part 19

180 It was not until many centuries later that people put this knowledge of geometry to wide use. The development of science had to wait until the days of Galileo and Newton. In the last three centuries our ways of living have been and are being deeply changed by science. These changes can be compared only with three or four great earlier steps in the history of human development. These are the birth of language, the use of fire and farming, and the invention of writing. Here is a horse walking round and round the mouth of a well. He is pulling on a strong stick of wood which is kept turning by his motion. This moves a chain with buckets on it. The motion of the chain carries buckets full of water up and takes empty buckets down. The horse has a cloth over his eyes to keep him from seeing that he is walking all the time in a circle. Would he stop if he knew he was going round in circles?

直到许多世纪以后，人们才将几何学的知识广泛应用。 科学的发展不得不等到伽利略和牛顿的时代。 在过去的三个世纪里，科学已经并正在深刻地改变着我们的生活方式。 这些变化只能与人类发展史上早期的三四个重大步骤相比。 这些是语言的诞生，火和农业的使用，以及文字的发明。 这是一匹马绕着井口走来走去。 他正拉着一根结实的木棍，他的动作使木棍不停地转动。 这是一条带桶的链条。 链条的运动使装满水的桶上升，使空桶下降。 马用一块布蒙住眼睛，不让它看到自己一直在绕着圈子走。 如果他知道自己在兜圈子，他会停下来吗？

181 Today machines are the work horses. They are doing what people gave all their days to doing in the past. Muscles get less tired in the machine age, but they often get more tired in other ways. We are finding that we need more and more time to work out the direction that our lives may best take. We need a new design for living. People carried water from springs and rivers, and pulled it up by hand from wells, long before they learned even how to turn a chain round a wheel. They put a cord round a wheel and turned the wheel round because that was less hard work than pulling full buckets up the well by hand. The steps have come slowly because each has to be taken before the next. A next step was to put another bucket on the other end of the cord so that an empty bucket went down as the full one came up.

今天，机器是驮马。 他们正在做过去人们花了一整天时间去做的事情。 在机器时代，肌肉不那么疲劳了，但它们往往在其他方面更加疲劳。 我们发现，我们需要越来越多的时间来找出我们生活的最佳方向。 我们需要一个新的生活设计。 人们从泉水和河里取水，然后用手从井里打上来，这甚至早在他们学会如何把链条绕在轮子上之前。 他们把绳子套在轮子上，然后转动轮子，因为这比用手拉满桶上来要容易得多。 这些步骤进展缓慢，因为每一步都必须先行一步。 下一步是在绳子的另一端放另一个桶，这样空桶就会往下掉，满桶就会浮上来。

182 In one of the well-known Uncle Remus stories, Br'er Rabbit, a little animal who always gets the better of the other animals living near him, gets into a well-bucket... and down he goes to the bottom of the well. As his bucket goes down, the other bucket comes up empty. "How am I ever going to get back up?" he says to himself. After a while, Br'er Fox comes along, looking for Br'er Rabbit. "What are you doing down there, Br'er Rabbit?" he says, looking down into the well-hole.

在雷姆斯叔叔的一个著名故事中，一只总是胜过住在他附近的其他动物的小动物——兔子布尔掉进了一个井桶里…… 然后他就到了井底。 当他的桶往下沉时，另一个桶就空了。 “我怎么才能站起来呢？”他自言自语道。 过了一会儿，狐狸布儿来找兔子布儿。 “兔子先生，你在下面干什么呢？”他低头看着井里说。

183 "I'm doing a little fishing. There are hundreds of fish down here." "How can I get down there?" says Br'er Fox. "Just get in the bucket, Br'er Fox. It'll bring you down in no time," says Br'er Rabbit. And as the fox goes down ... up comes Br'er Rabbit to the top in his bucket, as he wanted to do. The two buckets go by one another on the way. "Good day, Br'er Fox, some go up and some go down. A happy landing to you," says Br'er Rabbit with a smile and a wave of the hand. Such stories about animals are as old as any inventions.

183“我在钓鱼。 这里有好几百条鱼。” “我怎么下去呢？”狐狸说。 “快到桶里去吧，狐狸先生。 它很快就会把你弄下来的。”兔子说。 当狐狸往下走时…… 兔子爬上了他的桶，正如他想做的那样。 这两只水桶在路上是并排走的。 “你好，狐狸先生，有人上，有人下。 祝你着陆愉快，”兔子微笑着挥手说。 这些关于动物的故事和任何发明一样古老。

184 Here is a water wheel being turned by water power. The weight of the water falling into the buckets turns the wheel, and the wheel, in turn, turns great round stones (millstones) for crushing (milling) grain and making it into flour. Men took their grain to the miller to be made into flour. Then they took the flour away and their wives made it into bread. People did all this everywhere in the old days before the invention of steam engines and electric power.

这里有一个水车在用水力转动。 落在桶里的水的重量带动了轮子，而轮子又带动了又大又圆的石头（磨石），用来碾碎谷物，把它们磨成面粉。 人们把谷物送到磨坊去磨成面粉。 然后他们把面粉拿走，他们的妻子把它做成了面包。 在蒸汽机和电力发明之前，人们到处都这样做。

185 Here is a windmill which does the same sort of work. The wind pushes the sails of the windmill round. The work of the windmill is dependent upon wind. When there is no wind the miller cannot make flour, because there is no power to turn the millstones round. There is an old song about a miller who lived by himself and could be heard singing a song all day long. "I care for nobody, no not I And nobody cares for me." sang the miller. What he meant was that he did not love anyone and that nobody loved him. He had no hopes or fears. He did not hope for anything or fear anyone.

这里有一个风车也做同样的工作。 风推动风车的帆转动。 风车的工作依靠风。 如果没有风，磨坊主就打不出面粉，因为没有动力转动磨盘。 有一首老歌，讲的是一个磨坊主独自生活，整天都在唱歌。 “我不关心任何人，不，不，没有人关心我。” 磨坊主唱道。他的意思是他不爱任何人，也没有人爱他。 他既没有希望，也没有恐惧。他什么也不指望，也不害怕任何人。