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让•雅克•卢梭（1712—1778），法国著名启蒙思想家、哲学家、教育学家、文学家。著作《论人类不平等的起源和基础》是阐述其政治思想的经典之作。恩格斯认为它是18世纪辩证法的杰作。哥尔达美尔曾说： “在1760年以后的几十年里，没有一个有文化修养的人，他的思想和感受不曾在某种方式上受到卢梭的影响。”
《论人类不平等的起源和基础》是卢梭为应征1753年法国著名的人文科学研究中心第戎学院所举办的一次征文竞赛所写的论文。卢梭在他的《忏悔录》里叙述了这篇论文是怎样写成的。 “我想那是1753年的事，第戎科学院发表了 ‘人类不平等的起源’ 征文启事。我被这个意义深远的题目激动了，我很惊讶这个科学院竟敢提出这样一个题目。好吧，既然它有勇气提出来，我也很可以有勇气来加以研究，于是我报名应征了。”
“为了便于思考这个意义深远的题目，我到圣日耳曼去作了一次七八天之久的旅行……我到树林深处去探索，我在那里发现了原始时代的形象，我在心里描绘了那个时代的历史的轮廓。我无情地驳斥了人间无聊的谎言；我大胆地把人们因时间和事物的进展而变了样的天性赤裸裸地揭露出来；并把 ‘人所形成的人’ 和自然人加以比较，从所谓 ‘人的完善化’ 中，指出人类苦难的真正根源。我的灵魂，被这些卓绝的默想所激发，上升到神的境界。在那境界中，我看到我的同类在他们因固执成见而走入的迷途上，还继续朝着错误、灾难和罪恶的方向行进。我于是用一种他们所不能听见的微弱声音，向他们喊道： ‘你们都是毫无道理的人，你们不断地埋怨自然，要知道你们的一切痛苦，都来自你们自己。’”
“我这一篇 ‘论不平等’ 就是这样的默想的结果。这篇论文比我所有的其他著作都更符合狄德罗的旨趣，而且他就这篇著作给我提供的意见，对我也最为有益。不过这篇东西，在全欧洲恐怕只有很少的读者能够理解，而这些读者中恐怕更没一个人愿意谈论它。这原是一篇为应征而写的文章，所以我把它寄给了科学院，但是我早就料到一定得不了奖，因为我深知科学院的奖金决不是为我这样的文章而设立的。” 他并没有猜错，1754年初，科学院把该项奖颁发给了无名的达尔拜尔神父。
书中卢梭回顾了人类由自然状态向社会状态过渡的历史演变进程，将造成人类不平等现象的原因置于人类社会发展这一过程中来审视，深入浅出地说明了不平等的起源和基础。全书分为三个部分，作者序、第一部分和第二部分，其中的第一部分和第二部分为本书的重点。本论主要说明人类有两种不平等：一种是自然的或生理上的不平等；另一种是精神上的或政治上的不平等。第一部分主要描写自然人，第二部分叙述文明人是如何出现的。
卢梭在书中通过假设和推理，认定人类最初生活在自然状态之中，过着孤独的生活，是平等的。人类最初的进化是缓慢的，人逐渐有了语言，有了相对固定的住所，有了 “你的” 和 “我的” 之分，随后出现群居社会，最终有了私有制的萌芽。卢梭提出人与人之间的不平等是随私有制而产生的，指出人类历史发展本身所具有的两面性（进步与落后），因为人类每向前发展一步，不平等的程度便加深一步。
卢梭认为人类不平等可以划分为三个阶段，一是财产权的设置产生了穷人和富人；二是官吏的设置产生了强者和弱者；三是权力从合法变为专制产生了主人和奴隶。私有制观念的形成经历了漫长的发展阶段，卢梭把财产私有制看作是人类不平等的起源和基础。卢梭认为人类由自然状态走向社会状态是必然的，他并不是主张人类应该返回到自然状态，而是揭示人类演变的进程，唤起人们对天赋人权的认识。
自1957年《论人类不平等的起源和基础》被译介到中国开始，卢梭的思想便启迪了无数的国人：感悟深刻的人生哲理，追求平等、民主及人性自由。通过再译，我们力求译文更完整、更准确地表达原作的思想和神韵，包括作品的风格、情感和语言特色等，使目的语读者也能感受到原语读者所受到的启迪、激励、感动和美的享受。
该作品的英汉对照读物在帮助读者了解卢梭哲学思想的同时，也有利于提高读者的英语水平。读者在阅读过程中，通过英汉对照的形式加深对哲人思想的理解和感悟。毕竟，英语和汉语是两种不同的语言，要达到内容完全对等是不可能的。因此翻译难点主要是在 “信” 、 “达” 、 “雅” 之间找到完美的结合点。译文要在内容与形式上忠实于原文，以便于读者学习参考，不能为追求词藻华丽而随意扩大译者的自由度；还要再现大师的文采，卢梭不仅是思想家也是雄辩家，他的论述气势雄伟，要体现出这种独特的风格。
由于是英汉对照读本，在翻译时我们尽量忠实地传递原文信息，使汉语和英语逐句对应，不作过度的阐释和发挥，同时尽量避免增译或漏译情况。译文在忠实传递原文信息的基础上，尽量符合中文表达习惯，确保文字通顺、流畅，避免出现生涩、拗口的译文。例如，原文长句较多，考虑到英汉两种语言习惯不同，我们根据具体情况对长句作了断句处理。此外，尽量做到文字优美、用词精当，保持原文的语体风格，保持译文的可读性。面对21世纪的读者，行文尽量做到通达、流畅、得体。至于译文的得体性，主要体现在尽量符合现代语言的表达习惯上，使现代读者能仔细地体会译文与原文的异曲同工。
在翻译的过程中，我们遇到的困难可谓重重，尤其是该书长句、难句颇多。译者往往因其作者语言风格而备尝艰涩，反复咀嚼每一个长句，苦想而成的译文多次推倒重来。在整个翻译的过程中，我们在用心去贴近卢梭，发挥想象力，以再造卢梭著书立说、与人辩论时的意境，准确诠释作者的思想。
在此，我们要特别感谢《论人类不平等的起源和基础》的不同中文版本的译者前辈们。在本书的翻译过程中，译者参照了他们的译文，并对其进行了反复的研读、揣摩和对比，的确受益匪浅。
翻译的过程也是学习的过程，我们希望向读者奉献高质量的译作，尽管我们已精益求精，但我们的水平有限，译文中肯定还存在不少这样和那样的问题，有待同行批判指正，我们一定会深表感谢并虚心接受。
译者
2011年春
A DISCOURSE UPON THE ORIGIN AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE INEQUALITY AMONG MANKIND
'Tis of man I am to speak; and the very question, in answer to which I am to speak of him, sufficiently informs me that I am going to speak to men; for to those alone, who are not afraid of honouring truth, it belongs to propose discussions of this kind. I shall therefore maintain with confidence the cause of mankind before the sages, who invite me to stand up in its defence; and I shall think myself happy, if I can but behave in a manner not unworthy of my subject and of my judges.
I conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I call natural, or physical inequality, because it is established by nature, and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other which may be termed moral, or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common consent of mankind. This species of inequality consists in the different privileges, which some men enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as that of being richer, more honoured, more powerful, and even that of exacting obedience from them.
It were absurd to ask, what is the cause of natural inequality, seeing the bare definition of natural inequality answers the question: it would be more absurd still to enquire, if there might not be some essential connection between the two species of inequality, as it would be asking, in other words, if those who command are necessarily better men than those who obey; and if strength of body or of mind, wisdom or virtue are always to be found in individuals, in the same proportion with power, or riches: a question, fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the hearing of their masters, but unbecoming free and reasonable beings in quest of truth.
What therefore is precisely the subject of this discourse? It is to point out, in the progress of things, that moment, when, right taking place of violence, nature became subject to law; to display that chain of surprising events, in consequence of which the strong submitted to serve the weak, and the people to purchase imaginary ease, at the expense of real happiness.
The philosophers, who have examined the foundations of society, have, every one of them, perceived the necessity of tracing it back to a state of nature, but not one of them has ever arrived there. Some1 of them have not scrupled to attribute to man in that state the ideas of justice and injustice, without troubling their heads to prove, that he really must have had such ideas, or even that such ideas were useful to him: others2 have spoken of the natural right of every man to keep what belongs to him, without letting us know what they meant by the word belong; others3, without further ceremony ascribing to the strongest an authority over the weakest, have immediately struck out government, without thinking of the time requisite for men to form any notion of the things signified by the words authority and government. All of them, in fine, constantly harping on wants, avidity, oppression, desires and pride, have transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up in the bosom of society. In speaking of savages they described citizens. Nay, few of our own writers seem to have so much as doubted, that a state of nature did once actually exit; though it plainly appears by Sacred History, that even the first man, immediately furnished as he was by God himself with both instructions and precepts, never lived in that state, and that, if we give to the books of Moses4 that credit which every Christian philosopher ought to give to them, we must deny that, even before the deluge, such a state ever existed among men, unless they fell into it by some extraordinary event: a paradox very difficult to maintain, and altogether impossible to prove.
1 此处指格劳秀斯（Hugo Grotius，1583—1645），见《论战争与和平的权利》。
2 此处指普芬道夫（Samuel Puffendorff，1632—1694），德国法学家和史学家，以对自然法的辩护而闻名，见《自然法和国际法》，第1卷，第4篇，第4章。另见洛克《政府论》第1章。洛克（John Locke，1632—1704），英国哲学家。
3 此处指霍布斯（Thomas Hobbes，1588—1679），见《论公民》。
4 “摩西著述” （books of Moses）亦称为 “摩西五经” ，是《圣经》最早五部书的统称（因为研究者认为这五部书是犹太人的先知摩西所写），包括《创世记》、《出埃及记》、《利未记》、《民数记》、《申命记》，这五部书记载了从创世到以色列人最终回到迦南地的过程，其中《创世记》很多内容属于史前史，也就是所谓的自然状态时期。
Let us begin therefore, by laying aside facts, for they do not affect the question. The researches, in which we may engage on this occasion, are not to be taken for historical truths, but merely as hypothetical and conditional reasonings, fitter to illustrate the nature of things, than to show their true origin, like those systems, which our naturalists daily make of the formation of the world. Religion commands us to believe, that men, having been drawn by God himself out of a state of nature, are unequal, because it is his pleasure they should be so; but religion does not forbid us to draw conjectures solely from the nature of man, considered in itself, and from that of the beings which surround him, concerning the fate of mankind, had they been left to themselves. This is then the question I am to answer, the question I propose to examine in the present discourse. As mankind in general have an interest in my subject, I shall endeavour to use a language suitable to all nations; or rather, forgetting the circumstances of time and place in order to think of nothing but the men I speak to, I shall suppose myself in the Lyceum1 of Athens, repeating the lessons of my masters before the Platos2 and the Xenocrates3 of that famous seat of philosophy as my judges, and in presence of the whole human species as my audience.
1 吕克昂学园（Lyceum）是古希腊哲学家亚里士多德于公元前335年在雅典所创办的学校。亚里士多德（Aristotle，384—322 BC），古希腊哲学家、逻辑学家和科学家，亚里士多德的著作最早创造了西方哲学的综合体系，覆盖美学、逻辑学、政治学等。
2 柏拉图（Plato，427—347 BC），古希腊哲学家，是苏格拉底的学生和亚里士多德的老师。他一生著述颇丰，其教学思想主要集中在《理想国》和《法律篇》中。
3 色诺克拉底（Xenocrates，396—314 BC），古希腊哲学家和数学家，柏拉图的学生和追随者，主要研究伦理学和形而上学。
O man, whatever country you may belong to, whatever your opinions may be, attend to my words; you shall hear your history such as I think I have read it, not in books composed by those like you, for they are liars, but in the book of nature which never lies. All that I shall repeat after her, must be true, without any intermixture of falsehood, but where I may happen, without intending it, to introduce my own conceits. The times I am going to speak of are very remote. How much you are changed from what you once were! 'Tis in a manner the life of your species that I am going to write, from the qualities which you have received, and which your education and your habits could deprave, but could not destroy. There is, I am sensible, an age at which every individual of you would choose to stop; and you will look out for the age at which, had you your wish, your species had stopped. Uneasy at your present condition for reasons which threaten your unhappy posterity with still greater uneasiness, you will perhaps wish it were in your power to go back; and this sentiment ought to be considered, as the panegyric of your first parents, the condemnation of your contemporaries, and a source of terror to all those who may have the misfortune of succeeding you.