历史人物的动机

【导读】

本文摘自恩格斯的《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》一书，这是第一本系统阐明马克思主义哲学形成史的著作，它和《共产党宣言》一样，是每个觉悟工人必读的书籍。

【箴言】

每个人都在有意识地追求自己意愿中的目标。无论结果如何，这个过程都是人们创造历史的过程。人们追求的方向不同，对外部世界的作用也千差万别，而正是这些个人的意愿及其对外界作用的合力构成了历史。

在历史上表现出来的许多个人的意愿，大都没有得到预期的结果，甚至往往得到恰恰相反的结果，因此，对最终结果来说，精神上的动力即动机同样也只具有从属意义。

现在无论在哪一个领域，都不再要从头脑中想出联系，而要从事实中发现联系了。

旧唯物主义不彻底的地方并不在于它承认精神的动力，而在于它不从这些精神动力进一步追溯到它的历史动因。

【正文】

如果要去探究那些隐藏在——自觉地或不自觉地，而且往往是不自觉地——历史人物的动机背后并且构成历史的真正的最后动力的动力，那么问题涉及的，与其说是个别人物、即使是非常杰出的人物的动机，不如说是使广大群众、使整个整个的民族，并且在每一民族中间又是使整个整个阶级行动起来的动机；而且也不是短暂的爆发和转瞬即逝的火光，而是持久的、引起重大历史变迁的行动。探讨那些作为自觉的动机明显地或不明显地，直接地或以意识形态的形式、甚至以被神圣化的形式反映在行动着的群众及其领袖即所谓伟大人物的头脑中的动因，——这是能够引导我们去探索那些在整个历史中以及个别时期和个别国家的历史中起支配作用的规律的唯一途径。

任何一个人，他行动的一切动力都一定要通过他的头脑，转变为他意志上的动机，才能使他行动起来，同样，市民社会的一切要求，也一定要通过国家的意志，才能以法律的形式取得全面的保障，不管是哪一个阶级在统治。这是问题的形式方面，是不言而喻的。不过要问一下，无论是个人还是国家，这个仅仅是形式上的意志有什么内容呢？这个内容是从哪里来的呢？为什么人所期望的正是这个内容而不是别的内容呢？在寻求这个问题的答案时，我们就发现，在现代历史中，国家的意志总的说来是由市民社会的不断变化的需要，是由某个阶级的优势地位，归根到底，是由生产力和交换关系的发展决定的。

英文鉴赏

When, therefore, it is a question of investigating the driving powers which — consciously or unconsciously, and indeed very often unconsciously — lie behind the motives of men who act in history and which constitute the real ultimate driving forces of history, (1)then it is not a question so much of the motives of single individuals, however eminent, as of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole people, and again whole classes of the people in each people; (2)and this, too, not merely for an instant, like the transient flaring up of a straw-fire which quickly dies down, but as a lasting action resulting in a great historical transformation. To ascertain the driving causes which here in the minds of acting masses and their leaders — to so-called great men — are reflected as conscious motives, clearly or unclearly, directly or in an ideological, even glorified, form — is the only path which can put us on the track of the laws holding sway both in history as a whole, and at particular periods and in particular lands.

As all the driving forces of the actions of any individual person must pass through his brain, and transform themselves into motives of his will in order to set him into action, so also all the needs of civil society — no matter which class happens to be the ruling one — must pass through the will of the state in order to secure general validity in the form of laws. That is the formal aspect of the matter — the one which is self-evident. The question arises, however, what is the content of this merely formal will — of the individual as well as of the state — and whence is this content derived? Why is just this willed and not something else? If we enquire into this, we discover that in modern history the will of the state is, on the whole, determined by the changing needs of civil society, but the supremacy of this or that class, in the last resort, by the development of the productive forces and relations of exchange.