The Social Contract 社会契约

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 重试 错误原因

Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved 重试 错误原因

[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read
as though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not
quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . .
indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer
omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type. 重试 错误原因

First launched: December 2010 重试 错误原因

Contents 目录
BOOK 1 … 1 重试 错误原因

The subject of the first book … 1 重试 错误原因

The first societies … 1 重试 错误原因

The right of the strongest … 2 重试 错误原因

Slavery … 3 重试 错误原因

We must always go back to a first agreement … 6 重试 错误原因

The social compact … 6 重试 错误原因

The sovereign … 8 重试 错误原因

The civil state … 9 重试 错误原因

Real estate … 10 重试 错误原因

BOOK 2 … 12 重试 错误原因

Sovereignty is inalienable … 12 重试 错误原因

Sovereignty is indivisible … 12 重试 错误原因

Can the general will be wrong? … 14 重试 错误原因

The limits of the sovereign power … 14 重试 错误原因

The right of life and death … 17 重试 错误原因

The law … 18 重试 错误原因

The law-maker … 20 重试 错误原因

The people … 22 重试 错误原因

The people (continued) … 23 重试 错误原因

The people (further continued) … 24 重试 错误原因

Differences among systems of legislation … 26 重试 错误原因

Classifying laws … 27 重试 错误原因

BOOK 3 … 29 重试 错误原因

Government in general … 29 重试 错误原因

The source of the variety among forms of government … 31 重试 错误原因

Classifying governments … 33 重试 错误原因

Democracy … 34 重试 错误原因

Aristocracy … 35 重试 错误原因
Monarchy … 36 重试 错误原因

Mixed governments … 39 重试 错误原因

No one form of government suits all countries … 40 重试 错误原因

The signs of a good government … 43 重试 错误原因

How government is abused. Its tendency to degenerate … 44 重试 错误原因

The death of the body politic … 46 重试 错误原因

How the sovereign authority is maintained … 46 重试 错误原因

How the sovereign authority is maintained (continued) … 47 重试 错误原因

How the sovereign authority is maintained (continued) … 48 重试 错误原因

Deputies or representatives … 49 重试 错误原因

What establishes government isn’t a contract … 51

是什么确立了政府不是合同...... 51
What does establish government … 51
建立政府...... 51
How to protect the government from being taken over … 52
如何保护政府不被接管...... 52
Book 4 … 54 第 4 册 ... 54
The general will is indestructible … 54
普遍意志是坚不可摧的...... 54
Voting … 55 投票 ... 55
Elections … 57 选举 ... 57
The comitia in ancient Rome … 58
古罗马的 comitia ... 58
Tribunes … 63 护民官 ... 63
Dictatorship … 65 独裁...... 65
Censorship … 66 审查...... 66
Civic religion … 67 公民宗教...... 67
Conclusion … 73 结论...... 73

Glossary 术语表
agreement: The item that Rousseau calls a convention is an event, whereas what we call ‘conventions’ (setting
aside the irrelevant ‘convention’ = ‘professional get-together’) are not events but enduring states of affairs like
the conventions governing the meanings of words, the standards of politeness, etc. So ‘convention’ is a wrong
translation; and ‘agreement’ is right.
同意：卢梭所说的 "约定俗成 "是一个事件，而我们所说的 "约定俗成"（撇开无关紧要的 "约定"="职业聚会 "不
谈）不是事件，而是持久的状态，比如关于词义、礼貌标准等的约定。因此，"convention "的翻译是错误的，
而 "agreement "才是正确的。
alienate: To alienate something that you own is to bring it about that you no longer own it; in brief, to give it
away or sell it,
让渡：让渡：让渡你拥有的东西，就是让你不再拥有它；简而言之，就是把它送人或卖掉、
arbitrary: It means ‘brought into existence by the decision of some person(s)’. It’s no part of the meaning here
(as it is today) that the decision was frivolous or groundless.
任意性：它的意思是 "由于某些人的决定而产生"。这里的意思（就像今天的意思一样）并不包括该决定是轻率
的或毫无根据的。
censorship: This translates Rousseau’s censure. It doesn’t refer to censorship as we know it today; censure
didn’t have that meaning until the 19th century. Rousseau’s topic is a role that certain officials had in some
periods of the Roman republic, namely as guardians of, and spokesmen for, the people’s mœurs (see below).
They could be thought of as an institutionalising of the ‘court of public opinion’. On page 67 we see him
stretching the original sense.
审查：这翻译成卢梭的 "审查"。它指的并不是我们今天所知的审查制度；直到 19 世纪，"审查 "才有了这个含
义。卢梭的主题是某些官员在罗马共和国的某些时期所扮演的角色，即作为人民的监护人和代言人（见下
文）。他们可以被视为 "舆论场 "的制度化。在第 67 页，我们看到他对原意进行了延伸。
compact, contract: These translate Rousseau’s pacte and contrat respectively. He seems to mean them as
synonyms.
契约、合同：分别翻译为卢梭的 pacte 和 contrat。他似乎把它们当作同义词。
constitution: In this work a thing’s ‘constitution’ is the sum of facts about how something is constituted, how
its parts hang together and work together (so the constitution of a state is nothing like a document). Items
credited with ‘constitutions’ are organisms and political entities; the mention on page 66 of the constitution of
a people seems aberrant.
宪法：在这部著作中，事物的 "宪法 "是关于事物如何构成、各部分如何组合在一起并共同发挥作用的事实的总
和（因此，一个国家的宪法完全不像一份文件）。被称为 "宪法 "的事物是有机体和政治实体；第 66 页提到的一
个民族的宪法似乎有些反常。
magistrate: In this work, as in general in early modern times, a ‘magistrate’ is anyone with an official role in
government. The magistracy is the set of all such officials, thought of as a single body.
地方官：在这部作品中，与现代早期的一般情况一样，"地方官 "是指在政府中担任官方职务的任何人。地方行
政官是所有此类官员的集合，被视为一个整体。
mœurs: The mæurs of a people include their morality, their basic customs, their attitudes and expectations
about how people will behave, their ideas about what is decent. . . and so on. This word-rhyming approximately
with ‘worse’-is left untranslated because there’s no good English equivalent to it. English speakers sometimes
use it, for the sort of reason they have for sometimes using Schadenfreude.
mœurs：一个民族的文化包括他们的道德观、基本习俗、对人们行为的态度和期望、对什么是体面的观念......等
等。......等等。这个词的押韵近似于 "更糟"，之所以没有翻译，是因为在英语中没有很好的对应词。说英语的人
有时会使用这个词，就像他们有时会使用 "幸灾乐祸"（Schadenfreude）一样。
moral person: Something that isn’t literally person but is being regarded as one for some theoretical purpose.
See for example pages 9 and 36.
道德人：字面上不是人，但出于某种理论目的被视为人的东西。参见第 9 页和第 36 页。
populace: Rousseau repeatedly speaks of a ‘people’ in the singular, and we can do that in English (The English-
what a strange people!’); but it many cases this way of using ‘people’ sounds strained and peculiar, and this
version takes refuge in ‘populace’. On page 4, for instance, that saves us from 'In every generation the people
was the master…
populace：卢梭多次提到单数的 "人民"，我们可以在英语中这样做（"The English-what a strange people!"）；
但在许多情况下，这种使用 "人民 "的方式听起来很紧张、很特别，因此这个版本使用了 "populace"。例如，在
第 4 页中，"在每一代人中，人民都是主人......
prince: As was common in his day, Rousseau uses ‘prince’ to stand for the chief of the government. This
needn’t be a person with the rank of Prince; it needn’t be a person at all, because it could be a committee.
prince（亲王）：卢梭用 "亲王 "代表政府首脑，这在他那个时代很常见。这不一定是一个拥有王子头衔的人；
也不一定是一个人，因为它可以是一个委员会。
sovereign: This translates souverain. As Rousseau makes clear on page 7 , he uses this term as a label for the
person or group of persons holding supreme power in a state. In a democracy, the whole people constitute a
sovereign, and individual citizens are members of the sovereign. In Books 3
sovereign（君主）：译为 "苏弗兰"。卢梭在第 7 页明确指出，他用这个词来称呼在国家中拥有最高权力的个人
或群体。在民主国家中，全体人民构成君主，公民个人是君主的成员。第三卷
and 4 ‘sovereign’ is used for the legislator (or legislature) as distinct from the government = the executive.
4 "sovereign "指立法者（或立法机构），有别于政府=行政机构。
subsistence: What is needed for survival-a minimum of food, drink, shelter etc.
生存：生存所需--最低限度的食物、饮料、住所等。
wise: An inevitable translation of sage, but the meaning in French carries ideas of ‘learned’, ‘scholarly’,
‘intellectually
明智：贤者：贤者的翻译无可避免，但在法语中的意思是 "博学的"、"学术的"、"智慧的"。
able’, rather more strongly than whatever it is that you and I mean by ‘wise’.
能"，比你我所说的 "智慧 "更强烈。
you, we: When this version has Rousseau speaking of what ‘you’ or ‘we’ may do, he has spoken of what ‘one’
may do. It is normal idiomatic French to use on = ‘one’ much oftener than we can use ‘one’ in English without
sounding stilted (Fats Waller: ‘One never knows, do one?’).
你们，我们：这个版本中卢梭说的是 "你们 "或 "我们 "可能做的事，而他说的是 "一个人 "可能做的事。在法语
中，on = "one "的使用频率比我们在英语中使用 "one "的频率要高得多，而不会显得呆板（Fats Waller："one
never knows, do one?"）。

BOOK 1 第 1 册
This little treatise is salvaged from a much longer work that I abandoned long ago, having started it without
thinking about whether I was capable of pulling it off. Of various bits that might be rescued from what I had
written of that longer work, what I offer here is the most substantial and, it seems to me, the least unworthy of
being published. None of the rest of it is.
这篇小论文是从一部更长的作品中抢救出来的，我很久以前就放弃了这部作品，因为我开始写的时候并没有考
虑过自己是否有能力完成这部作品。在我写的那部长篇中，可能会有各种片段被抢救出来，而我在这里提供的
是最有分量的，在我看来也是最不值得发表的。其余的都不值得发表。

I plan to address this question: With men as they are and with laws as they could be, can there be in the civil
order any sure and legitimate rule of administration? In tackling this I shall try always to unite what right
allows with what interest demands, so that justice and utility don’t at any stage part company.
我打算谈谈这个问题：人是这样，法律也可能是这样，那么公民秩序中还能有任何可靠而合法的管理规则吗？
在解决这个问题时，我将始终努力把 权利所允许的与 利益所要求的结合起来，从而使 正义与 实用在任何
阶段都不会分离。

I start on this without showing that the subject is important. You may want to challenge me: ‘So you want to
write on politics-are you then a prince [see Glossary] or a legislator?’ I answer that I am neither, and that is
why I write on politics. If I were a prince or a legislator I wouldn’t waste my time saying what should be done; I
would do it, or keep quiet.
我没有说明这个主题的重要性就开始了。你可能想质疑我：'那么你想写政治--那么你是王子（见术语表）还是
立法者？'我的回答是，我都不是，所以我才写政治。如果我是王子或立法者，我就不会浪费时间说应该做什
么；我会去做，或者保持沉默。

As I was born a citizen of a free state, and am a member of its sovereign [see Glossary], my right to vote makes
it my duty to study public affairs, however little influence my voice can have on them. Happily, when I think
about governments I always find that my inquiries give me new reasons for loving the government of my own
country!
由于我出生在一个自由国家，是其主权国家的一员（见术语表），我的投票权使我有责任研究公共事务，无论
我的声音对其影响有多小。令人欣慰的是，当我思考政府问题时，我总会发现，我的调查给了我热爱自己国家
政府的新理由！

1. The subject of the first book

1.第一本书的主题

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Here’s one who thinks he is the master of others, yet he is
more enslaved than they are. How did this change come about? I don’t know. What can make it legitimate?
That’s a question that I think I can answer.
人生而自由，却处处身负枷锁。他自以为是别人的主人，却比别人更受奴役。这种变化是如何产生的？我不知
道。怎样才能使其合法化？这个问题我想我可以回答。

If I took into account nothing but force and what can be done by force, I would say:
如果我只考虑武力和武力所能做的事情，我会说
‘As long as a people is constrained to obey, it does well to obey; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, it does even
better to shake it off. If its right to do so is challenged, it can answer that : it gets its liberty back by the same
‘right’-.namely, force–that took it away in the first place. Any justification for taking it away equally justifies
taking it back; and if there was no justification for its being taken away no justification for taking it back is
called for. .’
只要一个民族被迫服从，它就会乖乖服从；只要它能够摆脱枷锁，它就会更好地摆脱枷锁。 如果它这样做的权
利受到挑战，它可以这样回答 ：它通过当初夺走它的同样的'权利'--即武力--重新获得自由。任何剥夺自由的理
由都同样可以证明收回自由是正当的；如果剥夺自由没有理由 ，那么收回自由也就没有理由了。.'
But the social order isn’t to be understood in terms of force; it - is a sacred right on which all other rights are
based. But it doesn’t come from nature, so it must be based on agreements. Before coming to that, though, I
have to establish the truth of what I have been saying.
但是， 社会秩序不能用武力来理解；它是一种神圣的权利，所有其他权利都建立在它的基础之上。但它并非来
自自然，因此必须以协议为基础。不过，在谈这个问题之前，我必须先确定我所说的这些话的真实性。

2. The first societies 2.第一批社会

The most ancient of all societies, and the only natural one, is the society of the family. Yet the children remain
attached to the father only for as long as they need him for their preservation; as soon as this need ceases, the
natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the father, and the father,
released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, this is
something they do not naturally but
所有社会中最古老也是唯一自然的社会就是家庭社会。然而，子女对父亲的依恋仅限于他们需要父亲来保护他
们的时候；一旦这种需要消失，自然的纽带也就解除了。子女从对父亲的服从中解脱出来，父亲也从对子女的
照顾中解脱出来，同样回归独立。如果他们仍然团结在一起，这不是 自然而然的事，而是
voluntarily, and the family itself is then maintained only by agreement.
自愿，家庭本身只能通过协议来维持。

This common liberty is an upshot of the nature of man. His first law is to provide for his own preservation, his
first cares are those he owes to himself; and as soon as he can think for himself he is the sole judge of the right
way to take care of himself, which makes him his own master.
这种共同的自由是人的天性使然。他的第一法则是保护自己，他的第一牵挂是他对自己的牵挂；一旦他能够独
立思考，他就能独自判断照顾自己的正确方式，这使他成为自己的主人。

You could call the family the prime model of political societies: the ruler corresponds to the father, and the
people to the children; and all of them-ruler, people, father, children–because they were born free and equal
don’t give up their liberty without getting something in return. The whole difference is that in the family the
father’s care for his children is repaid by his love for them, whereas in the state the ruler’s care for the people
under him is repaid not by love for them (which he doesn’t have!) but by the pleasure of being in charge.
你可以把家庭称作政治社会的主要模式：统治者相当于父亲，人民相当于子女；他们所有人--统治者、人民、父
亲、子女--因为生来自由平等，所以不会放弃自由而得不到回报。两者的区别在于， 在家庭中，父亲对子女的
关爱是通过对子女的爱来回报的，而 在国家中，统治者对人民的关爱不是通过对人民的爱（他没有爱！）来
回报的，而是通过当家作主的快乐来回报的。

Grotius denies that all human power is established in favour of the governed, and cites slavery as a
counterexample. His usual method of reasoning is to establish right by -fact [meaning: . . . ‘to draw
conclusions about what should be the case from premises about what is the case’]. Not the most logical of
argument-patterns, but it’s one that is very favourable to tyrants.
格劳秀斯否认人的一切权力都是为被统治者确立的，并以奴隶制作为反例。他惯用的推理方法是通过事实确立
权利[意思是：......。意思是：......'从实际情况的前提中得出结论，说明应该是什么情况']。这不是最合乎逻辑的
论证模式，但对暴君却非常有利。
…Throughout his book, Grotius seems to favour-as does Hobbes-the thesis that the human species is divided
into so many herds of cattle, each with a ruler who keeps guard over them for the purpose of devouring them.
......在整本书中，格劳秀斯似乎和霍布斯一样，倾向于这样一个论点，即人类分为许多牛群，每个牛群都有一个
统治者，他看守着这些牛群，目的是吞食它们。

Philo tells us that the Emperor Caligula reasoned thus: As a shepherd has a higher nature than his flock does,
so also the shepherds of men, i.e. their rulers, have a higher nature than do the peoples under them; from
which he inferred, reasonably enough, that either kings were gods or men were beasts.
斐洛告诉我们，卡里古拉皇帝是这样推论的：正如牧羊人的天性高于他的羊群一样，人类的牧羊人，即他们的
统治者，也比他们统治下的人民具有更高的天性；由此他合理地推断出，要么国王是神，要么人是野兽。

This reasoning of Caligula’s is on a par with that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before any of them, had said
that men are not naturally equal because some are born for slavery and others for command.
卡里古拉的这一推论与霍布斯和格劳秀斯的推论不谋而合。亚里士多德在他们之前就说过，人并非天生平等，
因为有些人生来就是为了奴役，有些人生来就是为了指挥。
Aristotle was right; but he mistook the effect for the cause. Every man born in slavery is born for slavery-
nothing is more certain than that. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire to escape from them:
they love their servitude, as Ulysses’ comrades loved their brutish condition -when the goddess Circe turned
them into pigs. So if there are slaves by nature, that’s because there have been slaves against nature. Force
made the first slaves, and their cowardice kept them as slaves.
亚里士多德是对的，但他错把结果当成了原因。每个生为奴隶的人都是为奴隶而生--没有比这更确定的了。奴隶
在枷锁中失去了一切，甚至失去了逃离枷锁的欲望：他们热爱自己的奴役，就像尤利西斯的战友们热爱自己的
野蛮处境--当女神西尔塞把他们变成猪的时候。所以，如果说有奴隶是天性使然，那是因为曾经有奴隶违背了天
性。武力使第一批人成为奴隶，而他们的懦弱又使他们成为奴隶。

I have said nothing about King Adam; or about Emperor Noah, the father of three great monarchs who shared
out the universe (like Saturn’s children, whom some scholars have recognised in them). [In Genesis 9 it is said
that after the flood Noah’s three sons ruled the world.] I hope to be given credit for my moderation: as a direct
descendant of one of these princes-perhaps of the eldest branch-I don’t know that a verification of titles
wouldn’t show me to be the legitimate king of the human race! Anyway, Adam was undeniably sovereign of the
world, as Robinson Crusoe was of his island, as long as he was its only inhabitant; and this empire had the
advantage that the monarch, safe on his throne, had nothing to fear from rebellions, wars, or conspirators.
我没有提到亚当王，也没有提到诺亚皇帝，他是共享宇宙的三位伟大君主的父亲（就像土星的孩子，一些学者
在他们身上看到了土星的影子）。[创世纪》第九章说，洪水过后，诺亚的三个儿子统治了世界。］我希望我的
节制能得到认可：作为其中一位王子的直系后裔--也许是长子的后裔--我不知道对头衔的核实会不会表明我是人
类的合法国王！无论如何，亚当无可否认是世界的君主，就像鲁滨逊-克鲁索是他的岛屿的君主一样，只要他是
岛上唯一的居民；这个帝国的好处是，君主在他的宝座上安然无恙，不用担心叛乱、战争或阴谋家。

3. The right of the strongest

3.最强者的权利

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master unless he transforms strength into right, and
obedience into duty. Hence ‘the right of the strongest’-a phrase that one might think is meant ironically, but is
actually laid down
除非把 力量转化为 权利，把 服从转化为 责任，否则强者永远不会强大到永远是主人。因此，"强者的权
利"--人们可能会认为这句话具有讽刺意味，但实际上它是这样规定的
as a basic truth. But will no-one ever explain this phrase? Force is a physical power; I don’t see what moral
effect it can have. Giving way to force is something you have to do, not something you choose to do; -or if you
insist that choice comes into it , it is at most an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?
是一个基本真理。但没有人解释过这句话吗？武力是一种有形的力量，我不明白它能产生什么道德影响。屈服
于武力是你必须做的事情，而不是你选择做的事情；或者说，如果你坚持认为 有选择的成分，那它充其量只是
一种 谨慎的行为。在什么意义上，它可以是 责任呢？

Suppose for a moment that this so-called right of the strongest.’ exists. I maintain that we’ll get out of this
nothing but a mass of inexplicable nonsense. If force makes right, then if you change the force you change the
right (effects change when causes change!), so that when one force overcomes another, there’s a corresponding
change in what is right. The moment it becomes possible to disobey with impunity it becomes possible to
disobey legitimately. And because the strongest are always in the right, the only thing that matters is to work
to become the strongest. Now, what sort of right is it that perishes when force fails? If force makes us obey, we
can’t be morally obliged to obey; and if force doesn’t make us obey, then -on the theory we are examining. we
are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word ‘right’ adds nothing to force: in this context it doesn’t stand
for anything.
假设所谓的'最强者的权利'确实存在。我坚持认为，我们只会得到一大堆无法解释的无稽之谈。如果力量决定权
利，那么如果你改变了力量，你就改变了权利（原因改变时，效果也会改变！），因此，当一种力量战胜另一
种力量时，权利也会发生相应的变化。一旦可以肆无忌惮地违背 ，就有可能合法地违背 。因为强者总是正确
的，所以唯一重要的事情就是努力成为强者。那么，什么样的权利会在武力失效时消亡呢？如果武力使我们服
从，那么我们就没有服从的道德义务；如果武力不能使我们服从，那么--根据我们正在研究的理论，我们就没有
服从的义务。显然，"权利 "一词对武力毫无益处：在这种情况下，它不代表任何东西。
‘Obey the powers that be.’ If this means submit to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I guarantee that
it will never be violated! All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness-are we then forbidden to
send for the doctor? A robber confronts me at the edge of a wood: I am compelled to hand over my money, but
is it the case that even if I could hold onto it I am morally obliged to hand it over? After all, the pistol he holds
is also a power.
服从当权者。如果这意味着服从强权，那么这是一条很好的戒律，但却是多余的：我保证它永远不会被违反！
我承认，一切权力都来自上帝；但一切疾病也是如此，难道我们就不能去请医生吗？一个强盗在树林边与我对
峙：我不得不交出我的钱，但即使我能抓住它，我在道义上有义务交出它吗？毕竟，他手中的手枪也是一种力
量。

Then let us agree that force doesn’t create right, and that legitimate powers are the only ones we are obliged to
obey. Which brings us back to my original question.
那就让我们同意，武力不能创造权利，只有合法的权力才是我们必须服从的。这又回到了我最初的问题。

4. Slavery 4.奴隶制
Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and -force creates no right, we are left with agreements
[see Glossary as the basis for all legitimate authority among men.
既然没有人对自己的同伴拥有 天然的权威，而且--武力也不能创造任何权利，那么我们就只能以 协议[见术语
表]作为人与人之间所有合法权威的基础。

Grotius says: 格劳秀斯说：

If an individual can alienate [see Glossary] his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why couldn’t a
whole people alienate its liberty and make itself subject to a king?
如果一个人可以让渡[见术语表]自己的自由，使自己成为主人的奴隶，那么为什么整个民族就不能让渡自己的自
由，使自己臣服于国王呢？
This contains several ambiguous words that need to be explained, but let us confine ourselves to ‘alienate’. To
alienate something is to give or sell it. Now, a man who becomes the slave of another does not give himself-he
sells himself at the rock-bottom price of his subsistence [see Glossary]. But when a people sells itself what price
is paid? -Not their subsistence:- Far from providing his subjects with their subsistence, a king gets his own
subsistence only from them… Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king takes their goods
also? I fail to see what they have left to preserve.
这句话中有几个模棱两可的词需要解释，但让我们只讨论 "让渡"。让渡就是给予或出售。现在，一个人如果成
为他人的奴隶，他并没有奉献自己，而是以维持生计的最低价格出卖了自己[见术语表]。但是，当一个民族出卖
自己时，付出的是什么代价呢？不是他们的生存：--国王远不是为他的臣民提供生存，而是只从他们那里得到自
己的生存......那么，臣民是否以国王也拿走他们的物品为条件奉献自己的人身呢？我看不出他们还有什么可保留
的。
‘The despot guarantees civic peace in the state’, you may say. Granted; but what do the people gain if
你可能会说，'专制者保证了国家的和平'。同意；但如果
-the wars his ambition brings down on them,
-他的野心给他们带来的战争、
-his insatiable greed, and
-他贪得无厌，以及
-harassments by his ministers
-部长们的骚扰
bring them more misery than they’d have suffered from their own dissensions -if no monarchy had been
established ? What do they gain if this peace is one of their miseries? You can live peacefully in a dungeon,
but does that make it a good life? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops lived there peacefully while
waiting for their turn to be eaten.
？如果和平是他们的苦难之一，他们又能得到什么呢？你可以平静地生活在地牢里，但这就能让你过上好日子
吗？被囚禁在独眼巨人洞穴中的希腊人在等待轮到他们被吃掉时过着平静的生活。

To say that a man gives himself -to someone else, i.e. hands himself over free, is to say something absurd and
如果说一个人把自己交给了别人，也就是把自己无偿地交给了别人，那就太荒唐、太可笑了。
inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, simply because the man who does it is out of his mind. To
say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness doesn’t create any right.
这种行为是无效的、不合法的，因为做出这种行为的人已经疯了。如果说整个民族都是这样，那就等同于认为
整个民族都是疯子；而疯子是不会创造任何权利的。
Even if each man could alienate himself, he couldn’t alienate his children: they are born men, and born free;
their liberty belongs to them, and no-one else has the right to dispose of it. While they are too young to decide
for themselves, their father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being; but
he can’t make an irrevocable and unconditional gift of them; such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and
exceeds the rights of paternity. So an arbitrary [see Glossary] government couldn’t be legitimate unless in
every generation the populace [see Glossary] was the master who was in a position to accept or reject it; but
then the government would no longer be arbitrary!
即使每个人都能让渡自己，他也不能让渡自己的孩子：他们生来就是人，生来就是自由的；他们的自由属于他
们自己，其他人无权处置。当他们还太小，不能为自己做决定时，他们的父亲可以以他们的名义，为他们的保
护和幸福规定条件；但他不能把他们不可撤销地无条件地赠与他人；这样的赠与违背了自然的目的，超越了父
权。因此，除非每一代民众[见术语表]都是能够接受或拒绝这种政府的主人，否则专制[见术语表]的政府就不可
能是合法的；但这样一来，政府就不再是专制的了！

To renounce your liberty is to renounce your status as a man, your rights as a human being, and even your
duties as a human being. There can’t be any way of compensating someone who gives up everything. Such a
renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature; to remove all freedom from his will is to remove all morality
from his actions. Finally, an ‘agreement’ to have absolute authority on one side and unlimited obedience on the
other-what an empty and contradictory agreement that would have to be! Isn’t it clear that if we are entitled to
take anything and everything from a person, we can’t be under any obligation to him? And isn’t that fact alone-
the fact that there is no equivalence, nothing to be exchanged, between the two sides-enough to nullify the
‘agreement’? What right can my slave have against me? Everything that he has is mine; his right is
放弃自由就等于放弃 人的地位，放弃 人的权利，甚至放弃 人的义务。对于一个放弃一切的人，不可能有任
何补偿。这种放弃不符合人的本性；从人的意志中剔除一切自由，也就从人的行为中剔除了一切道德。最
后，"协议 "的一方是绝对的权威，另一方是无限的服从--这将是一个多么空洞和矛盾的协议！如果我们有权从一
个人那里拿走任何东西，我们就不可能对他承担任何义务，这难道还不清楚吗？难道仅仅是这个事实--双方之间
不存在等价物，没有任何东西可以交换--还不足以使 "协议 "失效吗？我的奴隶有什么权利反对我？他的一切都
是我的；他的权利是
mine; and it doesn’t make sense to speak of my right against myself.
我的权利；说我的权利反对我自己是没有意义的。

Grotius and company cite war as another source for the so-called right of slavery. The winner having (they say)
the right to kill the loser, the latter can buy back his life at the price of his freedom; and this agreement is all
the more legitimate in being to the advantage of both parties.
格劳秀斯等人将战争作为所谓奴役权的另一个来源。他们说，胜者有权杀死败者，败者可以用自由的代价买回
自己的生命；这种协议对双方都有利，因而更加合法。

But this supposed right to kill the loser is clearly not an upshot of the state of war. Men are not naturally one
anothers’ enemies. [The next sentence is expanded in ways that the -small dots convention can’t easily
handle.] Any natural relations amongst them must exist when they are living in their primitive independence
without any government or social structure; but at that time they have no inter-relations that are stable enough
to constitute either the state of peace or the state of war. War is constituted by a relation between things, not
between persons; and because the state of war can’t arise out of simple personal relations but only out of thing-
relations, there can’t be a private war (a war of man against man) in the state of nature, where there is no
ownership, or in the state of society, where everything is under the authority of the laws.
但这种杀死失败者的所谓权利显然不是战争状态的结果。人与人之间并不是天生的敌人。[下一句的扩展方式是
小圆点 惯例所无法轻松处理的]。当他们在没有任何政府或社会结构的原始独立状态下生活时，他们之间的任
何自然关系都必须存在；但在那时，他们没有稳定到足以构成和平状态或战争状态的相互关系。战争是由物与
物之间的关系构成的，而不是由人与人之间的关系构成的；由于战争状态不可能产生于简单的人与人之间的关
系，而只能产生于物与物之间的关系，因此，在没有所有权的自然状态下，或者在一切都在法律权威之下的社
会状态下，不可能有私人战争（人与人之间的战争）。

Individual combats, duels and encounters are acts that can’t constitute a state. As for the private wars that
were authorised by Louis IX of France. . . ., they were abuses of feudal government, which was itself an absurd
system if ever there was one-contrary to the principles of natural right and to all good government.
个人战斗、决斗和遭遇战都是不能构成国家的行为。至于法国路易九世批准的私人战争.......，它们是对封建政府
的滥用，而封建政府本身就是一种荒谬的制度，违背了自然权利和所有良好政府的原则。

So war is a relation not between man and man but between state and state, and individuals are enemies only
accidentally, not as men nor even as citizens but as soldiers; not as belonging to their country but as
defenders of it. And
因此，战争不是人与人之间的关系，而是国家与国家之间的关系，个人只是偶然成为敌人，不是作为 人，甚
至也不是作为 公民，而是作为 士兵；不是属于自己的国家，而是保卫国家。 还有

the only enemies a state can have are other states; not men, because there can’t be a real settled relation
between things as radically different as states and men.
一个国家唯一的敌人是其他国家，而不是人，因为在国家和人这样截然不同的事物之间，不可能存在真正稳定
的关系。

This principle squares with the established rules of all times and the constant practice of all civilised peoples.
Declarations of war don’t give notice to powers as much as to -their subjects. A foreigner-whether king,
individual, or whole people-who robs, kills or detains the subjects -of a country- without first declaring war on
their prince is not an enemy but a bandit. When a full-scale war is going on, a prince is entitled to help himself
to anything in the enemy country that belongs to the public, but if he is just he will respect the lives and goods
of individuals-he will respect rights on which his own are based. The purpose of the war is to destroy the
enemy state, so we [see Glossary] have a right to kill its defenders while they are bearing arms; but as soon as
they lay down their weapons and surrender, they stop being enemies or instruments of the enemy and resume
their status as simply men, and no-one has any right to take their lives. Sometimes it is possible to kill a state
without killing any of its members; and a war doesn’t give any right that isn’t needed for the war to gain its
objective. These principles are not those of Grotius: they aren’t based on the authority of poets, but are derived
from the nature of things and are based on reason.
这一原则符合所有时代的既定规则和所有文明民族的一贯做法。宣战并不是向 列强发出通知，而是向其臣民发
出通知。一个外国人--无论是国王、个人还是整个民族--在没有向其王子宣战的情况下抢劫、杀害或扣留一个国
家的臣民，他不是敌人，而是强盗。当一场全面战争正在进行时，王子有权帮助自己获得敌国属于公众的任何
东西，但如果他是公正的，他就会尊重个人的生命和财产--他就会尊重自己赖以生存的权利。战争的目的是摧毁
敌国，因此我们[见术语表]有权在敌国卫兵携带武器时杀死他们；但一旦他们放下武器投降，他们就不再是敌人
或敌人的工具，而恢复了普通人的身份，任何人都无权剥夺他们的生命。有时，杀死一个国家而不杀死其任何
成员也是可能的；战争并不赋予战争为实现其目标所不需要的任何权利。这些原则不是格劳秀斯的原则：它们
不是建立在诗人的权威之上，而是源于事物的本质，建立在理性的基础之上。

What about the ‘right of conquest’? The only basis for that is ‘the law of the strongest’! If war doesn’t give the
winner the right to massacre the conquered peoples, you can’t cite that right-a ‘right’ that doesn’t exist-as a
basis for a right to enslave those peoples. No-one has a right to
那'征服权'呢？唯一的依据就是'弱肉强食'！如果战争并没有赋予胜利者屠杀被征服民族的权利，那么你就不能以
这种权利--一种并不存在的'权利'--作为奴役这些民族的权利的依据。没有人有权
kill an enemy except when he can’t make him a slave, so the right to enslave him can’t be derived from the right
to kill him: it’s not fair dealing to make him spend his freedom so as to keep his life, over which the victor holds
no right. Isn’t it clear that there’s a vicious circle in basing the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and
the right of slavery on the right of life and death?
因此，奴役敌人的权利不能从杀死敌人的权利中引申出来：让敌人为了保住自己的生命而牺牲自己的自由，这
是不公平的交易，胜利者对自己的生命没有任何权利。将生杀大权建立在奴役权之上，又将奴役权建立在生杀
大权之上，这难道不是一个恶性循环吗？

Even if we assume this terrible right to kill everybody, I maintain that someone enslaved in war isn’t
committed to do anything for his master except what he is compelled to do; and the same goes for a conquered
people. [Rousseau’s point here is that the enslaved individual or the conquered people doesn’t owe the
conqueror anything.] By taking an equivalent for his life, the winner hasn’t done him a favour; instead of
killing him without profit, he has killed him usefully. He is indeed so far from getting any authority over the
slave in addition to his - power over him, that the two are still in a state of war towards one another: their
master/slave relation comes from that, and this enforcement of a right of war doesn’t imply that there has been
a peace-treaty! They have reached an agreement; but this agreement, far from ending the state of war,
presupposes its continuance.
即使我们假定有杀死所有人的可怕权利，我仍然认为，在战争中被奴役的人除了被迫做的事情之外，并不承诺
为他的主人做任何事情；被征服的人民也是如此。[卢梭在这里的意思是，被奴役的个人或被征服的人民并不欠
征服者什么。］胜利者用等价物换取被征服者的生命，并没有给被征服者带来任何好处；与其说是无利可图地
杀死了被征服者，不如说是有益地杀死了被征服者。事实上，除了对奴隶的权力之外，他还远远没有获得对奴
隶的任何 权力，以至于两者之间仍然处于战争状态：他们的主人/奴隶关系来自于此，而这种战争权的实施并
不意味着已经达成了和平条约！他们达成了协议；但这一协议不仅没有结束战争状态，反而预示着战争的继
续。
Whatever angle we look at it from, therefore, the ‘right of slavery’ is null and void-not only as illegitimate but
also as absurd and meaningless. The words ‘slave’ and ‘right’ contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive.
It will always be crazy to say to a man, or to a people: ‘I make an agreement with you wholly at your expense
and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like.’
因此，无论我们从哪个角度看，"奴役权 "都是无效的--不仅是不合法的，而且是荒谬和毫无意义的。奴隶 "和
"权利 "这两个词相互矛盾，相互排斥。对一个人或一个民族说：'我与你们达成的协议完全是为了你们的利益，
我想保留多久就保留多久，你们想保留多久就保留多久，这永远是疯狂的。

5. We must always go back to a first agreement

5.我们必须始终回到最初的协议

[For ‘agreement’ see Glossary.] Even if I granted everything that I have refuted up to here, the supporters of
despotism would be no better off. Ruling a society will always be a quite different thing from subduing a
multitude. If any number of scattered individuals were successively enslaved by one man, all I can see there is
a master and his slaves, and certainly not a people and its ruler. It’s a cluster, if you will, but not an
association; there’s no public good there, and no body politic. This man may have enslaved half the world but
he is still only an individual; his interest, apart from that of others, is never anything but a purely private
interest. When this man dies, the empire he leaves behind him will remains scattered and without unity, like
an oak that falls into a fire and dissolves into a heap of ashes when the fire has consumed it.
[关于 "一致"，见术语表。]即使我同意我在这里所驳斥的一切，专制主义的支持者也不会好到哪里去。统治一个
社会与征服一群人永远是两码事。如果有许多分散的人先后被一个人奴役，我能看到的只是一个主人和他的奴
隶，而肯定不是一个民族和它的统治者。可以说，这是一个 集群，但不是一个 协会；那里没有公共利益，也
没有政治体。这个人可能奴役了半个世界，但他仍然只是一个个体；除了其他人的利益之外，他的利益从来都
只是纯粹的私人利益。当这个人死后，他留下的帝国将仍然是分散的、没有统一性的，就像一棵掉进火堆的橡
树，在火烧尽后化为一堆灰烬。

A people, says Grotius, can give itself to a king; so he must hold that a people is a people before it gives itself to
a king. This gift is itself a civic act, which has to arise from public deliberation. Before we examine (2) the act
by which a people gives itself to a king, let’s examine (1) the act by which the people became a people; for (1)
must occur before (2), so that (1) is the true foundation of society.
格劳秀斯说，一个民族可以把自己献给国王；因此，他必须认为，一个民族在把自己献给国王之前就是一个民
族。这种馈赠本身就是一种公民行为，它必须产生于公共商议。在我们研究(2)人民把自己交给国王的行为之
前，让我们先研究(1)人民成为人民的行为；因为(1)必须发生在(2)之前，所以(1)才是社会的真正基础。

Indeed, if there were no prior agreement, what would give the minority any obligation to submit to the choice
of the majority (unless the election was unanimous)? A hundred men want to have a master; what gives them
the right to vote on behalf of ten who don’t? The law of majority voting is itself something established by
agreement, and it presupposes that on at least one occasion there was a unanimous vote.
事实上，如果事先没有协议，少数人有什么义务服从多数人的选择（除非选举是一致的）？一百个人想有一个
主人，他们有什么权利代表十个不想有主人的人投票呢？多数人投票的法则本身就是通过协议确立的，它的前
提是至少有一次是全票通过的。

6. The social compact 6.社会契约

Let us take it that men have reached the point at which the obstacles to their survival in the state of nature
overpower each individual’s resources for maintaining himself in that state. So this primitive condition can’t go
on; the human race will perish unless it changes its manner of existence.
我们可以认为，人类已经到了这样一个地步：在自然状态下生存的障碍已经超过了每个人维持这种状态的资
源。因此，这种原始状态不能再继续下去了；除非改变生存方式，否则人类将会灭亡。

Now, men can’t create new forces; they can only bring together ones that already exist, and steer them. So
their only way to preserve themselves is to unite a number of forces so that they are jointly powerful enough to
deal with the obstacles. They have to bring these forces into play in such a way that they act together in a single
thrust.
现在，人类无法创造新的力量；他们只能 汇集已有的力量， 引导它们。因此，他们保护自己的唯一办法就是
联合多种力量，使它们共同强大到足以应对各种障碍。他们必须以这样一种方式让这些力量共同发挥作用，一
鼓作气。

For forces to add up in this way, many people have to work together. But each man’s force and liberty are what
he chiefly needs for his own survival; so how can he put them into this collective effort without harming his
own interests and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in the version of it that arises for my
present subject, can be put like this:
要使力量以这种方式相加，必须有许多人共同努力。但是，每个人的力量和自由都是他自己生存的主要需要；
那么，他怎样才能把这些力量和自由投入到这种集体努力中去，而不损害自己的利益和忽视对自己的照顾呢？
就我现在的主题而言，这个难题可以这样说：

Find a form of association that will bring the whole common force to bear on defending and protecting each
associate’s person and goods, doing this in such a way that each of them, while uniting himself with all, still
obeys only himself and remains as free as before.’
找到一种结社形式，将整个共同力量用于捍卫和保护每个伙伴的人身和财产，在这样做的同时，他们每个人在
与所有人团结在一起的同时，仍然只服从自己，并像以前一样自由'。
There’s the basic problem that is solved by the social contract. [This is the work’s first occurrence of that
phrase.]
这就是社会契约要解决的基本问题[这是作品中第一次出现这句话]

The clauses of this contract are so settled by the nature of the act that the slightest change would make them
null and void; so that although they may never have been explicitly stated, they are everywhere the same and
everywhere tacitly accepted and recognised, until the social compact [see Glossary] is violated and each
individual regains his original
这种契约的条款因行为的性质而确定，稍有改动就会失效；因此，尽管这些条款可能从未被明确说明，但它们
在任何地方都是一样的，并且在任何地方都被默许和认可，直到社会契约[见术语表]被违反，每个人恢复其 原
有的权利。
rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the liberty-by-agreement which had been his reason for
renouncing them.
权利，恢复了他的 自然自由，却失去了作为他放弃 权利的理由的协议自由。

Properly understood, these clauses come down to onethe total alienation [see Glossary] of each associate,
together with all his rights, to the whole community. .This may seem drastic, but three features of it make it
reasonable. (i) Because each individual gives himself entirely, what is happening here for any one individual is
the same as what is happening for each of the others, and, because this is so, no-one has any interest in making
things tougher for everyone but himself.
正确理解这些条款，可以归结为：每个合伙人连同其所有权利完全让渡给整个社区[见术语表]。这似乎有些过
激，但有三个特点使其合情合理。(i) 由于每个人都完全奉献了自己，因此任何一个人的情况都与其他人的情况
相同。
(ii) Because the alienation is made without reserve, -i.e. without anything being held back , the union is as
complete as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand. -To see why the association has to be
done in this way, consider what the situation would be if the individuals retained certain rights. In the absence
of any superior to decide issues about this, each individual would be his own judge in the first case that came
up, and this would lead him to ask to be his own judge across the board; this would continue the state of
nature, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.
(ii) 因为让渡是无保留的，即没有任何保留 ，所以联合是最完整的，任何联合者都没有任何要求。 为了理解
为什么必须以这种方式联合，我们可以考虑一下，如果个人保留某些权利，情况会是怎样。在没有任何上级来
决定有关问题的情况下，每个人在遇到第一件事时都会成为自己的法官，这将导致他要求成为自己的法官；这
将使自然状态继续下去，而联合必然会变得无法运作或变得专横。
(iii) Each man in giving himself to everyone gives himself to no-one; and the right over himself that the others
get is matched by the right that he gets over each of them. So he gains as much as he loses, and also gains
extra force for the
(iii) 每个人在把自己交给每个人的同时，并没有把自己交给任何人； 其他人获得的对自己的权利与 他获得的
对每个人的权利是相匹配的。因此，他得到的与他失去的一样多，而且还为
preservation of what he has.
保护他所拥有的一切。
Filtering out the inessentials, we’ll find that the social compact comes down to this:
剔除不重要的因素，我们会发现社会契约归根结底是这样的：
‘Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and,
in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.’
'我们每个人都将自己的人格和所有权力共同置于总意志的最高指导之下，而在我们的团体身份中，我们将每个
成员作为整体不可分割的一部分来接受。
[This is the first occurrence in this work of the phrase ‘the general will’.] This act of association instantly
replaces the individualperson status of each contracting party by a moral and collective body, composed of as
many members as the assembly has voix [= ‘voices’ or ‘votes’]; and receiving from this act its unity, its common
identity, its life and its will. This public person that is formed by the union of all the other persons used to be
called a ‘city’, and these days is called a ‘republic’ or a ‘body politic’. Its members call it
[这是 "普遍意志 "一词在这部作品中的首次出现。]这种结社行为立即取代了 缔约各方的个人身份，代之以 一
个道德的、集体的机构，它由与集会所拥有的voix[="声音 "或 "选票"]一样多的成员组成；并从这一行为中获得
了它的统一性、它的共同身份、它的生命和它的意志。这个由所有其他人联合而成的公众，过去被称为 "城
市"， 如今则被称为 "共和国 "或 "政治体"。其成员称之为
-a ‘state’ when thinking of it as passive,
-如果认为它是被动的，那就是一种 "状态"、
a ‘sovereign’ when thinking of it as active, and
将其视为主动时的 "主权"，以及
a ‘power’ when setting it alongside others of the same kind.
当把一种 "力量 "与其他同类型的力量放在一起时。
Those who are associated in it are collectively called ‘a people’, and are separately called ‘citizens’ (as sharing in
the sovereign power) and ‘subjects’ (as being under the state’s laws. But these terms are often muddled and
confused with one another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with
precision.
与之相关的人统称为 "人民"，分别称为 "公民"（分享主权权力）和 "臣民"（受国家法律管辖）。但是，这些术
语常常混淆不清：只要知道如何在准确使用这些术语时加以区分就足够了。

7. The sovereign 7.主权

This formula shows us that the act of association involves a two-way commitment between the public and the
individuals belonging to it , and that each individual, in making a contract with himself (so to speak),
acquires two commitments: (a) as a member of the state he has a commitment to the sovereign, and (b) as a
member of the sovereign [see Glossary] he has a commitment to each of the individuals, he being one of them.
There is a maxim of civil law that no-one is bound by undertakings he has made to himself, but that doesn’t
apply here, because the present topic is incurring an obligation to whole of which one is a part, and that is
very different from incurring an obligation to oneself.
这个公式告诉我们， 结社行为涉及公众与属于公众的 个人 之间的双向承诺，而 每个个人在与自己订立契
约（可以说）时，获得了两项承诺：(a) 作为国家的一员，他对君主做出承诺；(b) 作为君主的一员[见术语表]，
他对每一个人做出承诺，他是其中之一。民法有一条格言，即任何人都不受自己所作承诺的约束，但这在这里
并不适用，因为目前的话题是对 整体（自己是其中的一部分）承担义务，这与对 自己承担义务截然不同。

The proceeding I have been describing can’t give the sovereign a commitment to itself. As I have just pointed
out, an individual subject can have a commitment to himself in this sense: as an individual he has a
commitment to the sovereign, and as a member of the sovereign he has a commitment to himself. But the
sovereign can’t have a commitment to itself; it doesn’t have two distinct roles -such that a commitment could
go from it in one role and towards it in the other . For the sovereign to have a commitment to itself would be
like an individual person having a commitment to himself; it just isn’t possible. And so it is against the nature
of the body politic for the sovereign to impose on itself a law that it can’t infringe: there isn’t and can’t be any
kind of basic law that is binding on the body of the people-even the social contract itself can’t do that. This
doesn’t mean that the body politic can’t enter into commitments with others [i.e. with other states]… It can do
that, because in relation to what is external to it-i.e. in relation to other states or sovereigns–the sovereign is
just a simple being, an individual.
我所描述的程序无法赋予主权者对自身的承诺。正如我刚才指出的，在这个意义上，个体主体可以对自己做出
承诺：作为个体，他对君主做出承诺；作为君主的一员，他对自己做出承诺。但是，主权者不可能对自己做出
承诺；它并不具有两种截然不同的角色--以至于承诺可以从它的一个角色出发，而在另一个

But the body politic, i.e. the sovereign, owes its very existence to the sanctity of the contract; so it can never
commit itself, even to another state, to do anything that conflicts with that original act-e.g. to alienate any part
of itself, or to submit to another sovereign. 'm saying not that the sovereign ought not to do such a thing, but
that it can’t do so : violation of the act of contract-making. by which it exists would be self-annihilation; and
nothing can be created by something that has gone out of existence!
契约的神圣不可侵犯性决定了政治体（即君主）的存在；因此，政治体决不能做出任何违背 契约初衷的事情-
-比如，让渡自身的任何部分，或者臣服于另一个君主，哪怕是臣服于另一个国家。 我不是说君主不应该做这
样的事情，而是说它不能这样做：违反契约行为，它就会自我毁灭；而任何东西都不可能由已经不存在的东西
创造出来！

As soon as this multitude is united into one body in this way, any offence against one of the members is an
attack on the body, and any offence against the body will be resented by the members. Thus, the two
contracting parties-the individual member and the body politic-are obliged by duty and by self-interest to give
each other help…
一旦这群人以这种方式结合成一个整体，对其中一个成员的任何冒犯都是对这个整体的攻击，而对这个整体的
任何冒犯都会遭到成员们的反感。因此，缔约双方--个人成员和政治团体--出于责任和自身利益，必须互相帮
助......

Now, because the sovereign is made out of nothing but its constituent individuals, it doesn’t and can’t have any
interest contrary to theirs; so there’s no need for it to provide its subjects with guarantee of treating them well
, because the body can’t possibly wish to hurt all its members, and-as we’ll see later on- it can’t hurt any
individual one of them either. The sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it ought to be.
现在，因为君主只是由它的组成个体构成的，所以它没有也不可能有任何与他们的利益相悖的利益；因此，它
没有必要为它的臣民提供保证 善待他们 ，因为 这个机构不可能希望伤害它的所有成员，而且--我们稍后会
看到-- 它也不可能伤害他们中的任何一个人。君主，仅仅因为它是什么，就永远是它应该是什么。

But the situation is different with respect to the relation of the subjects to the sovereign: despite their common
interest, the sovereign would have no security that the subjects would behave as they have committed
themselves to behaving unless it found some way to be assured of their fidelity.
但在臣民与君主的关系上，情况就不同了：尽管臣民与君主有着共同的利益，但除非君主找到某种方法来保证
臣民的忠诚，否则就无法保证臣民会按照自己的承诺行事。

The fact is that each individual as a man can have a particular will that doesn’t fit, and even conflicts with, the
general will that he has -as a citizen. His individual self-interest may speak to him quite differently from how
the common interest does. He looks at the situation in this way:
事实上，作为一个人，每个人 都可能有自己的特殊意愿，而这种意愿与他作为一个公民所具有的普遍意愿并不
一致，甚至相冲突。他的个人私利与共同利益的诉求可能大相径庭。他是这样看待这种情况的：
‘I have an absolute and naturally independent existence; I’m not something that exists only because certain
items have come together in an association So what I am said to ‘owe’ to the common cause–i.e. to the body
politic or sovereign whose existence is in that way dependent on the conduct of its members-is really a gift, a
hand-out; if I withhold it, that won’t harm anyone else as much as it will benefit me. As for the ‘moral person’
that constitutes the state, that’s not a man but a mere mental construct.’
'我有绝对的、天然的独立存在； 我不是仅仅因为某些项目聚集在一起而存在的东西 因此，我被说成是对共同
事业的'亏欠'--即对政治体或君主的'亏欠'，而政治体或君主的存在以这种方式依赖于其成员的行为--实际上是一
种恩赐，一种施舍；如果我扣留它，对别人的伤害不会比对我的好处大。至于构成国家的'有道德的人'，那不是
人，而只是一种精神建构。
So he may wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being ready to fulfill the duties of a subject; and if that
went on for long enough it would destroy the body politic.
因此，他可能希望享受公民的权利，却不愿意履行臣民的义务；如果这种情况持续足够长的时间，就会摧毁政
治体。

To protect the social compact from being a mere empty formula, therefore, it silently includes the undertaking
that anyone who refuses to obey the general will is to be compelled to do so by the whole body. This single item
in the compact can give power to all the other items. It means nothing less than that each individual will be
forced to be free. -It’s obvious how forcing comes into this, but. . . to be free? Yes , because this is the condition
which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence, -i.e. secures him
against being taken by anyone or anything else This is the key to the working of the political machine; it alone
legitimises civil commitments which would otherwise be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to frightful abuses.
因此，为了保护社会契约不致沦为空洞的公式，它默默地包含了一项承诺，即任何拒绝服从总体意愿的人都将
被全体成员强制服从。契约中的这一条可以赋予所有其他条款以力量。这意味着每个人都将被迫获得自由。-很
明显，强迫是其中的一部分，但是..获得自由？是的 ，因为这是一个条件，它通过把每个公民交给他的国家，
使他免于一切人身依附，也就是说，使他免于被任何人或任何其他东西夺走 这是政治机器运作的关键；只有它
才能使公民的承诺合法化，否则这些承诺就会是荒谬的、专制的，而且容易被可怕的滥用。
8. The civil state 8.公民国家
This passage from the state of nature to produces a very remarkable change in man: the role that
instinct used to play in his conduct is now taken over by sense of justice, and his actions now have a moral
aspect
从 自然状态到 ，人类发生了非常显著的变化：过去本能在人类行为中所起的作用现在被 正义感
所取代，人类的行为现在具有了道德的一面
that they formerly lacked. The voice of duty has taken over from physical impulses and a sense of what is
right has take over from appetite; and now-only now-the man who has until now considered only himself finds
himself forced to act on different principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. In this
civil state he is deprived of many advantages that he got from nature, but he gets enormous benefits in
return-his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas are extended, his feelings ennobled, and his
whole soul uplifted. All this happens to such an extent that if the abuses of this new condition didn’t often pull
him down to something lower than he was in the state of nature, he would be bound to bless continually the
happy moment that took him from it for ever, and out of a dull and limited animal made a thinking being, a
man.
他们以前所缺乏的。责任的声音取代了身体的冲动， 正确的意识取代了食欲；现在--只是现在--迄今为止只考
虑自己的人发现自己不得不按照不同的原则行事，在听从自己的倾向之前先咨询自己的理智。在这种 公民 状
态下，他被剥夺了从大自然那里得到的许多好处，但却得到了巨大的回报--他的能力得到了极大的激发和发展，
他的思想得到了扩展，他的情感得到了升华，他的整个灵魂都得到了升华。这一切发生得如此之快，以至于如
果不是这种新条件的滥用常常把他拉到比他在 自然状态下更低的水平，他就一定会不断地祝福把他从 自然状
态中永远夺走的幸福时刻，把一个呆板而有限的动物变成一个有思想的人。

Let us get a statement of profit and loss in terms that make it easy to compare the two sides. What man loses
by the social contract is
让我们用便于比较双方的术语来说明损益。社会契约给人类带来的损失是
-his natural liberty and -他的自然自由和

an unrestricted right to anything he wants and can get.

不受限制地获得他想要和能得到的任何东西的权利。
What he gains 他的收获
-civil liberty and -公民自由和
-the ownership of everything he possesses.
-他所拥有的一切的所有权。
If we’re to weigh these up accurately, we must distinguish
如果要准确权衡这些问题，我们必须区分
-natural liberty, which is limited only by the individual’s powers, from
-自然自由，它只受个人能力的限制，从
-civil liberty, which is limited by the general will.
-公民自由，它受到普遍意志的限制。
And we must distinguish 我们必须区分
possession, which is merely the effect of force or the principle of ‘first come, first served’, from
占有，这只是武力或 "先到先得 "原则的效果，从
-property, which can only be based on a positive title. We could add on the ‘profit’ side the fact that in the civil
state a man acquires moral liberty, which alone makes him truly
-在 "利 "的一面，我们还可以加上这样一个事实，即在公民国家中，人获得了道德自由，而只有道德自由才能使
人成为真正的人。在 "利 "的一面，我们还可以加上这样一个事实，即人在公民状态下获得了道德自由，只有道
德自由才能使人真正地
master of himself; for the drive of sheer appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law that we prescribe to
ourselves is -liberty. But I have said too much about this in other places; and the philosophical meaning of the
word ‘liberty’ doesn’t concern us here.
因为纯粹欲望的驱使是 奴役，而服从我们为自己规定的法则则是自由。不过，我在其他地方已经说得太多
了，'自由'一词的哲学含义与我们这里无关。
9. Real estate 9.房地产
At the moment when the community comes into existence, each of its members gives himself to it-himself just
as he is, with any powers that he has, including all his possessions. It is not the case that this transfer of all his
goods changes them from being -possessions in his hands to being property in the hands of the sovereign; but
because the city’s powers are incomparably greater than any individual’s, public possession is stronger and
more irrevocable, without being any more legitimate. [The rest of this paragraph is expanded in ways that the
small dots convention can’t easily signify.] Actually, from the point of view of the members of this state its
possession of each member’s goods [is legitimate, because the state is the master of all their goods by the social
contract which is the basis of all rights within the state. But that doesn’t hold for foreigners, because for them
ownership depends solely on the ‘first come, first served’ principle, which also serves for states in their
ownership of territory.
在共同体诞生的那一刻，共同体的每个成员都将自己奉献给了共同体--就像他自己一样，连同他所拥有的一切权
力，包括他的所有财产。这并不是说，他的所有财产的这种转移使它们从他手中的财产变成了 主权者手中的财
产；而是因为城市的权力比任何个人的权力都要大得多，所以公共占有更加强大，更加不可撤销，但却没有任
何合法性。[本段其余部分的扩充， 小圆点 约定俗成，不易表示。］实际上，从国家成员的角度来看，国家
对每个成员的物品的占有[是合法的，因为根据社会契约，国家是他们所有物品的主人，而社会契约是国家内部
所有权利的基础。但这对外国人来说并不成立，因为对他们来说，所有权完全取决于'先到先得'原则，而这一原
则也适用于国家对领土的所有权。

Of the two ways of getting a right to something in the state of nature, namely
在自然状态下获得权利的两种方式中，即
(i) being the first occupier of it, and
(i) 是其第一占用人，并且
(ii) being the strongest,
(ii) 最强壮、
(i) provides a right-' first come, first served -that is more real than (ii) does; but it doesn’t become a true right
until property-rights are established. Every man has naturally a right to everything he needs; but the positive
act that makes something his property excludes him from everything else.
(i)提供了一种权利--' 先到先得 --比(ii)更真实；但在财产权确立之前，它并没有成为真正的权利。每个人对他
所需要的一切自然都有权利；但是，使某些东西成为他的财产的积极行为却排除了他对其他一切的权利。

Having acquired share, he ought to limit himself to that, and can’t have any further claim on the community.
That’s why the first-occupier right, which is so weak in the state of nature, claims the respect of every man in
civil society. What a man respects in this right is not so much -what belongs to someone else as what doesn’t
belong to him.
在获得了份额之后，他就应该将自己限制在这一范围内，不能再对社会提出任何要求。这就是为什么在自然状
态下如此薄弱的第一占有人的权利，在公民社会中却受到每个人的尊重。在这种权利中，人所尊重的与其说是
属于别人的东西，不如说是不属于自己的东西。

In general, to authorize a first occupier’s right over any bit of ground three conditions must be satisfied:
一般来说，要对任何一块土地授予第一占有人的权利，必须满足三个条件：
-the ground wasn’t already occupied by someone else;
-地面还没有被别人占用；
he occupies only as much as he needs for his subsistence;
他只占用他生存所需的空间；
he takes possession of this ground not by an empty ceremony but by labour and cultivation.
他不是通过空洞的仪式，而是通过劳动和耕种来占有这片土地。
His work on the land is the only sign of ownership that others should respect if he doesn’t have a legal title.
如果他没有合法的所有权，他在土地上的工作就是他的所有权的唯一标志，其他人应该尊重他。

In allowing the right of first occupancy on condition that the land was needed and was worked on, aren’t we
stretching that right as far as it can go? Could such a right be left with no limits or restrictions? To claim to be
the master of a plot of common ground will it be enough merely to set foot on it? If a man has the strength to
expel others for a moment, does that deprive them of any right to return? If a man or a people seize an
immense territory and shut out the rest of the world, won’t this be merely a grab that ought to be punished?
The answer is surely ‘yes’, because such an act steals from others the living-space and means of subsistence
that nature gave them in common. When Balboa stood on the sea-shore and took possession of the south seas
and the whole of South America in the name of the Spanish crown, was that enough to dispossess all their
actual inhabitants and to shut out from those territories all the princes of the world? If so, there’s no need for
all these ceremonies; the Catholic King can take possession of the whole universe all at once, tacking on a rider
excluding from his claim any
我们允许在需要土地并对土地进行耕作的条件下享有优先占有权，难道不是将这一权利延伸到了极限吗？这种
权利可以没有任何限制或约束吗？要想成为一块公共土地的主人，仅仅踏上这块土地就够了吗？如果一个人有
力量暂时驱逐他人，这是否就剥夺了他们返回的权利？如果一个人或一个民族攫取了广袤的领土，将世界其他
地方拒之门外，这难道不只是一种应该受到惩罚的攫取吗？ 答案肯定是 "是"，因为这种行为从他人那里窃取了
大自然赋予他们的共同生存空间和生存手段。当巴尔博亚站在海边，以西班牙王室的名义占有南洋和整个南美
洲时，这是否足以剥夺所有实际居民的财产，并将世界上所有的王公贵族拒之门外？如果是这样的话，就没有
必要举行这些仪式了；天主教国王可以一下子占有整个宇宙，并附加一个附加条款，将任何国家排除在他的要
求之外。
territories that were already possessed by other princes!
其他王子已经拥有的领土！
We can imagine how adjacent pieces of land belonging to individuals become, when they are combined,
public territory, and how the right of sovereignty over the subjects comes to be extended to being a right over
their real estate. This makes the land-owners even more dependent - on the sovereign ; they have more to lose
if things go wrong between them and the sovereign; and - this is a guarantee of their fidelity. The advantage of
this apparently wasn’t felt by ancient monarchs, who called themselves kings of the Persians, the Scythians, or
the Macedonians, apparently regarding themselves as rulers of men rather than as masters of a country.
Today’s kings are cleverer: they call themselves kings of France, of Spain, of England and so on. Holding the
land in this way, they are quite confident of holding the inhabitants.
我们可以想象， 属于个人的相邻土地在合并后是如何成为公共领土的， 对臣民的主权是如何扩展为对其不动
产的权利的。这使得土地所有者更加依赖于君主 ；如果他们和君主之间出现问题，他们会有更多的损失；这也
是他们忠诚的保证。古代君主显然没有感受到这一点的好处，他们自称波斯人、斯基泰人或马其顿人的国王，
显然把自己看作是人的统治者，而不是国家的主人。今天的国王更聪明：他们自称为法国、西班牙、英格兰等
国的国王。他们以这种方式掌握了土地，也就有把握掌握居民。

This alienation in which individuals transfer their goods to the community has a special feature, namely that
far from depriving the individuals of their goods it assures them of legitimate possession, changing
个人将其物品转让给社会的这种让渡有一个特点，即这种让渡远非 剥夺个人的物品，而是 保证他们合法占
有，改变他们的生活方式。
‘I have taken possession of this (somehow)’ into ‘I have a genuine right to this’, and
'I have taken possession of this (somehow)' into 'I have a genuine right to this'，以及
-‘I have the enjoyment of this’ into ‘I own this’.
-'我享有这个'变成'我拥有这个'。
Thus the possessors, in their role as those to whom the
因此， 拥有者，在他们的角色中，他们是受惠者。
public good has been entrusted, and having their rights respected by all the state’s members and maintained
against foreign aggression by all its forces, have made a transfer that benefits both the public and still more
themselves, thereby acquiring (as it were) everything that they gave up. This paradox is easily explained by
distinguishing the sovereign’s right from the owner’s rights over the same estate-as we shall see later on.
他们的权利受到国家全体成员的尊重，并由国家的所有力量来抵御外来侵略，他们的转让既有利于公众，更有
利于他们自己，从而（就像这样）获得了他们所放弃的一切。将主权者的权利与所有者对同一财产的权利区分
开来，就可以很容易地解释这一悖论。

It can also happen that men begin to unite before they possess anything, subsequently occupy a tract of land
that is enough for them all, and then enjoy it in common, or share it out among themselves (either equally or
in proportions fixed by the sovereign). But however the acquisition is made, each individual’s right to his own
estate is always subordinate to the community’s right over everyone’s estate; without this, the social tie would
be fragile and the exercise of sovereignty would be feeble.
人们在拥有任何东西之前就开始联合起来， 随后占有一块足够他们所有人使用的土地，然后 共同享用它，
或者在他们之间分配它（或者平均分配，或者按君主规定的比例分配）。但无论如何获得，每个人对自己财产
的权利总是从属于共同体对每个人财产的权利；没有这一点，社会纽带就会脆弱，主权的行使就会软弱无力。

To bring this chapter and this book to an end, I’ll remark on a fact that should be the basis for any social
system, namely: The basic compact doesn’t destroy natural inequality; rather, it replaces such physical
inequalities as nature may have set up between men by an equality that is moral and legitimate, so that men
who may be unequal in strength or intelligence become equal by agreement and legal right.
在结束本章和本书的最后，我想谈一个事实，它应该成为任何社会制度的基础，即基本契约并没有破坏自然界
的不平等；相反，它以 一种道德和合法的平等取代了 自然界可能在人与人之间建立起来的身体上的不平等，
从而使在力量或智力上可能不平等的人通过协议和合法权利变得平等。

BOOK 2 第 2 册

1. Sovereignty is inalienable
1.主权不可剥夺

The first and most important consequence of the principles I have laid down is that the directing of the state in
the light of the object for which it was instituted, i.e. the common good, must be done by the general will. The
clashing of particular interests made it -necessary to establish a society, and the agreement of those same
interests made it possible to do so. It’s the common element in these different interests that forms the social
tie; and if there were there nothing that they all had in common, no society could exist. It is solely by this
common interest that every society should be governed.
我所阐述的这些原则的第一个也是最重要的一个结果是，根据建立国家的目的（即共同利益）来指导国家，必
须由普遍意志来完成。特殊利益的 冲突使得建立社会成为必要，而这些利益的 一致使得建立社会成为 可
能。正是这些不同利益中的共同点构成了社会的纽带；如果没有共同点，社会就不可能存在。每个社会都应该
完全由这种共同利益来管理。

I hold then that sovereignty, being nothing less than the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated Isee
Glossaryl, and that the sovereign, which is nothing but a collective being, can’t be represented except by itself:
the power indeed may be transmitted, but not the will.
因此，我认为，主权不过是普遍意志的行使，永远不能转让。

Perhaps a particular will could agree on some point with the general will, but at least it’s impossible for such an
agreement to be lasting and constant. Why? Because it’s of the very nature of a particular will to tend towards -
favouritism, be -partial [i.e. to favour some people over others], whereas the general will tends towards
equality. It is even more impossible to have any guarantee of this agreement; for even if it did always exist that
would be the effect not of skill but of chance. The sovereign may indeed say:
也许某个特定的意志可以在某些方面与总体意志达成一致，但至少这种一致不可能持久不变。为什么呢？因为
特殊意志的本质就是倾向于偏袒、偏袒[即偏袒某些人而不是其他人]，而一般意志则倾向于 平等。更不可能保
证这种一致；因为即使这种一致始终存在，那也不是技巧的结果，而是偶然的结果。君主可以说：
‘Right now I will what that man wills (or at least what he says he wills)’,
现在，我要按照那个人的意愿（或至少按照他说的意愿）行事"、
but it can’t say 但不能说
‘What that man wills tomorrow, I too shall will’,
他明天要做什么，我也要做什么"、
because it’s absurd for the will to bind itself for the future, and no will is obliged to consent to anything that
isn’t for the good of the being whose will it is. If then the populace promises simply to obey, by that very act it
dissolves itself and loses what makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is no longer a sovereign,
and from that moment the body politic has ceased to exist.
因为让意志为未来束缚自己是荒谬的，任何意志都没有义务同意任何不符合其意志的存在者的利益的事情。如
果民众仅仅承诺服从，那么这一行为本身就会使其自身解体，使其失去作为一个民族的意义；主人存在的那一
刻，就不再有君主，从那一刻起，政治体就不复存在了。

This isn’t to deny that rulers’ commands can count as general wills, if the sovereign is free to oppose them and
doesn’t do so. In such a case, universal silence should be taken to show the people’s consent. I’ll explain this
fully later on.
这并不是否认统治者的命令可以算作普遍意志，如果君主可以自由地反对这些命令而没有这样做的话。在这种
情况下，普遍的沉默应被视为人民的同意。我稍后会详细解释这一点。
2. Sovereignty is indivisible
2.主权不可分割

For the same reason that makes it inalienable, sovereignty is indivisible. Here is why. Either will (a) is general
or it (b) isn’t; it is the will either of (a) the body of the people or of (b) only a part of it. When it is declared,
then, either (a) it is an act of sovereignty and constitutes law, or (b) it is merely a particular will or
出于同样的原因，主权也是不可分割的。原因就在这里。要么(a)意志是普遍的 ，要么(b)意志不是普遍的；要
么它是(a)全体人民的意志，要么它只是(b)部分人民的意志。那么，当它被宣布时，要么(a) 它是一种主权行为
并构成法律，要么(b) 它仅仅是一种特殊的意愿，要么(c) 它是一种(d) 特殊的意愿。
the rest of the sentence: un acte de magistrature ; c’est un décret tout au plus.
余下的句子：是地方行政官的行为；最多是一项法令。
which literally means: an act of magistracy-at the most a decree.
其字面意思是：行政官的行为，最多是一项法令。
what Rousseau was getting at: regulations laid down by high-level bureaucrats, not basic laws issuing from the
legislature, the sovereign. [Re ‘magistracy’, see Glossary.]
卢梭的意思是：由高级官僚制定的法规，而不是由立法机构即君主颁布的基本法律。[关于 "地方行政官"，见术
语表。］
But our political theorists, unable to divide sovereignty on
但我们的政治理论家却无法在以下方面划分主权

the basis of its source, divide it according to its object. They divide it into
来源的基础上，根据其 对象进行划分。它们分为
-force and will, -力量和意志、
-legislative power and executive power,
-立法权和行政权、
-rights of taxation, justice and war,
-征税权、司法权和战争权、
-internal affairs and foreign relations.
-内政和外交关系。
Sometimes they run these sections together and sometimes they separate them; they turn the sovereign into a
fantastic being composed of several connected pieces: it is as if they were making man of several bodies, one
with eyes, one with arms, another with feet, and each with nothing else! We’re told that the jugglers of Japan
dismember a child before the eyes of the spectators; then they throw the pieces into the air one after another,
and the child falls down alive and whole. The conjuring tricks of our political theorists are pretty much like
that: having dismembered the body politic by a huckster’s trick they then re-asssemble it. . . somehow!
他们有时把这些部分连在一起，有时又把它们分开；他们把君主变成了一个由几个相连的部分组成的奇妙存
在：就好像他们把人变成了几个身体，一个有眼睛，一个有胳膊，另一个有脚，而每个身体都没有其他东西！
我们听说，日本的杂耍艺人会在观众面前肢解一个孩子；然后，他们把碎片一个接一个地抛向空中，孩子就会
活蹦乱跳地掉下来。我们的政治理论家的变戏法把戏也差不多是这样：他们用小把戏肢解了政治躯体，然后再
把它重新组装起来。......不知何故！

This error comes from a failure to think precisely about the sovereign authority, regarding as different parts
of it what are really just different emanations from it.
这种错误源于没有准确地思考主权权威，把它的不同 部分看作是它的不同 表现形式。
[Rousseau seems to mean that they are just different actions that are performed under the authority of the
sovereign. In distinguishing (a) parts of the sovereign authority from (b) actions performed not by the
sovereign authority but by subordinate governmental agencies, he may be
[卢梭的意思似乎是，它们只是在主权者的权力下采取的不同行动。在区分(a)主权权力的一部分与(b)不是由主权
权力而是由下属政府机构执行的行动时，他可能是
distinguishing parts of x from actions of x , or
将 x 的部分与 x 的行动区分开来，或
distinguishing the sovereign’s actions from those of subordinate agencies.
将主权国家的行动与下属机构的行动区分开来。
In fact he seems to be thinking only of the second of these distinctions. Read on.] Thus, for example, the acts of
declaring war and making peace have been regarded as acts of sovereignty, but they aren’t. None of them are
laws; each of them simply applies a law to a particular case, involving a decision not about what the law is to
be, but only about how the law applies in this case. This will be clear when the idea attached to the word ‘law’
has been fixed.
事实上，他似乎只想到了其中的第二个区别。请继续阅读]。因此，举例来说，宣战和媾和行为被视为主权行
为，但它们并不是。它们都不是法律；它们中的每一个都只是将法律适用于某一特定情况，涉及的决定 不是关
于法律是什么，而只是关于法律如何适用于这一情况。当 "法律 "一词所附带的概念固定下来时，这一点就会很
清楚。

If we track the other divisions in the same way, we would find that whenever anyone takes sovereignty to be
divided there is a mistake: the rights that are taken as being part of sovereignty are really all subordinate, and
always presuppose the existence of supreme wills that they are merely applying.
如果我们以同样的方式追踪其他的划分，我们就会发现，只要有人认为主权是可以划分的，那就是一个错误：
被认为是主权一部分的权利实际上都是从属性的，而且总是以最高意志的存在为前提，它们只是在应用最高意
志。

This lack of exactness has thrown a cloud of obscurity over the conclusions of writers on political right who
have laid down principles on the basis of which to pass judgment on the respective rights of kings and peoples.
When I try to say how much obscurity, words fail me! Everyone can see in Grotius’s work (Book 1 chapters 3
and 4) how the learned man and his translator, Barbeyrac, entangle and confuse themselves with in their own
sophistries, for fear of saying too little or too much of what they think, and so offending the interests they have
to placate. Grotius, a refugee in France, discontented with his own country [Holland], and wanting to pay court
to Louis XIII, to whom his book is dedicated, will go to any lengths to strip the peoples of all their rights and
clothe kings in them with every conceivable decoration. This would also have been much to the taste of
Barbeyrac, who dedicated his translation to George I of England. But unfortunately for him the expulsion of
James II, which Barbeyrac called his ‘abdication’, compelled him to be on his guard, to shuffle and switch
positions, in order to avoid making William of Orange, who succeeded James on the throne a usurper. If these
two writers had adopted the true principles, all their difficulties would have been removed, and they would
have been always consistent; but they’d have told the truth sadly, and they wouldn’t have been paying court to
anyone except the people. Well, the truth is no road to fortune, and the populace doesn’t give out
ambassadorships, university chairs, or pensions.
由于缺乏精确性，那些为国王和人民各自的权利制定了判断原则的政治权利作家的结论被蒙上了一层模糊的阴
影。当我试图说出有多少晦涩难懂时，我却无言以对！每个人都可以从格劳秀斯的著作（第 1 卷第 3 章和第 4
章）中看到，这位博学的人和他的译者巴贝拉克是如何在自己的诡辩中纠缠不清、混淆视听的，因为他们害怕
自己说得太少或太多，从而冒犯了他们必须安抚的利益集团。格劳秀斯是法国的难民，他对自己的国家（荷
兰）不满，又想向路易十三献媚（他的书就是献给路易十三的），因此不惜一切代价剥夺人民的一切权利，并
为国王披上一切可以想象得到的装饰。这也很符合巴贝拉克的口味，他将自己的译本献给了英国的乔治一世。
但不幸的是， 詹姆斯二世被驱逐（巴贝亚拉克称之为 "退位"），迫使他不得不提高警惕，变换立场，以避免
让继承詹姆斯王位的奥兰治的威廉 成为篡位者。如果这两位作家采用了真正的原则，他们的 所有 困难都会
迎刃而解，他们也会始终如一；但他们会悲哀地说出真相，除了人民，他们不会向任何人献媚。好吧，真相不
是通往财富的道路，人民也不会给大使、大学教席或养老金。

3. Can the general will be wrong?

3.一般意志会出错吗？

It follows from all this that the general will is always in the right and always works for the public good; but it
doesn’t follow that the people’s deliberations are always equally correct. Our will is always for our own good,
but we don’t always see what that is; the populace is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and then-but
only then-it seems to will something bad. [The French for Rousseau’s endorsement of the general will is
toujours droite, which has been translated as ‘always right’ and also as ‘always within its rights’; the matter is
controversial. The rendering ‘in the right’-here and twice more-is a cowardly compromise.]
由此可见，普遍的意愿总是正确的，总是为公众的利益服务的；但这并不意味着人民的审议总是同样正确的。
我们的意志总是为了我们自己的利益，但我们并不总能看到那是什么；民众从未堕落，但却经常被欺骗，然后--
但只是在那时--它似乎会做出一些坏事。[卢梭赞同普遍意志的法语是 toujours droite，有人译为 "总是正确
的"，也有人译为 "总是在其权利范围内"；这个问题存在争议。在权利范围内 "的译法--在这里还有两次--是一种
懦弱的妥协。］

The will of all is very different from the general will; the latter looks only to the common interest, while the
former looks to private interest and is no more than a sum of particular wills: but remove from these same
wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another and what is left of the particular wills adds up to the
general will. [In that sentence, and four times in the next paragraph, ‘particular will(s)’ translates Rousseau’s
différence(s)’, which in this one context he uses in an oddly non-relational way.]
所有人的意志与 一般意志截然不同；后者只着眼于共同利益，而前者则着眼于私人利益，它不过是各种特殊
意志的总和：但从这些特殊意志中去掉相互抵消的利与弊 ，特殊意志所剩下的东西就汇集成了一般意志。[在
这句话中，以及在接下来的段落中，"特殊意志 "四次翻译成卢梭的 "差异"（différence(s)）。

If the populace held its deliberations (on the basis of adequate information) without the citizens
communicating with one another, what emerged from all the little particular wills would always be the general
will, and the decision would always be good. But when plots and deals lead to the formation of partial
associations at the expense of the big association, the will of each of these associations-the
如果民众（在充分知情的基础上）在不相互沟通的情况下进行讨论，那么从所有小的特殊意志中产生的东西将
永远是普遍的意志，而决定也将永远是好的。但是，当阴谋和交易导致以牺牲 大协会为代价而形成 小协会
时，这些协会中的每一个协会的意志-- 小协会的意志-- 大协会的意志--
general will of its members-is still a particular [particulière] will so far as the state is concerned; so that it can
then be said that as many votes as there are men is replaced by as many votes as there are associations. The
particular wills become less numerous and give a less general result. And when one of these associations is so
great as to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small particular wills but a single particular
will; and then there is no longer a general will, and the opinion that prevails is purely particular [particulier].
因此可以说，有多少人就有多少选票，有多少社团就有多少选票。特殊意志的数量变少了，产生的结果也就不
那么普遍了。当其中的一个联合体大到压倒其他所有联合体时，结果就不再是小的特殊意志的总和，而是单一
的特殊意志；这时就不再有普遍意志，占上风的意见纯粹是特殊的[specialulier]。

If the general will is to emerge clearly it’s important that there should be no partial society within the state, and
that each citizen should think only his own thoughts: which was indeed the sublime and unique system
established by the great Lycurgus. And if there are partial societies, it’s best to have as many as possible and to
prevent them from becoming unequal, as was done by Solon, Numa and Servius. These precautions are the
only ones that can ensure that the general will is always enlightened and that the populace is never in error.
如果要明确地体现普遍的意愿，重要的是国家内部不应该有局部的社会，每个公民应该只考虑自己的想法：
这确实是伟大的莱库尔格斯建立的崇高而独特的制度。如果有部分社会，最好尽可能多，并防止它们变得不平
等，就像梭伦、努玛和塞尔维乌斯所做的那样。只有采取这些预防措施，才能确保总的意志始终是明智的，民
众永远不会犯错。

4. The limits of the sovereign power

4.主权权力的限制

If the state or city is nothing but a moral person whose life consists in the union of its parts, and if its most
important concern is for its own preservation, it must have a universal force to move and place each part in the
way that is most advantageous to the whole. Just as nature gives each man absolute power over all his
members, the social compact
如果国家或城市只是一个有道德的人，其生命在于各部分的结合，如果它最关心的是自身的保存，那么它就必
须有一种普遍的力量，以对整体最有利的方式推动和安排每个部分。正如大自然赋予每个人支配其所有成员的
绝对权力一样，社会契约也是如此。

gives the body politic absolute power over all its members; and I repeat that it is this power which, under the
direction of the general will, is called ‘sovereignty’.
政治体对其所有成员拥有绝对的权力；我重申，正是这种权力，在普遍意志的指导下，被称为 "主权"。

But as well as the public person, we have to consider the private persons who compose it, and whose life and
liberty are naturally independent of it. So now there’s the matter of clearly distinguishing
但是，除了公众人物之外，我们还必须考虑构成公众人物的私人人物，他们的生命和自由自然独立于公众人物
之外。因此，现在的问题是要明确区分
-the citizens’ rights from the sovereign’s, and
-公民与君主的权利， 以及
the citizens’ duties as subjects from their natural rights as men.
公民作为臣民的义务与他们作为人的天赋权利之间的关系。
Agreed: each man alienates by the social compact only the part of his powers, goods and liberty that it is
important for the community to control. But something else should also be agreed: the sovereign is sole judge
of what is important.
同意：每个人通过社会契约让渡的只是其权力、财产和自由中对社会有重要意义的部分。但还有一点也应同
意：什么是重要的，只有君主才能判断。

Any service a citizen can give to the state should be performed as soon as the sovereign demands it; but the
sovereign on its side can’t impose upon its subjects any fetters that are useless to the community. Indeed it
can’t even want to do so, because -there’s no reason for it to want to, and ‘Nothing can happen without a cause’
applies under the law of reason as much as it does under the law of nature.
公民为国家提供的任何服务，只要君主提出要求，就应立即履行；但君主不能对其臣民强加任何对社会无用的
束缚。事实上，它甚至都不想这么做，因为--它没有理由想这么做，'没有原因就不会发生任何事情'在理性法则
下和在自然法则下一样适用。

The undertakings that bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they go both ways; and their
nature is such that in fulfilling them we can’t work for others without working for ourselves. Why is the general
will always in the right, and why do all continually will the happiness of each? It can only be because there’s
not a man who doesn’t think of ‘each’ as meaning him, and considers himself in voting for all. This shows that
equality of rights, and the idea of justice arising from it, originate in the preference each man gives to himself,
and accordingly human nature. It shows that the general will, to be really general, must be
把我们与社会团体联系在一起的事业之所以是强制性的，只是因为它们是双向的；它们的性质决定了，在履行
这些事业的过程中，我们不能只为他人工作，而不为自己工作。为什么总的意志总是正确的，为什么 所有人都
不断地希望 每个人幸福？这只能是因为没有一个人不认为 "每个人 "是指他自己，并认为自己在为所有人投
票。这说明，权利平等以及由此产生的正义观念，都源于 每个人对自己的偏爱，因此也源于 人性。这说明
普遍意志要真正具有普遍性，就必须是
general in its object as well as its essence; i.e. must come from all and apply to all;
在其对象和本质上都具有普遍性，即必须来自所有人，适用于所有人；
and that when it is directed to some particular and determinate object it loses its natural rightness, because
in such a case we-the joint owners of the general will-—are judging of something foreign to us, so that we don’t
have any genuine standards to guide us.
而 当它指向某个特定的、确定的对象时，它就失去了其天然的正确性，因为在这种情况下，我们--普遍意志的
共同拥有者--是在判断对我们来说陌生的东西，因此我们没有任何真正的标准来指导我们。

Indeed, as soon as a question of particular fact or right arises in some context that hasn’t already been
regulated by a general agreement, the matter becomes contentious. It is a case-like a trial in a court of law–
where the individuals concerned are on one side and the public are on the other; but I can’t see what law
should be followed or what judge should decide. Couldn’t we ask the general will for an explicit decision on this
matter? That is an absurd proposal: the deliverance of the general will can only be the conclusion of one of the
sides and will therefore be seen by the other as merely an external and particular will that is subject to error
and has on this occasion fallen into injustice. Thus, just as a particular will can’t represent the general will, the
general will…-just because it is general-can’t pronounce on a particular man or fact. When for instance the
Athenian populace nominated or displaced its rulers, decreeing honours for one and penalties for another, and
by hosts of particular decrees exercised all the functions of government indiscriminately, it no longer had a
general will in the strict sense; it was acting no longer as sovereign, but as magistrate [see Glossary]. This will
seem contrary to current views; but you should give me time to expound my own.
事实上，一旦在某些情况下出现了特定的事实或权利问题，而这些问题又尚未由一般性协议加以规范，那么这
个问题就会变得很有争议。这就像法庭审判一样，当事人站在一方，公众站在另一方；但我不知道应该遵循什
么法律，也不知道应该由哪位法官来裁决。难道我们不能要求公众就此事做出明确的决定吗？这是一个荒唐的
提议：总意志的解脱只能是其中一方的结论，因此会被另一方视为只是一个外部的、特殊的意志，它可能会出
错，而且在这次事件中陷入了不公正。因此，正如特殊意志不能代表普遍意志一样，普遍意志......--正因为它是
普遍的--也不能对特定的人或事实发表意见。例如，当雅典民众提名或撤换其统治者，为一个人颁布荣誉法令，
为另一个人颁布惩罚法令，并通过主持特定法令不加区分地行使政府的所有职能时，它就不再具有严格意义上
的一般意志；它不再作为主权者行事，而是作为治安官行事[见术语表]。这似乎与当前的观点背道而驰，但你应
该给我时间来阐述我自己的观点。

So you can see that what makes the will general is less the number of voices than the common interest uniting
them; for under this system each person necessarily submits to
因此，我们可以看到，使意志具有普遍性的，与其说是声音的数量，不如说是将它们团结在一起的共同利益；
因为在这种制度下，每个人都必然服从于
the conditions he imposes on others; and this admirable alignment of interest with justice gives to the
common deliberations a quality of fairness, evenness of balance, which is visibly absent from the discussion of
any particular issue, in the absence of a common interest that would bring unity…
利益与 正义的这种令人钦佩的一致性，给共同的审议带来了公平、均衡的品质，而这种品质在任何特定问题
的讨论中都是明显缺乏的，因为缺乏共同的利益会带来团结......

From whatever direction we approach our principle, we always reach the same conclusion: the social compact
creates an equality among the citizens so that they all commit themselves to observe the same conditions and
should all have the same rights. Thus, from the very nature of the compact, every act of sovereignty-i.e. every
authentic act of the general will-obliges or favours all the citizens equally; so that the sovereign recognises only
the body of the nation and doesn’t distinguish among the individuals of whom it is made up. Then what strictly
speaking is an act of sovereignty? It’s not an agreement between a superior and an inferior, but an agreement
between the body and each of its members-an agreement that is
无论我们从哪个方向探讨我们的原则，都会得出同样的结论：社会契约在公民之间创造了一种平等，使他们都
承诺遵守同样的条件，都应享有同样的权利。因此，从契约的本质出发，每一个主权行为--即每一个真正的普遍
意志行为--都对所有公民平等地承担义务或给予优惠；因此，主权者只承认国家的主体，而不区分由其组成的个
人。那么，严格意义上的主权行为是什么呢？它不是上级与下级之间的协议，而是主体与其每个成员之间的协
议--这种协议是
-legitimate, because it is based on the social contract,
-合法，因为它以社会契约为基础、
-equitable, because everyone takes part in it,
-公平，因为每个人都参与其中、

useful, because the only object it can have is the general good, and
有用，因为它的唯一目标是普遍利益，而
-stable, because guaranteed by the public force and the supreme power.
-稳定，因为有公共力量和最高权力的保障。
So long as the subjects have to submit only to agreements of this sort, they don’t obey anyone-only their own
will; and to ask how far the respective rights of the sovereign and the citizens extend is to ask - not two
questions but only one, namely : Up to what point can the citizens make commitments to themselves, each to
all and all to each?
只要臣民只服从这种协议，他们就不服从任何人，只服从自己的意志；而要问主权者和公民各自的权利延伸到
什么程度，就是在问--不是两个问题，而只有一个问题，即 ：公民可以对自己、对所有人、对每个人做出承诺
到什么程度？

This shows that the sovereign power-utterly absolute, sacred and inviolable as it is-doesn’t and can’t cross the
boundaries set by general agreements, and that every man
这表明， 主权--绝对绝对、神圣不可侵犯的主权--没有也不可能逾越普遍协议设定的界限， 每个人
can do what he likes with any goods and liberty that these agreements leave him; so that it is never right for the
sovereign to burden one subject more heavily than another, because that involves a particular decision and
therefore isn’t within the range of the sovereign’s legitimate activity.
因此，主权者让一个臣民承受比另一个臣民更重的负担是绝对不正确的，因为这涉及到一个特定的决定， 因此
不在主权者合法活动的范围之内。

Once these distinctions are admitted, it is seen to befalse that the social contract involves any real renunciation
on the part of the individuals; so false that the situation that the contract puts them into is really preferable to
the one they were in before. Instead of an alienation [see Glossary], they have made an advantageous
exchange, trading in
一旦承认了这些区别，我们就会发现，社会契约涉及个人的真正放弃是虚假的；契约使他们所处的境况确实比
他们以前所处的境况要好也是虚假的。与其说他们进行了让渡[见术语表]，不如说他们进行了有利的交换，交换
的是

an uncertain and precarious way of living for one that is better and more secure;
一种更好、更安全的生活方式；
-natural independence for liberty,
 自由的自然独立性、
-the power to harm others for security for themselves, and
-为了 自己的安全而伤害他人的权力，以及
their strength, which others might overcome, for a right that social union makes invincible.
为了 社会联盟所赋予的不可战胜的权利，他们的力量可能会被他人战胜。
Even their life, which they have dedicated to the state, is constantly protected by it; and when they risk it in the
state’s defence, aren’t they just giving back what they have received from it? What are they doing that they
wouldn’t do oftener and more dangerously in the state of nature, in which they would inevitably have to risk
their lives in battles in defence of their means of survival? Everyone does indeed have to fight when his country
needs him; but then no-one ever has to fight for himself. We may have to run certain risks on behalf of the
source of our security; the alternative is to lose our security and run greater risks on behalf of ourselves;
haven’t we profited by this exchange?
即使是他们献给国家的生命，也时刻受到国家的保护；当他们冒着生命危险保卫国家时，他们不就是在回报国
家吗？在自然状态下，他们不可避免地要冒着生命危险去战斗，以保卫自己的生存手段，而在自然状态下，他
们不会做得更频繁、更危险，他们在做什么呢？在国家需要的时候，每个人确实都要战斗；但从来没有人为自
己而战。为了我们的安全来源，我们可能不得不冒某些风险；而另一种选择是失去安全，为了我们自己冒更大
的风险；难道我们没有从这种交换中获益吗？

5. The right of life and death

5.生死权

This question has been raised: ‘Given that individuals have no right to dispose of their own lives, how can they
give that right to the sovereign, transferring something that they don’t possess?’ This looks hard to answer only
because it is wrongly stated. Every man has a right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. A man who jumps
from a high window to escape from a fire-is he ever said to be guilty of suicide? Has that crime been alleged
against anyone perishes in a storm that he knew, when he went on board, had some probability of occurring?
有人提出了这样一个问题：'既然个人无权处置自己的生命，他们怎么能把这种权利交给君主，转让他们并不拥
有的东西呢？'这个问题看起来很难回答，只是因为表述错误。每个人都有权为保护自己的生命而冒险。一个人
从高处跳窗逃生，难道他就犯了自杀罪吗？在暴风雨中丧生的人，当他上船时就知道有可能发生暴风雨，有人
指控他犯有自杀罪吗？

The social treaty aims for the preservation of the contracting parties. He who wills the end also wills the
means, and the means must involve some risks, and even some losses. Someone who is willing to save his life
at others’ expense should also be ready to give up for their sake, when there is a need for this. Now, the
citizen is no longer the judge of the risks that the law wants him to run, and when the prince says to him: ‘It is
expedient for the state that you should die’, he ought to die. Why? Because his life is no longer merely a natural
good, but is a gift made conditionally by the state; -it is conditional on his always meeting the state’s demands,
and it’s only on that condition that he has been living in security up to the present.
社会条约旨在保护缔约各方。希望达到 目的的人也希望采取 手段，而手段必须包含一定的风险，甚至损失。
一个愿意牺牲 自己的生命来拯救他人的人，也应该准备在必要时为了他人而放弃 自己的生命。现在，公民
不再是法律希望他冒的风险的判断者，当王子对他说：'为了国家，你应该去死'时，他就应该去死。为什么？因
为他的生命不再仅仅是一种自然之物，而是国家有条件地赐予的礼物；--它以他始终满足国家的要求为条件，只
有在这个条件下，他才能一直安全地生活到现在。

The death-penalty for criminals can be seen in much the same light: it is in order to save ourselves from
assassins that we consent to die if we become assassins. In this treaty–this social contract–so far from
disposing of our own lives, we think only of securing them; and it isn’t to be assumed that any of the parties
then expects to get himself hanged!
对罪犯判处死刑也可以从同样的角度来理解：为了使自己免遭暗杀，我们同意在成为暗杀者时死去。在这个条
约--这个社会契约--中，我们远不是在处置自己的生命，我们只是在考虑确保他们的生命安全；而且，我们不能
假定任何一方都希望自己被绞死！

Every criminal by attacking social rights becomes a rebel and a traitor to his country; by violating its laws he
stops being a member of it-he even makes war on it. The state’s
每一个罪犯都会因为侵犯了社会权利而成为叛逆者和国家的叛徒；因为违反了国家的法律，他就不再是国家的
一员，他甚至会向国家开战。国家的
survival is inconsistent with his survival, and one of the two must die; when we put the guilty to death, we’re
doing this not so much to a citizen as to an enemy. He has broken the social treaty-the investigation and trial
show this, and the judgment declares it-so he is no longer a member of the state. But he has recognised himself
as a member if only by living there; so he must be lopped off
当我们将有罪的人处死时，我们所做的与其说是对一个公民，不如说是对一个敌人。他违反了社会条约--调查和
审判表明了这一点，判决也宣布了这一点--因此他不再是国家的一员。但他已经承认自己是国家的一员，哪怕只
是因为生活在那里；所以他必须被砍头
by exile, as a violator of the compact, or
作为违反契约者被流放，或
by death, as a public enemy.
作为公敌处以死刑。
Such an enemy isn’t a moral person [see Glossary], he’s a -man; and in such a case the right of war is to kill
the vanquished.
这样的敌人不是一个 有道德的人（见术语表），他是一个-人；在这种情况下，战争的权利就是杀死被征服
者。

You’ll say 'But the condemnation of a criminal is a particular act and is therefore, according to your chapter 4
of this Part, not something that the sovereign can do Right! But this condemnation is not something the
sovereign does; it’s a right the sovereign that can confer without being able itself to exert it. All my ideas hang
together, but I can’t expound them all at once.
你会说：'但是，对罪犯的定罪是一种特殊行为 ，因此，根据你在本部分第 4 章中的论述，这不是君主能够做
的事情 ！但是，这种定罪并不是君主所为，而是君主能够赋予的一种权利，而君主本身却无法行使这种权利。
我的所有观点都是一脉相承的，但我无法一下子把它们都阐述清楚。

We may add that frequent punishments [supplices = ‘punishments involving death or torture’] are always a
sign that the government is weak or lazy. Every wrong-doer could be turned to some good. There’s no right to
put to death, even for the sake of making an example, anyone who could safely be left alive.
我们还可以补充一点，频繁的惩罚[恳求='涉及死亡或酷刑的惩罚']总是政府软弱或懒惰的标志。每一个做错事的
人都可以被转化成好事。即使是为了杀一儆百，也没有权利把任何可以安全地活着的人处以死刑。

The right of pardoning a guilty man, or letting him off from a penalty imposed by the law and pronounced by
the judge, belongs only to the authority that is above the judge and the law, i.e. the sovereign; and even its right
in this matter is far from clear, and it’s hardly ever called for. A well-governed state has few punishments, not
because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare: it’s easier to get away with crimes when there
are a great many of them and the state is terminally ill. In the Roman republic
赦免一个有罪的人，或免除法律规定和法官宣判的刑罚的权利，只属于凌驾于法官和法律之上的权力机构，即
君主；甚至君主在这个问题上的权利也远非明确，而且几乎从未要求过赦免。一个治理良好的国家很少有惩
罚，这并不是因为有很多赦免，而是因为罪犯很少：如果罪犯很多，而国家又病入膏肓，就更容易逃脱惩罚。
在罗马共和国
neither the senate nor the consuls ever offered to pardon anyone ; nor did the populace, though it sometimes
revoked its own decision. Frequent pardons are an announcement that before long crime will pay, and anyone
can see where that leads. But I feel my heart protesting and restraining my pen; let us leave these questions to
the just man who has never offended and would himself never stand in need of pardon!
元老院和执政官都从未赦免过 任何人 ；民众也没有，尽管他们有时会撤销自己的决定。频繁的赦免就像在宣
告，犯罪很快就会付出代价，任何人都能看到这样做的后果。但是，我感到我的心在抗议，我的笔在抑制；让
我们把这些问题留给从未犯过罪，自己也永远不需要赦免的正义之士吧！

6. The law 6.法律

By the social compact we have given the body politic -existence and life; now it is up to legislation to give it
movement and will. The basic act that forms the body and pulls it together does nothing to settle what it must
do in order to survive.
通过社会契约，我们赋予了政治体以 存在和 生命；现在要由立法来赋予它 运动和 意志。构成政治体并将
其凝聚在一起的基本行为并没有解决政治体为了生存而必须做的事情。

It’s the nature of things that makes an item good and in conformity with order-human agreements don’t come
into it. All justice comes from God, who is its sole source; but if we knew how to draw it from that high source
we wouldn’t need government or laws! No doubt there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone, but
this justice can be admitted among us only if it is mutual. In the absence of natural sanctions…the laws of
justice are ineffective among men… Agreements and laws are needed to join rights to duties and relate justice
to its object. In the state of nature where everything is common, I don’t owe anything to someone to whom I
haven’t promised anything; I recognise as belonging to others only what is of no use to me. It’s not like that in
the state of society, where all rights are fixed by law.
事物的本质决定了它是好的，是符合秩序的，人与人之间的协议与此无关。所有的正义都来自上帝，他是正义
的唯一源泉；但如果我们知道如何从这一崇高源泉中汲取正义，我们就不需要政府或法律了！毫无疑问，有一
种普遍的正义只来自理性，但这种正义只有在相互的情况下才能被我们接受。在没有自然制裁的情况下......正义
的法则在人与人之间是无效的......需要协议和法律将权利与义务结合起来，将正义与其目标联系起来。在自然状
态下，一切都是共同的，我不欠别人什么，我也没有答应过别人什么；我只承认对我无用的东西属于别人。而
在社会状态下就不是这样了，在社会状态下，所有权利都是由法律规定的。

But what, when we come down to it, is a law? As long as we settle for attaching only metaphysical ideas to the
word, we’ll go on arguing without understanding one another. If
但归根结底，什么是法律呢？只要我们只满足于给这个词附加形而上学的概念，我们就会继续争论下去，而无
法相互理解。如果
someone tells us what a law of nature is, that won’t bring us any nearer to knowing what a law of the state is.
如果有人告诉我们什么是自然法则，那也不会让我们更接近于知道什么是国家法律。

I have already said [page 15] that there is no general will directed to a particular object. [Rousseau’s proof of
that, which follows, is severely compressed. The present version eases it out in ways that the -small dots
convention can’t easily signify.] We are to suppose that the general will of populace x dictates that (for
example) individual person y is to be given a pension. Either y is a member of x or he isn’t. (i) If he isn’t, then
x’s will doesn’t count as a general will in relation to him-it may have absolutely nothing to do with y’s own will.
(ii) If is a member of , i.e. a part of , then 's will that receive a pension is a relation between whole and
part that makes them two separate beings, -without-y and . But x -without-y isn’t the whole; and while this
relation persists it’s a relation between two unequal parts; and it follows that the will of one is no longer in any
respect general in relation to the other.
我已经说过[第15页]，不存在指向特定目标的一般意志。[卢梭在下文中对这一点的证明是经过严格压缩的。小
圆点 的约定俗成不容易表示]。我们假定，民众 x 的普遍意愿要求（例如）给个人 y 发放养老金。y 要么是 x 的
成员，要么不是。(i) 如果他不是，那么 x 的意志对他来说就不算是一般意志--它可能与 y 自己的意志完全无
关。(ii) 如果 是 的成员，即 的一部分，那么 希望 获得抚恤金的意愿就是整体与部分之间的一种关系，
它使它们成为两个独立的存在，即 -- 没有 y 的 。但是，没有y的x并不是整体；当这种关系持续存在时，它
是两个不平等部分之间的关系；因此，其中一个部分的意志与另一个部分的意志相比，在任何方面都不再具有
普遍性。

But when the whole people decrees for the whole people, it is not looking outside itself, but considering only
itself; and if a relation is then formed, it is -not between two separate objects, but only between two aspects of a
single entire object, with no need to split it into two parts. In that case the matter about which the decree is
made is, like the decreeing will, general. This act is what I call a law.
但是，当全体人民为全体人民颁布法令时，它 并不是在关注自身之外，而是 只考虑自身；如果这时形成了一
种关系，那也不是两个独立的对象之间的关系，而只是一个单一的整体对象的两个方面之间的关系，没有必要
把它分成两个部分。在这种情况下，法令所涉及的事物就像法令的意志一样，是一般性的。这种行为就是我所
说的法律。

When I say that the object of laws is always general, I mean that law considers subjects collectively and
considers kinds of actions, never a particular person or action. Thus the law can decree that there shall be
privileges, but it can’t name anyone who is to get them. It can set up different classes of citizens, and even
stipulate the qualifications for belonging to each of these classes, but it can’t pick out any individuals as
belonging to this or that class. It can establish a monarchy with hereditary succession, but it can’t choose
当我说法律的对象总是一般的时候，我的意思是法律考虑的对象是集体的，考虑的是行为的种类，而不是某个
特定的人或行为。因此，法律可以规定应当有特权，但不能指明谁应当获得这些特权。法律可以规定公民的不
同等级，甚至可以规定属于每个等级的资格，但它不能挑选出属于这个或那个等级的任何个人。它可以建立世
袭君主制，但不能选择
a king or name a royal family. In short, any action that has an individual object falls outside the scope of the
legislative power.
国王或为王室命名。简而言之，任何针对个人的行动都不属于立法权的范围。

We see at once that on this account of things certain questions can be laid aside. ‘Whose business it is to make
laws?’ (They are acts of the general will.) 'Is the prince is above the law? ( No , because he is a member of the
state.) ‘Can the law be unjust?’ ( No , because nothing is unjust towards itself.) 'How can we be both free
and subject to the laws? ( There’s no problem about this , because the laws are nothing but records of our
volitions.)
我们一眼就能看出，在这种情况下，某些问题是可以搁置的。制定法律是谁的事？"（法律是普遍意志的行
为）"王子凌驾于法律之上吗？(法律会不公正吗？"（ 不会 ，因为没有什么东西对自己是不公正的）"我们怎
么能既 自由又 受法律约束呢？( 这没有问题， 因为法律只不过是我们意志的记录。)

We see further that because the law unites universality of will with universality of object, nothing that a man-
any man-commands on his own initiative can be a law. That holds even for the sovereign: what he or it
commands with regard to a particular matter is not a law but a decree, an act not of sovereignty but of
magistracy.
我们进一步看到，由于法律将意志的普遍性与对象的普遍性结合在一起，一个人--任何一个人--主动下达的命令
都不能成为法律。这一点甚至对君主也适用：他或它就某一特定事项下达的命令不是法律，而是法令，不是主
权行为，而是行政行为。

So I give the name ‘republic’ to any state governed by laws, whatever form its administration takes; for only
when the laws govern does the public interest govern, and the public thing is something real. [Rousseau
expected his readers to recognize that chose publique (= ‘public thing’) is in Latin res publica, which is the
origin of république (= ‘republic’).] Every legitimate government is republican; what government is I will
explain later on.
因此，我把任何以法律治理的国家都称为'共和国'，无论其管理形式如何；因为只有在法律治理的情况下，公共
利益才会受到治理，而公共事物才是真正的事物。[卢梭希望他的读者认识到，chose publique（="公共事物"）
在拉丁语中是res publica，它是république（="共和国"）的起源。］每一个合法政府都是共和制的； 什么是
政府，我稍后会解释。

Laws are really only the conditions of civil association. Because the populace is subject to the laws, it ought to
be their author: the conditions of the society ought to be regulated solely by those who come together to form
-it. But how will they do this? By a common agreement? By a sudden inspiration? Does the body politic have an
organ-like vocal cords and a tongue–to declare its will? Who can give it the
法律实际上只是公民结社的条件。因为民众受制于法律，所以他们应该是法律的制定者： 社会的状况应该完
全由那些共同组成社会的人们来调节。但他们如何做到这一点呢？通过共同协议？靠突然的灵感？政治体有像
声带和舌头一样的器官来宣布自己的意愿吗？谁能给它
foresight to formulate and announce its acts in advance? or how is it to announce them in the hour of need?
How can a blind multitude, which often doesn’t know what it wills because it rarely knows what is good for it,
carry out for itself such a great and difficult enterprise as a system of legislation? The populace left to itself
always wills the good, but left to itself it doesn’t always see what that is. The general will is always in the right,
but the judgment that guides it isn’t always enlightened. It ought to be
还是在需要的时候宣布？盲目的民众常常不知道自己的意愿是什么，因为他们很少知道什么是对他们有利的，
他们怎么能为自己完成像立法制度这样伟大而艰巨的事业呢？民众自己的意愿总是好的，但他们自己并不总是
知道什么是好的。大众的意愿总是正确的，但引导它的判断力却并不总是明智的。它应该是
-made to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it;
-它能看到物体的本来面目，有时也能看到物体应该呈现的样子；
-shown the good road it is in search of,
-展示了它正在寻找的美好道路、
-secured from the seductive influences of individual wills,
-不受个人意志的诱惑、
-taught to look carefully at other places and times, and -made to weigh the attractions of present and sensible
advantages against the danger of distant and hidden evils.
-学会仔细观察其他地方和其他时间，学会权衡当前显而易见的优势与遥远隐蔽的危险。
Individuals see the good that they reject; the public wills the good that it doesn’t see. Both need guidance.
Individuals must be made to bring their wills into line with their reason; the populace must be taught to know
what it wills. If that is done, public enlightenment leads to the union of understanding and will in the social
body: the parts are made to work exactly together, and the whole is raised to its highest power. For this there
has to be a law-maker.
个人看到的是他们所拒绝的美好，公众希望看到的是他们没有看到的美好。两者都需要引导。必须让个人的意
志与理性保持一致；必须教导大众了解自己的意愿。如果做到了这一点，公众的启蒙就会导致社会主体的理解
和意志的结合：各部分完全协同工作，整体就会提升到最高的力量。为此，必须有一个法律制定者。
7. The law-maker 7.立法者
What would be needed to discover the best rules of society…is a superior intelligence that could see all men’s
passions without having any of them. This intelligence would have to meet these conditions:
要发现社会的最佳规则......需要的是一种超凡的智慧，它能够洞察人的一切激情，却不拥有任何激情。这种智慧
必须满足这些条件：
-it is wholly unrelated to our nature, while knowing it through and through;
-它与我们的天性完全无关，却对我们的天性了如指掌；
-its happiness doesn’t depend on us, yet it concerns itself with our happiness; and lastly
-它的幸福并不取决于我们，但它却关心我们的幸福；最后
-it can take the long view, working in one century for something to be enjoyed in the next.
-它可以放眼长远，在一个世纪里为下一个世纪的享受而努力。
It would take gods to give men laws!. . . . But if a great prince is a rare kind of man, what will a great legislator
be? All the prince has to do is to follow the pattern that the law-giver has to lay down in the first place. The law-
giver is the engineer who invents the machine; the prince is merely the mechanic who sets it up and makes it
go. ‘At the birth of societies,’ says Montesquieu, ‘the rulers of republics establish institutions, and then the
institutions mould the rulers’ (The Greatness and Decadence of the Romans, ch. 1.)
法律是神赐予人类的！ .. .但是，如果伟大的王子是一种罕见的人，那么伟大的立法者又会是什么呢？王子所要
做的，就是遵循法律制定者首先制定的模式。法律制定者是发明机器的工程师，而王子只是安装机器并使其运
转的机械师。孟德斯鸠说："在社会诞生之初，共和国的统治者建立制度，然后由制度来塑造统治者。

Someone who ventures to tackle the task of making a people needs to have a sense of being able
一个敢于承担造福人民任务的人，需要有一种能够
-to change human nature, so to speak-to transform each individual, who on his own is a complete and solitary
whole, into part of a greater whole from which he in a way receives his life and his being;
可以说，改变人类的本性--将每个人（他自己是一个完整而孤独的整体）转变为一个更大整体的一部分，从这个
更大的整体中获得他的生命和存在；
-to alter man’s constitution in order to strengthen it;
-改变人的体质，以增强体质；
-to replace the physical and independent existence that nature gave us by a partial and moral existence.
-用局部的、道德的存在取代大自然赋予我们的有形的、独立的存在。
[In the French, as in this version, it’s clear that Rousseau is presenting these not as three tasks but as three
ways of looking at one task.] In short, he must deprive man of his own resources, replacing them by new ones
that are alien to him and that he can’t employ without help from others. The more completely those natural
resources are annihilated, the greater and more lasting are the new ones that he acquires, and the more stable
and perfect are the new institutions. If you find that last statement extravagant, consider If each citizen is
nothing and can do nothing without all the others, and if the resources acquired by the whole are equal or
superior to the natural forces of all the individuals put together, it can be said that legislation is at the highest
point of perfection.
[在法文版本中，卢梭显然不是把这三件事当作三项任务，而是把它们当作看待一项任务的三种方式。］简而言
之，他必须剥夺人类自身的 资源，取而代之的是 新的资源，而这些资源对人类来说是陌生的，没有他人的帮
助，人类是无法利用这些资源的。这些自然资源消灭得越彻底，他所获得的新资源就越巨大、越持久，新制度
也就越稳定、越完善。 如果你觉得最后一句话很奢侈，那么请想一想 如果每个公民都一无所有，没有其他所
有公民的帮助就什么也做不了，如果全体公民获得的资源等于或超过所有个人的自然力量的总和，那么可以
说，立法已经达到了完美的最高点。

The law-giver is an extraordinary man in the state. If his intellectual abilities make him so, his office [here =
‘job’] does also. It’s not magistracy or sovereignty. This work that constitutes the republic isn’t part of its
constitution; it is an individual and superior role that has nothing in common with human power; for if anyone
who commands men oughtn’t to have command over the laws, then anyone who has command over the laws
oughtn’t to have it over men; for if he did, his laws would be the servants of his passions and would often
merely perpetuate his injustices; his private aims would inevitably mar the sanctity of his work.
法律制定者在国家中是一个非凡的人。如果他的智力使他如此，那么他的职位（此处="工作"）也是如此。这不
是地方行政官或主权。 构成共和国的这项工作并不是共和国 宪法的一部分；它是一个单独的、高高在上的角
色，与人的权力毫无共同之处；因为如果说指挥人的人不应该指挥法律，那么指挥法律的人也不应该指挥人；
因为如果他这样做了，他的法律就会成为他的激情的奴仆，往往只会延续他的不公正；他的私人目的将不可避
免地损害他的工作的神圣性。

When Lycurgus gave laws to his country, he began by abdicating as king. It was the custom of most Greek
towns to have foreigners establish their laws. The republics of modern Italy in many cases followed this
example; Geneva did the same and profited by it. Rome was at its most prosperous
当莱克古斯为他的国家制定法律时，他首先退位。让外国人制定法律是大多数希腊城镇的习俗。现代意大利的
共和国在很多情况下都效仿了这一做法；日内瓦也是如此，并从中获益。 罗马最繁荣的时期

when it suffered a revival of all the crimes of tyranny and came close to death, because it put the legislative
authority and the sovereign power into the same hands.
当时，暴政的种种罪行死灰复燃，濒临死亡，因为它将立法权和主权交到了同一人手中。

IIn the next sentence, Decemviri = ‘ten men’, referring to the men who in the 5th century BCE were delegated
to draw up a code of laws for the Roman republic.] Nevertheless, the Decemviri themselves never claimed the
right to pass any law merely on their own authority. ‘Nothing we propose to you’, they said to the people, ‘can
pass into law without your consent. Romans, be yourselves the authors of the laws that are to make you happy.’
在下一句中，Decemviri = "十人"，指的是公元前 5 世纪受命为罗马共和国起草法典的人。］然而，Decemviri
本身从未声称有权仅凭自己的权力通过任何法律。他们对人民说："没有你们的同意，我们向你们提出的任何建
议都不能成为法律。罗马人，你们自己就是法律的制定者，法律将使你们幸福。

So he who draws up the laws doesn’t or shouldn’t have any right to legislate; and the populace can’t deprive
itself of this non-transferable right, even if it wants to, because according to the basic compact the only thing
that can bind individuals is the general will, and the only way to be sure that a particular will is in conformity
with the general will is to put it to a free vote of the people. I have already said this, but it’s worth repeating it.
因此，制定法律的人没有或不应该有任何立法权；而民众即使想剥夺自己的这种不可转让的权利，也是不可能
的，因为根据基本契约，唯一能够约束个人的是普遍意志，而确保某种特定意志符合普遍意志的唯一方法就是
将其付诸人民的自由投票。这一点我已经说过，但还是值得重复一下。

Thus in the task of law-giving we find two things together that seem incompatible: an enterprise that surpasses
human powers, and for its execution an authority that isn’t anything!
因此，在制定法律的任务中，我们发现有两样东西似乎是不相容的：一项是超越人类力量的事业，而执行这项
事业的权威则不是任何东西！

Another difficulty deserves attention. Wise [see Glossary] men who try to speak in their language to the
common herd, instead speaking as the herd does, have no chance of being understood. There are countless
kinds of ideas that can’t possibly be translated into the language of the people. Views that are too broad and
objects that are too distant are equally
还有一个难题值得注意。智者[见术语表]如果试图用自己的语言向普通人说话，而不是像普通人那样说话，就没
有被理解的机会。有无数种观点不可能被翻译成 人民的语言。过于宽泛的观点和过于遥远的对象同样也是如
此。

plan of government that doesn’t suit his particular interests, can’t easily see the advantages he would get as
payback for the continual privations that good laws impose on him. For a populace that is just coming into
being as a body - to be able to relish sound principles of political theory and follow
如果政府的计划不符合他的特殊利益，他就不容易看到他将得到的好处，而这些好处是良好的法律强加给他的
持续的匮乏的回报。对于一个刚刚形成 机构的民众来说，能够津津乐道于合理的政治理论原则并遵循
the fundamental rules of statecraft, the effect would have to become the cause! The social spirit that is to be
created by these institutions would have to preside over their very foundation; and men would have to be, -in
advance of the laws, what they should become by means of the laws. So the law-maker, being unable to appeal
either to force or to -reason, must resort to an authority of a different order that can constrain without
violence and
因此，在国家制度的基本规则中，"果 "必须成为 "因"！这些制度所要创造的社会精神，必须成为这些制度的基
础；而人必须在法律之前，通过法律成为 他们应该成为的人。因此，法律制定者既不能诉诸 武力，也不能诉
诸 理性，就必须求助于另一种权威，这种权威可以 不使用暴力和武力而进行约束。
Rousseau’s next three words: persuader sans convaincre.
卢梭接下来的三个词：convader sans convaincre。
flatly translated: persuade without convincing.
直译：说服而不使人信服。
probable meaning: get people on-side without giving them reasons for this.
可能的意思是：让人们站在一边，却不给他们理由。

That’s what has down the centuries compelled the fathers of the nations to appeal to divine intervention and
credit the gods with their own wisdom, in order that the peoplessubmitting to the laws of the state as to the
laws of nature, and recognising the power that formed the city as the very one that formed mankind-might
obey freely, and bear with docility the yoke of the public happiness.
几个世纪以来，正是这种情况迫使 各国的祖先们祈求神灵的干预，并把 自己的智慧归功于神灵，以便让人民
像服从自然法则一样服从国家的法律，并承认形成城市的力量就是形成人类的力量，从而自由地服从，并顺从
地承受公共幸福的枷锁。

What the legislator puts into the mouth of the immortals are decisions based on a high-flying reason that is far
above the range of the common herd, the aim being to constrain by divine authority those who can’t be moved
by human prudence. But it’s not just anyone who can make the gods speak, or be believed when he claims to be
their interpreter. The only miracle that can prove a legislator’s mission is his great soul. Any man can
立法者向神仙灌输的都是基于高高在上的理性的决定，这种理性远远超出了普通人的范围，其目的是用神权来
约束那些无法被人类的审慎所打动的人。但是，并不是任何人都能让神灵说话，也不是任何人自称是神灵的解
释者就能让人相信。唯一能证明立法者使命的奇迹是他伟大的灵魂。任何人都可以
-engrave words on tablets of stone, or
-在石板上刻字，或
-purchase the services of an oracle, or
-购买神谕服务，或
-fake secret communication with some god, or
-假装与某个神秘密交流，或者
-train a bird to whisper in his ear, or
-训练一只鸟在他耳边低语，或者
find other crude devices for imposing on the people. Someone who can’t do better than that may perhaps
gather round
找到其他粗暴的手段来强加于人民。没有更好办法的人也许会围拢过来
him a band of fools; but he’ll never found an empire, and whatever crazy thing he does found will die soon after
he does. Idle tricks create a temporary bond; only wisdom can make it permanent. The Judaic law, which still
survives, and Islamic law that has ruled half the world for ten centuries, still today proclaim the great men who
laid them down; and while proud philosophy and the blind spirit of political partisanship sees those men as
nothing but lucky impostors, the true political theorist admires in the institutions they set up the great and
powerful genius that presides over durable political structures.
但他永远不会建立一个帝国，无论他建立了什么疯狂的帝国，他都会很快死去。无所事事的把戏只能产生暂时
的联系，只有智慧才能使之永久。犹太律法和伊斯兰律法至今仍然存在，它们统治了半个世界长达十个世纪之
久，今天仍然在宣扬制定这些律法的伟人；虽然 骄傲的哲学和 盲目的政治党派精神认为这些人不过是幸运的
冒牌货，但真正的政治理论家却钦佩他们建立的制度，钦佩主持持久政治结构的伟大而强大的天才。

The right conclusion to draw from all this is not. . . that among us politics and religion have a common object,
but that when nations are first starting up religion is used as an instrument for politics.
从这一切中得出的正确结论不是.......在我们中间，政治和宗教有一个共同的目标，而是在国家刚刚起步时，宗教
被用作政治的工具。
8. The people 8.人民
Before putting up a large building, the architect surveys and tests the ground to see if it can support the weight;
and in the same way the wise legislator doesn’t start by laying down his good laws but by investigating whether
the populace they are intended for is in a condition to receive them. Plato refused to legislate for the Arcadians
and the Cyreniens because he knew that both peoples were rich and couldn’t put up with equality; and Crete
had good laws and bad men because all Minos had done was to impose discipline on a people already burdened
with vice.
同样，明智的立法者不会一开始就制定良好的法律，而是先调查这些法律所针对的人群是否具备接受这些法律
的条件。柏拉图拒绝为阿卡迪亚人和塞里尼亚人立法，因为他知道这两个民族都很富有，无法忍受平等；克里
特岛有好的法律，也有坏的人，因为米诺斯所做的一切都是为了给已经背负恶习的人民强加纪律。

A thousand nations that shone around the earth couldn’t endure good laws for long, and most couldn’t have
endured them at all. Most peoples, like most men, are teachable only in youth; as they grow old they become
impossible to correct. Once customs have become established and prejudices are dug in, trying to reform them
is dangerous and useless; the
在地球上闪闪发光的一千个国家都无法长久地忍受良好的法律，大多数国家根本无法忍受。大多数民族，就像
大多数人一样，只有在年轻时才能接受教导；随着年龄的增长，他们就变得无法纠正。一旦习俗根深蒂固，偏
见根深蒂固，试图改革是危险而无用的。
populace can’t stand having anyone touch its faults, even to remedy them; it’s like the foolish and cowardly
patients who tremble at sight of the doctor.
民众无法忍受别人触及他们的缺点，哪怕是为了纠正他们的缺点；这就像那些愚蠢而懦弱的病人，一看到医生
就发抖。

I’m not denying that there are times in the history of states when…violence and revolutions jolt the populace
into remembering the past, so that the state, set on fire by civil wars, is so to speak born again from its ashes,
and with a renewed vigour of youth springs from the jaws of death. Examples: Sparta at the time of Lycurgus,
Rome after the Tarquins, and in our own day Holland and Switzerland after the expulsion of the tyrants.
我并不否认，在国家的历史上，有时......暴力和革命会让民众回忆起过去，因此，被内战焚烧的国家可以说是在
灰烬中重生，带着重新焕发的青春活力，从死亡的口中蹦出来。例如斯巴达在莱克古斯时代，罗马在塔尔金王
朝之后，荷兰和瑞士在驱逐暴君之后。

But such events are rare; they are exceptions, always to be explained in terms of the particular constitution [see
Glossary of the exceptional state. They can’t even happen twice to the same people, for a populace can make
itself free as long as it is merely uncivilized, but not when the civic spring has wound down. Then disturbances
can destroy it, but revolutions can’t rebuild it: it needs a master, not a liberator. Free peoples, remember this
maxim: ‘Liberty can be gained, but it can never be recovered.’
但这样的事件很少发生；它们是例外，总是要用特殊的宪法来解释[见《例外国家词汇》。它们甚至不可能在同
一个民族身上发生两次，因为只要一个民族还未开化，它就可以使自己获得自由，但当公民的春天已经过去，
它就不可能获得自由。骚乱可以摧毁它，但革命无法重建它：它需要的是主人，而不是解放者。自由的人民，
请记住这句格言：'自由可以获得，但永远无法恢复。

Youth is not infancy. For nations, as for men, there is a period of young adulthood-we may call it ‘maturity’-
before which a nation shouldn’t be made subject to laws; but it isn’t always easy to recognise a people’s
maturity, and if political developments are set going before that, the developments will fail. One people is
amenable to discipline from the beginning; another, not after ten centuries. The Russians will never be really
civilised, because they were ‘civilised’ too soon. Peter -the Great had a genius for imitation, but he didn’t have
the true creative genius that makes everything from nothing. Some of the things he did were good, but most of
them were wrong for that time and place. He saw that his populace was barbarous, but didn’t see that it was
not ripe for civilisation: he wanted to civilise it when all it needed was to be prepared
年轻不是幼稚。对于民族和人来说，都有一个青壮年时期--我们可以称之为 "成熟期"--在此之前，一个民族不应
该受到法律的约束；但要认识到一个民族的成熟并非易事，如果在此之前就开始政治发展，那么发展就会失
败。一个民族从一开始就能接受纪律的约束，而另一个民族在十个世纪之后就不行了。俄国人永远不会真正文
明，因为他们 "文明 "得太早了。彼得大帝有模仿的天才，但他没有无中生有的真正创造才能。他所做的一些事
情是好的，但大多数在当时的时间和地点都是错误的。他看到了他的人民是野蛮的，却没有看到他们还没有成
熟到可以文明化的程度：他想让他们文明化，而他们需要的只是做好准备。
for war. At first he wanted to make Germans, Englishmen, when he ought to have started by making Russians;
he blocked his subjects from ever becoming what they could have been, by persuading them that they were
what they are not. This was like a French teacher who shapes his pupil to be an infant prodigy, and for the rest
of his life to be nothing. The empire of Russia will try to conquer Europe, and will itself be conquered. The
Tatars, its subjects or neighbours, will become its masters and ours, by a revolution that seems to me
inevitable. Indeed, all the kings of Europe are working together to speed it along.
战争。起初，他想塑造德国人、英国人，而他本应该从塑造俄国人开始；他阻止他的臣民成为他们本可以成为
的人，说服他们相信他们是他们所不是的人。这就像一个法国老师，把他的学生塑造成一个神童，让他一辈子
一事无成。俄罗斯帝国将试图征服欧洲，而它自己也将被征服。鞑靼人，它的臣民或邻居，将通过一场在我看
来不可避免的革命，成为它和我们的主人。事实上，欧洲的所有国王都在合力加速这场革命。

9. The people (continued)

9.人民（续）

Just as nature has set limits to the size of a well-made man, and outside those limits makes only giants and
dwarfs, so also for the constitution of a state to be at its best, there are upper and lower bounds to the size of
the state if it isn’t to be too large for good government or too small for self-maintenance. Every body politic has
a maximum strength that it can’t exceed, and that it won’t even reach that maximum if it becomes too large.
Every extension of the social tie slackens it; and generally speaking a small state is stronger in proportion than
a great one. There are countless reasons why this is so. I shall present one of them, and then a cluster of
others.
就像大自然为人造好的人的体型设定了限度，超出这个限度就只能造出巨人和侏儒一样，一个国家的宪法要想
达到最佳状态，国家的体型也要有上下限，这样才能使它不至于太大而无法进行良好的管理，或者太小而无法
自我维持。每个政治体都有一个不能超过的最大强度，如果它变得太大，甚至无法达到这个最大强度。社会纽
带的每一次延伸都会使其松弛；一般来说，小国比大国更强大。造成这种情况的原因数不胜数。 我将介绍其中
一个原因，然后再介绍一系列其他原因。
(1) The burden of government:- Long distances make administration more difficult, just as a weight becomes
heavier at the end of a longer lever. The further up the hierarchy you go, the more burdensome the
administrations is. First, each city has its own -government , which is paid for by the people; so does each
district, still paid for by the people; then each -province, then the great governments. . . .and so on, always
costing more the higher
(1) 政府的负担：--距离越远，管理越困难，就像一根杠杆越长，砝码越重一样。级别越高，行政负担越重。首
先，每个 城市都有自己的 政府，费用由人民支付；每个 县也有自己的 政府，费用仍然由人民支付；然后
是每个省，然后是 大政府。......以此类推，费用总是越高越多。
you go, and always at the expense of the unfortunate people! Last of all comes the supreme administration,
which swamps all the rest. These costs are a continual drain on the subjects; and far from being better
governed by all these different levels of government they’re much worse governed than they would be if they
had only a single authority over them. And with all this going on, there are hardly any resources remaining to
meet emergencies; and whenever these are needed the state is on the brink of destruction.
而且总是以牺牲不幸者的利益为代价！最后是最高行政机构，它淹没了所有其他机构。这些费用持续不断地消
耗着人民的生活；而且，这些不同层级的政府不但没有更好地管理人民，反而比只有一个政府管理他们的情况
要糟糕得多。在这种情况下，几乎没有剩余的资源来应对紧急情况；而每当需要这些资源时，国家就处于毁灭
的边缘。
(2) -The effectiveness of government:- When part of a nation is far distant from the seat of government, this
has bad effects on both sides. On the one hand, the government is weaker and slower
(2) -政府的效率：-当一个国家的部分地区远离政府所在地时，这对双方都会产生不利影响。一方面，政府的力
量会减弱，速度会减慢
-in law-enforcement there,
-在那里执法、
-in preventing people from ill-treating one another there,
-防止人们在那里相互虐待、
-in correcting abuses there,
-纠正那里的弊端、

guarding against seditious undertakings begun there; and on the other hand the populace of that region has
less affection for
另一方面，该地区的人民也不太喜欢......
-its rulers, whom it never sees,
-它从未见过的统治者、
-its country, which to its eyes seems like the world, and
-它的国家，在它眼里就像世界，以及
its fellow-citizens, most of whom are unknown to it.
它的同胞，其中大多数都不为它所知。
The same laws can’t suit so many diverse provinces with different mœurs [see Glossary] and utterly different
climates, differing also in what kind of government they can put up with. ‘ Well, then, let the government have
different laws for different provinces.’ No, because- different laws lead only to trouble and confusion among
populations which-living under the same rulers and in constant communication with one another-intermingle
and intermarry, and when they come under the sway of new customs don’t know whether they can call their
family fortune their own. Among such
同样的法律不可能适合这么多有着不同性格（见术语表）和完全不同气候的省份，而且它们所能忍受的政府类
型也各不相同。 那么，就让政府为不同的省份制定不同的法律吧。不行，因为不同的法律只会给人民带来麻烦
和混乱，因为他们生活在同一个统治者的统治下，彼此之间经常交流，相互交融、通婚，当他们受到新习俗的
影响时，就不知道自己的家产还能不能称得上是自己的。在这些民族中
a multitude of men who don’t know one another, crammed together at the seat of the central administration,
talent is buried, virtue unknown and vice unpunished. The leaders, overwhelmed with business, don’t see
anything for themselves; the state is governed by bureaucrats. Finally, the measures that have to be taken to
maintain the general authority, which all these distant officials wish to evade or abuse, absorb all the
governmental energy, so that there’s none left for the happiness of the people, and barely enough to defend it
when need arises. That’s what happens when a body is too big for its constitution: it cracks, and falls crushed
under its own weight.
众多互不相识的人挤在中央行政机构的所在地，人才被埋没，美德不为人知，恶行不受惩罚。领导者忙于公
务，看不到自己的事情；国家由官僚治理。最后，所有这些遥远的官员都想逃避或滥用权力，而为维护总体权
威而必须采取的措施却耗尽了政府的全部精力，以至于没有一点精力留给人民的幸福，而在必要的时候，也几
乎没有足够的精力来捍卫人民的幸福。这就是一个机构过于庞大的后果：它会出现裂缝，在自身重量的压迫下
倒下。

On the other hand, t’s bad for a state to be too smallA state needs a secure base if it is to be stable-not shaken
to pieces by the shocks that are bound to come its way or by the efforts it will be forced to make to maintain
itself. All populations have a kind of centrifugal force by which they -continually act against one another, and
tend to enlarge themselves at their neighbours’ expense-like Descartes’s vortices! Thus the weak run the risk of
being soon swallowed up; and it is almost impossible for any one state to survive except by putting itself in a
sort of equilibrium with all the others- so that the pressure on all sides is about equal.
另一方面， 国家太小也不好。一个国家要想稳定，就需要有一个安全的基础，而不是被 必然会出现的冲击或
为维持自身而不得不做出的努力震得支离破碎。所有的人群都有一种离心力，通过这种离心力，他们会不断地
相互对抗， 他们倾向于以牺牲邻居为代价来扩大自己，就像笛卡尔的漩涡一样！因此，弱者有可能很快就会被
吞没；而任何一个 国家 要想生存下去，几乎都是不可能的，除非让自己与所有其他国家处于某种平衡状态，
这样各方的压力才会大致相等。

So you can see that there are reasons for contraction and reasons for expansion; and it’s no small part of the
statesman’s skill to balance out the two sides in the way that is best for the preservation of the state. It can be
said that
由此可见，收缩有收缩的理由，扩张有扩张的理由；如何以最有利于维护国家利益的方式平衡这两方面的关
系，是政治家的一项重要技能。可以说
the reasons for expansion, being merely external and relative,
扩张的原因只是外在的和相对的、
should be subordinate to 应从属于
the reasons for contraction, which are internal and absolute.
收缩的原因是内在的、绝对的。
A strong and healthy constitution is the first thing to look for; and it is better to count on the vigour that comes
from
首先要有强健的体魄；最好依靠来自以下方面的活力
good government than on the resources a great territory furnishes.
好的政府比大片领土提供的资源更重要。

I would add that we have known states that were so constituted that the need to make conquests entered into
their very constitution, and had to expand ceaselessly merely in order to survive. Perhaps they congratulated
themselves greatly on this fortunate necessity; yet what it marked out for them were the limits of their
greatness and the inevitable moment of their fall.
我要补充的是，我们知道有这样一些国家， 它们的构成本身就包含着征服的需要， 仅仅为了生存就不得不不
断扩张。也许他们会为这种幸运的必然性而沾沾自喜；然而，这种必然性为他们指明了强大的极限和衰落的必
然时刻。

10. The people (further continued)

10.人民（续）

A body politic can be measured by the extent of its territory or by the number of its people; and the relation
between these two needs to be right if a state is to be really great. The men make the state, and the territory
sustains the men; so the right relation is this:
衡量一个政治体的标准可以是其领土面积，也可以是其人口数量；如果一个国家要真正伟大，这两者之间的关
系就必须正确。人创造国家，领土养育人；因此，正确的关系是这样的：
the land should suffice to maintain the inhabitants, and there should be as many inhabitants as the land can
feed.
土地应该足以养活居民，土地能养活多少居民，就应该有多少居民。
That’s the proportion that provides the maximum strength of a given number of people. If there’s too much
land, it will be troublesome to protect, inadequately cultivated, and over-productive; it will give rise to
defensive wars; if there isn’t enough land, the state has to depend on its neighbours to meet some of its needs;
this will give rise to offensive wars. Any population whose geographical situation forces it to choose between
commerce and war is intrinsically weak: it depends on its neighbours, depends on outcomes; its existence will
be uncertain and short. It either conquers others and changes its -geographical situation, or it is conquered
and becomes nothing. Only insignificance or greatness can keep it free.
这就是在一定数量的人口中提供最大力量的比例。如果土地太多，保护起来就会很麻烦，耕种不足，生产过
剩，就会引发防御性战争；如果土地不够，国家就不得不依赖邻国来满足自己的部分需求，这就会引发进攻性
战争。任何一个国家，如果其地理位置迫使它在商业和战争之间做出选择，那么它在本质上就是弱者：它依赖
于邻国，依赖于结果；它的存在将是不确定的、短暂的。它要么征服他人，改变自己的地理位置，要么被征
服，变得一无所有。只有渺小或伟大才能让它保持自由。

There’s no way of stating the ideal relation of size to population-n hectares per m people-because that varies
according to differences in the quality and fertility of the land, in the nature of what grows on it, in the
climate, and in -the temperaments of the people who live on the land. Some people live in a fertile countryside
and consume little, others living on poor soil eat a lot. The legislator also has to take into account regional
differences in the fertility of women, in how favourable the land is to the growth of population, and in how
much difference is likely to be made by governmental activity. So the legislator should go not by what he -sees
but by what he foresees; he shouldn’t settle for the actual level of the population but should aim for the level
that it ought naturally to attain. Lastly, there are countless situations where the particular local circumstances
demand or allow the acquisition of more territory than seems necessary. Thus, expansion will be great in a
mountainous territory where the natural products-i.e. woods and pastures-need less labour, where it turns out
that women are more fertile than in the plains, and where a great expanse of slope presents only a small level
stretch that can be relied on for growing things. On the other hand, contraction is possible on the coast, even in
territories of rocks and nearly barren sands, because -there fishing largely makes up for the lack of land-
produce, because -the inhabitants have to cluster together order to repel pirates, and further because is
easier to get rid of excess population by starting up colonies.
我们无法说明土地面积与人口的理想关系（每百万人拥有多少公顷土地），因为这取决于 土地的质量和肥力、
土地上生长的植物的性质、 气候以及生活在这片土地上的人们的性情。有些人生活在肥沃的农村，消费很
少，而有些人则生活在贫瘠的土地上，吃得很多。立法者还必须考虑到各地区在妇女生育率、土地对人口增长
的有利程度以及政府活动可能带来的影响等方面的差异。因此，立法者不应该根据他所看到的，而应该根据他
所预见的；他不应该满足于人口的实际水平，而应该以人口自然应该达到的水平为目标。最后，在无数情况
下，当地的特殊环境要求或允许获取比似乎必要的更多的领土。例如，在山区，自然产品--即树林和牧场--需要
的劳动力较少，妇女比平原上的妇女更能生育，大片斜坡上只有一小块平地可以种植植物，在这种情况下，扩
张就会很大。另一方面，在沿海地区，即使是在岩石和几乎荒芜的沙地上，也有可能出现人口萎缩，因为在那
里，捕鱼在很大程度上弥补了陆地产品的不足，因为那里的居民必须聚集在一起才能击退海盗，还因为 建立
殖民地更容易摆脱过剩的人口。

To these conditions for establishing a people there’s another that must be added; it doesn’t take the place of
any of the others, but without it they are all useless. This is the enjoyment of peace and plenty. The threat
posed by want or warfare is especially grave -, because when a state
除了这些建立民族的条件之外，还必须加上另一个条件；它不能取代任何其他条件，但没有它，所有条件都是
无用的。这就是享受和平与富足。匮乏或战争带来的威胁尤为严重--因为当一个国家
is initially getting itself in order it is least capable of offering resistance and easiest to destroy. (A battalion that
is in process of forming up is vulnerable in the same way.) It could resist better at a time of absolute chaos than
at a moment of politically creative- agitation, when everyone is occupied with his own status and not with the
danger. If war, famine, or sedition breaks out at this time of crisis, the state will inevitably be overthrown.
最初正在整顿秩序的部队抵抗能力最弱，也最容易被摧毁（正在组建的部队也是如此）。(在绝对混乱的时候，
它比在 具有政治创造性的骚动时刻（此时每个人都只关心自己的地位，而不关心危险）抵抗得更好。如果在这
个危机时刻爆发战争、饥荒或叛乱，国家将不可避免地被推翻。

It’s true that many governments have been set up during such storms; but in those cases it was the
governments themselves that destroyed the state. Usurpers always create or select times of disturbance and
public fear to get destructive laws passed-laws that the people would never have adopted when they were
thinking coolly. One of the surest ways of distinguishing a legislator’s work from a tyrant’s is through the
question: When did he choose to act?
的确，许多政府都是在这样的风暴中建立起来的；但在那些情况下，是政府本身摧毁了国家。篡夺者总是制造
或选择骚乱和公众恐惧的时期来通过破坏性的法律，而这些法律是人民在冷静思考时绝不会通过的。区分立法
者的工作和暴君的工作的最可靠的方法之一是通过问题来区分：他是何时选择采取行动的？

Then what people is a fit subject for legislation? One

那么，什么人适合立法呢？一个
-which is already held together by some unity of origin, interest, or agreement, and has never yet felt the real
yoke of law;
-它已经被某种起源、利益或协议的统一性维系在一起，从未感受过真正的法律枷锁；
which doesn’t have deeply ingrained customs or superstitions,
没有根深蒂固的习俗或迷信、
-which isn’t afraid of being overwhelmed by sudden invasion,
-它不怕被突如其来的入侵所淹没、
which, without entering into its neighbours’ quarrels, can resist each of them unaided or can get the help of
one to repel another,
在不卷入邻国争斗的情况下，能够在无人帮助的情况下抵抗每一个邻国，或者能够得到一个邻国的帮助来击退
另一个邻国、
-in which each member can be known by every other, and there is no need to lay on any man burdens too
heavy for a man to bear;
-在这种情况下，每个成员都能被其他成员所了解，而且没有必要给任何人施加一个人无法承受的沉重负担；
-which doesn’t need and isn’t needed by other peoples,
-其他人不需要也不需要， 。

which is neither rich nor poor, but self-sufficient; and finally

非富非贫，自给自足；最后
-which combines the solidity of an ancient people with the docility [here = ‘willingness to be led’] of a new one.
-它既有古老民族的稳固，又有新民族的温顺（这里指 "愿意接受领导"）。
What makes the work of legislation difficult is not so much what has to be constructed as what has to be
destroyed; and what makes success so rare is the impossibility of finding -natural simplicity combined with
the features that are needed for society to be possible. All these conditions are indeed rarely found united,
which is why few states have good constitutions.
使立法工作变得困难重重的，与其说是必须建设什么，不如说是必须摧毁什么；而使立法工作如此罕见地取得
成功的，则是不可能找到--自然的简单性与 社会所需的特征相结合。所有这些条件确实很少能结合在一起，这
就是为什么很少有国家拥有好的宪法。

There is still in Europe one country capable of being given laws-Corsica. That brave people has shown such
valour and persistency in regaining and defending its liberty well that it deserves to have some wise man
teach it how to -preserve it. I have a feeling that some day that little island will astonish Europe. [Napoleon
Bonaparte was born there!]
在欧洲，还有一个国家能够被赋予法律--科西嘉。这个勇敢的民族在 恢复和 捍卫自由方面表现出了英勇顽强
的精神，值得一些智者教它如何维护自由。我有一种预感，总有一天，这个小岛会让欧洲大吃一惊。[拿破仑-波
拿巴就出生在那里！］

11. Differences among systems of legislation

11.不同立法体系之间的差异

What precisely is the greatest good of all, the good that should be the goal of every system of legislation? It
comes down to two main things: liberty and equality-liberty because any constraint on one individual means
that that much force is taken from the body of the state, and equality because liberty can’t exist without it.
究竟什么才是最大的善，什么才是每一种立法制度都应追求的善呢？归结起来主要有两点： 自由和 平等--自
由是因为对一个人的任何限制都意味着从国家的躯体中抽走了那么多的力量，而平等是因为没有平等就没有自
由。

I have already defined civil liberty. As for equality: we should take this to mean not that the degrees of power
and riches are to be absolutely the same for everyone, but that
我已经给公民自由下了定义。至于平等：我们认为这并不意味着每个人的权力和财富程度绝对相同，而是指
those with power shan’t sink to the level of using violence, and that their power will always be exercised by
virtue of rank and law;
拥有权力的人不会沦落到使用暴力的地步，他们的权力永远是凭借等级和法律来行使的；
and that 以及

No citizen will ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself
没有一个公民会富裕到足以买下另一个人，也没有一个公民会贫穷到被迫出卖自己 。
-which implies, on the part of the great, no extremes of goods and credit [= ‘borrowing power’] and on the side
of the ordinary folk no extremes of miserliness or greed.
-这就意味着，在大人物方面，不能在商品和信贷[="借贷能力"]上走极端，而在普通人方面，不能在吝啬或贪婪
上走极端。

They say that this equality is a theoretical pipe-dream that can’t exist in practice. But even - if it is certain to be
abused, is that a reason for not at least making regulations concerning it? It’s precisely because the forces at
work in the world always tend to destroy equality that the force of legislation should always tend to maintain it.
他们说，这种平等只是理论上的空想，在实践中是不可能存在的。但是，即使--如果它肯定会被滥用，这难道就
是不至少制定相关法规的理由吗？正因为世界上起作用的力量总是倾向于破坏平等，所以立法的力量应该总是
倾向于维护平等。

But these general goals of any good constitution [see Glossaryl need to be adapted in each country to the local
situation and the character of the inhabitants; it’s these that should determine the particular institutional
system that is best, not perhaps in itself, but for the state in question. For example: what if the soil is barren
and unproductive, or the land too crowded for its inhabitants? Then turn to industry and the crafts, and
exchange what they produce for the commodities you lack. If on the other hand your territory is rich and
fertile, focus your efforts on labour-intensive agriculture, and drive out the crafts that would only depopulate
your territories by clustering what few inhabitants you have in a few towns. If you live on an extensive and
manageable
但是，任何一部好宪法[见《词汇表》]的这些总体目标，在每个国家都需要根据当地的情况和居民的特点加以调
整；正是这些因素决定了特定的制度体系是最好的，也许不是它本身，而是最适合这个国家的。例如：如果土
壤贫瘠，无法生产，或者土地过于拥挤，无法容纳居民，该怎么办？那就求助于工业和手工业，用它们生产的
东西来交换你所缺乏的商品。另一方面，如果您的领土富饶肥沃，那就把精力集中在劳动密集型农业上，把手
工业者赶走，因为手工业者会把为数不多的居民集中在几个城镇里，从而使您的领土人口减少。 如果您生活
在广阔而易于管理的土地上

coast-line, cover the sea with ships and develop trade and navigation; your state will have a life that is brilliant
and short! If on your coast the sea washes nothing but almost inaccessible rocks, settle for a primitive way of
life based on fish-eating; you’ll have a quieter life, perhaps a better one, certainly a happier one. In short, every
nation has, along with principles that all nations have, something that gives them a particular application in its
case, and makes its legislation strictly its own. Thus, among the Jews long ago and more recently among the
Arabs, the main thing has been religion, among the Athenians literature, at Carthage and Tyre commerce, at
Rhodes shipping, at Sparta war, at Rome virtue. The author of The Spirit of the Laws [Montesquieu] has shown
with many examples the skills the legislator uses in directing the constitution in one or other of these
directions.
如果你的海岸线上，用船只覆盖海洋，发展贸易和航海；你的国家将拥有辉煌而短暂的生命！如果在你的海岸
线上，海水冲刷的只是几乎无法触及的岩石，那就选择以吃鱼为基础的原始生活方式；你的生活会更平静，也
许会更好，当然也会更幸福。总之，每个民族都有一些原则，所有民族都有一些原则，这些原则在每个民族的
情况下都有其特殊的适用性，并使每个民族的立法严格地属于自己。因此，在很久以前的犹太人和最近的阿拉
伯人中，主要的东西是宗教；在雅典人中，主要的东西是文学；在迦太基和提尔，主要的东西是商业；在罗得
岛，主要的东西是航运；在斯巴达，主要的东西是战争；在罗马，主要的东西是美德。论法的精神》一书的作
者[孟德斯鸠]用许多例子说明了立法者在把宪法引向这些方向中的一个或另一个方向时所使用的技巧。

What makes the constitution of a state really solid and lasting is its having a population whose members
behave so decently to one another that natural relations are always in harmony with the laws, so that all the
law does is, so to speak, to assure, accompany and adjust those natural relations. But if the legislator aims
wrongly and adopts a principle other than the one that is rooted in the nature of things-
一个国家的宪法之所以能够真正稳固和持久，就在于它有这样一群人，他们的行为举止是如此得体，以至于自
然关系总是与法律相协调，因此，可以说，法律所做的一切，都是为了保证、伴随和调整这些自然关系。但
是，如果立法者的目的是错误的，采用了 植根于事物本质的原则之外的原则
his makes for servitude while the natural one makes for liberty, or
他的使人奴役，而自然的使人自由，或者说
his makes for riches, while the other makes for population-growth,
一个可以致富，一个可以增加人口、
-his makes for peace, while the other makes for conquest
-一个是和平，一个是征服
-the laws will gradually lose their influence, the constitution will alter, and the state will have no rest from
trouble till it is either destroyed or changed, and invincible nature has re-asserted its power.
-法律将逐渐失去其影响力，宪法将发生变化，国家将永无宁日，直到它被摧毁或被改变，不可战胜的自然重新
彰显其力量。

12. Classifying laws 12.法律分类

If the whole thing is to be set in order-i.e. if the public thing is to be put into the best possible shape-there are
various relations to be taken account of. [Rousseau used chose publique = ‘public thing’ expecting his readers
to know that the Latin for this is res publica = ‘republic’.] (1) There is the action of the complete body upon
itself, i.e. the relation of the whole to the whole, of the sovereign to the state. This relation is composed of the
relations among the parts of the whole, as we shall see in due course.
如果要使整个事物井然有序，也就是说，如果要使公共事物达到最佳状态，就必须考虑到各种关系。[卢梭使用
chose publique ="公共事物"，希望他的读者知道拉丁语中的公共事物是 res publica ="共和国"。这种关系是由
整体各部分之间的关系构成的，我们将在适当的时候看到这一点。

The laws that regulate this relation are called political laws, and they deserve their name ‘fundamental laws’-if
they are well done. -What does their quality have to do with their status as fundamental? Well , if for each state
there’s only one good way of organising things, the populace that has found it should stick to it, which means
that for them it is fundamental ; but if the established organisation is bad, why should laws that prevent it
from being good be regarded as fundamental? Actually a people is always in a position to change its laws. Even
if they are good laws? Yes; for if the populace chooses to do itself harm, who can have a right to stop it?
调整这种关系的法律被称为政治法，如果做得好的话，它们就配得上 "根本法 "的称号。-它们的质量与它们的基
本法地位有什么关系呢？那么 ，如果每个国家只有一种好的组织方式，那么找到了这种方式的人民就应该坚持
下去， 这意味着对他们来说这种方式是根本的 ；但如果既定的组织方式是坏的，为什么阻止它变好的法律会
被视为根本法呢？事实上，一个民族总是能够改变自己的法律。即使是好的法律？是的；因为如果人民选择伤
害自己，谁有权阻止呢？
(2) Then there’s the relation of the members (a) to one another or (b) to the body as a whole. There should be
as little as possible of (2a) and as much as possible of (2b). Each citizen would then be perfectly independent of
all the rest, and at the same time very dependent on the city; and these two results are brought about always by
the same means, because only (2b) the strength of the state can secure (2a) the liberty of its members. From
this second relation arise civil laws.
(2) 然后是成员（a）之间或（b）与整个机构的关系。(2a)应该越少越好，(2b)应该越多越好。这样，每个公民
就可以完全独立于其他所有公民，同时又非常依赖于城市；而这两种结果总是通过同样的手段产生的，因为只
有（2b）国家的力量才能确保（2a）其成员的自由。从第二种关系中产生了民法。
(3) We may consider also a third kind of relation between the individual and the law, the relation of
disobedience to
(3) 我们还可以考虑个人与法律之间的第三种关系，即 不服从法律的关系。
-punishment. This creates a need for criminal laws, which are basically not so much a kind of law as the
sanction behind all the other laws.
-惩罚。这就产生了对刑法的需求，刑法从根本上说与其说是一种法律，不如说是所有其他法律背后的制裁。
(4) Along with these three kinds of law goes a fourth, most important of all, which
(4) 除了这三种法律之外，还有第四种最重要的法律，即
-is inscribed not on tablets of marble or brass but on the hearts of the citizens;
-它不是刻在大理石或铜板上，而是刻在公民的心上；
-forms the real constitution of the state;
-构成了国家的真正宪法；
-takes on new powers every day;
-每天都有新的力量；
-restores or replaces other laws when they decay or die out, keeps a people in the spirit in which it was
established, and gradually replaces authority by the force of habit.
-当其他法律衰落或消亡时，它能恢复或取代其他法律，使人民保持其建立时的精神状态，并通过习惯的力量逐
渐取代权威。

I am speaking of mœeurs [see Glossary], of custom, above all of public opinion; an element in the situation
that our political theorists don’t recognise, though success in everything else depends on it. This is the element
that the great legislator
我说的是mœeurs[见术语表]，是习俗，首先是公众舆论；这是我们的政治理论家没有认识到的情况中的一个因
素，尽管其他一切的成功都取决于它。这就是伟大的立法者
is secretly concerned with, though he seems to be attending only to particular regulations. The regulations are
only the arc of the arch; mours come into it only later, but they eventually constitute the arch’s immovable
keystone.
尽管他似乎只关注特定的规定，但他暗中关注的是什么。规定只是拱门的弧线，"谬误 "是后来才出现的，但它
们最终构成了拱门不可动摇的基石。
[Rousseau is referring to the classical method of building stone arches:
[卢梭指的是建造石拱的古典方法：
The stones making the arc are held in place by external supports until the final stone, the keystone, is dropped
into place, and then the whole thing holds itself up.]
构成弧线的石头由外部支撑物固定，直到最后一块石头，即楔形石，落到合适的位置，然后整个石头就会自己
支撑起来]。

Of these different sorts of laws the only ones that are relevant to my subject are the political laws, which
determine the forms of the government.
在这些不同类型的法律中，唯一与我的主题相关的是政治法，它决定了政府的形式。

BOOK 3 第 3 册
Before speaking of the different forms of government, let us try to fix the exact sense of the word ‘government’,
which hasn’t yet been thoroughly explained.
在谈论不同形式的政府之前，让我们先尝试确定 "政府 "一词的确切含义，因为这个词还没有被彻底解释清楚。

1. Government in general 1.政府概况

I warn you that this chapter requires careful reading, and that I don’t have the skill to make myself clear to
someone who won’t attend.
我警告你们，这一章需要仔细阅读，我没有能力向不愿意听课的人说清楚。

Every free action is produced by two causes working together: one is mental, namely the volition that
determines the act; the other is physical, namely the power that carries the act out. When I walk towards
something, it is necessary -that I should will to go there and that my feet should carry me there. If a paralytic
wills to run and an active man doesn’t, they will both stay where they are. The body politic has the same motive
powers, which again divide into will and force: will is called ‘legislative power’ and force is called ‘executive
power’. Nothing is done, nothing should be done, without the two of them acting together.
每一个自由行动都是由两个原因共同作用产生的：一个是精神原因，即决定行动的意志；另一个是物质原因，
即实施行动的力量。当我走向某处时，我必须有去那里的意愿，我的双脚必须把我带到那里。如果一个瘫痪的
人想跑，而一个好动的人不想跑，他们都会留在原地。政治体也有同样的动力，同样分为意志和力量：意志被
称为 "立法权"，力量被称为 "行政权"。如果没有这两种力量的共同作用，任何事情都无法完成，任何事情都不
应该完成。

We have seen that the legislative power belongs to the people and can’t belong anywhere else. But the
principles I have laid down make it easy to see that the executive power can’t belong to the people as legislature
or sovereign [see Glossary, because it consists wholly of particular acts that fall outside the scope of the law,
and consequently of the sovereign, whose acts must always be laws.
我们已经看到，立法权属于人民，不能属于任何其他地方。但根据我所阐述的原则，我们不难看出，行政权不
可能属于作为立法者或主权者的人民[见术语表，因为它完全由法律范围之外的特殊行为组成，因此也不属于主
权者，而主权者的行为必须始终是法律。

So the public force needs an agent of its own…to -set it to work under the direction of the general will, to put
the state in touch with the sovereign, to do for the collective person something like what the union of soul and
body does
因此，公共力量需要一个自己的代理人......让它在普遍意志的指导下工作， 使国家与君主联系起来， 为集体
的人做一些类似于灵魂与肉体结合的事情
for an individual man. Here we have what is, in the state, the rationale of government; it’s quite wrong to
identify it with the sovereign-it serves the sovereign .
对于 个人 而言。在这里，我们看到了国家、政府的基本原理；把它与君主相提并论是完全错误的--它是为君
主服务的......。

Then what is government? An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the sovereign to enable them
to communicate with one another; it’s job is to apply the laws and to maintain civil and political liberty.
那么什么是政府呢？政府是设立在臣民和君主之间的中间机构，使他们能够相互沟通；政府的职责是执行法
律，维护公民和政治自由。

The members of this body are called ‘magistrates’ [see Glossaryl or ‘kings’, i.e. governors, and the body as a
whole has the name ‘prince’. Thus, those who claim that the act by which a people puts itself under leaders is
not a contract are quite right. It is simply a , in which the leaders-mere officials of the
sovereign-exercise in its name the power that it has lodged with them. The sovereign can limit this power,
modify it or take it back, just as it wishes; because the alienation [see Glossary] of such a right is incompatible
with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the goal of association.
这个机构的成员被称为 "地方长官"（magistrates）[见《词汇表》或 "国王"（king），即总督，而整个机构则被
称为 "王子"（prince）。因此，那些声称一个民族将自己置于领导之下的行为不是 契约的人是非常正确的。它
只是一个 ，在这个 中，领导人--仅仅是君主的官员--以君主的名义行使君主
赋予他们的权力。主权者可以随意限制、修改或收回这种权力；因为这种权利的转让[见术语表]不符合社会团体
的性质，也有悖于联合的目标。

So in my usage ‘government’ (or ‘supreme administration’) names the legitimate exercise of the executive
power, and ‘prince’ or ‘magistrate’ names the man or the body entrusted with that administration.
因此，在我的用法中，"政府"（或 "最高行政机构"）指合法行使行政权的机构，而 "王子 "或 "行政官 "则指受托
行使行政权的人或机构。
[In the next couple of pages Rousseau uses technical terms from mathematics, in ways that are filtered out
from the present version because they are too hard to make clear here. (i) He is using the terms in senses
which they had then and don’t have now. (ii) He also exploits the ambiguities of words that have (or had)
mathematical and non-mathematical senses. (iii) It is pretty clear that these detours through mathematicseven
if they don’t deserve the mockery they have often attracted-don’t really help us to understand Rousseau’s
theories of politics.]
[在接下来的几页中，卢梭使用了数学中的专业术语，这些术语在本版本中被过滤掉了，因为在这里很难说清
楚。(i) 他使用的术语在当时有，而现在没有。(ii) 他还利用了具有（或曾经具有）数学和非数学意义的词语的模
糊性。(iii) 很明显，这些通过数学绕来绕去的弯路，即使它们不值得经常招致嘲笑，也并不能真正帮助我们理解
卢梭的政治理论]。
…The (b) government gets from the (a) sovereign the
......(b)政府从(a)主权国获得
orders it gives to the © people; and for the state to be properly balanced there must be a steady relationship
between the a-to-b relation and the b-to-c relation. If any of these three terms were altered, the steady
relationship would instantly be destroyed. [Rousseau puts that in terms of the breakdown of a mathematical
ratio; that is part of the detour discussed in the preceding note.] If the (a) sovereign tries to govern, or the (b)
magistrate tries to give laws, or if the © subjects refuse to obey, disorder takes the place of regularity, force and
will no longer act together, and the state is dissolved and falls into despotism or anarchy. Lastly…, there is also
only one good government possible for a state; but as the relations within a people can change in countless
ways, different governments may be good for different peoples or even for a single people at different times.
要使国家保持适当的平衡，a-to-b 关系和 b-to-c 关系之间必须有一种稳定的关系。如果这三个条件中的任何一
个发生变化，稳定的关系就会立即被破坏。[卢梭用数学比率的崩溃来说明这一点，这也是前注所述迂回过程的
一部分。］如果(a)君主试图治理国家，或(b)行政官试图颁布法律，或(c)臣民拒绝服从，那么无序就会取代有
序，力量和意志不再共同作用，国家就会解体，陷入专制或无政府状态。最后......，一个国家可能只有一个好的
政府；但由于一个民族内部的关系会以无数种方式发生变化，不同的政府可能对不同的民族，甚至在不同时期
对一个民族都是好的。

Trying to give some idea of the various relations that may hold between these two terms (a) and ©, I shall take
as an example the numerical size of a population, which is the most easily expressible.
为了说明（a）和© 这两个词之间可能存在的各种关系，我将以最容易表达的人口数量为例。

Suppose the state is composed of ten thousand citizens. The sovereign can only be considered collectively and
as a body; but each member, in his role as a subject, is considered individually; so the sovereign is to the
subject as ten thousand to one, meaning that each member of the state has as his share only a ten-thousandth
part of the sovereign authority, although he is wholly under that authority’s control. If the population numbers
a hundred thousand, the condition of the subjects doesn’t change; each of them is under the whole authority of
the laws, while his vote. . . .now has only a tenth as much influence in drawing them up. Thus, the people-to-
sovereign ratio increases with the number of the citizens, from which this follows: The larger the state, the less
the liberty. . . .
假设国家由一万名公民组成。主权者只能作为一个整体来考虑；但作为臣民的每个成员都是单独考虑的；因
此，主权者对臣民来说就如同万分之一，也就是说，国家的每个成员都只拥有主权者权力的万分之一，尽管他
完全处于主权者的控制之下。如果人口达到十万，臣民的状况并没有改变；他们每个人都处于法律的全部权威
之下，而他的选票.......现在对制定法律的影响只有十分之一。因此，人民与君主的比例会随着公民人数的增加而
增加，由此可见：国家越大，自由越少。. . .
Now, the larger the ratio of particular wills to the general
现在，特殊意志与一般意志的比例越大
will. . …, the greater the repressive force should be. If the government is to be a good one, it should be
proportionately stronger as the population is greater.
将........，镇压力量就应该越大。如果政府是一个好政府，它就应该随着人口的增加而按比例地加强。
[Two remarks: (i) The ellipsis marks the place where Rousseau equates the relation
[两点说明：(i) 省略号标出了卢梭将以下关系等同起来的地方
particular wills-the general will
特殊意愿--一般意愿
with the relation 与
mœurs-lois [lois are laws; for mours see Glossary].
mœurs-lois[lois是法律，mours见词汇表]。
(ii) What Rousseau wrote means The smaller the ratio of particular wills…, but that must have been a slip.]
(ii) 卢梭写道："特殊意志的比例越小......"，但这一定是笔误。］

On the other hand, the bigger the state the more temptations and chances the holders of the public authority
have for abusing their power; so the greater the force government should have for keeping the people in hand,
the greater the force the sovereign should have keeping the government in hand. I’m not talking about absolute
amount-of-force, but of the comparative amounts of force of the different parts of the state.
另一方面，国家越大，公权力拥有者滥用权力的诱惑和机会就越多；因此，政府在约束人民方面应该拥有的力
量越大，君主在约束政府方面应该拥有的力量就越大。我说的不是绝对的力量大小，而是国家不同部分的力量
对比。

This conceptual scheme of ratios of (a) the sovereign to (b) the prince (-or government ) and of the prince to ©
the people is not an arbitrary idea, but an inevitable consequence of the nature of the body politic… One thing
we learn from it is that there is no single unique and absolute form of government, but rather as many
governments differing in nature as there are states differing in size.
这种(a)君主对(b)王子（或政府 ）以及王子对©人民的比例概念方案并不是一种武断的想法，而是政治体性质
的必然结果......我们从中学到的一点是，并不存在单一的、独一无二的、绝对的政府形式，而是有许多性质不同
的政府，就像有许多大小不同的国家一样。

In discussing this matter in terms of population-size, I am merely taking an example; the ratios that I am
basically talking about are not measured by the number of men, but quite generally by the amount of action,
which is a combination of a multitude of causes. As for my briefly borrowing terms from mathematics, let me
say that I’m well aware that moral quantities don’t allow of geometrical precision.
在用人口数量来讨论这个问题时，我只是举了一个例子；我所说的比例基本上不是用人的数量来衡量的，而是
用行动的数量来衡量的，而行动的数量是多种原因的综合。至于我简短地借用数学术语的问题，请允许我说，
我很清楚道德数量不允许有几何上的精确性。
[At this point, Rousseau presents another mathematical flourish, and then pushes it aside:] Without wrestling
with this proliferation of technical terms, let us settle
[在这一点上，卢梭提出了另一个数学上的华丽词藻，然后把它推到一边：]我们就不纠结这些繁多的专业术语
了，让我们来讨论一下
for something much simpler, namely a view of (b) the government as a new body within the state, distinct
from © the people and (a) the sovereign, and intermediate between them.
一种简单得多的观点，即认为(b)政府是国家内部的一个新机构，有别于© 人民和(a)君主，介于两者之间。

Between the government and the state there is this essential difference: the state exists in its own right,
whereas the government exists only through the sovereign. Thus the prince’s dominant will is, or should be,
nothing but the general will or the law; his force is only the public force concentrated in his hands, and the
moment he tries to base any absolute and independent act on his own authority, the whole structure starts to
come apart. Look at it this way: If the prince came to have a particular will more active than the sovereign’s,
and employed the public force in his hands in obedience to this particular will, there would in effect be two
sovereigns-one rightful and the other actual-and the social union would evaporate instantly, and the body
politic would be dissolved.
政府与国家之间存在着本质区别：国家以其自身的权利而存在，而政府只是通过君主而存在。因此，王子的主
导意志不是，或者说应该不是，而是一般意志或法律；他的力量只是集中在他手中的公共力量，一旦他试图将
任何绝对和独立的行为建立在自己的权威之上，整个结构就会开始崩溃。这样来看：如果王子拥有比君主更积
极的特殊意志，并按照这种特殊意志使用他手中的公共力量，那么实际上就会出现两个君主--一个是合法的君
主，另一个是实际的君主--社会联盟就会立即消失，政治体也会解体。

However, for the government to have an existence and a real life distinguishing it from the body of the state,
and for all its members to be able to act together towards the goal for which it was set up, it must have a
particular myself, a sensibility shared among all its members, a force, a will of its own, that causally favours its
preservation. This existence as a particular implies assemblies, councils, a power to deliberate and make
decisions about the rights, titles, and privileges that are to belong exclusively to the prince, giving to his office
as magistrate honours that are proportional to how arduous it is. It is difficult to organise things so that (b) this
subordinate whole fits into © the big whole in such a way that in affirming it own constitution (b) doesn’t alter
the general constitution, and always distinguishes the particular force it possesses, which is meant for it its
preservation, from the public force, which is the preservation of © the state;
然而，为了使政府具有有别于国家机构的存在和真正的生命，为了使其所有成员能够共同行动以实现其设立的
目标，它必须有一个特殊的自己，一个其所有成员共有的感性，一种力量，一种自身的意志，这种力量和意志
有利于它的保存。这种特殊的存在意味着集会、议会，意味着对专属于王子的权利、头衔和特权进行审议和决
策的权力，意味着赋予他作为地方行政长官的荣誉，这种荣誉与他的艰辛程度成正比。要使(b)这个从属的整体
与(b)这个大整体相适应，使(b)在确认自己的宪法时不改变总体宪法，并始终将它所拥有的、旨在维护自身的特
殊力量与维护国家的公共力量区分开来，这是很难做到的；
and, in short, is always ready to sacrifice (b) the government to © the people, and never to sacrifice the people
to the government.
简而言之，就是随时准备牺牲 (b) 政府© 人民，而绝不牺牲人民© 政府。

Although the artificial body of (b) the government is the work of (a) another artificial body, so that it has only a
kind of borrowed and subordinate life, this doesn’t prevent it from being able to act more or less vigorously and
quickly, or from being in more or less robust health, so to speak. Finally, without moving directly away from
the goal for which it was instituted, the government may deviate somewhat from that goal- how much
depends on how it is constituted.
虽然(b)政府的人造机构是(a)另一个人造机构的工作，因此它只有一种借用和从属的生命，但这并不妨碍它或多
或少地有力和迅速行动，也不妨碍它或多或少地健康，可以这么说。最后，在不直接偏离建立政府的目标的情
况下，政府可能会 在一定程度上偏离这个目标-- 偏离的程度取决于它是如何构成的。

From all these differences arise the various relations that the government should have to the body of the state.
-The details of these relations. should vary with particular contingent changes that the state undergoes; for it
often happens that an intrinsically excellent government becomes dreadful because its relations to the body
politic haven’t changed in response to defects in the body politic.
从所有这些差异中产生了政府与国家主体之间的各种关系。-这些关系的细节应随着国家所经历的特定偶然变化
而变化；因为经常会发生这样的情况，一个本质上优秀的政府变得可怕，因为它与政治体的关系没有随着政治
体的缺陷而改变。

2. The source of the variety among forms of government

2.政府形式多样性的根源

To set out the general cause of the above differences, we have to distinguish the government from the prince,
as we earlier distinguished © the state from (a) the sovereign.
为了说明上述差异的一般原因，我们必须将 政府与 王子区分开来，就像我们前面区分©国家与（a）君主一
样。

How many members the magistracy can have varies. I said that the ratio of the subjects to the sovereign was
greater in proportion as the population was more numerous; and by an obvious and clear analogy we can say
the same of the relation of the magistrates to the government.
地方行政长官可以有多少名成员，各不相同。我说过，人口越多，臣民与君主的比例就越大；通过一个明显而
清晰的类比，我们可以说地方法官与政府的关系也是如此。

Now, the total force of the government is always that of the state, so it doesn’t vary; from which it follows that
the more of this force the government spends on its own members the less it has left to employ on the whole
people. Thus, the more magistrates there are, the weaker the government is. This principle is really basic, so we
should do our best to get clear about it.
现在，政府的总力量始终是国家的力量，所以它不会变化；由此可见，政府在自己成员身上花费的力量越多，
它在全体人民身上所剩的力量就越少。因此，地方官越多，政府就越弱。这个原理非常基本，所以我们应该尽
力搞清楚它。

In the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three essentially different wills: (i) the private will of the
individual, tending only to his personal advantage; (ii) the common will of the magistrates, which relates
purely to the advantage of the prince (call this ‘corporate will’, which is general in relation to the government
and particular in relation to the state of which the government is a part); and (iii) the will of the people, i.e. the
sovereign will, which is general both in relation to the state regarded as the whole, and to the government
regarded as a part of the whole.
在地方官身上，我们可以区分出三种本质上不同的意志：(i)个人的私人意志，只涉及个人利益；(ii)地方官的共
同意志，纯粹涉及王子的利益（称之为 "团体意志"，就政府而言具有普遍性，就政府作为其一部分的国家而言
具有特殊性）；(iii)人民的意志，即主权意志，就作为整体的国家和作为整体一部分的政府而言具有普遍性。

In a perfect act of legislation, the individual or particular will should be at zero; the government’s corporate
will should be thoroughly subordinate; and the general or sovereign will, therefore, should always predominate
and should be the sole guide of all the rest.
在一个完美的立法行为中，个人或特殊意志应为零；政府的企业意志应完全处于从属地位；因此，一般或主权
意志应始终占主导地位，并应成为所有其他意志的唯一指导。

It’s just a fact of nature that these different wills become more active the more they are concentrated. Thus, the
general will is always the weakest, the corporate will second, and the individual will strongest of all: so that in
the government each member is first of all
这些不同的意志越集中就越活跃，这是自然界的事实。因此，一般意志总是最薄弱的，企业意志次之，而个人
意志则最强：所以在政府中，每个成员首先是
himself, answerable only to his own personal needs and desires , then
自己， 只对自己的个人需求和欲望负责 ，那么
-a magistrate, answerable to the needs and duties of the magistracy, the government , and then
-一个地方官， 对地方官的需要和职责负责，政府 ，然后
-a citizen, - answerable to the needs of the state-
-一个公民，--对国家的需要负责
-in exactly the reverse order to what the social system requires.
-与社会制度的要求正好相反。

This granted, if the whole government is in the hands of one man, his particular will is all of a piece with the
corporate will -of the government , so that the latter-the will of the government concentrated in a single man–
is at its highest possible degree of intensity. But how much force a government employs depends on the
strength of its will, and the absolute force of the government is invariable; so it follows that the most active
government is that of one man.
这样一来，如果整个政府都掌握在一个人的手中，那么他的特殊意志就会与政府的整体意志 融为一体，从而使
后者--集中在一个人身上的政府意志--达到可能的最高强度。但是，一个政府使用多大的力量取决于其意志的
强度，而政府的绝对力量是不变的；因此，最活跃的政府是一个人的政府。

Suppose we go in the opposite direction, letting (a) the legislative authority be (b) the government-i.e. giving
the role of (b) prince to (a) the sovereign-thereby turning © all the citizens into magistrates: then (b) the
corporate will, being identified with (a) the general will, won’t have any more activity than (a) does, leaving ©
the particular will as strong as it can possibly be. Thus, the government, having always the same absolute force,
will be at the lowest point of its relative force or activity.
如果我们反其道而行之，让(a)立法机构成为(b)政府，即把(b)王子的角色交给(a)君主，从而把©所有公民都变
成地方官：那么，(b)企业意志与(a)一般意志相一致，就不会比(a)有更多的活动，而©特殊意志就会尽可能地强
大。因此，政府的绝对力量始终不变，但相对力量或活动却处于最低点。

These relations are beyond question, and other considerations still further confirm them. We can see, for
instance, that each magistrate is more active in the body to which he belongs than each citizen is in the body to
which he belongs, and that consequently each particular will has much more influence on the acts of the
government than on those of the sovereign; for each magistrate is almost always assigned to some
governmental function, whereas each citizen on his own exercises no function of sovereignty. Furthermore, the
bigger the state grows, the more its real force increases, though not in direct proportion to its increase in size;
but when the state remains the same, it won’t do the magistracy any good to incease its numbers, because its
force is that of the state, i.e. stays the same…
这些关系是毋庸置疑的，其他方面的考虑也进一步证实了这一点。例如，我们可以看到，每个地方行政官在他
所属的机构中比每个公民在他所属的机构中更积极，因此，每个人的意志对政府行为的影响比对君主行为的影
响要大得多；因为每个地方行政官几乎总是被指派履行某种政府职能，而每个公民自己却不行使主权职能。此
外，国家越大，它的实际力量就越大，尽管这与国家的大小并不成正比；但当国家保持不变时，增加地方行政
官的人数对他们没有任何好处，因为他们的力量就是国家的力量，即保持不变......

Also, it’s certain that the more people are put in charge of some project, the longer it takes to get it going; that
in giving too much weight to prudence one doesn’t make
另外，可以肯定的是， 负责某个项目的人越多，项目启动所需的时间就越长； 过于看重审慎，就不会让人
enough allowance for the possibility of good luck; and that -with too many people involved an opportunity
may be let slip so that all this deliberation results in the loss of the goal that the deliberation was about.
足够考虑到 运气好的可能性；以及 --由于参与的人太多 ，可能会错失良机，以至于所有这些商议的结果都
是失去商议的目标。

I have just shown that the government becomes slack in proportion to any increase in the number of
magistrates; and I showed earlier [page 30] that the more people there are, the greater the repressive force
needs to be. From this it follows that the ratio of magistrates to the government should vary inversely to the
ratio of the subjects to the sovereign; which means that the larger the state is the more the government should
shrink, so that the number of the rulers diminish in proportion to the increase in the population.
我刚才已经说明，政府的松弛程度与地方官人数的增加成正比；我在前面[第30页]已经说明，人越多，镇压力量
就需要越大。由此可见，地方官与政府的比例应该与臣民与君主的比例成反比；也就是说，国家越大，政府就
应该越萎缩，这样统治者的人数就会随着人口的增加而减少。

I am here speaking of the government’s relative strength, not of its legitimacy. The more numerous the
magistracy, the nearer the corporate will comes to the general will; whereas under a single magistrate this
same corporate will is, as I said, nothing but a particular will. Thus, what is lost on one side may be gained on
the other, and the art of the legislator is to know how to fix the point at which the government’s - force and its
will, which are always in inverse proportion, intersect in the relation that is best for the state.
我这里说的是政府的相对力量，而不是其合法性。地方官越多，法人意志就越接近普遍意志；而在单个地方官
的统治下，同样的法人意志，如我所说，只不过是一种特殊意志。因此，一方失去的东西可能会在另一方得
到，立法者的艺术就在于知道如何确定政府的力量和政府的 意志（两者总是成反比的）在哪个点上以对国家最
有利的关系相交。

3. Classifying governments
3.政府分类

The preceding chapter showed why we distinguish the various kinds or forms of government in terms of how
many members they have; now we have to discover how this division is made.
上一章说明了我们为什么要根据政府成员的多少来区分不同种类或形式的政府，现在我们必须弄清楚这种区分
是如何做出的。
(A) The sovereign may put the government in the hands of the whole people or of a majority of them, so that
among the citizens the magistrates outnumber the merely private individuals. This form of government is
called democracy.
(A) 君主可以把政府交到全体人民或大多数人民手中，这样，在公民中，地方行政长官的人数就超过了纯粹的个
人。这种政府形式被称为民主。
(B) Or the sovereign may restrict the government to a small number of citizens, so that the private citizens
outnumber magistrates; and this is called aristocracy.
(B) 或者，君主可以将政府限制在少数公民的范围内，从而使公民个人的人数超过地方行政官；这就是所谓的贵
族制。
© Or the sovereign may concentrate the whole government in the hands of a single magistrate from whom all
the others-i.e. all the other governmental officials–hold their power. This third form is the most usual, and is
called monarchy, or royal government.
或者，君主可以将整个政府集中在一个地方行政长官手中，其他地方行政长官（即所有其他政府官员）的权力
都来自于这个地方行政长官。第三种形式最为常见，被称为君主制或王室政府。

Within each of these forms, or at least each of the first two, there can be differences of degree, including very
wide ones. A democracy, for example, may include all the people or be restricted to half of them. An
aristocracy, in its turn, may be restricted indefinitely from half the people down to the smallest possible
number. And even royalty is open to a certain amount of sharing out: Sparta always had two kings, as its
constitution provided; and the Roman Empire had as many as eight emperors at once, without any splitting up
of the Empire itself. Thus, each form of government passes into the next at a certain point, and it emerges that
those three main headings cover as many possible forms of government as the state has citizens.
在上述每种形式中，或至少在前两种形式中，都可能存在程度上的差异，包括非常大的差异。例如，民主制可
能包括全体人民，也可能仅限于半数人民。反过来，贵族制也可能被无限地限制，从一半人到尽可能少的人。
即使是王权也有一定程度的分配：斯巴达一直有两个国王，这是其宪法所规定的；罗马帝国曾同时有多达八个
皇帝，但帝国本身并没有分裂。因此，每种政府形式都会在某一时刻进入下一种政府形式，这三个主要标题涵
盖了国家公民可能拥有的多种政府形式。

There are even more: a government can be subdivided along certain lines into parts that may be administered
in different ways from one another, so the combination of the three forms may result in a multitude of mixed
forms…
还有更多的形式：一个政府可以按照一定的路线细分为若干部分，这些部分之间可能以不同的方式进行管理，
因此三种形式的结合可能会产生多种混合形式......

There have always been fights about what the best form of government is, ignoring the fact each form is in
some cases the best and in others the worst.
一直以来，人们都在争论什么是最好的政府形式，而忽略了一个事实，即每种政府形式在某些情况下都是最好
的，而在另一些情况下则是最差的。

If in the different states the number of supreme magistrates ought to be in inverse ratio to the size of the
population, it follows immediately that democratic government suits small states, aristocratic government
those of middle size, and monarchy great ones. But there are countless possible circumstances that would
provide exceptions.
如果在不同的国家，最高行政长官的人数应与人口数量成反比，那么民主政体适合小国，贵族政体适合中等国
家，君主政体适合大国。但是，有无数可能的情况可以提供例外。

4. Democracy 4.民主
Whoever (a) makes a law knows better than anyone else how it should be (b) interpreted and applied. It seems
then that the best possible constitution is one in which the (b) executive and (a) legislative powers are united;
but this very union would make the government in certain respects inadequate, because it runs together things
that should be distinguished; and the (b) prince and the (a) sovereign, being the same person, amount to no
more than an ungoverned government.
(a)制定法律的人比任何人都更清楚应该如何(b)解释和适用法律。由此看来，最好的宪法就是将（b）行政权和
（a）立法权合二为一的宪法；但这种合二为一会使政府在某些方面不够完善，因为它将本应区分开来的事情混
为一谈；而（b）王子和（a）君主作为同一个人，也不过是一个无人管理的政府。

It isn’t good for (a) the person who makes the laws (b) to execute them, or for the body of the people to move
the focus of its attention away from -general concerns towards - particular objects. Nothing is more dangerous
than the influence of private interests in public affairs; it leads to the corruption of the legislator, which is an
even worse evil than the abuse of the laws by the government; it makes a substantial change in the state, and
all reformation becomes impossible. A people that would never misuse governmental powers would never
misuse independence; a people that would always govern well wouldn’t need to be governed.
(a)制定法律的人(b)执行法律，或者人民团体将注意力从一般关注转移到特定目标上，都不是好事。最危险的莫
过于私人利益对公共事务的影响；它导致立法者的腐败，这是比政府滥用法律更可怕的罪恶；它使国家发生实
质性的变化，所有的改革都变得不可能。一个永远不会滥用政府权力的民族，永远不会滥用独立性；一个永远
治理有方的民族，永远不需要被治理。

There never was and never will be a real democracy in the strict sense of the word. It’s against the natural
order for the many to govern and the few to be governed. It is unimaginable that the people should be
continually in session dealing with public affairs, and obviously they couldn’t set up commissions for that
purpose without changing the form of the administration.
严格意义上的真正民主，过去没有，将来也不会有。多数人治理少数人，这是违反自然规律的。让人民不断开
会处理公共事务是不可想象的，显然，他们无法在不改变行政形式的情况下为此目的设立委员会。

In fact, I can confidently lay down as a principle that when the work of government is shared out among
several tribunals, the less numerous of these will eventually acquire the greatest authority, if only because it’s a
natural consequence of their ability to act quickly.
事实上，我可以自信地提出一个原则：当政府的工作由几个法庭分担时，其中人数较少的法庭最终将获得最大
的权力，如果只是因为这是它们能够迅速行动的自然结果的话。

Besides, such a government requires so many conditions that are hard to satisfy all at once! A small state,
where the people can assemble easily and where it’s not hard for each citizen to know all the rest; - simplicity
of mæurs [see Glossary], to prevent complexity and controversy in public affairs; a high degree of equality in
rank and fortune, without which equality of rights and authority can’t exist for long; and little or no luxury-for
luxury either comes from riches or makes them necessary. It corrupts both rich and poor, the rich by having it
and the poor by wanting it; it sells the country to softness and vanity; it robs the state of all its citizens by
putting some of them into the service of the others and putting all of them into the service of public opinion.
此外，这样的政府需要很多条件，很难同时满足！ 一个小国，在那里，人们可以很容易地集合起来，而且每个
公民都不难了解其他所有的人；--简单的制度[见术语表]，以防止公共事务中的复杂性和争议； 等级和财富的
高度平等，没有这种平等，权利和权力的平等就不可能长久存在； 很少或没有奢侈，因为奢侈要么来自财富，
要么使财富成为必要。它使富人和穷人都堕落，富人因为拥有它而堕落，穷人因为想要它而堕落；它把国家卖
给了软弱和虚荣；它剥夺了国家的所有公民，让一部分公民为另一部分公民服务，让所有公民为公众舆论服
务。

That’s why a famous writer [Montesquieu] has made virtue the driving force of a republics; for none of these
conditions could exist without virtue. But that great thinker didn’t make all the needed distinctions, and that
led him often to be inexact and sometimes to be obscure; he didn’t see that because the sovereign authority is
everywhere the same, the same driving force should be at work in every well-constituted state-more or less, it
is true, depending on the form of the government.
这就是为什么一位著名作家（孟德斯鸠）把美德作为共和国的动力；因为没有美德，这些条件都不可能存在。
但是，这位伟大的思想家并没有做出所有必要的区分，这导致他常常不够精确，有时还很模糊；他没有看到，
由于主权权威在任何地方都是一样的，因此，在每一个制度完善的国家中，都应该有同样的推动力在起作用--确
实，或多或少，这取决于政府的形式。

There is no other- government so subject to civil wars and internal agitations as democratic or popular
government, because there is none that has such a strong and continual tendency to change to another form,
or that needs more vigilance and courage for its maintenance as it is. It is in a democratic system above all
that the citizen should arm himself with strength and constancy, and say every day of his life what a virtuous
Count Palatine said in the Polish parliament: ‘I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery’ [Rousseau
quotes this in Latin].
没有任何一个政府像民主政府或人民政权那样容易发生内战和内部动乱，因为没有任何一个政府 具有如此强
烈和持续的向另一种形式转变的趋势，也没有任何一个政府 需要更多的警惕和勇气来维持它的现状。在民主制
度中，公民首先应该用力量和恒心来武装自己，每天都要像一位高尚的帕拉丁伯爵在波兰议会中所说的那
样：'我宁愿选择有危险的自由，也不愿选择有奴役的和平'[卢梭用拉丁文引用了这句话]。

A population of gods could have a democratic government. A government as perfect as that is not for men.
众神可以拥有一个民主政府。如此完美的政府不适合人类。

5. Aristocracy 5.贵族
We have here two quite distinct moral persons, (b) the government and (a) the sovereign. So there are two
general wills, (a) one general in relation to all the citizens, (b) the other only for the members of the
administration. Thus, although the government can regulate its internal workings as it pleases, it can speak to
the people only in the name of the sovereign, i.e. of the people itself. This fact should not be forgotten.
在这里，我们有两个截然不同的道德主体：(b) 政府和 (a) 君主。因此，这里有两个一般意志，(a) 一个是对所有
公民的一般意志，(b) 另一个是只对政府成员的意志。因此，尽管政府可以随心所欲地管理其内部运作，但它只
能以君主（即人民本身）的名义对人民说话。这一事实不应被遗忘。

The first societies were governed aristocratically. The heads of families consulted with one another on public
affairs. The young had no problem giving way to the authority of experience. [Rousseau points out that many
labels for political leaders began as words referring to age, for example ‘senator’. Then:] The savages of North
America govern themselves in this way even now, and their government is admirable.
最初的社会是贵族统治。一家之主在公共事务上相互协商。年轻人毫无问题地屈服于经验的权威。[卢梭指出，
许多政治领袖的称谓最初都是指年龄，如 "参议员"。然后：]北美洲的野蛮人至今仍以这种方式管理自己，他们
的政府令人钦佩。

But to the extent that inequalities produced by the social set-up came to predominate over natural inequality,
riches or power were put before age, and aristocracy became elective. Finally, when the father’s power was
inherited by his offspring, along with his goods, this gave the whole family the status of ‘nobles’, thus making
government hereditaryand there came to be 20-year-old senators!
但是，当社会结构造成的不平等超过了自然的不平等时，财富或权力就被置于年龄之前，贵族就变成了选举产
生的。最后，当父亲的权力与财产一起由后代继承时，整个家族就获得了 "贵族 "的地位，从而使政府成为世袭
制，出现了 20 岁的元老！

There are then three sorts of aristocracy-natural, elective and hereditary. The first is only for simple peoples;
the third is the worst of all governments; the second is the best, and is aristocracy properly so-called.
贵族分为三种--自然贵族、选举贵族和世袭贵族。第一种只适用于简单的民族；第三种是所有政府中最糟糕的；
第二种是最好的，也就是所谓的贵族制。
omparing aristocracy with democracy or popular government : Besides the advantage that comes from
keeping the two powers distinct from one another, aristocracy has the
贵族制与民主制或民选制的比较 ：贵族制除了有保持两权分立的优势外，还有以下优点
advantage that in it the government’s members are chosen. In popular democratic - government, all the
citizens are born magistrates; but in aristocracy the role of magistrate is confined to a few, who are elected to
that position. By this means uprightness, understanding, experience and all other claims to pre-eminence
and public esteem become further guarantees of wise government.
它的优势在于，政府成员是由选举产生的。在人民 民主政府中，所有公民都是天生的地方官；但在贵族政府
中，地方官的角色仅限于少数人，他们是通过选举产生的。 通过这种方式，正直、理解力、经验以及所有其
他对显赫地位和公众尊敬的要求都成为明智政府的进一步保障。

Moreover, assemblies are more easily held, affairs are discussed better and done with more order and
diligence, and the state’s credibility in the eyes of other states is better maintained, by venerable senators than
by a multitude that is unknown or despised.
此外， 集会更容易举行， 事务讨论得更好，做得更有条理、更勤勉， 国家在其他国家眼中的信誉，由可敬
的元老来维护要比由不知名或被轻视的众人来维护更好。

In brief, the best and most natural arrangement is for the wisest to govern the multitude, when it is assured
that they will govern for its profit and not for their own. Don’t uselessly add to the wheels and springs of the
government mechanism, getting thousands of men to do what a hundred picked men can do better.
[Rousseau’s next sentence is awkward and unclear. Its gist is that with a smallish government there will be a
tendency for its interests to deflect its activities, so that some of the executive power will come from that source
rather than from the wishes of the sovereign, i.e. the will of the entire population.]
简而言之，最好和最自然的安排是由最聪明的人来管理众人，当他们确信他们的管理是为了众人的利益而不是
自己的利益时。不要无谓地增加政府机制的轮子和弹簧，让成千上万的人去做一百个人就能做得更好的事。[卢
梭的下一句话既笨拙又不清楚。这句话的大意是，如果政府规模较小，政府的利益就会偏离政府的活动，这
样，一些行政权力就会来自利益，而不是来自君主的意愿，即全体人民的意愿。］

In what circumstances is aristocracy the best form of government? Well, the state shouldn’t be so small, or the
people so simple and upright, that the execution of the laws follows immediately from the public will, as it
would in a good democracy. Nor should the nation be so large that its rulers-scattered in order to govern it-are
able to play the sovereign each in his own department, and make themselves independent as a step towards
becoming masters.
在什么情况下贵族制是最好的政府形式？国家不应该太小，人民也不应该太淳朴正直，以至于法律的执行会像
在良好的民主制度下那样，立即遵循公众的意愿。国家也不应该太大，以至于国家的统治者为了治理国家而分
散各地，每个人都能在自己的部门扮演君主的角色，并把自己的独立作为成为主人的一个步骤。

But although aristocracy doesn’t demand all the virtues needed by popular government, it demands others that
are all its own; for instance, moderation on the part of the rich and contentment on the part of the poor. Note
that I am not demanding the abolition of the rich/poor divide , because it seems that thorough-going equality
would be out of place; they didn’t have it even at Sparta.
但是，尽管贵族制并不要求民众政府具备所有必要的美德，它却要求具备自己的其他美德；例如，富人的节制
和穷人的知足。 请注意，我并不要求废除贫富分化 ，因为彻底的平等似乎并不合适；即使在斯巴达，他们也
没有这种平等。

If this form of government carries with it a certain inequality of fortune, that is a good thing because it lets the
administration of public affairs be entrusted to those who are most able to give them their whole time, but not
for Aristotle’ reason, namely that the rich should always be put first. On the contrary, it matters that an
opposite choice should occasionally teach the people that men’s merits are a weightier reason for preference
than their wealth.
如果说这种政体带有一定的财富不平等，那倒是件好事，因为它可以让那些最有能力的人全心全意地管理公共
事务，但这并不是亚里士多德的理由，即富人总是应该被放在第一位。相反，重要的是，一个相反的选择应该
偶尔教导人们，人的优点比财富更重要。

6. Monarchy 6.君主制
So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective person, unified by the force of the laws, and
charged by the state with holding and exercising the executive power. Let us now consider this power when it is
gathered into the hands of one natural person, one real man, who alone has the right to exercise it in
accordance with the laws. Such a person is called a ‘monarch’ or ‘king’.
到目前为止，我们已经把王子看作是一个有道德的集体，由法律的力量统一起来，并由国家负责掌握和行使行
政权。现在，让我们考虑一下当这种权力集中到一个自然人、一个真正的人手中时的情况，只有他才有权根据
法律行使这种权力。这样的人被称为 "君主 "或 "国王"。

Whereas in some forms of administration a collective being represents an individual, in this one an individual
represents a collective being; so that the moral unity that constitutes the prince is at the same time a physical
unity, and all the qualities that in the other case are laboriously brought together by the law are here
naturally united.
在某些管理形式中，集体代表个人，而在这种管理形式中，个人代表集体；因此，构成王子的道德统一体同时
也是物质统一体，在另一种情况下，法律费尽心机汇集起来的 所有品质在这里 自然地结合在一起。

Thus one single motive power generates

因此，单一动力可产生
-the will of the people,
-人民的意愿、
the will of the prince,
王子的旨意、
-the public force of the state, and
-国家的公共力量，以及
-the particular force of the government.
-政府的特殊力量。
All the springs of the machine are in the same hands, the whole moves towards the same end; there are no
conflicting movements that could cancel one another out, and a small input of effort produces a large output of
action-indeed we can’t imagine a kind of constitution with a better inputoutput ratio. Archimedes, seated
quietly on the bank and easily pulling a great vessel through the water with a long lever , represents for me a
skilful monarch, governing vast states from his study, moving everything while seeming, himself, not to move.
机器的所有弹簧都在同一人的手中，整个机器朝着同一个目标运动；没有任何相互抵消的运动，投入的力量
小，产出的作用大--事实上，我们无法想象有哪种结构的投入产出比会更好。阿基米德静静地坐在河岸上，用一
根长长的杠杆 轻而易举地在水中拉动一艘大船 ，在我看来，他就像一位娴熟的君主，在书房里治理着广袤的
国家，调动着一切，而他自己却似乎没有动。

No government is more vigorous than this, and also there’s no government in which the particular will holds
more sway and more easily rules the other wills. It is indeed true that ‘the whole moves towards a single end’,
but the end in question is not public happiness, and all the energy of this administration is constantly being
used to harm the state.
没有哪个政府比它更有活力，也没有哪个政府比它更能让特定的意志左右和支配其他意志。诚然，"整个政府都
在朝着一个目标前进"，但这个目标并不是公众的幸福，这个政府的所有能量都在不断地被用来损害国家。

Kings want to be absolute, and the distant cry comes to them ‘The best way to do that is to be loved by your
people’. This is a fine maxim, and there’s even some truth in it; but unfortunately the court will always make
fun of it. The power that comes from a people’s love is no doubt the greatest; but it is precarious and
conditional [= vulnerable to changes in circumstances’], and princes will never rest content with it. The best
kings want to be so placed that they can be wicked if they want to, without losing their mastery. A political
sermoniser may tell them that, because the people’s strength is their own, their chief interest is that the people
should be prosperous, numerous and formidable; but there’s no point in telling them this because they know
very well that it’s not true! Their first personal interest is that the people should be weak, wretched, and
unable to resist
国王们都想成为绝对的统治者，于是就有了遥远的呼声："最好的办法就是得到人民的爱戴"。"这是一句很好的
格言，甚至还有些道理；但不幸的是，朝廷总会拿它开玩笑。来自人民爱戴的力量无疑是最伟大的，但它是不
稳定的，是有条件的[=易受环境变化的影响']，王子们永远不会满足于此。最优秀的国王都希望自己的地位能让
他们想做恶人就做恶人，而不会失去他们的统治权。政治说教者可能会告诉他们，因为人民的力量就是他们自
己的力量，所以他们的主要利益就是人民应该 繁荣、 众多和 强大；但告诉他们这些毫无意义，因为他们很
清楚这不是真的！他们的首要个人利益就是让人民变得 软弱、 可怜、 无法抵抗
them. I admit that the prince’s interest would indeed be that his people should be powerful, so that its power,
being his own, would make him formidable to his neighbours-that would be in his interests provided he could
still keep his subjects in submission. But strength is incompatible with submission, so a prince has to choose;
and he naturally gives the preference to the principle that is more to his immediate advantage. That is what
Samuel put strongly before the Hebrews [1 Samuel 8:10-18], and what Machiavelli has clearly shown. While
pretending to teach kings, he was really giving extensive lessons to the people. His The Prince is the book of
Republicans.
他们。我承认，王子的利益的确是希望他的子民强大起来，这样，作为他自己的子民，他们的力量会让他对邻
国感到可怕--这符合他的利益，只要他还能让他的子民臣服。但是，强大与臣服是不相容的，所以王子必须做出
选择；他自然会优先选择对他更有利的原则。这就是塞缪尔在希伯来人面前极力强调的[塞缪尔记上 8:10-18]，
也是马基雅弗利清楚表明的。他假装教导国王，其实是在给人民上广泛的一课。他的《王子》就是一部共和国
之书。

We have found, from general reasons concerning relations between different states, that monarchy is suitable
only for great states, and this will be confirmed when we examine monarchy in itself. The more people there
are in the public administration, the nearer the prince-to-subjects ratio comes to equality, so that in
democracy-where every member of the populace has a role in the government–the ratio is , or absolute
equality. And when the government is progressively restricted in numbers the ratio becomes steeper and
reaches its maximum when the government is in the hands of a single person, - so that the ratio is n where
the size of the population In that case, therefore, there’s too much distance between prince and people,
and the state isn’t properly held together. To bind it there would have to be intermediate orders-dukes,
grandees, nobles-to fill the space between the prince and the people. But none of that suits a small state, to
which all class differences mean ruin.
根据不同国家之间关系的一般原因，我们发现君主制只适用于大国，这一点在我们研究君主制本身时会得到证
实。公共管理机构中的人数越多，王子与臣民的比例就越接近平等，因此，在民主制中，每个民众都在政府中
发挥作用，这个比例就是 ，即绝对平等。而当政府的人数逐渐受到限制时，这个比例就会变得越来越大，
当政府只掌握在一个人手中时，这个比例就会达到最大值，即 n，其中 是指人口数量 在这种情况下，
王子和人民之间的距离就会拉大，国家就不能很好地团结起来。要使国家团结起来，就必须有中间等级--公爵、
大公、贵族--来填补王子和人民之间的空隙。但这些都不适合小国，对小国来说，所有的阶级差异都意味着毁
灭。
[In that passage, ‘dukes’ mistranslates Rousseau’s princes. In using that word there, he was unwisely sliding
from his usual use of prince to stand for whatever person or group governs the state to its more ordinary sense
in which it is the label not for a function but for a rank.]
[在这段话中，"公爵 "误译为卢梭的 "王子"。他在那里使用这个词，是不明智的，因为他从惯常使用的王子
（prince）来代表任何治理国家的个人或团体，滑向了更普通的含义，即王子不是职能的标签，而是等级的标
签。

But if it is hard for a big state to be well governed, it’s much harder still for it to be well governed by one man;
and everyone knows what happens when kings substitute others for themselves!
但是，如果说一个大国要治理得好很难，那么一个人要治理得好就更难了；每个人都知道，当国王用别人代替
自己时会发生什么！
Monarchical government has an essential and inevitable defect that will always put it below republican
government, namely:
君主制政府有一个不可避免的基本缺陷，那就是它永远低于共和制政府：

Whereas in a republic the public voice hardly ever raises to the highest positions men who aren’t enlightened
and capable, men who will fill those positions honourably, in monarchies those who rise to the top are most
often merely little muddle-heads, little crooks, little intriguers, whose little talents get them into the highest
positions at court and then, once they are there, reveal to the public how incompetent they are. The populace
is far less often mistaken in this choice than the prince is; and a man of real worth among the king’s
ministers is almost as rare as a fool at the head of a republican government! Thus, when, by good luck one of
these born governors takes the helm of the state in some monarchy that has been nearly ruined by those
swarms of elegant and socially presentable administrators, there is amazement at the resources he discovers,
and this marks an era in his country’s history.
在共和政体中，公众的呼声几乎不会把那些不开明、不称职的人推上最高职位，而在君主政体中，那些升到最
高职位的人往往只是小糊涂虫、小骗子、小阴谋家，他们的小才能 让他们进入了宫廷的最高职位，而一旦他们
到了那里， 就会向公众揭露他们是多么的无能。在这种选择上，民众远没有王子那么容易犯错；在 国王的
大臣中，真正有价值的人几乎和共和政府的首脑中的傻瓜一样罕见！因此，当这些天生的治理者中有人幸运地
成为君主国的掌舵人时，他所发现的资源会让人惊叹不已，而这也标志着他的国家进入了一个新的历史时期。

[Notice that the defect of monarchy that Rousseau first called ‘essential and inevitable’ has turned out to be a
defect of which monarchies are ‘hardly ever’ free.]
[请注意，卢梭最初称之为 "不可或缺、不可避免 "的君主制缺陷，如今已被证明是君主制 "几乎从未 "摆脱的缺
陷。］

For a monarchical state to have a chance of being well governed, its population and geographical size must be
suitable for the abilities of its governor. It is easier to conquer than to rule. With a long enough lever, the
world could be moved with a single finger; holding it up needs the shoulders of Hercules. However small a
state is, the prince is nearly always too small for it. And when on the other hand a state is too small for its ruler
(this doesn’t happen often!), it is still badly governed. That’s because the ruler, constantly pursuing his great
plans, forgets his people’s interests and makes them as wretched by misusing the talents he has as a more
limited ruler would make them because of the lack of the talents he didn’t have. A kingdom should expand or
contract, so to speak, with each reign, according to the how able each prince is; whereas in a republican system
the abilities of a senate are more constant, so that the state can have permanent frontiers without the
administration suffering.
君主制国家要想治理有方，其人口和地理面积必须适合其统治者的能力。 征服比 统治更容易。只要有一根足
够长的杠杆， 一根手指就能撬动世界； 把它举起来则需要海格力斯的肩膀。无论一个国家有多小，王子对它
来说几乎总是太小了。另一方面，当一个国家对其统治者来说太小时（这种情况并不常见！），它仍然会被治
理得很糟糕。这是因为统治者一味追求自己的伟大计划，却忘记了人民的利益，由于 滥用了自己的才能，使人
民变得凄惨不堪，就像一个更有限的统治者会因为 缺乏自己没有的才能而使人民变得凄惨不堪一样。可以说，
一个王国应该根据每个王子的能力大小，在每个统治时期都有所扩张或收缩；而在共和制中， 元老院的能力是
比较稳定的，这样国家就可以拥有永久的疆域，而不会使管理受到影响。

The disadvantage that is most felt in monarchical government is the lack of any such continuous succession as
both the other forms of government, democracy and aristocracy - have to provide an unbroken bond of union.
A king dies, another is needed; elections leave dangerous gaps and are full of storms; and unless the citizens
are disinterested [= not self-interested’] and upright to a degree that very seldom goes with this kind of
government, intrigue and corruption abound. Someone to whom the state has sold itself can hardly help selling
it in his turn and getting back, at the expense of the weak, the money the powerful have extorted from him -as
their price for the throne. Under such an administration, greed for money spreads through every
君主政体的最大弊端在于没有像其他形式的政体--民主制和贵族制--那样连续不断的继承权，从而无法提供一个
完整的结合纽带。一个国王死了，就需要另一个国王；选举会留下危险的缺口，而且充满风暴；除非公民是无
私的[=非利己的']，而且正直到这种政府很少有的程度，否则阴谋和腐败就会层出不穷。被国家出卖的人很难不
反过来出卖国家，并以弱者为代价换回强者向他勒索的钱财--作为他们获得王位的代价。在这样的政府下，对金
钱的贪婪蔓延到每一个人的生活中。
part of the kingdom , and peace enjoyed in this way under a king is worse than the disorders of an
interregnum [i.e. a period between two kings].
王国 的一部分，在国王统治下以这种方式享受的和平，比间歇期[即两个国王之间的时期]的混乱还要糟糕。

What has been done to prevent these evils? Crowns have been made hereditary in certain families, and an
order of succession has been set up, to prevent disputes from arising when kings die. That is to say, the
disadvantages of regency [= ‘having a stand-in for the king’] have been put in place of the disadvantages of
choice; apparent tranquility has been preferred to wise government; and men have preferred the risk of
having children, monstrosities, or imbeciles as rulers to having disputes over the choice of good kings. It
hasn’t been taken into account that in thus exposing ourselves to that risk we are loading the dice against
ourselves. There was sound sense in what the younger Dionysius said to his father, who reproached him for
doing some shameful deed by asking, ‘Did I set you the example?’ ‘Ah,’ answered his son, ‘your father wasn’t a
king.’ [He meant: ‘Your moral education had an advantage that mine didn’t.’ See the penultimate paragraph of
this chapter.]
为了防止这些弊端，我们做了些什么呢？在某些家族中，王位是世袭的，而且还制定了继承顺序，以防止国王
死后出现争端。也就是说，摄政的弊端[='国王有替身']被用来代替选择的弊端；表面的安宁比贤明的政府更受青
睐；人们宁愿 冒着让孩子、怪胎或低能儿当统治者的风险，也不愿 在选择好国王的问题上发生争执。人们没
有考虑到，如果我们冒着这样的风险，我们就是在自寻死路。年轻的狄奥尼修斯对他父亲说的话很有道理，他
父亲责备他做了一些可耻的事，问道："我给你树立榜样了吗？""啊，"他儿子回答，"你父亲不是国王。[他的意
思是：'你的道德教育有一个优点，而我的没有。见本章倒数第二段]。

When a man is set in authority over others, everything conspires to rob him of his sense of justice and reason.
Much trouble, we’re told, is taken to teach young princes the art of reigning; but it doesn’t seem to do them
much good. It would be better to begin by teaching them the art of obeying. The greatest kings celebrated in
history were not brought up to reign: reigning is a science that a man is never so far from having at his
command as when he has learned too much of it-a science that he would acquire better by obeying than by
commanding. ‘The best and shortest way to find out what is good and what is bad is to consider what you
would have wanted to happen or not to happen if someone else had been Emperor’ (Tacitus, Histories, i. 16)
[Rousseau quotes this in Latin].
当一个人被赋予统治他人的权力时，一切都会合谋剥夺他的正义感和理智。据说，人们费尽心思教年轻的王子
学会 统治的艺术；但这似乎对他们没有什么好处。倒不如从教他们 服从的艺术开始。历史上最伟大的君王都
不是为了统治而成长起来的：统治是一门科学，当一个人学会了太多这门科学之后，他就再也不可能掌握这门
科学了。要想知道什么是好的，什么是坏的，最好、最简捷的办法就是考虑一下，如果换了别人当皇帝，你希
望发生什么，或者不希望发生什么"（塔西佗《历史》，i.16）[卢梭引用了这段拉丁语]。

One result of this lack of cohesion is the inconstancy of royal government; regulated now on this scheme and
now on that, according to the character of the reigning prince or those who reign for him, such a government
can’t for long have a fixed objective or a consistent policy; it will always be shifting from slogan to slogan and
from project to project-a variability that isn’t found in the other forms of government, where the prince [see
Glossary] is always the same. So we find that in general if a monarchical court has more plotting, a senate
has more wisdom, and republics advance towards their ends by more consistent and better considered policies;
whereas every change of minister under a monarch creates a revolution in the state, because the principle that
is adopted by all ministers and nearly all kings is to do in everything the reverse of what their predecessors did.
这种缺乏凝聚力的结果之一就是王室政府的不稳定性；根据在位王子或为他而在位的人的性格，这个政府时而
在这个计划上，时而在那个计划上，这样的政府不可能长期有一个固定的目标或一贯的政策；它总是在从一个
口号到另一个口号、从一个项目到另一个项目之间转变--这种变化是其他形式的政府所没有的，在其他形式的政
府中，王子[见术语表]总是不变的。因此，我们发现，一般来说，如果 君主制 的宫廷有更多的阴谋，元老院
就会有更多的智慧，而共和制则会通过更一致、考虑得更周全的政策来实现自己的目标；而君主每更换一次大
臣，国家就会发生一次革命，因为所有的大臣和几乎所有的国王所奉行的原则都是事事反其道而行之。
…Royalist political writing likens civil government to domestic government, and the prince to the father of a
family-this error has already been refuted-and also lavishly credits the prince with having all the virtues that it
would be useful to him to have, and steadily supposes him to be what he ought to be. With the help of this
supposition, it is easy to make out that royal government is preferable to all others, because it is
unquestionably the strongest; and in addition to that, all it needs to be the best–needs but doesn’t have-is a
corporate will that is more in conformity with the general will.
......保皇派的政治著作把文官政府比作家庭政府，把王子比作家庭的父亲--这个错误已经被驳斥过了--而且还大
肆赞扬王子拥有对他有用的一切美德，并坚定地认为他就是他应该拥有的。在这种假设的帮助下，我们很容易
得出这样的结论：王室政府比其他所有政府都更可取，因为它无疑是 最强大的；除此之外，它要成为 最好
的--需要但不具备的--只需要一个更符合普遍意志的团体意志。

But if Plato is right when he says in The Statesman that a ‘king by nature’ is a rarity, how often will nature and
fortune work together to give him a crown? And, if royal education inevitably corrupts those who receive it,
what can we hope to get from a series of men brought up to reign? Someone who confuses royal government
with government by a good king is willfully deceiving himself. To see royal government as it is in itself, we
must look at it under princes who are
但是，如果柏拉图在《政治家》一书中所说的 "天生的国王 "是罕见的这一说法是正确的，那么天生和命运又有
多少时候会共同赋予他王冠呢？而且，如果王室教育不可避免地会腐蚀那些接受这种教育的人，那么我们又能
希望从一系列被培养成统治者的人身上得到什么呢？如果有人把 皇家政府和 好国王的政府混为一谈，那他就
是在故意自欺欺人。要想看清王室政府的本质，我们就必须看清它在王子统治下的本质。
incompetent or wicked; for either they will be like that when they come to the throne or the throne will make
them so.
因为要么他们登上王位时就是这样，要么王位会让他们变成这样。

Our writers know all this, but aren’t troubled by it. The remedy, they say, is to obey without a murmur: God
angrily sends bad kings, who must be endured as the scourges of heaven. Improving talk, no doubt; but
wouldn’t it be more in place in a pulpit than in a book on politics? What are we to say about a physician who
promises miracles, and whose whole treatment is to urge the sufferer to be patient? When there’s bad
government we must put up with it-we know that already! The question is how to find a good one.
我们的作家知道这一切，但并不为此烦恼。他们说，补救的办法就是无怨无悔地服从：上帝恼怒地降下了坏国
王，他们必须像天罚一样忍受。毫无疑问，这些话很有启发性，但放在讲坛上不是比放在政治书里更合适吗？
我们该如何评价一个许诺奇迹的医生，他的全部治疗方法就是敦促患者忍耐？当出现糟糕的政府时，我们必须
忍受它，我们已经知道这一点！问题是如何找到一个好政府。

7. Mixed governments 7.混合政府

Strictly speaking, there’s no such thing as a simple or unmixed government. An isolated ruler must have
subordinate magistrates; a popular government must have a head. In the distribution of the executive power,
therefore, there is always a gradation from larger to smaller numbers, with this variation: sometimes the
greater number depends on the smaller, and sometimes it’s the other way around.
严格来说，不存在简单或不混合的政府。一个孤立的统治者必须有下属的地方官；一个民众政府必须有首脑。
因此，在行政权的分配上，总是存在着一个从大到小的渐变过程，但又有这样的变化：有时大的行政权取决于
小的行政权，有时则相反。

Sometimes the distribution is equal: the constituent parts are in mutual dependence, as in the government of
England, or the authority of each part of the government is independent, but incomplete–part x has some
authority, part y has some, and neither comes under the other. This last form is bad because there’s no unity in
the government, and the state has nothing to hold it together.
有时，分配是平等的： 各组成部分相互依存，如英国政府；或者 政府各部分的权力是独立的，但并不完整--x
部分拥有一些权力，y部分拥有一些权力，两者都不隶属于对方。最后一种形式很糟糕，因为政府没有统一性，
国家也没有任何东西来维系它。

Which is better, a simple government or a mixed one? Political writers are always debating this question,
which should be answered in the same way that I earlier answered -the corresponding question - about all
forms of government.
简单政府和混合政府哪个更好？政治作家们总是在争论这个问题，对这个问题的回答应该与我之前对所有政府
形式的相应问题的回答相同。

Simple government is better in itself, just because it is simple. But when the executive power isn’t sufficiently
简单的政府本身更好，因为它简单。但如果行政权不够
dependent upon the legislative power, i.e. when the prince pushes harder on the sovereign than the people
push on the prince, this imbalance should be cured by dividing the government; for all the parts still have as
much authority over the subjects, while their division makes them all together less strong against the
sovereign.
当王子对君主的压力大于人民对王子的压力时，这种不平衡就应该通过分割政府来解决；因为所有部分对臣民
仍有同样大的权力，而分割则使他们共同对抗君主的力量减弱。

That same disadvantage is also prevented by the appointment of intermediate magistrates; that leaves the
government undivided, and merely balances the two powers–i.e. the government and the sovereign–and
maintains their respective rights. This is moderated government, not mixed government.
任命中间裁判官也可以避免同样的弊端；这使得政府没有分裂，只是平衡了两种权力--即政府和君主--并维护了
它们各自的权利。这就是有节制的政府，而不是混合政府。

There’s a similar cure for the opposite disadvantage: when the government is too slack, set up tribunals to
make it pull itself together. That’s what all the democracies do. In the first situation the government is divided
to make it weak; in the second it is divided to make it strong; for the maxima of both strength and weakness
are found in simple governments, while the mixed forms provide intermediate amounts of strength.
对于相反的劣势，也有类似的治疗方法：当政府过于懈怠时，就设立法庭，让它振作起来。所有民主国家都是
这么做的。在第一种情况下，政府的分化是为了让它变得软弱；在第二种情况下，政府的分化是为了让它变得
强大。

8. No one form of government suits all countries

8.没有一种政府形式适合所有国家

Liberty isn’t a fruit of every climate, so it isn’t within the reach of every people. The more you think about this
principle that Montesquieu laid down, the more you feel its truth; and the more you fight it, the more evidence
you find in its favour.
自由不是每种气候都能带来的，因此也不是每个人都能享有的。你对孟德斯鸠提出的这一原则思考得越多，就
越能感受到它的真理；你越是与之抗争，就越能找到有利于它的证据。

In all the governments in the world the public person consumes without producing. Then where does it get the
stuff it consumes? From the labour of its members. The public’s necessities are supplied out of the individuals’
surpluses. It follows that the civil state can survive only so long as men’s labour brings them a return greater
than their needs.
世界上所有国家的政府都是只消费不生产。那么，它消费的东西从哪里来呢？从其成员的劳动中。公众的必需
品从个人的剩余中获得。因此，只有当人们的劳动给他们带来的回报大于他们的需求时，公民国家才能生存下
去。

The amount of this excess isn’t the same in all countries. In some it is considerable, in others middling, in yet
others nil, in some even negative. This -earned:needed ratio depends on the fertility of the climate, on the kind
of work the land demands, on the nature of its products, on the strength of its inhabitants, on how much or
little they need to consume, and on other factors that also contribute to the over-all ratio.
这种过剩的程度并非在所有国家都一样。有的国家多，有的国家少，有的国家为零，有的国家甚至为负数。这
种 "所得 "与 "所需 "的比例取决于气候的肥沃程度、土地所要求的工作类型、产品的性质、居民的体力、他们需
要消费的多与少，以及影响总体比例的其他因素。

On the other side of the ratio , governments aren’t all of the same nature: some are less voracious than others,
and the differences between them are based on this second principle, that the further the public contributions
are from their source, the more burdensome they are. That burden shouldn’t be measured by the amount of
money involved, but by the distance it has to travel in order to get back to those who paid it. When the
circulation is fast and secure, it doesn’t matter whether the amount is small or large; the populace is always
rich and finances are always in good shape. In the opposite situation, however little the people gives, if that
little doesn’t get back to it then it is constantly giving, and before long it is exhausted; and in that case the state
is never rich and the populace is always a beggar.
在 比例 的另一面，政府的性质并不完全相同：有些政府没有其他政府那么贪婪，它们之间的差异是基于第二
条原则，即公共捐款离其来源越远，负担就越重。这种负担不应该以所涉金额的多少来衡量，而应该以它为了
回到支付者手中而必须走过的路程来衡量。如果货币流通快捷、安全，那么无论数额是大是小都无关紧要；民
众总是富裕的，财政状况总是良好的。在相反的情况下，无论人民付出多少，如果这些钱不能回到人民手中，
那么人民就会不断地付出，用不了多久就会耗尽；在这种情况下，国家永远不会富裕，人民永远是乞丐。

It follows that the greater the distance between people and government the more burdensome the taxes are:
the people carry the lightest burden in a democracy, a heavier one in an aristocracy, and the heaviest in a
monarchy. Thus, monarchy suits only wealthy nations, aristocracy suits ones of middling size and wealth, and
democracy suits states that are small and poor.
由此可见，人民与政府之间的距离越远，税收负担就越重：民主制国家的人民负担最轻，贵族制国家的人民负
担较重，君主制国家的人民负担最重。因此，君主制只适合富裕的国家，贵族制适合中等规模和富裕的国家，
而民主制则适合小国和穷国。

In fact, the more you think about this the more you’ll see it as a difference between free states and monarchies.
In free states everything is used for the public advantage; in the others, there’s an interplay between the public
forces and those of individuals, and as either of them weakens the other
事实上，你越是思考这个问题，就越会发现这是自由国家和君主制之间的区别。在自由国家，一切都是为了公
共利益；而在其他国家，公共力量和个人力量之间存在相互作用，当其中任何一方的力量减弱时，另一方的力
量也会减弱。
grows strong. In a nutshell: instead of governing subjects to make them happy, despotism makes them
wretched in order to govern them.
变得强大。一言以蔽之：专制主义不是为了让臣民幸福而治理他们，而是为了治理他们而让他们痛苦。

Thus, in every climate there are natural causes that determine which form of government would be best for it;
and we can even say what sort of inhabitants would be best for it.
因此，在每一种气候中，都有一些自然原因决定了哪种形式的政府最适合这种气候；我们甚至可以说什么样的
居民最适合这种气候。

Harsh and barren lands where the product isn’t worth the labour should remain desert and uncultivated, or
occupied only by savages; lands where men’s labour brings in precisely the bare minimum needed for survival
should be inhabited by barbarous peoples: no political structure is possible in such places; lands where there’s
a middling surplus of product over labour are suitable for free peoples; ones where the soil is abundant and
fertile and yields a large product for a little labour call for monarchical government, so that the excessive
surpluses among the subjects may be consumed by the luxury of the prince: for it’s better for this excess to be
absorbed by the government than scattered among the individuals. Yes, I know that there are exceptions; but
these exceptions themselves confirm the rule, because sooner or later they produce revolutions that restore
things to the natural order.
产品不值得劳动的贫瘠荒芜之地，应该是一片荒漠，无人耕种，或者只由野蛮人居住；人们的劳动只能带来最
低限度的生存需求的土地，应该由野蛮人居住：这种地方不可能有政治结构；产品比劳动略有盈余的地方适合
自由民族居住；土壤肥沃，只需付出少量劳动就能获得大量产品的地方需要君主制政府，这样，臣民中过多的
盈余就可以被王子的奢侈所消耗掉：因为这些盈余由政府吸收总比分散到个人身上要好。是的，我知道有例
外；但这些例外本身就证实了规则，因为它们迟早会产生革命，使事物恢复自然秩序。

Let us never confuse general laws with particular causes that might modify the effects of a law. If all the south
were covered with republics and all the north with despotic states, it would still be true that…despotism is
suitable to hot countries, barbarism to cold ones, and good polity to temperate regions. I see also that people
who all accept the principle may disagree about its application; someone might say that some cold countries
are very fertile, and some tropical ones are barren. But someone who thinks this is a difficulty for my position -
hasn’t looked into this matter thoroughly enough. I repeat, we have to take labour,
让我们永远不要混淆一般规律和可能改变规律效果的特殊原因。如果整个南方都是共和国，整个北方都是专制
国家，那么......专制适合于炎热的国家，野蛮适合于寒冷的国家，而良好的政体适合于温带地区，这仍然是正确
的。我还发现，都接受这一原则的人可能会对其应用产生分歧；有人可能会说，有些寒带国家非常富饶，而有
些热带国家则很贫瘠。但是，如果有人认为这是我的立场的一个难题--那他对这个问题的研究还不够透彻。我再
说一遍，我们必须付出劳动、
strength, consumption etc. into account.
考虑到强度、消耗量等因素。
To get an idea of what I am talking about , consider this example:
为了理解我所说的 ，请看这个例子：
-Two stretches of territory and , each has an area of a hundred square miles;
- 和 两块领土，每块领土的面积都是一百平方英里；

x brings in five loads of corn and brings in ten;

x 带来了五车 玉米 ， 带来了十车玉米；
-the inhabitants of consume the equivalent of four loads of corn, while the inhabitants of y consume nine.
的居民消耗了相当于四担的玉米，而 y 的居民消耗了九担。
Here the amount of surplus is the same, but the ratios of surplus to product are different: in x the surplus is a
fifth of the total, in y it is a tenth…
在这里，盈余的数量是相同的，但盈余与产品的比率却不同：在 x 中，盈余是总额的五分之一，在 y 中，盈余
是总额的十分之一......

There’s no question of x’s having twice the product that y has; and I don’t think anyone would maintain that in
general cold countries are as fertile as hot ones. But suppose that that is how things stand: England is on the
same level of fertility as Sicily, and Poland as Egypt-further south we’ll have Africa and the Indies; further
north, nothing at all. To get this equality of product, what a difference there must be in farming practices! In
Sicily they need only to scratch the ground, whereas in England, how men must toil! And where more hands
are needed to get the same product, the surplus must be less.
不存在 x 的产量是 y 的两倍的问题；我认为没有人会说寒冷的国家一般都比炎热的国家肥沃。但假设情况就是
这样：再往南，我们会有非洲和印度群岛；再往北，就什么都没有了。要实现这种产品的平等，耕作方式的差
异是多么巨大！在西西里，他们只需要在地里刨土，而在英国，人们却必须辛勤劳作！在需要更多人手才能获
得相同产品的地方，剩余产品就一定更少。

Bear in mind also that men consume much less in hot countries. To stay healthy in those climes one must eat
and drink frugally; Europeans who try to live there as they would at home all die of dysentery and indigestion.
Chardin writes:
还要注意的是，在炎热的国家，男人的消耗要少得多。要想在炎热的环境中保持健康，就必须节俭饮食；欧洲
人如果试图在那里像在国内一样生活，就会死于痢疾和消化不良。夏尔丹写道
‘We are carnivorous animals, wolves, in comparison with the Asians. Some attribute the Persians’ frugality to
their country’s being less cultivated; but I think that that’s back to front, and that really their country is less
well supplied with foodstuffs because the inhabitants need less. If their frugality were an effect of the land’s
poverty, only the poor would eat
'与亚洲人相比，我们是肉食动物，是狼。有些人把波斯人的节俭归因于他们的国家耕种较少，但我认为这是前
后矛盾的，实际上他们国家的食品供应较少是因为居民需要的较少。如果他们的节俭是土地贫瘠造成的，那么
只有穷人才会吃东西
little; whereas in fact everyone there eats little. Again the consumption level would differ in the different
provinces, according to the fertility of their land, whereas in fact the same frugality with food and drink occurs
throughout the kingdom. [Plus some remarks about diet in relation to skin-colour.]
而事实上，那里的每个人都吃得很少。同样，根据土地肥沃程度的不同，各省的消费水平也不尽相同，而事实
上，整个王国在饮食方面都同样节俭。[外加一些关于饮食与肤色关系的评论。］
The nearer you get to the equator, the less people live on. Meat they hardly touch; rice, maize, couscous, millet
and cassava are their standard diet. There are millions of men in the Indies whose food-intake costs less than a
halfpenny a day. Even in Europe we see considerable differences of appetite between northern and southern
peoples: a Spaniard will live for a week on a German’s dinner. . . .
越靠近赤道，人们的生活就越匮乏。他们几乎不吃肉；大米、玉米、粗麦粉、小米和木薯是他们的标准食物。
在印度群岛，有数百万人每天的食物摄入量不足半便士。即使在欧洲，我们也能看到北方人和南方人在食欲上
的巨大差异：一个西班牙人吃德国人的晚餐就能活一个星期。. . .

Luxury in clothes shows similar differences. In climates where the seasons are fast and big, men have better
and simpler clothes; in lands where they dress only for adornment, they care more about what is striking than
about what is useful; clothes themselves are then a luxury. In Naples you can see. . . .men in gold-embroidered
vests and no leg-coverings. It is the same with buildings; magnificence is all that matters when there’s nothing
to fear from the air. In Paris and London, you want to be lodged warmly and comfortably; Madrid has superb
salons but no windows that close, and you go to bed in a mere hole.
服装上的奢华也显示出类似的差异。在四季变化快、面积大的气候条件下，男人的衣服更好、更简单；而在只
为装饰而穿衣的地方，他们更注重引人注目的东西，而不是实用的东西；因此，衣服本身就是一种奢侈品。在
那不勒斯，你可以看到..男人们穿着绣金的背心，没有腿套。建筑物也是如此；当空气中没有什么可怕的东西
时，华丽才是最重要的。在巴黎和伦敦，你希望住得温暖舒适；马德里有一流的沙龙，但没有可以关闭的窗
户，你只能在一个洞里睡觉。

In hot countries foods are much more substantial and more tasty, and this third difference is bound to have an
influence on the second. [He means: an influence on how much people eat. He is evidently leaving clothes out
of his enumeration of differences.] Why are so many vegetables eaten in Italy? Because there they are good,
nutritious and excellent in taste. In France, where vegetables are nourished only on water, they don’t provide
nourishment and are hardly listed on menus. They don’t take up less ground than in the south , and are at
least as much trouble to grow. It is a proved fact
在炎热的国家，食物更丰盛、更美味，而这第三个差异必然会对第二个差异产生影响。[他的意思是：影响人们
的食量。很明显，他在列举差异时没有考虑衣服。］为什么意大利人吃那么多蔬菜？因为那里的蔬菜味道好、
营养丰富、口感极佳。而在法国，蔬菜只能以水为养料，不能提供营养，几乎不列入菜单。 它们所占的土地并
不比南方少 ，而且种植起来至少同样麻烦。事实证明
that the wheat of Barbary, in other respects inferior to that of France, yields much more flour, and that
France’s wheat in turn yields more than wheat in northern countries; from which it’s a fair inference that this
gradation -in wheat-yield holds generally, from equator to pole, is found generally. Well, now, isn’t it an
obvious disadvantage for an equal amount of product to contain less nourishment?
巴巴利的小麦在其他方面不如法国的小麦，但面粉产量却高得多，而法国的小麦又比北方国家的小麦产量高；
由此可以推断，小麦产量的这种 梯度，从赤道到极地，普遍存在。那么，等量的 产品所含的营养成分较少，
这难道不是一个明显的缺点吗？

A further difference between hot and cold countries. arises from the previous differences and also strengthens
them, namely:
热国和冷国之间的另一个差异源于前述差异，同时也加强了这些差异，即

Hot countries have less need of inhabitants than cold ones do, and can support more of them.
与寒冷的国家相比，炎热的国家对居民的需求较少，可以养活更多的居民。
There is thus a double surplus-more product, fewer consumers-which is all to the advantage of despotism. (i)
For any fixed number of inhabitants, the more they are geographically spread out the harder it becomes for
them to revolt, because would-be revolutionaries can’t act together quickly or secretly: the government can
easily unmask their activities thus defeating secrecy , and cut communications -thus defeating co-ordination
among the revolutionary cells . On the other hand, (ii) the more geographically concentrated a population is,
the harder it is for the government to usurp the sovereign’s place: the people’s leaders can deliberate as safely
in their houses as the prince can in council, and the crowd gathers as rapidly in the town squares as the
prince’s troops do in their barracks.
这样就出现了双重剩余--更多的产品，更少的消费者--这一切都对专制制度有利。(i) 对于任何固定数量的居民来
说，他们在地理上越是分散，就越难造反，因为 潜在的革命者 无法迅速或秘密地联合行动：政府可以轻易地
揭露他们的活动 从而破坏秘密性 ，并切断通讯--从而破坏革命小组之间的协调 。另一方面，(ii) 人口在地理
上越集中，政府就越难篡夺君主的位置：人民领袖可以在自己的家中像王子在议会中一样安全地议事，人群在
城市广场上像王子的军队在军营中一样迅速聚集。
[Although his terminology differs a little, Rousseau is presenting (i) and (ii) as two sides of a single coin: what
the geographical spread defeats, and the geographical concentration encourages, is action by the people (the
people’s leaders, the planners of revolt, the would-be revolutionaries) against attempts by the government to
usurp the powers of sovereignty, thus becoming despotic.]
[尽管卢梭的用词略有不同，但他却将①和②作为一枚硬币的两面来表述：地理上的分散所挫败的和地理上的集
中所鼓励的，是人民（人民的领袖、起义的策划者、未来的革命者）反对政府篡夺主权权力从而走向专制的行
动。
So a tyrannical government does best when acting at great distances. With the help of the rallying-points it
establishes,
因此，专制政府最擅长的就是远距离行动。借助它建立的集结点、
its strength grows with distance like that of a lever. The people’s strength, on the other hand, acts only when
concentrated: when it is spread around it evaporates and is lost, like gunpowder powder scattered on the
ground, which -doesn’t explode but - only catches fire grain by grain. The least populous countries are thus the
fittest for tyranny: fierce animals reign only in deserts.
而人民的力量只有在集中的时候才会发挥作用：当它四处扩散时，它就会蒸发和消失，就像散落在地上的火
药一样。 另一方面，人民的力量只有在集中时才能发挥作用：当它四处扩散时，它就会蒸发和消失，就像撒
在地上的火药粉末，它不会爆炸，只会一粒一粒地着火。因此，人口最少的国家最适合实行暴政：只有在沙漠
中，凶猛的动物才能统治一切。

9. The signs of a good government

9.好政府的标志

So if someone asks ‘What is, over-all, the best government?’ he has to be told that the question is unanswerable
as well as being indeterminate; or you could say that it has as many good answers as there are possible
combinations in the absolute and relative situations of all nations.
因此，如果有人问 "总的来说，什么是最好的政府？"他必须被告知，这个问题是无法回答的，也是不确定的；
或者可以说，在所有国家的绝对和相对情况下，有多少种可能的组合，就有多少个好答案。
‘Well, by what sign can we tell whether a given people is well or badly governed?’-that’s a question of fact that
does have an answer.
'那么，我们能通过什么迹象来判断一个民族的管理好坏呢？'这是一个有答案的事实问题。
But we don’t have the answer to it, because everyone wants to answer it in his own way:
但我们没有答案，因为每个人都想用自己的方式来回答这个问题：
-Subjects praise public tranquility, citizens praise individual liberty;
-主体赞美公共安宁，公民赞美个人自由；
-some prefer security of possessions, others security of the person;
-有人喜欢财产安全，有人喜欢人身安全；
-some hold that the best government is the most severe, others that it is the mildest;
-有人认为最严厉的政府是最好的政府，也有人认为最温和的政府是最好的政府；
-some want crimes punished, others want them prevented;
-有些人希望惩罚犯罪，有些人则希望防止犯罪；

some want the state to be feared by its neighbours, others prefers that it should keep a low profile and-
有些人希望国家受到邻国的敬畏，有些人则希望国家保持低调，
be ignored; 忽略不计；
-some are content as long as money circulates, others demand that the people have bread.
-有些人只要货币流通就心满意足，有些人则要求人民有面包吃。
Even if we reached agreement on points like these, would that be any sort of progress? Moral qualities can’t be
measured exactly, so agreement about the signs of good government could still leave us disagreeing about
which actual governments are good ones.
即使我们在这些问题上达成了一致，那还能算是进步吗？道德品质是无法准确衡量的，因此，就 好政府的标志
达成一致意见，仍然会让我们在 哪些政府是好政府的问题上产生分歧。

I am continually astonished that such a simple sign - of good government isn’t recognised, or perhaps men do
recognise it but aren’t honest enough to say so. What is the purpose of any political association? The
preservation and prosperity of its members. And what is the surest sign of their preservation and prosperity?
Their number and their population-growth. That’s the sign you are looking for. Other things being equal, the
unquestionably best government is the one under which the population increases most, without external help
from naturalising foreigners or establishing colonies. The government under which the population shrinks is
the worst. Over to you, Calculators-count, measure, compare!
我一直感到惊讶的是，这样一个简单的良好政府的标志却没有得到认可，或者说，人们确实认识到了这一点，
但却没有诚实地说出来。任何政治团体的目的是什么？维护和繁荣其成员。而成员的保存和繁荣最可靠的标志
是什么？他们的数量和人口增长。这就是你们要找的标志。在其他条件相同的情况下，毫无疑问，最好的政府
是人口增长最快的政府，而不需要外国人归化或建立殖民地的外来帮助。人口减少的政府是最糟糕的政府。交
给你们了，计算器--计算、测量、比较！
-THE NEXT PARAGRAPH WAS ORIGINALLY A SINGLE FOOTNOTE-
-下一段原本是一个脚注
That should also be the basis for deciding which centuries have been the best for human prosperity. There has
been too much admiration for the times when arts and letters flourished, by people who didn’t see the hidden
object of their culture, and didn’t take into account its fatal effect. ‘What ignorant people called "civilized
culture’ was really an aspect of slavery’ (Tacitus, Agricola, 31). Will we ever see in the maxims of any book a
statement of the vulgar interest that
这也应该是决定哪个世纪最有利于人类繁荣的依据。人们对艺术和文学兴盛的时代过于推崇，却没有看到其文
化的隐蔽性，也没有考虑到其致命的影响。无知的人们所谓的'文明文化'实际上是奴隶制的一个方面"（塔西佗，
《阿格里科拉》，31）。我们还能在任何一本书的格言中看到对庸俗利益的陈述吗？

16 This doesn’t contradict what I said earlier [page 23] about the disadvantages of great states. The topic back
there was the government’s authority over its members, whereas the present topic is its force against the
subjects. Its scattered members serve it as fulcrums for action at a distance by leverage against the people;
but the government has no fulcrum for direct action on its own members. Thus for the government the length
of the lever is a weakness for one purpose and a strength for the other.
16 这与我前面[第23页]所说的大国的弊端并不矛盾。前面的话题是政府对其成员的权威，而现在的话题是政府
对臣民的力量。政府分散的成员可以作为支点，通过杠杆 作用于人民，在一定距离 内采取行动；但政府没有
支点，无法对自己的成员直接采取行动。因此，对政府来说，杠杆的长度对一个目的来说是弱点，对另一个目
的来说则是优势。
motivates the author? No! Whatever they say, when despite its renown a country is losing population it’s not
true that all is well there; a poet may have an income of 100,000 francs for saying that his age is the best of all,
but that doesn’t change anything. Less attention should be paid to the apparent peace and tranquility of the
rulers than to the well-being of whole nations and especially those with the largest populations. A hail-storm
lays several cantons to waste, but it doesn’t often create a famine. Outbreaks and civil wars scare rulers, but
they aren’t the real misfortunes of peoples, who can even relax a little while there’s a dispute going on about
who shall tyrannise over them. Their real prosperities and calamities come from their permanent condition:
it’s when the whole remains crushed beneath the yoke that the whole falls into decay. That is when the rulers
destroy them at will, and ‘Where they create a waste-land, they call it peace’ (Tacitus, Agricola 31) [Rousseau
quotes Tacitus each time in Latin]. When the troubles among the great disturbed the kingdom of France, and
the Assistant Bishop of Paris went to the Parliament with a dagger in his pocket, these things didn’t prevent the
people of France from prospering and multiplying in dignity, in free and honourable ease. There was a time
when Greece flourished in the midst of the most savage wars; blood ran in torrents, yet the whole country was
covered with inhabitants. It appeared, says Machiavelli, that in the midst of murder, proscription and civil war,
our republic did well; the virtue, morality and independence of the citizens
激励作者？没有！不管他们怎么说，当一个国家尽管声名显赫，但人口却在减少时，并不意味着那里一切都
好；一个诗人可能会因为说他的时代是最好的时代而获得10万法郎的收入，但这并不能改变什么。对 统治者表
面上的和平与安宁的关注应该少于对 整个国家，尤其是人口最多的国家的福祉的关注。一场冰雹会摧毁几个
州，但并不会经常造成饥荒。疫情和内战会让统治者感到恐惧，但它们并不是人民真正的不幸，他们甚至可以
在争论由谁来统治他们的时候稍微放松一下。他们真正的繁荣和灾难来自于他们的永久状况：当整个民族被压
在枷锁之下时，整个民族就会陷入衰败。这就是统治者肆意摧毁他们的时候，'在他们制造废墟的地方，他们称
之为和平'（塔西佗，Agricola 31）[卢梭每次都用拉丁语引用塔西佗的话]。当大人物之间的纷争扰乱了法兰西王
国，当巴黎的助理主教揣着匕首去议会时，这些事情并没有阻止法兰西人民的繁荣，他们有尊严地、自由地、
体面地繁衍生息。曾几何时，希腊在最野蛮的战争中繁荣昌盛；血流成河，但全国都是居民。马基雅弗利说，
看来，在谋杀、取缔和内战中，我们的共和国表现良好；公民的美德、道德和独立性
did more to strengthen it than all its dissensions had done to weaken it. A little disturbance energizes the soul;
what makes our species truly prosperous is not so much peace as liberty.
这比所有的分歧对它的削弱更能增强它的力量。一点骚乱就能使灵魂充满活力；使我们这个物种真正繁荣昌盛
的，与其说是和平，不如说是自由。

10. How government is abused. Its tendency to degenerate

10.政府如何被滥用。政府的堕落趋势

Just as the individual will is constantly acting in opposition to the general will, so the government is
continually exerting itself against the sovereignty. The more strenuously it does this, the more the constitution
changes; and because in this situation there’s no other corporate will to create an equilibrium by resisting the
will of the prince, eventually the prince will bear down hard on the sovereign and break the social treaty.
[Remember that ‘the prince’ = ‘the government’, and ‘the sovereign’ = ‘the general will’] This is the inherent
and inevitable defect which, from the very birth of the body politic, tends ceaselessly to destroy it, as age and
death eventually destroy the human body.
正如个人意志不断与总体意志对抗一样，政府也在不断反对主权。它越是这样做，宪法就会发生越大的变化；
由于在这种情况下，没有其他的企业意志可以通过抵制王子的意志来创造一种平衡，最终王子会对主权者大打
出手，破坏社会条约。[记住，"王子"="政府"，而 "君主"="一般意志"]这就是政治体固有的、不可避免的缺陷，
这种缺陷从政治体诞生之日起，就不断地趋向于摧毁政治体，就像衰老和死亡最终会摧毁人体一样。

How does a government degenerate? There are two basic ways: it shrinks, or the state is dissolved.
政府是如何堕落的？有两种基本方式： 政府萎缩，或者 国家解体。

A government contracts when it changes from the many to the few, i.e. from democracy to aristocracy, and
from aristocracy to monarchy. It has a natural tendency to move in that direction. If a government took the
reverse course
当一个政府从多数变成少数，即从民主变成贵族，从贵族变成君主时，它就会收缩。它自然会朝着这个方向发
展。 如果一个政府走相反的道路

from the few to the many, it could be said to be relaxing; but this reverse sequence is impossible.
从少数人到多数人，这可以说是一种放松；但这种相反的顺序是不可能的。

Indeed, a government won’t change its form unless its unwound spring leaves it too weak to keep the form that
it has. If a government relaxed while extending its sphere, its force would become absolutely nil, and it would
be even further from being able to survive. So -when this starts to happen - it is necessary to go back and wind
up the spring to get rid of the slack; otherwise the state that it sustains will come to grief.
事实上，一个政府不会改变它的形式，除非它的 "弹簧 "松开了，使它无力保持现有的形式。如果政府在扩大范
围的同时放松了警惕，那么它的力量就会完全消失，也就更无法生存下去了。因此--当这种情况开始发生时--有
必要回过头来把弹簧上紧，以消除松弛，否则它所维持的国家就会陷入困境。
[In the preceding two paragraphs, Rousseau has spoken of a government’s (i) contracting or relaxing (=
‘expanding’), and then of its (ii) being wound up tight or coming unwound. He uses the same French verbs for
each of these contrasts. Are these meant to be a single contrast? Well, in the first contrast a government se
resserre by becoming smaller, involving fewer people, whereas in the second contrast you resserre a
government by winding up its spring. Those are not obviously equivalent, but read on.]
[在前两段中，卢梭谈到了政府的（i）收缩或放松（="扩张"），然后谈到了政府的（ii）收紧或松开。他在每一
个对比中都使用了相同的法语动词。这些对比是一个整体吗？那么，在第一个对比中，政府通过变小、涉及的
人变少而 "恢复"，而在第二个对比中，政府通过上紧发条而 "恢复"。这两者显然不是等同的，但请继续阅读]。

The dissolution of the state can come about in either of two ways.
国家的解体有两种方式。
(1) When the prince stops governing the state in accordance with the laws, and usurps the sovereign power.
Then something remarkable happens: the government doesn’t
(1) 当王子停止依法治国，篡夺主权时。这时就会发生一件了不起的事：政府不
contract, but the state does; I mean that the great big state is dissolved, and another state is formed within it,
composed solely of the members of the government and relating to the rest of the people as their master and
tyrant. Thus, the moment the government usurps the sovereignty, the social compact is broken, and all private
citizens recover by right their natural liberty; they are forced to obey, but they have no obligation to do so.
我的意思是说，这个大国解体了，在它内部形成了另一个国家， 这个国家只由政府成员组成， 与其他人民相
关，是他们的主人和暴君。因此，在政府篡夺主权的那一刻，社会契约就被打破了，所有公民个人都恢复了天
赋自由的权利；他们被迫服从，但没有义务服从。
(2) When the members of the government individually usurp the power they should exercise only as a body.
This is as great an infraction of the laws, and results in even greater disorders. When this happens there are as
many princes as there are magistrates, so to speak, and the state, which is as divided as the government is,
either perishes or changes its form.
(2) 当政府成员个人篡夺他们作为一个团体才应行使的权力时。这同样是对法律的践踏，会导致更大的混乱。当
这种情况发生时，可以说有多少个王子就有多少个地方官，而国家就像政府一样四分五裂，要么灭亡，要么改
变形式。

When the state is dissolved, the abuse of government, whatever it is, bears the common name of ‘anarchy’…,
democracy degenerates into ochlocracy ‘mob rule’], and aristocracy degenerates into oligarchy. I would add
that royalty degenerates into tyranny, but ‘tyranny’ is ambiguous and needs explanation.
当国家解体时，政府的滥用，不管它是什么，都被冠以'无政府状态'......，民主退化为ochlocracy '暴民统
治']，贵族退化为寡头政治。我还想说，王权退化为暴政，但 "暴政 "一词含糊不清，需要解释。

In the everyday sense of the word, a tyrant is a king who governs with the help of violence and without regard
在日常意义上，暴君是指以暴力为手段进行统治的国王。
was achieved by the establishment of the system of tribunes (Machiavelli has proved this); only then was there
a true government and a veritable democracy. In fact, the populace was then not only sovereign, but also
magistrate and judge; the senate was only a subordinate tribunal, to moderate the government and give it
focus; and even the consuls-though they were of the nobility, chief magistrates, absolute generals in war-were
in Rome itself no more than the populace’s chairmen [French présidents]. From then onwards the government
followed its natural tendency, inclining strongly towards aristocracy. The nobility abolished itself, as it were,
and the aristocracy was found no longer
只有这样，才有真正的政府和名副其实的民主。事实上，当时的民众不仅是主权者，也是地方行政长官和法
官；元老院只是一个从属的法庭，目的是缓和政府并使其有所侧重；甚至执政官--尽管他们是贵族、地方行政长
官和绝对的战将--在罗马本身也不过是民众的主席[法国总统]。从那时起，政府遵循其自然趋势，强烈地倾向于
贵族。贵族废除了自己，贵族阶层不再是
in the body of the hereditary nobility, as at Venice and Genoa, but
与威尼斯和热那亚一样，在世袭贵族中，但
in the body of the senate, which was composed of nobles and commoners, and even
元老院由贵族和平民组成，甚至包括
in the body of tribunes when they began to usurp an active function.
当护民官开始篡夺积极的职能时，他们就会在护民官机构中出现。
(Don’t let the labels get in the way of your thinking about the facts. When the people has rulers who govern for
it, the government is an aristocracy, whatever label is put on its members.) The abuse of aristocracy led to the
civil wars and the triumvirate. Sulla, Julius Caesar and Augustus became in fact real monarchs; and finally,
under the despotism of Tiberius the state was dissolved. So Roman history doesn’t invalidate the principle I
have laid down; it confirms it!
(不要让标签妨碍你对事实的思考。当人民拥有为其执政的统治者时，无论给政府成员贴上什么标签，政府都是
贵族政府）。贵族政治的滥用导致了内战和三权分立。苏拉、凯撒大帝和奥古斯都实际上成了真正的君主；最
后，在提庇留的专制统治下，国家解体了。因此，罗马历史并没有否定我提出的原则，而是证实了这一点！
for justice and the laws. In the word’s precise sense, a tyrant is an individual who grabs the royal authority
without having any right to it. That is how the Greeks understood the word ‘tyrant’: they applied it even-
handedly to good and bad princes whose authority wasn’t legitimate… ‘Tyrant’ and ‘usurper’ are thus perfectly
synonymous terms.
正义和法律。从这个词的确切含义来看，暴君是指无权攫取王权的人。这就是希腊人对 "暴君 "一词的理解：他
们不偏不倚地将其用于权力不合法的好王子和坏王子......因此，"暴君 "和 "篡夺者 "完全是同义词。

So as to have different labels for different things, I call someone who usurps the royal authority a tyrant, and
him who usurps the sovereign power a despot. The tyrant is someone who illegally forces his way in, so as to
govern in accordance with the laws; the despot is someone who sets himself above even the laws. Thus the
tyrant needn’t be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant.
为了给不同的事情贴上不同的标签，我把篡夺皇权的人称为暴君，把篡夺主权的人称为专制者。暴君是非法强
行进入的人，以便依法治理；专制者则是将自己凌驾于法律之上的人。因此，暴君不必是专制者，但专制者总
是暴君。

11. The death of the body politic

11.政治体的死亡

Death is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted governments. If Sparta and Rome
perished, what state can hope to last for ever? If we want to establish a long-lived form of government, let us
not even dream of making it eternal! If we’re to succeed, we mustn’t attempt the impossible, or flatter
ourselves that we are endowing the work of man with a stability that the human condition is not in fact capable
of.
死亡是最好的政府不可避免的自然趋势。如果斯巴达和罗马都灭亡了，还有什么国家能希望永远存在呢？如果
我们想建立一个长寿的政府，我们甚至不要梦想让它永恒！如果我们要取得成功，就不要尝试不可能的事情，
也不要自以为是地认为我们赋予了人类工作以人类条件事实上所不具备的稳定性。

The body politic, like the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries in itself the causes of its
destruction. But in each case the life-span may be longer or shorter, depending on whether the constitution is
more or less robust. Man’s constitution is the work of nature; the state’s constitution is the work of art, i.e. it
is man-made, artificial, not natural It isn’t in men’s power to prolong their own lives; but it’s up to them to
give the state as long a life as possible by giving it the best possible constitution. Even the best constituted state
will come to an end; but it
政治体就像人体一样，一出生就开始死亡，其本身就带有毁灭的原因。但是，在每种情况下，寿命可能更长，
也可能更短，这取决于体质是强健还是不强健。人的体质是 自然的杰作；国家的体质是 艺术的杰作， 也就
是说，它是人造的、人工的，而不是自然的 人没有能力延长自己的生命；但人却可以通过赋予国家尽可能好的
体质，让它尽可能长寿。即使是最好的国家也会走向灭亡；但它
will end later than any other, unless some unforeseen event brings about its premature destruction.
除非某些不可预见的事件导致其过早毁灭，否则它的终结时间将比任何其他国家都要晚。

The body politic’s source of life lies in the sovereign authority. The legislative power is the state’s heart, and
the executive power is its brain, which puts the parts into motion. It can happen that the brain becomes
paralysed while the individual still lives. A man can be an imbecile while staying alive. But as soon as the heart
ceases to perform its functions, the animal body is dead.
政治体的生命之源在于主权权力。立法权是国家的 心脏，而行政权则是它的 大脑，它使各个部分运转起来。
大脑可能瘫痪，而人却仍然活着。一个人在活着的时候可能是个低能儿。但是，只要心脏停止工作，动物的身
体就会死亡。
What keeps the state alive is not the laws but the legislative power. Yesterday’s law is not binding to-day; but
tacit consent is inferred from silence; and when there’s a law that the sovereign could abrogate but doesn’t, it
is held to be continuously confirming it. Anything that it has ever declared itself to will it wills always unless it
says otherwise.
维持国家活力的不是 法律，而是 立法权。昨天的法律对今天没有约束力；但从沉默中可以推断出默许；当有
一项法律， 君主可以废除但没有废除， 它就被认为是在不断确认这项法律。除非主权国另有声明，否则它所
宣布的任何意愿都将永远有效。

That’s why so much respect is paid to old laws. We should accept that nothing could have preserved them for
so long but their own excellence; if the sovereign hadn’t recognised them as salutary, it would have cancelled
them a thousand times. So in any well constituted state the laws continually grow (not weaker from old age,
but) stronger. . . . And wherever the laws grow weak as they age, this shows -that there is no longer a legislative
power, and that the state is dead.
这就是为什么人们如此尊重古老的法律。我们应该承认，除了法律本身的卓越性，没有任何东西能让它们保存
如此之久；如果君主不承认它们是有益的，那么它就会千百次地取消它们。因此，在任何一个建制良好的国
家，法律都会不断发展（不是因为年老而衰弱，而是）变得更加强大。. . .而无论在哪里，只要法律随着年龄的
增长而变得软弱无力，这就表明--立法权已经不复存在， 国家已经死亡。

12. How the sovereign authority is maintained

12.如何维护主权权威

The sovereign, having no force except the legislative power, acts only through the laws; and because the laws
are just the authentic acts of the general will, the sovereign can’t act except when the populace is assembled.
‘The populace in assembly-what a fantasy!’ you’ll want to say. It is so today, but 2000 years ago it wasn’t. Has
man’s nature changed?
除了立法权之外，君主没有任何力量，只能通过法律行事；由于法律只是普遍意愿的真实行为，因此，除非民
众集会，否则君主无法行事。'民众集会--真是天方夜谭！'你会想说。今天是这样，但两千年前不是这样。人的
本性变了吗？

The bounds of human possibility are not as confining as

人类可能性的界限并不像
we think they are; they are made to -seem to be tight by our weaknesses, our vices, our prejudices that confine
them. Low-grade souls have no belief in great men; vile slaves grin mockingly at the name of liberty.
我们的弱点、我们的恶习、我们的偏见把他们束缚得严严实实。低级的灵魂不相信伟人；卑鄙的奴隶对自由之
名嗤之以鼻。

Let’s think about what can be done, remembering what has been done. I shan’t discuss the ancient Greek
republics; but the Roman republic strikes me as having been a great state, and the town of Rome a great town.
The last census reported that Rome had four hundred thousand citizens capable of bearing arms, and the last
statement of the population of the Empire showed over four million citizensand that’s not including subject
peoples, foreigners, women, children or slaves.
让我们想想能做什么，记住已经做了什么。我不想讨论古希腊共和国，但罗马共和国给我的印象是一个伟大的
国家，罗马城是一个伟大的城市。上一次人口普查显示，罗马有四十万能够携带武器的公民，上一次帝国人口
普查显示，罗马有四百多万公民，这还不包括臣民、外国人、妇女、儿童和奴隶。

Frequent assembling of the vast population of this capital and its neighbourhood-what a labour that must have
been! Yet the Roman people did assemble almost weekly and sometimes even more often. The populace
exercised the rights of sovereignty and also some of the rights of government. It transacted some business and
judged some cases; and -the members of this whole population were in the public meeting-place as
magistrates almost as often as they were there as citizens.
经常召集首都及其周边地区的大量人口--这该是多么繁重的劳动啊！然而，罗马人几乎每周都要集会，有时甚至
更频繁。民众行使主权，也行使政府的一些权利。它处理一些事务，审判一些案件；而且--全体民众作为 地方
官出现在公共集会场所的次数，几乎与他们作为 公民出现在公共集会场所的次数一样多。

If we went back to the earliest history of nations, we would find that most of the ancient governments-even
those of monarchical form, such as the Macedonian and the Frankish-had similar councils. Be that as it may,
the one unquestionable fact that I have presented about assemblies in Rome is an answer to all difficulties.
‘Something exists, so it is possible’-that looks to me like good logic.
如果我们追溯到最早的国家历史，就会发现大多数古代政府--甚至是君主制政府，如马其顿政府和法兰克政府--
都有类似的议会。尽管如此，我所提出的关于罗马议会的一个不容置疑的事实却能解答所有难题。有些东西存
在，所以它是可能的"--这在我看来是很好的逻辑。

13. How the sovereign authority is maintained (continued)

13.如何维护主权权威（续）

It’s not enough for the assembled people to have

光是集会的人们拥有

fixed the state’s constitution on one occasion by giving its assent to a body of laws; or to have
通过同意一套法律来确定国家宪法；或
set up a perpetual government, or to have
建立一个永久的政府，或拥有
provided once for all for the election of magistrates.
一劳永逸地规定了地方行政长官的选举。

There must also be fixed periodical assemblies that can’t be cancelled or postponed, so that on the proper day
the populace is legitimately called together by law, without any need for a formal summoning. (This is
additional to any special assemblies that may be required in emergencies.)
还必须有不能取消或推迟的固定定期集会，以便在适当的日子依法召集民众，而无需正式召集。(这是在紧急情
况下可能需要的任何特别集会之外的要求）。

But apart from these assemblies authorised by their date alone, every assembly of the people not summoned by
magistrates appointed for that purpose, in accordance with the prescribed forms, should be regarded as
illegitimate, and all its acts as null and void, because the law has to be the source of the command to assemble.
但是，除了这些仅凭日期授权的集会之外，未经为此目的任命的地方行政官按照规定的形式召集的任何人民集
会都应被视为非法集会，其所有行为都应被视为无效，因为法律必须是集会命令的来源。

How often should these lawful assemblies occur? That depends on so many considerations that exact rules for
it can’t be given. Still, one can say in general that the stronger a government is the more need there is for the
sovereign to show itself often -in assemblies of the people.
这些合法集会应该多久举行一次？这取决于很多因素，因此无法给出确切的规则。不过，一般来说，政府越强
大，君主就越有必要经常在人民集会上露面。
‘This may be all right for a single town,’ you’ll want to say, ‘but what if the state includes several towns? (i) Is
the sovereign authority to be divided? (ii) or concentrated in a single town to which all the rest are made
subject?’ Neither of those, I reply. (i) The sovereign authority is one and doesn’t have parts; so it can’t be
divided without being destroyed. (ii) And one town can’t legitimately be made subject to another, any more
than one nation can; because the essence of the body politic lies in the harmony of obedience with liberty, and
the words ‘subject’ and ‘sovereign’ are precisely complementary, the concepts being united in the single word
‘citizen’.
'这对一个城镇来说可能没什么问题，'你会想说，'但如果国家包括几个城镇呢？(i) 主权是要分割？(ii)还是集中
在一个城镇，其他城镇都要服从？我的回答是，两者都不是。(i) 主权是一个整体，没有任何部分；因此，它不
可能被分割而不被摧毁。(ii) 一个城市不能合法地臣服于另一个城市，就像一个国家不能合法地臣服于另一个国
家一样；因为政治体的本质在于 服从与 自由的和谐，而'臣民'和'主权'这两个词恰恰是相辅相成的，这两个概
念统一在'公民'这个单一的词中。

I reply also that it’s always bad to unify several towns in a single city, and that anyone wanting to do this had
better
我还回答说，把几个城镇统一在一个城市里总是不好的，任何人想这样做最好是
be ready for its natural disadvantages. [In the past several pages Rousseau has written not of ‘cities’ but of
‘states’, and in the next few paragraphs he flips back to ‘states’. This confirms the apparent upshot of the
footnote on page 7 , where he seems to equate these two.]. . . . But how can small states be given the strength to
resist great ones? By alliances , as the Greek towns once resisted the great Persian king Xerxes, and as Holland
and Switzerland, more recently, have resisted the House of Austria.
准备好应对它的自然弊端。[在过去的几页中，卢梭写的不是 "城市"，而是 "国家"，而在接下来的几段中，他又
回到了 "国家"。这印证了第 7 页脚注的明显结论，他似乎在脚注中将这两者等同起来]。. . .但是，小国如何才能
获得抵抗大国的力量呢？ 通过结盟 ，就像希腊城镇曾经抵御伟大的波斯国王薛西斯一样，就像荷兰和瑞士最
近抵御奥地利王室一样。

But if a state can’t be kept within proper limits, there’s one thing that can be done, namely:
但是，如果一个国家不能保持在适当的范围内，有一件事是可以做的，那就是：

Don’t have a capital, move the seat of government from town to town, and assemble by turn in each of the
provincial estates of the country. Populate the territory evenly, extend the same rights to everyone, bring
abundance and life everywhere.
不要首都，把政府所在地从一个城镇迁到另一个城镇，轮流在全国各省庄园集结。让全境人口均匀分布，让每
个人都享有同等权利，让每个地方都富足、生机勃勃。
By these means the state will become as strong and as well governed as it possibly could be. In preparing for
such a state, don’t make grandiose provision for government in each of the towns where it will temporarily
reside. Remember that the walls of towns are built entirely out of the ruins of the houses of the countryside!
For every palace I see raised in a capital, my mind’s eye sees a whole country made desolate.
通过这些方法，国家将变得尽可能强大和治理得尽可能好。 在为这样一个国家做准备时，不要在它将暂时驻扎
的每个城镇为政府做出宏伟的规定。请记住，城镇的城墙完全是用农村房屋的废墟砌成的！每当我看到一座宫
殿在首都拔地而起，我的脑海中就会浮现出整个国家的荒凉景象。

14. How the sovereign authority is maintained (continued)

14.如何维护主权权威（续）

The moment the populace is legitimately assembled as a sovereign body, the jurisdiction of the government
wholly lapses, the executive power is suspended, and the person of a citizen at the bottom of the social heap is
as sacred and inviolable as that of the first magistrate; because representatives no longer exist in the presence
of whatever
当民众作为一个主权机构合法集会的那一刻，政府的管辖权就完全丧失了，行政权被中止了，而 一个处于社会
底层的公民的人身，就像 第一任地方行政长官的人身一样神圣不可侵犯；因为在任何情况下，代表都不再存
在。
it was they represented. Most of the tumults that arose in the comitia in Rome were due to ignorance or neglect
of this rule. [Re comitia: see page 61.] The consuls were in them merely the people’s chairmen; the tribunes
were mere speakers; the senate was nothing at all.
这就是他们的代表。罗马公民大会上发生的大多数骚乱都是由于对这一规则的无知或忽视造成的。[关于公民大
会：见第61页。]在公民大会中，执政官只是人民的主席；护民官只是发言人； 元老院什么也不是。

These intervals of suspension during which the prince recognises or ought to recognise an actual
superior-.namely the assembled populace, the sovereign --have always been, from his point of view, a threat;
and these assemblies of the people, which are the protective shield around the body politic and the curb on
the government, have always been the horror of rulers. That’s why rulers spare no pains, objections,
difficulties, and promises to stop the citizens from having them. When the citizens are greedy, cowardly, and
small-minded, and love ease more than liberty, they don’t long hold out against the redoubled efforts of the
government; and thus, as the resisting force exercised by the government keeps growing, the sovereign
authority eventually disappears, and most cities fall and perish before their time. [In that paragraph, the words
‘the prince. . .his…’ could as well have been ‘the government. . . its. . .’; for Rousseau those are strictly
equivalent. The two formulations don’t feel as different in French, in which ‘he’ and ‘his’ are not distinguished
from ‘it’ and ‘its’.]
在王子承认或应该承认实际的上级--即集会的人民、君主--的这些暂停期间，从他的观点来看，一直是一种威
胁；而这些 人民集会是政治体的保护伞，是对政府的遏制，一直是统治者的恐怖所在。这就是为什么统治者不
遗余力地反对、刁难和许诺，以阻止公民拥有 人民大会。当公民们贪婪、懦弱、心胸狭隘，爱安逸胜过爱自
由时，他们就不会长久地抵挡住政府的加倍努力；因此，随着政府 行使的抵制力量 不断增强，主权权威最终
会消失，大多数城市也会提前衰落和灭亡。[在该段中，"王子..他的...... "也可以是 "政府......."；对卢梭来说，这
两个词完全等同。在法语中，'he'和'his'与'it'和'its'并无区别，因此这两种表述在法语中并无不同。］

But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there sometimes comes to be an intervening
power about which something must be said.
但是，在 主权权威和 专制政府之间，有时会出现一种必须加以说明的干预力量。

15. Deputies or representatives

15.副手或代表

As soon as public service stops being the chief business of the citizens, and they prefer to serve with their
money rather than with their persons, the state is not far from its collapse. They are needed to march out to
war? they pay troops and stay at home. They are needed to meet in council? they name deputies and stay at
home. By force of laziness and money, they end up with soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to
sell it.
只要公共服务不再是公民的主要事务，只要他们宁愿用钱而不是用人来服务，国家离崩溃就不远了。需要他们
出征打仗？需要他们开会，他们就任命代表，然后待在家里。由于懒惰和金钱的力量，他们最终用士兵来奴役
国家，用代表来出卖国家。

It is through the hustle of commerce and the trades, through the greedy concern for profit, and through
softness and love of amenities, that personal services are replaced by money. Men surrender a part of their
profits so as to have time to increase them at leisure. And they don’t see how dangerous this is. Give money
and before long you’ll be in chains! This word ‘finance’ is slave talk; you won’t encounter it in the city-state. In
a truly free country the citizens do everything with their own muscles, and nothing with money; far from
paying to be excused from their duties, they would even pay to be allowed to perform them. My view on this
topic is far from the common one: I regard forced labour as less opposed to liberty than taxes are. [The French
is taxes; it could mean something like ‘fees imposed by the government’.]
正是由于商业和各行各业的喧嚣，由于对利润的贪婪，由于对便利设施的柔软和热爱，个人服务被金钱所取
代。人们交出一部分利润，以便有时间在闲暇时增加利润。 他们不知道这样做有多危险。给钱，用不了多久，
你就会被枷锁锁住！金融 "这个词是奴隶的口头禅，在城邦里你不会遇到它。在一个真正自由的国家里，公民做
任何事都要靠自己的力量，而不是靠金钱；他们不仅不会为了逃避责任而付钱，甚至会为了被允许履行义务而
付钱。在这个问题上，我的观点与一般人大相径庭：我认为强迫劳动与自由的对立程度低于税收。[法文是
taxes，意思可能是 "政府征收的费用"。］

The better a state’s constitution is, the more public affairs outrank private concerns in the minds of the
citizens. There won’t even be as many private concerns as there are in a less well constituted state , because
the aggregate of the common happiness provides a bigger proportion of the happiness of each individual, so
that there’s less for him to do in taking care of his own needs and desires. In a well-ordered city every man flies
to the assemblies; under a bad government no-one wants to take a step to get there, because
一个国家的宪法越完善，公共事务在公民心目中的地位就越高于私人事务。 甚至不会有那么多的私人问题，因
为共同幸福的总和为每个人提供了更大比例的幸福，这样他在照顾自己的需要和欲望方面就没有那么多事情要
做了。在一个秩序井然的城市里，每个人都会飞奔向集会；而在一个糟糕的政府里，没有人愿意迈出脚步去集
会，因为
-no-one is interested in what happens there, and because
-没有人对那里发生的事情感兴趣，因为
-it can be seen in advance that the general will won’t prevail, and lastly because
-可以预先看到普遍意愿不会占上风，最后是因为
-domestic cares are all-absorbing.
-家务事无微不至。
Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse. As soon as anyone says of the affairs
of the state ‘What do I care?’, the state may be given up for lost.
好的法律会带来更好的法律，坏的法律会带来更坏的法律。一旦有人对国家事务说'关我什么事？

The lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the vastness of states, conquest and the abuse
of government suggested the method of having deputies or representatives of the people in the national
assemblies. Some men in some countries have presumed to call these ‘the Third Estate’; notice third -putting
the individual interest of the nobility and the clergy first and second, and the public interest third.
爱国主义的冷淡、私人利益的活跃、国家的辽阔、征服和政府的滥用，都提出了在国民议会中设立代表或人民
代表的方法。有些国家的一些人自以为是地把这些人称为 "第三等级"； 注意第三 --把贵族和教士的个人利益
放在第一和第二位，而把公共利益放在第三位。
Sovereignty can’t be represented, for the same reason that it can’t be alienated [see Glossary]; what sovereignty
essentially is is the general will, and a will can’t be represented; something purporting to speak for the will of x
either is the will of x or it is something else; there is no intermediate possibility, -i.e. something that isn’t
exactly x’s will but isn’t outright not x’s will either. The people’s deputies, therefore, can’t be its
representatives: they are merely its agents, and can’t settle anything by themselves. Any ‘law’ that the populace
hasn’t ratified in person is null and void-it isn’t a law. The English populace regards itself as free, but that’s
quite wrong; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, the
populace goes into slavery, and is nothing. The use it makes of its short moments of liberty shows that it
deserves to lose its liberty!
主权是不能被代表的，这与主权不能被让渡的原因是一样的[见术语表]；主权的本质是一般意志，而意志是不能
被代表的；声称代表××意志的东西要么是××的意志，要么是别的东西；不存在中间可能性，即不完全是××的意
志，但也不完全不是××的意志。因此，人民代表不可能是人民的代表：他们只是人民的代理人，不能自己解决
任何问题。任何未经民众亲自批准的 "法律 "都是无效的--它不是法律。英国民众认为自己是自由的，但这是大
错特错的；他们只有在选举议员期间才是自由的。议员一当选，民众就会沦为奴隶，什么也不是。他们对短暂
自由的利用表明，他们理应失去自由！

The idea of representation is modern; it comes to us from feudal government, from that iniquitous and absurd
system that degrades humanity and dishonours the name of man.
代表权的概念是现代的；它来自封建政府，来自那个有损人性、玷污人的名声的邪恶而荒谬的制度。

In ancient republics and even in monarchies, the people never had representatives; the word itself was
unknown. It is remarkable that in Rome, where the tribunes were so sacrosanct, no-one ever imagined that
they could usurp the functions of the people, and that in the midst of so great a multitude they never tried to
conduct a public referendum on their own authority. Still, we can gauge the difficulties sometimes caused by
the size of those crowds from what happened at the time of the Gracchi, when some of the citizens had to cast
their votes from the roof-tops.
在古代共和国，甚至在君主制国家，人民从来没有代表；这个词本身也不为人所知。值得注意的是， 在罗马，
护民官是如此神圣不可侵犯，没有人想到他们会篡夺人民的职能， 在如此众多的人群中，他们从未试图就自己
的权威进行全民公决。尽管如此，我们还是可以从格拉基王朝时期发生的事情中了解到这些人群的规模有时会
造成的困难，当时一些公民不得不在屋顶上投票。

Where right and liberty are everything, disadvantages are nothing. Among this wise people-the ancient
Romans-everything was given its just value: its lictors were allowed to do what its tribunes would never have
dared to do, because it had no fear that its lictors would try to represent it.
在权利和自由至上的地方，不利因素不值一提。在这个睿智的民族--古罗马人中，一切都被赋予了公正的价值：
他们的刽子手可以做护民官永远不敢做的事，因为他们不怕刽子手试图代表他们。

You’ll understand how the tribunes did sometimes represent the people if you think about how the government
represents the sovereign. Law being nothing but the declaration of the general will, it’s clear that the populace
in its law-making capacity can’t be represented; but in respect of the executive power-which is only the force
that is applied to -implementing. the law-it can and should be represented. We thus see that if we looked
closely into the matter we would find that very few nations have any laws! Be that as it may, it is certain that
the tribunes, having no executive power, could never represent the Roman people by right of the powers
entrusted to them, but only by usurping the rights of the senate.
如果你想想政府是如何代表君主的，你就会明白护民官有时是如何代表人民的。法律不过是对普遍意志的宣
示，很显然，人民在制定法律时是不能被代表的；但就行政权而言--它只是用来执行法律的力量--它可以而且应
该被代表。由此可见，如果我们仔细研究这个问题，就会发现很少有国家拥有法律！尽管如此，可以肯定的
是，没有行政权的护民官永远无法 通过赋予他们的权力来代表罗马人民，而只能 通过篡夺元老院的权利来代
表罗马人民。

In Greece, all that the populace had to do, it did for itself; it was constantly assembled in the public square.
在希腊，民众要做的事情都是自己做的；他们经常聚集在公共广场上。

The Greeks lived in a mild climate; they weren’t greedy; slaves did their work for them; their great concern was
with liberty. Lacking those advantages, how can you preserve those rights? Your harsher climates add to your
needs; for half the year your public squares are uninhabitable; the flatness of your languages unfits them for
being heard in the open air; you put more into profit than into liberty, and fear slavery less than you fear
poverty.
希腊人生活在气候温和的地方，他们不贪婪，奴隶为他们干活，他们最关心的是自由。缺乏这些优势，你们如
何维护这些权利？你们恶劣的气候增加了你们的需求； 你们的公共广场一年中有一半时间不适合居住；你们
的语言平淡无奇，不适合在露天倾听；你们对利益的投入多于对自由的投入，对奴役的恐惧少于对贫穷的恐
惧。

What?! Is liberty maintained only with help from slavery? It may be so. Extremes meet. Everything that isn’t in
the course of nature has its drawbacks, especially civil society. There are some unhappy circumstances where
we can’t keep our liberty except at others’ expense, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only when the
slave is most a slave. That’s how things stood at Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you don’t have slaves but
you are slaves; you pay for their liberty with your own. Boast away about this preference-I find in it more
cowardice than humanity.
什么？难道只有在奴隶制的帮助下才能维持自由吗？也许是的。两极相遇。一切不符合自然规律的事物都有其
弊端，尤其是公民社会。在有些不愉快的情况下，除非牺牲他人的利益，否则我们无法保持自己的自由，只有
当奴隶沦为奴隶时，公民才能获得完全的自由。斯巴达的情况就是这样。至于你们，现代人，你们没有奴隶，
但你们是奴隶；你们用自己的自由来换取他们的自由。你们可以夸耀自己的这种偏好，但我认为这更多的是懦
弱，而非人性。

I don’t mean that one ought to have slaves, or that the right of slavery is legitimate (I have shown that it isn’t).
I’m merely saying why modern peoples, thinking they are free, have representatives, whereas ancient peoples
didn’t. Be that as it may, the moment a people allows itself to be represented, it stops being free-it stops being.
我的意思不是说应该有奴隶，也不是说奴隶制的权利是合法的（我已经证明了这一点）。我只是想说，为什么
现代人认为自己是自由的，会有代表，而古代人却没有。尽管如此，一个民族一旦允许自己被代表，它就不再
是自由的--不再是存在的。

All things considered, I don’t see that it is any longer possible for the sovereign to preserve among us the
exercise of its rights, unless the city is very small. But if it is very small, won’t it be conquered? No. I’ll show
later on how a the external strength of a great people can be combined with the smooth politics and good order
of a small state.
综上所述，我认为除非城市非常小，否则主权国家不可能再在我们中间维护其权利的行使。但是，如果城市很
小，它就不会被征服吗？我稍后会告诉大家，一个伟大民族的外在力量如何与小国的平稳政治和良好秩序相结
合。

16. What establishes government isn't a contract

16.什么规定政府不是合同

Once the legislative power has been well established, the next thing is to establish also the executive power; for
this latter, which works only through particular actions, isn’t part of the essence of the former and so is
naturally separate from it. If the sovereign qua sovereign could possess the executive power, right and fact
would be so mixed together that no-one could tell what was law and what wasn’t; and the body politic, thus
disfigured, would soon fall prey to the violence it was instituted to prevent.
立法权一旦确立，接下来的事情就是确立行政权；因为后者只通过特定的行动发挥作用，不属于前者的本质，
因此自然与前者分离。如果主权者能够拥有行政权，那么权利和事实就会混为一谈，以至于没有人能够分辨出
什么是法律，什么不是法律；而政治体制也会因此面目全非，很快就会沦为暴力的牺牲品，而建立政治体制的
目的正是为了防止暴力。

Because the citizens are, by the social contract, all equal, they can all prescribe anything that all of them should
do; whereas no-one has a right to demand that someone else shall do something that he doesn’t do himself. It
is this right that the sovereign, in instituting the government, confers upon the prince. It’s a right that the
prince has to have because it is indispensable for giving life and movement to the body politic.
因为根据社会契约，公民们都是平等的，他们都可以规定他们都应该做的任何事情；而任何人都无权要求别人
做他自己不做的事情。君主在建立政府时赋予王子的就是这种权利。这是王子必须拥有的权利，因为它是赋予
政治体生命和运动所不可或缺的。

Many theorists have claimed that this act of establishment was a contract between the people and the rulers it
sets over itself-a contract specifying the conditions under which one of the two parties was obliged to
command and the other was obliged to obey. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that that would be an odd kind of
contract to enter into! But let us see if this view can be upheld. 'll give three reasons why it can’t.
许多理论家声称，这种建立行为是人民与他们为自己设定的统治者之间的一种契约--一种明确规定了双方中一方
有义务指挥、另一方有义务服从的条件的契约。我相信你会同意我的看法，即这是一种奇怪的契约！但是，让
我们看看这种观点是否成立。 我们将给出三个不能成立的理由。
(1) The supreme authority can no more be modified than it can be alienated; to limit it is to destroy it. It is
absurd and contradictory to suppose that the sovereign might set a superior over itself; binding itself to obey a
master would be returning to -the terrible chaos of - absolute liberty.
(1) 至高无上的权威不能被修改，也不能被转让；限制它就等于摧毁它。假设主权者可以为自己设置一个上级，
这是荒谬和矛盾的；让自己服从一个主人，就等于回到了绝对自由的可怕混乱之中。
(2) Moreover, it is clear that this contract between the people and such-and-such individuals would be a
particular
(2) 此外，人民与这样那样的个人之间的这种契约显然是一种特殊的契约。
act; and from this is follows that it can’t be a law or an act of sovereignty, and that consequently it would be
illegitimate.
由此可见，它不可能是法律或主权行为，因此是不合法的。
(3) It’s obvious also that in this supposed contract- the contracting parties would be under nothing but the law
of nature, with no guarantees of their mutual undertakingswhich would be wholly at variance with the civil
state. Someone who has force at his command is always in a position to control execution, so the idea that I’m
attacking would be on a par with giving the label ‘contract’ to the act of one man who said to another: ‘I give
you all my goods, on condition that you give me back as much of them as you please.’
(3) 同样显而易见的是，在这种假定的契约中，缔约双方只服从自然法则，对他们的相互承诺没有任何保证，这
与民事国家完全不同。一个拥有武力的人总是能够控制武力的执行，因此，我所攻击的观点就等同于给一个人
对另一个人说：'我把我所有的货物都给你，条件是你还我多少，我就还你多少'的行为贴上'契约'的标签。

There’s only one contract in the state; it is the contract of association, which single-handedly rules out any
others. It is impossible to conceive of any public contract that wouldn’t violate the first one.
在国家中只有一种契约，那就是结社契约，它以一己之力排除了其他任何契约。不可能有任何公共契约不违反
第一条。

17. What does establish government

17.建立政府

Under what general idea then should we conceive the act by which government is instituted? I’ll start by saying
that the act is complex, i.e. is composed of two others-(i) the establishment of the law and (ii) the execution of
the law.
那么，我们应该根据什么样的一般观念来看待建立政府的行为呢？我首先要说的是，这一行为是复杂的，即由
另外两个行为组成--(i) 制定法律和 (ii) 执行法律。

By (i) the sovereign decrees that there’s to be a governing body established in such-and-such a form; this act is
clearly a law.
通过 (i) 主权者颁布法令，以这样或那样的形式建立一个管理机构；这一行为显然是一种法律。

By (ii) the populace picks the rulers who are to run the government that has been established. This selection is
a particular act; so it’s clearly not another law, but merely a consequence of the first and a function of
government [= an act of the government’].
通过(ii)，民众挑选统治者来管理已经建立的政府。这种选择是一种特殊的行为；因此，它显然不是另一条法
律，而只是第一条法律的结果和政府的职能[=政府的行为']。

But there’s a difficulty: How can there be an act of the government before the government exists? And how can
the populace, which is only sovereign or subject, become a prince or magistrate under certain circumstances?
但这是个难题：在政府存在之前，怎么会有政府行为呢？那么，只有 主权或 臣民的民众又如何在特定情况下
成为王子或地方长官呢？
[The former of those two questions arises straight out of what Rousseau has just been saying, but the latter
question doesn’t. We know his thesis that the populace-the totality of the people-is the sovereign through the
exercise of its general will, and is the set of subjects because of their obligation to obey the government. And
we recall that back at page 33 he seemed to countenance the idea that the governing body might reach the
upper limit of numerousness by admitting every citizen into it. He raises the matter again here because, it
seems, he thinks it helps him to answer the former of the two questions.]
[这两个问题中的前一个直接源于卢梭刚才所说的话，而后一个问题则不然。我们知道他的论点，即民众--全体
人民--通过行使其普遍意志而成为 主权者，并且由于服从政府的义务而成为 臣民。我们还记得，在第 33 页
时，他似乎支持这样一种观点，即管理机构可以通过接纳每一位公民而达到人数的上限。他在这里再次提出这
个问题，似乎是因为他认为这有助于回答这两个问题中的前一个。］

At this point we encounter one of the astonishing properties of the body politic, by means of which it reconciles
apparently contradictory operations: this is done by a sudden conversion of sovereignty into democracy, so
that with no change that anyone could see and purely through a new relation of all to all, the citizens become
magistrates and pass from general acts to particular acts, from legislation to the execution of the law.
在这一点上，我们遇到了政治体的一个惊人特性，它通过这种特性调和了表面上相互矛盾的运作：这是通过将
主权突然转变为 民主来实现的，这样，在没有任何人能够看到的变化的情况下，纯粹通过所有人与所有人之间
的新关系，公民成为了地方行政长官，从一般行为转变为特殊行为，从立法转变为执行法律。

This change of relationship isn’t a theoretician’s subtlety with no examples out there in the world. It happens
every day in the English parliament, where on certain occasions the Lower House turns itself into a ‘committee
of the whole’ so as to have a better discussion of affairs, so that from being at one moment a sovereign court it
becomes at the next a mere commission, an organ of government ; then it reports the upshot of these
discussions to itself as House of Commons, where it debates under one name what it has already settled under
another.
这种关系的变化并不是理论家的微妙之处，在世界上也没有实例。英国议会每天都在发生这种变化，在某些场
合，下院会变成一个 "全体委员会"，以便更好地讨论各种事务，这样，下院就从一个主权法庭变成了一个纯粹
的委员会， 一个政府机构 ；然后，下院会以下议院的名义向自己报告这些讨论的结果，下院会用一个名称辩
论它已经用另一个名称解决的问题。

That’s the special advantage of democratic governmentthat it can be brought into existence by a simple act of
the general will. And then this provisional government remains in power, if that’s what was decided, or else it,
acting in the name of the sovereign, establishes the government that is prescribed by law; and thus the whole
thing is done by the rules. That’s the only possible way to set up government
这就是民主政府的特殊优势，它可以通过简单的一般意志行为而成立。然后，这个临时政府继续掌权，如果这
是已决定的；或者，它以君主的名义行事，建立法律规定的政府；这样，整个事情就按规则进行了。这是建立
政府的唯一可能方式
legitimately and in accordance with the principles I have laid down.
我已根据我所制定的原则，合法地提出了这一要求。

18. How to protect the government from being taken over

18.如何保护政府不被接管

What I have just said confirms chapter 16, and makes it clear -that the act that institutes government is not a
contract, but a law; that the recipients of the executive power are not the people’s masters, but its officers;
that it can set them up and pull them down when it likes; that for them there is no question of contract, but of
obedience; and that in taking over the functions the state has assigned to them they’re only doing their duty as
citizens, without having the any right to challenge the conditions.
我刚才所说的证实了第16章的内容，并清楚地表明--建立政府的行为不是契约，而是法律； 行政权的接受者不
是人民的主人，而是政府的官员； 政府可以随心所欲地把他们扶上马，也可以随心所欲地把他们拉下马； 对
他们来说，不存在契约问题，而是服从问题； 在接管国家赋予他们的职能时，他们只是在履行公民的义务，而
无权对条件提出质疑。

So when the populace sets up a hereditary governmentwhether monarchical within one family or aristocratic
within one social class-it isn’t making any promises. All it’s doing is to give the administration a certain
form, provisionally, to last until it pleases the people to make some other arrangement.
因此，当民众建立世袭政府时，无论是一个家族内的君主制政府，还是一个社会 阶级内的贵族制政府，都没
有做出任何承诺。它所做的只是暂时赋予政府某种形式，直到人民乐意做出其他安排为止。

It’s true that such changes are always dangerous, and that an established government shouldn’t be touched
unless it has come into conflict with the public good; but this is just a note of warning, a maxim of policy; it
isn’t a legal rule, and the state is no more bound to leave civil authority in the hands of its rulers than it is to
leave military authority in the hands of its generals.
诚然，这种变化总是危险的，除非与公共利益发生冲突，否则就不应该触动既有的政府；但这只是一种警告，
一种政策格言；它并不是法律规则，国家将民事权力交到统治者手中，并不比将军事权力交到将军手中更有约
束力。

Care should be taken in such cases to observe all the formalities that are required if a regular and legitimate act
is to be distinguished from a seditious tumult, and the will of a whole people distinguished from the clamour of
a faction. ‘Care should be taken’-it would be impossible to take too much care! [This next bit expands
something that Rousseau wrote
在这种情况下，应该注意遵守一切必要的手续，这样才能将正规合法的行为与煽动性的骚乱区分开来，将全体
人民的意愿与一个派别的喧嚣区分开来。应小心谨慎"--不可能太小心谨慎！[下面这段话扩展了卢梭写的一些内
容
using an old legal term.] Here above all the government, when confronted with claims of rights that it thinks
would be especially dangerous to allow, should allow only what it legally must. This obligation gives the prince
a great advantage in preserving his power despite the people, without its being possible to say he has usurped
it; for, seeming only to exercise his rights, he finds it very easy to extend them, and to use the ‘keeping the
peace’ excuse to prevent gatherings that were to have been aimed at restoring order In this way he takes
advantage of a silence that he doesn’t allow to be broken, or of -irregularities that he causes to be committed,
to -assume that he has the support of those whom fear prevents from speaking, and to punish those who dare
to speak. That is how ancient Rome’s decemvirs, first elected for one year and then kept on in office for a
second, tried to make their power permanent by forbidding the comitia to assemble; and by this easy method
every government in the world, once it is clothed with the public power, sooner or later usurps the sovereign
authority. [The decemvirs were a ten-man committee which was, in Rousseau’s sense of the word, ‘a prince’. Of
course a committee is an ‘it’, not a ‘he’ as a prince is-in English, but French doesn’t have different words for ‘he’
and ‘it’; see the note on page 48.]
使用了一个古老的法律术语]。在这里，最重要的是，政府在面对它认为允许会特别危险的权利要求时，只应允
许它在法律上必须允许的权利。这项义务为王子提供了一个巨大的优势，使他可以不顾人民的反对而维护自己
的权力，同时又不会被人说他篡夺了权力；他似乎只是在 行使自己的权利，却很容易 扩大这些权利，并以
"维持和平 "为借口，阻止旨在恢复秩序的集会、或他造成的违规行为，假定他得到了那些因恐惧而不敢说话的
人的支持，并 惩罚那些敢于说话的人。古罗马的僭主们就是这样，他们先是当选一年，然后继续留任一年，并
试图通过禁止公民集会来使自己的权力永久化；世界上的每一个政府一旦被赋予公共权力，迟早都会通过这种
简单的方法篡夺主权。[decemvirs是一个十人委员会，在卢梭的意义上，它就是'王子'。当然，委员会是一个
"它"，而不是像王子那样是一个 "他"--在英语中，"他 "和 "它 "在法语中没有不同的词；见第48页的注释。］

The periodical assemblies that I spoke of earlier [page 47] are a device for preventing or postponing this
calamity. Their chance of succeeding in that is greater if they don’t have to be formally summoned, because
then the prince can’t stop them without openly declaring himself a law-breaker and an enemy of the state.
我在前面[第47页]提到的定期集会是防止或推迟这种灾难的一种手段。如果不需要正式召集，成功的几率就会更
大，因为这样王子就无法在不公开宣布自己是违法者和国家公敌的情况下阻止他们。

These assemblies, whose sole object is the maintenance of the social treaty, should open by the posing of two
questions that must never be suppressed and should be voted on separately:
这些大会的唯一目标是维护社会条约，大会开始时应提出两个问题， 绝不能压制， 应分别表决：
(1) ‘Does it please the sovereign to preserve the present form of government?’
(1) "君主是否乐于保留目前的政府形式？
(2) ‘Does it please the people to leave its administration in the hands of those who are currently in charge of it?’
(2) "将其管理权交给目前的负责人，人民会高兴吗？
I’m assuming here something that I think I have shown, namely that there is in the state no fundamental law
that can’t be revoked. Even the social compact itself can be revoked: if all the citizens came together for the
agreed purpose of breaking the compact, there’s no doubt that this would very legitimately break it. Grotius
even thinks that each man can renounce his membership of his own state, and recover his natural liberty and
his goods on leaving the country. It would be absurd if all the citizens in assembly couldn’t do something
that each can do by himself.
我在这里假设了一些我认为我已经证明了的东西，即在国家中没有不能被废除的基本法律。甚至社会契约本身
也是可以被废除的：如果所有公民聚集在一起，目的都是为了破坏契约，那么毫无疑问，这将会非常合法地破
坏契约。格劳秀斯甚至认为，每个人都可以放弃自己国家的成员资格，并在离开国家时恢复自己的自然自由和
财产。 如果全体公民都不能做一些每个人都可以自己做的事情，那就太荒谬了。
BOOK 4 第 4 册

1. The general will is indestructible

1.普遍意志坚不可摧

As long as a number of men gathered together regard themselves as a single body, they have only a single will,
which is concerned with the survival and well-being of all of them. In this case, the state’s machinery is all
vigorous and simple and its rules clear and luminous; there’s no tangle of hidden agendas; the common good is
always obvious, and only good sense is needed to perceive it. Peace, unity and equality are enemies of political
subtleties. Simple straightforward men are hard to deceive because of their simplicity; lures and ingenious
excuses don’t work with them-they aren’t even subtle enough to be dupes! When among the world’s happiest
people we see a group of peasants gathered under an oak to regulate the state’s affairs, and always acting
wisely, can we help scorning the sophistication of other nations, which put so much skill and so much mystery
into making make themselves illustrious and wretched?
只要聚集在一起的人将自己视为一个整体，他们就只有一个意志，而这个意志关乎所有人的生存和福祉。在这
种情况下，国家机器充满活力，简单明了，规则清晰明了；没有纠缠不清的暗箱操作；共同利益总是显而易见
的，只需要良好的感觉就能感知它。和平、团结和平等是政治微妙的敌人。简单直率的人很难被欺骗，因为他
们简单；诱饵和巧妙的借口对他们不起作用--他们甚至不够狡猾，不会上当受骗！当我们在世界上最幸福的民族
中看到一群农民聚集在一棵橡树下管理国家事务，并且总是明智地行事时，我们能不鄙视其他民族的老谋深算
吗？

A state governed like that doesn’t need many laws; and when new ones are needed, everyone will see that they
are. The first man to propose them is merely putting into words what they have all been thinking, and there’s
no place here for deals or for eloquence in order to get passed into law something that each of them has already
decided to do as soon as he’s sure that the rest will act with him.
这样治理的国家不需要太多的法律；当需要新的法律时，每个人都会看到它们的存在。第一个提出法律建议的
人只是把大家的想法用语言表达出来，这里不需要交易，也不需要口才，只需要把每个人已经决定要做的事情
变成法律，只要他确信其他人会和他一起行动。

Theorists are struck by the impossibility of applying such procedures to any state that they have seen; but they
go wrong about this, because the only states they have looked at are ones that were badly constituted from the
beginning. When they picture all the absurdities that a clever rascal or a charming speaker might get the
people of Paris or London
理论家们感到震惊的是，在他们所见过的任何国家中，都不可能适用这样的程序；但他们在这一点上却错了，
因为他们所见过的国家，都是那些从一开始就组成得很糟糕的国家。当他们描绘一个聪明的流氓或一个迷人的
演说家可能会让巴黎或伦敦的人们产生的种种荒谬时
to believe, it makes them smile. They don’t realize that Cromwell would have been sentenced to hard labour by
the people of Berne, and the Duc de Beaufort would have been put in a reformatory by the Genevese!
他们不知道克伦威尔会被伯尔尼人判处苦役，博福特公爵会被日内瓦人关进感化院他们不知道克伦威尔会被伯
尔尼人判处苦役，博福特公爵会被日内瓦人关进感化院！

But when the social bond begins to slacken and the state to grow weak, when particular interests start to make
themselves felt and the smaller societies begin to influence the larger one, the common interest changes and
comes to have opponents; votes are no longer unanimous; the general will is no longer the will of all;
contradictory views are presented and debates start up; and the best advice isn’t accepted without question.
Finally,
但是，当社会纽带开始松弛，国家开始衰弱，当特殊利益开始显现，小社会开始影响大社会时，共同利益就会
发生变化，就会出现反对者；投票不再是一致的；普遍意愿不再是所有人的意愿；相互矛盾的观点就会出现，
辩论就会开始；最好的建议也不会被毫无疑问地接受。最后、
when the nearly ruined state exists only in an illusory and empty form, when
当近乎毁灭的状态只是以虚幻和空洞的形式存在时，当
-in every heart the social bond is broken, and when
-在每个人的心中，社会纽带都被打破了，当
the meanest interest brazenly helps itself to the sacred name of ‘public good’,
最卑鄙的利益集团公然以 "公共利益 "的神圣名义帮助自己、
the general will falls silent: all men, guided by secret motives, stop giving their views as citizens (it’s as though
there had never been a state); and wicked decrees directed solely to private interest get passed off as ‘laws’.
普遍意志陷入沉寂：所有人在秘密动机的引导下，不再以公民的身份发表意见（就好像从来没有过国家一
样）；只针对私人利益的邪恶法令被当作 "法律"。

Does it follow from this that the general will is exterminated or corrupted? Not at all: it continues to be
constant, unalterable and pure; but it is pushed aside by other wills that invade its territory. Each man, in
distinguishing his interests from the common interest, sees clearly that he can’t entirely separate them, -i.e.
that his pursuit of his own interests will have some negative effect on the common good ; but he sees his
share in the public misfortunes as negligible compared with the private good that he is laying claim to. Apart
from this private good, he wills the general
这是否意味着一般意志被消灭或堕落了呢？完全不是：它仍然是恒定的、不可改变的和纯粹的；但它被侵入其
领地的其他意志挤到了一边。每个人在把自己的利益与共同利益区分开来时，都清楚地看到，他无法把它们完
全分开，也就是说，他对自己利益的追求会对共同利益 产生一些负面影响；但他认为， 与 他所要求的私人
利益相比，他在公共不幸中所占的份额微不足道。除了这种私人利益之外，他还希望一般的
good as strongly as anyone else because it’s in his interests to do so. Even when he sells his vote for money, he
does not extinguish the general will in himself, but only dodges around it. The wrong thing he does is to change
the question, answering a different question from the one he was asked. Instead of giving a vote that says
因为这样做符合他的利益。即使他为了金钱而出卖自己的选票，他也没有泯灭自己的普遍意愿，而只是回避。
他的错误做法是改变问题，回答一个与他被问到的问题不同的问题。他的投票不是说
‘It is to the state’s advantage that such-and-such should happen’,
发生这样那样的事情对国家有利"、
he says through his vote
他通过投票说
‘It is to x’s advantage that such-and-such should happen’,
发生这样那样的事情对 x 有利"、
where x is some man or faction. The law of public order–i.e. the thing that it matters most to have happen–in
assemblies is not so much maintaining the general will as ensuring that it is consulted and that it answers.
其中，x 是某个人或某个派别。公共秩序的法则，即在集会中最重要的事情，与其说是 维护普遍意愿，不如说
是 确保征求普遍意愿并得到回应。

I could offer many reflections on the simple right of voting in every act of sovereignty-a right that no-one can
take from the citizens-and also on the right of stating views, making proposals, dividing and discussing, which
the government is always most careful to leave solely to its members; but this important subject would need a
book to itself-I can’t say everything in this one.
我可以就每项主权行为中的简单投票权--任何人都不能剥夺公民的这项权利--发表意见、提出建议、进行分工和
讨论的权利（政府总是小心翼翼地将这些权利完全留给其成员）提出许多想法；但这一重要主题需要单独写一
本书，我无法在这本书中一一阐述。

2. Voting 2.表决
You [see Glossary] can see from the last chapter that a pretty good indication of the current state of mœurs [see
Glossary] and the health of the body politic is given by the facts about how general business is managed by it…
The nearer opinion comes to unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the general will; whereas long debates,
dissensions and tumult proclaim the domination by particular interests and the decline of the state.
你们[见术语表]可以从上一章中看到，政治体制如何管理一般事务的事实，很好地说明了政治体制[见术语表]的
现状和健康状况......意见越接近一致，普遍意志的支配力就越强；而长期的争论、分歧和骚乱则宣告了 特殊利
益的支配和 国家的衰落。

This seems less obvious when a state’s constitution contains two or more orders of citizens, like ancient Rome’s
nobility and plebeians, whose quarrels often disturbed the comitia [see page 61], even in the best days of the
Republic. But the exception is apparent rather than real; because in that case the inherent defect in the body
politic brings it about that there are, so to speak, two states in one, and what’s not true of the two together is
true of each separately. Indeed, even in the most stormy times, the plebiscites of the people-as long as the
Senate didn’t get involved-always went through quietly and by large majorities: the citizens had only one
interest, so the people had only one will.
当一个国家的宪法包含两个或两个以上等级的公民时，这一点似乎就不那么明显了，比如古罗马的贵族和平
民，他们的争吵经常扰乱公民大会[见第61页]，即使在共和国最好的时代也是如此。但是，这种例外是表面的，
而不是真实的；因为在这种情况下，政治体的固有缺陷会导致可以说是两个国家合二为一，而两者合在一起不
真实的情况，在每个国家单独存在时都是真实的。事实上，即使在最风雨飘摇的年代，人民的全民公决--只要参
议院不插手--也总是悄无声息地以多数票通过：公民只有一种利益，所以人民只有一种意愿。

At the other end of the political spectrum, unanimity circles back: that’s when the citizens, having fallen into
servitude, no longer have any liberty or any will. Fear and flattery then convert voting into acclamation; no-
one considers issues any more; all they do is to fawn -on those in power - or to curse their rivals . Such was the
vile manner in which the senate expressed its ‘views’ under the Emperors. It did so sometimes with absurd
precautions: Tacitus reports that under the emperor Otho the senators, in heaping curses on Vitellius,
arranged to make a deafening noise so that if Vitellius ever became their master he wouldn’t know what each of
them had said!
在政治光谱的另一端，全体一致的情况又出现了：这时，公民沦为奴仆，不再有任何自由和意志。恐惧和谄媚
使 投票变成了 鼓掌；没有人再考虑问题；他们所做的只是向当权者献媚，或诅咒他们的对手 。这就是元老
院在皇帝统治下表达其 "观点 "的卑劣方式。有时，元老院还会采取荒谬的预防措施：塔西佗（Tacitus）报告
说，在奥托（Otho）皇帝时期，元老们在咒骂维特里乌斯（Vitellius）时，安排了震耳欲聋的噪音，这样如果维
特里乌斯成为他们的主人，他就不会知道他们每个人都说了什么！

What rules should govern the methods of counting votes and comparing opinions? That depends on the factors
I have been discussing, i.e. on how easy or hard it is to discover what the general will is, and on how far along
the state is in its decline.
计算选票和比较意见的方法应该遵循什么样的规则？这取决于我一直在讨论的因素，即发现普遍意愿的难易程
度，以及国家衰落的程度。

There’s only one law that from its very nature needs unanimous consent, namely the social compact; for civil
association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man is born free and his own master, so no-one on any
pretext-any pretext-can make any man a subject without his consent.
只有一种法律从其本质上来说需要一致同意，那就是社会契约；因为公民结社是所有行为中最自愿的行为。每
个人生来都是自由的，都是自己的主人，因此任何人都不能以任何借口--任何借口--在未经本人同意的情况下让
任何人成为臣民。

To rule that the son of a slave is born a slave is to rule that he isn’t born a man.
规定奴隶的儿子生来就是奴隶，就是规定他生来就不是人。

So if the social compact has opponents at the time when it is made, their opposition doesn’t invalidate the
contract; it merely prevents them from being included in it, making them foreigners among citizens. Once a
state has been instituted, residence constitutes consent; to live within its territory is to submit to its
sovereignty.
因此，如果社会契约在订立时有反对者，他们的反对并不会使契约无效，而只是使他们无法被纳入其中，使他
们成为公民中的异类。国家一旦建立，居住即构成同意；在其领土内生活就是服从其主权。

Apart from this primal contract, the vote of the majority always binds all the rest. This follows from the
contract itself. [That is the last mention of the social contract until the last page or two of the work.]
除了这个原始契约之外，多数人的投票总是对其他人具有约束力。这是契约本身的规定[这是作品最后一两页才
提到社会契约]

You will ask: 'How can a man be both free and forced to conform to wills that are not his own. How are the
opponents at once free and subject to laws they have not agreed to? I reply that the question is wrongly put.
The citizen gives his consent to all the laws, including ones that are passed against his opposition, and even
laws that punish him when he dares to break any law. The constant will of all the members of the state is the
general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free. When a law is proposed to the assembled people, what
they are being asked is not
你们会问：'一个人怎么可能既有 自由，又有 被迫服从不属于他自己的意志。反对者怎么会既自由又受制于他
们没有同意的法律呢？我回答说，这个问题提得不对。公民同意所有的法律，包括反对他的法律，甚至包括在
他胆敢违法时惩罚他的法律。国家全体成员的一贯意志就是普遍意志；由于这种意志，他们才是公民，才是自
由的。 当向全体人民提出一项法律时，他们被要求的不是
(1) Do you approve or reject this proposal?
(1) 你赞成还是反对这项建议？
but rather 而是
(2) Is this proposal in conformity with the general will? -the general will being their will. Each man’s vote gives
his opinion on that point, -i.e. his answer to question (2) ; and the general will is found by counting votes.
When therefore
(2) 这一提议是否符合普遍意愿？-总的意愿就是他们的意愿。每个人的投票都表明了他对这一点的看法，即他对
问题（2）的回答；通过计算票数，就可以得出总的意愿。因此，当
the opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and
that what I thought to be the general will was not so. [Rousseau is avoiding saying that a merely majority vote
could express the general will; all it does, he says, is to express an opinion about what the general will is.]…
如果与我的意见相反的意见占了上风，这就证明我错了，我所认为的普遍意志并非如此。[卢梭避免说仅仅多数
票就能表达普遍意志；他说，多数票所做的只是表达对普遍意志是什么的看法]......

This presupposes, indeed, that all the qualities of the general will still reside in the majority: when they cease
to do so, whatever side a man may take, liberty is no longer possible.
这实际上是以大多数人仍然具有普遍意志的所有品质为前提的：当这些品质不再具有时，无论一个人站在哪一
边，自由都不再可能。

In my earlier demonstration [page 14] of how particular wills are substituted for the general will in public
deliberations, I said enough about the workable methods for avoiding this abuse; and I’ll return to them later
on. I also set out the principles for deciding how big a majority is needed for a declaration of that will. A
difference of one vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys unanimity; but between 50-50 and
unanimity there are many grades of unequal division-many differences in how steep the majority-tominority
slope is-and which of these is sufficient for a decision to be made will vary according to the needs of the body
politic in question.
我在前面[第14页]关于在公共讨论中如何用特殊意愿代替普遍意愿的演示中，已经充分说明了避免这种滥用的可
行方法；我稍后会再谈这些方法。我还阐述了决定宣布该意愿需要多大多数票的原则。一票之差就破坏了平
等；一个反对者就破坏了一致；但在五五分成和一致之间，还有许多等级的不平等--多数--少数斜率的陡峭程度
有许多差异--其中哪一种足以做出决定，将根据有关政治团体的需要而有所不同。

Two general rules provide guidance to the decisions about majorities. (i) The more serious and important the
question that is being put to the vote, the nearer to unanimity the threshold should be set. (ii) The more the
subject of the question calls for speed, the smaller the majority can be allowed to be; and where an instant
decision has to be
有两条一般规则可为有关多数的决定提供指导。(i) 付诸表决的问题越严重和重要，起始数就越接近一致同意
数。(ii) 问题的主题越是急迫，允许的多数就越少。

reached, a majority of one vote should be enough. Of these two rules, (i) seems more in harmony with the laws,
and (ii) seems more in harmony with practical affairs. Anyway, it’s the combination of them that does the best
job of deciding what size of majority a given question needs.
在这两条规则中，(i) 似乎更符合法律，(ii) 似乎更符合实际情况。在这两条规则中，①似乎更符合法律规定，②
似乎更符合实际情况。不管怎么说，这两种规则的结合才能最好地决定某个问题需要多大的多数票。

3. Elections 3.选举
In the elections of the prince and the magistrates (which are, I repeat, complex acts) there are two possible
ways to proceed, choosing and drawing lots. Both have been used in various republics, and a highly
complicated mixture of the two still survives in the election of the Doge at Venice.
在王子和地方行政长官的选举中（我重复一遍，这是复杂的行为），有两种可能的方式： 选择和 抽签。这两
种方式都曾在不同的共和国中使用过，而在威尼斯总督的选举中，仍然存在着这两种方式的高度复杂的混合
体。
‘Election by lottery’, says Montesquieu, ‘is democratic in nature’. I agree that it is, but how is it? ‘The lottery’,
he goes on, ‘is a way of electing that isn’t unfair to anyone; it leaves each citizen with a reasonable hope of
serving his country.’ Those aren’t reasons!
孟德斯鸠说，"抽签选举""本质上是民主的"。我同意它是民主的，但它是如何民主的呢？他接着说，"抽签 "是一
种对任何人都不不公平的选举方式，它让每个公民都有为国效力的合理希望。这些都不是理由！
If we bear in mind that the election of rulers is something done by government, not by sovereignty, we’ll see -
the real reason - why the lottery is the more natural for democracy-a form of government where the
administration is better in proportion as the number of its acts is small.
如果我们牢记统治者的选举是由政府而不是由主权完成的，我们就会明白--真正的原因--为什么抽签对于民主政
体来说更为自然--在这种政体中，管理的效果与其行为的数量成正比。

In any real democracy, magistracy isn’t a benefit-it’s a burdensome responsibility that can’t fairly be imposed
on one individual rather than another. If the individual is selected by a lottery, the selection is being made by
the law that establishes the lottery; but the law doesn’t lose its universality by itself picking out one individual,
and no choice has been made that depends on any human will.
在任何真正的民主制度中，司法官制度都不是一种福利，而是一种沉重的责任，不能公平地强加给一个人而不
是另一个人。如果个人是通过抽签被选中的，那么这种选择就是由设立抽签的法律做出的；但法律并不会因为
选中了一个人而失去其普遍性，也没有做出任何取决于人类意志的选择。

In an aristocracy, the prince chooses the prince, the government is preserved by itself, and that’s the right kind
of situation for voting.
在贵族社会中，王子选择王子，政府由自己来维护，这种情况适合投票。

The way they elect the Doge of Venice doesn’t squash this
他们选举威尼斯总督的方式并没有粉碎这一点
distinction; it confirms it. The mixed form of election suits a mixed government. And the government of
Venice is indeed mixed ; for it is an error to think it is a real aristocracy. Granted, the populace has no share in
the government; but in Venice the nobility is the populace. That includes a host of poor younger sons-and
younger sons of younger sons-of noble families ; they never get near to having any position in the government,
and all their ‘nobility’ brings them is the silly right to be addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ and the right to sit in
the Great Council-which has as many members as our General Council at Geneva, so that its ‘illustrious’
members have no more privileges than do our plain citizens. It is indisputable that although the two republics
are extremely different in many ways, the bourgeoisie of Geneva exactly matches the nobility of Venice; our
natives and inhabitants match the townsmen and the people of Venice; our peasants match the Venetian -
subjects on the mainland as distinct from the ones who live on the cluster of islands that constitute the historic
heart of Venice ; and whatever way you look at it (setting aside its size), Venice’s government is no more
aristocratic than our own. The whole difference is that we have no need to use the lottery, because our rulers
are not appointed for life as Venice’s are.
它证实了这一点。混合选举形式适合混合政府。 威尼斯的政府确实是混合政府 ；因为认为它是一个真正的贵
族政府是错误的。诚然，民众没有参与政府；但在威尼斯，贵族就是民众。其中包括一大批贵族家庭的可怜的
小儿子和小儿子的小儿子；他们从未在政府中获得过任何地位，他们的 "贵族身份 "给他们带来的只是 被尊称
为 "阁下 "的愚蠢权利和 参加大议会的权利--大议会的成员和我们日内瓦总议会的成员一样多，因此其 "杰出
"成员享有的特权并不比我们的普通公民多。无可争辩的是，虽然两个共和国在许多方面都极为不同，但日内瓦
的资产阶级与威尼斯的贵族完全相同；我们的本地人和居民与威尼斯的城镇居民和人民完全相同；我们的农民
与 威尼斯人--大陆上的臣民与居住在构成威尼斯历史中心 的岛屿群上的臣民--相匹配；无论从哪个角度看
（撇开其面积不谈），威尼斯的政府并不比我们的政府更贵族化。不同之处在于，我们不需要使用彩票，因为
我们的统治者不像威尼斯的统治者那样是终身任命的。

Election by lottery would have few drawbacks in a real democracy, where it would hardly matter who was
chosen because all the people would be on a par as regards mæurs and talents as well as principles and
fortunes. But I have already said that there aren’t any democracies. [The end of 3:4 on page 34]
在真正的民主社会里，抽签选举几乎没有什么缺点，谁被选中并不重要，因为所有的人在才能、原则和财富方
面都是平等的。但我已经说过，没有任何民主国家。[第 34 页 3:4 末尾］

When choice and lottery are combined, positions that require special talents, such as military posts, should be
filled by choice; the lottery serves for the likes of judicial offices, in which good sense, justice, and integrity are
all
在选择和抽签相结合的情况下，需要特殊才能的职位，如军事职位，应通过选择来填补；抽签则适用于司法职
位等，在这些职位上，理智、公正和廉洁是一切的基础。
that’s needed, because in a well constituted state these qualities are common to all the citizens.
因为在一个完善的国家里，这些品质是所有公民所共有的。

Neither lottery nor vote has any place in monarchical government. The monarch being by right sole prince and
only magistrate, it is for him alone to choose his lieutenants. When the Abbé de Saint-Pierre proposed that the
Councils of the King of France should be multiplied, and their members elected by ballot, he didn’t see that he
was proposing to change the fundamental form of government.
抽签或投票在君主制政府中都没有任何地位。君主是唯一的王子，也是唯一的行政长官，只有他才能选择他的
副手。当圣皮埃尔修道院院长提议增加法兰西国王的议会，并通过投票选举议会成员时，他并没有意识到他的
提议改变了 基本的 政府形式。

I should now speak of the methods of giving and counting opinions in the assembly of the people; but perhaps
an historical account of this aspect of Roman politics will give you more of a sense of the rules I could lay
down. It is worth the while of a judicious reader to follow in some detail the working of public and private
affairs in a council with two hundred thousand members.
我现在要讲的是在人民大会上发表意见和统计意见的方法；但也许对罗马政治这方面的历史描述会让你对我所
能制定的规则有更多的了解。对于一个明智的读者来说，了解一个拥有二十万成员的议会中公共和私人事务的
运作细节是值得的。

4. The comitia in ancient Rome

4.古罗马的公民大会

We have no reliable records of Rome’s early years; it seems very likely, indeed, that most of the stories told
about it are fables. In general, the most instructive part of the history of peoples, namely the past dealing with
their foundation, is just what we have least of. Experience teaches us every day what causes generate the
revolutions of empires; but new peoples are not formed these days, so we have almost nothing beyond
conjecture to go upon in explaining how they were created.
我们没有关于罗马早年的可靠记录；事实上，关于罗马的大多数故事似乎都是寓言。一般来说，民族历史中最
有启发性的部分，也就是关于民族建立的过去，恰恰是我们最缺乏的部分。经验每天都在告诉我们，是什么原
因导致了帝国的革命；但如今新的民族并没有形成，所以我们几乎没有任何猜测之外的东西可以用来解释它们
是如何产生的。

The customs we find established show at least that these customs had an origin. The traditions that go back to
those origins, and have the greatest authorities behind them, and are confirmed by the strongest evidence,
should count as the most certain. These are the rules I have tried to follow in investigating how the freest and
most powerful people on
我们发现已经确立的习俗至少表明这些习俗是有起源的。那些可以追溯到这些起源的传统，背后有最权威的支
持，并得到最有力的证据的证实，应该算得上是最确定的。这就是我在调查世界上最自由、最有权势的人是如
何
earth exercised its supreme power.
地球行使着至高无上的权力。
After the foundation of Rome, the new-born republic-i.e. the army of its founder, composed of Albans, Sabines
and foreigners-was divided into three classes which then came to be called ‘tribes’. Each of these tribes was
subdivided into ten curiae, and each curia into decuriae, headed by leaders called curiones and decuriones.
罗马建国后，新生的共和国--即其创始人的军队，由阿尔班人、萨宾人和外国人组成--被分为三个等级，后来被
称为 "部落"。每个部落又分为十个首府，每个首府又分为十个首府，首府的首领被称为首领（curiones）和首领
（decuriones）。

Besides this, out of each tribe was taken a body of one hundred cavalrymen or knights, called a ‘century’, which
shows that these divisions, being unnecessary in a town, were at first merely military. But an instinct for
greatness seems to have led the little town of Rome to provide itself in advance with a political system suitable
for the capital of the world.
除此以外，每个部落都有一支由 100 名骑兵或骑士组成的队伍，称为 "世纪"。但是，追求伟大的本能似乎促使
罗马这座小城提前为自己准备了一套适合世界之都的政治制度。
[Regarding this next paragraph: Servius was a king of Rome in the sixth century BCE.] Out of this original
division an awkward situation soon arose. The tribes of the Albans and the Sabines remained always in the
same condition, while that of the foreigners continually grew as more and more foreigners came to live in
Rome, so that it soon surpassed the others -in strength . Servius remedied this dangerous fault by abolishing
the racial basis for the division into tribes, replacing it by a geographical one-four tribes now, each containing
the inhabitants of one of the hills of Rome, after which it was named. In this way, while fixing the immediate
inequality problem Servius also provided for the future; and so that the division might be one of persons as
well as localities, he forbade the inhabitants of one quarter to migrate to another, and so prevented the
mingling of the races.
[关于下一段塞尔维乌斯是公元前六世纪罗马的国王]在最初的分裂中，很快就出现了尴尬的局面。阿尔班人和萨
宾人的部落始终保持着同样的状况，而外族部落则随着越来越多的外族人来到罗马生活而不断壮大，以至于很
快就在实力上超过了其他部落......。塞尔维乌斯废除了部落划分的种族基础，取而代之的是地理基础--现在有四
个部落，每个部落都包含罗马一座山丘的居民，罗马就是以这座山丘命名的。这样，塞维乌斯在解决眼前的不
平等问题的同时，也为未来做了准备；为了使划分既是对人的划分，也是对地区的划分，他禁止一个地区的居
民迁徙到另一个地区，从而防止了种族的混杂。

He also doubled the size of the three old ‘centuries’ of knights, and added twelve more, still keeping the old
names, and by this simple and prudent method he drew a line between the body of knights and the people,
without a murmur from the people.
他还将原有的三个 "世纪 "的骑士人数增加了一倍，并增加了 12 人，但仍保留了原有的名字，通过这种简单而谨
慎的方法，他在骑士群体和人民之间划出了一条界线，而人民却没有发出任何杂音。

To the four urban tribes Servius added fifteen others called rural tribes, because they consisted of those who
lived in the country, divided into fifteen cantons. Subsequently, fifteen more were created, and the Roman
people finally found itself divided into thirty-five tribes, as it remained down to the end of the Republic.
除了四个城市部落外，塞尔维乌斯又增加了十五个部落，称为乡村部落，因为他们由居住在乡村的人组成，分
为十五个州。后来，又增加了 15 个州，罗马人最终被分为 35 个部落，一直延续到共和国末期。

The distinction between urban and rural tribes had one effect that is worth noting, because it is the only
example of its kind, and because Rome owed to it the preservation of her mours [see Glossary] and the
enlargement of her empire. One would have expected that the urban tribes would soon monopolise power and
honours, losing no time in pushing the rural tribes down into poverty and weakness; but what happened was
exactly the reverse. The taste of the early Romans for country life is well known. They owed this taste to their
wise founder, who made rural and military labours go along with liberty and (as it were) pushed off into the
town arts, trades, intrigue, luck, and slavery. [By ‘their wise founder’, Rousseau means Romulus-a purely
mythical founder of Rome, though Rousseau may have thought he was real, as did all the Roman historians on
whose work he relies.]
城市部落和农村部落之间的区别产生了一个值得注意的影响，因为 它是这种区别的唯一例子，而且 罗马要归
功于它才保住了她的mours[见术语表]并扩大了她的帝国。人们本以为城市部落很快就会垄断权力和荣誉，不失
时机地将农村部落推向贫穷和衰弱；但事实恰恰相反。早期罗马人对乡村生活的喜好是众所周知的。他们之所
以喜欢乡村生活，要归功于他们英明的缔造者，是他让乡村和军事劳动与 自由相伴而行，（就像这样）把 艺
术、 贸易、 阴谋、 幸运和 奴役推向了城镇。[卢梭所说的 "他们英明的创始者 "指的是罗慕路斯--罗马纯粹
神话中的创始者，尽管卢梭可能认为他是真实存在的，正如他所依据的所有罗马历史学家一样。］

Thus, because all Rome’s most illustrious citizens lived in the fields and tilled the earth, the countryside came
to be the only place where they looked for the people who would keep the republic running. This rural way of
life, being that of the best nobles, was honoured by everyone; the simple and hard-working life of the villager
was preferred to the slack and idle life of the bourgeoisie of Rome; and someone who in the town would have
been a wretched proletarian became, as a labourer in the fields, a respected citizen. Our great-souled ancestors,
says Varro, knew what they were doing when they established in the villages the nursery of the tough, brave
men who defended them in time of war and -fed them in time of peace. Pliny says explicitly that the rural
因此，由于罗马所有最杰出的公民都生活在田野里，耕作在土地上，农村就成了他们寻找维持共和国运转的人
才的唯一地方。这种乡村生活方式是最优秀贵族的生活方式，受到所有人的尊敬；村民朴实勤劳的生活比罗马
资产阶级懒散闲散的生活更受欢迎；在城里可能是个可怜的无产者，但作为田间的劳动者，却成了受人尊敬的
公民。瓦罗说，我们伟大的祖先知道他们在做什么，他们在乡村建立了坚韧勇敢的人的托儿所，这些人在战争
时期保卫他们，在和平时期养活他们。普林尼明确指出，农村
tribes were honoured because of the men of whom they were composed; and their way of dishonouring a
coward was to subject him to the public disgrace of being transferred into an urban tribe… Freed slaves always
entered the urban tribes, never the rural ones; and although freed slaves could become citizens, there isn’t a
single example, throughout the Republic, of a freed slave reaching any magistracy [= ‘being appointed to a
position as a government official’].
部落之所以受人尊敬，是因为他们是由人组成的；而他们羞辱懦夫的方式，就是让他在公众面前蒙羞，被调入
城市部落......获得自由的奴隶总是进入城市部落，从不进入农村部落；虽然获得自由的奴隶可以成为公民，但在
整个共和国，没有一个例子表明获得自由的奴隶进入了任何地方行政机构[="被任命为政府官员"]。

This was an excellent rule; but it was carried so far that in the end it led to a change and certainly to an abuse
in the political system.
这本是一条极好的规则，但却被推行得如此之远，以至于最终导致了政治制度的改变，当然也导致了政治制度
的滥用。

First the censors, after many years of claiming the right to choose what tribe a citizen could be transferred to,
eventually allowed most people to enroll themselves in whatever tribe they pleased. This permission certainly
did no good, and deprived the censorship of one of its main sources of power. Moreover, as the great and
powerful all had themselves enrolled in the country tribes, while the freed slaves who had become citizens
remained with the populace in the town tribes, the tribes in general soon stopped having any local or territorial
meaning, and all were so confused that the members of one could not be told from those of another except
through the membership lists; so that the idea of ‘tribe’ became personal instead of real, or rather came to be
little more than a chimera.
首先，经过多年声称有权选择公民转入哪个部落的审查员，最终允许大多数人随心所欲地加入任何部落。这种
允许当然没有任何好处，而且剥夺了审查制度的主要权力来源之一。此外，由于有权有势的人都加入了乡村部
落，而成为公民的自由奴隶则留在了城镇部落中与民众在一起，因此，一般来说，部落很快就不再具有任何地
方或领土的意义，所有部落都被混淆了，以至于除了通过成员名单之外，无法区分一个部落的成员和另一个部
落的成员；这样，"部落 "的概念就变成了个人的而不是真实的，或者说，只不过是一个虚构的概念。

It happened also that the urban tribes, being more on the spot, were often the stronger in the comitia and sold
the state to those who stooped to buy the votes of the rabble composing them. [The comitia will be explained
on page 61.]
还有一种情况是，城市部落由于更接近现场，往往在 公民大会中更强大，他们把国家卖给了那些屈尊去收买组
成 他们的乌合之众的选票的人。[comitia将在第61页中解释。］

As the founder had set up ten curiae in each tribe, the whole Roman people then contained within the town
walls consisted of thirty curiae, each of which had its temples, its gods, its officers, its priests and its festivals…
由于创始人在每个部落设立了十个法庭，当时城墙内的整个罗马人就由三十个法庭组成，每个法庭都有自己的
神庙、神灵、官员、祭司和节日......

When Servius made his new division, as the thirty curiae couldn’t be shared equally between his four tribes,
and he didn’t want to interfere with them; so they became a further division of the inhabitants of Rome, quite
independent of the tribes. But curiae didn’t have any bearing on the rural tribes or their members, because for
them the tribes had become a purely civil institution, and a new system for raising troops had been introduced,
making the military divisions of Romulus superfluous. [Rousseau hasn’t said explicitly that the division into
curiae was a military one; the reader is presumably expected to know this,] Thus, although every citizen was
enrolled in a tribe, many of them were not members of a curia.
当塞尔维乌斯进行新的划分时，由于 30 名 curiae 无法在他的四个部落之间平均分配，而且他也不想干涉这些部
落；因此，这些 curiae 成为罗马居民的进一步划分，完全独立于部落之外。但 "法庭 "对农村部落或其成员没有
任何影响，因为对他们来说，部落已成为一个纯粹的民事机构，而且还引入了一种新的养兵制度，使罗穆卢斯
的军事划分变得多余。[卢梭并没有明确指出 "法庭 "的划分是军事上的划分，但读者应该知道这一点，]因此，
尽管每个公民都加入了一个部落，但他们中的许多人并不是 "法庭 "的成员。

Servius also made a third division-quite distinct from the two I have mentioned-and the effects of this made it
the most important of the three. He sorted the whole Roman people into six classes, distinguished not by place
or person but by wealth; the first classes included the rich, the last the poor, and those in between included
people of moderate means. These six classes were subdivided into 183 other bodies, called ‘centuries’, which
were distributed in such a way that the first class alone comprised more than half of them, while the last class
comprised only one. Thus the class that had the fewest members contained the most centuries, and the whole
of the last class-which included more than half the inhabitants of Rome-only counted as a single subdivision, a
single century
塞尔维乌斯还做了第三种划分--与我提到的两种划分截然不同--这种划分的效果使其成为三种划分中最重要的一
种。他将整个罗马人分为六个等级，不是按地点或个人而是按财富来区分；第一等级包括富人，最后一个等级
包括穷人，而介于两者之间的等级包括中等收入的人。这六个阶层又被细分为 183 个其他机构，称为 "世纪"，
其分布方式是，第一个阶层就占了一半以上，而最后一个阶层只占一个。因此，成员最少的阶级包含的世纪最
多，而最后一个阶级的全部--包括罗马一半以上的居民--只算作一个细分， 一个世纪 。

To veil the results of this arrangement from the people, Servius tried to give it a military tone: in the second
class he inserted two centuries of armourers, and in the fourth two of makers of . weapons; and in each class
except the last he distinguished young from old, i.e. distinguished those who were obliged to bear arms from
those whose age gave them legal exemption. (It was this distinction, rather than that of wealth, that created the
need for frequent repetition of the
为了不让人们知道这一安排的结果，塞尔维乌斯试图赋予它一种军事色彩：在第二类中，他加入了两个世纪的
军械匠，在第四类中，加入了两个世纪的 武器制造者；除了最后一类，他在每一类中都区分了年轻人和老年
人，即区分了那些必须携带武器的人和那些因年龄而可以合法豁免的人。(正是这种区别，而不是财富的区别，
导致需要经常重复 "武器 "一词。
census.) Lastly, he ordered that the assembly should be held in the Campus Martius, and everyone whose age
made him liable for military service should bring his weapons.
普查）。最后，他下令在马歇斯广场举行集会，凡是因年龄而有服兵役义务的人都应携带武器。

Why didn’t he divide the last class into young and old? Because its members weren’t given the right to bear
arms for the country: to have the right to defend hearth and home, a man had to have a hearth and home! Of
all the countless troops of beggars who to-day lend lustre to the armies of kings, there is perhaps not one who
wouldn’t have been scornfully driven out of a Roman platoon back in the days when soldiers were the
defenders of liberty.
他为什么不把最后一个阶层分为年轻人和老年人呢？因为他们没有为国家携带武器的权利：一个人要有保卫家
园的权利，就必须有家园！在今天为国王的军队增添光彩的无数乞丐队伍中，也许没有一个在士兵是自由卫士
的时代不会被轻蔑地赶出罗马排。
[Rousseau will now refer to certain people (in Latin) as capite censi ‘head-count people’. They couldn’t figure
in a census through their number of houses, businesses, animals, slaves etc., because they didn’t own
anything.] But this last class was further divided into proletarians and the capite censi. The proletarians, not
quite reduced to nothing, at least gave the state citizens and in some times of great need even gave it soldiers.
The capite censi, who had nothing at all and could be numbered only by counting heads, were regarded as
zeroes, and Marius-.four centuries after Servius–was the first who stooped to enroll them.
[卢梭现在把某些人（拉丁语）称为capite censi "数人头的人"。在人口普查中，他们不能通过房屋、企业、牲
畜、奴隶等的数量来计算，因为他们什么都不拥有。］但是，最后一个阶层又分为 无产者和 capite censi。无
产者虽然没有完全沦为一无所有，但至少为国家提供了公民，在某些非常需要的时候，他们甚至为国家提供了
士兵。capite censi一无所有，只能靠数人头来计算人数，他们被视为零，马略--塞尔维乌斯之后的四个世纪--是
第一个屈尊为他们报名的人。

Without deciding now whether this third arrangement was good or bad in itself, I think I can say that it
couldn’t have worked if it weren’t for the early Romans’ simple mours [see Glossary], disinterestedness, liking
for agriculture, and scorn for commerce and the profit motive. Where is the modern people among whom
consuming greed, restlessness, intrigue, continual promotions and demotions, and perpetual changes of
fortune, could leave such a system in place for -even - twenty years without toppling the entire state? I should
add that mours and the censorship [see Glossary], being stronger than this institution, corrected its defects at
Rome-for example , a rich man who made too much
现在，我姑且不论这第三种安排本身是好是坏，我想我可以说，如果不是早期罗马人的淳朴[见术语表]、无私、
喜欢农业、蔑视商业和利益驱动，这种安排是不可能奏效的。在现代人当中，贪婪、不安、阴谋、不断的升迁
和降职、命运的不断变化，哪一个能让这样的制度维持二十年而不推翻整个国家？我要补充的是，在罗马，牟
斯和审查制度（见术语表）比这一制度更强大，它们纠正了这一制度的缺陷，例如， ，一个富人赚得太多了。
display of his riches found himself degraded to the class of the poor! [By ‘stronger than this institution’
Rousseau may have meant ‘stronger than any tendencies in ancient Rome to greed, restlessness, intrigue etc.’.]
卢梭的 "强于这种制度 "可能指的是 "强于古罗马贪婪、躁动、阴谋等倾向"！[卢梭所说的 "比这种制度更强大
"可能是指 "比古罗马的贪婪、躁动、阴谋等倾向更强大"。］

So it’s easy to see why usually only five classes are mentioned, though there were really six. Because the sixth
didn’t provide soldiers for the army or votes in the Campus Martius, and was almost without function in the
state, it was seldom regarded as of any account.
因此，不难理解为什么通常只提到五个等级，而实际上却有六个。因为第六阶层不为军队提供士兵，也不在马
歇斯广场投票， 而且在国家中几乎没有任何职能，所以很少被认为有任何意义。

These were the various ways in which the Roman people was divided. Let us now see how these divisions
affected the assemblies. When lawfully summoned, these assemblies were called comitia: they were usually
held in the public square or in the Campus Martius, and were of three kinds:
这就是罗马人民分裂的各种方式。现在让我们看看这些分化对集会有何影响。在合法召集的情况下，这些集会
被称为 "集会"（comitia）：它们通常在公共广场或马歇斯广场（Campus Martius）举行，分为三种：
(1) the comitia curiata, which were founded by Romulus,
(1) 由罗穆卢斯创立的法庭、
(2) the comitia centuriata, which were founded by Servius, and
(2) 塞维乌斯创立的百人会，以及
(3) the comitia tributa which were founded by the tribunes of the people.
(3) 人民护民官建立的部落委员会。
No law received its sanction and no magistrate was elected except in the comitia; and as every citizen was
enrolled in a curia, a century, or a tribe, it follows that every citizen had the right to vote, and that the Roman
populace was truly sovereign-both as a matter of law and in fact.
只有在公民大会上，法律才能得到认可，行政长官才能被选举出来；由于每个公民都被编入一个议会、一个世
纪或一个部落，因此每个公民都有选举权，罗马民众是真正的主权者--无论是在法律上还是在事实上。

For the comitia to be lawfully assembled, and for their acts to have the force of law, three conditions had to be
met. (a) The body or magistrate convoking them had to have the authority to do so. (b) The assembly had to be
held on a day allowed by law. © The auguries had to be favourable.
要使公民大会合法集会并使其行为具有法律效力，必须满足三个条件。(a) 召集他们的机构或地方行政官必须有
权这样做。(b) 集会必须在法律允许的日期举行。(c) 预兆必须是有利的。

The reason for (a) needs no explanation. (b) is a matter of policy; for example, the comitia were not to held on
festivals or market-days, when the country-folk coming to Rome on
(a)项的原因无需解释。(b)是政策问题；例如，comitia 不在节日或集市日举行，因为乡下人会在这些日子来到
罗马。
business didn’t have time to spend the day in the public square. By means of ©, the senate kept a tight rein on
the proud and restive people, and (when this was needed) restrained the ardour of seditious tribunes; though
the tribunes found more than one way of getting around this hindrance.
没有时间在公共广场上消磨时光。元老院通过"...... "的方式，对骄傲和躁动的人民进行严格控制，并（在必要
时）抑制煽动性护民官的热情；尽管护民官们找到了不止一种绕过这一障碍的方法。

The comitia passed judgment on more than merely laws and the election of rulers; the Roman populace took
on itself the most important functions of government. It can be said that the fate of Europe was regulated in its
assemblies! The variety of things they dealt with created variety in the forms they took.
公民大会不仅对法律和统治者的选举做出裁决，罗马民众还承担了政府最重要的职能。可以说，欧洲的命运是
由集会决定的！他们处理的事情多种多样，因此他们采取的形式也多种多样。

To form a judgment about these various forms, all we need do is to compare them. When Romulus set up the
curiae, his aim was to use the people to check the senate, and the senate to check the people, while continuing
to dominate both. So he set things up in such a way that the people would have all the authority of numbers to
balance the authority of -power and riches, which he left to the nobility. But in the spirit of monarchy he gave a
greater advantage to the nobility through the influence of their clients on vote-numbers. This admirable
institution of patron and client was a masterpiece of statesmanship and humanity without which the nobility
as a class, being flagrantly in contradiction to the republican spirit, couldn’t have survived. Rome alone has the
honour of having given to the world this great example, which never led to any abuse but has never been
followed.
要对这些不同的形式做出判断，我们只需对它们进行比较即可。当罗穆卢斯建立法院时，他的目的是利用人民
来制衡元老院，而元老院则制衡人民，同时继续统治两者。因此，他的设置方式是让人民拥有 数字的所有权
威，以平衡权力和财富的权威，他把权力和财富的权威留给了贵族。但本着君主制的精神，他通过贵族客户对
选票数量的影响，让贵族获得了更大的优势。这种令人钦佩的 赞助人和 客户的制度是政治家和人性的杰作，
没有它，贵族作为一个公然违背共和精神的阶级就不可能生存下来。只有罗马有幸为世界树立了这一伟大的榜
样，它从未导致任何滥用，但也从未被效仿。

The assemblies by curiae persisted under the kings till the time of Servius… Under the Republic the curiae, still
confined to the four urban tribes and containing only the populace of Rome, didn’t suit the senate (which led
在国王统治时期，法院会议一直持续到塞尔维乌斯时代......在共和国统治时期，法院会议仍然局限于四个城市部
落，只包括罗马的民众，这不适合元老院（元老院领导着罗马的议会）。

the ‘nobles’) or the tribunes (who, though plebeians, led the well-to-do citizens). They therefore fell into
disrepute, and their degradation was such that what the -full comitia curiata should have done was done by an
assembly of their thirty lictors.
贵族"）或护民官（他们虽然是平民，却领导着富裕的公民）。他们因此声名狼藉，堕落到了这样的地步：本应
由 "完整的法庭"（full comitia curiata）完成的工作，却由他们的三十名 "讼棍"（lictor）组成的集会来完成。
The division by centuries was so favourable to the aristocracy that it’s hard to see at first how the senate ever
failed to prevail in the comitia bearing their name-the comitia centuriata–by which the consuls, the censors
and the other senior magistrates were elected. Indeed, of the 193 centuries into which the six classes of the
whole Roman people were divided, the first class contained 98; and, as voting went solely by centuries, this
class alone had a majority over all the rest. When all those centuries were in agreement, the rest of the votes
weren’t even taken; the decision of the smallest number counted as the decision of the multitude, and it’s fair
to say that in the comitia centuriata decisions were regulated by amounts of money more than by numbers of
votes.
按世纪划分的做法对贵族阶层非常有利，以至于人们一开始很难理解元老院在以他们的名字命名的公民大会
（comitia centuriata）上是如何落败的，因为执政官、检查官和其他高级行政官都是通过公民大会选举产生
的。事实上，在整个罗马人民分为六个等级的 193 个世纪中，第一个等级包含 98 个世纪；由于投票只按世纪进
行，因此只有这个等级的多数票超过了其他所有等级的多数票。可以说，在 "百人团 "中，决定是由金钱数额而
不是票数来决定的。

But this extreme authority was modified in two ways. First, the tribunes usually belonged to the class of the
rich, and so did many plebeians; so they counterbalanced the influence of the nobles in the first class.
但这种极端的权威在两个方面有所改变。首先，护民官通常属于富人阶层，许多平民也属于富人阶层；因此，
他们在第一阶层中制衡了贵族的影响力。

The second way was this. Instead of having the centuries vote in order, so that the first century always voted
first, the Romans always chose by lottery one century that went ahead and voted, and then on another day the
remaining centuries were called to vote in the order of their ranks. They usually agreed with the vote of the first
one that voted. In this way, the authority of example-i.e. the influence you get from going first–was handed out
not according to rank but by lottery, on a democratic principle.
第二种方法是这样的。罗马人不是让各世纪按顺序投票，让第一个世纪总是先投票，而是总是通过抽签选择一
个世纪先投票，然后在另一天召集其余的世纪按等级顺序投票。他们通常同意第一个投票者的投票结果。这
样，榜样的权威--即先行一步所产生的影响力--就不是按照等级，而是按照民主原则，以抽签的方式分配了。

This custom had a further advantage. The citizens from the countryside had time, between the two elections, to
这种习俗还有一个好处。在两次选举之间，来自农村的公民有时间
inform themselves of the merits of the candidate who had been voted for first time around, and didn’t have to
vote without knowledge of the case. But under the pretext of avoiding delays this custom was eventually
abolished, and both elections were held on the same day.
他们可以了解第一次投票的候选人的优点，而不必在不知情的情况下投票。但以避免延误为借口，这一习俗最
终被废除，两次选举都在同一天举行。

The comitia tributa were properly a council of the Roman people. Only the tribunes could call them together;
at them the tribunes were elected and conducted their plebiscites. The senate had no standing in them, and
wasn’t even entitled to be present; and the senators, being forced to obey laws that they couldn’t vote on, were
in this respect less free than the lowest citizens. This injustice was entirely wrong, and was alone enough to
invalidate the decrees of a body to which all its members were not admitted. If the nobles had attended the
comitia by virtue of their right as citizens, they would have been there as mere private individuals, and would
have had very little influence on a vote reckoned by counting heads, where the lowest proletarian was as good
as the leader of the senate.
comitia tributa 通常是罗马人民的议会。只有护民官才能召集他们开会；护民官在会上选举并举行公民投票。元
老院在其中没有任何地位，甚至无权出席；元老们被迫遵守他们无法投票决定的法律，在这方面，他们比最底
层的公民更不自由。这种不公正是完全错误的，仅此一点就足以使一个所有成员都不能参加的机构的法令无
效。如果贵族们凭借公民权参加了公民大会，那么他们在大会上就只是个人，对按人头计算的投票没有什么影
响，而在大会上，最底层的无产者就像元老院的领袖一样。

So you can see -that order was achieved by these various ways of dividing up this great people and taking its
votes; and that the different divisions didn’t have at their basis some neutral way of carving up the
population. Each one of them was preferred because of what was expected to result from it.
因此，你可以看到，秩序是通过这些分割这个伟大民族并获取其选票的各种方式实现的； 不同的分割方式并
不是以某种中立的方式来分割人口的。每一种划分方式都是因为人们对其结果的预期而受到青睐。

Never mind the further details. What I have said shows that
不要在意更多的细节。我所说的表明
-the comitia tributa were the most favourable to popular government [= ‘democracy’],
-部落委员会最有利于民众政府[='民主']、
-the comitia centuriata were the most favourable to aristocracy, and
-百人会最有利于贵族，而且
-the comitia curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, was good for nothing but to further
tyranny and evil designs.
-由罗马民众组成多数的 "法庭"（comitia curiata）除了助长暴政和邪恶的图谋之外，一无是处。

Naturally the comitia curiata fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using this method
because is would too clearly show what they were up to. There’s no question about it: the whole majesty of the
Roman people lay solely in the comitia centuriata, the only comitia that included everyone; for the comitia
curiata excluded the rural tribes and the comitia tributa excluded the senate and the nobility.
自然而然，"法庭委员会"（comitia curiata）声名狼藉，甚至连煽动者也不使用这种方法，因为这太清楚地表明
了他们的意图。毫无疑问，罗马人民的威严完全在于中央委员会，这是唯一一个包括所有人的委员会；因为地
方委员会将农村部落排除在外，而部落委员会则将元老院和贵族排除在外。

As for the method of taking the vote, among the ancient Romans that was as simple as their mours, though
Sparta’s was even simpler. Each man declared his vote aloud, and a clerk duly wrote it down; the majority in
each tribe determined the vote of the tribe, the majority of the tribes that of the people; similarly with curiae
and centuries. This custom was good as long as honesty was triumphant among the citizens, and each man was
ashamed to vote publicly in favour of an unjust proposal or an unworthy person; but when the people grew
corrupt and votes were bought, it was fitting that voting should be secret so as to deter purchasers who
wouldn’t trust that the votes they had bought would be delivered and to give rogues a way of not being
traitors.
至于投票的方法，古罗马人的投票方法和他们的 "谬尔 "一样简单，而斯巴达的投票方法甚至更简单。每个人大
声宣布自己的投票，然后由书记员正式记录下来；每个部落的多数票决定部落的投票，部落的多数票决定人民
的投票；法院和世纪也是如此。只要诚实在公民中占上风，这种习俗就是好的，每个人都羞于公开投票支持不
公正的提案或不值得支持的人；但当人民日益腐败，选票被收买时，投票就应该是秘密的，这样可以阻止那些
不相信 他们买到的选票会兑现的买票者，也让流氓有办法不做叛徒。
(I know that Cicero attacks this change to secrecy in voting. and gives it some of the blame for the ruin of the
Republic. I feel the weight that Cicero’s authority must carry on a point like this, but I can’t agree with him; I
hold, on the contrary, that the destruction of a state will be hastened if changes like this are not made. Just as
the regimen of health doesn’t suit the sick, it’s wrong to try to govern a corrupted people by laws that would be
right for a good people. There’s no better evidence for this thesis than the long life of the Republic of Venice. It
still exists-or anyway a shadow of it does-solely because its laws are suitable only for wicked men.)
(我知道，西塞罗抨击了投票保密的这一变化，并将共和国的毁灭归咎于此。我感受到西塞罗在这一点上的权
威，但我不能同意他的观点；相反，我认为，如果不做出这样的改变，国家的毁灭就会加速。正如养生之道不
适合有病的人一样，试图用适合善良的人的法律来治理腐败的人民也是错误的。没有比威尼斯共和国的长寿更
能证明这一论点的了。它之所以依然存在，或者说它的影子依然存在，完全是因为它的法律只适合恶人）。

So the citizens were provided with tablets with which each man could vote without anyone knowing how he
voted: new procedures were also introduced for collecting the tablets, for counting votes, for comparing
numbers, etc.; yet despite all this, the good faith of the officers charged with these functions… was often
suspect. Finally, to prevent intrigues and trafficking in votes, edicts were issued; but their very number proves
how useless they were.
于是，为公民们提供了一些牌子，每个人都可以用这些牌子投票，而没有人知道他是如何投票的：还引入了收
集牌子、计算选票、比较数字等新程序；然而，尽管如此，负责这些职能的官员的诚信......却常常令人怀疑。最
后，为了防止阴谋诡计和选票交易，还颁布了一些法令；但这些法令的数量证明它们是多么无用。

Towards the end of the Republic, it was often necessary to bring in special procedures in order to make up for
the inadequacy of the laws. Sometimes miracles were supposed-i.e. the authorities reported miraculous events
that pointed to the need for some political question to be answered one way rather than another–but this
method, while it might deceive the populace, couldn’t deceive those who governed it. Sometimes an assembly
for voting. was called together suddenly, leaving the candidates with no time to form their factions. Sometimes,
when it was seen that the people were already primed to vote -in what the authorities thought to be the wrong
way, the entire meeting was allowed to play itself out in talk, with no vote being taken But in the end
ambition always got away. The most incredible fact of all is that in the midst of all these abuses this enormous
populace relied on its ancient regulations and went ahead electing magistrates, passing laws, judging cases,
and carrying through public and private business, doing all this almost as easily as the senate itself could have
done.
在共和国末期，为了弥补法律的不足，往往需要引入特殊程序。有时，人们假定会出现奇迹--即当局报告了一些
奇迹事件，表明有必要以某种方式而不是其他方式来回答某些政治问题，但这种方法虽然可以欺骗民众，却无
法欺骗那些管理民众的人。有时，突然召集投票大会，让候选人没有时间形成自己的派别。有时，当看到民众
已经跃跃欲试，准备以当局认为错误的方式投票时，就会让整个会议在议论中进行， 而不进行投票 但最终，
野心总是得逞了。最令人难以置信的事实是，在所有这些滥用职权的行为中，这个庞大的民众依靠其古老的规
章制度，继续选举地方行政长官、通过法律、判决案件、处理公共和私人事务，做这一切几乎和元老院本身所
能做的一样容易。

5. Tribunes 5.护民官
When an exact proportion can’t be established between the constituent parts of a state, or when the relation of
one part to another is constantly being altered by some cause that can’t be stopped, a special kind of
governmental entity is
当一个国家的各个组成部分之间无法建立精确的比例关系时，或者当一个组成部分与另一个组成部分之间的关
系由于某些无法阻止的原因而不断发生变化时，一种特殊的政府实体就出现了。
instituted, one which 设立了一个
-isn’t an integral part of any larger governmental body, -gets each term-each bit of the political structureback
into its right relation with the others, and
-不是任何更大的政府机构的组成部分， - 让政治结构中的每一个词、每一个部分重新回到与其他词、每一个部
分之间的正确关系中，以及 - 让政治结构中的每一个词、每一个部分重新回到与其他词、每一个部分之间的正确
关系中。
-is a middle term connecting the prince with people, or the prince with the sovereign, or both at once if need
be.
-是连接王子与人民或王子与君主的中间词，必要时可同时连接两者。
This body, which I shall call ‘the tribunate’, is the guardian of the laws and of the legislative power. Sometimes
it protects the sovereign against the government, as the tribunes of the people did in Rome; sometimes it
upholds the government against the people, as the Council of Ten does now in Venice; and sometimes it
maintains the balance between the two, as the Ephors did in Sparta.
这个机构，我称之为 "法庭"，是法律和立法权的守护者。有时，它保护君主对抗政府，就像罗马的人民护民官
所做的那样；有时，它维护政府对抗人民，就像现在威尼斯的十人会议所做的那样；有时，它维持两者之间的
平衡，就像斯巴达的埃弗拉所做的那样。
[This paragraph will use the word ‘city’ for the first time since page 50. Recall Rousseau’s distinction in the
footnote on page 7 between ‘city’ and ‘town’.] The tribunate isn’t a constituent part of the city, and should have
no share in either the legislative or the executive power; but this very fact makes its own power the greater,
because while it can’t do anything it can prevent anything from being done. It is more sacred and more revered
as the defender of the laws than the prince that applies them or the sovereign that issues them. This was seen
very clearly at Rome, when the proud nobles who always scorned the people were forced to bow before a mere
officer of the people-- a tribune–who
[自第 50 页以来，本段将首次使用 "城市 "一词。请回顾卢梭在第 7 页脚注中对 "城市 "和 "城镇 "的区分。］法庭
并不是城市的组成部分，它既不享有立法权，也不享有行政权；但正因为如此，它的权力才更大，因为它虽然
什么也不能做，但却可以阻止任何事情的发生。作为法律的捍卫者，它比实施法律的王子或颁布法律的君主更
神圣、更受尊敬。这一点在罗马表现得非常明显，当时，一向蔑视人民的骄傲贵族们被迫向人民的一名普通官
员--法庭--低头，而他

Rousseau’s next phrase: n’avait ni auspices ni juridiction.

卢梭的下一句话是：n'avait ni auspices ni juridiction。
what it means: didn’t have (i) auspices or (ii) jurisdiction.
意思是：没有 (i) 主持或 (ii) 管辖权。
what he may have been getting at: didn’t have any (ii) legal say over anything or any (i) priests confirming the
authority of the tribunes by announcing the meanings of cloud-shapes, bird-entrails, or whatever.
他的意思可能是：没有任何（ii）法律上的发言权，也没有任何（i）祭司通过宣布云的形状、鸟的尾迹或其他东
西的含义来确认护民官的权威。

The tribunate, wisely tempered, is the strongest support a good constitution can have; but if its strength is even
slightly excessive, it overturns everything. As for weakness-that’s not in its nature; provided it is something,
the tribunate is never less than it should be.
经过明智锤炼的法庭是良好宪法所能拥有的最强有力的支撑；但如果它的力量稍有过剩，就会推翻一切。至于
软弱--这不是它的本性；只要它是软弱的，法庭就永远不会逊色。

It degenerates into tyranny when it

当它
usurps the executive power that it should be moderating, and when it
篡夺本应由其节制的行政权，而当它
tries to dispense with the laws that it should be protecting.
试图摒弃它应该保护的法律。
The immense power of the Ephors, harmless as long as Sparta preserved its mœurs [see Glossary], hastened
Sparta’s corruption when once it had begun… Rome perished in the same way: the excessive power of the
tribunes, which they had acquired by decreeing that they had it, finally used laws that had been made to secure
liberty as a protective shield for the emperors who destroyed liberty. As for the Venetian Council of Ten, it is a
tribunal of blood, an object of horror for nobles and people alike. Far from providing a lofty protection for the
laws, it does nothing, now that the laws have become degraded, but strike in the darkness blows that no-one
dares to notice.
只要斯巴达还保持着它的 "精神"[见术语表]，以弗所人的巨大权力就不会受到伤害，但当斯巴达开始堕落时，它
却加速了斯巴达的堕落......罗马也以同样的方式灭亡：护民官通过颁布法令获得了过大的权力，他们最终把为保
障自由而制定的法律当作了摧毁自由的皇帝的保护伞。至于威尼斯十人会议，它是一个血腥的法庭，是贵族和
人民共同恐惧的对象。它非但没有为法律提供崇高的保护，在法律已经堕落的今天，它什么也做不了，只能在
黑暗中进行无人敢注意的打击。

The tribunate, like the government, weakens as its membership grows. The tribunes of the Roman people
started at two, then went up to five; and when they wanted to double that number, the senate let them do so, in
the confidence that it could play them off against one another, which indeed it did!
法庭和政府一样，会随着成员的增加而削弱。罗马人民的护民官一开始只有两个，后来增加到五个；当他们想
把人数增加一倍时，元老院就让他们这样做了，因为元老院相信可以让他们相互竞争，而事实也确实如此！

The best way to prevent such a formidable body from getting out of hand-though no government has yet tried
this-would be to have regular periods during which it doesn’t exist, rather than its being at work continuously.
These intermissions shouldn’t be long enough to give abuses time to grow strong; the law establishing them
should be
要防止这样一个强大的机构失控，最好的办法是定期让它不存在，而不是让它持续工作--虽然还没有政府尝试过
这样做。这些间歇期不应过长，以免滥用职权的现象有时间滋生；建立这些间歇期的法律应该是
framed in such a way that the intermissions can easily be shortened when there’s a need for that.
在需要缩短中场休息时间时，可以很容易地缩短中场休息时间。

I can’t see that this method has any drawbacks, because the tribunate-as I said before-isn’t part of the
constitution, so that its removal won’t do the constitution any harm. It also seems to be efficacious, because a
newly restored magistrate starts not with the power his predecessor had but with what the law allows him.
[Notice: Rousseau evidently thinks of the periods of remission as involving a change in the membership of the
tribunate; and although the tribunate isn’t part of the government its members are here called ‘magistrates’.]
我看不出这种方法有什么缺点，因为法庭--正如我之前所说--并不是宪法的一部分，因此取消它不会对宪法造成
任何损害。这种方法似乎也很有效，因为新复职的地方行政长官一开始拥有的并不是前任地方行政长官的权
力，而是法律允许他拥有的权力。[请注意： 卢梭显然认为减刑期涉及法庭成员的变动； 虽然法庭不是政府
的一部分，但其成员在这里被称为 "地方官"。］

6. Dictatorship 6.独裁
The inflexibility of the laws prevents them from being adapted to circumstances, and in some situations that
makes them disastrous, causing the ruin of the state at a time of crisis. They require things to be done slowly,
in an orderly fashion, requiring a stretch of time that the world doesn’t always provide. Countless things can
happen that the legislator hasn’t provided for; you can’t foresee everything; and being aware of that fact is a
highly necessary part of foresight!
法律的僵硬性使其无法适应环境，在某些情况下，这使得法律具有灾难性，在危机时刻导致国家的毁灭。它们
要求事情慢慢地、有条不紊地进行，这就需要一段世界并不总是能提供的时间。无数的事情可能会发生，而立
法者却没有预料到；你不可能预见到所有的事情；而意识到这一事实是高瞻远瞩非常必要的一部分！

So it is wrong to want to make political institutions so strong that their operation can’t suspended. Even Sparta
allowed its laws to lapse.
因此，想让政治体制强大到不能中止其运作的地步是错误的。即使斯巴达也允许其法律失效。

But only the greatest dangers can outweigh the danger of changing the public order; and the sacred power of
the laws should never be suspended unless the existence of the country is at stake. In the rare cases where it is
obvious that that is what’s at stake, the public security is provided for by a special act entrusting it to whoever
is most worthy to have it. This can be done in either of two ways, depending on the nature of the danger.
但是，只有最大的危险才能超过改变公共秩序的危险；除非国家的存亡岌岌可危，否则绝不能中止法律的神圣
权力。在极少数情况下，如果显然事关国家存亡，那么 公共安全就会通过一项特别法案得到保障，该法案将
公共安全委托给最值得拥有它的人。根据危险的性质，可以通过以下两种方式之一来实现。

If the trouble can be fixed by increasing the government’s activity, power is concentrated in the hands of one
or two of -its members. In this case the change is not in the authority of the laws but only in the form of
administering them. But if the peril is of such a kind that the apparatus of the laws is an obstacle to saving the
laws, the method is to nominate a supreme ruler who is to silence all the laws and briefly suspend the
sovereign authority. In such a case there’s no doubt about the general will: it’s clear that the people’s first
intention is that the state is not to perish. So the suspension of the legislative authority is not its abolition; the
magistrate who keeps it quiet can’t make it speak; he dominates it, but can’t represent it. The only thing he
can’t do is to make laws. [By ‘can’t make it speak’ Rousseau seems to mean ‘can’t speak for it’.]
如果问题可以通过增加政府的活动来解决，那么权力就会集中在一两个政府成员手中。在这种情况下，改变的
不是法律的权威，而只是执行法律的形式。但是，如果所面临的危险是这样一种类型，即法律机构是拯救法律
的障碍，那么方法就是提名一位最高统治者，由他来压制所有法律，并短暂地暂停主权权力。在这种情况下，
人们的普遍意愿是毋庸置疑的：很明显，人民的首要意图是国家不会灭亡。因此，暂停立法权并不是废除立法
权；让立法权保持沉默的地方行政官不能让立法权说话；他主宰立法权，但不能代表立法权。他唯一不能做的
就是制定法律。[卢梭所说的 "不能让它说话 "似乎是指 "不能为它说话"。］

The first method was used by the Roman senate when, in a consecrated formula [i.e. in a solemn ceremony
presided over by priests], it charged the consuls with taking care of the safety of the Republic. The second was
employed when one of the two consuls nominated a dictator, a procedure Rome borrowed from Alba.
罗马元老院使用的第一种方法是，在一个神圣的公式中（即在一个由牧师主持的庄严仪式中），元老院责成执
政官负责共和国的安全。第二种方法是两位执政官中的一位提名独裁者， 罗马从阿尔巴借鉴了这一程序。

During the first period of the Republic they often fell back on dictatorship, because the state wasn’t yet solidly
grounded enough to be able to maintain itself by the strength of its constitution alone. At that time the moeurs
made superfluous many of the precautions that would have been necessary at other times; so there was no fear
that a dictator would abuse his authority or try to keep it beyond his term of office. Quite the opposite: those
who had dictatorial powers found them burdensome, and got rid of them as soon as possible-as if taking the
place of the laws had been too troublesome and too perilous a position to retain.
在共和国的最初时期，他们经常诉诸独裁，因为当时国家的基础还不够牢固，仅靠宪法的力量还不足以维持国
家的运转。在当时，"萌芽 "使许多在其他时期必须采取的预防措施变得多余；因此，人们并不担心独裁者会滥
用权力或试图在任期结束后继续行使权力。事实恰恰相反：那些拥有独裁权力的人觉得这些权力是累赘，于是
尽快摆脱它们--就好像取代法律的位置太麻烦、太危险而不能保留一样。

The early Roman use of this supreme magistracy-dictatorship-wasn’t wise; what I hold against it is not the risk
of its being abused but the risk of its of its becoming cheap. When it was being freely employed at elections,
dedications and purely formal functions, there was a danger of its becoming less formidable in time of need-a
danger that men would come to think of it as an empty title that was used only on occasions of empty
ceremonial.
罗马早期使用这种最高权力--独裁--并不明智；我所反对的不是它被滥用的风险，而是它变得廉价的风险。当它
在选举、献礼和纯粹的正式场合被随意使用时，就有可能在需要的时候变得不那么强大--人们会认为它是一个空
洞的头衔，只在空洞的仪式场合使用。

Towards the end of the Republic, the Romans, having grown more circumspect, were as unreasonably sparing
in their use of dictatorship as they had formerly been lavish. It was easy to see that their fears were
unfounded: the capital’s weakness made it safe from the magistrates who lived there; a dictator might
sometimes defend the public liberty but would never be in a position to endanger it; and Rome’s chains
would be forged not in Rome itself but in its armies. The weakness of Marius’s resistance to Sulla, and of
Pompey’s to Caesar, clearly showed what could be expected from authority at home against force from abroad.
在共和国末期，罗马人变得更加谨慎，他们在使用独裁统治时就像以前 崇尚独裁统治一样毫无道理。不难看
出，他们的担心是毫无根据的：首都的软弱使它不受居住在那里的地方长官的影响；独裁者有时 可能会捍卫公
众的自由，但绝不会 危及公众的自由；罗马的锁链不是在罗马本身而是在它的军队中铸成的。马略对苏拉的抵
抗和庞培对凯撒的抵抗都很软弱，这清楚地表明了国内权力对国外武力的期望。

This misconception led the Romans to make great mistakes; such, for example, as the failure to nominate a
dictator in the Catilinarian conspiracy. [Rousseau goes into details of this enormously complex (and still
controversial) matter. He holds that a dictator could have swiftly cleaned the whole thing up, whereas in fact it
was a long-drawn-out affair involving criminal trials and a mixture of good and bad behaviour by Cicero, who
was a consul at the time as well as a professional litigating lawyer. That everything worked out satisfactorily
from Rome’s point of view, Rousseau says, was better luck than Rome deserved.]
这种误解导致罗马人犯了很多错误，例如在卡提林阴谋中没有提名独裁者。[卢梭详细论述了这一极为复杂（至
今仍有争议）的问题。他认为，独裁者本可以迅速平息整个事件，而事实上，这是一个旷日持久的事件，涉及
刑事审判，以及当时身为执政官和专业诉讼律师的西塞罗的好坏行为。卢梭说，从罗马的角度来看，一切都圆
满解决了，这是罗马应得的运气。］

However this important trust is conferred, its duration should be fixed for a very brief period that is never to be
prolonged. In the crises that lead to the appointment of a dictator, the state is going to be soon lost or soon
saved; and
无论如何授予这一重要的信任，其期限都应该是非常短暂的，决不能延长。在导致任命独裁者的危机中，国家
将很快失去或很快得到拯救；以及
when the emergency is over, the dictatorship becomes either tyrannical or idle. In Rome, where dictators held
office for only six months, most of them abdicated before their time was up. If their term had been longer, they
might well have tried to prolong it still further, as the decemvirs did when chosen for a year. The dictator had
only time to deal with the need that had caused him to be chosen; he had no time to think of further projects.
当紧急状态结束时，独裁者要么变得专横，要么变得无所事事。在罗马，独裁者的任期只有六个月，大多数人
在任期结束前就退位了。如果他们的任期更长，他们很可能会试图进一步延长任期，就像被选为任期一年的
decemvirs所做的那样。独裁者只有时间处理导致他被选中的需求，没有时间考虑其他项目。

7. Censorship 7.审查
Just as the general will is declared by the law, the public judgment is declared by the censorship [see Glossary].
Public opinion is the sort of law that the censor administers; all he does is to apply it to particular cases, in the
same fashion as the prince.
正如法律宣示了普遍的意愿，审查制度也宣示了公众的判断[见术语表]。公众舆论就是审查员所执行的法律；他
所做的只是将其适用于特殊情况，就像王子一样。

The censorial tribunal doesn’t pass judgment on the people’s opinion; it only declares it, and as soon as the
two part company its decisions are null and void.
审查法庭并不 对人民的意见进行评判，它只是 宣布人民的意见，一旦两人分手，它的决定就会失效。

It’s pointless to distinguish the mœurs [see Glossary] of a nation from the objects of its esteem; they both
come from the same source, and can’t be disentangled from one another. In every nation on earth the choice of
the people’s pleasures is decided not by nature but by opinion. Correct men’s opinions, and their mœurs will
purify themselves. Men always love what is good or what they find good; where they go wrong is in their
judgments about what is good. What needs to be regulated, then, is this judgment. In making judgments about
mœurs one is making judgments about what is honourable; and the basis for such judgments-the law that is
being applied-is public opinion.
把 一个民族的精神（见术语表）与 它所推崇的对象区分开来是没有意义的；二者同出一源，无法割裂。在世
界上的每一个国家，人们对快乐的选择不是由天性决定的，而是由观点决定的。纠正人们的观点，他们的心灵
就会得到净化。人们总是喜欢美好的事物或他们认为美好的事物；他们出错的地方在于他们对美好事物的判
断。因此，需要规范的就是这种判断。在对灵魂做出判断的同时，人们也在对什么是可敬做出判断；而这种判
断的基础--适用的法律--就是 公众舆论。
[In this next sentence Rousseau speaks, oddly, of the constitution of a people. Elsewhere, constitutions are
credited to organisms, to man as such, and to political entities.] A people’s opinions come from its
[卢梭在下一句话中奇怪地谈到了一个民族的宪法。在其他地方，"宪法 "被归功于有机体、人本身以及政治实
体。］一个民族的观点来自它的
constitution; although the law does not regulate mœurs, it’s legislation that gives them birth. When
legislation grows weak, mœurs degenerate; but in such cases the judgment of the censors won’t succeed where
the force of the laws has failed.
虽然法律并不规范 精神，但 精神是由立法产生的。当立法变得软弱无力时，道德就会堕落；但在这种情况
下，审查员的判断力不会在法律力量失效的地方取得成功。

It follows, then, that censorship may be useful for preserving moeurs but never for restoring them. Set up
censors while the laws are vigorous; as soon as they weaken, all hope is gone; no legitimate item retains its
force when the laws have lost theirs.
因此，审查制度可能有助于维护道德，但绝不可能恢复道德。在法律健全的时候，设立审查制度；一旦法律削
弱，一切希望就都破灭了；当法律失去效力时，任何合法项目都无法保持其效力。

The censorship upholds mœurs by preventing opinions from growing corrupt, by preserving their rectitude by
applying them wisely, and sometimes even by fixing them when they are still uncertain. [In that sentence, the
‘they’ in question seems to be mæeurs, not opinions.]
审查制度通过以下方式维护 "他们"：防止观点堕落；通过明智地运用观点来维护观点的正确性；有时甚至在观
点尚不确定时将其固定下来。[这句话中的 "他们 "似乎是指 "读者"，而不是 "观点"。］

I have said elsewhere…that as public opinion isn’t subject to any constraint, there needn’t be any trace of it in
the tribunal set up to represent it. It’s impossible to admire too much the skill with which the Romans and
(even more) the Spartans used this resource, which we moderns have wholly lost.
我曾在其他地方说过......由于公众舆论不受任何约束，因此在为代表公众舆论而设立的法庭上就不需要有任何公
众舆论的痕迹。罗马人和斯巴达人（甚至更多）利用这一资源的技巧令人钦佩，而我们现代人却完全失去了这
一资源。

When a man with bad mœurs made a good proposal in the Spartan Council, the Ephors ignored it and
arranged for the same proposal to be made by a virtuous citizen. What a disgrace for one man, and what an
honour for the other, without either of them being blamed or praised! Certain drunkards from Samos. . .
.polluted the tribunal of the Ephors; the next day a public edict gave Samians permission to be disgusting. An
actual punishment would have been less severe than such a ‘permission’! When Sparta has pronounced on
what is or isn’t right, Greece doesn’t appeal against its judgments. [In the preceding paragraph, Rousseau is
evidently stretching the notion of censorship [see Glossary] as ancient Rome had it, to cover anything official
that nudges or hooks into public opinion in some oblique way:
当一个品行不端的人在斯巴达会议上提出了一个好建议时，埃弗尔们却置之不理，而是安排一个品德高尚的公
民提出同样的建议。一个人的耻辱和另一个人的荣誉，谁也没有受到指责或赞扬！来自萨摩斯的几个酒鬼.......污
染了以弗所人的法庭；第二天，一份公开的法令允许萨摩斯人令人作呕。实际的惩罚会比这样的 "允许 "轻一
些！当斯巴达宣布什么是对的或不对的时候，希腊不会对它的判决提出上诉。[在上一段中，卢梭显然将古罗马
的审查制度[见术语表]的概念延伸到了以某种斜向方式暗示或勾引公众舆论的任何官方行为：
ignoring the bad man’s proposal, permitting the drunkards to be disgusting. Before coming to that, he has
offered another example (not an ancient one) of that stretch.]
无视坏人的提议，允许醉汉令人作呕。在谈到这一点之前，他还举了另一个例子（不是古代的例子）来说明这
种延伸。］

The use of seconds in duels, which had been carried to wild extremes in the French kingdom, was done away
with merely by these words in a royal edict: 'As for those who are cowards enough to call upon seconds. . '. This
judgment, getting in ahead of the public’s judgment, immediately decided it. But when those same edicts
tried to pronounce duelling itself as cowardly (and so it is!), the public didn’t take this seriously because its
mind was already made up the other way.
在法兰西王国，决斗中使用秒针的做法已经发展到了疯狂的地步，但皇家法令中的一句话却将其废除了："至于
那些懦弱到要求秒针的人，......"。'....... "这一判断先于 公众的判断，立即决定了 。但是，当这些法令试图宣
布决斗本身是懦弱的时候（事实也是如此！），公众并没有认真对待，因为他们的想法已经是另一种样子了。
8. Civic religion 8.公民宗教
At first men had no kings except the gods, and no government except theocracy. They reasoned like Caligula–a
Roman emperor who thought he was a god–and at that period the reasoning was correct. Men’s thoughts and
feelings have to go through a long period of change before they can bring themselves to take their equals as
masters and to expect to profit by doing so.
起初，除了神灵，人们没有国王；除了神权，人们没有政府。他们像卡里古拉那样推理--一个自以为是神的罗马
皇帝--在那个时期，推理是正确的。人的思想和情感必须经过长期的变化，才能使自己把平等的人当作主人，并
期望通过这样做获利。

Simply from the fact that God was put in charge of every political society, it followed that there were as many
gods as peoples. Two peoples that were strangers to one another, and nearly always enemies, couldn’t go on
recognising the same master for long; two armies giving battle couldn’t obey the same leader. So national
divisions led to polytheism, which in turn led to theological and civil intolerance-which, as I’ll show later, are
essentially the same.
上帝掌管着每一个政治社会，由此可见，神和民族一样多。两个互不相识的民族，而且几乎总是敌人，不可能
长期承认同一个主人；两支作战的军队也不可能服从同一个领袖。因此，民族分裂导致了多神教，而多神教又
导致了 神学上的不宽容和 民间的不宽容--正如我稍后要说明的，这两者本质上是一样的。

The Greeks’ liking for discovering their gods among the barbarians arose from their regarding themselves as
the natural sovereigns of those peoples. But it’s our own times that have produced the line of ‘scholarship’ that
is based on
希腊人喜欢在 蛮族中发现他们的神，是因为他们认为自己是 这些民族的天然君主。但正是我们这个时代产生
了基于以下观点的 "学术 "路线
identifying gods of one nation with gods of another. As if Moloch, Saturn, and Chronos could be the same god!
As if the Phoenician Baal, the Greek Zeus, and the Latin Jupiter could be the same! As if there could be any
common residue in imaginary beings with different names!
将一个国家的神与另一个国家的神相提并论。好像摩洛神、土星和克罗诺斯是同一个神！腓尼基的巴尔、希腊
的宙斯和拉丁的朱庇特会是同一个神吗？就好像名字不同的假想生命中会有任何共同的残留物一样！

You may ask: ‘Why were there no wars of religion in the pagan world, where each state had its own form of
worship [culte] and its own gods?’ My reply is that just because each state had its own form of worship as well
as its own government, no state distinguished its gods from its laws. Political war was also theological war; the
gods had, so to speak, provinces that were fixed by the boundaries of nations. The god of one people had no
right over other peoples. The gods of the pagans were not jealous gods [= ‘didn’t demand that their followers
have nothing to do with any other gods’]; they shared the world among themselves. Even Moses and the
Hebrews sometimes adopted that point of view by speaking of ‘the God of Israel’. It’s true that they regarded as
powerless the gods of the Canaanites, a proscribed people condemned to destruction, whose place they were to
take; but look at how they spoke of the divinities of the neighbouring peoples they were forbidden to attack!
‘Isn’t the territory belonging to your god Chemosh lawfully yours?’ said Jephthah to the Ammonites. ‘We have
the same title to the lands that our conquering God has made his own’ (Judges 11:24)… Here, I think, there is a
recognition that the rights of Chemosh are on a par with those of the God of Israel.
你可能会问：'在异教世界，每个国家都有自己的崇拜形式[culte]和自己的神，为什么没有宗教战争？'我的回答
是，正因为每个国家都有自己的崇拜形式和自己的政府，所以没有一个国家将自己的神与自己的法律区分开
来。政治战争也是神学战争；可以说，诸神都有由国家疆界所固定的省份。一个民族的神无权统治其他民族。
异教徒的神不是嫉妒之神[="不要求他们的追随者与其他任何神无关"]；他们分享自己的世界。甚至摩西和希伯
来人有时也采用这种观点，称他们为 "以色列的神"。诚然，他们认为迦南人的神灵是无能为力的，迦南人是被
禁止的民族，注定要被毁灭，他们要取而代之；但看看他们是如何谈论他们被禁止攻击的邻近民族的神灵的！
耶弗他对亚扪人说：'属于你们凯摩什神的领土难道不是你们的合法领土吗？耶弗他对亚扪人说，'我们对我们征
服的神所拥有的土地拥有同样的所有权'（士师记 11：24）......我认为，这里承认了凯摩什的权利与以色列神的
权利是同等的。

When the Jews were subjects of the Kings of Babylon and then of the Kings of Syria, they still obstinately
refused to recognise any god but their own; this refusal was regarded as rebellion against their conqueror, and
drew down on them the persecutions we read of in their history, which are
当犹太人先后成为巴比伦国王和叙利亚国王的臣民时，他们仍然顽固地拒绝承认除他们自己的神之外的任何
神；这种拒绝被视为对征服者的反抗，并招致了我们在他们的历史中读到的迫害，这些迫害是
without parallel till the coming of Christianity.
在基督教出现之前，这种现象从未出现过。
Thus, because every religion was attached solely to the laws of the state that prescribed it, the only way to
convert a people was to enslave it, and the only missionaries there could be were conquerors… So far from men
fighting for the gods, the gods (as in Homer) fought for men; each man asked his god for victory, and paid for it
with new altars. Before the Romans took a place, they called on its gods to abandon it; and when they left the
Tarentines with their outraged gods, they regarded those gods as subject to their own and forced to do them
homage. They left the vanquished their gods as they left them their laws. A wreath to the Jupiter of the Capitol
was often the only tribute they imposed.
因此，由于每种宗教都只依附于规定它的国家的法律，改变一个民族的唯一办法就是奴役它，而唯一的传教士
就是征服者......所以，与其说人在为神而战，不如说神（如荷马史诗中的神一样）在为人而战；每个人都向自己
的神祈求胜利，并用新的祭坛来支付胜利。在罗马人占领一个地方之前，他们就要求它的神灵放弃这个地方；
当他们带着被激怒的神灵离开塔兰提尼人时，他们把这些神灵视为自己的神灵，强迫他们向自己的神灵致敬。
他们把神灵留给被征服者，就像把法律留给他们一样。向都城的朱庇特敬献花圈往往是他们强加的唯一贡品。

Finally, when the Romans in spreading their empire had also spread their forms of worship and their gods, and
had often adopted for themselves the gods of the vanquished, granting the rights of the city to both lots of gods,
the peoples of that vast empire very gradually came to have multitudes of gods and forms of worship,
everywhere almost the same; and that’s how it came about that paganism throughout the known world finally
came to be a single religion.
最后，当罗马人在扩张帝国的同时，也传播了他们的崇拜形式和神灵，并经常将被征服者的神灵据为己有，将
城市的权利赋予这两类神灵时，这个庞大帝国的人民就逐渐拥有了众多的神灵和崇拜形式，各地几乎都一样；
这就是整个已知世界的异教最终成为单一宗教的原因。

This was the situation when Jesus came to set up on earth a spiritual kingdom, which, by separating the
theological from the political system, destroyed the unity of the state, and caused the internal divisions that
have never ceased to trouble Christian peoples. This new idea of a kingdom of ‘the other world’ could never
have occurred to pagans, so they always regarded the Christians as really rebels, who while pretending to be
submissive were only waiting for the chance to become independent and to be in charge, cunningly seizing the
authority they pretended in their weakness to respect. This was the cause of the persecutions.
当耶稣来到人间建立精神王国时，情况就是这样，它将神学与政治制度分离开来，破坏了国家的统一，造成了
内部分裂，这一直困扰着基督徒。异教徒不可能想到 "另一个世界 "的王国这一新观念，因此他们总是把基督徒
视为真正的叛逆者，他们假装顺从，只是在等待机会独立和掌权，狡猾地攫取他们在软弱时假装尊重的权威。
这就是迫害的起因。

What the pagans had feared took place. Then everything was re-arranged: the humble Christians changed their
way of talking, and soon this so-called kingdom of other world turned, under a visible leader, into the most
violent despotism in this world.
异教徒所担心的事情发生了。然后，一切都被重新安排：谦卑的基督徒改变了他们的说话方式，很快，这个所
谓的 另一个世界的王国在一个看得见的领袖的领导下，变成了 这个世界上最残暴的专制制度。

However, as there was always a prince and civil laws as well as a church , this double power created a
conflict of jurisdiction that made it impossible for Christian states to be governed well; and men never
managed to discover whether they were obliged to obey the master or the priest.
然而，由于始终存在着 王子和民法 以及 教会 ，这种双重权力造成了管辖权的冲突，使基督教国家无法得
到良好的治理；人们从未发现自己有义务服从主人还是服从牧师。

Several peoples, however, even in Europe and its neighbourhood, have tried to preserve or restore the old
systemtried and failed, because the spirit of Christianity has won every time. The sacred cult has always
remained or again become independent of the sovereign and not essentially linked with the body of the state.
Mahomet held very sound and sensible views, and made a good job of linking his political system together; and
as long as the caliphs who succeeded him preserved the form of his government, that government had the good
feature of being one-a unitary government, not split between secular and religious powers . But when the
Arabs became prosperous, lettered, civilised, slack and cowardly, they were conquered by barbarians, and the
division between the two powers started up again. It is less conspicuous among the Mahometans than among
the Christians, but the Mahometans do have it, especially in the sect of Ali, and in some states such as Persia it
is continually making itself felt.
然而，即使在欧洲及其邻近地区，也有一些民族试图保留或恢复旧制度，但每次都以失败告终，因为基督教精
神每次都获胜了。神圣崇拜始终或再次独立于君主，本质上与国家机构无关。马哈茂德持有非常正确和明智的
观点，并很好地将他的政治制度联系在一起；只要继承他的哈里发保留了他的政府形式，这个政府就有一个很
好的特点，那就是它是一个统一的政府，而不是世俗权力和宗教权力的分裂 。但是，当阿拉伯人变得繁荣、有
文字、文明、懈怠和懦弱时，他们被野蛮人征服了，两种权力之间的分裂又开始了。这种分裂在穆斯林中不像
在基督徒中那么明显，但在穆斯林中确实存在，尤其是在阿里教派中，而且在波斯等一些国家，这种分裂不断
显现出来。
Among us europeans , the kings of England have been made heads of the Church, and the Czars have done
much
在我们 欧洲人 中，英国国王已经成为教会的领袖，沙皇们也做了很多事情
the same thing; but 但
-this title has made them ministers of the Church rather than its masters;
-这个头衔使他们成为教会的牧师，而不是教会的主人；
-they have acquired the power to maintain the church rather than to change it;
-他们获得了维持教会的权力，而不是改变教会的权力；
-they aren’t its legislators, but only its princes.
-他们不是立法者，而只是王子。
Wherever the clergy is a corporate body, it is master and legislator in its own country. There are thus two
powers, two sovereigns, in England and in Russia, as well as elsewhere. [Rousseau shouldn’t have said ‘two
sovereigns’. What he has been maintaining is that England has (i) a sovereign and (ii) a government, and that
(i) the body of the Anglican clergy is the sovereign, while (ii) the king is the government.]
只要神职人员是一个法人团体， 它就是自己国家的主人和立法者。因此，在英国和俄国，以及其他地方，有
两个权力，两个君主。[卢梭不应该说 "两个君主"。他所坚持的是，英国有(i)一个君主和(ii)一个政府，(i)英国圣
公会的神职人员是君主，而(ii)国王是政府。］

The philosopher Hobbes is the only Christian writer who has seen the evil and seen how to remedy it, and has
dared to propose bring the two heads of the eagle together again, restoring the total political unity without
which no state or government will ever be rightly constituted. But he should have seen that Christianity’s
dominating spirit is incompatible with his system, and that the priests’ side of the divide would always be
stronger than the state’s. What has drawn down hatred on his political theory is not so much what is false and
terrible in it as what is just and true…
哲学家霍布斯是唯一一位看到了这一弊端并知道如何补救的基督教作家，他敢于提议将鹰的两个头重新合在一
起，恢复政治上的完全统一，没有这种统一，任何国家或政府都不可能正确地组成。但他本应看到，基督教的
主导精神与他的制度是不相容的，教士这一边的分歧永远强于国家这一边的分歧。他的政治理论之所以招致憎
恨，与其说是它的虚假和可怕，不如说是它的公正和真实......

I believe that if the study of history were developed from this point of view, it would be easy to refute the
opinion of Bayle
我相信，如果从这一观点出发来研究历史，就会很容易驳斥贝勒的观点
that no religion is useful to the body politic, and also the opposing opinion of Warburton
没有一种宗教对政治体是有益的，以及沃伯顿的反对意见
that Christianity is the body politic’s strongest support.
基督教是政治体最强有力的支撑。

-Starting from the Hobbbesian viewpoint , we would demonstrate to Bayle that no state has ever been founded
without a religious basis, and to Warburton that Christian law basically weakens the state’s constitution more
than it helps it. To make myself understood, I have only to sharpen up a little the unduly vague ideas of religion
that come up in this subject.
-从霍布斯的观点 出发，我们要向贝叶证明，从来没有一个国家是在没有宗教基础的情况下建立起来的，而向
沃伯顿证明，基督教法律从根本上说对国家宪法的削弱多于帮助。为了让大家理解我的观点，我只需要把在这
个问题上出现的关于宗教的过于模糊的观点再尖锐化一点。

Religion, considered in relation to society, can be divided into two kinds. (a) With the relevant ‘society’ taken
as the whole of mankind, we have the religion of man; (b) with ‘society’ understood at the society of this or that
nation we have the religion of the citizen of this or that nation. (a) doesn’t have temples, or altars or rites, and
is confined to the purely internal worship of the supreme God and eternal obligations of morality; it is the
religion of the Gospel pure and simple, the true theism, what may be called natural divine law. (b) is codified in
a single country, to which it gives its gods and its own patron saints; it has its dogmas, its rites, and its external
forms of worship prescribed by law; it views all the other nations as unbelievers, foreign, barbarous; it doesn’t
regard the duties and rights of man as extending far beyond its own altars. The religions of early peoples were
all of this sort. We could label them as civil or positive divine law.
与社会相关的宗教可分为两种。(a) 相关的 "社会 "是指全人类，我们有人类的宗教；(b) "社会 "是指这个或那个
国家的社会，我们有这个或那个国家公民的宗教。(a) 没有寺庙、祭坛或仪式，仅限于对至高无上的神的纯粹内
在崇拜和 永恒的道德义务；它是纯粹而简单的福音宗教，是真正的有神论，可称为自然神法。(b) 被编纂在
一个国家里，它赋予这个国家自己的神和自己的守护神；它有自己的教条、仪式和法律规定的外部崇拜形式；
它视所有其他民族为不信者、外来的、野蛮的；它不认为人的义务和权利远远超出了自己的祭坛。早期民族的
宗教都是这种类型。我们可以把它们称为民法或实在神法。
[In the contrast between natural law and positive law, ‘positive’ means ‘created by the decisions of human
beings’. It was a generally understood distinction in early modern times; Rousseau is here using it to
distinguish two kinds of religion, suggesting that one of them is naturalperhaps an upshot of human nature-
whereas the other is artificial, something deliberately devised or invented by humans. He throws in ‘divine’
because the items under discussion are religions; Rousseau doesn’t think that any god has anything to do with
(b), and the adjective-pair ‘positive divine’, which means ‘man-made and divine’ and is virtually self-
contradictory, is a joke.]
[在自然法与实在法的对比中，"实在 "的意思是 "由人类的决定所创造"。卢梭在这里用它来区分两种宗教，暗示
其中一种是自然的，也许是人类本性的结果，而另一种则是人为的，是人类刻意设计或发明的。他加上 "神圣的
"是因为所讨论的是宗教；卢梭认为任何神都与(b)无关，而形容词对 "积极的神圣的 "的意思是 "人造的和神圣
的"，实际上是自相矛盾的，是个笑话]。

There’s a third bizarre sort of religion © that gives men two codes of law, two rulers, and two countries,
imposes contradictory duties on them, and makes it impossible for them to be believers and citizens. The
religion of the Lamas is like that, and so is the religion of the Japanese. Another example is Roman Catholic
Christianity. We could call this sort of religion the religion of the priest. It leads to a sort of mixed and anti-
social code that has no name - analogous to ‘natural divine’ and ‘positive divine’ for the other two-.
还有第三种奇怪的宗教： 给人两种法典、两个统治者和两个国家， 给人强加相互矛盾的义务， 让人无法成
为信徒和公民。喇嘛教是这样，日本人的宗教也是这样。另一个例子是罗马 天主教。我们可以把这种宗教称为
牧师的宗教。它导致了一种没有名称的混杂的反社会准则--类似于其他两种宗教的 "自然神教 "和 "积极神教"。

Looked at from the political point of view, these three kinds of religion all have defects. © is so clearly bad that
passing the time proving that it is so would be wasting time. Anything that destroys social unity is worthless;
all institutions that set man in contradiction to himself are worthless.
从政治角度看，这三种宗教都有缺陷。宗教是如此明显地不好，以至于 浪费时间去证明它是如此。任何破坏社
会团结的东西都是毫无价值的；所有使人与人之间产生矛盾的制度都是毫无价值的。
(b) has some good features. It unites divine worship with love of the laws. By making the country the object of
the citizens’ adoration, it teaches them that service done to the state is service done to its guardian god. It is a
form of theocracy, in which there should be no pope but the prince, and no priests but the magistrates. In this
system, dying for one’s country is suffering martyrdom; violating its laws is sacrilege; and subjecting a criminal
to public execration is condemning him to the anger of the gods…
(b) 有一些好的特点。它将对神的崇拜与对法律的热爱结合在一起。它把国家作为公民崇拜的对象，教导他们为
国家服务就是为国家的守护神服务。这是一种神权形式，其中没有教皇，只有王子，没有牧师，只有行政官。
在这种制度下，为国捐躯就是殉道；违反国家法律就是亵渎；让罪犯受到公众的谴责就是让他承受神灵的愤
怒......

But it is bad in that, being based on lies and error, it deceives men, makes them credulous and superstitious,
and drowns the true worship of the Divinity [Rousseau’s phrase] in empty ceremonies. It is also bad when by
becoming tyrannical and exclusive it makes a people bloodthirsty and intolerant, breathing murder and
massacre, and regarding as a sacred act the killing of anyone who doesn’t believe in its gods. This puts such a
people into a natural state of war with everyone else, so that its security is deeply endangered.
但它的坏处在于，它以谎言和错误为基础，欺骗人们，使他们轻信和迷信，把对神的真正崇拜（卢梭语）淹没
在空洞的仪式中。同样糟糕的是，专制和排他性让一个民族变得嗜血和不宽容，嗜好谋杀和屠杀，把杀死任何
不信神的人视为神圣的行为。这就使这样一个民族自然而然地陷入与其他人的战争状态，从而使其安全受到严
重威胁。

There remains (a) the religion of man, i.e. Christianitynot today’s Christianity but the entirely different
Christianity of the Gospel. By means of this holy, sublime, and genuine religion all men, as children of one
God, acknowledge one another as brothers, and the society that unites them isn’t dissolved even at death.
还有（a）人的宗教，即基督教，不是今天的基督教，而是福音书中完全不同的基督教。通过这种神圣、崇高和
真正的宗教，所有人作为同一个上帝的儿女，都承认彼此为兄弟，将他们团结在一起的社会即使在死亡时也不
会解体。
But this religion, having no special relation to the body politic, leaves the laws with only the force they draw
from themselves without adding anything to it; which means that one of the great bonds for uniting the society
of the given country is left idle. Worse: so far from binding the citizens’ hearts to the state, it detaches them
from that and from all earthly things. I know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit.
但是，这种宗教与政治体制没有特殊关系，它使法律只具有从自身汲取的力量，而不增加任何东西；这就意味
着，把特定国家的社会团结起来的一个重要纽带被闲置了。更糟糕的是：它不仅没有把公民的心与 国家联系在
一起，反而使他们与 国家和一切世俗事物分离开来。没有比这更违背社会精神的了。

They tell us that a populace of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable. I see only one
great difficulty about this idea, namely that a society of true Christians wouldn’t be a society of men.
他们告诉我们，一个由真正的基督徒组成的社会将是可以想象的最完美的社会。我认为这个想法只有一个最大
的困难，那就是一个由真正的基督徒组成的社会不会是一个人的社会。

I go further: such a society, with all its perfection, wouldn’t be the strongest or the most durable; its very
perfection would deprive it of its bond of union; the flaw that would destroy it would lie in its perfection.
我更进一步说：这样的社会再完美，也不会是最强大、最持久的；它的完美性会使它失去结合的纽带；摧毁它
的缺陷就在于它的完美性。

Everyone would do his duty; the people would be lawabiding; the rulers would be just and temperate, and the
magistrates upright and incorruptible; the soldiers would regard death as a minor thing; there would be no
vanity or extravagant luxury. So far, so good; but let’s look further.
每个人都会恪尽职守；人民会遵纪守法；统治者会公正、节制，地方官会正直、廉洁；士兵会视死亡为小事；
没有虚荣心和奢侈。到目前为止，一切都很好；但让我们进一步看看。

Christianity is an entirely spiritual religion, occupied solely with heavenly things; the Christian’s country is not
of this world. He does his duty, certainly, but does it with a deep lack of interest in whether the work he has put
in has produced good or bad results. Provided he has nothing to reproach himself with, it doesn’t matters
much to him whether things go well or ill here below. If the state prospers,
基督教是一种完全属灵的宗教，只关注属天的事物；基督徒的国家不属于这个世界。他当然会履行自己的职
责，但对自己所做的工作是否产生了好的或坏的结果却极不感兴趣。只要他没有什么可自责的，下面的事情是
好是坏对他来说并不重要。如果国家繁荣昌盛
he hardly dares to share in the public happiness, for fear he may become puffed up with pride in his country’s
glory; if the state goes downhill, he blesses the hand of God that is hard upon His people.
他几乎不敢分享公众的幸福，因为他担心自己会因国家的荣耀而骄傲自大；如果国家走下坡路，他就会祝福上
帝之手对他的子民不留情面。

For the society to be peaceable and for harmony to be maintained, all the citizens would have to be equally
good Christians. If there happened to be a single self-seeker or hypocrite-a Catiline or a Cromwell, for
instance-he would certainly get the better of his pious compatriots. Christian charity doesn’t make it easy for a
man to think ill of another man. As soon as our bad man has worked out a way of deceiving everyone else and
getting hold of a share in the public authority, you have
为了社会的和平与和谐，所有公民都必须是同样优秀的基督徒。如果有一个自寻烦恼的人或伪君子--比如卡蒂林
或克伦威尔--肯定会被他虔诚的同胞所利用。基督徒的仁慈不会让一个人轻易地对另一个人有非分之想。只要我
们的坏人想出了办法， 欺骗其他人， 在公共权力中占有一席之地，你就有了
a man established in dignity; God wants us to respect him.
一个有尊严的人；上帝希望我们尊重他。
Then before long, you have
不久之后，你就会
a power; God wants us to obey it.
一种力量；上帝希望我们服从它。
If the person who has the power abuses it, that is the whip God uses to punish his children. There would be
scruples about driving out the usurper: it would involve disturbing public peace, using violence, spilling blood;
none of this squares with Christian gentleness; and anyway what does it matter in this vale of sorrows whether
we are free men or serfs? The essential thing is to get to heaven, and resignation-i.e. putting up with hardship
patiently and without complaining–is just one more way of getting there.
如果掌权者滥用权力，上帝就会用鞭子惩罚他的儿女。赶走篡权者会有顾忌：这会扰乱公共秩序、使用暴力、
流血；这些都不符合基督徒的温柔；而且，在这个充满悲伤的世界里，我们是自由人还是农奴又有什么关系
呢？最重要的是上天堂，而顺从--即耐心地、毫无怨言地忍受艰难困苦--只是到达天堂的另一种方式。

If a foreign war breaks out, the citizens march readily out to battle; not one of them thinks of flight; they do
their duty, but they have no passion for victory; they know how to die better than they know how to conquer.
What does it matter whether they win or lose? Doesn’t Providence know better than they do what should
happen to them? Imagine what a proud, impetuous and passionate enemy could make of this Christian
stoicism! Set this Christian army against the
如果对外战争爆发，市民们会立即出征；没有一个人想逃跑；他们尽忠职守，但对胜利毫无热情；他们更懂得
如何去死，而不是如何去征服。输赢又有什么关系呢？难道普罗维登斯不比他们更清楚他们的下场吗？试想一
下，一个骄傲、急躁、激情四射的敌人会如何对待基督徒的这种 委曲求全！让这支基督教军队与
deep-feeling peoples who were consumed by ardent love of glory and of their country; imagine your Christian
republic up against Sparta or Rome: the pious Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed, before they
know where they are; or they’ll be safe only because their enemy regarded them as negligible…
他们是深情的民族，被对荣耀和祖国的炽热之爱所吞噬；想象一下你的基督教共和国与斯巴达或罗马的对抗：
虔诚的基督徒将被击败、碾碎和毁灭，在他们知道自己身在何处之前；或者他们之所以安全，只是因为他们的
敌人将他们视为可忽略不计......

But I’m wrong to speak of a Christian republic-those two terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches
only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by such a régime.
Genuine Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and don’t much mind: this short life counts for too
little in their eyes.
但我说基督教共和国是错误的--这两个词是相互排斥的。基督教只宣扬奴役和依赖。它的精神是如此有利于暴
政，以至于它总是从这种制度中获利。真正的基督徒是要做奴隶的，他们知道这一点，也并不太在意：在他们
眼里，这短暂的一生太不值一提了。

Christian troops are excellent, we are told. I deny it. Show me an example! For my part, I don’t know of any
Christian troops. The Crusades? Without disputing the courage of the Crusaders, I answer that far from being
Christians they were the priests’ troops, they were citizens of the Church: they fought for their spiritual
country, which the Church had somehow made temporal. Properly understood, this goes back to paganism:
because the Gospel doesn’t establish any national religion, there can’t possibly be a holy war among Christians.
有人告诉我们，基督教部队非常优秀。我否认这一点。给我举一个例子！就我而言，我不知道有什么基督教军
队。十字军？我并不质疑十字军的勇气，但我的回答是，他们远非基督徒，他们是牧师的军队，他们是教会的
公民：他们为自己的精神家园而战，而教会却以某种方式将其世俗化了。正确理解这一点，可以追溯到异教：
因为福音没有建立任何国家宗教，所以基督徒之间不可能有圣战。

Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were fine; every Christian writer says so, and I believe it;
they were honourably modelling themselves on the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were Christian, this
modelling was extinguished; and when the cross had driven out the eagle, Roman valour wholly disappeared.
在异教皇帝统治时期，基督教士兵是优秀的；每一位基督教作家都这么说，我也相信；他们光荣地以异教军队
为榜样。一旦皇帝们信奉基督教，这种模仿就会消失；当十字架赶走了鹰之后，罗马人的英勇就完全消失了。

Let us now set political considerations aside and come

现在，让我们抛开政治考虑，来看看
back to questions about - what is right, and settle our principles on this important point. [In this passage,
‘right’ translates droit, which can also mean ‘law’.] The right that the social compact gives the sovereign over
the subjects does not, we have seen, include anything that isn’t good for the public. The subjects then owe
the sovereign an account of their opinions only insofar as the opinions matter to the community. Now, it
matters very much to the community that each citizen should have a religion that makes him love his duty; but
that religion’s dogmas are no concern of the state’s or of its members’ except insofar as they involve morality
and the believer’s duties towards others. In addition to all that, a man may have any opinions he likes without
that being any of the sovereign’s business. Having no standing in the other world, the sovereign has no concern
with what may lie in wait for its subjects in the life to come, provided they are good citizens in this life.
在这段话中，"权利 "译为 "droit"，也可以指 "法律"。[我们已经看到，社会契约赋予君主对臣民的权利并不包括
任何不利于公众的东西。 那么，臣民只有在其意见对社会有影响时，才有义务向君主陈述其意见。现在，每
个公民都应该信奉一种使他热爱自己职责的宗教，这对社会来说是非常重要的；但这种宗教的 教义与国家或其
成员无关，除非 它们涉及道德和信徒对他人的职责。除此之外，一个人可以有他喜欢的任何观点，而这与君主
无关。君主在另一个世界没有地位，因此只要臣民在今生是好公民，君主就不会关心他们在来世会遇到什么。

So there’s a purely civil profession of faith, the content of which should be fixed by the sovereign-not exactly as
religious dogmas, but as social sentiments that are needed for to be a good citizen and a faithful subject.
While it can’t compel anyone to believe them, it can banish from the state anyone who doesn’t believe them-
banishing him not for impiety but for being anti-social, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and if
necessary sacrificing his life to his duty. If anyone publicly recognises these dogmas and then behaves as if he
doesn’t believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes-lying before the
law.
因此，有一种纯粹的民间信仰，其内容应由君主来确定--不完全是宗教教条，而是成为好公民和忠实臣民所需的
社会情感。 虽然不能强迫任何人相信这些教条，但可以把不相信这些教条的人驱逐出国家--驱逐他不是因为
他不虔诚，而是因为他反社会，不能真正热爱法律和正义，必要时还会为自己的职责牺牲生命。如果有人公开
承认这些教条，却又表现得好像不相信它们，那就处以死刑：他犯下了最严重的罪行--在法律面前撒谎。

28 ‘In the republic,’ says the Marquis d’Argenson, ‘each man is perfectly free in what doesn’t harm others.’
That is the invariable limit; I can’t define it more exactly…
28 "在共和国里，"阿根森侯爵说，"每个人在不伤害他人的事情上都是完全自由的。'这是不变的界限；我无法更
准确地定义它......
29 Caesar, arguing for the defence in Catiline’s trial, tried to establish the dogma that the soul is mortal. Cato
and Cicero, speaking for the prosecution, didn’t waste time in philosophising, and simply argued that Caesar
had spoken like a bad citizen, pushing a doctrine that would be harmful to the state. That, and not a problem of
theology, was what the Roman senate had to judge.
29 在卡蒂林的审判中，凯撒作为辩方，试图确立灵魂必死的教条。卡托和西塞罗作为控方律师，没有浪费时间
进行哲学思考，而是简单地指出，凯撒的言论像一个坏公民，他推行的学说会对国家造成危害。罗马元老院要
评判的是这一点，而不是神学问题。

The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, with no explanation or commentary.
Its positive dogmas are:
民间宗教的教条应该少而精，简单明了，措辞准确，无需解释或评论。它的正面教条是
the existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence,
一个强大、智慧、仁慈的神的存在，他拥有先见之明和天意、
-the life to come, -未来的生活
the happiness of the just,
正义者的幸福、
-the punishment of the wicked,
-对恶人的惩罚、
-the sanctity of the social contract and the laws.
-社会契约和法律的神圣性。
And just one dogma of exclusion, namely the exclusion of intolerance, which is a feature of the cults we have
rejected.
只有一个排斥教条，即排斥不容忍，这是我们所摒弃的邪教的一个特征。

Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two intolerances
are inseparable. You can’t possibly live at peace with people you regard as damned; loving them would be
hating God who punishes them: we absolutely must either reform them or torment them. Wherever theological
intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it does the sovereign is no
longer sovereign even in the temporal sphere; from then on, priests are the real masters, and kings only their
ministers.
在我看来，那些将 公民的不宽容与 神学的不宽容区分开来的人是错误的。这两种不宽容是不可分割的。你
不可能与被你视为该死的人和平相处；爱他们就等于憎恨惩罚他们的上帝：我们绝对必须要么改造他们，要么
折磨他们。只要承认神学上的不宽容，它就不可避免地会产生一些民事影响； 而一旦产生民事影响，君主就
不再是君主了，甚至在世俗领域也是如此；从那时起，牧师才是真正的主人，国王只是他们的大臣。

Now that there no longer are, and no longer can be, any
既然现在不再有、也不可能有任何
exclusive national religions, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their
dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship. Anyone who ventures to say: ‘Outside the Church
is no salvation’ should be driven from the state, unless the state is the Church and the prince the pope. Such a
dogma is good only in a theocratic government; in any other it is fatal. The reason Henry IV is said to have had
for embracing the Roman religion–namely that the Roman Catholics did, while the Protestants didn’t, say
`Our faith is the only possible route to heaven’–ought to make every honest man leave it, especially any prince
who knows how to reason.
只要 他们的教条不包含任何有悖于公民义务的内容，就应该宽容所有容忍他人的 宗教。谁敢说：'教会之外没
有救赎'，谁就应该被赶出国家，除非国家就是教会，王子就是教皇。这样的教条只有在神权政府中才是好的，
在任何其他政府中都是致命的。据说亨利四世信奉罗马教的理由是，罗马天主教徒说 "我们的信仰是通往天堂的
唯一可能之路"，而新教徒却没有，这足以让每一个正直的人，尤其是任何懂得推理的王子离开罗马教。

9. Conclusion 9.结论
Now that I have laid down the true principles of political right, and tried to plant the state on its own base, the
next task would be to strengthen it by its foreign relations. That would bring in the law of nations, commerce,
the right of war and conquest, public law, leagues, negotiations, treaties, etc. But all this adds up to a new
subject that is far too vast for my narrow scope. As it is, I have ranged further afield than I ought to have.
既然我已经制定了政治权利的真正原则，并试图将国家建立在自己的基础之上，那么接下来的任务就是通过对
外关系来加强国家。这将带来万国法、商业、战争权和征服权、公法、联盟、谈判、条约等等。但是，所有这
些加起来就是一个新的课题，对于我狭窄的研究范围来说，这个课题实在是太庞大了。因此，我的研究范围超
出了我应该研究的范围。

30 Marriage, for instance, being a civil contract, has civil effects without which society can’t even subsist. Now,
suppose that the clergy collectively claim the sole right of permitting this act, a right that every intolerant
religion is bound to claim. Isn’t it obvious that in establishing the Church’s authority in this respect, it will be
destroying the prince’s, letting him now have only as many subjects as the clergy are willing to allow him?
Being in a position to marry or not to marry people according to
30 例如，婚姻作为一种民事契约，具有民事效力，没有这种效力，社会甚至无法存在。现在，假设神职人员集
体声称拥有允许这一行为的唯一权利，而这是每一个不宽容的宗教都必然要求的权利。在这方面确立教会的权
威，不就等于摧毁了王子的权威，让他现在只能拥有教士们愿意允许他拥有的尽可能多的臣民吗？根据宗教信
仰决定是否与人结婚
-their acceptance of such and such a doctrine,
-他们接受这样那样的教义、
-their admission or rejection of such and such a formula,
-他们承认或拒绝这样或那样的公式、
-their greater or less piety,
-他们的虔诚程度是高是低、
isn’t it obvious that if the Church is prudent and firm it can come to have sole control of all inheritances, offices
and citizens, and even of the state itself? Doing all this through marriage? But what if people don’t marry but
have children all the same? That is not a solution, because the state couldn’t survive if it were composed
entirely of bastards. ‘But’, I shall be told, ‘people can appeal on the grounds of abuse, create delays, issue
decrees, work the controls of the whole temporal (see Glossary) legal machine.’ How pathetic! The clergy will
take no notice and go its way; to do this it won’t even need courage, merely a little good sense. It will calmly
allow appeals, delays, decrees and seizings of the controls, and still end up as the master. It is not, I think, a
great sacrifice to give up a part, when one is sure of securing all.
如果教会谨慎而坚定，它就能独揽所有遗产、职位和公民，甚至国家本身，这难道不是显而易见的吗？ 通过婚
姻来实现这一切？但如果人们不结婚，却照样生孩子呢？这不是解决办法，因为 如果国家完全由私生子组成，
国家就无法生存。但是"，我将被告知，"人们可以以虐待为由提出上诉，制造拖延，发布法令，操纵整个世俗
（见术语表）法律机器。'多么可悲！神职人员不会理睬，他们会一意孤行；要做到这一点，他们甚至不需要勇
气，只需要一点理智。它将平静地允许上诉、拖延、法令和控制权的扣押，并最终成为主宰。我认为，在有把
握获得一切的情况下，放弃一部分并不是很大的牺牲。

1 The Romans, who understood and respected the right of war more than any other nation on earth were so
scrupulous about this that a citizen wasn’t
1 罗马人比世界上任何其他国家都更理解和尊重战争权，他们对此非常慎重，公民不
allowed to serve as a volunteer without explicitly agreeing to serve against such-and-such a named enemy.
[Rousseau throws in an anecdote about a soldier whose military oath had to be renewed because etc. He
continues:] I know that the siege of Clusium and other isolated events can be cited against me; but I’m
talking not about individual episodes, but about laws and customs. The Romans obeyed their laws more
than any other people, and they had better laws than any other people.
在没有明确同意对某某指定敌人服役的情况下，可以作为志愿兵服役。[卢梭引用了一则轶事，说有一名士兵
因为某些原因不得不重新宣誓。他接着说］我知道，克吕西翁围城事件和其他孤立的事件都可以用来反驳
我；但我说的 不是个别事件，而是 法律和习俗。罗马人比其他任何民族都更遵守法律，他们的法律也比
其他任何民族都完善。
2 The real meaning of ‘city’ has been almost wholly lost in modern times; most people mistake a town for a
city, and a townsman for a citizen. They don’t know that houses make a town, but citizens a city. . . I have
never read of the title ‘citizens’ being given to the subjects of any prince, not even the ancient Macedonians
or the English of today, though they are nearer liberty than anyone else. Only the French casually adopt the
label ‘citizens’; that’s because they have no idea of its real meaning (you can see that from their
dictionaries!)… They think of the name as expressing virtue rather than right. When Bodin was trying
to talk about our citizens and our townsmen, he blundered badly by confusing these two classes with one
another. M. d’Alembert avoided that error in his article on Geneva, clearly distinguishing the four orders of
men (or even five, counting mere foreigners) who dwell in our town, of which only two make up the
republic. I don’t know of any other French writer who has understood the real meaning of the word
‘citizen’.
2 在现代，"城市 "的真正含义几乎已经完全丧失；大多数人把城镇误认为城市，把市民误认为城镇居民。他
们不知道，房屋才是城镇，而市民才是城市。. .我从未听说过任何王子的臣民有 "公民 "的称号，即使是古代
的马其顿人和今天的英国人也不例外，尽管他们比任何人都更接近自由。只有法国人随随便便就使用了 "公
民 "这个称谓；那是因为他们根本不知道这个称谓的真正含义（从他们的字典里就能看出来！）......他们认为
这个称谓表达的是 美德，而不是 权利。当博丹试图谈论我们的市民和乡民时，他把这两个阶级混为一
谈，犯了严重的错误。达朗贝尔先生在他关于日内瓦的文章中避免了这一错误，他明确区分了居住在我们城
市的四种人（甚至五种人，包括纯粹的外国人），其中只有两种人构成共和国。我不知道还有哪位法国作家
能够理解 "公民 "一词的真正含义。
3 Under bad governments, this equality is only apparent and illusory: all it does is to keep the pauper in his
poverty and the rich man in the position he has usurped. Laws in fact are always useful to those who have
possessions and harmful to those who don’t; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to
men only when everyone has something and no-one has too much.
3 在糟糕的政府统治下，这种平等只是表面上的，而且是虚幻的：它所做的一切只是让穷人继续贫穷，让富
人继续保持他所篡夺的地位。事实上，法律总是对那些拥有财产的人有用，而对那些没有财产的人有害；由
此可见，只有当每个人都有所得，而没有人拥有太多的时候，社会状态才对人有利。
4 To be general, a will need not always be unanimous; but every vote must be counted: any exclusion is a
breach of generality.
4 遗嘱要具有普遍性，不必总是一致同意；但每一票都必须计算在内：任何排除都违反了普遍性。
5 ‘Every interest’, says the Marquis d’Argenson, ‘has different principles. What brings two particular
interests into agreement is their shared opposition to a third.’ He could have added that what brings all
interests into agreement is their shared opposition to each. If individual interests didn’t differ from one
another, the common interest would have nothing to bump up against, and so it would hardly be felt…
5 阿根森侯爵说："每种利益都有不同的原则。使两种特殊利益达成一致的是它们共同的 反对第三种利
益。'他本可以补充说，使所有利益达成一致的是它们 共同的 反对每一种利益。如果个人利益之间没有差
异，那么共同利益就没有什么可以碰撞的，因此也就很难感觉到......
6 ‘In fact,’ says Machiavelli, ‘some divisions are harmful to a republic and some are advantageous. Those
that stir up sects and parties are harmful; those attended by neither are advantageous. So, since the founder
of a Republic can’t help enmities arising, he ought at least to prevent them from growing into sects’
(History of Florence, Book 7).
6 "事实上，"马基雅维利说，"有些分裂对共和国有害，有些则有利。那些煽动宗派和党派的分裂是有害的，
而那些既无宗派也无党派的分裂则是有利的。因此，既然共和国的创建者无法阻止敌意的产生，那么他至少
应该防止敌意发展成宗派"（《佛罗伦萨史》，第 7 册）。
7 Attentive readers, please don’t rush in with the charge that I am contradicting myself. The poverty of the
language has forced this on me; but wait and see.
7 细心的读者，请不要急于指责我自相矛盾。语言的贫乏使我不得不这样做，但请拭目以待。
8 I apply this word not merely to aristocracies and democracies but quite generally to any government
directed by the general will, which is the law. To be legitimate, the government must be not identical with
the sovereign, but its minister; so even a monarchy can be a republic. I’ll clarify this in Book 3.
8 我不仅将这个词用于贵族政体和民主政体，而且还非常普遍地用于任何由普遍意志（即法律）指导的政
府。要成为合法政府，政府必须与君主不是同一人，而是其大臣；因此，即使君主制也可以是共和制。我会
在第三部书中澄清这一点。
9 A people becomes famous only when its legislation begins to decline. We don’t know for how many
centuries the system of Lycurgus made the Spartans happy before the rest of Greece took any notice of it.
9 一个民族只有在其立法开始衰落时才会出名。我们不知道莱库格斯的制度让斯巴达人高兴了多少个世纪，
才引起希腊其他国家的注意。
10 Those who know Calvin only as a theologian much under-estimate the extent of his genius. The
codification of our wise edicts, in which he played a large part, does him great honour… Whatever
revolution time may bring in our religion, so long as the spirit of patriotism and liberty still lives among us
the memory of this great man will be for ever blessed.
10 那些只知道加尔文是神学家的人远远低估了他的天才。他在编纂我们的贤明法令方面发挥了重要作用，这
是他的光荣......无论时代会给我们的宗教带来怎样的革命，只要爱国主义和自由的精神仍然活在我们中间，
我们就会永远缅怀这位伟人。
11 If there were two neighbouring peoples, one of which needed the other, it would be very hard on the one
and very dangerous for the other. Every wise nation, in such a case, would make it a priority to free the
other from dependence. . . .
11 如果有两个相邻的民族，其中一个民族需要另一个民族，那么对其中一个民族来说将是非常艰难的，而对
另一个民族来说则是非常危险的。在这种情况下，每一个明智的民族都会优先考虑让另一个民族摆脱依赖。.
..
12 Do you want the state to be solid? Then make the wealth-spread as small as you can; don’t allow rich
men or beggars. These two conditions are naturally inseparable: any state that has very wealthy citizens
will also have beggars, and vice versa And they are equally fatal to the common good: one produces
supporters of tyranny, the other produces tyrants. It is always between them that public liberty is put on
sale: one buys, the other sells.
12 你想让国家稳固吗？那就尽量缩小贫富差距，不允许有富人，也不允许有乞丐。这两个条件自然是密不可
分的： 任何拥有非常富有的公民的国家都会有乞丐，反之亦然 而且它们对共同利益同样致命：一个产生
暴政的支持者，另一个产生暴君。公共自由总是在他们之间出售：一个买，一个卖。
13 ‘Any branch of foreign commerce’, says the Marquis d’Argenson, ‘creates over-all only an apparent
advantage for the kingdom in general; it may enrich some individuals, or even some towns, but the nation
as a whole gains nothing by it and the populace is no better off.’
13 阿根森侯爵说："对外贸易的任何分支"，"总的来说都只是为整个王国创造了表面上的利益；它可能会使
一些个人甚至一些城镇富裕起来，但整个国家却不会因此而得到任何好处，人民的生活也不会因此而得到改
善。
14 It matters greatly to have laws governing the form of the election of magistrates; for if that is left at the
discretion of the prince the government will slide into being an hereditary aristocracy, as happened in the
republics of Venice and Berne. Thus Venice collapsed as a state, long ago; but the republic of Berne is
maintained through its senate’s great wisdom; it is an exception-one that is very honourable and very
dangerous!
14 制定关于地方行政长官选举形式的法律非常重要；因为如果任由王子自行决定，政府就会沦为世袭贵族，
威尼斯共和国和伯尔尼共和国就曾出现过这种情况。因此，威尼斯作为一个国家早就垮台了；但伯尔尼共和
国却因其元老院的伟大智慧而得以维持；这是一个例外，一个非常光荣也非常危险的例外！
15 Machiavelli was an honest man and a good citizen; but, being attached to the court of the Medici, he had
to veil his love of liberty in the midst of his country’s oppression. The choice of his detestable hero, Cesare
Borgia , clearly enough shows his hidden aim; and the contradiction between the teaching of The Prince
and that of the Discourses on Livy and the History of Florence shows that this profound political thinker
has so far been studied only by superficial or corrupt readers. The court of Rome sternly prohibited his
book-of course it did! because that’s the court that the book most clearly portrays.
15 马基雅维利是个诚实的人，也是个好公民；但由于他依附于美第奇宫廷，在国家遭受压迫的情况下，他不
得不掩饰自己对自由的热爱。 切萨雷-博尔哈 这个令人憎恶的主人公的选择清楚地表明了他隐藏的目的；
《王子》的教义与《李维论》和《佛罗伦萨史》的教义之间的矛盾表明，迄今为止，只有肤浅或腐朽的读者
研究过这位深刻的政治思想家。罗马宫廷严令禁止他的著作，这是当然的！因为这本书最清楚地描绘了罗马
宫廷。
17 The slow formation and the development of the Republic of Venice in its lagoons are a notable instance
of this sequence; and it is most astonishing that after more than twelve hundred years’ the Venetians seem
to be still at the second stage, which they reached with the closing down of the Great Council in 1198…
Opponents of my view are sure to cite the Roman Republic, which they will say followed exactly the
opposite course, going from monarchy to aristocracy and then to democracy. I don’t look at it in anything
like that way. What Romulus first set up was a mixed government, which soon deteriorated into despotism.
From special causes, that state died an untimely death, as new-born children sometimes die without
reaching manhood. The real birth of the Roman republic dates from the expulsion of the Tarquins; but at
that time it didn’t have a constant form because the job was only half-done: they didn’t abolish the nobility.
In that way hereditary aristocracy-the worst of all legitimate forms of administration-remained in conflict
with democracy, and the form of the government was free-floating and uncertain. It didn’t get fixed until
this
17 威尼斯共和国在其潟湖中的缓慢形成和发展，就是这种顺序的一个显著例子；最令人吃惊的是，在一千二
百多年后，威尼斯人似乎仍停留在第二阶段，即 1198 年大议会闭幕时所达到的阶段......反对我的观点的人肯
定会引用罗马共和国的例子，他们会说，罗马共和国走的是完全相反的道路，从君主制到贵族制，再到民主
制。我不这么看。罗慕路斯最初建立的是一个混合政府，但很快就恶化为专制政府。由于特殊原因，这个国
家英年早逝，就像刚出生的孩子有时还没长大成人就夭折了一样。罗马共和国的真正诞生可以追溯到驱逐塔
尔金人的时候，但当时它并没有固定的形式，因为工作只完成了一半：他们没有废除贵族。这样，世袭贵族-
-所有合法管理形式中最糟糕的一种--与民主仍然存在冲突，而政府的形式则是自由浮动和不确定的。直到
18 In nearly the same sense as ‘speaker’ has in the English parliament. The similarity of these functions
would have brought the consuls and the tribunes into conflict even when all jurisdiction had been
suspended.
18 与英国议会中的 "议长 "含义几乎相同。这些职能的相似性会使执政官和护民官发生冲突，即使在所有管
辖权都被中止的情况下也是如此。
19 To adopt in cold countries the luxury and effeminacy of the East is to want to submit to its chains-indeed
to bow to them far more inevitably in our case than in theirs.
19 在寒冷的国度里采用东方的奢华和妩媚，就是想屈服于东方的枷锁--事实上，我们比他们更不可避免地屈
服于枷锁。
20 I had intended to do this in the sequel to the present work, when in dealing with external relations I
came to the subject of confederations. The subject is quite new, and its principles have still to be laid down.
20 我本打算在本著作的续篇中论述这一问题，因为在论述对外关系时，我谈到了邦联问题。这是一个相当新
的课题，其原则仍有待确定。
21 Provided, of course, that he doesn’t leave to escape his obligations and avoid having to serve his country
just when it needs him. Flight that case would be criminal and punishable; it wouldn’t be a withdrawal but
a desertion.
21 当然，前提是他不能在国家需要他的时候离开，以逃避自己的义务和为国效力。如果是这样的话，那就是
犯罪，是要受到惩罚的；那就不是退伍，而是开小差了。
22 This should of course be understood as applying to a free state. In any other kind of state a man may be
kept in a country against his will-by considerations of family, goods, lack of a refuge, necessity, or violence-
and then his dwelling there no longer by itself implies anything about his attitude-either way-to the
contract.
22 当然，这应理解为适用于自由国家。在任何其他类型的国家，一个人可能会因为家庭、财产、缺乏避难
所、必要或暴力等因素而被违背自己的意愿留在一个国家，那么他住在那里本身就不再意味着他对契约的任
何态度。
23 At Genoa, the word ‘Liberty’ appears over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the prisoners
serving in the galleys. This use of the device is good and just. Indeed it’s only the criminals-rich, poor, and
middling-who prevent the citizen from being free. In a country where all such men were pulling oars in the
galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.
23 在热那亚，"Liberty"（自由）一词出现在监狱的正面和在帆船上服役的囚犯的锁链上。这种用法是好的，
也是公正的。事实上，只有罪犯--富人、穷人和中产阶级--才会阻碍公民获得自由。在一个国家里，如果所
有这样的人都在大帆船上划桨，那么人们将享有最完美的自由。
24 I say ‘in the Campus Martius’ because that is where the comitia assembled by centuries; in its two other
forms the populace assembled in the forum or elsewhere; and then the ‘counted heads’ had as much
influence and authority as the foremost citizens.
24 我之所以说 "在马歇斯广场"，是因为那里是几个世纪以来公民大会集会的地方；而在其他两种形式下，民
众则在论坛或其他地方集会；那时，"有头有脸的人 "与最重要的公民一样具有影响力和权威。
25 The nomination was made secretly by night, as if there were something shameful in setting a man above
the laws.
25 提名是在夜里秘密进行的，似乎让一个人凌驾于法律之上是一件可耻的事。
26 It is utterly clear that the so-called ‘Sacred war’ against the Phocians was not a war of religion. Its aim
was to punish acts of sacrilege, not to conquer unbelievers.
26 很明显，针对法奥西亚人的所谓 "圣战 "并不是一场宗教战争。它的目的是惩罚亵渎神明的行为，而不是
征服不信教的人。
It should be noted that what binds the clergy together to constitute a body is not a formal assembly but
rather the communion of churches. Communion and excommunication are the clergy’s social compact, a
compact that will always make them masters of peoples and kings. All priests who give or take communion
together are fellow-citizens, even if they come from opposite ends of the earth. This invention is a political
masterpiece; pagan priests have nothing like it, which is why they have therefore never constituted a
clerical corporate body.
应该指出的是，把神职人员结合在一起组成一个机构的不是正式的集会，而是教会的共融。圣餐和开除教
籍是神职人员的社会契约，这一契约将使他们永远成为人民和国王的主人。所有一起举行或接受圣餐的牧师
都是同胞，即使他们来自地球的两端。这一发明是政治上的杰作；异教祭司没有类似的发明，这就是为什么
他们从未组成过神职人员团体的原因。