前些天在UofT时，读了Russell的Sceptical Essays，是Routledge Classics版2004年印刷本。该文集的导言On the value of Scepticism中有我过去博文“既以为人己愈有”引用过的一段话。我是第一次看到原文。抄录如下：

…the people who do most completely what is in fact to their interest are those who deliberately, on moral grounds, do what they believe to be against their interest. Next to them come the people who try to think out rationally and consciously what is to their own interest, eliminating as far as possible the influence of passion. Third come the people who have instinctive shrewdness. Last of all come the people whose malevolence overbalances their shrewdness, making them pursue the ruin of others in ways that lead to their own ruin. (pp. 10-11)

顺便一提，该文甚至该书的主旨都是在提倡罗素版本的怀疑主义，即：The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgement. (p. 2)

这种观点在学理上我很接受，不过在现实中比较难贯彻。因为现实中总是要做各种决定，虽然这确实是个非确定性的世界。