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现代社会是个陌生人组成的社会，各人不知道各人的底细，所以得讲个明白；还要怕口说无凭，画个押，签个字。这样才发生法律。在乡土社会中法律是无从发生的。"这不是见外了么？"乡土社会里从熟悉得到信任。这信任并非没有根据的，其实最可靠也没有了，因为这是规矩。西洋的商人到现在还时常说中国人的信用是天生的，类于神话的故事真多：说是某人接到了大批磁器，还是他祖父在中国时订的货，一文不要的交了来，还说着许多不能及早寄出的抱歉话。——乡土社会的信用并不是对契约的重视，而是发生于对一种行为的规矩熟悉到不加思索时的可靠性。
这自是"土气"的一种特色。因为只有直接有赖于泥土的生活才会象植物一般的在一个地方生下根，从容地去摸熟每个人的生活，象母亲对于她的儿女一般。陌生人对于婴孩的话是无法懂的，但是在做母亲的人听来都清清楚楚，还能听出没有用字音表达的意思来。
Rural
Society Trust
Modern
society is composed of strangers. We do not know each
other’s pasts. When we talk, we must explain things
clearly. Even then, we fear that oral agreements are
not binding; therefore, we draw up written contracts
to which we sign our names. Laws arise in just this
fashion. But there is no way for laws like this to
develop in a rural society. "Isn’t that what
outsiders do?" rural people would say. In rural
society, trust derives from familiarity. This kind of
trust has very solid foundations, for it is rooted in
customary norms. Even today, Western merchants often
remark that trustworthiness is an innate quality of
the Chinese people. Many stories sound like fairy
tales, such as the one told recently about a Westerner
who received, after the war, a whole set of porcelain
that his grandfather had ordered years earlier when he
was in China. The goods were delivered without any
charge and with the seller’s profuse apologies for
being unable to send them earlier. Trust in rural
society is based not on the importance of contracts
but, rather, on the dependability of people, people
who are so enmeshed in customary norms that they
cannot behave in any other way.
This sort
of familiarity is a distinctive characteristic of
being rural, of being a "hayseed," if you
will. Only those who depend on the soil for their
livelihood would root themselves in one place like a
plant. Over time, people rooted in the same small
place come to know everybody’s life just as a mother
knows her children. Strangers cannot understand what a
baby says, but a mother not only clearly understands
everything that her baby says, but she also
understands what the baby wants even though the baby
does not use words.
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