还在这个主题的一些比较抽象的部分里,比如非必然性与无可能性理论,加上了少许补充评论。这些编辑添加的评论中有争议的部分是我用十分傲慢的语气写的,这与我这样一个年轻、没经验的人是很不相称的,但我确实从来没打算自告奋勇亲自去做。作为边沁的匿名编辑,我用作者的语气说话,没想过这样做对他或主题是否适合,然而这对我来说可能确实不合适。该书出版后,在边沁先生的积极要求下我的名字被作为编辑加了进去,我试图劝说他不用这么做,但没有成功。

The time occupied in this editorial work was extremely well employed in respect to my own improvement. The "Rationale of Judicial Evidence" is one of the richest in matter of all Bentham's productions. The theory of evidence being in itself one of the most important of his subjects, and ramifying into most of the others, the book contains, very fully developed, a great proportion of all his best thoughts: while, among more special things, it comprises the most elaborate exposure of the vices and defects of English law, as it then was, which is to be found in his works; not confined to the law of evidence, but including, by way of illustrative episode, the entire procedure or practice of Westminster Hall. The direct knowledge, therefore, which I obtained from the book, and which was imprinted upon me much more thoroughly than it could have been by mere reading, was itself no small acquisition. But this occupation did for me what might seem less to be expected; it gave a great start to my powers of composition. Everything which I wrote subsequently to this editorial employment, was markedly superior to anything that I had written before it. Bentham's later style, as the world knows, was heavy and cumbersome, from the excess of a good quality, the love of precision, which made him introduce clause within clause into the heart of every sentence, that the reader might receive into his mind all the modifications and qualifications simultaneously with the main proposition: and the habit grew on him until his sentences became, to those not accustomed to them, most laborious reading. But his earlier style, that of the Fragment on Government, Plan of a Judicial Establishment, &c., is a model of liveliness and ease combined with fullness of matter, scarcely ever surpassed: and of this earlier style there were many striking specimens in the manuscripts on Evidence, all of which I endeavoured to preserve. So long a course of this admirable writing had a considerable effect upon my own; and I added to it by the assiduous reading of other writers, both French and English, who combined, in a remarkable degree, ease with force, such as Goldsmith, Fielding, Pascal, Voltaire, and Courier. Through these influences my writing lost the jejuneness of my early compositions; the bones and cartilages began to clothe themselves with flesh, and the style became, at times, lively and almost light.

就我自己的进步而言,做这份编辑工作的时间得到了非常充分的利用。在边沁的所有作品中,《司法证据原理》是内容最丰富的著作之一。证据理论本身就是他最为重要的主题之一,并且衍生出大部分其他主题,这本书包括了他所有精华思想中的一大部分,这些思想被阐释得非常充分。同时更特别的是,它包含了对当时英国法律中的缺陷和瑕疵极为详尽的披露,这些在他的作品中可以找到。通过例证事件,这一披露不局限于证据法,还包括了威斯敏斯特议会大厅里的整套程序和做法。因此,通过编辑这本书而获得的,比简单阅读更深刻地镌刻在我脑海中的直接知识,本身就是不小的收获。但是,这项工作给我带来的东西似乎比预期的还要多。它对我的写作能力培养来说是一个很好的开端。完成这项编辑工作之后我写的每一部作品,比之前写的任何东西都明显好很多。边沁后期的文风,如世人所知,较为沉闷,繁琐。由于过度追求质量,喜欢精确,他的每个句子都是一个从句嵌着另一个从句,直到句子的中心,这样读者可能会同时接受所有的修饰、限定语和主命题。这种习惯在他身上日益增长,直到让不习惯读他句子的人读起来非常费力。但是他早期的文风,如《政府片论》和《司法机构计划》的风格,却是轻松活泼与内容丰富相结合的典范,几乎从未被超越,在《证据论》的手稿中,有很多显著的有着早期风格的例子,所有这些我都尽力保存。编辑这部令人钦佩的著述花了如此长的时间,这对我自己的写作产生了很大影响。另外我还刻苦地研读了其他作家的作品,法语的和英语的都有,这些作品在相当大的程度上既挥洒自如又铿锵有力,比如哥尔德斯密斯、菲尔丁、帕斯卡、伏尔泰和库里耶。由于这些作品的影响,我的作品丢掉了早期的空洞性,变得日趋饱满,有血有肉,风格有时很活泼,甚至几近明快。

This improvement was first exhibited in a new field. Mr. Marshall, of Leeds, father of the present generation of Marshalls, the same who was brought into Parliament for Yorkshire, when the representation forfeited by Grampound was transferred to it, an earnest Parliamentary reformer, and a man of large fortune, of which he made a liberal use, had been much struck with Bentham's Book of Fallacies: and the thought had occurred to him that it would be useful to publish annually the Parliamentary Debates, not in the chronological order of Hansard, but classified according to subjects, and accompanied by a commentary pointing out the fallacies of the speakers. With this intention, he very naturally addressed himself to the editor of The Book of Fallacies; and Bingham, with the assistance of Charles Austin, undertook the editorship. The work was called "Parliamentary History and Review." Its sale was not sufficient to keep it in existence, and it only lasted three years. It excited, however, some attention among parliamentary and political people. The best strength of the party was put forth in it; and its execution did them much more credit than that of the Westminster Review had ever done. Bingham and Charles Austin wrote much in it; as did Strutt, Romilly, and several other liberal lawyers. My father wrote one article in his best style; the elder Austin another. Coulson wrote one of great merit. It fell to my lot to lead off the first number by an article on the principal topic of the session (that of 1825), the Catholic Association and the Catholic disabilities. In the second number I wrote an elaborate Essay on the Commercial Crisis of 1825 and the Currency Debates. In the third I had two articles, one on a minor subject, the other on the Reciprocity principle in commerce, à propos of a celebrated diplomatic correspondence between Canning and Gallatin10. These writings were no longer mere reproductions and applications of the doctrines I had been taught; they were original thinking, as far as that name can be applied to old ideas in new forms and connexions: and I do not exceed the truth in saying that there was a maturity, and a well-digested character about them, which there had not been in any of my previous performances. In execution, therefore, they were not at all juvenile; but their subjects have either gone by, or have been so much better treated since, that they are entirely superseded, and should remain buried in the same oblivion with my contributions to the first dynasty of the Westminster Review.

这种进步最初在一个新领域展现了出来。利兹的马歇尔先生是这一代马歇尔家族的族长,在格兰庞德选区的代表权被剥夺并移交至约克郡后,他代表约克郡进入了议会——他是位热心的议会改革家,富有而慷慨,边沁的《谬误集》给他以很大冲击。他有了一个想法,觉得每年出版一次议会辩论的记录文件会很有用,不是按照《英国议会议事录》采用的时间次序,而是按主题分类,通过加上注释指出发言人的谬误。带着这个目的,他很自然地和《谬误集》的编辑宾厄姆取得了联系,在查尔斯·奥斯丁的协助下,宾厄姆担任了编辑的职务。这个刊物叫《议会历史与评论》。它的销售量不足以维持它的存续,只坚持了三年。然而,它引起了议员和政治人物的注意。团体的最大力量得以展现出来,它的发行给他们带来的荣誉远比《威斯敏斯特评论》多得多。宾厄姆和查尔斯.奥斯丁写了很多文章,还有斯特拉特、罗米利和好几位信仰自由主义的律师都写了不少文章。我父亲以他最好的文风写了一篇论文,年长的奥斯丁写了另一篇。库尔逊写了一篇,具有重要价值。这次我负责以1825年议会会议的主要议题,即天主教协会和天主教的无能为主题,写一篇文章作为第一期的开篇。在第二期上,我精心写了一篇名为《论1825年的商业危机和货币争论》的评论。在第三期上,我写了两篇文章,一篇写的是小事情,另一篇写商业里的互惠原理,是关于坎宁和加勒廷之间著名的外交通信。这些作品不再仅仅是再现和应用我学到的教条。它们是崭新的思考,如果新思考可以用来指代以新形式和新关系表现旧观点的话。如果我说它们展现出成熟、融会贯通的特征,这并没有夸大事实,这些特征在我之前的任何作品中都是没有的。因此,在表达时这些思想也并不显得幼稚。但是它们的主题要么已经过时了,要么在那之后得到了更好的论述,所以它们已被完全超越了,应该和我发表在《威斯敏斯特评论》上的第一代文章一样,被埋没在人们遗忘的角落。

While thus engaged in writing for the public, I did not neglect other modes of self-cultivation. It was at this time that I learnt German; beginning it on the Hamiltonian method, for which purpose I and several of my companions formed a class. For several years from this period, our social studies assumed a shape which contributed very much to my mental progress. The idea occurred to us of carrying on, by reading and conversation, a joint study of several of the branches of science which we wished to be masters of. We assembled to the number of a dozen or more. Mr. Grote lent a room of his house in Threadneedle Street for the purpose, and his partner, Prescott, one of the three original members of the Utilitarian Society, made one among us. We met two mornings in every week, from half-past eight till ten, at which hour most of us were called off to our daily occupations. Our first subject was Political Economy. We chose some systematic treatise as our textbook; my father's Elements being our first choice. One of us read aloud a chapter, or some smaller portion, of the book. The discussion was then opened, and any one who had an objection, or other remark to make, made it. Our rule was to discuss thoroughly every point raised, whether great or small, prolonging the discussion until all who took part were satisfied with the conclusion they had individually arrived at; and to follow up every topic of collateral speculation which the chapter or the conversation suggested, never leaving it until we had untied every knot which we found. We repeatedly kept up the discussion of some one point for several weeks, thinking intently on it during the intervals of our meetings, and contriving solutions of the new difficulties which had risen up in the last morning's discussion. When we had finished in this way my father's Elements, we went in the same manner through Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy, and Bailey's Dissertation on Value. These close and vigorous discussions were not only improving in a high degree to those who took part in them, but brought out new views of some topics of abstract Political Economy. The theory of International Values which I afterwards published, emanated from these conversations, as did also the modified form of Ricardo's theory of Profits, laid down in my Essay on Profits and Interest. Those among us with whom new speculations chief ly originated, were Ellis, Graham, and I; though others gave valuable aid to the discussions, especially Prescott and Roebuck, the one by his knowledge, the other by his dialectical acuteness. The theories of International Values and of Profits were excogitated and worked out in about equal proportions by myself and Graham: and if our original project had been executed, my Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy would have been brought out along with some papers of his, under our joint names. But when my exposition came to be written, I found that I had so much over-estimated my agreement with him, and he dissented so much from the most original of the two Essays, that on International Values, that I was obliged to consider the theory as now exclusively mine, and it came out as such when published many years later. I may mention that among the alterations which my father made in revising his Elements for the third edition, several were founded on criticisms elicited by these conversations; and in particular he modified his opinions (though not to the extent of our new speculations) on both the points to which I have adverted.

尽管这样沉浸于为公众写作,我并没有忽视其他形式的自学。就在这时,我学了德语,开始学时用了汉密尔顿的方法,为此,我和好几个同伴组成了一个班。从这时起,之后的好几年中,我们的集体学习初具规模,并对我的思想进步起到了很大作用。我们想起一个点子,就是通过阅读和交谈,继续共同学习我们想熟练掌握的好几个自然科学的分支。我们聚集了12个人或者更多。格罗特先生把他在针线街的房子借了一间供我们学习用,他的伙伴、功利主义学会三名创始人之一的普雷斯科特也成了我们的一员。我们每个星期有两天上午见面,从八点半到十点,在这几个小时里,我们大部分人都放弃了自己的日常工作。我们的第一个主题是政治经济学。我们选了一些系统的论文作为教科书,我父亲的《政治经济学要义》是我们的首选。先由我们中的一个人朗读书中的一章或者一小部分,然后讨论就开始了,任何人有异议或者有其他评论的话,就直接发言。我们的规则是要彻底讨论提出的每一个要点,不论大小,一直讨论到所有参与者都满意自己得出的结论为止。要把这一章或交谈中产生的每个思考话题探究到底,从不丢下不管,直到解决我们发现的每个复杂问题为止。我们曾多次持续好几个星期连续讨论某一个话题,在不见面的时候专心思考,设法解决上次讨论时出现的新困难。我们以这种方式学完了父亲的《政治经济学要义》之后,又以同样的方法学了李嘉图的《政治经济学原理》,和贝利的《价值论文》。这些彻底的、热烈的讨论不仅大大提升了那些参与者的素质,还催生了抽象政治经济学一些主题的新观点。我后来发表的国际价值理论就起源于这些交谈,而后我在《论利润和利益》中所阐述的李嘉图利润理论的改良形式也是如此。在我们当中,新思想主要起源于埃利斯、格雷厄姆和我。但是其他人也给了这些讨论有价值的帮助,尤其是普雷斯科特和罗巴克,一个通过知识,另一个通过辩证的敏锐。国际价值理论和利润理论是由我和格雷厄姆共同思考和总结出来的,两人平分秋色。如果我们最初的方案得以执行的话,我的《论政治经济学中若干未解决的问题》就应该和他的一些论文一起出版,署上我们两人的名字。但是我开始撰文时发现自己过高地估计了与他的一致性,而他对《论国际价值》从最开始的两篇评论就持不同意见,所以我不得不认为这个理论现在只属于我自己,多年后出版的时候也只署了我的名字。我应该提到,我父亲在《政治经济学要义》第三版中作的修正,有好几处是基于从这些交谈中得出的批评。特别是把他的观点中我注意到的两点作了修改(尽管没有修改到我们最新推断的程度)。

When we had enough of political economy, we took up the syllogistic logic in the same manner, Grote now joining us. Our first text-book was Aldrich, but being disgusted with its superficiality, we reprinted one of the most f inished among the many manuals of the school logic, which my father, a great collector of such books, possessed, the Manuductio ad Logicam of the Jesuit Du Trieu. After finishing this, we took up Whately's Logic, then first republished from the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, and finally the Computatio sive Logica of Hobbes11. These books, dealt with in our manner, afforded a wide range for original metaphysical speculation: and most of what has been done in the First Book of my System of Logic, to rationalize and correct the principles and distinctions of the school logicians, and to improve the theory of the Import of Propositions, had its origin in these discussions; Graham and I originating most of the novelties, while Grote and others furnished an excellent tribunal or test. From this time I formed the project of writing a book on Logic, though on a much humbler scale than the one I ultimately executed.

学完政治经济学后,我们以同样的方式开始学习三段论逻辑学,此时格罗特加入了我们。我们的第一本课本是奥尔德里奇的著作,但是由于不喜欢它的肤浅,我们重印了耶稣会士迪特里厄的《逻辑学入门》,在很多学院逻辑学的参考书中这本是非常完美的,我父亲热衷于收集此类书籍,我们印的就是他收藏的。读完这本之后,我们开始继续读惠特利的《逻辑学》,当时刚被《大都会百科全书》第一次再版,最后读了霍布斯的《计算法和逻辑学》。以我们自己的方式读的这些书,为新颖的形而上学思考提供了广阔的空间。我在《逻辑学体系》第一本里做的大部分工作,如阐释和校正学院逻辑学家的原则和特征、改进命题意义的理论等,都根源于这些讨论。新颖的思想大都是格雷厄姆和我提出的,而格罗特和其他人则提供了极好的公断,或者说检验。从这时起,我计划要写一本关于逻辑学的作品,尽管其规模与我最终的成书相比小很多。

Having done with Logic, we launched into Analytic Psychology, and having chosen Hartley12 for our text-book, we raised Priestley's edition to an extravagant price by searching through London to furnish each of us with a copy. When we had finished Hartley, we suspended our meetings; but, my father's Analysis of the Mind being published soon after, we reassembled for the purpose of reading it. With this our exercises ended. I have always dated from these conversations my own real inauguration as an original and independent thinker. It was also through them that I acquired, or very much strengthened, a mental habit to which I attribute all that I have ever done, or ever shall do, in speculation; that of never accepting half-solutions of difficulties as complete; never abandoning a puzzle, but again and again returning to it until it was cleared up; never allowing obscure corners of a subject to remain unexplored, because they did not appear important; never thinking that I perfectly understood any part of a subject until I understood the whole.

学完逻辑学之后,我们开始投入分析心理学,选了哈特利的著作作为我们的课本,为了使我们人手一本普里斯特利的版本,我们把伦敦城仔细搜寻了一遍,一度使其价格飞涨。读完哈特利之后,我们暂停了会面。但是,我父亲的《人类心灵现象的分析》很快就出版了,为了阅读这本书,我们又重新聚到一起。读完这本书后,我们的练习就终止了。我总是把自己成为一个有创造性的独立思想家的开端追溯到这些对话中。也是通过它们我获得了一个思考习惯,或者说深深加固了这个习惯,我把自己做过的一切思考以及将来要进行的思索,都归功于这个习惯。这个习惯就是,如果困难只解决了一半,就不能当成全部解决。永远不放弃任何一个难题,而要反复研究,直到完全解决为止。永远不允许因为看似不重要,就忽略一个问题不引人注意的角落。在完全理解一个问题之前,永远不能认为自己完全理解了它的任何一部分。

Our doings from 1825 to 1830 in the way of public speaking, filled a considerable place in my life during those years, and as they had important effects on my development, something ought to be said of them.

从1825到1830年间,我们的演说活动,在我那几年的生活中占据了很重要的位置,因为它们对我的发展有重要影响,所以应该提一下。

There was for some time in existence a society of Owenites13, called the Cooperative Society, which met for weekly public discussions in Chancery Lane. In the early part of 1825, accident brought Roebuck in contact with several of its members, and led to his attending one or two of the meetings and taking part in the debate in opposition to Owenism. Some one of us started the notion of going there in a body and having a general battle: and Charles Austin and some of his friends who did not usually take part in our joint exercises, entered into the project. It was carried out by concert with the principal members of the Society, themselves nothing loth, as they naturally preferred a controversy with opponents to a tame discussion among their own body. The question of population was proposed as the subject of debate: Charles Austin led the case on our side with a brilliant speech, and the fight was kept up by adjournment through five or six weekly meetings before crowded auditories, including along with the members of the Society and their friends, many hearers and some speakers from the Inns of Court14 When this debate was ended, another was commenced on the general merits of Owen's system: and the contest altogether lasted about three months. It was a lutte corps-à-corps between Owenites and political economists, whom the Owenites regarded as their most inveterate opponents: but it was a perfectly friendly dispute. We who represented political economy, had the same objects in view as they had, and took pains to show it; and the principal champion on their side was a very estimable man, with whom I was well acquainted, Mr. William Thompson, of Cork, author of a book on the Distribution of Wealth, and of an Appeal in behalf of women against the passage relating to them in my father's Essay on Government. Ellis, Roebuck, and I, took an active part in the debate, and among those from the Inns of Court who joined in it, I remember Charles Villiers. The other side obtained also, on the population question, very efficient support from without. The well known Gale Jones, then an elderly man, made one of his florid speeches; but the speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of St. David's, then a Chancery barrister, unknown except by a high reputation for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union before the era of Austin and Macaulay. His speech was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never since heard any one whom I placed above him.

有段时间,曾经有一个欧文主义者的学会,叫做合作社,它的成员在大法官法庭巷集会,每星期进行一次公开讨论。1825年上半年,罗巴克偶然接触到好几个合作社的成员,所以他参加了一两次集会,并参与辩论反对欧文主义。我们当中有个人产生了以团体的形式去那里来一次全体论战的想法。查尔斯.奥斯丁和他的一些朋友本来很少参加我们的集体活动,这次也参与了这个计划。合作社的主要成员一致同意执行这个计划,一点都不感到勉强,因为与自己团体内部枯燥乏味的讨论相比,他们无疑更喜欢和对手论战。人口问题被提议作为辩论的主题,我方的查尔斯.奥斯丁用一篇才华横溢的演说开始了辩论,论战在每周一次的集会上举行,持续了五六个星期,挤满了观众,包括合作社的成员和他们的朋友,以及很多听众和一些来自律师培养学院里的演讲人。这个辩论结束后,另一个关于欧文体系总体价值的辩论开始了,论战总共持续了差不多三个月。这是欧文主义者和政治经济学者之间的激烈斗争,前者把后者当作最顽固的对手,但是这却是个非常友好的辩论。代表政治经济学的我们,和他们考虑的目标是一致的,并尽力表现出来。他们那边的主辩是个非常可敬的人,我和他很熟,他就是科克城的威廉.汤普森先生,《论财富分配》一书的作者,还代表妇女写了《呼吁书》,反对我父亲的《政府论》中有关妇女的观点。埃利斯、罗巴克和我在辩论中很积极,我记得加入辩论的律师学院的人当中有查尔斯.威利尔斯。在人口问题上,对方也从外面得到了很有效的支持。当时已上年纪的著名的盖尔.琼斯,也作了一个华丽的演讲。但是最让我震惊的演说人是瑟尔沃尔,虽然他说的任何一个词我几乎都不同意。他自圣戴维主教时起就是个历史学家,后来成为大法官法庭律师,世人只知他善于雄辩,那还是在剑桥协会,在奥斯汀和麦考利那个时代之前。他的演讲是为了回应我的一个演讲。他只说了不到十句话,我就断定他是我听过的最厉害的演说家,那之后我也从来没听过比他更好的。

The great interest of these debates predisposed some of those who took part in them, to catch at a suggestion thrown out by McCulloch, the political economist, that a Society was wanted in London similar to the Speculative Society at Edinburgh, in which Brougham15, Horner, and others first cultivated public speaking. Our experience at the Cooperative Society seemed to give cause for being sanguine as to the sort of men who might be brought together in London for such a purpose. McCulloch mentioned the matter to several young men of influence, to whom he was then giving private lessons in political economy. Some of these entered warmly into the project, particularly George Villiers, afterwards Earl of Clarendon. He and his brothers, Hyde and Charles, Romilly, Charles Austin and I, with some others, met and agreed on a plan. We determined to meet once a fortnight from November to June, at the Freemason's Tavern, and we had soon a splendid list of members, containing, along with several members of Parliament, nearly all the most noted speakers of the Cambridge Union and of the Oxford United Debating Society. It is curiously illustrative of the tendencies of the time, that our principal difficulty in recruiting for the Society was to find a sufficient number of Tory speakers. Almost all whom we could press into the service were Liberals, of different orders and degrees. Besides those already named, we had Macaulay, Thirlwall, Praed, Lord Howick, Samuel Wilberforce (afterwards Bishop of Oxford), Charles Poulett Thomson (afterwards Lord Sydenham), Edward and Henry Lytton Bulwer, Fonblanque, and many others whom I cannot now recollect, but who made themselves afterwards more or less conspicuous in public or literary life. Nothing could seem more promising. But when the time for action drew near, and it was necessary to fix on a President, and find somebody to open the first debate, none of our celebrities would consent to perform either office. Of the many who were pressed on the subject, the only one who could be prevailed on was a man of whom I knew very little, but who had taken high honours at Oxford and was said to have acquired a great oratorical reputation there; who some time afterwards became a Tory member of Parliament. He accordingly was fixed on, both for filling the President's chair and for making the first speech. The important day arrived; the benches were crowded; all our great speakers were present, to judge of, but not to help our efforts. The Oxford orator's speech was a complete failure. This threw a damp on the whole concern: the speakers who followed were few, and none of them did their best: the affair was a complete fiasco; and the oratorical celebrities we had counted on went away never to return, giving to me at least a lesson in knowledge of the world. This unexpected breakdown altered my whole relation to the project. I had not anticipated taking a prominent part, or speaking much or often, particularly at first, but I now saw that the success of the scheme depended on the new men, and I put my shoulder to the wheel. I opened the second question, and from that time spoke in nearly every debate. It was very uphill work for some time. The three Villiers' and Romilly stuck to us for some time longer, but the patience of all the founders of the Society was at last exhausted, except me and Roebuck. In the season following, 1826—7, things began to mend. We had acquired two excellent Tory speakers, Hayward, and Shee (afterwards Sergeant Shee): the Radical side was reinforced by Charles Buller, Cockburn, and others of the second generation of Cambridge Benthamites; and with their and other occasional aid, and the two Tories as well as Roebuck and me for regular speakers, almost every debate was a bataille rangée between the "philosophic Radicals" and the Tory lawyers; until our conflicts were talked about, and several persons of note and consideration came to hear us. This happened still more in the subsequent seasons, 1828 and 1829, when the Coleridgians, in the persons of Maurice and Sterling, made their appearance in the Society as a second Liberal and even Radical party, on totally different grounds from Benthamism and vehemently opposed to it; bringing into these discussions the general doctrines and modes of thought of the European reaction against the philosophy of the eighteenth century; and adding a third and very important belligerent party to our contests, which were now no bad exponent of the movement of opinion among the most cultivated part of the new generation. Our debates were very different from those of common debating societies, for they habitually consisted of the strongest arguments and most philosophic principles which either side was able to produce, thrown often into close and serré confutations of one another. The practice was necessarily very useful to us, and eminently so to me. I never, indeed, acquired real fluency, and had always a bad and ungraceful delivery; but I could make myself listened to: and as I always wrote my speeches when, from the feelings involved, or the nature of the ideas to be developed, expression seemed important,I greatly increased my power of effective writing; acquiring not only an ear for smoothness and rhythm, but a practical sense for telling sentences, and an immediate criterion of their telling property, by their effect on a mixed audience.

对这些辩论的巨大兴趣让一些参与者很容易地接受了政治经济学家麦卡洛克提出的一个建议,即伦敦需要有一个和爱丁堡思辨学会相似的学会,爱丁堡的思辨学会是布鲁厄姆、霍纳和其他一些人最初培养演说能力的地方。我们在合作社的经历似乎让人相信我们就是可以聚集在伦敦共同做这样一件事情的人。麦卡洛克跟几位有影响力的年轻人提过这件事,那时他正给他们单独讲授政治经济学的课程。他们中有几位热心地加入了这个计划,尤其是后来成为克拉伦登伯爵的乔治.威利尔斯。他和他的兄弟海德和查尔斯、罗米利、查尔斯.奥斯汀,还有我,以及其他一些人会面并达成一个计划,我们决定从11月到6月在共济会会员的旅馆每两星期集会一次,我们很快就有了不少杰出的会员,连同好几位议会议员一起,几乎囊括了剑桥协会和牛津联合辩论协会所有的著名演说家。我们的主要困难在于为学会征募足够的保守党演说者,这一点很奇特地反映了当时的趋势。我们能紧急找来的几乎都是来自不同阶层、不同学历的自由主义者。除了已经提到的,还有麦考利、瑟尔沃尔、普雷德、豪伊克勋爵、塞缪尔.威尔伯福斯(后来成为牛津的主教)、查尔斯.波利特.汤姆森(后来成为悉登汉姆勋爵)、爱德华、亨利.利顿.布尔沃、方布兰克,还有很多我现在想不起来的人,但他们后来都或多或少在公共或文学领域中有出色的表现。一切看起来都充满希望。行动的日子要到了,这时需要确定一个主席,并找一个人作开场辩论,但是我们的名人中没有一个同意履行两个职责中的任何一个。我们敦促很多人做这件事,但被说服了的只有一个,我对此人知之甚少,但他在牛津很受尊敬,据说在那儿获得了很高的演说上的声誉,后来成了议会的保守党议员。因此,我们就确定他担任主席一职,并第一个发言。重大的日子到了,长凳上挤满了人,我们所有伟大的演说家都到场了,但他们是来评价我们的努力,而不是来帮忙的。这位牛津演说家的演说彻底失败了。这让所有人都很沮丧,接下来演说的人很少,而且没有一个发挥出最佳状态,彻底惨败。我们曾指望的演说名人离开了,再也没回来,这至少在了解世事上给了我一个教训。这个意外的事故改变了我和这个计划的整个关系。我以前没有想过要扮演主要角色或者经常演讲,尤其是一开始的时候。但是,现在我发现这个计划的成功要依靠新人,我决定担起重任。我在第二个问题上首先发言,从那时起,我几乎在每次辩论中都发言。有一阵子这是非常艰难的工作。威利尔斯三兄弟和罗米利与我们一起坚持了比较长的时间,但是最终除了我和罗巴克,协会所有创始人的耐心还是耗尽了。在接下来的时期里(1826—1827年),情况开始好转。我们得到了两个卓越的保守党演说家的支持:海沃德和希(后来成为高级律师)。随着查尔斯·布勒、科伯恩和剑桥功利主义者第二代一些人的加入,激进主义这一边也得以加强;有他们和其他人的偶尔协助,加上两个保守党党员,罗巴克和我定期发言,使得几乎每一次辩论都是“哲学激进分子”和保守党律师之间的对阵战。一直到人们开始议论我们的辩论,好几个受人尊敬的著名人物来听我们的辩论为止。在接下来1828—1829年的辩论季当中,这种情况更多了,当时以莫里斯和斯特林为代表的浪漫主义者,作为第二个自由主义甚至激进主义派别出现在学会里,他们的依据与功利主义完全不同,而且激烈地反对功利主义。他们把欧洲反对18世纪哲学时普遍使用的学说和思考方式带到这些讨论中来,并成为我们论战中非常重要的好战第三方,当时他们是新一代思想运动中最有教养的倡导者。我们的辩论和普通辩论协会中的大不相同,因为我们双方都能提出来最有说服力的论点和最具哲学性的原则,使得双方的互相驳斥经常陷于激烈的势均力敌的状态。这种实践对我们来说非常有益,不可或缺,尤其是对我。其实,我从来没获得真正流畅的表达能力,表达的时候总是很差,不优美,但我还是能抓住听众的注意力。由于我总是在表达看起来很重要的时候才写演讲稿,不论是从内心的感情出发,还是从要阐明观点的本质出发,我都大大提高了实际写作的能力,不仅能够分辨语言是否流利和有节奏,还能实际地辨别有说服力的句子,并通过它们对不同观众的效果,直接评判它们的说服力。

The Society, and the preparation for it, together with the preparation for the morning conversations which were going on simultaneously, occupied the greater part of my leisure; and made me feel it a relief when, in the spring of 1828, I ceased to write for the Westminster. The Review had fallen into difficulties. Though the sale of the first number had been very encouraging, the permanent sale had never, I believe, been sufficient to pay the expenses, on the scale on which the review was carried on. Those expenses had been considerably, but not sufficiently, reduced. One of the editors, Southern, had resigned; and several of the writers, including my father and me, who had been paid like other contributors for our earlier articles, had latterly written without payment. Nevertheless, the original funds were nearly or quite exhausted, and if the Review was to be continued some new arrangement of its affairs had become indispensable. My father and I had several conferences with Bowring on the subject. We were willing to do our utmost for maintaining the Review as an organ of our opinions, but not under Bowring's editorship: while the impossibility of its any longer supporting a paid editor, afforded a ground on which, without affront to him, we could propose to dispense with his services. We and some of our friends, were prepared to carry on the Review as unpaid writers, either finding among ourselves an unpaid editor, or sharing the editorship among us. But while this negotiation was proceeding with Bowring's apparent acquiescence, he was carrying on another in a different quarter (with Colonel Perronet Thompson), of which we received the first intimation in a letter from Bowring as editor, informing us merely that an arrangement had been made, and proposing to us to write for the next number, with promise of payment. We did not dispute Bowring's right to bring about, if he could, an arrangement more favorable to himself than the one we had proposed; but we thought the concealment which he had practised towards us, while seemingly entering into our own project, an affront: and even had we not thought so, we were indisposed to expend any more of our time and trouble in attempting to write up the Review under his management. Accordingly my father excused himself from writing; though two or three years later, on great pressure, he did write one more political article. As for me, I positively refused. And thus ended my connexion with the original Westminster. The last article which I wrote in it had cost me more labour than any previous; but it was a labour of love, being a defence of the early French Revolutionists against the Tory misrepresentations of Sir Walter Scott16, in the introduction to his Life of Napoleon. The number of books which I read for this purpose, making notes and extracts—even the number I had to buy (for in those days there was no public or subscription library from which books of reference could be taken home), far exceeded the worth of the immediate object; but I had at that time a half-formed intention of writing a History of the French Revolution; and though I never executed it, my collections afterwards were very useful to Carlyle17 for a similar purpose.

协会以及为协会做的准备工作,加上为同时进行的上午交谈做的准备,占用了我大部分的闲暇时间。因此1828年春天,我停止为《威斯敏斯特评论》写稿的时候,感觉轻松了不少。评论杂志陷入了困境。尽管第一期的销售量非常振奋人心,但是我相信,以评论杂志开展的规模来说长期的销售量从未能应付开支。开支已经缩减了很多,但是缩减得还是不够。一个编辑——萨瑟恩——已经辞职了。好几个作者,包括父亲和我,早期的稿件和其他撰稿人一样获得稿酬,但最近已经没有报酬了。然而,原始资金已几近耗尽,或者已经完全耗尽了,如果这份刊物想继续维持下去的话,必须重新安排它的事务。我父亲和我就这个问题和鲍林讨论了好几次。我们乐意尽力维持评论杂志,让它作为我们观点的喉舌,但是不用鲍林做我们的编辑。而报纸无法再负担有偿编辑给我们提供了一个理由,既不会冒犯到他,又可以提议免去他的职责。我们,还有一些朋友,都准备好了做无偿作者,继续维持评论报,要么在我们中间找一个无偿的编辑,要么共同承担编辑之职。但是,就当谈判在鲍林的明显默许下正在进行的时候,他却在另一个地区进行另一个谈判(和佩罗内特.汤普森上校),我们收到的第一个通告是鲍林作为编辑给我们写的一封信,仅仅告诉我们说做了些安排,建议我们为下一期写稿,承诺支付报酬。如果他有这个能力,他有权做比我们的提议更有利于他自己的安排,我们不会阻止。但是他对我们加以隐瞒,而表面上看起来还是在参加我们的计划,我们觉得这是一种公开侮辱。即使我们没这么想,我们也不愿意再浪费时间和精力为他主编的《威斯敏斯特评论》继续写文章。因此,我父亲不再写文章。尽管两三年后,在巨大的压力下他不得不写了一篇政论文。至于我,则坚决拒绝了再为其撰稿。这样,我和原先的《威斯敏斯特评论》的联系终止了。我在上面写的最后一篇文章,付出的努力比以往任何文章都多。但是这是出于爱的努力,因为它是为早期法国革命家辩护,反对沃尔特.司各特爵士在他的《拿破仑传》序言中对他们保守的曲解。为了写这篇文章,要做笔记,做摘录,为此所读的书的数量——甚至我必须购买的数量(因为那时候没有能把参考书借回家的公共图书馆或订阅图书馆),远远超过了直接目标的价值。但是,我当时有个写法国大革命史的不成熟的想法。尽管我从来没有付诸实际,但是我的藏书后来对卡莱尔写类似的作品非常有用。

(1)威廉·科贝特(1762—1835),英国记者、政治活动家和政论家、小资产阶级激进派的著名代表人物。

(2)《六项法案》,1819年,英国政府为了防止动乱而制定的一系列新法律,把任何形式的激进主义改革都归为“明显的叛国阴谋”。

(3)亚历山大·巴林(1774—1848),英国金融家和国家官员,参加了英美谈判并签订了确定加拿大与缅因边界的条约(1842年)。

(4)乔治·坎宁(1770—1827),英国政治家、外相,曾短暂出任英国首相。

(5)威廉·尤尔特·格莱斯顿(1809—1898),英国政治家,于1868—1894年间四度出任英国首相。

(6)托马斯·穆尔(1779—1852),爱尔兰浪漫主义诗人,他的许多怀旧和爱国的抒情诗诸如《吟游少年》,都带有传统的爱尔兰曲调。

(7)亚历山大·蒲柏(1688—1744),英国作家,其最著名的作品是讽刺性仿英雄体史诗《夺发记》(1712年)和《群愚史诗》(1728年)。

(8)普卢塔克(约公元46—120),古希腊传记作家和哲学家。他写的《希腊罗马名人比较列传》和一部传记集,曾被莎士比亚用在他的古罗马戏剧中。

(9)安·罗伯特·雅克·杜尔哥(1721—1781),法国经济学家、18世纪后半叶法国资产阶级古典经济学家、重农学派最重要的代表人物之一。

(10)阿尔贝特·加勒廷(1761—1849),瑞士裔的美国金融家和政治家,曾任美国财政部长。

(11)托马斯·霍布斯(1588—1679),英国政治哲学家、机械唯物主义者。

(12)大卫·哈特利(1705—1757),英国哲学家、医生、联想主义心理学创始人之一。

(13)罗伯特·欧文,英国空想社会主义者,合作社运动的先驱。

(14)律师学院,英国伦敦四个培养律师的组织。

(15)亨利·彼得·布鲁厄姆(1778—1868),英国政治家,曾任大法官。

(16)沃尔特·司各特(1771—1832),苏格兰小说家、诗人、历史小说首创者、浪漫主义运动的先驱。

(17)托马斯·卡莱尔(1795—1881),苏格兰历史学家和散文作家,其著作有《法国革命》等。

第一时间更新《我的知识之路》最新章节。

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