太热了，走，我们一起去海边吧！
啥？加班狗没有假期，那就读一篇有点烧脑的文章，冷静一下。
阿道司?赫胥黎(Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894－1963)英格兰作家，出自著名的赫胥黎家族。他的祖父是著名生物学家、进化论支持者托马斯?亨利?赫胥黎(Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825－1895)。
他少时就读于伊顿公学，后毕业于牛津大学的巴利俄尔学院。1937年移居洛杉矶，直到1963年去世。曾想做医生，却因为视力障碍改变初衷，从事了文学——一次眼疾几乎让他视力全失，但在学习了盲文后，他逐步开始写作。
他以小说和大量散文作品闻名于世，也出版过短篇小说、游记、电影故事和剧本。他在1932年创作的《美丽新世界》让他名留青史。
先来熟悉一下文中出现的部分词汇。
intrinsically[?n'tr?ns?kli] adv. 本质上地，内在地
incongruous[?n'k??ɡru?s] adj. 适当的，不协调的
anomaly[?'n?m?li] n. 反常，异常
ethereal[i'θ??ri?l] adj. 太空的，以太的
promenade[?pr?m?'nɑ?d] n. 散步，兜风
exploit[?k'spl??t] n. 业绩，功绩
reverberate[r?'v??b?re?t] v. 回响，回荡
enigma[?'n?ɡm?] n. 谜语，听不懂的话
下面请听沈汀朗读的 At Sea 上半篇，中文版本由王义国翻译。
英语环球广播
At Sea
Familiarity blunts astonishment. Fishes do not marvel at water; they are too busy swimming in it. It is the same with us. We take our western civilization for granted and find nothingintrinsicallyodd orincongruousin it. Before we can realize the strangeness of our surroundings, we must deliberately stop and think.
But moments come when that strangeness is fairly forced upon our notice, moments when an anomaly, a contradiction, an immense incongruity is suddenly illuminated by a light so glaring that we cannot fail to see it. Such a moment came to me as I was crossing the Pacific. It was the first morning out of Yokohama. Coming out of my cabin, I was handed the day’s bulletin of wireless news. I unfolded the typewritten sheet and read: “Mrs. X of Los Angeles, girl wife of Dr. X, aged 79, has been arrested for driving her automobile along the railroad track, whistling like a locomotive”. This piece of information had been transmitted through the etherealholes between the molecules of air. From a broadcasting station more than five thousand miles away, it had come to our ship in rather less time than it would have taken the sound of my voice to travel from one end of thepromenade deck to the other. The labors of half a dozen men of genius, of hundreds of patient and talented investigators, had gone to creating and perfecting the means for achieving this miracle. To what end? That the exploitsof young Mrs. X, of Los Angeles, might be instantaneously known to every traveler on all the oceans of the globe. The ether reverberated with the name of Mrs. X. The wave that bore it broke against the moon and the planets, and rippled on towards the stars and the ultimate void. Farady and Clerk Maxwell had not lived in vain.
The wise men of Antiquity (So say the Indians) knew all that we have learned about nature, and a great deal more besides. But they kept their science to themselves, or revealed it only in enigmaswhich cannot be interpreted except in the light of a previous knowledge of the answers. They were afraid that---men being what they are---their discoveries might be put to bad or futile uses. The ordinary man, they argued, is not to be trusted with the power which comes of knowledge. They withheld their science.
在海上
熟悉便冲淡了惊讶。鱼对水并不感到好奇，它们忙于在水中游泳，顾不上好奇了。我们也是如此。我们认为我们的西方文明是理所当然的。因而不觉得其中有任何在本质上古怪或者失当之处。要想意识到我们的环境的奇怪之处，我们就必须停下来审慎地思考一番。
不过在一些时刻，这种奇怪之处简直就是迫使我们予以注意。在这些时刻，一种反常、一种矛盾、一种巨大的失当，突然被一种如此耀眼的光线照亮，使我们不可能看不见它。当我正在横渡太平洋的时候，这样的一个时刻就来到了我的身边。那是驶离横滨的第一个清晨，我走出我的房舱，有人递给我当天的无线电新闻快报。我打开这张用打字机打出字的纸，读到：“洛杉矶的某某太太是79岁的某某医生的少妻，因为沿着火车轨道驾驶汽车，而且像机车一样鸣响汽笛而被捕。”这则消息是穿过在分子之间的以太空隙而传输过来的。它是从五千多英里之外的一个电台来到我们的船上，所用的时间比我的嗓音从散步甲板的一端传到另一端还要少。六七位天才人物，以及数百位勤奋而又有才干的研究人员，他们做了这么多的工作，才创造出成就了这一奇迹的手段，并使之尽善尽美。是为了什么目的呢？是为了使洛杉矶的某某年轻太太的业绩可以在瞬间围地球上的所有大洋上的每一个旅客所知晓。以太因为某某太太的名字而回响。传递这个消息的电波冲击着月亮和行星，并继续像起着涟漪一样，前往群星和终极的太空。法拉第和克拉克?麦克斯韦并没有白活上一回。
我们有关自然所学到的东西，古代的东方三博士全都知道（印度人如是说），而且除此之外还知道别的大量的事情。但他们把他们的科学秘而不宣，要不然也只是用叫人听不懂的话披露出来，如果不根据先前有关答案的知识，那些叫人听不懂的话是无法阐释出来的。他们担心，既然人们是这个样子，那么他们的发现就可能被滥用或者无效使用。他们认为，是不可把随着知识而来的力量交付给一般的人的。他们因而不把他们的科学吐露出来。
人人都说，“科技是把双刃剑”。科技发展可以让我们的生活变得更便利更美好，也会带来许多始料不及的灾难。
先哲们担心科学的力量会被人类滥用，你怎么看，科技的进步给我们带来的到底是什么？
别走开！我们还要宣布“彼得兔”的最终归属。
经过一番激烈竞争，恭喜张TT获得了双语有声版彼得兔一套。
请张TT速在微信后台发消息，留下姓名、电话，和详细地址。
没中奖的同学也别泄气，英语环球还将带来更多福利！
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