Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic, and then as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian. Next a Turk; a Greek Christian; a Methodist from Arkansas; a Buddhist from China. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and plaids and bones and flesh——not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
然后,我在另一只笼子里关了一个爱尔兰天主教徒,在他似乎驯服时又关进了一个苏格兰长老会教友,接着又加进了一个土耳其穆斯林,一个希腊正教教徒,一个来自阿肯色州的循道宗教徒,一个来自中国的佛 教徒,最后关进一个来自沃平的救世军上校。随后,我离开两天。等我回来记录结果时,关着高级动物的笼子里平安无事,可是另一个笼子里却是一片恐怖的狼藉,骨肉四散,只剩下沾满血污的穆斯林头巾和苏格兰人的彩格呢披风等碎物——没有一个实验对象还活着这些理性动物就某一宗教理论的细节而纠缠不休,一直争执到了天上的法庭。
And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor—some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perhaps—insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of perfect innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development—namable as the Human Being. Below us—nothing.
因此,我发现我们的远古祖先也许最初是某个小小的原子,怡然自得地漫游在一滴水构成的广袤空间里,然后逐步退化、堕落,由一种昆虫到另一种昆虫,一种动物到另一种动物,一种爬行动物到另一种爬行动物,经过漫长的道路,最后不知不觉地到了动物演变的最低阶段——被称作人类的阶段,而在我们之下,别无他物。
来源:可可英语 //m.moreplr.com/daxue/201812/573474.shtml