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But if the progress of the world had been left to the serf and his feudal master, we would still be living after the fashion of the twelfth century, saying "abracadabra" when we tried to stop a tooth-ache, and feeling a deep contempt and hatred for the dentist who offered to help us with his "science", which most likely was of Mohammedan or heathenish origin and therefore both wicked and useless.
如果這個世界的進步責任是肩負在農奴和他們的封建領主肩上，那我們現在就有可能如12世紀一樣，牙疼了便念一番"啊巴拉卡，達巴拉啊"，靠神秘的咒語抵御肉體的疼痛。不僅如此，如果正好有一位牙醫試圖用他的"科學"來幫助我們，其結果只能招來我們的憎惡。因為那些邪里邪氣的東西多半是來自穆罕默德信徒與異教徒"騙術"，當然是既惡毒又無用處的。
When you grow up you will discover that many people do not believe in "progress" and they will prove to you by the terrible deeds of some of our own contemporaries that "the world does not change". But I hope that you will not pay much attention to such talk. You see, it took our ancestors almost a million years to learn how to walk on their hind legs. Other centuries had to go by before their animal-like grunts developed into an understandable language. Writing-the art of preserving our ideas for the benefit of future generations, without which no progress is possible was invented only four thousand years ago. The idea of turning the forces of nature into the obedient servants of man was quite new in the days of your own grandfather. It seems to me, therefore, that we are making progress at an unheard-of rate of speed. Perhaps we have paid a little too much attention to the mere physical comforts of life. That will change in due course of time and we shall then attack the problems which are not related to health and to wages and plumbing and machinery in general.
當你們長大之后，你們會發現身邊有許多人不相信"進步"。他們都是些看上去很有思想的家伙，我擔保他們能滔滔不絕地列舉出一些我們時代的可怕事實，來向你證明"世界從來如此，毫無變化"。不過我倒是希望，你們不要太受這種論調的蠱惑。你看，我們遙遠的先祖幾乎花費了100萬年，才學會用下肢直立行走。當他們終于能夠把動物般的咕咕聲發展成可以理解與溝通的語言，又耗費了許許多多個世紀。書寫術--為著未來人類的利益而保存我們思想的技術，缺少了它人類的任何進步都是沒有可能的，它的發明不過是在短暫的四千年之前。那種馴服自然力為人類服務的新奇思想，僅僅是在你們祖父的時代才出現的。因此在我看來，我們人類其實是以一種聞所未聞的飛快速度進步著。也許，我們對物質生活的舒適關注得稍微多了一些，但這種趨勢在一定的時候必然會扭轉。到那時，我們會集中力量去對付那些與身體健康、工資多少、城市下水管道和機械制造無關的問題。
