Origin of the State 

国家的起源

Besides religious sanctions, political ones are also needed if people are to practice all-embracing love. 

若要人们都实行兼爱，除了宗教处罚，还需要政治处罚。

In the Mo-tzu, there are three chapters titled Agreement with the Superior, in which Mo Tzu expounds his theory of the origin of the state. 

在《墨子》中，有《尚同》三篇，文章中阐述了墨子的国家起源说。

According to this theory, the authority of the ruler of a state comes from two sources: the will of the people and the Will of God. 

根据该学说的观点，国君的权威来自两个方面：人民的意愿和天帝的意志。

Furthermore, the main task of the ruler is to supervise the activities of the people, rewarding those who practice all-embracing love and punishing those who do not.

另外，国君的主要任务是监督人们的行为，奖励那些实行兼爱的人，并且惩罚那些不实行兼爱的人。

In order to do this effectively, his authority must be absolute. 

为了有效的做到这点，国君的权威必须是绝对的。

At this point we may ask: Why should people voluntarily choose to have such an absolute authority over them? 

对此我们可能要问：人们为什么会自愿选择这样绝对的权威来统治他们呢？

The answer, for Mo Tzu, is that the people accept such an authority, not because they prefer it, but because they have no alternative. 

墨子的回答是，人们接受这样的权威不是因为他们接受，而是没得选择。

According to him, before the creation of an organized state, people lived in what Thomas Hobbes has called "the state of nature." 

对墨子来说，在有组织的国家建立之前，人们生活在如汤姆斯·霍布斯所说的“自然状态”之中。

At this early time, "everyone had his own standard of right and wrong. When there was one man, there was one standard. When there were two men, there were two standards. When there were ten men, there were ten standards. The more people there were, the more were there standards. Every man considered himself as right and others as wrong. "

此时，“盖其语曰天下之人异义。是以一人则一义，二人则二义，十人则十义。其人兹众，其所谓义者兹众。是以人是其义。以非人之义，故交相非也。”

The world was in great disorder and men were like birds and beasts. 

天下之乱，若禽兽然。

They understood that all the disorders of the world were due to the fact that there was no political ruler. 

夫明乎天下之所以乱者，生于无政长。

Therefore, they selected the most virtuous and most able man of the world, and established him as the Son of Heaven." (Mo-tzu, ch. II.) 

是故选天下之贤可者，立以为天子。

Thus the ruler of the state was first established by the will of the people, in order to save themselves from anarchy. 

因此，国君最初是因为人们的意愿设立的，是为了把他们从无政府状态拯救出来。

In another chapter bearing the same title, Mo Tzu says: Of old when God and the spirits established the state and cities and installed rulers, it was not to make their rank high or their emolument substantial....It was to procure benefits for the people and eliminate their adversities; to enrich the poor and increase the few; and to bring safety out of danger and order out of confusion. (Ch. I2.)

另一篇同名文章中墨子说：“古者上帝鬼神之建设国都、立正长也，非高其爵、厚其禄、富贵佚而错之也，将以为万民兴利、除害、富贫、众寡、安危、治乱也。”

According to this statement, therefore, the state and its ruler were established through the Will of God. 

按照这个说法，国家和国君又是通过天帝的意志建立的。

No matter what was the way in which the ruler gained his power, once he was established, he, according to Mo Tzu, issued a mandate to the people of the world, saying: "Upon hearing good or evil, one shall report it to one's superior. What the superior thinks to be right, all shall think to be right. What the superior thinks to be wrong, all shall think to be wrong." (Ch. II.) 

This leads Mo Tzu to the following dictum: "Always agree with the superior; never follow the inferior. (Ibid.) 

Thus, Mo Tzu argues, the state must be totalitarian and the authority of its ruler absolute. 

This is an inevitable conclusion to his theory of the origin of the state. 

For the state was created precisely in order to end the disorder which had existed owing to the confused standards of right and wrong. 

The state's primary function, therefore, is, quoting Mo Tzu, "to unify the standards.” 

Within the state only one standard can exist, and it must be one which is fixed by the state itself. 

No other standards can be tolerated, because if there were such, people would speedily return to 'the state of nature " in which there could be nothing but disorder and chaos. 

In this political theory we may see Mo Tzu's development of the professional ethics of the hswh, with its emphasis upon group obedience and discipline. 

No doubt it also reflects the troubled political conditions of Mo Tzu's day, which caused many people to look with favor on a centralized authority, even if it were to be an autocratic one. 

So, then, there can be only one standard of right and wrong. 

Right, for Mo Tzu, is the practice of mutual all-embracingness, and wrong is the practice of "mutual discrimination." 

Through appeal to this political sanction, together with his religious one, Mo Tzu hoped to bring all people of the world to practice his principle of all-embracing love. 

Such was Mo Tzu's teaching, and it is the unanimous report of all sources of his time that in his own activities he was a true example of it.