英文自修146：权威与个体2 （BBC瑞斯讲座1948）

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Reith Lectures节目网站，朋友们也可以到下列地址用相应提取码下载节目录音收听：http://yunpan.cn/cseZY2r75xQLX 提取码 571d

转载、翻译：武太白

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本篇专家：伯特兰·罗素

红色字体是值得朋友们特别关注的部分，不清楚的请对照译文。对于比较困难的句子，我把不容易看清的结构处多加了一个空格，朋友们仔细看看吧。

Early man was a weak and rare species whose survival at first was precarious. At some period his ancestors came down from the trees and lost the advantage of prehensile toes, but gained the advantage of arms and hands. By these changes they acquired the advantage of no longer having to live in forests, but on the other hand the open spaces into which they spread provided a less abundant nourishment than they had enjoyed in the tropical jungles of Africa. Sir Arthur Keith estimates that primitive man required two square miles of territory per individual to supply him with food, and some other authorities place the amount of territory required even higher. Judging by the anthropoid apes, and by the most primitive communities that have survived into modem times, early man must have lived in small groups not very much larger than families groups which, at a guess, we may put at, say, between fifty and a hundred individuals. Within each group there seems to have been a considerable amount of co-operation, but towards all other groups of the same species there was hostility whenever contact occurred. So long as man remained rare, contact with other groups could be occasional, and, at most times, not very important. Each group had its own territory, and conflict would only occur at the frontiers. In those early times marriage appears to have been confined to the group, so that there must have been a very great deal of inbreeding, and varieties, however originating, would tend to be perpetuated. If a group increased in numbers to the point where its existing territory was insufficient, it would be likely to come into conflict with some neighbouring group, and in such conflict any biological advantage which one inbreeding group had acquired over the other might be expected to give it the victory, and therefore to perpetuate its beneficial variation. All this has been very convincingly set forth by Sir Arthur Keith. It is obvious that our early and barely human ancestors cannot have been acting on a thought-out and deliberate policy, but must have been prompted by an instinctive mechanism -- the dual mechanism of friendship within the tribe and hostility to all others. As the primitive tribe was so small each individual would know intimately each other individual, so that friendly feeling would be co-extensive with acquaintanceship.

早期人类是一个弱小、稀少的物种，最开始连生存都显得风雨飘摇。某一时期人类的祖先从树上下到地面，失去了便于抓握的脚趾，但获得了胳膊和手这样的优势。有了这样的改变，不再需要住在森林里，但另一方面他们步履所及的开阔地带却提供不了他们在非洲的热带雨林中曾享受到的丰富营养。阿瑟·凯斯爵士估计原始人需要每人两平方英里的“领土”才能提供足够的食物，而其他一些权威则认为所需的领土要更大才行。从类人猿和一直存留到现代社会的最原始社会来看，从现代社会残存的最原始社会来看，早期人类必定是小团体生活，比家庭团体大不了多少，我们猜想其人数应该在五十到一百人。每一团体内部都有相当程度的合作，但对同类的其他团体，一旦接触，就发生冲突。只要人口还算稀少，跟其他团体的接触就不多，多数时候这种接触也不重要。每一团体都有自己的领地，冲突也仅在接壤的地方发生。早期婚姻看上去局限在团体内部，所以必定有过大量的近亲交配，而变化，不管多么新颖，都会最终停滞。如果一个团体的人数增长到现有领地已经无法容纳，很可能就会与周边某团体发生冲突，而某一近亲繁殖团体相对其他团体的物种优势一般都能为其带来胜利，这样有益的变化就能固定下来。所有这些都曾得到过亚瑟·凯斯爵士令人信服的论证。很明显，我们早期那些还不太算得上人类的祖先不可能按照我们想出的、深思熟虑的策略去行事，而只能是受到直觉机制的诱导而行动——即部落内部的友谊和对外的一概敌意。由于原始部落很小，每一个人都很熟悉另一个人，这样友谊的感觉就与熟识的感觉并存了。