《我的知识之路》第二章 少年时期的思想影响父亲的性格和观点

CHAPTER II Moral Influences In Early Youth, My Father's Character And Opinions

第二章 少年时期的思想影响父亲的性格和观点

In my education, as in that of every one, the moral influences, which are so much more important than all others, are also the most complicated, and the most difficult to specify with any approach to completeness. Without attempting the hopeless task of detailing the circumstances by which, in this respect, my early character may have been shaped, I shall confine myself to a few leading points, which form an indispensable part of any true account of my education.

和任何人一样，在我的教育中，精神影响比其他影响重要得多，也是最复杂、最难以用任何方法全面说明的。去详细说明塑造我年少时性格的环境大概是什么样的，根本是不可能完成的任务，我将只列举一些最重要的事件，它们在任何关于我的教育的真实记述中，都是不可缺少的一部分。

I was brought up from the first without any religious belief, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. My father, educated in the creed of Scotch Presbyterianism, had by his own studies and reflexions been early led to reject not only the belief in Revelation, but the foundations of what is commonly called Natural Religion. I have heard him say, that the turning point of his mind on the subject was reading Butler1's Analog y2. That work, of which he always continued to speak with respect, kept him, as he said, for some considerable time, a believer in the divine authority of Christianity; by proving to him, that whatever are the difficulties in believing that the Old and New Testaments proceed from, or record the acts of, a perfectly wise and good being, the same and still greater difficulties stand in the way of the belief, that a being of such a character can have been the Maker of the universe. He considered Butler's argument as conclusive against the only opponents for whom it was intended. Those who admit an omnipotent as well as perfectly just and benevolent maker and ruler of such a world as this, can say little against Christianity but what can, with at least equal force, be retorted against themselves. Finding, therefore, no halting place in Deism, he remained in a state of perplexity, until, doubtless after many struggles, he yielded to the conviction, that, concerning the origin of things nothing whatever can be known. This is the only correct statement of his opinion; for dogmatic atheism he looked upon as absurd; as most of those, whom the world has considered Atheists, have always done. These particulars are important, because they show that my father's rejection of all that is called religious belief, was not, as many might suppose, primarily a matter of logic and evidence: the grounds of it were moral, still more than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness. His intellect spurned the subtleties by which men attempt to blind themselves to this open contradiction. The Sabӕan, or Manichӕan theory of a Good and an Evil Principle, struggling against each other for the government of the universe, he would not have equally condemned; and I have heard him express surprise, that no one revived it in our time. He would have regarded it as a mere hypothesis; but he would have ascribed to it no depraving influence. As it was, his aversion to religion, in the sense usually attached to the term, was of the same kind with that of Lucretius3: he regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellences,— belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of humankind,—and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. I have a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression, that mankind have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind could devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it. This neplus ultra of wickedness he considered to be embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity. Think (he used to say) of a being who would make a Hell—who would create the human race with the infallible foreknowledge, and therefore with the intention, that the great majority of them were to be consigned to horrible and everlasting torment. The time, I believe, is drawing near when this dreadful conception of an object of worship will be no longer identified with Christianity; and when all persons, with any sense of moral good and evil, will look upon it with the same indignation with which my father regarded it. My father was as well aware as any one that Christians do not, in general, undergo the demoralizing consequences which seem inherent in such a creed, in the manner or to the extent which might have been expected from it. The same slovenliness of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms, prevents them from perceiving the logical consequences of the theory. Such is the facility with which mankind believe at one and the same time things inconsistent with one another, and so few are those who draw from what they receive as truths, any consequences but those recommended to them by their feelings, that multitudes have held the undoubting belief in an Omnipotent Author of Hell, and have nevertheless identified that being with the best conception they were able to form of perfect goodness. Their worship was not paid to the demon which such a Being as they imagined would really be, but to their own ideal of excellence. The evil is, that such a belief keeps the ideal wretchedly low; and opposes the most obstinate resistance to all thought which has a tendency to raise it higher. Believers shrink from every train of ideas which would lead the mind to a clear conception and an elevated standard of excellence, because they feel (even when they do not distinctly see) that such a standard would conflict with many of the dispensations of nature, and with much of what they are accustomed to consider as the Christian creed. And thus morality continues a matter of blind tradition, with no consistent principle, nor even any consistent feeling, to guide it.

我从一开始接受的是没有任何宗教信仰的教育——按照大家对宗教信仰的普遍理解来说。我父亲受教于苏格兰长老会的教义，但他很早就通过自己的研究和反思，不仅抛弃了对《启示录》的信仰，还反对通常所谓的自然宗教的基本原则。我听他说过，他对这个问题的思想转折点，是读了巴特勒的《宗教类推》。谈起这部著作的时候，他总是充满敬意，说此书曾让他在相当长的一段时间内相信基督教的神圣权威。这部书向他证明，不管要相信《旧约》和《新约》是源自一个极其英明善良的人，或者是他行为的记录有多少困难，更具挑战意义的还在于要相信有这种性格的人是宇宙的造物主。他认为巴特勒的论证确凿，足以驳倒这本书针对的唯一对手。那些承认上帝万能、公正、善良，承认上帝是这个世界的创造者和统治者的人们，不能说反对基督教的话。如果说了，那么这些话可以带着至少同样的说服力，用来反驳他们自己。因此，他找不出自然神论中的缺陷，这让他一直很困惑。毫无疑问，经过多次挣扎后，他让步了，深信关于万物的起源这个问题，一切都不可知。这是对他的观点唯一正确的表述，因为他认为武断的无神论很荒诞，就像那些被称作无神论者的人，大部分人做的事情也很荒诞。这些细节很重要，因为它们表明了父亲反对所有这些所谓的宗教信仰，并不像很多人可能认为的那样，主要是因为逻辑和证据的问题，他反对的根据是道德上的，要高于智力层面。他觉得无法相信一个充满罪恶的世界，是兼有无穷力量、完美善良和正义的造物主的作品。人们试图蒙蔽自己以接受这种明显的矛盾，但他的智慧让他唾弃这种微妙的努力。然而他不会同样谴责塞伯伊人或摩尼教的理论，这些理论认为善恶互相争夺对宇宙的支配。我听他说过，他很吃惊为什么在我们这个时代，没有人重振善恶原则。他会认为善恶原则只是个假设，但他不会把它归为让人堕落的力量。事实上，他对宗教（按照这个词的通常含义）的反感，和卢克莱修一样：他对宗教的厌恶不是因为它不过是一种精神欺骗，而是因为宗教是一种强大的道德罪恶。他认为宗教是道德的最大敌人：首先，通过构建虚伪的美德——宗教的教义、虔诚的情感和宗教仪式，这些都与人类的美德没有关系——让它们取代真正的美德，为人接受；但最重要的，是通过从根本上损害道德的标准，让这个标准服从于一个人的意志，这个人得到了所有慷慨的奉承话。但是，冷静看待事实的话，这个人又被刻画得极其可恨。我听他说过一百次，说所有时代、所有国家都把他们的上帝描绘得很邪恶，而且总是越来越邪恶。人类不停地给邪恶添加一个又一个的特征，直到符合他们的大脑对邪恶最完美的设想，并把这称为上帝，拜倒在它面前。他认为，这种登峰造极的邪恶，体现在通常呈现于人类面前的基督教教义里。（他经常说）设想一下一个会创造地狱的人——由于他拥有着绝对的先知，因此在创造人类时他就带着这种目的，即绝大多数要经受可怕、恒久的折磨。我相信，这种可怕的膜拜对象的观念，很快将不再和基督教划上等号。有任何道德善恶意识的人，也会像我父亲一样，带着同样的义愤看待它。父亲也和所有人一样清楚，不论是从人们原先预想的方式还是程度上来说，基督徒总体上并没有受到这种教义似乎固有的腐化道德的影响。思想懒散，理智屈从于恐惧、愿望和情感的支配，让他们接受了这样一个自相矛盾的理论，也让他们无从理解这个理论的逻辑结论。这就是人类的能力，能够同时相信自相矛盾的事物，很少有人从他们当作真理接受的东西中得出推论，而只是汲取自己的感觉喜欢的东西。因此，大众坚信存在万能的地狱创造者，然而又把那个人看成是他们能够设想出来的完美仁慈的化身。他们想象的那个人其实是个魔鬼，他们崇拜的并不是这个魔鬼，而是他们自己对于美德的理想。不幸的是，这样的信仰，使得这种理想很可怜，很卑下，它顽固地抵制所有希望提升这种理想的想法。任何会让他们的头脑对美德产生明确概念以及更高标准的一连串的观点，信徒们都不愿意相信，因为他们觉得（即使在他们没有看清楚的时候）这样一个标准会和造物主的很多安排相冲突，和他们习惯接受的基督教的很多教义相冲突。因此，道德一直都是一种盲目的传统，没有一贯的原则，也没有一贯的感情去引导它。

It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father's ideas of duty, to allow me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions and feelings respecting religion: and he impressed upon me from the first, that the manner in which the world came into existence was a subject on which nothing was known: that the question, "Who made me?" cannot be answered, because we have no experience or authentic information from which to answer it; and that any answer only throws the difficulty a step further back, since the question immediately presents itself, "Who made God?" He, at the same time, took care that I should be acquainted with what had been thought by mankind on these impenetrable problems. I have mentioned at how early an age he made me a reader of ecclesiastical history; and he taught me to take the strongest interest in the Reformation, as the great and decisive contest against priestly tyranny for liberty of thought.

如果允许我获得和父亲相反的宗教信念和感情的话，那就会与他的责任观完全矛盾。所以从一开始，他就让我深深记住，对于世界产生的方式这个问题，人们还一无所知。“谁创造了我？”这个问题无法解答，因为我们没有回答它所需的经验或真实的信息。任何答案只会让困难更进一步，因为下一个问题马上就出现了，“谁创造了上帝？”同时，他确保我应该熟悉人类对这些令人费解的问题做过的思考。我曾提到过，在我那么小的时候，他就让我读教会史，他教我对宗教改革产生最强烈的兴趣，认同它是与传教士专制作斗争，是争取思想自由的决定性的伟大战斗。

I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it: I grew up in a negative state with regard to it. I looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned me. It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what I did not, than that the men whom I read of in Herodotus4 should have done so. History had made the variety of opinions among mankind a fact familiar to me, and this was but a prolongation of that fact. This point in my early education had, however, incidentally one bad consequence deserving notice. In giving me an opinion contrary to that of the world, my father thought it necessary to give it as one which could not prudently be avowed to the world. This lesson of keeping my thoughts to myself, at that early age, was attended with some moral disadvantages; though my limited intercourse with strangers, especially such as were likely to speak to me on religion, prevented me from being placed in the alternative of avowal or hypocrisy. I remember two occasions in my boyhood, on which I felt myself in this alternative, and in both cases I avowed my disbelief and defended it. My opponents were boys, considerably older than myself: one of them I certainly staggered at the time, but the subject was never renewed between us: the other who was surprised and somewhat shocked, did his best to convince me for some time, without effect.

我因此成为这个国家中并非抛却了宗教信仰，而是从来就没有过宗教信仰的人之一。我成长于一个对宗教持否定态度的环境中。我看待现代宗教和古代宗教的方式完全一样，认为它们与我完全无关。对我来说，英国人信仰我不信的东西，就像我读希罗多德的书，看到里面的人和我的信仰不同一样，不足为奇。读历史让我熟知人类中间存在多种观点的事实，这只不过是这个事实的延伸。然而，我早年教育中的这一点也附带有一个不好的结果，值得注意。父亲认为，教给我与世人相反的观点有必要谨慎，不向世人公开这个观点。在那么小的时候就教我不告诉别人自己的思想，是有一些道德上的不利的。虽然我和陌生人的交往有限，尤其是与那些有可能和我谈论宗教的人，这使我不会置身于要么说实话，要么虚伪的选择之中。我记得，童年时我有两次处在这种选择中，这两次我都宣布了自己的怀疑，并为之辩护。我的对手是一些比我大很多的男孩子，我的言辞显然使得其中一个当时很慌乱，但是我们再也没有继续这个话题。另一个感到很吃惊，甚至有些震惊，他努力劝说了我一阵子，让我相信他，但是没用。

The great advance in liberty of discussion, which is one of the most important differences between the present time and that of my childhood, has greatly altered the moralities of this question; and I think that few men of my father's intellect and public spirit, holding with such intensity of moral conviction as he did, unpopular opinions on religion, or on any other of the great subjects of thought, would now either practise or inculcate the withholding of them from the world, unless in the cases, becoming fewer every day, in which frankness on these subjects would either risk the loss of means of subsistence, or would amount to exclusion from some sphere of usefulness peculiarly suitable to the capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the time appears to me to have come, when it is the duty of all who being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their dissent known; at least, if they are among those whose station or reputation, gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an avowal would put an end, at once and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice, that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, is connected with any bad qualities either of mind or heart. The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments—of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue—are complete sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less from personal considerations, than from a conscientious, though now in my opinion a most mistaken apprehension, lest by speaking out what would tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they suppose) existing restraints, they should do harm instead of good.

讨论自由现在有了很大进步，这是和我童年时最重要的区别之一，它大大改变了讨论这个问题所涉及的道德性。我认为，现在很少有具备和我父亲一样的智力和公德心，以强烈的道德信念坚持不受欢迎的宗教观点或其他伟大思想的人，不会把他们的这些想法公诸于世，或者反复劝导他人不要这样做。除非有这样的情况，而且这种情况越来越少，那就是坦白对这些问题的看法，要么会有失去谋生手段的危险，要么会被特别适合个人能力发挥的有益的领域排除在外。尤其在宗教问题上，我认为所有知识上过硬，经过深思熟虑后认为目前的观点不仅错误，而且有害的人，都有义务表达自己的异议，而这样的时刻已经到来了。至少那些有地位或有名誉，能让自己的观点有机会被人注意到的人，都有义务这么做。这样的声明会立刻结束，并永远结束那种庸俗的偏见，即认为无信仰（非常不恰当的叫法）与头脑或者心灵中的什么坏品质有关。如果世人知道最为世界增光添彩的人当中——即那些哪怕用通俗标准评价他们的智慧和美德，也是最卓越的人当中——有多大比例是彻底的宗教怀疑论者的话，会非常的震惊，他们中很多人克制自己不作声明，绝不是基于个人的考虑，而是本着在我目前看来十分错误的一种负责任的忧思，唯恐说出来会削弱现有的信仰，进而（像他们所认为的）削弱现有的约束，这样一来反而有害无益。

Of unbelievers (so called) as well as of believers, there are many species, including almost every variety of moral type. But the best among them, as no one who has had opportunities of really knowing them will hesitate to affirm (believers rarely have that opportunity), are more genuinely religious, in the best sense of the word religion, than those who exclusively arrogate to themselves the title. The liberality of the age, or in other words the weakening of the obstinate prejudice which makes men unable to see what is before their eyes because it is contrary to their expectations, has caused it to be very commonly admitted that a Deist may be truly religious: but if religion stands for any graces of character and not for mere dogma, the assertion may equally be made of many whose belief is far short of Deism. Though they may think the proof incomplete that the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve that it can have an Author and Governor who is absolute in power as well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the principal worth of all religions whatever, an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection than the objective Deity of those, who think themselves obliged to find absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering and so deformed by injustice as ours.

（所谓的）异教徒和信徒都有很多种，几乎涵盖了众多道德类型中的每一种。但是，任何真正有机会了解这其中最优秀者的人（信徒很少有这样的机会），都会毫不犹豫地肯定，这些人比那些把头衔硬加到自己头上，而把别人排除在外的人，更真诚地信仰宗教，从宗教这个词的最佳意义上来讲是这样。时代的开明，或者换句话说，曾让人们不见眼前之物——因为与他们的预期相反——的顽固偏见的削弱，使得人们普遍承认自然神论信仰者可能确实很虔诚。但是，如果宗教代表任何品质中的魅力，而不仅是教条的话，那么对于很多信仰完全达不到自然神论的人，也可以断言他们很虔诚。尽管他们可能认为，宇宙是设计的作品这种说法证据不足，尽管他们确实怀疑宇宙中存在一个拥有绝对权力，同时又是至善至美的创世者兼统治者，但是对于完美的存在，他们有一个理想的设想，这个设想构成了所有宗教的主要价值，他们通常称之为是非之心的指引。这种完美的善远比客观的神更接近完美，相信客观的神的人认为他们必须在创世者身上找到绝对的善，可是这个造物主的世界跟我们的世界一样，充满苦难，因为不公正而畸形。

My father's moral convictions, wholly dissevered from religion, were very much of the character of those of the Greek philosophers; and were delivered with the force and decision which characterized all that came from him. Even at the very early age at which I read with him the Memorabilia of Xenophon, I imbibed from that work and from his comments a deep respect for the character of Socrates; who stood in my mind as a model of ideal excellence: and I well remember how my father at that time impressed upon me the lesson of the "Choice of Hercules." At a somewhat later period the lofty moral standard exhibited in the writings of Plato operated upon me with great force. My father's moral inculcations were at all times mainly those of the "Socratici viri"; justice, temperance (to which he gave a very extended application), veracity, perseverance, readiness to encounter pain and especially labour; regard for the public good; estimation of persons according to their merits, and of things according to their intrinsic usefulness; a life of exertion, in contradiction to one of self-indulgent ease and sloth. These and other moralities he conveyed in brief sentences, uttered as occasion arose, of grave exhortation, or stern reprobation and contempt.

父亲的道德信念与宗教毫无关系，而在很大程度上和一些希腊哲学家相同。表达信念时体现出来的力量和果断，也是他所有作品的特征。在我非常小的时候，我和他一起读了色诺芬的《回忆苏格拉底》，即使那时，从这部著作和父亲的评论中，我已经对苏格拉底的品格敬佩万分。他在我头脑中是完美杰出的化身：我清楚地记得那时父亲如何让我铭记《赫拉克勒斯的选择》这一课。在稍后的一段时期里，柏拉图的作品中呈现出来的高尚的道德标准，对我产生了极大影响。一直以来父亲给我的道德教诲主要是“苏格拉底的追随者”所提倡的：正直、节制（这个词，他用得很广泛）、诚实、坚定、乐于承受痛苦，尤其是辛苦的劳动；关心公共福利；以品质评价人物，以内在的可用性评价事物；一生努力，而非自我放纵、松懈和懒惰。一有机会他就用简洁的语句，或严肃告诫，或严厉斥责和轻蔑，来表达这些和其他道德规范。

But though direct moral teaching does much, indirect does more; and the effect my father produced on my character, did not depend solely on what he said or did with that direct object, but also, and still more, on what manner of man he was.

尽管直接的道德教育作用很大，但是间接的作用更大。父亲对我的性格的影响，不仅取决于他为了达成这个直接目标的所言所行，而且更多地取决于他是一个什么样的人。

In his views of life he partook of the character of the Stoic5, the Epicurean6, and the Cynic7, not in the modern but the ancient sense of the word. In his personal qualities the Stoic predominated. His standard of morals was Epicurean, inasmuch as it was utilitarian, taking as the exclusive test of right and wrong, the tendency of actions to produce pleasure or pain. But he had (and this was the Cynic element) scarcely any belief in pleasure; at least in his later years, of which alone, on this point, I can speak confidently. He was not insensible to pleasures; but he deemed very few of them worth the price which, at least in the present state of society, must be paid for them. The greater number of miscarriages in life, he considered to be attributable to the overvaluing of pleasures. Accordingly, temperance, in the large sense intended by the Greek philosophers—stopping short at the point of moderation in all indulgences—was with him, as with them, almost the central point of educational precept. His inculcations of this virtue fill a large place in my childish remembrances. He thought human life a poor thing at best, after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by. This was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it may be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but when he did, it was with an air of settled and profound conviction. He would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility. He never varied in rating intellectual enjoyments above all others, even in value as pleasure, independently of their ulterior benefits. The pleasures of the benevolent affections he placed high in the scale; and used to say, that he had never known a happy old man, except those who were able to live over again in the pleasures of the young. For passionate emotions of all sorts, and for everything which has been said or written in exaltation of them, he professed the greatest contempt. He regarded them as a form of madness. "The intense" was with him a byeword of scornful disapprobation. He regarded as an aberration of the moral standard of modern times, compared with that of the ancients, the great stress laid upon feeling. Feelings, as such, he considered to be no proper subjects of praise or blame. Right and wrong, good and bad, he regarded as qualities solely of conduct—of acts and omissions; there being no feeling which may not lead, and does not frequently lead, either to good or to bad actions: conscience itself, the very desire to act right, often leading people to act wrong. Consistently carrying out the doctrine, that the object of praise and blame should be the discouragement of wrong conduct and the encouragement of right, he refused to let his praise or blame be influenced by the motive of the agent. He blamed as severely what he thought a bad action, when the motive was a feeling of duty, as if the agents had been consciously evil doers. He would not have accepted as a plea in mitigation for inquisitors, that they sincerely believed burning heretics to be an obligation of conscience. But though he did not allow honesty of purpose to soften his disapprobation of actions, it had its full effect on his estimation of characters. No one prized conscientiousness and rectitude of intention more highly, or was more incapable of valuing any person in whom he did not feel assurance of it. But he disliked people quite as much for any other deficiency, provided he thought it equally likely to make them act ill. He disliked, for instance, a fanatic in any bad cause, as much or more than one who adopted the same cause from self-interest, because he thought him even more likely to be practically mischievous. And thus, his aversion to many intellectual errors, or what he regarded as such, partook, in a certain sense, of the character of a moral feeling. All this is merely saying that he, in a degree once common, but now very unusual, threw his feelings into his opinions; which truly it is difficult to understand how any one, who possesses much of both, can fail to do. None but those who do not care about opinions, will confound it with intolerance. Those who, having opinions which they hold to be immensely important, and the contraries to be prodigiously hurtful, have any deep regard for the general good, will necessarily dislike, as a class and in the abstract, those who think wrong what they think right, and right what they think wrong: though they need not therefore be, nor was my father, insensible to good qualities in an opponent, nor governed in their estimation of individuals by one general presumption, instead of by the whole of their character. I grant that an earnest person, being no more infallible than other men, is liable to dislike people on account of opinions which do not merit dislike; but if he neither himself does them any ill office, nor connives at its being done by others, he is not intolerant: and the forbearance, which flows from a conscientious sense of the importance to mankind of the equal freedom of all opinions, is the only tolerance which is commendable, or, to the highest moral order of minds, possible.

他的人生观兼有斯多葛学派、伊壁鸠鲁学派和犬儒学派（取这个词的古代意义，不是现代意义）的特点。他的个人品质主要体现了斯多葛学派的特点。他的道德标准是伊壁鸠鲁学派的，因为它是实用主义的，以行动产生苦乐的倾向作为检验对错的唯一标准。但是，他很少相信快乐（这是犬儒学派的成分），单单在这点上，我可以很有信心地说，至少在他的晚年如此。他并非对快乐毫无感觉，但是他认为，与必须付出的代价相比，很少有快乐是值得争取的，至少在社会的目前状态下是这样。他认为，生活中更多的失败，可以归因于对快乐的过高估计。相应的，希腊哲学家们广义上所指的节制，即不逾越任何嗜好的适度范围，在父亲和这些哲学家们看来，几乎是教育规则的核心要点。他关于这种美德的谆谆教诲，占据了我童年记忆的很大一部分。他认为，在青春的鲜活和永不知足的好奇心消失之后，人类的生命充其量也就是个可怜的东西。这个话题他很少提起，尤其是年轻人在场的时候。但是，当他果真提起的时候，会带着一副深信不疑的神态。他有时会说，如果人生像设想的那样，能得到很好的管理和教育，那么人生还值得拥有。但是，即便是在谈这种可能时，他也从没带上半点热情。他一直都视智力享受高于其他任何享受，从未改变，即使以它们带来的快乐作为衡量价值的标准，而不顾其隐含的益处。他把仁爱的感情产生快乐的等级定得很高。他经常说，除了那些能够重温年轻时快乐的人，他从来不认识其他快乐的老人。对于所有激昂的情绪，和所有为了赞美它们所说、所写的东西，他都极度藐视，认为它们是愚蠢的行为。对他来说，“强烈”只是轻蔑之非难的代名词。他认为，与古人的道德标准相比，给感情施加重压偏离了现代的道德标准。照这样，他认为感情也不是赞扬和责备的合适对象。他认为对与错，善与恶，纯属行为的特性——行为包括进行了的行动和疏忽了的行动。没有任何感情不会导致，或者不会经常导致或好或坏的举动：最渴望做对的良心本身，却经常让人犯错。赞扬和责备的目的应该是阻止错误行为，鼓励正确行为，他始终如一地贯彻这个信条，不让行为人的动机影响到他的赞扬和责备。如果他认为一种行为是坏的，即使是出于一种责任感，他同样会严厉地指责，好像行为人有意做坏事一样。他不会因为宗教法官确实相信烧死异教徒是他们良心上的责任，就接受以此作为减轻他们罪状的申诉。尽管他不会因为意图坦率而减轻对行为的指责，但这在很大程度上影响到他对品质的评价。谁也不像他那样看重意图的认真和正直，也不像他那样，绝不能够看重任何他无法确信是否具有这样品质的人。但是，他同样不喜欢具备其他缺点的人，只要他认为这些缺点可能同样会让他们做坏事。比如，他讨厌任何邪恶运动中的狂热分子，觉得他们和那些因一己私利而发动这一运动的人一样可恶，甚至更可恶，因为他觉得前者破坏力更大。因此，他对很多智力上的错误，或者他认为是这种错误的厌恶，在某种意义上，带有道德感情的特征。所有这些不过是说，他的见解当中带有感情成分，他这样做的程度曾经很一般，但是现在很不寻常。确实，那些同时拥有丰富感情和见解的人竟然做不到这一点，是很令人费解的。只有那些不在乎见解的人才会将其与偏狭混为一谈。那些坚持认为自己的观点非常重要，相反的观点非常有害，且深切关心大众福利的人，必然会讨厌把他们认为对的当作错的，把他们认为错的当成对的人，而这些被厌恶的人在理论上成为了一类人。但是他们，我父亲也是，不需要因此忽视对手的良好品质，对个体的评价也不会局限于一个笼统的假定，而要看其品格的全部。我承认，一个真诚、不比别人少犯错误的人，很容易由于不值得讨厌的见解而讨厌别人。但是，如果他本人并没有诋毁这些人，又不纵容别人这样做，那么他就算宽容的。审慎地意识到平等自由地发表各种见解对人类的意义，源自于这种意识的容忍。这才是唯一值得称赞的，才是人类思想最高道德标准所能达到的宽容。

It will be admitted, that a man of the opinions, and the character, above described, was likely to leave a strong moral impression on any mind principally formed by him, and that his moral teaching was not likely to err on the side of laxity or indulgence. The element which was chiefly deficient in his moral relation to his children, was that of tenderness. I do not believe that this deficiency lay in his own nature. I believe him to have had much more feeling than he habitually showed, and much greater capacities of feeling than were ever developed. He resembled most Englishmen in being ashamed of the signs of feeling, and, by the absence of demonstration, starving the feelings themselves. If we consider further that he was in the trying position of sole teacher, and add to this that his temper was constitutionally irritable, it is impossible not to feel true pity for a father who did, and strove to do, so much for his children, who would have so valued their affection, yet who must have been constantly feeling that fear of him was drying it up at its source. This was no longer the case, later in life and with his younger children. They loved him tenderly: and if I cannot say so much of myself, I was always loyally devoted to him. As regards my own education, I hesitate to pronounce whether I was more a loser or gainer by his severity. It was not such as to prevent me from having a happy childhood. And I do not believe, that boys can be induced to apply themselves with vigour, and what is so much more difficult, perseverance, to dry and irksome studies, by the sole force of persuasion and soft words. Much must be done, and much must be learnt, by children, for which rigid discipline, and known liability to punishment, are indispensable as means. It is, no doubt, a very laudable effort, in modern teaching, to render as much as possible of what the young are required to learn, easy and interesting to them. But when this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them to learn anything but what has been made easy and interesting, one of the chief objects of education is sacrificed. I rejoice in the decline of the old brutal and tyrannical system of teaching, which however did succeed in enforcing habits of application; but the new, as it seems to me, is training up a race of men who will be incapable of doing anything which is disagreeable to them. I do not, then, believe that fear, as an element in education, can be dispensed with; but I am sure that it ought not to be the main element; and when it predominates so much as to preclude love and confidence on the part of the child to those who should be the unreservedly trusted advisers of after years, and perhaps to seal up the fountains of frank and spontaneous communicativeness in the child's nature, it is an evil for which a large abatement must be made from the benefits, moral and intellectual, which may flow from any other part of the education.

应该承认，拥有上述观点和品质的人，很可能会给所有主要由他塑造的头脑留下深刻的道德印象，他的道德教学，不大可能会犯粗心或放纵的错误。他与孩子的道德关系中，缺乏的主要因素是亲切。我不认为他的天性中有这种缺陷。我相信，他的感情要比平常展示出来的丰富得多，而他情感的能力也比成长过程中所形成的大很多。他和大多数英国男人一样，为表露出感情而感到羞愧，但不表露的话，感情也就枯萎了。如果我们考虑得更深入一些，作为唯一的教师，他处在这样一个需要耐性的位置上，加上他的脾气本来就很急躁，虽然他曾为自己的孩子们做过，并努力地去做了那么多事，而他原本也会非常珍视他们对自己的爱，然而他一定经常感觉到，对他的害怕使得这种感情从源头上就枯竭了，这让我们无法不觉得这样的一位父亲真的很可怜。后来，与他更年幼的孩子们在一起时，就不是这样了。他们很体贴，很爱他。即使我不能说自己多么爱他的话，但也可以说总是对他很忠心，很孝顺。至于我自己的教育，我不敢断言，他的严格到底使我成为了失败者还是成功者。它并未阻止我拥有快乐的童年。但我也不相信只凭劝说和温言软语，就能促使男孩子们充满活力，并坚持不懈地（后者更为困难）投入到单调乏味、令人厌烦的学习中去。孩子们有很多事必须要做，很多东西必须要学，为此，严格的训练和让他们知道有可能受到惩罚，是不可或缺的手段。无疑，在现代教育中，尽量把要求年轻人学习的东西变得简单有趣是一个非常值得称赞的做法。但是，如果这个原则发展到只要求他们学习已变得简单有趣的东西的话，教育的一个主要目标就被埋没掉了。对于严酷、专制的旧教学体系的衰落，我感到很高兴，但它在培养勤奋学习这方面却很成功。而在我看来，新体系正在训练这样一批人，他们没有能力做任何不合意的事情。因此，我认为，敬畏作为教育中的一个因素，是不能省却的；但是我敢肯定，敬畏不应该是最主要的因素；如果它占支配地位，以至于阻断了孩子对他多年来应该无条件信任的老师的爱和信心，或者封住了孩子本性中率直、自发交流的源泉，那就是不幸了，而从教育的任何其他部分中产生的道德和智力上的受益，必然会因此而大打折扣。

During this first period of my life, the habitual frequenters of my father's house were limited to a very few persons, most of them little known to the world, but whom personal worth, and more or less of congeniality with at least his political opinions (not so frequently to be met with then as since) inclined him to cultivate; and his conversations with them I listened to with interest and instruction. My being an habitual inmate of my father's study made me acquainted with the dearest of his friends, David Ricardo, who by his benevolent countenance, and kindliness of manner, was very attractive to young persons, and who after I became a student of political economy, invited me to his house and to walk with him in order to converse on the subject. I was a more frequent visitor (from about 1817 or 1818) to Mr. Hume, who, born in the same part of Scotland as my father, and having been, I rather think, a younger schoolfellow or college companion of his, had on returning from India renewed their youthful acquaintance, and who coming like many others greatly under the influence of my father's intellect and energy of character, was induced partly by that influence to go into Parliament, and there adopt the line of conduct which has given him an honorable place in the history of his country. Of Mr. Bentham I saw much more, owing to the close intimacy which existed between him and my father. I do not know how soon after my father's first arrival in England they became acquainted. But my father was the earliest Englishman of any great mark, who thoroughly understood, and in the main adopted, Bentham's general views of ethics, government, and law: and this was a natural foundation for sympathy between them, and made them familiar companions in a period of Bentham's life during which he admitted much fewer visitors than was the case subsequently. At this time Mr. Bentham passed some part of every year at Barrow Green House, in a beautiful part of the Surrey hills, a few miles from Godstone, and there I each summer accompanied my father in a long visit. In 1813 Mr. Bentham, my father, and I made an excursion, which included Oxford, Bath and Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. In this journey I saw many things which were instructive to me, and acquired my first taste for natural scenery, in the elementary form of fondness for a "view." In the succeeding winter we moved into a house very near Mr. Bentham's, which my father rented from him, in Queen Square, Westminster. From 1814 to 1817 Mr. Bentham lived during half of each year at Ford Abbey, in Somersetshire (or rather in a part of Devonshire surrounded by Somersetshire), which intervals I had the advantage of passing at that place. This sojourn was, I think, an important circumstance in my education. Nothing contributes more to nourish elevation of sentiments in a people, than the large and free character of their habitations. The middleage architecture, the baronial hall, and the spacious and lofty rooms, of this fine old place, so unlike the mean and cramped externals of English middle class life, gave the sentiment of a larger and freer existence, and were to me a sort of poetic cultivation, aided also by the character of the grounds in which the Abbey stood; which were riant and secluded, umbrageous, and full of the sound of falling waters.

在我人生初期的这段时间里，父亲家里的常客很少，大部分不为世人所知。但由于他们的品格高尚，以及或多或少与他意气相投，至少在政治观点上互相投合(因为那时这样的人不如后来常见)，父亲乐于与他们结交，他们的交谈总是让我兴致盎然而又深受启迪。我总是呆在父亲的书房里，因此和他最亲密的朋友大卫.李嘉图很熟，他面容和蔼，举止亲切，对年轻人很有吸引力，我开始学政治经济学后，他邀请我到他家里，和他一起散步，以便讨论这个主题。（大概从1817年或1818年开始）我最常拜访的是休姆先生，他和父亲在苏格兰的同一个地区出生，我倒觉得他是父亲的小学校友或者大学时的朋友，从印度回来后，他们重拾年轻时的友谊，和很多人一样，父亲智力和性格中的活力对他影响很大。这种影响，也是促使他进入议会的部分原因，他在议会里行事所采取的路线方针，使他在自己国家的历史上获得了值得尊敬的地位。至于边沁先生，我见得更多，因为他和父亲关系非常亲密。我不知道父亲第一次来英格兰后多久他们就熟悉了。但是，父亲是第一个完全理解并大体上采纳边沁关于道德规范、政府和法律之总体观点的英国要人。这是他们之间产生共鸣的天然基础，使父亲成为边沁那段人生中接待的为数不多的访客之一，后来边沁接待的访客多了不少。当时，边沁先生每年都会有一阵子在巴罗格林豪斯度过，那是戈德斯通几英里外萨里山上一个很漂亮的地方，我每年夏天都花很长时间陪着父亲在那里作客。1813年，边沁先生、父亲和我一起远足，游览了牛津、巴思、布里斯托尔、埃克塞特、普利茅斯和朴次茅斯。在这次旅行中，我看到了很多对我有启发的东西，第一次领略了自然风光，不过是以对“景色”的喜爱这种初级的形式。同一年冬天，我们搬到离边沁家很近的一所房子里，是父亲从他那里租来的，在威斯敏斯特的女王广场。从1814年到1817年，边沁先生每年有一半的时间住在萨默塞特郡（或者说在被萨默塞特郡环绕着的德文郡）的福特修道院，我间或有幸在那儿小住。我想，这次逗留在我的教育中是很重要的一次经历。宽敞、自由的生活环境，比任何东西都更有助于提升一个民族的情操。这个精致、古老的地方有中世纪的建筑、庄严堂皇的礼堂、宽敞高耸的房间，跟鄙陋、狭隘的英国中产阶级的生活很不一样，给人一种万物更大、更自由的感觉，加之修道院所处庭院的特征，都给我一种诗意的陶冶。这地方风景赏心悦目，幽静隐蔽，绿树成阴，水声潺潺。

I owed another of the fortunate circumstances in my education, a year's residence in France, to Mr. Bentham's brother, General Sir Samuel Bentham. I had seen Sir Samuel Bentham and his family at their house near Gosport in the course of the tour already mentioned (he being then Superintendant of the Dockyard at Portsmouth) and during a stay of a few days which they made at Ford Abbey shortly after the peace, before going to live on the Continent. In 1820 they invited me for a six months visit to them in the South of France, which their kindness ultimately prolonged to nearly a twelvemonth. Sir Samuel Bentham, though of a character of mind different from that of his illustrious brother, was a man of very considerable attainments and general powers, with a decided genius for mechanical art. His wife, a daughter of the celebrated chemist Dr. Fordyce, was a woman of strong will and decided character, much general knowledge, and great practical good sense of the Edgeworth8 kind: she was the ruling spirit of the household, as she deserved, and was well qualified, to be. Their family consisted of one son (the eminent botanist) and three daughters, the youngest about two years my senior. I am indebted to them for much and various instruction, and for an almost parental interest in my welfare. When I first joined them, in May 1820, they occupied the Château of Pompignan (still belonging to a descendant of Voltaire's enemy) on the heights overlooking the plain of the Garonne between Montauban and Toulouse. I accompanied them in an excursion to the Pyrenees, including a stay of some duration at Bagnères de Bigorre, a journey to Pau, Bayonne, and Bagnères de Luchon, and an ascent of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. This first introduction to the highest order of mountain scenery made the deepest impression on me, and gave a colour to my tastes through life. In October we proceeded by the beautiful mountain route of Castres and St. Pons, from Toulouse to Montpellier, in which last neighbourhood Sir Samuel had just bought the estate of Restinclière, near the foot of the singular mountain of St. Loup. During this residence in France I acquired a familiar knowledge of the French language, and acquaintance with the ordinary French literature; I took lessons in various bodily exercises, in none of which however I made any proficiency; and at Montpellier I attended the excellent winter courses of lectures at the Faculté des Sciences, those of M. Anglada on chemistry, of M. Provençal on zoology, and of a very accomplished representative of the eighteenth century metaphysics, M. Gergonne, on logic, under the name of Philosophy of the Sciences. I also went through a course of the higher mathematics under the private tuition of M. Lenthéric, a professor at the Lycée of Montpellier. But the greatest, perhaps, of the many advantages which I owed to this episode in my education, was that of having breathed for a whole year the free and genial atmosphere of Continental life. This advantage was not the less real though I could not then estimate, nor even consciously feel it. Having so little experience of English life, and the few people I knew being mostly such as had public objects, of a large and personally disinterested kind, at heart, I was ignorant of the low moral tone of what, in England, is called society; the habit of, not indeed professing, but taking for granted in every mode of implication, that conduct is of course always directed towards low and petty objects; the absence of high feelings which manifests itself by sneering depreciation of all demonstrations of them, and by general abstinence (except among a few of the stricter religionists) from professing any high principles of action at all, except in those preordained cases in which such profession is put on as part of the costume and formalities of the occasion. I could not then know or estimate the difference between this manner of existence, and that of a people like the French, whose faults, if equally real, are at all events different; among whom sentiments, which by comparison at least may be called elevated, are the current coin of human intercourse, both in books and in private life; and though often evaporating in profession, are yet kept alive in the nation at large by constant exercise, and stimulated by sympathy, so as to form a living and active part of the existence of great numbers of persons, and to be recognized and understood by all. Neither could I then appreciate the general culture of the understanding, which results from the habitual exercise of the feelings, and is thus carried down into the most uneducated classes of several countries on the Continent, in a degree not equalled in England among the so called educated, except where an unusual tenderness of conscience leads to a habitual exercise of the intellect on questions of right and wrong. I did not know the way in which, among the ordinary English, the absence of interest in things of an unselfish kind, except occasionally in a special thing here and there, and the habit of not speaking to others, nor much even to themselves, about the things in which they do feel interest, causes both their feelings and their intellectual faculties to remain undeveloped, or develop themselves only in some single and very limited direction; reducing them, considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence. All these things I did not perceive till long afterwards; but I even then felt, though without stating it clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank sociability and amiability of French personal intercourse, and the English mode of existence in which everybody acts as if everybody else (with few, or no, exceptions) was either an enemy or a bore. In France, it is true, the bad as well as the good points both of individual and of national character come more to the surface, and break out more fearlessly in ordinary intercourse, than in England: but the general habit of the people is to show, as well as to expect, friendly feeling in every one towards every other, wherever there is not some positive cause for the opposite. In England it is only of the best bred people, in the upper or upper middle ranks, that anything like this can be said.

在我接受的教育中，还有一次幸运的经历，就是在巴黎住了一年，这要感谢边沁先生的兄弟，将军塞缪尔.边沁爵士。在上面提到的游历中，在戈斯波特附近塞缪尔.边沁爵士的家里，我已经见过他和他的家人（他当时是朴次茅斯造船厂的主管），战争结束后不久，他们在福特修道院逗留的几天里也见过面，之后他们去欧洲大陆居住。1820年，他们邀请我去法国南部的家里住了六个月，结果，由于他们和蔼可亲，我最终几乎住了一年。尽管塞缪尔.边沁爵士思考的方式和他杰出的兄弟不一样，但他也有着相当的成就和综合能力，在机械技术上的天分尤为突出。他的妻子，是著名化学家福代斯博士的女儿，她意志坚强，性格果敢，颇有见识，有着和埃奇沃思一样务实、优秀的辨别力。她是这个家的主导人物，这是她应得的，她也非常称职。他们家有一个儿子（是著名的植物学家），三个女儿，最小的差不多比我大两岁。我很感激他们给了我多方面的大量指导，而且像父母一样关心我。1820年5月，我刚到他们家的时候，他们住在波皮南别墅（当时还属于伏尔泰仇敌的一个后裔），在高处俯瞰蒙托邦和图卢兹之间的加龙河平原。我和他们一起去比利牛斯山脉远足，期间在巴涅尔德比戈尔逗留了一阵子，和他们一起到波城、巴约讷和巴涅尔德吕雄旅行，还攀登了南比戈尔峰。这是我第一次接触最壮美的高山景色，给我留下了最深刻的印象，使我平生的品位变得亮丽多彩。10月份，我们继续从图卢兹出发，沿着卡斯特尔和圣蓬斯美丽的山路去蒙彼利埃，塞缪尔爵士刚在蒙彼利埃附近买下了雷斯汀克里尔的房产，位于圣卢普一座孤山的山脚下。在法国居住的这段时间，我熟悉了法语，也熟悉了一般的法国文学。我上了很多种体育课，然而，没有一门很精通。在蒙彼利埃，我去听了科学院非常好的冬季讲座，有安格拉达先生讲的化学，有普罗旺萨尔先生讲的动物学，还有18世纪形而上学杰出的代表人物热尔戈纳先生讲的逻辑学，题目是《科学的哲理》。我还在蒙彼利埃大学的朗泰里克教授的单独指导下，学完了高等数学的课程。但是在这段时间的教育中，最为有利的条件可能要算呼吸了一整年欧洲大陆生活中自由、宜人的空气了。尽管我当时还不能估计，甚至不能清楚地感觉到这个优势，但它却是真实存在的。我对英国生活体验甚少，认识的极少的几个人，也大都是投身公共事业,宽厚、无私的那种人，我在内心深处并不知道英国所谓的社会的粗俗道德风气。虽然没人公开宣称行为的目标当然总是趋于俗气、卑微，但是种种迹象都暗示了人们习惯于认为这理所当然。缺乏高尚的情感，表现为轻蔑地贬低所有高尚情感的展现，人们还拒绝公开承认任何高尚的行为准则（除了少数笃信宗教的人），除非在那些预定的场合，在那种情形下这种宣称被当作服饰和礼节的一部分。我当时还无法了解或评价这种生存方式与法国人生存方式的不同之处，法国人的错误即使同样真实，也完全不同。通过对比可以发现，法国人的情感至少可以说是高尚的，在他们当中，不管是在文学作品还是在个人生活里，情感都是人们交往的通行货币。尽管情感会随着表白而消散，但是由于人们经常表达情感，在这个国度情感总体上还是保持鲜活的，并且还受到同情心的激励，以至于成了大多数人生活中充满生机活力的一部分，并为所有人接受和理解。我那时也不能领会这种理解背后的普通文化，它源自于经常运用情感，并如此传播到欧洲大陆好几个国家受教育最少的阶层中，在某种程度上，所谓的受过良好教育的英国人是不能与之相比的，除了那些责任心非常敏感，因此会经常用智力思考对与错的问题的人。普通英国人对无私的事情不感兴趣，除了偶然这儿或那儿的某些特别的事情，而对自己确实感兴趣的事情，他们也习惯于不和别人交谈，甚至都不怎么和自己交流，我不知道这些是如何使他们的感情和智力的本领都得不到发展的，或者是发展的方向很单一，很有限，并使他们这些被认为是有灵魂的生命退化成了一种消极的存在。所有这一切，我都是很久以后才认识到的。但即使那时，尽管我没有清楚地对自己说出来，我也已经感觉到两个国家的区别，法国人交往时坦荡亲切，而在英国人的生活方式中，每个人都表现得好像别人（很少有例外或者根本没有）是敌人或讨厌的人一样。与英国相比，法国人以及法国国家的性格，不管好的还是不好的地方，确实更易显于表面，在平常的交往中更毫无顾忌地显露出来。但是，只要没有确切的理由对人不友好，法国人的一般习惯是表现出每个人对其他所有人的友好，也期望获得这种感情。在英国，只有在上等或者中上等阶层教养最好的人那里，才能出现这类的事情。

In my way through Paris, both going and returning, I passed some time in the house of M. Say, the eminent political economist, who was a friend and correspondent of my father, having become acquainted with him on a visit to England a year or two after the peace. He was a man of the later period of the French Revolution—a fine specimen of the best kind of French republican, one of those who had never bent the knee to Bonaparte though courted by him to do so; a truly upright, brave, and enlightened man. He lived a quiet and studious life, made happy by warm affections, public and private. He was acquainted with many of the chiefs of the Liberal party, and I saw various noteworthy persons while staying at his house; among whom I have pleasure in the recollection of having once seen Saint-Simon, not yet the founder either of a philosophy or a religion, and considered only as a clever original. The chief fruit which I carried away from the society I saw, was a strong and permanent interest in Continental Liberalism, of which I ever afterwards kept myself au courant, as much as of English politics: a thing not at all usual in those days with Englishmen, and which had a very salutary influence on my development, keeping me free from the error always prevalent in England, and from which even my father with all his superiority to prejudice was not exempt, of judging universal questions by a merely English standard. After passing a few weeks at Caen9 with an old friend of my father's, I returned to England in July 1821; and my education resumed its ordinary course.

在我往返巴黎的途中，我都在著名政治经济学家塞伊先生的家里逗留一阵子，他是我父亲的朋友，两人写信交流，他在战争结束后一两年的一次英国之行中结识了父亲。他属于法国大革命后期的那种人——是最优秀的法国共和党人的范例；是从来没有向波拿巴称臣的人之一，尽管拿破仑曾诱惑他这么做；是一个真正诚实、勇敢、开明的人。他生活很安详，他很勤奋，由于个人和公众的热烈爱戴而感到幸福。他和自由党的很多首领很熟，住在他家的时候，我见到过很多显要人物。我很愉快地记得在这些人当中，我见过一次圣西门，他当时还不是一门哲学或一种信仰的创始人，仅被认为是个聪明的怪人。我从自己看到的这个社会里得到的主要成果，就是对大陆自由主义强烈、持久的兴趣。这之后，我一直让自己对大陆自由主义的了解像对英国政治的了解一样与时俱进。当时，大陆自由主义在英国人当中很不常见，对我的发展产生了非常有利的影响，让我远离在英国总是很盛行的错误，和仅用英国的标准来评判普遍性问题的做法，这是连我父亲这样一个不受偏见影响的人都避免不了。我在卡昂，父亲的一个老友那里呆了几个星期后，于1821年7月回到英国，我的教育又像往常一样继续下去。

(1) 约瑟夫·巴特勒（1692—1752），英国圣公会会督、神学家。

(2)《宗教类推》，又名《自然宗教与启示宗教之类比》。

(3) 卢克莱修（约公元前94—前55），古罗马哲学家和诗人。

(4) 希罗多德（约公元前485—前425），希腊历史学家，所著《历史》系西方第一部历史著作。

(5) 斯多葛学派，公元前3世纪由芝诺创立。

(6) 伊壁鸠鲁学派，公元前307年由伊壁鸠鲁创立。

(7) 犬儒学派，古希腊的一个哲学学派，由苏格拉底的学生安提西尼创立。

(8) 玛丽亚·埃奇沃思（1767—1849），英裔爱尔兰作家，以写儿童故事和反映爱尔兰生活及风土人情的小说著称。

(9) 卡昂，法国北部城市，临奥恩河，靠近英吉利海峡。