论人类和星系
课文学习台
Of Men and Galaxies
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
原稿写作 unclear bomb；上下文与译文所指为核弹，常用表达是 nuclear bomb。正文保留原稿字面，不把 unclear 当作核弹的正确拼写。
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第1段
In man's early days, competition with other creatures must have been critical. But this phase of our development is now finished. Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions. I am sure that, without modern weapons, I would make a very poor show of disputing the ownership of a cave with a bear, and in this I do not think that I stand alone. The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito. But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays.
在人类早期，人类与其它生物的竞争一定极其重要。但到了我们现在的发展阶段，（与其它生物的竞争）就没那么重要了。的确，我们如今缺乏应对原始状况的实践和经验。我很肯定，如果没有现代武器，要我和一只熊去争夺洞穴的所有权，我会狼狈不堪；而在这方面，我想自己也并非唯一会如此狼狈的人。最后还在与人类竞争的生物是蚊子。然而，即使是蚊子，也因人类对排水系统的重视，以及化学喷雾（的使用）而制服了。
第2段
Competition between ourselves, person against person, community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.
然而人类之间的竞争，包括个人之间和团体之间，依然存在；而且，竞争的激烈程度，一如以往。
第3段
But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology. It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment, because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical. Our environment is chiefly conditioned by the things we believe. Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources. Yet their present development is wholly different, not so much because of different people even, but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants. This is the point I wish to emphasize. The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
但是，人与人的竞争并非生物学弱肉强食意义上的简单过程。这个过程并非争夺特定环境中有限的食物而引发的简单竞争，因为决定着我们人类进化的环境，本质上已不在物质层面了。 我们的环境主要受我们所相信的东西所影响。摩洛哥和美国加利福尼亚州是地球上纬度非常一致的两个地方，都在各自大陆的西海岸，气候相似，自然资源也可能相似。 但是，这两个地方目前的发展程度天差地别；与其说是因为两地居民本身不同，不如说是因为他们头脑中的思想不同。 思想不同这一点是我要着重强调的。我们 （决定进化的）环境中最重要的因素，就是我们的思想状态。
第4段
It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture, the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas. Ideas are dangerous. The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community, you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive. It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts. I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us. I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so. Perhaps it will suffice to mention the unclear bomb. Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society, one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed. Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history. It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it. I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain, but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are. We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate, we can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original. It is this pattern in which we are all conditioned that constitutes the most essential feature of our environment.
众所周知，原始文化所在之地，被白人入侵之后，最具破坏作用的不在于物质上的武器，而在于思想。 思想是危险的。从前，当异教徒因思想而被火刑处死，（可见） 宗教法庭对思想的（危害性）认识得多么清楚。的确，言论自由的概念只存在于我们现代社会之中。因为当你处于社区之中，你便受到社区规则的约束，要产生任何破坏性的想法非常困难。只有来自外部的旁观者才能灌输危险的思想。 我毫不怀疑，完全有可能向现代世界灌输某些能彻底摧毁我们的思想。我本想给你举个例子，但幸亏我举不出来。也许只需提一提核弹，就足以说明这个问题。对于一个科技相当发达而并未拥有核弹的社会，让该社会意识到生产核弹的可能性，以及为其提供足够生产核弹的细节（知识），试想一下会有什么影响。二三十页的情报如果在1925年前后交给世界上任何一个强国，都足以改变世界历史的进程。这个想法很奇怪，但我觉得并没有错。二三十页材料中的思想和情报会使当今的世界翻天覆地，更有甚者，足以让世界毁灭。我经常试想二三十页要包含哪些情报，鉴于你我皆为当今世界所限，我自然是无法想清会包含哪些情报了。我们无法在我们大脑所限定的特定模式之外去思考，或者更严谨一点表述，我们只有在极具创见时，才能稍微跳出大脑所被限定的模式。 也正是我们大家都被限定的思维模式，构成了我们所处环境的最本质的特征。
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