歌词
Lesson 45
第45课
Of men and galaxies
人和星系
What is the most influential factor in any human society?
在任一人类社会中，最具影响力的因素是？
In man's early days, competition with other creatures must have been critical.
在人类早期，人类与其他生物的竞争一定是必不可少的。
But this phase of our development is now finished.
但这一发展阶段已然结束。
Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions.
确实，我们今天缺乏对付原始环境的实践和经验。
I am sure that, without modern weapons,
我断定，如果没有现代化的武器，
I would make a very poor show of disputing the ownership of a cave with a bear,
要我和一只熊去争抢洞穴，我会出洋相的；
and in this I do not think that I stand alone.
我也相信，会出洋相的并不只有我一人。
The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito.
与人竞争的最后生物只有蚊子了。
But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays.
然而，即便是蚊子，也由于我们注意清理下水道和喷洒化学药品而被制服了。
Competition between ourselves, person against person,
然而，人类之间的竞争，人与人，
community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.
团体与团体，依然在进行着，而且和以前一样激烈。
But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology.
但人与人的竞争并不像生物学中想象的那样是一个简单的过程。
It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment,
它已经不是为了争得由物质环境所决定的有限食物而进行的简单竞争了，
because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical.
因为决定我们进化环境的主要方面已经不再是物质。
Our environment is chiefly conditoned by the things we believe.
我们的环境由我们信仰的东西所决定。
Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes,
摩洛哥和加你福尼亚是地球上纬度极其相似的两个地方，
both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates,
都在各自大陆的西海岸，气候相似，
and probably with rather similar natural resources.
自然资源也可能相似。
Yet their present development is wholly different,
然而，这两者目前的发展程度却完全不一样，
not so much because of different people even,
这倒不是因为两地居民不同，
but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants.
而是因为居民头脑中的思想不同。
This is the point I wish to emphasize.
这就是我要强调的论点。
The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
我们环境中最重要的影响因素就是我们的思想状况。
It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture,
众所周知，凡白人入侵原始社会的地方，
the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas.
破坏作用最大的不是杀人的武器，而是思想。
Ideas are dangerous.
思想是危险的。
The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by.
宗教法庭对此是非常清楚的，因此从前它总是把异教徒烧死。
Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society
确实，言论自由的概念只存在于现代社会中，
because when you are inside a community,
因为当你生活在一个社会中时，
you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree
社会的风俗习惯会严格地制约你，
that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive.
使你很难有任何破坏性的想法。
It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts.
只有外部的旁观者才能灌输危险的思想。
I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us.
向一个现代世界灌输某种思想，足以毁灭我们人类，我对此深信不疑。
I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so.
我会向你举一个（这种思想的）例子，但庆幸的是，我并不能将这种思想付诸实践。
Perhaps it will suffice to mention the nuclear bomb.
也许提一下核弹就足以说明了。
Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society,
对一个尚未拥有核弹但科技相当发达的社会，
one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility,
如果你告诉它制造核弹的可能性，
of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed 20 or 30 pages of information
并向它提供制造核弹的细节，那么可以设想，这将会对这个社会产生何等影响。
handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925,
如果把二三十页的情报交给1925年前后的任何一个世界强国，
would have been sufficient to change the course of world history.
就足以改变世界的历史进程。
It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one,
这是个离奇的想法，不过我认为这个想法是正确的：
that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information
二三十页材料中的思想和信息，
would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it.
足以使当今的世界天翻地覆，甚至毁灭这个世界。（也可根据中文习惯调整顺序翻译）
I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain,
我时常试图想象这些纸上写的东西，
but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are.
不过我是做不到的，因为我和你们一样，是当今世界上的凡人。
We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to,
我们不能脱离我们大脑所限定的模式去思考问题，
or, to be more accurate we can think only a very little way outside and then only if we are very original.
确切的说，我们只能稍微离开一点儿，就这也需要我们有独创的思想。
专辑信息