美国学生人类历史 第159期:中世纪的城市(3)

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we would still be living after the fashion of the twelfth century, saying "abracadabra²" when we tried to stop a tooth-ache, 那我们现在就有可能如12世纪一样，牙疼了便念一番"啊巴拉卡，达巴拉啊"，靠神秘的咒语抵御肉体的疼痛。

and feeling a deep contempt and hatred³ for the dentist who offered to help us with his "science", 不仅如此，如果正好有一位牙医试图用他的"科学"来帮助我们，其结果只能招来我们的憎恶。

which most likely was of Mohammedan or heathenish origin and therefore both wicked and useless. 因为那些邪里邪气的东西多半是来自穆罕默德信徒与异教徒"骗术"，当然是既恶毒又无用处的。

When you grow up you will discover that many people do not believe in "progress" 当你们长大之后，你们会发现身边有许多人不相信"进步"。

and they will prove to you by the terrible deeds of some of our own contemporaries that "the world does not change". 他们都是些看上去很有思想的家伙，我担保他们能滔滔不绝地列举出一些我们时代的可怕事实，来向你证明"世界从来如此，毫无变化"。

But I hope that you will not pay much attention to such talk. 不过我倒是希望，你们不要太受这种论调的蛊惑。

You see, it took our ancestors almost a million years to learn how to walk on their hind⁴ legs. 你看，我们遥远的先祖几乎花费了100万年，才学会用下肢直立行走。

Other centuries had to go by before their animal-like grunts⁵ developed into an understandable language. 当他们终于能够把动物般的咕咕声发展成可以理解与沟通的语言，又耗费了许许多多个世纪。

Writing-the art of preserving our ideas for the benefit of future generations, without which no progress is possible was invented only four thousand years ago. 书写术--为着未来人类的利益而保存我们思想的技术，缺少了它人类的任何进步都是没有可能的，它的发明不过是在短暂的四千年之前。

The idea of turning the forces of nature into the obedient servants of man was quite new in the days of your own grandfather. 那种驯服自然力为人类服务的新奇思想，仅仅是在你们祖父的时代才出现的。

It seems to me, therefore, that we are making progress at an unheard-of rate of speed. 因此在我看来，我们人类其实是以一种闻所未闻的飞快速度进步着。

Perhaps we have paid a little too much attention to the mere⁶ physical comforts of life. 也许，我们对物质生活的舒适关注得稍微多了一些，但这种趋势在一定的时候必然会扭转。

That will change in due course of time and we shall then attack the problems which are not related to health and to wages and plumbing⁷ and machinery⁸ in general. 到那时，我们会集中力量去对付那些与身体健康、工资多少、城市下水管道和机械制造无关的问题。

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