万物简史 第513期:丰富多彩的生命(9)

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There was also all the fauna¹ of the new worlds — kangaroos, kiwis, raccoons, bobcats, mosquitoes, and other curious forms beyond imagining. 还有新世界的全部动物群——袋鼠呀，鹬鸵呀，浣熊呀，红猫呀，蚊子呀，还有别的难以想像的奇特东西。

The volume of life on Earth was seemingly infinite, as Jonathan Swift noted² in some famous lines: 地球上的生命量似乎是永无尽头的，正如乔纳森·斯威夫特在一首著名的诗里指出的：

So, naturalists³ observe, a flea⁴ Hath smaller fleas⁵ that on him prey⁶; 所以，博物学家注意到，一个跳蚤捕食较小的跳蚤；

And these have smaller still to bite 'em And so proceed ad infinitum. 较小的跳蚤还有更小的跳蚤可以咬。哪是尽头谁知晓。

All this new information needed to be filed, ordered, and compared with what was known. 所有这些新的信息都需要归档、整理并与已知的信息进行比较。

The world was desperate for a workable system of classification. 世界迫切需要一个可行的分类体系。

Fortunately there was a man in Sweden who stood ready to provide it. 幸亏瑞典有个人已经准备停当。

His name was Carl Linne (later changed, with permission, to the more aristocraticvon Linne), 他的名字叫卡尔·林奈（后来经过允许又改名为更有贵族味的冯·林奈），

but he is remembered now by the Latinized form Carolus Linnaeus. 但现在人们只记得他已经拉丁化的名字Carolus Linnaeus。

He was born in 1707 in the village of Rashult in southern Sweden, the son of a poor but ambitious Lutheran curate, 他生于瑞典南部的拉舒尔特村，父亲是个贫穷而又雄心勃勃的路德教助理牧师。

and was such a sluggish⁷ student that his exasperated⁸ father apprenticed⁹ him (or, by some accounts, nearly apprenticed him) to a cobbler. 他在学业上很懒惰，因此他的父亲又气又恼，把他送到（据有的说法，是差一点把他送到）补鞋匠那里去当学徒。

Appalled¹⁰ at the prospect¹¹ of spending a lifetime banging tacks¹² into leather, 想到自己一辈子要往皮子里敲钉子，小林奈不寒而栗，

young Linne begged for another chance, which was granted, and he never thereafter wavered from academic distinction. 恳求再给他一次机会。他的要求得到满足。此后，他始终坚持要在学术上作出成绩。

He studied medicine in Sweden and Holland, though his passion became the natural world. 他在瑞典和荷兰攻读医学，虽然他渐渐对大自然产生了兴趣。

In the early 1730s, still in his twenties, he began to produce catalogues of the world's plant and animal species, using a system of his own devising, and gradually his fame grew. 18世纪30年代，他使用自己制定的体系，开始为世界上植物和动物的物种编制目录。他的名气渐渐响起来。

 

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