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LESSON 112 OBJECTS AND LIMITS OF SCIENCE
第一百一十二課 科學的目標和局限
There are fields enough for the wildest and most extravagant theorizings, within man's own appropriate domain,
在人自己適當的范圍內，有些領域足以進行最瘋狂和放肆的推理，
without overleaping the barriers which separate things human and divine.
而不必超越將人和神區分開的障礙。
Indeed, I have often thought that modern science had afforded a most opportune and providential safety valve
誠然，我經常想為滿足智力上的好奇心和人類的野心，
for the intellectual curiosity and ambition of man, at a moment when the progress of education, invention, and liberty
近代科學提供了最多的機會和幸運的安全閥，恰值教育過程、發明創新和自由
had roused and stimulated him to a pitch of such unprecedented eagerness and ardor.
已經喚醒并激起人們投入前所未有的渴望和激情。
Astronomy, Chemistry, and, more than all, Geology, with their incidental branches of study,
天文學、化學，尤其是地質學，以及它們的分支學科，
have opened an inexhaustible field for investigation and speculation.
為調查和思考開啟了永不枯竭的領域。
Here, by the aid of modern instruments and modern modes of analysis,
在此，借助于近現代科學儀器和分析模式，
the most ardent and earnest spirits may find ample room and verge enough for their insatiate activity and audacious enterprise,
那些最熱情和給予莫大渴望的研究者會為滿足他們永不知足的活力與敢于冒險的創新精神，
and may pursue their course not only without the slightest danger of doing mischief to others,
找到足夠的廣博空間和邊界，他們追求的事業不但對別人一點傷害的危險也沒有，
but with the certainty of promoting the great end of scientific truth.
而且肯定會推動科學真理偉大目標的實現。
