米塞斯《人的行為》緒論（1）（中英對照
作者：米塞斯
譯者：夏道平
英文文本來自米塞斯研究院網站：http://mises.org/resources/3250
1、Economics and Praxeology
一、經濟學與人的行為通論
Economics is the youngest of all sciences. In the last two hundred years, it is true, many new sciences have emerged from the disciplines familiar to the ancient Greeks. However, what happened here was merely that parts of knowledge which had already found their place in the complex of the old system of learning now became autonomous. The field of study was more nicely subdivided and treated with new methods; hitherto unnoticed provinces were discovered in it, and people began to see things from aspects different from those of their precursors. The field itself was not expanded. But economics opened to human science a domain previously inaccessible and never thought of. The discovery of a regularity in the sequence and interdependence of market phenomena went beyond the limits of the traditional system of learning. It conveyed knowledge which could be regarded neither as logic, mathematics, psychology, physics, nor biology.
經濟學是所有科學當中最年輕的。在過去的兩百年，雖然有許多新的科學從古代希臘人所熟習的學問中成長出 來，可是，那不過是些在舊學問體系中已有了地位的部份知識，現在成為獨立的學科而已。研究的領域，劃分 得更精細，而且也用些新的方法；在這領域內，有些從來未被注意的地方被發現了，而且人們開始從一些不同 於前人的觀點來看事物。領域的本身並沒有擴大。但是經濟學卻給人文科學開闢了一個新的領域，這個領域是 以前不能接近的，而且也從未想到的。從市場現象的相互依賴和因果關係中，發現了它們的規律性，這卻超越 了傳統學問體系的範圍。經濟學所傳述的知識，不能當作邏輯、數學、心理學、物理學、或生物學來看。
Philosophers had long since been eager to ascertain the ends which God or Nature was trying to realize in the course of human history. They searched for the law of mankind"s destiny and evolution. But even those thinkers whose inquiry was free from any theological tendency failed utterly in these endeavors because they were committed to a faulty method. They dealt with humanity as a whole or with other holistic concepts like nation, race, or church. They set up quite arbitrarily the ends to which the behavior of such wholes is bound to lead. But they could not satisfactorily answer the question regarding what factors compelled the various acting individuals to behave in such a way that the goal aimed at by the whole"s inexorable evolution was attained. They had recourse to desperate shifts: miraculous interference of the Deity either by revelation or by the delegation of God-sent prophets and consecrated leaders, preestablished harmony, predestination, or the operation of a mystic and fabulous "world soul" or "national soul." Others spoke of a "cunning of nature" which implanted in man impulses driving him unwittingly along precisely the path Nature wanted him to take. [p. 2]
自古以來，哲學家們一直是熱心於探索上帝或自然，想在人類歷史行程中實現些什麼目的。他們尋求人類的歸 趨和演化的法則。但是， 他們這些努力完全失敗了，甚至那些擺脫了一切神學傾向的思想家也是如此，因為他 們都被一個錯誤的方法所害。他們是把人類當作一個整體來處理，或以其他的整體概念，例如國、民族、或敎 會，來處理。他們十分武斷地建立了一些目的，以為這樣的一些整體一定是趨向於這些目的的。但是，他們不 能圓滿地解答下面這個問題：是些什麼因素逼得各種各樣的行為人，不得不為達成他們所謂的整體的不可阻撓 的演化所要達成的目的而行為。他們曾經用一些無可奈何的說法來解答這個問題。如：神透過聖靈啟示，或透 過代表神的先知，或透過神化的領袖，而作的神秘干涉、預定的和諧、註定的命運、或神秘無稽的「世界精 神」或「民族精神」的運作。其他的思想家則說到，在人的衝動中有個「自然的巧妙」（cunning of nature），驅使他不知不覺地遵照「自然」所指定的途徑走。
Other philosophers were more realistic. They did not try to guess the designs of Nature or God. They looked at human things from the viewpoint of government. They were intent upon establishing rules of political action, a technique, as it were, of government and statesmanship. Speculative minds drew ambitious plans for a thorough reform and reconstruction of society. The more modest were satisfied with a collection and systematization of the data of historical experience. But all were fully convinced that there was in the course of social events no such regularity and invariance of phenomena as had already been found in the operation of human reasoning and in the sequence of natural phenomena. They did not search for the laws of social cooperation because they thought that man could organize society as he pleased. If social conditions did not fulfill the wishes of the reformers, if their utopias proved unrealizable, the fault was seen in the moral failure of man. Social problems were considered ethical problems. What was needed in order to construct the ideal society, they thought, were good princes and virtuous citizens. With righteous men any utopia might be realized.
另外有些哲學家比較實在。他們不去推測自然或上帝的意旨。他們從政治的觀點來看人事。他們一心一意想建 立一些政治行為的規律，好像是作為政治的和政治家的一種技術。有些愛用思想的人，擬出一些野心勃勃的大 計劃，想把社會來個徹底改革和重建。比較謙虛的人，則滿意於收集歷史經驗的資料而加以系統化。但是所有 這些，都是充份相信在社會事件發生的過程中，沒有像在我們的推理中所曾斷定的和在自然現象的因果關係中 所曾發現的那樣的規律和不變的現象。他們不去尋求社會合作的一些法則，因為他們以為，人是可以隨自己的 意思來組織社會的。如果社會條件不符合改革者們的願望，如果他們的理想國無法實行，那就歸咎於人的道德 不夠。一些社會問題被當作倫理問題來考慮。他們認為，為著建造理想的社會，需要的是優秀的君主與善良的 公民。有了善良的人，任何理想國都可以實現。
The discovery of the inescapable interdependence of market phenomena overthrew this opinion. Bewildered, people had to face a new view of society. They learned with stupefaction that there is another aspect from which human action might be viewed than that of good and bad, of fair and unfair, of just and unjust. In the course of social events there prevails a regularity of phenomena to which man must adjust his actions if he wishes to succeed. It is futile to approach social facts with the attitude of a censor who approves or disapproves from the point of view of quite arbitrary standards and subjective judgments of value. One must study the laws of human action and social cooperation as the physicist studies the laws of nature. Human action and social cooperation seen as the object of a science of given relations, no longer as a normative discipline of things that ought to be—this was a revolution of tremendous consequences for knowledge and philosophy as well as for social action.
由於市場現象相互依賴這一事實的發現，上述的見解就被拋棄了。人們不免驚惶失措，但他們必須面對這一嶄 新的社會觀。他們恍恍惚惚地知道，在善與惡、正與邪、公道與不公道以外，還有另一個看法，可以用來看人 的行為。在社會事件發展的過程中，總有個規律在發生作用，如果你想成功，你就得服從這個規律來調整你的 行為。假若以檢査官（用些十分武斷的標準和主觀的價值判斷來臧否事物的人）的態度來接近社會事實，那是 毫無所得的。我們必須研究人的行為與社會合作的一些法則，如同物理學家之研究自然法則。作為一門研究旣 定關係的科學之對象來看的人的行為與社會合作，再也不被看作應該如何如何的事情——這是對於知識與哲 學，如同對於社會行為方面，發生驚人影響的一次大革命。
For more than a hundred years, however, the effects of this radical change in the methods of reasoning were greatly restricted because people believed that they referred only to a narrow segment of the total field of human action, namely, to market phenomena. The classical economists met in the pursuit of their investigations an obstacle which they failed to remove, the apparent antinomy of value. Their theory of value was defective, and forced them to restrict the scope [p. 3] of their science. Until the late nineteenth century political economy remained a science of the "economic" aspects of human action, a theory of wealth and selfishness. It dealt with human action only to the extent that it is actuated by what was —very unsatisfactorily—described as the profit motive, and it asserted that there is in addition other human action whose treatment is the task of other disciplines. The transformation of thought which the classical economists had initiated was brought to its consummation only by modern subjectivist economics, which converted the theory of market prices into a general theory of human choice.
可是，在一百多年當中，推理方法的這種激變所應有的效果，大大地受到拘限；因為，人們以為這些方法只涉 及人的行為全部領域的一狹小部份，也即，只涉及市場現象這一部份。古典學派的經濟學家，在他們的硏究進 程中遇到了他們所不能撤除的一個障礙，這個障礙就是顯而易見的價値論的矛盾。他們的價値論是有缺陷的， 因而使得他們不得不把他們的科學拘限於一個較小的範圍。一直到十九世紀後期，政治經濟學（political economy）還是人的行為中「經濟」方面的一門科學，也即關於財富與自利的學理。它所處理的人的行為，只 限於由那個被稱為利潤動機所激起的行為，而且它聲明，此外的行為是其他學科所要處理的。古典學派經濟學 家所傳授的這一思想的轉變，是由現代主觀學派的經濟學來完成的。主觀學派的經濟學，把市場價格理論變成 人的選擇行為的通論。
For a long time men failed to realize that the transition from the classical theory of value to the subjective theory of value was much more than the substitution of a more satisfactory theory of market exchange for a less satisfactory one. The general theory of choice and preference goes far beyond the horizon which encompassed the scope of economic problems as circumscribed by the economists from Cantillon, Hume, and Adam Smith down to John Stuart Mill. It is much more than merely a theory of the "economic side" of human endeavors and of man"s striving for commodities and an improvement in his material well-being. It is the science of every kind of human action. Choosing determines all human decisions. In making his choice man chooses not only between various material things and services. All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference. The modern theory of value widens the scientific horizon and enlarges the field of economic studies. Out of the political economy of the classical school emerges the general theory of human action, praxeology[1]. The economic or catallactic problems[2] are embedded in a more general science, and can no longer be severed from this connection. No treatment of economic problems proper can avoid starting from acts of choice; economics becomes a part, although the hitherto best elaborated part, of a more universal science, praxeology. [p. 4]
人們有段很長的時期沒有看出：從古典的價値論轉到主觀的價値論，決不止於是以一個較滿意的市場交易論代 替一個較不滿意的。這個選擇通論，遠超出康第隆（Cantillon）、休姆（Hume），以及由亞當斯密（Adam Smith）—直到約翰穆勒（John Stuart Mill）這些經濟學家所討論的那些經濟問題的眼界以外。它決不止於討 論人們在「經濟方面」的努力——為取得財貨，為改善他的物質福利而作的努力。它是人的全部行為的科學。 選擇，是人的一切決定之所以決定。在作選擇的時候，他不只是在一些物質的東西和一些勞務之間選擇。所有 的人類價値，都在供他選擇。一切目的與一切手段，現實的與理想的，崇高的與低下的，光榮的與卑鄙的，都 在一個排列中讓人取捨。人們所想取得的或想避免的，沒有一樣漏在這個排列以外。這個排列，也即獨一無二 的等級偏好表。這個現代價値論，擴張了科學的眼界，也擴大了經濟學研究的範圍。從古典學派的政治經濟學 裡面掙脫出人的行為通論——行為學（praxeology）
[1]。一些經濟的或交換的（catallactics）[2]問題，都納入 一門較概括的科學裡面，再也不會與這個關聯分離。經濟問題本身的處理，決不能避免從選擇行為開始：經濟 學成了一門較普遍的學科——人的行為通論或行為學——的一部份，截至現在，這一部份還是行為學當中最精 密的一部份。
[1] The term praxeology was first used in 1890 by Espinas. Cf. his article "Les Origines de la technologies," Revue Philosophique, XVth year, XXX, 114-115, and his book published in Paris in 1897, with the same title.
[1] 「praxeology」這個字，是一八九〇年Espinas第一次使用的。參考他的論文Les Origines de la technologies，刊在Revue Philosophique, XVth year, XXX, 114-115以及一八九七年他在巴黎以相同的題目發 表的那本書。
[2] The term Catallactics or the Science of Exchanges was first used by Whately. Cf. his book Introductory Lectures on Political Economy (London, 1831), p. 6.
[2] 「Catallactics」這個字或「the Science of Exchanges」這個詞是Whately第一次使用的。參考他 的Introductory Lectures on Political Economy (London, 1831), p. 6.
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