Revolution and Progress: Nineteenth-Century Europe

十九世紀歐洲的革命與進步觀

王世宗(Shih-Tsung Wang)

《國立臺灣大學文史哲學報》 44期 (1996/06) Pp. 183+185-206

https://doi.org/10.6258/bcla.1996.44.05

摘要

英文「革命」Revolution一字現指鉅大變革，而不限於政治或社會層面問題。論其字源， Revolution本是天文學術語，專指天體旋轉運行。十七世紀時英國人首先借用該字，賦與政治意義，然猶循其自然觀點而以循環觀論人事，用以要求除去弊端腐化，回復（美好）舊狀。至十八世紀的法國，則一去「革命」之循環觀而代以進步觀之主張，具體呈現在法國大革命中建立新秩序的要求上。本文討論歐洲史上最具意識型態色彩的十九世紀，其進步觀念在革命運動中的呈現與影響。文分五節：首節以進步觀為背景線索，說明革命理論的演進；次節以進步觀為主題，說明它在史上革命運動及十九世紀政治意識中的表現；第三節討論十九世紀的民族主義運動所呈現的進步觀風貌；第四節分析十九世紀革命（即一八三0年與一八四八年歐加革命風潮）所展現的進步觀動力；末節結論，乃一綜合性探討，說明十九世紀進步觀與革命運動結合的意義與所生的問題。

並列摘要

In political and social thought ”revolution” now refers to a sudden, major, and drastic ( hence often violent) change in government and in related structure, social as well as cultural. Initially an astronomical term, the word revolution - naturally enough - originally referred to the notion of cyclical alterations. An early use of the word appeared around the end of the Middle Ages, but it came into general use only after 1600, accompanying the emergence of the modem state, when it began to take a novel departure, in two ways. First, in the seventeenth century it took its political meaning when the English launched two great revolutions to reclaim their traditional rights which they thought had been violated by misgovernment. Revolution hitherto still meant no more than a return to or restoration of a former situation, as was defined in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary in the mid-eighteenth century. The ”Glorious Revolution” of 1688, the most common English usage of revolution, implied both a backward-looking and a forward-looking feature, with, however, the social structure left intact. To take a firm step further, the French people began in the end of the next century to use the word to mean a new order of things. After the French Revolution the idea of progress was unmistakably associated with ”true” and ”great” revolution by contemporaries, and then the idea of a new order predominated in revolutionary platforms, even until now. This article addresses the link between the ideas of progress and revolution in their heyday in nineteenth-century Europe.