一个原子内部的电子与质子之间保持着良好的平衡，其程度与太阳系中太阳、行星和卫星之间的平衡相当。两者各自都知道自己被指定的运行轨道，并履行自己的职责。单个活细胞同样完美，并具备完成其所要求之一切事务的充分能力，其程度与最先进、最复杂的物种并无二致。这种完美的平衡，无论是就个体而言还是就整体而言，在介于单个原子与太阳系之间、或介于单个细胞与最高级生命体之间的无数种造物中，都清楚可见。
A single atom is well balanced between its electrons and protons, to the same degree as the solar system, its sun, planets and satellites are well balanced. Each of the two knows the way it is assigned to travel and fulfils its role. A single living cell is also perfect and well equipped to do everything it is asked to do, in the same measure as the most advanced and complex species. This perfect balance, in the individual and collective sense, is easily noticed in every one of the countless types of creation that fill the gap between the single atom and the solar system or between the single cell and the most advanced living creature.
这一基本事实，宇宙中的一切都可以为之作证，人心在凝思宇宙中的万物时，也能很好地领会它。这种启发与领悟，无论身处哪个时代、受过何种程度的教育，每一个人都可以获得。所需要的只是一颗开放的心，能够思索，也能够回应。
This basic fact, evidenced by everything in the universe, is well recognized by the human heart as it contemplates what is in the universe. This sort of inspiration and recognition is within the reach of every man in every age, regardless of his standard of education. All that is required is an open mind which contemplates and responds.
随着知识的增长，人们便能以大量的例证来印证和强调，那些起初凭直觉已经得到证明的道理。研究与探索的结果，虽然范围有限，却也在各自的领域内支持着这一基本真理，而这一真理适用于宇宙间的一切事物。
Increased knowledge then endorses and emphasizes, with numerous examples, what inspiration has already proven at first glance. The results of study and research endorse, within their limited scope, this basic truth which applies to everything in the universe.
美国科学家、纽约科学院院长 A. Cressy Morrison 在其著作《人不是孤独存在的》（Man Does Not Stand Alone）中写道：
The American scientist, A. Cressy Morrison, Head of the Science Academy in New York, says in his book Man Does Not Stand Alone:
鸟类具有归巢本能。在你家门口筑巢的知更鸟,秋天可能会飞往南方,但次年春天它会回到原来的巢中。九月里,我们许多鸟类成群南飞,常常要飞越一千多英里的开阔海面,却不会迷失方向。归巢鸽被关在封闭的箱子里进行长途运输,途中遇到陌生的声音会感到困惑,它会先盘旋片刻,然后几乎毫不偏差地朝家的方向飞去。蜜蜂在风吹草木摇曳、遮蔽了一切可见路标的情况下,依然能找到自己的蜂巢。
Birds have the homing instinct. The robin that nested at your door may go south in the autumn, but will come back to his old nest the next spring. In September, flocks of many of our birds fly south, often over a thousand miles of open sea, but they do not lose their way. The homing pigeon, confused by new sounds on a long journey in a closed box, circles for a moment then heads almost unerringly for home. The bee finds its hive while the wind waving the grasses and trees blots out every visible guide to its whereabouts.
这种归巢的感觉在人类身上发展得略微有限，但人借助导航仪器来弥补自身条件的不足。我们需要这种本能，而我们的大脑会提供答案。微小的昆虫必定拥有微观的眼睛，其精妙之处我们并不清楚；而鹰、雕和秃鹫则必定拥有望远般的视力。在这方面，人类同样借助机械仪器超越了它们。借助望远镜，人能够看到一团极其黯淡的星云，这需要比他自身视力强两百万倍的观察能力；借助电子显微镜，人能够看到此前不可见的细菌，甚至可以说，看到了叮咬这些细菌的小虫子。
This homing sense is slightly developed in man, but he supplements his meagre equipment with instruments of navigation. We need this instinct and our brain provides the answer. The tiny insects must have microscopic eyes, how perfect we do not know, and the hawks, the eagle and the condor must have telescopic vision. Here again man surpasses them with his mechanical instruments. With his telescope he can see a nebula so faint that it requires two million times his vision, and with the electron microscope he can see hitherto invisible bacteria and, so to speak, the little bugs that bite them.
如果你放任老驽马自行其是，它即使在最漆黑的夜里也能沿着道路前行。它或许只能模模糊糊地看见，但它能用对红外线稍有感应的眼睛，分辨出道路与路边温度的差异。猫头鹰也能在最漆黑的夜里看见在较凉的草丛中奔跑的温暖老鼠。我们借助在那一段短促的八度频段内产生的辐射，把黑夜变成白昼，那便是我们所称的光。12
If you let old Dobbin alone he will keep to the road in the blackest night. He can see, dimly perhaps, but he notes the difference in temperature of the road and the sides with eyes that are slightly affected by the infra-red rays of the road. The owl can see the nice warm mouse as he runs in the cooler grass in the blackest night. We turn night into day by creating radiation in that short octave we call light. 12
蜜蜂工蜂在用于育幼的蜂巢中建造大小不同的巢房。小巢房为工蜂所建，大巢房供雄蜂使用，还有专门的巢房供可能成为蜂王的幼虫使用。蜂王在为雄蜂设计的巢房中产下未受精的卵，而在供雌性工蜂和可能成为蜂王的幼虫使用的合适巢房中产下受精卵。工蜂是已经过变化的雌性，它们早已预料到新一代的到来，也准备好通过咀嚼并预先消化蜂蜜和花粉，为幼蜂提供食物。在雄蜂和雌蜂发育到某一阶段时，它们停止咀嚼（包括预先消化）的过程，只喂食蜂蜜和花粉。经这样喂养的雌性幼虫便发育成为工蜂。
The honey-bee workers make chambers of different sizes in the comb used for breeding. Small chambers are constructed for the workers, larger ones for the drones, and special chambers for the prospective queens. The queen bee lays unfertilized eggs in the cells designed for males, but lays fertilized eggs in the proper chambers for the female workers and the possible queens. The workers, who are the modified females, having long since anticipated the coming of the new generation, are also prepared to furnish food for the young bees by chewing and predigesting honey and pollen. They discontinue the process of chewing, including the predigesting, at a certain stage of the development of the males and females, and feed only honey and pollen. The females so treated become the workers.
对于蜂王室中的雌性幼虫，仍然持续喂食经过咀嚼和预消化的食物。这些受到特殊对待的雌性幼虫发育成蜂王，只有蜂王才能产下可受精的卵。这一繁殖过程涉及特殊的巢房、特殊的卵，以及食物改变所产生的奇妙效应。
For the females in the queen chambers the diet of chewed and pre-digested food is continued. These specially treated females develop into queen bees, which alone produce fertile eggs. This process of reproduction involves special chambers, special eggs, and the marvellous effect of a change of diet.
这意味着预见、审慎，以及对饮食影响的发现的运用。这些变化尤其适用于群体生活，似乎是其存在所必需的。所需的知识和技能必定是在这种群体生活开始之后才逐渐形成的，并不一定是蜜蜂作为一个物种的结构或生存所固有的。因此，在某些条件下，蜜蜂在饮食影响方面的认知似乎已经超过了人类。
This means anticipation, discretion, and the application of a discovery of the effect of diet. These changes apply particularly to a community life and seem necessary to its existence. The knowledge and skills required must have been evolved after the beginnings of this community life, and are not necessarily inherent in the structure or the survival of the honey bee as such. The bee, therefore, seems to have outstripped man in knowledge of the effects of diet under certain conditions.
带着灵敏鼻子的狗能够嗅出刚刚经过的动物。人类发明的任何仪器都没有增强我们较为迟钝的嗅觉,我们几乎不知道从哪里着手去研究如何扩展它。然而,我们的嗅觉仍然高度发达,能够察觉超微观的颗粒。我们怎么知道同样一种气味,每个人的反应都一样呢?事实上并非如此。味觉同样让我们每个人产生截然不同的感受。奇怪的是,这些感知上的差异竟然是遗传的。
The dog with an inquiring nose can sense the animal that has passed. No instrument of human invention has added to our inferior sense of smell, and we hardly know where to begin to investigate its extension. Yet even our sense of smell is so highly developed that it can detect ultra-microscopic particles. How do we know that we all get the same reaction from any single odour? The fact is that we do not. Taste also gives a very different sensation to each of us. How strange that these differences in perception are hereditary.
所有动物都能听到声音，其中许多声音超出了我们的振动范围，其灵敏度远超我们有限的听觉。如今，人类借助各种仪器，能够听到几英里外苍蝇的走动声，仿佛它就在自己的耳膜上；同样，借助类似的仪器，人类还能记录下宇宙射线的撞击。13
All animals hear sounds, many of which are outside our range of vibration, with an acuteness that far surpasses our limited sense of hearing. Man by his devices can now hear a fly walking miles away as though it was on his eardrums, and with like instruments record the impact of a cosmic ray.13
一种水蜘蛛会用蛛丝织成气球状的巢，并将其附着在水下的某个物体上。随后，它巧妙地把一个气泡缠在腹部的细毛中，将其带入水中，释放到巢的下方。这一过程不断重复，直到巢被充满空气，然后它便在其中产卵，并抚育幼蛛，使其免受空气中天敌的侵害。这里融合了织网、工程、建造与空气动力学。或许可以说是偶然，但这仍无法解释这只蜘蛛本身。
One of the water spiders fashions a balloon-shaped nest of cobweb filaments and attaches it to some object under water. Then she ingeniously entangles an air bubble in the hairs of her under-body, carries it into the water, and releases it under the nest. This performance is repeated until the nest is inflated, when she proceeds to bring forth and raise her young safe from attack by air. Here we have a synthesis of the web, engineering, construction, and aeronautics. Chance perhaps, but that still leaves the spider unexplained.
幼年的鲑鱼会在海中生活数年,然后回到它出生的那条河流;而且,它还会沿着河流的支流逆流而上,找到它出生时所在的那条支流。河两岸的国家法律可能一严一宽,但这些法律只影响那些可以说属于某一方的鱼。是什么如此确定地引导它们回来呢?如果把一条正在逆流而上的鲑鱼转移到另一条支流,它会立刻意识到自己不在正确的支流中,于是会奋力游回干流,然后再逆流而上,去完成它的归宿。
The young salmon spends years at sea, then comes back to his own river, and, what is more, he travels up the side of the river into which flows the tributary in which he was born. The laws of the States on one side of the dividing stream may be strict and the other side not, but these laws affect only the fish which may be said to belong to each side. What brings them back so definitely? If a salmon going up a river is transferred to another tributary he will at once realize he is not in the right tributary and will fight his way down to the main stream and then turn up against the current to finish his destiny.
这里有一个难得多的逆向问题需要解决，那就是鳗鱼。这些令人惊叹的生物在成熟时会从各处的池塘和河流中迁徙出来，来自欧洲的鳗鱼要穿越数千英里的海洋，都前往百慕大以南的深渊海域。在那里它们繁殖并死去。幼鳗除了知道自己身处一片水的荒野之外，似乎没有任何认知途径，却会返回，找到它们父母来自的那片海岸，再从那里抵达每一条河流、湖泊和小池塘，因此每一处水域中总是有鳗鱼生存。它们闯过了强大的洋流、风暴和潮汐，也克服了每一处海岸上翻涌的浪涛。它们如今可以生长，待到成熟时，又将依循某种神秘的规律，历经这一切返回故乡，完成整个循环。那指引方向的冲动究竟源于何处？从未有美洲鳗鱼在欧洲水域被捕获，也从未有欧洲鳗鱼在美洲水域被捕获。大自然还让欧洲鳗鱼的成熟期推迟了一年或更久，以弥补它所经历的更为漫长的旅程。当原子和分子在一条鳗鱼体内结合时，它们是否具有方向感，以及运用这种方向感的意志力？14
There is, however, a much more difficult reverse problem to solve in the case of the eel. These amazing creatures migrate at maturity from all the ponds and rivers everywhere, those from Europe across thousands of miles of ocean, all go to the abysmal deeps south of Bermuda. There they breed and die. The little ones, with no apparent means of knowing anything except that they are in a wilderness of water, start back and find their way to the shore from which their parents came and thence to every river, lake and little pond, so that each body of water is always populated with eels. They have braved the mighty currents, storms and tides, and have conquered the beating waves on every shore. They can now grow and when they are mature, they will, by some mysterious law, go back through it all to complete the cycle. Where does the directing impulse originate? No American eel has ever been caught in European waters and no European eel has ever been caught in American waters. Nature has also delayed the maturity of the European eel by a year or more to make up for its much greater journey. Do atoms and molecules when combined in an eel have a sense of direction and willpower to exercise it? 14
雌蛾放在阁楼里开着的窗边，会发出某种微妙的信号。在惊人的广阔范围内，同一物种的雄蛾会接收到这信息，即使你试图用实验室制造的气味来干扰它们，它们仍会做出反应。这小小的生物是否有一座广播电台？雄蛾的触角旁边是否有一台心灵的收音机？她是否震动了以太，而他是否接收到了这震动？
蟋蟀用腿或翅膀相互摩擦，在无风的夜晚，半英里之外也能听到它的鸣叫。它震动六百吨空气，呼唤自己的伴侣。蛾小姐则在另一个物理领域中工作，似乎悄无声息，却同样有效地发出呼唤。
在无线电被发现之前，科学家们曾断定吸引雄蛾的是气味。无论哪种说法，都堪称奇迹，因为无论有没有风，气味都必须向四面八方传播。雄蛾必须能够探测到单个分子，并感知它来自何方。
借助一套庞大的机制，我们正在发展同样的通讯能力。终有一天，一个年轻人可以在远方呼唤他所爱的人，无需任何机械媒介，而她也会回应。任何锁和栅栏都无法阻挡他们。
我们的电话和收音机是精巧的奇迹，让我们能够几乎瞬间进行远距离通讯，但我们仍被一根导线和某个地点束缚着。蛾子仍然领先于我们，我们只能羡慕她，直到我们的大脑进化出一台属于个人的无线电。那时，从某种意义上说，我们将拥有心灵感应。
A female moth placed in your attic by the open window will send out some subtle signal. Over an unbelievable area, the male moths of the same species will catch the message and respond in spite of your attempts to produce laboratory odours to disconcert them. Has the little creature a broadcasting station, and has the male moth a mental radio set beside his antennae? Does she shake the ether and does he catch the vibration? The cricket rubs its legs or wings together, and on a still night can be heard half a mile away. It shakes six hundred tons of air and calls its mate. Miss Moth, working in a different realm of physics and, in apparent silence, calls quite as effectively. Before the radio was discovered, scientists decided it was odour that attracted the male moth. It was a miracle either way, because the odour would have to travel in all directions, with or without the wind. The male moth would have to be able to detect a molecule and sense the direction from whence it came. By a vast mechanism, we are developing the same ability to communicate, and the day will come when a young man may call his loved one from a distance and without mechanical medium and she will answer. No lock or bars will stop them. Our telephone and radio are instrumental wonders and give us means of almost instant communication, but we are tied to a wire and a place. The moth is still ahead of us, and we can only envy her until our brain evolves an individual radio. Then, in a sense, we will have telepathy.
植物巧妙地利用非自愿的媒介来延续自身的生存：昆虫把花粉从一朵花传到另一朵花，风以及一切飞行或行走的生物则传播种子。最终，植物把高明的人类也困住了。他改良了自然，而自然慷慨地回报他。但他繁衍得如此迅猛，以至于如今被锁在了犁上。他必须播种、收割、储藏；繁育与杂交；修剪与嫁接。若他疏于这些工作，饥荒便会降临到他身上，文明将随之崩溃，大地也将回到原始的状态。15
Vegetation makes subtle use of involuntary agents to carry on its existence — insects to carry pollen from flower to flower and the winds and everything that flies or walks to distribute seed. At last, vegetation has trapped masterful man. He has improved nature, and she generously rewards him. But he has multiplied so prodigiously that he is now chained to the plough. He must sow, reap, and store; breed and cross-breed; prune and graft. Should he neglect these tasks starvation would be his lot, civilization would crumble, and earth return to her pristine state.15
许多动物就像龙虾一样:龙虾失去一只螯后,细胞会受到某种再刺激,基因重新活化,它便会察觉身体有部分缺失,并将其修复。修复工作完成后,细胞便停止运作,因为它们不知以何种方式得知该收工了。淡水水螅被切成两半后,可以由其中一半重新长成完整的个体。切掉蚯蚓的头,它不久便会再长出一个新的头。我们能够促进伤口愈合,但我们的外科医生何时(如果有一天的话)才能懂得如何刺激细胞,使之长出新的手臂、肌肉、骨骼、指甲以及重新连接神经呢?16 一个非凡的事实为这种再生之谜提供了一些线索。如果处于发育早期的细胞被分离开来,每一个细胞都具有发育成一个完整动物的能力。因此,如果最初的细胞分裂为两个并被分开,便会发育出两个个体。这或许可以解释同卵双胞胎的成因,但其意义远不止于此——起初,每一个细胞在细节上都潜在地就是一个完整的个体。由此可见,毫无疑问,你在每一个细胞和每一根纤维之中都是你自己。17
Many animals are like a lobster, which, having lost a claw, will by some restimulation of the cells and the reactivation of the genes discover that a part of the body is missing and restore it. When the work is complete, the cells stop work, for in some way they know it is quitting time. A fresh-water polyp divided into halves can reform itself out of one of these halves. Cut off an angle worm’s head and he will soon create a new one. We can stimulate healing but when will our surgeons, if ever, know how to stimulate the cells to produce a new arm, flesh, bones, nails, and activating nerves?16 An extraordinary fact throws some light on this mystery of recreation. If cells in the early stages of development are separated each has the ability to create a complete animal. Therefore, if the original cell divides into two and they are separated, two individuals will be developed. This may account for identical twins but it means much more — each cell at first is in detail potentially a complete individual. There can be no doubt then, that you are you in every cell and fibre. 17
一颗橡子落到地上,它坚硬的棕色外壳保护着它。它滚进了某处泥土中的缝隙里。春天来临,胚芽苏醒,外壳裂开,由蛋状的仁为其提供养分,而基因就隐藏在这仁之中。它们向土中伸出根系,于是一株幼芽出现,接着是一棵小树苗,再过数年便成了一棵大树。这胚芽与其中的基因不断增殖,达到数万亿之多,长成了树干、树皮,以及每一片叶子和每一颗橡子,它们都与孕育它的那棵橡树完全相同。在无数颗橡子的每一颗中,几百年来都保存着精确的原子排列,而这排列曾在数百万年前造就了第一棵橡树。18
An acorn falls to the ground — its tough brown shell holds it safe. It rolls into some earthy crevice. In the spring the germ awakes, the shell bursts, food is provided by the egg-like kernel in which the genes were hidden. They send roots into the earth, and behold a sprout, a sapling, and in years a tree. The germ with its genes has multiplied by trillions and made the trunk, bark and every leaf and acorn identical with that of the oak which gave it birth. For hundreds of years in each of the countless acorns is preserved the exact arrangement of atoms that produced the first oak tree millions of years ago. 18
作者在另一章中说道：
The author says in another chapter:
每一个在任何生物体内产生的细胞,都必须调整自身,成为身体组织的一部分,牺牲自己成为很快就会脱落的皮肤的一部分。它必须沉积牙齿的珐琅质,分泌眼中的透明液体,或者成为鼻子或耳朵。然后,每个细胞都必须在形状和其他各种必要特征上作出调整,以履行其功能。很难想象细胞有右撇子或左撇子之分,但一个细胞成为右耳的一部分,另一个则成为左耳的一部分。有些化学性质完全相同的晶体,有的使光线向左旋转,有的则使光线向右旋转。细胞中似乎也存在这样的倾向。在它们应当所在的确切位置上,它们成为右耳或左耳的一部分。你的两只耳朵位于头部的两侧,彼此相对,而不像蟋蟀那样长在肘部。它们的弧度是相反的,而当发育完成时,它们又是如此相似,以至于你无法分辨。数十万个细胞似乎受到某种驱使,在正确的时间、正确的地点做正确的事。19
Every cell that is produced in any living creature must adapt itself to be part of the flesh, to sacrifice itself as a part of the skin, which will soon be worn off. It must deposit the enamel of teeth, produce the transparent liquid in an eye, or become a nose or an ear. Each cell must then adapt itself in shape and every other characteristic necessary to fulfil its function. It is hard to think of a cell as right-handed or left-handed, but one becomes part of a right ear, the other becomes part of the left ear. Some crystals that are chemically identical turn the rays of light to the left, others to the right. There seems to be such a tendency in the cells. In the exact place where they belong, they become a part of the right ear or the left ear and your two ears are opposite each other on your head, and not as in the case of a cricket, on your elbows. Their curves are opposite, and when complete, they are so much alike you cannot tell them apart. Hundreds of thousands of cells seem impelled to do the right thing at the right time in the right place.19
莫里森在他的书的其他部分中说道：
Elsewhere in his book Morrison says:
在造物的纷繁之中，许多生物已经表现出某些形式的本能、智能或其他类似的能力达到了很高的程度。黄蜂捕捉蝗虫，挖一个洞穴，恰好在蝗虫身上正确的位置蜇它，使它失去知觉，却仍然活着，成为一种保存下来的肉食。黄蜂把卵产在恰当的位置，或许并不知道，当卵孵化之后，它的幼虫可以吃食而不杀死供其取食的昆虫，否则幼虫就会因此死亡。黄蜂必须每一次都正确无误地完成这一切，否则这个物种的黄蜂就不会存在了。
In the melee of creation many creatures have come to exhibit a high degree of certain forms of instinct, intelligence, or what not. The wasp catches the grasshopper, digs a hole in the earth, stings the grasshopper in exactly the right place so that he becomes unconscious but lives as a form of preserved meat. The wasp lays her eggs exactly in the right place, perhaps not knowing that when they hatch, her children can eat without killing the insect on which they feed, which would be fatal to them. The wasp must have done all this right the first and every time, or there would be no wasps of this species.
科学无法解释这一奥秘，然而它也不能归因于偶然。
Science cannot explain this mystery, and yet it cannot be attributed to chance.
黄蜂把地上的洞口封好，欢欢喜喜地离去，然后死去。她和她的祖先从未推理过这一过程，她也不知道她的后代会怎样。她甚至不知道，自己辛勤劳碌、度过一生，是为了种族的延续。20
The wasp covers a hole in the earth, departs cheerfully, and dies. Neither she nor her ancestors have reasoned out the process, nor does she know what happens to her offspring. She doesn’t even know that she has worked and lived her life for the preservation of the race.20
在同一本书中，我们还读到：
In the same book we also read:
在某些物种中，工蚁会搬运小种子，用以在整个冬天喂养其他蚂蚁。蚁群设有所谓的"研磨室"，其中那些长着专为研磨而特化的巨大颚的蚂蚁，负责为整个蚁群准备食物。这是它们唯一的职责。秋天到来、种子全部磨完之后，"为最多的数量谋取最大的福利"这一原则要求食物供应必须加以节约；而新一代中将会有大量的研磨者，于是兵蚁便将研磨者杀死。它们或许以此安抚自己的昆虫式良心，认为研磨者在磨种子的时候已经先于他人享用了食物，这种回报已经足够。
In some species, the workers bring in little seeds to feed the other ants through the winter. The ants establish what is known as the grinding room, in which those which have developed gigantic jaws especially built for grinding, prepare the food for the colony. This is their sole occupation. When the autumn comes and the seeds are all ground, ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ requires that the food supply be conserved and as there will be plenty of grinders in the new generation, the soldier ants kill off the grinders, satisfying their entomological conscience by believing perhaps that the grinders had had reward enough in having had first chance at the food while they ground.
有些蚂蚁凭借本能或推理能力(你可以自行选择哪一种)，在所谓的"蘑菇园"中培育蘑菇作为食物，并捕捉某些毛虫和蚜虫(植物虱)。这些生物就是蚂蚁的"牛"和"羊"，蚂蚁从它们身上获取某些蜜露般的分泌物作为食物。蚂蚁还会捕获并蓄养奴隶。有些蚂蚁在筑巢时，会将树叶裁剪至合适的大小，当某些工蚁把叶缘固定住时，它们便利用幼虫期能够吐丝的幼蚁充当梭子，将叶片缝合在一起。这可怜的幼虫可能失去了为自己结茧的机会，但它已为自己的群体尽了力。
Certain ants, by means of instinct or reasoning (choose which you prefer), cultivate mushrooms for food in what may be called mushroom gardens, and capture certain caterpillars and aphids (plant lice). These creatures are the ants’ cows and goats, from which they take certain exudations of a honey-like nature for food. Ants capture and keep slaves. Some ants, when they make their nests, cut the leaves to size, and while certain workers hold the edges in place, use their babies, which in the larval stage are capable of spinning silk, as shuttles to sew them together. The poor baby may be bereft of the opportunity of making a cocoon for himself, but he has served his community.
这些无生命的原子和分子如何组成一只蚂蚁，并使这些复杂的过程运转起来？这背后必定有某种智慧。21
How do the inanimate atoms and molecules of matter composing an ant set these complicated processes in motion? There must be Intelligence somewhere.21
确实，必定有一位造物主引导着这些生物以及其他大大小小的生物。祂就是“创造而使之匀称，设定而使之引导”的那一位。（见第2-3节）
True, there must be a Creator who guides these and other creatures, large and small. He is the One “who creates and proportions well, who determines and guides.” (Verses 2-3)
我们上面所引用的例子，只是科学在植物、昆虫、鸟类和动物世界中所记录的众多奇妙之处中的少数几个。然而，这些方面只反映了两节经文的部分含义："他创造并使之匀称，他规定并引导。"（第2至3节）因为我们的知识只涵盖了可见宇宙中的极小一部分，在其之外，还延伸着一个我们一无所知的世界，除了真主出于我们有限的能力而向我们透露的少许迹象之外。
The examples we have quoted above are but a few of the large number of remarkable aspects science has recorded in the worlds of plants, insects, birds and animals. But all these aspects reflect only a part of the import of the two verses: “who creates and proportions well, who determines and guides.” (Verses 2-3) For our knowledge covers only a scanty part of what is in the visible universe, beyond which extends a whole world of which we know nothing apart from the few hints God has chosen to drop us, as befits our limited abilities.
在宇宙最遥远的角落都回响着对真主的赞颂之后，本章又以植物界的一个发人深省的启示作为补充："他生出牧草，然后把它变成枯萎的草梗。"（第4-5节）这里所说的"牧草"，指的是一切植物。每一种植物都适合某一类或另一类生物。因此这个词的含义比人们熟悉的牛羊吃草的牧场要广泛得多。真主创造了这个星球，并在其上提供了足够的食物，来养活每一种行走、游动、飞翔或藏身地下的生灵。
Having fired such a great volley of praises to God, resounding in even the remotest corners of the universe, the sūrah complements this with an inspiring insight from the realm of plants: “who brings forth the pasturage, then turns it to withered grass.” (Verses 4-5) The pasturage, as used here, refers to all plants. Every plant is suitable for one sort of species or another. The term then has a much wider sense than the familiar pastures where cattle feed. God has created this planet and provided on it enough food to nourish every single living creature which walks, swims, flies or hides itself underground.
牧场的草在刚冒出来时是绿的，但随后便会枯萎并变黑。
The pasturage is green when it first shoots forth, but it withers away and blackens.
它在青绿时可用来喂养牲畜，待其变黑枯萎后也可使用，或在两者之间时使用。
It may be used for feeding when green, after it blackens and withers, or in between.
因此,它在任何情况下都有用处,并且依照创造者、衡定者、规定者和引导者的精妙安排而发挥其作用。
Thus, it is useful in every condition, and it serves a purpose according to the elaborate planning of the One who creates, proportions, determines and guides.
这段对植物生命的提及还隐含着这样一层意味：所有植物终将被收割。同样，每一个生灵都将走向它注定的终点。这一含义与对人类两个世界的提及相互契合：“你们却偏爱今世，而后世是更好、更持久的。”（第16-17节）今世犹如一片草场，待它枯黄变黑，便走到尽头；而后世才是长存的。
The reference here to the life of plants carries also an implicit connotation that all plants are reaped and harvested. Similarly, every living being will come to its appointed end. This connotation fits in well with the reference to the two worlds of man: “Yet you prefer this present life, while the life to come is better and longer lasting.” (Verses 16-17) This life is a pasture which comes to its end when it withers away and blackens, while the life to come is the one which lasts.