THE SETTING OF THE STAGE

舞台的搭建

HIGH up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak.

在一个叫做Svithjod的地方的北部高地上矗立着一块岩石。它高100英里，宽也是100英里。有一个小鸟每隔1000年就飞到这块石头上打磨她的嘴。

When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.WE live under the shadow of a gigantic question mark.

当这块岩石就这样被磨平时，漫长的一天也就过完了。我们生活在这个巨大疑问的阴影中。

Who are we?

我们是谁？

Where do we come from?

我们来自何方？

Whither are we bound?

我们将去向何处？

Slowly, but with persistent courage, we have been pushing this question mark further and further towards that distant line, beyond the horizon, where we hope to find our answer.

缓慢地，但是伴随巨大的勇气，我们把这个疑问朝着终极距离越推越远，超出了地平线——我们希望在那里找到我们的答案。

We have not gone very far.

我们并没有走出多远。

We still know very little but we have reached the point where (with a fair degree of accuracy) we can guess at many things.

我们依然知道的很少，但是我们已经达到了可以猜测许多事情的那个点（具备相当程度的精确性）。

In this chapter I shall tell you how (according to our best belief) the stage was set for the first appearance of man.

在这一章中，我将会告诉你人类第一次出现的舞台是如何搭建起来的（按照我们最好的信仰）。

If we represent the time during which it has been possible for animal life to exist upon our planet by a line of this length, then the tiny line just below indicates the age during which man (or a creature more or less resembling man) has lived upon this earth.

如果我们用下面这条线的长度表示动物可能存在这个星球上的时间，那么底下的那一小段短线就是人类（或者多少像人类一样的生物）在地球上曾生存的时间。

Man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for the purpose of conquering the forces of nature. That is the reason why we are going to study him, rather than cats or dogs or horses or any of the other animals, who, all in their own way, have a very interesting historical development behind them.

人类是最后出现在地球上，但却最先为了征服自然的目的使用他的大脑。这就是我为什么研究人类的原因，而不是研究猫、狗或马，或别的什么动物。人类以自己的方式，在这些动物之后进行了有趣的历史进程。

In the beginning, the planet upon which we live was (as far as we now know) a large ball of flaming matter, a tiny cloud of smoke in the endless ocean of space.Gradually, in the course of millions of years, the surface burned itself out, and was covered with a thin layer of rocks. Upon these lifeless rocks the rain descended in endless torrents, wearing out the hard granite and carrying the dust to the valleys that lay hidden between the high cliffs of the steaming earth.

在刚开始的时候，我们生存的这个星球（就我们目前所知道的）是一个燃烧的大球体，一团云烟在漫无边际的海洋上。渐渐的，几百万年过去了，地球表面都烧干了，覆盖上了一层薄的岩石。降雨在这些寸草不生的岩石上导致无休止的洪水，洪水磨穿了岩石并把尘埃带到了溪谷，溪谷隐藏在高耸的悬崖之中，在这个氤氲的地球上。

2016年2月14日功课

Finally the hour came when the sun broke through the clouds and saw how this little planet was covered with a few small puddles which were to develop into the mighty oceans of the eastern and western hemispheres.

这一刻终于来临，太阳穿破云层，照耀到这个被“小水坑”覆盖的小星球。这些“小水坑”发展成了东西半球浩瀚的海洋。

Then one day the great wonder happened. What had been dead, gave birth to life.

直到有一天，奇迹发生了。之前的无声无息，孕育了生命。

The first living cell floated upon the waters of the sea.

第一个活的细胞漂浮在海平面之上。

2016年2月15日 功课

For millions of years it drifted aimlessly with the currents.But during all that time it was developing certain habits that it might survive more easily upon the inhospitable earth.Some of these cells were happiest in the dark depths of the lakes and the pools.They took root in the slimy sediments which had been carried down from the tops of the hills and they became plants.

几百万年以来，这个活细胞面无目的地随波漂流。但是在这个过程中，它发展出了特殊的习性。以使自己可以在这个恶劣的地球上更容易的生存下去。那些细胞中的一些更喜好湖泊和池塘黑暗的深处。它们就在那由山顶上冲下来的湿滑的沉淀物上扎根，它们就变成了植物。

Others preferred to move about and they grew strange jointed legs, like scorpions and began to crawl along the bottom of the sea amidst the plants and the pale green things that looked like jelly-fishes. Still others (covered with scales) depended upon a swimming motion to go from place to place in their search for food, and gradually they populated the ocean with myriads of fishes.

其它的更喜欢移动，它们长出了奇怪的连接的腿，像蝎子似的。它们在海底爬行，在植物和像水母一样暗绿色的东西之间。更有一些其它的（覆盖有鳞片）在寻找食物时靠游动从一个地方到另一个地方，渐渐地大海被无数的鱼类占据了。

2016年2月16日功课

Meanwhile the plants had increased in number and they had to search for new dwelling places.There was no more room for them at the bottom of the sea.Reluctantly they left the water and made a new home in the marshes and on the mud-banks that lay at the foot of the mountains.Twice a day the tides of the ocean covered them with their brine.For the rest of the time, the plants made the best of their uncomfortable situation and tried to survive in the thin air which surrounded the surface of the planet.After centuries of training, they learned how to live as comfortably in the air as they had done in the water.They increased in size and became shrubs and trees and at last they learned how to grow lovely flowers which attracted the attention of the busy big bumble-bees and the birds who carried the seeds far and wide until the whole earth had become covered with green pastures, or lay dark under the shadow of the big trees.

同时，这些植物数量也在增长，它们不得不寻找新的栖息地。在海底已经没有更多的空间供它们生存。它们很不情愿的离开了水里，在山脚下的沼泽里和泥窝里建立了新家。一天两次的潮汐使它们浸末在海水里。接下来的时间，这些植物充分利用它们的不利环境，竭力在这个星球表面稀薄的空气中生存下去。经过几个世纪的训练，它们学会了怎样舒服的在空气中生存，就像它们曾经在水里那样生活。它们在形状上也变大了，变成了灌木和树木。最终它们学会了生长出美丽的花朵，通过花朵吸引忙碌的大黄蜂和鸟儿。大黄蜂和鸟儿把植物们的种子带到遥远广阔的地方，以至于整个地球都被绿草覆盖，或者埋藏在大树下的阴暗地方。

2016年2月17日

But some of the fishes too had begun to leave the sea, and they had learned how to breathe with lungs as well as with gills. We call such creatures amphibious, which means that they are able to live with equal ease on the land and in the water. The first frog who crosses your path can tell you all about the pleasures of the double existence of the amphibian.

但是，一些鱼类也开始离开大海，并且它们开始学习用肺部像腮那样呼吸。我们称这种生物为两栖动物，既它们可以自由的在陆地上和海里生活。你面前跳过的青蛙可以告诉你两栖动物双重生活方式的全部乐趣。

2016年2月18日功课

Once outside of the water, these animals gradually adapted themselves more and more to life on land. Some became reptiles (creatures who crawl like lizards) and they shared the silence of the forests with the insects. That they might move faster through the soft soil, they improved upon their legs and their size increased until the world was populated with gigantic forms (which the hand-books of biology list under the names of Ichthyosaurus and Megalosaurus and Brontosaurus) who grew to be thirty to forty feet long and who could have played with elephants as a full grown cat plays with her kittens.

一旦离开了水里，那些动物渐渐的是自己越来越适合在陆地上生存。一些变成了爬行动物（就是像蜥蜴一样爬行的动物），它们与昆虫一起分享森林的静谧。它们可以在松软的土地上快速爬行，它们改进自己的肢体和增大自己的体格，直到这个世界充满了庞然大物（这些庞然大物在生物学手册里叫做鱼龙，雷龙或者斑龙）。这些大家伙可以长到30-40英尺长，它们和大象玩耍就像一只成年猫和他的猫仔儿玩一样。

2016年2月19日

Some of the members of this reptilian family began to live in the tops of the trees, which were then often more than a hundred feet high.They no longer needed their legs for the purpose of walking, but it was necessary for them to move quickly from branch to branch.And so they changed a part of their skin into a sort of parachute, which stretched between the sides of their bodies and the small toes of their fore-feet, and gradually they covered this skinny parachute with feathers and made their tails into a steering gear and flew from tree to tree and developed into true birds.

这些爬行类家族中的一些成员开始在树顶上生活，那时候的树通常有超过一百英尺高。它们不再需要用腿来行走，但还需要用腿从一个树枝跳到另一个树枝。因此它们的一部分皮肤变成了一种翼膜，这些翼膜从它们身体的侧面延伸到前肢的小趾。渐渐地这些翼膜被羽毛覆盖，尾巴也成了一个转向装置。它们从一棵树上飞到另一棵树上，发展成了真正的鸟类。

2016年2月20日

Then a strange thing happened. All the gigantic reptiles died within a short time. We do not know the reason. Perhaps it was due to a sudden change in climate. Perhaps they had grown so large that they could neither swim nor walk nor crawl, and they starved to death within sight but not within reach of the big ferns and trees. Whatever the cause, the million year old world-empire of the big reptiles was over.

然后，奇怪的事情发生了。短时间内所有的爬行动物全部死了。我们不知道原因。也许是因为一次突然的气候变化。也许是因为它们长的太大了，以至于都不能走动，也不能游动或爬行了。最后眼看着高大的厥类和树木却够不到，就活活饿死了。不管什么原因吧，这些几百万年年龄的地球统治者——巨大的爬行动物灭亡了。

2016年2月21日

The world now began to be occupied by very different creatures. They were the descendants of the reptiles but they were quite unlike these because they fed their young from the ``mammæ'' or the breasts of the mother. Wherefore modern science calls these animals ``mammals. '' They had shed the scales of the fish. They did not adopt the feathers of the bird, but they covered their bodies with hair. The mammals however developed other habits which gave their race a great advantage over the other animals. 

这个世界开始被不同的物种所占领。它们是爬行动物的后代，但它们与爬行动物差别非常大。因为它们用母兽的乳房喂养幼兽。因此现代科学家称这些动物为“哺乳类动物”。它们已经褪去了鱼类的鳞片。但它们没有采用鸟类的羽毛，而是身体上覆盖着毛发。这些哺乳类动物发展了其它习性，使它们在与其他动物竞争是获得巨大的优势。

2016年2月22日

The female of the species carried the eggs of the young inside her body until they were hatched and while all other living beings, up to that time, had left their children exposed to the dangers of cold and heat, and the attacks of wild beasts, the mammals kept their young with them for a long time and sheltered them while they were still too weak to fight their enemies. In this way the young mammals were given a much better chance to survive, because they learned many things from their mothers, as you will know if you have ever watched a cat teaching her kittens to take care of themselves and how to wash their faces and how to catch mice.

这种物种的雌兽把幼卵放置在身体内部，直到幼兽长成把它孵出来。直到孵出之时，才将它们的孩子暴露在寒冷、酷热和野兽的攻击等危险中。哺乳动物要让它们的幼仔和它们一起生活很长时间，给它们提供保护。因为幼仔还太小不能防御它们的天敌。这样以来，幼仔成活的几率就很大啦，因为它们从母亲身上学习了很多事情。如果你曾经观察过一只猫教它的猫仔如何照顾他们它们自己——怎样洗脸以及怎样抓老鼠，你就会明白啦。

2016年2月23日

But of these mammals I need not tell you much for you know them well. They surround you on all sides. They are your daily companions in the streets and in your home, and you can see your less familiar cousins behind the bars of the zoological garden.

但是关于那些哺乳动物我不需要和你讲太多，因为你非常了解它们。它们在四周包围着你。它们在大街上，在家里陪伴着你，你可以在动物园的围栏后面看见你的远房表弟。

And now we come to the parting of the ways when man suddenly leaves the endless procession of dumbly living and dying creatures and begins to use his reason to shape the destiny of his race.

现在我们来到另一部分——人类何时突然脱离那个无休止的枯燥的生物生死循环，人类开始用自己的理智曲塑造自己的命运。

2016年2月24日

One mammal in particular seemed to surpass all others in its ability to find food and shelter. It had learned to use its fore-feet for the purpose of holding its prey, and by dint of practice it had developed a hand-like claw. After innumer- able attempts it had learned how to balance the whole of the body upon the hind legs. (This is a difficult act, which every child has to learn anew although the human race has been doing it for over a million years. )

一个哺乳动物尤其在寻找食物和庇护所的能力上远超其它物种。为了握住它的猎物，它学会了使用它的前肢，并且经过练习它发展出了像手一样的爪子。在无数次的尝试之后，它学会了怎样在后腿站立时保持平衡。（这是一个艰难的动作，每个小孩子都不得不重新学习这个动作，尽管人类已经这么做超过几百万年了。）

This creature, half ape and half monkey but superior to both, became the most successful hunter and could make a living in every clime. For greater safety, it usually moved about in groups. It learned how to make strange grunts to warn its young of approaching danger and after many hundreds of thousands of years it began to use these throaty noises for the purpose of talking.

这种生物半猿半猴，但又比两者都高级，它们成为了最成功的捕猎者并且可以在任何地方存活。为了更大的安全性，它们通常群体活动。它学会了怎样发出奇怪的咕哝声以通知它的孩子危险的靠近，千万年之后，它们开始使用这些喉咙发出的声音来交谈。

This creature, though you may hardly believe it, was your first ``man-like'' ancestor.

这个生物，尽管你可能不大愿意相信，就是你第一个“类人”祖先。