爱德华威尔逊《给梭罗的一封信》(中英文互译).docVIP

爱德华·威尔逊《给梭罗的一封信》(中英文互译) 爱德华·威尔逊（Edward O. Wilson），生于1929年，当今国际生物学界的翘楚，美国国家科学院院士，世界上最具影响力的科学家之一，“生物社会学”之父、“生物多样性”概念的提出者。《自然》杂志对他的评价是：既是世界级的科学家，也是伟大的写作者。威尔逊擅长著述，可称最具文采的科学家。被灭绝的本是可拯救的，威尔逊对生命的未来并未绝望。他坚信，人类对自然的生命之爱可以勾勒出一个可持续的未来。本文节选自其著作《生命的未来》（The Future of Life）的序言。 A Letter to Thoreau (Excerpt) 《给梭罗的一封信》（节选） By Edward O. Wilson 文/爱德华·威尔逊 I understand why you came to Walden Pond; your words are clear enough on that score. Granted, you chose this spot primarily to study nature. But you could have done that as easily and far more comfortably... 我了解你为什么要到瓦尔登湖畔来居住，对此，你说得够明白了。没错儿，你选择这个地点为的是研究大自然。但是你大可更轻松地去观察大自然…… Here is what I believe happened. You sought enlightenment and fulfillment the Old Testament way, by reduction of material existence to the fundamentals. When you stripped your outside obligations to the survivable minimum, you placed your trained and very active mind in an unendurable vacuum. And this is the essence of the matter: in order to fill the vacuum, you discovered the human proclivity to embrace the natural world. 以下是我的推论。你渴慕神灵，因此你试图把物质生活降到最基本的水平，以寻求事物的真谛以及《旧约圣经》的实践之道。当你将身外的牵绊降低到最少时，你那训练有素且敏锐的心灵，顿时落入无法忍受的真空之中。而这就是事物的本质：为了要填补这份真空，你发现了人类的天性——拥抱大自然。 You searched for essence at Walden and, whether successful in your own mind or not, you hit upon an ethic with a solid feel to it: nature is ours to explore forever; it is our crucible and refuge; it is our natural home; it is all these things. Save it, you said: in wildness is the preservation of the world. 你来到瓦尔登湖寻求人生精义，不论在你心里认为是否成功，你都谈到了一项感触很深的道理：大自然永远能供我们探索，它既是对我们的考验，也是我们的避难所，它是我们天生的家园，它就是一切。救救它吧，你说过，保护世界就在于保护它的野性。 Now, in closing this letter, I am forced to report bad news. (I put it off till the end.) The natural world in the year 2001 is everywhere disappearing before our eyes—cut to pieces, mowed down, plowed under, gobbled up, replaced by human artifacts. 这封信写到尾声，现在，我不得不报告坏消息了。（我拖到最后再说。）2001年，大自然在你我眼前随处消失——被切碎、摧毁、犁耕、攫取、取代，这一切都是人类所为。 No one in your time could imagine a disaster of this magnitude. Little m