It may be safely assumed that, two thousand years ago, before Caesar set foot in southern Britain, the whole countryside visible from the windows of the room in which I write, was in what is called "the state of nature." Except, it may be, by raising a few sepulchral mounds, such as those which still, here and there, break the flowing contours of the downs, man's hands had made no mark upon it; and the thin veil of vegetation which overspread the broad-backed heights and the shelving sides of the coombs was unaffected by his industry. The native grasses and weeds, the scattered patches of gorse, contended with one another for the possession of the scanty surface soil; they fought against the droughts of summer, the frosts of winter, and the furious gales which swept, with unbroken force, now from the Atlantic, and now from the North Sea, at all times of the year; they filled up, as they best might, the gaps made in their ranks by all sorts of underground and overground animal ravagers. One year with another, an average population, the floating balance of the unceasing struggle for existence among the indigenous plants, maintained itself. It is as little to be doubted, that an essentially similar state of nature prevailed, in this region, for many thousand years before the coming of Caesar; and there is no assignable reason for denying that it might continue to exist through an equally prolonged futurity, except for the intervention of man.
Reckoned by our customary standards of duration, the native vegetation, like the "everlasting hills" which it clothes, seems a type of permanence. The little Amarella Gentians, which abound in some places today, are the descendants of those that were trodden underfoot, by the prehistoric savages who have left their flint tools, about, here and there; and they followed ancestors which, in the climate of the glacial epoch, probably flourished better than they do now. Compared with the long past of this humble plant, all the history of civilized men is but an episode.
(Huxley, 1911: 1-2)
赫皆黎獨(dú)處一室之中,在英倫之南,背山而面野。檻外諸境,歷歷如在幾下。乃懸想二千年前,當(dāng)羅馬大將愷徹未到時(shí),此間有何景物?計(jì)惟有天造草昧,人功未施。其借征人境者,不過幾處荒墳,散見坡陀起伏間,而灌木叢林,蒙茸山麓,未經(jīng)刪治如今者,則無(wú)疑也。怒生之草,交加之藤,勢(shì)如爭(zhēng)長(zhǎng)相雄。各據(jù)一抔壤土,夏與畏日爭(zhēng),冬與嚴(yán)霜爭(zhēng),四時(shí)之內(nèi),飄風(fēng)怒吹,或西發(fā)西洋,或東起北海,旁午交扇,無(wú)時(shí)而息。上有鳥獸之踐啄,下有蟻蟓之齧傷,憔悴孤虛,旋生旋滅,菀枯頃刻,莫可究詳。是離離者亦各盡天能,以自存種族而已。數(shù)畝之內(nèi),戰(zhàn)事熾然,彊者后亡,弱者先絕,年年歲歲,偏有留遺,未知始自何年,更不知止于何代。茍人事不施于其間, 則莽莽榛榛,長(zhǎng)此互相呑并,混逐蔓延而已,而詰之者誰(shuí)耶!
英之南野,黃岑之種為多,此自未有紀(jì)載以前,革衣石斧之民所采擷踐踏者,茲之所見,其苗裔耳。邃古之前,坤樞未轉(zhuǎn),英倫諸島乃屬冰天雪海之區(qū),此物能寒,法當(dāng)較今尤茂。此區(qū)區(qū)一小草耳,若跡其祖始,遠(yuǎn)及洪荒,則三古年代以還方之,猶瀼渴之水,比諸大江,不啻小支而已!
(嚴(yán)復(fù)譯,1998:41)
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