悦读｜朱利安·赫胥黎《自然界的平衡》（双语）

(Credit: National Geographic)

朱利安·赫胥黎（Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, 1887—1975），英国生物学家、作家、人道主义者，提倡自然选择。他曾担任动物学社会伦敦书记（1935年至1942年）、第一届联合国教育科学文化组织首长（1946年至1948年），亦是世界自然基金会创始成员之一。

（朗读：侯润娟）

The Balance of Nature自然界的平衡

By Sir Julian Sorell Huxley文/朱利安·赫胥黎译/徐越庭
The balance of nature is a very elaborate and very delicate system of checks and counterchecks, it is continually being altered as climates change, as new organisms evolve, as animals or plants permeate to new areas. But the alterations have in the past, for the most part, been slow, whereas with the arrival of civilized man, their speed has been multiplied manyfold: from the evolutionary time-scale, where change is measured by periods of ten or a hundred thousand years, they have been transferred to the human time-scale in which centuries and even decades count.自然界的平衡是一种十分精密复杂而又敏感脆弱的抑制与反抑制体系，它总是随着气候条件的变化，随着新的生物体的形成，随着动植物蔓延入新的地区而持续不断地变化着。可是，在过去，这些变化大部分是很缓慢的，而自从文明人出现以后，变化的速度便增大了很多倍。用以测量它们的时间标度，已经从适用于自然演化过程的、以一万年或十万年为计量单位的时间标度，转变成人类所使用的、以几百年甚至几十年为计量单位的时间标度。
Everywhere man is altering the balance of nature. He is facilitating the spread of plants and animals into new regions, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously. He is covering huge areas with new kinds of plants, or with houses, factories, slag-heaps and other products of his civilization. He exterminates some species on a large scale, but favours the multiplication of others. In brief, he has done more in five thousand years to alter the biological aspect of the planet than has nature in five million.人类到处都在改变着自然界的平衡。他帮助动植物进入新的地区，有时是有意的，有时是无意的。他正在用新的植物种类，或者用房屋、工厂、炉渣堆或其他的文明产物覆盖大片的土地。他使有些物种大批消亡，却造成有利条件使另外一些物种成倍地增加。总之，人类在五千年内比大自然在五百万年内做了更多的事来改变地球的生态。

(Credit: helpsavenature.com)

Many of these changes which he has brought about have had unforeseen consequences. Who would have thought that the throwing away of a piece of Canadian waterweed would have caused half the waterways of Britain to be blocked for a decade, or that the provision of pot cacti for lonely settlers' wives would have led to Eastern Australia being overrun with forests of Prickly Pear? Who would have prophesied that the cutting down of forests on the Adriatic coasts, or in parts of Central Africa, could have reduced the land to a semidesert, with the very soil washed away from the bare rock? Who would have thought that improved communications would have changed history by the spreading of disease-sleeping sickness into East Africa, measles into Oceania, very possibly malaria into ancient Greece?他所造成的许多变化已经产生了没有预料到的后果。谁能料到，扔掉一株加拿大水草会使英国的一半水路阻塞十年之久? 谁又能料到，为那些移民们的寂寞的妻子提供一盆仙人掌会使澳大利亚东部的霸王树林蔓延成灾? 谁能预见，砍去亚德里亚海滨或中非某些地区的森林会使泥土流失，剩下光秃秃的岩石，使良田变成半沙漠? 谁想得到，改进交通竟也会传播疾病——使昏睡症传入了东非，麻疹传入了大洋洲，古希腊的疟疾很可能也是别处传入的——从而改变了历史的发展。
These are spectacular examples; but examples on a smaller scale are everywhere to be found. We make a nature sanctuary for rare birds, prescribing absolute security for all species; and we may find that some common and hardy kind of bird multiplies beyond measure and ousts the rare kinds in which we were particularly interested. We see, owing to some little change brought about by civilization, the starling spread over the English country-side in hordes. We improve the yielding capacities of our cattle; and find that now they exhaust the pastures which sufficed for less exigent stock. We gaily set about killing the carnivores that molest our domestic animals, the hawks that eat our fowls and game-birds; and find that in so doing we are also removing the brake that restrains the multiplication of mice and other little rodents that gnaw away the farmers' profits.这都是些令人瞩目的例子，规模较小的例子则到处可见。我们为某些稀有鸟类设立了自然保护区，规定保障全部物种的绝对安全，其结果却可能是一些普通而又易生存的鸟类大量繁殖，逐出了我们真正感兴趣的珍贵品种。我们看到，由于现代文明带来的某些小变化，使英国处处出现了成群结队的燕八哥。我们提高了牛的生育能力，现在却发现它们耗竭了过去足以养活那些对生存条件不那么苛求的牲畜的牧场。我们得意地着手捕杀危害家畜的食肉动物，攫食家禽及野味的苍鹰，但发现这样做却使啃噬农民收益的老鼠和其他啮齿动物无限制地繁殖起来。 

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