TheDemon-HauntedWorld_ScienceasaCandlein.epub - (EPUB全文下载)

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The
Demon-Haunted
World
 
 
Science as a Candle
in the Dark
 
 
Carl Sagan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To Tonio,
My grandson.
 
I wish you a world
Free of demons
And full of light.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We wait for light, but behold darkness.
Isaiah 59:9
 
It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
Adage
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Preface
My Teachers
 
 
It was a
blustery fall day in 1939. In the streets outside the apartment building,
fallen leaves were swirling in little whirlwinds, each with a life of its
own. It was good to be inside and warm and safe, with my mother preparing
dinner in the next room. In our apartment there were no older kids who picked
on you for no reason. Just the week before, I had been in a fight - I can’t
remember, after all these years, who it was with; maybe it was Snoony Agata
from the third floor - and, after a wild swing, I found I had put my fist
through the plate glass window of Schechter’s drug store.
Mr Schechter was solicitous: ‘It’s all
right, I’m insured,’ he said as he put some unbelievably painful antiseptic on
my wrist. My mother took me to the doctor whose office was on the ground floor
of our building. With a pair of tweezers, he pulled out a fragment of glass.
Using needle and thread, he sewed two stitches.
Two
stitches!’ my father had repeated later that night. He knew about stitches,
because he was a cutter in the garment industry; his job was to use a very
scary power saw to cut out patterns - backs, say, or sleeves for ladies’ coats
and suits - from an enormous stack of cloth. Then the patterns were conveyed to
endless rows of women sitting at sewing machines. He was pleased I had gotten
angry enough to overcome a natural timidity.
Sometimes it was good to fight back. I
hadn’t planned to do anything violent. It just happened. One moment Snoony was
pushing me and the next moment my fist was through Mr Schechter’s window. I had
injured my wrist, generated an unexpected medical expense, broken a plate
glass window, and no one was mad at me. As for Snoony, he was more friendly
than ever.
I puzzled over what the lesson was. But it
was much more pleasant to work it out up here in the warmth of the apartment,
gazing out through the living-room window into Lower New York Bay, than to risk
some new misadventure on the streets below.
As she often did, my mother had changed
her clothes and made up her face in anticipation of my father’s arrival. We
talked about my fight with Snoony. The Sun was almost setting and tog ............

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