【每天讀一點英文】gnuhpc注釋版：Change Makes Life Beautiful

To regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with tha t which is without —our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite （ [ex·quis·ite || 'ekskwɪzɪt]adj.  精緻的, 敏銳的, 細膩的）intervals, the moment, for instance, of delicious recoil （[re·coil || rɪ'kɔɪl ,rɪː-]n.  彈回, 跳回; 後退, 畏縮; 反衝） from the flood of water in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names? But these elements, phosphorus（ [phos·pho·rus || 'fɑsfərəs /'fɒs-]n.  磷） and lime（ [laɪm]n.  石灰） and delicate fibers, are present not in the human body alone: we detect them in places most remote from it. Our physical life is a perpetual motion of them—the passage of the blood, the wasting and repairing of the lenses of the eye, the modification of the tissues of the brain under every ray of light and sound processes which science reduces to simpler and more elementary forces. Like the elements of which we are composed, the action of these forces extends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn. Far out on every side of us those elements are broadcast, driven in many currents; and birth and gesture and death and the springing of violets from the grave are but a few out of ten thousand resultant combinations. That clear, perpetual outline of face and limb is but an image of ours, under which we group them a design in a web, the actual threads of which pass out beyond it. This at least of flame — like our life has, that it is but the concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces parting sooner or later on their ways.


將所有事物和事物的原則統統歸結為經常變化著的形態或風尚，這已日益成為近代思想界的一個趨勢。我們可以從我們的生理活動等表面的事情說起。舉個例子來說，選定在酷暑中猛然浸入滔滔清流的一刹那和感覺極其愉快的這麼一個微妙的時刻。在那一瞬間的所有生理活動，難道不可以說是具有科學名稱的各種元素的一種化合作用嗎？但是，像磷、石灰、微細的纖維質等這些元素，不僅存在於人體之中，而且在與人體沒有絲毫關係的地方也能檢查出它們的存在。血液的流通，眼睛中水晶體的消耗和恢複，每一道光波、每一次聲浪對於腦組織所引起的變異——都不外是這些元素永久的運動。但是科學把這些運動過程還原為更為簡單和基本力量的作用。正如我們身體所賴以構成的元素所形成的我們的生理活動的力量，這些力量在我們身體以外也同樣發揮著作用——它可以使鐵生鏽，使穀物成熟。這些元素，在種種氣流吹送之下，從我們身外向四面八方傳播：人的誕生，人的姿態，人的死亡，以及在人的墳頭上生長出紫羅蘭——這不過是成千上萬化合結果的點滴例子而已。人類那輪廓分明、長久不變的面顏和肢體，不過是一種表象，在它那架構之內，我們好把種種化合的元素凝聚一團——這好像是蛛網的紋樣，那織網的細絲從網中穿出，又引向他方。在這一點上，我們的生命有些像那火焰——它也是種種力量匯合的結果，這匯合雖不斷延續，那些力量卻早晚要各自飄散。