45 · 人和星系
Of Men and Galaxies
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
原稿写作 unclear bomb；上下文与译文所指为核弹，常用表达是 nuclear bomb。正文保留原稿字面，不把 unclear 当作核弹的正确拼写。
时代语境：有关蚊子已被制服、地区发展原因等判断，应放回作者的时代与论证范围阅读，不能作为今天的普遍结论。
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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 ourselves, 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 conditioned by the things we believe. Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources. Yet their present development is wholly different, not so much because of different people even, but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants. This is the point I wish to emphasize. The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture, the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas. Ideas are dangerous. The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community, you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive. It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts. I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us. I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so. Perhaps it will suffice to mention the unclear bomb. Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society, one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed. Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history. It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it. I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain, but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are. We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate, we can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original. It is this pattern in which we are all conditioned that constitutes the most essential feature of our environment.
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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 ourselves, 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 conditioned by the things we believe. Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources. Yet their present development is wholly different, not so much because of different people even, but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants. This is the point I wish to emphasize. The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture, the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas. Ideas are dangerous. The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community, you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive. It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts. I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us. I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so. Perhaps it will suffice to mention the unclear bomb. Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society, one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed. Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history. It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it. I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain, but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are. We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate, we can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original. It is this pattern in which we are all conditioned that constitutes the most essential feature of our environment.
在人类早期，与其他生物的竞争想必关系重大。不过，我们发展的这一阶段如今已经结束。事实上，现代人已缺少应付原始环境的实践和经验。我敢肯定，若没有现代武器，让我去和熊争一个洞穴，我一定会表现得很狼狈；而且我想，有这种处境的绝不只我一个。最后一种还在与人竞争的生物是蚊子。但就连蚊子，也已通过改善排水和喷洒化学药剂得到制服。
然而，人类内部的竞争仍在继续：个人与个人竞争，群体与群体竞争，激烈程度丝毫不减当年。
不过，人与人之间的竞争，并不是生物学所设想的那种简单过程。它不只是争夺自然环境所能提供的有限食物，因为决定人类演变的环境，已不再主要是自然环境。我们的环境，主要受我们所相信的观念影响。摩洛哥和加利福尼亚位于地球上纬度十分接近的地方，都在大陆西岸，气候相似，自然资源大概也颇为相近。然而，两地如今的发展却截然不同。与其说是居民本身不同，不如说是他们头脑中的思想不同。这正是我要强调的：我们所处的环境中，最重要的因素是自己的思想状态。
众所周知，白人侵入某种原始文化时，造成最大破坏的往往不是物质武器，而是思想。思想是危险的。从前宗教裁判所把异端烧死时，对这一点就十分清楚。事实上，现代社会之所以能容许言论自由这个观念存在，是因为一个人身在某个群体中，会深受其惯例约束，很难设想出真正具有破坏性的东西。只有从外部观察的人，才可能注入危险的思想。我毫不怀疑，有些思想一旦进入现代世界，就可能把我们彻底毁掉。我很想举个例子，但幸好我举不出来。也许提一下核弹就足够了。设想一个技术相当先进、却还没有核弹的社会：如果让它知道核弹有可能制造出来，再给它足够详细的资料，使它能够造出核弹，那会产生怎样的影响？在1925年前后，只要把二三十页资料交给世界上任何一个主要强国，就足以改变世界历史的进程。二三十页思想和信息，竟能让当今世界天翻地覆，甚至将其毁灭——这个想法很奇怪，但我相信它是对的。我常常试着设想，那几页上究竟会写些什么；当然，我想不出来，因为我和你们一样，都被当今世界束缚着。我们无法跳出大脑已经适应的特定模式去思考；更准确地说，只有极富独创性的人，才能稍稍越出这些模式。正是这种我们共同受到制约的思维模式，构成了我们环境中最根本的特征。
学完这一课
给一条关于过去的强推断，并说明凭什么推断。
译文依据整理稿，由本站按中文表达重新校订；解析据吴应时整理资料及首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第205—211页，2022年2月第2版。