SINCE HISTORY has abandoned the views of the ancients as to the divine subjection of the will of a people to one chosen vessel, and the subjection of the will of that chosen vessel to the Deity, it cannot take a single step without encountering contradictions. —
自从历史放弃了古人关于人民意志向上帝选定的容器的神圣服从，以及选定的容器对上帝意志的服从，它就无法迈出一步而不遇到矛盾。 —

It must choose one of two alternatives: either to return to its old faith in the direct intervention of the Deity in the affairs of humanity; —
它必须选择两种选择之一：要么回到对上帝直接干预人类事务的旧信仰中； —

or to find a definite explanation of that force producing historical events that is called power.
要么找到产生历史事件的那种被称为力量的力量的明确定义。

To return to the old way is out of the question: —
回到旧的方式是不可能的： —

the old faith is shattered, and so an explanation must be found of the meaning of power.
旧信仰已经破碎，因此必须找到关于权力含义的解释。

Napoleon commanded an army to be raised, and to march out to war. —
拿破仑命令组建一支军队，并出征作战。 —

This conception is so familiar to us, we are so accustomed to this idea that the question why six hundred thousand men go out to fight when Napoleon utters certain words seems meaningless to us. —
这个概念对我们来说是如此熟悉，我们对这个想法如此习以为常，为什么有六十万人出去战斗时，拿破仑说了某些话似乎对我们来说毫无意义呢。 —

He had the power, and so the commands he gave were carried out.
他有权力，因此他所下的命令得以执行。

This answer is completely satisfactory if we believe that power has been given him from God. But as soon as we do not accept that, it is essential to define what this power is of one man over others.
如果我们相信这个权力是上帝给予的，那么这个回答是完全令人满意的。但是只要我们不接受这一点，就必须定义这个权力是一个人对他人的那种力量。

This power cannot be that direct power of the physical ascendency of a strong creature over a weak one, that ascendency based on the application or the threat of the application of physical force—like the power of Hercules. —
这种力量不能是一个强大生物对一个弱小生物的直接肉体优势所依据的力量，这种优势基于肉体力量的应用或恐吓的应用，就像大力神的力量。 —

Nor can it be based on the ascendency of moral force, as in the simplicity of their hearts several historians suppose, maintaining that the leading historical figures are heroes—that is, men endowed with a special force of soul and mind called genius. —
它也不能是基于道德力量的优势，就像在几位历史学家的心中一样简单，他们认为主导历史的人物都是英雄-即一些具有特殊灵魂和思想力量的人。 —

This power cannot be based on the ascendency of moral force; —
这种力量不能基于道德力量的优势。 —

for, to say nothing of historical heroes, like Napoleon, concerning whose moral qualities opinions greatly differ, history proves to us that neither Louis XI. nor Metternich, who governed millions of men, had any marked characteristics of moral force, but that they were, on the contrary, in most respects morally weaker than any one of the millions of men they governed.
更不必说历史上的英雄如拿破仑，关于他们的道德品质意见各不相同，历史向我们证明，既不是路易十一，也不是梅特涅希这些管理千百万人的人们具有明显的道德力量特征，相反，在许多方面，他们在道德上比他们统治的千百万人中的任何一个都要虚弱。

If the source of power lies not in the physical and not in the moral characteristics of the person possessing it, it is evident that the source of this power must be found outside the person—in those relations in which the person possessing the power stands to the masses.
如果权力的源泉不在于具有权力的个人的身体和道德特征，那么显然，这种权力的源泉必定存在于个人与群众的关系之中。

That is precisely how power is interpreted by the science of law, that cash bank of history, that undertakes to change the historical token money of power for sterling gold.
这正是权力在法律科学中的解释，这是历史的银行，它试图用纯金来换取权力的历史象征。

Power is the combined wills of the masses, transferred by their expressed or tacit consent to the rulers chosen by the masses.
权力是群众的意愿的结合，通过他们的明示或默示的同意，转让给群众选择的统治者。

In the domain of the science of law, made up of arguments on how a state and power ought to be constructed, if it were possible to construct it, all this is very clear; —
在由关于国家与权力应该如何构建的论点组成的法律科学领域中，如果可能构建它，所有这些都是非常清楚的。 —

but in its application to history this definition of power calls for elucidation.
但是在应用于历史时，这种对权力的定义需要进一步阐明。

The science of law regards the state and power, as the ancients regarded fire, as something positively existing. —
法律科学将国家和权力视为存在的实体，就像古人将火焰视为实体一样。 —

But for history the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for the physical science of today fire is not an element, but a phenomenon.
但是对于历史来说，国家和权力只是现象，就像今天的物理科学中，火焰不是一种元素，而是一种现象。

From this fundamental difference in the point of view of history and of the science of law, it comes to pass that the science of law can discuss in detail how in the scientific writer’s opinion power should be organised, and what is power, existing immovable outside the conditions of time; —
由于历史和法律科学的观点在根本上有所不同，因此法律科学可以详细讨论科学作家认为权力应该如何组织以及什么是权力，而权力在时间条件下的可见转变的历史问题则无法给出答案。 —

but to historical questions as to the significance of power, undergoing visible transformation in time, it can give no answer.
但是对于历史问题，特别是权力在时间中的意义问题，法律科学无法回答。

If power is the combined will of the masses transferred to their rulers, is Pugatchov a representative of the will of the masses? —
如果权力是大众的意志汇聚并转交给他们的统治者，那么普加乔夫是否代表了大众的意愿？ —

If he is not, how then is Napoleon I. such a representative? —
如果他不是的话，那么拿破仑一世如何成为代表呢？ —

Why is it that Napoleon III., when he was seized at Boulogne, was a criminal, and afterwards those who had been seized by him were criminals?
为什么拿破仑三世在布洛涅被逮捕时是一个罪犯，而之后被他逮捕的人却成了罪犯？

In palace revolutions—in which sometimes two or three persons only take part—is the will of the masses transferred to a new person? —
在宫廷革命中，即使只有两三个人参与，大众的意志是否会转交给一个新的人？ —

In international relations, is the will of the masses of the people transferred to their conqueror? —
在国际关系中，大众的意愿是否会转交给他们的征服者？ —

In 1808 was the will of the Rhine Alliance league transferred to Napoleon? —
1808年，莱茵邦联的意志是否转交给了拿破仑？ —

Was the will of the mass of the Russian people transferred to Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French made war upon Austria?
在1809年，我们的军队与法国结盟对奥地利发动战争时，俄罗斯人民的意志是否转交给了拿破仑？

These questions may be answered in three ways: —
这些问题可以用三种方式回答： —

(1) By maintaining that the will of the masses is always unconditionally delegated over to that ruler or those rulers whom they have chosen, and that consequently every rising up of new power, every struggle against the power once delegated, must be regarded as a contravention of the real power.
（1）坚持认为大众的意愿总是无条件地授权予他们选择的统治者，因此每一个新权力的兴起，每一次对已经授权的权力的斗争，都必须视为对真正权力的违背。

Or (2) by maintaining that the will of the masses is delegated to the rulers, under certain definite conditions, and by showing that all restrictions on, conflicts with, and even abolition of power are due to non-observance of the rulers of those conditions upon which power was delegated to them.
或者（2）坚持认为大众的意愿是在一定的条件下委托给统治者的，并通过展示所有对权力的限制、冲突甚至废除都是由于统治者对委托给他们的条件不予遵守而产生的。

Or (3) by maintaining that the will of the masses is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but that the conditions are uncertain and undefined, and that the rising up of several authorities, and their conflict and fall, are due only to the more or less complete fulfilment of the rulers of the uncertain conditions upon which the will of the masses is transferred from one set of persons to another.
或者（3）坚持认为大众的意愿是有条件地委托给统治者的，但这些条件是不确定和不明确的，而多个权威的兴起、冲突和倒台仅仅是由于统治者对大众意愿转交的不确定条件的更多或更少地履行而产生的。

In these three ways do historians explain the relation of the masses to their rulers.
历史学家以这三种方式解释大众与统治者的关系。

Some historians—those most distinctively biographers and writers of memoirs, of whom we have spoken above—failing in the simplicity of their hearts to understand the question as to the meaning of power, seem to believe that the combined will of the masses is delegated to historical leaders unconditionally, and therefore, describing any such authority, these historians assume that that authority is the one absolute and real one, and that every other force, opposing that real authority, is not authority, but a violation of authority, and unlawful violence.
一些历史学家——那些最典型的传记和回忆录作家，正如我们之前所提过的——由于心灵的单纯而无法理解权力的意义，他们似乎相信群众的联合意志无条件地委托给了历史上的领导者，因此，描述这种权威时，这些历史学家假设那个权威是唯一的和真正的权威，而反对那个真正权威的任何其他力量，都不是权威，而是对权威的违反和非法暴力。

Their theory fits in well with primitive and peaceful periods of history; —
在原始和平时期，他们的理论很合适； —

but in its application to complicated and stormy periods in the life of nations, when several different authorities rise up simultaneously and struggle together, the inconvenience arises that the legitimist historian will assert that the National Assembly, the Directorate, and Bonaparte were only violations of real authority; —
但在应用到国家生活中复杂而动荡的时期时，当几个不同的权威同时崛起并互相斗争时，当权威论者会断言国民议会、理事会和波拿巴只是真正权威的违反； —

while the Republican and the Bonapartist will maintain, one that the Republic, and the other that the Empire were the real authority, and that all the rest was a violation of authority. —
而共和派和波拿巴派则会主张，一个主张共和国，另一个主张帝国是真正权威，而其他一切都是对权威的违反。 —

It is evident that the explanations given by these historians being mutually contradictory, can satisfy none but children of the tenderest age.
显然，这些历史学家给出的解释相互矛盾，只能满足最为嫩小的儿童。

Recognising the deceptiveness of this view of history, another class of historians assert that authority rests on the conditional delegation of the combined will of the masses to their rulers, and that historical leaders possess power only on condition of carrying out the programme which the will of the people has by tacit consent dictated to them. —
认识到这种历史观的欺骗性，另一类历史学家主张，权威建立在将群众的联合意愿有条件地委托给他们的统治者之上，历史领导者只有在履行人民意愿通过默许所指定的纲领的条件下才拥有权力。 —

But what this programme consists of, those historians do not tell us, or if they do, they continually contradict one another.
但这个纲领是什么，这些历史学家没有告诉我们，或者即使他们告诉了我们，他们也不断相互矛盾。

In accordance with his view of what constitutes the goal of the movements of a people, each historian conceives of this programme, as, for instance, the greatness, the wealth, the freedom, or the enlightenment of the citizens of France or some other kingdom. —
根据他对一个民族运动目标的理解，每个历史学家都将其视为法国或其他王国公民的伟大、财富、自由或启蒙等等。 —

But putting aside the contradictions between historians as to the nature of such a programme, and even supposing that one general programme to exist for all, the facts of history almost always contradict this theory.
但是，撇开历史学家之间对这一目标的性质所存在的矛盾，即使假设存在一个总体目标，历史事实几乎总是与这一理论相矛盾。

If the conditions on which power is vested in rulers are to be found in the wealth, freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that kings like Louis XIV. and John IV. lived out their reigns in peace, while kings like Louis XVI. and Charles I. were put to death by their peoples? —
如果统治者的权力条件在于人民的财富、自由和启蒙，那么为什么路易十四世和约翰四世这样的国王能够安享其位，而路易十六世和查理一世却被他们的人民处死呢？ —

To this question these historians reply, that the effect of the actions of Louis XIV. contrary to the programme were reacted upon Louis XVI. But why not reflected on Louis XIV. and Louis XV.? —
对于这个问题，历史学家回答说，路易十四世的行动与该目标相违背，这对路易十六世产生了反作用。但为什么不会反过来影响路易十四世和路易十五世呢？ —

Why precisely on Louis XVI.? And what limit is there to such reflection? —
为什么恰恰是路易十六世？这种反作用有没有限制？ —

To these questions there is and can be no reply. —
对于这些问题，没有任何答案。 —

Nor does this view explain the reason that the combined will of a people remains for several centuries vested in its rulers and their heirs, and then all at once during a period of fifty years is transferred to a Convention, a Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII., again to Napoleon, to Charles X., to Louis Philippe, to a republican government, and to Napoleon III. To explain these rapid transferences of the people’s will from one person to another, especially when complicated by international relations, wars, and alliances, these historians are unwillingly obliged to allow that a proportion of these phenomena are not normal transferences of the will of the people, but casual incidents, depending on the cunning, or the blundering, or the craft, or the weakness of a diplomatist or a monarch, or the leader of a party. —
这种观点也无法解释为什么一个民族的意愿会在几个世纪中一直掌握在统治者及其继承人手中，然后突然在五十年间转移到一个议会、一个董事会、拿破仑、亚历山大、路易十八世、再次转移到拿破仑三世、查理十世、路易·菲利普、一个共和政府和拿破仑三世。为了解释这些意愿转移的迅速发生，特别是在国际关系、战争和联盟的情况下，这些历史学家不情愿地承认其中一部分现象并不是人民意愿的正常转移，而是依赖于外交家、君主、政党领导人的狡诈、失误、策略或软弱等偶发事件。 —

So that the greater number of the phenomena of history—civil wars, revolutions, wars—are regarded by these historians as not being produced by the delegation of the free-will of the people, but as being produced by the wrongly directed will of one or several persons, that is, again by a violation of authority. —
因此，这些历史学家认为，历史上更多的现象，如内战、革命、战争，并非是人民自由意志的授权所产生的，而是由一个或几个人错误的意愿导致的，也就是说，是对权威的违背所造成的。 —

And so by this class of historians, too, historical events are conceived of as exceptions to their theory.
因此，这些历史学家也把历史事件看作是对他们理论的例外。

These historians are like a botanist who, observing that several plants grow by their seed parting into two cotyledons, or seed-leaves, should insist that everything that grows only grows by parting into two leaves; —
这些历史学家就像植物学家一样，观察到几种植物通过种子分离成两个子叶或种子叶，就坚持认为所有生长都是通过分离成两个叶子来进行的； —

and that the palm-tree and the mushroom, and even the oak, when it spreads its branches in all directions in its mature growth, and has lost all semblance to its two seed-leaves, are departures from their theory of the true law of growth. —
他们认为棕榈树、蘑菇，甚至是成熟长大后扩展枝叶并与两个子叶失去相似性的橡树，都是违背了他们关于真正生长规律的理论。 —

A third class of historians admit that the will of the masses is vested in historical leaders conditionally, but say that those conditions are not known to us. —
第三类历史学家承认群众的意愿有条件地集中在历史领导者身上，但是他们说这些条件我们不得而知。 —

They maintain that historical leaders have power only because they are carrying out the will of the masses delegated to them.
他们主张历史领导者之所以有权力，只是因为他们在代表民众的委托。

But in that case, if the force moving the peoples lies not in their historical leaders, but in the peoples themselves, where is the significance of those historical leaders?
但是，在这种情况下，如果激励人们前进的力量并不在于历史领导者，而是在于人民自己，那么历史领导者的意义何在呢？

Historical leaders are, so those historians tell us, the self-expression of the will of the masses; —
历史领导者是民众意志的自我表达，这是这些历史学家告诉我们的； —

the activity of the historical leaders serves as a type of the activity of the masses.
历史领导者的活动就像是民众活动的一种类型。

But in that case the question arises, Does all the activity of historical leaders serve as an expression of the will of the masses, or only a certain side of it? —
但是，在这种情况下，问题就出现了，历史领导者的所有活动是否都是民众意愿的表达，还是只是其中的某一方面？ —

If all the life-activity of historical leaders serves as an expression of the will of the masses, as some indeed believe, then the biographies of Napoleons and Catherines, with all the details of court scandal, serve as the expression of the life of their peoples, which is an obvious absurdity. —
如果历史领导者的所有生活活动都是民众意愿的表达，正如有些人所认为的，那么拿破仑和叶卡捷琳娜的传记中包括所有宮廷丑闻的细节，就成了他们所代表的人民生活的表达，这显然是荒谬的。 —

If only one side of the activity of an historical leader serves as the expression of the life of a people, as other supposed philosophical historians believe, then to define what side of the activity of an historical leader does express the life of a people, one must know first what the life of the people consists of.
如果一个历史领导人的活动只有一方面被视为一个民族生活的表达，正如其他某些所谓哲学历史学家所认为的那样，那么要确定哪一方面的历史领导人活动表达了一个民族的生活，就首先必须了解民族生活的内容。

Being confronted with this difficulty, historians of this class invent the most obscure, intangible, and general abstraction, under which to class the greatest possible number of events, and declare that in this abstraction is to be found the aim of the movements of humanity. —
面对这个困难，这类历史学家创造出最晦涩、无形且笼统的抽象概念，将尽可能多的事件归类于其中，并宣称在这个抽象概念中可以找到人类运动的目标。 —

The most usual abstractions accepted by almost all historians are: —
几乎所有历史学家都接受的最常见的抽象概念有：自由、平等、启蒙、进步、文明、文化。 —

freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress, civilisation, culture. —
假设人类运动的目标是这些抽象概念之一，那么历史学家们就从那些留下最多纪念物的人开始研究，如国王、部长、将军、作家、改革者、教宗和记者，从他们促进或阻碍这一目标的影响角度进行研究。 —

Postulating some such abstraction as the goal of the movements of humanity, the historians study those persons who have left the greatest number of memorials behind them—kings, ministers, generals, writers, reformers, popes, and journalists—from the point of view of the effect those persons in their opinion had in promoting or hindering that abstraction. —
但既然没有证明人类的目标确实是自由、平等、启蒙或文明，而且群众与统治者以及人类领袖之间的联系只是建立在这一任意假设上，假设了群众的意志总是集中在那些吸引我们注意的人物身上，那么事实仍然是，在那些四处迁徙、烧毁房屋、放弃耕种土地和相互屠杀的数百万人的活动中，从来没有在对那些并不烧毁房屋、从不耕种土地、从不杀害他们同类的人的活动的描述中找到其表达。 —

But as it is nowhere proven that the goal of humanity really is freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilisation, and as the connection of the masses with their rulers and with the leaders of humanity only rests on the arbitrary assumption that the combined will of the masses is always vested in these figures which attract our attention—the fact remains that the activity of the millions of men who move from place to place, burn houses, abandon tilling the soil, and butcher one another, never does find expression in descriptions of the activity of some dozen persons, who do not burn houses, never have tilled the soil, and do not kill their fellow-creatures.
因此，我们必须承认，无论是在王朝的时间还是在共和国的时间，无论是在一个民族的统治下还是在另一个民族的统治下，无论是在东方的时代还是在古典的时代，无论是在基督教的时代还是在外国的时代，无论是在优势民族的统治下还是在民族的统治下，人类不断变动的数百万的个体行为始终不属于那些对这些行为具有典型性的一两个学者描绘的方式中的一部分。

History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the west towards the end of last century, and their rush to the east, explained by the activity of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Louis XVI., or their mistresses and ministers, or by the life of Napoleon, of Rousseau, of Diderot, of Beaumarchais, and others?
历史在每个转折点上都证明了这一点。西方人在上个世纪末趋向东方的激动和他们的冲动，是由路易十四、路易十五和路易十六，或者他们的情妇和大臣的活动所解释的，还是由拿破仑、卢梭、狄德罗、博马谢和其他人的生活所解释的？

The movement of the Russian people to the east, to Kazan and Siberia, is that expressed in the details of the morbid life of John IV. and his correspondence with Kurbsky?
俄罗斯人民向东方，即喀山和西伯利亚的移动，是否可以通过约翰四世的病态生活及其与库尔布斯基的通信来表达？

Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by the life and activity of certain Godfreys and Louis’ and their ladies?
十字军东征期间的人民迁徙是否可以通过某些戈德弗雷和路易以及他们的女士们的生活和活动来解释？

It has remained beyond our comprehension, that movement of the peoples from west to east, without an object, without leadership, with a crowd of tramps following Peter the Hermit. —
这个移民西向东的人群，没有目标、没有领导，只是一群流浪汉跟随彼得教士去了东方，这至今仍然难以理解。 —

And even more incomprehensible is the cessation of that movement, when a rational and holy object for the expeditions had been clearly set up by historical leaders—that is, the deliverance of Jerusalem.
更加难以理解的是，当一个理性和神圣的远征目标已被历史领袖明确设立时，这种迁徙的停止。

Popes, kings, and knights urged the people to set free the Holy Land. But the people did not move, because that unknown cause, which had impelled them before to movement, existed no longer. —
教皇、国王和骑士们敦促人们去解放圣地。但人们没有行动，因为那个推动他们前进的未知原因已经消失了。 —

The history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers evidently cannot be regarded as an epitome of the life of the peoples. —
我们显然不能把戈德弗雷和明尼辛格的历史视为人民生活的缩影。 —

And the history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of those knights and those Minnesingers, while the history of the life of the peoples and their impulses has remained unknown.
而戈德弗雷和明尼辛格的历史仍然是那些骑士和明尼辛格的历史，而人民生活和他们的冲动的历史仍然未知。

Even less explanatory of the life of the peoples is the history of the lives of writers and reformers.
作家和改革者的生活历史对人民的生活解释力更小。

The history of culture offers us as the impelling motives of the life of the people the circumstances of the lives or the ideas of a writer or a reformer. —
文化史告诉我们，作为人民生活推动动因的是作家或改革者的生活环境或想法。 —

We learn that Luther had a hasty temper and uttered certain speeches; —
我们得知，路德脾气急躁，说过某些言论； —

we learn that Rousseau was distrustful and wrote certain books; —
我们得知，卢梭不信任人，并写了某些书籍； —

but we do not learn what made the nations cut each other to pieces after the Reformation, or why men guillotined each other during the French Revolution.
但是我们并不知道在宗教改革后是什么导致了各国互相残杀，或者为什么在法国大革命期间人们互相斩首。

If we unite both these kinds of history together, as do the most modern historians, then we shall get histories of monarchs and of writers, but not a history of the life of nations.
如果我们将这两种历史结合起来，就像大多数现代历史学家一样，我们将得到关于君主和作家的历史，但却无法得到一个关于国家生活的历史。