新概念英語第四冊
Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 發現化石人
We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the
But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the
But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first "modern men" came from.
Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.
參考譯文
我們從書籍中可讀到5,000 年前近東發生的事情，那裡的人最早學會了寫字。但直到現在,世界上有些地方，人們還不會書寫。 他們保存歷史的唯一辦法是將歷史當作傳說講述，由講述人一代接一代地將史實描述為傳奇故事口傳下來。人類學家過去不清楚如今生活在太平洋諸島上的波利尼西亞人的祖先來自何方，當地人的傳說卻告訴人們：其中一部分是約在2,000年前從印度尼西亞遷來的。
但是，和我們相似的原始人生活的年代太久遠了，因此，有關他們的傳說既使有如今也失傳了。於是，考古學家們既缺乏歷史記載，又無口頭傳說來幫助他們弄清最早的「現代人」是從哪裡來的。
然而， 幸運的是，遠古人用石頭製作了工具，特別是用燧石，因為燧石較之其他石頭更容易成形。他們也可能用過木頭和獸皮，但這類東西早已腐爛殆盡。石頭是不會腐爛的。因此，儘管製造這些工具的人的骨頭早已蕩然無存，但遠古時代的石頭工具卻保存了下來。
Lesson 2 Spare that spider 不要傷害蜘蛛
Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the harm to us or our belongings.
Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance, for a spider always has eight legs and insect never more than six.
How many spiders are engaged in this work no our behalf? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in grass field in the south of
參考譯文
你可能會覺得奇怪， 蜘蛛怎麼會是我們的朋友呢？因為它們能消滅那麼多的昆蟲，其中包括一些人類的大敵，要不是人類受一些食蟲動物的保護，昆蟲就會使我們無法在地球上生活下去，昆蟲會吞食我們的全部莊稼，殺死我們的成群的牛羊。我們要十分感謝那些吃昆蟲的鳥和獸，然而把它們所殺死的昆蟲全部加在一起也只相當於蜘蛛所消滅的一小部分。此外，蜘蛛不同於其他食蟲動物，它們絲毫不危害我們和我們的財物。
許多人認為蜘蛛是昆蟲，但它們不是昆蟲，甚至與昆蟲毫無關係。人們幾乎一眼就能看出二者的差異，因為蜘蛛都是8條腿，而昆蟲的腿從不超過6條。
有多少蜘蛛在為我們效力呢？一位研究蜘蛛的權威對英國南部一塊草坪上的蜘蛛作了一次調查。他估計每英畝草坪里有225萬多隻蜘蛛。這就是說，在一個足球場上約有600萬隻不同種類的蜘蛛。蜘蛛至少有半年在忙於吃昆蟲。它們一年中消滅了多少昆蟲，我們簡直無法猜測，它們是吃不飽的動物，不滿意一日三餐。據估計，在英國蜘蛛一年裡所消滅昆蟲的重量超過這個國家人口的總重量。
Lesson 3 Matterhorn man 馬特霍恩山區人
Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport, and the more difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneering days, however, this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking for the easiest way to the top, because the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it and never been attained before. It is true that during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner with would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement. They had a single aim, a solitary goal -- the top!
It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Except for one or two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine village tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheese accompanied by bread often twelve months old, all washed down with coarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at all, and climbers found shelter wherever they could -- sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as poor as his parishioners), sometimes with shepherds or cheese-makers. Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating seven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the
參考譯文
現代登山運動員總想找一條能夠給他們帶來運動樂趣的路線來攀登山峰。他們認為， 道路愈艱險愈帶勁兒。然而，在登山運動的初期，全然不是這種情況。早期登山者所尋找的是通往山頂的最方便的途徑，因為頂峰特別是前人未曾到過的頂峰 -- 才是他們尋求的目標。確實，在探險中他們經常遇到驚心動魄的困難和危險，而他們裝備之簡陋足以使現代登山者一想起來就膽戰心驚。但是，他們並非故意尋求這種刺激，他們只有一個目標，唯一的目標 -- 頂峰！
我們今天很難想像昔日的登山先驅們是多麼艱苦。除了澤曼特和夏蒙尼等一兩個很快出了名的地方外，阿爾卑斯山山區的小村幾乎全是高山環抱、與世隔絕的窮鄉僻壤。那裡的小客棧一般都很骯髒，而且跳蚤猖獗。 食物是當地的乾酪和通常存放了一年之久的麵包，人們就著劣酒吞下這種食物。山谷里常常沒有小客棧，登山者只好隨遇而安。有時同當地牧師 （他通常和他的教民一樣窮）住在一起，有時同牧羊人或制乳酪的人住在一起。無論住在哪兒，情況都一樣：骯髒、貧窮，極其不舒適。對於過慣了一頓飯吃7道菜、睡亞麻細布床單的人來說，變換一下生活環境來到阿爾卑斯山山區，那一定是很艱難的。
Lesson 4 Seeing hands能看見東西的手
Several cases have been reported in
Vera"s curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of
參考譯文
俄羅斯最近報導了幾個事例，有人能用手指看書識字和辨認顏色，甚至能透過厚實的門和牆看到東西。 其中有一例談到有一個名叫維拉.彼托洛娃的11歲學生。她的視力與常人一樣，但她還能用皮膚的不同部位辨認東西，甚至看穿堅實的牆壁。是她父親首先發現她這一功能的。一天，維拉走進父親的辦公室，偶然把手放在一個鎖著的保險柜的門上，她突然問父親為什麼把這麼多的舊報紙鎖在柜子里，還說了報紙捆紮的情況。
維拉的特異功能引起了她家附近烏里揚諾夫斯克城一個科研單位的注意。4月里，俄羅斯衛生部一個特別委員會對她進行了一系列的測試。在這些測試中，她能隔著不透明的屏幕讀報紙。更為奇怪的是，她把肘部在兒童玩的「羅托」紙牌上移動一下，便能說出印在紙牌上的數字和顏色。還有一次，她穿著長筒襪子和拖鞋，能用腳步識別出藏在地毯下面的一幅畫的輪廓和顏色。其他實驗表明，她的膝蓋和雙肩有類似的感覺能力，在所有這些實驗中，維拉的雙眼都是蒙著的。如果不蒙上雙眼她的皮膚就不再具有識別物體的能力。這是千真萬確的。同時還發現，儘管她能用手指識別東西，但她的手一旦弄濕，這種功能便會立即消失。
Lesson 5 Youth 青年
People are always talking about "the problem of youth". If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt -- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings -- people just like their elders. There is only one difference between an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.
When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain -- that I was a new boy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.
I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and the origins of things. It"s as if they were, in some sense, cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect of elders -- as if mere age were a reason for respect. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.
參考譯文
人們總是在談論「青年問題」。如果這個問題存在的話 -- 請允許我對此持懷疑態度 -- 那麼，這個問題是由老年人而不是青年人造成的。讓我們來認真研究一些基本事實：承認青年人和他們的長輩一樣也是人。老年人和青年人只有一個區別：青年人有光輝燦爛的前景，而老年人的輝煌已成為過去。 問題的癥結恐怕就在這裡。
我十幾歲時，總感到自己年輕，有些事拿不準 -- 我是一所大學裡的一名新生，如果我當時真的被看成像一個問題那樣有趣，我會感到很得意的。因為這至少使我得到了某種承認，這正是年輕人所熱衷追求的。
我覺得年輕人令人振奮，無拘無束。他們既不追逐卑鄙的名利，也不貪圖生活的舒適。他們不熱衷於向上爬，也不一味追求物質享受。在我看來，所有這些使他們與生命和萬物之源聯繫在了一起。從某種意義上講，他們似乎是宇宙人，同我們這些凡夫俗子形成了強烈而鮮明的對照。每逢我遇到年輕人，腦子裡就想到這些年輕人也許狂妄自負，舉止無理，傲慢放肆，愚昧無知，但我不會用應當尊重長者這一套陳詞濫調來為我自己辨護，似乎年長就是受人尊敬的理由。我認為我和他們是平等的。如果我認為他們錯了，我就以平等的身份和他們爭個明白。
Lesson 6 The sporting spirit 體育的精神
I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the would could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the hattlefield. Even if one didn"t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce if from general principles.
Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as a the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level, sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe -- at any rate for short periods -- that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.
參考譯文
當我聽人們說體育運動可創造國家之間的友誼，還說各國民眾若在足球場或板球場上交鋒，就不願在戰場上殘殺的時候，我總是驚愕不已。一個人即使不能從具體的事例（例如1936年的奧林匹克運動會）了解到國際運動比賽會導致瘋狂的仇恨，也可以從常理中推斷出結論。
現在開展的體育運動幾乎都是競爭性的。參加比賽就是為了取勝。如果不拚命去贏，比賽就沒有什麼意義了。 在鄉間的草坪上，當你隨意組成兩個隊，並且不涉及任何地方情緒時，那才可能是單純的為了娛樂和鍛煉而進行比賽。可是一量涉及到榮譽問題，一旦你想到你和某一團體會因為你輸而丟臉時，那麼最野蠻的爭鬥天性便會激發起來。即使是僅僅參加過學校足球賽的人也有種體會。在國際比賽中，體育簡直是一場模擬戰爭。但是，要緊的還不是運動員的行為，而是觀眾的態度，以及觀眾身後各個國家的態度。面對著這些荒唐的比賽，參賽的各個國家會如痴如狂，甚至煞有介事地相信 -- 至少在短期內如此 -- 跑跑、跳跳、踢踢球是對一個民族品德素質的檢驗。
Lesson 7 Bats 蝙蝠
Not all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a case in which the voice plays a strictly utilitarian role.
To get a full appreciation of what this means we must turn first to some recent human inventions. Everyone knows that if he shouts in the vicinity of a wall or a mountainside, an echo will come back. The further off this solid obstruction, the longer time will elapse for the return of the echo. A sound made by tapping on the hull of a ship will be reflected from the sea bottom, and by measuring the time interval between the taps and the receipt of the echoes, the depth of the sea at that point can be calculated. So was born the echo-sounding apparatus, now in general use in ships. Every solid object will reflect a sound, varying according to the size and nature of the object. A shoal of fish will do this. So it is a comparatively simple step from locating the sea bottom to locating a shoal of fish. With experience, and with improved apparatus, it is now possible not only to locate a shoal but to tell if it is herring, cod, or other well-known fish, by the pattern of its echo.
It has been found that certain bats emit squeaks and by receiving the echoes, they can locate and steer clear of obstacles -- or locate flying insects on which they feed. This echo-location in bats is often compared with radar, the principle of which is similar.
參考譯文
動物發出的聲音不都是用作語言交際。我們只要看一看蝙蝠回聲定位這一極不尋常的發現，就可以探究一下聲音在什麼情況下有絕對的實用價值。
要透徹理解這句話的意義，我們應先回顧一下人類最近的幾項發明。大家都知道，在牆壁或山腰附近發出的喊聲，就會聽到回聲。固體障礙物越遠。回聲返回所用時間就越長。敲打船體所發了的聲音會從海底傳回來，測出回聲間隔的時間，便可算出該處海洋的深度。這樣就產生了目前各種船舶上普遍應用的回聲探測儀。任何固體者反射聲音，反射的聲音因物體的大小和性質的不同而不同。魚群也反射聲音。從測定海深到測定魚群，這一進展比較容易。根據經驗和改進了的儀器，不僅能夠確定魚群的位置，而且可以根據魚群回聲的特點分辨出是鯡魚、鱈魚，這是人們所熟悉的其他魚。
人們發現，某些蝙蝠能發出尖叫聲，並能通過回聲來確定並躲開障礙物，或找到它們賴以為生的昆蟲。蝙蝠這種回聲定位常常可與雷達相比較，其原理是相似的。
Lesson 8 Trading standards 貿易標準
Chickens slaughtered in the
As it happens, a razor that is safe in
Why? One difficulty is to construct the agreements. The Americans would happily reach one accord on standards for medical devices and them hammer out different pacts covering, say, electronic goods and drug manufacturing. The EU -- following fine continental traditions -- wants agreement on general principles, which could be applied to many types of products and perhaps extended to other countries.
參考譯文
布魯塞爾的官員說，在美國屠宰的雞不適於用來裝點歐洲的餐桌。不，美國人說，我們的家禽很好，只是我們使用了另一種清洗方式。當前，是各國管理條例上的差異，而不是關稅阻礙了發達國家之間的貿易。並不僅僅是農民在抱怨。一把符合歐洲聯盟安全標準的電動剃鬚刀必須得到美國檢測人員的認可，方可在美國市場上銷售；而美國製造的透析儀也要得到歐盟的首肯才能進入歐洲市場。
碰巧在歐洲使用安全的剃鬚刀不大可能使美國人觸電身亡，因此，大西洋兩岸的企業都在問，當一套測試可以解決問題時，為什麼需要兩套呢？政治家在原則上同意了， 因此，美國和歐洲一直在尋求達成協議，以便為許多產品取消雙重檢查。他們希望儘早達成協議，為
為什麼呢？困難之一是起草這些協議。美國人很願意就醫療器械的標準達成一個協議，然後推敲出不同的合同，用以涵蓋 -- 比如說 -- 電子產品和藥品的生產。歐洲人遵循優良的大陸傳統，則希望就普遍的原則取得一致，而這些原則適用於許多不同產品，同時可能延伸到其它國家。
Lesson 9 Royal espionage 王室諜報活動
Alfred the Great acted his own spy, visiting Danish camps disguised as a minstrel. In those days wandering minstrels were welcome everywhere. They were not fighting men, and their harp was their passport. Alfred had learned many of their ballads in his youth, and could vary his programme with acrobatic tricks and simple conjuring.
While Alfred"s little army slowly began to gather at Athelney, the king himself set out to penetrate the camp of Guthrum, the commander of the Danish invaders. There had settled down for the winter at Chippenham: thither Alfred went. He noticed at once that discipline was slack: the Danes had the self-confidence of conquerors, and their security precautions were casual. They lived well, on the proceeds of raids on neighbouring regions. There they collected women as well as food and drink, and a life of ease had made them soft.
Alfred stayed in the camp a week before he returned to Athelney. The force there assembled was trivial compared with the Danish horde. But Alfred had deduced that the Danes were no longer fit for prolonged battle: and that their commissariat had no organization, but depended on irregular raids.
So, faced with the Danish advance, Alfred did not risk open battle but harried the enemy. He was constantly on the move, drawing the Danes after him. His patrols halted the raiding parties: hunger assailed the Danish army. Now Alfred began a long series of skirmishes -- and within a month the Danes had surrendered. The episode could reasonably serve as a unique epic of royal espionage!
參考譯文
阿爾弗雷德大帝曾親自充當間諜。他扮作吟遊歌手到丹麥軍隊的營地里偵察。當時，浪跡天涯的吟遊歌手到處受歡迎，他們不是作戰人員，豎琴就是他們的通行證。阿爾弗德年輕時學過許多民歌，並能穿插演一些雜技和小魔術使自己的節目多樣化。
阿爾弗雷德人數不多的軍隊開始在阿塞爾納慢慢集結時，他親自潛入丹麥入侵司令官古瑟羅姆的營地。丹麥軍已在切本哈姆紮下營準備過冬，阿爾弗雷便來到此地。他馬上發現丹麥軍紀律鬆弛，他們以征服者自居，安全措施馬馬虎虎。他們靠掠奪附近的地區的財物過著舒適的生活。他們不僅搜刮吃的喝的，而且搶掠婦女，安逸的生活已使丹麥軍隊變得軟弱無力。
阿爾弗雷德在敵營呆了一個星期後，回到了阿塞爾納。他集結在那裡的軍隊和丹麥大軍相比是微不足道的，然而，阿爾弗雷德斷定，丹麥人已不再適應持久的戰爭，他們的軍需供應處於無組織狀態，只是靠臨時搶奪來維持。
因此，面對丹麥人的進攻，阿爾弗雷德沒有貿然同敵人作戰，而是採用騷擾敵人的戰術。他的部隊不停地移動，牽著敵人的鼻子，讓他們跟著跑。他派出巡邏隊阻止敵人搶劫，因而飢餓威脅著丹麥軍隊。這時，阿爾弗雷德發起一連串小規模的進攻，結果不出一個月，丹麥人就投降了。這一幕歷史可以說是王室諜報活動中最精彩的篇章。.
Lesson 10 Silicon valley 矽谷
Technology trends may push
And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from
參考譯文
技術的發展趨勢有可能把矽谷重新推向未來。卡弗.米德 -- 集成電路的一位先驅，加州理工學院的計算機教授 -- 注意到，現在有些計算機工作站使工程技術人員可以在他們的辦公桌上設計、試驗和生產晶元，就像一位編輯在蘋果機上編出一份時事通訊一樣。由於製造一塊晶元的時間已縮短至幾天，費用也只有幾百美元，因此，工程技術人員可能很塊就可充分發揮他們的想像力，而不會因失敗而造成經濟上的損失。米德預言發明者可以在辦公室用一個周末的時間生產了完美的、功能很強的、按客戶需求設計的晶元 -- 造就新一代從汽車間起家的技術人員，在把產品推向市場方面使美國把它的外國對手們打個措手不及。 「我們有更多的汽車間，那裡有許多聰明人，」米德說。「我們確實是靠這種無政府狀態發展起來的。」 靠的是亞洲人。矽谷許多公司中工程技術人員的大多數是東方人和亞裔美國人。中國、韓國、菲律賓和印度的工程師一批批地從加州的大學畢業。作為新掘起一代的帶頭人，亞裔發明家可以憑藉他們在習慣和語言上的優勢，與關鍵的太平洋沿岸市場建立起更加牢固的聯繫。比如說，亞歷克斯.奧，一位來自香港的斯坦福大學博士，已經在台灣建廠，對日本在內存條市場上近似壟斷的局面提出了挑戰。印度出生的N.達莫達.雷迪經營的小小的加州公司在堪薩斯城重新啟用了美國電話電報公司的一家晶元工廠，並從密蘇里州獲取了財政上的支持。在矽谷變成一個退休村之前，它很可能成為建立全球商業的一個教學場地。
Lesson 11 How to grow old 如何安度晚年
Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river -- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
參考譯文
有些老年人因為怕死而感到煩惱。青年人有這種感覺是情有可原的。有理由害怕自己會死在戰場上的年輕人，想到自己被剝奪了生活所能給予的最美好的東西時，感到痛苦，這是可以理解的。可是老年人已經飽嘗了人間的甘苦，一切能做的都做了，如果怕死，就有點兒可憐又可鄙。克服怕死的最好辦法 -- 至少在我看來是這樣 -- 就是逐漸使自己的興趣更加廣泛，逐漸擺脫個人狹小的圈子，直到自我的圍牆一點一點地倒塌下來，自己的生活慢慢地和整個宇宙的生活融合在一起。個人的存在應該像一條河流，開始很小，被緊緊地夾在兩岸中間，接著熱情奔放地衝過巨石，飛下瀑布。然後河面漸漸地變寬，兩岸後撤，河水流得平緩起來，最後連綿不斷地匯入大海，毫無痛苦地失去了自我的存在。上了年紀的人這樣看待生命，就不會有懼怕死亡的心情了，因為自己關心的一切事件都會繼續下去。 再者，隨著精力的衰退，老年人的疲憊會增長，有長眠的願望未嘗不是一件好事情，我希望工作到死為止，明白了有人會繼續我的未竟事業，想到能做的事都做了，也就坦然了。
Lesson 12 Banks and their customers 銀行和顧客
When anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank money, repayment of which he may demand at any time, either in cash or by drawing a cheque in favour of another person. Primarily, the banker-customer relationship is that of debtor and creditor -- who is which depending on whether the customer"s account is in credit or is overdrawn. But, in addition to that basically simple concept, the bank and its customer owe a large number of obligations to one another. Many of these obligations can give in to problems and complications but a bank customer, unlike, say, a buyer of goods, cannot complain that the law is loaded against him.
The bank must obey its customer"s instructions, and not those of anyone else. When, for example, a customer first opens an account, he instructs the bank to debit his account only in respect of cheques draw by himself. He gives the bank specimens of his signature, and there is a very firm rule that the bank has no right or authority to pay out a customer"s money on a cheques on which its customer"s signature has been forged. It makes no difference that the forgery may have been a very skilful one: the bank must recognize its customer"s signature. For this reason there is no risk to the customer in the practice, adopted by banks, of printing the customer"s name on his cheques. If this facilitates forgery, it is the bank which will lose, not the customer.
參考譯文
任何人在銀行開一個活期賬戶，就等於把錢借給了銀行。這筆錢他可以隨時提取，提取的方式可以是取現金，也可以是開一張以他人為收款人的支票。銀行與儲戶的關係主要是債務人和債權人的關係。究竟誰是債務人誰是債權人，要看儲戶是有結餘還是透支。除了這一基本的簡單的概念外，銀行和儲戶彼此還需承擔大量義務。其中許多義務往往引起問題和糾紛。但是儲戶不能像貨物的買主那樣來抱怨法律對自己不利。
銀行必須遵照儲戶的囑託辦事，不能聽從其他人的指令。比如，儲戶首次在銀行開戶時，囑咐銀行他的存款只能憑本世人簽字的支票來提取。他把自己簽名的樣本交給銀行，對此有一條非常嚴格的規定：銀行沒有任何權利或理由把儲戶的錢讓偽造儲戶的支票取走。即使偽造得很巧妙，也不能付款，因為銀行有責任辨認出其儲戶的簽名。因此，某些銀行已採用把儲戶印在支票上的作法。這種做法對儲戶毫無風險。如果因這種作法出現了偽造的話，受損失的將不是儲戶，而是銀行。
Lesson 13 The search for oil 探尋石油
The deepest holes of all made for oil, and they go down to as much as 25,0000 feet. But we not need to send men down to get the oil our, as we must with other mineral deposits. The holes are only borings, less than a foot in diameter. My particular experience is largely in oil, and the search for oil has done more to improve deep drilling than any other mining activity. When is has been decided where we are going to drill, we put up at the surface an oil derrick. It has to be tall because it is like a giant block and tackle, and we have to lower into the ground and haul out of the ground great lengths of drill pipe which are rotated by an engine at the top and are fitted with a cutting bit at the bottom.
The geologist needs to know what rocks the drill has reached, so every so often a sample is obtained with a coring bit. It cuts a clean cylinder of rock, from which can be seen the strata the drill has been cutting through. Once we get down to the oil, it usually flows to the surface because great pressure, either from or water, is pushing it. This pressure must be under control, and we control it by means of the mud which we circulate down the drill pipe. We endeavour to avoid the old, romantic idea of a gusher, which wastes oil and gas. We want it to stay down the hole until we can lead it off in a controlled manner.
參考譯文
在所有洞穴中，為尋找石油所鑽出的洞是最深的，這些洞可深達25,000英尺。但是，我們不必像開採其他礦藏那樣，把人送到地下去把石油取出。這些洞只不過是一些鑽孔，直徑不到1英尺。我是專門搞石油的，尋找石油比其他任何採礦業對改進鑽探作的貢獻都要大。當確定鑽孔地點後，我們就在那裡豎起一個井架。井架必須很高，因為它像一個巨型滑輪組。我們必須把很長的鑽桿一節節地鑽入地下，然後再從地下拉出來。鑽桿頂部安裝的發動機帶動鑽桿旋轉，它的底部裝有鑽頭。
地質學家需要知道鑽頭已以到達什麼樣的岩層，因此時常要用芯鑽頭取樣。這種鑽頭能切割一段光滑的圓柱形岩石，從中能看出所鑽透的地層。一旦到達油層，石油就會由於地下巨大的壓力流到地面上來，這種巨大的壓力來自地下天然氣或水。這種壓力必須加以控制，我們讓泥槳順著鑽桿向下循環，用這種方法來控制壓力。我們盡量避免使用陳舊天真的噴井方法，那樣會浪費石油和天然氣。我們要讓石油留在井下，直到我們能用一種有控制的方法把它引上來為止。
Lesson 14 The Butterfly Effect 蝴蝶效應
Beyond two or three days, the world"s best weather forecasts are speculative, and beyond six or seven they are worthless.
The Butterfly Effect is the reason. For small pieces of weather -- and to a global forecaster, small can mean thunderstorms and blizzards -- any prediction deteriorates rapidly. Errors and uncertainties multiply, cascading upward through a chain of turbulent features, from dust devils and squalls up to continent-size eddies that only satellites can see.
The modern weather models work with a grid of points of the order of sixty miles apart, and even so, some starting data has to guessed, since ground stations and satellites cannot see everywhere. But suppose the earth could be covered with sensors spaced one foot apart, rising at one-foot intervals all the way to the top of the atmosphere. Suppose every sensor gives perfectly accurate readings of temperature, pressure, humidity, and any other quantity a meteorologist would want. Precisely at noon an infinitely powerful computer takes all the data and calculates what will happen at each point at 12.01, then 12.02, then 12.03...
The computer will still be unable to predict whether
參考譯文
世界上最好的兩三天以上的天氣預報具有很強的猜測性，如果超過六七天，天氣預報就沒有了任何價值。
原因是蝴蝶效應。對於小片的惡劣天氣 -- 對一個全球性的氣象預報員來說，「小」可以意味著雷暴雨和暴風雪 -- 任何預測的質量會很快下降。錯誤和不可靠性上升，接踵而來的是一系列湍流的徵狀，從小塵暴和暴風發展到只有衛星上可以看到的席捲整塊大陸的旋渦。
現代氣象模型以一個坐標圖來顯示，圖中每個點大約是間隔60英里。既使是這樣，有些開始時的資料也不得不依靠推測，因為地面工作站和衛星不可能看到地球上的每一個地方。假設地球上可以布滿感測器，每個相隔1英尺，並按1英尺的間隔從地面一直排列到大氣層的頂端。再假定每個感測器都極極端準確地讀出了溫度、氣壓、溫度和氣象學家需要的任何其他數據。在正午時分，一個功能巨大的計算機搜集了所有的資料，並算出在每一個點上12：01、12：02、12：03時可能出現的情況。
計算機無法推斷出1個月以後的某一天，新澤西州的普林斯頓究竟是晴天還是雨天。正午時分，感測器之間的距離會掩蓋計算機無法知道的波動、任何偏平均值的變化。到12：01時，那些波動就已經會在1英尺遠的地方造成偏差。很快這種偏差會增加到尺10英的範圍，如此等等，一直到全球的範圍。
Lesson 15 Secrecy in industry 工業中的秘密
Two factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientific research in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker. In so far as any inquiry is a secret one, it naturally limits all those engaged in carrying it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists either in other countries or in universities, or even, often enough, in other departments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably. Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret. Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought for with complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out. Even more processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes. This applies particularly to chemical industries, where chance discoveries play a much larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries. Sometimes the secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannot be mentioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty in obtaining technical or scientific books from libraries because they are unwilling to have names entered as having taken out such and such a book, for fear the agents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to be undertaking.
參考譯文
有兩個因素嚴重地妨礙工業中科學研究的效率：一是科研工作中普遍存在的保密氣氛；二是研究人員缺乏個人自由。任何一項研究都涉及到保密，那些從事科研的人員自然受到了限制。他們不能和其他國家、其他大學、甚至往往不能與本公司的其他部門的同行們進行有效的接觸。保密程度自然差別很大。某些大公司進行的研究屬於一般和基礎的研究，因此不保密對他們才有利。然而，依賴這種研究的很多工藝程序是在完全保密的情況下進行的，直到可以取得專利權的階段為止。更多的工藝過程根本就不會取得專利權，而是作為秘方保存著。在這化學工業方面尤為突出。同物理和機械工業相比，化學工業中偶然發現的機會要多得多。有時，保密竟達到了這樣的程度，即連研究工作的整個性質都不準提及。比如，很多公司向圖書館借閱科技書籍時感到困難，因為它們不願讓人家記下它們公司的名字和借閱的某一本書。他們生怕別的公司的情報人員據此摸到他們可能要從事的某項科研項目。
Lesson 16 The modern city 現代城市
In the organization of industrial life the influence of the factory upon the physiological and mental state of the workers has been completely neglected. Modern industry is based on the conception of the maximum production at lowest cost, in order that an individual or a group of individuals may earn as much money as possible. It has expanded without any idea of the true nature of the human beings who run the machines, and without giving any consideration to the effects produced on the individuals and on their descendants by the artificial mode of existence imposed by the factory. The great cities have been built with no regard for us. The shape and dimensions of the skyscrapers depend entirely on the necessity of obtaining the maximum income per square foot of ground, and of offering to the tenants offices and apartments that please them. This caused the construction of gigantic buildings where too large masses of human beings are crowded together. Civilized men like such a way of living. While they enjoy the comfort and banal luxury of their dwelling, they do not realize that they are deprived of the necessities of life. The modern city consists of monstrous edifices and of dark, narrow streets full of petrol fumes and toxic gases, torn by the noise of the taxicabs, lorries and buses, and thronged ceaselessly by great crowds. Obviously, it has not been planned for the good of its inhabitants.
參考譯文
在工業生活的組織中，工廠對工人的生理和精神狀態的影響完全被忽視了。現代工業的基本概念是：以最低成本獲取最多產品，為的是讓某個個人或某一部分人儘可能多地賺錢。現代工業發展起來了，卻根本沒想到操作機器的人的本質。工廠把一種人為的生存方式強加給工人，卻不顧及這種生存方式給工人及其後代帶來的影響。大城市的建設毫不關心我們。摩天大樓完全是按這樣的需要修建的：每平方英尺地皮取得最大收入和向租房人提供使他滿意的辦公室和住房。這樣就導致了許多摩天大廈拔地而起，大廈內眾多的人擠地一起。文明人喜歡這樣一種生活方式。在享受自己住宅的舒適和庸俗的豪華時，卻沒有意識到被剝奪了生活所必需的東西。大得嚇人的高樓和陰暗狹窄的街道組成了今日現代化的城市。街道上充斥著汽油味和有毒氣體，出租汽車、卡車、公共汽車的噪音刺耳難忍，絡繹不絕的人群擠來擠去。顯然，現代化的城市不是這居民的利益而規劃的。
Lesson
In the early days of the settlement of
Ironically, Europe, which had bequeathed the rabbit as a pest to
參考譯文
在澳大利亞移民初期，一些有創業精神的移民不明智地把歐洲兔子引進了澳大利亞。這種兔子在澳大利亞及紐西蘭沒有天敵，因此便以兔子所特有的雜亂交配迅猛繁殖起來。整個澳洲兔子成災。它們在地下打洞，吃掉本可以飼養數百萬頭牛羊的牧草，給澳洲大陸造成了毀滅性的破壞。科學家們發現，這種特殊品種的兔子（顯然不包括別的動物）易患一種叫「多發性粘液瘤」的致命毒性疾病。通過讓染上此病的動物在洞內亂跑，就可以使這種疾病在一個地區蔓延起來。後來又發現，有一種蚊子是傳播這種疾病的媒介，能把此病傳染給兔子。因此，世界上其他地方在設法消滅蚊子的時候，澳大利亞卻在促使這種蚊子大量繁殖。蚊子把這種疾病擴散到整個澳洲大陸，效果甚佳，結果兔子的數目在為減少。後來，明顯看出，兔子對這種疾病已產生了一定程度的免疫力，所以兔子不可能被完全消滅。但是，已有希望解決兔子所帶來的問題。
具有諷刺意味的是，歐洲把這種兔子作為有害動物傳給澳洲，而歐洲自己卻染上了這種人為的瘟疫般的疾病。一位法國內科醫生決定除掉自己莊園內的野兔子，於是引進了這種多發性粘液瘤疾病。然而，這種疾病並未被局限在他的莊園內，結果在整個法國蔓延開來。野兔在法國一般不被當作有害動物，而被視為打獵取樂的玩物和有用的食物來源。這種疾病又蔓延到了英國。在英國，野兔被當作有害的動物，可是家兔是賺錢的毛皮工業的基礎，然而家兔同樣易感染這種疾病。現在的問題是，人類能否控制住這種人為的疾病。
Lesson 18 Porpoises 海豚
There has long been a superstition among mariners that porpoises will save drowning men by pushing them to the surface, or protect them from sharks by surrounding them in defensive formation. Marine Studio biologists have pointed out that, however intelligent they may be, it is probably a mistake to credit dolphins with any motive of lifesaving. On the occasions when they have pushed to shore an unconscious human being they have much more likely done it out of curiosity or for sport, as in riding the bow waves of a ship. In 1928 some porpoises were photographer working like beavers to push ashore a waterlogged mattress. If, as has been reported, they have protected humans from sharks, it may have been because curiosity attracted them and because the scent of a possible meal attracted the sharks. Porpoises and sharks are natural enemies. It is possible that upon such an occasion a battle ensued, with the sharks being driven away or killed.
Whether it be bird, fish or beast, the porpoise is intrigued with anything that is alive. They are constantly after the turtles, who peacefully submit to all sorts of indignities. One young calf especially enjoyed raising a turtle to the surface with his snout and then shoving him across the tank like an aquaplane. Almost any day a young porpoise may be seen trying to turn a 300-pound sea turtle over by sticking his snout under the edge of his shell and pushing up for dear life. This is not easy, and may require two porpoises working together. In another game, as the turtle swims across the oceanarium, the first porpoise swoops down from above and butts his shell with his belly. This knocks the turtle down several feet. He no sooner recovers his equilibrium than the next porpoise comes along and hits him another crack. Eventually the turtle has been butted all the way down to the floor of the tank. He is now satisfied merely to try to stand up, but as soon as he does so a porpoise knocks him flat. The turtle at last gives up by pulling his feet under his shell and the game is over.
參考譯文
長期以來，海員中流傳著一種迷信的說法，認為海豚會把快要淹死的人托到水面，救人性命；或在人們周圍列隊保護，使他們免遭鯊魚傷害。海洋攝影室的生物學家指出，無論海豚多麼聰明，認為它們有救人的動機可能是錯誤的。當它們偶爾把一個失去知覺的人推到岸邊時，更大的可能是出於好奇或遊戲，就像它們追逐被船首犁開的浪花一樣。1928年，有人拍攝到了海豚像海狸一樣把浸透水的床墊推上岸的情景。正如報道中所說，如果海豚保護人不受鯊魚侵害，那麼它們可能是出於好奇；而鯊魚可能是聞到了可以美食一頓的香味。海豚和鯊魚是天然仇敵，雙方可能隨之發生搏鬥，搏鬥結果是海豚趕走或咬死鯊魚。
海豚對凡是活的東西都感興趣，不管是鳥、是魚，還是野獸。它們經常追逐海龜，海龜則溫順地忍受著各種侮辱。一隻小海豚特別喜歡用鼻子把海龜推到水面，然後像滑水板一樣把海龜從水池的這一邊推到那一邊。幾乎每天都可以看到一隻小海豚把鼻子頂入一隻
Lesson 19 The stuff of dreams 話說夢的本質
It is fairly clear that sleeping period must have some function, and because there is so much of it the function would seem to e important. Speculations about is nature have been going on for literally thousands of years, and one odd finding that makes the problem puzzling is that it looks very much as if sleeping is not simply a matter of giving the body a rest. "Rest", in terms of muscle relaxation and so on, can be achieved by a brief period lying, or even sitting down. The body"s tissues are self-repairing and self-restoring to a degree, and function best when more or less continuously active. In fact a basic amount of movement occurs during sleep which is specifically concerned with preventing muscle inactivity.
If it is not a question of resting the body, then perhaps it is the brain that needs resting? This might be a plausible hypothesis were it not for two factors. First the electroencephalograph (which is simply a device for recording the electrical activity of the brain by attaching electrodes to the scalp) shows that while there is a change in the pattern of activity during sleep, there is no evidence that the total amount of activity is any less. The second factor is more interesting and more fundamental. Some years ago an American psychiatrist named William Dement published experiments dealing with the recording of eye-movements during sleep. He showed that the average individual"s sleep cycle is punctuated with peculiar bursts of eye-movements, some drifting and slow, others jerky and rapid. People woken during these periods of eye-movements generally reported that they had been dreaming. When woken at other times they reported no dreams. If one group of people were disturbed from their eye-movement sleep for several nights on end, and another group were disturbed for an equal period of time but when they were no exhibiting eye-movements, the first group began to show some personality disorders while the others seemed more or less unaffected. The implications of all this were that it was not the disturbance of sleep that mattered, but the disturbance of dreaming.
參考譯文
很清楚，睡眠必然具有某種作用。睡眠佔去那麼多時間，所以其作用似乎還是很重要。人們對睡眠作用的種種猜測，確實有數千年之久。一項使人對這個問題感到困惑的奇怪的發現是，睡眠在很大程度似乎並不僅僅是為了使身體得到休息。「休息」，從使肌肉得到放鬆等方面來看，只要稍微躺一躺，甚至坐一坐就能達到。人體組織在一定程度上有自我修補和自我恢復的能力，有張有弛地連續活動時，其功能最佳。事實上，睡眠狀態下仍有著基本的活動量，以防止肌肉活動停止。
如果睡眠的功能不是在於使身體得到休息，那麼也許是讓大腦得以休息？若不是下面兩點，這種假使似乎是有道理的。第一點，腦電圖記錄儀（不過是一種把電極接到頭皮上記錄腦電活動的儀器）顯示，人在睡眠時大腦活動的方式有變化，但沒有跡象表明，其活動總量有任何減少。第二點更有意思，也更重要。前些年，美國一位精神病學者發表了一篇報告，報告中記錄了眼球在睡眠時的活動情況。他指出，平常人的睡眠周期中不時伴有一陣陣奇怪的眼球隊活動，這些活動有的飄忽而緩慢，有的急劇而快速。在眼球活動期間被叫醒的人都說自己在做夢；在其他期間叫醒他們，則說沒有做夢。如果有兩組人，一組人連續幾夜在眼球隊活動時被叫醒；另一組人也是連續幾夜被叫醒，但是在眼球隊沒活動時被叫醒的。結果，第一組人開始出現性格失常，而第二組人似乎沒受什麼影響。這一切暗示我們：睡眠受到干憂沒關係，而做夢受到干憂是有問題的。
Lesson 20 Snake poison 蛇毒
How it came about that snakes manufactured poison is a mystery. Over the periods their saliva, a mild, digestive juice like our own, was converted into a poison that defies analysis even today. It was not forced upon them by the survival competition; they could have caught and lived on prey without using poison, just as the thousands of non-poisonous snakes still do. Poison to a snake is merely a luxury; it enables it to get its food with very little effort, no more effort than one bite. And why only snakes? Cats, for instance, would be greatly helped; no running fights with large, fierce rats or tussles with grown rabbits -- just a bite and no more effort needed. In fact, it would be an assistance to all carnivores though it would be a two-edged weapon when they fought each other. But, of the vertebrates, unpredictable Nature selected only snakes (and one lizard). One wonders saliva into why Nature, with respect from that of others, as other on the blood.
In the conversion of saliva into poison, one might suppose that a fixed process took place. It did not; some snakes manufacture a poison different in every respect from that of others, as different as arsenic is from strychnine, and having different effects. One poison acts on the nerves, the other on the blood.
The makers of the nerve poison include the mambas and the cobras and their venom is called neurotoxic. Vipers (adders) and rattlesnakes manufacture the blood poison, which is known as haemolytic. Both poisons are unpleasant, but by far the more unpleasant is the blood poison. It is said that the nerve poison is the more primitive of the two, that the blood poison is, so to speak, a newer product from an improved formula. Be that as it may, the nerve poison does its business with man far more quickly than the blood poison. This, however, means nothing. Snakes did not acquire their poison for use against man but for use against prey such as rats and mice, and the effects on these of viperine poison is almost immediate.
參考譯文
蛇是怎樣產生毒液的，這是一個謎。蛇的唾液本來和我們人的消化液一樣柔和，但經過漫長的時間，演變成了今天仍無法分析清楚的毒液。毒液不是生存競爭強加給它們的，它們也可以不用毒液捕捉動物而生存，就像今天成千上萬的無毒蛇那樣。毒液對毒蛇來說只不過是一種舒適生存的優越手段，它使蛇不用費多大力氣就能捕獲到食物，輕咬一口即可。為什麼只有蛇才有毒液呢？譬如說，如果貓有毒液，那對貓會大有幫助，它就不必再和又大又凶的老鼠邊跑邊博鬥了，也不必再和大兔子扭鬥了，只要咬一口，就不必再費大力氣。因此，任何食肉動物有了毒液，都能從中獲益。不過，當它們相互撕打時，毒液就成了利弊參半的武，可以殺死對方，也可以被對方的毒液殺死。然而，在脊椎動物中，大自然神秘模測地只選擇了蛇（還有一種蜥蜴），人們弄不清楚大自然為什麼在某些蛇的身上調製出如此高效的毒液來。
人們可能認為，唾液轉變成毒液，其中有固定的程序。其實沒有。有些蛇產生的毒液也在各方面與另外一些毒蛇產生的毒液不同，就像砒霜不同於馬錢子鹼一樣。不同毒蛇產生的毒液產生的效果不同，一種毒液作用於神經，另一種毒液作用於血液。
產生神經毒液的蛇有一種非洲樹眼鏡蛇和眼鏡蛇，它們的毒液稱為神經毒素。蝰蛇（蝮蛇）和響尾蛇產生血液毒素，稱為溶血性毒液。這兩種毒液都很可怕，但溶血性毒液尤其厲害。據說，神經毒液在兩種毒液中是較為原始的一種，而溶血性毒液，打個比方說，是根據改良配方生產的一種較新的產品。不過，神經毒辣液比溶血性毒液在人身上起作用快得多。但是，這沒有什麼關係，因為蛇有毒液不是用來對付人的，而是對付它的獵物，諸如鼠類，毒液對這些獵物會立刻起作用。
Lesson 21 William S. Hart and the early "Western" film 威廉.S. 哈特和早期限的『西部』影片
William S. hart was, perhaps, the greatest of all Western stars, fro unlike Gary Cooper and John Wayne he appeared in nothing but Westerns. From 1914 to 1924 he was supreme and unchallenged. It was Hart who created the basic formula of the Western film, and devised the protagonist he played in every film he made, the good-had man, the accidental-noble outlaw, or the honest-but-framed cowboy, or the sheriff made suspect by vicious gossip; in short, the individual in conflict with himself and his frontier environment.
Unlike most of his contemporaries in
Men accustomed to struggling for survival against the elements and Indians were bewildered by politicians, bankers and businessmen, and unhorsed by fences, laws and alien taboos. Hart"s good-bad man was always an outsider, always one of the disinherited, and if he found it necessary to shoot a sheriff or rob a bank along the way, his early audiences found it easy to understand and forgive, especially when it was Hart who, in the end, overcame the attacking Indians.
Audiences in the second decade of the twentieth century found it pleasant to escape to a time when life, though hard, was relatively simple. We still do; living in a world in which undeclared aggression, war, hypocrisy, chicanery, anarchy and impending immolation are part of our daily lives, we all want a code to live by.
參考譯文
威廉.S.哈特大概是美國西部電影明星中的佼佼者。他和加里.古柏、約翰.韋恩不同，他只在西部電影中扮演角色。在1914年至1924年期間，他首屈一指，獨霸影壇。正是他創造了西部電影的基調，即在他自己的拍攝的影片中他所塑造的主人公形象：被認為是壞人的好人，出人意料的高尚的逃犯，誠實卻遭陷害的牛仔或因流言蜚語蒙受嫌疑的司法官。總之，主人公是一個自相矛盾，又與他的拓荒環境相矛盾的人物。
哈特與大部分同時代在好萊塢的演員不同，他確實了解西部早期拓荒生活的一些情況。作為一個孩子他曾在西部生活過，當時西部拓荒生活正在消失。他塑造的英雄人物深深地紮根於他本人的記憶和經歷之中，也紮根於有關已經消失的拓荒生活的歷史和神話之中。雖然在美國歷史上沒有任何時期或地區像西部拓荒時期那樣被荒謬地浪漫主義化了，但神話和事實至少在某一個舞台上共存，也就是存在於個人與漸漸闖入的文明這兩者的衝突之中。
習慣與大自然和印第安人作鬥爭以求生存的拓荒者被政客、銀行家和商人搞得暈頭轉向，最後被圈地、尖律我外來的清規戒律所擊敗。哈特扮演的被誤為壞人的好人總是一個局外人，總是一個被剝奪繼承權的人。如果他認為在進行過程中有必要槍擊一個司法官或搶劫一個銀行，他的早期觀眾很容易接受，覺得應該原諒他，特別是當哈特最後戰勝了前來進攻的印第安人時，觀眾更能原諒他。
生活在20世紀20年代的觀眾認為，逃到一個即使艱苦但比較簡樸的時代中去是件愉快的事，我們今天仍有這種感覺。如今，不宣而戰的侵略、戰爭、虛偽、詐騙、無政府狀態以及即將臨頭的毀滅成了我們日常生活的一部分，我們都希望有一個賴以生存的行為準則。
Lesson 22 Knowledge and progress 知識和進步
Why does the idea of progress loom so large in the modern world? Surely progress of a particular kind is actually taking place around us and is becoming more and more manifest. Although mankind has undergone no general improvement in intelligence or morality, it has made extraordinary progress in the accumulation of knowledge. Knowledge began to increase as soon as the thoughts of one individual could be communicated to another by means of speech. With the invention of writing, a great advance was made, for knowledge could then be not only communicated but also stored. Libraries made education possible, and education in its turn added to libraries: the growth of knowledge followed a kind of compound interest law, which was greatly enhanced by the invention of printing. All this was comparatively slow until, with the coming of science, the tempo was suddenly raised. Then knowledge began to be accumulated according to a systematic plan. The trickle became a stream; the stream has now become a torrent. Moreover, as soon as new knowledge is acquired, it is now turned to practical account. What is called "modern civilization" is not the result of a balanced development of all man"s nature. but of accumulated knowledge applied to practical life. The problem now facing humanity is: What is going to be done with all this knowledge? As is so often pointed out, knowledge is a two-edged weapon which can be used equally for good or evil. It is now being used indifferently for both. Could any spectacle, for instance, be more grimly whimsical than that of gunners ourselves very seriously what will happen if this twofold use of knowledge, with its ever-increasing power, continues.
參考譯文
為什麼進步這個概念在現代世界顯得如此突出？無疑是因為有一種特殊的進步實際上正在我們周圍發生，而且變得越來越明顯。雖然人類有智力和道德上沒有得到普遍提高，但在知識積累方面卻取得了巨大的進步。人一旦能用語言同別人交流思想，知識的積累便開始了。隨著書寫的發明，又邁進了一大步，因為這樣一來，知識不僅能交流，而且能儲存了。藏書使教育成為可能，而教育反過來又豐富了藏書，因為知識的增長遵循著一種「滾雪球」的規律。印刷術的發明又大大提高了知識增長的速度。所有這些發展都比較緩慢，而隨著科學的到來，增長的速度才突然加快。於是，知識便開始有系統有計劃地積累起來。涓涓細流匯成小溪，小溪現已變成了奔騰的江河。而且，新知識一旦獲得，便得到實際應用。所謂「現代文明」並不是人的天性平衡發展的結果，而是積累起來的知識應用到實際生活中的結果。現在人類面臨的問題是：用這些知識去做什麼？正像人們常常指出的，知識是一把雙刃刀，可以用於造福，也可以用來為害。人們現在正漫不經心地把知識用於這兩個方面，例如：炮兵利用科學毀壞人的身體、而外科醫生就在附近用科學搶救被炮兵毀壞的人體，還有什麼情景比這更可怕、更怪誕的嗎？我們不得不嚴肅地問問我們自己：隨著日益增長的知識的力量，如果我們繼續利用知識的這種雙重性，將會發生什麼樣的情況呢？
Lesson 23 Bird flight 鳥的飛行方法
No two sorts of birds practise quite the same sort of flight; the varieties are infinite; but two classes may be roughly seen. Any shi that crosses the Pacific is accompanied for many days by the smaller albatross, Which may keep company with the vessel for an hour without visible or more than occasional movement of wing. The currents of air that the walls of the ship direct upwards, as well as in the line of its course, are enough to give the great bird with its immense wings sufficient sustenance and progress. The albatross is the king of the gliders, the class of fliers which harness the air to their purpose, but must yield to its opposition. In the contrary school, the duck is supreme. It comes nearer to the engines with which man has "conquered" the air, as he boasts. Duck, and like them the pigeons, are endowed with such-like muscles, that are a good part of the weight of the bird, and these will ply the short wings with such irresistible power that they can bore for long distances through an opposing gale before exhaustion follows. Their humbler followers, such as partridges, have a like power of strong propulsion, but soon tire. You may pick them up in utter exhaustion, if wind over the sea has driven them to a long journey. The swallow shares the virtues of both schools in highest measure. It tires not, nor does it boast of its power; but belongs to the air, travelling it may be six thousand miles to and from its northern nesting home, feeding its flown young as it flies, and slipping through we no longer take omens from their flight on this side and that; and even the most superstitious villagers no longer take off their hats to the magpie and wish it good-morning.
參考譯文
沒有任何兩種鳥的飛行方式是相同的。鳥的飛行方式千差萬別，但大體上可分為兩類。任何一艘橫度太平洋的輪船都會有一種小信天翁伴隨飛行許多天。它們隨船飛行一小時也難得見其扇動一下翅膀。沿船體的上升的氣流和沿航線向前的氣流給這種巨翼大鳥以足夠的浮力和推力。信天翁是滑翔飛行的鳥類之王，它能自如地駕馭空氣，但必須順氣流飛行。與滑翔鳥相對的另一類鳥中，數野鴨本領最高。它更近乎於人類自誇的「征服」了空氣的發動機。野鴨及它們相似的鴿子有天賦的鋼鐵般的肌肉，佔了體重的很大一部分。這些肌肉以巨大的力量扇動短小的翅膀，使這類鳥能頂著大風飛行很遠的路才會疲勞。次於野鴨和鴿子的鳥，如鷓鴣，有相似的巨大推動力，但很快會疲勞。如果海風驅使它們飛行很長距離，你可以撿到一些因筋疲力盡而摔下來的鷓鴣。燕子充分兼有這兩類鳥的長處，它既不疲勞，也不炫耀自己的飛翔力；在空中十分自如，可以飛行6，000英里，可以飛往北方做窩的老家，再從老家飛回；一邊飛一邊餵養會飛的雛燕，甚至在頂風時也能在氣流中滑翔，似乎氣流在幫它前進。這些鳥對我們是有益的，雖然我們不再從它們的飛翔姿態來占卜吉凶，連最迷信的村民也不再對喜鵲脫帽行禮，祝它早安了。
Lesson 24 Beauty 美
A young man sees a sunset and, unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, concludes that it must be the gateway to world that lies beyond. It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience to resist the suggestion that we are catching a glimpse of a light that shines down to us from a different realm of existence, different and, because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, yet do they convey a hint of beauty and serenity greater than we have known or imagined. Greater too than we can describe; for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world, cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another.
That all great has this power of suggesting a world beyond is undeniable. In some moods, Nature shares it. There is no sky in June so blue that it does not point forward to a bluer, no sunset so beautiful that it does not waken the vision of a greater beauty, a vision which passes before it is fully glimpsed, and in passing leaves and indefinable longing and regret. But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, life a vulgar flare amid the cool radiance of the stars, and existence an empty laugh braying across the mysteries; if these intimations of a something behind and beyond are not evil humour born of indigestion, or whimsies sent by the devil to mock and madden us. if, in a word, beauty means something, yet we must not seek to interpret the meaning. If we glimpse the unutterable, it is unwise to try to utter it, nor should we seek to invest with significance that which we cannot grasp. Beauty in terms of our human meanings is meaningless.
參考譯文
一個年輕人看到日落，由於無法理解和表達日落在他心中喚起的激情，便得出結論：日落處想必是通往遙遠世界的大門。無論是誰，在強烈感受到美的時刻，心中都不禁油生一種遐想：我們似乎瞥見從另一個世界射向我們的一線光芒，那個世界不僅不同於我們這個世界，而且由於美感的強烈感染，在某些方面比我們這個世界更美好。雖然這光芒令人眼花繚亂，但它確實給予我們一種不曾經歷和無法想像的美感和靜謐的啟示。這種美感和靜謐是我們無法描述的，因為我們發明的語言是用來描述這個世界的含義，不能隨便拿來去描述另一個世界。
不可否認，一切偉大的藝術都具有使人遐想到進入天外世界的魅力。在某種狀態下，大自然也有這種魅力。六月蔚藍的天空總使人遙想一個更加蔚藍的蒼穹；美麗的落日總會引起一個更加絢麗的景象未及飽覽便一閃即逝，並在消逝中給人留下不可名狀的渴望和惆悵。如果這個世界不只是一個拙劣的惡作劇，如果人生不只是群星寒光中平凡的一閃，如果存在不只是對神秘事物的一種空虛的笑聲，如果某種玄妙事物的暗示不是消化不良引起的邪惡情緒，也不是魔鬼為了捉弄我們，使我們發狂而送給我們的邪念，一句話，如果美有某種意義的話，我閃千萬不要去闡明它的意義。如果我瞥見了只可意會不可言傳的事物，企圖把它說出來，那上不明智的；對於我們不理解的事物，我們也不應該去賦予它某種意義。用對我們人類有意義的詞解釋美是沒有意義的。
Lesson 25 Non-auditory effects of noise 噪音的非聽覺效應
May people in industry and the Services, who have practical experience of noise, regard any investigation of this question as a waste of time; they are not prepared even to admit the possibility that noise affects people. On the other hand, those who dislike noise will sometimes use most inadequate evidence to support their pleas for a quieter society. This is a pity, because noise abatement really is a good cause, and it is likely to be discredited if it gets to be associated with had science.
One allegation often made is that noise produces mental illness. A recent article in a weekly newspaper, for instance, was headed with a striking illustration of a lady in a state of considerable distress, with the caption "She was yet another victim, reduced to a screaming wreck". On turning eagerly to the text, one learns that the lady was a typist who found the sound of office typewriters worried her more and more until eventually she had to go into a mental hospital. Now the snag in this sort of anecdote is of course that one merely a symptom? Another patient might equally well complain that her neighbours were combining to slander her and persecute her, and yet one might be cautious about believing this statement.
What is needed in case of noise is a study of large numbers of people living under noisy conditions, to discover whether they are mentally ill more often than other people are. Some time ago the United States Navy, for instance, examined a very large number of men working on aircraft carriers: the study was known as Project Anehin. It can be unpleasant to live even several miles from an aerodrome; if you think what it must be like to share the deck of a ship with several squadrons of jet aircraft, you will realize that a modern navy is a good place to study noise. But neither psychiatric interviews nor objective tests were able to show any effects upon these American sailors. This result merely confirms earlier American and British studies: if there is any effect of noise upon mental health, it must be so small that present methods of psychiatric diagnosis cannot find it. That does not prove that it does exist: but it does mean that noise is less dangerous than, say, being brought up in an orphanage -- which really is mental health hazard.
參考譯文
在工業部門工作和在軍隊中服役的許多人對雜訊音有切身的體會，他們認為對這個問題進行調查中浪費時間，甚至不願承認噪音可能對人有影響。另一方面，那些討厭噪音的人有時會用不充分的證據來支持他們希望有一個較為安靜的社會環境的要求。要求減少噪音是件好事，但是如果與拙劣的科學摻雜在一起的話，就不會被人們所信任，這是很遺憾的。
常見的一種指責是，噪音能引起精神病。例如，最近一家周報刊登了一篇文章，文章上方有一幅引人注目的插圖，是一位表情沮喪的女子。圖的文字說明：「她是又一個受害者，成了只會尖叫的可憐蟲。」當人們急切地看完正文後，便知道這女子是個打字員，辦公室打字機的聲音使她越來越煩，最終住進了精神病醫院。這類奇聞的疑難之處是無法區別因果關係。是噪音引起了（精神）病呢，還是（精神）病的癥狀之一是對噪音的抱怨？另有一位病人可能同樣有理由抱怨說，她的鄰居們正在聯合起來對她進行誹謗和迫害，不過，人們不會輕信她的抱怨。
對於噪音問題，需要對大量生活在噪音中的人進行研究，看一看他們是否比其他人更易患精神病。例如，美國海軍前些時候調查了許多在航空母航上工作的人，這次調查被稱之為：「安內英工程」。即使住在離機場幾英里以外的地方，機場的噪音也會使人難受。因此，如果你能想像出和幾個中隊的噴氣機同在一個甲板上是什麼滋味兒的話，你就會認識到現代海軍是研究噪音的好地方。但是，不管進行精神病學的調查訪問，還是進行客觀的測試，都不能顯示噪音對這些美國水兵有任何影響。這個結果只不過證實了美國和英國早些時候的研究結論：如果噪音對精神健康有影響的話，那也一定是微乎其微，以致現代的精神病診斷方法還發現不了。這並不是證實不存在噪音對健康的影響。但它確實說明，噪音的危險性 -- 比如說 -- 比在孤兒院長大所受的危害要小一些，孤兒院才是真正危害精神健康的地方。
Lesson 26 The past life of the earth 地球上的昔日生命
It is animals and plants which lived in or near water whose remains are most likely to be preserved, for one of the necessary conditions of preservation is quick burial, and it is only in the seas and rivers, and sometimes lakes, where mud and sit have been continuously deposited, that bodies and the can be rapidly covered over and preserved.
But even in the most favourable circumstances only a small fraction of the creatures that die are preserved in this way before decay sets in or, even more likely, before scavengers eat them. After all, all living creatures live by feeding on something else, whether it be plant or animal, dead or alive, and it is only by chance that such a fate is avoided. The remains of plants and animals that lived on land are much more rarely preserved, for there is seldom anything to cover them over. When you think of the innumerable birds that one sees flying bout, not to mention the equally numerous small animals like field mice and voles which you do not see, it is very rarely that one comes across a dead body, except, of course, on the roads. They decompose and are quickly destroyed by the weather or eaten by some other creature.
It is almost always due to some very special circumstances that traces of land animals survive, as by falling into inaccessible caves, or into an ice crevasse, like the Siberian mammoths, when the whole animal is sometimes preserved, as in a refrigerator. This is what happened to the famous Beresovka mammoth which was found preserved and in good condition. In his mouth were the remains of fir trees -- the last meal that he had before he fell into the crevasse and broke his back. The mammoth has now just a suburb of
參考譯文
只有生活在水中或水邊的動植物屍體最有可能被保存下來，因為保存的必要條件之一是迅速掩埋，所以只有在泥沙不停淤積的海洋和江河裡，有時在湖泊里，屍體之類的東西才能被迅速地覆蓋而保存下來。
即使是在最有利的環境中，死去的生物中也只有一小部分能在開始腐爛前，或更可能在被食腐動物吃掉之前，被這樣保存下來。因為一切生物都是靠吃別的東西來活命的，不管這種東西是植物還是動物，死的還是活的，因此，生物偶爾才能避免被吃掉的命運。曾在陸地上生活過的動植物的遺體被保存下來的更為罕見，因為陸地上幾乎沒有什麼東西覆蓋它們。你可以想像出天上有看得見的飛來飛去、數不清的鳥，地上有不顯眼的無數的老鼠和田鼠之類的小動物，但是，除非在路上，很少有人遇到這些動物的屍體，因為它們腐敗之後很快就被風化掉，或被別的動物吃掉了。
幾乎總是由於某些特殊的條件，陸地動物的遺體才被存下來，如掉進難以到達的洞穴，或掉進冰河裂縫裡，或者像西伯利亞長毛象那樣掉進冰窟中，有時整個動物像被放在冰箱里一樣被保存下來，著名的那林索夫卡長毛象就是這樣被保存下來的，而且保存得很好。它嘴裡還留著冷杉 -- 它掉進冰河裂隙折斷脊椎柱之前的最後一頓飯。這頭長毛象已被修復，現存於聖彼得堡古生物學博物館。有的動物掉進天然瀝清坑裡被保存下來，如在蘭橋.拉.布里 -- 現在是洛杉磯的郊區發現的大象、劍齒虎和許多其他動物。顯然，事情的經過是這樣：瀝青坑裡積存了水，大象那樣的大動物冒險到似乎堅固的水面上去飲水，立即掉進了瀝青坑。大象死後，一些食肉動物，如劍齒虎和大灰狼就來吃大象，結果遭到了同樣的命運。瀝青坑裡還有無數只鳥的屍體。
Lesson 27 The "Vasa" 「瓦薩」號
From the seventeenth-century empire of
King Gustavus Adolphus, "The Northern Hurricane", then at the height of his military success in the Thirty Years" War, had dictated her measurements and armament. Triple gun-decks mounted sixty-four bronze cannon. She was intended to play a leading role in the growing might of
As she was prepared of her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628,
Then the cannons of the anchored warships thundered a salute to which the Vasa fired in reply. As the emerged from her drifting cloud of gun smoke with the water churned to foam beneath her bow, her flags colour, she presented a more majestic spectacle than Stockholmers had ever seen before. All gun-ports were open and the muzzles peeped wickedly from them.
As the wind freshened there came a sudden squall and the ship made a strange movement, listing to port. The Ordnance Officer ordered all the port cannon to be heaved to starboard to counteract the list, but the steepening angle of the decks increased. Then the sound of rumbling thunder reached the watchers on the shore, as cargo, ballast, ammunition and 400 people went sliding and crashing down to the port side of the steeply listing ship. The lower gun-ports were now below water and the inrush sealed the ship"s fate. In that first glorious hour, the mighty Vasa, which was intended to rule the Baltic, sank with all flags flying-in the harbour of her birth.
參考譯文
1628年，一艘大帆船在處女航時就沉沒了，這個從容不迫7世紀瑞典帝國流傳至今的故事無疑是航海史上最離奇的事件之一。這艘大船在斯德哥爾摩港口的海底躺了將近幾年來個世紀之後，直到1956年才被發現。這就是「瓦薩」號，帝國大艦的皇家旗艦。
當時號稱「北方颶風」的國王古斯夫斯.阿道爾弗正處在「三十年戰爭」的軍事鼎盛階段，他親自規定了這艘船的規模和武器配備。3層的火炮甲板上裝著眼點4門青銅加農炮，目的就是要在不斷增長的瑞典勢力中起主導作用。
這時，停泊在港口的其他戰船向「瓦薩」號鳴炮致禮，「瓦薩」號也鳴炮回禮。當「瓦薩」號從瀰漫的禮炮煙雲中出現時，船頭下浪花加濺，艦旗迎風招展，三角旗隨風飄動，微風鼓起風帆，金碧輝煌的船樓閃耀著燦爛的色彩。「瓦薩」號展現的壯觀景象是斯德哥爾摩人從未見過的。船上的炮眼開著，炮口虎視眈眈地向外窺視著。
當風力增強時，突然刮來一陣大風，「瓦薩」號奇怪地搖晃了一下，便向左舷傾斜。炮長命令把左舷上所有大炮搬到右舷上來以抵消船的傾斜，但甲板的傾斜度仍在增加。當物口、壓艙物、彈藥和400個人轟地一聲滑向陡斜的左舷時，岸上的觀眾聽到了雷鳴般的轟響。下層炮眼已淹沒在水裡，湧進船艙的水給「瓦薩」號帶來了難以逃脫的厄運。就這樣，想要統治波羅的海的大型戰艦「瓦薩」號，在它壯麗的起航時刻，帶著全身飄揚的彩旗，沉沒在了它誕生的港口。
Lesson 28 Patients and doctors 病人與醫生
This is a sceptical age, but although our faith in many of the things in which our forefathers fervently believed has weakened, our confidence in the curative properties of the bottle of medicine remains the same a theirs. This modern faith in medicines is proved the fact that the annual drug bill of the Health Services is mounting to astronomical figures and shows no signs at present of ceasing to rise. The majority of the patients attending the medical out-patients departments of our hospitals feel that they have not received adequate treatment unless they are able to carry home with them some tangible remedy in the shape of a bottle of medicine, a box of pills, or a small jar of ointment, and the doctor in charge of the department is only too ready to provide them with these requirements. There is no quicker method of disposing of patients then by giving them what they are asking for, and since most medical men in the Health Services are overworked and have little time for offering time-consuming and little-appreciated advice on such subjects as diet, right living, and the need for abandoning bad habits etc., the bottle, the box, and the jar are almost always granted them.
Nor is it only the ignorant and ill-educated person who was such faith in the bottle of medicine. It is recounted of Thomas Carlyle that when him in his pocket what remained of a bottle of medicine formerly prescribed for an indisposition of Mrs. Carlyle"s. Carlyle was entirely ignorant of what the bottle in his pocket contained, of the nature of the illness from which his friend was suffering, and of what had previously been wrong with his wife, but a medicine that had worked so well in one form of illness would surely be of equal benefit in another, and comforted by the thought of the help he was bringing to his friend, he hastened to Henry Taylor"s house. History does not relate whether his friend accepted his medical help, but in all probability he did. The great advantage of taking medicine is that it makes no demands on the taker beyond that of putting up for a moment with a disgusting taste, and that is what all patients demand of their doctors -- to be cured at no inconvenience to themselves.
參考譯文
這是一個懷疑一切的時代，可是雖然我們對我們祖先篤信的許多事物已不太相信，我們對瓶裝藥品療效的信心仍與祖輩一樣堅定。衛生部門的處度藥費上升到了天文數字，並且目前尚無停止上升的跡象，這個事實證實了現代人對藥物的依賴。在醫院門診部看病的大多數人覺得，如果不能帶回一些看得見、摸得著的藥物，如一瓶藥水，一盒藥丸、一小瓶藥膏回家的話，就沒算得到了充分的治療。負責門診的醫生也非常樂意為前來看病的人提供他們想要得到的藥物，病人要什麼就給什麼，沒有比這樣處理病人更快的方法了。因為衛生部門的大多數醫生超負荷工作，所以沒有多少時間提出一些既費時而又不受人歡迎的忠告，如注意飲食、生活有規律，需要克服壞習慣等等，結果就是把瓶葯、盒葯、罐葯開給看病的人而完事大吉。
並不只是那些無知和沒受過良好教育的人才迷信藥瓶子。據說托馬斯.卡萊爾有過這麼一件事：他聽說朋友亨利.泰勒病了，就立刻跑去看他，衣袋裡裝上了他妻子不舒服時吃剩下的一瓶葯。卡萊爾不知道藥瓶子里裝的是什麼葯，不知道他的朋友得的是什麼病，也不知道妻子以前得的是什麼病，只知道一種葯對一種病有好處，肯定對另一種病也會有好處。想到能對朋友有所幫助，他感到很欣慰，於是急急忙忙來到了亨利.泰勒的家裡，他的朋友是否接受了他的藥物治療，歷史沒有記載，但很可能接受了。服藥的最大優點是：除了暫時忍受一下令人作嘔的味道外，對服藥人別無其他要求。這也正是病人對醫生的要求 -- 病要治好，但不要太麻煩。
Lesson 29 The hovercraft 氣墊船
Many strange new means of transport have been developed in our century, the strangest of them being perhaps the hovercraft. In 1953, a former electronics engineer in his fifties, Christopher Cockerell, who had turned to boat-building on the Norfolk Broads, suggested an idea on which he had been working for many years to the British Government and industrial circles. It was the idea of supporting a craft on a "pad", or cushion, of low-pressure air, ringed with a curtain of higher pressure air. Ever since, people have had difficulty in deciding whether the craft should be ranged among ships, planes, or land vehicles -- for it is something in between a boat and an aircraft. As a shipbuilder, Cockerell was trying to find a solution to the problem of the wave resistance which wastes a good deal of a surface ship"s power and limits its speed. His answer was to lift the vessel out of the water by a great number of ring-shaped air jets on the bottom of the craft. It "flies", therefore, but it cannot fly higher -- its action depends on the surface, water or ground, over which it rides.
The first tests on the
Since that time, various types of hovercraft have appeared and taken up regular service. The hovercraft is particularly useful in large areas with poor communications such as Africa or Australia; it can become a "flying fruit-bowl", carrying bananas from the plantations to the ports; giant hovercraft liners could span the Atlantic; and the railway of the future may well be the "hovertrain", riding on its air cushion over a single rail, which it never touches, at speeds up to
參考譯文
本世紀已研製出許多新奇的交通工具，其中最新奇的要數氣墊船了。1953年，有一位50多歲名叫克里斯托弗.科克雷的原電子工程師，改行在諾福克郡的湖泊地區從事造船業，他向英國政府和工業界提出了他研究多年的一項計劃。他的設想是：用一個低壓空氣或軟墊來支撐船體，軟墊周圍用高壓空氣環繞。自那以後，人們很難決定是否應該將這種運載工具列為輪船、飛機，或是陸上交通工具，因為它是介於船和飛機之間。作為一個船舶技師，科克雷爾在尋找解決波浪阻力的方法，因為波浪阻力浪費掉了船在水面行駛的大量動力，從而限制了船的速度。他的解決辦法是把船體提離水面，讓船在一個氣墊上行駛，氣墊只有一兩英尺厚。船底裝上大量環狀噴氣嘴以實現這一目的。這樣，船就能飛了，但飛不高。它的飛行限決於它所懸浮的水面或地面。
1959年，在蘇倫特海峽進行的首次試航引起了轟動，氣墊船先是在水面上行駛，後又登上海岸，爬上沙丘，最後停在路上。後來氣墊船跨越英吉利海峽，平衡地在波浪上方行駛，波浪不再產生阻力。
從那以後，各種各樣的氣墊船出現了，並開始了定期航行服務。氣墊船在非洲、澳大利亞等交通不發達地區特別有用。它能成為「飛行水果盤子」，把香蕉從種植園動到港口。大型的氣墊班輪或許能跨越大西洋。未來的火車或許能成為「氣墊火車」，靠氣墊在單軌上行駛而不接觸軌道，時速可達每小時300英里。氣墊船的前途是不可限量的。
Lesson 30 Exploring the sea-floor 海底勘探
Our knowledge of the oceans a hundred years ago was confined to the two-dimensional shape of the sea surface and the hazards of navigation presented by the irregularities in depth of the shallow water close to the land. The open sea was deep and mysterious, and anyone who gave more than a passing thought to the bottom confines of the oceans probably assumed that the sea bad was flat. Sir James Clark Ross had obtained a sounding of over 2,400 fathoms in 1839, but it was not until of deep soundings was obtained in the
Today, enough soundings are available to enable a relief map of the
This continental slope usually starts at a place somewhere near the 100-fatheom mark and in the course of a few hundred miles reaches the true ocean floor at 2,500-3,500 fathoms. The slope averages about
參考譯文
100年前，我們只知道海洋是二維平面形的，以及靠近陸地淺水區的深淺不一能給航行帶來危險。無邊無際的海洋深邃而又神秘，凡是稍稍想過大海海底的人大概都會認為海底是平坦的。1839年，詹姆斯.克拉克.羅斯爵士曾測得海水深度超過2，400英尋；但直到1869年，皇家學會用英國「豪豬」號艦艇進行了幾次巡航後，才在大西洋測得一個海水深度，同時能過挖掘海底，取得了研究海底的首批樣品。此後不久，英國著名的「挑戰者」號艦艇對海底的那次考察，把對海床的研究確立為一個值得一流物理學家和地質學家從事的研究課題，鋪設海底電纜的熱潮很快證實了「挑戰者」號的觀察結果：海洋中很多地方可深達兩三英里，水下特徵差異極大。
現在已有足夠的水深測量數據來繪製一張大西洋洋底地形圖，而且我對海底地形的千變萬化也有了一定的了解。既然海洋覆蓋著地球的大部分表面，因此完全有理由把海床看作地殼的基本模殼，上面附加著大陸以及島嶼和海洋的其他形態。大陸是崎嶇不平的高地，高出遼闊的海洋海底近三英里。從海岸線向大海延伸幾英里到幾百英里的區域是大陸架慢坡，從地質學上來說，它是大陸的一部分。大陸和海洋的真正分界線是在陡破腳下。
大陸架慢坡一般是從差不多100英尋水深的地方開始的，一直延伸到幾百英里遠深達2，500至3，500的地方，那裡才是真正的海底。坡度平均約為1/30，但其中包括陡峭的、乃至垂直的峭壁和沉積物覆蓋的緩和的階梯地帶，在這個地帶的低處是很長的一段尾沙地段，基本上可以斷定這個地段是大陸塊體上侵蝕下來的物質被水衝到深水處形成的。
Lesson 31 The sculptor speaks 雕塑家的語言
Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in there dimension. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are "form-blind" than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensonal distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat from, they do no make the further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.
This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.
And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.
參考譯文
對雕塑的鑒賞力取決於對立體的反應能力。雕塑被說成是所有藝術中最難的藝術，可能就是這個道理。欣賞雕塑品當然比欣賞平面的藝術品要難。「形盲」的人數比「色盲」的人數要多得多。正在學看東西的兒童起初只會分辨二維形態，不會判斷距離和深度。慢慢地，由於自身安全和實際需要，兒童必須發展（部分通過觸覺）粗略判斷三維空間距離的能力。但是。大部分人在滿足了實際需要後，就不再繼續發展這種能力了。雖然他們對平面形的感覺能達到相當準確的程度，但他們沒有在智力和感情上進一步努力去理解存在於空間的整個形態。
而雕塑家就必須做到這一點。他必須勤於想像並且利用形體在空間中的完整性。可以說，當他想像一個物體時，不管其大小如何，他腦子裡得到的是一個立體的概念，就好像完全握在自己手心裡一樣。他的大腦能從物體周圍的各個角度勾畫出其複雜的形象，他看物體的一邊時，便知道另一邊是個什麼樣子。他把自身和物體重心、質量、重量融為一體。他能意識到物體的體積，那就是它的形狀有空氣中所佔的空間。
因此，敏銳的雕塑觀賞者也必須學會把形體作為形體來感覺，不要靠描述和印象去想像。以鳥蛋為例。觀賞者必須感覺到它是一個單一的實體形態，而完全不靠它的食用意義或它會變成鳥這樣的文字概念來感覺。對於其他實體，如，貝殼、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、腎臟、胡蘿蔔、樹榦、鳥兒、花蕾、雲雀、瓢蟲、蘆葦以及骨頭也應這樣來感覺。從這些形體出發，觀賞者可進一步觀察更為複雜的形體或若干形體的組合。
Lesson 32 Galileo reborn 伽利略的復生
In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.
The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen there evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.
But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy fro Galileo"s opponents ahs grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one"s instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo"s telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse"s great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo"s spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?
參考譯文
伽利略在世時是激烈論戰的中心。但是，自他逝世以來，那場科學上的紛爭早已平息了下來，甚至他和宗教法庭的著名衝突，我們今天也能正確如實地看待。但是相比之下，對於科學史家來說，伽利略只是在現代才變成了一個新的難題。
令人高興的是，過去對伽利略的看法並不複雜。他首先是個實驗工作者，他蔑視亞里士多德學派的偏見和空洞的書本知識。他向自然界而不是向古人提出問題，並大膽地得出結論。他是第一個把望遠鏡對準天空的人，觀察到的論據足以把亞里士多德和托勒密一起推翻。他就是那個曾經爬上比薩斜塔，從塔頂向下拋擲積各種重物的人；他是那個使地球體沿斜面向下滾動，然後將多次實驗結果概括成著名的自由落體定律的人。
但是，對那個時代的深化了解，尤其是以科學家革命中哲學潛流的新意識為依據，進一步仔細研究，就會極大地改變對伽利略的看法。今天，雖然已故的伽利略繼續活在許多通俗讀物中，但在科學史家中間，一個新的更加複雜的伽利略形象出現了。與此同時，我們對伽利略的反對派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望遠鏡所作的觀察確實是不朽的，這些觀察當時引起人們極大的興趣，具有重要的理論意義，並充分顯示出了儀錶和儀器的潛在力量。但是，如果我們想到，便用一架倍數有限的望遠鏡需要長期的經驗和對自己儀器的熟悉程度，那麼我們怎麼能去責備觀察了天空但沒有看到伽利略所看到的東西的那些人呢？某位哲學家曾拒絕使用伽利略的望遠鏡去觀察天空；到了19世紀40年代，有人硬把羅斯勛爵高倍望遠鏡觀測到的螺旋狀星雲說成是磨鏡工留下的磨痕。難道反對伽利略的哲學家比詆毀羅斯勛爵造謠者應受到更大的譴責嗎？如果我們回想一下伽利略之前幾個世紀期間，曲面鏡一直是一種用於產生幻影而不是產生真象的把戲裝置，那麼我們就會原諒那些當時把伽利略觀察到的木星衛生說成是伽利略用他的小望遠鏡變出來的人們，何況一片曲面鏡就可歪曲自然，那麼伽利略的兩片曲面鏡對自然的歪曲又該多大呢？
Lesson 33 Education 教育
Education is one of the key words of our time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of adverse circumstances, deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states "invest" in institutions of learning to get back "interest" in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by textbooks -- those purchasable wells of wisdom-what would civilization be like without its benefits?
So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births -- but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on "facts and figures" and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of "college" imaginable. Among tribal people all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is equally equipped for life.
It is the ideal condition of the "equal start" which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all. There are no "illiterates" -- if the term can be applied to peoples without a script -- while our own compulsory school attendance became law in
Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parent; therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no "juvenile delinquency". No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to "buy" an education for his child.
參考譯文
教育是我們這個時代的關鍵詞之一。我們許多人都相信，一個沒有受過教育的人，是逆境的犧牲品，被剝奪了20世紀的最優越的機會之一。現代國家深深懂得教育的重要性，對教育機構投資，收回的『利息』便是培養出大批有知識的男女青年，這些人可能成為未來的棟樑。教育，以其教學周期如此精心地安排，並以教科書 -- 那些可以買到的智慧源泉 -- 予以強化，如果不受其惠，文明將會是個什麼樣子呢？
至少，這些是可以肯定的：雖然我們還會有醫生和牧師、律師和被告、婚姻和生育，但人們的精神面貌將是另一個樣子。人們不會重視『資料和數據』，而靠好記性、實用心理學與同伴相處的能力。如果我們的教育制度仿效沒有書籍的古代教育，我們的學院將具有可以想像得出的最民主的形式了。在部落中，通過傳統繼承的知識為所有人共享，並傳授給部落中的每一個成員。從這個意義上講，人人受到的有關生活本領的教育是相等的。
這就是我們最進步的現代教育試圖恢復的「平等起步」的理想狀況。在原始文化中，尋求和接受傳統教育的義務對全民都有約束力。因而沒有「文盲」（如果這個字眼兒可以用於沒有文字的民族的話）。而我們的義務教育成為法律在德國是在1642年，在法國是在1806年，在英國是在1876年。今天，在許多「文明」國家裡，義務教育迄今尚未實行。這說明，經過了多麼漫長的時間之後，我們才認識到，有必要確保我們的孩子享有多少個世紀以來由『少數幸運者』所積累起來的知識。
荒涼地區的教育不是錢的問題，所有的人都享有平等起步的權利。那裡沒有我們今天社會中的匆忙生活，而匆忙的生活常常妨礙個性的全面發展。荒涼地區的孩子無時無刻不在父母關懷下成長。因此，叢林和荒涼地區不知道什麼叫「青少年犯罪」。人們沒有必要離家謀生，所以不會產生孩子無人管的問題，也不存在父親無力為孩子支付教育費用而犯難的問題。
Lesson 34 Adolescence 青春期
Parents are often upset when their children praise the homes of their friends and regard it as a slur on their own cooking, or cleaning, or furniture, and often are foolish enough to let the adolescents see that they are annoyed. They may even accuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about the friends" parents. Such loss of dignity and descent into childish behaviour on the part to their parents about the place or people they visit. Before very long the parents will be complaining that the child is so secretive and never tells them anything, but they seldom realize that they have brought this on themselves.
Disillusionment with the parents, however good and adequate they may be both as parents and as individuals, is to some degree inevitable. Most children have such a high ideal of their parents, unless the parents themselves have been unsatisfactory, that it can hardly hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation. Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation. Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they realized how much belief their children usually have in their character and infallibility, and how much this faith means to a child. If parents were prepared for this adolescent reaction, and realized that it was a sign that the child was growing up and developing valuable powers of observation and independent judgment, they would not be so hurt, and therefore would not drive the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.
The adolescent, with his passion for sincerity, always respects a parent who admits that he is wrong, or ignorant, or even that he has been unfair or unjust. What the child cannot forgive is the parent"s refusal to admit these charges if the child knows them to be true.
Victorian parents believed that they kept their dignity by retreating behind an unreasoning authoritarian attitude; in fact they did nothing of the kind, but children were then too cowed to let them know how they really felt. Today we tend to go to the other extreme, but on the whole this is a healthier attitude both for the child and the parent. It is always wiser and safer to face up to reality, however painful it may be at the moment.
參考譯文
當家長聽到孩子讚揚自己朋友的家時，總感到不安，認為孩子在嫌棄自家的飯菜、衛生、或傢具，而且愚蠢地讓孩子看出自己的煩惱。他們甚至責備孩子不忠，或者講些小朋友家長的壞話。家長這種有失身份和孩子氣的作法使青春期的孩子大為震驚，決心以後不再向父母講述去過的地方和見過的人。不要很久,家長就會抱怨孩子守口如瓶，什麼事也不告訴他們，殊不知這是他們自找的。
不管家長的人品有多麼好，作為父母有多麼合格，孩子們對家長幻想的破滅在某種程度上是不可避免的。除非父母自身不能令人滿意，大多數孩子對父母估價過高，以致這種估價很難指望經受住現實的考驗。如果家長意識到孩子們通常是多麼相信家長的品行和絕對正確，意識到孩子們的這種信念會對孩子產生多麼大的影響，那麼家長會大為吃驚和深受感動的。如果家長對青少年的這種反應有思想準備，並且意識到這象徵著孩子們正在成熟和正在發展寶貴的觀察力、獨立判斷力，那麼他們就不會那樣傷心，也就不會由於怨恨和抵觸這種反應，而把孩子推到自己的對立面去。
青少年酷愛真誠，對於能夠承認錯誤或無知、甚至承認自己做得不分平或不公正的父母，他們總是尊敬的，孩子們所不能原諒的是：父母錯了，孩子們也看出來了，可是做父母的還不肯承認。
維多利亞時代的父母認為，他們可靠無理的權威氣派來維護自己的尊嚴，實際上那是根本不行的。孩子們只不過被嚇得不敢讓父母知道自己的想法罷了。雖然現在我們傾向於走向另一個極端，但總地來看，孩子和家長雙方態度都比較端正。遇事採取面對現實的態度總是比較明智和穩妥的，儘管會有暫時的痛苦。
Lesson 35 Space odyssey 太空探索
The Moon is likely to become the industrial hub of the Solar System, supplying the rocket fuels fro its ships, easily obtainable from the lunar rocks in the from of liquid oxygen. The reason lies in its gravity. Because the Moon has only an eightieth of the Earth"s mass, it requires 97 per cent less energy to travel the quarter of a million miles from the Moon to Earth-orbit than the 200 mile-journey from Earth"s surface into orbit!
This may sound fantastic, but it is easily calculated. To escape from the Earth in a rocket, one must travel at seven miles per second. The comparable speed from the Moon is only 1.5 miles per second. Because the gravity on the Moon"s surface is only a sixth of Earth"s (remember how easily the Apollo astronauts bounded along), it takes much less energy to accelerate to that 1.5 miles per second than it does on Earth. Moon-dwellers will be able to fly in space at only three per cent of the cost of similar journeys by their terrestrial dwellers will be able to fly in space at only three per cent of the cost of similar journeys by their terrestrial cousins.
Arthur C. Clark once suggested a revolutionary idea passes through three phases:
1 "It"s impossible -- don"t waste my time."
2 "It"s possible, but not worth doing."
3 "I said it was a good idea all along."
The idea of colonising Mars -- a world 160 times more distant time the Moon -- will move decisively from the second phase to the third, when a significant number of people are living permanently in space. Mars has an extraordinary fascination for would-be voyagers.
參考譯文
月球很可能成為太陽系的工業中心。從月球上的岩石中很容易提煉出液態氧，作為航天飛船的燃料。其原因在於月球的重力。因為月球的重只有地球的1/8，因此，從月球到地球的25萬英里所消耗的能量要比從地球表面進入地球軌道的200英里所耗能量少97%。
這點聽起來令人難以置信，但卻很容易計算出來。要乘坐一枚火箭飛離地球，火箭的速度要達到每秒7英里，而從月球出發的相應速度史是每秒1.5英里。由於月球表面的重力僅是地球表面的1/6 -- 還記得阿波羅飛船中的宇航員累松地跳躍 -- 在月球上加速到每秒1.5英里比在地球上所用能源要少得多。月球居民在太空遨遊的費用僅是地球上朋友飛越同樣路所需費用的3%。
亞瑟.C.克拉克曾提議，一種創新的想法要經過以下3個階段：
1 「根本不可能，不要浪費我的時間。」
2 「可能，但不值得做。」
3 「我一直說這是個好想法。」
如果有相當數量的人永久性地住在太空，征服火星的計劃 -- 一個比月球遠160倍的星球 -- 就可以明確地從第2階段進入第3階段。火星對未來的星際旅客說有著特殊的魅力。美國、俄羅斯和歐洲都有許多熱心此項事業的人 -- 其中的不少是認真和資深的科學家，他們一直夢想著把人送上火星。他們的目標是可以理解的。火星是太陽系裡與地球最接近的一顆行星。這是一個紅色沙漠的世界（因而得名：紅色行星），無雲的天空，兇猛的沙暴，比大峽谷還寬的裂縫，起碼有一座山有珠穆朗瑪峰的近兩倍高。看起來，它很合適居住。
Lesson 36 The cost of government 政府的開支
If a nation is essentially disunited, it is left to the government to hold it together. This increases the expense of government, and reduces correspondingly the amount of economic resources that could be used for developing the country. And it should not be forgotten how small those resources are in a poor and backward country. Where the cost of government is high, resources for development are correspondingly low.
This may be illustrated by comparing the position of a nation with that of a private business enterprise. An enterprise has to incur certain costs and expenses in order to stay in business. For our purposes, we are concerned only with one kind of cost -- the cost of managing and administering the business. Such administrative overheads in a business are analogous to the cost of government in a nation. The administrative overheads of a business are low to the extent that everyone working in the business can be trusted to behave in a way that best promotes the interests of the firm. If they can each be trusted to take such responsibilities. and to exercise such initiative as falls within their sphere, then administrative overheads will be low. It will be low because it will be necessary to have only one man looking after each job, then the business will require armies of administrators, checkers, and foremen and administrative overheads will rise correspondingly. As administrative overheads rise, so the earnings of the business after meeting he expense of administration, will fall; and the business will have less money to distribute as dividends or invest directly in its future progress and development.
It is precisely the same with a nation. To the extent that the people can be relied upon to behave in a loyal and responsible manner, the government does not require armies of police and civil servants to keep them in order. But if a nation is disunited, the government cannot be sure that the actions of the people will be in the interests of the nation; and it will have to watch, check, and control the people accordingly. A disunited nation therefore has to incur unduly high costs of government.
參考譯文
如果一個國家實際上處於分裂狀態，使之聯合起來就是政府的事了。這樣的一來就增加了政府的開支，從而相應地減少了可以用來了展國家的那部分經濟資源。不應忘記，在一個貧窮落後的國家裡，那部分財力是很有限的。凡是政府管理費用高的地方，用於發展國家經濟的資金就會相應地減少。
把國家的狀況同私人企業的狀況加以比較，就可以看清這個問題。一個企業為了繼續經營，不得不支出一定的費用和開銷。就我們的目的而言，我們只關心一種費用 -- 企業行政管理費。一家企業的行政管理開支類似於一個國家的政府管理所用的開支。如果企業中的每個人都在真誠地為提高企業利潤而工作，那麼企業的管理費用就會降低到相應的程度。如果企業的每個人都信得過，人人都認真負責，在各自的工作範圍內發揮主動性，行政管理費用就會降低。行政管理費用的降低的原因是：每項工作只需要一個人去完成，用不著另外再有一個人檢查工作。督促他遵守章程，或向有關人士彙報他的工作。但是，如果企業中誰也不可信賴會對工作盡忠守職，那公企業就會需大批的管理人員、檢查人員和帶班人員，管理費用就會相應在增加。管理費用增加了，那麼在扣除管理費用後，企業的收入就降低了。因此用於分紅的金額就用於將來開拓和發展的投資就相應地減少了。
一個國家的情況也完全相同。如果人民忠於職守，舉止規矩，能受到政府的信賴，那麼政府就不需要大批的警察和文職人員運去促使人民遵紀守法。但是，如果一個國家處於分裂狀態，政府不能相信人民的行動有利於國家，那麼政府就不得不對人民進行監督、檢查和控制。因此，一個處於分裂的國家必須要支付過高的行政管理費用。
Lesson 37 The process of ageing 衰老過程
At the age of twelve years, the human body is at its most vigorous. It has yet to reach its full size and strength, and its owner his or her full intelligence; but at this age the likelihood of death is least. Earlier, we were infants and young children, and consequently more vulnerable; later, we shall undergo a progressive loss of our vigour and resistance which, though imperceptible at first, will finally become so steep that we can live no longer, however well we look after ourselves, and however well society, and our doctors, look after us. This decline in vigour with the passing of time is called ageing. It is one of the most unpleasant discoveries which we all make that we must decline in this way, that if we escape wars, accidents and disease we shall eventually "die of old age", and that this happens at a rate which differs little from person to person, so that there are heavy odds in favour of our dying between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. Some of us will die sooner, a few will live longer -- on into a ninth or tenth decade. But the chances are against it, and there is a virtual limit on how long we can hope to remain alive, however lucky and robust we are.
Normal people tend to forget this process unless and until they are reminded of it. We are so familiar with the fact that man ages, that people have for years assumed that the process of losing vigour with time, of becoming more likely to die the older we get, was something self-evident, like the cooling of a hot kettle or the wearing-out of a pair of shoes. They have also assumed that all animals, and probably other organisms such as trees, or even the universe itself, must in the nature of things "wear out". Most animals we commonly observe do in fact age as we do, if given the chance to live long enough; and mechanical systems like a wound watch, or the sun, do in fact run out of energy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (whether the whole universe does so is a moot point at present). But these are not analogous to what happens when man ages. A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound. An old watch, by contrast, becomes so worn and unreliable that it eventually is not worth mending. But a watch could never repair itself -- it does not consist of living parts, only of metal, which wears away by friction. We could, at one time, repair ourselves --well enough, at least, to overcome all but the most instantly fatal illnesses and accidents. Between twelve and eighty years we gradually lose this power; an illness which at twelve would knock us over, at eighty can knock us out, and another 700 for the survivors to be reduced by half again.
參考譯文
人體在12歲時是生命力最旺盛的時期。雖然這個時期人的身材、體力和智力還有待發展和完善，但在這個年齡死亡的可能性最小。再早一些，我們是幼兒和小孩子，身體較脆弱；再遲一些，我們就要經歷生命力和抵抗力逐步衰退的過程。雖然這個過程起初難以覺察，但最終會急轉直下，不管我們怎樣精心照料我們自己，不管社會和醫生怎樣對我們進行精心照顧，我們也無法再活下去了。生命力隨著時間的流失而衰退叫做衰老。人類發現的最不愉快的一個事實是：人必然會衰老。既使我們能避開戰爭、意外的事故和各種疾病，我們最終也會「老死」；衰老的速度在人與人之間相差甚微，我們最可能死亡的年齡在65至80歲之間，有些人會死得早一些，少數人壽命會長一些 -- 活到八十幾歲或九十幾歲，但這種可能性很小。不管我們多麼幸運，多麼健壯，我們所希望的長壽實際上是有限度的。
衰老的過程，不經提起，正常人容易忘記；一經提醒，才會記起。我們對人總是要衰老的現象並不陌生，多年來就已認識到。生命隨著時間流失而喪失活力，人隨著年齡的增長而接近死亡，這是不言而喻的，就像一壺熱水遲早會涼不來，一雙鞋漸漸會磨破一樣。人們不但認識到所有的動物，大概也認識到所有的有機物。如樹木，甚至宇宙本身，從事物的本質上來說都會「磨損掉」。我們通常看到的大多數動物，即使能讓它們活得足夠長久的話，也會像我們一樣衰老的。像上緊發條的手錶那樣的機械裝置，或太陽，也都會消耗完其能量（整個宇宙否如此，目前沿有爭論）。不過，這些衰老的情況同人並不相似。手錶停了依然是只手錶，還可以重上好發條。然而一隻老掉牙的手錶，磨損太厲害，老得一點兒不準了，最終不值得修理了。但是，手表決不會自行修理，它不是由有生命的部件組成，而是由金屬組成，而金屬可以隨著磨擦而磨損殆盡。而我們人，在一定時間內是可以自行修復的，除了暴病死或意外事故外，至少足以克服一切疾病和事故。在12歲至80歲之間，我們逐漸喪失這種能力。能使我們在12歲時病倒的疾病，到了80歲可能會使我們一厥不振而進入墳墓。假如我們能保持12歲時的旺盛生命力，那麼我們當中的一半人過700年才會死去，剩下的一半人再過700年，才會又減少一半。
Lesson 38 Water and the traveller 水和旅行者
Contamination of water supplies is usually due to poor sanitation close to water sources, sewage disposal into the sources themselves, leakage of sewage into distribution systems or contamination with industrial or farm waste. Even if a piped water supply is safe at its source, it is not always safe by the time it reaches the tap. Intermittent tap-water supplies should be regarded as particularly suspect.
Travellers on short trips to areas with water supplies of uncertain quality should avoid drinking tap-water, or untreated water from any other source. It is best to hot drinks, bottled or canned drinks of well-known brand names -- international standards of water treatment are usually followed at bottling plants. Carbonated drinks are acidic, and slightly safer. Make sure that all bottles are opened in your presence, and that their rims are clean and dry.
Boiling is always a good way of treating water. Some hotels supply boiled water on request and this can be used for drinking, or for brushing teeth. Portable boiling elements that can boil small quantities of water are useful when the right voltage of electricity is available. Refuse politely any cold drink from an unknown source.
Ice is only as safe as the water from which it is made, and should not be put in drinks unless it is known to be safe. Drink can be cooled by placing them on ice tather than adding ice to them.
Alcohol may be a medical disinfectant, but should not be relied upon to sterilize water. Ethanol is more effective at a concentration of 50-70 per cent; below 20 per cent, its bactericidal action is negligible. Spirits labelled 95 proof contain only about 47 per cent alcohol. Beware of methylated alcohol, which is very poisonous, and should never be added to drinking water.
If no other safe supply can be obtained, tap water that is too hot to touch can be left to cool and is generally safe to drink. Those planning a trip to remote areas, or intending to live in countries where drinking water is not readily available, should know about the various possible methods for making water safe.
參考譯文
水源的污染通常是由於接近水源的地方衛條件太差而造成的：污水排入水源，污水滲入給水系統或工農業污水造成污染。即使管道供水系統在水源處安全的，等水到達龍頭時就不一定總是安全的了。斷斷續續的水管應該被視為是非常可疑的。
短途旅行到水質不保險的地區時，應避免飲用水龍頭的水或未經處理任何其他來源的水。最好僅飲用開水，名牌瓶裝或罐裝水 -- 裝瓶廠通常遵循國際水處理的標準。碳酸飲料是酸性的，就更安全一些。確保瓶子是當你面開啟的，瓶口清潔乾燥。
燒開一直是水處理的一種好辦法。有的酒店根據要求可提供開水，這些開水可用於飲用和刷牙。如果有相配的電壓，可以煮少量水的攜帶型熱水裝置是有用的。應謝絕任何不明來源的冷飲。
冰塊只有當製造冰塊的水安全時才是保險的，只有知道冰塊安全時才能加入飲料。可以把飲料置於冰塊之上來冷卻，而不是把冰塊加進飲料之中。
酒精可能是醫學上的消毒劑，但決不可用來消毒飲用水。乙醇的濃度為50%至70%時比較有效，濃度低於20%時，殺菌能力基本上就不存在了。強度標為95的酒中含有47%的酒精。要提防甲基化酒精，那是劇毒的，永遠不能摻入飲用水。
如果沒有其他安全的飲用水，水管中流出的燙手的水可以留下來冷卻。這種水一般是安全的。那些計划去偏遠地區旅行，或在飲用水不現成的國家居住的人，應該知道如何使水適於飲用的各種辦法。
Lesson 39 What every writer wants 作家之所需
I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess at once that they have little idea where they the are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration; all admit radical changes of destination once the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about
This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please.
A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.
參考譯文
我的認識的作家寥寥無幾，然而凡是我所認識和尊敬的作家，都立即承認在他們動筆時，不清楚要寫什麼，怎麼寫。他們心中只在一個或兩個角色。他們處於急切不安的狀態，而被當作是靈感。他們無不承認，一旦「旅程」開始，「目的地」常有急劇的變化。據我所知，有位作家花了9個月的時間寫了一部關克什米爾的小說，後來卻把整個故事背景換成了蘇格蘭高地。我從未聽說過任何一位作家像我們在學校那樣，動筆前先列什麼提綱。作家在剪裁修改、構思時間、穿插情節、以至從頭重寫的過程中，會領悟到素材中很多東西是他剛動筆時所未意識到的。這種有機的加工過程往往達到不尋常自我發現的境界，具有難以言表的構思魅力。一個朦朧的形象出現在作家的腦海里，他左添一筆，右添一筆，形象反而消逝了；可是，好像還有什麼東西存在著，不把它捕捉到，作家是不會罷休的。有時，一個作家一本書寫完了，但興奮仍不消散。我聽說一些作家，除了自己的書外，別的書一概不讀，猶如希臘神話中那位漂亮的少年，站在鏡前，不能辨認自身的真面目。由於這個原因，作家喋喋不休地談論自己的書，挖掘其隱晦的含義，詢問周圍人的反應。作家如此行事當然被人誤解。他還不如給人講一個犯罪案件或一個戀愛故事。順便說一句，他也是個不可饒恕的令人厭煩的人。
這種企圖消除自己和讀者之間距離的作法，企圖用不了解自己的人的觀點來研究自己塑造的形象的作法，會導致作家的毀滅，因為他已經開始為取悅他人而寫作了。
一兩年前，一位年輕的英國作家發表了中肯的看法。他說，初稿是才華，以後各稿是藝術。也是由於這個原因，作家同任何藝術家一樣，找不到可休息的場所，找不到夥伴和活動使自己得到安逸。任何局外人的判斷也比不上他內心的正確判斷。一旦作家從內心的紊亂中理出頭緒，就應該按任何評論家想像不到的無情規範約束自己寫作；當他沽名釣譽時，他就脫離了自我生活，脫離了對自己靈魂最深處世界的探索。
Lesson 40 Waves 海浪
Waves are the children of the struggle between ocean and atmosphere, the ongoing signatures of infinity. Rays from the sun excite and energize the atmosphere of the earth, awakening it to flow, to movement, to rhythm, to life. The wind then speaks the message of the sun to the sea and the sea transmits it on through waves -- an ancient, exquisite, powerful message.
These ocean waves are among the earth"s most complicated natural phenomena. The basic features include a crest (the highest point of the wave), a trough (the lowest point), a height (the vertical distance from the trough to the crest), a wave length (the horizontal distance between two wave crests), and a period (which is the time it takes a wave crest to travel one wave length).
Although an ocean wave gives the impression of a wall of water moving in your direction, in actuality waves move through the water leaving the water about where it was. If the water was moving with the wave, the ocean and everything on it would be racing in to the shore with obviously catastrophic results.
An ocean wave passing through deep water causes a particle on the surface to move in a roughly circular orbit, drawing the particle first towards the advancing wave, then up into the wave, then forward with it and then -- as the wave leaves the particles behind -- back to its starting point again.
From both maturity to death, a wave is subject to the same laws as any other "living" thing. For a time it assumes a miraculous individuality that, in the end, is reabsorbed into the great ocean of life.
The undulating waves of the open sea are generated by three natural causes: wind, earth movements or tremors, and the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun. Once waves have been generated, gravity is the force that drives them in a continual attempt to restore the ocean surface to a flat plain.
參考譯文
海浪是大海和空氣相鬥的產物，無限的一種不間斷的標誌。太陽光刺激了地球的大氣層，並給予它能量；陽光使空氣開始流動，產生節奏，獲得生命。然後，風把太陽的住處帶給了大海，海洋用波浪的形式傳遞這個信息 -- 一個源過流長、高雅而有力的信息。
這些海浪屬於地球上最複雜的自然現象。它們的基本特徵包括浪峰（波浪的最高點）、波谷（最低點）、浪高（從波谷到浪峰的垂直距離）、波長（兩個浪峰間的水平距離）和周期（海峰走過一個波長所需的時間）。雖然，海浪給人的印象是一堵由水組成的牆向你壓過來，而實際上，浪從水中移過，而水則留在原處。如果水和浪一起移動的話，那麼大海和海里所有的東西就會向岸邊疾涌過來，帶來明顯的災難性後果。
穿過深水的海浪使水面上的一個微粒按照一種近乎圓形的軌道移動，先把微粒拉向前移動的海浪，然後推上波浪，隨著波浪移動，然後 -- 當波浪把微粒留在身後時 -- 又回到出發點。
從成熟到消亡，波浪和其他任何「活動中」的東西一樣，都受制於共同的法則。一度它獲得非凡的個性，但最終又被重新融進生命的大洋。
公海上起伏的波浪是由3個自然因素構成的：風、地球的運動或震顫和月亮、太陽的引力。一旦波浪形成，地球引力是持續不斷企圖使海面復原為平面的力量。
Lesson 41 Training elephants 訓練大象
Two main techniques have been used for training elephants, which we may respectively the tough and the gentle. The former method simply consists of setting an elephant to work and beating him until he does what is expected of him. Apart from moral considerations this is a stupid method of training, for it produces a resentful animal who at a later stage may well turn man-killer. The gentle method requires more patience in the early stages, but produces a cheerful, good-tempered elephant who will give many years of loyal service.
The first essential in elephant training is to assign to the animal a single mahout who will be entirely responsible for the job. Elephants like to have one master just as dogs do, and are capable of a considerable degree of personal affection. There are even stories of half-trained elephant calves who have refused to feed and pined to death when by some unavoidable circumstance they have been deprived of their own trainer. Such extreme cases must probably be taken with a grain of salt, but they do underline the general principle that the relationship between elephant and mahout is the key to successful training.
The most economical age to capture an elephant for training is between fifteen and twenty years, for it is then almost ready to undertake heavy work and can begin to earn its keep straight away. But animals of this age do not easily become subservient to man, and a very time man, and a very firm hand must be employed in the early stages. The captive elephant, still roped to a tree, plunges and screams every time a man approaches, and for several days will probably refuse all food through anger and fear. Sometimes a tame elephant is tethered nearby to give the wild one confidence, and in most cases the captive gradually quietens down and begins to accept its food. The next stage is to get the elephant to the training establishment, a ticklish business which is achieved with the aid of two tame elephants roped to the captive on either side.
When several elephants are being trained at one time, it is customary for the new arrival to be placed between the stalls of two captives whose training is already well advanced. It is then left completely undisturbed with plenty of food and water so that it can absorb the atmosphere of its new home and see that nothing particularly alarming is happening to its companions. When it is eating normally, its own training begins. The trainer stands in front of the elephant holding a long stick with a sharp metal point. Two assistants, mounted on tame elephants, control the captive from either side, while others rub their hands over his skin to the accompaniment of a monotonous and soothing chant. This is supposed to induce pleasurable sensations in the elephant, and its effects are reinforced by the use of endearing epithets. The elephant is not son", or "ho! my father", or "my mother", according to the age and sex of the captive. The elephant is not immediately susceptible to such blandishments, however, and usually lashes fiercely with its trunk in all directions. These movements are controlled by the trainer with the metal-pointed stick, and the trunk eventually becomes so sore that the elephant curls it up and seldom afterwards uses it for offensive purposes.
參考譯文
馴象有兩種主要的方法，我們分別稱之為強硬法和溫柔法。強硬法就是驅象去幹活，把它打順從為止。且不說道義問題，這本身就是一種愚蠢的訓練方法，因為這種方法訓練會使動物反感，在以後某個時期可能會變成傷人的動物。溫柔法要求在最初階段保持較大的耐心，但這種方法可以訓練出性情愉快、脾氣溫順，能忠實為人服務多年的大象。
馴象中至關生要的是指派一名專門的馴象員，全面負責這項工作。大象和狗一樣，喜歡有一個專一的主人，而且會對主人產生相當深厚的私人感情。甚至有這樣的故事：訓練了一半的小象，由於不可避免的情況與他們的主人分離後，竟拒絕吃食，消瘦至死。這種極端的事例雖不可全信，但強調了一項基本原則，象和馴象員之間的關係是馴象成功與否的關健。
捕捉15至20歲之間年齡的大象進行馴象最為經濟。 這個年齡的象差不多已能幹重活，可以很快掙回飼養它的開支。但這個年齡的象不易馴服，因此開始階段需要有一位強有力的老手。捕來拴在樹上的大象，每當有人走近它時，就會向前猛衝並發出尖叫，甚至一連幾於都由於憤怒和恐懼而拒絕進食。有時，把一頭已馴服的象拴在旁邊能給野象以信心。在大多數情況下，剛博來的象會慢慢靜下來，接著開始吃食。下一步就是把象帶到訓練場所，這是一件棘手的事，需要在它兩側拴上兩頭馴服的大象才能完成。
幾隻象同時訓練時，通常是把新到的安置在兩頭訓練得很好的大象的象廄中間，然後給它以充足的食物和水，一定不要驚擾它，以便讓他能適應新居的氣氛，並且看到自己的同伴身上沒有發生讓自己擔驚受怕的事。當它進食正常了，訓練就開始。馴練員手持一根有鋒利金屬尖頭的長棒，站在象前。兩位助手騎在馴服的象的背上，從兩側控制新捕的象，其他人唱著單調的歌聲用手撫摸象的皮膚。據說這是為了使象產生愉快的感覺，為了加強這種效果，人閃還按象的年齡性別，給以親切的外號，如「嗬！我的孩子」、「嗬！我的爸爸」、「嗬！我的媽媽」。然而大象不會立刻被這些討好的括感動，而往往是用鼻子朝各個方向猛烈地甩動。訓練員要用有鋒利金屬尖的長棒控制它的這種舉動，象鼻子最後疼得卷了起來，以後它就很少用鼻子去進攻了。
Lesson 42 Recording an earthquake 記錄地震
An earthquake comes like a thief in the night, without warning. It was necessary, therefore, to invent instruments that neither slumbered nor slept. Some devices were quite simple. One, for instance, consisted of rods of various lengths and thicknesses with would stand up end like ninepins. When a shock came, it shook the rigid table upon which these stood. If it were gentle, only the more unstable rods fell. If it were severe, they all fell. Thus the rods, by falling, and by the direction in which they fell, recorded for the severe, they all fell. Thus the rods, by falling, and by the direction in which they fell, recorded for the slumbering scientist the strength of a shock that was too weak to waken him, and the direction from which it came.
But instruments far more deliecate than that were needed if any really serious advance was to be made. The ideal to be aimed at was to devise an instrument that could record with a pen on paper, the movements of the ground or of the table as the quake passed by. While I write my pen moves, but the paper keeps still. With practice, no doubt, I could in time learn to write by holding the pen still while the paper moved. That sounds a silly suggestion, but that was precisely the idea adopted in some of the early instruments (seismometers) for recording earthquake waves. But when table, penholder and paper are all moving, how is it possible to write legibly? The key to a solution of that problem lay in an everyday observation. Why does a person standing in a bus or train tend to fall when a sudden start is made? It is because his feet move on , but his head stays still. A simple experiment will help us a little further. Tie a heavy weight at the end of a long piece of string. With the hand to and fro and around but not up and string so that the weight nearly touches the ground. Now move the hand to and fro and around but not up and down. It will be found that the weight a piece of string. With the hand held high in the air, hold the string so that the weight nearly touches the ground. Now move the hand to and fro and around but not up and down. It will be found that ten weight moves but slightly or not at all. Imagine an earthquake shock shaking the floor, the paper, you and your hand. In the midst of all this movement, the weight and the pen would be still. But as the paper moved from side to side under the pen point, its movement would be recorded in ink upon its surface. It was upon this principle that the first instruments were made, but while the drum was being shaken, the line that the pen was drawing wriggled from side to side. The apparatus thus described, however, records only the horizontal component of the wave movement, which is, in fact, much more complicated. If we could actually see the path described by a particle, such as a sand grain in the rock, it would be more like that of a bluebottle path described by a particle, such as a sand grain in the rock, it would be more like that of a bluebottle buzzing round the room; it would be up and down, to and fro and from side to side. Instruments have been devised and can be so placed that all three elements can be recorded in different graphs.
When the instrument is situated at more than 700 miles from the earthquake centre, the graphic record shows three waves arriving one after at short intervals. The first records the arrival of longitudinal vibrations. The second marks the arrival of transverse vibrations which travel more slowly and arrive several minutes after the first. These two have travelled through the earth. It was from the study of these that so much was learnt about the interior of the earth. The third, or main. The third, or main wave, is the slowest and has travelled round the earth through the surface rocks.
參考譯文
地震就像夜間的小偷，不打招呼就來了。因此，有必要發明一種儀器，既不打盹兒，也不睡覺。有些裝置非常簡單。例如，有一種裝置是由一些長短、粗細不同的木棒組成，就像九柱戲的木棒一樣堅立著，一旦有地震，就會震動豎立在堅硬的桌上的木棒。如果地震輕微，只有不穩定的木棒倒下；如果地震劇烈，所有的木棒都會例下。由於地震太弱而未驚醒科學家時，木棒倒下的多少和倒下的方向就為科學家記錄下了地震的強度和地震方向。
但是，如果要取得真正重大的進展，需要有比這種裝置精細得多的儀器。理想的目標是設計出這樣一種儀器：當地震發生時，它能用筆在紙上記錄下大地和桌子運動情況。我寫字時，筆是移動的，紙是靜止的。毫無疑問，經過練習，我最終能夠學會筆不動而紙動來寫字。這聽起來似乎是一種愚蠢的想法，但是早期記錄地震波的儀器（地震儀）正是採用了這中思路。可是，當桌子、夾筆裝置、紙都在移動時，怎麼能書寫得清楚呢？可以從我們的日常生活觀察中找到這個問題的答案。一個站在公共汽車或火車上，當車突然開動時，他為什麼會傾倒呢？這是因為他的腳動了，而他的頭保持著靜止。再做一個簡單的實驗可以幫助我們進一步理解這個問題。把一個生物拴在一根長繩子的一端，把手高高舉在空中握住繩子，讓重物幾乎接觸地面。然後把手前後左右以及旋轉擺動，但不要上下擺動。結果會發現，重物是動了，但動得很小，甚至沒動。假定把一支筆拴在重物上，筆尖落在地板上的一張紙上，假定地震發生了，地板、紙、你和你的手都會動，重物和筆卻不動。由於紙在筆下來回運動，紙的表面就會用墨水記錄下地板運動的情況。根據這一原理，製造出了最初的地震儀器，但是紙是卷在慢慢放置的圓筒上的。只要一切都是靜止的，筆就會划出一條直線；但是，圓筒受到震動，筆所畫出的線就會就會左右擺動。然而，這裡所說的儀器記錄下來的只是地震波運動中的水平部份，地震波的運動實際比這要複雜得多。假如我們真能看到諸如岩石中一個沙粒子的運動軌跡，那就像一隻嗡嗡叫的綠頭蒼蠅在屋內飛行的軌跡，呈現出上上下下、來來回回、左左右右3種性質的運動。已經設計出了一些儀器，它按照一定的安放方式就可測繪出這三種運動的曲線圖。
如果把這種儀器安裝在距震源700多英里遠的地方，曲線記錄就能顯示出前後相同的這3種地震波。首先記錄下的是縱向波的到達；然後記錄下的是橫向波的到達，橫向波比縱向波傳播得慢，在縱向波到過幾分鐘後能到達。這珍兩種波都是穿過地球而來的。正是從這兩種波中的研究中，我們可以了解到地球內部的許多情況。第三種波，即主波，是最慢的，是圍繞地球通過表面岩石傳來的。
Lesson 43 Are there strangers in space? 宇宙中有外星人嗎？
We must conclude from the work of those who have studied the origin of life, that given a planet only approximately like our own, life is almost certain to start. Of all the planets in our solar system, we ware now pretty certain the Earth is the only one on which life can survive. Mars is too dry and poor in oxygen, Venus far too hot, and so is Mercury, and the outer planets have temperatures near absolute zero and hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. But other suns, start as the astronomers call them, are bound to have planets like our own, and as is the number of stars in the universe is so vast, this possibility becomes virtual certainty. There are one hundred thousand million starts in our own Milky Way alone, and then there are exist is now estimated at about 300 million million.
Although perhaps only 1 per cent of the life that has started somewhere will develop into highly complex and intelligent patterns, so vast is the number of planets, that intelligent life is bound to be a natural part of the universe.
If then we are so certain that other intelligent life exists in the universe, why have we had no visitors from outer space yet? First of all, they may have come to this planet of ours thousands or millions of years ago, and found our then prevailing primitive state completely uninteresting to their own advanced knowledge. Professor Ronald Bracewell, a leading American radio astronomer, argued in Nature that such a superior civilization, on a visit to our own solar system, may have left an automatic messenger behind to await the possible awakening of an advanced civilization. Such a messenger, receiving our radio and television signals, might well re-transmit them back to its home-planet, although what impression any other civilization would thus get from us is best left unsaid.
But here we come up against the most difficult of all obstacles to contact with people on other planets -- the astronomical distances which separate us. As a reasonable guess, they might, on an average, be 100 light years away. (A light year is the distance which light travels at 186,000 miles per second in one year, namely 6 million million miles.) Radio waves also travel at the speed of light, and assuming such an automatic messenger picked up our first broadcasts of the 1920"s, the message to its home planet is barely halfway there. Similarly, our own present primitive chemical rockets, though good enough to orbit men, have no chance of transporting us to the nearest other star, four light years away, let alone distances of tens or hundreds of light years.
Fortunately, there is a "uniquely rational way" for us to communicate with other intelligent beings, as Walter Sullivan has put it in his excellent book, We Are not Alone. This depends on the precise radio frequency of the 21-cm wavelength, or 1420 megacycles per second. It is the natural frequency of emission of the hydrogen atoms in space and was discovered by us in 1951; it must be known to any kind of radio astronomer in the universe.
Once the existence of this wave-length had been discovered, it was not long before its use as the uniquely recognizable broadcasting frequency for interstellar communication was suggested. Without something of this kind, searching for intelligences on other planets would be like trying to meet a friend in
參考譯文
根據研究生命起源的人們所作的工作，我們必然會得出這樣的結論：如果設想有一顆行星和我們地球的情況基本相似，那幾乎肯定會產生生命。我們目前可以肯定的是，在我們太陽系的所有行星中，地球是生命能存在的唯一行星。火星太乾燥又缺氧，金星太熱，水星也一樣。除此之外，太陽系的其他行星的溫度都接近絕對零度，並圍繞著以氫氣為主的大氣層。但是，其他的太陽，既天文學家所說的恆星，肯定會有像我們地球一樣的行星。因為宇宙中恆星的數目極其龐大，所以存在著產生生命星球的這種可能性是肯定無疑的。僅我們的銀河系就有1000億顆星，況且在宇宙中還有30億個天河，即銀河系。因此，我們所知道的現有恆星數目估計約有30億X1000億顆。
雖然在已經產生生命的某個地方，可能只有1%會發展成高度複雜有智力的生命形態，但是行星的數目是那麼龐大，有智力的生命必然是宇宙的自然組成道聽部分。
既然我們如此堅信宇宙中存在著其他有智力的生命，那麼我們為什麼還未見到外層空間來訪的客人呢？首先，他們可能在幾千年前或幾百年前已來過我們地球，並且發現我們地球漢時普遍存在著的原始狀態同他們的先進的知識相比是索然無味的。美國一位重要的射電天文學家羅納德.布雷斯韋爾教授在《自然》雜誌上提出了這樣的觀點：假如有如此高級文明生命訪問了我們的太陽系，很可能會在離開太陽系時留下自動化信號裝置，等待先進文明的覺醒。這種自動化信息裝置，在接收到我們的無線電和電視信號後，完全有可能把這些信號發回到原來的行星。至於其他文明行星對我們地球會有什麼印象，還是不說為好。
然而，在和外星人聯繫中我們遇到的最大困難是分隔我們的天文距離。據合理推算，外星人離我們平均距離也有100光年之遠（1光年是光以每秒186，000英里的速度在一年內走的距離即6萬億英里）。無線電波也是以光速傳播的。假定外星人的這種自動化信息裝置接收了我們二十世紀二十年代的第一次廣播信號，那麼這個信號在發回到原來的行星途中剛剛走了一半路程。同樣，我們目前使用的原始化學火箭，雖然把人送入軌道，但尚不能把我們送到離我們最近、相距4光年的其他星球上去，更不用說幾十光年或幾百光年遠的地方了。
幸運的是，有一種我們可以和其他智力生命通迅聯繫的「唯一合理的方法」，正如活爾特.沙利方在其傑作《我們並不孤獨》中闡述的。這種通迅聯繫要靠21厘料波段，即每秒1420兆周的精確無線電頻率。這個頻率是空間氫原子釋放的自然頻率，是在1951年被人類發現的。這個頻率是宇宙中任何射電天文學家都應該熟悉的。
一旦這種波長的實際存在被發現，提出把它作為星際間唯一可辨認的廣播頻率就為期不遠了。沒有這手段，要想尋覓其他星球上的智力生命，就如同去倫敦見一位朋友，事先未約定地點，而荒唐地在街上遊逛，以期待碰巧遇上一樣。
Lesson 44 Patterns of culture 文化的模式
Custom has not commonly been regarded as a subject of great moment. The inner workings of our won brains we feel to be uniquely worthy of investigation, but custom, we have a way of thinking, is behaviour at its most commonplace. As a matter of fact, it is the other way around. Traditional custom, taken the world over, is a mass of detailed behaviour more astonishing than what any one person can ever evolve in individual actions, no matter how aberrant. Yet that is a rather trivial aspect of the matter. The fact of first-rate importance is the predominant role that custom plays in experience and in belief, and the very great varieties it may manifest.
No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking. Even in his philosophical p
The study of custom can be profitable only after certain preliminary propositions have been accepted, and some of these propositions have been violently opposed. In the first place, any scientific study requires that there be no preferential weighting of one or another of the items in the series it selects for its consideration. In all the less controversial fields, like the study of cacti or termites or the mature of nebulae, the necessary method of study is to group the relevant material and to take note of all possible variant forms and conditions. In this way, we have learned all that we know of the laws of astronomy, or of the habits of the social insects, let us say. It is only in the relevant material and to take note of all possible variant forms and conditions. In this way, we have learned all that we know of the laws of astronomy, or of the habits of the social insects, let us say. It is only in the study of man himself that the major social sciences have substituted the study of one local variation, that of Western civilization.
Anthropology was by definition impossible, as long as these distinctions between ourselves and the primitive, ourselves and the barbarian, ourselves and the pagan, held sway over people"s minds. It was necessary first to arrive at that degree of sophistication where we no longer set our own belief against our neighbour"s superstition. It was necessary to recognize that these institutions which are based on the same premises, let us say the supernatural, must be considered together, our own among the rest.
參考譯文
風俗一般未被認為是什麼重要的課題。我們覺得，只有我們大腦內部的活動情況才值得研究，至於風俗呢，只是些司空見慣的行為而已。事實小，情況正好相反。從世界範圍來看，傳統風俗是由許多細節性的習慣行為組成，它比任何一個養成的行為都更加引人注目，不管個人行為多麼異常。這只是問題的一個次要的側面。最重要的是，風俗在實踐中和信仰上所起的舉足輕重的作用，以及它所表現出來的極其豐富多採的形式。
沒有一個人是用純潔而無偏見的眼光看待世界。人們所看到的是一個受特定風俗習慣、制度和思想方式剪輯過的世界。甚至在哲學領域的探索中，人們也無法超越這此定型的框框。人們關於真與偽的概念依然和特定的傳統風俗有關。約翰.杜威曾經非常嚴肅地指出：風俗在形成個人行為方面所起的作用和一個對風俗的任何影響相比，就好像他本國語言的總辭彙量和自己咿呀學語時他家庭所接納的他的辭彙量之比。當一個人認真地研究自發形成的社會秩序時，杜威的比喻就是他實事求是觀察得來的形象化的說法。個人的生活史首先是適應他的社團世代相傳形成的生活方式和準則。從他呱呱墜地的時刻起，他所生於其中的風俗就開始塑造他的經歷和行為規範。到會說話時，他就是傳統文化塑造的一個小孩子；等他長大了，能做各種事了，他的社團的習慣就是他的習慣，他的社團的信仰就是他的信仰，他的社團不能做的事就是他不能做的事。每一個和他誕生在同一個社團中的孩子和他一樣具有相同的風俗；而在地球的另一邊。誕生在另一個社團的孩子與他就是少有相同的風俗。沒有任何一個社會問題比得上風俗的作用問題更要求我們對它理解。直到我們理解了風俗的規律性和多樣性，我們才能明白人為生活中主要的複雜現象。
只有在某些基本的主張被接受下來、同時有些主張被激烈反對時，對風俗的研究才是全面的，才會有收穫。首先，任何科學研究都要求人們對可供考慮的諸多因素不能厚此薄彼，偏向某一方面。在一切爭議較小的領域裡，如對仙人掌、白議或星雲性質的研究，應採取的研究方法是。把有關各方面的材料彙集起來，同時注意任何可能出現的異常情況和條件。例如，用這種方法，我們完全掌握了天文學的規律和昆蟲群居的習性。只是在對人類自身的研究。只要我們同原始人，我們同野蠻人，我們同異教徒之間存有的區別在人的思想中佔主工導地位，那麼人類學按其定義來說就無法存在。我們首先需要達到這樣一種成熟的程度：不用自己的信仰去反對我們鄰居的迷信。必須認識到，這些建立在相同前提基礎上的風俗，暫且可以說是超自然的東西，必須放在一起加以考慮，我們自己的風俗和其他民族的風俗都在其中。
Lesson 45 Of men and galaxies 人和星系
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.
Competition between our selves, person against person, community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.
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 conditoned by the things we believe.
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. Of making 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 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.
參考譯文
在人類早期，人類與其他生物的競爭一定是必不可少的。但這個發展階段已經結束。確實，我們今天缺乏對付原始環境的實踐和經驗。我斷定，如果沒有現代化的武器，要我和一隻熊去爭洞穴，我會出洋相的；我也相信，出洋相者並非我一人。能與競爭的生物最後只有蚊子，然而即使蚊子，也由於我們注意清理污水和噴洒化學藥品就被制服了。
然而人類之間的戰爭，人與人，團體與團體，依然在進行著，而且和以前一樣激烈。
但是，人與人的競爭並不像生物生物學中想像的那樣是一個簡單過程。它已不是為爭得物質環境所決定的東西所決定。摩洛哥和加利福尼亞是地球上緯度極其相似的兩個地方，都在各自大陸的西海岸，氣候相似，自然資源也可能相似。但是，這兩個地方目前的發展程度完全不一樣。這倒不是因為人民不同，而是由於居民頭腦中的思想不同。 這是我要強調的論點。我們環境中最重要的因素就是我們的思想狀況。
眾所周知，凡是白人侵入原始文化的地方，破壞作用最大的不是殺人的武器，而是思想。思想是危險的。宗教法庭對此是非常清楚的，因此從前它總是把異教徒燒死。的確，言論自由的概念只存在於我們現代社會中，因為當你生活在一個社團中時，社團的風俗習慣會嚴格地制約你，使你很難有破壞性的想法。只有外部的旁觀者才能灌輸危險的思想。向現代世界灌輸一種思想以便摧毀我們人類是可能的事，對此我並不懷疑。我願為你舉個例子，但幸虧我舉不出。也許提一下核彈就足以證明了。對一個沿未擁有核彈、但科技相當發達的社會，如果告訴它製造核彈的可能性，而且向它提供製造核彈的細節，那麼可以設想，這將對這個社會產生何等的影響。如果把二三十頁的情報交給1952年前後的任何一個世界強國，就足以改變世界歷史的進程。二三十頁材料中的思想和情報會便當今的世界翻天覆地，甚至毀滅這個世界。這是個離奇的想法。不過我認為這個想法是正確的。我常常試圖想像這些紙上所寫的東西，不過我是做不到的，因為我和你們大家一樣，是當今世界上的凡人。我閃不能脫離我們大腦所限定的模式去問題，我們只能稍微離開一點兒，就這也需要我們獨創的思想。
Lesson 46 Hobbies 業餘愛好
a gifted American psychologist has said, "Worry is a spasm of the emotion; the mind catches hold of something and will not let it go." It is useless to argue with the mind in this condition. The stronger the will, the more futile the task. One can only gently insinuate something else into its convulsive grasp. And if this something else is rightly chosen, if it really attended by the illumination of another field of interest, gradually, and often quite swiftly, the old undue grip relaxes and the process of recuperation and repair begins.
The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of the first importance to a public man. But this is not a business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improvised by a mere command of the will. The growth of alternative mental interests is a long process. The seeds must by carefully chosen; they must fall on good ground; they must be sedulously tended, if the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.
To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: "I will take an interest in this or that." Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet get hardly any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to hard week"s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball or Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has beer working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.
As for the unfortunate people who can command everything they want, who can gratify every caprice and lay their hands on almost every object of desire -- for them a new pleasure, a new excitement if only an additional satiation. In vain they rush frantically round from place to place, trying to escape from avenging boredom by mere clatter and motion. For them discipline in one form or another is the most hopeful path.
It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human being are divided into two classes: first, one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune"s of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and modest forms. But Fortune"s favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays, when they come, are grudged as enforced as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes, the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those work is their pleasure are those who and most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.
參考譯文
一位天才的美國心理學家曾經說過：「煩惱是感情的發作，此時腦子糾纏住了某種東西又不肯鬆手。」在這種情況下，你又和頭腦爭吵讓它鬆手是無濟於事的。這種意志越是強烈，這種嘗試越是徒勞。你只能緩和而巧紗地讓另一種東西進入痙攣僵持的頭腦中。如果選得合適，而且的確受到別的領域的情趣的啟迪，那麼漸漸地，往往也是很順利地，原先不適當的緊張就會鬆弛下來，恢復和修整的過程就會開始。
因此，對一個從事社會活動的人來說，培養一種業餘愛好和各種新的興趣是關等重要的作法。但這並非一日之功，也不是單憑一蹴而就的事。精神上多種情趣的培養是一個長期的過程。要想在需要的時候可隨手摘取充滿生機的果實，那就必然從選良種做起，然後將其植入肥沃的土地，還需要勤勉地護理。
一個人要想真正感到幸福和平安，至少應有兩三種愛好，而且都比較實際。到了晚年才開始說：「我會對這些人或那個人發生興趣」，已沒有用了。這種願望只能加劇精神緊張。一個人可能會獲得與其日常工作無關的某些課題的淵博知識，而沒有從中得到什麼實益或寬慰。干你所喜歡的事是沒有用的，你喜歡你所乾的事。泛泛地說，人可以分為3類：勞累至死的人、憂慮至死的人、無聊至死的人。對於流汗出力幹了一周苦活的體力勞動者來說，讓他們在星期六下午再踢足球或打壘球是不合適的；同樣，對於為嚴肅的公務操勞或煩惱了6天的政界人士、專業人員、商人來說，在周未再讓他們為瑣事而動腦子和憂慮也是無益的。
至於那些能任意支配一切的「可憐的人」，他們能夠恣意妄為，能染指一切追求的目標。對這種人來說，多一種新的樂趣、多一種新的刺激只是增加一分厭膩而已。他們到處奔亂跑，企圖以閑聊和亂竄來擺脫無聊對他們的報復，但這是徒勞的。對他們來說，用某種形式的紀律約束他們一下才能有希望使他們走上正道。
也可以這樣說，理智的，勤勞的、有用的人可以分為兩類：第一類是他分清工作是工作，娛樂是娛樂的人；第二類人的工作和娛樂是一回事。這兩類人當中，第一類人是大多數，他們能夠得到補償。在辦公室或工廠里長時間工作給他們帶來了酬勞，這不僅是謀生的手段，而且還帶來了尋找樂趣的強烈慾望，那怕是最簡單的、最低等的樂趣。但是，命運之神的寵兒是第二類人，他們的生活是一種自然的和諧，對他們來說，工作時間總不會太長，每天都是假日，而通常的假期來到，他們卻惋惜這假期強制打斷了他們埋頭從事的工作。然而對這兩種人來說，都需要換一換腦子，改變一下氣氛，轉移一下注意力，這是不可缺少的。說實在的，把工作當作享受的那些人最需要每隔一段時間把工作從頭腦中撇開。
Lesson 47 The great escape 大逃亡
Economy is one powerful motive for camping, since after the initial outlay upon equipment, or through hiring it, the total expense can be far less than the cost of hotels. But, contrary to a popular assumption, it is far from being the only one, or even the greatest. The man who manoeuvres carelessly into his twenty pounds" worth of space at one of
That the equipment of modern camping becomes yearly more sophisticated is an entertaining paradox for the cynic, a brighter promise for the hopeful traveler who has sworn to get away from it all. It also provides-and some student sociologist might care to base his thesis upon the phenomenon -- an escape of another kind. The modern traveller is often a man who dislikes the Splendide and the Bellavista, not because he cannot afford, or shuns their material comforts. but because he is afford of them. Affluent he may be, but he is by no means sure what to tip the doorman or the chambermaid. Master in his own house, he has little idea of when to say boo to a maitre d"hotel.
From all such fears camping releases him. Granted, a snobbery of camping itself, based upon equipment and techniques, already exists; but it is of a kind that, if he meets it, he can readily understand and deal with. There is no superior "they" in the shape of managements and hotel hierarchies to darken his holiday days.
To such motives, yet another must be added. The contemporary phenomenon of car worship is to be explained not least by the sense of independence and freedom that ownership entails. To this pleasure camping gives an exquisite refinement.
From one"s own front door to home or foreign hills or sands and back again, everything is to hand. Not only are the means of arriving at the holiday paradise entirely within one"s own command and keeping, but the means of escape from holiday hel (if the beach proves too crowded, the local weather too inclement) are there, outside -- or, as likely, part of -- the tent.
Idealists have objected to the package tour, that the traveller abroad thereby denies himself the opportunity of getting to know the people of the country visited. Insularity and self-containment, it is argued, go hand in hand. The opinion does not survive experience of a popular Continental camping place.
Whether the remarkable growth of organized camping means the eventual death of the more independent kind is hard to say. Municipalities naturally want to secure the campers" site fees and other custom. Police are wary of itinerants who cannot be traced to a recognized camp boundary or to four walls. But most probably it will all depend upon campers themselves: how many heath fires they cause; how much litter they leave; in short, whether or not they wholly alienate landowners and those who live in the countryside. Only good scouting is likely to preserve the freedoms so dear to the heart of the eternal Boy Scout.
參考譯文
圖省錢是露營的一個主要動機，因為除了開始時購置或是租借一套露營裝備外，總費用算起來要比住旅館開支少得多。但是，和一般的看法相反，這決非是僅有的，甚至不是最主要的動機。如果一位遊客漫不經心地駕車駛入歐洲無數常年營地之一，花20鎊租用一個空位，那麼他可能會碰見一輛本特利汽車，更可能會望見一輛福特.康索爾或一輛雷諾或一輛梅塞迪斯並排停放著，不過雙人自行車則不容易看到。
現代露營裝備一年比一年講究，這對那些厭世嫉俗者來說是一件有趣的自相矛盾的事情。而對於發誓用露營來擺脫煩惱的人來說，卻帶來了更光明的前景。學社會學的大學生來露營是另一種形式的擺脫現實，他們的目的很可能是根據觀察到的露營現象去寫論文。現代露營旅遊的人往往討厭在「斯普蘭迪德」和「貝拉維斯塔」這樣的大酒店，這並不是因為他們付不起錢，也不是為了躲避物質享受，而是因為他們害怕酒店。他們可能很富有，但給看門人和房間女服務叫多少小費，心中卻根本沒有數；他們在家可能是主人，但不知道什麼時候才能對酒店的經理表示不滿。
露營便人們免除了這些憂慮。誠然，露營地本身也存在以露營裝備和方式取人的勢利現象，但如果有這種情況，露營者也容易理解，知道如何對付，但在露營地里根本不會有管人的「人上人」和酒店裡的等級制度來種露營者的假日過得陰鬱低沉。
除上以動機外，還應加上一個。當前崇拜汽車現象可以用與所有權相伴的獨立和自由意識來解釋。因此開車去露營會給這種快樂意識增加一種優雅意境。
從自己的家門出發到國內國外的山區或沙灘上露營然後返回，一切都很便利。完全在自己掌握之中的私人汽車不僅是到達假日天堂的工具，而且也是逃離假日地獄（如海灘太擠，當地天氣惡劣）方便工具，因為汽車就停在帳篷外面，或者汽車本身可能就是露營帳篷的一個組成部分。
理想主義者像反對旅行社安排一切的一攬子旅遊一樣反對露營的作法，說這種封閉的作法使到國外旅遊者失去了了解所去國家人民的機會。他們爭論說，心胸狹窄和自我封閉是並存的。但這種說法在受人歡迎的歐洲露營地是站不住腳的。假日旅館有隻接待來自一個國家的旅遊者的傾向，有時會達到排他的程度。而露營駐地則相反，是高度世界性的。在大多數地中海露營地里，德國人佔優勢似乎是個普遍現象，確實如此，但並沒有特別的優待。禁止露天晒衣服、禁止用水龍頭沖洗汽車的布告和邀請露營朋友參加舞會、乘船觀光的招貼不僅印志法語、義大利語、西班牙語，而且也印成英語、德語、荷蘭語。用飯的時候，德國泡菜味和大蒜味爭相散發，法國人的早點咖啡和英國人的鹹肉煎蛋競相比美。
有組織的露營活動的明顯發展是否意味著較獨立的自我封閉式露營的最終消失，還很難說。市政當局當然希望獲得露營者的場地費和其他光臨的好處，警察則對那些查不出有固定營地或住處的遊盪者保持警惕。但最重要的或許是露營者自己，即他們引起了多少場野火，留下了多少垃圾。總之，他們是否弄得土地的主人和鄉間的居民同他們反目。只有優良的童子軍活動才能保持不朽的童子軍所衷心熱愛的各項自由。
Lesson 48 Planning a share portfolio 規劃股份投資
There is no shortage of tipsters around offering "get-rich-quick" opportunities. But if you are a serious private investor, leave the
Well, if you go to five reputable stock brokers and ask them what you should do with your money, you"re likely to get five different answers, -- even if you give all the relevant information about your age age, family, finances and what you want from your investments. Moral? There is no one "right" way to structure a portfolio. However, there are undoubtedly some wrong ways, and you can be sure that none of our five advisers would have suggested sinking all (or perhaps any) of your money into Periwigs*.
So what should you do? We"ll assume that you have sorted out the basics -- like mortgages, pensions, insurance and access to sufficient cash reserves. You should then establish your own individual aims. These are partly a matter of personal circumstances, partly a matter of psychology.
For instance, if you are older you have less time to recover from any major losses, and you may well wish to boost your pension income. So preserving your capital and generating extra income are your main priorities. In this case, you"d probably construct a portfolio with some shares (but not high risk ones), along with gilts, cash deposits, and perhaps convertibles or the income shares of split capital investment trusts.
If you are younger, and in a solid financial position, you may decide to take an aggressive approach -- but only if you"re blessed with a sanguine disposition and won"t suffer sleepless nights over share prices. If portfolio, alongside your more pedestrian in vestments. Once you have decided on your investment aims, you can then decide where to put your money. The golden rule here is spread your risk -- if you put all of your money into Periwigs International, you"re setting yourself up as a hostage to fortune.
*"Periwigs" is the name of a fictitious company.
參考譯文
我們周圍不乏情報販子，向人們提供迅速發財致富的機遇。但是，如果你是一個認真的私人投資者，就把拉斯韋加斯的心態留給那些有錢可供揮霍的人。認真的投資者需要一份正規的投資組合表 -- 一種計劃很周密的投資選擇，包括你的投資結構和明確的目標。但是, 一個股票市場的新手又如何能做到這一點呢？
如果你去向5位有威望的股票經紀人諮詢，詢問你應該如何使用你的資金，你可能得到5種不同的答覆，即便你提供了有關於你的年齡、家庭、財源和你想從投資中獲得好處的信息。這是個道德問題嗎？沒有一種完全「正確」的方法來排列這種投資組合，然而，卻毫無疑問地有幾種錯誤的方法。可以相信5位經紀人中不會有人建議你把全部（或一部份）資金投入佩里威格斯公司。
那麼你該怎麼做呢？我們假定你已把基本情況弄清楚了，如抵押貸款、養老金、保險金和動用現金儲備的機會。然後，你一定要建立起自己的目標。這裡一方面是個所處的環境，另一方面是個心理學的問題。
比如說，如果你年紀較大，你從重大投資損失中恢復過來的時間就較少，你就很希望能夠提高你的養老金收入。因此，你的首要任務就是保護你的資金和引發額外的收入。在這種情況下，你大概想制定一份包括某些股份（但不是風險很大的股份）的投資組合，同時還有高度可靠的證券、現金儲蓄，可能還有可換證券，或分割資本投資信託公司的所得股。
如果你年輕一些，並且經濟狀況可靠，你可能會採取一種積極進取的方式 -- 你必須性格開朗，不會因股票價格的浮動而夜不能眠。如果你覺得你的情況是這樣的話，你可在投資組合中包括幾項有令人陶醉的增值前景的增長股，和其他比較平淡的投資項目放在一起。一旦你的投資組合中包括幾項有令人陶醉的增值前景的增長股，和其他比較平淡的投資項目放在一起。一旦你的投資目標確立以後，你就可以決定你的錢投向何處。這裡的指導原則是：分散你的投資風險。如果你把所有資金投入佩里威格斯國際公司，你就把自己當成了命運的人質。
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