Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency, to the society? The answer seems at first abundantly plain.

这种下层人民境遇，对社会来说是有利还是不利？乍一看，答案似乎非常简单。

First, he promoted people based on merit rather than family position, and second, he brought lower classes of conquered people into his own tribe while dispossessing the leaders of the conquered clans.

首先，他根据功绩而不是家庭地位提拔人，其次，他将被征服下层人民纳入自己部落， 同时剥夺了被征服氏族首领。

Capitation taxes, so far as they are levied upon the lower ranks of people, are direct taxes upon the wages of labour, and are attended with all the inconveniencies of such taxes.

就对下层人民征收人头税而言，它是对劳工资直接征税，并伴随着这种税收所有不便之处。

The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which, in a civilized society, seem so frequently to benumb the understandings of all the inferior ranks of people.

同样事情也适用于严重无知和愚蠢，在文明社会中，这似乎常常使所有下层人民理解力变得麻木。

But in theory, your job as somebody who was from the nobility or upper orders of society was to sort of take care of the people from the lower orders.

但理上，作为贵族或上层社会一员，你工作就是照顾下层人民。

How much the lower ranks of people in the country are really superior to those of the town, is well known to every man whom either business or curiosity has led to converse much with both.

乡下下层人民实际上比城里人优越多少，每一个因生意或好奇而经常与这两者交谈人都知道这一点。

The ties of interest, which bound the inferior ranks of people to the clergy, were in this manner gradually broken and dissolved.

将下层人民与教士联系在一起利益纽带， 就这样逐渐被打破和瓦解了。

The inferior ranks of people must, in that country, suffer patiently the usage which their superiors think proper to give them.

在那个家，下层人民必须耐心地忍受上级认为应该给予他们待遇。

Those virtues procured them the highest respect and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many were constantly, and almost all occasionally, fed by them.

这些美德使他们在所有下层人民中获得了最高尊重和崇敬，他们中许多人不断地，几乎所有人都偶尔地接受他们喂养。

The inferior ranks of people no longer looked upon that order as they had done before; as the comforters of their distress, and the relievers of their indigence.

下层人民不再像以前那样看待这个秩序；安慰他们苦难，解除他们困苦。

Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people.

发明保持活力，思想不会陷入那种昏昏欲睡愚蠢状态，在文明社会中，这种愚蠢似乎麻木了几乎所有下层人民理解力。