WHEN SOME EVENT takes place, men express their opinions and desires in regard to the event, and as the event proceeds from the combined action of many men, some one of the opinions or desires expressed is certain to be at least approximately fulfilled. —
当某个事件发生时，男人们会表达他们对事件的意见和愿望，由于事件是由许多人的共同行动引起的，因此至少有一个表达的意见或愿望会被至少近似地实现。 —

When one of the opinions expressed is fulfilled, that opinion is connected with the event as the command preceding it.
当一个表达的意见得到实现时，这个意见与事件相关，作为它之前的指令。

Men are dragging a log. Every man expresses his opinion as to how and where to drag it. —
人们正在拖着一根木头。每个人都表达了自己关于如何和在哪里拖的意见。 —

The men drag the log off; and it turns out that it has been done just as one of them advised. —
这些人将木头拖走了；结果证明他们中的某个人的建议实际上已经得到了执行。 —

He gave the command then. This is commanding and power in its primitive aspect.
那时他下达了指令。这是最初的指挥与权力。

The man who did most work with his arms could think least what he was doing, reflect least what might come of the common action, and so command least. —
用手臂做最多工作的人最容易理解自己在做什么，最不容易反思共同行动可能产生的结果，因此最不可能发出命令。 —

The man who commanded most could obviously, from his greater verbal activity, act less vigorously with his arms. —
发出最多命令的人显然会因为他较多的言语活动而用手臂行动得不那么有力。 —

In a larger assembly of men, combining their energies to one end, the class of those persons who take the less direct share in the common work the more their energy is turned to command, is still more sharply defined.
在一个更大的人群中，将他们的精力集中在指挥上的人，在共同的工作中参与较少的人群就更加明显。

When a man acts alone, he always carries within him a certain series of considerations, that have, as he supposes, directed his past conduct, and that serve to justify to him his present action, and to lead him to make projects for his future activity.
当一个人独自行动时，他总是心中携带一系列被认为指导他过去行为的考虑，这些考虑为他目前的行动提供了正当性，并引导他对未来行动做出计划。

Assemblies of men act in the same way, only leaving to those who do not take direct part in the action to invent considerations, justifications, and projects concerning their combined activity.
人群以同样的方式行动，只不过不直接参与行动的人会为他们的共同活动创造考虑、正当性和项目。

For causes, known or unknown to us, the French begin to chop and hack at each other. —
由于我们所知或不知的原因，法国人开始相互厮杀。 —

And to match the event, it is accompanied by its justification in the expressed wills of certain men, who declare it essential for the good of France, for the cause of freedom, of equality. —
为了配合这一事件，有一些人在表达的意愿中宣称这对法国的利益、自由、平等的事业至关重要。 —

Men cease slaughtering one another, and that event is accompanied by the justification of the necessity of centralisation of power, of resistance to Europe, and so on. —
人们停止相互屠杀，而这个事件伴随着对权力集中化的必要性，对欧洲的抵制等的辩解。 —

Men march from west to east, killing their fellow-creatures, and this event is accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of England, and so on. —
人们从西向东行军，杀害他们的同胞，而这个事件伴随着对法国的荣耀、英国的卑鄙等词语。 —

History teaches us that those justifications for the event are devoid of all common-sense, that they are inconsistent with one another, as, for instance, the murder of a man as a result of the declaration of his rights, and the murder of millions in Russia for the abasement of England. —
历史告诉我们，这些事件的辩解缺乏任何常识，它们彼此矛盾，比如因为宣告权利而谋杀一个人，或者为了羞辱英国而在俄罗斯杀害数百万人。 —

But those justifications have an incontestable value in their own day.
但是这些辩解在它们自己的时代具有无可辩驳的价值。

They remove moral responsibility from those men who produce the events. —
它们使那些制造这些事件的人免于道德责任。 —

At the time they do the work of brooms, that go in front to clear the rails for the train: —
在当时，它们起着清扫前方为火车铺路的扫帚的作用。 —

they clear the path of men’s moral responsibility. —
它们清除了人们的道德责任之路。 —

Apart from those justifications, no solution could be found for the most obvious question that occurs to one at once on examining any historical event; —
除了这些辩解，任何明显的问题，比如何解释一个历史事件中几百万人怎么会联合起来犯罪、谋杀、发动战争等，都无法找到解答。 —

that is, How did millions of men come to combine to commit crimes, murders, wars, and so on?
在欧洲现有的政治社会生活的复杂形式下，能够想象得到任何事件不是被某些君主、部长、议会或报纸规定、下令、命令的吗？

Under the existing complex forms of political social life in Europe, can any event be imagined which would not have been prescribed, decreed, commanded by some sovereigns, ministers, parliaments, or newspapers? —
有没有什么样的联合行动不能找到政治统一、爱国主义、权力平衡或文明的辩解？ —

Is there any sort of combined action which could not find justification in political unity, or in patriotism, or in the balance of power, or in civilisation? —
因此，每一个发生的事件都不可避免地与某些人的意愿重合，并在得到辩解的情况下被视为一个或多个人的意愿结果。 —

So that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed desire, and receiving justification, is regarded as the result of the will of one or more persons.
不管船向哪个方向驶行，都会看到它所劈的波浪之流在前方。

Whichever way the ship steers its course, there will always be seen ahead of it the flow of the waves it cleaves. —
对于船上的人来说，这些波浪的运动将是唯一可感知的运动。 —

To the men in the ship the movement of those waves will be the only motion perceptible.
在船上，波浪流动的方式将成为唯一的可见迹象。

It is only by watching closely, moment by moment, the movement of that flow, and comparing it with the movement of the ship, that we are convinced that every moment that flowing by of the waves is due to the forward movement of the ship, and that we have been led into error by the fact that we are ourselves moving too.
只有通过紧密观察、逐时逐刻地观察那股流动的动态，并将其与船体的运动进行比较，我们才确信每一刻那波浪的流动是由船体的前行所引起的，我们被自己的运动误导了。

We see the same thing, watching moment by moment the movement of historical personages (that is, restoring the inevitable condition under which all action takes place—the condition of the continuity of motion in time), and not losing sight of the necessary connection of historical figures with the masses.
我们通过逐时逐刻地观察历史人物的动态（也就是恢复所有行动发生的必然条件——时间上的运动的连续性条件），并不忽视历史人物与群众之间的必要联系，来看到同样的事情。

Whatever happens, it always appears that that was foreseen and decreed. —
无论发生什么，它总是看起来像是被预见和注定的。 —

Whichever way the ship turns, the waves gurgle in front of it, and neither guiding nor accelerating its movement, will seem to us at a distance to be moving arbitrarily and guiding the course of the ship.
无论船体转向哪个方向，波浪始终在其前方潺潺作响，既不引导也不加速其运动，在远处看来似乎是随意移动并引导着船的航行。

Examining only those expressions of the will of historical characters which related to events as commands, historians have assumed that the events were dependent on the commands. —
历史学家们只关注历史人物意愿的那些表达，这些表达与事件作为命令之间被认为是相互依存的。 —

Examining the events themselves, and that connection in which the historical characters stand with the masses, we have found that historical characters and their commands are dependent on the events. —
通过审视事件本身以及历史人物与群众的联系，我们发现历史人物及其命令是依赖于事件的。 —

An incontestable proof of this deduction is to be found in the fact that, however many commands may be given, the event does not take place if there is no other cause to produce it. —
这个推论的无可辩驳的证据在于，无论给出多少命令，如果没有其他原因使之发生，则事件不会发生。 —

But as soon as an event does take place—whatever it may be—out of the number of all the expressions of the will of different persons, there are always some which, from their meaning and time of utterance, are related to the events as commands.
但是一旦事件发生——无论它是什么——在所有不同人的意愿表达中，总会有一些从其意义和发表时间上与事件相关，作为命令存在。

Having reached this conclusion, we can directly and positively answer these two essential questions of history:—
得出这个结论后，我们可以直接而肯定地回答历史的这两个关键问题：1. 权力是什么？2. 是什么力量推动着民族的运动？

1. What is power? 2. What force produces the movements of peoples? 1. —
   1. 什么是权力？2. 是什么力量推动着民族的运动？1. —
   

Power is a relation of a certain person to other persons, in which that person takes the less direct share in an act, the more he expresses opinions, theories, and justifications of the combined action. —
权力是一个人与其他人之间的关系，当这个人在行动中表达意见、理论和行动的理由时，他在行动中所占的直接份额越少。 —

1. The movement of peoples is not produced by the exercise of power; —
   人民的迁移并不是由权力的行使产生的； —
   

nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two, as historians have supposed; —
也不是由知识活动产生的，即使历史学家曾经认为是这样； —

but by the activity of all the men taking part in the event, who are always combined in such a way that those who take most direct part in the action take the smallest share in responsibility for it, and vice versa. —
而是由参与事件的所有人的活动所引起的，他们总是以一种方式相结合，使得那些在行动中直接参与的人所承担的责任最小，反之亦然。 —

In its moral aspect the cause of the event is conceived of as power; —
在道德层面上，事件的原因被看作是权力； —

in its physical aspect as those who were subject to that power. —
在物质层面上，则是那些受到该权力支配的人。 —

But since moral activity is inconceivable apart from physical, the cause of the event is found in neither the one nor the other, but in the conjunction of the two.
但是，由于道德活动离不开物质活动，事件的原因既不在于一个，也不在于另一个，而是在于两者的结合。

Or, in other words, the conception of cause is not applicable to the phenomenon we are examining.
换句话说，因果关系的概念并不适用于我们正在研究的现象。

In our final analysis we are brought to the circle of infinity, to that utmost limit, to which the human intellect is brought in every department of thought, if it is not merely playing with its subject. —
在我们的最后分析中，我们被带到无限的循环内，被带到极限，这是人类的智慧在思维的每个领域都会到达的地方，而不仅仅是在对待主题方面。 —

Electricity produces heat; heat produces electricity. —
电能产生热量；热量产生电能。 —

Atoms are attracted; atoms are repelled.
原子被吸引；原子被排斥。

Speaking of the mutual relations of heat and of electricity and of atoms, we cannot say why it is so, and we say it is so because it is unthinkable otherwise; —
当我们谈论热与电、以及原子之间的相互关系时，我们无法解释为什么是这样，我们只能说它是这样的，因为否则就无法想象； —

because it must be so; because it is a law. The same thing applies also to historical phenomena. —
因为它必须是这样的；因为这是一条规律。同样的道理也适用于历史现象。 —

Why does a war or a revolution come to pass? We do not know. —
为什么会发生战争或革命？我们不知道。 —

We only know that to bring either result to pass, men form themselves into a certain combination in which all take part; —
我们只知道要使其中任何一个结果成为现实，人们会组成一定的结合，所有人都会参与其中。 —

and we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise; —
我们说这样是因为否则是不可想象的； —

because it is a law.
因为这是一条法律。