第45课

旁白 neutral

In man's early days, competition with other creatures must have been critical.

在人类早期，与其他生物的竞争一定是至关重要的。

旁白 neutral

But this phase of our development is now finished.

但我们发展的这个阶段现在已经结束了。

旁白 neutral

Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions.

事实上，我们现在缺乏处理原始条件的实践和经验。

旁白 neutral

I am sure that, without modern weapons,

我确信，如果没有现代武器，

旁白 neutral

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.

我在与熊争夺洞穴所有权方面会表现得很糟糕，而且我认为我并非孤身一人。

旁白 neutral

The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito.

最后一种与人类竞争的生物是蚊子。

旁白 neutral

But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays.

但即使是蚊子也因对排水的重视和化学喷雾而被制服了。

旁白 neutral

Competition between ourselves, person against person,

我们彼此之间的竞争，人与人之间，

旁白 neutral

community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.

社群与社群之间，仍然存在；而且它和以往一样激烈。

旁白 neutral

But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology.

但人与人之间的竞争并不是生物学中设想的简单过程。

旁白 neutral

It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment,

这不是一种由物理环境决定的对固定数量食物的简单竞争，

旁白 neutral

because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical.

因为决定我们进化的环境本质上不再是物理的了。

旁白 neutral

Our environment is chiefly conditoned by the things we believe.

我们的环境主要由我们所相信的事物所决定。

旁白 neutral

Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes,

摩洛哥和加利福尼亚是地球上纬度非常相似的两个地方，

旁白 neutral

both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources.

都位于大陆西海岸，气候相似，而且可能拥有相当相似的自然资源。

旁白 neutral

Yet their present development is wholly different,

然而，它们目前的发展却截然不同，

旁白 neutral

not so much because of different people even,

甚至不是因为不同的人，

旁白 neutral

but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants.

而是因为其居民心中存在的不同思想。

旁白 neutral

This is the point I wish to emphasize.

这就是我希望强调的重点。

旁白 neutral

The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.

我们环境中最重要的因素是我们自己的心智状态。

旁白 neutral

It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture,

众所周知，当白人侵入原始文化时，

旁白 neutral

the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas.

最具破坏性的影响并非来自实体武器，而是来自思想。

旁白 neutral

Ideas are dangerous.

思想是危险的。

旁白 neutral

The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by.

过去的异端裁判所对此心知肚明，因为它曾将异教徒烧死。

旁白 neutral

Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community,

事实上，言论自由的概念之所以存在于我们的现代社会，是因为当你身处一个社群中时，

旁白 neutral

you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive.

你被社群的习俗所制约，以至于很难构想出任何真正具有破坏性的事物。

旁白 neutral

It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts.

只有旁观者才能注入危险的思想。

旁白 neutral

I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us.

我不怀疑有可能向现代世界注入彻底摧毁我们的思想。

旁白 neutral

I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so.

我想给你们举个例子，但幸运的是我不能。

旁白 neutral

Perhaps it will suffice to mention the nuclear bomb.

也许提到核弹就足够了。

旁白 neutral

Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society,

想象一下，对一个相当先进的科技社会，

旁白 neutral

one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying suffcient details to enable the thing to be constructed.

一个尚未拥有核弹的社会，如果让它意识到可能性，并提供足够的细节使其能够被建造出来，那会产生什么影响。

旁白 neutral

20 or 30 pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925,

1925年左右，将20或30页信息交给任何一个世界主要大国，

旁白 neutral

would have been sufficient to change the course of world history.

足以改变世界历史的进程。

旁白 neutral

It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one,

这是一个奇怪的想法，但我相信它是正确的，

旁白 neutral

that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it.

即二三十页的思想和信息就足以颠覆当今世界，甚至摧毁它。

旁白 neutral

I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain,

我曾多次试图构想那些页面可能包含什么，

旁白 neutral

but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are.

但我当然做不到，因为我是当今世界的囚徒，就像你们所有人一样。

旁白 neutral

We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or,

我们无法跳出我们大脑被制约的特定模式进行思考，或者说，

旁白 neutral

to be more accurate we can think only a very little way outside and then only if we are very original.

更准确地说，我们只能稍微跳出一点，而且只有当我们非常具有原创性时才能做到。