  We investigate a scaling limit of gradient stochastic dynamics associated to
Gibbs states in classical continuous systems on ${\mathbb R}^d, d \ge 1$. The
aim is to derive macroscopic quantities from a given micro- or mesoscopic
system. The scaling we consider has been investigated in \cite{Br80},
\cite{Ro81}, \cite{Sp86}, and \cite{GP86}, under the assumption that the
underlying potential is in $C^3_0$ and positive. We prove that the Dirichlet
forms of the scaled stochastic dynamics converge on a core of functions to the
Dirichlet form of a generalized Ornstein--Uhlenbeck process. The proof is based
on the analysis and geometry on the configuration space which was developed in
\cite{AKR98a}, \cite{AKR98b}, and works for general Gibbs measures of Ruelle
type. Hence, the underlying potential may have a singularity at the origin,
only has to be bounded from below, and may not be compactly supported.
Therefore, singular interactions of physical interest are covered, as e.g. the
one given by the Lennard--Jones potential, which is studied in the theory of
fluids. Furthermore, using the Lyons--Zheng decomposition we give a simple
proof for the tightness of the scaled processes. We also prove that the
corresponding generators, however, do not converge in the $L^2$-sense. This
settles a conjecture formulated in \cite{Br80}, \cite{Ro81}, \cite{Sp86}.
