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Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. You need train however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird's wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. For most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts.
任何有视觉的人都会在看到一张面孔或一朵花时感受到喜悦。然而，一个人必须有一定的素养，才能体味数学、物理和对弈的美，才能领略大树结构的美、小鸟羽翼图案的美、吹笛子时呼吸颤动的美。人类历史上，年轻人常常从上辈人那里学会专注的素养。只有专注，我们才会充分欣赏从量子作用到床罩拼图花案各式各样的美丽。
This predilection brings with it clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, avoid predators. But the same advantage would apply to all species, and yet we alone compose symphonies and crossword puzzles, carve stone into statues, map time and space. Have we merely carried our animal need for shrewd perceptions to an absurd extreme? Or have we stumbled onto a deep congruence between the structure of our minds and the structure of the universe?
这种专注带有明显的进化优势。因为，识别不同的形态，帮助了我们的祖先选择伴侣、寻找食物和躲避食肉兽。所有的物种都有同样的进化优势。然而，唯独人类能够作曲、玩字谜游戏、用石头雕刻塑像、测绘时间空间地图。是我们将进化所需的精明观察发展到了极端，还是我们不经意间取得了宇宙运行和我们的大脑思维间的高度一致？
I am persuaded the latter is true. I am convinced there's more to beauty than biology, more than cultural convention. It flows around and through us in such abundance, and in such myriad forms, as to exceed by a wide margin any mere evolutionary need. This is not to say that beauty has nothing to do with survival: I think it has everything to do with survival. Beauty feeds us from the same source that created us. It reminds us of the shaping power that reaches through the flower stem and through our own hands. It restores our faith in the generosity of nature. By giving us a taste of the kinship between our own small minds and the great Mind of the Cosmos, beauty reassures us that we are exactly and wonderfully made for life on this glorious planet, in this magnificant universe. I find in that affinity a profound source of meaning hope. A universe so prodigal of beauty may actually need us to notice and respond, may need our sharp eyes and brimming hearts and teeming minds, in order to close the circuit of Creation.
我相信后者是真的。我坚信，美不仅仅是生物因素，也越文化传统。美四处逸散，涌流于我们之中，形式纷繁，远远超过进化所需。这并不是说美同生存没有关系，相反，它同生存密切相关。美与我们同源并滋养着我们。美令我们想起花的枝干使枝叶繁茂的塑造力和我们双手的塑造力。美使我们再次相信大自然的慷慨。美在我们的小智慧和宇宙的大智慧间建立了一种亲密感，从而使我们确信，人类就是为了在这宏伟的地球上和神奇的宇宙中精彩生活而生。我在这种亲密中找到了生命的意义和希望的无穷源泉。宇宙中，美无处不在，也许的确需要我们的关注和回应，需要我们敏锐的双眼、充盈的内心和智慧的大脑来接近这创世的圆环。
