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托马斯·马尔萨斯:人口论·摘录 84

托马斯·马尔萨斯《人口论》· An Essay on the Principle of Population · 投资

Mr Condorcet's Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progres de l'Esprit Humain, was written, it is said, under the pressure of that cruel proscription which terminated in his death. If he had no hopes of its being seen during his life and of its interesting France in his favour, it is a singular instance of the attachment of a man to principles, which every day's experience was so fatally for himself contradicting. To see the human mind in one of the most enlightened nations of the world, and after a lapse of some thousand years, debased by such a fermentation of disgusting passions, of fear, cruelty, malice, revenge, ambition, madness, and folly as would have disgraced the most savage nation in the most barbarous age must have been such a tremendous shock to his ideas of the necessary and inevitable progress of the human mind that nothing but the firmest conviction of the truth of his principles, in spite of all appearances, could have withstood.

出处: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239
定位:Excerpt 84 · 核对日期:2026-10-19 · 核验:短摘录

白话

孔多塞在被迫害致死的阴影下写成《人类精神进步史表纲要》。他明知书可能无法出版,却仍坚持写作,说明他对“人类必然进步”的信念极其坚定。但马尔萨斯指出:法国大革命后的恐怖、残忍、报复和疯狂,比野蛮时代更甚,这直接冲击了孔多塞的进步观。马尔萨斯认为,孔多塞能顶住这种现实打击,全靠对原则的绝对确信。这提醒我们:当现实与信念冲突时,是修正信念,还是无视现实?真正的理性,是敢于用事实检验自己的乐观。

上下文

马尔萨斯《人口论》第一版(1798年)中批评孔多塞的章节。孔多塞是法国启蒙思想家,在法国大革命恐怖时期被捕并死于狱中。

今日一问

你最近一次遇到现实与信念冲突时,是调整信念,还是选择性忽略证据?

公版作品;原文逐字取自 Project Gutenberg,仅摘录段落并附全书链接。

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