When I read this little book in the winter of 1987 at the suggestion of my American friend, Dr. Jessie Chambers, I was delighted and excited, filled with the regret of "seeing each other too late" and the joy of meeting at last. It has been more than a year since I finished the first draft of the translation with a sense of urgency and pleasure in my work, and now I am writing this small preface. For me personally, but also for all Chinese people.Amidst the voices of four modernizations, reform, revitalization, rise, and take-off, in the scenes of urban prosperity, economic development, and technological progress, there are also arrogance and numbness, selfishness and short-sightedness, unbearable crowding and pollution, and aversion to nature. Irresponsible destruction and the plight of the population problem.At such a time, it is quite timely to dedicate this shocking book to the confused, disappointed, but thinking intellectual world.

This book is a medical scientist and biologist's thinking about life, human life, society and even the universe.The thoughts are broad and profound, the information is complex and novel, criticizing civilization, ridiculing ignorance, broadening horizons and stimulating thinking.And its writing style is rare, graceful, fresh, humorous, and reserved, worthy of everyone's handwriting in today's scientific prose.It is no wonder that since it was published in 1974, it immediately aroused great repercussions and enthusiastic applause from the American reading circles and critics, and won the National Book Award of the United States. Since then, it has been printed by several publishing houses for more than 20 editions in the past 18 years, and it has been popular so far. !The name of Lewis Thomas, who is over sixty years old, is so well-known and well-known for this small book that when he released the last two books in succession, the booksellers no longer had to advertise, but only shouted "the author of the book, Lewis Thomas The new book" is enough.

Dr. Lewis Thomas was born in New York, USA in 1913. He studied at Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. He served as a professor at the Institute of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, director of the Department of Pathology and Internal Medicine at New York University-Bellevue Medical Center, Yale Dean of the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Dean of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (Institute) in New York City, and a member of the American Academy of Sciences. This book is actually a collection of papers.The process of its publication may shed some light on why such an intriguing book seems so sprawling and so loosely organized as to seem incomprehensible.In his third book, The Youngest Science, published in 1983, Lewis Thomas is pleased to tell an interesting story about the writing and publication of his book. In 1970, at a symposium on inflammatory phenomena, the organizer asked the respected Thomas to make an opening statement to set the tone for the meeting.Not knowing what point of view the participants were going to make, he had to express his own opinions at will.He spoke lightly and on one side, in order to make the meeting less dull than the usual discussion of this type.Part of the speech is roughly the same as the "Bacteria" in this book.Unexpectedly, the organizer organized the recordings of his thoughtful speeches, distributed them to the participants, and sent a copy to the New England Journal of Medicine (New England Journal of Medicine).The editor of the magazine was originally an alumnus of Thomas's freshman year.Although he didn't quite agree with Thomas' point of view, he liked the style of the speech, so he asked Thomas to write a series of columns of similar style, one a month, the content was free, and the editor did not change a word.At first, Thomas wrote six articles in a row with the mood of taking orders from Big Brother, and then begged to stop.But at this point readers and critics had not allowed the magazine and Thomas to stop their columns.So, Thomas gladly wrote.Later, a publishing house promised to publish these articles without repairing them, and Thomas readily agreed.Thus, in 1974, the book titled the first article came out.

Lewis Thomas has covered and followed the entire biological community extensively.In the subtitle of the book, he jokingly calls himself "a biology watcher."With superhuman knowledge and insight, he grasped the common characteristics of all life forms, and critically surpassed Darwin's theory of evolution, which had dominated the biological world since the 19th century and had a profound impact on the entire ideological world and human society.He pointed out that the theory of evolution overemphasizes the uniqueness of species, overemphasizes the shortcomings of survival competition, and emphasizes the interdependent symbiotic relationship between species. He believes that any organism is an ecosystem composed of lower organisms with different degrees of complexity. The holism of has indicated a new way for us to understand the diversity of species. "Society as Creature" and "Society Talk" are interesting studies and unique understandings of social insects.Contrary to biologists' stereotypes that humans and social animals are completely separated, he undeniably pointed out the commonality between humans and social animals. "Fear of Pheromones", "Music of This World", "Speaking Taste", "Cetus", "Information", "Computer", "Various Languages", and "Living Language" emphasize biological The importance of information exchange between people, on the other hand, points out the essential identity of human beings and other creatures.The purpose of the author is not only to show us a vibrant and interesting information world composed of sounds, smells, pheromones; computers, human languages, etc., but also to provide us with interesting knowledge of biological communication technology.Clearly, Lewis Thomas is at his best, criticizing and mocking human arrogance or human chauvinism.

Man, the latecomer of the biosphere, abandoned belief in gods and mocked primitive myths during the development of science and technology, but fabricated and persisted in his own beliefs and myths.Man believes that he is the primate and master of all things, that he has qualities and rights that are higher than all other beings, and that he is or should be omniscient and omnipotent; in the fabricated confrontation between man and the external environment, Man can control everything and overcome everything; man can control disease, intervene in death, man can control the sky, body and mind, and can predict the future.Lewis Thomas offers a fundamental critique of this kind of human arrogance or human chauvinism from a unique perspective.Disease is a normal form of life; many diseases are caused by human reactions; some diseases, especially serious diseases, are accidental and unknowable forces of nature.It is futile and anti-natural for man to eliminate disease and death.Human beings are not really independent, self-contained entities.Man is a complex ecosystem composed of cells and organelles that have independent life and reproduce independently.From a macro perspective, human beings are the cells of huge organisms such as society and cities, and they are anonymous components.Therefore, human self-esteem and arrogance are unfounded and unnecessary.Man's identity with other creatures is more important than his particularity.

Human chauvinism has another aspect of its intolerance.Behind the ego lies xenophobia. "Some Ideas That Can Be Used as Countdown Timers" pokes fun at the whimsy of alien-phobic life. "Antai in Manhattan" uses the death of an ant colony to issue a warning appeal: life will not last long if you leave the earth! "Natural Man" focuses on man's view of nature and the relationship between man and nature.For those of us who have believed that "man is the most precious of all things in the world", believed that "the land provides us with life, mountains and forests provide us with mineral resources, and rivers provide us with boats and boats", and believe in "struggle with the sky, For those of us who are still selfishly and irresponsibly trampling, plundering, and polluting nature under the banner of "development" and "industrialization", for those of us who are still For those who criticize environmental pollution with the main reason of "how much money is lost in the economy", Thomas' voice is louder than those who are deaf.

Perhaps I have overemphasized the critical edge of Thomas's book in order to clarify the relationship between some chapters.Actually, a book is quite constructive and positive.He presents a stream of exciting ideas in a lighthearted and entertaining manner.He sees many things as whole, living, living systems.Social insects are a life, fish and birds are a life, society and cities are an organism, scientific research institutions are living organisms, human language is a living organism, the earth is a living organism, a developing embryo, or even a a single cell.From the seemingly game-like text, we can appreciate the unattainable philosophy of philosophers.For living things like scientific research, scientific research institutions, society, and the earth, it is best not to make human intervention. Human intervention is futile and harmful.The best thing one can do is to stand away from them, not touch them, and let them develop naturally.Even predicting development is impossible and ridiculous.

The whole book is a hymn to life, praising the tenacity of life on earth, praising the vitality of all things, thanking the luck of human existence, and thanking the human body for its self-balancing and self-regulating functions.Even when it comes to sickness and death, Dr. Thomas, with his unique knowledge and charm, can shine sunshine into these dark areas.Based on this understanding, I have translated the title of this book, which is the title of the first chapter, which has the function of an outline. Finally, it is worth talking about music, especially Bach's music.Lewis Thomas mentions Bach in several places with the most deserving passion, and one cannot help but think that this is by no means simply due to his love of music.Thomas's thinking has Bach-like complexity.In Thomas's head reverberates a full orchestral symphony of nature, society and art.He has a wide range of interests, profound knowledge, and a broad mind. Compared with music, it can only be Bach's concerto.It doesn't stop there.Thomas advocated music because music is higher than individual life forms, because music is shared by all life forms; music is higher than any science and technology, because science and technology will become obsolete, but music is permanent; music is used for human expression itself, above language or any other sign, which is often too clear, too specific to a particular message, too limited.Thomas wrote this book using language as musical notes.What I often struggle with when translating this book is that Thomas often uses ambiguous words that mean rich chords that are difficult to record in monophonic notes.His prose is also often in a hurry, with twists and turns, which is endlessly evocative.Especially the arrangement of twenty-nine articles, after taste, it seems that Bach's fugue must be reproduced in words.After reading one by one, we seem to be able to "hear" the theme, counterpoint, presentation and insertion that have entered one after another, and "hear" the different voices of the polyphony.Thomas has completed a perfect movement with endless meanings in this little book.At that time, he did not agree to rewrite and insert some related chapters. Presumably it was not just because of his busy schedule.