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I once imagined that there may be carp "scientists" living among the fish. They would, I thought, laugh at any fish who proposed that a parallel world could exist just above the lilies. To a carp "scientist," the only things that were real were what the fish could see or touch. The pond was everything. An unseen world beyond the pond made no scientific sense.
我曾想像過，魚群中也許會有鯉魚"科學家"。我想，他們會嘲笑那些提出就在睡蓮上方可能存在另一個平行的世界這種看法的魚兒。對鯉魚"科學家"來說，只有魚兒能看到或能碰到的才是真實的東西。池塘就是一切。從科學的角度看，要說池塘外有一個沒有見過的世界，那是沒有道理的。
Once I was caught in a rainstorm. I noticed that the pond?s surface was bombarded by thousands of tiny raindrops. The pond?s surface became turbulent, and the water lilies were beingpushed in all directions by water waves. Taking shelter from the wind and the rain, I wondered how all this appeared to the carp. To them, the water lilies would appear to be moving around by themselves, without anything pushing them. Since the water they lived in would appear invisible, much like the air and space around us, they would be baffled that the water lilies could move around by themselves.
有一次我遇上暴風雨。我看到萬千小雨點連續擊打池塘的水面。水面洶涌澎湃，睡蓮被波浪沖得向四面散去。我一邊躲避風雨，一邊在納悶鯉魚是怎樣看待這一切的。在他們看來，睡蓮似乎是自己在不停漂移，沒有什么東西推著它們動。正如我們看不見周圍的空氣和空間那樣，他們也看不見自己生活在其中的水，所以對睡蓮能自己不停移動這一點他們會感到迷惑不解。
Their "scientists," I imagined, would make up a clever invention called a "force" in order to hide their ignorance. Unable to comprehend that there could be waves on the unseen surface, they would conclude that lilies could move without being touched because a mysterious invisible entity called a force acted between them. They might give this illusion impressive, lofty names (such as action-at-a-distance, or the ability of the lilies to move without anything touching them).
我曾設想，他們的"科學家"為了掩飾自己的無知會編造出叫作"力"的巧妙謊話。他們無法理解在看不見的水面上會有波浪，于是斷定，睡蓮之所以能在沒有外物觸碰的情況下移動是因為有一種叫做力的看不見的神秘實體在它們之間起著作用。他們也許會給這種錯誤觀念起一些令人敬畏的、冠冕堂皇的名字（比如遠距離活動，或者睡蓮在沒有任何東西觸碰的情況下移動之能耐）。
